Happy Halloween!

 

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PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE-1959-When I first saw Plan 9 in 1976 at The NYC Comic-Con I agreed it was probably one of the worst movies ever made. But if that was true why is it that after it ended I couldn't wait to see it again? (It was about four or five years later. In between I bought the "soundtrack" album which was simply the whole audio portion of the film transferred to a record. It also sported liner notes purportedly penned by Ed Wood Jr. himself shortly before his death in 1978). 

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Not the worst movie ever made (Hollywood has churned out far more crap on 100 times the budget), it is one of of the best bad movies ever made that you'll enjoy watching over and over! Bela Lugosi's scenes had been filmed a few years before and sat on a shelf until Wood devised Plan 9 with the help of big Tor Johnson, a retired pro wrestler in his second of three Ed Wood outings, who spouts more dialogue in this than in all his other movie appearances combined, Vampira, a trend setting TV horror hostess, Criswell, an outrageous pseudo-psychic who among other things predicted the world would end in 1990 and a drag actor named John "Bunny" Breckenridge who makes no bones that he's reading his lines from papers on his desk! There are some "legit" actors in it too. Lyle Talbott, Tom Keene, Gregory Walcott and Joanna Lee (who later became a successful TV writer and producer). Not to forget Dudley Manlove who played Eros the alien, a guy who was mostly an announcer but also appeared in another low budget wonder "The Creation of The Humanoids"! I've also seen him on two episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". Rounding out the cast are Duke Moore (who's entire film credits are roles in Ed Wood's movies), Conrad Brooks (who appeared in other low budget productions and many years later made his own "movies"), Paul Marco (who played the dumb cop named Kelton in three Wood movies) and rotund Ben Frommer, who became a TV character actor. 

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And of course, chiropractor Dr. Tom Mason the "fake Shemp" who stood in for the late Lugosi but looked nothing like him! Much of what's said about the goofs in certain scenes is exaggerated and the scene of Tor rising from the grave is well done. Ok so the tombstone falling over is pretty cheesy....

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Killer Shark Shit

 

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TINTORERA: KILLER SHARK-1977-In Mexico a series of shark attacks don't seem to bother anyone. Jaws inspired nonsense that goes down hill after an English woman (Fiona Lewis) is killed. Susan George shows up to party with Hugo Stiglitz, Jennifer Ashley (later in CHAINED HEAT) and Carlos East (a regular in the director's movies) but who cares? Sharks attack, people are killed. Really terrible Mexico production. Director Rene Cordona Jr. later made the all star exploitation movie GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED.

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In The Future

 

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IDAHO TRANSFER-1973-At facility in Idaho, a secret project plans to send young people 56 years into the future to start a new civilization. Two sisters (who's father heads the project) go into the future and talk endlessly. One is injured in a fall and dies (?). Later some "young people" go to live in the future without the project knowing and are stranded there. 

Occasionally interesting it's undone by bad acting and characters talking and walking too much. Director Peter Fonda financed the film himself (said to be around $500,000) and with the exception of Keith Carradine in a small role all the other characters are non-professionals.

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Joe

 

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MIGHTY JOE YOUNG-1949-Entrepreneur Max O'Hara (Robert Armstrong) goes to Africa to get wild animals for his new night club. What he finds is Joe, a giant gorilla raised by Jill (Terry Moore). Despite the protestations of big lug cowboy Gregg Johnson (Ben Johnson), O'Hara convinces Jill to bring Joe to America to be exhibited at his club. They're a big hit until 3 drunks (Douglas Fowley & Nestor Paiva are two of them) make him mad and he escapes and destroys the club. The poor ape is sentenced to be shot. A plot is hatched to save Joe leading to a climatic scene at a burning orphanage (tinted red) where Joe saves the lives of two children. 

This is a wonderful little fantasy with meticulous and brilliant stop motion SFX by (among others) Willis O'Brien, Marcel Delgado and Ray Harryhausen. It was directed by Ernest Schoedsack from a story by Merian C. Cooper (the screenplay is by Ruth Rose who also wrote the screenplay for KING KONG which was co-directed by Cooper and Schoedsack without credit!). Many familiar character actors have brief scenes in MIGHTY JOE YOUNG: Regis Toomey, James Flavin (also in KING KONG), Iris Adrian, Bobby Barber, Joe Devlin, Richard Farnsworth (also a stuntman on the film), Dwayne Hickman, Charles Lane, Franks J. Scannell, William Schallert and more. Wrestlers Henry Kulky, Sam Menacker, The Swedish Angel, Man Mountain Dean and Primo Canera also appear,

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Terry

 

TERRY AND THE PIRATES-1940-Tough guy scientist adventurer Pat Ryan (Granville Owen aka Jeff York) and his wimpy over anxious buddy Terry Lee (William Tracy) are in Asia to deliver some important papers to Terry's dad Dr. Lee (J. Paul Jones). They find that Dr. Lee has already left on an exhibition into the jungle because he didn't get their telegram. The two, along with their (fake) Asian servant Connie (Allen Jung) get a surly greeting from everyone they encounter (including the alcoholic governor). The town is run by the malevolent Master Fang (Dick Curtis) who intercepted Ryan's telegram and sends a lackey with a gorilla Baboo to get the papers. Fang is also after the treasure from The Temple of Mara, overseen by it's queen The Dragon Lady (Shelia Darcy). Rich white guy Allen Drake (Forrest Taylor) and his daughter Normandie (Joyce Bryant) help Pat and Terry mount the search party despite threats from Fang who sends his white gang disguised as natives to break up Pop Lee's party. On the first night of Pat and Terry's exploring, his group with Connie and huge local magician Big Stoop (Victor DeCamp) are attacked by the fake natives and left to burn to death in a tent. 

Of course since this is a 15 part serial produced by Columbia Pictures every episode has a (mostly) cheat cliffhanger ending that the heroes escape from at the last minute in the following episode. It's based on a comic strip created Milton Caniff (who hated the serial) in 1934. Caniff also created "Steve Canyon".  

Director James Horne had directed KOLLEGE with Buster Keaton in the silent days and later several Laurel & Hardy movies as well as a few other serials but died suddenly in 1942. 12 years later “Terry” portrayer Tracy would have a co-starring role in a “Terry And The Pirates” TV series.

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Can't Keep A Good Astro-Zombie Down

 

ASTRO-ZOMBIES M3:CLONED-2010-They're back! First an Astro-Zombie kills a cat food eating old woman. Then a guy gives a talk about a book he wrote (there's only one person in the audience) claiming he has reptilian blood in him. He's visited by two strange men. Then in Area 51 an army general (co-writer/director Ted V. Mikels) orders the reopening of the "Astro Men” project. He wants to clone thousands of them to use as "expendable soldiers". His drunken twin brother (also Mikels) says he's discovered a way to control them. Meanwhile some Men In Black working for the government wander around. A dumb workaholic scientist thinks she's able to control the Astros. Tura Santan's image from the original film appears as a hologram and John Carradine's phony head also makes an appearance. A senator calls Serena (Francine York), leader of "The Doll Squad" to help. One girl is held captive in a cave while her busty companions fight the zombies with blow darts that can blow them up. I guess the intentionally comical ending was the only way to go. It kind of sets up a part 4 (which Mikels, who passed away on 2016 at the age of 87, made 2 years later). Most of this is undermined by long stretches of talk by bad actors. The best parts are when the astro-zombies attack.

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36 Years Later...

 

MARK OF THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES-2004-Reptillian like aliens come to Earth and release astro-zombies on the unsuspecting populace. In the opening bloody attack they use machetes to kill. Reporter Cindy Natale (Brink Stevens) investigates a second attack. She interviews some people running from the slaughter (they are very funny). After the president (Gene Paul Jones) has a meeting with his staff in a little conference room (the oval office was unavailable…??), Cindy meets her FBI boyfriend Jeff (Sean Morelli) and we meet mad scientist Dr. Mikacevich (director Ted V. Mikels himself) who has preserved the head of Dr. DeMarco (John Carradine's character in the first movie) and talks to it. It also talks. He wants the secret of the astro-zombies. He's barely introduced when Malvira, the sister of Santana (also from the first movie here played by the same actress, the one and only Tura Santana) bursts in with her dimwit henchman and shoots him. Then she stomps him with her high heel. The same thing happened to Mikels' character in 10 VIOLENT WOMAN! 

The president and his staff try to formulate a plan with 3 weird looking doctors but the aliens can hear all their communications.  A woman painter (Liz Renay) who claims to have been abducted by aliens doesn't seem to have anything to do with the main story. The zombies attack periodically with machetes through heads and necks and a motorcyclist is decapitated.They also kidnap some doctors and scientists.  Meanwhile Cindy tries to sell a phony astro-zombie to some foreign powers. Eventually some good aliens arrive and destroy the bad aliens and the zombies. 

This shot on video low budget craziness is very talky in spots but the bloody attacks by the astros is pretty funny! There's a lot of talk, bad acting and bad SFX leading up the the promise of a part 3. This is director/writer Mikels' first sequel (yes, he made 2 more!) to his notorious ASTRO ZOMBIES released in 1968! It features some gory deaths but when the zombies aren't around it drags.

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Ava

 

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EX MACHINA-2014-Computer nerd Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) meets some jerky scientist Nathan (Oscar Isaac) at his secluded lab where he's invented a computerized female robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander). He wants Caleb to administer "The Turing Test"on Ava to see if she is as smart as a human being. 

This independently made psychological sci-fi drama was a big box office and critical success even picking up some Academy Award noms but for me personally it's a sleep inducer with quirky annoying acting and dialog. Interesting finale and good use of sfx and sound though some of the original music sounds like it came from a Lucio Fulci movie. 

Personally I'd rather watch DEMON SEED. Writer/director Alex Garland wrote 28 DAYS LATER...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

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Who Is This Kid?

 ANNA TO THE INFINITE POWER-1982-Low budget independent kind of sci-fi coming of age story about Anna (Martha Bryne), a self centered child prodigy who discovers some startling secrets about herself after seeing her double on a TV news report. Her mother (Dina Merrill) tells her she is part of a generic experiment to clone a dead scientist Anna Zimmerman. Piano teacher/neighbor Micheala (Donna Mitchell) seems suspicious. Later Anna's put in a special hospital with a bunch of other Anna clones. When the experiment doesn't go so well the project decides to do away with the clones. Her brother Rowan (Mark Patton) tries to save her.

 In the end they meet the evil Dr. Jelliff who heads the project (and wait till you see who plays him). It has a weird surprise ending. Writer/director Robert Wiemer later directed episodes of TV's “Superboy” and “Star Trek:The Next Generation”.

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Homemade

 

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JESSICA'S ROOM-2013-A group investigates the death of their friend in a house that may be possessed by the spirit of a young girl who killed her family. Made for around 5 thou, it's fairly amateurish with bad acting and a WTF plot that adds nothing to the rapidly declining "found footage genre". It was the brainchild of producer/director/writer Erik J. Knight.

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"The Bomb Train Is On the Way"

 

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BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH-1967-Arnold (Peter Arne), a guy in a mental hospital tells his friend Commander Jonathan Shaw (Kerwin Matthews; THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD in better days) that "they" are digging tunnels on the Oregon coast and will "wipe us out". When an Oregon mine collapses Shaw investigates. He discovers Chan Lu (Martin Benson), a renegade Chinese general is digging the tunnels and planning on detonating atom bombs in the US. The US army kill all the soldiers but are no match for the armored tank that shoots a deadly ray. When they investigate the tunnels further they are joined by geologist Tila Lung (Viviane Ventura). 

This color cold war sci-fi film takes place in Las Vegas but it's obvious most of the cast is English (including the phony Chinese). Terrible acting, direction, script and sfx. This was the last film directed by Montgomery Tully (THE ELECTRONIC MONSTER).

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Pit Stop

 

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PIT STOP-1969-In the world of figure 8 stock car racing, race car arena owner Grant Willard (Brian Donlevy in his last role) hires reckless drag racer Rick Bowman (Dick Davalos; James Dean's brother in EAST OF EDEN) to drive his jaunty jalopy in their crazy dangerous races. His main rival is loudmouth Hawk Sidney (Sid Haig). After Rick beats Hawk in a race and has sex in hotel with Jolene (Beverly Washburn), Hawk takes a sledgehammer to Rick's car and beats him up but later they become partners and Rick has an affair with another racer's wife (Ellen McRae; later known as Ellen Burstyn). Despite some lapses in acting this isn't a bad little black and white low budget drama from Jack Hill two years after making the infamous SPIDER BABY (with Washburn and Haig).The year before PIT STOP he'd directed Boris Karloff in the US based scenes for a quartet of Mexican movies.

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Early Hammer

 

THE FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE-1953-Lena (Barbara Payton), Bill (Stephan Murray) & Robin (John Van Eyssen) are childhood friends in a small English village. Lena goes off to America while brainy Bill goes to Cambridge and Robin goes to head his Uncle's factory. Years later the disillusioned Lena returns to find the guys working on a secret scientific project. The story is narrated by local sawbones Dr. Harvey (James Hayter) who believes the guys are onto something and sells his practice to back them. After a lot of hard work the men finish and reveal their new invention to Harvey, a machine called "The Duplicator" which seems to be able to reproduce any object perfectly. They have great plans for humanity and Robin's father pitches it to the government. But all is not well. Bill is in love with Lena but doesn't know her feelings. He asks Doc to "probe" her. However before that can happen Robin & Lena get married! Shattered, Bill tries to keep his upper lip stiff but Lena suspects something. 

While Lena and Robin are honeymooning Bill experiments with guinea pigs to try and replicate a living being. After he succeeds it's obvious what he wants to do. When Lena comes back to set up house while Robin is still in London she agrees to be duplicated and it works. Bill gets his own version of Lena who he names Helen (also Payton). After frolicking in the country for a while it's clear Helen isn't in love with Bill and tries to drown herself. A fiery climax resolves this early Hammer production, directed by the great Terence Fisher a few years before his famous horror films. The acting, script and direction are first rate but the story despite it's sci-fi trappings is really just the usual love triangle.

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Post-Horror Western

 

GUN FIGHT-1961-This low budget western has former Calvary soldier Wayne Santley (James Brown from TV's "Rin Tin Tin") joining his brother Brad (Gregg Palmer) in the cattle business. Unfortunately Brad lied. He's actually outlaw leader of "The Night Hawks". They even robbed the stagecoach Wayne came to town in. Brad wants bro to join his gang but Wayne will have none of it. Nora (Joan Staley), a saloon singer, her missing brooch and a money hungry gambler named Cole (Charles Cooper) all spell trouble in this quickie produced by Robert Kent and directed by Edward L. Cahn after they stopped making horror films.

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Big Debut!

 

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INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN-1961-Invaders from space attack Earth. While scientists investigate a group of little boys are saved from the pointy headed metal invaders by the superhero Iron Sharp (Shin'ichi “Sonny” Chiba in his film debut) who is also the friend of one of the scientists. It's very dumb and kiddie oriented. When the aliens attack there's a quick shot of Hitler on billboard being destroyed. This led to rumors that actually footage from WW 2 was used but all the destruction footage is taken from a movie called "WW 2 Breaks Out". This Toei production was directed by Koji Ota.

 

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TOMORROW WE LIVE-1942-Julie (Jean Parker) lives in the desert with her cafe owner father Pop (Emmett Lyn). He's involved in some shady deals with a club owner known as "The Ghost" (Ricardo Cortez). He doesn't like Bob (William Marshall), Julie's soldier boyfriend. One night Pop goes to the cafe and demands Julie stop seeing Bob. It turns out The Ghost is blackmailing dad because he's a wanted criminal. After The Ghost kills Pop at the cafe, he runs into trouble with rival gangster Kohler (Frank Hagney). 

A weird compact little film noir by Edgar Ulmer with an interesting performance by Cortez. Star Parker was later in Ulmer's BLUEBEARD.

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I Was A Teenage Dracula

 

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BLOOD OF DRACULA-1957-Nancy (Sandra Harrison), a trouble teenager is dropped off at Sherwood, a prep school, by her stupid father (Thomas B. Henry) and his new gold digging bride (Jean Dean). With her headstrong attitude she runs afoul of Myra (Gail Ganley) and her secret society. Myra also assists a mad woman teacher scientist Mrs. Branding (Louise Lewis) who wants to save the world from itself and says "We live in a world ruled by men for men" when her thesis is rejected. She decides to use Nancy in her incomprehensible experiments. The girls have a party crashed by three boys where a dork (Jerry Blaine) sings a song called "Puppy Love". Under Branding's subliminal hypnosis Nancy turns into a scary fanged vampire. She kills several people. Lt. Dunlap (Malcohm Atterbury) doesn't believe it when one of his officers (Richard Devon) says it's a vampire. Nancy's boyfriend comes to rescue her but all she can think about is his neck. In the climax she kills the doctor and falls on a stake and dies while her boyfriend cries and Myra regrets not telling about Branding's weird experiments.

This AIP teenage drive-in horror was produced by Herman Cohen who held the same capacity on I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF and I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN. Both those movies had been written by BLOOD's screenwriter Aben Kandel (who would work with Cohen later on when the producer relocated to England). Director Herbert Strock had also made TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN. BLOOD OF DRACULA is ok as AIP teen oriented horror films go. The vampire is creepy but I kind of felt sorry for the Nancy character, a troubled kid no one seems to care about except her boyfriend who shows up to help her, only to see her die. Should have been called “I Was a Female Dracula”.

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Scorpions

 

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THE BLACK SCORPION-1957-Hank (Richard Denning) and Doc Ramos (Carlos Rivas) investigate a volcano eruption in Mexico. They find a wrecked home, a smashed up police car, a dead police Sgt and a baby. After delivering the baby to a church, the priest tells them of some mysterious deaths and the legend of "the demon bull" that ranchers say kill their cattle. They meet rancher Theresa Alvarez (Mara Corday) after she falls off her horse. They become her guests and try to help out after a giant scorpion attacks. Juanito (Mario Navvaro), a little kid, hangs around acting cute. Dr. Valesco (Carlos Muzquiz) comes to evacuate the city and identifies the creature as a prehistoric scorpion. He says "I beg of you all not to lose your heads...in any sense of the word". Ramos & Hank go down into a huge underground cavern and besides scorpions encounter a giant worm and spider. PITA Juanito hides out with them and almost gets them killed. Dynamite seems to kill prehistoric scorpions but….

Despite it's low budget this movie is saved by the great stop motion SFX by Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson. Some of it finished, they say, in Peterson's garage due to budget constrictions. The scorpion puppet was created by Wah Chang. Nice climax though I never liked that they killed a character needlessly to make Hank the hero.

 If Warner Brothers had spend some more money on this they would have had a real classic! Director Edward Ludwig began his career making silent short films, went into feature films when sound arrived (WAKE OF THE RED WITCH) and by the time of THE BLACK SCORPION was doing a lot TV. 

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Wood Back in Hollywood

 

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THE SINISTER URGE-1960-Lt. Carson (Keene Duncan; the phony swami in NIGHT OF THE GHOULS) and Sgt. Stone (Duke Moore; Lt. Harper in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE) try to stop the pornography ring run by Johnny Ryde (Carl Anthony; also in PLAN 9) and Gloria Henderson (Jean Fontaine). Mr. Romaine (Wood regular Harvey B. Dunn), a small business operator complains that the police are too concerned with "smut" than crime. Johnny says "I look at this slush and try to remember at one time I made good movies". The chief porno photographer is a German named Jaffe (Harry Keaton). 

Meanwhile a psycho named Dirk (Dino Fantini) (who's on Gloria's payroll) hangs around and kills a woman in a park pond (in some prints there's a topless scene). The organization decides Dirk must go. Johnny arranges for Dirk to be killed in a car crash but that fails. Dirk goes for revenge. He tries to kill Johnny who convinces him Gloria planned his killing. Johnny botches it and Dirk kills him. Gloria shoots Dirk but she thinks she's shot Johnny and winds up incriminating herself when she calls the cops. "Pornography. A nasty word for a dirty business" says Lt. Carson. 

A scene of Ed Wood fighting Conrad Brooks was actually filmed earlier for an aborted project. This is a typical “morality crime tale” written and directed by Ed Wood Jr. a year after the release of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Strangely, though this movie treats porn as a serious moral and criminal offense (and makes a connection to violence toward women) this would be Wood's last attempt at mainstream cinema. The rest of his output would be exploitative soft core sex films....

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