foot in mooth.

Well it's ~New years Eve here (or Hogmanay as the locals cry it) and the weather is absolutely Baltic.

Edinburgh's outdoor Hogmanay events have been shut down due to high winds (and even higher trousers), Glasgow looks like a bombsite (tho' that's just thru neglect rather than the weather) and we're promised about 6 feet of snow tomorrow so we're all wrapped up warm with booze, fags and snacks (and that's just the kids) preparing to usher in 2025 with some classic - and not so classic - movies.

We're starting with this one because

A. It's set in a cold place

and

B. I was waxing lyrical about Nigel Kneale in an actual commissioned piece this week which shows at least someone likes what I write.

Enjoy.

 

The Abominable Snowman (AKA The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, 1957)
Dir: Val Guest.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Maureen Connell, Arnold Marlé, Richard Wattis, Forrest Tucker, Robert Brown and Wolfe Morris.

"They killed him. It was the sound of that howling. He couldn't stand it - it drove him mad."

The corduroy loving academic-type Dr. John Rollason (Cushing) alongside his lusciously librarian-like wife Helen (Connell) and their bespectacled colleague Dr. Peter Fox ( Wattis) have come to Tibet to make a study of the rare medicinal herbs used by the local monks at a remote Buddhist monastery at the foot of The Himalayas.

But Rollason's reason for being there isn't all to do with his plant based potterings as our erstwhile chum has a secret obsession with all things Yeti based.

So to this end he has arranged to meet up with brash American mountaineer cum salesman  Tom Friend (original Ghostbuster and star of The Trollenberg Terror, Tucker) in order to - hopefully- track down and capture the beast, much to his wife's chagrin.

You see he had a bad accident last time he tried climbing (he fell off the roof fixing the Sky dish) and had specifically promised not to do it again.

What a rotter.

Peter farted....and it was an eggy one.

She's not the only one set against the idea tho' as the local lama (Marle) would much prefer Rollason to concentrate all his efforts on his studies of the plants too.

You see the lama is totally convinced that there's no such thing as the Yeti, explaining to Rollason the the legends - and noises - are probably just wolves.

Or maybe rats.

Plus winter is coming meaning that the already treacherous mountains will quickly become unclimbable.

A wee bit like your mum.

Or is that unmountable?

Either way neither of those, it seems, are real words according to my spellchecker.

Neither wistful wife nor knowledgeable Nepalese can sway John tho' and he excitedly joins up with Friend’s party - Edward Shelley (latter day Bond boss M, Brown) and Andrew McNee (Brill) as well as a single native guide Terry Kusang (Morris) - and heads off the very next day.

"Scarf on mah neck!"

 

Although the group man seem small (as in members wise, Tucker is sporting some mighty manbreasts), Friend has planned it with almost military precision, the previous year he ordered a much larger team into the mountains to prepare their base camps in advance and stock them with such supplies as non-perishable food, rifles, first-aid gear, and radios.

In fact everything a Yeti hunting expedition would ever need including a huge sledge to bring the beast home on.

Sorted.

They've no sooner left the monastery tho' than things start to go awry with Rollason soon realising that his plan to merely observe the creatures in their natural habitat has been superseded by Friend's plan to shoot one and bring the body back for exhibition.

Which he really should have asked about before they left if I'm honest.

The situation isn't helped by the fact that NcNee has encountered the beast (or at least heard it) before and is slowly losing his mind at the thought of encountering it again.

Typical bloody Scotsman.

Maureen Connell: Ask your Granddad.

 

As tensions flare and feelings run high the group bicker and bitch as they climb higher and higher but when poor McNee accidentally steps into one of Shelley's patented Yeti-traps and breaks his ankle resulting in much crying and poor old Peter Cushing having to bathe his stinky foot.

But things are about to take a turn to the sinister as that very night a Yeti sneaks into their camp (but not alas their hearts) and starts poking McNee thru' the tent walls.

Grabbing his rifle Shelley lets off a few rounds and kills the beast but not before Kusang has run away back to the monastery, leaving Friend, Shelley and Rollason to drag the bugger back to camp alone.

Upon their return tho' they notice that McNee has gone for a wander, climbing barefoot up a treacherous cliff whilst announcing that he loves big feet - or something - before falling to his death.

Meanwhile back at the monastery, Helen is so worried about her husband that - in the films most erotically charged scenes - she's taken to stomping around in her fluffy PJ's and a pair of big boots whilst shouting at everyone.

Fox, ever helpful suggests that she goes back to bed and get pissed but Helen, being a woman refuses and storms off to see the lama before deciding to blow her entire housekeeping money on hiring all the other sherpa's and mounting a rescue mission.

Girl power eh?

"I can see your house from here Peter!"

This it transpires is probably for the best seeing as by now Rollason, Friend and Shelley are currently being harassed by the dead Yeti's pals and as a combination of cabin fever (not the movie tho' thank fuck) and the lack of oxygen begins to take effect the three men must battle against not only their own fears and prejudices but a mysterious species that appears capable of invading their very minds.....

After hitting the horror big time in 1955 with their cinema-sized adaptation of Nigel Kneale's BBC classic The Quatermass Experiment, Hammer Films looked to repeat its success, first with a sequel in everything but name in X The ~Unknown (Hammer actually wanted it to be a Quatermass movie but Kneale refused permission for the character to be used due to Brian Donlevy's scenery chewing performance) and then with a big screen adaptation of Kneale's Himalayan horror The Creature which had been broadcast two years earlier.

Retaining Peter Cushing from the TV version but pairing him with an American co-star - Forrest Tucker replacing Stanley Baker - due in part to secure co-funding from producer Robert L. Lippert who also held the rights to distribute Hammer's films in the United States, The Abominable Snowman is a low budget slow burn of a picture that's as creepy as it is thoughtful.

"Oh Vic....I've fallen."

Inspired by the then recent reports concerning the mysterious Yeti, fueled in part by Sir Edmund Hillary’s photographs of large footprints while ascending Mt. Everest in 1953 as well as the 1954 Snowman Expedition (sponsored by the Daily Mail of all things), The Abominable Snowman plays against our expectations of a Hammer monster movie by having the titular creature not some blood crazed beast intent on killing everything with a normal shoe size but a creature that is determined to hide from man, waiting patiently to reclaim their world again once the ape-upstarts have destroyed themselves.

Their only acts of aggression against the humans is with a subtle use of telekinesis and telepathy, slowly driving the group mad as broken radios continue to broadcast and dead companions cry from the snowy wastes.

It's themes like this that not only would Kneale revisit but so would Doctor Who especially in its Quatermass inspired series 7, much to the writers mild annoyance.

"Brrrraaaa Shuper Ted! Do you require any scissors sonically sharpening?"

Unfortunately this wasn't what folk were looking for and The Abominable Snowman failed to find an audience at the box office.

But whilst the film is a wee bit of an undiscovered classic it's not all perfect,  Tucker is a wee bit of a set-chewing Shouty Kenneth but with the original being lost who knows if Baker was any subtler, plus the addition of Helen and Fox to the story adds nothing to it except a wee bit of a saucy thrill for any viewers with a 50s secretarial sex-fetish when Connell wanders passed in her fluffy oversized PJs and walking boots.

But just because the film was a wee bit of a flop doesn't make it any less enjoyable plus it's head and shoulders above most of the horror output of the time.

Bizarrely enough tho' we should really be thankful for it's less than stellar box office as its due to its relative failure plus the diminishing returns of Quatermass II the same year that Hammer decided to re-invent their horror output for a rapidly approaching new decade.

For it was later that very year that the company unleashed The Curse of Frankenstein, quickly followed by the horror powerhouse that is Dracula, changing the face of British horror cinema with it's new found focus on blood, boobs and bare flesh forever.

double trouble.

We're still on a wee bit of a vampire fix here in Unwell Towers, gorging ourselves on the very best (or is that very beast?) bloodsucking blockbusters in tribute to Nosferatu.

No idea why tho' as no-one has noticed.

And todays choice?

All I can say is shite movie, vaguely amusing back story.

So prepare yourself dear reader for the truth behind... 

Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971).
Dir: Al Adamson.
Cast: Anthony Eisley, Regina Carrol, Russ Tamblyn, Jim Davis, Angelo Rossitto, Greydon Clark, Anne Morrell, Forrest J Ackerman, John Bloom, Lon Chaney, Jnr, J. Carrol Naish and Zandor Vorkov.

“She used to have fantasies about being a freak…
Two heads, an eye missing, elongated spine.
Anything that was grotesque turned her on.”

Somewhere in California - the Oakmoor Cemetery to be precise - world famous lord of the undead Count Dracula (disguised by the look of things as an almost AIDS thin pedo with pubes for hair and played to almost cardboard perfection by 'Zandor Vorkov' AKA Roger Engel) is busy unearthing the remains of Doctor Frankenstein's monster.

What? You mean to tell me you skipped the part of the book where the creatures remains are secreted to the US to be experimented on?

Surprised to see a black satin clad sex offender digging around in the middle of the night the cemeteries lone security guard (the directors dad) comes to investigate, getting his neck nibbled for his trouble.

Pay attention at this part, as it's the only vaguely vampiric thing Dracula will partake in during the whole movie.

Meanwhile under Brighton pier a fairly foxy girl is nervously feeling her way thru' a fog of what can only be cigarette smoke before being suddenly - and unconvincingly -  attacked by an axe-wielding, alcoholic Lon Chaney, Jr. (who distressingly looks close to death).

The axe cuts short her scream.

And cuts off her head.

We cut too but fear not, for it's only a cinematic phrase meaning the action (well, I say action) is moving to somewhere else.

And that somewhere else is glorious Las Vegas, where glamorous grannie Judith Fontain (director Adamson's wife, the late Carrol, star of Satan's Sadists and official pin-up girl of raunchy rockers The Sleepfarmers) is performing her groovy nite-club act to a packed audience via the wonders of stock footage (well, takes up a couple of minutes running time) before retiring to her dressing room to let the air out of her breasts and check her fan mail.

Alongside the final demands, STD test results and court summonses is a letter from one Sergeant Martin Martin (Dallas star Davis) of the Californian Police Missings Persons Bureau (yup, that's the name on the envelope), informing Judith that her wee sister Jodie has gone missing.

Dracula, up the casino, 1973.....Yesch!

Judith, being a concerned sister and desperate to get the plot moving rushes to California (I'm assuming it's just down the road) in order to help with the police investigation much to the chagrin of the permanently scowling Sgt. Martin.

"Hey lady, the world is a dark place," Martin informs her as he switches off his desk lamp in order to batter the point home "If you have any wool I suggest you get knitting!" he suggests usefully before heading off to beat up some students.

Left to her own devices, our heroine wanders innocently into the dangerous hippie neighbourhood where her sister was last seen.

Entering the famous Hippie Hilton (500 McLaughlin Dr. Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1084, families welcome) Judith tries to ingratiate herself into the whole hippie thing by asking for a coffee whilst showing pictures of her sis to all and sundry but this only succeeds in getting her mistaken for a cop, leaving the owner no alternative but to spike her drink with LSD.

Smart.

