EDITOR’S NOTE: Hawk the Slayer was on the CBS Late Movie on December 3, 1982 and July 29, 1983.

Terry Marcel also was behind Prisoners of the Lost Universe, The Last Seduction II and Jane and the Lost City (he was also A.D. on The Pink Panther series of films, as well as Straw Dogs) but today, we’re going to discuss his 1980 sword and sorcery epic Hawk the Slayer, which predates the Conan ripoff film cycle.

The wicked Voltan (Jack Palance, who is amazing in everything he did, no matter how silly the films get) murders his own father (Ferdy Mayne, who we all know and love from Night Train to Terror) over the magic of the last elven mindstone. Before he dies, the old king gives his son Hawk (John Terry, who was on TV’s Lost) a magic sword that responds to his mental commands. Our hero then promises to kill his brother in revenge.

Soon, though, Voltan has taken over the country. An injured soldier named Ranulf (W. Morgan Sheppard, who is also in Elvira: Mistress of the Dark) is taken in by the nuns of a convent who heal him but can’t save his hand. But Voltan soon descends on the convent and takes away their Mother Superior and Ranulf seeks Hawk to stop his brother.

Soon, Hawk learns of his new quest from a sorceress (Patricia Quinn, who was Magenta in The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and gathers his friends: Gort the giant (Bernard Bresslaw, who would go on to play a similar role in Krull), Crow the elf and Baldin the whip-wielding elf. Even though they raise enough gold to pay for the ransom on the nun, Hawk knows that his brother won’t live up to his word. After all, Voltan killed Hawk’s wife Eliane (Catriona MacColl! Holy cow! The star of City of the Living Dead, The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery!).

You can also watch out for Roy Kinnear (Henry Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) as an innkeeper and Patrick Magee (Tales from the Crypt, Asylum) as a priest.

The five warriors decide to attack Voltan and Hawk succeeds in killing his nephew Drogo (Shane Briant, who is in Lady Chatterley’s Lover), but Baldin is horribly wounded after one of the nuns turns heel on our heroes. Finally, Hawk gets his revenge, but an evil spirit brings Voltan back, so Hawk and Gort travel to find him. The battle isn’t over…and sequels called Hawk the Hunter and Hawk the Destroyer have been teased for years.

British kids who grew up in the 80’s LOVE this movie. For example, Simon Pegg worked plenty of references to it into the TV show Spaced. And The Darkness song “Nothin’s Gonna Stop Us” has Drogo’s line “I am no messenger. But I will give you a message. The message of DEATH!” in its lyrics.

This film is more influenced by Star Wars than Conan. Will you enjoy it? How do you feel about Krull? Because this movie feels so close to that one — except this one has a magic sword and that one has the Glave. Also, this movie has a great shouted line that makes me laugh every single time: “The hunchback will have something to say about this!” And an elf that talks like a robot, which makes no sense. Oh yeah — and Jack Palance being as over the top as it gets!

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Crash! was on the CBS Late Movie on November 6, 1981 and August 13, 1982.

I have a real weakness for Charles Band’s movies. I think any study of the past articles on this site will point to this, but today’s example is 1977’s Crash!, a movie where Sue Lyon plays a wife who has to deal with a jealous husband played by José Ferrer who keeps trying to kill her. So she does what any one of us would do. She uses black magic to get back at him.

Will the burned visage of Reggie Nalder show up? How about John Carradine? What about the gorgeous Leslie Parrish, who pretty much created C-SPAN and was a major activist in addition to being a frequent talk and game show host? As you can see, Mr. Band knows exactly what I want, which is possessed cars and occult 1970’s buffoonery.

You have to love that Band has a best of montage right before the end of the movie, reminding us of all the vehicular non-driver homicide that we’ve already watched, which includes a giant dog against a possessed wheelchair.

This movie just barely beat The Car to theaters, but that movie blows it away in almost every way, except that this has Carradine cashing a check and Sue Lyon making my heart flutter. Otherwise, I’ll stick with Anton LaVey’s gas guzzler in the desert, if you make me pick. You didn’t, so I’ll just let you know that I enjoyed this, but I’m also a sucker for things blowing up real good and Satanic shenanigans.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dracula A.D. 1972 was on the CBS Late Movie on March 18, 1981. You can download the full episode with commercials at the Internet Archive.

Warner Brothers and Hammer saw how well Count Yorga, Vampire did with young moviegoers and decided that it was time to make a modern Dracula.

While today, many associate Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing with their roles as Dracula and Van Helsing, this was the first time that Cushing played the role since Brides of Dracula. And while this was the sixth time Lee played the Count, the two had not battled since the original Hammer Dracula. It would be the next to last time they faced off in the roles and the next Hammer Dracula, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, would be the last for them to both play these characters.

It opens with Count Dracula and his nemesis Lawrence Van Helsing battling atop a carriage that crashes, impaling Dracula. With his mortal wounds about to end his life, Van Helsing finally destroys his archenemy. This is a thrilling opening — kind of like a Bond movie — but to Hammer continuity lovers, this invalidates the last few movies and starts a new timeline.

In 1972, Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham, And Now the Screaming Starts!) and her hippie friends are convinced to come and watch Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame, The Love Factor) perform a Black Mass — set to White Noise’s “Black Mass: An Electric Storm in Hell” — at the deconsecrated St Bartolph’s, the same church where her descendent Van Helsing and Dracula were both buried.

He soon draws the blood of Laura Bellows (Caroline Munro!) and brings Dracula back from the dead, as the Count quickly drains the lifeblood of the young girl. Then, they start to turn all of Jessica’s friends like Bob (Philip Miller) and Gaynor Keating (Marsha Hart) into vampires, all to draw her back to the Lord of the Vampires so that he can keep getting revenge on Van Helsing, who has a descendent, Lorrimer (also Cushing), the grandfather of Jessica.

This movie features controversial Page Three girl Flanagan — who was the Kray Twin’s mother’s hairdresser and campaigned for their release — and Concord, CA ten-piece band Stoneground. Three members of that group — Cory Lerios, Steve Price and David Jenkins — would later form Pablo Cruise. They were in the movie to replace The Faces, which would have been wild.

In the U.S., a brief clip was played before this movie in which Barry Atwater (Janos Skorzeny from The Night Stalker) rises from a coffin and swears the entire audience in as members of the Count Dracula Society as part of a HorroRitual.

This played as part of some great double features with Trog, Twins of Evil and Crescendo.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Zabriskie Point was on the CBS Late Movie on August 5, 1977.

Another movie that I only knew as bad because that’s what the Medveds said, it took me nearly forty years from when I first read their books to finally watch this. In The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. they wrote that it was “the worst film ever made by a director of genius.” As always, they were wrong.

Michelangelo Antonioni was known at the time for a trilogy of films — L’Avventura, La Notte and L’Eclisse — as well as Blowup and The Passenger. In 1994, he was given an Honorary Academy Award “in recognition of his place as one of cinema’s master visual stylists” presented by Jack Nicholson.

Zabriskie Point was savaged by critics and performed poorly yet has been re-evaluated today. Antonioni was inspired by an article he read about a young man who stole an aircraft and was killed when he tried to return it. He wrote the first draft and then had Sam Shepard, Franco Rossetti, frequent collaborator Tonino Guerra and Clare Peploe all write drafts. Stars Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin were hired because of an argument Frechette had in a bus station and Halprin’s appearance in the documentary Revolution. Neither had been screen tested.

The film was controversial before it was even shot. Rumors were out that Antonioni would gather 10,000 extras in the desert for a real orgy; instead the scene is highly choreographed with actors from The Open Theatre. Believing this, the United States Department of Justice investigated whether this violated the Mann Act, which forbids taking women across state lines for sexual purposes. No sex was ever filmed and the production was always in one state, California. However, police in Sacramento were waiting to arrest the director and the FBI and Oakland police also were sure that he staged a riot and wanted to arrest him for that.

The only movie that Antonioni made in the U.S., it was seen as “a noble artistic impulse short-circuited in a foreign land” by Vincent Canby, David Fricke wrote that it was “was one of the most extraordinary disasters in modern cinematic history” and Roger Ebert said of the protagonists, “Their voices are empty; they have no resonance as human beings. They don’t play to each other, but to vague narcissistic conceptions of themselves. They wouldn’t even meet were it not for a preposterous Hollywood coincidence.”

During a college strike, Mark leaves, claiming that he is “willing to die, but not of boredom.” As he’s arrested outside, real estate salesman Lee Allen (Rod Taylor) is working on ads for his new Sunny Dunes resort, which will be sold with mannequins instead of humans. Mark gets out of jail and watches a police officer die in another riot — Harrison Ford is briefly in one of these scenes — and runs to an airport where he steals a plane and flies away.

Daria is driving through the desert in a big Buick to meet Lee, who may be her boss or lover. She meets Mark first as he buzzes her car. They walk to Zabriskie Point and make love, along with thousands of others. She begs him not to fly back to L.A., but he does and is killed. She makes it to Lee’s new Sunny Dunes home and she’s not the same person she used to be. Leaving, she imagines that the mansion — which was recreated on a soundstage; Antonioni was amazed by how wasteful American moviemaking was compared to Italy — blows up.

The soundtrack was filled with music of the time, unlike many movies, with songs from Pink Floyd, The Youngbloods, Kaleidoscope, Jerry Garcia, Patti Page, Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, John Fahey and a love theme — “So Young” — by Roy Orbison. There was so much music that some never ended up in the movie. Richard Wright of Pink Floyd wrote a song called “The Violent Sequence” for the end of the movie, but Antonioni used a re-recording of the band’s “Careful with That Axe, Eugene”, retitled “Come in Number 51, Your Time Is Up.” Roger Waters said that the suggested song was “too sad” and sounded like church. It was revised by the band and became “Us and Them” on Dark Side of the Moon. Antonioni also visited The Doors while they were recording Morrison Hotel and while the recorded the song “L’America” for this, it went unused.

Frechette lived and died much like his character. He and Halprin also became romantically involved during the film’s long shooting schedule with Mark’s wife consent. After his divorce, Daria didn’t want to live in a commune like Mark so they also broke up. When they were on The Dick Cavett Show, Cavett said that he hadn’t seen the movie. Frechette replied, “Save your money.” Cavett laughed and said, “Well that’s the first time an actor has been on this show to unplug his movie.”

Antonioni’s original ending was a shot of an airplane skywriting the phrase “Fuck You, America.” Obviously, that was cut. But this was the first studio film to have the word motherfucker in it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz was on the CBS Late Movie on March 8, 1977; January 30 and November 9, 1978.

Director George E. Marshall’s career saw him make movies with Laurel and Hardy, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, W. C. Fields, Jackie Gleason and Will Rogers. Before that, he was a combat cinematographer with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in France during World War I. He also acted in several films and TV shows. Working from a script by Albert E. Lewin (the director of the 1945 The Picture of Dorian Gray), Nat Perrin (head writer of The Addams Family) and Burt Styler (a TV veteran who wrote the “Edith’s Problem” episode of All In the Family) — based on a story by Ken Englund — this was made on a summer hiatus for Hogan’s Heroes and stars three cast members: Bob Crane (Col. Robert E. Hogan), Werner Klemperer (Col. Wilhelm Klink and a U.S. Army veteran), John Banner (Sergeant Hans Georg Schultz; a Jewish Austrian, he defended being on the show by saying, “Schultz is not a Nazi. I see Schultz as the representative of some kind of goodness in any generation.”) and Leon Askin (who was General Burkhalter and whose parents died in an actual German concentration camp).

Paula Schultz (Elke Sommer, Baron Blood, Lisa and the Devil) has been training for the Olympics as part of the East German team. The truth is that she has been learning the pole vault so she can go over the Berlin Wall where she’s taken by con man Bill Mason (Crane) to his friend in the CIA, Herb Sweeney (Joey Forman).

Bill isn’t into the West vs. East Cold War. Instead, he loves money. He’s willing to take money from either side for Paula and she loves him. Crushed, she goes back to her home, only for him to realize that he had Elke Sommer and then he goes back to her homeland dressed as a woman to win her back.

This has even deeper Hogan’s Heroes connections as several of the actors in it played guest roles on the show. Theodore Marcuse had three roles, General Freidrich von Heiner, Pierre and Ludwig Strasser, as did Larry D. Mann, who was Illyich Igor Zagoskin, SS General Brenner and Doctor Vanetti. Overachiever John Myhers was in four different  episodes as Colonel Schneider, Dr. Hermann Felzer, General Wittkamper and Field Marshal von Heinke. Barbara Morrison was in just one as Mrs. Gretchen Schultz.

