Big Brain

 

(imdb)

THE BRAIN-1988-A woman, Vicki is attacked by some tentacles after her teddy bear has stigmata but it turns out to be an illusion. When she thinks her boyfriend is being attacked, she accidentally kills him. Then she's pushed out a window by what looks like a brain. Some moron pretend bad boy James (Tom Bresnahan) who has good grades but is a wise ass joker gets what's coming to him when he's sent to the clinic of Dr. Blake (REANIMATOR's David Gale), the host of TV's “Independent Thinking”. James' girlfriend Janet (Cyndy Preston) is pretty smart though. She doesn't want to have sex with him. Blake hooks James up to a machine that is connected to a giant brain. He sees Blake's female assistant topless and then a scary monster. Blake is using the brain to hypnotize his TV audience. When the assistant complains, the brain eats her. Meantime, James loses control of his car when a tentacle comes out of the steering wheel. He goes crazy in a fast food place and Blake's male assistant (George Buza) takes him back to the institute where he sees Blake talking to the brain which now has evil eyes and fangs! Janet and his friend Willie (Brent Pearson) break into the place to save him. Poor Willie is eaten by the brain. The assistant decapitates a cop but James & Janet get the blame. Meanwhile, the brain gets bigger and its broadcasts make a woman chainsaw her husband. The teen fugitives hide out in their high school and have sex. When Janet watches a broadcast, she turns against James. After a big car chase, he returns to the institute where its discovered Blake is an alien trying to take over the world. James & Janet confront the brain after it eats the male assistant. It seems to end happily but…?? 

Satirical low budget horror movie doesn't take itself too seriously and I think it was influenced by THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS. The James character is not much of a hero though. Filmed in Canada by Ed Hunt (STARSHIP INVASIONS).

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Doom is Right!

 

 (imdb)

SS DOOMTROOPER-2006-During WW2, a Nazi mad scientist (Ben Cross) creates a huge monster soldier from a man using radiation. England hires Col. Malloy (Corbin Nemec) to go behind enemy lines to destroy the compound. He assembles a bunch of Dirty Dozen wannabes to help him. 

The sfx, acting and dialogue suck. All thrown together by director David Flores (SAND OF OBIVION the same year).

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Chaney in Charge

 

 (imdb)

THE MONSTER-1925-When Dr. Bowman disappears (actually his car is caused to crash and his body is taken by two ghoulish figures), the town of Danburg is in an uproar. The constable (Charles Sellon) and his "daring detectives'' investigate. Local boy Johnny Goodlittle (Johnny Arthur) who has a book "How Be A Detective" is the only one who finds a clue but the Constable laughs at him. Johnny works under Amos Rugg (Hallam Cooley) at a general store. They are both sweet on Betty Watson (Gertude Olmstead). The insurance company sends detective Jennings (William H. Turner). Once again Johnny shows them the clue he's found, a card from nearby Edwards sanitarium with the word help written backwards on the reverse side. Still, nobody believes it, since the doc is away and his sanitarium is closed. At Betty's party, she throws Johnny over for the pompous Rugg. Leaving dejectedly, Johnny meets a loony looking man who smokes an invisible pipe. When he mentions Bowman, Johnny follows him. When Rugg and Betty go for a ride, they fall victim to a planned auto accident just like Bowman had. Meanwhile Johnny accidentally gets into the sanitarium and later meets Rugg and Betty who went there to use the phone. They find a dead body. Asshole Rugg accuses Johnny of murder. Odd things happen around them. Then 30 minutes into the story Dr. Ziska (Lon Chaney) appears, saying he's in charge when Dr. Edwards is away. The guy they think is dead was actually in a trance. Ziska also has a huge mute servant Caliban (Walter James). Of course, Ziska is really an insane surgeon, once a patient who now has Edwards, Bowman and another guy captive in a dungeon. Meanwhile Ziska plans to transfer Rugg's soul into Betty's body. Fortunately, Johnny overcomes his cowardice and uses his "ingenuity" to put a stop to Ziska's evil machinations. 

THE MONSTER is thought to be the first type of haunted house mystery ala "THE OLD DARK HOUSE”. There's lots of strange characters and spooky goings on (clutching hands, secret doors etc). Co-star Johnny Arthur was known for playing timid characters, sometimes described as “effeminate”. After the Production Code was implemented in 1934, he had uncredited roles in many movies. He also portrayed Darla Hood's father in several “Our Gang” shorts. Star Lon Chaney is quite over the top in this horror-comedy which he made the same year as PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE UNHOLY THREE. 

Director/co-writer Roland West went on to make THE BAT and THE BAT WHISPERS but retired from the movies and went into business with ill-fated actress Thelma Todd. Co-writer Crane Wilbur (who wrote the play THE MONSTER is based on) made the controversial THE UNBORN in 1934 but went on to write many more movies (WEST OF SHANGHAI, HOUSE OF WAX, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND).

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Spook Stooges

 

 (youtube)

SPOOKS!-1953-In this 3 Stooges (Moe, Larry & Shemp) short (originally shown in 3-D; one of two they made in '53) the trio are detectives trying to rescue a young woman Bea Bopper (Norma Randall) from the clutches of two mad scientists Dr. Jekyll (Phillip Van Zandt) and Mr. Hyde (Tom Kennedy) who want to put her brain into a gorilla (Steve Calvert). 

Naturally pies play a role in the story and a lot of things are thrust at the screen (a hypo, a bat, Larry's face, Moe's eye poking fingers, a knife, etc.). However, the strangest effect is the bat that looks like Shemp! (5 years before THE FLY!) It's pretty hilarious. 

The Stooges made all of their 190 (!) short films for Columbia Pictures from 1934-1959. This is said to be one of quickest made as the studio wanted to cash in on the 3-D fad. Jules White directed and/or produced the lion share of the trio's shorts. Screenwriter Felix Adler was an experienced gag man who also wrote for Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello.

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Pre-Code Murder Mystery

 

 (imdb)

THE PHANTOM-1931-A mysterious killer, The Phantom escapes his death row prisoner cell by train and plane. He menaces a house full of people, with a DA (Wilfred Lucas) and his daughter Ruth (Allene Ray),he swore vengeance on. Some cliché police detectives search and there's a frightened pair of servants, a love triangle and the killer creeping around in a cape and top hat. Toward the end the scene changes to an insane asylum where a mad scientist wants to do an operation on Ruth. 

Very campy and crude, kind of hard to sit through. It stars cowboy actor Guinn “Big Boy” Williams. Director Allen James made many western serials and non-westerns like the original DICK TRACY (1937) and SOS COAST GUARD (1937) with Bela Lugosi.

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It's Alive?

 

 (imdb)

THE STRANGE LIFE OF DR. FRANKENSTEIN-2018-Bizarre little documentary is not so much about the character of Dr. Frankenstein as it us about Mary Shelley's reasons and influences on writing her famous novel. Several writer-historians (and a plastic surgeon) give their opinions. Although they all don't really seem happy with it, Karloff as the monster is used a lot. Some modern-day mad scientists are also touched on like Vladimir Demikhov and his two headed dog experiments, Robert White and his monkey head transplants, Luigi Galvani's experiments with electricity and Eugenics freak Alex Carrel. This French production was directed by Jean Froment.

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Von Stroheim

 

 (imdb)

THE CRIME OF DR. CRESPI-1935-Teutonic, grouchy, self-assured Dr. Crespi (Erich Von Stroheim; 2 years before GRAND ILLUSION) agrees to operate on his former lover's husband Stephen Ross (John Bohn), a highly decorated doctor who used to be Crespi's assistant. The operation is a success but Ross dies anyway. Or does he? It seems Crespi is a mad scientist who injected Ross with a drug that makes him appear dead when in fact he can see and hear everything. Crespi wants him buried alive and even gloats about it to Ross' prone body. Ross is buried but is inadvertently saved when Dr. Thomas (Dwight Frye; in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN the same year) exhumes the body believing Crespi poisoned Ross. Hungarian born John H. Auer directed this creaky melodramatic sort of horror tale with the credit “suggested” by Edgar Allan Poe's “The Premature Burial”.

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The Bowery Boys

 

 (imdb)

SPOOK BUSTERS-1946-In the fourth installment of "The Bowery Boys" series, Slip (Leo Gorcey), Sach (Huntz Hall) and the rest of the boys (Bobby Jordan,Bill Bendict and David Gorcey) are exterminators who get a job in a haunted house. They are joined by their old pal Gabe (Gabriel Dell) just out of the navy, and his fiance Minon (Tanis Chandler). The house is actually being used by mad doctor Coslow (Douglas Dumbrille), his assistant Stiles (Charles Middleton) and a muscle head (Richard Alexander).

 He also has a Dr. Bender (Maurice Cass) as his assistant/captive. Coslow must really be mad 'cos he wants to put part of Sach's brain into that of a gorilla. There's a slow-motion fight and the gorilla (Art Miles) gets loose. Bernard Gorcey is Louie. 

Producer Jan Grippo was Leo Gorcey's agent while they made the series at Monogram. Busy William Beaudine must have taken a vacation in 1946 because he only director 5 movies! (Although he may have worked on 3 more...)

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Three Way

 

 

 (wikipedia)

THREE THE HARD WAY-1974-Record producer Jimmy Lait (Jim Brown), PR man Jagger Daniels (Fred Williamson) and Kung Fu guy Mr. Keyes (Jim Kelly) team up to rescue Jimmy's wife (Sheila Frazier) from the clutches of the racist madman Monroe Feather (Jay Robinson) and his mad scientist pal (Richard Angarola) who's created a secret formula to destroy all our black brothers and sisters. There's lots of fights and shootouts. Keyes gets help from his Asian friend (David Chow). Later Feather has a party where his Aryan troops all wear Guardian Angels like red berets. Despite the overwhelming numbers the trio invades Feather's citadel and destroy everything and everybody. Alex Rocco, Jeanie Bell, Irene Tsu and Roberta Collins have small roles. The weirdest part is the three topless women Jagger hires to torture a hit man. 

Director Gordon Parks, Jr. keeps the movie going at a fast pace despite the thin plot. It could have been better but seems the selling point were the three stars themselves. Parks' best-known film is SUPERFLY (1972). He made THOMASINA & BUSHROD the same year as THREE. He only completed one more film after this as he was killed in a plane crash over Kenya while making a film called “Revenge”. It was later finished by another director and re-titled THE BUSHWHACKERS. He was 44 years old.

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Bad-Pire

 

 (imdb)

PROJECT VAMPIRE-1993-The vengeful Dr. Klaus (Myron Natwick), a German vampire scientist and his assistant Heidi (Paula Randol-Smith) want to turn the whole world into vampires through a formula he says can stop aging. 

This low budget horror is pretty bad with atrocious acting, script and sfx. This is only movie (so far) directed by Peter Flynn who was usually assigned to the art department on TV shows. Character actor Natwick was also MISSION: KILL FAST (1991) and THE CORPSE GRINDERS 2 (2000), both by Ted V. Mikels.

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Ed Wood In Japan?

 

 (imdb)

VENUS FLYTRAP (aka BODY OF THE PREY)-1967/1970-Dr. Bragan (James Craig) an overworked NASA scientist with an interest in botany is convinced by his Japanese colleague to take a vacation in Japan. While driving in the back woods he has car trouble. A greasy snake handler offers to fix his car. Looking at the handler's snake collection he notices a Venus flytrap and goes into the surrounding swamp to get one of his own. Later he goes to Japan and meets his assistant's friend, Atsuko Rome (Noriko Hanamura) who takes him to her father's remote resort near an active volcano. There he experiments with the flytrap and Atsuko assists him. He's kind of grouchy and doesn't like the feeble caretaker and his dog. He wants to cross a Venus flytrap with a local Japanese plant, trying to prove man is decedent from plants. Like Dr. Frankenstein he uses lightening to achieve this. He's very rude to his assistant. He creates a plant thing with flytrap hands that needs blood instead of water to live. Eventually it grows bigger and starts walking around terrorizing the local village. When he sees that it's killed he decides to destroy it. He lures it to the volcano with the promise of a baby goat. They both fall into the active lava but the goat survives. 

Many stories abound about the creation of this movie. It's based on a screenplay Ed Wood Jr. wrote in the 1950's but director Norman Earl Thomson heavily re-wrote it. It's director's credit is sometimes even given to VENUS FLYTRAP's editor Kenneth G. Crane who directed the slightly similar Japan-US co-production THE MANSTER in 1960. Also known as THE REVENGE OF DR. X, some prints list the credits for the Philippines lensed horror film THE MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND!

Quotes from the doctor:

"I refuse the word impossible".

 "A plant as human as the human element itself".

"I will destroy my creation. My work of genius".

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(flashbak.com)

Samson aka Santo

 

SANTO IN THE WAX MUSEUM-1963-A reporter Susan Madison (Roxana Bellini) is doing a story on the wax museum run by the mysterious Dr. Karol (Claudio Brooke), an Auschwitz survivor who also bears scars on his body from a fire. Susan is attacked by a scar faced guy and disappears. Karol comes under suspicion. He asks wrestler El Santo (in this dubbed version he's called Samson) to help clear him. Susan's sister Gloria (Norma Mora) and her fiance Richard (Reuben Rojo) believe Karol is to blame. Of course it turns out Karol is the nut responsible for all the bad things. He wants to turn everyone in the world into ugly monsters. Santo has to fight a bunch of mutated humans, who eventually turn on the doctor, to save the sisters and Richard. 

This El Santo horror adventure was later edited and dubbed into English by K. Gordon Murray and played a lot on US TV. Mad doctor portrayer Claudio Brook later was the title character in Luis Bunuel's bizarre short SIMON OF THE DESERT (earlier he was in the same director's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL). Director Alfonso Corona Blake also made SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN.

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Karloff

 

THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES-1940-Dr. Mason (Roger Pryor) demonstrates his "frozen therapy" which he says can cure cancer by freezing the patient. All the doctors there agree. Dr. Harvey (Charles Trowbridge), head of the hospital is pissed at the publicity and takes the project away from Mason sending him on vacation. He and his nurse Judith (Jo Ann Sayers) decide to investigate the home of Dr. Kravaal, a scientist who disappeared 10 years before and had also been doing experiments with frozen therapy too.. After being warned to stay away from Kravaal's house, the duo find the doc's secret lab and the doc himself (Boris Karloff) frozen in a chamber. They revive him and in a flashback he relates how some locals wanted him arrested and how he, a coroner (Byron Foulger), DA Hawthorne (John Dilson), a sheriff and the nephew of Kravaal's patient became frozen. Later he revives them but when the nephew destroys his formula Kravaal kills him. He then holds everyone prisoner until he can replicate the lost formula. He wants to experiment on his hostages with most of the story taking place in the underground lab. 

Far fetched but enjoyable little mad scientist tale. One of several Karloff made for Universal in the early '40's. Fast worker Nick Grinde directed Karloff in THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG before this and BEFORE I HANG later the same year.

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Yesterday

 

 (cultpix.com)

THE YESTERDAY MACHINE-1965-After a college kid is shot by unknown assailants a reporter Jim Crandall (James Britton; the director's brother) goes to interview him at the hospital. Dr. Blake (Charles Young) tells Jim the boy's story and in a flashback we learn the boy's attackers were dressed in Civil War clothes and his cheerleader girlfriend disappeared. After night club singer Sandra Del Marr (Ann Pelligrino) croons a song, police Lt. Partane (Tim Holt) and his assistant Lansky (Robert Kelly) inform her of her cheerleader sister's disappearance. Later a weird detective finds a Civil War cap that's the real thing, along with the girl's sweater. Partane relates a story to Lansky from WW2 involving some young concentration camp prisoners who should have been old and a German physicist Prof. Von Hauser. Later Jim and Sandy investigate an old house near where her sister's sweater was found. After Jim knocks out a guy who attacked Sandy they seem to go back in time and meet a guy on a horse in a tri-corner hat. When the guy sees Jim's cigarette lighter he declares "Witchcraft!" and rides off. After walking around they are transported to the lab of Prof. Von Hauser (Jack Herman) who's doing experiments with time traveling. He has a former Egyptian slave as a servant and is quite kindly until Jim calls Hitler a madman. The long winded mad scientist explains in detail how he mastered time with something called "The Minus Ray". Meanwhile Sandy is reunited with her sister. Later Von Hauser plans to send Sandy's sister into the future but with the help of the slave (who's killed) Jim escapes and rescues the women. Partane arrives and kills Von Hauser and destroys the machine. 

