"The Devil's Men" (1976) d/ Kostas Karagiannis

Despite the promise of the mint-looking advance poster and it's unquestionably Mentor-esque imagery (yeaaaasssh), tonight's review, edited and released in the States as "Land of the Minotaur", is more of a drag than it ought to have been, with silver screen legends Donald Pleasance and Peter Cushing, appearing together for the first time since 1960's excellent The Flesh and The Fiends, good and evil-style posturing against a bevvy of blonde beauties with a score by the legendary Brian Eno, but a hapless script, oafish pacing, amateurish direction, and an outrageously inept male lead performance by one Costa Skouras, who kind of looks like a less likable Greek Jay Leno, anchor this piece of late night tv filler as the second feature on a dreary drive-in double bill, and I don't know about any of you, but I'd usually be in the back seat, pistoning into some weepy young devotchka's gutty-wuts like Bill Laimbeer with two fouls, by that time, and not inclined to pay much attention to whatever the hell was going on up on the big screen outside. Therein lies my beef here, you see, as a lifetime horror nut, I would have waived the backseat time on Pleasance and Cushing alone, only to witness...


"But your eyebrows bring me to squirting climax..." quips Milo's squeeze (Jane Lyle).
On a remote Greek isle, nosy couples have been going missing while monkeying around some delapidated ruins, leading local priest, Father Roche(Pleasance), to surmise that something or someone sinister has orchestrated the disappearances. When three more visiting tourists vanish, Roche sends off a letter to New York, where his dubious detective pal, Milo (Skouras), is shacked up with a gorgeous blonde (Lyle), urging him to drop his metropolitan affairs and fly to Greece immediately and assist him in investigating the strange goings-on. When Milo inevitably arrives on the scene, he naturally slags off Roche's every suggestion as superstitious rubbish, causing the padre to wildly overreact to Milo's imaginary lead foot while driving (shoddy editing shows the car barely coasting). Then there's Laurie (Luan Peters), the distraught girlfriend of one of the missing men, who classically catches an ill-timed backhander across the face-piece when Milo misses his mark in a dramatic exchange gone awry.


"But I don't wanna 'come on and zoom-ah-zoom-ah-zoom-ah-zoom'!"
Enter Baron Corofax (Cushing), on exile from the Carpathians and heading a really splendid Minoan cult of Satan-worshipping pagans (eh, like I said earlier, the script is foggy) who wear satin robes and hoods and enjoy sacrificing people by the two's to an over-sized golden minotaur statue that talks and repeatedly blows flames out of it's nostrils. So there's that. Corofax also enjoys being chauffeured around the island in a limousine and bullying non-believers with a shotgun. Of course, Roche and Milo get themselves captured and dragged off to the cult's fancy subterranean digs, where the priest's visual premonitions of being shanked in the armpit on an altar nearly come true, except that he's equipped with a gaudy homemade-looking cross and container of holy water, which just so happens to be the only effective weapon against these nearly invincible evil-doers and their full moon-only time frame. You could almost predict exactly what's gonna happen in the climax, if you gave enough of a shit, that is...


"That is correct. Write a proper screenplay and I shan't be forced to blow your head off."
You'll remember Jane Lyle as the impossibly hot blonde lead in the Greek-lensed Island of Death the previous year. In fact, Bob Behling and Jessica Dublin, both also from the cult classic cast, are aboard here, but forgive my momentary lapse into a fucking caveman at the prospect of Ms. Lyle and her seldom seen-but-breathtaking physical endowments for a second, when I say yes, yes I most certainly would. She was a Top Five dish of the decade in my book. You're all entitled to your own personal favorites, but she was sweetly pretty, and I want to protect her. In my hypothetical drive-in trip earlier, I'd opted out of the back windshield steam for the sake of the big names involved, and ultimately, that particular sacrifice would not have been worth it, given the failure of the motion picture to generate little else but unintentional laughs. On the scale, Men manages a mere single Wop. Approach with caution.


Dig Donald's "I'm about to be shivved for Satan" expression.

"Nosferatu a Venezia" (1988) d/ Augusto Caminito

More Kinski?? Despite burning through directors (Maurizio Lucidi, Pasquale Squitieri, Mario Caiano, producer Caminito, who ended up finishing the movie with some help from Luigi Cozzi, and reportedly Kinski himself, along the line) like Bette Davis through a pack of Lucky Strikes, tonight's review is an evocative, sometimes surreal follow up to Werner Herzog's 1979 remake of the silent 1922 F.W. Murnau classic.With the elegant beauty of Venice as a backdrop, the historically intolerable Kinski reprises his vampire role,  famously refusing to sit in the make up chair for the ugly, pitiful Max Shreck-esque look of the original, and even attacking a few of his female co-stars on the set. Also on board are no less than Christopher Plummer, Donald Pleasance, Barbara De Rossi, and the natural beauty, Anne Knecht, in her only film appearance to date.


"Vould you direkt me? I vould direkt me...zo zo hardt."
Professor Catalano (Plummer), who's dedicated his entire life to researching and hunting down the legendary vampire, Nosferatu (Kinski), arrives in plague-ridden Venice on account of a letter from a woman named Helietta (De Rossi) who claims that a coffin in her family crypt houses the very same apex blood drinker (that may or may not just be a slight extension of Kinski's Paganini with fangs here, but who can tell for sure, anyway?) that he's been after. Catalano's skepticism drives Mrs.Canins to hire a psychic to attempt to contact the monster, and although he hasn't been kipping in Helietta's cellar as she had thought, the medium's seance awakens him from a centuries-long slumber among a caravan of gypsies, suddenly feeling compelled to return to Venice and endlessly cruise the city's waterways in his gondola when he isn't clacking through the shadows in his buckled high heel shoes, in search of those foolish mortals who would dare to disturb his silent peace...


"I'll do ze fanks....zumtimes. But not ze balt het."
Don Alvise (Pleasance) delivers some memorably rambling speeches about God and evil, then disappears entirely, and when finally faced with his nemesis and life's obsession for the very first time, Catalano naturally offs himself. Wait...what? Nosferatu lustily paws at the local beauties and wills poor old grannies to throw themselves onto spikes, though his old angst-belching soul has but one true desire; the finality of death that can only come at the hand of a virgin whose love for him is throughly unconditional, and ironically, when he's later tracked down by some vampire hunters, they can only manage to mortally wound Maria (Anne Knecht), robbing him of the one girl who can grant him what he needs. He mournfully carries her nude body through the swirling morning mist...


"Fangs for that orgasm, baby..." coos Maria (Anne Knecht).
Some consider the late actor to be little more than a waxy-lipped bundle of Germanic hormones or worse. Don't count me among those folks, as his participation in a film only boosts it's stock for me; sometimes only just slightly, but in instances like tonight's review, he's an insane spectacle that demands the viewer's attention for every frame he passes through, as though the actor's very ego itself was the vampire in question, hypnotically commanding the audience to note his presence like an eager virgin might await the kiss of blood in her bed, once the sun has gone down. As for the film on the whole, it's a bold and visual one, tasting surprisingly coherent despite it's multiple chefs, nearly matching the atmospheric perfection of Herzog's film, and scoring an impressive three Wops on the rating scale. If you can snag a copy, by all means, do so with all speed. Highly recommended.


"Time has no meaning in a life that never ends...", hisses Nosferatu (Kinski).

"Raw Meat"(1972)d/Gary Sherman

You'll have to wait for my "Mind the doors!" pun 'til later on in the post(with Doors fans acknowledging and respecting my personal opinion,thanks), since most of you already know it's coming before we start.For years this title remained a rarely seen, admittedly dated little number indeed, until that marvelous new vista in home entertainment(digital versatile disc,natch) made it readily available for the horror-starved masses looking to finally screen c.h.u.d.'s British predecessor for themselves, myself included.What followed is a twisted little dittie with surprising levels of early gore as the U.S. title promises(released as "Death Line" in d.o. Blighty), that occasionally plods along just like its minimalist synth-heavy score as provided by Wil Malone, and examined in-depth by the L.I. Ripper on one of his glorious blogsites.Despite its pacing troubles, the movie offers interesting character studies by long-time cult fave Donald Pleasance as a skeptical-yet-street smart Cockney cozzer with no hatred for the drink, and genre maestro Christopher Lee in an enjoyably smarmy cameo, all directed by American Gary Sherman, whose other work we'll also come back to later in the entry, if that's alright with you lot.Tube filming(for you Underground historians and factual hairsplitters) took place at Aldwych station, which was in a state of disuse at the time, and Holborn, which was still up n' running, despite a disused Museum tube in the movie, mentioned by name.All-in-all, not a bad way to burn an hour and a half for horror fans hoping to catch something relatively unique in both story and tone.The story goes like this...

Cannibalistic British Underground Chappies: One man's cadavers are another man's(Hugh Armstrong) vittles.
After a political suit's attempts at procuring a bit of weathered-looking krumpet in a mostly deserted area of the tube go sour when they haggle over prices(she knees him where lemonade is made), he is suddenly attacked by an unknown assailant, who is interrupted by an incoming train that lets off Alex and Patricia(David Ladd, Sharon Gurney), an American collegiate and his British squeeze, who come to the man's aid, but when they return with a nearby bobby, the bloke's pulled a bloody Houdini, hasn't he?Enter Detective Sargeant Rogers(Norman Rossington) and Inspector Calhoun(Donald Pleasance), the salt-of-the-earth duo responsible for the investigatory procedures that follow the ensuing report, only to be visited by a mean-spirited MI5 agent named Stratton-Villiers(Christopher Lee) who matter-of-factly tells the policemen that their services are no longer needed for this particular case(in more sarcastically brilliant terms).Calhoun tells Stratton-Villiers that he and his partner will continue the investigation despite the agent's words(well, he tells him to fuck off, actually).Though the lawmen seem content to merely harrass the American student and his girlfriend to no end, even though they're the pair who brought the disappearance to light in the first place(what is it with cinematic cops and young people anyway?), the real reason behind the vanishing is much more convoluted and sinister...

Inspector Calhoun(Donald Pleasance)tells Stratton-Villiers(Christopher Lee) to "fuck off".Not very nice at all, is it, now?
The last surviving cannibalistic descendants of a small group of miners subsisting in a sealed off section of the Underground(trapped when a turn of the century mine collapsed upon them and the mining company simply gave up in retrieving any survivors and/or corpses as they went bankrupt) previously content to only eat each other as they grew old and sick, has taken to venturing out into the surrounding subway tunnels in search of the titular life-sustaining meat.One sickly pregnant woman, and one scabrous hulk of a man(Hugh Armstrong), neither of which would classify as "healthy-looking" under the medical scrutiny of many practitioners of such.The man resembles a Led Zeppelin roadie after one seventies acid trip too many, forever shambling after a tour bus that's long since been retired to blocks.Their subterranean digs are peppered with both the decaying remains of family members the man honours by showering gifts pilfered from recent victims upon, and the victims themselves, hung on hooks as morbid future food supplies, surrounded by scavenging rodents, and dimly lit by Victorian era gaslights.Bleech.When the man's vile mate finally expires due to disease(unidentified, but really, just pick one and you'll probably nail it), he takes it upon himself to blag Stephanie to replace her(when he isn't biting the heads off of rats, that is), leaving it up to Alex(who proves to be just as violent-prone as our sore-laden antagonist...who's the real savage,I say!) to pull off an exciting rescue at the finale.Mind the doors, indeed.

A different brand of 'terrifying':Lee playing a squirrelly MI5 agent with an unnerving smile.
Director Sherman would go on to helm the cult classic Dead and Buried in 1981, as well as Vice Squad, Wanted:Dead or Alive with Rutger Hauer, and Poltergeist III.Pleasance moved on to Tales That Witness Madness, The Mutations, and From Beyond the Grave after finishing this one.Christopher Lee?He only followed his cameo up with roles in The Satanic Rites of Dracula and The Wicker Man, while Norm Rossington appeared in the telefilm Frankenstein:The True Story, and later in my favorite tv series of all-time, I, Claudius.David Ladd was a seventies tv staple, while co-star Sharon Gurney disappeared off the radar after this film, despite her volcanically hot chelsea-esque hairdo within.Hugh Armstrong went on to a long career in British television, and an appearance in Don Coscarelli's 1982 sword and sorcery nod, The Beastmaster.Seek it out, give it a chance, and you'll most likely find yourself entertained by the final credits, if not feeling a bit peckish yourselves.Two wops.

"Mind the doors!"(I don't mind them, actually.They're okay, if not slightly overrated and very overplayed.)

"Prince of Darkness"(1987)d/John Carpenter

Where the strings of classics ended for director John Carpenter is arguable,for sure.Some say its before tonight's entry,some say afterwards.Whatever camp you might have your tent pitched in,you gotta admit,Darkness is a pretty ambitious effort.I think there's only one glaring fault with the film that keeps it out of classic territory,and that's the special makeups in the finale.They're just not all that special.If Carpenter had hired one of the sick and talented fucks like Rob Bottin out there that could have realized a more frightening vision than a jam-faced broad in pajamas.In fact,I hate that effect so fucking much,I'm gonna avoid screenshots of it altogether,despite the fact they'd provide me the opportunity to shit all over it the way it deserves.I'm gonna go so far as to say that the jam-faced broad in pajamas is the precise point Carpenter's work started steadily turning to soft bowel movements,finally hardening into a full toilet bowl yule log/German fetish gold by Ghosts of Mars(2001).
The rest of the movie is pretty choice.The screenplay,written by Carpenter under the pseudonym 'Martin Quartermass',a tribute to the late Nigel Kneale's fictional character, Professor Bernard Quartermass, is frightening on a cerebral level.Every shot is framed beautifully in the tradition and style we've come to expect from Carpenter dating back to Dark Star(1974).The cast is thoroughly solid from Victor Wong as Professor Birack down to Donald Pleasance as Father...Loomis,ahem.Jameson Parker is even pretty good as the lead moustache.There's no noticeably smoking brawdz on board,because,well,they're collegiate physics students,ferchrissakes.The percentage of those that find their way onto Girls Gone Wild:Cabo Wabo is lilliputian,you can bet on it.A very choice movie indeed,I just wish they'd...well you know where I was going again there.

Spare some change for the guy behind "Look at You Over There(Ripping the Sawdust From My Teddy Bear)"?.
Professor Birack(Wong)is invited to a rundown Los Angeles church by Father Loomis(that's right,Loomis),the newly appointed keeper of the key,a position in a forgotten secret religious sect known as the "Brotherhood of Sleep" that stands guard over said dilapidated parish,for in the basement,captured in a large vessel,and held prisoner for thousands of years...is the Devil himself,who has spent an eternity,circularly swirling and glowing inside,sort of like the lava lamp that didn't catch on,what,with ultimate evil in puddle form inside.Birack gathers both his colleagues in science and technology and the best of his quantum physics students to scientifically prove once and for all that Satan exists in the real world, growing in strength with every passing day,and unscrewing the lid of the vessel from the inside,all the while negatively influencing all lesser forms of life around him,like ants,worms,and Alice Cooper.On board for the extra credit weekend from Hell,are students Brian Moustac...uhh,Marsh(Jameson Parker,who you won't remember from Simon & Simon,since nobody watched that fucking show):kind of the human equivalent of Wonder bread,Cathy(Lisa Blount):a flame-headed fuck machine whose morals break down nightly on a sub-atomic level,Walter:a wisecracking Asian version of Mr. Chicken,Kelly:blonde non-factor plain Jane who unwittingly impregnates herself with Satan after bumping the corner of some computer equipment(it could happen),Dr. Leahy(Peter Jason),who brings bouncing fruit on two fingers while smoking and imitating a trumpet with his lips to this gathering of analytical minds,and various other electro-geeks and math-nerds,not excluding Thom "Murray RIPTIDE Bozinski" Bray,to really fill out that who's who of people with nothing better to do this weekend.Science?Satan.Satan?Science.

Lisa Blount stars as carrot-coiffed Celt-cooze(thanks,Phe!),Sleeps O'Round.
Lisa fucks out Brian for the price of a cup of coffee,(god,I miss the sluts of the Reaganomics era)then we settle in for the investigation and subsequent unholy rebuttal by Lucifer.Some stumblebums under evil influence shank the kee-rist outta one of the team,after which the dark lord and master puts him back together into a hand puppet using live beetles,The Coop runs Murray Bozinski through on a bike frame(at his suggestion and right outta his live show),and inside the church,Ol' Scratch drips upward to the ceiling,occasionally firing unholy water in a psionic blast into the team members' unsuspecting mouths,turning them into zombies.The closer everyone is to the vile vessel,the more frequently their dreams are invaded by a tachyon broadcast from the future where a hulking dark figure emerges from the same church.Meanwhile,the priest and Birac formulate a scientific/holy theory that if there's a God,there must also be an Anti-God,who's just as powerful,and much less likely to help blind people to see.Kelly undergoes a weird metamorphosis after her bump where her whole body undergoes remarkable physiological changes(translation:her skin becomes patchy with a jam-like substance),ultimately transforming her into the titular Prince himself(who's apparently cool with walking around as a jam-faced broad in pajamas).After more members succumb to the Satanic Super Soaker yap-squirt,only Marsh,Birack,Loomis,Cathy,and Walter stand in the way of Satan pulling Anti-God into the human dimension through a full-length mirror(an earlier attempt with a compact mirror fails.Silly Satan.).Just before Satan can lend his father a hand,Cathy selflessly sacrifices any future nights of getting bottomed out by random mullet-headed guidos,and gives Satan a shoulder tackle into the mirror that would give Barnaby Jones a full mast erection.The mirror smashes,trapping Satan,Anti-God,and Cathy on the other side.That night at home,Brian's sleep is interrupted by a tachyon broadcast from the year one-nine-nine-nine,but instead of the ominous dark figure emerging from the church,this time it is Cathy.He wakes up in a puddle of sweat,then turns to his own bedroom mirror,reaching out,his fingers mere millimeters away from the reflective surface...

Give that thing a phattie bowl and glass pull-up carb,blast some Sabbath over the loudspeakers and we're talking epic partyage.
Carpenter followed this up with They Live(1988),which we'll dissect here very soon,also a pretty solid movie in its own right,that sadly didn't slow the overall quality descent that followed.Parker was spotted most recently on Jag(did anyone watch that show either?WTF),while the late Wong will be remembered for such titles as The Last Emperor,Bloodsport,and Carpenter's own Big Trouble in Little China.Sadly,Lisa Blount,a rad actress who played a similarly ruthless and memorable bitch in An Officer and a Gentleman,passed away a little over a month ago at the age of 53.Her character,Cathy Danforth,is a paen to Jim Danforth,who did matte work on this production,and is legendary for his stop-motion work of the sixties and seventies.Donald Pleasance would continue to portray the OTHER Loomis in inferior Halloween sequels up until his death in 1995.All jokes aside,this movie delivers the goods on a number of levels,it's smart,creepy,funny at times,and is a good time when you throw it in every once in a while.On the scale,Darkness reaches into the mirror and pulls out three wops.Choice.

Wilt Chamberlain transmits from the future a horrifying message,indeed:The mullet and porn stache are doomed,and NOTHING will save them!

"Halloween"(1978)d/John Carpenter

Truth be told,for the longest time,this was my favorite horror movie.After seeing it opening night at the Gateway Twin Cinema back in 1978 with my father,I have seen it almost four hundred times to date.Arguably creating the motivation for the modern slasher movie wave that followed,Carpenter draws his inspiration here from Hitchcock and Bob Clark,among others,and crafts a beautifully composed,brilliantly simple film,packed with tension and jump scares,and whose terror stems not from body counts or elaborate gore effects,but from implied violence/visuals,first person killer's eye view camera work reminiscent of "Black Christmas"(1974),and a gripping,unforgettable score penned by Carpenter himself.Word of mouth quickly earned tonight's entry a heavy reputation,and before long,the little independent film made for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars went on to gross nearly fifty million at the box office.Regardless of where it happens to fall on your list,surely it deserves rank among the greatest horror movies of all time.Jamie Lee Curtis,a nineteen year old relative unknown at the time,would secure her place as the top scream queen of the next decade with her talent and tonsils both receiving ample screen time here.The cast,made up mainly of Carpenter regulars and unknowns was led by the late,great character actor Donald Pleasance(who shares a birthday with your humble N,by the way),who signed on for twenty thousand dollars,in place of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee,who both declined the role,with Lee later admitting that doing so was his biggest career mistake(!).What follows is the legend of the indestructible evil from behind the two dollar William Shatner mask,and the legacy that grew out of it...

Evil personified or trick or treat candy sugar-induced violence,you decide.
The sleepy little suburb of Haddonfield,Illinois is forever marred by the brutal stabbing of Judith Myers on Halloween night,1963,by her six year old brother,Michael(Will Sandin),who spends the next fifteen years in Smith's Grove Warren County Sanitarium under the watchful eye of Dr. Sam Loomis(Pleasance),who recognizes the catatonic boy for what he really is,the living embodiment of pure evil.Just before the fifteenth anniversary of the murder,Loomis is called upon to transfer his patient,so that he can be tried as an adult,but in the midst of a violent thunderstorm,Michael escapes into the dark night,stealing the very vehicle intended for his transfer.The doctor knows exactly where the silent killer is headed,and follows the bloodtrail(a mechanic with his head twisted around)and morbid clues(Judith's tombstone has been stolen) to Myers' hometown,enlisting the local sheriff, Leigh Brackett(Charles Cyphers) who's investigating a hardware store break in where knives,rope,and a mask have been stolen,to assist in the manhunt,though plainly,this isn't a man they're after...
Laurie Strode(Curtis),a bit of a wallflower compared to her sex-starved girlfriends Annie(Nancy Loomis)and Lynda(PJ Soles),promises her father she'll drop of the keys to the Myers house on her walk to school,immediately overcome by the feeling she's being watched by...somebody.While daydreaming during class,she notices a station wagon parked outside the school with a state seal on the door.When she looks towards it again,it has gone.After school,as the girls walk home planning their Halloween festivities around Laurie and Annie's babysitting gigs at the Doyle and Wallace residences that night,they're interrupted by the same station wagon playing tricks with them before screeching off.Later on the walk,Laurie notices someone up ahead hiding behind the bushes,but by the time the girls investigate,the figure is gone.

"Before we pull up to the main gate,Marion,wanna do some thorazine and hit the back seat?"
At the Myers house,the doctor and sheriff find the mangled remains of a partially-eaten dog,but little else,as Michael has been watching Laurie as she babysits Tommy Doyle,and later Lindsey Wallace,who gets pawned off on her while Annie drives to pick up Paul,her boyfriend who's been grounded from car priviledges for egging and soaping.Her red Monte Carlo will never leave the Wallace garage though,as she's strangled by Michael from the back seat,before he cuts her throat.When Lynda and Bob show up,they find an empty house,and after finding out Annie's alleged whereabouts from Laurie,they go upstairs and fuck in the Wallace's bedroom.When Bob goes downstairs for beers,Michael bounds out of a pantry door,pinning the boy to a wall with a one-handed chokehold,then lifting him off the ground,and pinning him to the wall with a knife.When the bedroom door opens,Lynda is surprised to see a silent figure covered with a bedsheet and Bob's glasses,but when she calls Laurie to check in,the shape strangles her to death with the phone cord.Laurie,concerned by the gasping and abrupt end to her phone call,puts both children to bed and decides to walk across the street and find out what's going on for herself.To her horror,she discovers the scare-traps Michael has set up for her in the upstairs bedroom involving the bodies of her friends and his sister's headstone.She narrowly escapes back to the Doyles,and after believing she's killed her masked attacker,sends the kids screaming out into the street for help,drawing the attention of Dr. Loomis who's been wandering around looking for signs of his patient's presence.As he rushes up the Doyle steps,he finds Laurie struggling with Michael,pulling his mask off in the melee,which he sheepishly pulls back over his face,as the doctor empties his revolver into him,the force of the bullets sending the killer off an upstairs balcony onto the lawn below.Laurie tearfully asks the doctor what the boogeyman is,to which Loomis replies,"As a matter of fact,it was."He looks out the balcony window to where Michael's body lay,but it's gone,as he knew it would be.Reading the doctor's expression,Laurie sobs uncontrollably.

I probably would have used something different to choke Lynda(PJ Soles).Ahem.
As another film with loads written about it already,I'll entertain you with bits of Wop-based Halloween trivia instead,as nauseatingly fan boy as that is,this time around.Halloween was the first vhs tape(of thousands)I ever bought,for fifty bucks,back in 1981.Being brought up in an Italian catholic household,I spurred on the wrath of my uncle,who was my sponsor,when I took Michael(after Myers,of course)as my confirmation name,which I use as my middle initial to this day.When I turned sixteen,my parents got me a jack o'lantern shaped cake for my birthday,as I had reached my two hundredth viewing of the film shortly beforehand.Fittingly,for one Halloween(the holiday,not the movie,in this case) party,I did the whole to-the-letter Michael Myers right down to the coveralls and Don Post mask from the original mold,and stayed in character the entire evening(if you wanted to talk to me,you had to wait for me to take the mask off haha),even when doing shots,beers,and bong hits(I also went down to dinner one night with the damned thing on,while under the influence of a certain three lettered hallucinogen,and ate with my parents who barely noticed).At one point I could recite the whole movie,down to the credits,as they rolled,and probably still could if I gave enough of a shit(Fear not,I don't.).I still have loads of memorabilia,scripts,foreign release posters,novelizations,etc.,and though I've gotten over my adolescent obsessions(mostly) with said film,it retains a spot in my Top list forevermore,regardless.It spawned a slew of unwarranted and mostly forgettable sequels,and...a dogshit remake by a blowjob hack,which I'll finally be shredding here sometime next week.The original,of course,merits the highest possible rating,and remains necessary viewing for all.

I'm your boogeyman,I'm your boogeyman,turn arouuuuuuund...

The Mutations(1974)d/Jack Cardiff

In horror circles,freaks are good copy.Tod Browning exploited them to glory back in '32,weaving a cautionary "What goes around,comes around" tale with pinheads,midgets,and bearded ladies as window dressing.This particular film doesn't quite take the dignified road where the different people are concerned,but it's still worth a view or two.Cardiff instead goes for the "mad scientist makes plant monsters with freaks as a backdrop" kind of story,and apart from the obligatory hokey laboratory and some cheezy foam rubber plant moster effects,he manages to succeed to a degree.I mean,with Tom "Doctor Who" Baker in elephantiasis makeup,how could you lose?For good measure he throws in Donald Pleasance,and a bevy of bakenaked British birds,and the aforementioned real-life freaks as insurance.

He doesn't represent the Lollipop Kids.
Students from the local college are disappearing as Dr. Nolter's(Pleasance) experiments push the boundaries of scientific research,developing animal/plant hybrids by mixing their respective dNa.Helping the good doctor secure "specimens" for his research are a slew of sideshow freaks,led by Lynch(Tom Baker),a man brutally deformed by elephantiasis of the face.In his lab which looks like a throwback to the 1940's on a Universal Studios set someplace,Nolter has bypassed natural selection,speeding up the evolutionary process and creating man-sized meat eating plants, among other oddities.Apparently when you play god it causes time lapse photography to occur,and plants grow to full size in mere seconds.Apart from the herbal hijinks abound,the freakshow has the townsfolk "ooh"ing and "aah"ing to Popeye Pete's protruding peepers,the alligator skin girl,human torsos,midgets,human pincushions,all the while young girls are being snatched up right from under their noses.Lynch and his merry band of midgets kidnap the birds,on the promise that Nolter has made to fix his fucked up grill-piece.Something tells me the good doctor's got no intention of squaring up with his misshapen buddy in the future...

Nope you're still hideous.Unhook the webcam and try a MySpace angle.
In the meantime, three students ( Jill Haworth, Scott Antony,Julie Ege) befriend a visiting scholar (Italian 60's sword and sandal regular,Brad Harris) from across the pond, who is here in dear old blighty to look in on Professor Nolter’s...cough,cough... research, and all four become entwined in his web of unnatural bio-treachery.See,at least one of the doc's failed experiments is lumbering around London,half man/half man-eating plant,and that's never sexy,is it?When all the smoke has finally cleared,Lynch battles the yank to the death,only to be vanquished by the freaks he despises,the good doctor is paid a visit by the man-plant,and reduced to a beef jerky covered skeleton as his lab goes to blazes,the naked heroine is rescued,and the good guys win out in the end.Scientists return to cloning harmless things like sheep,freaks all move to a trailer park in Bradenton,Fla,and the only plants getting the full lab treatment these days cost about eighty bucks for an eighth of an ounce(if you're not buying the commercial shwaggity-shwag,that is!)and can't kill you,but if you partake in enough of their content,you might be faced with a killer case of the munchies afterwards.

Like I was gonna pass up the opportunity to put up a pic of Popeye Pete.You've gotta be joking...
An odd movie to watch,no doubt.A 70's update of Browning's classic(and David Friedman's 60's homage, "She Freak" if we're splitting hairs here) with a memorable cast(some made up,some real freaks),some decent soundtrack music from Basil "Dr. Phibes" Kirchin,and gratuitous nudity as was the norm in Britain by this time,all adding up to an enjoyable viddy for any horror-starved droogs out there.Cardiff never directed again after this one,instead opting for cinematographer credits til very recently(if I'm not mistaken),and got some slack for this finished product by his peers,undeservedly.On the exploit-o-tron,this one scores :

This latex fly trap eats ham(my actors) exclusively.