Planet Of The Vampires

It had been a while since I had watched this cool Mario Bava Sci-Fi film "Planet of the Vampires". I saw it first on late night TV as “The Demon Planet” back in the 70's. A co-production between American International Pictures and Italian International Film, with some financing provided by Spain's Castilla Cooperativa Cinematográfica. The italian title of the film was Terror Nello Spazio. Based on Renato Pestriniero's story “One Night of 21 Hours” The english language version of this films was scripted by Ib Melchoir (Death Race 2000, Reptilicus, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, etc.) and Louis Heyward.

The plot deals with 2 spacecrafts , The Argos and the Galliot, that are getting distress signals from the planet Aura. The Argos is forced to land on the planet after the sister ship crash lands. Upon landing the crew of the Argos unexpectedly starts trying to kill each other. The Captain seemly impervious to the madness and stops them. Unfortunately the crew of the Galliot were not so lucky and have killed themselves. As the crew explore the planet they find the dead crew members of the sister ship and bury them. There seems to be no signs of like on the planet. They find more dead crew members trapped on the ship. When they come back to get them them they are gone.

One of the most intriguing scenes is when the captain (Barry Sullivan, The Bad and The Beautiful, The Great Gatsby) explores the planet and comes across a giant spaceship with the skeleton of a giant alien lifeform inside. The similarity to this scene and the movie Alien is probably not coincidental. Dan O'Bannon the writer has said as much. 

Mario Bava the director, was a master of cinematic trickery done in camera and using mirrors, fog and colorful lighting he was able to achieve miracles with usually no budget. He was the director, cameraman, and SFX guy all rolled in one. He worked with a low budget on most of his films from Black Sunday all the way through Lisa and the Devil and Bay Of Blood (which is the prototype for the Friday the 13^th movies) one of his his last features. Bava primarily a cinematographer for the early part of his career co-directed what is thought to be the first Italian horror movie I Vampiri after the original director Riccardo Freda quit halfway through the production. He also handled the camera work and special effects for the the 1957 Steve Reeves classic “Hercules. and co-directed The Day The Sky Exploded the first italian Sci-Fi movie.” 

As with most european genre films of the 60's the pacing is a bit slow at times but the dubbing by AIP is actually quite good. You might recognize a few of the voices in the cast from other dubbed foreign films and cartoons of the era.

MGM released Planet as one of their great Midnight Movies collection a few years ago. With a nice widescreen 35 MM print the movie looks superb. The only extra on the disk is the original trailer. Planet of the Vampires is now out of print but it can be found on-line at very reasonable prices. It is also on Netflix VOD. 

Black Sunday, Lisa and the Devil and Hatchet for a honeymoon are the only Bava films to have been released on remastered BluRay so far. Hopefully Planet of the Vampires will be next.

If you are interested in the movies of Mario Bava I recommend watching Black Sunday or Black Sabbath first, they are his “classic” films but Planet of the Vampires is also one of his best and well worth watching.

Mister X 

Brad Grinter Double Feature

In the hierarchy of infamy for directors of bad, low-budget schlock films, Ed Wood is surely at the pinnacle. But if it were a competition then Miami’s own writer/director, Brad F. Grinter would most certainly give  ol Ed a run for his money. 

Before proceeding, I must confess that part of my attraction to these movies stem from a peculiar phenomena that’s similar to déjà vu. It happens when you are watching a film or TV show and it’s set in a location that you have personally been to. It takes you out of the movie for a moment and gives you a buzz of recognition, your mind saying “Hey! I’ve been there!”. Even if I don’t know the specific locale, simply the architecture and general landscape of scenes shot on South Florida locations provide me with a sweet sense of nostalgia. I have coined the term “Miamisploitation” for flicks which supply these thrills and I have quite a fetish for them. 

1970’s “Devil Rider” (aka “Master’s Revenge”) is a biker movie that concerns the disappearance of a teenaged girl. Her parents hire a private investigator to find her and bring her home. Their anxiety is exacerbated by the fact that her older sister ran away at roughly the same age, never to return. The viewer knows that she had an argument with her older boyfriend, a karate instructor, and that she took off to the beach to pout, While there she meets a biker who offers her a chance to relax by way of a nice ride. Soon though, she is a virtual prisoner of he and his gang. The PI finds the girl’s sister who had fallen into becoming an alcoholic hooker in downtown Miami. She provides him with a clue that sends him to look for her with the cycle gang. Meanwhile the missing girl’s beau also catches wind of her involvement with the bikers, leading to a karate versus street fight finale. 

Okay that synopsis doesn’t portend anything extraordinarily bad but it’s Grinter’s crap-stained gifts that elevate it into terribleness. Grinter writes the most cliché-ridden, faux-hip dialog you that you can ever imagine. Seriously it would make Jack Kirby blush with envy. The interior sets are uniformly piss-poor but their 70’s vintage appearance adds a cool nostalgic vibe that the filmmaker could never have envisioned. The acting (as such) falls into two schools; wooden or hammy. The “Miamisploitation” comes on strong with scenes filmed at Greynolds Park, an old hangout of mine and a fantastic cycle ride on Sunny Isles Boulevard with the distinctive orange roofs on the Castaways complex in the background. My biggest thrill though, occurred about 20 minutes in when I realized that I had caught this very movie at the Drive-In, back in the day! 

Okay I’ll flash a spoiler warning for you before discussing “Flesh Feast”. This is Grinter’s 1970 horror flick and is notable as one of the last films to star one-time sexpot Veronica Lake. Lake portrays a doctor who is conducting secret, illegal procedures at her mansion on Miami’s Star Island. She has learned of and developed a byproduct from specially bred insects who when devouring corpses produce an agent that restores youth and vitality. Although you might suspect it, her skills are not being supported by the elderly, youth obsessed rich of Miami Beach but instead by a clandestine group of right-wingers and South American strong men. They want her to use it on their aging, secret leader. Of course the leader is Adolph Hitler and after strapping him to the table, she infuses him with the bugs. The critters then begin to provide the devil with a horrible, agonizing demise while the doc reveals herself to be a Jew whose mother was exterminated in the camps. 

 

The movie shows off a few more of Grinter’s special “talents”. One is a thoroughly lackluster scope of imagination in choosing his camera set ups. No thoughtful camera angles here, nope, just put the actors in frame and shoot. If your players have more than one scene on the same set, no need to revise the lenses POV, at least that seems to be his philosophy. Another gift is his use extraneous plot points and characters for the goal of exposition, There is a subplot about a reporter seeing one of the characters arrive at the airport and then later investigating the doctor, that doesn’t really serve much of a purpose at all. I will throw him a bone him in two areas. With Ms. Lake on board we had a least one decent actor in the cast. Plus the special effects of the bugs crawling inside Hitler’s face were pretty well done. 
 

The “Miamisploitation” elements aren’t quite as resonant in “Flesh Feast” as in “Devil Rider”. There’s a nice shot on the expressway leading away from the airport that was very familiar to me, as I traveled this section of highway an awful lot. Weirder still was the bank of phone booths at Miami International. I had a job that put me in their vicinity on a nightly basis and it was kinda like seeing old friends.

Pat Hilger

Turkish Star Trek

The King Of WTF

I have a behavior which actually dumbfounds my daughter. I will willingly watch foreign language films, in their native tongues and without subtitles. I see it as a kind of puzzle that I challenge myself to make sense of. I have watched pictures in Spanish, French, Hindi, Japanese and Chinese this way before. For this posting I’ll add Turkish to that select list.

The movie I watched was part of a comedy film series featuring a character called ‘Turist Omer’. He is a hobo/vagabond near-do-well that looks vaguely like the old country/western star Boxcar Willie and who acts very similar to Benny Hill. The movie I caught was a 1973 series entry called ‘Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda’. The reason I cite it as the king of WTF is that the filmmakers blended it together with he US TV series, ‘Star Trek’.

The film opens with pirated footage of the ST opening, but run through a red filter. It uses then the

official ST theme music for a bit, before cutting into a surf instrumental (the name of which escapes me). After the opening we cut to a low budget replication of the Enterprise bridge and encounter the crew. Mind you that this is not simply a pastiche of the ST crew, but in the only English in the movie the characters are called by the correct names. You have Mr. Spock, Capt. Kirk (at times Jim), Dr. McCoy, Scotty and Uhuru. The special effects are absurdly primitive. For example, to achieve the transporter effect they push the picture in and out of focus, while painting white dots on the figures. I do give the makers credit for doing a good job on the uniforms but they missed the point that color denotes rank, so Kirk and Spock both wear identical yellow garb.

The movie then charts a course riffing on two famous episodes of the series. You have ‘The Man Trap’ featuring the shape shifting alien vampire who steals salt from it’s host and briefly with ‘Amok Time’, where Spock battles Kirk in a mating ritual. As the away team investigates an issue on the surface of some planet we are introduced to a scientist with a secret agenda and he surreptitiously engages his own transporter system…

Cut to 1973 rural Turkey where Turist Omar is in a bind. We see a period automobile drive to a house and like some sort of clown-car, a large group then emerges. We see Turist, a very pregnant bride and her gaggle of gun-toting relatives. As they sit around a table, our sad-sack hero glances to the heavens praying for rescue. Suddenly he disappears into thin air, only to find himself on the planet surface, mentioned previously. Incredibly he is not thrown into a state of shock or a panic, but instead starts messing with a group of leopard skin clad robots.

The bulk of the film weaves a recreation of the aforementioned ST episodes with bouts of OT reeking mischief on the Enterprise. It seems he is compelled screw around with every button or device he sees. He is also particularly skilled at making an ass out of Spock.

The plot continues in this approach and ends in a similar manner to ‘The Man Trap’, but with a coda. Turist makes peace with his new buddies on the ship and is taken to the transporter. Seconds later he finds himself back at the wedding table, essentially at the same moment he had left. Back into the old predicament he again casts his eyes skyward, begging relief. His request is answered when he is transformed into a pointy-eared Vulcan. He escapes by using the ‘Vulcan-grip’ on the wedding party and knocking them unconscious.

If this holds your interest at all, you can sample bits of it on Youtube using ‘turkish star trek’ as your search criteria. 

Pat Hilger

More Steele

BLY Sent this Cool Painting Of

Barbara Steele From Black Sunday. 

 Great Job dude!!! 

Bob Powell

Bob Powell (1916-1967) was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1930's "Golden Age Of Comic Books" through the 1960's.

After studying art at Pratt Institute, Powell, like many comics artists in the late 1930's, found work at the Eisner & Iger Studios one of the most prominent "packagers" who supplied complete comic books to publishers. As part of the studio, Powell drew many of the earliest adventures of the jungle-queen Sheena in Jumbo Comics. Later, after Will Eisner split off to form his own studio in an arrangement with Quality publisher Everett “Busy” Arnold he brought Powell, Nick Cardy and Lou Fine with him.

Powell's work in the 1950's included features and covers for Street and Smith's Shadow Comics, Magazine Enterprises Bobby Bensons Bar B Que Riders and and all four issues of that publisher's Strong Man; and, for Harvey Comics many war, romance, and horror stories, as well as work for the comics Man in Black, Adventures in 3-D and True 3-D.

In 1961, Powell became art director for Sick magazine working there until his death. On a freelance basis, he worked on Topp's 1962 Mars Atacks trading cards, doing the final pencil art based on early pencils roughs by Wally Wood, Norman Saunders then did the final painted art. During the 1960's Powell drew a handful of stories featuring the Daredevil, Giant-Man, the Hulk and the Human Torch for Marvel Comics.

For You Blue

A Let It Be Outtake

From The Fab Four 

Edwige Fenech

WOW She Still Look Great!
Edwige starred in countless Italian thrillers, comedies and dramas in the 70's and 80's Including: Strip Nude For Your Killer, The Case Of The Bloody Iris, The Seducers, The Strange Case Of Mrs. Wardh
and Phantom Of Death.

A Very Cool Video By Persian Claws

Featuring Edwige Below!

Thanks To Don!

Spys And Bad Guys

Spysploitation’. In the wake of the huge success of the James Bond films came a flood of lesser efforts featuring secret agents. I have become quite enamored with the ilk over the past year.

“Murderers’ Row”. This is one in the Matt Helm series, starring Dean Martin. If James Bond can be seen as the father of the Austin Powers movies, then Helm is most certainly his lecherous uncle. Dino simply plays up the drunken, middle-aged, hipster persona that he’d cultivated in the 60’s. The dialog if filled with Martin’s trademark double entendres and watching him in action now seems a lot more creepy that it did back then. MR co-stars 60’s sex kitten Ann Margaret and Karl Maldon. It’s the only one of the series I’ve taken in so far, so I can’t rank it. The Helm films emphasize the comedy elements over the plot so I don’t feel the need to recap it here. It is exactly what I expected it to be… no more no less.

I also took in a 1968 Italian one called ‘The Killer Likes Candy’. Like so many Euro exploitation movies of the period, it features an American star. In this case it’s Kerwin Matthews, who you’ll know from his role as the good captain in ‘The 7th Voyage of Sinbad’. In all honesty this is really more of a giallo (murder mystery) than a spy flick. The plot does feature the heroes as secret service agents but it has very little in the way of the more typical spy-flick trappings such as gadgets and world domination. All in all a pretty solid giallo, if a bit unremarkable.

The popularity of spyploitation began to diminish by the late 60’s, but that didn’t stop an occasional foray into the genre in the 70’s. Which brings us to Ted V. Mikels’ 1973 movie ‘The Doll Squad’. It is a pronouncedly low-budget affair, but one made in America. A former US spy has become corrupted and sets his sights on world conquest. To counter his threat the government calls in it’s special, all female, secret agents; the Doll Squad. It’s a fairly pedestrian affair. The actresses’ making up the Doll Squad were to my sensibilities only average looking and hardly the femme fatales the title suggests. I do give Mikels credit though for a concept that would become huge a few years later with ‘Charlie’s Angels’.

The final spyploitation film I’ll report on was a total and genuine surprise. It exists under two different titles; ‘Mission Top Secret’ and ‘Matchless’. It’s an Italian product that stars Patrick O’Neal and Donald Plessence. The movie opens with our hero being tortured on a whirling device by the Red Chinese. They demand to know who he is spying for and won’t believe the truth. He is in fact Perry Liston, a Korean War vet turned journalist. After the session he is returned to his cell, which he shares with a real spy (Henry Silva) and a elderly dying Chinese man. Perry shows the old man some kindness in his dying moments and eder bequeaths him a ring. When pressed it will turn the wearer invisible for 20 minutes. The caveat though is that it cannot be reactivated for 10 hours. Of course Liston uses it to escape and is helped a beautiful Chinese woman (in reality a US spy) to flee the country. These events lead him into helping the US Government in an unrelated secret mission.

The things I admired in the movie were first off, a higher quality of acting than I usually find in such fare. The casting was treat as it’s always great to see champion-heavy Silva in an evil role. But we also get the actor (whose name escapes me) who played Boss Hogg in the Dukes of Hazzard. Across the board the women are very sexy, putting the gals of ‘the Doll Squad’ to shame. But must of all I enjoyed the humor. Typically the laughs in a spy flick are very broad and often slapstick. The comedy in this plays a bit smarter, is often satirical and is sophisticated. In this regard it has more in common with ‘Dr. Strangelove’ than Matt Helm. I found “Matchless’ to be very clever and I enjoyed it more than any of these four. 

"Baddiesploitation". In 1960’s Europe there were a spate of movies that featured villains as their title characters. Often times they had roots in Euro-Comic Books. So I’ll talk about a quartet of this type. 

To begin with there is a1966 Italian flick entitled ‘Seven Golden Men Strike Again’. Unlike the rest in my post, this one has no ties to comics (to my knowledge anyway). The title characters are a band specialist criminals headed up by “the Professor”. He uses his brains to come up with intricate plans and with exceptional technology. Imagine the Impossible Mission Force as bad guys and you’re on the right track. The movie begins in the midst of a daring bank robbery which seems to be running quite smoothly. However the team (less 2 members) is caught just before they can abscond with the haul. They are interrogated by panel of international law enforcement, but won’t rat out the other team members. But surprisingly the session is interrupted by the missing pair; the professor and the femme fatale teammate. A negotiation begins and the elite band of super-criminals is hired by the US Government to kidnap a Caribbean dictator (clearly based on Castro). During the mission they also work on a side plot to steal 700 million dollars in gold. The movie includes lots of comedy and a fair share of red herrings. I found it to be very amusing and entertaining. BTW, I have no idea as to why the team is called ‘the Seven Golden Men’.

