Tag Archives: Bad Movies

SATEENA: BAD MOVIE HOSTESS (1958)

SATEENA, THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER hosted horror and sci-fi movies on Shock Show, which aired on Atlanta’s WSB-TV from January 2nd to December 18th, 1958. This devilishly mischievous hostess was played by Joanne Good aka Joanne Goode aka Joanne Gould. Unlike the usual Movie Hostesses whose characters were vampires or witches, Sateena was the impish daughter of Satan himself.

Joanne Good had started out at WSB in the promotions department in 1957, then created her Sateena character for Shock Show. Joanne co-wrote the character’s Host Segments with the program’s producer Gy Waldron, who later moved on to movies before creating the mammoth hit television show The Dukes of Hazzard in 1979.

In addition to her acerbic wit, Sateena wielded a regular arsenal of props like large spiders, bubbling substances in chemical beakers, oversized “Brimstone Cocktails” spewing smoke from dry ice, and her omnipresent syringe filled with God or the Devil knows what. Another gag centered around shrinking heads with a Voodoo-it-Yourself Kit. Continue reading

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MOVIE HOSTESS MACABRA (1982-1985)

MACABRA – This hostess of Omaha’s Theatre of the Macabre (1982-1985) has accomplished the seemingly impossible – she has managed to keep her real name a secret all these decades! She was an Omaha businesswoman who beat out over 150 other applicants for the position of WOWT’s Movie Hostess for their new Friday night at 10:30pm Bad Movie show.

WOWT was one of the many television stations across America which were trying to launch their own hometown phenomenon after Elvira’s Movie Macabre had become a syndicated hit in 1981. Ironically, Macabra may have won her market, but she was pretty much the antithesis of Elvira.

This mystery woman redefined “leggy” but her outfits were comparatively modest by Movie Hostess standards. As she pointed out in a 1984 interview “After all, I knew my mother would be watching.”

On top of that, Macabra rejected the over-the-top humor that characterized Elvira and her cash-in imitators in favor of a wry, understated approach that put me in mind of a combination of Movie Host legends like Moona Lisa and Fritz the Nite Owl. For an airing of Attack of the Mushroom People (1963) this hostess munched on mushrooms completely deadpan rather than hit the viewers over the head with the joke. 

Occasionally, Macabra would share the screen with guest figures like the cat hand-puppet she used for her showing of The Black Cat (1934) starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. That flick is one of the LEAST faithful – yet most Psychotronic – Poe adaptations ever.    Continue reading

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B-MOVIE HOST DR. LUCIFER (1957-1959)

DR. LUCIFER (1957-1959) – The actor playing this Movie Host was named Richard Dix, but to be clear he’s NOT the same Richard Dix who starred in old westerns and was jokingly mentioned in Blazing Saddles. This Richard Dix was a legend in Baltimore, MD for his stage and television work with a few movies thrown in.

From November 9th, 1957 to March 21st, 1959 Dix as Dr. Lucifer would emerge from a coffin to host B-Movies on Shock on Friday nights at 11:15PM. The program was broadcast on Baltimore’s WBAL-TV. This eccentric Mad Scientist had a very disorganized laboratory and was noted for carrying out bizarre experiments that often went awry, earning him the nickname “the bumbling bogeyman of Baltimore.”

The doctor hated bill collectors and a memorable booby trap for one involved dropping a marble slab on top of him. An attempt to bring a supposedly beautiful ancient Egyptian princess back to life actually succeeded, but in reality she weighed 350 pounds. An experiment to prove the existence of Santa Claus by catching him in a bear trap ended with Dr. Lucifer’s leg getting caught instead.    Continue reading

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BAD MOVIE: HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! LOVE, GEORGE (1973)

Despite the movie poster’s warning this flick won’t even untie your shoelaces.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! LOVE, GEORGE (1973) – Directed by THE Darren McGavin and featuring his wife Kathie Browne in a small role, this hilariously bizarre film is also known as Run, Stranger, Run. “Run, Potential Viewer, Run” would be a more appropriate title. 

Happy Mother’s Day Love, George  (henceforth HMDLG) is often described as a psycho-sexual thriller but actually it is nothing more than a melodramatic soap opera with a few murders and VERY few scenes of blood and gore. Those blood and gore scenes are so over-the-top they are completely at odds with the low-key, almost made-for-tv mildness of the rest of the movie.

This was a theatrical release but is so subdued and slow-paced it seems like a telefilm. You and your friends can keep yourselves entertained making jokes about the recognizable cast members to kill time since the first murder doesn’t happen until we’re more than an hour into this flick.

Mascot FOUR original pics

Balladeer’s Blog

Ron Howard IS Johnny, a teenager who has come to town to discover who his birth parents are but who mostly just stands around staring at people and ESPECIALLY at houses. He seems completely taken aback that the townspeople find this somewhat creepy. Johnny is intrigued by the rash of missing persons plaguing the small town and feels they are connected to the secret of his past. Continue reading

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BAD MOVIE: THE BRAIN (1962)

THE BRAIN (1962) – Freddie Francis directed this black & white film, which was the third movie adaptation of Curt Siodmak’s science fiction novel Donovan’s Brain. The characters’ names were changed and the sci fi elements were mixed with detective story elements this time around.

Max Holt, a callous, bloated rich pig of the George Soros/ Koch Family type, is one of the passengers on an airplane which crashes near the laboratory of Dr Peter Corrie (Peter van Eyck). That reclusive doctor and his colleague Dr Frank Shears (played by Bernard Lee himself) have been conducting experiments to see how long they can keep monkey brains alive once removing them from their host body.

Corrie and Shears discover that Max Holt is the only one of the airplane passengers still clinging to life, but just barely, and has no hope of survival. Corrie browbeats Shears into helping him get Holt’s body back to their lab, where they remove his brain to see how long they can keep it alive in one of their fish aquarium containers filled with life-preserving fluids and equipment.

The pair of unethical physicians turn over the rest of Holt’s body for burial while continuing to monitor the preserved brain of Max Holt. Instrument readings indicate there is still thought wave activity in the disembodied organ. Continue reading

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BAD MOVIE: ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES (1983)

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attack-of-the-beast-creaturesATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES (1983)- Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following.      

Some passengers from a Transatlantic liner get shipwrecked and marooned on an uncharted island filled with acidic ponds and streams plus a whole tribe of the titular creatures who all look even sillier than the doll that attacked Karen Black in Trilogy of Terror.

And it’s the 1920s for no reason whatsoever! Nothing in the story has Continue reading

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A FILM SERIES EVEN I WON’T REVIEW? YEP.

THE UNCLE GODDAMN MOVIES – Over the years, several people have asked me if there are any weird films that I won’t review. Believe it or not, there are. First would be the decades-old version of A Christmas Carol performed by a class of mentally challenged students.

The production was filmed so the students and their loved ones could have copies but eventually a copy fell into the hands of some fairly cruel-humored people who made many more copies and packaged it as a movie to watch so you could laugh at what they called “retards” acting out A Christmas Carol.

Over time, that film became one of the products sold by the now-defunct mail order site called Blackest Heart Video. So far, it has been the only version of A Christmas Carol that I’ve neither bought nor reviewed.

Cruel as that video offering was, it was only one movie. There is also an entire video series I won’t review – the infamous Uncle Goddamn shorts (see above pics). WARNING: If you don’t want to read the vicious details, don’t click on “continue reading.” Continue reading

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SCARTICIA (1971-1975) BAD MOVIE HOSTESS

SCARTICIA – From 1971 to 1975 Annette Stutzman starred as the witch Scarticia, hostess of Horrible Movie late Saturday nights on WAPT-TV in Jackson, MS.  Stutzman also worked as the personal secretary of the station manager.

Scarticia, the Mistress of the Night, would welcome her viewers every week with the words “Greetings, animals” and close each show by saying “Pleasant nightmares.” The witch’s main sidekick to abuse was her gravedigger Scoop Gravely, played by famous local DJ Ed Hobgood (lower right).

Filling in for Scoop from time to time was Dr. Choke Throttle, a vampire mad scientist played by Marvin Gardens, who also worked on the show’s set, did Scarticia’s makeup and served as cameraman. As usual, the can’t-miss format of Bad Movies presented by a sarcastic host or hostess and their sidekicks became a hit.

Soon, Jackson, MS teens and 20-somethings began holding Horrible Movie viewing parties on Saturday nights. Inevitably, hundreds of fan letters began pouring in every week.

Part of what made Scarticia and company stand out was the way they made many of their Host Segments as parodies of the iconic program Dark Shadows. What comedies like Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Soap were to traditional soap operas, those Horrible Movie sketches were to the Gothic horror soap with Barnabas Collins, etc.    Continue reading

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INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973) BAD MOVIE REVIEW

INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973) – Category: More weird than bad, but with a classic premise and execution  

This little honey (sorry) is the perfect example of why I prefer bad movies from the 1980s and earlier: because back then they played them straight and weren’t constantly making self-aware jokes to the audience. If this movie had been made more recently it would have been INTENTIONALLY cheesy and goofy, like the Killer Condom flicks or the Gingerdead Man movies.

Invasion of the Bee Girls plays like a sexploitation version of The X-Files long before that show was on the air. The hero of the movie is a State Department investigator played by cult figure William Smith, known from the tv series Laredo and from countless exploitation flicks like Black Samson to the “Hell’s Angels Fighting the Vietnam War” biker movie The Losers. The film’s screenwriter was THE Nicholas Meyer of Star Trek II and The Seven Percent Solution fame. Herb “The Worm Eaters” Robbins also shows up onscreen.

William Smith’s character, Neil Agar, is sent to California to investigate why a scientist involved in top secret government research dropped dead under suspicious circumstances – he died of apparent sexual exhaustion and people nearby swear they heard a sound like bees buzzing at Continue reading

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MAZEPPA (1970-1973) BAD MOVIE HOST

MAZEPPA – No relation to Tchaikovsky’s opera Mazeppa, this blog post refers to comedian, artist and actor Gailard Sartain, who got his start playing the wizard Mazeppa (center left) while hosting Tulsa, Oklahoma’s late Saturday night Bad Movie show called The Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting.

Triple features and anarchic comedy sketches were the name of the game as Mazeppa and his figurative sorcerer’s apprentices Jim Millaway and THE Gary Busey presented So-Bad-They’re-Good movies, old Universal classics, and musicals from Busby Berkeley to 1950s rock and roll flicks. (Though Tulsa viewers rebelled against the Busby Berkeley musicals according to a 1971 interview with Gailard.)

In between films came old educational shorts, black & white sci-fi shows, weird cartoons, you name it. It was like a countrified forerunner of Night Flight from later decades.

Long time readers of Balladeer’s Blog may remember that when I reviewed the bad 1973 horror film Hex in 2011 I mentioned how that flick’s co-star Gary Busey had moved on to movies after his stint as the wizard Mazeppa’s sidekick. I also resolved to review Mazeppa’s show. Good thing nobody held their breath.

And let’s quickly address the nice coincidence of Mazeppa and Busey’s character Teddy Jack Eddy hosting campy rock and roll movies like Don’t Knock the Rock, Untamed Youth or Shake, Rattle and Rock only for Busey to go on to play Buddy Holly and Sartain to play the Big Bopper in The Buddy Holly Story.      Continue reading

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