There are giants in the history of shitty cinema. Roger Corman, Bert I. Gordon, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Lloyd Kaufman, Ray Dennis Steckler, amongst many others. Then there are filmmakers like Andy Milligan. Milligan was a worker, with dozens of films in his oeuvre. But he sure did make some trash. Most shitty filmmakers would make something like Guru, the Mad Monk, and then have to call it quits. Having a film this bad in one’s CV is kryptonite to investors, but Milligan managed to make shitty films for another two decades after Guru’s release. That’s dedication.
Released in 1970, Guru, the Mad Monk has very little to recommend it, to even the most diehard of shitty movie fans. Mercifully short at just 56 minutes, Milligan, who wrote as well as directed, displayed a profound lack of skill as a storyteller and filmmaker.
He sets the bar low early on. Filmed entirely in a Manhattan church, Milligan made just about no effort to conceal the fact his location was in a bustling city, and not on some fictional, medieval island in Eastern Europe, where the story takes place. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Guru, the Mad Monk”
There is some sleaze to Blood Mania, the 1970 neo-noir drive-in flick from purveyors of shit Crown International Pictures. Tony Crechales and Toby Sacher were responsible for the screenplay, while Robert Vincent O’Neil sat in the director’s chair.
For no reason other than that I feel like it, I hereby declare this to be Arnold Schwarzenegger month at Missile Test. His Arnoldness has 54 acting credits to his name on IMDb. I’m going to watch a whole boatload of them and write some reviews. I’m looking forward to hours upon hours of explosions, gunfights, and rough accents. The first flick has only one of those, but it depends on which print a viewer manages to see.