When horror movies have socially maladjusted kids getting abused by popular football players while showing how attractive girls can still fall for them, they’re playing directly to their demographic. How many fright fans felt the same way or endured the same stings and arrows as the hero of this film?

Everybody beats the shit of Vernon. His fellow students hate him. His teachers despise him. Even the janitor. His only friend is Robin (Rosie Holotik, Nurse Charlotte from Don’t Look in the Basement), who is dating the main football player who abuses him. And his other friend, the mouse known as Mr. Mumps? Well, he’s taking a mind-altering potion that Vernon’s developed that makes the little fella super violent. In fact, it makes him so brutal that it kills the janitor’s cat, who flips out and smashes the little fellow and forces Vernon to drink his own potion.

Pat Cardi, the actor who played Vernon, was a busy child star, playing in over 100 TV shows and appearing as a young chimp in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. He grew up to create and found MovieFone, which in the pre-internet days was how people discovered what films were playing in theaters.

Austin Stoker (Assault on Precinct 13, Abby) plays the detective who comes into the school once Vernon starts killing. The murder scenes form a proto-slasher vibe while the music is crazy, with primal power chords accentuating big moments (think the guitar sound from the Torso trailer). It also features Pittsburgh Steelers star “Mean” Joe Greene in a small role. If you live here in the Steel City, you need no introduction to Mean Joe. If you live elsewhere, he’s the player who threw a jersey to the kid in the Coca-Cola commercial. He’s also in The Black Six, one of the first all-black biker films, along with other NFL names like Gene Washington, Mercury Morris, Lem Barney, Willie Lanier and Carl Eller. Of course, we’ll be getting to this movie very soon. But until then, savor Joe in that Coke commercial:

At heart, this is a Jekyll & Hyde story (it’s Carrie before Carrie, too) but told as if it were a 1950’s teen monster movie refilmed through a 1970’s doom-laden lens. Its script comes from Jack Fowler, who is really J.D. Feigelson, writer of Wes Craven’s Chiller and Dark Night of the Scarecrow.

The film — also known as The Twisted Brain — was shot in Texas and released by Crown International in March of 1974 to the drive-in circuit. It really picked up its cult cache thanks to frequent TV airings. Code Red put out an uncut version on blu-ray in 2009, following a Rhino release of the TV version of the film. They’re both rather hard to get now, but worth seeking out. I found myself really liking this film, despite its budget and relative silliness at times.

Want to learn more? The new issue of Drive-In Asylum has an interview with director Larry Stouffer and some artwork from me that you can see here!

Has there ever been a better movie than Destroy All Monsters? It is everything that is magical about film: giant monsters smashing cities and fighting one another while people run and scream in terror. It is cinematic junk food, a treat for the mind that returns me to watching Action Movie on Youngstown’s WKBN 27 as a little kid, jumping around the room in pure glee.

Every giant monster on Earth has been captured and sent to Monster Island, where they are kept secure and studied — until all communication is mysteriously cut off.

Turns out that the scientists on the island are being mind-controlled by the Kilaaks, who demand the human race surrender or face total destruction. They control the monsters to attack famous cities all over the world: Godzilla decimates New York City, Rodan smashes Moscow, Mothra takes out Beijing, Gorosaurus crushes Paris and Manda, a giant Japanese dragon, goes shithouse on London. All of these attacks are to keep the UNSC forces from finding out that Tokyo is the real target. 

Luckily, the humans are able to take out the control signals and the good guy monsters take on King Ghidorah, who is overcome and killed (Minilla, Varan, Anguirus and Kumonga show up, too). The Kilaaks also have a Fire Dragon, a monster that starts setting cities on fire. Godzilla takes out their base and the forces of good triumph.

This was meant to be the final Godzilla film, as the popularity of the series was waning. However, the success of Destroy All Monsters led to even more Godzilla films.

When I was a kid, I was impatient for the human scenes to end and for the monsters to show up. I’ve never changed. All I want to do is watch giant monsters destroy cities and fight one another. This movie delivers all of that and more. It’s not high art, but does it have to be?

