PATER NOSTER AND THE MISSION OF LIGHT TRAILER!

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The eagerly awaited underground horror movie from Christopher Bickel, Pater Noster and the Mission of Light, enters its final stages of post-production with an anticipated release in Autumn 2024.

Pater Noster and the Mission of Light is the brainchild of the adventurous underground director whose previously acclaimed works The Theta Girl and Bad Girls have sent shockwaves through the underground film community. With an acclaimed track record of unsettling and thought-provoking films, Bickel is poised to take audiences on a nightmarish lysergic hellride that will linger long after the credits roll.

The film tells the story of Max, a young record store clerk who stumbles upon a rare vinyl LP and is drawn into the world of a 1970s hippie commune. An invitation to the remnants of the outlandish cult and their unholy spawn leads to grave and grisly circumstances for Max and her friends.

The film’s producers have pulled off a no-budget coup in bringing this grim vision to life, with a team of award-winning practical special effects artists and a hauntingly atmospheric score that will immerse audiences in a world of relentlessly trippy terror.

While one single name on half the credits is generally considered something less than a “trademark of quality,” Writer/Director/Producer/Cinematographer/Editor Christopher Bickel claims to be an “auteur out of financial necessity.”

“We make underground films with very little money for the love of the art. This is literally my back yard we’re shooting in. Everything we do is like the Little Rascals putting on a show for the neighborhood kids. That’s not to say that we don’t take great pains to make our products the best possible quality with the resources we have. Everything I know about filmmaking, I learned from punk rock. The movies we make are punk rock demo tapes. We operate outside of Hollywood focus groups and traditional distribution routes.”

Bickel’s CV includes stints as a columnist for MaximumRockNRoll magazine and Dangerous Minds. He was also singer in the punk bands In/Humanity and Guyana Punch Line, as well as the brains behind prolific avant garde recording project Anakrid. His two previous feature films are distributed world-wide and have received wide critical acclaim.

As Pater Noster and the Mission of Light enters the final stages of post-production, fans are eagerly anticipating its release, propelling a successful  crowd-funding campaign (https://www.paternostermovie.com/ ) as well as a grass-roots promotional campaign centered around the advance release of the film’s soundtrack. The crowdfunding campaign reached its goal within 4 days of launch.

An entire album’s worth of songs were written and recorded for the film to play the part of the Cult’s immersive psychedelic head-music. This music will be released as both a double LP record set and as a 5.1 surround audio disc accompanying the Blu Ray release of the film. The album features sax work by Tim Cappello, the iconic “sexy sax man” from The Lost Boys (who also stars in the film) as well as remixes by Andrew Liles of Nurse With Wound.

For updates on the release date and promotional events leading up to the premiere, follow the film’s official social media channels and website for exclusive behind-the-scenes content, sneak peeks, and more spine-tingling surprises that will leave you counting down the days until the movie’s arrival.

The movie’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551934676191

Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible (2001)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Exploitation-film historian A.C. Nicholas, who has a sketchy background and hails from parts unknown in Western Pennsylvania, was once a drive-in theater projectionist and disk jockey. In addition to being a writer, editor, podcaster, and voice-over artist, he’s a regular guest co-host on the streaming Drive-In Asylum Double Feature and has been a guest on the Making Tarantino podcast. He also contributes to the Drive-In Asylum fanzine. His most recent essay, “Of Punks and Stains and Student Films: A Tribute to Night Flight, the 80s Late-Night Cult Sensation,” appeared in Drive-In Asylum #26.

Two of cinemas oldest and most venerable genres are horror and comedy. Thomas Edison famously produced a version of Frankenstein in 1910, but the earliest known silent horror film is Georges Méliès’s Le Manoir du Diable, a/k/a The Haunted Castle and The House of the Devil (1896), which followed fellow countryman Louis Lumière’s L’Arroseur Arrosé (1885), the first screen comedy. It took some time, but D.W. Griffith did a genre mash-up with the first horror–comedy, One Exciting Night, in 1922. And that genre has been going strong ever since. 

Yet for every wonderful modern horror–comedy like Shaun of the Dead or Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, there are a half-dozen less-successful examples, like Pandemonium or the sequels in the Scary Movie franchise. Film critic Pauline Kael once wrote that it was the rare filmmaker who could mix comedy and horror successfully—with the comedy increasing the suspense and the horror making the comedy funnier. She cited Brian DePalma’s Dressed to Kill and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as the best examples. I would add An American Werewolf in London, Return of the Living Dead, Dead Alive, Army of Darkness, and Night of the Creeps to the small list of funny/scary films.

