Wellp, gang! We’ve all seen those “10 Best” film lists, Every film, it seems, gets on one of them. There’s always some moron who’ll like just about anything, and praise a film in a printed review (for a price). But what about films on the reverse/end of the spectrum? What about opuses which are so bad that no one will even admit that he’s ever heard of them? Don’t they deserve a dishonorable mention? Or an honorable belch? Yes! They DO deserve an honorable belch! (We’re Democratic, here at THE MONSTER TIMES!) Where other films get Promo, we get Bromo; as we proudly present
10 CRUMBIEST OF ’71
(1) MOON ZERO TWO. Billed as the first space-western, this Hammer film was literally selling in 8mm home versions before it played theatrically in most major cities. Perhaps Warner Brothers, its distributor, wanted to check audience reaction to such ideas as “showdown in moon crater seven”, “heading ’em off at the comet”, and “riding off into a supernova.” Obviously, with cardboard settings and 3rd rate special effects, things didn’t go over too well, not even for the film’s hero James Olson who had to wait for his role in Robert Wise’s ANDROMEDA STRAIN to really appreciate the meaning of the word star. MOON ZERO TWO today still remains unviewed by most fans, perhaps this is most fortunate. Thank your lucky “stars”, fans!
(2) FROM EAR TO EAR. Filmmaker Jerry Gross certainly lives up! to his last name in his picture releases, and is here represented by one of his distinctly grosser outings. FROM EAR TO EAR was, we hear, quite a sensational and provocative picture when released in France under its original title of THE COUSINS. But when Gross’ Cinemation Industries were finally finished re-editing, re-scoring, re-titling, and re-dubbing – the end product could have been more tastefully served up by the mad butcher of Market Street.
It’s plain to even the most rank film viewer that FROM EAR TO EAR is nothing but a pastiche of this and that put together by a madman on some dank and rainy inebriated afternoon. We can just sit back and pray that Gross never acquires rights to something like THE WIZARD OF OZ; the publicity campaign for that flick! would no doubt boggle the mind.
(3) GAS-S-S-S-S. Luckily Roger Corman’s film GAS failed to play extensively in the New York metropolitan area, but reports from other correspondents say that most of the nation wasn’t so lucky, with some areas having to sit through this film on a truly horrifying first-run basis.
Producer Corman certainly must have beaten his three-day record for shooting a film (i.e. THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS) when he churned out this ridiculous Teenage Take-over film which supposedly deals with the search for peace in a war-torn land. You see, a mysterious vapor is set loose killing all people over twenty-five years of age, with the teenyboppers then running around in their new world with every trait they hated about the departed adults.
Not even the cameo appearance | by God could save this trite piece from being anything but tasteless drivel. Corman, creator of the great Poe masterpieces, must have really been GASSSSSSED!
(4) LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH. would have been more aptly titled LET’S BORE PEOPLE TO DEATH by its producers, since that’s exactly what happened to audiences everywhere who were conned into seeing this picture through an effective but grossly misleading ad campaign. Expired audiences’ carcasses were carted from theatres surreptitiously by moving men in dead of night & sold Vio medical schools. If anyone you know disappeared during this Imovie’s run in your neighborhood, notify the Missing Person’s Bureau immediately!
Hoping to latch onto the crest of the low budget cult films like CARNIVAL OF SOULS or NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, the men behind Jessica’s skirts just intertwined the plot lines of the two aforementioned pictures, hired a host of unknown actors, and placed them in the standard locales and situation. Result: an unredeemable bomb with the utter lack of any talent or imagination sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb.
(5) NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS. What happened when MGM found out their lowest budgeted film of 1970, HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, became their biggest money-making hit in drive-ins across the nation? Well the cry came shrieking down from the top brass, “Let’s do it again, but this time let’s cut corners and see how much more bread we can put in our pockets.” And that’s just the way this second Dan Curtiss cinema outing appear: cheap and unconvincing in every aspect. Gone is Jonathan Frid, gone is any hint at the vampire legend, gone is any horror and suspense, and, thusly, gone is the audience.
Dark Shadows’ alumni David Selby and Lara Parker came across on the big screen much as they did on the small one – with all the hammy histrionics you might expect on amateur night at the graveyard. This, coupled with poor settings, hackneyed script, and abominable sound and lighting made NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS one of the most literal “horror” films of ’71.
(6) WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH. The preceding year, 1970, was certainly the season for pre-historic fantasies, and England’s Hammer Films was no doubt the chief purveyor of such seemingly meager motion picture fare. Their first effort, WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH, basically followed the same pattern as their ’65 “classic” ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. – although they deleted the two main ingredients of the first: the writhing of Raquel Welch and the workmanship of special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen.
DINOSAURS star Victoria Vetri was delightful to look at, yet she just couldn’t reach the heights attained by Miss Welch – even with her beautifully wired push-up halter.
And although DINOSAURS animators Jim Danforth and David Allen are competent in their animated model work, they still have yet to achieve the masterwork of artist Ray Harryhausen, who ability to bring humanized life to his creations is as unequaled as it is uncanny.
WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH became so much of nothing after a short time, even though they obviously tried for at least a half-hearted imitation.
(7) But if you thought DINOSAURS was bad, its follow-up, CREATURES THE WORLD FORGOT, quickly pales in comparison.
It’s obvious these cave-man outings are one of the best studio investments around for Continental production companies. They’re inexpensive to shoot, with no sets. no costumes, and not even dialogue to worry about. But does Hammer really sincerely believe that American audiences are going to sit still much longer for these sandstone soap operas. From the box-office receipts, it would seem the only people seeing these films are the sex fiends among us who enjoy the abundances of flesh usually offered up by the latest new budding Hammer starlet that these flicks endeavor to showcase.
In this case, it is Swedish bombshell Julie Ege, who does a goodly share of bouncing and writhing – but this time without any form of stop motion animation monster-izing to back it up. If you must see it, make sure you see the R-rated version; there’s a milder GP cut version going around which is completely worthless.
(8) THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA. Ye Gods, Christopher Lee imitator Robert Quary is back again without any explanation for his death in the first film; and once more he’s saying almost the same lines and killing off the same victims he put the bite on first time around.
Now I realize COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE was American-International’s biggest success of 1970, and don’t blame them a bit for setting up a quick sequel; but I do take arms when they just re-shoot the same script with the same actors – and then have the utter nerve to release the two on a double bill. The first one was bad enough, and then to have to sit through the same mediocrity once again is almost too much for anyone reviewer to take sitting down.
Actually, they were going to call it THE REPLAY OF COUNT YORGA, but felt this just might strain audience reaction to the final limit.
(9) THE MEPHISTO WALTZ. No doubt one of the slickest and most lavishly produced horror films of 1971, this picture had all the originality of a xerox machine, coupled with the tantamount suspense of a toothpaste commercial.
Everybody else is following some leader’s trend, and in this case it was 20th Century Fox hoping for a quick victory and coup over the success of William Castle’s earlier ROSEMARY’S BABY for Paramount. The former was successful because of three main reasons: the acting talent, the fine plotting, and Roman Polanski’s direction. MEPHISTO WALTZ failed because it just lacked any of the fine attributes of the Polanski effort.
Of course we get the weird music, maniacal settings, and even the devil himself in WALTZ, but even Satan, with all his power, had to falter when confronted with such bumbling direction and editing. Only Peyton Place beauty Barbara Parkins served as eye-ball relief for bored and angered viewers.
(10) Last and least among the ten worst could be a film that even sounds bad when you say the title, GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO COUNT DRACULA.
Made on what seems like a twenty-dollar budget, the film in actuality was made over three times on the same set – once with the actors wearing clothes under the original title, then again in the buff as DOES DRACULA REALLY SUCK?, and once more as a really degenerate romp entitled DOES DRACULA REALLY …?
And no matter what way you see it, it still lacks any sort of taste or talent – although the clothed version is said to be the most boring of the three versions, even with its scant eighty-minute running time.
DISHONORABLE NEAR MISSES!
And that sort of wraps up the ten worst of ’71, although there are 10 others that could have easily made the list – pictures such as HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN CAT O’NINE TAILS, THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT, THE VELVET VAMPIRE, BRAIN OF BLOOD, BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT, CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND, FRANKENSTEIN ON CAMPUS, THE BEGUILED, and the ever-popular epic adventure seriocomedy SIMON, KING OF THE WITCHES! Simon, the Witch-King made his home in a Los Angeles sewer. Supposedly, this was to make him a pitiable, sympathetic character. We agree, living in a L.A. sewer must have been a plight, with no one to talk to but the producers and writers of the afore-mentioned films!
JW