The Peanut Butter Solution (1985)

Directed by Michael Rubbo

After witnessing something terrifying in a burned out, abandoned house, a kid named Michael loses all of his hair. After a few days of hiding his baldness under a ridiculous wig, the ghost of a homeless woman who died in the fire takes pity on him and shares her magical recipe for hair growth. Of course, he royally screws up the recipe and it ends up working all too well. When a mysterious villain takes notice of his crazy hair growth and is determined to profit off of it, Michael has to face his fears to solve this hairy situation.

I was the perfect age for The Peanut Butter (1985) when it came out in theaters, but I probably saw it back when it debuted on TV. The whole premise of this film frightened me back in the day. Then the body horror of the utterly impossible hair growth kicks in, and that scared me even more. The other thing I remembered about this one is being very disappointed at the end when it's revealed what Michael saw that inspired his baldness.

Revisiting The Peanut Butter Solution now... Well, I kinda love it! This is an excellent kids movie made with a lot of imagination, a bizarre sense of humor, some whacked out fairy tale logic, and an infectious enthusiasm. I do wonder how kids who lost all their hair in real life would feel about this flick. Yeah, this probably would go over like a lead balloon in that situation. Anyway, I just adore the eccentric characters like the deranged art teacher, the prodigy sister, the best bud who carries a dead ant around in a matchbox, the homeless ghosts, etc.

 

If you're looking for an odd kids movie that is also hyper-Canadian then congratulations, you've found it! The film was beautifully shot by Thomas Vámos, who was the cinematographer on The Gate (1987), so you just know this has some atmospheric moments packed into it. This film also has one of the most insane subplots in a kids film ever as Michael's friend foolishly uses the hair growth formula on his downstairs area. Yep, they went there.The out-of-control hair growth reminds me of the crazy hair thing in Asian horror films. Unfortunately, The Peanut Butter Solution doesn't end like Exte: Hair Extenstions (2007).

Saturday the 14th (1981)

Directed by Howard R. Cohen

When I was 7 or 8 years old, I watched Saturday the 14th and it's always stuck with me. My guess was that this was during those early days of my family's flirtatious relationship with cable TV before renting movies took over our lives. I remembered this film very fondly, so I'm not really sure what took me so long to get back to it. So let's fast forward to 2021 and my first viewing of this very odd comedy since my younger days to see what's up.  

The Hyatt family inherits a creepy and supposedly cursed old house from a distant relative, who hated them! This angers a pair of daylight vampires (Jeffrey Tambor and Nancy Lee Andrews) who were just about to purchase that very house from a realtor. They've been searching for this domicile for hundreds of years, because there's a powerful magical book inside it. Young Billy Hyatt finds the book and immediately starts flipping through it. As he does, pictures of monsters contained within its pages begin to disappear as the creatures come to life around him.

Billy's sister Debbie (Kari Michaelsen) is menaced by a dime store version of The Creature from the Black Lagoon in the bath. His mother Mary (Paula Prentiss) is bitten by a vampire bat and starts acting rather strangely. And his dad John (Richard Benjamin) is... well, he's just confused. They call for an exterminator to get rid of the bats but an exorcist named Van Helsing (Severn Darden) shows up instead. He tells them that the book, which has gone missing, will destroy the world if they don't find it soon and encourages them to combat the evil forces by throwing a party. Sure, why not?

Richard Benjamin is my spirit animal. Maybe it's a thing with Richards but I can't think of a single movie where he wasn't playing a total asshole. That is a very relatable trait for me in any actor. Benjamin appears to either not know what is going on from scene to scene or is just not committed to even trying. Funny how he retired from acting after this film. Whatever the case, I dig it. Surprising literally no one who's seen anything she's done before, Paula Prentiss steals every single shot she's in. She's great from the get go and she just makes me smile from ear to ear. After she's bitten by the vampire and runs around like a gothic wraith in her white, billowy nightgown, I'm completely smitten. 

My good friend Nafa once told me that the bathtub scene where Debbie is menaced by the faux fishman was his sexual awakening and it's easy to see why. The camera lingers on her getting undressed getting into the bath a long time and I can see a young Nafa of 11 or 12 years old losing his mind over it. Thankfully, Kari Michaelsen was only acting younger in this and was actually around 19 or so when they filmed this movie. It's still creepy but yeah, slightly less terrible than if she'd been underage. Moving on.

