Monster of the Day #3220

Few monsters this year. Sandy followed Horror and Hamsters with The Battles of Chief Pontiac (1952), a cheapie pre-American Revolution epic with Lon Chaney Jr as the titular, peace-seeking American Indian. There’s a James Arness-y style frontier hero who seeks the same, but all is thwarted, not by the British, honest and beleagured, but by their eeeee-vil Hessian mercenaries. Those damn German, eh? Chaney probably leapt at the chance to play an actual part, but sadly he doesn’t get much screen time in the film named after his character.

Next I showed Sword and the Claw, aka Lionman, a typically insane Turkish action flick. It was no Tarkin and the Vikings, but then, what is? Even so, I think people enjoyed it.

Speaking of liking it, no…make that loving it. I showed Turtle Dreams for the shorts section, a brilliant art/dance piece put together by public television in Boston back in the day. Everyone was vocal in their praise for it. It’s on YouTube if you want to give it a look.

Sandy showed several things, mostly weird music videos. Chad R then did a quiz featuring B-movie actors. I hadn’t been thinking I was doing that well, but when the dust settled I eked out a win. My life hasn’t been wasted!

Then we had supper at Sideways BBQ. Upon our return we watched Neil Breen’s Fateful Findings, which was less insane than the two other of his films I’ve seen, meaning it was only VERY insane.

Finally, a return to monster land as we finally featured the classic Horror of Party Beach. I mean, it’s perfect, right?

We ended with our Texas film, which was Action USA. Like last year’s Scary Movie (no, not that one) it was a very obscure movie I came across on the web. And like that film, it was well received. With slight support work from Big Bill Smith and Cameron Mitchell, it was produced and provided a very fun villain role for ex-biker flick star Ross Hagen. It was the sort of thing clearly dedicated to giving the rental audience everything it could possibly want, and it did a great job. You can rent it on Amazon digitally for like two or three bucks, and I would give it a recommend as a classic ’80s action flick.

That was it for the official fest, but naturally things continued….

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Beckoning Chasm

“Turtle Dreams” is the Meredith Monk piece, right?
kgb_san_diego

I just looked it up on YouTube, so yes.

You guys actually WATCHED all 30 minutes? Good Lord…
Gamera977

But turtles are awesome!!!
Gamera977

Seems ‘Horror of Party Beach’ and Super Dawg would go together though…
Ken_Begg

Actually, Mason and I both were surprised that we had watched the entire 30 minutes. Some others, though, strenuously disagreed with that assessment.
Ken_Begg

As with Horror and Hamsters, there were those who felt the parts with the turtle were EVEN BETTER than the dance sequences, although that’s just crazy.
Gamera977

If I ever make it I’d thought about bringing the Korean black comedy ‘The Fox Family’ about a group of kumiho who attempt to lure in humans to a traveling carnival so they can eat their livers.

But I swear it’s not nearly weird enough to fit in…
Ken_Begg

That would be a lot of Super Dawgs! But nothing goes badly with a Super Dawg, true.
Beckoning Chasm

Interesting that you folks watched two RLM-judged films (Turtle Dreams and Action USA).
Eric Hinkle

Wait, a movie about evil man-eating kumiho? Where can I find this masterpiece?
Eric Hinkle

The Chief Pontiac movie has Hessian mercenaries in the Colonies before the Revolution? Wow. Going by my historical reading as well as some family genealogy research (apparently my first American ancestor was a Hessian who deserted to the rebels) that is taking liberties with Clio.

Though when I consider some of the loony Hollywood history I’ve seen since then in movies, it’s quite a mild error.
Gamera977

It’s currently on Amazon Prime. There’s a couple of trailers on YouTube but not the entire movie.

I think the term ‘black comedy’ fits it better than horror, it’s not as much scary as friggin’ hilarious.
kgb_san_diego

The whole thing seems to be on asiancrush, if you can stand some ads…
Ken_Begg

Turtle Dreams I did learn of from RLM, while Action USA I learned of when (I think) Vinegar Syndrome put it out on Blu Ray. I subscribe to the VS YouTube channel, although I waited too long and their Blu Ray sold out. Luckily we were able to rent it on Amazon. But as with MST3K, you can’t really escape the sheer gravitational pull of RML. With both, I would feel pangs whenever one of my babies, like ROTOR, would be done by them. But it’s a comparatively small number of films, really, with a large number of people trolling them over the years. I will say Turtle Dreams was a nice amuse-boush follow up to my previous showing of Last Year at Marienbad. (And hell, THAT I learned of from the ORIGIN OF ALL THINGS, my high school reading of The 50 Worst Films of All Time, the book that started my journey down this road.
Ken_Begg

I think that’s right. I wasn’t paying too much attention to the history. But…yes,t there were British officers in charge of things, so it must have been pre-Revolution.
Gamera977

Thanks! Didn’t think of that. I subscribed to AsianCrush for a few years and then they screwed up my account and apparently they don’t answer emails at all. I think they have some sort of deal with Amazon now, since I’ve seen their logo on a bunch of Asian movies I’ve watched. So if you have Amazon Prime there’s really no reason to have an AsianCrush account too. So I ditched my account. I totally forgot about them being free to view with ads.

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