It’s officially the beginning of Halloween season and the end of the Japanese celebration of the dead, Obon. Obon is celebrated at different times in different parts of the country, though it is traditionally mid-August. I’m being a little flexible with the dates here, because I want to start doing an annual Obon-themed episode that focuses on Japanese folklore, horror, and the supernatural.

This episode is also an experiment — it’s my first solo episode of Eros + Massacre, which is something I’ve been planning to do for a while. For this one I’m discussing the horror genre’s lord and savior, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the only person who should be allowed to make new horror movies.

For this episode, which I’m hoping will be the start of a recurring Kurosawa series, I’m discussing the horror movies and thrillers he made between 1989 and 1999: the special effects-driven haunted house romp Sweet Home (1989); his segment in the anthology film Dangerous Stories (1989), about a writer visited by homicidal ghost samurai with a boombox; the absurdist office slasher The Guard from Hell (1992); his effective body horror outing about an insurance saleswoman, Door III (1996); the sublime Cure (1997), contender for scariest film of all time; deconstructed revenge thriller Serpent’s Path (1998) and its wonderful sequel, Eyes of the Spider (1998); his segment about a malevolent tree spirit attacking high school students in the anthology film School Ghost Story G (1998); and his interpretation of absurdist folk horror, Charisma (1999), about a polarizing tree.

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 23: The Desolation of Kiyoshi Kurosawa (1989-1999) appeared first on Cinepunx.

This is an extra special episode near and dear to my heart, since Kenji Misumi has become one of my favorite directors, largely because of the Sword trilogy. Though his name may be unfamiliar to many of you, you have likely seen a few of his films: he directed most of the Lone Wolf and Cub series and many Zatoichi films. Longtime Criterion producer Curtis Tsui — who worked on both of those sets — joined me to discuss some of Misumi’s less frequently seen or discussed masterpieces.

We briefly discuss the great Satan’s Sword (1960) trilogy, but focus mostly on his loosely connected Sword trilogy starring the wonderful Raizo Ichikawa, which includes Kiru (Destiny’s Son, 1962), the Yukio Mishima adaptation Ken (The Sword, 1964), and the supernatural-tinged Kenki (Sword Devil, 1965). We also spend a fair amount of time in the second half of the episode talking about his gothic, apocalyptic Devil’s Temple (1969), an adaptation of a play from ero guro master Jun’ichiro Tanizaki starring Shintaro Katsu (Zatoichi) as a horny, blood-soaked hedonist; and Internal Sleuth (1973), starring Katsu’s real-life brother Tomisaburo Wakayama (star of the Lone Wolf and Cub series) as a beleaguered detective up against a chaotic yakuza syndicate. We also very briefly bring up Misumi’s final film, the epic The Last Samurai (1974), which I wish we had more time to dive into.

All of these films are incredible and come with the HIGHEST possible recommendation. Even if you’re not frothing at the mouth over chanbara films the way I am, all of these are masterclasses in filmmaking. I’m begging all of you to watch at least one of them.

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Chicago film programmer John Dickson, from the Oscarbate podcast and film collective, joined me for another wild discussion of Jess Franco’s spy/detective films. This time we’re talking about most of the movies in his Red Lips series, focusing on two female friends (and later, lovers), who are imaginative young strippers and/or cabaret performers who moonlight as private detectives, spies, vigilantes, Interpol informants, and so on.

This episode covers Tio Jess’s debut film, We Are 18 Years Old (1959), which is the origin of the character types even if it isn’t officially in the series, plus Red Lips (1960), Two Undercover Angels (1969), Kiss Me Monster (1969), Les emmerdeuses (1976), and Two Female Spies with Flowered Panties (1980).

And if you’re in NYC from July 12-16, John and Will from Oscarbate are presenting a slew of Franco screenings, including a marathon at Spectacle Theater, a double feature of the 4K restorations of Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed in Ecstasy, Venus in Furs on 35mm, and Lorna: The Exorcist on 35mm. Find links to all the events and tickets here.

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Since we’re on the verge of summer, it seemed like the perfect time for my first episode on American sex comedies. After years of asking, I finally listened to reason and sat down with gentleman pervert Shawn Porter, who has been proselytizing to me about the joys of Hamburger: The Motion Picture (1986) for far too long. You might remember Shawn from the Jamie Gillis episode of Twitch of the Death Nerve, but he also runs the body modification archive Sacred Debris, an important resource documenting the history of tattooing, piercing, other body mods, which focuses on a lot of folks in the queer and leather communities.

But he’s also the world’s biggest Hamburger: The Motion Picture fan. We spend most of the episode talking about just how surreal, absurd, and incredible it is — it follows a class of hopefuls who attend a fast food university and is part sex comedy and part satire of American capitalism. We also discuss Hot Dog… The Movie (1984) and the connections between the two, Tarot cards, Road House, Porky’s, Hard Bodies, The Mutilator, Cheech and Chong’s Nice Dreams, Summer School, Waterpower, Better Off Dead, my hatred for John Hughes, and so much more.

This episode is tasty, by God, though I should warn you that there’s a lot of laughing (and I actually cried with laughter while trying to edit it). If you have trouble finding Hamburger: The Motion Picture, I will help you out of that pickle.

The post Episode 20: Hamburger The Motion Picture with Shawn Porter appeared first on Cinepunx.

Clara from Angura Research Center was kind enough to join me for this episode on one of cinema’s greatest surrealists, Shuji Terayama. Poet, writer, master of underground theater (known as angura in Japanese) and experimental cinema, and so much more, Terayama had an incredibly rich, prolific career in many art forms, which blend together influences from classical Japanese theater, pop culture, folklore, deeply personal elements of biography, etc. Consider this episode more of an introduction to Terayama: we break down why he is so important and mainly discuss one of his more accessible films, the beautiful Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974). We also talk about his influential experimental theater troupe, Tenjo Sajiki, and some of his short films, namely Laura (1974), The Trial (1975), The Cage (1964), and Grass Labyrinth (1979), among a few other titles.

I strongly recommend checking out the Angura Research Center if you want to explore more about Terayama and Tenjo Sajiki. Clara has been doing really important work translating filmed versions of his plays, which you can watch on her YouTube channel, and writing essays on her site that give some really helpful cultural and historical context. The books we mention in the episode are from Carol Sorgenfrei and Steven Ridgely. All the music in the episode is from Terayama’s lifelong collaborator, JA Seazer, and his score to Pastoral. (And if you do a little digging, you can find the majority of Terayama’s short films on YouTube, all scored by Seazer, though beware that the YouTube version of The Trial that I linked to has some other music included.)

The post Episode 19: Shuji Terayama’s Pastoral with Angura Research Center appeared first on Cinepunx.

Ditch class, rev your engines, sharpen your switchblades, and roll up some reefer! Extremely patient friend of the show Byron Lueders joined me for this episode that we recorded four score and seven years ago (or at least that’s how long it feels), all about American teenage girl gang films in the 1950s and ’60s. In the episode, we focus primarily on Girl Gang (1954), Teenage Crime Wave (1955), One Way Ticket to Hell (1955), The Violent Years (1956), Teenage Doll (1957), The Delinquents (1957), Live Fast, Die Young (1958), and Teenage Gang Debs (1966). We discuss: the rise of “teenager” culture in postwar America and how many of these films suggest that the America dream is toxic garbage; class warfare; the horrors of the Hays Code; teen partying and drug use on screen; proto-exploitation cinema; directors like Robert Altman, Roger Corman, and Paul Henreid (?!); and of course we have a lot of say about eyeliner, custom biker jackets, and 1950s hairstyles.

Follow Byron on Instagram at @byronlueders and check out his new bootleg shirt shop here!

The post Episode 18: Teen Delinquent Hell with Byron Lueders appeared first on Cinepunx.

It’s officially spring, which seems like a fitting time to release the first — but certainly not last — Jess Franco episode of the show. Thanks to Patreon supporter Pat Radke for requesting a series of Jess episodes! Chicago film programmer John Dickson, from the Oscarbate podcast and film collective, joined me for a particularly wild discussion of Jess Franco’s best films featuring his recurring detective character, Al Pereira. Sometimes played by Howard Vernon, Eddie Constantine, Uncle Jess himself, and Antonio Mayans, among others, Pereira is a perverse twist on the standard sleazy private eye character from pulp fiction.

This episode focuses mainly on Death Whistles the Blues (1964), Attack of the Robots (1966), Les ebranlées (1972), Downtown (1975), Night of Open Sex (1983), and Black Boots, Leather Whip (1983). Despite how specific the topic is, I do think it’s a good intro to Jess’s career, because we cover a lot of his recurring themes, his early work, how elements of his personal life appear in the films, etc. And we have a lot to say about our horny exhibitionist queen, Lina Romay. There’s romance, there’s a lot of sex, there’s a fair amount of torture, and even some Nazi gold. I think this goes without saying for most of my episodes, but this one is extremely not work safe. Wait till you get to the song about sperm.

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It’s spring equinox and Eros + Massacre is emerging from hibernation! This first episode of 2025 is a discussion with cinema historian Tom Mes. He’s an international treasure and many of you were likely introduced to some incredible Japanese films due to his exhaustive writing and research and his site Midnight Eye. He just released a new book, Japanese Film and the Challenge of Video, and works with blu-ray companies like Arrow and Radiance as a producer on many of their Japanese cinema releases. Be sure to check out his latest lovechild with Arrow, V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal (for which I was honored to contribute a video essay), and Radiance releases like Elegant Beast and A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness (immense thanks to Tom for hiring me to do the commentary!), among many more.

Needless to say, this episode is all about Japanese V-cinema, a really underrated direct-to-video subgenre that emerged in Japan in the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s and spanned everything from crime and horror films to romances and comedies. I wanted to list out some of the names and titles we talk about in the episode, to make them easier to find. Directors we mention: Yasuharu Hasebe, Toshiharu Ikeda, Shunichi Nagasaki, Sogo Ishii, Kazuhiro Kiuchi, Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Banmei Takahashi, Rokurō Mochizuki; also actors Yūsaku Matsuda, Shô Aikawa, and Riki Takeuchi. Some key films/series mentioned: Carlos (1991), Stranger (1991), Crime Hunter (1989), Neo Chinpira: Zoom Goes the Bullet (1990), Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself series, The King of Minami series, The Outer Way (1998), and Yakuza Taxi (1994).

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We are still in the no man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s Day, so hopefully this second part of my two-part episode on the BBC’s original Ghost Stories for Christmas series with Will Dodson will get you through. As a reminder, in part one we discussed six M.R. James adaptations, mostly from the original series. Part two takes us through the final three episodes, The Signalman (1976), Stigma (1977), and The Ice House (1978), plus two spin off films, The Stone Tape (1972), and Schalcken the Painter (1979), and one last M.R. James television adaptation, Casting the Runes (1979) from ITV Playhouse.

And if you missed Will’s info the first time around, he’s an academic focusing on film and media studies and some of you might know him from his special features work on various blu-rays with Ryan Verril (find a complete list of their work here). He’s also edited a number of film books, namely American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper.

Eros + Massacre will be back in 2025! Thank you for all the support this year and thanks always to Cinepunx!

The post Episode 15: Ghost Stories for Christmas with Will Dodson, Part 2 appeared first on Cinepunx.

My sweet Yuletide angels, here is the other two-part episode I’m shoehorning into this December. I’ll have the second part up later this week (though it will be on my Patreon earlier) so you all have something to listen to when you’re driving to and fro family holiday events this week. I have been absolutely dying to do an episode on the BBC’s original Ghost Stories for Christmas series. I’m grateful it finally happened because this was such a joy and I was thankful to find a cohost insane enough to agree to watch and discuss everything on my list, Will Dodson.

Will is an academic focusing on film and media studies and some of you might know him from his special features work on various blu-rays with Ryan Verril (find a complete list of their work here). He’s also edited a number of film books, namely American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper.

In this first part, we discuss the precursor film, Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968), as well as the first five official Ghost Stories for Christmas episodes: The Stalls of Barchester (1971), A Warning to the Curious (1972), Lost Hearts (1973), The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974), and The Ash Tree (1975). All of these are adaptations of M.R. James stories, so we talk a lot about him as well — ghost stories and folk horror would not be the same without him.

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and I hope Santa brings you a lot of ghost stories this year!

The post Episode 14: Ghost Stories for Christmas with Will Dodson, Part 1 appeared first on Cinepunx.