I Stream, You Stream Vol. 36

by Patrick Bromley

We're halfway through #Junesploitation and the daily recommendations keep rolling along!

June 16 - Westerns!

Netflix currently has 21 westerns in its streaming catalogue. TWENTY ONE. One of those is Fievel Goes West and one of those is The Ridiculous 6, so now we've dropped to under 20. Luckily, Amazon Prime Video has a shit ton of westerns, including a whole bunch of spaghetti westerns perfect for this month. There are still many I have not seen, so I'll go with Day of Anger (1967, dir. Tonino Valerii), which JB covered for the site a few years ago. The direction is outstanding, the score (by the great Riz Ortolani) kicks ass and Lee Van Cleef is at his coolest, which is really saying something. (Watch on Amazon Prime Video) If you're looking for something different, check out Boss (as it is sometimes referred to; 1975, dir. Jack Arnold), a great blaxploitation western from the director of Creature from the Black Lagoon and starring Fred Williamson, who also makes his debut as screenwriter on this one. He's awesome, as is D'Urville Martin as his deputy. The movie features one of the best last lines of any movie ever made. (Watch on Brown Sugar)

June 17 - Italian Horror!

I'm super excited about Italian horror day, but I know not everyone shares my enthusiasm for this incredibly weird and unpredictable subgenre. If you're brand new to Italian horror and you're looking for something super mild to ease yourself in, check out Mario Bava's 1962 proto-giallo The Evil Eye (aka The Girl Who Knew Too Much), which is a fun and pretty lighthearted little murder mystery with a pair of very charming lead performances from Letícia Román and John Saxon. It's unlike most of Bava's other work. (Watch on Shudder) The slightly more adventurous can check out A Blade in the Dark (1982, dir. Lamberto Bava), an underrated giallo about a composer who's working on a movie score when a series of murders begin. The film gets crazier as it goes, leading to a climax that's truly bananas, but it's super well made and engaging. (Watch on Shudder) If you want to see Italian horror at it's most what-the-fuckiest, check out Burial Ground (1985, dir. Andrea Bianchi). There's bad pacing, terrible zombie makeup, boob trauma and Peter Bark. You have been warned/you're welcome. (Watch on Shudder)

June 18 - Code Red!

Messiah of Evil (1973, dir. Willard Hyuck & Gloria Katz) One of the very best movies in the Code Red library is this gem from the 1970s, which apparently spent some time in the public domain, which is why it's available to stream for free on Internet Archive. The quality is nowhere near as good as Code Red's Blu-ray, but the movie -- about a woman who gets mixed up with a cult existing somewhere between the living and the dead -- is still very much worth checking out. Fun fact: it's from the screenwriting team of American Graffiti and Temple of Doom and the directors of Howard the Duck. (Watch on Internet Archive) If slow and atmospheric aren't your bag, watch Truck Stop Women (1976, dir. Mark L. Lester), another of my favorite Code Red titles starring the incomparable Claudia Jennings and Lieux Dressler as a mother/daughter team of hustlers who rip off big rigs and get mixed up in prostitution and the mob. Mark L. Lester, maybe one of the most underrated genre filmmakers of the last 40 years, directs this one. It's wall-to-wall entertaining and fun. (Watch on Amazon Prime Video)

June 19 - Killer Kids!

Bloody Birthday (1981, dir. Ed Hunt) While not a small subgenre, there are surprisingly few killer kid movies to stream across the various platforms. This is one of the better ones, about a couple of kids who are born during the same eclipse and grow up to be homicidal. Extra bonus points for the casting of future MTV star Julie Brown (of Just Say Julie, not Downtown, fame) in an early role. (Watch on Exploitation.TV)

Alice Sweet Alice (1975, dir. Alfred Sole) Brooke Shields plays the little sister of a killer kid (maybe?) in her movie debut. (Watch on Amazon Prime Video)

June 20 - Sci Fi!

The New Barbarians (1984, dir. Enzo Castellari) So many Mad Max/Escape from New York rip-offs came out of Italy in the early 1980s. This is one of my favorites. These import actioners feature stunts that are crazy and feel genuinely dangerous, plus there's Fred Williamson with a ridiculous costume and another appearance by George Eastman, who shows up in most of the movies I watch these days. Not that I'm complaining. (Watch on Amazon Prime Video)

June 21 - Free Space!

Beyond the Darkness (1979, dir. Joe D'Amato) Not my favorite Italian horror film, but one that's really, really fucked up and featured a characteristically great Goblin score. Kieran Canter plays a taxidermist who makes the move from animals to humans after his fiance dies; things only get weirder and way more gross from there. This is the kind of movie I would only recommend during #Junesploitation, as it's very much in the spirit of the month. (Watch on Shudder)

Sociopathia (2015, dir. Ruby Larocca) Listen. I'll be totally straight here. I got to know Asta Paredes back when she was on the show for Return to Nuke 'Em High Vol. 1. She has been a friend to me and a friend to this site, so I'm recommending this movie because I think she's really good in it and it's a chance to see her in her biggest film role outside of Troma. I don't love everything about the movie, but it's worth watching for Asta. I hope to have her back on the podcast someday, as I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of her. (Watch free with ads on Vudu)

June 22 - Video Nasties!

Night of the Demon (1983, dir. James Wasson) A group of people go searching for Bigfoot and get fucked up. I'm not sure if the version streaming on Amazon is totally uncut -- or even if a fully uncut version exists anymore -- but it's very funny to me that a movie about Bigfoot murder would so offend the UK censors that it would wind up on the Video Nasties list. (Watch on Amazon Prime Video)

Island of Death (1974, dir. Niko Mastorakis) I'm not in favor of any movie being censored, but I get why this one got slapped with the "Nasty" label. It is nasty. It's about a brother and sister who travel to a Greek island and murder anyone they see as sinful. Meanwhile, they're having sex with each other and fucking the occasional goat, which they then have to murder for being impure. WHAT? That goat was just being a goat until you came along and had sex with it, you assholes. It's a crazy, crazy movie that wears out its welcome somewhat but so destroys the lines of good taste that of course I have to recommend it. (Watch on Shudder)