Dick Croy made four movies all about the unknown, including World Beyond Death, The Miracle Healers, Age of the Psychics and this film, which has Jack Palance as the voice that tells you all about the secret powers that karate fighters and healers all possess.
Keep in mind that this has nothing to do with 1978’s The Force Beyond, which found Willaim Sachs getting Emperor Rosko to say serious things over increasingly goofy happenings.
The sell copy for this claims that it’s all about “the fascinating story of the scientists who are developing the technology to measure these imperceptible energies and the exploration of an untapped energy force available to all of human kind which would revolutionize and improve the quality of life throughout the world.” You may detect the subtle hint of male cow feces throughout.
Nonetheless, they also claim that this movie has “stunning extrasensory evidence that can no longer be denied.” So who am I to be a naysayer?
We reviewed this drive-in oddity way back on October 25, 2018, just because. Well, wouldn’t you know it: Mill Creek’s included it on their B-Movie Blast set. And it got assigned to me to do another take. Ugh. “Keep the site ‘fresh,'” Sam’s says. Whatever, boss.
When Sam reviewed this back in 2018, he mentioned how Bill Van Ryn from Groovy Doom and Drive-In Asylum always jokes about movies where nothing happens as being his “favorite movies.” No truer words spoken, William, for ye are B-movie wise. Nothing happens, here. Zero. Nada. Zippity-do-da. And we love End of the World for the fact that the filmmakers behind it were in the editing suite and said, “print, that’s a wrap.”
Yeah, sure, John Hayes, the director behind the very cool Dream No Evil and Grave of the Vampire (both with the great Michael Pataki starring), as well as Garden of the Dead (bad, but I liked it), gave us this Star Wars dropping.
And Frank Ray Perilli? Well, when the guy who pens Mansion of the Doomed and Dracula’s Dog . . . then follows this alien romp with another alien romp for Charles Band, the romper stomper that is Laserblast . . . well, why are we so shocked at this film’s insanity? Oh, and Cinderella. Perilli has the lower-abdominals to adult-up the classic children’s tale. And he had the muscles to squeeze out a film that not only serves to insult the Catholic Church, but E.T.s the galaxy over.
Christopher Lee, who stars here, is, rightfully embarrassed by this movie. And we are embarrassed for him. As well for his work in Starship Invasions — a film that is inventive, to say the least, but was unable to live up to its whacked premise of underwater alien pyramid bases, due to its non-budget. Did Ed Hunt dupe Sir Lee into that movie? Who knows?
But Lee was duped into End of the World with the hook that José Ferrer, Dean Jagger, John Carradine, Lew Ayers, and MacDonald Carey would star. Lee knew them and their work. So, sure. Why not, so goes the story. Lee commits to the project.
Well, Ferrer and Carradine aren’t here. Bur Ayers and Jagger are. So is ol’ daytime soap actor Mac. But their collective roles are one-day shoot-’em throw away scenes. And we have Sue Lyon (Crash!) and Kirk Scott (Starflight: The Plane That Couldn’t Land; “Big Bud Dean” in Heathers) as our leads. And outside of Lyon and Scott, the rest are wooden. Yeah, even Ayers and Jagger. Well, Lyon and Scott are driftin’ the wood, too, as they show us why they never rose above junk like this and only booked bit parts in anything rising to the level of being a decent watch — such as Heathers.
Anyway . . . the plotting of this Star Wars dropping . . . Jesus H. you-know-who and a bag o’ chips.
So, Irwin and Frank Yablans of Compass International, who unloaded the VHS crap on us Crown International-style, along with Charles Band . . . yes, he of Empire and Full Moon Pictures fame . . . duped Christopher Lee into this galactic craptastica. You know Band’s work, but you may not know the Yablans Brothers were also behind the first Halloween (Irwin’s “idea” as The Babysitter Murders that takes place during Halloween). But Brother Yablans also unleashed Nocturna: Granddaughter of Dracula. Then came up with the idea of an alien priest overseeing a convent of alien nuns.
So . . .
Sir Lee is a catholic priest . . . but he’s an alien.
Nuns operate a supercomputer. They’re aliens.
Lee’s is Father Pergardo, but he’s being called back — or is it “replaced” by the alien Zindar. But he doesn’t want to “go back.” But he “is” Zindar and doesn’t know it. Or something.
Kirk Scott is Professor Andrew Boran. He tinkers in his lab and discovers a coming natural disaster by way of an alien radio signal. Or something.
He and his wife, Sylvia (Sue Lyon), intercept the signals and triangulate them back to a convent . . . where alien nuns run said supercomputer.
The Professor and his squeeze are useless heroes.
The night photography is so dark, it’s to the point of blindness.
Aliens by E.S.P can blow up pay phones, diner coffee machines, and car engines.
The aliens can’t get back unless the Professor gives them some crystal do-dad to fix their Phantasm-doorway back home.
NASA labs have shit security one can easily break into to steal what the aliens need.
The Earth is destroyed because its “diseases” are leaking over into the universe.
Cue the stock footage purchased from Roger Corman.
Blow up the glitter-filled Christmas ornament painted to look like Earth.
The end. Seriously, the real THE END . . . the earth is destroyed!!!
Yes. This TV ad, seen below — in my teen I-must-see-ANYTHING-Star Wars-ish years — got me into the duplex. So, I, like Sir Lee, was duped. But wow . . . when you pair this with Starship Invasions . . . what a double feature! And you can enjoy it . . . and see how it all ends . . . on You Tube. In addition to its inclusion on the B-Movie Blast film pack, you can also watch it as part of their Nightmare Worlds box set.
* Nightmare World image courtesy of JohnGrit/Unisquare.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Eyes Behind the Wall tells the story of Ivano (Fernado Rey, The French Connection), a wheelchair-bound man who has an apartment filled with audio-visual equipment that allows him to spy on Arturo (John Phillip Law, Danger: Diabolik) and his various sexual conquests. He also gets off making his wife Olga (Olga Bisera, The Spy Who Loved Me and obviously a confidant woman, as she was the partner of Luciano Martino — who had been married to Edwige Fenech and Wandisa Guida — from 2004 until his death in 2013) watch these shenanigans. But now, he wants her to seduce him and be part of the action. And that’s where things get…giallo.
There’s also an astounding disco sequence with Bava-esque lighting, public nudity and a song called “Disco Boogie” that made me lose my mind. There’s nothing quite like a disco scene butting its way in to a movie that has nothing to do with dancing and these scenes are always quite welcome. I mean, everyone in this scene is going for it in a way that I never could on the dance floor.
Giuliano Petrelli was usually an actor — he’s in Massacre in Rome and The Italian Connection — and this was his one and done as a writer and director. It’s a shame, because this definitely has some great moments and was way better than I thought that it was going to be. It’s an adjacent giallo, I guess, as it’s more Rear Window than The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. And I did not expect that post-disco scene coming where Arturo’s black friend (Jho Jhenkins, The Perfume of the Lady In Black) takes him from behind on the floor while Ivano gleefully watches and Olivia runs screaming to her bedroom.
Seeing as how the movie starts with Arturo assaulting and murdering a young girl on a train, these things certainly can’t end well for anyone. And what’s with the butler, who seemingly worships Olga, picking up her body hair and underwear in an almost state of religious ecstasy?
This is an adjacent giallo that could fit into the sex thrillers of the late 80’s and 90’s, except that it doesn’t have any negative attitude toward sexual behaviors, from normal to, well by the end of the movie you learn more, totally aberrant. Nor does it shy away from male nudity, so it’s totally the least closed minded pervy 1977 Italian movie you’re ever goign to see. And hey — that Pippo Caruso (Primitive Love, Escape from Women’s Prison) soundtrack is all over the place, from that aforementioned disco number to the strange ambient music that Arturo listens to and the score that drives this film.
The end of this movie will either make total sense to you, gross you out or all of the above. Here’s to 70’s movies that end on the flaming wreckage of their main characters.
Nobuhiko Obayashi died this year, but left behind a career that began as an experimental filmmaker and somehow moved into mainstream success and around 3,000 commercials. At least in the U.S., he’s best known for this movie, which got its start when Toho asked Obayashi to make a movie like Jaws. His daughter Chigumi gave him several ideas that he worked into a script with Chiho Katsura. For two years, no director wanted to make the movie*, so eventually, Obayashi made it himself with a cast of nearly all amateur actresses**. So much of what ended up on the screen was influenced by Hiroshima, where the director grew up and saw every one of his childhood friends die in an atomic blast.
This is truly a haunted house tale told by and for children. Obayashi even wanted the special effects to look unrealistic, as if made by a child. So let that inform the story of Gorgeous, who has been planning a summer vacation with her father, who has been Italy scoring film music***.
Instead, she learns that she has a new stepmother and makes the decision to visit her aunt, along with her friends Prof, Melody, Kung Fu, Mac, Sweet and Fantasy, all of who have names that completely explain who they are.
From there on out, honestly, you’re on your own. House is a movie that should be experienced instead of read about, because this is the kind of movie where pianos can eat children, where watermelons become human heads and heroines can burst into flames within happy endings.
Man, according to the IMDB trivia section, Obayashi proposed a story for what would have been the 16th Godzilla film, which would have used the same crew as House. In this story, a girl named Momo finds the dead body of Godzilla, who is really a pregnant female alien named Rozan who died from diabetes, and then she becomes a spaceship to take children to her home planet to bring Godzilla back. There was, of course, a female monster who shot flames out of her breasts.
*Obayashi would later say that a producer told him that Toho was tired of losing money on comprehensible films, so they decided to let him make something that was incomprehensible.
**Most of those actresses had worked on his commercials, other than Yoko Minamida who played the Auntie. Also, Obayashi was a smart guy, because he made a series of movie tie-ins before the movie was even made, promoting the script so that Toho saw that it would be a success. He published a commercially-successful manga, radio drama and soundtrack album with the band Godiego before Toho finally said that he could make the movie himself.
***How weird would it be if her dad was scoring Suspiria, a movie that House shares the idea of childhood against horror, some level of nonlinear storytelling and primary colors with?
Written in four days by co-directors Ronald C. Ross (who mostly did stuntwork, other than writing and directing 1987’s Burning Vengeance) and Mel Welles (who directed Lady Frankenstein) along with George ‘Buck’ Flower and John F. Goff (who also wrote Butterfly, Hundra and C.B. Hustlers), this is the story of two girls named Cindy (Sandy Alan, The Glove) and Leah (Leslie Ackerman).
They leave behind their abusive lives and hit the road, but on the way decide to rob Tank, a sleazy bankrobber. He’s played by screenwriter and co-director Welles, who was also Gravis Mushnick in the original Little Shop of Horrors. Driving away in his car, they soon realize that he has $2 million dollars in it and won’t stop hunting them.
It’s not great, but it does predate Thelma and Louise, which is a very similar tale with older heroines. Trust me, you can find better on the run movies.
Oh for the era that Joe Don Baker was a sex symbol. Yes, it really happened, it was not an imaginary story. This 1977 film — which suggests the volcanic coupling of Baker and Tyne Daly — is evidence.
An insurance company calls in private investigator Pete Nobeck (Baker) to solve several car thefts that have baffled them. You have a decent cast on hand — Richard Jaeckel, Timothy Carey, Robert Loggia, Morgan Woodward (Cayman from Battle Beyond the Stars!), Lana Wood — and direction from Earl Bellamy, who mostly worked in TV but did also make Walking Tall Part 2.
This was released in Japan as the sequel to Gone In 60 Seconds from 1974, which makes no sense at all, as it has none of the same characters.
Also, speaking of Joe Don’s husky charms, there’s a scene where he as a one night stand with Lana Wood’s psychic character New Blossom. Originally, that character was named Mira and played by Dianne Marchal, who also sang the film’s theme song “Speedytrap.” For some reason — probably to get a PG rating in the U.S. — the Wood scenes are much more chaste. Foreign markets got the Dianne Marchal nudity that we never knew we were missing.
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.
Editor’s Update: We’ve recently learned this car-crashin’ classic will receive a hard media reissue via Dark Force Entertainment. Learn more with their January 2022 Facebook post.
While it’s not an official sequel, car aficionados and ’70s drive-in connoisseurs consider this rebel-rousing Smokey and the Bandit ripoff as a “sequel” to 1974’s Gone in 60 Seconds, as result of most of the cast and crew — Jack Vacek in particular, who serves as writer and director — from Gone appearing-working on this film; when Burt Reynolds broke box office records in his Pontiac Trans Am infomercial, this was re-released to drive-ins as Split-Second Smokey.
If you’re familiar with the plot and action of Gone in 60 Seconds, then you’re up to speed and ready to enjoy this loose hicksplotation entry in the drive-in derby. This time, instead of a professional car thief . . . Smokey is the bandit, aka car theif, as two highway patrolmen (Jack Vacek and Ed Abrams from Gone) who pick up extra cash repossessing cars . . . and come to realize they’re working for a car theft ring. They, of course, spring into action to break up the ring and stay out of the slammer.
Is it dumb and pointless? Yep. But it’s also a lot of fun and the amateur Vacek and Abrams actually make an affable screen duo and the comedy is well-written and executed. Vacek went on to work with H.B Halicki on his own follow ups to Gone: The Junkman and Deadline Auto Theft.
Vacek’s second and final film is the even more obscure and hard-to-find 1988 Dirty Harry knockoff Deadly Addiction (that made it onto home video as Rock House), starring Vacek and his wife, Trice Schubert, from Double Nickels.
To say this film has fans is an understatement. You can find a wealth of extended clips centered on the car chases and crashes — with at ’72 Plymouth Satellite and ’68 Chevy Chevelle going head-to-head, among others — as well as uploads of the film, on You Tube.
From the Phantom 309 files: In addition to the film trivia assist (see the comments, below) with Double Nickels, the Phantom schooled us on a Smokey Bites the Dust and Escape to Witch Mountain connection. No, really! Who knew?
Samuel Wanamaker, CBE was an American actor who moved to the UK after his communist leanings led to a fear of being blacklisted. He was also a director — we’ll get to that in a minute — but strangely enough, he has the credit for saving The Rose Theatre, which led to the modern recreation of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London.
On his first trip to London, he searched for the theater and only found a plaque. He was upset and in 1970, he started paying for the new theater out of his own pocket, despite the scepticism of British actors and a hostile city council. So yeah — that’s why he has a Commander of the Order of the British Empire honorary title after his name, which is rare for an American.
Oh yeah — he also directed this movie (and plenty of TV, including an episode of Lancer, which means that he shows up in Once Upon a Time In…Hollywood and is played by former Spider-Man Nicholas Hammond).
The third and final Sinbad film released by Columbia Pictures was produced by Ray Harryhausen and Charles H. Schneer, who told Starlog he hired Wanamaker because “I wanted an actor’s director for Eye of the Tiger, to see if we could get more dimension out of other-wise cardboard characters. Sam didn’t have to handle any of the technical aspects of the picture. He merely had to pay attention to them. Within the parameters of the technical work, he directed the dramatic sections. The technical work was carried out by Ray and me.”
As for the actors, this is an attempt at using the next generation of Hollywood royalty, as John Wayne’s son Pat as Sinbad and Tyrone Powers’ granddaughter Taryn as Dione.
Sinbad has come to Charak to ask Prince Kassim (Damien Thomas, Count Karnstein from Twins of Evil) if he may marry Princess Farah (Jane Seymour), but the evil stepmother Zenobia (Margaret Whiting) has transformed Kassim into a baboon and sent all manner of creatures after our hero. Even worse, if he can’t figure out how to change his friend back into a human, the evil Rafi (Kurt Christian) will take over.
Of course, adventure beckons, which means that Sinbad and his crew encounter everything from ghouls, giant wasps, a magical bronze robotic minotaur called the Minoton (the first appearance of Peter Mayhew, who would go on to be in some space movie made the very same year that came out at the same time as this movie), an evil walrus and a sabretooth tiger. Luckily, said crew contains Melanthius (Patrick Troughton, the second Dr. Who), his daughter Dione (Power) and a caveman they call Trog*.
Let me tell you what, escaping the news by watching old stop motion movies is the best decision I’ve made in 2020.
*The stop motion model for Trog was used again for the villainous Calibos in Clash of the Titans.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Man, are we doing re-runs as much as Carson in the late 90’s? No, we just wanted to make sure to include all the William Grefe movies we’ve seen in this week of his movies. This one was originally posted on October 20, 2020.
Bill (Christopher George, taking a vacation from his wife, who is in nearly every movie with him), Jamie, Dan (Preston Pierce, Angels’ Wild Women) and Diana (Roberta Collins, Matilda the Hun from Death Race 2000) are on a treasure hunt deep in the Southern backwoods, seeking an inheritance of prices Civil War rifles. Sure, why not?
After thirty minutes of more of travelogue and dirt bike footage, you may wonder, “Has slasher month gone to Sam’s head? When are we going to get to the senseless violence?” Patience, slashawan.
The deeper into the South our protagonists find themselves, the less hospitality they get from the locals, but hey, there’s plenty of money on the other side of the rainbow on Whiskey Mountain, right? Well, there’s also a drug operation that runs everything around, even the cops, all headed up by Rudy (John Davis Chandler, probably the only actor I know that appeared in both Adventures In Babysitting and High Plains Drifter).
This is a movie that has all real marijuana as props and a soundtrack by the Charlie Daniels Band, along with the exact kind of horrors you know await them yankees when they ask too many questions and push too hard. It’s also filled with Peckinpah-esque slow-motion — most effectively when George is double firing shotguns — to go with a brutal scene where we only hear the assault on the girls and see still evidence as it develops on Polaroids. Also — it’s 1977 and technically a motorcycle movie. so that means that it also has a potential downer ending freeze frame.
I tell you what, William Grefé has never let me down. You can get this as part of the He Came from the Swamp box set that Arrow Video has just released. Diabolik DVD is a great bet to find a copy.
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