Next we move onto a 1967 French production called ‘Fantomas’, that is based on a comicstrip. Fantomas is a bizarre looking, evil genius that desires to rule the world. You recall the Frank Frazetta cover to Famous Funnies #210? The pointy-eared menaces in that will give an idea about the look of our title character. The production values on this one are very lush and impressive. It’s a pity that it’s so very heavy on the laughs. One of the main characters is a buffoon of a French Chief Police Inspector that makes Inspecter Clouseau look subtle. Of the baddiesploitaton films here, I rank it as the weakest. 

 Back to Italy we have a 1967 movie titled ‘Kriminal”. This too is based on an Italian comic. The masked super-thief called Kriminal, escapes the hangman and sets upon the theft of a fortune in diamonds. Having never read any of the comics, I don’t know how it compares to the source material. As a film though the costume element is pretty unnecessary and the movie would work very well as a thriller and caper movie without it. The production value is no where near that of ‘Fantomas’ but it reminds me to point out something. In viewing the baddiesploitaton and spyploitain movies from Europe and then comparing them to US made product they have a distinct advantage. The Euro films can feature dazzling locale shots that make many American productions look weak. 

My last baddiesploitaton account is one that I believe legitimately borders on an art film. I refer to ‘Danger: Diabolik” as filmed by Mario Bava in 1968. In this exceedingly stylish film, the British Government goes all out to capture the costumed super-criminal called Diabolik. It goes so far as to team up with the mafia to brink his downfall. The production value on this one dwarves ‘Fantomas’ and the shots that Bava chooses are extraordinarily thought out. It’s sad in a way that of all of the pics mentioned here, that it is the one that you’ll have most likely encountered. That is because it was lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000. While I enjoy that series as a whole, I disagree with the choice to ridicule this film. I suppose the MST3K didn’t see it in the same light as I did. Of all the films in this post, this gets my highest recommendation. 

Pat Hilger

More Matt Baker

 

Matt Baker has become one of my all time Favorite artists and here are some examples why.

The Palm Springs Theater

The Palm Spring Theater in Hialeah. My great local Movie Palace. Saw many a great flick there: Frankenstein Conquers the World, Tarzan and The Valley Of Gold. The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Live and Let Die, The House That Screamed, A Fistfull of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, Hang Em' High

just to name a few. Gone but not forgotten!

One Order Of Tandori Dracula Please!

I’ll go on the record to say that when it comes to watching horror films, I’m a vampire man. The subject often combines themes of faith, carnality, elegance, and romance and can give opportunity for the tale to go in a number of different directions. In particular, I’m jazzed to see them through the eyes of cultures, which I don’t typically associate with vampires. The Korean film “Thirst” and the Swedish movie “Let The Right One In” come to mind. But I really never expected to experience such a film from India, yet I have recently done so by catching the Ramsay brothers 1990 feature “Bandh Darwaza”

While I have a fascination for Asian cinema in general the works from India are relatively underrepresented in my personal collection. Indian cinema has a number of distinct traditions that can come off as little bizarre to folks used to a strictly American diet. From the motion pictures I have viewed they use a conception of romance, which is very much in tune with the naïve 50’s era idea propagated by Hollywood. Another issue is India’s love for musicals. In their native land one or two musical numbers simply seem to be expected during the course of a film, no matter what the main subject matter might be. I think back to watching “Satya”, a rough almost Scorsese-esque gangster film that included several. Comedy is routinely inserted and mostly it is a very broad kind. Oh, and the Indians DO love to park their butts in the theater seats for large chunks of time and often the flicks clock in at 2-1/2 hours plus. All of these traits are part of

“Bandh Darwaza”

The movie opens with the longest, pre-title sequence that I’ve ever seen. I don’t doubt that it’s every bit of 20 minutes long. We see a pious, married couple that has been trying to conceive for the entire 5 years of their marriage, but to no avail. The wife, Lajo, has fears that her man might divorce her and take up with a new, more fertile mate. This angst plays into the hand of one of her servants, who is part of a satanic sect who worships a vampire. The maid promises her mistress that her dark lord has the power to make her infertile womb with child. But there will be a cost. If her offspring is a male, then she and her husband may consider it the demon’s gift with no strings attached. If on the other hand, it’s a girl child, the babe must be relinquished to the vampire’s attending coven. She agrees to the bargain and then of course gives birth to a daughter. She expected that her husband might be dissatisfied with a girl, but in fact he is overjoyed by her and filled with paternal love. Lajo goes back on her promise to the sinister enclave but before long both she and the child, Kaamya are abducted. The husband finds out where they are and goes to rescue them. He arrives too late for his wife to be sparred, but does get Kaamya and ostensibly kills Neola, the vampire, by shooting him.

After the titles are over, we are in present times, 18 years after those traumatic events. Kaamya’s father has never remarried but has nurtured her into a beautiful young woman. Kaamya has her eyes on Kumar, her father’s young factory manager and her long-time friend. But Kumar is already engaged to Sapna, the brother of his best friend and co-worker.

Sapna is away at college in Bombay, but is returning for a visit home. On the way she encounters an unusual woman who flags her down. Claiming to have had car trouble, she asks Sapna to give her a lift to an appointment which is now late for. Rather than some office or home, the odd woman has Sapna drive her to the ruins of an old temple. After the stranger leaves the car, Sapna realizes that her passenger has left a book on the seat. She goes into the temple to return it and witnesses a blood ritual where the woman has been sacrificed and where Neola is returned to life.

These events set up the issues making up the balance of the film. These are the love triangle between Kaamya, Kumar and Sapna; the reemergence of Neola and his cult and the cult’s desire to take back the child they feel was stolen from them.

The 6’7” actor Anirudh Agarwal, who specialized in playing sinister and demonic characters, imposingly portrays Neola. The Neola character uses an interpretation of the vampire mythos used that made me do a double take. All the other characters wear garb that is appropriate for the period and the locale. Yet the vampire wears the stereotypical cape and formal wear established by Lugosi’s 1931 “Dracula”. Plus the actor is a very dark skinned man and I just couldn’t help from thinking of Blacula.

There was another reading of the vampire mythology though, that I found it very satisfying. I wondered how the people in a majority non-Christian culture might be able to weld the same power that the crucifix has in Christian tradition? Initially it’s through a religious Hindu symbol, which to my culturally ignorant eyes looks a bit like the number 30. I’ve corrected my lack of knowledge and have found that is the Aum. But later on in the film, we see a crucifix and a Koran deflect the vampire as well, so it appears that any righteous emblem sickens a vampire, no matter the specific sect that it stems from. The inherent aura of goodness is enough to do the trick.

Bandh Darwaza is relatively lean on the musical numbers and they are there primarily to support the anguished romantic threads. So the pure horror buff does not have to ‘suffer’ for very long with this component.

In pure cinematic terms, Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay provide the viewer with a first rate production. In particular I’ll cite their art department for the tremendously creepy bat sculpture.

I found “Bandh Darwaza” to be a worthy addition to my library of the undead.

Pat Hilger

The Phantom Lady Vs The Walking Dead

Art By The Great Matt Baker

Clarence Matthew Baker 
(December 10, 1921 – August 11, 1959)

was an American comic book artist best known for the costumed crimefighter Phantom Lady. Baker was active as early as the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age of comic books. He also penciled an early form of graphic novel, St. John Publications’ digest-sized “picture novel” It Rhymes with Lust (1950). His specialty was good girl art, a comics and cartooning subgenre. Baker was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009. He was also one of the first african-american artists working in comic books.

Frozen Dead...That's What I Said

I've always enjoyed the mad-scientist/reanimated/decapitated head movies. From the Brain That Wouldn't Die, The Head, Beast of Blood all the way through Re-Animator I love them all. I still remember as a child seeing the floating disembodied head of the local Nightmare Theater horror show on television by accident. That 30 second clip had me running out of the living room in fear. From that point on I forbade my parents from watching channel 10 when I was around. Now of course I would kill to see a video of that long lost promo which was probably never saved on videotape. 

 
One of the creepier films in the this genre is “The Frozen Dead”. An early entry into the Nazisplotation genre along with She Demons, The Flesh Eaters, Flesh Feast and They Saved Hitlers Brain. This story concerns a german scientist Dr. Norberg played by Dana Andrews who now resides in England. He is trying to revive some frozen Nazi elite in order to attempt to help create a new Fourth Reich. 7 soldiers have been thawed-out but they seem to be mentally defective. They wake from their suspended animation focused on a single memory. If the experiments were successful though 1,500 more loyal Nazi's would be thawed out as well. 

