‘Was it a dream or reality… for one man on an island of terror?’

Love Goddesses of Blood Island (also known as Six She’s and a He and Kiss Me Bloody is a 1963 cheesecake gore horror film executive produced and directed by Richard S. Flink [as Gordon H. Heaver]. Flink’s only other known credit is as the producer of half-man, half-jellyfish monster movie Sting of Death (1965). The film was scripted by William Kerwin (actor in Blood Feast; Playgirl Killer; Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things and co-writer of Sting of Death). It stars Launa Hodges, Bill Rogers (A Taste of Blood; Flesh Feast), Carol Wintress, Dawn Meredith, Liz Burton, Laura Wood, Ingrid Albert.

Something Weird Video chanced upon a 28 minute, condensed version of Love Goddesses of Blood Island when they acquired the rights to William Grefe’s Sting Of Death. They released this as a supplement on their Sting of Death/Death Curse of Tartu DVD in 2002. They have since managed to compile a 47 minute version which is available on DVD-R. 

Something Weird Plot Synopsis:

“Mister Rogers’ new neighborhood is rather odd: six crazy ladies, dressed in Roman-like togas with names like Aphrodite, Pandora, Valkarie, and… uh, Rebecca, are the only inhabitants of the island where previous male guests have been reduced to severed heads on poles. Fred is promptly taken to their “palace” (little more than a glorified swimming pool), forced to do hard labor during the day, and sexually satisfy them at night.

The girls also like to strip to bikinis and dance around as a lounge singer belts out the title tune on the soundtrack: “Loooooooooove goddess! When our hearts meet the way they do, I’m helpless and breathless with passion! I must have your love though the danger’s there, for when I’m in your arms I no longer care!”

Exploitation highlight: Miss Rebecca zealously kills a screaming Nazi soldier in flashback by stabbing him in the stomach and removing his guts, before cutting out his heart and severing his head with her bare hands. What a gal.

Nearing the same fate, Fred is eventually tied to a pole and jabbed bloody by spears: “The girls were wild with an ungodly kind of exaltation. Every scream and groan that issued from my mouth seemed to excite them more!” While they’re in a trance, he rather casually escapes with a blonde named Desiree (Dawn Meredith) who bashes Aphrodite’s head with a bloody sponge before Fred spears Rebecca, forcing her to fall face first onto her machete….”

“Love Goddesses is a tiny treasure of unknown, sun-baked trash. It’s a quick blast of buoyant scenery, hidden sex, z-rate Exotica, tongue in cheek nonsense, and stop-ya-in-yer-tracks gore. It’s also a surreal refuge from every day stresses, an island artifact of nickel and dime proportions that aims to shock, humor, and constantly baffle.” Joseph A. Ziemba, Bleeding Skull!

“Hey, bikini-clad glamazons, godawful lounge music, lumpy choreography, and gore. What’s not to love?” Frank Henenlotter, Something Weird Video

“There’s no way around it: you simply must see this film. Yes, it’s terrible, nonsensical and mostly tedious, but it’s also completely and utterly insane. From the loony clarinet-driven space-age bachelor-pad ditties blaring away on the soundtrack, to the seriously awkward bikini dances and the actually-sorta-shocking lashes of proto-splatter, at times Love Goddesses seems like it was somehow beamed in from another planet or an alternate dimension, or something.” MAGpedia

IMDb | We are very grateful to Temple of Schlock for unearthing info on the film’s Kiss Me Bloody alternate title and the ad mats above.

Virus – l’inferno dei morti viventi is an Italian zombie film, made in 1980 by prolific hack Bruno Mattei, under his ‘Vincent Dawn’ pseudonym.

As with most of the Italian zombie films of the era, the film was less an imitation of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead than of Lucio Fulci’s attempt to cash in on that movie. Zombi 2 / Zombie / Zombie Flesh Eaters proved to be a huge box office hit – outstripping Romero’s film in several territories, including the UK where it opened before the retitled Zombies – Dawn of the Dead – and inspired several rip-offs, of which Virus was one of the first.

The film is a mish-mash of ideas lifted from various popular sources – there is a SWAT team (as in Dawn of the Dead) who are sent for no good reason to Papua New Guinea – i.e. cannibal country – where they are joined by a plucky and sexy journalist (Margit Evelyn Newton) as they try to get past the hordes of flesh eating zombies that have suddenly and inexplicably appeared. Their destination is top secret research facility Hope Center #1, where a chemical accident has caused the dead to return to life and lust after the flesh of the living. This, it turns out, is the result of Operation Sweet Death, a cunning but somewhat flawed plan to end world hunger by turning Third World populations into cannibals.

Virus began  treatment by José María Cunillés later turned into a full screenplay by Claudio Fragasso and his wife Rossella Drudi. Dara Films in Spain and Beatrice Films in Rome collaborated to option the script, which was ridiculously ambitious in scope if not plot. Mattei was brought on board due to his experience with low budget exploitation, and attempted to bring the project under control. Exteriors were shot in Spain, but proved to be mostly unusable; rather than re-shoot or rewrite, Dara chose to simply dump the footage and carry on with the rest of the movie. Inevitably, this resulted in a somewhat incoherent plot.

Mattei suggested stock footage from Barbet Schroeder’s 1972 film La Vallée be used, with sets built to match this footage. How successful this matching proves to be is open to debate. Other stock footage – notably of the United Nations – was also included, with close -up shots of a ‘third world leader’ obviously inserted.

The movie has a Goblin score, which might seem impressive if it wasn’t for the fact that all the music was lifted from Dawn of the Dead and Contamination. This caused legal problems that delayed the film’s distribution.

The film was released – in a version that had cuts to both gore and narrative – into UK cinemas in 1981. Titled Zombie Creeping Flesh, it clearly aimed to cash in on the popularity of Zombie Flesh Eaters, but was not a success. Most people saw the film on video, where it was released in a shortened version and proved moderately popular. In the US, the film slipped out virtually unnoticed, playing as Night of the Zombies. Later DVD editions retitled the film as Hell of the Living Dead, a literal translation of the Italian title.

The combination of messy narrative, shoddy pacing, poor dialogue, sloppy special effects and Mattei’s usual disinterested direction ensures that Virus is a fairly dreadful film. Yet conversely, it’s oddly entertaining, the sheer awfulness of the film giving it the car-crash fascination of the Good Bad Movie. It’s certainly more fun than most of the other Zombie Flesh Eaters imitators or pseudo sequels, and if you can forget about trying to make sense of the narrative, is amusingly trashy, with enough gore – including a show-stopping scene at the end – and nudity to keep exploitation fans happy.

David Flint, Horrorpedia

Related: Peter and the Test Tube Babies – Zombie Creeping Flesh | zombies on Horrorpedia

IMDb

‘A blood-dripping brain transplant turns a maniac into a monster…’

Brain of Blood - also known as The Creature’s Revenge and The Undying Brain -- is a 1971 American horror film directed by Al Adamson (Blood of Dracula’s Castle; Dracula vs. Frankenstein; Nurse Sherri) from a story by Samuel M. Sherman and a screenplay by Kane W. Lynn. It stars Grant Williams, Kent Taylor, John Bloom, Regina Carrol, Vicki Volante, Angelo Rossitto, Zandor Vorkov and Reed Hadley. The film is the only Hemisphere (The Mad Doctor of Blood Island; Beast of Blood) production to be filmed in the United States.

Plot teaser:

Amir, the benevolent ruler of Khalid, is dying, but there is hope in transplanting his brain into another body. Freshly deceased, he is flown to the United States where Dr. Trenton, having unwisely put off body acquisition until the last minute, transplants Amir’s brain into the body of the disfigured simpleton assistant who failed in said chore. Dr. Trenton has a few nefarious plot twists of his own in mind, and then there’s the thing with the dwarf and the woman chained in the basement…

Reviews:

“This movie was just crying out for some of Adamson’s signature foibles— some brain-damaging dialogue, some sudden and inexplicable detours through what looks for all the world like an entirely different movie, the unexpected appearance of a coked-up Russ Tamblyn at the head of a shabby and unconvincing motorcycle gang. As it is, Brain of Blood is just too damn close to making sense, you know? Now I’m not saying it wasn’t 87 minutes well-spent in spite of all that, mind you, but with a little less discipline and a funding crisis or two, it could have been ever so much more.” 1000 Misspent Hours and More

“Stunningly bad acting, hilarious stock horror movie music, a midget medical assistant (who torments women in a dungeon during his spare time) and unbelievable special effects make this an almost-classic that has to be seen to be believed The inept, oat-meal-like monster make-up effects are also a riot. Despite the almost total lack of prosthetic technology, the film managed to pull off a mildly gruesome brain transplant scene. Not as funny as some of Adamson’s other works—or most of the material cranked out by Herschell Gordon Lewis (“Blood Feast”). But it’s nonetheless a great bad-movie.” eSplatter

“here’s some truly terrible acting (particularly in the case of Ms. Carroll), silly dialogue, a bit of gore (the brain transplant scene, which is very bloody and fairly well done, goes on for about five minutes), a car chase, a couple of explosions and a Gor flashback that reveals the history of his deformity (a couple of rednecks took his toy away, hit him with a shovel and then poured battery acid in his face). It’s cheap, badly made and overloaded with assorted nonsense. In other words, your standard Al Adamson flick.” The Bloody Pit of Horror

Choice dialogue:

Mohammed: “Amir is a legend in Khalid, without him it would be another poor nation struggling to break out of of centuries of stagnant feudalism.”

Plot keywords:

Muslim | Mohammed | brain | mad scientist | surgery | transplant | gore | dwarf | car chase | battery acid | torture | cellar | chained women | rooftop chase | fight

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image credits: Lost Video Archive

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (also known as Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning or Friday the 13th Part V) is a 1985 American slasher horror film directed by Danny Steinmann (The Unseen; Savage Streets) from a screenplay by he co-wrote with David Cohen and Martin Kitrosser. The film includes 20 deaths (22 if you include the opening nightmare sequence). This Paramount release took $21,930,418 at the U.S. box office.

Plot teaser:

A young Tommy Jarvis stumbles upon a graveyard while walking through the woods on a rainy night, where he witnesses two grave robbers digging up the corpse of Jason Voorhees. Jason rises from the grave and murders the two grave robbers before advancing towards Tommy.

The graveyard sequence turns out to be just a nightmare, and Tommy, now a teenager, awakens from the dream in the back of a van. Tommy has been shifted between various mental institutions after killing the mass murderer Jason Voorhees six years earlier, who attacked him and his sister and murdered their mother. He arrives at the Pinehurst Halfway House, a medical center for troubled teens secluded in the woods. The body count continues…

Reviews (spoilers):

“By the fifth film, fans weren’t looking for anything terribly original. Rather, they were looking for sex, violence and creative kills. This was delivered, including a pretty risqué and quite awesome sex-in-the-woods sequence, which was actually trimmed by the censors of the day. However, even with some plot twists, this movie really was one of the least of the bunch.” Kevin Carr, 7(M) Pictures

“The spiciest entry in the series, it boasts the most T&A, an incredible double homicide, a witty reference to A Place in the Sun, and yokels chopping chickens.” Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine

Buy Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th on Blu-ray + DVD combo from Amazon.com

Crystal Lake Mammaries (sorry, couldn’t resist)

“The end is a serious letdown, either because you hadn’t figured out who the killer was and were disappointed when you found out, or because you HAD figured it out and were disappointed to learn you were right. You should know that in the end, the killer’s Jason-like hockey mask is placed in someone’s hospital room, apparently as a souvenir, which is questionable enough already, but really just as an excuse for setting up the “creepy” final shot, which is even more askew. We really should permit only grown-ups to make movies.” Eric D. Snider

Buy Friday the 13th: A New Beginning on Instant Video | DVD from Amazon.com

Choice dialogue:

“You big dildo! Eat your fuck’n slop!”

“And our forecast is sunny in the valleys and snow flurries up your nose.”

Censorship:

There were numerous graphic scenes, all of which were either cut or trimmed for appearing to be “X” by the MPAA, such as:

Joey’s death, which showed an inserted frame of blood splashing seconds after getting hacked with an axe to his back; there was a wide frame shot of Vinnie getting the road flare shoved into his mouth, but the entire scene was ultimately reduced to a brief close-up shot instead;

Pete’s death originally showed the machete slicing across his throat; however, this single frame was excised from the final cut, resulting in a close-up shot of his reaction and the aftermath of his death;

Billy’s death was cut of excessive blood flow from an axe to his skull;

Lana’s entire death scene was cut and recreated; the original scene showed an axe to her chest, followed by her subsequent reaction of horror (which was omitted for appearing as “too real”), ending with a view of her body twitching on the ground;

Farmhand Raymond’s death showed an inserted frame of the knife twisting in his stomach;

Eddie and Tina had extended scenes of sex, all of which were cut, followed by Tina’s death from a pair of hedge shears to her eyes and a gory view of her remains;

Eddie’s head crushed against the tree was deemed “too strong,” resulting in a less intense, trimmed version;

Anita’s death was slightly altered with “version 1″ and “version 2″ in existence; the first version shows a close-up shot of her face and slit throat; version 2 has an additional wide POV shot of her body from inside the outhouse;

Demon’s torturous demise was also deemed as “too strong” and originally showed his subsequent reaction of vomiting blood after being impaled with a tent spike through his stomach;

Ethel’s death scene showed a single frame of the cleaver lodged in her forehead;

Junior’s decapitation originally showed his head bounce and roll along the ground;

This shot includes blood on victim’s face but shot above doesn’t

Jake suffered a violent attack from a meat cleaver to the face; there were additional frames omitted from the original death scene itself, resulting in a brief close-up shot of his initial reaction from the effect.

Robin was impaled with a machete, which entered through her back and emerged from between her bare chest; this single shot was excised entirely.

Buy Friday the 13th: A New Beginning on Deluxe Edition DVD from Amazon.com

Cast:

• Melanie Kinnaman as Pam Roberts
• John Shepherd as Tommy Jarvis
• Shavar Ross as Reggie
• Corey Feldman as Tommy Jarvis (age 12)
• Richard Young as Matt
• Marco St. John as Sheriff Tucker
• Juliette Cummins as Robin
• Carol Locatell as Ethel
• Vernon Washington as George
• John Robert Dixon as Eddie
• Tiffany Helm as Violet
• Jerry Pavlon as Jake
• Caskey Swaim as Duke
• Mark Venturini as Vic Faden
• Anthony Barrile as Vinniek
• Dominick Brascia as Joey
• Richard Lineback as Deputy Dodd
• Bob DeSimone as Billy
• Jere Fields as Anita
• Ric Mancini as Mayor Cobb
• Miguel A. Núñez, Jr. as Demon
• Corey Parker as Pete
• Rebecca Wood as Lana
• Ron Sloan as Junior
• Debi Sue Voorhees as Tina
• Dick Wieand as Roy Burns/Jason Voorhees copycat
• Tom Morga as Jason (opening sequence)
• Kimberly Beck as Trish Jarvis (Voice Only)

Wikipedia | IMDb | Related: Fangoria | Friday the 13th films on Horrorpedia

‘Lust has never been this terrifying!’

Horror Rises from the Tomb (original title: El espanto surge de la tumba is a 1972 Spanish supernatural horror film starring Jacinto Molina (better known as Paul Naschy) and was directed by Carlos Aured. The film introduced Naschy’s character of Alaric de Marnac, an executed warlock who returns to life centuries later to wreak his revenge. De Marnac later returned in a belated 1982 sequel Panic Beats. The film was also released in the US as Mark of the Devil 4: Horror Rises from the Tomb.

Reviews:

” … an entertaining late-night mishmash made up of the kind of thrills that make Paul Naschy’s films what they are. In its strongest version, it’s packed pretty well with gore, sexuality and nudity — chiefly from the lovely Helga Line, one of the most underrating celluloid scream sirens, and sexy Emma Cohen (as Naschy’s romantic interest) who was never too shy to shed her threads in front of the cameras. Nothing groundbreaking genre-wise (a sacred religious emblem is used to fight off the evil doers, a visit from the walking dead is strictly inspired by George Romero, etc.), but this has Naschy (in multiple roles, no less!) at his best, bloody gut-extracting effects that pre-date Tom Savini’s by years, and more beautiful woman on display (in various states of undress) than you could possibly ask for.” George R. Reis, DVD Drive-In

Buy Horror Rises from the Tomb on DVD from Amazon.com

“The entire film contains the look and feel of a nightmare. There are long stretches with little to no dialog allowing the music and sound effects to create an unsettling mood. As with most of the man’s films, it’s not technically a great movie, but the atmosphere takes hold maintaining the viewers interest … Although the film is bloody, you only see the aftermath most of the time (save for one shot of Line ripping through a man’s chest to tear out his heart) but there is plentiful nudity on display. There’s probably more nudity than blood, actually.” Cool Ass Cinema

“There are some great shots as always from director Carlos Aured, including a beautiful death scene with bright red blood flowing down a bank into a running stream. Add some real sadism and perversity going on and it’s enough to keep any fan happy.” Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies

“For a sleazy derivative Gothic-exploitation movie, it is excellent, never going more than five minutes before offering some exciting event or image. While no single scene draws everything together, many small and medium thrills come along the way. Spooky understated organ an d overcast wintery mountains help build atmosphere. Some of the chopped heads and ripped hearts are very realistic. Oner scene features zombies. You can watch it for camp, but it’s hard not to take it seriously  since it;s so well done.” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers

Buy Claws & Saucers 630 page book from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image credits: Jade Vine | DVD Vision | Cool Ass Cinema | Gifsploitation

Milfs vs. Zombies is a forthcoming American comedy horror gore film to be directed by Brad Twigg (Ghoulish Tales) from a screenplay by Daniel Schein for production company Fuzzy Monkey Films. It stars Brandy Peeples, Chris O’Brocki, Jeremy Ambler, Missy Dawn, Andrea_Marie, Juan Eloy Carrera, Patrick Opitz, Rosanna Nelson, Matthew L. Furman.

At the time of writing, the project is seeking funding via IndieGoGo

IMDb | Facebook

Devil Fetus (original title Mo Tai or 魔胎) is a 1983 Hong Kong film directed by Lau Hung Chuen (cinematographer on We’re Going to Eat You; ) from a screenplay by Wen-hua Cheng (Haunted Jail House; Exorcist Master) and Ging-Jiu Lo. It stars Eddie Chan, Yung-chang Chin, Pak-Kwong Ho, Dan Lau, Sai-gang Lau, San Leung, Pui-pui Liu, Hsiu-ling Lu, Sha-fei Ouyang. 

The pirated soundtrack includes “La Petite Fille de la Mer” from the Vangelis album L’Apocalypse des animaux (1973) and samples from Ennio Morricone‘s soundtrack for the John Carpenter film The Thing.

Synopsis:

“When a nice young couple buy an antique vase during the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts, all sorts of bizarre and unnatural things start occurring. For one thing, a series of nasty, horrid monsters start having sex with the wife, Shu-ching, while she sleeps. When her husband tries to break up one of these nightmare trysts, he gets sprayed with a gas that melts his face.

Writhing in pain, he throws himself out the window. Later, the hapless Shu-ching gets attacked and killed by her pet cat. During the funeral, a hideous devil fetus bursts out of Shu-ching’s abdomen. The priest manages to seal the coffin shut and puts good luck charms throughout their old house. When new owners arrive, they inevitably disturb the talismans, resulting in worm-infested pastries and a rash of raping and killing.” Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Reviews:

 “A silly but amusing entry in the early ’80s gross-out cycle” of horror films …  Some of the film’s more revolting moments have been truncated by HK censors, but if any of the characters behaved in a remotely logical fashion, the running time would be cut in half. Still, fans of Eastern horror will find much to their liking here. Many of the spfx are too ambitious for the budget but you have to admire the zeal with which they are staged.” John Charles, The Hong Kong Filmography 1977–1997

Buy The Hong Kong Filmography 1977 – 1997 from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

“Sequences involving the exorcist are the most substantial aspect of the movie, largely because the incantations and the use of amulets appear to have been well-researched and authentic. But the otehr elements of the story tend to veer between the usual conventions of melodrama and thrillers without any real commitment to explore or renovate either genre.” Phil Hardy (editor), The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror

“This film brilliantly takes the make-anything-a-weapon film technique of a low-budget kung fu movie, but adapts it for the horror movie genre, inventing its own make-anything-be-”haunted” technique. From the Gweilo’s perspective, this makes for enormous fun! You will spend most of the movie wondering Whatever will turn out to be “haunted” next?  A haunted car? Check. A haunted dog? Check. A haunted fetus? Well, obviously!  A haunted steam room with moving walls?  OK, sure. A haunted bedroom set?  Now that’s just silly! A haunted dog-entrail-eating cousin-raping teenage boy?  Wait, WTF kind of movie am I watching?!” The Gweilo’s Guide to Hong Kong Chinese Movies

“For the remainder, I’ll just give the highlights. The demon is now inside Bobby, which eventually gets transferred to Kwo Wei, who immediately takes on the generic automaton gaze and deliberate walk. There’s dog attacks, there’s dog eating, there’s maid raping, there’s near drowning, there transsexual masturbation, there’s worm eating, there’s a dude being crushed by a room (yes, I mean exactly that) and yes, there’s more slimy demon-sex. A lot of this is done with the accompaniment of some wicked 1980s video game-esque sound effects that make you nostalgic for that Atari system. There are also a couple of signature Hong-Kong-ish battle scenes that don’t make any logical sense, but are really great to watch.” Zombie a Go-Go

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image credit: Todo el Terror del Mundo

Violent Shit is a 1987 micro-budget German horror film written, directed and produced by Andreas Schnaas. The film was shot on a budget of $2,000 with a rented camcorder over the course of four weekends, with a cast of amateur actors consisting mostly of acquaintances of Schnaas. It was released on VHS in 1989 in West Germany. Although the country’s first direct-to-video film, Violent Shit was immediately banned by German authorities for its explicit violence and soon became an underground cult hit.

Two sequels, Violent Shit II: Mother Hold My Hand and Violent Shit III, were released 1992 and 1999, respectively. A fourth film, Karl the Butcher vs. Axe, was released 2010, with Andreas Schnaas co-directing with Timo Rose.

Plot synopsis:

A young boy named Karl murders his mother with a meat cleaver, after she reprimands him for returning home late.

Twenty years later, in the mid-1970s, the imprisoned Karl is being transported to an unspecified location by the police, but manages to kill his captors and escape into the wilderness, somehow acquiring a cleaver in the process.

Over the course of several days, Karl commits a series of murders across the countryside, mutilating and occasionally cannibalizing his victims. After one double homicide, Karl faints and has a flashback to the day he murdered his mother, revealing he had been coerced into killing her by a demon (which a line of dialogue indicates may be his father) he had encountered in the cellar after she had locked him in it.

At one point, Karl also encounters an apparition of Jesus crucified in the forest, which he hacks open, and crawls inside. After this encounter, Karl commits an additional dual murder outside a church, then collapses in a field, where his skin (which had been inexplicably decaying throughout the film) rots off, and he dies ripping himself open, revealing a baby covered in blood…

Wikipedia | IMDb

Zombie TV is a 2013 Japanese action/horror/comedy film co-written and co-directed by Maelie Makuno, Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police; Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl; Helldriver) and Naoya Tashiro (splatter shorts: Naked Sister; Hell of the College Girls; Cannibal Maid and Killer Nurse).

It stars Maki Mizui, Takashi Nishina, Tomoya Maeno, Miyuki Torii, Jiji Bû, Hidetoshi Ezawa, Luchino Fujisaki, Yasu Genki.

Press release:

A Monty Python-esque collection of shorts, animation, sketch comedy, instructional videos and more, Zombie TV showcases the natural evolution of zombies in the 21st century, no longer a frightening menace, but rather an annoying neighbour you realise you simply have to put up with.

Zombie TV answers such natural questions as: in a world full of the undead, wouldn’t some of the surviving humans want to join the majority and become zombies themselves? Would becoming a zombie solve the emotional and relationship problems we all have as living, breathing human beings?

Do zombies have their own idols? Would zombies worship a zombie god? Who would win in a fight: a cannibal, or a zombie? How did zombies evolve from walkers into runners? And the most burning question of all: how do zombies have sex?

Buy Helldriver on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

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Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda is a 2014 American horror film directed by Kevin O’Neill (Dinocroc; Dinoshark) from a screenplay by Matt Yamashita (Art School of Horrors) for Roger Corman’s New Horizons Pictures. It stars Robert Carradine (Humanoids from the Deep (1996); Monster Night; Slumber Party Slaughter), Katie Savoy, Rib Hillis (Piranhaconda; 616: Paranormal Incident; Cowboys vs Dinosaurs), Tony Evangelista, Hector Then, Hensy Pichardo. Talk show host Conan O’Brien has a short cameo role which has garnered increased publicity for the film itself.

The film is one of two sequels to the hit Sharktopus, the other being Sharktopus vs. Mermantula, also directed by O’Neill. It is due to be screened by Syfy on August 2, 2014, as part of their ‘Sharknado’ festival to celebrate sharksploitation in general and the unleashing of Sharknado 2: The Second One in particular.

Plot teaser:

The offspring of Sharktopus goes into battle with the latest science experiment “Pteracuda” – half pteradactyl, half barracuda – in a challenge for monster supremacy…

IMDb | Thanks: Dread Central

Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (originally: Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette – “Terror! The Castle of Cursed Women”) is a 1974 Italian horror film produced and directed by exploitation entrepreneur Dick Randall. It is very loosely based on the Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein.

The film is also known as Dr. Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (American video title), Frankenstein’s Castle (British video title), Monsters of Frankenstein, Terror, Terror Castle, The House of Freaks and The Monsters of Dr. Frankenstein

In a non-specified time in an undisclosed European country, neanderthals roam the countryside, upsetting the local villagers. Seeing an opportunity to rid themselves of their tormentors, they corner one of the brutes (Goliath, Loren Ewing from Devil in the Flesh), evading the tree trunks and rocks he hurls, to bash him over the head and kill him. Leaving his corpse, this is soon collected by some shadowy individuals and taken to the castle laboratory of Count Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi, slumming it somewhat post-The Barefoot Contessa and The Italian Job) so that he can continue to conduct his unholy experiments. The Count is most disappointed that the other (female) cadaver collected up has been tampered with by his necrophiliac dwarf assistant, Genz (Michael Dunn, The Mutations, The Werewolf of Washington)

The locals are becoming alarmed – they’re suspicious as to what is going on at the castle and also a tad unhappy that the graves of their loved ones are being robbed. Not for the first time in the film, they are told to go away and stop being silly by the hopelessly inept head of police, played by familiar trash movie face, Edmund Purdom (The Fifth Cord; Absurd; Pieces) in fairness it’s a very sparse mob with a touch of the Monty Pythons about it. Elsewhere, Genz has befriended the other marauding caveman, Ook (the brilliant character actor Salvatore Baccaro, aka Sal Boris but here under the worst pseudonym ever, Boris Lugosi) and… if you’ve made it this far, it probably doesn’t matter.

Some female nudity, comedy caveman grunting, some pervy dwarf action and some endless experiments with the world’s smallest lab set-up, the ending can’t come quickly enough – indeed, rather like the opening scene, when it does come it seems out of place.

Directed by Dick Randall (here as Robert H. Oliver), best known as a producer of low-budget schlock and horror (The Mad Butcher; Pieces; The Urge to Kill), the film was made in Italy and features many bit-art actors from genre of the time – or more correctly, slightly before the time, many of them clearly having fallen on bad times – also along for the ride are the likes of German stunner Christiane Rücker (Castle of the Walking Dead), buff strongman Gordon Mitchell (Satyricon, Frankenstein ’80), Xiro Papas (The Beast in Heat) and Luciano Pigozzi (Blood and Black Lace, Baron Blood, All the Colours of the Dark).

The real wonder of Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks is that it conspires against the odds so wilfully to become one of the most painful horror films to watch. As the script is at pains to clarify, the story is broadly speaking that of Frankenstein and so one might assume the hard work has been done… but no, endless, pointless twists, cut-aways, a breathtakingly slow operation (Frankenstein spends longer shaving Goliath’s head than Colin Clive did making two monsters come alive) and some mild hanky panky spiced up with the inclusion of a dwarf and a caveman who communicates through grunts, only serve to make this a harrowing mess.

Worse still, bad enough that the likes of Brazzi are disgracing themselves but that the film is so bad that even aforementioned Dunn and Baccaro (also seen in The Beast in Heat and briefly in Deep Red), usually arresting and air-punchingly fun in their performances are unable to save this is alarming. The squelchy, grimy score is by Marcello Gigante, better known, and suited, for his work on Italian Westerns. The settings are meagre and rather harbour the feeling that if the camera moved slightly to the left they’d get a decent shot of the car park; as it goes, the gothic flavour is one of the few nearly-ticks.

Picked up by Harry Novak‘s Boxoffice International Pictures and unleashed in cinemas during 1974, the film has not improved with age and is so ponderous it’s difficult to even reappraise it as kitsch. The film found its way onto the home market initially through the likes of Magnum Video and later seen alongside Randall’s far more accomplished production, The Mad Butcher, through masters of lo-fi Something Weird.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Countess Dracula is a 1971 Hammer horror film based on the legends surrounding the “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Báthory. It is in many ways atypical of Hammer’s canon, attempting to broaden Hammer’s output from Dracula and Frankenstein sequels. The film was produced by Alexander Paal and directed by Peter Sasdy, Hungarian émigrés working in England. The original music score was composed by Harry Robertson.

In 17th Century Hungary, Countess Elisabeth Nádasdy (Ingrid Pitt) and her bed companion and steward, Captain Dobi (Nigel Green), are snubbed in a will at the expense of the young and the too old to benefit. The Countess takes it rather better than Dobi as she has recently discovered the secret to ever-lasting youth, a quick bath in the blood of murdered young girls. Alas, the fridge is empty of such commodities and the effect is disappointingly short-lasting, so she keeps her hold on Dobi whilst enlisting him to furnish her with the required local young ladies. Her rejuvenated young self takes advantage yet further of the situation and embarks on a sexual affair with simpering Lieutenant Toth (Sandor Elès), the son of a famous general who is eager to similarly make his mark.

To stay in her youthful state, it begins to require ever more victims and the trail or bloodless corpses is beginning to arouse suspicion. To throw locals off the scent, she assumes the identity of her daughter, Ilona (Lesley-Anne Down) who has been absent for some time, squirreled away by her mother in a hut in the forest, lest anyone find it odd that they are surprisingly similar age –  but not before the resident of the castle library, Fabio (Maurice Denham), begins to suspect something dodgy is afoot, not least when he nearly stumbles upon an unfortunate meeting between local busty prostitute, Ziza (Andrea Lawrence), Toth and the Countess, an encounter which Ziza doesn’t fare well in.

Upon finding that actually only virgins prolong the youthful appearance, yet more attacks take place but it’s all too much for Fabio who realises he must inform Toth – alas, too slow and he meets his end at the hands of Dobi who has been blackmailed into protecting the Countess any way he can. A slightly hurried marriage is arranged between Toth and Elisabeth but lo’! Ilona makes a surprise appearance. The congregation can only stand aghast as Elisabeth’s ageing/marrying/slaying dilemma begins to unravel before them.

A particularly strange entry into Hammer’s canon, at a time when their star was still shining brightly. Playing rather more like a historical yarn (more-so than the likes of Rasputin) than a horror film, let alone a vampire film, there is much to admire here but it’s ultimately a disappointing, unsatisfying experience. Director, Sasdy, proved himself to be a director of some style in Hammer’s own Hands of the Ripper from the same year but Countess Dracula suffers from being overly ponderous, seemingly unable to decide on historical accuracy, breasts or geysers of blood – eventually it panics but too late for a discernible resolution.

Those expecting fangs, fog and fluttering bats will certainly be disappointed – this concentrates on the Countess’ plight, as she sees it, giving all the characters a decent fist of stating their moral standpoint but it becomes unnecessarily wordy and redundant relatively early. It’s difficult to root for the Countess, killing and preening; Dobi shows real promise as a character but is reduced to a stooge; Toth is a sap of the highest order and needs a good telling off leaving only a librarian and a prostitute as characters of real interest.

Though an exotic vision and alluring mysterious both on-screen and in ‘real life’, only the truly brave of heart would call Ingrid Pitt a great actress, though she is served well by good ageing effects courtesy of Tom Smith, who worked on several Hammer films and onto the likes of The Shining and Return of the Jedi. Indeed, Pitt herself was a replacement for Diana Rigg who ultimately declined the role. Elès (Evil of Frankenstein) presumably makes the cut due to being Hungarian, whilst Green (The Masque of the Red Death) shows real promise but was sadly cut down at the age of only 47 the following year. Denham essentially channels Merlin and Lesley Anne-Down ultimately has very little to do – far more interesting is ravishing Andrea Lawrence, who hopped, skipped and jumped from On the Buses to I’m Not Feeling Myself Tonight to Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell.

The rather unconvincing mountains of Eastern Europe are, of course, Pinewood Studios, but the interiors are perhaps the film’s greatest achievement, a feast for the eyes of a believable castle and various castes of life that exist in and around – it’s a real shame that the fascinating world they live in is still somehow bland, despite gory murders and sumptuous sets. Though there is,naturally, a reasonable amount of nudity, the murders are relatively few on-screen though there are some juicy moments involving a hair-pin and a nicely judged scene of Elisabeth bathing which is more wistful than gratuitous.

