Bloodhound?

DRACULA'S DOG-1997- In this strange horror movie some Romanian soldiers unearth a vampire tomb and Count Dracula's pet dog Zoltan escapes. The pooch also frees Veidt (Reggie Nalder), the count's human servant. He and the demon dog go to California to make a guy named Michael Drake (Michael Pataki) their "new master". While Mike and his family are on a camping trip Viedt has Zoltan terrorize the family by making their dogs (including a puppy) into dog-pires! Later an inspector (Jose Ferrer) shows up to help and he and Michael are attacked in their cabin. Somehow the inspector overpowers Veidt and kills him with a stake. Michael is attacked  by the pack but the inspector and 2 hunters save him. In the weird finale Michael reveals his cross to Zoltan and the dog falls off a cliff impaled on a fence. But the evil puppy lives! 

This crazy canine caper is more bizarre than bad. The screenplay was written by Frank Ray Perilli (also an actor) who also penned the soft core porno movie CINDERELLA (directed by DOG'S star Pataki) the same year. Albert Band (who produced CINDERELLA) directed.

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S Seven Times

SSSSSSS!-1973-A scientist working with snakes, Dr. Stoner (Strother Martin) hires college student David (Dirk Benidict) to help him with his experiments after his original helper "quit suddenly". When not experimenting with his reptilian pets Stoner gives exhibitions with a king cobra assisted by his daughter Kristina (Heather Menzies). Stoner of course has an ulterior motive in his hiring of the cheerful David. He wants to turn him into an intelligent king cobra!  While David and Kristina kind of fall in love, Stoner gets revenge on a college bully (Reb Brown) who killed his pet snake and a former colleague (Richard B. Schull) who discovers his secret. In the confused abrupt climax: Kristina discovers dad's former assistant is now a serpent man in a side show run by Tim O'Connor. David turns into a real snake. Stoner seems to want it to fight the real king cobra but he's bitten to death. The sheriff (Jack Ging) shoots the cobra. David-snake is killed by a mongoose. Kristina arrives too late to do anything and upon seeing her beloved mangled by the mongoose lets out a scream which is freeze framed for the final scene.

S X7 isn't bad and it's helped by the great character actor Strother Martin in the lead role. The story doesn't make a whole lot of sense especially when at one point Stoner warns his daughter not to have sex with David when it's already apparent they have. This little tidbit seems forgotten later. He doesn't elaborate on it so maybe Kristina may become a snake herself. We'll never know...

Director Bernard Kowalski used real venomous snakes which had the cast rather nervous. Probably the worst thing about the movie is the title!

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The 3 Mesquiteers

RIDERS OF WHISTLING SKULL-1937-In this strange western 3 cow pokes Stoney Brook (Robert Livingston), Tucson Smith (Ray “Crash” Corrigan) and Lullaby Joslin (Max Terhune) known collectively as "The Three Mesquiteers" help Betty Marsh (Mary Russell) locate her missing archaeologist father (John Van Pelt) who's disappeared while investigating a secret cave and a lost Indian tribe. After several battles with hostile Indians the group finds professor Marsh being held prisoner in the cave because he won't spill the beans about a hidden treasure to a half breed named Rutledge (Roger Williams). In the cave they seem to encounter a living mummy. Before Smith is "sacrificed" he's saved by his buddies who also cause an avalanche that destroys the bad guys. Lullaby also has dummy named Elmer. With all the talk about hieroglyphics, maps, lost tribes, it seems more like a forerunner of the much later JJ series than a western! 

This weird western was directed by Mack Wright who'd made THE SINGING COWBOY with Gene Autry and the bizarre serial ROBINSON CRUSOE OF CLIPPER ISLAND. He did more work as assistant or second unit director and was also an actor.

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Death Row

CELL 2455, DEATH ROW-1955-Little juvenile delinquent Whit Whitter (R. Wright Campbell) grows up to become a full fledged murdering thug (William Campbell; Wright's real older brother) gaining fame as the vicious "red light bandit", pistol whipping men and molesting women at local lover's lanes. The smug and unrepentant Witter is eventually arrested and sentenced to death. He wages a successful effort to win stays of execution on death row. It's based on the then well known book by death row denizen Caryl  Chessman (who was executed in 1960 for similar crimes; at the time he was the longest serving death row inmate) although the character's name is changed (Whittier was Chessman's middle name) and a disclaimer says the whole thing is a work of fiction. 

Less workman like than other outings by the prolific Fred Sears, it is unusual for a film at the time to spotlight such a slimy character in a kind of “justice story”. Today most lead characters in movies are slimy assholes you couldn't give two shits about and they are usually the heroes!

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Inner Sanctum

CALLING DR. DEATH-1943-First of the "Inner Sanctum" series from Universal with Lon Chaney (who starred in all of them) as Mark Steele, a successful doctor who uses hypnotism to cure patients. Unfortunately his success doesn't extend to his marriage with his bitchy philandering wife Maria (Ramsey Ames). When wifey goes away for the weekend sans hubby he goes after her. Later he wakes up in his office and can't remember where he's been. Maria winds up dead and a smug police inspector Gregg (J. Carroll Nash) suspects the doc even when they pick up Maria's boy toy Duvall (David Bruce) for the murder. Much of Chaney's dialogue is stream of consciousness over dubbing. He is sweet on his nurse Stella (Patricia Morison) and she helps him hypnotize himself but that doesn't really help. After a while he and nurse Stella declare their love but doc seems to be losing his mind. Is it guilt? However Steele uses his hypnotism to find the real killer in a surreal dream induced flashback (with some clever effects). 

CALLING DR. DEATH tries hard to be a psychological mystery and director Reginald Le Borg sort of succeeds but despite some nice dreamy touches and good acting the short running time has the story going along a little too quickly. The most memorable scene though might be the opening where “the spirit of the Inner Sanctum” introduces the story. It's an actor's head (David Hoffman) in a crystal ball talking in a weird voice. 

Screenwriter Edward Dein wrote many murder mysteries in the 1940's and later directed THE LEECH WOMAN, SHACKOUT ON 101 and CURSE OF THE UNDEAD. Director Le Borg directed the next two in the series and later worked with Chaney on the “all star” low budget horror film THE BLACK SLEEP.

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More Killer Babes

I was just watching the Outer Limits episode "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" with Bill Shatner as an astronaut returning from Venus who can't stay warm. The name of the space program he's with? Project Vulcan!

IT LIVES AGAIN-1978-In this crazed sequel a couple (Frederic Forrest and Kathleen Lloyd) are about to have a killer baby. Killer baby hunter Mr. Mallory (John Marley) plans to get rid of it but Frank Davis (John P Ryan; returning from the first film) breaks up the plan and forces them at gunpoint to let the wife have her baby at a secret clinic run by mad scientists R. Perry (Andrew Duggan) and Dr. Forest (Eddie Constantine!). They have another set of killer babes in the basement which they think they can control. Eventually the babies revolt, kill their captors and terrorize mom and dad. Dad finally kills his son and then tries to warn other couples. 

This is another quirky outing by written and directed by Larry Cohen, full of cool camera work, weird acting, choppy editing and some unintentional humor (I think!).

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Too Bad It Wasn't Car 54

THE CAR-1977-A driver-less car of death terrorizes a Utah community. The car indiscriminately kills various citizens including two bike riders, a French horn playing hitchhiker and the town sheriff (John Marley). Deputy Wade Parent (James Brolin) is left to figure out the mystery. The vicious vehicle attacks some grade school kids rehearsing for a parade. Their music teacher Lauren (Kathleen Lloyd) also Wade's girlfriend calls the evil auto a chicken. When the car won't enter a cemetery another deputy (Ronny Cox) surmises that it's some kind of entity but Wade doesn't believe him even after it kills Loren. Later Wade confronts the sinister sedan in his own garage. A wife beating redneck (RG Armstrong) provides explosives that spell a fiery and demonic end to the rampage. Terrible. 

Ok, I'm not going to speculate how Eliot Silverstein, the director of CAT BALLOU and A MAN CALLED HORSE wound up doing doing this low budget piece of junk but much of his later work was episodes of TV shows (like TALES FROM THE CRYPT) and TV movies. You figure it out!

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Robby The R Returns

THE INVISIBLE BOY-1957-A giant computer created by Dr. Merrinoe (Phillip Abbott) turns the scientist's son Timmie (Richard Eyer) invisible and plots to enslave the Earth with some rockets the US had ready to launch. The doc gets help from Robby The Robot who plants metal disks in the head of an army general (Harold J Stone) and some government scientists (including Robert H Harris and Than Wyenn). Eventually Robby and Timmie wind up on a rocketship. After they think the computer is finished it comes back and nearly succeeds in enslaving father and son but Robby saves the day and prevents the boy from being spanked by dad. The plot alternates from very dumb to very eerie. 

The actress who plays Timmie's mom is Diane Brewster who a few years later played the doomed Helen Kimble (in flashback scenes) on TV's THE FUGITIVE!

