BLOOD SABBATH (1972) – Anthony Geary, best known as Luke Spencer on General Hospital when that soap opera was kicking off the absurd trend of daytime dramas being more like Republic Serials, has passed away. Balladeer’s Blog marks the sad event with this review of Geary’s most Psychotronic movie.
Hey, when you needed someone to save Port Charles from a weather machine you needed James Bond or Luke Spencer. Anthony Geary skyrocketed to fame as Luke of “Luke and Laura” fame on General Hospital.
Genie Francis played Luke’s romantic partner Laura (after they retconned his rape of her into a “seduction” instead).
For her part, Genie had to suffer through a real-life marriage to Commander Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Anthony had to suffer through bombs like Blood Sabbath.
It’s tough to beat the Bad Movie pedigree of this flick. For starters, it was directed by Brianne Murphy, one-time wife of schlock film icon Jerry Warren, the man behind several of his own flops AND the U.S. distribution of several Mexican-made horror and wrestling movies.
Costarring with Geary was Dyanne Thorne, Ilsa herself from truly awful films like Ilsa, She Wolf of the S.S., Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia and Ilsa, the Wicked Warden. Those flicks, while not porn, are only for hardcore devotees of bad exploitation movies. Continue reading
This wraps up my look at three of Tom Selleck’s early starring roles in turkeys. 
THE WASHINGTON AFFAIR (1977) – Also released as A Very Intimate Washington Affair, and for all I know as A Very Brady Washington Affair, this movie was a remake of director Victor Stoloff’s own 1966 film Intimacy. Neither version was very successful, but trivia buffs remember the original and the remake for Barry Sullivan playing the exact same character in both. 
By ’77 even the production’s attempt to cash in on Watergate and other government scandals was a bit too late and the sexual angle would barely disturb a contemporary grandma. Add the facts that the script sucks, there are literally only two sets for the entire film, and the central camera gimmick is absurd. 
THE GYPSY WARRIORS (1978) – Yesterday I reviewed the godawful 
This 1978 tv-movie starts out by turning “show, don’t tell” on its ear. As bad as the opening of The Chinese Typewriter was, the opening to this World War Two snoozer is even worse. The beginning devotes FOURTEEN entire minutes of the 76-minute runtime to a portentous announcer merely narrating as we see mismatched footage of hands, arms and the backs of heads plus second unit film of buildings, airplanes and vehicles.
THE CHINESE TYPEWRITER (1979) – It’s tough to remember the time before Tom Selleck was a tv megastar. His looks made him stand out and he had “future success” written all over him. He even showed he had a knack for comedy when he made two appearances on The Rockford Files as the annoyingly perfect and cliche-ridden detective Lance White. (“I’m okay, Jim. It’s just a flesh wound.”) 
With those writing and directing pedigrees behind the project you should have been able to smell several seasons, big money and some Emmy Awards in the offing. 
FOES (1977) – Though I’m reviewing this movie under my Bad and Weird Movies category, let me be clear that Foes is not bad and it is weird in the best way possible. I’ve watched the 91-minute version with Jerry Hardin (Deep Throat from The X-Files) and Macdonald Carey (“Like sands through the hourglass …”) top billed AND the 72-minute version with just the virtual unknowns appearing. 
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Balladeer’s Blog wraps up its 2025 Halloween blog posts with a look at the horror films of the one and only Paul Naschy, real name Jacinto Molina, Spain’s King of Horror Cinema. 
THE MARK OF THE WOLFMAN (1968) – Paul Naschy wrote and starred in this first of his many movies as the tormented lycanthrope Waldemar Daninsky. This movie was also released under the title Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror with an edited-in introduction claiming that a branch of the Frankenstein family was cursed to become werewolves. That was done purely so the distributor could pass this off as a Frankenstein film. 
It turns out the couple are actually vampires who prey on victims all over Europe. They kill a few of Waldemar’s friends and then sic Wolfstein on him. Daninsky wins that battle of werewolves and kills Wolfstein, then fights and kills the Mikhelov vampires. 
AGAINST THE DARK (2009) – As Halloween night creeps ever closer, let’s take a look at the most atypical movie from Steven Seagal’s Down Years. Say what you will, but Against the Dark at least stands out among the Waddlin’ Warrior’s many direct to video turkeys during his Fat Elvis phase. 
Viewers are thrown right into the post-apocalypse setting. A disease has heavily reduced the global population. Many are dead but many more live on as violent predators who feed on the living.
Can you believe it’s just one week until Halloween! 
BARTHOLOMEW 
MISTER RABBEY
Balladeer's Blog 