Ghostess with the Mostess, The (1988)

... aka: Alex de Renzy's The Ghostess with the Mostess

Directed by:
Alex de Renzy

If you'd asked me who my favorite director was fifteen years ago, I may have said Tim Burton. PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985), BEETLE JUICE (1988), EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990) and ED WOOD (1994) were some of my most-watched and beloved movies as a kid. Unfortunately, my interest in Mr. Burton has decreased significanly and steadily ever since MARS ATTACKS! (1996). As Burton's budgets started to skyrocket, his output suddenly became cold, noisy and impersonal exercises in elaborate art direction and overblown special effects. His films have always been impressive to look at, but his newer films come off as hollow and heartless once you look beneath the surface. Of Burton's earlier work, the highly imaginative horror-comedy BEETLE JUICE was always my favorite. It involved a good-hearted couple who just so happen to be newly-dead and, as ghosts, attempt to amicably share their home with an obnoxious, pretentious couple of artiste's and their misunderstood Goth daughter. When co-habitation fails, the ghost couple enlist the aid of the titular disgusting poltergeist to help scare off the new family. The film was a pretty big hit and received Oscar nominations. It also spawned this porno parody. For the record, so did Edward Scissorhands (See: EDWARD PENISHANDS 1, 2 or 3).

Instead of a the eccentric family found in Burton's film, here we get a dysfunctional family moving into a new house that's suspiciously cheap. Dad Joe (Joey Silvera) is carrying on a not-so-secret affair with their bitchy, demanding Cuban maid Consuela (Tanya Foxx). Mom Goldie (Aja) is being sexually neglected, while son Jeffrey (Tom Byron) is just left out of the mix with a copy of Hustler to keep him company. Instead of the good-hearted ghost couple, here we get a good-hearted, fun-loving swinger ghost couple; Charlie (Randy Spears) and his ghost girlfriend (Eva Allen as "Marlena Bond"), who I don't think was ever given a name. They're most interested in one-upping each other in who they can have sex with; I guess to see who is the 'ghostess with the mostess'. Charlie makes a b line to mom's bedroom, while the female ghost heads after Jeffrey. The next day, Consuela is possessed and has sex with Jeffrey while he eats rice crispies. And finally, we have the spin on the seance scene, with Dr. Goody Twoshoes (Blake Palmer), his psychic sidekick Fifi (Dana Lynn) and some other chick (an uncredited Lisa Bright) added to the works for a group number.

Ghostess delivers on the sex with a (mostly) attractive and enthusiastic cast who seem to be enjoying themselves. Male star Randy Spears of course has been an adult film mainstay for the past twenty-five years and has, according to IMDb, amassed over 1000 acting credits (!) as of this writing. He's also tried his hand at crossing over into mainstream films by appearing in Chuck Vincent's thriller BAD BLOOD (1989), doing voice work on the TV series American Dad and popping up in many of Fred Olen Ray's recent soft-core films. Aja (born Barbara Holder) was very popular during her four-year career in adult films (having made 80 films in that time) and is often regarded as one of the most naturally beautiful women ever to do adult films. Silvera just recently entered his fourth decade (!) as an adult film star and has directed several hundred of them himself. And of course, it's nearly impossible to watch one of these things without bumping into Tom Byron, who's a pretty terrible actor and not much to look at either but is also still going strong in porn and has an astouding 1500+ credits. Co-star Eva Allen, someone I'm not at all familiar with, was something of a nice surprise. She's extremely vibrant and pleasant in her role, though her career in the adult industry ended after just a few years.

The biggest surprise of all is that much of this material is actually pretty funny. Intentionally so. Even the dialogue during the sex scenes is funny. It's actually funnier than most R-rated horror comedies I've seen. The film works OK as a semi-spoof of Burton's film, following that film's plotline fairly closely, and also throws in a few horror references (there's an EXORCIST joke, a Freddy Krueger poster on the wall...) There are no visual effects in the film aside from some cheap *Boing*-Pops-The-Ghost cuts, but it's competently shot on video and colorful-looking.

