Category Archives: Made for TV Movie

MILL CREEK LEGENDS OF HORROR: The Devil Bat (1940)

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The work of Dr. Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi) has earned his company millions, and all they give him is $5,000. But didn’t he take a buyout early rather than become a partner? Isn’t that the way corporations work?

So why wouldn’t he grow giant bats and have them kill anyone who wears a new aftershave he’s created? He’s destroying the CEO class —the elite —well, really everyone. He’s got Devil Bats — big, bad rubber bats that scream right at the camera — and he leads the first horror film from the poverty-row Producers Releasing Corporation studio, a movie that played alongside Man Made Monster.

Carrruthers destroys everyone that owned the company other than Mary Heath (Suzanne Kaaren), the daughter, who is saved by Chicago Register reporter Johnny Layton (Dave O’Brien) and the aftershave lotion gets dumped all over Carruthers, his bats attacking their master, following the way that he killed those who held him in chains.

Or maybe not, as he speaks from the shadows in the non-horror sequel, Devil Bat’s Daughter. There was also a 2015 movie, Revenge of the Devil Bat, starring Lynn Lowrey. Another PRC movie, The Flying Serpent, is almost the same movie.

Director Jean Yarbrough’s career spanned the days of television. He also directed one of my favorite movies, Hillbillys In a Haunted House, as well as Footsteps In the Night, She-Wolf of London and The Creeper. Based on a story by John T. Neville, the script was written by George Bricker, who also wrote an early wrestling movie, Bodyhold.

More movies should feature fake bats. I recommend A Lizard In a Woman’s Skin, as man, that bat attack was so good it ended up on the U.S. poster.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Murder, She Wrote S2 E18: If a Body Meet a Body (1986)

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Cabot Cove residents gather for a funeral, only to be shocked by the discovery that the coffin contains the wrong body. The mystery deepens: where is Henry Veron, who is the dead mystery man, and was it murder?

Season 2, Episode 18: If a Body Meet a Body (March 9, 1986)

Jessica is attending the funeral of Henry Vernon when an ex-lover claims he was murdered.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?

Sheriff Amos Tupper (Tom Bosley) is back. Is this the time he gets some JBP? Or will Dr. Seth Hazlitt (William Windom)?

Silas Pike is played by Robert Donner, the caddy from Leslie Nielsen’s Stupid Little Golf Video.

Agnes Shipley plays Anne Jeffreys. She was Tess Truehart in the original Dick Tracy.

Audrey Landers, who was Afrton Cooper on Dallas, is Phyllis Walter.

Christy Olson is played by Lori Lethin. She was in Bloody Birthday.

Monte Markham, who directed Neon City, plays Ned Olson.

Rex Smith, TV’s Street Hawk, is Stew Bennett.

Carrie Snodgrass (Murphy’s Law) is Connie Vernon.

Richard Stahl plays Rev. Matthews.

This is the last role of Robert Sterling, who plays Ben Shipley.

Smaller roles are played by Joe Maross as the dead Henry Vernon, Scott Palmer as a deputy, and the townspeople are played by Ellaraino (whose real name is Ella Raino Edwards), Sonia Kara, Timothy Jecko, George Golden, Dorothy Hack and Walter Smith.

What happens?

Henry’s mistress, Phyllis, has come to the funeral and claims that his wife, Connie, killed him. Sheriff Amos tries to settle her down; she shoves him, and the coffin falls, revealing… not Henry. Who can solve this? Amos wants to do it, but we all know JB will handle it. I mean, he should worry more about trying to solve how to finally get her bra off.

Henry’s old partner, Ned, is a mess. Phyliss comes to Jessica’s late at night to ask for help, and Jessica just wants to write her book. But the biggest shock comes when it’s revealed that Henry Vernon is still alive. So who is the John Doe in his coffin?

Maybe Jessica has some problems now that Connie is trying to get Amos to stay over to watch a John Wayne movie, which is a euphemism I’m going to start using for dry rub sex. And then Henry Vernon’s body shows up again.

