Larry Ness Horror

 

LOCH NESS HORROR-1981-In a too dark opening scene a guy takes some pictures of the famous sea monster. "4 decades later", 2 losers go looking for "Nessie". One gets killed, the other discovers some dead Nazis and a bomber plane. Two scientists (one is Sandy Kenyon with a Scottish accent) and American Spencer Dean (Barry “son of” Buchanan) use sonar to try and find the monster with the help of local lunatic Jack Stuart (Doc Livingston) and his daughter Kathleen (Miki McKenzie with a high nails on a blackboard voice). She has Nessie's egg. Shoddy low budget nonsense with impossibly dark scenes and a terrible puppet monster. 

Since this movie was directed by Larry Buchanan Lake Tahoe subs for Scotland! And it's just plain boring too!

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Still In Larryland

MISTRESS OF THE APES-1979-Redneck conspiracy theorist Larry Buchanan apparently took a dim view of NYC when he made this cheap laughable film which begins in “a jungle on the Eastern seaboard” where three black druggies (I guess Buchanan must have read all druggies are black) just walk into a hospital to steal drugs. Not content with that they cut the power then interrupt an operation. Two pot smoking cops in the US murder capital (according to this movie it's Central Park) respond and are both shot by one of the thugs. Next day all is forgotten and scientist Susan (Jenny Neuman) is visited by her doctor and a guy named David (Walt Robin) after she loses her baby. They talk about her missing husband Jameson in The Congo. Later she and another egghead Paul (Garth Pillsbury) visit David. They show her some slides from the jungle. He believes the natives there are homo habilis, the missing link. The trio plus David's wife Laura (Barbara Leigh) go off to Nairobi to find Susan's hubby where we learn David is in cahoots with local trader Matthews (Mark Rhudy) who he hired to kill Jameson. 

The foursome with three Nairobi “maidens” as porters walk around aimlessly while being tracked by Matthews and his partner Brady (Stuart Anderson). After an encounter with the “near men”, a near woman is shot and killed by David. That night one of their female porters is killed. After Susan has a nightmare, she and Paul go out alone to explore. David lets the two killers rape Laura. Meanwhile Susan approaches the near men (with terrible makeup) by doing a monkey imitation while some stupid theme song plays. They are basically primitive clowns. It takes 4 or 5 of them to kill one rabbit. Paul and Laura are held captive but they kill one of the killers and escape. They meet up with Susan and Paul gives everyone a useless recap on what's been happening. Susan goes back to the cave peeps and at night encounters a gorilla which one of the cave guys saves her from. This scene is very dark. 

While the boys gather round the fire, Susan bathes topless which arouses at least one of them to go to Susan’s cave and do the nasty. Not a good idea as an angry cave friend beats lover boy to death. Susan leads the near men on a hunt and kill David and the last bad guy. Paul and Laura leave intending on keeping the tribe a secret. Susan stays to be their leader (“They need me”) and presumably their baby making machine. 

This stupid movie is chock full of bad acting, bad dialogue and inept directing. Co-star Leigh was once a girlfriend of Steve McQueen and was the first human version of Vampirella.

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Back In LarryLand

 

GOODBYE NORMA JEAN-1976-Norma Jean Baker (Misty Rowe) lives with her hateful aunt because her mom was sent to a mental hospital. While auntie is out with her pervert boyfriend, Norma Jean slips off to the movies. Later the aunt throws her out and she gets a job in a factory. She dreams of being a movie star but instead gets raped by a cop. She meets a young corporal  and wins the “Miss Wammo Ammo” contest. Soon she's posing for pulp and S & M magazines. “I'm going somewhere” she says. “I’ve got something they want”. She gets a manager and he takes her to a party where she's raped by movie star Randy Palmer (Sal Ponti). 

A producer helps her land a film role at Lion-Rampant pictures where she gives a soliloquy before giving him a blow job. Norma has a dream where her mom talks to her in a mirror in a straitjacket! After she makes a stag film she has to sleep with a lesbian casting director who slaps her and viciously lectures her. Later a Hollywood executive runs her down and she tries to commit suicide. Then somehow she’s taken in by the semi-retired producer Hal James (Preston Hanson) who has her made over. They have sex and he dies. She finally screws the sleaziest producer and gets a big break. 

This sleazy exploitation fake biography by Larry Buchanan is of course based on the life of Marilyn Monroe.

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More Buchanan

IN THE YEAR 2889-1967-Instead of music during the opening credits we get several mushroom cloud explosions and a voice reading Scriptures. After we find out this direct for TV remake of Roger Corman’s DAY THE WORLD ENDED was directed by Larry Buchanan everything falls into place.  

Capt.John Ramsey (Neil Fletcher; also in CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION) and his daughter Joanna (Chara Doherty) await the arrival of Larry, her fiance after the bombs have dropped. Dad says she should give up hope but she refuses and when there's a knock at the front door she's elated to think Larry did make it. Despite dad’s warning she opens the door. Surprise! It’s not Larry but a scarred victim of radiation poisoning. And according to Pop’s Geiger counter he should be dead! A minute later a guy named Steve (Paul Petersen; in better days the teen star of TV's THE DONNA REED SHOW) shows up and says the radioactive guy is his brother Granger (Max W. Anderson).  Then thug Mickey (Hugh Feagin) and his girl friend Jada (Quinn O'Hara) show up. Steve catches drunk rancher Henderson (Billy Thurman) peeping on Jada. John lays down the law and Jo thinks she hears someone calling her. Granger needs fresh meat and goes out at night hunting game. John says he’s a mutant and should be destroyed.

 A few weeks later (?), Steven and Joanna are falling in love and Granger is setting traps to catch wild game. However he’s scared off by an even uglier mutant who eats the rabbit Granger had planned for his din-din. Pop says as long as it doesn't rain for a while they should be ok. The girls go for a swim in what dad calls a “spring fed pool”. It looks like a regular cement pool and has a diving board! The ugly mutant prowls around. 

This nearly scene for scene (with most of the original dialogue) remake gets boring really fast and the makeup is horrible. Thurman’s original role (played by Raymond Hatton) was a prospector with a pet donkey. Here he’s an alcoholic bootlegger. I guess this version couldn't afford a real donkey. 

Despite some cast listings Jules Verne is not in this movie. The title was appropriated from a Verne short story that AIP had the rights to but never made and had the title under copy-right. This is one of four AIP movies remade for the com-pany that were released di-rectly to TV. Buchanan directed them all plus the “originals” MARS NEEDS WOMEN, CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE and IT'S ALIVE!

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The original: https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2009/07/this-is-very-long.html

Zager & Evans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic

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AIP Remake

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CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION-1967-In another made for TV disaster, an over long silent, music only pre-credits kind of chase takes place with a very phony rubbery creature (the same one in Buchanan’s IT’S ALIVE) follows an old guy (Neil Fletcher; the father in IN THE YEAR 2889) to his boat and kills him. 

Dr. John Basso (Les Tremayne) does a hypnotism/prediction act with the help of Doreena (Pat Delaney) who he regresses into the funny “prehistoric” monster shown earlier. A dumb pompous army psychologist Lt. Blake (Roger Ready) doesn't like it. 

Of course this is a remake of THE SHE CREATURE (1956) which featured a very memorable and well known monster. I was never a big fan of the origina (directed by the great Edward L. Cahn) but this bore-fest with bad sound makes the original seem like BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN!  

Pat Delaney and Les Tremayne give ok performances but everyone else is pretty bad. Lead actor Aron  Kincad was forced into the role due to an out of court settlement with AIP and was on the picture for two weeks before leaving. 

Filmed in Texas. Buchanan also made IN THE YEAR 2889 around the same time.

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Some Buchanan remakes you might have missed:

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2019/09/buchanan.html

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2011/06/before-larry-cohens-killer-babies.html

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4609335177952045780/7914412282512488747

Serious Buchanan

HIGH YELLOW-1965-17 year old Cindy (Cynthia Hull) is the new maid for Hollywood producer Harry Langley (Bob Brown), his freaky wife (Anne MacAdams aka Annabelle Weenick), his hip flirty daughter Judy (Kay Taylor) and son George (Warren Hammack), thrown out of college for being a “queer boy”. No sooner does she get there when gardener Major Bates (Bill Thurman) kills a rabbit in front of her. Then Harry and George have a confrontation over George’s “queer-ness” and Harry's war record. The butler/chauffeur Joseph (Bill McGhee) lectures Cindy about her light skin (High Yellow is a Southern term for a light skinned black person; now considered a racial slur) because she believes she could pass for white and then he shows her how to set a table. The family seems more like some decadent out of touch Southern white trash than one living in the heart of Tinseltown. 

