In this installment of Balladeer’s Blog’s recurring Forgotten Television segment I continue my look at Reel Wild Cinema (1996-1997). This time around it’s Episodes 8-10.
THE RUNDOWN FOR EPISODE EIGHT (June 9th, 1996)
Title: Kids in Peril
Truncated Films Shown:
UNTAMED FURY (1947) – A very early hicksploitation movie. This black & white movie’s stock footage is set in the swamps of the Deep South but everything else takes place on the usual cheap sets we all know and love from Producers Releasing Corporation.
As children, two swamp kids develop a rivalry over a pretty gal and over which one of them is “best” at getting dragged behind their fathers’ boats to lure out alligators for killing. Dubious honor to be fighting for. At any rate, the boy so good that he earns the nickname Gator Bait (yes, like the 1970s Claudia Jennings flick) goes off to college.
When he comes back years later, Gator Bait wants to do improvements to the swamplands to provide a better way of life for the locals. His boyhood rival in luring out alligators is opposed to the idea, as are a few other folks and conflict results. E.G. Marshall’s film debut. I’m NOT joking. Continue reading
Balladeer’s Blog’s Forgotten Television feature previously provided 
GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS (1973) – From the maker of Alabama’s Ghost comes this tale of toxic gasses from beneath the Earth spawning a mutated sheep monster which walks erect and looks a little like Mr. Snuffleupagas and Joe Camel. The video cover looks nothing like the creature.
CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN (1963) – The Mexican horror film about La Llorona that got U.S. distribution and half-assed dubbing via K. Gordon Murray himself. I’ve reviewed this film in detail previously so for a quick recap for newbies to this flick it’s the old ghost story about an undead woman who sheds tears from her empty eye sockets while making with withering cries. 
THE NAKED WITCH (1961) – For starters, this is the Larry Buchanan film, NOT the Andy Milligan Naked Witch movie from a different year. As usual for Buchanan this was filmed in Texas, and is yet another variation of the tale about a witch who gets put to death but returns a century or more later to slay all the descendants of her killers. 
REEL WILD CINEMA (1996-1997) – This program is still beloved by us fans of Psychotronic movies and the So Bad It’s Good subculture. Reel Wild Cinema helped feed America’s growing appetite for bizarrely awful cinema, an appetite most recently whetted back then by Joel Hodgson’s Mystery Science Theater 3000. 
Similar to Jonathan Ross’ Incredibly Strange Film Show, Reel Wild Cinema also aired interviews with many cult figures from fringe cinema as well as campy trailers for vintage Golden Turkeys. Also like the Jonathan Ross show, Reel Wild Cinema featured an animated opening accompanied by catchy theme music. 
I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN (1957) – Herbert Strock’s follow-up to I Was a Teenage Werewolf always calls to mind the Movie Host shows of the past and the way they would often pair up those two Teen Monster flicks as a Double Feature the nearest Saturday night to Halloween. 
CROSS OF THE SEVEN JEWELS (1987) – This Bad Movie Classic may be my favorite non-
THE RESURRECTED MONSTER (1953) – Directed and co-written by the trailblazing Chano Urueta, this film is regarded as Mexico’s first sci-fi/ horror blend. A plastic surgeon named Dr. Hermann Ling (Jose Maria Linares-Rivas) has been driven mad by a lifetime of scorn over his grotesque, misshapen (yet hilarious) appearance. He has spent years working in isolation at a remote castle. 
As Halloween Month continues, here’s a look at my favorite Jean Rollin vampire films. Note that these are not my all-time favorite movies about vampires, just my favorites by Rollin. 
Toss in his eerie, haunting and beautiful movie 
THE SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES (1970) – In my view this is the first real example of a Rollin vampire film. His Rape of the Vampire definitely showed how inexperienced he was at horror, while The Nude Vampire had those undertones of sci-fi that I mentioned above. 
Halloween Month at Balladeer’s Blog continues with this look at Mexican horror figures who haven’t had a truly striking movie in decades. Well, outside of La Llorona, who still gets featured every few years. 
DOCTOR M
The image of the returned Dr. M in his hideous new body playing a mournful tune on a violin to prove his identity to a friend is a scene worthy of the greatest Gothic horror films. Even better would have been a scene of him later playing the same tune over his own grave. 
DESTINATION INNER SPACE (1966) – In a true rarity Scott Brady got to be the less-than- hunky action lead in this film! THE Sheree North and The Green Hornet‘s Wende Wagner were along for the ride in this flick that plays like an episode from Jon Pertwee’s Doctor Who era recast with Americans.
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