Short Things

 

 (mubi.com)

BARBEQUE DEATH SQUAD FROM HELL-1986-Penn & Teller star in this short advertising their company that turn boring family home movies into horror films. Lydia Lunch is their secretary. Crude, clever, deranged and funny. Directed by the wool hat wearing guitarist of “The Monkees”, Michael Nesmith.

 (imdb)

THE ADVENTURES OF RED ROOSTER-1984-So it seems around 1984, no budget sleaze master Andy Milligan decided to tackle the TV sit-com! He and screenwriter Donald Tobey made 5 episodes of the title show. This is sometimes called the pilot but it really seems like some kind of highlight reel with scenes edited together from the episodes. The plot concerns a young country girl (Leslie Den Dooven) who comes to NYC to work for the company Red Rooster, that manufactures a Viagra type pill. It reminded me more of a Hershell Gordon Lewis hillbilly movie. It's pretty bad. Star Den Dooven was also in Milligan's CARNAGE the same year.

 (archive.org)

INSTANT ADORING BOYFRIEND-A British guy (Brodie Bass) speaks into the camera. He seems to be talking to a woman he loves and worships, throwing out compliment over compliment while he works out, irons, etc. It's left to the viewer to figure out what's going on. Strange.

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Milligan on 42nd Street

 

 (imdb)

FLESHPOT ON 42nd STREET-1973-Ha! This terrible Andy Milligan movie is about a dumb whore and her various tricks. It almost seems like like a sleazy documentary. The cast is made up almost exclusively of hardcore porno actors including Laura Cannon, Harry Reems and Fred Lincoln. Neil Flanagan, Guru in Milligan's GURU THE MAD MONK, is a weird homo in a bad wig. It's really terribly made but the performances aren't bad and there's great scenes of the old 42nd street. If you like crappy '70's porno with grotesque '70's sex scenes then this is for you. Hooker Dusty (Laura Cannon) shacks up with transvestite Cherry (Flanagan) but changes her plans when she meets Bob (Harry Reems) but things don't work out as she plans and she returns to doing tricks.

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Back On Milligan's Island...

THE WEIRDO-1989-Quiet loner Donnie (Steve Burlingtopn) is bullied and beaten up by some redneck refugees from a Ted Nugent concert. He lives in a shed owned by the kindly elderly Mrs. Martins (Naomi Sherwood) who’s friend’s daughter Lisa (Lynee Angus) is staying with her. “Donnie’s alright. He’s just not all there”. He gets very excited watching Lisa take a bubble bath. Later he has a crazy conversation with a girl named Jenny (Jessica Straus) who walks with a limp. They start to hang out together. On his way to deliver some clothes to a church Donnie is once again beat up by white trash inc. but Jenny shows up to help him. At the church the perverted minister warns Jenny not to hang out with Donnie then puts a move on her but she rejects him and tells him off. While drinking milk the couple kiss but Donnie comes on too strong and Jenny runs. 

Later when she calms down she tells Donnie when she was 14 she was raped by a classmate. After they have sex, Donnie has to visit his mother an alcoholic floozy who insults him and winds up whipping him but Donnie turns the tables and chops off her head with meat cleaver. When a guy with a straitjacket comes to take Donnie away he’s killed by shovel. When the minister’s wife questions Donnie about sex with Jenny, he puts a large cross through her. He strangles and electrocutes the perverted minister. Even kindly Mrs. Martins turns against him and he burns her to death.

The funniest stupidest part is when one female character in a dinner explains about the killings. When a vigilante mob gets together it’s like some modern day inbred brain damaged version of a mob from a Universal horror film! Donnie also cuts the throat of one of his attackers and cuts off his hands. (It's not an Andy Milligan movie if someone doesn't lose a hand) The dysfunctional gang (young, old, a guy in a suit & tie) seem to beat Donnie to death. After finding his body Jenny asks “Why can't people be nice to each other?”. But upon bringing a cop to Donnie’s dead body they only discover his bloody jacket. With a strange smile on her face Jenny wanders off to look for her love.... 

This is by far the best looking of  Andy Milligan’s horror movies. The acting by the two leads is ok but it still suffers from the usual Milligan flaws: bad editing, bad acting, ludicrous script and of course gory but phony looking sfx. Filmed by director/writer Milligan in Los Angeles instead of his usual stomping ground Staten Island. The same year he made another movie SURGIKILL which would be his last. He passed away in 1991.

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Andy's Not Dandy

CARNAGE-1984-A newlywed couple, Carol (Leslie Den Dooven) and Jonathan (Michael Chiodo) move into their new house where three years before a husband killed his bride and himself on their wedding night. Weird things happen. A gas stove goes on by itself, kitchen utensils move around and a phone hangs itself up. There's useless scenes of a mother and daughter talking about marriage and pregnancy. Then Rose (Lola Ross), the new housekeeper is terrorized by the laughing ghost of the dead bride. She tells Rose to leave and begins to strangle her. Rose winds up comatose but wakes long enough to cut her own throat. 

After more useless talk about marriage, two would he burglars break into the basement and are confronted by the insane laughing blood smeared bride ghost. 

One burglar has his hand cut off (typical Andy Milligan cheesy sfx) and the other is strangled and disemboweled,although there's little blood. The next day (?) two couples come for a housewarming party. While one guy can't seem to take a shower, his wife is visited by the ghost bride. Later at the party a rug mysteriously moves causing one woman to fall and get glass in her arms. Then a guy is electrocuted in a bathtub and the next scene is his church funeral. When Jonathan's secretary stops by, her head is chopped off. Then a priest tries to help but gets a neat cleaver in his head. In the end the ghost couple make Carol and Jonathan commit murder/suicide the way they did. 

I don't mind low budget horror movies with bad acting and cheesy sfx but this movie has so much talk unrelated to the plot that it’s ridiculous and boring! Filmed in Staten Island by writer/ director Milligan.

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The Blood of Milligan

BLOOD-1973-This time in the Andy Milligan dimension, Regina Orlovsky (Hope Stansbury), the daughter of Count Dracula and Lawrence Orlovsky (Allen Berendt), the wolfman’s son are in an unhappy marriage that revolves around blood, murder and raising carnivorous plants.

Regina: “I hate you! Go to hell!” Lawrence: “We're already there!”

They are assisted by a motley crew: Carrie (Patti Gaul), who has a gamy leg, Orlando (Michael Fischetti), who has no legs and walks on his knees and Carlotta (Pichulina Hempi) who has legs but is an abused babbling fool who’s used as a blood supply for the plants. Larry kind of falls for the secretary of Mr. Root, the lawyer who handles the estate and has been siphoning money from the account. Once or twice Larry turns into a wolf and a guy gets an axe in his head but all the sfx are laughable. The dialogue and acting are insane and sometimes it looks like a school stage play. There's some strange parts too. Like Carrie's brother comes to visit secretly. From their conversation and actions they’ve obviously had an incestuous relationship but when they part he’s killed and never talked about again. What was the purpose of this scene? Actually what was the purpose of this whole movie? I’ve read Milligan fans consider this his best film. I hope they mean his best worst film! Despite being set in the 1800’s it just looks like people in the 20th century walking around in 19th century clothes.

 It's running time is BLOOD’s saving grace. It comes in just around an hour. I wish Milligan could have gotten himself an editor. Filmed in the director's old stomping grounds of Staten Island NY

