edeighton Reviews

Haunts of the Very Rich (1972 TV Movie)

This plot twist has been done better in recent movies

[4/10 · 4 November 2023]

My review of Haunts of the Very Rich (1972)

The opening scene introduces seven people on a plane on their way to a super secret and expensive resort: the Portals of Eden. The guests are: a focused businessman (Ed Asner); a sex crazed politician (Lloyd Bridges); an attractive older woman (Cloris Leachman); newlyweds (Donna Mills and Tony Bill); a priest interested in researching savages (Robert Reed); and an over anxious housewife (Anne Francis). When the plane lands they are greeted by their host Mr. Seacrist (a black man dressed in an all white suit). This movie predates Fantasy Island, but it sure seems similar to it.

Things seem great on the resort at first, but after a vicious storm the hired help abandons the guests, dead fish are washed up on the shore and their food supply and fresh water run dangerously low. As the likelihood of rescue begins to become unlikely, some in the the group question whether they're all dead and whether the resort is actually a form of the afterlife. The trope of "they are actually the ghosts" is now familiar to audiences after modern movies like The Sixth Sense and The Others, but was likely a shocking plot twist in 1972.

This theme would be explored more thoroughly in the later hit series Lost, but for a short hour and fifteen minute television-movie, Haunts of the Very Rich does not disappoint. I liked the slow building tension and unease that this movie develops. I liked the religious themes and concept that we create our own unique hell. Robert Reed was a better actor than his signature role as Mr. Brady allowed him to display. Reed's despair and silent resignation helped drive home the point that these people were in for a specific hell designed for each of them individually. Ed Asner's performance ramped up the feeling of anxiety as it becomes more and more apparent that these people can't escape and can't communicate with the rest of the world.

Arnold (1973)

Campy comedy, light on scares

[7/10 · 27 October 2023]

Arnold 1973 A black comedy/horror about Arnold, a wealthy man who arranges for his mistress to go through a wedding ceremony with his corpse after his death. The ravishing Karen (Stella Stevens) is the mistress who inherits all of Arnold's money and gets to live in his mansion on the condition that she never leaves the side of his coffin and takes it everywhere she goes. His other greedy relatives aren't happy with this arrangement, but they all end up being killed off in elaborate death traps, which makes Karen feel that Arnold may try and kill her next. Jameson Brewer, the writer for this movie, also wrote scripts for my favorite childhood cartoon, Battle of the Planets ("G-force"). I loved the campy nature of this not very scary but funny movie. The opening show tune "Arnold" song by Shani Wallis, who played Lady Jocelyn Dwellyn, Arnold's wife in the movie, is so catchy that I am still humming it.

The bumbling Constable Hooke and his lecherous father, the Governor were delightful comic relief as was the comely Wanda Bailey, who played a busty barmaid. I love that the Constable continues to report each new death as some kind of accident despite that possibility becoming more and more far-fetched.

The Bride of Frankenstein herself, Elsa Lanchester, plays the cat-carrying daffy sister of the titular corpse, Arnold.

What a cool concept. Arnold speaks to his victims from beyond the grave by means of tape cassettes played from his coffin. He predicts his every victim's course of conduct and then allows each victim to kill themselves by traps that are only sprung by each victim's greedy behavior and only if they intend to oppose Arnold's testamentary will.

I selected this movie because of Brian Bly's interest in collecting rare VHS horror movies. This one is a very rare tape to collect because it was only released on VHS once, in 1985, and through a smaller distributor. This was a Bing Crosby Production (BCP) film. For such a star-studded movie, it is hardly known by children of the 1980's.

Girls Nite Out (1982)

Animal House meets Friday the 13th

[9/10 · 20 October 2023]

My review of Girls Nite Out (1982): This movie supposedly takes place at DeWitt University in Ohio, but was actually filmed at Upsala College in New Jersey. The finished product was a cross between Animal House and Friday the 13th.

The movie opens with some collegiate basketball heroics before the cast of students take part in the campus radio station's yearly "Scavenger Hunt", all while a Halloween party takes place in one of the frat houses. There is a red-herring plot line involving former frat boy and girlfriend killer, Dickie Cavanaugh, who's seemingly heading back to the campus after killing his would-be gravediggers using their own shovel. This is just one of the red-herring plot lines, there are several others including: *Stud basketball star, Pete "Maniac" Krizaniac, may be depressed/jealous enough to kill his ex-girlfriend.

*Chubby Mike Pryor may be jealous enough to kill his current (but likely cheating) girlfriend and all other co-eds who he regards as whores.

*Nerdy Ralph Bostwick may be weird enough to be killing the coeds that he is caught following around campus.

*DJ Charlie Kaiser may be purposefully leading the girls into locations where he can prey upon them.

*Basketball captain, Teddy Ratliff, wantonly cheats on his girlfriend every chance he gets. Is his girlfriend the one killing all of the coeds as revenge for being cheated on?

As it turns out the killer, whomever he or she may be, kills off Benson, the student who plays the basketball team's mascot, (a dopey looking bear suit with ridiculous yellow cartoon eyes and a sticking out tongue) and steals the costume and tapes together a bunch of knives to make his own makeshift " Freddy Krueger-style claws".

A bunch of fairly mild kill scenes follow. The father of Dickie Cavanaugh's murdered girlfriend is a campus security guard and is unenthusiastically played by Hal Holbrook. Once Holbrook discovers dead bodies, he shuts down the scavenger hunt and calls in the police. Then a series of police interrogation scenes unfold. Followed by the films climatic end where it is revealed that Barney, the friendly diner waitress is really the twin sister of Dickie Cavanaugh and she has stashed his body in the freezer and is killing coeds as if she was Dickie.

In my opinion, this is one of the better slasher movies of the 1980s. There is plenty of character development so that I felt something for the victims and potential victims. Not much gore effects and no nudity, but the movie still remained engaging. I liked the college setting and the scavenger hunt theme kept the plot moving. I could have done without the "golden oldies" radio station scenes. I might have had a frat-boy with a bullhorn belt out the scavenger hunt clues one by one throughout the movie had I directed it. All in all it was a pretty effective murder mystery that kept me guessing until the final scene.

Ticks (1993)

They had to hire Clint Howard late to salvage this movie

[2/10 · 14 October 2023]

My review of Ticks (1993):

The most interesting thing I learned about this movie is that originally it did not include Clint Howard. After principal photography was completed and they moved onto editing, the producers realized they did not have enough quality scenes. They hired Clint Howard and filmed all of his scenes in one day. Thank goodness. He was the best part of this movie. The second most interesting thing I learned was that writer Brent V. Friedman wrote the script in the 1970s and held onto it until he could find someone willing to make it into a movie.

The ticks were not scary. The movie was slow. None of the child actors were engaging, interesting or behaved realistically. Jerry and Sir should have had more scenes, they were fascinating and killed more victims than the titular ticks.

The movie became briefly captivating, about an hour into it, when all the characters were in the cabin and the forest fire was driving an army of ticks towards the cabin. But it turned out that the ticks were not all that deadly, even in overwhelming numbers. Nor was the forest fire much of a threat. Even the creepy Sir and Jerry ended up taking each other out of commission, so where is the tension? Suddenly, the previously wimpy Seth Green is a bad ass hero?!?

The Midnight Hour (1985 TV Movie)

Sandy is a Siren, not an innocent cheerleader.

[8/10 · 7 October 2023]

My review of The Midnight Hour (1985):

This made-for-T. V. movie first aired on November 1, 1985, the day after Halloween and steals heavily from both the famous Thriller music video and the Breakfast Club. The plot centers around four high school kids who unwittingly cast a spell which both releases demons from hell and also raises any dead who have unfinished business on Earth. The dead who have unfinished business on Earth come back as mostly harmless zombies who do such mundane things as read the newspaper, show up at parties and dance, deliver milk, make out on the couch, and prowl the streets aimlessly. But the demons from hell come back trying to kill. How can you tell the difference? The dead who have unfinished business on earth are all zombie decomposed. The demons however are in great shape and come in several varieties: vampires, werewolves and.... Sandy, a 1950's cheerleader.

So what kind of demon from hell is Sandy (Jonna Lee)? My theory is that she is sort of a Siren or Succubus. When Sandy first claws her way out of her grave, she is very comfortable walking around with the werewolves and vampires. In her first scene with Phil (Lee Montgomery), Sandy enchants him and he instantly fantasies about a romanticized vision of the two of them with his car stuck on the train tracks and a train barreling down upon them. Quite simply, Sandy is a demon who leads men to violent death. The next example of this is when Sandy encourages Phil to drag race and uses her supernatural powers to charge his car up to unsafe speeds. Has Sandy led other young men to die behind the wheel in this fashion? Lastly, Sandy uses her feminine wiles to lure Phil away from the safety of downtown and out to the desolated make-out point. Once there, Sandy is very sexually aggressive and lures Phil into the backseat of the car and distracts him while a Werewolf waits to attack Phil.

This movie has quite a few unfinished plot-lines and loose ends. I think that is because half-way through production they tried to shoe-horn in a music video. The ABC network, in an effort to keep one of the stars of its hit-show, Hotel, Shari Belafonte, happy agreed to produce a music video for her to promote her music career. As such, halfway through the movie, Shari Belafonte, debuts her new song, Get Dead, a Thriller-style dance number. In order to avoid running over the allotted run-time, the producers had to cut the following plot-lines:

· Phil Grenville (Lee Montgomery) continually scratched at his head and neck and complained about how much the wig was itching him. Vinnie Davis (LeVar Burton) comments that Phil has a real unusual rash. Was this the beginning of some monstrous mutation or werewolf hairs sprouting out?

· Sandy admits to Phil that she heard the ritual once before and knew exactly what needed to be done to put the dead back in their graves. How? Did this happen in the 1950's? Was Sandy a part of a group of kids that raised the dead back in the 1950's?

· What happened to the townsfolk that were killed in 1985? Are they now permanently vampires and werewolves? Are they doomed to come back 30 years later, in 2015, and terrorize Pitchford Cove?

*Did you dig seeing Dick Van Patten as the dentist who shuns novocaine? How about ABC spitting on the "modern" cinema-plex" as a location to watch movies because, as Sandy remarks, the sound from one movie bleeds over to the other theatre.

*The teens were typical 1980's style type-cast characters. Ultra-hip and new-age and too cool to really be scared of the monsters so they end up partying with them.

* The cast was outstanding. That is the result when you have a major television network, in the prime years of network T. V., throwing its stable of stars into a production. This was the type of big budget production that only HBO or Netflix could pull off today.

Barracuda (1978)

The biggest shock was that Roberta Leighton played a girl who was single

[2/10 · 4 November 2022]

A chemical plant in a small Florida town is dumping toxins into the ocean which is causing the local barracuda to become overly aggressive and attack humans. A marine biologist (Wayne Crawford) and sheriff (William Kerwin) team up and uncover a much larger conspiracy, called "The Lucifer Project". It turns out that the toxins are actually a deliberate substance being inserted into bottled drinking water and prescribed by the town doctor, former war-medic, Dr. Elliot Snow (Jason Evers) at the government's behest to cause hypoglycemia and make the townsfolk aggressive. Bob J. Shields plays a reporter who is on the verge of uncovering the story of a lifetime before he is murdered by a government agent and fat character actor Cliff Emmich is the sheriff's not so trust-worthy deputy. Best known for her brief nude scene as Bill Murray's girlfriend in STRIPES, Roberta Leighton plays the Sheriff's daughter and love interest of the main hero.

Wayne Crawford performed a number of roles on this picture. Crawford was the top billed actor and star, one of the two producers, a co-story writer and co-screenwriter, and the director of the underwater sequences. The underwater scenes were mostly well shot and look beautiful but the barracuda attacks were simply actors holding barracudas to themselves and spinning in the water with a red filter.

The film's plot does not make sense. How does agitating the townsfolk with hypoglycemia benefit the government? , Dr. Elliot Snow (Jason Evers) explains to Wayne Crawford that the government can't afford to have people protesting future wars, but wouldn't people agitated by hypoglycemia just protest more violently?

I think its pretty clear that the sheriff's deputy, Cliff Emmich, is in on the governmental conspiracy. It is the deputy that brought the bottled water to the Sheriff and other townsfolk and it must have been the deputy that led the other peace officers to the old plant and shot the Sheriff and Wayne Crawford at the end of the movie.

I could suspend my disbelief that the barracudas would attack humans and that the government would come up with such a stupid conspiracy, but I laughed out loud at the plot-line involving the gorgeous, Roberta Leighton fretting that no man wants to take her out. She looked positively delighted that the very mediocre looking Wayne Crawford actually called her phone and asked her for a date and put up with his boorish behavior throughout the movie.

Alone in the Dark (1982)

Interesting plot, violence and social commentary

[9/10 · 1 November 2022]

My Review of Alone in the Dark:

I loved the set-up for this film. Psychiatrist Dan Potter (Dwight Schultz, The A-Team) takes a new position at an ultra-liberal psychiatric hospital known as "The Haven". Its overly empathetic founder, Dr. Leo Bain (Donald Pleasence), uses unorthodox methods to treat patients - or voyagers, as he calls them. On the third floor of the Haven the really dangerous patients reside: paranoid schizophrenic veteran Frank Hawkes (Jack Palance), pyromaniac ex-minister Byron Sutcliff (Martin Landau), child molester Ronald Elster (Erland van Lidth), and serial killer John "The Bleeder" Skaggs (Phillip Clark). These four dangerous patients become convinced that good doctor Dan Potter killed their old psychiatrist (probably because they refuse to believe that their old psychiatrist left them for another job) and decide that they must find an opportunity to escape and kill Dan as revenge.

Alone in the Dark was the first production of New Line Cinema and is written and directed by Jack Sholder (known for the gay themed Nightmare on Elm Street 2). This is not quite a slasher movie, it is more plot driven and less focused on body counts. The victims and main characters are mostly adults rather than teenagers. Uniquely, it features not just one slasher, instead it is a group of four crazy villains, each with their own deadly specialty that they use to terrorize Dr. Potter and his family in their suburban home. But these villains are not supernatural in any way, they are just crazy humans whose true strength is their willingness to kill. And each kill is lovingly enhanced by special effects wizard, Tom Savini. Like some of the other movies we have reviewed, this one features a live musical performance. Punk band, The Sic Fucks, appear as themselves and perform four songs including the crowd pleasing "Chop up your Mother".

This is a tight 93 minutes of streamlined story and interesting death scenes . Alone in the Dark has more plot than a typical slasher film but also finds time for dark humor and social commentary. It can be viewed as a sexual horror: Bunky, the babysitter, is nearly impaled in her vagina by a knife, one of the villains wants to molest Doctor Dan's young daughter, Jack Palance looks alomost orgasmic as he watches a punk girl simulate fellatio on his handgun, and the film's opening dream sequence ends with Martin Landau taking a meat cleaver to his groin. The blackout is the prime plot point and demonstrates the illusion of a sane society. In the midst of a nuclear power protest brutally broken up by police, the blackout breaks down all social structure. Looting, assault and arson disrupt the normalcy of this American city casting it into fear, disorientation and savage chaos. The gang of escaped psychopaths join the "normal citizens" who have run amok throughout the dark city. The authorities in this film are portrayed as incompetent and clueless. In this environment, the escaped psychopaths are the only ones that are calm and coordinated, the outside world truly is as unsafe as Dr. Bain claims it is. The blackout serves to reveal how truly violent and uncivilized sane people can be if given an opportunity. Jack Palance's character seems to realize this in the closing scene of the film: the outside world is just as mentally unstable as he is.

Donald Pleasance's character, Dr. Bain, was my favorite in this movie and could not be more different than Pleasence's Dr. Loomis from Halloween. In Alone in the Dark, Donald Pleasence plays a fully empathetic doctor who believes his patients are not evil but rather on a different voyage from the rest of us. He allows his patients to live out their delusions and meets them on each one's personal reality. He smokes marijuana and allows his inmates to have more freedom than they should, even to the point of danger (Landau nearly lights himself on fire). Pleasance's delivers every line with presence and panache. I was not sure if Pleasance character was really the psychiatrist or another patient. The curly haired female employee of The Haven seems to be counselling Pleasance in several scenes.

There are several references made by the characters in Alone in the Dark to the town of Springwood, which is the fictional setting of A Nightmare on Elm Street and the movie features the first incidence of a killer wearing a goalie mask (filmed earlier than the famous Jason Voorhees scene in Friday the 13th Part III).

Mirage (1990)

Bad acting and weird plot twists in this hard to find movie

[4/10 · 21 October 2022]

My review of Mirage (SPOILERS): Until very recently, when copies of it were uploaded to YouTube, Mirage was one of the rarest of horror movies. It never got a video release in the US. But, New World Video over in the United Kingdom and in Australia did release it on video cassette and later DVD. Even though it was an American production, most Americans never had an opportunity to see Mirage prior to four years ago, when it was uploaded to YouTube.

Bambi is played by notable stunt woman, Laura Albert, and is easily my favorite part of the movie. What a shame that she was underutilized. She played the role of a ditzy floozy in the first thirty minutes of the film whose constant nudity seemed to signal that she would be one of the killer's first victims if horror movie conventions were followed. But it was revealed that she was smarter than she let on previously and was in on a scheme to make the heroine, Chris, jealous. Then, Bambi gets in her car and drives out of the desert. At that point, I was convinced that she was the killer, especially as later shots of the killer were limited to a boots and blue jeans wearing torso. But no, inexplicably, Bambi is just out of the movie after the first thirty minutes and plays no future role in the story. The killer is just some random guy that none of the other characters know.

The setting of a desert allows Mirage to carve out a somewhat unique role in horror movie history. Not too many horror movies are filmed in a desert. Director, Bill Crain, shot the movie purposefully to showcase the vast emptiness of the desert. Large mountains are always in the far distance, but the characters seemingly never reach any landmark no matter how far they drive or walk.

While I do believe that Mirage would have been a better movie had Bambi been revealed to have been the killer, in the final half hour of the film, when "B. G. Steers" (a pseudonym for a man that would later become a famous director and writer, Burr Steers) is revealed to be the killer, the movie finally starts to become interesting. Steers does a great job as the killer. He is creepy, funny and maintains a scary degree of control over his teen victims. As the killer explains to Chris, he lives out in the desert amongst the rock formations, so she wont be able to hide or escape him no matter where she runs.

The ending is just terrible. Chris is told by the local law enforcement officers that they found the bodies of her friends but did not find the body of the killer or the truck and that her friends' bodies were not found where she said that they would be. So what is the conclusion? Did the killer rise from the dead and rearrange the bodies and drive the truck away? Or, was Chris the killer all along and the scenes in the movie just a Mirage she experienced due to the desert heat?

Kevin Masterson, who played Trip, did a horrible acting job. His reactions were so unrealistic that I burst out laughing and the movie lost any atmosphere that it had developed. His worst moment was when he discovered that the killer had desecrated the dead body of Mary, Trip's girlfriend, and left Trip a note. The main heroine, Chris, removes the note, that had been driven through Mary's head with a nail, and reads it. Trip demands to know what the note says. Chris hands him the note, written in Mary's blood, and it reads "nail her, I did." Kevin Masterson makes the unusual artistic choice to play Trip in the following manner as his reaction to the note: Trip stomps his feet petulantly as he walks away from Chris and mutters "you son of a bitch". I am not doing the scene justice. It has to be watched to be believed.

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)

The brilliant monkey artist was wronged

[5/10 · 14 October 2022]

The producer of this movie, Milton Subtosky, also wrote the script and was the same writer/ producer of the movie, The Monster Club, which we reviewed last year. I loved the movie-anthology, The Monster Club. So, not surprisingly, I also enjoyed this movie. While The Monster Club was the last of the great Amicus studios horror anthologies, this was the first of Amicus studios many horror anthologies. Amicus studios was Hammer studios' friendly rival in the British horror film market of the 1960s-1980s. While Hammer filmed gothic period piece horror, Amicus filmed modern lighter scary stories. Both studios frequently used the same cast of actors, actresses and directors. But, Amicus developed a reputation for stunt casting celebrities (not necessarily actors) into their anthologies and showcasing pop musical performances. In this movie, Amicus cast famous disc jokey, Alan Freeman (the British Casey Kaseem), as the lead in the Creeping Vine vignette and the Tubby Hayes combo performed an amazing jazz number in "Voodoo".

