CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: The Loneliest Runner (1976)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Loneliest Runner was on the CBS Late Movie on August 12 and December 15, 1987.

This was written, produced and directed by Michael Landon, who really was the loneliest runner. That’s because he wet his bed until he was 14 and his mother hung his sheets out to dry so that all the neighborhood kids could see that he couldn’t sleep a night without pissing himself.

During his childhood, Landon had to deal with his mother threatening suicide. On a family beach vacation, she tried to drown herself, but he rescued her. Later, his mother acted as if nothing happened, and the stress of this led to him bedwetting even more.

Before he tore his shoulder, Landon wanted to be a javelin thrower. Instead, he became a teenage werewolf, a cowboy, a settler and an angel on the road.

John Curtis (Lance Kerwin) can’t sleep a night without getting the bed soaked and not from wet dreams. No, he urinates the sack nightly and runs to a local laundromat and washes the sheets when his parents are asleep. He also stays up all night during sleepovers. You would too if you had parents like Arnold (Brian Keith) and Alice (DeAnn Mears). She yells at both of them for being less than men and in response, Arnold slaps his son around. This makes him leak the sheets even more.

A young girl, Nancy Rizzi (Melissa Sue Anderson) shows interest, but all John can think about is running home to get those stained sheets down every day. However, his mother’s horrible parenting skills and his father’s inability to reveal that he also was a bedwetter means that he learns how to run fast. Really fast. He makes it to the Olympics, his father tells his mother to shut up and he gets the girl.

This movie inspired “Peanut Butter, Eggs, and Dice,” an episode of Mr. Show in which “The Bob Lamonta Story” is told.

Despite the earnestness of this film, it’s heart is in the right place. It was a staple of made for TV movies and it made me worry every night when I went to bed, sure that I’d be peeing everywhere. When I woke up and the bed was dry, I thanked Michael Landon.

You can watch this on YouTube.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Dracula (the Dirty Old Man) (1968)

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Bleeding Skull’s Top 50 (July 7 – 13) The middle-brow champions of low-brow horror, Bleeding Skull has picked out some of their favorites from the SWV catalog. They neglected to put I Drink Your Blood or EEGAH! on the list, but I think I can forgive them since they included Ship of Monsters. 

Directed, written and produced by William Edwards, this movie starts with this line: “I saw a panorama of beautiful hills. However, as beautiful as it may seem, death lurked behind those beautiful hills and beautiful women. I don’t know which came first.”

Count Alucard (Vince Kelly) has brought a reporter named Mike (Billy Whitton) to his cave and turned him into Irving Jackalman, a werewolf henchman who brings him women to both feed on and make love to. The jackal or werewolf mask is from another movie that Edwards wrote, The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals, which has five minutes of John Carradine in it.

The problem is that Mike’s girlfriend Ann (Ann Hollis, who was also in The Ravager) is so attractive that the vampire must have her even after a whole movie of him tying up women, making out with them and then drinking their hemoglobin.

Producer Whit Boyd also was behind 60s sleaze like Spiked Heels and Black Nylons, Hot Blooded Woman, The Sex Shuffle, Scarlet Negligee, The Office Party, Party Girls and Eat, Drink and Make Merrie. In April 1970, sheriff’s deputies in Pensacola, FL seized prints of this movie and I Am Curious (Yellow) from the Ritz Theatre and charged the manager with two counts of unlawful showing of an obscene film and maintaining a public nuisance.

Where this gets even better is that the original sound shot with the movie was so bad and didn’t match the footage that the entire thing was dubbed in the studio. As well as additional footage shot in Dallas, using local talent, there are only two voices in this movie and both sound like old vaudeville comedians talking over some jazz instead of any dialogue for most of the film.

It makes this roughie feel almost cute, I almost said, then I looked up and a werewolf was strangling a naked women, who was covered with blood, and still raw dogging — I guess, right? — her.

One of the few actresses in this to do anything else is Sue Allen. She plays Carol in this and is also in the X-rated 1970 movie Cindy and Donna. She would go on to sing in several cartoons, including Yogi’s First Christmas.

You can watch this on YouTube.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Psyched by the 4-D Witch (1973)

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Bleeding Skull’s Top 50 (July 7 – 13) The middle-brow champions of low-brow horror, Bleeding Skull has picked out some of their favorites from the SWV catalog. They neglected to put I Drink Your Blood or EEGAH! on the list, but I think I can forgive them since they included Ship of Monsters. 

You better like the song “Beware of the 4-D Witch!” when you watch this. Written by Joe Bisko with vocals by Johnny by the Way and music by Attila Galamb, it’s one of two songs that plays through nearly all of this movie, which wasn’t recorded with synched sound and instead has voiceovers. You will hear this song so many times that you may lose your mind.

The other songs are Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde,” Ravel’s “Bolero,” Mussorgsky’s “Night On Bald Mountain,” Holst’s “Mars, Bringer of War (from The Planets suite)” and strangely enough, “A Saucerful of Secrets” by Pink Floyd.

