PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

4 Cult Movie Marathon Volume One

Just a day or two after seeing one of the movies in this 4 film set I found 4 Cult Movie Marathon Volume One and picked it up. I'd seen some of the films before, Vicious Lips just a few weeks ago. The 2 disc 4 film set is from Shout Factory and the movies are widescreen.

I'd seen Invasion Of The Bee Girls back in 2006 as part of one of those 50 movie box sets. The Shout Factory DVD also has two movies to a disc but they are widescreen. Sadly IOTBG is a bit fuzzy. I'm not really expecting much better from a multi pack. Who would spend the money on restoring these films when the profit margin is so slim. The set is only a ten spot on Amazon. That's not much wiggle room for production values. There are no extras either.

Here's the post I did in 2006. Pretty much the same feeling about the movie.

Invasion Of The Bee Girls is a 1973 sexploitation film written by Nicolas Meyer. It's also known as Graveyard Tramps. That's three years before he wrote The Seven-Percent Solution. You could say what a difference three years makes in a writer but some of TSPS is very slow moving and dialog heavy and so is IOTBG. At least I was expecting it in TSPS. On, what you think would be, the plus side there is more nudity in Bee Girls. But sadly, some of those breasts weren't very good. It happens, don't let the hype fool ya', they ain't all pretty in Hollywood. There isn't much else going for this movie from the Drive-In Classics 50 Movie Pack. Surprisingly, it's one that might have actually played in a drive in. Some mad scientist, a lady this time, turns women into deadly Bee Girls who mate and kill. I wonder if the writers thought this up in a bar while they were drunk. Makes ya' think.

Back in 2006 I gave the movie a 5, that's a bit generous, it's probably more a 4. I might get around to watching it again but who knows. Of the cast, I pretty much only knew William Smith and Anita Ford. It's directed by Denis Sanders, I can't say I've seen any of his few movies but I probably have seen some of his TV work. He directed an episode of Mannix and one for Route 66. I'd like to see both of those series again but who's got the time.

The Devil's 8 came out in 1969 and it stars Ross Hagen as an escaped con involved with moonshiners. Larry Gordon wrote the story, he'd go on to create The New People. I watched that 1969 TV show and wasn't too overly excited by it. I haven't wanted to get to know it again.  Willard Huyck wrote the screenplay, it was his first, he'd go on to write American Graffiti, More American Graffiti, Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom, Radioland Murders and Howard The Duck. It was directed by Burt Topper and I can't say I knew any of Burt's 7 other movies.

Christopher George is a Federal Agent, he helps some convicts escape a road gang and then puts them to work fighting moonshiners. Ross Hagen, Fabian, Tom Nardini, Leslie Parrish, Ralph Meeker, Larry Bishop, Ron Rifkin and Cliff Osmond are the cast members I knew. There's plenty of action, not the best stuff, but watchable. There's a bit of drama and some humor. Most of it's votes are a 5, I thought about giving it a 6, settled for the 5 anyway.

Unholy Rollers is a 1972 film set in the world of roller derby. Director Vernon Zimmerman co-wrote the story with Howard R Cohen and Howard would write the screenplay. Howard wrote 19 movies and lot of episodes of The Care Bears Family and Rainbow Brite. Guy's gotta eat. I've seen a few of his movies, they aren't none to good. The only other movie of Vernon's I've seen is Fade To Black and I think it's a bit better than this movie.

Claudia Jennings works at a cat food factory, she has a grabby supervisor, she quits and decides to tryout for roller derby. She gets in and doesn't make too many friends in the club.

There's plenty of roller derby action as Claudia punches her way to the top. It's on the old school banked track. There's plenty of dirty action on the track and steamy action off. Claudia and her roommate are always running around with their tops off. It does help distract from Claudia's fall from grace for being a prize bitch.

She makes all the foolish moves, her trip down is hard and fast. Oh, well, live and learn. Not a bitch like Claudia. Don't see that happen. Hell, even her own team beats her up. I only gave it a 5 on the IMDb, I thought it had a poor ending. One leaving Claudia in limbo, I thought she could use some more punishment for being such a bitch.

 

Vicious Lips I just saw a few weeks ago. No need to mention it again.

All in all an average lot of genre fare. Worth a look but mostly for the fan. You could do a lot worse, I know I have.

