We're celebrating 100 episodes of Bring Me The Axe with a cool bottle of Cheerwine and our friend Halle Kiefer from the podcast Ruined for a look at one of the all-time greats in horror, William Friedkin's 1973 possession horror, The Exorcist.

When Regan MacNeil, the 12 year old daaughter of movie star Chris MacNeil begins displaying strange, aggressive, and obscene behavior, her mother takes her to a parade of medical professionals to diagnose her problems. But when they fall short and her behavior escalates to the downright paranormal and Chris MacNeil suspects that she may have murdered a friend she turns to Catholic priest Father Damien Karras. Karras, a priest facing a crisis of faith is dubious but when he meets the girl, physically transformed by demonic possession he brings in an experienced exorcist to drive the demon out.

A true rite of passage for horror fans, The Exorcist is a notorious exercise, a movie equally beautiful as it is hideous and obscene. Jam-packed with elevated performances from actors at the top tier of their profession, disturbing sound design, and incredible special effects, The Exorcist rules.

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This week we're returning to Italy for a look at one of the dumbest, most baffling action movies ever made, Raiders of Atlantis, aka Atlantis Interceptors, from the notorious Ruggero Deodato of Cannibal Holocaust fame.

In this film, a pair of mercenary buddies and a team of scientists from a botched attempt to raise a sunken Russian submarine find themselves stranded on a tropical island in the Atlantic as the feral, violent denizens of lost Atlantis arise from the silent depths of the ocean to reclaim the world. Or something to that effect. It's a desperate fight to survive against wave after wave of road warrior freaks, an race against time to translate an ancient tablet that will restore the ancient civilization, and an endless series of violent gun battles and if I'm being honest, I'm working overtime to make this movie make sense. It's 90 minutes of high-flying nonsense but somehow it ends up being a lot of fun.

Shot against the backdrop of Italy's exploitation film industry struggling to find an alternative to the declining horror and giallo markets, it capitalizes on the then-extremely popular trend of Mad Max ripoffs but also tries to tap in to the world's hunger for high-adventure by way of cheap Raiders of the Lost Ark ripoffs only to realize that Raiders of the Lost Ark is incredibly hard to copy on budgets laughably smaller than Raiders. At the same time, the Marcos regime in the Philippines is desperate to draw filmmakers to Manila and as Deodato finds out, it's hard to say no to a totalitarian dictatorship.

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Celebrate three years of Bring Me The Axe with us as we continue our annual tradition of a deep dive into the world of George A. Romero and his iconic living dead series. For our last two anniversaries we featured Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead so it only makes sense that close out year three with the highly divisive (and Bryan's favorite), Day of the Dead.

Taking place late in the zombie plague, a motley crew of scientists and military take shelter in an underground bunker, researching the cause and a possible solution to the problem at hand: mankind being driven to the brink of extinction against a worldwide zombie holocaust. Tensions are high, supplies are low, and morale is lower as the operation cracks at the seams. One scientist thinks he has a solution, demonstrated by his domesticated pet zombie, Bub.

Released in 1985 as the third film in a three picture deal with United Film Distribution Company, Romero's epic vision of a horror movie, "Gone With The Wind With Zombies", to quote Romero, had to be scaled back significantly when Romero refused UFDC's mandate for an R-rated movie, insisting instead on a hyper-violent, gory spectacle. The result is languid, talky character drama cast with wild over-actors and punctuated by grisly violence and zombie carnage. It's Romero at his most conflicted but Tom Savini at his absolute best.

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