FROGS - Joe Sidore - "Ribbet, Ribbet" (1972)

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, so what better way to party than with a very odd movie from 1972 called "FROGS!" So just let me pour myself a Black Medallion and Diet Coke, and we'll get this 4th of July shindig rollin'!

Ray Milland as rich bigwig industrialist Jason Crockett and his family are getting ready to have their annual Independence Day bash at their ancestral home in the swamps of Florida!

"FROGS" is known as the first "Eco Horror" flick, and how horrifyingly ironic is it that it was filmed in a Florida state park that is located near the Gulf of Mexico?

I think it's funny that Dungeon stalwart Les Baxter gets credit for the music in "Frogs," since it is almost devoid of music at all, but what's even more curious is that the 'electronic sounds' that really set the mood were created by one of the finest musical madmen working today, Joe Sidore. Joe is a fellow who has some seriously unbelievable musical production and mixing credits, having worked with some of the coolest people ever, names like The Seeds, The Count Five, The West Coast Pop Experimental Band, Spanky and Our Gang, Harper's Bizarre, Van Dyke Parks, Norman Connors, Mel Tormé, Buddy Rich, Stan Kenton, David Bowie, and the list goes on and on and on!!!

Great shot of the swamp and all its hidden horrors! After years of spraying and other assorted means of wildlife destruction, Mother Nature is pissed, and she's got quite an array of soldiers bent on revenge!!

Outsider Sam Elliot as enviormental photographer Pickett Smith, and Joan Van Ark as family member Karen Crockett hit it off, but this ain't exactly a love story!

Just in case you forgot this was the 70's!

Nice product placement!! Gotta make some money one way or another!!

It seems Jason Crocket has some dues to pay, and it's just about time to write that check!! Ray Milland, as always, plays the cranky S.O.B. to perfection!!

Without warning, and like a fully orchestrated dance, step by step, the bugs, reptiles, birds, and all the other living swamp creatures, start picking off the Crockett household one by one!

Even a simple meal turns into a National Geographic terror tale!!

The Crockett family mansion is actually called the Wesley House and is located in Point Washington, Florida.

"Another one bites the dust, Hey, hey....

...and another one's gone, and another one's gone, another one bites the dust!"

Right down to the end, Jason Crockett thinks that "Man is still master of the world!"

Now this is a novel way of trampling the flag!

I really didn't know there were rattlesnakes in Florida until I saw this movie, because I thought the deadly coral snake was bad enough, but they actually have quite a few spieces of rattlers including the Dusky Pygmy Rattlesnake! Watch out for those little bastards!!

Hollis Irving as irreverent butterfly collector Iris Martindale meets up with some snakes that were not invited to the party!

I would venture to guess that about 25% of "FROGS" is made up just of shots of different swamp critters!

The home team is ahead about 7 to one at this point in the game, and there are just a couple of time periods left on the clock!

Sam, Joan and the kids finally wise up and decide to get the Hell out of Dodge!!

In the end, DJ Froggy went a courtin' but Jason Crockett couldn't stay alive long enough to appreciate his deft turntable skills!!!

GOOD AGAINST EVIL / ABC TV - 1977

Welcome to Friday Night Drive-In here at the Dungeon with host, Tabonga, and li'l hunchback helper, Ralphie the Tarantula! It's time to get this one out of the way, and, it ain't bad for a TV movie... It's actually a rip-off of two films, THE EXORCIST and ROSEMARY'S BABY. Tabonga's favorite writer, Jimmy Sangster, penned this little horror-romance psycho drama.

This flick is an ABC-TV pilot about a writer, Andy Stuart (Dack Rambo), teaming up with an exorcist, Father Kemschler (Dan O'Herlihy), to battle Satan and a group of Devil worshipers led by Mr. Rimmin (Richard Lynch).

It was meant for a projected television series that did not come about mainly because it offered nothing new for the viewer.

The music is by Argentinian born heavyweight composer, Lalo Schifrin. He also appears on 60 soundtracks!! Lalo composed music for THE WAY OUT MEN (TV), DARK INTRUDER, WAY... WAY OUT, MURDERERS' ROW, COOL HAND LUKE, BULLITT, PUSSY CAT, PUSSY CAT, I LOVE YOU!, THE AQUARIANS (TV), THX 1138, EARTH II (TV), NIGHT GALLERY (TV), THE NEPTUNE FACTOR, MAGNUM FORCE, VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED, THE MANITOU, THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, THE NUDE BOMB, CAVEMAN, DOCTOR DETROIT and THE DEAD POOL!

Alright then, on wif' da show!.. Ralphie has his little claw raised and ready to push the big red 'GO' button, so here it comes... GOOD AGAINST EVIL!

As you listen to the oboe strains in the theme, you can start to understand this movie's problems... I mean, come on! Isn't that the Kolchak theme and a scene out of THE EXORCIST?!

We'll skip the nutso birthing scene and go directly to where mom tries to escape from the hospital but is attacked by a black cat and falls down the stairs... and dies!

My work here is done.

Richard Lynch is the consumate evil guy! Other movies Richard was in are THE HAPPY HOOKER, GOD TOLD ME TO, DEATHSPORT, VAMPIRE (TV), THE FORMULA, MANIMAL (TV), NIGHTFORCE, THE BARBARIANS, BAD DREAMS, ALLIGATOR II: THE MUTATION, TRANCERS II, PUPPET MASTER III, MERLIN, SCANNER COP and NECRONOMICON: BOOK OF THE DEAD!

Everbloody's favorite little hellion, Beelzebub!!

Dack Rambo plays Andy Stuart, writer, wanderer and love interest in SF, 1977. He lives in his van, something that you might do back then. I was actually related by marriage to Dack!

Andy meets Jessica Gordon, who is actually the baby taken by the brood 22 years ago, and she's promised to be the devil's bride, unbeknownst to her. Andy wants to get their fortunes told...

Listen up everbloody!.. If Tabonga ever was forced to do this schmuck's 'job,' he would consider harakiri!!.. Anyway, the dude had bad news for the young lovers...

Perfect example of a TV version of a horror alter. Jessica (in the photo) even has a pentagram drawn on her forehead!

Wherever Jessica goes, bad things happen, like this ex-boyfriend that got trampled to death after that same black cat attacked the horses while out riding!

It's messed up if you can't ever relax while taking a freakin' bubble bath!

They can't even mess around without the ceiling window crashing down on them!.. WTF??!!!

Gee, I wonder who was behind that one?!

Hey, I need a fill up!........ Is somebloody there?! Fill up, I need a fill up!!.. HEY, IS ANYBLOODY LISTENING TO ME!!

I swear, that looks like a car wash down on Chester Avenue!

Father Kemschler is brought in to see if an exorcism is what it's gonna take to snap this li'l gal out of her funk. You can hear him overact in the soundclip!

Papers fly around the room and the Father fights a pillow, but we're not sure if any of his participation did any good. Tune in next... Oh, that's right, it wasn't picked up!

Looks like those bed posts were the most important part of the scene!!

ROBO VAMPIRE - Alan Wilson - "Thank-You Vampires, Thank-You Very Much" (1988)

All Right, enough with the bullshit already, here's "Robo Vampire!!!

Vampires, Hong Kong Style!! Not Bela by any means, these guys are ugly and powerful to the point of being superhuman, if they were human that is, but they're not. Their breath is so foul, it will kill you in a flash, and they hop around like maniacal kangaroos from Hell, and if they catch you, they don't just bite your neck, they bite a big chunk out of it!!

It took me a while to be able to actually grasp this concept, but if you put one of these pieces of paper in front of one of these vampire creature's mugs, it stops them dead in their tracks!! Okay, I don't get it either, but it seems to work in this movie!!

Smugglin' dope in caskets full of vampires, it's like a no brainer, if the authorities bust you, then they get killed by the vampires!!

The evil drug smuggler cat has vampires in his pad just chillin' until he needs them, and one of them somehow ends up smokin' a cigarette that causes a fire and creates a big Hellfire commotion! Come on everybody, do the Lo Commotion!

Like good disc brakes, that scripture stops those loco vampires on a dime, and gives you back 6 cents change!!

Smart ass drug smugglers resist the temptation to tell the boss of the vampires that they think his garlic necklaces and vampire halting papyrus are wack!!

Damn, now that's some massive skin problems, and you thought adolescence was tough!

Okay, where were we, drug smugglers, hoppin' vampires, and now the topless Witch joins into the foray! She's pissed because the boss of the vampires made her boyfriend into a creature of the night before they had a chance to consummate their vegatable soup of a love affair.

The witch is from the West and her boyfriend, who bears a strange resemblance to Kong, is from the East, so it's assumed by the boss of the vampires that their love was doomed from it's inception, so he tries to make them fight, but love prevails when vampire Kong recognizes his own true love!

So approximately 30 minutes into the film, you start asking yourself what and where's the Robo part? Well, it seems one of the drug enforcement agents got killed during a scuffle with the drug lords and their vampires, and now has been reconstructed as some kind of Frankenstein Robo Vampire Killer!! Pretty sophisticated equipment, even gets AM!

Then when a drug dealing priest gets ripped off, this white gal comes out of nowhere to almost save the day before getting kidnapped and held for ransom! Phew!!

Nice shot of Robo Dude getting ready to kick some vampire and drug dealer ass!!

Who knew arm wrasslin' was so popular in Hong Kong? And while we're on the subject, the cool music for this film was composed by a guy named Alan Wilson, in his only known film outing!!

This is about the only good shot I could get where you actually see the beach bunny vampires hopping! Robo Guy does have an equlizer commonly known as a big gun, that generally works towards his advantage!!

Aw Shit! The drug smugglers cheat, and use a bazooka to even the odds when the vampires start losing, and blow freakin' Robo Man to kingdom come!!

The Doctor somehow manages to reassemble Robo Vampire Destroyer, and the viewer gets the thrill of watching him annihilate even more vampire booty in a score of cool settings!!

You might notice that the new improved Robo Fellow has an even more modern and GQ outfit that enables him to look even cooler as he wrecks total destruction to the minds of all the evildoers!

Robo Dude kicks even more butt, the Witch and the Kong Vampire re-unite, and the evil drug dealers with the badly dubbed voices are wiped off the face of the planet forever, so that we can all live in peace and harmony again! Thanx again to Professor Grewbeard for turning us on to this stupefying flick, be sure and catch it when it plays in your local theatre!!