Whiskey

 

 (imdb)

WHISKEY MOUNTAIN-1977-Motorcycle racer Bill (Christopher George) and his wife Jamie (Linda Borgeson) go looking for grandpa's Civil War treasure on the title mountain. They bring along Dan (Preston Pierce) and Diana (Roberta Collins). Not much happens but they are obviously being watched. After they lose one of their motorcycles, they meet a weird cackling hermit (who stole Diana's underwear) and have dinner with him (Robert Leslie). After about 50 minutes of nothing, the quartet stumble into some pot growing Hillbillies (led by John David Chandler as Rudy). They're a bunch of perverted redneck assholes who tie up the men and abuse the women. With the help of the hermit, the men escape. They get no help in town but get some guns and go back to rescue the girls. Dan is killed and Bill kills all the redneck scum but…

William Kerwin and Pat Patterson are also in it. Director/co-writer William Grefe (DEATH CURSE OF TARTU (1966), STANLEY (1972)) made this in Florida. Theme song by The Charlie Daniels Band.

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I Want My Black Ninja and I Want Him Now!

  (wikipedia)

ENTER THE NINJA-1981-Cole, a newly inducted ninja (Franco Nero), goes to The Philippines to help his ex-mercenary friend Frank Landers (Alex Courtney) and his wife Mary Anne (Susan George) when corporate criminal Charles Venarius (Christopher George) wants his farm land because there's oil on it. Venarius has a wormy little German guy with a hook hand (Zachi Noy) and his gang bullies Frank's workers until  Cole beats them all up. When all his efforts fail Venarius sends a lackey to get him his own Ninja. He hires Hasegawa (Sho Kosugi) who trained with Cole and doesn't accept Cole as a true Ninja. Later Venarius (his name sounds like he should be an Egyptian mummy) has Frank killed and kidnaps Mary Anne. After killing him and everyone else, Cole has a showdown with Hasegawa. Guess who wins? 

Run of the mill '80's martial arts thing with a funny performance by Christopher George. Black belt/celebrity instructor/stuntman Mike Stone was originally cast as Cole but his acting skills weren't up to par so Nero (who's voice is dubbed) was brought in at the last minute. Two unrelated sequels followed. Kosugi later starred in his own movies. 

ENTER THE NINJA was directed by Menachem Golan who with his buddy Yoram Globus made many other movies under the Cannon banner until their break-up....

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More Fulci Zombies!

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD-1980-In Dunwich, a priest hangs himself in a graveyard while in New York at a seance a woman named Mary (Catriona MacColl) screams “The city of the dead!” then dies. A cop believes it all has to with drugs (“What are you on? Coke? Grass? Where's the stash? Down the toilet?”). Back in Dunwich, a weirdo named Bob (John Morghen aka Giovanni Lombardo Radice) starts to fool around with an inflatable love doll and finds a rotting corpse. 

Back in NY, Peter Bell (Christopher George), a news reporter goes to visit the seance place but is turned away by a cop. Back in Dunwich, some guys at a bar see the walls crack out and smoke comes out. One of the guys blames the strange-ness on the priest who killed himself. Then Gerry (Carlo de Mejo), a psychiatrist is interrupted while asking his patient Sandra (Janet Agren) about her childhood. 

Back in NY, Jerry saves Mary (who's alive in her coffin now) from being buried alive (and almost kills her!). They meet with Theresa (Adelaide Aste), the woman who ran the seance and she tells Peter about “the book of Enoch” while Mary mentions Dunwich being the city of the dead and that the gates of hell are being opened again and if they aren't closed the dead will walk. 

Later Jerry's friend Emily (Antonella Interlenghi) meets Bob at a gas station and the dead priest shows up and rubs worms in her face. Then a man and woman making out in a car see the dead priest hanging around (literally). He makes the woman's eyes bleed and she upchucks worms and stuff that looks like intestines before someone rips the top of the guy's head off. Peter and Mary go to Dunwich while Bob is blamed for the murders. It seems for some reason that the priest's suicide is opening the gate to hell. At night a creepy coroner is attacked and Emily's little brother John John (Luca Paisner) sees a sinister apparition. Meanwhile Bob wanders around while Jerry and Sandra find the corpse of an old lady in Sandra's kitchen. Bob for some reason is hanging out in Emily's father's car and when the father sees them together he kills Bob by sticking his head into some kind of rotating drill. Peter and Mary meet Jerry and Sandra in a cemetery and they are attacked by a tornado of worms and maggots. Then Jerry gets a call from John John saying that Emily has killed their parents. The quartet hurry to find a solution before All Saints Day comes. Sandra takes John John home but is killed by a ghoul faced Emily. Bloody, gory faced zombies terrorize John John but he's saved by Jerry. It seems some of the zombies are hallucinations. 