Harry Robertson’s (here as Harry Robinson) score plays well alongside the relative drama on-screen, a mix of studious  orchestral sweeps and the use of a Hungarian cymbalom (same ball-park as a harpsichord) to add some flavours of the unknown environment. The dialogue is largely forgettable, aside from some ‘common slut from the whorehouse’ chat and Ziza uttering a barely credible ‘juicy pair’ line but there is something about the film which lingers in the memory and, though not especially a success, a mark of Hammer’s bravery that this appeared when it did.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

‘Don’t go to the lake…’

The Dead Don’t Scream is a 2007 action horror film produced, directed and written by Richard Perrin. It stars Caitlyn Camille Perrin, Jerilyn Perrin, Jeremy Schwab, Brad Hartliep, Charles Martin, Lindsey Gardner, Trey Caldwell, Taylor Chadwell, Kelly Vallejo, Mark Osburn, Rick Alan Rhoads. The film’s reported budget was $66,000.

Plot teaser:

A group of college students on a road trip to hell when they stumble across a small Texas town with an entire economy based upon stealing cars. Unfortunately, for them, cars aren’t the only things getting chopped…

Reviews:

” …horror fans can at least take satisfaction in the fact that the film does make a reasonable attempt to deliver the macabre goods that we all expect from these movies. The obligatory nudity is included, but what’s more, there’s plenty of carnage on display, and the make-up FX is excellent for such a low budget production. Throats are slashed and faces are blown off with shotguns. None of it is a hundred percent convincing, but the special effects are quite good.” DigitalHorror.com

Buy The Dead Don’t Scream on DVD from Amazon.com

“Not stellar, due to budget constraints and usage of what they have to work with but still impressive that they pulled it off, gave some new faces screen time and were able to weave an original story around it all.” HorrorNews.net

“The action, blood and gore are delivered in huge quantities. Although there is only once topless scene at the beginning of the film, there are lots of beautiful bikini clad hotties running around for almost the entire movie.” Film Apocalypse!

Filming locations:

Euless, Grand Prairie and Grapevine, Texas

IMDb

Evil Feed is a 2013 Canadian action horror comedy film directed by actor/stuntman Kimani Ray Smith from a screenplay co-written with Aaron Au and Jana Mitsoula, based on a story by Ryan Nicholson. It stars Laci J Mailey, Terry Chen, Alain Chanoine, Alyson Bath, Derek Gilroy, Bishop Brigante, Curtis Lum, Sebastian Gacki, David Milchard, Carrie Genzel, Johnson Phan.

Plot teaser:

Steven spent his entire life being the good son, dedicated all his time to the family business, The Long Pig Restaurant, known in the underground world for cannibalistic cuisine. When Steven hears that his father would rather sell the business to a stranger than pass it down to his own son, Steven has no choice but to chop off his head. With his father’s head safely displayed in a cabinet, Steven and his nymphomaniac girlfriend have big plans for The Long Pig. They capture elite MMA fighters and force them to battle in the restaurant’s new “Pit of Gore” where blood thirsty customers get to watch their meals being tenderized. Steven calls this, “Tendertainment!”

Meanwhile, Jenna returns to her father’s karate dojo and discovers him missing. Calling on the help of his students, they set out to find their Sensei, kicking ass and taking names. Their quest takes a turn for the worst when Jenna is kidnapped by the Triads. She awakes in a holding cell at The Long Pig Restaurant only to discover what Steven serves for dinner…

Reviews:

“This film could easily be the by-product of a focus group of stoned teenaged male horror fans, such is its pungent mixture of martial arts, gleefully over-the-top gore and titillation. To once again labour the food comparison, this is the perfect Friday night takeaway movie. Undemanding, a touch predictable, but entertainingly so. All in all there’s not much not to like about Evil Feed if you have a craving for something more substantial to accompany that post-pub kebab.” Matt Harries, Brutal as Hell

“It’s not an idea without potential – though perhaps not as a comedy, and certainly not the sort of comedy where the height of wit is in naming a character Phat Phuk. In any case, whatever hope you may have had from reading a synopsis is abandoned in the first five minutes, when we’re already getting bogged down in terrible dialogue, racial stereotyping, desperately ‘cool’ set ups (this is the sort of film that introduces characters in slow-mo, as if that wasn’t an idea done to death) and poor visual set ups – however much this cost to make, not a lot went on lighting.

As it goes on, we jump from the restaurant to the antics of the martial artists, while the viewer tries to decide if everyone involved is supposed to be a complete loathsome dick or if that is just a problem with the writing – the latter I assume, but you never know. There’s gore a-plenty, all delivered excessively but without having any impact, and sex scenes that are too clumsily handled to be at all sexy.” David Flint, Strange Things Are Happening

“The action is good, but there could have been more of it. The filmmakers had great martial arts talent, but seemed more interested in gore than great action. It would also have been nice if there was a single female character who wasn’t either entirely helpless or naked most of the time.” Trista Devries, Toronto Film Scene

IMDb | Official site | Twitter

The Body Shop – aka Body Shop; Shrieks in the Night and later retitled Doctor Gore – is a 1973 American horror film written, directed and starring former TV horror host and magician J.G. Patterson Jr. The film was originally titled Anitra, as can be glimpsed on the film’s slate board, lazily included in the trailer!).

It stars Jenny Driggers (as the aforementioned Anitra), Roy Mehaffey, Linda Faile, Jan Benfield, Jeannine Aber, Candy Furr, Vickie O’Neal and Jerry Kearns. Future directors Worth Keeter (credited as the “special horror consultant”) and William Girdler (credited with music, music editor and sound effects) also worked on the film.

Patterson worked on a number of Herschell G. Lewis’ in a special effects capacity and was associate producer on The Gruesome Twosome (1967). He also produced Axe (1974). He died of cancer in 1975 in Charlotte, North Carolina (he chain smokes throughout The Body Shop).

Plot teaser:

Mad scientist Dr. Don Brandon (J.G. Patterson Jr.) loses his wife Anitra in a tragic car accident. He and his hunchback assistant Gregory begin kidnapping women for re-animation experiments to bring her back to life…

Reviews:

‘Equally not as thought-out is Patterson’s point-and-shoot direction, inert enough to make Lewis look like a Palme d’Or contender. Shots of a two-character conversation don’t match; one scene begins with the clapboard in clear view, as if Patterson simply didn’t care anymore. His alarming ineptitude is exactly what Doctor Gore, also known as The Body Shop, has going for it.’ Rod Lott, Flick Attack

‘Amidst nonsensical and frequent jump cuts, an amazing electronic and organ-based score, and ghastly, but theatrical looking gore, you STILL have J.G. Patterson’s giant head and hilarious musical interludes with country singer Bill Hicks. Dialogue is insane and hilarious. Doctor Gore is a fantastically bizarre movie and should be heralded as a classic. You’ll laugh, cringe, and drop your jaw.’ Bleeding Skull!

Buy Doctor Gore + How to Make a Doll on DVD from Amazon.com

“Frankly, I’m surprised that Patterson managed an entire 75 minutes out of the film. Even with the padded scenes (some that deliver about 15 seconds worth of information can stretch five minutes), it’s obvious the man didn’t know how to get good coverage. There’s numerous instances where footage is repeated or outtakes are used to extend the scene (there’s a memorable instance of the clapboard being withdrawn hastily from the shot). Patterson constantly smokes throughout the film, but he can’t seem to maintain continuity on a single one of those cancer sticks. They just leap in and out of his mouth like bad magic.” Nate Yapp, Classic Horror

Buy Regional Horror Films, 1958 – 1990 from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Trailer on Daily Motion

Filming locations:

Overlook Castle, North Carolina

IMDb | Images thanks: Bloody Pit of Horror

Slew Hampshire is a 2013 American horror film directed by Flood Reed and starring Dayo Okeniyi, Shawn Thomas, and Tyler Rice.

The film was recognised for containing the “Goriest Scene of the Year” in Rue Morgue Magazine‘s 2013 Year in Review (Issue #141).

Plot teaser:

In June 1994, one of the most brutal mass slaughters in history occurred in the woods of northern New England.

Four months later, history is about to repeat itself. What begins as a humorous comedy of errors quickly becomes a Darwinian gore fest, and what unfolds is a cerebral yet repulsive journey through the history and nature of humanity and ‘civilization.’ With four distinct clans vying for supremacy and survival in the woods of New Hampshire, less than 24 hours will pass before a slew of lives have been claimed and the last of the living remains…

Review:

“It’s a unique movie that you won’t feel unfamiliar with, and that’s just one of its many tricks. Slew Hampshire actually requires you to think about it after its done, and how often does that happen with movies that essentially show themselves to be shlock horror? This is shlock, exploitation, creature feature, teen comedy and Darwinism, all trapped in the middle of the woods. So basically – fun, a little confusing and reeks of filth.” Film Bizarro

IMDb

WH

Wallestein il mostro – English: “Wallestein the Monster” – is an Italian fumetti adult comic character who appeared in five series of comics published by Edifumetto from 1972. For the first series, Edifumetto published nine issues; for the second series, nineteen issues in 1973; for the third series, fifteen issues in 1974; for the fourth series, eighty issues from 1975 to 1980; the fifth series (“Nuova Serie”) started in 1981. Over the years, the series has been designed by Cubbino, Romanini, Magnus (co-creator of Diabolik and Kriminal) and anonymous artists.

As with most Italian fumetti, the visuals feature abundant female nudity and gore. Between 1977 and 1980 the comic was also published in France by Elvifrance.

Wallestein is an horrible monster whom, having avenged the murder of the Count of Wallestein, adopts the Count’s identity by donning a rubber mask.

Image credits: Comic Vine | And Everything Else Too | Pinterest

Lights Out is an extremely popular American radio show, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television.

In the fall of 1933, NBC writer Wyllis Cooper (who also wrote the screenplay for Bride of Frankenstein) conceived the idea of “a midnight mystery serial to catch the attention of the listeners at the witching hour.” The idea was to offer listeners a dramatic program late at night, at a time when the competition was mostly airing music. At some point, the serial concept was dropped in favor of an anthology format emphasising crime thrillers and the supernatural. The first series of shows (each 15 minutes long) ran on a local NBC station, WENR, at midnight Wednesdays, starting in January 1934. By April, the series proved successful enough to expand to a half hour.

Cooper’s run was characterized by grisly stories spiked with dark, tongue-in-cheek humor, a sort of radio Grand Guignol. A character might be buried or eaten or skinned alive, vaporized in a ladle of white-hot steel, absorbed by a giant slurping amoeba, have his arm torn off by a robot, or forced to endure torture, beating or decapitation – always with the appropriate blood-curdling acting and sound effects.

Though there had been efforts at horror on radio previously (notably The Witch’s Tale), there does not seem to have been anything quite as explicit or outrageous as this on a regular basis. When the series switched to the national network, a decision was made to tone down the gore and emphasize tamer fantasy and ghost stories.

In the mid-1940s, Cooper’s decade-old scripts were used for three brief summertime revivals of Lights Out. The surviving recordings reveal that Cooper was experimenting with both stream of consciousness and first-person narration a few years before these techniques were popularized in American radio drama by, among others, Arch Oboler and Orson Welles.

From early 1934 to mid 1936, Cooper produced close to 120 scripts for Lights Out. Some episode titles include “The Mine of Lost Skulls,” “Sepulzeda’s Revenge,” “Three Lights From a Match,” “Play Without a Name,” and “Lost in the Catacombs” (about a honeymoon couple in Rome who lose their way in the catacombs under the city). Typical plots included:

• A novelist, struggling to write a locked room mystery, locks himself in his office only to be interrupted by a stranger who resembles the story’s murderer.
• A killer named “Nails” Malone has “a conference with his conscience” about the murders he’s committed.
• A scientist accidentally creates a giant amoeba that grows rapidly, eats living things (like the lab assistant’s cat), and exhibits powers of mind control.

The series had little music scoring save for the thirteen chime notes that opened the program (after a deep voice intoned, “Lights out, everybody!”) and an ominous gong which was used to punctuate a scene and provide the transition to another.

When Cooper departed, his replacement – a young, eccentric and ambitious Arch Oboler – picked up where he left off, often following Cooper’s general example but investing the scripts with his own concerns. Oboler made imaginative use of stream-of-consciousness narration and sometimes introduced social and political themes that reflected his commitment to antifascist liberalism.

In June 1936, Oboler’s first script for Lights Out was “Burial Service,” about a paralyzed girl who is buried alive. NBC was flooded with outraged letters in response. His next story, one of his most popular efforts, was the frequently repeated “Catwife,” about the desperate husband of a woman who turns into a giant feline. He followed with “The Dictator,” about Roman emperor Caligula. This set the pattern for Oboler’s run: For every two horror episodes, he said later, he would try to write one drama on subjects that were ostensibly more serious, usually moral, social, and political issues.

In the spring of 1938, the series earned a good deal of publicity for its fourth anniversary as a half-hour show when actor Boris Karloff traveled to Chicago to appear in five consecutive episodes.

Among his roles: an accused murderer haunted by an unearthly creature urging him to “kill…kill…kill” in “The Dream”; the desperate husband in a rebroadcast of “Catwife”; and a mad, violin-playing hermit who imprisons a pair of women, threatening to murder one and marry the other, in “Valse Triste.”

Other well-remembered Oboler tales, many of them written in the 1930s and rebroadcast in the ’40s, include:

• “Come to the Bank,” in which a man learns to walk through walls but gets stuck when he tries to rob a vault.
• “Oxychloride X,” about a chemist who invents a substance that can eat through anything.
• “Murder Castle,” based on the real-life case of H. H. Holmes, Chicago’s notorious serial killer.
• “Profits Unlimited,” a still-relevant allegory on the promises and dangers of capitalism.
• “Spider,” in which two men attempt to capture a giant arachnid.
• “The Flame,” a weird exercise in supernatural pyromania.
• “Sub-Basement,” which finds yet another husband and wife in peril—this time trapped far beneath a department store in the subterranean railway of the Chicago Tunnel Company.

Lights Out often featured metafictional humor. Perhaps inspired by Cooper’s “The Coffin in Studio B,” in which actors rehearsing an episode of Lights Out are interrupted by a mysterious coffin salesman peddling his wares, Oboler wrote stories like “Murder in the Script Department,” in which two Lights Out script typists become trapped in their building after hours as frightening, unexplained events occur. In “The Author and the Thing,” Oboler even plays himself pitted against one of his own monstrous creations.

The success of Oboler’s 1942-1943 Lights Out revival was part of a trend in 1940s American radio toward more horror. Genre series like Inner Sanctum, Suspense and others drew increasingly large ratings.

Buy Lights Out Volume 1 & 2 on DVD from Amazon.com

In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contributed three of the scripts. Critical response was mixed but the program was successful for several seasons.

Buy Lights Out Volume 3 on DVD from Amazon.com

The 1949-1952 series featured scripts by a variety of authors, including a young Ira Levin (author of Rosemary’s Baby). In 1951, producer Swope even bought a few stories from Cooper and Oboler. “Dead Man’s Coat,” starring Basil Rathbone, was adapted from one of Cooper’s 1930s plays. Among the young actors employed was Leslie Nielsen, who appeared in several episodes including “The Lost Will of Dr. Rant,” based on “The Tractate Middoth”, anM. R. James story. These and many others are available on DVD.

Buy Lights Out Volume 5 on DVD from Amazon.com

In 1972, NBC aired yet another TV incarnation of Lights Out, a TV movie pilot which was not well received. In fact, Oboler announced publicly that he had nothing to do with it.

Wikipedia | Internet Archive (download 86 episodes)

Beaster Day: Here Comes Peter Cottonhell is a 2014 American comedy horror film written and directed by Zack and Spencer Snygg. It stars Peter Sullivan, Marisol Custodio, John Fedele, Jon Arthur, Bill Joachim, Darian Caine, AJ Khan, Kerri Taylor, Jackie Stevens, Autumn Bodell, and Violetta Storms.

Part of the financing came from a successful Kickstarter funding campaign.

Plot teaser:

Deep in the woods stalks a giant killer mutant Easter Bunny. Unsatisfied with nibbling on grass, he craves, chews lives on human flesh. Rock climbers, hitchhikers, and nudists alike all end up in his jaws as he devours everyone in his way. One by one the townsfolk are consumed by the evil hare, but he still remains a mystery to most of the habitants.

Knowing that a flesh eating giant rabbit might affect tourism a bit and the upcoming Easter Day corporate sponsored parade, the corrupt mayor quietly covers up the deaths hoping to rake in as much cash as he can for the Easter Day celebrations. The mayor tells the townsfolk that there is nothing to fear from the horrific decapitations and intestine removals. The deaths are all accidental demises due to hazardous farm tool equipment…

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Humanoids from the Deep (alternatively known as Monster: Humanoids from the Deep) is a 1980 science fiction monster movie, starring Doug McClure (At the Earth’s Core), Ann Turkel, and Vic Morrow (The Evictors). Roger Corman served as the film’s (uncredited) executive producer, and it was distributed by his New World Pictures. It was directed by Barbara Peeters (aka Barbara Peters) with additional scenes of nudity and gore added. The musical score was composed by James Horner (Wolfen; Deadly Blessing; The Forgotten and many Hollywood blockbusters)

The movie was originally offered to Joe Dante  (Piranha, The Howling) but he turned the project down. Barbara Peeters took the job instead, and shooting commenced in October 1979. Peeter’s version of the film was deemed to be lacking the required exploitation elements needed to satisfy the movie’s intended audience. Second unit director James Sbardellati, who would eventually direct Deathstalker was brought in to spice up the movie, and it was he who was reportedly responsible for filming the sex, nudity and gore scenes.

After Peeters and Ann Turkel saw the additional sequences they asked for their names to be taken off the movie but this was refused. Several people who went on to bigger and better things worked on the film, including composer James Horner, make-up artist Rob Bottin (who designed the humanoid costumes), editor Mark Goldblatt, and future producer Gale Anne Hurd (Aliens, The Walking Dead TV series) who worked as a production assistant. The actress who portrays the Salmon Queen (Linda Shayne) later became a film director.

In 1996, a remake of Humanoids from the Deep was produced for Showtime cable TV by Corman’s production company, Concorde-New Horizons, starring Robert Carradine and Emma Samms. Although it included some special effects footage from the original version, the sex and gore aspects — the very elements that had distinguished the first film — were toned down for TV and it was not a success among fans or critics.

‘Humanoids from the Deep is a fast-paced and energetic camp classic that should please horror and sleaze fans with its graphic gore, abundant female nudity, and sardonic humor. The creepy humanoid costumes were designed by makeup legend Rob Bottin (The Howling, Legend). They look pretty slimy and cool, especially for such a low-budget film, and in fact the production crew only had three of them! Through the use of some clever camerawork and tight editing, there seems to be many more of the ghoulish creatures prowling around and creating bloody mischief.’ GoArticles.com

Buy Mind Warp! Roger Corman’s New World Pictures book from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Buy Humanoids from the Deep on Blu-ray Disc from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

New high-definition transfer of the Uncut international version presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1)

Never-before-seen deleted scenes

Trailer, TV and radio spots

Leonard Maltin’s interviews with Roger Corman on the making of the film

“The Making of Humanoids from the Deep,” featuring new interviews with composer James Horner, second unit/assistant director James Sbardellati, editor Mark Goldblatt and more!

“Whatever Peeters’ vision might have been, it’s inarguable that the grotesque and silly “assaulted by sea creatures” moments make this movie, elevating it from talky pseudo-scifi yawner to something akin to exploitation classic. Certainly, the less said about the storyline, the better, and while there are some nicely suspenseful moments, the payoffs that don’t involve non-naked girls are lacking. Besides—and how anyone associated with the film wouldn’t understand this going in is beyond me—without the boobs and grue, it just wouldn’t be a Corman film.” Tom Becker, DVD Verdict

“Humanoids from the Deep has everything that I like about horror movies. There is a decent story, cute girls get naked, gory monster attacks abound (especially during the chaotic finale), and the cast consists of a number of name actors spouting off cheesy lines.” The Video Graveyard

“Finally, lets not forget the effects by the soon-to-be-legendary Rob Bottin. While they may just be creatures in rubber suits, they’re impressive looking rubber suits for a low budget flick. The attacks that take place also have some decent makeup effects. Thankfully Shout! Factory has released the uncut version of Humanoids, titled Monster as it was originally released in International markets. I know one additional scene includes a decapitation. Good stuff, indeed.” Horror Digital

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Posted by Will Holland

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