BEASTS - Season One, Episode Six - "The Dummy" (1976)

 If you're lookin' for a good piece of Wednesday Weirdness, you've come to the right place!

 

 Our feature for tonight was a short lived 1976 British TV show called "Beasts," that only had six episodes.

The sixth and final episode was called "The Dummy."

Why do they call this big gnarly looking monster thing a Dummy? I have no idea. I think "Ya Big Dummy" would have been a better title!

"The Dummy" is not a real monster, it's a very popular movie monster kind of popular like Godzilla that has had several sequels like "Revenge Of The Dummy"etc. I still am not quite sure what the Hell it's supposed to be, maybe a cross between a large bird and a garbage heap!

Speaking of birds, you can't have a beast without any beauties!

Bernard (Captain Moonlight) Horsfall is the man in the Dummy suit, Clyde Boyd!

Clyde's probably spent too many hours inside that costume, because he's breaking down! Also the whole Dummy series is coming to a close, so he's really starting to lose it!

Clyde walks off the set and delivers a tirade of madness!

Simon (The Terrornauts, Doomwatch) Oates is the arrogant ass Peter Wagner who is stealing Clyde's wife, and he's been asked to be in the movie and Clyde doesn't like it at all. For me Simon has got a kind of smug Shat thing going on in a British kind of way!

They debate whether to put somebody else in the suit, but it's custom made for Clyde, and you know he brings so much emotion and talent to the role of the big Dummy!

Clyde says he'll go back and finish the scene!

When Clyde gets back on the set, he loses his shit big time and goes totally bezerk!

He kills one guy and then just starts destroying everything!

Patricia (Blood Beast From Outer Space) Haines is Clyde's wife Sheila. This would be Patricia's last role as she sadly died of lung cancer at the age of 45.

Shiela picked a really bad time to show up at the studio!

Clyde doesn't even need the suit any more. He's a full blown maniac madman on his own now!

Well, nobody really deserves to get strangled, but if  somebody did deserve it, then it would probably be Peter Wagner!
The whole "Beasts" series including "The Dummy" was written by the Nigel Kneale, the same man responsible for writing all the Quatermass TV shows and movies, so you know it's worth checking out, and that's pretty easy to do since I found this copy on YouTube!

DEVIL DOLL / The Devil Doll. It Walks. It Talks. It Kills. - 1963

Here's a film from Richard Gordon, who also produced THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE and THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE. In today's wild tale, The Great Vorelli is a ventriloquist & hypnotist, he has an act featuring his dummy, Hugo. Vorelli meets and pursues a beautiful heiress, Marianne, by mesmerizing her and inducing her into a puzzling coma. His mistress and assistant, Magda, fears the great one will dump her for the younger woman, and threatens to expose him. So, Vorelli tricks Hugo (what is actually alive!) into killing Magda while he's safely elsewhere, giving him an alibi. Marianne's boyfriend Mark English investigates Vorelli, he goes to Germany and discovers another murder in Vorelli's past, of a man named Hugo!!.. Marianne then awakens from her coma and announces that she will marry the hypnotist... Say what?! Vorelli tells Hugo his plans for Marianne and that he has a new female dummy, but, Hugo isn't going for it!

This is the recently found 'HOT' Euro version not seen in the US...

This one stars Bryant Haliday who was also in VOODOO BLOOD DEATH, THE PROJECTED MAN and HORROR ON SNAPE ISLAND, William Sylvester who also starred in GORGO, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and Yvonne Romain who was in CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, CIRCUS OF HORRORS and THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF.

Well, here's The Great Vorelli, he's a hypnotist, a ventriloquist and mystic. As you can see, this, like many other shows, is sold out...

He's a sadistic little bitch, here, he has this man believe that he's going to be executed, with a bullet just ready to smash through the back of his skull. Cruel shit, dude gots some issues!!

Then he brings out Hugo, who says he wants a drink of liquor. He gets a drink but he must tell the audience 'thank you.' Hugo gets up and walks to the front of the stage and says the magic words. The audience cannot believe what they are seeing and hearing!

Mark wants to get to the bottom of the weirdness and goes into Vorelli's room back stage during the show. He finds Hugo and pulls the head off to make sure there's not a small person inside the costume. He's totally baffled now!

Vorelli hypnotizes a mousy gal in unattractive clothing in the audience and has her become a stripper. The audience gets aroused when she drops her dress to the floor!

Shocking to see this timid little bird shake her stuff like a pro in front of an audience. And, Vorelli is such a perv, he's enjoying it more than anyone else!

And so... Viola!

Now it's time for Magda to be silenced. Vorelli goes to a charity event and leaves Hugo with the task of stabbing the older woman... No one will ever know Vorelli's behind the vile act, ha ha.

While Hugo is stabbing Magda, they show this demon mask from Sri Lanka hanging on the wall as she screams bloody murder!

Welp, here's Vorelli's new mistress and stage assistant, Magda'a replacement of course.

Mark gets a lead and goes to Germany on a Pan Am flight in a Boeing 707 (the first jet airliner flights began in 1958). Anyway, Mark talks with a woman that used to work with Vorelli, and oh yeah, a man named Hugo!!

Vorelli had studied the mystical arts in India and Asia, and, gained the knowledge of how to transfer a man's soul into an inanimate object, in this case, a wooden dummy... Mark returns back to England after getting the information he wanted.

Vorelli tells Hugo all his plans with Marianne and the new female dummy. But then, what would become of poor Hugo?..

Vorelli gets distracted by someone at the door so Hugo climbs out of his cage and throws the girl dummy on the floor. The evil master threatens Hugo not to hurt the dummy but he smashes its face in with a big old foot stomp! Vorelli attacks Hugo but the little guy fights back...

Then, as Vorelli puts Hugo back in his cage, Hugo turns the tables on him. He uses the same mind transfer trick and guess what happens?..

Mark comes in at an opportune moment, he sees and can't believe what he's hearing...

Hugo speaks from Vorelli's mouth, he says that he is now Hugo, and he's transferred Vorelli's soul into the dummy, and that Marianne will be fine now, not being under his influence.

Vorelli always called Mark.. Mr. English. So, the dummy's in the cage, saying repeatedly, please Mr. English, I will give you anything, just please get me out of this predicament (I created). So, join us on Wednesday when Eegah!! gets his ball a rollin' along in March, here at The Dungeon!

FOXY BROWN - "If You Don't Treat Her Nice She'll Put You On Ice!" (1974)

Tonight's Back in Black Saturday Night Special is a film that was written and directed by Jack Hill,  the same Jack Hill that wrote and directed "Spider Baby," so you know right of the gate that it's gonna be a bit twisted!

"Foxy Brown" is a classic piece of the year 1974. The 70's could be so outrageous you'd think it was all just made up, but the truth is, it was real, and I'm not sure society has ever recovered!

Pam Grier is, was, and will always be, Foxy Brown, and she's got good looks and lots of them, from these coveralls to cocktail dresses, Pam looks fine, all the time!

One of my favorite albeit brief shots, is when this dude goes flying over the top of this car like he was shot out of a catapult!

Pam can be, and look, mean and sassy......

.......Or she can look fine and classy!

Pam can do it all!

She gets beat up and still manages to crack this sucker over the head with a trash can!

She gets shot up with heroin and sexually abused, and still manages to torch these worthless drug-dealing scumsucking sumbitches!

Do it  Pam! They all deserve it!

Some of the other awesome actors in this film are Antonio Fargas as Foxy's degenerate back-stabbing rat of a brother Link Brown!

Tommy Chong has the role of the drug smuggling airplane pilot, and Sid Haig is also in there too, but I failed to get a shot of him.

They might be bad guys but they drive a pretty cool T-Bird!

This is the look you  get on your face when you have pressed the final button, and pushed Foxy Brown over the line! Tough shit pal, that's what you get for being a racist pig!

Foxy's got one more look, and an idea to go along with it!

Finally justice is served, like French fries with a cheeseburger!

It's kinda tough to watch Peter Brown play such an inert asshole after seeing him play all-around good guy sidekick to "The Lawman" for 115 episodes, but in this film, he absolutely deserves everything that happens to him, and it ain't gonna be pretty!

Pam Grier is currently on a show on ABC called "Bless This Mess," that's just getting ready to start it's second season.

 Hey speaking of blessing a mess, and a movie about social injustices, I know a guy who could really use some help these days. His name is Chris Phinney, and he's an artist and musician who has been kicking around since the 80's. Chris was struck while walking in Memphis last October by an uninsured motorist, and has been in a wheelchair ever since, and all he has are a ton of Doctor bills to show for it. If you can find a place in your heart to help a good person, then here's a Gofundme page started up by his daughter. Anything and everything will help. Thanks!

Chris Phinney Go Fund Me Page!