II MOSTRO DELL'OPERA - Aldo Piga - "L'amore Mostro" (1964)

Composer Aldo Piga's work is so consistently amazing cool, that it's scarier than some of the films he composed for!

We've written about Maestro Piga before for his awesome work on "The Vampire And The Ballerina" and "Terror Creatures From The Grave", and that's only the tip of the veritable cocktail ice cube, so if you missed it the first time, go back through the archives for a real treat! His work on this very obscure film "Il Mostro dell'opera" is wild, and goes from the sinister laffing song thru some roaring 20's styling sounds right into some of the most down and dirty big band imaginable until the director say "No, No, No!!!" But, No, it doesn't stop there, instead it heads off right into the upper reaches of the stratosphere and one of the craziest sounding swingin' thriller jazz scores you've ever heard, that will lock your skull into overdrive only moments before Mr. Mostro gets fried, but don't worry, it's okay, he deserves it!!

These are the girls that he terrorizes!!

Sorrowly, to our knowledge, this film was never released in English, severly hampering it's chance of any widespread distribution!

So you've got all this great music, and then, the phantom/mostro dude takes all the girls down into the basement and shackles them to the wall, and then,......He Gets Out The Big Pitchfork!!!! I don't know, maybe that was part of the distribution problemo too!

Loosely based on Gaston Leroux's "Phantom," a story that everybody knows by now, this obscure movie is very hard to find a good copy of, so the pictures here aren't that great, but the sound makes up for it!!! 6 minutes and 16 seconds of sheer joy! Dig in cats!

When Aldo Piga passed away way back in 1994, Italy and the world lost a major talent! Hopefully we can help keep his memory alive!!

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS / Allied Artists /1957/ Music by Ron Stein

Tonight have great Allied Artists classic ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, maybe Tabonga's fave Corman '50s flick! Film in mostly Bronson Canyon, everything film there!! Charles B. Griffith do the writing. Then, Dungeon favorite Ron Stein doing music!! We have winner!! CRABENSTEIN

Nice title card!

Tonight feature big "nukuler" blast like last night!!.. WHEEEEEEE!!!

Cool, make fish look like that!

Swimming in fish tank!

Oh, look, it Pamela Duncan!!

And Professor!!.. What gives?!.. Where Gilligan?!

Russell (The Space Children) Johnson, Richard (Bev's husband) Garland, Leslie (Teenage Caveman) Bradley.

If you not want to get giant crabs!..

Throw grenade!!

If that not work, throw more!!

And if that not work, run like hell!!

Okay, here funny story!.. At beginning, Ed Nelson blow up in airplane, then Beach Dickerson get kill by giant crab... Well, that Ed and Beach under there working giant crab!!

Pleasant dream and good night everybloody!!

THE GIANT BEHEMOTH - Edwin Astley - "Behold Now The Behemoth" (1959)

The original title of this film is "Behemoth The Sea Monster," but I never heard that title before tonight, so I'm just going to call it what we have always known it as, "The Giant Behemoth!" This movie was directed by the English Mr. BIG, and small time genius Eugène Lourié, whose other giant credits include "Gorgo" and "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms."

A number of 50's horror films started off with nuclear explosions causing some kind of unnatural catastrophe, so is it any wonder that 60's kids would later revolt against the system, become hippies and end up wanting peace, love, and understanding? They were raised with nuclear disaster and it's biggest and scariest consequences, and then sold George Jetson as the future! Tune in, turn on, drop out, doesn't take a lot of thought now, does it?

It got so bad, they didn't even have a problem with a kid getting killed by the beast! This devil has no soul!!

The music for "The Giant Behemoth" was composed by Edwin Astley, who also composed the music for such movies as "Devil Girl From Mars", "Womaneater", and the totally unrelated comedy from 1961, "A Matter Of WHO", which I think is especially ironic since he was the father-in-law of The WHO's Pete Townsend!!!!!

Personally, this theme is like many others, pompous and overbearingly orchestrated, but is saved by a couple of dramatic flair ups, and some over the top and deliberately kitsch narration at the start!! "And the Lord said, behold now the Behemoth!!" Here they might look at first like they are dancing but actually, a really extra bad case of bad breath is taking it's toll!

The superior skills of special effects masters Willis O'Brien and Jack Rabin get a lot of credit for the cool look of this monster!!

Just like on "Highway 61", "if you see me coming, you better run!"

It must have been Eugène Lourié's idea to have a nuclear weenie roast as a means of ridding the world of the monster!

X1 was in mothballs and X3 through X7 were headed for the arctic, and they never did find out what happened to X13, so they had to break out old X2 which had seen better days!!! Have no fear, despite the odds, the world was saved once again!!!

CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN / Columbia Pictures - 1955 / Music by Mischa Bakaleinikoff

The Dungeon love Mischa Bakaleinikoff! Here just a few flick he work on, sometime composer, sometime conductor, start in 1929!.. VOODOO TIGER, IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA, JAIL BAIT, THE WEREWOLF, EARTH vs THE FLYING SAUCERS, 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH, SCREAMING MIMI, HAVE ROCKET, WILL TRAVEL, STOP! LOOK! and LAUGH! Want to know more about Mischa, maybe not ask daughter Annie!

Tonight, he conductor of lame theme, then, some good sounds at bar! And, end with funny line! Listen to... Creature With Atom-Power Brain!

Oh boy! Here we go 'gin!.. Guy wearing radio-active bee keeping suit!! This time he making strong dead guys and putting cool atom-power TV camera in brain!!.... Wow!! Tabonga would like TV camera in brain too!!

Richard Denning playing big fat show-off again. He smartest dude on police force of course! Oh yeah, dummie on left is Richard bro!

You never know when evil bad guy spying on you, just like Dick Cheney!!

But, good guy have authentic... TA DA!.. RADAR FORD!! Sorry, pic is dark, but that is real RADAR FORD!! PHANTOM FROM SPACE 'nother fick that feature RADAR FORD!

AGAIN?!!....

Kill 'em!!.. Stomp 'em!!.. Crush 'em!!.. Bad guy start big fight with Army!!

In wrassling, call it 'free for all!'

Try bullets!!

Oops, bullet not stop this Atom Brain, only bad guy machine in lab can!

Okay, so Richard brother got turned into Atom Brain too, but he turn on bad guy and crash through window of lab to get him!

Bro remember he hate bad guy!!.. Hate 'em real bad!!!

So, he blow up lab and is real hero! Whoa, Richard almost get toasted there!

THE END

SANGRE DE VIRGENES (Il Sangue Delle Vergini)(Blood Of The Virgins) - Victor Buchino - "Red Horror In The Clubs" (1967)

Wow! This is one movie that was really off my radar. You can thank Tabonga and his keen sense of bad taste to sniff out something like "Il Sangue Delle Vergini" or whatever you want to call it! This 1967 Argentinian soft-core vampire flick is unstable and very weird, even by our meager standards, but the music by the very talented Victor Buchino is above reproach! Victor and his Orchestra have a long list of cinematic credits and worked with various Tango artistes like Susy Leiva on the single "La Cancion De Buenos Aires" and Edmundo Rivero who was also known as "El Feo!" Victor had an uncanny feel for jazz/lounge/pop too, and we'll probably sneak in the music from his 1971 effort, "La Venganza Del Sexo" or "The Curious Dr. Humpp" before this is over, even though it's out of our range, because the music was so damn good!

So here we're treated to a full-fledged scary opening with thunder and creaking shutters, and then about 6 minutes into the film, the swinging cast takes off on what seems like an endless cross country musical orgy.

Most of the cuts in the music aren't mine, as the scene changes rapidly from boat, to ski lodge, and one swingin' club to the next!

It's just a 1967 Argentine Psycho Freakout Rave Up, pure and simple!!! These people are party monsters no doubt!! The rest of the movie is full of them getting their bare breasts molested by the resident vampire along with other nefarious acts!

As our mentor Forrest J. Ackerman would say, "This film is quite titillating to be sure!!"

Uh-Oh!!! Busted!!! You're in the deep stuff now Vampire Buddy!!!