Category: Cult and indie horror

Really Awful Movies: Ep 374 – Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood

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Step right up folks, right this way. Take in the incredible, the stupendous, the monumental, the astonishing…feats of courage, strength. Be amazed! It’s carnival time, Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood, to be precise.

What’s this you asked? It’s an obscure early-mid 70s effort, directed by Christopher Speeth. And it was largely forgotten, until Arrow gave its fortunes a boost with a re-release. And boy are we glad they did.

This is a very odd duck indeed. Part Euro, Gothic, regional, vampire, Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood is at times Warholian, and just plan weird. Check it out, and subscribe to the podcast.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 373 – Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama

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Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. What a title, right? This is a wonderful, cheeky, low-budget effort that’s a creature feature and based around the infamous short story, The Monkey’s Paw.

Some nerds and some sorority pledges have to bust into a bowling alley to steal a trophy to prove their mettle. While inside, they encounter an imp, but not just any imp: a wish-granting imp!

And this imp, ain’t no wimp. Soon, some of the sorority sisters are turned into rapacious she-demons and all hell literally breaks loose. Good times, good times!

Genre heads will get a kick out of the cast, which includes Scream Queen Linnea Quigley, but also Robin Rochelle, who starred in Slumber Part Massacre and American Ninja 4 before her untimely, young passing.

Tune into this one, which was distributed by the legendary Charles Band, whose book I’m reading now.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 369 – Wendigo and Psycho Cop

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Two wholly different subgenres of horror, two totally different films. On this week’s episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, Wendigo and Psycho Cop.

The former is a supernatural offering from the early 2000s, inspired by Indigenous legends. It’s directed by genre actor and stalwart, Larry Fessenden.

A family of three goes to a rural New York state home to get some respite from work and to bond together as a family. Things take a turn, after the young son meets a man at the local pharmacy, bearing a unique gift.

Wendigo is remote, wintry, gloomy and at times surreal, with clear elements of guerilla style filmmaking.

By total contrast, the direct-to-video 80s flick Psycho Cop is a Ten Little Indians stalk-and-slash. It’s set in sunny California.

And it’s your typical “college students getting away from it all to go party,” style of slasher flick. There are quite a few like these, including The Mutilator, Spring Break Massacre, Cabin Fever, April Fool’s Day. You get the drift. The major difference? It’s a member of law enforcement.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show, and pick up a copy of our book, Death by Umbrella! The 100 Weirdest Horror Movie Weapons.