Our friends Alex Lopez and JH Rood spent several weeks traveling across the country, checking out horror spots near and mostly far.
Starting on Saturday, September 14th, 2019, the boys embarked on a road trip of epic proportions which took them through 21 U.S. states, 4 Canadian provinces and ran up over 9,338 miles on the “Ghoul Wagon.”
Now, they’ve finished the first episode of their video series that shows all of the places that they made it to, including Pittsburgh to see Monroeville Mall and attend the October drive-in event in Vandergrift, PA. In fact, I’ve been told that Becca and I may appear in that episode.
You can even see our friend Matt Hanke discuss Bill Van Ryn and the awesome Drive-In Asylum! Matt’s movie collection makes me jealous.
This is a really fun project and I hope you’ll check it out!
The man named Matt Cavanaugh who wrote this doesn’t exist. It’s really Willie Gilbert, the author and playwright. Once he left Cleveland for New York City, he discovered that his physician Jack Weinstock shared his dream of being a writer. They wrote for nightclub performers, Broadway reviews, on early TV shows like Howdy Doody and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and shared two Tony Awards for 1962’s How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.
The team also wrote the plays Hot Spot, Catch Me If You Can and were working on The Candy Store when Weinstock died. Gilbert went on to work for Hanna-Barbera, where he worked on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Super Friends, The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone and Yogi’s First Christmas. He died in 1980.
Somewhere along there — let’s say 1971 — he wrote this movie, which is about the kids of today. You know, in 1971.
Also known as The Idiotic Couple, Frenetic Party and The Love-Thrill Murders, this movie has some awesome poster copy: “Six states wanted them jailed. Eight torture victims wanted them dead. All the blood freaks wanted was one more night… of the most brutal orgy in history!”
Director Robert L. Roberts doesn’t have many credits, other than Michele and the Device, The Big Man and Patty, a movie in which doctors and experts sit around and discuss the Patty Hearst case. That movie was released in hard-X, soft-X and R-rated versions and starred Jamie Gillis. If you don’t think I’m on the hunt for this movie right now, you don’t know me.
Sandra Barlow (Renay Granville, who is also in the aforementioned Patty) is looking for kicks. Sex and drugs, baby. Balling! Yes, this is another movie that uses balling, a word that I am desperately trying to bring back into vogue; please help me!
She hires Moon (Troy Donahue, a 50’s and 60’s matinee icon who was in Man of a Thousand Faces, the TV series Surfside 6, Imitation of Life and then dropped out, appearing in movies like this and Seizure. Perhaps you’ve also seen him in Dr. Alien, Shock ‘Em Dead or Cry-Baby, where he played Mona “Hatchet-Face” Malnorowski’s dad), a Manson-like drug leader who has more on his mind than sex and drugs for the big party.
Donahue said some amazing things in the press about this movie. “I play Moon, a religious creep who murders a lot of people, a real heavy trip. But I don’t want anyone to think I’m playing it in some phony exploitation flick that takes advantage of the Manson case to make a fast buck. I don’t like many things, man, but I dig this picture… We’re trying to show both sides of the problem. The Hollywood glamor society is as guilty as the depraved hippy cults. They pick up people on the Sunset Boulevard and tease them. When they made fun of Manson they picked on the wrong guy. I was up at the Tate house. It was a freaky scene. Sure I met Manson at the beach playing volleyball.”
He also predicted that this movie would be as bigger as Love Story.
Tallie Cochrane, who plays Ruth in this movie, shows up in all manner of 1970’s sexploitation, like Girls for Rent, The Centerfold Girls, The Candy Tangerine Man, If You Don’t Stop It… You’ll Go Blind!!!, Track of the Moonbeast (which she also did make-up on), Hollywood High and Frightmare. She also did voiceover work and ran a casting agency for the New York City adult film industry in the early 1970’s.
There’s also a scene where Fritzi gets ready to have sex with a male member of Moon’s gang, exclaiming, “Haven’t you ever heard of science? I’m a woman and I loved cock so much I just had to have one for myself. I went to Sweden and got this off a sailor who is now a woman. Get with the times.”
This is the kind of movie where a famous actress has an apartment that looks like it’s somewhere out in the suburbs and has a swinging party that looks like the kind of potlucks that my parent’s church social club used to throw and I’d hide in the basement so I didn’t have to hang out with any other kids, when all I wanted was to sit in my house and watch Hammer movies on a Saturday afternoon.
