THE HEARSE / Marimark Productions - 1980

It's Friday, so, I guess it's time for this little horror flick, the story's about a girl who's haunted by a phantom hearse, which she believes is connected to her dead aunt, a witch with a bad reputation in their town! The tagline sez... There is a door between life and death, and now, that door is open!

The movie stars Trish (THE CHANGELING) Van Devere and Joseph (FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON) Cotton. Joseph was sure in a lot of bad movies near the end of his career, but, not as bad as Keenan Wynn.

Although the story is supposed to take place in the Bay Area, it was actually filmed at Griffith Park, what else!

What The Hell?!!.. Where'd this freakin' ID Monster come from?!

I like this shot because of the colors, chartreuse, pink and lime green, nice!

Joseph Cotton plays Walter Prichard, local big wig and ultra lush, here he is getting the damn sheriff lit at work!.. Man, the good old days!

The movie takes a while to get going, so, they throw in this albino dude to get you to think he's the bad guy!

This is the mysterious driver of The Hearse making an appearance at the cemetery.

If you look real hard, you can barely make out Trish in the shower.

Then she dreams about seeing herself in a casket at her own funeral!.. Good one!

Here's a fun shot of some early eighties doofus dudes, fulla mischief and other stuff.

Albino Guy shows up again to see if he can help out. There's just something cool about this scene in a well lit yellow dining room.

Oh yeah, guess what?!.. Joseph gets strangled in the shower!.. Who could have done this?

The Hearse is chasing Trish... Yow! That Packard grille looks like it's biting the car!

Here's the real bad guy, Tom Sullivan, played by David (STAR TREK: THE MOVIE) Gautreaux. He's also the Hearse Driver and he can go Poof!

This is a beautiful still showing The Hearse meeting its doom... Or, does it?! Anyway, check in tomorrow for something special, here, at The Dungeon!

LOBSTER MAN FROM MARS - "Rock Lobster" (1989)

Welcome to another wacky Wednesday in The Dungeon! Tonight's feature is called "Lobster Man From Mars" and it surfaced on this planet in the year of 1989!

I'm not sure what I was doing in 1989, but I wasn't going to the movies, so I never saw this thing when it first appeared! I think I was into Martinis and Margaritas, not Martians, at the time!

"Lobster Man From Mars" is so dumb, I really want to hate it, but I just can't for several reasons!

Probably the biggest reason that "Lobster Man From Mars" is actually a decent movie is because it truly has an incredible cast! Maybe they're not used to their full potential, but as far as Pop Culture goes, this movie is pretty amazing!

Like Fr'instance, here's two of my favourite guys in one scene together, Tony (Some Like It Hot)( And Father of Jamie Lee) Curtis and  the comic genius  of one fourth of The Firesign Theatre, Phil Proctor!

That was it for me, the movie could do no wrong after that, and it really doesn't! Weird, because most movies like this suck to me!!

"Lobster Man From Mars" is a movie about a kid who makes a movie and tries to sell it to a big Producer, who only listens to the kid and watches the movie because he's in so much financial trouble with the I.R.S. that he needs to produce a movie that is so bad it is guaranteed to lose money!

The effects aren't half bad, in fact, they're sometimes even pretty good !

 

William Ackerman gets the credits for casting, and all I can say is that he was one brilliant some of a gun; here's cute as a bug and gorgeous enough to be a Maybelline model, the "Valley Girl" Deborah Foreman as Mary proving that using the Bronson Caves in L.A.'s Griffith Park just never gets old!

And I don't get it, William's bio on IMDB says, his wife is Michelle, and they have three children! That's it! Nothing more, zip, nichts, nada! Seems fishy!

Probably somebody's, but not my favourite character in the movie is Tommy Sledge as The Detective! It's a valiant effort, but he's just not the Nick Danger he would like to be!

These ads are funny though!!

Just to keep that Pop Train rolling, here's Skip Young (Best buddy Wally from The Ozzie and Harriet Show) as Zip, the bartender! Skip was of course also in the classic film "The Spider!"

The Colonel is most likely name Colonel Ankrum because in some cool Sci-Fi movies in the 50's Morris Ankrum played the military man in charge of cleaning up the whole mess like "Invaders From Mars," "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers," and "Beginning Of The End!"

Fred (Galactica 1980, Project U.F.O.) Holliday plays the Colonel!

Big Dick Strange does his best, and it's a good one, impersonation of Rod Serling! 

Big Dick is played by D.J. and "Wheel Of Fortune" announcer M.G. Kelly!

The aforementioned William Ackerman also plays the mechanic whose body becomes a nest for these little buggers!

Even the unknowns like Karen Kelley Dugan do a good job! This was Karen's only movie gig as far as I can find out!

No, we're not done yet, here's "The Avenger's" Patrick Macnee as Professor Plocostomos! At first I expected Patrick to just show up, but he also puts in a good performance!

The Lobster Man shows how devious he is by going through a girl's shower and locker room at a college!

A cooking show on TV gives them an idea on how to destroy the Lobster Man! 

BOILING HOT WATER!

 Believe it or not, this wasn't the first time in film history that somebody decided to have a lobster as the main character! In 1966, there was Ebirah in "Horror Of The Deep," or "Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster!"

In 2014, there was "Mutantis," but then again, this might be a crawdaddy!

I couldn't find any info on this poster, and I'm pretty sure that it's not really a movie, but it's a cool image I just had to include here!

 Almost like a mixture of "Night Of The Ghouls," and "Frankenstein Vs. The Space Monster!"

 Arguably one of the most famous little guys in the whole world, Billy Barty plays the mystical Mr. Throckmorton!

 The Colonel says it's time to wrap this up! 

It's too much, I tell you, too much!!

There are more appearances from a host of notable people like Dr. Demento, Bobby "Boris" Pickett, Richard Penn, Dean Jacobson, Anthony Hickox, and of course they had to use the B52's 1979 hit:
"ROCK LOBSTER"...........but then, WHY NOT?

GODZILLA VS. SPACEGODZILLA / Toho Company - 1994

One good turn deserves another around here! I have a double Godzilla feature with Destoroyah and SpaceGodzilla, so, guess whazzup today?! After this post, I'll put the DVD up for sale on eBay since we've now reviewed both titles...

Our story goes like this... Godzilla is threatened by two new forces. First, there's Mogera, another giant robot war machine built by the UN, then, SpaceGodzilla, a beast spawned from Godzilla's particles in space!

The first Godzilla movie I ever saw at the theater in the early seventies, at a drive in. It's a little weird, but, I don't even remember seeing a poster for any Toho movie in the fifties or sixties in our little town! TV was to only way to catch one.

Here's the war machine, Mogera, as it gets ready for testing. If it looks familiar, well, that's because it was designed to resemble the MYSTERIANS' giant robot from 1957!

Great shot of the big guy leaving the sea and making his way yet again onto Japanese soil.

After SpaceGodzilla crashes to the ground, there's a confrontation between the two behemoths. They seem evenly matched and neither gets a real advantage.

SpaceGodzilla changes back to its crystal form and heads for the city. Once there, the thing crystallizes the area into a nightmare for us Earthlings!

This is my favorite shot... Can you imagine having your day at the theme park ruined because Godzilla was cutting through the lines?!

Mogera shows up and starts firing missiles at the crystal monster from the dark void.

Sometimes, there is nothing more beautiful than utter destruction and/or obliteration!

The long battles continue, Mogera ist kaput, and, after getting his clock cleaned by SpaceGodzilla, our hero plays his ace in the hole. He reaches into his core and pulls out his winning powers and blows his foe to freakin' High Hell...

The big guy has done it again... HOORAY!! We're back on Wednesday with more cool junk from... The Dungeon!