All The Hideous Sun Demon Scenes From "The Hideous Sun Demon" (1958) (video)

Robert Clarke produced and directed 1958's "The Hideous Sun Demon"...

...and played the title role of a man horribly mutated by radiation.

The rays of the sun transform him into a vicious reptilian creature.

The film's crew consisted of University of Southern California film students...
...and was shot over 12 consecutive weekends for approx. $50,000.

Cast and crew were paid $25 per day.
Much of the cast consisted of Clarke's relatives and friends.

Practical locations rather than sets were used throughout the film.

The impressive monster suit was made for a cost of $500. 
It was built over a diver's wet suit.

Although the film's reviews have been consistently negative...

...it has, over the years, become a fondly-remembered cult favorite.


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

All The Hideous Sun Demon Scenes From "The Hideous Sun Demon" (1958) (video)

Beverly Garland's Amazing Performance In "It Conquered The World" (1956)(video)

 

If you're a genre fan, chances are...

...you already have a warm spot in your heart for the wonderful Beverly Garland.

And her amazing performance in "It Conquered the World" (1956) is just one of the many reasons why.

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights over this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

Beverly Garland's Amazing Performance In "It Conquered The World" (1956)(video)

DEMENTIA 13 -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 2/27/16

 

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of accompanying my older brother to a Saturday screening of a new horror movie with the puzzling title, DEMENTIA 13 (1963).

The stark black-and-white photography and dreary Irish castle setting were spooky enough, but it was this film which would introduce me, for the first time, to genuine, grueling screen terror.

The credit "Directed by Francis Coppola" meant nothing to me or anyone else at time--the future creative genius behind the GODFATHER films was merely an aspiring Roger Corman protege' helming his first "real" movie--and neither did the rather mundane plot about an eccentric Irish family, the Halorans, who were obsessed with the drowning death of the clan's youngest child Kathleen several years earlier.

I wasn't yet a fan of the wonderful Luana Anders (EASY RIDER, THE LAST DETAIL, NIGHT TIDE) who played Louise, John Halloran's scheming wife.  In the opening scenes, we see John die of a heart attack and Louise dump his body into a lake lest his death be discovered and she lose her share of the family fortune.

Nor did I know that William Campbell, playing oldest Haloran son Richard, would later guest star in two of my favorite episodes of "Star Trek: The Original Series" (he was Trelane in "The Squire of Gothos" and Koloth in "The Trouble With Tribbles"), or that Patrick Magee as family doctor Caleb would feature so prominently in Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

All I knew at the time was that part of Louise's inheritance scheme involved stripping down to her bra and panties and taking a creepy late-night swim in the same murky pond in which little Kathleen had drowned. 

What happens when she resurfaces--and the spoilers are right there in the poster and trailer themselves--is one of the homages to the likes of PSYCHO that Corman instructed Coppola to include in his script.  (Corman also got Jack Hill to write and direct additional scenes to pad the running time and gore content, to Coppola's dismay.) 

It's also the first-ever movie scene that really and truly scared the ever-livin' crap outta me.

But DEMENTIA 13 isn't done yet, because later there's a beheading (also a first for me) and other creepy goings-on thanks to an axe-wielding maniac who seems to be stalking the Halorans. 

Unfortunately, much of these doings have lost their edge over the years--the leisurely-paced story is dishwater dull at times and most of the scares no longer chill the blood quite like they used to. 

But the film still has a strong Monster Kid watchability factor and (thanks largely to the authentic Irish locations) eerie, Gothic atmosphere to burn.

Hearing music maestro Ronald Stein's creepy, harpsichord-based theme music kick in during those pleasantly-morbid opening titles always makes me want the soundtrack CD.  Come to think of it, I feel that way about all of his film scores. 

After seeing DEMENTIA 13 that first time back in '63, I found its double-bill companion (Ray Milland's colorful PREMATURE BURIAL) a relief for my jangled nerves much the same way DR. WHO AND THE DALEKS would help me recover from the traumatic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD some years later. 

Modern viewers may find this hard to imagine since the film now plays as a slow but satisfying murder mystery with some mildly effective scares.  But it was my PSYCHO, and lovely Luana Anders' midnight swim was my shower scene. 

Read our review of ROGER CORMAN HORROR CLASSICS VOL.1

DEMENTIA 13 -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/13/16

 

I don't know how often your local stations showed it, but when I was a little Monster Kid back in the 60s I only got to see THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS (1959) once.  So viewing the new DVD from Olive Films was literally only my second time to watch this modest but effective monster thriller from the tail end of the 50s creature-feature era.

Still, I always remembered it fondly, and I have a feeling a lot of lifelong Monster Kids also hold this seldom-seen gem in warm regard.  Partly because it's such an enjoyably low-key and earnest effort, but mainly due to its titular monster, a scaly, bloodthirsty, and extremely foul-tempered beast with a penchant for decapitating his victims.

Indeed, the most enduring images from the film, which many of us first saw in the pages of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine, are those of the monster carrying around a bloody, realistic-looking severed head (as he does right there on the DVD cover itself).  This really piqued our morbid imaginations in those days since such graphic gore was still a novelty, especially on television. 

For the most part, however, THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS is pretty standard stuff for a low-budget independent horror feature, though nicely done on all counts.  The simple story takes place in a small seaside town and centers around the lighthouse which is maintained by crabby old Mr. Sturges (John Harmon, FUNNY GIRL, MONSIEUR VERDOUX), who seems to know more than he lets on about the rash of mysterious, violent deaths occurring around town. 

While his attractive daughter Lucille (Jeanne Carmen) spends her school break with him and romances local boy Fred (the great Don Sullivan of THE GIANT GILA MONSTER and TEENAGE ZOMBIES) on the sly, Sheriff Matson (Forrest Lewis, THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR) and Dr. Jorgenson (Les Tremayne, WAR OF THE WORLDS) try to solve the mystery of the headless corpses popping up all over town.

Lewis, Tremayne, and Harmon, each of whom appeared in films both big and small, use their considerable collective acting experience to lend gravitas to the production.  As for the younger players--Sullivan is an old favorite of mine, even when he has his ukulele with him (his awful solo number in GIANT GILA MONSTER is the stuff of legend), and Carmen, a close friend of Marilyn Monroe who led quite a colorful life in showbiz, gives a likably restrained, earthy performance as Lucille. 

 

I like the smalltown ambience the film establishes--everyone knows everyone else and the phone numbers are only three digits long--as well as the unhurried pace that scripter H. Haile Chace and director Irvin Berwick (MALIBU HIGH, HITCH HIKE TO HELL) maintain until the monster's first shocking appearance jolts us out of our seats. 

After that, we get to see more and more of the reptilian beast until the film's exciting and suspenseful climax, which takes place atop the lighthouse itself.  The monster suit itself resembles a poor man's "Creature From the Black Lagoon" with much more grotesque features (similar to the fearsome alien in IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE), and is definitely a cut above the usual zipper-up-the-back job. 

The DVD from Olive Films is in 1.78:1 widescreen with mono sound.  Subtitles are in English.  No extras.  Picture quality is quite good.

If you don't have a warm spot in your heart for low-budget horror fare from the 50s, chances are THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS will either leave you cold or put you to sleep, or both.  But if the very title puts a smile on your face while sending a pleasant little chill up and down your spine, then this soulful nostalgia fix should give you a potent buzz. 

THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS -- DVD Review by Porfle

AXE / KIDNAPPED COED -- Blu-ray + CD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/31/22

 

Sometimes a disc falls into my hot little hands which is an all-round cinematic experience in itself, and goes beyond simply watching a movie or two and some extras. Severin Films' new 2-disc set, AXE/KIDNAPPED COED (one Blu-ray disc, one soundtrack CD) is just such a heady film-fan experience. 

Representing the entire filmic output of 70s independent writer/producer/actor/director Frederick R. Friedel (save for an obscure 2000 comedy called MY NEXT FUNERAL), it's a saga of how someone with a little money and a lot of talent made his mark in the regional movie industry, had his films robbed from him by a crooked distributor, and finally found a "rainbow at the end of the storm" decades later when his work was rediscovered by a whole new audience of fervidly appreciative fans.

Watching the first film, AXE, aka "Lisa, Lisa" (1974), my initial impression was that this guy Friedel is one of those creative talents who can take the kind of budget and resources usually reserved for the lowest drive-in dregs and work a kind of rough-hewn magic with them.  Even as the film's look and feel still have that unavoidable bottom-drawer ambience, there's something sharply intelligent about the camerawork and editing, as well as performances by a uniformly fine cast, which elevates it all into a much higher realm of watchability.

Two plotlines are introduced which will eventually intertwine--in one, three gangsters are on the lam after having dispatched some unlucky mug in his cheap hotel room, in luridly violent fashion.  Jack Canon plays Steele, the icily psychotic leader, Ray Green the equally sadistic thug Lomax, and Friedel himself is Billy, a novice criminal still hampered by a nagging conscience.  After the murder, they disappear into the North Carolina backwoods to find a place to lay low for awhile.

This brings them into a collision with plotline number two, in which a curiously disaffected young girl named Lisa (Leslie Lee) is the sole caretaker for her catatonic grandfather (Douglas Powers) in a remote two-storey farmhouse.  Scarcely into her teens, Lisa already seems shell-shocked by life, and barely reacts when Steele, Lomax, and Billy forcibly invite themselves to stay. 

While Lisa's deceptively placid countenance hides a fierce inner turmoil, the evil men now invading her life force her to take overt actions to defend herself.  This comes to a head when Lomax enters her bedroom at night with bad intent, and Lisa displays an aptitude for slicing and dicing heretofore reserved for chickens.

 

This is where AXE starts to live up to its lurid trailers and print ads (which scream the tagline "At last...total terror!"), with winsome nutcase Lisa wielding a straight razor and an axe in bloody fashion without ever breaking that strangely calm but troubled fascade.  Still, the film is never in the same league as THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (alternate titles include CALIFORNIA AXE MASSACRE and THE VIRGIN SLAUGHTER) nor does it try to be.  It's mainly a compelling and pleasingly morbid character study with splashes of gore but little that could be called "graphic", although that didn't stop it from being condemned as one of England's infamous "video nasties" of the 80s.

As for the cast, the leads couldn't be better.  Leslie Lee is an ideal Lisa, pretty but strange, her sad face always interesting to look at as you wonder what the heck's going on behind it.  As Steele, Jack Canon is a classic big-screen tough guy that you just can't look away from.  He'd have been perfect as the lead in one of those tacky 70s or 80s TV cop shows like "Hunter"--as it is, one can only wonder why he never went farther as an actor.  Ray Green's bloated Lomax is sleaze personified, and Friedel himself, bearded and Brillo-haired, is a convincingly conflicted Billy who ends up trying to help Lisa. 

As a director, Friedel takes his time and lingers artistically over every sequence as much as the brisk shooting schedule allowed, drawing out every nuance of visual interest possible while admittedly playing fast and loose with the script.  An early scene of Steele and Lomax terrorizing a poor convenience store clerk (Carole Miller) is like a foretaste of Oliver Stone's NATURAL BORN KILLERS.  Never one to rely on sheer exploitation, Friedel shoots this and Lisa's rape scene later in the film--as well as the subsequent killings--not just as visceral exploitation but as an opportunity to indulge in a form of raw cinematic poetry.

Wanting to fully explore the potential he saw in Jack Canon during the making of AXE, Friedel then concocted the entire screeplay for his follow-up film KIDNAPPED COED, aka "Kidnapped Lover" (1976) around the actor's charismatic appeal.  Thus, Canon appears in almost every single scene and makes the most of his screen time with a performance that should've been a ticket to broader fame.

Equally compelling is young Leslie Ann Rivers as ginger-haired, bespectacled Sandra, a well-to-do teenage "coed" whom small-time crook Eddie Matlock (Canon) abducts in hopes of a big ransom.  Both actors have faces that are fascinating to look at and naturalistic acting styles that bring their characters to life. 

Friedel has a bigger budget here (around $40,000) which allows for more elaborate camera moves and other relative indulgences that really pay off in the movie's look and style.  Again, he takes plenty of time for character development as the two leads get to know each other and gradually even form a tentative romantic relationship, all done in a series of quirky exchanges taking place during some wildly unexpected situations.

These include a brutal, Scorsese-esque sequence in which both are attacked in their seedy hotel room by a couple of violent thugs who force their way in at gunpoint so that they can beat up Eddie and rape the horrified Sandra in another scene that's stunningly executed.  Continuing the theme that this just isn't his day, Eddie later encounters unfriendly shotgun-wielding farmers while simply trying to get water for his car radiator, and finally ends up in a life-or-death struggle against another bearish farmer who has just welcomed him and Sandra into his home before suddenly going pitchfork-wielding berserk. 

As all this happens to them, Eddie and Sandra's relationship wanders through different stages as the film itself passes, with varying degrees of finesse, through such disparate genres as thriller, horror, action, character drama, quirky romance, and even comedy.  Friedel admits in the commentary that he doesn't even remember whether or not there was a written screenplay for the film, but this only contributes to its off-kilter charm.  Mainly, though, it's Canon and Rivers that keep our eyes glued to this wildly uneven but compelling little film right up to its abrupt and somewhat anti-climactic ending.

The full story surrounding these two films from conception to oblivion (and, lucky for us, joyous rediscovery) is recounted in the hour-long bonus documentary "At Last… Total Terror! – The Incredible True Story of AXE & KIDNAPPED COED", which sees the warm reunion of Friedel and several key members of his production team who also gather to provide excellent commentary tracks for both films.

"Moose Magic – The George Newman Shaw & John Willhelm Story" (38 mins) tells of the two young musical geniuses who scored the films shortly before their tragic demise in a car accident.  Shining lights in the Charlotte, North Carolina music scene, these wonderfully creative and eclectic musicians contributed some offbeat, often minimalistic tracks to AXE and KIDNAPPED COED that are preserved in this set's second disc, a music CD which also includes several bonus tracks of the duo's non-movie-related jazz compositions that provide scintillating listening. 

A ten-minute interview with author Stephen Thrower ("Nightmare USA"), who helped bring Friedel and his films to the attention of new audiences, is followed by several trailers and TV spots for them. 

No doubt the oddest of all the bonus features is the full-length feature film BLOODY BROTHERS, which is actually a later re-edit by Friedel of both AXE and KIDNAPPED COED into one strange, disjointed narrative in which Jack Canon's "Steele" and "Eddie Matlock" characters are presented as identical twins unaware of each other's existence.  Their unrelated stories are intercut with little rhyme or reason, while recurring intertitles tell us that the two are gradually drawing closer to one another ("Five miles away", "One mile away", "1/2 mile away", etc.)

Since we know they'll never meet, we wonder what this is all leading up to, if anything. The main interest is seeing which scenes Friedel decides to include and how he cross-edits them, as well as what he leaves out, including the entire subplot of Eddie and his mom.  There's one scene that's entirely new, which shows Eddie on the beach performing a Jewish prayer ceremony even though he isn't Jewish.

This interesting oddity comes with another winning commentary track by Stephen Thrower. I really can't say how it would play for someone who hasn't already seen the two films on their own. 

Severin Films has restored AXE and KIDNAPPED COED from the original negatives (rescuing these from movie purgatory is part of the main documentary's gripping story) for this HD Blu-ray release, which is in 1.85:1 widescreen and mono sound.  No subtitles. 

AXE, KIDNAPPED COED, and their bastard sibling BLOODY BROTHERS, along with the abundance of extras that go along with them, add up to several hours of movie watching that are engrossing, enriching, and just plain fun.  It's all very satisfying in an exploitation vein, but not only that, Friedel's low-budget films are small-scale artistic wonders which yield all sorts of aesthetic rewards and make one wish he'd done more before being soured on the business. Rather than "so bad, they're good", his films are actually so good, they're great.



Stills used are not taken from the Blu-ray.

AXE / KIDNAPPED COED -- Blu-ray + CD Review by Porfle

The Infamous Jump Cut in "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) (video)

In George Romero's classic 1968 zombie thriller, "Night of the Living Dead", there's a glaring jump cut...

...where several minutes of dialogue have been removed.

It comes right in the middle of a shot.

Here is one suggestion for eliminating the jump cut.


Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

The Infamous Jump Cut in "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) (video)

Near-Identical Scenes In "The Killer Shrews" (1959) and "Night of the Living Dead" (1968)(video)

"The Killer Shrews" (1959) has certain elements that showed up again later in "The Birds" (1963) and "Night of the Living Dead" (1968).

The latter film in particular features a scene that's almost a replay of one from "The Killer Shrews", right down to the music.

In "Night of the Living Dead", the scene ends with Ben (Duane Jones) saying: "I ought to drag you out there and feed you to those things!"

In "The Killer Shrews", Thorn (James Best) doesn't just say it--he almost does it!


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Near-Identical Scenes In "The Killer Shrews" (1959) and "Night of the Living Dead" (1968)(video)

CARNIVOROUS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 4/8/09

 

A little boy named Alan Cade steals a magic "Kulev" stick from an old Cajun witch doctor, pops a crayon in one end, and draws a picture of a giant alligator-headed snake monster killing his abusive stepdad. Voila--one giant alligator-headed snake monster comin' up, and before you know it, bad stepdad is toast.

CARNIVOROUS, aka "Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent" (2008), then whisks us ahead several years to find grown-up Alan (Louis Herthum) blissfully married to his childhood sweetheart Becky. But when a truckload of pesky teenagers on their way to a secluded cabin for the weekend run over Alan's beloved without even looking back to see what that "thump" was, a heartbroken Alan whips out the old magic stick again and starts drawing. In no time, the teens start getting dragged one by one into the sugar cane field surrounding their cabin by a big, mean you-know-what.

I tend to lower my expectations when it comes to low-budget horror flicks, so I'm often pleasantly surprised when they turn out to be pretty good. Unfortunately, the only way to not be disappointed by this totally blah film is to expect not to be entertained in any way, shape, or form. Aside from Alan and Becky, the characters are doggedly uninteresting and painfully unlikable, which is only made worse by some really bad performances. 

Even standard good girl Sam (Lauren Fain) and standard sensitive guy Kelly (Wes Brown) are annoying stiffs whom we would dearly love to see get eaten alive. Their moronic party-hearty cohorts are even worse, although slutty blonde Ashley (Victoria Vodar) tends to strip down to her red satin undies a lot and has an endearing snort when she laughs.

The film looks kind of like an episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series" only not as good or anywhere near as exciting. Amir Valinia's bland direction and a groan-filled script don't help much. The kill scenes are few and far between, and generate zero suspense. A couple of them, however, are amusing--one guy gets skewered while mounting his horny girlfriend, with the tip of the creature's wiggling tail sticking out of his chest. He deserves it. 

Another character gets summarily decapitated by said tail at such an odd moment that it isn't scary or shocking, but just sorta unexpectedly funny. As for the creature itself, it's passable, and certainly isn't the worst CGI I've ever seen in a low-budget flick. With more imaginative direction the creature scenes might've been somewhat exciting, but as it is they have little effect at all.

Rapper DMX, who's billed over the title, makes a halfhearted appearance toward the end. He's the grown-up son of the old Cajun from whom Alan stole the magic stick way back when, and now he's the only hope our heroes have of destroying the monster. I seem to remember DMX doing okay in EXIT WOUNDS alongside Steven Seagal, but here he barely registers. He's also one of the executive producers, which makes me wonder why he can't find something better than this to get involved with.

Bad horror flicks can be fun to watch if they aren't totally boring and you can laugh at them. It also helps if the filmmakers were obviously trying to make a good movie and failed in an entertaining way. Unfortunately, none of these conditions apply to CARNIVOROUS. In a word, it's simply--indigestible.

 

CARNIVOROUS -- DVD Review by Porfle

WAR OF THE PLANETS -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

(NOTE: Since this review was first posted at Bumscorner.com in 2005, the film has undergone more name changes--from its original title of TERRARIUM to WAR OF THE PLANETS and, in the U.K., LOST VOYAGER and EXODUS.)


"What's it doing?  WHAT'S IT DOING?"
"It's devouring her, Robert."

After crash-landing on an unknown planet, a crew of space colonists awaken from suspended animation to find that a hairy, carniverous beast has entered the crippled ship and is breaking into their cryo-chambers one by one, dragging them away.  Unable to move until their bodies overcome the effects of their 15-year sleep, they are little more than a human buffet.  Or, as one of the characters aptly puts it:  "We're the goodies behind the glass."

Thus begins WAR OF THE PLANETS (2004), an extremely low-budget thriller (shot on 16mm) written and directed by Mike Conway, who also photographed, edited, and scored in addition to playing one of the astronauts.  The credits are filled with various other Conways and also reveal that several of the lead actors took part in set construction, camerawork, still photography, etc.  Sheila Conway, who plays "Nicole", doubled as one of the mysterious aliens that also inhabit the planet.

The beast, who resembles a man in a Halloween gorilla costume, returns every five hours or so for a fresh victim.  The helpless astronauts struggle to revitalize their long-dormant bodies between attacks by doing isometric exercises as each character takes advantage of the opportunity to fill us in on their backstories, which are pretty standard -- the captain lost his family while gaining the stars, Nicole's dreams were the ticket out of her small hometown, Kim entered the space program after "an overdose, a suicide attempt, and a stint in the psyche ward..."  (Okay, maybe they're not all that standard.) 

During these scenes the cast gets to act from the neck up a la Richard Dreyfuss in WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY?, with varying degrees of skill.  None of them are really bad, though -- the performances range from passable to pretty good, and the characters are likable enough to sustain interest.

