Terrified - 1963

I was only off by one year, I guessed 1962.  Back to the Gorehouse "there is zero gore in this movie" Greats boxset with Terrified.

This is the first one on the boxset where the audio level just sucks.  I had a hard time hearing what was being said, the dialogue was very muffled and badly recorded. It sounded like instrument approximations of a voice, rather than a voice.

Someone is engaging in highly unsafe highway behavior, playing chicken with people on the road.  When he almost runs an elderly couple off the road, they take a load off at a nearby restaurant where Marge, Ken, and David overhear their story and wonder what it's all about.  So they head up to some abandoned town to talk to "Crazy Bill".  Turns out someone has killed him, someone in a black mask that now is hunting the three of them.  Could it be Joey, some guy who these three people somehow know?

I don't know about this movie.  That was my best guess at the plot after seeing it, because I couldn't keep the characters straight.  Apparently "Joey" was in the movie, but I don't remember him at all.  Who the hell was he?  And why does it sound like they're saying "Joy" whenever they say his name? It is revealed just about the time the three of these guys- Marge Ken and David- are wondering who the killer could be, that Joey has escaped prison.  Naturally, they assume it must be him that's killing people.  Whatever.  It's not plot important, I think they just wanted a reason for the 3 of them to pursue the killer.

So they go to this abandoned town, and Ken embarks on a mission to track down the killer.  It's so ridiculous, the hunting scene between him and the killer dude.  It has to go on about 15-20 minutes (feels like it anyway) and it is one of the worst sequences ever.  You can't tell who's hunting who first of all.  We're following Ken as he looks for the killer.  Yet, one time when he sees him, he just runs away!  WTF?  And then the killer goes through like 4 different times when he captures Ken, or almost kills him, just to each time let him go.  Why?!

Seriously, first he strangles Ken, but only to unconsciousness.  Then he traps Ken in a basement that is flooding.  As the water rises, the killer stands on the cellar door, blocking Ken from opening it.  Then he randomly lets him out.  And not like, right before he's gonna die or anything.  A good like, 8 hours before the place was going to flood.  Then he buries Ken alive.  With like, an inch of dirt.  Sorry, but I really don't think that would kill anyone.  But Ken dies.  Because he died of fright see?  He was Terrified, see?  It's the name of the movie.

Then it's just Marge and David and spoilers are that the killer is indeed NOT Joey, but rather some guy named Wes.  Yeah, you remember Wes from earlier right?  Oh, you don't?  Hm.  Oh, I see.  He wasn't IN the movie earlier.  Yes, it's the stupidest thing, the random guy they pulled out of a hat.  He apparently knew the girl Marge when she was young.  And then he decided to start killing because he thought the world wasn't good enough for her and he loved her.  Yeah, sure, whatever.

Okay, just a point or two here:  So he wants the world to be "better" for Marge.  And he does that by:
1 - Playing chicken with random people on the road?  What the heck was the plan there?  Although, that road plot was dropped like 15 minutes into the film, it never got back to it, and the film never actually said it was the killer in the end, Wes.  So does that mean that someone else was doing the road games?  I think that logically we must say "maybe".
2 - Killing Crazy Bill??  Wes specifically states that he did not like the attention Marge was getting from the boys at her school.  That's why he killed Ken.  But what did Crazy Bill do?  He was just some old wino living in an abandoned town.  I doubt he was making the moves on Marge any time soon.

It's pretty dumb, I'm giving it a half a star.  It's not clever or smart, has no replay value, it serves no function.  It tries too hard too.  It's over the top attempts at tension are just tedious.  And as I said in the first paragraph, zero gore.  Okay, there's like an attempt at some blood around Crazy Bill's body, but it's nothing worth mentioning.  Can I give a 1/4 star?

This is what Google came up with when I image searched 1/4 star

Plan 9 From Outer Space - 1959

Given a bout of insomnia last night from drinking too much, I decided to put on Ed Wood's notorious Plan 9 From Outer Space (the goal here was to put me to sleep).  Ever since I started writing this blog I see movies differently.  I watch for little details, I appreciate the little things more, and I find I remember them better too.  It is interesting, to write all these things directly after I view them, because I find that I can better understand a movie that way.

Anyways, there are endless reviews of this movie online, everyone has seen it or knows of it, it's hardly worth putting down the details of it but here goes:
Aliens come from outer space and raise three bodies from the dead:  recently deceased police chief Tor Johnson, random old guy Bela Lugosi, and tightlacing fetishist Vampira.  The local cops and a couple - Jeff and Paula - track down the aliens, try and elude the three zombies, and uncover why the aliens are there to begin with.

I just cannot find the words to express this movie.  Obviously, it's bad.  It is just so ludicrous.  The big thing here is that Bela Lugosi died pretty much as this thing was in its infant stage.  Apparently, Ed Wood had gotten a few scenes of Lugosi wandering around, alone, in some scary lookin place, and Wood decided he would use it for "something later" and then when this film idea came up he realized that with some editing and a stand-in for a few scenes, it could work and it would look like Lugosi was interacting with other actors.
1) Baffling thing number 1, when big Swede Tor Johnson dies, and is raised from the dead, he looks the same as when he died- in other words, he is wearing the same things.  But when Lugosi and Vampira are raised, they are wearing "scary clothes" cloaks and capes and whatnot.  So were they buried like that then...?
2) It is painfully, painfully obvious that the Lugosi footage was done somewhere else, with a different camera, with different light levels, etc.  So when they are cutting from Lugosi to the body double it does not only not look like him, it looks like something COMPLETELY different, like there are two different people.  It's to the point where if I didn't know they were supposed to be the same I would think they were different.

Other big problems with this movie lie in the production value.  The props, the special effects, they are just so laughably bad.  The alien ship in the sky is clearly a tiny model, the alien ship when it's on the ground is clearly just a weird wall with a door.  The interior of the spaceship is just two tables with random electronic junk piled on top of it.  I love how they have one of those electricity arcs.  It was really just, whatever they could find, they just put it there.  It's hilarious because the thing is distracting and loud, and at one point they just turn it off, as if they're admitting, "Yes, this doesn't do anything"

But is it the worst movie ever, no I definitely say not.  I was trying to think about why, and also why it's a cult classic, and I came up with some simple non-debatable things:
1)  The pacing is great.  This movie is not a talkie, it doesn't have endless scenes of people doing stupid boring things and talking endlessly about bullshit.  It gets right to the monsters and aliens and weird shit and it stays there the entire film.  Its a very quick 80 minutes.
2)  It was filmed in Hollywood, on sound stages, with actors.  Despite those things not meaning much on their own, anyone who has seen bad movies knows what I mean.  It's not some weird piece of shit where they hired dad's car detailing friend Steve to act as the main villain, it's not filmed in complete shit quality in some guys rental van.  The only non actor is the stand in for Lugosi and being that he's minor, has no lines, and given that Lugosi would have been in the whole movie if he had lived, it means something that Wood actually got people to be in this thing.
3)  It has replay value, you can drink or do drugs to it, you can watch it with people, anyone would appreciate it etc.  Those have to be it's ultimate best assets.  You know, I can happily say that I never want to see It's Alive again.  It's dull, boring, badly made, horrible quality, its got no pacing, and the monster is bad and you barely even see it.

In fact....I debate saying this but It's Alive might be my least favorite movie.  Hm.  Interesting.

Anyways, Plan 9 is just silly.  It's got horrible dialogue, including the great line "Your stupid minds!  Stupid!  Stupid!"  And others.  It comes off as a complete joke, but that's good.  I think kids would actually get a lot out of this movie.  I know I would have loved it as a kid.

Are my muffins ready?

So I have to give it a rating and the the rating has to be five stars, obviously.  I'll be lynched if it's not.

Trip With The Teacher - 1975

I continued with the Gorehouse Greats today with the 1975 film Trip With The Teacher.  This is a suspense biker movie starring Zalman King of Red Shoe Diaries as Al.  It's an odd genre cross, sure, but does it work?  I would say yes, it actually does.

In the beginning, we see Al and his friend Pete, they're a couple bikers that are stopped from their ride by a flat tire.  Nice guy and fellow biker Jay stops by, patches up the tire, and the three of them ride out together.  They soon encounter a school bus, also broken down.  This was a school bus carrying 4 female students and a teacher, Miss Jenny.  The three bikers stop, seemingly to help.  Things go bad when Al gets to flirting with the girls  (the Slutty one).  When Miss Jenny tries to stop him he seems to take a very dangerous turn.

But things cool down, and the three bikers soon decide to give the broken bus a lift.  What they all don't know is that the place Al takes them to is an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere.  And now, Al demands the teacher to become physical with him or he'll ditch them there.  Then things get even worse.  The bus driver gets involved and Al hits him with his motorcycle, breaking his neck.  Now Al and Pete know that if they let them go, they could be up against the law.  The third biker, the one that helped them out earlier, that was tagging along with them, is soon also gone, and then it's just the girl versus two sadistic, horny bikers.

This movie was actually pretty decent.  For what it is, it keeps you interested and in a way, in my experience at least, it keeps you guessing.  I really did not know how it would end.  Logic would dictate that we would have to see the bad guys, Al and Pete, get what was coming to them.  But Al was the real ringleader and Pete just the tag-along so maybe we would see them turn on another.

Another thing they did well was make the girls pretty smart. For their minor, cookie cutter characters, I think they behaved extraordinarily human-like.  There is basically only three main girls - Miss Jenny the teacher, and then there's the Slut and the Innocent (both of whose names I don't know).  The Slut (hey, it's what she plays) tries to distract Al and Pete with her body.  Miss Jenny has been targeted by Al, he wants her, and when she notices this she uses it to her advantage.

The Innocent is the virgin, of course, the girl who we want to escape unharmed and pure.  It's odd.  I'll just throw in some non-spoiler spoiler here:  the only girl that dies is the Innocent.  How's that for unusual?  That was one of the things I thought was just clever about this movie.  We've seen time and time again the Sluts get punished, the throw away characters die.  Hell, the other two girls in the movie were basically just wallpaper, they really didn't have roles at all.  But they decided in the script to kill the innocent girl?  Huh.

Zalman King turns in an on and off performance as Al.  Sometimes he's a bit too over the top maniacal and weird, but usually he's very believable.  He certainly looks the part.  The best part about him is his cold dead stare, with his black hair flowing around, you are truly under his spell when he looks at you.  Despite being only armed with a knife, you believe this guy could do just about anything he wanted to.

The other actors are good as well.  All turn in good performances, roles that aren't just one dimensional.  Each character (except for the two wallpaper girls) is interesting, as motivations for what they're doing, and a reason for what they do.  It's not just a movie where "things happen".  Another thing I thought was clever was the teacher.  It just makes it worth it to see how much she cares about the girls, she fights to protect them, makes sacrifices for them, even when they're stupid and maybe don't deserve it.  It's a strong character.

Sometimes characters in this react in a way that is maybe not realistic, sometimes they may say things that are a bit fake or forced sounding.  I think that would be the only clunky parts.  It's definitely a movie where you know that the only reason some things happen is so that the plot can get to where it's going.  Take that as the "suspension of disbelief" that all movies have.  Some movies ask us as the audience to believe in other worlds or other times, this one just asks that we believe these things went the way they did naturally.  It's not a huge flaw, in other words.

All in all, I liked it.  It was not the greatest movie ever, but I thought it was smart.  I would probably give it a pretty high rating but something tells me to only give it 2 stars.  I dunno.  Maybe it's just that I know other people would not like it as much as I did.  It doesn't have the cheese factor to it, nor is it a movie you could really watch with friends or drink to.  It starts off carefree and fun, and silly even but then the road just gets dangerous and cavernous as time goes on.

I think the main thing about it is that its kind of dark.  There is rape in the movie, multiple scenes of it, and it's kind of disturbing.  It leaves you with a bitter view of things, the world.  Its depressing, really.  So people might not think of it as the kind of B movie they want to see.  They want blood and bad acting and monsters and tits and ridiculous.  This movie would actually be the kind to frighten a child because it doesn't have a Frankenstein or Dracula character, it has real humans doing really horrible things to other humans,  But that is why I liked it.  Its not some fucking 70's flair movie.  It's about real crimes, with real and believable characters doing them.  So I'm bumping it up to 3 stars.  I was tempted to give it 4 based on those things I just wrote.
Final rating 3.5 stars out of 5.  Fuck you.

Nightmare City - 1980

AKA City of the Walking Dead, Invasion of the Atomic Zombies, and sometimes Zombi 3

This movie gets pretty bad reviews from what I saw online.  Upon watching this last night, I discovered I had seen the first 30 minutes or so about 2 years ago and never finished it.  Which is strange, both of these facts are strange, because it's not like it's THAT bad of a movie.  It suffers from some horrible problems, sure, but at least it didn't bore me half to death.

The plot follows a television reporter, Miller (he is really not called by his first name Dean that much).  Miller goes to the airport in the first couple minutes of the film, to interview someone who is flying in.  Suddenly, the airport crew finds out that an airplane is approaching quickly, it has not called them on the radio, and does not respond to their calls.  It's a military plane, very ominous looking, and it lands at the airport.  Assuming the worst, Miller and his cameraman and several police officers run to the scene.  Out of the plane comes the man Miller needs to interview...and he attacks a policeman with a knife!  Out burst dozens and dozens of horribly burned people!  Attacking everyone with guns, knives, axes, and other weapons!

That's basically all the setup, the rest of the movie is Miller and his wife running from the creatures.  I have not called them zombies yet for a reason; because that's one of the weird things about this movie and perhaps a reason why it gets bad marks.  It is made clear that the guys who got off the plane and started attacking people in the first segment of the film are not zombies but irradiated people.  Perhaps mutated, definitely altered in thought process, but still alive.  It is said later that their infection spreads to people they come into contact with- in fact you could even get it just by being close to them, it seems.  And then also, some people they kill do come back from the dead as zombies.  But not all.  Hmm.

A couple things randomly worth mentioning:  at one point Miller throws a radio at a zombie and it fuckin explodes!  Awesome! Also, I honestly wondered if someone involved had a breast or nipple fetish.  I know, it's supposed to show us skin, but it seems almost on purpose how often a girl's breasts are exposed as she is being killed, and they purposely slice off a nipple in one scene.  Also, in a love scene at one point, the guy spends most of the scene touching her nipples and sucking them.  It just seems like a bit too on-purpose.

It's weird, it's kinda dumb, it's flawed.  But the movie is great!  It moves as a very quick pace, it's well done, it's got tons of blood and nudity, and the acting is solid.  Miller, played by Hugo Stiglitz, does a really good job, and I think is very realistic.  The zombie/irradiated people effects are pretty bad.  I do have to say that.  When it's just a little light makeup it looks too minimal, when it's full blown burned the fuck out radiation, it looks like an awful rubber mask.  Also, radiation?  What is this, 1955?  We haven't taken that seriously as a movie watching public since at the latest the early 60's.

The best way to look at this movie is not what doesn't work, but what does.  Even other movies with smart zombies, other movies with running zombies, other movies where they're not actually zombies at all, these still didn't have zombies using guns, zombies that could cooperate as a team, etc.  If anything, I would argue that this movie in some way is the logical grandfather to 28 Days Later.  Since it's treated more as a disease, and since the zombies run. Another thing that is confronted in the movie, is the "is this happening anywhere else" question.  Whereas in 28 Day Later it is pretty much said and later confirmed that it was only in England, in this movie it is eventually said that this thing is spreading.  But take that little part away, and you also have that part in place as a precursor to 28 Days Later.

The ending sucks and is another reason for bad marks.  I wish some movies would just take the fucking idea and run with it instead of giving us some weird WTF who knows ending.  I would've loved to just see the characters die and credits roll.

I'm going to start a rating system that I use in every review.  Since I don't only rate B movies, serious films will be on a different scale.  But B movies I'm just going to be giving stars.  You know, the bland, boring rating system.
This one would get maybe 2.5, 3 out of 5.  It has a lot going for it, but the end and the makeup do bring it down significantly.  I'm going to go with 3.

Satan's Slave - 1976

Also known as Evil Heritage
You truly have no idea how excited I was when I saw that my Gorehouse Greats collection featured another movie from Terror director Norman Warren.  You truly, truly don't. Well, you might.  Anyways, it was super cool:  I made myself some cheese and crackers, I poured myself a nice effervescent water, and I dimmed the lights for the 1976 film Satan's Slave.  What's more, Satan's Slave promised me the appearance of Batman actor Michael Gough, who had played Alfred in the original Batman through Batman and Robin, and I had never seen him in anything else!  How exciting!

Then I was convinced this movie would be awesome because it begins with a ritual killing of a young, naked girl. Cut to the present and we see a guy getting hot and heavy with his girl (topless).  She doesn't want it and he tries to force himself onto her.  Then he acts like he's going to let her leave.  Then in a moment of pure insanity, as she is leaving, he bashes her head between the door frame and the door.  Ouch.  That was just a creative kill I thought I would mention.  Because I haven't seen it before, and because it would probably kill someone.  Anyways, then we go to our main character Catherine, and she's also topless!  Check the time of the movie at this point...3 different topless girls in 10 minutes, nice!  A promising beginning.

The plot involves this girl Catherine going with her parents to visit her uncle, Alexander, whom she has never met.  On their way there, Catherine's father suffers a sudden intense head pain, and crashes the car.  As Catherine goes to get help, the car randomly explodes!  Awesome!  She is then helped by her uncle, Alexander, his son Steven (the guy we saw killing the girl with the door earlier) and his lover Frances.  Alexander is played by Michael Gough, who does creep it up as a suited professor who obviously has something to hide.

This movie does slow down quite a bit now, 20 minutes in, as Catherine gets over the mysterious death of her parents, and as an attraction builds between her and her cousin Steven (gross). They eventually start sleeping together, Frances is pissed about it but seems to have no ability to say anything, could it be she's afraid of Steven and Alexander?  Hmmm.  Turns out that Catherine is almost 20 years old, and on her 20th birthday, the whole lot of her family here wants to hopefully, you know, if it's no bother, sacrifice her to their evil god.

It's a finely done, masterfully shot horror movie.  It's a little bit too packed in the beginning, I only say that because of the drastic slow down that happens.  I was super pumped after all the breasts, blood, and insanity of the first 10 minutes and I was looking forward to another film like Terror, only to then have to wait for like 50 minutes while things build up.  The pay off is eventual, and it's kind of weak in my opinion, so that doesn't help.  I definitely had one of those moments where you're just kind of mad at the film and the writers because of how thrown together the ending felt.