Director Herman Hoffman did mostly TV after this. The screenplay is by Cyril Hume who the year before wrote Robby the Robot's debut film FORBIDDEN PLANET. Eyer later played the genie in THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD. 

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“And Then They'll Come For You!”

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL-1959-William Castle's "classic gimmick" ghost story stars Vincent Price as millionaire Frederick Loren who at the request of his cold hateful wife Annabelle (Carol Omart) challenges 6 strangers to stay all night in a supposedly haunted house where several murders have occurred. If they can do it they'll each receive 10 thousand dollars. The "guests" include a pilot (Richard Long), a secretary (Carolyn Craig), a psychiatrist (Alan Marshall), a newspaper columnist (Julie Mitchum) and  Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook) the last person to have stayed in the house and survived. He talks a lot about ghosts and murders committed in the place but if you watched this as a little kid in the '60's like I did you'll never forget the scene where the Mrs. Slydes, the caretaker's wife (Leona Anderson) meets the secretary in a dark room. Her grimace popping out of the darkness probably sent some kids screaming from the room! A chandelier falls, there's a vat of acid in the basement, guns in mini-coffins and a twist ending with a skeleton that when shown in theaters in the '50's came out of the screen and passed over the audience. 

Director William Castle and star Vincent Price (screenwriter Robb White) also made the THE TINGLER the same year. 

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Swords

THE SENTIMENTAL SWORDSMAN-1977-Flying Dagger Lee (Ti Lung; later in John Woo's A BETTER TOMORROW and Sngmoo Lee's THE WARRIOR'S WAY) is a swordsman who's code of honor has cost to him a lot including giving up his fiance to a rival who saved his life. Now he wanders the countryside with his faithful servant while drowning his sorrows in wine. Along the way he befriends Ah Fei (Tung-Shing Yee) and becomes embroiled in many situations including being poisoned and coming into the possession of a golden vest. Later while looking for the elusive Plum Blossom Bandit he's framed for murder and is marked for death by  the 5 Poisons Kid. The plot is sometimes confusing but there's plenty of action and fights. It's based on a series of novels and spawned 2 sequels all directed by Yuen Chor (WEB OF DEATH).

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Revenge

THE THUNDERBOLT FIST (Pi li quan)-1972-In feudal times, a Japanese gang takes over a Chinese village. After a town elder beats their leader (James Nam) in a fight, the gang kills him. His son (Chuan Yuan) escapes and hides out with his uncle and trains with his female cousin (Shilh Szu; later in THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES). 10 years later, he's grown up to be a revenge seeking young man. He returns to his old village but his childhood rival spreads rumors that he's having an affair with a woman married to his friend. Later he is maimed and has to fight with one arm. After the villagers finally fight back he fights his Japanese rival in a bloody contest and wins. 

This Shaw Brothers production was directed by the Korean born Il-Ho Jang and was released a few months before the more famous KING BOXER (aka 5 FINGERS OF DEATH) which began the martial arts craze in the US....

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Dyn-o-mIte

THE DYNAMITE BROTHERS-1974-Larry Chin (Alan Tang) leaves Hong Kong to find his brother in LA. He's immediately attacked by 3 thugs ("Go back to China") hired by a corrupt police Captain Burke (Aldo Ray). Larry winds up handcuffed to a black criminal Stud Brown (Timothy Brown). They escape and run around like a low budget version of THE DEFIANT ONES. They beat up some hicks in a moving truck and finally get free and head to LA. Larry has flashbacks of his wife's death. The duo get saved by local gangster The Smiling Man (Don Oliver) from an attack by Razor J (Al Richardson), the henchman of big time time drug pusher Wei Chin (James Hong). Hmmm...Larry and Wei have the same last name...coincidence? 

 While Stud romances a mute prostitute Sarah (Carol Speed from THE BIG BIRD CAGE) Larry gets help from Betty Fong (Clare Nono) in tracking down his brother who he finds out is dead. However Larry is betrayed by Kung Fat (Richard Lee-Sung) and dropped in a pit with a rattlesnake. Meanwhile a gang war ensues with corrupt police, outrageously dressed guys with machine guns, explosions and a guy who yells really loud when he's shot and falls off a roof. While Stud has sex, Larry fights some guys in an alley. After Razor kills Burke and his wife Laura (Susan McIver) he goes after Sarah (he's too stupid to realize she can't talk). Stud and Larry arrive too late to save her but Stud gets revenge. Larry infiltrates Wei's lair and of course finds out the truth: Wei is Larry's brother and responsible for the death of Larry's wife. While The Smiling Man's minions beat up the gang Larry goes after his bro and makes his car go off a cliff. It ends with a freeze frame of the pair running away (to where I wonder?).