When the creature inevitably returns, there is a fair amount of suspense as the crew waits to see who is next on the menu.  Noticing that the first three victims have been women, and figuring that a colony bereft of females might be at a bit of a disadvantage in the procreation department, some of the men valiantly start thrashing around and hollering to attract attention to themselves.  

But suicidal Kim will have none of that, and screams:  "Leave him alone, Sasquatch!  Come and get me, you hairy bastard!" and "It's me you want, you son of a bitch!"  I won't reveal what happens next, but let's face it -- if you find yourself in a monster movie, perhaps those are not the best things to say to the monster.

Eventually, however, the survivors finally regain their motor skills and manage to put a locked door between themselves and the voracious beast.  Later they are able to subdue him as well, at the cost of more lives -- but an autopsy reveals that he hasn't been eating them after all.  So why did he abduct them one by one?  Where has he been taking them? 

The mystery deepens when the astronauts venture from the ship to discover that it is surrounded by an impenetrable glasslike barrier, and their night-vision goggles reveal strange alien beings creeping around in the darkness beyond.  The most likely conclusion reached by the captain and what's left of his crew is that they are the subjects of some ghastly experiment -- but at this point, the only thing they know for sure is that they must somehow escape from the barrier and strike back at the aliens with whatever means they have available. 

Obviously, it's reasonable to assume that a movie called WAR OF THE PLANETS might contain elements similar to films like WAR OF THE WORLDS or BATTLE OF THE PLANETS, with entire civilizations waging spectacular war against one another, but what it all boils down to in the end is this small skirmish between the space colonists and the aliens in a remote location near Las Vegas.  (The original title was TERRARIUM.) 

The filmmakers do their best with a very low budget (originally $27,000, but with added special effects reportedly donated free of charge by former STAR TREK:VOYAGER and BABYLON 5 visual effects artists who became fans of the movie during a two-week run at a Las Vegas theater!), and despite the cardboard sets, videogame-level special effects, an uneven cast of volunteer actors, and some unintentionally amusing dialogue ("Your hair looks the same whether it has cryo-fluid in it or not" "That's what they tell me"), it's sort of a fun movie to watch if you're in the right mood. But I'd suggest renting WAR OF THE PLANETS before adding it to your permanent DVD collection or presenting it to that special someone on their birthday.  It's no ROCKETSHIP XM.

Buy it at Amazon.com

Here's our two-part interview with Mike Conway:
Part One
Part Two

 

WAR OF THE PLANETS -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE -- Movie Review by Porfle

Some movies are so bad, they're good--we all know that. But then there are the ones that are bad in such interesting ways that they're endlessly fascinating. Which is why THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1962) is one of the most-watched movies in my DVD collection.

 

It begins with a surgeon losing his patient in the operating room. The assisting surgeon, his son Dr. Bill Cortner (Herb Evers), insists on trying some of his wild new methods on the corpse. Cortner, Sr. pantomines cutting into the patient's chest to perform a heart massage by poking the scalpel about six inches over it and making a cutting motion while we see Bill fiddling with a dummy head that has an exposed brain but apparently no skull. After the patient is revived, Pop grumpily admits his son's success, but warns him against persuing weird and untested methods, especially when his experiments include stealing amputated limbs from the hospital. 

 

Bill poo-poos the old man's admonitions and whisks off with his amorous fiancee, nurse Jan Compton (Virginia Leith), to the country house where he performs his mysterious limb-grafting experiments. Having received a frantic phone call from his assistant, Kurt (Leslie Daniels), who says there's trouble a-brewing at the secluded house (something about a thing in a closet), leadfooted Bill gets in too much of a hurry and crashes the car, killing Jan. 

 

But Bill isn't about to let a little thing like death stop him, so he grabs Jan's decapitated head out of the burning wreckage, wraps it in his jacket, and hoofs it cross-country toward the house like O.J. Simpson running for a touchdown in the Super Bowl. You almost expect him to spike Jan's head and do a victory dance when he gets there, but instead he places it in a pan in his basement laboratory, hooks it up to a bunch of low-budget scientific equipment, and brings it back to life. 

 

Now Bill is all set to attempt his most daring transplant of all--to graft Jan's head onto another body. But to do that, he must prowl the local streets, nudie bars, and "body beautiful" contests in search of the perfect body--that is, one that turns him on--and lure its unfortunate owner into his dastardly clutches. 

 

It's all so delightfully, unabashedly cheap and lurid that I just can't help loving every minute of it. The car crash is so economically done that we don't even see it--the camera lurches toward a guardrail and Herb Evers rolls down a hill. That's it! Then we see a car door in the foreground with a man's muscular, hairy arm sticking into the frame, and that's supposed to be Jan! Unbelievable. 

 

 

 

Herb Evers was no great actor, but his "Bill Cortner" is a marvelous cad. This heartless bastard makes no bones about his intentions, skulking into a cheap dive called the "Moulin Rouge" to scope out the dancers and cruising the streets eyeballing babes as he searches for the body that he most wants to grope whilst making out with the new, improved Jan-thing. (All of this is accompanied by one of the sleaziest tunes ever written, aptly entitled "The Web.") The women he encounters are a bit on the homely side, but hilarious. They can't act, yet somehow they're so into their characters that their performances are strangely compelling. 

 

Bonnie Sharie, who plays a blonde stripper at the Moulin Rouge, acts as though she were born for the part of a hardboiled doll on the make for a sugar daddy. Paula Maurice, as another stripper who barges into the dressing room while Bonnie's cozying up with Bill and starts firing off withering wisecracks at her, is a riot--she's actually very good, in fact. And when Bill decides three's a crowd and makes his exit, there's even a totally extraneous catfight for our amusement.

 

The best of these potential victims, though, is Adele Lamont as "Doris Powell", who hates men ("I hate ALL men for what ONE of them did to me ONCE!" she snarls) yet makes her living as a "photograph model" posing for drooling guys with cameras. (One of them is infamous Jerry Lewis impersonator Sammy Petrillo of BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA! What the hell's he doing in this?) Bill slithers into one of Doris' posing sessions and uses his charm to convince her that he's a nice, trustworthy guy who can restore her scarred face to its former beauty. 

 

Their dialogue in this scene is priceless. Adele Lamont, who's actually quite a looker, spouts her lines as though she's trying to hammer nails with them. "See it ALL...MISTER?" she growls at Bill. "The SHOW'S OVER...next time bring a CAMERA and buy a TICKET! I'm not running a CHARITY!" When Bill tries to placate her, she retorts "Listen--GALAHAD! I trusted a man once...ALL THE WAY!" She's a terrible actress, but she's so intense that it doesn't matter. Ultimately, the smooth-talking Bill conquers the monumental task of gaining Doris' trust, which makes his leering, smirking betrayal of it later on even more disturbing. 

 

Meanwhile, back at the country house, Bill's skittish assistant Kurt is on pins and needles. Not only does he have to contend with baby-sitting Jan's increasingly yakky head, but he's also freaking out about the dreaded thing in the closet. Yes, Bill's earlier experiments in limb-grafting have resulted in a horrifically-mutated monster that must be confined in a closet and fed through a tiny window in the door, and lately it's been getting restless. 

