X the UNKNOWN / Hammer - 1956 / Music by James Bernard

Tonight we have one of my favorite sci-fi movies from the fifties... Hammer also used blobs and melting people in THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT and QUATERMASS 2, aka THE CREEPING UNKNOWN and ENEMY FROM SPACE. In this wild atomic nightmare, Dean Jagger plays the scientist Dr. Adam Royston. He's in charge of figuring out how to 'kill mud!'

And, who did the music for those two Quatermass movies?.. James Bernard, who else?! His strains are very identifiable. Its music that can send shivers up or down your spine!!

Eegah!! put together a nice sound piece, so, we might as well get on with the show!.. Clik a mouse to find out... HOW DO YOU KILL MUD?! As Dean works away in the lab, the radio plays classical music...

I'm really glad I missed this one at the theater as a kid even though the story was penned by my favourite writer, Jimmy Sangster. A few other gems he scripted are THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HORROR OF DRACULA, THE CRAWLING EYE, JACK THE RIPPER, THE MUMMY... You get the picture!

In keeping with our 'Sadistic Bastard' week, I'm placing Jimmy squarely into that catagory! Here's why...

Remember, this is 1956!.. I was 8!! So, what's the first thing he does?!.. Right, he kills off a young boy who had a creepy encounter with X in the woods at night, and then became deathly ill!

Now, here's why Sangster's a sadistic bastard in this movie... Walking away are the parents of the boy, who has just died from radiation poisoning. The mother's grief is so genuine that the viewer is left stunned from the heart-felt performance. And, Roysten still has no answers.

Then, cut to this guy making a call to a nurse in another department in the hospital, to invite her over to his lab during her break for a little sexual rendezvous.

To remind you that a young child has just die a horrific death, the gurney is wheeled down the hall in front of the camera, actually nudging lover boy out of the way!

Nursie pays a visit and they get right down to business. Naturally, the viewer is immediately drawn in. Now, you're thinking about sex!!

Hey! What the?!!..

So, the flesh melts off the guy's face and nursie will end up in a mental hospital forever and a day!! That's a pretty damn sadistic series of events within 2 minutes!! But, again, that's one reason why Jimmy's my favourite writer!

Also, as a 2nd unit director, he must have directed some of those 'melting' or effects scenes.

Say goodbye to Spider and Haggis! Anthony Newley plays Spider!!

An awesome part of the film is where Edward Chapman goes down inside the giant hole where X dwells. Truly scary and disgusting!

The military drops a bomb into the cavern, then covers it over with concrete, that'll probably solve the problem!!

But, it doesn't, and, the guard at the power plant is barely able to sound the alarm before he melts.

Roysten and the guys watch as X devours it's atomic meal.

On the way back to it's lair, it causes severe damage to the countryside. X has to be stopped!!

They employ Roysten's equipment, so, Edward coaxes X out of it's hole with an after dinner mint!

Roysten's idea works, but, then, there's an another unexpected explosion, leaving the viewer with an uneasy, instead of satisfied feeling at the end. Jimmy wins again!!

DER MÖNCH MIT DER PEITSCHE - Martin Böttcher - "The College Girl Murders" (1967)

Let's go ahead and end this week of SB nonsense with something from the master, Edgar Wallace. I'd be willing to bet that Edgar wrote more stories about sadistic bastards than anyone, because that's just the way the guy worked! Tonight's bad guy has an alligator pit, and that makes for an automatic inclusion into the SB Club, so in order not to damage you any further with my dull diatribe, here's Edgar Wallace's "The College Girl Murders"!!!

The hot and cold image of a red conehead with a whip in a graveyard sets the tone for the whole film, just so you know it's not going to be anything close to a normal ride!

So let's see, a lethal gas bomb in a hymnal!

Now that's some very serious bad gas!!

I'm pretty sure that killing innocent girls in church with lethal gas is going to get you ranked up there in the top ten sadistic bastard category real fast!!

On the left we have the almighty Siegfried Schürenberg as the classic Sir John, and on the right we have Super Dungeon fave Joachim Fuchsberger as Inspector Higgins!! Somehow you have to figure out a way to see all of Joachim's movies! He was great in "Room 13" as Johnny Gray, and here as Inspector Higgins, he chews gum through each and every scene, and is brilliantly cool about it all the way!!

100%, that's one hundred percent Edgar Wallace! You got your eyeball peephole like what's behind the green door, and a boss with opulent taste, and aberrant weapons of sneaky attacks from guys sent out by the C.S. boss that he sneaks out of prison in the garbage to do his 'dirty' work!!

This might just be THE best still I've ever captured!! Wallpaper City!!! I just reset mine! I think it's time to bow down to cinematographer Karl Löb real quick! What vision!

There's a lot of crap going on in the world, so just let one fly! Primal therapy, it works, but just don't freak out your neighbors!!!

Most of the time Joachim is pretty laid back and calculating, but he can get tough when he needs to!!! I have no idea why he didn't get the Best Actor Academy Award for this film back in '67! There is no justice in the world!

One great shot after another, and one last thanx to killer director Alfred Vohrer!

The music from this incredible film is once more composed by the German master, Martin Böttcher, another one of those guys prolific beyond imagination, and the titles that he composed for just go on and on and on!! It seems like the German composers are always right on the money with that perfect blend of swing and tension, and this film is just one more fine sample of that, and what you can find on Netflix if you start digging around in the corners deep enuf, but don't get too excited, because there's only a couple of Edgar Wallace titles there, but until somebody brings out the 113 disc Edgar Wallace box set, we'll have to live with what we can get!!

THE DRILLER KILLER - Tony Coca-Cola & The Roosters - "It's Not My Problem" (1979)

This film is way out of our range, coming from 1979, but we just couldn't resist the chance to feature an early indie film that combined this much raw horror and raw rock & roll!!! A perfect flick for this Sadistic Bastard Funky Friday Freakout!!!

It's really kind of unfair to throw Abel Ferrara's character, Reno Miller, aka, "The Driller Killer" in with the other sadistic bastards we hoisted high this week, because he is really just more of a poorly misunderstood, but sadistically inclined artiste who doesn't seem like that bad of a guy, but instead, a person driven to madness by his environment and his peers, but once he gets pissed off, and I mean really fired up, Yeah, well, then there is no doubt that he does indeed belong in the "Sadistic Bastards" club, because he is as vicious as any of them, plus, the bonus feature, he has power tools!!!

The basic premise and problem is, Reno's got a band living in the aprtment next door to him and they play ALL the time! The Band was called "Tony Coca-Cola & The Roosters" and was made up of a varied cast of members starting with gifted painter, writer, film maker and actor D.A. Metrov (credited in this film as Rhodney Montreal) as Tony Coca-Cola on guitar, Dickey Bittner as Ritchy the bass player in his solo acting gig, and drummer Steve Brown who came back in 1988 to do "Deadbeat At Dawn!" You just have to figger these guys are playing their own instruments, cause this ain't exactly The Monkees, but sounds a Helluva lot more like the bastard sons of The Velvet Underground and The Jon Spencer Experience!!! The paintings in the apartment were also done by D.A. Metrov. (It was his flat!)

In this scene Janet Dailey and Joyce Finney audition as back-up singers!!

The rest of the music is attributed to a composer by the name of Joe Delia, who has a mighty roster of accomplishments including films in production right now!

This is my nomination for "Best Use Of A Pinball Machine In A 1979 Movie!"

There is so much music in this film, I worked for hours to cut it down to a mere seven minutes; you'll have to find one of those "50 Movie Packs" to hear what probably amounts to at least another 30 minutes of music in this movie yourself! Peace!!

THE MAN WHO TURNED TO STONE / Columbia - 1957 / Music by Ross DiMaggio + George Duning

Tabonga continue 'Sadistic Bastard Week' wif' weird lil' Columbia flick from 1957... Flick feature five sadistic bastard, and one is gurl!!

Music dude Ross DiMaggio work on many serial, then IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA and THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED. Music dude George Duning have 160 composing credit and basically work on everything, serials, flick and TV... Awesome guy!!

Eric! We hear you STONE COLD BEATING HEART! Take you medication please!..

Begin at gurlie detention center, a place Tabonga want to be detained!

Crap, 'nother lady scream in middle of night, waking up whole damn place again! What hell!!!

When you super special and belong to Numbskull & Bonehead Club, well, you get to run show secretly from basement. Also, safe place for watertub torture experiment, away from prying eye of snoopy little guy. Oh, and can be tricky and make thing look like what it not!!

Dungeon favorite William Hudson die at age 49! He always be... HARRY!!

Even more sadistic when turning on own big shot pal! Man, sting 10 time worse when you so special and privileged! So, so sad, you know...

Goo'night sweet pumice!!

Eric is freakin' sadistic bastard from hell!! Tabonga not even show still where he strangle gurl! He deserve glass pitcher in face but not really hurt that much! ...Too bad!

Here is funny series of photo, hard to see but last still show Eric' feet come up! That always tickle the Dungeon' funny bone!!

Victory Jory and Ann Doran calmly compare their last note on the subject, as whole place goes up in flame. Too bad life not imitate fiction!