Sign The Book

 

 (imdb)

THE UNDEAD-1957-After a sinister intro by The Devil (Richard Devon), a weird guy named Quintas Ratcliff (Val Dufour) returns from Tibet to confront his former teacher with his regression experiments. Quintas regresses hooker Diana (Pamela Duncan) to a past life in some medieval time when persecution of witches was trending. She finds herself a condemned witch named Elaine, locked in a dungeon awaiting execution. She escapes but is accidentally locked in a coffin (with a corpse played by Paul Blaisdell) by feeble gravedigger Smolen (Mel Welles). Meanwhile Pendragon (Richard Garland) searches for proof of Elaine's innocence. A woman named Livia (Allison Hayes) pretends to care but is really a witch with imp companion (Bobby Barty) who's after Pendragon's heart. 

(Metaphorically speaking…).

 After Smolen frees Elaine from the coffin she meets Maud (Dorothy Neumann), a kind of witch who hides Elaine and tells Pendragon. Maud then challenges Livia. Bruno VeSota plays a pub owner who's decapitated. When Quintas realizes he's changed the past he goes back to try and fix things up. Livia convinces Pendragon the only way to help Elaine is to make a pact with the devil but Qunitas now a knight who somehow the devil knows dissuades Pendragon from signing. But if Elaine doesn't die by dawn all her future lives will cease to be. Will she submit to the executioner's axe? And what of Quintas? Will he make it back to the present? Dick Miller appears in one scene as a leper. 

This is a great low budget AIP production directed of course by Roger Corman with a lot of flair and imagination. There's some nice SFX and spooky settings. Screenwriters Charles Griffin and Mark Hanna also collaborated on Corman's best sci-fi/horror film NOT OF THIS EARTH the same year. Corman also made ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS in '57, written by Griffin and and starring Garland and Duncan.

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Corman Killer Robots

 

CHOPPING MALL-1986-At Secure-Tronics Ltd., Suzie (Barbara Crampton) and Alison (Kelli Maroney) and their brain dead friends drink beer and have sex in a furniture store in a shopping mall where some security robots have gone haywire after an electrical storm. The group run around exploding propane tanks, shooting guns and being picked off one by one until only Alison is left (well sort of). 

Dick Miller is a janitor named Walter Paisley who's electrocuted. Paul Bartel & Mary Woronov have a pre-credit appearance and Mel Welles, Gerrit Graham, Ace Mask, Arthur Roberts and Angus Scrimm have small roles. There's nudity, an exploding head and one jerk saying "Let's send those fuckers a Rambo-gram”. The 'bots say things like "Thank you. Have a nice day" after killing. 

This Concorde release was co-written and directed by Jim Wynorski who a couple of years later re-made Roger Corman's NOT OF THIS EARTH with Maroney and several other Chopping Mall actors.

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Truckers

WHITE LINE FEVER-1975-Carrol Jo Hummer (Jan Michael Vincent  who died in February 2019) comes back from the army and gets married to his sweetheart Jerri (Kay Lenz). He buys his own rig and becomes a trucker. That's when the trouble starts! He finds his dead father's old friend Duane (Slim Pickens) is corrupt and has a bunch of thugs (including Martin Kove) working for him. The real villains are three rich guys Buck (LQ Jones), Cutler (Don Porter) and their lawyer (RG Armstrong). Carroll tries to organize a union, gets blacklisted, beat up and almost tried for murder but Jerri's tear jerking testimony gets him off. Buck tries to kill him with a forklift. After Cutler seems to make a deal with the truckers, Hummer's house is burned down and Jerri who was pregnant loses her baby and becomes comatose. Dick Miller (who died in January 2019)  has a small role as Birdie Corman. This depressing little tale was directed by Jonathan Kaplan three years before the similarly plotted big budget FIST starring Sylvester Stallone. Kaplan later directed THE ACCUSED (1988) and recently was the executive producer of a documentary about Dick Miller (THAT DICK MILLER GUY).

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Corman, Cabot, Devon and Miller

WAR OF THE SATELLITES-1958- After 10 failed manned missions to the Sigma Barrier, Dr. Pol Van Ponder (Richard Devon) decides to take number 11 up himself. His assistants Dave Boyer (Dick Miller) and Sybil Carrington (Susan Cabot) plan to go with him. His scientist friend Hotch (Robert Shayne) supports him but Jason ibn Akad (Michael Fox), LeMoine (Bruno VeSota) and others don't. Just when it looks like the project will be shut down, it's announced Van Ponder is killed in a car accident. No sooner is this declared and the doctor shows up! However it's no miracle. He’s been taken over by an alien being (who caused the crash). Now he can split into two people and  repair his hand after it’s charred by a blow torch. He also can’t deter the efforts to send more rockets into space so the aliens make their presence known and create natural disasters around the world (stock footage). The alien as doctor declares an end to the project but when he sends Boyer to deliver the news, Boyer instead convinces the UN reps that Earth should fight the aliens. This makes the possessed doctor not happy. Boyer becomes suspicious when he notices some bruises on Devon arms. They all go into space and Boyer tries to convince the crew of the truth while Van Ponder acts weird and kills. It's said this sci-fi space film (perhaps director Roger Corman’s weakest '50's effort) was rushed into production after the 1957 Sputnik launch. There's not much action but it's nice to see usual supporting actors Miller & Devon in the lead roles. And I love those reclining space.chairs! 

With the death of Miller in late 2018 I believe the last living cast member of WOTS is Corman who has a small role as a rocket operator. Strangely this was the only movie Miller made in 1958! He starred in A BUCKET OF BLOOD the next year. Cabot starred in THE WASP WOMAN the next year. They had both been in CARNIVAL ROCK for Corman in 1957. She and Richard Devon were in Corman's MACHINE GUN KELLY the same year as WOTS.

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The Terror....The Terror....

THE TERROR-1963-Andre Duvalle (Jack Nicholson),a French soldier lost on a beach meets the wistful Helene (Sandra Knight) who gives him water then runs with him along the shore. She walks into the ocean and Andre nearly drowns trying to rescue her (he's also attacked by a black bird). An old woman named Katrina (Dorothy Neuman) takes him in after he's saved her mute servant Gustav (Jonathan Haze). She also has a black bird name Helene. Later Andre follows the bird into the forest and finds the human Helene. They kiss and she power walks away. He follows her and is met by Gustav, who apparently can talk because he tells Andre that Helene is possessed and the only way the soldier can help her is by visiting the castle of Baron Von Leppe. Despite the old woman's warnings he sets out to find the castle and is almost killed by a rock slide. Upon first seeing the castle, he spies Helene at a window. Entering he meets the Baron (Boris Karloff; round of applause) who despite being most hospitable denies that Helene is there. The Baron shows Andre a picture of the Baroness (a dead ringer for Helene) and says she has been dead for 20 years. Andre is invited to stay the night and while in his bed he hears strange noises and a drawing he had made is ripped to shreds. The next day while visiting the Baroness' tomb he is confronted by Stephan (Dick Miller), the Baron's servant. When next they meet The Baron, under a threat from Andre, he relates the story how years before he met and married a village girl who became the Baroness and how he killed her and her lover, Eric. He believes that the girl is the ghost of the Baroness (actually named Ilsa). “Perhaps we are both mad?”.

Stephen discovers the old woman's secret: she summoned Helene/Ilsa from the sea. There's some talk about the mysterious lover, Eric and Stephan wants to kill Andre but the Baron won't allow it. Andre decides to leave but Gustav signals him to stay and has his eyes torn out by the black bird. He falls to his death but manages to speak his last words to Andre: “Go back...”. Back at the castle he meets Helene and they kiss again. At night, Andre follows the Baron into the family crypt. It seems Ilsa wants Van Leppe to flood the castle so they can be together. When Andre meets Katrina in the cemetery she reveals that she is using Helene to drive Van Leppe to suicide because the Baron killed her son, Eric, Llsa's lover. But it turns out Stephen actually killed the Baron and Eric took Van Leppe's place in mind and body! After Katrina is burned up by lightening, Andre and Stephen try to stop Baron Eric from flooding the castle. They tussle in the flood waters. Stephen tries to save the phony Baron but they both drown. Andre saves Helene and takes her away from the castle (“You're free now”). They kiss and she rots away.

For this AIP quickie Roger Corman shot all the principal scenes featuring Karloff in four days then turned it over to second unit directors consisting of Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill and Nicholson. The sets were re-used from Corman's previous Poe film THE RAVEN (with Karloff & Nicholson). The story (scripted by Jack Hill and actor Leo Gordon) is confusing at times and there are several lapses in logic and continuity but at least from a personal standpoint it's an enjoyable little mess. It's funny the way the plot changes several times but Karloff and Nicholson keep it afloat. No pun intended as there is a flood scene.

THE TERROR fell into the public domain years ago and used to be on TV constantly. It's had three dozen video releases. I've read that years later Corman filmed a new intro with Dick Miller to make the movie seem like a flashback and thus own a copyright version! Not sure if this is true though.

Nicholson and co-star Sandra Knight (still alive at the time of this writing) were married at the time. She appeared earlier in FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER.

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Miller and Corman

A BUCKET OF BLOOD-1959-Nebbish busboy Walter Paisley (Dick Miler) works in a beatnik club and  wants to be a sculptor but everyone just puts him down. Only Carla (Barboura Morris) is nice to him. One night frustrated by his lack of inspiration, he accidentally kills his landlady's cat. A voice tells him what to do. He encases the dead feline in clay and passes it off as his newest creation called "dead cat".  All the Beats go wild over it especially Maxwell Brock (Julian Burton) a pompous poet who says lines like "I will talk to you about art because there's nothing else to talk about" while Paul Horn plays the sax behind him. Later Walter accidentally kills an undercover cop (future game show host Burt Convy) who tries to arrest him for heroin possession (a waitress gave it to him). He then covers the corpse with clay and presents "murdered man" as his latest work of art. Meanwhile Walter's boss Mr. de Santis (Anthony Carbone) discovers his secret and is aghast but when an art collector (Bruno VeSota) offers him 600 dollars for the cat he relents turning Walter in (he also tries to dissuade Walter from sculpting).

Later Walter dons a beret, ascot and cigarette holder but while being praised by Brock, a stuck up model (Judy Bamber) pisses him off and later he strangles her and makes her his latest sculpture. Brock throws a party for Walter where he becomes very drunk and despondent ("I've gotta do something before they forget") so he decapitates a guy working with a buzz saw. The next day he shows de Santis his newest creation: a severed head. Eventually his guilt ridden boss has an exhibition for Walter who proposes to Carla but she rejects him. When she discovers a real finger under under some of the clay Walter decides to make her "immortal" like the rest of his victims. After a dark chase scene Walter (who hears the voices of his victims) goes back to his apartment and hangs himself. This causes Brock to remark "I suppose he would have called it "hanging man". His greatest work.". Ed Nelson (who died on August 9th at age 85) plays an undercover cop.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD  was Roger Corman's first (intentional) comedy. It's a dark satire on the beatnik hip but  nihilistic  viewpoint, very in vogue at the time. It's obviously done on the usual money saving Corman schedule (sources say 5 days on $50,000 budget) but he holds it together fairly well. The one glaring point for me is that it seems at the end Walter wants to encase himself in clay before committing suicide but that doesn't really happen. There's lots of funny dialogue and Dick Miller is great in the lead. He'd have a co-starring role in 1960 in Corman's next horror comedy THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (which BUCKET screenplay writer Charles Griffith would write).

Barboura Morris had already been in several Corman productions (SORORITY GIRL, TEENAGE CAVEMAN) and would appear in a few more (THE WASP WOMAN, X:THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES). Unfortunately she died in 1975 at the age of 43. Anthony Carbone would be in a few more for Corman (including THE BEAST FROM THE HAUNTED SEA) and then go into TV.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD  is cheap quick entertaining and a good companion piece for THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORROS (although not nearly as well known...).

English folk singer Ewan MacColl (father of singer Kristy MacColl) appears un-credited and sings two songs.

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The Slams

THE SLAMS-1973-"Why'd ya do Curtis? Ya know you can't mess with the man".  Jim Brown is Curtis Hook who's thrown in jail after a botched robbery. The mob has put a contract out on him because he took drugs and money from them in the robbery. "This shit is crazy" Hook declares after being attacked. 


Ted Cassidy (TV's lovable Lurch on THE ADDAMS FAMILY) is Glover, a sadistic inmate who pours molten metal on a squealer. Frank DeKova (TV's lovable Wild Eagle in F-TROOP) is Capiello, a very mean imprisoned gangster who wants Hook to work for him. Since Hook is sitting on a lot of stolen money everyone is on his case including a corrupt captain (Roland Bob Harris). Added to this he's in between a racial prison war. His girlfriend Iris (Judy Pace) tries to help Hook through Mr. Barney (Paul Harris), a pimp surrounded by several topless women who says what Hook really needs is a "good white Jewish lawyer"! It gets more far fetched as it progresses ending with Hook's big escape and he and Iris living happily ever after on their tainted money. 


This forgotten blaxplotation pic was made the same year as Brown's better known SLAUGHTER'S BIG RIP-OFF. Also with Quinn Redecker (also in SPIDER BABY) as the warden, Dick Miller in a small humorous role as a cab driver, Jan Merlin and John Lupton in one scene. 


Director Jonathan Kaplan made other features like TRUCK TURNER, OVER THE EDGE and HEART LIKE A WHEEL before going into TV (ER, LAW & ORDER). Gene Corman produced this MGM release.


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