Beast Collection

Here's another multi movie pack with 11 titles, all movies with a beast theme, title appropriately Beast Collection. I picked up the Retromedia 4 disc set from Hamilton Books for 4 bucks. I've been dipping into their huge pile of DVDs and Blu-rays for a while. It pays to check back periodically, they get new stuff and lower the price of the old stuff. From what I can see, Retromedia put these same sets out before packaging them into a Box Set.

Bigfoot Terror collects 4 Sasquatch films together on one two sided disc. I find a mention of a 2003 release date on a comment about the second movie. It might be right. Someone on Amazon has listed a copy of that earlier DVD for $124.02. What's with the .02?

The Capture Of Bigfoot 1978 A Bill Rebane movie that features a lot of walking in snow. Bill is a low budget film maker who worked out of Wisconsin for a number of years. He turned out one boring film after another. I've seen 2-3 of them. I try to forget seeing them. I'll try to forget this. Really, nothing much happens. Even Troma legend Lloyd Kaufman said this was one of the 5 worst films Troma has ever distributed. He lists another Rebane film, Croaked: Frog Monster From Hell, as another. It scores a 2.6 on the IMDb. Seems high.

Shriek Of The Mutilated 1974 Some college students on an expedition into the woods. It's a typical pick 'em off one at a time type of thing. It was directed by Michael Findlay and photographed by Roberta Findlay. She was married to him until his death three years later. He was killed in a helicopter crash on top of the PanAm building in 1977. It's a step up from the first movie, there's cannibalism at least, but it's still not that good. It gets a 3.2 on the IMDb.

The Legend Of Bigfoot 1975 A documentary style film of a man's search for Bigfoot. He finds a guy in a Bigfoot suit. It's all pretty sad and kind of boring.

Search For The Beast 1997 I thought the most interesting part of the movie was old time exploitation film guy David F Friedman playing the baddie. Sadly, he's not really any better an actor than the rest of the cast. David sends a guy to look for the Bigfoot, he wants to kill it because it killed his son before the movie started. He sends some henchmen to make sure the job gets done. Nice for the Bigfoot, he has lots of people to kill. There's plenty of walking about the woods and some sex and nudity. There's even some Bigfoot action. Amusing but still not that good. None of these are going to lend themselves to watching over again.

Sasquatch Horror is the second collection in the box. It's got even crazier prices on Amazon. There's on for $28.92 and other for $367.89. The tax on the second one is higher than the first one. They have the gall to charge postage on the expensive one.

Sasquatch The Legend Of Bigfoot 1977 The Cascades are standing in for British Columbia in this search for Bigfoot. It's a mix of documentary and fiction. As we follow some guys in the wilderness we learn about the Bigfoot legend. It takes them months in the movie to get to Bigfoot territory and it seemed like the movie was being filmed in real time. When they get there they see a guy in a suit that looks so sad I imagined them crying on set when it was unveiled. Either that, or they just didn't give a shit. Me either, bosh, you're a 1. Boring is the worst thing a movie can be.

Snowbeast 1977 A TV movie with Bo Svenson, Yvette Mimiex, Sylvia Sidney, Clint Walker, Robert Logan and that Yeti guy. Other than that it's Jaws up a mountain. It's watchable, 70s TV genre movies often were, and I had seen it before. I just don't know how often I'll get back to it and I have two copies. Probably never at this point. It scores 4.8 and I gave it a 5, a bit generous but I like Clint and Bo in this.

The Snow Creature 1954 Here's another one that I had seen already. It's said to be the first Yeti movie made. Some guys hire local guides to take them up a mountain in the Himalayas so they can find the Yeti. They find a male and bring it back to Los Angeles where it gets away. Pretty standard stuff that's well below average. I gave it a 3 but the IMDb says it's 3.2. Picky, IMDb, very picky.

The Giant Majin Collection is the third set in the box. It's got a double sided disc with the American International versions of the first two Japanese Daimajin movies. The movies are pan and scan, edited and English dubbed. A lot of people saw them on TV in that format. There was a nice DVD of the whole  Daimajin trilogy out several years ago but it's gotten pricey. That set has the 3 movies in Japanese with English subtitles, widescreen and complete. Lucky for me I bought one a while back, I'll watch that.

Like the first two sets in the Retromedia Box The Giant Majin Collection has  some wacky prices on Amazon. A used disc for $132.62 and new ones at $16, $149.99 and $328.98. I always guess that the higher priced items are money laundering but I have no proof.

The last set in the box is the Astounding Sci-Fi Double Feature with 2 Larry Buchanan TV movies that were made in Texas in the 1960s.  Zontar: Thing From Venus was made in 1966 and The Eye Creatures was made in 1965. Neither is very good, I'd seen them before. I won't watch them anymore.

Friday Night Movies 703

Malatesta's Carnival Of Blood is a 1973 horror movie that briefly played the drive in circuit in the south when it was new. It first made it to DVD in 2003, what went out of print, and now it's available again. The story is by Werner Liepolt and the director is Christopher Speeth. It's the only film Christopher made, he died last year at age 78.

The movie is set in a crappy carnival theme park, the now gone Six Gun Territory in Willow Grove Pennsylvania. The seedy place is owned by Malatesta and run by his right hand man, Mister Blood. Mister B is secretly a vampire and Malatesta keeps cannibals in a pit. They eat the customers and staff. Some of the new staff members are there looking for their son who also disappeared from the park. They decide to fight back when the cannibals come creeping up on their trailer. Sadly, they aren't up to defending themselves and it's chompy chompy for them.

I read that Christopher Speeth was an actor who appeared in local theater and TV. His first job directing is pretty uneven, he might have developed into a better film maker but it never happened. He was also saddled with a weak script. Werner's script is not very fleshy and the dialog isn't that great. I won't be buying me a copy.

I hadn't remembered that I had seen The Ghost when I brought the Cult Action DVDr home from a recent trip to Half Price Books. It's a 1963 Italian horror film. I looked it up on my Watched Movie List, turns out I had seen it back in 2007, in one of those 50 Movie Packs I like so much. I looked at the DVD today and it's an English dubbed and pan & scan. The DVDr I bought the other day is widescreen and in Italian with English subtitles. Tucked into the front of the DVD box is a paper sleeve with another DVDr. The second disc is an English dubbed pan & scan version that looks like it might be the same print as the movie in the 50 Movie Pack. None of these versions look that good but the widescreen version is pretty piss poor. Still watchable but annoying.

The company that put the DVDr out is Cult Action and they've got a sale going on at their website, 6 for $60. Here's how they describe themselves.

Welcome, collectors! Thank you for visiting our website.

Cult Action is a film archival and transfer service specializing in rare, hard-to-find & out-of-print films from all over the globe. Whether it's action, adventure, horror, war, mondo, sleaze, exploitation, sci-fi, or just plain hard-to-find films, we're sure that we have have just what you're looking for.

Founded by true fans of these obscure genre films., Cult Action releases feature the best, most complete & uncut prints available. And catering to the serious collector, we obtain rare artwork and promotional material for our deluxe box art. The quality of our expert transfers and professionally designed box art is simply unmatched. 

Our customers enjoy fast professional service, a great selection and the best value ANYWHERE!

We currently have hundreds of genre titles listed in the archive and more coming in all the time, so be sure to bookmark this site and keep a lookout for exciting new releases!

Regards, The Cult Action Team

Sounds like a bootleg house to me. Still, you never know what you might find in a place like that. I haven't looked through their list to see if there are even 6 movies I might want. They'd have to have something special, the chance I'd pay 10 smackaroonies for a movie like The Ghost are slim.

Here's my old post from 2007.

The Ghost is the first up on Side B. It's a slow movin' ghostly revenge movie. Barbara Steele plays the leading lady, who with her lover, a doctor, kills her husband, also a doctor. That takes a half hour, or a third of the movie. The evil pair spend the next 15 minutes looking for the dead husband's safe key. It's hidden somewhere, maybe in the house, maybe in the grounds, maybe in the coat the dead man was buried in. After searching the decaying dead man they find the key, but there's no money in the safe. Things take a turn for the melodramatic briefly, then the spookin' starts. I never found Steele, who seems very popular among the horror fans, to be that great an actress nor that stunning a beauty. I never went nuts over Sophia Loren either, just a type thing, I guess. Steele does have some eyes. They creep me out. Things go to hell for the evil couple and then there's some retribution and an ironic ending. Nice. Not a great movie but better than the average in this box.

I didn't rate it at the IMDb in 2007, so I did today, I only gave it a 5. Almost 25% of the votes were a 6 but I don't think it's quite that good. Just average. I might never watch it again and it wouldn't matter.

4 Cult Movie Marathon Volume 2

4 Cult Movie Marathon Volume 2 is a Shout Factory produced dog's breakfast of films. A cycle movie, a sex comedy and a couple of women in prison films. I guess slapping Cult on a set is all you need to do when you find you're running out of the ability to create themed sets.

Angels From Hell is a 1968 biker movie written by Jerry Wish and directed by Bruce Kessler. An ex-Vietnam vet returns home to find his old gang holed up in Bakersfield with a new leader. He beats the guy down and then goes up against the police force. It all ends badly for the bikers, they are a stupid lot, but who cares, they deserve punishment for their stupidity. It's all similar to other biker movies you've seen. The script has poor dialog at times. I gave it a 5 but it's barely worth it. The opening credits are by Von Dutch but it sure isn't his best work.

Chatterbox is a 1977 film about a gal who wakes up with a talking vagina. She turns it into a stage act and has some relationship problems. It's kind of funny and Candice Rialson gets naked a lot.

The Naked Cage is a 1986 movie about a young woman who gets involved with a robbery and winds up serving 3 years in prison. Then it's girl fights all the time. Nothing new here, really.

Savage Island is a 1985 movie that has Linda Blair show up at an old man's place and tell him a story. The movie shows you the story but Linda isn't in that part of the movie. She ends the story and blasts the old man. The old man is Leon Askin who played General Burkhalter on Hogan's Heroes. Here's an entry from the IMDb that explains what happened.

This "new movie" was cobbled together from scenes of both Hotel Paradise (1980) and Escape From Hell (1980) with 10 minutes of new additional footage featuring Linda Blair. The result was an incoherent movie featuring some of the same actors who appeared in both earlier movies disappearing and reappearing as different characters at different points in the story.

It's all the fault of Ted Nicolaou who is a pretty poor film maker on average. He directed 4 Subspecies films. It's pretty much the poorest movie of the lot. Not a real recommendation unless you've seen most everything already.

Violent Midnight 1963

Violent Midnight is a 1963 horror movie. It's got a screenplay by Robin Miller, who adapted an original story idea by director Richard Hillard. Mann Rubin added some dialog and Margot Hartman and Del Tenney are listed on the IMDb as uncredited. Del has a small part in the film and he's also the producer. Dell directed 4 movies, the first was The Horror Of Party Beach. Everyone remembers that for the monster with what appeared to be hot dogs in his mouth.

Violent Midnight was also called Psychomania and Black Autumn. Anything to trick the public into seeing the movie again. There's a killer on the loose and Lee Philips is the main suspect. He's a war hero with a bit of a history of mental illness. He knew both women who were killed. To clear himself he goes after the real killer. Pretty average stuff here, nothing stands out. There's a smattering of skin but no real nude scenes. The script is about average and the actors are up to the job. Keep an eye out for James Farentino as one of the suspects. It's also the film debut of Dick Van Patten. Sylvia Miles, Shepperd Strudwick and Jean Hale are also in the cast. Again, not much more than average but still enjoyable enough to finish. I found a copy for 2 bucks and I'll keep it. I might want to watch it again someday.

Mondo Balordo 1964

Mondo Balordo is a 1964 documentary that's narrated by Boris Karloff. Boris reads the script by Francesco Torti and Guido Castaldo. Roberto Bianchi Montero and Albert T. Viola are the directors.

Here's the shocking contents ripped from pages of the IMDb:

Shocking images from around the world. The sketches are: Strange characters' gallery, a dwarf singer, bodybuilders, English women in a gymnasium, desert Bedouins, election of a Miss Pullover, Hong Kong nightclub, Japanese photo-models for rent and photo magazines, elephant hunting, an exorcism in India, compulsive smokers, a coca plantation, Chinese houses, the rain miracle, Jehovah Witnesses, the Berlin Wall, the Napoles Wall, smugglers, compulsive lottery players, an eye deficiency, the last of the Valentino clones, southerners' needs, via Margutta in Rome, luxury pet dogs, similarities between animals, Arab hair-stylists, American natives, a marriage of American natives, Macumba session and choir, Romeo and Juliet in Borneo, Jamaican home, a marriage of convenience, Chinese district, German beer-house, mad people, the Marlene cult, Berlin nightclub, Luna Park attractions, a camping for foreign ladies, London by night, clandestine affairs in Rimini, a fake woman tourist, Sicilian ...

It sounds better than it is, often it's kind of dull, and the script that Boris reads is often terrible or unintentionally funny.

