More Quickies

Kind of busy doing stuff around here so I have to keep it short!

STRAY DOG-(Nora inu)-1949-Akira Kurosawa’s early classic film about the frantic search for a homicide detective’s missing gun. Several murder victims are found, killed with bullets from his gun. A very young Toshiro Mifune plays the harried detective Murakami and Takashi Shimura (the Japanese John Carradine) is another detective who helps him. Kurosawa had already made THOSE WHO TREAD ON THE TIGER’S TAIL and DRUNKEN ANGEL but would only establish himself the next year with RASHOMON. Sometimes overlooked, STRAY DOG is a must see!!

SPIDERBABE-2003-This is a soft-core porn version of SPIDER-MAN (duh..) featuring Misty Mundae as Patricia Poker, a nerdy girl who gets spider type powers and has sex with many women. She fights a super villain called Femtilian and likes a guy named MJ. It copies several scenes from Sam Raimi’s better-known version (and one from BATMAN and ROBIN) but it’s all extremely low budget and badly executed (even for a direct to video porn). 

Mundae has starred in a lot of direct to video porn recently many of them horror themed including LUST FOR DRACULA, VAMPIRE VIXENS and SCREAMING DEAD.

MONSTER ROAD-2004-This is an interesting documentary about the brilliant but eccentric clay animator Bruce Bickford. It examines his influences, his ideas, his painstaking technique and philosophy in his own words and those of his father  a retired Boeing engineer now suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Excerpts of his work are shown and they might make you want to see more. He’s also the subject of THE AMAZING MR. BICKFORD (1987) a video that was released by Frank Zappa who used much of his animation in his BABY SNAKES.

KING BOXER-1971-Not very thrilling Martial Arts film that begins with a seemingly endless scene of a couple riding an elephant. A group of friends get revenge for the killing of their “King of Boxers”. Like many boring Kung-Fu movies this one is saved by a bloody out of control finale. One of the stars Meng Fei was later in 5 FINGERS OF DEATH. Japanese actor Yasuaki Kurata who plays the main villain here later produced and starred in BLOODFIGHT (1989) a Japanese rip-off of DEATHSPORT done in English!

REVENGE OF THE DRAGON-1972-This is a typical ‘70’s martial arts action drama from Hong Kong complete with bad dubbing, unintentional laughs and crazy fights. A man seeks revenge against a gang boss responsible for his wife’s death. The title theme sounds like a “Shaft” outtake. Director Hung Chiang also made a movie called KUNG FU: THE HEAD CRUSHER. Not to be confused with Bruce Lee’s RETURN OF THE DRAGON that was sometimes called Revenge on cable TV prints.

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German Zombies

ZOMBIE DOOM-1999-Three numbskulls land on an island and are captured by a group in metal masks toting machetes. They are part of a community of maniacs led by “The Meister”, their scarred over acting leader (the director). His father, a messed up guy with metal arms and legs sits by and gets excited during a triple guillotine execution. After one of the numbskulls is killed the remaining two are joined by a “failed” Asian guard and set loose in a zombie-infested forest to be hunted ala THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Meanwhile an idiotic doctor with a Hitler moustache does experiments on victims’ brains similar to DR. BUTCHER M.D.

After the two numbskulls are killed the guard is joined by some other (Asian) escapees (who have dubbed in comically racist voices). They beat up the zombies and take revenge. The anything goes storyline features a battle with bad black robed ninjas, a “Jason” clone who looks more like one of TV Mikels’ “Astro Zombies” and even “The Master of The Flying Guillotine” shows up! The fight scenes are extremely gory and laughable.

All the bloody effects are over the top and pretty phony. Heads are cut in half, eyes are gouged, limbs are cut off, victims are disemboweled and blood spurts everywhere. But the worse part is the dubbing. It’s so totally off and un-synched like they didn’t care at all! Most of it is shot on video but one particularly gruesome flashback (featuring full frontal nudity and terrible stop animation) is on film. In the movie’s most disgusting scene a guy’s ass is ripped open. It’s actually the third part of a trilogy entitled VIOLENT SHIT.


ZOMBIE 90-1991-What the hell are they smoking in Germany??

