Deep Red: Bizarro Movie Night Salutes Italian Horror Cinema this Saturday!

This week's Bizarro Movie Night presentation at the Aster Coffee is boldly breaking Bizarro Movie Night tradition, with a screening of...

A good movie.

Yes, you read right; a good movie. Rest assured, though, it'll still be certifiably Bizarro.

Some of the finest, strangest, most vividly colorful, and most feverishly imaginative horror films ever made sprang forth from Italy in the last half of the twentieth century. And the most important creative figure in that country's genre output was Mario Bava.

Bava paid his dues as a special effects man and assistant director on several Italian action films and dramas throughout the 1950's. Then in 1960 he made his directorial debut with Black Sunday, an atmospheric black-and-white chiller that marked the first leading role for Barbara Steele, a raven-haired British actress whose large, expressive eyes and alien beauty made her a horror movie icon for the ages.

Three years later, Bava made Black Sabbath, a horror movie anthology in which his penchant for eye-popping primary colors and heady atmosphere came into full flower. Without really trying, Black Sabbath established several templates for the horror genre over the next two decades. It gave birth to a distinctive sub-genre known as the giallo, and bridged the gap between the elegant subtlety of the old-school Universal monster movies and the more violent and psycho-sexual content of modern horror cinema.

Throughout the 1960's, '70's, and '80's, Italian directors such as Dario Argento, Antonio Margheriti, and Lucio Fulci further pushed the boundaries of the horror film. And the ripple effects of Mario Bava's influence echo today through more extreme thrillers like Jonathan Demme's Silence of the Lambs, and within the untethered color palate of director Tim Burton (himself such an enormous Bava fan that he toyed for years with remaking Bava's Black Sunday).

We're planning on screening Black Sabbath at the Aster on Saturday. In addition to being a terrific, gloriously creepy film on its own, it's also an important milestone in the cinema of the fantastic. And with Your Schlockologist Truly on hand to introduce this masterwork, you're nuts to miss it!

The Fat Man Lands at the Aster TONIGHT!!

Hola, Fiends and Neighbors!

Yep, you read right: The Fat Man himself--Santa Claus--lands at the Aster tonight! And he's bringing a few pals...

Merlin the Magician!

The Sweaty Red-Bearded Keymaker Ogre!

Lupita the Guilt-Ridden Doll Thief!!

And everyone's favorite mewling neurotic windbag, Old Pitch the Devil!

Just when I think Rene Cardona's Santa Claus can't mess with my mind anymore, it sticks a (pitch)fork in and twists it again. Come join Ye Olde Schlockologist for the Most Astonishing Christmas Film Ever Made, tonight at 7:30!! 

Bikes! Babes! Brawls! Rock! Bizarro Bikesploitation Night, Tomorrow!

Yes, Fiends and Neighbors, another Bizarro Movie Night awaits tomorrow at the ever-lovin' Aster Coffee Lounge. And Ye Olde Schlockologist will turn his nerd-laser focus on that beloved sub-genre known as The Biker Flick!

In the 1954 drama The Wild One, a girl asks motorcycle rebel Johnny (Marlon Brando), "What're you rebelling against?" His reply: "Whadda ya got?"

It was a pop-culture shot heard 'round the world, and youth-in-rebellion movies gradually built momentum throughout the 1950s with Juvenile Delinquency flicks like Hot-Rod Gang and High School Confidential. But it took B-movie Godfather Roger Corman to hurtle motorcycle gangs solidly into the mix with his 1966 exploitation classic, The Wild Angels. For years after, cinemas and drive-ins were filled with the din of roaring Harleys, and the Bacchanalian exploits of the Hell's Angels and myriad other cycle gangs (real and fictional).

For tomorrow's Bizarro festivities, we hope to unspool some great JD/bikesploitation trailers and one hell of a rip-roaring feature. The latter's still being determined, but we're 99% sure it'll involve souped-up hogs, Big Bill Smith, rocket launchers, machine guns, Paul Koslo, and lots of things blowing up. And it may or may not've been covered in this electronic Den of Iniquity before...

Be there at 8pm, Daddy-O! 

At long last, Bizarro Movie Night RETURNS!!

Yes, Fiends and Neighbors, Bizarro Movie Night is back at the lovely Aster Coffee Lounge in Ballard! Tonight, we'll explore the demented, rattletrap wonder that is Turkish pop cinema.

The film industry in Turkey exploded in the 1960's, and for twenty years it delivered action, scares, thrills, titillation, and flat-out dementia to the thrill-seeking masses in its native land. Before that hideous jabbering box known as television homogenized and squashed the collective consciousness, Turkey's film industry burst at the seams with science fiction, horror, leering sex comedies, and double-barrelled action; all delivered with rattletrap energy and a distinctive flair that filtered Western pop culture through its own skewed and gloriously exotic lens.

Oftentimes, that filter outright caught undigested clumps of influences. The country's filmmakers pumped up plots straight out of old action serials with vivid color and eye-popping sex and violence; lifted plots wholesale from US sources (you haven't lived until you've seen the Turkish riffs on E.T, Superman, and The Exorcist); and in some cases even pilfered scenes wholesale (The Men Who Saved the World, Turkey's incarnation of Star Wars, is plastered with actual clips from George Lucas's film--copyright laws be DAMNED!).

Ye Olde Schlockologist will be on hand to give you the straight skinny on the Turkish film industry, and to present one of the wildest and wooliest examples of Turkish cinema taffy to your unsuspecting eyes!

Rest assured, you'll not want to miss it! And be ready for more to come in the coming months!

Goodbye to Michael Gough, Bizarro-Worthy Character-Acting God

The Bizarro Freak flag flies at half-mast in honor of actor Michael Gough, who passed away at age 94 on St. Patrick's Day.

Gough's most high-profile role was that of Alfred the butler, Bruce Wayne's avuncular and paternal Man Friday, in the 1990's Batman movies. And with all due respect to Michael Caine, Gough captured that character's combination of old-school English elegance and mischief more artfully than anyone. Even when Joel Schumacher reduced the franchise to a jackhammer-paced, stunt-casted, empty-headed series of eyesores, the venerable actor always classed up the joint (or, more appropriately, the Batcave). Gough also lent solid supporting work in some truly great films over the years, including Out of Africa and the affecting British drama, The Dresser.

But for Ye Olde's money, Gough's finest moments onscreen were in the many horror films he graced from the 1950's through the 1970's. For a good couple of decades, he rivalled the great Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee as a presence in British thrillers, playing villains with welcome versatility. He could chew the scenery with over-the-top Vincent-Price-ian relish one minute; then deliver characters of icy-cold, quietly terrifying malevolence the next. Farewell, dear Mr. Gough: You knew how to chill the world to the bone.

Officially-Bizarro-Worthy Michael Gough:

Horror of Dracula (1958): Gough's solid work in this classic Hammer chiller makes the throwaway character of Arthur Holmwood, skeptical sibling of vampire-bait Mina Holmwood, believeable and sympathetic.

Horrors of the Black Museum (1959): Gough, in sublime form, plays a mystery writer prone to re-enacting some of his most gruesome written murders for reals in this deliciously nasty British shocker.

Konga (1961): Sleazy villains don't come any more heartless and cut-throat than Gough's mutant-gorilla-wrangling Dr. Decker in this ridiculous (and extremely entertaining) Herman Cohen B-flick.

Phantom of the Opera (1962): I've always been fond of Hammer's unfairly-ignored redux of the old Gaston LeRoux chestnut (go here for a more detailed assessment of the movie), in no small part due to Michael Gough's perfectly-realized and thoroughly chilling Ambrose D'Arcy, an impressario who robs artists, crushes careers, and attempts murder with disdainful and disarming ease.

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965): In one of the greatest anthology horror movies ever, Gough plays a tortured artist driven to suicide by the cutting derision of (and accidental mutilation by) art critic Christopher Lee. It's an affecting performance perfectly in keeping with the film's pulp-horror nightmare archetypes.

Horror Hospital (1973): In one of the most absurd and trashy exploitation movies of the Bell-Bottom Era, Gough sinks his teeth--ravenously--into the role of Dr. Christian Storm, a thoroughly nutty medico fond of hacking up victims, in the name of crazed mind-control experiments. Bonus points for the sedan with the attached head-lopping blade.

Sleepy Hollow (1999): Tim Burton earned major Bizarro props for reviving Michael Gough's career when he hired the actor to play Alfred in the 1989 Batman. Burton also utilized Gough's distinctive voice as the Dodo in Alice in Wonderland, and as Elder Gutknecht in Corpse Bride. Sleepy Hollow marks one of Gough's last onscreen appearances, and in his brief moment on camera he plays grizzled Notary Hardenbrook with pitch-perfect geezerly crustiness.

News Flash!! Doctor of Schlockology takes Summer Schlock Semester Off!!

Hello again, Fiends and Neighbors! A hearty thanks to the enthusiastic crowd that attended June's BMN! Inimitable schlockology disertations! Cleopatra Jones thwarting a homicidal lesbian drug czarina, kicking ass, and taking names to the delight of several regulars and a pack of newbies! If you missed it, there's no hope for you...and you won't get another chance to drink deep from the Well of Strange Cinema until the fall!

That's right, kids: Bizarro Movie Night's in the middle of a summer hiatus. Said respite's giving Yours Schlockily a chance to catch up on the many writing plates he's got spinning in the air at present. We'll still try to sprinkle this here Blog with Bizarro-worthy recommendations and news. But come fall, we're planning to really bust out future surprises that'll blow the tops of your crazed heads off!! That means:

More Movies!!

More Insanity!!

More Monsters!!

More Bikini Babes!!

 More Rock and Roll!!

More Bikers!!

Much more from Guest Co-Host, Lucha Legend El Serpiente de Oro!!

       And

 imminent

                         world

                                         conquest!!!

Seriously, folks, BMN is planning on some major shenanigans soon! You'll detest yerself if you miss it!

Stay Tuned...

A Blaxploitation Cocktail to get you in the mood for tomorrow's BMN!

Tomorrow night, Ye Olde Schlockologist will celebrate the most bad-assed sub-genre in American Cinema with an educational discourse on Blaxploitation--and spiffy visual aids to boot! Enclosed please find a couple of things to get you into the mood:

The trailer for the Pam Grier vehicle, Foxy Brown:



...and the thoroughly awesome Blacula:



For follow-up study (and a couple of token plugs):

Two key figures in black cinema passed away in the last couple of years. They led interesting lives, and made invaluable contributions to Bizarro cinema. You can read about Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra Jones herself) with a click here; and Isaac Hayes (the God behind the Shaft soundtrack, and the title character in the film Truck Turner) by clicking here.

Last but not least, the man widely credited with starting the entire 'Blaxploitation' revolution in the 1970's was writer/director Melvin van Peebles. An interview--and detailed overview of van Peebles' life and career--can be accessed by clicking here.

Be at the Aster tomorrow, Fiends, Neighbors, and Suckas!

Hey, Kids! Tonight's Bizarro Movie Night! And We've Got a Big-Screen Premiere!

Welcome back, Fiends and Neighbors! Updates, updates galore in Bizarro-Land...

Ye Olde Schlockologist recently interviewed film director/Seattle International Film Festival co-founder Dan Ireland for the SunBreak.com (check out part 1 here). Ireland's first feature, the wonderful The Whole Wide World, is only Bizarro in the most tangential of fashions (it's a subtle drama detailing the romance between Bizarro-worthy pulp author Robert E. Howard and schoolteacher Novalyne Price), but the director had a lot of interesting insights about the making of the film, and he did cover his years as a producer of films for Vestron Pictures. The latter gig included, ahem, some seriously Bizarro-Worthy movies...So don't be surprised if some of his choice stories about movies like Gothic and Lair of the White Worm make their way into this here Bizarro epicenter!

But the most pressing bit of news, natch, is the impending arrival of another Bizarro Movie Night! Tonight at 8pm, the Aster will be hosting yet another leap straight down the rabbit hole of strange cinema, and your host will once again be El Serpiente de Oro, 42nd Greatest Luchador of All Time! Tonight's movie will feature:

Remote-control spaceships!

Fire-breathing giant turtles!

Brain-eating Japanese space babes in tights!

And it's a kid's film!

But wait! There's MORE! Tonight's Bizarro Movie Night will feature a special Big-Screen Screening of El Serpiente and the Temple of Geek, the inspiring documentary on El Serpiente's visit to last week's Emerald City ComiCon! Brilliantly directed and edited by Serpiente's former tag-team amigo Ninja Pantera (Bob Suh),  Temple of Geek marks the veteran grappler's first onscreen appearance since 1985's El Serpiente de Oro Against the Soccer Vampires! Sure, you can watch Temple of Geek on your computer, but why just do that??! It'd be like just watching Avatar on YouTube (though admittedly less butt-numbingly cliched) and never seeing it on a big-ass screen!

As a special treat to all you loyal fiends and neighbors, here's a glimpse at a deleted scene from Temple of Geek, in which El Serpiente encounters a Magnificent Moustache and preaches the BMN Gospel!!

See you tonight, kids!!

Ye Olde Schlockologist Meets the Czar of Noir, Talks Grindhouse Sleaze!

Hello again, Fiends and Neighbors! It's been a whirlwind couple a weeks for Ye Olde Schlockologist in general and Bizarro Movie Night in particular. Thank God for the dauntless Serpiente de Oro, who capably MC'ed the most recent BMN at Aster Coffee Lounge on February 20.

So what was yours truly doing on that tumultuous Saturday while the 42nd Greatest Luchador in Mexican History brought down the (Aster Coffee) House? Why, chatting up the preeminent authority on/champion of Film Noir himself, Eddie Muller, that's what.

The Magnificent Mr. M is the engine behind the locomotive that is the Noir City Festival, which came through Seattle less than two weeks ago (feel free to read the bulk of my interview for the SunBreak here and here, if'n you're so inclined).

But in addition to his tireless efforts on behalf of all things Noir, Eddie Muller's also accumulated some seriously Bizarro-worthy street cred chronicling the exploitation and sexploitation film genres. His 1996 book Grindhouse: The Forbidden Story of "Adults Only" Cinema helped pave the way to serious academic appraisal of the exploitation genre, and he co-wrote and co-produced Mau Mau Sex Sex, a documentary on exploitation kings David Friedman and Dave Sonney.

My chat with Eddie spanned two solidly-entertaining hours, and there was no way I could include every bon mot and anecdote he tossed my way in the SunBreak interview. In addition to thoroughly covering Film Noir's many faces that afternoon, he also explained the breach-birth of his Grindhouse book in vivid and amusing detail, offered some insights on the genre, and even played six degrees of separation between an Oscar nominee and a former Teen-Idol turned cinematic psycho-killer. And all of those choice tidbits surely merit electronic preservation. Consider this the Deleted/Extended Scenes portion of the SunBreak Eddie Muller interview.

********************************************************************************

I'm a big fan of vintage Grindhouse Cinema, so I wanted to cover your Grindhouse book. Could you describe the genesis of that project? It's full of so many great posters and stills and promo stuff from another halcyon era of moviemaking that's very interesting...

Well, you hit on the genesis of the book right there...It was the posters and the stills and the lobby cards and all that. I found a treasure trove of stuff in an old porno theater in San Francisco on Market Street--the Center Theater. And I had a friend who was in the Projectionists' Union, back when that meant something. He said, "You oughta come down here. And bring your mother's car [laughs]. This was a long time ago. I asked why, and he says, "The one with the big trunk."

Sure enough, this was a four-story building in San Francisco; the ground floor was the Center Theater. And what I learned was that this building was Sleaze Central for the sexploitation film business on the west coast in the thirties and forties. The offices were above the theater, and then there was a big party room--what we'd call a Rumpus Room--above that, and then storage stuff. It was amazing. And downstairs was like something out of a David Lynch film. And you [took this] rickety old elevator down there. The floors were all soaking-wet, and one room was filled with chairs, floor to ceiling. You couldn't move in that room because the chairs had been put in, in such a way that it was impossible to get in. But there were all these posters and lobby cards and everything. That was when I first practiced urban archaeology, i.e., theft [laughs]! And we just stole all this stuff out of the basement.

Lo and behold later on, I start researching this, and I meet these guys [who made these movies], and they talk about having these offices in San Francisco...And I'm thinking, this is amazing! These guys were actually in the building that I stole all of this stuff from! I tell them that I have a lot of the material, and they're like, "Wow, I wondered what happened to all of that stuff!" So that was the genesis of the Grindhouse book--what is all this stuff? What does it all mean? And now there's a lot more scholarship in that area than there used to be. Eric Schaefer wrote a whole PhD paper on that, called Daring! Bold! Shocking! The History of Exploitation Films, or something like that. Eric did it from a much more academic perspective than I chose to do it in Grindhouse. I think mine sold a few more copies than his, though [laughs]...Show the dirty pictures: Make sure you show the dirty pictures!

I found it interesting when you said in an interview that you got into the Film Noir projects because they showcased movies that you didn't have to fast-forward through...

Oh, yes [laughs]! Man, a lot of those [Grindhouse] movies were just dreadful!

Do any of those Grindhouse features stick out to you as particularly memorable?

There's one called The Agony of Love, with Pat Barrington, that's actually really pretty good. It's a sexploitation version of Belle de Jour. And it's about a housewife who becomes a prostitute. And the movie is actually really good.

Didn't William Rotsler direct that?

Yeah, I think so. You know your stuff. But that film, I really like. I do also like all of those Dave Friedman films, as cheesy as they are. With the older stuff, it's just how goofy they are, like Maniac! and Child Bride. Have you seen Child Bride? It's unBELIEVable. It was a film made in the 1930's about these Appalacians; where these thirteen-year-old girls are sold to these hillbillies: "Why, yer gonna be mah wife!" It's like, oh, my God [laughs]! And there was a nude swimming scene in the movie; of this thirteen-year-old girl swimming in the nude. And I'm thinking, "I am NOT believing what I'm seeing."

On the Exploitation Roots of Oscar-nominated director Curtis Hanson [excerpts of this passage appeared in the SunBreak Interview]:

It's amazing how many bad movies get made from [James] Ellroy's books. L.A. Confidential is the exception. It's really, really good. Curtis Hanson's a really good filmmaker. And he did--what's the Curtis Hanson feature he did early on that's really Film Noir--oh, Bad Influence, with Rob Lowe and James Spader. That's a total Noir.


If you want to know one weird confluence here: You know that I wrote the Tab Hunter autobiography...

Yes...

Did you know that Tab Hunter was the star of Curtis Hanson's first movie?

No...

It was originally called...

No, wait! I remember--Sweet Kill!

Yes! It was originally called A Kiss from Eddie. Then it was called The Sweet Kill. Then Roger Corman said, "We're reissuing this as The Arousers!" It's a psycho movie about a guy who's a sex killer. And the idea that Tab...Understand the brilliance of this, casting a famous Hollywood beefcake icon who is gay, as a man who kills women as soon as they try to be intimate with him. How bizarre is that when you actually know Tab's story?

And that was years before John Waters tweaked Tab's image with Polyester...

Yeah. And Tab doesn't look like Tab at all [in Sweet Kill]--he's got long hair...And it's not a bad film. The last time I saw Curtis Hanson I said, "You know, I wrote all about one of your films," He was like, "Yeah, I read that you wrote all about L.A. Confidential." No, this was The Arousers. He was like, "Oh, my God! You've SEEN that [laughs]??"

   

Bizarro-Worthy Reading: The Films of Larry Buchanan by Rob Craig

Texan Larry Buchanan was a true original: a director whose box-lunch budgets, oddball subject matter, exaltation of female archetypes, and obsession with conspiracy theories of all stripes made him as perfect a textbook demonstration of the auteur theory as Orson Welles or David Lean, for God's sake. Author Rob Craig puts forth these arguments with eloquence and academic sharpness to spare in The Films of Larry Buchanan, his exhaustive critical examination of Buchanan's oeuvre.

Buchanan dabbled in several genres throughout his career, but part of his fame came from his revisions of others' work. In the late 1960's American International Pictures commisioned the director to helm made-for-TV remakes of some of their most successful fifties sci-fi thrillers: The Day the World Ended became The Year 2889; The She Creature spawned Creature of Destruction; and Invasion of the Saucer Men begat The Eye Creatures, among others. These movies featured B-movie actors like John Agar, John Ashley, and Francine York, and served as Bizarro comfort food for bored kids back in the day. Viewed with a jaundiced modern eye, the results prove almost minimalist in their sparsity, frequently funny as hell, and strangely fascinating.

The director also expressed a distrust of political and social authority to rival Costa-Gavras, and many of Buchanan's original features explore some truly wild conspiracy theories. He filmed The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, a speculative docu-drama in which President John F. Kennedy's alleged assassin survives to face a courtroom, in 1964--decades before Oliver Stone turned his fixated gaze on the Kennedy assassination with JFK in 1991. In Beyond the Doors, the drug-and-alcohol-related deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison are blamed on a government plot to subvert the youth movement of the 1960's. And Buchanan paints the life and controversial death of Marilyn Monroe with sordid brushstrokes in Goodbye, Norma Jean and its 1988 sequel, Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn.

The Films of Larry Buchanan covers every single nook and cranny of Larry Buchanan's career with the kind of magnifying-glass detail normally reserved for the Kurosawas and Fellinis of the world, and that exhaustive approach merits some major props from this corner. Craig (who also helms the throughly awesome Kiddie Matinee website) could occasionally be accused of over-interpreting the films discussed, but his arguments hold water admirably, and it's incredibly refreshing to hear Carl Jung and Ingmar Bergman seamlessly, elegantly cited in the context of movies like Mars Needs Women and Curse of the Swamp Creature. If that treatment of bizarro cinema doesn't make you mightily happy, you've stumbled onto the wrong blog (and the wrong schlockologist) by mistake, Bucky.

As you can likely surmise, Buchanan's body of work is eminently, wonderfully Bizarro-worthy, Fiends and Neighbors. Stay tuned...

Bizarro-Worthy Actor: Jason (Herb) Evers

Even in unmitigated (if entertaining) crap like the Grizzly ripoff Claws, Jason Evers gave solid, committed performances, usually as a handsome but slightly untrustworthy authority figure.

Evers--who died of a heart attack on March 13, 2005 at age 83--enjoyed a forty-some year career, with supporting roles in everything from the John Wayne Vietnam actioner The Green Berets to Escape from the Planet of the Apes to guest shots on dozens of TV series.

But my favorite Jason Evers role, one of his few leads, came in 1962 as Dr. Bill Cortner in The Brain that Wouldn't Die, one of the wildest and most entertaining B flicks of that decade. In it, Dr. Cortner rescues and resuscitates his fiancee's decapitated head after a catastrophic car crash, then searches the Red Light District of his town for a fresh body onto which he can graft his love's disembodied noggin.

The movie packs a potent good time, with everything from a stripper catfight to some shocking-for-the-time gore to a pinheaded giant in the closet (telepathically controlled by the Fiancee's Living Disembodied Head, no less!). It's all ridiculous as hell, but Evers (billed under his given name, Herb Evers) imbues his stock role with aristocratic good looks and a core of believability that subtly turns a lot of mad-scientist cliches on their respective ears. His inquisitive fervor, devotion to (what's left of) his would-be bride, and willingness to do harm to others in the name of science give the movie something really unbelievable; a corroded but definite soul.

Needless to say, The quintessential Evers performance is eminently, stoutly Bizarro Movie Night-worthy...

Bizarro-Worthy Movie: The Losers (1970)

The Biker Flick emerged as one of the staples of drive-ins and grindhouses of the 1960's and '70's. Born from the leather-clad loins of the Marlon Brando vehicle, The Wild One, in 1953, Biker Flicks followed the exploits of Hell's Angels (or variant cycle gangs) as they terrorized unsuspecting members of 'straight' society.

Roger Corman, exploitation visionary that he was, ushered in the peak years of the Biker Flick with his 1966 opus, The Wild Angels. It made actor Peter Fonda a counter-culture hero and made a mint. Corman--and hordes of other independent moviemakers--soon saturated movie screens with roaring hogs, drug-and-alcohol-fueled decadence, action, violence, and sex.

Like a lot of B-movie genres, The Biker Flick mutated as the years rolled by, offering up Undead Bikers (Psychomania), African-American Bikers (The Black Angels), Werewolf Bikers (Werewolves on Wheels), and even Alternative-Lifestyle bikers (The Pink Angels) before the genre died out in the mid-1970's.

The Losers stands as a high point of the genre. It's essentially The Dirty Dozen gone Hell's Angels, as a small team of condemned bikers heads to Viet Nam to execute a suicide mission against the Cong. Director Jack Starrett (a former stunt man himself) knows his way around on-screen ass-kicking, and he wastes no time hurtling the audience into the action. Starrett even sneaks a little bit of social conscience and pathos in, all without tarnishing the movie's steel cajones.

William "Big Bill" Smith portrays the gang's leader. More than any other actor, Smith was the Face of The Biker Flick. Rugged, tough as nails, muscular, and ferociously charismatic, he showed up in several Cycle Epics, usually playing the heavy. He played Conan's dad in 1982's Conan the Barbarian, and in less than five minutes of screen time made Schwarzenegger look like the Pilsbury frickin' Doughboy. If Big Bill Smith is not the baddest bad-ass in the movie firmament, he's sure in the Top Eight (Ye Olde Schlockologist had the good fortune of meeting him a few years back, and lived to tell the tale here).

Darned if The Losers wouldn't make for a great Bizarro Movie Night...But will it show up this Saturday?? 

Bizarro-Worthy Cinema: Goke, Bodysnatcher from Hell

Japanese horror did not begin with (to paraphrase director Adam Green) wet Japanese kids. Nor does all of Japanese fantastic cinema begin and end with men in rubber monster suits (sublime as they may be).

Case in Point: This chilling 1969 nightmare of a horror flick. It starts off with the pulpy purpose of a vintage yakuza thriller, as a gallery of jaded, cynical, and flawed characters interact on a long flight. Then one passenger--a white-suited crook in shades--hijacks the plane, and the feces hits the fan.

The plane crashes near a UFO, and the spacecraft's occupant infects one of the survivors. From then on in, Darwinism kicks in, and the horror proves to have tendrils (OK, invasive puddles of silver ooze) that extend well beyond the crash site.

Yeah, some of the histrionics may induce titters, but it's an intense fever-dream of a chiller all the way. It's packed with more nihilism than John Carpenter's The Thing, levels a pointed cry of anger at the Vietnam war, and serves up some ickily-effective (if primitive) make-up magic. I loved it so much that it made the Pop Culture Petri Dish Horrorpalooza All-Time Top 50 a couple of years back. And since it's never seen an official domestic DVD release, you ain't gonna see it on Netflix any time soon.

But maybe, just maybe, you might see it on a Bizarro Movie Night...

Meantime, enjoy the Japanese language trailer, courtesy of YouTube.

Bizarro-Worthy Director: Roger Corman

'Tis a wonderful world in which the director of Attack of the Crab Monsters can win an Oscar--even if it's only an honorary one.

The legendary Roger Corman won't be collecting his gold statuette at the main ceremony on March 7, 2010--he already received it at the Los Angeles Governor's Ball on November 14--but excerpts of his acceptance speech should make their way to the telecast in March.

Corman's award largely rests on his recruitment of budding cinematic talent--guys like Martin Scorsese and James Cameron, to name a few--but he's also made dozens of extremely entertaining movies of his own. Many of those B flicks--pulpy, great fun, all--would do any Bizarro Movie Night proud.

Jump here for a more detailed rundown of this man's career. And who knows? A Roger Corman classic just may surface for Bizarro Movie Night, Fiends and Neighbors...