LEVIATÀN - Alice Cooper - "Identity Crisis" (1984)

Here we go, just about halfway through the Halloween Countdown, and time to start getting down on it! If nothing else, The Dungeon is all about monsters and music, and what better personifies all that bullshit than the hard to find "MONSTER DAWG", featuring one of the month of October's favourite sons, the man himself, Mr. Alice Cooper!! 

Born Vincent Damon Furnier, Alice Cooper will always remain heads and cut throats above the rest, if but for no other reason than that anarchistic and thematic lyric, "School's out FOREVER!" What kid in his right mind can't identify with that concept?

"MONSTER DOG," on the other hand is something completely different, but then that's why you're here, right?

Alice Cooper is a rock icon, no doubt, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Shame this very year, but I can't still believe that Steve Miller, along with the originator of the barre chord, Link Wray, have still never even been nominated! 

As a three minute music video, this film is top notch, probably better than 97 1/3% of the rest of the stuff out there! 

Alice Cooper is a good actor, and I'm certain "Monster Dog" is searchin' for something a little further bit out on the edge, but it just never manages to quite find it! Sometimes he feels like Sherlock Holmes! 

Sometimes he feels like Jack The Ripper!!

Alice Cooper wasn't always doom and gloom, in the beginning, it was all about wham and glam, as the back picture on the first album "Pretties For You" so deftly illustrates! 

Spanish Director Claudio Fragasso is also responsible for stuff like "Troll 2," "Zombi 3," "Zombie 4: After Death," and "La Casa 5," and is so proud of his work, that he is often credited as Clyde Anderson or Drake Floyd! 

The title song is so joking around pop that when the whole thing goes south, it's almost surprising! 

Alice is feeling pretty sick, and he looks it!! His character has a lot of very deep-seated problemos! 

Alice's girlfriend in this film is Victoria Vera, a spectacular woman who just last month posed in the 35th anniversary issue of Interviú magazine at the age of 55! Victoria created quite a stir in 1974 when she appeared on stage naked in the play "Why Do You Run, Ulysses?" which was quite scandalous at the time, and the premiere was marred with the boot from the opposition!

"Monster Dog" is a perfect example of why our tastes in film pretty much comes to a screaming halt in the 60's or 70's, but I'm sure it's a lot of freak's favourite film, and if you really want to see it, then head on over to The Web Of Mystery and see if you can rip a copy out of their bony old decrepit dying hands!

THE GIANT GILA MONSTER In Color / Hollywood Pictures - 1959

Welcome to Friday Night Drive-In here at the Dungeon! Our feature, THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, is the follow up to last Friday's post, THE KILLER SHREWS, and was originally double billed with it. Again, these two are the only movies Hollywood Pictures ever made. Also filmed in Tejas.

Great tagline!.. "Only Hell could breed such an enormous beast. Only God could destroy it!" What?.. God is nitroglycerin?!

The flick starts with this teaser scene, we're introduced to the Gila Monster as it takes advantage of teens making out to a swingin' tune on the radio, exactly like at the start of BEGINNING OF THE END two years earlier!

The music is by Jack Marshall, he only had a total of 22 composing credits, mostly TV, between 1958-69 but includes a few good titles like THUNDER ROAD, MUNSTER, GO HOME!, TAMMY AND THE MILLIONAIRE and KONA COAST!

Dungeon helper Ralphie the Tarantula sez he's pumped and ready to push the big red 'GO' button and start our show rolling, right off the cliff!.. THE GIANT GILA MONSTER!

Life used to be a lot simpler, and some would say, better... Like, Tabonga!!

Hey! Gimme a snort of that there... Sodi pop!!

Shug Fisher plays the booze hound Old Man Harris, Shug was a member of the Sons Of The Pioneers!! Other movies he can be seen in are THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS, SAN FERNANDO VALLEY, UTAH, MAN FROM OKLAHOMA, SONG OF ARIZONA, UNDER NEVADA SKIES and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE!

Desmond Doogh plays the hitchhiker in his only film role! Jeez, maybe the Giant Gila Monster really ate him!!!

"Hey man, you can't drive this car!" Chase informs disc jockey Horatio Alger 'Steamroller' Smith, played by Ken Knox. Ken had three acting credits that include MY DOG, BUDDY and BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER!

The gang go out looking for their missing friends in their hot rods, what else?

Come and give auntie a kiss!

They find the car, but no bodies! Chase's girlfriend, Lisa Simone, helps to get the car to the top of the ravine. Lisa was also in MISSILE TO THE MOON!!

Later that evening, our scaly fiend decimates a gas truck!

When you star in such fiftie's classics as TEENAGE ZOMBIES, THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS and CURSE OF THE UNDEAD, you're a Dungeon Hero like Don Sullivan here! Hey, the guy sings and he got to make out with Jeanne Carmen!!! Nu'f said!

Shug sees something very weird on his way home, the Gila Monster derailing a train, but he's not sure if it isn't just the booze!

'Steamroller' gets the party started, looks like everbloody's gonna have a good time!!

Chase is interrupted just as he's getting to the good part!

Chase grabs some nitroglycerin at the local storage shed. It's hard to believe that it doesn't blow when he leaves to find the monster, he gets scratch and then drives 90 mph down some back roads in Texas!.. C'MON!!!

Four... Three... Two... One... KA-EFFIN'-BLOOIE!!!

Sweet dreams, you Giant Gila Monster, you!!

TEENAGE MONSTER - Walter Greene - "Homage To Gilbert Perkins" (1958)

"Teenage Monster" is kind of a misnomer unto itself considering the fact that Dungeon hero, and man of the hour, Gil Perkins who was playing the monster, was like the world's oldest teenager, being 51 at the time, but, personally, we don't care, because every conceivable 60's TV show that needed a stunt probably utilized the amazing talents of Gilbert Perkins, and movies would just not have been the same without him!! He played Bruce Cabot's double in "King Kong", Bela Lugosi's double in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man", and Kirk Douglas's double in "20000 Leagues Under the Sea" and if that doesn't span an awesome crossover of genres, then I don't know what does!!

Starts off like a cowboy movie, happy family, breakfast,and goldmine talk!

At the mine, the Dad and the boy are interrupted by this meteor coming down. It kills the Dad and the boy ends up turning into the "Teenage Monster" or as it was sometimes called, "The Meteor Monster!" Would you look at that? It even knocked a chunk out of his hat!!

Next thing you know it's a few years later and the kid looks like this!

So what kind of cheap ass movie is this anyway? Besides our hero Gil Perkins, there's also makeup artiste Jack Pierce, who worked on every conceivable Universal Horror film dating all the way back to "Dracula" in 1932, and who literally owned the patent on Boris Karloff's Frankenstein makeup!!

Then you have the ever so evil Gloria Castillo as Kathy North, just coming off her starring role one year earlier in "Reform School Girls." Just look at that Devilish grin, and it's pretty bloody obvious she's up to no good!!

The cutting edge music is by Walter Greene, the man responsible for the music for more cartoons than my dog has fleas, and a number of other films we've already covered, like "War of the Satellites " and "Brain From Planet Arous," not to mention 73 episodes of "The Gene Autry Show" and the list goes on and on and on! Listen right after the theme there's about 30 seconds of floating saxes and muted trumpets that is brilliant yet very cartoon like!

Übervixen Gloria sets up this dude and Monster Boy pummels him! I can just see Gil telling the kid how it works, don't worry, I'm a stunt man, it'll be all right, and then he throws him like 10 feet across the set!

Gloria gives him his cut! Look at the size of that dude!! He's either real tall or she's extra short!

Right about here is where I start questioning things, why does Gil's room like like a girl's room, and why doesn't his Mom get him a shave and a haircut, I'm sure it would make him assimilate into the community a lot easier, and where did they get those boots from, and wasn't anybody suspicious when she ordered them from the Sears catalogue, and how come his shirt's always tucked in so neat, how's he do it with those big hairy mitts??

Once you get to the broken clown doll part, you know it's all about to end for somebody!!

The whole time all that's going on Sheriff Bob, played by Stuart Wade, is trying to get something going with Monster Boy's Mom, played by Anne Gwynne, who keeps putting him off, but gives in a little just at the wrong time!!

The "Teenage Monster" is on to Gloria and all her lies and schemes, so while he's dragging her off, he decides to smack her a good one. Incredible! Gil was tough, and it looks like Gloria was too!

Charles Cannon, the "Teenage Monster" has completely had it with Gloria, takes things literally into his own hands, and disposes of her!

Even though he was fairly justified in his actions, the local authorities see it a different way, and decide to end the film early, much to his mother's dismay!!

Now does that all add up to the best and most exciting movie of all time? Probably not really, but you know what, it's worth the meager 65 minutes of your life! If you just pay attention, you'll only need to sit through it once, but the memory will last forever!!