Tag Archives: 1978

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: Mag Wheels (1978)

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July 7-13 Teen Movie Hell Week: From the book description on the Bazillion Points website: All-seeing author Mike “McBeardo” McPadden (Heavy Metal Movies) passes righteous judgment over the entire (teen movie) genre, one boobs-and-boner opus at a time. In more than 350 reviews and sidebars, Teen Movie Hell lays the crucible of coming-of-age comedies bare, from party-hearty farces such as The Pom-Pom Girls, Up the Creek, and Fraternity Vacation to the extreme insanity exploding all over King Frat, Screwballs, The Party Animal, and Surf II: The End of the Trilogy.

Man, the 70s.

Steve (John Laughlin) has a van.

Steve wants Anita (Shelly Horner).

Steve’s girlfriend Donna (Verkina Flower, who was also in The Capture of Bigfoot, The Witch Who Came from the Sea and Drive-In Massacre; she was also the costume designer for Top Dog and worked in the wardrobe department for Midnight, Frightmare, They’re Playing With Fire and Silent Night, Deadly Night) gets angry and tells the cops that Steve is a cocaine dealer and tells his friends that Anita was the one who set him up. They decide to sexually assault her, and she’s saved by lady truckers. Yes, this happens. Anita was also roughed up by her boss at The Boogie Bowl earlier, and she still came to work the next day.

The 70s.

Keep in mind that the rest of the movie features van sploitation, sex comedy hijinks, and a pillow fight war. And then, you get the gang rape and an ending that serves chicken race gloom and doom. Well, it looks like Anita is dead when she drives her dad’s station wagon off a cliff, but Steve yells, “She’s alive!” which is as convincing as when that ADR told us that Duke was going to live in the animated G.I. Joe: The Movie.

This was re-released as Summer School, long after the culture had died out due to gas prices. You know. The 70s. Today, too.

Director and writer Bethel Buckalew was a production manager on Deep Jaws, The Love Butcher, Lady Cocoa, The Black 6, Miss Nymphet’s Zap-In, and The Secret Sex Lives of Romeo and Juliet before directing Southern Comforts, Below the Belt, Country Cuzzins, A Scream In the Streets and Sassy Sue. George Barris, the maker of many custom cars, produced this one and also appears, along with several of his family members. He’s a shop owner; his wife, Shirley, is a housewife. Their son, Brett Barris, did stunts. The other son, Shotzi Barris, is a van driver, and Joji Barris is a van driver’s wife.

The skateboarders? Those are the Z-Boys.

The best character? Kim, played by Lynn Kuratomi, practices martial arts because it’s the 70s — did I say that before — and she’s Asian, but she’s still wonderful, despite this classic Hollywood cliche.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Are You In the House Alone? (1978)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Are You In the House Alone? was on the CBS Late Movie on September 25, 1981, December 9, 1983 and August 10, 1984.

Any time people wonder why women keep pushing harder and harder for their inalienable rights, you should force them to watch this movie, which shows how far our society has come since 1978. There’s a scene in here that literally made us start yelling at the TV set because of how insane it is. Yet forty years ago, this type of thinking was commonplace.

Originally airing on CBS on September 20, 1978, Are You In the House Alone? It is based on the 1976 novel of the same name by Richard Peck.

Gail Osborne (Kathleen Beller, Dynasty) is a high school student dealing with all the pressures of being sixteen, such as discovering her skills as a photographer and dealing with boys who only want sex. Her family has moved away from San Francisco to a new town to escape the dangers of the big city.

She starts dating a guy named Steve (Scott Colomby, Tony from Caddyshack), despite her overprotective parents (Blythe Danner and Tony Bill). Despite this young love blossoming, Gail continues to receive threatening letters and calls from a man who laughs at her. She asks her principal for help and is basically told that it’s probably all her fault for the way she’s treated one of her male classmates.

Gail’s life is pretty much falling apart. Her parents constantly fight, her dad gets back on the wagon, and he gets fired from his job without telling anyone. The letters and calls start to increase, and we have a red herring dangled in our snooping noses in the person of way too involved photography teacher Chris Elden (played by the incredibly named Alan Fudge, who was in Galaxis, My Demon Lover, and Brainstorm).

Surprise — it ends up being her best friend Allison’s (Robin Mattson, who was in Candy Stripe Nurses and a film remarkably similar to this, Secret Night Caller) boyfriend, Phil (Dennis Quaid, who is so young it’ll blow your mind). He attacks her while she’s babysitting the children of Jessica Hirsch (Tricia O’Neil, Piranha II: The Spawning), a lawyer who just happens to be dating the aforementioned Mr. Elden.

The shocking part we mentioned above is that when Jessica becomes Gail’s lawyer, she tells her that there’s a chance no one will put Phil in jail because she’s not a virgin anymore. The world may be a mess these days, but man, in 1978, it was a real mess.

While not technically a slasher — there’s no body count to speak of — the hallmarks of the genre, such as a babysitter being stalked and constantly threatened by a maniac, are all here.

Also, what was it with 1970s made-for-TV movie houses and plants? Every single home in this movie is abundantly lush with vegetation. Every plant is green and thriving, despite the absence of sunlight in any of these homes. How did they do it?

CBS LATE MOVIE: Someone’s Watching Me! (1978)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Someone’s Watching Me! was on the CBS Late Movie on January 21 and June 12, 1981.

John Carpenter was hired by Warner Bros in 1976 to write a script based on the true story of a woman who had been spied on inside her Chicago apartment. The script, High Rise, ultimately became a TV movie that Carpenter was also given the opportunity to direct.

“I thought it was a really, really good idea,” said Carpenter. “So I had my first experience with television. And my first union experience. I got into the Director’s Guild through that. I had a really good time on it, I have to tell you. I met my wife.”

This eighteen-day shoot allowed Carpenter to test many of the techniques that he’d use weeks later when he started work on Halloween.

Originally airing on November 29, 1978 on NBC, this movie concerns Leigh Michaels (Lauren Hutton), who has moved to Los Angeles to escape New York City. As she begins her new career at television station KJHC with new friend Sophie (Barbeau) and a relationship with college professor Paul Winkless (David Birney, who went on to be quite the reader of audiobooks).

However, she’s soon dealing with phone calls and starts receiving unlimited calls. She calls the police, but there’s nothing she can do except wait for the voyeur to come to her.

Fans of Halloween take note: Charlie Cyphers shows up as a cop.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: The Bees (1978)

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Alfredo Zacarías made Demonoid, and we should thank him for that. He also took advantage of the sheer terror that ensued when the Africanized honey bee was on its way to America. Initially used in Brazil to increase honey production, 26 swarms escaped quarantine in 1957 and spread throughout South America, incredibly defensive and angry bees that supposedly can chase a person for a mile. These bees have killed a thousand people, with many of their victims being stung over and over again. Just imagine six-year-old me watching this on the news every night as we were told repeatedly how close these bees were to us and how doomed we all were.

I also blame the exploitation film industry, which seized upon this and made so many killer bee movies, as they had all the news doing their advertising work for them. There was the 1974 TV movie Killer Bees, The Swarm and this movie, ads filled with just bee after bee, and I’d watch when I was outside, sure today was the day I’d be stung to death.

Jack Hill went uncredited on this as a writer, as he was supposed to direct it, but life didn’t work out that way. It’s the story of South American killer bees who haven’t just been smuggled into the country for experiments, but have also mutated into even smarter than your average bee and use that to kill humans.

It all happens when Dr. Miller (Claudio Brook) is trying to crossbreed the aggressive bees with a much calmer species to make more honey. A local tries to break in and steal the bees, which leads to his angry family and friends burning down Miller’s house, and the bees escaping. Meanwhile, Miller’s wife Sandra (Angel Tompkins) takes the queen to her uncle Dr. Sigmund Hummel (John Carradine, of course) and Dr. John Norman (John Saxon), who have the same goals as her husband, except there’s a honey spy ring trying to make more money off the bees and that means murder.

There’s a scene where Carradine falls to his doom, and I won’t lie—I watched it nine times, and with each rewatch, I loved this movie even more. Also, John Saxon speaks to stock footage of the UN.

You can watch this on Tubi.

JUNESPLOITATION: Circle of Iron (1978)

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June 3: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is David Carradine!

This movie is fantastic bullshit.

Bruce Lee originally was to write and appear in this, saying in the intro he wrote, “The story illustrates a great difference between Oriental and Western thinking. This average Westerner would be intrigued by someone’s ability to catch flies with chopsticks, and would probably say that has nothing to do with how good he is in combat. But the Oriental would realize that a man who has attained such complete mastery of an art reveals his presence of mind in every action…True mastery transcends any particular art.”

Working with James Coburn and screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, Lee didn’t just want to make the first Western movie about martial arts. He tried to make a movie that would introduce audiences to the philosophy behind martial arts; more than fighting, more about mastering the self.

Coburn and Lee eventually got frustrated by one another—small stuff, like Coburn getting a better hotel room and treatment than Lee, be like water indeed, or Lee nonstop humming pop songs until Coburn screamed at him—and Lee went to Hong Kong to make Fist of Fury, become a star and die.

Lee had intended his movie — you know, the same one that would teach Eastern theories of the martial world — to have  Thai, Cantonese, Arabic and Japanese dialogue, explicit Tantric sex and scenes of genital destruction.

A few years later, Stanley Mann rewrote it, added comedy and brought on board a bunch of the finest all-white actors—some of whom could do martial arts. And that’s how we got this movie, which is ridiculous in all the best ways.

Cord (Jeff Cooper, who played Kaliman in a few Mexican movies) is a fighter who is undisciplined and kicked out of the temple by Roddy McDowall. Yet he still wants to find The Book of Knowledge, which is held by Zetan (Christopher Lee). The man sent on the quest instead of him, Morthond (Anthony De Longis, Blade from Masters of the Universe), has been nearly killed — and demands help to die with honor — and it seems like a fool’s errand. Then Cord meets the mysterious Blind Man (David Carradine) and starts his own quest.

Carradine also plays Death, a Monkey Man and Chang Sha, who uses his wife Tara (Erica Creer) to seduce our protagonist before leaving him behind and her crucified. Cord also runs into Eli Wallach, who has been sitting in a pot of boiling oil for a decade in the hopes that his penis falls off. I did not make that up.

Also known as The Silent Flute, this has director Richard Moore (his only full-length, but he shot the underwater footage for Thunderball and was the cinematographer on The Wild Angels, Devil’s Angels, Myra Breckinridge, The Stone Killer and Annie) making a mix of a king fu movie and a Zen koan that feels more Holy Mountain than Enter the Dragon.

The flute Carradine plays in this is the same one from Kill Bill: Volume 2.

So yes, this movie is complete bullshit but it’s wonderful bullshit. None of the people other than Carradine seem to know how to do martial arts, and I couldn’t care less. With Lee, this would have been a classic, perhaps, but as it stands, it’s this majestic attempt at something, a movie with dialogue like this:

Blind Man: A fish saved my life once.

Cord: How?

Blind Man: I ate him.

The sound of one hand clapping? You’re watching it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

APRIL MOVIE THON 4: Team-Mates (1978)

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April 6: Independent-International: Write about a movie from Sam Sherman. Here’s a list.

Vicki Mason (Karen Corrado) is trying to change the world — or at least her small town — by trying out as a kicker on the football team. Her boyfriend Brian Caldwell (Max Goff, Cheerleaders Beach Party) isn’t impressed, but she’s sick of him cheating on her, so she dumps him and goes all in on the team even if they don’t want her.

Director Steven Jacobson edited Nurse Sherri and shot the extra footage in Naked Evil, but otherwise, that was it for his career. The script comes from Jennifer Lawson, who went on to be the CEO of a public broadcasting station, and Sam Sherman, the man who brought so much to us through Independent-International.

This feels as much like a Corman nurse cycle movie as it does an Animal House cash-in. It’s worth watching for James Spader’s and Estelle Getty’s first roles. He was 18, and she was just a spry 55.

Four years later, this was re-released as Young Gangs at Wildwood High — Sam Sherman knew how to cash-in on stuff like Fast Times at Ridgemont High — and you have to admire the balls to do that. Thanks, Temple of Schlock, for always having facts like this. It’s worth noting that this film had two campaigns as Team-Mates and another in 1980 as Young Gangs, hoping that people looking for The Warriors at the drive-in could be confused into seeing this movie that has nothing to do with gangs and so much more to do with football.

You can watch this on YouTube.

SYNAPSE FILMS 4K UHD/BLU-RAY RELEASE: Blue Sunshine (1978)

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Do you know why I’ve never done acid? This movie right here. After all, it has an “inspired by true events” square up in the end credits.

After a series of seemingly unconnected murders in Los Angeles, only one link keeps coming up: every single person took the same strain of LSD called Blue Sunshine. The sins of the past decade are ready to come back and destroy the “Me” decade.

Zalman King — yes, the same man who got your mom all tingly after you were put in bed and she watched Showtime’s Red Shoe Diaries — plays Jerry Zipkin, a man accused of the murders who — in true giallo-style — must clear his name. That’s because he was at a party where the murders may have started, complete with a screaming Brion James and Billy Crystal’s brother singing Frank Sinatra songs before he starts throwing women into the fireplace.

If it turns out that you took Blue Sunshine, chances are that you’re about to lose all your hair, go crazy, and start killing everyone in your path. Of course, no one knew this ten years ago when they were all dosing on it back in college. Chromosomal damage can be a real b, you know?

How can you not love a movie whose title is spoken by a parrot? One that has a climactic disco shootout? Or is it so 1970s that it ends up speaking for pretty much the entire decade?

The self-medicating Dr. David Blume, the hard-drinking and hair losing John O’Malley, and Ed Flemming (Mark Goddard, Major Don West from Lost In Space) are all caught up in the grip of the bad trip. The effects sum up Flemming’s political campaign: “In the 1960s, Ed Flemming and his generation shook up the system. Now he’s working within it.” He has become the system. It’s as if the children in Manson’s famous quote- “These children that come at you with knives- they are your children. You taught them. I didn’t teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.” — are even more dangerous when fully grown.

Goddard isn’t the only TV star that shows up, as Alice Ghostly (Esmerelda from Bewitched) makes an appearance.

Writer and director Berman would lend his strange style to other films such as Squirm, Remote Control, Just Before Dawn, and the odd true crime TV show Love You to Death, which starred John Waters as a Grim Reaper attending weddings of partners who would soon kill one another.

The director claims that two major TV networks expressed interest in purchasing the film as a “movie of the week.” The opportunity to get double the budget was appealing. Still, after seeing the edits that the movie would need to be able to play on network TV, Lieberman decided to produce this for theaters.

The Synapse release of this movie comes in a gorgeous box, overstuffed with extras. It starts with a 4K restoration of the original 35mm camera negative mastered in Dolby Vision that has a new surround sound mix supervised by director Jeff Lieberman; two audio commentaries with Lieberman, who also contributes an introduction; an archival 2003 interview with director Lieberman; “Lieberman on Lieberman” video interview; Channel Z “Fantasy Film Festival” interview with “Master of Horror” Mick Garris and Jeff Lieberman; Fantasia Film Festival 4K Premiere Q&A with moderator Michael Gingold and director Jeff Lieberman; two anti-drug scare films, LSD-25 and LSD: Insight or Insanity?, courtesy of the American Genre Film Archive; Jeff Lieberman’s first film The Ringer (remastered in 4K by Synapse Films from the original camera negative); trailers; a stills gallery; liner notes booklet by Lieberman, featuring a chapter on the making of Blue Sunshine from his book Day of the Living Me: Adventures of a Subversive Cult Filmmaker from the Golden Age; a limited edition fold-out poster and limited edition remastered CD soundtrack.

Order it ASAP from MVD.

Metal Messiah (1978)

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Tibor Takács made some wild movies, but before that, he was part of the Toronto-area punk and metal scene as the manager and producer for The Viletones and The Cardboard Brains, some of whom end up in this 1978 rock opera. Sure, he makes streaming Christmas movies now, but he once made The Gate and the insane I, Madman.

Written by Stephen Zoller, this feels like The Man Who Fell to Earth meeting The Rocky Horror Picture Show as well as Phantom of the Paradise and The Foreigner, but that’s just me trying to put some handle on this.

Max the Promoter (John-Paul Young, lead singer of The Cardboard Brains) has hired private detective Philip Chandler (Richard Ward Allen) to find The Messiah (David Jensen of the band Kickback), who is preaching to the teens of Anywhere City that rock and roll is filled with sin. Max either wants him to be a star or dead or both, while Violet (Liane Hogan) and the Children of Truth want him hooked on drugs.

The music in this feels early 70s glam rock but that just helps this seem even weirder, as does the Third Reich crowd noises in the final concert, as the Metal Messiah — spoiler warning — because a religious rock star and gets crucified to the cheers of the assembled crowd.

