Gonks Go Beat 1965 From an original story by Robert Hartford-Davis and Peter Newbrook, screenplay by Jimmy Watson, directed by Robert Hartford-Davis. I'd seen a couple of Robert's other directing jobs, The Black Torment and The Sandwich Man. They were better than this film. A few of his other titles might have some merit. I downloaded a few from YouTube, someday i might have time to watch them. The DVD is part of The British Film series from Network. Gonks were a faddish toy from the era. Lulu sings the theme song Chocolate Ice.
The story is set some years in the future and the people of Earth are split into two groups. The folks of Beatland are hipsters who listen to an early form of rock n roll. The folks of Ballad Isle are pretty straight and listen to boring pop songs. They don't care for each other's music and there's tension on the planet as the annual musical contest comes up.
The Great Galaxian sends a representative to assess the situation and keep things from boiling over. He's supposed to bring the two sides together or he's going to be assigned to the planet Gonk. No one wants to go there.
Kenneth Conner plays the representative, he's a bit of a nervous Nelly and not very effective. He observes both sides and takes a meeting with Mr A&R, the man who runs the musical contest and is the contest's impartial judge. They come up with a Romeo and Juliet sort of plan to hook up a Beatland boy with a Ballad Isle girl. The couple preform a song at the end of the musical contest. It's the winner and everyone gets together and dances.
It's got a stupid story, poorly executed, with plenty of overacting, odd sets and the goofy turned up to eleven. Some of the 16 songs are hardly worth hearing. Of musical interest, the Beatland opening song features the Graham Bond Organization with Graham on vocals, sax and keyboards, Ginger Baker on drums, Jack Bruce on bass, Dick Heckstall-Smith on sax and John McLaughlin on guitar. All that talent and not much of a song.
The movie was a big flop but later developed a bit of a cult following. I hadn't ever heard of it until I ordered it from Network last week. I can't recommend it to anyone really, perhaps it's it's lucky there isn't a copy on the internet to look at. You can see some of the songs on YouTube.
The Outing 1987 Written by Warren Chaney and directed by Tom Daley. An American film that was released in the UK in April 1987 under the title The Lamp, it came out in September 1987 in the US under the title The Outing.
In an opening scene we see a monster murder the people on a ship. Only a little girl escapes, she takes a lamp and a bracelet with her. We jump to modern day and a nasty trio of scumbags comes to rob an old lady in her home. They kill the old lady with their bad acting and smash up her house looking for money they think is there. They find a box with the lamp and bracelet. The jinn in the lamp gets released and then slaughters the trio.
The cops send the effects from the house to a museum, though I can't fathom why. Alex is the teen daughter of the museum's archeologist, she decides to sneak into the place for a sleep over with her friends. Her horrible ex-boyfriend hears her plan, he sneaks in with a pal to get back at her and her new boyfriend. The friends pair off and the jinn starts killing.
First the guard goes, then a guy gets torn in two, some of the action seems to take place while the camera is looking in another direction. There's plenty of running about and yelling, often the sound goes from quiet to annoyingly loud. It doesn't take too long to kill most everyone off but the daughter. She gets rescued and destroys the lamp in the museum's incinerator.
It's got a few entertaining bits but it's got a tired story, awful characters and poor acting. Some of the monster bits weren't too bad but there's nothing outstanding. I wouldn't be picking one up for my collection. I'd only recommend it to the horror fan who wants to see it all.
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