But not all horror–comedies aspire to work at that dual level. Most are simply flat-out spoofs or parodies. And most don’t work because the filmmakers, instead of bringing something fresh to table, thought that all they needed was to insert a few random horror references, and fans would eat it all up simply by recognizing those references. This is the laziest type of filmmaking imaginable. (Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer made a fortune doing this with their genre spoofs like Date Movie, Disaster Movie, Epic Movie, and Meet the Spartans.) The best parodies not only replicate the tropes but also having a genuine respect for the genre. For martial arts movies, for example, Black Dynamite and the A Fistful of Yen sequence from Kentucky Fried Movie are affectionate and hilarious. 

Which brings me to one of the best, but least seen, horror–comedies, Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible (2001), a six-episode TV series for BBC Two created by beloved comedian Steve Coogan and his long-time collaborator Graham Duff. This show is unique in that each episode parodies a different horror sub-genre from Britain in the 60s and 70s. In other words, it feels like it was made just for me, which warmed my heart to no end.

Dr. Terrible, a decrepit old codger—think a less skeletal Crypt Keeper—played by Steve Coogan in heavy make-up hosts the show. Coogan also shows up in each episode, along with some recognizable British actors. With that set-up out of the way, let’s look at the individual episodes.

Lesbian Vampire Lovers of Lust: The first-aired episode is a terrific take-off on Hammer Films’ Carmilla Karnstein series: The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire, and Twins of Evil. Coogan plays a soldier, Captain Hans Broken, who along with his new bride, Carmina, runs afoul of the sexy vampire Countess Kronsteen. Supporting Coogan are fellow comedian Ben Miller, who starred in Primeval and Death in Paradise, and Honor Blackman from Goldfinger and TV’s The Avengers. In addition to the lovely Hammer touches, like the candlelit castle and lesbian bloodsuckers in diaphanous white gowns, the episode features the puns and double entendres that would distinguish the series: “He approached me from behind… I drew my sword.”

Frenzy of Tongs: This is a Terror of the Tongs/Fu Manchu spoof with Coogan as adventurer Nathan Blaze squaring off against horror superfan Mark Gatiss as the evil Hang Man Chang. Yep, it’s just as politically incorrect as those old “yellow menace” films. One character is named Sir Donald Tyburn. (Talk about an obscure horror reference!)

Curse of the Blood of the Lizard of Doom: The weakest episode of the series is a plain-vanilla riff on the “doctor meddling in things he shouldn’t” films like The Blood-Beast Terror; I, Monster; and The Creeping Flesh. Coogan injects himself with a serum that turns him into a large reptile. Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead has a cameo.

And Now the Fearing…: If you could tell from the title that this is a parody of a film from Amicus, noted for their horror anthologies, then you’ll love this episode. Parroting the familiar framing devices of Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, three strangers trapped in a stuck elevator tell each other stories of the supernatural. Oliver Tobias, from the The Stud with Joan Collins, is the guest star.

Voodoo Feet of Death: After a tragic—and hysterical—accident, it looks like ballroom dancing champion Coogan’s career is over. That is, until he receives a transplant, feet from a murderer, in an obvious nod to Hands of a Stranger and its many variations. Busy actor Timothy Pigott-Smith and Sasha Alexander from the Britcom Coupling stop by.

Scream Satan Scream!: Saving the best episode for last, Coogan and Duff take on the classic folk-horror film Witchfinder General. It’s a laugh riot with Coogan playing Captain Tobias Slater, Witch Locater. (Just typing that makes me laugh.) Angela Pleasance from José Larraz’s Symptoms and other genre items is here, along with former Ewok Warwick Davis, who plays a dwarf named “Tigon.” (If you don’t get that cute reference, then you need to brush up on your Brit horror.)

Dr. Terrible—despite being one of the smartest, funniest things around and starring the hugely popular Coogan—was not a ratings success for the BBC. It’s easy to see why: It’s just too “inside baseball.” Unless you’re intimately familiar with the films being parodied, you’ll be mystified and find it not very funny, like a lot of critics when it originally aired. But if you’ve seen even a few Hammer or Amicus films, you’re in for a treat. The show fulfills the requirements of the best horror–comedies: It replicates the tropes, not to mention each horror studio’s signature style, with wit and loving affection. Check it out—and be prepared to go “oh, what an obscure reference!” and laugh out loud. Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible is fantastic, one of the best horror–comedies ever. The series is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Something Weird (1967)

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Herschell Gordon Lewis week (July 14 – 20) HG seemed to truly love packing theaters. He’s most famous for introducing gore to horror movies, but he’d fill any need that the audience had. He made every genre of exploitation  – even kids movies! Gore movies would’ve happened eventually, but Herschell seemed to take joy in crafting gross-out shocks for unsuspecting cineasts. INTERESTING FACT! HG Lewis was a huge fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken and had them cater all of his productions. Col. Harland Sanders himself appeared in Lewis’ Blast Off Girls!

You know, if Herschell Gordon Lewis only made his nudie movies or just the gore, he’d be celebrated still, but for my money, the real good Lewis movies are the ones that almost frighten you by their incoherence or ability to fully create a world that is unlike any we will ever live in, like how She-Devils on Wheels gives us a reality — in 1968 — where female bikers are the alpha predator of all creation. Or the nihilistic mind blast that’s Just for the Hell of It which ends with a character saying, “Who cares man” when everyone he knows is dead.

Then there’s Something Weird.

Everything starts when Cronin Mitchell tries to help a man who has fallen from an electrical pole and gets rewarded with a face full of electricity which burns his face off. He wants to die — and why wouldn’t he — but he’s also gained ESP thanks to all that pure energy blasting him right in the brain.

At this point, most people would step back, see that their work is good and then finish the movie. But Lewis is a trickster god who felt the need for more, more, more.

Mitchell has become a bandaged hermit who gives psychic readings when the Bible of the Witches ends up in his hands, followed by a literal witch who promises that he can have his face back if he agrees to be her lover. Now he’s handsome again, but a slave to the sorceress.

She becomes his assistant Ellen and now Mitchell is hunting serial killers along with a karate chopping government agent who is in love with Ellen because he has no idea that she really looks like the cartoonist witch but hey, maybe love is blind. To find this elusive killer, it’s going to take some LSD.

But before that, Mitchell levitates for an audience and then finds a ghost inside a church. These side stories just pad the 80 minutes of running time but honestly, I’d pay whatever money is needed for more adventures of Mitchell being weird.

Anyways, Jordan can’t deal with the fact that he can’t have Ellen, so he goes nutzoid and attacks her. She escapes and demands that her psychic slave murder the government agent, so Mitchell psychically attacks him with several blue blankets which somehow the misogynistic loverboy escapes and what is this movie?

Then this whole thing goes proto-giallo as Mitchell takes the LSD and discovers that the cop that’s been leading them through the case is the killer, but the trip he’s on leads directly into a bullet between the eyes and our hero is dead.

The movie keeps going.

So now Jordan can be with Ellen and sees her, but at that moment he sees the witch and runs into traffic and burns his face off, which she heals but…

Time is a flat circle.

This is a movie that obsesses me. Like I can’t stop thinking about it. Who was it for? Why was it made? Yeah, Lewis was in it to make money, but who would pay to see this (me)?

All these Film Twitter kids writing about how movies stick in their head for life and how things are fever dreams and they’ve never had the moment where you randomly put on this movie and are not ready for its power. About as perfect a movie that’s filled with imperfections can be.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: A Taste of Blood (1967)

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Herschell Gordon Lewis week (July 14 – 20) HG seemed to truly love packing theaters. He’s most famous for introducing gore to horror movies, but he’d fill any need that the audience had. He made every genre of exploitation __ – even kids movies! Gore movies would’ve happened eventually, but Herschell seemed to take joy in crafting gross-out shocks for unsuspecting cineasts. INTERESTING FACT! HG Lewis was a huge fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken and had them cater all of his productions. Col. Harland Sanders himself appeared in Lewis’ Blast Off Girls!

A Miami businessman, John Stone (Bill Rogers) gets a package from England with two dusty and cobwebbed bottles of plum brandy from a recently dead ancestor. He drinks them both and, as these things happen, he becomes a vampire. He puts his wife Helene (Elizabeth Wilkinson) in a trance and heads off to England.

There, he fights Howard Helsing (Otto Schlessinger), the last survivor of the Van Helsing family. Well, as much England as Miami.

This was Herschell Gordon Lewis’ attempt to go mainstream, filled with better acting, less gore and, well, way too much running time. At least the makeup on the vampire version of Stone is cool, there is some nice lighting and unique camera angles. It was good enough for Roger Corman to offer Lewis a job, which he politely turned down.

In case you’re wondering where the music is from, it’s from the Dr. Who episode “The Tenth Planet.”

While not a bad movie, I come to a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie to be upset, shocked and nauseated. This did none of those things, but at least he stretched a bit.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: The Henderson Monster (1980)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Henderson Monster was on the CBS Late Movie on April 18, 1982.

Dr. Tom Henderson (Jason Miller) is in the midst of genetic engineering experiments with his ex-girlfriend and current assistant Dr. Louise Casimir (Christine Lahti) when the town’s new mayor, Frank Bellona (David Spielberg), bans their work. The problem is that Henderson is so close to a major breakthrough and doesn’t really have any ethics. There’s also the issue between Louise and her husband Pete (Stephen Collins), a drunk reporter given to drama any time there’s a society party.

This brings in a former Manhattan Project scientist Professor Leo Tedeschi (Nehemiah Persoff) who tries to bring in some oversight to what was, in 1980, the Wild West of genetic science.

Waris Hussein directed plenty of TV movies, including Copacabana and The Possession of Joel Delaney. The script is by Ernest Kinoy, who worked on big moments in TV like The Defenders and Roots.

If you see the title, you may think you’re watching a horror movie. The truth is, you’re nearly watching a stage play, a talk-heavy one, but I found myself fascinated by it. The science that the doctor is working on is common today, but the idea that someone would just flush a sample into the water supply is still scary.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway (1976)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway was on the CBS Late Movie on September 11, 1979 and July 10, 1980.

Director Randal Kleiser went from TV movies like this, The Gathering and The Boy in the Plastic Bubble to Grease, The Blue Lagoon, Flight of the Navigator, Big Top Pee-wee and more. This was written by Darlene Young, who went on to write Panic In Echo Park, Can You Hear the Laughter? The Story of Freddie Prinze, The Plutonium Incident, Little Darlings, Marilyn: The Untold Story, The People Across the Lake and more, as well as acting in the TV series Grimm and the movie Pig.

Eve Plumb stars as Dawn, a role that ended up angering Brady Bunch fans when she took this instead of doing the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, which replaced her with Geri Reischl as Jan. Reischl was also in Brotherhood of Satan and I Dismember Mama. She was to play Blair Warner on The Facts of Life, but had a contract with General Mills playing Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz in commercials for Crispy Wheats-n-Raisins.

Plumb plays Dawn Wetherby, a runaway who has come to Hollywood and is instantly attacked and mugged. She soon meets sex worker Frankie Lee (Marguerite DeLain) and fellow runaway Alexander (Leigh McCloskey, Inferno) before working for a pimp named Swan (Bo Hopkins). TV watchers had to be shocked, as the first john she has — and loses her virginity to, saying  “I felt nothing—just stared at the ceiling and became a woman.” — is played by Patty Duke’s TV dad William Schallert.

You can blame her mother for not having a husband, I guess, or maybe not treating her well. It’s all very moralistic, as you would imagine — unlike a movie like Angel, in which yes, sex work is dangerous but you get to hang out with Rory Calhoun and Susan Tyrrell — but this was one of the first times that TV would tackle this hot topic. One imagines a young Bret Michaels was taking notes — “She stepped off the bus out into the city streets / Just a small town girl with her whole life / Packed in a suitcase by her feet” — in his Butler, PA living room.

This was so popular that a sequel — Alexander: the Other Side of Dawn — came out a few years later. I didn’t like Alexander too much in this, as he’s such a downer. Then again, Bo Hopkins is a lunatic and somehow he’s able to get his hooks into Dawn instead of this guy, but we learn in the sequel that Alexander has dealt with some issues, like a famous football star who pays him to pose.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Beyond Evil (1980)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Beyond Evil was on the CBS Late Movie on April 24, 1986 and March 4, 1987.

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.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Holocaust 2000 (1977)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Holocaust 2000 was on the CBS Late Movie on February 29, 1984.

Of all the things the devil’s done, I wonder exactly how he was able to get Kirk Douglas — KIRK DOUGLAS! — to be in an Alberto De Martino ripoff of The Omen? I mean, this is the same director who made The Antichrist and Miami Golem! What horrifying secrets does the First of the Fallen have to make one of the lead actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age appear in this burst of Satanic majesty?

Holocaust 2000 (AKA the Chosen and Rain of Fire) was written by De Martino, Michael Robson and Sergio Donati, who wrote some of the script for Once Upon a Time In the West and Duck, You Sucker! as well as Orca, early Arnold vehicle Raw Deal and the original version of Man On Fire.

You gotta hand it to Robert Caine (Douglas). No matter how many people protest, no matter the fact that his wife was stabbed in front of him at a party or the killer went nuts in a mental institution and sliced his own wrists in front of him, he’s not giving up his plan to build a nuclear power plant near a sacred cave in the Middle East.

He soon learns that he has bigger problems. His son Angel (Simon Ward, The Monster Club) is the Antichrist and the plant he wants to build looks just like the evil beast that the Whore of Babylon will ride at the end of the world.

Seriously, after a bit of crumpet, Caine falls asleep next to his way too young new girlfriend (Agostina Belliand, who was in the original Scent of a Woman) watches the nuclear plant rise from the sea, with multiple heads rising from the currents.

An Italian and UK co-production, this movie also features Ivo Garrani (Bava’s Black Sabbath) as The Prime Minister, Alexander Knox (who nearly won an Oscar for 1944’s Wilson before his liberal views got him chased out of Hollywood during the McCarthy era), Adolfo Celi (who wasn’t just Emilio Largo in Thunderball, he was also the Captain in Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man and the villainous Ralph Valmount in Danger: Diabolik), Geoffrey Keen (Minister of Defence Frederick Gray in six James Bond movies and one of the three noblemen using Dracula in Taste the Blood of Dracula), Peter Cellier (Sir Frank Gordon from Yes, Prime Minister), Denis Lawson (Wedge Antilles!) and Tony Clarkin, who played a stormtrooper in the second and sixth Star Wars movies, as well as appearances in The Monster Club as a vampire and Outland.

In Europe, this movie ends with Caine living in exile with his newborn child, as Angel begins developing the plant intended to cause Armageddon. But in the U.S., Douglas returns to his company and blows everybody up real good.

You can watch this on Tubi.

SPANISH HORROR ON THE DIA DOUBLE FEATURE!

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We were gone for a week and now we’re back. Or as they say in Spain, Nosotras estamos de vuelta bebe.

This Saturday at 8 PM EST, Bill and Sam will be playing two Paul Naschy movies! Tune in on Facebook or YouTube.

Up first — Vengeance of the Zombies which you can watch on Tubi.

Every week, we discuss the movies, show the ad campaigns and discuss other titles for these movies — both of these have so many — and then have a drink that goes with each film. Here’s the first drink!

Voodoo Zombie

  • 1 oz. white rum
  • i oz. high proof rum
  • 1 oz. Malibu rum
  • 1.5 oz. 99 Bananas
  • .5 oz. Coco Real
  • 4 oz. orange juice
  • 1 banana
  1. Throw everything in a blender — kind of like this movie — with ice.
  2. Blend and become zombified.

Our second movie is Dracula’s Great Love which is on YouTube.

Here’s the second recipe.

Dracula

  • 2 oz. whiskey
  • 2 oz. cherry syrup (you can use the juice from the inside of maraschino cherries)
  • .5 oz. simple syrup
  • .5 oz. lime juice
  • Maraschino cherry
  1. Shake all ingredients in a shaker with ice.
  2. Pour into a glass and drink it like a vampire would a virgin.

We can’t wait for the show!

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: This Stuff’ll Kill Ya! (1971)

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Herschell Gordon Lewis week (July 14 – 20) HG seemed to truly love packing theaters. He’s most famous for introducing gore to horror movies, but he’d fill any need that the audience had. He made every genre of exploitation __ – even kids movies! Gore movies would’ve happened eventually, but Herschell seemed to take joy in crafting gross-out shocks for unsuspecting cineasts. INTERESTING FACT! HG Lewis was a huge fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken and had them cater all of his productions. Col. Harland Sanders himself appeared in Lewis’ Blast Off Girls!

Reverend Roscoe Boone (Jeffrey Allen, who was the Mayor in Two Thousand Maniacs!) isn’t really a man of the cloth, but don’t tell the people in his deep southern town, who he rules over as he sells moonshine and keeps the law — Agent Colt (Tim Holt) and Markel (Prentis Smithson) — at bay by getting them wasted under threat of death and then taking compromising pictures of them with underage girls.

I mean, you can see why they follow him. He gets everyone in town drunk, gives them work and then is given to fiery sermons like “Corinthians done sayeth: “It is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.” Now, all you boys with passion get in line there.” And then all the young boys get to make out with the hottest women in town.

This is the kind of place where tourists like Sandy (Dana Demonbreun) and Jane (Joy Smothermon) come to visit and get crucified and one of the girls who set up the feds decides to tell the law that she lied, which leads to her getting stoned. There’s also a head that gets blown off that’s so brutal that I was like, “Oh yeah. This is a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie.”

It’s also Larry Drake’s first movie.

If you’re into scummy Southern movies with lots of blood and aberrant sexuality — and who isn’t — this will satisfy your urges. Kind of like moonshine, this stuff won’t kill you but enough might make you blind.