Horror Of The Blood Monsters is a 1970 Al Adamson horror picture about an intergalactic vampire plague that's threatening the Earth. Astronauts rocket to another planet looking for a cure.
I was interested because it had John Carradine in it. He's in charge of the rocket full of astronauts but he's sick when they arrive and he never leaves the ship. I got a copy of the DVD at Hamilton Book for 6 bucks. I take a chance on several titles from their monthly new arrivals. Six smackaroonies is at the high end of what I buy there, kind of pricey because I'm cheap, but it's about the same or higher on Amazon for the same DVD. I know not to expect much, it's Al Adamson after all, and I wasn't disappointed.
The astronauts get to the new world and they find some cavemen fighting. The footage of the caveman is from a 1965 Filipino horror movie called Tagani. The IMDb says that Al really liked the movie and bought the rights. He then cut it into his movie. A lot of people used to do that, reinforcing my view that many producers are shit bags.
To get around the Filipino film being in black and white they tinted all the footage on the strange planet various monotone colors. The monotone images here are screencaps from the movie. The IMDb says footage was borrowed from One Million BC and Unknown Island. There's scenes of the astronauts watching dinosaurs (barely made up lizards) fighting.
The astronauts save a pretty local gal and it's lucky for the Earth astronauts that she speaks English. It's also lucky that the very vampire men that have been attacking Earth men are also on the new planet. That whole vampire cure plot line takes a backseat after they get to the planet.
There's plenty of running about and fighting, some poor science and a couple of sex scenes for little reason I understood. It's pretty below average but I'll keep the copy because of John Carradine. I might want to watch him once more. I'm struggling to give the movie a three. It might be slightly better than a two, that's Uwe Boll territory.
I hadn't seen The Great Texas Dynamite Chase since the 80s. It's a 1976 Roger Corman production, the story is by Mark Bruce Rosin, the screenplay is by Peter Macgregor-Scott, the director is Michael Pressman. Mark would write the movie Chatterbox the following year and 40 years later he'd pen his 3rd movie. Peter was the film's associate producer, it's his only screenwriting credit. He'd go onto be the associate producer on The Jerk and producer on The Fugitive, Death To Smoochy, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. This was Michael's first director job, his next job was The Bad News Bear in Breaking Training and a few years later Doctor Detroit. In the mid 80s he switched to directing and producing TV movies and TV shows.
Claudia Jennings is an escaped prisoner, she robs a bank to help the family farm. Claudia joins up with Jocelyn Jones and they rob some more banks. The ladies kidnap Johnny Crawford and he joins in on the fun. That's what the movie is, just some dumb fun, with plenty of hold ups and car chases. Some stuff blows up and there's a bit of nudity. I'd watch it again someday.
Comments