KILL, BABY... KILL! (1966)

Caught this one at a drive-in theater recently as part of a zombie movie marathon. This isn't actually a zombie movie of any sort, the killer is the ghost of a little girl who goes around making people commit suicide by staring at them spookily. The reason it got lumped in with zombie flicks is because of it's alternate American re-release title of  CURSE OF THE LIVING DEAD as part of the ORGY OF THE LIVING DEAD triple feature. The version they showed, strangely enough, didn't have any title on it though so I'm not sure how edited or not it was.
 While this is not my favorite Bava film, even his lesser stuff is done so well filmed that's it's hard to dismiss it completely. Erika Blanc shows up in an unusually not very sexy role. There's a good witch vs. bad witch-sort of ending. Some of the plot points, perhaps due to the editing of the version I viewed, doesn't make a whole lot of sense but then again ghost movies are not usually my thing anyway. If they are more your style this one might be more of a thrill. AKA DON'T WALK IN THE PARK, CURSE OF THE DEAD and OPERATION FEAR




                                                             Italian poster:

Japanese poster:

British poster:

Played with that movie with the invisible dinosaur monster!:

and on the famous ORGY OF THE LIVING DEAD triple feature!:

DEADLY HARVEST (1977)

 This one is an end of the world(thanks to climate change resulting in a global famine) epic that turns into a revenge flick as people form gangs and fight over remaining food sources. The two basic groups that are battling it out are a group of country folks/farmers and some marauding city slickers. A little girl's cow gets snuffed right in front of her and then a bunch of action scenes happen including a tractor vs. car fight. Not the most exciting movie despite it delving into the action genre a bit towards the climax but you do get to see a young(21 years old) Kim Cattrall way before she transformed into the slutty gal on SEX & THE CITY and PORKY'S, so I guess that's something.





I guess in the Spanish version they blame the famine on some nuclear explosion which is never referred to in the film itself!:

 

HOW TO MAKE A DOLL (1968)

 There's some pretty crappy movies made by cult director H.G. Lewis outside of his more well-known gore epics and sexploitation stuff and this is one of those. I guess you could technically label this one a sexploitation flick but there's not any nudity in it and it's really just a pretty tame(and lame) comedy. The plot is basically a proto WEIRD SCIENCE situation where a couple of guys use a computer to make women for themselves. Except that movie had a budget and executed the idea with a lot more talent. There is one character here, our main protagonist's mom(played by Elizabeth Davis from Lewis' superior THE GRUESOME TWOSOME), who sports some groovy late 60s style and has quite the hair-do that I found pretty amusing, besides her though this one is a tough sit. Stick with Lewis' more well-known fare for maximum cheap thrills. AKA HOW TO LOVE A DOLL


Goofy end credits!:

THE CURSE OF DEMON MOUNTAIN (1977)

 I picked this movie up on a 25 cent DVD recently so I wasn't really expecting much. I was happily surprised though that this is an interesting mix of a western and a supernatural ghost(or haint as they call them here) story. The film itself moves a bit slow and I figured out the little twisty ending before it is revealed but I have to give them props for trying something a bit outside the usual. Slim Pickens shows up briefly to set the search for diamonds into motion which sets off the story of 2 Confederate army soldiers(Joe Don Baker & Joy Houck Jr.) who run into some spooky goings on at a mountain. Sondra Locke does a really good job as the only female character that they run into and it all ends on a pretty downbeat note to remind you it's still the 1970s.
 This one has a whole slew of a.k.a.'s including THE SHADOW OF CHIKARA, DIAMOND MOUNTAIN, DEMON MOUNTAIN, THE BALLAD OF VIRGIL CANE, THUNDER MOUNTAIN and WISHBONE CUTTER(which sounds like the name of a some 70s prog-rock band)

 

1911 (2011)

 Probably the most amazing thing to me, after viewing other recent films from Asia, is that this historical epic about the end of the Chinese royal empire, is only a little over an hour and a half. The story here seems so big that I was sure I was in store for another 3 hour plus ass-numb-a-thon, but the gods have smiled on me this time. There's some cool war action scenes and I guess if you're a big history buff this might be more interesting. Not being an expert on the history of China's Imperial rule I wasn't even sure what was so bad about it from this movie except that they had ruled for a really long time. I guess I could just go read a history book but it seems like an important factor that sets things into motion here might have been mentioned. Jackie Chan, as a revolutionary fighter, is the complete opposite of what you might expect from his more common comedic roles and I dig the older more serious Jackie, He does get in one kung fu scene where he shows off some of his more familiar athletic tricks and he is credited as co-director though I'm not sure how much of that he actually did. Overall this might be a good one-time watch for history buffs but action movie fans might be a little overwhelmed and/or put-off by the politics and motivations.




