tarwaterthomas Review of Blood of Ghastly Horror

Blood of Ghastly Horror (1967)

I just watched this Al Adamson mess-terpiece...

[10/10 · 5 December 2021]

...and this is the greatest example I can think of on how to make a truly craptacular motion picture. You young kids who watch movies made by The Asylum have no idea of movies that came out when I was a teen, and they were made out of spit and bailing wire and how these same fractured flickers starred screen legends who used to be famous one time until their career hit the skids for no real reason other than it's a case of stuff happens all the time and you get paid on Friday. But even though Al Adamson remains the worst moviemaker in Hollywoodland, he did put the likes of John Carradine, Kent Taylor, and former Walt Disney star Tommy Kirk back to work. In this stupor saga, there's a blue-skinned super strong zombie dubbed Arko (Richard Smedley) who strangled five people in an alley way, including two cops, a streetwalker and her customer, and an innocent young woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. John Carradine plays your typical mad scientist Howard Vanard, who implants an electronic device into the brain of former Vietnam War veteran Joe Corey (played by Roy Morton), only to have him become a psychotic killer as he is part of a criminal outfit who have committed a jewel robbery. One of the thieves tosses a bag of the stolen jewels into the flatbed of a pickup truck belonging to construction head honcho (David Clarke). Only, his little girl Nancy (K. K. Riddle) finds the pretty sparking things and stashes them inside her little black doll. She and her mother Linda Clarke (Tacey Robbins) are being held hostage, and David Clarke, husband and father, is in a panic. As for Joe Corey, he kills Dr. Vanard. The doctor's estranged daughter Susan Vanard (played by Al Adamson's wife Regina Carroll) just flew in from France upon hearing of her father's death. Little does she know that her deceased dear old dad has a jealous colleague named Elton Corey (Kent Taylor) who happens to have a son named.....wait for it....wait for it.... Joe Corey. The ol' jewel robber himself. And because Dr. Elton Corey doesn't like how the late Dr. Howard Vanard had treated his beloved son, Dr. Corey decides to exact vengeance by experimenting on Susan Vanard and transform her into an ugly zombie babe. In the meantime Linda Clarke and daughter Nancy manage to escape their captors thanks to one of the robbers who happens to be black, and pays with his life after Joe Corey kills him. He chases after Linda and Nancy, and the chase leads into the foothills near Lake Tahoe, where part of this feature was shot. Joe Corey pays with his life, David Clarke reunites with his wife and little girl, and Elton Corey gets strangled by Arko the zombie; Susan drinks a potion that restores her to her beautiful self. The end. If you can hang in there to this picture's last thirty minutes, there is actually quite a bit of action and suspense. An uncredited Jennifer Bishop plays Dr. Vanard's receptionist; you might remember her from VAMPIRE MEN OF THE LOST PLANET, which made it to the silver screen in 1969. All right, now I want you to stay with me because I am about to lead you into confusion territory. BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR started out as a crime thriller from 1964 as ECHO OF TERROR. It sat on the shelf for over a year until Al Adamson and his favorite producer Samuel Sherman shot some scenes of go-go girls dancing their behinds off and some musical numbers, and the modified movie was released in 1965 as PSYCHO A-GO-GO. Two years later, some footage of Al Adamson's favorite actor John Carradine was shot and the modified feature was released as FIEND WITH THE ELECTRONIC BRAIN (1967) by American General Picture, founded by director/producer/screenwriter/visual effects supervisor David L. Hewitt. Well, Al Adamson went back to the well over four years later, removed the dancing scenes and musical footage (BOOOOOOOO); he then filmed new scenes of John Carradine, Kent Taylor, Tommy Kirk, Regina Carroll, Richard Smedley, and Barney Gelfan, and was reissued in 1972 as BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR. It was then edited for television and sold to Allied Artists Television as MAN WITH THE SYNTHETIC BRAIN. Then there's a raunchy version of this movie and it's called THE LOVE MANIAC. It was filmed in widescreen Techniscope and advertised as "Chill-O-Rama". See how confusing this was. Try watching this movie sometime. One more thing: one of the directors of photography was Vilmos Zsigmond, who went on to much better things (THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS; CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND; THE DEER HUNTER; THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS; ASSASSINS; HEAVEN'S GATE). Whew. I'm finished with this review. Thanks for your kind indulgence.