The Pow Pow Pow Award goes to… “Curse of The Swamp Creature” 1966!

This putrid endeavor by schlockmeister Larry Buchanan, doesn’t even apply to the “it’s so bad it’s good” category. It’s just purely awful. And so here at The Last Drive In it has earned the Barney Fife Takes a Great Big Axe and Pow Pow Pow! to this horrible bit of film schlocking.”

But what did I expect…When I couldn’t even make it past 20 minutes of Buchanan’s other unnecessary remake The Eye Creatures 1965 which was a re do of Invasion of The Saucer Men 1957 . Or his other schlocky “Story of a Witch Who Became Restless in Her Grave” The Naked Witch 1961.

The Curse of the Swamp Creature (1966)

This is director Larry Buchanan’s ludicrous and at times offensive remake of Ed L Cahn’s Voodoo Woman 1957.

Ed L Cahn’s Voodoo Woman

It’s truly an awful piece of junk, that actually made my brain hurt and my body ache to have to sit and watch it all the way through in order to distinguish it with the Pow Pow Pow Award.

It’s also sad that John Agar actually participated in this project or any other Buchanan project, not that he’s a great thespian of the stage and theater. Not that his film credits add up to an impressive career. His presence does lend that certain warmth, a familiar face amidst the B-movie debris. Unfortunately here, he doesn’t contribute any charisma, or plausibility to the plot at all. He appeared to be tagging along with the rest of the cast, as if he was just waiting around in between scene changes like a burned out accountant waiting to do their taxes. Was Buchanan blackmailing Agar? Why else would he do this film.

The film tone, I don’t mean atmosphere, I mean HUE, itself has a greenish coating over it as if director of photography Ralph K Johnson went crazy with a Roscolux #90: Dark Yellow Green lighting gel, which made the film green and murky rather than moody. Was it a queer arty attempt at Day for Night.

There are retro horror/sci fi films that have a certain charm because they took themselves seriously and didn’t realize that they were making fools of themselves. The narratives filled with an intense passion that couldn’t be pulled off, still giving it a kind of quirky likability. Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space for instance. Ed Wood’s films in general for that matter.

Now, having grown up on Long Island I can tell you, that this was not filmed in the balmy, wormwoody, mossy, Gothic backwoods of the bayou swamp lands. Eastern Texas perhaps, well it is on the border of Louisiana… Continue reading “The Pow Pow Pow Award goes to… “Curse of The Swamp Creature” 1966!” →

Boris Karloff in The Man Who Lived Again (1936) “Most of me IS dead…The rest of me is damned.” or “If the monkeys eat you, don’t blame me!”

The Man Who Lived Again (1936) A forgotten British Gem from Gainsborough Pictures, was released on Sept. 11, 1936
it is also known as The Man Who Changed His Mind or by its US title Dr. Maniac Who Lived Again, or Dr. Maniac. Directed by Robert Stevenson.

Starring a chain-smoking Boris Karloff and pairing him with Anna Lee playing Dr. Clara Wyatt, Lee who would 10 years later co-star alongside him again as antagonists in the intensely riveting horror/noir film Bedlam (1946) Directed by Mark Robson and produced and scripted by the great man of shadow plays Val Lewton.

Anna Lee and Boris Karloff in Mark Robson’s/Val Lewton’s masterpiece Bedlam

Karloff plays Dr. Laurience a once brilliant and revered brain surgeon, turned renegade scientist, shunned by the scientific community, for his esoteric and profane ideas about the human brain. Dr. Laurience has created a way to transpose the mind of one person and place it into the body of another. In other words, Soul Transference. A very sacrilegious concept for his fellow scientists to support, without believing that Laurience is utterly insane. In this film, Karloff adheres more to the persona of the gruff Mad Scientist, rather than some of his other sympathetic roles as the misdirected man of science who meets with various obstructions and the unfortunate string of events. For instance, the kindly and altruistic Dr John Garth who is on death row for a mercy killing, in Before I Hang (1940)

The fabulous Musical Direction by Louis Levy and Art Direction by Vetchinksky has a charmingly nostalgic streak of that early 1930s milieu of the sinister.
Also starring is Cecil Parker as Dr. Gratton and Lyn Harding as Professor Holloway.

The film opens with several surgeons finishing up an operation, taking off their surgical gowns, one such to expose that of a female surgeon. As it is Dr. Clara Wyatt’s last surgery with her colleagues, they are saying their goodbyes. Continue reading “Boris Karloff in The Man Who Lived Again (1936) “Most of me IS dead…The rest of me is damned.” or “If the monkeys eat you, don’t blame me!”” →

Jo Gabriel’s “Mother May I?” a mixed film mash up…

Singer/Songwriter Jo Gabriel is MonsterGirl. Here I offer my song ” Mother May I?” off my 2005 album release through Kalinkaland Records (Germany). This is my tribute to all of us girl/boys, who refuse to define our gender and continue to dance to the wonderfully androgynous rhythm of life…!

I use a mixed film mash up this time to tell my story…

Here’s to all of us ‘wild childs’ be free and continue to dance to your own song….

Dedicated to my mother, Arleen Gottfried September 8, 1928 – September 19th 2011

Film Footage Credits

Special Nod to an extraordinary found gem : A short film by Rich Ragsdale called “The Sandman” (2007) based on ETA Hoffman http://www.knr-productions.com/ This is Rich Ragsdale’s Production Company!

Legend by Ridley Scott 1985
The Passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Theodor Dreyer 1928
1920 Cabinet of Dr Caligari starring Conrad Veidt
Louise Brooks in 1929 Pandora’s Box by GW Pabst
March of the Wooden Soldiers or Babes In Toyland 1934
Lord of The Flies 1963 based on William Golding’s novel
Vintage Footage 1940s Alyce Bryce ” Jungle Drums”