Wednesday, May 5, 2010

ORGY OF THE DEAD - Jaime Mendoza-Nava - "Dead Strippers" (1965)

Yo Ya'll, Eegah!! here to tell you that I got a call on the jungle drums this morning that Tabonga couldn't quite make it out of Hell tonight, due to a loss of internet connection, but the show must go on, so.. Hello Everybloody, tonight feature is one I don't like so much, not that I'm gay, and don't like to watch topless women shake their stuff, and dance insipidly for over and hour, but it's nice to have some semblance of plot if you wanna make a movie, at least that's what I think! Here's what I got for you, the sound from the trailer of "Orgy Of The Dead" and a little bit more that will kind of clue you into what's going down! I'll just have my little buddy TJ the Borracho Flea push the red, white and green button for the fifth time........here's bunches of "Dead Dancing Gurls" in the graveyard!!

They claim it was written by Ed Wood, and I'm thinkin' Eddie probably wrote it on a napkin, because this script couldn't be more than a couple of sentences! Bob & Shirley go to graveyard for inspiration and end up watching 10 dead Gurls dance, and there's a wolfman and a mummy there too!

Composer Jaime Mendoza-Nava, had colourful history of scoring weird and wild flick with titles like "Vampire Hookers," "Jailbait Babysitter," "Rip-Off," "Creature From Black Lake," "Garden Of The Dead," "Equinox," "High, Wild, and Free," and "How To Succeed With Girls!" Jaime was a master of many styles!

This is like high quality outdoor version of "House On Bare Mountain" except that the music isn't as rockin' and it has Criswell in it!!!!

My favorite bit of trivia is that Fawn Silver as the black ghoul sitting here with Criswell, went on to be in the Jack Harris crazy feature "Mother Goose A Go-Go" as "Goldy!"

The hot lookin' Pat Barrington aka Pat Barringer played the role of Shirley here, and also the gold dancer, and what a career she had in flick like "The Psychedelics," "Psychedelic Sexualis," "Mantis In Lace" and "The Acid Eaters!" William Bates as Bob went on to have a role as a prison guard in the 1972 flick "Legend of Horror!"

The flaming colours are brilliant, and most of the music is pretty damn good!! I got it, this movie would be really great for all you swingers to have on in the background at your next Halloween Saturnalia!!!

Monday, May 3, 2010

DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN - Lava, Lobue, Carroll - "Blood Freaks" (1971)

Tonight's feature is the definitive Masterpiece of Shit!! How can one movie have all the coolest elements imaginable, and still not deliver the goods? It's pretty hard to pinpoint, but I'm going to give you my humble opinion!! It's not director Al Adamson's fault, but I do suppose we could fault him for using his wife, Regina Carroll in one of the lead roles, because she is one of the weak links, along with Zandor Vorkov as the Dracula character, who just looks out of place the whole movie! Zandor's not convincing and the Frankenstein monster is not convincing, and the title is, "Dracula Vs. Frankenstein" so I'm thinking you might start to see where the problem lies!!!

Here's Al's wife in Las Vegas as the big headliner over The Doodletown Pipers! Regina Carrol wrote & performs the tune "I Travel Light" as Judith Fontain, with the help of Dart Anthony and Damon Loy, "The Show-offs"

But let's forget the negative element of the fact that the movie sucks, and get on with some information about all the cool people involved who couldn't save this movie to save their souls, even if they wanted to!

First up, even though our mentor, Forrest J. Ackerman was the technical advisor for this movie, it still doesn't come off right, so I'm thinking Forry must have been sick for the days when they shot the really bad stuff! He also had a fairly substantial role as Doctor Beaumont! Okay, that alone, should have thrown it in to the Oscar nominated department!!

Next up is Dungeon super fave, Anthony Eisley, this time decked out in hippie beads, and with his hair a good 1/4" longer than normal, as the intellectual hipster Mike Howard! At first, I thought he had stopped smoking, but it's not long before he's back at it again!!

How about Lon Chaney Jr. in his last film role ever? Okay, it's for sure not his best role ever, but the good natured Lon hangs in there!!

How about J. Carrol Naish in his last role ever? We've never really had a reason to talk about the great J. Carrol here before because he was born in 1896, and all of his monster movie appearances were in the 1940's, but what a bunch of classics they were! Now we're talking titles like "Calling Dr. Death," "The Monster Makers" and "House Of Frankenstein!"

Do you want me to stop? No Way! Here's Russ (The Boy With The Green Hair)Tamblyn as Rico! A mere 10 years earlier, Russ was one of the stars, dancing and singing his way though the amazing 10 Oscar winning film, "West Side Story!"

Ultimate cowboy hero, Jim Davis is the cop Sergeant Martin. Jim Davis was so classic, with that face, and that voice, and guess what, his career still hadn't peaked after like 9000 cowboy TV shows and movies, he still went on to do 77 episodes of "Dallas" from 1978 to 1981 as none other than the man, John Ross 'Jock' Ewing, Sr.

Although he worked in over 70 films in 60 years, including a stint as Shirley Temple's stunt double, the 2 foot 11 inch Angelo Rossitto had to run a newspaper stand to make ends meet!!!

Assistant cameraman, and cool scarheaded dude R. Michael Stringer worked with Orson Welles, and went on to be a Key player behind the scenes and a staple of Hollywood to this day!!

Rico and Scarhead drug Regina when she starts asking too many questions, and she flips out to some super cool music, a song written by J.D. Lobue called "Say The Word" that sounds amazingly like the 60's band "Pacific Gas & Electric" with Charlie Allen doing to vocals, but I don't really know who it is! The rest of the music throughout the film can be credited to William Lava!!

J.D. Lobue didn't write more notable music, but instead, went on to be a TV director! Pretty safe to say he knows his funk, he directed 9 episodes of "Soul Train" and was working steady up til not that long ago when he directed 15 episodes of "Dharma & Greg" in the late 90's and early 2000's!!!

And I'm absolutely sure, there are more stories to tell, but enough is enough, I'm stopping right here, and letting Regina scream her way outta here! Thanx Al!!!

The Frankenstein dummy, I mean monster, looks like it was created by the same people that came up with the "Cabbage Patch Dolls!!

I guess Drac didn't like my sentiments about him that much, because he completely fries our hero Anthony during this very sad moment near the end!!

It's another film readily available on Netflix! What are you waiting for?? Just get it!!!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

HORROR EXPRESS / Benmar Productions - 1972

Today's Saturday Special is a nice little UK/Spain effort from 1972 that has a great cast of characters and one freakin' weird mind-stealing blood thirsty monster from outer space!!

The story goes like this... "An English anthropologist has discovered a frozen monster in the frozen wastes of Manchuria which he believes may be the Missing Link." An alternate title is PANIC IN THE TRANS-SIBERIAN TRAIN! To Tabonga, feels like THE THING!

This is South Dakota native John Cacavas' very first music composing assignment, other titles he went on to write the music for are THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA, BLADE, AIRPORT 1975, HANGAR 18, GANGSTER WARS, MORTUARY, and he also worked on many TV programs including KOJAK!

Lil' Piff the Gnat ist auf das dungeon and ready to go! So, here's today's 'eariffic earclip' coming to an ear near you!!.. The HORROR EXPRESS!!

A frozen ape is found in China by an anthropologist played by Chris Lee. They dig it out and transport it back to civilization...

On the way to Russia, curiousity gets the best of this idiot, so he sneaks a peek at the contents of the mysterious ice box.

And, that's where they find him later, in the ice box. But, where's the damn dirty ape?

Who the hell's there??!!.. HELLO!!!

At dinner, they notice a disturbing sight... Looks like an eye without a ball!! Now, where have we seen that before? Oh, yeah!! I think I just lost my appetite!!!

Peter plays Dr. Wells, he and the others decide to go exploring for clues. Yeah, inside the guy's skull!!

In the meantime, mucho schlecht!..

While checking out some blood samples, they discover nano dinosaurs and other strange things in it!

Great effective make up! Best viewed, just at that certain 'creepy' angle!

Here's everbloody else!

Throughout the movie, Father Pujardov is always nearby!

Telly plays Captain Kazan, a leader whose masculinity's not threatened by his feminine side!

The thing keeps jumping from host to host! See, now it's in Gomez Addams!!

The thing gets inside Telly, and the train has to be derailed to end the horror!

This is the last shot, the narrator poses interesting questions about possible alien invasions from space...

Oh, and thanks #400!!

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??