Anthony Cardoza produced some really interesting films. You may call them turkeys. You may also call them…well, you wouldn’t call them works of art. But hey, his movies live on, like The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Hellcats and today’s film, Bigfoot.

Jasper B. Hawks (John Carradine!) and Elmer Briggs (John Mitchum, brother of Robert and the writer of the John Wayne voiced “America, Why I Love Her” that TV stations used to sign off when TV stations still existed and actually signed off) are driving around the forest. And Joi Landis (Joi Lansing, a former MGM contract girl who shows up in the long tracking shot that begins Touch of Evil, in her final role) is a pilot whose plane breaks down. She parachutes into the woods and encounters Bigfoot.

Then there’s Rick (Chris Mitchum, son of Robert and also an actor in films like Jodorowsky’s Tusk and Jess Franco’s Faceless) and his girlfriend Chris, who find a Bigfoot cemetery and get attacked, too.

Of course, the authorities are of no help. Only Jasper will help Rick, and that’s because he wants a Bigfoot for his freak show.

Peggy gets kidnapped by Bigfoot, and we discover that Joi has been taken, too. Upon reaching the lair of the Bigfoots (Bigfeet?), we discover that the creatures we’ve seen are his wives, and the real creature is 200 feet tall. Yes,. You just read that right. And he’s about to fight a bear that’s just as huge.

A gang of bikers gasses Bigfoot, but he escapes the freakshow and then gets blown up by bikers. John Carradine quotes from King Kong (he does throughout the film) and the movie ends.

Along the way, we find Doodles Weaver, whose scene in the completely bonkers The Zodiac Killer may be the most ridiculous scene in what is quite honestly one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen.

And hey, is that Bing Crosby’s son Lindsey? Yes, it is! And the first singing cowboy, Ken Maynard! This movie has actors with much more interesting stories than the film they’re stuck in.

But you know what is interesting? The strange doom funk that plays every time the bikers show up. And keep your eyes open for a quick appearance by Haji, who famously appeared in Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! 

Director Robert F. Slatzer only did two other movies, but one of them was The Hellcats, where Russ Hagen battles a female gang. Leather on the outside…all woman on the inside!

But hey — Bigfoot. Come for the bikers. Stay for the bigfoots. Enjoy the bikinis. But dig this crazy sound, man!

Steve Carver originally intended to get involved in the worlds of cartooning, commercial art and animation before becoming a cameraman for ABC’s Wide World of Sports, shooting St. Louis Cardinals baseball games before he made thirty documentaries while teaching college at the same time.

One of those documentaries got him into the American Film Institute, where he studied under George Stevens, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlton Heston and Gregory Peck. He also had the opportunity to be the assistant director on Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun.

Carver’s final AFI project was a short based on Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, which brought him to the attention of Roger Corman. He edited 150 trailers for the producer and directed The Arena — which has Joe D’Amato as director of cinematography — before this film. He’d go on to make two Chuck Norris films, Lone Wolf McQuade and An Eye for an Eye, before leaving film for the world of photography, pining for the more fun days of working with Corman.

Texas, 1932. Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson) has taken over her dead man’s bootlegging still but gets caught by the law. Forced to hand over all her money and even her wedding ring to the sheriff, she decides that she and her daughters Polly (Robbie Lee, Lace from Switchblade Sisters and eventually the voice of Twink on Rainbow Brite; she’s also the goddaughter of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans) and Billy Jean (Susan Sennett, The Candy Snatchers and wife of Graham Nash) are going to live a life of crime.

While Wilma is at a bank trying to pass a fake check, the girls end up helping Fred Diller (Tom Skerritt) as he knocks over the joint. He and Wilma soon become lovers, but that doesn’t last long before she’s bedding gambler William J. Baxter (William Shatner), and he starts sleeping with both of her daughters, sometimes at the same time, because Roger Corman produced this.

After kidnapping and ransoming the daughter of a millionaire, federal agents and the police finally track down the gang. Baxter gets cuffed, and the girls escape while Diller defends them with a hail of Thompson submachine gun fire. But as they drive away, Wilma dies, her bloody arm dragging against the left side of the car as it speeds away.