Not many would remember this movie today if it wasn’t for Quentin Tarantino. Chapter 7 (“The Lonely Grave of Paula Schultz”) in Kill Bill Vol. 2. comes from this movie, as does the name of Dr. King Schultz’s (Christoph Waltz) wife in Django Unchained.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Uncanny was on the CBS Late Movie on May 29, 1980 and December 11, 1981.

In 1977, legendary Amicus co-founder Milton Subotsky joined with  Canadian producer Claude Héroux (Scanners, Videodrome) to create a portmanteau movie in the grand Amicus style. The uniting story for this concerns a paranoid writer played by Peter Cushing who is trying to convince a publisher (Ray Milland) that cats are evil and that his book is the only way to save the human race.

Directed by Denis Héroux (Naked Massacre, Valerie) from a screenplay by Michel Parry (Xtro), this is a film that I’ve neglected over the past few years and can happily say lived up to my hopes for a fun anthology film.

The film begins the Montreal of 1977, as writer Wilbur Gray (Cushing) visits publisher Frank Richards(Milland) to discuss his new book. The writer is convinced that cats are actually Satanic creatures here to destroy humanity. He tells three stories to explain:

London 1912: Miss Malkin rewrites her will, leaving everything to her cats instead of her ne’er do well nephew Michael. The maid Janet, who is in love with Michael, tries to steal the will, but Miss Malkin catches her. Janet kills her, but the cats avenge her death.

Quebec 1975: Lucy (Katrina Holden Bronson, the adopted daughter of Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland) is an orphan who now lives with her aunt Mrs. Blake (Alexandra Stewart, who is also in Because of the Cats, which is appropriate). Her parents have died in a plane crash so she is allowed to keep her cat Wellington, who is an awesome fat black cat. However, her cousin covets the cat and any attention she can get. She’s played by Chloe Franks, who was the go to young girl in horror for this era, with appearances in Trog, The House That Dripped Blood (she’s Christopher Lee’s daughter), Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? and Tales from the Crypt (she’s Joan Crawford’s daughter). This section combines two of my horror loves — evil kids and Satanic hijinks.

Hollywood 1936: Actor Valentine De’ath (Donald Pleasence) replaces the blade of a fake pendulum to kill his actress wife, which gives him the opening he needs to give his young mistress a chance at acting. He didn’t count on her cat avenging her. This chapter features Samantha Eggar (Demonoid, Welcome to Blood City), Sean McCann (Starship Invasions) and the always awesome John Vernon (Curtains, National Lampoon’s Animal House).

This story has one of my favorite movie tropes, as when Cushing discusses Pleasence’s character, he holds up a photo that is in truth a publicity still of the actor as Blofeld and his cat Tiddes from You Only Live Twice.

For all the cat love in this, cinematographer Harry Waxman (The Wicker Man, The Beast In the Cellar) threatened to leave the film when he felt that the production was abusing cats.

That said — this is pretty much everything you want from an anthology. Modern filmmakers littering on demand services with their short films all assembled into one movie should take a moment and watch this to see how it’s done.

You can get this from Severin and watch it on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Golden Needles was on the CBS Late Movie on October 8, 1980 and May 29, 1981.

Golden Needles begins with an elderly asian man being treated to various needles that literaly rise both him — and his member — back from the dead, at which point his grinning harem guides him out of the room just in time for a group of flamethrower-spraying masked troopers to kill every single person with fire.

That’s how you start a movie.

As for the actual film, well, various groups are fighting amongst themselves to gain possession of a very special statue that has golden needles within it. If they inserted in the right areas on a man, he will gain super sexual skills. Or die, if things are done wrong.

Director Robert Clouse made Enter the Dragon and this finds him teaming up again with Jim Kelly, along with 70s sex symbol — I mean, I guess — Joe Don Baker. God bless American-International Pictures for making this movie and getting the cast they did, which includes Elizabeth Ashley (Windows) as Baker’s love interest and one of the people who wants the statue, Burgess Meredith as the nude man painting bad guy and Ann Sothern as a brothel owner.

You have to love a movie that has the credit “Jim Kelly’s Fight Sequence Choreographed By Himself” and then realize that that fight is filled with nude men trying to take a shower and their rear ends being used for comedy.

This movie is just the way I like them: filled with Joe Don Baker love scenes, karate and a PG rating for a film that starts with fire murders in a massage parlor.