 

The thing in the closet is often referred to throughout the movie with such dread that it builds up a considerable amount of suspense--especially when Jan begins to form a telepathic connection with it and plans to use it to get revenge against Bill for what he's scheming to do.

 

Leslie Daniels plays Kurt with a wildly-theatrical style that might actually go over nicely if you were sitting in the back row of a theater, but up close he's like a character from a Jay Ward cartoon. Like so many of the other actors in this movie, he gives the part his all and performs as though the script were written by Shakespeare instead of guys named Rex Carlton and Joseph Green. He has some really entertaining dialogue scenes with Jan, and they're directed in a way that convinces us he's talking to a disembodied head. 

 

His demise, after an unfortunate encounter with the thing in the closet, has to be seen to be believed. It's the quintessential death-scene cliche, as performed by every little kid who ever pretended to get stabbed with a sword while rehearsing for the school play, and it goes on for several minutes while Kurt staggers violently from one set to another and back, smearing blood all over the walls as he lurches about in his final throes. I've never seen anything like it.

 

 

 

Top acting honors, however, must go to Virginia Leith as Jan. If the critics thought Richard Dreyfuss' performance as a quadraplegic in WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY? was impressive because he only acted from the neck up, then surely Virginia must get equal credit for acting only from the chin up. She does a marvelous job with her expressions, eye movements, and voice to convey her initial despair at being a disembodied head that should be "in its grave" (her plaintive cry, "Let me die...let me die" is haunting). 

 

Later, her concern over Bill's hunt for a potential victim, which she senses telepathically due to the weird life-giving fluid coursing through her brain, and finally her burning hatred and lust for revenge are very convincingly done. She has the upper hand in her talks with Kurt, gradually goading and prodding him toward his doom. And since the monster in the closet--who also wants revenge in a big way--is now under her mental control, things are really coming to a head. So to speak.

 

When Bill lures Doris to the house and prepares to carry out the operation, director Joseph Green stages a grand finale in which the dreaded monster finally breaks out of the closet. And even after all the build-up, we're not disappointed. The seven-and-a-half foot tall Eddie Carmel, known as "The Jewish Giant", makes quite an impression even under a bad makeup job as he goes on his final, fiery rampage. 

 

The scene is surprisingly gory, too, for a pre-BLOOD FEAST film--with this and the earlier blood-splattered death scene of Kurt, I'm still amazed that I got to see it uncut on TV when I was a kid. It scared the hell out of me then, its squalid and lurid atmosphere merely adding to the overall effect, and to this day, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE remains one of my favorite low-budget horror movies ever.

 

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE -- Movie Review by Porfle

THINGS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/8/11

 

While one review hails THINGS (1989) as "a movie that defines what 'cult' really is", you'd be quite accurate in saying that this low-budget, straight-to-VHS Canadian gorefest also defines what "100% brain-rotting crap" really is. 

There's no denying that this is one of the worst excuses for a movie ever made.  It's one of those films whose status as either "so bad it's good" or "totally unwatchable dreck" depends entirely upon the charity of the viewer.  That said, though, if you catch it in the right mood--as the film's many fans apparently did--you can have an awful lot of fun watching it.

Shot on Super-8mm by high-school pals Andrew Jordan (co-writer, director) and Barry J. Gillis (co-producer, co-writer, star), THINGS is the story of a man named Doug Drake (Doug Bunston) who seeks medical help when he and his wife Susan are unable to conceive a child.  Unfortunately, Dr. Lucas (Jan W. Pachul) turns out to be a giggling, sadistic psycho who takes time out from torturing people in his dungeon of horror (the torture scenes are amateurish-looking but extreme) to impregnate Susan with a monster fetus.



Later, Doug's brother Don (Gillis) and his friend Fred (Bruce Roach) drop by Doug's secluded cabin in the backwoods of Toronto for an exciting evening of drinking beer and watching TV.  Suddenly, Susan gives birth to a creature that looks like a cross between a chest-burster from ALIEN and a giant cootie.  The thing begins to multiply at an alarming rate until the house is crawling with them, plunging Don, Fred, and Doug into a nightmare of insect insanity and gratuitous gore. 

While all of this sounds exciting, it isn't, and the most interesting thing about the film is the bizarre and illogical behavior of its main characters.  After Susan's horrific death (during which actress Patricia Sadler is unable to suppress a smile whenever she's on camera), Doug's initial grief quickly gives way to lighthearted prankishness and an overall "who cares" attitude, in addition to a concern that his nice shirt has been ruined by Susan's gushing blood.  Don interrupts the somber mood with a gruesome campfire story at the kitchen table, while Fred wonders what kind of cool TV shows are on. 

Characters appear and disappear seemingly at random--we don't even know Doug is in the house with Don and Fred until there's a sudden closeup of his butt, after which he disappears again.  The total lack of basic storytelling skills forces us to decipher what's going on in almost every scene, even down to figuring out whether we're supposed to find certain drawn-out sequences funny, suspenseful, or scary.
 


There seem to be several deliberate attempts at comedy throughout the story, but the serious and funny elements are so equally stupid that it's hard to tell.  I laughed out loud when the dog got killed, and I don't even know why.  Other scenes are equally amusing for unknown reasons, such as the part where Doug and Don are searching the bathroom for bug-monsters and find one perched on the toilet, and then each of them insists on using the bathroom anyway. 

Much of the running time is padded with shots of them wandering around the house with their flashlights, trading goofy dialogue and doing things that don't make sense.  When they finally go down into the basement to change out some fuses, a sudden bug attack results in Don bludgeoning Doug with a club.  More excitement ensues when Fred finds an electric chainsaw and goes commando against the critters while Don wields a power drill as though he were building the world's most insane birdhouse.  The film's most hilarious moment ("I'm still alive!") is followed by a surprise visit from none other than the gleefully insane Dr. Lucas, after which things just go totally whacko until the film abruptly ends. 

THINGS supposedly cost around $40,000 to make, but I can't imagine it costing any more than forty dollars.  A sizable chunk of the budget ($2,500) went to 80s porn goddess Amber Lynn, who consented to appear as a TV news reporter making intermittent appearances throughout the film.  Reading her lines cold from a cue card held way off to the side, Amber doesn't come off too good here.  This is irrelevant, though, since her presence is mainly an excuse to use sexy pictures of her in the advertising.  The film's only nudity comes in the first scene, in which a woman (a real-life hooker who appeared under the condition that her face not be shown) strips naked while wearing a devil mask that makes her resemble a deranged Ed Wood.



The DVD from InterVision is in full-screen with 2.0 sound.  Extras include two commentaries, trailers, Barry J. Gillis TV appearances promoting the film, a cast and crew 20th anniversary reunion, a ten-minute behind-the-scenes look at Amber Lynn filming her scenes, and testimonials for the film including comments by Tobe Hooper (TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE) and Jason Eisener (HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN).  After the closing credits crawl there's more candid footage of Amber Lynn and some outtakes.

The first commentary, an audio viewing party with the Cinefamily, is fun, but the cast and crew commentary is a wonderfully raucous affair during which Gillis' daughter, Victoria Elizabeth Turnbull (who also appears in the anniversary segment), mercilessly mocks the film while a growing air of inebriation seems to prevail.

With camerawork and editing that seem to have been performed by blind people and dubbing that might've been done from across the street--not to mention some of the most delightfully atrocious acting of all time--you might think that THINGS was made by people who have never seen a movie before.  As things grow more bizarre and nonsensical, however, the film begins to look more like something made by aliens who have never seen human beings before.

THINGS -- DVD Review by Porfle

BLOODLUST! -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 2/15/14

 

I've never seen BLOODLUST! (1961) get the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, but it would certainly seem like a suitable subject.  It's cheap, somewhat sub-par in most production aspects,  not overly well-written, and, suffice it to say, a bit silly at times.  And the fact that Robert Reed plays the lead teenage hero is, by itself, enough for a buttload of "Brady Bunch" jokes.

(In one scene, the bad guy shoots a ceramic horse with a crossbow and shatters it.  The horse--wouldn't you know it--looks almost exactly like the one in the Bradys' livingroom.  Hence the line "Mom always said, don't shoot crossbows in the house" simply writes itself.)

The thing is, though, once you get past the TEENAGE ZOMBIES vibe of the opening minutes (two flaky teenage couples discover a heretofore unknown island and romp merrily into the clutches of the evil recluse who owns it), the film rises above its potential Jerry Warren-level awfulness and approaches the relatively higher quality of FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER--which was directed by BLOODLUST!'s cinematographer, Richard E. Cunha--or perhaps even Ray Kellogg's minor classic THE KILLER SHREWS. 

Wilton Graff (LUST FOR LIFE, LILI) helps lend gravitas to the proceedings as Dr. Albert Balleau, former military sniper who now continues his passion for hunting humans on his private island and is delighted to have such fit new specimens to grace his trophy room.  Johnny (Reed) and his nerdy pal Pete (Gene Persson) get to be the designated prey, while their lucky girlfriends, pretty blond judo expert Betty (June Kenney, EARTH VS. THE SPIDER) and jittery Joan (Jeanne Perry), face induction into Dr. Balleau's Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Femmes. 

Also giving the film a leg-up in quality are first and only time director Ralph Brooke's brother Walter--the insanely-prolific character actor who would gain screen immortality with the single word "Plastics" in 1967's THE GRADUATE--as reluctant Balleau cohort Dean, and the equally-familiar Lilyan Chauvin (SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, PREDATOR 2) as Balleau's beautiful but miserable wife Sandra.  She and Dean are secret lovers who dream of escaping the island together, which now seems doable with the help of the four captive teens.  This plan works out about as well as you might expect, as long as you keep your expectations nice and low.

Bad movie lovers will enjoy the low-rent look of the interiors of Dr. Balleau's mansion (although the jungle sets and rock-walled trophy room aren't half bad) and relish the sight of young Robert Reed all puffed up in a tight T-shirt while giving his character the same easygoing suavity  and mild horndoggishness that he would later ooze as Mike Brady.  He also adopts his familiar fatherly tone in dealing with his more weak-willed pals Pete and Joan, who prove rather useless during the whole ordeal. 

The more capable Betty, meanwhile, gets to use her judo skills when she flips an oncoming henchman into a vat of acid, which, through the magic of cutaway editing, disintegrates him nicely.  BLOODLUST! is generally pretty gory at times for 1961, especially when Pete and Joan observe Balleau's chief lackey Jondor (Bobby Hall) arranging dismembered body parts to be stuffed for the trophy room. 

Jondor himself emerges from  a pit of quicksand later on with a host of live leeches squirming on his face, one of the film's lovelier images, and the whole thing ends with one of the cast skewered on wall spikes as blood gushes freely.  But somehow, perhaps due to the above-average cast taking the whole thing seriously, the film doesn't exude nearly the kind of lurid, H.G. Lewis-type aura it might have.

The DVD from Film Chest has a 4 x 3 aspect ratio with original mono sound.  No subtitles, but scrolling closed-captioning is available.  No extras. 

Touted as an "HD restoration from 35mm film elements", it still has some rough spots--particularly during the main titles and reel changes--along with occasional specks throughout the entire film.  Still, this print looks way, way better than the ragged PD copy I have on a Mill Creek collection, and is generally pretty nice-looking.  (Stills used for this review are not taken from the Film Chest restoration.)

While this modest (to put it mildly) reworking of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME isn't exactly riveting, it remains fairly entertaining from start to finish and I had a good time watching it.  The mood is effectively morbid, the jungle hunt sequence sufficiently suspenseful, and the ending particularly satisfying.  If you're the kind of person who has a sweet tooth for flicks like TEENAGE ZOMBIES, FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER, and THE KILLER SHREWS, then BLOODLUST! may actually belong in your very own trophy room.

BLOODLUST! -- DVD Review by Porfle

Jack Nicholson Is Moved To Tears While Talking About Roger Corman (video)

 

 

 From the 2011 Documentary "Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel"  For our review of the documentary, click here.

 

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

Jack Nicholson Is Moved To Tears While Talking About Roger Corman (video)

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 1/24/11

 

 

Incredibly prolific Spanish filmmaker Jesús "Jess" Franco has a devoted following, but the uninitiated might be puzzled as to why after watching THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF (1973).  It's not an awful film, just exceedingly bland.

Montserrat Prous plays Melissa Comfort, an heiress who has been paralyzed from birth.  Plagued by a recurring nightmare in which she wanders the darkened mansion as a little girl and witnesses the violent death of her late father (Franco himself in a cameo role), Melissa is placed in the care of eminent psychiatrist Dr. Orloff (William Berger) by her aunt, Lady Flora Comfort. 

It soon becomes apparent that there's a plot against Melissa which may involve members of her own family, including her Aunt Flora, step-sister Martha, and perhaps even Dr. Orloff himself.  Melissa is aided by faithful servant Mathews (José Manuel Martín) and a concerned neighbor, pop star Sweet Davey Brown.  But when people around her start dying off one by one, it may be only a matter of time before she's next.  The question is--who's really doing the killing?

 

 

The third of Franco's "Dr. Orloff" films, this is remarkably tame stuff for someone known for his exploitation flicks.  The slow-moving story features the occasional murder, but all are quick and relatively bloodless.  Aside from an incidental glimpse of nudity during one of the killings, there's nothing here that one couldn't find in a standard made-for-TV thriller from the era.

A reliance on handheld camerawork and shaky zooms gives the film a crude look, although it's hardly unwatchable.  Franco does display a few flashes of imagination in his direction and keeps things moving along well enough that patient viewers won't have much trouble sticking with it to the end.  The story itself is utterly predictable and there's little actual suspense until the mildly exciting finale, all of which is accompanied by a melodramatic organ and piano score.

Performances are adequate for this type of movie, though it's admittedly hard to judge the actors' dialogue delivery since I understand very little Spanish.  William Berger isn't all that sinister as Orloff and is, in fact, pretty dull, even when we get a closeup of those titular eyeballs.  Montserrat Prous is okay as Melissa--more interesting, though, are Loreta Tovar and the lovely Kali Hansa as spoiled socialites Martha and Aunt Flora.

 

 

 

As Davey Brown, Robert Wood is notable mainly for his awful 70s wardrobe and insipid singing.  His scenes with Edmund Purdom as Inspector Crosby, in which Davey struggles to convince the policeman that something rotten is going on in the Comfort manor, give the film what scant comedy relief it has.  Franco regular Lina Romay appears briefly as Davey's girlfriend.

