| Bad Bad Movies Part One |
| There are bad movies and then there are bad bad movies.Movies so bad they stay with you like a nasty burrito stuck in your colon.You know you shouldn't watch but you paid good money and by golly you're going to see it through!Usually, once IS enough.Some of these are fun but the others....... |
| RING OF TERROR (1962) This film wasn't released until 1962.My guess it was shot no later than 1957 and sat on the shelf for years.Too bad it didn't stay there.I suffered through this one.This used to play a lot on late night tv in Detroit.Glad I didn't stay up late to see it. The film centers on a fraternity hazing ritual played on medical students.One student who is seemingly without fear has to remove a ring off of a corpse in a mausoleum.Oooh dat's scarreeey!Next up, teasing the vicious poodle with a cookie! There are no scares and no real laughs to this flick. What you do have: 1)A band that plays in the school cafeteria called "The Campus Cool Cats".Really.Hep daddio! 2)The worlds oldest college students.Most of them looked like they're attending on the GI bill from WW II.Maybe WW I. 3)The lamest rubber snake you'll ever see in somebody's car. 4)Some idiotic cemetary caretaker and his snivelling little cat Puma who introduce the film.It is padding an extra five minutes onto the film as he chases the cat all over the cemetary.Kept wishing they both would fall in an open grave and break something vital like a neck or spine. If you have guests or in laws over that can't take the hint to leave, slap this in the vcr and watch them run screaming off into the night. TERROR IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE (1958) This stinker was filmed in "Psychorama" which means there were subliminal "messages" in it.They were images flashed too fast for the eye to see like skulls,bats etc to make you scared.Supposedly the government banned this film for 26 years as a result of this process.Yeah, right.(This movie sat in a vault somewhere because it was so freaking bad).Johnny Legend "restored" those images and you can see them for a split second on the screen.They are ludicrous.Pictures of your Grandma naked are scary, this isn't. What little plot there is revolves around a woman and her nightmares about a rundown house. She and her new husband go to America and guess what house they move into?!Then weird unscary stuff happens and she wonders if she is going out of her mind or is her husband up to no good.It boils down to ax murders and repressed memories.By the time any of this comes forth you'll be pounding your head against the wall to stop the pain. ATTACK OF THE MAYAN MUMMY(1957/1964) In 1957 a neat little movie called The Aztec Mummy was made in Mexico.It was the forerunner of 3 more movies in the Aztec Mummy series.While these weren't classics they were fun to watch. In 1964 hackmaster Jerry Warren bought the US rights to the film Aztec Mummy. He cut out 45 minutes of the original movie.Why he did this is anybody's guess. He replaced the footage with 45 minutes of scientists & newspaper men TALKING!!These "characters" were inserted because they were cheap and saved on having the film dubbed! Try sitting through the first 30 minutes of this agonizing film of truly mind numbing, boring "conversation". Truly cinematic Hell.Your ears will be bleeding and you'll be rolling on the floor in screaming agony.JUST MAKE IT STOP!! To top it off the Mummy gets hit by a Buick and the film ends!Truly, this film sucks. This "cut" is the WORST movie in memory.Avoid this at all cost! |
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| FROM HELL IT CAME (or To Hell With It) (1957) How many monster tree movies can you see in a lifetime?Well I'll go out on a limb and say one.This movie is better watched late at night with the sound off.When I was a kid this was on The Ghoul probably 3 or 4 times a year. On a Pacific Island a young man is sentenced to death for consorting with the "evil Americans".(Seems his loving wife has been sleeping with the witch doctor and they set him up to die so the witch doctor/medicine man can be king).Well he vows to come back and wreak revenge. Before you can shake a stick the goofy natives run to the American scientists' hut screaming"Tabanga come!"It seems the young corpse has done just that as Tabanga, the walking tree monster. Yes his revenge is terrible (and so is this movie).It seems that these natives cannot run from a lumbering tree so he tosses them in quicksand,rolls them down hills etc.Sort of like Kharis in the Universal Mummy movies.Pretty soon the new king wants to trade his woman or kingdom for an axe or a chainsaw. Problems with this movie are numerous. The comedy relief is an obnoxious woman with a Cockney accent (like this movie needs comedy).She's rawther hot to trot and is looking for a "woody".You want her to die screaming.The leading lady is whiny.The leading man is a boorish chauvinistic pig.The acting is wooden (pun intended).The dialogue is stiff and lumbering.The natives have Brooklyn accents.The monster suit is delightful. While this is a bad movie it still is fun to watch.The Professor & Alex(our dogs) would have preferred the tree to be a bit less mobile so they could enjoy full use of it.Or express their opinion directly on it. - |
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