ROMA CONTRO ROMA - Roberto Nicolosi - "War Of The Zombies" (1964)

Welcome to the Wednesday War Of The Gods, this week featuring The Zombies versus Rome!

"Roma Contra Roma" is kind of a sword and sandal version of "The Walking Dead!" Basically, all zombies are the same, they're real pains in the ass, and quite difficult to get rid of! It doesn't matter what era, living dead creatures are just a bitch to deal with, and they're really hard to kill since they are already dead!

In the third grade, when they asked little Aderbad to draw a picture of his girlfriend, they knew immediately they had a problem!

But when he brought out his new line of jewelry and made a fortune with it, all the skeptics changed their tune!

Pretty dang cool set for a cheap Italian movie! The crazy ass music composed by Dungeon Kingpin Roberto Nicolosi is equally impressive! I give it a 6 out of 7 on the weirdness scale!!

Please kind sir, I beg for your forgiveness, and swear my allegiance to the lord of lords, and the king of kings forever, and then some!

The star of this thing is Drew Barrymore's estranged Dad, John Drew Barrymore as the evil Aderbad! John's career was in turmoil in Hollywood, so he went to Italy to give it a second chance! Here's a weird story I read on IMDB! John's Dad had wanted to be cremated, but it never happened because of weird sanctions by the Catholic church, so in 1980, him and his son, John went and dug up Dad's body to take it to a crematorium, but air had leaked into the sealed casket, and the body was stinking rotten and basically fell apart! From what I read, it was a gross out! John passed away back in 2004!

Can you just imagine how much cash it would take to make a low budget movie like this today!

There are plenty of odd characters in this movie, like this olde hag!

Time for the legions of the dead to waken and go about their sordid tasks!

When the soldiers turn into zombies and attack, everything turns into technicolor!

 Aderbad gets what he has coming to him no doubt!

When that happens, the cyclopian idol goes up in flames, and everything goes to Hell in a handbag real fast!!

BURN, WITCH, BURN / Independent Artists - 1962

It's Black Magic Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. I remember when this movie came out because of Famous Monsters but did not see it at the theater because of my fixation on sci-fi and rubber monsters. The story's about a British college professor who discovers that his wife, unknown to him, has been practicing black magic. He forces her to destroy her assortment of magical charms and protective devices, thinking that she's just being a foolish girl. Then, the fun really begins, from a novel by Fritz Lieber, Jr.

Eegah!! sent over a fun little soundclip from this movie for our listening pleasure, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there next to the atom powered voodoo doll, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... BURN, WITCH, BURN!

Peter Wyngarde plays college professor Norman Taylor who's skeptical of the occult in his teachings. Peter played Klytus in the 1980 version on FLASH GORDON and was Timanov in four episodes of DOCTOR WHO.

Janet Blair plays his wife, Tansy. For years, she's been practicing magic without his knowledge, but, now that he knows, he wants her to get rid of all the evidence and end her affair with magic. Most of it ends up burned in the fireplace, an interesting assortment of items she has there.

Had to show their black cat, it's annoyed at Norman for some reason. I have two black cats, mama Boo and baby Moon, lucky me!

The original British title for this film is NIGHT OF THE EAGLES, and, there's a damn good reason for that! This shot is at the college campus where the professor teaches.

Strange things are beginning to happen to Norman, making him rethink his position on the power of the occult! Speaking of the occult, I was lucky enough to get to see CURSE OF THE DEMON at the theater in 1957, it was awesome!!

Then, Tansy seems to be hypnotized, she takes a bus and Norman thinks she wants to commit suicide by drowning, so, he follows her to their beach home. He barely saves her after a nightmare of deadly events.

But, she seems to still be in a trance...

Norman is desperate to get to the bottom of his problem, by chance, he listens to a recording that sheds some light on the subject. Him and Tansy have been set up by another witch, Flora Carr, an associate of Norman's at the college. Margaret Johnston plays Flora, she is actually a pretty scary character because she's very good at conjuring! Margaret was also in THE PSYCHOPATH.

To prove her point, she starts Norman's house on fire as Tansy sleeps.

Norman runs away and is then attacked by the huge eagle after Flora conjures it up from the stone eagle overlooking the campus! Some justice at the end when the heavy stone bird falls off it's perch and lands squarely on Flora!!!

BLUEBEARD - Ennio Morricone -"He Did Away With Them All" (1972)

As far as I can tell, there have been at least 10 films utilizing the character named "Bluebeard!" The original story is a French folktale titled "La Barbe Bleue" that dates back to the 1600's about a violent wealthy nobleman who has a bad habit of murdering his wives, and the attempt by the last of them to avoid what happened to her predecessors! I love the fact that he actually has a blue beard!

This version of "Bluebeard" was released in 1972, and stars the elegant actor Richard Burton in the title role!

I don't believe "Bluebeard" was meant to be a comedy by any means, but with characters like this, it tends to have an overwhelming "Bedazzled" feel to it despite being a grisly horror film!

"Bluebeard" also tackles some very serious social issues! The music in "Bluebeard" was composed once again by the always amazing maestro Ennio Morricone!!

Bluebeard's last wife is an American dancer and singer named Anne played by the always lovely Joey Heatherton! In the 1960's you would see Joey frequently on TV shows like "The Hollywood Palace," and "The Dean Martin Show," performing as herself!

Bluebeard needs to go away for a bit, and leaves Anne home alone in the mansion, and he tells her that whatever she does, don't open the lock that the little gold key is for, so of course, what does she do but go around trying to find out what it fits! Behind a hidden locked door, she finds a large painting of Bluebeard, and when she pushes the three dimensional ring in the painting, a door opens and...........

.............Anne quickly finds out why she wasn't supposed to use the key, and all the literal frozen ghosts in Bluebeard's closet, or refrigerator, as it were!

When Bluebeard returns home, and finds out that Anne knows, because he had hidden cameras, he tells her that he really loves her, but that now he is going to have to kill her, but before that happens, he will explain the reason why his previous seven wives had to go!

Bluebeard's wives were a bevy of beauties, and each and every one of them have some kind of special quirk! Virna Lisi as "The Singer" is especially obnoxious as she sings all her lines. Oddly enough, Virna was also in "How To Murder Your Wife" with Jack Lemmon in 1965! Appropriately enough, her character is beheaded with a guillotine! It's the only way he could shut her up!

Next up is Nathalie Delon as Erika! Nathalie was in the killer movie, "Le Samouraï" with her husband at the time Alain Delon! Her character here is one of an insecure liar! Bluebeard convinces her to be herself, and then he can't stand her any more!

Sybil (Naughty Nymphs) Danning has the role of the whore who teaches Erika how to love before Bluebeard disposes of both of them!

Next up is Raquel Welch as "The Nun!" Raquel only has about 8 minutes of screentime in the movie, but got top billing with Richard Burton just for her name! Always taken with their beauty first, Bluebeard talks her into quitting the monastery and marrying him, and then he finds out she became a nun to make up for all her past transgressions as a slut, and she goes on forever telling him about all her sexual escapades until it drives him to the edge once again!

Next we have sword and sandal queen Marilù Tolo as the politico Brigitt! Unlike the other wives, Brigitt is hard-drinking, rough and tough, but her fate remains the same!

The last wife before Anne is Agostina (Holocaust 2000) Belli as the sweet, free spirited, and almost hippiesque Caroline! She is not destined to fare better than any of the rest of them!

One odd little bit of trivia, despite killing all these ladies in this movie, every one of those actresses are still alive today! I guess that says something about the correlation between being good looking and sexy, and longevity!

In the opening scenes, Bluebeard shoots this wife named Greta in a supposed hunting accident! Then her story is retold in the end! Greta was played by Karin (Voodoo Sexy) Schubert who 13 years later, in 1985, became an adult film star!

"Bluebeard" is a great movie, and Richard Burton is fantastic from start to finish! Like I said, it might not be a comedy, but it sure is pretty funny! One of Bluebeard's big problems is that he's got a bad case of can'tgetitupitis! Rated R, because almost all of the wives except Racquel Welch are seen topless,  you can get it on disc from Netflix!  It's a no brainer!