31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN DAY 28: LEMORA: A CHILDS TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL 1973 (SYNAPSE)

A great movie that still to this day, seems highly ignored.

Cheryl Smith stars as Lila Lee a young woman whose father is a gangster. In the opening scene we see him killing both his wife and her lover with a machine gun and then driving off into a mysterious place where he is attacked by ghouls.

Lila is adopted by a minister and his church. We never learn his name but we certainly know he has an unhealthy desire for Lila. One day she receives a mysterious note from a woman named Lemora (Leslie Taplin) saying that her father is dying and wants to see her one last time before he passes away.

Lila leaves in the middle of the night and takes a strange little bus toa weird place where the first thing she sees are monsters running thru the woods, and those same monsters kill the driver played by Hy Pyke.

Lila meets Lemora and things get really weird as the young woman wants nothing to do with Lemora and her minions.

The ending of the film is a nice, but unexpected surprise in whcih the minister also gets his cumuppance. The entire vibe of this film is different from anything I have seen before.

Director Richard Blackburn has made a very unique and bizarre horror tale told from the prospective of a young girl who really has no purpose in life until the very end of the movie.

If you haven't seen this movie you should. I really recommend this and it goes perfectly with the Halloween season.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Christy Hemme is 44.

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN DAY 27: REC 4: APOCALYPSE 2014 (SONY) BLU-RAY

The final film in the series, and it's not too bad.

This picks up where the second film ended and the invading SWAT team that is going to explode the entire apartment complex manage to rescue Angela Vidal (Manuela Valasco), who of course, was the young reporter trapped in the film in the first film and dragged to a supposed death.

She is taken aboard a huge ship in the middle of the ocean and a team of scientists run tests on her to see if she is infected. They find she isn't and Vidal is introduced to several people on the ship including a smart nerdy guy named Nic (Ismael Fritschi) who has her TV camera and is trying to get the data off of it.

We discover that Vidal was infected by the creature in the cellar of the building. It transferred a huge parasite into her body, but the tests prove it is no ,onger in her.

Soon all hell breaks loose on the ship as a contaminated monkey is set loose by unknown person or people and it starts the cycle over again.

Vidal and Nic soon find themselves fighting for their lives on a ship full of zombies. There are several twists and turns which I found very interesting, and this is probably the goriest one of the series.

The series comes to an end with this one although it is an open ending. If you like the others in the series you'll like this one as well.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Jayne Kennedy is 73.

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN DAY 26: DOOR TO DOOR MANIAC 1961 (FILM MASTERS) BLU-RAY

This movie is also known as "Five Minutes To Live" and I have talked about it before, but it has been a while.

This film has finally been remastered by Film Masters, and it looks very, very good. They have included both the TV version and the theater version which contain a small amount of extra footage.

This is a very underrated film and has a lot of negative reviews, but hey, I enjoyed it. Johnny Cash is an insane criminal named Johnny Cabot.

Cabot is hired by Fred Dorella (Vic Tayback) to be a part of his small town bank robbery. Cabot is orderd to hold the wife of the bank vice president hostage in order to get him to allow a $70,000 robbery to take place.

The woman, Nancy Wilson (Cay Forester) is basically unhappy in her marriage, but she discovers from the sadistic acts of Cabot, that her life really isn't too bad.

Her husband Ken (Donald Woods) is forced to give into the robbers' demands. However things do not work out well for Dorella at the bank after he is recognised by an employee.

Everything falls apart and things turn out badly for Cabot after he attempts to kidnap the Wilsons' son played by a very young Ron Howard. The child manages to pull a fast one on Cabot and bring about his demise.

The performances all are very good, and I just don't understand all the tearing apart of this movie, but I guess it isn't for everyone.

The Blu-ray presentation is very good nd I'm glad this film finally got an improvment. Recommended!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Jaclyn Smith is 79.

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN DAY 25: REC 3: GENESIS 2012 (SONY)

Not too bad of a film.

The first two films in this series knocked my socks off and now I finally got to see the third installment.

This film centers around a wedding ceremony between Koldo (Diego Martin) and his gorgeous bride Clara (Leticia Dolera). During the party after the wedding one of the members of Koldo's family, who was bitten by a dog that he thought was dead, starts killing off the party gores by biting them.

In no time flat, the party is turned into a bloodbath as people start becoming zombies faster than you can say "George Romero".

Everything descends into chaos as Koldo and Clara fight for survival against a horde of demonic zombies who cannot stand the word of God.

This movie answers several questions never answered in the first two movies, and the dog referred to is the animal from the first film that was put in quarantine.

The ending leaves it open for another film, which there was, and I will be talking about that one very soon. This is a great and fast moving film that never stops once it starts. The opening title appears on the screen 22 minutes into the movie!!

As a horror fan I can easily recommend this to others. Have at it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Ciara is 39.

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN DAY 24: THE CHILD 1977 (SOMETHING WEIRD)

It has been many years since I first saw this bizarre little film.

I believe movie takes place in the 1930's or 40's but I can't be sure. It's a twisted tale about a young housekeeper named Alicianne (Laurel Barnett) who comes to a rural home to take care of a child named Rosalie (Rosalie Cole).

Right away we discover that Rosalie is a problem child who seeks revenge on those that she believes are responsible for the death of her mother.

How does she do this? Well she has some special friends that are walking corpses. By the end of the movie Alicianne and a farmhand find themselves very outnumbered in a final showdown with the walking dead.

Now, I have a ton of questions that the film never answers such as how is Rosalie able to raise the dead, what has her life really been like and how many people has she killed with her friends?

I don't like or dislike this movie. It's what I call a guilty pleasure, because it makes no sense and never really comes together. The leading lady is Laurel Bennett and her acting career lasted only 3 years.

She is an attractive woman, but she cannot this movie on her own. If you get the chance and have never seen this, you may want to check it out. The ending is wild and leaves the viewer wondering what has happened.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Caprice Bourett is 53.

RIP RON ELY 1938-2024

The actor who made Tarzan famous on TV during the 60's has passed away.

Ely's screen career began in 1958 with his role in the movie "South Pacific" and then he was also in "Fiend Who Walked The West" the same year.

His career hit it's stride when he won the role of Tarzan in the TV series that ran for two years 1966-1968. He was the TV Tarzan I grew up with.

He appeard in many other tv shows after Tarzan including "Wonder Woman", "Marcus Welby", "Matt Helm" and "Sheena" just to name a few. Ron Ely passed away on September 29, 2024 at the age of 86.

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN DAY 23: HOUSE THAT WOULDN'T DIE 1970 (TUBI)

This is a TV movie from 1970 that I hadn't seen since it's initial broadcast 54 years ago.

Two women, Ruth Bennett (Barbara Stanwyck) and Sara Dunning (Kitty Winn) buy a new farm house and soon find it's haunted.

There are two ghosts from the Revolutionary War that remain in the home because of a violent crime. A kindly man named Pat McDougal (Richard Egan) tries to seduce Ruth and they actually become very good friends.

One strange thing after another happens and Pat is possessed by the spirit of a man and Sara is possessed by a femal spirit. It turns out that the man killed the woman and her lover and then buried them under the house, thus the house is haunted by all the evil restless spirits.

I love TV movies of the 70's and this one I found to be very entertaining. I have to admit I didn't remember much of it after five decades.

If you want to see it it's streaming on TUBI and in my opinion, if you're a horror fan, it's well worth you time.

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN DAY 22: LAS VEGAS STRANGLER 1968 (VINEGAR SYNDROME) BLU-RAY

Now this was damned weird.

This movie is also known as "No Tears For The Damned" and with either title this film is one of the most bizarre I have seen in a long time.

It has been thought lost for over 50 years, but thanks to VS it has resurfaced.

Gillian Simpson stars as a bar hooker named Lori who dreams of of a better life. Along comes handsome Jeff Murray (Robert Dix) who sweeps her away and marries her.

The trouble starts when Jeff is gone every night and won't touch Lori. Jeff's mother played by June Drake is very happy that Lori is neglected. Things get even more twisted when we discover that Jeff is a killer who strangles whores and homosexuals, and in the case of the women he cuts off part of their very black hair with a huge pair of snippers.

It appears that Jeff's mother made him dress like Little Lord Fauntleroy until he was a teenager and this has driven him over the edge. Lori is disgusted when she follow Jeff one night and sees him making googoo eyes with the male piano player.

Everything comes to a quick climax and the movie seems to just stop. It has no end title card or anything...it just stops.

Now this is one strange film and it was written by Oliver Drake and his wife June. They also brought us the all time classic "Mummy and Curse Of The Jackyls".

I really think you need to see this and experience regional cinema at it's strangest. The rest of the cast includes John "Bud" Cardos, Ewing Brown, Jackie De Witt and Perry Dell.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Suzanne Snyder is 62, and Catherine Deneuve is 81.

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN DAY 21: SPECTERS 1987 (VINEGAR SYNDROME) BLU-RAY

Strange late 80's Italian horror.

The thread bare plot involves a digging that somehow releases a demon who starts haunting and hunting the members of the party which is led by a US professor named Lasky (Donald Pleasense).

You don't see the demon until the final 10 minutes and you barely get a good look at it.

I didn't really understand a lot of what was going on but at least I had Trine Michelsen naked in a few scenes and that made it a bit better. I also really enjoyed seeing Erna Schurer in a small role. That brought back some great memories.

I was hoping for a better film and was disappointed. It just seemed all over the place with the horror angle and then Michelsen's character who was dating a member of Laskey's party.

If you're a fan of later Italian horror you might get a kick out of it. I can't say I didn't like the movie, but I was let down. The ending is what one would expect for any horror film of the era.