Regular readers may remember I love So Bad They’re Good movies here at Balladeer’s Blog. Here are my favorites from the legendary H.G. Lewis. WARNING: Extreme concepts, despite the inept presentation.
TWO THOUSAND MANIACS (1964) – For people who’ve never heard of Herschell Gordon Lewis, I’ll point out that he’s known as “the Godfather of Gore.” And not even GOOD gore, but the obviously fake kind that makes you laugh. Add to that the inept acting, bland dialogue and quickie production techniques like you’d get in old black & white flicks and you’ll understand the man’s Bad Movie magic.
When it comes to horror films – good OR bad – I’ve always preferred those with supernatural menaces to those with mere crazed human beings doing ugly deeds. It helps if the premise has clever lore baked in, and Two Thousand Maniacs definitely has that, no matter how rushed and poorly made it is.
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One hundred years earlier, during America’s Civil War, the fictional Deep South town of Pleasant Valley (population two thousand) was utterly wiped out by renegade Union troops who destroyed every building and massacred every man, woman and child. Once every hundred years now, Pleasant Valley and its undead inhabitants will rematerialize for a few days, lure passing Northerners into it, and slaughter them as revenge for the ghost town’s destruction. Continue reading
FLORIS (1969 and 1975) – Actor Rutger Hauer and director Paul Verhoeven first worked together for this adventure series set during the very early 1500s. The program aired on Netherlands television in 1969, then was remade – again with Hauer in the swashbuckling title role – in 1975 for German television and ran for even more episodes than the original series. 
Around the year 1502, word finally caught up with our wandering hero that his father and two older brothers had died. Floris returned home, accompanied by his adventuring sidekick Sindala (Jos Bergman), an Indian Fakir. (Floris and the Fakir was originally going to be the title of the series.) 
Floris and Sindala fought their way out of the hands of the enemy and wound up allied with Wolter van Oldenstein and his men at Castle Oldenstein. I often wonder if the 1991 film Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves took partial inspiration from the premise of Floris, with a returning nobleman fighting oppression alongside a nonwhite comrade from his overseas adventures. 
THE MONK (1796) – Written by Matthew G. Lewis. Though The Monk was preceded by other works of Gothic Horror like The Castle of Otranto (1764) and The Necromancer (1794), Lewis’ novel cranked up the supernatural elements a great deal. It also painted the Catholic clergy in extremely unflattering terms, at least in the initial edition. 
GENTLEMAN JEKYLL AND DRIVER HYDE (1950) – Educational short films are often hilarious snapshots of their era. Driver’s Ed shorts are especially vulnerable to seeming outdated given how quickly car designs can change in certain decades. 
NAIA CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – Fighting it out for the National Championship in the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) were the COLLEGE OF IDAHO COYOTES and the INDIANA TECH WARRIORS (should be Hoplites). 
NCCAA CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – The BETHEL (IN) PILOTS (riverboat pilots) faced the CLINTON COLLEGE GOLDEN BEARS for the National Championship of the NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association) Division One. 
SKULL THE SLAYER Vol 1 #1 (August 1975) 
It is not truly the Earth of millions of years ago, because it is anachronistically populated by dinosaurs and primates that were never alive during the same time periods. The only survivors of the plane crash are Scully, a young Native American man named Jeff Turner, an African American physician named Raymond Corey, and Corey’s young research assistant Ann Reynolds. 
GRACE O’MALLEY (1530-1603) – Balladeer’s Blog takes a Saint Patrick’s Day look at Ireland’s notorious Grace O’Malley aka Grainne O’Malley aka Grania or Granuaile O’Malley. This woman was the head of the O’Malley faction in West Ireland and became legendary through her real and embellished career leading pirate crews against her enemies. 
FINAL FOUR: SECOND BERTH – Up next the INDIANA TECH WARRIORS (should be the Hoplites) played the ARIZONA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY FIRESTORM. 
SWORD WOMAN – This was the first story about Robert E. Howard’s fiery woman warrior Agnes the Dark aka Agnes de Chastillon, a sword fighting, butt kicking woman in 1500s France. Previously, Balladeer’s Blog reviewed 
JUST A DAMNED SOLDIER aka One Damned Soldier (1988) – Balladeer’s Blog concludes its look at all ten films of Italian cult action icon Mark Gregory, real name Marco De Gregorio. I know IMDb states that he also appeared in the made for tv movie Rainbow, but I watched that film and he’s not in it. The error seems to have been made by someone who saw the name MARY Gregory in the closing credits and, because the font for the credits is a bit stylish, mistook the y in Mary for a k. 
I’ll wrap up everything by examining Mark’s final two films before he walked away from the business at age 25 in 1989, with no explanation and after having just made his highest amount of money from a movie role. 
Just a Damned Soldier features Mark in an ensemble cast as one member of a trio of badass international mercenaries who take on any dangerous, high-paying job that comes along. Our hero, whose character is also named Mark, serves alongside Cisco (Romano Kristoff) and their boss Bert Ernst (Peter Hooten). 
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