The Magic Curse (1977)

1977 - The Magic Curse (company unknown)

[A Hong Kong production filmed in the Philippines; released in France as “Au Pays De La Magie Noire”]

Directors/Screenplay “Tommy Loo-Chun”/Chin-Ku Lu, To Man Po Producer Chang Tsung Lung Music Wong Chu Yen Editor Yu Sheung Makeup Mok Wai Hong Production Manager Peter Chen Lau Production Supervisor Wong Chen Yen Assistant Director Cho Kin Martial Arts Perter [Peter?] Chan Lau Lighting Technician Lau Piu Chung Camera Operator Simmy Wong

Cast Jason Pai Piao, Pinky de Leon, Peter Chen Lau, Tan Chia Bee, Mong Hu, Woung Eune En, Nam Soon Joung, Hwang Kun Chi, Choi Mu Ung, Roger Cooquia, Vic Silayan, Philip Coo

Fred Adelman’s review from his Critical Condition website:

When his uncle's plane crashes somewhere in the jungles of Borneo, nephew Lin Wen Ying (Jason Pai Piau; BRUTAL SORCERY - 1986) flies to Borneo by helicopter, grabs a few native guides and heads into the jungle to search for his uncle, who was carrying a fortune in jewels on the plane. They run into a tribe of lepers and the guides run away in fear, forcing Lin Wen Ying to kill a few of the attacking lepers with his shotgun. It turns out that their leprosy was caused by a magic curse put on them by high priest Abdullah and only death by an outsider will release the curse (One of the dying lepers reverts back to his normal human form, tells Lin Wen Ying the whole story and then begs for one final shotgun blast to finish him off, which Lin obliges). Abdullah is the high priest of the Snake Tribe, who periodically sacrifice nubile young virgins to the Snake God, while their priestess, Filona (Pinky DeLeon), watches unapprovingly. Abdullah has the hots for virgin tribal girl Sophia and when he sees that she is about to lose her cherry to tribe member Chow Ming, he performs a magic ritual where Sophia turns into a vampire and bites off Chow Ming's penis, killing him (Just as she bites it off, the camera switches to a tribe member peeping on the couple as he bites into a banana!). Lin Wen Ying witnesses Sophia committing suicide after waking up from her trance and seeing what she has done, so he runs over to her and all she says is "Abdullah!" before she dies (To which Lin replies, "Him again?"). When Lin asks members of the Snake Tribe if they have seen his uncle and the jewels, he gets an arrow in his shoulder for his troubles. He escapes and is found unconscious by Filona and some handmaidens (who we see frolicking buck-naked in a pond with some surprising full-frontal nudity), she nurses him back to health and they fall in love. Now here is where it gets weird. Filona tells Lin that the Snake Tribe witnessed his uncle's plane crash and Abdullah stole the jewels from his uncle's corpse. Filona, who doesn't approve of Abdullah's magic or his virgin sacrifices, shields Lin from Abdullah, but once Abdullah finds out Filona is in love with Lin, he fashions a voodoo doll from Lin's pillowcase (!) and puts a magic curse on him, which Filona counters using her magic powers. Lin leaves the jungle and promises to come back, but just to make sure he does, Filona puts a magic curse on his lips, telling him if he kisses any other girls while he is away, they will die a horrible death and he must return to the jungle within a year to marry her. This leads to a whole lot of trouble for Lin once he returns to civilization and it's best left to the viewers to witness for themselves. Needless to say, Lin forgets about his promise to Filona rather quickly (What do you want? He's a man!), which leads to death, destruction and plenty of snakes. Will Lin learn to keep it in his pants before more women meet their maker in horrible fashions?

This Hong Kong Production, co-directed and co-written by Tommy Loo-Chung (actually Lu Chin Ku; THE BLACK DRAGON [1974] and TIGER OVER WALL [1980]) and To Man Po (a.k.a. "Lee Tso Nam"; EXIT THE DRAGON, ENTER THE TIGER [1976] and THE TATTOO CONNECTION [1978]), is a crazy combination of fantasy and martial arts genres with plenty of fighting, gore and nudity. While not as outrageous as BLACK MAGIC (1975), you have to give points to MAGIC CURSE for making Lin such a horndog, even though he knows there's a curse on his lips. He picks up women at bars and parties, beds them immediately and then the women die horribly shortly thereafter (they hallucinate they are being attacked by hordes of snakes, making the die from fright, heart attack or falling down a staircase). Lin simply moves on to the next woman, telling himself that their deaths were merely coincidences! Particularly hilarious is that during these lovemaking sessions, brassy lounge or jazz music plays on the soundtrack, which makes it sound like some cheap porn film. The plot of the film is all over the place, opening up in a bowling alley, then switching to the jungles of Borneo (the bloodiest section of the film; with human sacrifices, stabbings, impalements, bloody magic rituals and, of course, the penis-biting), then back to civilization and, finally, back to the jungle again, where a cop returns with Lin to make sure his story about magic curses is true. The finale, where Filona battles Abdullah (who walks around carrying a staff with a human skull attached at the top), contains fireballs, snakes and a funny shot where Abdullah catches a huge (and obviously Styrofoam) boulder right in the chest. As usual, this is a worthwhile Hong Kong effort for those who know what to expect from these kind of films: Non-stop craziness with a sense of the absurd. Also starring Peter Chen Lau, Tan Chia Bee, Mong Hu, Woung Eune Em, Nam Soon Joung, Hwang Kun Chi and Choi Mu Ung.

Review from the Internet Movie Database:

Intercontinental were the quintessential late 70's exploitation film distributors. Their bread and butter lay in cheap Spaghetti Westerns, Kung-Fu movies and sex items like Tokyo Emanuelle, The Sexorcist and the much banned Seven Women For Satan. Released early 1977, The Magic Curse is the most out of control movie to bear the Intercontinental mark. In classic Wardour Street fashion it was sold mainly on the sex angle, the poster illustrating the film's shower and nude bathing sequences and the X certificate on display. What then was an audience to make of this mad mix of horror, jungle adventure and Kung-Fu film with mysticism and a sound-track shamelessly borrowed from Hammer movies thrown in for good measure!!! Jason Pai Piau stars as Man-Ying a ten pin bowling playing playboy, whose rich Uncle has crashed his plane in the Borneo Jungle, quick to come to his relatives aid Man-Ying heads out on the next plane trip to Borneo. A few steps into the green inferno and Man-Ying and his less than enthusiastic guides find themselves in a leper colony! Only these `lepers' look more like a bunch of hungover rockabilly singers and practice cannibalism! Confused? it appears that Abdullah the high priest of the jungle's snake tribe cult has a habit of using his black magic on anyone who gets in his way, which goes a long way to explaining why most of the jungle population are gut sucking blue-faced lepers. This Abdullah's a real card all right, cackling like a true lunatic behind his giant white beard and levitating skulls to impress his pals `high priest you're great'. After asking one too many questions Man-Ying is beaten, shot with an arrow and left for dead, only to be saved by a bunch of passing Amazon Women!