Great production value and camera work, this film looks fantastic, looks like the work of Argento or someone better even.  It was a low budget film, and it really does not show, everything in this film looks polished and amazing, so I was surprised.  Also the first to be featured in 1.66 scope formatting.

I would say that since I was expecting Terror, I was a touch disappointed, but this film fits better into the idea of a 70's psychological thriller, and as one of those it is great.  It actually felt like a classic Giallo film despite the clearly British filmmakers.  Incidentally, I wonder what happened to Norman Warren?  Looking on IMDb, he started young, only made films for 20 years or so, and then stopped.  Sure he has a short that he made in 2013, but what about real movies?  Unfortunately, now that he's in his 70's I doubt we'll see a comeback.

Also, who was Satan's Slave?  The only person I would keep coming back to would be Michael Gough as Alexander.  But he did not really feel like a main character.  Also, another minor thing, the main actress has this thing about having premonitions, but it never really comes into play, and feels like a storyline that was dropped at some point.

Another thing:  I don't care about "the children".  I am someone that reads online blogs, watches movies, etc.  I don't agree with this whole idea of "oh we can use whatever language we want, show blood and gore...but no nudity.  EVER."  If this was a video blog (sorry guys, just not that ambitious) I would show the nudity.  It's fuckin 2015, if people wanna see nudity, they can see it.  So here you go:

It's Alive - 1969

This is a rendering of what a Mosasaurus would look like, I found it by looking up Mosasaurus.

Now I'm not saying they had the internet in the day this movie was made, but just make a dinosaur up!  You could just say, uh, Ullatyasaurus or something, I made that up just now.  Don't claim the monster in your movie is obviously something it is not.  I dunno.

So that's not my normal intro piece I know, but that is my intro to 1969's It's Alive.  They even say it normally gets to be 150 feet.  Then the one in this movie...is just a midget?  Who knows.  It does star actual actor Tommy Kirk, best known from Old Yeller  (Travis in that movie).

He looks overweight and less appealing in this movie though.  In fact, everyone in this movie looks unappealing.

A couple wanders into a cave, they find some cray-zay monster in it that looks like the Gill Man from Creature From the Black Lagoon, and they are trapped by the lunatic old guy that has decided to befriend the creature.  The lunatic monster man has a woman who helps him.  Why, you ask....hahahah.  WHY?  Well, you get to know!  Oh yes!  You do!  In the award winning "Longest Flashback Ever"  That's right, from 43:33 1:05:39, a 22 minute flashback shows just about her entire life story.

This movie isn't all that bad though.  It just suffers from a boatload of padding and far too much reliance on the madness of it's main villain.  Having a sweaty dude yell about his dinosaur friend is great and all, it's just you know, not that great cinema.

I am getting back to the Gorehouse Greats tonight, forgive this little excursion.

Update 2/4/15:  I have decided, against my better judgement to re-watch and re-critique this film.  I was not paying enough attention, I was not in the right mood, and frankly, other reasons make me think it deserves a second chance.  See my other review, coming hopefully soon.

War of the Robots - 1979

Where do I even start with this one?  Geez, it's like someone put Star Wars into a blender, drank it, vomited it out, and then had his friends, all of which were Italian, make it into a film.  Watching this movie it made me realize just how hokey and kitschy Star Wars would be though, it you were to describe it only in special effect and in some of the more memorable characters.  I think it would go something like this:

"So you got this dude and he has these weird metal robots that speak all weird, and he's in this desert but then these white suited guys come after him and he finds this old guy who decides to take him to some planet, and there's this pilot guy with a giant furry ape-type-thing as a friend that only he can understand and they fly away and barely escape.  Then there's this huge spaceship and there's this girl on it, and she's good and the bad guys are trying to get information out of her.  One of the bad guys is dressed all in black and has some bizarre breathing apparatus on, and he can hurt people without touching them, and eventually the good guys get to the ship and there's fights with these glowing swords and the hero old guy dies...except he actually only sort of disappeared. And they rescue the girl, and fight these huge monsters, and eventually escape and then they come back, in spaceships, and they blow up the huge spaceship."

I mean honestly we know Star Wars so well as a culture, that we forget just how strange it really is.  But it's done with heart and it's done well, and it's part of a thing we as a society accept because it just works.  But look at those elements and tell me that it's not a huge WTF moment for you.  So now we have War of the Robots.  And its cheesy and strange, and has those same WTF moments, but all they were doing was trying to capitalize on another movie that had just done the same thing.

The fault with these films, these tons and tons of movies that ripped off Star Wars, was that they thought the effects were the only things that sold the film.  Or it seems that way at least.  Cause they easily copied parts of the movie, but then the plot is just beyond all hopes of understanding.  At least that's how it normally goes.  And that's because there was more of  Star Wars planned, they were going to expand on these characters.  So the didn't  NEED to tell us about Darth Vader in the first one, they didn't NEED to fully explain the force.  It was understood that we as an audience would learn that in the future movies.

This movie borrows heavily from Star Wars, as I've said.  It's got spaceships fighting big, other spaceship, it's got robots, it's got weird evil villains, it's got glowing swords that kill people.  It's even got an old wrinkly dude as one of the villains, sort of odd since in Star Wars we had not seen Palpatine at this point yet.

It's a barely comprehensible film that is best not watched for plot but for the effects, which are occasionally fun to see.  That's about it.  Not much to say about this flick.

The Day Time Ended - 1979

This movie is awesome.  Do you ever wanna have one of those bad movie parties?  Cause I want to have these things all the time.  The Day Time Ended is a huge, fun, epic, so bad it's good, so weird it's good, so WTF it's WTFF?!  That's What The Fucking Fuck, btw.  This is probably the perfect film to play at this bad movie party.  It does have a following of its own, as well.

It starts innocently enough.  There is a family living out in the middle of the desert (?)  It's two old parents, their 30's daughter and teenager son, and then their grand daughter Jenny.  I have to break here and say that wherever they filmed, whatever house this is, is just incredibly awesome.  The architecture is minimalist yet very futuristic, it's easy, it flows well with the surrounding area, it's a great little house.  I would love to know more about it.  It's a truly amazing setting.

Grand daughter Jenny is the first to notice a weird green light that is coming from a strange, pyramid shaped thing that randomly appears behind the barn.  When she goes to tell her parents, it disappears - or actually, shrinks really small, as she later finds, and she pockets it.  Then all sorts of weird things start to happen in the house.  Green lights are coming out of nowhere, a broken mirror fixes itself, and all the while Jenny is the only one that knows why.

This movie gets really weird really fast at this point.  Turns out there seem to be dueling alien forces coming to the Earth, and this house in the desert just so happens to be their battleground.  The green light comes from the good aliens, who we see soon enough as little claymation dudes that look like the guys from Laserblast.  And the other aliens, oh man.

First taking the form of a strange, floating gun type thing, the other aliens soon make their appearance.  The floating gun is a really cool part of this movie, as it is a truly great moment, it's done amazingly well and for just a prop, it really kicks ass.  This thing is a fucking unstoppable, terrifying weapon.  The family tries shooting it, blocking it with doors, throwing things at it, it sort of just freezes the bullet, cuts through the door, disintgrates the thrown objects, it is truly badass.

Then both aliens take the form of huge hulking monsters.  The claymation monsters start to fight in the middle of the backyard of this family's home!  It's awesome, and the family is freaked the fuck out understandably.  The family still does not know one of them is good (the one without the long face) and they stab a pitchfork into its head!  Pretty soon though the monsters disappear and we're back to weird lights in the sky, bizarre color storms, and strange goings on...

It's great.  It's like Terror, there is always something neat happening.  The end is a bit of a "what...?" moment, at first, and it's truly unexpected.  I think if this movie was made nowadays it would be a hit instant cult classic.  It's got everything you want, weird cool effects, good acting, a strange but understandable storyline, and bizarre, lovable cheesiness.  I highly recommend this film, for an intro piece as well.  If you wanna see bad movies and don't know where to start, here is a good place.

Directed by John "Bud" Cardos who also directed MST3K hit Outlaw of Gor, and this does look similar to that.  Both set in deserts, both surprising in how high budget they look.  Did he just know how to stretch a dollar, or did people actually pay to see this shit?  Who knows.  Another thing is that its a bit "controversial" about this film's rating.  It's funny, back when these movies were being made they didn't necessarily care as much it seems.  Nowadays this movie would either go for the hard R with nudity and probably drug use, or it would go for the G PG with kiddy themes and stupid crap like that.  This movie is G, G in the idea that it has no nudity, swearing, blood, anything like that.  But I would not let a kid see this.  Its too fucking weird!  And its a bit freaky, scary even.  The floating gun actually kinda freaked me out.  It's ominous, its like Mike Myers from Halloween, it seems like it can do anything, and like it just wants to kill you.

I personally think its just fine the way it is.  I would not change one thing about this movie.  5 stars, A+, go see it now

The Madmen of Mandoras - 1963

Wow.  I had no idea.  I had no idea, that is, that THIS is They Saved Hitler's Brain.  Because I thought I had that, but I guess I thought I had it somewhere else.  I mean its easy to get them confused.

Please note the Gorehouse Greats, right above this word.

So They Save Hitler's Brain is a bit of a cult movie, mostly because of it's name.  But seriously how could it not be??  I love that title because it is both the name of the movie AND the plot.

This movie is just the right amount of wrong.  It is not quite fast paced enough to watch sober, but if you turn it into a drinking game it's pretty badass.  Here are your instructions:
1) a drink for every drink they have
2) a drink for every man the main actress's sister kisses
3) a drink for every "Hispanic" person that randomly speaks perfect English
4) a drink for every weird confusing expression Hitler makes
5) a drink for when you can see the obvious use of a dummy head instead of the actor

Plot wise, who cares.  Basically some guy finds out that his fiancee's daughter has been kidnapped, and he has to go to some island in South America to rescue him and find out what's going on.  While there they uncover some Nazis that are there, and the back-story tells us the Fuhrer himself, towards the end of his reign, got some top scientists and they figured out a way to have him live with his head unattached from his body.

It's all just an excuse to have hero Phil team up with Camino, his Hispanic friend, and together fight the Reich.  And then before you know it, it's over in one of the most ridiculous endings ever.  Oh it's just stupid.  Spoilers here, they defeat the entire Nazi group (which was pretty small, but still)  in like 1 minute flat AND kill Hitler AND then it just says the end!  And that's it.  Oh what the fuck.

It does have a wackiness to it at some points and that's okay to watch, but it's just very slow at points.  Needs to be a bit quicker paced.  As a drinking game, you'll be pretty drunk, and enjoy it.

Minor gripe about this film:  did they not think the actor playing Hitler was effective?  Because Hitler has seriously like 2 lines in the entire movie.  Mostly its just quick shots of his face, and he's making the most retarded expressions imaginable.  Why did they do this?  Why not give Hitler some dialogue? Where they thinking he should only speak German? Just have him speak English, people aren't going to care!  Are people going to complain about something like that in a movie called fucking They Saved Hitler's Brain?!  NO!  Instead he is reduced to a wacky sidekick just there for schlocky effect.

Truthfully, I cannot imagine why they did that because this movie could've been a lot better.  Maybe they were actually going to comedy.  Who really knows.

Devil's Hand - 1961

You know I didn't intend to review every movie I watched.  In fact, I was only going to review certain movies, there was even going to be a criteria they had to fit into.  I wanted to review movies that I thought deserved followings and fans, I was going to review movies that I had lined up to watch.  I had Microwave Massacre, I had Tetsuo II: Bullet Man...I had like 6 movies to review.  But something happened.  I liked writing these reviews too much.  That and I am on a streak right now of good movies.  Broken only by Stanley (grrr) I have seen nothing but good movies recently.  Seriously!  Check out my entries!  The last thing that got bad marks was probably Rodentz.  That feels like a long time ago now.

I'm going to review every film in my Gorehouse Greats collection, for you, the nonexistent fans.  Then I might review every film in another two collections I have:  some Grindhouse collection that sinks so low as to even contain an Emmanuelle movie, and the Sci-Fi set that started it all, which I got about 10 or so years ago back when Suncoast was still around (Wikipedia tell me most were closed in 2006).  So wow that was 10 years ago.  That's insane.  Anyway, I saw this Sci Fi collection at Suncoast for 10 bucks and I figured, why not.  You have that to thank for this Devil's Hand review.  Essentially.

There's something about the feel of a black and white film that just makes it feel different.  Just those tones make me feel like I'm watching a classic film, and thus pay a little bit more attention.  It's such a short time from 61 to the mid 70's which is the era of the last few films I've seen but there is so much of a difference between them.  In the 60's black and white films, everyone was in a fuckin suit and tie and slept in separate beds than their spouse and smoked in hospitals (that one was hilarious to see in this movie).  Devil's Hand feels like before it's time, saying that even though it early 60's.  It feels and looks 50's to me.  Except it's not as ridiculous as a lot of 50's horror.  It's like a perfect middle ground between the 50's fresh new take on horror, and the later 60's and 70's psychological horror.

There's a line in it I completely hated though, so I'm going to start with that.  The setting: Donna has been taken to the hospital for some heart problem.  She is young, so this is very odd.  Anyways, her fiancee (Rick Turner) comes to the hospital to visit her.  The nurse goes in to tell the hospitalized woman about her visitor and says: "You mustn't get excited," warning her because of her heart problem.  Donna:  "But I always get excited when I see Rick!"  Nurse:  "Well, I don't blame you, he's quite a man!"   Ummmm, WHA?  What the fuck?  Is the nurse complimenting her choice in men, is she saying she's attracted to her fiancee?  Um, sorry, nurse, but do we KNOW you or something?  Or are you just being really, really weird?  That is the sort of dialogue that just bugs the fuck out of me.

That aside, the rest of the The Devil's Hand is your very average drama/thriller from the 60's, it's got a guy who is haunted by visions of a woman, and so one day he finds this doll shop that has a doll that looks like the woman in his visions.  Turns out she is a member of a religious cult that worships some evil god, and sometimes this god calls for human sacrifices.  One of the things I thought was weird about this movie is that it's never made clear if the main guy Rick actually believes in the cult shit or not.  He does join, and we're given hints both ways, and of course we believe as an audience our main character would not believe in this cult.  But it seems his only problem with the cult is that they want to kill his now ex-fiancee Donna.  (He shacked up with the girl from his dreams, see)

It's a short movie, 71 minutes long, and at the end I can't say it was great or anything.  I was interested at first but gradually it just got less and less good.  Can't say I'd recommend it.  It does has Bruno VeSoto from Attack of the Giant Leeches in it though!!  Oh, and absolutely zero blood.  Good job, "Gorehouse".  Fuckers

Terror - 1978

Another film on my awesome Gorehouse Greats collection, Terror is supposedly somehow connected to another 70's exploitation (Seventiesploitation?) I've seen, Thriller: A Cruel Picture.  That movie I saw for one reason:  Christina Lindberg naked.  Yeaaaaah buddy.

This movie, Terror, is actually surprisingly awesome.  It's another example of a horror film where its based around a group of people making a movie, and I do love seeing the film (or in this case, the films) within the film.  The people in this film are a group of actors, actresses, and film makers.  In the beginning of the film we are watching as they make a film about a curse upon a family line, or house, or something vague, and after the film ends, the producer James tells his fellow viewers that the movie's story was true, that there is supposedly a curse on the family/house/something.

An actress, Ann, is hypnotized at this same viewing party and attacks James with a sword.  And though she doesn't kill him, and is quickly stopped by the fellow party-ers, this hypnosis starts a string of kills among the film makers.  The kills in this movie are awesome.  Also, there is so very well done tense moments, some really interesting characters, and a grungy, slimy feel to some of these characters.  It takes us to a weird place that is kind of uncomfortable, but it does it well and in the right way.

The best thing about this movie is the false leads.  At first we are led to believe that James is responsible for the killings:  since when Ann was hypnotized she attacked him, and then later he is conveniently out when another girl gets pinned to a tree with a knife through her throat.  He also watches, uncaring, as a huge light on one of his sets falls onto the cinematographer, killing him.  Then we are led to believe it is Ann, the girl who attacked James.  We randomly see her washing blood off of her hands in one scene and she uses the bland explanation:  I cut myself.  But then also, on the screen we can see characters get killed when there is no attacker.  So it is a mystery.

As I said the kills are super cool.  We see some basic boring knife kills, sure, but we also see a woman attacked by a flying car, we see a guy in a house get attacked by 35mm film, a flaming bathtub, and seemingly everything else in the house that's not strapped down.  We see the aforementioned light fall onto the cinematographer, and I'm glad someone making Terror knew that those those are not only heavy, but HOT.  That shit will burn the fuck out of you.  His charred flesh is done very well.

Eventually it seems the real "answer" here is that the family/house/film shoot/whatever is just haunted, the ghosts are killing people themselves and also taking control of others to do their work for them.  Of course, this is never stated.  In fact, this may be the least explanation I've seen in a movie.  Spoilers here, we get to see a true ghost at the end of the film, when most of the characters are dead.  The ghost attacks the only remaining girl, Ann, kills here with the sword, and the movie just ends on her body pinned to the wall with a sword.  No explanation given.  Well, guess it was the curse then!  Okay!

There's an awesome moment where a girl is stuck in some abandoned cabin because her car won't start (the most cliched thing ever of course) and she is beginning to doubt whether or not she is alone in the house.  Then she sees a shape and lightning strikes outside, revealing her in a mirror.  It may sound like every movie, but in this movie it's just perfectly done.  The movie also has a chilling soundtrack made up of weird voice sounding effects and keyboards, it hits the right level of strangeness to accompany the atmosphere.

So, Gorehouse Greats, you gave me the forgettable but arguably not horrible Prime Evil, you gave me Stanley, which I already know I have to see again, because it did get better towards the end but I was too drunk to be paying attention.  And now you gave me Terror, which may already be the highlight of the boxset.  Next it's either The Devil's Hand, or Madman of Mandoras.

Another last thing:  for a boxset titled Gorehouse this is the first gory film on it.  I think they should've just stuck with Grindhouse or something like that cause Prime Evil had maybe 2 bloody scenes and what I saw of Stanley had basically no blood.  But Terror does pack in the gore.  See it!