If I've noticed any trend in adult films since the age of the internet, it's not only that it's not even necessary for adult films to even be films anymore, but that the sex itself has generally learned more in the direction of degradation and 'extreme' acts. Seeing an older porn like this one, with lots of laughing and smiling, and even glimmers of personality from the performers, marks a sharp contrast to the anonymous direction the genre has gone in recent years.

★★1/2

La horripilante bestia humana (1969)

... aka: Gomar: The Human Gorilla
... aka: Horror and Sex
... aka: Horror y sexo
... aka: Night of the Bloody Apes

Directed by:
René Cardona

Guilt-stricken female grappler Lucy Ossorio (Norma Lazareno) feels she's to blame when she throws opponent Elena Gomez (Noelia Noel) out of the ring and fractures her skull. Well here's some news for you, Lucy: You are to blame! Elena gets an operation to remove a sliver of bone from her brain and remains in critical condition, while her surgeon Dr. Krallman (José Elías Moreno) has some problems of his own. His son Julio (Agustín Martinez Solares) has been stricken down with a mysterious and incurable form of leukemia. Krallman's colleagues tell him Julio's days are numbered, so the doc must resort to extreme measures to try to save him. He and his very dedicated, limping assistant Goyo (Carlos López Moctezuma) promptly head to the zoo, tranquilize an ape (well actually it's an orangutan that transforms to a man-in-a-suit-ape after they sedate it), bring it back to their basement lab and then perform the first ever ape-to-man heart transplant. Julio rapidly recovers from the operation and feels no pain... but then the side effects kick in as he transforms into a barrel-chested ape-faced monster. After his first transformation, Julio escapes from the lab, scales a building and surprises a woman just coming out of the shower. After unsuccessfully trying to rape her, he pummels her to death. Krallman and Goyo manage to track Julio down, tranquilize him again and bring him back home for further study.

While the monster is out cold, the doctor and assistant decide they need a fresh human heart and head to the hospital to swipe Elena since "she'll be an idiot, anyway" because of her injuries. While they're away, Julio in monster form manages to escape again, heads to a park and ambushes a couple sitting on bench; ripping the guy's throat out and ripping the dress off the woman. The monkey-man then goes on a mini-rampage; stabbing a guy to death and popping out another's eyeball with his fingers. He's captured (again), taken back the the lab (for the second time) and then given a brand new heart (oh, here we go again), but history repeats itself as the creature escapes (again) and runs amuck (once more). It uses its bare hands to rip off a head and scalp another guy before transforming back to human Julio. He's rushed off to the hospital, transforms again, grabs a little girl and ends up in a rooftop police stand-off.

It's pretty familiar territory for prolific director René Cardona, as he'd already made four 'Las Luchadoras' (female wrestler) action-horror films prior to this one. Still, there's an obvious reason Bloody Apes (a semi-remake of the Cardona's DOCTOR OF DOOM) is the most famous and was the best-distributed of all these titles. That's because it's extremely gory and trashy for its time. The film was notorious way-back-when for using gruesome, graphic footage from an actual open heart surgery to supply the "effects" for the transplant scenes. Those scenes plus four different instances of nudity and some additional gore had initially been cut from both the theatrical and VHS versions of the film. It's all restored on the DVD and these scenes give the film an exploitative punch that's sorely lacking in most other '60s Mexican productions.

Of course, this is an incredibly ridiculous - though never unentertaining - little film. The dubbed dialogue is horrendous, the effects are primitive, some of the editing is choppy and the premise itself (devised by the director and his director son René Cardona Jr.) is clearly too absurd for words. At one point, Dr. Krallman does attempt to explain the science behind how putting an ape heart into a human results in the creation of a monster, but that only succeeds in making it even more confusing. So apparently...