This movie is mostly talk and not much else. The story's sole proof of time travel are 4 characters. It's very cheap and badly acted. Writer/director Russ Marker wrote the shoddy NIGHT FRIGHT with John Agar. 

Tim Holt was a popular young star before WW2. On his return from the war (a decorated officer) he starred in Orson Welles' THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and co-starred in THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE but soon after was regulated to westerns (some successful, some not). He grew disillusioned with Hollywood and moved to Oklahoma. For years his filmography ended with the Sci-Fi monster film THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (made over two years after his previous movie) but then THE YESTERDAY MACHINE showed up. His final film role was in Herschel Gordon Lewis' hillbilly drama THIS STUFF'LL KILL YA!

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The Ape Man Returns (?)

 

THE RETURN OF THE APE MAN-1944-Two scientists successfully keep a man alive in suspended animation for four weeks. Head guy Prof. Dexter (Bela Lugosi) needs a subject who's been frozen for hundreds of years to see if he can make him live again. So he and assistant Professor Gilmore (John Carradine) go to the Arctic to dig for one. They almost give up but a frozen specimen falls into there hands after an avalanche. They take him back to the US and revive him. 

He (Frank Moran) seems wild but Dexter uses a whip to tame him. Dexter plans to put part of a modern human brain into the ape man but needs a volunteer brain. At an engagement party for Gilmore's niece Ann (Teala Loring), he plays the Moonlight Sonata while Dexter decides her fiance Steve (Tod Andrews) would make a good brain donor and drugs him and prepares him for an operation. Fortunately Gilmore is wise to his partner's plan and saves Steve. He also tells Dexter he's mad and wants nothing more to do with him. Later after Dexter tries to tame the caveman with electricity and a blowtorch, the caveman escapes and kills a cop. Dexter recaptures him ("You brainless fool!") but the newspapers report a monster sighting. Gilmore wants to report the caveman to the police but Dexter persuades his too gullible ex-partner that he wants help destroying the creature. Of course instead Dexter uses Gilmore's grey matter to bring the prehistoric throwback under his control. But it doesn't work so well as the new improved cave ape (who can talk) makes a bee line out the front door to his former house. He climbs in a window and plays the piano for Mrs. G. 

Steve suspects Dexter and he and two cops go to his pad. When they check out his lab the cave guy (who'd been recap-tured by Dexter) bursts through his cage behind a fake wall and kills Dexter despite being shot at point blank range several times. Cavey heads back to Gilmore's house and kidnaps Ann. A crazy chase ensues with Gil-ape going across some buildings with Anne (an obvious dummy). He hides out with her in the prop room of a theater until he kills a night watchman. Somehow he goes back to Dexter's lab, a fire breaks out but Steve saves Ann. The End. 

This Monogram quickie was directed by Phil Rosen (PHANTOM OF CHINATOWN) and though George Zucco is listed in the credits as the ape man he only appears for a few seconds when the ape man is first found in the block of ice. Apparently Zucco fell ill just as filming started and was replaced by Frank Moran. It has nothing to do with previous monkey business type horror films from Monogram like THE APE (1940).

Fortunately Zucco got better and teamed with Lugosi and Carradine for VOODOO MAN soon after.

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Tor Johnson is Lobo In

 

THE UNEARTHLY-1957-Dr. Charles Conway (John Carradine) is mad egotistical scientist using his rest home as a front for his diabolical experiments in eternal youth with his unsuspecting patients as guinea pigs. He's assisted by clipped fast talking ice princess Dr. Sharon Gilchrist (Marilyn Buferd) and brain dead experiment gone wrong servant Lobo (the one and only Tor Johnson). Another doctor Loren Wright (Roy Gordon) is also in on the loony plan and provides "patients”, the latest being the up tight, depressed Grace Thomas (Allison Hayes). Also staying there are the uber-hyper Danny (Arthur Batanides) who may or may not be a drug addict and the cute blond Natalie Andries (Sally Todd) who's symptoms are never revealed. There's also the comatose Jedrow (Harry Fleer), another failed experiment who's sister is putting pressure on Wright to know her brother's whereabouts. 

