Category Archives: Bad and weird movies

October 1, 2011 · 8:14 pm

BAD MOVIE PAGE: HEX (1973)

Cristina Raines

Cristina Raines

HEX (1973) Category – Enjoyably bad movie but not fun-bad enough to earn my highest rating        Hex, which was also released under the title The Screaming, belongs to that joyously bizarre subgenre of motorcycle horror films.  

That  peculiar cinematic niche also plays home to flicks like Werewolves On Wheels, about a biker gang that hassles Satanists who transform them into werewolves, to Psychomania, about a biker gang that forms a pact with Satan  which permits them to commit suicide and then return from the grave as invincible, soulless marauders and to Blood Freak, about a biker who turns into a turkey monster (no, really).   

Hex trumps all of those other films for sheer weirdness, partly because it is Continue reading →

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September 28, 2011 · 9:24 pm

BAD MOVIE PAGE: THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977)

FOR MORE BAD MOVIE REVIEWS CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

Dragon Lives Again

The Dragon Lives Again

THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977) – Category: Brucesploitation with an enjoyably absurd twist               Even for the bizarre sub-genre of Brucesploitation films this movie is out there! The film starts with the recently – deceased Bruce Lee arriving in the afterlife, where the concubines of the King of the Dead gather around to gawk at the bulge in the pants of the late martials arts superstar. (Just in case you thought NO opening could be more tasteless than the one in The Clones Of Bruce Lee (qv)  In a bit of alleged comic relief the bulge turns out to be caused by a weapon, not Lee’s organ. (Corpse schlong jokes! Who doesn’t love them?)

As head-shaking as that bit is at least it’s coherent, unlike virtually everything else that happens from this point on in the movie. And the time-honored tradition of Brucesploitation films having leading men who don’t even look like Bruce Lee is well-represented in this flick, but at least here they try to explain it away by talking about how a person’s face and body change after death.  Which, of course, makes no sense since this is supposed to be Lee’s soul, not his body.

Anyway, Bruce somehow persuades the King Of The Dead to grant him a chance to return to the world of the living, and is told he can return if he outfights all the other inhabitants of this odd netherworld.

You see, this isn’t just any bland version of the afterlife our hero finds himself in. It’s kind of a Continue reading →

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September 23, 2011 · 9:22 pm

BAD MOVIE PAGE – ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES (1983)

I got an e-mail request for me to review this film, but I did last year, but here it is since I always do what I can to satisfy requests. For more bad movie reviews click here: https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

Attack of the Beast Creatures (1983)ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES (1983)- Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following.       Some passengers from a Transatlantic liner get shipwrecked and marooned on an uncharted island filled with acidic ponds and streams plus a whole tribe of the titular creatures who all look like the doll that attacked Karen Black in Trilogy Of Terror. And it’s the 1920′s for no reason whatsoever! Nothing in the story has Continue reading →

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September 20, 2011 · 12:04 am

MOVIE HOSTS – MAD MARVIN

 Chicago’s own Mad Marvin (Terry Bennett) was part of the First Wave of B-Movie Hosts and Hostesses of the 1950s. From 1957 to 1959 Terry (joined by his wife Joy soon after the show launched) entertained the Windy City late on Saturday nights with that metropolis’ version of Shock Theater.

Described as a “Mad Beatnik” and a “Mad Hipster”, Bennett’s Mad Marvin character had a macabre sense of humor that has made him a legend with Movie Host fans. In fact, television station management in Chicago and from around the country soon realized that, as with the likes of Vampira and Zacherley, audiences were tuning in just as much (if not more) to watch the antics of Mad Marvin as they were to watch the movies.

Bennett’s most over-the -top stunt involved him pretending to swallow poison on the air, then describing his body’s reaction to the potent potable (for you Jeopardy fans) as he acted like he was genuinely dying. The notoriety from this morbid joke caused the ratings to skyrocket. In a way, Mad Marvin was like a forerunner of the radio Shock Jocks of later decades.

That legendary incident and many other ghoulish gags, many of which centered around  Continue reading →

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September 12, 2011 · 12:02 am

MOVIE HOSTS: GHOULARDI

 From January of 1963 to December of 1966 Ernie Anderson, AKA Ghoulardi, ruled the  Friday night airwaves in Cleveland with his b-movie show. To give you an idea of how popular his show was, Ghoulardi did what some of the top entertainers of their day consistently failed to do – HE BEAT JOHNNY CARSON’S TONIGHT SHOW IN THE RATINGS! Carson may have owned the rest of the country, but on Friday nights in Cleveland and vicinity Ghoulardi was the REAL king.

Ghoulardi, along with Vampira and Zacherley, is part of the Holy Trinity (or Trimurti if you prefer) of the early b-movie show hosts who proved so popular they ensured that the American folk art of hosting Grade Z films would not be just a passing fad. Those three pioneers (if you’re from Chicago you can add Mad Marvin) became pop culture icons and helped demonstrate how much fun bad movie culture can be.

In Ghoulardi’s case his catch-phrases like “Stay sick” and  “Ova dey!” were the “Hikeeba!” of their day. Anderson’s look was iconic, too, and his green lab coat predated Doctor Madblood’s and Trace Continue reading →

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August 23, 2011 · 8:14 pm

BAD MOVIE PAGE – BOP GIRL GOES CALYPSO (1957)

Some of my e-mailers requested that I review this movie, but I already did last year. Here it is again for those folks who requested it, along with a reminder that you could have instant gratification for your bad movie fix if you check my Bad Movie page first and see if I’ve already reviewed the film you have in mind. Here is the link: https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

Bop Girl Goes CalypsoBOP GIRL GOES CALYPSO (1957) – Category: Bad, youth-oriented 1950s movie that is incredibly campy.      In the late 1950s there was a brief flurry of films implying that Rock and Roll was a dying fad. Some producers of those films were backing a musical style they felt would become “the next hot trend” in popular music, in this movie’s case, Calypso. My favorite line: “Rock and Roll is yesterday! Calypso is where the money’s at now!”

Most of the action takes place at a Continue reading →

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August 16, 2011 · 11:11 pm

BAD MOVIE PAGE: GHOST BUSTING (1991)

“Can somebody show me how to play this?”

GHOST BUSTING (1991) – Category – More weird than bad, but butt-kickingly weird        I first saw this little honey more than a decade ago, but it’s pretty much timeless. It comes to us from Hong Kong, the land of killer fetus movies plus films with such extreme violence and sexual content that many of their movies can’t even be shown on PAY CABLE in the U.S.

Ghost Busting doesn’t pack anywhere near that kind of punch, but it sets up housekeeping in your head  because of its sheer weirdness. Wong Jing, Hong Kong’s answer to America’s William “One Shot” Beaudine and Italy’s Miles Deem, directed this film, so my fellow bad movie geeks know what to expect. The story involves a Continue reading →

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August 12, 2011 · 12:04 am

FORGOTTEN TELEVISION TREASURE: THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILM SHOW (1988-1989)

 The Incredibly Strange Film  Show and Son of the Incredibly Strange Film Show are must-see viewing for any fan of bad and weird movies. They were originally produced in England and weren’t shown here in the U.S. until the early 1990’s when the Discovery Channel aired them.

This program’s fun, witty approach to the subject matter made a Continue reading →

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August 9, 2011 · 10:50 pm

BAD MOVIE PAGE: MANIAC (1934)

No, it’s not the barf-inducing Joe Spinell movie from the 1980’s, it’s the 1934 bad movie classic. I got an e-mail requesting it, but since I did already, last year in fact, here is an “encore” version. For more bad movie reviews click here: https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/ 

MANIAC (1934) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following        An actor on the run from the law falls in with a mad scientist, Dr Meierschultz. He becomes an accomplice in the good doctor’s dark experiments involving the reanimation of a dead woman (whose corpse he and Meierschultz steal from a morgue) and the transplantation of Continue reading →

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June 27, 2011 · 12:07 am

BAD MOVIE PAGE – ZUMA (1985)

 ZUMA (1985) – Category: Enjoyably bad movie elevated by its obscurity value      

There’s an old saying that goes “Once you have a big green bald guy with pythons growing out of his neck you never go back.” Or something to that effect. This monstrous figure is Zuma himself, the Freddy Krueger of the Philippines in the 1980s. Big, muscular and green like the Hulk, bald like Mr Clean and with pythons growing out of his neck like the late Michael Jackson. (Disclaimer: The preceding remark is probably not true)

Originally a comic book character in the Philippines, Zuma took the film industry of the islands by storm with his debut film in 1985 and a sequel in 1987. Copies of these films have been Continue reading →

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