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 (wikipedia)

CHARIOTS OF THE GODS-1970-Erich Von Daniken's highly speculative bestselling book is the basis for this German made speculation film that proposes aliens visited Earth in ancient times, were the gods of mythology and build the pyramids,Nezca lines and other structures. Director Harold Reinl later made two more movies along the same lines IN SEARCH OF ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS and MYSTERIES OF THE GODS but prior to CHARIOTS, he made THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM and some other horror films and two movies featuring the Dr. Mabuse character

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 (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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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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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 and financial bomb.

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Andre

 

 (imdb)

SAMUEL BECKETT:WAITING FOR ANDRE-2017-This short film is about the real life friendship between playwright Samuel Beckett (David Threlfal) and the young French teenager who would later become pro wrestler Andre The Giant (Liam MacDonald). It's mostly an embellishment of a popular local story that grew over the years. It's true the playwright and the future wrestler did live in the same French village and Beckett did drive Andre to school occasionally but he drove most of kids one time or another (the school didn't have a school bus) and he never developed the personal friendship with Andre that's depicted here. It was part of an English TV series called “Urban Myths” directed by Ben Palmer and written by Neil Forsyth.

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Tabloid

 

TABLOID!-1985-During an aerobics class (very popular in the '80's) 2 aliens kidnap the instructor. At a sleazy tabloid newspaper run by a crabby old bitch, a new writer works hard creating new stories for the paper. 

In the first story, 3 rednecks try to take revenge on a hick who sold them some bad weed. The hick, his pregnant wife and her mother kill all three rednecks and at the end the wife gives birth to a baby with a beard. This one seemed very influenced by John Waters. In the second three recently dead people come back to life and have a BBQ while having a kind of philosophical discussion about life and death. This whole story is filmed too darkly. The third involves a guy who can predict tornadoes with help from his daughter, a vacuum and a small town TV station. Parts are funny but this one goes on too long. There were three directors, one for low budget loony segment.

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Dread Having To Watch This

 

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN-2014-Stupid sort of sequel to Charles B. Pierce's 1976 quasi-documentary. A killer terrorizes Texarkana in the same place the original murders were. Some yokels think the original killer is back. A girl who survived the initial attack and Lone Wolf Morales (Anthony Anderson), an arrogant Texas ranger lead the official investigation. Gary Cole plays a police officer killed while getting a blowjob. The original director's son Charles Pierce Jr. is portrayed as a real weirdo. The killer starts killing everyone including the girl's grandmother (Veronica Cartwright). 

This is just another sick excuse to show excess killing. It's the last movie for both Ed Lauter & Edward Herman. Director Alfonzo Gomez-Rejon directed episodes of the TV show “Glee” before this.

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Raise The Dead

 

LIFE RETURNS-1935-Three young doctors Robert Cornish (Robert Cornish), Louise Stone (Lois Wilson) and John Kendrick (Onslow Stevens) conduct experiments with a potion to bring the dead back to life but the obsessed Kendrick accepts a grant from The Arnold institute. After rising in his medical practice, marrying a socialite (Valerie Hobson) and doing many experiments, the director (Frank Reicher) and Arnold himself (Richard Carle) see no commercial or beneficial use for his research. They refuse to buy him an expensive piece of equipment. Since he's obviously a self absorbed bastard who's used to getting his way, neglecting his practice and family, feeling his research into bringing the dead back to life is much more important this comes as quite a blow to him. When he explains his theory he's ridiculed. 

Years later he's toiling away and getting nuttier. His wife dies and his young son Jimmy is going to be hauled off to juvenile court. Jimmy runs away and hides out with some tough kids. Later when Jimmy's dog is gassed to death Kendrick gets the body and has Cornish perform the operation to reanimate him. (Real operation footage is shown). While several doctors look on the dog is restored to life. 

This is just a tedious promotion disguised as a human interest story and advertised as a horror film. It's based on the actual experiments of co-star Robert Cornish. For more on Cornish and, in my opinion, his dubious experiments go here:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Cornish

LIFE RETURNS was produced by Universal Pictures who pulled it from general release after they thought it was too gruesome. This is only one of four movies director Eugene Frenke made. In 1958 he produced THE BARBARIAN AND THE GEISHA with John Wayne.

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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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BTK

BTK-2008-A guy named Dennis (Kane Hodder) who calls himself a “compliance officer” is thought to be a nice guy though it's obvious he's nuts. He's actually a serial killer who wants to make a name for himself. It uses the case of a real life killer who used the same initials (it stands for Bind. Torture. Kill) but that's just an excuse to show an excess of violence, torture and gore. “Ain't Nobody's Business” by Mississippi John Hurt is heard over the end credits. 

Director/screenwriter Michael Feifer had made CHICAGO MASSACRE: RICHARD SPECK and exploited other real life murderers and their crimes with ED GEIN: THE BUTCHER OF PLAINFIELD, BUNDY: AN AMERICAN ICON and THE BOSTON STRANGLER:THE UNTOLD STORY.

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Ma Barker

MA BARKER'S KILLER BROOD-1960-Lurene Tuttle (Mrs. Chambers in PSYCHO the same year) is the infamous lady gangster who raises her kids to be killer/bank robbers after training them to steal from their church's collection plate. She's very mean and calls her oldest son Herman (Don Grady; later in TV's MY THREE SONS) a sissy because he plays the violin (which she smashes). She seems to be so mean and violent because she had to wear homemade “bloomers” when she was young! When her husband protests and lectures her she just laughs at me and throws him out. She plots several heists with her “young-uns” but the sheriff runs them out of town. 

By 1933 she has trained her 4 sons to rob an armored car. Grown up Herman (Donald Spruance) is suppose to kill the guard but loses his nerve and Mom has to run the guard over (twice!) but takes time to slap Herman a few times. Her other “boys” are Doc (Ron Foster), Lloyd (Rex Holman) and Fred (Eric Morris). She sets up a kidnapping for Machine Gun Kelly (Vic Lunden; later The Lobster Man in an episode of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA). Myrna Dell plays his girlfriend. Ma throws a party where Baby Face Nelson (Robert Kendall) and John Dillinger (Eric Sinclair) show up and son Lloyd and his date (Ginny Barry) sing “Little Joe Carew”. Paul Dubov plays Alvin Karpis, a killer who joins the gang. Tristram Coffin is Ma's second husband a drunk who they force to play Russian roulette (he loses) after he squeals. When the gang kidnaps a banker their trouble starts. Stupidly, Ma hires a sadistic alcoholic doctor (the great character actor Byron Foulger) to change one son's fingerprints and face. When it doesn't work they set him on fire! She's eventually machine gunned by federal agents in Florida where one of the agents compares her to the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. 

The story ends with scenes from another movie and a narrator quoting The Bible. MA BARKER was directed Bill Karns who one year later made 5 MINUTES TO LIVE with Johnny Cash as a psycho hit man. His other output seemed to be devoted to the 1954 TV version of GANGBUSTERS and it's subsequent movie. 

MB isn't bad as a low budget crime drama but it is nasty and violent for the time. The acting and hateful dialogue Ma spouts is very good. The story is choppy though: the fates of two sons are kind of forgotten about until the narration at the end and two bank robbery scenes are suddenly narrated by Ma as if perhaps originally she was suppose to tell the story. I was also shocked at one point in the final shoot out when it sounds like Ma says “I kill ya, ya fuckers”! But re-listening she actually says “ya butchers”... 

“None left his mark. Each left his stain”, so says the sexist narrator...

Myron Healy has an unbilled role as a bank robber. Music composer Gene Kauer's score was also used later in THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS. 

Like many crime dramas of time (and even now) based on real characters this is fictitious. In fact the real Ma Barker is considered to have only been a willing accomplice to her sons' crimes not the criminal mastermind she has been made out to be. Much of her notorious reputation was probably the work of J. Edgar Hoover to minimize the FBI's actions of shooting an old lady.

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Short Them

THEM-2006-Excellent suspenseful French production. A man and woman in a country home are terrorized by unknown intruders. It’s very tense and better than anything produced in the US in the 10 years. The filmmakers seem to say it was based on a true story but I don’t know for sure. See it anyway! 

The two directors (David Moreau and Xaiver Palud) later made the US version of THE EYE.

Sorry this review was so short but the year is winding down and so am I!

Happy New Year once again and thanks for reading!