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The fourth of the British made Fu Manchu films starring Christopher Lee(STAR WARS MENACE), this shows the series desperately flagging and in dire need of a heart transplant. The other three films weren't exactly stunning but at least two of them were watchable enough. The problem here is that there seems to be lots of little plots without any overall cohesion. Jesus Franco's films are plagued with too many ancillary characters who don't mean anything to the film. Did we really need the entire plot with the bandits? The film could have survived quite easily without it. A new director and a change of direction for the series in this case meant ditching the characters and settings that made the other films as successful as they were. Richard Greene (Submarine Patrol) as Nayland Smith is hardly given any screen time at all and Tsai Chin's Lin Tang (Fu Manchu's daughter) is grossly over-looked here - she proves to be just as cruel and brutal as her father, if not more, in the previous films and there was so much more scope for her during those torture scenes. Instead of new characters that mean nothing, how about fleshing out the characters that we actually did like in the first place? At least Professor Petrie is given a bit more time here than he was before and the film is all the better for it. Christopher Lee does look rather uncomfortable in his make-up but is arguably the best thing about the film. The Bond-style of the previous flicks is still evident though, with Jesus Franco seemingly placing Fu Manchu in a hideout in the rainforest simply to get some shots of the jungle. There's the never-ending army of henchmen that Fu Manchu employs and various nasty devices in his base designed to maim and inflict pain. The scenes in which the kidnapped women are tied from the cave roof in their cells with as little clothing on as possible seems overtly tasteless, especially as it's not really fitting with the overall tone of this series.

The Blood of Fu Manchu is a bit of a mess really and bounces from plot to plot without any clear direction. It's a shame because the series' had much potential but it was squandered and left to fall into the hands of hack directors like Franco...

A birthday cake full of worms; a possessed maniac eating the entrails of an (real) exhumed German Shepard; a slimy green demon forcing himself on helpless women; a man squished to death by the walls of a sauna. Few other movies… OK, no other movies can boast the awful but inventive gross-outs in Hong Kong filmmaker Hung Chuen Lau's Devil Fetus.

The madness begins when a woman is compelled to buy a rather phallic-looking jade statue at an auction. When she brings it home its demonic sexual power takes hold, and her husband catches her fondling it in bed. After making quick work of him, it turns on her. An old mystic finally imprisons a baby ant-eater in a shrine, but years later one of the couple's sons' girlfriends accidentally breaks the seal, reawakening the curse. The demon possesses the family dog before literally beaming into the younger son, who sets about killing, molesting and eating whoever he can get his mitts on. There's something kind of admirable about the way it just charges ahead with its nastiness, leaving plot details behind, like "we could explain this, but isn't the unknown scarier, anyway, and, besides, it would waste valuable time that could be spent revolting you."

Influenced by UNCLE SAM (1997) and shaped by early-'80s special effects, Devil Fetus also features a have-to-see-it-to-believe-it exorcism full of fiery swords, animated eye laser beams, and flying puppets. It's a must-see for fans of good old-fashioned low-budget special effects and fearless Asian cinema.

This astonishing R-rated children's fantasy features a trio of cute latex-clad, acrobatic fighting girls who live with their grandpappy/teacher. A confused dead monk arrives from the past with an Ocult manuscript and they take it upon themselves to help him out. It often seems like a narcotically warped children's dreams full of giant sun-flowers that dance, marching scarecrows, twirling dolls with frightening faces, and half-naked women. At one point there's a close-up of one of the girls asses as she crawls away from some new threat, and becomes something you wouldn't,t see on Saturday Morning Cartoon shows. (just think if Sid and Marty Krofft made exploitation films..) One girl is tied up and whipped while wearing a cellophane tube-top and is harassed by a trippy rubber snake. After a bunch more S&M scenes, there's a corrupt magistrate who parties with topless women who seeks ultimate power from from aliens with a flying saucer. Starring Yuka Ohnishi (Girl Cop), it's basically "Sukeban Deka" (1987) given an adult treatment. they really are crazy and wonderful movies that I have got to get subbed versions of someday.