THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964)

  This one was obviously influential on 68's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with it's hordes of undead roaming around after our sole survivor Vincent Price who's boarded-up inside his home during the night. Here, instead of flesh-eating zombies though, they are neck-biting vampires caused by a global airborne plague. This one gets extra credit for being the first version of the story that would go on to be filmed a few times as THE OMEGA MAN in '71, a big-budget CGI Hollywood piece of crap with Will Smith called I AM LEGEND(which was also the name of the original story) followed quickly by a shitty shot-on-video thing called I AM OMEGA(both in 2007). I would usually say stick with the original but the 70s version is the one I've honestly gone back to more often for a fun apocalyptic watch even if this one is in that semi-classic category..

 There is a slightly longer ending if you're not watching the AIP TV-cut which seems to be the most common out there on all the cheap-o public domain DVD sets. 

                                          Complete cut with baby ending!:

HIGH SCHOOL BIG SHOT (1959)

  So just about everything bad that happens to everyone in this movie can be blamed on 1 female character(Virginia Aldridge, who was in mostly T.V. stuff) and her terrible manipulative charms. It's a pretty simple plot about a nerd who gets taken advantage of and goes down the wrong path and since it's the 50s we have to learn that crime doesn't pay before it's all over. Besides the anti-crime message it has a pretty downer ending for the 50s. So for that I give it props and recommend this one for some gangsters vs. juvenile delinquent thrills.

 I own this in a DVD set of Roger Corman flicks. Corman was the executive producer who financed the production.

 Originally released on a double bill with T-BIRD GANG(another Corman deal).

The story here is apparently an adaption of Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING which came out 3 years earlier and I really need to watch one of these days.      

KIDNAP LOVER (1976)

  This is the other film directed by the guy who made AXE(Frederick R. Friedel) in the 70s(he would resume directing in the 2000s with 2 films, including one called BLOOD BROTHERS which is an attempt to combine his two 70s films into one cohesive narrative(I'm not sure how successful that is but I have my doubts)). This one starts out really good with a great gritty feel and some nasty shootings involving a crotch and an asshole before kind of meandering to a weird conclusion. It kind of seemed to me like a 70s version of BUFFALO '66 in some ways but with a tougher lead actor. While I wouldn't put this quite up there with AXE, which is one of my all-time favs, in terms of bizarreness it does have a certain artsy flair to it mixed with a sleazy grindhouse sensibility that I think fans of this decade's cinema would appreciate. AKA DATE WITH A KIDNAPPER and KIDNAPPED COED

THE CHRISTMAS CAROL (1949)

 There are so many different versions of this story put onto film that it's hard to say which one is my favorite. This one has 2 things going for it, one is that it's narrated by Vincent Price and hearing his voice is always awesome, second is that it's only 24 minutes long but still manages to hit all the plot points. It does seem that ol' Scrooge is transformed from a miserly prick into a Christmas-loving maniac really fast but it gets the message across either way. Check it out if you aren't a Christmas-hating commie.

 

THE ELECTRIC CHAIR (1976)

  I gotta think this thing was completed a few years before it got  released since they use the year 1972 in the film. What you get is a long drawn-out police-procedural/courtroom drama dealing with convicting the killers of a cheating couple who get snuffed while making out in the park. Directed by J.G. "Pat" Patterson, who started his acting career as The Mad Daddy horror host in North Carolina and whose only other directorial effort is the earlier, also crappy but at least gory, THE BODY SHOP, this one lacks the goriness and doesn't have much of anything very suspenseful to replace it with. There's one cool bit where a defendant goes apeshit and starts shooting up the courtroom but that's hardly worth the time wasted to get to it. 

                                At the Cinema III! I woulda definitely gone with JAWS here:

Paired up with a German LSD flick!: 

ICE CREAM MAN (1995)

  If you enjoy watching the very odd-looking Clint Howard act like a weird, messed-up, psychopathic ice-cream man then this is for you. If you can't deal with a horror film in which you don't care about anyone else in the whole movie then maybe not. Overall this is very boring and the gore quotient, outside of some body parts, including eyeballs, in some ice cream, is pretty low. This was the 90s though so it's not very surprising that this sucks ass. At one point you do get to see 2 cops knocked out by ice cream scoops and there are severed heads on giant cones, so that's something. I'd say skip it unless you have a Clint Howard (or Converse All-Star) fetish.

