Spare me the youthful enthusiasm as I will certainly deliver unto you another wonderful insult for you to utilize. Dear girl or boy this week’s insult is Ridiculous Roustabout. This is not just a simple name that ones calls out on a playground to just anyone. No, this is a special insult that you must hold onto until just the perfect moment before unleashing it. You are quite welcome.
Whether it’s a story, a TV show, a movie or fun house version I have always liked the idea of haunted houses. I remember as a kid watching shows and movies with the dark house on top of the hill with broken windows and being drawn it. After watching whatever it was I would then take to drawing a haunted house with crayons or constructing one from Legos. The second one also normally involved me making a ghost out of a tissue and a bread bag tie so I could move it about in the Lego haunted house. The appeal of these vacant places has still stuck with me over the years as a movie or show with one in it will earn points from me right away. The creaky stairs, paintings with eyes that seem to follow you and other haunted house cliches were always welcome and still are to me.
Wait a minute, what in the world are Laverne and Shirley doing on a horror/sci-fi blog? Well a while back I mentioned that I would be doing theme weeks for October including TV shows. So next week will be haunted house week featuring reviews of episodes of Laverne and Shirley, the Andy Griffith show and Tales from the crypt plus something about haunted houses in TV shows and maybe a Halloween memory from me plus Dr. Smith will show up and maybe another Poster Posting.
Take Care!
The last and one of the best of Roger Corman’s Poe series was Tomb of Ligeia with Vincent Price. A dark, moody film that pushes the boundaries of Corman’s low budget and looks richer than it was. Maybe one of my favorite 1960’s horror films. I bought this at least 13 years for $10 on a buy it now on Ebay. The scans don’t do this beauty justice. It looks fantastic and is in great shape for an almost 50 year old poster.
It’s Twins of evil from Hammer films. Vampires, twins, angry mobs, killings and Peter Cushing. A very good film that I have not seen in way too long. Cool poster too. It has a part taken out in the upper right and some deep creases, but I got it for about $7 probably 12 years ago so well worth that price.
First up is a poster for the 1968 British horror/slasher/scientist gone bonkers film Corruption starring the legendary Peter Cushing. A very average film in my opinion but I tend to like my British horror more on the gothic side. I got this one at least ten years ago for about $10. It’s in decent shape with splitting on the creases.
1955
Who’s in this?
Well Bud Abbott and Lou Costello of course in their last film together. This is one of several “meet the monsters” type films that the classic comic duo did.
Some familiar faces are in this one including the late Michael Ansara (the Klingon Kang from Star Trek’s The day of the dove as well as appearances in Lost in space, Buck Rogers and tons of other stuff) plus Richard Deacon (Mel from the Dick Van Dyke show and Lumpy’s dad on Leave it to Beaver).
What’s this about? At this point in their career Bud and Lou had been in every fix and setting known and this film just falls into that same pattern. Our pair end up getting mixed up with the murder of a scientist and a group of crooks and the followers of an ancient ruler are both after a medallion that Lou ends up swallowing! What a maroon, what a card uh… give me some other 1950’s Bugs Bunny type names. Well anyways Bud and Lou, the crooks lead by a black wig wearing sour woman and the ancient mummy worshippers all end up in a tomb that looks rather tidy for it’s age. They must have had some great ancient Egyptian tomb cleaners. Anyways Bud dresses up as a mummy as does one of the crooks as they both hope to scare off the others. However the real mummy pops up with a grrr, a growl, an arrr and a errr. He lumbers about in his rather floppy mummy suit but each group thinks it’s their mummy. I want my mummy, I want my mummy oh sorry. After some tomb chasing around, ensuing hilarity and an unexplained appearance by a giant lizard and a cheap looking skeleton the real mummy gets blown up kabloooooie. The baddies are captured and Bud and Lou turn the tombs into a club which was somehow supposed to show tribute to the mummy (?!). Yes nothing says class like a horn section dressed as mummies. Roll the credits and so long Bud and Lou.
The negatives- Almost all the gags are rather typical for the team which is good for consistency but unspectacular if you have watched all of their films over and over. As with many of their films A and C have some dancers and singers throw in which always seemed like filler to me and this film is no exception. Our duo have character names here yet not far into the movie they just seem to give up and call each other by their real names instead for much of the film.
The positives-It’s a great comedy duo and a mummy so hey that’s some big points in the plus category. Even though many of the gags are familiar I still chuckled a bit. Lou’s whack a mole with the mummy scene was a hoot and the medallion in the burger gag had me fixed even though I’ve seen this film like 50 times. The pacing was generally good too as they keep it going. Some great comedy teams like Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges had some groaners at the end of their careers, but Bud and Lou ended with a decent outing.
I probably first saw this film when I like seven because a local UHF channel showed a Bud and Lou film every Saturday. This one isn’t the classic that meet Frankenstein was but it’s a likable enough little film.
2013
I had this dream and Steve from Beverly Hills 90210 was there and so was Logan from Baywatch plus Kevin’s dad from Home Alone, but he didn’t last too long. There was a biiiiiiiig storm with lots of rain. Pitter patter pitter patter pat pat pat. Aw yeah and there sharks-big uns, little uns, bad cgi uns. They were flooding in on land and popping people like they rotten tomatoes or something. A bunch of people drove around, the sharks chomped on some annoying goons. Then tornadoes popped everywhere and the sharks spinning like turds in a flushing toilet only up instead of down. The people got tired of standing around and blabbing so they dropped bombs into the tornadoes to stop them. I don’t understand how that worked-too scientific for me I guess. Then Steve from 90210 jumps into a sharp and brrrrrr he cuts through that big, dead sucker with a chainsaw like he’s Ash only you know not nearly as cool. Then I think the dream ended and I woke up. Oh, wait that was a movie? Oh wowzers.
The negatives-The CGI is pretty mediocre, but I knew the budget was limited. Science and laws nature don’t seem to exist in this movie. About two thirds of the way through the film seemed to lose some steam or maybe that’s when they stopped throwing sharks out and tried to develop the “characters”.
The positives-It’s crap, but they know it and run it. A good bad movie knows to keep plugging along and most of the times this film does that. If your cast can’t act then just have them shoot or cut up sharks and set off explosions. Also the really annoying characters get killed off pretty quickly in this film which is a major plus.
A good bad film realizes it’s shortcomings but makes up for it with a steady pace, some kind of action and enough ridiculous goings ons to draw you in and this film does that.
Like groovy, man. This week’s far out insult is “Silly Sausage“. So like wait for the mood to hit you and the stars to align and let loose this insult on a deserving soul. Indeed.
More kind of A-team related stuff but wait there’s some sort of sci-fi connection here. I was watching the “Incident at Crystal Lake” episode of the A-team which had a group of baddies taking on the A-team. There was Robert Tessler playing one of that group along with Judson Scott (Wrath of Khan) and Chris Stone (The howling). Tessler played a mute, but I was thinking was a great, rough looking character actor he was and he was in so many things I saw growing up. He was in great shape too and he was in his 50’s in this A-team episode but looked just as bad as Mr.T who was in his 30’s. You’ve probably seen him in Hard Times, Cannonball Run, Starcrash, The sword and the sorcerer, The Longest yard as well as many shows including the A-team, Magnum P.I., The Fall Guy, the Incredible Hulk plus a lot more. A great mean guy with a unique look. He died all too young from cancer in 1990. Check out his IMDB profile and even better yet watch a movie or show with him in it to remember just how cool he was.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0856377/?ref_=tt_cl_t10
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