Halloween Month continues! Independent filmmaker Earl Owensby churned out a long list of movies over the years, including this horror flick. For more Earl Owensby horror films click HERE
Owensby’s macabre Grim Reaper/ Fool Killer style monster from A Day of Judgment.
A DAY OF JUDGMENT (1981) – This movie plays as if Owensby collaborated with Reverend Estus W Pirkle like Ron Ormond did for the religious zealot/ Cold War potboiler If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?
You can strip away that movie’s Cold War angle, though, since A Day of Judgment is set in the 1920s American south. Well, 1920s-ISH we’ll say since the usual fun Owensby anachronisms turn up repeatedly in assorted scenes.
Reverend Cage addresses a church that is virtually empty and bores the few faithful who remain by bitching and moaning about how poor attendance has been. He’s leaving town and is basically washing his hands of the place, warning that the increasingly sinful town will get what’s coming to it.
Next we have a series of scenes featuring some of the more sinful citizens of the deep southern town. Adultery, bigotry, covetousness, greed and outright murderous passions lurk behind every corner of this Mayberry-turned-Sodom and Gomorrah. These scenes go on so long even Larry Buchanan would scream “Pick up the pace, dammit!” at the screen.
A sinister, monstrously ugly man in black arrives in town, driving a horse-drawn carriage and sporting a long scythe. This figure is the film’s Grim Reaper/ Angel of Death/ Foolkiller- type menace. Continue reading
WAVELENGTH (1983) – This is an unjustly neglected science fiction film that stars Robert Carradine, Cherie Currie and Keenan Wynn in a very unconventional love triangle: both Carradine and Currie are fighting over Wynn. (I’m kidding!) 
ROOSTER: SPURS OF DEATH – This cosmically bad and tasteless movie was completed in 1977 but not released until 1983, presumably because there’s never been much demand for films from the ugly subgenre of cockfighting flicks. (Cocksploitation?) 
Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know how fond I am of bad and weird movies. I cannot yet review Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, the horror version of A.A. Milne’s characters from the Hundred Acre Wood, because it has not been released yet. A full trailer is out now and you can view it below. 
With Frontierado rapidly approaching on August 5th – or for those of us who kick things off the night before – August 4th – let’s take a look at some of the most obscure but laughably weird Italian westerns. And what better way to start that list than with one of the countless Spaghetti Westerns with phony Django titles? 
1. DJANGO KILL (1967) – Originally titled If You Live, Shoot!, this was one of the many Eurowesterns to be re-released to theaters years later as a phony Django movie just so it could clean up on the guaranteed cash cow of the Django name. 
MURDERCYCLE (1999) – Okay, I want a Ghost Rider vs Murdercycle film! ESPECIALLY with Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider. Anyway, despite the title, this movie is a nice throwback to the days before so many low-budget filmmakers were trying to be intentionally over-the-top and campy with their productions and titles in hopes of garnering sales from a reputation for being so-bad-it’s-good. 
Let’s take this from the top – an object from space lands near a Top Secret government facility concealed within a seeming shack in the middle of nowhere. It’s not a meteor but an alien weapon and when a man on a dirt bike draws near the fallen object he falls victim to its jack-in-the-box/ face-hugger tech. 
RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS (aka ATLANTIS INTERCEPTORS) – This 1983 Italian film is my guiltiest of guilty pleasures. Even though it’s directed by horror legend Ruggero Deodato, Raiders of Atlantis combines science fiction and horror with testosterone-fueled action in a Pulp Magazine premise that makes for fun, mindless escapism. 
Christopher Connelly stars as mercenary Mike Ross, a Vietnam War veteran who does any dangerous and dirty job for the right amount of money. Tony King is his black fellow mercenary who used to go by Washington but has recently converted to Islam and now calls himself Mohammed. 
INVASION FROM INNER EARTH (1974) – This hilariously bad science fiction film was one of the early efforts from Bill Rebane, whose low budget movies were to Wisconsin what Larry Buchanan and his productions were to Texas. Invasion from Inner Earth is a perfect example of “so bad it’s good” filmmaking … for the first half hour or so. After that the story drags on agonizingly and the apparently improvised dialogue pushes your sanity to the breaking point. 
Some news broadcasts take the events seriously but others present the victims of the chaos as bone-headed rubes deserving of ridicule. We are even shown viewers laughing at these victims but we never understand why, since the Earth is obviously under attack with millions of dead and missing. At no time are we shown the mockers getting their comeuppance for their smirking callousness despite how wrong they are. It’s that kind of movie. 
THE DEADLY SPAWN (1983) – This film is also known as The Alien’s Deadly Spawn. If you’re into less appreciated splatter flicks this is the movie for you! Diminutive creatures (ignore the poster) from outer space terrorize a neighborhood while literally chewing their way through anything in their way, including human bodies. The gore effects are graphic but not extreme, the acting ranges from awful to average and the creature designs may be cheap but the overall package makes this a cult classic. And watch out for that final stinger! 
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