A sequel was talked about in 2014 but hasn't happened yet:

GUNSLINGER (1956)

  This is a pretty standard 50s western but there are a couple of reasons I watched it. Firstly it was directed by Roger Corman who would go on to be the most influential person in exploitation and also arguably mainstream cinema for many many years. Secondly it was on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000, so I got a couple of chuckles to alleviate whatever boredom crept in while viewing. The plot deals with the wife(Beverly Garland) of a murdered sheriff who takes on her dead hubby's job. This story element does seem fairly progressive for the 50s but they do make sure and throw in a love interest(John Ireland) so things don't get too feministy for audiences. Allison Hayes(best known as that giant gal in ATTACK OF THE  50 FOOT WOMAN) plays Garland's arch-nemesis and this gives us a classic catfight between the 2 beauties. Not the best Corman-directed flick for me since I'm more of a fan of his stupid monster movies.

 

                                    Known in Italy as THE MERCENARY OF DEATH:

POINT OF TERROR (1971)

 This one is barely a horror flick and plays out more like a drama about a singer(Peter Carpenter) who ends up in a love triangle with a music publisher and his wife(Dyanne Thorne, best known to sickkie-cinema fans as ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE S.S.) and then later on the wife and her daughter! There are a few murders involved but the main horror element comes into play at the very end when maybe everything was just a bad nightmare, which is the worst way I can imagine to end your film. The only thing that really kept me interested enough to watch this is seeing Ilsa in a non-Nazi role. I shoulda just stuck to that dumb PINNOCCHIO movie that she did. I don't recall a bunch of bad singing in that one.

 

 To be completely fair I should mention that I watched this on an old VHS tape which I believe contained the TV edit so maybe there's a better more horrific version available. 

AKA BLOOD ON THE POINT OF TERROR and SCREAM OF TERROR

                                             Very misleading trailer!:

   

                              2  double features of movies that don't live up to their titles!:

THE GIRL FROM RIO (1969)

  Jess Franco had directed 2 Fu-Manchu films and then followed it up with this more obscure character from the novels of Sax Rohmer. Sumuru(dubbed into English as Sunanda for some weird reason), the evil female supervillain is basically just a non-Asian feminist version of Fu-Manchu complete with her own all-woman city of soldiers to do her bidding. This film follows 1967's THE MILLION EYES OF SUMURU(also produced by Harry Alan Towers and starring Bond girl Shirley Eaton in the title role)) and like that movie it's a mix of 60s spy flick with futuristic sci-fi trappings. The gals all wear go-go outfits and everything is super-stylized. Franco's Rohmer adaptions are not my favs from his filmography, I guess I enjoy when he uses this influences to go off on his own crazy tangents more, but they are still visually pretty amazing.   

 This played on TV under the name of FUTURE WOMEN with the nudity removed and extra scenes of touristy crap to pad out the runtime. 

                           Known in Germany as THE SEVEN MEN OF SUMURU:

Titled THE CITY WITHOUT MEN in Spanish:

THE MECHANIC (1972)

  This is one of the top classic Charles Bronson movies from that era when he really couldn't do much wrong. Action scenes include a motorcycle race and lots of assassinations. I have had people tell me the middle part is a bit slow  but I don't find this to be the case. It's just a film that takes it's time to build characters that you might care about unlike pretty much anything made in the last 20 years or so. Speaking of more modern garbage, this was remade in 2011 starring Jason Statham, CGI and shitty modern editing techniques, so I have no desire to view it.  

 Re-released, after the success of DEATH WISH. (and released in England) as KILLER OF KILLERS.

                                    British poster for an amazing Bronson double feature!:

MAKO JAWS OF DEATH (1976)

  While you might think this is a JAWS rip-off by the title alone(Universal studios apparently did so much so that they sued him), storywise it's more of a WILLARD rip-off. We substitute sharks for rats though. Actually it's also a sorta-remake of director William Grefe's own STANLEY from 5 years earlier with sharks taking on the snake roles from that film. I loved that earlier film and have just about equal fondness for this one. Richard Jaeckel is our main guy who gets called a "shark lover!" and gets revenge on the world that fears and hunts(fishes?) his friends. You get go-go dancing(swimming?) in a shark tank as a stage show, Oddjob(Harold Sakata) from GOLDFINGER as a heavy and lots of people fed to sharks. AKA THE JAWS OF DEATH

France!:

Spain!:

Italy!:

German VHS!:

The Late Show!:

 

CABIN IN THE WOODS (2011)

  I first saw this in the middle of a marathon of horror movies and pretty much hated it. Upon re-watching it recently at a movie night with some friends I still hate it but I think the overall idea could possibly have been done in a way that isn't so annoying and a waste of time. The H.P. Lovecraft-inspired villain meets SCREAM-inspired meta-horror could have been interesting minus the overuse of cgi and pretention but that seems to be the main problem with these modern films that think they're smarter than they are. There are allusions to tons of horror films (THE EVIL DEAD, HELLRAISER, pretty much every slasher movie ever made and even SCOOBY-DOO) but I think I'd rather watch any one of those over this again.

 As a bonus Sigourney Weaver shows up for a brief cameo. 

LUTHER THE GEEK (1989)

  So this movie is really stupid. This was released by Troma Entertainment(I kinda doubt it played in any theaters) and it fits right in with the garbage that they put out. It's basically a slasher movie about a guy with metal teeth biting necks(oh and also the occasional head off a chicken since he's a "geek" and all). All the characters are extremely stupid and make terrible decisions which just makes for a frustrating watch. There is a a good amount of gore(though apparently whoever did the fx work didn't want their name used) and some nudity, unfortunately the killer clucks like a chicken a whole bunch making it seem more like a comedy than anything else for large segments.   

FACELESS (1987)

  Jess Franco basically rehashes his AWFUL DR. ORLOFF plot here once again. He even gets Howard Vernon to play a character named Doctor Orloff. In addition to the standard searching-for-a-new-face-for-my-disfigured-love storyline this one throws in a bunch of ultra-gory scenes of driller killing, acid-melting faces, scissors in throats, needles in eyeballs and of course faces being peeled right off of living patients. There's also a decent budget and some bigger-named stars than usual for one of these Eurotrash horror flicks including Telly Savalas and Caroline Munro who don't really do much but appear in a few scenes. Helmut Berger is our main evil doctor and Christopher Mitchum gets the heroic detective role. 

 One of the weirdest decisions in this movie is to not bother dubbing the final line, uttered by Telly Savalas, which is integral to the conclusion of the whole plot! I assume this isn't a problem outside of the English version. 

               Known in France, and a few other places, as PREDATORS OF THE NIGHT:

SUCCUBUS (1968)

  I know Eurosleaze director Jess Franco is a big fan of jazz music and this movie feels like it might be the closest of his films to a jazz song in that it's basically a bunch of scenes, many with jazz playing in them, with not a whole lot of rhyme or reason in a linear sense but more thrown together to set a general tone. S & M stage shows, brainwashing, murder, dreamlike set pieces and lots of oddball/artsy elements. Figures of Godzilla, Frankenstein and a few other monsters show up to aid in the sexy psychedelic ambience. Franco regulars Jack Taylor and Howard Vernon appear supporting star Janine Reynaud who was a model and not really much of an actress but that seems unnecessary for this role anyway as it's mostly just changing outfits and being nude from scene to scene. Recommended more for the arthouse fan than the more typical lowbrow Franco trash-lover. 

                                                     Released in Italy as DELIRIUM:

Known in a few countries(including France apparently) as NECRONOMICON: 

ASSASSINATION (1987)

  This one is down there near the bottom of the list out of all the Charles Bronson movies I've seen. Instead of the usual revenge-seeking vigilante role he usually played in this era of his career Bronson is instead a secret service agent whose job is to protect the first lady(his real-life wife Jill Ireland). Politics usually drag down most films for me and even though this is not a very intricate plot it does that here too. The action scenes are also pretty lackluster and obviously involve stunt people since I'm sure our senior-citizen lead was not actually zooming around on a motorcycles or a dune-buggy dodging bullets. Watching ol' Charlie fire a rocket launcher at some creep is always fun though. 

