The Bloody Pit

201 - BLAKE'S 7 (1978-1981)

Author John Kenneth Muir returns to the show to discuss another science fiction television show! BLAKE’S 7 aired in Britain from 1978 to 1981 and was a major hit but was not renewed for a fifth season. That the show remains beloved decades later points to the typical short sighted BBC decision making process in such matters. With the recent announcement of Blu-Ray releases we decided that the time was right to talk about the show and our years long love of it. Since Mr. Muir has written a book on the subject, he is the perfect person to speak to about the show which was sold as ‘The Dirty Dozen in Space’. If you’ve never seen the series, we try to avoid most spoilers but a couple of things do leak through as we go along.

Our conversation starts with how we each discovered the show and our initial reactions to the ‘anti-Star Trek’ with the adult nature of the storytelling being our main focus. We discuss the dystopian universe presented and give a brief overview of the ‘rebels vs the federation’ structure of the story. The dark and often cruel tone of the characters and the events they have to deal with is a topic we return to throughout the episode. We also fit in an examination of some of the classic science fiction tropes that the show uses and the creative spin the writers employ to include them. We had a great time digging into BLAKE’S 7 and we hope you will enjoy what we have to say even if you’ve not yet seen the series.

 

200 - FROGS (1972)

Today the pond – tomorrow the world! Author Mark Clark returns to the show to talk about the epic (?) animal attack film FROGS (1972). We discuss that genre as well as the ecological horror sub-genre that this movie falls into comfortably. The goal with this episode was to limit ourselves to a single movie as a way to control the conversation, but that did not happen. Listing other 1970’s eco-horror movies leads to a slippery slope that has us spending a little too much time talking about GODZILLA VS THE SMOG MONSTER. There is no reining us in!

We discuss the cast and crew as we examine the film’s rather relaxed pace. Mark lays the blame for most of the film’s faults at the feet of the director and I have a hard time disagreeing. I admit to being shocked at the naked upper lip of Sam Elliot and remain convinced his character’s name is significant in describing his place in the narrative. I mean, when the rich family being besieged by frogs is named Crockett the writers were clearly playing with descriptive nomenclature. Or they were just having a laugh. But the most interesting part of the show has to be Mark’s theory about why the movie is named Frogs instead of after any of the more deadly creatures that assault the humans in the story. He may have something there but it had never occurred to me before.

 
If you have any thoughts on FROGS or any of the other ecological horror movies of the 1970’s thebloodypit@gmail.com is the place to send them. Thank you for listening! 

199 - JUNGLE WOMAN (1944)

Troy Guinn and I return to Universal Land for the sequel to CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN – JUNGLE WOMAN (1944)! Is this the worst film the studio produced in the 1940’s? We’ll let you decided as we give our opinions and posit ways the film could have been better. Much better!

 
Attempting to imitate the successful Val Lewton productions at RKO, the producers of this non-jungle epic seemed to feel that simply aping the structure of CAT PEOPLE and copying the memorable set-pieces from that classic would be a winning formula. Sadly, that is far from the case as JUNGLE WOMAN comes up short in every category. Troy and I try to puzzle out the reasons for certain choices and debate the qualities of the acting in the titular role. Of course, any film with J. Carrol Naish has points of interest just because of his talent, but he seems to have been given a number of obstacles to creating a memorable ‘mad’ scientist. A rushed production and a sub-par script are rarely a combination for a classic. On that point, we discuss the film’s dialog with a certain line becoming a reoccurring audio drop in the show. Sorry about that!

 
If you have any comments about this film or any of the movies we’ve cover thebloodypit@gmail.com is the place to send them. Thank you very much for listening. We’ll be back soon. 

198 - HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980)

HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980) is no normal Italian zombie film. Coming hard on the heels of both George Romero’s genre-defining DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) and the now classic ZOMBIE (1979) from director Lucio Fulci this Bruno Mattei/Claudio Fragasso effort ‘borrows’ elements from both. In some cases, the things recycled are surprising, such as the chunks of music composed by Goblin for Romero’s film being inserted into the soundtrack. Other things that get borrowed are to be expected, like an attempt to one up the famous Fulci eye trauma sequence that made audiences worldwide to shudder. But the things that cause HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD to stick in most viewers’ memories are the strange asides, terrible dialog, unexpected nudity and slow-motion stock footage of animals. Oh – and the bizarre tutu scene! No one ever forgets that. Three stalwart defenders of this twisted zombie epic join me to discuss the haphazard, sloppy film that was produced. They want to call it a classic. I just want to call it over!

