There Is a Ghost in My Bed was directed by Claudio Giorgi, who worked as an actor in fotoromanzi or photo comic books. It was written by Luis Maria Delgado and Jesus Rodriguez Folga and it’s in the genre of both Italian Gothic and commedia sexy all’italiana.

Camillo (Vincenzo Crocitti) and Adelaide (Lilli Carati) are on their honeymoon in Scotland. They can’t find a place to stay and get lost in the fog, finally finding the ancient castle of the Baron of Black Castle (Renzo Montagnani) and his servant Angus (Guerrino Crivello). Despite being a ghost, the Baron still wants to make love to Adelaide and I mean, have you seen Lilli Carati? Can you blame him? How did Camillo keep from sleeping with her during their five-year engagement?

Carati started her career as the runner-up for the 1975 Miss Italy contest. She started work as a fashion model before starting her career with La professoressa di scienze naturali. Her work was mainly in “school” movies where she was a young teacher or a student who was often nude. She also starred with Tomas Milan in Squadra antifurto and had her biggest success in the film Avere vent’anni (To Be Twenty). She was in four Joe D’Amato movies —  La Alcova, Christina, The Pleasure and A Lustful Mind — before acting in adult films in the late 80s. At that point, she was addicted to cocaine and heroin. She retired from public life in 1990 but returned to acting to play an occultist in Violent Shit: The Movie, which was dedicated to her as she died before it was released.

Al Adamson should have never made a children’s film. This is the man who made Psycho a Go-Go, two different softcore movies with flying hostesses (The Naughty Stewardesses and Blazing Stewardesses), the staggering Dracula vs. Frankenstein and a Filipino horror movie that was dubbed, tinted in neon hues and released as Horror of the Blood Monsters. And oh, by the way, his film Satan’s Sadists was shot Spahn Ranch and he was not shy about using that fact to promote the film. And how can we forget his rip off of Eddie Romero’s Blood Island films, the impressive Brain of Blood?

But yeah. So then he decided to make a movie for the kids, it failed, he went into real estate and then ended up murdered by a contractor and buried in the cement under a new hot tub.

So are you ready for Carnival Magic? No. I really don’t think you are.

According to an article in the Austin Chronicle, even the way that film was discovered is unsettling. Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson said, “I didn’t know about the movie until I already owned it. It was an entire movie on one giant reel, and written on the side of it, in Sharpie, it said Carnival Fucking Magic. It completely decimated everyone. We couldn’t understand what the movie was, because although it’s made under the guise of a children’s film, it features domestic abuse, vivisection, and, even more uncomfortably, it just has this pervasive air of stale, alcoholic uncles. It’s the most quietly inappropriate kids’ movie ever made. You can tell it was made by people who have never spent any time around children.”

At face value, the movie is all about Markov the Magnificent (Don Stewart, who was on the soap opera Guiding Light for sixteen years), a magician and mindreader whose career has hit the skids. However, when he teams up with a talking chimp — after a while, no one is really all that amazed that monkeys can speak — named Alexander the Great, their dirt poor Stoney Martin Carnival finally has a chance to be a success. Then again, Kirk the alcoholic lion tamer (Joe Cirillo, who played cops in everything from Maniac Cop 2 to Splash, Ghostbusters and Death Wish 3) and the doctor who wants to examine Alexander’s brain may screw it all up.

Of course, Al’s wife Regina Carrol shows up. But what you don’t expect is that the monkey loves women’s bras and stealing cars. You might wonder what child would want to see this or how they’d react being dropped off at the theater in 1981 by their parents and having to confront this film. I’m in my forties and barely survived it with my insanity intact (to be fair, I’ve gone back more than a few times to try and watch it again).

See, there’s a war brewing between Markov and Kirk. Our hero doesn’t like telling many people, but he was raised by Buddhist monks who taught him hypnosis, levitation and how to talk to animals. The main problem is, the more he talks to Kirk’s animals, the less they take our villain as their master.

Speaking of talking, that’s pretty much all this movie does. Everyone talks, about losing their wives, potentially losing their daughters, leaving behind their old lives and worries of their future. I’m not really sure what children want to see the inner workings and turmoil of a ratty circus. After all, we’ve all come to realize just how sinister the big top is and this movie will do nothing to dissuade you from that notion.

I really have no idea who this film is really for. But yet, that’s part of the charm. Every year, there are so many movies made for kids that just fade away. Somehow, this oddity won’t go away, even if the print for it stayed hidden for decades. Beyond all rational reasoning, Carnival Magic is available to watch on Netflix — albeit with riffing from Mystery Science Theater 3000 — and ready to mess with anyone’s brain that stumbles across it.

You can get this from Severin.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s movie is brought to you by AC Nicholas, who has graciously become a Big B&S’er, a monthly supporter of the site and got to pick an entire week of movies. Would you like to have me write about the movies of your choice? It’s simple!

1. Go to our Ko-Fi site and donate. There’s no set amount and I won’t tell you what to do. In fact, if you just keep reading for free, we can still be friends.
2. Join as a monthly member for just $1. That makes you a Little B&S’er.
3. As a Medium B&S’er at just $3 a month, if you pick a movie or a director, I’ll write about them for you. In fact, I’ll do one for each month you subscribe and even dedicate the post to you.
4. For $5 a month, you basically get some major power. As a Big B&S’er, I’ll write an entire week on any subject you’d like. How awesome would that be? In fact, I’ll do it for every month you’re a member. Do you think any of your other movie sites will do that for you?

Directed by Gérard Kikoïne and Radley Metzger and shot at the same time as Aphrodesia’s Diary, this finds Betty (Veronica Hart) suggesting that her friend Tiffany (Dominique Saint Claire using the name Arlene Manhattan) that she attend a taping of the talk show of Florence Nightingale (Vanessa Del Rio). Within the audience, people are encouraged to live out their fantasies.

Some of those people acting on them are a very young Ron Jeremy, Desiree Cousteau, Samantha Fox and Candida Royalle. When she gets home, Tiffany discovers that her husband (George Payne) has been cheating on her with Misty Regan.

Metzger had hoped that his film The Cat and the Canary would be a mainstream success which is why Kikoïne is the only director in the credits.

This was the first release of Mélusine, Vinegar Syndrome’s adult label.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s movie is brought to you by Chris Salazr, who made a $5 donation and got to pick the movie of his choice. 

Would you like to have me write about the movies of your choice? It’s simple!

1. Go to our Ko-Fi site and donate. There’s no set amount and I won’t tell you what to do. In fact, if you just keep reading for free, we can still be friends.
2. Join as a monthly member for just $1. That makes you a Little B&S’er.
3. As a Medium B&S’er at just $3 a month, if you pick a movie or a director, I’ll write about them for you. In fact, I’ll do one for each month you subscribe and even dedicate the post to you.
4. For $5 a month, you basically get some major power. As a Big B&S’er, I’ll write an entire week on any subject you’d like. How awesome would that be? In fact, I’ll do it for every month you’re a member. Do you think any of your other movie sites will do that for you?

As they await repairs, Val Com 17485 (Andy Kaufman), a robot valet with a specialty in lumber commodities, falls in love with Aqua Com 89045 (Bernadette Peters), a hostess companion robot who is made for poolside parties. They assemble a robot named Phil (Jerry Garcia) who they treat as their child and take with them a comedian robot, Catskil-55602 (Jack Carter).

They are pursued by Crimebuster (Ron Gans), a broken police drone that wants to bring them into to be erased. They are and yet they keep reverting back to their new programing as the love between them has become too strong.

The story sounds good but the actual movie, well…

In his book Andy Kaufman: Revealed, Bob Zmuda wrote that Kaufman and Zmuda had “pitched” the The Tony Clifton Story to Universal Studios. They were concerned that Kaufman had not acted in films except for a small role in God Told Me To, so they arranged for him to star in this movie as a test. It was a disaster and Kaufman even apologized on Late Night With David Letterman for making it.

When I spoke with director Alan Arkush about this movie, he was very honest about it.

B&S: Can you tell me about Heartbeeps?

ALLAN: I got offered this big studio movie. And I really have to say that I totally misread the situation. I didn’t really understand the script or maybe it didn’t indicate that it could be a wacky comedy. I seized on the idea that it could be this big story about robots falling in love and making it a Frank Borzage movie (a bizarre idea and nothing like what the studio wanted). He was big on love conquers death, love is a spiritual thing and I thought that’s what the situation was with these robots. Maybe that’s an intellectually good solution but it’s not the movie they wanted.

I made so many bad choices like a pace that was WAY too slow for comedy. I should have just turned Andy Kaufman loose, used many many more special effects and taken more advantage of the genius of my FX team Stan Winston and Albert Whitlock. We recently did a commentary for the Kino Lorber rerelease and that was both eye opening and painful, but useful to me as an artist, not unlike when I critique a film at the AFI.

B&S: But you had a great cast! I mean, Jerry Garcia is in it.

ALLAN: Yes, Jerry was someone I knew really well. And I asked him to do one of the robot voices on the guitar. I was trying to borrow stuff from other parts of my life to shoehorn in. The studio cut ALL of Jerry’s work out.

At least Arkush was able to get Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov and Dick Miller in the movie, as well as Kenneth McMillan and Randy Quaid as repairmen. But otherwise, this movie seems like it’s going somewhere at first and then just sits there forever, despite being only around 75 minutes. I’ve put off watching it for years because I’ve heard just how bad it is and I’d hoped that it would surprise me.

It was written by John Hill, who also wrote Quigley Down Under, Little Nikita and episodes of Quantum Leap and L.A. Law. He also scripted Steel Justice, a TV movie in which monster truck robot Robosaurus teams with a police officer. Do you think he told people, “I did Heartbeeps so I am a natural to write this movie about a child who brings back his dead cop dad as a fire-breathing transforming dinosaur?”

What is great is the makeup by Stan Winston.

The artist had been sought after he created the makeup for the Tin Man in The Wiz. Winston said, “I hadn’t been all that happy with the final results of the Tin Man makeup, which was made up of foam rubber appliances, painted to look like metal. I wanted to see if I could come up with something better for Heartbeeps, appliances that would have an intrinsic metallic quality, rather than one that was just painted on.”

He used gelatin appliances that were painted with metallic colors. However, the heat of shooting meant that the makeup needed near-constant touch-ups. This almost ruined Winston’s sanity.

“I had created the look I wanted and I had done something that no one had ever seen before. The downside was that, on a daily basis, I didn’t know whether or not we were going to get through the shoot! These were very difficult makeups to maintain, very labor-intensive. Every day at lunch we had to replace the lip appliances, for example, because they were starting to melt on us. Vince Prentice and Zoltan Elek, the makeup artists who actually applied the prosthetics, constantly had to stay on top of the problems with the gelatin. I was a wreck through the entire shoot.”

It did teach him an essential lesson.

“I was in a stressed-out state, which was fairly typical of me at that time, and Bernadette Peters said to me, “Relax, Stan. It’s just a movie.” Here she was, going through this grueling process of having these prosthetics applied to her, and she had to calm me down. It should have been just the opposite. To this day, I thank Bernadette Peters for putting my attitude in perspective. In this work, there are always going to be very real responsibilities and pressures — but it’s just a movie, and there’s nothing to be gained by being a walking stress factory. Ever since that time, I’ve tried to bring positive energy and lightheartedness to the set.”

Resources

Stan Winston School. Heartbeeps: Behind the Scenes at Stan Winston Studio.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Fan was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, September 4, 1983 at 2 a.m.

Today, Ed Bianchi is famous for his work on TV series like Deadwood and Boardwalk Empire, but he also has two movies to his credit. This one and the bizarre 1991 movie Off and Running, where Cyndi Lauper plays a mermaid-themed lounge singer whose boyfriend is murdered in front of her before she hooks up with a professional golfer.

It’s produced by Robert Stigwood, who in addition to managing the Bee Gees and Cream, produced the films Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease, Tommy, Saturday Night Fever, Bugsy Malone, Moment by Moment, Grease 2 and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. As you can tell, the success of these films gradually declined as time moved on.

The Fan received plenty of negative media attention, due to being released a few months after the murder of John Lennon, who lived in The Dakota, the same building where legendary actress and star of this film Lauren Bacall had been living for many years. She wasn’t pleased with the final film, however.

“The Fan is much more graphic and violent than when I read the script. The movie I wanted to make had more to do with what happens to the life of the woman–and less blood and gore.”

You have to admire the audacity of people who will take a legend like Lauren Bacall — someone who had only made one Robert Altman movie since last appearing in the Duke’s last movie, The Shootist — and put her in a slasher.

Douglas Breen (Michael Biehn!) is obsessed — and that’s putting it mildly — with star of stage and film Sally Ross (Bacall). No matter how many autographs he gets or curt replies or even outright silence, it’s never enough. He must have her, he must own her, he must consume her.

Sally doesn’t even know he exists. She’s acting in a Bob Fosse-like musical and reconnecting with her ex-husband Jake Berman (James Garner!). But after the letters become more carnal — yes, this is how we sexted in the 1980s, I was 9 when this was made, so I know — her assistant Belle (Maureen Stapleton!) starts to worry. She should — Douglas is stalking her every single move. And when he figures out that Belle is the reason why his letter didn’t get through, he slices her up with a straight razor.

She survives, but Elsa the maid doesn’t. Soon, Sally is under protection courtesy of Inspector Raphael Andrews (Hector Elizondo) and is asked if she’d like to have conjugal relations with a meat cleaver. Of note, the 2002 Paramount DVD release of this film re-edited this line to be much less profane.

Our heroine leaves town but that’s when Douglas gets smart. He gets cruised in a gay bar and in the midst of some oral delight, murders the man and sets him ablaze, faking that the body was his. Oh, the 1980’s, when DNA didn’t exist and these things happened all the time.

Finally, Sally comes back for opening night, but despite how amazing her performance is and even getting to reconcile with her ex, Douglas is waiting. He kills her costume designer and a guard before coming after her. But finally, he offers her an embrace and she responds by stabbing him in the neck before presumably leaving for the cast party at Sardi’s.

Look for Anna Maria Horsford from the Friday films as a female cop, Reed Jones (the original Skimbleshanks in Cats), a young Dana Delaney working in the record store alongside Douglas, Dwight Schultz as the director, Griffin Dunne as his production assistant and Liz Smith as herself.

The Golden Raspberry Awards nominated the song “Hearts, Not Diamonds” for Worst Song the year this came out. My ire for these awards and the wonderful films that they deride knows no bounds. Who are they to scoff at the abilities of Marvin Hamlisch and Tim Rice? How dare you insult Ms. Bacall! Why, why, why — I should write a letter just like Douglas did! That turned out alright!

There’s a rumor that this film was originally intended to be a straightforward thriller starring Elizabeth Taylor and directed by Jeff Lieberman. Yes, America’s favorite actress in the twilight of her career, being directed by the maker of Blue Sunshine. How did this not happen? How can we get to the parallel Earth where it did?

Much respect to Shout! Factory for finally releasing this insane blast of end of the last century star power-driven slasher on blu ray. It’s going to sit in a place of honor, right next to the other movies that I’m so happy they finally released, like The Lonely Lady.

Leung Chang (Yuen Biao) has been studying kung fu without any hard work. That means that when he fights people and defeats them, it’s because his wealthy father has given money to his servant Yee Tung-choi (Chan Yung) which he uses to pay off his opponents.

Three of Chang’s friends go to see the Lok Fung Lin Chinese Opera troupe. One of them asks out the lead actress and is turned down. He gets insistent and she reveals that she is a man, Leung Yee-tai (Lam Ching-ying). The friends try to attack him, but he’s a Wing Chun expert. Chang, thinking that he’s a great fighter, wants to avenge his friend. Yee Tung-choi tries to bribe Yee-tai, but that fails and Chang discovers just how bad of a battler he is.

Chang asks Yee-tai to teach him Wing Chun but he wisely refuses, as the rich kid would just use it the wrong way. Chang’s father buys the Lok Fung Lin troupe and gives his son a job as Yee-tai’s personal assistant. Now, he follows him everywhere and begs to be taught. And by the end, another prodigal son — Ngai Fei (Frankie Chan) — will teach Chang where he was wrong.

Directed by Sammo Hung, who wrote the movie with Barry Wong, The Prodigal Son is a martial arts movie that actually has a lesson to be learned. I loved it.

The Arrow Video blu ray of this movie has so much! Start with the 2K restorations from the original elements by Fortune Star of both the original HK theatrical and home cuts, then get into extras like two commentary tracks — one by martial arts cinema expert Frank Djeng and actor Bobby Samuels and the other with action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema — as well as featurettes on Wing Chun and Sammo Hung, as well as a double-sided poster, trailers, a reversible sleeve with art by Joe Kim and an illustrated book. You can buy it from MVD.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Friday the 13th Part 2 was on USA Up All Night on August 13, 1993 and May 13, 1994.

Of course, there was going to be a sequel. Sean S. Cunningham refused to direct it because he was against the studio plan to bring Jason back from the dead. He said that it was too stupid and would never work. Hmm.

Beyond a plan to be an anthology of stories on Friday the 13th (which sounds a lot like the plans for Halloween), another thought was that Alice would be a reoccurring hero in this series, continually facing off against Jason again and again in sequel after sequel (again, think Halloween and Laurie Strode). Sadly, after was stalked by a fan, she said she wanted out (she even stayed out of acting for a long time).

That’s why this movie starts with her death. I always wondered why this happens, because it invalidates all of the emotional investment that you put into the last film!

So of course, everyone decides that re-opening Crystal Lake would be a great idea. We’ve got Ginny (Amy Steel, April Fool’s Day), Sandra, Jeff, Scott, Terry, Mark, Vickie and Ted, who sit around a campfire and listen to the legend of Jason. Even Crazy Ralph from the last movie shows up to warn everyone before getting killed.

Here’s my problem with this sequel: it rips a lot off. Jason doesn’t have his trademark hockey mask, so he steals the look of the Phantom of The Town that Dreaded Sundown. And then there’s the issue of taking two murders shot for shot from Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood. A machete to the face and a couple stabbed together by a spear? Attention director Steve Miner: Bava did it first and better. Miner would go on to direct Halloween H20, so his sins are many.

Just like Shakespeare, everyone dies. Except Ginny. She discovers Jason’s altar to his dead mother and ends up stabbing him in the should with a machete. And then the movie does another shock ending, making you think Jason survived. He, of course, did not. Or he did. You know how these things go.

My question is: Did Jason rise from the dead? Or was he alive in the forest all these years? And how did he learn how to use a telephone? Let’s just stop asking questions.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Loch Ness Horror was on USA Up All Night on January 19, 1990.

You can get this sticker from Exploitation-Vocation on Tee Public.

Shot in Lake Tahoe, California which is supposed to be Scotland and featuring the Nessie puppet that would return to the screen to play Jack the Ripper in the “Bullshit or Not?” section of Amazon Women on the Moon, this Larry Buchanan movie is, well, complete junk and I say that in the best of ways.

The Loch Ness Monster is wilding out on swimmers while waiting for her egg to hatch, all while a World War II German bomber lies beneath the freshwater loch and Scottish scientist George Sanderson (Sandy Kenyon) and American sonic expert Spencer Dean (Larry’s son Barry) hunt it down. Also: Jack Stuart (Doc Livingston), the person to first take a photo of the monster and he’s not George Spicer, who did that in our reality, has a daughter named Kathleen (Miki McKenzie) who Spencer falls in love with. And yes, Professor Pratt (Stuart Lancaster) and his team are looking for the German bomber, finds the egg and every one of Pratt’s crew gets eaten by the monster. Pratt won’t give the egg back and soon kidnaps Kathleen.

Every time the monster shows up it’s awe-inspiring just how bad it looks, which makes me love this movie even more. I can’t believe how cheap this movie is, that the creature bites necks and that it’s set in the 40s and yet no pains were taken to make it look that way. Well done all around.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Northern Kicks, Southern Fists aired on USA Up All Night on September 28, 1990.

Xin nan quan bei tui was also released in the U.S. as The Secret Rivals 3 and Assignment to Kill. It has “Northern Kick” Shao Yi-Fei (John Liu) is looking for the murderer of his younger brother and his friend “Southern Fist” Shen Yin-Wai (Alexander Rei Lo) is the killer. They must work together to find out who really did it — he’s played by choreographer Robert Tai — which means ninety minutes of fights.

Directed by Hsin-Yi Chang and Sung Yee Cheung and written by Chien-Chi Chang, this really has nothing to do with Ng See-yuen’s 1976 movie Nan quan bei tui AKA Secret Rivals AKA Northern Leg, Southern Fist AKA Silver Fox Rivals.

This movie feels like it would be more at home on USA’s Kung Fu Theater which I may have watched just as much as USA Up All Night.

You can watch this on Tubi.