This was a stage play and that makes sense. What doesn’t is how much this movie seems to hate rock and roll while being a rock opera. The evils of music would stay with Takács, as the album The Dark Book would open quite literally The Gate once he learned how to hone his filmmaking.

You can watch this on YouTube.

VIDEO ARCHIVES SEASON 2: The Big Sleep (1978)

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VIDEO ARCHIVES NOTES: This movie was discussed on the December 10, 2024 episode of the Video Archives podcast. 

Following up his turn as Phillip Marlow in Farewell, My Lovely, Mitchum is back and he’s got Michael Winner directing and writing for him. Sure, Mitchum is twice the age he should be and this is in London instead of Los Angeles, but it’s got a mean edge that I love.

General Sternwood (Jimmy Stewart) is near death, but still wants to know who is blackmailing him. He hires Marlowe, who meets the military man’s daughters, Charlotte (Sarah Miles) and Camilla (Candy Clark). The case leads the detective to pornographer Arthur Geiger (John Justin), his employee Agnes Lozelle (Joan Collins) and finally to Joe Brody (Edward Fox), who Agnes is in love with. As for Camilla, she’s found at the scene of Geiger’s murder after posing for nudes, which would shock her dying father.

As for Charlotte, she is tied up with Eddie Mars (Oliver Reed), a gambler whose wife Mona (Diana Quick) ran off with Charlotte’s husband Rusty and who has several bills due thanks to Charlotte’s gambling debts. Meanwhile, Brody steals Charlotte’s nude photos and pays with his life.

Marlow tangles with a hitman named Lash (Richard Boone) and several red herrings to figure out exactly what the General wants him to look into. He actually never wants the old man to learn the truth about his daughters, particularly when he puts his own life on the line to draw one of them out.

Jimmy Stewart was having issues saying his lines on time due to hearing issues and possibly memory problems. Mitchum may have said, “The picture was all about corpses, but Jimmy looked deader than any of them,” but Stewart outlived him by one day.

Oliver Reed was only in this so he could work with Mitchum and was impressed that the actor could drink a bottle of gin in just 55 minutes. Meanwhile, Mitchum and Boone seemed to be having a drinking contest at all times and even fired live rounds close to one another in a gun fight scene.

As you can imagine, this was a set full of maniacs. When meetings some folks of Arabic nationality, Mitchum warned them that Winner was a Mossad agent, while Winner set up a porn photo shoot to ensure that “copyright issues” didn’t come up for the magazine in the film, which ended up with Mitchum hooking up with the model that was in that shoot, Lindy Benson. He was also being stalked by two women, who had a battle in his apartment at one point during filming.

Winner hated that Joan Collins wore wigs, so he demanded she use her real hair. When they wrapped,  Collins gave Winner a friendly kiss and as she walked away, she took off her wig, fooling him for teh entire production.

When that car blows up at the end, the effects crew had soaked rags in gasoline. Winner decided it would be a good idea to light a cigar around this — he had only been on film sets his entire life — and ignited a gas line, which set the crew tent on fire and nearly a house.

You can watch this on Tubi.

VIDEO ARCHIVES SEASON 2: Ice Castles (1978)

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VIDEO ARCHIVES NOTES: This movie was discussed on the December 10, 2024 episode of the Video Archives podcast. 

I think it’s hilarious that Tarantino and Avery got people to watch Ice Castles that otherwise would never endure it. They got me!

Former skater Lynn-Holly Johnson is Lexie Winston, a figure skater on the way to the Olympics when she’s blinded in a freak accident. Withdrawing into depression, only her boyfriend Nick Peterson (Robby Benson) can coach her back onto the ice, getting her back into skates even if she can’t see.

Will she be able to skate again? Will he forgive her for leaving him for a sportscaster? Will she try the triple jump that nearly killed her?

Roger Ebert said, “Call me Scrooge; stories like this make me cringe.”

Director Donald Wrye made this movie twice, as there’s a 2009 remake with Taylor Firth and Rob Mayes in the lead parts. Lynn-Holly Johnson ‘s cameo? It got cut. Wrye also directed Born Innocent, so I can never be mad at him. As for Lynn-Holly Johnson, she would skate again in the Bond movie For Your Eyes Only.

For some reason, I have watched several ice skating movies and hate the sport. Why do I keep putting myself through this?