Caliber 9 From Outer Space

This week we are celebrating the diva that was Elizabeth Taylor! Sakana joins us once again to celebrate the work of this prodigious star - with a close look at two of her most bizarre and off-kilter projects: the Italian psychosexual thriller, Identikit (1974), directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, and Tennessee Williams' Boom! (1968), directed by Joseph Losey. Macrobiotic orgasms, bomb attacks on...

There's mad, and then there's MAD. John Horgan joins us this week to check out Madhouse (1981), directed by Ovidio Assonitis, and then Watch Out, We're Mad (1974), directed by Marcello Fondato. Sheer slasher insanity from the deep south, followed by chases and fights a-plenty with Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. It's not really possible to spoil Watch Out, We're Mad as the plot doesn't matter (it's...

Mike White from The Projection Booth podcast stops by to venture across the boundaries of normality, into the weird, the disturbing, the monstrous and the sometimes hilarious. We check out Border (2018), directed by Ali Abbasi, and The Rift (1990), directed by Juan Piquer Simon. A portrait of personal loneliness and dispossession both sensitive and shocking, followed by a ramshackle underwater adv...

Jerry joins us once again to discuss Bad Lieutenant (1992) directed by Abel Ferrara and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009), directed by Werner Herzog. Two very different takes on utter corruption and the possibility (or not) of redemption, from two very different, but both visionary film-makers. A double feature for the ages with two towering central performances triggers one of our...

Which one of you two looks most like a football movie? This week, we welcome Ali back to the show to discuss a couple of sports-related flicks: The Last Boy Scout (1991) directed by Tony Scott and The Last Match (1990), directed by Fabrizio de Angelis. Get ready for some pop psychoanalysis of Shane Black, a close examination of the early 90's Bruce Willis screen persona, and just how weird it got...

The Middle Ages were a terrible time to be alive. Dr Ethan Lyon joins us in the torture chamber as we dress up in couch upholstery and torment some sinners while discussing The Conspiracy of Torture (1969), directed by Lucio Fulci, and then Torture Dungeon (1970), directed by Andy Milligan. Yep, time to get medieval on your ass!!! It's not really possible to spoil Torture Dungeon as it barely has...

From the sublime to the ridiculous, noir comes in many forms. Nick Langdon joins us this week to discuss Back to the Wall (1958), directed by Édouard Molinaro and In the Cold of the Night (1990), directed by Nico Mastorakis. We will be announcing a Spoiler Territory section for both films, so if you haven't seen them before you listen, you can nevertheless avoid spoilers for Back to the Wall by sk...

Happy New Year, folks! The party's heating up at our place: Lucio Fulci has been hitting the rum punch, Eric Roberts is singing and dancing, and Klaus Kinski is tripping balls (at least we think that's what's happening - it's getting a little scary, tbh). So we figured we'd duck out of the festivities long enough to count down our Top 5 first-time watches of 2024 for you. Just a quick episode befo...

Tales of greed in a near-dystopian world. Sounds kinda familiar? This week, we welcome Max back to the show to discuss a couple of low-key gems: New Rose Hotel (1998) directed by Abel Ferrara and The Hidden (1987), directed by Jack Sholder. We will be announcing a Spoiler Territory section for both films, so if you haven't seen them before you listen, you can nevertheless avoid spoilers for New Ro...

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, Carroll Baker was drinking, Tim Thomerson was singeing, and Jesse Ventura was sitting up in bed being creepy. It's a heck of a Christmas, people, it really is. Seasons greetings, folks! Join us for this special Christmas episode, along with very special guests, Sammy from the Gentlemen's Guide to Midnite Cinema, and habitual Caliber 9'er...

Sakana drops in this week to discuss The Visitor (1979) directed by Giulio Paradisi and Ship of Monsters (1960) directed by Rogelio A. Gonzalez. These are very different styles of psychotronic cult sci-fi movie - one a fever dream of Italian excess in an imagined America stuffed with big stars and psychedelic weirdness; the other a slightly risque but heartwarming love story involving singing cowb...

It's our 50th episode! To celebrate, we have lined up a TRIPLE TREAT with Doctor Ethan Lyon along for the ride. We shoot up the streets with Isaac Hayes in Truck Turner (1974) directed by Jonathan Kaplan. Then we indulge in some Indonesian black magic insanity with Special Silencers (1982), directed by Arizal. And finally, we go for maximum bamboozlement with famed egosploitation miracle worker Ne...

From the outskirts of Tokyo to the slums of early 80's Madrid, there is no existential horror like just being TEEN. Bob McCully drops in to discuss Typhoon Club (1985) directed by Shinji Sōmai and Navajeros (1980) directed by Eloy de la Iglesia. From an arthouse take on messed-up coming-of age narratives, to the gritty world of Spanish quinque films, get ready for crime, sex, drugs, suicide, murde...

Dust off your leather armour and polish your glaives, it's time for high fantasy this week. Plus, erm, dinosaurs. Film-maker James T Williams returns to discuss a couple of childhood faves. We check out Krull (1983), directed by Peter Yates, and Planet of Dinosaurs (1977), directed by James K. Shea. Wizards, alien slugs, giant spiders, baby-faced Liam Neesons, stop-motion dinosaurs, possibly stop-...

Enter... if you dare. It's squealing martial arts and ninja death mayhem as Ali joins us to discuss Enter the Dragon (1973), directed by Robert Clouse and Enter the Ninja (1981), directed by Menahem Golan. Each of these films were seminal in their own way, the first as a tragically premature end-point for Bruce Lee's career, and the second as a statement of intent for the then-new Cannon Films Gro...

The perils of leaving civilisation behind. This week, we strike out into the wilderness to explore a couple of backwoods thrillers: the big daddy of them all, Deliverance (1972) directed by John Boorman and one of the many imitators that came in its wake, William Grefe's Whiskey Mountain (1977). We discuss the world of hillbilly and hickspoloitation film in general, as well as addressing the vital...

Sammy from the Gentlemen's Guide to Midnite Cinema is back to sing a love song to the Spaghetti Western with us. Well, not sing, exactly, but we sure do talk a lot about them. It's a bumper-length episode to cover this beloved genre for us, and we focus on a double feature of The Great Silence (1968), directed by Sergio Corbucci and Keoma (1976), directed by Enzo G. Castellari. We will be announci...

Samm Deighan joins us today to talk about the cinema of resistance, as profiled in her fantastic new book, Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1969-1990. In addition, we discuss a double feature plucked from the pages of this fantastic book: Pierrot le Fou (1965), directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and The Awakening of the Beast (1970), di...

Happy Halloween! We're dropping this week's episode two days early to chime in on the spooky holiday fun. Dr Ethan Lyon gets all devilish with us as we check out Haxan (1922), directed by Benjamin Christensen, and then Beyond the Door (1974), directed by Ovidio Assonitis. In our usual roundabout way, our discussion of these films leads us to some unexpected questions such as: Is Halloween America'...

Life is too short not to binge William Friedkin movies so this week we're bringing you a deep Friedkin double feature. Jerry and Bryce Hamilton are in the house to discuss To Live and Die in LA (1985) and Bug (2006). Strap in and prepare to hear the best Chicago accent this side of Glasgow (Chiglasgo?), the Oxford English Dictionary's most proper usage of pornographic terms, and a thorough rundown...

The exploitation world of Star Wars rip-offs: you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. This week, we're joined by part-time Dark Lord of the Sith, Walter Kafka, to check out Starcrash (1978), directed by Luigi Cozzi, and The Man Who Saved the World - better known these days as Turkish Star Wars (1982), directed by Çetin İnanç. In all honesty, we don't think it's possible to s...

Ninjas ruled in the 1980's! James Eldred from the Cinema Oblivia podcast joins us this week to discuss two underground ninjasploitation classics: Miami Connection (1987), directed by YK Kim and Richard Park, and Ninja Terminator (1985), directed by Godfrey Ho. As well as marvelling in the bizarre delights of these insane films, we discuss the place of ninjas in the popular imaginations of Eastern...

About face! Sakana joins us this week to check out some seminal body-horror films: Eyes Without a Face (1960), directed by Georges Franju, and The Awful Dr Orlof (1962), directed by Jess Franco. Doctoral God complexes, the French scars of Nazi occupation, and the proliferation of blind killers in European films of the 1960's - we discuss all this and more. We will be announcing a Spoiler Territory...

Nick Langdon joins us this week to tinker and tailor another intriguing double feature discussion. We check out Funeral in Berlin (1966), directed by Guy Hamilton, and The Soldier (1982), directed by James Glickenhaus. We'll dive deep into Cold War lore and the joy of "shabby" spy stories, while exploring the usual array of oblique asides such as gratuitous blood squibs, phallic bollards, Uzi piro...

Al joins us once again to discuss Five Dolls For An August Moon (1970), directed by Mario Bava, and My Sister in Law (1976), directed by Lucio Fulci. Our conversation ranges across such topics as aristocratic Italian actors, the advisability of wearing budgie-smugglers at a weekend house party, the many riffs of Agatha Christie's seminal slasher-whodunit, Muppets songs lifted from Mondo films, and...