Dollar Store Cinema Returns! Sort of...

It's a little known fact that so-called dollar stores are a great place to scout out cheap movies on DVD. We have about a half dozen such stores in my little hometown here and, every chance I get, I scour them for DVDs. My philososphy is simple: if you pay a buck for a movie and it turns out to be crap, you're only out a buck.

In the past, I've managed to find quite a few good movies this way, Kansas City Confidential, Deep Red and Legend of the Eight Samurai are among the good ones. Horrors of Spider Island, however, wasn't. It was, though, worth watching for its pure absurdity and it gave me the idea for a (hopefully) regular segment. I'm calling it "Dollar Store Cinema" and it will feature movies I've found that are so bad I couldn't look away.

A team of girls find themselves caught in a deadly web when they are shipwrecked on a remote South Seas island. The lush, tropical isle seems an ideal place to await their rescue, but hidden in the jungle are giant poisonous spiders. A venomous bite transforms the girls' escort into a disfigured beast, half-man and half-insect. Consumed with lust and craving blood, the monster hunts down the defenseless girls and slaughters them one by one.

At least that's what the box says. What you get are cat fights, cheap special effects, horny broads and bad acting. It's just THAT good. I've actually watched it about a half dozen times and what cracks me up most is, through all the horror going on around them, all these girls want to do is party. Keep in mind this movie was made in the early sixties and when it hit the American shores, it was probably nothing short of shocking for its brazen sexual content, which by today's standards falls short of a Disney movie. I highly recommend this movie on that merit alone.
Next time...Bloody Pit of Horror!

Here's the thing about October. I watch a lot of monster movies in October. When else can you get away with it, right? Luckily, dollar stores realize this so there's no short supply of crappy monster movies to be found. I call them "monster movies" instead of "horror movies" because, well, they're just not scary, which would imply horror. At least to me.

Today, I picked up a copy of Atom Age Vampire, which is actually almost too good for my "Dollar Store Cinema" review, but more on it later. Instead, as promised, I give you...Bloody Pit of Horror!

A group of photographers and models arrive at an Italian castle owned by a deranged ex-actor who is the reincarnation of the notorious medieval torturer, the Crimson Executioner. When he discovers that his ex-girlfriend is among the group, the enraged madman subjects them to his dungeon of torture. With scantly clad victims pleading for mercy as they face unendurable tortures, Bloody Pit of Horrors is a titillating over-the-top European horror epic.

The box had me at "titillating." This movie delivers, too, folks and "over-the-top" is putting it lightly. A bevvy of barely-dressed Italian beauties is chased around the creepy, old castle by one mantastic Mickey Hargitay, father (with a little help from Jane Mansfield) of the lovely and talented Marishka Hargitay, whom some of you may recall from previous blogs, is one of the few reasons TV was invented. But I digress.

Bloody Pit of Horror's seemingly inexhaustible supply of screaming cheesecake is only matched by an almost laughable, if not downright disturbing amount of mancake supplied by Hargitay. Perhaps that is the true horror within this bloody pit. It's a "b" movie in its purest form and must be seen to be believed. It might sound like I'm putting this movie down, I'm really not. If you can find it, buy it, but don't pay more than a buck for it and you won't be disappointed.

Next time, as promised, Atom Age Vampire! God bless the Italians...

For those of you wondering, yes, I'm still diligently working on various comic book projects. At this writng, I'm a mere three pages from finishing the pencil work on Salem, AZ#1. Rest assured, there will be plenty on display here very soon. But, in the meantime, I'm watching more bad horror movies than I should admit to.

This time I give you a "Dollar Store Cinema Double Feature," featuring Atom Age Vampire and Dr. Jekyll vs the Werewolf (yeah, you read that right).

Atom Age Vampire is almost too good for this segment and is only a "b" movie as a matter of circumstance.

After the beautiful dancer Janette (played with sultry glamour by Susanna Loret) is dumped by her boyfriend, she, in a fit of restless despair, suffers a horrible car accident, hideously scarring her once beautiful face. Lying in a hospital bed, suffering from the blackest depression, Jeanette is given a glimpse of hope from Monique, a beautiful, mysterious assistant to the sinister Professor Levin. Desperate to repair her mutilated face, Jeanette finds herself the latest experiment of the bizarre doctor, and an accomplice to a series of savage murders committed to maintain the effects of her restored beauty.

There are a few aspects of this film that the box doesn't cover. One of which is more of a misnomer. Jeanette doesn't exactly volunteer for the experiment and there's more to the mad doctor than meets the eye. All things considered, this was a pretty damn cool movie. Find it, buy it, even if it costs you $1.99, which is actually what I paid for it.

I tried to google a decent picture of Susanne Loret, but this is the best I could do.

And that brings us to Dr. Jekyll vs. the Werewolf, not exactly one of Italy's finest exports.

Tired of turning into a wolf, a man seeks a cure from Dr. Jekyll's grandson. RUNTIME: 76 MINUTES.

That's pretty much all the box says. Sounds like a pretty cool plot, right? I don't think the guy that wrote the little synopsis actually watched the movie and I can't say as I blame him. Now, I'll admit I watched this movie over a quart of Miller High-Life, but I don't think that had anything to do with how bad it was. 76 minutes never seemed so long. It reminded me of an Igmar Bergman movie, just not shot as well.

The movie's only saving grace was one Shirley Corrigan (below), which made it a buck well spent.

Next time, a bit of a departure as Dollar Store Cinema brings you Moon of the Wolf, starring the fugitive himself David Janssen (much to his shame, I'm sure).

A young girl is mysteriously found dead in her Louisiana hometown and Sheriff Whitacker (David Janssen) tries to crack the case. Tensions build as more and more suspects come into play. The people of the town believe a pack of wild dogs are to blame for the girls' death, but are they more than just wild dogs? The film's ending is quite unusual.

At least that's what the back of the box claims and if that final boast is true, I couldn't tell you. I fell asleep every time I tried watching it. People in Louisiana have a different definition of "tension" as this 1972 made-for-TV masterpiece was as tense as an episode of the Cajun Chef. Forty-five minutes into this sleeper, character actor extraordinaire Geoffrey Lewis is chased around a jail cell by a menacing shadow and is ultimately killed, subsequently killing any interest in the movie for me. To her credit and possible dismay, Leslie H. Whitten wrote the book this fine film was based on.

Because I can't fairly critique "Moon of the Wolf," having slept through it's "unusual ending," I figure I'd take this opportunity to review a movie I actually managed to stay awake through. "Five Minutes to Live," stars Johnny Cash and, oh hell, who cares beyond that right? In his 1956 debute, Cash stars in this tale of a kidnapper who takes a housewife hostage and demands a ransom from her wealthy husband. This movie actually delivers plot twists up the wazoo, a little singing on Cash's part, and an opening scene that has the future Man In Black behind the muzzle of a blazing Tommy Gun. Want more? How about Vic Tayback for starters?

I can't say anything too bad about this movie.

This one delivers, folks. I read a couple of not-so-forgiving website reviews lambasting it for not having a single original idea, but let's face it, it's a friggin' vampire movie. Even back in 1968, there was nothing new under the sun in vampire movies, pun intended."Long life!" toast Italian hotties Diana Lorys (left) & Anita Eckberg as foreshadowing for things to come. At first, Eckberg orders a whiskey but, upon discovering they haven't any, settles for beer. What a woman!

The plot goes something like this...

Sylvia (Eckberg) inherits her family's ancestral home in a remote Italian village. When she arrives to inspect it, she finds it to be full of a handful of Amazon-like vampires, her creepy, metrosexual uncle, who doesn't appear to be any older than she is and one big peeping tom. Sylvia's husband and his friend, whose name isn't really important, attempt to rescue her. There's blood sucking, a little S&M and some humor here and there.
In an unfortunate, libido-driven misunderstanding on Sylvia's husband's best friend's part (see, told you his name wasn't important), when one of the vamps asks him if his blood is hot, he replies, "Hey, I'm Italian!"
Maybe Fangs of the Living Dead wasn't the most original vampire movie ever made, but it certainly wasn't the worst. A buck's a buck, right?

That's right, astute boppers, this was the blogger's equivilent of "rerun season," but have no fear, Dollar Store Cinema will return soon with "all new" entries of movies you'll probably not want to see.