There is one out of place Native American character(Indian Joe) that was mildly amusing but only in the film briefly. 

MY BROTHER HAS BAD DREAMS (1972)

  AKA SCREAM BLOOODY MURDER(which leads to confusing this with that other SCREAM BLOODY MURDER from the following year with the killer with the hook-hand) this is the tale of a mentally deranged fellow(after witnessing his father kill his mum) who lusts after his sister and just might also be a homicidal maniac(spoiler alert!). This is a good example of a 70s regional(FLORIDA) horror film, but it's not exactly a very good movie. It takes a bit long before any of the real horror elements kick in and the main character is a not exactly a likeable fellow to follow. You basically get a twist on PSYCHO but if Norman Bates was retarded and really into incest. They do throw in a pinch of blood and a sprinkling of homoeroticism but the  rather wacky ending, involving some sharks!, is the most memorable thing here. 

Shown down at the drive-in with THE BLOB, which I'm guessing might have been BEWARE! THE BLOB since it also came out in '72 though the 3rd feature is the re-titled 4D-MAN so maybe it was just a couple of 50s movies thrown on.

THE PROTECTOR 2 (2013)

  There's obviously some really amazing stunt work in this performed by great stunt people. Unfortunately that is all undercut by the copious amounts of shitty CGI involved. One scene in particular, involving fighting in a room that's on fire, is so obviously computerized that it is impossible to overlook. 

 If you're a fan of rap group The Wu-Tang Clan though, RZA is the featured bad guy, so I guess that's something. 

The first film had a lot more to do with actually protecting elephants and I have to say I enjoyed that one more. 

AMITYVILLE HORROR: THE EVIL ESCAPES (1989)

  This is part 4 in the AMITYVILLE HORROR series and the only real connection to the other movies is that someone buys a haunted lamp from an ill-advised yard sale at the original house(after a gang of priests attempt to run the naughty spirits off) and sends it over to California to spook all-new folks including Patty Duke(best known to me as the star of her own TV show back in the 60s where she played identical cousins). This was made-for TV deal but there's one bloody scene, where a guy gets his hand chomped off by a garbage disposal, that I can't imagine was ever shown on TV anywhere. There's also a pretty gross death of a plumber due to some sewage overflow that seems questionably acceptable to the viewing masses as well. Besides these 2 standout gross-outs this is all really dumb. What else would you expect from a movie about an evil lamp? AKA AMITYVILL 4: THE EVIL ESCAPES

 The series would not get any better from here and there are quite a few more as I pointed out when I watched part 5. 

                                                   NBC world premiere!:

               

                  Video trailer that pretty much shows the whole movie!:

THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN (1956)

 So this one is just a straight-up western, complete with a good-guy and bad-guy competing for a gal, up until around the last half hour when a neat stop-motion dinosaur shows up to munch on a couple of folks. I read one review where they called this a cheap movie. That seems pretty absurd since it's in color, Cinemascope and I doubt that special FX work of this sort was quick or easy to do back in the 50s. This is obviously a big inspiration for THE VALLEY OF GWANGI so compared to that it might look cheap but that film had the big advantage of Ray Harryhausen FX work and it was made 13 years later. I have to give this one props for the effort even if it is quite inferior.  

There was a Spanish-language version of this shot at the same time.

Played at this California theater with some noir/drama about stolen cars from the same year:

Spanish poster:

French poster(THE MYSTERIOUS MOUNTAIN):

Mexican poster:

THE SCREAM OF DEATH (1959)

  Retitled THE LIVING COFFIN in English, this is one of those Mexican horror flicks that plays out more like a western mixed with a mystery. It takes the Mexican tale of "The Crying Woman"(the more definitive THE CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN was still a few years away from being made at this point) and strips away any of the supernatural elements and instead gives us a comedy-relief sidekick, shootouts quicksand and a barroom brawl. So, yeah, pretty much a western with just a sprinkling of spooky SCOOBY-DOO-ish elements included. There are quite a few Mexican horrors I would recommend before this including THE BRAINIAC and just about anything with luchadores and monsters.