The Undertaker and his Pals

I have seen the trailer of this film many times on numerous trailer compilations and it has always stuck in my mind for the groovy little song at the start and the motorcycle psychos but have never seen it. Thankfully now I have but would have no idea how much I would deem it a real lost ‘classic’.

Harry Glass is a private eye with friends in the Police.  Helping out with a series of murders, he is drawn into a plot involving a crazy undertaker and two nutters running the local greasy spoon cafe.  

The film is peppered with dark humour, stupid slapstick antics, dreadful acting, joke shop standard effects and possibly the strangest music ever in a horror film.

The film is so appalling it is brilliant and at only just over an hour, it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.  I encourage you all to seek it out and spend some time in the company of The Undertaker and his Pals.

Either the makers of this film were geniuses or totally inept, you make your mind up.

• Starring Ray Dannis

• Directed by TLP Swicegood

• Distributor Various Public Domain Companies and Online

Grindhouse Trailer Classics 4

Trailer discs are nothing new to the market, but some are poorly constructed with any old crappy previews thrown together to create the 'Grindhouse Experience".  Things are different at Nucleus Films, these guys care what is shown and make sure the trailers are in good condition and in the right aspect ratios where possible.

We kick off with the famous Coming Attractions introduction to the strains of Funky Fanfare by Keith Mansfield.  In fact there are several different versions of this tune available, check them out on the KPM label among others.  The 'No Masturbation' title card is fun and we start with the first trailer which is 'The Little Cigars' which basically is gangster midgets and looks incredibly bad but strangely entertaining as well.

There is some good stuff here such as Sweet Jesus: Preacher Man, Curtains, Bamboo Gods and Iron Men, Deathmaster and Al Adamson's Blood of Dracula's Castle.  There tends to be a leaning this time around to a lot of T&A exploitation with boobs everywhere, no real issues there and there is a couple of films again on the compilation I shall try and get hold of.

All in all, another great value disc from a company that really does care what it puts out and nice Graham Humphreys art on the cover as well.

• Distributor Nucleus Films

Full Moon Streaming

With the recent demise of Blockbuster here in the UK and the video store dying a death in the US, things aren't as bad as it may seem.  With the established medium of fast internet, we can now get our films from all kinds of places, YouTube, Netflix, Love Film and various catch up facilities.  Enter a new player into the game, Charles Band's Full Moon Streaming.

Genre fans will know Full Moon from their various Puppet Master films, the Subspecies series and all kinds of crazy pictures like The Gingerdead Man and Evil Bong.  Full Moon was born from the relics of the old Empire Pictures (great book about Empire coming soon from Hemlock) and for us older fans put together some major classics of the genre, Castle Freak immediately springs to mind.  Now Mr. Band has brought together many of his Full Moon (new and old) epics and combined them with some dusty old Grindhouse classics, exclusive trailer compilations, the Moonbeam kids films as well as countless other goodies and formed his own streaming service.  Old farts like myself will remember some of the old Wizard Video releases back in the heyday of video, now Wizard is being resurrected for film makers to showcase their own work and perhaps even get a DVD release.  This is a massive step to showcase untapped talent so who knows what the future (and the Wizard will bring us).  These films will premiere regularly on the service.

There's new releases every week, competitions, regular vidcasts from the man himself, lots of promotions and most importantly the quality of the streaming is good.  What is the price of this you may ask?  Well it's only $6.99 a month which works out as a few quid  There are always deals going on with 6/12 month specials including free DVD's.  You never know what will be happening next so keep an eye on the site.

Full Moon Streaming is right up my street and it should be yours too, there are some real gems to watch and some that are so bad they're great.  How can you go wrong with the people who brought us Jack Deth, Demonic Toys and the twisted old bastard Radu?

• Starring Tim Thomerson  Tracy Scoggins  Anders Hove  Christopher Lee
• Directors  Albert Pyun  William Butler  Scott Spiegel and many more

www.fullmoonstreaming.com

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

 

Everyone has films they can watch over and over again, mine range from Star Wars, (Not Episode IV, George!) Superman II, Grease, An American Werewolf in London and probably any 'Carry On' film.  Another one is Part VI in the Friday the 13th saga, Jason Lives.  You can hardly call it a masterpiece of cinema but there is something amazingly fun about this picture.

When young Tommy Jarvis brings masked killer Jason back to life, the residents of Forest Green are in for a really, really bad time.  Even before the credits Jason has ripped some poor dude's heart out and stars in his own James Bond'esque credit sequence.  What's really nice about 'Jason Lives' is Jason is there from the very start, no lurking in shadows this time around just strolling around the woods hacking people up.  No one is safe, grave diggers, cops and your usual suspects (i.e. teenagers up to no good).

What makes this film stand out from the rest of the series is that it's doesn't take it yourself seriously and is actually very funny.  Backed up with some ace songs from rock god, Alice Cooper the film remains one of my all time favourites and like I said one of those films I can watch time and time again.

The 'Friday' series has produced some real stinkers, Part 5 immediately springs to mind and the non New York scenes in 'Jason Takes Manhattan' are equally worthless but this film is great stuff and is vastly overlooked and under rated.  Its a real shame, the series didn't continue the high standards set by director Tom McLoughlin, although I would really love to see the original version of Part VII - The New Blood which was literally gutted by the American censors.

• Starring Thom Mathews  CJ Graham  Jennifer Cooke  
• Director Tom McLoughlin
• Distributor Paramount Pictures

The Black Panther

 

Forgotten in time, this film is the story of ex-squaddie Donald Neilson's reign of terror in 1970's England.  Neilson for those who aren't familar with him used to rob post offices and people's homes.  However, as time goes on his crimes get worse and end in murder and kidnap.

Neilson is played in a performance that was surely deserving of many awards by Donald Sumpter (now seen in Game in Thrones). Unfortunately due to typical press hysteria, the film was pulled from distribution and only cropped up on video in the early days of VHS and Betamax on the old Intervision label (remember them?)

The film certainly isn't an exploitation picture but a serious study of a very twisted man and the truly horrible crimes he commits.  Usually in a true crime film, you get some humour to lighten the proceedings, this film has none and works all the better for it.  There are a few moments who may smile or even laugh quietly, in particular Neilson's domestic treatment of his family.  In fairness it's almost a release as Neilson is an appalling individual and Sumpter like I have already said pulls it off brilliantly.

Quite simply a masterpiece of low budget British cinema and one any film scholar should own in their collection.  Beautifully restored by the BFI and the director Ian Merrick from his own print, the people responsible for the film's 'disappearance' for over 30 years should hang their heads in shame.  Put it on your shelf next to The Long Good Friday, Villain and the Sweeney movies.

• Starring Donald Sumpter  Debbie Farrington
• Director ian Merrick
• Distributor BFI 

Jack the Giant Killer

 

The evil sorcerer Pendragon wants to rule the Kingdom of Cornwall, to achieve this he needs to kidnap the King's daughter Elaine.  With his trusty servant Garna controlling a rather bad tempered giant, his plan doesn't quite succeed thanks to local farm boy Jack.   The King decides to send Elaine to safety and entrusts Jack to protect her.  Unfortunately Pendragon's witches abduct Elaine so Jack has to save the day with the help of an Irish Imp (complete with comedy accent) in a bottle and a Viking who happens to rescue Jack from the sea.

The film is packed with plenty of action sequences with some charming stop (clay) motion creatures. The giant is great and I loved the witches with their camp make up and their cheap halloween style costumes.  The film has some great sets and all the Kingdom of Cornwall's clothes and barnets seem to have been borrowed from old Robin Hood films complete with their tights. Also, I really enjoyed the clever use of basic animation and colour filtering to compliment the SFX sequences, sure it looks dated but who cares when you are having such a great time.

With two of the stars (Kerwin Mathews and Torin Thatcher - who is completely magnificent as Pendragon especially when wearing his cape) and director (Nathan Juran) from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jack the Giant Killer is an entertaining romp and suitable for kids of all ages (adults especially).  It's not as good as the Harryhausen films, but it is one of those films all scholars of fantasy films should have in their collection.

Years later, some 'genius' tried to turn the film into a musical and it was re edited and released.  Obviously it was a disaster and the film 101 Films have blessed us with is the theatrical version.  The musical version hasn't been released thankfully.  For this review I did find a snippet of it on YouTube and if it's real, it is very bad and not in a good way.

I'll tell you what, Bryan Singer has got one hell of a pair of boots to fill next year with his remake.

• Starring Kerwin Mathews  Judi Meredith  Torin Thatcher  
• Director Nathan Juran
• Distributor 101 Films

Zoltan Hound of Dracula aka Dracula's Dog

 

When an underground crypt is accidentally unsealed, the entire Dracula family is revealed in their coffins.  However in this movie, you don't get the Count himself but his dog!!

Years before, Dracula (as a bat) bites the local Innkeepers dog, therefore making it a vampire.  His master played by possibly the creepiest looking guy in cinema Reggie Nalder (Salems Lot) gets turned also.  Back in modern times, we travel over to America where a psychiatrist and his family along with their dogs are going away on a camping trip.

The Innkeeper with Zoltan in tow travel to the States as they have discovered that the psychiatrist Michael Drake is the last living decendant of Dracula, hoping to resurrect the vampire line.

To say this film is bonkers is an under statement.  Zoltan the dog has his own coffin which had me in fits of laughter but when the plot churns out vampire puppies escaping from the grave, you know that the makers of this film are firmly planting the fangs in cheek.

Derided by critics (look at the iMDB score) Zoltan Hound of Dracula is, in my opinion a bit of a 'lost classic'.  It is really quite terrible but there is something about it that I find quite endearing and charming.  Perhaps I'm losing the plot or maybe I'm possessed by Zoltan?

• Starring Michael Pataki  Jose Ferrer  Reggie Nalder
• Director Albert Band
• Distributor Studio Canal / Optimum

The Squeeze

 

Jim Naboth is a man with a serious drink problem, at the start of this simply outstanding crime thriller he is so 'out of his face' he falls down an escalator in the London tube and wakes up in hospital.  The hospital try to cure him of his drinking, but upon his discharge he heads straight for the nearest boozer.

Naboth is seperated from his wife and her new husband comes to him when Jim's ex goes missing after being kidnapped by hardened criminals.  This sets the story for a real forgotten gem from the 1970's.

The cast assembled by director Michael Apted is headlined by the afore mentioned Keach and is backed up by Edward Fox, David Hemmings, Carol White, Roy Marsden, Stephen Boyd, Alan Ford and comedian Freddie Starr.  All the cast are simply superb with Starr proving a real revelation as Naboth's best friend.  Only Starr himself I would imagine could tell you why he never made other films.

Apted captures London of the 70's wonderfully and has assembled a great musical score (shame no soundtrack was ever made available) and some terrific tunes of the day.

It's a complete crime that this film has been unavailable here in the UK since the eighties, thankfully Warner has released it through their DVD on demand service in the States.  I cannot recommend this film highly enough, it's violent and compelling with real characters.  Oh yes and it's easy to pick up thanks to the wonders of the internet.

• Starring Stacy Keach  Freddie Starr  Stephen Boyd  David Hemmings
• Director Michael Apted
• Distributor Warner Archive

Cheezy Trailers

 

As far as I'm concerned you can't beat film trailers.  They are a bit of an art form and can either turn you on or off to a film.  We can all say we have seen a trailer and thought that looks good, but turns out to be utter rubbish.  Well these trailer discs from Cheezy Flicks are meant be to be rubbish and believe there are some real stinkers on these discs.... but that's the point.

Split into genres, sci fi, horror, action, fantasy and exploitation they are literally scores of bad movies to digest and use as a shopping list to seek them out.  Also on the discs are old school style drive in ads and intermissions, being US discs they are in the style the dancing hot dog seen in the back when John Travolta sings 'Sandy' in Grease.  What would be nice if on further releases, we get some old Pearl and Dean's, but if that is your thing go on YouTube there is plenty on there (including the Kia Ora advert).

