January, Thursday 19, 2006

Today we have a treat that’s a little different. Two movies, neither of which is in IMDB, or at least, not correctly.

Night of the Skull (1973)

First off, we have a Jess Franco flick. Not surprisingly, Jess gives himself a little part as well (he has in most of his movies I’ve seen). This one is really more of a Giallo than horror, which is unusual for Franco. And there’s not as much nudity as he usually has. Hell, during this phase of his career, he was making soft core porn most of the time. A family is gathered together for the reading of the murdered patriarch’s will. Gee, we never have seen that before. This is a pretty forgettable flick, and I’m really glad I only rented it and didn’t buy it. The picture was better than I expected, but wasn’t great. The dialogue was only in Spanish, so it HAD to have English subtitles. Not a horrible little flick, but don’t spend more than $5.00 to see it.

Two Beers out of five

Revenge of Dr. X. (1970)

The credits on this copy show that it’s an Eddie Romero movie (the director of many classic Hemisphere Pictures like Brides of Blood, Mad Doctor of Blood Island, and Brain of Blood). There is a Revenge of Dr. X listed, but it has Kenneth Crane as the director, and Ed Wood Jr. (yes, that one) as the writer. The dialog in my movie certainly could have been written by Ed Wood. It has his flair, his pacing.  And the description in IMDB sure fits the movie I saw. How come the credits are completely different? How could this movie come to be associated with Eddie Romero? Why would Kenneth Crane’s credit be removed? I’m so confused. {later on, I found this website, which explains that the opening credits were copied from Mad Doctor of Blood Island)

Overall, the flick’s kind of a drag. Nothing really happens, except this asshole American shouts at everyone for no reason. And just when you think this couldn’t get any duller, up pop 5 topless diving girls. Suddenly things are looking up (or at least sunny side up  :->  )  Then there’s the scene ripped right out of Frankenstein, where the doctor raises his plant creature up to the lightning and screams “Your father shall be the lightning!” Oh yeah, we’re in Ed Wood territory here. The monster would have ashamed Toho in 1963, let alone 1970.

This disc is a DVD-R from a company called RetroFlicks. They sell grey market dubs of stuff from old films and off TV. Certainly, this copy is at best VHS resolution. Whether it’s a VHS dub (I can find no record of this movie ever being on VHS either, however), or off TV (no watermark for a channel everywhere to be seen) I can’t say. Many times, companies like this come into existence, providing movies that otherwise would be unavailable. But then, they get caught selling something copyrighted, and are sued out of existence. I hope this doesn’t happen soon with RetroFlicks, as they have a lot of neat movies.

Anywho, this one looses a star for real bad video quality, but gains one for you truly flakiness and for being an Ed Wood script. And one for the nice naturals from the pearl diving ladies.

Three beers out of Five, but worth hunting up by Ed Wood completists.