Hammer

CRESCENDO-1970-Susan Roberts (Stephanie Powers) goes to France and lives in the house of a dead composer to do research on his life. The place is overseen by the composer's strange mother Daneille (Margaretta Scott from the 1936 version of THINGS TO COME) and her wheelchair bound son Georges (James Olsen; in THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN the next year), a drug addict who has nightmares about making love to a mannequin. Their maid (Kristen Lindholm) gives him drugs and has sex with him. Meanwhile the family butler Carter (Joss Ackland) hangs around and calls the maid a slut. Later she's stab to death while taking a nude swim. Georges has another dream that he and Susan are shot while having sex. They kind of fall in love but it becomes apparent he can walk. There's another big twist in the insane mother's plan to get an heir. At the end, Susan just runs away.

Although this oddball mystery almost seems like an above average made for TV movie, it was actually made (in England) by Hammer studios and played on a double bill with DRACULA AD 1972. The original script was written years before and was a project Michael Reeves planned to make before his untimely death. Producer James Carreras tried unsuccessfully to get Joan Crawford in the role of the mother and later had Jimmy Sangster re-write it. Director Alan Gibson also made DRACULA AD 1972 and many BBC programs. It's a decent psychological thriller but the ending is a little abrupt. However the biggest surprise to me was that Powers who has a brief topless scene was in the Disney production THE BOATNIKS the same year! 

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Put Your Weight On It!

DISCO GODFATHER-1979-Oh my god! Now I know why I don't miss the '70's! The legendary Rudy Ray Moore stars as Tucker Williams, a retired cop who now runs his own disco where he is the main DJ (He says "Put your weight on it!" over and over). At first when his nephew Bucky (Julius Carry) freaks out on angel dust Tucker just says "Get a hold of yourself". Bucky imagines his uncle as a skeleton and an old hag with a sword. ("Bucky what has you done to yourself?!"). After they take Bucky away Tucker takes a tour of a PCP facility where he sees a lot of nutty addicts and hears the story about how a woman roasted and served her baby to her family. ("Haven't you heard, godfather? Our children are dying"). Later Tucker starts a "beat the whack" campaign which leads to him being targeted by Stinger Ray (Hawthorne James), an entrepreneur who runs the PCP making factories. Meanwhile a pastor and his congregation try to cure a girl on angel dust with an exorcism! The craziest part is Tucker's own PCP nightmare with scary faces and even a quick animated scene. "You're not my mother! You're E-vil!". Tucker seems to have lost his mind by the end of the movie. Carol Speed (later the star of the horror film ABBY) plays Tucker's girlfriend Noel. Keith David makes his movie debut in a small role.

DISCO GODFATHER is full of dancers in outrageous over the top '70's style clothes, terrible acting, awful fight scenes and funny out of place Moore reaction shots. It's the only film directed by J. Robert Wagoner.

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Nightmare, man

NIGHTMARE MAN-2006-Ellen (Blythe Metz) sends away for a fertility mask because she and her husband (Luciano Szafir, he kind of talks like THE ROOM's Tommy Wiseau) are having “intimacy” problems. She has a reoccurring dream about the Nightmare Man, a devilish looking guy with horns. While they are on their way to “a clinic” their car runs out of gas. Hubby decides to go back to a gas station for help, leaving Ellen alone. After a false scare or two she is terrorized by a hooded killer with a knife who looks a lot like her worst nightmare. 

While she is being pursued in the woods (she has a couple of narrow escapes), two couples play Truth or Dare. When Ellen finally reaches the cabin, they call her husband who tells them she's crazy and there is no killer. It's all in her mind. This proves to be the wrong info. The killer quickly dispatches three of the young people leaving the fourth named Mia (Tiffany Shepis) to fend for herself. Of course it's all a plot by her husband who's hired a guy to kill her. 

Surprisingly Ellen turns into an EXORCIST inspired demon and takes revenge. 

When it seems like she's killed the demon Mia is raped by the evil spirit and tells the late arriving police “it's inside of me”. 

Writer/Director Rolf Kanefsky made his film debut in 1991 with THERE'S NOTHING OUT THERE, a horror-comedy which part of this resembles (except this isn't suppose to be funny) but takes a lot from EVIL DEAD. 

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