spazio oddity.

A few months ago when deciding what film to watch I came across what looked like a nth generation VHS copy of Alfonso (The Beast in Space, War of the Robots) Brescia's little seen Italian Sci-Fi masterpiece 'Battaglie Negli Spazi Stellari' (AKA War of The Planets) on Rai TV which bizarrely enough I can get thru' my media player thanks to being an Ubuntu kid.

Logo.

If you've never seen it (the film that is, not the channel) it's a lo-fi sci-fi blockbuster starring the fabulous John Richardson as the cream jump-suited womanly hipped Captain Alex Hamilton.

Hamilton is a kinda rougher (and considerably swarthier) penis nosed version of Jim Kirk, shouting at his computer, disagreeing with his superiors and leaving it till the last possible minute to save battery acid scarred crew members from certain death.

Unfortunately the picture quality is so washed out as to make it almost unwatchable so I only made it as far as Commander Armstrong (the wonderfully drunk Romeo Costantini) giving our hero a bollocking for refusing to investigate a scary alien signal that's interrupting Earth's entire communication network before having to switch off.

"Look it's probably just static or the gypsies" replies our hero to his superior, "Plus we're all a bit tired and want to come home for a holiday!"

Genius.

And why am I mentioning this dear reader?

No idea because we actually watched this instead last night....

Sette uomini d'oro nello spazio (AKA Captive Planet, Metallica (no, really), Space Odyssey, Star Odyssey. 1979).
Dir: Alfonso Brescia.
Star: Yanti (meow) Sommer, Gianni Garko, Malisa Longo, Cristea Avram, Ennio Balbo, Aldo Amoroso Pioso, Pino Ferrara, Roberto Dell'Acqua, Fred West's dad and Filippo Perrone.

"Man meets an alien race at last, 

and greets them by disintegrating our vessel"

Somewhere in the inky blackness of space on a mysterious planet, a gathering of powerful aliens, known locally as the Lords of the Galaxy is busily bidding on various planets and suchlike to buy their wives as novelty Crimbo pressies.

Pat Mountain's mum tries to remember which
one of her brothers is her childs father.

The biggest offer of the day is a very familiar small blue/green planet named Sol 3, a planet in which the spiky headed, lank haired Lord Kev Korda is very interested in.

You see, if his bid is successful (it's kinda like an intergalactic Ebay but with fewer overpriced original Star Wars toys) he plans to use the natives of this world as cheap labour throughout the galaxy.

Confident as he is of getting the winning bid he's already set up a number of  window cleaning businesses and off-licenses in readiness of his takeover.

Which is nice.

But just to make sure he's definitely gonna win, our pen faced pal is not above using his almost Derren Brown like mind powers (well, a torch in front of his eyes) to scare his main rival away from the bidding table.

100 million credits poorer (but a whole lotta planet richer) Kev boards his spaceship and relaxes with his battered vhs copy of Cosmos: War of the Planets as he travels to view his newly acquired prize.

Hang on, I'm mistaken, it's not actually some clever self referential nonsense regarding a character in one movie watching the directors earlier work, it's just  Brescia being cheap and using old footage save him shooting any new effects stuff.

Silly me.

"I wanted to be a tiger!"

Scanning his new toy to find out what he's actually purchased (yes, I know it's a wee bit like not looking at a new house till you've paid for it but who are we to judge these aliens?), Kev discovers that not only has the planet 'widespread traces of pollution due to chemical combustion and nuclear waste' but that most of humanity live either underground or in sea cities due to the surface being used for growing food and feeding livestock.

Yup, the Just Stop Oil mob have inherited the Earth.

And down at Earth's fantastically minimalist (or just cheap) space command centre, Admiral Steve (probably, the subtitles are atrocious), being understandably shocked by the huge spaceship approaching, launch a fantastic interceptor craft to say hello to the visitor.

But Lord Kev, being a 100% patent bastard, responds by blasting it out of the sky.

"Shite in mah big tin mooth ya bastard!"

Mightily pissed off by this frankly outrageous act of aggression humanity decides to throw everything they've got at Kev's ship but even the combined fire-power of the entire planet is useless against him and serves only to make Kev a wee bit annoyed.

Yikes.

There's only one thing for it, Kev unleashes a terrifying barrage of grainy, black and white stock footage of exploding buildings, erupting volcanoes, cats looking nervous and archive newsreel shots of the battle of Britain in order to convince the human race that he is, in fact 'the daddy'.

London is totally destroyed, as is most of Australia (no loss there then) and (bizarrely) the Okinawa stadium, leaving the Admiral no choice but to call upon the maverick (not to mention "independent, stubborn and undisciplined") scientist Professor Barry Morey, a forest dwelling genius whose "intelligence puts him about two centuries above anyone else" and whose collars would enable him to fly at least two hundred miles above them too.

Desperate doesn't even touch it.

Fuck me! it's Fred West's dad!

Anyway, Admiral Steve begrudgingly phones the Professor, polishing his ego by telling him that he's Earth's last hope and it's greatest ever scientist/lover/kazoo player etc. before asking him if he can suggest anything to stop the terror from space.

Seeing as Earth is so desperate as to ask a balding, piss stained hippy type for help it comes as a wee bit of a surprise to hear that the planets government and military have refused to give him any cash, support or even a shiny new commode for his troubles if he agrees to help.

I even watched this bit twice to see exactly how this magnificent piece of reverse psychology works but I'm fucked if I could figure it out if I'm honest, so I'll put it down to being an Italian thing.

"Sod saving humanity there be tasty
lady arse a-going spare!"

Luckily the Professors hearing is going, meaning he misses everything except the "you're great please help us" bit and decides to give it a go.

Analyzing the alien ship he quickly discovers that it's hull is constructed from a strange substance called iridium, which, it turns out is virtually indestructible.

As is the way in such movies, the Professor has the only other example of this rare metal locked in his garage, a keepsake from his research days when (and this is a scary coincidence so sit down now) him and his team of geeks were working on a way of breaking down iridium to its base molecular structure.

For what purpose I've no idea.

"Shymoo!" - Mickey Mouse's fetish parties were
always a big hit amongst his cartoon buddies.

Earths only hope is that the Professor can round up his old workmates (who all fucked off around the globe after the Professor was discredited for pissing himself in a funding review) and pick up the research where they left off.

If only he had access to a spaceship and daredevil pilot, it'd certainly be better (and more exciting) than catching the bus looking for his ex colleges.

Enter (OK if I must) the Professors beautifully bouncy - and scarily bouffanted - niece Irene (Sommer - in the city probably), whose boyfriend, Jeff, happens to be a hunky space pilot.

Even better is the fact that he spent the night at the house and his spaceship is parked outside!

But how can the kindly scientist convince him to help in his quest?

Would you believe that the Professor has the same spooky mind powers as Kev?!?

Within minutes Jeff is eating an onion as if it were an apple and flying off to round up this sci-fi A-Team whilst the Professor gets down to some serious 'work' in his lab.

First on the list is the roguish mercenary cum chemist (and first love of Irene...yes it really is that convoluted so i'd suggest that you begin taking notes, I know I did) Dirk Laramie (Dell'Acqua), who now spends his days fleecing alcoholics out of their dole money in seedy backstreet bars.

Yup, you guessed it, Dirk too has the very same scary mind powers as Barrie and Kev and has been using them to cheat at cards.

Obviously when the local council estate scum whose Giro's he's been taking find out about this they decide to administer a darn good kicking, which gives our man a chance to show off his sexy street fighting skills to impress his buxom ex, tho' if I'm honest Jeff seems much more impressed.

Sommer lovin': tell me more!

Meanwhile back in the main plot Lord Kev has unleashed an army of face stomping alien Nazi's across the planet to collect 'worker units' and, in a scene of ball aching badness, attack the planets sub-tropical continent, capturing 2000 'dark-skinned human units' to use as slaves.

Hmmm, see what they did there?

Whilst all this political musing is going on, Irene is off enjoying herself at a community centre boxing match where ex-scientist cum pugilist Bill Norman (The late, great Garko, looking for all the world like a pervier, gone to seed Sporticus from Lazy Town) is having a girly slapping match with the frighteningly realised warrior robot Hercules (some poor guy in a Mickey Mouse gimp suit).

Being surprisingly fit for someone so close to deaths door Norman beats the crap outta poor Hercules before donning a silk disco jacket and joining our merry band.

"Yesch...gobble my spurtsh
candy wee man!"

Deciding to bring a few friends along for the ride, Norman leads the gang to a deserted junkyard (the producers garden) where they meet up with a couple of dwarfs dressed in silver painted bins decorated with the contents of their mums kitchen drawers and topped off with Orville The Duck sex masks.

Norman, keen to justify why the films overworked - and underpaid - designers would foist such monstrosities on an already threadbare production is quick (maybe too quick if you ask me) to point out that not only do our plastic pals have a full range of human emotions but they're also fitted with some kinda energy conversion bollocks that allows them to phase out of real space so that laser fire passes right through them (a wee bit like chocolate does with me).

Oh, and I forgot to add that due to their emotional chip the pair are in love.

"Duck off".

Meanwhile, back at the space command centre, it appears that Kev's spaceship (despite being big enough to comfortably hold the entire population of Earth plus a shed load of stormtroopers) is actually impossible to track via radar, showing up only when it lands to grab some slaves.

Have they tried turning the monitors on?

No-one dares make this suggestion tho' for fear of interrupting Admiral Steve's Oscar worthy performance as he grimly reads the list of humans already captured by Kev as his stunned comrades look on in mild apathy.

Hiroshima (how's your luck?), Russia, the Arabs and rather oddly "those farmers in the United States of Africa" have all been captured, leaving only the good ol' US of A, half of Govan and the West Midlands left to battle against this thoroughly bad man.

Always believe in your soul.

Whilst all this shit - as you youngsters say - is going down, our heroes (in case you thought I'd forgotten about them) are heading towards the notorious 'Moonspace', a space age Alcatraz orbiting the moon (obviously) in order to break out two other members of the aged professor's science club, some middle-aged bloke named Sean and a sexily square faced lady going by the name of Bridget ('played' by the infamous - well, around here she is - Malisa Longo, AKA Malisa Lang, one of Italy's greatest and most moon headed, exploitation stars and one of the few reasons to sit thru' this film).

Malisa: moooooooooooooooonhead.

The pair are being held in a 'suspension ray machine' designed to keep them awake but unable to move (why? you may ask), giving the lone guard a great excuse to quietly perv over her prostrate form whilst rubbing his leather clad thighs.

Ah, so that's why.

Unable to control his sexual desires any longer the guard turns off her suspension machine and gazes lustfully as she emerges from within, stretching and cooing like your mum after a particularly hard bingo session whilst complaining about how long it's been since she had a real man (hang on, that's exactly like your mum the morning after bingo) before slinking up to him and giving him a big girly kiss.

With tongues and everything.

Well not everything but you get the gist.

Of course, this is all just a ruse so she can release all the prisoners and escape herself in the ensuing sexual confusion.

Freed from their frozen confines the thawed out felons vent their frustrations by instigating a bitch-slapping fest of epic proportions as perky prisoners and leathery guards alike slowly kick and punch each other before taking it in turns to roll around the floor gurning and dribbling.

Don't fret tho' because the break-out is eventually subdued before it gets too embarrassing and/or homo-erotic and everyone involved is given a slap on the wrist before being put back in their cells.

Luckily for us (and the plot), our merry band have been penciled in for a meeting with the prisons governor about releasing Sean and Bridget.

A pity then that he refuses to let them go free.

What a jobsworth bastard.

Remember tho', Dirk has those scary mind powers so it's only a matter of time before he's persuaded the guv to let them go (and convinced him that he's a dog) meaning that finally (thank fuck) that the science squad is fully assembled and that they can head on back to the Professor's house and prepare to kick some alien arse.

Which in Bridget's case involves getting trussed up in a skin tight leather dominatrix outfit

Will our heroes defeat the evil Kev?

Will there be anyone left on Earth to save?

Will our robot pals ever consummate their relationship?

And, most importantly, will Kev be able to sell on Earth at the next space auction?

Alfonso Brescia's space epic with it's powerful social message regarding Colonialism and the ethno-centric belief that the morals and values of the colonising power are superior to those of the peoples being colonised is a little seen gem of the Italian Sci-fi genre.

 
Forget 2001, Interstellar or even the latest season of Doctor Who because if it's high concept/budget busting intergalactic adventure you're after then this is the movie for you.

If you don't mind having to piece the plot together yourself tho' seeing as every single fucking version of this film seems to have the reels in the wrong order.

Seriously, characters appear and the plot starts to move on only to jump back to introductory scenes and bits of action and dialogue from earlier in the film.

Luckily it has a very serious social commentary for the more intelligent viewer.

So it's unfortunate then that it's buried alive beneath a slurry pile of skid row acting, cheap robot suits, borrowed effects and scratchy old stock footage of second world war battles.

Was this a clever way of comparing Lord Kev's jackbooted minions to the Nazi Stormtroopers of yesteryear or just a lack of anything remotely resembling a budget?

You decide.

Tho' if you need a clue it's the latter by the way.

If, like me tho' you get bored with trying to justify a love of shite cinema by over intellectualizing every single thing about it then there's always the sight of Malisa Longo dressed up like a particularly saucy turkey as well as the Amazonian delights of Yanti Sommer's cleavage to keep you occupied.

And just in case you think I'm being sexist then don't forget that all you female viewers can gaze lustfully at the professors yellowing bald pate and wibbly wobbly manbreasts.

For everyone else there's a pulse pounding fart-tastic synth score and the chance to see some once great (OK, once so-so) actors such as Gianni Garko and Chris Avram, reduced to playing second fiddle to a couple of dwarfs in dustbins.

And be honest now, what more could you want from an evenings entertainment?

cliffhanger!

 

HARRIET: He has hidden in the howling void. He has hidden within the tempest.

 

KATE: What?

 

HARRIET: He has braved the storm and the darkness and the pain. And he whispered to the vessel.

 

MORRIS: Who has? What do you mean?

 

HARRIET: All this time, he whispered and delighted and seduced, and the vessel did obey, for none should be more mighty and none should be more wise than the King himself.

 

KATE: Harriet, what are you doing?

 

HARRIET: And the Lord of Time was blind and vain, and knew nothing. There is the Toymaker, the god of games. There is Trickster, the god of traps. There is Maestro, the god of music. There is Reprobate, the god of spite.

 

DOCTOR: No, no, no!

 

HARRIET: There is the Mara, the god of beasts.

 

KATE: Whatever it is, here it comes.

 

HARRIET: For the god of all gods has returned, and his names are many...

 

RUBY: What is it?!

 

[THE WORDS REARRANGE THEMSELVES ON THE SCREEN]

 

YARDLEY TECHNOLOGY

YARD TECH

YAR TECH

 

THE DOCTOR: It's the wrong anagram...

 

 

mental maggots.

Awoke this morning to the news that The Pope of Pop Cinema himself, Lord Roger of Corman had died so in way of a tribute I thought I'd revisit this classic.

Because he produced it obviously not just for shits and giggles.

Galaxy of Terror (AKA Mindwarp: An Infinity of Terrors, Planet of Horrors. 1981)
Dir: Bruce D. Clark.
Cast: Edward Albert, Erin Moran, Taaffe O'Connell, Robert Englund, Ray Walston, Bernard Behrens, Zalman King, Grace Zabriskie and Sid Haig.

"I live and die by the crystals".

Across the vastness of deep space lies the desolate, storm-lashed (and somewhat soundstage like) planet Morganthus, where the sole survivor of an off screen (and therefore cheap) spaceship crash is fighting a losing battle against an unseen (and therefore very cheap) alien force.

As well as battling the worst home haircut this side of Dario Argento.

And I know which is scarier.

No surprises when I tell you that it's the haircut that wins.

Back at space headquarters (alright then, the portacabin round the back of the studios that Roger Corman uses to store his porn) the jolly crew of the good ship Quest are ordered to mount a rescue mission at the behest of the mysterious 'Planet Master', a strange old man in a second hand suit with a red lightbulb for a head who appears to spend his day playing a table-top version of Pong.

Welcome to the future, eighties style.

Leading the mission is the Planet Master's bezzie mate, the piss-stained and gin soaked soon to be retired Bobby Ilvar (Behrens, the voice of Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars radio series) who, alongside his mismatched team that includes bewigged mentalist Captain Trantor (Twin Peaks hottie Zabriskie), the scarred lone survivor of a previous secret mission; the Tom Selleck alike Cabren (Albert from Power Rangers: Time Force) and the bottle rocket, wooden legged second-in-command Billy Baelon (soft core porn master and former Jesus, King), are charged with locating any survivors as well as looking for some vague and secret stuff whilst they're at it.

I tried not to think too much about the plot seeing as no-one involved seemed to be bothered.

"I can see your house from here Peter".

Also aboard is Cabren's ex squeeze, the harsh-faced psi-sensitive (whatever that means) Alluma (Happy Days' Joanie Cunningham, Moran, who's frankly seen better days - and much better gear before now), chief cook and bottle washer Melvin Kore (My Favourite Martian Walston), and the pube bearded, mightily manbreasted hardman Hilary Quuhod (genre stalwart Haig) - master of the deadly Perspex boomerangs.

There are a few other folk aboard too but frankly it'd be easier all round if you just imagine a couple of pieces of hardboard decked out in sub standard bri-nylon (and nipple revealing) Battlestar Galactica uniforms.

Oh, and Freddy Krueger in an Abraham Lincoln beard.

Engaging warp drive (which is just off Stella Street) The Quest soon arrives at it's destination and the crew begin their search for any survivors.

And the ships supply of chocolate biscuits.

And quite possibly any evidence of an original idea.

Unfortunately they find nothing but a load of leftover sets from Battle Beyond The Stars strewn with litter and a few shop window dummies smeared with jam and hanging from the roof.

Baelon, angered by such a waste of yummy toast topping goodness decides to set fire to everything around him whilst the rest of the crew (including the jittery Johnny Deadsoon) split up and have a wee scout around.

But obviously not in a John Wayne Gacy way.

Tho' that would probably make the whole thing that wee bit more entertaining.

Bored with burning stuff and annoyed by Alluma's constant whining about 'dark energies' Baelon orders everyone back to The Quest for tea and toast, a decision that cheers everyone up except poor Deadsoon, who has to stay behind to find his hat that he's dropped.

Suffice to say that within seconds of the others leaving he's killed by what looks like a big rubber testicle that jumps on his back and squeezes his head till it pops.

"And when I'm anally violated I pull THIS face!"

Realizing one of their number is missing the crew head back across the studio rubbish tip (sorry, alien landscape) to look for him, giving the frighteningly pneumatic Dameia (O'Connell from Caged Fury) an excuse to tell everyone how much she hates maggots and how she'd be loathed to have one swim up her (ample) arse.

Reader take note, this may be important later.

Back on board The Quest everyone sits down for a quick Pot Noodle whilst Dameia and general dogsbody Powell Ranger (Englund with shit facial hair and some ginger pubes glued to his head) perform a fairly shoddy autopsy on their fallen comrade and the body of some bloke they found in a cupboard.

Their findings?

Both men were killed by terror.

A probable galaxy full of it.

A Galaxy (minus the terror) yesterday.

After pudding and a glass of milk our motley band decide to have a better look around the planet, starting with a huge pyramid-like structure they singularly failed to notice earlier (well it was a wee bit foggy) and Ilvar feeling a bit left out splits everyone (with the exception of Trantor who's frankly barking and chef who's busy cooking brine for supper) into two teams.

Their mission: discover stuff.

To make it more exciting Ilvar offers first group to reach the summit the chance of winning a teddy bear.

Buffeted by the harsh winds and spooked by the scary synth sounds Ilvar, Dameia and Cabren are first to clamber up the structure (the others have stopped for a picnic at the bottom), discovering a series of slightly sexual looking holes jutting from the pyramids sides, poor Ilvar, stuck between a moustachioed stud and a strip queen, decides to exert his manliness by abseiling down one of these mysterious openings for a quick poke around.

Unfortunately it's him that gets a poking from a gaggle of rubbery (why thank you!) blood sucking tentacles.

"Laugh now!"

Shrugging their shoulders in a fairly apathetic manner before moving on, Dameia and Cabren have soon met up with a still angry Baelon, a still whiny Alluma and always manboobed Quuhod at the pyramids summit where they find a set of giant plasticine doors that lead deep into the structures bowels.

Leaving Quuhod on guard at the entrance (frankly the stench of all that testosterone and sour man milk must be getting to them by now) the rest of the gang head down toward their destiny.

Which in Erin Moran's case is a lifetime of appearances at a number of supermarket openings, conventions and rehab centres.

Your mums cum face. Trust me, I know.

Back aboard the Quest, Ranger is having a severe case of the sweats and Kore skulks around the kitchen in a mysterious manner whilst Captain Trantor sits in the ships gun turret, dribbling down her jumper and playing space invaders whilst swearing like a pikey on heat.

No change there then.

Bored shitless to a point where he's cleaning his nails with the sacred boomerangs, Quuhod is surprised by a scary "BOO!" noise behind him, causing the poor sod to accidentally chop off his arm.

If that wasn't enough the severed arm takes on a life of its own and proceeds to stab it's previous owner to death with his own weapon.

Which is nice.

Hearing the commotion and upset that her breasts are too large to enable her to squeeze any further into the pyramid, Dameia rushes to Quuhod's aid only to stumble over his by now maggot riddle corpse lying in a pool of blood and piss.

Hang on, did someone say maggots?

"Put it in me!"

As Dameia tiptoes around her dead comrades corpse she (remarkably) fails to notice that one of the maggots has started growing to giant size behind her, only realizing that something's wrong when the beast flops down on top of her like a big inflatable penis and begins to tear her clothes off whilst thrusting and grunting the way that normal maggots don't.

What your girlfriend was up to on
that girls night out last week.

Vainly trying to escape by wriggling her slimy arse and rubbing her gloop covered breasts, Dameia is soon overpowered by the horny horror, breathing her last as the beast pumps her full of it's manky maggot muck.

Be honest, this is way too hypnotic for its own good.

At this point I have to say that as a twelve year old I was under the impression that this was quite possibly the greatest scene ever committed to celluloid but as I got older and more aware of political correctness and the evils of sexism I began to realize that this wasn't the case.

It's far too short for one thing.

And it's way too dark.

(stringy) shite in mah mooth!

This sex based slaying is only the beginning of the horror tho', as within minutes Trantor has accidentally set fire to her face, the cook has gone AWOL, bow-legged Baelon has been bummed by the bin men and poor old Alluma has been squeezed to death by some rampant, slime covered Hoover attachments leaving a by now shot to fuck Ranger and a fairly concerned Cabren the only survivors.

As the perky pair approach the pyramids inner sanctum, they begin to realize that their might be more to the mysterious planet Morganthus than meets the eye and leaves them wondering....

Where the fuck is the chef?

From the minds of writer/director Bruce Clark, little known designer James Cameron and the genius that was Roger Corman, Galaxy Of Terror maybe a cheap and nasty knock off with more aliases than a serial adulterer and be more likely to give you crabs than a sleepless night but it's still capable of entertaining you along the way.

Just like your mum in fact.

You can imagine the whole thing being greenlit on the strength of the poster alone and when Clark turned round to Corman and said "Then this huge maggot shags a naked bird to death" you just know it was a done deal.

But then any movie that features aliens, sex, gore and a former member of the Happy Days cast being squeezed to death by household appliances painted green should automatically be pushed thru' for immediate production, imagine how much better the world would be if this were the case.

As an added bonus it's great to sit back and enjoy self proclaimed "King of The World" James Cameron doing what he does best, that is operating a giant rape maggot as opposed to forcing badly plotted overlong remakes of Ferngully on us.

The scenes final moments when the huge quivering beast grunts and thrust one final time over O'Connell's prone form is at once incredibly arousing and mildly disturbing, you can imagine Cameron, teeth gritted and with a semi in his shorts sweating and cursing as he becomes one with the monster costume, imagining himself fucking every last dollar out of the worldwide cinema audience.

Or is that just me?

O'Connell: you would.

As you can probably tell, I secretly love Galaxy Of Terror in the same way as you always have a soft spot for that plump, middle aged housewife you got in touch with via those sleazy 'contact' magazines you purchased as a bet when you were fourteen.

You remember, the one from Edgebaston that made you a man then gave you tea,d biscuits and a cuddle whilst telling you about her disabled husband?

Galaxy Of Terror, scarier than your dad, sleazier than your little sister and a damn sight more fun drunk than both of them.

You need this.

And the cult movie genre needs more guys like Roger Corman.

spex factor.

Was Tweeting/X-ing/posting on Twitter/X t'other day about how important Starburst magazine was/is to film loving folk of a certain age, it was issue 48 (the infamous zombie issue) that introduced me to THE greatest lake-based zombie movie of all time Zombie(s) Lake, the late, great John Brosnan taught me to have fun and take the piss out of things I love plus the magazine (especially the genre God that is Alan Jones) gave me my first taste of all things Italian (including Bava and Argento) cementing my love of my favourite genre forever.

And for that I will always be eternally grateful.

 

Is that really how you spell morgue?

Bizarrely tho' it was the issue featured below that we're celebrating today as it was this very publication that introduced me to the wild world of Don Dohler, thanks in part to a mini interview with the brightly besuited, cherry red spectacled George Stover who was waxing lyrically about the upcoming horror opus he was starring in entitled Fiend.

 

 

 

Reading back thru' the article I was not only amazed at how brilliant he'd made the film sound but also by the fact that I'd never gotten around to reviewing it here.

Well I'll put that to rights as soon as.

Suffice to say I'm on a wee bit of a George Stover/Don Dohler rewatch at the moment and what better movie to start off with than....

 

 

The Alien Factor (1978).

Dir: Donald M. Dohler.

Cast: Don Leifert, Mary Mertens, Richard Dyszel, Tom Griffith, Anne Frith, George Stover, Richard Geiwitz and Eleanor Herman.

 

So when I knelt over the creature, my mind went momentarily blank, and then I was aware of a bright blue light, then thoughts began to enter my mind...

Opening with a fantastic children's BBC style animated space sequence that would shame the producers of Captain Zep - and with a plinky plonk synth score to boot - we're soon on planet earth where what looks like your mum and your Uncle Peter, after a drunken (and incredibly uncomfortable) fumble in a car are attacked by a gimp suited, shaved monkey.

Which is nice.

The frenzied - well I say frenzied - attack leaves Peter dead, your mum in a state of damp-knickered shock and the audience scratching their respective heads as we cut to so seriously out of focus driving footage as trusty small town sheriff and Dickie Davis alike Jack 'The Hat' Cinder (Griffith, who will reappear as this character in Nightbeast as well as essaying the role of Man with Beard in Fiend) arrives at the scene to investigate. 

 

Tunnel or funnel?

 

Bunging the remains in the boot of his car and the still shocked lady into the passenger seat Cinder Cinder heads over to the coroners office (cunningly played by the directors house where local coroner Dr Ruth (Dohler regular and family friend Frith) and her nephew Steve (Baltimore's most famous son Stover) chalk up the tragic death to a particularly vicious wild animal such as an angry bear or a goose with a flick knife.

And with that sorted Cinder heads back to town to debrief (but not in that way obviously) the town's Lego haired mayor 'Big' Al Wicker (Horror host Count Gore de Vol himself, Dyszel channeling How! star Fred Dinenage) who has spent the day panicking that the killing may have an adverse effect on a recent business deal to build a cheese themed amusement park just outside town. 

 

 

"It was a bad boy what done it....or maybe rats!"

 

 

Later that night at the local duck pond a pair of love-struck teens are enjoying some alone time in the romantic moonlight.

Well under a day for night filter.

And by alone time I mean the guy is desperately pawing at the girl as he vainly tries to touch her bra.

Ah, young love.

Annoyed by the constant feel of sweaty sausage fingers against her smooth lily white skin she soon stomps off into the woods where she soon stumbles across a pile of silver painted cardboard boxes hastily sellotaped together whilst a bobbled headed binman scrabbles about in the bushes.

Oh hang on, my mistake it's actually a spaceship and the binman is actually an alien astronaut.

Phew, glad that's sorted.

 

"Are you looking at my bra?"

 

 

Being a girl tho' she reacts by running away screaming only to be run over by a passing motorcyclist who, on discovering he's hit a pedestrian gets back on his bike and fucks off leaving her mud spattered and bleeding in a ditch.

But let's be honest we've all been there.

Luckily for her tho' the alien turns up and heals her wife his laser space eyes.

Seems legit.

Meanwhile back at the morgue, Ruth and Steve are working tirelessly to find out what kind of animal could have caused the injuries to Uncle Peter as the damage to his rectum alone would take a creature of unimaginable size and strength. 

Steve is still sure it was a goose (or very angry mallard) but the still traumatized girlfriend is adamant it was a monster. 

The shouts of "Monster!" "No goose!" are soon cut short by a call from ace reporter Edie Martin (Mertens in her only film role - surprise) in the hope of getting any information regarding what the fuck is going on.

Which would be nice for the audience too if I'm honest.

Not having a clue themselves Steve mumbles something about 'terrifying things' before hanging up.

 

"Put it in me!"

 

Whilst all this time wasting is going on the local bad boys have decided to take matters into their own hands and go into the woods to kill whatever is attacking the townsfolk, so with the gang leaders girlfriend in tow they grab their weapons and head out for a wee bit of hunting.

Unfortunately the beast has learned the useful skill of hiding in plain sight and jumps the gang as they wander passed an upturned tree, killing them all.

To death. 

Tired of missing cat stories and with the bodies piling up Edie decides to chase the story herself so she too heads off into the woods for a fairly embarrassing 20 minute scene of poor Mary Mertens attempting to walk across a snow covered hill in stack heels.

But let's be honest they've got to fill the running time somehow.

 

"Spice Girls number one for Christmas.....MONSTA!"

But for those of you expecting another top quality monster attack you'll be totally disappointed as rather than a lumbering beast Edie finds what looks for all the world like a pre-rehab Russ Tamblin out for a leisurely stroll after coming first in a pork pie eating contest.

But alas it is not he but eminent doctor of space type stuff Benjamin Zachary (actor, teacher, Vietnam vet, one time film historian and husband of Mertens, Leifert) who has been monitoring local UFO-based shenanigans from the nearby observatory and has arrived in town armed with the latest (home-made) alien killing technology in order to help the hunt.

You see, according to Zachary, an alien big game hunter on his way home with a cargo of wild (alien) animals has crashed landed in the woods and the cargo - which he refers to as Tony Inferbryce, Brian Zagatile and Alan Leemoid - have broken free.

So the scene is set for a dangerous game of cat and mouse between our human heroes and a trio of terrifying extra-terrestrial terrors.

But first there's just enough time to head back to the bar to watch Atlantis perform their hit single Maybe Someday.

No, really.

From Baltimore's very own Steven Spielberg - the late, great Don Dohler - comes his first, and best, bargain bucket blockbuster that kickstarted a career that took in everything from marauding aliens to undead fiends, sinister slashers and back to aliens over seven ever more ludicrous movies.

Saying that tho' you have to admire the sheer bravado of a director who, when working with a budget just under 80 quid decides to feature not one, not two, not three and not even four alien creatures but five in all - from the leather clad, rubber nippled space ant to a stilt wearing ape/arachnid hybrid to the bollock-faced stop motion marvel that is the Zagatile (let's not forget the wounded alien pilot) each one is a triumph of childlike creativity over cold hard cash and when one of our heroes (I'll not say which) reveals himself to be a friendly alien sent to aid humanity, his true googly-eyed, Spam sculptured skeleton form topped off with a Brillo pad wig is a joy to behold.

Laugh now.

And the (human) cast?

Well most of them can walk and talk fairly convincingly - some even at the same time - and let's be honest, they're doing their best and seem to be having fun so it'd be churlish not to join in too plus they must have done something right seeing as they all appear in Dohler's next movie.

And the one after that.....

But the true heroes here are soon to be Dohler stalwarts George Stover and Don Leifert.

By this point already a semi-John Waters regular, Stover had begun his film based career as the creator/editor/tea boy of the fanzines Black Oracle and Cinemacabre and as the acting bug bit, split his time (tho' not his lip) 'tween his job in local government and appearing in more and more Baltimore-based bargain bin barnstormers notching up an impressive 114 plus big screen appearances in the lost 40-odd years.

Which lets be honest is 112 more than me.

He even finds the time to indulge in his love of collecting G and Z scale trains too.

And building miniature stations and the like.

Frankly the man's a legend and should feature here much more often.

Tho' I'm not sure if that would be a good thing.

Look at the dog!

But what of Leifert?

Usually referred to as "Big, beefy, and often mustached" (well on IMDB at least), he actually studied 'proper' acting at the Douglas-Webber Academy of Dramatic Art in London but gave up the chance of a glittering career in Brit sitcoms and appearances in Crossroads for the bright(ish) lights of Maryland and unlimited access to Don Dohler's cookie cupboard.

And so impressed was the director with Leifert's uncanny - some would say ungodly - portrayal of ace academic cum monster hunter Benjamin Zachary in The Alien Factor that the pair went on to work together another five times - with Leifert portraying the unforgettable undead ghoul Eric Longfellow in Fiend, beer-bellied badboy 'Billy' Drago in Nightbeast (and reuniting with Tom Griffith back as Sheriff Jack Cinder), the amusing racist Frank Custer in The Galaxy Invader, the popcorn popping video clerk in Blood Massacre before finally returning to the role that made him famous in the Dohler scripted Crawler.

All of them modern(ish) classics.

As an aside it's interesting to note that out of these six movies four of them feature aliens crash-landing in Baltimore.

Well, if it ain't broken.

"Is it giro day?"

 

Whilst it's true that The Alien Factor (like much of Dohler's work) is terrifyingly cheap and plagued with nonsensical plotting, pound shop special effects, bad sound editing - and just bad editing in general as well as a myriad of amateurish performances, you can't help but be won over by its almost naive and innocent charm.

Especially after a bottle of wine.

Or two.

Plus the barmaid at the local pub played to scoop necked perfection by Ann Hanks has probably the greatest ginger beehive ever committed to celluloid.

And if that's not reason enough to watch I don't know what is.

Pure cinematic gold and I for one fucking love it.

standby for action!

Celebrating the genius of Gerry Anderson on his birthday with 60 minutes of Spectrum Sounds and Terrahawk tunes in one mighty Mysteron mix.....

 

 

devil may care.

Well it's the first of April today meaning it's been a mad Bank Holiday weekend of clocks in the UK jumping forward an hour whilst simultaneously hurtling back to the 1950s in Scotland with the implementation of our utterly fantastic and in no way sinister and open to abuse Hate Crime law.

Seriously, screw the political implications as just on an abuse of grammar level this blog is fucked.

Saying that tho' maybe if I identify as a serious film blog I should be OK?

Definitely not

Humza Yousaf earlier today.

Anyway, no idea why but I reckoned this film just about summed up the whole sorry, shitshow that is modern society right now.

Enjoy.

 
Devil Story (1985).
Dir: Bernard Launois.
Cast: Véronique Renaud, Marcel Portier, Catherine Day, Nicole Desailly, Pascal Simon and a horse.

Tho' to be honest none of this matters seeing as none of them ever worked again outside the fast food industry.

'Screw that Mummy.... what I want is that goddamn horse!'

They say that you should always start as you mean to go on and the folk in charge here seem to agree seeing as the entire first 10 minutes of the movie seems to be made up of nothing but some poor bloke (Simon in his only film role who, I must add looks absolutely nothing like a certain Green Party minister with the initials PH, no not at all) clad in a comedy tramp mask from the pound shop, his sister's jodhpurs and an old SS jacket bombing around a kids play park pretending to stab people.

Seriously it's like a Saturday afternoon in Birmingham.

Only without the overbearing stench of fish obviously.

Firstly chibbing a man in a tent before stalking his unfortunate companion - who is busy skipping thru' the woods carrying a pile of wood, a pile of wood which it must be said will scarily give the best performance in the whole film - and then slashing her (admittedly harsh) face in a masterstroke of make-up effects which involves her being attacked with her back to the camera before clumsily turning around to reveal bloody make-up that had already been applied.

By a hook handed child.

Who is also legally blind.

Viewers of a nervous disposition (or with any taste) should turn off now tho' as the killing spree has only just begun as in a scene of bizarro fourth wall breaking bonkers who should turn up but the director himself accompanied by what I assume is his mum out for a leisurely drive in the country.

Unfortunately the fun is cut short when the car runs out of petrol meaning that the esteemed Mr Launois has to walk back to the nearest garage whilst grumpily shouting at his poor mother.

With all this ranting and raving going on he spectacularly fails to see wee Paddy Baw-heid crouching behind a roadside statue waiting to pounce.

Just as our dumpy director is walking by Paddy jumps out and starts growling whilst waving his arms about.

With a look of total disinterest Launois calmly asks him the way to the garage.

As you would when confronted by a gurning loon in a Nazi uniform.

You can guess what happens next.

Yup, Paddy stabs the man before stomping off and shooting Mrs Launois in the face.

And if that's not the state of Scottish politics in a nutshell I don't know what is.

"Laugh now!"

Anyway, with all those random killings out of the way - filmed it seems because when reviewing a first edit of the movie Launois realized he had less than an hour's worth of usable footage so got his pals together to shoot a whole new opening sequence - it's into the plot good and proper as we're introduced to some vacuous guy and his - even more vacuous - wife who are currently enjoying a nice drive in the country.

As far as I remember - to be honest by this point I was drunk - neither of them have names tho' I've since found out that Mrs Vacuous  (let's call her Brenda) is portrayed by the toothsome Véronique Renaud who was cast solely on the fact that she supplied her own Cammie knickers for the role.

Take from that what you will.

Unfortunately their enjoyment is cut short - unlike ours which never started - when the car suffers a - strangely invisible - puncture so whilst the by now grumpy man tries to fix it Brenda wanders off into the woods, summoned it seems by a black cat with bizarre psychic powers and the ability to make badly animated lightning appear on screen.

No really.

Toothsome....or French as we say around here.

But that's not all it can do for as it mysteriously makes what looks like slivers of  piss streak across the screen the beast attacks Brenda scratching her hands a wee bit and - being a woman - Brenda starts screaming for her hubbie before blaming him for her predicament.

But as he - uncomfortably - hugs her she gazes at her hands again, realising that the scratches were imaginary.

And with this, the poor put upon hubbie decides to call it a day and find a local hotel where hopefully he can get some peace from his mad missis.

Now sooner has day turned to night when they pull up outside an enormous Gothic castle* that, just to show how foreboding it actually is, is blasting Bach's Toccata in d-minor out of the windows.

Hurrying inside the couple are greeted by the owners - a hunting knife obsessed old fat man cradling a shotgun and his pie-obsessed wife who bizarrely seems to have a tray of booze permanently stuck to her hand.

It's like staying at your nan and granddads as a kid.

But without the late night bedroom visits and forced buggery obviously.

Pants.

As the foursome sit and sip wine the old lady begins to tell a spooky  local legend of days gone by and how during/before/after the equinox (take your pick) shit happens.

And as if by magic and to prove a point a horse suddenly gallops passed.

It seems that years ago a local tinker family used to lure passing ships to their doom with false signal fires on shore before stealing their cargo.

But one night when attempting to scupper a passing English ship (carrying a cargo of antiquities from Egypt (see? We used to trade with the world) a huge earthquake squashed the ship flat into the rocks and the family with it.

Yup, sounds legit.

Anyway it appears that three descendants of the family are still alive and reside in the village but because of their past crimes have been afflicted with a terrible curse.

And no, being French doesn't count as a curse.

Yet.

There's an old woman whom everyone thinks is a witch, her daughter that no-one has ever seen and her son who is described as being an inbred monster with a massive head and a love of cycling (probably).

Can you guess who that is?

"I'm from Dudley!"

Obviously all this talk of terrible deaths and huge heads has an upsetting effect on Brenda who retires to bed only to be kept awake by the constant tip-tapping of hooves from the horse who is still wandering about in the hotel car park leaving her only one option - to head outside in a flimsy nightie and a pair of bright yellow wellies and matching raincoat.

I'll give the film it's due tho' this is quite possibly one of the most erotic things I've ever seen on celluloid.

And that includes your kids birth video.

No sooner has she tiptoed outside tho' when she's roughly pushed aside by the old man who, after years of torment has decided that tonight's the night that he's going to shoot the horse and with a cry of  "I hate that duck!" runs out into the night.

And straight past the horse.

Obviously Brenda decides to go out after him.

Which would probably be OK if not for the fact that it appears she's suddenly shit scared of horses so as soon as she spots our four legged friend she starts to scream before running to her husbands car and driving away.

Leaving her husband stranded alone and asleep in a strange place.

What a lovely lady.

Unfortunately - for her that is, as a viewer I'm just happy something is finally happening tho' it's a pity that the film is so dark you can only guess as to what that is -  the scary horse seems capable of randomly teleporting places and suddenly appears in front of the car forcing our heroine to abandon it and run into the woods in the hope of something - anything - of note happening.

"Chase me now!"

 After interminable shots of the old man swearing whilst taking pot shots at out-takes from the title sequence to Black Beauty intercut with scenes of Brenda stumbling thru' bushes in various states of focus she soon - but not soon enough - bumps into the beast boy and his mum who appear to be pushing an apple cart around whilst tabbing on duty fee fags and discussing his recently dead sibling/her dead daughter.

Which kinda explains why no fucker has seen her of late.

Paying too much attention to the chat and not enough to where she's standing Brenda trips and falls into an open grave where she's soon spotted by the bad boy.

He doesn't kill her tho' as remarkably it turns out that Brenda is the spitting image of his dead sister.

Which isn't too surprising seeing she's also played by Renaud, only this time in a really shit wig.


Entranced by the resemblance he just sits and pokes her with a stick but his mother has other ideas, insisting that Brenda has no right to live if her daughter has died, so orders her son to bury Brenda alive.

Luckily the horse appears and kicks the son in the face giving Brenda ample time to escape and the viewer a chance to go for a piss safe in the knowledge that absolutely fuck all of note is actually going to happen.

Scarily at the very same time the horse is also still taunting the old bloke with the gun.

Ghost horse?

Twins?

Or just shite plotting?

You decide.

"You ain't seen me right?"

Just as the sheer ineptitude of the plotting feels like it's about to crush everything and everyone around it the film takes a bizarre turn as suddenly and without warning a nearby cliff face collapses exposing not only the missing British ship but also a mummy clad in an old body stocking and a gimp mask who totters off toward the graveyard and vomits in the dead sisters (albeit very pretty) mouth and brings her back to life before taking her hand a going for a walk.

And with that the scene is set for a confrontation of epic proportions 'tween a mummy, a spooky horse and an old man with a gun driven mad by the lack of a good nights sleep.

Tho' not between the mummy and mental boy tho' as they're played by the same actor.

Suffice to say that Brenda's night is about to get much worse....

...And one that doesn't involve Cécile Fournier.

Bloody hell that was rough.

Fuck only knows what Bernard Launois was injecting when he decided to make this movie but hopefully it's been totally banned under the UN human rights act by now, tho' it'd be nice to know exactly what he was thinking when he decided to throw away his fairly lucrative bit part career with Eurocine Films to try his hand at directing.

As an 'actor' he'd appeared briefly in 'Pigalle Crossways of Illusions', 'Racket on Pleasure' and the Rosalba Neri shagathon '2 Males for Alexa' but by the Eighties Launois was bitten - tho' more likely mercilessly buggered - by the directing bug, which after a few piss-poor comedies culminated with Devil Story.

Thanks for that Bernard.

Coming across like the painful results of an almost soulless scientific study into the equations of what makes a bad movie, Devil Story is badly shot, underwritten to a point of absurdity and cheaper than your mum with the added bonus of being shot thru' gauze on cracked lenses by a drunk blind man that manages to even  make scenes of a nubile French lass running around in her undies appear underwhelming and unappealing.

Or perhaps that's the point and Launois is in fact a cinematic genius who's actually intentionally fucking with our preconceptions of what constitutes a good film.

"Look over there! That's how many fucks I give!"

Only joshing, it's just shit.

*In reality the famous Palais Bénédictine - a Gothic/renaissance venue built by Benedictine liqueur's founder, Ted Bénédictine and designed by Camille Albert and very pretty it is too.