Cultpix Radio

Django Nudo and the Smutpeddler discuss this week’s theme of 80’s American horror films, and why they can only be watched by our North American members. (Clue: rights issues.) But there will also be upcoming themes where the US audience won’t be able to watch some films, so it kind of evens out. But, Cultpix's main goal is as always, to be a truly global streaming platform and cult.

However, the main theme this week is our prominent guest, filmmaker and artist Robert Flanagan, with both New York and Guatemala as his playgrounds!

And more specifically his 1996 film "4 O’Clock", an amazing, no-budget film noir comedy, shot in grainy 16mm!

We give him third-degree interrogation, questioning him on the film; the inspirations, the ideas behind it, the budget, the cast, the music, the cinematography, the dialogue, the editing, the props, the legalities of some locations, and New York as a character of its own in the film.

And also about the film’s recent restoration/makeover from the original 16mm negative!

There is mention of Roberto Rossellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Edward D Wood Jr, Tommy Wiseau, European spy movies, Doris Wishman, surf music and lots more!

You don’t want to miss out on this well-hidden gem, which is finally reaching a global audience, after having been shown theatrically only in New York back in the day.

Django and Smut welcome Kitty back to the Cultpix Studio to look back (slapping alert) in 2022 and ahead to 2023. We start off with what we did over the holiday, mainly the Christmas and Swedish films that were posted, plus a shout out to our three last pod guests: Jimmy, Adrian and Lisa.

We go around the proverbial table to pick out personal favourites from the past year, whether film, theme week, podcast guests, event or other. We do an In Memoria of some of the Cultpix greats that passed away in the past year, including funny/sexy Kitten Natividad, "Cannibal Holocaust" director Ruggero Deodato, Tim Lucas' wife, muse and partner Donna and even Olivia Newton John. 

There is self-congratulation galore as we note how Cultpix has grown over 150% in the past year, even as the like of N****ix lost 500,000 members in UK alone. 

We count down the top ten most watched film on Cultpix in 2022, all of them with a sexy theme, with a fierce battle for the top medal position between Danish erotica compilation and Swedish erotica compilation, but the winner is a film that 'gives porn a good name.'

We look at the top films that people find on Cultpix from sites like Letterboxd, JustWatch and PlayPilot, including "Anita - Swedish Nymphet" (1972), Fleischer Studio's "Superman" serial (1941-1943), and Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" (1935). There is also a good story abput how that last one ended up published on DVD and on Cultpix. A special mention to our biggest fans and members on social media and IRL - would you believe we get letters sent to us? And you won't guess what's in them. A special mention of members Tightsbury, Lee Bailes, Karen R, Dr Retro, John Corbyn, Cousin H, Disapproving Swede and many more. 

Looking ahead to 2023 we already have lots of theme weeks and films lined up. We will have more theme weeks with Herschel Gordon Lewis and Doris Wishman.  Films from Japan's Daiei studio (NB: Scandinavia only), including Gamera - gigantic flying, fire-breathing turtle; Daimajin – a giant stone statue comes to life; and Zatoichi the blind masseur, gambler and sword fighter.

There will be more films by the extremely productive Swedish director Arne Mattsson, who single-handedly started the myth of 'Swedish Sin' with his film "One Summer of Happiness" (1951). We will feature All Channel Films (NB: USA only): Theme week 1: 7 80’s horror/slasher/gore films. Theme week 2: A mixed bag of cult movies from 1969-1991, including classics like I Drink Your Blood (1970) and three Vice Academy comedies – basically Police Academy ripoffs. We also have Czech classics (wonderful films from the 60’s; vampires, sci-fi and fantasy) and more films from Hungary (Hungarian westerns!!!). That's just a little taster of things to come on Cultpix. 

It's going to be a fun 2023. Please be sure to get in touch with us, because unlike most DJs, we DO take requests. 

The Smut Peddler celebrates Doris Wishman – The Twilight Years

2022 is Doris Wishman’s year. The maverick director was born in 1912 and passed away in 2002, still making movies. She would have turned 110 this year, and it’s 20 years since her passing.

No one will ever make movies like Doris Wishman. She is one of the most prolific women filmmakers in the history of American cinema, a writer-director-editor who created collisions between surrealism and exploitation that feel like they materialized from an alternate universe.

Thanks to Cultpix cooperation with rights holder Jimmy Maslon, and the diligent work of Something Weird Video, AGFA (American Genre Film Archive) and Vinegar Syndrome, we are able to join the celebration, with the first of three theme weeks with a total of no less than 24 newly restored films, starting off with The Twilight Years – a collection of sleazy flicks from the 1970’s, that highlights the queen of sexploitation’s last era of filmmaking. Followed in the Spring of 2023 by the collections The Moonlight Years (black & white roughies) and the Daylight Years (nudist films).

To hold us by the hand and guide us in this week’s episode of Cultpix Radio, is none other than our bestest partner and friend, Lisa Petrucci from Something Weird Video! Lisa knows all there is to know about Doris, and then some!

Lisa discusses and explains about Doris’ personality, filming style, actors, Something 
Weird Video’s amazing Wishman vinyl album, and dives deep into each film of this week’s theme.

Starting off with the most famous/infamous of all of Wishman’s films: “Deadly Weapons” (1974) and “Double Agent 73” (1974), starring the notoriously well-endowed Chesty Morgan. We also get Doris Wishman’s own voice from time to time, talking about working with Chesty, and about other films.

“The Immoral Three” (1975) is a sequel of sorts to the Chesty Morgan films, but without Chesty. It plays like a female revenge drama.

We move on to her gender benders – “The Amazing Transplant” (1970), where a man gets a penis transplant, but the donor was a sex maniac. And “Let Me Die a Woman” (1977), Wishman’s only (semi)documentary, about transsexuals and sex change operations, very controversial at the time.

Her comedy “Keyholes Are for Peeping” (1972) is a pill hard to swallow, starring “the poor man’s Jerry Lewis”, the unbearable Sammy Petrillo, in a mess concocted from various leftovers from the cutting room floor…

“The Love Toy” (1971) is a real roughie, which pushes a lot of buttons today, in terms of its controversial theme, and Doris’ unsympathetic handling of its subject.

From Vinegar Syndrome, we add Wishman’s first two hardcore films, which she sometimes denied having directed, and which were made under pseudonym: “Satan Was a Lady” (1975) and “Come With Me My Love” (1976), the world’s first “ghost porn” movie?

Finally, Doris gets the last word from beyond the grave… and her own Spotify playlist.  

"Isabel Sarli squeezes more sexual frisson into the space between breathing in and breathing out than most of us could spread over a lifetime of ordinary love-making." 
-New York Times

Django Nudo welcomes the Smut Peddler and this week’s guest Adrián García Bogliano, and then leaves for a well-deserved birthday vacation!

Smut and Adrián have an in-depth conversation about the week’s theme: the king and queen of Argentinian sexploitation cinema – Armando Bó and Isabel Sarli. Their film "Fuego" (1969) was a major influence for John Waters (especially Pink Flamingos, 1972), which he talks about here.

The Mexican-Argentinian film director Adrián García Bogliano knows a thing or two about Sarli/Bó and about the modern history of Argentina, as his parent escaped the military junta in the country for Spain, where Adrián was born. He then grew up in Argentina, when the country got a democratic government, and in his youth, he was fascinated by the goddess Isabel Sarli.

She was the former Miss Argentina (1955), met the director Armando Bó, who cast her in her first film in 1957, "Thunder in the Leaves", which contains Argentina’s first frontal nudity in a film. They became lovers (while he was still married) and made 27 amazing erotic melodramas or comedies together, until his death in 1984. She only did two films with other directors. Cultpix shows: "The Female" (1962/1968). The film was exported to the USA, where it was dubbed, re-cut, and got new sex scenes.

This week’s theme has 10 films by Bó, starring Sarli. Adrián discusses some of her most famous films like "Carne" (1968) and "The Naked Temptation" (1966) which was a major inspiration for his own "I’ll Never Die Alone" (2008), as well the couple’s venture into a kind of horror film "Bewitched" (1976).

Adrián explains about the Bó family, where Armando’s son Victor starred against Isabel, and had sex scenes with her, while his dad was still married to Victor’s mom. Victor’s son, Armando Jr, is in turn an Oscar-winning screenwriter in Hollywood today.

They also discuss the films in relationship to the dictatorship of the country. Isabel had met with President Perón, and the clothes designer in her films also dressed Eva Perón. So, there were mixed emotions about Armando Bó’s films, both from the leadership and from the audience.

Adrián has theories of why the voluptuous Isabel never made it abroad (like stars like Sophia Loren or Brigitte Bardot), one being that she only worked with Armando Bó as a director, not for the lack of offers, even from abroad.

Their career is also interesting, as the films changed with the times; where she in the 60’s was mainly a victim in the films, being abused and/or raped, in the later films her characters were much more empowered, taking charge of their lives.

The other films in the theme week are: "Heat" (1960), "The Hot Days" (1966), "Nude in the Sand" (1969), "Tropical Ecstasy" (1970) and "The Insatiable Widow" (1976).

Thank you, Adrián, for all your great insights, stories and analysis of this amazing phenomenon.

Django and Smut feast on the films of exploitation filmmaker extraordinaire Herschell Gordon Lewis (HGL), aka the Godfather of Gore, who went from journalism and TV and radio sports to making nudie cuties, invented the gore genre, did a bunch of other films and then left the movies to teach others how to be a success in marketing and advertising. "Anyone can point a video camera," he said, "but it takes talent to get an audience to come and watch your film." He sure had that talent. 

Cultpix has almost all of his films, starting with nudie cuties such as "The Adventures of Lucky Pierre" (1961), "Nature's Playmates" (1962), "Daughter of the Sun" (1962), "Goldilocks and the Three Bares" (1963), "Boin-n-g!" (1963) where Lewis sends up the sexploitation biz, and "Bell, Bare and Beautiful" (1964), with burlesque legend Virginia Bell.

Lewis then switched tack completely and single-handedly invented the gore genre with the Blood Trilogy: "Blood Feast" (1963) where the caterer/cultist Fuad Ramses asks the classic question: “Have you ever had… an Egyptian feast?”, "Two Thousand Maniacs" (1964) with its epic theme song "The South's Gonna Rise Again", and "Color Me Blood Red" (1965).  His other gore greats included "A Taste of Blood" (1967), "The Gruesome Twosome" (1967), "The Wizard of Gore" (1970) and his last 70s film "The Gore Gore Girls" (1972), "a fascinatingly sick swan song." He also did other genres such as the exposé of smut peddling "Scum of the Earth" (1963), folk horror "Moonshine Mountain" (1964), trippy horror "Something Weird" (1967), delinquents "Just for the Hell of It" (1968) and biker film "She-Devils on Wheels" (1968) and Hillbilly horror  "This Stuff'll Kill Ya!"(1972).  We also have the documentary "Herschell Gordon Lewis: the Godfather of Gore" (2010).

Smut interviews Jimmy Maslon, who saw the popularity of Lewis' films on US college campuses first-hand and had the foresight to start buying the rights to his films long before the advent of VHS. They discuss the movies, music and marketing genius of Lewis.

On Lewis'; career, AllMovie wrote, "With his better-known gore films, Herschell Gordon Lewis was a pioneer, going further than anyone else dared, probing the depths of disgust and discomfort onscreen with more bad taste and imagination than anyone of his era."

And dig the HGL Spotify playlist.

Django and Nudo are joined by Kitty Lash at Castle Cultpix to reminisce about the greatest screen Dracula of all time,  Bela Lugosi. It all started in Lyon, where Django and Smut where attending the MIFC convention, where they met the Hungarian Film Institute, who promised them the oldest known silent film footage of Bela Lugosi on the day he would have turned 140.

We start off with a clip from "The Phantom Creeps" (1939), the 12-part cinema serial where Bela plays a mad inventor planning on releasing an army of robots to rule the world - “It can make me the most powerful man in the world.”

In this interview Bela talks about being born in Hungary but now being an American, as well as how playing Dracula depresses him. He had to leave post-war Hungary for starting an actors' union and remained politically active, but also an American patriot. Here he is encouraging people to donate blood during World War Two.  Yet because of his accent he not only played Central European bloodsuckers but also Nazi's, for example in "Black Dragons" (1941), a quickie thriller in the style of "The Manchurian Candidate". 

He did win recognition as "one of the finest actors to come out of Europe," in this 1951 interview, where he talks about being typecast and the kind of roles he had back in Hungary. He also gave this very candid interview after he was in rehab in 1955 to deal with opioid and alcohol addiction.  Yet his son Bela George Lugosi Jr has spoken about addiction being “the biggest misconception about his father” and a “focus on negative aspects” of his life. 

Part of the reason for this is Tim Burton's film "Ed Wood" (1994), which imagines how Ed Wood first met Bela Lugosi. Johnny Depp's Ed Wood is in awe of Bela, though he himself feels he is a has-been.  “Now, no one gives two fucks for Bela.” Marin Landau discusses the process of becoming Bela, a role that won him an Oscar, and his admiration for him. “In junk movies he was BRILLIANT."

Bela did get to play comedy in one of our favourite films, “Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla” (1951), with nightclub comedians Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo in roles approximating Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

We end up with a mashup of the classic punk-goth song “Bela Lugosi's Dead”, both the original Bauhaus version and the Nouvelle Vague version.

We also have our longest ever Spotify playlist (6h23m), with more cover versions than you can shake a wooden stake at, but also many other tracks about or name checking Bela Lugosi. 

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler are joined by academic Dr. Retro (OK, not his real name), who specialises in film history and is an expert on British cult films and more.

The occasion is the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Longford Report on Pornography, an unlikely 520-page bestseller (no pictures) that argued for the banning of 'obscene' publications, films, plays and broadcasts, spearheaded by Frank Pakenham, aka the seventh Earl of Longford. The Swedish sex ed films "The Language of Love" (1969) and "More from the Language of Love" (1970) became test cases for what could and could not be shown in the UK. 

As one critic pointed out at the time, ‘Nobody makes a sex-education movie like the Swedes. And nobody – but nobody – will make such a supercilious fuss about it more than the British Establishment.' There was particular tension between the British Board of Film Classification/Censors (BBFC), which advised whether a film should get a rating, and the Greater London Council (GLC), which decided for itself as the final arbitrator as to whether to show a film or not in its cinemas - representing one in seven screens across the UK. 

Far from being censorship prone, the BBFC  Secretary (i.e. Director) John Trevelyan and BBFC President Lord Harlech agreed that sex ed films should be accepted, even if they did not allow 'extravagant exploitation'. Trevelyan also engaged in exchanges with foreign distributors to try to understand the films and their social context better. 

The BBFC passed the buck to local councils as to whether approve "The Language of Love" (1969), which the GLC passed with an 'X' certificate, meaning only over-16s could see it. By 1971 127 local authorities out of 169 that the films was submitted to had approved. But there was trouble ahead, according to Dr Retro's study:

"In July 1974 two plain-clothed policemen, Chief Inspector Smith and Police Sergeant Collins, entered the Jacey cinema on Charing Cross Road, where More About the Language of Love had already been playing to audiences five times a day for six weeks. According to Chief Inspector Smith’s account, ‘The cinema has a seedy air entirely in keeping with its clientele and the films they come to watch.’"

It is unusual to get a detailed. eyewitness report of cinema screenings and habits, but while historians can treasure this today, the result was that the film was accused of being 'criminally obscene'. It was the basis for the trial the following year, Regina v. Jacey (London) Ltd, Lionel Parsons and Fancey Associates Ltd, where the three charged was the Jacey Cinema, the programmer Fancey Associates and Lionel Parsons, the cinema manager. People were thus being prosecuted for screening a film that had been passed by the relevant authorities for public viewing. " If they were to be found guilty this case would have serious implications for the whole system of British film censorship.," Dr Retro notes the defence lawyer arguing. 

Shockingly, the Crown WON the case, meaning that anyone could be prosecuted on the basis of 'obscenity'. This is where Lord Longford's 'report', or rather moral crusade, plays such a significant role. 

We talk about the differences between Swedish and British censorship and the implications of the ruling. There is also sound clips from people on the streets (of Dublin) being interviewed about their views on pornography and a clip from the Festival of Light that demonstrated against pornography. We end with Cliff Richards, who marched against the "Language of Love" screenings under a banner proclaiming Sweden to be a hotbed of alcoholism, suicide, gonorrhoea, and pornography, b

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler are joined by journalist and film expert Brian Iskov, author of "Denmark on the Bedside" (2020), a beautiful study-cum-coffee table book about the Golden Age of Danish sex comedies. A wide-ranging discussion that covers:

- The cinema career and life of Brian;

- The book and its creative origins;

- Danish Sin (origins and different from Swedish);

- Annelise Meineche and how "17" got the Danish celluloid nudie ball rolling;

- Change in Danish censorship laws;

- The Bedside films v. the Zodiac/Starsign films (soft v. hard);

- Hardcore makes an entrance (in Denmark and Bedside);

- Ole Söltoft (the curse of Bedside),  Annie Birgit Garde and Birte Tove;

- Mainstream actors appearing in ‘porn’ and public attitude;

- The legacy of Bedside today.