Connie claims that her husband picked up a hitchhiker who had a heart attack in the backseat and came up with the plan to collect the insurance money. Meanwhile, Ned’s new business is screwed up already, which means an angry mob has gathered. Whew, Cabot Cove is a rough spot.

Who did it?

Sweet, sweet Connie a doin’ her act, as Grand Funk Railroad sang.

Who made it?

This episode was directed by Walter Grauman and written by Steve Stoliar.

Does Jessica get some?

No. I bet she’s happy Connie went to jail, because she needs two dicks in a glass, Sheriff Lobo and Dr. Seth.

Was it any good?

Of course. As you may know, I’m obsessed with how JB is surrounded constantly by friends who die.

Any trivia?

The needlepoint being worked on by Connie is the same one featured in the Columbo episode “The Conspirators” by Jeanette Nolan.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Amos, someday you’re gonna break an ankle jumping to a conclusion.

What’s next?

Jessica must find out the truth when the ruthless owner of a periodical is murdered.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Siegfried and Roy: Masters of the Impossible (1996)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: In Memoriam

I think I’ve written about every Samantha Eggar movie and perhaps a director, and I had conspired to kidnap her and Susan George to make our dream double sequel to Demonoid and Tintorera. I hope she won’t mind that I remember her by watching this cartoon, devoted to magicians Siegfried and Roy.

I’m sorry, Samatha.

There are four episodes of Siegfried & Roy: Masters of the Impossible, and I wish there were four thousand.

“This animated series is a wonderful chance to bring children our important message about discovering the world of magic all around them,” Roy once told the Las Vegas Sun. “We also want them to discover the magic deep inside all of us.”

Man, I have been in hysterics since watching this, and all the PR from the 90s is starting my giggles all over again. Like this…

Director-producer Ron Myrick says they turned to sources as varied as Norse mythology, sword-and-sorcery games and, of course, Siegfried & Roy’s nightly spectacle at The Mirage.

“We’ve opened the door, allowing us to borrow from other periods and places,” he says. “There are no bounds to this world of Sarmoti. Each character and place has a unique, creative look that’s found nowhere else in its kind. There are no limits on what we can create and do.”

Sadly, that article has one lie.

And after the four-episode miniseries airs, will there be more?

“This is only the beginning,” Siegfried says.

It wasn’t.

Airing on Fox Kids from February 19 to 22, 1996, this finds Siegfried as an illusionist and Roy as an animal tamer traveling with a white tiger named Mantacore. Sarmoti has four demons released, three of which are the personifications of sins, while the fourth is part of Mantacore. Roy wishes to make Mantacore whole and works with Siegfried, and the duo must learn to get along and save the kingdom.

Another lie. Siegfried and Roy didn’t do their own voices.

Siegfried is Andrew Hawkes, and Roy is Jeff Bennett.

Plus, Charlie Adler, the voice of Starscream, is Loki; Jim Cummings and Brad Garrett show up (Garrett knows how to do the cartoon voice of a real person, as he was Hulk Hogan on his cartoon); Rumpelstiltskin plays their sidekick, and oh yes, there’s Samantha Eggar.

The dup keeps yelling, “The magic is back!” and Rumpelstiltskin keeps asking when they’ll find some women. This may have been the reason I was laughing more than a few times.

Maybe that demon part of Mantacore was real. At the Mirage on October 3, 2003, the cat knocked down Roy and dragged him off stage as he had a stroke either before or after the attack. The animal trainer claimed that the cat was trying to help him. It helped him to a severed spine, blood loss and paralysis on the left side of his body. After performing one more time on 20/20, they retired on April 23, 2010. Mantacore died four years later.

I learned a few things researching this:

While Siegfried and Roy were a couple, they were also devout Catholics and had a chapel in their home.  Also, the name of the planet, Sarmoti, means “Siegfried And Roy, Masters Of The Impossible.”

Despite Roy being injured, they had a computer-animated TV show, Father of the Pride, about one of the lions.

In a magical world, there would have been action figures of this show. It’s kind of like He-Man, but way less gay. OK, I’m sorry, I tried really hard not to make any jokes in this entire article, so please give me some grace for that one.