After many experiments Dr. Norberg is weary of all his failures. His assistant Karl though has been lying to the Neo-Nazi big shots and has been claiming Dr, Norberg is successful in his experiments. The Nazi bosses show up at his mansion for an impromptu demonstration the experiments. At the same time Norberg's niece Jean shows up with her friend Elsa, from America, not knowing about whats going on with her uncle.

Unfortunately for Elsa she becomes a victim of Karl's deviousness when he strangles her but blames it on prisoner #3 (Edward Fox). This gives Norberg a human head in order to proceed with his ghoulish brain experiments.

Elsa's decapitated head is placed in box and revived with oxygen tubes and nutrients quite like The Brain That Wouldn't Die. The top of Elsa's head is removed as well and she has turned a not quite flattering blue color! Kathleen Breck plays Elsa and her scenes are quite nightmarish and also quite sad and touching as well. At the end of the movie all her sad creepy face can say to the camera is...bury me...bury me.

I remember watching this on a late late show in the 70's and was quite impressed by some of the weirder scenes. I believe first time we see Elsa's creepy decapitated head is when she show up in her friend Jean's dream/nightmare. This scene caught me by surprise at first viewing and is quite effective. Also quite effective are the strange distorted keyboard "sting's" that make Elsa's brief appearances much creepier. As in “The Brain That Wouldn't Die”, Elsa has telepathic powers. She can control the soldiers as well as the freaky wall of arms Dr. Norberg has in his laboratory leading to a very strange/effective/bizarre climax that rivals an old 50's horror comic book.
 
Dana Andrews (Dr. Norberg) made some classic movies in the 40's such as Laura and The Ox-Bow Incident. Like a lot of A-actors from the past (Broderick Crawford, Ray Milland, Caesar Romero, Barry Sullivan) he went on to make quite a few b-movies in the 60's like Hot Rods to Hell, Spy In Your Eye, The Satan Bug and Crack in the World.

Edward Fox who plays prisoner #3 went on to have a very respected acting career. Fox was also in The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner, Force 10 From Navarone, The Day Of The Jackal and A Bridge Too Far.

Anna Palk (Jean Norberg) was also in: Tower of Evil, The Skull, The Earth Dies Screaming and The Nightcomers. She was also in Fahrenheit 451.

Kathleen Breck (Elsa) was mostly on british television programs. The Prisoner, Danger Man, Spaceflight IC-1: An Adventure in Space and The Film West-11 are among her performances.

According to IMDB theatrical prints were in Black & White but all the TV prints I have seen are in color.

The Frozen Dead falls in the 'Creature Feature” category of movie which would probably be made as a spoof these days. These films were usually shown late Friday and Saturday nights or on Saturday afternoons as part of a Horror/Sci-fi package of films for young “Monsterkids” like me and many others to enjoy. This movie is really just as unbelievable as the George Romero “Living Dead” movies or even “The Walking Dead” one of the most popular TV shows right now, but I guess the Zombie Apocalypse trumps Frozen Dead Nazi's in these times!

A later example of Nazisploitation is 1977's Shock Waves starring the great Peter Cushing. Cushing is a Nazi scientist who had created a race of secret zombie storm troopers during WW2. Never captured they have survived somewhere off the coast of Florida. John Carradine, Brooke Adams and Luke Halpern of Flipper co-star. 

Now Shock Waves did get a nice DVD release by Blue Underground in 2003 but the Frozen Dead still sits “frozen” in Warner Brother Archives movie vaults waiting to be thawed out and released in a nice professional copy.

You can see the Frozen Dead on youtube though. Check it out it's required viewing for Monsterkids of all ages.

Mister X

Sunshine Schlock

 In the hierarchy of infamy for directors of bad, low-budget schlock films, Ed Wood and Herschel Gordon Lewis are surely at the pinnacle. But for my money there is another, much less known contender for the “honor”. This would be Miami writer/director, Brad F. Grinter. If it were a bad movie competition then Grinter would most certainly give Ed and Herschel a run for their money. Grinter only made a handful of films, including “Devil Rider” and “Flesh Feast”. But his Magnum Opus surely has to be 1972’s “Blood Freak”.

The film opens with a Grinter himself as a narrator sitting on a couch and spouting some quasi-philosophical banter about change and fate. Brad looks like an aging hipster, dressed very groovy but with graying temples and smoking like a chimney. It only adds to the proceedings that his phrasing and delivery is just like that of William Shatner’s. This cuts to our protagonist Hershel who is riding down Florida’s Turnpike when he spies a pretty girl having car trouble. Her name is Angel and after he helps her, the pair goes to a party. Her sister Ann is hosting, but the affair is taking place at the home the sister’s share. Angel is a Jesus Freak while Ann is a hippie, party girl who is very into the drug scene. Dope and free love are in the air, with only Angel and Hershel abstaining. More than one hot chick tries to entice Hershel but he declines. Angel then tries to inject the Bible into the proceedings, which the partygoers deem a buzz-kill. So Angel and Hershel split to go “rap” with another Christian friend of Angel’s. He owns a poultry ranch where he raises turkeys and during the rap session, Hershel confesses that he is presently unemployed. Impressed with the young man, his new friend immediately hires him for the ranch.

Meanwhile Ann is bummed out that Hershel has rebuffed her sexual advances and seeks help from her dealer, Guy. Guy gives her a powerful drug that he says will mellow Hershel out. The next day Ann again tries to seduce Hershel and once again he resists. But when she calls him out as being chicken, he agrees to try a smoke. Before very long both are high and they soon go to bed. During the evening of passion they fall in love for one another.

The next day Hershel goes out to the ranch where he will be a general hand. There are two chemists on site and they offer him a scheme to make some extra money. They have been tasked to give the turkeys drugs to enhance their size and FDA protocol demands that the meat must be tested by human consumption. Volunteering to be a test subject would mean more bread in Hershel’s pocket. He agrees to the deal and they tell him to bring his appetite the next morning.

When he gets back to the sisters home, he starts to go into violent withdrawal. The smoked narcotic that he imbibed the day before is more insidious than crack and it has hooked him from just one use. Guy is called in to give him more but when he implies that Hershel will have to start paying, he’s given a counteroffer. Keep the drugs coming and Hershel will refrain from beating the living shit out of him.

The next morning, Hershel ingests the turkey meat and by noon he is writhing on the ground in the midst of a seizure. The lab guys figure that he’ll die so they take him to a nearby field and dump him. He awakens that night but he’s changed. Returning to Ann’s house she is shocked to discover that his head has been transformed into that of a turkey’s!

Incredibly, Ann & Angel remain supportive and try to figure out ways to help him. The least of these aids is getting him the drugs he’s addicted to. What the girls haven’t found out yet though is that the transformation has unleashed a blood lust within him. At night he captures people, hangs them by their heels and then cuts their throats. Then he drinks the pooled blood.

After a series of such murders, we eventually cut to Hershel lying in the bushes appearing normal. It turns out that the turkey head sequences were all just a drug-fueled hallucination. The girls then help Hershel in getting aid for beating his addiction and the movie ends with the lovers kissing on the pier by the Newport Hotel.

Besides just the crazy-shit storyline, there are other factors that up the bizzaro ante. Hershel is played by actor Steve Hawkes and it appears that he has a serious case of Elvis worship. Steve has the general build of the King of RnR and that’s accented by Presley’s distinctive coiffure. In “Blood Freak” Hawkes seems to be playing Hershel as played by Elvis. Hawkes also comes off as an egotist. He was the co-producer of the movie, along with Grinter and the full frame “STARRING STEVE HAWKES” appears not once but twice during the opening credits.

Two sections made me believe that Grinter was either short on film or that he hated retakes. There is a sequence where Ann is talking on the phone. I assume the script must have read something like “No I must see you, I can’t talk over the phone. Come over now”. What the actress recites is “No I can’t see you over the phone. Come over now” What were there no video phones in 1972? The other is the last sequence, featuring Grinter as narrator. He’s delivering his climactic lines and he begins a coughing jag, barely getting out his lines. AND IT’S IN THE FUCKING MOVIE. Jeez, I can only wonder if he had actually puked, if he’d have used that too.

Pat Hilger