The crazy music at the end is from "Danish Bed and Board" (1972), where everyone is having sex with everyone in the last scene. 

Django Nudo and Smut Peddler get their Lederhosen on (proverbially) to celebrate the best of German vintage smut. But first they toast Cultpix's 888th title, the favourite "Death Race 2000" (1975). Not just ooompha-oompha music, but some catchy tunes for this week's celluloid Kraut fest.

The Kronhausens x 2:

Sexologists Dr Eberhard and Dr Phyllis Kronhausen are Germany's 'white coaters' that give education respectability to scenes of sex and smut in two films. "Freedom to Love" (1969) looks at  lesbianism, illegal abortion, swing clubs and Hugh Hefner; while  "Sex Freedom in Germany" (1970) also features pornographers Owalt Kolle and Beate Uhse.

The Sylt Connection x 2

The island of Sylt as a film subject is an excuse for lots of nakedness. "Naked and Free" (1971) not only includes naked Fräulines, but also spliced inserts of  Jake La Motta and Rocky Graziano! "Ready, Willing & Able" (1971) is about a Miss Sylt contest (clothing not required) at the Eden Playboy Club.

Costume films x 3

Historic and literary settings were a great excuse for boobies on display. "How to Play the Seduction Game" (1970) is a historic sex comedy loosely based on Werner Zibaso’s French classic. "Teach Me" (1972) is a series of erotic vignettes about the sexploits of Lieutenant Ferdinand with Christine Schuberth and Astrid Boner [sic!] It has a weirdly contemporary poster and international titles such as "Ferdinand - tjuren som inte ville" (Sweden) and "The Games Schoolgirls Play" (USA). In "The Sinful Bed" (1973) we hear from the bed about the romping it has experienced over the ages. A good double bill with Mac Ahlberg's "The Bed" (1965). 

The Sweden Connection x 3

"Daughters of Joy" (1968) is a period piece (of ass) in the 'Sexy Susan' (Frau Wirtin) series with Teri Tordai in the lead and also starring Harald Leipnitz from Swedish sex comedy "Do You Believe in Swedish Sin?" (1970). "Moonlighting Mistress" (1971) is the strangely translated title of the German original "I Slept with My Murderess". "The Erotic Adventures of Hansel and Gretel" (1970) had punny international titles such as "Hans og Grete i den forsexede skov" (Denmark), "Hands off Gretel!" (UK), "The Naked Wytche" (USA) and weird one like "Gymni se mia Rolls Royce" (Greece) and
"Favole calde... per svedesi bollenti" (Italy), even though nothing Swedish about the sexy Grimm fairytale.

Others

Also "The Love Keys" (1971), "Massage Parlor '73" (1972), "Office Girls" (1972), "Run Virgin Run" (1973) and "All Around Service" (1974).

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler mourn Kitten Natividad but celebrate the 100th birthday of Bert I Gordon, the director of big creature and small people fantasy films who is still alive. They also announce that the European Genre Film Foundation has acquired the Joe Sarno collection of costumes, props, scripts and more from his widow Peggy Sarno, including the notorious double-dildo rocking horse from Young Playthings (1972). 

Kenne Fant was a talented director who was overshadowed by Ingmar Bergman, just like his contemporaries Hasse Ekman and Arne Mattsson. He often worked with the same actors as Bergmen, including Bibi Andersson and Max von Sydow. Other of his actors had no problem switching between arthouse and exploitation films, like Lars Ekborg (Blonde in Bondage, The Dance Hall), Christina Schollin and others. Special mention to older actor Edvin Adolphson.

As the films were produced by Nordisk Tonefilm, owned by the Swedish labour movement, there are some recurring political/didactic themes: one being criticism against the church and conservative priests, the conflict between rural and urban Sweden, and how young people try to change their lives, despite the grown-up world.

Wings in the Night (1953) - An orphan boy and the vicar's daughter fall in love, but her father is opposed to their relationship.

Young Summer (1954) - Helge Lysvik is a farmer's son. He dreams of a future as a musician, but there are many obstacles on the way. He's also torn between the girl next door and big city life.

The Taming of Love (1955) - The headmaster's wife in the small town has just published an acclaimed collection of love poems. Everyone is curious about who the young lover of the poems might be.

Tarps Elin (1956) - Elin Tarp is an unmarried mother with three children, who lives a hard life in the countryside. Eva Dahlbeck was referred to as “Battleship Femininity” by Ingmar Bergman. 

The Priest in Uddarbo (1958) - A young Max von Sydow impresses with warmth and humor as a young preacher, mobilizing the whole village to build a church. (No exorcism involved.)

The Game of Love (1959) - Colourful and innovative marital comedy. The everyday life scenes are black and white, the fantasy/film scenes are in vivid colour. A weird film. Very hard to understand the target audience for it. But great colour and great performances all around!

The Wedding Day (1960) - Star-studded comedy. A surprisingly outspoken and cynical film, where Max von Sydow screws around, despite his love for his fiancée Bibi Anderson. 

With English subtitles! Done by Smut Peddler himself!!

A memorable line from Christina Schollin as young student Titti, talking to Bibi Andersson, who’s about to marry Max: “Can’t I just borrow him for the night? You’ll have him every day!” Schollin is now matriarch of an acting dynasty and back on stage age 83. 

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (1962) - Based on Selma Lagerlöf's fairy-tale about a boy who shrinks and flies on a goose all over Sweden. One of Sweden’s very few fantasy films, also a great geography lesson.

Django Nudo, Smut Pedler and Kitty Lash devote the 50th episode of Cultpix Radio to celebrate the life and career of the first true male adult star Harry Reems.

Born Herbert Streicher into a Jewish Bronx family in 1947, Harry Reems pursued stage acting in New York but did stag loops to help pay for the rent. The pimply kid with the big nose had come out of the Marine Corps with a hard body, plus he could act. Kitty Lash found Bucky Beaver's Stags Loops and Shorts (1970)  quite the turn on with its authentic and sweaty humping; in Ape Over Love (1970) Harry goes full gorilla (fake suit); while Mondo Porno (1971) foreshadows obscenity troubles to come, though the "judge for yourself" of the erotic "case studies" got Kitty purring again.

Deep Throat (1972) gave Harry fame and notoriety as he became the only US actor to ever be charged for appearing in a film. The case(s) dragged on until 1977 and contributed to his alcoholism. Late in life the love of a good woman saved him as he became a 'church gypsy': "I am not religious. I'm spiritual, 100 percent," he said. He also won belated recognition in the documentary "Inside Deep Throat" (2005). While converting to Christianity he kept his stage name and was happy to discuss his porn past.

A Touch of Genie (1974) is what you'd get if Woody Allan had made porn in the 70s, though Deep Jaws (1976)  is also genuinely sexy and funny.  Both beautifully restored by Vinegar Syndrome. The Love Witch (1970) sees Harry do an 'Alex Guinness' and playing multiple parts - with on-screen Batman-style f/x! Sherlick Holmes (1975) sees him playing the great detective, in More (1975) he is Detective Dick (!) Copper, while Dark Dreams (1975) is a hallucinogenic sex and horror trip.

Harry was shooting films in Sweden and Germany while his legal appeal was under way in the 1970s.: Justine & Juliette (1975) and Bel Ami (1976) are literary adaptations with a veneer of cultural respectability, but primarily gorgeously shot XXX features. Strangest Harry film of all is the non-nude SS Operation Wolfcub (1983) where he's a mercenary infiltrating a neo-Nazi training camp in Swedish forests.

Harry made a return in the 1980s. Trashy Lady (1985) is Harry doing a reverse My Fair Lady on too-classy mob moll Ginger Lynn, while in China and Silk (1984) Harry plays a cop. 

For anyone wishing to learn more about Harry we recommend the New York Magazine article 'The Afterlife of a Porn Star' by Dave Itzkoff, as well as the excellent podcasts by the Rialto Report here, here and here. Of course we also have a Harry Reems Spotify playlist.

Django Nudo and Smut Peddler welcome Kitty Lash back for a nostalgia-filled look back at some lesser known films that only ever made it out on VHS. Django challenges his fellow presenters with "VHS was a SHIT format - fight me!" It sees them give a spirited defence of the mini-monolith like home entertainment format. And what's with the @kadivideo IG account of new films released on VHS. Are they real? Is it all fuelled by anemoia - n. 'nostalgia for a time you've never known'?

Doctor Yes: The Hyannis Affair (1983) - Film roles dried up Brit Ekland when she hit 40 and so she had to do erotic thrillers, including this one that looks like a day-time soap opera, but with nudity. We play the weird intro, that pretty much gives away the whole plot. (No #SPOILER warnings in the 80s?)

Heavenly Bodies (1984) - Dance-offs and aerobics were clearly big in the 80s. This one is more blue collar gritty than flashy Flashdance. But there is no denying the pulsating energy of the synth-heavy score.

Hollywood Hot Tubs (1984) - B-movie queen Jewel Shepard DOESN'T get naked in this low budget comedy, but there is Russ Meyer's missus Edy Williams putting her charms on full display. Adult director Chuck Vincent also did non-XXX films in many different genres, three of which are included here. Definitely one for the late night cable channels like USA and Cinemax (aka Skinmax).

How to Get Revenge (1984) - Linda Blair clearly didn't have a good agent in the 80s. After a series of women-in-prison films, she did this spoof instructional video on how to get revenge. The suggestions might land you in trouble with the law, so don't take this oddity too seriously.

Underground Aces (1981) - Some VHS can't even be sold, and Smut Peddler found this for free in a flea market bin. It has an impressive cast, including  Dirk Benedict (The A-Team) Melanie Griffith, Frank Gorshin (the Riddler) and Michael Winslow (Police Academy's sound machine), in what is basically a Car Wash-knock off about parking valets, with very 80s humour.

Cleo/Leo (1989) - A surprisingly good gender-switch comedy in which adult star Veronica Hart is the gorgeous female body a chauvinist male pig finds himself trapped in. Director Chuck Vincent would often use actors from the adult entertainment industry in more conventional films, albeit still with lots of nudity. Kitty Lash loved it, except the music which she hated. 

Bad Blood (1989) - Misery-style horror of mother who thinks her recently returned biological son is a reincarnation of her late husband. Georgina Spelvin (Devil in Miss Jones) and Randy Spears prove that XXX-stars can have acting chops in this Chuck Vincent R-rated horror. 

No summer pause yet for Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler, who celebrate 5,000 podcast and 1,000 Instagram followers (almost no fakes). Coming up after the summer pause there will be special episodes about the Danish Bedside sex comedies and vintage British smut from Screenbound - with guests!

Cultpix kicked off the partnership with Ukraine's Dovzhenko Centre that will see us release old and more recent cult films from the country in the news, partly as a Fuck You to Putin for trying to wipe out Ukrainian culture. Slava Ukraini!

Return to Treasure Island (1988) - Zany and wacky award-winning animated adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic about the hunt for a buried treasure, with English dub dialogue.

Nordisk ToneFilm was an unusual film producer and distributor that made 58 feature film. It started out supporting community cinemas in Sweden, but branched out quickly to a broad offering of comedies, drama, children's films and more. "One Summer of Happiness" (1958), the first Swedish global nudie export success was one of theirs, as too was the "Lille Fridolf" comedy series.

[NB: The below films all lack English subtitles as-of-yet. We promise that we are working on it.]

Stora Hoparegränd och himmelriket /The Inventor’s Dilemma (1949) - A sort of Swedish Film Noir about an inventor lives in Stockholm's old town in a building for all derelict, drunkards, hobos, prostitutes... and a midget. A melodrama but with beautiful vistas of a lost Stockholm.

Bröllopsdagen/The Wedding Day (1960) - Star-studded urban comedy about runaway bride/runaway groom. Director Kenne Fant would go onto greater things.

Flygplan saknas/An Aeroplane is Missing (1965) - Possibly made just to show how a sea rescue at sea would be executed and how it looks with as much realism as possible. Two pilots who can't stand each other but have to fly together and crash. Top Gun without the aerial dogfights.

Kvinnan gör mig galen/Woman Drives Me Crazy (1948) - Mistaken identity comedy with wealthy aunt plot device, called a "light, elegant, half-crazy Swedish comedy". Music by Boogie-woogie piano player Charlie Norman.

Det var en gång/Once Upon a Time (1945) - Anthology children's film that partly feels like a folk horror when watched today. The Christmas film with the Wise owl, Pappa Bear and Little Troll feels very folklory weird. 

Goda vänner trogna grannar/Good Friends and Faithful Neighbours (1960) - Father and husband who makes life misery for those around him get his comeuppance; a theme also found in  "Morianna" (1965) and "Jokerfejs" (1983).

Vildmarkssommar/Matty (1957) - Strange hybrid of drama and nature documentary in the style of old Disney Nature film, that fits in most of the fauna of northern Sweden. 

We will be back in late August/early September with more cult films, guests and the returns of Kitty Lash.

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler are joined in the studio by Kitty Lash to explore the weird and wonderful world of Mondo films. First we explore parallels between Netflix's "Clark" (2022) and "I - a Summer Lover" (1972), the former starring Bill Skarsgård while the latter his dad Stellan Skarsgård and both getting nude while sleeping with mother/daughters, as well as "The Vicious Breed" (1955). 

Having argued over definitions of 'Mondo' and whether it is right to call tribes 'tribes', we dive into mondo movie maelstrom:

Pigalle Crossing of Illusions (1973) - Spy thriller about stripper smuggling microfilm, but really just an excuse to show off lots of striptease and erotic acts from Moulin Rouge and other Pigalle venues. Include cowboy acts. (In Paris? Pourquois cowboys?)

Mondo Balordo (1964) -  Boris Karloff guides us through a world "throbbing and pulsing with love, from the jungle orgies of primitive tribes to sin-filled evenings of the London sophisticate." And Bedouin pimps - or maybe Lebanese. 

Mondo Freudo & Mondo Bizarro (1966) - We have visionary American 'scumbags' Lee Frost and Bob Cresse to thank for adding an American twist to the Mondo genre with their Olympic International films. "Possibly the creepiest of all the Mondo films," according to Kitty, but sexy in bits depending on your fetish and "strangely erotic". Mondo Bizarro also has an opening credit sequence and music track ripe to be ripped off by Quentin Tarantino.

The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (1968) - In which we are taken on a tour of Rome and Paris by Jayne Mansfield, before she is then killed in a car accident (though not decapitated). Graphic, horrific footage from the crash. Made after her death, the film is narrated by a Mansfield sound-alike, talking about getting her bum pinched in Rome and interviewing tranny beauty queens. Her death car can be seen as part Scott Michael's Dearly Departed tours of Los Angeles. 

Mondo Pazzo, aka Mondo Cane 2 (1963) -  Sequel to their ground-breaking shockumentary Mondo Cane is another beautifully photographed but equally disturbing crackpot travelogue of global gross-outs and international insanity.

Kwaheri (1964) - We now go into darkest Africa. Warning from Kitty Lash: this Mondo film was the most stomach churning, with the open skull brain surgery by the African witch doctor. Cannot be unseen! Plus "wild orgies of the body and mind."

Malamondo (1964) - Early Mondo film about weird teens doing things like skiing nude, distinguished by the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. The score does not so much support the pictures as beautiful photography seemingly there "to give visual accompaniment to a hauntingly sublime score."

Mondo Keazunt (1955) - Four Italians cross the "Green Hell" of the Amazon, with snake fights and piranhas eating a cow alive. Keazuntheit!

Don't miss the sublime Spotify Mondo score collection and we promise to have Kitty Lash back soon. We end with a brilliant Mondo radio ad.

A productive week at the Cannes Film Festival for Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler. There was the launch of the European Genre Film Foundation (EGFF), which aims to research, preserve, restore and promote classic niche films, as well as meetings and deals for more films from British and European libraries. 

Thanks to our friends at Severin we had a 'Shock U Docu' seasons, where the new films included The Real Bruce Lee (1977) cash-in on the kung-fu legend's death, making-of Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Shocking Truth (2000), and Ban the Sadist Videos! (2005) about the UK's 1980s 'video nasties' moral panic. One such film is the low-budget video shocker Suffer, Little Children (1983). We've paired it with obscure Southern slasher A Day of Judgment (1981).

From our mates at Echelon we have an eclectic mix of 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s genre bending films. 

Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster (1965) - Originally conceived as a comedy, this sci-fi/horror parody became a serious sci-fi but with outrageous costumes and premise of Martian Princess coming to Earth (Puerto Rico, specifically) to kidnap women and re-populate her planet. The theme song could have been a hit.

The Magnetic Monster (1953) - Doesn't actually feature a real monster. Instead radiation-electricity 'serranium' threatens to destabilise Earth. A film that put the SCIENCE into science fiction, and is made 65% from recycled stock footage, so much so that an editor was hired to direct it.
 
