Tag Archives: 1979

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Ring of Darkness (1979)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Stelvio Cipriani

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

I’m ashamed to admit that the name Stelvio Cipriani did not ring any bells when I first saw this category on the list this year. It is just my ignorance, because Cipriani’s score for Mario Bava’s masterpiece A Bay of Blood (AKA Twitch of the Death Nerve AKA Carnage AKA Blood Bath AKA dozens of other titles) is one of my favorite film scores of all time—across all genres. It has so many different flavors, from the menacing, almost jungle beats of the introduction, to the whimsical finale. It is pretty perfect.

Cipriani’s score here in Ring of Darkness is definitely also scoring. It probably helps that his composition is executed by Goblin, really leaning into the prog rock, almost droning feel. I could not help but think about the score used in Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead and John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness as comps to the style of the score. I’m also ashamed to admit that I might have fallen asleep halfway through Ring of Darkness. I’ll blame a combination of sleep deprivation and the beats dropped throughout the film that just lulled me to slumber. Now, Ring of Darkness is not a very exciting film, but I was never bored by it.

Beginning with an extended opening sequence, we learn that a group of women is bound together by their love of dance and the love of the devil. Years pass, and eventually the daughter of one of the women is having her own sort of spring awakening, suddenly becoming self-aware that her true father is Lucifer himself. 

While Ring of Darkness was accused of being another Italian rip-off of The Exorcist (writer-director Pier Carpi claimed to have written the story prior to William Blatty’s novel), the film really owes more to films such as Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen. Really, all three films form a sort of unholy trinity that, let’s just say, inspired many horror films in the 1970s and 80s. 

No one would confuse Daria (Lara Wendel) with Reagan or Damien in terms of memorable, menacing demonic characters. Is she the spawn of Satan, or has she just hit puberty? She goes around calling her mother “mother” in an annoying way that only a teenage girl could do. She does leave a scorching handprint on the chest of a classmate who wants to try to make the moves on her, an ability I’m sure most girls wish they had to rid themselves of annoying teenage boys.

Eventually, Daria ends up at the Vatican. Why? I guess we will never know, as no sequel was produced, or probably asked for by anyone ever. Still, I was interested in knowing what would happen next. Just like I wanted to know the next chapter in The Omen after Damien turns around and smiles back at the camera as he attends his parents’ funeral.

I watched this one on TUBI under the alternate title Satan’s Wife, which might just be one of the worst titles in cinematic history. There is no wife of Satan here. I’m not sure Satan is down with such long-term commitments. A much better title would have been To the Devil a Daughter, but Hammer had already used that one a few years prior. 

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: Summer Camp (1979)

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Sept 22-28 Chuck Vincent Week: No one did it like Chuck! He’s the unsung king of Up All Night comedy, a queer director making the straightest romcoms but throwing in muscle studs and drag queens. His films explore the concept of romance from almost every angle – he was deeply passionate about love.

Directed by Chuck Vincent and written by Mark Borde and Avrumie Schnitzer, this had such a low budget that the cast and crew actually stayed at camp to save money.

Here’s the story: Camp Malibu’s director, Herman (John F. Goff using the name Jack Barnes), invites past campers to a ten-year reunion in the hopes of persuading the young adults to help save the camp. Hijinks ensue, and at least everyone is in their twenties, right? But why are they having a contest over who can poop the most?

It’s also a The Witch Who Came from the Sea reunion! John F. Goff and Virkina Flower were both in that. At least this time, he wasn’t her abusive father, and she wasn’t the younger version of his daughter.

Speaking of Virinka, her career was wild. As a child, she appeared in the aforementioned Matt Cimber film and Drive-In Massacre, as well as Mag Wheels, The Capture of Bigfoot, Beyond Evil, Terror On Tour (as the “well-endowed lady”), the end-of-times movie Early Warning, and the Leif Garrett film Longshot. She went on to be a costume designer — on the Chuck Norris kid film Top Dog and the Aaron Norris starring Overkill — as well as a set decorator on Kirdy Stevens’ adult film Playing With Fire, as a wardrobe supervisor on Frightmare, They’re Playing With Fire, Silent Night, Deadly Night, Midnight and Grounded for Life, plus being the assistant director on Island Fury. And oh yeah! She’s the daughter of George “Buck” Flower.

If you see Barbara Gold in this role as Pam and wonder, “Why do I know her?” That’s a super young Linnea Quigley.

Also look out for Brenda Fogarty (Fairy Tales, Fantasm Comes Again) and Vincent as a prospector under the name Dustin Pacino Jr.

You can watch this on Tubi.

USA UP ALL NIGHT: Alien (1979)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Alien was on USA Up All Night on November 17, 1995 and December 28, 1996.

What else can I say about Alien that so many others have already said?

Directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O’Bannon, based on a story by O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, Alien influenced just as many movies as Star Wars.

The designs of H. R. Giger, Ron Cobb and Chris Foss took what Lucas started — the future didn’t have to be clean and in working order — and took it further, while the story shared that space wouldn’t be like a comic book or movie serial. It’d be just more hard work for a gigantic corporation, and death would not be dignified.

It also has one of the best taglines ever: “In space, no one can hear you scream.”

For all that Alien influenced, the DNA of this movie comes from many places:

Queen of Blood: Astronauts respond to a distress call and take an alien on board that slowly kills them off, one by one. Its director, Curtis Harrington, said, “Ridley’s film is like a greatly enhanced, expensive and elaborate version of Queen of Blood.”

Planet of the Vampires: Mario Bava’s movie features a crash landing, where the disembodied inhabitants of an alien planet possess the crew of a rescue ship and take over their bodies. There’s a scene where the crew examines an alien ship and discovers the gigantic remains of the long-dead inhabitants of this planet, which is 100% stolen by Alien, regardless of what Dan O’Bannon and Ridley Scott said otherwise.

It! The Terror from Beyond Space: This 1958 black and white horror film — about the sole survivor of a crashed ship being rescued and slowly killing the crew of another vessel — is incredibly close to the ideas in Alien.

But no matter. This remix succeeds and has the crew of the Nostromo — Captain Dallas (Tom Skeritt), executive officer Kane (John Hurt), warrant officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright, who was also in The Birds and Invasion of the Body Snatchers), science officer Ash (Ian Holm), and engineers Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), along with the ship cat Jonesy — have answered a distress call and end up bringing back an alien attached to Kane’s face.

The scene that results, where an alien bursts from Kane’s chest, shocked audiences and is still perfect today. That’s all you need to know: these aliens are perfect killing machines that can’t be reasoned with; they live to kill. This is a haunted house in space, in some ways, but also a chase.

I love that this movie led to a toy that no parent wanted their children to have, as well as a series of films that, well, are one good and the rest bad. But you know, I show up for all of them, because the memory of what this movie is gets me every time. This is the ultimate movie monster in one of the greatest horror films ever made. It’s just that simple.

Note: Thanks to Andrew Chamen for pointing out a typo I made!

USA UP ALL NIGHT: 10 (1979)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: 10 was on USA Up All Night on October 19, 1990 and January 11, 1992.

During his 42nd birthday party, composer George Webber (Dudley Moore) learns that he’s not aging well. Despite the love of his girlfriend Samantha Taylor (Julie Andrews), he’s more obsessed with youth and beauty, whether he sees it through a telescope or at the wedding, he follows the whole way to the church.

The object of his affection is the impossibly beautiful — well, in his eyes — Jenny Hanley, played by Bo Derek. She’s just married David Hanley (Sam J. Jones) and they’ve gone on their honeymoon to Hawaii, where George follows. He beds an old frien,d Mary (Dee Wallace), but his heart isn’t into their fling. Again, all he can think of is the unattainable perfection of Jenny, a woman whom he doesn’t even know. Well, he does get to know her — near biblically — when he saves her husband from drowning and she rewards him with lovemaking. Yet in the middle of his fantasy reality, her husband calls and is casually OK with what’s happening. Their relationship, unlike the one that George has with Samantha, means nothing.

Directed and written by Blake Edwards, 10 broke new ground and was quite a big deal when released in 1979. Bo Derek’s cornrow hairstyle was a major fashion happening, and she turned this movie’s fame into, well, Bolero. The less said — pleasure! — the better.

It also led to Moore becoming a star as a solo act. But he almost wasn’t in this movie. George Segal was cast as George, but allegedly walked off the set shortly after filming began — he did shoot some scenes in Mexico — at the MGM Studios. Segal had learned that Blake Edwards had inserted a television musical commercial sequence for his wife, Andrews, so that she would have a chance to sing and dance. He was upset that Edwards was using his movie to revive her career. Moore would also replace Segal in Arthur, while Segal would replace him in The Mirror Has Two Faces.

As for the adult stars in this movie, during the orgy scene that George tries to be part of — and Samatha catches on the telescope — you can see Annette Haven, Serena, Jon Martin, David Morris, John Seeman, Phaedra Grant, Desiree West, Candida Royale, Constance Money, Bonnie Holiday, Jamie Gillis, Jesse Adams, Blair Harris, Milton Ingley and Dorothy LeMay amongst the party guests.

Of the scene, Julie Andrews told Ellen DeGeneres, “There was one party that was actually manufactured for the movie 10. I think my character in 10 had to look through a telescope and see that my boyfriend, the sweet Dudley Moore, was, in fact, invading a neighbor’s house where they were having an orgy. There was a day when Blake was shooting the orgy, and he said, “Julie, you just got to come on over here. It is an unbelievable sight.” So I went dashing over, of course, I did. I walked in and everyone was stark naked and lying around, very happily and casually, treating it totally normally. And there was sweet Dudley in the middle of it all, and he wasn’t very, very tall. Blake put him between two enormously statuesque ladies, and so he was completely naked, and these two ladies were naked, but their bums were up here, and little Dudley‘s was down there. So sweet. It was more adorable than anything else because Dudley was so adorable.”

10 feels dated today — it was made in 1979 — and its gender politics are obviously skewed. Yet Brian Dennehy is great as the hotel bartender, and it all ends well. I remember what a big deal this was when it was on HBO; even if I was only seven when it came out, it was still a naughty secret even in elementary school.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: The Day Time Ended (1979)

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John “Bud” Cardos has been behind so many movies that others would spit upon, such as The Dark and Kingdom of the Spiders. Now, he’s back with a movie for the hip now generation. It’s time to talk about solar energy. It’s time to talk about the world after this one. It’s time to be bored senseless.

The Williams family has moved to the Sonoran Desert to get away from the dangers of urban life. There’s Grant (Jim Davis, who many would know from TV’s Dallas, but around these parts, we know him from being in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter), the grandfather. And then there’s his wife, Ana (Dorothy Malone, who won a Best Supporting Actress for Written on the Wind and had to suffer through this film), son Richard (Chris Mitchum, who we know from Bigfoot), his wife Beth and their kids, Steve and Jenny.

The mysteries of this film start small, like the news talking about a triple supernova and glowing things behind the barn. But soon, we learn that the supernova has torn a hole in the fabric of reality, unleashing UFOs and shutting down the electricity in the Williams home. And before you can say “stop motion,” there are miniature lizard creatures that look like they came straight out of Laserblast walking around.

All manner of creatures begin attacking the family, who take refuge in their barn. Then, they’re all beamed up in a UFO and taken thousands of years into the future. The film ends deus ex machina-style with the grandfather saying that the domed city in the distance is why they must have survived THE DAY TIME ENDED.

You know when you see Charles Band’s name on a movie that there are going to be all manner of stop-motion characters. This one delivers. And delivers. And…you get the picture.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: The Dark (1979)

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Bill Van Ryn from Groovy Doom/Drive-In Asylum explained this movie short and sweet: “It’s like an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker without Kolchak.” It’s also about the press freaking out about an eight-foot-tall alien who is killing people who eyebeam lasers in the dirty and dingy streets of Los Angeles. It was initially about an autistic child who had never met people before. It was also originally to be directed by Tobe Hooper. Things didn’t quite happen that way.

John “Bud” Cardos (Kingdom of the Spiders, Gor II) stepped in to direct. And realizing that his movie now featured an alien instead of a child, he hastily put together an opening narration that discussed electric eels and Venus flytraps. If our planet has those, what about other worlds? What that has to do with the rest of the film, well, your guess is as good as mine.

What we end up with is a monster that beheads people while someone chants, “The dark! The dark!”  William Devane (Greg Sumner from TV’s Knots Landing) and a TV anchorwoman (original Wonder Woman and That’s Incredible host Cathy Lee Crosby) finally figure out how to catch the monster. Oh yeah — there’s also an ancient psychic who believes that a young actor will be the next to be killed, so we get some 7’70sHollywood parties along the way. Casey Kasem shows up. Keenan Wynn and Richard Jaeckel, too.

Roger Ebert referred to this movie as “the dumbest, most inept, most maddeningly unsatisfactory thriller of the last five years. It’s really bad: so bad, indeed, that it provides some sort of measuring tool against which to measure other bad thrillers. Years from now, I’ll be thinking to myself: Well, at least it’s not as bad as The Dark.”

I really didn’t think it was that bad. It’s not the best movie ever, but I was certainly entertained. Not riveted. But entertained. But how can you hate a film where a giant alien shoots laser beams out of his eyes and rips people’s heads off so that the coroner can put them in body bags (along with mini head bags)?

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: Crocodile (1979)

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Originally made as Agowa gongpo (Crocodile Fangs), this is the story of Tony Akom (Nat Puvani) and John Stromm (Min Oo), two workaholic doctors always at odds with their wives, who are angry that they work so much. They decide to make up for it and take them on vacation, which is a major mistake, as they are dragged underwater by a crocodile mutated by nuclear testing into an unstoppable creature of wife-chewing destruction. Now, they must destroy it and join up with fisherman Tanaka (Manop Asavatep) and a photographer named Peter (Robert Chan Law-Bat) to make it happen.

When the English language version of this film was created by producer Dick Randall, numerous cuts were made. Out was the hurricane that opened the original movie. It was a new beginning shot by Randall in which a crocodile eats two naked women. This one movie didn’t have enough crocodile-human feasting for Randall, who added in a scene from Krai Thong in which three kids turn into a snake. And the ending, in which Tony threw dynamite into the crocodile’s gullet, was edited with Peter strapping himself with the TNT and swimming right into the giant mouth of the croc. Above all else, all Jaws rip-offs must end with the beast being blown up. That’s the rules.

What breaks the rules is that much like The Ghost Galleon, I can only imagine that some of the effects in this were created by a toy boat in a bathtub. Yet going even further, this has a reptile crawling all over it.

Original director Sompote Sands also made the aforementioned Krai Thong, as well as The 6 Ultra Brothers vs. the Monster Army, Hanuman and the Five Riders (a bootleg Kamen Rider) and Jumborg Ace & Giant.

A warning: This movie was condemned by the American Humane Association for a moment where a genuine crocodile is murdered on screen. This isn’t Italian, mind you. It’s from Thailand.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Topper (1979)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Topper was on the CBS Late Movie on February 16, 1983 and January 5, 1984.

Seven-year-old Sam was not upset when things were remade. He loved watching Topper on WPGH’s Sunday Morning Movie, and he was pleased that it was back. Old Sam is the grumpy one.

Old Sam would also like you to know that Andrews Stevens and Kate Jackson are the cutest of couples and are sad that they divorced.

This was the third time a Topper series was attempted — yes, another failed pilot — as there was a 78-episode show starring Anne Jeffreys and Robert Sterling from 1953 to 1956, and another failed pilot in 1973 with Stefanie Powers and John Fink. There was also a 1992 pilot with Tim Curry as Cosmo, Courtney Cox as Marion and Ben Cross as George.

Marion  (Jackson) and George (Stevens) swerve to avoid a bunny and end up as ghosts, stuck on Earth until they earn their way into Heaven. One of those ways they try to help others is to improve the marriage between Cosmo Topper (Jack Warden) and his wife Clara (Rue McClanahan), as well as keep him from being screwed by his unscrupulous business partner Fred Korbell (James Karen).

Charles E. Dubin directed this, along with more than 110 other TV productions. It was written by the husband-and-wife duo of Michael Scheff and Mary Ann Kasica, with George Kirgo. It was based on the original novel by Thorne Smith.

Did you ever want to see Topper in a disco? This is your movie.

You can watch this on The Cave of Forgotten Films or on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE: The Fantastic Seven (1979)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Fantastic Seven was on the CBS Late Movie on January 5 and September 9, 1983 and May 16, 1984.

Directed by John Peyser (The Centerfold Girls) and written by David Shaw, this starts with actress Rebecca Wayne (Elke Sommer) being kidnapped by Boudreau (Patrick Macnee) and taken to Finland, where she’ll be killed in 72 hours if the ransom isn’t paid. The studio won’t pay it; her last two films were failures. That means stuntman Hill Singleton (Christopher Connelly, so many Italian movies) must recruit, well, six more people, like his friend Horatio (Brian Brodsky), swimmers Elena Sweet (Morgan Brittany) and Dinah Latimore (Juanin Clay), explosives lover Skip Hartman (Christopher Lloyd), weaponer Wally Ditweiler (Bob Seagren) and bartender and (because he’s Asian) martial arts expert Kenny Uto (Soon-Tek Oh). Of course, they’re successful, even if this pilot wasn’t picked up for a series. I mean, I still watched it on the CBS Late Movie and wrote so many episodes for it. Ah, if only — I mean, a weekly show about stuntmen solving crimes? I mean, that would never work. Oh, The Fall Guy?

This has stunts by a Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) and two Michael Meyers (Dick Warlock and George Wilbur), as well as “Judo” Gene LaBelle.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE: The 11th Victim (1979)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The 11th Victim was on the CBS Late Movie on August 27, 1982.

Airing on November 6, 1979 as the CBS Tuesday Night Movie, The 11th Victim — released on VHS as The Lakeside Killer — has Jill Kelso (Bess Armstrong) coming from Des Moints to Los Angeles, looking for the killer of her younger sister, Cindy Lee (Marilyn Jones), who was trying to be an actress and ended up a sex worker. She refuses to believe that, however, even as cop Andrew Spencer (Max Gail) tries to keep her safe when she investigates on her own.

The bad influence on her sister was Sally Taylor (Pamela Ludwig), who got Cindy Lee to pose nude for a German calendar. She barely knows Jill and soon she’s taking her to a “video disco” and getting her to do drugs. Then Jill gets the idea to become a girl fresh off the bus named Kelly and follows in her sister’s footsteps, meeting this movie’s version of Jim South, Spider (Eric Burdon, yes from The Animals), whose secretary Cathy (Annazette Chase) seems so lovely, then tells Jill/Kelly to take off her clothes, right there in the office. And before you know it, Jill/Kelly is agreeing to do hardcore with megastar Red Brody (David Hayward), who she believes is a killer, the very person who killed her sister.

Dick Miller appears as a cop, and this was the last film for Tara Strohmeier, whose career is marked by a list of notable movies, including Hollywood Boulevard, Truck Turner, The Kentucky Fried Movie, The Student Teachers, and more.

After Mr. Billion and Over the Edge flopped, director Jonathan Kaplan found himself working in TV. He also made The Gentleman Bandit and Girls of the White Orchid, which is much better and nearly the same movie, before achieving success with Heart Like a Wheel. This was written by Ken Friedman, who also wrote Death by Invitation, White Line Fever and Cadillac Man.

This movie is definitely “We have Hardcore at home.”

You can watch this on YouTube.