Technically Jackie has been in more than 100 movies but I guess if you don't count a few it makes for a cool tagline!:

DEATH CRUISE (1974)

 This TV-movie starts out like a typical episode of THE LOVE BOAT with guest stars from CHARLIE'S ANGELS (Kate Jackson) and HAPPY DAYS (Tom "Mr. Cunningham" Bosley) making up the cast(unfortunately those shows were either just starting up or not a thing yet so I doubt those names were a big draw at the time). They even used the same boat from that show. Then a group of people start getting bumped off, mostly offscreen of course. Then, not very surprisingly, the last person left from this group turns out to be the killer with a little bit of a twist added. Not the most well-done mystery I've ever seen but if you're a fan of either crappy 70s TV-movies or wanna see THE LOVE BOAT done with some murder tossed in give it a look.

NIGHT OF THE SKULL (1974)

 I'd first had this movie described to me as director Jess Franco's version of one of those BLIND DEAD movies. This is not very accurate at all. This isn't any sort of zombie movie but is basically a murder mystery/giallo-type of situation with a killer who wears a hood and skull mask vaguely similar to the undead Templar killers in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD. With that initial disappointment out of the way though this one is a pretty decent tale of revenge for inheritance and throws some decent twists into the proceedings. It's not very gory or sexy, which is unusual for Mr. Franco. Lina Romay gets abused and whipped by her family but unless there's some alternate version of this out there even she doesn't bare much skin.  Probably best for Franco and/or giallo completists only. AKA NIGHT OF THE ASSASSINS

The thrilling conclusion!(though it makes no sense if you haven't seen the rest of the movie, or speak Spanish!):

This Spanish-language VHS makes it look like some kinda gangster film, which it isn't!:

TARANTULAS: THE DEADLY CARGO (1977)

 This one is kind of a crappier, tv-movie version of KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS which came out this same year. It must have been a popular year for little creepy-crawly monsters. Tom Atkins and Dr. Johnny Fever(Howard Hesseman) from WKRP IN CINCINNATI show up to set things in motion. Then Sheriff Lobo(Claude Akins) from B.J. AND THE BEAR takes over as the bossy fireman who comes up with an absurd plan to rid his town of these venomous spiders, whose numbers seem to range from 4 to about 2 dozen from shot to shot. Played mostly as a drama it never gets all that scary or intense unless you have a really strong fear of spiders I guess.

                              A whole cavalcade of killer critters!:




                                                      Wednesday night on CBS!:

Released to theaters in Mexico with a way gorier poster than the movie itself!:

THE GUILLOTINES (2012)

 Overly long, at almost 2 hours, and terribly non-engaging  martial arts tale about two opposing Chinese groups(The Manchu and The Han). I was hoping this would have something to do with the great MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE(apparently that was the original plan that was eventually discarded) or at least one of the other flying guillotine movies from the 70s but I was sadly let down. The flying guillotines used here seem almost futuristically sci-fi in stark contrast to what is basically a historical piece. They also are only really used during the opening sequence and then take a backseat to all kinds of drama that I found hard to care much about. It's all really nicely filmed but a little too polished and cgi-reliant for my personal taste. Stick with any of the originals over this.

BUTCHER, BAKER, NIGHTMARE MAKER (1981)

 This is one of the weirder examples of an 80s slasher films out there. Thanks to lead actress Susan Tyrrells bizarre over-the-top acting choices and strange clown-like facial gymnastics it's definitely hard to forget.  It actually starts out with a very made-for-T.V.(thanks to director William Asher who did a ton of television work outside of this) dramatic feel to it with a young boy being raised by his kooky aunt(Tyrrell) and dealing with bullies and whatnot. Things slowly ratchet up throughout the film though until the climax where it's almost a FRIDAY THE 13th situation with the whole "unstoppable killer who won't stay dead"-motif in full effect. Bo Svenson is great as the ultra-homophobic detective that is in charge of investigating the first murder in the film. Jimmy McNichol, as the poor young man caught up in this nightmarish scenario, was a teen hunk of the 70s(who also did mostly T.V. acting gigs). I can't imagine this weird slice of slasher cinema did much to help his career but it's certainly what I'll mostly appreciate him for. As far as Susan Tyrrell goes she might be either be the greatest actress that ever lived  for creating such a hateable character or possibly one of the most unlikeable humans to ever appear in film. I guess it works equally well either way in this case. AKA NIGHT WARNING, NIGHTMARE MAKER and THRILLED TO DEATH

   






                                       I guess this video company didn't care for rhymes!: