(1972)
Dir - Bob Favorite
Overall: MEH
Regional Florida exploitation, The Brides Wore Blood was the last of three ultra-cheapo films from co-writer/director Bob Favorite before he gave up the movie-making game. It is also his only one in the horror camp, and it certainly goes hard with the tropes. We have a sprawling mansion that people find a flimsy excuse to stay in overnight, a mute handicapped manservant, women who parade around scantily, some kind of birth curse, vampires, a deformed Leatherface stand-in who arrives two years before The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, nightmare sequences, suicide, a local psychic dressed like a gypsy, rituals, etc. All of the desperate, hackneyed, and sleazy ingredients do a piss-pour job of hiding a plot that is barely there though, as the movie seems more intent on barreling through its cliches than telling any kind of engaging or even coherent story. This is as is to be expected for such a dingy production, and sadly, the movie stagnates through all of its running time. As anybody with some film stock and a place to shoot people doing stuff can tell you, compelling pacing sure is hard to maintain.
(1974)
Dir - Ray Dennis Steckler
Overall: WOOF
Not to be confused with the Italian film L’ossessa which was also released in 1974 as The Sexorcist, (amongst about seven hundred other titles), THIS The Sexorcist is one of countless American, bottom-barrel pornographic movies full of some of the most unattractive "actors" who ever breathed air. Those poor folks. Also known as The Sexorcist's Devil, it is an incomprehensible, ugly, and inept, yet it is also occasionally hilarious for those who can stomach the nauseating sex scenes. Characters utter inane and repetitive dialog, a cult leader screams "I am the power!" while cumming, people get awkwardly bum-rushed and stabbed, and pathetic narration tries to give pathetically staged scenes some semblance of a pathetic plot. The whole thing wraps up before it hits the hour mark, (so clearly the spirit of Jesus worked some miraculous magic in that regard), but one can barrel through such embarrassment much faster if you just skip ahead every time that schlubby, hairy, pimpled, and noticeably bored thespians start taking their Satanic robes off to fondle each other clumsily while the likely inebriated cinematographer points the camera at them in between cocaine bumps. You just may need to take a shower after watching.
(1977)
Dir - James T. Flocker
Overall: MEH
Bottom-budgeted filmmaker James T. Flocker made just a handful of forgettable genre works, most of which came out in the 1970s when drive-ins and grindhouse theaters were both still a plenty and in need of disposable content. Ghosts That Still Walk is certainly disposable, considering, (amongst other things), that its top-billed actor is the lady who hung herself in Airplane! while listening to Robert Hayes wine about his love life. The premise here is sufficient enough, as it concerns one of those teenage dipshit boys who desperately needs a haircut as he gets kind of possessed by the spirit of a dead Native American. There is no threat to speak of though since the worst that this spirit does is make the boy moody and stuck in a wheelchair for a little bit. Well, the kid's grandparents also get their RV taken over by malevolent forces before a bunch of boulders magically attack them in the middle of the desert, (don't ask), but this is never linked up to anything and it appears as its own singular vignette in the first act. Even if its random structure and aggressive lack of scares were a non issue, Flocker's horrendous sense of pacing would sink the ship all on its own since every sequence feels as if it goes on for nine hours. The sound design is eerie though, with disembodied and whispery voices creatine a nice cacophony of malevolence that sadly is never represented convincingly anywhere else.
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