These Amazons look quite a sight, wearing plastic horns and minimal leopard skins, they turn out to be the other faction of Abdullah's snake tribe, the cult being sexually segregated. In fact the only time the two sides in this battle of the sexes seem to get along is when they are messily sacrificing nubile virgins to the Snake God. But whereas Abdullah and his thugs use their black magic to raise hell, the female Amazons lead by Fleoha (the wonderfully named Pinky De Leon) prefer calmer hobbies like frolicking naked in a pool. One look at his moustached mug and Fleoha soon falls head over heels for Man-Ying's rugged charms, however the sexually frustrated Abdullah tries to put a stop to the romance threatening to stick pins into an effigy of Man-Ying unless he gets out of town. As a parting gesture Fleona bites our adventurer on his lip, no she's not just being kinky she's placed the titular curse on him, whose rules dictate that if Man-Ying has sex with anyone else but her they will die `and very horribly too'. Suddenly we're abruptly back to civilisation and the film transforms into a Sex and Kung-Fu movie right in front of your eyes!!! Far from heeding her warnings of celibacy Man-Ying hits the chic disco's of Hong Kong like some demented bunny, no woman is safe. Then again what gal worth her weight in blue eye-shadow could resist Man-Ying's fashion sense which suggests that he stopped by Carnaby Street between plane rides from Hong Kong and Borneo. His understandably confused one night stands end up on the receiving end of The Magic Curse, that entails snakes terrorising them until they suffer coronaries. Its not all bad luck though, when Man- Ying gets into a fight with a tough street gang to their disbelief he turns green and his snake friends attack them! With all these girl's tickers giving out the police are soon on Man-Ying's case. What do they do, lock him up, arrest him or have him committed for his rantings about Borneons who worship reptiles? No they happily accompany him around the globe to follow up on his theories.

The Magic Curse is wildly out there defying any attempt to pigeon-hole it down to one genre- you can just imagine an Intercontinental frontman scratching his balding head over what to do this thing before giving up and sending it on its way to the fluff market. Directors of nominal Kung-Fu movies, Tommy Loo-Chun and To Man Po agreeably push the right buttons for a rollicking little exploitation number, with cheap sex tagged on as an 'afterthought' to ensure a foreign sale. Every trick in the hat is pulled out for our entertainment, be it disappearing acts, earthquakes and flaming rocks- little however will prepare you for Magic Curse's most outragous scene- an Amazon girl Sophia rejects Abdullah's lecherous advances in favour of a passing hunk. Soon Sophia and her boyfriend get down to water bound l'amour, but Sophia is not feeling herself due to Abdullah's ol' black magic that transforms her into a green faced ghoul with very large teeth... and bites her boyfriends privates off!!! Magic Curse's off-kilter narrative, dedication to shock value scenes and not forgetting those rubber snakes being thrown in the direction of slumming Hong Kong actresses- must have satisfied fleapit cinema audiences looking for something different back then, years later its still endlessly fun viewing. `Long live the Snake tribe' indeed.

From Jack Jensen’s blog:

Brian (of the excellent Cool Ass Cinema blog!) asked if I've seen Tony Liu Jun Guk & Lee Tso Nam's THE MAGIC CURSE and yes I have. Lars Jacobson drew my attention to it a couple of years back (he told me he's so exited about it he always force feeds people with it. And thank you for that, Lars!) and I could have sworn I posted the cover scans here last year when I found and won the über über rare UK tape but damned if I can find the scans now. Oh, and to make it even MORE rare the tape I won is the INSANELY RARE Betamax tape!!!!! Either I didn't post them or I did but forgot to label the post and somehow it doesn't come up with the search function.

Oh well, here they all are anyway (and no it's not like I MIND showing off this tape, [I would have a big grinning smiley here if I could!]). Completely mint condition! I think someone bought it and put it in a drawer right away and never took it out again before they sold it off. It's an awesome tape; dubbed in English and letterboxed. I kept a close watch on it all week, every single day, when the auction ran last summer. I'm aware Miltos of Cinehound wanted it too. I'm aware there's both a French VHS and a DVD release but they are both dubbed in French which obviously is no good, LOL (this is info I have from French sites that I've checked anyway but you know how it is with Internet sites, sometimes they're not gonna list the English option if the webpage is intended for another market, however, the DVD probably doesn't carry the English track. But who knows unless you check :/ ). If you or anybody wanna look for the french tape or dvd the title is Au Pays de la magie noire.

About the film; The main character's uncle is reported to have crashed his plane over the jungle so he takes off on a rescue mission and encounters heaps of wild stuff. This film has EVERYTHING. It's completely whacked-out crazy! There's zombies, wild women, gore, nudity, insanity, all of it. Haha. No, I'm not gonna write a proper review but it's very entertaining, just take my word for it. I guess it was a product of Hong Kong's having been become tired of straight kung fu films and so they began to chuck everything else into the films to keep people's attention. Well, they certainly kept mine with this one, that's for sure.