I have no idea who Victor Luminera was or is. This is all that he created and left us with and you know, it’s enough. How does one describe this movie?

Let me try.

The end of the 70s occult fascination mixed with props made by Ben Cooper overlayed with nudie cutie style filmmaking that never becomes sexy all with overlaid images like you’re tripping acid at the Fillmore while Kenneth Anger possesses Victor to make something like his films but with no budget and the lowest quality camera ever made.

Cindy (Margo, her only name) promised her daddy she’d be a virgin but she loves the occult and is as horny as me after walking through the saloon doors to the adult section of Heads Together. Abigail the 4D Witch (Esoterica) promises her a rich fantasy sex life if she follows her. Together, they have Super Orgasms and travel on the astral plane like the wet dreams of Chris Claremont.

One of their missions has them making gay neighbor Mr. Jones (Kelly Guthrie, The Sexorcist) straight — problematic! — and then they get Cindy’s friend Jan Kleinmetz (Tracy Handfuss, who unlike many folks in this was in more than one movie; she’s also in A Clock Work Blue, Did Baby Shoot Her Sugardaddy? and in the starring role — Toni Carrione — in The Goddaughter) all goofed up on spider venom and human blood, which leads her to play with a snake that slithers its way out of her asshole. Yes, this happens and it feels like a Tim Vigil comic book come to life.

The problems happen when the fantasy sex — as Abigail says, “Let’s fantasy fuck now!” — gets out of hand and Jan gets hurt. It turns out that the 4D Witch is angry that Cindy — in a past life — stole her lover and this is all about revenge, but like a square up reel, Cindy learns that prayer can stop the occult. This leads to Jan waking up from death and saying, “Salem, witch bitch!”

Somehow, the movie continues and Cindy’s brother Mark (Tom Yerian) becomes the King of the Sex Vampires, I shit you not. If you’re shocked that a copy of Look with Anton LaVey on the cover appears, you haven’t been paying attention.

The Fourth Dimension is beyond good and evil, so who are we to judge the 4D Witch? It remains untouched by science. Somewhere in all this, Jan also has a sapphic moment with her Aunt Fanny (Annette Michael, who appeared as Annette Anderson in Flesh Gordon). Jan has more problems with liking women than with incest, so…yeah. The only thing that can stop this 4D Witch and her curse is an actual orgasm from a doctor, which makes me wonder about said therapist’s ethics and the idea that reality can be more powerful than fantasy.

This is the kind of movie that promises and delivers necrophilia and yet censors out every use of the word fuck after the first time it is uttered.

Amazingly — thanks to Bill Van Ryn of Groovy Doom and Drive-In Asylum — this played Hawaiian drive-ins with The Devil’s Rain! An Anton LaVey double feature!

You can watch this on Tubi.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Kill and Kill Again (1981)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Kill and Kill Again was on the CBS Late Movie on November 4, 1983 and February 15, 1985.

Kill and Kill Again is a sequel to the film Kill or Be Killed and tells another adventure of Steve Chase (James Ryan), a secret agent martial artist who has been hired by Kandy Kane (Anneline Kriel, whose life should be a movie, between having singer Richard Loring writing the song “Sweet Anneline” about her, followed by nude photos she took for his friend Roy Hilligenn being leaked — in 1977 — as well as being present when boyfriend Henke Pistorius — father of Oscar Pistorius, the legless South African athlete who would shoot and kill his girlfriend — shot himself while cleaning his pistol, as well as a singer and Playboy South Africa cover girl, as well as Miss South Africa 1974 and was later crowned Miss World 1974) to find her father Dr. Horatio Kane (John Ramsbottom), a scientist who has learned how to control minds while trying to turn potatoes into an energy source.

Yes, if you thought Kill and Kill Again would be normal, oh no. Oh no.

The government gives Steve $5 million dollars to pick his own team of super agents, which includes former martial arts champion Gypsy Billy (Norman Robinson), the mystic mystery man who only answers to The Fly (Stan Schmidt, a South African master of Shotokan karate), the goofball Hot Dog (Bill Flynn) who when we first meet him is challenging men to stand in a room while he shoots bullets at them and the former pro wrestler and now construction worker gorilla (Ken Gampu, King Solomon’s Mines).

They’re sent to stop Wellington Forsyth III, a billionaire who has now become Marduk (Michael Mayer), who has taken over the town of Ironville and is looking to create an army of warriors to take over the world. He has wanted Steve to come to challenge his champion, The Optimus (Eddie Dori), an unstoppable fighter.

Yes, in the world of South African martial arts, white men are the greatest fighters in the world.

In the commentary track for this movie, James Ryan said that the third film would have been called Most Dangerous Man and had him appear opposite Sharon Stone. However, FVI went out of business and he headed back to South Africa.

This comes from the same director, Ivan Hall, and was written by John Crowther, who also wrote The Evil That Men Do, Missing In Action and Hands of Steel.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Curse of the Black Widow (1977)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Curse of the Black Widow was on the CBS Late Movie on April 13 and October 19, 1983 and June 6, 1984. Bill Van Ryn also covered this movie for the site.

For the last few years, men have been found dead in Los Angeles with small bites all over them. It hits home for Mark Higbie (Tony Franciosa, Tenebrae)  when a woman picks up one of his friends and soon leaves him killed in the same way. As a detective, Mark knows some cops, like Lieutenant Gully Conti (Vic Morrow), who lets him in on the secret: the men are filled with spider venom and the same woman, Valerie Steffan (Patty Duke) is always near the scene of the murders.

One of the suspects, Leigh Lockwood (Donna Mills) — her sister Laura (also Duke) is the other the police are following — hires Mark, as she once dated every single one of the men who were killed. Also: the girls’ father was killed in a plane crash that they survived, after which one of them was bitten by spiders. When he meets the Native American who saved them, he’s told that some women are affected by an ancient curse passed through the female line. During the full moon, these women turn into giant spiders in times of stress — werespiders! — murder men, encase them in webbing and feed on them. These women have a red hourglass-shaped birthmark on their abdomens, like a black widow. The only thing that can kill them is fire. Also, a bartender says that he saw a giant spider kill one of the victims.

Spoiler: Valeria and Laura are the same person, driven by a hate of the sister and how successful she is with men. Only their mother (June Lockhart) — now in a coma after seeing her turn into her spider shape — and their nanny Olga (June Allyson) know the truth. Meanwhile, Mark is falling for Leigh when he should maybe pay attention to his assistant Flaps (Roz Kelly). But what do I know? I’ve never investigated a giant werespider murder mystery before.

I love this movie. It’s packed with character actors — Max Gail, Jeff Corey and Hard Boiled Haggerty are also in this — plus Sid Caesar makes an unexpected appearance. Directed by Dan Curtis and written by Robert Blees (Savage Harvest, Frogs), this movie will teach you so many things but foremost that giant spiders sound like Rodan.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Hawk the Slayer (1980)

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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.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Crash! (1977)

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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.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Ouanga (1936)

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Roadshow Rarities (June 30 – July 6) In the old days of theatrical releases some of the more lavish movies would be promoted by holding limited screenings in large cities. These roadshow releases would generate hype before the nationwide release and allow producers to tweak the film to the audience’s reaction. This model also worked for low budget productions that may have had no intention of a wide release. These explo roadshows traveled an informal circuit of theaters, churches, revival tents, high school auditoriums and anywhere else they could run a projector. They frequently promised more than they delivered and left town before the angry audience could catch up to them. Through the restoration efforts of SWV many of these movies have survived to piss audiences off to this very day!

After White Zombie, this would be the second zombie movie ever made. It may also be the first movie to be absolute horror movie BS. That’s because as the story goes, the producers wanted to hire dancers and drummers from Haiti. However, papaloi voodoo priests objecting and the director was threatened with a wanga — a voodoo curse — on his car. To make things even worse, the prop master then stole sacred objects including stuffed snakeskins and skulls. When production moved to Jamaica, a cyclone killed two crew members, then supposedly another was murdered by a barracuda and another passed away from yellow fever.

Klili Gordon (Fredi Washington) is a half-white and half-black plantation owner in love with fellow plantation owner Adam Maynard (Philip Brandon). He likes her, but because of racism, he chooses Eve Langley (Marie Paxton) instead. Klili decides to use voodoo to kill off her rival, raising thirteen black men to do her commands. Adam turns to LeStrange (Sheldon Leonard), his plantation overseer, to stop this. He hangs a dead body dressed as her, but it fails, so he ends up just strangling her.

This movie has so many issues. Leonard was cast as a black man despite being a Jewish white man. And in her last movie, The Emperor Jones, Ferdi Washington kissing a black man looked too close to a white woman kissing a black man, so she had to wear makeup to appear darker. That’s before we even get into the idea that all black people know voodoo.

Director and writer George Terwilliger revised this movie and it was remade as a movie for African-American audiences called The Devil’s Daughter.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: The Red Spider (1988)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Red Spider was on the CBS Late Movie on October 20, 1989 and April 6, 1990.

A police officer has been found murdered in a hotel and the only clue is the shape of a spider cut into his stomach. While he was a dirty cop, he has no connection to any of the other murders that also have the red spider on their skin.

District Attorney Stephanie Hartford (Jennifer O’Neill, The Psychic) assigns Lieutenant Daniel Malone (James Farentino, Dead and Buried) to the case and he’s joined by Kate (Amy Steel, Friday the 13th Part III 3D), the daughter of the dead cop, to find who is behind it all. There’s also an Asian crimelord named Sonny Wu (Soon-Tek Oh) who knows more than he’s letting on and a blonde prostitute behind it all.

This was directed by Jerry Jameson (a TV veteran who directed 19 episodes of Murder, She Wrote as well as another giallo TV movie, Hotline, plus The Bat People and Airport ’77) and Paul King, who wrote the script with William J. Caunitz, the technical advisor for this movie. It was the follow-up to another TV movie by the same team, One Police Plaza. Caunitz was a New York City Police Department officer who used his own experiences to write several novels as well as these two movies.

You can watch this on YouTube.