Ghost Pizza

My band wrote a spooky song about a spooky topic: haunted pizza. The results are pretty chilling.

Listen here.

The Melvis Files Part 2 - Paradise, Hawaiian Style

And we're back. So my wife and I are kind of watching but mostly re-watching all of Elvis's movies. I'm going to be randomly reviewing them as we go along, especially when they are weird or just very, very special. Check out Part 1 if you missed it.

I've never taken a Valium before but I believe that Paradise, Hawaiian Style from 1966 is exactly what it feels like to take one, maybe. In this nearly plotless travelogue, Elvis plays Rick Richards, a pilot fresh out of the Air Force that starts an island-to-island helicopter taxi/sightseeing service in Hawaii with his pal Danny (played by James Shigeta (Die Hard)). Of course, Rick is a horny fool with a girl on every island and pretty much screws up everything. And there's a love interest in the form Suzanna Leigh (Lust for a Vampire) and a goofy kid character as well: Danny's daughter Jan (played by Donna Butterworth).

Rick's other love interests are irritating at best and are played by Marianna Hill, Irene Tsu, Linda Wong, and Julie Parrish. They act sexy and then angry. There you go. Hill gets the most screen time but her character is such a jerk that you just want to beat her to death with a cocoanut. Fans of obscure horror films, like myself, will slap their foreheads with this bit of trivia: Marianna Hill starred in the weird and wonderful apocalyptic zombie film, Messiah of Evil in 1973.

Overall, I really dig Paradise, Hawaiian Style. Unfortunately, there's no guitar porn (one of the band members has a pretty cool looking hollow body electric but that's about it) and the kid character may get on your nerves though she wasn't a deal-breaker. The main thing I noticed is how relaxing all of the scenery and most of the music is. It just lulls you into a happy state with only the machinations of the story occasionally getting in the way.

Standout scenes:

An air hostess (that's what they called them back then!) says the title of the movie in the first 2 minutes.

Elvis flying a helicopter with a pretty girl and a cockpit full of mentally disturbed dogs.

H!TITDS Episode #46 - Amok Train

My good pal Jeffrey is back guest co-hosting the show and we are headed back into the Italian horror craziness like a choochoo train of craziness. We are talking about Amok Train AKA Beyond the Door III. Come on over and listen to our bafflement mixed with mostly equal amounts of joy and pain. Listen here!

Be sure to check out Jeffrey's awesome blog: Nessun Timore.

And please peruse the back catalog of the show. There are some real gems in there, y'all.

Franco Friday #56 - Killer Barbys

Holy crap, I am getting desperate. It's been really hard for me in terms of picking what Franco film to review next. I don't want to delve into all the pornos and I'm tired of all the psychodramas that are actually just pornos with lots of angst. So I settled on this little gem(?) from the 1990s, an era of Jess Franco that I am totally unfamiliar with. Are you ready? I'm not. 1 2 3 4!!!!

Killer Barbys
AKA Vampire Killer Barbys
Directed by Jess Franco
1996
Starring Santiago Segura, Mariangela Giordano, Aldo Sambrell, Charlie S. Chaplin, Silvia Superstar, Carlos Subterfuge, Angie Barea, Billy King
87 minutes

While out on tour, a band called The Killer Barbys run into some trouble when their van breaks down out in the middle of nowhere. They get help from a man named Arkan (played by Aldo Sambrell), who brings them to the castle of the 100 year old Countess Freguenmans (Mariangela Giordano) AKA actress and singer, Olga Lujan. What The Killer Barbys don’t know is how utterly screwed they are because the Countess is actually a vampiric creature that needs their young blood to stay alive.

There is also a crazy legend of a satanic monk who tormented and killed a lot of little girls. He fell in love with a woman and tortured her to the brink of death. Then with a potion made of his blood and semen(?), saved her at the last minute. To this day, his image sometimes appears and disappears on the side of the castle. Sure! Why not? And I simply cannot talk about this movie without mentioning Baltasar the idiot (played by Santiago Segura) and his two dwarf minions (his “children”?) that help Arkan carry out his plan by slaughtering the band members. Could he be the satanic monk himself?

