(imdb)THE CURSE OF LA PISTOLA-2022-Sleep inducing bullshit about two couples with relationship problems camping out in a South America forest that is haunted by some kind of vampire ghost. It's talky and dark and very annoying. Feature film debut for director AJ Jones. He also acts in it as do several of the film's other producers. It's based on an actually Latin America legend.
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(imdb)KONGA-1961-Missing botanist Dr. Charles Decker (Michael Gough) returns to England after spending a year in the jungle with a local tribe. He brings back a little chimp, Konga. This doesn't sit well with his assistant Margaret (Margo Johns) who thinks Decker should pay more attention to her. He's a real analytic clown who also brings back strange plants that he says are partly human. He raises a bunch of carnivorous plants and extracts a fluid from them that he injects into little Konga, who starts to grow quickly. At school, after Decker teaches a class, the Dean (Austin Trevor) calls him mad and wants him to take a rest. Decker is highly insulted.
Soon Konga grows man size and Decker hypnotizes him to do his bidding. His first victim is the Dean. Later he has Konga kill a rival scientist. Decker is also sweet on student Sandra (Claire Gordon), although he's already promised to marry Margaret, which makes her boyfriend Bob (Jess Conrad) upset. They have a brief fight. Bob becomes Konga's third victim. After Decker puts the moves on Sharon and is rejected, Margret hypnotizes Konga, injects him with more serum and he grows giant size killing her and destroying the lab. The ever-persistent Decker is still molesting Sandra (who gets bitten by a carnivorous plant) when Konga (now Kong size) breaks in, grabs his former master and goes on a rampage. The army steps in and in front of Big Ben Konga is killed in a barrage of bullets and bazookas, after throwing Decker to his death. Konga reverts back to a chimp in death. Sharon's fate isn't told (eaten by the plant?).
This crazy low budget horror is ok but mostly for its wackiness. It was produced and written by Aben Kandel and Herman Cohen. Both had worked with AIP (TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN & DRACULA, HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER) but Cohen relocated to England to make this and several other films, (a couple with his friend Joan Crawford). Director John Lemont worked mostly in TV.
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(imdb)SOUP TO NUTS-1930-Early comedy talkie starring Ted Healy and his stooges (Moe, Larry &.Shemp, although Moe is created as Harry). It's a lot of craziness that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and truth be known, it's not that funny (1930 was a long time ago) but it's still nice to see the original inception of the trio.
The chaotic screenplay is by Rube Goldberg and it was directed by Benjamin Stoloff who later made NIGHT OF TERROR (1933) and the bizarre THE HIDDEN HAND (1942),
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(themoviedb.org)OPERATION LUCHADOR-2021-Dumb fake documentary comedy about fictional Mexican wrestler The Golden Angel (Carlos Valderrama) who is recruited by J. Edgar Hoover to be a spy for the Allies during WW2. The pro Nazi director, Alain Vezina, seems obsessed with the swastika, views Hitler as a genius and makes light of their experiments with comic bits like canine pilots. The Angel fights the Yeti, a Nazi agent. Idiotic. Hitler is even thanked at the end...
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(imdb)THE VERDICT-1946-English police superintendent Grodman (Sydney Greenstreet) sends an innocent man to the gallows and is replaced by the inferior John Buckley (George Coulouris). After his friend Kendall is murdered in his room locked from the inside, Grodman assists his replacement in finding the murderer. Victor (Peter Lorre) is Grosman's friend who Buckley suspects of the murder. There's also Kendall's dance hall girlfriend Lottie (Joan Loring). Suspicion then falls on Clive Russell (Paul Cavanagh) who's convicted of murder and sentenced to death. But Grodman knows who the real murderer is…
Milton Parsons in one scene as an undertaker. Arthur Shields in one scene as a minister. Ian Wolfe in one scene as a jury foreman.
Interesting murder mystery with a twist ending directed by Don Siegel in his feature length debut. This is the last of 9 movies Greenstreet and Lorre made together between 1941 and 1946. The screenplay by Peter Milne is based on a novel of which an earlier version was made as THE CRIME DOCTOR in 1934. That version has a far different ending.
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(imdb)THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE CHILDREN-2023-This terrible talk fest is typical of modern horror, either you get hit over the head with extreme gore or we are subjected to over wrought psychological pretentious direction that goes nowhere. Some kids disappear in the woods but come back the next day and behave strangely.
Awful supernatural nonsense. The director Roxanne Benjamin produced the first 3 V/H/S movies.
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(imdb)NIGHT OF BLOODY HORROR-1969-Wesley Stewart (Gerald McRaney) seems to have a few problems like his nagging mom and having spent 13 years in a mental hospital for accidentally killing his brother. When he goes out to a bar and gets drunk, 3 jerks beat him up and take his money. He's helped by a nurse. They begin a relationship that's shown in still pictures. Unfortunately, Wes it seems has psychotic episodes that make him kill. When he leaves the nurse on the beach alone (at night), he comes back and kills her with an axe. Or does he?
This shot in New Orleans, no budget horror bore has scenes that are way too dark. Director/co-writer Joy N. Houck Jr. (THE BRAIN MACHINE (1972)) followed this up the next year with WOMEN AND BLOODY TERROR, also featuring the co-star of TV's “Simon & Simon”.
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