Beasts Are on the Streets, The (1978)

Directed by:
Peter R. Hunt

Some major road rage is going down out on a busy Texas highway and it's being instigated by Jim (Billy Green Bush) and Al (Burton Gilliam), a pair of obnoxious, beer-guzzling, good ol' boy rednecks with a deer strapped to the roof of their car. They drive like maniacs, shoot at road signs and almost run a trucker with a weak ticker off the road. A cop finally pulls them over to give them a ticket. The trucker honks and laughs as he passes. When the rednecks catch back up, they pull alongside him, rest a rifle scope on his head and pretend like they're going to shoot; only to speed off. Shaken up by the incident, the trucker pulls off the road to catch a breath, but the damage has already been done. When he gets back onto the highway, his heart gives out, he runs off the road and crashes right into the African Wildlife safari park, taking down many of the security fences in the process. The truck blows up, causing even more damage, and a massive multiple car pile-up occurs right outside the downed gates. Staff veterinarian and single mom Dr. Claire Macauley (Carol Lynley) and her boyfriend, park ranger Kevin Johnson (Dale Robinette), are soon going to have more problems on their hands than assisting in a camel's breach birth as dozens of wild, dangerous animals escape.

As terrified passengers sit in their cars shrieking their heads off, the road fills with llamas, zebras, camels, bears, lions, antelopes, tigers, ostriches, elephants, giraffes, panthers, rhinoceroses and other beasts. Because of traffic and sight-seers, many of the animals are able to make their way into the local neighborhood. The staff of the park all immediately get to work and head out with special tranquilizer guns to help round them up. The police, on the other hand, aren't so humane in their approach, and want to shoot to kill, which causes some problems. A bear and a tiger both crash an amusement park, where a couple on a hilariously try to paddleboat their way to safety. A couple of dummies in a dune buggy encounter a bunch of rhinos, elephants end up in an old woman's front yard and a little boy tries to lasso an ostrich. Some scenes try to be scary and suspenseful, while others try to be lighthearted, comic and / or cutesy.

This starts out fairly well. The premise is great and watching all manner of wild animals running loose down suburban streets and inside houses and buildings is really a whole lot of fun (and somewhat startling). Once the novelty of that wears off, things do begin to lose steam. In the second half, this concentrates most of its energy on three lions that need to be recaptured. The first is Rinaldo, the star attraction at the park, who kills some livestock and then becomes trapped in a brush fire and must be rescued with a helicopter. The second and third are a lioness named Diana and her cub. Diana scours neighborhoods, breaks through windows into houses, destroys an entire vet's lab and, finally, enters into a hospital, all while searching for her lost baby. Lots of scenes also focus on Jim the redneck, one of the guys who helped cause the problem to begin with. Jim and his buddy want in on the action so they drag Jim's sensitive teenage son into the forest late at night on a hunting trip. It all backfires in a bad way when the friend is killed by the lion and Jim accidentally shoots his son. Lesson learned.

This is the kind of movie you simply wouldn't see being made nowadays; at least not without liberal use of CGI, so for that reason alone you may want to check it out. It probably took a great deal of time and care to orchestrate the various scenes with real animals and stunt men, some of which are pretty impressive. The opening disclaimer says the animal sequences were supervised by the American Humane Society and a veterinarian. Though that may have been the case, it's hard to imagine that no animals were actually hurt while making this. They're not only out of their element, but also seen running around near fire and things exploding, jumping on and off cars and sparring with one another. Bears and tigers, dogs and lions, lions and horses and other animals are all put in scenes together and chase, fight and / or attack each other. It's not gory or all that violent and nothing is seen actually being seriously hurt, but the animals sometimes look seriously distressed being put in dangerous situations.

Joseph Barbera (of Hanna-Barbera cartoon fame) backed this project, which was filmed around Grand Prairie, Texas. The cast also includes a pre-Miami Vice Philip Michael Thomas as a park worker, screen vet Anna Lee (star of the Val Lewton production Bedlam [1946] among other things) in one brief comic scene, Laura Whyte (Blood Salvage) as Jim's wife and Bill Thurman, a regular in Larry Buchanan and S.F. Brownrigg films, as the trucker who crashes. Though this used to be on regular rotation on the cable channel TBS in the 80s and early 90s, there's never been an official DVD or VHS release.

★★1/2

Eye Creatures, The (1965)

... aka: Attack of the Eye Creatures
... aka: UFOs from Outer Space

Directed by:
Larry Buchanan

The Eye Creatures was one of a half dozen color remakes of black-and-white AIP productions; all made by Texas-born, self-proclaimed "schlockmeister" Larry Buchanan for his fledgling company Azalea Pictures. These things were all talky and poorly acted, had terrible special effects, were shot on the cheap on 16mm and haunted TV for a number of years, so a lot of people saw them back in the 60s and 70s. The ridiculously awful ZONTAR, THE THING FROM VENUS (1966), a remake of the Roger Corman-directed IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956) was the most famous of these offerings. There was also CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE (1966), a re-working of VOODOO WOMAN (1957), CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION (1967), a remake of The She Creature (1957), In the Year 2889 (1967), a re-do of Day the World Ended (1955), Hell Raiders (1968), a cut rate re-filming of the war film Suicide Battalion (1958) and this one, a remake of the fun minor cult classic INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN (1957). Like the other films in this dubious series, credit was not given to Invasion's director Edward L. Cahn nor to the film's writers Robert Gurney Jr. and Al Martin nor to Paul W. Fairman, author of the original's source story "The Cosmic Frame." Never mind the fact that the film is a nearly word-for-word remake with basically the same exact characters.

A man with a briefcase handcuffed around his wrist shows up at a top secret military instillation to drop off an important ("Civilization itself may depend on it!") canister of film. On the film is footage of UFOs circling the Earth and landing somewhere near "Security Sector 3." Presuming the invaders are unfriendly, the General (Ethan Allen), head of the UFO division of the Air Force, sends operative and public relations expert Lt. Robertson (Warren Hammack) to the small town of White Rock Terrace, where he poses as a recruiting officer while investigating. Not taking all of this too seriously are Corporal Culver (Bob Cowan) and his underling (Tony Huston), who use their high-tech infrared video surveillance system to watch teenagers necking at Lover's Lane instead of the sky. Some green saucers land near cranky Old Man Bailey's (Charles McLine) farm in White Rock just as teenage "rough neck" Stan Kenyon (top-billed John Ashley) and his girl Susan Rogers (Cynthia Hull), the city attorney's daughter, are making their plans to elope.

On their way back from Lover's Lane, Stan and Susan hit and (they think) kill a weird-looking, white, lumpy alien creature with multiple eyes. Its arm is ripped off in the process but it has a life of its own and punctures their tire. They're forced to go to Bailey's farm for help, but he's sick of "those blasted smoochers" on his property and chases them away with a shotgun. Carl (Bill Peck), a drifter and con artist who's just recently arrived in town, stumbles upon Stan's car and the injured extraterrestrial and ends up getting killed by a bunch of the aliens. When the police finally show up, Stan is blamed for the death since he and Susan had reported hitting an alien to the police earlier, so they go on the lam in an effort to prove their innocence and enlist the aid of Carl's roommate Mike (Chet Davis) to help. Meanwhile, the inept military is called in and try to blowtorch their way into the fallen spacecraft. And I shall end this plot description right here because I feel like I'm being redundant. The scenes, characters and dialogue are almost identical to Saucer Men... and I've already reviewed it once.

This was the first of these remakes from Buchanan and, though really, really bad, it's slightly less awful than most of what would follow it. Helping matters some is that they got to pilfer from a decently-written script; which was witty and intentionally campy; making it very adaptable to an extreme low-budget. However, since this is a remake, it needs to find a way to improve upon the original or offer a fresh take on an established idea and this does no such thing. The acting is terrible, the photography is flat and ugly, the effects suck and the direction is leaden. The only new scenes grafted on (the goofy peeping tom military guys) are horrible. Worst of all, the creatures aren't even any good. The original had small, highly-memorable, giant-eyed aliens played by dwarfs. This one has regular-sized men in boring, lumpy white suits. You can even see the seams on the costume at times. Though these designs are awful, they are again better than what would pop up in later Buchanan films. If you combined the eye creatures from both movies and dyed it red, it would look exactly like Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba!

Future director S.F. Brownrigg (Don't Look in the Basement) was the editor, Basement star Annabelle Weenick was the dialogue director and Bill Thurman (a regular presence in Brownrigg and Buchanan films) has a small role at the beginning. Peter Graves narrates the USAF Briefing film. Retromedia distributed the DVD, as they have with most of Buchanan's other films (which are public domain).

★

Encounter with the Unknown (1973)

Directed by:
Harry Thomason

During the years 1949 through 1970, Dr. Jonathan Rankin conducted extensive research in the field of psychic phenomena and catalogued hundreds of events that defy rational explanation. The most intriguing aspect of the research was the discovery of an apparent relationship between many of these events and certain cemeteries located throughout the United States. According to Dr. Rankin, 453 people directly involved in these strange events were buried in only 23 separate cemeteries throughout the nation. Some of the persons died as a result of the recorded event but many lived normal life times before being interred in one of the 23 cemeteries. This apparent final grouping of people who were touched by the unknown is referred to in parapsychology as the Rankin Cluster Phenomena. Dr. Rankin's research was never completed due to his untimely death August 20, 1970. He was buried 16 blocks from his home in one of the 23 cemeteries he spent his lifetime studying. The following episodes are based on supposedly true events described in Dr. Rankin's writing and involving one of the mystery cemeteries.

Sounds intriguing, no? Well, the filmmakers responsible for this trio of supernatural tales just made all of the above up. Not only is there no famous parapsychologist named Dr. Jonathan Rankin, but there was also no study and no linking of strange events to cemeteries. The film doesn't even bother following that fake set-up itself!

The Twilight Zone's Rod Sterling narrates, introduces the major players and reminds us that "There are few things as strange as reality." While attending the funeral for Johnny Davis, three college students; Frank (Gary Brockette), Randy (John Leslie) and Dave (Tom Haywood), are approached by Camille (Fran Franklin), mother of the deceased. She informs them they'll get their just reward, mentions a heptagon and says "one by land, two by sky." Later, while traveling by plane, Frank recounts his story for priest Father Duane (Robert Ginnaven). He and his friends had tricked the geeky Johnny into going to an old woman's home to get laid; claiming she was a young and willing friend of theirs. Instead, Johnny was accidentally shot and killed. Seven days after the event, Dave was run over and killed by a car. Now it's fourteen days later. After Father Duane gets off at his destination, the plane takes off again and crashes. Seven are killed, including Frank. Father Duane then sets about to locate Randy and see if the 7-7-7 prophecy is real or mere coincidence.

Our second story (a "soul-shattering rendezvous with darkness") is set in Southern Mississippi in 1906. While out fishing, young Jess (Kevin Bieberly) falls asleep and his dog Lady runs off. Later that night, the boy hears barking so he sneaks out of his window to take a look. When his father Joe (Robert Holton) finds him, he's lying on the ground half out of it next to a deep hole. The hole is actually an underground cavern which has been opened up by rain. Smoke, strange noises and beastly growls come out of it. Word soon gets around town about the mysterious cave. Some think it's "the work of the devil." Others want to know what's inside of it. Against his wife's (Annabelle Weenick) psychic premonitions, Joe and some other men from town (including Bill Thurman) decide to further investigate the strange hole. Joe agrees to be lowered down into it with a rope... and doesn't emerge as the same guy went down there.

Finally, we have "The Girl on the Bridge," which is based on an popular urban legend with slight variations depending on which area of the U.S. you live in (I've usually heard it called "The Hitchhiker"). After wrecking her car in the river, pretty young Susan (Rosie Holotik) is found standing on a bridge in a daze by a Senator (Michael Harvey) and his wife (Judith Fields). She has no recollection of what had happened. All she knows is that she just wants to go home. Susan then recounts what led up to her fateful crash. During an argument, her father (Gene Ross) told her to stop seeing Paul (August Sehven), the man she truly loves, because he doesn't have much money. Susan refused and continued to sneak out to see him. The star-crossed lovers eventually attempted to run off together and elope... and that's when they crashed. When the Senator and his wife go to drop Susan off at her home, they understand why Susan's father has deep regrets about telling her that "I'd rather see you dead than married to that boy."

If you can overlook the low production values, highly variable acting (many appear to have been dubbed) and predictability of the plotlines, the three stories are somewhat entertaining. Unfortunately, this is brought down a notch by both sheer redundancy and an awful final 10 minutes, which is nothing more than a narrated recap of what we've just seen. The echo-voiced narrator (not Serling) rambles on and on about death, witchcraft, white magic, black magic, the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead,' burial rituals, energy released during birth and death and a bunch of other nonsense. Just like the beginning fake scroll, this seems like a desperate attempt to tie things together and it doesn't work. Serling's narration is also unnecessary and just as redundant, though it does at least lend this low-budget regional picture a little class.

This was filmed in Texas and features many regular actors in the films of such Alamo State filmmakers as S.F. Brownrigg (Ross, Weenick and 1972 Playboy Playmate Holotik were the stars of his hit DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT) and Larry Buchanan (Thurman and Weenick). The director also made VISIONS OF EVIL (1973) and THE DAY IT CAME TO EARTH (1979); both of which featured Ginnaven in a major role.

★★