One Was Enough

 

 (imdb)

PIRANHACONDA-2012-2 gigantic snake things terrorize a Hawaiian island where a low budget horror film is being made. Some gang also holds some of the cast & crew hostage. Everybody runs around, surviving or getting eaten. Michael Madsen is a snake hunter who has an egg. The special effects are terrible. It premiered on The Syfi channel.

Director Jim Wynorski did a re-make of THE GIANT GILA MONSTER after this mess.

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Down Under Murder

 

CUT-2000-In Australia, a young film crew decides to finish a “cursed” horror film even though everyone who has tried before was killed (including the original director). They hire the original American actress (Molly Ringworm) to star again and after playing a cruel joke on the director they all head off to shoot the rest of the movie. Of course someone dressed as the movie killer shows up to kill cast and crew. Some of the death are very nasty (fire, head crushing, decapitation) and the ending goes on forever. Stupidest part has a teacher get a pole driven through his neck but he pulls it and saves the day! Pop singer Kylie Minogue is one of the cast.

 

This Australian effort is violent and derivative and director Kimble Rendall ( a second unit director on THE MATRIX movies) obviously hasn't learned anything from watching US horror movies!

 

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Early '30's

THE DEATH KISS-1932-This murder-mystery is sometimes advertised as a horror film as it has three stars  from the previous year's DRACULA.

 An actor (who no one seems to like) is shot dead while filming a scene for the Hollywood film "The Death Kiss". His leading lady Marcia Lane (Adrienne Ames) comes under suspicion because they were once married. Her boyfriend Franklyn Drew (David Manners) is the "scenario" writer playing amateur detective. Other suspects are the film within a film's director (Edward Sloan), the cliched Jewish studio owner Grossmith (Alexander Carr who says "Oy! This is gonna cost me a fortune !" when informed of the murder), his prissy male secretary (Harold Minjir) and studio manager Joseph Steiner (Bela Lugosi). Two detectives (John Wray and Wade Boteler) investigate. When the filmed scene is shown to the crew the murderer pours acid on the film and the explosion and smoke are tinted! Drew teams up with a comical studio guard (Vince Barnett) to solve the murder.

There's a lot of clever dialogue but Lugosi (in WHITE ZOMBIE and ISLAND OF LOST SOULS the same year) is wasted in a small role and Manners' character is too cocky. It's the first film directed by Edward L.Marin who later made the 1938 version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL and many other low budget features.

THE DEATH KISS was one of the last films produced by the small Tiffany Pictures (1921-1932) before it went bankrupt. Their other productions included westerns, comedy shorts and the James Whale directed (and seldom seen) JOURNEY'S END.

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Crazy '70's Stuff!

HOUSE OF SEVEN CORPSES-1974-6 murders are shown in 6 portraits depicting the untimely end of all the members of The Beel family during the credits. A seventh frame is empty. Then a woman practices witchcraft. Something goes wrong and she about to commit suicide when we learn it is only the filming of a horror movie on The Beel estate. John Carradine is the the caretaker Mr. Price who spoils the scene and then relates the history of the Beel family to the film within a film's director Eric Hartman (John Ireland) and his crew members. Every person in the family came to a tragic death. After a lot of talk and the cast and crew filming scenes for the movie (based on the Tibetan of the Dead!) the lead actress Gayle (Faith Domergue from THIS ISLAND EARTH) finds the dead remains of her beloved cat. They all blame Price who is wondering around in the nearby graveyard. After more filming a corpse comes to life and kills Price. Then it kills a couple of technicians. Then while filming a scene Gayle accidentally shoots her leading man to death. The corpse then kills her by hanging. After the seemingly possessed co-director tries to kill Harman another corpse rises from the grave. Hartman cracks up when he discovers the dead bodies and his film stock exposed. ("my film! my film!"). Death by falling camera follows. It seems a curse (used in the film within a film) re-enacted the famous murders and the death of a young actress is the seventh...maybe???