Judy takes Cindy to the Disc A Go-Go where everyone frugs violently. She successfully passes for white but again Joseph lectures her. Later George relates in heart wrenching detail to Cindy his run in with a transvestite that labeled a “queer boy”. They have sex. The next morning Judy is found dead. The investigating detective suspects the major and uses Cindy to help catch him. She's nearly killed though. Cindy and George declare their love but Cindy knows they can never be together. She leaves now content with herself. 

This interesting thought provoking low budget black and white drama from writer/director Larry Buchanan is well done and kind of ahead of it's time though it suffers from some preachy dialogue. It's too bad he's mostly remembered for his cheap incompetent direct to TV remakes for AIP.

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Oswald

THE TRIAL OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD-1964-In this black & white "what if" production Lee Harvey Oswald is put on trial for the killing of President Kennedy. The defense wants to prove Oswald is insane. The audience is the jury. It's on par with writer/director Larry Buchanan's other serious work HIGH YELLOW. There's a few factual errors. This should be a boring piece of shit but it's actually kind of fascinating. Conspiracy enthusiast Buchanan flubs on some of the facts but it's pretty straight forward. 

Buchanan regulars Annabelle Weenick, Bill McGhee and Bill Thurman all play witnesses. Filmed in Dallas and released less than 5 months after the real assassination. Of course about 17 years later there was a similar TV movie made with an all star cast with Annabelle Weenick (aka Ann McAdams) as Oswald's mom!

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Texas Witch

NAKED WITCH-1961-This movie is just under an hour yet the introduction (some sources credit Gary Owens as narrator) on witches is nearly 9 minutes. And then we get the credits! A graduate student (Robert Short) doing his thesis on superstition and witchcraft stops in a very German town called Luckenbach in Texas. He learns of the Luckenbach witch but people are afraid to talk about it. He meets Kriska (Jo Maryman), the innkeeper’s daughter. She gives him a book where he reads (flashback) about the witch widow who was burned at the stake after being accused of witchcraft by her lover, a married idiot with a sick wife. 

Somehow “The Student” (he doesn't have a name) finds the witch's grave and pulls a stake out of her “petrified” body. She transforms into the woman of the title (Libby Hall) who literally steals Kriska’s nightgown off her. Back for revenge she kills with the stake. The student doesn't bother telling anyone it's his fault the witch came back (one of her victims is Kriska’s father) but at night he goes hunting and finds her bathing topless. She casts a spell on him and they have a goofy swim together. Later she does a useless dance and makes him fall asleep. She goes out to kill Kriska. Fortunately he wakes up in time to stab the witch and bury her now decomposed body. Kriska is now free to live the rest of her life with the man responsible for her father's death. 

The music sounds like some radio soap opera. Larry Buchanan shares directing credit with the producer of the film Texas theater owner Claude Alexander. Buchanan made FREE, WHITE AND 21 next.

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Read about the real Luckenbach Texas here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luckenbach,_Texas

Back in Larryland...

COMMON LAW WIFE-1963-Old rich guy Shugfoot Rainey (George Edgley) is tired of his mistress of 5 years Linda (Annie McAdams aka Annabelle Weenick) and throws her over for his young niece Jonelle aka Baby Doll (Lacey Kelly). However because of the state’s common law marriage Linda and dirty old man Rainey are actually husband and wife. Meanwhile Jonelle rekindles an affair she had with her brother in law Sheriff Jody and they plot to get rid of Linda but at a bar where patrons are “nerd twisting” they have a fight and Jonelle takes to the dance floor (she's a dancer anyway). While she’s doing her thing a dullard moonshiner Bull shows up and whups Jody in a fight. Slutty Jonelle takes off with him. They go to his secluded still in the swamps but she denies his advances and flees into the dark. Somehow she winds up in bed at Jody’s place. Her sister Brenda (Libby Booth), Jody's wife convinces her to give up on Jody and she agrees, once again hooking up with Bull, going back to the still and plotting murder. 

