MILLIGAN MARCH: THE MAN WITH 2 HEADS (1972) ** ½

Not to be confused with 1972’s The Thing with Two Heads or 1971’s The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (or even 1983’s The Man with Two Brains), The Man with 2 Heads is actually Andy Milligan’s take on the old story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  After making movies about vampires, Sweeney Todd, and werewolves, it was only natural that Milligan would set his sights on Robert Louis Stevenson’s (although they misspell his name as “Stephenson” in the opening credits) classic tale of horror.  He even throws a bit of Frankenstein imagery in there as this Dr. Jekyll (played by Dennis DeMarne) opens up a corpse's skull and pokes around in their brain.  

Dr. Jekyll has performed a procedure that allows him to isolate the evil in someone’s brain.  The old guard of physicians scoff at his ideas, and to prove them all wrong, he tries his new formula on himself.  Naturally, it turns him into the evil Mr. Hyde… err… “Danny Blood”.

The acting is surprisingly strong for a Milligan movie, which makes the dialogue scenes seem downright Oscar-worthy next to something like The Ghastly Ones or The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here.  I’m not exactly saying they are great or anything, but it was nice to see some actual talent on screen for a change.  DeMarne is quite good as the straightlaced Jekyll and has fun chewing the scenery as Danny Blood.  The make-up and transformations for Blood are subtle, but effective.  He basically just has big eyebags and bushy eyebrows, but DeMarne plays the role with intensity.  Gay Feld (in curiously her only role) is excellent as Jekyll’s long-suffering fiancée and Julia Stratton (in her second and final role) is equally memorable as the comely barmaid, April.  

Yes, there are still sluggish passages in between the gore (which is limited to a couple of decapitations and a brain surgery scene).  Yes, the movie goes on about fifteen minutes longer than it really needed.  Yes, there’s probably too many supporting characters.  However, the highlights more than outshine the draggy sections.  The sequence in which Blood smacks April around and forces her to bark like a dog packs an unexpected punch, and it ranks as some of the most effective work Milligan has done.  If anything, The Man with 2 Heads shows what Milligan could do with a strong cast and a sturdy script.

As far as Milligan’s motifs go, this was the final film he made in England.  Like many of his movies, it’s a 19th century costume drama/gore flick with lots of canned library music.  The Milligan stock players include the reliable Berwick Kaler, Gerald Jacuzzo from Torture Dungeon, and William Barrel (from numerous Milligan productions) appearing in this one.  

AKA:  The Man with Two Faces.

 

TUBI CONTINUED… DOLL KILLER 3: AUDRA’S REVENGE (2023) **

Okay, so remember in yesterday’s review of Doll Killer 2 when I said it was padded with lots of scenes from the first movie, but since I hadn’t seen the original, it wasn’t a big deal?  Well, Part 3 is padded with scenes from Part 2, which is kind of a big deal since I just saw Part 2 yesterday, and I didn’t exactly need to see them again.  The weird thing is, Part 2 was fifty-one minutes long and this one is only forty-four.  You’d think writer/director Dustin Ferguson would’ve just combined the two pictures into one ninety-five-minute movie, but no.  Then again, if he did that, I wouldn’t be sitting here reviewing Doll Killer 3:  Audra’s Revenge. 

Oh, and remember how I said in yesterday’s review of Doll Killer 2 that if you’re expecting a movie about a killer doll you’re going to be disappointed as it’s about a killer who leaves dolls on the bodies of his victims?  Well, there IS a killer doll in this one named Audra.  However, she’s only in it for like a minute and the special effect basically boils down to a crew member throwing a doll at an actress from just offscreen.  So, if you go in expecting a killer doll flick, you’re still probably going to be disappointed, even though there is actually a killer doll this time out. 

Doll Killer 3:  Audra’s Revenge is kind of like 300:  Rise of an Empire as it is sort of a “sidequel.”  That is to say that the film is happening at more or less the same time as the events from the last movie.  While Stephanie (Breana Mitchell) is off on her date, the psycho in the clown mask stalks and kills more people before setting his sights on some grown-ass adults having a slumber party.  Eventually, he tries to finish Stephanie off as she recovers from her wounds at a nearby hospital. 