Well, or so you’d think, as there was a sequel.

I learned so much about so-called bad movies from the Medved brothers. In their 1986 tome Son of the Golden Turkey Awards, they nominated Dickinson’s role in this film as “The Most Embarrassing Nude Scene in Hollywood History.” Now that I’m older and wiser, I can say that these guys must have been embarrassed themselves as they actually enjoyed this trash. I hate the idea of guilty pleasures; just like what you like.

Oddly enough, Jerry Garcia performed most of the guitar and banjo music in the movie. And if you’re looking for fun actors, Sally Kirkland, Dick Miller and Royal Dano all show up. It’s not the best movie you’ve ever seen, but it’s filled with sin, skin and bullets. What else were you hoping for?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Architect Larry Andrews and his new wife, Barbara (horror movie super couple John Saxon and Linda Day George; if these two ever had a child, it would either be a demon or a gleaming golden angel), have moved to a small island off the coast of the Philippines. Del (former minor league baseball player Michael Dante; he’s also in The Farmer and was introduced to acting by John Wayne), Larry’s business partner, had promised them a brand new condo. Instead, they’re moving into Casa Fortuna, the haunted former home of Esteban and Alma Martín (Janice Lynde), who died after a fight started by Alma’s obsession with the occult.

Within what seems like minutes, next door neighbors and psychic surgery experts Dr. Solomon (David Opatoshu) and his wife Leia (Anna Marisse) warn Larry that Alma wants his young bride’s body for her own. At the same time, Barbara is luring Del into the home with promises of sex and then shoving him off the balcony.

You know what this movie needs? An exorcism. Well, it gets it.

Herb Freed is kind of a forgotten king. I mean, the dude made Haunts, Graduation Day and Tomboy, which are three other movies I watch all the time. He wrote the script with producer David Baughn and Paul Ross.

You can watch this on Tubi or order it from Vinegar Syndrome.

I was so loud while watching this movie that my wife had to come to check on me. The sheer delight had overtaken me when East Eddie (Sid Haig) appeared in a film where gigantic-eyed Atlantean people attempted to keep their undersea world alive thanks to a new queen named Syrene (Leigh Christian), who must constantly sire new children, as decreed by her adopted father Nereus (George Nader).

Eddie is part of a group trying to farm pearls for money, which includes what could be the exploitation movies made in the Philippines version of The Avengers: Manuel the Barracuda (Vic Díaz), Logan (John Ashley) and Vic Mathias (Patrick Wayne).

Producer Ashley had the idea that this would be a science fiction version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which is a big idea, while Wayne would only be in the film if it was a family-friendly movie, but it’s also about rebuilding the DNA of a dying world of interbred bug-eyed merpeople, which is a fun juxtaposition.

The underwater scenes are gorgeous, and this has way better production values than many movies made in the Philippines. Yet if it had more exploitation—a fact that Ashley believed—I think it would be a more exciting movie.

This was released by Dimension Pictures in 1973 and rereleased by 21st Century.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Beware! The Blob or Son of the Blob is a big idea to get your head around. While the original was presented as horror, this film pretty much leans into how ridiculous it all is. Written by Anthony Harris and Jack Woods from a story by Richard Clair and Jack H. Harris, a lot of this was improvised on set, and the script—even though it took all those people—was mostly ignored.

Harris was also the producer, and Anthony was his college graduate son. They were next door neighbors with Larry Hagman — who had previously directed episodes of I Dream of Jeannie and The Good Life — who had never seen The Blob. Harris screened his print for the actor/director, who loved it and said that he could get a lot of his Hollywood friends to show up and get blobbed, as long as he could direct.

Fifteen years after the original Blob destroyed parts of Pennsylvania, Chester (Godfrey Cambridge) has brought a piece of that creature from its frozen grave in the North Pole, where he does the sensible thing and puts it in the fridge. It grows in size as it eats a fly, a kitten, and then his wife, Marianne (Marlene Clark). Finally, while Chester watches The Blob on TV, it eats him too, just in time for Lisa (Gwynne Gilford) to watch him get claimed by the creature.

