Category Archives: Bad and weird movies

November 19, 2012 · 12:23 am

THE SEVEN MOST INFLUENTIAL MOVIE HOSTS: 1954 – 1987

Mad Marvin

Mad Marvin

Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are familiar with my fondness for bad movies and for movie host shows. The bad movie subculture and the realm of movie hosts have always walked hand in hand with many movie hosts even appearing in various schlock film classics during their careers. Here is a salute to some of the most influential figures who made hosting bad and/or weird movies the time-honored American folk art it is today.

7. MAD MARVIN (Real name: Terry Bennett)

Program: Shock Theatre

Run: 1957 – 1959

Home Base: Chicago

Comment: Long before Jerry Bishop’s more well-known host Svengoolie and his even more famous “son” played by Rich Koz, Mad Marvin brought late-night b-movie fun to the Windy City. Marvin was a mad beatnik and was described in contemporary accounts as ” a combination of Charles Addams, Ernie Kovacs and Jack Paar.” Bennett’s program was so popular in Chicago that celebrities like Continue reading →

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November 15, 2012 · 11:31 pm

BAD MOVIE PAGE SHORT SUBJECT: BE YOUR OWN TRAFFIC POLICEMAN

BE YOUR OWN TRAFFIC POLICEMAN (1958) – I’ve been meaning to review more short subjects ever since I started writing Balladeer’s Blog in June of 2010. With all the other topics I cover I’ve only reviewed two short educational films so far: A Metric America, about how 1980’s America was going to be completely converted to the metric system, and The Energy Carol, a Canadian short about energy conservation adapted to fit the structure of A Christmas Carol. 

Both of those reviews can be found on my Bad Movie page, and I’ll be reviewing plenty more short subjects in the very near future. For today I’ll examine Be Your Own Traffic Policeman, an educational short about pedestrian safety. This little honey clocks in at barely 10 minutes and was produced by Portafilms, an outfit that was neither as prolific nor as enjoyably frantic as, say, Sid Davis or Dick Wayman. When Davis or Wayman clubbed you over the head with a message you were laughing far too much to mind. 

This traffic safety short is narrated and hosted by Officer Maxwell, known to all of us bad safety short fans from Helping Johnny Remember and Holiday From Rules. Officer Maxwell is accompanied by two children who mindlessly agree with everything he says, obviously fearing for their lives from the unintentionally sinister-seeming Maxwell. After all, at any Continue reading →

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October 31, 2012 · 12:45 am

ELEVEN MORE NEGLECTED BAD MOVIES FOR HALLOWEEN

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are very familiar with my Bad Movie page where I examine plenty of under the radar movies that are hilariously awful. Last Halloween season I ran a list of the top Eleven Neglected Bad Movie Classics for Halloween. That tradition continues this year with a list of eleven more neglected bombs. As with last year’s list my Bad Movie page features full-length reviews of each of the movies I’m offering a synopsis of here.

THE RETURN OF DR X (1939) – The notorious film in which the legendary Humphrey Bogart played a zombified mad scientist named Dr Xavier who was brought back from the dead by another mad scientist named Dr Flegg. Much of the fun comes from Bogie’s unmistakable disdain for finding himself in the kind of stinker that Bela Lugosi often waded through. Bogie’s Dr X kills bunny rabbits, surgically drains blood from the hearts of living humans and experiments on babies in a movie desperately searching for a decent script and a likeable character.

DIAL HELP (1988) – Believe it or not Ruggiero Deodato directed this ridiculous horror film. A plucky heroine who has just been dumped by her boyfriend finds herself being haunted by … living phones. No I’m not kidding. These phones kill by strangling people with their cords, using high-pitched noises to Continue reading →

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October 19, 2012 · 12:10 am

THE BEST SILENT HORROR FILM SHORTS 1896 – 1909

masc graveyard smallerI’ve never made any secret out of the fact that I’m a hopeless silent movie geek. As we get closer to Halloween Balladeer’s Blog will examine the greatest silent horror films of all but for this little teaser I’ll take a look at the best silent horror shorts from 1896 to 1909.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (1896) – Unless an earlier example turns up this is the very first horror movie with a semblance of a story. This 3 minute film from THE Georges Melies features the Devil setting up housekeeping in a creepy mansion and conjuring up his infernal lackeys like witches, goblins and a living skeleton man to keep him company. Much as the early film world owes to Melies we all know if you’ve seen one of his flicks you’ve seen them all so this will be the last work by him that I cover for this list. His camera trickery and broad characters get old REALLY fast.

FAUST AND MEPHISTOPHELES (1898) – George A Smith, a British stage magician, presents this very brief depiction of Faust selling his soul to the devil named Mephistopheles.

THE MISER’S DOOM (1899) – Like an 1899 Twilight Zone episode this Walter Booth short features a clutching, grasping miser getting his comeuppance in the form of a fatal encounter with a woman’s ghost. 

THE FREAK BARBER (1905) – In a sort of “Extreme Sweeney Todd” story a mad barber decapitates his customers until the tables are turned and he himself gets his head chopped off in the finale. 3 minutes of weirdness.

THE THIRTEEN CLUB (1905) – A group of Continue reading →

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October 12, 2012 · 12:10 am

THE TOP 11 NEGLECTED BAD MOVIE CLASSICS FOR HALLOWEEN

The less than frightening title menaces from Attack of the Beast Creatures (1983)

Laughing at bad movies is one of the greatest pleasures in life. Regular readers of Balladeer’s  Blog are very familiar with my Bad Movie page where I focus on various film flops that I feel deserve larger audiences because of how dementedly enjoyable they are. Since it’s the Halloween Season this list will present eleven of the most neglected bad horror movie classics, many of which deserve Plan 9- sized cult followings. These are short takes. For my full-length reviews of these and other cinematic turkeys see my Bad Movie page. https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

MORE HALLOWEEN MOVIE TREATS: MEXICAN MONSTERS https://glitternight.com/2011/10/31/a-halloween-mexi-monster-bestiary/

BLAXPLOITATION HORROR: https://glitternight.com/2011/10/26/a-very-blaxploitation-halloween/

11. THE LIFT (1983) – A killer elevator is the unique menace in this joyously absurd horror film from the Netherlands. A heroic elevator repairman tries to stop the bloody reign of terror of a sentient elevator which the movie’s ads described as “the perfect killing machine”. (?)

10. ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES (1983) – The surviving passengers and crew of a sunken luxury liner find themselves on an uncharted island full of ponds and streams that dissolve human flesh. The island is home to the Continue reading →

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October 9, 2012 · 12:03 am

THE WEIRD, WEIRD WEST: HORROR FILMS WITH A WESTERN THEME

With Halloween approaching Balladeer’s Blog is doing its usual holiday-themed posts. This time around I’ll give a brief synopsis of western-flavored horror flicks. In keeping with my blog’s theme of covering out of the way topics I won’t be examining movies that are too well known, like Billy the Kid vs Dracula, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter or The Terror of Tiny Town. Ditto for more recent movies like Sundown and Billy The Kid in Hell. As for West World and Welcome to Blood City, those are more science fiction than horror, so they aren’t included either.  

black noonBLACK NOON (1971) – Roy Thinnes stars as an old west preacher who falls in with a coven of witches in the town of Melas (Salem spelled backwards of course).

The witches tempt Thinnes into thinking he’s a prophet and healer, then use his vanity against him and his wife during their dark ritual of the Black Noon, which takes place during a mid-day eclipse.

CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN (1974) –  A medical student and his hippy friends try to renovate a dude ranch haunted by the Headless Horseman. No, it’s not the figure from the Washington Irving tale, but an old-west gunslinger who was unjustly hanged, losing his head in the process. The Horseman now roams the dude ranch by night looking for victims to frighten. SPOILER: The Continue reading →

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September 28, 2012 · 12:02 am

BAD MOVIE PAGE: INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973)

INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973) – Category: More weird than bad, but with a classic premise and execution  

This little honey (sorry) is the perfect example of why I prefer bad movies from the 1980’s and earlier: because back then they played them straight and weren’t constantly making self-aware jokes to the audience. If this movie had been made more recently it would have been INTENTIONALLY cheesy and goofy, like the Killer Condom flicks or the Gingerdead Man movies.

Invasion of the Bee Girls plays like a sexploitation version of The X-Files long before that show was on the air. The hero of the movie is a State Department investigator played by cult figure William Smith, known from the tv series Laredo and from countless exploitation flicks like Black Samson to the “Hell’s Angels Fighting The Vietnam War” biker movie The Losers. The film’s screenwriter was THE Nicholas Meyer of Star Trek II and The Seven Percent Solution fame. Herb “The Worm Eaters” Robbins also shows up onscreen.

William Smith’s character, Neil Agar, is sent to California to investigate why a scientist involved in top secret government research dropped dead under suspicious circumstances – he died of apparent sexual exhaustion and people nearby swear they heard a sound like bees buzzing at Continue reading →

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September 13, 2012 · 12:02 am

BAD MOVIE PAGE: FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY (1981)

Weng Weng and Lola

Weng Weng and Lola

FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY (1981) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9– sized cult following.

I’ve been delaying reviewing this hilariously bizarre film for years. It’s just so chock full of inane dialogue and WTF moments that it’s a challenge to write a review that isn’t novel-length.

For the essentials: this is a Philippine action movie starring the midget novelty celebrity named Weng Weng as Secret Agent OO (yes, Double O). It sounds like a comedy but what makes it great is that IT’S NOT! It’s played seriously and features Weng Weng using firearms and fancy gadgets like James Bond, engaging in martial arts fights like Bruce Lee, drooling over regular-sized women like Herve Villaichez, sword- fighting as skillfully as Zatoichi and sporting a poorly- concealed bald spot like Ryen Russillo. 

Weng Weng works for an outfit called simply “The Secret Agency”, so I’m guessing it’s one of those generic intelligence services that is MUCH cheaper than name brands. Hell, the head of the Continue reading →

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September 1, 2012 · 12:11 am

BAD MOVIE PAGE: GANJASAURUS REX (1987)

GANJASAURUS REX (1987) – Category: A film that doesn’t know what it wants to be.

In Balladeer’s Blog’s review of the incredibly bad horror film Horror House on Highway 5 I pointed out that a few scenes gave the impression that the filmmakers might have been trying for a wry parody of slasher movies but lacked the talent to make the film work even as a comedy. Ganjasaurus Rex has that same problem tenfold.  The parts that are supposed to be funny aren’t, the scenes that aren’t supposed to be funny are, and the end result is a cinematic misfit that is more boring- bad than fun- bad.

The film begins promisingly as a sendup of the Reagan Administration’s hilariously naive “Just say no to drugs” campaign. A fictitious arm of the Gipper’s War on Drugs called C.A.M.P. (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) is leaning on pot growers, burning their crops and hauling them off to prison. That’s the Continue reading →

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August 14, 2012 · 12:04 am

BAD MOVIE PAGE: THE NEWLYDEADS (1987)

 I recently received an email requesting that I review the hilariously bad 1987 horror film The Newlydeads. As it happens I reviewed that flick in 2010, so here it is again. As a reminder to new readers if you want an immediate bad movie fix on a particular film you can check my Bad Movie page to see if I’ve reviewed it already. Here is the link: https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

THE NEWLYDEADS (1987) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following   This film is about an undead transvestite slasher called Jackie who preys on the couples at a honeymoon hotel. Hey, if the Sleepaway Camp horror films can have the Continue reading →

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