Treasure of the Amazon, The (1985)

... aka: Diamonds of the Amazon
... aka: El tesoro del Amazonas
... aka: Greed

Directed by:
René Cardona Jr.

Having been responsible for hundreds of films between them, René Cardona (who passed away in 1988) and his son René Cardona Jr. (who passed away in 2003) were a force to be reckoned with in Mexico. The secret of their success? They both knew it was wise to pay close attention to whatever hot trend was going on at the time to ensure their films were profitable. In 1974, the two worked together (Sr. co-writing and directing; Jr. producing) on the bio-pic La isla de los hombres solos ("The Island of Lost Souls"); which detailed a man's 20-year stint on a brutal prison island. Because of the "based on a true story" angle and the fact the film was based on a popular, best-selling novel, the film went on to break Mexican box office records. Wanting to keep striking while the iron was still hot, the duo would start milking sensationalism for all it was worth. 

They made Survive! (1978), about that 1972 plane crash in the Andes where the survivors were forced to cannibalize each other in order to stay alive, TERROR STORM (1977), which was based on the same story but was set on a boat, Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), which hoped to capitalize on the Jim Jones tragedy, The Bermuda Triangle (1978), a popular "real life" mystery in the late 70s and others. Treasure of the Amazon came late in the game. It too professes to be based on a true story, though I'm not sure what true story they're talking about. The opening titles state "This story is based on actual facts that occurred in 1958 in the depths of the Amazon Jungles of South America." and adds "The action does not take place in a specific country but in a fictitious place." As you read the plot synopsis below, keep the "true story" claims in your mind.

Things begin on a steam boat, where we learn not to try to rob grizzled old Gringo (Stuart Whitman). If you do, you're bound to get your finger cut off and then get tossed overboard where hungry piranha will feast on you. So what has made Gringo such a tough s.o.b.? Years earlier, he and five friends ventured into the jungle on a treasure hunt. Six long years later, a maddened Gringo emerged with the shrunken heads of all of his fellow travelers. Since then he hasn't mellowed out too much, but he is reconsidering risking another jungle trip after two guys he meets on the boat; Zapata (Pedro Armendariz Jr.) and Jairo (Jorge Luke), claim they know where they can find some gold and are in need of an experienced guide.

Meanwhile, pilot Clark (Bradford Dillman), whose idea of a good time is hitting birds with his airplane propellers mid-flight, is escorting prissy Southern belle Barbara (former Miss World Ann Sidney) and her whiny boyfriend Dick (Clark Jarrett) around as they scout for oil. They've been coming up dry, but during one dig, they find a diamond and decide to stick around and see if they can find more. Elsewhere in the jungle, Nazi-in-hiding Klaus von Blantz (Donald Pleasence) is also on the search for treasure. He wants to use his potential findings to "revive the glories of the Third Reich" and has a tough and always-topless female native guide named Morinba (Sonia Infante), who needs money herself because her daughters have been forced into sexual servitude by a horny old slimeball (Emilio 'El Indio' Fernández) she's indebted to. Whew! These three groups of treasure hunters battle the elements, the vicious jungle animals, tribes full of blood-thirsty machete-wielding natives and blowgun-shooting cannibal headhunters and, of course, each other on their quest for riches.

Cardona leaves nothing out of this kitchen sink jungle adventure and moves things along at such a fast quip you never have time to get bored. Seemingly every other shot is of some jungle critter (alligators, snakes, parrots, tarantulas, panthers, leopards, monkeys, pigs, anteaters, you name it) and there's lots of blood and gore (throats slits, heads cut off), various animal attacks (bats, gators, some really strange bugs that suddenly fly out of the water), nudity (mud-covered topless native women in thongs enacting an Amazon wrestling ritual), people eating spiders and snakes, a tied-up man getting eaten alive by a slew of flesh-hungry crabs (!), quicksand, leeches, real animals eating each other and much more.

The cast is also excellent. This has to be the best role Whitman has had in years and he does a great job as the centerpiece for all the action. Pleasence, sporting a terrible German accent, is hysterically funny chewing the scenery and spouting lines like "I've killed many... Yanks... vith... zis...gun." He also gets to spend his last scene suspended from a tree by a hook stuck through his tongue! All of Infante's scenes are performed topless and she clearly doesn't know English at all because she reads all of her dialogue phonetically and with no inflection whatsoever (though it's somewhat fitting for the role of a native guide, I guess). John Ireland (a priest) and Hugo Stiglitz (a riverboat captain) also have small roles. The director's son, René Cardona III (now a prolific director himself), was the second unit director.

Very entertaining and lots of brainless fun's to be had in this one, folks. The ending's great, too. Initially released on video in the U.S. on the All-American label. VCI handled the DVD release.

★★★

Day of the Nightmare (1965)

...aka: Don't Scream, Doris Mays

Directed by:

John A. Bushelman

An impotent transvestite chihuahua killer! If that doesn't pique your interest, I don't know what will. DAY OF THE NIGHTMARE is basically a mix between a nudie and PSYCHO, with a pinch of HOMICIDAL thrown in for good measure. I think it's a bit better and more entertaining than the 4.1 rating on IMDb might suggest. I liked it. The unknown Cliff Fields delivers an outrageously OTT performance as deranged painter Jonathan Crane. He's impotent because his parents were swingers and as a child he walked in on mom doing one of her lovers, who then spanked the voyeuristic little weirdo. Now Johnny gets his jollies by tying up topless models and smacking their bums with a belt until he, uh, well you know. If that isn't entertaining enough, Jonathan is also a schizo who slaps on a cone bra, trench-coat, pageboy wig and sunglasses and goes on a murder spree under his secondary persona, "Doris Mays." Neighbors who spot Doris leaving her apartment think she's just your run-of-the-mill "bull dyke" but no one seems to be able to put two and two together that Cliff and Doris are actually the same person.

Jonathan is married to the sweet but very naive Barbara (Barbara Bain) and she tries to be understanding that her husband is always away on "business." Little does she know, but "business" equals putting on ladies under things, hiring lesbian prostitutes and murdering women who remind him of his impotence! Sometimes when hubby is gone, Barbara is stalked by "Doris," who hangs around outside the home spying on her and eventually sneaks inside her home, attacks her with a knife and chases her around in the woods for about five minutes. Here and there, the film throws in a gratuitous nude scene, such as when three swinger couples put on blindfolds, spin around until they're disoriented and then feel/crawl around the room looking for members of the opposite sex they can start groping (!) Oh yeah, and for some reason "Doris" slays a chihuahua because its barking is annoying her. I can't stand yippy little ankle biters either, so this didn't bother me. The movie is very funny at times and seems just as confused about what it wants to be as Jonathan. There are lots of crazy flashbacks attempting to explain Jonathan's behavior, obligatory psycho-babble and even several surprisingly creepy moments and a bit of suspense. I'm convinced Mr. De Palma watched this before he made DRESSED TO KILL (1980). Both obviously take their cue from PSYCHO, but have a lot in common otherwise, right down to the killer's disguise (the wig, trench coat and sunglasses).

Top-billed John Ireland (an Oscar nominee just fifteen years earlier) "stars" as the lead detective on the case, but his performance is forgettable, and his scenes are boring. John Hart (BLACKENSTEIN) is pretty awful as Jonathan's self-centered psychiatrist father, who sleeps with his female patients. Legendary Liz Renay (of John Waters' DESPERATE LIVING fame) has an uncredited one-scene cameo as one of the dad's lascivious patients. Bette Treadville (who looks like she belongs in a Waters movie) is the 300-pound black maid. And Elena Verdugo (HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) has just one scene as an art agent. Bain was pretty good as the female lead, but the movie is dominated by Fields, who gets to act like an arrogant, eye-rolling jerk as Jonathan, gets to scream and cry when recalling a traumatic childhood with two oversexed parents, and (with help from a female dub-over) gets to act dainty, mannered and feminine as "Doris." It's a shame he didn't get any other starring roles.

The DVD is from Something Weird, who have paired it with another movie called SCREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY (1965). I started watching Scream the other night and it seemed like it might be decent enough to merit a purchase of this disc. It's about an adulterous platinum blonde bikini-clad tramp named Marla (Nelida Lobato) who conspires with her lover to kill her wealthy tycoon husband, who married her after a week-long fling. Seems more noir/thriller than horror, but I'll try to finish it and write a review. It's well shot by Ray Dennis Steckler (R.I.P.) and seems to have pretty amusing dialogue, nude scenes from the busty leading lady, plus a hilarious rip-off of the FROM HERE TO ETERNITY beach scene.

★★1/2

Bloody Movie (1987)

...aka: Terror Night

Directed by:

André de Toth

Nick Marino

1920s film star Lance Hayward is missing to the world at large, but people begin mysteriously dying around his abandoned estate. Three teen couples (including a woman who is a huge fan of the presumably deceased actor) end up going there on an otherwise boring weekend and rummaging through the place. They find old movie props, a locked vault, nitrate movie cans (that come in handy during the fiery finale) and some other interesting things until they start disappearing one by one. There are also a few barely-seen Zoot Suit-wearing phantoms who lurk around the woods and use two cars to pull a guy in half.

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Director Nick Marino's contribution to the 80s slasher cycle does not fully overcome the familiarity of the premise, but stylistically he is trying something a little bit different, beginning with mock silent screen credits and a great song by Ian Whitcomb which is also an effective evocation of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Before each murder, we get a flurry of movie clips from anonymous films and comic-book like shots of movie stills and lobby cards, all edited with quick precision and all tinted monochrome, so it doesn't look as sloppy as it otherwise would have. The clips may also explain why this film did not find a wide release until about fifteen years after it was made (the filmmaker may have come across some copyright problems when using this footage). The special effects are certainly bloody enough and there are a variety of murders here. A man is pulled apart by two cars, a hand is chopped off, someone is impaled on a picket fence and there's a pretty good decapitation (followed by a bloody head on a platter gag). Other deaths involve everything from a bow and arrow to fencing sword. The sets are minimal, but effective.

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However, the screenplay could have definitely used another polish; the stereotyped characters are thrown into the mix with a killer who is not only wholesale boogie-man material but whose motivations and reason for existing are so hopelessly muddled that you never know for sure just what he is or why he is doing what he's doing. The clarity is almost non-existent, but I supposed the man is a ghost since he pops up all over the place and appears in both youthful and elderly forms. But, hell, by the time it's all over with, you can't totally hate this one. After all, somehow it ends up letting the cultured heavy and lone female survivor do some passionate Shakespearian stage work somewhere in limbo!

As with most 80s slasher films, the performances are highly variable. The veterans in the cast all have about one scene each and get through BLOODY MOVIE with a bare minimum of embarrassment. Aldo Ray is a wino who gets a hook in the head, Dan Haggerty is impaled, Cameron Mitchell is a detective who is strangled and hung and Alan Hale, Jr. (The Skipper from Gilligan's Island) is a wide-eyed security guard (and the only one without a death scene). John Ireland receives top billing as the killer, but he doesn't even materialize on-screen until the very end (though to his credit, it is still a creepy cameo). Of the younger cast, we have some familiar genre regulars, William Butler (LEATHERFACE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake), Ken Abraham (CREEPOZOIDS), Carla Baron and John Stuart Wildman (both from SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-O-RAMA), and Denise Stafford (who apparently is a porn actress who goes by the name Jamie Summers). Though leading lady Staci Greason (who played the first victim in FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART VII) is quite good and gives the most professional showing of the younger cast, it is Michelle Bauer who steals this film away from her co-stars with a full blown comedic performance. She carries on quite capably here and nails the most laughs as a drunken punker chick who ends up stumbling her way through the mansion with her annoying biker boyfriend before getting whipped and pushed down a flight of stairs. It's actually one of her very best roles, making this delayed DVD release an important one in keeping her cult legacy alive. I also appreciate the filmmakers for having the common sense to keep her around until near the end. Though I am sad to report that sleaze movie great Jay Richardson, who is in just as many of the schlock horror films as Michelle, is barely visible as one of the forest-lurking phantoms.

Originally titled TERROR NIGHT, this was worked on by a lot of prolific and familiar Z-movie production people. It was co-scripted by Kenneth J. Hall (who also helped cast the film), was co-produced by Nancy Paloian (DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?) and shot by Howard Wexler. The special effects are by Cleve Hall (who was also the 2nd unit director, along with porn purveyor Fred J. Lincoln) and John Vulich helped shoot and edit it. Given special thanks in the end credits are André de Toth (who lent directorial assist to Marino), David DeCoteau and Fred Olen Ray.

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★★1/2

Satan's Cheerleaders (1977)

Directed by:

Greydon Clark

Benedict High cheerleaders Patti (Kerry Sherman), Chris (Hillary Horan), Debbie (Alisa Powell) and Sharon (Sherry Marks) stick by their motto "All for one and one for all!" Not because they believe in power in numbers but because between the four of them, they may have a cumulative I.Q. above the mental retardation bracket. These eternally giggly gals have to be four of the dumbest, sluttiest bimbos ever to (dis)grace a horror film and every sentence that comes out their mouth just has to have some sort of sexual double-meaning. If you view this movie, you will have the names of these rah rah girls permanently etched in your brain, partially because they are four of the most inane tramps on celluloid, but mainly because you have to sit through 90-some odd minutes of them running around in circles in the middle of the woods with their names plastered across their skin-tight sweaters. After wasting an hour on standard drive-in filler (chicken and balloon fights, toilet papering, showering, messing with football players, beach volleyball, etc.), the four ladies, plus their idiot tattletale coach Ms. Johnson ("I'm telling the principal!," "I'll tell your wife!"...), become stranded in the sticks after their van breaks down and run afoul on sheriff John Ireland's rural Satanic cult. He, wife Yvonne De Carlo (as a devil priestess who stares at everyone), devil-worshipping monk Sydney Chaplin (no doubt the comedic high point of the entire film) and others plot to find a sacrificial virgin amongst them. "Hey man, I'm not a virgin... I'm a cheerleader!" Good luck with this group, eh? Aiding the bad guys in their attempt to round up the cheerleaders are a pair of killer Dobermans named Lucifer and Diablo. The ubiquitous John Carradine also puts in an appearance as drunk bum.

Not surprisingly, this silly cult item was a drive-in hit. It's full of stupid laughs, porn grade laser beam sound effects, reliable camping from the pros in the cast and some truly hideous songs ("Push it back...push it back...waaaaay back”). For awhile, this film was rated PG (it has a lot less nudity and violence than one would expect), but it was later re-rated R. The director returned with the memorable all-star alien hunter film WITHOUT WARNING (1980), the atomic killer kitty flick UNINVITED (1987) and other dumb-fun features.

★★