Making his way to England instead of Staten Island, Andy Milligan created a vampire movie in which Rev. Alexander Algernon Ford (Gavin Reed) has an entire family of vampires — a wife who doesn’t speak, three green-skinned vampire women and a hunchback named Spool — living in Carfax Abbey.

Inbreeding is destroying this vampiric brood, so he calls out to America for more family members to add to the DNA and increase their chances of survival.

To get this on film, Milligan handmade costumes and smeared vaseline all over the lens. As always, he also had everyone scream at the top of their lungs.

Spool is abused throughout the movie, even when he’s trying to do the right thing and save the victims.

Many people seem to dislike this movie, and, to be honest, maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome because I watched so many Andy Milligan movies in the same week, but I’m not seeing the same film that they have. I kind of fall into a drone dream when I watch these, letting them wash over me and take away the world that I don’t want to be in. I feel sad for others who can’t use these movies in the same way.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Released as a double feature with Torture Dungeon, Bloodthirsty Butchers finds Andy Milligan making another one of the classics. Sweeney Todd, to be exact.

Sweeney Todd (John Miranda) and Maggie Lovett (Jane Hilary) come together to kill off their customers, steal their money and valuables, and give the bodies to Tobias Ragg (Berwick Kaler) for disposal. After a few kills, they start getting way into murder, so they decide to start using the bodies to make meat pies, including one that has a woman’s entire breast in it.

Shot in London, this actually feels like it could be in its period, unlike the New York City Milligan movies, where you can see modern buildings and hear the traffic. Milligan made five movies in 1970 alone — Torture Dungeon, Nightbirds, Guru the Mad Monk and The Body Beneath are the other films — and it’s pretty wild that he was doing so much so often. Then again, to the casual viewer, these movies are overly melodramatic films made by a lunatic who can’t even use a tripod, but to those who love these movies, well, they’re also excessively melodramatic films made by a lunatic who can’t even use a tripod. Perspective is important.

TV Guide said that Bloodthirsty Butchers was a “gory and typically cheap retelling of the Sweeney Todd legend.” One star.

I may have ranked it much higher.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Satan’s Serpents and The Choppers are happy to coexist, but the cops start pushing racial tensions between them in the hopes that the two biker gangs will wipe one another off the face of the planet. Any wars these gangs had before this were about turf, not the color of their skin. But Lt. Harper (Clancy Syrko) hates bikers, and there you go.

What sets this beyond other biker films is that there’s a pet racoon who smokes weed, a mountain lion, snakes used to kill people, bikers pissing all over one another, screaming stuff like “It’s champagne! I just blessed you with my golden shower!” and people have names like Chainer (he has a chain) and Knifer (because he has a knife). They’re named like off-brand GI Joe lines, like America’s Defense and The Corps, used to name the bad guys. There’s also a go-go dancer who doesn’t let a full-on brawl stop the dance.

Mostly, people ride bikes. If you like to see people ride bikes, that’s good news. People ride lots of bikes.

This was directed and written by Laurence Merrick, who also made Guess What Happened to Count Dracula? and Manson. He was killed by a stalker in 1977.

Also known as Black Bikers from Hell.

Aside from Mario Bava’s influential films, such as Blood and Black Lace, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, no other movie has left as indelible a mark on the Giallo genre as Dario Argento’s 1970 directorial debut. Before this, Argento was a journalist who contributed to the screenplay of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West.

The title of the film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, is a metaphor for the protagonist’s predicament. Just as the bird is trapped by the beauty of the crystal plumage, Sam is trapped by the beauty of the art gallery and the mystery it holds. This metaphorical title sets the tone for the film and its exploration of the relationship between art and violence. In the film, Sam Dalmas (played by Tony Musante) is an American writer struggling with writer’s block. He travels to Rome for a change of scenery, accompanied by his British model girlfriend, played by Suzy Kendall. Just as he decides to return home, he witnesses a black-gloved man attacking a woman inside an art gallery. Desperate to save her, he finds himself helpless, trapped between two mechanical doors as the woman silently pleads for help.

The woman, Monica Ranier, is the gallery owner’s wife. Although she survives the attack, the police suspect Sam may be involved in the crime and confiscate his passport to prevent him from leaving the country. Unbeknownst to them, a serial killer has been targeting young women for weeks, and Sam is the only witness. Haunted by the attack, Sam’s memory is unreliable, leaving him without a crucial clue that could solve the case, adding a layer of suspense to the narrative.

