US Actors in South American

 

KILLER FISH-1979-In this Italian production filmed in Buenos Aires with North American actors jewel thieves headed by Lasky (Lee Majors) and Kate (Karen Black) steal some valuable gems and wreck most of the facility getting them. They hide the loot underwater in a reservoir. The mastermind behind the heist Diller (James Franciscus) fills the reservoir with piranha. 

Meanwhile Lasky pursues model Gabrielle (Margaux Heminway), while her fat photographer (Roy Brocksmith),manager (Marisa Berensen) and pilot (Gary Collins) hang around. After some of the robbers are killed trying to retrieve the cache, Kate scuba dives for it and she and Diller get the booty. When they get caught in a rainstorm they are picked up by a yacht owned by the model and her entourage. 

The storm washes the piranha into the nearby lake. Diller betrays them all and it's Longstreet vs. The Six Million Dollar Man in the finale battle of the US TV stars in this drawn out little drama directed by Anthony Dawson (aka Antonio Margheriti) (CASTLE OF BLOOD). 

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Nutsy Nazi Nonsense

 

NAZI UNDEAD-2018-Ashley (Georgia Chara) and Brad (Leigh Scully), a college couple from Australia with relationship problems have car trouble on the way to a castle. After finding a dead girl they wind up trapped in an old house with what seems to be the dead body of a Nazi officer. The place seems to be haunted. After having a nightmare Brad disappears. Ashley wanders around looking for him while seeing visions. Later she finds Brad who's been tortured, his body twisted. He wants her to put him out if his misery and kill him which she does. Then she cries and vomits. She leaves the house.

At the 32 minute mark it seemed it was over but after wandering around Ashley finds herself back at the house, locked in. Some ghoul children ghosts say "Shhh" when she screams. She watches a film of the Nazi (Andy McPhee) killing his wife and kids because they are "unpure". He then cuts out their eyes and kills himself. The Nazi shows up and examines her teeth. She faints and wakes up with her mouth sewed shut. She runs away and into a car, who's occupants are Ashley and Brad and the movie begins to repeat! Except this time Brad dies from having a swastika carved in his back. The Nazi shows up and examines Ashley. She faints and wakes up, once again with her mouth sewn shut. She runs into her car again and the movie repeats itself again only this time Ash looks at the body and sees it's her. It seems a crazy un-dead nanny is to blame. 

This derivative art school trash was directed by Steven Spiel and is also known as LIVING SPACE.

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It Started Here

 

TEENAGERS BATTLE THE THING-1958-A high school teacher Roger Mason (Dave Flocker who directed) and his friend anthropologist Bill Wyman take five teenagers to an Indian burial ground in Ivanpah to dig for artifacts. After digging for a while and eating lunch they discover a cave with a mummy inside. Somehow they get it out and take it to the house they are using. After 2 of the guys talk about a bottle of pop the mummy monster comes to life! It kills a local woman and the next day the sheriff shows up. They search part of an orange grove and discover traces of the monster. Roger has a plan to lure the mummy monster out in the open. Using bales of hay, meat scraps and gasoline, the adults and kids burn the monster mummy to death. The End. 

This less than an hour little low budget regional horror film later became the basis for THE CURSE OF BIGFOOT in 1974, in color with a new introduction featuring Flocker in the Mason role. His brother James T. Flocker wrote it and later on made some very low budger movies of his own like GHOSTS THAT STILL WALK and ALIEN ENCOUNTERS.

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Mean Johnny

 

MEAN JOHNNY BARROWS-1975-Johnny Barrows (Fred Williamson) is dishonorably discharged from the army for hitting an officer. He arrives in LA and is mugged and beaten. Some racist cops arrest him thinking he's a drunk. A Sargent recognizes him as a college football player and war hero. After turning down a job offer from obvious gangster Mario Racconi (Stuart Whitman), he combs the city for a job but to no avail and sleeps in a doorway. Then he meets the Professor (Elliot Gould) and gets a job cleaning up in a gas station for the racist owner Richard (RG Armstrong). At a pow-wow mob boss Da Vince (Anthony Caruso) has his sons (Roddy McDowell and Mike Henry) kill Mario and his dad (Luther Adler) but Mario survives. When Richard cheats Johnny out of his pay Johnny tries to get it by force and is beaten up by white cops again and arrested. He gets out and Mario hires him to kill the Da Vince family. He kills both sons then has a terrible fight with an assassin who looks like Tiny Tim. Unfortunately Tony Da Vince and Mario's girlfriend Nancy (Jenny Sherman) were conspiring against both families so when Johnny tries to put the moves on her she shoots him but Johnny rigged a mine that she steps on and is blown up. 

This drawn out low budget crime drama is terrible with director/star Williamson  sleepwalking through most of the film and hardly involved in the mob family war till the last half hour.

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Hammer Again

 

STOP ME BEFORE I KILL!-1960-Race driver Alan Colby (Ronald Lewis) has trouble adjusting after a car crash. He's very argumentative and paranoid and has the feeling he wants to kill his wife Denise (Diane Cilento). She convinces him to go see a French doctor Prade (Claude Daupin) who he doesn't like (he punched him at a dinner party!). The doc tries to help him and seems to succeed but then Denise disappears. Has he killed her? 

Interesting if a little drawn out psychological English drama from Hammer Pictures directed by Val Guest (THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN).

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the Asylum Again

 

THE BEAST OF BRAY ROAD-2005-The Asylum Strikes again! In this useless waste of time horror flick a monster terrorizes a hick town where the only character that's not a moronic inbred redneck is the local sheriff transferred from Chicago. "The beast" turns out to be a werewolf and most everyone is killed. Director Leigh Scott later made HILLSIDE CANNIBALS.

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Japan

 

PITFALL-1962-After running away from a mining camp a guy (Hisashi Igawa) and his young son and his friend hideout digging coal for an old man. A man dressed in white with a pith helmet seems to be following and photographing them. After deserting that job they take another hauling dirt. He's told about a job in another village but when he and his son go there they find it deserted save for one woman shopkeeper. When he finally encounters the man in white he's attacked and stabbed. He dies but his spirit wanders the village where other spirits reside. Later he follows the police investigation and finds the mysterious things happening have an explanation. After the shopkeeper is raped the man in white kills her. The backdrop is two mines, the old pit and the new one. 

Director Hiroshi Teshigahara presents monster what appears to be an allegory on the protests of conditions for miners. A big issue at the time in Japan. It's both sad and thought provoking. 

Based on a novel by Kobo Abe who also wrote the screenplay, he and Teshigahara would team for four more films including FACE OF ANOTHER.

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