Lobo catches escaped murderer Mark Houston (Myron Healey) in the garden and Charles offers him sanctuary. While Charles and Sharon plot their next operation, Mark gets acquainted with everyone, especially Grace. Charles reveals his dark plans to Mark and wants to make him immortal. At night while Charles plays an organ recital for his victims, Natalie is drugged and Lobo takes her to the lab ("Pretty girl. Pretty girl."). Later while sending everyone to their rooms, Tor mutters the memorable "Time for go to bed". The doc performs surgery on Natalie. Later he discovers he's once again failed. Natalie has become some-thing of a prune faced zombie. Doc is quite disappointed. Sharon tries to cheer him up and says he needs rest. "I do not need any-thing that I do not wish to need" he snaps and also decides to have Lobo bury Jedrow alive. Mark spoils his plans. After showing Grace what happened to Natalie, they de-cide along with Danny to blow the joint. Unfortunately they are found out and Charles decides the time is right to operate on Grace. 

Fortunately Mark is actually an under-cover policeman assigned to check out Conway's wacky residence. Jedrow kills Charles and although Danny is killed, Mark saves Grace. But there's a surprise in the basement. 

THE UNEARTHLY was the brainchild of producer/director Brooke L. Peters (aka Russian born Boris Petroff) who later made ANATOMY OF A PSYCHO in 1961. The story seems similar to the synopsis of a lost Lon Chaney silent film THE MONSTER. 

Star Carradine is great as the insane doctor doing it all for science. He was in a segment of the colossal flop THE STORY OF MANKIND the same year and made a lot of TV appearances. Lead actress Hayes was also in THE UNDEAD and ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU the same year. Big Tor began work on PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE around this time. 

Marilyn Buferd, a Miss California winner and former model, earlier had been in Roberto Rossellini's THE MACHINE THAT KILLS BAD PEOPLE. She only made one movie after this, QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE the next year.

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Immortal Nonsensse

 

THE IMMORTALIZER-1989-Mad scientist Dr. Devine (Ron Ray) is doing experiments making old people young. Nurse Blaine (Melody Patterson; Wrangler Jane from TV's “F-Troop”) and two other doctors assist him. They are all a bunch of jerks. They have two idiots and some failed experiments helping them. Greg (Chris Crone), a guy who's friends are held in the lab, tries to rescue them with the help of a neighbor, Agnus. There's a basement with some monsters in it and some very bloody (and phony looking) brain operations. The director Joel Bender also made THE RETURNING and GAS PUMP GIRLS.

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Something's Fishy

 

ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN-1979-Survivors of a shipwrecked prison ship including a Lt./doctor Ross (Claudio Cassinelli; in MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD the same year) and some prisoners have their lifeboat attacked by a sea monster. The survivors of that attack wind up on an island where they find a voodoo altar and one of them declares the island is inhabited by zombies. When a snake threatens them it's shot by a mysterious woman on horseback. She warns them to leave as the owner of the island, Edmund Rackham doesn't want visitors. The group also seems to be followed by a strange frog-like creature. They meet the smug, pompous Rackham (Richard Johnson; in ZOMBIE the same year)  who offers them shelter. Rackham and his wife Amanda (Barbara Bach; THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) obviously have some marital problems. He invites Ross to dinner and while they discuss various things an old man spies on them. Later Rackham watches his smirking head servant Shakira (Beryl Cunningham) perform a voodoo ceremony and then sees her bonding with the frog monster. After one of the cons is killed attacking a woman Ross has his own encounter with Froggy but is saved when Amanda orders it to stop. Ross discovers that a famous biologist Prof. Marvin (Joseph Cotton; in GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED the same year) is in the house too and very sick. He's also Amanda's father. Rackham seems desperate to have Ross keep him alive. Finally Rackham reveals some secrets to Ross. Under the island is the last remnants of Atlantis now occupied by the fish men. There's a huge treasure there but it's too deep. Rackham needs the fish men's help to get it. Prof. Marvin invented a potion that allows him to communicate with the creatures. Amanda can too. But Marvin is actually a mad scientist drummed out of the medical profession for his experiments on humans. Turns out the amphibian inhabitants are actually humans mutated by him. 

