The Ed Wood, Jr. Acting Method

Edward D. Wood, Jr. The name alone implies a B-grade director, hack screenwriter and novelist (no matter how prolific) and inept producer more concerned with bringing his pictures in for paltry sums than making quality films. Another phrase applies to the illustrious Ed Wood Filmaking Process... good character actor. What the... ? Is he insane, you ask yourself? No, I am not insane. A critical examination of Wood's performances will more than explain the claim that Ed Wood Jr. was a good, effective character actor (with a few exceptions).

BUY GLEN OR GLENDA STARRING EDDIE!

Upon arriving in Hollywood in 1948, Wood's first "showbiz" job was, believe it or not, as an actor. He played the role of the Sheriff in a dinner theater production of The Blackguard Returns. By all accounts, Wood performed admirably working only for beer and pretzels. This is where he made the acquaintance of Crawford John Thomas, who was also a performer in The Blackguard Returns. The two actors turned themselves into film producers almost overnight and created Wood-Thomas Productions. Their first project was The Streets of Laredo (1948) and became not only Ed Wood's writing anddirectorial debut, but also his debut as a movie star, playing a cowboy. The project was never finished. In what available footage there is of Laredo , Wood performs admirably. He is upstaged by his horse, but dies when shot in the belly very convincingly. Moving on.

Movie Review: Both Ways (1975)

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

Directed By Jerry Douglas

Can you really have it …? Apparently not, as this sexually confused semi-hardcore film unearthed by Vinegar Syndrome illustrates.

Donald Wyman (the very unappealing Gerald Grant, from Radley Metzger’s Score) and his wife Janet (disco songstress Andrea True, soon to rocket to one-hit wonder stardom with the dance ditty “More, More, More”) live a nice sheltered suburban existence in Connecticut with their spastic young son (Neil Scott). It’s not all on the up and up; their next door neighbors (Bill Morgan and Darby Lloyd Rains) throw swingers’ parties and Grant has a muscular Yale college student Gary (Dean Tait) as his deeply closeted gay love interest. Donald and Janet play the field while their dried-up old prune of a maid Pauline (Katherine Miles) looks on with disapproval.

Movie Review: The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

Day three of the David Hayes Christmas Crap Review-a-Palooza and we’re cooking with gas! Hopefully someone leaves the burner on and lights a smoke so I can blow the hell up and not watch anymore of this garbage.

On the third day of Christmas the Head Cheese gave to me three ghostly visits that caused me, within my pants, to pee.

Last night I was visited by three ghosts. The first was the Ghost of Jedi Past and he showed me the glory of the original Star Wars trilogy and I marveled, like in my youth, to the adventures of Luke and Leia and that weird incestuous thing they had going on. Then, merely an hour later, I was visited by the Ghost of Jedi Present and he showed me the horrible, computer-generated filth that passed for films as George Lucas perverted his legacy, ably aided by Jake Lloyd, with the ‘new’ trilogy. As I lay awake in bed, shuddering from fright with the voice of Jar Jar shrilly echoing in my head, another ghost entered my bed chamber. Hunkering below the covers, only peeking out of cat-killing curiosity, I noticed that this ghost was smaller than the rest. And it limped. This ghost also had a hunchback and a wheezing cough that punctuated each step. Unafraid of this new ghost, I threw off my blanket and confronted it. This… thing announced itself to be The Ghost of Jedi A Little After Past. I laughed, mocking it and calling it Quasi-Ghosto. As the retarded little thing grabbed my hand, though, my laughter turned into a scream. You see, gentle reader, this malformed, raised in a basement, step-child of a ghost was taking me on the scariest adventure yet. It took me to The Star Wars Holiday Special.

Buy The Star Wars Holiday Special on DVD!

Movie Review: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Blu-ray, Twilight Time)

More often than not, when the late Sam Peckinpah casted actors for his films their personas emulated the tough and rebellious attitude that the director was known for. These guys (and gals) had some grit! Whether it’s Steve McQueen in The Getaway, L.Q Jones, Ernest Borgnine and William Holden in The Wild Bunch or Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs, machismo was never in doubt for any characters. Okay, I was kidding about Hoffman.

Bring Me the Head of Afredo Garcia star, Warren Oates, is definitely towards the top of the Peckinpah tough guy regulars. Here’s a man who probably ate nail sandwiches, slathered in dirt and would wash them down with motor oil -- all with a smile on his face. Even with a very slight stature Oates is so believably bad-ass. His portrayal of the lead character of “Bennie”, a hard-on-his-luck bartender looking to cash in on the bounty of the head of a dead john is truly one of the finer performances in the actor’s career (until he passed away at at 52 in 1982). Twilight Time has taken the Peckinpah classic and given a very deserving Blu-ray release with all the fixins'.

Movie Review: The Panic in Needle Park (Twilight Time, 1971)

When people talk about the early part of Al Pacino's career, they mention only a handful of movies. Of course The Godfather, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon are all considered classic parts of his career, but right before The Godfather arrived, Pacino played a heroin addict in a lesser remembered movie that centered around a group of addicts in an area of New York known as Needle Park.

Bobby (Pacino) is a charming scamp, full of energy and life. Honestly, scamp is the perfect word for him. He visits his artist friend Marco (Raul Julia), where he meets a lovely young woman named Helen (Kitty Winn). He is immediately enamored with Helen and decides to start a conversation that turns into a day long date of sorts. Throughout the day, Bobby shows his petty criminal side. He steals a television from the back of a van in order to pawn it. He interacts with his brother, who proudly declares how well he does robbing houses. He introduces Helen to several addict friends and other sketchy characters. Being the artistic type, she is fascinated with all of it.

Movie Review: Dolemite (Vinegar Syndrome, 1975)

It's strange to think of a pimp as a hero, but in 1975, Rudy Ray Moore did that with a character he created in his stand-up act. He made Dolemite a man of the people. Not only was he popular with those in his neighborhood, but the head of the prison where he was locked up trusted him enough to set him free so that he could take down a vicious rival. It's funny, but if Dolemite was made today, it could be done as a serious action film. Instead, we get legendary Blaxploitation gold.

Dolemite was one of the classics on my must-see list. It's up there in cult status with films like Shaft or Cannibal Holocaust. It has a loose story line, and it serves as more of a showcase for Moore's style of comedy. The basic premise is that one of Dolemite's ladies, Queen Bee, convinces the warden that he was framed in order to get him out of jail. The warden lets him loose knowing that only Dolemite can prove his own innocence. A rival named Willie Green (played by D'Urville Martin, who also directs), with the help of some crooked cops, had planted drugs and stolen furs in Dolemite's car. This got Dolemite out of the way with a twenty year prison sentence. As soon as Willie finds out he's back in action, he's chased by the same cast of criminals that put him away. It's a good thing his ladies have all been trained in kung fu.

Movie Review: Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things

Review By: James DePaolo

1971 was a weird time in film, you had so many studios just putting out films at a rapid rate that if you blinked you missed at least four new films. For better or worst this film sort of hid under the cracks until just recently when they re-released it. This film centers around two criminals who decide to hang low in a small town in Florida. Which if you know Florida, there are a million places to hang low in. Paul and Stanley, (Maybe that is where we got the name for the Kiss vocalist) hatch this idiotic plan for Paul to pretend to be Stanley’s Aunt Martha. The whole while it seems that a local woman takes a liking to Stanley and invites him to go out with her and the friends. Paul on the other hand seems to be the brains and in his disillusionment decides that the only way they can maintain their cover is by murdering people that the paranoia would have them believe are catching on to them.

This film covers sexual confusion, dysfunction and sleaze fairly well in its oddness. Paul as we learn is a homosexual and Stanley is a teenage lover of his that really comes across as a generation clash of sorts. You have the restless youth who does what all teens do, and the older man who is possessive to the point of over controlling. We watch as one starts to blossom on the world outside of them and the other becomes desperate. This film has some scenes that are set up for shock value and at times works decently.

Movie Review: Three Ripening Cherries (1979) and Sensual Fire (1982)

Directed by Carlos Tobalina

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

Desperately plain girls buried under makeup. Ugly wallpaper, sheets and tablecloths. Nonexistent stories about sex in San Francisco. We are back on director Carlos Tobalina’s turf, friends.

Three Ripening Cherries finds Mom (Kitty Shayne) talking to four girls at the kitchen table about sex. Mom admits that her first time was not pleasurable. A bearded friend of the family sought to be the one take away her troublesome cherry, and in a flashback, aforementioned creep forces himself on her to her cries of pain and distress. Mom sought to make amends by sleeping with every high school greaser in the process in order to get her groove back.

Movie Review: Pretty Peaches (1978)

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

Directed by Alex DeRenzy

Die-hard daddy’s girl, light and bubbly Peaches (Desiree Cousteau) is none-too-pleased with her father’s (John Leslie) coming nuptials. Fleeing the tacky ceremony held at a rundown wedding chapel-cum-casino, Peaches lets off some steam by wildly driving her jeep off road in the surrounding Nevada wilderness. Bumping her head and falling unconscious, she awakes – after being raped, more or less by stag flick standby Joey Silvera. Peaches, her attackers, her papa and his new bride (Flower) wind back and forth through the film’s running time until a climactic – literally, swinger’s party. Peaches regains her memory and the story ends happily, kind of, sort of.

“Why do women fake orgasms?” infamous skin flick director Alex DeRenzy asks in a taped interview shortly before his death in 2001, included in this Vinegar Syndrome release as an extra. “Because they think that we care!” he declares. This reviewer isn’t giving too much away by saying this isn’t the only “hot” bit of chat the still spry 66-year-old DeRenzy reveals. He also goes into great detail about another one of his most infamous features, Femmes DeSade (1976). You’ll think you’ve been granted an audience with Satan himself when DeRenzy explains that whats and wherefores of that sick little title!

Cinematic Hell: Blood Freak (1972)

Directors: Steve Hawkes & Brad Grinter
Star: Steve Hawkes

It's hard to imagine a film like Blood Freak existing and it's even harder to imagine what possible motivations the filmmakers had to make such a thing. It's not just that it's so far out there that it becomes truly surreal, which it is; it's that it seems to be an anomaly in the careers of everyone involved. I can only assume that it carried the message that its financiers wanted to be carried, but once their money supply had run out and they abandoned the film, it fell to Brad Grinter and Steve Hawkes to finish it on their own. How much they obscured the original message I have no idea, whether deliberately or accidentally, but it's certainly an unholy mishmash of a number of genres, tones and styles and apparently Hawkes, when asked about the film later in life, called it 'a sad chapter in my life.' So what is it? Well, it's a pro-Christian, anti-pot, biker movie about a man who turns into a bloodthirsty freak with the head of a turkey. You know, the usual.

Movie Review: Carnal Haven (1976) and Her Last Fling (1977)

Directed by Carlos Tobalina (as Troy Benny and Bruce Van Buren, respectively)

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

It's the Seventies – in San Francisco – and porno workhorse Carlos Tobalina has gathered the usual gang of idiots in order to make skin flicks! Tobalina is so proud in his part of this sexual revolution for profit that he hid behind not one, but two pseudonyms to rush these features to the Adults Only movie houses. Suddenly, the prospect of an evening of washing dishes and dusting bookshelves seems more enticing …

Under his nom de porn Troy Benny, Tobalina gives us Carnal Haven. In a lengthy introduction told in title cards, Benny/Tobalina says his negligible flesh feature will change our lives for the better! How, we don't know. We are introduced to some married couples in the Baghdad by the Bay, doing what married couples do best, i.e. kvetching about money. “Blacks tend to have larger families. Does this mean they are happier?” asks the voice-over narration. We are then introduced to sex therapists who tend to the couples' mounting sexual frustration with group orgies. “Shell,” the actress playing the female therapist does a fairly good job laying down a good pseudo-scientific line of patter on sexual positions, in spite of her filthy, disheveled hair. Ken Scudder, who played the lovable doofus hitchhiker in Curt McDowell's Thundercrack! (1975) doesn't quite cut it as the male half of the therapeutic duo. The film's raison d'arte is indifferently filmed orgy scenes, which gobble up (pun intended) the majority of the film's running time.

Movie Review: The Quiet Ones (2014, Blu-ray)

Oh, the 1970s. Filled with feathered hair, bell bottoms, and unsanctioned experimental medical treatments of psychotically tortured young women. The Quiet Ones brings us Joseph Coupland, a British abnormal psychology professor who truly believes ‘troubled’ people can manifest their negative energy through telekinesis. Once they do that, they can put it...somewhere and it can be destroyed permanently. Hence, Professor Coupland would be able to cure mental illness forever.

No small feat, that.

Coupland has already signed on two students, Harry and Krissi, who truly believe in Joseph’s theories and work. Brian joins last and his job is to film everything. What is everything? Professor Coupland already has a patient, Jane, and they will be performing experiments so she can finally rid herself of whatever is plaguing her.

Too bad the University thinks Coupland is cuckoo for cocoa puffs and pulls all funding. But that doesn’t deter our intrepid professor. He procures some run down abandoned house in the sticks and continues torturing poor Jane until she gives up the goods (I mean teleplasm not sex, you pervs) on the part of her psychosis she has named Evey.

40th Anniversary Texas Chainsaw Black Maria DVD/Blu-Ray Streets 9/16!

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: 40th Anniversary Black Maria Ltd Ed

Exclusively Available Through Gorgon-Video.com Starting September 16th

It's been imitated and remade, but never equaled. Tobe Hooper's THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE rose from a notorious 1974 sleeper sensation to rank as one of the greatest horror films ever made. Now, to mark the film's 40th anniversary, Dark Sky Films is presenting the digitally re-mastered masterpiece on Blu-ray for the first time in a stunning Limited Deluxe "Black Maria" Collector's Edition box set.

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE appears in an all-new 4K digital transfer and with a newly created 7.1 surround sound mix supervised by director Hooper (Poltergeist). This release marks the only transfer of the film to go back to the original 16mm A/B rolls, the actual film that rolled through the cameras. The Limited Deluxe "Black Maria" Edition of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE will be released at retail in October but will be available exclusively at www.gorgon-video.com for 30 days starting September 16, 2014. Fans of the film will recognize the unique packaging as a replica of the iconic 'Black Maria' cattle truck that comes to Sally Hardesty's rescue when she's being pursued by Leatherface, a fitting nod to the legions of TCSM enthusiasts who were instrumental in keeping the film at the forefront of the genre throughout for the past 40 years and a true collectible display piece.'

This four-disc DVD/Blu-ray combo pack will include a wealth of extras, including:
A Leatherface apron
Theatrical mini-poster
Five audio options
Four feature commentaries with the filmmakers and cast,
Several making-of featurettes
Deleted scenes, outtakes, bloopers, trailers and much more

Movie Review: The Baby (1973, Blu-ray)

Directed by Ted Post


Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

Social worker Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer, The Loved One) is assigned to a most unusual case: The Wadsworth family is composed of ruthless Mother Hen Mrs. Wadsworth (Ruth Roman, Strangers on a Train) and her two voluptuous daughters, Germaine (Marianna Hill, Messiah of Evil) and Alba (Suzanne Zenor) and their son … Baby (David Manzy). Baby just goes by the name of Baby, appears to be at least 21 and acts in the manner of a two-year-old. The Wadsworth family showers lots of love on Baby, and the occasional touch of discipline: cue cattle prod. Proudly displaying Baby in toddler clothes and oversized playpen in their front yard, Mrs. Gentry suspects that something is “not right” with the arrangement. After a lengthy tug-of-war Between Mrs. Gentry and the Wadsworths over the well-being of Baby, things quickly degenerate into a bloodbath … and it’s revealed that there’s a very special reason as to why Mrs. Gentry wants Baby all to herself! 

This scintillating slice of Seventies sickness, seen frequently on daytime TV with a few edits, is enjoying a renaissance in the digital age. It’s recently got the Blu-Ray treatment from Severin Films, and cult film fans are lining up to watch what many describe as a “film you CAN’T unsee.” Seeing as every slasher film is written off as “misogynist,” The Baby offers up a particular worldview where every woman is a predatory monster bent on the subjugation of males. This reviewer has long thought that the Wadsworths would be the deadly trio of femme fatales from Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill, Kill (1965) if they managed to survive hightail it to the suburbs.

Movie Review: Tourist Trap and Demonic Toys (Blu-ray)

Charles Band and his company Full Moon Features has had a history that that dates back into the 1970’s. While it wasn't until the late 80’s the actual Full Moon brand was conceived, the director, producer, writer had his stamp on genre films with movies like David Schmoeller’s thriller Tourist Trap. Tourist Trap has just made its debut in the High Def arena as well as his Child’s Play rip-off Demonic Toys and they certainly should garner some attention from horror fans both young and old. My first of Tourist Trap came at a very young age on video and it scared the shit out of me so it's nice to see this one again after so many years.

A jeep full of college-age vacationers breaks down in the middle of nowhere near an old wax museum run by a recluse named Slausen (Chuck Conner, The Rifleman). Here the kids get to know Slausen and even experience the interesting sites of the many dummies in costume at the museum. What they don’t know is that there is a danger among the shadows and the myriad of dummies occupying the whole residence. The group begins to shrink as each perishes at the hands of some large figure with telekinetic powers that has a striking resemblance to ol’ Slausen. Could it be Slausen or his twin brother? Or is the place just haunted. Schmoeller and his crew pile on an appropriate amount of brooding atmosphere to make Tourist Trap one of the creepiest and most underrated horror films to come out of the 1970’s.

Movie Review: Brannigan (Blu-ray, Twilight Time)

Reviewed By: Hal Astell

In 2006 Sylvester Stallone made Rocky Balboa and people wondered if he could still do the job at 60 years of age. In 2008 he made Rambo and the same question got asked, with only the age being different. The question will be back again very shortly with Harrison Ford who will be 66 when Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull comes out, but it isn't a new question. I'm sure people asked the same question when John Wayne made Brannigan in 1975. He was 67, in bad health and wearing a toupee but he enters the film by kicking down a door and playing hardball with a forger.

But he's still John Wayne and he's still the tough guy, even though the people behind the film are second generation: the executive producer is his eldest son, Michael Wayne, and the writer is Christopher Trumbo, son of Dalton Trumbo. The Duke only had two films left after this one, Rooster Cogburn and The Shootist, and he looked even older in both. As always he has a gun and a badge, but unlike those films he isn't in the old west, he's a Chicago cop in London.

He's there to pick up a mobster being extradited back to the States, one he's been chasing for a long time and who has put a contract on him. He's in the hands of Scotland Yard but after he's kidnapped, it's up to Brannigan and his English compatriots to find him again. Beyond the Duke, there are a number of other major names here to ensure that things are done right. Larkin the mobster is played by John Vernon, always excellent as a powerful but amoral thug, and Fields, his sleazy lawyer, is Mel Ferrer. Scotland Yard provide Richard Attenborough as Cmdr Sir Charles Swann and the always delightful Judy Geeson as Brannigan's caretaker.

Movie Review: Dan Curtis' Dracula (Blu-ray)

There have been some amazing monsters created for books and film over the past few centuries but possibly the most iconic is Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  We’ve seen plenty of exceptional representations of the suave bloodsucker on film with Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Gary Oldman and even Frank Langella’s turn as Dracula. Horror TV producer extraordinaire Dan Curtis ( Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker, Trilogy of Terror) put his imprint on the vampire genre with the TV film, Bram Stokers’ Dracula starring the great Jack Palance (City Slickers, Alone in the Dark  ). MPI video has remastered this incarnation for Blu-ray and added some fine extras that may please genre fans.

Palance takes the lead as Dracula with veteran actor Nigel Davenport (Island of Dr. Moreau, The Portrait of Dorian Gray) playing the always doggedly determined vampire hunter Van Helsing. Dracula’s biggest weakness here, in addition to his stronge aversion to sunlight and crosses is the fact that he longs for being together with his lost love Lucy (Fiona Lewis, The Fearless Vampire Killers).

This incarnation of the Dracula story really is really propelled to the next level by the by pen of horror writer extraordinaire Richard Matheson (The Twilight Zone, Trilogy of Terror) who infuses a romantic element and structures an almost fragile persona of Count Dracula. Drac has feelings...but this is what makes him all the more dangerous. Palance is as imposing as Christopher Lee with his stature and projects perfect menace as he throws grown men like their nothing. Palance’s chiseled facial features also add a look that really makes you not wanna be caught in a dark corridor with the fella.

Movie Review: The Year of the Cannibals (aka I CANNIBALI, 1972)

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

Directed by Liliana Cavani

A Christ-like hippie named Tiresia (Pierre Clémenti) is found on the beach by a pack of children. Revived, he briefly joins them in play when armed commandos gun all the children down. How fucked up is that? It would be really harrowing if the kids were realistically blown to smithereens, but all they do is fall down on the sandy bleach bloodlessly as if to play “freeze tag” amongst themselves. Meanwhile, in a dystopian Italian city, hordes of dead bodies lie uncollected on the city streets on order of the fascist-like government. Antigone (Britt Ekland) wishes to bury her dead brother, and does so clandestinely with the help of her new-found friend Tiresia. They begin to collect other bodies as well, take them to the countryside and then artfully arrange them around flowers and food. (It looks like both the Fascistic bad guys and our heroes both have a vested interest in spreading pestilence and disease among the living with uncollected dead bodies!) The anti-establishment couple go on the lam from the militaristic bad guys, at times posing as soldiers and members of the clergy … bored yet? Our heroes are unjustly executed but their legacy of dragging bodies to the countryside to rot unmolested is taken up by others.

Movie Review: KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)

Oh joy! Oh happiness! It is a Christmas miracle! Folks, fans and fiends it is finally Day 12 of the David Hayes Christmas Crap Review-a-Palooza! This means no more egg nog-scented night terrors, no more green and red bloodshot eyes and no more crazy holiday movies. I feel like running out and hugging everyone. Much like Ebeneezer Scrooge after the final ghost appeared, I want to run in the streets and give gifts to the bastard little children. Why? For this final film I've given myself a little gift. It isn't a holiday movie, per se, but it is a gift to myself and what better time can someone have than at an amusement park?

On the twelfth day of Christmas, the Head Cheese gave to me... nothing, I gave this to myself!

It's 1978 and I am seven years old. It's All Hallow's Eve and I've begged, for nearly a week, to stay up a little later than usual. You see, in the 1970s there was this concept called the “TV Movie.” Essentially, it was an original movie made specifically for television. The Night Stalker, starring Darrin McGavin is, arguably, the most popular of these but the TV Movie has a long and rich history of crappy filmmaking. For those of you old enough you may remember The Ewok Adventure, The Star Wars Holiday Special (see Day 3 of the Palooza), Columbo and many, many more. This particular Halloween, though, had been on my mind for months. You see, my absolute favorite band at the time, KISS, were to be featured in this TV Movie. Better still, KISS were to play themselves (you know, hard rocking super heroes with magical powers) and had to go head to head with an evil arch nemesis. Friends, look into the craptacular awesomeness that is KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park and rock and roll all night!

Buy Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park on VHS!

Movie Review: Madhouse (1974)

Director: Jim Clark
Stars: Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Robert Quarry

Given that last Friday would have been Vincent Price's one hundredth birthday, a Vincentennial as it were, I felt it appropriate to celebrate his life and career by watching a Price picture that I hadn't seen before. It took some searching but I located this one, a co-production between Amicus in the UK and AIP in the States. It's far from his best film but it has much to offer, not least the trio of legends in leading roles: Price, Peter Cushing and Robert Quarry. A couple more back them up, as Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff make surprise guest appearances, given that they'd both been dead for years: Rathbone died in 1967 and Karloff in 1969. They appear through the magic of cinema, rather like Bela Lugosi did in Plan 9 from Outer Space, but at least Ed Wood used new footage to the screen, Rathbone and Karloff reappear in clips from older AIP films. Five of those are reused here, a quick fact that helps to underline how recycled much of Madhouse is.

Buy Theater Of Blood/MadHouse (Midnite Movies Double Feature) on DVD