PAROXISMUS - Mike Hugg, Manfred Mann, Stu Phillips, Barbara McNair - "Venus In Furs" (1969)

Now how the Hell can you go wrong with a beautifully shot, supremely esoteric tale of mystery about a jazz trumpeter, filmed by Jesus Franco, and starring James Darrin??? The answer is, you can't!!! "Venus In Furs" is a great film, and once again, I gotta say, this is a lucky time to be living when films like this can just be delivered to your door for an astronomically low price! Not that very long ago, if you wanted to see a film like this, it was like tough grunt! Wait for it to come to your local art theatre or college campus, a few years later, you might have been able to get it on beta or VHS, but it would probably cost a fortune, and the quality wouldn't even be that good! So all us movie lovers are really blessed to live in this time!

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I'm not going to try and explain much about this film, but I will tell you, there's a lot of great music, and it all starts with James as Jimmy Logan, digging up his horn where he had buried it on the beach in Instanbul!!

It doesn't take long before James finds a dead body washed up on the beach, and we're about to find out that Maria Rohm as Wanda Reed, ain't no Gidget, that's one thing for sure!!

"Paroxismus" also features Herr Klaus Kinski, and anytime Klaus is in a movie, it always ups the ante on the weirdness factor a notch or two!! No exception here!!

When Wanda starts showing up at the gigs, Jimmy rightfully gets really confused!

So, just to keep it lively, Jesus moves the whole scene to Rio, and by now, it should be pretty obvious, the music isn't going to stop any time soon!!

And as a matter of fact, Jimmy has a singer girlfriend in Rio named the lovely Rita, played by multi-talented jazz vocalist Barbara McNair, who shows you that Shirley Manson wasn't the first female singer to writhe on the floor while delivering the vocal goods!!

Just one more reason this is such a damn fine film is a lot of the music was written and delivered by Mike Hugg and Manfred Mann of the original Manfred Mann Band who everyone knows because of their major hit "Do Wah Diddy Diddy!" Here's an interesting little side note. "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" was actually a cover tune, having been originally recorded (but it wasn't a hit) by the all girl group "The Exciters" who everyone knows for their hit single "Tell Him" in 1963! In 1965 Phil Anastasia recording as Dean Parrish would record an answer version cover of the tune, and call it "Tell Her!" Whew!!!

It just keeps going, and getting weirder with more music and more Wanda!!

In the end, Jimmy ends up back on the beach in Instanbul, metaphorically speaking!!! You can thank Jesus!!!

INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS - Charles Bernstein - "Graveyard Tramps" (1973)

"Invasion Of The Bee Girls" from 1973, which comes as double feature with "Invasion Of The Star Creatures" on DVD surprised me when I watched it, not because it was good by any means, but because I thought it was going to be a lot more tongue-in-cheek camp like "She-Devils On Wheels" or some similar feature, but instead it takes itself quite seriously, and is actually quite brutal in places!

Admittedly, it is obviously the 70's!

I don't know what it is about fight scenes where guys get their heads cracked up against concrete block walls, maybe it's the dull thud, but whatever it is, it bugs me!!

And while we're on the subject of bugs, this transformation scene, from human to bee girl, coupled with a buzzing soundtrack from the extremely talented composer Charles Bernstein makes for some interesting moments! Charles Bernstein is still working today and has had a long and varied career in film and music of all genres, and deserves another round of applause from us all!!

I BURY THE LIVING / Maxim Productions - 1958 / Music by Gerald Fried

Here is flick that remind you of TV show! Maxim Productions make one production... Tabonga give you 3 guess at what title is...

Dungeon love Richard Boone, aka, Paladin, since Dungeon dudes basically grow up with him on TV!.. HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL was definite fave, he look so cool, dress all in black, and, he look damn good wif' mustache!!

Hey, decent British poster, too!

Mr. Gerald Fried is total veteran here at Dungeon! A few other flick he work on for lil' reminder is... THE VAMPIRE, THE FLAME BARRIER, THE CRY BABY KILLER, CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN, THE LOST MISSILE and tons o' TV like THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS ON GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, THE RETURN OF THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E and STAR TREK: NEW VOYAGES (2004)!

Music is best part of tonight flick, it definitely more interesting than usual and even feature harpsichord!

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Richard run a hi-tech cemetary and... Whoa! Mostly folksinger guy Theodore Bikel look suspicious!.. Tabonga bet he the bad guy!!

What, that one?!

Hey, double doobie! Herbert Anderson and '57 Ford cop car!

Uh oh!.. Something seem to be very wrong here at modern art museum!

Richard think he kill someone by mistake, so he run around in graveyard like crazy monkey and have many weird delusion!

He only have one choice to make up for stupid blunder...

Now, there a happy pair for ya! Anyways, Richard find out that Theodore playing big funny game on him!!

Then, since he deranged, Theodore start hearing imaginary voice of people he murder in head, probably like Dick when he try to sleep at night...

Theodore start having Hillbilly Heroin flashback big time!!

BANG!! BANG!! BANG!! BANG!! BANG!!

Cop pop in blasting at last second to save Richard from whack out sick puppy Theodore!!

Cool end is when bad guy pull modern art cork board down with sorry ass, for final well composed 'Game over, man!' shot!!

INVASION OF THE STAR CREATURES - Jack Cookerly - "We Saved The World" (1963)

One of the most fascinating movies of the year 1963 was "Invasion Of The Star Creatures", which was probably one of the worst films ever made, but believe it or don't, was actually one of Tabonga and yours truly's favorite movies, as long as it played in a double feature with the equally hilarious but of equally dubious quality, "Creature From The Haunted Sea!"

Jack Cookerly gets the credit for the "electronic sound effects and music," and actually went on to do music for a number of well known TV shows like "Hazel" and "Mr. Ed!" He was also responsible for the "electronic music" in the 1957 classic we all love, "The Black Scorpion"!

What would have driven any normal adult insane was feast and fodder for a couple of out of control teens! To us, the antics of Robert Ball and Frankie Ray were no different than the shenanigans of the Stooges, the Bowery Boys, Abbott and Costello or Soupy Sales, just not quite as good, but in retrospect, Man, it's hard to sit through now!! Kind of like the way today's kids are going to feel about rap music 40 or 50 years from now!! You just don't get it when you get old, either that, it loses it's coolness, or you just don't care any more!!!

Roger Corman must have had an incredible effect upon some of his base camp, to the point that they forgot they were just actors, and decided to take on other chores of film making, so you get veteran actor Bruno VeSota, doing a horrible job of directing a terrible Jonathan Haze written script! As actors, those two guys are our absolute heroes, but as director and writer, and it pains me to say this, they sucked really bad!!! So, the worse it gets, the more it had to be, well, "What would Roger do?" And in the end, you get something like "Star Creatures!!!" What could Bruno possibly been thinking??

Very effective use of what appears to be Jello molds in this scene!!

The dolls are Gloria Victor as Professor Tanga and Dolores Reed as Dr. Puna! Now I'm starting to remember why we liked this movie so much, and I'm sure they spent at least 100 dollars on this set!!

Wow! Ultra scary monster!!!

Ultra scary monster becomes third stooge and does funny dance with tree!!

Pretty damn exciting right about here!!!

Absolutely amazing super happy ending with astonishly beautiful space girls falling head over heels in love with idiot bastard sons of Earth!! What more could you possibly want from life???