(1971)
Dir - Fred Olen Ray/Donn Davidson
Overall: WOOF
Re-edited years later by Fred Olen Ray with new scenes added of John Carradine spouting nonsense from cue cards, (How many times can parts of THAT sentenced be used as an accurate description for a movie?), the initial Donn Davidson crud rock Honey Britches apparently no longer exists. Instead, we have Demented Death Farm Massacre, which has also been released by Troma Entertainment under a barrage of other titles such as Moonshiner's Women, Shantytown Honeymoon, Hillbilly Hooker, and Little Whorehouse on the Prairie to name a few. For anyone who thought that the bumbling sheriff and the chicken lady from Wes Craven's abysmal The Last House on the Left were too funny to stomach, this piece of shit has you covered. Two dipshits and two women without pants steal a bunch of jewels, their car breaks down in the deep south, and then they run into some hillbilly yokels including another women without pants. Initial director Donn Davidson hardly has an expansive or impressive resume of his own and as anyone familiar with Ray's work can vouch for, he was ill-equipped to add anything cinematically captivating to anything. Horrid acting, some bible quoting, copious amounts of cleavage, a few awkward murders, and a pacing that is in no hurry whatsoever, the film has all of the suck.
(1973)
Dir - David Lowell Rich
Overall: MEH
A Boeing 747 takes off with a Druidic demon or something on board, as well as only a small handful of B-movie and television actors in the CBS Movie of the Week The Horror at 37,000 Feet. Dopey stuff to be sure, a number of elements get in the way of the film nailing the sinister mood that it is going for. Cheap production values are one thing where the malevolent force is rendered invisible and besides a section of the plane going full walk-in freezer, we are show very little of its unholy powers. Mostly it is just gusts of wind blowing and character staring wide-eyed at something off screen. Speaking of starring wide-eyed, the performances are largely scenery-chewing save for a smirking William Shatner, (in his second time experiencing unknown forces during air travel), and Paul Winfield who saves face with a calm British accent for some reason. Lynn Loring is particularly ridiculous in all of her scenes where her character is completely underwritten, making her frantic mannerisms puzzling as she seems to be having a panic attack even before the troubling stuff actually starts. The screenplay by Ronald Austin and James D. Buchanan is just as shortchanged, lazily plotted and wrapped up without seeming to say anything besides "people turn into savages when they are afraid".
(1977)
Dir - Al Adamson
Overall: MEH
Al Adamson's last horror film to be released in the 1970s was the typically low-rent Nurse Sherri, (The Possession of Nurse Sherri, Black Voodoo, Beyond the Living, Hospital of Terror, Killer's Curse, Hands of Death), which finds the schlock peddler's directorial "talents" in as abysmal a fashion as ever. Some of the performers here seem to be trying, (or over-trying), to living up the bizarre material which begins with a head-scratching scene that was added on in post where a bunch of people talk in a desert before some religious leader makes vague proclamations. Then everything shifts to a heavily understaffed and undecorated hospital where a former football player has bandages on both of his eyes and the nurse of the title gets possessed by the aforementioned cult leader, (or something), whenever the script tells her too. There is also a car chase and a couple of naked boob shots for anyone who is paying attention enough to notice. It is certainly pathetic from a production standpoint even though Adamson tries to pull off some special effects here or there, but his pacing is detrimental and he either has no ability or no budgetary luxury of framing any of the shots in anything but the most flat, boring manner possible. The whole thing is nowhere near as sexy, sleazy, or wacky as it is probably trying to be and just comes off as an awkward snooze instead.
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