The first seven minutes or so are devoted to opening credits and scenes from the first film.  If you also count the end credits and occasional cutaways to scenes from Part 2 that are sprinkled throughout, there’s probably only about a half-hour’s worth of new footage here.  In all fairness, the new scenes aren’t bad.  I liked the sequence where the killer stalks a New Age practitioner (co-writer Traci Burr) who screams, “I should’ve studied Scientology!” as she’s being chased.  Ferguson once again delivers a few arty shots, and ends things with a solid Halloween 2 homage with a final showdown in a hospital.  (Although why anyone would leave a hacksaw on a patient’s bedside table is beyond me.)  Unfortunately, Lisa (Darling Nikki) London, the best actress in the film, is unceremoniously killed off. 

If you took the best parts from 2 and 3 and added them together in a blender (with maybe a little bit more gore and T & A), you might have yourself the making of one good slasher.  As it stands, you’re stuck with two hit-and-miss horror flicks.  At least they’re short.

AKA:  Doll Killer 3.

MILLIGAN MARCH: THE RATS ARE COMING-THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE (1972) NO STARS

You’ve got to hand it to Andy Milligan.  He has a way with a title.  The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here is one of the greatest titles in cinema history.  Unfortunately, it also happens to be one of the worst movies of all time.  

The story goes Milligan originally planned to make a straight werewolf picture called The Curse of the Full Moon.  The producers got a bit nervous that werewolves on their own wouldn’t sell tickets, so they made Andy add some new scenes of rats to cash in on the killer rat craze that had been spearheaded by Willard and Ben.  That legend (two of the rats are even called Willard and Ben, just to show how crassly it all was) is much better than the movie itself, although the incongruous way that the rats are pasted into the narrative at the very least is enough to make this mess memorable.  Sadly, it’s mostly memorable for all the wrong reasons.  

Diana Mooney (Jackie Skarvellis) brings her husband Gerald (Ian Innes) home to meet her family.  Naturally, the family is full of nutcases (her crazy brother is kept in a room full of chickens) and is keeping a terrible secret from him.  FINALLY (in the last reel), it is revealed they are werewolves.

There’s only about one minute of plot stretched out to ninety minutes.  Until the predictable finale rolls around, you have to stomach lots of dull scenes of mindless exposition, bickering sisters harping on at each other, and family members alluding to their big secret.  I’m of the mind that a movie can be anything except boring.  This one can’t even clear that low bar.  This one of those films where you watch it and think you’re an hour in and you check the timer on the remote and only five minutes have gone by.  

The new rat scenes are ill-fitting at best and downright despicable at worst.  Why anyone would go to a shop and buy rats that bit the shopkeeper’s arm and half his face off is beyond me, but at least it gives you a chance to get out of the castle and take a breather from all the mind-numbingly awful family squabbling.  However, the cruel scenes of a mouse being stabbed and nailed are unpleasant and meanspirited.  I mean, I don’t even like mice and it’s fucking hard to watch.  I rarely hand out No Stars reviews anymore, unless the film is a detriment to the human race or at least the moviegoing public.  I’d give it Negative Stars if I could.  

In fact, the rats show up way before the werewolves do, which is weird.  Because of that, it should’ve been called The Werewolves are Coming-The Rats are Here.  Of course, that would’ve made too much damned sense.  

Like most of Milligan’s movies, this is a boring costume drama parading as a horror flick.  It also happens to be even more technically inept as usual.  The piercing music often drowns out the dialogue (which might be a good thing) and none of the costumes or locations look or feel authentic.  The muddled accents coupled with the muffled sound and overbearing soundtrack makes a lot of the dialogue unintelligible and the constant onslaught of dull family drama is enough to put you in a coma ten minutes in.  At all times, it feels like you’re watching a filmed community theater production or something.  

Milligan’s other movies were bad, but they at least had a gore scene every now and then to liven things up a little.  This one doesn’t even have that (unless you could the geek show scenes of animal cruelty).  Without them, there’s no real excuse for this piece of shit to exist.  

