Tag Archives: Bad Movies

September 12, 2013 · 4:31 pm

HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (1958) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT: SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1985

High School Confidential

High School Confidential

Before MST3K there was The Texas 27 Film Vault!

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of this neglected cult show from the 1980’s. Randy Clower, Richard Malmos, Ken “Tex” Miller and Joe “The Hypnotic Eye” Riley played machine-gun toting members of the fictional Film Vault Corps (“the few, the proud, the sarcastic”) who would show and mock bad and campy movies preceded by episodes of old Republic serials. They would also have comedic sci-fi adventures before and after commercial breaks.

ORIGINALLY BROADCAST: Saturday September 7th, 1985 from 10:30pm to 1:00am.

SERIAL: Before the movie our Film Vault Technicians First Class showed and mocked a chapter of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940).

FILM VAULT LORE: Randy Clower at E-Gor’s site on Texas 27 Film Vault groupies: “We were a bit wild during that time and having a cult show on late at night opened a few doors around the Dallas area which we were all more than willing to go through and explore.” 

THE MOVIE: High School Confidential has a well-deserved reputation as one of the campiest Juvenile Delinquency films of the 50’s and 60’s. Some of the fun comes from the hilariously heavy-handed anti-marijuana messages sprinkled throughout the Continue reading →

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September 10, 2013 · 1:48 am

SEXY CASEY JAMES AND SOME OF THE WEIRDEST JUVENILE DELINQUENT MOVIES EVER MADE

Casey JD1Special thanks once again to Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, the beautiful and dangerous Casey James! Not only is Casey the perfect woman but she also enjoys the absurdity of those over-the- top Juvenile Delinquent films of the 1950s and 1960s. This world-famous sex symbol is uniquely qualified to be the hostess for this article.

HIGH SCHOOL CAESAR (1960) – John Ashley, who was about as menacing as Ned Flanders, plays a bitter rich teenage punk who runs illegal operations at his high school like a junior version of organized crime. The title is a reference to Little Caesar, the gangster movie with Edward G Robinson. Ashley’s JD character peddles the answers to exams, rigs school elections and bilks money from his classmates. All of this is played so seriously you will die laughing. There’s also the obligatory Drag Race and OF COURSE someone dies while drag racing. My Bad Movie page has a full-length review of this one if you’re interested.

SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK! (1956) – In this hilarious movie Rock and Roll music is blamed for the Juvenile Delinquency epidemic of the 1950’s. Not only does one particularly irrational city ban rock music completely but it puts the local rock DJ on trial! They hold him accountable for the vandalism and other JD activities that hit the town because, by their logic, the “wild” music he played CAUSED the teenagers to commit their crimes. This is Continue reading →

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September 3, 2013 · 11:00 pm

BAD MOVIE: THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977)

The Dragon Lives Again

The Dragon Lives Again

THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977) – Category: Brucesploitation with an enjoyably absurd twist   

Even for the bizarre sub-genre of Brucesploitation films this movie is out there! The film starts with the recently – deceased Bruce Lee arriving in the afterlife, where the concubines of the King of the Dead gather around to gawk at the bulge in the pants of the late martial arts superstar. (Just in case you thought NO opening could be more tasteless than the one in The Clones Of Bruce Lee ) In a bit of alleged comic relief the bulge turns out to be caused by a weapon, not Lee’s organ. (Corpse schlong jokes! Who doesn’t love them?)

As head-shaking as that bit is at least it’s coherent, unlike virtually everything else that happens from this point on in the movie. And the time-honored tradition of Brucesploitation films having Continue reading →

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July 25, 2013 · 10:17 pm

ALIEN LOVER (1975)

Alien Lover

Alien Lover

ALIEN LOVER (1975) – Category: Enjoyably campy bad movie elevated by kitsch-value in the casting.             Pernell Roberts and a really young Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) in her pre-Ryan’s Hope and Mrs Columbo days add the additional comic value to this made-for-tv horror/sci fi hybrid. It was an hour and a half with commercials so with them edited out it’s just 60-some minutes long.

Kate plays a teenaged recovering loony who starts communicating with a teen from another dimension via a broken tv set in the attic of her home. The tv set can absorb people from our dimension into the Continue reading →

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June 16, 2013 · 7:59 pm

SUPERMODEL CASEY JAMES PRESENTS THE STRANGEST BIKER MOVIES OF ALL TIME

Casey James biker 1Special thanks once again to Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, the maddeningly lovely Casey James. Not only does she embody everything that men and women dream about but she also enjoys bad movies! Casey’s beauty, brains and ability to kick the butt of anyone who gets out of line with her make her the ideal hostess for a look at bizarre biker films. For information on how to follow Casey’s antics even further read on:

WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS (1971) – You just knew this was the movie I would start with. A biker gang hassles a group of Satanists in the usual biker way in films. The Satanists get revenge by cursing some of the bikers to start turning into werewolves and preying on the others. Werewolves on Wheels gets worse as it goes along and degenerates into a VERY weird acid trip of a horror movie before completely collapsing in its final minutes. Severn Darden plays the lead Satanist and the biker gang “boasts” Barry “Eve of Destruction” Maguire and Billy “Father Knows Best” Gray among its members.

MOTORCYCLE SQUAD (1937) – This neglected little honey is one of the Continue reading →

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May 13, 2013 · 12:04 am

BAD MOVIES: SEX SYMBOL CASEY JAMES AND A QUICK LOOK AT SOME OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS BOMBS IN HISTORY

CasBal4Special thanks to Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, the achingly beautiful Casey James! In addition to being a world-famous supermodel Casey has great taste in blogs and has agreed to help yours truly spread the word about various movies from the cinematic netherworld.

FOR EVEN MORE CASEY JAMES CLICK HERE: Continue reading →

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May 12, 2013 · 5:33 pm

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

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

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

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! LOVE, GEORGE (1973) – Category: Bad movie elevated by kitsch value in the casting.

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 Continue reading →

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May 4, 2013 · 2:41 pm

BAD MOVIE SHORT: THE MEANEST MAN IN THE WORLD (1954)

The United Fund

The United Fund

THE MEANEST MAN IN THE WORLD (1954) – This heavy-handed United Fund short was probably effective in its day. Back then people may have felt they were being too callous by openly laughing at the antics in this public service message.

Our central character, “Jim”, comes home late at night after a marathon work day. He startles his wife, who, in typical 50’s fashion sleeps in a separate bed. In fact he startles her SO much you get the impression she had a man on the side who may have left her bed a little too close to Jim’s homecoming for comfort.

Jim’s got even bigger problems, though. Money is tight, so tight that Jim tells his still-paniced wife that this year they won’t be able to afford their usual contribution to the United Fund. Our hero then falls asleep, while the disgusted narrator of this ham-fisted production sneers at his alleged callousness.

Now the real fun begins. This joyously tasteless  production tries to equate being unable to afford a United Fund contribution to monumental acts of deliberate cruelty. Jim’s dream counterpart stalks up to a hospital and viciously KICKS THE CRUTCHES out from under a poor crippled boy, then STANDS THERE LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY while looking down at Continue reading →

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April 27, 2013 · 2:28 pm

BAD MOVIE SHORT: IT’S WONDERFUL BEING A GIRL (1966)

ModessIT’S WONDERFUL BEING A GIRL (1966) – This 22 minute educational film about menstruation features one of my all-time favorite lines from female hygiene shorts. That line is “You CAN have fun while you’re menstruating!” To me that remark is even more fun than the line from Molly Grows Up which goes “Menstruating girls should avoid square dancing.” (That’s good advice for anybody, really, even if they’re not menstruating.)

Mom is about to introduce her 12 year old daughter Libby to the facts about Continue reading →

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April 9, 2013 · 10:22 pm

BAD MOVIE: GHOULIES (1984) – THE LAST MOVIE SHOWN ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Ghoulies

Ghoulies

Before MST3K there was THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT! Before Joel and Mike lovers of bad movies had Randy and Richard! Before Devil Dogs, Observers and Deep 13 there came Cellumites, giant rats and Level 31. I make a point of opening my T27FV posts now with this reminder because I had been getting some emails from people claiming Randy and Richard imitated MST3K which is impossible since their show came first!

My research and my correspondence with Randy Clower, co-creator and co-star of T27FV have been helping me fill in some info on this neglected cult show which ran from February 1985 to August 1987. With all the renewed interest in Movie Host shows of the 1980’s and earlier Balladeer’s Blog likes to spread some love to this program.

Last time I reviewed the very first film ever shown on The Texas 27 Film Vault so this time I’ll examine the final movie presented and mocked by the machine-gun toting Randy and Richard and their colleagues in the Film Vault Corps – “the few, the proud, the sarcastic”.

GHOULIES (1984) Some sources list 1985 as the year for this flick but I’m going by the copyright date at the end of the film, which says 1984.

FILM VAULT LORE – A T27FV fan calling herself Georgia remarked at Egor’s site: “I still lived (in Dallas) when they did their last show. They knew they were going off the air because they talked about it and seemed pretty sad about it. I was sad, too. It was the best thing on tv.” The original broadcast date for this final episode was Saturday August 29th, 1987 at 8PM.

The show was still hot in the ratings but Randy, Richard, Ken “Tex” Miller and Joe “The Hypnotic Eye” Riley got hot job offers they couldn’t turn down. Combine that with the collapse of the Film Vault Guys’ most recent attempt to get a syndication deal (what might have been) and the gang disbanded after 2 and 1/2 years of bad movie fun. Plus one of them was dating Yoko Ono and that NEVER helps!  

The Movie – This was a product from Charles Band, so lovers of bad 1980’s horror films know what they’re in for. Jack Nance from Eraserhead and Mariska Hargitay from Law and Order: SVU can both point to this flick as their most embarrassing moment on Continue reading →

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