Troy Guinn, Jeff Nelson and John Hudson vigorously lay out a series of justifications for what I see as cinema crimes and finally manage to get me to admit to a few points of agreement. We examine the odd actions that characters in zombie film make for no discernable reason. We spend some time trying to figure out if the script was working its way through an exploitation checklist or if there was a less mercenary reason for the way things unfold. Each of us relates out history with the film and pick out favorite Bruno Mattei films from across his career. At some point we get lost in the possibilities of a 21^st century BetaMax rental business but we retreat from that financially doomed idea soon enough. And we end the show with a unique musical contribution from Troy’s oft-mentioned brother!

If you have any comments about HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD or any Italian zombie films thebloodypit@gmail.com is the place to send them. Thank you for listening!

197 - A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975)

Writer Randy Fox returns to discuss a classic science fiction film from the 1970’s. A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975) was a box office flop initially but became a beloved cult movie pretty quickly. It is one of the very few adaptations of a Harlan Ellison story that got the author’s 95% approval and we dig into the reasons for that in our discussion.

Hugely influential, the film stands as a still relevant template for post-apocalyptic cinema all the way up to the recent TV series FALLOUT. Made for less than half a million dollars it is the rare low budget science fiction film that doesn’t show its financial constraints and manages to turn some detriments into positives. Featuring a fine central performance from Don Johnson and excellent supporting work from his canine companion (voiced by actor/musician Tim McIntire) the movie brings the original story to life brilliantly. We discuss the differences from the novella and the reasons for them as well as the few smart improvements the script weaves into the tale. Randy and I share our histories with the film and our own encounters with the legendary Ellison over the years. We dig into the charges of misogyny and misanthropy that are often leveled at the movie pulling apart the details to search for defenses. We find a few.    

If you have any comments about A BOY AND HIS DOG or other 1970’s science fiction films thebloodypit@gmail.com is the place to send them. Thank you for listening!

196 - SONS OF STEEL (1988)

John Hudson and Bobby Hazzard join me for a raucous discussion of this bizarre Australian oddity. Are we able to figure out the story? What do we think of the main character? Do we maintain our sanity before the invisible chimp rears his furry head to fling poop everywhere? Thank goodness for the laughing audience in the room to keep us on track and aware of how silly we can be.

 
SONS OF STEEL (1988) is a film built out of bits & pieces of earlier films but without the budget necessary to pull it off. It seems to be assembled from random parts of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Blade Runner, Back to the Future, Max Headroom and a little barbarian imagery for texture. The film follows Black Alice, a pompous singer strutting around a dystopian near-future momentarily mourning his dead girlfriend and trying to become a rock star. Strangely, he is also somehow an environmental peace activist – or at least we are told this by agents of the Oceana government. (Did I mention that 1984 is ripped off as well?) The movie is a series of music videos struggling to tell a tale of revolution, love and violence but the most memorable moments are the very 80’s songs scattered across the soundtrack. In Spiritus Wank’em!

 
If you have any thoughts on Black Alice, SONS OF STEEL or the sequel novels penning by the writer/director, thebloodypit@gmail.com is the place to send them. Thank you for listening to the show! 

195 - STAR TREK V THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989)

Mark Maddox and I continue our journey through the first six Star Trek movies and now reach THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989). We have been both dreading and looking forward to revisiting this film. Thirty-five years later is it still as bad we remember? Are there hidden moments of quality buried in this bad idea given cinematic form? Join us as we pull this thing apart and inspect it’s sad remains.