After Jonelle and Bull have a fling Jody goes to the still but they run away. Somehow Jonelle winds up at Jody's house with with him and they insult each other. Then Brenda discovers them kissing fully clothed on their bed. She takes hubby's gun and forces Jonelle to leave. She gets arsenic laced moonshine from Bull and gives it to Linda who gives it to Rainey. Before he drinks it Linda becomes very emotional spilling her guts out to Rainey. It almost seems he might take her back but he drinks the poisoned hooch and dies. Linda finds Jonelle at a bar and says Rainey wants to see her. Linda shoots Jonelle to death (and a bloody mess) then drinks the poisoned booze and dies. 

Sleazy, funny redneck nonsense, this movie was started by Larry Buchanan (his first) and later had scenes added by a guy named Eric Sayers.

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Buchanan

THE CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE-1966-More Larry Buchanan madness with John Agar as a geologist looking for oil in the swamps with a trio of crooks. They run into the crazy experiments of Dr. Trent (Tony Houston; also the screenwriter) who is trying to make a fish monster out of a man! He feeds his failures to some stock footage crocodiles. Meanwhile the locals practice voodoo (called “snake worship”). Except for Agar the acting in this is quite comical. Especially Huston, an amateur ham who would make Shatner seem like Olivier! (“My beautiful indestructible fish man”). Francine York is Mrs. Trent and Bill McGhee (Ben in DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT) is a dim-witted servant. Buchanan regular Bill Thurman is one of the crooks and the swamp creature.

Buchanan throws in some interesting camera angles but otherwise it's pretty boring. Agar also starred (with Houston) in Buchanan's ZONTAR: THE THING FROM VENUS the same year!

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A Hot Bed of Low Budget Actors!

A BULLET FOR PRETTY BOY-1970-Low budget maven Larry Buchanan's supposed true story of the infamous outlaw (also immortalized in a Woody Guthrie song). 

At his wedding Charles Floyd (one time Elvis wannabe Fabian) beats up party crasher Jack, also the former beau of Charles' wife Ruby (Astrid Warner; HELLES BELLES). When Jack tries to shoot Charles he kills Mr. Floyd by accident. Later when Jack attacks Charles with an ax, Charles kills him. A newspaper headline tells us that Charles received a 6 year sentence on a work farm. 4 years later, Charles (not looking the worst for wear) decides to escape with lifer Huddy (Buchanan regular Bill Thurman) who gets shot and stays behind (and is killed off-screen) while Charles gets away. He's taken in by Beryl (Anne MacAdams, another Buchanan regular; later in DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT), a madame and her two sons Wallace (Jeff Alexander) and William (Gene Ross; also in DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT) and two hookers Helen (Carmilla Carr; also in DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT) and Betty (Joslyn Lane, a former model, also in HELL'S BELLES in her last role) who has weird sex scene in a bathtub with Charles. Bo and Harvey, two eastern gangsters join Charles to rob a bank. 

After a few more robberies he's caught but when the train he's on goes through his hometown he kills the escorting sheriff and escapes. Later he's joined by his friend Preacher (Adam Roarke; guess what? Also in HELL'S BELLES) but Beryl's brothers try to kill him. He machine guns them instead. More robberies follow(with Betty and Helen helping out) and a new guy named Ned (Michael Haynes) joins them.. Somehow they escape a police ambush but Ned is killed and Helen is arrested. 

This low budget crime drama is pretty slow going despite some shootouts, idolizing Floyd yet depicting him as a ruthless killer. Filmed in Texas by conspiracy king Buchanan and scripted (from a story by Buchanan and actor Tony Huston) by Henry Rosenbaum who wrote the film version of THE DUNWICH HORROR for AIP the same year. He later wrote the Gene Wilder vehicle team-up HANkY PANKY. Buchanan also made STRAWBERRIES NEED RAIN the same year. 

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Before Larry Cohen's Killer Babies

IT’S ALIVE-1969-This infamous horror film was made by director Larry Buchanan right after completing a batch of direct to TV remakes of AIP '50's horror films.

