THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS (1954)

 I watched this one right after SPOOK CHASERS which I thought was the worst Bowery Boys movie I'd ever seen and I believe this might be the best one the Boys did. It was obviously inspired by ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN and apparently was also the highest-grossing film in their long-running series. Since this is clearly a very low-budget deal, as were all of the Boys adventures, you're not getting very top-shelf monsters. There's a couple of mad scientists, a vampire lady, a man-eating plant(owned by Grandma Walton(Ellen Corby) from THE WALTONS TV program) and a killer gorilla and robot thrown in for good measure. The kooky family that lives in our monster house is kind of Addams Family-ish with their large Lurch-like butler and creepy mansion home. There's also a couple of brief scenes where someone is turned into a hairy Mr. Hyde-like monster. While obviously not on the level of Abbott & Costello this is still good for a goofy late-night watch. 

SPOOK CHASERS (1957)

    This might be the worst Bowery Boys movie that I've seen. It was one of the last films for the Boys, there were only 3 more to go and I haven't seen any of them yet and I'm not sure if I really want to! By this point in the series(the 44th film?) Leo Gorcey, the main character in all these films!, had quit leaving Huntz Hall to be the star and if there's anything more annoying than a solo Hall I've yet to see it. It's like watching Costello without Abbott except not even that good! If that's not bad enough Leo's dad Bernard Gorcey(who played store owner Louie) had passed away so they replaced him with Percy Helton who also seems like a big step down in charisma. The story itself must have been done a hundred times by this point in time by everyone from The Three Stooges to Abbott & Costello about an old spooky house and some gangsters trying to spook our protagonists. Not exactly a laugh riot. 

THE SCREAMING SKULL (1958)

  This movie starts out with a warning and a promise to a free burial if you happen to drop dead while watching! From there we get an exploitation movie homage to Alfred Hitchcock's REBECCA involving a woman(Peggy Webber, who mostly acted on TV shows) marrying a fellow(John Hudson, also predominately a TV guy) whose wife still haunts him as a skull that screams like a peacock, or does she? The mystery elements probably worked a lot better before there were a million movies with similar plots made through the years. Goofy throwback to a simpler era of exploitation thrills that I actually got to see play in a theater once many years ago. Sadly it was a shitty blurry DVD that the theater projected which didn't help my assessment of this film's qualities. This is a public domain feature so it's probably been presented by every dumb horror host ever and is able to be viewed in way better definition these days.    

FOES (1977)

 Super leisurely-paced low-budget version of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND except this came out, in a very limited release, the same year as CEOT3K so it's clearly not a rip-off but more of a mining-the-same-70s-UFO-hysteria-that-Spielberg's-film-does situation. I've seen plenty of worse sci-fi/alien-invasion movies but this one would probably be a tough endurance test for general audiences who haven't scraped the bottom-of-the-barrel like myself. 

 I caught this in a rare theatrical-showing showing last night and can't say it got much of a positive reaction from what I could tell. There is a shorter director's cut available on Blu-ray that might be the better choice if you're curious enough to give this one a try. 

WOMAN CHASING THE BUTTERFLY OF DEATH (1978)

  This here is one of the weirdest things I've seen in a while. It starts off with a gal trying to trick our main protagonist into committing a double suicide. From there we get a guy who apparently can't be killed spouting off some philosophical nonsense about how important a person's will is like some kinda Korean version of Coffin Joe. He then ends up as a skeleton still philosophizing until he finally turns into dust and blows away. Then some chick from 2000 years ago shows up looking for a human liver to eat until things finally start to settle down and it becomes a bit of a dull drama for a while. This section involves some goth lady, who wants nothing more than to kill herself, and her weirdo dad who collects skulls(is he an archaeologist or a mad scientist?) that are obtained by a couple of decapitating nuts including one who dresses like a superhero(Butterfly Man?). There is a butterfly necklace involved in all of this but I'm not sure one viewing is enough to decipher what any of this is supposed to mean. At almost 2 hours some editing could have been done to speed things up in the middle parts but overall a standout as far as weirdo cinema goes. AKA KILLER BUTTERFLY and LIVING DEAD GIRL

I'm not sure if this is an actual trailer but if it is it seems like the exact inverse of most trailers which feature the most action-packed scenes possible since it seems to feature the dullest!:

HALLOWEEN ENDS (2022)

 Well at least I spared myself the middle chapter of this newest trilogy of pointless killer on a dumb rampage movies. At least they tried something different with this supposedly last part unfortunately what they tried was really stupid. I don't recall ever watching the original HALLOWEEN and thinking to myself that the movie would be improved if only Michael Meyers got himself a partner but I guess someone actually thought that because here we are. I will say that the opening of the film gave me a slight hope that this could be interesting but then it inevitably falls into predictable territory right down to the big wrestling match finale with Jamie Lee Curtis. I guess only watch this if you're some kinda weirdo completist. 

