RANA: QUEEN OF THE AMAZON (1994) ** ½

Rana:  Queen of the Amazon is sort of like the W.A.V.E. Productions version of Sheena.  It’s broken up into three different parts, which kind of makes it feel like an updated Shot on Video version of an old Saturday morning serial.  It’s technically inept, but it has a great theme song, moves at an agreeable pace, and offers up a reasonable amount of fun.  

The first chapter is “The Jungle Woman Versus the Nazis” (** ½).  Alexandria (Dawn Murphy) is a government agent hunting the evil Nazi, Dr. Ilsa von Todd (Tina Krause) who is planning to create a race of zombie soldiers in the Amazon jungle.  She stumbles upon a sexy jungle woman named Rana (Pamela Sutch) who helps her bring the doc to justice.  

This section features a couple of the W.A.V.E. hallmarks that fans have grown to love, mainly:  Hot chicks Kung Fuing each other, catfights, bondage, some whipping, and a long (ten-minute) strangulation scene.  The highlight is an extended sequence of Tina Krause getting dressed.  Although it doesn’t show any nudity, it’s still rather steamy.  Any actress can be sexy when she’s taking off her clothes, but if you can find one who’s just as sexy putting on her clothes as she is taking them off, then you have a true B-Movie Queen on your hands.  Tina is one such talent.  

The next chapter is “The Jungle Woman and the Flowers of Death” (** ½).  Ilsa escapes from justice and returns to the jungle to complete her work.  Alexandria follows in hot pursuit and becomes poisoned in the process.  Rana goes off into the jungle to find an antidote when she is cornered by Ilsa, who has found another jungle woman, Teela (Laura Giglio) to be her new henchwoman.  

That’s mostly what happens in this chapter, but the real plot description for W.A.V.E. fans will be:  Women trapped in quicksand (a seven-minute sequence that’s more about the actress being wet and struggling than anything), catfights, Kung Fu, strangulation, and bondage.  This chapter is probably the weakest of the three, but Giglio is a lot of fun as the wild-eyed evil native gal.  

The final chapter is “The Jungle Woman and the Fangs of Death” (***).  Rana tells the story of how she came to live in the jungle.  Meanwhile, Ilsa captures some government agents and sicks her giant snake on them.  

This chapter is less about filling in Rana’s backstory and more about bondage, whipping, struggling, catfights, Kung Fu, and strangulation.  All of that is well and good, but the thing that makes this sequence so memorable is the hilarious snake puppet.  It looks like a refugee from Mr. Rogers or something.  

Although the snake steals the show, some of director Gary Whitson’s other low-fi DIY techniques gets in the way of the fun.  The outdoor scenes have poor sound (it’s supposed to take place in the ‘40s, but you can hear the sound of a modern plane flying by overhead in one scene) and the overdone jungle sound effects often obscure the dialogue.  The zombies are kind of weak too (they look like The Crow-era Sting with a bad case of eczema).  That said, if you want to see Pamela Sutch running around in a loincloth for 100 minutes while Tina Krause keeps hot babes in bondage, then Rana:  Queen of the Amazon will pass the time nicely.

MILLIGAN MARCH: GURU THE MAD MONK (1970) *

Guru (Neal Flanagan) is a corrupt priest who is willing to do stuff like save your condemned girlfriend’s life if the price is right.  Sometimes, that price may be stealing cadavers or securing blood for a vampire woman.  You know how it is.  However, Guru is slowly going mad, and his condition is made worse when the Church replaces him with a younger priest.

Guru the Mad Monk starts off with an avalanche of exposition and it never quite recovers.  Although it’s only fifty-six minutes long, it might’ve actually benefitted from some more fleshing out.  I mean, you remember the old show biz motto:  Show us, not tell us?  Well, when you’re working with budgets as low as Andy Milligan did, all you can afford to do is tell us.  Even with all the plot-heavy verbal diarrhea the characters spout, it's still hard for the audience to get their bearings.  It also doesn’t help that the narrative is quite choppy, and Milligan rushes from scene to scene so quickly that you’re often in catch-up mode.  And while the movie may be less than an hour long, it feels much longer thanks to the community theater level acting, high school drama costumes, and awful dialogue.  

It also features some of the worst gore effects of Milligan’s career (which is a bold statement if there ever was one).  The eyeball poking scene is some grade school level shit and the scene where a prisoner’s hands are hacked off might go down in cinema history as the worst special effect of all time.  To make matters worse, the gore scenes are all too brief.  It’s almost like Milligan forgot to put them in there and then just tossed a couple crappy effects in at the last minute.  (If you blink, you’ll miss a really shitty decapitation.)

Flanagan is just awful in the lead.  If Guru really was deranged as the title suggests, we might’ve been in business.  However, we just never buy him as a Looney Tune.  The scene where he talks to himself and his evil personality in the mirror feels more like a filmed rehearsal than something that any director in their right mind would put into their finished product.  