I decided to go the cheap route and watch Saturday the 14th on Prime instead of picking up the Blu-ray, just in case things didn't go well with this rewatch. Of course, because Amazon cares so much about movies, they have the old pan and scan, cropped, whatever version and not the lovingly restored widescreen via Shout! Factory. So I got the added bonus of recreating my initial cable TV viewing of the film (AKA The Claustrophobic Cut). I'm not even joking when I say that this only added to my enjoyment of this rewatch.

My biggest takeaway from Saturday the 14th is how bizarre its tone is. Yes, it's a comedy parody of popular horror tropes but it doesn't feel like a Mel Brooks or Zucker Brothers film. Cohen's film has a unique style that is horrendous and delightful at the same time. It also feels like this film doesn't know what planet it's from. Richard Benjamin is especially good at not acting like a human being. If he had taken off his shirt and opened a panel on his chest to reveal that he was an android from Westworld (1973) the whole time, I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised. Anyway, I'm so happy that I finally got back to this daft gem after over 35 years since my first viewing. I think I loved it.

"Mary, this ice is... old."

Why I'm Messed Up: Laughter in the Dark

One day in the late 1990s, I was reading a book written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1932 called Laughter in the Dark. That isn't really special. If it was the late 1990s, I was either reading Henry Miller, Nabokov, or the wildly underrated Heinrich Böll. Anyway, as I got to the end of the book, I had a massive wave of déjà vu when the amazing climax started to unfold. Sometime as a kid, I had seen the film adaption of Laughter in the Dark on cable and that ending had been buried deep in my brain just waiting for me to remember it.

Years later, I found the listing for the film version of Laughter in the Dark that was directed by Tony Richardson and was released in 1969. Finding the film proved to be another matter entirely. Forget DVD, I couldn't even track down a damn VHS copy. Then I turned to my usual sites for a download. Nothing. Son of a bitch! Other than some lobby cards and a poster, I couldn't find the film.

Now here's where complaining online helps. (I've been an advocate of online complaining since the first time I did it back in 1998.) I blogged right here on this very blog about how I couldn't find Laughter in the Dark. Then, in the summer of last year, someone read my post and contacted me. It was Rand C. He offered to send me a copy of the film if I promised to review it. Of course, I said yes. What Rand didn't know is that when I'm really excited about a film, I put it off. And since I'd been looking for this film since the end of the last century, my excitement was so huge that I I didn't watch Laughter in the Dark for 6 months. What can I say? I'm quirky.

Nicol Williamson plays Sir Edward More, a wealthy art dealer who is bored with his family and work. One day, a female usher named Margot (Anna Karina) catches his eye at the cinema. He becomes obsessed with the beautiful young woman and attempts to woo her while using an assumed name. Margot reverse-stalks Edward once she catches sight of his fancy car and chauffeur. Edward was hoping for an easy lay but Margot has got plans for this fool. With a well-timed telegram and a three day sex binge, she destroys his marriage and invades his life.

Unfortunately for Edward, Margot proves to be impossible to please and she's quickly seduced by his colleague Herve (Jean-Claude Drouot), a much younger and more dashing fellow. Margot convinces Edward that Herve is gay and encourages him to include the rogue on their vacation in Spain. When he finally catches on to the affair, Edward goes ballistic and demands that she never see Herve again. While driving through some mountain roads, he and Margot's arguing causes a car accident that leaves Edward blind.

Margot and Herve concoct a scheme to bleed Edward dry while continuing their affair. She rents a remote villa with a secret room where Herve will live and where they can get it on at night. As weeks go by, the embezzlement of Edward's money continues as she has the poor bastard signing blank checks. Worse still, Herve begins to get stir crazy to keep their twisted game going and plays tricks on the blind man for amusement. The cruelty escalates and -don't worry, I won't spoil it!

Director Tony Richardson was no stranger to adapting literature for the big screen but there's two things working against him. 1. Vladimir Nabokov's characters are total dickheads and 2. Richard Burton was an alcoholic. Burton was fired for being too drunk to work and was replaced by Nicol Williamson after filming had began. Williamson, who's played everyone from Merlin to Hamlet to Sherlock frickin' Holmes is a fine actor and does a great job here. But man oh man, his character is hard to sympathize with, especially with the word "SUCKER" tattooed on his forehead like that.

