Thriller Video Hosted By Elvira, Mistress of the Dark: Alabama's Ghost

Alabama's Ghost is one of the Thriller Video releases that was not also an episode of Elvira's Movie Macabre. Although I have the movie on both VHS and Beta, I've never seen it before, so I found it on You Tube and am about ten minutes into watching it right now. And I don't have one damn idea or another what is happening. Like all the Thriller Videos, Elvira does do an into and outro but does not appear to comment during the movie, unfortunately.

"And it's me again, the video beauty with the cute little booty, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. And I'm just the gal who can't say no. Well, actually, I did say no once, but only when asked if I had said no before. Oh, golly. How do you like my outfit? (Voices off) Shut up, sister. If I want your opinion I'll beat it out of you. She's just jealous because she's always trying to impersonate me. Nice try, sister. You can pad the bra all you want, but you'll never get your hair as high as mine. So, there, nnn. Well, I've got a great movie for you tonight. I mean, great that is if you're into Surrealism. I tell you, it has got everything. Ghosts, robots, vampires, voodoo, and vanishing elephants. Not to mention drooling idiots. Tonight's movie is called Alabama's Ghost. No, no, no, it's not about some cotton picking poltergeist, it's about this guy who's name is Alabama, which makes a lot of sense because his sister's names are Virginia, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Anyway, don't let this scare you, but Alabama is being haunted by a ghost. Well, if you're ready, I'm ready. And it looks like Alabama's just itching to begin. Enjoy the movie, and I'll see you at intermission."

It's entirely possible there's some sort of plausible plot to this movie, which I entirely missed while I was typing out Elvira's introduction. Perhaps something like an aspiring jazz musician/forklift driver mistakenly drives his forklift through a wall and finds the secret stash of a dead magician, who shares the secret of his magic, asking only that Alabama doesn't reveal any of the secrets he has learned. Does he? No idea yet. 

After meeting this groovy promoter who's mind is blown by his act, Alabama takes it on the road, all leading up to a final performance where he will perform Carter The Great's most famous trick: a disappearing elephant. There are long scenes of dancing Hippies. I'm actually watching Night of the Comet on another screen and have only looked over three or four times and it all seems like a weird mess. 

Then another musical number with go-go dancers. This is actually a pretty good musical number reminiscent of Sly and the Family Stone, then Alabama takes the stage with his overblown voice. 

But all arcane secrets come with a steep price, and soon Carter the Great begins to haunt Alabama. "I am the spirit of Carter the Great. And I come to warn you. Heed my warning before you die." Then something about robots and vampires. "I just met an old white racist ghost." Whoa, the woman he was in bed with just turned into a vampire. He's making a run for it. Then there's a scene where the vampire chick chases him through an abandoned little village in makeup reminiscent of Demons and he somehow comes to a door where his mother takes him in. 

You were promised voodoo, and Alabama's Ghost delivers. Rejuvenated after a voodoo ceremony, Alabama is back on the road. What, what? What the hell was that scene about? His promoter is striking a deal with a futuristic media conglomerate type who wants to use the vanishing elephant act as a springboard for his mind control network. Or something like that might have happened. With a little more effort this movie could have been really bonkers. 

In this scene the voodoo priest has returned to save Alabama from the ghost of Carter the Great, to which Alabama says "He's a racist. Tell him to go away." Then everything goes a little apeshit and there's a Dr. Caligula and a conveyor belt of chicks that vampires in dark hoods are feeding on and some mumbo jumbo about converting the whole thing into some sort of digital broadcast that can be used to control the minds of the world's population. 

"He's got twin Frankensteins, and they're trying to kill Alabama." This movie has officially crossed over into WTF land. 

"This is an out of sight experience."

Sort of.

For some reason that makes no sense, this movie reminds me of Phantom of the Paradise, a movie that was released a year later. 

I'm about ten minutes away from the end of this film when i realize I'm watching something truly unusual and completely idiosyncratic, and apparently that was evident in all four films by director Frederic Hobbs. Hobbs wrote, directed, and/or produced four highly distinctive and idiosyncratic films: Troika (1969), Roseland (1971), Alabama's Ghost (1973), and Godmonster of Indian Flats (1973), none of which I have ever seen before, and all of which I will soon be watching. I don't do reviews, per se, I just do reactions, and one of my favorite reactions when I encounter a piece of art is "What the fuck did I just see." 

What the fuck did I just see?

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Elvira's Movie Macabre Season 2, Episode 19: Craze, Starring Jack Palance

On the evening of January 29, 1983, exactly one week before The Monster Club, the movie Craze aired as Episode 19 of season 2 of Elvira's Movie Macabre. I do not remember seeing this movie, so I will be watching it and live blogging it tonight after I hear the voices upstairs subside so I can put on the earphones. 

Before I even begin watching Craze I notice the director, Freddie Francis, had directed many horror movies I am quite fond of, including Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, Torture Garden, Tales From the Crypt, Tales That Witness Madness, and The Ghoul. He came up through the ranks working as a clapper boy then making films during his WWII deployment. He got his break directing in 1962 at Hammer, and like many classic horror directors and actors, spent the rest of his career being typecast in the genre. It is sad to hear that story over and over when the movies these people made endure, and have made so many people happy. 

The movie opens with Jack Palance and group of worshippers sacrificing a woman to C3PO. I bet they got a cease and desist letter from George Lucas before the end of shooting this scene.

There's a a lot of nudity in this scene, and Jenny said I should start doing warnings about how much violence or nudity are in these movies, so warning, warning, boobs. And violence.

Jack Palance plays an off-center antique dealer who holds nightly rituals in his basement trying to curry favor from the African demigod Chuku. 

After the first nightly ritual where the Black woman offers her blood, everyone goes upstairs, then this older woman comes down and says "That's my Chuku" and insists the idol is hers and tries to take it back. It goes badly for her. C3PO is apparently pleased, spurring Palance on to even more and more creative and grisly sacrifices (probably, I haven't actually seen the movie yet, but I'll give you a dog biscuit if that's not what happens).

Chuku was a creator deity of the Ibo people of Nigeria.

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Readers of this blog will no doubt remember Julie Ege from The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula and The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, which are the same movie. In this scene Palance is no doubt about to sacrifice Ege to Chuku. But first some casual drug use and a romp. This movie was listed in Britain's infamous Video Nasties. 

Dance for Chuku, dammit. Dance.

That's no way to treat Julie Ege.

Let's see what Neal Mottram gets from Chuku for Julie Ege. He got a drawer full of gold coins for the old bat.

A: Ming vases

Then he scares an old lady with this mask and I have to be honest I lost interest and went to bid on a Hot Wheel on Ebay. If Chuku is paying out Ming vases for Julie Ege maybe just a subscription to National Geographic for scaring old ladies with a kook mask? Got about forty minutes to ride out with this one and I have to say I'm not into it. I feel like I've started this movie before in the past and not been able to get through it. Just not my cup of tea, but maybe other horror fans will like it.

There a couple of musical numbers in subterranean English pubs that are reminiscent of The Amen Corner in Scream and Scream Again. 

Not sure what happened with the Diana Dors story arc. I wanted to talk about seeing her in The Alfred Hithcock Hour episode "Run For Doom" and then later in From Beyond the Grave. But now there's only a few minutes left and for some reason he has scheduled an appointment with a massage therapist/dominatrix and I have no idea how any of this fits into the story, but I did admittedly just skip past a half hour of dialogue.

With eight minutes left in the movie Palance schedules a massage with dominatrix Suzy Kendall. Somebody definitely isn't in for a happy ending. Mostly at this point it's me because I just want to go to bed. 

Eventually the movie ends and there are credits. By modern standards the sex, nudity, drug use, and violence are comparatively tame, so I don't know about being a Video Nasty, but maybe a video meh. 







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Thriller Video, Hosted By Elvira: The Turn of the Screw

Thriller Video was a short-lived distributor of VHS and Beta tapes who began releasing tapes in February 1985, and released tapes through 1989. They were notable for their big box format, and securing the rights to distribute what are now considered classic horror movies, such as: zombie master Lucio Fulci's Seven Doors of Death and the cannibal classic Make Them Die Slowly. Perhaps their greatest coup was securing horror movie host Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, to present 24 tapes that they would begin releasing bi-monthly at the beginning of 1985. Unlike the aforementioned gory movies, Elvira refused to do hardcore horror movie, cruelty to animals, or gore for the sake of gore, so it was perfect that she would introduce the 24 Thriller Videos she did that were mostly episodes of a British series titled Hammer House of Horrors, with some B movies thrown in.

As I get closer to finishing my collection of Thriller Videos hosted by Elvira I have learned some of the titles are much more difficult to find than others. For instance, in over five years of active collecting, I have only seen titles like The Turn of the Screw, NATAS: The Reflection, The Human Duplicators, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde les than three times, usually only once, and I unfortunately was not able to secure them for my collection when I saw them. But I can do the next best thing: write about them.

Turn of the Screw Thriller Video

Turn of the Screw is a tape I have seen listed for sale one time in five years. I did not win that auction, so I'm still waiting for it to come up again. 

I also haven't seen the 1974 made for tv movie, but after watching a Kolchak: The Night Stalker a thon a few nights ago, and being a big fan of Trilogy of Terror and Dark Shadows, I'm always happy to watch a Dan Curtis production. 

In the 1898 novella written by Henry James an unnamed narrator listens to Douglas, a friend, read a manuscript written by a former governess whom Douglas claims to have known and who is now dead. The manuscript tells the story of how the young governess is hired by a man who has become responsible for his young nephew and niece after the deaths of their parents. He lives mainly in London and is uninterested in raising the children. The two children turn out to not be exactly what they appear.

This production starts Lynn Redgrave as the governess, Miss Jane Cubberly, oh, I'm just discovering this as I type, James "Shadmock" Laurenson as Peter Quint. Thriller Video fans will of course remember Laurenson as the tender-hearted Shadmock in Thriller Video's The Monster Club

There's almost no chance I'll take the risk of putting this tape in a VCR when I eventually do get it, so if I ever watch it most likely I'll do it on YouTube. 

Good luck with your own Thriller Video collection, and good luck next time this one comes up for auction on Ebay.

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Thriller Video: The Human Duplicators

The Human Duplicators is on Ebay for the first time in the four years that I have collected Thriller Videos hosted by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. I have never seen the movie, and it's unlikely I'll watch it on this tape as the bidding is already at $76.00 with an entire week left in the auction.

The box design of the Human Duplicators is one of twoI know of that differ from the other 21 boxes in the series. The other is Natas:The Reflection. 

The back of the box isn't much different from the other videos in the series. This copy, the only one I've ever seen, appears to be in good shape. The movie is about an alien from a distant galaxy who comes to Earth to take over by creating an army of zombies shaped like pottery. I guess that description sounds kind of interesting, but I doubt I'll rush out and try to find a way to watch it after this. 

The movie was released in 1965, and I see Hugh Beaumont is in the cast. How awesome is that? Probably not 150-250 dollars worth, which is what I estimate this video will go for. 

The Human Duplicators on VHS

Between VHS and Beta versions, I have 21 of the 46 movies released on Thriller Video and hosted by Elvira. My favorites are The Monster Club and The Silent Scream. Many of them come from episodes of Hammer House of Horrors, which was a one hour television series, so they had to pad those with additional footage. The Silent Scream was actually one of those episodes, as well as The Thirteenth Reunion and Guardian of the Abyss. These are generally high quality stories and well-written and acted. 

Almost all the movies in this series are PG13 or tamer, and Elvira refused to host any movies that had graphic violence or animal cruelty, but as I type that I realize the topic of The Silent Scream was animal cruelty. Nonetheless, the movies are all rather harmless and good fun. The Monster Club is no doubt the most fun movie in the series. I'll write an update about this video in seven days.

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August of the Outsider Poets Who Collect VHS Tapes

For the first time ever I have a copy of Scream and Scream Again on VHS, and I'm playing it for the second time tonight here at the apartment. Watching it with no sound the plot just becomes more and more incomprehensible. I can tell right now this is going into steady rotation when I'm here. I'm also reasonable sure I will never be able to explain to a rational person what this movie is about. 

Bought 52 VHS tapes Thursday at the Habital For Humanity resale shop. It's an odd place to find two rooms of VHS tapes, but someone who owned five local video stores donated them, so they're selling them five for a dollar. Unfortunately, I was apparently the last person in town to hear about this, so all I was able to find that really popped my cork was Scream and Scream Again, and another movie called Supernaturals that I watched earlier. It has Nichelle Nichols and Levar Burton in it, so double Star Trek bonus there, and was actually quite odd and entertaining. I wan't able to get the lady at the counter to reveal anything about the donor, but she did say maybe more tapes will come in next week. 

I was amused to see the Super Dave tape because I really enjoyed Eisenstein's turn in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Jenny and Jack were right there helping me sift through the tapes, and Jack found a copy of Electric Horseman and asked me if it went in the cart. I said yes. Jenny found a few oddball movies, and at five for a dollar it's hard to say no. 

I heard last week that the last VCR in production has been discontinued, but it seems there are enough out there to last us through the zombie apocalypse. The donor had apparently brought in this ponderous early VHS player that was as big as an AMC Pacer. They wanted fifty dollars for it or I might have gone for it. Space has become a limiting factor in my life. Just not enough shelf space for everything I want to collect.

Hey, it's August. Fantasy football season. And we still have our yearly trek to Willow Fest to boot.  Pin It

NATAS: The Reflection On Thriller Video

Sort of a bummer of a night compared to expectations. Duke winning another NCAA championship is like the jockos winning in every 80's movie. Then I was slightly disappointed in the season finale of Better Call Saul. To make things worse, I lost out on an Ebay auction for the only copy of Thriller Video The Human Duplicators I've seen available in over a year. I actually came in just two seconds too early because I thought $105 would be enough to buy a VHS tape of a movie no one has ever seen or cared about. It wasn't. But it's not much fun even if you do win one of those auctions when you have to pay top of the line prices. Most of the fun of assembling my Thriller Video collection is the hunt, and I know I'll see this tape again, and probably not have to pay $105. Anyway, as soon as I lost that auction I had a feeling if I looked immediately I would find a previously unseen Thriller Video for sale. And I did. I found a copy of NATAS: The Reflection, a Thriller Video I haven't seen up for auction at all in the year I've been looking. The seller's pictures and description were vague, but it was only $18, and I knew if I didn't press the buy it now button immediately I'd regret it. So I took a chance at $18 without any real pictures or description that this could be a solid copy of...

Natas: The Reflection

It's one of two of the 24 Thriller Videos hosted by Elvira that don't have her prominently featured on the cover. The other one, ironically, is...

The Human Duplicators

So, maybe in a week or so when I get NATAS: The Reflection, I'll be pleasantly surprised that I scooped up one of the rarest Thriller Videos for a great price, but I don't expect that. Either way, I can use it as a placeholder until I get a stellar copy. Eventually, my ridiculous plan to collect all 24 Thriller Videos in both Beta and VHS will come to fruition, then I'll have to come up with some other idiotic way to waste my money and time. 

I'll post a picture of NATAS: The Reflection when I get it. 

Thriller Video ad circa 1985

April 23, 2015: It turns out the tape was a later release by Avid Video. Completely worthless, but in very nice condition. Mostly because no one has ever actually watched this movie. The hunt continues.

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Magnetic Video and the Birth of the Video Store

In a 1970 piece written for the New Yorker, Lillian Ross spotlighted executive Samuel Gelfman, and the new invention he would soon offer to the world: Cartrivision. What is Cartrivision, you might ask? Well, it's two things, really. It's the precursor to both commercially available VHS and Beta tapes, and it's also a color television and subscription service ala Netflix. The plan was to sell the Cartrivision set, which retailed for $1350, in stores such as Macy's, Montgomery Ward, and Sears.

Cartrivision 1970

The square Cartrivision cassettes had two half inch reels and could record 114 minutes. Initially 200 movies were offered for rental, including Dr. Strangelove, High Noon, and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. They could be played, but had to be returned to the retailer to be rewound. The cost of the Cartrivision television and rentals made it cost-prohibitive, and after 13 months Cartrivion went out of business in 1973. It is reported most of their movies had disintegrated in an insufficiently cooled warehouse. 

It wasn't until 1977 when Magnetic Video Corporation began releasing recorded motion pictures for personal use on both the Beta and VHS format. Magnetic Video founder Andre Blay approached cash-strapped 20th Century Fox and convinced them to allow him to release fifty of their titles, which Blay sold via his Video Club of America where he didn't rent, but sold his titles by catalogue. 

That same year an entrepreneur named George Atkison opened the first "video store" in America by purchasing one copy each of all of Video Club of America's titles in both the VHS and Beta format and renting them from his storefront in Los Angeles to members of his Video Station rental company who paid either a $50 yearly fee or $100 lifetime membership. A membership allowed a member to rent any of the titles for $10 a day. 

Over the next four years Magnetic Video added titles from Viacom, Embassy, ABC, and finally Warner Brothers and United Artists. Eventually 20th Century Fox purchased Magnetic Video, and it was eventually renamed 20th Century Fox Video.

By mid 1985 the United States had gone from that one video store location at 12011 Wilshire Blvd. to 15,000 locations, which seemed to be everywhere, including supermarkets, gas stations, and laundromats.  Pin It

Porky's II: The Next Day

I spent the first three hours of my birthday watching Porky's and Porky's II: The Next Day on VHS. Had a few Tab Colas, and a sleeve of snack-size Milky Way bars. It's hard for me to understand why these two movies have been relegated to the cultural dustbin of sleezy teenage comedies that became such a category in the 1980's. These might have been early examples of that supposed genre, but they certainly aren't encapsulated by it, and anyone who dismisses them as such is doing the movies, and themselves as a viewer, an injustice. Granted, the raunch flows freely, and is done deftly in these movies. But it's never the central focus of what is happening. These are movies about a time (the late 50's) and a place (Southern Florida) that the writers grew up in and knew very well. There's nothing generic, unlike most teenage sex comedies, about the place, the time, or the characters. These are teenagers who talk and think about sex because, that's what teenagers do. But they do other things. They encounter serious issues such as racism, anti-Semitic rednecks, sexism, and censorship in a place that was very much pre-civil rights. The language is salty and authentic. They say in what my opinion teenagers might have said at that time in that place. So, to see the movie dismissed by so many reviewers and remembered by many others for a few scenes that are funny, and iconic, but not representative of the movies altogether. I love these two movies.

Porky's and Porky's II: The Next Day on splendid VHS

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In Search of Blood Mania's Elusive Peter Carpenter

Pull up any reviews for either of Peter Carpenter's 1970/1971 movies Blood Mania and Point of Terror, and you'll see the same rote review. Carpenter was a bad Tom Jones impersonator, the music was bad, the stories were incomprehensible, the women were hot. What's the point if you're just writing the same idiotic blog fifty other people have already cut and pasted from the central hive?

First of all, of course the movies were bad. Rumor is Carpenter had to hustle just to put together the money to keep the productions afloat. But to say Peter Carpenter was untalented, or didn't have enough sex appeal to carry a production is foolish. No, he didn't leading man talent, but he sure as hell had more than sufficient sex appeal to make an independent about a guy who was handy with the ladies. I didn't doubt for a moment in either one of these movies that Carpenter couldn't have bedded these women on, or off screen.

The songs in Point of Terror are bad? No shit, Sherlock. But they're not much worse than any song I would hear if I turned on the radio right now. The three original songs Carpenter supposedly performs in the movie are titled "This is...," "Drifter of the Heart," and my favorite, "Lifebeat." I enjoy all three songs, and if Carpenter performed them he's better than 90% of the standard fare out there. Let me know when you write, produce, star, and sing the songs in your first movie. Carpenter was reportedly a jazz dancer in Las Vegas in his earlier years, and as far as recognizing that his act was semi-ridiculous and campy, co-star Dyanne Thorne stated that everyone was aware of that on set and playing it up. 

Let me get this straight: though. Peter Carpenter was talented and driven enough to write, produce, star in, sing in, and generally carry two entire movies in a twelve month period, but for every other writer on the internet that deserves mockery, not a "hell ya!." ???? 

Almost nothing is written about Peter Carpenter's life, career, or death. If IMDB is to be believed, he died in December 1971 in Malibu, California, of a massive cerebral hemorrhage, although co-star Leslie Simms states in an interview she remembers him dying in the late 70's or early 80's of pneumonia. What an odd enigma Carpenter is. No clear record of either his birth or death. How is it possible he might have made these movies back to back for Crown International, then disappeared altogether for up to a decade before his death? With the advent of the internet we assume all the information in the world is right here at our fingertips. It's strange, and I must confess somewhat exhilarating, that there are still some mysteries out there.   

Lounge singer Tony Trelos (Peter Carpenter, BLOOD MANIA, VIXEN!) spends his evenings performing at the Lobster House, waiting for his big break to crack the Billboard's Top 10.  He has a chance meeting with the beautiful older Andrea (Dyanne Thorne, ILSA SHE WOLF OF THE SS, ILSA HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHIEKS) who happens to be the wife of a powerful record producer. She takes Tony under her wings, offering him opportunities and success in his singing career.  However, things take a deadly turn as Tony is soon enveloped in a twisted web of murder and adultery.  Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get what you wish for!  Featuring Carpenter singing his big hits "This Is...", "Lifebeat", and "Drifter of the Heart", POINT OF TERROR is an exercise in suspense in which there may be no escape! - 

If you want more of Peter Carpenter you're almost out of luck. He had a role in Russ Meyer's Vixen, and starred in one other movie, "Love Me Like I Do," which is out of print. So, if you're one of those with an odd fascination about Carpenter, Blood Mania and Point of Terror are your only road maps.

It's possible the marketing of Blood Mania and Point of Terror helped to elicit the vitriolic response by some reviewers and fans of horror. You see, neither is what we would strictly classify as a horror movie. They're more accurately described as soft porn soap operas with some action and horror. The movie posters and trailers didn't help matters by promising "the outer limit of fear." Rhino didn't do anything to allay the confusion when they included "Point of Terror" in their Horrible Horrors collection. Nonetheless, if you go ahead and pull up any one of the other blogs about Point of Terror or Blood Mania on the interwebs, the second sentence will be an angry declaration that these are not horror movies. No shit, huh, Sherlock?

But I am far from being Peter Carpenter's biographer. I have more questions than answers. The main one being if Carpenter did not die in 1971 why didn't he make any more movies? What happened to him. I'm curious why almost nothing is written about him.

Actor/dancer/writer/singer/producer Peter Carpenter circa 1971, on the shoot of his movie Point of Terror. After the movie was released there is no clear record of what happened to Carpenter. He never appeared on film again. 

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