Mad Warrior (1984)

1984 – Mad Warrior (JPM Productions)

[Philippines release date 4th January 1984, also known as "Mad Warriors" and released on UK VHS as “Clash Of The Warlords” – onscreen title “Clash Of Warlords”]

Director Willie Milan Title Design Ed Rohr Soundman Fred Manoza Assistant Camera Boy Anao Clapper Danny Caburnay Boomman Max Stabillo Electrician Nardo Taytayon Crew Mario Caburnay, Bobby Ramon Estabillo Wardrobe Waldo Masconi Liason Officer Manolo Maglaya Fight Instructors Jay Grama, Linda Castro Assistant Editors Bonifacio Brien, Ever Ramos, Nelen Rampar Stills Willy Anao Makeup Mely Sioson Schedule Master Lito “Extra” Manuel Effectsman Edilberto Naelgas Setman Emeng Eslaban Utilitymen Johnny & Totto Prosthetic Makeup Cecile Baun

Cast Anthony Alonzo, Jennifer Kirkham, Johnny Monteiro, Willie Williams, Gabby Farro (Maria), Robert “Marios”/Marius (Malsam), Tom Romano, Rey De Gusman, Ching Zabala, Waldo Masconi, Ading Montalban, Fred Esplana, Jay Grama, Mel Arca, Alex Bolado, Linda Castro, "W Stuntmen", Paul Vance, Edward Bronett, Andy Peterson, Robert Benson, Tony Rocha, David Light, Hardy Oppoua, Rommel Valdez, Max Laurel, Sonny Erang, Rusty Santos, Boy Ibanez, Teresa Hunt, Joan Durst, Avi Seetaky, Robert Miller, Jimmy Santos, Romy Nario

Fred Adelman’s review from the Critical Condition website:

CLASH OF THE WARLORDS (1985) - In this sequel to director Willie Milan's W (aka: W IS WAR - 1983), warrior Rex (Willy Williams) is forced to fight his best friend gladiator style in an arena by evil warlord Malsam (Robert Marios), who is holding Rex's young son prisoner and will only free him if Rex kills his friend. When Rex kills his friend and Malsam renegs on his deal, he and his son escape with the help of a friendly female. Malsam orders his men to recapture Rex and his son (He says, "Find them and don't come back until you find them!" What!?!), but the trigger-happy henchmen kill Rex's son and the helpful female when warrior Maria (Gabby Parro) comes out of nowhere to help Rex fight the bad guys. As Rex and Maria walk through the post-nuked terrain, they are captured by a group of people and led to the town of Opulus, where Maria is reunited with her long-lost father Zeus, a scientist who is working on a cure for radiation poisoning. We also find out that Malsam is afflicted with a strange disease where he begins to mutate every time he looks at the moon (When he sees the moon one night, he tells his men, "Take it away and I'll cover it in blood!" Double what!?! Some of his men turn to each other and say, "He has a devil inside him!" and "He's not just crazy. He's a lunatic!"). Malsam will not rest until Rex is dead, so he hires a band of beefy warriors to capture Rex and bring him back, which they do (without very much trouble at all). Rex must fight a series of battles in the arena, each one more dangerous than the last. Just when things begin looking grim for Rex, Maria shows up with a "Liquidation Squad", an army of rocket launcher and machine gun-carrying men who help Rex defeat Malsam's men. The rest of the film is just a series of gunfights and explosions until Rex confronts Malsam for a lightsaber duel (!), where Rex quickly defeats Malsam (he explodes into a million little pieces when Rex cuts him in half with the lightsaber!) and Maria and Rex share a passionate kiss before Rex jumps on his horse and heads off on another adventure, which audiences never got to see (because it was never filmed). Maybe he died of radiation poisoning.

This is strictly lower-tier Filipino action cinema that's pretty rough going for the viewer. I guess it would help to view the first film (which I didn't at the time of this review), but I really doubt if it would make a big difference. The Greek subtitled version I viewed edits out most of the gory footage and the English dubbing is so bad, it's almost surreal. Most of the impalements, axe fights (which seems to be the weapon of choice here) and gun battles end abruptly and those edits get quite annoying after a short period of time. We don't watch these films for the storylines, you know, so editing out all the gore kind of defeats the whole purpose of watching it in the first place. I'm sure director Willie Milan (ULTIMAX FORCE - 1986) didn't mean for this film to be as awful as this edition makes it out to be, but the atrocious dubbing (the word "arena" is pronounced "areener" and the dubbing crew can't seem to make up their minds if Gabby Parro's character name is "Maria" or "Reya") and lack of bloody violence in this version makes it a tough sitting for the viewing audience, even if it's only 73 minutes long. The only interesting (and weird) points this film has to offer are Malsam's aversion to the moon (which is quickly dropped) and counting how many times you spot people standing around in a circle (which is a lot!). Also starring Tom Romano, Rey De Gusman, Teresa Hunt, Joan Durst, Ching Zabala, Waldo Masconi and the "W Stuntmen". Also known as MAD WARRIOR. A Video Memory Release. Not Rated.

Michael Petch's review from the Post-Apocalypse website:

After seeing the DVD cover on eBay, I had to buy a copy. 23rd Century, well-known purveyors of the most basic region 0 DVD's, have released a poor-quality extras free DVD that you can pick up on eBay for a few pounds if you're lucky. I was....

At times like this I realise how reliant on the internet I am for information. Trying to research this movie I have fallen flat on my face. It was tough to find information on Death Run (external review), but this is in another league. Apart from one or two message board requests here and there, nobody seems to know where this is from or when it was made. I looked and looked and finally found a tiny bit of information from the British Film Institute website. Additionally I have been sent scans that confirm the film has also been titled Mad Warrior (scans at the bottom of the page).

Lets firstly clear up, or at least try to clear up, some of the big questions:

Where? The very end credits thank the Hoyop Hoyopan Cave, which is in the Philippines. This makes lots of sense as loads of PA's hail from that country. Camp John Hay is also thanked. This was an American Air Force 'rest and recreation' base until the Americans handed it back to the Philippeans in 1991. It's now a holiday resort.

Who? Well that’s a tough question. All the names sound very English and none show up when searched on IMDB or Google. All pseudonyms, I'm sure. Finally I found a picture from my collection of saved PA scans that I have built up over the past couple of months. I found a selection of foreign PA boxes a while back on a random message board, and one, Mad Warrior, has the same art work as Clash of the Warlords. It appears they are the same film. Searching for Mad Warrior threw up a link at the BFI with some genuine names. The director and actors have all done other film work, though nothing much worth mentioning apart from Robert Marius. I don't know who he plays here but he's also in Warriors of the Apocalypse (1985).

When? The credits and the box are no help but again the BFI comes to the rescue. 1985, it claims.

Why? You’re on the wrong website if you're asking this question (although some may say films are produced to make money).

