Friday, March 31, 2023

 

 (imdb)

ED GEIN-BUTCHER OF PLAINFIELD-2007-Ed Gein (Kane Hodder) does this thing in this highly fictionalized story about the guy who influenced PYSCHO and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. It's really just an excuse to show blood and gore and exploit the too often used “based on a true story” tagline. The director of this crap, Michael Feifer made CHICAGO MASSACRE: RICHARD SPECK and other putrid movies based on real life serial killers (Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, BTK killer). He later made a lot of movies for “The Hallmark Channel”....

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Garbage

 


ANARCHY PARLOR-2014-In Vilnius, Lithuanian, a sinister tattoo artist (Robert LaSardo channeling Sid Haig) and his gross female assistant torture a bunch of young people. Just another sick stupid torture flick made by people who think they know horror but don't. Two directors (Devon Downs and Kenny Gage) are credited. They need mental help....

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Sunday, March 19, 2023

Now It's Legal..

 

 (imdb)

THE TERRIBLE TRUTH-1951-Scare film about marijuana leading to heroin addiction, through the eyes of Phyllis, a nice high school student who starts smoking “reefers” with some guys “who have no backbone”, then meeting Phil the pusher, who makes her a heroin addict/pusher who later goes “cold turkey”. An on-screen narrator William B. McKesson suspects “the Reds” might be behind it. This short (around 10 minutes) is so cheap and haphazardly made that all his dialogue was dubbed later and his words don't match his mouth movements. 

Once a stand-in for John Wayne, Sid Davis produced many similarly themed exploitation shorts (LSD: TRIP OR TRAP!, GANG BOY, THE BOTTLE AND THE TROTTLE). He also directed a few including NAME UNKNOWN which also featured William McKesson, who was an actual juvenile court judge.

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Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Bava's Last Bow

 SHOCK-1977-After leaving a mental hospital, Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi), still recovering from the suicide of her first husband returns to their old house with her new husband Bruno (John Steiner) and young son Marco (David Colin Jr.). At night while the couple have sex, Marco wakes up in his room and yells “pigs” several times. He asks mom “What is death?”. His hand turns ghoulish when he touches his sleeping mom. Bruno is a commercial pilot and is away a lot. As the story progresses Dora fears she is beginning to lose her sanity once again. Marco acts very weird and says thing like “I have to kill you,mama” and seems to be possessed by her late husband....or is it just in her mind? It's revealed later that Dora killed her late hubby in a drug fueled fury and Bruno hid the body in a wall. Dora kills Bruno with a pick and then after being attacked by furniture, slits her own throat. Marco has a tea party with his invisible dad.

 (imdb)

This Italian production (it played in the US under the title BEYOND THE DOOR PART 2) was the last film directed by the great Mario Bava with some help from his son Lamberto, who co-wrote the screenplay. Nice little possession/ghost horror movie that looks great (the elder Bava was also the uncredited cinematographer) and manages to tie up everything nicely (well kind of anyway...). Son Lamberto went on to make his own horror films. Lead actress Daria Nicolodi wrote the screenplay for the Dario Argento horror movie SUSPIRIA the same year (they were a couple for many years but never married). Italian horror vet Ivan Rassimov plays Dora's doctor.

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Sunday, March 12, 2023

Monster in the Woods

 

 (wikipedia)

ANIMAL-2014-This begins with 4 people being chased in the woods by a monster. One woman is killed. Later two couples Alissa (Keke Palmer) and Matt (Jeremy Sumpter) and Jeff (Parker Young) and Mandy (Elizabeth Gillies), along with single friend Sean (Paul Iacono) go to the woods for a hike and wind up trapped in a remote cabin with the other 3 survivors. 

It's kind of like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD except that instead of zombies, an “Alien/Predator” type creature is trying to get in. Oh yeah, it's not very good either. Drew Barrymore was an executive producer. Directed by Brett Simmons,

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Wednesday, March 8, 2023

The Munsters

 

 (imdb)

MUNSTER, GO HOME!-1966-After Herman (Fred Gwynne) comes home via hearse he finds he's inherited a mansion in England. So, he, wife Lily (Yvonne DeCarlo), son Eddie (Butch Patrick), “ugly” niece Marilyn (Debbie Watson) and Grandpa (Al Lewis) pack up and head for the UK. Lady Effigie (Hermione Gingold), her two children (Terry-Thomas & Jeanne Arnold) and their butler Cruikshank (John Carradine, who played Herman's boss Mr. Graves in 2 episodes of the TV series) plan to scare them away because they are part of a counterfeiting ring run by the mysterious Gryphon. Marilyn falls for Roger Moresby (Robert Pine) whose father Lord Moresby (Bernard Fox) has a grudge against The Munsters. Later Herman enters an annual drag race driving Grandpa's famous “Dragula” which his English relatives have rigged to kill him. 

This movie seems to have been made just to show off the elaborate make-up used on the TV show as it's in Technicolor (their TV series which had already been canceled, was in black and white). Busy TV director Earl Bellamy had also done many episodes of the TV show.

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A Croc From Thailand

 


CROCZILLA-2012-In Thailand, a bald guy sells his collection of crocodiles to a fat guy who wants to serve them as food illegally. The biggest of them escapes and terrorizes a town. Local cop Wang (Tao Guo), the fat guy's grandson, has to cope with a woman who's Euros the croc has eaten. He has to protect his young son too. Later Wang and his grandpa team up to hunt it. This is actually mostly a comedy with lots of stupid characters saying idiotic things and acting like clowns. Directed by Lisheng Lin.

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