"The Mutilator"(1985)d/Buddy Cooper

Pretty choice poster,eh?Always dug this one.
Although this movie exists purely as a vehicle for Mark Shostrom's grisly gore effects(two big thumbs up for Mark,as always),I like the damned thing for some reason.It isn't the plot,which is sub-standard even in the slasher subgenre.Hell,I've seen amateur s.o.v. stuff that had a better developed storyline and script than this.It isn't the non-actors whose performances in this heavy-handed affair make Keanu Reeves look like Sir Laurence Olivier.Let's not even touch upon the corny 80's pop-drenched title puke-tune that John Tesh and Yanni could outmacho on a bad day.In fact,let's not even investigate the why's or the how's here,and just accept that somehow,this piece of crap manages to entertain me to this day.

I'm pretty sure that's Ben Moore's headless torso.Score one for the Wop.
Ed Jr. wants to surprise his pop by cleaning his gun collection for him on his birthday.In between polishing his hunting rifles,the boy empty-headedly blasts his own mother in the back,severing her spine,laying waste to her dorsal aorta,and effectively killing her,with a rifle he assumes isn't loaded.Oops.Hap-py birthday,Ed Sr.,Hap-py birthday to...yeah,Big Ed doesn't much appreciate his impromptu birthday gift.By the time the cops arrive,Big Ed is pouring a whiskey shot down his lifeless wife's yap.Sanity,it was nice knowing ya.I bet Ed's dad is gonna cause him some major grief over this later on in the story.....

Is that a 19/0 freshwater hook skewered through this chick's vadge?Score another one for Wop A. Licious.
An undistinguishable amount of years later,Ed Jr. is lamenting a lack of rad fall break plans with his semi-homely girlfriend and his small gaggle of talentless actors/chums/victims at the bar,when the bartender informs him he's got a call.On the phone Big Ed himself tells his boy he's gotta re-route the gang to their beach house,so he can clean up his father's drunken mess.Hmmm,beach house,fall break,party?Sounds like our cue for a flaccid road trip montage with obligatory banal 80's pop title track.Roll those generic opening credits,boys.

An outboard motor and the human midsection,strange bedfellows indeed.
Ed Jr. tells his pals all about his father who seems to be missing, and his obsessions with hunting/fishing/killing at the beach house,and how "he's hunted everything except man".He also fills them in on his dad's perpetual state of mental crackers since his wife's death years ago,and that pop never really forgave him for the tragic accident.Hmmm,Big Ed isn't around,he's fucking bonkers,he's a master hunter,and he's got a mile-wide chip on his shoulder towards his son who just dragged his buddies to a beach house during the off-season when one(that's right...one.)cop(Ben Moore,of H.G. Lewis' "2,000 Maniacs!" fame) walks the sandy beat.I'm gonna go ahead and assume that bad things will start to happen immediately to Ed Jr. and his friends,and it's a safe bet that his psychopathic,homicidal dad might be the culprit behind them.Well that,and his father's authentic medieval battle axe is missing from its display hooks on the wall.I'm gonna go ahead and say somebody's gonna end up eating that thing before too long.

What did this film's producers have against Ben Moore?I thought he was great in "2,000 Maniacs!" ferchrissakes.
Surprise!Big Ed springs into bloody action after sleeping off a major hangover and dreaming about 86ing his own son,killing any and everybody in unusually gruesome fashion(despite some poor lighting),with the director bunging logic into the bin in some cases just to up the movie's body count.That's admirable,really.Pitchforks,outboard motors,battleaxes,and even really effin' huge fish hooks become implements of death in Big Ed's hands,until the only couple left to thwart the bloodthirsty killer,is ironically(not really),his own son and semi-homely girlfriend.Big Ed gets bisected at the waist,but a fatal injury just isn't enough to stop the guy from hacking a leg off with his favorite battle axe,just for good measure.He's laughing,I'm laughing,we're all laughing.

Big Ed(Jack Chatham) gets the last laugh.Kinda sorta.