HOUSE OF SEVEN CORPSES was the only feature film directed by Paul Harrison (he also co-wrote the screenplay). He mostly worked in TV writing many episodes of the Saturday morning kids' show HR PUFNSTUF.

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Below Good

BELOW ZERO-2011-A screenwriter (haggard looking Edward Furlong) has himself locked in a freezer so he can finish a script (?). The movie then turns into the story he's writing. A tow truck operator (also Furlong) seeks shelter in a slaughterhouse where a evil looking guy (Michael Berryman) cries while chopping up a body. The story changes occasionally when the writer changes his mind about the plot. Then it's back to reality when he finds a dead body in the freezer with him...maybe...

This is a bad attempt to combine horror with "The Singing Policeman". The director Justin Thomas  should not be acknowledged,

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All About...???

ALL ABOUT EVIL-2010-This dumb comedy gore-fest begins with a little girl singing in front of her school when she pees herself and is electrocuted while her dad plays the piano and her mother laughs hysterically. Later a stupid woman named Deborah Tennis (Natasha Lyonne from the AMERICAN PIE films) runs a movie theater she inherited from her father. She rants to a librarian (John Waters' veteran Mink Stole) about her father. When her mother informs Deborah that she is going to sell the theater Deborah kills her. The killing is caught on security cameras and accidentally shown to the horror movie loving audience who of course think it's just a movie. Deborah decides to make more movies and goes around killing innocent people with the help of a moronic old projectionist, a homeless maniac and psychotic twin sisters. A horror film dork named Steven (Thomas Dekker) kind of falls for Deborah but he becomes the chief suspect when Deborah uses his date in one of her movies. His mother is played by Cassandra Peterson (TV's Elvira). 

This crazed and derivative gore film was the creation of Joshua Grannell, an underground drag queen known professionally as Peaches Christ (who appears in the film). It's obviously a take off but I found it rather nasty. Just another excuse to show senseless violence and torture.

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Holyywood Weirdness

THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE-1968-A once famous director Louis Zarken (Peter Finch) decides to make his first film in 20 years using an unknown actress Elsa Campbell (Kim Novak) to star in a bio-pic of the ill fated Lylah Clare, a legendary actress from the 30's who died under mysterious circumstances. She also happened to be Zarken's wife and died on their honeymoon. Once again Zarken (who says things like "Happiness is a word for idiots. I haven't used it in years") becomes obsessed with his leading lady who sometimes appears to be possessed by the dead actress and talks with a German accent (or is she acting?). Coral Browne has a scene stealing role as a powerful columnist with a leg brace and Ernest Borgnine is great as the uncaring power crazy producer Barry Sheean ("I make movies, not films!"). Michael Murphy is his verbally abused son and Milton Selzer is a harried producer.

It's a weird movie that tries to show the depraved decadent side of Hollywood but does so in a stilted almost laughable style. Also with Gabriele Tinti, Valentina Cortese, Lee Meriwether, Ellen Corby and Dave Willock.

Director Robert Aldrich made this between THE DIRTY DOZEN and THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE. LYLAH also features Robert Cornwaithe, George Kennedy and Dick Miller in unbilled roles.

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Seems Like Hammer But It Isn't-Part 2

MADHOUSE-1974-Entertaining Amicus/AIP production features Vincent Price as Paul Toombes a famous horror actor who may have taken his most famous role of Dr. Death too far and killed his fiancé (after learning she was once a porno actress). Scenes from real Price horror films (HOUSE OF USHER THE RAVEN TALES OF TERROR PIT AND THE PENDULUM) are shown to depict the fictional Toombs’ career. Fellow actor Peter Cushing brings him out of retirement for a stupid TV producer (Robert Quarry) and people start getting killed. Also with Adrienne Corri. Natasha Pyne Linda Hayden and Barry Dennen.

It’s ok but a little reminiscent of THEATER OF BLOOD though it’s based on the novel “Devilday” by horror writer Angus Hall. After this Price would make only two films (but do voiceovers and make TV appearances) until 1980. It was the last of 7 films by usual film editor Jim Clark. 

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