Category Archives: Bad and weird movies

HALLOWEEN WITH PAUL NASCHY

Halloween Month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog. 

Dr Jekyll vs the Wolf ManPaul “Jacinto Molina” Naschy was Spain’s King of Horror decades ago. Many of his films featured his recurring character Waldemar Daninsky, a tormented lycanthrope who was seeking a cure for his curse.

Long ago I reviewed Assignment: Terror (1969), which pitted Waldemar against aliens, a faux Frankenstein Monster, a vampire and a mummy. Here are three more from Naschy:

Dr Jekyll vs The Wolfman (1972), in which a descendant of the original Dr Jekyll uses the family formula to cure Waldemar of lycanthropy. Trouble is he starts turning into a kinky and murderous Mr Hyde on the nights of the full moon. (This is better than being a werewolf?)

There’s even a scene in a disco, for that quintessential 70s touch. (Don’t you hate people who use the word “quintessential”?]  Continue reading

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THE BODY SHOP (1973): MOVIE REVIEW

THE BODY SHOP (1973) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following

HALLOWEEN MONTH CONTINUES! The horror film titled The Body Shop is one of my all-time favorite bad movie gems. It includes all the little extras that separate mere bombs from the truly legendary turkeys and, like another neglected classic, The Wizard of Mars (see my Bad Movie page for the review), just keeps getting worse and worse and weirder and weirder all the way to the end. Continue reading

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BLACK PIT OF DOCTOR M (1958)

Halloween Month continues with this look at the Mexican horror gem The Black Pit of Dr M. For Balladeer’s Blog’s extensive look at over a dozen Mexi-Monster films click HERE 

Black Pit of Dr M

The Black Pit of Dr M

THE BLACK PIT OF DR M (1958) – The Dr M of  our title is Dr Masali, who runs an insane asylum in the very early 1900’s with his colleague, Dr Aldama. The two make a pact stating that whichever one of them dies first will contact the survivor from the other side with the secret of returning to life.

Aldama passes away and, true to his word, returns from the beyond and uses his long lost daughter to serve as the catalyst that sets Dr M on the road to returning to the flesh after death. He also includes a warning that our title doctor naturally ignores. 

Elmer Black Pit of Dr MHanged for a murder he didn’t commit, Dr M does indeed return to the flesh, but as Heavenly punishment for violating the Divine Order his soul is trapped in the body of his asylum’s hideously deformed and homicidally violent resident, Elmer.  Continue reading

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THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR

More like The Boy With The Ham-Fisted Message if you’ve seen this flick.

Boy with Green Hair

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RECENT MOVIES: SOME MICRO-REVIEWS

masc graveyard newI have been getting a lot of readers asking me to review some of the more recent releases from major studios. Balladeer’s Blog regulars know that I tend to focus on incredibly obscure items or hilariously bad movies from decades ago.

Since a lot has already been written about the following several films I won’t bother with one of my in-depth looks. These will be more general takes on the movies.

Napoleon SoloSOLO: A STAR WARS STORY – Thankfully someone FINALLY addressed the elephant in the room of the Star Wars universe: the origin of Han Solo’s last name.

That’s right, in a cinematic setting which features multiple characters sporting the unusual surname Skywalker, Disney decided that the world needed a back-story for the last name “Solo.” Continue reading

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GHOSTWATCH (1992): FILM REVIEW

Ghostwatch 1992GHOSTWATCH (1992) – This was a British made for t.v. movie that aired on Halloween Night in 1992. Ghostwatch is a nice – albeit boring – little novelty item for the way it anticipated the paranormal “reality” (LMAO) shows of today.

The telefilm also can’t help but put viewers in mind of the Paranormal Activity series and countless other Found Footage horror movies. Ghostwatch involves much older technology of course but for once, since the make-believe t.v. crew is filming their investigation of a haunted house, it MAKES SENSE for people to be filming everything.  

The casting for this production was well-done in that it contains virtually NO recognizable faces. Usually when watching BBC items from back then viewers can’t help but play Spot the Doctor Who/ Sherlock Holmes/ British Murder Mysteries Actor. Continue reading

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HIGH SCHOOL CAESAR (1960) FOR BACK-TO-SCHOOL TIME

For back-to-school time here’s my review of the 1960 Juvenile Delinquent classic High School Caesar. 

high-school-caesarHIGH SCHOOL CAESAR (1960) Category: Bad, youth-oriented 1960 movie that is incredibly campy   This movie may have a 1960 release date but it is the most classically campy example of the Juvenile Delinquent movies of the 1950’s.

That genre spawned many “so bad they’re good” films like High School Hellcats, Untamed Youth and many others featuring fast cars, silly slang and misunderstood or just plain malevolent teenagers. High School Caesar renders itself even more laughable than other Juvenile Delinquent films with its wonderfully absurd premise.

Yes, this movie takes its cue from the Edward G Robinson gangster movie Little Caesar and depicts the phenomenon of juvenile delinquency as if it’s a High School ROTC version of organized crime.

The title character is a kind of leather-jacketed Don Corleone overseeing a high school operation involving hallway protection rackets, rigged student elections and a black market of stolen exam answers. Continue reading

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THE GOLDEN BAT (1966): FILM REVIEW

Golden Bat

The Golden Bat: the ugliest superhero in the world.

THE GOLDEN BAT (1966) – Ogon Batto is the name of this film in its native Japan. The movie was based on the title character, Japan’s very first comic book superhero who debuted in 1930. That 1930 date puts him years before Superman and Batman in the west!  

At any rate for the 1966 movie Japan’s perennial action star Sonny Chiba played the leader of a group of science-oriented commandos in what looked like aluminum foil suits. Chiba and his gang have fancy aircraft like England’s Thunderbirds and their debut mission finds them trying to save the Earth from collision with a rogue planet called Icarus.

Chiba’s outfit has constructed a giant laser cannon to destroy Icarus before it can reach our planet. Trouble is it needs a final component to be found only on a lost island. When Sonny Chiba’s Mighty Aluminum Foil Power Rangers explore the ancient city on that island they uncover the tomb of … the Golden Bat! Continue reading

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NEIL BREEN’S LATEST FILM: TWISTED PAIR (2018)

neil breen 2My fellow Human Breens will be thrilled to hear that the one, the only Neil Breen (PBUH) has released his latest cinematic effort. He once again wrote, starred and directed. This addition to the Breeniverse is titled Twisted Pair and features Neil sharing the starring role with the only man who could possibly hold their own with him on the big screen: himself.

As if one Neil Breen pompously setting straight the human race about what moral lepers we are wasn’t enough we now get Breen Times Two or Breen Squared or however you would prefer to describe it. Neil portrays identical twins Keith and Kale, who merge with a form of Artificial Intelligence, gain super powers from it and then set out to save humanity from itself. Same ol’ same ol’ in other words.

We get some Sheer Breenius right off the bat as the twins are listed in the credits as Keith and Kale but are referred to as KANE and Kale in the dialogue. Don’t ever change, Neil.

Anyway, Keith (Or Kane) and Kale are “Identical Neil Breens/ All the way/ They walk alike/ They fly alike/ They even give tiresome lectures with an air of moral superiority alike/ … What a Twisted Pair!/ You will lose your mind/ When Neil Breen/ Is Two of a Kiiiind!” 

twisted pairConflict is the essence of drama, of course, and though Keith and Kale just KNOW they are the Supreme Breens fit to reform humanity the twins disagree about the way to approach their mission. The two members of this Breen Trust clash when one of them decides the human race must be browbeaten into submission while the other decides that the human race must be SAVAGELY browbeaten into submission. Fifty Shades of Grey takes on new meaning here.

Anyway, in Twisted Pair the number of computers destroyed may be larger while the body count and the women’s breasts may be smaller but otherwise it’s pretty much Breen-ness as usual.

Remember the tagline to the Christopher Reeve Superman movie: “You’ll believe a man can fly.” Well in Twisted Pair you WON’T believe how hard you’ll laugh when you see Keith and Kale fly. If you’re a heathen who’s not familiar with the Breen Scene my look at his first four films can be found HERE 

The Twisted Pair trailer is below:  Continue reading

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LOST MOONA LISA FOOTAGE HAS SURFACED

Moona Lisa with skullThank you to reader Peahix for letting me know about this. Moona Lisa aka Lisa Clark, one of the many Movie Hosts that Balladeer’s Blog has covered over the years, has often lacked the acclaim she deserves because of the scarcity of footage that still exists from her shows (Science Fiction Theater, Moona’s Midnight Madness, etc).

Long-time readers of Balladeer’s Blog will remember when I first contacted her years ago and many of you were very nice with your concern about her health issues. For newbies Moona Lisa’s hosting shtick was that she was a Moon Maiden who lived in her own private moonbase with a view of planet Earth outside her window.

Moona Lisa in stairwellShe would host bad and campy movies while vamping it up and offering wry commentary on the “so bad they’re good” flicks she would present. She had a 12-year run from the 1960s into the 1970s, putting her nicely in the middle between the reigns of Vampira and Elvira.

NOTE: THIS FOOTAGE IS IN U-MATIC VIDEO FORMAT TAPED ON A U-MATIC MACHINE. Those recorders were used from the late 1960s onward for several years. (Think of the one used in the William Shatner episode of Columbo.) The footage will need converted.

Moona Lisa posingI am tempted to buy it but as many of you know that would mean the footage would never get posted online. I can’t stand the thought of ever dealing with YouTube or similar sites because of their arbitrary way of frequently taking down videos over real or imaginary copyright issues.

Point being that if I buy the footage and convert it I will review it, but I won’t post it anywhere online. So, for those of you annoyed at the way I don’t post my episodes of The Texas 27 Film Vault or some of my obscure versions of A Christmas Carol here is your chance to get this footage or recommend it to someone you know who DOES have a YouTube channel.    

For more info see below. This Moona Lisa footage is being sold at this link: Continue reading

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