As she tries to get her boyfriend Bobby (Robert Walker Jr.). to believe what she’s seen, the red jelly eats its way through Los Angeles, claiming the lives of two hippies (Randy Stonehill and Cindy Williams) in a storm drain — were they looking for Simon? — as well as officer Sid Haig, chickens, horses, a bar, a gas station, Scoutmaster Dick Van Patten, a barber (Shelley Berman) and even some home-displaced folks (Hagman, Burgess Meredith and Del Close, who is wearing an eyepatch as his cornea was scratched by a cat previous to filming; he’d return with a similar look as Reverend Meeker in perhaps the best horror remake of all time, 1988’s The Blob).

It takes an ice rink — which was torn down shortly after filming — to stop the monster — maybe — this time. As for the bowling alley in this movie, it’s Jack Rabbit Slims from Pulp Fiction.

In the first movie, the Blob was made of silicone and dyed red. It had to be stirred throughout the movie to keep its color. This Blob was made from a red-dyed powder blended with water, as well as a big red plastic balloon, red plastic sheeting and a red drum of hard red silicone spun in front of the camera. Tim Baar and Conrad Rothmann created these effects, and beyond working on the second unit camera, Dean Cundey helped, years before he’d become such a force in filmmaking.

In 1982, when Hagman was on Dallas and the shooting of his character J.R. Ewing was the biggest moment in pop culture, this was re-released with the headline “The film that J.R. shot!”

You can watch this on Tubi.

I knew the song “Ben” better than Ben the movie, but now, I know both.

Remember when Willard Stiles was killed by Ben and all the rats when he finally tried to kill them? Well, you get to see it again when this movie starts and we follow Ben until he meets Danny Garrison (Lee Harcourt Montgomery, Burnt Offerings), a lonely boy with a heart condition. They become best friends — until now, Danny only has his mother, Beth (Rosemary Murphy) and sister, Eve (Meredith Baxter) — and Danny does fun stuff like write songs for them, put on marionette shows for their amusement and create a train ride for them.

Rats are rats, however, and they go nuts, attacking food trucks, grocery stores, and people, all while they help Danny get over bullies, loneliness and probably dying soon.

Directed by Phil Karlson (The Wrecking Crew, Walking Tall) and written by Gilbert Ralston (the creator of The Wild, Wild West), this has an ending where you will care about a rat more than you thought was possible. Seriously, I got weepy. Over a rat. A rat that got to ride in a train, dammit, not I’m crying again.

Also known as Any Body…Any Way, this movie was exactly what I wanted it to be: fucking weird.

When Terry Wilson (Joyce Danner) and Ann Henderson (Eve Reeves) go to the middle of nowhere for a barn party, Ann is nearly raped but saved by the middle-aged, British and oh-so-strange Mr. Bradley (Daniel Garth). They ditch the party and Ann’s man, but then run out of gas because otherwise we wouldn’t have a movie.

In the middle of nowhere, they walk up to a house — on the suggestion of a drifter (Ivan Agar, Laughing Crow from Shriek of the Mutilated) who is more than he seems — that just so happens to belong to Mr. Bradley and his sister Ida (Irene Lawrence). They have no phone and their car isn’t working either, so they stay for dinner and a bed for the evening. Ida needs the company. She’s been there for two years, ever since her mortician brother retired.

So why are there bars on the windows? Why did their door lock behind them? Why are the closest filled with women’s clothing of all sizes? Why would Terry pick this exact and terrifying time to finally get sapphic with her office buddy?

The Bradleys wake them up and let them know that they’re in control and must play their demented games with them or end up like all the embalmed bodies in the basement. Mr. Bradley just wants to discover the perfect way to make love, so if he has to tie up women and then kill them, that’s how his laboratory of libido operates.

I mean, this is a movie that starts with fifteen minutes of go go dancing in a barn — I played in a band that practiced in a barn and it’s hard to sing when all you can smell is shit, so I can’t even imagine go go dancing while smelling cow feces — and ends with that same barn and Ann going off with the guy who tried to rape her and Terry finding another young lady to enjoy a game of flats with. Yes, I used a 17th-century term — lesbian sex was thought to look like two playing cards rubbing together — in this article. I bring you quality euphemisms, my friend.

Did you not see Harry Novak’s signature hanging above this? Behind Locked Doors was directed and co-written by Charles Romine, who would go on to make Mysteries of the Gods. In contrast, producer and uncredited co-writer Stanley H. Brassloff made one of the most upsetting softcore movies, Toys Are Not for Children.

This movie looks way better than it should, with great lighting, bright colors, and a room full of gorgeous and dead women — or are they? — posed seductively, along with an off-the-rails room destroying catfight and an ending that blew my mind, as deceased denizens of the strange mansion come back for one last dance with brother and sister into the inferno. This is the kind of movie that makes you stay for all that barn dancing, and you wonder, “When does it get weird? Sam promised me it would get there,” and when it does, you’ll text me and say, “I can’t believe that this is a real movie.” Well, it is, pal. It sure is.

Alfredo Zacarías made Demonoid, and we should thank him for that. He also took advantage of the sheer terror that ensued when the Africanized honey bee was on its way to America. Initially used in Brazil to increase honey production, 26 swarms escaped quarantine in 1957 and spread throughout South America, incredibly defensive and angry bees that supposedly can chase a person for a mile. These bees have killed a thousand people, with many of their victims being stung over and over again. Just imagine six-year-old me watching this on the news every night as we were told repeatedly how close these bees were to us and how doomed we all were.

I also blame the exploitation film industry, which seized upon this and made so many killer bee movies, as they had all the news doing their advertising work for them. There was the 1974 TV movie Killer Bees, The Swarm and this movie, ads filled with just bee after bee, and I’d watch when I was outside, sure today was the day I’d be stung to death.

Jack Hill went uncredited on this as a writer, as he was supposed to direct it, but life didn’t work out that way. It’s the story of South American killer bees who haven’t just been smuggled into the country for experiments, but have also mutated into even smarter than your average bee and use that to kill humans.

It all happens when Dr. Miller (Claudio Brook) is trying to crossbreed the aggressive bees with a much calmer species to make more honey. A local tries to break in and steal the bees, which leads to his angry family and friends burning down Miller’s house, and the bees escaping. Meanwhile, Miller’s wife Sandra (Angel Tompkins) takes the queen to her uncle Dr. Sigmund Hummel (John Carradine, of course) and Dr. John Norman (John Saxon), who have the same goals as her husband, except there’s a honey spy ring trying to make more money off the bees and that means murder.

There’s a scene where Carradine falls to his doom, and I won’t lie—I watched it nine times, and with each rewatch, I loved this movie even more. Also, John Saxon speaks to stock footage of the UN.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Jason (Calvin Lockhart) is trying to make his auteur — or vanity — project, a movie about Baron Wolfgang von Trips. But the studio wants to buy the project and replace him as director and actor. And then the connection to the studio dies, leaving Jason holding the. bill for the mob who was really paying for this. They send Joey (Richard Lynch) to collect the money as Jason gets hired by The Cokeman (Charles McGregor) to service Old Hollywood actress Joan Blondell, who is playing Mama Lou. As you can expect, his girl Caroline (Marlene Clark) can’t understand. Neither can I. That’s Ganja herself! What are you doing, Jason?

Somehow, in the middle of all this, Gil Scott-Heron did the music.

Also, Calvin Lockhart said, “There’s no stopping what can’t be stopped, no killing what can’t be killed,” in Predator 2.

Director Phillip Fenty also wrote Super Fly, and co-wrote this with his wife Linda and  Nelson Lyon (the writer/director of The Telephone Book!?!). It’s something—a movie past the blacksploitation timeline but with elements of it, Lynch chewing the scenery, dropping sexist, racist and just plain evil dialogue on everyone.

You can watch this on YouTube.