Tag Archives: Bad Movies

THE WEREWOLF OF WOODSTOCK (1972) MY REVIEW FROM 2011

No, not The Werewolf of Washington, which is a whole other movie, but The Werewolf of Woodstock, site of the famous multi-day music festival in 1969 New York. Enjoy this 15-year anniversary review of an atrocious attempt at a rock’n’roll horror film.     

THE WEREWOLF OF WOODSTOCK (1972) – Category: Bad enough and with a classically weird premise but not fun-bad enough for my highest rating     

This made for tv movie presents the weirdest variation on the werewolf legend this side of Curse of the Queerwolf. The story begins the night after the conclusion of 1969′s Woodstock music festival when a Continue reading →

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B-MOVIE HOSTESS ELVIRA’S MOVIE MACABRE: SEASON ONE

As Halloween Month rolls along, I will take a movie-by-movie look at the opening season of Elvira’s show Movie Macabre (1981-1986). Her massive success kicked off an even greater proliferation of Movie Hosts and Hostesses in the 1980s. I covered Elvira herself back in 2012, so this time I’m taking a look at her debut season. 

GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE (1972) – Psychotronic icons Michael Pataki and William Smith starred in this twisted flick about a vampire (Pataki) who rapes a woman (Lyn Peters) who subsequently gives birth to an abnormal infant. The baby will drink only blood and grows up to be James Eastman (Smith). James goes on a quest to kill his father for the pain he brought into his mother’s life. Ultimately he does, but becomes a full vampire himself. (Just go with it.) Aired Sep 26th, 1981.

SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT (1972) – One of the pre-Halloween examples of a slasher film. A young man inherits the family mansion which years earlier was turned into an insane asylum. He starts the process of selling the place, but on Christmas Eve a former inmate of the asylum goes on a killing spree. THE John Carradine, Mary Woronov and Patrick O’Neal star along with many Andy Warhol fringies like Candy Darling. Also with Philip Bruns of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.   Aired Oct 3rd. Continue reading →

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HALLOWEEN MONTH 2026 IS HERE!

October 1st kicks off Balladeer’s Blog’s usual mixing of horror items in with my usual topics. I review horror films from the silent movie era onward as well as obscure stories from the 1800s and earlier, like they’re Halloween counterparts to my Ancient Science Fiction reviews.

To give new readers a taste of how Halloween is done around here, take a look at some of last year’s Halloween Month highlights:

GRAND FINALE

HALLOWEEN WITH PAUL NASCHY – I capped off the horror season with a look at the 60s, 70s and 80s movies of Spain’s King of Horror – Jacinto Molina aka Paul Naschy. And I mean all of them, not just his many, many werewolf movies about tormented lycanthrope Waldemar Daninsky. Naschy also starred as a mummy, as Dracula, as slashers, as an exorcist and so on.

There was Assignment: Terror, one of my all-time favorite Bad Movies featuring aliens who possess the dead bodies of scientists so they can conquer Earth with a vampire, a mummy and a werewolf. Werewolf vs the Yeti was another as was Dr. Jekyll vs the Wolfman.

Non-werewolf Naschy films I reviewed included Count Dracula’s Great Love, Horror Rises from the Tomb, The Hunchback of the Rue Morgue (yes), Vengeance of the Zombies, Return of the Witch, The Mummy’s Revenge, House of Psychotic Women, Exorcism, and The Man with the Severed Head.

FORGOTTEN HORROR STORIES

MAN-SIZE IN MARBLE (1887), about old stone statues of two knights which come to life to do evil. Classics like The King in Yellow (1895), Isabella of Egypt (1812) and several Ambrose Bierce short stories. Continue reading →

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B-MOVIE HOSTESS MISTY BREW (1982-1983)

MISTY BREW – Faye Fisher (later Faye Fisher-Ward) played Misty Brew, the witch hostess of Creature Feature. The program aired Friday nights on Green Bay, Wisconsin’s WLRE from October 29th, 1982 – September 9th, 1983. For the most part, this show started at Midnight but was moved up to 10:30pm start times on nights when Misty presented double or even triple features.

Wanting to hop on America’s renewed Movie Host mania prompted by Elvira’s Movie Macabre, WLRE launched their Bad Movie Show Creature Feature. Auditions were held and the winner was Faye Fisher, who was in her senior year at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, majoring in Visual Arts. She had hoped to name her hostess character Natasha, but the station manager had already finalized the name Misty Brew. 

Faye Fisher stated she was not a horror fan but her friends in UW-Green Bay’s Theater Department encouraged her to try out for the hostess role. Ironically, though WLRE was riding the Elvira train, they did not want Misty Brew to show a lot of skin. She wore vintage formal gowns which she selected each week from a Green Bay clothing store called Glad Rags.

When Misty presented The Bride of Frankenstein, she wore a wedding gown from Glad Rags and wore the same gown for her wedding in 1984. The Movie Hostess’s hair and makeup were done by Bananas of Green Bay. Continue reading →

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B-MOVIE HOST “TV’s DRACULA” (1984-1989, 1996-1998, 2000-2002)

TV’s DRACULA aka Jake Esau, hosted his Bad Movie shows in the old-school “vampire with a campy Bela Lugosi as Dracula accent” manner. His schtick involved the well-worn plays on words to emphasize anything that came close to “scary” or “bloody” during his Host Segments or his in-character gigs doing television commercials.

All of Esau’s Movie Hosting shows aired in the Minneapolis/ St. Paul area. Those shows:

COUNT DRACULA PRESENTS (May 12th, 1984- ?, 1986) – Aired at 10:30pm on Saturdays on KITN-TV. Was a Double Feature for most of its run.

COUNT DRACULA PRESENTS (Sept 19th, 1987- Dec 26th, 1989) – Aired weekly on Saturdays on CCO Cable (also called KXLI-TV) AND syndicated on KPOL in Tucson, AZ. 

COUNT DRACULA PRESENTS (?, 1996- ?, 1998) – Aired weekly on an undetermined day and time on KMWB.

HORROR INCORPORATED (Sept 16th, 2000- Sept 7th, 2002) – Aired on Saturday nights at Midnight on KSTC. Continue reading →

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B-MOVIE HOSTESS: SALLY THE ZOMBIE CHEERLEADER (2005-2007, 2009-present)

SALLY THE ZOMBIE CHEERLEADER – This horror hostess is portrayed by Nicole Galeano aka Nicole M. King aka Nicole M. Brooks. The Zombie Cheerleader started appearing on Public Access Cable around 2001, and in 2005 the undead pom-pom girl launched one of her best-known Movie Hostess programs – The Zombie Cheerleader’s School of Horror.

Sally cleverly used a black & white riff on the old MGM roaring lion logo on the production. “Hic Sunt Monstri” is Latin for Here be Monsters, making our subject’s motto a play on MGM’s “Ars Gratia Artis” – Art for Art’s Sake – and “Hic Sunt Dracones” – Here be Dragons, from very old maps. 

The Zombie Cheerleader’s School of Horror lasted into 2007 and the supporting cast consisted of her daughter Genevieve Brooks as Zombette, an underclass and undead cheerleader who assisted the star, as did the monstrous Mr. Hairyhands, played by Daniel Brooks.

Letting her daughter be part of the show reminded me of the old Philadelphia Movie Host Dr. Shock making his child Doreen a co-star as “Bubbles.”

In 2009 our Movie Hostess returned with her new program The Zombie Cheerleader Show, which has been running on various outlets including TV stations from America’s northeastern states westward to Hawaii. The Zombie Cheerleader Show also enjoys runs on assorted cable and streaming platforms, YouTube, Vimeo, The Monster Channel, The Vortex, Tingler TV and Roku. Continue reading →

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FILM REVIEW: I WOKE UP EARLY THE DAY I DIED (1998)

i woke up earlyI WOKE UP EARLY THE DAY I DIED (1998) – Directed by Aris Iliopulos, this is the film that was made based on that notorious unproduced script written by THE Ed Wood, the master of badfilm behind Glen or Glenda, Plan 9 From Outer Space and more.

The identity of the screenwriter is the main draw for this cultiest of cult movies. A secondary draw is the way even the smallest roles are performed by famous, infamous or fashionably esoteric figures. Think of I Woke Up Early The Day I Died as an arthouse companion to 1994’s Ed Wood from Tim Burton.

i woke up early zaneThere’s no dialogue, Easter Eggs regarding Wood’s various Golden Turkeys abound and excerpts from the actual screenplay appear on screen at times in case viewers are skeptical that the weirdness they’re witnessing really was in the original script.   

Billy Zane is in the lead role as a violent mental patient who overpowers his nurse, dresses in her uniform and escapes from confinement. He pulls off an armed robbery but has the proceeds stolen from him in turn at a bizarre funeral held by a deranged cult. Zane then commits multiple murders as he works his way through the list of people who may have the money from his heist. Continue reading →

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B-MOVIE HOST SCORPIO (1976-1977)

SCORPIO (1976-1977) – From September 18th, 1976 to August or September of 1977 Scorpio (actor name unknown) hosted Thing Theatre at 1:00pm on Saturday afternoons. Thing Theatre aired on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s WPGH-TV, which was back after having declared bankruptcy years earlier when its Movie Host show was Scream-In. 

The fun backstory for Scorpio was related in the opening of every show. WPGH field reporter Ed Barrett played himself in a remote bit about pollution. He and the crew with him pretended to find a coffin covered in undergrowth, so (for some reason) they took it back to the station with them. Setting up the coffin in an unused studio, they got the lid opened revealing nothing inside.

Losing interest, Barrett and the others wandered off, leaving the coffin sitting there. As one does, I guess. Suddenly, a man in tattered clothing with messy hair and sporting an eyepatch emerged from the coffin evilly laughing at how he had fooled the others.

He introduced himself as Scorpio and, playing off Ed Barrett’s question about what kind of thing the coffin once held, decided to call his show Thing Theatre. Belaboring the point, Scorpio also said he needed to call his show something … something … some THING!” in the same sketch. Only the audio of this opening survives, no video from it.  Continue reading →

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B-MOVIE HOSTESS PENNY DREADFUL (1962-1964)

PENNY DREADFUL – Rose Marie Earp starred as the cleverly named Penny Dreadful on KMBC in Kansas City, MO. In the 1960s, KMBC aired two Movie Host shows on Saturdays. Chiller was broadcast at 10:30pm and Son of Chiller at 6:00pm. Son of Chiller was hosted by Penny Dreadful from the tower room of her creepy castle. Chiller was hosted by Gregory Grave, whom I’ll cover at another time.

Rose Marie Earp is the earliest Movie Hostess I’ve found using the name Penny Dreadful, but there have been others since her 1960s run. Though Penny aka the Dreadful One did schtick typical of regular horror hosts her costume looked more like the outfit worn by the female alien in the bad movie Devil-Girl from Mars (1954).

Penny Dreadful would welcome viewers from the window of her tower room to discuss the evening’s film. That was after opening tracking shots along a path leading to her foreboding castle atop a hill. Continue reading →

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B-MOVIE HOSTS MOLDY, UNCLE GORY, KRANDAL THE MARTIAN AND DR. LAMAR DRAGO (EDDIE DRISCOLL)

EDDIE L. DRISCOLL played several different Movie Host characters during his THIRTY-THREE years working at the same television station – WLBZ Channel 2 in Bangor, Maine. That Maine location made Driscoll’s characters the Movie Hosts that a certain horror author had watched in his youth (see below). Eddie’s shows aired throughout Maine and into Canada’s Maritime Provinces.

I’ll dive into the hosts played by Driscoll in a moment, but first I want to emphasize how the man embodied the kind of local television station figures who just don’t exist anymore. Eddie started work for Channel 2 the day that the station began broadcasting in 1954.

Over the years, he worked there as a cameraman, weather man, kiddie show host and much more. He retired from WLBZ in 1987. His Movie Host characters:

MOLDY – This figure was a one-eyed hunchback who hosted Shock Theatre from a moldy old crypt on Saturday nights at Midnight. As Moldy, Driscoll presented the original Shock! package of horror movies from Fall 1962 until some point in 1963.

UNCLE GORY – From 1964 to 1967 Eddie hosted his new Saturday night at Midnight show titled Weird.  On this Bad Movie Show he played Uncle Gory, a Dungeon Master in a fur vest and a mop-top wig. Uncle Gory hosted from his dungeon with a human skull displayed on a slab near him. He presented each week’s movie like it was a story coming to life from a book he was reading aloud. 

Weird was firmly in the So Bad They’re Good school of Movie Hosting. Driscoll got to show off his sarcasm on Golden Turkeys from the 30s, 40s and 50s. Sci-Fi schlockers like Not of this Earth were also shown on Weird and on those nights Eddie’s versatility let him host those flicks as Krandal the Martian, a three-eyed alien from the Red Planet. Continue reading →

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