We use Shatner’s own story of the production from his Movie Memories book to supplement the usual sources. It adds a lot to know the genesis of the film’s basic story and emphasizes just how easily a poor central concept can cripple a project. Also, aspiring writers can take note of this film as a solid example of bad scriptwriting on nearly every level. Neither of us find much to admire in STAR TREK V but there are a few good moments. Sadly, those few quality elements have to rest side by side with insults to nearly every regular character and simply awful dialog. The film’s humor mostly revolves around laughing ‘at’ the characters and never ‘with’ them. It undermines so many years of goodwill built up by the franchise for the sake of bad jokes, dumb ideas and idiotic coincidences that we can only be grateful it wasn’t the last film to feature the original cast. Row, row, row your boat indeed.

Comments about this film, the podcast or Star Trek in general can be sent to thebloodypit@gmail.com and we’ll be happy to hear from you. Thank you for listening and we’ll be back soon.

194 - GHOST CATCHERS (1944)

Troy and I poke our heads into a Universal Studio haunted house, spot vaudeville act Olsen & Johnson and run away. Well – not really. But our first viewing of this nearly forgotten comedy horror film is not the fun we might have hoped. Did we enjoy it at all? Give the show a listen and we’ll point out the highs and lows.

GHOST CATCHERS (1944) stars a number of very talented actors and singers but it also stars Olsen & Johnson – or, as I will eternally think of them, Faster & Louder. Nearly none of their supposed gift for humor translates effectively from the stage if this film is any indicator. The movie’s silly plot is actually two different story ideas welded together with four songs and a lot of flat jokes. For both of us the film squandered what little goodwill we may have had for it in a certain horsey scene, but we’ll let you discover that along the way. We were surprised that a couple of the songs were pretty great but when a horror comedy’s highlight points out that it is more successful as a musical than anything else, there is a problem. (And we even get the title of the best song wrong in our discussion!) But funny is in the eye of the beholder so you may actually enjoy this odd Universal effort. And did we mention Lon Chaney’s very small role?

 
If you have any comments about this film or vaudeville more broadly thebloodypit@gmail.com is the place to write. Thank you for listening. 

193 - Revenge of the Email Sack!

It has been far too long since Troy and I gathered around the male bag….uuuhh…MAIL bag to find out what folks listening to the podcast think! Or, at least if they want to make fun of me. I’ll take any attention, so - cool!

 
We are months behind checking out the email account so some of these messages date back to 2023. I apologize about this but also think sometimes the wait is worth it. I mean what other show has a discussion of Bruno Mattei, Japanese comedy/drama film series Tora-san, WAR OF THE WORLD’s symbolism and the thousands of film appearances of actor Morris Ankrum. Clearly, The Bloody Pit is filling an important niche in the movie discussion podcast world! And did I mention we have a visit from Vincent Price? Or possibly his ghost. With a cold. It’ll all make sense when you listen to the episode. Maybe. 

And if you’re interested in the podcast mentioned in the show that dives into the Golden Age of Ninja movies, you can give it a listen at this LINK. 

For those who want to contribute to the next email episode thebloodypit@gmail.com is the place to send your thoughts. And thank you for listening! 

192 - Martian Invasion 1953!

WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953) and INVADERS FROM MARS (1953) are two of the most beloved of the dozens of science fiction movies from that paranoid Cold War decade. Author Mark Clark joins me to compare and contrast them as we look at the massive differences in scale, budget and point of view that give each film its unique feel. Recent Blu-Ray releases allow a fresh evaluation of these movies and we dig into them from angles both personal and societal. Spoilers rise from every sandpit, so be aware!

 
We tackle the magnificent WAR OF THE WORLDS first, examining the elements taken from the source novel as well as from the classic Orson Wells radio adaptation. We discuss the story structure and the cast of amazing character actors familiar at the time from both radio shows and film. Design concepts and the faint traces of the book’s tripods are touched on before we dig into the film rushed to theaters to compete – INVADERS FROM MARS! The William Cameron Menzies production design is discussed as well as the ‘trashy science fiction magazines’ that seemed to inspire some the incredible images. We argue a bit over our preferred length but both of us wish there was less military stock footage slowing things down. The alternate British ending is brought up and I detail how I wish the American version ended. We do go on! 

If you have thoughts on either of these Martian invasion movies thebloodypit@gmail.com is the place to send them. Thank you for listening.