"Lisztomania"(1975)d/Ken Russell

Some directors paint a decidedly linear picture,tell a story the way you'd hear it from Grandpa,if he was sitting in a rocker,relating details in a manner that you could almost close your eyes and envision the tale unfolding as if you were right there experiencing it next to him.Some directors choose not to follow that route,choosing a far more fucked up path to take the viewer on.Ken Russell oftimes likes to do that.Sometimes he's very successful in purveying a twisted vision,but once in awhile,his finished product flops around like a brook trout gasping for air in a bucket on a rowboat.This entry,which was released the same year as his successful yet equally bananas "Tommy"(1975),is a perfect example,all but disappearing from the face of the earth since audiences and critics alike first walked out of theaters scratching their heads over the experience.

She loves you,and you know that can't be bad,says Pope Ringo I.
Russell paints an impressionistic picture of Franz Liszt,19th century composer,if he were a rock star of the day,tickling the ivories in front of throngs of screaming teenaged fans,and bedding amorous groupies at every juncture,with ham-fisted bedroom humour and bizarre visual flair.An interesting cast sinks in this production.He recruits Roger Daltrey,frontman of The Who,to play Liszt,Paul Nicholas as Richard Wagner,Beatle Ringo Starr as the Pope(!),and Yes's Rick Wakeman in the role of Thor(!!).Fiona Lewis and Little Nell of "Rocky Horror" fame are amongst the women in the composer's lovelife.Somewhere in here is a story,albeit an outrageously over-the-top one,and that's only if you can find it.

Richard Wagner(Paul Nicholas),the vampire,looking a little worse for wear.
After a swordfight with Count d'Agoult when he catches the composer in bed with his wife,Marie(Daltrey's head swings back and forth like a metronome between Lewis' pendulous breasts),Liszt finds himself trapped inside a piano with the woman,tied to the railroad tracks.He has a daughter with Lady d'Agoult,but decides to woo Princess Carolyn of St. Petersburg upon invitation instead,eloping with her,their marriage forbidden by the Pope,causing Liszt to embrace a monastic life as an abbe.Richard Wagner is the composer's friend and also a vampire(!) whose creativity is directly affected by Liszt's lifeblood,which he often sups upon.His jealousy over his friend's popularity and a friendly visit from Norse god Thor(!!) spurs him on to desperate measures,creating Franken-Hitler(!!!) to destroy the world with his electric guitar.Luckily for us,Liszt travels down from the heavens in a pipe-organ rocketship to thwart the dictator/rocker/patchwork creature's plans of global domination with laser blasts comprised of primary color schemes.I'll give you a minute here.

Liszt(Roger Daltrey),about to dance inside a mammoth pair of knickers.
A surreal cornucopia of bizzare imagery and largely horrible musical numbers,composed by Wakeman and sung by Daltrey,I'd imagine both performers have long since swept this collaboration under their creative rugs,hoping no one ever drudges the wretched thing up again.Even in 1975,if you slung a musical about famous composers together,with Frankenstein,Thor,Hitler,Superman,vampires,cigars,the papacy,Heaven,war,love,Charlie Chaplin,philosophy,sexuality...I'm pretty sure there's a kitchen sink in there somewhere too,you might lose some of your audience along the way.Yes,even the segment of moviegoers who dropped some double-dipped white blotter acid before hitting the theater,a good portion of which used to show up at my house in the early days of video with Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same" just to watch Jimmy Page's Hermit sequence and blow what little mind they had left at that point(it was more impressive at the midnight movies,mind you).

Liszt shows onstage affection for lovely lovely Ludwig Van.
In closing,you might wanna secure yourself a copy if any of this visual smorgasbord sounds interesting to you,but be warned;as musicals go,it's not "West Side Story",and this IS coming from a lifelong Who fan who has always enjoyed Rick Wakeman's film scores,Ken Russell movies,and naked broads.As much as I've always wanted to see a mash up of Frankenstein and Hitler marching through decimated cities with an electric guitar,I'm gonna go ahead and give this mish-mosh:

In my book,it's just not a musical until they drag out an enormous phallus and a kickline of concubines.

"Horror Express"(1973)d/Eugenio Martin

"There's a stink of hell on this train. Even the dog knows it!"
The Spaniards and Brits don't get together to make movies too often,but when they do,the finished product is satisfying,at least where this low budgeted kitchen sink number is concerned.You've got Christopher Lee,Peter Cushing,fossilized bigfeet posessed by alien intelligence,bloody white eyes,smooth brains,Rasputin-esque monks,a train fulla zombies,and just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any better,there's Telly Savalas as a brutal kossack.If you were curious,YES he whips someone,and YES,he smokes like there's no tomorrow.This flick is packed engine to kaboose with cult goodness,and it chugs right along to classic-ville.

And I thought Fossils came in tin collectors cases.
Professor Alexander Saxton(the great Christopher Lee)discovers a million year old fossilized anthropoid ape encased in ice while on an expedition in Siberia,and encounters a world of problems transporting it back to dear old Blighty on the Trans-Siberian express.He verbally jousts with countryman Dr. Wells(the late great Peter Cushing)over their conflicting outlooks and opinions as they both board the train,a mysterious Chinese pickpocket already lying dead with white eyes on the platform,next to the trunk containing Saxton's discovery.Also on board this trainride to Hell are an inspector,a female spy,a Russian count and countess,and a host of unsuspecting passengers.When Wells pays off the baggage man to sneak a peak at the contents of the trunk after Saxton has retired to his berth,the fossil picks the lock,and then fries the worker's brain with a lone red eye,overbrimming with untold powers.When the professor later opens the trunk upon insistance from the inspector,the creature is gone,and the baggageman's corpse is there in its place.Amidst the cold,snowy ride through harsh,icy terrain,there's worse danger to fear in the dark on this particular train.

Bad news for the brits:the fossil is gone,and a boiled-eyed,smooth-brained baggage man in it's place.
Though it looks as though the creature has escaped out an open window,it hides in the shadows of the compartments,killing those who cross its path,draining their brains of knowledge,and boiling their eyes in the process,as Saxton and Wells discover through makeshift autopsies of its victims.The men of science deduct that an alien intelligence possesses the primitive beast,and had lay dormant in the ice until Saxton freed it from its snowy prison.Before it can add Wells to its list of horrible murders,the inspector empties his gun into it,but not before the alien presence can transfer itself into the inspector's body.The killings continue,as a telegram for help reaches the next junction and the eyes of Captain Kazan(Telly Savalas),a brutal cossack,who plans to meet the devil head on when the train arrives,whip,knife,and kossack troops in tow.

Photo Explosion SE won't clear up this case of red eye.
Kazan's cruel methods and the Brit's scientific deductions combine to out the alien entity inside the inspector,Mirov,but not before it passes on to the fanatical monk,Pujardov,who takes on the kossack forces with his otherworldly malocchio,then raises them from the dead(!) to finish off the surviving passengers as the train hurtles towards a cliff,with little hope of survival for anybody.Do Wells and Saxton save the day?Does the possessed mad monk take all those aboard to a frigid Hell with him?Add this one to your collection to find out.

Who whips you,baby?Kazan(Telly Savalas) goes through lollipop withdrawal.
There's absolutely no reason to not have this sitting on your dvd shelves,as there's gotta be like 16 different releases of it floating around out there,it being one of those "public domain" movies.The Euroshock version is a cleaned up print,and widescreen,definitely the one to shoot for when you're shopping for it.The producers/director had used the train interior sets and train model itself for the movie they'd just completed previous to this one,"Pancho Villa"(1972),which also starred Telly Savalas.Peter Cushing very nearly bowed out of the production,as his wife had recently died,and were it not for Christopher Lee waxing nostalgic about all the good times they had together on other films,he may not have done this picture.A true cult classic by anyone's standards,to ol' Wop A. Licious,it rates:

When Pujardov(Alberto de Mendoza)sees red,the passengers are in trouble.

"Horror High"(1973)d/Larry N. Stouffer

The groovy 70's high school version of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde.
Also known as "Twisted Brain",this entry was a late night television favorite for years.Basically an updated version of the familiar Jeckyll and Hyde story,it is a veritable smorgasbord of acid rock guitar riffs,hideous floral print wide lapelled button down shirts, and gruesome-but-light comeuppance for enforcers of the high school pecking order/caste system(which I'm told no longer exists,damn you,political correctness!).

Mince no words,Vernon Potts(Pat Cardi) is a big fucking dork.
Vernon Potts,at first glance, looks like your average everyday nerd.But this chemistry whiz is on the threshold of tapping man's inner beast,his baser instincts brought to light.In the meantime,everyone loves to shit on the poor guy.From his teachers,to classmates,even the lowly janitor picks on Vernon at every juncture.His estranged father even wonders what the hell his problem is,as he sips mixed drinks at poolside with his young concubine.Ah,no matter,he's got his science experiments,his guinea pig,Mr. Mumps,and the attention of Robin,who feels pity at his ineptitude and attraction at his gentle nature and intelligence,to the dismay of her jock boyfriend,Roger,who calls Vernon "Creeper".Heh heh,that's a good nickname.

Robin(Rosie Holotik)tells Vernon that ugly,socially inept science geeks turn her on.No really.
When the janitor,Mr. Griggs forces Vernon to drink his own formula,after Mr. Mumps,zooted on the stuff effs up the man's pet cat,Vernon transforms into a pigeon-toed crepe wool-faced maniac,and dumps the old man into an industrial sized 55 gallon drum of acid.Cue acid rock guitar lick.Vernon cleans up the lab,but when one of his classmates discovers the liquefying skeleton in the vat,a local jive-talking black detective is on the case.Move over,Shaft.Realizing his new-found power,the teenager soon embarks on a mission of bloody retribution,chopping his math teacher up with a paper cutter,his gym teacher(Dallas Cowboys' John Niland,one of a handful of football pros of the day in supporting roles in the film)stomped and shredded with a pair of metal cleats.Good stuff.

Griggs,the janitor,or what's left of him after tangling with Serum-variant Vernon,who rolls + 5 crit damage:acid .
In the finale,Potts is so close to his Utopian situation,he can taste it.Robin kisses him,Roger is taken into custody for the murders,but he can no longer control the evil aggressive half,which begins to take hold of him while in Robin's company at the high school,where he pigeon toes down the dark halls after her.The authorities are on the scene,though,in the nick of time,and shoot the teenaged monster before he can hurt anyone else.

Acid plus mean old janitor's face equals not at all sexy.
Personally,I fully advocate the high school pecking order,as cruel and harrowing as that may be to homely wallflower chicks and zit-faced geeks.Most of the time,the preps and sportos at the top of the food chain never amount to much once school is out,forever awaiting the next high school reunion and hoping to regain a fleeting taste of their lost popularity.Oftimes,the picked-on dorks transform into highly successful businessmen,and the ugly broads get hot,with no secret formula or potion to help the transformation.Of course,some of them stay the same,but such is life.But for me,a life of infamy is the path I've always chosen,and here I sit,infamously,at your disposal.This one merits:

May I please have my chemistry notes back NOW?!!?

"Return of the Aliens:Deadly Spawn"(1983)d/Douglas McKeown

When I first saw this low budget independent classic,I was skipping off school to smoke cigarettes,listen to Adam and the Ants records,and sneak a few quality hours in of screening my old man's unlabelled VHS porn collection with my buddies.It takes me back to the era of Flowbee feathered haircuts,big combs in your back pocket(I won't say what we used to call them in the spirit of good taste...),jean jackets,flannel shirts and work boots.Just take a drive through present day Manville,NJ to see what I'm talking about.Anyway,the big box release of this flick on Continental Video was what movies were all about back then.You could rent "Tuff Turf",to see what the little girl from "Escape from Witch Mountain" grew up into,or you could grab this one,with a snarling multi-headed alien beast with various bloody severed body parts strewn around it on the huge video box.Kim Richards usually lost to John Dods at my place(no offense to teenaged Kim,looking all cute in her Fashion Bug '80s new wave threads).

Nothing wrong with a little head for breakfast.
At the outset of our story,in a paen to "The Blob"(1957),two campers investigate the impact site of a large meteorite.While one ducks into the tent for a flashlight,the other is rended limb from limb in the shadows by whatever it was that crawled out of the meteorite.Then the second camper becomes a meal himself.The following morning,a suburban couple prepare to embark on a journey to a relative's house when the man notices the pipes are on the fritz.Unbeknownst to him,one of the cellar windows was left open during the night,giving easy access to he and his family for the being from the skies.When he doesn't return from the basement,his wife soon follows him to an untimely demise.

Alien tadpoles make short work of some poor bastard's face.
Hours later,the remaining members of the household beign to rouse from their slumber.Peter(who's having friends over to study...on a Saturday...nerd alert) and Charles(the obligatory young monster-loving horror freak),their sons,visiting Aunt Millie(who's planning a veggie luncheon date for her circle of stuffy old biddies/friends) and Uncle Herb(a child psychologist who's promised to give Charles a once over to see if the boy's bloody interests are normal or not..and YES,of course they are...),and an electrician is scheduled for a visit.For those keeping score at home,the body count possibilities are staggering at this point.Ellen and Frankie,two of Peter's friends show up for their Saturday study session(blech) with the promise of Kathy's arrival later on.Millie bails, but leaves a note for the electrician to let himself in through the cellar door.

Headless nerd chick's corpse in the front lawn.News at eleven.
Charles,young prankster that he is,decides to throw on a latex mask and costume and pop down into the cellar to scare the pants off the unsuspecting electrician.He stumbles onto the alpha alien,chowing down on the technician instead.The hulking beast lurches towards the boy,but when he freezes in the darkness,the thing and its multiple larvae swimming about in puddles on the cellar floor,lose track of him,as they are led by sound rather than sight,being eyeless. "Holy Saint Xenobius!" moment:The monstrosity then upchucks the boy's mother's head to the concrete below,where its tadpoles abruptly rip the face off the bloody thing,frozen in a death scream.Where anyone else would lose it having just seen psychologically destructive shit like that,this kid remains one cool motherfucker,still frozen in place.He throws a flashlight against a far wall,causing the creatures to follow the sound.He sees some of the flesh-crazed larva sidewinding out an open cellar window into the storm outside.

Let's see Uwe Boll create this kind of tension for 27,000 bucks.
The titular aliens kick into high gear,spoiling Aunt Millie's dusty get-together,burrowing into Uncle Herb's eye sockets(!),and the apex beast traps the studious nerds in an upstairs bedroom(chomping Ellen's nerdy head off in the process,and causing the headless dork to fall out a window to the lawn below),across from the bedroom with a phone.Oh sweet irony.In the end,it's up to Charles,Frankie,Peter,and Kathy to take on the ravenous otherworldly menace,which they manage to do,in a way that would make Richard Dean Anderson's MacGyver green with envy.By the time the authorities arrive,dispatching stray tadpoles and returning the rural area to normalcy,the mountain in the background begins to rumble...It can't be!Oh,yes it can.

You're gonna need a bigger boat...

"joe"(1970)d/John G. Avildsen

Avildsen's meisterwerk,"Rocky"(1976) not excluded.
Here's another movie you've probably never heard of,but must see at all costs.Director John G. Avildsen pulls out all stops in creating this mean spirited little fairytale documenting the end of the sixties,commenting socio-economically on the generation gap and class struggle,and ends up with a very cerebral piece of work,though quite dated,still delivers a flurry of gut punches to the viewer's senses.

