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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British Anthology

 

SCREAMTIME-1984-2 idiot video tape robbers crash the apartment of one of their girlfriends to watch some movies in this anthology. 

In the first story Jack (Robin Bailey), a neglected puppeteer has his puppets burned by his bully masculinity challenged step-son Damien (Jonathan Morris). His bitch wife (Ann Lynn) nags him constantly while defending her son. Both mom and son are beaten to death. When a doctor is killed it looks like one of the puppets is doing the dirty deeds. But it's actually Jack who's crushed to death while terrorizing Damien's girlfriend. 

In the second a young married couple move into a new house. The wife sees a little boy riding a bike on their property. Every time she approaches him he vanishes. A church woman tells her she might have second sight. Later she has a vision of a man killing a family. A weird twist ending proves she might not be crazy. 

In the third, a young man becomes the handyman for two eccentric old ladies who believe in fairies. At night the handyman and his two pals go to rob the place. One guy is killed by a giant gnome. Another is killed by some mummy like creatures who come out of the ground and the ring leader is stabbed with forks and knives by an ancient ancestor. 

In the wrap around scenes a hand comes out of the video screen to kill one guy while one of the puppets shows up to beat up the other. This low budget UK production was co-written and directed by Michael Armstrong (MARK OF THE DEVIL, HORROR HOUSE).

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Puppetmaster

PUPPETMASTER-1989-A prologue set in Nazi Germany reveals that an old puppet maker named Toulon (William Hickey) hides some interesting looking puppets (one walks around in a trench coat with a hook and knife for hands) from The Gestapo and kills himself. 

Years later, group of psychics investigate the death of a guy named Neil Gallagher (Jimmie Skaggs) who killed himself. His wife Meghan seems to think he's dead but not so “dream psychic” Alex (Paul LeMat) who has dreams of Gallagher acting nutty. The group is terrorized by the resurrected puppets including the hook hand trench coat guy and his pals: one with a very small head but huge human hands, one with a drill for a head, a female that upchucks leeches, a kind of jester with a spinning face). After three of the psychics are killed Alex and Meghan discover the truth. It turns out Gallagher did kill himself but came back to life by using Toulon's secret Egyptian rites of the afterlife and wants to live forever. But after he's mean to the puppets they revolt and kill him good. 

This fun (although a little slow story wise) low budget horror movie from Charles Band's Empire Pictures spawned several sequels and even a crossover with another series (DEMONIC TOYS) but I like this one the best. 

Director David Schmoeller had already made two whacked out features: TOURIST TRAP (with Chuck Connors as a psycho) and CRAWLSPACE (with Klaus Kinski as a psycho).

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Seeing Is Believing

BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL-1984-Some movies really have to be seen to be believed. When I tell people about this thing they usually look at me strangely (well, stranger than they usually look at me). That's why I don't tell anyone about this..um..movie anymore. Fortunately when I first saw it , I was with my friend Tony so I have a witness. 

This shot on video insanity is about a religious but sexually repressed woman (Shirley L. Jones) who after some endless conversations about religion, dating and sex visits a doll shop and buys a strange puppet (it looks like the popular Jerry Mahoney but with dark skin and dreadlocks) that the store keeper says can grant the owner's “heart felt wish”. She buys it, takes it home and puts it on the toilet bowl where she proceeds to strip and take a shower. The puppet comes to life and watches her. He (it?)attacks her (his first works are “how do you like that,bitch?”) and ties her to a bed (some scenes of his feet and hands are obviously a little kid). She yells “Untie me, you wooden headed bastard!”. He abuses and rapes her but she decides she likes it! 

Seeing a puppet having sex with a grown woman is pretty strange. It's not a quick scene. It goes on for a while! 

The next day the puppet is gone. She searches the house (“Mr. Wonderful, where are you?”) but he's nowhere to be found. She throws her bible away and seduces a street hustler who grunts and groans but she's just bored. Later she goes to Elmo's bar and picks up a guy. They have sex but once again she is unfulfilled. She gets the puppet back and pleads for sex but the dummy is unresponsive until she tries to destroy it. A toy rabbit playing cymbals is featured in the bonkers ending. 

 While I've seen many shot on video horror films. BDDFH takes the cake. It comes right off a hand held camcorder with very little editing. The stop and start button being the most commonly used device. There's a way too loud Casio like musical soundtrack that at times obscures the dialogue. It's offensive, embarrassing and hilarious. Especially when you take time to think that adults made and acted in it! The writer/director Chester N. Turner remains a mystery man. No one seems to know anything about him except he made one other “feature” called TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE (also with Jones). Rumors say he was killed in a car accident in the early '90's.

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