Cue much hair tugging, indiscriminate crash zooms and Judith writhing on a platform whilst wearing a white fishnet body stocking to a frantic bongo beat.

Far out.

Luckily she's rescued by nice guy hipster Clive Strange (hard working Clark, best known - to me anyway - for Without Warning) and his mousy girlfriend Samantha (Morrell, you may remember her as the floating harem girl in John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! or maybe not).

Lon Fancies a wee mooth shite-in....are you man enough for the challenge?

Meanwhile at the local chamber of horrors conveniently located on the end of the pier next to the bingo hall, the wheelchair-bound scientist and former member of NWA Dr. Drea (Naish, desperate to pay his medical bills) is busy attempting to perfect a special formula that will enable mankind to live forever and have perfectly coiffured  hair even after a heavy night out.

Unfortunately he can only make this formula by beheading people then bringing them back to life before finally lobotomizing them.

But if it means I only ever have to style my quiff once a month then I'm game.

Aided by urine stained imbecile Groton (that'll be Lon then, poor sod) and professional little person Grazbo (Rossitto famous for everything from Freaks to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome via Galaxina), who've been promised physical and mental superiority once the formula is perfected, this dynamic duo find suitable candidates for experimentation via Grazbo's job at the box office, leaving Groton to chop them up.

"Laugh now!"

After one particularly heavy night of lobotomy-based fun, Dr. Drea is surprised when a strange man steps out of the shadows and demands to talk to him.

Examining the strangers ring (snigger) Drea identifies the visitor as Count Dracula, and Dracula not to be outdone, identifies Drea as the last of the Frankenstein family.

With Drea realizing that his Colonel Sanders disguise is fooling no-one and Drac just relieved that he's finally met someone who doesn't piss themselves laughing whilst looking at him they pair settle down for an excruciatingly bad chat that although meant to fill in an important bit of back story just careers off on bizarre tangents.

None of this is helped by the fact that Dracula appears to have been dubbed by someone standing in a well.

"Ahm sorry hen....ave pished mahsel again!"

Anyway, from what I can gather (after rewatching the movie a few times) is that  Drea was adopted (which is why he's not known as Frankenstein and more importantly why he's considerably less hip than other Def Jam stalwarts) and that his work in monster construction was discredited by three evil doctors, one of which caused the accident that crippled him.

This man whom we shall call simply Dr. Bill Beaumont (because that's his name) added insult to injury by stealing the Frankenstein monster and burying it in the graveyard from the films opening.

Luckily for all concerned the infamous Zornov Comet is rapidly approaching the Earth, heralding the beginning of the monster's second life cycle.

Look I'm just typing what was said.

Meanwhile junked up Judith suddenly wakes up in the bed of aged hippie Mike Howard (Eisely from Knots Landing), a local middle-aged guy who looks after the disenfranchised yoof in the area whilst dressed like a teenage rent boy.

Nope, nothing sinister about that at all.

Taking a shine to Judith (he's obviously bored with failing to score at the school gates so he's decided on someone nearer his own - old - age) the pair begin to discuss Jodie's disappearance, eventually coming to the conclusion that, being disabled Dr. Drea is behind it.

Cue hours of wandering around aimlessly back and forth to the house of horrors exhibit intercut with dozens of unnecessary appearances  by a chubby, pube bearded Russ Tamblyn playing an evil rapist biker named Rico.

Truly the man has no shame.

Or a fucking huge rehab bill.

Heath Ledger farted....and it was an eggy one.

Skipping forward a few chapters (look I'm only human) and finally Judith and Mike (after admitting their love for each other and having a wee kiss and cuddle) have decided to take one last look at Drea's horror show.

Only to make it more interesting they've turned up in the middle of the night.

Wandering around in the 'dark', they pair of wannabe investigators completely fail to see or hear Rico and his pals trying to rape Samantha and also miss Groton's subsequent slaughter of the bad boy bikers but, and give credit where it's due, Mike does manage to hear Groton quietly pull a chain that opens a trapdoor to Drea's lab.

Trying to find the source of the noise, the pair also manage to miss the three hacked to pieces bodies at their feet but do spot a teeny tiny locket belonging to Samantha buried in the sand.

I'll be honest, even I've stopped caring at this point.

"Fiona! Where's mah lunch?"

Drea, lying in wait behind a shady model of a giant monkey catches the pair as they sneak around the exhibits and manages to lure our loved up losers into the dank, dark basement below his lair.

If you could take a minute now to consider the layout of Drea's Chamber of Horrors.

If you've been paying attention you'll remember that it's built on a pier over the beach to give Groton easy access to the sands to kill women.

So how (and more importantly where) does the stone clad gothic basement fit in?

I have to be honest and say that at the time I totally accepted this without question showing the true extent of the films almost supernatural mind numbing powers.


It was only the following day that I realized that the whole thing was complete and utter shame trousered shite from start to finish.

Anyway, Drea explains the plot, Judith finds her naked sister in a big jam jar and Mike, being an all American hero type picks a fight with the dwarf, causing Groton's pet cat to fall down the trapdoor.

I kid you not, cinema hardly ever gets as exciting as this baby.

Tosser.

Much infant school slapping and grimacing ensues culminating with wee Grazbo falling onto an axe giving Judith time to escape to the roof.

Of a factory.

Not a pier.

Mike however is trapped behind some boxes as an ever more excited Drea take potshots at his arse with an air pistol before giving chase in what must be modern cinemas slowest wheelchair versus middle aged man race ever.

All looks lost until Mike in a rare flash of intelligence, hides behind the monkey exhibit and shouts "BOO!" as Drea wheels by causing the scientist to shit himself, the runny consistency of which makes Drea slide off his seat and onto a prop  guillotine exhibit, which decapitates him.

Back on the roof Groton, pulling his best sex face, is closing in on Judith but just as all seems lost who should turn up but Sgt. Martin and Clive Strange back from discovering the three bodies under the pier.

Strange spots Judith running across the roof and Martin, desperate to shoot someone, opens fire on Groton.

"Put it in me!"

Running to the roof to comfort Judith, Mark seems to have forgotten one tiny thing.

The title of the film.

For waiting in the shadows Dracula is plotting a terrible revenge on those who have thwarted his plans.

A revenge that will at some point involve him bitch slapping a potato-faced monster whilst Judith's breasts look on in terror....

"I fang you!"

Where to start when it comes to the late king of exploitation Al Adamson and his work?

Director, producer, actor and writer Adamson directed an impressive (in quantity if not quality) thirty movies between 1961 and 1983 before retiring from films and getting involved in real estate.

Tho' probably not beach-front piers with stone basements.

Back to his movies tho' and whilst Dracula vs. Frankenstein is nowhere near one of his better efforts it does have the most comically convoluted stories behind it's journey to the big screen.

Beginning production in 1968 as The Blood Seekers with much the same plot and cast Adamson was reported as being unhappy with the finished product, feeling it lack a certain something and consequently shelved the entire movie, putting all his efforts into the other seven (!) he had in production at the same time.

Jump forward a few years and Al's producer pal Sam Sherman, is panicking into a bottle of Rum.

It appears that he foolishly signed a contract to deliver a brand new full colour Frankenstein film to the drive-in theatre crowd and, after spending the cash on crisps and fizzy pop has only days in which to find one before he gets his legs broken.

In an attempt to cheer his pal up, Adamson took Sherman to the cinema where the pair found themselves watching Paul Naschy's debut film La Marca del Hombre Lobo (AKA The Mark of The Wolfman) alongside Holiday on The Buses.

It was at this point Sherman hatched a cunning plan.

He would buy the rights to the movie and change the title to The Something of Frankenstein therefore filling his obligation and make a few bob on the side.

Unfortunately tho' Holiday on The Buses was too expensive (Hammer wanted £18.60 for the worldwide rights) to purchase so instead he ended up with Naschy's movie which he quickly retitled Frankenstein's Bloody Terror (despite it not featuring Frankenstein) before releasing it onto an unsuspecting audience.

The plan worked and to celebrate Sherman took Adamson out for a baked potato and a pint of cider and it was during this meal, as Adamson looked down on the cheese melting across his lumpy spud that the director realised what was missing from the Blood Seekers footage.

A monster with a potato for a face.

With a cry of "Eureka!" Adamson jumped from his seat causing the man sitting behind to accidentally spray tomato sauce of his wife's heaving bosom.

Noticing the red liquid dripping seductively down her swan-like (if a little too hairy) neck the film making duo looked at each other before both shouting:

"Dracula!"

And thus a legend was born.

"Wahey Blakey! I'm spunking tenners!"

But who had the gravitas to play such an iconic roll?

And who was brave enough to bring the Count kicking and screaming into the 1970's?

Sherman wanted genre veteran John Carradine, thinking that the actor would bring a noble gravitas to a portrayal of an older, more desperate Dracula, out of time and thrust into the modern world for one last attempt at immortality.

But Adamson had other ideas, he wanted someone young and sexy but more importantly he wanted someone with a beard.

A beard fashioned from pubic hair.

With this in mind he called upon his stockbroker Robert 'pubey' Engel who accepted the part on the spot.

Funnel or tunnel?

Renamed Zandor Vorkov (a partial anagram of scary pubic beard), his voicebox replaced with that of a bass-heavy transistor radio slightly off-tuned to medium wave and his skin bleached with ammonia, Engel's was ready to begin shooting.

All that was left to do now was to find and purchase a really big potato and find someone willing to put it on their head.

This job fell to the massive, slack jawed 7 foot, 4 inch bulkily hulky John Bloom. Known as Johnny 'Horsecock' Bloom to his friends, the actor had already appeared in such greats as The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant and Up Your Alley before Adamson came a calling and he too had unique ideas as to how the infamous monster should be portrayed.


As a club-footed tramp obviously.

And how did it all turn out?

Well I would usually say see for yourselves but frankly I'm not that much of an unfeeling bastard.

If you have already seen it there are groups out there to help you adjust back into normal life life.

And if not?

Just memorize this review and kid on that you saw it.

It's for the best.

love bites.

Still attempting a Nosferatu/vampire themed series of posts in the hope of gaining (any) new readers and seeing as the kids enjoyed the Paul Naschy classic Count Dracula's Great Love yesterday I've been desperately searching for any other vampire movies I own that may be kid friendly.

This one with hindsight, wasn't.

Gayracula (1983).
Dir: Roger Earl (Which I must admit sounds a wee bit like Robert Eggers).
Cast: Tim Kramer, Steve Collins, Rand Remington, Randal Butler, Michael Christopher, Ray Medina, Max Montoya, Doug Weston, Douglas Poston and Davin McNeil.

"You have done me a great service....

now I shall service you!"

Our dark tale of undead bloodlust begins with a group of robed and mysteriously seventies haired monks carrying a coffin thru' the California desert to a fairly inoffensive sub-Jerry Goldsmith Omen-esque score.

So far so so.

Entering a dark, dank cave our hooded pals force open the coffin to reveal a jug-eared young man in his granddad's tuxedo lying within.

As the lead monk Brian attempts to stake him thru' the heart our be-suited chum suddenly opens his eyes and sits upright before metamorphosing into a bat whilst filling the cave with what looks like (Robert) eggy bad-dad gas.

As the monks shriek and scream in terror the bat - via a handy fishing wire and a big stick - flies to the cave entrance before reverting back to it's human form.

Naked apart from a cape, patent leather brogues and socks the monks can only cower in fear at the evil that is Gayracula.

Ladies and gentlemen....
live on stage....5ive!

Jump forward (backwards? sideways?) to the year is 1783  - well according to the dodgy Letraset font superimposed over a kids drawing of a Halloween castle it is - where the fantastically monikered Gaylord Young (The late Tim Kramer of California Jackoff fame), a courier for the legal firm of Crotchley, Bloomfield and Smythe (like it matters) has been dispatched to Transylvania to deliver a family heirloom to the mysteriously mustachioed Mark Shannon alike (and even more fantastically monikered) Marquis de Suede (Collins last seen in Falconhead Part II: The Maneaters).

Being so grateful for the personal touch of delivering the said artifact to his imposing castle by hand, de Suede offers Young a hot meal and a bed for the night.

Oh yes, and also insists on sucking the young man's huge throbbing member as if it were an oversized Chupa Chup before firing his own undead vampiric muck all over Young's lily-white arse and at the point of climax biting him on the neck.

All in gloriously over-lit clinical colour.

Which reminds me, how is your dad?

The year they invented Crayola obviously.

Waking the next morning to a head full of red and an arse like a sugared doughnut, poor Gaylord stumbles over to the mirror to examine his neck only to see not his own reflection but the face of de Suede laughing maniacally at him before the mirror explodes in a shower of sharp pointy shards.

The curse of the vampire has been passed to a new victim.

Gaylord Young, legal eagle is no more.

He has become the king of the undead.

Something less than human but with a cock the size of a newborn baby.

A very muscly new born baby.

With shot putters arms.

Which is a plus point if you think about it.

Your Dads works night out.

Suddenly (and without so much as a warning or even a crudely crayoned flashframe) we're transported to 'modern day' Los Angeles, where Boris the manservant (allegedly some bloke named Rand Remington but frankly I'm convinced is Tom Savini) and Geoff the delivery boy (Christopher last seen in the 1991 erotic thriller Fade In, an undiscovered classic that featured gay half-men, half-spiders who devour their sexual partners after trapping them in webs of sticky cum...seriously) are busy decorating a huge mansion ready for the new owner to move in.

Worn out after carrying a big wooden coffin into the lounge Geoff has to rest for a while but luckily Boris appears to be a trained sports therapist and offers to massage his stiff shoulders.

With his penis.

Obviously.

Geoff, grateful for the help notices that Boris looks uncomfortable sitting on a rough wooden box so, assuming his bottom must be getting a wee bit sore offers to massage that in return.

Boris agrees and the two men indulge themselves in a bout of manly massage.

It was at this point I realised that this may not be, in fact, a 'proper' vampire film.

"Tonight Matthew I'm going to be...
Gary Barlow!"

All this excitement, groaning and testosterone (not to mention the copious amounts of semen dripping into his coffin) is enough to wake Gaylord from his slumber.

Having been asleep for 200 hundred years tho' he's rather peckish and makes short work of poor Geoff's bum draining every speck of blood from his body.

And now Gaylord, rested and fed can begin to explore his new home.

Your dad, working late at the office last night.

And it's whilst taking in the LA sights (as well as taking a few other things in obviously) that Gaylord discovers that the Marquis de Suede is still alive - posing as an agent and running an all male dance troupe in a theatre just off Hollywood Boulevard.

And you guessed it our vampiric chum and the Marquis have some unfinished business to attend to.

Revenge for turning Gaylord into a vampire?

A battle to the death to decide who is the king of the undead?

Or is it that Gaylord just can't get enough of the Marquis' ungodly shaft?

Go on, guess.

"Flames in mah mooth!"

Arriving at rehearsals and given a front row seat - alongside a key to the mysterious 'backroom' - by the Marquis, Gaylord's sex plans are thrown into disarray when he comes across (not literally, well not yet) the young, virginal Gavin (McNeil star of Malibu Days Big Bear Nights), a waiter at the theatre and falls instantly and hopelessly in love with him.

Using his powers of persuasion to entice Gavin to his home the pair make beautiful (well sticky and sweaty) love together and, as Gavin falls asleep in Gaylord's arms, the vampire vows never to suck the young boys blood and to only indulge in rimming on a Tuesday.

Aw, ain't love sweet?

Abstaining from blood drinking tho' leaves Gaylord weakened and stumbling thru' the streets in a daze and it's only thru' sheer luck that he manages across the local bloodbank where, as is usually the way with these things, the hunky doctor is far too busy sodomising one of the (even hunkier) patients to notice our hero draining the blood supply dry.

Returning home Gaylord vows to tell Gavin the truth about his unusual affliction.

But will their love survive?

"Put it in me!"

Three cheers for Roger Earl for producing a vampire movie with all the passion, romance, horror and copious scenes of buggery sadly missing from such big budget offerings as Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Salem's Lot remake, Twilight and the like.

It's micro-budget never once compromises Earl's vision and tho' he may have had to incorporate props and sets left over from the arse end of the seventies (cracked and wobbly disco balls, silver clad dance 'numbers' and a couple of unfortunate mustaches) he stays true to his aim of producing a film that not only delves deep into vampire lore whilst dealing with the universal issues of love and belonging but also manages to feature the most varied and frankly disturbing (and slightly erotic as my nan told me) scenes of fucking, rimming, sucking and cupping I have ever seen.

And for this reason alone I take my hat off to him.

I mean who am I to judge tho?

Your mum watching this film yesterday.

drac attack.