THE DYNAMITE BROTHERS was directed by Al Adamson in his usual hasty, episodic way. It's not very exciting but it has a lot of familiar faces to hold your interest a little while. Since this is an Independent International release it played in re-release for many years under numerous titles including STUD BROWN, DYNAMITE BROWN, BLACK BELT BROTHERS, etc. At the time this was made star Tang was a very popular star in Hong Kong. Co-star Brown was a former football player who earlier had a reoccurring role in the first season of TV's MASH. A few years later he had a role in Robert Altman's NASHVILLE. He'd work again with Adamson in 1976's BLACK HEAT.

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Rudy Returns!

THE HUMAN TORNADO-1976-If there's one movie worst than DOLOMITE it's this sequel with Rudy Ray Moore reprising his too hip foul mouthed rhyming jive talking moron. Only this time there's more intentionally comedy, racism and overall stupidity. I don't know who decided a sequel would be a good idea. I mean Moore isn't just a bad actor. He's no actor good or bad. He just seems to spit out lines, mispronouncing most words. The fight scenes are some of the worst ever filmed and this time they are "enhanced" by comic SFX.  It seems like Moore knew nothing about fighting and just made it up as he went along. The plot involves Dolomite and his band of Karate hookers (once again lead by Queen Bee) battling stupid white rednecks while Dolomite screws white women. He does a bit of his X-rated stand up routine at the beginning which is him mainly cursing and insulting audience members. He doesn't wear that many outrageous outfits this time out. 

The director Cliff Roquemore later made another outing with Moore, PETEY WHEATSTRAW.

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Total Dolemite Experience

DOLEMITE-1975-Perhaps in his day, rhyming comedian Rudy Ray Moore was cool. Nowadays, he's an unintentional laugh-riot at least in this his first movie. Moore plays the title character, a wrongly convicted jive talking pimp nut job who is let out of prison to help bring down gangster Willie Green (D'Urville Martin who also directed). He beats up white guys (the fight scenes are pathetic) and lives with several hookers and a madame named Queen Bee (Lady Reed). He wants revenge because of the death of his nephew. He does a rhyming routine about The Titanic for some drunken “fans” who can't afford to see him perform and gets information from a drug addict named Creeper (said to have been a real junkie). 

Two corrupt white cops dog his trail. Meanwhile an undercover FBI agent Blakeley (Jerry Jones; also the screenwriter) tries to help Dole. After performing at his own club, Dole enlists a bunch of Kung-Fu fighting whores to battle Green's gang. Even the cook in the club beats up a guy! Dolemite gets bloody vengeance on Green but the real bad guy behind it all is the corrupt weaselly white mayor (Hy Pike). The scenes of the FBI agents chasing down the mayor seem like part of a different movie. There's also a weird preacher and Moore saying things like “That's for fuckin' with me you no business born insecure motherfucker!”. Moore is also created with original adaptation.

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The Fix Is In

THE BASKETBALL FIX-1951-Alone in a bar, reporter Peter Ferreday (John Ireland) remembers how he helped high school basketball player Johnny Long (Marshall Thompson) get a scholarship with the help of coach Becker (Walter Sande). Mike Taft (William Bishop)), a sleazy bookmaker involves Johnny in a shaving points scheme. Johnny is in a money crunch taking care of his little brother and wants to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend Pat (Vanessa Brown) (“Can you put glory in the bank?”). He gets in too deep, gets beat up and ruins his whole life. Nobody's learn a thing since....

This low budget film noirish quickie that's very serious and doesn't have a happy ending was directed by Felix E. Feist who a few years later made DONOVAN'S BRAIN and later moved to TV. A year earlier lead actress Vanessa Brown had played Jane to Lex Barker's Tarzan in TARZAN AND THE SLAVE GIRL.

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Country Western Horror Comedy

HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE-1967-On their way to Nashville, country and western singers Woody (Ferlin Husky), Boots (Joi Lansing) and Jeepers (Don Bowman) spend the night in a haunted house, actually the hideout of some spies lead by Madame Wong (Linda Ho) with her bodyguard Max (Lon Chaney also in the much more enjoyable SPIDER BABY the same year), Gregor (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Himmil (John Carradine). After Sonny James and his band visit and sing two songs, the group meets Wong and Max. She lets them spend the night and Merle Haggard shows up on their TV set to do a song (Max also makes a appearance). The spies think the yokels are from an organization called MOTHER and use their pet gorilla Anatole (George Barrows; the veteran man in an ape suit who'd “starred” in ROBOT MONSTER) to frighten them. Mother Agent #30 (Richard Webb) shows up and kills Anatole and Carradine. He and Max scuffle. They are all saved by the ghost of a Confederate war general. 

