Thursday, September 21, 2023

70's American Horror Part Fifty-Six

INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS
(1972)
Dir - Ed Adlum
Overall: WOOF
 
The only film to directed by Ed Adlum was the no budget regional nightmare Invasion of the Blood Farmers, a movie that is as stupid as it sounds.  Shot in Adlum's native Weschester Country, New York, (allegedly on weekends and using his own home for many of the interiors), patrons of such Z-grade material will recognize all of the bottom-barrel tropes.  Actors who have no idea what acting is, (and would also never be seen again in anything), all deliver either wooden or embarrassingly melodramatic performances equipped with one-take, stumbled, cue card line readings and pompous fake British accents.  We also have the least engaging shot construction possible, meandering pacing, inappropriate music that shows up whenever it wants, and a story line that seems as if fifth graders made it up as a prank.  Many of these terrible attributes are amusing though and thankfully there are other uniquely bizarre details like a disgusting gargling sound effect during the blood harvesting scenes, characters "going to bed" and other night time activity taking place when there are birds chirping in bright, sunshine outside, and just oh so many phone calls.
 
TERROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM
(1973)
Dir - Georg Fenady
Overall: MEH

A mildly amusing/mildly lackluster horror whodunit from Bing Crosby's production company, Terror in the Wax Museum has old school genre players John Carradine, Elsa Lancaster, and Ray Milland on board, plus the movie appropriately adheres to the tone of yesteryear.  Set in the 1890's, it fuses the typical wax museum/chamber of horrors/Jack the Ripper cliches together, with the two youngest and most attractive characters of course falling in love with each other while the older veterans bicker over the ownership of the main setting once a mysterious murder sets the plot in motion early on.  Throw in some vague, Oriental fortune telling, a deaf/dumb/deformed hunchback, a nightmare sequence or two, and a less than thrilling finale, and the film certainly stays within its by-the-books comfort zone.  The first theatrically released work from television director Georg Fenady, it unsurprisingly lacks any flare and unless you count a wax statue's hand being cut off, this strictly goes against the grain of exploitation movies from the time period that were riddled with nudity and graphic violence.
 
HITCH HIKE TO HELL
(1977)
Dir - Irvin Berwick
Overall: MEH
 
Dialog coach-turned director Irvin Berwick took a nine year break from behind the lens before making his first film of the 1970s, the oddly sombre exploitation cheapie Hitch Hike to Hell.  Delivered as a cautionary tale against teenage runaways, it features Robert Gribbin as a social awkard momma's boy who randomly decides to start picking off hitchhikers who innocently divulged that their hatred for their own mothers is the reason that they hit the road.  Harmonica-fueled folk music breaks up the otherwise sincere tone that, (despite the clearly minuscule production values and completely flat cinematography and shot construction), minimalizes the campy sleaze as not to visually linger on all of the rapes and murders.  We still see snippets of such gruesome crimes especially earlier on, but Berwick trusts that his audience gets the gist after awhile and spares us any images of a homosexual boy and an eleven year old girl getting the unwholesome treatment, all while both parents and detectives become increasingly distraught with the situation.  Real serial killers are name dropped along the way and Gribbin's bespectacled character may have been partially inspired by the look and exploits of Ed Kemper's, for what its worth to true crime aficionados.

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