Manly Wade Wellman worked in so many genres — historical fiction, detective tales, Western stories, juvenile fiction, comic books, non-fiction, science fiction and fantasy — and had his stories become episodes of The Twilight Zone and Monsters but he’s best known for the fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains near the North Carolina he loved so much.

Perhaps his most beloved character is Silver John or John the Balladeer. He may be a simple country man who has just returned from Korean, where he was a sharpshooter, but he has a high degree of knowledge, mostly of the occult. He carries John George Hohman’s Long Lost Friend, a book of Pennsylvania Dutch spells, talismans and remedies. Most importantly, he has a guitar with strings of pure silver. There’s also some spiritual link between him and John the Baptist.

Beyond these stories being filled with the legends of the Carolinas, the songs that John sings throughout are all true. I love this quote about these tales: “Whereas Tolkien integrated Northern mythology into his mythos, and C.S. Lewis the European Fairy Tales of yore, Wellman’s stories are drenched in the folktales and songs of old Americana; the haunting stories of the slaves and the tall tales of the Revolution, strange beasts, witch-women and dark apparitions.”

Based on two of the Silver John adventures, “The Desrick on Yandro” and “O Ugly Bird,” this is nearly a portmanteau of many tales of John (Hedges Capers), as well as information on all manner of legends, including dowser Mr. Marduke (Severn Darden) explaining how important the devil is to Appalachian culture. Oh yes — a dowser is someone who uses a diving rod to find water, minerals or gold underground.

We also learn how John gets his silver stringed guitar from his grandfather (Denver Pyle) who decides to sing against the Defy, who is the devil around these parts. Their battle is so brutal that is literally breaks the film and ends with the devil triumphant, as American silver is not as pure as the money of the past.

Before John can outsing the dark one, he goes to a mountain where he meets Zebulon Yandro (Harris Yulin), whose grandfather once turned against a witch that he had been given gold by. He told her he’d be her lover for a year but took the treasure and ran to become an undertaker. Now that she still lives on the mountain and looks like a young, gorgeous girl (Susan Strasberg) but Yandro doesn’t get the good end of this deal. John does, as he’s pointed to the next stage in his quest, Hark Mountain, which is being mined by warlock O. J. Onselm (Alfred Ryder), followed by a sharecropper named Captain Lajoie H. Desplaines IV (Percy Rodrigues). Luckily, John has the help of Uncle Anansi (Chester Jones), who is related to the West African spider god.

Why does John help people who would sooner be afraid of him? Well, that’s just what he does. He’d probably be happier living with his woman, Lily (Sharon Henesy), sleeping in the warmth of the fire instead of outside in the mountains, getting to spend time with her and his dog Honor Hound. But heroes don’t get to make choices for themselves.

Directed by John Newland (who directed 96 episodes of One Step Beyond and the TV movies Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Crawlspace) and written by Melvin Levy, this takes a departure from the books by having John younger and way less sure of himself. It does have the benefit of “The Devil,” sung by Hoyt Axton, and that Hedges Capers was such a good singer himself. More for hippies than perhaps the audience for the books, this is still such a unique film, one I’d wanted to see for so long and quite pleased that it’s as magnificent as it is.

Who Fears the Devil is part of the new Severin box set, All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2. It has extras including the alternate opening for The Legend of Hillbilly JOhn introduced by Severn Darden; audio commentary by Amanda Reyes; interviews with producer Barney Rosenzweig and actor and musician Hedges Capers; author David Drake remembers Manly Wade Wellman; occult historian Mitch Horowitz on the arcane texts of Wellman’s John The Balladeer stories and a trailer.

You can order this set from Severin.

Is there such a thing as a perfect movie? Maybe. Maybe not. But if you ask me, this combination of the occult and biker culture ranks really close.

Tom Latham (Nicky Henson, Witchfinder General) leads The Living Dead, a motorcycle gang that causes trouble and occasionally dabbles in black magic. The worm filled apple didn’t fall far from the tree — Tom’s mother, deceased father and butler Shadwell (George Sanders, All About Eve and Rebecca) follow the Left Hand Path. With their help, he learns how to die and come back from the dead — roaring from his freshly buried earth on his motorcycle (later Lemmy would do this in Motörhead’s “Killed by Death” video).

Soon, one after another of the gang commit suicide and return from the dead. Soon, the gang is killing cops and menacing babies. And their names! Gash, Hatchet, Chopped Meat, Hinkey and Bertram! This movie is about pure mayhem! I wonder, was all of England in the grip of Satan in the early 1980’s?

Director Don Sharp keeps things stylish and moving. This isn’t his first go-round with frogs in cemeteries, pacts with the devil, mysterious suicides and zombies. Check out his other film, Witchcraft. He was also behind Dark Places, Hammer’s Rasputin: The Mad Monk and the final movie in The Fly series, Curse of the Fly. This is his best work, though.

You should pretty much quit whatever it is you’re doing right now and go watch this.

Psychomania is part of the new Severin box set, All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2. It has extras including an introduction by film historian Chris Alexander; a commentary by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo, founding editor Of Hellebore Magazine; interviews with Nicky Henson, Mary Larkin, Denis Gilmore, Roy Holder, Rocky Taylor, “Riding Free” Singer Harvey Andrews and soundtrack composer John Cameron; the featurette Stone Warnings, in which Dr. Diane A. Rodgers discusses stone circles and standing stones in film and television and a trailer.

You can order this set from Severin.

Also known as Barn of the Naked Dead and Nightmare Circus, this is one of those movies where no one is even sure who made it. Sure, Alan Rudolph is listed as the director, but stuntman Gerald Cormier — also the leader of the film’s distributor CMC Pictures — is credited. Some say that he’s Rudolph. Star Andrew Prine says that two other directors made this before Rudolph and Cormier was one of them. Writer Ralph Harolde could also be Rudolph.

Andre (Prine) has built a circus in the desert, located right on top of a former atomic test site, and keeps kidnapping showgirls like Simone (Manuela Thiess), Sheri (Sherry Alberoni) and Corinne (Gyl Roland) and even female scientists, training all of them to perform for him. He also has a cougar that he lets loose on them and there’s something inside the barn that loves to kill women.

Simone is worshipped as the lost mother Andre can’t have, as he tells her of his past. That’s better than Sheri, who has been picked to be the new Reptile Girl as Andre flings snakes at her. Then, the girls free Andre’s father (Gerald Cormier) from the barn. Nuclear fallout has made him into a crazed psychopath and he kills everyone in his path with only two girls escaping. That’s the scene that the agent of the Vegas girls, Derek Moore (Chuck Niles), and the cops discover when they get there.

Andrew Prine said, “This is the only movie I ever regretted making.”

He should embrace it. I love the circus tent in the middle of the desert and the sheer lunacy of this movie. It’s just so out there and it shouldn’t work yet it does just long enough to rush to its bloody end.

Here’s a drink.

Barn Door of the Naked Dead

• 1.5 oz. vodka
• 5 oz. pineapple juice
• .5 oz. cranberry juice

1. Pour the vodka into a glass filled with crushed ice.
2. Top with pineapple juice and float cranberry juice to complete.

Also known as The Hooker Cult Murders, The Pyx is based on the novel by John Buell. The pyx is a container used by Catholics to hold the Eucharist, literally the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the form of blessed unleavened bread.

While directed by Harvey Hart and written by Robert Schlitt, this was a movie that Curtis Harrington had wanted to make for some time.

Elizabeth Lucy (Karen Black) is a barely dressed sex worker who fell out a window, a bloodstream filled with heroin, clutching a crucifix and a pyx. Sergeant Jim Henderson (Christopher Plummer) wants to figure out why she died, which takes us back through the last few months of her life.

As he grows closer to the truth, meeting the people in her life, each of them dies in different ways. That’s because Elizabeth was the victim of a cult who had desecrated a piece of communion and were offering it to her as part of a Black Mass, presided over by a Catholic priest. As she was trying to save her soul, she jumps out a window to her death.

That priest, Keerson (Jean-Louis Roux) claims to be possessed by the devil and only the bullets of Henderson’s gun set him free.

The end of this is strange from a Catholic perspective. Suicide is one of the biggest sins of the church and it keeps the soul in limbo or sends it to Hell, depending on which of the teachers you believe. Would Elizabeth be forgiven for this death as she did it to remain free of Satanic power? I wonder.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Here’s a drink.

Black Mass (thanks to this recipe)

• 1.5 oz. white rum
• .5 oz. Malibu
• .5 oz. blue curacao
• .5 oz. Campari
• 3 oz. pineapple juice
• .25 oz. simple syrup
• .25 oz. lime juice

1. Put all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice.
2. Pour over crushed ice and drink up.

A few years in the past, Jeff Ashton (David G. Cannon), Doctor Ray Sanders (John Crawford),  “Mad Man” Herman (Marvin Kaplan) and Ted Rogers (Ray Dannis), among others, were caught in a cave-in. With the prospect of survival seeming zero, they agreed — well, everyone except the victim — to cut off Ted’s arm and eat it.

Now, Jeff has just received an arm in the mail and “Mad Man” is killed on the air during his radio show, his arm amputated by a crazy killer. With the help of Ted’s daughter Teddy (Deborah Walley), they look for Ted, who is missing. But ah — she’s been working with her Uncle Roger (Bob Guthrie) to lure Jeff into a trap where he’ll have to eat his own arm to live!

The lesson of this movie: Never trust the mail when it’s delivered by Angus Scrimm.

Directed by Thomas S. Alderman, who wrote the story with Darrel Presnell (from a story by Marc B. Ray and Larry Alexander and additional dialogue by Kelly Estill), this is a grimy thriller that has cannibalism at its heart.

You can watch this on Tubi or get it from Vinegar Syndrome.

Here’s a drink.

Cave In Cannibal

• 1 oz. amaretto
• 1 oz. high proof rum
• 1 oz. peach schnapps
• .5 oz. Southern Comfort
• 2 oz. cranberry juice
• .5 oz. orange juice

1. Add amaretto, rum, schnapps and Southern Comfort to a glass filled with ice.
2. Stir, then add cranberry juice. Stir and add orange juice.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Godzilla vs. Megalon was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, November 10, 1979 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, October 11, 1980 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, August 14, 1982 at 1:00 a.m.

This film came out in the U.S. when I was four years old and for a kid that watched Godzilla films every time they aired, I was so excited to see something new. Yes, Jet Jaguar was accidentally called Robotman and Gigan was Borodan but I didn’t yet super anal retentive about kaiju movies and need to see the originals in Japanese.

On March 15, 1977, this was the first Godzilla movie that aired on American network TV in prime time. It was cut down — nearly in half, come on! — but it was hosted by John Belushi in a Godzilla suit. However, no one saved any of this footage. For decades, I thought I had just had a dream about it.

197X: Humans keep nuclear testing, which ends up causing earthquakes on Monster Island, nearly killing Godzilla and taking out Anguirus. The undersea city of Seatopia has had enough of humanity and unleash their greatest monster, Megalon, cleaning their hands of surface people forever.

Inventor Goro Ibuki (Katsuhiko Sasaki), his brother Rokuro (Hiroyuki Kawase) and Hiroshi Jinkawa (Yutaka Hayashi) have created a robot named Jet Jaguar. Seatopia does not wanted to die off like Atlantis, Mu (justified and ancient) and Lemuria. They steal the robot to guide their monster.

Once the inventor and his friends save Jet Jaguar, they team with Godzilla just in time for the Seatopia army to contact the Space Hunter Nebula M and send Gigan back to our planet. What follows is the monster fight of all monster fights, which ends as all must, with Godzilla shaking hands with his new robot friend. If you think this is goofy, we can never be movie friends.

Jet Jaguar was the result of a contest Toho had for children. Red Arone was a robot sent in by a child who was upset when his drawing became a monster. Toho redesigned him as Jet Jaguar and made him a hero.

This once had the title Insect Monster Megalon vs. Godzilla: Undersea Kingdom’s Annihilation Strategy. Japan forever.

If this is starting to all feel the same, this movie uses footage from Mothra vs. Godzilla, Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, The War of the Gargantuas, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Godzilla vs. Gigan.

The last fight in this is total pro wrestling. Godzilla even hits a dropkick.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nightmare Hotel was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, March 24, 1979 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, August 16, 1980 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, September 26, 1981 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, August 20, 1983 at 3:00 a.m.

Nightmare Hotel is the TV title for A Candle for the Devil which is also known as It Happened at Nightmare Inn. Directed by Eugenio Martín, it begins with sisters Marta (Aurora Bautista) and Verónica (Esperanza Roy) confronting May (Loreta Tovar), one of the guests at their small inn. She’s sunbathing nude outside and in the middle of an argument, she’s shoved down the stairs and dies when she goes through a stained glass window. Just as the sisters start to get rid of the body, the dead girl’s sister Laura (Judy Geeson) shows up, wondering where her sister is. She decides to stay there until she can find her sister.

Things are steamy all over town. One of the guests, Helen Miller (Lone Fleming), is on the make and bringing men back to her room at all hours of the evening. Verónica is sleeping with the much younger Luis (Carlos Piñe) and stealing money to give to him. And every man in the village seems to be swimming nude, which excited and enrages Marta, who soon kills Helen.

An American mother named Norma (Blanca Estrada) comes to stay just as Laura leaves, worried for her safety after Helen disappears. She asks Norma to let her know when she leaves to ensure that she isn’t killed. Soon, the sisters covet the baby and start to believe that Norma is a sex worker and has no idea who the father is. Verónica grabs her baby as Marta stabs the woman. It turns out that she was in the middle of a divorce and this gives Verónica more reasons to doubt her sister; she gives Luis all of her money and says she no longer wants to see him, begging him to leave town.

Laura returns, after not hearing from Norma. She brings a man from town,  Eduardo (Víctor Barrera), who finds a container in the basement with mystery meat floating in red wine. As he finds Norma’s severed head, he’s murdered by Marta. At the same time, a guest gets sick from eating food made from people and her husband goes to the police.

Laura returns to her room and finds Eduardo’s body as the sisters attack her, dragging her to the room with the rotting meat. As she screams against a window, the police save her, but as her face and tears go through the credits, it seems like she will never be the same again.

When this played U.S. theaters as Dread Stop at Nightmare Inn, it got a PG rating. How?!?

I loved every moment, from the Blaise Pascal quote at the start — “There are only two types of men: The righteous who think they are sinners, and the sinners who think they are righteous” — to the final moments.

In 1985, this was remade in Turkey as Vahset Kasirgasi (Brutal Storm). And thanks to my friend Bill Van Ryn, I know that this played double features with Things From The Grave, which is a retitled Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things.

You can watch this on Tubi.