The good folks at Severin, who released The Dungeon of Andy Milligan box set, also added Milligan’s original version of the film, The Curse of the Full Moon as a co-feature on the Blu-ray.  It’s missing titles, but it’s essentially the same movie, minus the producer mandated rat scenes.  I only skimmed through this cut (I’m not a total masochist), and I have no intention of ever really sitting down and watching it, but I’m glad Severin preserved it for posterity’s sake, especially given the fact that so many of Milligan’s earlier efforts are lost to time.

Milligan scholars can amuse themselves by spotting some of the motifs that permeate his work.  Most of his movies are either filmed in Staten Island or England.  This one was filmed in both places.  Like many of his films, it’s another period piece costume drama with high school production values.  It’s about the family strife surrounding the continuing of their bloodline, which is a theme we’ve seen throughout his pictures.  Also, the overuse of canned library music is pure Milligan.  

Milligan usual suspects round-up:  Hope Stansbury was later in Blood, Jackie Skarvellis was also in The Body Beneath, Berwick Kaler was in many Milligan features, and Milligan himself (who has two roles) was in a lot of his own films too.  

AKA:  The Curse of the Full Moon.  

Here’s a reprint of my first review of the film, which was originally posted on July 17th, 2007:  

THE RATS ARE COMING-THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE  (1972)  NO STARS

God awful tale of the Mooney family, who are cursed to become werewolves during the full moon.  (MOONEYS!  GET IT?)  In one scene, one of the weird sisters buys a rat from a scarred rat catcher (writer/director Andy Milligan) and even names them Willard and Ben!  Milligan shot this as a straight werewolf movie but added the rat scenes later to cash in on Willard’s success.  Let’s forget the bad acting and terrible make-up and the fact that the werewolves don’t show up until the 80-minute mark of this 90-minute movie.  The thing that really makes this reprehensible is the scene where a real mouse is tortured, cut up and nailed to the ground.  Not only is this the worst werewolf movie ever made, it’s also the worst killer rat movie ever made.  Lucky theater patrons in ’72 were given a free rat when they saw this.  The ads proclaimed:  “Win a free rat for your mother in law!”  

TUBI CONTINUED… DOLL KILLER 2 (2021) **

Doll Killer 2 is the movie that asks the question, “Would YOU allow yourself to be admitted to a psychiatric facility ran by Mel Novak and Scott Schwartz?”  I know I wouldn’t.  I don’t think any judge in their right mind would send me there either.  No wonder poor Stephanie (Breana Mitchell) is so screwed up.

You see, she had to watch as her friends were murdered by a psycho in a clown mask on Halloween night.  She then spent the next fifteen years in a psych ward under the care of Novak and Schwartz before eventually being sent home on Independence Day.  Of course, that just so happens to be the same day the killer escapes from the nuthouse.  It doesn’t take long for him to put on his mask, grab a knife, and set out to finish what he started all those years ago.  

You know, I never saw the first Doll Killer, but hey, when has that ever stopped me from checking out something that has the number “2” in it?  Actually, I wanted to watch Part 3 (which is also on Tubi) based on the thumbnail artwork alone, but I figured I might as well at least try to get some backstory before I take the plunge.  (The original Doll Killer is unfortunately nowhere to be found on Tubi.)  

If you go into the movie expecting a killer doll, you might be disappointed.  This guy is a Doll Killer.  As in, he leaves dolls next to the bodies of his victims.  I guess it all boils down to semantics, but if you’re watching this hoping to see some Puppet Master-type shenanigans, you can forget it.

Doll Killer 2 is actually an old-fashioned Halloween-inspired slasher.  Made on a super low budget, it’s a little bit different than the norm as the killer isn’t a silent hulking murderer.  He speaks a few times throughout the movie, which at the very least shows writer/director Dustin (Zombi VIII:  Urban Decay) Ferguson was coloring a bit outside the genre lines here.  Speaking of colors, the killer has a cool mask.  It kind of looks like a Lon Chaney Phantom of the Opera mask that’s been given a Day-Glo clown make-up makeover.  

No one will mistake Doll Killer 2 for high art, but it gets the job done in an efficient enough manner.  Ferguson even finds time to thrown in a couple of arty shots along the way.  It’s only fifty-one minutes long, so it moves at a reasonable pace.  If I saw the first one, I might’ve been pissed that a lot of the running time is devoted to flashbacks from the first movie, dreams, and dreams of flashbacks from the first movie.  Since I haven’t seen it, I wasn’t too bothered by all the (presumably) recycled footage or anything.  I could’ve done without the long amusement park scene though.  It could’ve stood to have a little more gore too.  Some gratuitous gore or even a little nudity would’ve easily bumped this up to a ** ½ rating.  

Doll Killer 2 is not a great slasher by any means.  However, as far as the microbudget ones go, you can do way worse.  I’m all geared up for Part 3.  

EATEN ALIVE! A TASTEFUL REVENGE (1999) ****

Okay, so when I watched Mail Order Murder, the W.A.V.E. Productions documentary, this was one of the titles that really stuck out.  The short clips that were shown don’t quite do it justice.  This is one of the nuttiest fucking movies I’ve seen in a long time.  I think I may be hooked on W.A.V.E.

Stacey (Debbie D) gives it all for her company, but is still passed over for a promotion by her bitchy boss (Barbara Joyce).  To make matters worse, the job goes to Stacey’s ROOMMATE (Tina Krause) just because she’s prettier than her!  The nerve.  What’s a gal to do?  If you answered, “Grab a shrinking gun, shrink her enemies down to size, and then eat them”, then this is the movie for you.  

I’ve never been one for drugs, but this movie left me high as a kite.  Director Gary Whitson gets maximum laughs from the hilarious concept and the acting and shrinking scenes have to be seen to be disbelieved.  Some of the greenscreen “special” effects will have you rolling in the floor with laughter.  

If you’re not familiar with W.A.V.E. Productions, they basically allowed fans to write in to them with a list of their fetishes and they would incorporate them into their next no-budget horror movie.  I don’t know who had a fetish for shrinking hot naked women and then eating them, but God bless them and keep them for all eternity.  I’m not sure if I too have the fetish now, but I kind of already want to see it again.  One thing’s for sure, it’s one of the most insane films I’ve seen in a long time.  

The movie is only about thirty-five minutes long, which is about all the running time this insane premise could stand.  It’s almost like they shrunk the movie down to size too.  That is a good thing, though.  When you strip down something like this down to its barest essentials, it makes the weird-ass sequences seem even weirder.  

Speaking of being stripped down and bare, there’s a lot of nudity here, which also helps make it an unadulterated classic.  There’s a sequence where Debbie D and Sunny try on swimsuits for like ten straight minutes that is cinema at its purest.  Heck, I’m not even gonna talk about the scenes that take place INSIDE Debbie’s stomach where the shrunken girls are digested on something that looks like a Slip n’ Slide from Hell.

Even though it’s only thirty-five minutes long, Eaten Alive!  A Tasteful Revenge is still somehow packed with flashbacks, an overlong end credits sequence, AND post-credits bloopers.  I usually object to so much padding, but these scenes were so nice the first time that I didn’t mind seeing them twice, if only to double-check that I didn’t hallucinate the whole thing.  If you thought you’ve seen it all, by all means, check this sucker out.

MILLIGAN MARCH: BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS (1970) * ½

Bloodthirsty Butchers is writer/director Andy Milligan’s version of Sweeney Todd:  The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.  Todd (John Miranda) is in cahoots with baker Maggie Lovett (Jane Hilary).  He slices his customers’ throats in the barber shop, and she bakes the bodies into her famous meat pies.  Problems ensue when customers start finding human hair and boobies in their baked goods.  

With this film, Milligan continues his tradition of starting things off with a bang (in this case, a pretty good hand hacking scene) before immediately letting things get bogged down with a lot of boring soap opera melodrama.  You would think that Sweeney Todd would be a can’t miss proposition for Milligan, seeing as his horror films are often 19th century costume dramas with occasional dashes of gore.  Even though the story is tailormade for Milligan’s sensibilities, he is unable to make it work, thanks in no small part to the frequent dull, talky passages in between the murder set pieces.  Or put another way:  You get a little gore, but it’s mostly a bore.  

It’s been a while since I saw it last, but I forgot that it takes FOREVER before the body parts start turning up in the meat pies.  Heck, Miranda and Hilary don’t even share any scenes together until the last act.  Before that, it’s just a lot of love triangles, rectangles, and pentagons as the young romantic leads’ premarital woes and Todd and Lovett’s marital strife seem to take precedence over the whacking, hacking, and body stacking.  There are ultimately just too many side characters and subplots that gum up the works.  I know he was probably just trying to flesh out the characters (or more likely, pad out the running time), but the further Milligan strays from the central premise, the worse the movie gets. 

Notable Milligan motifs:  Like Nightbirds, Milligan shot the film in England.  As with The Body Beneath and Torture Dungeon, it’s essentially a 19th century costume drama with high school drama level costumes and acting that’s punctuated by occasional gore scenes.  Milligan’s overuse of library music and inexplicable shots of the camera looking straight up the actor’s noses also permeate the film.  As for his stock company players:  Miranda later turned up in The Weirdo and Surgikill, Berwick Kaler was previously seen in Nightbirds and The Body Beneath, and William Barrel also turned up in The Body Beneath.

AKA:  The Blood Butcher.  

Here’s my first stab at reviewing the film, which was originally posted on July 17th, 2007 on my old site.  As you can see, my feelings on the flick haven’t changed:  

BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS  (1970)  * ½

In 19th century London, Sweeney Todd (Happy Days’ John Miranda) cuts hair and throats and makes off with his customer’s valuables.  Meanwhile Ms. Maggie Lovett sells human meat pies to her clueless customers.  They fall in love and kill each other’s respective spouses.  Everyone else seems to be in love with everyone else’s spouses too, so the movie is basically a soap opera with high school drama class production values and costumes.  A couple of choice gore scenes (hands hacked off, a human breast in a meat pie, meat cleaver to the face) and Todd’s speech about “women’s happiness” saves this from being a total loss.  Director Andy (The Ghastly Ones) Milligan returned to the 19th century in The Rats are Coming!  The Werewolves are Here!

TUBI CONTINUED… LOVE AFTER DEATH (1968) ****

Here’s an incredible jaw-dropping horror comedy skin flick from Argentina.  If you haven’t seen it yet, what the fuck are you waiting for?  Guaranteed insanity awaits!

Mr. Montel (Guillermo de Cordova) is prone to cataleptic fits.  His scheming wife Sofia (Carmin O’Neal) and his doctor (Roberto Maurano) are secretly in love and conspire to bury him alive when his latest bout of catatonia hits.  It seems Sofia is still a virgin because her poor hubby is afraid of sex and she’s hoping the good doctor can give it to her.  

At the funeral, Montel wakes up in his own casket, but is unable to make anyone realize he’s still alive.  His silent pleas for release from his coffin go unanswered, and he is entombed in the local cemetery and left for dead by his sexpot would-be widow.  Little does she know Montel wakes up and is able to claw his way out of his grave to freedom.  After stumbling around the graveyard for a bit, he cleans himself up and sets out to get some action.  

First, he attempts to rape a woman by pushing her into an old lady’s apartment and tries to do the deed on the couch while the geezer granny looks on.  When Montel is unable to perform, he runs away in disgust, leaving the naked woman all hot and bothered.  She then tries to seduce the little old lady, who politely declines and muses, “If I was ten years younger!”  

If you can’t already tell, this movie is fucking phenomenal.  

Montel has other surprise encounters with a stripper and a pair of lesbians, before finally being able to make time with a random babe he picks up on the sidewalk.  Meanwhile, the cops question the doctor, and get close to figuring everything out.  That is, until the surprise twist ending.  You won’t fucking believe it.  

Man, you never know where this movie is going next.  The opening is played completely straight.  Think an Argentinean Poe adaptation.  Then, it turns into an Argentinean Doris Wishman flick as there’s lots of black and white roughie sex, hilariously unsynchronized sound, and random shots of feet.  Other scenes play like everything from a film noir to an all-out bedroom farce.

Everything from the cool camerawork to the atmospheric cinematography to the inspired use of library music (I had fun spotting several tracks that have appeared in many of the Andy Milligan movies I’ve been watching lately) is just spot on.  The bad dubbing helps to put it over the top and make it a delirious work or trashy art.  Sure, the climax may run on a little long, but that final twist is surely something.  

Trust me folks, you’re gonna love Love After Death.  

AKA:  Unsatisfied Love.