Salamamgkero (1986)

... aka: A Incrível Viagem no Universo Encantado (Incredible Journey Into the Enchanted Universe)

... aka: Magician, The
... aka: Magic of the Universe
... aka: Monster of the Universe

Directed by:
Tata Esteban

At a circus, world renowned magician Professor Jamir (Michael De Mesa) makes his young daughter Freza (Sunshine) disappear. Unfortunately, he cannot get her back regardless of how many times he says "Kazaam!" or "Kaboom!" Freza has somehow vanished into thin air without a trace. Desperate for answers, Jamir and his wife Lovina (Tanya Gomez), accompanied by their pudgy young stage assistant Bojok (Tom Tom), make a trip deep into the jungle to consult prophet / sorcerer Master Ahura (Turko Cervantes). Ahura immediately informs them they're all in grave danger from demonic forces. He sends his assistant outside to decapitate a monkey, makes everyone eat raw monkey brains, chants and then speaks in the missing girl's voice. She reveals that she is in trouble but doesn't elaborate any upon that. Hardly information worthy of having to consume raw monkey brains to get if you ask me. Jamir and company decide to take their act to the road in their awesome decked out bus, which has a large monkey head fastened to the grill. During his next act in a small village, Jamir's entire audience and his wife all mysteriously vanish during his "Swords of Death" routine. Just what in the hell is going on? Read on, dear friends...

So as it turns out, Jamir's long-deceased great grandfather Lolo Omar (also played by De Mesa) is at the root of the problem. 100 years earlier he cursed one of his disciples, a witch named Mikula (Armida Siguion Reyna), who was banished for misusing her powers for her own evil gain. Mikula was turned infertile and has had to live the past century holed up in her castle lair with a giant throbbing forehead. Now she wants to enact her revenge against poor innocent Jamir and his family and, while she's at it, put the whole world under her diabolical control. Helping her in her schemes are a flamboyant half monkey / half man named Tumok (Rene Johnson), gold-painted muscleman and executioner Krug (Rex Roldan) and a dozen or so snorting, rubbery, pig-like ghouls. They all use Globo, a buck-tooth magic mirror that looks like a cross between a crustacean and a bunny rabbit and speaks mumbled, incomprehensible gibberish, to sometimes track what our hero is doing.

Jamir is visited by the ghost of his grandfather, who relays all the crucial information our hero needs to save his wife and daughter and destroy the witch. The ancestral medallion Jamir wears around his neck has helped protect him thus far from Mikula, but he also needs to not only gain knowledge and boost his confidence before taking on the forces of evil, but also acquire a "regalia" (a sacred staff of justice the enables one to control nature) from a magical geisha named Siddha (Gina Alajar) to fight her. Jamir and his tubby little sidekick venture into the woods and encounter an evil swordsman, get kidnapped by a tribe of banana-devouring dwarfs in loincloths and white face paint and run across Kleriga (Liza Lorena), the crazy-haired "forest guardian" whose own daughter has been killed by Mikula and wants revenge herself. Kleriga can shoot lightning bolts out of her eyeballs but that doesn't save her from getting her head melted off. Bojok gets kidnapped while outside taking a dump and is dragged back to the lair where he's forced to karate fight another little boy for the witch's amusement. Lovina manages to temporarily escape into the jungle, where she encounters a swamp monster and a guy whose wife has been cursed to slowly turn into stone. Can Jamir locate the castle and save everyone before it's too late?

This colorful, busy juvenile fantasy adventure seems aimed at children but it would probably never pass muster as a kid's movie here in the United States without a few snip-snips. The animal killing, blood and gore, eye gouging, a head that bubbles, swells, bleeds and eventually explodes, a potion made from decapitated human heads and more would have to go. That aside, this childish tale is meandering, unfocused, irritating, predictable and filled to the rafters with too many incidental characters. Attention is shifted away from our hero for long stretches of time; so long in fact that you start forgetting all about him! As a result, the quest aspect of this one is less than compelling. The final showdown between the forces of good and evil doesn't even happen until the very end and is over in a matter of just a few minutes. The actor playing our hero is pretty dopey and lacks charisma. The lady playing the witch has about the opposite problem. She goes completely over the top into camp territory. I guarantee you'll get sick of her following every line of dialogue cackling "Ha! Ha! Hahahahaha! Ah! Ah! Hahahahaha!" very quickly.

The art direction and make-ups are fairly good for the budget, the editing is terrible and, despite most of the scenes being heavily drenched in red and blue light, this whole production feels rather dreary and grim. The director was clearly inspired by American fantasy films of the early 80s; particularly those that utilized Jim Henson studio effects, such as the previous year's Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. This one even throws in a random and completely out-of-place dance party sequence (!) where the monsters sing, bounce around and play instruments fashioned out of bones. What's sorely lacking here in comparison to the Henson films this desperately wants to be (aside from a healthy budget) is a true sense of wonder and, well... "magic." I'm actually surprised someone even bothered dubbing this at one point because the market for something like this in English-speaking countries was probably pretty slim.

