When Mondo Macabre releases a new film, I pay attention. When it’s a crazy Indonesian action flick, I crack open the wallet. (Although, really, it’s not that hard to get me to open that.) I had watched the first five minutes of 1981’s The Warrior and, upon seeing a bad dummy made of rubber, knew I would show at the Fest. People liked it. Moreover, MM also released the two sequels as a separate set, so I have more craziness yet to consume. A good start.
Sandy followed up with Curse of the Faceless Man, one of those films that he’s loved since he was a kid. It’s a mummy movie, but the mummy is encased in lava after dying during the eruption of Mt Vesuvius. So it’s also kind of like the astronaut monster from First Man into Space. The star is Richard Anderson, quite a few years before he played Oscar Goldman in both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. He also played the immortal killer in the Kolchak telepicture The Night Strangler. Faceless Man is no classic, but it’s exactly what every 10 year old hoped they would stumble across when they snuck into the family room at 2:00 to watch a monster movie, sitting right in front of the set so as to keep the sound as quiet as possible. Ah, those were the days.
