"Sharks' Treasure" (1975) d/ Cornel Wilde

The last time we saw Cornel Wilde here at the Wop, he was keeping slo-mo gargoyles from clawing up Jennifer Salt's groovy sash-topped boobs in the desert-based television horror movie of the same name. This time around, he's the writer, producer, director, and star...hell, he even wrote the godawful theme song, "Money, Money", as sung by Ken Barrie, who also happened to sing the unforgettably titled "I Love You Baby, Oh Baby I Do" in 1979's Silent Scream. Released two months before Jaws, Treasure enlists the familiar faces of Yaphet Kotto, David Canary, Cliff Osmond, and John Neilson in purveying the adventures of some hard luck treasure hunters for the mid-seventies drive in crowd, and ultimately missed out on the summer box office bounty that the former film managed to snag in droves. Still, it goes like this...


They're having more fun than I did watching them.
Adventurer Jim Carnahan (Cornel Wilde) is approached by a wet-behind-the-ears punk named Ron (John Neilson) who's turned up a few gold doubloons while scuba diving off the coast of Honduras, and is looking for a business partner to split the rest of the lucrative unrecovered treasure with. Along for the ride and a percentage, are Ben (Yaphet Kotto) and his stammering Vietnam vet buddy, Larry (David Canary). Jim wastes no time stripping down to a terrible creole accent and a Speedo while doing one handed push ups on deck to establish his dominance over the crew, even chucking Ben's smokes into the ocean after refusing to allow the guy to smoke anywhere on his boat. Compounding the captain's assholery is Ron's sudden inability to discern the surrounding rocks from the two that mark the spot where the treasure lies, sending everyone into an outside voiced confrontation of less-than-epic huffing, chest-pounding, Speedo-clad proportions that could have been edited down by half, as they float around in circles. When they finally do find the site, to their indifference,  it's regularly patrolled by numerous reef sharks. Luckily for the treasure hunters, it's still 1975, and no one'd much care if they murdered a great deal of them, so they oblige, with floating hooks and spear guns a' plenty.


"Parker'd like to discuss the bonus situation, Cap'n..."
They're attacked multiple times, but only by obviously deceased sharks, discolored and limp, being pushed at them unconvincingly off-camera, but they still manage to bring nearly a half million dollars worth of baubles and trinkets to the surface. Almost instantly, Carnahan's innate assholism kicks in, and he accuses Ron of stuffing a gold cross down the front of his swimmies, only to find that the crew was about to present it to him as a gift. Ben jockeys for a bigger cut, which results in more corny posturing, and that's about when the boat gets boarded by a motley gaggle of cartoonish outlaw bandidos, as led by the burly, boy-hungry Lobo (Cliff Osmond), who's got his reluctant blond boy toy from prison, Juanito (David Gilliam), at his side, ready to ashamedly bikini striptease upon command. After Carnahan's booty (the treasure, not his ass, in this case) is discovered, he lies about further treasure down below after being clumsily KTFOed by Lobo on deck, while the pirates sloppily drink and chow down on all of the supplies in front of the bound prisoners. I'm not gonna elaborate any further at this point, if you wanna know how it all ends up, you'll have to sit through it the same way I did.


"I shoots anywhan who go nears my little mans!", exclaims Lobo (Cliff Osmond).
Wilde would turn up next in The Norseman three years later. Apart from the aforementioned Gargoyles (1972), genre-wise, he showed up in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1972) and lent his voice to No Blade of Grass in 1970. Yaphet Kotto, who's pretty much Parker from Alien (1979) in swimtrunks here, also appeared in an episode of Night Gallery (1971) himself, as well as providing memorable turns in things like Truck Turner (1974), Live and Let Die (1973), Monkey Hu$tle (1976), and Blue Collar (1978). Canary's main claim to fame is his recurring role of Adam Chandler on popular soap opera, All My Children. Some movies exist where one man handles the majority of cinematic duties out of budgetary confinements and are infinitely easier on the viewer than this one is. This just plays like an hour and a half of Wilde's ego on parade, a pissing contest that ends in a draw, and anybody watching is ultimately the loser. What is it about boats and sea-faring blokes? Are they chick-repellent or something? I can only recall one scene with a girl in this seven seas sausage fest, despite having screened it again last night with friends over (spoiler: I conked the fuck out the second time around.). One Wop for this vintage adventure-less adventure.


"We're taking in water! Somebody lighten our load and throw Wilde's ego overboard!"

"The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant" (1971) d/ Anthony M. Lanza

Back in 2011, I mentioned tonight's review in passing while covering the other 70's double domed horror flick of note, The Thing With Two Heads (1972). Though that particular interracial pair up of Rosey Grier and Ray Milland was certainly a fucking scream, by anybody's standards, tonight's is a polycephalic drive-in style punch up par excellence, with a cast headed up by cult fave Bruce Dern as Roger, the scientist with a Frankenstein complex-come-lately, and Pat Priest of The Munsters fame as his neglected wife. If that's not enough for you, how about the late, great Casey Kasem, dressed like he lost a bet, as Roger's smooth-voiced pal, Ken. Still not convinced?


"Look at these balls...where's those bananas you told me about...who the hell is this guy on my shoulder?"
Roger Girard (Dern) is a scientist that's been honing his head transplant skills in a private home laboratory with the assistance of  the wheelchair-bound Dr. Max (Berry Kroeger). He shows his progress to his pal and fellow doctor, Ken (Kasem), and by "progress", we of course mean two-headed rabbits, snakes, foxes, and monkeys. Roger fully expresses his intent and purpose to expand his addahedtomy("add-a-head-to-me") experiments to human subjects, and none of this flusters Ken one bit. He is alarmed when Roger's caretaker's son, Danny (John Bloom), a giant hillbilly simp with brute strength, nearly cleaves his head off on the porch. "This is an axe, Danny. It's used to chop wood and nothing else.", states Roger, matter-of-factly. Yeah, there are gonna be some problems down the road with this big lug, I can see it.


"....Giant two headed hillbilly strangling two people to death at once...You don't see that every day."
Cass (Albert Cole) is a bug-eyed, lip-licking, rapist/murderer on the loose, and when he finds himself terrorizing the folks at Dr. Girard's spot, killing Danny's father, and nearly adding Roger's wife to his growing list of victims, he's rewarded with fatal gunshots for his psychotic anarchy.With Danny in shock over his father's death, and the unhinged killer dying, Roger does what any man of science would do, in his stead: why, graft the disturbed dome onto the hulking hayseed's shoulder, of course! With Danny's retard strength at his command, Cass shows his gratitude for the new lease on life by rampaging through the countryside, smashing in biker's heads with rocks, strangling hormonal teens at makeout point, by the two's, that sort of thing. Such ludicrous goings on call for a suitably ridiculous and entertaining finale, and this one delivers.


Just five years later, and it looks like Marilyn Munster (Pat Priest) is out of her monster phase.
Director Lanza also helmed 1967's The Glory Stompers, while also having edited two Arch Hall, Jr. vehicles, Wild Guitar (1962) and Nasty Rabbit (1964). Give me some vintage exploitative Bruce Dern like Psych-Out or Hang 'Em High(both 1968), and you'll hear no complaints from me. Big John Bloom would go on to appear as "Gor" in Brain of Blood, Frankenstein's monster in Dracula vs. Frankenstein (both 1971), as well as the murderous alien-in-a-flannel-shirt in The Dark (1979). He also scored  genre credits in Al Adamson's Angel's Wild Women (1972), and The Hills Have Eyes Pt II (1984). A lot of people prefer Thing over Transplant, but I'm not one of them. This drive-in classic merits three exploitative Wops, and is recommended.


"Danny doan' wanna keyull nobodah! Danny wanna lookit Hee-Haw!"

"Mary Jane" (1968) d/ Maury Dexter

Some of you older heads might remember Philly native and bubblegum pop star of the late fifties, Fabiano "Fabian" Forte from his movie work in the early sixties after those mop-topped British Beatle bastards invaded the American music scene, appearing alongside the likes of John Wayne and Bob Hope. Tonight's review, a lost drive-in drugsploitation number, came later, when neither his music nor his movies were in the spotlight anymore. It's too bad, too, because this one is a real pisser that toes the straight laced lines of earlier, equally uninformed anti-pot scare films like Reefer Madness, Marihuana (both 1936) and Assassin of Youth (1937), while making Fabian's character more sympathetic to the edgier pot smoking scene of the day.


"You toke pipe-blasting punks are ruining my Happy Days!", says Gas Station Attendant (Garry Marshall).
Jerry (Michael Margotta) wants to be in with the "In Crowd" at his school in the worst possible way. It just so happens that that particular clique, the "Mary Jane" club, a group of preppies and jocks who secretly blow pot all the time, and wear custom dog tag necklaces with their full name on one side and "Mary Jane" on the other (how conspicuous-like), is run by silver spoon-yapped, jock-asshole-extraordinaire, Jordan Bates (Kevin Coughlin), who doesn't find Jerry very groovy at all, man. To further complicate matters, three kids have just died from this mary-huana stuff via hokey pre-credits stoned balls car crash, and the staff is in cooperation with the local badges to put an end to this rapidly spreading menace, that influences high school kids (who all look mid-twenties, at the least) to commit heinous acts like spraying gas station attendants with hoses, necking on a blanket in the grass, and even pretending to ride amusement park rides while the park is closed... fucking dope fiend kids.


A pinner like this today, cocaine and heroin tomorrow.
Luckily for them, they've got a groovy young art teacher/ football coach named Mr. Blake (Fabian) who's hep enough to have tried grass in college, and always leaves his keys in his convertible, in case, you know, Jerry needs to jack his car and lead cops on a high speed chase with a discarded sack of dope in the back seat, where Phil had hoped to land fellow educator Ms. Holden (Diane McBain), if she wasn't so frigid towards his grass blanket antics. Blake gets framed for the buddha and lands in jail, where he raps with Hymie from Get Smart (Dick Gautier, who co-wrote the movie) and a junkie in withdrawal uses his sweater to hang himself(!). Meanwhile, for his unresponsive peers, Jerry's physically ill from smoking grass, drowning himself in a lake, shoplifting watches, and ultimately, blasting hashish and delivering a package of low grade shwag-weed to some punchy jocks from across town that are expecting Acapulco Gold.Jerry's sympathetic teacher buddy, Blake, bailed out by Holden, intercepts Jordan's drug deal with the local ice cream man (pre-dating Cheech and Chong by some thirteen years by my count!), and takes the stuff to the author-no, he doesn't. Free on bail, he takes the stuff home with him. What follows is a predictable climax, but with an unexpected twist, that I'll leave you to discover for yourselves.


It's a little too late to turn this one loose.
Fabian appeared two years earlier with Vincent Price in Mario Bava's campy mess, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966), while the clubfooted  Coughlin suffered an untimely death at thirty at the hands of a hit-and-run driver, eight years later. Patty "Bad Seed" McCormack appears here as Jordan's sweet blonde arm candy. Besides Gautier and Gary Marshall, who'd also appear in Dick Clark's choice drug opus, Psych-out!, the same year, there are also blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cameos from Terri Garr and Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall, who also co-wrote the script. Despite the mook-nificently misinformed marijuana un-science abound throughout, there remains a decent movie underneath it all, and on the scale, it inhales and buries a pair of Wops; worth a look if you can hunt down a copy, though I imagine the folks that would appreciate this one the most probably lack the motivation to get off of their asses and find it.


"Bitchslapped by Fabian" is not something you wanna put on your resume', kid.

"Creature From Black Lake"(1976)d/Joy N. Houck,Jr.

Yeah,yeah,yeah.For a guy who was sued for his house by his father,and who doesn't get to talk to or see his kids ever,I believe I've heard "Happy Father's Day" just about enough for one year.Put the shmaltzy greeting card from Dollar General and ugly tie on the kitchen table,and run out and see how long it takes to bury your brother in the sandbox already.I'm gonna throw your mother over my shoulder,take her upstairs and give her a bullet train ride to Orgasmo,doing things to her that would have Elagabalus him(her?)self calling for censorship.And,no,you can't have the car.What you can have,is tonight's review,keeping with the recent monsteriffic trend here at the Wop.Be thankful for the little things in life,is what I'm telling you.
We turn tonight once again to the wildman of the woods for our movie review,and where most cinematic venues concerning everyone's favorite cryptid fall miserably flat,this low budget drive in staple of the mid-seventies manages to deliver.Written by Jim McCullough,Jr.,who also plays Dub Taylor's grandson Orville in the film,and directed by the late Joy N. Houck,Jr. and featuring the acting skills of Jack Elam,John David Carson,and Dennis Fimple,who have all joined the choir invisible,unfortunately,tonight's entry serves up some decent atmosphere and creepy swamp locations while not revealing very much of its titular anthropoid,which works in its favour here for the most part.If you've got a fifteen thousand dollar Bigfoot costume,show the damned thing off.If you don't(these guys didn't),then hide your shortcomings in the shadows,behind trees,etcetera.People are often more scared by what they don't see,as has been said so many times over the years.As it stands,this movie rises near to the top of the vast sea of Squatch-sploitation films so popular in the seventies,and remains a grainy,groovy good time to be had.

"Let's see Pahoo find me here!"boasts the bellicose beast.
Rives(Carson)departs the windy confines of Chicago on ummm,brace yourselves...a university-funded,academically-sponsored research project on Bigfoot(yeah.)after hearing of 'Squatch-dealt death down in the swamps of Louisiana from his Anthropology professor(director Hauck).Laugh all you want,I've been in Chicago in January,I'd probably opt for hunting murderous man-monsters in a swamp full of water moccasins and Italian-starved mosquitos over that wind and lake-effect snow anyday myself.Although such a research project seems a bit far fetched,let's look at the equipment he packs for the trip:One seventies van,some sleeping bags,a tape recorder,and uh,Pahoo(Fimple)."What's a Pahoo?",you ask.Well,Pahoo is Rives' goofy,white 'Nam vet buddy with an Indian name who craves hot young girls and hamburgers and has an aversion to fried chicken.Pahoo looks like he missed out on Down's Syndrome by about half of a chromosome.So,maybe the university didn't shell out much afterall,eh.Thus,the two men embark on their low budgeted journey to the northwest corner of Louisiana,in pursuit of one of the only suspects in documented cases of Bigfoot-on-man crime.When they reach Oil City,they find a backwoods town so rural that the locals even call a guy named Pahoo a "yankee",and resistance in the form of local sheriff Carter(Bill Thurman) whose cautionary suggestions about nose-poking and that fabled place,"where it don't belong",fall upon the deaf ears of anti-authoritarian student/rebel Rives.

"Go ahead,throw the ball already,I AM looking at ya!"
After fruitless efforts to interview the local townsfolk and much Pahoo-based slapstick at the diner,the men are approached by Orville Bridges(McCullough),a local in a ten gallon hat who was orphaned as a baby as a direct result with an encounter with the creature,who is willing to help the boys out off-the-record.At the Bridges' place,the men are entertained by a Gramps(Taylor)/Orville hoedown on the front porch,but Pahoo,already appetite-less at the thought of more fried chicken,dines on his own foot instead when he blurts out creature-related queries and upsets Grandpa's wife,inadvertently opening the old family wounds and buying the amateur cyptozoologists a night in the barn,where they manage to record the actual screams of the creature on their groovy tape recorder.After a poorly timed date with two local young hot-to-trot foxes lands the men in jail(one is the sheriff's daughter,oh sweet irony),they meet lazy-eyed trapper, Joe Canton(Elam),who just happens to be the guy they were looking for in the first place;his partner being the unlucky bastard who got death-dunked in the drink by Bigfoot in the credits.The hulking,belching,farting drunk with eyes by Marty Feldman allows the boys to camp on his land,where Pahoo,tired of his doormat status,finally explodes on Rives around the campfire,reminding him that he was getting shot at in 'Nam while Rives was probably dodging the draft in Canada with the rest of the Pinkos.And Pahoo will have an extra serving of beans,thank you,Bitch.At this point the creature crashes their party,flipping their van down an embankment,nearly killing both of them,and putting Pahoo in a convalescent bed at the hospital in the process,where both teary-eyed men vow to return to Black Lake and prove the ornery beast's existence once and for all,once Pahoo comes out of traction,that is.

