1961 Most Dangerous Game rip-off
Rating: 5/20
Plot: Four young people wind up on an island with a crazed hunter.
Whoa! It's yet another installment of Movies-a-Go-Go, perhaps my blog feature that makes the least amount of sense. And it makes even less sense when nobody has even heard of the movie I'm talking about. But hey, why would something like that stop me? Here's a bunch of words:
Hey, there! Guess who's in this crappy movie?
1) It’s got an exclamation mark in the title which almost always means it’s a quality film.
2) It’s got Robert Reed, Mike Brady himself.
3) It’s the lowest rated movie in this box set of horror movies at my mother-in-law’s house.
Why am I Movies-a-Go-Go’ing it? That I am unable to answer.
If you’ve read this far, congratulations. Let me know in a comment, and I’ll give you a prize.
The opening credits were over a picture of a skull and a skeletal hand. I have serious doubts that that will have anything at all to do with the movie.
I’m chain-smoking these public domain horror movies like I'm addicted to them. The truth is that I'm vacationing at my mother-in-law's house and just don't have a lot to do. Sure, I could very likely find something better to do with my time than this, but I've never exactly been a go-getter.
Tony, the drunk skipper. That was not a good performance.
Reed is doing a very poor job of acting like a heterosexual. He looks exceptionally uncomfortable here.
Skeet shooting with bottles from a boat can’t be legal.
“Come back! Come back, you fools! Don’t land there!” Tony knows something about this island.
Reed looks like he’s a good two feet taller than his companions. And for the rest of this movie, I’m going to watch it like it’s a Brady Bunch prequel.
Our protagonists! Captain Tony can be seen on that boat in the background.
“Hey, let’s have a clam bake!”
Robert Reed just fell into a hole. Freudian.
Wilton Graff thinks he’s Vincent Price. And this movie thinks it’s The Most Dangerous Game.
Another drunk guy? Director Ralph Brooke should have actually just gotten the actors drunk.
The best actor in this movie thus far is the lion head trophy hanging on the wall over the fireplace. Although it does look slightly embarrassed to even be in this movie.
This isn’t a quality print of Bloodlust! (Criterion, this is a hint! Any interest?), but with the color and tightness of Reed’s shirt, it’s hard to tell if he’s wearing a shirt or just doesn’t have nipples or chest hair.
I’m not sure why I don’t wear a smoking jacket and a bow tie around the house like this rich hunter dude. No wonder I don’t have friends.
Aha! Dean was just PRETENDING to be a “useless drunk” so that he could smooch the rich guy’s wife behind his back. I’m surprised his lack of acting skills hasn’t betrayed him.
This was set up like a flashback, complete with a wavy transition. But I was fooled. It’s just clumsy filmmaking instead.
My God! Why am I watching this movie? I’m starting to feel really really depressed all of a sudden.
Ok, I was wrong. The nerdy guy and the brunette have entered the cave part of the mansion and did just run into a skeleton.
Bonelust!
Pretty horrifying scene there with the rich hunter’s brutish assistant [Note: I was wrong. There were three of these guys--guards, I guess. And they all wore the same striped shirts for a uniform.] checking out the woman in the aquarium and pulling body parts from a chest.
I’m so happy that the makers of this decided to have the rich hunter go after his wife and Dean with a spear. It just has to be a phallic symbol, otherwise, the entire movie falls to pieces.
Robert Reed has an oddly-shaped torso.
I’m impressed with this guy’s private trophy room.
And now it’s story time. “It turned into a lust. A lust for blood!”
Well, his wife and Dean were certainly embalmed quickly. I'm not sure that's how it works.
“Listen, fun’s fun! But if you think we’re going to be the clay pigeons in your shooting gallery, you’re just a little far out!” That’s so poorly written that I don’t even know where to start.
They found Tony. With the amount of alcohol he’s consumed, he’s already probably half embalmed.
Tony is played by Troy Patterson, and it is not a good performance.
How is glasses guy still incredulous at this point? “You don’t think he’s really going to do any of this, do you?” You’ve seen taxidermied human beings, innards tossed in acids by the rich guy’s thug, and know that Dean and his wife have been killed. How do you still have doubts?
It feels like the movie just jumped ahead about 30 minutes since they’ve already reached the “Tree of Death” and the lone bullet the rich guy left them. I’m not going to complain, however, because I don’t think any of that would have been worth seeing.
Guy with glasses wants to head for the boat and safety. Reed wants to go get the girls first. This will justify the death of the guy with glasses a little later in the movie.
The girls break a vase and a window. The guard rushes in and sees the brunette on the floor with the shattered vase. She apologizes for what seems like five minutes and then the guard busts into a fit of manly laughter. What?
The "guards," by the way. Apparently, Waldo could have been one.
And the saddest thing is that I’m probably going to pop another of these “horror classics” in this 50-movie DVD collection in right after this one’s finished.
This whole cheap production now feels like a sick ploy of director Ralph Brooke’s to get Troy Patterson to take his shirt off. Mission accomplished!
Add “dying realistically” to the list of things (being drunk, talking) that Troy Patterson can’t do as an actor.
Watch out, guard. It was established earlier that the blonde one knows judo.
Body slammed right into the acid! It splashed all over but luckily has no effect on the blonde.
Acid bath seems like a terrible way to go, by the way.
Guy with glasses is now struggling in some quicksand. And I’m one away from completing my Bad Horror Movie Bingo card!
Things are looking up now that there’s a crazy guy wandering around the forest.
And he’s gone. Apparently, he was just in the movie to wail a few times.
Guy with glasses is covered with leeches! Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a bingo! Bad Horror Movie Bingo!
I can’t believe I’ve devoted 53 minutes to this movie. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.
I think I’ve decided that Movies-a-Go-Go is an extremely lazy way to write about a movie.
It’s been a couple minutes, and I really miss that crazy guy. Surely, he’s going to play a role later on. There’s no way he was just in this thing to scream a bit and then wander off.
Great quicksand death scene by the “clumsy ox” brightens things up a little. People die well in this movie.
“Grateful that you’re own stupidity will save me of the trouble of getting rid of you.” I think I’ve said that to a few students over the past several years.
The rich guy’s grown on me a little bit. The coldness he displays when his henchman is sinking makes him almost lovable.
Yes! Crazy guy! And he’s just screaming again!
Now this, friends, is a performance!
Bill Coontz is the crazy guy. He was Old Iguana in one of my favorite movies--Convoy. And now his character in this is dead before he has any line other than “Ahh! Ahhh! Ahhhh! Ahhh! Ahh!” Of course, he was in 6 movies and had regular roles on two television series in 1961, so he probably didn’t have time to learn any lines.
Not much luck finding pictures of Bill Coontz.
Old Iguana was Coontz’s last role.
Guy with glasses knows that a gun without ammunition is useless. I’m glad this quartet of young people has one smart one among them. I'm starting to think this character isn't going to die, and that bums me out.
The cave that serves as this guy’s trophy room is the kind of thing that’s been used in countless movies. I wonder which ones.
What a twist! The guy didn’t die in that quicksand after all and has come to bearhug his former master to death!
“I guess Balleau never thought he’d be the prize exhibit in his own museum.” Nice, Reed! Nice!
Shot of a still-breathing (although dead) rich guy. And then, bam! The words “The End of Bloodlust!” pop up. Yes!
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