When I originally reviewed this back in ’07, I gave it No Stars.  Nowadays, I’m not as harsh as I used to be, although I still say Milligan’s The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here is still one of the worst pieces of shit ever made.  I wouldn’t put this on the same level as that crapfest as it’s not nearly as reprehensible (no animals are tortured this time out, thankfully), but it’s still one of Milligan’s worst, which is REALLY saying something.  

Milligan Motifs:  This was another one of Milligan’s no-budget costume dramas parading as a horror movie.  It’s also the second Milligan movie in a row with a typo in the opening credits (“Sreenplay”).  We also have a villain with a hunchback assistant, characters who have thick modern New York accents in 19th century Europe, and someone gets nailed to a wall.  

Milligan Stock Company:  Flanagan was in a bunch of Milligan flicks from The Ghastly Ones on up to Torture Dungeon and Gerald Jacuzzo, who plays the new priest, was also in Torture Dungeon and The Man with 2 Heads.

Here's a reprint of my original review of the film, which was first posted on August 18th, 2007:

GURU THE MAD MONK  (1970)  NO STARS

You know you’re in trouble when the opening credit for “Sreenplay” is spelled wrong!  

Guru (Neil Flanagan) is a priest in the mythical land of Mortavia who executes criminals for the “mother church” and sells the bodies to a medical school.  His son Carl (Paul Lieber) falls in love with Nadja (Judith Israel), a young criminal and begs his father to spare her.  He agrees but only if his son collects blood for his vampire mistress!  (How a vampire could live in a church is anybody’s guess.)  When his superiors replace Guru with another priest, he kills to keep his place in the church.  Guru also has a hunchback assistant named Igor (Jack Spenser) who also falls in love with Nadja.  In the end, Guru gets his comeuppance when he’s hung in the church’s bell tower.  I’ve seen a lot of terrible movies in my time but this is one of the worst.  

It’s only 56 minutes, but it seems like a 12 hour mini-series.  The inept gore scenes include eyes being poked out with sticks (they’re obviously ping pong balls) and a pretty lame crucifixion.  All the characters have heavy Noo Yawk accents and the budget, costumes, sets and acting would be dwarfed next to any grade school drama production.  Director Andy Milligan also did Bloodthirsty Butchers the same year.  

AKA:  Garu the Mad Monk.

TUBI CONTINUED… OUANGA (1936) ***

Klili (Fredi Washington) is a light-skinned voodoo priestess who is in love with a white plantation owner named Adam (Philip Brandon).  He spurns her advances and gets engaged to a white woman, which throws Klili into a fit of jealous rage.  She then uses her voodoo expertise to put a curse on Adam’s fiancée.  When that fails, she takes to raising a zombie army (OK, two guys) from the dead to do her bidding.  

Ouanga is an interesting early voodoo thriller.  Sure, there are aspects about it that are a little creaky, but it at least tries to deal with the complications that come with an interracial romance.  (Adam says he wants to be with her, but there’s a “barrier” between them.)  The film is at its best when Klili is wrestling with her place in the world.  Once she realizes that no matter how light her skin is, she’ll always be seen as “black” by the whites on the island, she finally accepts her heritage and goes out for revenge.  This sequence is really terrific, and you’ll cheer when Klili snaps, “I’ll show him what a black girl can do!”

While Ouanga pales in comparison next to something like White Zombie (mostly because it lacks the presence of a master of horror like Bela Lugosi), it is nevertheless an excellent vehicle for Washington.  With her piercing stare and devilish charm, she makes for a strong lead, and it’s easy to side with her once she finally goes out for revenge.  She is so hypnotic in the scenes where she looks directly into the camera while performing her voodoo incantations that you’ll swear she’s casting a spell on you!

The other cast members don’t come close to matching her intensity.  Brandon is especially wishy-washy in the lead.  He’s so white bread that it’s hard to tell just what Klili sees in him.  It is fun seeing Sheldon Leonard in an early role in light-skin face as the plantation overseer who is in love with Klili.  

The horror elements are a little surprising too.  The scene where Klili raises the zombies is really cool, and just might be the first instance of zombies coming out of their grave in film history.  The scenes of them slowly stumbling in the dark are pretty effective as well.  

The behind the scenes drama surrounding the film might make for its own terrific horror movie.  Apparently, the filmmakers originally went to Haiti to film the movie in order to capture an authentic feel.  The local witch doctor became enraged when they tried to film a voodoo ceremony and put a curse on them.  They then went to Jamaica to finish the picture, and two crew members mysteriously wound up dead!  COINCIDENCE??? 

AKA:  Love Wanga.  AKA:  Drums of the Jungle.

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.