This crazy nonsense is a sequel to the previous year's LAS VEGAS HILLBILLIES which also featured Husky as Woody but has Mamie Van Doren in the Boots role and Jayne Mansefield. Veteran director Jean Yarbrough who had worked with Abbott and Costello and The Bowery Boys was directing episodes of TV's “Petticoat Junction” at the time.

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More Fulci Zombies!

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD-1980-In Dunwich, a priest hangs himself in a graveyard while in New York at a seance a woman named Mary (Catriona MacColl) screams “The city of the dead!” then dies. A cop believes it all has to with drugs (“What are you on? Coke? Grass? Where's the stash? Down the toilet?”). Back in Dunwich, a weirdo named Bob (John Morghen aka Giovanni Lombardo Radice) starts to fool around with an inflatable love doll and finds a rotting corpse. Back in NY, Peter Bell (Christopher George), a news reporter goes to visit the seance place but is turned away by a cop. Back in Dunwich, some guys at a bar see the walls crack out and smoke comes out. One of the guys blames the strangeness on the priest who killed himself. Then Gerry (Carlo de Mejo), a psychiatrist is interrupted while asking his patient Sandra (Janet Agren) about her childhood. Back in NY, Jerry saves Mary (who's alive in her coffin now) from being buried alive (and almost kills her!). They meet with Theresa (Adelaide Aste), the woman who ran the seance and she tells Peter about “the book of Enoch” while Mary mentions Dunwich being the city of the dead and that the gates of hell are being opened again and if they aren't closed the dead will walk. 

Later Jerry's friend Emily (Antonella Interlenghi) meets Bob at a gas station and the dead priest shows up and rubs worms in her face. Then a man and woman making out in a car see the dead priest hanging around (literally). He makes the woman's eyes bleed and she upchucks worms and stuff that looks like intestines before someone rips the top of the guy's head off. Peter and Mary go to Dunwich while Bob is blamed for the murders. It seems for some reason that the priest's suicide is opening the gate to hell. At night a creepy coroner is attacked and Emily's little brother John John (Luca Paisner) sees a sinister apparition. Meanwhile Bob wanders around while Jerry and Sandra find the corpse of an old lady in Sandra's kitchen. Bob for some reason is hanging out in Emily's father's car and when the father sees them together he kills Bob by sticking his head into some kind of rotating drill. Peter and Mary meet Jerry and Sandra in a cemetery and they are attacked by a tornado of worms and maggots. Then Jerry gets a call from John John saying that Emily has killed their parents. The quartet hurry to find a solution before All Saints Day comes. Sandra takes John John home but is killed by a ghoul faced Emily. Bloody, gory faced zombies terrorize John John but he's saved by Jerry. It seems some of zombies are hallucinations. 

Zombies attack the local bar and kill and eat the bartender and his two lone customers. Meantime, now a trio Peter, Mary and Jerry investigate the priest's tomb and some underground tunnels where they meet a zombified Sandra who promptly kills Peter. Rats waste no time in eating his brain. Mary almost goes the “vomiting maggots” route but Jerry kills Sandra. After further snooping Mary and Jerry are trapped by the undead and the hanging priest. Just when Mary starts to bleed from the eyes, Jerry guts the priest with a wooden cross and he burns up (?). His minions burn too. Jerry and Mary are reunited with John John. But something is wrong. Mary screams as the scene breaks up.  

Although he had already made the notorious ZOMBIE (and several other successful projects), Italian director Lucio Fulci really hit his stride with this episodic baffling gory horror story. Though incomprehensible and slow going at times, Fulci packs stomach churning SFX, eerie apparitions and some good suspense scenes so the viewer only has time to wonder once or twice as to what's going on. The abrupt cheat ending seems to have evolved from the actually end scene having been destroyed accidentally while it was being developed. The producers would not allow Fulci to re-shoot so he kind of said “screw it”. Co-star Morghen was in several other Italian horror productions (CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE, CANNIBAL FEROX) where his character also came to a bad end. Director Fulci appears un-billed as a doctor. It also features journeyman actor Robert Sampson as the local sheriff and future director Michele Soavi.   

I saw this in a theater way back in 1980 under it's US edited title THE GATES OF HELL.

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