I love this movie. It’s pure scum and invites the thought that the people that the Manson Family killed were just as invested in the sex and drugs scene as the Creepy Crawlers who started the Year of the Fork. Quentin Tarantino screened this at the New Beverly before Once Upon a Time In…Hollywood came out and it makes a scuzzy companion piece to that film.
Unfortunately, this movie has never been released on DVD. I blame Troma, who has the rights, but then at least I didn’t have to watch a Lloyd Kaufman introduction to this movie.
Troy Donahue giving speeches about God not being dead to suburbanites fried on acid who are due to be killed at his hand? This movie was made just for me.
After the tragic loss of his wife battling the forces of darkness, Gabriel (Houston Rhines, Criminal Minds) is persuaded to rejoin his old team of demon hunters. But after he loses part of his team, Gabriel must confront his tragic past and decide who really is friend or foe. Oh yeah — and Michael Madsen shows up as Balthazar, an actual angel.
Swarms of locusts. Possessed dolls. Laser guided demon weapons. Yeah, this movie tries, but it’s scope is higher than its budget.
Does it surprise you if I tell you that this movie has tons of bad CGI? Or Eric Roberts, who is not bad CGI?
Well, that’s not stopping four fallen angels from coming back to Earth and causing the end of all things. If that’s your idea of a good time — and yes, I know people love these films — then by all means, check this out.
Director Ali Zamani has several films to his credit, like EuroClub and Maul Dogs, but this is only the second writer Amanda Barton has written after The Amityville Terror. She’s also acted in several films like Frankenstein Reborn and The Beast of Bray Road.
Angels Fallen is available on demand and on DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.
DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR company.
About the Author: Paul Andolina is one of my favorite people to talk movies with. If you like his stuff, check out his site Wrestling with Film.
Growing up obsessed with Russia, it was only natural that I would stumble upon the 2004 Russian blockbuster Nightwatch when it was released on DVD in 2006. This lead me to tracking down the novel it was based on and in turn me wishing they would release more of the author Sergei Lukyanenko’s books in English. Over the years they have consistently translated his Watch series but his other work is remains mostly undiscovered by English speaking audiences.
In 2005, he wrote a novel called Rough Draft which dealt with parallel universes. I only recently discovered it existed because of the release of the film adaptation dubbed into English by High Octane Pictures. I’m not sure if I have mentioned my dislike for movies that have been dubbed into English here on B and S About Movies but I’m not the biggest fan. I would much rather have the original language with subtitles, however, that was not an option with this screener and I wasn’t about to pass up the chance to watch this film regardless of the audio.
Rough Draft was originally released in Russian theaters in May of 2018 and made an appearance at the Seattle International Film Festival in June of the same year. Rough Draft is about Kirill, a video game designer, who after being dumped by his girlfriend, suddenly finds himself erased from all records and memories of his friends and family. He is initiated into a new position of customs officer of a gateway tower into different worlds. He oversteps the bounds of his duties and his world is yet again turned inside out by the curator and other functionals (people of extraordinary abilities).
I had not even seen a trailer for this film before getting a chance to watch it so I got to see it with fresh eyes, I read a small plot outline prior to viewing it but really had no clue what to expect. I was met witha wonderful fantasy adventure full of interesting worlds. Kirill and his struggle as the new customs officer of a strange gateway doesn’t seem like a very exciting thing to watch but this movie is packed with odd characters, fantastical settings, and some pretty cool action moments.
Kirill’s girlfriend, Anna, also plays a large part in the plot of the movie as she starts dating a functional after dumping Kirill. Her sudden appearance at his tower catches him off guard and he is motivated to try and win her back, even though she has no memory of him. Kirill is constantly testing the limits of his new found functional abilities, he becomes near immortal, although if he tries to go more than 9 miles away from his tower some nasty things start happening to his body due a strange spider like leash that he wears around his neck. As long as he drinks plenty of water though he seems to do okay even if he strays out of his legal limits.
Kirill’s insistence on trying to start a new relationship with Anna proves dangerous not just to himself but others around him as well, Anna, and her new beau, Anton, in particular. Anna is kidnapped and sent to a strange prison like world run by a female blacksmith, and Anton is dissolved after being taken past his leash’s limits. He is constantly being reproached by an android like functional named Renata, who is the one that shows up in Kiril’s apartment when he is erased, and the curator who originally watched and chose him as the new customs officer.