And that's the total sum of everything I know about the making of this film, but I did watch it, and I have lots to tell...

The beginning of the film gives a good forewarning of the quality of things to come, the music started and I was immediately impressed. A lively synth and electric guitar combo. Unfortunately what we see isn't so impressive. A black explosion cloud is seen moving up for a second and then it freezes. After a few seconds, the Clash of the Warlords title card flashes up for a couple of seconds over the explosion. Then we're treated to three minutes of the freeze frame explosion and nothing more. Honestly, it’s a freeze frame picture and music for three minutes! Obviously there were originally some credits here that were too foreign for us to handle. If it wasn't for the music, I would have been annoyed. I actually found it rather amusing, unlike the beginning of Exterminators of the Year 3000 where the opening titles were intact but missing the music.

The music is pretty good throughout, but I fear it has been stolen from somewhere else because throughout the film it cuts out during scene changes and sometimes randomly. It's really obvious and spoils the mood constantly.

We open to a gladiatorial arena setting. Don't expect a grand arena though, this is just a circle surrounded by logs. People are standing around watching a fight in the arena. The combatants have short axe type weapons and everybody is dressed in black. I will find it easier to call this group the Warlords. The Warlords are commanded by a fruit cake called Malsam who wears a metal mask over half of his face to cover up radiation scars.

Mustachioed Rex wins the fight. The crowd all chant "Kill him!" and Malsam gives the thumbs-down sign. Rex hesitates but eventually kills the loser. "I'm not at all satisfied,” claims Malsam, "what I want you to do is kill your best friend." If you think Malsam's insane now, just wait till later! Rex's best friend is brought into the arena. His young son is watching him and he knows that he must fight to save his son and get his freedom. Rex easily kills his friend. Everyone laughs at him but blond beauty Reya consoles him, "Bravo, your great". Nice.

It turns out that Malsam lied and Rex is not freed. That night Rex is sitting in his tent with his young kid, who is asleep. Malsam’s woman Tanya goes to see Rex. She like Rex and promises to help him escape “If…” and then she starts to unfasten her top. After what seems an age of unfastening she finally takes her top off, and at that very second the camera cuts to behind her, so you don't see anything even though your sure you were about to. If that poor kid wakes up he's going to develop some psychological problems from this.

We cut to the next day and see Rex, Tanya and the kid running through your mandatory mine setting. Keep an eye on Tanya as she has a hilarious run. I wonder why Rex needed Tanya’s help to get away? Malsam is obviously pissed – his best fighter and best woman have escaped. “Find them, and don’t come back until you’ve found them! They can’t hide forever, this island's too small”. Island? Hmm.

So off heads a group of Warlords on horseback, fronted by the crappest post-apocalyptic vehicle ever. It’s a tricycle with armor. After a minute or two of chase footage, the Warlords catch up to Rex and Co. In a horribly staged scene, the child and Tanya don't turn to face the attackers. This is to allow a planned special effect to work. They are both shot in the back with some kind of poisoned dart or something. Rex is about to be captured when Reya arrives up on the hillside. She has a machine gun and shoots, scaring off the Warlords. Rex is obviously pretty distraught and walks off with his dead son in his arms, Reya fallowing. Nobody seems to care about poor Tanya who is just left where she died. It turns out Reya misses her father, who disappeared somewhere. Yeah, he just disapeared. That's all the explanation I got, so that's all you're getting.

Meanwhile, in a tent laboratory filled with bubbling chemicals, the lead scientist has found a cure for wounds caused by atomic radiation. Is that even slightly possible? At first I thought this lab was at the Warlords' base, but soon enough we realise that it actually belongs to the other big group on the island.

Rex and Reya end up walking through a forest and are soon captured by this other group. They don’t have a name, but I was calling them "the browns" because they all wear brown, as appose to the Warlords in black. It turns out that the top scientist guy is Reya’s long-lost father so they are welcomed into the group. It turns out Reya has a damaged arm. Dad can soon fix that. “It’s just a minor infection caused by radiation”.

Time now for a blurry slow motion flashback. Rex’s wife is dead in a shallow stream. His kid is there and they are surrounded by Warlords. No wonder he hates them.

The browns' camp is a pretty place in the woods. Theses are obviously the good guys. Just like at the Warlords base there are always people moving around. The director has overcompensated for his lack of cast by getting people to march around at all times. In the Warlords' camp there are ALWAYS groups of people running around in the background, and most likely changing direction as soon as they are off-screen and running back, pretending to be other people. This technique is severely overused. We can tell are only 40 or so actors. Why would there be so much hustle and bustle? Still, it's fun to see people running around for no reason and with no actual military precision or timing.

Anyway, they all seem to be preparing for war. The Browns are play-fighting and the Warlords are sharpening axes and training on throwing deadly Frisbees. We even see that the Warlords actually have two armored bikes, although we only ever see one moving. The Browns then move up a step and start training with rocket launchers.

Around this point the tape screws up for a second or two. That’s right; I’m watching a DVD version, but the original tape the DVD was made from screws up. Poor quality control! Talking of quality, some of the footage looks OK, and other parts look poor. It’s like it was filmed on two totally different cameras (which is probably not far from the truth). Just when you think the training montage is over, there's one final treat. The Professor shows up and takes out his lightsaber. That’s right, his lightsaber. It seems this guy really is a genius. He switches it on and has a swing. Oddly, it hits something invisible and there's a little explosion but the scene cuts away milliseconds after the hit. Bizarre and crap looking, but enjoyably unexpected.

Now remember earlier when I said that Malsam would get madder? Well it appears he doesn’t like the moon (unlike the woman in Empire of Ash who loved it). He comes out of his tent and shouts for his right hand man, “Azim, the moon is getting full!” He rants, “Take it away from me, get it away!” and he continues to moan, “Not possible Malsam” claims Azim. Malsam goes one step further, “I’ll cover it in blood, I need fresh blood!”.

Malsam continues to rant crazily. Not far away, his men are talking about how crazy he is. They all think he's a lunatic, so why do they all follow his orders? It’s just as weird as the Hog in Deadly Reactor. Soon enough the film goes from weird to weirder. Malsam is chained up, without his mask (revealing radiation scarring and a fake eye make-up) and is surrounded by a circle of his men with flares. He howls and moans. “He’s not just crazy, he’s a lunatic!” claims one of his men. Absolute madness.

