Death Car On Tv

 

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DEATH CAR ON THE FREEWAY-1979-An actress named Becky (Morgan Brittany) is driven off the freeway by a mysterious black van. Later another woman is put in the hospital by a crash caused by the van. A reporter (Shelly Hack) investigates and butts heads with a police Lt. (Peter Graves) while being pursued by her estranged husband (George Hamilton) to get back together. Frank Gorshin is her boss and Barbara Rush is a co-anchor. Typical all star TV cast DUEL inspired melodrama directed by Hal Needham who has a small role. Also with Harriet Nelson as a blind landlady, Dinah Shore as a victim on TV, Abe Vigoda and Sid Haig.

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Beastly

 

 (imdb)

WILD BEASTS-1984-Animals go crazy and attack humans in this Italian production. First rats kill a couple having sex in a car. Then lions, tigers and elephants escape from the zoo and maul and eat employees. Then a blind guy is killed by his guide dog. Elephants cause car crashes and crush people. A polar bear eats some teachers. Cows and horses stampede a city. A scientist figures out PCP has infected the water. Meanwhile, Laura (Lorraine Del Selle), a reporter snoops around. In the finale the children at her daughter's school all turn psychotic and seem to kill everyone!

Writer/director Franco Prosperi also made the notorious AFRICA: BLOOD AND GUTS.

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High School Punks

 

 (subscene.com)

CLASS OF 1984-1982-New teacher Andy Norris (Perry King) runs afoul of a moronic gang leader Stegman (Timothy Van Patten) in a high school from hell (Abe Lincoln High). His gang includes Stefan Arngrim (TV's LAND OF THE GIANTS) and Lisa Langois (also in DEADLY EYES the same year). They terrorize the school with shakedowns, drugs and gang fights and have no respect for anyone. Norris butts heads with them despite warnings from a pathetic principal (David Garner) and an alcoholic bio teacher Corrigan (Roddy McDowall). The gang puts on masks and squirts Norris with blood, then beats him up and burns his car. When Norris' appeals to Stegman's equally moronic mother fail, he uses reverse psychology and wrecks Stegman's car. Corrigan freaks out when they kill his rabbits, and he threatens them with a gun then gets drunk and tries to run everyone over before dying in a fiery car crash (stand out performance). 

An ineffectual police officer (Al Waxman) is no help either. While Norris tries to whip the school band into shape, a nerdy student (Michael J. Fox) who is due to testify against the gang is stabbed during a lunchroom melee. It cumulates with the gang raping and kidnapping Morris' wife (Merrie Lyn Ross). He goes for revenge and despite taking a few lumps destroys the gang and saves his wife. Stegman winds up hanged to death over the concert hall.

There's a lot of violent action in this typical '80's revenge action story by director Mark L. Lester. Screenplay by Tom Holland (Lester says much of it was based on several real-life incidents he read about).

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80 Steps To Newton

80 STEPS TO JONAH-1969-Chubby Wayne Newton plays Mark Winters, an itinerant worker involved in a car chase with police that ends in a crash. He's ok but the guy with him (Sal Mineo) dies. He's arrested but on his way to the hospital he jumps out of the ambulance and escapes into the Utah desert with his guitar in tow. After sleeping in a haystack he stumbles upon a special summer camp for blind children (including future TV kid stars Erin Moran and Brandon Cruz). The school is run by Tracey (Diana Ewing ) and Nonna (Jo Van Fleet, EAST OF EDEN). Using the name Jonah he becomes the resident handyman. R.G. Armstrong and Slim Pickens are the local police looking for him. Keenan Wynn is Barney Glover a gambling plainclothes detective. Nonna is just about the only person at the place who can see so she knows Jonah's secret. Butch Patrick (THE MUNSTERS) is a kid neighbor who can see.

Wayne and the kids sing "Tender Loving Care" while planting a garden. Meanwhile Tracey does a sculpture of Jonah and falls in love with him. She gets so excited she kisses the clay head! Newton croons several other songs (a couple which he co-wrote). Jonah does a lot of chores and the kids really like him but when he's shooting at a marauding mountain lion Kim (Moran) is accidentally shot in the leg. He fixes her and croons a song on the guitar. (Kim mentions something about strange noises right after this) From the weird bust Tracey made Glover deduces that Jonah is Mark and arrests him. A flashback which features Mickey Rooney as a drunk shows how Mark/Jonah/Newt was held up by knife toting Jerry (Mineo) and caused the car crash. Fortunately Mickey shows up in the present to exonerate Jonah so he can return to Tracey and the kids and build a merry go round.

This tearjerker, feel good movie was directed by busy TV director Gerd Oswald between making episodes of GENTLE BEN and IT TAKES A THIEF after working on THE OUTER LIMITS and movies like A KISS BEFORE DYING and AGENT FOR H.A.R.M.

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More Al

THE POSSESSION OF NURSE SHERRY-1978-This is one of director Al Adamson's last efforts.

Out in the desert a cult leader named Reanhauer (Bill Roy) and his disparate group of followers chant over the body of a dead man (Reanhauer told him he didn't need to take his insulin and he died). They keep saying “Rise, William, Rise”. This goes on for 3 weeks and by now his right hand man Brother Stevens (JC Wells; also in Adamson's BLACK HEAT) has had enough. Just when the nutty leader thinks he has made the guy come back to life he suffers some kind of seizure and is rushed to the hospital.

Dr. Frank Desmond (Geoffrey Land, also in several other Adamson productions) tries to save him but would rather have sex with his girlfriend/nurse Sherri (Jill Jacobson). Her nurse friend Tara (Marilyn Joi; also in Adamson's BLAZING STEWARDESSES) gets excited when she hears a famous football player is a patient at the hospital but he's a bitter bigot because he was blinded in an accident. 

Later after Sherri and Frank have sex, a apparition invades Sherri's bedroom (and Sherri). It's a pretty bad special effect even for an Al Adamson movie! Sherri has weird visions (some are flash forwards scenes). Meanwhile another nurse named Beth (Mary Kay Pass) has sex with a patient. After Sherri visits a cemetery, Stevens is visited by Reanhauer's spirit which makes a mess of his apartment. Sherri acts very weird, kills a retired doctor with a pitchfork and talks with Reanhauer's voice. It seems Sherri is possessed by the whacky doctor's spirit. Stevens tells Frank that in order to stop the ghostly shenanigans he has to burn the doctor's corpse. He almost dies in a car crash when Reanhauer's laughing face shows up. 

Sherry kills another doctor and almost kills the blind football player. Stevens thinks he's found his former mentor's body and burns it. Surprise! He burns the wrong body and falls to his death. A psychiatrist wants Sherry sent to a sanitarium. The blind football (who's mom was a voodoo priestess) suggests Tara and Beth find Reanhauer's body and burn it. After several drawn out scenes the nurses find and burn the body just before a blood soaked Sherri tries to kill Frank. Despite this she winds up straight jacketed in a padded cell.

This is one of Adamson's worst and least fun movies. There are no “old” stars and the story is boring. There's a lots of talking and not much really happens. 

Even the “spiced up” alternative version isn't much better. According to the interesting commentary track by Sam Sherman, head of Independent International, he produced the film under the credited “Mark Sherman”.

The alternate version (also included on the Retro Shock a Rama DVD) adds some sex scenes and more nudity from lead actress Jacobson and different end credits.

The music sounds like the theme used in TV's ONE STEP BEYOND. 

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