Rocketship Weird Retro Captain's Blog - Weird Retro

Mid-Week Movie Massacre: Blood Sucking Freaks (1976)

27/5/2015

Bit lovely bit of mid-70s exploitation-splatter fun with Blood Sucking Freaks, which was originally released in theatres under the title The Incredible Torture Show. An all out gore-fest, presented in a campy style, reminiscent of earlyHerschell Gordon Lewis's gore movies. A true expilotation classic, that unapologetically show-horns in lots of over-the-top violence, bad acting, boobs and ridiculous laughs.

In the movie Master Sardu (Seamus O'Brien) runs a Grand Guignol-style theatre with his assistant Ralphus. The shows that they present are verging on torture porn, but the audiences dismiss the shows as merely fake. However, the acts on stage are real, using women the pair have kidnapped and used as sex slaves. And thus the stage is set for a series of gory torture and murder set pieces, which include skull crushing, amputation, tooth pulling, decapitation, the list goes on. The most famous scene features one unfortunate victim having their skull drilled through the top with a household drill, and their brains sucked out with a straw.

The movie was panned universally by critics, with some saying things such as "I think you're a cruel little nutcase if you talk someone else into seeing it", and "The nastiest, filthiest and just about WORST thing you will EVER SEE". The criticism of the movie being far more over-the-top than the movie itself. There are far worse movies than Blood Sucking Freaks. For me it's a perfect slice of 70s exploitation, and a true classic of the genre. A must see for any cult horror film fans.

Kids TV: Big John, Little John (1976)

23/5/2015

Saturday-morning situation comedy, that ran only for one season of 13 episodes in 1976. The story of John Marton, a middle-school science teacher who comes across the famed Fountain of Youth, and takes a drink from it. The result is that he periodically turns from "big" John into "little" John. The show revolved around the various predicaments that John found himself in, as he changed back and forth between his 40 year old and 12 year old self.

The show ran on NBC in the United States and the BBC in the UK. It starred Herbert Edelman as "Big John" and Robert "Robbie" Rist as "Little John." Edelman a known character actor, who'd appeared in the Neil Simon comedies The Odd Couple (1968) and Barefoot In The Park (1967). And regularly appeared in popular TV shows during the 70s and 80s.

Robbie Rist, best known for playing Cousin Oliver in The Brady Bunch, and for voicing characters in TV Shows and movies like Stuffy the overly proud stuffed dragon in Doc McStuffins. He later went on the voice the character of Michelangelo in the film of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Big John, Little John may have only ran for one season, but for anyone growing up in the 70s and 80s, the theme song still sticks in your head.

Cult Film Friday: Stalker (1979)

22/5/2015

From director Andrey Tarkovskiy, who brought us Solaris in 1972, comes this cult piece of philosophical Russian sci-fi. The Stalker is a guide, that leads two men, a writer and a professor through a strange wasteland known as the Zone, to find a room in the deepest heart of the Zone that will make your deepest desires come true. The film is loosely based on the novel Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. Considered by many to be one of the best sci-fi films of all time, Stalker is an exercise in deep and considered metaphysics, forcing viewers to contemplate the philosophical layers that Tarkovskiy weaves into his seemingly simplistic narrative. The wasteland of the Zone is littered with symbolism, as viewers are forced to make sense of the often poetic use of imagery and sublime cinematography. Making Stalker a film that you must engage with, think about, and be left with innumerable questions after watching it. Creating a sci-fi piece in its rawest form.

Stalker is long and drawn out, but never boring. Much of it shot in a brown tinted monochrome, the film consists of 142 shots in 163 minutes, with an average shot length of more than one minute and many shots lasting for more than four minutes. That is until the end, which is shot in rapid cuts, all the more compelling after the long slow build-up.

Cult Film Friday: They Call Her One Eye

15/5/2015

Also known as Thriller - A Cruel Picture (Thriller – en grym film in Swedish), is a controversial Swedish exploitation film, that was the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino when he made Kill Bill. A brutal rape and revenge saga, it was originally banned in Sweden and the USA on release, only allowed to be shown after major cuts were made to the film, including the removal of the infamous hardcore sex scene.

A sex trafficked and brutalised prostitute takes revenge on those who have wronged her. Muted after after being raped as a child, and forced into heroin addiction and pimped out by a man she meets. She is blinded in one eye by her pimp for refusing to take a client. She eventually escapes, and begins to take bloody revenge on the men who have taken her life from her.

The film stars 70s porn starlet Christina Lindberg, who had starred in the even more controversial Swedish exploitation porn film, Dairy Of A Rape in 1971. A film that was pretty much banned in all countries.

Despite its full on exploitation credentials They Call Her One Eye is actually a above average revenge thriller. It is slow paced and actually carefully handled. It's easy to see why Tarantino fell in love with this film and paid heavy homage to it in Kill Bill. It has become an absolute classic of cult cinema. And although it isn't a film you would go back to time and time again, it is a must watch for anyone that claims to be a fan of cult cinema.

Toy Of The Month: Skinny Bones (1970)

9/5/2015

This one is a real "what-the-hell?!" toy from Marx toy company. The company that brought you Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. Released in 1970 Skinny Bones was a creepy construction kit, that allowed children to build a little freaky friend that same size as them. This cute-faced stick thin creature from the bowels of toy hell was part of a whole family of Bones abominations. There was Ginny Bones, the anorexic female counterpart of Skinny. They also had skinny pets. Skinny Bones had a badly neglected nag called Trom Bones (see what they did there?) And Ginny had an emaciated dog called Ham Bones. I assume that the parts of the Bones Family were all interchangeable, so that children could mix and match parts to create even more hideous monsters, to haunt their nightmares. And bring chills to any parent coming in the bedroom, to give their little cherub a kiss goodnight.

What you would do with either Skinny or Ginny bones after you had built them is a mystery. And as far as the tenuous educational value of, "the foot bones is connected to the ankle bone... etc..." Well I can see very little play value in the Bones Family, but years of counselling for owning this life-size plastic skeletal creep-fest was surely on the cards.

Clip from America TV show Thrift Hunters, featuring Skinny Bones.

Kids TV: CB Bears & Heyyy, It's The King

2/5/2015

Originally an hour long animated series from Hanna Barbera, CB Bears was split into two 30 minute shows on syndication. Shows became CB Bears and Heyyy, It's The King, and were first aired in 1977. As with most Hanna Barbera animated series, it only ran for one season, or 13 episodes. And again like most of them, it was repeated regularly through the late 70s and into the 80s. The show was later shown on the Cartoon Network in the mid-90s. The original hour long show featured six separate segments.

On syndication CB Bears featured the CB Bears themselves, 3 trash-collecting bear crime solving detectives. They had a striking resemblance in both look and character to the Hair Bear Bunch. Also featured were Blast-Off Buzzard and Crazylegs the snake, which was a non-speaking segment almost identical in style to Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner. And finally they had the Posse Impossible, made up of Sheriff of Saddlesore, and his posse of cowboys.

Heyyy, It's The King featured the Fonzie (from Happy Days) like king, and his band made-up of school mates. Undercover Elephant and his sidekick Loudmouse the Mouse who work for a detective agency and solve mysteries. The joke being that whatever Undercover Elephant disguised himself as, he always looked like a big blue elephant. And finally Shake, Rattle & Roll, three ghosts who run a hotel for ghosts and other supernatural creatures.

Mid-Week Movie Massacre: Top 70s Movie Massacres Not From Texas With Chainsaws.

15/4/2015

Stick "massacre" in the title of a horror / slasher film and your in for a winner! Or not, as the case maybe. In 1974 Tobe Hooper brought us the most well known slasher film that used "massacre" in the title to attract audiences. But throughout the 70s, there were a good number of bottom rung b-movies that also used massacre as marketing. Here's three of the best, worst or simply weirdest of the bad b-movie bunch.

Demented Death Farm Massacre (1971): AKA... Shantytown Honeymoon

What started out as the obscure b-movie Shantytown Honeymoon was taken by producer/director Fred Olen Ray, and spliced with new footage of famed b-movie actor John Carradine as the Judge of Hell, who narrates the story. A group of jewel thieves on the run, wander into a backwoods farm, hoping to hide out for the time being. However, when the farmer returns home only to find the thieves taking over the house, he hatches a deadly plan.The film was re-released with the 5 minutes of Carradine footage, destined still to be an obscure b-movie. Released under the various titles of Honey Britches, Moonshiner's Woman, Hillbilly Hooker, Little Whorehouse on the Prairie, and finally Demented Death Farm Massarce. It still made no impact, until 1986 when Olen Ray sold the film to Troma Entertainment, and they released it on VHS as part of their back catalog of schlock horror movies.

Naked Massacre (1976): Original title, Die Hinrichtung (AKA Born For Hell)

A German / Canadian / French / Italian co-production, directed by Denis Héroux. Loosely based on the notorious Richard Speck murders, which is transferred inexplicable from America to Northern Ireland, during the Troubles. This is the grim tale of a disturbed Vietnam vet returning home via Belfast, who invades a house shared by eight nurses and proceeds to terrorize and murder them. This is the closest telling of the Speck story. Others that were likely inspired by it I have mentioned before are the controversial Japanese flick Violated Angels, and possibly to some extent the infamous Canadian cult slasher Black Christmas. The film, which has the potential to be a cult classic, is somewhat ruined by the bad dubbing. For some reason all the actors have been dubbed over with painful foreign accented voice actors. Rather than having Irish, British or American accents. Or it did on the version I watched.

Drive-In Massacre (1977): ... Your Nightmares Are About To Come True!!

In essence a cheap hack-and-slash reworking of Peter Bogdanovich's 1968 cult classic Targets. Two police detectives try to catch a serial killer who is stalking a rural California drive-in theater, randomly killing people with a sword. Co-written by George "Buck" Flower, who has appeared in films as diverse as Back To the Future II, Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS and many of John Carpenter's productions. The movie has all the right elements for a cult slasher b-movie, and even harks back to schlock horror marketing tactics of the like of William Castle. With it's viewer discretion WARNING!!!, and claim to have been "filmed entirely in bloodcurdling Gore-Color." It's a movie that was designed to be seen in a drive-in cinema, and loses something on the small screen. With it's tired old "he's coming for you" twist ending, designed to put the willies up drive-in audiences.

Cult Creature Feature: Tentacles (1977)

11/4/2015

"Tentacles. It slept until man disturbed it. Then it woke, with a fury no man could control. Rising from the ocean floor, to bring destruction and death." Tentacles, or Tentacoli was an American/Italian co-production. A horror movie attempting shamelessly to cash-in on the success of Jaws.

Ocean Beach, a seaside tourist resort, has come under attack by an unknown creature, which captures and devours human swimmers and boaters, picking the skeletons clean of flesh and even extracting the bone marrow. The scientists have no idea which animal could do such things. However an investigative newspaper journalist (played by John Huston) begins to suspect that the company which builds a tunnel beneath the bay might have poisoned the environment and caused an octopus to mutate to giant dimensions.

As well as the late great John Huston in the lead role, the movie had an all-star supporting cast, which included Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins and Henry Fonda.

With terrible tag-lines like "It's Turning the Beach ... Into a Buffet!" The horror of Tentacles is how it got made, and how the hell they got the stellar cast to star in it. A hysterically bad creature feature, with all the cheesy acting and special effects you have expected from a 50s b-movie, except inexplicably made in the late 70s. An utter car crash of a movie that you'll either laugh yourself silly watching, or sit in abject boredom, wondering whether to have seafood for dinner tomorrow.

Retro Gaming: Video Gaming In The 70s

11/4/2015

Back in the primitive days of video gaming, the best most homes could hope for was a TV console with a series of generic Pong style paddle and ball based games. The Magnavox Odyssey was the world's first commercial home video game console. It was first demonstrated in April 1972.

Predating the Atari Pong console by three years. The Odyssey was also designed to support an add-on peripheral, the first-ever commercial video "light gun" called the Shooting Gallery. Magnavox settled a court case against Atari, Inc. for patent infringement in Atari's design of Pong, as it resembled the tennis game for the Odyssey. Ralph Baer, who invented the Odyssey went on to invent the classic electronic game Simon for Milton Bradley in 1978.

Below is an article from 1978/79, featuring a brief history of early video gaming. From the Magnavox Odyssey through to early cartridge based consoles, and some of the first home computers.

Right-On Race Relations Board Games That Got iT Horribly Wrong.

9/4/2015

Tackling race relations issues through the medium of board games, on the one hand seems a perfectly reasonable if a bit touchy-feely liberal way of educating people about social issues. However on the other hand, it's a potential recipe for cringe inducing disaster. Involving embarrassingly naive stereotypes, there games that have been produced with all the right intentions, but have ended up being nothing short of shocking examples of how something as simplistic as a board game cannot in anyway express the deeply complex issues of race relations, or being part of a ethnic minority group within society.

Life As A Blackman: The Game (1999): Apparently game designer Chuck Sawyer wanted to express through this game his own personal experiences as someone from a minority group, trying to make their way through corporate America. So what do we have? An insight into what it's like to young and black in America? Not quite, it's more a game littered with black conservative Christian stereotypes of African-American culture. Like a Crosby Show reworking of Boyz N The Hood of board games. In the game players must make choices between good and evil, or between the church and a life of crime.

And that's only the start of how "black and white" the attitude of this game is. Players all start as 18 year old black males either in Glamourwood, Black University, the Military, or in the Ghetto. Church provides strength and guidance. Crime has consequences, and while lucrative, it also leads to frequent encounters with police and ultimately, prison. The first person to reach the Freedom space at the top of the board wins. The game attempts to deliver its political message through satire, that falls flat, and just ends up as a litany of racial and social stereotypes. Who the game was supposed to be aimed at is an utter mystery.

Black & Whites (1970): You'd think a game first published in the respected journal Psychology Today in March 1970, would have delivered a carefully considered game with a social conscience. What they actually delivered wasn't a game that helped to create awareness of the divide between blacks and whites, but inadvertently between the haves and have nots, irrespective of race. As blacks are portrayed as stereotypically poor and whites as wealthy, with stock dividends and wads of cash.

Even for the 70s, this game was woefully naive.

The game essentially blamed racial inequality on housing issues and made it impossible to win the game if you chose to play as a black player. Needless to say, it turned out to be one of the most controversial board games of all time and even merited an article in Time magazine: "The game, produced by Psychology Today Games (an off shoot of the magazine) now on sale ($5.95) at major department stores, was developed at the University of California at Davis by Psychology Department Chairman Robert Sommer. It was conceived as a painless way for middle-class whites to experience — and understand — the frustrations of blacks. In Sommer’s version, however, the black player could not win; as a simulation of frustration, the game was too successful. Then David Popoff, a Psychology Today editor, redesigned the game, taking suggestions from militant black members of 'US' in San Diego. The new rules give black players an opportunity to use — and even to beat — the System."