Movies: Deathless Devil and Tarkan Vs. the Vikings

Pointless nudity, crude violence and foam monsters. For connoisseurs of the bad, Mondo Macabro's DVD double-feature from Turkish cinema's forgotten 1970s heyday is a blessing from the gods. Deathless Devils has the continuity of porn, ubiquitous zooms, a cardboard robot, bad fake moustaches, a creepy sex scene and is truly only watchable in fast-forward, though it seems destined to be projected against a wall at a hip loft party. Tarkan Vs. the Viking is clearly the superior flick, and at moments dares to be even watchable. Apparently based on a Turkish comic strip, Tarkan is a noble Hun whose only friend, his dog Kurt, is killed by vikings, and Tarkan vows revenge. Along the way, he has to protect a Hun princess and fight a giant rubber octopus the vikings worship, as well as contend with the wiles of a frequently-undressing 'Chinese' courtesan. The interesting accompanying doc about Turkish cinema is full of colorful actors and filmmakers of the period. One director says the movies, which he cranked out by the dozen every year, were 'boy's own adventure stories, but for adults.' Mostly they were cheapie remakes of American movies that were redeemed by their fearless stupidity, such as the Star Trek knockoff, in which the Turkish crew battles Godzilla. Tragically, much of this wonderful output was melted down for the silver nitrate in the film stock when Turkey's movie industry went belly up in the 80s. One of the old-timers in the doc laments that 'a lot of art was destroyed'. A poster of a now vanished film, with Captain America in chains, Spiderman, the Hulk, and a nude woman, suggests that he was right.