"The heart of a gorilla is much too potent for any human and the volume of blood to the cerebrum, which couldn't control this great pressure, damaged to the superior parts and when this happens man becomes an animal completely without control, giving origin to the transmutation."

If you can make heads or tails of that explanation (delivered... with... frequent... pauses...), then you're clearly on something. Interestingly, the director seems most influenced by Frankenstein (the monster has an affinity for children) and King Kong (the beast scaling tall buildings to get to a chica).

Some important things have been compromised here to make room for the blood 'n' boobs, most notably in regards to our heroine Lucy, who's actually not the heroine at all (she's also not the lead, despite her star billing). In Cardona's other wrestling women films, the ladies at least get to take part in the action (including fist-fighting with men and helping to destroy monsters), while here our leading lady isn't all that tough (she gets her ass handed back over to her in her second match because she's too 'scared' of injuring her opponent) and has absolutely nothing to do with the main storyline. In fact, most of her scenes are just filler. Lucy does know how to shower, though. She's so good at it, she does it three times. And she's rather adept at nude phone conversations as well, but other than that the character is almost entirely disposable. Reflecting back on the ape man's rampage she dryly dismisses things, "It's unfortunate. Really sad." Even her detective boyfriend, played by Armando Silvestre (traditionally more of a support character in wrestling women flicks) gets more to do that she does. Then again, I guess this isn't an official Luchadoras movie for a reason.

The DVD release from Something Weird pairs the film with the Argentinean effort FEAST OF FLESH (aka The Deadly Organ); appropriate since the two films played on a double-bill in theaters. It includes three minutes of Night of the Bloody Apes outtakes, theatrical trailers, TV spots, a "Ghastly Gallery of Ghoulish Comic Cover Art," the short subjects Gorilla and the Maiden, Artist's Paradise, White Gorilla and much more.

★★1/2

La porta sul buio: Il vicino di casa (1973) [filmed in 1971] (TV)

... aka: Dario Argento's Door Into Darkness: The Neighbor
... aka: Door Into Darkness: The Neighbor
... aka: Neighbor, The
... aka: Vicino di casa, Il

Directed by:
Luigi Cozzi
Because of the international box office success of THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1969), which garnered Hitchcock comparisons from some critics, and THE CAT O' NINE TAILS (1970), which did fairly well in Italy, RAI (Italy's only TV channel at the time) brought director Dario Argento on board to host, produce, sometimes write or direct and generally oversee the horror / suspense tales on the series La porta sul buio ("Door Into Darkness"). It's hard to say with any certainty what the ratings were like, but they apparently weren't impressive enough to extend the series beyond just four episodes. However, that may have more to do with the fact that the episodes were filmed in 1971 (while Argento was working on FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET) but not actually released until September 1973. Either way, this four-episode series, with episodes contributed by Luigi Cozzi (an assistant and writer on Four Flies), Mario Foglietti (who wrote the story for Four Flies), Roberto Pariante (the assistant director on both Bird and Four Flies) and Argento himself is worth checking out, especially for fans of 'The Italian Hitchcock' and giallo thrillers. They're all reasonably budgeted, run about an hour each, contain equal parts mystery and terror and (regardless of credited director) have Argento's distinctive stamp on them.


Surrounded by cameras, Argento himself opens Il vicino di casa ("The Neighbor") by introducing the series, claiming all of the episodes are "directed by different people, yet pervaded with a common atmosphere." He also explains the title "Door Into Darkness" is meant to allude to people's fear of the unknown. In a clever segue into the actual story, we then see Argento standing by a broken down car. He hitches a ride from a young, happily-married couple; Luca (Aldo Reggiani) and Stefania (Laura Belli), who drop him off where he needs to go and go about their way. The film then follows the couple. Excited about starting their new life, Luca (a monster-movie-loving writer for a kid's magazine) and Stefania (new mother to their infant son) have just rented the bottom portion of a beachfront duplex and arrive there at nightfall before any of their utilities have been turned on, deciding to just rough it for one night. Well actually, they don't have much of a choice since they get their car stuck in some mud. Luca has a battery-operated TV, so they settle down for a viewing of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN... little realizing their upstairs neighbor Alberto (Mimmo Palmara) has just murdered his wife.


Because of some water leaking in through their ceiling, Luca and Stefania head upstairs to inform their neighbors and end up discovering the corpse of the wife in the bathtub. After unsuccessfully trying to get their car out, and knowing their friend will be arriving with their furniture in the morning anyway, the couple decide to stick it out until then and just lock themselves inside their apartment and wait for dawn. Unexpected problems arise after Luca realizes he's left his lighter upstairs (oops!) and must venture up there to retrieve it...



Overall, a nicely-done little suspense tale. It was the first episode aired and, according to its director, was Argento's personal favorite of the lot. Hell, it might actually be the best thing Luigi Cozzi ever made; not so surprising when you realize this is the guy behind such films as the schlocky spaghetti space opera STAR CRASH (1979), the critically panned 1983 version of HERCULES with Lou Ferrigno and the extremely silly female-rock-band-goes-to-hell tale PAGANINI HORROR (1989). There's moody lighting, some interesting directorial touches, likable lead characters and a tall, creepy and enigmatic psycho (who eventually plots to bury his new neighbors alive!). As a added bonus, there's some elaborate camerawork. One unbroken shot begins inside a home, exits through the window, trails along the outside of the house to the beach and ends up at the protagonists car. There's also an interesting back-of-the-legs-while-walking shot from the point of view of someone being carried over the killer's shoulder and some images seen in negative.

All four "Door Into Darkness" episodes; Argento's THE TRAM, Pariente's EYEWITNESS, Foglietti's THE DOLL and this one, have been released to DVD on 2 disc sets from three different companies; Dragon Entertainment, Mya Communications and No Shame. The one I saw was from Dragon and includes German or English subtitles (which do not seem to cover all of the dialogue) and interviews with Argento and Cozzi. Sadly, the original film elements of all four episodes are missing, forcing them to use the lesser-quality RAI TV video masters. Since Dragon released only 3,000 copies of the box, it's been out of print for some time now.

★★★

La porta sul buio: Testimone oculare (1973) [filmed in 1971] (TV)

... aka: Dario Argento's Door Into Darkness: Eyewitness
... aka: Door Into Darkness: Eyewitness
... aka: Eyewitness
... aka: Testimone oculare

Directed by:
Dario Argento (uncredited)
Roberto Pariante

Impressed with the box office success of his horror-thrillers THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1969) and CAT O' NINE TAILS (1970), RAI (the only television channel in Italy at the time) brought director Dario Argento on board to host, produce, sometimes write or direct and generally oversee the horror / suspense tales on their proposed series La porta sul buio ("Door Into Darkness"). I've seen conflicting stories about whether or not the ratings for the series were any good, but I'm doubtful they were through the roof or this probably would have lasted more than four episodes. Argento brought along some of his colleagues to help with the series, including Luigi Cozzi (an assistant and writer on Four Flies), Mario Foglietti (who wrote the story for Four Flies) and Roberto Pariante (the assistant director on all three of Argento's earliest genre films), each of whom directed an episode, along with Argento himself. All of the tales are reasonably budgeted, run about an hour in length and contain equal parts mystery and terror. Each (regardless of the director) also has that distinctive Argento stamp on it when it comes to the presentation, camerawork and score.

Roberta Leoni (Marilù Tolo) is driving down a barren stretch of country road late at night when a woman jumps out in front of her car. She doesn't hit the girl but upon examining the body, Roberta notices the woman has been shot in the back... and whoever did it is creeping out of the bushes with a gun. Roberta manages to get away and runs to a nearby tavern. The police show up to interview Roberta and take her back to the scene of the crime. There, it's explained to her that they've found no body, no blood and no evidence of any crime having been committed. The best Inspector Rocchi (Glauco Onorato) can do is check missing persons records until he's able to get some concrete evidence. Roberta's husband Guido (Riccardo Salvino) is also skeptical of his wife's story. The two go out to celebrate their anniversary, and return home only to find that an intruder has broken in but not actually stolen anything. While Roberta is out shopping the next day, someone attempts to kill her by pushing her in front of a truck. She's also been receiving phone calls where the caller hangs up right after she answers. Despite Roberta's nail-biting, chain-smoking, neurotic behavior, Inspector Rocchi comes to the conclusion that she's not crazy and promises to help her, but there's not much he can actually do.

While her husband is out and Roberta is all alone in their isolated home, she receives yet another threatening phone call. The voice on the other end tells her, "You've gone too far... Now I'm coming over to kill you!" Before she even has a chance to phone the police, the killer cuts her phone line. Thankfully, Guido returns home just in the nick of time. He comes up with a plan to hide his car to trick the killer into thinking Roberta is all alone, then when the killer's about to strike, he'll emerge from the darkness and shoot them. But things don't end up going quite as planned. At least for Roberta.

For the most part, this is a well-made and well-acted thriller. There's some suspense and decent camerawork, including good use of POV shots and one Argento-esque one sitting behind a tea cup on a tray as it approaches Roberta. Though the sole director credit for Testimone oculare goes to Pariante, apparently Argento directed most of this episode himself, sans credit. It was written by Argento and Luigi Cozzi, who unfortunately throw a wet blanket over the proceedings at the very end with a predictable twist ending that everyone except the leading lady can probably see coming from about the twenty-minute mark.

All four "Door Into Darkness" episodes (Argento's The Tram, Cozzi's THE NEIGHBOR and Foglietti's THE DOLL and this one) have been released to DVD on a 2 disc sets from three different companies; Dragon Entertainment, Mya Communications and No Shame. The one I saw was from Dragon and includes German or English subtitles (which do not seem to cover all of the dialogue) and interviews with Argento and Cozzi (who claims in his interview that Argento had to step and reshoot most of this segment because he was unhappy with what Pariante had done). Sadly, the original film elements of all four episodes are missing, forcing them to use the lesser-quality RAI TV video masters.

★★1/2

Zombi 2 (1979)

... aka: Island of the Flesh-Eaters
... aka: Island of the Living Dead
... aka: Zombie
... aka: Zombie 2: The Dead Are Among Us
... aka: Zombie Flesh Eaters
... aka: Zombies 2

Directed by:
Lucio Fulci

In 1978, George A. Romero revolutionized horror cinema with his trend-setting classic DAWN OF THE DEAD. Filmed on a modest budget independently in Pennsylvania, the movie combined solid direction, sophisticated storytelling and until-then unseen levels of gore to become a huge international hit, despite the fact it played theaters with a self-applied X-rating. It also pulled off the impossible by getting positive [and most certainly deserved] critical notices across the board, even from the majority of critics reputed to have a strong distaste for the genre. So it's not surprising that many other filmmakers across the globe tried to cash-in, particularly in Europe. This Italian effort by Lucio Fulci was one of the first to do so and went on to become one of the most famous of all the copycats, possibly because it was released overseas as an actual sequel to Romero's film; Dawn was titled Zombi, Zombie was titled Zombi 2. Though the films share the slow, shambling, flesh-eating resurrected dead and high levels of gore (plus snippets of the same score), the similarities pretty much end there. Absent are Romero's sharp satire and humor, his relatable and enjoyable characterizations, the sweeping, increasingly hopeless apocalyptic tone and the deftly-directed action and horror sequences. Fulci's film is a dirtier, grittier, more primitive affair, which drops anything substantive and gets right down to basics.

The film opens as a seemingly unoccupied little boat washes into New York Harbor. When a couple of police officers go to investigate, they're promptly attacked by a zombie, who rips one of their throats open before being shot and falling into the water. Anne (Tisa Farrow) becomes concerned because the boat came from the same desolate tropical island her scientist father (whom she's lost contact with) is doing research. She, along with reporter Peter (Ian McCulloch) decide to head to the island to investigate. They charter a boat from Brian (Al Cliver) and his girlfriend Susan (Auretta Gay) and before the four even arrive at their destination, they're already being attacked by zombies. During one of the film's most memorable scenes, while Susan's deep underwater scuba diving, she comes face to face with a flesh-eater. Thankfully, the attack is thwarted by a shark that rips the zombie's arm off! Our heroes finally arrive at the island and act like complete dunderheads while the living dead start popping up all over the place. We're also introduced to some more thinly-defined fodder along the way, including Richard Johnson as the mad doctor type responsible for creating the zombie plague, Olga Karlatos (who'd star in Fulci's MURDEROCK a few years later) as his hysterical wife, Stefania D'Amario (NIGHTMARE CITY) as a nurse and Dakar (ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST) as an island native.

Though no match for the Romero zombie film responsible for its very existence, this isn't without its own redeeming qualities. For starters, some of the zombie designs are really good, including the maggot-faced chap who winded up on the poster. The film is also filled with gore, including a now-famous bit where Karlatos gets her eyeball skewered in close-up by a jagged piece of wood. Flesh chewed out of necks, arms and legs spray blood all over the place, and there are heads being shot, a dismemberment, guts and more. The island is a nice setting for one of these things, the low-budget look of the film is also something of an accidental plus that contributes to the film's grimy atmosphere and there's an excellent score from Goblin. On the down side, the script is pretty awful; there's next to no plot, the dialogue is terrible and there are no characters to root for or care about. In fact, they all pretty much behave like morons the entire time, including standing around for minutes at a time watching zombie accumulate around them.

The film was co-written by the prolific Dardano Sacchetti, who had his name removed from the credits after his father passed away (he found it a little distasteful to have his name attached to a living dead flick at the time).

Because of Zombie's success in theaters, Fulci would continue mining the zombie well for the rest of his career (sometimes adding supernatural slants to the stories) with such releases as THE GATES OF HELL (1980), THE BEYOND (1981) and THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981). Just as Zombie had been re-tited Zombi 2 in Europe, other unrelated films were re-titled for home video to create a bogus "zombie" series. The title ZOMBIE 3 was used for a troubled production partially directed by Fulci in 1987 (Review RIGHT HERE), the sleazy BURIAL GROUND (1980) and at least three (!) other films. There are at least three different movies which have used the title ZOMBIE 4 (including THIS ONE). Jess Franco's REVENGE IN THE HOUSE OF USHER (1979 aka Nervosus) was released as ZOMBIE 5 (but so was a 1987 film originally called THE KILLING BIRDS) and Joe D'Amato's MONSTER HUNTER (a follow up to his ANTHROPOPHAGOUS aka THE GRIM REAPER) was issued on VHS as ZOMBIE 6 at one point. It's just as confusing as the "Demons" series.

★★1/2

Cape Canaveral Monsters, The (1960)

Directed by:
Phil Tucker

Phil Tucker, mastermind behind the notorious stinker ROBOT MONSTER (1953), strikes again! A couple leaving the beach are possessed by a pair of alien beings (represented by tiny specks of "green" light), who cause them to wreck their car and one of them to lose a limb. The aliens - Hauron (Jason Johnson) and Nadja (Katherine Victor) - hide out in a secret cave laboratory and have several chief objectives while on Earth. For starters, Hauron needs a new arm after the car wreck and a failed attempt to just sew it on (a dog ends up ripping if off), which gives them an opportunity to experiment with limb, bone and skin transplants; using unwilling victims as their guinea pigs, of course. Second, they've been given orders to sabotage NASA and prevent any rockets from leaving the planet, which means Hauron gets to frequently blast them out of the sky with his huge (looks like a rocket launcher) photon gun. And finally, the aliens are plotting to eventually invade the Earth and take over, so they'd first like to get to know and understand humans just a little bit better. They achieve this through observation, drilling captives with questions and then sticking them in their cryogenic capsule, freezing them and sending them back to their home planet for research.

Meanwhile, NASA scientists can't seen to figure out why their rockets keep exploding soon after take-off. Student and brilliant young mathematician Tom Wright (Scott Peters) decides to try to get to the bottom of things. But first, he'd like to have coffee with cute co-worker Sally (Linda Connell), the daughter of one of his superiors, German scientist Dr. Heinrich Von Hoften (Billy Greene), who objects to the union and mixing business with pleasure. Nevertheless, the two lovebirds, along with their pals Bob (Gary Travis) and Shirley (Thelaine Williams) start sneaking off to Lover's Lane for some late night romance. Shirley and Bob get kidnapped and taken back to the cave, where Bob becomes an unwilling arm and chin donor to help repair Hauron and Shirley is injected with sedative, dressed in a metallic sheet, given the alien equivalent of electro convulsive shock therapy and is frozen alive in preparation for being shipped off to the alien's planet. It isn't long before Tom and Sally also find themselves being held against their will, as their colleagues and some police officers scour the beaches and hills trying to locate them.

It's low-budget, some of the dialogue is silly (ditto for the 'science'), there's a really bad attempt at a foreign accent and the ending is weak (I'll get to that here in a sec), but this is still a pretty fun little diversion. I particularly liked the fact that the male alien is the slightly more compassionate of the two and wants to have pleasant conversations with humans while the female alien is colder, more evil and just wants to get down to business. The movie is also jam-packed with alien gadgets. In addition to the aforementioned photon gun and the cryogenics tube, the aliens use a device with a spinning translucent plate to communicate with their planet and a radium light to pin people to the wall. They also booby trap the cave with some kind of device that suspends people in their tracks, blast the cops with a "paralysis ray" and have a vat of bubbling goo nearby that's a portal back home.

Canadian-born Scott Peters (born Peter Sikorski) had already appeared in such Z-movie classics as THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN (1957), INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN (1957) and ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE (1958) when he appeared in this one. Though he's about ten years too old for the role of a young science prodigy, he's likable and amiable enough. Plus he gets the film's best line: "I think with a little help we can lick these freaks!" Johnson and Victor are pretty amusing as the stone-faced aliens. Ms. Victor (born Katena Ktenavea) was a decent actress adept at playing villainess' and fairly well-known to cult cinema fans for her appearances in MESA OF LOST WOMEN (1952), TEENAGE ZOMBIES (1957) and a half-dozen films for Jerry Warren. In her later years, she kept steadily employed with Disney, doing continuity coordinator for such animated TV shows as Tail Spin, Darkwing Duck, Quack Pack, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and many others. Most of the other cast members' film careers began and ended right here, though there's a long-standing (and incorrect) rumor that director Al Adamson is also in it.

Now back to that ending... I suppose you might want to skip this paragraph if you don't want it spoiled. Our heroes manage to escape the cave before it explodes. The aliens on the other hand had already transformed back into light specks and returned to their planet minutes earlier. Since the alien duo had already mentioned they're planning to takeover the Earth, it felt kind of half-assed and incomplete for the leads and their rescuers to just walk off into the sunset acting carefree. Especially with the knowledge that they're going to have to face more of these alien fiends sometime in the near future. I don't mind it having an open ending per se, but I thought it would awesome if after exiting the cave our heroes looked up into the sky and it was filled with light specks. That would have been an awesome and affordable apocalyptic ending instead of just completely leaving us hanging!

I might be overrating this by some people's standards, as it's usually written off as laughable schlock of par with the director's other, more-famous sci-fi turkey. I simply don't agree at all with that assessment. It's enjoyable, entertaining and with a run time of just 69 minutes, it moves at a good pace without the need for too much filler.

★★1/2