PREY (1977)

  Not to be confused with that new feminist PC PREDATOR nonsense this is a 70s British sci-fi/horror joint. More commonly known as ALIEN PREY when it was released on VHS to help confuse it with that other old school movie about a gal and an alien. In this case though we get two gals and not just any gals but lesbians, which gives us a great excuse for some homosexual female on female hijinks(sexual and violent) to ensue in between scenes of a malevolent visitor from the stars (who just looks like a guy with a dog nose, some fancy contact lenses and fangs thrown in his mouth) chomping on various wildlife, police and other locals denizens. This is a very weird movie because it shoehorns a fish out of water story(our alien trying to fit in with his lesbo hosts) into a flesh-chomping monster on the loose tale. It does get bogged down a bit in the drama bits but it was odd enough to keep me interested. Also you get an alien wearing drag so that's something!

 Director Norman J. Warren would go on to make another sorta-ALIEN-rip-off called INSEMINOID a few years later but I found this one way more interesting. 

This old VHS cover always made me think this was a way gorier movie than it actually is!:

Known in Germany as THE DESTRUCTER:

Known in Italy as TERROR IN AMITYVILLE PARK: 

TOURIST TRAP (1979)

  I'd first seen this on a TV showing when I was pretty young so it must have been only a few years after it first came out. I found it to be pretty disturbing back then. The scene I was bothered by the most was where our killer(the great Chuck Connors) slowly covers his victims face with plaster while describing how she is going to die to her.  Watching it more recently I feel like it hasn't lost much of it's punch despite there not being a whole lot of blood or gore shown. It definitely has a TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE-feel to it and since that's one of my all-time favs this is also ranked highly. The inclusion of our killer possessing telekinetic powers also adds to the bizarreness factor and despite there being no nudity Tanya Roberts adds to the overall sexiness quotient. Probably one of the best PG-rated horror films of all time!

                                                      An excellent night at the drive-in!:

Known in Italy as HORROR PUPPET:

and just PUPPET:

THE DARK (1979)

  Easily forgettable title and an equally fairly forgettable film that deals with a monster from outer space, nicknamed "The Mangler" ripping people's heads off and shooting killer laser beams out of it's eyeballs. You would think that maybe with some better FX this would have made more of a splash but apparently this movie was originally supposed to be a pretty standard slasher-type deal with an actual human killer but then a little movie named ALIEN came out which caused producers to switch gears and do a bunch of re-shoots to scenes which I'm guessing didn't help the outcome of the final product. You get some decent acting by Cathy Lee Crosby, William Devane and even American Top 40 radio program host Casey Kasem but it doesn't help enough to give this one a higher ranking.   

 Director John 'Bud' Cardos(who replaced Tobe Hooper after he split) would go on to make that  zombie/monster movie MUTANT a few years later which has similar generic elements but I think was an overall improvement.  AKA THE MUTILATOR

THE FREAKMAKER (1974)

  If you take the classic 1930s movie FREAKS and add in a FRANKENSTEIN-ish mad-doctor(Donald Pleasence who instead of trying to reanimate the dead is trying here to splice human and plant DNA for some reason which just results in Venus flytrap monsters)  you would get this weird 70s British horror flick. 70s DR. WHO himself, Tom Baker under some heavy ugly facial makeup, is the leader of the carnival freaks which include a few midgets, that black "Popeye" fellow who can make his eyes bulge out of his head and of course Dr. Pleasence's rejected experiments.   A strange grimy little English oddity that doesn't get much attention but is worth a gander. AKA THE MUTATIONS

 

2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK (1983)

  I had first seen this way back in the VHS days and it kinda just blended together with all the other Italian post-apocalypse movies of that time. My favorite is probably 1990 BRONX WARRIORS  but this one is not terrible and hits a lot of the same beats as that one. You get flame-throwing government troops, the wastelands of New York City complete with rats and mutants running amuck and a borrowing of the plot to ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK as your framing device. You also get George Eastman back, this time as Big Ape, the hairy leader of a gang of mutants who are also extra hairy and seem to have been genetically-spliced with actual apes for some reason which is never made very clear. Michael Sopkiw takes over the Snake Plissken/Mad Max role and he certainly seems tougher than Mark Gregory. They also throw in androids, a midget gang and lots of ridiculous violence to make this an excellent midnight exploitation movie watch. 

  

                                                                    Italian poster!:

French poster!:

Known in Germany as FIREFLASH: THE DAY AFTER THE END:

THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1970)

  While this is not my favorite of director Dario Argento's giallo films(DEEP RED holds that position) it is the one that kicks off his run of super stylish mystery-killer flicks and made him a director to watch from then on in the process. So it deserves credit just for historical purposes if nothing else.  Argento was called "The Italian Hitchcock" after this for obvious reasons but his films would get quite a bit more graphic and colorful than anything ol' Hitch ever put on film as time went on. This one was somehow originally only rated GP when released in American but it's still an important starting point and essential viewing for Eurotrash connoisseurs.  AKA POINT OF TERROR and THE PHANTOM OF TERROR

Japanese poster: