Demonoid

Has there ever been a really good movie about a disembodied hand killing people? THE CRAWLING HAND…THE HAND…DEMONOID…nope. This is, however, a pretty funny movie about a disembodied hand that kills people. It makes no sense, and the acting is sluggish, but earnest director Alfredo Zacarias (THE BEES) piles on the gore, sleaze, nudity, explosions, stunts, and car crashes that can make Mexican horror cinema such a joy.

Filmed in Guanajuato, Mexico City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Oxnard (!), DEMONOID starts South of the Border where miner Mark Baines (Roy Jenson, somehow not cast as a heavy) is having trouble convincing his superstitious workers to go into a silver mine that housed a Satanic torture chamber 300 years earlier. Mark and his wife Jennifer (THE BROOD’s Samantha Eggar) find a hand-shaped box down there and bring it back to their hotel room, where it attacks a drunken Mark and possesses him.

After blowing up all the miners, Mark dashes to Las Vegas, where he runs off a spectacular winning streak at craps (due, apparently, to his spirited new hand) and is kidnapped by a gambler (Ted White, who played Jason in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING) and his moll (former Russ Meyer model Haji), who threaten to slice off his hands unless he reveals his winning formula. Mark kills his attackers and immolates himself.

Meanwhile, Jennifer, in search of her mass-murderer husband (law enforcement officials apparently aren’t), travels to Los Angeles, where she believes Mark’s body is buried (why an unidentified corpse found near Las Vegas would be buried in L.A. is a point I didn’t quite understand). Father Cunningham (former Oscar nominee Stuart Whitman) isn’t convinced of her story of a Satanic hand that crawls, leaps through the air, crushes the faces of its victims with spectacular strength, and possesses their souls, not even after it appears Mark’s corpse (played by a much smaller actor than Roy Jenson) has leapt out of the ground, cut off its hand in the door of a police car, and possessed a cop who fights Cunningham in a boxing ring the next day.

From there, DEMONOID turns into “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?” with the shriveled hand in place of the button. The cop (Lew Saunders) kidnaps Jennifer and takes her to a plastic surgeon, on whom he pulls his pistol and demands, “Either you cut off my hand, or I’ll kill you.” Using a ridiculously futuristic scalpel that “cauterizes while it cuts,” the doctor (Narciso Busquets) cuts off the possessed hand, which leaps to a nearby table, grabs the cop’s gun, and blasts the boobilicious nurse (Erika Carlsson) in the back before taking over the doctor. The now-possessed doctor kidnaps Jennifer and straps her to his table so he can take her hand, before the lurching Irish priest Cunningham somehow figures out where she is and rescues her. A T.J. HOOKER car chase culminates in a few crashes and the plastic surgeon letting a train run over his hand to amputate it.

The hand goes on to log even more travel time than the L.A. Lakers during the regular season, showing up at the most inopportune moments without competent explanation from director Zacarias or his co-writers David Fein (CHEERLEADER CAMP) and F. Amos Powell (CURSE OF THE STONE HAND). Adding to the general hilarity of the script and lackluster direction is the wildly overplayed score by Richard Gillis (augmented by library cues) and the somnambulant performance by Whitman, whose accent fluctuates from scene to scene (hell, line to line). He’s so bored (wouldn’t you be?), he handles a scene in which he burns his own hand off like he’s calmly spraying Off on a mosquito bite.

DEMONOID closes on an overwrought, downbeat manner that flies in the face of physics or logic, but it’s only 79 minutes long, and what better do you have to do? This is a terrible movie, but a compulsively watchable one that’s too crazy and dumb to be boring. A tacked-on prologue was filmed in Bronson Caverns. Sets, photography, stunts, and special effects — aside from the laughably phony rubber hands — are well done, so Zacarias wasn’t without talent. The director originally released DEMONOID himself under his American Panorama banner, which released the even more incredible RAW FORCE. Sure, it’s only two films, but not many studios can boast a 1.000 batting average.

Fantastic Voyage

20th Century Fox’s colorful, entertaining science fiction movie won two deserved Academy Awards for its visual effects and set decoration/art direction and was nominated for three others (sound effects, editing, and cinematography).

FANTASTIC VOYAGE's high-concept plot, delivered by screenwriter Harry Kleiner (BULLITT) based on story elements by David Duncan (THE TIME MACHINE), Otto Klement, and Jerome Bixby (IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND EARTH), is clever, but also contains holes, inconsistencies, and downright illogic that can drive you crazy if you let them (Isaac Asimov corrected some of them in his 1966 novelization).

A defecting Soviet agent is attacked before he can tell the U.S. government his secrets. The only way to repair the blood clot in his brain is to miniaturize a submarine, inject it into his bloodstream, and allow a doctor to zap the clot with a laser from inside the brain. What could go wrong? Plenty, including a dastardly saboteur (who can it be?) and deadly antibodies that attach themselves to curvy Raquel Welch’s skintight wetsuit.

Aboard the Proteus are frogman and agent Grant (Stephen Boyd), surgeon Duval (Arthur Kennedy) and his assistant Cora Peterson (Welch), doctor Michaels (Donald Pleasence), and sub pilot Owens (William Redfield). Monitoring the crew from outside are Army men Carter (Edmond O’Brien) and Reid (Arthur O’Connell). Not only do they have to zip up the carotid artery, zap the clot, and get out of the man’s body, they have to do it in sixty minutes or else they’ll revert to their normal size and make a bloody mess.

As I mentioned, the writing is subpar with bland characters and dialogue. How much it matters in an adventure of this spectacle is up to you. Richard Fleischer’s (20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA) direction is calm and allows his effects guys to carry the burden, which they do with great skill. FANTASTIC VOYAGE was a hit (perhaps audiences were reminded of Fox’s earlier smash VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA) and spawned a Gold Key comic book, a Saturday morning cartoon series, countless spoofs and parodies, and an unabashed direct-to-video ripoff, ANTIBODY starring Lance Henriksen and Robin Givens, in 2002.

The Neanderthal Man (1953)

As if it weren’t embarrassing enough for Robert Shayne that he’s starring in such a dud as THE NEANDERTHAL MAN, his name is misspelled “Shane” in the main titles. Or maybe Shayne arranged it on purpose, so he could deny he was in this cheap, boring Jekyll/Hyde riff.

Whether through incompetence, laziness, or just plain penuriousness, the special effects are among the worst I’ve seen in a ‘50s movie. Harry Thomas (FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER) is credited with the makeup, which mostly consists of an unconvincing rubber mask stuck in a silly expression with goo-goo eyes. One scene in which the transformation of a mute woman (the striking Tandra Quinn, also in MESA OF LOST WOMEN) is revealed in a set of photographs loses whatever meek impact the filmmakers were striving for when you realize the prop department doctored the photos instead of putting makeup on Quinn.

Shayne, likable and authoritative as Metropolis police inspector Henderson on THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, is hammy and klutzy as a petulant, angry, vainglorious mad scientist who speaks in ten-cent words named Cliff Groves. He’s a laughing stock down at the scientists’ nerd gatherings because he believes cavemen were just as intelligent as modern man. To prove his theory, he injects himself with a serum that transforms him into the title character. He climbs out the window (it’s unlikely Shayne wore the immobile mask, though the makeup he wears during the transformation looks not half-bad) and kills (and possibly rapes).

Meanwhile, zoologist Ross Harkness (Richard Crane, later in THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE) is summoned to investigate sightings of a giant sabretooth tiger (played by both a regular tiger on a visible chain and a stuffed tiger with tusks). Joyce Terry (THE BEATNIKS) plays Groves’ daughter, Doris Merrick (UNTAMED WOMEN) is Groves’ fiancé (somehow he has one), and Beverly Garland (IT CONQUERED THE WORLD) is charming, especially in a gratuitous swimsuit modeling scene, as a Groves victim. Future LASSIE owner Robert Bray gets killed too.

Producers Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen (THE MAN FROM PLANET X) also take the blame for the absurd screenplay, which pumps Shayne full of so much ponderous dialogue that not even a better actor giving a good performance could do much with it. By the way, director E.A. Dupont made his first film in 1918, and his handling of THE NEANDERTHAL reflects the style of someone decades out of date. He had only a couple more films and some TV episodes left in him, and he died in 1956 at the age of 64.

The Bounty Hunter (1990)

THE EXTERMINATOR made TV actor Robert Ginty (BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP) a bankable star in low-budget exploitation movies. After a decade of seeing his photo on video boxes lining rental shelves, he decided he wanted to direct drive-in pictures too. His first shot behind the camera was Action International’s THE BOUNTY HUNTER, which he mostly lensed in Sand Springs, Oklahoma with EXTERMINATOR cinematographer Robert Baldwin. One location was William R. Pogue Municipal Airport, which was named after NASA’s first Native American astronaut.

Ginty takes a writing credit and top billing as Duke Evans, a tight-lipped bounty hunter who arrives in a small Southwestern town to look into the death of his ‘Nam buddy Tom Foot, a Native American who was allegedly shot in self-defense by cops while in custody. In a bit of lazy but effective casting, Bo Hopkins (THE WILD BUNCH) co-stars as corrupt, slow-talking redneck sheriff Bennett, who threatens Duke and advises him not to stick his nose into town business. Looks like ol’ Bennett is in bed with the oil companies, who want to kick the Indians off the reservation so they can take the oil buried there.

