Tag Archives: Bad Movies

MOVIE HOSTESS DRACULEENA AND MANY OTHER NEGLECTED HOSTS

DraculeenaHere at Balladeer’s Blog my fondness for the really old Movie Host/ Horror Host shows is well known.

Courtesy of Gary P here are some very old television listings for a neglected hostess called Draculeena. Her show debuted on October 28th, 1960 on KVAR in Phoenix, AZ.

Draculeena 2Gary has uncovered a wealth of info and clippings regarding this figure plus many more neglected Movie Hosts.

Find out about overlooked stars like Miss Nightmare, Iago, Timmy the Timid, DracuLinda, Satina, Dr Wolfgang Von Schrecklich and many more.

For all the details plus photos when available click Continue reading

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ALIEN OUTLAW (1985): MOVIE REVIEW

Alien Outlaw bigALIEN OUTLAW (1985) – Starring Kari Anderson. Written and directed by Smoot … PHIL Smoot (Da dut da DAAA/ Da da-da). Phil was one Smoot operator and showed the imagination that low-budget filmmakers so often demonstrate but whose lack of financial resources prevents them from fully bringing that imagination to life.

Smoot got his start with the Dixie DeMille himself, Earl Owensby, often called “Roger Corman south of the Mason-Dixon Line.” And that wasn’t said as an insult. Like Corman, Owensby specialized in unpretentious B-movies that always made a profit due to budget-consciousness.

Before setting out on independent projects of his own, Phil Smoot worked in various capacities on Owensby’s North Carolina flicks like Challenge, The Brass Ring, Tales of the Third Dimension and many others.

Alien OutlawWith Alien Outlaw, Smoot showed the Owensby influence: North Carolina locations, meandering scenes that begged to be edited down and lots of annoying Southern-Fried humor that wouldn’t have made the cut on Hee Haw. On the plus side he also demonstrated a flair for fun B-movie premises that mixed genres.

Smoot’s other best-known work as writer-director was The Dark Power, a Toltec zombie horror film with Western elements (a work previously reviewed here at Balladeer’s Blog). Like The Dark Power, Alien Outlaw starred old, old, OLD Western actor Lash Larue, who was the middle man in the Whip-Wielding Action Star Trimurti, coming after Don Q: Son of Zorro and before Indiana Jones.

Alien Outlaw JesseAlien Outlaw mixed Western elements with science fiction in a way that made you root for the film, despite the way Phil Smoot defeated himself at every turn. The potential was here to craft a fun, slick, modest money-maker which played like a Western version of a Tom Baker-era episode of Doctor Who. And with a butt-kicking female lead.     

THE PREMISE: An alien spaceship lands in 1985 North Carolina and conceals itself by submerging in a body of water. That body of water is a stream the water level of which couldn’t even conceal a small car let alone a large space-craft.

THE POTENTIAL FIX: A lake or a make-believe cloaking device would have worked better.

THE STORY: A few aliens, wearing back-packs and masks to breathe our air, attack random people, take their guns and begin terrorizing the countryside. We are never told if their ship landed on Earth deliberately or made the best out of a crash landing. Nor are we told why aliens capable of interstellar flight have to confiscate primitive firearms. Continue reading

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HEMISPHERE HORRORS: FILIPINO HORROR FILM BOX SET

-“They Came From the Philippines” you could say. ORDER BELOW. It’s a Five-Movie “Hemisphere Box of Horrors” featuring:

Blood DrinkersTHE BLOOD DRINKERS (1964) Also released as The Vampire People and Kulay Dugo Ang Gabi, this was the very first COLOR horror film made in the Philippines.  

Special Features for The Blood Drinkers:

  • Manong of the Philippines: Interview With Script Supervisor and Gerry De Leon’s AD Dik Trofeo
  • Hemisphere Appreciation by Filmmaker David Decoteau
  • Audio Commentary With Film Historians Nathaniel Thompson and Howard S. Berger
  • Partial Audio Commentary With Hemisphere Marketing Consultant Samuel M. Sherman
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Blood Drinkers Trailer
  • Vampire People Trailer
  • Radio Spot Continue reading

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MAN FROM ATLANTIS (1977) ON BLU-RAY

Man from AtlantisYes, in a not-so-subtle attempt to exploit Aquaman‘s suprising success it’s a Warner Archives Blu-ray of the telefilm Man From Atlantis. Patrick Duffy stars as Marcarus, the (seemingly) last survivor of Atlantis with Victor “King Tut” Buono as his evil archenemy Mr. Schubert.

Belinda Montgomery and Alan Fudge co-star as marine scientists who ally themselves with Duffy and name him “Mark Harris.” I’m just weird enough to love the fact that when Duffy’s son joined him in the cast of Dallas years later the son’s character was also named Mark Harris. Cute.

This is the telefilm that led to the series which featured “undersea time portals” and bad model sub work and midgets called Moxie and giants named Thark.     Continue reading

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TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT ANNIVERSARY AND A CALL TO FANS

1a randy and richard

Randy (right) and Richard way down on Level 31 hosting The Texas 27 Film Vault

Today is the 34th Anniversary of the very first episode of The Texas 27 Film Vault from Saturday, February 9th of 1985. My psychotically obsessive research on the show has yielded a lot of info over the years but I have now worn out every source I could find.

Even the show’s co-host and co-creator Randy Clower has been bled dry of information on the show by me. Over the years other fans of the show – and a special shout-out goes to “the Cap’n” – have provided info here and there that often led me to concrete source material.

Anyway, here are some movies that we have general, varied reason to believe were shown on The Texas 27 Film Vault but I need original broadcast dates, info on comedy sketches or movie ticket give-aways, etc. Episodes aired for 2 and a half hours Saturday nights from 10:30pm to 1:00am in Texas and Oklahoma.

Fiend without a faceFIEND WITHOUT A FACE (1958)

The Film: “Thought Monsters” leech into atomic energy, then extract human brains and spinal columns to use as their corporeal forms. This is a Bad Movie Classic remembered largely because of the scenes where the flying brains, sporting antennae, attack their prey, with their spinal cord “tails” streaming along behind them.     

Serial Episode: No idea, for now.

Reason for believing it was shown: Some of the Flying Brain Creatures are on the 1987 Texas 27 Film Vault poster.

Earth vs the Flying saucersEARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956)

The Film: The title says it all for this fun but weird black & white time-waster.

Serial Episode: Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe.

Reason for believing it was shown: Tex (Ken Miller) announced it was to be the movie “Next time on The Texas 27 Film Vault” on one of the surviving episodes that I have.  Continue reading

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Filed under Bad and weird movies, Forgotten Television, Movie Hosts

HORROR HOST HALL OF FAME: BALLOT FOR THE 2019 INDUCTEES

Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are familiar with my fondness for the old, old Movie Host shows. Here is the ballot for 2019 which lets you select your five nominees for the Horror Host Hall of Fame. VOTING ENDS FEBRUARY 15th SO JUST ONE WEEK LEFT!

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GOLDRAIDERS (1982): BAD MOVIE REVIEW

Balladeer’s Blog reviews another psychotronic film starring the one, the only Robert Ginty! FOR MORE ROBERT GINTY REVIEWS CLICK HERE

goldraidersGOLDRAIDERS (1982) – A plane carrying two hundred million dollars in gold (in 1980s money) gets shot down over Thailand and lands in the jungle. A blandly-dubbed Robert Ginty plays Mark Banner, part of a hastily-assembled team sent in to recover the gold. Sarah Langenfeld is our hero’s leading lady this time around. 

Naturally other parties are after the bullion bonanza, too, like drug dealers, a man who needs gold to make a gold dress to win his intended bride (?) and a corrupt communist General. The commie with decidedly capitalist leanings is one of the most memorable villains in B-Movie history! Continue reading

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SCARAB (1983): MOVIE REVIEW

Balladeer’s Blog’s recent Robert Ginty Movie Marathon has been so popular that I’m throwing in a bonus Ginty flick here. FOR THE GINTY MARATHON CLICK HERE  

scarabSCARAB (1983) – Robert Ginty AND Rip Torn … TOGETHER! Somebody pinch me! A Spanish horror film that does NOT star Paul “Jacinto Molina” Naschy! Somebody pinch me!

Ginty plays Murphy, a reporter stationed in Spain. Torn stars as Khepera, a mad scientist who becomes a globe-trotting cult leader after one of his experiments causes him to become possessed by an entity claiming to be the scarab-headed Egyptian god Khepera (sic).

Murphy is presented as being irresistible to women for some reason. We meet him as he climbs into bed with an Ambassador’s wife at a diplomatic function he’s supposed to be covering for his newspaper. (What a professional!) This earns him a black eye from the Ambassador and a chewing-out from his Editor (Sam Chew of Rattlers fame). Needless to say all of the secretaries at the paper are hot for Ginty, too. (By the way, Hot For Ginty was my favorite Van Halen song.) Continue reading

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ROBERT GINTY MOVIE MARATHON

robert gintyThe world fell in love with him as “Artichoke Picker” in Bound For Glory and the rest, as they say, is history! All kidding aside, I think Robert Ginty’s actual life was a hell of a lot more entertaining than any of his movies or television shows. As a musician he performed with Hendrix, Hooker and others. In his acting career he showed up in some high quality productions.

However, this is Balladeer’s Blog, so I’m taking a look only at a handful of Robert Ginty’s less-than-terrific action flicks which have made him a very familiar face to the Psychotronic-minded. I may be ” … in over my HEAD heahh” as our hero said in Warrior of the Lost World, but I’m taking a stab at the rundown for a Robert Ginty B-Movie Marathon.

white fireWHITE FIRE (1985) – CASTING DIRECTOR: Let’s see … the hero of this Turkish-made action flick is an international smuggler who uses a chainsaw to fight rival criminals and is so hot for his own sister that he eventually pays to have a prostitute transformed via plastic surgery into a duplicate of his sister then oinks and boinks with her … (snaps fingers) Get Robert Ginty on the phone, NOW!

Ginty plays Boris “Bo” Donnelly. As a child he and his sister Ingrid (Belinda Mayne) saw their parents slaughtered by ruthless criminals. After that they were raised and tutored, Fagin-style, by an older crook who trained the siblings to become expert smugglers on the international scene.

Bo and Ingrid are among the many criminals vying for the White Fire Diamond, a jewel which actually turns out to be radioactive (don’t ask). Moustaches are EVERYWHERE as Ginty teams up once again with his Warrior of the Lost World co-star Fred Williamson to battle a virtual menagerie of facial-hair styles. Odd-colored blood flows from wounded human beings, lesbian cultists perform underground plastic surgery and Bo Donnelly openly ogles his sister’s naked body every chance he gets.

If you liked the chainsaw-wielding hero in Black Shampoo you’ll love Robert Ginty’s “Bo” in White Fire.

exterminatorTHE EXTERMINATOR (1980) – How can you NOT like a movie in which a standard bad-ass street vigilante uses a FLAME THROWER to kill the criminals he targets?

Robert Ginty IS John Eastland, a Vietnam War veteran who takes the law into his own hands when his ex-GI buddy Michael Jefferson (Steve James) falls victim to street punks. Apparently deciding that guns are for pussies, Eastland uses an actual damn flame thrower to kill evil-doers during his nocturnal crusade. (“I know what you’re thinking … Does his flame thrower shoot flames six feet or only five?” Had to be said.)    Continue reading

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CHROME AND HOT LEATHER (1971): MOVIE REVIEW

chrome-and-hot-leatherCHROME AND HOT LEATHER (1971) THE one and only Marvin Gaye made his big-screen debut in this relentlessly absurd example of the bad biker films of the 1960s and 1970s.

When a Green Beret’s fiancee (played by THE Cheryl Ladd) is killed he and some of his service buddies pose as bikers to track down the motorcycle gang responsible for her death.

Words cannot describe how enjoyably awful this movie is from start to finish. Continue reading

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