EDITOR’S NOTE: Doctor of Doom was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, August 24, 1968 at 11:20p.m. and Saturday, August 7, 1971 at 1:00 a.m.

You know, Gaby (Regina Torne) is great.  Across two movies — Las Luchadoras contra El Medico Asesino and Las Luchadoras contra La Momia  — we’ve watched Gloria Venus and Golden Rubi battle evil doctors and an Aztec mummy, but now we have an evil doctor kidnapping the world’s smartest scientists and also creating a trenchcoat wearing killer who looks like he’s made out of the finest rubber than Senor Benjamin Cooper makes.

Sure, we’ve seen it before as “Return of the Cybernauts” on The Avengers, but have we see it with wrestling women and a half-ape, half-zombie, half-man named Carfax? And then, how about if we put that monsters head into a female wrestler and change her named from Berthe to Black Electra?

As was the custom at the time, there are two cuts of this movie. There was another “sexy” version with nudity that was intended for the U.S. titled El Asesino Loco y el Sexo (Sex and the Mad Killer).  The clean and filthy versions both went unreleased up here.

Director René Cardona was on a quest to make the perfect luchadora against scientists movie and damn if he didn’t succeed more than once. If you want the best realitization of his quixotic quest, I would recommend Night of the Bloody Apes, which features a heroine who dresses like a demon, a monkey/human killer that rips off faces and legitimate footage of an open heart surgery.

He also made the lucha movies La Mujer Murcielago, Neutron Traps the Invisible Killers, Las Luchadoras contra El Medico Asesino, Las Luchadoras contra La Momia, Santo vs. the Strangler, Santo vs. the Ghost of the Strangler, Las Lobas del Ring, Las Mujeres Panteras, The Treasure of Montezuma, Santo in the Treasure of Dracula, Santo vs. Capulina, Operation 67, Santo vs. the Riders of Terror, Santo in the Vengeance of the Mummy and Santo vs. the Head Hunters.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Beach Girls and the Monster was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, June 29, 1968 at 11:20 p.m. It played as Monster from the Surf. 

Directed, shot by and edited by Jon Hall, who also plays Dr. Otto Lindsay, The Beach Girls and the Monster is the kind of strange movie that I love so much. The surf footage was shot by Dale Davis — who also is in this as Tom — and he also made the surf documentaries Walk on the Wet Side, Strictly Hot and The Golden Breed. Even better, it has sculptures, the monster’s head,and the Kingsley the Lion, which were all created by Walker Edmiston — who plays Mark — who had a kid’s show in Los Angeles and went on to be the voice of Ernie the Keebler Elf, several characters on Lidsville, Sigmund from Sigmund and the Sea Monster, the Zuni Fetish Doll in Trilogy of Terror and Magneto on the 1980s Spider-Man, as well as playing Professor Crandall on The Dukes of Hazzard.

Can it get even better than that?

Let me introduce you to the The Watusi Dancing Girls from Hollywood’s Whisky a Go Go club on Sunset Boulevard. And how about that soundtrack with appearances by The Hustlers and the theme song “Dance Baby Dance” by Frank Sinatra Jr. and Joan Janis.

Bunny (Gloria Neil, Sarah in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) is found dead after being attacked by a seawood covered lizard creature. No, not Slithis. Or Zaat. Or one of the Humanoids from the Deep. This, according to Dr. Lindsay, is a fantigua fish that has grown large enough to exist out of the ocean. Did it grow lungs? What kind of scientist is he? And why does he call the kids loafers and little tramps?

Maybe he’s mad that his son Richard Lindsay (Arnold Lessing) is a beach bum, that his best friend Mark (Edmiston) has moved in and sculpts, and that his wife Vicky (Sue Casey, Evilspeak) drinks and flirts all the time, seeming like the kind of woman that John Ashley would certainly sleep with and cuck him were this Blood Island and not Santa Monica. Richard was there when Bunny died, so all he cares about now is his girlfriend Jane (Elaine DuPont) and living life for fun instead of doing research with his old man.

In case you can’t guess, there’s no such thing as the monster. Yes, the doctor is dressing up, all to make his son more serious by killing everyone that he is friends with as well as getting rid of his second wife.

This was written by Joan Gardner (who did tons of cartoon voices), Robert Silliphant (who wrote The Creeping Terror and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?) and Don Marquis.

Also known as Monster from the Surf and Surf Terror, this movie is totally The Horror of Party Beach but I don’t care. It’s like a sitcom or Scooby-Doo episode except that all sorts of people die and it ends with a misunderstood father, who is dressed as an undersea monster, driving his car off a cliff and blowing up real good.

It’s 66 minutes of your life. Live it.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: War of the Zombies was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, November 3, 1979 at 1:00 a.m.; Saturday, April 11, 1981 at 1:00 a.m. and saturday, December 3, 1983 at 1:00 a.m. It playted as Zombies.

