Forza bruta

Unscrupulous jade dealers (led by a German Hitler look-alike) abduct young women and take them to Warriors' Island, where the unfortunate prisoners are sold to extremely happy cannibalistic monks who operate a jade mine. By consuming the flesh of the captive women, the monks are able to resurrect the dead bodies of disgraced martial artists.

When a pleasure cruise sets sail for the island, its passengers including several karate experts keen to see the sights, the jade dealers decide to attack the boat and kill everyone on board. After a furious battle, the craft is set on fire, forcing the remaining passengers and crew to abandon ship in a life raft. No prizes for guessing that they wash up on the shores of Warriors' Island where they encounter the jade dealers, the monks, and their zombies.

Pure exploitation trash from start to finish, Raw Force is a cheap and cheesy martial arts horror movie that features equal amounts of ineptly choreographed bad-assery and extremely gratuitous female nudity. It's technically shoddy in most departments, but director Edward D. Murphy packs his film's 86 minutes with so much absurdity that its very hard not to enjoy.

Cameron Mitchell slums it as the ship's captain, Filipino exploitation regular Vic Diaz plays the leader of the cannibal monks, and I Spit On Your Grave actress Camille Keaton has a pointless (but welcome) cameo as a topless woman trying to have sex in a bathroom. Laughable chop socky aside, the plentiful violence includes samurai sword impalement, a hilarious zombie decapitation, an axe death, a drowning in a toilet bowl, and a piranha attack.

All the ingredients of low-brow b-movie cult cinema. Topless (and bottomless) girls, kung-fu kicking chefs, slave traders, evil Germans with mustaches, Cameron Mitchell and sword-wielding zombies.

And, of course the breasts of Camille Keaton, who's best known display occurs in the feminist exploitation classic I Spit on Your Grave. We also must mention the hooters of jewel Shepard, who play a hooker in the recent film The Cooler.

Lots of blood and action with knives and swords and martial arts among topless dancers in a bar, in a whorehouse, and on a boat load of martial artists heading to some zombie island where bad martial artists go to die or something like that.

Tops and bottoms come off easily and frequently as travelers are well lubricated thanks to the boat owner.

Then disaster strikes as their boat is destroyed and they land on the zombie island where mas monks sacrifice young girls to the dead martial artists to bring them back to life.

Just when you thought it had everything, there are piranhas in the water. Yum Yum A big fat German for dinner.

Just the thing for your next zombie fest.

Outrageously trashy karate/horror thriller with loads of graphically gory violence and gratuitous nudity, and a thoroughly preposterous and bizarre "plot". This is lowbrow and low-grade entertainment that will appeal only to viewers with particularly kinky tastes, but it's kind of cheerfully bad and I must admit that I wasn't actually bored while watching it.... (*1/2)

Yup, it played on the big screen with on a double bill with "Cannibal Ferox". There were some special guests who worked on this obscure film and they did not have much good to say about it. I guess the director was a big time sleaze and was also inexperienced. There is lots of nudity in this one. All the elements of exploitation are covered, including female slavery. It's actually a really hilarious movie which is probably partly intentional. The crowd loved it.

In a conventional sense, there really is no redeeming value in the film Raw Force. However, if you are willing to let go of your need for logic for ninety minutes, you will find Raw Force to be fun.

The story, such as it is, deals with the sale of nublile woman to monks on a small island. The monks believe that consuming the flesh of the woman will allow them to have the power to raise the dead. You can tell the monks are evil because they are always shown in slow motion!

Throw in a guy that looks like Hitler in a leisure suit and the beautiful Jewell Shepard and some American Bruce Lee wannabees and you have the ingredients for the perfect drive-in movie.

Oh, did I mention that Cameron Mitchell was in this. Some may say that his appearance in The Toolbox Murders was his low point (others might say The Demon). I think this is it.