H.O.T.S. (1979) - Collage sex comedy cashing in on the success of Animal House. The sorority uniform of tight white t-shirts and red shorts is said to have inspired the Hooters informs. Features three (four?) Playboy Playmates, a  former Miss USA of 1972, sexploitation actress Angela Aames, and later genre movie veteran Lisa London in her film debut.

My Mom′s a Werewolf (1989) - Bored housewife gets bitten by pet store owner in the toe (!) and slowly starts turning lycanthropic. Can she hide it from her family and will her daughter be able to reverse the curse in time? Real 1980s nostalgia viewing, plus a rare female werewolf movie.

Time Walker (1982) - Alien mummy from Egypt terrorises US college campus in search of sacred crystals. It was the first rental VHS Django Nudo ever saw, so he goes into a nostalgic reverie. 

The new BluRay of Thriller a Cruel Picture, with a behind-the-scenes docu by Cultpix,  sold out quickly. Meanwhile a new luxurious, limited edition Mexican BluRay release of the film Svart cirkel/Black Circle (2019) is also out.

Plus always a new Spotify playlist. 

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler make fun of Netflix for copying Cultpix's policy of no-censorship and spending its members' money wisely. Smut Peddler has been getting public recognition for his contribution to film history, plus the extraordinary amounts paid for old VHS tapes.   

We then set sail for film Fantasy Island, with lots of flesh exposed.

The Beastmaster (1982) - He can talk to beasts and fights evil wizards. He is Dr Doolittle-meets-Gor! Surprisingly this swords-n-sorcery epic was not a commercial hit when first released in cinemas, but became a mainstay on HBO (so much so that Dennis Miller joked that it was short for, "Hey, Beastmaster's On") and TBS ("The Beastmaster Station"). This film spawned two sequels and popular TV series. 

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) - The first of three Sinbad films, this was made famous by Ray Harryhausen's stop/motion VFX, called Dynavision. Sinbad battles lots of monsters on his quest, but it is the sword fighting skeleton that proved the most popular, resurrected in Jason and the Argonauts, and arguably inspired the original Cyberdyne 101 Terminator model. Also one of the best movie scores ever by Bernard Herrmann.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) - The third voyage of Sinbad and Ray Harryhausen spent a year and a half on the VFX, but the stop-motion started to look dated in the age of Star Wars. Still a good kid's fantasy epic, with a baboon playing chess with Jane Seymour. Sinbad has to face down an evil witch, but it's the creatures we remember.     

Dr Cyclops (1940) - Dr Cyclops has a lab deep in the jungles of South America where his atomic experiments enable him to shrink living creatures. When four explorers try to stop his dastardly megalomaniac plans for humanity, they find themselves shrunk to doll size. Try battling a dog or a cat, let alone crossing a jungle, when you are the size of a barbie doll! It was the first science fiction film shot using three-strip Technicolor and it looks stunning. 

Amazons (1986) - Roger Corman produced several films in Argentina in the 1980s, including the swords 'n' sandals (and not much else in the way of costumes)  about the legendary all-female warrior tribe. "This is a definite "so bad it's good" movie.The acting is nothing short of atrocious,the fight scenes are incredibly clumsy,the dialogue about equal to an Ed Wood movie and the facial expressions are priceless!" says $TEVE McD's IMDb review. It is hard to disagree.

Tanya's Island (1982) - Tanya tries to escape her abusive artist boyfriend by dreaming herself away to a fantasy island, inhabited by a blue-eyed man-ape. But her monkey-lovin' enrages her BF and love triangle ensues. Stars Canadian singer-model Vanity, known for the Vanity 6 song "Nasty Girl" by Prince. She went from 'Nasty' to Born Again Christian after this.

There are also plenty of other Fantasy films already on Cultpix.

Be sure to catch all the musical action in our Fantasy-tic Spotify playlist.  

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler discuss what qualifies as a 'quality' cult film and whether there are enough of them on Cultpix (answer: No, but check back with us after the Cannes Film Festival). There is also the Nigh of the Living Dead (1968) screening at Bio Aspen in Stockholm on Sunday 15 May.

Stranger Than Paradise (1984) and Monty Python's Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook ("My hovercraft is full of eels,") leads us to this weeks film theme: Magyar kultfilmek! Courtesy of the Hungarian National Film Institute. 

Meteo (1989) - A dystopian cyberpunk science fiction thriller with extraordinary atmosphere and plot, like a cross between Escape from New York and Blade Runner. Three friends living in a deserted industrial estate plot of cyber heist of a race track. "Humming with kinetic energy and stylized in punk-industrial neons, a dystopian future-noir from the Budapest outlands," says Mubi. Disapproving Swede points to influences by French  “Cinéma du Look” films such as Diva and Subway.

Kisértetek vonata / Ghost Express (1933) -  Seven people are stranded on a stormy night at a remote, unmanned railroad station past which, every midnight, steams the "ghost" of a train which wrecked there 20 years ago. Notable for performance by Marika Rökk, Hungary's answer to Ginger Rogers and Rita Hayworth, who toured Nazi Germany during the war and was later revealed to have been a Soviet spy. Hitler was so smitten with her that he sent her flowers and a card after one of her performances. 

Dögkeselyü / The Vulture (1982) - Hungary's answer to Taxi Driver. A man is robbed by two older women and when the police are unable/unwilling to help he takes matters into his own hands. It is the kind of gritty crime films that did not get made in socialist countries, but somehow this one did. According to Wikipedia, "The film was considered so dark at the time that it was only allowed to be shown in certain socialist countries without certain scenes (especially the ending)." Also the first Hungarian film to use steadicam.

Away from Hungary, it's a UFO special this week:

Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) - Probably the greatest B-movie sci-fi poster of all time. Horny teenagers making out in cars encounter aliens that have landed in flying saucers. Originally released as a double feature with I Was a Teenage Werewolf, it is a sci-fi film that doesn't take itself to seriously, but was the first film on the theme of US government coverup of UFOs. Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings says that, "it may be THE quintessential aliens vs. teenagers movie. It’s certainly gorier than you might guess (particularly when the aliens encounter a bull), and there is something about the way the aliens attack with needles coming out of their fingers and injecting you with a fluid that definitely gets under your skin." Consider yourselves warned! 

Don't miss this week's Hungarian themed Spotify playlist, featuring Marika Rökk and Kontroll Csoport.

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler thank the early VIP members of Cultpix, over 90% of whom renewed their membership a year after launch. Truly a cult!

Looking ahead there is HD films from Echelon, Hungarian Film Institute (wacky!) and Ukraine. More deals to be signed at the Cannes Film Festival this month, plus a bit announcement. And Night of the Living Dead at Bio Aspen in Stockholm 15 May.

The Uschi Digard double Theme Week has just concluded, even though we have barely scratched the surface of her voluminous output. Thanks to the Rialto Report interview with Uschi, Smut Peddler finds that online sources claiming that she is Swedish and went to Catholic nun school in Sweden are all fake.

Uschi is actually Swiss - and that's not all we uncover, as we work our way through a selection of her early filmography in chronological order:

The Scavengers (1969) -  First film where Uschi Digard has a credit in a feature film. Lee Frost directed this western roughie with whippings and nudity.

Getting Into Heaven (1970) -  Sex-lite comedy best described as frothy and frolicsome except that the women in this picture are naked and having simulated sex with deformed looking men.

Oddly Coupled (1970) -  Shy photo nerd kidnapped by carload of pretty girls, but prefers fish instead of women. Original title: Betta Betta in the Wall, Who’s the Fattest Fish of All?

Private Arrangement (1970) - The Playpen cruise is actually an orgiastic yacht party. But when a member turns up dead it becomes a whodunnit-with-boobs.   

Sandra, the Making of a Woman (1970) - Small-town girl relocates to LA where she moves in with Uschi, who promptly makes a move on her. 

Coed Dorm (1971) - Semi-musical nudie comedy with Uschi a member of The Farouk U All-Girl Topless Tabernacle Choir.

A Touch of Sweden (1971) - Uschi uses her best (fake) Swedish äccent tö tell störies öf sexuål ädventures. 

Skin Flick Madness (1970s) - Loop of Uschi in a grindhouse cinema 'inspires' couple watching to get frisky. 

Hawaiian Split (1971) - Say Aloha to drugs, violence and nudity. Rene Bond co-stars in this with Uschi as "bimbo". 

The Big Snatch (1971) - Uschi and four other women kidnapped by lowlifes in this mean and nasty ultra-sexy roughie.

The Goddaughter (1972) -  Uschi murders a man by smothering his face in her tits; it's not even the strangest murder method. Vagina firing bullets, anyone?

The Black Alley Cats (1972) - Black & white female vigilante gang in cool leather jackets.   

The Secret Dreams of Mona Q (1977) - The film the Troma Kaufmann brothers deny ever making! (Liars.)

And of course there's a Uschi Spotify playlist. 

Django Nudo and The Smut Peddler crack open the proverbial champagne to celebrate One Year of Cultpix. It is 12 months since the most weird and wonderful collection of film ever assembled for streaming were launched on an unsuspecting world. What a trip it has been.

The good news is that with prices of everything going up, Cultpix membership fees stay the same. So if you were one of the early VIP members, renewing will cost you just $49 still - that's less than one dollar per week for unlimited films! For everybody else the price stays $59 for 12 months or $6.66 per month for the rest of 2022.

(Spend your savings in our merchandising store! Buy Christina Lindberg coasters!!)

DN and TSP discuss memories of what it was that sparked the creation of Cultpix in the first place (declining DVDs, censorious streamers, furlough fun, etc.) and what the build-up to the launch was like.  There were some sweaty moments, but we have a great IT team that saved the day many times.

We then pick ten things from the past year (five each) to look back on that stood out. These include friends of Cultpix (we have over 25 film content partners - and three more soon), our amazing members and fans, the Weekly Exploiter newsletter, creating our own genres (80s VHS workout tapes anyone?), being a 'safe space' but not woke, Kitten themes and why we love to see our films on the big screen. 

We play a lot of clips, trailers, music, interviews and other ear candy as we look back. 

As a finale, we count down the Top 10 most popular films on Cultpix in 2022. What is the obscure Swedish nudie cutie that made the cut? Which three Kitten films are so popular? A woman director in the Top 3? And the #1 film that nobody expected. 

There will be a break for Cultpix Radio over Easter, but look out for some Cultpix Easter treats on the site in the meantime. We will be back later this Spring with the 

It's the big Four-Ooh Episode, so bad luck that Django Nudo has caught Covid and Smut Peddler is not impressed. Two films that were left out of last week's Women-in-Prison theme get name-checked ("Jungle Warriors" 1984 and "The Hot Box" 1972) .

Biker films is this week's theme, but while you may know "The Wild One" (1953) and "Easy Rider" (1969) some of these are so obscure that director, production year and official film poster are all unknown. Not even IMDb has this info!

Devil's Angels (1967) -   John Cassavetes is a bad biker in this Corman sequel .

The Hard ride (1971) - Vietnam war and racial issues in a biker movie that tries to make a social statement.

3 from Florida:

Savages from Hell (1968) -  Bikers, beach parties, body painting, death by dune buggy.

It’s a Revolution Mother (1970) - Authentic footage of bikers, peace protestors, and the crowd at a rock festival in this self-described "Documentary of Love" with anti-establishment rant dubbed over it.

Road of Death (1973) - Marvellously rock-bottom, R-rated, shot-in-Florida biker/revenge flick so cheap and sleazy and amazingly godawful that it’s a sick delight from beginning to end.

3 Dirty Ones by A.Non:

Hard riders (1970s) -  Mix hardcore sex scenes with footage from an oddball, R-rated biker flick and you get this oddity with Rene Bond.

Bad Bad Gang (1970s) - Jane, Eve and husbands Kane & Able (!) drive to Garden of Eden campsite, but are assaulted by a Bad Bad Gang of bikers called The Cobras.

Sex Bikers (1970s) - Motorcycle gang called The Pigs wear jackets that declare, 'Pigs is beautiful.'  Vanessa del Rio pulls a steel chain out of her... well, like a rabbit out of a hat magic trick.

(Dig the Dragon Art Theatre disclaimer!)

Oldies:

Teenage Devil Dolls (1955) - Quasi-documentary style teenage crime drama.

Girls from Thunder Strip (1966) -  It's male bikers vs. female bootleggers.

Acid Eaters (1968) - A bunch of 9-to-5 working stiffs who become drug-crazed bikers on the weekend!

Ride Hard, Ride Wild (1970) - Fake 'Danish' biker sexploitation film. 

Black Angels (1970) -  White motorcycle gang vs. a black motorcycle gang.

Hollywood Man (1976) - Film crew shooting motorcycle stunt epic v. the Mob.  Features a gang of psycho bikers. Because it's the 1970s.

Plus Motorkavaljerer (1950).

Music was key for Biker films, so we have an extra juicy Spotify playlist and end with 'Born to be Wild' - sung by Kim Wilde!

Smut Peddler has been busy with a film project, while Django Nudo enjoyed a trashy 1980s VHS Rewind revival. But this week it is Women-in-Prison (WiP) films: sadistic lesbian wardens, cat fights, strip searches and shower scenes, are just some of the WiP tropes.

Born Innocent (1974) Linda Blair's first of three WIP films. The rape scene in the shower with a brush handle was so graphic and disturbing (in a TV movie!) that it was cut from subsequent releases.

Women in Chains (1972) Ida Lupino reprised her role as sadistic female warden, which she first played in “Women’s Prison” (1955). Here a female parole officer goes undercover to expose the brutality, violence and deaths, only to be mistaken for a permanent prisoner. 

Great Escape from Women’s Prison (1976) Asian WIP film, set during the Japanese occupation of Korea. A mother and daughter both end up in jail. The torture is far from as sadistic as you might have expected.

Women of Devil’s Island (1962) French prostitutes and female political prisoners on the hellish French penal colony island are caught between pirates and soldiers. Swashbuckling and sexy, scantily-clad gals galore!

Caged Women (1970) - This revolting women-in-prison film looks like it was shot in someone’s house. The girls are wildcats, the guards are hairy pigs, there’s tons of lesbianism and the action is semi-hardcore. Crude and dirty.

Girls in Chains (1943) - Proto-WIP film, set in a female juvenile correctional institution. A newly arrived teacher picks a fight with a corrupt wicked female warden.

Swamp Women (1956) - Another steamy break-out WIP; it’s really just an excuse for the female convicts to wear as little as possible. 

Kattorna / The Cats (1965) - The closest Sweden ever got to making a women-in-prison movie: cat fights and steaminess in a laundry. The hated female boss has lesbian inclinations.

The Lustful Turk (1968) - Women-in-harem-cum-prison, in what purported to be the most expensive adult film of its time.

Love Camp 7 (1969) - Nazisploitation story of an all-female POW women-in-prison film. 

Black Mama White Mama (1973) - Pam Grier leads a breakout from a steamy tropical jail chained to her white co-star.

Also The Hot Box (1972) and Jungle Warriors (1984), plus 

Lisa Petrucci of Something Weird Video joins Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler to discuss the career of David F. Friedman, whose theme week it is on Cultpix. (We completely forget to mention that Cultpix is now on JustWatch and PlayPilot!).

The Prime Time(1958) - Friedman's debut films had all the hallmarks of the things that would characterise his exploitation oeuvre (spanking!) and showed how much he had learned from film maker showman Kroger Babb

The Defilers(1965) - Friedman "brought his own personal quirks, or fetishes or things he would be passionate about, whether it be carnivals, spanking or whipping to his films," say Lisa.  So too in this film about two juvenile delinquents who date and degrade women. He invented the term 'roughie', but also his 'best film alongside She Freak.'

The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill(1966) - A period piece, for which Dave probably borrowed costumed from one of the major studios. One of only two films his 'discovery' Stacy Walker starred in. 

The Brick Dollhouse(1967) - More of a crime story, but with flashbacks where everyone is nude. "The pot party orgy scene is the most tame orgy you have ever seen," laughs Lisa, or a pot party through the eyes of a middle-aged square man.

Space Thing ( 1968) - "The worst sci fi film ever made," said Friedman. "It makes Plan 9 seem like Citizen Kane." Judge for yourselves. 

She Freak(1967) - "She Freak is almost a documentary," says Lisa, as all of the carnival scenes were shot at a real carnival. The dazzling new 4K restoration by AGFA, "just makes your eyes happy." Probably Friedman's most mainstream film, which he put his heart and soul into.

Thar She Blows! (1968) - A provocative title, to say the least, but it is David F Friedman coming up with a new theme for showing people getting naked: Boat Sex (with castration!).

The Head Mistress(1968) - Dave going back to historical nudies. Dave liked to bring a bit of 'fanciness' to his films, this one based on The Decameron. 

Brand of Shame (1968) - One of 4-5 films Dave made in 1968 and not one of Lisa's favourite films - despite featuring the original Django Nudo!