The “creative minds“ behind ZOMBIE DOOM are also responsible for this deplorable horror zombie gore film. The American distributors must have realized how moronic the whole thing was and dubbed it with ridiculous voices that have no business being attached to the characters. For example the mad white surgeon talks in cliqued black jive. His assistant has a high cartoonish voice. Meanwhile zombies roam the countryside eating hapless victims. It’s very excessive and derivative and most of it makes no sense. “To Be Continued” is threatened at the end!

Both these movies are the product of German director Andreas Schnaas, a kind of modern day HG Lewis. He seems to “borrow” from every horror genre (Italian cannibal, Romero’s Dead series, Shaw Bros Kung Fu) and for some reason even remade Joe d’Amato’s 80’s cult classic ANTHROPOPHAGOUS. In 2002 he made a horror film in the US called NIKLOS. Apparently he’s not ready to go away.

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I'm Feeling Zombified!

I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE-When I saw this whacked out horror comedy years ago I never thought I see it again but lo and behold it actually showed up on IFC one night!

It’s intentionally funny, a little sick and surprisingly gory (though some effects are very phony looking).

After 5 idiotic high school students kill a drug dealer and dump his body into the local river contaminated by toxic waste, he comes back as a green faced killer bent on revenge. A dumb biker named Bird has his tongue ripped out and another guy has his head twisted completely around. The sickest death is a woman who’s raped on a car hood right before her legs are broken. After the group’s attempt to kill the undead pusher fails and the dumb jock of the group is killed the survivors decide to dump their friend into the river and create their own zombie. He comes back all dead looking and for some reason reminds me of Ted Danson! My favorite character was the dumpy nerd Libermann who freaks out and faints during a police interrogation. All the characters are very doofy and oddball and some of the scenes are pretty hysterical! It’s kind of like a Troma movie but not as sleazy.

The excellent Enigma soundtrack features The Fleshtones, Smithereens, The Waitresses and others.

After making this one movie the director John Elias Michalakis became a monk! Too bad more directors working in horror today don’t follow his lead…

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It's Harrowing!/

DUNGEON OF HARROW-1962 -If GALLERY OF HORROR is Babe Ruth then DUNGEON OF HARROW is Marv Throneberry. It strikes out in every category! It’s insane, depraved and down right revolting and to top it all off it’s not very well made! Shot around San Antonio, Texas by future comic book artist Pat Boyette, it begins with a guy named Fallon who on a stormy night decides to write down how he wound up in such a dreary and cheap movie. It quickly dissolves into a flashback.

We learn that Mr. Fallon (the remarkably bad Russ Harvey) is the privileged son of some aristocrat who is sailing to England. The ship he’s on hits a bad storm. The scenes of his cabin rocking back and forth and the subsequent flooding of the ship are hysterical. Only he and the ship’s Captain (co-scripter Henry Garcia) survive, washed ashore on an uncharted island.

Suddenly Fallon’s flashback is interrupted by the introduction of Count DeSade, a sweaty drunk who sits in the dark talking to some kind of ghost/spirit who reminds him of his evil past and throws a rubbery snake and bat at him. When the ghost disappears The Count muses, “It must have been the wine”. If only the viewer could say the same thing!

The Count lives on the island with his “Nubian servant” Mantis (who looks like Dennis Rodman and talks like an ex-boxer), his indentured “personal assistant” Cassandra (“I’m not much of anything now”) and the mute Ann who’s tongue was torn out by pirates and now mostly serves as The Count’s nightly S &M victim.



But there’s more! Mantis captures the duo. The Captain is set on the rack (DeSade thinks everyone is a pirate) but Fallon is invited to dinner where DeSade insults Cassandra, rants like a jerk and passes out. However before that happens we learn the fate of DeSade’s wife, a leper who went mad and now resides in an underground chamber/mausoleum in full wedding dress ready to re-enact her wedding night! Yikes!

Fallon and Cassandra decide to leave/escape/fly the coop. Unfortunately DeSade and Mantis will have none of it. He subjects Ann to a water torture after she’s caught trying to help The Captain escape, who in turn is impaled by Mantis. Poor Fallon! He’s chained up in the underground chamber where Mrs. DeSade (in full wedding dress and rotting face) wants to consummate her marriage! Eek! A leprous kiss turns Fallon’s hair white in one of the sickest scenes ever in a movie! Cassandra kills The Countess (a little late; why couldn’t she have done this three scenes earlier?) and the two of them flee to the woods with The Count, Mantis and hunting dogs in hot pursuit. Eventually, DeSade kills Mantis. Fallon kills The Count. He and Cassandra live happily awaiting the arrival of a supply ship to rescue them, right?