Susan Sarandon,at her most naked,and least annoying.
Melissa Compton(Susan Sarandon)is an airheaded hippie broad in Manhattan's Greenwich Village commune,cohabitating a dumpy apartment with her junkie/artist/hippie/drug dealer boyfriend Frank(Patrick McDermott).When they aren't screwing,they're shooting smack.When he's not painting,he's ripping off young hippie wannabes,selling them vitamins instead of LSD so he can buy more drugs and really free up his artistic talent,maaan.While he's out earning some bread,he gives Melissa some amphetamines to occupy her time,inadvertently blowing her mind,and getting her arrested at a corner market on 2nd Ave,as she draws all over her own face with lipstick and topples over shelves full of consumer goods.When her father Bill(Dennis Patrick)sees her sedated state at the hospital,he decides to collect up all her belongings from her groovy love pad while his wife waits downstairs.Frank returns home,interrupting Bill as he gathers her things,and when the hippie describes how he met the man's daughter,balling up the aisles at a hippie concert(heavy!),Compton abruptly bashes the dirtbag's head against the wall,accidentally killing him.He stages a botched drug deal,grabs Frank's paper bag of goodies,and runs out.

That wall blow your mind,junkie? Compton rids the world of a worthless hippie.
Compton stops off at a corner dive to drink his guilt away,when he meets Joe Curran(Peter Boyle),an opinionated,misogynistic working class stiff who's been bombarding the bar's patrons with his patriotic and racist views.When Curran acknowledges that he'd like to kill one of the kids for "pissing on America and fucking up the music",Compton admits he just has.Playing it off as a joke,Compton hurries out of the bar before Curran can buy him a drink for pulling the wool over his eyes.When the Comptons later see the news reporting Russo's death in the village,Curran is also watching at his house.He calls Compton at work the next day,not to blackmail him,but to congratulate him for actually doing what Curran always threatens to(!).The two men form an unlikely friendship,and when Melissa is released from the hospital and returns to her parents,she overhears them discussing the murder of the girl's boyfriend and runs out,causing Compton to enlist Joe to help him find his daughter in the village,a strange and foreign place to both men.

Joe Curran(Peter Boyle),American working class hero.
In the village,the men manage to hook up with some hippies,who are very interested in partying with the two,when Compton explains that he's got all the drugs he needs.Both men get baked on a hookah full of herb and screw a pair of hippie broads,but their friends make off with Compton's stolen bag of drugs,and both their wallets.Joe springs into action,slapping the bejeezus out of the girl he had just had sex with,demanding to know her friends' location so the men can retrieve their property.She divulges the New Jersey farmhouse/squat they've probably driven off to,and the angry men,once again gapped by generation,head there.Outside the farmhouse,Curran pulls two rifles from the trunk,explaining that they'll just "scare" whoever's inside.Once inside,it's a different story altogether.Joe begins shooting every hippie in sight,and eggs on his white collar pal to do the same,cleaning the slate of potential witnesses.Compton's daughter Melissa,who's just arrived at the squat, sees a fleeing hippie bolting out the front door,and when she turns to run herself,her own father,not knowing her identity, kills her with a blast to the back.

Bridging the generation gap one hookah at a time,Compton and Curran blow some pot.
An absolute classic,nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay,this has been one of my all-time favorites for years,made familiar in the hardcore scene by Sheer Terror's liberal use of soundbytes from the film on their release "Ugly and Proud".Peter Boyle wrote a sequel that never came to fruition,though he was disturbed by the vast numbers of theatergoers who cheered on his character,refusing to act in "The French Connection"(1971) and other films he claimed glamourized violence.The movie also introduced audiences to Susan Sarandon(whose part was auditioned for by Lynn Lowry!),who went on to cult stardom in "Rocky Horror Picture Show"(1975),and later outspoken left-wing notoriety/stupidity.Director Avildsen scored big with "Rocky" in 1976,then embarrassingly,with The Karate Kid trilogy and Rocky V.Trust Uncle Dub on this one,you need to see this movie.I give it my highest rating:

"Whattaya call this? Groovin? Groovy?"

"Bigfoot"(1970)d/Robert F. Slatzer

More like,the corniest monster suits since "Goliathon/The Mighty Peking Man"(1976).
This isn't the worst Bigfoot movie ever made,but only because "Curse of Bigfoot"(1972) exists.Mildly entertaining,mind you,due to the various cult aspects abound within(John Carradine,Haji,groovy campfire dancing,horny hominids kidnapping buxom beauties for mating purposes,etc.),but the damned thing drags like Kharis' bandaged right foot across the floor in any mummy movie worth its moxie.

What was that tagline in the poster about "realistic and horrifying"?
Joi Landis(as played by Joi LanSING) does what any top heavy blonde did for kicks back in the sixties,she pilots a piper cub airplane unconvincingly.When the control panel proves too much for her tiny mind to comprehend,she parachutes out,into the northwest woods(of Big Bear Lake in California),or a Hollywood backlot set,depending on how keen you are to spot these things.She immediately climbs out of her pilot jumpsuit,realizing a skimpy mini with plunging neckline might be better suited for the rough woodland terrain.As she wanders around,Bigfoot,long recognized as a boobs man by the local tribal folklore,puts the moves on her and carries her off,screaming and kicking.

Next on treasure hunt list:half-buried dimestore latex gorilla mask,check.
Jasper and Elmer(Johns Carradine and Mitchum) are two junk dealing travelling salesmen just passing through,when car trouble forces the bumpkins to seek help from the local mountain folk at the general store.Meanwhile out in the woods/set,a young dirtbiking gang with guy nicknamed things like "Wheels" and "Dum-Dum"(!), is throwing a groovy campfire shindig with go-go dancing and beer.One of the couples decides to explore the set/woods on their own,and stumble foolishly onto Bigfoot burial ground,where Bigfeet lazily bury their dead(or cheap latex rubber gorilla masks,depending on who you're talking to)less than an inch from the surface,inspiring screams from the biker's bikini-clad chick.Where there's D cup breasts in an outta sight bikini,Bigfoot is sure to be found,boobsmith that he no doubt is.He lumbers onto the scene,and knocks the young man out with a wild haymaker(!) and drags his screaming chick off into the blackness.

Cleavage shots a'plenty in Bigfoot country.
When the kayoed thrill seeker comes to,he phones Cyrus,the sheriff,who laughs off the boy's wild tale of libidinous primates with "Deputy Hank",his trusty deputy.Jasper and Elmer overhear the story and volunteer to help the biker find his lost girlfriend,with ulterior ideas of capturing the creature and exploiting it for money.Back at Sasquatch's digs,the pole-tied prickteases deduct that Bigfoot is mating with human women and producing hybrid offspring,judging by the children in cheap ape suits curiously sniffing around,much to the dismay of the female bigfeet/women in cheap ape suits.The rescue party ends up getting captured and pole-tied,Bigfoot beats up the biker's motor pals out looking for him,and the sheriff decides to take the numerous call-ins seriously for a change and forms a posse to investigate.In a less-than-thrilling finale,the men manage to seal the giant alpha Bigfoot in a cave with dynamite and life on the mountain returns to normalcy.The end.

"They're practically sub-human, except that they still live like animals!" deduct our befuddled bimbos.
Besides the sub-par performances,pathetic script and special effects(and perhaps the degree that Carradine's arthritis had already twisted his hands into at this point),there's not much "horrifying" stuff to fill you in on here.Worth a look for laughs,it merits only:

The late John Carradine as Jasper B. Hawks,earns yet another paycheck.

"The Incredible Melting Man"(1977)d/William Sachs

Long before FX master Rick Baker won accolades for "An American Werewolf in London"(1981) or "Harry and the Hendersons"(1988),he toiled away in low budget flicks like John Landis' "Schlock!"(1971),"Octaman"(1974),and this William Sachs film,to the delight of little horror nuts like myself.Lately he's been toiling away in crappy Eddie Murphy movies,but the guy is a true artist,regardless of whether he's associated with "Norbit"(2007)or not.Some memorable cult cameos include Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith,Janus Blythe(Ruby from "The Hills Have Eyes"(1977)),and Jonathan Demme,who later directed "Silence of the Lambs"(1992)!

Truly scary fatso nurse runs directly at the camera in slo-mo.Terrifying.
So they send a team of astronauts to Saturn,despite the fact that the planet is a ball of gas and has no surface whatsoever to land on,you with me so far?When the rocket closes in on its target,some wiseguy has transformed the planet's normally icy rings into firey ones,causing a strange phenomenon to occur.Steve West(Alex Rebar) bugs his eyes out looking at stock footage of solar flares and gets a slight nose bleed.Yeah,he's in all kinds of trouble when he somehow returns to Mother Earth.Doctors back home know these symptoms all too well,explaining that the heavily bandaged man in the hospital bed has started to melt like a pint of Turkey Hill Moose Tracks ice cream.Naturally the doomed astronaut gets out of his bed,unwraps himself,and takes a gander in the mirror.His rugged seventies looks...his porn stache...turkey sandwiches,turkey stew,gone,all gone!Bumpuses!Sons a' bitches!Sorry,wrong movie.Anyways,he goes crackers and a rotund nurse gallops down a long hallway in slo-mo,screaming(and no doubt wheezing from the exercise)as she smashes through a glass door.The titular melting man has been unleashed on an unsuspecting local populace.Since he's dripping all over the place,he needs "cells" from his victims,which he obtains by partially eating them.Makes sense.

The finest decapitated head cascading over a waterfall and smashing on the rocks below in slo-mo I have ever seen.
So Melty wanders around searching for victims to eat to slow his melting process,and thanks to the massive continuity problems of the film,dusk becomes the middle of the afternoon,and then back to night.Mindless fans of films like "Men in Black" might not notice such a faux pas,but I digress.He stumbles onto a fisherman in the wilderness,and dispatches him off-camera,but not before he can send the angler's decapitated,bloody head downstream,where it goes over a waterfall and dashes on the jagged rocks below,all in beautiful slo-mo.He then interrupts a group of well supervised little kids,who playfully smoke cigarettes together,and spares them,knowing the cancer will take them all out in years to come more painfully than a melting,flesh-eating astronaut ever could.He also snuffs a couple of lemon-thieving horny old codgers.No,I didn't make that up.He inadvertently interrupts a photographer and his comely,young subject(provocatively portrayed by the late Cheryl Smith)as he struggles to wrestle her tube top down so he can photograph her chachabingos against her will(artistic license,sexual assault,all the same).She backs into a disembodied arm whose hand grabs her ankle.Even disembodied body parts love boobs.

What's cooler than little kids smoking? Nothing,that's what.
Meanwhile,in the world of folks who aren't currently melting all over their groovy leisure suits,Steve's best friend,Dr.Ted Nelson is distraught over his friend's low drippy state and the fact that he's got no crackers in his house.No,I didn't make that up either.To make matters worse,a NASA general eats his last turkey leg,then West scarfs down Nelson's in-laws(the aforementioned oldies who're out trying to heist lemons).At least the guy isn't melting,right?Out of crackers,turkey legs, and in-laws,the good doctor sets out to find his snot-like chum before it's too late.

Astronaut Steve West needs a nip and tuck,courtesy of FX wizard Rick Baker.
In the finale,Nelson finds the melting man at the local power plant,surrounded by cops who plan on filling the oozing astronaut full of lead.He pleads for West's life and gives the lawmen his credentials.The cops naturally shoot the doctor instead.Also not made up,folks.The enraged melting man converges on the absent-minded cops who shoot him to no effect.He kills the officers,throwing one onto some power lines below,electrocuting him real good.Then he finds a comfy wall to fully melt away into nothing against.The next day,a black custodian cleans up the astronaut pudding as a radio announces another mission to Saturn about to take place.Oh sweet irony.

The late,great Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith,topless,as usual.
A pretty good,if somewhat disjointed time to be had revisiting this one,kiddies.Baker's makeup and gore effects(!) are pretty effective for their time,the logic-bereaft script contains several good unintentional laughs,and it all moves along quickly and painlessly.You could do worse than sitting down to this one,like...for example,"Octaman"(1974) or even worse,"Norbit"(2007).Sorry,Eddie.

Clean up in aisle nine...