Much to my surprise, I love this film’s atmosphere right out of the gate. Great lighting and smoke machines combined with extravagant sets make this an attractive film to look at. The copy of Killer Barbys I have is pretty dark so some of the outdoor nighttime scenes were kind of lost on me but other than that, the film looks great! The sequence of the band playing in an old concert hall reminded me of Franco’s heyday filming jazz bands and nightclub scenes except with more moshing.

Much like his 80s splatter efforts like Faceless and Bloody Moon, I think Franco decided to just give the people what they wanted and we all have to suffer for that attitude; partly because “the people” are idiots and also because Franco didn’t have a clue what in the hell they actually wanted. Maybe this is Franco trying to relate to 90s audiences and the rest is a happy(?) accident. Take for example, the ubiquitous bad sex scene. The idiotic couple who stays in the van, going at it for hours (presumably) while the same Killer Barbys song plays over and over, is one of the dumbest and least inspired things I’ve seen in his filmography.

One of the things about this movie that impresses me is all the bizarre shit that happens. The script, partly in Spanish and partly in English, is terrible and is peppered with some seriously bad jokes. How much of it is meant to be taken seriously? Who the hell knows? The band drives around in their van, rocking out to their own music. That’s pretty hilarious. In one scene, an unseen someone is singing out in the swamp. It sounds vaguely like Rick Springfield. When one girl gets beheaded, her severed head calls Baltasar a son of a bitch. I think that was meant to be funny. After killing one of her victims, the Countess rolls around on his naked body, gibbering like a dang loon. I don't think that was meant to be funny. But it is.

Italian horror fans will no doubt recognize Mariangela Giordano from Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, Giallo a Venezia, and several other sleazy classics. Spanish character actor/director Santiago Segura has since gone on to do a series of comedy crime films playing Torrente, a private detective that excels in bad behavior and getting into ridiculous situations. He was also in Alex de la Iglesia’s The Day of the Beast. Veteran actor Aldo Sambrell was in more spaghetti westerns than I care to delve into at this moment. Duder was prolific. As for the rest of the cast... the less said, the better.

Damn it, I like Killer Barbys! It is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination but I found it kind of fun. The acting from all of the band members is awful while the rest of cast (who are actual actors) do a decent job with the material. Some of the gore is pretty cool (the rotting yet living corpse of the Countess) and some of it really, really low budget (the bodies hanging up around the castle). Surreal, trashy, and astoundingly stupid, this is one of Franco’s craziest films that I’ve seen; yet I’m not sure if I can exactly recommend it. Franco fans may get a kick out of Killer Barbys but the uninitiated will want to pass on this one. Where the hell did that steamroller come from anyway?

“I think the axel is broken.”

“What the fuck do you know!?!”

Fang Of Joy Update

Hey there, my splendid pals. I've been pretty busy lately and haven't been blogging nearly as much as I should be but I thought I would drop in with a couple of things to tantalize and traumatize you. First of all, Fang Of Joy Issue #1 is almost sold out. As of this moment, there are only 10 left in my eBay shop. And there are some available from my good friends over at Goblinhaus. Get them now while they are still squirming around.

So what about issue #2, you ask? Well, I assure you there will be an issue two and it is going to be friggin' awesome. We have so much badass content lined up that I am shaking with Eurohorror vibe-ations. Articles, reviews, interviews, original artwork, and more. Hot damn, I can't wait! I don't want to go into it all now but rest assured, I will be back with more information on issue #2 later.

HTITDS #45 - Impulse (1974)

Hello!

Do you like William Shatner?

Do you like Tampa?

Sure, we all do.

Nafa returns to Hello! This is the Doomed Show and this time we are talking about Impulse from 1974 starring William Shatner, filmed right here in wonderful Tampa, Florida. That's right, we finally took a little break from talking about Rob Zombie (by listener demand!) and delved into something so freakin' insane that it transcends the genre. What genre is that exactly? I'm still not sure. Be sure to listen close for a cameo from Sparkles the cat.

