The B-Masters Cabal

And why do I say that?  Because under no previous entertainment business model would it have been remotely possible for me to see some of the stuff that comprises the present update:

Blood for Dracula (1974), in which the sickliest vampire you ever did see goes looking for virgins in Italy, but just winds up getting his ass kicked by Joe Dallesandro…

Georges Melies Trick Films, 1896, by which I mean The Devil’s Castle, A Nightmare, A Terrible Night, and The Vanishing Lady…

Ginger Snaps (2000), in which a perfectly good suicide pact gets shot all to hell when one of its signatories comes down with a bad case of lycanthropy…

The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999), in which it’s apparently too much to hope for that a needless, much-belated sequel have anything more to offer than a straight-up retread of the first film, even when the producers have the decency to bring back one of the original stars…

Saw II (2005), which came so damn close to being great that I just about wanted to cry when the obligatory twist ending screwed a whole kennel’s worth of pooches…

and…

Three… Extremes (2004), in which representatives of three different Asian movie industries join forces for a riff on the old Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors number.
 
 
 

SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN (1929)

One of the few surviving films of the Danish director Benjamin Christensen, and the only surviving member of the triumverate of old dark house horror-comedies he made in Hollywood at the end of the 1920s.

A young playboy who dreams of having some excitement and adventure before he settles down gets an object lesson in being careful what he prays for when an emerald inherited by his girlfriend becomes the target of a cult of satanists, and the two of them are whisked away to a cavernous mansion that is the scene of orgies and human sacrifice, and that houses mysterious women, disfigured men, Gollum’s little brother, a witch, a dwarf, a werewolf, a gorilla, and Loretta Young.

Oh. And Satan. Let’s not forget Satan.

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[I hope to have some house-keeping done over the next few days. Watch this space.]

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David checks in with another Indian Western

WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE
Therein probably lies the reason that many of the older Bollywood films, that many would consider B-grade, are worth investigating. Here I am foolishly trying to apply conventional film analysis to a Bollywood film, and what’s it doing? It’s screwing right out from under me. It can’t be pigeonholed and broken down like some piece of pre-fabricated, production line entertainment. They aren’t made that way. Earlier, I compared Wanted: Dead or Alive to Leone’s westerns and the Trinity films, and while those influences are definitely in this film, it is still a very different beast to those cited films. Fistful of Dollars never had mirror balls and chorus lines of cowboys grooving away to a disco beat.

The final installments for Reader Revenge Month:

The Giant Gila Monster (1959)

The Bloody Judge (1970)

Before he was an adult, actor Jackie Earle Haley starred in prominent movies like Breaking Away and The Bad News Bears. In recent years, he has made a big comeback starring in movies like Watchmen and Little Children. The Zoo Gang comes from neither of those periods – it comes from the time when Haley, a few years after he turned into an adult, was struggling to get acting jobs, and not getting quality projects. It’s not as bad as the Albert Pyun movie he later appeared in, but… well, it still should have been locked up in a cage.

TEENAGE CATGIRLS IN HEAT

The title is inspired, but this film is an awful conglomeration of events that, though they are meant to produce a coherent plot, ultimately result in an incomprehensible mess. I did laugh when it rained cats on the tin-roofed farmhouse. “Meow!” **BANG**

Lesson Learned:
Random naked women account for 65% of all traffic accidents.

Toyol (1981)

It’s not a particularly good movie by any means, but there’s something undeniably creepy about Toyol. And that’s aside from the fact its title monster is the spirit of a dead fetus.

For week 3 of Reader Revenge Month, we’ve got two oversized scaly monsters:

Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (1966)

Python (2000)