The B-Masters Cabal

The Unknown Movies contributes to the latest roundtable! Ever noticed that whenever something in horror starts to wear thin, they move it to space? The Leprechaun series moved to space. So did the Friday The Thirteenth series. None of those moves made very good movies, so it should come to no surprise that the space setting of Dracula 3000 fails to enliven this bloodsucker. Though the fact the movie stars not only Casper Van Dien but Coolio should also give you a clue about its quality. Be warned.

As happens far more often than you’d imagine, I bring the smack down on Bikini Bloodbath (2007), a film to which most internet critics of any account gave fair to good marks.  That’s just how I roll — I’m an iconoclast, a free-thinker… dare I say a maverick?

The Mummies of Guanajuato
One need only glance over the many titles in the lucha movie genre to see that there is a long history of enmity between Mexican wrestlers and mummies. This goes all the way back to 1964, when Elizabeth Campbell and Lorena Velazquez threw down against a pop-eyed, reconstituted Aztec warrior in their sophomore effort as The Wrestling Women, Las Luchadoras contra la Momia, and continued throughout the rest of the sixties, during which Santo, the most celebrated movie luchadore of them all, would come up against shambling bandage jockeys in films like Santo and Blue Demon vs. The Monsters and La Venganza de la Momia. But the conflict didn’t really kick into high gear until 1972, when the success of a little film called The Mummies of Guanajuato guaranteed that, for the next several years, Mexican movie screens would seldom see respite from the spectacle of colorfully-garbed, masked Mexican grapplers working their moves on a seemingly endless series of inexplicably muscular mummified adversaries.

Welcome to another round of That Was Then, This Is Now, as AYCYAS! again joins forces with The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Duck Speaks. Part 2 of our study of the cinematic evolution of one of horror’s classic stories, Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde”, finds us examining the first two film versions produced after the coming of sound cinema:

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1931) at And You Call Yourself A Scientist!

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1941) at The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

1931 vs 1941 at The Duck Speaks

And finally, pull up a comfortable chair and pour yourself a good long drink (no, really) as Chad, Zack and I attempt to settle the issue of just who does emerge the winner, after one of Hollywood’s true clashes of the titans.

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter
Although other Hammer films had taken swipes at certain established authority figures — witness, for example, the corrupt men in Taste the Blood of Dracula, or the ineffectual and cowardly priest in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave — this one the first time since perhaps The Pirates of Blood River that the studio gave audiences an uppity, charismatic, young firebrand willing to buck the system. Hell, Kronos even smokes the occasional 18th century doobie! At last, there was a Hammer movie and a Hammer hero that young people could actually get behind and perhaps even relate to. Someone who was more like one of them rather than like a parent, standing around waiting to disapprove and tell the whippersnappers how to properly do things.

Charles Band needs an intervention. Seriously.  His latests “killer toys” flick, Dangerous Worry Dolls (2008), about tiny dolls that help you exact revenge by CRAWLING INSIDE YOUR BRAIN AND CONTROLLING YOUR ACTIONS, can’t be interpreted as anything but a cry for help.

 
November 29th, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, will see a nifty monster triple bill at the Portage Theater in Chicago.  For ten bucks attendees will see The Creature Walks Among Us (6:00), Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (7:30) and Christopher Lee’s Horror of Dracula (9:20).  Dealers will be selling crap in the lobby.

The guys running this are basically doing a show a month at the Portage, and trying to make a go of it.  I urge any genre fans in the Chicago area to come out and support efforts like this.  You certainly can’t complain about bang for your buck.  Metered parking–free after 9:00–is available in a nearby city lot.

Here’s a terrible thing to contemplate: for the past eight years, the B-Masters Cabal has sat silent and unprotesting as a blatant act of discrimination was committed in its midst. For eight years, one of our number – there’s no need to mention names – has devoted one month a year to the Undead….but not just any Undead, ohhhhh no: zombies only need apply. No welcome at the country club for you, Mr Vampire! No seat on the bus for you, Ms Mummy! Well, it’s past time that we balanced the ledger; and that’s why the next Roundtable will be—

Month Of The ALTERNATIVE Living Dead

Join us all through November as the B-Masters pay belated tribute to – the other dead meat!

Didn’t anyone in medieval times have access to soap? Everyone in Flesh + Blood looks like they and their clothes and homes could use with a good wash. I know I get irritable when I don’t have clean clothes and my daily shower, so this may explain why everyone in this movie is doing so many nasty things to each other. But it does result in this movie having some prime exploitation material, and that alone makes it worth a look.

Unintentionally, I again came up with two movies for the final installment of Month of the Living Dead that share an additional theme.  This time, it’s “Movies that can only be compared to Troma.”

Chopper Chicks In Zombietown (1989) was distributed by Troma, but was produced independently.  As such, it doesn’t try so gosh-darned hard to be willfully campy and, you know, Troma-esque.

Zombies Gone Wild (2007), on the other hand, finally answers the question, “How Troma-esque does a movie have to be before even Troma won’t distribute it?” (I’m making the assumption that Troma was approached before the filmmakers finally went with Westlake Entertainment Group.)