The next day we have a lot more training. The Browns sure love to fight with each other. Rex tells Reya that that she's too young for him (he has a mustache for goodness sake) and that he has a mission. Strangely the Warlords capture a few Browns and Malsam and his men sneak up on the Browns base. Malsam has a look at the Browns who are all too busy training to notice anybody sneaking up. For some reason, Malsam decides to go back to his base. He wants to kill Rex in the arena. Later that night Malsam has some sicko sex with some random woman outdoors while all his men are lined up in front facing away.

The next day Rex decides to leave the camp and kisses Reya before he goes. Over at the Warlords' camp, we find out that they need to fight because all their land is ruined from the radiation and they can’t grow food. Can’t they all just make friends? In a superb little scene, Malsam and Azim are walking between two ranks of men with spears. The troops move their spears out of the way as Malsam and Azim walk towards the camera.

Unfortunately the troops don’t seem to have practiced the technique very much and there are spears removed early and some not removed at all. One guy simply forgets altogether and another decides to wiggle his back and forwards a couple of times. Classic. Malsam is still angry that Rex escaped. Some guy turns up at their base with a selection of tough gladiators for hire. Malsam wants them for his arena for when he manages to capture Rex.

It turns out that Rex went into hiding in the mountains. A group of Warlords turn up, they have a bit of a chase and Rex is captured. Back at the Browns' camp, the commander is debating whether to attack the Warlords or not. “Thousands of our warriors could lose their lives.” he claims. What? Thousands? Ridiculous. He also mentions something about a “liquidation squad”. I don’t know what that was about but it sounded good. Reya continues to persuade the commander that it's is the right thing to do.

Rex, and another guy who was also captured, are taken to the arena and meet face-to-face with Malsam. “You're crazy, Malsam!” claims Rex. “You mean you never knew? Ha ha ha ha!” is his reply. At least he accepts his madness.

Time now for some explanations. It turns out Rex’s father killed Malsam’s father, and Malsam killed Rex’s father. Got that? Now he wants to kill Rex. To start, Rex and the other guy fight four of the hired gladiators in the ring. Not a bad fight but it includes some pointless slow-motion camera work.

Soon the gladiators are all finished and the new guy and Rex are forced to fight to get a chance to fight Malsam. Rex obviously wins. He's about to kill the guy but he throws his axe at Malsam, who immediately shoots it down with a laser. Quite good. Meanwhile, the Browns are preparing for their attack. They fire off a load of rockets, blowing up Malsam’s silver bubble tents. Also quite good! Malsam runs down some secret entrance into some caves hidden under one of the tents. Cut to a ton of shooting, fighting and general chaos where the Browns have the clear upper hand as the Warlords don't seem to be able to shoot straight. Reya and Rex team up and head into the caves with a troop of the Browns. Even in the caves there are plenty of troops pointlessly marching about in any old direction.

After a whole load of fighting Rex and Reya finally make it to the heart of the caves where Malsam has his throne-room type place. It's filled with ground fog from noisy flares. Malsam’s last wild card? A red lightsaber! Oh yes, it's time for a lightsaber duel. These things sound and look crap but it’s a superb moment.

Eventually Rex wins and Malsam explodes when the blade hits him (strange - is he made of explosives?). Rex and Reya kiss and they all head back home, but it seems like Rex doesn’t want to stay with the Browns. It isn’t explained at all but he heads off on a horse in your quintessential PA ending. If they really are on a small island, I wonder where he's off to? Why do PA heroes always leave to be on their own? Just to give us one extra thing to laugh at, the very final scene sees Rex talking to some of the Browns on his horse, except all the dialogue is cut out. His mouth is moving but there's just music playing! And that’s the end, followed by a few credits and thanks.

Final Thoughts: This movie is pretty bad. The production values are shocking and the editing is poor. Despite this, I still had a lot of fun. There was a lot to laugh about and it was fun, which is more than can be said about a lot of bigger-budget PA’s. If you have seen a lot of post-apocalyptic films before, and enjoy the rubishness, then this is highly recommended, just don’t blame me if you think it's awful.

Black Mamba (1974)

1974 - Black Mamba (Filmmakers Organization)

Director George Rowe Writer Carl Kuntze Producer Alexander O. David Cinematography Justo Paulino Music Lamberto H. Avellana Jr Musical Director Lutgardo Labad Editor Rudy O. Montecajon Sound Engineers Willie de Santos, Gaudencio Barredo Sound Effects Antonio Gozalves Special Effects Ben Otico Opticals Boy Quilatan Production Manager Gerry Gerena Unit Manager Joel Rebonquin Assistant Director Rudy O. Montecajon Continuity David Delina, Edith Masangkay Negative Editor Elsa Avellana Stills Nor Torres Artwork/Titles Lito de la Cruz Makeup Artist Tony Artieda Choreography Amelia Apolinario Assistant Editors Greg Torres, Ben Samson, Greg Gonzales

Cast John Ashley (Dr Paul Morgan), Marlene Clark (Witch), Pilar Pilapil (Elena), Eddie Garcia (Fred), Rosemarie Gil (Barbara), Stevie Maniquez (Michael), Laurice Guillen (Nurse), Andres Centenera (Exorcist), Alfonso Carvajal (Storekeeper), “Antonio Carrion”/Tony Carreon (Parish Priest), Willie Nepomuceno (Ghoul), “Angel”/Angelo Ventura (Police Officer), Subas Herrero (Pathologist), Dick “Adaire”/Adair (Resident Doctor), Mary Walter (Old Woman), “Jimmy”/Jaime Fabregas (Librarian), [uncredited] Vivian Velez

Fred Adelman’s review from the Critical Condition website:

This weird, little-seen Philippines-lensed horror film opens in a fog-shrouded graveyard, where we see a hunchback ghoul break into a crypt and cart off a body after stealing an unusual gold ring off the corpse's finger. As he is dragging the body through the graveyard, he is startled by the sudden appearance of a witch (Marlene Clark) dressed in black and he runs away. The ring ends up in a jewelry store and we see the witch purchase it. While in church, Elena (Pilar Pilapil) notices the ring on the witch's finger and has words with her outside. The ring belonged to Elena's dead husband and he was buried with it, so she wants to know why the witch is wearing it now. The witch turns and walks away and, in flashbacks, we learn that the witch was having an affair with Elena's husband a short time before he died. Elena and her young son Michael (Steve Maniquiz) now live with her sister Barbara (Rosemary Gil) and her husband Fred (Filipino stalwart Eddie Garcia). Fred wants a child of his own, but Barbara is incapable of having any (He tells Elena, "She's as barren as the Sahara!"), so he looks at Michael as his own son. The strain it is having on Fred and Barbara's marriage is highly evident. When the hunchback is found dead in the graveyard (the witch frightens him to death by putting a vision in his head that the body he is stealing has come back to life), the police ask kindly town doctor Paul Morgan (John Ashley) to perform an autopsy to find the cause of death. Paul is also treating the jewelry store shopkeeper (Alfonso Cavajal), who is having visions of the Grim Reaper (complete with scythe), since the witch put a spell on him for buying the ring from the hunchback. The witch makes a wax effigy of the shopkeeper and gives him a heart attack, killing him. Paul and Elena are having a picnic on the beach and a black bird steals Elena's handkerchief. The witch uses the hankerchief in one of her rituals (also including a wax doll) to give Elena severe headaches, forcing Elena to pass out at a bus stop. The witch weasels herself into Paul's life, but when the shopkeeper is finally found dead in his home nine days late, a thief is killed after jumping through the jewelry store window and Elena is seriously hurt and ends up in the hospital, Paul has to put aside his "logical explanations" and learn to fight the unknown with magic. When little Michael gets caught in the middle of this mess, good will have to fight evil (including using a medicine man , who tries to whip the evil out of Elena) in the ultimate battle of power.

Since this film never got a legitimate release in the United States until recently, it's not as well known as some other Filipino horror films made around the same time, like NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN (1972, also starring Marlene Clark in a role similar to the one she plays here) or the many horror and action films the late John Ashley made there, including the BLOOD ISLAND trilogy and SAVAGE SISTERS (1974). Director George Rowe (FINAL MISSION - 1989) keeps the bloodshed and carnage to a minimum, relying on the supernatural elements, like voodoo ceremonies, visions and graveyard fog to convey a mood of dread. There is one gruesome scene where a coroner performs an autopsy on the shopkeeper's body, where he removes and cuts into the heart and extracts the brain using a bonesaw (after peeling back the scalp), but this sequence seems to have been inserted strictly for shock value (some say it's real autopsy footage) as it's out-of-place with the rest of the film. The screenplay (by Carl Kuntze) tries to find a parallel between modern medicine and ancient beliefs in witchcraft and how they both can be accepted as legitimate science. While there is no nudity in this film, a snake does crawl between Elena's legs and enters her snatch and, if I'm not mistaken, Old Scratch makes an appearance during a ritual involving dancing girls dressed in red (It is his favorite color after all!). There is also an exorcism (THE EXORCIST was new and novel at the time) and, if you ever wanted to see John Ashley deliver a baby, pick it up with one hand and slap it on the ass, then this is the film for you. Some may find this too dull and soap opera-like to sustain interest. It's rarity makes it worth at least one look in my book. Also starring Willie Nepomuceno (as the hunchback), Laurice Guillen, Antonio Carrion and Andres Centenera. Is it just me or does John Ashley seem to sleepwalk through his role here? The print I viewed looks like a dub taken from a worn, soft-looking 16mm print with some noisy and scratchy sound problems. It's watchable, though. Now available on DVD as part of the BLOOD-O-RAMA 4 movie compilation from Image Entertainment. The print on the DVD is not much better than the print I viewed and it has new, video-generated titles. Not Rated.

UPDATE: Screenwriter Carl Kuntze emailed CritCon with this juicy bit of behind-the-scenes information: "The making of BLACK MAMBA was more interesting than how the movie turned out. The autopsy was supposed to be conducted by a certified pathologist, who hadn't shown up as promised. A Filipino morgue attendant volunteered. "I will be the one. I know how." He didn't even have proper instruments. When the doctor showed up five hours after the filming was over, he was shocked at the condition of the body. It was completely mangled. It had to be buried in a sealed coffin. The relatives of the corpse, who was convicted of capital crimes, had consented to the autopsy for the money to bury him. Had they seen the body, they might have committed some mangling themselves. John Ashley and most of the production crew were puking their guts out. I reshot the autopsy using a pig's brain and entrails. The skull was reconstructed from ceramics by an artist. A reviewer complimented the protocol. The producer himself used a surgical saw. I intended to rewrite it according to the original premise: Santeria (Palo Mayombe). I didn't have a devil worship scene, and my doctor was not in The Peace Corps. He was an incompetent hiding his failings in a small town. John Ashley did his best acting in this movie. He should have taken it more seriously."

Michael Weldon's review in Psychotronic Magazine #32 (2000) p.72

Marlene Clark (the black American beauty also in Night Of The Cobra Woman) is a witch who uses voodoo to curse the widow Elana (Pilar Pilapil). Elana and her cute little boy are staying with her sister (Rosemarie Gil) and her wealthy husband. A cat that becomes a death figure with a scythe, a snake that becomes an evil nurse and a crippled, scarred hunchbacked grave robber help the witch. Ashley plays the selfless nice guy doctor who makes house calls and eventually confronts the witch. An old priest brutally whips Elana as part of an exorcism ritual. In my favorite scene, the witch travels to a huge cave where she and many females, all in short red dresses, dance by a fire in front of the devil himself (!). Eddie Garcia is a police officer. With flashbacks and nightmares. Ashley said it was shot at the same time as Savage Sisters, but was never released in America. He also said that a real corpse was used in an autopsy scene, which may have been true for close-ups, but before the cutting starts, the man can be seen moving.

Review from the DVD Drive-In website:

BLACK MAMBO (directed by George Rowe), a Philippines-made horror effort starring the late, great John Ashley in one of the many exploitation films he starred in over there, and probably the rarest. A young widow named Elena (Pilar Pilapil) is shocked to discover the ring of her recently deceased husband on the finger of African American woman (Marlene Clark, who had also had the lead in another Philippines thriller, THE NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN) who happens to be devil-worshipping, voodoo practicing witch. Elena makes the mistake of confronting the witch outside a church, and she in turn puts all sorts of spells and curses on the single mother, who lives with her caring sister (Rosemarie Gil, DEVIL WOMAN) and her brother-in-law (Eddie Garcia, star of countless Philippines movies, including a memorable turn as “Dr. Lorca” in BEAST OF BLOOD). The concerned Dr. Paul Morgan (Ashley) steps up to help, but it takes a lot before he believes in all the mumbo jumbo behind Elena’s dilemma. BLACK MAMBA is never as delirious, imaginative or exploitive as other Philippines horrors of the period and the story tends to be confusing. There are some nice moments tossed into the mix (a storekeeper who keeps hallucinating a Grim Reaper, Clark making love to a very ethnic-looking horned Lucifer, a snake crawling up a woman’s leg, etc.), but most red-blooded male viewers will naturally wish that the very lovely actresses (Pilapil, Gil, Clark) had shed some skin, especially since this is 1974 we're talking about. Still, this is a must-see for Philippines horror/exploitation completists. The full screen transfer is very below par, looking extremely dupey and soft, with pale bleeding colors, but almost watchable knowing the rareness of the title. The mono audio is not bad but tends to screech during some of the louder moments.

Review from the 1000 Misspent Hours website:

With a title like Black Mamba, you might have figured this was a movie about— oh, I don’t know— maybe a killer snake? Yeah, well you might have figured Snake People was about snake people, too. Actually, Black Mamba is a lot like Snake People, for not only do both movies promise us snakes which they have little intention of delivering, they both give us instead some pretty crazy tropical black magic. The key difference (apart, I mean, from this movie hailing from the Philippines, while the other is of Mexican origin) is that Black Mamba is really a pretty decent little voodoo flick.

It’s hard to go wrong by starting with a grave robbery. Black Mamba’s opening-scene tomb-breaker is a bestial hunchback (Willie Nepomuceno) who seeks not the bodies of the dead, but the valuables that were buried with them. In particular, we see him make off with a golden ring worked into the likeness of a hooded face. The bauble in question turns up the next day in the local general store, where the shopkeeper (Alfonso Carvajal, from The Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Black Mama, White Mama) sells it to a woman (Marlene Clark, of The Beast Must Die and Beware! The Blob) dressed in what looks to be mourning attire. That ring gets the woman into trouble an unspecified amount of time later, for it happens to catch the eye of Elena (Pilar Pilapil), its original owner and the widow of the man from whose grave it was pilfered, while she and the ring-wearer are attending services in the same church. Elena has angry words with the other woman after the mass concludes, and though we don’t get to hear the argument (in a surprising touch of artiness, the confrontation scene plays silent apart from the insistent pealing of the church bells), one gets the distinct impression that they have met somewhere before. And indeed they have; shortly thereafter, the woman who bought the ring has a flashback revealing that she had been the dead man’s girlfriend before Elena came along, putting a very different spin on everything that has happened since she saw the ring in the store’s front window. And as if the flashback itself hadn’t served as sufficient cause for reappraisal, the furnishings of the room in which it transpires demonstrate pretty conclusively that Elena’s rival is a witch.

As for Elena, her husband’s death left her with apparently few resources for supporting her son, Michael (Steve Maniquez), and she is relying, at least for the time being, on the charity of her sister, Barbara Gomez (Rosemarie Gil, of Naked Vengeance and Devil Woman). Barbara’s husband, Fred (Eddie Garcia, from Blood of the Vampires and Beast of Blood), is evidently an extremely successful businessman of some kind, although we’ll never learn precisely what he does for a living. The important thing is that the Gomezes live in easily the biggest and poshest house in their little town, and Fred’s income is such that he professes no hardship in supporting Elena and her son indefinitely. Elena’s present living arrangements entail a certain amount of friction, however, for Fred is disconcertingly open about believing that he picked the wrong sister. This is because all evidence indicates that Barbara is infertile, and there’s nothing Fred wants more than to be a father. He may be able to scratch his parental itch to some extent by playing surrogate dad to Michael, but that outlet will exist only so long as Elena remains in the house. Needless to say, Fred is in no hurry to see his sister-in-law make good her intention of moving to Manila.

On the night following the altercation in church, the witch, evidently hell-bent on preventing the hunchback from corroborating any story that Elena might tell the authorities regarding the stolen ring, uses her magic to eliminate him. Old Quasimodo is back in the cemetery, and as soon as he cracks open a coffin, the witch reanimates the body inside, literally scaring the grave-robber to death. This proves not to be a very smart move in the long run, though, as the dead body beside the open tomb inevitably draws attention from the local chief of police (Angelo Ventura, from Beyond Atlantis and The Twilight People), who quickly calls in Dr. Paul Morgan (John Ashley, of Frankenstein’s Daughter and Beast of the Yellow Night) to help him figure out what killed the hunchback. What makes this a potentially serious development for the witch is that Morgan has ties to practically everybody on whom she will be setting her sights in the coming days, meaning that he’ll be in as good a position as anyone to spot the pattern of mysterious misadventures as it forms. It is to Morgan that the shopkeeper turns when the witch places a curse on him, haunting him with visions of death and eventually striking him down by breaking the humanoid candle she was using as his effigy. Paul and his old mentor (Subas Herrero, from Savage Sisters and Bamboo Gods and Iron Men) wind up performing the autopsy on the shopkeeper, too, when a spectacularly failed burglary at the general store (the would-be thief is killed by one of the witch’s familiars, a Siamese cat with the power to assume the form of the Grim Reaper) leads to the discovery of the old man’s body. More importantly, Paul is also beginning (much to Fred’s consternation) a tentative romance with Elena. Morgan is therefore on the scene when the witch, in the form of a little blackbird, steals Elena’s handkerchief in order to make a voodoo doll of her. He is there to lead her treatment when the ensuing campaign of paranormal persecution begins to take its toll on Elena’s nerves. He is able to help Fred intervene when Barbara hires an exorcist (Andres Centenara, from The Big Bird Cage and Brides of Blood) to drive out the witch’s influence via a dangerous course of sympathetic magic. (The exorcist flogs Elena with a whip made from a stingray’s tail; the idea is that each blow will be felt by the witch as well.) Eventually, Morgan sees enough really weird shit that he begins to take seriously the possibility that Elena has been cursed by a witch— at least to the extent of accepting that Elena and her unknown enemy’s mutual belief in black magic is enough to make the curse as good as real for both parties. With a little help from the local librarian (Jaime Fabregas), Paul sets out to find the supposed magician, and combat her on her own terms. Of course, the witch has allies, too, having placed her second familiar (a speckled, gray snake that is the closest we’ll ever get to the titular black mamba) within the Gomez household in the guise of a nurse (Laurice Guillen).

