Plant Man

  (imdb)

THE MUTATIONS-1974-After a lengthy lecture by a German college professor Dr. Nolter (Donald Pleasence with an accent), we learn he's a mad scientist working in genetics with plants and humans. He gets help from an angry deformed man Lynch (Tom Baker) who hangs out at a freak show run by Burns (Michael Dunn). Others in the show include The Alligator girl, the frog man, pincushion man, bearded lady, human skeleton, human pretzel and Popeye (Willie Ingram who could actually make his eyes pop out an inch from their sockets). Students Tony (Scott Anthony), Heidi (Julie Ege; LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES) and Lauren (Jill Haworth; HORROR HOUSE) welcome American scientist Brian (Brad Harris; THE FURY OF HERCULES). Tony discovers Nolter's secret. He's crossing plants with animals and plans to use Tony as his human experiment. Tony is turned into a plant man and terrorizes his girlfriend Lauren. Later, Heidi is kidnapped by Lynch for the Nolter's next victim. When Brian goes to rescue her, he's nearly killed by Lynch but Burns convinces "the freaks" into killing Lynch and feeding his body to guard dogs. Tony, now a full-grown plant man breaks into Nolter's lab and kills his creator. The place is set on fire and Brian saves Heidi but… 

THE MUTATIONS is a low budget sleazy little film with a crazy plant monster that's fairly ludicrous but considering Academy Award winning cinematographer Jack Cardiff directed it, it could have been better. He was no stranger to directing as this was his fiftheeth outing (but also his last). Co-star Tom Baker started his memorable run as TV's Dr. Who the same year. Donald Pleasence was also in the horror anthology FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE in '74. Sadly, this was the last film for Michael Dunn, who died in London shortly after completing his scenes.

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The Mighty Ferrigno

HERCULES-1983-After a very cartoonish opening explaining the beginnings of the universe and Pandora's jar (?), some gods (dressed up like a Christmas pageant with Zeus looking like Santa) living on the moon create some kind of super being to combat evil on Earth in the form of the King of Thebes new born son named Hercules. An evil prince has mom and dad killed but a maid saves baby Herc (with Zeus “lending a hand”). Hera (Rossana Podesta) doesn't seem to care much for the baby and sends some strange snake monsters to slay the infant but he kills them instead! His saving and rescue by a childless couple has echoes of Superman and Moses! The bambino grows up to be the legendary strongman (Lou Ferrigno, a year after his TV series THE INCREDIBLE HULK had ended). He kills a bear that killed his father and tosses it into space. The King of Minos (William Berger) and Deadalus (Eva Robins) scheme with Hera to destroy him. Herc fights a metallic bird monster and throws a log into space too. After winning a tournament and cleaning some stables he falls in love with Cass (Ingrid Anderson)) the betrothed daughter of another king (Brad Harris). He gets some help from Circe (Mirella D'Angelo) but Cass is kidnapped by an evil princess (Sybil Danning) who plans to use her as a sacrifice. With a rainbow bridge, a journey to hell and a chariot ride through space.

 

This filmed in Italy Cannon production has laughable acting and SFX. Writer/director Luigi Cozzi (STARCRASH, PAGANINI HORROR) is credited as Lewis Coates.

 

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Too Much Monkey Business!

KONG ISLAND-(1968)

Ya know, sometimes you never can tell about movies. Say, you're up late one night and the very late show is about to show a seldom seen epic called KING OF KONG ISLAND. You might be intrigued. You might think "this sounds like a really cool movie". You might even want to watch it......

Beware! My friends, beware! The real title of the movie is simply KONG ISLAND and it was made in Italy circa 1968. It features ex-Hercules type bodybuilder Brad Harris as a mercenary seeking revenge on his former partner, a mad scientist experimenting with the worst gorillas in film history! The mad doc is played by former Hollywood tough guy Marc Lawrence (who died in 2005), who was in HOLD THAT GHOST with Abbott & Costello and John Huston's ASPHALT JUNGLE in better days. He was blacklisted in the 50's and went to Europe and wound up in shit like this! He was in two James Bond movies in the '60's though and had a very small role in FROM DUST TIL DAWN (don't blink or you'll miss him!). He even went on to make his very own horror opus DADDY'S LITTLE DARLING (aka: PIGS) about flesh eating hogs! Oh yeah, about KONG ISLAND. It's terrible.

The guy who "presented" this movie in America, Dick Randall was also responsible for stuff like THE WILD WILD WORLD OF JAYNE MANSFIELD and PIECES. An actress named Esmeralda Barros is on hand to scream a lot as a jungle girl named Eve. She was later in THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT.

The director, Robert Mauri directed other films including KOMMISSAR X (also with Harris) and SLAUGHTER OF THE VAMPIRES. His last name is changed to Morris in this picture to fake you into thinking it was made in The U.S. Don't be fooled! Don't watch this movie even if it's on TV. You will fall asleep!

In any language, it's bad!


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