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More Milligan

THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE! -1972-Writer/director Andy Milligan presents another period piece horror show featuring another dysfunctional family. This time it's the Mooneys lead by their bedridden father (Douglas Phair), oldest son Mortimer (Noel Collins), oldest sister Phoebe (Joan Ogden) and whiny younger sister Monica (Hope Stansbury; also in BLOOD). They bicker a lot. There’s also a younger brother. The animal like Malcolm (Berwick Kaler; also in THE BODY BENEATH) who’s kept locked up (he escapes once in a while). He seems to like chickens. Youngest sister Diana (Jackie Scarvellis; also in THE BODY BENEATH) who has been away for some years returns with her new husband Gerald (Ian Innes). It's clear from their first meeting that Monica and Diana hate each other. When Diana meets papa he berates her for her marriage and talks about extensive tests that must be made to start a new bloodline. He also says only Diana can carry on his experiments. Monica is a real cantankerous bitch who beats Malcolm and disrupts dinner. Later Gerald says they should go back to Scotland and Diana confides in Mortimer that she’s pregnant. Then suddenly in the middle of all this a more modern dressed Monica visits a ghoul faced shopkeeper named Mr. McCawber (director Milligan) and buys some flesh eating rats. Back in the other movie Monica attacks Gerald with a knife but a cross seems to stop her. Diana seems to have a aversion to it also. Then Monica plays with her rats and seems to be having a good time until one bites her and she kills it. She tries to get her money back from McCawber but he refuses so she kills him. Later after Phoebe and Mortimer talk about giving up Diana's baby and giving pops his shot, Diana buys a gun from an old gunsmith. This scene is so long and talky and seems only included because the director wanted a showoff role (Milligan plays the gunsmith!). This is followed by another useless long and boring scene where Monica and friend Rebecca talk about a garden snake she found. Monica kills her. It turns out of course that the whole family are werewolves and when the moon is full they transform into badly made up some type of wolf monsters. Except Diana who can change at will and after she and Gerald kill off the clan Diana kills hubby and awaits the birth of their kid. 

This was one of four movies Andy Milligan shot in England. Two years after filming ended, Milligan, at the request of executive producer William Mishkin added the rat segments because WILLARD had just become a big hit.

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Milligan Again

GURU THE MAD MONK-1970-In medieval times, a monk named Father Guru (Neil Flanagan) kills and tortures in the name of God at his “Lost Souls Church of Montavia”. Simpleton Karl (Paul Lieber) wants to save his girlfriend Nadja (Judith Isreal) from death so he makes a deal with Guru. If Karl can get corpses for Guru to sell to a medical college then the monk will give Karl’s beloved a potion that will appear to make her dead but she just be in a kind of coma until an antidote can revive her. Karl agrees but he has to get the drug from Olga (Jacqueline Webb), who wants human blood for her “experiments” (she's a vampire). Guru brands victims, has their hands and heads cut off, eyes burned out. He seems to have a love/hate relationship with his hunched back slave Igor (Jack Spencer) and talks to his evil self in a mirror. After he kills a stranger who wanted to repent, Nadja tries to bond with Igor. When a pregnant girl goes to Guru for help the vampire lady bites her. Then “The Holy Father” arrives with Guru’s replacement, Father Polonski. Their  conversation shows Milligan wasn't a fan of the Catholic church! When the holy one chastises Guru for taking care of the vampire woman and says Guru will be leaving, Guru kills him. Though Igor helps lead Polanski to his doom, he tries to save Nadja from Guru's molestation. For his trouble he’s nail to a wall and has his tongue cut out. Then Guru and Olga have a falling out and she tries to kill him, but he kills her her instead. Somehow Igor escapes and there's a frenzied chase up a flight of stairs. Quite comically Guru  stabs Igor to death then gets tangled in bell ringing ropes and dies. 

Like most outings by writer/director Andy Milligan this features bad acting,atrocious sfx and endless talk. Filmed in and on the grounds of a NYC church.

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Milligan Meltdown

THE BODY BENEATH-1970-Ok, I admit this is the first Andy Milligan movie I've ever seen. It was filmed in England where writer/director Milligan lived for a time and though the title sounds like it's porno it's really about some decadent vampires who dwell in a graveyard and their leader who pretends to be a minister and lives with his very quiet wife next door in Carfax Abbey! 

He's worried the bloodline is dying out so he has his mistreated hunchback servant Spool (Berwick Kaler) and three ghoul faced female vampires kidnap some local women. But later he decides they should all move to America. It's mainly a lot of talk with one quick scene of a maid being stabbed in the eyes. The acting is like something out of a movie from the early '30's.

 Somehow Milligan made 4 other movies in 1970 including GURU-THE MAD MONK and BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS. One actor Colin Gordon was a very busy character actor in England at the time this was filmed. Earlier he had played No. 2 in two episodes of THE PRISONER!

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