Blood of Ghastly Horror
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Description
Director Al Adamson and producer Sam Sherman picked a suitably vague title for their incoherent horror film about jewel thieves, a psychotic Vietnam vet with an electronic brain, and a vengeful killer with a bright blue zombie henchman. Laden with flashbacks and sidetracks, this was another of Adamson's do-overs, an unfinished picture reborn with new scenes and an entirely new story. "It's a little choppy," says Sam Sherman with deadpan understatement in his introduction. "If you fall asleep I swear you'll think you've woken up in two different movies." Only two? Former Disney star Tommy Kirk stars as the tough detective who gets a severed head in the mail, Regina Carrol (Adamson's wife) is an innocent targeted by the mad killer with revenge on his mind, and John Carradine receives top billing for what must be a single day's work as Dr. Van Ard, whose misguided science project starts the whole mess. It's not hard to see where the two films--the heist picture and the horror film--were stitched together because the seams are glaring, but that's hardly the worst Blood of Ghastly Horror has to offer. Wooden performances, clumsy drama, bizarre dialogue ("Dr. Van Ard died a much more horrible death than he really deserved," eulogizes Kirk), awkward editing, and the worst camera work ever attributed to future Oscar winner Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Deer Hunter) all contribute to this mind-boggling mess. The DVD features a commentary by producer Sam Sherman, along with a newly recorded introduction, a profile taken from the cable TV series Split Screen, and trailers to this and four other Al Adamson-Sam Sherman collaborations. --Sean Axmaker
Description
Al Adamson’s classic tale of undead terror comes to DVD with a shocking bang as part of Troma Team Video’s Al Adamson Collection! Human zombies rise from their coffins as living corpses! A doctor (John Carradine) implants a strange electronic brain component in a man's skull and a psychotic killer is born, to be used as a remote-control zombie by a crime syndicate. The zombie psychopath subsequently goes haywire and turns on his masters, killing some go-go dancers along the way, before getting his ultimate revenge on Carradine. Also known as The Man with the Synthetic Brain, The Fiend with the Atomic Brain, The Fiend with the Electronic Brain, The Fiend with the Synthetic Brain. This DVD comes with an audio commentary by producer Sam Sherman and a featurette "Producing Schlock." A great double bill with Adamson’s recently restored classic Psycho A Go Go!
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