You can watch this on YouTube.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Midnight Offerings (1981)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Witches or Warlocks

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

For some reason, people keep talking to me lately about Little House on the Prairie. I’m not sure why exactly. I am familiar with the show. It was not must see TV for me growing up. Thanks to my mother, I was much more into prime time soap operas like Dallas and Dynasty. The trials and tribulations of the Ingalls family surely could not compare to comings and goings of the Ewings or the Carringtons. 

But I have watched more LHOTP in the last year or so. And boy howdy does that show get unhinged in those later years! Albert Ingalls gets addicted to morphine. He also starts a fire that results in the death of a baby. In the infamous Sylvia episode, a teenager gets raped by a guy in a clown mask. The citizens even blow up Walnut Grove rather than let the land fall into some venture capitalist’s hands. Whenever anyone talks about LHOTP and how “they don’t make shows like they used to”, I cannot disagree. But they are talking about wholesomeness, an aspect that did not exactly run through that show.

In contrast, I’ve never seen an episode of The Waltons. I would be willing to watch it though. It seems like maybe this show is the one people should reference when talking about a show you could watch with the entire family. I’ll have to check it out and report back.

Now if there was a competition between the two shows, perhaps it reached full throat in 1981 when the made for television movie Midnight Offerings debuted on ABC (neutral ground I guess). In this movie, we are treated to Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary Ingalls) versus Mary Beth McDonough (Erin Walton) in a supernatural battle over…the high school quarterback? This film is not going to pass the Bechdel test, that’s for sure.

Anderson plays Vivian Sotherland, the most popular girl in school. She also happens to be a witch (the old seventh daughter of a seventh daughter trope) who is not afraid to kill in order for those around her to succeed. Nobody knows her secret, although the aforementioned quarterback/boyfriend David (Patrick Cassidy) is beginning to have his suspicions. When new girl in town Robin Prentiss (McDonough) shows up, Vivian is ready to quickly dispose of her. But Robin is also the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and she has powers she could not explain. Can Mrs. Cunningham, I mean, Emily Moore (Marion Ross) help Robin harness the magic inside of her before Vivian reaches the height of her witchcraft?

There is definitely a lot to like about Midnight Offerings. Melissa Sue Anderson is having a ball playing against type. And I love a magic battle. This one has an unexpected ending that would make any Hammer film proud (if you know you know). Made for TV movies has been a bit of a running theme through my picks this year. I just cannot get enough. Talk about they don’t make things like they used to.

Murder, She Wrote S2 E17: One Good Bid Deserves a Murder (1986)

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Jessica finds herself in a tough spot when one of the auctioneers of a diary is murdered, and she has to rely on Harry McGraw to help her out.

Season 2, Episode 17: One Good Bid Deserves a Murder (February 23, 1986)

At the request of Richard Bennett, a friend and a popular actor, Jessica Fletcher goes to an auction to bid for the diary of a dead woman whose journal was stolen on the night of her death.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?

Dr. Sylvia Dunn is Karen Black, which makes this my favorite episode of the show.

Lt. Casey is played by Ray Girardin.

Sheila Saxon is Nancy Lee Grahn, who has been on General Hospital and Santa Barbara.

Albert Cromwell is played by Robert Gray.

Hurd Hatfield, who was Dorian Gray in the 1945 movie, is William Readford.

Edward Mulhare from Knight Rider! He’s Richard Bennett.

Harry McGraw is back and he’s always Jerry Orbach.

Robert Rhine plays Cotter Smith.

Sal Domino is played by Vic Tayback! Yes!

Background roles are played by Alan Craig, Lyle Howry, Paul King, George Sasaki, Nico Stevens, Leland Sun, Manny Weltman, Marvin Newman, Jean Vander Pul (the voice of Wilma Flintstone!), Howard Murohy, Allysia Sneed, Sterling Swanson, David Ankrum and Rebecca Street.

What happens?

