German Spider Horrors

HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND-1960-A group of dumb models and strippers are stranded with their manager Gary (Alex D'Arcy) on an island after their plane crashes. On the island they find a house where there's an old man dead in a spider web. They learn that he was a professor working with uranium and spiders. At night Gary is walking around shirtless and a large spider bites him and he turns into a hairy faced monster with fangs. After one girl is killed, the rest bicker a lot while looking for Gary. Two researchers show up. There's a lot of romantic nonsense and the monster is forgotten until he attacks near the end and walks into quicksand. 

Everything about this innocuous West German horror film is terrible. Especially the SFX and drawn out story line. The director/writer Fritz Bottger is credited as Jamie Nolan in US prints (I'm sure he wouldn't want it any other way).

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Bigfoot!

BIGFOOT (MAN OR BEAST)-1972-J. English Smith is your host and narrator. There's lots of interviews with yokels who encounter the creature. They are pretty amusing. Some scientists talk pros and cons. Famous ape impersonator stuntman Jonas Proska chimes in. Once again the Patterson film is examined. Bob Morgan, a little bald guy in a loud shirt puts together an expedition to hunt Bigfoot. It's obvious he and his companions are acting. It's all talk talk talk with footprint examinations and wildlife footage. You know they never find anything because if they had this movie wouldn't be languishing away on You Tube. Just when Morgan thinks he's gonna make his big score a forest fire conveniently breaks out ruining his plans. Teary eyed he leaves vowing to return next year... 

and the year after that...

and the year after that … 

Director Lawrence Crowley also made MYSTERIES FROM BEYOND THE TRIANGLE. I don't think Bob Morgan ever caught Bigfoot but in 1976 he wrote, directed and starred in the horror movie BLOOD STALKERS...

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The First Spidey Movie

SPIDER-MAN-1969-In 1957 teenager Don Glut began making amateur movies featuring the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, dinosaurs and werewolves. Because Forrest J Ackerman mentioned him many times in Famous Monsters Of Filmland, Glut became well known for his home movies even once getting Glen Strange to reprise the monster in one of his films. Eventually (and probably illegally) Glut made some featuring Superman, The Spirit and in his very last, The Amazing Spider-Man. The effects are laughable (much of his wall crawling and web swinging are a doll) but still kind of innovative and very entertaining. 

From a newspaper headline we learn "Disfigured Scientist Becomes Dr. Lightening". He wears a metallic head piece to hide his face and has his henchman kidnap his own daughter. In Bronson Canyon he and Spider-Man have a showdown. Later Spider-Man webs up his car and the doctor kills himself. Glut later became a writer and director.

You can read more about him here: https://donaldfglut.com/

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Geek

GEEK MAGGOT BINGO-1983-This is a super low budget and deliberately cheesy looking satire of horror films. It really sucks but the highlight for me was the over the top acting of Robert Andrews as the mad scientist Dr. Frankenberry who creates "The Formaldehyde Man" (Tyler Smith) to battle vampire Scumbalina (Donna Death) who's kidnapped his daughter. He has an annoying hunchback servant who dresses as a woman and chops up a guy. The monster is a 2 headed, 3 legged (one of its heads looks like a Martian from "Mars Attacks") atrocity that wanders around the set. Punk rocker Richard Hell is "The Rawhide Kid" and Bob Martin (then editor of Fangoria; guaranteeing this junk got several mentions) has his head ripped off. Zacherle introduces the mess. 

Director/writer/producer Nicky Zedd's main influence must have been Andy Milligan.

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Sheep Thing

GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS-1973-An anthropologist Dr. Clemens (E. Kerrigan Prescott) and his assistant Mariposa (Karen Ingenthron) find a weird sheep embryo in the barn of sheep farmer Eddie (Richard Marion). Meanwhile the mayor (Stuart Lancaster) is busy restoring "The Comstock" to its original glory. A black guy named Barnstable (Christopher Brooks) who represents a party interested in buying the mine is framed for killing a dog and a drawn out scene involves the canine funeral. The hick vigilantes try to lynch him later on. He escapes and tries to hide in Clemens' compound but the dumb rednecks make like "Quantrill's Raiders" and attack the lab. Their efforts allow the now fully grown mutant sheep thing to escape (finally showing up over an hour into the movie!). The stupid Clemens gives Barnstable up and the monster kills a local. 

A redneck posse led by the mayor (who wants to kill it) and Clemens (who wants it captured alive) try to track it. Mariposa goes after it on her own and kind of dances with it. The monster is furry with a lumpy face, one arm longer than the other and is hunched over always looking like it's ready to take a dump. The whacked out ending has the mayor seemingly losing his mind as the townspeople riot and the monster is blown up! 

But more killer sheep could be on the way... 

It seems the director (Frederic Hobbs) might have had something to say but really didn't know how to say it. He'd wanted to make a western but lacked the budget and talent to make it authentic so he had to set it in the modern era with some real wild west reenactments thrown in from Virginia City, Nevada. Director Hobbs made a few other movies (mostly with the same actors and actresses in GOD MONSTER) and invented a type of “automobile art” called “Parade Sculpture”.

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You are not dying. I am dying...

NOT OF THIS EARTH-1988-This is remake of Roger Corman's classic 1957 Sci Fi story was supposedly redone on a bet between Corman and director Jim Wynorski. It follows the original story fairly closely and even uses much of the dialogue. 

Mr. Johnson (Arthur Roberts), an alien from the war torn far off planet Devanna comes to Earth seeking blood. With mind control he forces Dr. Rochelle (Ace Mask) to set him up with daily transfusions of blood for this is what the inhabitants of his home world need most. He engages the doctor's nurse Nadine (Tracy Lords) to assist in the procedure and she  goes to live in his house with him and his chauffeur Jeremy (Lenny Juliano). Of course there are a few things that are different. Most notably that original star Beverly Garland didn't do her snooping around in a bikini or have a topless sex scene with her policeman/boyfriend Harry (Roger Lodge). And instead of inviting 3 male bums back to become victims Johnson hires 3 cartoonish  hookers. Also a topless "stripper o gram" dancer. It features a chase scene from another Corman production. Ok fun as remakes go.

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South African Demon

THE DEMON-1979-Bill Carson (Cameron Mitchell) is a former army colonel with ESP who is hired by a husband and wife to find their daughter who's been abducted in Johannesberg. Meanwhile an American teacher Mary Jones (Jennifer Holmes) seems to be stalked by the killer who Carson described as "out of our species". Meanwhile Mary's cousin Jo (Zoli Marki) is dating some jerk. When Carson discovers the killer's hideout the father goes there for revenge and is killed. The mother thinks Carson set the whole thing up and shoots him right between the eyes. After this, both woman go out on separate dates. The killer murders Jo and her boyfriend and the teacher is terrorized (part of the time topless) until she stabs the killer with scissors. 

The actual reason for the killings is (with the exception that it's inane movie making) never really explained and the story is so drawn out and boring it will have you yawning in no time. 

Top billed Cameron Mitchell doesn't have much of a role. Writer/director Percival Rubens made a few more South African based films with North American stars. Star Jennifer Holmes was a semi-regular on the US TV show "Newhart" after this.

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