Celebrating the release of Robert Eggers Nosferatu remake with a rewatch of a few of my favourite vampire flicks.

OK that's not quite true - I'm featuring vampires in a vain attempt to get some new readers off the back of it.

 
Count Dracula's Great Love (AKA El gran amor del Conde Dracula, 1973).
Dir: Javier Aguirre.
Cast: Paul Naschy, Rosanna Yanni, Haydée Politoff, Mirta Miller, Ingrid Garbo and Víc Winner.

"The only thing you can think of is men. You'd sleep with a broom if it had pants!"

It's a cold dark night (is there any other kind?) in the backwoods of Transylvania (beautifully portrayed by the forests between the towns of Dénia and Xàbia in the eastern Spanish province of Alicante) Where comedy tramps and general ne'er-do-wells Geoff and Brian are busy delivering a huge wooden crate (that is to be fair not as wooden as either of them) to the local abandoned sanatorium cum creepy castle.

Reckoning that they're not getting paid enough to drag crates around assorted shrubbery at night the pair decide instead to open the crate and steal whatever trinkets are stored inside, unfortunately all it contains is the skeletal remains of a lady in a bad pound shop wig so - being a wee bit depressed at this - the pair excitedly explore the castle in the hope of finding something of value to steal.

Unfortunately for the dodgy duo they're being stalked by an unseen assailant who, after suddenly jumping out of a wardrobe bites Brian (to death) before planting an axe in Geoff's skull.

Which is nice.

Thanks to the wacky world of the shoddy dissolve and even shoddier titles we're quickly off to meet the studly Imre (Winner from Vengeance of the Zombies) who alongside a quintet of lovelies including the cute as a button Karen (the practically perfect Politoff), blonde bombshell (well more like a bombsite really), the seriously severe Senta (Fangs of The Living Dead's Yanni), pouty Elke (Naschy regular Miller) and his secret sexy squeeze Marlene (the terrifyingly chinned Garbo - no not that one - the one that was in that 'saucy' football comedy Las Ibericas FC) is traveling via coach to the nearby town of Cleftplate to take up residency as a professional bassoon player.

Admit it, even a sly tit wank would kill you.

Whilst regaling the laydees with daring tales of pub gigs and life on the festival circuit he realizes that they are about to pass thru' the exact spot in which  Jonathan Harker and Doctor Van Helsing killed Count Dracula and not one to miss a trick - or the chance of a quick glance at a heaving bosom - excitedly tells his companions the areas full gory story.

You see it wasn't only Dracula who caused terror in these parts as a few years after his (un)death a Doctor Terry Kargos bought the sanatorium and opened a men only gym cum sauna which it turns out seemed to be a cover for something a wee bit more sinister.

It appeared that many of the folk there died due to anemia and the doctor was suspected of harvesting their blood and using it in bizarre experiments.

Obviously he was hounded out of town by the locals and the place left abandoned.

Until recently that is when a Doctor Philip Marlow (Naschy channeling Liberace and The Count from Sesame Street via a drunken old uncle) paid a princely sum of £28 for it in order to open a drive-thru' garden centre.

Sounds legit.

"I fang you!"

All this talk of blood and gore spooks the horses causing the coach to lose a wheel and the driver getting kick in the face by a pony, killing him (the driver that is not the horse) instantly, leaving Imre and co. little choice but go to the castle and see if Doctor Marlow is at home.

Luckily he is (it would be a short film if he weren't) and graciously offers the group a cup of tea and a biscuit as well as a bed - or five - for the night.

After a quick snack and a plot-filling chat the group retire to bed (as opposed to retiring to the Costa Del Sol like your granddad) where sometime after midnight - probably - Karen is woken by a spooky noise and goes to investigate where she comes face to face with a now undead Brian who is now a vision of comedy fangs and ketchup.

As he moves in to bite her smooth, swan-like neck (as in it's long not covered in feathers) he is quickly chased away by a camply cape clad figure who then carries her back to bed.

"Put it in me!"

As our merry band head down for breakfast the next morn they are surprised to discover that their generous host is nowhere to be found, instead he's left a note explaining that he's off checking his traps* in the woods and to help themselves to Rice Crispies.

Hmmmm.....do you think he may actually be sleeping cos he's really Dracula?

Whilst Imre and Marlene head off into the woods to 'look for help', Karen, Elke and Senta decide to entertain themselves by having a poke around the castle's nooks and crannies which is kinda disappointing as I was hoping that they'd indulge in some nude volleyball but dem the breaks I guess, so the audience has to make do with them happening across Marlow's library where the find
- alongside a complete collection of Razzle and a dog-eared copy of The Book of Sex – the fabled diary of Van Helsing.

Senta, being the least thick begins to read aloud from the diary much to the chagrin of Elke who find it a wee bit too scary (no really) and begs her to stop.

Something I guess she doesn't often do seeing as how unconvincing she sounds.

Karen however seems fascinated by the tale of Dracula and his dead daughter and steals the book away for later.

...And they still can't get it tuned to 6 Music.

With not much else to fill the running time with we jump forward to lights out where after tuck  (sorry my public schoolness is showing) Karen curls up in bed to continue the terrifying tale, which is presented to us in groovy negative - presumably to hide the identity of the actor playing Dracula, which is a wee bit odd seeing as we can all guess that it's Naschy.

It does look nice tho'.

Pity the diary is utter drivel then, seeing as it appears to say that Dracula, although resurrected on an almost monthly after being slain is never 100% complete and can only regain his full unearthly powers by having sex with a virgin that has fallen in love with him for his personality as opposed to falling for him via the power  of spooky supernatural seduction.

Give that a try next time you're out on the pull lads and see how far that gets you.

Not only that but if this ever happens then Dracula can use his new found loves blood to then resurrect his daughter Sharon.

You remember, the skeleton from earlier.

See? They're not just making this shite up, there's a purpose for everything.

Insert cock here.

Whilst all this psychedelic flash-backery is going down Imre is wandering the hallways looking for the toilet when he's viscously attacked by Brian and given a bloody good biting, turning him into a vampire who then, in turn, messily attacks poor Marlene turning her too.

Phew, it's all go.

Marlow, tho' is too busy to notice as he's taken to following an oblivious Karen around like a lost puppy.

Albeit one with a huge nob and a really hairy back and arse.

Senta meanwhile has decided that she fancies a wee bit of naked Naschy herself so plans to seduce the doctor by falling into a bear trap, have him carry her to her room then expose her ample breasts and jump on him.

Who says romance is dead?

Unable to resist Senta's charms (OK tits) Marlow indulges in a wee bit of 'the sex' with her only to discover (disappointingly) that not only wasn't she a virgin but that he'd been thinking of Karen all the time.

Obviously the only course of action is to turn Senta into a vampire and go try his luck with Karen.

However as he's wiping his cock on his cape and scrubbing the blood from his mouth who should turn up but Imre hungry for blood.

And the only person with any left in the castle is Karen.

Much slow-style stage fighting ensues as Marlow tosses Imre out of the window and onto a handy spiked gate.

As he turns to dust Karen comes to realize that vampires are in fact real and that the king of them is standing infront of her professing undying love.

Will Karen and Draculabegin a romance to rival Harry and Meghan?

Will there be a wee bit more uncalled for - yet very welcome - nudity?

Will Paul Naschy ever shave his back?

It takes a special talent to get a still from a totally different movie on the poster. Fair play to him whoever it was.

From the fevered mind of Paul Naschy and the 70s busiest director (and official wrath of God) Javier Aquirre comes (quite literally) this supernatural tale of femmes, fangs and fancy  shirts all wrapped up in a blood red bow of sex and violence of the kind only found in Eurocinema of a certain age.

True the dubbing is ludicrously done, the effects are of a quality usually reserved for Christmas panto's and none of the lead actresses dresses fit but that just adds to its charm.

And talking of dubbing, if you think Naschy sounds familiar that's because he's using the voice of cult Eurohorror actor Jack Taylor whose CV reads like a must watch of quality cinema taking in everything from The Ghost Galleon to Pieces via The Vampire's Night Orgy (perhaps that's where the poster mix up came from) and Conan The Barbarian.

And he's still working.

And you think your mum is at bingo.

 Anyway back to the film at hand (before you start thinking this is a proper film blog) and while the obvious Spanish settings are in no way convincing as Transylvania the movie is so endearing as to make such trifling details irrelevant - we're here to see blood, babes, boobs and the big man himself take on the role of Dracula and whilst he may not hit the dizzy heights of Udo Kier (or Jack Palance) Naschy's vaguely puppy-like love lorn count is a fair extension of his more famous portrayal of the melancholic Waldemar Daninsky and is all the better for it.

It's just a pity he never donned the cape and fangs again.

Rum, sodomy and the lash.

But what of the rest of the cast I hear you cry.

Well whilst Víc Winner is all bushy sideburns and chiseled good looks his 'acting' style veers wildly from flat-packed shelf to homemade drinks cabinet the ladies do their best to walk and talk at the same time as they vainly attempt to stay inside their dresses that whilst looking very pretty appear to have been handed out at random.

Rosanna Yanni seems to spend the entire film hunched over in an attempt to get the obviously child sized communion dress to cover her breasts.

Poor lamb.

But at least Haydée Politoff looks yumsome.

As always.
   
But none of this matters as what we have here is a piece of pure Paul (Naschy) perfection that promises a veritable volcano of violence, sex and death which it delivers it in buckets and with a sneaky side helping of too-tight corsets and odd accents to boot.

If not cinematic gold it's at least a nice bit of terrifying tin.

























*As in things to catch animals in, not young guys dressed as sexy anime-style laydees for the sexual gratification of others - thought I'd clear that up.

merry christmas...

 to all you readers at home!

slay ride.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Bob Clark's festive classic released on this very day in 1974...

And why not?

Black Christmas (AKA Silent Night, Evil Night, Stranger in the House 1974).
Dir: Bob Clark.
Cast: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, John Saxon, Michael Rapport, Lynne Griffin, Marian Waldman and Andrea Martin.

If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl... It's On Too Tight! (is that even physically possible?)

Tis the season to be jolly, there's snow on the ground, love in the air, the smell of chestnuts roasting and in a sorority house at the world famous Baldpate University of Clever Clogs, many of the female students - including badgirl Barb and the virginal Jess - (a pre-mentalism Kidder and the pony faced Hussey) have been receiving a series of obscene phone calls from a strange perv nicknamed The Moaner.

You'll probably remember that's why your dad got sacked from The Samaritans.

Being a horror movie tho' no one takes his calls seriously, with a few of the saucier students (hands up Barb - tho' not literally, a couple of fingers would suffice) - actually looking forward to his nightly messages, that is until the night when Jess hears the screams and gasps of a woman in the background.

Calling her friends to listen in it's not long before Barb is threatening The Moaner with a severe buggering only to have him reply that he's actually going to kill her to death first and with that he hangs up and the girls go about their business.

Which in this case is packing for the Christmas holidays.


Which as slasher fans will know is as good a cue as any for the bad murders to start.

"Try and shite in mah mooth now you bastard!"

And start they do when cutesy Co-ed Clare Harrison (Griffin from the brilliant Curtains which I'm sure I'd reviewed once but it seems to have been deleted which is a pity as I remember it being a lot better written than this review) becomes moaners first victim, a plastic bag wrapped around her head as shes dragged to the attic and sat in a rocking chair.

Obviously the killer knows a cool poster image when he sees one.

The following morning, Clare's dad George arrives to pick up his daughter but she doesn't show up he quickly heads over to the sorority house to, if not find her then at least get a glimpse of Lois Lane's stocking tops.

Well it is Christmas.

Unfortunately the only thrill he gets is a peek at housekeeper Mrs. MacHenry's (world's shittest superhero Waldman) infeasibley large hat.

And that is worth the R rating alone if I'm honest.

Meanwhile Jess is meeting up with her neurotic musician boyfriend, Peter (2001's Dullea saddled with really crap hair) to tell him that she's pregnant and thinking about having an abortion.

Which is nice and festive.

Peter, being a 70s type of guy gets a wee bit angry and shouts at poor Jess before stomping off in a huff giving us an excuse to see what good old Mr. Harrison is up to in the search for his daughter.

Well him, Barb and Phyllis (Kim Possible voice-over actress Martin, who also appeared in the remake too don't you know) are busy at the police station try to get tough as nails cop Lieutenant Kenneth 'Horse Cock' Fuller (Saxon - nuff said) to form a search party and look for the missing girl.

John Saxon receives a call from his agent

offering him the lead in Cannibal Apocalypse.

Unfortunately he's a wee bit busy as another girl, Janis, has also vanished while walking home from school and seeing as she's much younger (and cuter) the police would rather look for her.

Which is fair enough I guess.

Barb, overly upset by her friends disappearance, gets drunk leaving Mr. Harrison, Jess,and Phyllis free to visit the local park where Janis was last seen.

Adding even more stress to the situation is the fact that Mrs. MacHenry can't seem to place her pussy and between that and packing to go to her sister's for Christmas is causing all manner of problems for the housemates.

It's great to get your priorities right isn't it?

Luckily after following a faint 'meowing' noise she finds her precious moggy in the attic, unfortunately she also finds the killer, who promptly wedges a hook in her face.

Which is nice.

Obviously on a gore-filled frenzy after seeing how great the face stabbing effect looked, it's only a matter of time before Janis' mutilated body is found, upsetting Jess to a point where she has to go home to bed.

Poor lamb.

"Hallo? French Polishers?

you might just save my life!"

As the others continue their search continues for Clare, Jess receives yet another obscene phone call and this time decides to report it to the police but as she does Peter turns up to beg her to marry him.

Jess refuses and Peter storms off in a huff just as Lieutenant Fuller arrives to bug the telephone.

As in put a recording device on it, not hassle it over unpaid bills etc.

With the movie rushing (albeit leisurely) toward its climax, Fuller pools all his resources in an attempt to stop the moaners reign of, er..moaning, unfortunately this appears to involve standing around in the street looking tough whilst holding a megaphone whilst eyeing up carol singers.

"Boiled onions!"

And it's the dulcet tones of these carol singers - who just happen to be visiting Jess' house at the time) that the mysterious killer decides to use as cover as he continues his reign of terror, firstly stabbing Barb to death with a handy statue before murdering Phyllis too.

But Fuller is hot on his trail and has managed to trace the moaners calls.

And they're coming from inside the house.

It seems that Fuller had totally forgotten that there was an extension built onto the sorority house and that the killer could happily hide there, listening to peoples conversations and phone calls.

It's like a nightmare version of Homes Under The Hammer.

Ringing the house Fuller warns Jessica to leave immediately and wait for him outside but, being a girl she gets lost on the way from the living room to the front door and heads upstairs (armed with a poker at least) instead where - surprise - she is jumped on by the killer.

Managing to escape she runs back downstairs completely missing the front door (again) and heads into the basement where she bumps into her grumpy boyfriend Peter, whom she is convinced is the killer for no other reason than he wants to marry her.

What a bastard.

And as he approaches her to talk Jessica bludgeons him to death with the poker.

Ouch.

The lights are on.

The police arrive to find her hunched over Peters body and decide that the case is closed - It's possibly their Christmas night out so understandably they want to get everything down as soon as - so you can imagine the conversation between Fuller and his men; "Aye, that Peter was a wee bit angry with his girlfriend not wanting to marry him so he must be the killer and the fact that we've found his aforementioned estranged girlfriend leaning over him holding a bloody poker means it must have been him! Right! mines a Babycham!".

Sorted.

They pack up the bodies, clean up the blood and bid their farewells to Jess, leaving her alone (in a major crime scene) to sleep off the excitement of her friends being murdered and killing her boyfriend.

But as we cut to the attic one last time we discover that there are two dead bodies that have yet to be found and as a man's voice whispers out thru' the darkness the phone begins to ring.....

Possibly the first of the modern 'slasher' cycle made famous by Halloween and Friday The 13th, the late, great Bob Clark's genre defining Black Christmas is unfortunately overlooked by all but the most rabid horror fans and Clark himself is better known for his seminal holiday classic A Christmas Story and Porky's than for this and the fantastic Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things.

Which is a shame as Black Christmas has much to offer, not just of historical interest but as a darn good frightener in its own right.

Featuring a decidedly eclectic cast—from Superman's Margot Kidder to cult stalwart John Saxon via the Star Child himself Keir Dullea as well as many shots and set ups that would become genre mainstays, Clark's movie deserves to be sought out by any self respecting film fan if only to see where the stalk and slash genre started.

As well as to have a bloody good laugh at the haircuts and trousers obviously.

It's not too late to rush out and buy it to watch on Christmas Eve, tho' make sure you don't pick up the shite 2006 remake by mistake.