The B-Masters Cabal

SHARK HUNTER

The first fifteen minutes of Enzo G. Castellari’s Shark Hunter play as follows. We meet the titular shark hunter, Franco Nero, looking like he just stumbled out of the jungle and fell into a puddle of crazed hippie biker, while perched on a rock overlooking the ocean. Suddenly a shark catches his eye, causing him to leap up, run down the beach while accompanied by the sounds of Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis, and struggle to haul the thrashing beast to shore. He then retires to his open air beach bungalow to make love to his beautiful Mexican senorita, then goes to a bar where he beats the crap out of half a dozen thugs. Happy that Franco has whooped ass on the goon squad, a local takes him out for a bit of parasailing. I know, I know. You’re thinking to yourself that while hauling in a fishing line hooked to a man-eating shark is tough, and making love on the beach to a sexy gal is tough, and beating up half a dozen hired bruisers is tough, there’s not much tough about parasailing. That’s what sunburned fat Americans do when they visit resorts, right?

I really can’t find any theme to this latest offering. The only thing I will say is that I had a lot of possible Accompanying Images to choose from: Scary Glasses Guy, Sean Connery in green tinfoil, a “god” in a ten-cent Halloween costume, Maureen O’Hara in drag….but in the end I decided that this one made me giggle the most:

This time, Red Ryder and Little Beaver are in California for California Gold Rush (1946). Because that long tall galoot will show up whenever the Duchess whistles. I don’t know if Little Beaver’s seeing a very healthy relationship modeled for him.

2008 has been kicked off with an expedition to Mexico and a review of Sinbad of the Seven Seas. It’s going to be a good year.

SINBAD OF THE SEVEN SEAS
I can anticipate a lot of things that would potentially show up as the first shot in a Sinbad the Sailor (as opposed to Sinbad the Comedian, though I can also imagine the first shot in that movie as well, and it’s Sinbad making an exaggerated screaming face and running away in fast motion from a poopy baby diaper), but one thing I never expected was a still shot of Edgar Allen Poe. I didn’t know why Poe would be associated with the opening of a Sinbad the Sailor movie, though I could understand it in a Sinbad the Comedian movie, what with the macabre and all. Luckily, this film begins with a text crawl that explains to me that Edgar Allen Poe wrote a story called ” The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade,” and it is upon that tale this movie is based.

It’s Freddy Vs Jason! It’s Ken Vs Lyz! Who will walk away with whose severed head!? Who will survive and what will be left of them!?

Freddy Vs Jason (2003) at Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension

Freddy Vs Jason (2003) at AYCYAS!

Then join us as Ken takes a crash course in the Friday The 13th franchise; as Lyz demonstrates that she might have had a viable career as a Legal Aid attorney by mounting a defence of Jason Voorhees (“….and while it is true, Your Honour, that the defendent did kill 160 people over a period of 20 years….”); and as Ken and Lyz gawp in astonishment at each other upon being confronted by a true rara avis: a well-written, intelligently constructed modern horror film.

Hey, me again.  Getting tired of me monopolizing the B-Masters blog?  Shucks, I’m not the one to complain to, you know what I mean?

Anyway, here’s an extra review as part of a roundtable of SciFi Originals organized by Tomb of Anubis.

Presenting… Mammoth (2006)!

At least American character actor Dan Duryea got himself a British vacation when he starred in Terror Street (1953), a crime-drama co-produced by American huckster Robert Lippert and the nascent Hammer Studios.

Lone Texas Ranger (1945) is yet another of the “Red Ryder and Little Beaver” features made during the ’40’s.  This is what happens when somebody sends me a set of movies. I review them!  All of them?  You betcha, Red Ryder!

More time-travel hijinx as the sinister Legion of Doom seek to become CONQUERERS OF THE FUTURE! 

Alas, not the movie where Billy Blanks is a tae bo-in’ robot assassin. Teleport City has a new look, and it comes at a terrible time since I am leaving the country for a week and heading down to Mexico until the heat is off. And of course, a relaunch always ends up suffering tons of tiny little back-end errors and things that could have been built better in retrospect, so I’ll be sorting those out. Until then though, enjoy the broken links and blank pages.