A surprisingly unremarkable movie in all aspects, especially considering its subject matter, She Freak pointlessly updates Tod Browning’s Freaks by adding a twenty minute prologue detailing star Claire Brennen’s (Jade) unhappiness at her job in a small town diner. I don’t know about anyone else, but I paid my two bits to see pinheads, geeks, fat ladies, strongmen, and seal boys, not to watch Jade rebuff the greasy tub of a boss she has before running off to the join the carnival. Continue reading “She Freak (1967)”
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
Back in the 1970s, the local theater where I lived used to run these special summer matinée series where you got into some older, kid-oriented movie for about a buck. Some weeks, I’d scan the newspaper and be disappointed that it was wussy garbage like Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion or Zebra in the Kitchen (though I do kind of wonder what that zebra was doing in that kitchen). Other weeks were marked by the arrival of films that promised to be well worth an eight year old’s dollar. Obviously, I’m referring to movies like Godzilla vs. Gigan and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Continue reading “Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)”
Logan’s Run (1976)
Logan (Michael York) is a Sandman. You can tell he’s a Sandman because of the outfit he wears. It’s black with a big silver stripe running across the middle of the chest. In this nightmarish future, it surely instills abject fear into all rebellion-prone citizens, but in our sensible present, it just looks like a pit crew member’s outfit at the Daytona 500! Continue reading “Logan’s Run (1976)”
At the Earth’s Core (1976)
This big screen adaptation of some Edgar Rice Burroughs work that I’ve never bothered to read comes off like a really long live-action Saturday morning television show, probably something akin to Land Of The Lost.
Cheap sets (couldn’t they at least thought about going outside and finding real caves?), clunky monsters flying around on fishing line (don’t even bother trying to hide the fact that these things are just being pushed around by off-screen stage hands), and lame pig-faced people that were obviously ripped off of that one episode of The Twilight Zone are the order of the day! Continue reading “At the Earth’s Core (1976)”
Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983)
From the opening strains of Yor’s insanely memorable and equally insanely indecipherable theme song where Yor is prancing around various penis-shaped rocks to the very end when he’s flying off into the sunset in a spaceship while a narrator informs us that Yor is going to try to help his people prevent the mistakes of the past, but isn’t sure whether he will be successful, you are in for the absolutely greatest movie of all time that cross-pollinates the cheesy Italian barbarian movie with the cheesy Italian sci-fi movie! Continue reading “Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983)”
Roller Blade (1986)
Surprisingly, Roller Blade is not the first post-apocalyptic roller skating movie. Skatetown, U.S.A. and Roller Boogie both preceded it by a decade. And if you don’t think either of those films qualifies as post-apocalyptic, I don’t know what else you’d call one movie starring Linda Blair from the director of Truck Stop Women and another featuring (deep breath!) Patrick Swayze, Flip Wilson, Ruth Buzzi, Horshack, Marcia Brady, Scott Baio, and some chick from Little House On The Prairie! Continue reading “Roller Blade (1986)”
Robin Hood (1973)
Country music legend Roger Miller provides the voice (or “pipes” as we say in the Nashville music biz) for the narrator, Alan-A-Dale, the wandering minstrel who torments everyone with really obnoxious hit songs like “Oo-de-lally” when he isn’t giving us the “on the other side of Hazzard County” interludes that explain absolutely nothing. Continue reading “Robin Hood (1973)”