The Lustful Turk(1968) - At the time it was the most expensive adult film ever made! Features spanking (of course).

That's Sexploitation (2013) - Directed by Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case) it was a group effort to tell the story of exploitation cinema. It was the last thing Something Weird did with Dave and also the last film of Mike Vraney before his cancer diagnosis. Lisa also reveals the time she wore a nurse uniform and handed out sex ed leaflets to audiences.

There is also a Swedish TV special with Dave and Mike. Lastly there is the time Dave dropped acid with Cary Grant! Plus an exclusive on Dave Friedman's unpublished book.

Don't miss the Friedman Spotify playlist.

The Smut Peddler is not amused by Django Nudo's bass player jokes. Shameless plug for the Jens Bådd special edition DVD combo package and JustWatch launch is imminent. Then we rock out big time to some of our favourite music films from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Wild Guitar (1962) - Arch Hall Jr might not have been anybody's idea of a rock idol, but his dad was a film producer, so this is how he got his rockin' start. He then went on to appear in The Choppers and The Sadist. 

Disk-O-Tek Holiday (1966) - One of the best preserved rock films, scanned from the original negative and starring  20 great performances by vintage rock acts culminating in an astounding "almost live" medley by Freddy Cannon and the Ramrods.

Musical Mutiny (1970) - The multi-talented Barry Mahon directed this rock film about the ghost of a pirate taking over a theme park and staging a rock concert. Iron Butterfly perform on stage in this lunatic time capsule from an era long gone. 

Toomorrow (1970) - This bizarre sci-fi musical about a dying aliens seeking 'vibes' from a pop band on Earth was such a disaster that the lead, a young Olivia Newton-John, gave up acting for eight years, until her agent persuaded her to do Grease. Has to be seen to be believed.   

Rock'n'Roll Nightmare (1987) - Rock band practicing in isolated farmhouse get more than they bargained for when evil haunts the place and turns the band members into demons from hell. Based on the success of this Canuxploitation, director John Fasano would the following year go on to make: 

Black Roses (1988) - Metal band come to play in a small town. Conservative parents are won over, but wait until they see the band hypnotise their children into crazed murderous hordes. The demon band on stage looks like Finnish band Lordi. 

Hell′s Bells - the Dangers of Rock′n′Roll (1989) - Documentary warning about the dangers of the Devil's music - if the previous two films were not warning enough. 

Ola & Julia (1967) - A Romeo-Juliet story of singer meeting actress but their band/troupe don't get on. Stars real-life singer of Ola & the Janglers. 

Grejen (1966) and Drra på - kul grej på väg till Götet / A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Gothenburg (1967) - popular Swedish 60's band Lee Kings, joined in the latter film by a bunch of other popular Swedish bands (and comedians as their managers) who go on a madcap race from Stockholm to Gothenburg. Singing ensues. 

Under ditt parasoll / Under Your Parasol (1968) - The band Sven Ingvars went broke (literally) making this bizarre road movie-musical: promenade orchestra 1912, pop band with electric guitars and revolver duelling cowboys in Desperado City!

Blödaren / The Bleeder (1982) - Female rock band ends up in an abandoned house with a psycho killer.

Rockin' Spotify playlist here.

Fresh blood in the Cultpix Radio studio as The Chilean joins Django Nudo to talk about the quantitative study what our members think of Cultpix. Overall very positive, but still room to improve and requests ranging from Roku app (coming!) to Jess Franco films (working on it).

Then The Smut Peddler rises from the grave to introduce our first Mondo theme week, looking at Sexy travelogues from around the world, to be followed by Mondo Tribal this spring.  These exploitation pseudo-documentaries originated in Italy - hence great music by Ortolani, Umiliani and Morricone -  but soon became a label to slap onto almost any type of episodic film with nudity, gore or more.

Hollywood’s World of Flesh (1963) - The US version of the Mondo genre the we covered two weeks ago in the Lee Frost theme week. Seedy underside of tinseltown 'exposed'.

Women of the World / La donna nel mondo (1963) - A look at customs and rituals of women (often naked) from every corner of the world. Voice over by Peter Ustinov, who voice lends it  class and distinction... even during the icky parts! Fascinating documentary featuring actual, often startling, footage from around the globe.

Sexy Proibitissimo (1963) - A sort of Mondo Stripteaso with a couple of monsters inexplicably thrown in. It works its way forward from Stone Age, disrobing through historical moments and ending in space. But not before a nudie take on vampire and Dr Frankenstein. A fun, titty-filled Italian “Sexy” released in the U.S. by Bob Cresse (who also wrote the narration).

Violated Paradise (1965) - Japanese travelogue, financed by Italians and directed by an exiled Russian.  We follow the geisha Tamako on a seditious trawl around the fleshpots of Japan. Topless female pearl divers, bathhouse geishas, and glitzy nude Ginza cabaret.

Chained Girls (1965) - Tagline: “Wild Women Who Need No Men!” It’s “A Daring Film About Lesbianism Today'. We are informed that 'Psychiatric examinations have shown that lesbians had fathers that are psychopathic, alcoholic, or tyrannical!'

Mundo Depravados (1967) - Not so much a true Mondo film as much as a cash-in on the term. Instead it’s a sick nudie-whodunit with some nasty murders, a bit of old-time burlesque courtesy of titanic titted Tempest Storm.  One minute it's a nudie, then a comedy, then women are getting stabbed, then it's a burlesque show. Your head will start spinning long before it's through.

Rio Nudo (1969) - The swingingest, sleaziest travel video that could only be made in South America -- where life is cheap! Rio Nudo is just the ticket for anypone who wishes they could travel back in time and see what Brazil's Rio was like in the Sinful Sixties. 

Rapport från Stockholms sexträsk (1974) - Never screened outside Sweden, so Cultpix fittingly named it Mondo Stockholm for the international audience. A Taxi Driver-like night time crawl through the sleazy streets of Stockholm with hookers, porn shops, XXX cinemas and more.

Don't forget our Mondo Spotify playlist and please rate and review us wherever you get this podcast. 

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler have long been fans of Women in Fur Bikinis. These films roughly fall into one of two camps (tribes): contemporary jungle and pre-historic cave woman films. We have both!

"Bowanga Bowanga" (1951). - A tribe of white women in Africa? You betcha. Fifties Glamour Girls in skimpy jungle bikinis! "Nothing less than the Single Greatest Jungle Movie Ever Made." (says SWV.)

"Attack of the Jungle Women" (1959) - Developers from the Pan American Highway Commission stumble upon female tribes in the unfriendly jungles of Central America. 

"Virgin Sacrifice" (1959) - Juicy little jungle thriller "Actually Filmed in Guatemala, Featuring Vicuni Savages!" Brutal opening scene of woman sacrificed by savages in ritual masks. 

"Tarzana, the Wild Girl"  (1969) - Guys love Tarzan. Guys love tits. Combine ’em and you’ve got the guy-friendly Tarzana, the Wild Girl, a fun, cheesy, wonderfully stupid and marvelously bare­ breasted Italian jungle epic.

"Tarzun and the Valley of Lust" (1970) - A rude and raunchy risque romp in the woods with wild animals, wilder women, and the wildest tribe of ooga-booga native stereotypes.

"Trader Hornee" (1970) - A hilarious, big-budget sex comedy from producer David F Friedman ("The Erotic Adventures of Zorro"), who will soon get his own Theme Week on Cultpix. 

"Jungle Blue" (1978) - Strangest hybrid of exploitation sub-genres: late 70s jungle movie craze meets crime thriller with copious amounts of X rated action.

"Prehistoric Women" (1950) - Tagline: "Savage! Primitive! Deadly!" Stone age women hate men but need them for mating. Women capture men. Man escapes. Man discovers fire. Man returns with fire. 

"Wild Women of Wongo" (1958) - Cute cave girls and beefcake cave men abound in this "enjoyable goofy cult oddity so amazingly stupid that it's almost profound."

"Not Tonight, Henry!" (1960) - Nudie cutie where henpecked hubby drinks away his sorrows in a local bar and dreams himself back to historical romantic settings, all the way back to the sexy Stone Age.

"Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" (1967) - Peter Bogdanovich direct Mamie Van Doiren wearing seashell bikini in this second re-edit of Soviet sci-fi film.

"One Million AC/DC" (1969) - Nudie caveman comedy with a script by Ed Wood! Rubber dinosaur tears fur bikini off woman and then eats her.  Fat cave man looks directly into the camera: "Tragedy is done." 

"Cave Women" (1979) - Annette Haven takes an anthropological look at sex in the stone ages.

"Cave Girl" (1985) - High-school nerd accidentally travels back in time and encounters stunning cave girl that he tris to bed.

Listen to our rockin' Spotify playlist. Also the Norwegian James Bond parody "Jens Bådd" DVD and t-shirt are now available to buy.

Django Nudo gives Smut Peddler a verbal spanking, celebrate George A Romero's birthday; free-to-view films on Cultpix; a new Top 10 and the kids film by Boarna Vibenius.

The career of Lee Frost (1935-2007) pretty much covered every genre going: nudies, comedies, westerns, war films, thrillers and more, as director, producer, DoP, editor and sometimes actor.  According to IMDb: “Lee Frost rates highly as one of the best, most talented and versatile filmmakers in the annals of exploitation cinema.” 

"Surftide 77" (1962) - Frost's directorial debut, about a private eye who has to find a girl with a butterfly-shaped birthmark on her breast. So an excuse to show lots of breasts.

"House on Bare Mountain" (1962) - is a particular obsession of ours, not least as it is where the Cultpix Radio ident comes from with the still of  the werewolf and the beauty. Producer Bob Cresse is back in drag as Granny Good who runs a charm school that's actually a bootleg operation. 

"Hollywood’s World of Flesh" (1963) is Frost's early take on the Mondo genre, a  hilariously bogus “documentary on the film capital of the world”. 

"The Defilers" (1965) - Two amoral and sadistic rich kids "guzzle liquor, smoke grass, cavort with masochistic beach bunnies, and eventually kidnap and imprison a beautiful young girl."

"Hot Spur" (1968) sees Frost tackle the Western, as a young man takes a job on a ranch, just so he can take down a high-and-mighty 'cowbitch' - kidnapped, beaten and tied up in revenge for what the woman and her husband did to his sister. 

"Love Camp 7" (1968) - created the Nazisploitation genre. Two busty female US officers seek to infiltrate a women's POW camp in Nazi Germany to... well, it's not important to the plot. They get caught, with torture and misogyny ensuing. 

"The Animal" (1968) - Perhaps Frost's most disturbing film. Ted Andrew boozes, smokes pot and spies on women neighbours through his telescope. "He made her an animal... Now all he needed was a leash!" is the unforgettable tagline. 

"The Pick-Up" (1968) - Another legendary 'lost' roughie that SWV found in Copenhagen of all places, thanks to a Scandi tour arranged by Klubb Super8. Friedman and Cresse play mob gangsters out to collect some money and torture chicks who steal it.

"The Scavengers" (1969) - Tagline: “They spell love like you’d spell lust, and they’ve already turned ten towns to dust!” This western sees Confederate soldiers trying to rob a Yankee coach of its gold.

"Ride Hard, Ride Wild" (1970) - Cashing in on the twin-trends of biker films and Scandi nudies, this pretend Danish film sees Lee Frost credited with 'Dubbing Supervisor', but we suspect the 'Elov Peterssons' directing credit is one of his many aliases.  We end this episode with the movie's theme song. 

"Zero in and Scream" (1970) - "When a man climbs on top of a woman, she becomes ugly!" explains a proto-Incel sniper. Tapping into the Manson/Zodiac zeitgeist, this film is unique in being filmed extensively through the scope of a rifle.

This week's Spotify list.

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler sink their teeth into a bevvy of sexy vampire-themed films - Peddler from inside a tomb (sorry for mic problem). But not before celebrating new features on the site, including a Comments field for every film, a weekly Top Ten, movies Free to View for all (registered) and a special category for Vinegar Syndrome films. Integration with PlayPilot, JustWatch and Letterboxd is imminent and Roku, Android and iOS apps not far off.  There is also the cinema screening of "Besökarna / The Visitors" (1988) at Stockholm's Klarabiografen this Sunday 30 January 14:30. 

"Dracula (the Dirty Old Man)" (1969) finds the Count living in a cave, sporting a Jewish accent, bad hairpiece and called 'Mr Alucard' (Dracula backwards). His sidekick Irving Jackalman brings nubile women to the cave to be tied, stripped and have their breasts bitten by a bat.

"Guess What Happened to Count Dracula?" (1970) is wackiness of the highest order. Sporting a goatie beard and bad Bela accent, Count Adrian and his ghouls run "Dracula’s Dungeon," a bizarre Hollywood nightclub. 

"Sex and the Single Vampire" (1970). John Holmes is Count Spatula in his acting debut, where he tried to be funny and only gets his famous schlong out towards the end. Horny couples arrive at a haunted house for the Count to ogle and try to drain them of blood. Rude, raunchy, and ridiculous horror sex comedy.

"The Vampire Happening" (1971) is what happens when you cross "The Fearless Vampire Killers" (1967) with "Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975). Pia (Elvira Madigan) Degermark is a Hollywood actress who inherits a castle in Transylvania.  Director Freddie Francis considered this nudie horror parody a 'disaster', but it is fun viewing today. 

"Dracula Sucks" (1978). Prof Van Helsing thinks bite marks on patients at a sanatorium are the work of Dracula in this film, considered the most star-studded X rated film ever made, with Annette Haven, Seka, John Leslie, Serena, John Holmes (again) and many others. 

"Vampire Hookers" (1978) sees a bevy of female vampires lure their customers back to the lair of aged vampire (John Carradine).

"Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire" (1971) is a horror comedy where Dracula lives in Vegas and sends out his female vampires to collect blood in the most unusual ways. Guess where they bite their male victims. Ouch!

There is also "The Sadist With Red Teeth" (1971), "Condemned to Live" (1935) and "House on Bare Mountain" (1962), which all feature vampires in some erotic variant.

We've also curated a Sexy Vampire Spotify playlist for your enjoyment. 

If you are reading this far, write us to tell us what you would like to see on Cultpix and please rate this podcast wherever it is that you're downloading it from. 

It's time for Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler to head to the celluloid ghetto, as they unearth some sweet, sweet Blaxploitation classics. Included here is every type of genre: gangster, women-in-prison, war, thriller, western, motorcycle films and more.

"Black Rebels" (1960/1965) - Delinquents! Drugs! Interracial Violence! And - yipes! - Topless Sex Scenes! Yes, kiddies, here's another excellent ·but­ forgotten B-movie, full of racial tension and a couple of big name stars, turned into Sixties Sexploitation via nudie-movie inserts. 

"Black Brigade" (1970) - Made-for-television war drama with an impressive African-American film cast: Richard Pryor, Rosey Grier, Robert Hooks, Moses Gunn and Billy Dee Williams. A redneck officer is put in charge of a squad of all black troops charged with the mission of securing an important hydro dam in Nazi Germany. 

"Black Angels" (1970) - This loopy yet cynical biker flick about a white motorcycle gang vs. a black motorcycle gang that’s jam packed with absurdities, semi-authenticities, and even some ass-kickin’ action.

"The Black Alley Cats" (1972) - An interracial bevy of beautiesbecome the Black Alley Cats - an ebony and ivory female vigilante group that robs from the rich and gives to the poor. They even force Uschi Digard and two other white chicks to have sex with the token black guy at the party: "You want to integrate? You’re gonna integrate!" These Cats have political claws in their sexual paws!

"The Spook Who Sat by the Door" (1973) - A secret black nationalist is trained by the CIA and later trains and leads black freedom fighters in an uprising against the U.S. government. 70s spy thriller meets Blaxploitation!

"Black Mama White Mama" (1973) - This women-in-prison film unites Pam Grier and Margaret Markov in a feminist/blaxploitation version of "The Defiant Ones" (1958). Cemented Grier's status as female action icon and Queen of Blaxploitation cinema. 

"TNT Jackson" (1974) - Jean Bell was only the second-ever African-American centrefold when she appeared in the October 1969 Playboy issue. Here she kicks kung-fu ass in yet another Blaxploition hybrid as the eponymous T.N.T. IMDB review: “This is so '70s bad Far Eastern martial arts meets black power that it hurts, but boy it hurts so good! I am ashamed to admit that I almost enjoyed it.”

"The Black Godfather" (1974) - Typical gangster/guns/ghetto theme for a blaxploitation movie, where the black hero/thug/anti-hero takes on the bad white mob/drug dealers/cops! Rod Perry just one of many Black sports stars who crossed over to acting. 

"Joshua (Black Rider)" (1976) - Western Blaxploitation is which Fred Williamson is Union soldier turned bounty hunter, who hunts down the thugs that killed his family. Fun fact, in 1973 Williamson posed nude for Playgirl magazine and was known as The Hammer form NFL.

"Mean Johnny Barrows" (1976) - Produced, directed by and staring Fred Williamson this pre-Rambo films sees a Mafia war between the Da Vinci and Racconi family. Time for Johnny to step in. 