Wrong! When the ship does come the crew hightail it outta there as fast as they can because Fallon and Cassandra are now lepers themselves! Back in the present Fallon finishes his narrative and proceeds to put Cassandra in the former wedding chamber of Mrs. DeSade because she has gone mad too! The End…

What can I say? Yes, this movie reeks. The “leprous wedding night kiss” scene is creepy but the most depressing thing about the whole deal is the end where it’s revealed that both leads are now lonely lepers living in solitude. The Fallon character while a bit pompous perhaps was totally innocent. Did he really deserve such a cruel fate? Wasn’t he supposed to be the hero? Yet he ends up screwed and insane. He laments, “I’m so alone” and wishes he had someone to talk to. It’s pathetic and eerie all at once. Inept filmmakers usually don’t care much about their subjects (especially in such low budget surroundings) and DUNGEON OF HARROW really drives this point home!

The same year he made DOH director Pat Boyette also made something called THE WEIRD ONES. In ’64 he teamed once again with DOH star Russ Harvey to make NO MAN’S LAND about a US soldier in Korea (but filmed in Texas!). Fortunately for all of us the comic book world beckoned and Boyette put down his megaphone and picked up a pencil (though he did find time to write episodes of the TV police drama ADAM-12 in 1968). He did most of his work for DC comics and died in 2000.











One of ex-director Pat Boyette's self published comic books from the 1980's.







WARNING: THIS MOVIE HAS OCCASIONALLY PLAYED ON TV AS "DUNGEON OF HORROR"!! (actually a more approriate title)

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Now This Is A Great Bad Movie!

GALLERY OF HORROR-1967–Man, if bad movies could hit home runs this Z budget anthology would be Babe Ruth! Everything connected with it is sub-par. The photography, the direction, the sets, SFX, the script and the acting!

But it wasn’t bad enough that the producers assembled a bunch of rank amateurs to play multiple roles in the 5 stories…Oh no! They had to include three “name stars” from the past too!



John Carradine (in ill fitting tux) is our narrator who introduces each tale and talks about vampires, werewolves, etc. He does this to the background of the rough sea crashing against breakers. Since Carradine could read the phone book backwards and hold our interest these scenes by default are the best-filmed parts!

John was a busy actor in films & TV at the time (in fact I would have to say that before in died in 1988 he was always a busy actor) but still he finds time to star in the first episode, “The Witches’ Clock” as a Warlock who uses an old clock to terrorize a newlywed couple. This is the only segment that is not a period piece.

The second tale involves a police hunt in foggy old England for the killer known as “King Vampire”. Lon Chaney shows up in the third installment “Spark Of Life” as a cheerfully crazy Dr. Frankenstein, doing experiments at a local college where two students decide to help him bring a corpse back to life. The fourth and longest episode (well it seems like the longest anyway!) is called “Monster Raid”. It’s about a doctor’s revenge on his unfaithful wife and her lover, also his ex-colleague who killed him. Fortunately a loyal assistant brings him back to life. Much of it is POV shots and flashbacks. Former 30’s Hollywood film star Rochelle Hudson plays the wife. I hope she wasn’t using this role as springboard for a comeback. Maybe she just lived next door and needed beer money.

And finally there’s the intriguing “Count Alucard” (yeah… right!) a tale of vampirism featuring someone named Mitch Evans in the title role and possibly giving the worst performance as the legendary vampire this side of Zandor Varkoff. This story has the funniest ending. And like all the others once the “surprise ending” is revealed the screen turns red (much like the faces of the theater owners who charged unsuspecting patrons to see this in 1967…).

The story goes that GOH was originally suppose to be an adaptation of the black & white horror comic CREEPY published by Warren (they also printed FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND) but eccentric owner Jim Warren pulled out at the last minute. The producers bravely (insert your own word here if you want) forged ahead and made their own humble opus. Many of the actors play several different roles and are all pretty bad.

