(imdb)

ED GEIN-BUTCHER OF PLAINFIELD-2007-Ed Gein (Kane Hodder) does this thing in this highly fictionalized story about the guy who influenced PYSCHO and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. It's really just an excuse to show blood and gore and exploit the too often used “based on a true story” tagline. The director of this crap, Michael Feifer made CHICAGO MASSACRE: RICHARD SPECK and other putrid movies based on real life serial killers (Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, BTK killer). He later made a lot of movies for “The Hallmark Channel”....

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Garbage

 

ANARCHY PARLOR-2014-In Vilnius, Lithuanian, a sinister tattoo artist (Robert LaSardo channeling Sid Haig) and his gross female assistant torture a bunch of young people. Just another sick stupid torture flick made by people who think they know horror but don't. Two directors (Devon Downs and Kenny Gage) are credited. They need mental help....

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Now It's Legal..

 

 (imdb)

THE TERRIBLE TRUTH-1951-Scare film about marijuana leading to heroin addiction, through the eyes of Phyllis, a nice high school student who starts smoking “reefers” with some guys “who have no backbone”, then meeting Phil the pusher, who makes her a heroin addict/pusher who later goes “cold turkey”. An on-screen narrator William B. McKesson suspects “the Reds” might be behind it. This short (around 10 minutes) is so cheap and haphazardly made that all his dialogue was dubbed later and his words don't match his mouth movements. 

Once a stand-in for John Wayne, Sid Davis produced many similarly themed exploitation shorts (LSD: TRIP OR TRAP!, GANG BOY, THE BOTTLE AND THE TROTTLE). He also directed a few including NAME UNKNOWN which also featured William McKesson, who was an actual juvenile court judge.

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Bava's Last Bow

 SHOCK-1977-After leaving a mental hospital, Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi), still recovering from the suicide of her first husband returns to their old house with her new husband Bruno (John Steiner) and young son Marco (David Colin Jr.). At night while the couple have sex, Marco wakes up in his room and yells “pigs” several times. He asks mom “What is death?”. His hand turns ghoulish when he touches his sleeping mom. Bruno is a commercial pilot and is away a lot. As the story progresses Dora fears she is beginning to lose her sanity once again. Marco acts very weird and says thing like “I have to kill you,mama” and seems to be possessed by her late husband....or is it just in her mind? It's revealed later that Dora killed her late hubby in a drug fueled fury and Bruno hid the body in a wall. Dora kills Bruno with a pick and then after being attacked by furniture, slits her own throat. Marco has a tea party with his invisible dad.

 (imdb)

This Italian production (it played in the US under the title BEYOND THE DOOR PART 2) was the last film directed by the great Mario Bava with some help from his son Lamberto, who co-wrote the screenplay. Nice little possession/ghost horror movie that looks great (the elder Bava was also the uncredited cinematographer) and manages to tie up everything nicely (well kind of anyway...). Son Lamberto went on to make his own horror films. Lead actress Daria Nicolodi wrote the screenplay for the Dario Argento horror movie SUSPIRIA the same year (they were a couple for many years but never married). Italian horror vet Ivan Rassimov plays Dora's doctor.

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Monster in the Woods

 

 (wikipedia)

ANIMAL-2014-This begins with 4 people being chased in the woods by a monster. One woman is killed. Later two couples Alissa (Keke Palmer) and Matt (Jeremy Sumpter) and Jeff (Parker Young) and Mandy (Elizabeth Gillies), along with single friend Sean (Paul Iacono) go to the woods for a hike and wind up trapped in a remote cabin with the other 3 survivors. 

It's kind of like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD except that instead of zombies, an “Alien/Predator” type creature is trying to get in. Oh yeah, it's not very good either. Drew Barrymore was an executive producer. Directed by Brett Simmons,

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The Munsters

 

 (imdb)

MUNSTER, GO HOME!-1966-After Herman (Fred Gwynne) comes home via hearse he finds he's inherited a mansion in England. So, he, wife Lily (Yvonne DeCarlo), son Eddie (Butch Patrick), “ugly” niece Marilyn (Debbie Watson) and Grandpa (Al Lewis) pack up and head for the UK. Lady Effigie (Hermione Gingold), her two children (Terry-Thomas & Jeanne Arnold) and their butler Cruikshank (John Carradine, who played Herman's boss Mr. Graves in 2 episodes of the TV series) plan to scare them away because they are part of a counterfeiting ring run by the mysterious Gryphon. Marilyn falls for Roger Moresby (Robert Pine) whose father Lord Moresby (Bernard Fox) has a grudge against The Munsters. Later Herman enters an annual drag race driving Grandpa's famous “Dragula” which his English relatives have rigged to kill him. 

This movie seems to have been made just to show off the elaborate make-up used on the TV show as it's in Technicolor (their TV series which had already been canceled, was in black and white). Busy TV director Earl Bellamy had also done many episodes of the TV show.

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A Croc From Thailand

 

CROCZILLA-2012-In Thailand, a bald guy sells his collection of crocodiles to a fat guy who wants to serve them as food illegally. The biggest of them escapes and terrorizes a town. Local cop Wang (Tao Guo), the fat guy's grandson, has to cope with a woman who's Euros the croc has eaten. He has to protect his young son too. Later Wang and his grandpa team up to hunt it. This is actually mostly a comedy with lots of stupid characters saying idiotic things and acting like clowns. Directed by Lisheng Lin.

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All Bullshit

  (WIKIPEDIA)

THE MASTER GUNFIGHTER-1975-In this strange brain-dead movie, a guy named Finley (Tom Laughlin) confronts American cattle owners and Mexican ranchers and fights them with a gun and a sword, after he leaves his wife (Barbara Carrera in her second movie role) and kids. His brother-in-law Paulo (SUPERFLY's Ron O'Neal) slaughters a village looking for gold. The plot reasons that Mexicans can kill American Indians and take their gold as a tax from “evil US cattlemen” or they will lose their land. 

This nonsense proclaims, "Based on a never substantiated legend” and “Part fact. Part fiction. Mostly interpretation”. Burgess Meredith provides narration and Angel Rossitto has a role. Star Laughlin (star and creator of BILLY JACK) wrote it using the name Harold Lapland and directed it under the name Frank Laughlin. It's a loose remake of the Japanese samurai drama GOYOKIN and was a theatrical financial bomb.

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High School Punks

 

 (subscene.com)

CLASS OF 1984-1982-New teacher Andy Norris (Perry King) runs afoul of a moronic gang leader Stegman (Timothy Van Patten) in a high school from hell (Abe Lincoln High). His gang includes Stefan Arngrim (TV's LAND OF THE GIANTS) and Lisa Langois (also in DEADLY EYES the same year). They terrorize the school with shakedowns, drugs and gang fights and have no respect for anyone. Norris butts heads with them despite warnings from a pathetic principal (David Garner) and an alcoholic bio teacher Corrigan (Roddy McDowall). The gang puts on masks and squirts Norris with blood, then beats him up and burns his car. When Norris' appeals to Stegman's equally moronic mother fail, he uses reverse psychology and wrecks Stegman's car. Corrigan freaks out when they kill his rabbits, and he threatens them with a gun then gets drunk and tries to run everyone over before dying in a fiery car crash (stand out performance). 

An ineffectual police officer (Al Waxman) is no help either. While Norris tries to whip the school band into shape, a nerdy student (Michael J. Fox) who is due to testify against the gang is stabbed during a lunchroom melee. It cumulates with the gang raping and kidnapping Morris' wife (Merrie Lyn Ross). He goes for revenge and despite taking a few lumps destroys the gang and saves his wife. Stegman winds up hanged to death over the concert hall.

There's a lot of violent action in this typical '80's revenge action story by director Mark L. Lester. Screenplay by Tom Holland (Lester says much of it was based on several real-life incidents he read about).

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Mantis!

 

 (TCM)

THE DEADLY MANTIS-1957-After a lengthy introduction about the creation of the Dew Line, an US Arctic outpost is mysteriously destroyed. Col. Joe Parkman (Craig Stevens; TV's Peter Gunn series) investigates and the Air Force spends a good deal of time looking for what caused it. All they find is a piece of giant claw which a bunch of egghead doctors can't figure out. They contact Dr. Nedrick Jackson (William Hopper; TV's Perry Mason), a paleontologist who deduces the claw is from a giant praying mantis, which later destroys a village in Greenland. When Jackson is sent to the Arctic to check things out, a female museum reporter Marge Blaine (Alix Dalton) goes with him. During a dance at the air force base the mantis attacks. Later it heads down the coast to terrorize the eastern seaboard. It wrecks a bus, buzzes the Capitol and the climbs the Washington monument. Later it lands in NYC and hides in the Manhattan tunnel where it is eventually destroyed. 

Pat Conway (from TV's TOMBSTONE TERRITORY is also in it. Good '50's giant insect horror, despite some phony looking effects, directed by Nathan Juran who in the same year made 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH, THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS (with John Agar) and HELLCATS OF THE NAVY (with Ronald & Nancy Reagan). Story is credited to William Alland.

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Abar!

 

ABAR-1977-After Dr. Ken Kincade (J. Walter Smith), an African American scientist, and his family move to a white LA suburb, the whole bigoted neighborhood protests and dumps garbage on his lawn. They even kill his dog! The bigots are chased away by Abar (Tobar Mayo) and his motorcycle buddies of the BFU (Black Front of Unity). He introduces himself as “John Abar: Crusader”. They want Kincade to move back to “the black community” but he refuses. In his lab (there's a skull in the refrigerator) the doctor experiments on rabbits. After Abar insults the doctor, he lectures on ghettos and race. The Kincade's young son has a dream that Abar is black cowboy “Deadwood Dick” who kills a bunch of white racist cowboys. When the son is killed by a hit and run driver, the whites just stare and walk away. While Kincade works feverishly on his research, his wife leaves him and he collapses. After Abar watches a movie about Martin Luther King, Kincade (who sometimes sounds like he's imitating William Marshall) wants to inject Abar with a formula that could make him indestructible. Abar resists but eventually takes the formula. 

The doc regrets his decision almost immediately (Abar is nuts). Cops shoot an unarmed black man (that would never happen in real life....). Abar uses his newfound power to make the racist cops fight each other. Then he walks around the ghetto in a suit and makes winos drunk milk and a purse snatcher give back a purse. He also gives a woman the power to beat up a fat guy who slapped her and makes graffiti vandals clean up their mess. He turns a pastor's Cadillac into a horse and buggy and turns weed toking hookers and gambling pimps into college grads. When a black land developer says, “to hell with the blacks in the ghetto”, Abar turns his bowl of spaghetti into worms. To top it all off later the white woman who was the most hateful bigot admits she's actually black. Abar keeps walking.... 

This disaster of a movie has bad acting and direction, but some parts are funny. Star Mayo later had small roles in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and SCHIZOID. It's the only movie directed by Frank Packard, a white actor, who devised the plot with co-star J. Walter Smith (some say he was a pimp in real life). Also known as IN YOUR FACE and ABAR: THE FIRST BLACK SUPERMAN.

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Deadly Dolls

 

 (wikipedia)

DOLLS-1986-After she has a daydream about her teddy bear growing and killing her parents, a young girl named Judy (Carrie Lorraine), her dumb father David (Ian Patrick Williams) and her horrible stepmother Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) seek shelter from a storm at the home of doll maker Gabriel Hartwicke (Guy Rolfe) and his wife Hilary (Hilary Mason). During dinner they are joined by another traveler, the nice but naive Ralph (Steven Lee) and two idiotic punks. Everyone stays the night. After a while it turns out Hartwicke's dolls are alive and into killing not nice people. The dolls are pretty vicious, using knives, hammers and saws on their victims. They make Rosemary jump out a window and pull out the eyes of one of the punks. The other punk puts up a good fight but is shot by some toy soldiers. Some more dolls almost kill Ralph, but Judy convinces them to stop. David thinks Ralph killed his wife, so when he tries to kill Ralph, Hartwicke turns him into a “Mr. Punch” doll! The next day Ralph and Judy leave for Boston where her real mother lives. Mr. Punch bids them goodbye. Everyone else is now a puppet and a new couple arrives. 

This imaginative little movie from Charles Band's Empire pictures was the brainchild of writer Ed Naha (who later wrote the screenplay for HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS) and director Stuart Gordon (REANIMATOR). The funny violent dolls were created by David Allen.

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Wanda Lust

 (imdb)

WANDA-1970-Wanda (director/writer Barbara Loden) is an aimless, unhappy and probably mentally unhinged woman existing in a small Pennsylvania coal town. She leaves her husband and sleeps on her sister's couch. Later she gives up custody of her children to her husband and when she can't get a job at the local mill, has sex with some random guy who abandons her at an ice cream stand. She wanders around and then goes to a movie where she falls asleep and has money stolen from her purse. She goes to a bar to have a drink but the guy (Michael Higgins) she thinks is the bartender is actually robbing the place. She sleeps with him. Despite being verbally and physically abused by him (she calls him “Mr. Dennis”), she stays with him and helps him in his petty larceny. Later he comes up with a bank robbery/blackmail plot involving a bank president and a bomb planted in his house. Traffic separates them (and Dennis forgets to tell her where the bank is!), he's killed by the cops, and she's not implicated. She goes for a drive with a soldier but when he puts the moves on her, she rejects him, runs through a forest and collapses. Wandering through another town, she meets a woman who takes her to a party at a bar and gives her booze, cigarettes and food. The End.

I once saw John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the Mike Douglas TV show touting this badly made movie which I've read is the first movie to be written, directed and starring a woman.

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