EDITOR’S NOTE: Cheerleader’s Beach Party was the first movie ever played on USA Up All Night on January 7, 1989. It played five more times after that: April 22 and October 6, 1989; March 16 and 17 and September 15, 1990.
Alex E. Goitein had already made Cherry Hill High for Cannon, but now he had Chuck Vincent writing his script, the man who would one day be able to boast of making Bedroom Eyes, Hot T-Shirts, American Tickler, Bedroom Eyes II, Sensations, Deranged, Young Nurses in Love and so many more movies. In fact, if you watched a lot of USA Up All Night, the chances were quite high that you were watching a Chuck Vincent movie.
Animal House then came out the same year and changed how sex comedies went from dirty little drive-in movies to big business. This film follows a similar story and was also known as California Cheerleaders.
The cheerleaders of Rambling University — Monica (Elizabeth Loredan), Toni (Jamie Jenson), Sissy (Lynn Hastings, also in Cherry Hill High) and Sheryl (Gloria Upson, who was also in…did you guess Cherry Hill High?) — fight to keep their players from going to another college, which means stealing the van of an opposing coach and putting crabs into the jockstraps of his players. They also destroy an old person pool party — or make it so much better — with some pot-laced brownies.
One of the teachers in this movie, Mr. Langley, is played by John Hart. Hart was a war hero who came back to Hollywood as an action film actor — he’s in the Jack Armstrong serial — and he was offered the opportunity to replace Clayton Moore on The Lone Ranger television series. The producers of the show believed that it was the character and not the actor that was the true star and when Moore asked for a better salary, he was let go. The public never accepted Hart as a replacement and by 1954 the producers returned Moore to the role. In his book I Was That Masked Man, Moore claimed that he’d never asked for a raise and had no idea why he was replaced. This was not the last time that producers screwed with Clayton Moore and the public stood up for the man they saw as the true Lone Ranger.
Back to Cheerleader’s Beach Party.
This movie is as 1978 as it gets, filled with disco, a Saturday Night Beaver, Billy Carter references and Fleetwood Mac pillow talk. There are, however, better cheerleader movies and to the point, better Chuck Vincent movies. But hey — if you were a kid and up late, Gilbert would make fun of this movie before and after the commercials, getting your weekend started.
I’ve been trying to work my way through the non-horror films of Polselli and they’re fine, but I was missing something, Missing women standing wide-eyed and screaming, tree branches being used for the most nefarious of reasons and strange rituals happening for no reason at all. Thankfully — after much searching through some of the most nefarious of websites — I have found Casa dell’amore… la polizia intervene AKA House of Love… The Police Intervene.
My excitement was palpable just from the IMDB summary: “Three young hobby archeologists witness a Satanic ritual in a secluded villa. Instead of helping poor female victims they decide to secretly document the events.”
Hobby archaeologists! Satanic ritual! Secluded villa! This movie is my new plans for the day.
Directed by Polselli and written by long-time associate and often production manager Bruno Vani, this has Polselli using the name Ralph Brown and also having access to footage from the unfinished movie A Virgin for Satan by Alessandro Santini. That film was co-written by Vani and the ritual scenes in this film come from that film.
According to an article in Nocturno, this was called I torbidi misteri della sensualità (Obscure Mysteries of Sensuality) and was a reworking of another Polselli script for a movie called Tilt that was based on the Manson Family. In that script, a cult named The Children of Satan conducts an occult marriage ceremony with a nude bride covered with the blood of doves. What could have been…
Helm (Tony Matera, who is also in Torino centrale del vizio), Brigitte (Mirella Rossi, Oscenità, Confessioni segrete di un convento di clausura) and Charlotte (Iolanda Mascitti, Revelations of a Psychiatrist on the World of Sexual Perversion, Nude for Satan — how did Polselli not get in on that movie, what with Rita Calderoni as the star? — and the continuity person for Oscenità and script supervisor for Mania, which is incredible because who knew those movies had those roles?) are our three young hobby archaeologists who are looking for bones in the Italian countryside. Brigitte watches as two men overpower and kidnap a woman, which means that they now become twenty-something teen detectives.
Their search brings them to an old house on the edge of town where the elderly Claudia, her niece Elisabeth (Matilde Antonelli, No One Will Notice You’re Naked, Django’s girlfriend in the Brad Harris-starring, Roberto Mauri-directed Death Is Sweet from the Soldier of God) and Phillip live. Are you surprised to learn that these are the followers of Astoroph who sacrifice virgins in Black Masses? Well, the real shock is that instead of going to the police, our protagonists decide to do the investigation themselves and sell it to the press for big money. As for the cult, they plan on making Kathy Cunningham (Katia Cardinali, who is whipped to death in Delirio caldo by Rita Calderoni before she’s drowned in a bathtub and thrown from a window) their next sacrifice, as she has been willingly offered by her boyfriend Lawrence.
With around eleven minutes left in the movie, things start getting nutty, with robed figures chanting, a nude Elisabeth is leading the ritual and ah, man, the cops intervene, just like they promised in the title. There’s also a scene where two people fight with a chain and ladder as a weapon — what is, ECW? — before throwing hens at one another, followed by rocks being launched at a cultist who is then flattened by a bulldozer. There are also love scenes in the cut I’ve found that go to black, which I assume are where the hardcore inserts would find a home, and a skiing scene out of absolutely nowhere. I watched this as it should be watched: a seventh-generation VHS transferred to a porn site filled with pop-ups while sick or high with COVID-19 at 6 in the morning in the hours where it is late and not early.
This also has the thing that every Polselli movie needs: reaction shots of people bugging their eyes out. That’s what else these other movies have been missing. He must have given the direction, “Stand up and stare at the camera like someone is naked in public and no one knows what to do!”
Seriously, this movie has an extended scene of hens being thrown at people before someone’s head gets cut off with a bucket while our two leads run. Helm is straight up mounting this dude and it’s way intense, so upsetting that the girls just take off. Then they all chain themselves together while he and Brigitte laugh like lunatics while Charlotte looks afraid? What an ending?
What does it all mean? Who cares!
I also have to say, Pier Giorgio Farina turns in one strange soundtrack that is totally perfect for this movie. There are just electronic noises that drop in and out before going into synth runs and it’s like a super sparse affair that goes into church organs and I’m all about it.
It introduced me to his DISCOCROSS album, where he’s backed by Goblin.
A remake — a loose one — of The Ghastly Ones, this movie has three sisters and their husbands arrive at a remote inn to attend the reading of their uncle’s will. One by one, they are dispatched by an unknown killer. It sounds simple, but this is Andy Milligan. It’s going to get strange.
“Think of your worst nightmare… It’s about to happen again!” That’s what brought people in for this movie and it’s a pretty good tagline. As for the movie, it’s set in the 1800s but obviously shot in modern day Staten Island. And who cares? By this point, if you’re watching this, you’ve given into the world of Andy Milligan.
Margaret (Elaine Boies) and Mary Lennox (Marilee Troncone) work in the Hanley Mansion, which is also home to their mentally challenged brother Carl (Chris Broderick). The master of the house is long gone, but now his daughetrshave finally come to claim their pieces of the estate. There’s Regina (Dale Hansen) and her husband Joe (Joe Downing); Jennifer (Louise Gallandra) and Robert (Peter Schwartz); and Louise and John (Peter Barcia), all of whom must spend three days together to get their inheritance. Well, that is if any of them survive, as the psychic Baba (Bob Elia) predicts at least one will die.
This was also edited into a TV cut, Legacy of Horror, that is a little longer but is missing the gore. That’s so much of the fun, as someone gets their guts sawed into, there’s a decapitation, a hand chopped off and an accidental hatchet to the head.
Legacy of Blood may be the most technically well-made of Andy Milligan’s films, but do we even come to his work for that?
Dr. Hamílton (Jorge Peres) is a psychiatrist who is having nightmares in which Coffin Joe is taking his wife. Hse seeks help from filmmaker Jose Mojica Marins, who assures him that he created Coffin Joe, who doesn’t really exist.
By this point, even though it’s mentioned several times in this movie that Coffin Joe was not real, he has become real. He has become more than an idea and is Brazil’s national boogeyman. He exists in our imagination as real as an actual living being. Kind of like, oh you know, Freddy Kreuger, who took a similar path 16 years later.
It’s also a great way to get out all the strangest stuff that couldn’t be seen in the past. Sure, it’s barely connected, but if you’re looking for a Coffin Joe mixtape to put on with some fuzzed out music for a party, well, this is it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Beasts Are On the Streets was on the CBS Late Movie on February 22, 1984 and March 8, 1985.
Peter R. Hunt is best known for his work on the James Bond movies, editing many of the early movies and directing one of my favorites, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
He also directed this Hanna-Barbera Production, written by Laurence Heath and Frederick Louis Fox, in which a tanker truck smashes into the fence of a Texas wildlife preserve, unleashing all of nature’s fury into the city, including bears, bison, zebras, rhinos, tigers, camels, antelopes, ostriches, elephants, lions and bears. Only Dr. Claire McCauley (Carol Lynley, Elevator) can save the day.
The strangeness of this movie comes from the fact that it uses the Hanna-Barbera audio library, so every sound effect for real happenings has the audio of a cartoon and what we know of cartoons, you know? It’s disconcerting.
A pre-Miami Vice Philip Michael Thomas is here, as is Bill Thurman, who is in several Larry Buchanan movies. He’s the pill-loving trucker who gets the movie in this mess.
Don’t expect Roar or Wild Beasts, but still, maybe you can ethically enjoy this film more, even if it doesn’t have some of the lunatic thrill of those other two animals gone wild films.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Matilda was on the CBS Late Movie on December 23, 1985.
When Melvin Simon Productions out up half the cash for this movie, they made nearly half a million in profit by selling the TV rights to CBS for $2.5 million, foreign sales which went around $1.6 million and American-International Pictures paid an advance of $1.8 million on the movie.
The fact that anyone made any money on this upsets me to no end, because this is amongst the most terrifying movies I’ve ever seen. The decision to not use a real kangaroo and instead spend thirty grand on a suit with Gary Morgan in it will give me nightmares for the rest of my life.
At one point, my wife walked in as the kangaroo had been hit for the first time and started loudly screaming and she said, “Why would anyone watch this?”
I just sheepishly looked at her and she left the room.
Clive Revill plays Billy Baker, the Irish pub owner who somehow gets the ownership of the boxing kangaroo Matilda. He alone has the power to see you in the audience and will speak to you through the fourth wall twice in this movie.
Elliot Gould, who plays Bernie Bonnelli, the man who thinks he can make money off a boxing kangaroo, said of this movie, “When Al Ruddy wanted to buy back my position, my points in the picture, he offered me hundreds of thousands of dollars, which at that point I decided would be bad karma. That was bad judgment on my part.”
I have no idea why Karen Carlson’s character falls in love with him, but I am fascinated by the fact that this movie is filled with so many of my favorite actors: Lionel Stander, Robert Mitchum and even Roberta Collins. Even more amazingly, this came out the same year that Gould made The Silent Partner, so he wasn’t hurting for work.
It also gets Harry Guardino into another animal movie in the same year, as he would also be in Every Which Way But Loose, while Roy Clark takes a break from Hee-Haw to play Wild Bill Wildman.
Directed by Daniel Mann, yes, the same man who made Willard and Our Man Flint, this was written by Timothy Galfas, Paul Gallico and the aforementioned Ruddy. They made a movie that’s supposedly for kids but in which organized crime figures try to cut off the tail of a kangaroo and shameless promoter Gould makes the kangaroo literally do carny shoot boxing against marks in the audience. It’s upsetting, the suit is uncanny valley dead eye nightmare fuel for the rest of your life and, well, at least Mitchum and Gould got to smoke a joint together every day at lunch. I’d make any movie if I got to smoke with Mitchum, the star of one of my favorite movies of all time — The Night of the Hunter — and someone who seemed full of venom and hilarious stories with every interview I’ve ever read. Just don’t get in his way with your camera when he has a basketball in his hands.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Bud and Lou was on the CBS Late Movie on December 25, 1984 (Merry Christmas!) and June 3, 1987.
This movie crushed me as a child. I had always loved Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, watching their thirty-six films on Sunday mornings, right after Ma and Pa Kettle films. Seriously, weekends in Pittsburgh in the 70s and 80s were amazing. You stayed up all night watching Chiller Theater and then woke up late and took in some Abbott and Costello. Ah, memories.
That said, when this aired on November 15, 1978, I excitedly watched it from my parent’s black and white kitchen TV, ready to have fun reliving my favorite memories of the comedy duo. I wasn’t ready to learn how much they hated one another and their foibles. Cut me some slack — I was six.
Abbott and Costello are played by Buddy Hackett and Harvey Korman. Interestingly, Hackett and Hugh O’Brian replaced the team when Costello’s health forced them to drop out of 1954’s Fireman Save My Child.
The team came together when Abbott’s original partner was ill and it gelled pretty quickly. The film hints that Bud used to date Lou’s wife — this is unproven — but as we’ve learned from tabloid-style films, facts are rarely important. For example, while they did debut on The Kate Smith Hour on February 3, 1938, they didn’t do the “Who’s On First?” routine until a month later and they had developed their distinctive voices (audiences initially thought they sounded alike until Costello came up with his high-pitched, childish affect).
They debuted their own show, The Abbott and Costello Show, as Fred Allen’s summer replacement in 1940 before joining Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy on The Chase and Sanborn Hour in 1941. That was also the year that their first two films — Buck Privates and Hold That Ghost — debuted (they made their actual first film appearance in 1940’s One Night in the Tropics, essentially playing their greatest hits from burlesque on screen).
By 1942, they were the top box office stars in the country, earning over $789,000 ($12 million in today’s money) that year alone. To show how big of stars they were, a 35-day War Bonds tour in the summer of 1942 earned $85 million dollars ($1,299,767,105 today!) in war bonds purchases. This is important — because soon, the government would come calling for this money and forget all about this. That’s a major part of the film.
Here come the bad parts. Abbott had epilepsy, which in the film just means you have to sit down every once in a while, as well as drink way too much. Costello got rheumatic fever from a military base tour and was bedridden for the rest of 1942 and into ’43, when he returned to radio after a year layoff. That very same day, his infant son drowned in the family’s pool and the comedian was never the same. He was quick to anger and constantly vindictive to the point that a major rift happened when In 1945 a rift developed when Abbott hired a servant who Costello had fired. That led to Costello refusing to speak to his partner except when performing. From them on, they would play separate characters in films, rather than be a team. This led to their loss in popularity when faced with other teams like Martin and Lewis.
Abbott resolved the rift when he suggested naming Costello’s charity the “Lou Costello Jr. Youth Foundation.” Finally some good news — this charity still helps underprivileged youth in the Boyle Heights district of Los Angeles.
Despite their dip in popularity, they still starred in several films with the Universal monsters and hosted The Colgate Comedy Hour. From 1952 to 54, Costello created, owned and syndicated The Abbott and Costello Show, paying Abbott a salary, a point this movie hammers home as proof that any reconciliation was only on one man’s part. That said, the movie totally ignores that this show was a success and aired in reruns for a long time.
The film never gets into the point that the duo was overexposed and worried about creating new material, which is one of the reasons why Universal couldn’t reach a contract with them. They were forced to sell all of their assets to the IRS to pay taxes, a point the movie definitely makes.
After one last film, Dance with Me, Henry and Lou appearing on This Is Your Life, the duo split for good in 1957. Errol Flynn claimed in his autobiography that he was the reason. At a party he had invited Bud, Lou and their families to, he showed hardcore pornography and Bud and Lou both blamed the other. This is skipped by the movie, because how would you explain that on TV in 1978?
The movie makes it seem that Costello died quickly after the pair split, but he lived until 1959, after ten appearances on The Steve Allen Show doing old routines without his partner. He died shortly after finishing his last film, The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock.
In 1960, Abbott formed a team with Candy Candido, a voice actor in Disney films. He also did his own voice for the Hanna-Barbera Abbott and Costello cartoons. He died of cancer in 1974.
Let’s go back to me being a kid. I always thought that Lou was the nice one, with Bud being the mean adult, always grumpy with him. Little did I know the truth — or what passes for it in this movie. I remember crying my eyes out during the last scene where Lou dies.
This whole movie is based on the book by Hollywood correspondent Bob Thomas and trust me, it’s as over the top and ridiculous as you hope it is. It’s been said that Thomas got most of his gossip from Eddie Sherman, Abbott and Costello’s longtime manager who had been fired by the duo, so obviously there was a reason why it’s so venomous. It’s also remarkably unfunny in the comedy segments, which is weird when you consider who is starring in it. Arte Johnson and Robert Reed also show up, just to remind you this is a made for TV movie.
Both the book and movie upset Lou’s daughter Chris so much that she wrote the book Lou’s on First to refute many of its claims.
I’m not the only one obsessed by this film. On his podcast, Gilbert Gottfried has brought the death scene at the end up several times. I wasn’t the only one shattered by it, I guess.
I guess if you want to catch up on memories, you should skip TV movies and go right back to the real movies. But as you may have learned by now, I love junk.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Bud and Lou was on the CBS Late Movie on December 25, 1984 (Merry Christmas!) and June 3, 1987.
This movie crushed me as a child. I had always loved Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, watching their thirty-six films on Sunday mornings after Ma and Pa Kettle films. Seriously, weekends in Pittsburgh in the 70s and 80s were amazing. You stayed up all Night watching Chiller Theater, then woke up late and took in some Abbott and Costello. Ah, memories.
That said, when this aired on November 15, 1978, I excitedly watched it from my parent’s black and white kitchen TV, ready to have fun reliving my favorite memories of the comedy duo. I wasn’t prepared to learn how much they hated one another and their foibles. Cut me some slack — I was six.
Buddy Hackett and Harvey Korman play Abbott and Costello. Interestingly, Hackett and Hugh O’Brian replaced the team when Costello’s health forced them to drop out of 1954’s Fireman Save My Child.
The team came together when Abbott’s original partner was ill, and it gelled pretty quickly. The film hints that Bud used to date Lou’s wife — this is unproven — but as we’ve learned from tabloid-style films, facts are rarely necessary. For example, while they did debut on The Kate Smith Hour on February 3, 1938, they didn’t do the “Who’s On First?” routine until a month later, and they had developed their distinctive voices (audiences initially thought they sounded alike until Costello came up with his high-pitched, childish effect).
They debuted The Abbott and Costello Show as Fred Allen’s summer replacement in 1940 before joining Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy on The Chase and Sanborn Hour in 1941. That was also the year that their first two films — Buck Privates and Hold That Ghost — debuted (they made their first film appearance in 1940’s One Night in the Tropics, essentially playing their greatest hits from burlesque on screen).
By 1942, they were the top box office stars in the country, earning over $789,000 ($12 million in today’s money) that year alone. A 35-day War Bonds tour in the summer of 1942 earned $85 million ($1,299,767,105 today!) in war bond purchases to show how big of a star they were. This is important because the government would soon call for this money and forget all about it. That’s a significant part of the film.
Here come the bad parts. Abbott had epilepsy, which in the film means you have to sit down every once in a while, as well as drink way too much. Costello got rheumatic fever from a military base tour and was bedridden for the rest of 1942 and into ’43 when he returned to radio after a year layoff. That very same day, his infant son drowned in the family’s pool, and the comedian was never the same. He was quick to anger and constantly vindictive to the point that a significant rift happened.
In 1945, Abbott hired a servant whom Costello had fired. That led to Costello refusing to speak to his partner except when performing. Then, they would play separate characters in films rather than work together, which led to their loss of popularity when faced with other teams like Martin and Lewis.
Abbott resolved the rift by suggesting naming Costello’s charity the Lou Costello Jr. Youth Foundation. Finally, some good news: this charity still helps underprivileged youth in the Boyle Heights district of Los Angeles.
Despite their dip in popularity, they still starred in several films with the Universal Monsters and hosted The Colgate Comedy Hour. From 1952 to 54, Costello created, owned and syndicated The Abbott and Costello Show, paying Abbott a salary, a point this movie hammers home as proof that any reconciliation was only on one man’s part. That said, the film ignores that this show was successful and aired in reruns for a long time.
The film never gets to the point that the duo is overexposed and worried about creating new material, which is one reason Universal couldn’t reach a contract with them. The movie definitely makes the point that they were forced to sell all their assets to the IRS to pay taxes.
After one last film, Dance with Me, Henry, and Lou appeared on This Is Your Life, the duo split for good in 1957. Errol Flynn claimed in his autobiography that he was the reason. At a party he had invited Bud, Lou and their families to, he showed hardcore pornography and Bud and Lou both blamed the other. The movie skipped this because how would you explain that on TV in 1978?
The movie makes it seem that Costello died quickly after the pair split, but he lived until 1959 after ten appearances on The Steve Allen Show doing old routines without his partner. He died shortly after finishing his last film, The 30-Foot Bride of Candy Rock.
In 1960, Abbott formed a team with Candy Candido, a voice actor in Disney films. He also did his voice for the Hanna-Barbera Abbott and Costello cartoons. He died of cancer in 1974.
Let’s go back to when I was a kid. I always thought Lou was the nice one, and Bud was the mean adult who was always grumpy with him. Little did I know the truth—or what passes for it in this movie. I remember crying my eyes out during the last scene when Lou dies.
This movie is based on the book by Hollywood correspondent Bob Thomas, and trust me, it’s as over the top and ridiculous as you hope it is. It’s been said that Thomas got most of his gossip from Eddie Sherman, Abbott and Costello’s longtime manager, who the duo had fired, so obviously, there was a reason why it’s so venomous. It’s also remarkably unfunny in the comedy segments, which is weird when considering who is starring. Arte Johnson and Robert Reed also showed up; to remind you, this is a made-for-TV movie.
The book and movie upset Lou’s daughter, Chris, so much that she wrote Lou’s On First to refute many of its claims.
I’m not the only one obsessed with this film. Gilbert Gottfried repeatedly mentions the death scene at the end of his podcast, and I wasn’t the only one shattered by it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Bermuda Depths was on the CBS Late Movie on October 7, 1983, May 30, 1984 and April 18 and July 11, 1985.
When Rankin/Bass and Tsuburaya Productions, two powerhouses in the film industry, join forces, they create something truly unique. Their collaborations are always a bit off the beaten path, but none are quite as intriguing as this one. This film, with its ghost girl, childhood trauma, and the iconic kaiju turtle, is a testament to their innovative spirit.
It was written by William Overgard, who created the comic strips Steve Roper and Mike Nomad and Rudy and wrote scripts for several collaborative films like The Last Dinosaur, The Ivory Ape and The Bushido Blade. He also wrote episodes of ThunderCats and Silver Hawks. He also worked with Arthur Rankin Jr.* on this story.
Directed by Tsugunobu “Tom” Kotani, the mastermind behind all these bizarre American/Japanese films, this one takes the cake in terms of its outlandishness. When I say weird, I mean it’s the kind of film that will leave you scratching your head, but in the best possible way.
Magnus Dens (Leigh McCloskey, who was in Inferno and now paints art based on occult, alchemical and esoteric themes) is asleep on an island when he is woken up by Jennie (Connie Sellecca) who claims to know him. He’s been dreaming of his childhood and she may be the girl he remembers from it, the love of his life who watched a turtle hatch on the beach with him and craved J+M into its shell before she rode that giant turtle into the sea and disappeared forever. This happened on the very same night that a monster emerged from the cave beneath his house and killed his father!
Our hero also has a job working alongside another childhood friend, Eric (Carl Weathers), for marine biologist Dr. Paulis (Burl Ives!). Paulis informs him that Jennie doesn’t exist and is the name of a legend in which a beautiful but vain woman was saved from a storm by a mysterious god and given eternal life at the cost of never again being able to live on land.
With a harpoon-shooting bazooka known as Horror, women with glowing green eyes, the mid-movie appearance of a giant turtle wiping out most of the cast, and a total downer ending, this movie was made for me. The ending alone is enough to make you wonder how it all wraps up. I can’t even imagine what people thought of it when it ran on ABC on January 27, 1978.
*Rankin loved Bermuda so much that he moved there after making this.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Manbeast! Myth of Monster? was on the CBS Late Movie on October 17, 1984; August 8, 1985 and June 15, 1988.
Drink every time that Peter C. Byrne says, “I believe in the Manbeast.”
At some point in 1978, Peter decided to remake the In Search Of episode about Bigfoot as this movie, taking his wife Cecelia out for a ride. In fact, director Nicholas Webster would go on to direct three episodes of that syndicated Leonard Nimoy-hosted show that would often give me nightmares. But he can’t hide perhaps the darkest secrets, as Webster also directed Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
This was written by Anthony Potter (whose resume mostly consists of hard news and documentaries) and Diana Webster, who wrote nine episodes of In Search Of, appeared in movies like Death Ray 2000 and played a nurse in two early Marvel movies, Dr. Strange and Captain America.
As we watch a Rob Bottin-created Manbeast interact with people and appear in reenactments, we hear stories like the Russian farmer who kept a female Manbeast — a Fembeast? Femalebeast? Ladybeast, shout out to Pittsburgh metal?!? — for years, one that even gave birth and accidentally killed her children by washing them in a frozen stream until the farmer’s wife started raising the children for her own, and the kids looked very human and wait, was the farmer putting it on the female Manbeast because yes, I totally believe that story as well as a skier straight up murked by a Manbeast.
That said, Peter is the most sympathetic person ever toward the lost species, saying that man has destroyed the forest and that we must help the Manbeast survive. And then some insane scientist shows up and says, “Look, they’re going extinct. Or maybe they don’t exist. I don’t care. But if I do find one, I’m going to kill it and do an exhaustive autopsy and enjoy every moment,” and I’m absolutely sure that that man is a serial killer. Or an actor. Or an actor who is a serial killer.
Roger Ebert said of this movie, ” I’m not quite sure it makes a lot of sense, but that’s the sort of criticism you only make after it’s over. During the movie, too much else is happening.”
Ex-CIA agent Peter Sandza (Kirk Douglas) and his psychic son Robin (Andrew Stevens) meet up with Ben Childress (John Cassavetes), one of Peter’s old spy friends. Peter is leaving the life behind, but Ben is prepared. He stages a terrorist attack that nearly kills his supposed friend and takes his son away.
Across the world, student Gillian Bellaver (Amy Irving) learns that she has powers of her own. She can barely control them, so she goes to the Paragon Institute, a front for the same organization that Childress is running, one that kills parents and takes their psychic teens away to make them into weapons for the U.S. government. Thanks to having a girlfriend (Carrie Snodgress) on the inside, Peter starts to track down his son.
Gillian grows in power and soon meets Robin psychically. Childress determines that she knows too much, so he plans to eliminate her, while Peter plans on following her to find his son. Working with Dr. Susan Charles (Fiona Lewis, between this and Strange Behavior not someone I would trust with my teenage child), they have successfully transformed Robin into a killing machine. That said, he can’t be controlled and his abilities have already caused one mass homicide at a theme park.
As Peter and Gillian break into Childress’ mansion, Robin goes full-on mental and thinks that PSU wants to replace him with Gillian. He kills his handlers and even tries to murder his father, who tries to keep him from falling. When he responds by scratching Peter’s face and causing his own death. Seeing his son dead, the old agent decides life isn’t worth living and he kills himself.
As he lies dying, he gives Gillian all of his power, power she soon uses to cause Childress to bleed from the eyes and then to literally blow up. It’s one of the wildest stunts ever and one that took two tries. De Palma told The Talks, “I had 8 or 9 high-speed cameras and he explodes. He explodes. And the first time we did it, it didn’t work. The body parts didn’t go towards the right cameras and this whole set was covered with blood. And it took us almost a week to get back to do take two.”
How was this achieved? In the same interview, the director said, “Nobody had ever done this before. I had these incredible high-speed cameras that the astronauts use and about three of them jammed because they were going so fast. They were all shooting super, super slow-motion – this is in the ’70s – and then it’s all over and you look around and the set is completely in shambles.”
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