Director David Hewitt would work with Carradine again in THE WIZARD OF MARS and make a few other films like the incoherent THE LUCIFER COMPLEX (where Robert Vaughn fought clones of himself, Keenan Wynn and Hitler while some guy watches it all on a TV in a cave!).

GOH is also known as “Dr. Terror’s Gallery of Horrors” perhaps to draw on the Hammer made anthology DR. HORROR’S GALLERY OF TERRORS which may have been playing in US theaters around this time. It also showed up on very very late night TV as RETURN TO THE PAST occasionally missing the “Monster Raid” sequence. For some reason known only to a chosen few it also played under the title “Blood Suckers”.

Grab a six-pack and enjoy!

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Lon Is Messing With The Devil!

DEVIL’S MESSENGER-1961-Lon Chaney is the devil or the devil’s secretary who sits behind a desk in a short sleeve shirt and tie grinning fiendishly while consulting a Rolodex of damned souls. He takes a shine to Santanya (Karen Kadler; also in THE BEATNIKS and IT CONQUERED THE WORLD) a suicide victim who’s glad she’s dead.

Unfortunately evil Lon decides to send her back to the land of the living to take care of some business. What unfolds are three tales of the unknown. In the first a photographer (US actor John Crawford who was later in a lot of TV stuff produced by Irwin Allen) kills a woman and her image appears in a photograph he took after she died. The second features a scientist who becomes obsessed with a woman he sees frozen in a block of ice and third has a guy with bad dreams visiting a fortune teller who foretells his death at midnight.

THE DEVIL'S MESSENGER is actually three episodes of a Swedish TV show made several years earlier called 13 DEMON STREET. It was created and directed by Science Fiction author Curt Siodmak (“Donovan’s Brain”) but this version is credited to Herbert Strock, usually a film editor who directed a few films like HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER. Strock may have directed “the hell’s waiting room” framing sequences although I believe Chaney was the host of the series too. Some of the dialogue is dubbed and some funny out of place close-ups occur. Strangely the stories (especially the third one) are very reminiscent of US based shows like THE TWILIGHT ZONE, ONE STEP BEYOND and THRILLER all of which came later!

By the middle ‘50’s Lon Chaney’s career had taken a serious dive despite credible performances in big studio productions like HIGH NOON, I DIED A THOUSAND TIMES and THE DEFIANT ONES. He appeared on TV in the short-lived LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1957) and was great as the successful junk dealer who goes back to school in THE GOLDEN JUNKMAN (an episode of TELEPHONE TIME in 1956). He starred as the silent resurrected killer in Jack Pollenfex’s THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN but mainly was wasted in other low budget films like THE BLACK SLEEP, Bert I. Gordon’s THE CYCLOPS and THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE. The last quality production he was in was probably Roger Corman’s THE HAUNTED PALACE (with Vincent Price) in 1963. After that it was mostly seldom seen junk like HOUSE OF BLACK DEATH (with John Carradine and 2 directors) and several Al Adamson movies. He was in Jack H. Harris’ deranged but fun SPIDER BABY (1968) which years after it’s release became kind of a cult film. Despite health problems Chaney (who’d dropped the “Jr.” years before) kept plugging away right up till his death, working on his autobiography, writing a horror script he hoped to produce and appearing in the obscure FIREBALL JUNGLE. His last role was that of another mute killer in Adamson’s FRANKEN-STEIN MEETS DRACULA. He died of throat cancer (the same disease killed his dad in 1930).

There was always some question as to how many episodes actually were made for Swedish TV or if in fact there were any other episodes at all but lo and behold a few years ago "Some-thing Weird Video" released a bunch of them on DVD....

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One Crazy Review!

36 CRAZY FISTS-1977-Don't be fooled by the DVD cover! This farcial Kung-Fu slapstick nonsense was choreographed by Jackie Chan but he's not in it which is too bad since his prescence might have saved it. As it is it's pretty stupid. 2 dumb monks try to help a brother and sister fight gangsters. One bald master has a twitch and another talks super fast in one scene. It also employs a lot of over the top sound effects. The final battle isn't bad.

Star Tony Leung was also in ENTER THE FAT DRAGON (with Sammo Hung), THE TATTOO CONNECTION (with Jim Kelly) and THE UNTOLD STORY. He also directed several features. Director Chen Chih Hua also made HALF A LOAF OF KUNG FU and DANCE OF DEATH.

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