Zombies attack the local bar and kill and eat the bartender and his two lone customers. Meantime, now a trio Peter, Mary and Jerry investigate the priest's tomb and some underground tunnels where they meet a zombified Sandra who promptly kills Peter. Rats waste no time in eating his brain. Mary almost goes the “vomiting maggots” route but Jerry kills Sandra. After further snooping Mary and Jerry are trapped by the undead and the hanging priest. Just when Mary starts to bleed from the eyes, Jerry guts the priest with a wooden cross and he burns up (?). His minions burn too. Jerry and Mary are reunited with John John. But something is wrong. Mary screams as the scene breaks up.  

Although he had already made the notorious ZOMBIE (and several other successful projects), Italian director Lucio Fulci really hit his stride with this episodic baffling gory horror story. Though incomprehensible and slow going at times, Fulci packs stomach churning SFX, eerie apparitions and some good suspense scenes so the viewer only has time to wonder once or twice as to what's going on. The abrupt cheat ending seems to have evolved from the actually end scene having been destroyed accidentally while it was being developed. The producers would not allow Fulci to re-shoot so he kind of said “screw it”. Co-star Morghen was in several other Italian horror productions (CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE, CANNIBAL FEROX) where his character also came to a bad end. Director Fulci appears un-billed as a doctor. It also features journeyman actor Robert Sampson as the local sheriff and future director Michele Soavi.   

I saw this in a theater way back in 1980 under it's US edited title THE GATES OF HELL.

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Devil's Island

I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND-1973-Le Bras (Jim Brown; also in SLAUGHTER'S BIG RIP-OFF the same year), a convict is saved from the guillotine and given a life sentence on Devil's Island instead where guards make bets on fights between prisoners. It's run by a one armed commandant (Paul Richards) and 2 sadistic guards. Another convict Davert (Christopher George) is the leader of a communist faction who Le Bras feels saved his life. Le Bras devises an escape plan with 2 other cons JoJo (Rchard Ely) and Dazzas (James Luisi) and Davert is kind of forced to go with them. On their tiny raft they are driven back to the island by sharks and flee into the jungle where they are taken in by a group of lepers. Later they are captured by local natives and Le Bras is chosen to be the new husband for the wife of a man he killed. Once again they escape by raft and somehow make it back to civilization. Dazzas is arrested for stealing but Le Bras and Davert use fireworks to make their escape.

I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND is one of the last movies directed by the legendary William Whitney who's career began in the late 1930's. He did many low budget serials and westerns plus movies featuring Zorro, The Lone Ranger and Dick Tracy. Although he entered TV in the 50's he still occasionally made a feature film (like MASTER OF THE WORLD with Vincent Price in 1961). Here he does the best with what he has on the film's obviously low budget and fast paced schedule. The story by Richard L. Adams (who'd also pen THE SLAMS starring Brown the same year) is sadistic and far fetched but the two leads manage to keep it going.

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Grizzly (not Adams)

GRIZZLY-1976-A 2000 lb. killer grizzly bear preys on campers in a state park. The ranger in charge (Christopher George) must find the murderous hirsute mammal. He also has to contend with drunken hunters, an idiot park supervisor and his would girlfriend photographer (Joan McCall who later wrote a sequel GRIZZLY II: THE CONCERT). A bear expert (Richard Jaeckel) says it's a hold over from the prehistoric era. Andrew Prine is a helicopter operator. It's rather gory for the time but sometimes the actors talk too softly.

This "Jaws on land" horror film (which was a big hit) was made by director William Girdler who made only 9 films in his brief career. He was killed in a helicopter accident at age 30 in 1978. He re-teamed with George the next year to make DAY OF THE ANIMALS.

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When Castle Was King.....

PROJECT X-Paramount-1968 -Rarely seen sci-fi from “gimmick” director William Castle (who produced ROSEMARY’S BABY the same year). It’s based on a novel by Leslie P. Davies.

In the far flung future scientists led by Henry Jones and Philip Pine try to unravel the mysterious last words of scientist/spy Hagen Arnold (Christopher George) just before he got amnesia. They re-create a bank robbery from the ‘60’s to try and confuse him. A special hologram machine reveals his past but his unconscious mind takes over.

Monte Markham is Gregory Galaya, who may want to help Arnold or he could be working for “Sino-Asia”. Greta Baldwin falls for George after he introduces her to cigerettes! Harold Gould is the military colonel in charge. Keye Luke has a small role as the Asian bad guy. A weird little film with lots of shots in negative.

Screenwriter Edmund Morris also worked on the TV show “The Wild, Wild West”. The jazzy musical score is by Van Cleave. Not to be confused with the movie of the same name from 1987 starring Helen Hunt and Matthew Broderick and some chimpanzees.

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