The B-Masters Cabal
Back from the Grave and Ready to Party!Bang bang, it’s dead
Posted onAugust 31, 2011
In the spaghetti western The Bang Bang Kid, Tom Bosley (Happy Days) plays an inventor in the wild American west who has come up with a new gadget – a gunslinging robot. The robot happens to look just like its inventor, and… hey, how did you guess just now what happens in the movie’s climax? Well, an unsurprising climax is just one of the many problems this movie has.
Tick…tick…tick…
Posted onAugust 30, 2011
Liz and Dick made some doozies together, but this one takes the cake. Come examine how one of history’s greatest cinematic bombs went Boom!
Liz Comes Out of this One Much Better Off Than Poor Kirk Douglas
Posted onAugust 29, 2011Holocaust 2000 (1977), in which you’ve never seen a Beast (or a number thereof) like this before…
Satan’s Princess (1989), in which the want of giant, back-projected bug-monsters is sorely felt…
Secret Ceremony (1968), in which that faint scratching noise you hear in the background is V. C. Andrews taking frantic notes…
Streets of Fire (1984), in which a sickly-looking Willem Dafoe and the lead singer of Fear kidnap Meatloaf’s distaff spiritual doppelganger, and only her Snake Plisskeny ex-boyfriend can save her…
and…
Terror (1978), which is every inch as drab and forgettable as its title.
But I don’t have a backyard!
Posted onAugust 27, 2011
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What’s that little ditty people used to write in year-books? Ah, yes—
Good luck for the future / As years go by / And may the Blue Bird of Happiness/ Poop in your eye…
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The first ever US-Soviet co-production, this children’s film is intended to convey a message about being thankful for what you have, but instead leaves the audience feeling suicidally depressed. Starring some sloppily painted doves, an embarrassed supporting cast in second-rate pantomime costumes, and Liz Taylor in four roles.
Hmph. Give me the first ever US-Japanese co-production any day!
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But I don't have a backyard!
Posted onAugust 27, 2011
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What’s that little ditty people used to write in year-books? Ah, yes—
Good luck for the future / As years go by / And may the Blue Bird of Happiness/ Poop in your eye…
.
The first ever US-Soviet co-production, this children’s film is intended to convey a message about being thankful for what you have, but instead leaves the audience feeling suicidally depressed. Starring some sloppily painted doves, an embarrassed supporting cast in second-rate pantomime costumes, and Liz Taylor in four roles.
Hmph. Give me the first ever US-Japanese co-production any day!
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She doesn’t fight Russian vampires in it, either.
Posted onAugust 26, 2011
Let’s take stock, shall we?
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Liz in an orange housecoat? Check. |
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Husband with a dark secret? Check. |
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Comic Spanish housekeeper? Check. |
Sliced-off nipples? Naked horsey rides? Whippings? Oops! Wrong movie! Sorry to disappoint you, Naomi… but enough people seem to like Reflections in a Golden Eye (or as I call the restored version, Reflections in a Jug of Maple Syrup) that it seemed too respectable for this Roundtable. Instead we’ve got:
Night Watch (1973)
… Taylor’s one unambiguous horror film.
She doesn't fight Russian vampires in it, either.
Posted onAugust 26, 2011
Let’s take stock, shall we?
|
Liz in an orange housecoat? Check. |
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Husband with a dark secret? Check. |
|
Comic Spanish housekeeper? Check. |
Sliced-off nipples? Naked horsey rides? Whippings? Oops! Wrong movie! Sorry to disappoint you, Naomi… but enough people seem to like Reflections in a Golden Eye (or as I call the restored version, Reflections in a Jug of Maple Syrup) that it seemed too respectable for this Roundtable. Instead we’ve got:
Night Watch (1973)
… Taylor’s one unambiguous horror film.
Your Blast from the Past
Posted onAugust 26, 2011
Back in 1994, I started making a zine about the things that interested me at the time — Hong Kong action movies, Japanese scifi, noise music, and gratuitous photos of Joey Wong. Called Kung-Fu Girl, it ran for like five or six issues, all of which were presumed lost after flooding ruined most of my zine collection and moving caused much more of it to vanish into that ether where random boxes go in between apartments.
My sister, however, was mining through a pile of my old junk at my parents’ house and stumbled across issues one and three. She sent them to me, and I’m scanning them in for all to enjoy. I am not responsible for any differences in opinion between 22 year old me and 39 year old me. Anyway, here’s issue one. Issue three I’ll try to scan over the weekend.
Ridiculous Self-Aggrandizement
Posted onAugust 24, 2011
A relatively new Website, Daily Grindhouse, decided to rattle my cage and talk about Forever Evil. Yes, the villain still pursues me.
Fans of Jabootu may know this, but Ken Begg, myself, Sandy “Call of Cthulhu” Petersen and often Chris Holland of Stomp Tokyo get together annually to poke at the unsuspecting with movie-shaped sticks. One such get-together happened a week ago. No one was ever heard from again – until now.
Oh, yeah, incidentally, I’m still alive. How are you guys doing?
Ninjas, Vampires, Werewolves, and Quarterbacks
Posted onAugust 19, 2011| DRACULA, SOVEREIGN OF THE DAMNED When we first meet Dracula, he’s fluttering about the rafters of a Satanic cult (one that is so half-assed that they have contractors in the temple building their altar mere minutes before the ritual is scheduled to begin). Dracula has been masquerading as Satan for the gullible cultists in order to get himself a steady stream of victims, but the latest beautiful young woman, Delores, placed on the altar for sacrifice really catches the vampire lord’s eye, so he whisks her away to his artfully decorated…well, it looks like a suburban Boston apartment. Dracula obviously reads Dwell magazine. |
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| LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF As I mentioned at the beginning, the idea behind Tyburn seems to have been to make something akin to classic Hammer. Unfortunately Legend of the Werewolf feels more like a latter day Hammer film, looking massively twee and out of date. Bear in mind it came out in the same year as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue, Frightmare, Black Christmas and The Wicker Man to name but a few. Even more unfortunate is how Legend of the Werewolf combines the elements of a mid-60s Hammer gothic (mild gore, no nudity) with the substandard production value and leaden pacing of one of their 70s duds. |
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| THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS Despite the production date, however, no other action film contains such a perfect and complete distillation of the 80s attitude as The Taking of Beverly Hills, a movie about a bunch of spoiled millionaires who are taken advantage of by a slightly meaner millionaire until another millionaire steps up to the plate to blow stuff up. It’s the cinematic embodiment of the Me Generation, even more so than Wall Street (which purports to moralize about geed and selfishness) and with way more exploding Rolls Royces. Hell, The Taking of Beverly Hills is like someone got drunk and was like, “What if Wall Street was Die Hard?!?” |
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| AMERICAN NINJA 3 You know you’re in trouble on a low-budget second sequel when the star of the first two doesn’t bother to return. When you discover that the first American Ninja, Michael Dudikoff, passed in order to appear in Cannon’s production Alistair MacLean’s River of Death, everything points to a bumpy ride. One possible route a producer can take in this case is to promote a secondary character to leading status. The American Ninja series seemed tailor-made for this, what with the hero having uber-tough guy Steve James as his scary ass-kickin’ sidekick. But the filmmakers decided not to take that obvious path, and recruited a new white guy who just happened to have been trained in the Sacred Ninja Arts. |
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| TWILIGHT PEOPLE The Twilight People is much better than it needs to be, and manages to be so without giving the appearance of trying to compete outside of its class. Not only does Romero know how to tell a story, but he also knows how to make an attractive looking picture on limited means. His camera angles are frequently imaginative, and studiously avoid the kind of nailed down camera work so frequently seen in similar quickie productions. He also combines an eye for striking found locations with an ability to liven up minimal sets with offbeat lighting effects, giving the end product a gloss that’s beyond what most people would expect from what is, in essence, just a cheesy drive-in monster movie. |
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