HORRORS OF MALFORMED MENK (Kyôfu Kikei Ningen)

1969/Director: Teruo Ishii/Writers: Teruo Ishii, Masahiro Kakefuda

Cast: Teruo Yoshida, Yukie Kagawa, Teruko Yumi, Mitsuko Aoi

I have been delving back into Japanese cinema of the 60’s and 70’s and focusing on the Pinky Violence variety as well as the b/w noir style films by people like Seijun Suzuki. I have a few films here by director Teru Iishi but had yet to get around to watching one all the way through. I mean I tend to skim over these things for quality assurance purposes before burning them a disk then deleting the files from my hard-drive. I think I have Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf, Female Yakuza Tale, Blind Woman’s curse and the focus of this review The Horrors of Malformed Men. I will have to confess something here. I often have no clue as to the history of many of these before I download or that the above films were even all by the same director until I began doing some research for this review. I may download a film simply because I like the title or the poster art and screen captures. I will skim over the review to get some idea of when it was made and what other work the director was involved with then decide whether to use up my bandwidth and hard-drive space with the download. Usually any Japanese film made from the late 50’t to mid 70’s has a better than 50/50 chance of getting downloaded in the first place. So when I saw the review snippets about the Horrors of Malformed Men and how it was banned in its own country for some forty years and never released on VHS I was thoroughly enticed.  My first thought was how freaky could the film be in order to be banned in Japan of all places. Well the lure of a film made in 1969 Japan being banned for so long is something I personally cannot resist but there is actually a slight catch to the banned aspect of this film.

MORE OF THE HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN HERE >>

THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES

1968/Director: Ted V. Mikels/Writers: Ted V. Mikels, Wayne Rogers

Cast: Wendell Corey, John Carradine, Tom Pace, Joan Patrick, Tura Satana, Rafael Campos, Joe Hoover

I have to admit that I have been on a real super B-movie or Z-grade film roll for a long while. God knows I watch more of this stuff lately than I can keep up with as far as posting goes. I may soon be shifting gears for a couple posts and do some posts on some other films I have seen lately, like Mr. Majestyk with Charles Bronson, or the Getaway with Steve McQueen or a Japanese film like Woman of the Dunes or Onibaba.  For a while comic book and music posts are on the back burner simply because they take a lot of work and I am not sure that that is what people come here for. It is also easy for me to do b-movie posts because  I simply love these old B-movies and love writing about them and promoting them. And few Z-grade films have a more special place for me than Ted V. Mikels’ bewildering The Astro-Zombies (sometimes listed as simply Astro Zombies. The poster art says Astro Zombies or Astro-Zombies-with hyphen- while the opening credits say The Astro-Zombies). I picked this up long ago on VHS and saw it a couple times and really knew little about it other than who John Carradine and Tura Satana were. I will have to admit that this film is not fort everyone, but I love it. Yes, there is tons of padding and wasted opportunities. I feel Tura Satana is not used on screen enough and John Carradine is fun as yet another mad scientist but spends too much time tweaking equipment and babbling pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo to his mute and imbecilic henchman and not enough time really being insane and misguided.

But the film is ultimately good and unintentionally campy fun for the super cheese cognoscenti and the dialog is priceless. Whether or not the film was actually intended to be campy or not is a topic for debate I suppose. The dialog is all the more an oddity because the script was co-written by Wayne Rogers, Trapper John from TV’s M*A*S*H. Roger’s was also co-producer and a lot of the property used in the film belonged to him. The film is torn to shreds usually in sites online that I always thought were supposed to pander this stuff. It is a bad film and going into the movie with that knowledge will not make it any better. If you are not a fan of really bad cinema then steer clear. But if you are the type who love seeing greasy haired, stooped over henchmen torment tied up girls in bikinis for no explainable reason, or monsters that consist of phony looking rubber masks with no expression and all of it topped off with the zaniest dialog ever then you will enjoy the time wasted with this grimy jewel. Ted V. Mikels is still alive and working and  I read on his website that is actually planning an Astro-Zombies “part III”, to follow the 2002 straight to DVD release Mark of the Astro-Zombies, which starred Tura Satana. This will not be the only film Mikels film to be featured here at the Café. Coming eventually: The Doll Squad (again with Tura Satana), Blood Orgy of the She Devils, and The Corpse Grinders. You have been informed, or warned depending on your personal tastes.

MORE AMAZING ASTRO-ZOMBIES HERE >>

As I labor over my post on one of my all time favorite Z-grade classics , The Astro-Zombies by Ted V. Mikels, I thought I would take a breather and share these well springs of invaluable information I found at Crazed Fan Boy’s site. The work here all belongs to staff member and correspondent extraordinaire Ed Tucker who was lucky enough to meet a still hard working Mikels at his Las Vegas office and film studio. I added a few extra images to beef it up a bit. Also included is a handy Ted V. Mikles primer by Ed Tucker. Ted, with his trademark handle bar mustache, looks pretty good and fit  for some one pushing eighty and appears to have no plans of slowing down.  Bill

The Ted V. Mikels Interview By Ed Tucker

Hidden in a small industrial complex just a few miles off the Las Vegas Strip is an unassuming building that could easily house a lawn service or pest control office. Upon entering the front door though, visitors are immediately overwhelmed by over thirty years’ worth of movie posters, press books, lobby cards, and photographs lining almost every square inch of available wall space. This museum-quality display of vintage memorabilia highlights the career of legendary cult filmmaker Ted V. Mikels, a true American original who turned his varied talents and driving desire to make movies into an eclectic catalog of feature films and a motion picture career to be reckoned with. It’s hard to believe that a man best known for “blood orgies” and “corpse grinding” could be so friendly and cheerful! Ted Mikels is a walking encyclopedia of the film industry with an enthusiasm for his profession that is nothing short of infectious. I had the extreme pleasure of sampling some of this knowledge and insight when I was a guest in his Las Vegas office and studio.

ENTER HERE TO READ THE TED V. MIKLES INTERVIEW BY ED TUCKER >>

TODAY’S MIND NUMBING FEATURE:

THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES

ENTER HERE TO SEE ASTRO ZOMBIES IN ITS ENTIRETY ALONG WITH TRAILER >>

THE MONSTER AND THE STRIPPER

1968/Director: Ron Ormond/Writer: Ron Ormond

Cast: Ron Ormond, Tim Ormond, Peggy Anne Price, Sleepy LaBeef, Georgette Dante, Ronald Drake,  Jack Horton,  Pauletta Leeman, Harris Martin

AKA: THE EXOTIC ONES

As hard as it may be for the uninitiated neophyte to conceive there is a class of “cult”* film makers whose technical skill and dubious vision are on a lower rung of the film making ladder than even Ed Wood, Jr.. In fact the title “worst filmmaker of all time” has never really been suitable for Ed Wood, Jr. since there are moments in his films that show some degree of craftsmanship. Of course I am talking apples and oranges here, okay. Tim Burton made an embellished biopic of Wood’s life and career of the technical nature Wood himself could never imagine and I could not imagine myself trying to argue that Woods is a better film maker than Burton. But better does not mean more fun in a kooky sense of course.  Burton could make a film that is an homage to bad film making but could never make a film as genuinely bad as Jailbait . Why you ask? Okay, maybe you didn’t ask but pretend you did. Because when Ed Wood, Jr. made Jail Bait or Plan 9 from Outer Space he was trying to make a good film and fell short of the mark. It is the failing to reach the lofty goals of a mediocre film maker that makes Plan 9 so wonderful. I still find most of Wood’s catalog pretty deserving of being watched over when there is nothing else to do with life. I can dust the house or watch Bride of the Monster again. Not a tough decision for me folks.

But in an even more remote and frozen orbit from the world of conventional film making are a band of true outsiders that churned out what are often called Z-Films. If B-Movies refer to films made outside the normal system of film production, distribution and politics of Hollywood on super low budgets with less known actors then Z-Films represent a world even outside the rules and codes of B-Movies and their arcane creators and unknown casts constitute a veritable sub-culture of film making. I doubt anyone sets out to make a “Grade Z Classic” the way Ted V. Mikels did with The Astro -Zombies or Al Adamson did with Dracula vs. Frankenstein but somewhere events beyond reasonable human control (such as the collective lack of any film making talent on the part of the entire cast and crew) come into play. And yet there is something genuinely entertaining about the films of folks like Ray Dennis Steckler, aka Cash Flagg, and even Herschell Gordon Lewis that can provide a certain portion of the population a sound evening of pseudo-surreal film watching. One could argue that this same said portion of the population is in desperate need of shock therapy or even lobotomies but that brings the subject matter a little too close to home to make me feel comfortable. So lets move on and discuss a truly odd film I had the masochistic pleasure of watching recently called The Monster and the Stripper, aka The Exotic Ones by the eccentric Ron Ormond.

* I do not like the term cult movie much lately as it is overused these days but is still most applicable at times. It has become a way to sell unsalable DVDs is all and the term has lost some of the categorical usefulness it once possessed. I long ago removed it as a category description here at the Cafe.

MORE OF RON ORMOND’S THE MONSTER AND THE STRIPPER HERE >>

She Demons

1958/Director: Richard E. Cunha/Writers: Richard E. Cunha, H.E. Barrie

Cast: Irish McCalla, Tod Griffin, Victor Sen Yung, Rudolph Anders, Gene Roth, Leni Tana, Charles Opunui

In some ways 1958’s She Demons is like one of those exploitation styled stories that would appear in the sweaty men’s action magazines of the sixties where overly viral white guys rescued, or tried to anyway, captive white girls from the clutches of Nazis, Imperial Japanese soldiers, commies, pirates or wild animals of various sorts. The story is one of the most outlandish ideas ever and so it lands a place here at the Uranium Café. The plot is the tried and true group pf travelers stranded on a desert island one with some sort of menace lurking in the jungles. This story line, along with the car breaking down in the countryside with a dark mansion or castle nearby, is simply one that will never disappear from the hack script writer’s box of two or three tricks. The story involves a small group of boaters who was washed ashore after their small boat is destroyed in a hurricane, in the Caribbean I am assuming, and they find themselves pitted against a group of well dressed and well supplied Nazis some thirteen years after the war has ended. I reviewed The Flesh Eaters here and that film also had a similar story, of a group of travelers who land off a small island in the Atlantic and find there a brilliant but mad Nazi who is continuing experiments from the war period in hopes of selling the results to the highest bidder. However the mad Nazi in that film did not walk around the island in starched, black Nazi regalia nor was he supposedly still being supplied by the defunct fascist Nazi regime, by secret submarines yet, as the goose stompers in this flick are. Well before we explore this unbelievable film in detail lets have a look at some of the people involved in its creation and production.

The film is directed by the man who brought to us, in the same year of 1958, what is considered to be his greatest contribution to the world of cheese cinema Frankenstein’s Daughter (a review on that wonder will be here at the Café eventually, do not fear) Richard E. Cunha. He was born in Hawaii and served in the Army where he learned his trade by making training films and newsreels related to WWII. He would later work as cinematographer for various TV shows (Branded and Death Valley Days among them) and direct some strange low budget cult horror and sci-f- classics, mostly from the late fifties and early sixties. He seems to speak with pride about how his films averaged $65,000 and no more than six days to make. His other films include Missile to the Moon and Giant from the Unknown.

MORE SHE DEMONS >>

SEE SHE DEMON VIDEOS HERE >>

PLACER SANGRIENTO

1967/Director: Emilio Vieyra/ Writers: Jack Curtis (English-language dialogue), Antonio Rosso

Cast: Alberto Candeau, Ricardo Bauleo, Mauricio De Ferraris, Susana Beltrán, Gloria Prat, Emilio Vieyra

AKA:
FEAST OF FLESH
THE DEADLY ORGAN

Argentinean director of B-Sleaze and horror Emilio Vieyra is probably best remembered for his 1971 exploitation classic The Curious Case of Dr. Humpp (La venganza del sexo), which starred dark haired and dark eyed Gloria Prat. Prat had previously worked with Vieyra (aka Raúl Zorrilla) in his sort of sexy but not really sexy enough  vampire thriller Blood of the Virgins (Sangre de vírgenes) and in an even lesser known film than the practically all but unknown Dr. Humpp called Placer Sangriento (Feast of Flesh or The Deadly Organ) which is the subject of this Uranium Café post. I would like to see a little more of Vierya’s work (I actually found a DVD copy of Blood of the Virgins in a small DVD shop in Jilin City in Northeast China while I worked in that area one very bleak and freezing winter… long story) as well as more of Gloria Prat’s work but this type of stuff is really hard to find. I should quickly add that these films star the lovely Susana Beltran as well and both gals appear to be regulars in Vieya’s films. To be honest in these films I sometimes get confused as to who is who and what the hell is actually going on most of the time. This is made harder in this case since there are no end credits on the film version I have to confirm who is who. If it adds anything Prat is also executive producer of this film.

MORE OF PLACER SANGRIENTO INCLUDING TRAILER >>

NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES

(LA TERRIFICANTE BESTIA HUMANA)

1969/Director: René Cardona/Writer: René Cardona, René Cardona Jr.

Cast: Armando Silvestre, Norma Lazareno, José Elías Moreno, Carlos López Moctezuma,  Agustín Martínez Solares

Also Known As:

Gomar: The Human Gorilla
Horror and Sex
Horror y sexo (racier version)

Before finally getting around to seeing Night of the Bloody Apes aka La Horripilante/Terricante Bestia Humana/The Horrible Man Beast, Horror y Sexo/Horror and Sex and Gomar: the Human Gorilla,  I was only aware of Rene Cardona’s work as the director of genre Mexican Wrestling films. Those type of films are built around the lucha libre culture of Mexico where wrestling is pretty serious business. Usually the wrestlers appear in some sort of mask though not all of the time. Cardona directed some of the better Santos films (redubbed and released in the States as Samson by K. Gordon Murray) and some Wrestling women films. In fact Night of the Bloody Apes is a loose remake of one of his earlier films Doctor of Doom (Las Luchadoras Contra el Médico Asesino) which is also known as Rock ‘N Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Ape.  Actually the ape creature in Doctor of Doom was called Gomar but I do not recall the creature being called that in Night of the Bloody Apes so I am not sure why the film is also called Gomar: The Human Gorilla. Seems Doctor of Doom would have also been known under that title. So anyway, if you have not gathered Night of the Bloody Apes is a horror film, but is also a wrestling film and the star wrestler is the cute and shapely luchadoras (female wrestler) Lucy who wears a bright red devil girl outfit and for some reasons when she appears in the ring looks twenty or thirty pounds heavier. (more…)