Some readers have been asking what I mean by my frequently used term “Psychotronic movies”. It’s a nice reminder that not everyone is as immersed as people like me are in Bad and Weird Movie Culture.
Psychotronic Video started in 1980 as a fanzine published and written by Cleveland record store employee Michael Weldon, who wrote film criticism on the side. The publication dealt with the kind of movies that seldom got mainstream attention back then, like extreme horror, exploitation films, bloody action movies, superannuated black & white sci-fi and monster flicks, and so on.
It was perfect timing as video stores increased in number nearly every year of the 1980s, so the reviews, articles and interviews in Psychotronic Video appealed to more and more readers since they could now rent those films from their local video stores. Movies formerly seen only by going to arthouse theaters or rundown Grindhouse theaters or fringe Drive-Ins were now available to watch in the safety of one’s own home. Continue reading
DARKER THAN AMBER (1970) – Rod Taylor IS, for some reason, an Australian version of John D MacDonald’s detective Travis McGee. William “Big Bill” Smith plays the outrageously bleached-blonde villain Terry Bartlett and Theodore Bikel portrays McGee’s friend and idea man Meyer. McGee saves a woman (Suzy Kendall) from being forcibly drowned by her criminal associates only to see her get bumped off by them anyway. 
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