Death Car On Tv

 

 (imdb)

DEATH CAR ON THE FREEWAY-1979-An actress named Becky (Morgan Brittany) is driven off the freeway by a mysterious black van. Later another woman is put in the hospital by a crash caused by the van. A reporter (Shelly Hack) investigates and butts heads with a police Lt. (Peter Graves) while being pursued by her estranged husband (George Hamilton) to get back together. Frank Gorshin is her boss and Barbara Rush is a co-anchor. Typical all star TV cast DUEL inspired melodrama directed by Hal Needham who has a small role. Also with Harriet Nelson as a blind landlady, Dinah Shore as a victim on TV, Abe Vigoda and Sid Haig.

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Pit Stop

 

 (imdb)

PIT STOP-1969-In the world of figure 8 stock car racing, race car arena owner Grant Willard (Brian Donlevy in his last role) hires reckless drag racer Rick Bowman (Dick Davalos; James Dean's brother in EAST OF EDEN) to drive his jaunty jalopy in their crazy dangerous races. His main rival is loudmouth Hawk Sidney (Sid Haig). After Rick beats Hawk in a race and has sex in hotel with Jolene (Beverly Washburn), Hawk takes a sledgehammer to Rick's car and beats him up but later they become partners and Rick has an affair with another racer's wife (Ellen McRae; later known as Ellen Burstyn). Despite some lapses in acting this isn't a bad little black and white low budget drama from Jack Hill two years after making the infamous SPIDER BABY (with Washburn and Haig).The year before PIT STOP he'd directed Boris Karloff in the US based scenes for a quartet of Mexican movies.

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Sequel?

 

 (imdb)

WIZARDS OF THE LOST KINGDOM 2-1989-Failed wizard Caedmon (Mel Welles) guides a young stupid kid Tybor (Robert Jayne) with a terrible haircut, to becoming a wizard so they can free three cities from the clutches of 3 wizards. They want a mercenary The Dark One (David Carradine) to help them but he doesn't want to leave his busy bar. Meanwhile Princess Amathea (Lana Clarkson) helps them and organizes an army. One wizard Loki (Edward Blackoff) tries to turn them to stone. A sorceress Freya (Diana Barton) and the wizard Donar (Sid Haig) have a sword the good guys want. Later The Dark One shows up to help them battle Zatz (outrageously overacting Henry Brandon in his last film role). 

It's basically a comedy, one of the handful of movies directed by Charles Griffith better known for this screenwriting efforts (LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, NOT OF THIS EARTH), many produced (and or directed) by Roger Corman who co-produced this filmed in Argentina “sequel” which has no characters from the first one! It also features stock footage from other sword and sorcery productions made by Corman's company Concorde. Co-star Clarkson was shot and killed by Phil Spector in 2003.

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Corman Hill

 

THE BIG DOLL HOUSE-1971-In a women's prison in "some banana republic" newbie Marni Collier (Judy Brown) shares a cell with Alcott (Roberta Collins; later in CAGED HEAT), Grear (Pam Grier), Bodine (Pat Woodell), Ferina (Gina Stuart) and Harrad (Brooke Mills). The place is run by Ms. Dietrich (Christiane Schmidtmer) but the real boss is the mysterious Col. Mendoza. 

After cockroach races, food suppliers Harry (Sid Haig) and Fred (Jerry Franks) come by and Harry feels up Grear. Bodine has a boyfriend revolutionary in the mountains and is tortured by head guard Lucian (Kathryn Loder) for info. When Alcott is caught having sex with Fred she's tortured too. Bodine and Alcott plan an escape and want Collier to help them. Then Alcott and Grear have a fight in the mud. The women plot their escape but Lucian tortures Collier to find out their plans while Dietrich dines with the prison doctor (Jack Davis). Then Harrad stabs Grear in the neck. Though Harry and Fred came for sex with Grear they wind up hiding the remaining women in their truck with Dietrich and the doc as hostages. Ferina is killed chasing her cat. There's an attempted rape, shoot out and explosion before the ironic ending.

This sleazy crazy entertaining movie was an early production from Roger Corman's New World Pictures and was shot in The Philippines by Jack Hill soon after the race car film PIT STOP and few years after filming Boris Karloff's US scenes for his quartet of Mexican made horror films. It's also the feature film debut of Pam Grier (who sings the title song). Before this she had a bit role in BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and was a receptionist at New World. Corman co-produced it with John Ashley. Hill made THE BIG BIRD CAGE the next year also with Grier and Haig.

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Blood Bath AKA

 

BLOOD BATH-1966-After it seems like a vampire killed a woman, some beatniks (including Sid Haig & Jonathan Haze) check out Max (Karl Schanzer) the artist's new painting. Then waitress Daisy (Marissa Mathes) has a discussion with ballet dancing Dorean (Linda/Lori Saunders) about a secret meeting she has with a man. 

While looking at some paintings Daisy meets artist Antonio Sordi (William Campbell), who's artist ancestor was burned at the sake after being betrayed by his mistress Melizza. While having a flashback/hallucination, he turns into the vampire and kills Daisy with a meat cleaver. Sordi is also the person Dorean was meeting on the beach. Later at a party, he attacks a woman who falls into a pool. Daisy's sister Donna (Sandra Knight) goes looking for her (Max recognizes her from Sordi's latest painting) but Sordi denies knowing her. She learns about Sordi's ancestor who came back as a vengeful vampire after being burned, eventually being staked. 

Donna sees a connection between the missing women and Sordi. She decides to shadow him but he kills her on a merry go round (while others do nothing). His vampire self terrorizes Dorean but she escapes. Max has a fight with the vampire who seems to fall to his death but his body disappears. Poor Dorean seeks shelter at Sordi's bell tower residence where she discovers a dead corpse (Patrick Magee). Sordi isn't dead and thinks Doreann is Melizza come back to him. Fortunately some of his victims come back to life and throw him in bubbling wax. 

This movie has a crazy history. It started out life as a US-Yugoslavian production called “Operation Titan” for which Roger Corman provided American actors William Campbell and Sid Haig as he planned to distribute it in the US. Corman was unhappy with the resulting film and finally asked Jack Hill to write a new script and shoot new scenes while incorporating some of the original. Hill turned it into a horror film called “Portrait in Terror”. Corman was still unhappy with this new version and hired Stephanie Rothman to shoot more scenes. Unfortunately star William Campbell refused to do anymore re-shoots and an unidentified actor portrays the vampire monster which is why the Sordi character transforms into a totally different monster! Sid Haig's character also grows a beard for his later scenes! New scenes were also shot for a TV version called “Track of The Vampire”. 

There's always a story with Roger Corman!

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3 Dead

 

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD-3D-2006-Just because George Romero's original classic is in the public domain, any sucker shouldn't be allowed to remake NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD on a whim. Yes, another remake with gory SFX and some outrageous plot additions. It's useless but Sid Haig plays a crazy mortician. Unfortunately director Jeff Broadstreet made a sequel to this a few years later called NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D: RE-ANIMATION. (It's actually a prequel...)

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Phillippines

BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA-1973-In a Philippines jail “black mama” Lee Daniels (Pam Grier), a hooker and “white mama” Karen Brent (Margaret Markov), a revolutionary fight for survival and try to avoid the lesbian guards. When they are chained together and transferred to a maximum security prison Karen's guerrilla boyfriend and his pals try to rescue her. That fails but the women escape. Chained together they argue and fight. Karen wants to go back to her revolution while Lee wants to catch a boat and get away. They mug two nuns and put on their habits. They get a ride from a friendly drunken truck driver and steal his truck. A drug dealer (Vic Diaz) is also looking for Lee and some money she stole from him. A local police captain (Eddie Garcia) hires a local pool shooting pimp (Sid Haig) to find the girls too. Meanwhile the “female defiant ones” kill the blacksmith who could have unchained them and beat up an innocent guy and steal his boat. They are rescued by Karen's boyfriend (until then it seems like they are in two separate movies). An all out battle between the revolutionaries and the drug dealer's gang caps the finale where Karen is killed and Daniels escapes on a boat with the drug dealer's money (he's killed in the battle). 

AIP released this Philippines shot adventure movie in the US during the big boom period for this kind of production. It was directed by Eddie Romero who had previously made several notorious horror movies with John Ashley (including MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND) and THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE (also with Pam Grier). A few years after this was made co-star Margaret Markov retired from acting and married producer/actor Mark Damon.  