Transplanting Nabokov's novel from 1930s Berlin and Switzerland to 1960s England and Spain is easy when you throw miniskirts, hippies, inflatable furniture, and cacti into the mix. Cinematographer Dick Bush (Tommy, Sorcerer) brings some serious talent to the table which makes the fact that this film hasn't landed on Blu-ray yet even more frustrating. I love the setting in the Spanish mountains in the latter bits of the film. I kept waiting for Paul Naschy to show up and wolf out.

I think the film would have been served better if Margot hadn't been such a blatantly manipulative jerkwad and been more sly and seductive to the viewer. Anna Karina is lovely but the moment she started whining, I wanted to shut the movie off. Edward too should have been more likable right out of the gate but if memory serves, the screenplay follows Nabokov's version of these characters pretty closely aside from making them British. But if all of the blame landed squarely on the handsome but devious Herve, it would hurt the film. These three assholes kind of deserve each other.

How does the old saying go? "A fool and his money are soon parted shortly before that fool is destroyed by the brazen malice of two psychopaths." Edward's treatment at the hands of Margot and especially Herve is heartbreaking. Even if you despise the guy for his simpering foolishness, you still root for him by the final reel.

Before we get to the finale, let me just talk about how Laughter in the Dark affected me. Right at the beginning of the film where Edward is at the cinema. The film that the packed house is viewing is never shown but the sounds of a woman in peril and gunfire can be heard through the theater. These sounds cause uproarious laughter in the audience and Edward looks rather disturbed for a moment. Then he lays eyes on Margot for the first time. This brilliant piece of foreshadowing is how I knew I was in for a treat even though it would be a painful one.

When this film ended the other day after seeing it for the first time after all those years, I was left with a profound sense of dread and a renewed fear of human beings. Though it's not as good as the book, I think Laughter in the Dark absolutely deserves to be seen by film fans and Nabokov fans alike. The ending is a real crackerjack of a scene that I won't spoil here since this film is still unavailable on home video and I'm hoping people will seek it out. It occurred to me that maybe I only caught the end of this one when I was a kid. But it's entirely possible that I saw this whole movie which explains why I'm so messed up.

Special thanks to Rand C. for hooking me up with this film!

Terrible Splatter From My Youth: The Uninvited

No, it isn't that The Uninvited.

Nope, it isn't that one either.

Actually, it's this one.



For some reason, I have a vague idea that my mom rented The Uninvited for me when it was on the New Releases shelf at Blockbuster video. During those magical days, I often rummaged through the horror section on my own while my mom killed the new stuff. I could be wrong though. In fact, I can't remember exactly when I first caught this one. It could have been as late as 1990 for all I know. Anyway, this paragraph is really boring.

What I remembered about this movie:

There is some disgusting inflating and deflating bladder effects with lots of blood squirting around in The Uninvited. I also remember getting a little nauseous when the creature kept popping of the cat's mouth like a demented hairball and more than a little freaked out that a scratch from its claws would make your veins explode. I also remember George Kennedly obesely running around the boat a lot.

What I didn't remember about this movie:

Alex Cord, of The Dead Are Alive and an amazing episode of Murder She Wrote, also stars in this one. He really hones his craft in this movie. And by 'hones', I mean 'gesticulates wildly' and by 'craft' I mean 'having an aneurism'. Strangely enough, it is the cat that gives the best performance in this film.

Gooey Terror From My Youth: Beware! The Blob

I guess I was kind of a doofus when I was a kid. When I saw Beware! The Blob on TV back in the day, I had no idea I was supposed to be laughing. In fact, I was freaked the fuck out. I guess the idea of being digested by a red gooey mass from outer space is actually disturbing in some circles of society. What got to me the most was when the Blob went after the black couple (played by Godfrey Cambridge and Marlene Clark), it scared me to death and made me incredibly sad that these two vivacious and fun characters had to die so horribly. I like the sincerity of my kid-heart but man, I was such a dope. It just didn't compute that a horror movie could be silly, funny, or in the cae of Beware! The Blob, incredidbly stupid.

Macross Weekend

For no reason whatsoever other than extreme nerdiness and nostalgia (and because I need a break from Jess Franco), I'm watching The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, which became the first season of my beloved childhood favorite: Robotech, all weekend long. That's 36 episodes and the theatrical film. In its Japanese form, the show is just as watchable and a lot less confusing. Elements of the plot that Harmony Gold, the production company that brought Robotech to North America, either wouldn't or couldn't show/explain are suddenly clear as a bell. Like, just what the fuck is "protoculture" anyway?

