Tag Archives: Bad Movies

ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984)

Rocktober BloodROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984) -This example of the Heavy Metal Horror films of the 1980s was produced, directed and written by Beverly and Ferd Sebastian, a well-known pair to all of us Bad Movie Geeks. The premise of this hilariously bad movie is that Heavy Metal star Billy Eye programs something sinister into his latest album by way of backward-masking. (Like “I buried Paul” and others) 

After listening to those hidden messages to make sure they “took,” Billy Eye molests his just-dumped girlfriend Lynn Starling (Donna Scoggin) then uses a knife to injure her. He’s just getting started, though, and from there he proceeds to slaughter most of his band members, a security guard and nearly 20 other innocent people! 

Billy is tried, convicted and executed for the killing spree. One year after his execution his former flame Lynn Starling has formed her own Heavy Metal group called Headmistress. The band is starting its first nationwide tour, called the Rocktober Blood Tour, unaware of the tedium horror about to envelope them. Continue reading

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BLACK ROSES (1988)

Black Roses 1BLACK ROSES (1988) – This legendarily laughable attempt at a horror film belongs to quite a few niche sub-genres. It’s a Canadian horror movie, it’s one of the wonderfully campy Heavy Metal Horror productions of the 1980s and most importantly for trivia lovers Black Roses is one of the Big Three Canadian turkeys to feature Frank Dietz in a supporting role. (The other two are Rock’N’Roll Nightmare and Zombie Nightmare. ) 

Dietz looked too young to be a police detective in Zombie Nightmare and he looks too OLD to be a high school student in Black Roses. But that’s part of his – and the movie’s – charm. He also plays one of the Black Roses in monster form during the film.

You want more kitsch-casting? How about Julie Adams of Creature From The Black Lagoon playing an elderly frump outraged over Heavy Metal’s supposed “Satanic” element?

How about noted musician Carmine Appice as Vinny Apache, one of the demonic members of the band Black Roses?

How about Vincent Pastore from The Sopranos as a Heavy Metal-hating parent who pays for that by getting mauled by a $1.49 spider-puppet AND getting sucked into a speaker playing Black Roses songs?  Continue reading

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THREE BAD MOVIES FROM PAUL NASCHY

Dr Jekyll vs the Wolf ManPaul “Jacinto Molina” Naschy was Spain’s King of Horror decades ago. Many of his films featured his recurring character Waldemar Daninsky, a tormented lycanthrope who was seeking a cure for his curse.

Long ago I reviewed Assignment: Terror (1969), which pitted Waldemar against aliens, a faux Frankenstein Monster, a vampire and a mummy. Here are three more from Naschy:

Dr Jekyll vs The Wolfman (1972), in which a descendant of the original Dr Jekyll uses the family formula to cure Waldemar of lycanthropy. Trouble is he starts turning into a kinky and murderous Mr Hyde on the nights of the full moon. (This is better than being a werewolf?) Continue reading

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TRUMBO: IS THIS A JOKE?

This movie is further proof that American Liberals are the biggest hypocrites in history.

This movie is further proof that American Liberals are the biggest hypocrites in history.

TRUMBO (2015) – How about “Are you now or have you ever been a racist or imperialist or Islamophobic or privileged?” Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know how sick I am of the increasingly meaningless “Liberals vs Conservatives” paradigm. It’s just that right now American Liberals are far more pompous and hubristic and in need of being cut down to size.

Case in point: the movie Trumbo. Only American Liberals could be so lacking in self-awareness that they would – in this age of Political Correctness Police and SJW persecutors – trot out (for the millionth time) the story of Dalton Trumbo and some of the other figures who were black-listed during the Communist Witch Hunt of decades ago. For the past few decades Liberals have been the ones black-listing and inflicting draconian punishments on people who dare to hold different political opinions than they do.

We are still suffering under the “Racist” and “Privilege” Witch Hunts that American Liberals continue to pursue with the same sickeningly judgmental attitude and spurious statistics that Joe McCarthy was accused of. How many careers (and therefore lives) have we all seen ruined by the cold, merciless asses of the political left? Often over  simple remarks or organizations the victims belonged to or political contributions they made YEARS earlier. Plus Liberals accuse people of being racists as a scare tactic the way accusations of being a Communist were used back then.

Anyone under 30 (maybe even 40) who watches Trumbo needs to focus on the OBVIOUS parallels to the way American Liberals hound and persecute any behavior they choose to interpret as “racism” or more generally as “hate.” When you watch right-wing zealots obsessively looking for “pernicious communism” and “secret communist messages” in Trumbo’s screenplays make a point of noting the similarities to the way Liberal zealots obsessively look for “racism”, “xenophobia”, “imperialism,” “colonial narratives” and on and on through the entire list of their paranoid fixations.        Continue reading

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JACK THE RIPPER GOES WEST (1974)

Jack the Ripper Goes WestJACK THE RIPPER GOES WEST (1974) – This hilariously lame horror western was also released under the titles Silent Sentence, A Knife in the Dark and A Knife for the Ladies.

Jack the Ripper Goes West is a horror western that plays like a failed pilot episode for a television series given its mere 51 minute running time. When a rash of Jack the Ripper style murders afflict the western town of Mescal their old-fashioned Sheriff Jarrod (Jack Elam) is aggravated to find himself forced to work with an out of town private detective named Burns (Jeff Cooper). 

If this was indeed once planned as a tv pilot (and the incredibly fake-looking buildings in the town might support that notion) the premise was apparently going to be the clash of old vs new methods of investigating crimes. Elam’s sheriff is an old-fashioned hip-shooting, hard-drinking, saloon-brawling man of the past. Cooper’s private investigator is a sophisticated big city criminologist intent on using modern methodology.   Continue reading

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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

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‘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

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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

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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

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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

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