At only a couple of quid (or dollars) these are simply essential purchases.  

• Starring Various actors (known and unknown)
• Distributor Cheezy Flicks

Dr Black, Mr Hyde

 

Dr Henry Pryde is a good man.  He volunteers at the local free clinic and is working on a cure for liver disease.  Unfortunately trying his serum isn’t a good idea and soon he turns into a maniac butchering hookers and beating up various people on the street.

Sometimes there are  films which are so bad, they are brilliant.  Contrary to the title this film is not bad at all, it’s excellent.  Grant you, some of the acting is dire and strained but the film is saved with a sympathetic performance from Bernie Casey.  It also features a great funky score with horror overtones, some eerie make up from Stan Winston and a dapper dressed pimp complete with cape and cane.

For years I have seen the trailer (check it out below) but never the film.  Finally VCI have put it out on DVD.  The print is damaged but I would imagine the source wasn’t looked after that well.  Who cares when a film is this funky, a great example of blaxploitation from the director of ‘Blacula’.  I haven’t enjoyed a film so much in quite a while.

• Starring Bernie Casey  Rosalind Cash
• Director William Crain
• Distributor VCI
  

Fists of Vengeance

 

Now this is not a film but a collection of various martial arts films spanning around 20 years from the 70′s to the 80′s starring the likes of Bolo Yeung and Lee Van Cleef.  Some of the prints are a bit battered and the dubbing dreadful but for anyone who likes their kung fu served with a large slice of cheese you can’t go wrong.  I picked my copy up from the amazon marketplace for just over three quid.

The Films are Bloodfight, Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave, Champ against Champ, Crippled Masters, Dragon Lee vs. The Five Brothers, The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe, Fists of Bruce Lee, The Image of Bruce Lee, The Invisible Fist, LA Streetfighters, Kung Fu Fever, The Master, Rage of the Master, The Real Bruce Lee, Snake Crane Secret and Screaming Tiger.

You haven’t seen anything quite like the start of ‘Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave’ and ‘The Crippled Masters’ is probably a bit tasteless and yes it does feature disabled people fighting bad guys.  No real classics but a real bargain and a couple of ‘priceless gems’ to enjoy with an alcoholic beverage of your choice.

• Distributor Mill Creek Entertainment

A Candle For The Devil and The Fiend

Now I am really beginning to like Odeon Entertainment and the people who go throught the archives.  These guys have dug up some real forgotten gems.

A Candle For The Devil is a naughty horror movie set in Spain, complete with lots of excellent 70′s cliches such as our old favourite, nudity and blood.  Judy Geeson is the main star of this one and to be fair, it’s completely bonkers but has a rich atmosphere and plot wise it’s your standard missing girl stuff but executed bloody (pun intended) well by director Eugenio Martin director of one of my favourite films of all time, Horror Express.

• Starring Judy Geeson  Aurora Bautista
• Director Eugenio (Gene) Martin

The Fiend however is a different story, totally disregarded on it’s original release it’s one of those films that only us British could produce.  Scary Vicars, weirdos, the list is endless.  The film has a brilliant central performance from Patrick Magee and is supported by the outstanding Tony Beckley as his twisted son.  I do prefer the original title “Beware My Brethren” as “The Fiend” is a bit boring but apart from that I do feel I have a real forgotten classic on my shelf and that’s possibly the best recommendation I can give.

• Starring Patrick Magee  Ann Todd  Tony Beckley  Suzanna Leigh
• Director Robert Hartford-Davis

A great ideal double bill to watch at home.  Forget the beer, get down your shops and get yourself a dodgy old hotdog and some Butterkist……..get into the 70′s groove!!!!

• Both films distributed by Odeon Entertainment

American Ninja 2 - The Domination

 

The 1980′s was a great time to be a fan of cheesy action flicks.  Established stars like Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris hooked up with the legendary Cannon Films, we were then regularly treated to some action greats such as the Death Wish sequels and Invasion USA.  Cannon wanted to create their own star, step forward a young man named Michael Dudikoff.

American Ninja was fairly successful but it was the sequel that I really think is a real ‘lost classic’.  Some great fights, a bonkers plot with ninjas again, dreadful acting from the supporting cast and most importantly two brilliant leads in Dudikoff and the late Steve James.

Some priceless scenes include both Dudikoff and James jumping off a cliff seperately and landing on a conveniently passing speedboat, James ripping his shirt off and brandishing two massive swords to kill some ninjas (you have to see it to appreciate it) and their boss proclaiming the local police inspector ‘gets on his tits!’

Available on a three pack special edition with parts 1 and 3 in the UK and a rather poor full screen version in the US with Part 1, please check this movie out.  You will laugh at it’s pure cheesiness and realise its a real sad state of affairs that they don’t make ‘em like this now.

• Starring Michael Dudikoff  Steve James  Larry Poindexter
• Directed by Sam Firstenberg
• Distributor MGM

Virgin Witch

 

Christine and Betty are two young sisters (Anne and Vicki Michelle) who have moved to London in search of fame and fortune. Stumbling into a model job, the two sisters go to a country mansion for a fashion shoot.  Shifty agent, Sybil has other ideas apart from taking a shine to young Christine in ‘the you know what’ fashion (this is a 70′s film) she also wants her for her witches coven.

The film is certainly a product of it’s time, with an unbelievable amount of nudity from the film’s two leads.  It seems both of them spend more time without clothes then with, it does help that the two real life sisters are very attractive so I have no issues there.  As well as all the boobs and bums, we get an atmospheric score and for a low budget film two very well done witchcraft  ceremonies.  It’s a bit of a slow burner for the first half an hour or so and is rescued by the last 45 minutes when all the witchery stuff happens.  With all this going on, it’s a real surprise that the people behind the scenes are the creator of ‘Crossroads’ and ITV’s World of Wrestling with Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks.

Did I enjoy it?  most certainly yes.  Will you enjoy it?  It all depends whether you appreciate very British 70′s horror with more than a splash of nudity.  It’s all very camp, but entertaining in a rubbishy way.  I think I’ll pop it on my shelf next to The Vampire Lovers.

• Starring Vicki Michelle   Anne Michelle  Patricia Haynes
• Director Ray Austin
• Distributor Odeon

Trancers - The Cult Classic Trilogy

 

Jack Deth (possibly one of cinema’s coolest names ever) is a Trancer hunter.  Trancers are human beings changed into killing machines by Martin Whistler a sort of cult leader trying to bring down society.  It turns out Whistler has travelled back in time to 20th century LA and Jack must go after him.  A terrific twist on the tried and tested time travel genre is that Jack doesn’t back in time in a vehicle such as a TARDIS but down his own genetic line and ‘jumps’ into the body of a distant relative.  Suffice to say Jack to save the day and get the girl (a pre fame Helen Hunt)

In Part 2, Jack has to confront Whistler’s brother played by veteran bad guy, Richard Lynch and his cronies including Jeremy Combs and also face the fact tha his dead wife is now alive in one of her relative’s bodies.

In Part 3, the trancers are back and this time Jack is helped by an android called Shark.

Trancers and it’s sequels do not have the budget of Star Wars or Back to the Future, but have over the years garnered cult status because they are imaginative, at times very funny (some not intentional) well made and have in my my opinion one of the genre’s best ever characters in Jack Deth brilliantly played by Tim Thomerson.

It would be nice to see Parts 4,5 & 6 released next along with the unseen footage of the ‘original’ Part 2 from Empire Pictures’ cancelled Pulse Pounders movie.  Come on Echo Bridge go and ask Charles Band for the footage and put it on the disc.  That would be amazing!!!

• Starring Tim Thomerson  Helen Hunt (1,2,3)  Megan Ward (2 & 3)
• Directed by (Part 1 & 2) Charles Band  (Part 3)   C.Courtney Joyner
• Distributor Echo Bridge Home Entertainment