The Legend of Hillbilly John (1973), in which a hippied-out version of Manly Wade Wellman’s Silver John goes to training camp for a battle with Satan…
Miami Connection (1987), in which a hard rock band made up of tae kwon do devotees battles a rival band, a drug-dealing street gang, and an army of biker ninjas…
Siren of Bagdad (1953), in which an underachieving magician joins forces with a deposed sultan to get the latter his throne back, mainly because it seems like the best way to reclaim the harem of dancing girls whom the usurper bought from the bandits who stole them from the sorcerer…
Twixt (2011), in which a hack horror novelist lucks into an opportunity to become slightly less hacky in a town full of nasty secrets…
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), which I can just about promise you is unlike any other version of the familiar story that you’ve seen…
and…
Zombieland (2009), in which a dork, a redneck, and a couple of female con-artists seek shelter from the undead apocalypse in a cheesy amusement park.
#1 by Jen S on December 2, 2013 - 8:05 pm
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If you haven’t come across it yet, I highly recommend The Big Book of Ghost Stories, edited by Otto Penzler. It contains not only well known stories like Oh Whistle And I’ll Come To You My Lad, but Wellman’s School for the Unspeakable and lots of other obscure tales.
#2 by Richard on December 3, 2013 - 9:31 pm
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In a similar vein, I can also recommend “The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories”, edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer, as well as the many anthologies edited by Marvin Kaye (“Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural”, “Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies”, et al.).
Though I’d hate to have you take time away from your movie reviewing…
#3 by GalaxyJane on December 3, 2013 - 12:17 am
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My kids and I go to one of the Y.K. Kim franchise dojangs (under the Martial Arts World name) and I can assure you he is still very much involved with running the whole chain, though each individual operation is run by a franchisee. For some reason, the place they really took off outside of Orlando was here in Richmond, VA and he comes up several times a year for tournaments and to run his “universities”. The fun part was that, since he has so many students here, we got one of the premieres for the Miami Connection re-release here in town and Master Kim was here to introduce it. We had a great time, over 1000 people watching it in a 1920s movie palace.
There are Y. K. Kim instructional DVDs for each belt level and you will sometimes see some of the folks from this movie (much older now) as instructors . There is also always at least one execrable martial arts themed rock song on every DVD (usually with lyrics and sheet music to be found in the paper manuals). Whether these are by ‘Dragon Sound’ I have no idea, but it makes me happy to think that they had a career post-cleaning up Miami.
#4 by PB210 on December 3, 2013 - 12:56 am
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http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Occult.htm#SilverJohn
Silver John Timeline
c. 1949 “O Ugly Bird” (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – 12/1951) Date is conjecture based on the fact that John served a tour of duty in the Korean War, and was probably out of the country in 1950-51.
1950-1951 John serves a tour of duty in the Korean War. From the vignette “Nary Spell” we learn that he was the foremost rifle shot in his regiment, brigade and division.
#5 by Blake on December 3, 2013 - 10:12 am
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The fight choreographer on The Miami Connection was Kwan Yung-Moon, a Korean tae kwon do stylist who made a buttload of old school kung fu movies in Hong Kong and Taiwan during the late 70s and early 80s. His nickname was “The Mad Korean” and the man could scowl like none other. So if the fight scenes were excellent, it’s because they were working with a HK vet.
#6 by The Rev. on December 3, 2013 - 10:37 pm
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“The impressive exception is Grandpappy John’s Defy tune, which truly does sound like it was handed down from one coal-country redneck singer to the next for a dozen generations, even though it was written especially for the film.”
Considering it was written by Hoyt Axton, it’s not surprising it kicks an almost indecent amount of ass. Those with a collection of B-Fest CDs has heard that song, and I defy anyone to badmouth it after hearing it.
#7 by The Rev. on December 3, 2013 - 10:41 pm
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Er, “have” heard that song. Oy.
#8 by PB210 on December 4, 2013 - 12:09 am
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“But the character he’s best remembered for today was a much later creation, not appearing until the early 60’s. Wellman never called him anything more than “John,” but to his fans, he’s variously known as Silver John, Hillbilly John, or John the Balladeer”.
http://www.blackgate.com/2010/04/13/who-fears-the-devil/
Some responses:
The earliest story, and one of the finest, is “O Ugly Bird!”, which was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1951.
http://www.blackgate.com/2013/01/24/new-treasures-the-complete-john-thunstone-by-manly-wade-wellman/
In one of the Thunstone novels, as I recall, Thunstone in dialogue does refer, verbatim, either to a “Silver John” or “John the Balladeer”. As I recall, the title of the novel as What May Come (1983).
#9 by Blake on December 4, 2013 - 1:46 pm
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Is the Griselda Marcos you mentioned in the Miami Connection reveiw the same as Griselda Blanco, the so-called “Black Widow?” I just read a little bit about her on the Wikipedia and…wow.
#10 by El Santo on December 5, 2013 - 3:01 pm
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D’oh! Yes, yes. That’s her. Griselda Blanco. I’ve been screwing up people’s names a lot lately for some reason. While typing up the second draft of my Something Wicked This Way Comes review, for example, I somehow managed to pull out “Judd Nelson” when I was reaching for “Jason Robards.” Luckily I spotted that one during the next round of editing.
#11 by Banjoman on December 5, 2013 - 4:57 pm
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Undoubtedly it was Imelda Marcos that crossed your wires. Just as notorious, in her own way.
#12 by Blake on December 7, 2013 - 1:58 pm
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I’m going to venture a guess on the “bottoming out of a once-proud franchise” and say “Diary of the Dead.”
#13 by supersonic man on December 9, 2013 - 5:34 am
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(Dang mobile website never lets me comment, I always have to use the desktop…)
One thing I really dug about the Silver John stories that I’ve read (not a lot of them) was how they seem to suggest a far larger world of strangeness behind them than the parts we get to see. Sort of a Cordwainer Smith quality.
#14 by negadarkwing on December 9, 2013 - 2:15 pm
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Having seen Miami Connection, the background information explains a lot. Except why the put the song about beating the evil ninjas before they met the evil ninjas.
#15 by Craig York on December 17, 2013 - 4:53 pm
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Sorry to be a bit tardy in getting here – but my, its nice to find other folks who read and enjoyed Manly Wade Wellman. I think I first ran across ‘O Ugly Bird!!’ in one of those oversized Alfred Hitchcock anthologies in the ‘sixties, and really wish I knew who I loaned my copy of John the Balladeer. Until this review, though, I had lived with the impression that Legend of Hillbilly John was a short film…is the DVD of recent vintage Santo?
#16 by El Santo on December 19, 2013 - 2:54 pm
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To the best of my knowledge, there is no official DVD release of The Legend of Hillbilly John. My copy is a DVD-R bootleg I got from All Clues, No Solutions, obviously copied from a VHS source. Judging from the picture quality, I’d guess it was a major-label video release from the mid-1980’s.
#17 by maggiesmith on June 23, 2023 - 10:56 am
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You really should review Abigail Breslin’s other zombie movie, MAGGIE. The top billing goes to Arnold Schwarznegger, but contrary to expectations, it’s a serious drama in which he gives his best shot at actual acting.
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