cult film freak

JENNIFER RUNYON AND TIM MATHESON ARE GOING 'UP THE CREEK'

2026-03-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK Year: 1984 Rating: ***1/2

A year following this neglected outdoor comedy, Tim Matheson would ask Chevy Chase to kill him in FLETCH. Chase was originally designed for OTTER in ANIMAL HOUSE, a part that made Matheson, a former child actor who was growing into various roles like a bad cop in MAGNUM FORCE, a household name... but only where cool people live...

In FLETCH, Matheson looked somewhere in his late thirties, playing an established businessman. Here he's a broke, grungy college slacker and actually looks much younger than in FLETCH but way too old to be a student. But that's probably intentional...

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK

He's one of four buddies stuck in a nowhere, purgatory-like university sent by John Hillerman's stuffy Dean on a river rafting race, a win garnering not only free degrees but a chance to defeat a quartet of jerky blonde dudes (including SUPERMAN teen Clark Kent Jeff East): as UP THE CREEK spends the first half partying on land and the second trudging downriver...

It's splendidly vapid entertainment most of the way through, providing terrific action shots along the roaring rapids, while either the catchy Cheap Trick title track blares, or that theme's variation plays via triumphant orchestration...

Jennifer Runyon and Tim Matheson in UP THE CREEK

Stephen Furst, our second ANIMAL HOUSE alumni, chews scenery as a fat guy who lives and loves to eat... imagine if the passively lovable Flounder took "rowdy fat guy lessons" from John Belushi's Bluto, and passed with flying colors (although he fails being funn)...

While Dan Monahan, best known as Pee Wee of PORKY'S fame, adds little more than a smiling sidekick face while GHOSTBUSTERS hottie Jennifer Runyon is fitfully pouty as Matheson's conquest, the same year being charmed by Bill Murray in GHOSTBUSTERS: only problem is, she's much too easy to win over/bed down, especially for her prime looks...

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK with Julia Montgomery, Jeana Keough and Romy Walthall

During the crashing of a lodge/tavern, there's not much our cocky womanizer can't accomplish... yet ANIMAL HOUSE fans know he's a lot funnier with more obstacles to climb: And the expendable fourth banana played the bitter SPACEBALLS nose job doctor who needs to work on his putts... Sandy Helberg is the quirky oddball of the group, and is much more likable than funny...

Meanwhile, slowing down the pace is gung ho military zealot, head of a rogue army troop initially hired (by bully's boss James B. Sikking) to thwart the competition: Almost the entire final half centers on this unfunny jerk, especially after kidnapping one of the good guys, and, after a while you'll wonder what happened to the conceited preppies or their banal beauties (including REVENGE OF THE NERDS "That's My Pie" girl Julia Montgomery), who were far more fitting...

Sandy Helberg, Dan Monahan, Stephen Furst and Tim Matheson in UP THE CREEK

Thus if UP THE CREEK stuck to the rapids and spent less time with horribly unfunny rivals and a charade-playing pooch, it would be a far more satisfying venture: Instead, throughout many VHS-only years and finally Warner Archive DVD-available, CREEK remains in that cinematic purgatory of confusion: was it a failed commercial comedy or an intentionally corny cult flick all along?

Either way, despite the flaws (at times even playing out like an UP ALL NIGHT straight-to-video), this 1980's cinematic party still provides a fun, steady beat, so a line from the Beatles track: "Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream..." in this case, is very sound advice.

Stephen Furst, Tim Matheson, Sandy Helberg and Dan Monahan in UP THE CREEK

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK and Tim Matheson

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK

Jennifer Runyon and Tim Matheson in UP THE CREEK

Jeana Keough and Romy Walthall in UP THE CREEK

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK

Jennifer Runyon and Tim Matheson in UP THE CREEK

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK with Julia Montgomery

Jeana Keough and Romy Walthall in UP THE CREEK

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK with Julia Montgomery

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK

Tim Matheson in UP THE CREEK

The Doggie from UP THE CREEK

Dan Monahan, Stephen Furst and Tim Matheson in UP THE CREEK

Jeff East in UP THE CREEK

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK

Keith Richards lookalike Blaine Novak in UP THE CREEK

Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK with Julia Montgomery and Jeana Keough

Stephen Furst and Dan Monahan in UP THE CREEK

Tim Matheson and Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK

Sandy Helberg and Jennifer Runyon in UP THE CREEK

The Dog from UP THE CREEK

Julia Montgomer in UP THE CREEK with Jeana Keough and Romy Walthall

BÁRBARA REY SEEKING BLANCA ESTRADA ON 'THE GHOST GALLEON'

2026-03-03T14:01:00.000-08:00

Title: THE GHOST GALLEON Year: 1974 Rating: **1/2

Imagine if, in the original KING KONG, Fay Wray never made it past the dense fog when headed towards the island... during what was basically the first of several publicity stunts involving a gorgeous woman... as the ominous fog here's part of the titular GHOST GALLEON that is old, eerie, extremely foreboding and downright creepy...

Which doesn't keep one of two stranded models from quickly suffering the worst fate in horror flicks: curiosity that takes her from a sport franchise's broken-down speedboat onto the creaky vessel where THE BLIND DEAD, who are Spanish horror director Amando de Ossorio's Middle Ages Knights Templar skeleton-zombies from two previous installments, murder a total of three lovely girls...

From The Ghost Galleon

One of them the Janet Leigh PSYCHO character, who we only think is the most important since the first half revolves around scream-queen Bárbara Rey being vocally stressed about missing girlfriend Blanca Estrada... the second to die aboard the titular ship (after unwisely following her missing model counterpart): but the first we see everything horrible happening to...

Which is a tortuous/nightmarish clanging of chains and slow-burn grabbing of sinewy skeletal hands... yet ultimately playing like separate vignettes around rambling filler expository about the BLIND DEAD backstory, meaning little to those two bloodletting payoffs: the only worthwhile uses of an otherwise neglected/wasted ghostly locale.

From The Ghost Galleon

Bárbara Rey in The Ghost Galleon

Blanca Estrada and Bárbara Rey in The Ghost Galleon

Bárbara Rey in The Ghost Galleon

Blanca Estrada in The Ghost Galleon

Bárbara Rey in The Ghost Galleon

Blanca Estrada and Bárbara Rey in The Ghost Galleon

The Blind Dead from The Ghost Galleon

Blanca Estrada in The Ghost Galleon

Bárbara Rey and Maria Perschy in The Ghost Galleon with Jack Taylor

Bárbara Rey in The Ghost Galleon

Bárbara Rey and Maria Perschy in The Ghost Galleon

Bárbara Rey in The Ghost Galleon

MARÍA ELENA APRÓN & MARÍA SILVA 'TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD'

2026-03-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

María Silva in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD/LA NOCHE DEL TERROR CIEGO Year: 1972 Rating: ***1/2

Two years before TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD, a gorgeous woman is sacrificed in the same Spanish director Amando de Ossorio's NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS... there it's a missionary from the early 1900's while this goes way back to The Middle Ages, where the extremely gorgeous Carmen Yazalde never rises again...

Instead there's a horde of sinewy Medieval Knights, facially resembling prototypes of the Iron Maiden logo, having been buried in an abandoned monastery, looking as terrifically gothic as those antagonists that wind up stalking gorgeous girls, seeming straight from another kind of horror flick...

María Elena Arpón in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

Set in the present-time 1970's as full lipped Spanish beauty María Elena Arpón, broken hearted about sophisticated beauty Lone Fleming being contentedly hooked up with a stalwart César Burner, literally leaps off a train to aimlessly wander into this formidable monastery where the scariest scene occurs: involving the stalked/screaming ingenue moving nightmarishly-sluggish while attempting a last-minute-escape...

That never occurs as she's predictably captured and killed... only later rising as a ragged zombie/vampire aggressor, chasing uptight Catholic girl Verónica Llimerá through a surreal room filled with fire-melting mannequins...

María Silva in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

Providing a modernly colorful Italian-Giallo aesthetic against the grainy antique central monastery... where leading lady Lone Fleming winds up, randomly cat-fighting an investigating detective's aggressive girlfriend (María Silva)....

Which is even more actively intense (and character-driven) than those neck-devouring zombie knights: trudging through a low-budget Spanish production combining body count slasher/horror with ultra-violent sword-and-sandal fantasy, and, with either genre, only the scantily-clad ladies really count.

Carmen Yazalde in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

Lone Fleming and María Elena Arpón in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

María Elena Arpón in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

María Elena Arpón in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD with Verónica Llimerá

María Elena Arpón in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

María Silva in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

María Elena Arpón in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

Lone Fleming and María Silva in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

Lone Fleming in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

María Elena Arpón in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

María Silva in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

From TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

María Silva in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

MARÍA KOSTY & SANDRA MOZAROWSKY IN 'NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS'

2026-03-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

Title: NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS/ La noche de las gaviotas Year: 1975 Rating: ****

In the final act of Amando de Ossorio's Blind Dead Trilogy's fourth and final feature NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS, there's an obvious nod to George A. Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD as the three survivors are holed up in a rural cabin, desperately bolting the doors from ominous invaders outside... who are slowly creeping inside for what seems the inevitably violent massacre...

And these aren't just zombies that became lethal after death... the ancient Templar Knights were the Samurai Warriors of the Middle Ages/Crusades, and in order for the peasant-dwelling village to remain protected, a string of beautiful women are sacrificed (including gorgeous native Sandra Mozarowsky), leaving Spanish scream queens María Kosty and Sandra Mozarowsky as our two final-girls...

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

Kosty's the blonde, wide-eyed, full-lipped, faithful wife of standard-handsome doctor Victor Petit, who moved to the visually post-apocalyptic, craggy-side mountain locale to open a small medical practice... while mousy-cute brunette Mozarowsky's their first assistant, and the first would-be sacrificial victim worth saving...

And as the titular seagulls sustain their eerie squawking outside the cabin, only the audience experiences the random female beach-side sacrifices by the cloaked sinewy-skeletons... while the inevitable threesome anticipate that thrilling/suspenseful Romero-like conclusion — in what's the sparsest yet ultimately most satisfying of Ossorio's legendary Blind Dead franchise, getting right to the point and sicking firmly to it.

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS with Victor Petit and Julia Saly

María Kosty and Sandra Mozarowsky in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

Sandra Mozarowsky in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty and Sandra Mozarowsky in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

Sandra Mozarowsky in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS with Victor Petit

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

Sandra Mozarowsky in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS with Victor Petit

Sandra Mozarowsky in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS with Fernando Villena and María Vidal

Julia Saly in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS with Victor Petit

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty and Sandra Mozarowsky in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS with Victor Petit

María Kosty and Sandra Mozarowsky in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

Sandra Mozarowsky in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

From NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

María Kosty in NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

Poster Art for NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS

MICHELLE JOHNSON WITH MICHAEL CAINE IN 'BLAME IT ON RIO'

2026-02-28T00:09:00.000-08:00

Sherwood Productions logo for Stanley Donen's BLAME IT ON RIO Year: 1984 Rating: ***1/2

In Stanley Donen's 1980's glossy/uptempo Americanized French-remake BLAME IT ON RIO, one creative sequence really stands out: when Michael Caine, on his way to the titular location for a busman's holiday with business partner Joseph Bologna, gazes through the airplane window and sees plane-wing-dancing footage from the Golden Age of Hollywood that Donen had reignited with SINGIN' IN THE RAIN...

After that, RIO is the usual older-guy-hooks-up-with-hot-young-dream-girl comedy, where real life model Michelle Johnson's mere perfection provides its own novelty, allowing actor's actor Michael Caine a chance to do light comedy before it would garner an Oscar in Woody Allen's upcoming HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (as Caine's 4th-wall-breaking narration is straight from ANNIE HALL)...

From BLAME IT ON RIO

While Johnson's squeaky, high-pitched speaking voice sounds more overheard than that of a practiced actress (outshined by a young Demi Moore as Caine's daughter with bitter wife Valerie Harper), she has not only the tall knockout male-fantasy looks but the bubbly naivete that compliments an older man who could have seemed creepy (especially since Michelle even wears little-girl braces) if Caine hadn't played it equally shy, clumsy and unassuming...

Leaving Alpha-Male Bolonga to deliberately steal scenes like MY FAVORITE YEAR, that successfully did for Peter O'Toole what this semi-feebly attempts for Caine... providing a legendary British dramatist a mainstream comedy (for a nice paycheck)... but there's not enough affable quirkiness within the movie itself to equal what both Caine, Johnson and Donen are attempting: more of a 1950's-style vintage throwback with modern edge than a 1980's sex romp exploitation with kitschy nostalgia.

Michael Caine and Joseph Bologna in BLAME IT ON RIO

Stuntwork taken from the 1933 musical FLYING DOWN TO RIO

Michael Caine and Joseph Bologna in BLAME IT ON RIO with Michelle Johnson & Demi Moore

Michael Caine and Valerie Harper in BLAME IT ON RIO

Michelle Johnson in BLAME IT ON RIO

Joseph Bologna in BLAME IT ON RIO

Michael Caine and Michelle Johnson in BLAME IT ON RIO

Michelle Johnson in BLAME IT ON RIO

Demi Moore in BLAME IT ON RIO

Blame It On Rio DVD signed by the Michelle Johnson and the late Valerie Harper

From the credits of BLAME IT ON RIO

MICHELLE JOHNSON MELTS 'WAXWORK' WITH DEBORAH FOREMAN

2026-02-27T12:12:00.000-08:00

Title: WAXWORK Year: 1988 Rating: ***1/2

British director Anthony Hickox sets up what initially feels like a normal teen-slasher by the eclectic high-school students' contrary personalities: all of them gathered on otherwise empty campus bleachers, deciding what to do for the upcoming night...

Ironically, one couple wants to stay home to watch a horror flick while the others go to the local WAXWORK museum run by British villain-actor David Warner, wielding his usual nefarious charm: and not in the picture enough...

Titles from WAXWORK

Either are the more important kids including model-turned-actress Michelle Johnson, who, beginning with BLAME IT ON RIO, usually reacts to the reactions of her immense beauty... finally given a character to genuinely (at one point literally) sink her teeth into...

She's the token loose wild-girl all the guys want, including central rich kid Zach Galligan, with more an ambiguous edge from his GREMLINS boy-next-door beginnings while VALLEY GIRL/APRIL FOOLS DAY starlet Deborah Foreman is so meek and quiet, it's refreshing when she becomes sadistic and alluring later on...

Dana Ashbrook in WAXWORK

But that's skipping ahead in an extremely creative yet busy horror picture that, only eighteen-minutes in... after the group excepts the invitation to visit the museum after midnight... suddenly/awkwardly morphs genres — from a Modern American Slasher to a Nostalgic Gothic/Victorian-era Terror/Fantasy ala Hammer Films...

Beginning with TWIN PEAKS rebel Dana Ashbook, staring hypnotically into an 1800's-era wax exhibit until (with horribly dated laser-zapping animation) he becomes an actively doomed participant in what resembles Neil Jordan's A COMPANY OF WOLVES' ancient English village: igniting an ongoing precedent for each character, who deserved better than their individual alternate-dimensional deaths...

Michelle Johnson in WAXWORK

Especially Johnson's deliciously-intriguing flirtatious bad-girl turned benignly passive victim to Miles O'Keefe's Dracula castle melodrama... as each gory sequence (each lacking a deserved comeuppance) feels like separate/unconnected vignettes with too many side-characters, leaving the audience more contused than spooked, neglecting the central museum frame-story that predictably results in final-couple Galligan and Foreman, who ultimately seek advice from the token Van Helsing-esque Patrick Macnee: providing the upstart director his family's British-cinema legacy (dad was 1970's action auteur Douglas Hickox while granddad was producing mogul Arthur Rank)...

Sometimes jovially encroaching what could have been a far more intense/edgy body-count horror without all the distractions... that's still an aptly entertaining cult horror favorite — despite suffering from a sometimes exhausting identity crisis.

Michelle Johnson in WAXWORK

Zach Galligan in WAXWORK

Michelle Johnson in WAXWORK

Dana Ashbrook in WAXWORK

Michelle Johnson in WAXWORK

David Warner, Charles McCaughan and Zach Galligan in WAXWORK

Deborah Foreman in WAXWORK

Kendall Conrad in WAXWORK

Charles McCaughan and Kendall Conrad in WAXWORK

Deborah Foreman in WAXWORK

Patrick Macnee in WAXWORK

David Warner in WAXWORK

Deborah Foreman and Michelle Johnson in WAXWORK

Zach Galligan and Michelle Johnson in WAXWORK

Clare Carey and Michelle Johnson in WAXWORK

MURRAY LANGSTON UNKNOWN TRILOGY INCLUDING 'NIGHT PATROL'

2026-02-26T13:33:00.000-08:00

Title: NIGHT PATROL Year: 1984 Camp Value: ***

Murray Langston is not a hack comedian. Well actually, he is, deliberately... but when he appeared on stage for THE GONG SHOW, he was really a sack comedian: covering his face with a generic paper bag with poked holes for eyes and one for the mouth: And thus all those corny jokes became funnier, and with a skinny body nervously meandering around the stage, a cult star was born...

And eventually, finally unmasked, it was time for a motion picture... despite the fact that low-rent director Jackie Kong's NIGHT PATROL (written by Langston and GONG SHOW co-star Jaye P. Morgan) plays out like exactly what it has become: a straight-to-video train-wreck that only appears on cable stations well past midnight...

Artwork from NIGHT PATROL

Wherein the funniest scene occurs halfway through, in what's (beyond the wannabe AIRPLANE ala POLICE SQUAD style of perpetual slapdash gags/visual one-liners) a police procedural parody and a chance for The Unknown Comic to showcase both his actual self and his bag-headed live act...

And after Langston's young/naive beat cop Melvin and experienced (yet hapless) womanizing veteran Pat Paulsen's Kent are paired, they eat at an all-night diner, exchanging some worthwhile banter...

Pat Paulsen and Murray Langston bond in NIGHT PATROL

Or maybe these are merely a few lucky jokes that (beyond a barrage of downright embarrassing star-cameos from Pat Morita as a rape victim to Billy Barty's flatulent-driven sergeant to Jack Riley playing a shrink) actually land: like when Paulsen asks the price for coffee and the price for a refill (the refill being free), and orders the refill first...

As their likable Oscar & Felix chemistry actually kinda works alongside Langston's slow-building relationship with pretty cop Linda Blair (who he'd costar in the more mainstream and humorous UP YOUR ALLEY) and a murder mystery/wrong-man subplot involving The Unknown Comic: it's just too bad so much throwaway junk/filler often makes even these sporadic positive elements basically an ultimately unwatchable late-night viewing experience.

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair in UP YOUR ALLEY Year: 1989 Rating: ***1/2

Only a few years after Murray Langston's UP YOUR ALLEY, Mel Brooks made LIFE STINKS about a billionaire who pretends to be homeless to win a bet, meeting a neurotic homeless lady while getting to know other destitute characters that become endearing and teach him about humanity...

Yet Langston's straight-to-video romantic comedy is a whole lot better, with his NIGHT PATROL co-star Linda Blair pretends to be homeless for an article while Langston, finally without the Unknown Comic persona that him famous in THE GONG SHOW and sustained in PATROL, is the hopeless man of her dreams...

Linda Blair and Murray Langston in UP YOUR ALLEY

An ex screen-writer who spends most of his time mentoring Bob Zany (one of many standup comedian pals of Murray) as an overweight mama's boy, while there are murders being committed, providing a two-tier story-line...

Actually three since the inevitable romance of Blair and Langston builds throughout a cozy friendship that serves 90-minutes that provides more genuine laughs and less social-conscious preaching than the Brooks vehicle, having bombed while this neglected gem, the second in The Unknown Trilogy ending with WISHFUL THINKING, is sadly just forgotten.

Michelle Johnson in WISHFUL THINKING Year: 1990 Rating: ***

By 1990, after two films, Murray Langston was comfortable enough without the bag over his head that had made him The Unknown Comic on THE GONG SHOW...

In NIGHT PATROL he played a cop and the mysterious comic both, and in UP YOUR ALLEY he was completely unmasked as a bum who romances PATROL co-star Linda Blair, making WISHFUL THINKING the final of the Unknown Trilogy, and the only without the EXORCIST starlet...

Michelle Johnson in WISHFUL THINKING

In her place is BLAME IT ON RIO model-turned-model-like-actress Michelle Johnson, who, like Keenan Wynn on an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, plays a lonely writer who gets powers to write something down and it instantly comes true...

In this case it's the love of the tall and gorgeous Johnson, who Langston, a visual hybrid of DYNASTY star Ted Shackelford and grungy/bearded joke-teller George Carlin, would never land in a million years, hence the fantasy element...

Melissa Shear in WISHFUL THINKING

The way he's able to land the girl and all the writte wishes... provided the magic notebook by gypsy Billy Barty... is creative and fun... but as the first-time director, the overall flow of the story doesn't keep up with all the attempted one-liners, as Langston's comic style is to tell a lot of them in a short period of time...

Returning are Langston's usual troupe including a beautiful (final courtroom scene scene-stealing) Melissa Shear and standup pals Johnny Dark and Ruth Buzzi... but it's Murray's even-keeled chemistry with Michelle Johnson that makes this male fantasy believable... at least enough to pass what's a breezy 90-minute straight-to-video doozy.

Murray Langston and Billy Barty in WISHFUL THINKING

Billy Barty in NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL

Billy Barty in NIGHT PATROL

Jack Riley in NIGHT PATROL

Jaye P. Morgan in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston in NIGHT PATROL

Andrew Dice Clay and Jaye P. Morgan in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston in NIGHT PATROL

From NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL with Pat Paulsen

Murray Langston in NIGHT PATROL

Lori Sutton in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston and Jaye P. Morgan in NIGHT PATROL

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL with Murray Langston

Linda Blair in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston, Jack Riley and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL

Billy Barty, Linda Blair and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL

Patrie Allen and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL with Murray Langston

Patrie Allen and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL

Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL with Lou Mulford, Donnie Downing and David E. Harshbarger

Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL with Pat Morita and Murray Langston

Murray Langston and Pat Paulsen in NIGHT PATROL

Murray Langston and Jaye P. Morgan in NIGHT PATROL

ROBERT CARRADINE & KIMBERLY BECK 'MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH'

2026-02-25T00:10:00.000-08:00

Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH Year: 1976 Rating: ***1/2

In one of the strangest high school bully pictures ever made, MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH begins like an Afterschool Special (including a cheesy opening song)... until future picked-on REVENGE OF THE NERDS star Robert Carradine gets slammed around by popular jocks for having a swastika on his locker... adding to the overall bizarre nature in what's both completely ambiguous and horribly melodramatic...

Where new-kid-on-campus Derrel Maury's reunited with childhood friend Andrew Stevens... the latter a passive middleman for the trio of square-jawed/blond-haired bullies, who actually terrorize all weaker students with angry venom more befitting A CLOCKWORK ORANGE before than MY BODYGUARD after...

Ray Underwood and Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Initially the two male leads could be interchangeable... until the table-turning second-half when otherwise benign Derrel Maury kills each bully in suspenseful and creative methods, ranging from a hang-gliding accident to an exploding van: at which point Stevens (paired with moral-compass/good girl Kimberly Beck while exploitation starlet Cheryl Smith eventually joins hippie counterpart Carradine) realizes his former friend's now also picking-off the vengeful geeks, who the dead bullies had severely humiliated...

Overall making MASSACRE a kind of high-school-popularity cautionary-tale, combining edgy teenage violence with what could have been a much tighter vehicle had it reigned more into its horror-genre potential.

Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Kimberly Beck in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Andrew Stevens, Ray Underwood and Damon Douglas in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Kimberly Beck in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH with Lani O'Grady and Cheryl Smith

Kimberly Beck in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH with Derrel Maury

Ray Underwood, Dennis Kort, Damon Douglas & Andrew Stevens in Massacre at Central High

Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Andrew Robinson and Derrel Maury in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Cheryl Smith in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH with Dennis Kork and Cheryl Smith

Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Cheryl Smith, Robert Carradine & Tom Logan in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Derrel Maury in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH with Lani O'Grady and Cheryl Smith

Kimberly Beck in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH with Derrel Maury

Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Kimberly Beck in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Kimberly Beck and Andrew Stevens in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH with Rex Steven Sikes

Robert Carradine and Damon Douglas in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Kimberly Beck in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Cheryl Smith in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Robert Carradine in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH with Cheryl Smith

Steve Bond in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

Andrew Stevens in MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH

DAVID CARRADINE AND ROBERT CARRADINE DRIVING 'CANNONBALL'

2026-02-24T06:30:00.000-08:00

Title: CANNONBALL Year: 1976 Rating: ****

It would be as surprising if roughshod stuntman director Hal Needham made a sophisticated Shakespeare adaptation as classy/gentlemen Paul Bartel being one of the best high-octane car-race/chase auteurs in the grungy 1970's and, following the popular dystopian-future dark-comedy DEATH RACE 2000, he made the first and least known action-flick based on the genuinely real and extremely illegal no-rules cross-country Cannonball...

Created and manned by Brock Peters, who only appeared in the famous 1981 Needham ensemble with superstar Burt Reynolds, making THE CANNONBALL RUN the only legitimate showcase...

Mary Woronov, Diane Lee Hart and Glynn Rubin in CANNONBALL

Although Paul Bartel's CANNONBALL is more like the edgy and dangerous (and highly illegal) race itself, more befitting the shoddy and low-grade exploitation/drive-in cinema...

Wherein the actors aren't as famous, as it's not a 1980's version of MAD MAD MAD WORLD like CANNONALL RUN but a 1970's Roger Corman production using several of his stock actors, like Mary Woronov with two sexy van-riding co-pilots, seducing cops away from giving them speeding tickets like Adrianne Barbeau/Tara Buckman would later...

Martin Scorsese, Paul Bartel and Sylvester Stallone in CANNONBALL

There's also a pivotal biker fight... which here's more specifically geared to DEATH RACE star David Carradine, back in the driver's seat with his same slow-burn quiet cool and, although teamed with beautiful girlfriend Veronica Hamel and faithful mechanic Archie Hahn, he's just as maverick/rogue as ever...

Squaring off with DELIVERANCE hillbilly rapist villain Bill McKinney, who, like Sylvester Stallone the previous year (making a cameo as a mafioso with Martin Scorsese), wants to win at all costs: coupled with a subplot of Carradine being targeted not only to lose, but die...

David Carradine in CANNONBALL

Other contestants further epitomizing the 1970's grindhouse-aura, while basking in a groovy electric guitar soundtrack, are Robert Carradine and Belinda Balaski as surfer hippies in a hot corvette and a cheesy guitar-crooning Gerrit Graham (riding shotgun with the moody McKinney): while chubby married man Carl Gottlieb's paired with Stallone's previous DR2000 co-pilot Louisa Mortiz...

A hangout ensemble that's not exactly serious yet they aren't silly and punchline-inducing like the Burt Reynolds classic, all just-real enough in their muscle cars (ranging from a Camaro to a Mustang to a Dodge Charger) backed by Paul Bartel's fast-paced direction, combining low-budget guerrilla camerawork and documentary-style editing — that made both of his consecutive car-car cult classics really shine.

Belinda Balaski and Robert Carradine in CANNONBALL

David Carradine in CANNONBALL

Veronica Hamel in CANNONBALL

Bill McKinney in CANNONBALL

David Carradine in CANNONBALL

Glynn Rubin in CANNONBALL

Mary Woronov in CANNONBALL

Diane Lee Hart and Glynn Rubin in CANNONBALL

David Carradine in CANNONBALL

From CANNONBALL

Veronica Hamel and Archie Hahn in CANNONBALL

Louisa Moritz and Carl Gottlieb in CANNONBALL

David Carradine doing Kung Fu in CANNONBALL

From CANNONBALL

Gerrit Graham in CANNONBALL

David Carradine in CANNONBALL

Bill McKinney in CANNONBALL

David Carradine in CANNONBALL

Glynn Rubin in CANNONBALL

Alan Arkush in CANNONBALL

Joe Dantie in CANNONBALL

Alan Arkush and Joe Dante in CANNONBALL

Jonathan Kaplan in CANNONBALL

Belinda Balaski in CANNONBALL

Jonathan Kaplan in CANNONBALL with Bill McKinney

Veronica Hamel and Archie Hahn in CANNONBALL

Stanley Bennett Clay in CANNONBALL

From CANNONBALL

Wendy Bartel CANNONBALL

David Carradine in CANNONBALL

Robert Carradine and Belinda Balaski in CANNONBALL

Deirdre Ardell and Gretchen Ardell in CANNONBALL

Robert Carradine in CANNONBALL

Belinda Balaski in CANNONBALL

MEMORIAL POST OF ROBERT DUVALL IN 'ROUTE 66: THE NEWBORN'

2026-02-16T21:33:00.000-08:00

Robert Duvall in ROUTE 66: THE NEWBORN Year: 1961 Rating: **1/2

In two episodes of ROUTE 66 featuring Robert Duvall that starred both lead actors Martin Milner and George Maharis, someone winds up very physically ill and the boys have to stick around to help...

The episode where Duvall's most known is BIRDCAGE ON MY FOOT, as a heroin addict suffering violent withdrawals, using his intense method-acting realism that'd become his signature legacy... supported in a dingy apartment mainly by Maharis, who, a bad boy from the slums of New York, knows not only about addiction but the consequences...

Robert Duvall in ROUTE 66: THE NEWBORN

Moving from urban decay to a sprawling modern Western setting is THE NEWBORN in which grimacing/racist rancher Albert Dekker has Duvall as a hatched-wielding ranch-hand/thug so uncompromisingly unpredictable, even the boss slaps him around when attempting to take care of business...

Which involves Indian girl Arlene Martel having the cruel rancher's dead son's baby (flashbacks are needed since it all feels half-baked, like starting a book halfway through)... literally during a painful night that results not only in her death, but the kind of dated monologue-spouting 1960's idealism that turns what could have been an intense neo-noir character-study into an episode that needed not only more Duvall, but a lot more nasty things for him to do — to keep both the plot, and the dual-leads, on their toes.

Robert Duvall in ROUTE 66: THE NEWBORN

Robert Duvall in ROUTE 66: BIRDCAGE ON MY FOOT

Robert Duvall as a troubled heroin addict in ROUTE 66: BIRDCAGE ON MY FOOT

Robert Duvall in ROUTE 66: BIRDCAGE ON MY FOOT

Robert Duvall in ROUTE 66: BIRDCAGE ON MY FOOT with Martin Milner

Robert Duvall in ROUTE 66: BIRDCAGE ON MY FOOT

Robert Duvall in ROUTE 66: BIRDCAGE ON MY FOOT with George Maharis

CLINT WALKER WITH VINCENT PRICE IN 'MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE'

2026-02-15T06:13:00.000-08:00

Clint Walker in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE Year: 1969 Rating: ***

Opens with the kind of shoot-em-up gusto of the otherwise cliche Western, MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE stars gentle giant Clint Walker as a formerly infamous gunslinger who basically stands around inside a fort-like prison while his muscular doppelganger Mike Henry violently busts out his own gang...

What was needed in this extremely strange/offbeat 1969 Western was a prologue before the prologue: like how Clint Walker went to prison in the first place, since his character's brutal past means pretty much everything...

Clint Walker and Vincent Price in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

As the now infamous ending shouldn't be spoiled (although in the EASY RIDER era, it's not impossible to predict), while the cast is extremely unique... featuring Vincent Price as the flamboyant flim-flammy boss of a traveling gun show where ex-con Walker, trying to exist as a pacifist in the usual one-horse-town, finds his only future is reliving the past...

Enter the second lead even beyond Price or extremely anachronistic 1960's hippie-like rich artist Anne Francis (ambiguous bar-girl Beverly Powers is a better fit for the genre): where an energetic yet thoroughly miscast no-name actor Paul Hampton plays a wannabe gunfighter so brash and sadistic, the character almost deserved his own picture...

Clint Walker and Paul Lambert in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Or maybe he's who MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE is about, providing thoroughly handsome yet monotone Clint Walker a borderline peripheral role: not the heroic star of his own glorious vehicle but a symbolic pawn in what's ultimately more an experimental cautionary-tale fable than even the strange little Anti-Western that's ultimately attempted...

Including sing-song music so jazzy and cheerful, it almost deliberately clashes against what an audience would expect, backing the man who starred in the first televised Western... and at least visually, ALIVE feels more like an intriguing big budget TV-movie than the avant garde theatrical motion picture that's been both sadly and understandably lost in the Post Spaghetti Western/counter-culture boom.

From MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Vincent Price in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Clint Walker and Anne Francis in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Clint Walker and Beverly Powers in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Clint Walker, Emile Meyer and Paul Lambert in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Clint Walker in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Mike Henry in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Beverly Powers in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Clint Walker and Anne Francis in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Paul Lambert in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Mike Henry in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

From MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Mike Henry in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Clint Walker in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Vincent Price in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Clint Walker in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Paul Hampton in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Emile Meyer in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Clint Walker in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Vincent Price in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Clint Walker in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

Harry Lauter in MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE

MONTSERRAT PROUS & KALI HANSA 'SINNER: DIARY OF A NYMPHO'

2026-02-13T22:50:00.000-08:00

Montserrat Prous in SINNER: THE SECRET DIARY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC Rates: *

Spanish horror auteur Jesús Franco's regular starlets Montserrat Prous and Kali Hansa were battling for inheritance in his crime/slasher THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF, were stuck on a murderous island in the mystery/thriller THE SILENCE OF THE TOMB...

And in SINNER: THE SECRET DIARY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC they pose together sexually (for seductive Anne Libert providing a backstory to Lacqueline Laurent)... but without sharing any deep lesbian kisses and with zero chemistry, it's a complete waste of two of Franco's hottest starlets... a shame since the wide-eyed brunette Prous deserved much better.

Montserrat Prous in SINNER: THE SECRET DIARY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC

Kali Hansa and Jacqueline Laurent in SINNER: THE SECRET DIARY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC

Montserrat Prous in SINNER: THE SECRET DIARY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC

MONTSERRAT PROUS & KALI HANSA IN 'THE SILENCE OF THE TOMB'

2026-02-12T14:57:00.000-08:00

Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba Year: 1972 Rating: ***

Lina Romay, Ewa Strömberg, Maria Rohm and especially VAMPYROS LESBOS icon Soledad Miranda are scream-queen movie-household names when it comes to working with Spanish horror auteur Jesús Franco...

But a personal favorite is wide-eyed brooding brunette Montserrat Prous, starring as the central vulnerable ingenue in two obscure Franco features more thriller than killer, although there are plenty of deaths here in THE SILENCE OF THE TOMB compared to their previous THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF...

Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

The latter where she commits murders under a hypnotic spell, while TOMB has her character worrying about the young nephew she cares for: vulnerable son of movie star sister Glenda Allen who...

Well the plot's all in the setting, which, like American low-budget filmmaker Roger Corman, Franco would find a location and create a movie around it... herein the beach-side resort of Alicante, Spain, overlooking several lonely islands, and where the central dark manor harbors the actress and her shallow, expository-spouting entourage...

Kali Hansa and Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

That includes another Franco regular Kali Hansa, who was trying to murder Prous in ORLOFF, now seeming to help her in figuring out who of the limited characters kidnapped the child: resulting in a body-count Ten-Little-Indians-style whodunnit that sadly takes Hansa... seeming game for another femme fatale villain... out too soon...

Making the high-points each and every extreme close-up of Montserrat Prous, who Franco treats as a gorgeous portrait that he can't get enough of... ultimately creating an art-house/suspense hybrid of Agatha Christie and Ingmar Bergman... while the low-points are the male characters, too old and uninteresting for the inevitable monologue-spouting twist-reveal to matter, ironically making TOMB a one-woman ensemble.

Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Kali Hansa in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Kali Hansa in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Yelena Samarina in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Glenda Allen in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Kali Hansa in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Glenda Allen in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Kali Hansa in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba with Alberto Dalbés

Montserrat Prous in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

Glenda Allen in The Silence of the Tomb/Un silencio de tumba

MONTSERRAT PROUS HYPNOTIZES 'THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF'

2026-02-11T22:14:00.000-08:00

Montserrat Prou in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF Year: 1973 Rating: ***

Spanish Low-Budget Exploitation-Horror director Jesús Franco's THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF is really more of an expository-driven neo-noir crime-thriller...

Spending too much time on an inspector (and folk singing neighbor) figuring out plush manor killings and not enough on gorgeous doe-eyed brunette Montserrat Prous, a sickly rich girl randomly committing slasher-style murders under the hypnotic spell of the titular doctor (played by Spaghetti Western icon William Berger)...

Loreta Tovar in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Also featuring two extremely beautiful genre ingenues Kali Hansa and Loreta Tovar, one raven-haired and experienced, waiting to inherit her niece's estate... and Kali's NIGHT OF THE SORCERESS lithe blonde co-star Loreta Tovar as the naive yet crooked half-sister...

Both seeming game for the kind of backstabbing murder-mayhem that never fleshes out: a shame since the VAMPYROS LESBOS auteur continues to wield creative camera angles, different than the excessively-violent/overboard camp he's forever infamous for... which might have actually helped a little here.

Loreta Tovar in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar and Kali Hansa in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Montserrat Prou in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF with William Berger

Montserrat Prou in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Montserrat Prou in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Kali Hansa in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF with Loreta Tovar

Montserrat Prou in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar and Kali Hansa in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF with William Berger

Loreta Tovar in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Kali Hansa in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Lina Romay in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Montserrat Prou in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar and Kali Hansa in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar and Kali Hansa in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar and Kali Hansa in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF with William Berger

Loreta Tovar and Kali Hansa in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar and Kali Hansa in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Loreta Tovar and Kali Hansa in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

Montserrat Prou in THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF

ELISA VELA WITH LINA ROMAY IN 'MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD'

2026-02-10T22:04:00.000-08:00

Elisa Vela in Mansion of the Living Dead/La mansión de los muertos vivientes Year: 1983 Rates: ***

Infamously campy Spanish Exploitation-Horror director Jesús Franco's MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD is really a rural beachfront hotel where four beautiful women... two chunky-hot blondes and two perfect-bodied model brunettes... check into two different rooms, two at a time: each of the blondes kissing their own brunette — until the token first-girl wanders off alone...

As Mari Carmen Nieto far too quickly dies after happening upon a nearby monastery, which happens off-screen... providing looser blonde Albino Graziani an anticipated sacrifice/encounter with the titular medieval knight zombies straight from Amando de Ossorio's 1970's BLIND DEAD franchise (here resembling cheap skeleton mannequins created for a last-minute Halloween party)...

Lina Romay and Elisa Vela in Mansion of the Living Dead

That other blonde Lina Romay survives by becoming violently possessed: intensely morphing into a formidable final girl murdering final friend (and one of the all-time sexiest Spanish actresses) Elisa Vela...

Having adhered to a central Gothic romance with handsome hotel manager Antonio Mayans (keeping another naked blonde locked in his room), overall scene-stealing Romany now haunts the hotel's eerily red-lit hallways — in a low-budget fantasy/slasher that's both tremendously shoddy and hypnotically mesmerizing.

Mari Carmen Nieto and Elisa Vela in Mansion of the Living Dead

Elisa Vela in Mansion of the Living Dead

From Mansion of the Living Dead

Lina Romay in Mansion of the Living Dead

Antonio Mayans in Mansion of the Living Dead

Eva León in Mansion of the Living Dead

Lina Romay in Mansion of the Living Dead

Elisa Vela in Mansion of the Living Dead

Mabel Escaño and Elisa Vela in Mansion of the Living Dead

Mari Carmen Nieto and Lina Romay in Mansion of the Living Dead

Mabel Escaño and Elisa Vela in Mansion of the Living Dead

Lina Romay and Elisa Vela in Mansion of the Living Dead

Lina Romay and Antonio Mayans in Mansion of the Living Dead

Mari Carmen Nieto and Lina Romay in Mansion of the Living Dead

Mari Carmen Nieto in Mansion of the Living Dead

Elisa Vela, Mari Carmen Nieto, Lina Romay and Mabel Escaño in Mansion of the Living Dead

Lina Romay and Elisa Vela in Mansion of the Living Dead

Lina Romay and Elisa Vela in Jess Franco's CRIES OF PLEASURE

Lina Romay Jess Franco's CRIES OF PLEASURE

Lina Romay in Jess Franco's CRIES OF PLEASURE

Elisa Vela in Jess Franco's CRIES OF PLEASURE

Lina Romay and Elisa Vela in Jess Franco's CRIES OF PLEASURE

MERCEDES MOLINA & PAUL NASCHY 'EXORCISM' WITH MARÍA KOSTY

2026-02-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM/EXORCISMO Year: 1975 Rating: ***

Blonde-haired, full-lipped, wide-eyed, girl-next-door starlet María Kosty's second EXORCIST clone from 1975 where she has a bigger part than the cameo from Amando de Ossorio's DEMON WITCH CHILD, here as the slightly older sister of the token possessed girl who's no child this time, but tall, lithe and lovely ingenue Mercedes Molina...

She gets possessed during an opening sequence orgy that seems like the rudimentary beach party in JAWS only with naked hippies worshiping idols... the inner demon mimicking her late father, a wealthy scoundrel who wasn't friendly with classy-hot mom Maria Perschy, even prettier than her extremely pretty daughters...

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM/EXORCISMO

Spain's very own Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee in co-writer/producer Paul Naschy, who played every monster in the book, takes the passive mantle as a priest patiently attempting to subdue and ultimately exorcise the possessed Molina, who goes through the usual EXORCIST tropes of swearing, vomiting... and in this case, being of age, attempting to seduce the good father (as Linda Blair would Richard Burton in THE EXORCIST 2)...

Naschy's an EXORCIST hybrid of young priest Jason Miller and older muse Max Von Sydow, but doesn't have a lot of motivation beyond merely consoling the central family worried about their daughter/sister, who was actually a promiscuous black sheep before the demonic transition: providing a kind of 1970's drive-in/hot-chick exploitation that even Britain's Hammer Films had been relying on.

Maria Perschy and María Kosty in EXORCISM with Paul Naschy and Mercedes Molina

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

Maria Perschy in EXORCISM

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

Maria Perschy in EXORCISM

Paul Naschy and Maria Perschy in EXORCISM with María Kosty

Paul Naschy and Maria Perschy in EXORCISM

Joan Llaneras and Marta Avilés in EXORCISM

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM

Maria Perschy in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

Maria Perschy in EXORCISM

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM with Mercedes Molina

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM

Marta Avilés in EXORCISM

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM with Paul Naschy

Maria Perschy in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM with Paul Naschy

María Kosty in EXORCISM with Paul Naschy and Maria Perschy

Marta Avilés in EXORCISM

Maria Perschy and Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM

Maria Perschy and María Kosty in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM

Maria Perschy in EXORCISM

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

Marta Avilés in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM with Paul Naschy

Maria Perschy and María Kosty in EXORCISM

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM

Mercedes Molina in EXORCISM

María Kosty in EXORCISM

MERCEDES MOLINA IN 'EXORCISM'

From 'EXORCISM'

MERCEDES MOLINA & PAUL NASCHY 'NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST'

2026-02-08T00:16:00.000-08:00

Title: NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST/La maldición de la bestia Year: 1975 Rating: ***1/2

In the 1975 exploitation/horror EXORCISM, tall beauty Mercedes Molina gets possessed by a demon, and priest Paul Naschy has to help... while in the same year's NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST aka THE WEREWOLF AND THE YETI, she has to help him after a monstrous transformation...

How it happens is rather complicated, all during a snowy expedition to a hidden cavern where the legendary Yeti (Abominable Snowman) dwells... as Naschy's rogue adventurer is trapped in a cavern with two gorgeous nymphs, which sounds like a problem you want to have... but he winds up turning into a familiar monster for the Spanish actor that's played them all...

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Hence THE WEREWOLF, who only sporadically appears running around in the snow, killing various antagonists... like a rapist who attacked his true love, Molina, who, backed by gorgeous girl-next-door Verónica Miriel, is part of another exploration team: making this BEAST seem like two separate stories that never really connect...

Until the action-packed finale that provided the most blood of any Naschy picture thus far... and while the clean film print is more aesthetically liken to a TV-movie than the kind of grainy Spanish horrors that adorned the 1970's, this 11th hour cram-session of sword battles and last-minute rescues (where a suddenly intrepid Mercedes battles evil vixen Silvia Solar) keeps this NIGHT from becoming yet another hokey howler.

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Silvia Solar in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Silvia Solar in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST with Luis Induni

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Mercedes Molina and Verónica Miriel in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Verónica Miriel in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Mercedes Molina and Verónica Miriel in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Paul Naschy in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Pepa Ferrer in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Mercedes Molina and Verónica Miriel in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Mercedes Molina and Verónica Miriel in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Verónica Miriel in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Silvia Solar in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST with José Luis Chinchilla

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Silvia Solar in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Verónica Miriel in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Anna Maria Mauri in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Verónica Miriel in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Anna Maria Mauri in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST with Mercedes Molina

Silvia Solar in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Paul Naschy NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Anna Maria Mauri in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Silvia Solar in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST with Paul Naschy

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Silvia Solar in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Paul Naschy in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Verónica Miriel in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

Mercedes Molina in NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST

MARÍA KOSTY GUESTING THE POSSESSED 'DEMON WITCH CHILD'

2026-02-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

Title: Demon Witch Child/The Possessed/ La endemoniada Year: 1975 Rating: ***1/2

Two years after the groundbreaking horror THE EXORCIST, Spanish director Amando de Ossorio used the William Friedkin classic as more of a jumping off point than remake, providing the central pre-teen girl not only a reason for possession, but an actual character whose ghost creeps inside her...

Which would sort of become the future plot of Stephen King's THINNER, involving a grotesque old gypsy woman's death providing an ongoing curse... here through sexy gypsy daughter Kali Hansa, leading a sacrifice that includes a dead abducted baby's blood adding to targeted Marián Salgado's soul-binding transition...

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD

With strangely exotic, high-cheekbones contrasting to the usual long blonde hair and girl-next-door freckles, this already intriguing child starlet doesn't necessarily need makeup to be spooky... but a nightmarish mask is provided nonetheless, of the old gypsy's face under balding/stringy hair, wielding its own terrifying imagery for an otherwise deliberate ripoff...

As this DEMON WITCH CHILD spends more time outdoors than the body-floating bedroom, even under the bright city-street sunlight... more a perverted serial killer than smack-talking demon-riddled victim, at one point castrating a male reporter... as the BLIND DEAD franchise auteur replaces his signature overboard low-budget exploitation elements in place of suspenseful/high-octane terror...

Julián Mateos and María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

That works and it doesn't... the latter while straying from the more original gypsy-curse premise to double-back to its bad seed muse, including the familiar young handsome dark-haired priest randomly dealing with (before inevitably exercising) the screaming/cursing child... although he's given a backstory involving scream queen María Kosty's initial crush turned obsession: in a melodramatic sequence more like a police procedural...

Which also includes burly Spanish icon Fernando Sancho as a tough police chief; Spanish genre cameos from Montserrat Prous (a nurse) and Julia Saly (a maid); an expository-spouting shrink; the girl's politician father... and most importantly Lone Fleming as the surrogate Ellen Burstyn, whose battle with the titular demon child is even more bloody and personal... as Armando de Ossorio's exterior EXORCIST field trip's really a surreal strewn-together collage of uncomfortably formidable/unfortunately memorable b-movie moments.

Lone Fleming in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD with Kali Hansa

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Kali Hansa in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Julia Saly in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD with Julia Saly

Kali Hansa in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Kali Hansa in DEMON WITCH CHILD with Fernando Hilbeck

Julián Mateos and María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Montserrat Prous in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD with Lone Fleming

María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Julián Mateos in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Julián Mateos in DEMON WITCH CHILD with Fernando Hilbeck and Fernando Sancho

From DEMON WITCH CHILD

Montserrat Prous in DEMON WITCH CHILD

SOLEDAD MIRANDA BITING EWA STRÖMBERG IN 'VAMPYROS LESBOS'

2026-01-27T00:25:00.000-08:00

Soledad Miranda in VAMPYROS LESBOS Year: 1971 Rating: ***1/2

In what's otherwise infamously campy directing icon Jesús Franco's most creatively/artistic Spanish horror, just the mere casting of perhaps the most beautiful women ever filmed, round-faced brunette Soledad Miranda (who tragically died at 27 one year before release), makes VAMPYROS LESBOS more intriguing than the deliberately basic premise taken straight from both DRACULA and NOSFERATU...

A pawn in the form of contrasting blonde beauty Ewa Strömberg (in place of solicitor Jonathan Harker), an insurance agent sent to the Turkish island lair to resolve an inheritance... where she's instantly smitten and bitten by Miranda's Countess Nadine Carody: followed by the usual sickly withdrawals during the human-to-vampire transition...

Soledad Miranda (billed as Susann Korda) in VAMPYROS LESBOS

The most effective scenes (beyond the token character-actor scientist and stock handsome boyfriend's expository dialogue) occurs between the brunette goddess and her blonde prey... yet they needed more connected chemistry beyond their amazing looks, while the kisses should have been much deeper and longer: not just for the exploitation value but the overall seductive story-arc...

Although this was far ahead of its time in 1971, inspiring even British giant Hammer Films to combine lesbians with vampires, and the funky/groovy guitar/sitar music by Manfred Hübler and Sigi Schwab (later used in JACKIE BROWN)... specifically backing the dark queen's delicious nightclub act... makes VAMPRIOS LESBOS more a hypnotic visual fable than completely effective horror flick.

Soledad Miranda and Ewa Strömberg in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda and Ewa Strömberg in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Ewa Strömberg in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Dennis Price and Ewa Strömberg in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Ewa Strömberg in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda and Ewa Strömberg in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda and Ewa Strömberg in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda in VAMPYROS LESBOS

From VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Ewa Strömberg in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Beni Cardoso in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda and Ewa Strömberg in VAMPYROS LESBOS

Soledad Miranda in VAMPYROS LESBOS

MARIBEL MARTÍN VAMPING AS 'THE BLOOD SPLATTERED BRIDE'

2026-01-20T23:11:00.000-08:00

Maribel Martín in THE BLOOD SPLATTERED BRIDE Year: 1972 Rating: ***1/2

Based on the Gothic vampire novel, perhaps second only to Bram Stoker's DRACULA, Sheridan Le Fanu's CARMILA gets adapted into Spanish horror after the British Hammer film VAMPIRE LOVERS...

Only there's no tangible lesbian element other than a dominating female vampire seducing a young and docile, newly-married wife... making THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED young-teen actress Maribel Martín (just turned eighteen) the titular BLOOD SPLATTERED BRIDE...