This movie isn't great with too many long stretches of nothing happening and some very dark scenes. A lot does happen in the last half hour though as a volcano erupts, Ross almost drowns but is saved by the dying Shakira who Rackham shot when she attempted to kill his wife, Ross and Rackham have two fights, the last resulting in Rackham's bloody death at the claws of the fish men who save Amanda from drowning. She and Ross survive.

Sergio Martino directed this Italian production that played in US theaters under the titles SOMETHING IN THE DARK and SCREAMERS. Both feature a new gory opening sequence featuring Cameron Mitchell & Mel Ferrer. 

The same year he made FISHMEN Martino also made THE GREAT ALLIGATOR which featured Bach, Cassinelli and Johnson. In 1995 he made a sequel for Italian TV "The Queen of the Fishmen". 

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"I've made a lot of junk". ..Joseph Cotten

The (A) Void

 

THE VOID-2016-This bloody violent tasteless horror movie is about a group of people trapped in a semi-abandoned hospital by a cult in white robes. A mad doctor (Kenneth Walsh) has "conquered death" and wants to bring back his dead daughter. He turns people into blob like tentacle monsters and the cast swears and screams a lot. This Canadian production has two directors Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski but one competent director would have been better.

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Go Ape On Mexico!

NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES-1969-A woman named Lucy (Laura Lazareno) is a red masked pro wrestler. During a match she throws her opponent out of the ring and an ambulance has to be called. Meanwhile a doctor and his assistant go to a zoo and drug and capture a gorilla. The injured wrestler needs an operation and a specialist Dr. Krallman (Jose' Elias Moreno) is called in. The same guy who drugged the gorilla. He has a bed ridden son Julio (Augstin M. Solares) and his assistant Goyo (Carlos Lopez Moctezuma) calls him “master”so you know he's up to no good. When Krallman is told his son’s days are numbered he decides to transplant the gorilla’s heart into Julio’s body and then give him the gorilla's blood. It’s a bloody operation. 

Lucy’s policeman/boyfriend Martinez (Armando Silvestre) and his force search for the missing gorilla. After Martinez has to stand Lucy up to meet with his boss, Julio turns into an ape man, escapes and kills a woman. He's recapture and the doc decides that maybe a gorilla's heart wasn't such a good idea (gee..ya think?). It's better if they get a new living human heart and put it in Julio. The reluctant donor is the comatose wrestler Lucy fought! While the duo goes to get their “donor”, Julio the ape man escapes again. He tears out a guy’s throat while his girlfriend runs away conveniently tearing the top of her dress off. He rapes the woman (not shown), stabs a good Samaritan and plucks a passerby’s eye out! Then he’s recaptured. The doc who besides being nuts is also head of the hospital reprimands his staff for losing their patient and the toady doctors all agree to a cover-up. Meanwhile through fingerprints, Martinez proposes that the killer isn't a gorilla but some kind of man beast hybrid (good guess!). His boss thinks he has been watching too many “movies of horror”. Later Julio changes back into man but while the doc is out he becomes the man beast again and kills Goyo. Doc confronts his son but trips and hits his head. 

Julio goes prowling and kills a policeman (he scalps him) and then chases Lucy into a park. Martinez goes after them but so does the doc. Julio and Martinez fight and Julio turns into his old self. They are both taken to a hospital where Julio once again transforms and kills a doctor and a nurse. He then grabs a sick little girl and heads for the roof. Martinez and dad follow and the doc convinces sonny to give up the child. He/it is then fatally shot by the cops below. Dad loses his mind. 

Mindlessly bloody sleaze with real gory footage of open heart surgery. Mad scientist portrayer Jose' Elias Moreno had the lead as jolly old St. Nick in the Mexican made SANTA CLAUS in 1959!, which was directed by BLOODY APES director Rene Cordona who had a prolific career as a director and actor in Mexico (and a son who became a director).