Monthly Archives: July 2025

GHOULIES (1984) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Ghoulies

In the middle 1980s, way down on Level 31, we had The Texas 27 Film Vault. Before Joel and Mike, we had Randy and Richard. (I make a point of opening my T27FV posts with similar reminders because it cuts down on furious reactions from people who don’t pay attention to the broadcast dates and accuse Randy and Richard of ripping off MST3K even though their show came first.) 

In honor of the FORTIETH anniversary of this forgotten 1985-1987 cult show Balladeer’s Blog has been posting about parts of the program’s history. This time I’ll examine the final movie presented and mocked by the machine-gun toting Randy and Richard and their colleagues in the Film Vault Corps – “the few, the proud, the sarcastic”.  

Randy Clower and Richard Malmos of The Texas 27 Film Vault (both lower right) featured in a Movie Host article with Stella from Saturday Night Dead and Elvira.

FILM VAULT LORE: A T27FV fan calling herself Georgia remarked at Egor’s site: “I still lived (in Dallas) when they did their last show. They knew they were going off the air because they talked about it and seemed pretty sad about it. I was sad, too. It was the best thing on tv.” 

The show was still hot in the ratings but Randy, Richard, Ken “Tex” Miller and Joe “The Hypnotic Eye” Riley got hot job offers they couldn’t turn down. Combine that with the collapse of the Film Vault Guys’ most recent attempt to get a syndication deal (what might have been) and the gang disbanded after roughly 2 and 1/2 years of bad movie fun.

Ghoulies poster

THE MOVIE: This was a product from Charles Band, so lovers of bad 1980s horror films know what they’re in for. Jack Nance from Eraserhead and Mariska Hargitay from Law and Order: SVU can both point to this flick as their most embarrassing moment on camera!  

A Satanist played by rock singer Michael Des Barres leaves his mansion – which was the site of his Black Masses and human sacrifices – to a young couple played by Lisa Pelikan and Peter Liapis. They move into the creepy old place and the man starts to become possessed by the dark forces that linger in the mansion. Eventually his dabbling in Satanic rituals causes his zombified father Malcolm (Des Barres) to climb out of his grave,which is conveniently located in the mansion’s backyard. Continue reading

12 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Movie Hosts

WHEN CRYSTAL JOINED THE FANTASTIC FOUR

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post will look at the time when the Inhuman named Crystal replaced Invisible Woman in the Fantastic Four while she was pregnant.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #81 (Dec 1968)

Title: Enter – The Exquisite Elemental

Villain: The Wizard

Synopsis: With Sue Storm-Richards (Invisible Woman) deep in her pregnancy, the Human Torch’s (Johnny Storm’s) longtime girlfriend Crystal of the Inhumans temporarily replaces her in the Fantastic Four. This marks the first time any team member has needed replaced.

The team’s old foe the Wizard invades the Baxter Building to keep his recently confiscated Power Gloves from being reverse engineered by the Fantastic Four.

(Our heroes took them after defeating the Wizard a few issues back.)

The battle leads all the way to the docks, where Crystal’s elemental powers prove her value to the team by being crucial to defeating and driving off the Wizard. Continue reading

10 Comments

Filed under Superheroes

NEWS, MEMES AND POLITICAL CARTOONS ROUNDUP: JULY EIGHTEENTH

 Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog posts another current events roundup.

BYRON DONALDS BLASTS JILL BIDEN’S AIDE FOR FURTHERING THE COVERUP ABOUT JOE BIDEN’S UNFITNESS. Still unknown parties were making presidential decisions while an incapable figurehead was paraded before the cameras. That’s not democracy. That’s a Banana Republic.

ANOTHER BIDEN AIDE JOINS OTHER DEMOCRATS IN PLEADING THE FIFTH RATHER THAN REVEAL THE TRUTH ABOUT THE COVERUP REGARDING JOE BIDEN’S UNFITNESS. Which unelected people were making presidential decisions? And why didn’t Democrats have Biden step down so Vice President Kamala Harris could succeed to the presidency?

TRUMP’S DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND THE SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION ENHANCE COLLABORATION TO SUPPORT AMERICAN MANUFACTURING

YET ANOTHER CALL TO NULLIFY THE BIDEN REGIME’S ILLEGITIMATE “AUTOPEN PARDONS.”

HOME DEPOT’S KEN LANGONE ADMITS HE WAS WRONG ABOUT PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TARIFF POLICIES. Says he is now “Sold on Donald Trump.”

TRIAL TIME FOR THE DEMOCRAT STATE SENATOR ARRESTED IN APRIL ON LITERAL BURGLARY CHARGE. Like I noted then, Democrat elected officials are getting more hands-on with their corruption.

QUINNIPIAC POLL: ONLY NINETEEN PERCENT APPROVE OF THE ACTIONS OF CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS. Is anyone surprised? Continue reading

20 Comments

Filed under Anti-Donald Trump hysteria, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion

FARO DEALING AND OTHER SUPPLIES FOR FRONTIERADO

FaroThe Frontierado Holiday, coming up Friday, August 1st is about celebrating the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality.

For reasonably authentic and affordable Faro and Chuck-A-Luck supplies for Frontierado get-togethers I often use River Junction Trade Company and others.

Chuck a LuckSites like theirs will also sell plenty of other supplies that will suit your needs for making your deck or party room look like a Wild West saloon or casino. Clothing, saloon chairs, era-appropriate whiskey glasses, you name it. Continue reading

8 Comments

Filed under FRONTIERADO

DECISION (1958) FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

DECISION (1958) – This was a half-hour anthology series that aired as a summer replacement for The Loretta Young Show. It ran 13 episodes, with several episodes serving as pilots for potential new series.

I. THE VIRGINIAN – Pilot for the later series of the same name. This western was based on the Owen Wister novel and starred James Drury and Jeanette Nolan, both of whom starred in the series. Lee J. Cobb replaced Robert Burton as the Judge. Dan Blocker played Salem in this pilot. The story dealt with attempts to sabotage the Judge’s plan to bring a railroad spur to Shiloh Ranch.

II. FIFTY BEAUTIFUL GIRLS – Barbara Bel Geddes starred as a taxi dancer who bravely serves as bait for a crazed killer who has been murdering ladies in her profession. Also starred Edward Andrews and Royal Dano. Continue reading

12 Comments

Filed under Forgotten Television

GARTER COLT (1968) SPAGHETTI WESTERN

This year the Frontierado Holiday falls on Friday, August 1st. That holiday is about the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality.

GARTER COLT (1968) – Previously, I reviewed the Spaghetti Western The Belle Starr Story, so this time I’m taking a look at this Italo-Western starring Nicoletta Machiavelli. She portrays Lulu “Garter” Colt, a gunslinging beauty who turns heads, breaks hearts and kicks butts all along the U.S.-Mexican Border.

In most Spaghetti Westerns women are around only to be slept with, assaulted and/or murdered, but a select few feature ladies who get to mow down no-good hombres with giddy abandon. One such woman is Garter Colt, who keeps her pistol stuffed into her garter belt, which provides the excuse to frequently flash a thigh while drawing her weapon.

And naturally the low-cut outfits worn by Lulu and supporting character Rosy (Marisa Solinas) allow for additional alluring shots.

Ms. Colt is a professional gambler, so the director also lets the camera linger near her cleavage as she earnestly contemplates her poker hand in assorted scenes.

Our story is set in 1867 as Mexican rebels are on the verge of overthrowing and executing Emperor Maximilian, the Austrian dictator imposed on them by Napoleon the Third while America was too busy with its Civil War to be able to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. Other Spaghetti Westerns, like the original Django and Indio Black depict the Emperor’s European troops as irredeemable bad guys but in this movie our lovely heroine falls in love with a French officer.  Continue reading

18 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, FRONTIERADO

JULY SIXTEENTH ROUNDUP OF NEWS, MEMES AND POLITICAL CARTOONS

Here’s another current events roundup from Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog here in an America where the same crowd of cowardly self-aggrandizers are still pretending and play-acting at being some kind of “resistance” movement. LMAO. These slobbering psychopaths are gutless, violent and deluded little people who prey on the innocent while talking tough.

DEMOCRAT MEDIA OUTLET MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR PROMOTES MORE VIOLENCE BY CLAIMING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE WITHIN THEIR “RIGHTS” TO SHOOT IMMIGRATION OFFICERS. Insanity.

SCANDAL OVER BIDEN REGIME’S INVALID PARDONS DEEPENS. FAUCI PARDON LOOKS LESS LEGIT BY THE DAY.  Plus we still don’t know who was really making presidential decisions while the unfit Joe Biden was paraded before the cameras for years.

CALIFORNIA MARIJUANA FARM THAT WAS BUSTED FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND USING CHILD LABOR HAS A HISTORY OF DONATING TO DEMOCRATS. No surprise.  CHILD PREDATOR AMONG THOSE ARRESTED. Democrats, can you please leave children alone?   

PRESIDENT TRUMP LAUDED FOR BRINGING NINETY-TWO BILLION DOLLARS IN TECH AND ENERGY INVESTMENTS TO PENNSYLVANIA. More HERE. Other Democrat and Republican administrations never made the effort and dismissed such efforts as impossible. 

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON PRAISES TRUMP’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND HOW HE HAS PROVEN THE NAYSAYERS WRONG OVER AND OVER AGAIN. He also said President Trump has accomplished more in these first six months of his second term than most presidents accomplish in four years.

DEMOCRAT ADAM SCHIFF BEING INVESTIGATED FOR MORTGAGE FRAUD. Sometimes the wheel turns slowly, but it turns.

ECONOMIST BRIAN WESBURY LAYS OUT HOW PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS NOT ONLY CUT INFLATION BUT HAS REDUCED THE DEFICIT WITH HIS POLICIES AND LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE.   NO INFLATION IN JUNE.

PRESIDENT TRUMP STANDS BY PROTECTING FUNDS TO CONTINUE FIGHTING AIDS. A president for everybody, no matter how much flack he catches for it. Continue reading

16 Comments

Filed under Anti-Donald Trump hysteria, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion

MABEL NORMAND’S BEST SILENT COMEDIES (1916-1920)

Previously, Balladeer’s Blog examined the 1910-1915 silent films of pioneering comedienne Mabel Normand. This time around I’m taking a look at her 1916-1920 work.

FATTY AND MABEL ADRIFT (1916) – This 34-minute film is not only one of the most popular shorts teaming Mabel with fellow comedy legend Fatty Arbuckle but it’s one of the most popular silent comedies ever. When Fatty wins Mabel’s hand in marriage his jealous rival (Al St. John) sabotages their honeymoon cottage by the sea.

The cottage drifts further and further out to sea and is gradually sinking, prompting some comedy set pieces from our stars as they struggle to survive. They send their dog Fido to shore with a plea for help attached to his collar and get rescued by a tycoon on his yacht. The villain gets his.  Continue reading

8 Comments

Filed under opinion

THE DOUBLE DAGGERS (1877) THE SECOND DEADWOOD DICK DIME NOVEL

This year the Frontierado Holiday hits on Friday, August 1st. As always, the event celebrates the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality. Last year I reviewed the very first Deadwood Dick Dime Novel, so this year I’m tackling the second.

WHO IS DEADWOOD DICK? For newbies to Dime Novels of the American West, let me recap. This character, whose name is practically synonymous with Dime Novels, was created in 1877 by prolific writer Edward L. Wheeler, who also created various FEMALE Dime Novel figures that I’ve reviewed in the past, like Hurricane Nell, the Denver DollBaltimore Bess and Cinnamon Chip.

As his name implies, the masked Deadwood Dick operated in and around Deadwood and the Black Hills region. He was a notorious outlaw/ road agent who led a band of masked followers in assorted robberies. Deadwood Dick was embedded in the American consciousness decades before Zorro, who didn’t debut until 1919, and the Lone Ranger, who came along in the 1930s.

THE DOUBLE DAGGERS or DEADWOOD DICK’S DEFIANCE (December 21st, 1877) – This hero’s tales were republished over and over again into the early 20th Century, so readers will encounter references to this book supposedly being published years later than this.

As this story begins, it is a few months after the conclusion of Deadwood Dick’s previous 1877 adventure. Our masked bandit and his gang continue to plunder gold shipments, stagecoach cargoes and mine payrolls throughout the busy Black Hills goldfields, then fade into the landscape.

Traditional lawmen and even the U.S. Cavalry failed to curtail Deadwood Dick’s prairie pirate/ Robin Hood escapades last time around. Now, however, a deadly outfit of specialists called the Deadwood Regulators have been leaning on outlaw activity in the Black Hills. Continue reading

12 Comments

Filed under FRONTIERADO

NEWS, MEMES AND POLITICAL CARTOONS ROUNDUP: JULY FOURTEENTH

Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog serves up another current events roundup. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump surviving the first of his deranged enemies’ attempts to assassinate him. Democrat media outlets covered it this way.

*** NEW! JOE BIDEN ADMITS HE DID NOT APPROVE MANY OF THE NAMES PARDONED VIA AUTOPEN. Much bigger scandal than the irrational accusations being thrown at Trump right now.

TRUMP POLICIES DELIVER BUDGET SURPLUS.

AMERICAN ECONOMIC OPTIMISM HITS HIGHEST LEVELS IN YEARS. What a difference an actual president can make.

DEMOCRAT LIES ABOUT PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TARIFFS GO DOWN IN FLAMES … AGAIN.

DEMOCRAT MAYOR BASS ANNOUNCES CASH GIVEAWAY TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN LOS ANGELES. The Party has made their slogan “Illegal immigrants uber alles” into a pure exercise in spite now.

DHS SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM DEBUNKS ADDITIONAL DEMOCRAT LIES ABOUT THE TEXAS FLOODING. More HERE. And HERE.

SENATOR KENNEDY BASHES DISGRACED FORMER CIA HEAD JOHN “THE MAN FROM S.C.U.M.” BRENNAN FOR HIS CORRUPTION. More HERE. Also, remember how Brennan had to resign years ago following the scandal about his spy antics against congress itself?

TRUMP EFFECT: JOBS GAINS ARE GOING TO CITIZENS AND WAGE GAINS ARE OUTPACING INFLATION. More HERE. And HERE. Donald Trump remains the greatest president for the working class and the poor during my lifetime.

EVEN THE DEMOCRAT MEDIA OUTLET THE NEW YORK TIMES FINALLY ADMITS TRUMP WAS NOT WRONG ABOUT THE TREN DE ARAGUA ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT GANG TAKEOVER OF APARTMENT COMPLEX IN COLORADO. And as we’ve seen over the past ten years, whatever they are claiming Trump is wrong about today they’ll eventually admit he was right about. All that changes is the amount of time it takes them to admit it. Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under Anti-Donald Trump hysteria, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion