Nightmare USA Films Discussion Thread

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

The Galaxy Invader (1985)

Whilst I am beginning to develop a bit of a 'Dohler complex', in as much as I seem to be strangely drawn to a lot of the man's work and find much of it inexplicably appealing, The Galaxy Invader left me a little underwhelmed, sadly.

Whilst the creature design is atypically Dohler-esque (with more than a few 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' visual traits thrown in), drunken rednecks steal the bulk of the camera time this time around leaving the creature a little side-lined.

The focus on the hillbilly capering and bungling as they attempt to hunt down and capture the alien - who has landed in the woods near their ramshackle town - and exploit it for monetary gain whilst mildly entertaining in some respects, does become tiresome.

However, whilst ineptitude dominates throughout, it's almost impossible (well, at least for me) not to get some enjoyment out of this cheesy little schlock-fest.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Garden of the Dead (1972)

Garden of the Dead is a silly, low budget Troma distributed zombie offering directed by John 'Grave of the Vampire' Hayes.

Inmates of a prison work-camp discover a barrel of experimental formaldehyde and proceed to get high off of the fumes. A group of them later attempt an escape and are chased down by the warden and his deputies, in which the prisoners' getaway truck crashes and they are all killed in the resulting firefight with the deputies. The warden then orders that the dead prisoners be buried in shallow graves in the woods.

The prisoners are not long buried when they start to reanimate and shamble back to the prison - at first you assume purely for vengeance - but later you discover that they're more interested in imbibing more of those refreshingly addictive formaldehyde fumes.

Dumb as it may be, Garden of the Dead is quite fun, and is a film in which they really went out of their way to concoct a bizarre mechanism for zombification. The resurrected dead also look pretty funky and even exhibit quasi-vampiristic qualities such as being afraid of light - allowing the effective use of the prison searchlights etc. to deter the marauding undead convict horde.

I was disappointed with the lack of a 'garden' though, at least in the conventional sense. I guess 'shallow graves near the prison grounds of the dead' didn't quite have the same ring to it.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Love the poster.

Do the zombies sing "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go"?

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Love the poster.

The poster is really good - arguably better than the film.

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Do the zombies sing "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go"?

Unfortunately not!

[Make Them Die Slowly]

I quite like the 3 or 4 films I've seen by John Hayes, there is an oddness about them that I enjoy.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

'Gator Bait (1974)

'Gator Bait is prime hicksploitation crammed full of gun-toting, dumb-talking rednecks, swamp water and 'gators. Oh, and Playboy Playmate Claudia Jennings as the self-sufficient and savvy swamp dwelling 'gator poaching Desiree Thibodeau.

What starts of as a simple, shady stalking quickly blows up out of all proportion as the local sheriff's son, deputy Billy Boy and his cohort Ben Bracken are shadowing Desiree through the swamp with the notion of some quick and easy sexual satisfaction on their minds. However, when the two parties confront each other all hell breaks loose leading to Billy accidentally sinking his pa's boat and shooting Ben dead in the process.

Distraught Billy Boy blunders back to town and blames Desiree for the murder leading to the sheriff to round up a posse consisting of himself, Billy Boy and the Bracken men. They then all set off for the swamps with the intention of catching Desiree and bringing her to justice.

They instead stumble across Desiree's residence, where she lives and looks after her younger siblings and the out of control hicks exact revenge on her family. Desiree then proceeds to take it upon herself to ensure that the men won't leave her swamp alive...

Whilst decidedly tongue in cheek throughout, 'Gator Bait exhibits a cold, nasty streak below its murky surface, which gradually rises up like a 'gator from the depths of a swamp as the bodies start to pile up, and acts to balance out the often screwball redneck capering somewhat. Certainly worth a look for exploitation fans.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

The Ghost Dance (1980)

The Ghost Dance tells the tale of a long dead warrior whose spirit possesses the body of a Native American medicine man and causes him to go on a killing spree.

The bulk of the film plays out more as a mystery, with a group of anthropology students trying to determine the warrior spirit's origins, all the while occasionally being picked off by our maniacal possessed medicine man.

Despite the performances generally being quite credible, the pace is unfortunately pretty slow and the suspense fairly lacking.

If you are looking for a dull Native American themed supernatural slasher film which seems to spend a fair chunk of its running time in the dark then this may be for you.

[Rondadoronron]

If you are looking for a dull Native American themed supernatural slasher film

funny you should mention it but yes i am looking for one,Ive lost mine.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Ghosts That Still Walk (1977)

A quite bizarre film that focusses a problematic young boy who is undergoing medical and psychiatric evaluation. However, little do the medical professionals know that he is in fact possessed by the vengeful spirit of a mummified Native American Indian medicine man.

Most of the tale is told via flashback as the boy and his Grandma (played by the woman who hangs herself in Airplane! no less) are both separately subjected to hypnosis by the boy's psychiatrist.

It's a pretty dull ride for the most part, but has a strange new-age hippie vibe to it, which for me gave the film a strange draw, and made it hard to get too bored for the most part - particularly during the elderly Grandma's hypnotic session in which we are treated to a fairly long flashback of her and her husband's motorhome being attacked by giant rolling boulders and a chase across the salt flats.

Whilst not very 'good' in the conventional sense, I still got enough out of the poorly and awkwardly titled Ghosts That Still Walk than I envisioned I would.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Happy Mother’s Day, Love George (1973)

Happy Mother’s Day, Love George (AKA: Run Stranger, Run) stars what I first thought was a very good Ron Howard lookalike, who I later realised was actually Ron Howard... here he portrays a boy on the run in New England on a quest to find his birth parents and reconstruct the jigsaw of his past. Unfortunately, a new face in a small town that is host to some brutal killings and disappearances does have its drawbacks.

The film has a quite light-hearted almost melancholic tone to it in many respects, and the 'whodunit' aspect revolving around the killings almost feels as if it is a sub-plot to the various eccentricities of the characters who are housed in the sleepy little New England Town and their relationships with one another.

All the performances are pretty solid, although the main plot device revolving around the quest for the birth parents does seem rather stretched and even disrupts the pace of the film at times. The identity of the killer is also far from a surprise, although despite the predictability there are a few nice little psychotic moments to be had here.