I enjoyed the acting of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing who elevated the fluff script. Donald Sutherland looked like a million bucks and demonstrated why his dazzling eyes would lead him to become a big Hollywood star. The movie was well shot and the scenery was fantastic. The 1960's art studio as well as the jazz club (made even better with the faux voodoo stage set) made me feel a weird sense of nostalgia for a time and place I have only seen on screen. The old British manor in the werewolf vignette was deliciously creepy. The wrap around story in the train adequately tied the other stories together and steadily built suspense that eventually paid off in a satisfying, although illogical, ending.

The Voodoo story may seem toothless to a modern audience, but must have made a post colonial, 1960's British audience feel a sense of unease. The story of a Brittan stealing culture from a third world country, only to have the "savages" follow him back to jolly old England and take back what was sacred to them may have been scarier to the audience of the day.

I felt sorry for the brilliant monkey artist in Christopher Lee's vignette. The human artist (played by Alfred from the 1989 Batman movie) and his cronies invited the unsuspecting monkey to the art studio, complimented him on his monkey art, dressed him up like a beatnik, probably flattered him and built up his ego, only then to reveal that he was nothing more than the butt of a joke on Christopher Lee, the art critic. "So....... What's the joke fellas?" "That Christopher Lee is such a lousy art critic that he thinks my primitive painting is good art?" "Dang, I feel stupid for letting you dress me up in this little outfit." "Somebody better bring me back to the zoo before I start throwing my feces around your pretentious art studio!!"

Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981 TV Movie)

Is little Marylee is the real monster of this movie

[8/10 · 6 October 2022]

My Review of Dark Night of the Scarecrow **Spoilers** This made for television movie originally aired on October 24, 1981 at which time it received mixed reviews from critics and horror movie fans alike, but has since gained a cult following over the years and is now widely proclaimed as one of the best made for television horror movies of all time. I thought this was an enjoyable enough movie to watch. The script had a lot of holes in it, but so did teleplay writer, J. D. Feigelson's, other movie Horror High (which we reviewed in 2017).

This movie was filmed in Piru, California and looks distinctly Californian, but the story seems like it was more appropriately set in the deep south. The film makes numerous references to the upcoming Halloween holiday, but this is not a Halloween themed movie. It is almost coincidental that the events depicted take place in late October.

The Director, Frank De Felitta, makes a couple of choices that elevated the flawed script he was working with. First, like Steven Spielberg in Jaws, he sparingly shows the titular scarecrow. Instead of going heavy on scenes showing the scarecrow killing people he excites the imagination with shadows, noises, and the reactions of the other characters. Second, he centers this movie around the four murderous vigilantes, all of which were played wonderfully by very competent actors and this choice allows the viewer to see the majority of the kills in this film unfold from the perspective of "victims" that are largely unsympathetic. This choice to make the vigilantes/victims the center of the movie also leaves the viewer unsure until the final scene as to whether Bubba has actually come back from the dead to seek revenge or whether the guilt ridden vigilantes are just over imaginative.

Speaking of the final scene, it casts a whole new light on little Marylee Williams. She is not an innocent little girl chased down by villains, rather she is the catalyst urging Bubba/scarecrow to play the "chasing game" and setting targets for him to kill. After watching the final scene, it appears that little Marylee may have been pushing Bubba down a bad path from the beginning of the movie. In the opening scene Marylee insists that Bubba must allow her to kiss him, even though he does not want her kiss (perhaps even he realizes how inappropriate it would be). In the next scene, Marylee urges Bubba to trespass into a backyard and he refuses (he knows he is not allowed to go into other people's yards). Marylee's risky behavior leads to her getting mauled by a dog and rescued by Bubba, but it also causes the townsfolk to believe that Bubba killed Marylee and ultimately leads to Bubba's murder. Later, Marylee breaks the rules again by sneaking out of her house at night and going over to Bubba's house looking for him. Even after Bubba's mom, Mrs. Ritter (played by Marlon Brando's sister, Jocelyn Brando), tells Marylee that Bubba is dead, Marylee insists that she knows where Bubba is hiding and leads Bubba's mom to the scene of his death. When Marylee is corned at the Halloween party by Postman, Otis Hazelrigg, she tells him I know what you did to Bubba and seems to understand that Bubba is dead and yet she still talks to Bubba. It is Marylee that lures Postman, Otis Hazelrigg, out of his mail truck and into the pumpkin patch and ultimately to his death. Is the viewer supposed to come to the conclusion that little Marylee is the real monster of this movie?

It was a little over the top that the four vigilantes wear their costume hats even at night. Charles Durning's entire performance as Postman, Otis Hazelrigg was fantastic: he wears his entire postman uniform at all times, he creepily leers at little Marylee, he hides his alcoholism from the townsfolk and yet claims to be a teetotaler, he grotesquely overeats his breakfast with the old folks in the boarding house and piles an insane amount of food onto one plate, he bullies his fellow vigilantes and clearly sees himself as a great military leader similar to Napoleon or Patton (both of whom are displayed in his bedroom).

Blood Mania (1970)

Peter Carpenter's lavish testement to his sexual prowess

[8/10 · 11 November 2021]

Peter Carpenter produced, marketed, wrote the story and starred as Dr. Craig Cooper in this movie and then died shortly thereafter. Peter Carpenter fancied himself as a modern Alfred Hitchcock and intended this movie to be a suspense thriller, not a horror film. In fact the original title was "No Deposit, No Return". But Carpenter found the film far easier to market to theater owners with the name "Blood Mania" and with the addition of a cool animated opening title sequence and the promise of the tagline "plunge into a night of unspeakable terror". Despite aspirations of creating the next great suspense thriller, Carpenter apparently could not help himself as he ended up turning this into a 80 minute commercial for his own sexual prowess and ability to seduce women. As the writer of the film, Carpenter ensures that his character, Dr. Craig Cooper, gets to have on screen sex with three attractive young women, one redhead, one auburn, and one blonde.

The comely Maria De Aragon was the star of this movie in my eyes. She stole every scene she was in. Her detached and dangerous stare elicited a sense of danger and menace and her subdued almost sleepy performance as a psychopathic nymphomaniac was a perfect acting choice for this role. Maria De Aragon delivers an almost tranquilized performance for most of the movie and yet still delivers every ounce of menace, danger, crazy and sexual energy for most of the film. Then she turns on the hysterics for a way-over-the-top acting during this post reading of the will scene. Shockingly, I have been exposed to Ms. Aragon's acting nearly my whole life and never realized it. I was surprised to discover that Maria De Aragon played Greedo in the original Star Wars movie. Now I finally have the answer to the nerdy debate of "who shot first?" It was me, not Greedo nor Han, but me.

Supporting actress, Vicki Peters was Playboy's Playmate of the Month in April of 1972 and there are there are hints that the reason why her character, blond sister, Gail Waterman, both left home and inherited all the money was because she was raped by her father, Ridgeley Waterman Gail Waterman's gruesome death and bloody corpse popping up for jump scares several times in this movie provided the only mania to be found in this film. Further, Victoria's plot to kill her Dad seems awfully incestuous. Victoria pops an amyl nitrite under her invalid father's nose while he sleeps causing him to sprout a massively. Victoria then seductively strips off her clothes in front of her father. Finally the camera pans away from the action and pans back to the father suddenly sitting up with blood stained lips and a grin frozen on his dead face. That is when the sexual puns begin flying. Victoria tells Dr, Craig and Nurse Turner that her father "suddenly stiffened" and then died; Nurse Turner ironically says "at least he died with dignity" and worse of all Dr, Craig has the sickest look on his face when he tells the Coroner that the cause of death was a "stroke". Perhaps Dr. Craig was insinuating that Victoria took matters into "her own hands" Hell, I take that comment back from up above it wasn't Greedo, Han Solo or I that shot first, apparently it was Ridgeley Waterman who shot first as his last act.

Dr. Coopers girlfriend, Cheryl, (Reagan Wilson) sleeps with the blackmailer in an attempt to free Dr. Cooper from the blackmailer's demand for $50,000.00. Inexplicably this turns into another violent rape scene displaying Reagan Wilson's naked body which would later go on to be featured in Playboy Magazine as "Playmate of the Month"(October, 1976). The blackmailer concludes the rape scene by saying "Well Thanks for the turn baby, but no deposits. Your good, but not that good." Obviously this means that he is not going to cancel his blackmail of Dr. Cooper, but is he also suggesting that he did not finish inside of Cheryl?

There's a subplot of unrequited lesbian love. Its not really explained very well, but the older travel companion of the pretty blond younger sister, Gail, is Kate (Jacqueline Dayla) and she is a lesbian. Kate hints at this when she explains to Gail why she has to leave once she realizes that Gail is having a romantic relationship with Dr. Craig Cooper. Gail seems startled and states "but you never made a move on me?" In the TV version, they cut out about 20 minutes of nudity and sex scenes and replace it with newly shot footage introducing a subplot where the character of Nurse Turner is in cahoots with the blackmailer.

Victoria's preferred use of amyl nitrate poppers to enhance her sexual experiences leads to interesting photography by cameraman, Bob Maxwell, whose wide angle lenses portray some weird, hallucinatory "trip" scenes underscored by jazzy guitar pieces, psychedelic rock, abstract noises and the heavy use of a Moog synthesizer.

The dumbest pool boy in history when confronted with a naked Maria De Aragon squeaks "I've heard of people like you! My momma wants me to come home" before turning tail and running away!

You brought up a great point...I agree with you on second thought that Craig Cooper actually did fall in love with Gail Waterman. This is evidenced by his refusal to take the $50,000.00 he needs from her but his prior willingness to take it from her sister, Victoria. I am not sure whether it was the renaissance fair or the romantic walk on the beach, but at some point these crazy characters fell in love.

Much like last year's movie "I Dismember Mother" this movie does not live up to its over-hyped title, but still delivers a compelling, well-shot, suspenseful movie that I found very interesting to watch.

Claws (1977)

Was this an Alaskan tourism promotional video or a blatant rip-off of Jaws (SPOILERS)

[2/10 · 21 October 2021]

My review of Claws (1977)

This movie was filmed in Juneau Alaska by Alaska Pictures Production Company. The Producer, Chuck D. Keen also wrote the script, was the chief cinematographer and also performed stunts in the film along with his brother Michael Keen. Keen lovingly shoots gorgeous images of the Alaskan wildlife and this part of the movie is on par with some of the classic 1960's Disney nature documentaries. Some of the footage of the bears fighting with each other had to be dangerous to capture as it appears that one of the bears banged into the cameraman during the fight. The rest of the film though is marred by a cast of mostly inexperienced amateurs. Some of the actors for the major roles would have been familiar to the 1977 audience as frequent one-shot actors for popular television shows. But, the only actor that was in anything relevant to me was Myron Healy who played the Sheriff in this movie and then about five years later played a minor character, anthropologist Arch Quinton, in the 1983 NBC mini-series "V".

Released just two years after the Steven Spielberg block-buster Jaws, the producers of Claws attempted to translate the man-meets-deadly-animal theme to Alaska. The names of the movies are not the only comparison to be made. Both movies feature scenes where college scientist come into town with fancy equipment and underestimate the danger of the wild beast. Both films feature anxious public officials trying to keep the panic level down in the face of sensational journalists. Both films feature animals that seem to have anthropomorphic intelligence and reactions to the heroes' attempts to hunt them down. While there are many more comparisons to be drawn, the one I found most striking was the way both the beasts in Jaws and Claws essentially blew themselves up after attacking inanimate objects containing highly flammable fuel that were then ignited by the heroes' gun shots. Shockingly, this was the second movie made by an independent production company that attempted to rip-off the Jaws formula with a killer bear. In 1976 the movie Grizzly became a $39 million dollar success with the tagline "The most dangerous jaws in the land". In fact, Claws was released in some countries as Grizzly 2, even though Claws was not a sequel to Grizzly. So Claws is an attempt to mimic Grizzly which was in and of itself a rip-off of Jaws.

This movie does do a little better job than Jaws explaining why this wild animal is so different. It's not just a bear but a malignant Indian spirit known as the "Quistica" or "Kustaka" or "Kooshdakhaaor" or in this movie simply called "Devil Bear"". There actually is a native Alaskan myth involving a a cross between a man and an otter ("Kustaka" = "land otter man") that is either helpful or preys on the lost; tricking them to their death . The writer of this movie, Chuck D. Keen, seems to have converted that myth into a bear man. Native Alaskan mysticism is further utilized in the script by the guide, Henry's, hallucinations. I wondered whether the images of the two rams butting heads was intentionally symbolic of Jason and Howard's competition for Christine's affection.

One of the major disappointments of this film was the inconsistent script. It is filled with weird plot holes and ineffective story devices. To name a few: * Howard is not really a bad guy. He tried to protect the boy scouts at the campfire from the bear. He seems to genuinely care about Christine and her young son, Buck, and have their best interests at heart. That is why it is so shocking when after he dies in the woods, Howard is never spoken of again for the rest of the movie and Christine quickly moves on to tongues swabbing Jason's mouth.

*Jason Evers makes such a big deal early in the film about how the bear maimed him and caused him to lose function in one of his arms (which has caused him issues with his logging business), yet later in the movie both arms seem fine and fully functional.

* I visited Alaska, so I know that prices there are expensive because everything is shipped there from the mainland, but still the prices quoted in this 1977 film seem awfully high. $5000 to shoot a bear? $15,000.00 for an old beaten up Truck?

* Are we supposed to believe that the Bear after attacking and killing the college scientists and the hunting guide managed to hang the dead black scientist upside down from the rafters of the cabin and prop the door partially open so that the dead black scientists' body would drop down booby trap-style when someone opens the door to the cabin?

* I thought the movie had way too many flashbacks. Immediately after Jason Evers is attacked by the bear, the picture cuts ahead five years, and shows us news wire service stories showing that the "Devil Bear" continues to kill. This clumsy time jump fragments the story and forces the writer to employ flashbacks to tell the backstories for the main characters. There has to be a better way to tell this story than to continuously flash back to years earlier.

* This movie appears to have been made with the intention of getting a PG rating, yet features one of the dirtiest bits of dialogue in any PG movie from the 1970's: Jason: "I don't owe you no favors, and I aint your son old man" Ben the Forest Commissioner: "No but you could have been, your old man and I came up to this country together. We jizz-balled all over hell and back" Does this mean that the old Ben banged Jason's Mom? Is that what he is trying to tell Jason?

*Chris could not manage to pull the trigger in the very slow motion climax. Somehow, Jason pulls himself up from the ledge (with one functional arm) and grabs the flare gun and ignites the gasoline soaked bear, all before the bear can kill Chris after he knocks her down.

Hide and Go Shriek (1988)

Interesting killer but illogical plot holes (SPOILERS)

[3/10 · 15 October 2021]

This movie was filmed in three weeks on a very small budget and it shows. An easy way to save money is to film the movie in the dark, so naturally the plot calls for the store's lights to be off the whole time. But, even with that explanation, this film is extremely dark. This film is so dark that much of the action is nearly impossible to make out (this likely served to save money on special effects). But, every 1980s slasher movie needs nudity, so there is magically adequate lighting whenever the actresses take their clothes off. Next, the film saves money by generating a lot of jump scares by having the kids try and scare each other and by throwing in some mannequins to throw the audience off. The female mannequins are particularly intimidating in this movie as the killer likes to dress up in woman's clothing.

This 1980s slasher is notable because of its smaller body count and that there are a full four survivors from the original group of eight kids instead of the genre-typical sole female survivor. The Director, Skip Schoolnik, is very familiar with this slasher-film cliché (single female survivor) as he edited Halloween II in 1981. Skip Schoolnik does a decent job of building suspense by having the killer dress up in his victims' clothing as a trap to lure his next victim,. The killer makes use of the wigs from the store mannequins, and at one point puts on the lacy black lingerie one of the girls had brought to surprise her boyfriend. Oh he is surprised! Most of the scenes in which the killer darts past another character while obscured by shadows are scary, and the Killer's high pitched squeals of laughter makes things even creepier. There is also a tense scene of the kids banging on the glass store display window trying to get someone's attention and help.

John Ross' score is interesting and is reminiscent of the haunting score from The Terminator, pulsating and futuristic.

One of the problems with this movie is that the kids don't seem to have any individual personalities or motivations. Randy's whole personality is is buzz cut haircut. Craig and John are your typical meat-head jocks and Shawn' is a nerdy virgin. Kim and Bonnie are young foxes. Melissa and Judy (the chunky virgin) are supposed to be the two less attractive girls, yet most of the budget for this film seems to have been spent on all four girls' hair and make-up. I thought the kids in this film were smarter than their slasher-film contemporaries: (1) once they determined that there was a killer in the store with them they stayed together as a group; (2) rather than hide they gathered weapons and realized they outnumbered the killer and hunted him; and, (3) they tried to bring help into the store.

I heard that this film had a twist ending. I am here to tell you though that M Night Shyamalan has nothing to fear from this film's writer, Michael Kelly. The twist was not all that shocking and it certainly did not make sense. The kids think that Fred, the ex-con who works and lives in the basement of the store, is the killer. The kids even beat Fred's ass and tie him up because they think he is the killer. But "shockingly" the real killer ends up being Fred's gay prison lover, Zack, whose motivation for killing the kids is....he thinks that the kids will come between him and Fred?!?!? Yes, the kids who are only staying in the store overnight and trying to couple up and have sex are somehow a rival for Fred's affection in Zack, the Killer's, mind. So why did the homosexual killer, Zack, open the movie by picking up a female prostitute, have sex with her in an alley and then killing her? She could not have possibly been a rival for Fred's affection.

There is a lot of homo eroticism in this movie. The Killer, Zack, wears drag and bondage gear and is gay. There is a scene where one of the young couples is lying in bed naked and the killer comes into the room dressed as the young nerdy boy he just killed. The killer gives the naked couple the middle finger and then bends over and exposes his naked male buttocks. So, naturally, the supposedly heterosexual young jock leaves his hot naked girlfriend behind in bed and chases after the naked male ass of what he thinks is the young nerdy guy. Early in the film, this same jock is lifting weights with his muscular friend and then tells his friend to meet him in the showers, and then takes a seductive bite of his banana. These two are not at school or a gym but rather in the backyard of a single family home....so the "showers" are going to be a real tight squeeze. Then there is the climax where Fred and Zack fight to the death and as the innocent Fred lies dying he tells his boss, the kid's dad who owns the store, "I tried to be straight. I'm sorry, Mr. Robbins." Did he mean he tried to go straight, with a legitimate job? Or did he mean he tried not to have sex with guys?

The Monster Club (1981)

The Monster Club (1981) (SPOILERS) - "The last of an Amicus style anthology"

[7/10 · 8 October 2021]

(SPOILERS)

Everyone knows that the 20th Century titan studio of British horror was Hammer studios. But Amicus was Britain's alternative horror movie studio, not nearly as bloody as Hammer's late 1960 and 1970 monster movies. Amicus always relied more on suggestion and creepy atmosphere. Amicus specialized in movies that were anthologies of horror. The formula for each of the Amicus horror anthologies was a group of people at a gathering tell each other stories which lead into short vignette's staring big name actors and actresses. The Monster Club is the last of the Amicus-style horror anthology productions. Although not an official Amicus production, The Monster Club was made after the break-up of Amicus in 1978, when one of the owners of Amicus, Milton Subotsky, went his own way and formed Sword and Sorcery Productions. While the other Amicus anthologies played themselves seriously, the tone in The Monster Club is jokey and in-referential - there is, for example, a vampire filmmaker named Lintom Butosky (an anagram for Milton Subotsky). Subotsky had intended The Monster Club as a horror anthology that could be seen by children. Subotsky's idea for The Monster Club was to get the top 4 grossing Horror actors at that time, but two of them, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing turned down this film and another prominent horror actor, Klaus Kinski, also turned down the film.

The Monster Club was based on the 1975 novel by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, a British horror novelist whose works were popular in the 1970s. The work of Chetwynd-Hayes had also previously provided the stories for Amicus's 1973 film From Beyond the Grave. In the novel of The Monster Club, Chetwynd-Hayes created his own miscellany of monsters, including mocks, shadmocks, werevamps, shaddies, maddies and humgoos. A comic book adaptation of the film was produced to be used as a promotional tool at the Cannes Film Festival. Only 1000 copies were printed, making it a collectable item.

The Monster Club features some good early 1980's new-age rock music. This is the type of music that the Dark Brothers (Gregory Dark) utilized in their classic pornos from 1984-1986 (Let Me Tell Ya Bout White Chicks - New Wave Hookers). The film is set at a London discoteque in which music bands are live performing songs in between Vincent Price telling John Carradine , three monster stories.. B. A. Robertson sang Sucker for your Love in this film and then ten years later won a Grammy for writing the Mike and the Mechanics song The Living Years.

Using a handy illustrated guide on the wall, Price shows that inter-monster mating is rife - and by taking any two of the initial four ingredients of a Vampire, a Werewolf, a Ghoul or a Human, you can come up with a Shadmock, or even a Humgoo. To illustrate his points, Price tells Carradine three stories, each featuring a different monster. My favorite of the three stories was the Humegoo Story, in which a horror film director finds the perfect village for a film location. He is given a welcome by the ghoul villagers who call a feast - which turns out to be him. I liked the atmosphere of this short and really dug the old time illustrations that were used for an impressive animated sequence that narrates the doomed history of the village. The naked ghouls in this animated scene are far scarier than the high budget special effects used in modern horror productions like The Walking Dead because the illustrated ghouls look so wickedly happy and sinful. Those illustrations sent chills up my spine. Not much else about this movie was scary, but it was great campy fun.

I have watched this film numerous times over the years. This most recent viewing left me wondering if the obviously fake monster masks utilized for the club scenes were intentional by the director. Perhaps the script called for Vincent Price and John Carradine to portray erotic cos-play enthusiasts. Vincent Price's character pops fake fangs into his mouth and waits for his "partner", John Carradine's character, to walk down a carefully selected path. Then after a playful bite on the neck, Price's character leads Carradine's character to an erotic monster cos-play convention. This theory is bolstered by the end of the film when both Price and Carradine seemingly score with two fat chicks. I mean look how swarmy the two classic Horror actors gesture to each other while dancing with those large girls at the end of the movie. This is a much better explanation for these wrap around scenes.

I also found the first vignette to be tragically memorable. I kept hoping that the beautiful young thief would change her mind and go through with the wedding.

I think one of the reasons I liked this movie is the same reason it failed at the box office but then became a hit on television. Although the typical Horror movie of the time (Halloween, American Werewolf in London, Alien) was heart-pounding terror and gory, this movie was milder and inviting. There was/is something enticing about the concept of being surrounded by Monsters but being safe because you are an invited guest, like David Carradine's character was at the titular club. This is why I enjoyed shows like Super Host and The Ghoul and Big Chuck and Little John as a child. These shows would air terrifying movies, but break up the movies every commercial break with funny skits. In this way, these shows reassured young viewers "relax kid, your with us, it's safe." The club scenes in this movie served a similar function for the producers' intended younger audience.

Nightmare (1964)

Amazing cinematography

[8/10 · 30 October 2020]

My Review of Nightmare (1964) *SPOILERS*

Now this was a nice film to end the Halloween season. A very high-quality gothic horror/chiller/mystery. This film is visually impressive and brilliant. Director, Freddie Francis, sets up every shot from new and interesting angles. A former cameraman/director of photography, director, Freddie Francis makes great use of lighting and scope to create a sense of fear and isolation around the super sweet and vulnerable young Janet (Jennie Linden). This black and white film was much more colorful and vivid than the washed-out look of Video Violence. The lack of color is hardly noticed as the director's use of lighting vividly creates a rich palette of contrasting shades. The gorgeous sets (especially the High Towers mansion) further contribute to the development of the atmosphere of this film: tension, paranoia and suspense.

Very good performances from the cast and a nice tight script with twists by veteran Hammer writer, Jimmy Sangster, lead to an enjoyable movie. The sinister, Henry Baxter (David Knight) is a great villain. He uses Janet's school-girl crush to gain her confidence and trust only to prey upon her obvious mental problems. Henry Baxter also uses the affections of Grace (Moria Redmond) to convince her to help him drive Janet crazy enough to kill his wife. Then once he has inherited his wife's money and use of Janet's estate, he starts treating Grace with disdain and disinterest. David Knight does a great job portraying a smug and villainous character that is interesting enough to compel the viewer to watch even after we learn of Janet's fate just so we can see whether he is ever brought to justice.

The scene where Janet shatters the mirror with her radio and uses a shard to slit her own wrist evoked a physical reaction from me. Her desperation and anguish is intense and this scene is the punctuation point concluding all of the tension built up from the previous creepy dream-like scenes as Janet descends into madness.

The weakest part of this movie though was the inclusion of Janet's school teacher (Brenda Bruce) in the house keeper's and driver's plan to get revenge upon Henry and Grace for what they did to Janet. Presumably, John, the driver, and Ms. Gibbs, the housekeeper, have always been in Janet's life and especially became attached to her after she lost her mother and father. Its easy to see why they would be willing to cause murder to revenge Janet against Henry and Grace. But, how did they manage to convince the school teacher to go along with their plan? And, why do they need the school teacher to carry out their plan? They could just as easily manipulate Grace into believing Henry is trying to drive her mad without any help from the school teacher. If they needed a younger woman's help for their scheme, (to impersonate Janet) why couldn't they have recruited the young blond housekeeper that is shown in later scenes with Grace and the older housekeeper.

Video Violence (1987 Video)

Dont bother watching this amateur garbage

[23 October 2020]

What the hell was this?!?!? Was this really rentable at video stores?

If you were in a film making class in high school or junior college and your fellow classmates made this film as a class project, you would give them a standing ovation. But, if you paid money to rent this movie at a video store, you would demand a refund and be damn pissed.

This project fails on several levels. First, what genre is this film? If this is intended as an intentional comedy, then the joke's not funny, and if it's aiming to be a horror movie it fails because the movie is in no way scary. Much like the movie I DISMEMBER MAMA, I was expecting that this movie would be one of those, like FACES OF DEATH, that were supposed to shock the audience with graphic violence. But, despite its title, the violence in this film is not all that frequent and wholly unrealistic. Sure there are some poorly executed beheadings and dismemberings, but the special effects are so laughably bad that there is no terror involved in these scenes. Rather, the viewer cringes at how fake everything looks.

Seeing this movie, for free, on YouTube, made the experience bearable in comparison to the outrage I would have felt had I paid to see this. Seeing it for free offered me the opportunity to slightly appreciate that this movie was made by fellow Horror fans. I respect that the video store is covered with recognizable monster movies and there are classic monster magazines visible in the convenience store such as FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND

Rather than finding the fact that this movie was shot directly on video to be charming, I found it distracting. The entire look of the film is muted and washed out, there is no vibrant photography to be seen. The acting is not good. I see a lot of high school and community theater and this film was far below that level of acting. I have seen some critics rave about how imaginative this movie is, but this film is cliched and full of plot holes. The writing was horrible, none of the dialogue seemed realistic or even interesting.

This film could only be entertaining if you were drinking a beer with the director and knew all of the actors. If the cast and crew of this film were your friends, it would be fun to watch this movie and laugh along with the people you know as they appear on screen. But outside of that, for us unrelated viewers, we are left with the feeling of not being in on the joke and left therefore unamused.

Poor Albert & Little Annie (1972)

Poor Albert is a charmer but Little Annie might just be the death of him

[5/10 · 17 October 2020]

*WARNING SPOILERS* I Dismember Mama is a terribly misleading title. Nobody gets dismembered and the Mama survives the film. I am embarrassed to admit that I actively avoided watching this film for thirty years because I feared it would be too intense of a gore exploitation film. The video cassette box art and name of the film frightened me in 1986-1987 and I have avoided it ever since. The original title Poor Albert and Little Annie, while boring, is a much better label for this film. At its heart this film centers on the weird and creepy relationship between Albert and little Annie. Albert (Zooey Hall) is a rich and spoiled man-child who tortures and kills defenseless women because he believes them to be wanton. Little Annie is an eleven year old school girl (Geri Reischl) who spends the day with Albert, not knowing that he had just finished raping and killing her mother. Albert eschews his violent ways as he becomes charmed by little Annie and he reverts to a childlike persona. Albert shields Annie from viewing the body of her murdered mother and spirits her away for a fun day of playing games, talking and laughing together, riding paddleboats and a small train and then that night he takes her to a hotel where they conduct a mock wedding ritual. A lot of the tension in this movie is created by the viewer knowing what naïve Annie does not: the fact that she's in danger of rape, at least, and likely murder as well. Yet Zooey Hall masterfully portrays Albert in such a way that he manipulates even the viewer into believing, for a stretch of the movie, that because Annie is the only pure female, uncorrupted, that Albert has ever known, that Albert will keep her safe from his violent side. In fact, the viewer watches Albert wrestle with his dark urges as he gazes on a sleeping little Annie and the viewer even feels relieved when Albert decides to focus his sexual energy on a hooker instead. Zooey Hall could have played Albert as a maniacal killing machine, but he brings to the character a likable side, which is far more chilling when he lapses into his ultra-violent behavior. The scene where Albert threatens Alice (little Annie's mother) and makes her strip, dance and sing is disturbing as we watch Alice slowly become resigned to her fate, even after giving Albert all he demanded. The only reference to dismemberment in the whole movie is the final scene, a bizarre sequence, the camera following Albert chasing little Annie through a mannequin factory, surrounded by artificial female bodies in various stages of assembly. Albert hallucinates and sees the mannequins wearing makeup and then finally spots little Annie and hallucinates her with cosmetics on: she now must die like all of the rest of the wicked women. My favorite part of this movie was the soundtrack. I like 1970's television and movie background music and this movie has a lot of it. Herschel Burke Gilbert did the music for this film. His use of the song 'Poor Albert' was effective as the lyrics reflect the main character's state of mind. I still cant believe I spent thirty years believing (and telling people) that this was some over the top gore-fest exploitation film. The director seemingly went out of his way to avoid delivering any bloody scenes in this film. Even the killing scenes are restrained. The film is more a psychological thriller than a slasher movie. The camera cuts away from the actual death scenes and shows only the aftermath of violence. The hype for this movie had me running away from it for over thirty years, but once forced to watch it, I found it rather tame. Actress, Marlene Tracy, had an amazing performance of desperation and resignation in her death scene. The orderly REALLY wanted to watch Albert's hidden movie reel. Maybe it was just home movies of his family. All we know is that the female nurse was not shocked when she walked in and saw Albert watching the films and she said that the films agitated Albert

Mirror Mirror (I) (1990)

Unique female pespective on Horror

[7/10 · 10 October 2020]

*WARNING SPOILERS* My Review of Mirror Mirror (1990) "Mirror Mirror" is a female-centric film, written and directed by women and stars mostly women in important roles. The story centers on the relationship qualities of sisterhood and the screenplay was written by sisters Annette and Gina Cascone. Director Marina Sargenti, who made her mark directing popular commercials and music videos in the late 1980s, shoots the movie in a way that highlights the feminine aspects of high school life. The movie's two biggest stars at the time it was made were Karen Black ("Trilogy of Terror") and an elderly Yvonne De Carlo ("The Munsters"). Both veteran actresses, Black and De Carlo bring their unique screen presences to this movie and help smooth out some of the rougher performances by the younger members of the cast. Black in particular steals every scene she is in as she appears in ever increasingly wild outfits. The second teenage female lead, Kristin Dattilo Janie (playing Nikki Chandler), later went on to have a successful career in Hollywood after playing the role of Janie in the classic music video from Aerosmith, "Janie's Got a Gun". The main teenage female lead, Rainbow Harvest (playing Megan Gordan), is a Winona Rider look-a-like. The best part of this film was its twist ending. Her mother's murder leads Megan to turn against the Mirror. Nikki arrives armed with a dagger and unsuccessfully attempts to shatter the Mirror. Nikki and Megan attempt to flee as a torrent of wind fills the house, but are unable to escape. Megan sacrifices herself to the Mirror. Nikki shocked and consumed with grief fails to heed Yvonne De Carlo's warning and begs the Mirror to restore things back to how they were before. Nikki awakens in the room on the bed, dagger in hand, with Megan's corpse beneath her, in the same position as Mary Weatherford, having been subjected to an apparent time loop. In essence Nikki and Megan were the sisters from the beginning of the movie the whole time. "Mirror Mirror" is a very watchable film, with a deliciously creepy atmosphere. It creates its own unique mythology for the titular ancient and accursed Mirror and establishes its own set of rules which it faithfully follows leading to its very satisfying twist ending. The Mirror grants wishes and desires, but exacts a very steep price every time it does so and be careful what you wish for. The concept was original enough to allow this movie to stand out from other horror films of the early 1990s, after the end of the slasher film craze and to spawn several less successful sequels. My only complaint is that a shorter running time would have been my editing choice, many unnecessary scenes could have been cut with no effect on the film's atmosphere or plot. While some may consider this movie to be nothing more than a cheap rip-off of "Carrie" and "Heathers", I believe it stands up fairly well on its own merits. I actually felt this movie borrowed more heavily from the incredibly popular "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies. The "Nightmare on Elm Street" comparisons are most noticeable in the two films' scores and some of the lighting choices used to create dream-like settings. The demon in the Mirror doesn't ever escape from the mirror, but the camera captures his grotesque head popping out of the mirror briefly at the end of the movie much like Freddie Kruger does in one of his movies. Much like Nightmare on Elm Street II, this movie is somewhat of a slow burn and the horror creeps in, growing more and more violent as Megan's powers grow stronger and stronger. Megan's wishes start getting granted, but not always in the way she intended. Along the way, this female-centric film inverts the sexual predator role, as men become hunted, stalked and seduced with so much passion that they often beg the sexually imposing women to slow down or to leave them alone. The "main character, Megan, dresses more like transvestite, Boy George from Culture Club, than Hollywood's go-to cute Goth girl, Winona Ryder. But, throughout the movie her fashion style continuously evolves into more and more sexy and revealing outfits. This movie goes out of its way to poke fun at the titillating effect that the female form has on men. The lovely Charlie Spradling plays the head tormentor, teenage class president, Charlene Kane, (whose campaign ad is a hilarious exploitation of her ample breasts rife with sexual innuendo and puns) stars in one horror history's most leeringly disgusting kill scenes, as her nude body is scalded to death in a shower scene. Between 1975's "Trilogy of Terror" and 1990's "Mirror Mirror" Karen Black appeared in nearly 50 movies, made for television movies and television shows. So, she really was the biggest name in this movie when it was made and that is why she got top billing. You can tell this movie was directed by a woman as the costume budget for this flick must have dwarfed the FX budget. This film, much earlier than Wes Craven's Scream, seems to poke fun at traditional Horror Movie conventions and makes references to numerous other Horror movies like "Carrie" and the "Exorcist".

Satan's School for Girls (1973 TV Movie)

Hot Actresses steal the show

[3/10 · 2 October 2020]

My review of "Satan's School for Girls (1973)" (SPOILERS):

I never watched many made for T.V.. movies when I was a kid in the 1970's. I am pleasantly surprised by how good the ones we have reviewed in this group have been.

Kate Jackson, Cheryl Ladd and Aaron Spelling are all involved in this movie and then went on to make Charlies Angels later in the decade. For my money, Kate Jackson steals the show! She is captivating. She is beautiful, stylish, gives off a great energy and really carries the scenes she is in. But all of the girls in this movie are knockouts. Aaron Spelling seems to really have discovered a winning formula in this 1973 movie which he carries over to Charlies Angels later in the decade and then 90210 in the next decade: cast young attractive actresses and keep the story light and easy to follow.

The script is not bad. It plays more like a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew episode than a horror movie. There are some intriguing concepts presented in this movie: modern experimental psychology used to break peoples' wills, the philosophy of satanism as an embracing of rejected people and ideas and the forbidden student-teacher sexual relationship.

The psychology professor, Delacroix, is the hero of the movie in a wired plot twist. He arranges the props from various school plays in the basement to make it resemble his rat maze. He was trying to wake the female students up from their stupor and make them realize that they were the rats in the maze being driven crazy and suicidal by the Devil/Professor Clampett. In the end, Delacroix is killed by the very girls he tried to protect.

The headmistress was another interesting character.She seems to have a split personality: on one side was the Devil's minion and on the other side she tried to protect the girls. In her first scene, she actually gave the main character, Elizabeth, the only weapon she would need to defeat the devil: a kerosene lantern. I grew tired of everyone incessantly referring to her as the "Dragon lady". It was cliche the first time and overdone throughout the movie.

Wheels of Terror (1990 TV Movie)

The last 33 minuter were BONKERS (SPOILER ALERT)

[2/10 · 5 April 2020]

My review of Wheels of Terror (1990): (SPOILER ALERT) This movie was a made for television film that originally debuted on the USA Network in 1990. It starred Joanna Cassidy as mother who was a "hot-shot courier driver in L.A." who moved her daughter to a small town in Arizona and took a job as a school bus driver. Ms. Cassidy had some celebrity appeal in 1990 as she was in Blade Runner and Who Framed Roger Rabbit in the previous decade. This movie is directed by Christopher Cain, who two years earlier had box office success directing Young Guns. The movie was re-aired under the alternate title Terror in Copper Valley. The first 50 some minutes of this movie is a rather bland true crime dramatization. There is no horror involved in the majority of this movie. Instead this movie plods along at a slow place as we watch this bus driver become increasingly alarmed about a dirty black car that is always turning up at the scene when little girls are abducted. The bus driver tries to scare off the driver of the dirty black car and tries to warn the police about looking for the dirty black car and even attends funerals for dead girls who were suspected to have been abducted by the driver of the dirty black car. But right around the 55 minute mark, this movie takes a bi-polar switch in tone. This movie stops being based in reality and gives up all pretenses of being a true-crime dramatization. Joanna Cassidy's character, while driving kids on her school bus, witnesses her daughter being abducted and driven away in the suspicious dirty black car. That is when the real movie start. The remainder of the film is an extended chase (about 33 minutes!) between the dirty black car and Joanna Cassidy's school bus, with the school bus being the pursuer. But that synopsis actually gives this movie too much credit. What actually takes place is that this movie becomes incrementally more bonkers and unbelievable every one of the successive 33 minutes until the credits abruptly roll. Both the dirty black car and the school bus defy physics, logic and most laws of reality as they duel each other in demolition derby style. The action is punctuated by multiple explosions, multiple crashes off cliffs and way too may females hanging precariously off of the school bus as the dirty black car rams into the bus. Joanna Cassidy's character needlessly risks the lives of her school bus passengers, her daughter and herself as she becomes simplemindedly obsessed with catching the dirty black car and "rescuing her daughter".

SPOILER ALERT. The mystery of the dirty black car's driver is never satisfactorily concluded. The driver is never seen in the film. No description of the driver or how many people were in the dirty black car is ever given. The victims never recount if there was even a driver involved with the dirty black car. Is the dirty black car possessed like the car in Stephen King's "Christine". Does the dirty black car contain a group of rapists. Many of the scenes in this movie seem to logically require ether the dirty black car to be magical or that there are multiple villains in the dirty black car. The motivation behind the dirty black car's driver's obsession to kill Joanna Cassidy's character is never explained. If his motivation was simply to kidnap and kill girls, he could have easily escaped Joanna Cassidy's bus when it was teetering off a cliff, pulled over by the police or stuck half in a barn. But the dirty black car keeps returning to smash into Joanna Cassidy's bus and attempt to kill her. There is no explanation as to why the driver of the dirty black car allows Joanna Cassidy's daughter to climb out of the sun roof of the car and then matches the speed of the bus and drives real close to it so that the girl can leap from the roof of the car to the side of the moving bus. At any time he could have slammed on the breaks or swerved away and surely killed the escaping daughter.

Theater of Blood (1973)

Aging Silent Movie Actor is a Strong and Agile Killer

[9/10 · 31 March 2020]

My review of Theater of Blood (1973) (SPOILERS ALERT)

This movie was actually a really lively film. I cant understand how anyone could describe it as slow moving. It has a great ensemble cast, with many instantly recognizable stars from the 1960's-1970's.

The main character, Edward Lionheart, played by Vincent Price, is an aging silent movie actor who had made an attempt to revive his career as a theater actor. His piece de resistance is his 1970 season Shakespeare series. Lionheart pours his heart and soul into each performance in the series of Shakespeare plays and rightly believes that he deserves to win the Theater Critics' Guild's Best Actor Award. But the critics are bored by the classical Shakespeare series and give the award to a less talented upcoming actor because he starred in more modern productions. Immediately following the Awards show, Lionheart crashes the Critics' after party and confronts them. Embarrassed and crushed by the critics scorn, Lionheart leaps off the balcony into the Thames river committing suicide. Surprisingly, Lionheart survives and is revived by a group of alcoholic bums (Meths Drinkers).

Apparently driven insane by his near death experience, Lionheart and his group of drunk bums reenact his entire 1970 series of Shakespeare performances and kill the scornful critics in Shakespeare themed ways:

· a mob stabbing a critic to death on the Ides of March (Julius Caesar)

· a man stabbed with a spear, his body then tied to a horse and dragged along the road (Troilus & Cressida)

· a beheading (Cymbeline)

· a pound of flesh cut out of one unfortunate victim (The Merchant of Venice)

· a drowning (Richard III)

· a victim of a fencing match (Romeo & Juliet)

· a jealous man prodded into killing his wife (Othello)

· a man forced to eat his two precious poodles (Titus Andronicus)

*During the filming of this movie, Vincent Price, a married man, fell in love with Coral Browne, the actress who played the woman who was electrocuted at the hairdresser. Price divorced his wife of 23 years and married Coral Browne before the movie premiered. They were introduced to each other on the movie set by Diana Rigg

*While Lionheart may seem to be unrealistically agile and strong for an older man, I did not find this to be too unbelievable. As ridiculous as the fencing scene was, many old school silent movie actors were very athletic as they did their own stunts. See: Buster Keaton, Douglass Fairbanks Sr. and Harold Lloyd.

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

A feminist style slasher parody film (SPOILERS)

[7/10 · 25 October 2019]

My Review of The Slumber Party Massacre SPOILERS "You're pretty. All of you are very pretty." "It takes a lot of love for a person to do something like this"

How weird is it that my Grandpa and Grandma introduced me to this movie, when I was about 12 or 13 years old? My grandparents went through a phase where they loved renting horror movies in the mid 1980s. I can remember watching this one at their house as a young teenager. At the time, I was blown away by the "awesome" nudity and what I considered to be graphic violence. I loved the Killer, Russ Thorn, as he was one of the more unique horror villains (a drill killer) I had encountered thus far. While I only saw The Slumber Party Massacre that one time, for years, I frequently referenced it as one of the best of the slasher films I had seen, perhaps because it was one of the few unedited for television movies I had watched.

Imagine my surprise when I re-watched The Slumber Party Massacre this week and discovered that it was actually pretty tame compared to the movies I have since seen over the past thirty some years. Right off the bat, I picked up on some of the more subversive humor contained in this movie that I would not have appreciated as a young teenager. This movie is not your average slasher film.

The Slumber Party Massacre is one of the few slasher films both written and directed by females. The screen writer, Rita Mae Brown, is a noted lesbian-feminist author who wrote mystery novels under the pretense that they were co-authored by her cat. Rita Mae Brown's script was originally titled Don't Open the Door and was designed with the sole intention of poking fun at the slasher movie genre. The director, Amy Holden Jones was actually an editor who worked on numerous Roger Corman films. For some reason, Amy Holden Jones took an interest in Rita Mae Brown's script and wanted to try her hand at directing it. Amy Holden Jones had a difficult time attracting any investors to finance the film until she convinced her husband, veteran cameraman, Michael Chapman (who shot both Godfather and Jaws) to film a nine minute promo reel for next to nothing. This promo reel was later used in The Slumber Party Massacre and convinced Roger Corman to finance the $200k required to get the project off the ground. While Amy Holden Jones insists that her film should be considered a dark comedy, she never told that to the cast and they played it straight down the line.

Considering the all female writer and director combo, its no surprise that feminist themes are promoted in The Slumber Party Massacre. Typically male roles are instead played by females: the gym coach, the carpenter and the telephone repairman. Writer, Rita Mae Brown wrote this movie as a metaphor about female objectification by men. The ladies in this movie are constantly spied upon, peeped at, stalked and assaulted by men. Far from being the sexist exploitation film that it appears to be at first viewing, The Slumber Party Massacre is intentionally critical of sexism. The men in this film get far more graphic deaths than their female counterparts. The female protagonists are very confident in their own sexuality and work together to kill the male slasher. The iconic weapon the killer uses is clearly a phallic symbol and at the end of the movie the drill is cut off (in half) by the female lead character. Rita Mae Brown intended the character of Russ Thorn (the drill Killer) to be a commentary on the way that male killers compensate for their pent-up sexual frustration. This is never more literal than the moment when he stands astride one cowering female victim with whirring drill bit at full stretch between his legs as he prepares for penetration. Russ Thorn is more outraged by the amputation of his phallus/drill bit than his hand. The men in this film are all portrayed in an unflattering manner, wimpy, ineffective and creepy. The woman are portrayed as athletic, beautiful, fun and sympathetic.

Here are a few quick one hit observations: *The character of Courtney (Valerie's kid sister) is looking at a Playgirl magazine with Sylvester Stallone on the front cover. * There are quite a bit of dark comedy bits that shine through in this film: the dead girl in the fridge keeps slowly falling out without the sisters noticing; the killer counts the bodies in the trunk of the car, finds that he's one short, and goes off in pursuit of a second try at the severely wounded high school boy; the killer makes reference to how many people he has killed so far (six) when the kids ask how much the pizza costs. *Perhaps the most subversively unflattering portrayal of masculinity is the character of the neighbor, David Contant. He assures Trish's parents that he will "look in on her" while they are out of town and then later lets himself into Trish's house. Notice that David Contant enters the scene from upstairs (in Trish's bedroom?). What was he doing up there? Maybe the bag of Maui Wowie weed was not the only thing he was sniffing in Trish's house. He is constantly finding reason to hang around the girls and act like a cool adult. He prowls around outside Trish's house at night allegedly killing snails to protect his garden? Likely story...was he actually peeping in on the naked high school girls just like the high school boys were doing?

Lips of Blood (1975)

Jean Rollins Sexy and Artistic Masterpiece (SPOILERS)

[9/10 · 18 October 2019]

My Review of Lips of Blood (1975) SPOILERS "Scents are like memories, the person evaporates but the memory remains" Wow! What a gutsy choice by YT Horror Group moderator, Brian Bly. Lips of Blood is the first X rated film reviewed by this group. A French art-house film in English subtitles. Personally, I loved the movie. I was previously unfamiliar with the originality and unique approach which is found in 1970's European sex/horror cinema, of which director, Jean Rollin was considered the master. Jean Rollin enjoys an impressive cult status and his 'hot-vampire-chicks films' in particular are notorious. Jean Rollin was both one of the writers as well as the director of this surreal low budget horror film. Rollins also makes a cameo in Lips of Blood as the caretaker killed in the cemetery by the female vampires. As a director, Jean Rollin specializes in haunting, sensual, visually impressive movies that frequently concern memory, or memory loss, and obsessively feature beautiful naked women, usually vampires. Rollins' films have been characterized as bringing on a sense of bewilderment, unease, and sexual desire. His approach to the horror genre is said to be unique, extremely atmospheric and erotic in an elegant way. Lips of Blood" is wonderfully shot, and strangely romantic in its own way. It's both artful and exploitative and manages to pull off being both very well. This movie flowed like visual poetry. A slow burner that captured my full attention and transported me to an ethereal, dream like world filled with nubile naked vampire women. Luckily, for those like me that hate subtitles, this film is largely dialogue free. Then in the last 20 minutes the film is crammed with dialogue and explanations for all of the questions posed in the viewer's mind over the previous hour. While some may complain that the acting was wooden, this oddly adds a surreal edge to the film. The locations are stunning and lovingly shot. The camera lingering over the enticingly-lit castle, the sound effects were spectacular, the score with its eerie flute music really adds to the intended atmosphere. The shot of the shadow of a statue of a bull was rather striking imagery. Vampire girls, wearing flowing, nearly transparent wraps, slowly and seductively walking through the cemetery late at night is now one of my favorite things. The tall blonde vampire in purple is remarkably beautiful. In one scene the vampire-women are all standing on a windy rockface and one of the girls' dresses blows over her head, leaving her naked with her face obscured by an upswept dress. In the context of the howling wind and gothic imagery, it looks fantastic. Lips of Blood is filled with castles, chateaus, beaches and vampire girls. The bizarre locations, ranging from haunting shots of castle ruins to a graveyard full of crypts to various nighttime Paris locations including 1970's style apartments and offices to an abandoned nocturnal aquarium, are cool. Just the camera work and settings alone make this movie worth a watch. Okay, I know I seem to be focusing a lot of my attention on the female vampires, but they really stole the show. They were very effective as horror villains when, back lit in the distance with traces of blood on their lips, but much less scary in close up shots because of their comically over sized fangs. The two most famous female vampires were the two blond Castel twins (featured on much of the promo posters and trailers) Director, Jean Rollin, used the twin girls, Marie-Pierre and Catherine Castel in some of his other sex/horror movies in the 1970's. Rollin is known for his unique take on vampirism. In Lips of Blood, the vampires are unlike typical pop-culture versions of vampires familiar to a 1970's audience. Rollins' vampires are both sexy and dangerous, yet in some scenes their hunger is so apparent that its discomforting.Somehow the vampires are also sympathetic as they emote a sense of isolationism. These vampires are completely cut off from the rest of the world. Lips of Blood was filmed in three short weeks. Director, Jean Rollin describes this as his best written film, but not his best screenplay. The reason for this is that a week before filming commenced, one of the producers decided not to be involved, and withdrew his funding. This meant that instead of four weeks' filming allocation (already a pretty tight deadline), there was now only budget for three weeks. Also, director, Jean Rollin was known for promoting his earlier works, so, in Lips of Blood, when the male lead visits a movie theater, outside is the poster for Rollins' earlier movie, "The Nude Vampire". And inside the movie theater the movie screening is Rollins earlier movie, The Shiver of the Vampires. Another Rollin's movie, The Phantom of Liberty is plugged in a poster appearing on a subway wall in Lips of Blood. In a blatant cash grab, the year after Lips of Blood was released, in 1976, the film was reformatted with new hardcore inserts and re-released as the more exploitative movie Suce moi vampire (1976). Jean-Loup Philippe was both the writer of Lips of Blood as well as the star playing the role of Frédéric. The themes expressed in Lips of Blood are mainly about returning to what made you happy in your childhood; memories; love; longing; desire; eroticism; romance; and, bewilderment. These themes struck a chord with me, particularly this October week when I watched Lips of Blood and I left the movie charmed.

Body Bags (1993 TV Movie)

HISTORY OF Body Bags (Spoilers)

[3/10 · 11 October 2019]

My Review of Body Bags (1993) (SPOILERS) If someone approached you in the 1980s or 1990s and asked "will the actor that plays Luke Skywalker ever show his buttocks, scrotum and taint on film" you might have justifiably punched that person in the face. But, then director, Tobe Hooper, convinced Mark Hamil to do a fully nude scene with (inexplicably) famous 1960's British cultural icon, Twiggy, in a stupid made for cable movie. At about the 1:16:56 mark, not only does Twiggy flash the audience (Sharon Stone-Basic Instinct style) but the great Mark Hamil reveals his undercarriage. Body Bags was originally filmed as three separate episodes for a planned new horror series to air on the Showtime cable network. This was Showtimes attempt to copy the popular HBO series, Tales from the Crypt. Showtime lined up John Carpenter's wife, Sandy King, as the Producer for this prospective new series. Sandy King, then lined up her brilliant husband, John Carpenter to direct the pilot episode, The Gas Station. John Carpeneter was not a fan of anthologies in general but agreed to direct a few episodes when he found out that he was going to play the "Coroner", an over the top Crypt-Keeper-like role. Plus, Sandy King convinced her husband that this project would be quick and easy and something he could do in between larger cinema projects. John Carpenter and Sandy King had many friends in the Horror world and they called in a lot of favors for this series. Cameos by notable Horror icons such as Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Wes Craven, Sam Rami (Evil Dead), Roger Corman and Greg Nicotero were easy to arrange because this series was filmed in Las Angeles. Even actors like Tom Arnold were able to agree to appear for a half hour in between other film projects to shoot a scene as a favor to Sandy King or John Carpenter. Although many years later, John Carpenter was still pissed off that Clive Barker passed on his invitation to make a quick cameo in an episode. Unfortunately, once the first three episodes were filmed, Showtime wanted to significantly lower the budget of the series and move the filming to Canada. John Carpenter and Sandy King quickly lost interest in continuing the series in Canada and on a reduced budget and the series was ultimately cancelled before the pilot episode aired on Showtime. Showtime packaged the three episodes into a movie and aired the movie sporadically throughout 1993 and 1994. John Carpenter relished the opportunity to collaborate with Jim Lang on the score for the series and to work with famous Horror make up artist, Rick Baker. Rick Baker modeled the make up for Carpenter's "Coroner" on Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera. It took Baker three hours a day to apply the elaborate make up to Carpenter. But once the male up was on, John Carpenter had a blast playing the character and admits that his portrayal of the "Coroner" was nothing more than a blatant Beetleguise imitation. All in all, this was not a very innovative film. It was very derivative of Tales from the Crypt and Creepshow. Was Marvel Films the first production company that realized that you don't have to film a comic book style movie in repetitive single frame close up shots? Nearly every shot in this film was framed like a comic book panel and that leads to a small scope and cheapens the overall look. The last two episodes, Hair and The Eye, were so unremarkable that I don't really have much to say about either one. Both of these stories seemed like they had already been done before in better movies or television series. The first episode, The Gas Station, had some interesting moments: *This episode was set in the fictional town of Haddenfield, home of Michael Myers and setting for Halloween. In fact, there are several references made in this episode to an escaped mental patient killing people in Haddenfield. John Carpenter winks at the audience by having the maniac in this episode perform a Michael Myers style sudden sit up after we think the heroine has killed him outside of the gas station booth. *The episode, The Gas Station, was filmed in the desolate Mojave desert so that John Carpenter could escape all of the ambient light of the cities. John Carpenter had his crew wet down the ground with hoses in between every shot so that the light from the gas station would reflect up from the ground. This effect caused the gas station to shimmer in the otherwise pitch black background adding to the intended atmosphere of isolation. * I kind of enjoyed the early pacing of the film. The audience is made aware early on from the news broadcasts that there is a maniac on the loose. The damsel in distress is left all alone in the dark and strange characters keep approaching her. Any one of these characters could be the maniac. This slow burn of tension was masterly handled by John Carpenter. *Even this moderately well done episode was not without its problems though. If the maniac killed Sam Rami's character, Tim the real gas station attendant, and then donned his uniform shortly before our heroine arrives for her shift, how did he know the phone number for the repair garage?

The Savage Bees (1976 TV Movie)

Below Average Made for Television Horror Movie

[2/10 · 4 October 2019]

**SPOILERS** Growing up in the 1970's I remember that many local new broadcasts would routinely report on the encroaching threat of Africanized honey bees (aka "Killer Bees"). All of this over-reporting led to the production of several killer bee movies. On November 22, 1976 the NBC Movie of the Night was The Savage Bees starring ageing Western Movie Actor, Ben Johnson. The Savage Bees was produced by Don Kirschner, the famous Rock promoter who infamously abused Neil Diamond's song writing abilities to make hit records for the Monkeys. This made for television movie utilizes a script which steals many plot elements from Jaws and is rather silly and illogical. Worse still, this is not a very well shot film. Even given leeway that the print we watched on YouTube may be inferior to the original broadcast, this film is mostly shot in the dark and incorporates very generic backgrounds. Unfortunately, much of this film was shot at the Universal Studios back lots in California and at Iverson Ranch in Los Angeles instead of the purported location of the story, New Orleans. I took my family to the Superdome in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana in 2014 and it was gorgeous; this film fails to take full advantage of the spectacle of Mardi Gras. Want to see a good use of New Orleans from the same era, then watch the James Bond film, Live and Let Die. The Director of The Savage Bees, Bruce Geller, seems to go out of his way to avoid filming many sequences during the Mardi Gras parade. In fact, The Savage Bees writer, Guerdon Trueblood, conveniently has his characters make the climatic journey to the Superdome on Ash Wednesday, the one day that he could film the car travelling down boring nearly empty streets. Imagine how much cooler that ending would have been if the bee-covered Volkswagen would have had to navigate its way around the revelry and parade of Mardi Gras. Imagine the chaos and spectacle of the parade being crashed by a car full of killer bees. You don't have to imagine too hard, go watch the film Animal House (filmed just two years later) to see how entertaining a ruined parade can be. Or, if you want to see a huge festival (like Mardi Gras) disrupted, then watch the 2012 film, Spectre and see what Director, Sam Mendes, did with his Mexican Day of the Dead festival sequence. The one thing this movie has going for it is the use of actual bees. Norman E. Gary was the Bee Wrangler used in this movie and he did most of the stunts that required a man to be covered in Bees. He later plied his trade in many other Hollywood movies using bees such as the Candyman horror movies. This movie spawned a sequel two years later, Terror out of the Sky. This made for television movie brought back only the female lead character, Entomologist, Jeannie Devereaux. Curiously, they cast a different actress to play Jeannie Devereaux in the sequel. The male lead, Dr. Jeff DuRand, is played by a young Michael Parks, who later went on to become a regular in several Quentin Tarantino films. James Best plays Deputy Mayor, Pelligrino, but most people my age remember him best as Rosco P. Coltrane from the Dukes of Hazard. This movie has more than a few plot holes but here are some of my favorites: · Why did a costume sword do enough damage to tear a protective suit specially designed by world renowned bee expert, Dr. Horge Mueller? · If a single bee separating from the deadly swarm and joining a different hive of harmless American honeybees would cause an ecological and financial disaster, then how does Dr. Mueller's plan of switching the queen Killer Bee with a harmless honey bee queen make any sense? Wouldn't the Africanized killer bees just corrupt the genes of that American honey bee queen's offspring like they did to the Italian honey bees in Brazil? · How is the audience supposed to suspend their disbelief and accept that the temperature of the enormous Superdome could plausibly be lowered to 45 degrees in a matter of minutes? · Ben Johnson's character, Sheriff Donald McKew, is rather curious. Why does he just assume that his dead dog was intentionally poisoned by the townsfolk? Do the townsfolk hate him? They don't seem to have a negative opinion of him throughout the film. Why is he so respectful of the Voodoo dead chicken? Why does he assume that he is going to be able to convince somebody, on Ash Wednesday when everything is mostly shutdown, to open up the Superdome and allow a Volkswagen to be driven onto the field. He announces to the other characters that he is going to drive ahead and get them to open up the Superdome door and then a few minutes later the Volkswagen drives right up to the Superdome and the door is open. How did he accomplish that?