Don't miss our cool Spotify Blaxploitation playlist. 

New year, improved Cultpix, same old Django Nudo and Smut Peddler. Season three of Cultpix Radio WCPX 66.6 starts off looking forward to everything new coming in early 2022: more films (lots of Something Weird!), exciting theme weeks, new colleagues, new features to the site and more cinema partnerships, including with Klara Bio, central Stockholm's hippest cinema.

Cultpix kicked of 2022 with a two-week retrospective of the amazing Francesca 'Kitten' Natividad, who combined humour and sexiness in everything she did. Starting out as a burlesque dancer she is probably best known for her two films with her partner of 15 years Russ Meyer. However, before she did those she had already appeared in "Deep Jaws" (1976), a soft-core comedy trying to ride the wave of "Deep Throat" and "Jaws" in the story of a failing movie studio trying to make an erotic mermaid film. 

In the 80s Kitten got to play the lead in "Taking It Off" (1985) and "Taking It All Off" (1987) where she played Betty Bigones who tries to shrink her legendary bust to get more regular acting gigs and later helps a fellow stripper overcome her shyness with hypnosis. Previously she made her own Jane Fonda-type exercises tape "Eroticise" (1983) demonstrating her fitness proves.

Kitten had cameos in several mainstream comedies, including two "Police Academy" knockoffs, "Doin' Time" (1985) and "Night Patrol" (1984), both of which have proved surprisingly popular with Cultpix members. Perhaps more notable than even Kitten in  "My Tutor" (1983) is that it was Crispin Glover's film debut, before he went on to "Back to the Future" and weirder roles. Kitten even did a stint on television, not least as the evil Pumpkin Princess on teen spy comedy  "The New Adventures of Bean Baxter" (1987) and showed that her comedic talent went way beyond jiggling her jugs.

Kitten did not do any male-female hardcore until the 90s, but she appeared in several adult films in the 1980s, many of which are from our friends at Vinegar Syndrome.  "Eat at the Blue Fox" (1983) is about the infamous night club across the US border in Mexico, famed for its 'Donkey show'. "Let's Talk Sex" (1983) is an example of slick and sexy 80s porn. "Ten Little Maidens" (1985) is that rare thing, an Agatha Christie-style porn film with some truly strange kinks. Death by Arsenic-laced vagina, anyone? More hard-boiled type of detective porn in "Titillation" (1982), which is a film that combines funny dialogue, decent acting and hot sex, so much so that it gives porn a good name. Lastly "Bodacious Ta Tas" (1985) is a chance to see Kitten's burlesque skills on stage, as well as doing a female-female scene rather than getting it on with Ron Jeremy.

As always we play clips, trailers and music from her films. Also check out the full podcast interview she did with fellow burlesque dancer Angie Pointani. 

In the last Cultpix Radio WCPX 66.6 episode of 2021 Django Nudo and Smut Peddler celebrate making it through the year and having done something of Cultpix - but 2022 will be a bigger year. You get a little preview of the Sueden Poruno film that screened for the first time in Europe on Monday 20 December, with more to come in 2022. 

The Cultmas (b)advent concludes with the Lovable Eight:

#17 "Toxic Zombies" (1980). Feast on this UK video nasty. Dirty politicians spray weed plantations with poisonous chemicals and turn hippies into blood feasters. The movie that kicked off the redneck zombie sub-genre.

#18 "I Passed for White" (1960). Passing off as white when you have African heritage? Lots of films baaed on the 'tragic mulatto trope' have been made, from "Imitation of Life" to "The Human Stain". This one amps it up considerably. 

#19 "Color Correct My Cock Can F**k Off" (2017). Crazy Canadian cult compilation. The intro to the sequel finds our hosts luxuriating in the heart-shaped bubble bath of a tacky motor inn with hourly room rates. Then it throws strange things at you at whiplash speed, often not even warning you to “Think fast!” a split-second before your retinas are exposed to... everything.

#20 "The Redeemer: Son of Satan!" (1978). Aka "Class Reunion Massacre". More giallo than slasher, but with a scary clown. Six people who have come to their old high school for a reunion find themselves trapped and killed off one by one by a mysterious killer known as The Redeemer.

#21 "Sharon" (1977). Porn comedy about a young country girl who has sexual adventures with pretty much everyone she encounters: friends, relatives and complete strangers she's just met. Proudly shot on location in Atlanta, Georgia (mostly).

#22 "Vintage French Erotica vol. 1" (1902-1950).  So you thought today's erotic stuff on the Internet is daring? Think again! The French had already invented all sexual variations by circa 1910! Here's a compilation of kinky French smut from the silent era, where nothing is left to the imagination! A mix of stag movies from 1902 and onward...

#23 "Joker Face" (1984). Peter Wester (cinematographer on I am Curious – Yellow) directed this one-hour film starring popular Swedish comedian Magnus Härenstam. It consists of separate sketches, each with a different plot. ABBA-Frida shows a great flair for comedy in a small role. Härenstam also played the teacher in ABBA's video for When I Kissed the Teacher.

#24-25 "Retro Christmas Classics Vol. 1" (1940-1960). Celebrate Jesus' birthday the way it was intended - with greedy kids clamouring for toys, creepy guys in bad Santa suits and K Gordon Murray's legendary Santa Claus (1960). Films from the 1940’s through the 1960’s from our friends at Something Weird Video. 

#25 "Retro Christmas Classics Vol 2" (1940-1960) Ring in the holidays with nostalgic Christmas-themed theatre intermissions, weird cartoons, creepy stop-motion animation and Liberace! These classics are sure to delight and disturb! Starring Rosemary Clooney, Liberace

Eat, drink and be merry this holiday, because more wonderful and weird films coming your way in 2022, as well as Season 3 of Cultpix Radio WCPX 66.6. Merry, merry! 

- Smut Peddler and Django Nudo.

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler get further into the Christmas Spirit of bad films so good you'll want to decorate your Christmas tree with them.

First a reminder of the Suden Poruno - They Came From Japan, about the strangest Swedish-Japanese co-productions ever made, showing at Bio Aspen Monday 20 December. We celebrate the 70th anniversary of the film that started the Swedish Sin celluloid reputation. "Hon dansade en sommar / One Summer of Happiness" (1951), which is also a key chapter in the poster book "Do You Believe in Swedish Sin?" that makes for a perfect Christmas present for that special cult film aficionado in your life. 

Now onto the next set of eight (b)advent films:

#9 "Criminally Insane" (1975). If John Waters hade made a serial killer this would have been it. Fat Ethel will kill anyone who gets in between her and food. The film spawned both a sequel and a remake.
#10 "The Love Epidemic" (1975). Australian comedy-documentary aims to teach you about the dangers of veneral disease through a series of skits and lots of nudity. Two of the actors tried to get a junction preventing its release. They failed. 
#11 "Fire Maidens of Outer Space" (1953). A British "Plan 9 From Outer Space" (1959) or a cheap knock-off of "Cat-Women of the Women" (1953)? You be the judge in this story of astronauts who travel to the 13th moon of Jupiter (looks just like the English countryside) and meet an ancient civilisation of scantily clad females.
#12 "The Sword and the Dragon" (1963). Roger Corman re-edited this Russian fantasy epic (over 100,000 extras!), which has some genuinely impressive scenes, such as the Mountain of Men. Peter Jackson no doubt saw it. 
#13 "For Men Only" (1952). US collage hazing rituals exposed in this drama that features major acting talent. Mothers, don't sign release forms absolving fraternities from letting your sons come to harm! The original title "Hell Night" would have been better. 
#14 "47:an Löken" (1971). Swedish military farce about hapless conscripts. Part of a long tradition of Swedish films making fun of the military. That's what 200 years of peace does.
#15 "Just the Two of Us" (1970). Lesbian-themed exploitation drama, also released as "The Dark Side of Tomorrow". The Israeli investor film wanted hardcore sex but the female co-director instead crafted a surprisingly sympathetic sapphic story.
#16 "Tormented" (1960). After Tom lets his ex fall to her death, she comes back to haunt his island wedding. She's the sexiest disembodied head you have ever seen on screen.

As always there is clips, music, trailers and much banter.  And if you have not done so already, please fill in the Cultpix survey to let us know how we can make it even better for you. 

Django Nudo (Secret Santa) and Smut Pedler (Check under your bed!) start celebrating Xmas early with the first eight (b)advent calendar films. But not before some self-congratulatory remarks about the recently concluded Cult Tuesday season with Everyman Cinemas and Bio Aspen. More to come in 2022, including a big screen release of the Nikkatsu Six Sueden Porunu  films, which have never been screened in Sweden before.

Start microdosing on a Very Cult Christmas with a new cult film each day of December:

#1 "AWOL" (1972) is the first of four 'Mastered from Glorious VHS' releases this week, as this film of a US Vietnam war army deserter who escapes to Sweden was almost lost to history, having received just one cinema outing in Sweden. It starts as a dark comedy with porn shoots and CIA skullduggery before getting surreal. Definitely a time-capsule; 

#2 "Cat-Women of the Moon" (1953) is a surprisingly influential independent sci-fi, as it set the template for all-female alien planet tribes subsequently used in many other films. It also has a strong musical pedigree, with a score by Elmer Bernstein and it influenced artists ranging from Pat Benatar to Shakespeares Sister, of which we play a couple of tracks;

#3 "The Clones" (1973) was so ahead of its time in using 'cloning' as a plot device for this early 70s thriller that the producers had to spend the start of the film explaining just exactly what cloning is, before launching into murder, kidnappings and cloning of a scientist (and his clone) on the run; 

#4 "Spaced Out" (1979) is a British sci-fi nudie cutie that Harvey "Scissor Hands" Weinstein though to improve by changing the title, ending, adding more nudity and swapping the space ships A.I. computer voice from camp British to the dulcet tones of Bob Saget. Four British sexually uptight people get abducted by a space ship and learn to loosen up (though no Cartman-style butt probes);

#5 "The People of Hemsö" (1953) is one of four feature adaptations ever made of the famous Strindberg novels. And like all good Swedish films, there's both nudity, drinking and archipelago;

#6 "Christina's Mushroom School" (1993) was an unusual comeback film for the Swedish pinup and exploitation actress, where she takes the audience into the woods and teaches them which mushrooms to eat (nothing magic tho);

#7 "Cocaine Wars" (1985) was one of 10 films Roger Corman made in Argentina in the 1980s. No, we didn't know either that Corman went to Argentin to make films. Add it to the Philippines and Ireland list of his cine-travelogue. Drugs, sex, violence, bad acting and worse dubbing, a car chase with a twist and a Rambo-style poster - everything you want from an 80s VHS film; 

#8 "Scream Free!" (1969) brings together 2.5 stars from "West Side Story" (Natalie Wood's sister Lana is the 0.5), a fact shamelessly promoted on the poster of this hippie-druggie "Easy Rider" rip-off. Reissued in 1989 with nude shots added, scenes slowed down and disco music added, though not by Harvey Weinstein.

Lots more films next, not all of whom will be VHS quality, we promise.

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler welcome you backwards in preparation for this week's big topic: satan(ism).

First there is a quick plug for the last Everyman Cult Tuesday screening of the year, with Christmas special "Silent Night, Deadly Night" (1972) showing on 7 December across UK, introduced by horror guru Kim Newman. There is the Nikkatsu Sueden Porunu films showing in Stockholm. We also welcome The Chilean, our latest edition to the Cultpix Team, who will be helping us with marketing and understanding the mindset of Cultpix members as part of our quest for world domination.

Satan, satanism, its portrayal in popular culture and the virulent satanic panic in the US in the 1980s is the main focus of today's episode. We are fortunate to have the knowledgable Carl Abrahamsson in the studio to talk us through all this. Carl is multi-hyphenate: writer, publisher, musician and film-maker, as well as self-confessed satanist.

Following on from the films, psychopaths and social changes in the US in the 1970s, we trace the emergence of the satanic panic in Reagan-era US, with hysterical tabloid documentaries such as Geraldo Rivera's "Devil Worship - Exposing Satan's Underground" (1989) that links all kinds of lurid murders and crimes to satanist.  Carl makes the point that there was a great deal of projection going on from established religion, covering up its own child abuse scandals at the time. It was easier to blame New Age trends in Mondo-style docus like "The Occult Experience" (1985) or "Devil Worship - the Rise of Satanism" (1989).

We discuss the interesting characters in the interview documentary "The First Family of Satanism" (1989) that pitted radio evangelist Bob Larson against Nikolas Schreck and his wife Zeena, daughter of Anton LaVey (founder of the Church of Satan). Larson is almost the more interesting one with his freak-show style call-in radio show, where he vented against satanism, rock music and role playing games, when he wasn't performing exorcisms (sometimes with his daughter!), even over Skype for $295 a pop.

Carl then talks us through his own journey out of the closet as a confirmed satanism, which is not so much about worshiping the Devil as a form of radical individualism. His music and particularly the song "Sweet Jayne" about the relationship between Jayne Mansfield and Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey. This led to Carl befriending LaVey and winning his trust, which in turn led to the documentary "Into the Devil's Den" (2019) which features LaVey and several other key figures such as Kenneth Anger. Films like this and "Hail Satan?" (2019), which in the words of The Guardian, "portrays the Satanic Temple as a voice of reason and humanism in the US. Has the time come to rehabilitate the dark lord?"

This is an important question, because even though the satanic panic in the US of the 1980s is over - though not before dozens of innocent people went to jail for decades - new and even nuttier conspiracy theories from QAnon are surfacing. 

We end by playing "Sweet Jayne". Hail the Dark Lord, indeed. 

Django Nudo and Smut Peddler are back after a short break. This week they attended the Everyman Cult Tuesday (and Friday) screenings with Christina Lindberg introducing "Anita - Swedish Nymphet" (1973).  On 22 November there will be a Calvin Floyd double bill at Stockholm's Bio Aspen.  We thank our Mystery Santa and give a preview of the Badvent calendar that will have 24 films released in December, one per day, as we count down the 24 days of Cultmast.

From our partners Echelon Studios we have a trio of fun films, including Scandinavia's only kaiju film (make that Europe's only?) in the giant lizard form of "Reptilicus" (1961). The Danish-American co-production was made in two versions, of which you can watch the re-edited American version on Cultpix. Lizard tail found in Lapland mine grows in gigantic lizard rampaging through downtown Copenhagen - with songs!

"BMX Bandits" (1983) is not just Nicole Kidman's acting debut (she was just 16), but also helped solidify BMX bikes as a staple of 80s nostalgia films. There is a straight line from "Goonies" to "Stranger Things" that goes via this kids caper of foiling bank robbers and doing trick rides on cool bikes through Sydney. 

Then there is the Swords & Planets sub-genre of "Gor" (1987), that combines the rampent sexism of the original novels with some heavy weight acting talent: Jack Palance as Xenos (born Volodymyr Ivanovytch Palahniuk!), Oliver Reed as Sarm and Arnold Vosloo  (who was the mummy in The Mummy). Interplanetary nonsense with leather bikinis - no less 80-s than BMX bikes. 

While the poster is the stand-out feature of "The Astounding She-Monster" (1958), there is plenty else to like about this feature that Ed Wood Jr. was un-official consultant to. The budget was tigheter than Shirley Kilpatrick's alien leotard, which ripped on the first of the four days of shooting. As there was no budget to repair it, she had to walk backwards to exit a scene. Shame also that they didn't keep the original title "Naked Invader", which was ditched to appease the censors. 

Japan's first celluloid superhero Starman (Sūpā Jaiantsu, literally translated as "Super Giants") is a combination of George Reeve's "Superman" TV show and Doctor Who, as the alien from Planet Emerald sent to help Earth fight of space monsters in various forms. Edited together from TV shows into four feature films, they are cult classics that screened at the Klubb Super 8/Something Weird festival in Stockholm. Start with "Attack From Space" (1965) and be sure that "Invaders from Space" (1966) is the last one you watch as it is also the best one. 

Since we started with a kaiju film it is only right to end with one as well, as "Destroy All Planets" (1968), aka Gamera vs. Outer Space monster Viras, pitches giant flying turtle monster Gamera battling Viras with the help of some plucky boy scouts.

But what we really want to know is who would win in a battle between Reptilicus vs Gamera or Starman vs the Astounding She Creature?  And why not see BMX Bandits taking on the evil armies of Gor? That would have made for truly interesting films. Or, wait, isn't that what "Turbo Kid" (2015) was? 🤔

Django Nudo and the Smut Pedler discover that the only thing scarier than Halloween Horrors are US sex hygiene scare films.  With sexually frank adult dramas too taboo to be made in the repressed Hollywood of the fifties, other countries' sexually frank adult dramas were imported, shown in “arthouse” theaters, and sold as smut. Like “Unmarried Mothers” (1953), an amiable paean to Swedish maternity homes.

