EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.
You know, some people do great things. They invent things that help their fellow man. They write words of sheer beauty that move people to tears or songs that people have in their weddings or teach people things that change the world.
I watch Amityville movies and write about them.
Such is my albatross.
Stanley DeFeo has come back to Amityville and there’s this whole story of his parents coming there to run a bank and his mom fell for a dude named Asmodeus because you know, it was the sixties. But now there’s a cult in town and our hero is doomed.
Except it’s in Amityville, Texas.
Let’s have that sink in.
Amityville.
Texas.
Birthright: An Amityville Horror was the original title and this cost less than a used car and has a scene where a lawyer agrees to a meeting within minutes, not months, so it’s also science fiction. This is also known as Amityville Secret.
So yeah. Our hero comes home — don’t do that — reads his mother’s diary — don’t do that — tracks down his father — don’t do that — and tries to set things right — don’t do that — and then a bunch of hooded robed people end up on his porch, which is pretty awesome and I wish they would come over here and party with me because I’m kind of lonely tonight.
At one point, a character talks about getting to dance with the devil and I thought about that and kind of wished that this movie was about a woman finding her groove in the late sixties and escaping her boring husband through Satan, but that would be probably something only I’d want to see and not something that would fool you by being a new Amityville movie on the shelves at Walmart and the digital racks of Amazon Prime and Tubi.
I almost wrote, “You could have put a legit turd into my DVD case and I would have enjoyed it more,” but that just seems mean.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Nightmare Hotel was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, March 24, 1979 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, August 16, 1980 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, September 26, 1981 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, August 20, 1983 at 3:00 a.m.
Nightmare Hotel is the TV title for A Candle for the Devil which is also known as It Happened at Nightmare Inn. Directed by Eugenio Martín, it begins with sisters Marta (Aurora Bautista) and Verónica (Esperanza Roy) confronting May (Loreta Tovar), one of the guests at their small inn. She’s sunbathing nude outside and in the middle of an argument, she’s shoved down the stairs and dies when she goes through a stained glass window. Just as the sisters start to get rid of the body, the dead girl’s sister Laura (Judy Geeson) shows up, wondering where her sister is. She decides to stay there until she can find her sister.
Things are steamy all over town. One of the guests, Helen Miller (Lone Fleming), is on the make and bringing men back to her room at all hours of the evening. Verónica is sleeping with the much younger Luis (Carlos Piñe) and stealing money to give to him. And every man in the village seems to be swimming nude, which excited and enrages Marta, who soon kills Helen.
An American mother named Norma (Blanca Estrada) comes to stay just as Laura leaves, worried for her safety after Helen disappears. She asks Norma to let her know when she leaves to ensure that she isn’t killed. Soon, the sisters covet the baby and start to believe that Norma is a sex worker and has no idea who the father is. Verónica grabs her baby as Marta stabs the woman. It turns out that she was in the middle of a divorce and this gives Verónica more reasons to doubt her sister; she gives Luis all of her money and says she no longer wants to see him, begging him to leave town.
Laura returns, after not hearing from Norma. She brings a man from town, Eduardo (Víctor Barrera), who finds a container in the basement with mystery meat floating in red wine. As he finds Norma’s severed head, he’s murdered by Marta. At the same time, a guest gets sick from eating food made from people and her husband goes to the police.
Laura returns to her room and finds Eduardo’s body as the sisters attack her, dragging her to the room with the rotting meat. As she screams against a window, the police save her, but as her face and tears go through the credits, it seems like she will never be the same again.
When this played U.S. theaters as Dread Stop at Nightmare Inn, it got a PG rating. How?!?
I loved every moment, from the Blaise Pascal quote at the start — “There are only two types of men: The righteous who think they are sinners, and the sinners who think they are righteous” — to the final moments.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 19, 1963 at 3:00 p.m., Saturday, December 31, 1966 at 11:20 p.m. and Saturday, June 1, 1968 at 1:00 a.m.
