TODAY’S THRILLING TOHO FREATURE:

MATANGO-ATATCK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE

SEE THE ISHIRO HONDA CLASSIC MATANGO HERE >>

Until I watched the Sam Katzman (Earth vs the Flying Saucers, The Giant Claw, Zombies of Mura Tau) production of The Killer Ape with Johnny Weissmuller I had never seen a Jungle Jim feature in my life. Weissmuller began making the Jungle Jim features in 1948, the same year he played in his last Tarzan movie for RKO, Tarzan and the Mermaids. TATM is the only Weissmuller Tarzan feature I have yet to watch over (I of course saw it repeatedly on Saturdays afternoons as a kid) but I have it and need to get around to that some night. Some stories seem to suggest Weissmuller switched contracts from RKO to Columbia because Columbia agreed to let him wear clothes for his Jungle Jim character. Weissmuller was no longer the lean young man he was in Tarzan the Apeman, and had not been for sometime. Basically the Jungle Jim character, based on the Alex Raymond comic strip of the time, is Tarzan with clothes. At least in the one episode I watched here, and I will see others if I can find them, Weissmuller still seems a little too monosyllabic and spacey to be considered a man of civilized culture. He walks around the jungle with a knife and holding the hand of his pet chimp Tamba. But instead of a loin-cloth he wears a safari hat and uniform. You could almost image that it is a middle aged Tarzan who was giving a job by the local game commission because he is too old and heavy to swing through trees anymore. I saw a site that ranks the Jungle Jim movies, and along with The Lost Tribe, The Killer Ape is one of only two on the list to receive a one star rating. I guess I would be one of the few people to consider myself lucky to have began my exploration of the series with this feature.

I have done about three Weissmuller Tarzan features here at the Café and I am a huge fan of the films and in particular the early ones with Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane. I am not sure what the Jungle Jim series is all about yet. I do not know if he has a female partner or Boy type character but he does Tamba the chimpanzee who gets Jim out of many sticky situations as Cheetah ever did Tarzan. The story in The Killer Ape starts off with Jim and some of his park warden pals commenting on how strange the crocodiles have been behaving lately. Seems they have lost any will power and resistance and have become uncommonly docile. We are treated to some stock footage of “natives” beating crocs with sticks and paddles to confirm this. Jim is of course concerned about the wildlife’s health and welfare. We are made aware of this in the following scene where he pounces on a sluggish, land bound crocodile that startled Tamba and kills it with his hunting knife Tarzan style. Later a Mexican looking girl dressed in a South Pacific patterned skirt walks upon Tamba and throws a net over him and Jim runs to the rescue. In one of many attempts through out the film she tries to stab him but he subdues her by grabbing her wrist. Jim proves to Shari (Carol Thurston) and her tribe, the Wasulis, that Tamba is his pet by making him do a back flip. That’s is settled but Shari and her fiancée Ramada (Burt Wenland) still do not trust him very much. Shari’s brother Mahara (Paul Marion) seems to trust more when he warns them not to trap animals in The Canyon of the Ape which, according to local legend, is inhabited by a monstrous half man half ape creature with a really bad temper.

MORE OF JUNGLE JIM AND THE KILLER APE HERE >>

HEAVENLY CREATURES

1994/Director: Peter Jackson/Writers: Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson

Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison, Simon O’Connor, Jed Brophy

On June 22, 1954 the peaceful little port city of Christchurch, New Zealand was shaken to the core by the murder of one Honora Rieper in idyllic Victoria Park. The horror only grew when diary entries by Honora’s daughter Pauline Parker (Pauline used her mother’s maiden name during the subsequent trial since Honora and Herbert Rieper had never actually married, though it proved to be a minor issue scandal wise) led police to arrest her and her friend Juliet Hulme for murder. The trial and its press coverage was something of a phenomenon for the citizens of New Zealand who had not had much excitement since Sir Edmund Hillary scaled Mt. Everest a year before. The papers were rife with conjecture concerning the relationship between the two girls. Did the girls share some type of insanity? Were they lesbian lovers? That may seem trivial now, or it may not, but in 50’s New Zealand homosexuality was an indication of a severe mental disorder as well as criminal behavior. The real life Juliet Hulme, who went on to live in Scotland and write mystery novels under the name Anne Perry, has denied there was ever a lesbian relationship between herself and Pauline, who now resides in England under the name Hilary Nathan and, as a Roamn Catholic convert, devotes her life to helping handicapped children. One thing for certain was that the girls had formed over a period of a couple years  deep bound that they were not about to split apart by the decisions of their families without resistance.

Peter Jackson had gained a reputation up to this point for making splatter horror/comedy films such as Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Braindead (Dead Alive). The movies were pretty good low budget fare that have all gone to genuine cult status but were hardly the sort of thing that would attract mainstream attention or approval. He was approached by friend and writer Fran Walsh with the concept of turning the Parker-Hulme murder story into a motion picture. Walsh had long been fascinated with the story and hoped to give the story a fact based retelling. The story had actually loosely been told before in the 1971 French film Mais Ne Nous Délivrez Pas Du Mal (Don’t Deliver Us From Evil) and while there are elements of the story in this interesting film there are lots of liberties as well, the most obvious being the story is set in France. I do recommend Don’t Deliver Us From Evil as a decent movie however. I had the fortunate opportunity of seeing Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures at the small and cozy Grande Illusions Cinema in Seattle. I knew the name Peter Jackson at the time from his horror/fantasy work and still connect it to the alien vomit drinking scene in Bad Taste. I was not sure what to expect. I was more than happy with the film and Jackson’s decision to move away from slapstick-gore films (though if he wanted to return once in awhile that would be okay too).

MORE HEAVENLY CREATURES HERE >>

THE SHE-CREATURE

1956/ Director: Edward L. Cahn/Writers: Lou Rusoff, Lou Rusoff

Cast: Chester Morris, Marla English, Tom Conway, Cathy Downs, Lance Fuller, Ron Randell, Frieda Inescort, El Brendel, Flo Bert

The She-Creature is a film that attempted to capitalize on the past life regression fad that swept America in the mid-50’s following the release of the book, and subsequent film, The Search for Bridey Murphy. The book is based on the real-life events (I tend to find most of these “factual” paranormal events are actually more apocryphal than actual) pertaining to a party where hypnotist Morey Bernstein was the entertainment and hypnotized a lady named Virginia Tighe who regressed into her past lives to a time when she was an Irish woman named Bridey Murphy. She would speak in an Irish accent as she recalled her 19th century life. Luckily all these people who have past life regressions seem to select a past life that has the same spoken language I guess and who can’t mimic an Irish brogue. Despite the reincarnation claims of Virginia Tighe being devastated by skeptics the book went on to be a huge best-seller and, along with the 1956 movie, people flocked to the story, and some still believe it to be true, and soon everyone and their cousin were seeking a “qualified” hypnotist to induce a past-life experience. Probably during none of these experiences did the person speak a dead or extinct language like Aramaic or Hopi. Yes, while your humble archivist of B-movie madness watches everything from giant bugs to possessed Japanese school girls he is at heart a skeptic and does not believe in UFOs or past life regressions. All that being said, I really enjoyed this film, made in 1956 like the Bridey Murphey movie, thanks to my uncanny abilities of “suspension of disbelief”.

MORE OF THE SHE-CREATURE HERE >>

When once I wore a younger man’s coat I had quite the collection of Warren Magazines. I cannot remember the total number of the issues of Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella and Famous Monsters of Filmland I owned at the time but it was a lot. I also had original copies of all four Blazing Combat books and all the magazines were well tended. Well, they are all long gone except the memory though I now own about almost everything Warren ever printed in digital form. I know that a jpeg file is not the same as a piece of paper but there is the simple reality of how much or many of a thing you own and how much it weighs and how much space it consumes. So I settle for second best now.  Computer files. One set of Warren books I could never get my hands on but always coveted  were a set of experimental titles  they put out in 1965. Along with the double feature issue for the Hammer films Curse of Frankentstein and Horror of Dracula were the “photo-comics” made for The Horror of Party Beach and The Mole People. I knew they existed because I saw them advertised in the back of the Warren mags I collected. The back pages were loaded with cool ads for books, novelties and records and 8mm film clips. While the books did well in some foreign markets in Europe and Mexico the books basically flopped sales wise in the States and were discontinued. Here are the covers and some sample pages. There are about seventy pages per book and that is simply way to much to post here in their entirety. I think the books were sort of neat ideas and I hope I can find the Frankenstein/Dracula double feature soon. I actually did see a real copy of that magazine once and got to thumb through it. There was also release  the same year a “how to” photo magazine that featured make up techniques by Dick Smith (make up effects for films like The Exorcist, Taxi Driver, Scanners, The Godfather among many others) that I would like to have a look at someday.

MORE WARREN PHOTO-COMICS HERE >>

THE SORCERERS

1967/Director: Michael Reeves/ Writers: Michael Reeves, Tom Baker

Cast: Boris Karloff, Cahterine Lacey, Elizabeth Ercy, Ian Ogilvy, Victor Henry, Sally Sheridan, Susan George

Michael Reeves was an aspiring and ambitious young British director who only directed three films before his untimely death at the age of twenty-five by barbiturate overdose. It has never been assumed his death was a suicide and that he simply took a little too much of the strong medications (often over prescribed in the 60’s) to alleviate his depression and anxiety. His first film is nothing too fancy and often people assume that The Sorcerers was his first project. He actually filmed the low budget Italian horror film Revenge of the Blood Beast (La Sorella di Satana) in 1965 which featured the British actress Barbara Steele who was working in Italy at the time. His last film is considered not only his best but one of the best British horror films of the period, The Witchfinder General. AIP insisted that the film feature Vincent Price and legend has it that Reeves was none too impressed with Price’s trademark overacting and the two were often in heated debate as to the proper interpretation of Price’s Matthew Hopkins character. At one point Price became so infuriated with Reeves’ criticisms that he pronounced “Young man I have made 84 films. What have you done?” to which Reeves replied “I have made two good ones”. In the end Price was to come around to Reeves’ point of view and was more than pleased with the finished product and the two became and the two would work together on The Oblong Box though Reeves’ directorial involvement was cut short due to his premature death.

MORE OF THE SORCERERS WITH BORIS KARLOFF, INCLUDING TRAILER, HERE >>

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Since Blogger has become blocked yet again in China my other horror movie blog Necrotic Cinema, which focuses more on films people may have actually heard of, has suffered in terms of hits. Of course if you do not update people tend to stop visiting a site. I may have come up with a solution to some posting problems there. Lets forget the details and lets just hope it continues to work. Please show my modern horror movie  site the same tender love and affection you have shown The Uranium Cafe.  There is another version of Necrotic at Wordpress called Necrotic Sinema. Don’t ask. It is a long story and part of my  convoluted process to keep Necrotic updated. More reviews coming.

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 >>