Here are some of the answers.

1. One character, based on real-life record producer Phil Spector, goes on a shooting spree, murdering a man and two women in his spacious mansion.

Answer (e), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

Starring Dolly Read Martin (wife of comedian Dick Martin), this film had a fascinating history. It began as a sequel to the successful 1967 movie Valley of the Dolls, starring Patty Duke and Sharon Tate, and based on the popular novel by Jacqueline Susann. The studio, 20th Century Fox, had a hard time developing it. So they gave it to director Russ Meyer.

Meyer hired Roger Ebert (the future film critic) to write the screenplay. It eventually evolved into a story about a Josie-and-the-Pussycats type rock band (the Carrie Nations) that works its way up the ladder of fame and success, while downing all sorts of mind-altering substances.

The fallout was immediate on release. Susann sued Fox and Meyer for screwing up her story. The studio tried to smooth things over by inserting a title card during the opening credits sequence saying that this wasn't really a sequel to Valley of the Dolls after all. The author died before her estate could settle for $2,000,000. When Fox board member Grace Kelly saw the picture, she wanted the studio to fire Meyer immediately. But, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls grossed ten times its cost during the initial run. So Fox was loath to let Meyer go. They finally did when his next picture, The Seven Minutes, flopped.

Answered by Malcolm.

2. After murdering a cop, her girlfriend, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend’s mistress, the protagonist of this picture gets raped by a giant lobster.

Answer (t): Multiple Maniacs (1970)

Such bizarreness could only come from the mind of John Waters, the Baltimore-based auteur who has since achieved considerable success in mainstream Hollywood and on Broadway.

In this story, a woman and her boyfriend (played by Devine and David Lochary) put on a sideshow of sexual freaks so that they can rob their audience. The cast includes Dreamland regulars Mary Vivian Pierce (as Lochary’s mistress), Cookie Mueller (as Devine’s daughter), Mink Stole (as Devine’s girlfriend), and Edith Massey as herself.


3. A radio evangelist interrupts her video game so that she can have sex with a Nazi war criminal in his coffin.

Answer (d): Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979)

This, Russ Meyer’s last completed film, starred his girlfriend Francesca Natividad, who plays a frustrated housewife who longs to rid her husband (Ken Kerr) of his particular, um, perversion. The husband ultimately finds salvation in the faith healing of the Reverend Eufaula Roof (Ann Marie), who also ministers to Nazis when she’s not busy playing Pong.

After Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (an amalgamation of his earlier film titles), Meyer spent the rest of his life working on his masterpiece, of which he shot approximately eighteen unedited hours. During World War II, he served as a cameraman, a frontlines scout documenting the carnage of battle so that generals miles away could make their plans in safety. He obtained some of these movies, and juxtaposed that footage with newly shot sex scenes taken at the actual site where these bloody battles took place.


4. This screen adaptation of a literary classic depicts the male lead as a shoe salesman.

Answer (ae): Venus in Furs (1967)

Barbara Ellen both wrote and starred in this film adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 novel of the same name. The movie starts almost verbatim as the book, but immediately jumps ahead to the twentieth century, where through a number of surrealistic scenes and dialog women habitually degrade and assault men. While played up for eroticism, the movie misses the gender equality message of Sacher-Masoch’s original work. But hey! What can you expect from an exploitation flick?


5. An exasperated extraterrestrial fumes, “All you of Earth are idiots!” and “Your stupid minds! Stupid, stupid!”

Answer (v); Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

This has the reputation of being the worst film ever made. I agree. It’s stupendously horrible. Of course, I’ve said all that before.

Generally considered his worst film, Ed Wood personally regarded it as his masterpiece. It stars his regulars: Bela Lugosi, bald-headed Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson, Maila Nurmi (aka Vampira), and The Amazing Criswell, a psychic so inept he couldn’t predict sunlight at noon. This film received a lot of interest during the 1980s because of the need for material to fill extended broadcasting slots and cable stations. Ironically, the worst film ever made has grossed millions of dollars. What’s more it has inspired a stage play, and two remakes both due out this year.


Figure 1. Plan 9 from Outer Space trailer



Answered by Ray.

6. Mental patients kill the villain by eating her alive.

Answer (n): Greta: Haus ohne Männer (also titled Ilsa the Wicked Warden--1977)

In 1975, Dyanne Thorne starred in what would be the first official Ilsa movie, a Canadian exploitation serial in which she played this over-the-top sadistic authority (Ilsa) in charge of female prisoners. In every film, the title character died some horrible death at the end. Although this was a German film made in Spain about a nasty mental health administrator named Greta, Thorne used pretty much the same characterization as she did for Ilsa. Moreover, this movie used the Ilsa formula (including the grisly death at the end). Thus, people didn’t see this as an independent pic, but rather as another of the Ilsa franchise.

Spanish director Jesús Franco, the acknowledged master of the European women-in-prison genre, must have given up explaining that Greta and Ilsa were two different characters. After its release, he and producers acquiesced to fan perception, and renamed it Ilsa the Wicked Warden.

7. To simulate the cutting out of a human tongue, an actress spits out an appetizing (ahem!) mixture of cornstarch, red food coloring, and Kaopectate.

Answer (g): Blood Feast (1963)

I don’t think I’m overstating when I say this movie is perhaps one of the most influential in cinema history. This prototypical splatter flick produced by the aforementioned David Friedman, directed by his partner, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and written by Lewis’ wife, Allison Louise Downe, is the grandmother of all the super-gory, super-violent horror films to follow: from Friday the Thirteenth to Bride of Chucky.

Up until Blood Feast, violence had a tendency to be bloodless, both in mainstream flicks (because of the Hays Code) and exploitation films. Moreover, because producers still shot most horror movies in black and white, what blood there was didn’t have the same impact.

If you think you can stomach the trailer, click here.