Nathan Juran came to America from Romania. His brother became quality control master Joseph M. Juran. As for Nathan, he went from art directing The Razor’s Edge to directing movies like 20 Million Miles to Earth, Jack the Giant Killer, The 7th Voyage of Sinbadand this movie, which was written by Mark Hanna.
Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes) has some problems. Her husband Harry (William Hudson) is sleeping with every woman in town but her. She has mental health issues that have been going on for some time. And she likes to throw drinking and driving on top of that cocktail. One night, driving drunk from an angry evening at a bar, she runs into a flying saucer whose pilot gets out and grabs her.
Somehow, she gets away and no one believes her. After all, she just got out of a mental institution and in 1958 — well, 2024 as well — no one believes women. As for her husband, he’s just with her because she’s worth $50 million and is more interested in Honey Parker (Yvette Vickers, Playboy Playmate of the Month July 1959; her centerfold was shot by Russ Meyer). Nancy begs him to search for the UFO with her and as they drive through the desert — she has agreed to be hospitalized again — they find the alien. Harry runs and Nancy wakes up irradiated in her pool house.
Honey convinces Harry to shoot up his wife and kill her off. He walks into her room and only finds a giant hand as his wife starts to grow in size and anger. Dr. Isaac Cushing (Roy Gordon) and Dr. Heinrich Von Loeb (Otto Waldis) try to keep her sedated and the butler (Ken Terrell) finds the UFO, which is being powered by Nancy’s diamond necklace, which has the largest diamond in the world on it. Yes, the richest woman in the world who has the largest piece of jewelry is trapped in a loveless desert marriage that is fought out in dive bars.
Nancy heads back to the bar and tears the roof off, killing Honey before grabbing her husband. As she walks through bullets, one lawman fires at the power lines and kills her, but at least her husband dies too.
They almost made a sequel to this and Dimension Pictures was going to have Paul Morrissey remake it, then Jim Wynorski said he would with Sybil Danning. Christopher Guest then remade it with Daryl Hannah as an HBO movie. Now, Tim Burton and Gillian Flynn have said that they are making a new one, so we’ll see.
Roger Corman designed the poster for this movie. Nothing in the art happens in the movie, but who cares? It’s the most perfect idea of what we want to see.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Demons of the Mind was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, September 20, 1980 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, May 14, 1982 at 1:00 a.m.
Between Venom, To the Devil a Daughterand this movie, Peter Sykes is an unappreciated creator of early 70s scummy horror. Written by Christopher Wicking (Cry of the Banshee, Scream and Scream Again), this movie combines insanity, mesmerism, religious fervor, incest, Satanic possession and just plain British weirdness to make the kind of movie that we watch on a rainy Sunday.
Baron Friedrich Zorn (Robert Hardy) keeps his children Emil (Shane Briant) and Elizabeth (Gillian Hills) locked up and away from one another, lest they make sweet sweet brother and sister love in the name of the devil. After all, his own wife had a madness like theirs that led to her suicide in front of both of them — or maybe he just wouldn’t sleep with her any longer and she got so upset at the loss of getting some of little Friedrich that she offed herself — so they both must be constantly treated to the bloodletting that takes out the evil flowing through their bodies.
Meanwhile — if that’s not enough –women s are being murdered in the woods and covered with rose petals. The townspeople think demons are to blame and by the end of the movie, they go absolutely beyond wild and try to wipe out the cause. There’s also Doctor Falkenberg (Patrick Magee) who has a carny method of curing the evil out of the Zorn progeny; he intends to get a village woman named Inge (Virginia Wetherell) to portray their dead mother in a strange roleplaying exercise while another young local named Carl (Paul Jones, who once sang for Manfred Mann) falls for Elizabeth. And oh yeah — maybe the Baron is more to blame than anyone.
Gillian Hills was a last minute replacement for Marianne Faithful, but the early 70s were not a good time for her, as she lost her son and was dealing with heroin addiction, anorexia and living on the streets. She wasn’t able to be insured for this movie.
I’m a lover of late period Hammer, as they move away from the classics and start to make their own weird little movies. Of course, they’re often filled with lots of nudity, madness and Satanic forces, so…look, I’m weak and I love what I love.
Woody Invincible (Jordan Chan) and Crazy Bee (Sam Lee) are mallrats, stealing from stores, gambling and selling bootleg VCDs probably of movies just like this. Actually, the movie starts with them bootlegging the film that you’re about to watch. They flirt with Rolls (Angela Tong), who works at the beauty spa, fight with cellphone store owner Mr. Kui (Wayne Lai) and do small jobs for their gangster boss, like getting his car. Well, on the way back to the mall, they hit a zombie infected government agent and Woody drinks his soda, which has a bioweapon inside it that turns humans into the walking dead. And oh yeah, they try and hide the body of the dead man, who isn’t dead and is soon turning the mall into Hong Kong Monroeville.
Also called Hong Kong Zombie, this has some fun video game moments and the kind of nihilistic ending that Romero would have loved. Directed by Wilson Yip, who co-wrote the story with Matt Chow and Man Sing So, this may not have much new when it comes to zombies, but once it gets the mall filled with them, it picks up steam and goes for it.
This movie worships Dead Alive and shouldn’t every movie nerd? Amazingly, this got a blu ray release before its inspiration.
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 is working to save the lives of cats and dogs all across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes.
Today’s theme: Physical Media
Here’s the difference between physical media and watching this on streaming. Streaming will not have a menu that has animated mouths on all the characters so they can sing the theme song.
Kung Fu Rascals was directed by Steve Wang, who also made The Guyver, Drive, Guyver: Dark Hero, Sirens of the Deep and episodes of Power Rangers Lost Galaxy and Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight. He also has worked on the FX crews on movies like The Monster Squad, Predator, DeepStar Six, Gremlins 2, Arena, the Underworld films and so many more.
He also wrote this with Troy Fromin and Johnnie Saiko and, as he played a role in the Super 8 trailer that led to this movie, he ended up acting in it as Chow Chow Mein. He and his friends Lao Ze (Troy Fromin) and Reepo (Johnnie Saiko) have to stop Dar Ling The Bamboo Man from destroying their village. Just like a sentai show, Bamboo Man (Ted Smith) sits in a throne room and orders around his underling Raspmutant the Mad Monk (Wyatt Weed). Then, they send out new monsters and ninjas to fight our three heroes. As for the evil sheriff, that is not Primus’ Les Claypool but the man who wrote the music for Guyver: Dark Hero — thanks Outlaw Vern — and an Imperial Torture Master (Matt Rose). The bad guys are really bad. The good guys are really good. The humor? Really silly.
$43,000 has never been better spent than it was in the making of this movie, one that closes with giant stone monsters fighting on a beach. And hey — those are the frogs from Hell Comes to Frogtown being brought back and who can blame Wang, because they look great.
In a perfect world, there would have been ten of these movies. Have you ever been forced to have a playdate as a kid with some other child whose mom works with your mom and you don’t want to go and then you get there and not only do they have all the action figures you don’t but also understand their file cards and motivations and you end up having a great time? Well, that’s how this movie feels.
Visual Vengeance has just released this film, the first time it’s ever come out on blu ray. It has tons bonus features, including commentaries, rare BTS footage and a brand new feature-length documentary on the making of the film. Here’s what you get:
Director-supervised SD master from original tape elements
The Making of Kung Fu Rascals: Brand New Feature Length Documentary
The Reunion of the Three Rascals
Commentary with director Steve Wang and actors Johnnie Saiko, Troy Firman and Ted Smith and composer and actor Les Claypool III
Commentary with Kung Fu Rascals superfans Justin Decloux and Dylan Cheung
Steve Wang & Les Claypool III meet again
Chris Gore Interview: Distributing Kung Fu Rascals on VHS
Behind The Scenes video diaries
Original Kung Fu Rascals Super 8 short film
Steve Wang Short Film: Code 9
Complete Film Threat Video #6 BTS Article
Stills and behind the scenes galleries
Visual Vengeance Trailer
“Stick Your Own” VHS Sticker Set
Reversible Sleeve Featuring Original VHS Art
Folded mini-poster
2-sided insert with alternate art
12 page mini comic book
Limited Edition Slipcase by The Dude
If you love kung fu, weird cinema, low budget films or just want an incredible physical media release, you can’t go wrong with this. Get it now from MVD or Diabolik DVD!
EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.
One year after Amityville Scarecrow, Tina (Amanda Jade-Tyler) and Mary (Kate Sandison) are about to reopen the camp from the first movie, but there could be some evil still lurking about. In England. Not in New York. Yes, Amityville gets like that.
Directed by Craig McLearie (The Killing Tree) and written by Adam Cowie, the beginning of this movie is well shot and made me think that I was actually going to get a quality Amityville movie. Then, the talking begins and never seems to end and the Amityville Scarecrow never really does anything.
This movie is about trailer parks and the legal dealings of trailer parks and you know, I kind of want my Amityville movies to not be about human affairs but whatever. It’s better than the first one, but that’s like being constipated for a few days and then having non-stop diarrhea. They’re both bad and you don’t want go through them, but at least it’s some level of change.
I mean, I’m not going to stop pooping. And I’m not going to stop watching Amityville movies.
Gordon Hauge (Mark Redfield) gets fired, kicked out of his apartment and dumped by his wife Maggie (Gage Sheridan) all in one day, then wrecks his car and wakes up under attack by the Ragmen and Shadowmen of purgatory, the world between heaven and hell. He soon meets others who are trapped here because they ended their lives in a moment of noble sacrifice, all united in combat against the dreaded Despiser, a horrific blast of 2003 CGI that crashed into our planet when his spaceship slammed into Russia in 1908 and caused the Tunguska event.
Despiser feels like a Canadian movie but it’s made in Virginia.
It has the tones of a faith film but is packed with tons of violence.
And it feels like parts of The Wizard of Oz, The Stand and Lord of the Rings yet has so many strange ideas inside it that it feels like nothing else.
As the official site says, director and writer Philip Cook “was intrigued by the idea of an alternative world like ours, recognizable but skewed, dark and ominous—a blend of our culture mixed with macabre fantasy. This concept became the purgatory, a place where, after death, one’s soul is purified of sin—by suffering. But in this story, something has gone terribly wrong with it. It’s no longer a clearinghouse for confused souls; it’s become bottlenecked, out of balance and fraught with conflict.”
Keep in mind that this isn’t a movie with a multimillion-dollar budget but instead is a combination of green screen shot on video footage and all the CGI money could buy in 2003. If you liked the strange worlds that show up in Fungicide, good news. This goes even harder, if that’s possible. It feels like if you stare at it long enough, you’ll be able to see a sailboat in its pixels.
Cook was a vet by the time that he made this, as he had already written, directed, edited and/or photographed hundreds of commercials for clients ranging from The Washington Opera to MTV. Before that, he worked on Nightbeast for Don Dohler, Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor and was the director of photography for Godfrey Ho on the Cynthia Rothrock movie Undefeatable.
When he made this movie in 1998, no one was making movies with a stylized look like this. It’s accepted now — just look at how The Mandalorian has been filmed — but in the five years it took to make, Cook said that “the audience was jaded because 3D was everywhere. Special effects aren’t special anymore.”
I disagree. No movie anywhere looks like Despiser.
It even has some intriguing heroes beyond Gordon, like Nimbus (Doug Brown), a soldier who has been in purgatory since World War One, kamikaze pilot Tomasawa (Frank Smith), Jake (Michael Weitz) and Charlie Roadtrap (Tara Bilkins).