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Not A Remake!

MIMESIS-2011-Several people are invited to a party where they are drugged. They wake up to find themselves dressed like characters in the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and later all take refuge in a replica of the farmhouse and are terrorized by zombies. All the characters have the first names of the real cast of the George Romero classic (i.e.: Duane, Judith, Russell, Karl) and there's some gory scenes. For the most part it's pretty good (though not really scary) but toward the end it almost turns into another SAW influenced torture film. Fortunately it's saved by a good climax. Sid Hiag has a good but small role as a former horror director who speaks at a horror convention and later figures in the outlandish plot.

Director Douglas Schulze made this a few years after DARK FIELDS.

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Sid Haig: King of Vampires

BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD-2007-Vampire hunters (lead by Jason Connery and Victoria Pratt) fight vampires in another weird, full of itself torture-horror-bullshit. Vampires whisper a lot and people get killed. There are some scenes (including DAWN OF THE DEAD's Ken Foree) where the hunters torture the vampires in a switcheroo from the usual garbage. The only real highlight is Sid Haig as the ranting old vampire leader (with too many fangs in his mouth) who fears his deceased (?) undead brother Vlad Kossei has been resurrected and wants revenge. 

The movie's two directors Micheal Roesch and Peter Scheerer later teamed for ALONE IN THE DARK II.

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Creature

CREATURE-2011-Three obnoxious couples heading for New Orleans take a detour and wind up being terrorized by some insane hillbillies while a swamp creature (who was once a man) prowls around killing. It's later revealed that one of the guys on the road trip is actually part of clan and is leading the others to a spot so the inbred crackers can perform a blood sacrifice. This is sort of a rip-off of Rob Zombie's HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and in the movie's only highlight Sid Haig plays a character similar to his "Capt. Spauding" in 1000!

There's nudity and gore but there's also a lot of yelling and the ending is ridiculous. It's the only movie (so far) directed by Fred Andrews, a TV production designer.

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Galaxy of Corman

GALAXY OF TERROR-1981-Blatant ALIEN rip-off from Roger Corman's New World Pictures finds a group of space travelers send to investigate some strangeness on a distant planet. Grace Zabriskie (TWINPEAKS) is the weird troubled captain. Zalman King is Baelon, the mean, know it all in charge of the mission and top billed Edward Albert is Cabren, his more sensible rival.

Cabren's love interest is Alluma (HAPPY DAYS' Erin Moran), an empath. Other crew members include a pre-Freddy Kreuger Robert Englund (who gets to fight a double of himself), Bernard Behrens, Sid Haig ("I live and die by the crystals"...??), Ray Walston (who's more than just the ship's cook) and Taaffe O'Connell who is featured in the movie's most infamous scene as the crew member that's raped to death by a giant worm.

The team enters a strange pyramid on the planet and most everyone dies violently (Joanie's phony head is crushed, Sid loses an arm, etc.) but it all seems to have to do with an ancient alien "game" that preys on their subconscious fears. In the climax Cabren has to fight a giant slime worm in red lit cave and then most of his reanimated dead crew mates. 

Director Bruce D. Clark (from New Zealand) had made HAMMER with Fred Williamson in 1972. James Cameron was a second unit director.

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Point Blank

POINT BLANK-1967-Lee Marvin stars as Walker, a bank robber whose partner (John Vernon) double crosses him during a heist leaves him for dead and even steals his wife (Sharon Acker) in this violent action drama from British director John Boorman. Walker survives of course and seeks revenge plus his cut of the heist. Lloyd Bocher and Carroll O’Connor are mob bosses. Angie Dickenson is Walker’s sister in law who takes up with him after his wife commits suicide. It seems no matter how many people he kills or how much destruction he wreaks Walker just can’t get his money.

Keenan Wynn is a police officer that helps out. Sid Haig is seen briefly as a bodyguard. Also with Michael Strong James Sikking and Kathleen Freeman. Marvin starred in THE DIRTY DOZEN the same year and was in Boorman’s HELL IN THE PACIFIC the next year. Boorman made this two years after CATCH US IF YOU CAN. It’s based on a Donald Westlake novel.

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