The DVD from Intervision is full-screen with Dolby 2.0 Spanish mono soundtrack and English subtitles.  Picture quality is good although that Eastmancolor doesn't age very well.  On my copy, the subtitles disappeared for a few minutes around the 46-minute mark.  The bonus feature is a recent 18-minute interview with Jess Franco. 

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF is a nice low-budget effort that's fairly painless to sit through if you keep your expectations low.  Just don't expect it to be very sinister. 

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE KILLER SHREWS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/24/14

 

One of the most well-liked, perhaps even loved, titles in the bad-movie pantheon is a low-budget horror/sci-fi thriller from 1959 called THE KILLER SHREWS.

As I myself pointed out in great detail in an earlier review--intended, admittedly, more for Medved-style cuteness than anything else--there's a lot to poke fun at in this modest effort if you've a mind to.

But even as it gets its share of well-deserved ridicule (especially for the giggle-worthy fact that its mutated shrew creatures are actually dogs wearing monster costumes) and is one of the most popular films to have been given the MST3K treatment, one of the main reasons this tense little flick has such staying power is that in addition to being "so bad it's good", it is also, in many ways, just plain good.

For one thing, it's one of the first movies in which a disparate group of people barricade themselves in a house to defend themselves against an outside menace. As has often been pointed out, the similarities between it and George Romero's 1968 horror classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD indicate that Romero was influenced by the earlier film.

Which gives rise to an even more intriguing thought--did Alfred Hitchcock see THE KILLER SHREWS before coming up with his own barricaded-house thriller THE BIRDS four years later?

The story is pure straightforward pulp novel stuff, with manly cargo boat captain Thorne Sherman serving as a no-nonsense working class hero. When he and first mate "Rook" Griswold (Judge Henry Dupree) deliver supplies to a group of research scientists on a remote island that's about to be hit by a hurricane, he finds he's walked right into danger in the form of wolf-sized, man-eating killer shrews whose teeth drip instantly-lethal venom.

Heading the research group is Dr. Marlowe Craigis (leading Yiddish theater actor and famed director Sidney Lumet's father, Baruch Lumet), a well-meaning scientist wracked by guilt for having unwittingly unleashed such monsters. Among those threatened by them is his own daughter Ann, played by Ingrid Goude who was Miss Sweden of 1956 and, while not a very skilled actress, at least brings a likable earnestness to her performance.

In the role of Dr. Craigis' cowardly assistant Jerry Farrell is Ken Curtis (THE SEARCHERS, THE ALAMO), who would go on to TV superstardom as Festus Haggen on "Gunsmoke." Curtis has a field day playing Jerry as a weaselly lush driven by ambition and burning with jealousy after Ann starts making goo-goo eyes at Captain Thorne, and we can't wait to see the shrews chow down on this insufferable jerk.

Rounding out the cast are executive producer Gordon McLendon as endearingly nerdy scientist Dr. Radford Baines and Alfredo DeSoto as loyal handyman Mario. McLendon and Curtis also co-produced THE GIANT GILA MONSTER that same year, and both films were directed by Ray Kellogg, who co-directed THE GREEN BERETS along with John Wayne. A special effects man as well as director, Kellogg supplies some really nice-looking matte paintings to the shots of Thorne's boat anchored in the island harbor.

While many low-budget horror flicks of the era are technically inept and heavily padded, THE KILLER SHREWS' lean, suspenseful story moves along briskly once the exposition is out of the way. The shrew attacks themselves are often frightening as the revolting creatures relentlessly chew their way through the soft adobe walls of the house in a frantic search for "food."

It helps that the actors seem so thoroughly convinced that the dogs-in-monster-suits menace is real. James Best, known mainly as Rosco P. Coltrane on "The Dukes of Hazzard", somehow fits his own laconic persona into the part of a macho action hero well enough for us to buy into Thorne Sherman as a guy with the brains and brawn to get these people through this seemingly hopeless ordeal.

Meanwhile, some of the dialogue is laughably off-kilter and seems even more amusing as the cast strains to deliver it with utmost seriousness, often while guzzling martinis like they're going out of style. Yet they're able to make us care about these desperate people during the escalating shrew attacks, up to and during one of the most ludicrous (yet somehow riveting) climactic sequences ever seen in a film of this kind. The fact that it's played absolutely straight--as is the entire movie--makes it both exciting and, yes, perversely hilarious.

The DVD from Film Chest is in 4 x 3 full screen with original mono sound. No subtitles or extras. While I don't see much difference in this "digitally restored" version than the ones I already have, the image is quite good despite the usual specks and scratches.

What makes this release stand out for me is that the opening narration is complete, beginning with the line "Those who hunt by night will tell you that the wildest and most vicious of all animals is the tiny shrew." Usually this narration is joined in the middle of the final sentence with the truncated line "...Alaska, and then invading steadily southward...there were reports of a new species...the giant killer shrew!"

Apparently only the longer audio survives since the footage to accompany it seems to consist of the same brief shot seen before, only greatly slowed down until the bolt of lightning that heralds the main title. But it's nice to finally hear the whole thing.

Even if you've already watched the MST3K version of THE KILLER SHREWS, it deserves to be seen on its own terms. (Unlike much of the total crap that Joel, Mike, and the robots have comically endured over the years.) With repeated viewings, the unintentional comedy remains entertaining as ever while the suspense and chills contained in this nifty little monster movie steadily creep their way up your spine.


Read our original "The Killer Shrews" review HERE

DVD street date: November 11

THE KILLER SHREWS -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 Originally posted 8/20/2018

 

When actor-turned-filmmaker Del Tenney made a deal to direct some drive-in fodder for the teen crowd, one of the all-time trash classics he fooled around and came up with was the delirious THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH (1964).

Though made in the 60s, it contains surefire elements from the biggest teen hits of the 50s--rock and roll, monsters, hot rods, teen angst, and bad comedy--and mixes them with then-current stuff like bikini beach scenes and even a good deal of H. G. Lewis-style gore a la "Blood Feast."

Done in an amateurish yet freewheeling, dumb-fun style that packs in as much of the above elements as it will hold and, unlike many grade-Z flicks, doesn't let up for a minute, the result is a movie that's often funny, creepy, and refreshingly entertaining in spite of itself.

The very first minute of the film features drag racing and motorcycles--courtesy of an actual local bike gang--along with the first of six goofy rock and roll songs by the Del-Aires (in what was billed as "the first horror monster musical.")

We see Hank (John Scott) arguing with his girlfriend Tina (Marilyn Clarke) as they pull into the parking lot of the local beach, where Tina is intent on living it up while Hank insists they begin to act their age. The beach party sequence is real "poor man's" Frankie and Annette stuff, filmed in dreary black and white on a beach in Connecticut and interspersed with some of the worst comedy dialogue exchanges ever.

Meanwhile, fast-chick Tina goes nuts, bumping and grinding to "The Zombie Stomp" with a greasy-haired biker amidst the bikini-clad onlookers and prompting Hank to release his violent side as a big poorly-choreographed fight breaks out.

When Tina runs off into the ocean to escape Hank's disdain, she's attacked and ripped to pieces (and splattered liberally with Bosco chocolate syrup) by a horrific amphibian creature that has recently been created when some radioactive waste carelessly dumped into the water got mixed up with the sodden bodies of recently-drowned sailors.

