Beast of Blood (1970)
All good things must end. This is the final of the Blood Island films and the last movie that Eddie Romero would make for Hemisphere Pictures. As Dr. Bill Foster (John Ashley), Sheila Willard, her father and Carlos Lopez escape from Blood Island, this movie’s Beast gets on board and goes buck wild, killing everyone he can and […]
Box Office Failures Week: Myra Breckinridge (1970)
Gore Vidal’s 1968 novel Myra Breckinridge was a landmark novel, an attack on the traditional norms of gender and sexuality, while also a biting satire of Hollywood. It was also seen as incredibly pornographic, so the idea that a movie could be made from the book seemed pretty out there. After all, two weeks into writing […]
Witchcraft ’70 (1970)
Witchcraft ’70 is a re-shot and re-edited U.S. domestic version of Angeli Bianchi… Angeli Neri (White Angel …Black Angel — more on that tomorrow). Because the U.S. producers changed so much, it’s nearly a different film, complete with Edmond Purdom (Absurd, Don’t Open ‘Till Christmas, Pieces, 2019: After the Fall of New York) narrating the proceedings. Lee Frost, who […]
Ape Week: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
Nothing succeeds like, well, success. After Planet of the Apes, producers considered several treatments before finally hiring Paul Dehn to write the movie, making him the primary writer for the films. They didn’t use the sequel suggested by Pierre Boulle, author of the original novel, whose Planet of the Men script had Taylor as a messiah […]
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)
The film Jaromil Jires, directed before this one, 1969’s The Joke, has been described as “possibly the most shattering indictment of totalitarianism to come out of a Communist country.” As a result, it was banned for nearly twenty years. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is based on the 1935 Vítezslav Nezval novel. Much like that […]
Goodbye Gemini (1970)
Alan Gibson may have been born in Canada, but he’s more known for his British horror films, which include Dracula A.D. 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula. Goodbye Gemini was based on the book Ask Agamemnon by Jenni Hall. The book differs in that it is written in the style of a Greek tragedy, with Agmemnon […]
ANOTHER TAKE ON: Guru the Mad Monk (1970)
The Church of Mortavia needs cash, so Father Guru does what he can, which means getting dead bodies for medical students to experiment on. This may mean stabbing churchgoers in the eyeball or working with vampires and hunchbacks. And while this is all supposedly set in the Middle Ages, it was really shot in New […]
PURE TERROR MONTH: Guru the Mad Monk (1970)
The Middle Ages were hard times for mad monks. Father Guru (Neal Flanagan) is a corrupt chaplain in the 15th Century, employed in a bizarre prison complex. Assigned to deliver the last rites to condemned prisoners, Guru also carries out punishments like heating up an iron cross and then searing the flesh of sinners while […]
2019 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 17: And Soon the Darkness (1970)
DAY 17. EVIL IN BROAD DAYLIGHT: Scary stories aren’t just for the night time. A movie that’s referred to as “a sun-drenched nightmare” on its poster, Robert Fuest’s And Soon the Darkness is nearly forgotten today, which is a real shame. Fuest is probably better remembered for The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again than he […]
No Blade of Grass (1970)
. . . Cue the obligatory, budget-conscious voice over-photo montage (bellowing smokestacks, animal carcasses, muddy water, etc.) of a ravaged Earth (in the “future” of 1972; again “budget”) as we learn about a disease that devours the Asian continent and lays waste to all members of the grass-grains family, such as corn, rice, wheat, and […]
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