2025 Days at the Grindhouse III: May 17th

 For over 20 years now, I have been a member of this filmclub.  It's a secret one, so I won't tell you the name. The members of this filmclub go down into forgotten movie archives to unearth prints of very obscure or interesting movies. These prints are then shown in an old art deco cinema palace that still has 35mm and 70mm projection. This takes place on a Saturday morning, and only members are allowed.

Things start off nicely with a very, very entertaining and sensationalist trailer to DIE NÄCHTE DER WÜRGERIN/CAT GIRL 1957, which is obviously a really cheap'n'dirty rip-off of CAT PEOPLE. 

Young Barbara Shelley is looking good in it, though. But the effects. Boy. Anyway, this looks like fun. The German print is out on DVD. I just ordered it. Nice.

The next trailer is BUSCHTEUFEL IM DSCHUNGEL/JUNGLE DEVILS IN THE JUNGLE/PYGMY ISLAND/FORBIDDEN LAND, part one of the German edition of the Jungle Jim series, a poor Tarzan imitation with a poor Johnny Weismüller and poor effects. Obviously this one was called Pygmy Island in the US which I do not get, as I can clearly see Weismüller fighting with something that looks more like a werewolf than a pygmy, which means that this is a mash-up of PYGMY and FORBIDDEN LAND. 

Something that was usual in Germany - to get to a decent running time. The same happened to the Basil Rathborne Sherlock Holmes series. This one looks so bad that it is fun. But I don't think this is in my territory. I'll go with CAT GIRL anytime.

Finally, we get DIE VIER SCHÄDEL DES JONATHAN DRAKE/THE FOUR SCULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE, which is basically the international trailer but in German. 

The movie has become a minor voodoo classic, and I remember vividly seeing it back on TV in the early 1980s. Fine. 

Now to the first movie:  WOODOO - BLUTRAUSCH DES DSCHUNGELS / THE DISEMBODIED 1957 GERMAN EXTENDED VERSION (1957)

Allison Hayes should be remembered, and not only for her "Attack of the 50ft Woman" poster that has become a Hollywood icon. And here, the film club has unearthed something very special. A ten-minute-longer running German version of THE DISEMBODIED(1957).

 What? Well, in Germany, there was no "B"-movie, meaning there was no movie before the main attraction. They did show, though, a short movie of max 30 minutes. The main feature always had to have more than 70 minutes of running time. WOODOO- BLUTRAUSCH DES DSCHUNGELS/"VOODOO-THE DJUNGLE'S BLOOD-ECSTASY"/THE DISEMBODIED has an original running time of 62 and would not pass the censors as such. Ok, so they tacked a full new German sequence of opening credits on at the beginning. And believe me, this one takes its time (and they put the same sequence at the end, in case you forgot the cast and staff). This takes up about 4 minutes -- and the rest. Well. Each time we hear drums, or a dance scene is shown, the German distributed added old but sped-up documentary footage of various African tribal dances. You know, like in the Tarzan movies where you see elephants running faster in a different print quality - or Jungle Jim, if you want.

Allison is a voodoo-priestess and married to an Albert Schweitzer-like jungle hermit whom she hates, as she wants to devour young, muscular men. She does all kinds of things with him through her puppet and when three white boys with sequentially free upper bodies come around, she does all the funny things like soul-swapping, ecstatic dancing, kissing, scheming. You name it. 

Ridiculously low-budgeted, there is only one reason to look at it: beauty queen and pin-up model Allison Hayes who takes over every single scene with her. And in the end, this is all that remains after the long, long end credits have rolled. Without her - and the ridiculously funny documentary footage - this would be a heap of senseless boredom.

And no! WOODOO - DIE SCHRECKENSINSEL DER ZOMBIES is NOT a sequel!!!

After the break we start with

TOT UND BEGRABEN/DEAD AND BURIED the 1981 not-Dan O'Bannon movie (he disowned it although his name is on the print). The trailer is spectacular, and I remember this movie being a big, big hit in the videostores back then. 

But the trailer is something else. It even urges you not to come alone to this movie...because it is so frightening. Smart. Selling two tickets!!!

It is always a bad sign when I have to check my smartphone to find out which was the second trailer. I completely forgot it ... like 6 hours after seeing it. Bad job. DAS ENGELSGESICHT/THE BEAST WITHIN (1981). Check it out. I cannot remember a single thing about this trailer. 

It is something about "Three Nights of Terror".

And finally, HOTEL ZUR HÖLLE/ MOTEL HELL which is a bad trailer for a bad movie. I had already watched the movie with the film club, so I know that this lame trailer is truly a sign of things to come in that regard. The less I write about this movie, the better.

Feature movie #2: ANGEL HEART (1987)

And yes, it's the Mickey Rourke/Alan Parker movie. I had seen it back then when it came out in the cinemas. It had been really hyped in Germany as being the next big thing in horror. Like, being equal to ROSEMARY's BABY... you know, that kind of talk. But basically it is BLADE RUNNER with VOODOO. And it suffers from the same flaws that BLADE RUNNER suffers from: over-indulgence and an unsatisfying end. Alan Parker though, does not have the class of Ridley Scott, so most of his images and pastiches run into a void, simply evoking nothing, not even awe. 

In this big budget movie, co-starring Robert de Niro and Charlotte Rampling, Mickey Rourke is a PI who is sent to find a missing musician in the 1950s. The musician has (or so it is told) sold his soul to the devil, but when the reports about his whereabouts fail to be delivered, Rourke comes in  to find out where he is. In his journey he discovers a hidden world of secret voodoo-rituals and strange magic, dislocation, incest, and lots of chicken. This looks much smoother and more polished than THE DISEMBODIED, but it is strangely the same. Chicken.

Knowing the end, I enjoyed it more than I did back then, as I could trace the slight hints Parker gives us. But then, sadly, watching this movie two times in a lifetime is enough.