These monsters (they grow in number with every scene) are real lulus of bad creature design, looking like poor relations of the Black Lagoon creature with ping-pong-ball eyes and what appear to be big bundles of hot dogs sticking out of their mouths.  But just the fact that such relatively elaborate costumes were made for this low-budget flick is impressive.

The rest of THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH becomes a series of monster attacks in the nearby small town with Dr. Gavin (Allan Laurel), his apprentice Hank, and his daughter Elaine (Alice Lyon), now Hank's prospective girlfriend after the untimely death of Tina, applying all their scientific skills to helping the local cops find a way to track down and destroy the creature menace.

This allows Tenney and company to stage a progression of delightful creature carnage sequences which include an all-girl slumber party massacre, three girls on their way to New York getting tragically sidetracked (the wisecracking blonde in this segment is actually quite funny), and a couple of drunks stumbling their way into the path of the monsters.  (One of the drunks is actor Wayne Tippit of "JFK" and "Nurse Betty", perhaps the only recognizable face in the film.) These scenes include not only lots of fake blood but some nicely-done gore makeup.

While all this is going on, we're treated to the high-jinx of Dr. Gavin's matronly black maid Eulabelle (Eulabelle Moore--yes, that was her real name) going around fretting "It's the voodoo, that's what it is!", and an increasingly ridiculous scientific investigation that results in the good guys hurling handfuls of sodium at the finny fiends.  (The resulting fish-fry pyrotechnics are pretty well done.)

The Severin Blu-ray itself is a 2k scan from the original negative and, needless to say, looks way, way better than I've ever seen it before. (And probably way more uncut, too.)

Severin, as usual, comes through with the bonus features as well, including archival footage of Del Tenney himself discussing his career in general and this film in particular.  "Return to Party Beach" is an informative retrospective documentary, while another featurette offers two of the Del-Aires with an interview and a live performance of "The Zombie Stomp."  In "Shock and Roll", filmaker Tim Sullivan discusses rock and roll horror movies.  The film's trailer is also included.

There are a lot of "so bad it's good" movies out there, with some of them being only passably entertaining with brief moments of fun amidst long stretches of boredom.  THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH, on the other hand, has a kind of magically bad quality that makes it total, almost giddy fun from start to finish.  This one's got everything and lots of it, and watching it makes me feel like a kid at the drive-in again.


Buy Blu-ray or DVD from Severin Films

THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

TURKEY SHOOT -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/17/15

 

I've seen so many tantalizing trailers for "Ozploitation" flicks lately that it's always a pleasure to get to watch one of these trash classics in its entirety.  That's why a basically awful movie like TURKEY SHOOT, a.k.a. "Escape 2000" and "Blood Camp Thatcher" (1982), gets a cheerful response from me even though many viewers would most likely tune out within the first five minutes.

The Australian film industry during the 70s and 80s underwent a real renaissance of exploitation films that transcended their low budgets and meager production values by cramming in as much violence, gore, nudity, slam-bang action, and overall shock value as they could muster.

TURKEY SHOOT is a prime example, using its by-the-numbers plot (which director Brian Trenchard-Smith of BMX BANDITS fame describes as "I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG meets THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND and then plays THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME") like a clothesline on which to pin various chase sequences, gleefully fake but extreme gore, several shootouts and explosions, and some gratuitious nudity for our entertainment. 

Much of the story takes place in a prison camp of the then-future year 2000, where a fascist government sends its disobedient citizens for "re-education."  This, of course, involves terror, torture, sexual humiliation, and mind-control, not to mention a little game in which prisoners are offered freedom if they can survive being hunted like animals by the sadistic warden Thatcher (Michael Craig, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, THE VAULT OF HORROR) and a group of wealthy, jaded sophisticates.  

Docile citizen Chris Walters (Olivia Hussey, BLACK CHRISTMAS, ROMEO AND JULIET) is imprisoned for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, while Paul Anders (Steve Railsback, LIFEFORCE, "Helter Skelter") is a chronic political offender caught running a renegade radio station.  Rita (Lynda Stoner, "Prisoner: Cell Block H") is a "loose woman" who seems to have been chosen solely for the amusement of the guards.

Our own twisted amusement is piqued early on when hulking chief guard Ritter (Roger Ward, "Fifi" in MAD MAX, QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER) beats inmates to death while his cackling toady Red (American actor Gus Mercurio) tries to violate Chris in the shower but gets the old "caught in the zipper" treatment.  Paul, meanwhile, is subjected to a torture cage which allows Railsback to indulge his penchant for method acting. 

The fact that everything is done on the cheap is more obvious in these early camp scenes than during the hunt, which takes place in the Australian wilderness.  There, however, we get an abundance of hokey gore effects (hands are chopped off, a skull is cleaved by a machete, etc., and a strange man-beast character who accompanies one of the hunters gets cut in half after chowing down on someone's pinky toe) and some poorly-staged action involving a mini-bulldozer that looks quite comical at times. 

The huntress Jennifer (Carmen Duncan) cuts an impressive figure riding her horse while wielding a crossbow that shoots explosive arrows.  Thatcher and Ritter get in on the action as well, as does Noel Ferrier of THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY in the role of "Secretary Mallory."  It's a no-brainer that Paul and Chris will eventually get together and turn the tables on their pursuers, leading to a lively camp-revolt finale that packs in all the blood squibs, explosions, and stock footage that the producers could afford. 

Railsback, hot off his success in THE STUNT MAN, seems a little awkward as an action-guy character and clearly wonders what the heck he's doing shooting a turkey like TURKEY SHOOT.  I've always found him to be an interesting actor though, ever since he played Charles Manson in the 1976 TV-movie "Helter Skelter."  Olivia Hussey seems jittery and uncomfortable throughout--as we learn from cast and crew interviews, she was constantly terrified that the Australian wildlife was out to get her.  This does work in her character's favor, however.  (Her shower scene, incidentally, clearly involves a body double.)

On a technical level, the film is hardly more lavish than a "Mr. Show" sketch.  The camp itself resembles a collection of storage buildings, and there's very little to indicate the story's "futuristic" setting.  (A rousing score by Brian May of MAD MAX fame is a definite plus.)  While director Trenchard-Smith claims that the character name "Thatcher" is part of the film's underlying political message, none of that goes beyond the impact of the typical Facebook meme.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films is in anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 2.0 sound.  No subtitles.  Severin's typically generous bonus features include: "The Ozploitation Renaissance", a recent interview with Aussie filmmakers Brian Trenchard-Smith, Antony I. Ginnane, and Vincent Monton; a solo interview with Trenchard-Smith from the 80s; a director's audio commentary; behind-the-scenes doc "Turkey Shoot: Blood & Thunder Memories"; the film's trailer and an alternate "Escape 2000" title sequence; and in-depth cast and crew interviews from the documentary "Not Quite Hollywood." 

In interviews, both Steve Railsback and Lynda Stoner express their dismay at the finished product, especially in regard to how the original script they were given was gutted and the budget slashed.  Still, none of this really matters--with all its faults, the film has its own sordid charm--and the people most likely to enjoy it are bad-film fanatics anyway, an area in which TURKEY SHOOT delivers in spades.   


Street date: Sept. 22, 2015
Stills used are not taken from Blu-ray

TURKEY SHOOT -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle