EVIL SPAWN / American Independent Productions - 1987

Here's a weird one from 1987, I'll let the bottom wordage explain the set up. Luckily, they didn't have to film any of that, just say it happened... Ahhh, that good old low budget suspension of disbelief!!.. Love that poster though!!

The flick stars shapely bombshell, Bobbie (MAUSOLEUM, GHOULIES, SURF NAZIS MUST DIE, MY LOVELY MONSTER) Bresee, as the vain Lynn Roman who wants to be beautiful forever using the alien microbes. John Carradine stars as Dr. Emil Zeitman in the last movie made while he was alive, he died in 1988. Also, this makes me mad, Forrest J. Ackerman plays the Pool Guy and gets deaded, but, I didn't get a still of that...

The action starts immediately and this youing punk gets his arm ripped off by an unknown creep that looks like some kind of monster dude!

Actually, John is in the movie for only a few minutes. I cannot believe his role, he dies (creepy) and they show his hands!!! Sorry, but, they just didn't need to do that.

Here's (woo woo!) Lynn Roman after she scores her alien microbes. She shoots up in the bathroom and starts feeling... Extra Sexy!!

At the pool, this gal feels a strange presence. She turns around and we get to see what monster Lynn sees! A really stupid effect!

Well, anyway, the monster does her thing and we get a beautiful dead nude in the pool! Nice!!

This guy tries to put the make on Lynn and she starts changing into the thing. And, this is just stage one of the weird transformation! Her hair really went to shit!

This is the final form of Lynn the monster. She looks something like an ugly alien cockroach!

WHO THE HELL'S OUT THERE?!!.. Dude gets in within the next minute.

Lynn's boyfriend goes to her house, he feels like something's up. On his way in, he finds this dried up corpse just hanging around. Then, he confronts Lynn the monster on the patio.

The cops show up and shoot the crap out of Lynn. She falls off the patio, dies, and changes back to herself. She actually bit her boydfriend and he get to end the movie with his transformation. So, there you have it, a weird one to be sure, check it out if you can...

THE KILLERS - The First Made-For-TV Movie (1964)

 

Tonight's Saturday Night Special is loaded, and I'm going to take the silencer off the muzzle!
I told you last Wednesday that this was the first official made-for-TV movie, but it never reached it's intended destination because it was deemed to be way too violent for 1964 TV, and so they went ahead and released it to the theaters instead! Not only the first, this might also be the best made-for-TV movie too!

It's called "The Killers,"

 and I'll tell you what, this really ain't that bad of a film!

It's masterfully written..........................

.............and it has a killer cast indeed!

 Lee Marvin and his apprentice pal, Dungeon Super Hero Clu Gulager are hit men, and their first stop is a home for the blind!

All the employees are also blind, and Lee ends up decking this receptionist!

Yeah, I think beating up defenseless blind women is not even acceptable by today's rotten standards, much less a movie made-for-TV in 1964!

These two guys are just badass! They're mean cold-blooded killers, and they've come to do a job!

On the train ride after the hit, they try to figure out why the guy they hit named Johnny North didn't resist, but just took it! There has to be something else going on, and the smell of money is in the air!

I'm a little colourblind, so I see things different than most people, so I don't know about you, but I love the colours in this shot!

This is a killer portrait of Lee Marvin!!
Lee Marvin was Detective Lt. Frank Ballingerin in 117 episodes of "M Squad" from 1957 to 1960! He was in in two "Twilight Zone" episodes, "Steel," and "The Grave."  He was Liberty Valance, and he was one of "The Dirty Dozen!"

Now it's time to go back and piece this story together in a series of flashbacks! John Cassavetes is the guy who just got killed, race car driver with a sordid future named Johnny North, and his career is about to go South in a hurry! John was serious about his work, from acting in "Rosemary's Baby" to writing, directing and producing "Faces." Shamefully, John only made it to age 59 taken down by cirrhosis of the liver!

Angie (Police Woman) Dickinson is a race car driver groupie pursuing him!

The beautiful Nancy Wilson performs a dreamy song written by Hank Mancini!

I love Nancy for all the music she recorded with pianist extraordinaire George Shearing!

None other than Ronald Reagan is Angie's sugar daddy!

Three years later, Ronald Reagan would become the Governor of California, and then would go on to be the President Of The United States in 1981!
And in the "Talk About Freakin' Weird Department," President John F. Kennedy was assassinated during the time period that "The Killers" was made, which for obvious reasons slowed down production! I was in High School when Kennedy was killed, and I distinctly remember that all that was on TV for a week or more was news etc, and it was really a bummer, so on the weekend, I went to the movies to see a double feature matinee, and when it was over, I stayed and watched the first movie again, knowing there was nothing going to be on TV when I got back home but bad new. Just for the record, it cost 20 cents to go to the movies back then, and the country was in turmoil!

I think this kind of interrogation led to the demise of the individual steam bath!
Norman Fell had 167 acting credits to his name, but he will probably always be remembered most for being grumpy landlord Stanley Roper on the hit TV show "Three's Company!"

While not exactly a ménage à trois, this threesome are still dependent on one another if they want to get this job done! It's all about the money!

Wow, that's a really complicated plan! Maybe they got the six year old Ron Jr. to draw it out for them!

You have to admit, Ronnie looks pretty spiffy as a fake Sheriff!

Too violent for TV? First they smack her around, and then they almost throw Angie out a third story window!

Dark and Gritty by anybody's standards........

The ending of "The Killers" isn't any happier than the beginning!

This Indian poster I found at "The Evening Class" blog did a good job of encapsulated "The Killers" into only three photos! Check out that site for more international posters from this movie and a Helluva lot more!
 

 "The Killers" was a remake of the same story from 1946 called "The Killers" that starred Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner! They were both also released under the title, "Ernest Hemingway's The Killers!" The 1964 version is kind of rare, and the best deal I could find was here, where you can get DVD's of both the 1946 and the 1964 versions for about 20 bucks! That's actually a pretty killer deal!

THE DEVIL'S MASK / Columbia Pictures Corporation - 1946

Here's a murder mystery from 1946 that's based on the "I Love A Mystery" radio program. While searching through the wreckage of a crashed airliner, the police find five shrunken human heads, and, one of them is a white dude with red hair! The head belonged to an explorer, deemed lost on an expedition to South America, it's tagged as a victim of jungle savagery. His daughter thinks otherwise and suspects foul-play. She hires a team of private detectives to investigate and points them in the direction of her stepmother and a colleague of her father, but, one detective looks in another direction for the killer.

The movie stars Anita (THE PHANTOM SUBMARINE) Louise, Jim (UNKNOWN WORLD) Bannon, Michael (THE RETURN OF THE WHISTLER) Duane and Mona (SECRET OF THE WHISTLER) Barrie.

The police are called in to check out the five shrunken heads found in the plane crash.

The detectives meet at the dead explorer's home to watch slides from his South American adventure. They obviously had slide projectors in 1946...

They discover that he had acquired a blow gun that shoots good old poison darts!

While looking at that last slide, the gang gets a visit from an unknown person who shoots a dart at them but misses and it ends up stuck in the wall!

The detectives get a lead and visit Leon Hartman, taxidermist extraordinaire. They have a few questions for him as he works away on a new piece... Nice taxi.

This detective tries to communicate telepathically with the shrunken head to get a lead!

The detectives' net closes in on Hartman and one of them confronts him about the situation he seems to be in on...

Hartman doesn't take it well and pulls out his trusty knife! As he tries to escape, the detective gets the blade in his back, but, don't worry, he doesn't die...

Another detective is on the job, he's hiding in Hartman's outside greenhouse jungle. Hartman comes out and lets his pet panther go to attack the dick, but, our hero ducks back into the main room and closes the huge metal door, leaving Hartman outside with the panther!

Well, you know how it's going to end up... Right, Hartman get's his reward for being a little bitch! Check in again tomorrow when we return with more weird junk, just for you!