KONG ISLAND (1968) has also been released under the titles King of Kong Island and Eva, the Savage Venus. Every one of those titles could let viewers build a strong case for false advertising. There’s no island, no king OR King Kong and though the third title listed above may hint at something lurid, the wild jungle woman of that title has very little screen time.
Under any name, this movie appeals to most of us fans of So Bad They’re Good films. We get a regulation Mad Scientist, his army of robot/ bionic apes which AREN’T really robotic or bionic, a sultry young woman raised in the jungle by the animals and plenty of action scenes.
This Italian film was produced by Brad Harris, who also starred as the beefcake hero who shows off his bodybuilder frame in shirtless scenes. Ladies got to ogle Burt while men got to ogle Eva, who is known to the Kenyan natives as … the Sacred Monkey. (?) Years later the Hong Kong movie Goliathon would combine a jungle queen and a gorilla that really was as big as King Kong.
The Characters:
BURT DAWSON (Brad Harris) is the muscular soldier of fortune who hires on for any job, legal or illegal. Kong Island opens with Burt and a few accomplices on the run after robbing a payroll. They stop in the wilderness to split the loot only to be double-crossed by their colleague Turk (Paul Carter), who shoots down the other survivors of the raid.
Burt, too, catches a bullet from behind, but apparently the large sweat stain on his back stopped the bullet or something because he shows up later, with a gunshot wound on his shoulder despite being shot in the back. Go figure. Burt recovers and turns up in Nairobi, Kenya looking to hire on for any shady or dangerous job available. Continue reading
THE RIDER OF THE SKULLS aka El Charro de las Calaveras (1965) – Halloween is fast approaching, so here is another seasonal post from Balladeer’s Blog. Regular readers know how much I enjoy the campy, so-bad-they’re-good horror films from Mexico. I reviewed several of them 
El Charro arrives in a nearly deserted town with a dilapidated cemetery in which assorted skulls lie around in piles. The masked hero encounters the first of three monsters he will fight in this flick – a ridiculous looking werewolf with a headpiece so large it makes him look like the mascot of a sports team. 
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.
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. 
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