Sorry to all the Edward Mulhare fans, but he’s soon killed because of the diary of Evangeline, the Marilyn Monroe of JB Fletcher’s universe. Who else wanted the diary? Everyone. Producer Sheila Saxon and director Saul Domino, who want to make a sleazy movie I would totally watch. Doctor Sylvia Dunn, Evangeline’s psychiatrist, must have some secrets. Or is it Robert Rhine, a lawyer trying to keep the diary quiet for his client?

Harry McGraw keeps Jessica out of jail, seeing as how her client just fell dead out of a wardrobe. Harry also has a black eye from allergies. She takes him back to her hotel to put the medicine on for him, which we all know is just a story, so that I have a section to fill out about Harry McGraw Dogging Jessica later. But no, someone has broken in and torn the room up more than Harry wants to rip up that Cabot Cove Caboose, but luckily, she has hidden the diary in a chess set she bought for dick in glass Seth back home.

When Jessica goes back to the auction house, the owner is dead, and she gets caught standing over the body. She asks the cops why they think she would want to kill the man, and he answers as any law enforcement should: “Beats me, Mrs Fletcher, but every time I find a dead body, you seem to be in the neighborhood.”

Anyways, between Harry dating the producer, him sneaking out with the diary and multiple suspects, this episode is filled with many a twist, many a turn.

Who did it?

Albert Cromwell, who was Evangeline’s first boyfriend.

Who made it?

This episode was directed by Seymour Robbie and written by J. Miyoko Hensley and Steven Hensley, who wrote Can You Feel Me Dancing? together.

Does Jessica get some?

No. I’d like to think that she and Harry have some September/September coupling, followed by a dinner at a diner, then maybe a furtive handjob in his parked car while she thinks about her dead husband. I’m a romantic.

Was it any good?

It has a scene where Karen Black goes nuts. It’s great.

Any trivia?

Angela Lansbury and Hurd Hatfield were co-stars in The Picture of Dorian Gray and became lifelong friends. She introduced him to Ireland and Hatfield lived in County Cork from the early 1970s.

Jessica spent $300 on that chess set, which is like $900 today. She must want Seth more than we know.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Harry McGraw: I must be nuts.

Jessica Fletcher: Harry, I know that was very difficult for you. But now that you’ve put that diary to rest, honestly, don’t you feel better?

Harry McGraw: Honestly? Jessica, you must be nuts.

What’s next?

Cabot Cove residents gather for a funeral and discover the coffin contains the wrong body.

2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 23: The Langoliers (1995)

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23. SURVIVORS?: If anything walks away from a plane crash, the chances of it being healthy are pretty slim.

Directed and written by Tom Holland and based on the novella by Stephen King, this first aired on May 14 and 15, 1995 on ABC. Richard P. Rubinstein produced through his company Laurel Entertainment and King mainly stayed hands-off.

The effects for The Langoliers were provided by Image Design and you know, when King wrote beach balls with teeth, he may not have been thinking of a movie being made of his story.

On a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston,pilot Brian Engle (David Morse), MI6 agent Nick Hopewell (Mark Lindsay Chapman). schoolteacher Laurel Stevenson (Patricia Wettig), tool and die worker Don Gaffney (Frankie Faison), violinist Albert Kaussner (Christopher Collet), Bethany Sims (Kimber Riddle), mystery author Bob Jenkins (Dean Stockwell), blind Dinah Bellman (Kate Maberly), businessman Rudy Warwick, (Baxter Harris) and bond trader Craig Toomy (Bronson Pinchot) wake up alone no pilots, no crew. Craig has a mental breakdown and Dinah — a telepath because she’s blind, you know how it works, enters his mond.

They land in Bangor and no one is there either. That’s when Craig tells them that the Langoliers are monsters that eat lazy children. Yes, beach balls that snack on kids, how do you do it U of M grad Steve King?

According to IMDB: “The Langoliers themselves were originally going to be portrayed by puppets, but were replaced with CGI instead. Unfortunately, the poorly rendered and animated monsters ended up looking laughably hokey, and are regarded as some of the worst CGI effects ever.”

Oh man are they ever.

Anyways, this was always considered a mess — at least by me — until I saw the remix of the film, Timekeepers of Eternity. Made with cut paper, it really works, remixing this film into something that is exciting and different.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: CHiPS S6 E21: Things That Go Creep In the Night (1983)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes.

Today’s theme: Series Episode

When Anna (Kelly Preston) gets into a hot tar accident on the highway, Ponch (Erik Estrada) suspects there’s more to it than meets the eye. The plot thickens when she’s found holding a cover to a Sea Thing comic book, the biggest comic book around, as Officer Bruce (Bruce Penhall) explains.

“Whatever happened to Tom and Jerry?” asks Ponch.

Someone steals a car, and when they arrest him, Ponch and Bruce find Anna’s wallet. As Anna stays with her friend Kathy (Joan Freeman), the creator of Sea Thing, Stanley Woods (Rich Little) stalks Anna. He also seems to live in Forrest Ackerman’s house, so maybe he’s a pervert hitting on teenage girls just like Forry. Actually, he’s in the  Malibu Castle or Castle Kashan, which was built by a local doctor in the late ’70s and belonged to Princess Lilly Lawrence. It burned down in the 2007 Malibu fires but was rebuilt.

Anna somehow has a different cover than the real book, which we find out from the owner of a comic book store.

In the world of CHiPS, Elvira owns a comic book store.

The real story unfolds when it’s revealed that Anna’s mom is the creator of Sea Thing, and a real Sea Thing attacks Ponch. The unexpected twist? Rich Little is a hologram and in drag! This supernatural episode of CHiPS is just one of many surprises, including “Trick or Treat” from season 2 and “Rock Devil Rock” from season 6.

Robert Pine, the leader of the California Highway Patrol, Sgt. Joseph Getraer directed this episode. This episode was written by Rick Rosner, Barry Jacobs and Stuart Jacobs.

I love that Elvira would just randomly show up on shows like this in the 80s. A magical time. I also have a weakness for CHiPS. Watching it now, it all seems so silly with characters wearing sauna suits to lose weight and Ponch investigating a monster. Royal Dano shows up as a coroner!

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Guardian of the Abyss from Hammer House of Horror (1980)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Series episode!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Don’t you know you must never give a black magician bread or wine or salt in your own home?

Say what now? Is this common knowledge? I’ve never heard of such. Of course, I immediately went to Google for answers. Even their AI was no help in determining where this proclamation may have originated.

Perhaps it is just from the mind of David Fisher, a writer on Doctor Who (during the years of the Fourth Doctor Tom Baker), and our scribe here in this installment of Hammer House of Horror.

This anthology series was created by Roy Skeggs, a man who climbed the Hammer Films corporate ladder, eventually becoming chairman. Unfortunately, Hammer had hit upon hard times by the late 1970s, particularly after the departure of Tony Hinds in 1969. The company was unable to keep up with the gore and graphic violence displayed in many of the American films of the 70s, putting their hopes on an increase in sexual content to bring in audiences. As the films of the 70s tried to bring in modern sensibilities to their typical gothic tales, most viewers found the entire Hammer endeavor to border in self-parody rather than interesting storytelling.

When Skeggs took over, he shifted the focus of Hammer Films away from producing films using their stable of familiar monsters and characters, and toward television, creating the 13-episode series Hammer House of Horror. Each installment ran close to an hour in length, featuring different sorts of horror, and typically ending with a plot twist. 

Guardian of the Abyss follows the basic template. Laura (Barbara Ewing) is the winner of an auction for an interesting mirror. When a stranger seems very interested in purchasing the mirror from her, her friend Michael (Ray Lonnen) suggests that she have the mirror appraised to determine its true value. Unbeknownst to Michael and Laura, the mirror is a scrying glass that, if it falls into the wrong (or right) hands, could be used to summon the demon Choronzon. Michael crosses paths with a woman named Allison (Rosalyn Landor, most likely known from her role in Hammer’s The Devil Rides Out), who says she has escaped from a cult. But could she be the key to the entire mystery behind the mirror?