Two tourists, Norman (Corveth Ousterhouse) and Leila (Shirley Bonne) from the city get lost on a back road somewhere in Texas. They wind up being held prisoner by a loony farmer (Buchanan regular Bill Thurman) who has a prehistoric monster living in a smoky cave under his house. A helpful paleontologist named Wayne (Tommy Kirk) tries to help but gets captured too. The monster (Thurman doing double duty) is goofy and rubbery with fangs and ping pong ball eyes! Thurman’s over the top acting is the real highlight of this awful film (“Perhaps you know of my creature? It’s great and powerful! My greatest discovery!”) but it also features Ann McAdams (later in DON’T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT) as Thurman’s abused servant who narrates a long flashback.(with no dialogue; just her narration and some incidental music) which explains how she became the farmer’s servant.

In one scene she tries to escape by throwing some liquid in Thurman's face but right before that happens you can see his face is already wet! The scene they used must have been take 2!

Former Disney teen star Tommy Kirk was at the nadir of his career having already starred in Buchanan’s MARS NEEDS WOMEN in 1967. A few years later he’d star in Al Adamson’s BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR. I’ve read the plot seems to be based on a short story by Richard Matheson.

Buchanan (who provides some un-credited narration during the credits) made the Bergman influenced (?) STRAWBERRIES NEED RAIN next.

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Zontar Strikes!

ZONTAR, THE THING FROM VENUS-1966-As most bad movie lovers know between 1965 and 1969 director Larry Buchanan made seven movies for AIP that the company released directly to TV. 5 of them were remakes of their ’50s horror/Sci-Fi movies. ZONTAR is an un-credited remake of Roger Corman’s IT CONQUERED THE WORLD. It’s pretty bad but kind of fun.

John Agar (in the Peter Graves role) is the scientist in charge of a recently launched satellite. Antony Houston has the Lee Van Cleef  part, another scientist who is in contact with a visitor from Venus hold up in a cave. Weird flying insects roam around turning victims into zombies. The acting is mostly atrocious but Agar is pretty good at delivering a lot of serious lines! I don’t know if this is on DVD (don’t buy it if it is!) but the print I saw was washed out and very choppy.

Agar was also in Buchanan’s CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE the same year. Bill Thurman, a Buchanan regular, has a role as well as many other actors and crew.

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Angry & Red For A Good Reason!

MARS NEEDS WOMEN-Azalea Pictures (AIP-TV)-1967 - In the early ‘60’s, AIP decided to remake some of their classic low budget sci-fi/horror films of the ‘50’s and release them directly to TV! Who knows why?



They hired Larry Buchanan to direct them all. Besides the remakes he made two “original” productions. Both starred ex-Disney star Tommy Kirk. One was IT’S ALIVE (not the Larry Cohen film) about a prehistoric monster (with a visible zipper) in a cave, although I’ve read that it bares more than a passing resemblance to a short story by Richard Matheson!



And then there’s this..... thing. Really nothing much happens to justify such a cool title. Visitors from the Red Planet (led by Kirk as Dop) are having trouble with their Y (or X I forget) genetic code. Consequently, there have been few female births. The team needs healthy, unmarried Earth women of childbearing years to accompany them back to their home-world and reproduce! Naturally, The US (and the rest of the world) will have none of it and call the invaders “the world’s first common enemy”.



Kirk/Dop and cohorts shed their doofy space suits, dress like humans and hunt for fertile females. They target a stripper, stewardess and College Bowl beauty queen. Future Batgirl Yvonne Craig co-stars as Dr. Bolen, a brainy scientist in horn rimmed glasses who falls for Dop. The Martian would be kidnappers have funny suits with weird headgear and the hotheaded Colonel Page (Byron Lord) is hilarious, but it’s basically just talk, stock footage and walking.



The punk band Sloppy Seconds on their first album “Destroyed” use dialogue excerpts from MNW on the song “Running From The CIA”.



Some dialogue is funny (Buchanan also wrote the screenplay) :

Newscaster: There is no panic, just paralysis.



Dop: Remember sizes must be exact. From shoes to ties. Follow carefully the conversion charts between Mars and the Earth planet.



Martian: These ties serve no functional purpose. Red planet abandoned the use of ties fifty years ago as useless male vanity. It simply reveals the environmental naiveté of the earthmen.



Dr. Bolan: When was the last time you took a pretty girl for a walk? I mean, a pretty girl with a PHD.



Dop: What I have to say is for your ears only. The word love went out of our vocabulary 100 years ago.



Sure, Mars Needs Women but MARS NEEDS WOMEN needs more action!


"Got any women you can spare?"
                                               

"The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."-Martin Luther King Jr.


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