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Just some housekeeping, folks, while I battle a killer work deadline and an even more killer dose of the flu…

I have revised, reformatted and added screenshots to AMPHIBIAN MAN (1962) – damn; it’s been ages since I watched this, and I’d almost forgotten how good it is! – and reformatted and added screenshots to MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR (1954), which…isn’t quite as good, but does have its moments.

Sort of. Kind of. If you tilt your head and squint…

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It’s more than a year since I promised in passing that I would, at long last, be wrapping up the original Amityville series by reviewing the final entry in the franchise. So what took so long? Simple: after making that promise, I sat down and watched the damn thing.

AMITYVILLE DOLLHOUSE (1996)

An uncomfortably blended family moves into a house built by on the remains of a property that burnt down under mysterious circumstances. In the shed at the back of the property, the father finds an elaborate dollhouse, which he gives to his young daughter. But as soon as the dollhouse enters the home, the family begins to be assailed by strange and possibly deadly forces…

Having even less to do with the early films than its immediate predecessors – which is saying something – this final entry in the Amityville series almost made me glad to see the back of the entire franchise.

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Almost.

I do love that house…

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(And also at long last, I have reformatted The Amityville Curse (1990) and added some screenshots – such as they are; it’s not exactly the most visually arresting film.)

If spending my life bogged down in a morass of Jaws rip-off killer animal films from 1977 is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.

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ORCA (1977) (revised)

Dino de Laurentiis’ attempt to outdo Jaws succeeds about as well as his earlier attempt to make us forget about Willis O’Brien’s handiwork. This outrageous exploitationer runs the gamut from the indefensible to the indescribable, piling lunacy on top of lunacy in its tale of a thick-headed Irish fisherman being stalked around the wilds of Newfoundland by a crazed and homicidal orca.

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(In bandwidth news, I have mostly shaken off my harassers; although they still seem to be hitting me occasionally despite me taking down all their targets. I guess it’s still a work in progress.)

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I may say that I am astonished to learn how many people there are in the world who evidently have nothing else to do but watch Zombi…

Hey, remember that house-keeping I kept going on about??

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I have now re-formatted and added screenshots to:

The Great Gabbo (1929)

The Mysterious Island (1929)

The Unholy Night (1929)

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This time I’ve recovered and overhauled one of my earliest reviews, that of AROUND THE WORLD UNDER THE SEA (1966); a film so appallingly sexist that not even a giant killer moray eel can save it.

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[Warning:  screenshot may make film seem far more entertaining than it actually is.]

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I’ve also re-formatted and added screenshots to ATLANTIS, THE LOST CONTINENT (1961).

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First up, I have recovered, revised, re-formatted and added a few screenshots to:

THE DEVIL BAT (1940)

In which Bela Lugosi, kindly village doctor by day, mad scientist by night, disposes of his enemies by (i) creating giant killer bats; (ii) teaching his bats to home in on a certain ingredient in an experimental shaving-lotion; and (iii) persuading his enemies to rub some of the lotion on the tender part of their neck. It’s foolproof!

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I have also given a similar makeover to the film’s sequel-in-name-only, DEVIL BAT’S DAUGHTER (1946).

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Plus, I’ve re-formatted REVOLT OF THE ZOMBIES (1936) and ROCKETSHIP X-M (1950), and fixed up the screenshots in THE WALKING DEAD (1936). (Sort of; they’re still a bit dark, I think.)

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DR EHRLICH’S MAGIC BULLET (1940): – a fitting tribute to the brilliance of Paul Ehrlich, and a fascinating example of studio manoeuvring under the Production Code.

POWDER TOWN (1942): – in which the worst fears of Eros the alien are justified…

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In other news, I have recovered, re-formatted and added screenshots to my review of Destination Moon (1950), and re-formatted The Flying Saucer (1950).

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LASER MISSION
It’s obvious that while director BJ Davis is a director of limited skill, he knows exactly how to make a low-budget 80’s action movie. Every single thing you need in the movie is present, and if it’s not expertly realized, it’s usually at least delivered in a competently incompetent manner — a statement that will make perfect sense to anyone who watches a lot of these movies. A movie like Laser Mission can really only disappoint me by not delivering on the predictable formula to which it cleaves. That happens a lot with low-budget action movies, but not with Laser Mission. It may not deliver on the promised lasers of the title, but it delivers exactly what you’d want from a cheap, goofy 80s action movie.

KADIN DUSMANI
We come to the seedy Turkish thriller Kadin Dusmani via a circuitous but highly entertaining journey through a number of different types of film that built on a central theme — the simply murder mystery — and made it increasingly outlandish and bizarre. Picking a solid starting point is almost impossible — even if one could distill down to the “the first of its kind” in movies, there’s the fact that the early efforts were all based on various types of novels and pulp stories that underwent a similar evolution to the film that would eventually grow from them. So, for the sake of not falling into a bottomless pit, let’s pick a logical point at which to begin.

Plus, we added new pictures to GOLDEN BUDDHA and WORLD WITHOUT END

That’s right. Drink it in, people.