Science Fiction Sunday 445

Space Thing is David F Friedman's 1968 science fiction sexploitation flick. David was an exploitation film maker who got his start in the 1940s. He'd meet exploitation showman Kroger Babb while in the Army.  After his service he started in marketing and moved into independent distributing because he thought there was more money to be made. He started his own production company in the 1950s. He made nudie cuties with scenes shot in nudist camps and then he started to make genre pictures with plenty of nudity and violence. He worked with Herschell Gordon Lewis for a while. The movie is written by Cosmo Politan and directed by Byron Mabe. The writer has no other credits and an obvious fake name. Byron on the other hand has a roster of credits as an actor, producer, and director (under the name B Ron Elliot). He acted until 1989, his last role was in an episode of Superboy. He died in 2001 at the age of 69. David died in 2011 at the age of 87.

Space Thing starts with a guy and his wife on Earth. He's reading an SF magazine and she's all horny. She practically has to rape him to get some. That's the sad stereotype of the SF nerd of the time. After their undercover tussle the guy picks up his SF magazine again. He drifts off into the world of space ships and aliens.

On board the space ship our guy is an alien going undercover. He tries to fit in the ship full of Terrans. He gets introduced to sex. That's what takes up most of the time in the movie. People rolling about with hardly anything on. Sadly, it's kind of unexciting for the most part. The ship lands on a planet and there's out door sex for a change.

It's not a good film but one more interesting for what it is than what's on the screen. The exploitation, and sexploitation, film industry is fascinating in itself, it's often better not to see some of the films because of the sad quality. This movie is about average. It's certainly not better than the 5 I gave it at the IMDb but it is slightly better than a 4. Don't watch if you don't care for the nudity.

The Humanoid is a 1979 low budget Italian film.It's pretty much a Star Wars IV - A New Hope ripoff. It's hardly in that league even with a $7,000,000 budget. Two years earlier George Lucas has a budget of $11,000,000 and he's has 3 or 4 times the quality and production value on the screen. Not to mention a much better script and actors. The Humanoid was directed by Aldo Lado who also co-wrote the script with Adriano Bolzoni. Aldo called himself George B Lewis in the credits. Some say that sounds like George Lucas. The music is by Ennio Morricone.

The Humanoid stars Barbara Bach, Arthur Kennedy and Richard Kiel. In another time and place Lord Graal, the evil brother of the Great Brother, ruler of Metropolis (originally Earth), has escaped from prison and he seeks vengeance. LG won't settle for anything other than his brother's death. Richard is a space ship pilot who gets experimented on by the villain. He's turned into a violent unkillable killing machine by having a chip put into his head.

A good guy removes Richard's control chip and enlists him to fight the man who made him a monster. The movie is filled with chases and space battles but it's not that good in the end. Barbara is Lady Agatha, Noxon's tyrannical queen. She's allowed Lord Graal to operate there because she has a desire to marry him and rule the galaxy by his side. She keeps herself young and beautiful by killing young women for something in their bodies. With this kind of lifestyle, in this kind of movie, you can easily imagine it won't end well for either of the villains.

Not really worth a look in the long run, it would be better to watch Star Wars IV - A New Hope again. Like Space Thing this movie turns out to be more interesting for being a STIV-ANH ripoff than an actual movie.

The Naughty Shutter 1963

The Naughty Shutter is the third film on the Something Weird DVD. Like the other two, The Girl From S.I.N. and Henry's Night In the movie uses the gimmick of invisibility, sort of. There's a magical camera that takes pictures of people that show them with their clothes off. It's pretty dumb but there's more naked gals parading around for little or no reason. One thing most of these movies have in common, other than the boobies, is the stories are barely thought out. There's not much thought on the set either. While I complain about the lack of quality in the film I think it's great that Something Weird Video takes the effort to find and release this old films. They're the Janus/Criterion for sleaze. That's a good thing.

Henry's Night In 1969

Henry's Night In is another film on the same DVD as The Girl From S.I.N. and like that movie the gimmick is invisibility. A guy has a poor marriage, his wife isn't too happy with him, she's thinking of leaving him. He finds an old diary which has a formula to turn invisible. He starts humping some of the neighbor ladies, in the dark while pretending to be their men. It's pretty much a comedy, one where the jokes are only fairly good, but they make up for it with a lot of nude women. At least it has a bit more story than most of these films. You might get a laugh out of it. I got a couple.

The Girl From S.I.N. 1966

The Girl From S.I.N. is a 1966 exploitation spy spoof. It's pretty poor. There's a rudimentary story with a lot of nudity. The gimmick in the film is invisibility. A scientist creates a pill that makes you temporarily invisible. There's a baddie who wants the formula but his henchmen are pretty poor and they all fail. There's not much going for it. I was glad to have gotten it from Netflix and I kind of fast forwarded through some of the dull scenes.