Whoa, this movie.

Have you ever listened to Coast to Coast AM when Art Bell hosted it and would do open calls? This is the video version, complete with stories about HP Lovecraft stories being real, UFOs around Mt. Shasta, the Shavers mystery, Jesus, three-eyed aliens, orgasm torture, conspiracy conventions and so much more. There’s a ninja, too.

This is the kind of movie that will try the patience of normal people’s minds and souls. It’s all shot on video, so it looks like complete shit, yet it’s fascinating in the way watching YouTube videos about the Mandela effect for hours on end while sitting in a smoke-filled room can be.

Oh yeah — and the same cast plays two roles: Satanists and a group of new age folks led by Ascended Master Phylos, who cames from Atlantis, and takes them on a quest similar to The Holy Mountain. Except you know, instead of Alejandro Jodorowsky, you’re getting a virtually non-directed mishmash of a film from the Ordo Templi Astartes, a lodge of Hermetic occultists based in Southern California.

This reminds me of Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America, a found footage film that sought to explain Castro, why we attacked Grenada and the end of the world. Tribulation 99 was David Icke and Alex Jones before those guys and their characters became well-known but somehow much stranger.

It also makes me fondly remember the Unarius cult, who make their own movies that document their past lives. You can learn more about them in the film Children of the Stars.

How does one even get into the Shaver phenomena? I can try.

Richard Shaver first encountered Lemuria when the tools at a factory where he worked allowed him to hear other peoples’ thoughts, as well as torture sessions going on beneath the Earth. He quit his job and became homeless for some time, but on the other hand, he may have also had paranoid schizophrenia.

He disappeared for some time, then began writing to the pulp magazine Amazing Stories and claimed to have discovered an ancient language he called Mantong. Editor Ray Palmer (the namesake of DC Comics’ Silver Age version of The Atom) thought that Shaver was onto something.

Shaver then wrote “A Warning to Future Man,” where he discussed cities within the Earth, populated by the good Teros and the evil Deros. Palmer rewrote Shaver’s allegedly true account and created the fictional story “I Remember Lemuria!” which appeared in the March 1945 issue of Amazing Stories. That issue instantly sold out and then something really weird happened: thousands of letters began appearing saying that they’d had the same experiences as Shaver.

The Shaver Mystery also boasts Fred Crisman amongst its believers. The real-life inspiration for TV’s The Invaders, Crisman is a conspiracy nexus: he was supposedly one of the three hoboes in Dallas during Kennedy’s assassination, he was one of the first people in the U.S. to report a UFO and he battled the Demos in a cave during World War 2.

Amazing Stories‘ readership either loved or hated the Shaver stories. According to Wikipedia, “Palmer would later claim the magazine was pressured by sinister outside forces to make the change: science fiction fans would credit their boycott and letter-writing campaigns for the change. The magazine’s owners said later that the Shaver Mystery had simply run its course and sales were decreasing.” One of the biggest critics of the Shaver stories was a young Harlan Ellison!

That didn’t end the Shaver stories. Palmer credits these tales with the public fascination with UFOs. John Keel’s 1983 Fortean Times piece “The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers” claims that “a considerable number of people — millions — were exposed to the flying saucer concept before the national news media were even aware of it. Anyone who glanced at the magazines on a newsstand and caught a glimpse of the saucer-emblazoned Amazing Stories cover had the image implanted in his subconscious.” Indeed, Palmer was quick to defend the Shaver stories and claim that “flying saucers” were their validation.

Whew.

Beyond Lemuria reminds me of the blind date I once had that led me to a meeting of the OTO somewhere in the hills above Pittsburgh. I expected a Bacchanalian riot in the tradition of Crowley and was instead greeted by skunk weed, blue crab in a can, bad beer and a room full of devotees eating guacamole in mass amounts from Tupperware while praising their Frater while he held a spoon aloft as everyone watched bootlegs of a Blondie concert. Also, everyone went out at midnight and farted at the moon. I learned a really good fact that night: hardcore Crowley devotees are about as annoying as evangelical Christians.