Although it is compromised by paltry production values and a lethargic pace (to say nothing of the conspicuous absence of any black mambas), Black Mamba impressed me a good deal more than I was expecting it to. Working in the Philippines seems to have done wonders for John Ashley’s acting. Maybe he just grew up, or maybe his increasingly obvious has-been-hood gave him the perspective necessary to jettison the leftover performing tics from his previous career as a failed teen heartthrob, but by the mid-1970’s, he had most definitely mastered the trick of working within his limitations instead of ramming headlong into them the way he had in earlier years. He’s still as far from greatness as he ever was, but like Lon Chaney Jr. in his prime, the John Ashley of Black Mamba and its contemporaries has found something he can do, and has made the most of it. And if we’re comparing Ashley to the younger Chaney, then we might liken writer Carl Kuntze and director George Rowe to frequent Chaney collaborators Curt and Robert Siodmak, respectively. Both men bring an unaffected, workmanlike solidity to Black Mamba, marshalling their not-always-adequate resources (both material and creative) to occasionally striking effect. Kuntze in particular wins my respect for bringing Paul Morgan into the witch-hunting business on terms that square completely with the determinedly rationalist worldview that he displays throughout the first two thirds of the film. We may know the witch’s powers are real, but Morgan has no reason to; by making him approach witchcraft as (in the words of the librarian) “one of the oldest forms of psychological warfare,” Kuntze gives the doctor plausible license to fight fire with fire, without ever having to set up the usual “Whoa… There really is such a thing as magic!” scene. As for Rowe, his most admirable contributions are probably his success in wringing a bit of honest creepiness out of that two-bit Grim Reaper and the surprisingly un-crass way in which he deploys Black Mamba’s most notorious exploitation gambit, the use of stock autopsy footage in the scene where Morgan and the other doctor give the shopkeeper his post-mortem examination. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “tasteful” (I’m not convinced there is a tasteful way to recycle clips of real-life medical examiners chopping real-life holes in a real-life dead guy’s thoracic cavity), but Rowe does at least manage to make it seem not flagrantly disrespectful. But Black Mamba’s best feature is probably the easiest to overlook— the absolutely first-rate soundtrack by Lamberto H. Avellana Jr. Avellana seems never to have scored another movie, either before or since, and that’s a damn shame. His prickly, almost atonal music is eerie in the extreme, and gives a sizeable assist even to such overwhelmingly stupid scenes as the one that has the witch and a chorus line of crimson-clad women we’ve never seen before performing a sort of interpretive dance for the amusement of Satan and his goat-headed minions. Anybody who can so much as lead you to imagine the possibility of selling something like that deserves a great deal of respect. (**½)

Review from the Black Horror Movies website:

Compared to Night of the Cobra Woman, Black Mamba suffers the double whammy of being less serpent-centric and less booby-centric, making for the dullest movie I've seen featuring zombies, voodoo dolls, a hunchback, Satan, "Manimal"-like transmutations, bestiality, an exorcism, and Death itself. The film opens with a hunchback doing what hunchbacks do best: robbing graves. He messes with the wrong tomb, though, when he takes a ring from the corpse of Dante, a man who happens to have once romanced a witch (Clark). Quasimod'oh! Through hazy "Love American Style"-flashbacks, we learn that the witch still has fond memories of Dante, and that Dante resembles Julio Caesar Chavez in a leisure suit. Fashion taste aside, she still loves the guy and takes offense to Hunchy stealing a ring off his cold, dead fingers and selling it to a local pawn shop. She takes such offense that she punishes not only Hunchy but the pawn shop owner and a random burglar who just happens to beak into the store as well, literally scaring them to death with visions of zombies and the Grim Reaper. (Enter an opportunity for the filmmakers to splice in tasteless clips of a real autopsy.) Turns out, though, that Witchy isn't Dante's widow; some gal named Elena (Pilar Pilapil) is, and she's none too pleased to see Witchy strolling around town wearing her dead husband's ring (which she got from the pawn shop). Elena confronts her outside a church, and Witchy gives her a look like, "Beyaaatch!" It's so on! ...Or not. Instead, we segue into the treacly B story about Elena's sister Barbara (Rosemarie Gil from Night of the Cobra Woman) worrying that her husband Fred doesn't love her any more because she's barren. Save it for Oprah, lady; maybe you should focus on why your sister keeps getting voodoo headaches. Meanwhile, Paul (John Ashley, a Philippine horror movie veteran who for my money did his best work as the narrator in "The A-Team") is a Marlboro Mannish crime-solving doctor who's called in to solve the case. And what a tough case it is! I mean, perhaps you should question the six foot-tall black lady walking around the Philippines in a hooded robe, carrying an effigy...? "You mean the lady with the corpse ring who has a pentagram on her floor? But she's so kind to animals!" Indeed, Witchy is a regular Aquawoman, using beasts to do her bidding: a black bird, a black dog, a black mamba...Do we see a trend? Granted, a black mamba isn't technically black (and is native to Africa, not the Philippines), but who am I to dictate racial identity? Eventually, Elena goes nutty after dreaming about Satan and waking to find a snake between her legs -- and not in a good, mainstream pornographic way -- but only after Barbara gets an exorcist/wizard to beat the ills out of Elena with a whip (which doesn't work). As you can see, there's an exhausting amount of story in Black Mamba. In many ways it's actually a high-minded film dealing with superstition in modern society and giving insight into the different types of witchcraft. Unfortunately, this is a movie, not Wikipedia, so it ends up dreadfully dull and suffers from low production values, poor film quality, and let's face it, being made in the '70s. As with Night of the Cobra Woman, it's hard to buy the classy, even-tempered Clark as evil. Her worst sin might be her performance, which, judging from the seemingly dubbed-over dialogue, might not even be her fault.