No director, writer or producer is credited on the print that I viewed, though they did make sure Globo (a piece of rubber sitting on top of a television set) got special billing during the opening credits. Globo, you diva! Deimos has released this on DVD on the set "Eastern Horrors, Volume 3." It's been double billed with Counter Destroyer (1989; aka The Vampire Lives).

★★

Curse of the Swamp Creature (1966)

Directed by:
Larry Buchanan

Larry Buchanan's American International Television package deal - very-cheaply-produced, shot-on-16mm color remakes of various black-and-white AIP releases of the 50s - continues with this horrendous reworking of Edward L. Cahn's VOODOO WOMAN (1957). [I've not seen Voodoo so I cannot compare them right now.] Prospector Driscoll West (Bill Thurman) shows up in a small Florida town hoping to scour the Everglades in search of oil. He ends up crossing paths with a trio of con artists; hotel owner / bartender Frenchie (Roger Ready), his bookkeeper / lover Brenda (Shirley McLine) and Brenda's dimwitted boy toy Ritchie (Cal Duggan), instead. Ritchie breaks into Driscoll's hotel room looking for some kind of map, is caught and then a horribly choreographed fight ensues. Driscoll ends up dead after being stabbed, everyone decides to sink his body in the swamp (where's its rendered unrecognizable with some kind of thrashing machine) and Brenda comes up with the idea of posing as the dead man's wife. Geologist Barry Rogers (John Agar) flies in the following day to meet up with Driscoll and instead has to make plans with his "wife," Ritchie and their guide Rabbit Simms (Charles McLine). The four then head out into the swamps for a few days looking for oil.

Meanwhile, evil, arrogant, murderous Dr. Simon Trent (an amusingly dry Jeff Alexander) is busy at work doing the usual mad scientist things at his secluded home like kidnapping people and experimenting on them. Once he's done with the bodies, he simply feeds them to a bunch of hungry crocodiles.... which he keeps in a swimming pool in his backyard! Also living in the same home are Simon's med school student assistant Tom (Tony Huston, who also scripted this), his faithful black servant Valjean (Ted Mitchell), another black man named Tracker (Bill McGhee) who's treated little better than a guard dog and his attractive wife Pat (Francine York), who is somehow completely oblivious to what he husband has been up to. There's talk of gill transplants and crocodiles being devolved back to fish, but we don't really get to see any of this. Because all of Trent's experiments have failed, he decides to experiment on Tom. He injects his with a sedative, puts him in some large foggy fish tank ("the preserver") and tries to turn him into some kind of lizard monster.

Nearby, Barry and the others ride a boat, camp and track through the forest. Just because he knows they're around, Dr. Trent sends his servant to fetch them and bring them back to his home. Pat's been causing trouble, so her husband has locked her up in her bedroom, but he lets her come out to hobnob with the guests. She finally gets fed up with the experiments and pulls the plug on Tom ("My beautiful indestructible fish man!"), which leads him to select one of his new guests as a test subject. Meanwhile, the "native people" of the swamps (i.e. a bunch of black folks who behave like they live in Haiti) do some kind of ritualistic dance around a totem pole with a skull on it, burn an effigy of the mad doctor and practice "snake magic." One of the visitors attempts to rape a dancer so she pushes him into a pit of quicksand. The titular "Swamp Creature" (a terrible-looking googly-eyed thing) finally makes an appearance during the last 5 minutes and doesn't even really get to do anything.

If the abysmal acting, terrible dialogue, talky / slow-moving / aimless plot, laughable monster suit or horrible photography don't do you in, then the constant beating of bongo drums on the soundtrack will. You won't see much worse than this one, folks. Other films Buchanan made for this same series include The Eye Creatures (1956), a remake of INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN (1957), ZONTAR, THE THING FROM VENUS (1966), a remake of IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956), CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION (1967), a remake of The She Creature (1957) and In the Year 2889 (1967), a remake of DAY THE WORLD ENDED (1955). Mars Needs Women (1967) and "IT'S ALIVE!" (1969) appear to be - gasp! - original stories (in the case of the latter, Buchanan was allowed to use an unfilmed Richard Matheson script).

NO STARS!

5 tombe per un medium (1965)

... aka: Cemetery of the Living Dead
... aka: Cimetiere pour morts vivants
... aka: Cinque tombe per un medium
... aka: Coffin of Terror
... aka: Five Graves for a Medium
... aka: Tomb of Horror

Directed by:
"Ralph Zucker" (Massimo Pupillo)

A letter arrives at the law office of attorney Joseph Morgan ("Richard Garrett" / Riccardo Garrone) from a Dr. Jeronimus Hauff asking him to come to his secluded villa to oversee his will. Since Mr. Morgan is out of town of business, his colleague Albert Kovac (Walter "Brandt" / Brandi) takes it upon himself to go in his place. Upon arriving, he meets Dr. Hauff's daughter Corinne ("Marilyn Mitchell" / Mirella Maravidi) as well as Hauff's young widow / Corinne's stepmother Cleo (Barbara Steele). Albert soon learns that Dr. Hauff has actually been dead for almost a year and the women only arrived there yesterday because the doctor's body is being moved over to the family chapel on the one year anniversary of his passing. So it couldn't have been him who sent the letter... or could it? After all, the handwriting and the seal (which was actually put into the deceased's coffin) used on the letter match the dead doctor's. Corinne believes it may be a warning or an omen from beyond the grave. Cleo thinks she's just being childish. Either way, most of the local villagers are too scared to come onto the grounds because Dr. Hauff was known to have dabbled in spiritualism and the occult.

The letter and the legacy of Dr. Hauff aren't the only two weird things going on. The house itself was built on top of the ruins of a 15th Century hospital where plague victims were brought to die. Claw marks appear on a statue and the mummified hands of executed men who supposedly spread the pestilence out of sheer malice are even used as morbid decorations. Maid Louise (Tilde Till) refuses to even spend the night there, but gardener / servant Kurt ("Alan Collins" / Luciano Pigozzi) hasn't left the villa since Dr. Hauff passed away, nor has he spoken a single word. Albert finds a phonograph recording left behind by the doctor ("I've summoned them from their graves, and now I am among them"!) and the following day the engine in his car is destroyed by an owl (!) He becomes acquainted with the friendly Dr. Nemek ("Alfred Rice" / Alfredo Rizzo) who briefs him on the local superstitions. The paralytic Oskar Stinnell ("Edward Bell" / Ennio Balbo) warns everyone to leave the villa because "The day of revenge is coming!"

After the village mayor's face is half eaten away by acid, Albert decides to do some research and discovers that the victim - as well as two other men - have recently died under mysterious circumstances. All three men, as well as two others who are still among the living (at least for the time being) signed off on the death certificate because they were all present during Dr. Hauff's supposedly accidental death. Did he fall down the stairs in a drunken stupor like they claim, or was he actually murdered and now wanting revenge against all of those who did him in? And if you've seen a few of these things already, you don't even need me to answer that question.

Set in 1911, this black-and-white period Gothic horror suffers from poor English-language dubbing and translations, plus an overly-familiar plot involving the usual blackmail, betrayal, adultery, murder and revenge from beyond the grave, but it has its moments, too. There are some stylish sequences in here, the music score (including a haunting lullaby about pure water) is pretty good and unlike many others of this type and from this era, numerous scenes are shot outdoors in scenic locations. There are also some surprisingly gruesome moments in here for the time. A man is kicked in the face by a horse until his eyeball falls out, guts are seen after a man impales himself with a sword, faces erupt with bubbling lesions when victims touched by the dead are given an advanced form of the plague and severed hands come to life and start slowly moving their fingers. The well-done make-up effects are credited to "Bud Dexter;" who may actually be future Oscar-winner Carlo Rambaldi. Steele (who is top-billed but not the lead) and Maravidi show about as much skin (bare backs, bare shoulders, legs) as was allowable at the time in a mainstream release. So while not a great film by any means, there's probably just enough here to satisfy fans of this sub-genre.

Filmed as 5 tombe per un medium ("Five Graves for the Medium"), this was given the more lurid-sounding Terror-Creatures moniker for U.S. distribution, along with new fake Anglicized credits (only Steele is properly billed). Four different writers are credited for the screenplay, which is said to have been "based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe." (They're probably referring to "The Masque of the Red Death," which also involved the plague). Director Pupillo was apparently not very happy with the finished product so he allowed co-producer Ralph Zucker to take credit for directing the film. Pupillo also made two other Gothic horrors the same year: the sleazy (by mid-60s) standards The Bloody Pit of Horror (1965), which starred bodybuilder Mickey Hagitay, was also produced by Zucker and again featured Brandi and Rizzo, and the hard-to-find The Vendetta of Lady Morgan (1965), which starred Paul Muller, Erika Blanc and Gordon Mitchell and doesn't appear to have ever been released in America.

The print used on the DVD distributed by Alpha Video Classics (which is what I viewed) is in pretty awful condition; complete with jumps in editing and sound and a very faded picture quality.

★★1/2