Uninvited (1987)

Directed by:
Greydon Clark

I have a couple of cats of my own and it seems like I'm constantly cleaning gunk up off the floor that's left behind by my furry little buddies. The fluffy orange kitty in UNINVITED has a similar problem... but instead of hacking up hairballs or excess food, it occassionally goes buck wild and pukes up a tiny-but-deadly mutant creature that's taking refuge inside its belly! Why? Dunno. But it did escape from a government research lab and the scientists there mention cancer research, which we horror fans know always spells trouble. As the cat runs around, some other shady things are going on at a resort area during Spring Break. A trio of murderous criminals; hard-assed grump Mike (George Kennedy), womanizer Walter (Alex Cord) and goofy drunk Albert (Clu Gulager, with a set of oversized dentures) swindle three million dollars and plot to get away on a yacht to be captained by a one-woman crew named Rachel (Toni Hudson). A couple of oblivious young bimbos - Suzanne (Shari Shattuck) and Bobbie (Clare Carey) - end up catching Walter's eye and he invites them to come along on the trip. The ladies, in turn, invite three other guys; Corey (Rob Estes) and Lance (Beau Dremann) and brainy Martin (Eric Larson), and right before they get on board the ship, they find the cat. Suzanne instantly falls in love with it and insist it come along, too. Mr. Kennedy isn't too happy about any of this. But then again, he never is.
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Tensions mount between the criminals and the others after an attempted rape and things just get worse when mutant kitty starts attacking and killing everyone off one by one. Even a scratch from the little sucker leads to a nasty and fatal infection where the wounds pulsate and explode. Surprisingly, all this somehow managed to secure a PG-13 rating. Though there's no nudity or over-the-top profanity, the film does have enough violence and blood to seriously put its rating into question. Veins swell and squirt blood, fingers are bitten off, a face is melted off with hot steam and a neck and ankle get chewed up real good. Of the three veterans in the cast, two make an early exit, but Kennedy is pretty hilarious while he's around. Shattuck (previously seen in DEATH SPA) also seems to be having fun. Strangely, the two worst actors end up being the last two standing. Boo on that.
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Still, for 80s cheese movie fans, the premise and handpuppet cat creature alone merit this a look. Director Clark (who also wrote, produced and has a cameo during the opening sequence) might not be a genre luminary, but he does come up with some amusingly absurd concepts (see also: SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS and WITHOUT WARNING). Austin Stoker appears in a small role. Dick Warlock and Spice Williams were stunt performers.
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★ SBIG

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.

★★

Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971)

...aka: Blood Freaks

...aka: Blood of Frankenstein

...aka: Blood Seekers, The

...aka: Revenge of Dracula, The

...aka: Satan's Bloody Freaks

...aka: Teenage Dracula

Directed by:

Al Adamson

THE BLOOD SEEKERS was Al Adamson's unfinished gore epic (well... actually it started life as a biker flick, but that's a long story...) filmed in 1969. He decided to shoot framing scenes adding the whole Dracula/ Frankenstein angle in 1971, and the whole package goes as follows... Mad Dr. Frankenstein (J. Carroll Naish) is busy at work reconstructing dead bodies while retarded manservant Groton (Lon Chaney, Jr.) spends most of the time whimpering and petting a puppy. When the doctor injects Groton with a special serum it transforms him into a lurking, laughing, sweating, beach-bunny-decapitating, axe murderer. The cops are already after them, but even more troubles arise when the echo-voiced Count Dracula (Zandor Vorkov) arrives and blackmails the mad doc into resurrecting the Frankenstein monster and giving him the blood of his victims! Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, a lounge singer (Regina Carroll) performs a lounge act called "She Travels Light." They try to make it look like it's a big production number by filming it in a large auditorium, but we only see an audience of about four people. Miss Carrol gets news of her sister's disappearance and heads off to Venice Beach looking for answers. She goes to a club, is slipped LSD in her coffee, has a substandard 70s trip out scene, then teams up with three hippies (led by Anthony Eisley) to find out what's going on.

Possibly Adamson's most famous film, and even though it's cheap, silly, trashy and completely nonsensical, there's enough going on here (and an interesting enough cast) to qualify it as a must see to die-hard horror fans. The cast is just overloaded with familiar faces. Aside from those already mentioned, Russ Tamblyn, Jim Davis, Forrest J. Ackerman (who plays a victim and also credited as the "technical advisor"), Angelo Rossitto, Gary Kent (also the assistant director and one of the make-up fx artists) and other swell folks appear. Future director Greydon Clark (of SATAN'S CHERRLEADERS fame) also has a small role, as does cinematographer Gary Graver, who also shot this one. The executive producer was Mardi Rustam, who also produced PSYCHIC KILLER (1975) and Hooper's EATEN ALIVE (1977). If none of these names are ringing a bell or if you're just not interested, then chances are you aren't going to be very amused by what you see here.

Not to be confused with 1969's Waldemar Daninsky opus LOS MONSTRUOS DEL TERROR (aka ASSIGNMENT TERROR aka DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN) or Jess Franco's goofy DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN (1972 aka SCREAMING DEAD aka DRACULA VS. DR. FRANKENSTEIN). Another side note - Some nudity and violence seem to have been removed so it could pass with a PG rating.

★★