Also known as War of the Zombies, Rome Against Rome was the second to last film from the Galatea production company (some of their other films include Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, Mill of the Stone Women and Ghosts of Rome). It was directed by Giuseppe Vari, who used the name Joseph Warren, and also made The Last Killer, Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead, Who Killed the Prosecutor and Why?, Sister Emanuelle and Urban Warriors. Its story came from Ferruccio De Martino (who usually was a production manager) and Massimo De Rita (Violent City, The Valachi Papers, Street Law) with a script from Piero Pierotti (who directed Hercules Against Rome and Marco Polo) and Marcello Sartarelli.

In a remote part of the Roman Empire, cult leader Aderbad (John Drew Barrymore, Drew’s father) is working with the governor to create their own land using the corpses of Roman soldiers brought back from the dead. Centurion Gaius (Ettore Manni) is sent to protect the interests of the senate.

Most of the production money probably went toward making Aderbad’s secret rooms look like something out of Bava, because the actual fight scenes are taken from Hannibal. Susy Anderson (Black Sabbath, Thor and the Amazon Women) and Ida Galli (The Psychic, Arabella: Black Angel, The Sweet Body of Deborah, The Whip and the Body) are also on hand.

https://www.zomboscloset.com/zombos_closet_of_horror_b/2017/03/the-lost-world-of-sinbad-and-war-of-the-zombies-double-bill-pressbook.html

American-International Pictures played this movie as a double feature with Senkichi Taniguchi’s Samurai Pirate, which they named The Lost World of Sinbad. When it was time for Rome Against Rome to air on TV, it was renamed the completely incredible title Night Star: Goddess of Electra.

http://www.peplumtv.com/2019/10/different-titles-war-of-zombies.html

EDITOR’S NOTE: Planet of the Vampires was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, February 24, 1968 at 11:20 p.m.; September 6, 1969 at 1:00 a.m.; Saturday January 30 at 11:30 p.m. and Saturday, December 18, 1971 at 11:30 p.m. It played as Demon Planet. 

American-International Pictures had made some money in the U.S. with Mario Bava’s Black Sunday and Black Sabbath. It just made sene for Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson to gain more control by producing the films themselves instead of just buying the rights.

Working with Italian International Film and Spain’s Castilla Cooperativa Cinematográfica, AIP provided the services of writer Ib Melchior (The Angry Red Planet) to create the American version of this movie, which was based on Renato Pestriniero’s short story “One Night of 21 Hours.”

This movie was quite literally the Tower of Babel, as each major cast member performed in their respective languages: Barry Sullivan spoke English, Norma Bengell spoke Portuguese, Ángel Aranda Spanish and Evi Marandi Italian. And the low budget would have made a cheap-looking movie with any other director, but Bava was the master of in-camera effects and flooding his sets with color and fog. In a Fangoria article, he would say, “Do you know what that unknown planet was made of? A couple of plastic rocks — yes, two: one and one! — left over from a mythological movie made at Cinecittà! To assist the illusion, I filled the set with smoke.”

When 1979’s Alien came out, those that had been exposed to Bava’s work would let people know that many of the ideas in that film came directly from this modest film with its $200,000 budget — I know Joe Bob, everyone lies about budgets. While Ridley Scott and Dan O’Bannon would claim for years that they had never seen this movie before, the writer would later say, “I stole the giant skeleton from the Planet of the Vampires.”

Want to know how I know those claims are true? From the very start of this film, two large ships — the Galliott and the Argos — in deep space respond to an SOS call and are lured to a planet where alien beings either take their bodies over or murder them. The crew of the Argos instantly begins murdering one another — with only Captain Markary (Sullivan) able to pull his crew out of madness. When they arrive at the other ship, everyone is already dead, including Markary’s brother.

Soon, the bodies of the dead are walking as if alive, the ships are damaged beyond repair, and crew members are getting wiped out (look for a young Ivan Rassimov — later of the giallos The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh and All the Colors of the Dark, and the Star Wars clone The Humanoid — as one of them!).

While this film is 55 years old, I have no interest in ruining the ending for you. Instead, I want you to sit and bask in its colorful glow, awash in fog and mystery, with pulpy science fiction heroes running around in fetishy costumes and discovering skeletons that could in no way be human. It is everything that is magic about film.

Atlas — the comic company that tried to challenge Marvel and DC in the 1970’s — combined I Am Legend with this film to create the comic Planet of the Vampires. Much like all of their books, it only ran three issues, but the first one boasts a cover with pencils by Pat Broderick with Neal Adams-inks and other issues have great work by Russ Heath. The first issue was also written by future G.I. Joe mastermind Larry Hama. I have no doubt that Atlas did not pay AIP for the rights to this.

Check out these pieces on Ten films that rip off Alien and Ten Bava Films for more.