SANTO CONTRA EL ASESINO DE LA T. V. / Cinematográfica RA, Producciones Géminis - 1981

It's Cinco De Mayo, so, I'd be silly to not post a flick from Mexico. Here's one about a TV broadcast that's interrupted by a masked man named Magnus, who says he's going to show an authentic criminal act, the live kidnapping of actress Marina Laval, which he does! Then he says, tune in next week for the broadcast of a jewel robbery, and, Santo joins the fun to solve the mystery...

Magnus interrupts a musical program to issue his message about a plan to kidnap of beloved actress Marina Laval... Love the shot of the family, bewildered, watching their TV!

Meanwhile, our hero Santo is in the ring kicking some butt as usual. Love that top shot of the arena interior, I really miss the good old days, considering what deep shit we're all in now!!

Magnus has a prison in some caves, where he keeps his female trophies safe from prying eyes.

Break time... Here's portly ranchera singer Gerardo Reyes crooning to the audience...

Okay. (beep beep) break's over!!

After a botched kidnapping, Magnus gets on the horn to let everyone know he's pissed off!

Magnus has a sweet illegal underground broadcasting station!..

Then, Magnus interferes in a wrasslin' match with our hero. Santo's pals watch the action in horror as the battle tide goes back and forth! Santo barely wins this one. Santo was 64 years old when this one was filmed!!

I really dig the underground lair of Magnus! Santo has to fight off a bunch of guys before he deals with the karate dude that knows how to kick!

Magnus, now with his mask removed, basically goes bananas as he threatens to blow the place sky high in order to kill Santo and his pals!

An interesting shot!!.. Anyway, Santo grabs everyone and they get their butts out of the caves as quickly as possible, before...

The place explodes, destroying the underground lair and killing Magnus!.. Hooray!!

Join us again tomorrow as we end our week, here, at The Dungeon!!!

THE HOLE - John and Faith Hubley (1962)

"The Hole" is a 1962 Oscar Award winning short by John and Faith Hubley, the animation couple that brought the world 779 episodes of "The Electric Company" from 1971 to 1977!

The funny thing is that the Hubley's are not who animated "The Hole," instead it was animated by two other colossal talents, Bill (Toonerville Trolley, Charlie Brown, Garfield) Littlejohn, and Gary (Underdog, Heavy Metal) Mooney!!

"The Hole" is an abstract tale of two New York construction workers underground who have a discussion about the workings of the world, or is it? One of the absolute best trumpet players of all time, Dizzy Gillespie is the voice of this unnamed character!

The voice of the grumpy worker is George (City Beneath The Sea, The Man With The Golden Arm) Matthews.

Dizzy Gillespie is credited along with Charlie "Bird" Parker for being the creator of a jazz musical style known as Be-Bop, and after that, music was never the same again!

"The Hole" is not a funny cartoon, although there is some comedic dialogue! It has a very serious message that resounds firmly today!

The conversation stops, and there is a loud blast, and when the two guys poke their heads out.......

This is all there is left to see!

Let's just hope this prophetic little cartoon doesn't come true some 55 years later!

BLACULA / American International Pictures - 1972

Here's a fun blacksploitation flick starring William (THE BOSTON STRANGLER) Marshall. The story goes like this... An ancient African prince, turned into a vampire by Dracula himself, finds himself in modern Los Angeles.

It's the year 1780 in Transylvania, Count Dracula invites Mamuwalde and his wife Luva to his castle for a sleepover, but, It's actually a plot to turn him into a vampire!

Not your typical title card, the seventies was a time to experiment with given norms...

Two dudes at the warehouse that received Blacula's coffin end up letting him out and we get our first victims of the movie. Poor stupid saps!

Later, Blacula is chasing a hot black chick when a taxi runs into him while he's wandering the streets. He's okay, but, he bites the female driver in the neck for a lil' snack.

Then, Blacula begins to mingle with hip cats at a local bar, and, he's popular with the crowd.

This gal is developing photos when she notices that their new friend isn't in the picture! Moments later, Blacula pays her a little visit,

I like this pic, the styles and colors are so cool!

In this scene, Dungeon Pal Elisha (THE KILLING, VOODOO ISLAND, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) Cook gets run down by a dead girl that comes back to life at the morgue where he works!

Wow, check out these two stills, lots of great stunt scenes throughout the movie.

The coppers drive a steak through Blacula's vampire wife and get prepared to face the possible deadly consequences!

But, Blacula cannot face the future without his woman. So, he goes to the top of the building and lets the bright sun do its thing! Damn, it must feel pretty weird to have a bunch o' worms crawling in your vampire face, yuck!!

And, they even made a freakin' action figure of our nemesis! Tune in Wednesday for more wild junk, from The Dungeon Gang!

FUTUREWORLD - "Is This You...Or Are You You?" (1976)

It's time for another Saturday Night Special in the party room of The Dungeon!

Even though this movie is from the past, welcome to The Future!

About a month or so ago, we went to "Westworld,"

 and tonight's feature called "Futureworld" was a sequel to that movie!

Dungeon Super-Duper Hero Peter Fonda is investigative reporter Chuck Browning!

Cute as a bug Blythe (To Wong Fu Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar) Danner is TV news commentator Tracy Ballard! Blythe is still working today, and has a movie in post-production called "What They Had!"

"Futureworld" is pretty damn elaborate for what is basically a carnival ride!

This is Command Central. Nothing can go wrong, because there is no human interference! All the workers are androids, including the computer programmers!

I just like this shot of the 'Supply Room'..........

...........And this control panel!! 

There's a lot of eye candy in this movie!

Whereas "Westworld" was a world gone wrong, "Futureworld" is a world full of programmed evil!

The weirdos in the red scrubs come in the middle of the night and take the sedated Chuck and Tracy off into the depths of their laboratories!

The evil "Futureworld" company wants to make clones of Chuck and Tracy, then kill off the originals, because the clones are programmed not to say anything bad about the parent company, kind of like the payola of the 50's and 60's!

Tracy and Chuck, in no uncertain terms, want to agree to this deal!

That's the point where the big elongated almost mandatory chase scene begins!

They take Tracy, and put her in this big dream machine that produced these two pretty cool shots, that I don't know about you, but I'm going to use for wallpaper!

The dream sequence even incorporates Yul Brynner reprising his "Westworld" role as her rescuer and lover! Of course, Chuck is also able to view this dream on a monitor in order to make him feel like a very large piece of shit!

You see that Exit sign over there? That's exactly where this is headed!

In the end, Chuck lets the corporation know exactly how he feels about their way of doing business!

This French poster kills me! The two small Chuck and Tracy figures, and the faceless robot are the only thing that were in the movie! Incredulous!

Still, not even close, this Turkish poster is a little closer to the reality of this fictional tale!
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Glen Armstrong said it best.....
"Are You A Boy Clone Or A Girl Clone?"