WILD THING - "Asphalt Kid" (1987)

It's a Wild Thing Wednesday down in The Dungeon this week!

He's "A Loner. A Legend. A Hero!"

 The  music and the movies  of the 50's and the 60's were so great , and the early 70's were good, but by the time we got to the 80's, it was anything goes! Whether that was a good or a bad thing, only time will tell! "Wild Thing" is a pretty damn fine example!

"Wild Thing" starts off in a hippie van in 1969!

Some street thugs off this young couple in the van, and their son just happened to witness the whole gruesome ordeal! There's your story!

The worst part is this stupid dirty cop was also in on the dastardly deed!! These two chickenshit bastards are Maury (Def-Con 4) Chaykin as the bad cop who will go on to be the bad Chief of Police, and Robert (Gangster Wars) Davi as Chopper who ends up being a local kingpin!

The little boy escapes by jumping in a river, and they think he drowned, but instead he's taken in by a street lady who teaches him about the evil blue coats and white coats!

The lady dies and the kid grows up roaming the streets like a feral cat!

The kid eventually becomes a local legend! Everybody's heard about him, but few have actually seen him in the flesh!

Kathleen (Twilight Zone: The Movie, The Hills Have Eyes, Apollo 13) Quinlan is Jane! Imagine that!

The mostly mute Tarzanesque young man and Jane's paths cross a number of times, and he finds himself having feelings for her that he has never experienced before!

Chopper reading GQ magazine gives you a good idea of the kind of humor infused into this film written by John Sayles, who among many other things, also wrote "The Brother From Another Planet!"

The legend of the "Wild Thing" becomes reality when he is forced to become visible to save Jane from the street punks!

He saves a gal from a fire, and almost loses his life in the process, and is taken into custody! "Wild Thing" was played by Robert Knepper, who has been quite busy for many years now, and has played everybody from Robert F. Kennedy to Frank Sinatra to William 'Clock King' Tockman!

Beware of the white coats she said!

The jig is up, and now Chopper and the Police Chief know that the kid they thought was dead is indeded the notorious "Wild Thing," and he's got their number!

I just like this shot because when I think "Light Lunch," I sure wouldn't consider Spaghetti, Lasagna and Pastrami!

Jane gets "Wild Thing" to talk, and they fall in love!

 Freakin' KRONOS! and Yes Virginia, they do use the song "Wild Thing" by The Troggs throughout the movie, but it doesn't sound like the original version to me, so they must have reworked it!

I sort of liked "Wild Thing," it's kind of stupid, but entertaining, and I'm pretty damn sure you've most certainly seen worse!

10 GREAT MONSTER MOVIES TABONGA! SAW IN 1957

1957 was one of the greatest years for monster movies, some of us got to see them when they came out, making for happy little monster kids. Here are 10 movies (I saw a total of 19 movies in 1957) I got to see and will be forever grateful. The movies are in no particular order.

THE BLACK SCORPION is still a ton of fun to watch, I think the best part is when the big old puss of the monster is shown with all its slimy drool and slobber!

I loved CURSE OF THE DEMON when I saw it, the Demon was a terrifying as Hell, but, the scenes in the woods of that fireball stalking Dana was even scarier to me!

When I saw VOODOO ISLAND it was a very strange adventure, of course the monster plants were very disturbing, especially the ones that attack the female helper Sarah and the one that captures the small girl, yow!..

Man, NOT OF THIS EARTH was super freaky, so many crazy things going on! Still, my favorite part was when Mr. Johnson releases Paul Blaisdell's creepy hovering Umbrella Monster!

I was totally plugged into 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH when I saw it, besides the fabulous Ymir creature, I thought that the infected crewman was freaky, would more people catch it?

Another real treat was THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS! The Brain was shocking, a big Brain with eyeballs that can fry yer ass was pretty damn scary at the time. A great role for John Agar with his weird contact lenses and all!

When I saw THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, it was so sad and depressing. I still remember when Grant Williams, in his boat, encounters the strange radio active fog that surrounds and causes him to shrink down! - p.s. the cat and tarantula were the monsters.

KRONOS blew my mind, it was so freakin' unique! The saucer from space, the little ball of light with an alien presence, the doctor taken over by the aliens, the giant, ever-growing Robot from Hell, the A-Bomb, people getting crushed, etc. Wow, a real sci-fi treat and a half!

Besides FORBIDDEN PLANET, ENEMY FROM SPACE is my favorite sci-fi movie from the fifties. I cannot tell you how amazing and creepy it was to see this Great Monster Movie in 1957 at age 9. I've always been scared by the idea of Blobs and when Quatermass looks into the dome and sees the sea of black slime twitching and writhing, well... YOOOW!! It was a movie that got inside you like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS!

Lastly is THE DEADLY MANTIS, another movie that was amazing at the time, Universal always took extra care with their fifties monster movies and it shows with this one! I liked the scenes when it was just buzzing around. Okay then, tune in Wednesday when Eegah!! gives it his all...

DEADLY DUO - "One Good, One Not So Good" (1962)

The  Special this night is a 1962 flick called "Deadly Duo," and deceit and trickery abound!

"Deadly Duo" is 70 minutes long, and the out of control car on the poster is 37 seconds of it, but then it does say "Double-Cross" on the poster!

 

So now there's a Mother/Widow left behind in Acapulco, Mexico, and a rich Grandmother who wants her grandson, because the Mother was once a dancer with her twin sister in a degenerate nightclub in Mexico!

 When I see a shot like this, all I can think is ...

"KRONOS!"

 Irene Tedrow was on almost every TV show you could ever imagine in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's! She was in two "Twilight Zone" episodes, "Walking Distance, and "The Lateness Of The Hour," and was on shows as divergent as "Dragnet," "Dennis The Menace," and "Magnum, P.I.!"

 Marcia Henderson plays twin sisters, one good and one sorta evil!! The bad one is blonde, the good one is a brunette, or just the opposite of what it should be, as was Marcia Henderson's life! Marcia won an award in 1950 for her portrayal of Wendy in a Broadway production of "Peter Pan" that included Boris Karloff as a cast member! She was only 58 when she succumbed to the seriously nasty disease called lupus!

 Whoa! So That's what a Margarita tastes like! I could power a blog with this stuff! Wow!!

 I admit that "Deadly Duo" is not the most exciting movie you're ever going to see, but it is almost flawless in an early use of the same actress doing more than one character in a scene together ala "Orphan Black!" This was convincingly done 56 years ago! I'm impressed if nobody else is!

 C'mon, isn't this the greatest shot of bystanders you've ever seen or not?

 1962 - Smokin' and Drinkin' and Drinkin' and Smoklin'! I'm surprised any of us survived!

This club is called El Gallo, aka The Rooster, and they probably should have spent some more time there, and had some kind of musical act too, but they kind of missed that whole boat!

 So if you do a search for "Deadly Duo" poster, here's just a ramblin' sample of what you might find!

This 25 cent Dell paperback from 1959 is a damn fine example!

 I almost had a stroke when I came across this 1966 wrasslin' magazine that featured a 'special' "Deadly Duo" on the cover!

The 1964 Marvel comic "Strange Tales" featured a story called "Pawns Of The Deadly Duo!"

That's a really big ax!

Last but not least is this 1994 Image comic by the same name!

"Deadly Duo," two words that go together nicely I guess!

As my good friend, DJ, Musician, and Movie Maniac, Lord Litter would say......

CHEERZ!!!

MONSTER MOVIES THAT SCARED ME THE MOST!

Here's a list of movies that scared me the most when I saw them at the theater when they came out, back in the fifties. The list starts with the scariest ones first...

THE BLOB is my number one scary movie, my dad took me to see it when I was just ten years old. When Steve goes back to the doc's house and sees something through the blinds, well, that was enough for me! I sat in the lounge while my dad watched the movie. After about 20 minutes, I went back in to the theater but covered my eyes a lot! I had nightmares for years after that!

Next on my list is THE FLY, when the creature is finally shown, with the twitching and all, well, it literally blew my little mind into bite-sized pieces!!

The ID Monster in FORBIDDEN PLANET was both mind-boggling and terrifying, wow, getting to see this incredible movie when it came out was a gift from the sci-fi gods!! I was 8 years old.

I also saw TARANTULA when I was 8, it was a creepy movie to start with, but, when I caught a glance of Leo here, right before the monster gets him, well, I almost fainted. That face haunted me for years!!

Again, I was only 8 when I saw INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. I swear, this movie was so tense and shocking that it just left me with a feeling of supreme dread!

I was 9 years old when I saw the last three movies on the list. I loved KRONOS, it was so unique! But, the creepiest parts had to do with Dr. Eliot being possessed by that alien force!!

Saw this one with my neighbors, we sat close to the front and in the center. Whenever the big slobbering scorpion made its closeup, they turned the freakin' sound way up!! It was a totally insane experience!

Lastly is CURSE OF THE DEMON. Wow, talk about a wild ride, the part that really got me was when Dana was leaving the doctor's house at night and walks through the woods with that crazy ball of light chasing him!

Okay then, make sure to check back for more cool stuff from the Dungeon Gang!