September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on September 27 and 28, 2024. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $15 per person. You can buy tickets at the show but get there early and learn more here.

The features for Friday, September 27 are The Raven, The Terror, The Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Crab Monsters. Saturday, September 28 has The Beyond, Opera, Cemetery Man and A Blade In the Dark.

Directed by Roger Corman, this played double features with his film Not of This Earth.

A group of scientists and sailors land on a remote Pacific Ocean island as a search party for a previous expedition that disappeared without a trace. Just like the New X-Men and Krakoa, huh? While they’re there, the scientists plan on studying the impact of nuclear tests from the Bikini Atoll on the island’s ecosystem.

Charles B. Griffith, who wrote this, said he was kind of conned into it: “Roger came to me and said, “I want to make a picture called Attack of the Giant Crabs” and I asked, “Does it have to be atomic radiation?” He responded, “Yes.” He said it was an experiment. “I want suspense or action in every scene. No kind of scene without suspense or action.” His trick was saying it was an experiment, which it wasn’t. He just didn’t want to bother cutting out the other scenes, which he would do.”

Corman, ever the one to make it seem nice, said “I talked to Chuck Griffith about this. Chuck and I worked out a general storyline before he went to work on the script. I told him, “I don’t want any scene in this picture that doesn’t either end with a shock or the suspicion that a shocking event is about to take place.” And that’s how the finished script read.”

Will Dr. Karl Weigand (Leslie Bradley), geologist James Carson,(Richard H. Cutting) and biologists Jules Deveroux (Mel Welles), Martha Hunter (Pamela Duncan) and Dale Drewer (Richard Garland) survive? I know who doesn’t. A sailor named Tate, played by Griffith, who also directed some of the action moments.

Not only does this have giant crabs, they’re also telepathic giant crabs. Guy N. Smith must have seen this movie before he wrote Night of the Crabs, Killer Crabs, The Origin of the Crabs, Crabs on the Rampage, Crabs’ Moon, Crabs: The Human Sacrifice, Crabs’ Fury, Crabs’ Armada, Crabs: Unleashed, Killer Crabs: The Return, Crabs Omnibus and The Charnel Caves: A Crabs Novel.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

45 years ago, Greydon Clark decided that he was going to direct and write a movie that would bring together a cast that would make me lose my mind. Well, he did it. Mel Ferrer as the conflicted sheriff. Darby Hinton as race car driver Mark. Mel Ferrer and Ralph Meeker play small town cops. Neville Brand plays a bartender. Stephen McNally is the angry dad whose kid gets killed in a race and uses the cops to crack skills. Stuntwoman Diane Peterson plays Mark’s engine obsessed girlfriend Lynn. And it’s all shot by Dean Cundy, so it looks way better than it should.

Adult Darby Hinton without a mustache is a weird thing. He looks like John Schneider.

The Hi-Riders like to race, they like to drink and they like to smash stuff up. But yeah, when a race between Billy (Brad Reardon) and McNally’s son goes bad, they’re in for trouble. Leader T.J.  (William Beaudine, Jr.) and Mark have to fight their way out, if they can, after the rest of the gang are murdered.

If you’re watching movies just for the cars, Mark has an amazing 1968 Pontiac Firebird, while T.J. has a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T. It also has a twisty ending, which I am all for, as it ends with a crazy stunt after all the double crosses.

Sadly, when you see “Vic Rivers – We Loved Him” in the credits, you should know that Rivers was one of the stuntmen who died doing a stunt in this film.

This was originally released by Dimension Pictures and bought by 21st Century.

You can watch this on YouTube.

September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on September 27 and 28, 2024. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $15 per person. You can buy tickets at the show but get there early and learn more here.

The features for Friday, September 27 are The Raven, The Terror, The Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Crab Monsters. Saturday, September 28 has The Beyond, Opera, Cemetery Man and A Blade In the Dark.

Directed by Roger Corman, written by Charles B. Griffith and made under the name The Passionate People Eater, this movie was made in two days for $28,000 on the same sets as A Bucket of Blood. Playing double features with Black Sunday and Last Woman On Earth, it became a cult film and that continued once it aired repeatedly on TV.

Gravis Mushnick (Mel Welles) and his two employees, Audrey Fulquard (Jackie Joseph) and Seymour Krelboined (Jonathan Haze), run a flower shop that seen better days. When Seymour screws up an order for dentist Dr. Phoebus Farb (John Shaner), he’s fired until he shows his new plant, which he claims he grew from a seed that he was given by a Japanese gardener over on Central Avenue. He names it Audrey 2 and before you know it, it lives on human blood and then people. Yet it brings people into the store and becomes famous. Gravis calls Seymour son now.

Of course, Gravis eventually sees Seymour feeding a dead homeless man — it was an accident, but still — to Audrey 2 and then Dr. Farb, who he killed in self defense. But the crimes are getting worst and the police — named Fink and Stoolie — and the Society of Silent Flower Observers of Southern California wants to give Seymour an award. All he wants is the original Audrey, but the plant hypnotizes him and makes him continue bringing him food.

The movie was actually written at a coffee house. Corman said, “We ended up at a place where Sally Kellerman (before she became a star) was working as a waitress, and as Chuck and I vied with each other, trying to top each other’s sardonic or subversive ideas, appealing to Sally as a referee, she sat down at the table with us, and the three of us worked out the rest of the story together.”

This is also an early Jack Nicholson movie — the actor said that “I went in to the shoot knowing I had to be very quirky because Roger originally hadn’t wanted me. In other words, I couldn’t play it straight. So I just did a lot of weird shit that I thought would make it funny.” — and as you know, went on to become even bigger when it was made into a musical and remade in 1986. There was even a cartoon, Little Shop, that was on Fox Kids and had Corman as a consultant. As for this one, Corman was so sure it wouldn’t do well that he never got a copyright and let it go into public domain.

Dick Miller really did eat that flower.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Every time I write about a Laura Gemser movie, I always say to myself, “Just be cool. Don’t write an entire article just about how gorgeous she is and how you can’t even concentrate on the screen when she’s in a movie.”

So let me get it out of my system.

There’s an absolutely insane moment in this movie where Laura’s husband Carlo (Gabriele Tinti) demands that she pose for him in front of a desert vista filled with dead bodies and blood. As she barely remains inside her dress, she bends backward and begins a series of poses that make her seemingly take the form of Kali, all at once becoming the goddess of time, death, violence, sexuality, female empowerment and motherly love as she transcends this mortal world of warfare and sadness to become ethereal, something beyond our understanding.

Thanks, I feel a lot better.

This movie is supposed to be all about Crystal (Nieves Navarro)…

Wait a second, Nieves Navarro is in the same movie as Laura Gemser?

Why did anyone make movies after this? You have pretty much scored a perfect cast.

Anyways, I guess I should finish this review I started.

Crystal’s husband has left her, as if any man is dumb enough to run from Susan Scott, and she has moved in with her daughter Magda (Ziggy Zanger, who also in Black Cobra with Gemser and her name sounds like a Spice Girls lyric). She sleeps with their servant Ali (Tarik Ali), who is mainly teased by her daughter, and then both of them fall for a spiritualist named Horatio (Al Cliver, did I cast this movie?).

After an evening reconnecting with Laura and Carlo, as well as drinking too much with former Hollywood actor, Hal (Feodor Chaliapin Jr.), mother and daughter end up having a menage a trois while everyone watches.

Pina (Annie Belle, yes, I definitely casted this movie) soon comes to stay and falls for Laura. They end up stranding her husband in the desert after he forces Laura to pose on the top of a pile of human excrement while villagers throw feces at her. Yes, this happens, and no, this is not a Joe D’Amato movie. I am as shocked as you.

As if that’s not wild enough, Horatio later — I mean, after the obligatory visit a foreign brothel and watch ladies and then a lovemaking scene between Gemser and Belle that the foreign investors were just throwing money at — hypnotizes Laura into having convulsions and killing a goat drinking its blood because, well, that’s what you do in Italian movie parties.

So yes, Horatio ends up sleeping with Pina even though her psychic powers allow her to block his hypnosis — yes this happens — and then her mom tries to kill herself and Pina realizes that she should just let Al Cliver fight zombies and run off with Laura Gemser. After all, Al Cliver is no sex guru when you’ve seen George Eastman do the same in Emanuelle Around the World.

Sex gurus are to Black Emanuelle as stolen diamonds are to Jess Franco.

Director Brunello Rondi worked with Fellini on the scripts for 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Juliet of the Spirits, Orchestra Rehearsal and City of Women. His first film, Violent Life, was written by Pasolini and he also directed Le tue mani sul mio corpo, Run. Psycho, Run and The Demon. He wrote this film with Ferdinando Baldi, the director of Treasure of the Four Crowns.

The alternate Black Emmanuelle, White Emmanuelle title suggests that there is an Emanuelle or Emmanuelle cinematic universe where Black Emmanuelle (Gemser) and White Emmanuelle (Belle, whose movie Laure is also called Forever Emmanuelle and not only was directed and written by the real Emmanuelle Arsan, but co-stars her) cross over and by cross over, I mean scissor.

Also: Disco dancing.

According to Temple of Schlock, this was released by Dimension Pictures as Smooth Velvet, Raw Silk in 1978 and re-released in 1979 as Naked Paradise. VCI released it on home video as Naked Paradise before 21st Century, who bought it from Dimension, licensed it to Continental Video as Emanuelle In Egypt.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

What if Death Wish had a bad payoff? Then it would be Tomcats, a movie that has a great poster and really gets you into the theater with it and then says, “Thanks for your money.”

A bunch of maniacs — M.J. (Wayne Crawford), Johnny (Daniel Schweitzer), Billy (Jim Curee) and Curly (Sam Moree) — are assaulting waitresses and get away with it. One of their brothers, Cullen (Chris Mulkey), decides that he has to get justice all on his own for his dead sister Wendy.

Take another look at that poster, which makes you think this is going to be a wacky sex comedy and go read that paragraph again.

Director Harry Kerwin also made Barracuda, Cheering Section, God’s Bloody Acre, It’s a Revolution Mother and Sweet Bird of Aquarius. You may recognize his last name, as his brother is William Kerwin, who shows up in several Herschell Gordon Lewis movies. He plays a detective in this that allows Cullen to go outside of the law.

The trailer is also great as it has Don Steele talking you into the theater only for them to just grab your money and run.

Released by Dimension Pictures in 1977. this was bought by 21st Century, who licensed it to Continental Video under the title Avenged. It was also released as Getting Even and Deadbeat.