When season 3 of Robotech aired, some controversy in the Schmidt household came along and ruined everything. The one time my mom watched the show with me just happened to be the one time where a character died on screen. Well, she freaked out right then and there and forbid me from ever watching Robotech again. While I won't be watching the second seasons and third seasons of Robotech (which were actually two different anime series with similar mecha designs), I did find the exact scene that led to the embargo on Japanese robots in my house. Here it is:

(Make sure your kids aren't in the room!)

Wednesday Ramble: Clam of the Rape Bare

I can sit here and come up with a hundred titles of films I'd wish I'd never seen. Like Sliver, Murder By Numbers, Deadly Impact, McHale's Navy, whatever. There is a subcategory here that I'm sure some of you can relate to. I'm talking about films that I wish I had never seen with my parents. The biggest offender and one of the worst films ever made... Clan of the Cave Bear.



In case you don't know, the film is about a blond cavegirl named Aaliyah (played Daryl Hannah) who gets orphaned from her family because of global warming. She gets taken in by some swarthy cavemen. When she grows up, she is all hot and stuff but of course because she's fair-skinned and blond, all the caveduders think she's a dog. Whoa! Take that, dominant Aryan paradigm! One of the cavemen named Broud (Thomas G. Waites) decides to throw Aaliyah a bone (literally) and rapes her. Yeah he rapes her a lot. And I think he does it in front of the other cavepeople. I might be imagining that part. I have been totally accurate up until this moment.

But Aaliyah is not completely alone in the bitter neanderthal world. She has some friends like Iza and Creb (Pamela Reed and James Remar), social outcasts themselves. Iza is a witch (maybe) and Creb is... um... messed up. Everything is a struggle. Everything is unfair. The meek get beaten and raped by the strong. Jeez, I'm getting depressed just thinking about this fucking movie.

Anyway, the rape scenes (don't click here for artist's concept) in this movie are disturbing (which is probably why these scenes in any film bother me so much now). But then Broud has a bout of impotency and gets all mad and stuff. Iza is all like 'what was that all about?' and Aaliyah demonstrates Broud's failing rape-member with a floppy stick demonstration and everyone gets a laugh out of it. So I'm sitting there with my mom and dad and I just wanted to die. How much I understood of what all this meant, I have no idea. I just know that I wished I had a machine gun and the ability to step inside a movie. Because I would have mowed them all down. This, I promise you.



So Aaliyah gets preggers and gets shunned from the tribe for using their stupid weaponry. Stupid woman! You no use weapons! Let Goov, Grod, Zoug, Dorv, Droog, or Crug use that slingshot thingie. Jeez, men were just the same as they are nowadays. Always opressin' the womenz. Shit! I can't believe I've seen this movie! SHIT! She finally meets a decent guy who appreciates her scuzzy blond dreads but he gets killed by a bear. That was surprising. So aside from learning how to treat the ladies, I also learned that life sucks.


(I love the Italian artwork. Title translates to Cromagnon Rape Adventure.)

I can't even describe to you the joy I felt just now finding out that this film was a financial flop. Good! I wish this movie had cost $900 million and then made NOTHING! I bet Daryl Hannah was pissed. She was all like 'man, that would have been so rad doing all the sequels.' Oh yes, dear reader, the book on which this is based has sequels. SEQUELS! Unfortunately, this film probably did well on home video. I know one family that rented it. Mine. I'm not sure if I was 11 or 12 when my folks rented Daryl Hannah's shame-film but it doesn't matter, I will always be too young to watch it with my parents or anybody else's parents.

There are other humiliating films that I watched with my parents but none so traumatically awful as this garbage. I remember being embarrased by watching Shirley Valentine with mom and pop. That was the last time I watched anything middle aged lady empowering. Jeez. And that time my mom rented Whore with Theresa Russell. We didn't get very far into that film before my mom took it out of the VCR and said something like 'we are NOT watching the rest of THAT!' Why did she rent it in the first place? Why did she think her 15 year old son wanted to watch it at all, nevermind watching it with his mom!

Daryl Hannah has a boy's name. What is up with that?

