Tag Archives: Bad Movies

GHOSTKEEPER (1981) NEW YEAR’S EVE HORROR FILM

GhostkeeperGHOSTKEEPER (1981) – One of those infamous Canadian tax shelter movies of the early 1980s, so you know what you’re in for: the usual slapdash storytelling, low production values and a tale that would have been better handled in the old glory days of radio decades ago.

On New Year’s Eve two men and a woman get stranded in the Rocky Mountains following a snowmobile crash. They seek refuge in a creepy old boardinghouse run by the female Joe Spinnell, Georgie Collins. Collins plays an absolute psycho who has two creepy sons, one of whom is a host for the cannibalistic Native American monster called the Wendigo.  Continue reading

8 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies

‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1974)

Twas the Night before christmasTWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1974) – The dumbest of all animated Christmas stories. Even as a little kid I wanted to kick this cartoon special’s cold, merciless Santa Claus between the legs over and over again.

When ONE dorky mouse writes a letter to the newspaper debunking Santa’s existence old Saint Nick shows a decided lack of Christmas spirit by pompously deciding that NOBODY in the town will get any gifts. The town constructs a massive clock that plays a butt-kissing song to try to appease the wrath of the power-crazed Dread Deity of Yule, Kris Kringle. Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under humor

PRECIOUS FIND (1996) AND ENIGMA (1982) – TWO MORE BAD MOVIES SET AT CHRISTMAS TIME

Precious Find goodPRECIOUS FIND (1996) – This is a hilariously bad attempt to do a science fiction version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. That description makes this movie sound much, MUCH better than it really is.

In the far future a lunar colony called Moon City is the jumping-off point for prospectors who travel to various asteroids trying to strike “precious finds” in the form of valuable metals and precious stones. The Christmas background adds to the fun in this UN-intentional comedy.

Rutger Hauer, whose performances run the quality gamut from Lawrence Olivier to Nicolas Cage, is very firmly in Cage territory in this bomb. Hauer plays Armond Crille, a former prospector who has given up hard work for the more lucrative trade of fleecing bored prospectors at the card-playing tables. Watching Rutger Hauer dance with the two hookers his character wins in the opening scene will have you rolling in the aisle with laughter.   

Brion James specializes in playing good-hearted simpletons and menacing simpletons. This time around he’s the good-hearted simpleton Sam Horton, whose eclectic musical tastes are his standout feature. 

Joan Chen portrays Camilla Jones, a spaceship captain with all the personality of the doorknob Chen’s character on Twin Peaks wound up getting her soul trapped in. Chen is around just because the filmmakers apparently decided they had to throw in a love interest, even though the film they’re imitating didn’t waste time with such nonsense. Continue reading

12 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies

DON’T OPEN TIL CHRISTMAS (1984)

DON’T ODon't Open 'Til ChristmasPEN ‘TIL CHRISTMAS (1984)

This is a British horror film about a lunatic killing people dressed in Santa suits for the holidays.

Britain’s scream queen Caroline Munro sings in a brief appearance and there’s the notorious scene where a Santa gets his penis sliced off by our killer and bleeds to death at a urinal.

Yes, it’s another joyously tasteless horror film using the Christmas season as its gimmick. Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies

THANKSGIVING TURKEYS ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Randy Clower (right) with co-host Richard Malmos as "Film Vault Technicians First Class" on The Texas 27 Film Vault

Randy Clower (right) with co-host Richard Malmos as “Film Vault Technicians First Class” on The Texas 27 Film Vault. They’re way down on Level 31. No, not Deep 13 – Level 31.

Randy Clower and Richard Malmos of The Texas 27 Film Vault (both lower right) featured in a Movie Host article with Stella from Saturday Night Dead and Elvira.

Randy Clower and Richard Malmos of The Texas 27 Film Vault (both lower right) featured in a Movie Host article with Stella from Saturday Night Dead and Elvira.

The Texas 27 Film Vault was a great pre-MST3K bad movie show from the mid-1980s. The hosts Randy Clower and Richard Malmos (also the co-creators of the program) were members of the fictional quasi-military outfit called the Film Vault Corps – “the few, the proud, the sarcastic”. Ken Miller, who played the gung-ho Kilgore-esque Tex on the show was also a co-creator. Tragically Miller commited suicide in 1988.   

The Texas 27 Film Vault aired for 2 and 1/2 hours every Saturday night from 10:30pm to 1:00 am with Randy, Richard, Tex, Joe The Hypnotic Eye Riley and Laurie Savino the Mystery Clip Technician showing and mocking episodes of old Republic and Columbia serials before showing and mocking the night’s bad or campy movie.

Texas and Oklahoma loved this cult show and it’s rare for Sooners and Longhorns to agree on anything! Here’s a look at some of the more memorable episodes from The Texas 27 Film Vault history.  

It! The terror from beyond space 2IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE (1958)

Original Broadcast Date: July 12th, 1986

Serial: Atom Man vs Superman (1950) 

Host Segments: Most of the Host Segments in this episode centered around a touring troupe from the Film Vault Corps Academy in Leadville, Co. That troupe – the FVC Academy’s Little Theatre Group – was performing for Randy, Richard, Tex and the others. Joe Riley’s gore effects took center stage as the touring thespians presented comedic reenactments of classic scenes from movies about aliens, including the infamous chest-burster moment from Alien and an unappetizing moment from the 80s remake of The Thing

The gore in the Host Segments made this the first Texas 27 Film Vault episode to come with a “Viewer Discretion” warning. Their later presentation of the hilariously bad Friday the 13th Part 3 was another. 

Movie: It! The Terror From Beyond Space was a joyously bad black & white space travel film from the 1950s. A Martian monster has already wiped out all but one member of the first expedition to the Red Planet. Next up on the menu for this ET who sucks all moisture from his victims: the rescue expedition who belatedly arrive to save the crew of the preceding mission to Mars.   

Continue reading

20 Comments

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

THE HUMANOID (1979): THE WORST STAR WARS RIPOFF

Humanoid 2With Star Wars Episode Seven coming out soon I figured I would examine the notoriously bad Italian ripoff of Star Wars. I know many people consider Star Crash to be the worst of the Italo-Ripoffs but I’ve always gotten more laughs out of The Humanoid.  

The many, many ways this movie steals from Star Wars will become clear as we go along. Let’s deal with first things first:

Richard KielRichard Kiel plays the title figure. His real name is Golob but the Darth Vaderish bad guy arranges for Golob to be the guinea pig for a treatment that transforms ordinary people into powerful “Humanoids”. As a Humanoid Golob loses his beard for some reason but – even more comically – the beard suddenly reappears when he is returned to normal late in the movie.

Humanoid 5Golob in his amped-up Humanoid form has super-strength, is invulnerable to harm and can deflect energy blasts that the Rebel Alliance-style good guys shoot at him. The bad guys plan to use a warhead to expose every man, woman and child on Earth to the bio-treatment, thus creating an instant army of billions of super-powered Humanoids like Richard Kiel. (Good luck controlling them since the treatment will reduce them to mindless animals like Golob.)   Continue reading

50 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies

BAD MOVIES: SCOTT BRADY TO THE RESCUE!

Everyman Scott Brady

Everyman Scott Brady

You can have your Time Lord from Gallifrey or your reporter from INS. When it comes to REAL action against goofy monsters the one and only Scott Brady comes on like Jim Dandy to the rescue. The Pudgy One was always a welcome sight in B-movies from decades ago. Here are four of his most enjoyably bad outings.

Destination Inner SpaceDESTINATION INNER SPACE (1966) – In a true rarity Scott Brady got to be the less-than- hunky action lead in this film! THE Sheree North and The Green Hornet‘s Wende Wagner were along for the ride in this flick that plays like an episode from Jon Pertwee’s Doctor Who era recast with Americans.

Scott Brady portrays Commander Wayne, a courageous Naval Officer who might as well be working for UNIT as he saves the world from a potential invasion by a group of sub-aquatic extraterrestrials. The monsters are as ridiculous as the dialogue in this fair-to- middling gem. Continue reading

28 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies

FRIDAY THE 13th: THE ORPHAN (1977) – REVIEW

Friday the 13th The Orphan biggerFRIDAY THE 13th: THE ORPHAN (1977) – H.H. Munro must have turned over in his grave at this adaptation of one of his short stories. This quasi-horror film was re-released in 1979 as just The Orphan and despite the original title it has no connection to the Friday the 13th series of slasher flicks. At least, no REAL connection. I’m surprised some unscrupulous distributor never tried sneaking this into theaters in the 1980’s as a “prequel” to the slasher movies by presenting the insane young boy in the movie as the grandfather of Jason Voorhees.

Even so the title makes it hard not to think of our wealthy young protagonist “David” (Mark Owens) as an ancestor of the hockey- masked slice and dice man from Crystal Lake. In the 1920’s David’s mother accidentally shoots his African Big Game Hunter father Kevin to death during an argument about his frequent overseas trips. David not only witnesses this but sees his mother put the gun in her mouth and kill herself immediately afterward. Next David gets VERY disturbed when a presumed family member (an uncredited Christopher Lloyd in a “blink-and-you’ll- miss- him” appearance) forces him to kiss his dead father as he lies in his coffin. Continue reading

10 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies

EARL OWENSBY HALLOWEEN TRIPLE FEATURE

Owensby's macabre Grim Reaper/ Fool Killer style monster from A Day of Judgment.

Owensby’s macabre Grim Reaper/ Fool Killer style monster from A Day of Judgment (1981).

What Larry Buchanan was to Texas …

What Bill Rebane was to Wisconsin …

What William Girdler was to Louisville and Andy Milligan was to Staten Island, Earl Owensby was to North Carolina. “The Dixie DeMille” himself is the subject as Halloween Month continues! 

Low-budget filmmaker Earl Owensby occupies a unique niche in American movie making. Like Roger Corman before him, Owensby set out to be absolutely certain that his films made a profit and – again like Corman – a lot of his flicks were unpretentious B-Movies. Owensby notoriously never spent more than a million dollars on a film and never accepted a distribution deal that would net his company less than eight million dollars.

Many of Owensby’s movies are entertaining and boast decent production values, but for the sake of this review I will be looking at three of his lesser efforts that I feel fall into the fun-bad category.  

Wolfman 1WOLFMAN (1979) – With this movie Owensby completed his move from being a budget Joe Don Baker in vigilante movies like Challenge, The Brass Ring and Dark Sunday to being a budget Burt Reynolds in race-car and prison flicks like Death Driver and Seabo to being a regional horror film producer like Bill Rebane.  

In a sprawling southern mansion the aged patriarch of the Glasgow family lies on his death-bed. A minister who is really a Satanist (Ed Grady) is in cahoots with some of Glasgow’s sleazy heirs to pass the family curse of lycanthropy on to the eldest Glasgow male – Colin Glasgow (Earl Owensby). You’d think that would happen naturally if you’re a fan of other werewolf films but Owensby plays by his own rules in this southern-fried wolfman movie. Continue reading

8 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season

DEATH SPA (1989) AND KILLER WORKOUT (1987)

Death SpaAs Halloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog how about we review a couple of “exercises in horror” (Thank you, I’m here all week!) in the form of Death Spa (1989) and Killer Workout aka Aerobicide (1987). 

DEATH SPA (1989) – Originally begun in 1986 but not completed and released until 1989, Death Spa is my favorite of the two Health Spa horror films of the 1980s. Part of the fun comes from the kitsch casting:

Merritt “Captain Kirk’s Son” Butrick plays David, a man whose sister Catherine killed herself under suspicious circumstances, causing him to blame his promiscuous brother-in law for her death.  

Ken Foree, the cult horror figure, is wasted as a maintenance man whose role is virtually non-existent yet this lame flick gets shown at Ken Foree film festivals. Go figure. Continue reading

14 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies