Argoman aka The Incredible Paris Incident 1967 ** 1/2

Dir: Sergio Greico

Stars: Roger Browne, Dominique Boschero, Edoardo Fajardo

Argoman, Argoman, does whatever an Argo can. And he's got radioactive...cigarettes? Yes, one of the ingenious devices the hero of this film carries is a tiny geiger counter which can track a person that has smoked one of the radioactive cigarettes he offers them. Best of all, however, is his power of telekenesis which turns out quite useful for either getting out of a trap, making an aircraft crash, or in one case, literally picking up chicks. In his civilian identity as Sir Reginald, he pulls an attractive girl off a hovercraft and into his swinging lair, where, rather than waste time with normal wooing procedures, he challenges her to an archery contest; if she wins she gets a Rolls Royce and some emeralds, if she loses than she gets to be another of suave Sir Reginald's conquests. She loses, naturally, prompting Reggie's allegedly Indian manservant to point out Argoman's one weakness - for six hours after an act of love, he will completely lose his powers.

In many films the "MacGuffin" is a large jewel, and it is no different here, in fact it is a jewel about the size of a pumpkin which also has an interesting power - if a laser beam is passed through it, things nearby will be rendered soft and pliable. According to nervous scientists discussing the jewel, this could have limitless applications. I'll take their word for it.

It's not long before a beautiful but evil woman - who as it happens is the very one Reginald slept with earlier - has an army of ominously clad henchman steal the jewel and, just for fun, strap Argoman's new girlfriend to a table and leave a giant robot slowly advancing on her. Fortunately Argoman leaps to the rescue.

The film has some unique aspects among superhero films, perhaps the most unique being that, while Argoman is willing to put his powers to use for the good of the world, he is also apparently an actual jewel thief. Well, we can't all be born billionaires, and makes him a bit different from the usual Batman wannabe - in fact, in the more recent comics this is much how Catwoman is portrayed, goodhearted jewel thief.

The actors in it are lively and the hero's powers are very amusing. Roger Browne is actually quite a capable leading man. It's slowed somewhat by a few longish, talky, scenes, but the campy action, costumes, and the almost non-stop groovy soundtrack - with upbeat perfume ad-style vocals - definitely push it along.

Speaking of Italian movie soundtracks of the sixties and seventies, a topic never far from my mind, a friend recently turned me on to this band from Milan, who make great soundtrack style instrumentals.

Blood Harvest aka Nightmare 1987 **

Dir: Bill Rebane
Stars: Cari Salochek aka Itonia Salcheck, Dean West, Tiny Tim

There is some b-genius at work here in casting Tiny Tim as an unnerving clown character. For a grainy, synth-accompanied, straight-to-video slasher movie, this is really several cuts above of what one might expect. A young girl named Jill returns home from college to visit her parents only to find that she is a pariah in the town and her parents are missing. Creepy events start taking place as a boy she used to know tries to rekindle a romance with her. Tiny Tim is the brother of this boy, and keeps showing up uninvited around her house and generally freaking her out. People close to her begin to go missing, which means it's time for the beauteous Salocheck to take some showers and parade around the house in her underwear. Strangely, after all that, in the climactic chase scene, as the killer is revealed, she is dressed modestly in jeans and a bulky sweatshirt. It is to the credit of Cari Salocheck, this her only film credit, that she still looks sexy, perhaps even more so, and it's a nice switch from the usual. I've previously discussed my aversion to blatant nudity in lurid films, but in 80's straight-to-vid slashers it's pretty unavoidable and it would almost seem jarring if there was none at all. Although Tiny Tim's off-kilter (if he was ever on-kilter) performance - which makes great use of his trademark combination of weirdness and vulnerability - is deservedly played up in distribution material, with a gratifying payoff, Cari deserves a lot of credit for just looking great and her performance is quite creditable.

This is not usually my taste in movies, in fact early on I thought I might not get too far, but it ended up pulling me in. There is some well-done gore, although the grainy picture probably helps cover flaws, not that I don't enjoy flaws when I see them. For sheer enthusiasm of film-making there is something quite likable about the film.

Ghost in the Invisible Bikini 1966 ***

Dir: Don Weis

Stars: Tommy Kirk, Aron Kincaid, Boris Karloff, Nancy Sinatra, Harvey Lembeck, Monstro the Gorilla

This is not the most obscure of films, but in terms of what it provides for bizarre enjoyment, it's tops. This is considered one of the AIP "beach" films, but it's missing several ingredients - there's no Frankie, no Annette, and no beach. But it compensates, does it ever, with Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, and a haunted house, just for starters. Not an awful lot of movies have scenes of biker gangs, go-go bikini dancing, ghosts, gorillas, dungeons and wax statues, but this one does, and more.

The main plot involves Karloff as elderly Hiram Stokely discovering he is dead and that he has to do a good deed or he goes to the bad place. So he oversees a weekend get together of relatives to make sure the inheritance goes to the right place. One thing leads to another and soon groups of teens are doing the monkey and every other current dance out by the swimming pool, to the swinging sounds of Nancy Sinatra and the Bobby Fuller Four. The song performed there, "Geronimo", is probably the best song in the picture, per se, but a couple of the other songs are well worth it due simply to their strange incongruity. For instance, at one point baddie Basil's daughter, the shapely Sinestra, is supposed to use her feminine wiles to fool heir Kincaid into drinking some poison. Only trouble is, gee whiz, Sin loses her glasses and ends up singing her song to a suit of armour, shimmying nicely all the while.

A circus caravan with a gorilla shows up, and then Eric Von Zipper and his bikers as well, and soon all sorts of hallway hijinks are taking place in the mansion as secret passageways are uncovered. Everyone winds up in the secret dungeon where, after some Perils of Pauline action with a mill saw - in which a young heiress is nearly cut off from the will, as it were - all is well and the youngsters start a kah-razy dance party in the dungeon. Oh, yeah, and all the while the former Mrs. Stokely, who died many years ago, is appearing as a ghost in an invisible bikini.

This is no masterwork of acting, and there are practically no close-ups, except on Boris, with many extended stationary longshots. But the flick is definitely groovy fun.

Bloody Pit of Horror aka Il Boia Scarlatto 1965 ***1/2

Dir: Massimo Pupillo aka Max Hunter Stars: Mickey Hargitay, Walter Brandt, Louise Barrett, various henchmen in striped shirts


I believe this Italian-made film is a cult classic that is gathering steam, as every few years I google it for one reason or another and the number of hits has increased exponentially. It is simultaneously highly campy and rather brilliant, and features a plot structure that would be often repeated in later years, in a general sense, as a group of travelers has to stop at a creepy-looking domicile which at first seems benevolent until they are picked off one by one. In this film, each murder is uniquely creative, and they are exacted by Hungarian muscleman Mickey Hargitay. Hargitay, as many will know, was the husband of Jayne Mansfield and would later be portrayed, in a made for TV movie, by Arnold, with Loni Anderson as Jayne. Their marriage produced the lovely Mariska Hargitay, a bit of a horror veteran herself, having appeared in the first Ghoulies, and now appearing in Law & Order: SVU.


From the promise that this movie was filmed in "Psychovision" we know we are in for a good B-time. After a triumphantly cardboard opening in which we are told about the execution of the original Crimson Executioner, for abhorrent and sadistic crimes, the narrative shifts to modern times (aka the sixties) as a group of sexy models with big hair have been brought to an obscure castle, which they and their male companions have just happened upon while looking for unique places to shoot photos. At first the castle seems deserted, but they soon are waylaid by grim guards wearing striped shirts, the henchman of Hargitay's eccentric recluse. After some stirring melodrama the models and photogs are reluctantly given permission to spend the night at the castle with the promise that they don't go to the dungeon to shoot their photos. Naturally all and sundry make a beeline to the dungeon, since rules are made to be broken. What they haven't anticipated is that their host feels the same way about people, as he is beginning to identify more and more with the sadistic Crimson Executioner who was executed in this very castle.

Hargitay dons a Crimson Executioner outfit and begins to caper about, criticizing mankind for its "lechery" and "sordidness" and its constant attempts to corrupt his perfect body. We've all felt the same way at one time or another, but while most settle for ranting to strangers on the bus, Crim takes it all a little too far as he begins to pick off the guests in unique and sadistic ways, finally getting them all chained up in the dungeon and really having some fun, especially with the scantily clad female models. All for the sake of punishing them for their lack of moral purity, of course.

At least since the time of Vico, the Italians have been ahead of the curve on Western Civilization's descent into depravity and barbarism. This movie is a nice tribute to all the forces of the eventual decline, and has a lot of fun with it. As Super Nintendo Chalmers once said, it's one hell of a toboggan ride. The film itself is ahead of the curve for a lot of seventies stuff like Scooby-Doo, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and various stories in Warren comic magazines. Also noteworthy is the score, which has some great eerie music with Star Trek-style soaring vocals.

Return of the Swamp Thing 1989 ***

Dir: Jim Wynorski
Stars: Louis Jourdan, Heather Locklear, Sarah Douglas, Dick Durock

I can remember as a youngster videotaping this from late night cable and watching it over and over again, not exactly knowing what it was I was looking at. I was young and naive enough to think that, extracting the more fantastical elements, perhaps somewhere in the world people actually behaved like the people in the movie. Watching it again now, I realize what a good time the performers were having and how seriously it wasn't being taken. This a well-balanced monster comedy with many riotous elements such as bantering backwoods scumbags and porn-loving kids. At the same time, the filmmakers wisely never let the creature himself lose his dignity. There are some very capable moments of light horror film making, as an establishing shot of rained out trailer park that reminded me of an old EC Comics horror cover, appropriately enough, for surely Swamp Thing's comic book ancestors lurked in the pages of those classic Gaines stories.

This continues from the more grainy theatrical original that starred Adrienne Barbeau, but this one takes the mickey out of the concept while paying tribute to old fifties monster films like The Fly, as we are escorted early on through a mad scientist lab full of nicely made-up mutant freaks. Jourdan plays a slightly lascivious but nevertheless likable villain in Arcane, showing only a slight flagging in his enthusiasm for the part from the original film. There is even a great scene where he is shown, Captain Nemo-like, maniacally playing organ. The gorgeous Sarah Douglas plays her part as his assistant with great panache, and all his underlings are worth watching. Dick Durock as the creature, despite working in a deliberate farce - though with a more elaborate make-up job than the first time - creates a monster hero that is genuinely sympathetic and noble, inviting comparisons to the Toxic Avenger and Lou Ferrigno's Hulk.

But the film belongs to Heather Locklear. Her presence drives the plot, and she has many good lines - "I just love it when guys peel out!" As perhaps the most prominent in a generation of smart blondes, she makes it work as well as it does. It's a hilarious romp with genuine heart, and the entertainment never lets up.

Kong Island 1968 ** 3/4

Dir: Robert Morris aka Roberto Mauri

Stars: Marc Lawrence, Brad Harris, Esmeralda Barros, Adriana Alban, Ursula Davis

This Italian movie is also known as King of Kong Island, but don't let either title fool you, the apes in this are all regular sized. But gorillas are gorillas, and I'm a sucker for any movie with gorillas, especially if they are portrayed by people in gorilla costumes, and especially if, as in this movie, they are remote controlled by a mad scientist. The Leonard Maltin Movie Guide says this movie is "not even good for laughs". I beg to differ, but that could be because I find amusement in the concept of a mad scientist named Albert plotting to somehow control the world with an army of mind controlled gorillas in Africa. There are, admittedly, a lot of scenes where the film drags, as people walk endlessly through the jungle, but there's a lot to recommend it, as there is a jungle girl, referred to as "The Sacred Monkey", and a kind of fun dancing/club scene, as well as just a bizarre, twisted plot. One highlight includes the gorillas invading a camp and kidnapping the breathtaking Ursula Davis, also seen in Crypt of the Vampire and An Angel for Satan; she's one of my favourite Eurohorror beauties, seeming to always play the "good girl".

The last twenty or so minutes are especially good, as everything comes to a head and there is one fight after another in the lab/cave hideout of Albert; man versus man, woman versus woman, mad scientist versus gorilla. I must also admit I like this movie because it seems like something I may have caught part of on TV when I was a kid and been forever baffled and intrigued. I'm not sure if I really did, but it has that sort of strange evocative feel for me, between the nonstop muzak soundtrack and the blurry, otherworldly visuals. It puts me into a good b-movie trance, what can I say. That's what I look for.