yor blimey!

Yor - The Hunter Of The Future (AKA Yor, The World of Yor, 1983)

Dir: Antonio Margheriti (As Anthony M. Dawson)

Cast: Reb Brown, Corinne Clery, Luciano Pigozzi, Carole André, John Steiner, Marina Rocchi, Sergio Nicolai Ayshe Gul and the legendary Aytekin Akkaya.

Kalaa: Why is Yor different from other men?

In a world where dinosaurs rule and bit part Italian actors roam the woods in flea bitten loincloths comes the mighty warrior Yor (ex pro-footballer, Captain America and deputy sheriff Brown); oiled, toned and muscled yet with the running prowess of a small girl.

He looks good in furry pants tho'.

Somewhere in the bushes Kalaa and Pag (ex Bond babe Clery and the tramp like Pigozzi) are hunting a piglet with wooden horns stuck to its body but as they grab the poor embarrassed animal a giant Cardboardasaurus crashes thru' the trees.

Kalaa is frozen with fear and Pag can only scream and wobble his man breasts as the beast lurches towards them...

Luckily Yor comes bounding to the rescue, beating the dinosaur around the head with a big stone axe till it falls over.

Phew.

"Yor going home in a St. Johns ambulance!"

As a way of saying thank you they invite Yor back to their village for a big party and, not having anything planned he accepts.

Enjoying an evening of mead and bacon (and with the chance of a shag from Kalaa who appears to be the only non-bearded woman there) Yor is understandably upset when a gang of face painted ape men gatecrash the party and set fire to the village hall before tossing Yor off a nearby cliff and kidnapping Kalaa.

The Pussycat Dolls tribute band
was a wee bit disappointing.

It seems that there are no ape women so every so often the scruffy ape men attack the friendly tribe looking for posh totty to use as 'lurve slaves'. Yor (who has climbed all the way back up the cliff) is adamant that if anyone is going to have their wicked way with Kalaa it's going to be him.

Yor heads off towards the ape lair with Pag in tow where, hiding in a tree they observe the scary (and somewhat arousing) sight of dozens of bikini clad ladies being oogled by the noisy band of cheeky (not to mention horny) monkeys.

"Laugh now!"

If that wasn't enough Ukraan, leader of the apes is rubbing his hairy palms together and licking his lips whilst advancing on a cornered Kalaa.

There's only one course of action open to our hero obviously so killing a nearby giant bat he uses the animals carcass to glide into the ape den and release Kalaa before smashing a nearby dike and flooding the camp.

Please note that he makes no attempt to rescue the other captives who obviously are either drowned or left to spend the rest of their lives having every one of their orifices violated by bananas.

What a guy.

Leaving the scene of carnage behind them Yor explains that he is trying to discover 'the secrets of his past' (and find out why all the other men look like lank haired bearded pikeys whilst he's tanned and blond) so must brave the dangerous desert to find the answers.

Kalaa decides to tag along (well, it's either that or sit on her own waiting for the dirty monkeys to turn up) and before long the stumble across a tribe sacrificing a nubile, pointy headed blonde on a bonfire.

Yor kills them all and rescues the lady who introduces herself as Roa (Gul), owner of a pound shop pendant not dissimilar to Yor's (the main character, not yours obviously. Unless you actually own one when it may well do).

"Do the monkey with me!"

Kala, unhappy with another female joining the group decides to kill her love rival but her plan is interrupted when a rather wet Ukraan turns up looking for revenge.

A fight ensues (again) but Roa is struck down before Yor can save her.

Which is good news for Kalaa.

"Hallo I'm superfluous, come sleep in mah bed".

Our terrific trio tut and shrug shoulders before continuing their journey into the desert and before long come across some folk being attacked by what looks like a large chicken with an umbrella stuck to its back.

Not having been involved in a fight for around ten minutes Yor kills the beast and gets invited to another party where yet another bikini clad lady fawns over him and wiggles her ample hips.

Understandably Kalaa is really pissed off at the fact that every woman on the planet wants a piece of Yor's prime ass but before she can attempt to kill this one the tribal chief arrives with information about Yor's origins.

It seems that every so often blond 'gods' wearing big medallions come to visit the villagers in flying boxes from a mysterious island hidden by a spooky dark fog.

Yor is convinced that the island holds the key to his identity so he steals a fishing boat to continue his quest, leaving the friendly visitors to be wiped out by the aforementioned flying boxes.

"Thanks for the pearl necklace Yor!"

With Pag and Kalaa as his loyal crew, Yor quickly makes his way to the island only to lose control of the boat when a violent storm whips up from nowhere. Yor is tossed overboard and washed up on a beach where he is almost immediately zapped by a guy in a leather jumpsuit and a gas mask.

Kinky.

Don't fret tho', Kalaa and Pag are safe too. They've been cast ashore further up the beach where they're accosted by a small group of cave dwelling tramps.

"You'll just feel a tiny prick...."

Yor meanwhile has been grabbed by the Overlord (sounds painful) as is looking on in mild apathy as the movies plot is explained to him.

It turns out that the film is set on a future Earth devastated by nuclear war where the majority of survivors have regressed to little more than savages.

A small group of scientists however tried to hold back the oncoming violent times by using space age technology and appointing an absolute leader (the aforementioned Overlord - the plywood like Steiner) who (and with a name like that you can't be too surprised) built an army of gimp suited androids and kick out anyone who disagreed with him.

Yor's parents were among those yellow bellied cowards that ran away, preferring to take their chances with the papier mache dinosaurs on the mainland, which was a bad idea seeing as they were almost instantly eaten leaving our hero an orphan.

Before they died however they gave baby Yor a present, the big gold medallion he wears which in reality is a high tech recording device (what for I don't know, why they never left him a note of how to work it, ditto).

Laughing (looking and possibly smelling) like an off season seaside town crossdresser on crack, Overlord announces that he has plans for Yor.....

"Juliet Bravo!"

Kalaa and Pag meanwhile are swapping niceties with the resistance movement who have told then much the same story, but adding the (fairly important) bit about Overlord planning to kill everyone else on the planet within the next hour or so.

They decide to attack Overlord's complex.

Whilst all this is going on. Overlord and his foxy assistant Ena (André) have strapped Yor to a dinning table and started flashing really hot disco lights at him in an attempt to steal his DNA which, when mixed with Kalaa's will become the genetic building blocks for Overlords new android army.

Just as it appears that Yor can't possibly sweat any more the stinky tramps burst in and free our hero as a battle of epic proportions ensues.

"Are you looking at my bra?"

One particularly stinking tramp manages to reach Overlords control centre and de-active his leathery android hordes whilst Yor plants a bomb inside the bases nuclear reactor.

With only minutes to spare before detonation Yor stabs overlord with a huge barbers poll and hounds the heroic rebel band into a conveniently parked spaceship, escaping the island with seconds to spare as it explodes no doubt showering a still recovering planet and population in all manner of dangerous radiation.

As our merry band fly off to an uncertain future, spooky voice over guy tells us of how Yor will "use his new found knowledge of mankind's past to protect the future".

"Yor the one that I want".

Originally made as a three hour SciFi epic for Italian Teevee, Antonio (I got to say I directed Andy Warhol's Dracula and Frankenstein but only for tax purposes) Margheriti’s fantasy classic is better known to fans of the fantastic in it's truncated movie form.

Even losing almost two hours of it's original running time the films sheer awfulness shines thru'. From it's ludicrous premise by way of the abysmal acting via trite dialogue, a distinct lack of a workable script and overall general shoddiness it's still top quality entertainment.

Look at Maurizio and Guido De Angelis's score, re-used ad infinitum in such blockbusters as 2019: After the Fall of New York and Raiders of Atlantis, and Lightblast) and the clever use of costumes left over from that other Corinne Clery SciFi masterwork The Humanoid (tho' it's more likely that she came free with the suits) not forgetting the star turn by the ultimate macho man that is Mr. Reb Brown.

Brown: Tight, athletic buttocks.

From his early work alongside soon to be Starbuck Dirk Benedict in the 1973 shocker Ssssss to his appearances as Captain America in two ill advised 1979 Teevee movies you can always count on Brown's frankly terrifyingly muscled arse to take your attentions away from any mistakes on screen, he's ably (and amply) supported by Euro art/sleaze star Corinne Clery doing her best as the vacant eyed bubble permed heroine with the hots for Yor and Italian 'B' stalwart (and owner of the droopiest man breasts ever) Luciano Pigozzi (star of such top quality hits as Alien from the Deep and Double Target) brings a Wilfrid Bramble like quality (and smell probably) to his role as uncle Pag.

Funnier than Margheriti's Cannibal Apocalypse and with better special effects and a fluid style of its own that features nods to the 60's Batman series with it's high angle camera work, good old over choreographed 'slow fighting' and an endearing kind of thrift shop feel that makes it a pain free enjoyable 90 minutes of cheesy entertainment if nothing else. Yor may make absolutely no sense at all but at least it's not too painful to watch.

Especially if like me you enjoy tight buttocks.

As a strange but true aside I'd just like to add that about five years ago I came across a Dutch version of Yor in a local charity shop for a pound and eagerly snatched it up (what can I say? I liked the cover illustration). Rushing home to see how it held up dubbed I was surprised to find that someone had recorded over the last ten minutes with what looked like home video footage of a deserted public pool where a scantily clad, blindfolded woman sat strapped into a chair.

After viewing this strange (yet somewhat disturbing) scene for a few minutes a man appeared from stage left wearing nothing but a clown mask and holding a kitchen knife. He proceeded to pinch the womans nipples and play with her hair for a few minutes before moving slowly toward her....then the screen cut to static.

I've always wondered if someone had accidentally recorded one of their home sex tapes at the end or if I'd stumbled across a scary snuff film, the killer desperate to recover the tape before his identity could be found.....

If you know (or are the person) that made this then feel free to get in touch.

Unless you are a mad mentalist murder obviously.

storm in a teacup.

Been asked to review this terrifyingly realistic action flick for the dear Mr. Nick Frame but because his site is very grown-up and actually read by more than six people I've been asked to tone down the mooth shite-ing and laugh now's.

Gonna be a fucking short piece then.

Meteor Storm (2010).
Dir: Tibor Takács.
Cast: Michael Trucco, Kari Matchett, Kirsten Prout, Brett Dier and Emily Holmes. There are obviously a few more folk but I really can't be bothered listing them. What do you think this is? Halliwell's?

Sexy science type Dr. Michelle Lynman (pointy visaged Matchettan of Cube 2 fame) is getting fairly excited about a big meteor shower - sorry, storm -  that's due to light up the skies over San Francisco (expertly played by a bit of Canada), you see she's an expert on space rocks and stuff which may be useful later.

Like all good disaster movie heroines Michelle has a fraught home life, her two 'teenage' kids are visibly the same age as her whilst her husband Tom, a hunk-tastic Harley riding retired air force colonel and current head honcho of San Francisco's Disaster Management Agency (lucky that) is just about to finalise their divorce.

Poor lamb.

"Nope, no mooth shite-ing to see here!"

Anyway, enough clichéd background filler as we're here to see San Fransisco burn and burn it does as the aforementioned pretty lightshow turns into a full scale bombardment throwing large clumps of CGI building and all manner of toy cars heavenward as the poor lowly paid extras scream and point a lot whilst running for cover.

Confused as to why everything is exploding and angry at the fact that Tom didn't pick up the kids as promised (tho' I've no idea where he'd put them...in his saddlebags perhaps?) Michelle heads back to the observatory to run some tests or something as scientists are the want to do in these situations.

Probably.

Meanwhile her two annoying teens, Kara and Jason (the moon faced Prout and granite chinned Dier) are trapped on the river front as dozens of steaming computer generated turds rain down on them with one even hitting Kara's secret boyfriend in the arse leading to an exciting subplot involving them trying to get a comfy seat to sit on whilst they attempt to get him to hospital.

"I really don't think you should laugh right now".

Michelle is quickly grabbed by the military (which isn't as painful as it sounds) to try and come up with a reason for the bombardment whilst Tom is tailed by two fame hungry news reporters desperate to get the story of the century.

And if that wasn't enough to keep you glued to the settee in a way usually reserved for damp wank tissues there's also Michelle's sister nurse Laura (teevee stalwart, Mrs. Tom Cruise and fictional literary detective Holmes) who's decided to wetly drive around the city helping passers by find comfy chairs to sit in.

Marked for death anyone?

"How'm I gonna explain that to my nan?"

Working out some complex equations and 'hm-ing' a lot, Michelle figures that San Fransisco is now safe and that Denver (fantastically portrayed by Google Maps) is next in line for a computerised kicking.

So imagine her surprise (and the directors relief at not having to find any new locations) when at the designated meteor strike time even more rocks start falling on San Fransisco bay.

Almost as if the city was somehow being targeted.

Scary biscuits.

With time (and budget) running out and even larger bits of brick fast approaching it's up to Michelle to save the city and stop the army blowing shit up whilst Tom rides around aimlessly looking for the kids inbetween shouting at various folk to clear the city whilst standing against various green-screen shots of model buildings.

Will Michelle save the city and maybe the world in time?

Will auntie Laura survive or fall off a collapsing Golden Gate Bridge to sombre soundtrack music?

And will Tom save the kids before saving his marriage?

Well what do you think?

Font.

When he burst onto our screens back in 1978 with the almost Lynchian metaphysical music masterpiece Metal Messiah,  Tibor Takács became the darling of the lo-fi indie scene in his adoptive home of Canada (yes you can), his career taking in the lost classic I Madman before hitting the big time with the fantastic The Gate, launching the career of professional sexy man Stephen Dorff along the way.

So who the fuck did he piss off in Hollywood to end up making stuff like Ice Spiders, Mosquito Man and Mega-Snake for sweetie money on the SciFi channel?

Saying that tho' if his IMDB profile is anything to go by it's not affected his earnings that much seeing as he's obviously bought a huge pie shop.

"Don't worry, we'll CGI the phone in later".

Anyway, back to the 'film' (I know but I have to), it might be cliché ridden crap with an effects budget that doesn't even stretch to giving Kari Matchett a properly fitting bra, dialogue that a twelve year old would baulk at writing and acting so wooden I actually got splinters in my eyes but, just like that Gin sodden, overweight,  short skirted girl at the bar you always take home when you're feeling lonely it's a painless and fairly enjoyable to spend an hour and a half.

And is considerably less shameful.

Especially if you take a drink everytime something totally expected happens.

Tho' keep away from spirits as you'll probably die within the first fifteen minutes.

Which when you think about it is exactly what it's like when you take that girl home.

Hopefully his next movie, the Christa Campbell starrer Spiders 3-D will deliver more of the same.

jefferson starshit.

Back online but snowed under with lots of exciting work....but still time to view some quality cinema.

Enjoy.

Starship Invasions (AKA Alien Encounter, Project Genocide, and War of the Aliens. 1977).
Dir: Ed Hunt.
Cast:  Robert Vaughn, Christopher Lee, Daniel Pilon, Tiiu Leek, Helen Shaver, Henry Ramer, Victoria Johnson, Doreen Lipson, Kate Parr, Sherri Ross, Linda Rennhofer, Richard Fitzpatrick, Ted Turner, Sean McCann, Bob Warner and Kurt Schiegl.

Precariously perched atop his toy town tractor like a giant, plaid blancmange made flesh, the multi-chinned and five bellied farmer Rudy (Schiegl from Quest for Fire and the local cake shop) seems oblivious to the large inflatable flying saucer landing in his potato field.

Remarkably for a man of his stature he remains totally unfazed (and frighteningly non sweaty) as two black leotard clad male dancers mince from the craft and shuffle him aboard.

Is he dead?

Or just drunk?

I wish I were.

Sitting patiently like some stoned walrus, Rudy is prodded and probe by his captors only really getting interested when a curved hipped, Vegas style showgirl slowly begins to strip in front of him before beginning what can only be a complex Martian seduction dance.

Crikey.

Ronnie Corbett gingerly ran thru' the giants fingers.

The next day Rudy can't wait to tell the locals about his escapades both inside a genuine UFO and inside a genuine space whore but unfortunately everyone reckons he's a drunken, inbred freak.

Which if I'm honest he is.

One person who does believe him tho' is sexily slick haired UFO specialist Professor Allan Duncan (Vaughn whose alimony must have been crippling that month) who makes a trip to visit our portly pal.

Examining both the landing site and Rudy's ample arse, Duncan reveals that both have recently been dowsed with radiation (tho' only one has been dowsed with Martian muck) and that incredibly aliens have been visiting the Earth for years.

My word!

Vaughn: skint.

Meanwhile, aboard the UFO, the evil plant pot wearing alien commander Ted Rameses (a seriously fucking unhappy Christopher Lee) and his motley band of space dancers are busy planning their next diabolical kidnap caper.

Lee: no shame.

It transpires that poor Rudy was not the first to be abducted (tho' he was by far the biggest breasted) nor will he be the last for no sooner has Rameses explained the plot that the crew go searching for an Earth female to fiddle with too.

An preferably one in ill fitting flesh coloured pants just like your mums.

But for the love of God why? I hear you cry.

Well, it seems that Rameses and his racy chums are in fact not a troupe of intergalatic dancers but an invasion party from the distant planet Alpha, a planet that's sun is about to go supernova so understandably our Alphanian chums are looking for a new planet (albeit one with a burgeoning spandex business) to colonise.

Simple when you think about it.

If you think she looks uncomfortable now just wait till the Martian mooth shite-in starts.

Unluckily for us it appears that Earth fits the bill nicely giving Rameses an excuse to unleash his massive weapon in order to kill all humanity before signalling the Alpha colony ships that are currently in hiding behind the dark side of the moon.

Tho' how an entire invasion fleet can keep itself hidden behind a Pink Floyd album is never explained.

Humanity has one last line of defence tho', as the justice (and lard by the size of their waistlines) loving intergalactic council, the fantastically - and not at all cliché named  The League of Races have a secret base on Earth; a giant pyramind cunningly hidden under what seems to be the directors duck pond.

Christopher Lee, up the casino, Anchorhead, 1977....Yesch!

Knowing that he must destroy the base if his plan is to succeed, Rameses lands at the base and pretends that he needs the toilet and the league, being either really nice or really dim send a giant silver sex toy named Deirdre to escort the rotten Rameses to the little boys room, giving his crew ample time to sabotage a UFO and cause it to be blown up by the army.

The swines!

With all the good guys running about trying to figure out what caused the force field failure (try typing that when you're drunk, tho' thinking about it it mustn't be too difficult as the writer managed to) Rameses and his crew have time to put bizarre laser firing matchbox and string contraptions on their fingers and take over the pyramid, murdering a room of space whores and seriously injuring Deirdre in the process.

Behold the future of pleasure! the android Jade Goody sex doll with hyper speed tit wanking action!

It's now time for our goofy hatted intergalactic bastard to contact his fellow Alphans to order their patented mentalist beam to be targeted at Earth, turning hitherto normal folk into crazed murderers.

Rameses however hasn't realised that a small band of leaguers , led by grand admiral Hilary Zoonie have managed to slip away in a league UFO and are, even as he plots heading to pick up the only humans who can help their fight.

Oh, and repair their space ship.

Yup that'll be Professor Duncan and his man-breasted computer expert brother Malcom (Ramer, from the TV movie Sodbusters and also your moms bed).

Christopher Lee was startled by the space parrot that suddenly perched itself on his shoulder.

With Malcom's help (and his extra large underpants to cover a hole in the hull), Hilary can modify the UFO's communications system and send an S.O.S. to the main league headquarters but whilst all this action-packed repair work is going on we can sit back and enjoy an arse numbing lecture on alien culture and technology as Duncan quizzes the crew about building the ancient pyramids and why the only woman on board has such wobbly thighs and a head so large that it has it's own gravitational field.


But saying that tho' she is the most attractive member of the cast.

Sorry Mr. Vaughn.

All I can say is how fucking stunning is this?

Finally, with humanity under attack by the aforementioned death ray and Duncan's wee girl slowly going mad and attacking tomatoes in the local Asda, the Alphan invasion fleet and the league saucers face-off in the inky blackness of outer space. in the dark void of space to start a war in the stars.

Meanwhile back on Earth, Rameses is using the superior calculators found aboard the league base to tip the scales in his favour, whilst Duncan's frighteningly plain (and bra-less) wife has picked up a kitchen knife and begun to slash at her wrists....

Will Hilary, Professor Duncan, that bald bird and Malcolm be able to defeat Rameses and stop the mad gun before Earth is destroyed?

Christopher Lee contemplates becoming the filling in a particularly crabs ridden sex sandwich.

Starting his career with the soft core porn classics Pleasure Palace and Diary Of A Sinner, it wasn't long before writer/director/producer and rhyming slang named UFO nut Ed Hunt,who by this point was tired of exposed arses, decided to expose the truth behind UFO's instead, firstly with the little seen Nicky Fylan starrer Point of No Return and then with the universally acclaimed science factual epic Starship Invasions, quite possibly the greatest science fiction movie of that name ever to come out of Canada in 1977 and probably the only one to feature Christopher Lee in a far too tight jumpsuit with a pizza box on his head.

Blatantly ripped off by non-trick pony M Night Shyamalan in the hideous The Happening (tho' without the spaceships and the man from UNCLE obviously) Starship Invasions storyline was based in part on factual accounts of real UFO abductions with costumes and saucer designs taken from true life testimonies, in fact the terrifying 'probing of Rudy' scene was an exact duplicate of a situation the director found himself in as a teenager.

Imagine Star Trek The Motion Picture, only shit(ter).

With a budget over almost £38 (the biggest amount ever invested in a Canadian film up to this point) the film unfortunately sank into obscurity, beaten at the box office by a rival film that was hastily put into production to capitalise on the excitement caused by the announcement of Starship Invasions.

This immature imitator was Close Encounters of The Third Kind directed by Steven Spielberg (and whatever happened to him?) proving once and for all that when the audience has the choice between terrifying fact or whimsical fiction that they'll choose the latter every time.

Another reason for the films lack of financial success can possibly be attributed to the hyper real and almost documentary style in which it was shot.

Like all great auteurs Hunt litters his film with purposely mismatched millitary stock footage and endless, repeated shots of Rameses saucer in flight, imbuing the film with a nightmare quality associated with UFO encounters but wrongly attributed to cost cutting and incompetence by many ill educated 'critics' of the time.

But the directors greatest achievement in extra-terrestrial accuracy is in scenes featuring the aliens 'communicating'.

It's widely reported in the scientific world that many alien races communicate telepathically, a fact that many lesser research movies fail to adhere to due to the complex effects work that this would involve.

Hunt however embraced the challenge in both his sweaty, sausage like hands, hiring a massive team to actually teach the actors telepathy and mind controlling powers, his crew working alongside them to develop the worlds only pyschic camera to enable them to record the scenes.

Again naysayers and critics, their minds obviously blown by such a concept accused Hunt of cost cutting by filming many scenes without sound, recording and inserting the dialogue later.

this left Hunt a broken man and it was a long two years before he returned to directing with and episode of the epic teevee series Greatest Heroes of the Bible featuring his take on the classic tale of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar  featuring ex-Happy Days star Donnie (Ralph Malph) Most as Daniel.

(Pie) Tin Machine.

But by this time a new younger breed of directors had come forward, spurned on by the aforementioned Speilberg and Star Wars creator George Lucas' kid friendly and non threatening science fiction style leaving Hunt's hyper-realistic visions to wallow unloved in the cinematic backwaters of celluloid obscurity, unknown but to only a few film historians and those fans lucky (and clever) enough to truly appreciate his genius.

celebs that look like scifi creatures (part one).

people you fancy but shouldn't part 27.

Veronica Cartwright as Lambert in Alien.

Nuff said really.

river deep, mountain eye (son).

I eventually got round to seeing Gareth Edwards Monsters t'other week and frankly it was magnificent, finally someone has made a proper genre film for grown-ups and I salute him.

As a downside tho' it means I really can't bring myself to cheapen the experience by reviewing it and adding various 'monsters in mah mooth!' and 'laugh now' captions to it.

Monsters: "Try shite-in' in mah mooth now you tentacled bastard!"

Hopefully this'll do as a replacement:

The Trollenberg Terror (AKA The Crawling Eye, Creature from Another World, The Creeping Eye, The Flying Eye. 1958).
Dir: Quentin Lawrence.
Cast: Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Jennifer Jayne, Janet Munro, Warren Mitchell, Frederick Schiller, Andrew Faulds, Stuart Saunders

"Cute little things, aren't they?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna throw a bomb at that one. 

You watch on the screen, see what happens".

Enjoying a week of mountain climbing, teabagging and buggery before heading back to university, three studenty types, clad in children's hats and a collection of second hand overcoats are attempting to scale the north face of Mount Trollenberg in Switzerland (or more realistically a painted and polystyrene effigy of it hastily constructed on the backlot at the world famous Eros Studio's, Darlington).

Everything is going swimmingly (or climbingly if you like) until the hunkily Brilcreemed (I assume, we never get to see him)  Toby Deadsoon, the lead climber who's decided to forge ahead onto the next ledge, gives out a terrible shriek before going limper than his nearest colleges wrist and toppling of the mountain.


Realising that he has the hotel room keys one of his companions attempts to drag him back up the cliff-face but soon recoils in horror when he notices that the poor sods head has been torn straight off.

Blimey.

A painting of a mountain yesterday.

Meanwhile world famous mind reading cabaret stars The Pilgrim Sisters are halfway to Geneva and the start of a much needed holiday.

Obviously bored with watching the same bit of grainy footage go past the window time and again, older sister Sarah (the sternly teacher-like Jayne from Doctor Terror's House of Horrors) decides to cheer herself up by flirting outrageously with their fellow passenger, American 'investigator of the strange', the demi-waved sex god  Alan Brooks (the 'original' Ghostbusters Jake Kong himself, Tucker).

Sexy younger sis Anne (yummy Munro, Disney's very own Katie O'Gill), jealous of her sibling getting all the attention faints atop Brooks as they pass Trollenberg Mountain before starting to drunkenly rant about the recent deaths that occured there and how she must visit.

Spooky.

Luckily Alan is heading to that very place to meet up with his old pal Professor Chris Crevett (Mitchell with an abysmal comedy foreigner voice) and offers to get them cheap rooms at the local (only?) hotel.

What a kind gent.

Or is that meant to say what a sleazy old geezer trying to pull someone young enough to be his granddaughter?

Answers on a postcard please.

"You're 14? So am I! Now get your webcam on and your clothes off!"

Heading to the hotel to change into a sexier sports jacket before meeting the prof Big Al is introduced to a fellow guest, the almost Marc Almond like Philip Truscott (Doctor Who's Payne) who attempts to engraciate himself with Brooks by following him into his room and fondling his baggage before sneaking off to make a phone call to his boss in order to get every last bit of info on our hero (that's Brooks by the way in case you hadn't figured it out).

Must be an English thing.

Discovering his room has no drinks cabinet (or a porn channel), Alan makes a trip to the hotel bar to get a quick drink and to check out the competition, breathing a sigh of relief when he realises that besides himself and Truscott the only other guests are a fat geologist named Dewhurst (the sweaty pedo-like Saunders) and his overtly fey climbing partner Brett (Faulds).

This unlikely pair are about to climb Trollenberg to see if unsettled geological plates are to blame for the numerous accidents on the mountain, or so they claim but I'm sure that by the way they keep looking at each other Dewhurst just fancies a wee bit of rough.

But then again don't we all occasionally?

Heid in mah sack!

Brooks, hoping to show the Pilgrim sisters he's a modern guy who's comfortable with his sexuality joins the pair in the cable-car on his way to visit Crevett's high tech (if MDF and cardboard were state of the art) Observatory.

I have to interrupt this frankly magnificent synopsis now to point out that never before in my years of watching sinematic shite have I ever witnessed such an inappropriate name than here, I mean for an observatory the white coated scientists on show must be the most unobservant people ever. Characters, whether they be normal humans, possessed killers or even giant eyeballs wander in and out of this top secret facility without so much as a raised eyebrow or a hello.

Sorry, rant over.

Now back to the plot. 

Crevett, overly excited about finally having something to do that doesn't include pushing chunky buttons whilst chewing on a pencil is more than happy to fill Alan in (ooeer) on all the recent gory happenings.

Which is great for the viewer cos it means we can finally get the story moving.

It seems that despite the frightening amount of accidents that take place on the mountain that there are never any bodies found and, if that wasn't enough there's a spooky radioactive cloud that sits menacingly on Trollenberg's south side.

Brooks looks stunned (or he may have just passed a kidney stone) remarking how similar the situation is to something that occurred in the Andes three years earlier that he blamed on aliens attempting to rarefied mist..

Unfortunately by the time he'd reported it to the UN's special alien defence league these extraterrestrial visitors had gone home, leaving Brooks looking like a bit of a tit.

So you can see why he's a wee bit nervous about calling them up again without at least a smidgen of evidence.

"Is it really meant to bend in the middle like that?"

Inviting Crevett back to the hotel for drinks and to check out the talent, the pair are impressed to hear that the sisters have offered to put a private show on in the bar but Brooks is, understandably slightly deflated when he discovers it's of their mind reading act and not a free for all bukaki bash.

The event starts off with a bang as Anne correctly recognises Truscott's Fleshlight and Crevett's false teeth before taking a sinister turn when she starts describing events happening to Dewhurst and Brett on the mountain.

And it's not sex based shenanigans either.

It seems that whilst Dewhurst is sleeping off his big meaty feast from earlier, Brett has taken the (sinister) urge to go walkabout in the mysterious fog that's descended from the south of the mountain but before it gets any juicier Anne faints.

Again.

Alan quickly calls the climbers hut to find out what's really going on and a sleepy Dewhurst answers.

Checking the bottom bunk (and his own bottom) he confirms that Brett has indeed gone missing and opens the door to see if he can spot him, Alan can only stand and listen as hideous screams fill the room before the phone goes dead ruining the happy atmosphere that the sisters had tried so hard to bring to the hotel.

Ungrateful cloud based bastards.

A rescue party is hastily put together from various crew members hanging around on set and with a mix of good luck, stock footage and back-screen projection they soon spot Brett skulking around on a plateau.

Meanwhile Alan and the main cast members have arrived at the climbers hut to find Dewhurst's headless corpse stuck under the bed.

Back at the hotel Anne is shouting at anyone who'll listen (her sister) that they should all stay away from the hut and under no circumstances should the y fiddle with Brett's leathery sack.

Whilst all this excitement is (finally) happening the first rescuer has reached the plateau only to find that Brett has vanished leaving only his rucksack. Slowly opening it he is shocked to find that it contains Dewhurst's big jowly severed head.

He has no time to scream tho' as without warning Brett appears from nowhere and sticks an icepick in him before beating the second rescuer to death with the aforementioned decapitated head.

"Put it in me!"

After a school playground like scuffle Brett is overpowered and dragged back down the mountain and into the hotel lobby where he instantly lunges at Anne.

But not in an "I've got something to put in you!" way.

Alan, determined to get the first shot at the young girl beats Brett with a heavy ashtray before tying him up and locking him in the cellar.

It's all gone very Evil Dead hasn't it?

Just considerably cheaper.

Alan and Crevett are now even more astounded by the similarities to the Andes case now, remembering how a man killed an old woman who had similar powers to Anne.

Tho' her breasts weren't as pert.

She might look worried now but just wait till the tentacle fucking starts.

Realising that the film is three quarters of the way thru', Brett kills his guard with a spoon and escapes from the cellar in another attempt to kill Anne as outside the scary cloud begins to move slowly toward the village.

Now it's Truscott's time to shine as he bravely shoots Brett in the back from upstairs (who says chivalries dead?) giving Alan enough time to round-up the villagers and take them all up the observatory (matron!) which is heavily fortified and has hot and cold running water.

And a freeview box.

Sorted.

Waiting for the cable car to safety, Alan notices a distinct lack of tension which can only be alleviated by a small child running back to the hotel to fetch her ball, luckily this does indeed happen giving Al a chance to look heroic (and get a quick feel of the wee lassies arse) and the audience it's full glimpse of the monster in all it's big bulbous and veiny Japs eyed glory, it's slinky tentacles slowly curling and probing at the child's knee socks.

The beast is no match for Alan's chopper tho' and the pair escape to the cable car.

"Stop! Maddie Time!"

Trapped in the observatory, the bouncy beasts approaching from all sides and various possessed people trying to off Anne, ours heroes have less than an hour to stop the creatures invasion of Switzerland (well a bit of Switzerland).

Armed with only a hundred or so petrol bombs they've managed to rustle up and with an air-strike immanent, tensions aren't running to high if I'm honest but the thought of some late fifties tentacle on totty action could still happen.....

"I wouldn't want one of them swimming up my arse....TOO LATE!"

Originating as a six part 1956 television serial of the same name, director/producer (and bizarrely part-time physicist, holding patents for improvements in both nuclear reactor control rod and television imaging technology) Quentin Lawrence had a dream to bring writer Peter (The Adventures of Robin Hood, Armchair Theatre, Phoenix Nights) Key's mountain-based monster mash to the big screen where, free of the constraints of censorship, low budgets and good taste their true vision could finally be realised.

Either that or they only had one decent idea between them.

With a script by Hammer legend Jimmy Sangster (who's written everything from Dracula, Prince of Darkness to BJ and The Bear), re-using the cheaper members of the original cast and adding an American lead for those pesky overseas audiences, this cut price thriller seems to have taken on a life of it's own and, unlike it's featured monsters and closest relatives (hands up if you remember Stranger from Venus anyone?) refuses to die, turning up everywhere from Stephen King's 'It' to having The Misfits write a song about it (Crawling Eye on their seminal 1999 album Famous Monsters, fact fans).

"Do you think it's too late for Penicillin?"

"Eye son!"

So what does this penny pinching, studio bound oddity have that others of it's ilk don't?

Apart from perky Janet Munro and the bloke that played Dastari in 'The Two Doctors?' that is?


I mean the plot's not that original, the sets are smaller than a very small cupboard and the whole thing is cheaper than your sister so it must be something pretty damned special that enables this silly little film to tap into those primeval feelings of fear hidden deep within mankind's psyche.

Either that or it's the fact that the monsters are really fucking scary.

And that we actually get to see a couple of headless corpses which for 1958 is pretty unusual.

Except for viewers in 'The States' obviously who were deemed too sensitive to be exposed to an uncut version of the movie.

Even the title had to be changed for our frightened Yankee cousins.

Bless.

Honestly if you've never seen this you need to do so now but don't forget that afterwards you may never look at a circumcised penis leering over you at the foot of the bed the same way again.

You have been warned.

"cos i wear these toggles!"

Don't say that this blog isn't up to date....Went to see Monsters on Tuesday but got the date wrong so was desperately trying to find a suitable replacement to review.

Hope this will suffice.

Island of Terror (AKA Night of the Silicates/The Night the Silicates Came/The Night the Creatures Came/The Creepers. 1966)
Dir: Terence Fisher.
Cast: Edward Judd, Peter Cushing, Carole Gray, Eddie Byrne, Sam Kydd, Niall MacGinnis, James Caffrey, Liam Gaffney, Roger Heathcote, Keith Bell, Shay Gorman and Peter Forbes-Robertson.

John, I've just found one of my horses dead. At least, I think it's my horse. It's all soft and flabby.

 On the remote, tinker packed Petrie's Island, well meaning science type Dr. Lawrence Phillips (the chief Sea Devil himself, Forbes-Robertson in a blink and miss it cameo) is about to unveil his life's work; a cure for cancer.

Unfortunately rather than produce it in easy to swallow pill form (or even a nice orangey syrup) he appears to have stitched two giant warty testicles together and stuck a hoover pipe into the middle of it.

Oh and given it a taste for bones.

Is it just me that thinks this experiment may go slightly awry?

No time to think about it tho' for no sooner has he flicked the bollock enlarging switch than his lab explodes in a dazzling cartoon explosion leaving him and his scientist pals dead.

And the warty walnuts free to roam the island....

Radiation room? or dodgy porn stash?

Off home after a heavy nights drinking and Pot Noodle session with 'the boys', duffle-coated local farmer and part-time bin man Ian Bellows (Eastenders Gaffney) finds himself caught short on the way home and decides, as you do, to relieve himself against some handy polystyrene rocks.

No sooner has he unsheathed his mighty manhood than the silence is broken by his horrific screams.

And what sounds like someone farting in the bath.

His lovely (well harsh) wife Morag surprised at not being pawed awake at three in the morning and finding her nightie still round by her ankles and the bed sick free worriedly contacts local copper (and town chiropodist)  John Harris (Brit teevee and movie stalwart Kydd) at the local constabulary in the vain hope that her hubbie has fallen asleep there or at the very least been arrested (again) for cow violation.

Unfortunately Harris hasn't seen him since they left the pub but offers to go out and look for him, if only to get the babydoll nightied, horse thighed harridan off his doorstep.

I'm not saying she's scary looking but you can actually see the milk in the jug on Harris' table turn when he opens the door.

Wandering aimlessly thru' the brightly lit studio backlot (sorry, I mean darkened woods) he soon comes across (leaving an unsightly streaky pattern) the fake rocks and is horrified to see Bellows' lifeless (and boneless) rubbery corpse propped up against them like a big fleshy trifle.

"What we have here is the severest case of mooth shite-in known to man".

Terrified (and a wee bit aroused by the sight of the poor fella's gaping and somewhat inviting mouth), Harris swiftly (well as swiftly as a half cut, short arsed Oirishman can) runs to fetch the islands top Doc and resident posh bloke Dr. Reginald Landers (Star Wars' General Willard himself Byrne).

But despite his university education and fine line in tailored overcoats, Dr. Landers is fucked if he can determine why the dead man is completely without bones so decides to travel to the mainland to seek the help of severe cheekboned pathologist and horror legend Dr. Brian Stanley (Cushing, all praise to him).

Like Landers tho', Stanley is totally at a loss at to what could have possibly caused such injuries, so the pair head round to the groovy penthouse apartment of the suavely sophisticated Dr. David West (Judd star of everything from First Men in the Moon to Coronation Street), the worlds leading authority on bones, bone diseases and boning in general.

And boning appears to be what's on his mind seeing as he's currently attempting to get into the (very tiny yet tastefully lacy) undies of the voluptuously hipped, wealthy jetsetter Ms. Toni Merrill (Gray from The Young Ones with Cliff Richard who, to our American readers is the true king of rock 'n' roll).

Gray: Sexier than Jesus.

Banging on his door just as West is about to start banging Toni, our middle-aged medics waste no time in explaining their predicament to West, even tho' there's a lady present.

Intrigued by the problem and knowing full well that he can't perform in front of an audience, West agrees to accompany them to the island and Toni, up for a wee bit of orgiastic pikey sex and a chance to undermine feminism in all it's forms offers the use of her dad's private helicopter in order to get back to the island (and the plot) that wee bit quicker.

Only thing is that he needs it back by three so he can go to Waitrose for his monthly food shop, effectively leaving the fantastic foursome stranded on the island till the bin men arrived the following Thursday.

On arrival their first stop (after getting their inoculations against foot and mouth and general Oirishness) is Phillips' secluded castle laboratory where they find the poor scientist and his colleagues all dead and floppy.

Just like your dad when he used to sneak into your room after the pub.

Deciding that whatever caused the deaths must have come from the lab, West, Stanley and Landers (Ms. Merrill has the most important job, which is to sit in the car and keep the seats warm) gather up all of Phillips' belongings (including his ladyboy porn stash, fags and notes) and head back to the hotel to 'study' them and, over a few pints of Guinness catch up on the plot so far before discovering that Phillips had inadvertently created a new lifeform by accidentally splicing the silicon atom to a pair of giants gonads.

"In mah mooooooooth!"

Meanwhile PC Harris, thinking that the boffins are still at the castle arrives there to report on a boneless horse that's been found behind the youth centre.

Intrigued by a locked door with a sign that reads 'Killer testicles keep out!' he heads inside only to be attacked and killed by a huge, rubbery tentacle.

In his mouth.

Back at the hotel, it's discovered that these creatures, dubbed Silicates by West and Stanley (Ms. Merrill wanted to name them Testiclons, bless), kill their victims by injecting a bone-dissolving enzyme into their bodies and sucking the resulting goo thru' their arses.

Not only are the Silicates the most pant wettingly scary creature ever to appear on film but are also bloody hard to kill as Landers discovers when he tries unsuccessfully to kill one with an axe only to have it retaliate by forcing a tentacle up his arse.

The poor man screams for help as the rest of the cast look on with expressions of mild apathy.

And in Stanley's case a wee hint of jealousy.

With one of their number down and the Silicates multiplying like rabbits, West and Stanley head over to the house of local big man (and the islands unofficial king) Roger Campbell (Zeus himself MacGinnis) in the hope of recruiting the islanders to repel the massive man-sack menace.

After convincing him that the creatures are of English origin and being a typical Paddy Campbell jumps at the chance of a fight and quickly phones his loyal assistant (and owner of the local newsagent) Peter Argyle (former actor and current alcoholic drink Caffrey) to round up the townsfolk and arm them with anything that comes to hand.

Which, being Irish means bullets, petrol bombs, exploding pigs and dynamite.

God bless them!

"Help mah boab!"

None of this seems to have any effect on the Silicates tho' and after a couple of minutes of loud bangs and random people shouting things like "Begorah!" and "Oh no! annudah baybees died!" the creatures get bored and go to sleep.

But not before splitting into two and doubling their destructive force.

Yikes.

With the battle quickly becoming a lost cause and with nowhere to turn the fate of the island looks bleak. Until that is West and Stanley hear reports of a Silicate found dead on the beach after eating a stray dog that had inadvertently consumed a sandwich containg a rare isotope called Strontium-90.

Could this be the key to Petrie's salvation?

With time running out and the Silicate threat growing, Stanley and West must venture back to Phillips' laboratory in the hope of finding enough isotope to destroy the Silicates once and for all....

A testicle carrying a designer handbag yesterday.

Back in the swinging sixties when Britain actually had a film industry and companies like Hammer Films, Amicus and Tigon kept the locals on the edges of their collective seats with a constant stream of horror classics but from those heady bygone days there's one company that lies forgotten and dejected, even tho' they released one of the most terrifying films ever made.

That company was Planet Film Productions and the film was that forgotten classic of science gone wrong that was, is and always shall be Island of Terror.

Unless you live abroad that is where it's known as the slightly less gruesome Night of the Silicates.

Or something.

God knows how much the budget was but most of it seems to have been blow on winter coats for the actors, which amazingly helps to show who's in charge of who in the cast; ordinary islanders wear donkey jacket style attire whereas the more important community members wear duffle coats, mainlanders are bedecked in Crombie's whilst Roger Campbell (being the big man) has a dufflecoat with toggles and a sweater modelled from what looks like stringy cottage cheese.

Design genius I'm sure you'll agree.

Then there's the almost Lynchian direction and scenes of unnerving bizarreness on screen.

Examples include the fact that every time a car doors slams it does so to the exact timing of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the fact that local copper Harris, in a sign of almost Wicker Man-esque Lord Summerisle adoration of Dr. Landers, dutifully follows the physician around whenever he's onscreen, helping him into his coat, bowing graciously and even following him around with his trilby like a dutiful footman.

And taking of headware, the mighty Peter Cushing adds a subtle touch to the oncoming danger, donning a variety of more and more darker hats (and matching shirts) as the movie progresses.

Insert slimy tentacle and/or cock here. Please.

Ah good old Peter Cushing, probably the scariest thing is how such a threadbare company as Planet were able to afford such a prestigious actor.

The same goes for director of Terrence Fisher’s standing.

I've no idea what incriminating photographs Planet's head had of the pair but I for one would love to see them.

Ripe for re-release and begging to be remade (but on the same budget obviously) Island of Terror is a remarkable experience that will alter the way you look at your testicles for years to come.

And there aren't many films you can say that about.