To wit: It’s all rather fascinating to tell as a quick tale of my life, but the truth is, experiencing it was an excoriable bore.

I don’t want to hate on this film. I love that it exists, but it’s like watching people cosplay. It makes me feel bad for them in their subculture, but then I realize that I can talk about obscure movies and hardly had to look anything up to discuss even more obscure 1940’s conspiracies. I read Illuminatus! and Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? before I hit puberty. My Christmas gifts from my parents usually consist of books and DVDs about the Lost Books of the Bible and Michael Aquino. I am of this culture, but I don’t feel the need to dress up and film a movie about me and my friends skulking through a cave.

You know what? Just watch this yourself and tell me what you think. You’ll start to notice elements of weirdness in your life. I really hope so. Reality is fucking boring. That’s why I watch so many movies.

Satanik isn’t a hero, but it is based on an Italian comic book which was part of the fumetti neri (black comics) phase that Danger: Diabolik inspired (which is why Satanik is spelled that way).

Marnie Bannister is a biologist and chemist who earned her Ph.D. at a young age. While a technically brilliant scientist, she is ridiculed by her peers because of her poor background the fact that her face is marked by tumors. She still lives at home, Cinderella-style, with two beautiful sisters, an alcoholic father and closed-minded mother — all of whom make fun of her appearance. Working along with the alchemist Masopust, she develops a drug that makes her beautiful. The side effect? It also makes her into a murderous criminal named Satanik, who uses her beauty and sex appeal to take advantage of men. The comic features plenty of horror characters, such as evil ghosts and a vampire named Baron Wurdalak.

The movie, however, only concerns itself with Satanik’s transformation from old woman to beautiful young woman, playing by Polish model Magda Konopka.

If you’re looking for this film to live up to Bava’s Danger: Diabolik, I have bad news for you. There’s no way that can happen. Sure, there are murders and jet-setting and fun music, but this movie crawls while Bava’s runs, tumbles and pirouettes.

Its director, Piero Vivarelli, is better known for the original Django. With the great poster art and source material, I guess I was just expecting more.

If you want to see it for yourself, you can rent it on Amazon Prime.

Based upon Jacques Tardi’s historical based fantasy comic book, Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec, this film takes place in the secret history of our world before the first World War. Today, we’d call the style of Tardi’s comic steampunk, but don’t let that name sway you: this movie is awesome.

Two of Tardi’s stories inspired this movie: Adèle and the Beast and Mummies on Parade, so this film takes place in 1912 Paris.

Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element, Léon: The Professional, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) is one of the foremost creators in the cinéma du look style which Wikipedia claims favors “style over substance, spectacle over narrative.” His visual style dominates everything he creates, including this movie, which is the film that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen should have been.

Let me see if I can sum up the craziness that this piece of cinema contains. Professor Espérandieu (Philippe Nahon, who played the nameless butcher in three Gaspar Noé films, Carne, I Stand Alone and Irréversible) hatches a pterodactyl which ends up killing a politician who is having an affair in a taxicab with a showgirl. The President of France demands that the National Police handle the sightings of the dinosaur, with Inspector Albert Caponi handling the investigation.

We finally meet our heroine, Adèle Blanc-Sec, who works as a travel writer and is on a quest to find the mummified Patmosis, who was the doctor for Pharoah Ramses II. It turns out that she wants to revive the famous physician to save the life of her sister Agathe, who has had a tennis accident. Her arch enemy Professor Dieuleveult (Mathieu Amalric, Quantum of Solace) also wants the mummy, but she defeats him and travels back to Paris.

She needs Professor Espérandieu’s help to revive the mummy, but he’s now on death row as he’s been blamed for the dinosaur attacks. However, big game hunter Justin de Saint-Hubert is trying to kill the flying monster while Andrej Zborowski (Nicolas Giraud, Taken) wants to save it. Just as Espérandieu is to be executed, Adèle and Zborowski tame the pterodactyl and fly it to the rescue.

While enjoying tea with the revived mummy, we learn that he was really a physicist, not a physician, so he is unable to help revive Agathe. However, Saint-Hubert fatally shoots the pterosaur along with Espérandieu.

Adèle and Patmosis go to the Louvre, where they revive all of the mummies, including the Pharoah, who revives Agathe. Deciding that he wants to see Paris, the undead Egyptian leads his entire court into the night.

After all that adventure, Adèle decides to relax on a cruise. But as we see her nemesis with an evil grin, we learn that she’s on the Titanic! What a set up for a sequel, as is the credits scene where Ménard tries to get his revenge on Saint-Hubert.

I really loved this movie. It’s kind of amazing that it got such a limited release in the U.S. because it’s such an imaginative film. It also looks gorgeous, with perfectly integrated effects. Plus, I laughed several times during this and the humor didn’t get in the way of the tale.

This film was intended to be the first of three films, but it’s been a few years since it was made. When asked by Den of Geek in 2016 if there would be a sequel, Besson said, “I would love to, because I love this character Adèle. She’s basically the grandmother of Indiana Jones. But it was in French and it’s difficult in France to do films with a certain kind of budget because it’s just in French. But I hope we can.”

Shout! Factory has released this film in the US on blu-ray and you can also stream it on Tubi TV. I’d definitely recommend you set some time aside and check this really interesting movie out!

“They say he came from the north, like the ice wins that sweep the prairies during the great winter. Tex Willer. From the furthest reaches of the Silver Mountains to the birth of the Blue River of the long canoes, his name was spoken with respect. Death rode at his side, ready to strike anyone. who dared violate the law of white man. But his spirit soared free. It knew no boundaries. And it came to pass that even the Indian tribes learned to respect him. And they gave him the name Night Eagle. Then came the day when he joined his blood with the blood of the Navajos. And after a few moons, his forehead bore the symbol of leadership, the sacred wampum. History soon becomes entwined with legend, in the lost time between magic and reality. Let me tell you his story, then. And of the adventurous days which made him immortal.”

After an introduction like that, how can I not get excited about this movie? It’s based on the Italian comic book Tex by Sergio Bonelli, who also created Mister No and owned the comic house that published the adventures of Dylan Dog (which inspired the movies Dylan Dog and Cemetery Man).

Plans for a Tex movie had been in the works since the 1960’s, with the original goal of having Charlton Heston play Tex and Jack Palance in the role of Kit. Duccio Tessari finally directed the film, which was a pilot for a proposed Tex TV series. He’d c0-written A Fistful of Dollars with Sergio Leone and directed the Ringo series of spaghetti westerns, so he seemed like a good choice, at least from the Western aspect of Tex. Yet if you see the poster art, this movie also focuses on the fantastic aspects of the character, drawing on three stories — El Morisco, Sierra Encantada and Il signore dell’abisso.

Giuliano Gemma plays Tex. He was known for his Western films, like Day of Anger and for playing Ringo in that aforementioned series of movies. William Berger (The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff, Five Dolls for an August Moon) is Kit.

They’re the on the trail of some convoy robbers who are using a secret Indian weapon that mummifies people. It turns out that a secret tribe are ready to go to war with the white man, so our heroes must stop them. Look for Bonelli as an Indian mystic in an uncredited role.

Fans of the Tex comic hated the movie, as they felt that Gemma was completely unbelievable as Tex, even to the point that he wore the wrong color shirt. According to this review, “when the film was finally shown in Venice, most people in the audience were fans of the comics, who had only bought a ticket to boo the film.”

This is a movie that has fantastic elements, sets itself up to be a bonkers genre-defying mashup and just doesn’t seem to go far enough. This would have to be quite the movie to surpass that poster art, though!

Want to see this for yourself? Revok has the DVD for a good price or you can check it out on Amazon Prime.