Chap it ouch rite hear!

What about them old episodes?

Promotional Material

Pay attention, rockers. This is how you get people to come to your gig.

The Melvis Files - Part 1 - Clambake

When it comes to Elvis Presley's music, I'm a little ignorant. I know he wrote "Hey Jude", "When the Levee Breaks", and that "Allison" song or whatever. But when it comes to the movies he starred in... Well, what can I say? That's my shit, "Hound Dog"! I am going to just randomly talk about Elvis movies I've seen in a few installments. Be sure to Tweet if you like it or Snapchat or something! :P

Clambake is a wonderful of example of Elvis not giving a fuck anymore. There are several scenes in this film where his emoting amounts to a drowsy stare that gives me the creeps. The plot in one sentence: The son of a wealthy oil tycoon trades places with a water ski instructor to see if he can make it on his own, impress a girl, and win a boat race.

Between the aforementioned abysmal Presley-acting, Bill Bixby playing a villain we're supposed to kind of like(?), hippie happening-esque moments in the vein of "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", boring boat racing, and a horrifyingly schmaltzy musical number called "Confidence" -think of it as the worst rendition of "High Hopes" you can imagine but worse- this movie is all over the place. The insane cuteness of Shelly Fabares (I'll be getting back to her in Girl Happy and Spinout) and the eye candy from the female extras kind of win me over, truth be told.

Fans of cool cars, Fender guitars, wacky situations, garish cinematography, and above all, bad friggin' movies, need only apply. Don't get me wrong, this one is staying in my collection because it is so enjoyably bad. Even the DVD from MGM looks like no one gave this movie a second thought. This has one of the poorest transfers I've seen an Elvis movie get so far. Pretty sad.

Ghost Pizza

That's me in the guitar flesh.

Mystery Giallo

Can anyone help me identify this giallo?

H!TITDS - Episode #44 - The House with Laughing Windows

There's a new episode of the podcast up for your ears. Please welcome friend of the show, Jeffrey of the Nessun Timore blog, as special guest co-host. We get seriously delirious over Pupi Avati's classic giallo The House with Laughing Windows and have a frickin' great time. Please give it a listen right now.

For all of you purists of the show who are like "Who was that Nafa guy?" or "Who is this Jeffrey character?" and "WHERE THE HELL IS BRAD?!?!!", don't worry, Brad will return! Dats a promise. We are dealing with a whopper of a schedule conflict and I've invited some nice folks to talk to me while we get our respective acts together again.

If you're new to the show, please check out the archive of past episodes.

Video Flyer

My band GYROJETS is playing this Saturday. So I made this:

Happy Birthday, Doomed Moviethon

Nine years ago I had this crazy idea to bring my own unique take (*rolls eyes*) on horror movies to the world.

300+ reviews and dozens of articles and moviethons later, I'm still going.

I thank all of you who have supported or contributed to Doomed Moviethon over the years. You are awesome.

Franco Friday #55 - Ilsa the Wicked Warden

One very dark day, my curiosity got the best of me and I watched Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS. I have to admit, I was entertained. It is a solid movie with a nauseating premise and an ending that pays off. Of course, I tried to sit through the other Ilsa movies and that didn't work out so good. I got about 10 minutes into Jess Franco's version and gave up. All I remember about what I saw is that it seemed very cheap, sleazy, and sweaty like a sicko's daydream. I'm sure that it was just a bad first impression.

Ilsa the Wicked Warden
AKA Greta - Haus ohne Männer
Directed by Jess Franco
1977
Starring Dyanne Thorne, Tania Busselier, Lina Romay, Eric Falk, Dagmar Bürger, and Jess Franco
95 minutes

[I am going to spoil the plot to save you from having to watch this.]

The movie starts in the jungle and we hear the sounds of a whip cracking and a woman screaming and moaning. A sexy female voice says "Wicked Warden" lasciviously and it's on. Before the two minute mark, we have women showering, complaining, and cooing nakedly at each at the Las Palomas women's prison (oops, I mean "clinic"). In her own private bath, Greta the "wicked" warden (played by Dyanne Thorne) is having a soak, washing herself luxuriously. I kind of want this movie to be over already.

A girl screams and starts flopping around while the guards try to control the situation. Oh snap, this was just a distraction so another inmate, Rosa (played by Angela Ritschard), can make a run for it. She barely escapes with her life. Dr. Arcos (Jess Franco) manages to save her but he is forced to return Rosa to Greta and the "clinic". Later, he finds out that Rosa died shortly thereafter and the body cremated.

Horrified by the incident, Dr. Arcos pleads to the worldwide community to shut down Las Palomas but with no evidence, they tell him to get stuffed. Arcos is approached by Abbie (played by Tania Busselier), Rosa's sister and a total badass, who volunteers to go undercover in Las Palomas to find out what's really going on there. Abbie gets in and is given a number: 41. She is told that if she ever tells anyone her real name, they will burn the number into her breast.

Abbie meets the other lost souls including Juana (Lina Romay), the lead inmate who is in good with Greta. Abbie finds out very quickly that this "clinic" is a sick and evil place where no one escapes. Let's hope that all the prescribed sexual humiliation, genital mutilation, and shock treatments won't keep Abbie from carrying out her plan. Wait, what was her plan again?

Of course, Greta gets word that Abbie has been asking too many questions about what goes on in the "clinic". In a bizarre twist, we discover that Abbie's sister Rosa is alive, hidden in some dark place in Las Palomas. She has been tortured nearly to to the brink of death. Rosa gives up Abbie almost immediately and, on top of that, she names Dr. Arcos as a leader of a terrorist group. Arcos is immediately murdered by the corrupt police. Now the shit had really hit the fan.

How does Greta keep getting away with all of this shit? The "clinic" practically pays for itself. The lead guard (played by Eric Falk) sells films of the torture and sex to a local rich weirdo. Mo' money! Mo' money Mo' money! Of course, it helps that Greta is in bed (literally) with the Governor (played by Howard Maurer). This sleazebag motherfucker is banging Greta and using her "clinic" to eliminate his female political prisoners. I just got to the gang-rape scene. Ugh, just kill me. After Abbie is turned into a gibbering madwoman, the inmates revolt and tear Greta to shreds (literally). The end.

Good news, everyone! I guess I'm not jaded yet. The sleaze is so fucking thick on this film that I need a shower now. Seriously, every couple of minutes, I just felt totally demoralized by what I was watching. Not surprisingly, there is an insane amount of female flesh on display and so many trashy situations that it is impossible to take this crap seriously. That being said, Isla the Wicked Warden is a pretty darn good film for old Jess. The cinematography, editing, and the score are all very good. Ruedi Küttel, who shot Blue Rita, delivers some of the best experimental camerawork I've seen in a Jess Franco flick in a while.

I can't recommend this movie to anyone who is even remotely sensitive in nature. The torture scenes, while not overly explicit, are pretty powerful even by suggestion alone. I'm not gonna lie though, seeing Lina Romay give Dyanne Thorne a nudie massage is well, pretty awesome. Of course it degrades immediately into the naughty kind of acupuncture. And that's part of what makes this film so insane. Every "pleasure" is tempered with something horrible.

My favorite character is Number 9 (played by Dagmar Burger from Blue Rita), the lady who used to be a man. She was into dudes when she was a man and now that she is a woman, she is all lesbian, baby! She tries to help Abbie out and I don't know, she's just likeable. I needed something to grasp onto to keep my happy thoughts during all of this garbage. Good thing this Ilsa movie had a very satisfying ending or else I would have probably flipped out, changed my sex, and checked myself into Las Palomas.

This move also contains boot licking.

"Ah, piss off, you blonde bitch! And you can take your brother, jack him off, and stick him up your singing ass!"

Unseenly House of the Dead