The four “Language of Love” films (1969-1972) are the core of this history of sex ed films. With its graphic intercourse scenes, the Swedish Board of Censors nearly had a meltdown, but could not demand any cuts, as this was clearly ‘educational’. Instead the head of the Board had to take a two-week vacation after seeing the films three times. Björn & Benny (pre-ABBA) made the music for the export version “The Language of Love” (1970),  After the four films there was also “Sweden is Love” (1971), which had a sleazy English voice-over and the most "naughty bits" from the films.

Thanks to Something Weird Video a wealth of sex education/hygiene films have now been rediscovered. The centrepiece here is also a quartet, the “Sex Hygiene Scare Films, Vol. 1” and Two, Three and Four. Each one has a slightly different focus and we couldn’t possibly do them all justice in this summary. But some of them are so graphic they have made people run out from screenings at Something Weird festivals.

In addition we also have “Sex Madness” (1938), from the people who brought you “Reefer Madness” (1936); “Street Corner” (1948) - 'The Most Intimate Moment In Her Life... Ended in Murder!'; “The Wrong Rut” (1949/1962), Ida Lupino's uncredited directorial debut that collides head on with graphic birth-of-a-baby footage. How? Via the hucksterism of roadshow exploitation and the magic of a splice; “Birthright” (1951), an amazing example of how an innocent little sex-ed film is turned into 'Adults Only' smut with two simple, subversive splices; “Mated” (1952), “Scenes formerly restricted to medical books... Now On The Screen For The First Time!”; “The Price of Sin” (Switzerland 1966, re-edited in USA) that gives us abortions, a baby-smothering mommy, and authentic footage of a cesarean birth; “Perversion for Profit” (1965) I & II, the anti-pornography propaganda documentary by Ohio's Citizens for Decent Literature; “Aphrodisiac!: The Sexual Secret of Marijuana” (1971), people who smoke weed get horny and have sex, maaaaaann…; and finally “The Sexually Mature Adult” (1973), which was clearly inspired by “The Language of Love” and is probably the most sex-positive of the US sex ed films. 

Django Nudo is a hoarse host but he and the Smut Peddler still relish the opportunity to spread some Halloween horror that Cultpix members might not be familiar with, as there is 10 films to fright and delight this week.

First there is a rant about why we are not fans of horror sequels and franchises, which is one of the reasons you will only find film made before 1990 on Cultpix (with some exceptions). So enjoy "Halloween XXVIII" in cinemas, but don't forget about the all great horror films still to be discovered. Speaking off which...

"Alice, Sweet Alice" (1976) is worth watching for more than just being Brooke Shields' big screen debut. This proto-slasher inspired by "Don't Look now" (1973) is about a disturbed young girl who may be responsible for a series of stabbings, including that of her younger sister. "Possibly the closest American relation to an Italian giallo," according to Ed Gonzalez and ranked the fourth-best slasher film of all time by Complex magazine in 2017.

"Kids Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things" (1972) sees actors go to an island where criminally insane are buried. Maybe not the best place to perform necromantic rituals that bring the dead back to life. Directed by famed horror director Bob Clark who later did "Black Christmas", "A Christmas Story", and "Porky's." A comedy-horror film that has genuinely creepy atmosphere.

"Beast of the Yellow Night" (1971) is Filipino/American horror film, which has the distinction of being on Garth's wall in "Wayne's World". Beat that for obscure pop reference!

"Blood and Lace" (1971), not to be confused with the Mario Bava "Blood and Black Lace", is an American proto-slasher that looks like it inspired "Halloween" and "Nightmare on Elm Street." Orphan teenage girl arrives in a remote orphanage run by a madwoman (Gloria Grahame, who came out of retirement for this film) and her handyman, both of them sadistic child murderers.

"Billy the Kid versus Dracula" and "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" (1966) were popular drive-in double bill. This rare MWU (monsters western universe) sub-genre sees gunslingers confront horror icons.  Both films were shot in eight days at Corriganville Movie Ranch and at Paramount Studios and were the final feature films of director William 'One-take' Beaudine.

"Pigs" (1973) is the first in the animals-eat-humans double-bill, with pigs developing a taste people, while "The Corpse Grinders" (1971) sees corpses used for cat food, only for kittens to develop a taste for human flesh. It also has the most gratuitous poster of all ten films.

"Monsters Crash the Pajama Party" (1965) is an interactive horror films where the monsters would come off the screen and kidnap women in the audience, who then appear on-screen. You get a good idea of what it must have been like to watch it in cinemas. Great fun form Something Weird Video.

"Besökarna/The Visitors" (1988) is that rare beast - a Swedish haunted house film, restored by the Swedish Film Institute with some impressive acting talent. 

We end with the track "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" by Finnish heavy/doom metal band Wolfshead. Happy Halloween!

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler start on a somber note with the recent death of friend and colleague Michele de Angelis at the age of just 56. Together with Simone ("Ciao Simone,") he was the driving force behind Rome's Fantafestival, where he interviewed Smut Peddler this summer in connection with the Calvin Floyd retrospective. RIP.

Our next two cinema screenings will be a Sex Education double-bill at Stockholm's Bio Aspen on  Monday 25 October with Mariah Larsson introducing "The Language of Love" (1969) and "More From the Language of Love" (1970), newly restored by the Swedish Film Institute.

In the UK Everyman Cinemas will play also-restored "Anita - Swedish Nymphet" (1972) on 18 November with Christina Lindberg to appear in person at Everyman Broadgate and Screen on the Green on the Friday. Get a chance to see, meet and hear from the greatest Swedish exploitation star of all time.

This week Cultpix goes late night, double feature, sci-fi picture show with Planet Schmanet Janet. As everyone from Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson to William Shatner boldly going where a handful of men have already gone before, we look at the fascination of trips to other planets in our solar system. Fuelled by the Cold War rivalry between USA and USSR before, these days Russians are putting film directors and actresses into orbit to beat Hollywood and Tom Cruise to it.

"Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet" (1965) and "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" (1967) were both based on footage and special effects from the Soviet sci-fi film "Planet of Storms" (1962) that Roger Corman pilfered and shot new scenes and English dialogue for, in the latter case with an un-credited Peter Bogdanovich directing Mami Van Doren. All three are available to watch and compare on Cultpix.

"The Phantom Planet" (1961) sees astronauts arrive on an asteroid and shrink to tiny size - much like Smut Peddler when he swims in a cold Swedish lake. Italian sci-fi "Cosmos: War of the Planets" (1977) was released the same year as Star Wars, but looks much older and more primitive. Honourable mention to older titles already on Cultpix: BFI's "Masters of Venus" (1962), "Zontar: the Invader from Venus" (1967), "Battle for the Lost Planet" (1986) and the sequel "Mutant War" (1988), both from Vinegar Syndrome.

Finally, "Horrors of the Red Planet" (1965) is basically The Wizard of Oz on Mars, including an astronaut Dorothy with silver shoes, while "The Day Mars Invaded Earth" (1962) is a rare independent film shot in Cinemascope. Who needs a rocket with out-of-the-world films like this

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler adopt their most outrageous French accents in honour of attending the Festival Lumiere and MIFC (International market for classic films) in Lyon, France, where cinema was born 125 years ago. We have had meetings with film libraries and rights holders from all over the world, who first try to sell us their beautifully restored 4K masters of the classics of cinema. We tell them, 'no, give us your dirtiest horror and exploitations films, the bottom of the barrel.'

In the end it was amazingly productive and we have leads with a dozen or so title holders, so expect east European science fiction and south European thrillers in the months to come. We also made many new friends and saw a lot of interest for the 'Do You Believe In Swedish Sin' book, that will be appearing in film book shops all over Europe soon.

There is a quick plug for this coming Cult Tuesday screening with Everyman Cinemas in the UK of "She Freak" (1967) with a special introduction by Karen Krizanovich.

The main focus this week is a big haul of vintage exploitation films from the darkest recesses of the Something Weird Video archive. 

Thematically it is first 'Girls from the City'. In  "All of Me" (1963) is yet another sexploitation variation on the old Good-Girl-who-comes-to-the-big-Bad-City-to-be-a-model story which unexpectedly detours into Nudist-Camp territory.  "Babette" (1968) is a surprisingly subversive gem that aggressively celebrates sexual anarchy. "Copenhagen Call Girls" (1964) exudes a bizarre, almost exotic, mixture of grimy black & white sexploitation and Benny Hill-style humour.  But the highlight of Copenhagen Call Girls is without a doubt the groovy, inspired surf-guitar score provided by an obscure group of Beatles-wannabes calling themselves THE SHARKS.

The second theme is 'Girls from the country', with "The Night of the Cat" (1973) is a shot-in-Charlotte, North Carolina, celluloid catastrophe about a woman who becomes an avenging "catwoman" and takes on the mob. "Garden of Eden" (1954) is the "Gone With the Wind" of nudist movies! Sadly New York censors held up the release so long that when it was finally released it was overrun by less quality nudist films.  "Love Goddesses of Blood Island" (1966) sees an astronaut wash ashore and become the sex slave of the Love Goddesses of Blood Island, where previous male guests have been reduced to severed heads on poles. 

Last and without an obvious theme, "The Girl from S.I.N." (1966) is a silly sci-fi spoof with an invisible woman who keeps reappearing in the nude. The lead character is called Poontang Plenty, which has to be the ultimate James Bond knock-off name. The discover that the problem with taking an invisibility pill is that you never know when you might become visible while stark naked. 

Finally "Twisted Sex, Vol. 17" (1960) is a cavalcade of vintage trailers and loos, with D.N. and S.P. having fun taking turns reading out the titles featured, including "The Smut Peddler" (1965) and "The Ultimate Degenerate" (1969), which seems like an appropriate pairing. 

As always we play plenty of music, dialogue and clips from all the films for your enjoyment. 

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler indulge in Cava and some gratuitous back slapping in Barcelona on the occasion of Cultpix having operated for six months without any major screw-ups and quite a few achievements.

We cover being global, 20+ distributor partners, newsletters, podcast, social media and the cinema bit. We are not just streaming our films, but we are doing five double-bill screenings in Stockholm and four films with Everyman, with "She Freak" (1967) that is showing on 19 October in London, Bristol, Glasgow and York. Next week are off to a conference in Lyon where we hope to sign more deals.

This week's theme is very special. Just remember to consult your doctor before undertaking any of the exercises featured in this podcast and please put on your headband and leg warmers. We go way back into the video vault of early VHS. Back in the early 1980s  couldn't get the Hollywood blockbusters  on VHS, so it was porn or Jane Fonda. Often watched for not dissimilar reasons.

Ron Harris, erotic photographer helped launch the craze with "Aerobicise" (1981). You had to be an aerobics instructor to keep up judging by the pace. We then have two videos from bad girl porn star Traci Lords, "Jazz Warm Up With Traci Lords" (1990) and "Advanced Jazzthetics" (1993). The second is a re-edit with improved music and less naff rhyming voiceover. In fact, it has weird echoes of Art of Noise.

The highlight is "Do It With Debbie" (1993) when America's Sweetheart rounded up her female Hollywood star friends and hit the mat. The highlight is Shelley Winters who is 'only doing this for Debbie' and few up with the leg lifts shouts out "Who here has slept with Howard Hughes?" to which Debbie raises her hand. Very different from Jane Fonda.

"Jane Powell's Fight Back With Fitness" (1986) is not for getting ripped but helps people with arthritis with a singing and moving that harks back to her 1950s MGM musical days.  She passed away just a month ago. R.I.P. Good Time's "29 Minutes Workout" manages to assemble all the 1980s workout cliches in one place: cheap synths, leg warmers and sweat bands and bright lycra outfits paired with American tan pantyhose.  Finally there is "Dancin' Grannies" (1989) that is like an extended episode of Golden Girls go to the gym. 

[Not mentioned in the podcast, but we threw in a bonus with Kitten Natividad's "Eroticise".]

In case you are not a retro fitness freak, fear not, Something Weird this way comes for next week's films.   

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler reconnect with their inner (Swedish) child in this episode, as they look at kids film and documentaries about days and artists past - from porn stars to painters.

First  though there is a detour to the cinema, with the second Stockholm screening at Bio Aspen the previous Monday. Two films were shown, with introductions by the son of Boarne Vibenius and director Hans Hatwig, in the company of the little (green) man who was the star of the film. There are also preparations underway for the next films to be shown as part of Cult Tuesday at Everyman cinemas across the UK.

"Gröna gubbar från Y.R." (1986) or  "Little Green Men from Outer Space" directed by Hans Hatwig with Keijo J Salmela, might be part of the cash in on the success of "E.T." on both sides of the Atlantic in terms of kids and aliens, yet stands on its own as an example of fun film making for children from the 1980s.

Next up is a children's film with a title so unwieldy that it must have contributed to its swift death at the box office. "Hur Marie träffade Fredrik, åsnan Rebus, kängurun Ploj och …" (1969) translates as "How Marie met Fredrik, Rebus the donkey, Ploj the Kangaroo and..." We explore what might come after the "...", but mostly about how the failure of this film led the mad genius of the director to then make the distinctly adult "Thriller - a Cruel Picture", followed by the even more pornographic "Breaking Point".

The poster of the last film was painted by Hans Arnold, with a 2019 documentary devoted to his work also on Cultpix. We also show his animated short "Fetknopparna" (1970). We go behind the scenes at a Swedish film collectors' convention (with a cameo by Smut Peddler himself!) in "Bakom projektorn" (2015). 

"Desperately Seeking Seka" (2002) is a look at the Platinum Princess of Porn from the age when XXX films had plots. One slightly obsessive fan embarks on an epic journey to find her and along the way speaks to many of the greats of what is rightly known as the Golden Age of Porn, such as Veronica Hart, Peter North, Nina Hartley, Ashlyn Gere, Serenity, Al Goldstein, John Leslie, Randy West and many more. 

While most of the films above sadly still lack English-language subtitles, "Desperately Seeking Seka" can definitely be enjoyed by all and we hope it will. We promise that in the coming weeks there will be more of something for eveybödy and not just our Swedish members.  And as always, we play music and clips from the film that can be enjoyed by everybody listening. 




 

If Cultpix Radio was Jeopardy, then the subjects in this episode would 'Misogyny', 'Coney Island', 'Shockumentary' and 'Double Bills'. Listen to Django Nudo and Smut Peddler go head-to-head in obscure film trivia knowledge!

First there is celebrating that the Cult Tuesday season with Everyman Cinemas in the UK has got off to a great start, screening "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) restored in 4K in four cities. Three more films are coming this autumn and on Monday 27 Sep there is the second screening at Stockholm's Bio Aspen, this time Kult för Kids.

We have a hoard of new films from our friends at Something Weird Video this week, kicking off with a gory double bill of "Carnival of Blood" (1970) and "Curse of the Headless Horseman" (1972). The former is what happens when a porno director decides to make a gore film set in Cooney Island, while the latter is like a hippie gore version of Scooby-Doo. Both seem to have ad-libbed dialogue.

Shockumentary double bill: "It's a Sick, Sick, Sick World" (1965) is an Italian style mondo film: Queers! Drag queens! Spanking! Hookers! Strippers! Addicts! Strange habits! the narrator solemnly intones. Sick! x3. Then the most famous film of Finnish transexual Ansa Kansas! Half Man! Half Woman!! in "I Was a Man" (1967), a rare films about trans that might shock but actually has a happy ending.

More misogynistic is "Censored" 1965, which claimed to be a compilation film of the bits that censors had cut out of films. Barry Mahon had in fact shot all the clips, claiming that they are what would have been cut out. It might also contain the first proto-Nazisploitation film clip. "All Women Are Bad" (1969) was never going to win awards for a balanced contribution to the gender debate. Sample dialogue: " “I don’t like these women! They’re bad! Evil! Degenerate!" Watch a man fed up with women drift through a seedy New York and ending up in Coney Island. Finally there is "The Big Snatch" () where expat Swede Uschi Digard is kidnapped and roughed up together with her friend Jane Sentas. Watch a different kind of 'clam' bake. As SWV writes, "Distributed by DAVID F. FRIEDMAN, The Big Snatch is a must-see for all card-carrying deviates." 

A quick shout out to "Li'l Abner" (1940), based on the famous hillbilly comic and with an un-PC cameo by Buster Keaton as a Native American, as well as to the last film ever produced by Nordisk Tonefilm, "Tofflan" (1967). This title could be translated as either "Henpecked" or "Pussy whipped", though  we went with the former as the later might conjure up a sick, sick, sick film.  Finally D.N. and S.P. take turns in reading out the full list of films and clips that feature in compilation film "Twisted Sex 12" (1960s-70s). 

As always we play clips and music from all the film for your pleasure and delight. 

Django Nudo and Smut Peddler try recording themselves on camera, rather than just with microphones. This could get interesting, at least if D.N. ever figures out how to use iMovie. In the meantime there is a shameless plug for the Everyman Cult Tuesday that kicks off in UK next week with a screening of the 4K restoration of "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). 

This week we are proud to have partnered the British Film Institute (BFI) to showcase some lesser known films, which have been issued on the Flipside label. “BFI Flipside is dedicated to rediscovering the margins of British film, reclaiming a space for forgotten movies and filmmakers who would otherwise be in danger of disappearing from our screens forever. It is a home for UK cinematic oddities, offering everything from exploitation documentaries to B-movies, countercultural curios and obscure classics, If it's weird, British and forgotten, then it's Flipside.” We have four films from Flipside.

“Herostratus” (1967) by Don Levy stars Michael Gothard and a 22-year old Helen Mirren, in a story of a young man who has decided to kill himself  spectacularly. Experimental and strange, it influenced directors such as Stanley Kubrick, Nicolas Roeg and Michael Winner. Worth the price of admission alone for the scene of (future Dame) Helen Mirren in a fetching corset and fishnets. (We play her sexy monologue about rubber gloves.)

“Requiem for a Village” (1975) is a folk-horror/drama, though not as scary as well observed. Think of it as a genteel Night of the Midsommer Dead. Directed by David Gladwell, who was an editor for the BBC, this story of  the rural past of a Suffolk village coming to life through the memories of an old man. He tends a country graveyard and sees the dead rise up from the graves, living their lives again.  (We play the avantgarde choir.)

"Voice Over" (1981) by Christopher Monger stars the great Ian McNeice in the lead. The film is a mix of “Berberian Sound Studio” (2012) and John Candy comedy “Delirious” (1991) in which a radio host see the line between fiction and brutal reality slowly blurring. Made for just £11,000  it became director Chris Monger ticket to Hollywood. (Hear the monologue by Ian McNeice when he starts to lose it.)

"Sleepwalker" (1984) by Saxon Logan is the most pure horror of any of the films. Two couples stay in an old victorian house and “a fractious evening of drunkenness and sexual rivalry soon turns bloody as the guests fall victim to an unhinged attacker.” A mix of satire and horror, it is like a cross between the films of Lindsay Anderson and Dario Argento. (We play the eerie intro music.)

Featuring two-thirds of the Pythons gang (Palin, Jones, Idle and Gilliam) “Do Not Adjust Your Set” (1967-69) was an influential 60s comedy sketch show with bizarre musical antics of the legendary Bonzo Dog Band. (We play their song Hunting Tigers Out in India.)  “Masters of Venus” (1962) was distributed as a cinema serial about two children accidentally launched into a space in a rocket built by their father (NB: not Elon Musk).

Having accidentally crashed half-way through the recording (Smutty's laptop batteries died), we make it to the end and just give a quick name check to this week's other new film, "Frozen Scream" (1975). We end with Bonzo Dog Band's song Death Cab for Cutie, which is where the US indie band took their name from.

Muchos celebration at Cultpix Radio HQ as the news becomes official that Cultpix has partnered leading UK boutique cinema chain Everyman for a season of cult films this autumn.

Extended shameless plug about how you can watch great films like "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), "She Freak" (1967), "Anita - Swedish Nymphet" (1973) and "Silent Night, Bloody Night" (1972) on Cult Tuesdays at Everyman cinemas in London (Broadgate), Bristol, Glasgow and York. There will also be a special late night Friday screening at the Screen on the Green in London Islington. Enjoy beautifully restored cult classics on the big screen with fellow film fans.  There will be celebrity guests introducing each film and even popping up at some of the venues.

This week's theme is Stockholm Sin-drome, a look at how the home of ABBA was also a den of sin and seediness from the late sixties to the early 80s. Unlike other cities that had one particular 'naughty' area, such as London's Soho or Amsterdam's Red Light District, the sin was woven into the very fabric of society of Stockholm. Three documentaries on Cultpix explore this, though they all also took some artistic liberties: the Italian mondo film "Sweden Heaven and Hell" (1968) examines the over-sexed natives with a leery camera eye; "Rapport från Stockholm Sexträsk" (1974) roams the streets like a Nordic "Taxi Driver"; while "Where the Action is: Chat Noir" (1975) takes us inside the infamous club where Led Zeppelin partied while live sex acts took place on stage.

Along with these docus we have three features, all about innocent girls/women lost in the big bad city: "Maid in Sweden" (1971) and "Anita - Swedish Nymphet" (1973) both see Christina Lindberg adrift in Stockholm, in the latter she even gets work as a stripper in the Chat Noir club. "Veck-ända in Stockholm" (1976) is a rare erotic film starring, written and directed by a female film maker.

We interview Mats Kullander, former CTO of Sweden's biggest cinema chain. He started out as projectionist in Stockholm's adult cinemas Hollywood and Fenix. He recounts the time Bergman came to see "Deep Throat" (1972) and how Leena Skoog would both appear in loops on the big screen and sell tickets in the box office - topless. You can see her in the compilation film "The Wild World of Eugen Vöhrmann" (1969).

More compilation madness comes in the form of "Colour Correct My Cock" (2013), from the mad geniuses at Vagrancy Film, from London, Ontario (Canada). Musical delights in this episode include "Mah-Nà Mah-Nà", made famous by the Muppets, but first played in "Sweden Heaven and Hell" (1968).  Post-interview music is from "Veck-ända i Stockholm" (1976) and we end the show with the outro track from "Maid in Sweden" (1971). 

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler celebrate the first #CultpixIRL cinema screening this past week at Bio Aspen, the groovy new retro cinema in Stockholm's new hipster district.  It was a double bill of "Anita - Swedish Nymphet" (1973) and "Kyrkoherden / The Lustful Vicar" (1970), both beautifully restored by the Swedish Film Institute. Guest of honour was Christina 'Anita' Lindberg herself and the authors of the book 'Frigjorda Tider' ('Liberated Times'), who talked about the period when these films were released, a time when "porn became culture and culture became porn."

Sticking with the theme of culture and porn, DN and SP discuss the Cultpix Theme Week of Literally Erotic Women. Adapting classics of literature for provided good plots, a veneer of highbrow credibility and - best of all - they were out of copyright and the authors were too dead to complain about having their works adapted with lots of boobs, bums and other bits.

Chief amongst these literary smut auteurs was Mac Ahlberg, who as Bert Torn, directed six literary adaptations that can be streamed on Cultpix now, including John Cleland's "Fanny Hill" (1968) and "Jorden runt med Fanny Hill / Around the World With Fanny Hill" (1974); Anonymous' "Flossie" (1974); Marqis de Sade's "Justine & Juliette" (1975); Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders adaptation "Molly" (1977, aka "Sex in Sweden") and Guy de Maupassant's "Bel Ami" (1977).We discuss the stars who appeared in many of these, including the lovely Maria Forså (who apparently didn't fake it), Harry Reems and how he ended up in Sweden, the on-stage sex real life couple Jack and Kim Frank, plus the director Torgny Wickman, who insisted " on painting every clit a little pinker immediately before each take.’"

There is also the early US nudie cutie "Kipling's Women" (1961), which was said to be based on "A Picturization of Rudyard Kipling's Immortal Poem---The Ladies," with the priceless tagline 'They Wear Only the Wind!'. And to prevent projectionists from cutting out the nudie bits of the 35mm prints, you could send of for free photos of the six lovely ladies in questions. Finally there is also the Austro-Hungarian turn-of-the-century smut classic Josephine Mutzenbacher, with two of the dozen adaptations available on Cultpix: "Naughty Knickers/Josefine Mutzenbacher" (1970) and "Don't Get Your Knickers in a Twist/Josefine Mutzenbacher II - Meine 365 Liebhaber" (1971). Many of these films are available too in multiple English, French, German and Swedish dub. So you can not only refine your cultural credentials, but also your linguistic one, by watching these films. Just like you used to read Playboy for the articles. 

It's Django Nudo and Snot Peddler this week, as Smutty battles a non-Covid cold.

Exciting Cultpix events in Stockholm around this weekend. First there is the book launch today (27 August) in Stockholm of "Frigjorda Tider", the book that blows the lid on sex and pornogrpahy in Sweden during the 1960s and 1970s. Yes, Sweden had a 'sexy' reputation, but in some way it went much further than anyone suspected. This book uncovers those sins.

Then on Monday 30 August we kick off the inaugural double bill screening  at Bio Aspen, with "Christina - Swedish Nymph" (1972) and "The Lustful Vicar" (1970), both of them beautifully restored by the Swedish Film Institute and shown for the first time in this way on the big screen. But if you don't live in Stockholm, fear not, we will be bringing these films to cinemas in other cities and other countries too. 

We review the crop of new films, including slasher-with-cool-score "Fatal Games" (1984), Texan time travel indie "The Yesterday Machine" (1965), Ida Lupino's noir masterpiece "The Hitch-Hiker " (1953), and the strange Lynchian-Tetsuo Swedish horror short "Spik-bebis" (1987).

The big topic this week is secret agent comedy TV show "Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp" (1971). It is James Bond/Man from U.N.C.L.E./Get Smart/Mission Impossible crossed with The Monkees, with all parts played by chimps and dubbed by humans. We discussed how this amazing piece of television history ever got made, who composed the music how it could come back today and play lots of clips from the great soundtrack with the Evolution Revolution band and the secret agent playlist. 

Suaver than Daniel Craig, funnier than Roger Moore, hairier than Sean Connery, you will not want to miss the adventures of Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp.  

We are still catching up on some of the great films that we released over the summer on Cultpix, including "Pulgasari" (1985), the North Korean take on the Godzilla movies. The fact that Kim Jong-il, the dictator of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (to give it its proper name) should decide to contribute to the Kaiju genre is incredible enough, but to do so he kidnapped South Korea's most famous film couple.

We talk to the authors of the book "All Monsters Must Die: An Excursion to North Korea" (House of Anansi Press, 2015) Magnus Bärtås and Fredrik Ekman about the kidnapping of the great South Korean movie star, the actress Madame Choi, and her ex-husband, the famous film director Shin Sang-ok. They were reunited in North Korea and put to work making propaganda films, to help win the people's hearts with melodrama. Eventually they escaped to the West, though neither could return to live fully normal lives.

The most significant of the films they made in North Korea was based on the Korean legend of Pulgasari, a monster that eats iron to grow and help peasants overthrow an evil tyrant.  While it is an amazing film in its own right, it is the story behind it that is even more incredible. This is a 'making of' that you will not want to miss. 

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler catch up on what went on during our summer intermission, what films were uploaded and things to expect. That's it. Stellan Skarsgård, Oscar Micheaux, Roger Corman and Uschi Digart are just some of the things we cover.

We play plenty of clips as usual, but it is really just a warm out for the second half of the year when we will have more in-depth subjects, interviews and and guests. Lots to look forward to, so do join us for lots of excitement in the second half of 2021 and hope you have had a good summer break as well. 

For the 12th and last episode for this season we talk in-depth to Lisa Petrucci, the heart and soul of Something Weird Video, which pioneered the re-release of cult and genre films.

SWV was founded in 1990 in Seattle, Washington state by Mike Vraney, who was a projectionist and collector of 8mm and 16mm girlie loops and films. He started transferring and sharing some of these films to VHS, which earned him a call from David F. Friedman and a lesson in copyright. Thus Mike the film enthusiast/pirate became a legitimate film distributor, publishing the works of directors such as  Harry Novak, Doris Wishman,  Herschell Gordon Lewis and Friedman himself. The name comes from HGL's 1967 film "Something Weird".

Petrucci tells us about her background as an artist and collector, moving from Boston to New York ("where I went down a rabbit hole at Kim's Videos") to Los Angeles and eventually to Seattle ("which was like going to Mars,"), completing her journey from high brow to popular and low-brow culture. She recalls how she first met Mike at the Chiller Convention, and how they started working together, until they became a couple and soul mates.

Lisa picks her favourite films (tough choice!), including "Monsters Crash the Pajama Party" (1965, coming to Cultpix soon), "She Freak" (1967), "Shanty Tramp" (1967), "Psychedelic Sex Kicks" (1967) and "Wild Hippie Party" (1967), "Teaserama" (1965, also coming to Cultpix soon). Lisa discusses how some of these films can be 'problematic' viewing today, but that they are 'time capsules' of their era. But with cinema screenings of their films you have to think ahead to see if something in the films will offend somebody, "which they will, because Something Weird was set up to be abrasive."

Lisa and Smut Pedler discuss how Mike overcame his reluctance to travel to come to Sweden twice and how it led to the birth of Klubb Super 8, which in turn led to Cultpix. How Mike could be demanding, but forced KS8 to "get its shit together." Mike was then diagnosed with lung cancer and Lisa talks movingly about making the most of his last year and days.

After Mike's passing Lisa and SWV was lucky to get contacted by Alamo Drafthouse and how Tim League and AGFA - American Genre Film Archive stepped in with a proposal to represent some of the titles. Today SWV has switched to DVD-R distribution, as well as partnering streamers such as Cultpix, Nightflight and The Film Detective.  And we finish by revealing who the new 40 Thieves of cult film are.

This the 12th episode marks the end of the first season of Cultpix Radio WCPX 66.6 as we take a brief summer break, but we will be back in late summer/early autumn with more films, guests and banter about our favourite films. Drop us a line at [email protected] with comments and suggestions. 

Have a great summer and stay cult! #WeAreCultpix

For the 11th episode of Cultpix Radio WCPX 66.6 we announce that this autumn you will be able to watch Cultpix films in cinemas, we examine the many careers of Mac Ahlberg (aka Bert Torn) and discuss new films from Klubb Super 8, the British Film Institute and Jean-Louis van Belle. Plus no technical issues it seems!

Starting on 30 August there will be a monthly series of Cultpix films showing in cinemas in Sweden and abroad, which means you can meet us, fellow Cultpix members and some of the talent behind the films. We will kick off a season of double bills with newly restored versions of Anita - Swedish Nymphet and  Kyrkoherden/The Naughty Vicar at Bio Aspen in Stockholm and four other Swedish cities, as well as in cinemas abroad that we are in discussions with. Exclusive guest will be Christina Lindberg, so book your tickets as soon as they go on sale.

We discuss the varied career of Mac Ahlberg, who started out as cinematographer for Swedish and Danish directors, including Bergman. you can see his Kattorna / The Cats (1965) on Cultpix.  He then made his name with the erotic I, A Woman trilogy, as well as nudies such as Fanny Hill (1968) and Around the World With Fanny Hill (1974), as well as the Second Coming of Eva (1974). Four of his more hardcore films (Molly, Flossie, Justine & Juliette and Bel Ami) will be on Cultpix later this year. Ahlberg then moved to Hollywood where he worked his way up from indie films such as Re-Animator and From Beyond  to big productions such as Innocent Blood, Beverly Hills Cop III and Striking Distance, as well as the Michael Jackson video Black and White. He directed two films, of which Hoodlums (1980) can be streamed on Cultpix. Sadly Ahlberg did not seem proud or keen to talk about his Swedish directing career and we debate whether it impacted his later work as DoP.

Lots of new films on the site this week, including two from the British Film Institute: Sleepwalker (1984) and Voice Over (1981). We complete the Language of Love series with The XYZ of Love (1971). The first of legendary Swedish director Hans Hatwig's two films is on Cultpix, so watch the horror classic The Bleeder / Blödaren (1983) now and later this year Gröna gubbar från Y.R./Green Men from Outer Space (1986).

Finally we have four films from maverick Belgian auteur Jean-Louis van Belle's
strange, stylish and wonderful movies from the early 70’s: Forbidden Paris/Paris Interdit (1970), The Lady Kills/Perverse et docile (1971),  Pervertissima (1972) and The Sadist with Red Teeth/Le sadique aux dents rouges (1971). Finally we tease you with a first episode of 13 Demon Street, Condemned in the Crystal (1959). 

While we will have a brief summer break, there is one more episode to go with an extended interview with the amazing Lisa Petrucci of Something Weird Video. So be sure not to miss the Cultpix Radio WCPX 66.6 finale next week! 

The 10th episode of Cultpix Radio WCPX 66.6 Smut Pedler and Django Nudo (with a faulty microphone - sorry)  take a journey into the psychedelic 60s and 70s of drugs films, celebrate Cultpix now being open for everyone to join and look at the new films on the site.

Cultpix radio has been open to the general public for a week and with the exception of being pulled into the global Firstly outage (in good company with Spotify and CNN) things have been going moothly and the feedback has been encouraging. We look at how Netflix and others are copying us in terms of moving into merchandise, podcasts, celebrity birthdays and more - because clearly nobody was doing it before us (-;

Cultpix has sold out and become part of the establishment as Swedish Film Institute has awarded us a grant to enable us to do more innovative stuff.

We dive back into what drugs does to filmmaking. This is your cinema brain on drugs part 2: First we do an Alice double bill. Alice in Acidland who "travels through the dark and endless caverns of Acidland. The place for her is no fairytale." But it does features lesbian seduction and hippie nudity and sex. Meanwhile the short Curious Alice was produced by a US government agency  to warn eight-year olds about the dangers of drugs but ends up being a trippy and fun Terry Gilliam-esque animation.

A trio of films from our friends Something Weird video all tap into the drug/hippie hysteria of the late 1960s. Psychadelic Sexkicks, Wild Hippie Party, The Acid Eaters. On the more serious end Alex de Renzy's Weed looks at the whole political, legal and cultural ecosystem around weeds and drugs in the early 1970s. He is better known for later directing porn classics such as Pretty Peaches and Babyface.

Perhaps the best anti-drug documentary is the hard hitting A Day in the Death of Donny B. which looks at the damage heroine does to black people and communities, done in cinema verite style with a downbeat groove. Worth 11 minutes of your time. More typical for US anti-drug propaganda is the white middle class student who goes wrong with drugs, as in Narcotics: Pit of Despair, though at least the film was not the usual kiss of death for the career of the lead Kevin Tighe who went on to star in Lost and K-9.

More mainstream drug portrayal can be found in Ivan Passer's Born to Win in which George Segal (who passed away this year) , Karen Black and a very young Robert DeNiro, all drift around Time's Square hustling and looking to score. Finally a side of Rome that tourists did not get to see gets exposed in Don't Count on Us from Penny Video (Ciao Simone!). 

Finally we talk about some of the new films on the site and there are quite a few this week. Line Six/Linje Sex shares a lot of creative talent with Terror in the Midnight Sun. We have Josefine Mutzenbacher Part 1 and Part 2 in English and German; The XYZ of Love; Piranha; Project Kill and The Secret Dreams of Mona Q. Do check them out and stay tuned for more soon. 

Episode 9 of of Cultpix Radio WCPX 66.6 sees (hears?) Django Nudo and a nude-o Smut Peddler discuss dope cult films about drugs and celebrate the site now being open to everyone.

After two months of being invitation-only Culpix.com is now open to anyone over the age of 18 with a credit card and a burning desire to see the world's greatest selection of streaming classic cult films and TV shows. We discuss how we got here and give a shout out to our amazing early members who helped us along the way.

When we started discussing doing a Theme Week about drug warning and exploitation films we quickly realised that we had more films than we could ever cram into one week. Thus the idea was born to split it into two. This week we look at drug warning films from the 1930s and the post-war period, while next week we move into the era from the hippies to the War on Drugs.

Reefer Madness (1936) is the cultiest of all drugsploitation films, but it was an earnest anti-drug film called Tell Your Children before it had sleazy bits cut in, suffered multiple name changes and gratuitous posters printed up.  It was one of many films around the same time that include Marijuana - Weed With Roots in Hell (1936), Assassin of Youth (1935) and  The Cocaine Fiends (1935). We uncover their secret patterns:

*Middle-class A students kids seduced into the seedy drug world;

* Often a blonde, "fallen" girl luring the kids.

* Drug dealer is always sleazy, a bit older and has backslick and a pencil-thin black moustache. Sometimes with a suspicious (hispanic?) accent;

* There is always one or a few upstanding citizens: a father, a mother, a teacher, a judge;

* There is always a comic relief: an older lady on a silly moped, an old man with bad teeth, a fat matron, a servant;

* There is a lot of slinky, silky underwear and too much being exposed, garter belts, stockings, etc. The Hays Code was very strict, but these were "educational" films;

* There are always big parties in the drug dealers home, so both drugs and tons of booze;

* All the drugs have an effect that is counter-indicative of the drug's effect in real-life; when a drug normally gets you mellow, you get extatic, happy, sometimes violent. When a drug normally makes you energetic, you get slow and tired;

* There is always jazz music! (The Devil's music, of course!)

And why does the same devil appear on posters for two different anti-drug films a decade apart?

Two films from the mid-50s are poles apart in tackling the menace of substance addiction. Quasi documentary Teenage Devil Dolls (1955) could only afford a preachy voice-over about a 'good girl' falling in with a druggy biker gang. Meanwhile The Man With The Golden Arm (1955) is probably Frank Sinatra's best role ever as a jazz (!) drummer trying to go straight with the help of Kim Novak's stripper joint madam, but led astray, featuring Elmer Bernstein's sublime score and Saul Bass' iconic design. Finally Smoke and Flesh (1968) gives us a glimpse of next week's hippie druggie films continuation. 

In the eight episode of Cultpix Radio WCPX 66.6 we count down one week left of VIP only membership, so join now while it is still cheaper, before the site opens to everyone.  We discuss what developments you will see on the site in Phase 2 (Chromecast support tops the list); lots of films and TV shows coming to Cultpix after we completed a bunch of transfers from Digibeta; restorations and films delivered to us by the Swedish Film Institute (SFI) and the British Film Institute (BFI), as well as Nikkatsu starting restoration of our secret project.

The use of A.I. and machine learning (ML) for restoring, up-converting, colorizing and enhancing footage that is over 100 years old captures our attention  as one of the leading online adult sites makes its AI watch 100,000 hours of porn to learn how to do it - hopefully not going blind or getting hairy palms in the process. So which of our own films would we consider for this treatment? Grandma will never have looked so good in the buff!

Bernard Hermann's strings announce our Theme Week look at Slasher Killers. What was spawned by Hitchcock's Psycho and Powell's Peeping Tom had an interesting pre-history of all the tropes of a classic slasher film being pioneered earlier, as well as early examples of the genre like Coppola's Dementia 13. Andy Milligan’s The Ghastly Ones, a.k.a. Blood Rites (1968) pointed the way with its low budget, single location, excess gore is interesting in being a period slasher film. In The Horrible House on the Hill (1974) the slashers are kids, while Drive-In Massacre (1976) have some of the fattest cops you've seen in a horror film. Killer Workout / Aerobicide (1987) is such a by-the-numbers slasher that of course it has a shower scene, but at least a novel deadly instrument (oversized safety pin). Six teenagers, a weekend by a lake, one bloodthirsty maniac all makes it a Blood Lake (1987). Lastly Effects (1979) is a very meta slasher film as the film crew discusses viewers' appetite for seeing grissly scenes on film.

New films this week include two from the Nordisk Tonefilm archive, with almost 50 films that we will be sharing on Cultpix in the coming months, which we also hope to make English subtitles available for. The Starlost is the 'lost' Canadian television series that could have become the new Star Trek if it had not been cancelled early. Finally New Faces (1954) sees Mel Brooks trying out ideas that would later come back in The Producers, while Eartha Kitt sings MONOTONOUS:

Everyone gets into a dull routine
If they don't get a chance to change the scene
I could not be wearier
Life could not be drearier
If I lived in Siberia
I'll tell ya what I mean

I met a rather amusing fool
While on my way to Istanbul
He bought me the Black Sea for my swimming pool
Monotonous...

Cultpix Radio unearths Sweden's own version of cult classic The Room, we look at a brilliant exploitation director career cut short and discuss the latest films on Cultpix, plus new music.

Cultpix's little elves have been busy transferring films from Digibeta that were never released as DVDs, so that they are soon available to stream on Cultpix. And one of these is a guaranteed future cult classic. Director Torbjörn Lindqvist only directed two feature films ten years apart, but kept busy doing documentaries, running a cinema named after a Bergman film (Wild Strawberries) and more. 

His second film Grossisten/Djävulens vita guld (The Devil’s White Gold, 1980) never had a theatrical release and a VHS self-release that even video collectors have been unable to trace. But the tale of drug lords in Amsterdam and Malmö has thick dialects, stilted dialogue, terrible 80s outfits and hairdos, It is a future quote-along classic for midnight screenings. A Swedish The Room! A must-see!

Arne Ragneborn was the original Bad Boy of Swedish cinema. He started out as a teenage actor inBergman films before directing his first Farlig frihet/The Vicious Breed (1955) at the age of 30. But his candid depiction of crime, drugs, alcoholism, prostitution, violence and sex earned him the wrath of Swedish critics and censors.  Det händer i natt/Babes and Hoodlums (1956) became the first domestic Swedish film to be totally banned since 1917! He re-edited it and released it as a comedy the following year, with both versions available to watch on Cutpix. Although he only directed these 4/5 films in the span of two years, he continued acting, even after his directorial career was cut short. 

We then look at eXXXport versions of Swedish films where hardcore inserts (quite literally!) were added to make the films more appealing to foreign audiences who had come to expect more organs in motion from exports by neighbouring Denmark. Compare and contrast the differences of:
Nyckelhålet vs My Teenage Daughter (1974)

Starring major Swedish centerfold Marie Ekorre. They dubbed it in English and added hardcore porn scenes. But even the original hade some action…

Both on Cultpix.

Baksmälla vs Lovelier Than Love (1973)

The director Jörn Donner called himself Björn Thunder, for the export version, when the UK producer Bashoo Sen thought the film wasn’t ”sexy enough”, and had the director/star add a handful of more nude actresses for the international market, and dubbed it in English.

Both on Cultpix.

Inkräktarna/The Intruders vs Hungry Young Women (1974)

Starring: Stellan Skarsgård, Chris Chittell, who had his birthday last week! Hardcore actors mixed with serious Swedish actors.

Both on Cultpix.

Sams vs They Like Sex (1974)

About a hippie commune in the archipelago. Calvin Floyd’s French-co-producer thought the film was too tame, and added more sex, allegedly directed (but uncredited) byt Torgny Wickman!

Soon on Cultpix

We discuss new additions on Cultpix: Drive-In Massacre (1975), Mask of Murder (1988), The Cape Town Affair (1967) and I Eat Your Skin (1971).

Last but not least some music as The Hays Office - Smut Pedler's own band - plays Psychedelic Sex Kicks. 

Cultpix Radio features its first guest, who pics his favourite films from the AGFA collection available on Cultpix, as well as highs and lows of the past week, new films and Car-nage film theme on what is now the #1 podcast for Film & TV History... in Sweden.

This week: the Cultpix platform keeps getting more stable as tech issues are fixed and more people are invited to join, while we clear a Stripe hurdle. New films include the long 'lost' Calvin Floyd horror The Sleep of Death (1981), Girls in Chains (1943), children-are-truly-evil horror The Horrible House on the Hill (1974) and The Klansman (also 1974) that Rickard Burton and Lee Marvin were too drunk to remember shooting together, as well as a Belgian (!) cult film Impulsion/Gisèle/Embrace (1969) that predates the official The Story of O adaptation.

The first guest to feature on Cultpix Radio - WCPX 66.6 is Joe Ziemba of AGFA - American Genre Film Archive, the non-profit organisation that has been working tirelessly to unearth, restore and bring back forgotten cult classics to the big screen, much of this in partnership with its sister company Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas.  You can find many of AGFA's best films in Cultpix. We get to know AGFA and the work that Joe and his amazing team have been doing.

Films discussed include:

Another Son of Sam (1977) - The film from "the outer reaches of madness" that has nothing to do with Son of Sam, about a killer on campus.  Shot in Florida; which explains a lot;

Bat Pussy (1973) - the film that cannot be unseen, once watched, now can Warner Bros and DC's lawyers stop it. Also the film that got Tim League and Alamo into hot water;

The Soultangler (1987) - One Video Vortex Series, described as 'Reanimator made on Long Island for the price of a used car.';

The Sword and the Claw/Kiliç Aslan (1975) - Featuring the lead of the Turkish Star Wars (!) this is a good introduction into the strange world of Turkish action/exploitation/sensational films;

Lady Street Fighter (1981) - Worth watching for actor-writer-producer Renee Harmon, one of the most unique women in exploitation cinema. She made films on her terms.

We finish with music by Taken By Savages. 

Cultpix has now been going for one month and we look back on what feel more like six months of intense work to make the world's leading streaming service for classical cult and genre films everything its members expect it to be.

As we also celebrate VE Day and 86 years since the end of WW2, we look at all things Nazi on the big screen (and almost manage to avoid doing silly German accents), for our weekly film theme.

We look at documentaries by and about Nazi's, including Leni Riefenstahl's notorious Triumph of the Will / Triumph des Willens (1935) and why the father of the founder of Synapse Films that we licensed it from, who was himself a Holocaust survivor, deemed it important to release the film, saying, "Jerry, you MUST release the film, lest we forget." To balance it we also stream the Nazi Concentration Camps (1945) documentary shown at the Nurnberg War Crimes Trials and discuss Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder's involvement in concentration camp documentaries.

We then look at US exploitation films made during the war, including Bela Lugosi's Black Dragons (1942), which pre-dates The Manchurian Candidate in its plot; Hitler - Dead or Alive (1942), where a gang of ex-bounty hunters go to Germany to catch Hitler, for one million dollars; and Enemy of Women (1944), which charts the fall and rise of Joseph Goebbels, a weakling harassing women, who went from failed play writer to Propaganda Minister of the Third Reich.

This is followed by the first of the so-called Nazisploitations films that proliferated in the 1970s and 80s. Love Camp 7 (1969), in which two American Lieutenants with photographic memories and big breasts, volunteer to infiltrate Love Camp 7, a women's POW camp in Nazi Germany.  We chart how this led to the rise of the Nazisploitation genre in USA and Italy and films such as Ilsa She Wolf of the SS and its many sequels.

Finally, there is the bastar offspring of the Nazisploitation that take things to a whole new ridiculous level with Black Gestapo (1975), a crazed blaxplo-nazisploitation film that seeks to equate the Black Panther movement with the Nazis. There is also SS Operation Wolfcub (1983), a legendary US porn star (Harry Reams) in an erotic director’s film (Joe Sarno), with no sex! What were they thinking? Slap 'Nazi' or 'SS' on anything to make it instantly appealing as showcasing the ultimate of evils.

To end on a high note we conclude with Schichlegruber - Doing the Lambeth Walk, a 1942 two-minute propaganda film by Charles A. Ridley of the UK Ministry of Information. It remixes Triumph of the Will to a song the Nazis hated and went viral during the war. Watch the "Gestapo Hep-Cats" goose-stepping in the style of Ministry of Silly Walks and Hitler made to look ridiculous. See the full video here:  Lambeth Walk: Nazi Style - by Charles A. Ridley (1941)

This week we dive into our movie collection, described as "your dream video store from 1982", to discover the types of films that are playing on Cultpix. Particularly those from our friends and partners at Something Weird Video, Synapse Films, AGFA - American Genre Film Archive, Penny Video and many more. We select favourite films and play lots of clips. 

Think of it as a personal guide by the video store owners as to what is cool - and with penalty fee for returning it late or forgetting to rewind (we do that for you). Films like Brand of Shame, Alice in Acidland, Dark Waters, Bloodsucker From Outer Space and many more.  

In other good news we are close to resolving several technical issues, including why Smut Peddler was sounding so bad in the last episode. Turns out it helps if you have the right microphone selected. We also discuss Bela Lugosi's Monogram 9 and why Voodoo Man is our mutual favourite. 

Good news: Cultpix membership is growing, as those on the waiting list are gradually admitted.

We talk about this week's of Silent Horror theme and discuss what decides how long before an old film is out of copyright, especially the interesting case of Nosferatu.

The big topic is director Torgny Wickman, who would have been 110 this week. He was a late bloomer, who made 11 sexploitative feature films between 1969 and 1977, including such classics as Kärlekens språk/Language of Love (1969) sex ed film and its many sequels, Eva - den utstötta/Swedish and Underage (1969), Kyrkoherden/The Naughty Vicar (1970), Anita - ur en tonårsflickas dagbok/Anita - Swedish Nymphet (1973). All streaming on Cultpix.com

We play clips, music and geek out on fun facts, like the time when Cliff Richard lead a demonstration in London with 30,000 people, with banners saying: ”Sweden – more pornography, more suicides, more alcoholism and more gonorrhea every year”. You can't ask for better publicity than that!

We discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of the second week since Cultpix went live. 

 We then geek out big time discussing Terror in the Midnight Sun (Rymdinvasion i Lappland), the Swedish-American science fiction film from 1959 that has it all: crash landing space crafts, mysterious aliens, terrorised locals and frightened reindeer in Sweden's far north, a Chewbacca-like monster, ice skating and nudity. 

Hear about the strange twin who produced it, wether George Lucas might have been inspired by the film and why it is a lie to have 'midnight sun' in the title. We play clips and the amazing theme song from what is arguably the best sci-fi film from a country more typically associated with ABBA and flat-pack furniture.

Welcome to the first episode of Cultpix Radio (WCPX 66.6), where your hosts Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler discuss Cultpix and how it was born out of the 20 year effort of Sweden's Klubb Super 8 to spread some of the coolest films the critics want you to forget to audiences and fans around the world. 

We talk about how KS8 started with screening parties using actual super 8 projectors, our favourite film "Terror in the Midnight Sun", the festivals that tried to ban us,  how Quentin Tarantino come to the rescue of our Los Angeles retrospective screenins, the gorgeous and amazing Christina Linberg and finally how this all lead to Cultpix - the new global streaming service for the world's most famous and infamous cult and genre films and TV shows.  

We also plays clips, music and trailers, as well as have plans for future interviews, call-ins, competitions and more. Please be sure to subscribe and check us out on social media. Above all, do join the community of fellow cult film fanatics by becoming a member of Cultpix.com today