Joe Bob gave this three and a half stars and had these totals: “Forty-nine dead bodies. Five gun battles. Three crash-and-burns. Four motor vehicle chases. One sucker punch. Two body-transformation scenes. One hydrogen explosion. One Viking funeral. One peasant riot. Flaming church. Flaming car. Upside-down crucifixion. Grotesque insect destruction. Doll-stomping. Gratuitous shipwrecks. Kung Fu. Grenade Fu. Bazooka Fu.”
For those that look at the cover image for this and instantly think, “I need to know more,” or loved staring at blacklight posters at Spencer’s or played enough Gamma World, this is for you. It’s definitely for me.
I really can’t recommend this movie enough.
Beyond me loving this movie, if you want to hear Bill Van Ryn and I talk about it, we’re on the disc! Other extras include:
Producer-supervised SD master from original tape source
Commentary with director Philip J. Cook and stars Mark Redfield and Gage Sheridan
New 2023 interview with director Philip J. Cook and star Mark Hyde
It’s sold out now, but on the commentary track, we said that you got a free troll with the movie. How amazing is Visual Vengeance that the troll was actually included in the Diabolik DVD bundle?
It was such an honor to get to be part of this, a movie that I admire and hope to get others to see. Order it now!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Spiritism was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, July 1, 1967 at 1:00 a.m.
Benito also directed Munecos Infernales, Santo vs. the Zombiesand the astoundingly titled Frankenstein el Vampiro y Compania. This time, he’s sending his movie up north where Espiritismo will become Spiritism thanks to K. Gordon Murray.
This goes the Monkey’s Paw one better by having Satan himself grant the wishes. I mean, when the Lord of Lies is giving things away, that’s when you start questioning things. Louis and Mary Howard (Nora Veryan and Louis Fernandez) decide to attend a seance with a medium by the name of Elvira (Diana Ochoa). She warns them that April 8 will be the start of tragedy and seeing as how that’s their 20th anniversary, they suddenly get concerned and soon are dealing with death, spirits and the decimation of their family.
This movie features a character so clueless that she goes to a seance for herself, which sounds like a joke I should be saving for the next time someone wants to play The Dozens against me. Actually, the scene where she discovers that she is dead and can’t believe it is incredibly sad.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Haunted Strangler was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, June 27, 1964 at 4:00 p.m. and Sunday, September 13, 1964 at 11:15 p.m.
Jan Read wrote the story “Stranglehold” just for Boris Karloff, who made this movie at the same time as Fiend Without a Face, the movie that it played double features with.
Edward Styles (Michael Atkinson) is executed for being the Haymarket Strangler, a killer who choked women with one arm while stabbing them. As his coffin is closed, someone slips a knife in and for twenty years, no one thinks of these crimes.
James Rankin (Boris Karloff) believes that Styles was innocent and begins to look into the crime. As he killed his last victim, Martha Stuart, at the Judas Hole bar — The Judas Hole is an alternate title, as is The Grip of the Strangler — as others watched, including singer Cora Seth (Joan Kent). A man named Tenant did the autopsies of the victims and grew ill before the end of the case. This makes Rankin think that he could be the killer but without the murder weapon, it’s hard to put the evidence together. No one can find Tenant, who went insane just after the murders.
Ready for the spoiler?
As Rankin looks at the bones of Styles, he finds the knife and begins to transform, his face changing and his arm being paralyzed like the strangler. Somehow, thanks to the love of his nurse — and wife — Barbara (Elizabeth Allan) he has been able to keep the Strangler inside himself. Now, as he investigates the case, he alternates between the two different personas and begins to kill again, including his wife. This drives him further into psychosis and he begins screaming that he is the killer yet no one believes him. As he attempts to kill his daughter Lily (Diane Aubrey), he finally realize he must be stopped. As he tries to bury the knife in the grave, he is shot and killed by the police.
Director John Croydon was also shooting First Man Into Space at the same time, so British drive-in films were in great demand. He kept directing the whole way until 1991 with the TV movie Fire: Trapped on the 37th Floor. He also made She, Corridors of Blood and The Green Man.
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