"I warned you fuckers,if I heard you play Sammy Johns' "Chevy Van" one more time..."
The always unforgettable Elam worked in television and film right up until his death in 2003,in everything from "Jinxed!" to "The Soggy Bottom Gang Rides Again".Fimple,who most of the younger readers will remember as Grampa Hugo in Zombie's "House of 1,000 Corpses",worked mainly in television until his death in 2003.His cinematic sidekick,Carson,who scored a genre role in 1977's "Empire of the Ants",also had a long career in television until his untimely death in 2009.Director Houck,who helmed genre pictures like 1969's Night of Bloody Horror and Night of the Strangler in 1972,died in 2003.There's a sad pattern here somewhere.Hell,even Roger Pancake,later of "Dracula's Dog" fame,is no longer with us.Nevertheless,Creature is a highly watchable slice of seventies Bigfootiana,that comes recommended from your humble N.On the scale,it leaves footprints in the swampy bottom more than two wops long...

"I know I almost got ya killed,Pahoo.Let's do it all over again once your bones fuse back together!"

"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.

"Kiss of the Tarantula"(1974)d/Chris Munger

Another late night,low budget gem in the "dweeb-gets-his-or-her-revenge" sweepstakes so popular in the 1970s,"Kiss" is an effective little yarn that plays upon people's
inborn fear of large,hairy mygalamorphs,or tarantulas,if you will,for all non-arachnophiles out there.Of course,as you might have guessed by now,your humble narrator loves the bejeezus out of all lil' bastards hairy and venemous,so I probably wasn't the target scare audience here.Still an oft-played dvd in my collection,so read on.

Our loveable little heroine busy playing with her spiders,bless her heart.
Susan Bradley(Suzanne Ling)likes spiders a lot.This doesn't seem to bother her mortician dad very much,as he's too busy dolling up corpses all day,much to the chagrin of his wife,who not only hates their daughter and her hairy eight legged pals,but also plans to off her partner to free herself for a torrid love affair with Uncle Walter(Eric Mason).When Susan hears of mom's plan to snuff dad for his own brother(blech),she intervenes by putting one of her fanged lovelies in bed with her,causing the scheming bitch to have a heart attack.Time passes,and Susan matures from a quirky little oddball into a teenaged weirdo,with a basement full of cages(?)full of Mexican Orange Knee Tarantulas(they're harmless...sssshhhhh!).When her dad finally shuffles off the mortal coil,it's Susan and her spider army vs. her meanspirited classmates,and even good ole Uncle Walter,who's stuck around all these years for a shot at the beaver pelt of his dead brother's daughter(double blech!).

Brainless high schoolers in their thirties will never understand you,Susan.
When a gaggle of schoolmates(who don't look a day over thirty) accidentally kills one of her pets in a harmless prank at the family mortuary,Susan decides enough is enough and sends her minions to do her vengeful bidding,offing them in cars at the drive-in,in claustrophobic air vents,it's a veritable tarantula a go-go over there.Uncle Walt,a detective,ignores the writing on the wall about his niece and her murderous extracurricular activities in the name of trying to score an honest piece of family pussy.He even goes so far as to strangle a potential eye-witness to keep his kin's spidery secret safe.When he relates the lengths he's gone to get a glimpse of her vertical smile,Susan's a bit creeped out.A struggle ensues,Walty tumbles down the steps,and....you'll have to score yourself a copy of this little ditty to see the outrageous ending.

Get that fingernail outta my abdomen,or I'll flick urticating hairs in your eyes,bitch.And that won't be any picnic for you.
A fantastic drive in entry that used to play on late night television all the time,I always had a soft spot in my heart for Sue.It's not often you find a dame who plays with Brachypelma Smithi in a mortuary,which is wicked hot,although she wasn't exactly Rosie Holotik lookswise,but what the hell.Viddy well,droogies,and you'll see exactly what I mean.
Two out of four B.W.'s