The Falling AKA Alien Predator is ALIVE

Hey folks. Did you miss me? I'm here! Do you still miss me? While I'm off doing stupid crap and stuff, I did stumble onto something fun and splattery. It seems that one of the freaky things from my childhood has surfaced on Netflix's "Watch Instantly" thingie. It's called The Falling AKA Alien Predator. You should totally check it out. Mr. Fancy Pants director Deran Sarafian has gone on to directing things like "House" and "Fringe" and a bunch of other junk. The best thing about Alien Predator on Netflix, it's in friggin' widescreen and it looks great. I don't know how long it will be available and it is really cheesy but check it out and let me know what you think. Hopefully, I'll be back next week with actual content. Take it easy, duders.

Okay, the movie is on Netflix right here.

And you can read my review here damn it.

No Drinkee The Wormee

I didn't know what tequila was when I was 11 years old. I didn't know that there was a friggin' worm in the bottom. I just assumed that the dad in Poltergeist II was drinking some tainted booze or something. So when he starts acting crazy and then vomits up a monster, well I was thoroughly freaked out. The next morning, I poured myself some Minute Maid fruit punch and what do I see in the bottom of my glass? Fruit bits. There were little fruit bits or fruit silt or some crap. I dumped it out. I dumped that juice right down the drain. No way was I going to drink something that would turn into a monster that I would vomit up later. That silly fear would haunt me for years later and I would never finish a glass of any juice that had any kind of pulp in it. Looking at this scene for the first time since I was a kid, I'm astonished that I wasn't more terrified. Yikes.

This is Horror Redux

I have talked about this BEFORE. But now I own a little piece of the puzzle.

I cannot stress how important This is Horror AKA Stephen King's World of Horror was to my burgeoning horror movie fandom. This show was stretched out over several Saturday nights on MTV (it was on before Headbangers Ball if I recall correctly). My curiosity about the genre had already been stoked by Elvira, Commander USA, Jason, and Freddy. This is Horror gave me some direction. The next time I was at the video store (Video-X-Tron had already been bought out by Blockbuster by then) but they still had a good selection. I beheld the horror aisle and I made the proclamation that I would watch every single horror movie in the store.







Most irritatingly, I haven't found the entire series yet. Apparently, it was on Japanese laserdisc at one point but all I have right now is this one VHS tape. First things first, the whole description on the back of the box is bullshit. The description might be for the entire series but the person buying this one tape is in for something slightly different.


When it comes to converting old VHS to DVD-R, this is my favorite company.


Nice use of the killer in Phenomena there. Or just a major spoiler.


Stephen King comes off a little ridiculous here.


Argento is also just a tad wound up.

I am shocked by how much Dario Argento is on this tape. Most (if not all) of the footage of the "Italian Hitchcock" comes from the Michele Soavi directed documentary, Dario Argento's World of Horror. This is quite interesting for me because it seems as though this may have been the impetus for me to seek out old Dario. So this show might have been why I marched into the video store and demanded me some Creepers. My last post shed some light on this confusing moment.


The joke's on us. These frames are back in style now.

There's some talk with director Brian Yuzna and special effects designer Steve Johnson. There's lots of good stuff here. I'm glad that films of my youth like the very disturbing Society and the very fun Dead Heat were mentioned. There's a weak and rather half-assed section on vampire movies. They show clips from Vampyres which was very surprising (never found that one on VHS as a kid!), the comedic vampire scenes from The House that Dripped Blood, and friggin' Vamp which I can remember renting but still can't remember a single scene from.


I'm sure this looked much funnier on paper.

So yeah, there you go. That pretty much sums up what is on the tape. I finally got a little tiny slice of what was an extremely influential part of my growing up. All of this took place in Jupiter, Florida so you can imagine how important having a world of fantasy to escape to was for me at the time. I was not what you would call a popular kid so many of my weekends were spent alone in front of the TV with the VCR buzzing away. Horror movies were my best buds and they continue to warm my heart even after all these years.

Well jeez, Christmas Eve is upon me and here I am babbling about my childhood again. Have a nice holiday everyone. I'll try to post some more cool stuff before the end of the year but you know how it is. Maybe I'll do some obnoxious "unboxing" videos on Youtube. I may only get a few pairs of socks this year but I know I can count on you to be interested in them. I leave you all with some cool stuff that didn't appear on my tape:

VHS Covers of Doom - Part 4

VHS Covers of Doom Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.



Some things are becoming clear to me. As some of you may remember, for a very long time, Dario Argento's Phenomena was my favorite horror movie of all time. I spent a fair bit of time thinking about it. I really never put much thought into how that movie entered my life. It was just there. However, while I've been sorting through my strangely disjointed childhood horror movie memories, something revelatory happened. I remember very distinctly going straight to my local video store looking for Creepers, the truncated form of Phenomena. I found it, rented it, and there you go, end of story, right? WRONG, duder, WRONG!

The night I rented The Creepers, I was supposed to be renting Creepers. Since I was such a young idiot, I didn't know anything about anything and rented a totally different film. So I'm sitting there in my room, watching schoolgirls getting sexually assaulted and strangled by a madman (who I thought was French) and I kept thinking "This ain't right, y'all. This very, very ain't right at all, damn it!" The next day, I took the tape back and was able to get Creepers. Finally, I was able to witness my first Dario Argento film.

But wait, there's more! Man, this is boring. Anyway, not only had I found out that I did not enjoy watching women being raped; I also discovered my first taste of Euro-sleaze. Thank you, The Creepers AKA In the Devil's Garden AKA Assault AKA Say Goodbye to Your Innocence, Richard. But wait, didn't I get a free rental out of it? That's true, I did. Okay folks, my memory is coming to life here. The Creepers was in the Creepers box at the store. So I got to rent the proper film for free AND I'm totally blameless for the mishap. This is my primal scream therapy. AWOOOOOOO!

So there you go. Forget everything you know about how I came to find the magic that is Phenomena. Seriously, forget it. I did. Gee, do you think something may have led me to go searching for Creepers in the first place? Could it have been a little something called Stephen King's World of Horror AKA This is Horror? OMG! Will I be talking about that very program at length this month? ROFL! Thanks, this has been very fun.

Toxic Zombies

Toxic Zombies
AKA Bloodeaters
Directed by Charles McCrann
Released: 1980
Starring Charles McCrann, Beverly Shapiro, Dennis Helfend, Kevin Hanlon, Judith Brown
Running Time: 89 minutes

A shady government agent and his crony decide to wipe out some marijuana growers by dusting them and their crops with an untested herbicide. This turns the dirty hippies into bloodthirsty and fleshhungry (okay, that's not word, WTF?) zombies who go on a rampage. It's up to one fish and game inspector named Tom (played by Charles McCrann) to um... well, I was going to say "save the day" but really Tom was just going fishing with his wife Polly (Beverly Shapiro) and kooky brother and happened to be there when all those mellows got harshed.

In the same movie, a very special young man named Jimmy (Kevin Hanlon) and his sister Amy (Judith Brown) are orphaned when their parents get all kinds of devoured by the zombie horde (there's like 4 of them). Tom and Polly rescue the "kids" from danger thus endangering themselves and there's lots and lots of running around in the woods. The four of them take shelter in a shack in the woods filled with a crazy loner named "Hermit" (Dennis Helfend) but things go awry when the zombies miraculously learn how to light torches and bring on the siege. Do I have to go on? Blah blah blah, everyone is killed except for some people who didn't.

My dogged pursuit of every single darn film from my formative years has led me to another dud. While Toxic Zombies isn't all bad, I have to wonder what kind of super perfect attention span I had back in the day. Because this movie has too many of those dangling (and hope-murdering) plot points to fill out its running time. This flick also has too many characters which are introduced very quickly and are given to time to speak their thoughts aloud because the writer didn't trust the viewers to figure out what the fuck is going on ourselves.

I first encountered Toxic Zombies on TV one Saturday afternoon (and I think it was followed by The Loch Ness Horror) when I was probably pretty young. I saw it shortly after I'd seen Night of the Living Dead but years before Dawn of the Dead. And despite my difficulty sitting through this film now (horrible head cold notwithstanding), I can see why this little indie zombie flick stayed in the back of my head all these years. The gore is pretty wet in some places (they cut almost nothing for TV) and the overall mood is surprisingly bleak.

Well, the hammy performances do illicit some laughs and I was particularly charmed by Beverly Shapiro as Polly, the whiniest human female ever captured on film. I feel slightly different about the slightly less enigmatic Judith Brown as Amy or as I call her The Amy. While looking out for her very special brother, she is able to be one helluva strangely alluring old teenager. Director McCrann gave each of these lovely ladies plenty of screentime and saved the movie. Toxic Zombies is no lost classic, that's for sure. It's got that Super 16 charm, plenty of cheap gore (nothing over the top or anything), a piano and synthesizer heavy score, and a little nudity.



Her Adam's apple just exploded.



This is Polly, the best character in the whole movie in the world.



The coolest zombie in the movie. Sadly, very little rampaging from this one.



Collateral damage from the gender wars.



Why is this a Gilbert Gottfried impression? Who couldn't afford the real thing?



Come for the zombie hippies, stay for the tedium.



"Retarded" Jimmy and the The Amy, my favorite 35 year old teenager.



I waited 80 minutes for this fucking guy to show up and advance the plot.

The Ghost Galleon

Sometime in 2003, I picked up Tombs of the Blind Dead on DVD. It was a rewarding experience. I knew I'd seen this movie when I was a kid and it was like nostalgia overload. But one question kept popping up in the back of my mind: Where's the part where they're on the ghost ship? I watched the sequel. Nope, no boat. What the fuck? It turns out that I had seen the third Blind Dead film, The Ghost Galleon and forgotten all about it. I knew those nasty Templars were creeping around on a creaky ship. And this week, I finally sat down to watch The Ghost Galleon.



The Ghost Galleon
AKA Ship of Zombies, Horror of the Zombies, El Buque Maldito
Directed by Amando de Ossorio
Released: 1974
Starring Maria Perschy, Jack Taylor, Barbara Rey, Carlos Lemos, Manuel de Blas
Running Time: 89 minutes



For the dumbest publicity stunt in human history, two models are stranded out in the middle of the ocean wearing the clothes of fashion designer, Howard Tucker (played by Jack Taylor). He and his photographer Lillian (Maria Perschy) are convinced that this harebrained scheme will help sell their designs. The models' boat collides with a ghost ship and the two disappear. Tucker and company go looking for the girls and find the ship. They are transported to another dimension and discover that this spooky boat is inhabited by the bloodthirsty walking corpses of the Knight Templar. An unnamed observer was quoted as saying, "Sucks to be you, bro."



The first thing you have to know about The Ghost Galleon is that it's pretty boring. The second thing: it's bad. But I of course think that it is delightfully bad. The borderline gibberish dialog, the hilarious 70s fashions, and the ridiculously fake model ship in a swimming pool at night just make this film a big joke. Nothing can excuse the pacing of this film, which is just a setup for the final Blind Dead flick, Night of the Seagulls (which I'll be watching soon). To director Amando de Ossorio's credit, this film almost works thanks to some atmospheric moments and the sheer creepiness of the bloodthirsty zombies of the previous films.



I love Austrian born Maria Perschy (of Exorcism, Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll). She has these piercing eyes and is just one hell of a classy lady. Jack Taylor is certainly no slouch when it comes to genre pictures. He was in Jess Franco's Succubus and Leon Klimovsky's Vampires' Night Orgy just to name a couple. The lovely Barbara Rey (who played the foolhardy fashion model Noemi) also appeared in de Ossorio's Night of the Sorcerors.



So you see, absence did not make my heart grow fonder; it did grow curiouser. I just remembered that them there blind zombies was on a boat. Dang it, that's genius. Ghost Galleon is mostly terrible but even worse, it's freakin' boring. There is one thing about this film that is true about all the Blind Dead series: death is slow but his step is assured. Death will come for you and he will drag you kicking and screaming to oblivion. Death may be blind this time around but he can hear the blood pumping in your veins. Dang it, how many hot chicks do these friggin' undead knights have to munch on before their undead bloodlust will be satisfied?



Quotes

"I don't believe in Santa Claus, phantom ships, and fortune tellers."

Darkroom: "Catnip"

One of the horror anthology TV shows from the 80s that seems to slipping into obscurity is Darkroom. This show hosted by James Coburn had some pretty cool stories on it. I'm not kidding. James. Coburn. Obviously, this was destined to be one of my favorite shows. And then it was gone with only a brief shot at reruns on various networks (which is when I believe I first saw it). Oh yeah, duh, Darkroom also had a fucking creepy as intro too.





There was one episode in particular that scared the crap out of me. But it was a vague kind of terror, a half-forgotten nightmare. Something about "Catnip" really freaked me out. Thankfully, the internet came through for me and I was able to get my hands on "Catnip". I confronted my fears and discovered an entertaining, silly, and yet frightening slice of made-for-TV horror.



Ronnie (played by Cyril O'Reilly) is a total jerkoff. He's fresh out of the military (probably dishonorably discharged), he lives with his poor, helpless mother, and he robs people for cash so that he can buy and deal drugs. He also has a hot girlfriend named Loretta (Karin Argoud) that he shares his drugs with. So yeah, things are going pretty well for Ronnie until an ornery black cat crosses his path. The cat belongs to an old witch (Jocelyn Brando) who lives across the street from his supplier.



For a normal person, this would not be a problem. But like I said, Ronnie is a jerkoff. When the old witch gives him grief for trying to hurt her cat, he gets the bright idea to assassinate the feline by planting a friggin' bomb on the cat-door. His plan goes awry and he accidentally blows up the old lady. The cat comes after Ronnie but now it has supernatural abilities. A battle ensues between man and cat and he vastly underestimates the kitty's powers. Did I mention that Ronnie is a jerkoff idiot bastard?



Spoilers

The final battle takes place in Ronnie's room. The black cat has managed to get inside his room and hide under the bed. He gets a katana out of his closet and goes after the cat. Ronnie slashes and slashes under his bed without looking and he thinks he's killed the cat. He looks under the bed and BAM! the old witch's head is under there hissing at him. This is where my memory kicks in and I know what happens next. Ronnie falls to floor, frozen with terror, and the cat proceeds to eat his tongue right out of his mouth! Of course, they don't show any gore but you know what is going on.

Spoilers over.



That ending totally freaked me the fuck out. I was afraid of cats. I was afraid of what was under my bed. I was afraid of Marlon Brando's sister! It was totally insane. Revisiting this episode years later was a real treat. "Catnip" is surprisingly good with moody music, cool camera filters and effects, and decent performances from everyone involved. It is impossible not to hate Ronnie and draw real delight from his undoing.

The Angry Red Planet

The Angry Red Planet
Directed by Ib Melchior
Released: 1959
Starring Gerald Mohr, Laura Hayden, Jack Kruschen, Les Tremayne
Running Time: 83 minutes
DVD Studio: MGM



The MR-1, a missing rocket on a mission to the planet Mars, suddenly shows up in Earth's orbit. The military manages to land the rocket safely but it is discovered that only two of the mission's crew have survived their journey. One survivor is Colonel Tom Obannion (played by Gerald Mohr) who is suffering from an unidentifiable space infection. The other is Dr. Iris Ryan (Laura Hayden) but she is in shock from her experiences and cannot immediately relate her experiences. When Iris is ready to talk, we see what occurred on their mission to Mars.



I feel like I'm hijacking someone else's memories. I am not a child of the 1950s so why is Angry Red Planet part of my childhood? The fact is that this schlocky silliness has several great things going for it. The writing is stupid and the performances from the actors are hilarious. However, this film has atmosphere. One wouldn't think that something this cheesy and almost totally devoid of brains would be almost impossible to forget on a visual level. When the team finally gets out of the friggin' ship, they step onto an eerily silent, strangely lit planet brought to life with drawn backdrops and crazy filters.



Okay, The Angry Red Planet does have one major flaw and this is a problem for most sci-fi films of its era. This film takes forever to get to the good stuff. The cornball crap that happens can only distract a viewer for so long. It becomes all too clear that there isn't a whole lot to this movie. It is weird in the way, the story is related in flashback. At first Iris can't talk about what happened then the doctor recommends trying "narco-synthesis" to jog her memory. They go on to say that the story she'll tell won't be what actually happened. It will be distorted by her own memories. What? No, seriously. WHAT? I have no idea where the writers were going with that one.



I stumbled upon The Angry Red Planet sometime in the 80s. It captured my interest despite its slow start and stock footage. (My attention span used to be a whole lot more resilient to this type of junk.) For my kid self, the weird-looking scenes on the surface of Mars were almost unbearably tense. The stylized backdrops of the alien city look like something straight out of a comic book. And who can forget that insane monster? It's a cartoony bat with spider legs! Years later, I would see that very creature on a Misfits album cover.

"You know what I think? That thing up there... it's a flying coffin."