Tag Archives: movie reviews

DEATH BED (1977)

I got a reader request to review the horror film Death Bed, but I already did in 2011. Here it is again and remember, to see if I already reviewed a movie click here: https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/ 

Death Bed (1977)

DEATH BED – (1977) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following.     

A bed that eats everyone who lies on it is the hilarious premise of this actual straight-faced attempt at a horror film. You know how water-beds have water in them? This living bed has digestive juices in it. Its victims are somehow sucked through the membraneous material of the mattress and are broken down and digested by those juices. 

The viewer is treated to countless shots of human bodies (plus for variety an apple, a fly and a bucket o’ chicken) dissolving in the acid, looking like they’re being torn apart by millions of tiny piranha fish.

If you’re wondering how a four-poster bed in an abandoned mansion became a living being with a taste for human flesh, we’re told a tree-demon (no relation to the tree-monster in From Hell It Came) temporarily incarnated as a human being to seduce a woman on the bed. At one point in the tale the blood-colored tears of the demon fell on the bed, thus creating our hungry, hungry hero. Continue reading

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FATHER’S DAY (2011) HORROR FILM

Father's DayFATHER’S DAY (2011) – Brace yourself for a gory time in this enjoyably outrageous cult classic.

Ahab, the eye-patch sporting hero of the Astron 6 horror film Father’s Day is in my opinion the one true successor to Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams. And considering how unfair the ending of this movie is for Ahab and his two sidekicks a case could even be made for them replacing Ash as the most royally screwed character in the history of gore-soaked horror comedies.     

It’s difficult to review this dark, grotesque gem without resorting to a series of catch phrases like “Goes where Dead Alive and similar movies failed to go” or “What Grindhouse hath wrought” or even “Twink and Walnut: They’re NOT Muppets!” Let me start with a more practical line: Do not watch this movie if you can not handle the most offensive violence, concepts, gore and deranged sexuality imaginable.  Continue reading

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THE HYPNOTIC EYE (1960)

Hypnotic EyeThe Hypnotic Eye is one of the most beloved bad movies of the 1960s. Its hilariously campy trailer, its sinister Eurotrash villain and its Ed Wood-level police work all make it a true anti-classic.

Jacques Bergerac, one-time husband of Ginger Rogers, played Desmond, the magician who uses the title object to augment his hypnotic abilities to an enormous degree.

After various beautiful women appear on stage with Desmond as volunteers from his audience he plants a post-hypnotic suggestion that causes them to mutilate themselves in various extreme ways after the show.

Some set their hair on fire, some wash their faces with acid ,some shove their faces into fans, etc. This being an old black & white movie the effects are very tame by today’s standards.    Continue reading

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FOOD OF THE GODS (1976)

Food of the Gods 2THE FOOD OF THE GODS was very loosely based on part of H.G. Wells’ novel of the same name. It was directed by Bert I Gordon, “Mr B.I.G.” himself. Gordon’s Village of the Giants, about a gang of giant-sized teenagers, was likewise loosely based on an often-forgotten section of that novel.

This movie starred Marjoe Gortner, the child evangelist turned B-movie legend, as football star Morgan (no fuller name given), who travels to a remote Canadian island for a vacation. Unfortunately, thanks to a very embarrassed- looking Ida Lupino, her farm animals plus other wild life have begun eating “the Food of the Gods”, a white substance from deep in the Earth. That food has caused various forms of animal and insect life to grow to enormous size, setting up the usual rampage scenes from Bert I Gordon films.   Continue reading

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ALIEN: COVENANT – YOU’LL LAUGH TIL YOU CRY

alien covenantALIEN: COVENANT (2017) – Balladeer’s Blog’s sources in the industry – and by the industry I mean the business – have assured me that when the very first public showing of Alien: Covenant was over Ridley Scott stood up, faced the preview audience and defiantly said “Now you tell me that’s not funny!”

Turns out there’s a little Mel Brooks lurking inside Ridley Scott, who decided to do to his own Alien and Prometheus films what Brooks did to Star Wars with his Space Balls movie. Looked at in that light Alien: Covenant is pure comedy gold!

Remember how in Alien an interstellar crew gets detoured to a deadly site by a coded distress signal that’s really a warning? Well, in Alien: Covenant an interstellar crew gets detoured to a deadly site by a broadcast of THE JOHN DENVER SONG COUNTRY ROADS, TAKE ME HOME! Hilarious, right? Sure, it’s a little derivative of the aliens in Mars Attacks getting killed by Slim Whitman songs but c’mon, cut Ridley some slack!

alien covenant 2Director Scott even takes a not-so-subtle poke at the whole “Newt and Hicks die right off the bat in Alien 3″ debacle. He has reasonably famous actor James Franco play the ship’s captain and – get this – Franco’s character dies after about a minute and a half when his cryo-sleep coffin catches fire! Too funny! (But I feel the merchandising tie-in with James Franco Briquettes is a little tasteless!)

And remember how we all laughed during Prometheus when the crew all took their helmets off on an alien body as if it was perfectly okay? Well this time around Ridley Scott has the crew NOT EVEN BOTHER TO WEAR HELMETS IN THE FIRST PLACE! They just traipse blithely about as if they’d never even HEARD of Security Protocols.

(We know that they have heard of them because sly ol’ funny man Ridley has these dweebs refer to them at one point in the ultimate example of irony. I mean it, dude, not even Leslie Nielsen could have delivered the reference to Security Protocols any more straight-faced than these folks! )  Continue reading

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THE COMIC (1985): MOVIE REVIEW

The Comic bigTHE COMIC (1985) – Virtually every film buff today knows the tale of Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert raising money from doctors, grocers and dentists in Michigan to finance their subsequent horror hit The Evil Dead

Over in the U.K. Richard Driscoll raised money from Welsh miners and doctors to finance his very odd movie The Comic. Raimi and company went on to lucrative careers in the entertainment industry. Driscoll’s story did not have the same type of fairy-tale ending. Not even with an established figure like John Eyres helping out financially when Richard’s original funds ran out.  

The Comic 2The Comic takes place “in another place and another time” according to one of the female characters. From appearances it’s a near-future police state in which fairly ambiguous laws are enforced by goose-stepping goons who wear their hair in ponytails. This film seems to be reaching for the heights achieved in cult films like Eraserhead and Café Flesh but falls so far short that it’s more like The Jar.

Writer/ director Driscoll also peppers in elements of MacBeth, Hamlet and King Lear but only succeeds in embodying the worst clichés of arthouse cinema. If this had been a latter-day student film or direct to video affair it would not deserve all the insults that reviewers throw its way. But if you’re cheeky enough to dump something like this on the theater-going public you’re just asking for a critical onslaught. Continue reading

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

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 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.

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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CLONES OF BRUCE LEE (1979)

Mascot FOUR original pics

Balladeer’s Blog

This is one of the reviews I get the most e-mail over so here it is again for the new readers who have been requesting it without realizing I already reviewed it.

Remember, before requesting a review you may want to see if I reviewed it already by checking my Bad Movies page. https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

Clones of Bruce Lee Bronze ManTHE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE (1979) – Category: Brucesploitation with an enjoyably absurd twist.      

In the joyously tasteless beginning of this quintessential Brucesploitation movie British secret agents extract cell samples from the martial arts superstar on his deathbed. Since E-Bay wasn’t around yet they can’t auction off the cell samples so instead they use them to make three Bruce Lee clones to form an elite crime fighting unit.

You have to love a movie called The Clones Of Bruce Lee even though it stars three guys who not only don’t resemble Bruce Lee but who don’t even resemble each other! Some clones! Dick Miller and Priscilla Alden look as much like Bruce Lee as these clowns do. Continue reading

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PASSION-FIRE SWORD (1965): SON OF THE BLACK MASS SERIES

Son of the Black Mass

Raizo Ichikawa as the Son of the Black Mass

Balladeer’s Blog resumes my reviews of the Son of the Black Mass series of Samurai movies. This time around I will examine the fifth film with legendary Raizo Ichikawa. I will eventually cover the pre-Raizo and post-Raizo SOTBM flicks as well PLUS the original novels that the movies were based on.

Though the Son of the Black Mass series has also been released under alternate titles like The Full Moon Killer and Sleepy Eyes of Death (?) I go by the original title to the novel and movies. The recurring lead character is Kyoshiro Nemuri, a Ronin who is the product of the rape of a Japanese woman by a Portuguese Christian Missionary during a Black Mass.

Nemuri inherited his father’s red hair, marking him as a half-breed and leading to his disgrace. He wanders Japan of the 1780s, a time when Japanese Christians and the foreign Christian missionaries who converted them were being oppressed. As in imprisoned and told to renounce their faith or be executed through Crucifixion.

Raizo Ichikawa 1

Raizo Ichikawa as the red-haired Samurai Kyoshiro Nemuri, the Son of the Black Mass.

I consider Passion-Fire Sword to be the worst of the Raizo Ichikawa movies in the series. Usually the Son of the Black Mass films go beyond typical Samurai movies and into a realm of quasi-horror and moral anarchy. This flick is instead so bland it could pass as just another Samurai story. It even takes a step backward regarding Kyoshiro’s supernatural abilities like his power to communicate with the dead and the hypnotic nature of his Full Moon Death Strike.  

Stripped of the whispers our anti-hero hears from the dead, he winds up looking like just a man who makes incredible guesses as he sorts through the layers upon layers of deception in this tale. (The novel highlights the manner in which Nemuri’s most recent kills speak to him from beyond the grave to set him on the right path in this labyrinthine conspiracy.) And the story itself is a rehash of The Chinese Jade as crooked businessmen and outright criminals conspire to hide their joint activities from the Shogun and from the head of their own Clan.

One of the fresh elements of Passion-Fire Sword comes in the way Kyoshiro gets caught up in the intrigue. The conspirators refuse to believe that a man who interacted with our protagonist at his Edo hideout did not have time to tell him anything about their plot. Believing that Nemuri MUST have been given information that could lead to their death they have no choice but to continue to try killing him, no matter how many people die in the attempt. Continue reading

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PSYCHO GOTHIC LOLITA (2010): MOVIE REVIEW

Psycho Gothic LolitaPSYCHO GOTHIC LOLITA (2010) – Also available under the title Gothic & Lolita Psycho, this ultra-violent and blood-soaked movie was Japanese filmmaker Go Ohara’s follow-up to Geisha Assassin from 2008.  

Rina Akiyama stars as Yuki, the black-clad title character whose fashion sense combines two Japanese fetish looks in one. The film begins with Yuki already enacting her revenge quest against a bizarre quintet of villainous supernatural figures. Disjointed flashbacks  provide background details as the story  unfolds, with the most crucial secret being withheld for last.  

In fact, I’ll give you my personal guarantee: if you aren’t as blown away as I was by this movie’s climactic revelation … I don’t know what you can do about it. (Just a little something for my fellow Marx Brothers fans out there.)

At any rate lovers of J-Horror know the type of surreal, over-the-top bloodletting and gory violence that awaits in Psycho Gothic Lolita. Yuki’s weapons of choice are umbrellas that are souped-up like the guitars in Once Upon A Time In Mexico and in many Spaghetti Westerns. If you don’t see the logic of her using modified umbrellas just remember it goes with her “look.”

Psycho Gothic Lolita 2Umbrellas are essential to Goth women to block out the sun and keep their skin pale, so Yuki makes a virtue out of fashion necessity by wielding high-tech bumbershoots that have razor-sharp points, shoot bullets like a machine-gun, are bullet-proof themselves and are stronger than steel. Burgess Meredith, eat your heart out!

Our main character expertly employs these weapons to impale, disembowel and shred her opponents to bloody, fleshy ribbons.  Yuki’s most blood-spattered move is to run a foe through with a closed umbrella, then open it while the victim is still clinging to life so they can feel the agony of their torso being torn apart by the opening of the umbrella. Look, you’re either committed to movies like this or you just aren’t.     Continue reading

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