John Gilling directed what, on some days, is my favorite Hammer film: The Plague of the Zombies (1966.) Nearly a decade later, he directed his final film in Spain: Cross of the Devil, or The Devil’s Cross,aka La cruz del diablo (1975.) The subject matter of Cross of the Devil is also zombies, but different…

Of the four segments in Cake of Blood (1971) aka Pastel de Sangre, my favorite is the second, ‘Victor Frankenstein’. As the title indicates, the character is a familiar one, but this Frankenstein (Angel Carmona Ristol) isn’t your ordinary monster-maker, and El monstrou (Eusebio Poncela) is even more unique. First of all, this isn’t a…

At one point during Necrophagous (1971), I considered shipping the blu-ray back to Severin Films with a note that the chapters were out of order. For nearly the first hour, I was completely confused about who the characters were and what the heck was happening. Shifting blame from Severin to the film’s editor, Maria Luisa…

Paul Bartel was an openly gay filmmaker who also appeared on screen in over 90 movies and television shows. He directed his first feature film, Private Parts in 1972, which was produced by Gene Corman. Gene’s brother, Roger, subsequently hired him as second unit director on Big Bad Mama (1974) and director on Death Race…

Eloy de la Iglesia was a gay filmmaker best known for portraying “urban marginality and the world of drugs and juvenile delinquency.” Many of his films dealt with homosexual themes. He became addicted to drugs and stopped making films for 15 years, but returned sober in 2003, making one more film before dying of kidney…

David E. Durston wrote and directed episodes of Playhouse 90 in the mid-1950s through 1960, before branching into movies. After four films, though, he shifted to hardcore gay pornography with movies like Boy ‘Napped (1971) and Manhole (1978.) He died in 2010 of complications from pneumonia. With as lurid a title as I Drink Your…