Ginty’s directing debut isn’t really very good. His inexperience shows at time, such as an opening bar fight that suffers from a lack of coverage. The sound and music score are rough, and the script by Ginty and Thomas Baldwin (FUTURE FORCE) features a simplistic bad-white-men-vs-good-red-men message and clunky pacing. Hopkins is watchable, of course, even when exerting the least possible effort—much more so than Ginty, whose tough guy is more of a dead fish (and I’m pretty sure Bo is going off-script on occasion, as his dialogue is usually livelier than everyone else’s). Native American actress Loeta Waterdown, playing Tom Foot’s schoolteacher sister, doesn’t seem to have acted again and was probably a local. Noted character actor Rex Linn, a regular on CSI: MIAMI, plays a policeman.

Space Master X-7

The title and marketing campaign for SPACE MASTER X-7 is quite a bait and switch. What seems to be a science fiction movie about space travel going in turns out to be an Earthbound find-the-virus thriller like PANIC IN THE STREETS. Shot in eight days for about $90,000, SPACE MASTER X-7 was filmed on various locations around Los Angeles, lending it a realistic documentary feel. Rarely seen since its 1958 theatrical release on a double bill with THE FLY, the film is probably best known today for its rare non-Stooges supporting performance by Moe Howard, a good friend of director Edward Bernds (QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE), who had helmed several Three Stooges shorts.

Along with Howard came his son-in-law Norman Maurer, a comic book writer and artist who created 3-D comics with Joe Kubert (TOR), and Larry Fine’s son-in-law Don Lamond, seen briefly in the film selling cars in a commercial. Maurer’s job — or one of his jobs as associate producer — was to create the film’s principal special effect: a space fungus known euphemistically as “blood rust.”

Back to that bait and switch I mentioned. There is no such thing as “Space Master X-7” in the film. A satellite returns from outer space with a canister, which scientist Charles Pommer (Paul Frees) takes to his home. The blood rust fungus escapes from the canister and overwhelms Pommer and his house, which security man John Hand (cowboy star Bill Williams) and Joe Ratigan (Robert Ellis) burn to the ground.

They assume the blaze consumed all the fungus, until they discover Pommer had a visitor: Laura Greeling (Lyn Thomas), who is on her way to Hawaii and comes to believe she’s on the hook for her murder. Hand and the cops are looking for her, but for her own good in fear she may also be infected with the blood rust and may be carrying it to anyone she meets. None of the film is set in outer space, but the effective ending is set aboard an airplane covered in blood rust.

Besides the dumb plotting to make Laura think she’s a murder suspect, SPACE MASTER X-7 is an intelligent thriller, if not always an exciting one. It was written by George Worthing Yates (IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA) and Daniel Mainwaring (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) and given a polish by Bernds to meet his budget. Scenes of men in fireproof suits spraying a train Laura was traveling in with fire, then spraying themselves to kill the fungus, are believable and interesting.

The special effects fare less well. The blood rust (the film is photographed in black-and-white) is merely thin foam rubber with compressed air blown into it to make it pulsate, and a shot of a miniature Jeep burning is one of the least convincing models ever filmed. The acting is appropriately straightforward for the documentary style Bernds is going for — a DRAGNET influence — and Howard is good in a dramatic role as a cab driver involved in the chase.

Death Wish II

One of the grimiest, most explicit, and most distasteful films of Charles Bronson’s career, DEATH WISH II faced the MPAA ratings board’s scissors before receiving an R rating instead of an X. Even then, the rape scenes directed by Michael Winner, who guided the original DEATH WISH to major box office in 1974, are ugly and hard to watch.

Of course, rape is an unpleasant experience and should be difficult to watch, but Winner’s handling of the sexual violence shows more degradation than necessary to adequately make the point and falls firmly into exploitation territory. It was even too much for the crew — cinematographer Thomas Del Ruth (THE BREAKFAST CLUB) and his team packed up and went home during the shooting of the rapes (CAMELOT’s Richard Kline came aboard as Del Ruth’s replacement for the rest of the production).

Of course, DEATH WISH II was produced by Cannon’s Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, whose intentions usually leaned toward exploitation rather than the serious thought-provoking drama of DEATH WISH. It would be difficult to argue Golan, Globus, and Winner were wrong, as DEATH WISH II went on to become one of Bronson’s biggest hits of the 1980s, particularly internationally. Released by Filmways in the United States, the sequel opened at number one and eventually earned $16 million at the box office and millions more in overseas theaters and on home video and pay cable. There was no doubt Golan and Globus would commission another sequel.

DEATH WISH II takes place four years after vigilante Paul Kersey (Bronson, who received $1.5 million for the role) laid waste to plenty of street scum in New York City. Now in Los Angeles with his daughter Carol (Robin Sherwood), still catatonic from her rape in New York, Kersey has resumed his career as an architect and is in love with Geri Nichols (Jill Ireland, natch), a reporter (Bronson slips and calls her “Jill” once). But his happiness is shortlived when five punks break into his home, rape and murder his maid (Silvana Gallardo), and kidnap and rape Carol, who is gruesomely killed trying to escape (another example of Winner overkill, no pun intended). Out come Kersey’s twin .22 automatic pistols for another round of punk-hunting, this time on the streets of L.A.

The cops, including investigating detective Mankiewicz (Ben Frank), know about Kersey’s past and begin to suspect him when local lowlives end up dead. So does New York detective Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia, returning from DEATH WISH), whose bosses send him to L.A. in fear it’ll be discovered that they had Kersey in custody and let him go four years earlier. J.D. Cannon (MCCLOUD) plays the New York district attorney, and Tony Franciosa (ACROSS 110TH STREET) plays the L.A. police commissioner — both men interested in covering up Kersey’s vigilantism.

Steel And Lace

A pretty good idea for a revenge flick from the pens of Joseph Dougherty (PRETTY LITTLE LIARS) and Dave Edison could sustain a 21st century remake, I think. Despite the title and concept, STEEL AND LACE is not a Charles Band production, but was instead made by Charles Fries, who made a lot of not-so-great television, and directed by the inventive Ernest Farino, whose background was in animation and special effects.

Bruce Davison, who shot this film between LONGTIME COMPANION and the Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations it earned him, stars as Albert Morton, an obsessed robot designer who goes off the rails after the rape and ensuing suicide of his sister Gaily (Clare Wren). The rich guy who did it, Daniel Emerson (Michael Cerveris), was acquitted at trial because his rich and equally corrupt buddies falsely alibied him. Albert, unwilling to let any of them off the hook, builds a robot that looks exactly like Gaily, outfits it with some fancy weaponry, and sics it on the rapists. Of course, she’s a sexy robot double who seduces the men in disguise before she wastes them.

Basically a slasher movie with a sci-fi twist (Gailybot’s methods of killing include burning, drilling, and head-chopping), STEEL AND LACE is imaginatively directed (the film opens with the leadup to the rape intercut with the jury’s verdict for efficient storytelling) and very well acted by Wren (THE YOUNG RIDERS) and Davison, who is clearly slumming, but not sleepwalking. Because Farino only had Davison for a limited number of days (one presumes), the film is padded with is a parallel plot featuring investigating cop Dunn (David Naughton) and his girlfriend, Alison (Stacy Haiduk, whose chainsmoking is annoying), a sketch artist. Both are appealing performers, but their storyline is mainly wheel-spinning, and we can’t wait for them to finish their scene so we can get back to Davison’s ravings and Wren’s slaughtering. At least the Naughton investigation gives us an entertaining David L. Lander (USED CARS) as a wisecracking coroner.

The Wild Racers

This dull AIP racing drama is one of Roger Corman’s least known pictures. He produced THE WILD RACERS without credit and assigned Charles B. Griffith (LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS) to write the script with director Daniel Haller (Max House, surely a pseudonym, gets on-screen credit). Haller (BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY) shot it on various European locations, and likely the lure of a quick overseas vacation brought Corman over to direct a few sequences, including at least one auto race.

THE WILD RACERS is also notable for a pair of debuts. Spanish-born cinematographer Nestor Almendros, who went on to win an Oscar for DAYS OF HEAVEN, shot his first American feature. Acting in her first film ever is Talia Shire, later a two-time Oscar nominee, whose brother Francis Ford Coppola had worked with Corman on low-budget features, including DEMENTIA 13 and THE TERROR. Her second film was THE DUNWICH HORROR, which Haller directed after this one. Another future Oscar winner, Verna Fields (JAWS), was one of the editing team tasked with assembling so much racing footage into something coherent and exciting.

Quentin Tarantino has called THE WILD RACERS his favorite racing film, partially because of the artsy European approach Haller and Almendros bring to it. Fabian was probably cast because he had just starred in two racing movies for AIP, FIREBALL 500 and THUNDER ALLEY, so the costumes already fit. Griffith gives him the unlikely moniker of Jojo (“‘Cause I got the mojo”) Quillico, who’s as successful with the ladies as he is on the racetrack. AIP did not want to release it once they saw the film, which is a big “no duh,” though THE WILD RACERS did see play on the back half of double bills.

Half the backstory is provided via a cacophony of voiceover laid over (literally) blazing stock car footage (an example of that arty approach Tarantino digs so much). The plotless exercise alternates between Fabian driving cars and Fabian making out with sexy birds. Hired as a backup driver to a big-shot Formula One driver, JoJo isn’t thrilled to lose and keeps pissing off his boss by winning races. Corman regular Dick Miller (A BUCKET OF BLOOD) dubs actor Warwick Sims, cast as Jojo’s mechanic Charlie.

To save money and time (Corman and credited producer Joel Rapp had no permits, so many shots were run-and-gun), Haller shot without sync sound, which contributes to the film’s Continental mood, but also lends it an artificiality that does it no favors. While THE WILD RACERS is ahead of its time visually and thematically, it isn’t thrilling, and it could use more cars and less Fabian frolicking in sun-glanced fields. Mike Curb’s Sidewalk Records released a soundtrack album featuring Davie Allan and the Arrows.

The Executioner Part II

No, there is no THE EXECUTIONER PART I. Though several films received theatrical releases during the 1970s under the title THE EXECUTIONER (Sonny Chiba starred in one of them; George Peppard another), it’s likely director James Bryan and producer Renee Harmon were trying to fool audiences into believing their film was a sequel to the 1980 exploitation hit THE EXTERMINATOR. Both films have the same plot, star a similarly garbbed ‘Nam vet vigilante, and open their films with helicopters and explosions in “Vietnam” (in the case of THE EXECUTIONER PART II, probably Malibu Creek State Park). Boy, I bet audiences were really confused when an actual EXTERMINATOR 2 also came out in 1984. (No, they weren’t.)

More importantly than its hilariously misleading title, if you’re into films like this, THE EXECUTIONER PART II is one of the funniest goddamn inept catastrophes ever made. Not only do Bryan (also the film’s cinematographer) and Harmon (also writer and co-star — we’ll get to that) know nothing about coherent filmmaking, they also seem to know little about human interaction. The first sign THE EXECUTIONER PART II was made by less than brilliant filmmakers comes during the prologue of U.S. troops in a firefight. The whole sequence is confusing and random (there’s no real way to know that two of the soldiers turn out to be the film’s leading characters, because Bryan doesn’t shoot clear close-ups of anyone or establish their characters), but the moment a soldier is shot with an offstage voice shouting “BANG!” as a substitute for an actual sound effect, I knew THE EXECUTIONER PART II was a rare treat for crappy-movie fans indeed.

The plot, as I mentioned above, is the same as THE EXTERMINATOR’s. A dissatisfied Vietnam vet, Mike (Antoine John Moffet), now a mechanic in Los Angeles, spends his spare time disguised in Army fatigues and a mask wandering around the city killing rapists, hoods, and gangbangers. Sometimes he drops a grenade down their drawers (the same Hanna-Barbera explosion is seen every time). Again, like THE EXTERMINATOR, The Executioner is pursued by a dogged police detective: Roger O’Malley (a weary Chris Mitchum), who also happens to be Mike’s war buddy and best pal. Awkward.

O’Malley hates vigilantes (though he doesn’t mind when Mike The Mechanic helps him kick the hell out of some punks stripping his car), but the local press adores The Executioner. Particularly TV reporter Celia Amherst, played by producer/writer Renee Harmon, an actress in her 50s with a German accent so impenetrable she makes Arianna Huffington sound like Mary Poppins. Not that anything in THE EXECUTIONER PART II should be confused for anything resembling reality, but Renee Harmon (a terrible actress) would never be hired to work on-air for any television station anywhere in the United States, not even a local cable access program aired at 3:00 a.m. That Harmon plays not only a TV personality, but also Mitchum’s love interest, is amazingly not the craziest aspect of THE EXECUTIONER PART II, though it would take a contest to determine what is.

Between ineptly staged action scenes, Bryan tries to develop other characters even less interesting than Mike, Roger, and Celia. Three of them are teenage girls: one who awkwardly holds up a woeful bouquet of weeds (played by an actress who looks right at the camera, probably reacting to commands from Bryan), a giggling dumb blonde who loves “dope” (“Coke! Oh, heavenly coke!”), and O’Malley’s daughter Laura (Bianca Phillipi), a “good girl” who falls into drugs and prostitution without her cop dad knowing. There’s also a mobster nicknamed The Tattoo Man (he has no visible tattoos) who refuses to pay Mike the $64 he owes, immediately sealing his fate (cue Hanna-Barbera explosion stock footage).

And then, saddest of all, there’s the veteran character actor Aldo Ray (THE NAKED AND THE DEAD), a drunk who didn’t even have a driver’s license at this point in his career and had to take a bus to the set. Ray “plays” the police commissioner, though it’s obvious he was on the set for maybe two hours and probably had no idea what the film was about or even what it was called. Bryan shoots Ray only in extreme close-up and edits him hamfistedly into dialogue scenes with actors Ray never met. For some reason, the actor doubling Ray wears eyeglasses, but Ray doesn’t, resulting in one of the film’s most boggling continuity errors and a clear admission that Bryan is either a boob or just didn’t give a shit. Considering the preponderance of blown dialogue and awkward silences between lines, it would be hard to argue otherwise.

The Roommates

Fans of 1970s drive-in starlets won’t want to miss THE ROOMMATES, an unusual mixture of frothy sexual hijinks and brutal serial murders. In addition to the five main “roommates,” all of whom have sizable cult fanbases, director Arthur Marks (BONNIE’S KIDS) finds small parts for Connie Strickland (BLACK SAMSON), Uschi Digard (CHERRY, HARRY & RAQUEL), Lindsay Bloom (H.O.T.S.), and Juanita Brown (CAGED HEAT). As with Marks’ later production, THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS, THE ROOMMATES has an offbeat story structure that keeps the audience on edge. With so many characters to develop, relationships to explore, and (later) murders to exploit, THE ROOMMATES certainly never drags, and its charming cast of gorgeous women deliver very good performances in and out of their clothes.

College babes Carla (SUGAR HILL star Marki Bey), Heather (THE BIG DOLL HOUSE’s Pat Woodell), Beth (WONDER WOMEN’s Roberta Collins), and Brea (THE ABDUCTORS’ Laurie Rose), along with Heather’s teenage cousin Paula (THE STEWARDESSES’ Christina Hart), are spending the summer banging around Lake Arrowhead. Sitcom dialogue by Marks and John Durren (DEVIL TIMES FIVE) establishes the young women as vivacious, smartmouthed, and ready for a good time. Collins, a terrific comedienne buried in exploitive sexpot roles, is really funny here and trades banter well with everyone, including director Marks in an unbilled cameo, but particularly Bey.

After a rambling first act that gets its locations and sprawling cast in a row, Act Two tips the so-far breezy narrative on its side with the bloody murder of blond Alice (Strickland) by someone dressed as Father Guido Sarducci. Marks, a former PERRY MASON producer, has no shortage of red herrings, ranging from dirtball biker Socks (Durren) and his old lady (Paula Shaw) to teenagers Harold (Greg Mabrey) and Arnie (Gary Warren Mascaro) to an uptight motel clerk and a succession of dudes young and old, black and white, serious and insouciant, rejected and satisfied involved with the main starlets.

More murders ensue. Anyone who spots a clue in the opening titles and has a passing familiarity with PSYCHO will guess the killer’s identity, though Marks’ staging of the killings and the stars’ reactions to them are more important than the mystery. A string of serial killings (investigated by former Lone Ranger John Hart, trying to put the execrable BLACKENSTEIN behind him) is no match for hormones, as the various couplings continue.

THE ROOMMATES is never believable, but it’s consistently interesting with the actors’ strong personalities compensating for any plot and dialogue deficiencies. Yes, the film is overstuffed (Roger Corman did this type of film better with three women, rather than five), leading to some awkward story turns and transitions, but it’s entertaining enough and an appropriate bookend with THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS, which told a similarly tawdry tale with more sleaze.

The Sender (1998)

PM Entertainment, known in the 1990s for staging slick, exciting, illogical action movies on a direct-to-video budget, pumps up the supporting cast a bit and adds a science fiction plot to its trademark car chases and stunts. The sci-fi stuff is pretty silly—get a load of Angel, the sexy alien in cornrows and a skintight silver suit played by Shelli Lether—but director Richard Pepin and his producing partner Joseph Merhi sure know how to screech tires and smash glass. And star Michael Madsen (RESERVOIR DOGS) can even fight on the back of a semi trailer without losing his sunglasses.

In 1965, Air Force pilot Jack Grayson (Brian Bloom, the fake Bandit) is lost on a mission in the Bermuda Triangle. Thirty years later, Jack’s son Dallas, a commander in the Air Force, discovers he and his father posess a very rare gene that has turned his daughter Lisa (Erica Everage) into a “sender:” an Earthling with telekinetic powers that she has secretly been honing at night with Angel’s help.

Colonel Rosewater (R. Lee Ermey), working for sinister government leaders who want to learn Lisa’s secret, kidnaps her and tries to kill Dallas, sucking the grieving father into a maelstrom of exploding cars, betrayals, and E.T.s. The unflappable Dallas handles the discovery of a hot space alien with aplomb, not even blinking or asking any of the two hundred questions I would have for a space girl.

THE SENDER doesn’t rank among PM’s greatest, but the expert stuntwork, the humor, and the veteran cast make it all quite watchable. Robert Vaughn (THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.) shows up as a retired Admiral, Dyan Cannon (COAST TO COAST) is his wife with a secret, and Steven Williams (MISSING IN ACTION 2: THE BEGINNING) is absurd as another alien (why is he wearing an earring?). Madsen also starred in EXECUTIVE TARGET for PM.

The 27th Day

What would you do if you literally held the fate of the entire world in your hand? That’s the intriguing question behind THE 27TH DAY, a Columbia release based on a novel by John Mantley, who later produced GUNSMOKE. Mantley’s literate screenplay (after TARANTULA’s Robert Fresco took a stab at it) begins with five disparate individuals — Eve Wingate (Valerie French) of England, Jonathan Clark (a mustachioed Gene Barry) of the United States, Su Tan (Marie Tsien) of Red China, Klaus Bechner (George Voskovec) of West Germany, and Ivan Godofsky (Azemat Janti) of Russia — abducted by an alien and taken aboard his flying saucer (stock footage from EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS).

The alien (Arnold Moss) tells them his people need a new planet to colonize before their sun goes supernova in 27 days. Because his people cannot destroy intelligent life, the alien hands each of them a container containing a capsule that, if activated, will destroy all life within a 3000-mile radius. Each capsule can be opened only by its owner, and the alien is betting his entire civilization on man’s propensity for murder — that the Earthlings will destroy each other, and his people can live on Earth on their place.

If the five had any intention of waiting out the 27-day period, Moss (who is excellent and believable) screws them by going on television and announcing to the world what he has done and who has the capsules. Thus, THE 27TH DAY is not only a morality play, but also a chase movie with Eve and Jonathan teaming up to hide at a Los Angeles racetrack, Bechner stalked by Commie assassins, and soldier Godofsky tortured by his superiors. Despite the international conflicts, the film is slowly paced and not particularly exciting.

Unusual as an American science fiction movie of the 1950s without monsters or robots, THE 27TH DAY is earnest in its presentation of Big Ideas, and it mostly succeeds, except for its absurdly optimistic ending. It may be the happiest ending to an all-life-on-Earth-may-be-destroyed movie ever.

Director William Asher was primarily a television director at the time — notably 102 episodes of I LOVE LUCY — and he takes his big-screen responsibilities seriously. A perfunctory love story develops between Eve and Jonathan, which is of little interest, but otherwise the film aims higher. It’s unclear whether Columbia noticed, as it released THE 27TH DAY on a double bill with 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH, which does feature a monster. Barry was the cast’s only household name, primarily from OUR MISS BROOKS and THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, and went on to become a major television star in BAT MASTERSON, BURKE’S LAW, and THE NAME OF THE GAME.

Truck Turner

After Isaac Hayes won the Academy Award for writing the hit “Theme from Shaft,” the funky song from MGM’s pioneering blaxploitation film SHAFT, someone got it into his head that Hayes could act. After churning out an Italian crime movie, THREE TOUGH GUYS (Lino Ventura and Fred Williamson were the others), Hayes signed on to play the title character in AIP’s TRUCK TURNER, for which he would also compose the score.

Directed by talented Roger Corman alumnus Jonathan Kaplan (THE STUDENT TEACHERS) from a screenplay cobbled together by Oscar Williams (BLACK BELT JONES), Michael Allin (ENTER THE DRAGON), Jerry Wilkes, and an uncredited Leigh Chapman (DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY), the action-packed TRUCK TURNER casts Hayes as bounty hunter “Mack Truck” Turner, who teams up with partner Jerry (Alan Weeks) to bring in bad guys who have jumped bail. No stranger to violence, Turner kills a pimp during a shootout, which marks the hunter for death. Foul-mouthed madam Dorinda (Nichelle Nichols, raising a few Trekkers’ eyebrows) promises her stable of call girls (who include HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD’s Tara Strohmeier as “Turnpike”) to the pimp who knocks Turner off.

Hayes is less than convincing when reciting dialogue, though there’s no denying he has a physical presence. He also has nice chemistry with Alan Weeks, who helps carry the film in the early going with crude but funny banter. Yaphet Kotto, fresh off LIVE AND LET DIE and unhappy to be doing a blaxploitation movie, plays Harvard Blue, the pimp most likely to collect Dorinda’s bounty, and Kaplan regular Dick Miller (NIGHT CALL NURSES) as a bail bondsman is always a joy. Beyond the performances, the action carries the day, as Kaplan barely lets ten minutes go by without a bloody R-rated shootout or chase. Not that he takes it seriously — TRUCK TURNER is a very funny picture, which helps the violence go down easily. Annazette Chase (THE MACK), who plays Turner’s special lady, later played Hayes’ daughter in a ROCKFORD FILES episode.

What I Watched and Read in 2015

I watched 350 movies last year, which is up from 2014's total of 322. I also read 98 books, way up from last year's total of 66 (I read more magazines and comic books in 2014). However, I watched 625 television episodes, which is way down from last year's 760.

The best movies I saw for the first time last year (in no particular order):
THE MARTIAN (2015)
SPOTLIGHT (2015)
KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE (2015)
SKYFALL (2012)
WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (2015)
THE MAZE RUNNER (2014)
IT FOLLOWS (2015)
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015)
THE GIFT (2015)
DEATH HUNT (1981)
THAT GUY DICK MILLER (2014)
CREED (2015)
ENEMY TERRITORY (1987)

Honorable Mentions:
ALLEY CAT (1984)
MR. HEX (1946)
UNTAMED YOUTH (1957)
THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (2014)
RED SUN (1971)
FRIDAY THE RABBI SLEPT LATE (1976)
SAW VI (2009)
HOMEFRONT (2013)
SMUGGLERS' COVE (1948)
DEADLY TAKEOVER (1995)
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
DIG THAT URANIUM (1955)
THE SCORCH TRIALS (2015)
GET CRAZY (1983)
NIGHTMARE IN CHICAGO (1964)
INSOMNIA (2002)
THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (2013)
THE WRECKING CREW! (2015)
KRAMPUS (2015)

Of the 98 books I read, 95 of them were first-time reads. A few recommendations by genre:
Action/Adventure/Thriller:
TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD by Fritz Leiber
THE SATAN BUG by Alistair MacLean
TESTAMENT by David Morrell
THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL by Ira Levin
BLACK CHRISTMAS by Thomas Altman

Biography:
SUPER BOYS: THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF JERRY SIEGEL AND JOE SHUSTER by Brad Ricca
HARVEY KURTZMAN: THE MAN WHO CREATED MAD AND REVOLUTIONIZED HUMOR IN AMERICA by Bill Schelly

Comics:
THE BRONZE AGE OF DC COMICS by Paul Levitz
CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED: A CULTURAL HISTORY (2nd Edition) by William B. Jones Jr.
THE LEAGUE OF REGRETTABLE SUPERHEROES by Jon Morris

Crime Drama:
SHARKY'S MACHINE by William Diehl (not a first-time read)

Mystery:
THE MIDNIGHT LADY AND THE MOURNING MAN by David Anthony
(I read five Perry Mason novels by Erle Stanley Gardner; all are recommended)

Film/Television:
RETURN TO TOMORROW: THE FILMING OF STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE by Preston Neal Jones
THESE ARE THE VOYAGES: TOS SEASON THREE by Marc Cushman
THE MAKING OF STAR WARS by J.W. Rinzler
FILM IS HELL: HOW I SOLD MY SOUL TO MAKE THE CRAPPIEST MOVIES IN HISTORY by Matthew Howe
AN ATHEIST IN THE FOX HOLE: A LIBERAL'S EIGHT-YEAR ODYSSEY INSIDE THE HEART OF THE RIGHT-WING MEDIA by Joe Muto
LIVE FROM NEW YORK: THE COMPLETE, UNCENSORED HISTORY OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE AS TOLD BY ITS STARS, WRITERS, AND GUESTS by James Andrew Miller & Tom Shales (not a first-time read)

Sports:
CONNECTICUT GRIDIRON: FOOTBALL MINOR LEAGUES OF THE 1960S AND 1970S by William J. Ryczek
PENNANT RACE by Jim Brosnan
THE $400,000 QUARTERBACK OR: THE LEAGUE THAT CAME IN FROM THE COLD by Bob Curran

I'm still trying to catch up with classic television series. A few shows I watched for the first time in 2015:
DIANA
DICK TRACY
GRAND JURY
GUNG HO
HAWKINS
HE SAID SHE SAID
HOLLYWOOD OFFBEAT
I'M THE LAW
THE INTERNS
THE JIMMY STEWART SHOW
MADIGAN
THE OUTCASTS
SEA DIVERS
SECOND CHANCE
THE SENATOR
SPENCER'S PILOTS
WORKING
WORLD OF GIANTS