Guardian of the Abyss is the fourth segment I’ve watched so far in this series. They are all very enjoyable for what they are. Nothing terribly deep. Again, you typically get a twist ending that sticks the landing. A nice, quick watch for this time of year. I’m looking forward to watching the rest of these over time. I’m always happy to plug one in this slot every year during this challenge.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: In the Year 2889 (1967)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: In the Year 2889 was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 17, 1970 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, January 15, 1972 at 11:30 p.m.

A remake of Roger Corman’s 1956 film Day the World Ended, this started as part of the Larry Buchanon remake series of American-International Pictures films, reshooting them on a low budget in color for TV.

AIP gave Buchanan the original script to use for this film, which ended up being an almost line-for-line, scene-for-scene remake. But why the new name? Well, after AIP made Master of the World, they registered the trademark for a film of the book In the Year 2889, which was written by Jules Verne and his son Michael.

FX artsitPaul Blaisdell, who did the special effects for the original AIP film, saw the movie on a Saturday afternoon and had no idea what it was. In his biography, he said, “I recognized some of the dialogue coming out of the actors’ mouths because it was a direct steal from Day the World Ended. I sat there…staring at it, and i just couldn’t believe it. I was absolutely spellbound. It’s just absolutely unbelievable that they remade) those. I don’t want to know a damn thing about them. I hope I never see them. One was more than enough!”

So yes, this is set in the year 1967. Not 2889. But we have Paul Petersen (The Donna Reed Show) as heroic Steve Morrow; Quinn O’Hara (The Ghost In the Invisible Bikini, Cry of the Banshee) as Jada; Charla Doherty in her final role as Joana Ramsey; Neil Fletcher as Captain John Ramsey; Hugh Feagin as Mickey Brown; Max W. Anderson as Granger Morrow; Bill Thurman as Tim Henderson and Byron Lord, the creature from Creature of Destruction, as a mutant. Lord also wrote Eat, Drink and Make Merrie and played Dean Butts in Co-Ed Fever, a Gary Graver adult film with an all-star cast including Jamie Gillis, Annette Haven, Serene Samantha Fox, Lisa De Leeuw, Vanessa del Rio, John Leslie and Juliet “Aunt Peg” Anderson.

Anyways, this movie is ridiculous and I loved it. The world ends, but only eight people are in it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Mars Needs Women (1968)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: 1960s!

Larry Buchanan was making low budget TV movies for American-International Pictures.

He called them with this idea:”We get this signal from outer space… What is it, Mr. Nicholson, what is it? And I said, Mars Needs Women! He said, ‘When can you start?”

As for Tommy Kirk, he had been a Disney kid and when he got the lead when John Ashley was busy, he wanted to make this his comeback. After all, he knew the role. He had already been a Martian seeking Earth women in AIP’s Pajama Party. Buchanan allowed Kirk to create his own soliloquy in the film, which is pretty great. However, Kirk looked back and said that this was “…undoubtedly one of the stupidest motion pictures ever made. How I got talked into it, I don’t know.”

“Mars … Needs … Women.” That’s the message from space and Mars can only make boy chidren, so five of their race, led by Dop (Kirk), come to Earth to steal our most perfect women. Mainly from Texas. Larry didn’t have much of a budget, after all.

The women are an artist (Pat Delaney). a housewife (Sherry Roberts), an air hostess (Donna Lindberg), a stripper (Bubbles Cash, the inspiration for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, who is also in Hot Thrills and Warm Chills and according to a fan, signed her aurograph like this: “the B in Bubbles was a pair of breasts with nipples. Her last name was a dollar sign.”) and scientist Dr. Marjorie Bolen (Yvonne Craig!), who Dop falls in love with and of course he does, it’s Yvonne Craig in 1968.

Shot in black and white on 16mm, blown up to 35mm and filled with stock footage, this was shot all over Dallas, which was playing Houston in the movie.

Someday sad, I will run out of Larry Buchanan movies. But that day is not today. Today is a good day.

You can watch this on YouTube.