This film introduces several tropes that would become hallmarks of the genre: the foreign stranger turned detective, the gaps in memory, and the black-clad killer—elements that later Giallo films would pay homage to. These elements, along with Argento’s unique visual style and use of suspense, would go on to influence a generation of filmmakers and shape the Giallo genre as we know it today.

Another recurring theme in Argento’s work appears for the first time here: the notion that art can incite violence. In this instance, a painting depicting a raincoat-clad man murdering a woman plays a significant role.

As the story unfolds, Sam receives menacing phone calls from the killer, and the masked assailant attacks Julia. The police manage to isolate a sound in the background of the killer’s conversations—the call of a rare Siberian bird. This bird, a Grey Crowned Crane, plays a significant role in the film’s narrative, serving as a clue that brings the police closer to unraveling the mystery. The film’s use of this rare bird as a plot device is a testament to Argento’s skill as a storyteller and his ability to create tension and suspense.

Alberto, Monica’s husband and the owner of the art gallery, ultimately attempts to kill her, revealing that he orchestrated the attacks. However, in true giallo fashion, mistaken identity is a crucial plot twist. Even though this film was made nearly fifty years ago, I won’t spoil the reveal of the real killer.

I recall my parents seeing this movie before I was born and disliking it so much that they would mention “that weird movie with the bird that makes the noises” whenever they encountered a confusing film. Ironically, I grew to love Argento’s work. My fascination with Giallo and difficult-to-understand films is a form of rebellion against their opinions.

This film, an uncredited adaptation of Fredric Brown’s novel *The Screaming Mimi*, was initially considered a career misstep by actress Eva Renzi. The film’s producer even wanted to replace Argento as director. However, when Argento’s father, Salvatore, spoke with the producer, he noticed that the executive’s secretary appeared shaken. When he asked her what was wrong, she revealed she was still terrified from watching the film. Salvatore convinced her to explain her fear to her boss, ultimately leading to Argento staying as director.

The outcome of this struggle? It is a film that played in one theater in Milan for three and a half years, leading to countless imitators—and inspired many elements in films featuring lizards, spiders, flies, ducklings, butterflies, and more—for decades to come. Argento would later continue his so-called Animal Trilogy with The Cat O’Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet, then Deep Red before moving into more supernatural films like Suspiria and Inferno.

Anthony Cardoza produced some really interesting films. You may call them turkeys. You may also call them…well, you wouldn’t call them works of art. But hey, his movies live on, like The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Hellcats and today’s film, Bigfoot.

Jasper B. Hawks (John Carradine!) and Elmer Briggs (John Mitchum, brother of Robert and the writer of the John Wayne voiced “America, Why I Love Her” that TV stations used to sign off when TV stations still existed and actually signed off) are driving around the forest. And Joi Landis (Joi Lansing, a former MGM contract girl who shows up in the long tracking shot that begins Touch of Evil, in her final role) is a pilot whose plane breaks down. She parachutes into the woods and encounters Bigfoot.

Then there’s Rick (Chris Mitchum, son of Robert and also an actor in films like Jodorowsky’s Tusk and Jess Franco’s Faceless) and his girlfriend Chris, who find a Bigfoot cemetery and get attacked, too.

Of course, the authorities are of no help. Only Jasper will help Rick, and that’s because he wants a Bigfoot for his freak show.

Peggy gets kidnapped by Bigfoot, and we discover that Joi has been taken, too. Upon reaching the lair of the Bigfoots (Bigfeet?), we discover that the creatures we’ve seen are his wives, and the real creature is 200 feet tall. Yes,. You just read that right. And he’s about to fight a bear that’s just as huge.

A gang of bikers gasses Bigfoot, but he escapes the freakshow and then gets blown up by bikers. John Carradine quotes from King Kong (he does throughout the film) and the movie ends.

Along the way, we find Doodles Weaver, whose scene in the completely bonkers The Zodiac Killer may be the most ridiculous scene in what is quite honestly one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen.

And hey, is that Bing Crosby’s son Lindsey? Yes, it is! And the first singing cowboy, Ken Maynard! This movie has actors with much more interesting stories than the film they’re stuck in.

But you know what is interesting? The strange doom funk that plays every time the bikers show up. And keep your eyes open for a quick appearance by Haji, who famously appeared in Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! 

Director Robert F. Slatzer only did two other movies, but one of them was The Hellcats, where Russ Hagen battles a female gang. Leather on the outside…all woman on the inside!

But hey — Bigfoot. Come for the bikers. Stay for the bigfoots. Enjoy the bikinis. But dig this crazy sound, man!