A formula, if you will: Clash of the Titans X made in the Philippines X werewolves + witches + a cyclops + vampires = Boy God, one of the strangest films I’ve seen (and just think what that entails).
Long story short: A young boy who has superpowers and is immortal battles to free his parents from the limbo where they are doing penance for their sins.
See, his parents got gunned down the night he was born and now, he’s super strong and can roll as a ball, except when he gets wet. Got it? He battles Dr. Meagele, then some werewolf witches — yes the same people — who want to cook him like a pig before a giant vampire bat attacks him and he meets the god Vulcan.
I also forgot that the Stone Boy/Boy God was of divine birth, but it feels more like The Entity than the Good News. Also: This is a kid movie.
Why Mondo Macabro hasn’t released this yet astounds me. I love those guys, but they gotta get on it. It’s the best movie I’ve ever seen where werewolf women baste a small boy while discussing how they can’t wait to eat him.
“When does a dream become a nightmare?
When do we learn to live with fear?
When we cry out for some salvation?
Why is it no one seems to hear?”
When your movie has an Alice Cooper theme song and exudes punk rock menace, you get my attention. Mark Lester’s 1982 kids against teachers drive-in epic boasts a Tom Holland story (he co-scripted as well) and a truly no future mindset.
Andrew Norris (Perry King) has come to a new school to teach music, but he’ll soon learn that this is a war. That fact is continually taught to him by Terry Corrigan (Roddy McDowall, always perfect), an older teacher who carries a gun.
The teachers are more babysitters and cops than educators. When they’re up against the gang led by Peter Stegman (Timothy Van Patten), there’s really no way that they can win.
These kids are absolutely the worst human beings ever, like movie serial villains in punk fashions. Things reach a climax when Terry’s beloved animals are murdered, sending him into a suicidal rage. And then, somehow that is topped when the gang assaults Andrew’s wife and places a polaroid of it on his podium right before a band concert. Can it get more insane? Sure. Terry and Peter fistfight on the roof, ending with the offending young person goes crashing through a window, being hung as the entire band concert watches.
Let me explain how crazy that is in real life, because the wife who gets so abused is played by Merrie Lynn Ross, Lester’s wife.
This movie is packed with stars. And by stars, I mean people only I care about like Stefan Arngrim from Fear No Evil, Keith Knight from Meatballs and My Bloody Valentine and Lisa Langlois from Happy Birthday to Me and Deadly Eyes. Oh yeah. Some guy named Michael J. Fox is in this too.
By the way, if the police station seems familiar, that’s because it was the same one as Black Christmas. And Van Patten was a renaissance man on this movie, as he wrote the concerto his character performs and even made Drugstore’s graffiti-covered shirt. He still is, as he’s the director making the new Perry Mason series on HBO.
If you’ve spent any amount of time at B&S About Movies, you’re sick of our waxing nostalgic for USA Network’s “Night Flight” weekend, four-hour programming block that ran on Friday and Saturday nights . . . it’s what got us through middle school and high school, and even college, from 1981 to 1988. But what more can we say about the visual-arts magazine and variety program that hasn’t already been said? Just drop “USA Night Flight” into Google or You Tube or Letterbox’d and you’ll have a good night’s nostalgic reading n’ watch.
The snack bar will be open in five minutes. . . and we don’t pee in the popcorn (you’ll get the “joke,” soon)!
The great news is that “Night Flight” is back as an online subscription service, Night Flight Plus, and as an entertainment news and information site at Night Flight.com. The greatest aspect of the new online version of “Night Flight” is their programming of a whole new batch of quirky, underground programming — such as I’m Now: The Story of Mudhoney, American Hardcore, and L7: Pretend We’re Dead — in addition to streaming all of the ’80s classics we know and love: such as the films on tonight’s Drive-In roster:Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, Liquid Sky, The Brain, and Kentucky Fried Movie.
So strap on the popcorn bucket and lite up that cathode ray tube. Let’s rock!
Sam, the chief cook and bottlewasher at B&S About Movies (I just clean the grease pits, scub the grills, and mop up around here the best I can), loves this movie (as do I). And we’re both gobsmacked as to how acclaimed screenwriter Nancy Dowd made her debut with, of all things, the raunchy Paul Newman-starring sports comedy Slap Shot. Then to the Oscar-winning war drama Coming Home and the acclaimed prison flick Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman. Then one of the best football flicks of all time, North Dallas Forty. Then a second Oscar winner with family drama, Ordinary People . . . to end up with a movie that was only seen by a mass audience courtesy of USA’s “Night Flight” overnight-weekend hodgepodge sandwiched between rock videos and film shorts.
How?
Well, it’s because Nancy Dowd met music impresario Lou Adler. And we met her “Rob Morton” nom de plume as result. And her rock-centric statement on female empowerment — that could have ranked alongside Times Sqaure as the greatest female empowerment rock flick of all time — became, as we look back on the film all these years later, as a slightly creepy titillation fest. Could you imagine Tim Curry’s DJ Johnny LaGuardia leering endlessly at Pammy and Nicky with the same camera-lingering “male gaze” as on Corrine, Jessica, and Tracy?
True, Adler had the rock-centric Cheech and Chong’s Up In Smoke under his director’s belt, and it was a huge hit for a first-time director. But that feature film debut for the stoner comedy-duo was not so much a narrative-movie, but a series of dope-inspired skits masquerading as a movie (as is the case with our fourth flick on tonight’s program). And sure, Adler produced The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and it was a huge midnight movie. But it was also huge a box office boondoggle during its initial release. In the end, as with the equally successful film composer and arranger Richard Baskin (Nashville, Welcome to L.A., Honeysuckle Rose) taking his first step behind the camera with the disaster that was 1983’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel, Alder probably should have stuck to his forte as a record producer and music svengali and shouldn’t have been directing a movie in the first place.
In then end, while our big brothers and sisters were out hitting the rock clubs and going to concerts, we, the wee-lads haunting the middle school halls and shopping malls, fell in love with Diane Lane courtesy of Nancy Dowd’s well-intentioned rock flick airing on the USA Network. It’s what geeky, socially maladjusted kids did back then. And besides: where else can you get a punk-supergroup comprised of Paul Simonon from the Clash on bass and the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones and Paul Cook on guitar and drums (and journeyman Brit-actor Ray Winstone from the Who’s Quadrophenia) as The Looters?
Factoid: The Looters were actually . . . the Professionals, Jones and Cook’s first post-Sex Pistols band (rounded out by guitarist Ray McVeigh and bassist Paul Myers). You can listen to their one and only album, 1981’s I Didn’t See It Coming released on Virgin Records, on You Tube. “Join the Professionals” from the film eventually ended up on the 2001 CD reissue. The Professionals, sans Jones, is back in business since 2017 and you can visit them on Facebook.
Update, 2022: In addition to a second take on this film by contributor Jennifer Upton (the main link, above, takes you to Sam’s view), Imprint now offers a one-disc 2 K Blu-ray version, to be release on December 16, 2022. You can learn more at Blu-ray.com.
It goes without saying that we, the wee-lads spending our Friday and Saturday nights by a cathode ray tube’s glow, watched an edited version (as with the Mike Ness and Social Distortion-starring Another State of Mind) of this . . . well, as Sam pointed out in his review . . . we’re not really sure.
It’s a dizzying kaleidoscope of colors, music, and fashion about New York’s City’s night-life denizens falling victim to endorphin-addicted aliens extracting the “Liquid Sky” chemical from human brains during sexual orgasms — and when the human’s die happy, the aliens suck up all of that energy as well. And to what end, who knows? And who cares: it was on Variety’s top-grossing film chart for over half a year.
Star Anne Carlisle, who played both male and female roles in the film, also starred in Susan Sidelman’s (Smithereens; with Richard Hell of Blank Generation) Desperately Seeking Susan and appeared as the transvestite Gwendoline in Crocodile Dundee (You Tube). Oh, you’ll remember that “Sheila.”
INTERMISSION: The shorts Hardware Wars (1977), Recorded Live (1975), Living Dolls (1980), Arcade Attack (1982)* and Porklips Now* (1980).
Ah . . . more sinfully-quenching brain fluids courtesy of “Night Flight.”
What more can we say about this Canuxploitation shocker from writer-director Ed Hunt? If he can’t go “all in,” he just doesn’t make a movie at all: you never get run-of-the-mill storytelling with Eddie-boy. And to that not-run-of-the-mill end: you’ll root for the evil alien (we think it’s “alien”) Brain and not the dick-whiny high school hero and his screechy girlfriend. That’ll never happen in a mainstream movie and that’s what made The Brain perfect, gooey fodder for us, the wee-tween denizens of the “Night Flight” hoards.
What’s it all about? Hallucinations of inward-pressing walls, come-live teddy bears bleeding from the eyes, demon hands tearing through walls, and monster tentacles punching out of TV sets. It’s about mind control of the Don Coscarelli’s Phantasmand David Cronenberg’s Videodrome variety. It’s about Dr. Carl Hill from Re-Animator as a self-help guru of wayward teens. It’s about a giant-brain-with-teeth that munches on nosey lab assistants, it’s . . . oh, just watch it!!
“The popcorn you’ve just been eating has been pissed in. Film at 11.”
And with that “classic” line, disconnect your brain and just roll with the childish insanity of John Landis, Jerry and David Zucker, and Jim Abrahams — before they unleashed the likes of National Lampoon’s Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Airplane!, and The Naked Gun upon us, the wee triplex hoards (with our older ‘rents or brothers and sisters in support). This quartet of box office-bonanza writer-directors had to start somewhere . . . and Kentucky Fried Movie is it . . . and we love them for this beautiful mess of a “movie” that we watched on USA’s “Night Flight” and taped-from-cable via HBO.
Back in the day, the ‘rents let us watch Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and NBC-TV’s The Midnight Special. But under no circumstances were we allowed to watch Saturday Night Live. It was “inappropriate” for us. It was “for the adults.” But thanks to HBO and USA, this “film” comprised of non-narrative sketches and parodies of popular films and TV commercials got by our parental guidance sensors.
This cleaned up at the Drive-Ins during its initial release, and yes, that was a night where you were stuck with a babysitter, as mom and dad went for a “night out” — without you. As I watch this all these years later — as with Midnight Cowboy with Dustin Hoffman, Shampoo with Warren Beatty, and Patty Duke in Valley of the Dolls — I fail to see what all the fuss was about.
Yeah, Kentucky Fried Movie is all about “the times” and a case of “you had to be there.” And to that end: if you’re watching this for the first time in 2020, you’ll either love it for its nostalgia, or dismissed it — the same way we then kids dismissed our elder’s variety TV series from the 1940s and 1950s — as “dorky.”
And that’s our show!
Be sure to join us for “Rock ‘n’ Roll Week” coming Sunday, June 19 and running until Saturday, June 25, as we’ll be reviewing a few more of the films we enjoyed as part of The USA Network’s “Night Flight” weekend programming block.
* While we recall watching Arcade Attack and Porklips Now on HBO, readers have told us both shorts also aired on the USA Network. It’s possible, as we recall seeing all of the above shorts on HBO, as well.
Special Thanks: To Jennifer Carroll for reminding us about Living Dolls. Great catch, Jen!It ran not only on USA’s Night Flight, but during USA’s Saturday Nightmares and Commander USA’s Groovie Movies.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes forB&S About Movies.
The Sheriff’s Strange Son is the translation of this film’s title and it lives up to those words.
On the night that Sheriff Frederick Jackson’s wife goes into labor, the doctor is nowhere to be found, as he’s tending to the numerous victims of the plague that is decimating the denizens of the small town of Santa Rosa. The wife — not so coincidentally named Mary — dies as she gives birth to a set of conjoined twins named Fred and Erick.
There’s also the matter of some prophecy that the plague and the twins being joined as they are signals the birth of the Antichrist. But the lawman is too busy blaming the doctor for his wife dying and the fact that he has to raise these kids all by himself.
Years later, as the boys near puberty, Jackson kidnaps the doctor and forces him to split the boys at gunpoint. Despite the protests of the old surgeon, the surgery happens and Erick pays the price, ending up buried in an unmarked grave.
Things would have worked out great for Jackson except Fred won’t stop telling people how his father killed him, as he believes that he’s really the dead one. Jackson was a pretty crappy cop — go figure — so he’s finally caught for a murder that he covered up. On the day of the hanging, the ghost of Erick appears with glowing eyes and demands that only he can kill his father. That job complete, he decides to go after his brother too.
This is the first film of Fernando Duran Rojas I’ve seen, but it won’t be the last.
When you see the names Brian Trenchard-Smith and Nico Mastorakis listed as producers, you know that you’re probably getting into something good. Also known as Demon Island, this film was directed by Richard Jeffries, who is probably better known for the films that he’s written like Scarecrows and Cold Creek Manor. He’s only directed one other film, the 2008 TV movie Living Hell.
It’s funny, when I discussed this movie earlier today with Bill from Groovy Doom, he referred to it as “the monster movie with no monster.” That’s an apt description.
It’s also about a treasure hunter named Frye (James Earl Jones) whose underwater scavenging brings back an ancient sea monster that demands virgin blood.
Meanwhile, Neil and Sherry (Martin Kove and Mary Louise Weller, who appeared in Q The Winged Serpent the same year as this movie) have come to the island looking for his missing sister Madeline (Deborah Shelton, who also sings the song over the end credits with her then-husband Shuki Levy). Plus, Lydia Cornell stops hanging out with Cosmic Cow on Too Close for Comfort and shows up as Jones’ girlfriend.
Inexplicably, Lila Kedrova from Zorba the Greek and Jose Farrar — well, he’s less of a surprise as Jose may have been the first actor to win the National Medal of Arts, but he’s also in spectacular junk like The Sentinel, Bloody Birthday and The Being — both appear.
Arrow’s write-up promised “blood, nudity and beachside aerobics.” This delivered, as well as some great dream sequences and moments where beachfront rituals seem to go on forever. That said, I had a blast with this movie, as any film that has Martin Kove skipping around the waves holding a miniature engine while the ladies go wild and James Earl Jones yells at everyone will hold my attention.
Arrow has, as always, gone all out on this. Beyond the 1080p presentation — making this look so much better than it ever has before — they went out and got new audio commentary from director/co-writer Jefferies and a newly-filmed interview with producer/co-writer Mastorakis. The Graham Humphreys cover art is more than worth the price of this disc, too.
You can order this from Arrow Video, who were kind enough to send us a copy.
Before we get into this movie — Santo’s last film — let’s discuss some lucha libre history.
His career was winding down, particularly after facing off with death itself.
In 1981, El Signo, Negro Navarro and El Texano began teaming as a young rudos trio named Los Misioneros de la Muerte (The Missionaries of Death) in the UWA promotion. During a main event at El Toreo de Quatro Caminos, they battled El Santo, Huracan Ramirez and Rayo de Jalisco.
At some point in the match, the man in the silver mask collapsed from a heart attack. His life was saved by Ramirez and the legend of Los Misioneroes del Muerte — that they tried to actually kill El Santo — was born. They became the biggest heels in Mexico, eventually losing in Santo’s last match on September 12, 1982, as he teamed with Ramirez, Gory Guerrero and El Solitario against Los Misioneros and Perro Aguayo.
That same year, Santo would appear in his final film, a sequel to El Puno de la Muerte (The Fist of Death), which was shot concurrently. Both movies concern the sisterly war between twins Kungyan, who dressed in black and is evil, and Queria, who — you guessed it, muchacho — dresses in white and is good. They’re both played by Grace Renat and fur and fabric can barely contain the pneumatic tendencies of her busoms. Russ Meyer must have been going insane halfway across the world and had no idea why.
Renat left home at 14 to become a showgirl in the company of her older lover. By 24, she was a single mother and dancing in Tijuana’s most infamous nightclubs as an exotic dancer. She was then awarded the title of Diosa de la Noche (Goddess of the Night) by Mexico’s Asociación Nacional de Actores. Now, she was a star, appearing in movies like Las Munecas del King Kong, Pink Zone and El Hombre sin Miedo.
The two women are battling over a star crystal that looks like it came from Wicks ‘n Sticks. There’s also a Jungle Goddess who has come from the sky to marry a prince, assassins, zombies, Satanic rituals and no small amount of dance numbers.
Imagine, if you will, Mortal Kombat made with no budget and an aging lucha libre star, as well as the younger star Tieneblas as the evil assistant. This would be that movie and it’s perfect and wonderful and all things special.
There are some out there that will make light of this movie and scoff at it. It’s made on a shoestring, the fights are incredibly fake and the special effects could be done by a small child. I could care less what they think. This is a movie that begins with El Santo parachuting into the jungle while still wearing a cape. If that doesn’t make you start looking for this movie right now, there’s no hope for you.
Let me tell you one more thing: Kungyan dances so hard at one point that she conjures a monster, then still decides to send killer apes after Santo and a karate expert on the day of his wedding.
Alright, alright. Last thing. This was shot at Vizcaya Museum, an Italian Renaissance home in Miami’s Coconut Grove that also appears in Airport ’77, and Coral Castle, an oolite limestone wonder created by Edward Leedskalnin via either magneticism, perptual motion or outright sorcery. It also shows up in the movies The Wild Women of Wongo and Nude on the Moon, as well as inspiring Billy Idol to write the song “Sweet Sixteen.”
After For Your Height Only, Weng Weng had another James Bond movie in him. He’s Agent 00, working for INTERPOL and battling extortionists. The main villain? Mr. X, who kind of looks like a Klansman, if Klansmen wore socks on their heads.
For some reason, Weng Weng wears a white Saturday Night Fever suit through most of this movie, which has nothing to do with James Bond. I have no idea why either.
Mr. X sends killers after Agent 00 and even tries to drown him at one point, but you can’t keep a spy down who can hide inside a briefcase.
My favorite part of this movie involves Agent 00 escaping from the bad guys by using beds sheets — never mind the naked woman in the bed — to jump out of a window into a hotel swimming pool. Then, a very large hairy man discovers our hero and picks him up as if he were an infant before exclaiming, “Hey everybody look. I can’t believe what happened. It’s a boy! Where did he come from? Pretty boy, pretty boy!”
There are also numerous punches to the ballbags of many villains.
At the end of this film, there’s the promise of License Expired as a sequel. Sadly, that movie was never made.
King Kong (Sam “God of Song” Hui) is a cat burglar who wants to make good, so he teams with Albert “Baldy” Au (Karl Maka), a goofball American detective, and Superintendent Nancy Ho (Sylvia Chang), who is driven crazy by both of these foolish, yet heroic men.
The first in a series of movies, Aces Go Places is very much a spy movie mixed with cop and comedy elements. Known as Mad Mission in the U.S., I hope that more people track this down and watch it. It’s utterly hilarious and heartwarming in the way that it wants to entertain you.
There are also some cool gadgets, like the exploding remote control cars and King Kong’s awesome alarm clock. And hey! The bad guy’s name is White Gloves. I thought that was pretty cool for some reason.
Originally airing on CBS on October 16, 1982, this made-for-TV movie was directed by Jerry Jameson, who also was the in the director’s chair for movies like The Bat People, Airport ’77 and the Gunsmoke and Bonanza reunion movies.
Lynda Carter (TV’s Wonder Woman as well as Miss World USA 1972) plays Brianne O’Neill, an art student who is getting stalked by The Barber, a man who claims to be behind several killings in the paper.
Who is The Barber? Is it Justin Price (Granville Van Dusen, who was the voice of Race Bannon on The New Adventures of Jonny Quest)? Deranged killer Charlie Jackson (James Booth, Airport ’77)? Former actor Tom Hunter (Steve Forrest, Mommie Dearest), who has been in love with Brianne for a long time? Her boss Kyle Durham (Monte Markham, Jake Speed, We Are Still Here)? Or her co-worker Barnie (Frank Stallone!, Ground Rules)?
Look for Harry Waters, Jr. in this movie. He played Marvin Berry in Back to the Future, the guy that Marty McFly used to steal rock ‘n roll from black people.
There’s a death by harpoon gun, so this movie has that going for it. Consider it an early 80’s American low budget made for TV giallo and you’ll be fine.
The Man Who Saved the World is the true name of this movie, although nearly everyone refers to it as Turkish Star Wars.
Murat and Ali crash their ships on a desert planet that is no way Tatooine. That said, the footage of their crash is from Star Wars and footage of both the US and USSR space programs. Ali thinks that only women live on this planet, so he does a wolf whistle because in a galaxy long ago and far away me too does not exist. The whistle backfires and they fight skeletons on horseback before they are forced into the gladiator pits.
Our villain is a thousand-year-old wizard who has been stopped from destroying the Earth by a “shield of concentrated human brain molecules” or, as George Lucas would call it, the Death Star.
Our heroes escape to a cave where zombies attack and turn the children into the living dead, which gives the wizard more power, so our heroes and a girl go to a bar that is not in Mos Eisley. The villain gets them back and offers them all sorts of power and women to help destroy the Earth. He already has a golden brain and now all he needs is a real human brain.
There are more monster battles and escapes and then Murat finds out about a sword made by the 13th clan from a melted down mountain that is shaped like a lightning bolt and protected by ninjas. Ali goes nuts though and for some reason, tries to steal the golden brain and this awesome sword and then gets milled by Turkish cinema.
Grieving for his lost friend, Murat melts down the sword and the golden human brain and forge them into a pair of gloves and boots. He uses the Force, err, beats the unholy monster dung out of skeletons and beasts and even karate chops the villain in half. Then he does what you or I would — he flies away in the Millennium Falcon.
Making this movie even better is the fact that it shamelessly steals music from every movie that you love. It’s main theme is “The Raiders March” by John Williams. However, it also lifts themes from Moonraker, The Black Hole, Ben-Hur, Flash Gordon, the Giorgio Moroder’s remix of Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes and Silent Running.
The decision to just steal the footage from Star Wars was a necessity. Supposedly, there were elaborate spaceship sets made on a Turkish beach that was destroyed by a storm and the studio refused to pay for new ones. Director Cetin Inanc bribed a guard at a Turkish film distributor and got the footage from a print of Lucas’ film. However, all of the footage was spliced in from an anamorphic print — while this movie was shot in a different aspect ratio — making the Death Star look positively tiny.
It gets even sillier. The evil wizard has a wife who transforms into an old hag and a spider. There’s a yellow vortex that turns men into zombies. Plus a man turns into a hairy ogre. All of these moments are also stolen from Bert I. Gordon’s The Magic Sword.
Hey, you know how it goes. After all, Lucas stole quite a bit too. Ask Jack Kirby, The Dam Busters and Kurosawa. Maybe this movie brings balance to the Force.
You can watch this at the Internet Archive or just use the YouTube link attached right here.
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