The CGI in this movie is great although it does seem glaring obvious at times. The English dubbing isn’t the best and at first is jarring and unsettling but I did eventually get over it. I loved the story of the film and it is quite beautiful to witness as well. The music is outstanding too. I really want folks to check out this film as if you are a fan of fantasy or science fiction films than I am sure you will find a lot to like in this film. It’s a really captivating movie. It will be available on DVD January 17, 2020 from Amazon in addition to other outlets.
DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team.
As you may know, I love lost films or movies that no one pays attention to any longer. Can you believe that I found one from 1990 with Jeff Goldblum in it? How does that happen?
Alan Bates (The Shout, The Wicked Lady) plays Felix Detweiler, a detective that starts the film by arresting the titular Mister Frost (Goldblum), who happily announces that he has all manner of bodies buried on his property.
Frost is arrested and goes to an insane asylum, where he doesn’t speak for two years. His identity can’t be figured out and Detweiler becomes obsessed by the case and the twenty four bodies they found at Frost’s home.
Frost finally speaks when he meets Dr. Sarah Day (Kathy Baker, The Right Stuff), telling her that he refuses to talk to anyone but her. Also, he’s Satan. Also also, he plans on getting her to murder him someday.
Detweiler, for one, is convinced that Frost really could be the devil. He might be right — Frost can do crazy things, like heal Day’s brother so that he can walk for the first time in years. Also, her patients and fellow doctors are being changed by Frost and not for the better.
To keep anyone else from Frost’s powers, Day agrees to kill him. He thanks her for believing in him, telling her that he’s now more powerful than anything or anyone in the world. Day shoots him mid-speech, yet finishes his last sentence in Frost’s voice. Now, she too refuses to speak.
It’s not a great movie, but it’s a fun one. And it’s not one you’re going to find easy — well, YouTube is your friend here — but one that you won’t be upset that you sat through. Goldblum as the devil? Yeah, I can see it.
Angeli Bianchi… Angeli Neri comes from director Luigi Scattini, who started his career as a journalist before directing movies like Primitive Love with Jayne Mansfield and War Italian Style with Buster Keaton.
One of the best things about this mondo film — a genre that is pretty much reality TV before that was a thing or the kind of shows that most folks love on cable today — is the collaboration between composer Piero Umiliani and director Luigi Scattini.
As the film was shot mostly in Brazil — where else would you go to show off the world of black magic, devil-worshipping and pagan rituals — the soundtrack was partly record there with the help of local musicians and instruments before being finished in Rome with artists like Alessandro Alessandroni and his octet vocal group Cantori Moderni (who composed the music for The Opening of Misty Beethoven and The Devil’s Nightmare), Nora Orlandi (who wrote music for The Sweet Body of Deborah and The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh) and Edda Dell’Orso, who provided wordless vocals to the scores of Ennio Morricone.
The score is a psychedelic treat, combining modern and ambient tones of 1969 with bossa nova and samba. That’s kind of perfect for this X rated exploration of the occult circa 1969.
This film is the tamer side of Witchcraft ’70, just with non-violent nudity in the place of the madness that American audiences demanded. It also has a billion times better title, because it makes you wonder — exactly what am I getting into? All occult movies should feel that way for their audiences.
This movie also has so many amazing poster designs that I couldn’t decide which to use for the article. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are several of them.
After the death of her sister, Patricia Woodhouse inherits her family’s estate and soon discovers that something or someone has been haunting the home for decades and harbors a disturbing family secret that she must uncover. This is a remake of the 2014 movie The Haunting Of Baylock Residence.
Patricia has been estranged from her sister for quite a few years due to a family feud, but still goes to her funeral. That’s when she meets Annabel Blair, who informs her that she’s inherited the house. However, there’s a secret inside it that may cost Patricia her life as well.
Director Anthony M. Winson also created the film that this remakes. He bases his films around Nottinghamshire, England. This movie is all about how that country felt around 1944, along with the undercurrent of the supernatural.
The Baylock Residence is available on demand and on DVD from Wild Eye Releasing. You can also watch this on Amazon Prime.
DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team.
A first date with Penny could mean her playing dead in the middle of a coffee shop. Or taking you along on a robbery. However, her latest plan, which hinges on pinning the crime on her date, goes awry and now he’s the only person she can trust as she tries to figure out what went wrong.
This is writer and director C.J. Renner’s second film, but he’s already pretty assured and more than capable of telling a great story. It really gets across the difference between saying you could rob a store and actually doing it.
I’ve watched way too many heist movies lately, unless the universe is trying to tell me something.
Alex de la Iglesia met Jose Guerricaechevarria in the early 90’s, which led to their first short film,Mirindas Asesinas, in which a normal man becomes a killer. They’ve worked together ever since, particularly on the Pedro Almodovar produced Accion Mutante, a story of handicapped people fighting back in a post-apocalyptic future. He followed thet movie with this one, which won 6 Goyas — think Oscar in Spanish — including Best Director.
Father Angel Berriartua (Alaex Angulo, Pan’s Labyrinth), a priest and professor of theology, confesses to another priest that he is about to commit as much evil as possible. The other priest is shocked until he explains why, but before he can help, a large cross crushes him.
His mission takes him to Madrid, where he meets heavy metal fan, record shop clerk and Satanist Jose Maria (Santiago Segura, who has made the Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley film series that parodies Stallone’ Cobra). Jose helps Angel find a place in his mother’s boarding house and continue his path toward evil, which guides him to steal a book by occult TV show host Professor Cavan.
Jose and Angel decide to kidnap the Professor and force him to teach them how to sell their souls to the devil. Why? Angel has decoded that Bible and learned that the Antichrist will be born at midnight on Christmas Eve. If he sells his soul, the Devil will trust him and allow him to witness the birth, which will allow him to sneak in and kill the Antichrist, saving the world.
The ritual will need the blood of a virgin, which is no easy feat in modern Madrid. Luckily, Mina, who lives in Jose’s mother’s boarding house, is one. As Angel draws her blood, he’s surprised by Jose’s mother, who ends up killing herself with a shotgun by accident. No matter — the threesome instead burns a piece of paper chaos magic style, takes LSD and finishes the ritual. Cavan jokes that it’s all a farce until a goat appears and the devil taunts them in a message, saying that he knows Angel’s plan.
Do they find the devil? You bet. A movie this insane totally needs a nearly nude gigantic Satan wandering the rooftops, ready to chuck people off to their doom. Even crazier, most rituals showed in the films are real Satanist rituals and weren’t altered at all. Or so they say.
After the movie’s moderate success in the US, de la Iglesia sold the rights for an American remake, which he was goign to direct. It never happened, nor did his opportunity to direct Alien: Resurrection. However, he did direct his next movie, Perdita Durango, in the U.S.
Man, we totally missed this in our Christmas movies and in our heavy metal movie spotlights, but I’m so happy that this movie is finally on our site.
Lee Frost, who directed Love Camp 7, Hot Spur, Dixie Dynamite, A Climax of Blue Power, The Thing with Two Heads and The Black Gestapo, in addition to mondo films like Hollywood’s World of Flesh, Mondo Freudo, Mondo Bizarro and The Forbiddendirected the additional scenes in this revised version at the behest of TransAmerica Films.
Original director Luigi Scattini was behind lots of exploitation over in Italy like Sweden: Heaven and Hell and Blue Nude. He brought in Alberto Bevilacqua, who was a writer on films like Atom Age Vampire, Black Sabbath and Planet of the Vampires.
How can you not love a movie that promises dialogue like “A ballad of the ’60’s said, “I left my heart in San Francisco.: Now in the ’70’s, it is possible to leave one’s soul there as well?” Yes, the biggest problems in 1970 were weed and witchcraft. Is it any wonder that this movie has led to so many samples in the songs of Electric Wizard?
Keep in mind, the ideas in this film — and the sheer nudity on display — destroys minds and reaped souls back in 1970. But in 2019? It could almost be on regular television. This version is the one to watch — the Italian version, like I said, which we’ll get to tomorrow, is missing plenty of the rougher footage from Frost, as well as a warning from Lieutenant David Estee of the Capitola California Police Department
But hey — you do get to see a Satanic wedding officiated by Anton LaVey, so there’s that. And dialogue like “The night air carries the stench of flames, sex and an acrid unnatural sweat.”
I got this from the sadly gone Cult Action. I really wish that site was still around, if only to make me spend more money on movies that I can’t afford.
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