Cinema_PSYOPS_EP453: Al Adamson Fest: Dracula vs. Frankenstein 1971 (Main Feed)
Dracula conspires with a mad doctor to resurrect the Frankenstein Monster.
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Cinema PSYOPS is a weekly film review podcast where we experiment on an impressionable mind to find out why physical wounds heal, but Cinematic ones don't.
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>> That's true.
>> But he did a plateau for his zenas where he had like three to four movies that were
actually pretty decent in a row that were all the exact same movie just repackaged in
a different way right after Blood Feast and he just threw more money at them.
>> That's true.
>> And the taper off on his was more of a bell curve.
I'm kind of thinking that this is going to be like we have a small ledge that we're
standing on and we will fall off of if we're not careful.
>> This is just what we're going to do.
>> Exactly, this is just how this is going to turn out and there is no escape.
>> There is no escape.
>> Yeah, something along those lines.
Anyway, we've talked enough.
I think we've given them enough problem.
The episodes are just going to be as long as they are and we're going to have to start
truncating things even further because you have to work earlier now.
That's not this week, is it?
>> No, no, yeah, I don't work today.
I'm good.
>> Yeah, but the next time that we record, we're going to have to try and figure out
a way to get started earlier because we've got to get you back.
>> We're going to get started earlier.
I'll watch the movie the night before.
Anyway, I spent last night watching Dracula vs. Frankenstein, which was the first time
that I've had fun writing notes in a really long time because I wasn't strained to try
and get it done.
I think doing it a couple days before or a night before or where all you really have
to do is just go to sleep and you're done and not strained is going to make it a lot
more enjoyable for us, especially these fucking pieces of shit.
>> Of course, yeah, it stands to reason.
>> Yeah, and I mean, again, I have some bad things to say about this film, but I still
enjoy it, and that's all that fucking matters.
And Adamson knows it.
He sinks the money into doing the things that will keep the butts in the seats.
>> Yeah, his party tricks.
>> Yeah, all the complaints that I had last week and all the statements that I had to
say in the last two weeks that we did the reviews, they've been fixed here.
It's kind of amazing, so I can't wait to actually talk about that.
>> All right.
>> All right, so for this week on the pirate radio, and I have a special treat for everybody,
I'm actually going to play the song out of Dracula versus Frankenstein as one of the
songs for my pirate radio edit.
But since it's part of the movie and it would have been a clip anyway, I'm just going to
put it on the main feed too.
So the first song is the same for everybody for once.
>> Oh, hey, all right.
>> But again, everybody still has to listen to the Patreon ad before that.
>> This will keep you quiet.
Oh, hi there.
I didn't see you.
You call me cutting a new show.
I'm Bo Ransdell, and I'm one of the many creators you can find on Legion podcasts.
I said quiet.
My fellow podcasters and I work hard to bring you the best in horror podcasting, but that
comes at a cost.
>> Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?
>> Not that, but also, yes.
No, what I'm getting at is that there are server costs, costs for good microphones and
software for editing, all the things that make our shows, you know, fun to listen to.
And you can help.
If you're enjoying the shows on legionpodcasts.com or in the Legion network available on iTunes
and Stitcher, just about anywhere you can download a podcast, really, you can help us
out and get a little something for your trouble at patreon.com/legionpodcasts
For just two bucks a month, you get a pair of movie commentaries exclusive to Patreon.
And for five dollars, you can also join us for a monthly screening of a movie.
All of that available on patreon.com/legionpodcasts
We appreciate it, and thank you for listening.
Now, back to the cutting room.
>> I never bother with things I can leave behind me.
If all the fun's inside, that's where I am.
Sure to be.
And cause the travel, I lie as a feather.
That's me.
Yes, she travels light.
So light it buckles our knees.
Aren't we having fun, me?
Yes, she travels light.
I carry nothing at all.
You're nothing's way a tongue.
Well, after all, a girl needs the basic essentials.
To simply get around.
When there, what do you got in there?
Well, in there, I carry my telephone.
The one I tore from the wall.
But why do you carry your telephone?
When I leave home, I'm level to get a call.
See what I mean?
We decide to travel to France.
I hardly think that I'd refuse.
You're nothing's way a tongue.
Well, after all, a girl needs the basic essentials.
To simply get around.
When there, what do you got in there?
Well, in there, I carry my telephone.
The one I tore from the wall.
But why do you carry your telephone?
When I leave home, I'm level to get a call.
See what I mean?
We decide to travel to France.
I hardly think that I'd refuse.
Holy fuck did that get dark fast for what she's packed for.
Right?
Yeah.
It sounds all happy and peppy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Man.
Adamson sure loves himself some lounge singers, doesn't he?
He really does.
Yeah.
Or show, like Vegas show performers, which is this clearly was taking place in Vegas.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, in my movies as well.
So.
Well, let's stop beating around the bush talking about Dracula versus Frankenstein and let's
get into the first 20 minutes.
Dracula versus Frankenstein.
The film opens with typical padding that Adamson pulls with still frames drawn over to look
like art and then a weird divergence where he films circuit boards that are then animated
with lightning over them for some reason.
And with this, the cast and crew are credited over top of all of these things that I just
described.
And also with this cast, I think we have found Adamson's plan nine as the cast has me thinking
it will be this way just because we already seen Lon Chaney and a bunch of other actors
names that we know.
And then like some of his stock players.
This is where I'm thinking to myself, it's the plan nine thing right here at the very
beginning of the intro.
And I have plenty of time to ponder this and think about that because after nearly three
entire minutes of screen time, we finally get to some live action shots and no more credits
or animated weird stuff.
He likes himself some long intros.
Oh yeah.
But then he likes an abrupt end to a movie.
I've noticed that.
Yeah.
He's not even a fan of Hammer Horror.
I mean, that's exactly what Hammer Horror does.
Long intros and abrupt endings.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's amazing that he's not a fan of that because yeah, that's exactly what he does.
But after that three minutes of screen time, we finally get some live action shots of a
cemetery and I am slightly intrigued as this seems to be the film Adamson is most known
for.
As I mentioned before, Dracula versus Frankenstein is kind of the one that comes up when you
search his name.
Like this one is Satan's sadist, sometimes the angels wild women, but it's primarily
this one that comes up first.
Which makes sense.
The camera pans around the cemetery to stop at the sign for Oakmore Cemetery, which is
in no way hand painted on plywood hanging from a cross made of iron at all.
This is a totally legitimate sign.
I don't know why I would have even thought that.
Yeah, come on.
What are you doing here, court?
This sign is just fine.
That is in no way the iron cross on the gate or somewhere as a decorative piece that they
just found a way to fashion plywood over top of that.
They very intricately hand painted a sign, but it's still plywood.
Yeah, still plywood.
It cuts from this to a full moon.
We hear a dog bark as the camera pans over to a disco headed Dracula digging up a date
or returning from one as he opens up a tomb.
The camera pans in and it apparently is the grave of the Frankenstein monster and a caretaker
is hoping to find and or cornhole himself a grave robber as he shouts out who is there.
Told you I was in an anxious mood yesterday.
Yeah, you really were.
Yeah, man.
Listen to these notes.
Yes.
I told you it was this morning, but it was also yesterday too.
He stumbles onto the disco Dracula, who I'm just going to call him that from now on.
Deal with it, folks.
Yeah, come on.
Does he look like a disco Dracula?
Does he not?
He does.
He's sparkly.
He caperaps the man after the caretaker stumbles upon him and then the film cuts from that
to the moon and then we cut back to disco Dracula lifting away from the attack and somehow
left no punctures in the neck.
When we noticed this as he lifts himself up, we noticed that he's left no punctures in
the neck.
There's only just two small blood droplets right on the skin.
That's it.
And it's not even like droplets.
It's just like little drips of Kool-Aid that are just very...
It doesn't look like they had the money in the budget for puncture holes.
But they have a lot of great effects later or enough anyway.
It cuts from this to a pure Playland style carnival, like how they build up amusement
parks on piers, Oceanside, like that's a big thing, Coney Island, that sort of thing.
Well, this is that type of carnival.
As a woman goes under the boardwalk where she won't be having no fun.
Under the boardwalk.
Under the boardwalk.
She's attacked by an axe wielding killer who chops off her head and the film cuts from
this to the dunes and bonanza on the strip.
And then more of what I assume is a Vegas strip circa 1971 or so.
It cuts from this to a stage show act that if Matt had done the notes would be a clip
right here.
But for me, it will be the song that we use to bring us into this story.
It is a hell of a performance and hopefully not the only highlight of the flick.
But what it is, is leading up to our first clip right after that.
Great.
Yeah, let's put it into that.
Yeah, just leave the rocks out of the suitcases tonight.
Oh, I'll see you later in my dressing room.
Okay.
Miss Fontaine?
Yes.
Telegram.
Thank you.
Joni Fontaine still reported as Miss Sergeant Martin, missing persons.
You think you could remember to find your way back Miss Fontaine?
I'm afraid I lost you on the second turn.
Have a seat.
I didn't ask you that question to be funny, but if you think our few corridors are complicated,
where do you start roaming the back streets of Venice?
I've got to find my sister, Sergeant.
You know, Joni and I were both orphaned for quite some time and I'm the only one she's
got.
I got the impression we first met that you're just not the kind to sit around and wait for
things to happen.
It's quite true.
Let me tell you something Miss Fontaine, in this case that's the best thing you can do.
Sit around and just wait.
Here.
Your kid sister chose to live with a bunch of hippies out near the beach.
Now it seems that living near the water brings out the best and the worst in us.
There's a music park just east of the pier, it's a hangout for pushers and white slavery
operators.
Oh yeah, we still got them around and you'd be surprised just how many young girls come
out here just hoping to get involved in all this kind of stuff.
There's some shots, murder, rape, beatings and maybe you asked yourself the question
why do all these terrible things have to happen?
It took me 21 years or my 22 on this business to get the answer and the last I had it.
What is the answer?
These people want these things to happen.
Does that sound too simple?
No, not really because it's the most complicated thing in the world.
Nobody but nobody knows anything about the subconscious Miss Fontaine, not even herself.
Yeah, it's a dark, dark world Miss Fontaine.
See Dr. Delay's creature Emporium?
It's the greatest living thing in the whole wide world.
Only 50 cents a person, 50 cents for the lady, 50 cents for the man.
Dr. Delay's creature Emporium.
The living creature.
See how his head is chopped off.
See the blood squirting right up before your very eyes.
See the blood squirting right up before your very eyes.
See the blood squirting right up before your very eyes.
See the blood squirting right up before your very eyes.
See the blood squirting right up before your very eyes.
See the blood squirting right up before your very eyes.
When you see this creature, you will be so stunned if you won't know that you're alive.
Hey, where we going?
This way.
Come right inside.
Hey!
We gotta have a ticket to go in here.
All right.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
One dollar.
One dollar.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
We want to buy a ticket.
See what I do with it?
You see, you must open your eyes to see things.
There's more to come.
It is only an illusion, children.
It's all right.
Of course you are frightened because this is all unknown for you.
The greatest mysteries in the world are not mysteries at all unless we take time to become
familiar with them.
He is really a gentle fellow, but put that mask on him and the whole world will gladly
turn against him.
I have this exhibit unattended for several reasons.
I believe we all should experience life with a natural spontaneity, and this can only happen
if there are no restraints.
Do you agree?
The Romans had their Circus Maximus seating over 200,000, but their spectacles were no
more bizarre than that which I can conjure up for you right here.
Now look here.
Now look there.
Man, it sure looks real.
True.
All illusions look real, or they wouldn't be illusions, would they?
Man, that place would give anybody the creeps.
Poor baby.
You're afraid of everything.
Yeah.
Come on.
Let's get ready for the big protest tonight.
Why, are we protesting tonight?
I don't know, but I bet it's fun.
Well, Grootling, I see you've arranged the tables correctly this time.
What about the temperature?
Have you tested it to the exact degree?
You heard them up there, Grootling.
They want to see an illusion.
They do not realize that the reality itself is the grandest illusion of all, that human
blood is the essence from which future illusions may be created.
But the secret is not to have the blood at rest.
No, the circulatory system must experience a traumatic shock, one that is inconceivable
to the human mind.
The idea of power is not a new one, but I am sure I am the first such experimenter to
incorporate the horror of an actual decapitation into the later rejuvenation of a human body.
My, it's remarkable, a few scars, scars that with time will dissolve away, nothing more.
Has she not been drugged into a surface ambulance?
She could walk away from us now as though nothing had happened on that fateful night,
but of course we cannot allow that to happen.
No, not until enough of the serum has been made and tested.
Oh, she's a lucky young woman, Grootling.
We have desperate need of her blood.
She has survived decapitation as manufacturing the right type of vital fluid for us.
We are not butchers, Grootling.
We don't have this young lady here to merely drain her body and cast her aside.
No, we are scientists and we must have others to experiment with.
You understand that, Grootling, and you also understand what must happen to you once again.
Now, Grootling, on with the work, we must continue tonight.
All right, so that fucking paneling in the pig pen during the clip was super fucking
distracting.
I had a hard time paying attention.
I'm glad I got to play this back so I know what was going on in the story.
Also, the carnival that was happening during the clip that we were witnessing in the film
is dead on to what Adamson does and thus far, this is his peak work.
I say it right there in my notes.
I'm already sure that this is--
It's funny that the Kearney trick is showing a Kearney.
Right.
He very much is just basically like, "Let me bring you into my world," because he doesn't
know how to make a horror film.
He said so himself.
No.
He doesn't like to make horrors.
I'm not so sure he knows how to make a film.
No, he does.
He knows how to make a film his way.
Oh, okay.
You know what I'm saying?
Yes.
I don't think he--
I don't know, man.
That sounds like a cop-out kind.
I'm just saying.
Okay.
I get what you mean, though.
Yeah.
But this is definitely his peak work.
Right, so he's doing the Kearney stuff.
That's definitely what it is.
Yeah.
And that's fine, too.
Yeah.
Hey, go with what you know.
At the end of the clip, Chaney wheels the woman around and essentially reveals her breast
by "accidentally" moving the sheet that's over top of her, so I guess that's a thank
you movie, but she's a corpse, so your mileage may vary.
Yeah.
I mean, for you, it's a thank you movie.
For the rest of us normies, come on.
And after he's done wheeling her around, we then get a better view of what are naked dead
ladies in coffins that are just covered with just the right kind of bands to help support
the glass.
Again, this is a thank you movie for me and a non-thank you movie for everybody else that
doesn't want to see girls faking dead and nude.
Yeah.
I mean, if you just look at it and you just know that they're live actresses, you can do
a thank you movie for this because it's all make believe, but if you're like, "No, I need
to make believe they're dead," then there might be a problem.
Yeah, in that case, you need to talk about that with your tattoo artist.
With a therapist, not a tattoo artist.
God damn it, court.
We're saying the same thing.
It's fine.
No, we're not.
Get on with the review.
What the hell?
Cheney wheels an empty table over near where the doctor is and lays down on it, rolling
up his sleeve as the doctor goes all Dom, pushing his head down and then patting his
face before jabbing him with a needle that somehow turns him into some kind of paper
mache-faced monster that grabs an axe, so this must be our axe-wielding maniac, obviously.
Yeah.
The doc gives...
Go ahead.
They call that aftercare.
The doc gives some kind of soliloquy about this important work as he lowers a ladder
down to what we are supposed to believe is under the pier, and that is the end of the
first 20 minutes.
Well, I mean, at least you get some action within the first 20 minutes of this and some
rhyme singing, so you can't be too mad about life.
Right.
There are mad science/horror films that are worse than this that feature a lot of the
same elements that are here.
He's just working with what he knows works and sort of cribbing notes from other horror
movies and various things.
I mean, this is very much like he's attacking nubile young girls to reanimate.
That's really not that shocking of a thing to put into a film.
Hammer was doing the same thing with their Frankenstein movies at certain points, so
it's cool.
That's fine.
Yeah.
It's definitely not a barn that has been converted with cut up trash bags and marine vinyl.
It's not that at all.
No.
No, it's not cut up trash bags.
How dare you?
I don't even know...
Where would you even find cut up trash bags at this time?
It is, however, what may be the best mad science lab setup Adamson has ever done, or at least
yet that we have seen.
It's definitely yet that we have seen.
I mean, it's definitely better than last week's labs.
Right.
I am not just saying that because of the Naked Dead Ladies in the Glass Conference either.
No, of course not, you're saying things to be real, man, you're being real.
Also there is a really decent amount of, it's a bunch of food coloring dyed water filled
flasks and tubes and stuff laying around that looked really slick the way that they set
it up.
Yeah.
It was only after that I got done ogling that stuff during my notes that I really noticed
the black trash bags.
Yeah.
I mean, if you would have just cut a little bit faster away from the black trash bag and
vinyl area, it would have tricked you.
Yeah.
He could have fooled you.
He could have got you.
Yeah.
He just spent, he sent too long.
He got a little full of himself and thought, "Yeah, no one's gonna notice."
I'm ready to get going on the next 20 of you.
All right.
All right.
The next 20 starts with Chaney stocking below the pier and lit very Universal Monsters style
that still works just fine for me really.
And he gets really close to the camera.
It goes black on the screen for a second and then it cuts to the doctor in his lab where
the disco Dracula is waiting to do some expository dialogue and our next clip.
Dr. DeRay, I presume.
I hope your busy schedule will allow me a brief visit with you.
What do you want?
It's late?
And my exhibit is closed and how did you get in here anyway?
All that is unimportant, doctor.
You see, I know your secret.
There are ways that we can help each other.
All right.
Come into the light and we'll talk.
The presence surrounding me.
That sounds like peculiar conversation for a man who's the last living member of the
family of Frankenstein.
Is it not Dr. DeRay?
Or should I say Frank?
I am too old and too sick to be interested or surprised by anything.
But when a man comes into my house and casts no reflection on my mirror and upon his hand
wears the unholy crest of Dracula, there is no scientific answer to anything.
Now what is on your mind, Count Dracula?
Dr. Frankenstein, I know you were raised by the DeRay family and before your crippling
accident were discredited by members of the medical institute because of your real family's
background.
That short, rather brilliant career.
But your mind and certain skill were meant to fulfill the Frankenstein dream and to infuse
your life into that artificially created man, the likes of which civilization will never
forget.
I cannot escape your destiny, I cannot escape mine.
What you say is very true, very true.
If only I had a way to get the power I should have, I'd show those fools out there who think
of me only as a carnival freak and get your revenge on Drs. Beaumont, Stedner, and Markey
who ruined your career and caused the accidental fire which crippled you as you are now.
Yes, yes, yes, it's all clear now, they were the ones, but what does this mean to you?
I have in my possession the remains of the original Frankenstein monster put to rest
in Oakmore Cemetery by one of a group of scientists whose experiments with the monster were cut
short by an epidemic which plagued this area many, many years ago.
The only remaining scientist had secretly buried the monster hoping to resume his experiments
at a later date, he also was the man who discredited you for fear that you had knowledge of his
work with the monster, Dr. Beaumont.
Beaumont, when Groton returns, he will be...
Relax, doctor, I will give you orders and you will follow them.
You don't frighten me, I live beyond fear.
I think you will find that working with me will be a more intelligent decision, doctor.
We cannot wait, I will help you now, we must prepare your laboratory for him.
The monster?
Yes, and all those who would meddle in the destinies of Frankenstein and Dracula will
see an infernal bloodbath the likes of which has not swept the earth before.
Damn.
Way to just have one guy deliver a huge fucking soliloquy that tells every single piece of
your story that you need to tell.
This is a glorious backstory of vengeance and drama and all this stuff and we're just
told this and if you're not paying attention, you're just like, "Okay, well, they're going
to work together great."
Okay, this is great, but you got to really listen to what's being said, folks.
Someone sat down and came up with that huge family saga that I would probably watch as
a Netflix limited series and they just decided to just have somebody like just sprout that
all out as dialogue.
Let's just put it off, show all that, here's a bunch of dialogue, we're going to just throw
it at the viewer and if they don't listen, then they're not going to know what the fuck's
going on in this movie.
Right, but the important part is, the only thing that you really need to pay attention
to when you come up for air after making out at the drive-in is, "Oh, so this mad doctor
that's killing women and wants to reanimate them is actually a Frankenstein and Dracula
is now going to subjugate him and make him work with him.
Cool."
Yeah, it wants to help him because other stuff is going on.
Well, after this clip, they cut to a couple participating in a submarine racing on the
beach.
There is some dialogue just beforehand and our next clip.
Laura, you're going to have to learn to relax.
I am relaxed.
I wish you wouldn't keep saying that.
Oh, I love to have you in my arms like this.
I like to think of you as belonging to me.
Oh, come on, will you?
The second time you've done that tonight.
I hear it again, like a huge dog prowling the beach.
Well, he's probably looking for his mate and I found mine.
Bob, I don't want to stay here any longer.
All right, all right.
The first thing you said when I picked you up tonight is you were tired of being in a
crowd, right?
You wanted to go someplace quiet and alone.
Oh, I blow a dollar on gas, we come all the way out here.
You know what's the matter with you, don't you?
It's that damned imagination of yours.
Hey, wait a minute.
Oh, don't listen to it.
Let's get out of here.
Just a few things.
Number one, a whole dollar on gas.
A whole dollar?
Those were the days.
And I mean, the acting here was top notch, man, right?
Yeah.
Well, this is clearly just something that they added in to pad out the film a little
bit.
Yeah.
There's some grunting noises that were in the background that I cut it out.
That is Lon Chaney sneaking up on the couple.
There's also a scream at the very end that fades out that's Lon Chaney attacking them.
Yeah.
But you can still hear some of that grunting that you kept some of it in and that was horrifying.
I would be horrified to hear that in the dark, but I would think it's somebody doing something
to themselves.
Right, while watching them, which is also something you don't want to have happen on
the beach.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You still don't want that.
Yeah.
And if it was happening to me, I'd be like, who's watching me and touching themselves
because you guys, you're going to get some better taste in somebody to spy on.
That's sad.
All right.
So Chaney does end up sneaking up on the couple.
He attacks them with the axe and thus far I am thinking not only is this possibly Adamson's
plan nine, but given the gore and nudity, this is probably his blood feast as well.
I said it earlier.
This is where I came up with that and I made it all the way to the end and I'm thinking
that that's the case.
This is Pinnacle.
This is his best.
This is what you could expect from Al Adamson and would really enjoy if you enjoyed this.
You would like other Adamson stuff.
Yeah.
Start here.
This is your benchmark.
If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy some of his other work.
Start here.
Work your way forward or backward, depending upon how much worse or better they get from
here.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Pick a lane.
This may be a cheap shit fest, but it is at least entertaining in its sleazy weirdness,
I have to say.
Yeah.
I'm with you.
It is at least entertaining, but more or less than some of his previous works that we've
had to do, which have just been shitty and not entertaining.
Yeah.
The clip ended with some shots, like with a cut to some shots of a protest of some sort
that I don't know anything about.
Then it cuts to what is definitely not the same barn looking building the lab was set
up in as the Lounsinger arrives.
Yeah.
Because a Lounsinger should arrive to this lab.
It's not the lab.
It's the barn.
They just spray paint it.
They spray painted the inside of the barn instead of putting up the sheets and everything,
or they just have a spray painted version of the barn that they're filming in.
Yeah.
But that's fine.
The Lounsinger arrives at this club that is definitely not the barn that is the same thing
as the lab, looking for her sister, asking a waiter with a huge stitched up cut on his
forehead that looks way too real to be an Adamson effect.
Right.
The guy got into an accident and he's like, "Uh, listen, I'm not going to be looking all
that great."
She ends up asking a question.
That's dialogue.
So our fourth clip.
Have you seen this girl?
What?
Have you seen this girl?
She's a friend of mine.
No.
Not that I remember.
What'd he ask?
Do you know anyone named Rico?
Yeah.
Just bring me some coffee.
Rico.
Talk to me.
Grotto.
She's asking questions about you.
Where's your wife?
Over at the table.
Where is she?
What does she want?
Just looking at you.
Give me these.
At the end of the clip, the lady has brought a coffee and I am pretty sure that that shit
is drug because they basically said that that was the case.
And also because the stitched up waiter does a nefarious grin right as she drinks it.
Yeah.
He's creepy.
They cut from this to the protest and then back to her drinking the coffee and the waiter
grinning as the drugs take hold on the singer.
Then we get a drug freakout sequence where Adamson's insane writing makes sense as the
lady starts dancing in multiple dimensions and memories as a hallucination.
That's I guess what they were representing.
She's just in a bunch of different outfits and a bunch of different places all over the
place.
Some of it's normal.
Some of it's really out there and weird, but she's just dancing while all of these cuts
are happening.
Well, I mean, listen, sometimes you just got to dance for ... I just want to dance.
She gets shoved around in the room whenever we're in the actual reality of what is happening
because she is literally just fucking spazzing out on people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sometimes you got to spaz, man.
And everyone stares at her until a hippie comes to collect her.
The film cuts from this to what is by far the single best mad science lab that Adamson
has ever done.
Regardless of the black plastic, regardless of the marine vinyl, this is still the best
one.
This is it?
Is this the-
Yeah.
This is the pinnacle.
This is the pinnacle.
This is Disco Dracula hovering over the corpse of the monster as the doc in the wheelchair
tries to reanimate him.
They eye the oncoming lightning storm and Disco Dracula does another monologue.
It's not quite as long as the last one, thankfully, and our next clip.
Dr. Frankenstein, scientific skill has not failed us.
We will make the monster walk.
This is followed by more mad science lab footage and this shit is how you pad out a film.
They fiddle with wires and knobs as the comet animation underwhelms over top.
When Disco Dracula declares the animated comet's return and with some score noise and some
Jacob's ladder effects, the mush-faced monster comes to life and looks like he is about to
ask for some mushy peas while doing it.
I want those peas.
They cut from the resurrection to a dude off driving alone when Dracula appears in the
car.
By the way, that dude is Forrest J. Ackerman, so that's our next clip.
Who are you?
Keep driving.
I will tell you where.
Who are you?
I am Dr. Frankenstein.
I am known as the Count of Darkness, the Lord of the Manor of Corpathia.
Turn here.
Get out of the car, Dr. Comond.
No offending to us, eh, doctor?
See that Frankenstein and I have made some improvements.
The monster attacks after the doc gets out and I assume kills him and it cuts to the hippie
with the drugged singer coming down from whatever mickey they had slipped her.
The hippie sits down with her and talks, so that's our seventh clip.
You feeling better?
Somebody thought you were a cop, slipped you a drug, you were in another world.
Who are you?
Where am I?
My name is Mike Howard.
This is my pad.
Who are you?
Do you know the last name?
Do you want one?
No, not necessarily.
Let me see if I can guess.
I see the same turn in the nose, the full upper lip.
You know Joni.
I knew Joni.
I don't know where she is now.
You know, no one here will talk about anyâ
It's a kind of self-preservation between urban renewal and the county welfare department.
We get bombarded with questions and relays.
Your ears get curled on the inside.
What do you mean you knew Joni?
What I mean is in this part of town, everyone knows everyone in one way or another.
How did I get here?
Come on, I won't hurt you.
They brought you here.
That's Samantha.
She goes with that goofy looking kid over there.
He's strange.
That's his name.
Also classification.
He sounds rather cynical.
Not a bit.
It's just an observation.
That's my bag.
I make observations for later replay.
I like the football game on TV.
Hey Mike!
We found a guy chopped up down at Rocky Point.
He was all in bloody and bits and pieces.
What are you talking about?
I never found his girlfriend though.
The guy can't make out in peace anymore.
Man, the real bummer.
It's not usually this gory on the premises, is it?
Maybe we better go inside.
No way.
This is a little bit more fresh air.
Okay.
Come on.
Like I told you, she didn't say much.
I saw her on the beach about six months ago.
That's just about the time she left home.
This section of the beach draws a lot of weary, conscious people.
They can take those deep breaths they've been dreaming about.
Joni was up by the amusement park.
That was a big attraction.
A big attraction?
She used to have fantasies about being a freak.
A freak?
I can't believe that.
Two heads, an eye missing, an elongated spine, anything that was grotesque, turned her on.
That's not the whole story.
The idea was to turn into something beautiful by using some magical formula.
That's why she used to hang around that creature emporium.
And what in the world is a creature emporium?
A leftover from the sidewalk carnival days run by a Dr. Dure.
At least that's the name he uses.
You mean this place is a house of freaks?
No, everything's phony.
It's strictly for the tourists.
On the other hand, I suppose it all depends on what you're really looking for.
Joni was looking for her own special fantasy.
It just doesn't sound like Joni.
It doesn't sound like Joni, man.
I'm just telling you.
They cut from this to the carnival pier and that takes us over the 40 minute mark.
It doesn't sound like Joni.
That's all I'm saying.
Well, yeah, she's supposed to be a younger sister.
So how much attention did the older sister really pay is the question.
None.
So far, I'm intrigued.
They're jumping around a lot and there's a lot of different story threads and I have
no idea how he's going to keep all these plates spinning at once or what it is that he wants
to do.
But I am completely distracted by the story at hand that we keep getting sucked into to
the point where I 100% just forget the fact that maybe Frankenstein's monster hasn't actually
been on screen for a while or the Dracula character just disappears for extended periods of time
during the movie.
Everyone's just gone.
Right. And this film is not a recut of other films, but this is just his style of filmmaking
where he just has a bunch of these different storylines and threads and jumps around with
them in the editing.
And it's really kind of disorienting and confusing.
And then eventually he sort of brings it all together.
But at the same time, he never really does.
Yeah, no, he just he loses the plot a lot.
The best way to say that he loses the plot.
Right.
This is not just some black and white Filipino movie they bought and then turned into like,
you know, the blood monsters.
Not at all.
This is something that he wrote and shot and like shot all of it and put it together piecemeal.
Yes.
But it was all shot and intended to be as it is here.
It may have changed as they were creating the film and all of that.
But this is not an existing film that he's trying to repurpose.
This is his writing and like someone else's writing.
And you can tell he loses the plot of even in his own writing.
He loses the plot.
Yeah.
He jumps around a lot in the threads and stuff.
And I don't know if it's just in the way that they edited it or if he had just severe ADHD.
I'm not sure.
It's just it's odd.
And it's a bit odd.
Yeah.
And you've got to get over it if you're going to watch his movies.
And this is probably the least egregious of the ones that we've watched this thus far,
which is why I'm still saying this is your entry point.
This is where you want to.
Yeah.
This is still your spot.
You want to move on to the next 20?
Let's do it.
All right.
So on our run to the first full hour, the next 20 starts at the Carnival Pier.
And our next clip.
So we greet the world of Dr. Dure.
Nothing but a cheap sideshow.
I told you it's strictly for the tourists.
Mike, I don't want to go in there.
There's nothing more I can find out about Joni in a place like that.
Rule number one about observation collecting.
Never take a situation at face value.
What you see is not what it really is.
Better get out his pipe and slippers, Sam.
Showing his age again.
You two better be careful.
The doctor may be casting today.
Don't you let him touch me, Mike.
What about me?
You know how to go and visit him.
Only from the waist down.
I wonder where that little scary guy is that takes the tickets.
Maybe he's out to lunch.
Yeah.
I can just imagine what he's eating.
Welcome to the Creature Emporium.
My name is Dr. Dure and I am the creator of all you are about to witness.
It's like listening to Dial of Prayer on the telephone.
Please follow my voice to the first blackboard.
Mike, we didn't come here to hear a recording of some doctor's voice.
I've never been in this place before.
Maybe there isn't any doctor to write.
Mike, take my word for it.
He's around.
The guillotine was invented by a French physician educated at a Jesuit college.
As a deputy to the National Assembly, he proposed that decapitation be adopted as the method
of capital punishment in order to make executions as swift and painless as possible.
Of course, there is no way we are able to determine if the method is entirely painless, but we
certainly know by observation that the entire procedure is swift.
If this had been an actual demonstration, you would have noted the extreme lack of blood.
Sounds like he enjoys every word of it.
Look, Mike, there are wires all over the place.
This whole exhibit must be mechanical.
Maybe you were right about Dr. Dure.
And what is right about Dr. Dure?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I didn't know there was anyone about.
I am everywhere, particularly in this room, since all of these creatures are byproducts
of my mind.
I'm afraid we came here for another reason, Doctor.
My sister visited your exhibit.
Many young people come here to study the mysteries of the archive.
And now she's missing.
Missing?
Yes, she was last seen on the beach, right by your very exhibit.
Oh, I see.
I have a picture of Joni.
The face is not familiar to me.
I know she's been here in the past, Doctor.
Many people come here to study the exquisite work of Dr. Dure.
Afterwards, their faces all blend in my mind.
However, you may leave your address at the box office, and I will contact you immediately
if she reappears.
He was right about being all over the place.
Did you see his eyes when I showed him the picture of Joni?
Yeah, I saw his eyes.
He knows Joni.
I just know it.
What he knows and what he'll talk about are two different things.
According to latest research, a male gorilla may attain a height of six feet.
Hey, do we have to listen to Dr. Doolittle again?
I think we've had it.
It is interesting to note canine teeth, a female a lot developed into tusks.
Yeah, that's real interesting, especially if you're going with a female-type gorilla.
These hippies joining in on the investigation during the clip really make me think this
is some Scooby-Doo shit.
This feels very Scooby-Doo.
It's the caretaker.
It's red herring.
They cut from this to the pier, then the mystery gang in an alley playing with a tire, when
Russ Tamblyn and crew show up to menace them because it's an Al Adamson film and our next
clip.
Hey, baby.
Where have you been keeping yourself?
Why don't you cut out, girl?
I pulled myself out of a zoo.
I don't think she likes us.
I think I'm going to cry.
Hey, let me tell you something.
Nobody leaves, you understand?
I think you've been around these squares long enough.
I need myself a new chick today, so hop on the back and cut out of here.
All right, Sam?
Hey, look at the hero.
Ain't he cute?
Leave it alone!
Hey, he's nice like a fish you got.
Well, hey, baby, you want it this way, but next time, well, you'll see.
Come on, you guys, let's make it.
Well, I see you've moved into our neighborhood.
Sergeant Martin, did you see those motorcyclists?
Yeah, that's just part of the environment.
There was a taxi, man.
Mansa, you know how to take care of yourself.
I can't believe.
Please say it.
The police aren't seeing it, Fontaine.
I'm saying it.
This is my area.
I know it.
People like to play games.
Pretty soon, you know what they are.
You learn when to leave something alone or break it up.
What do you know about Dr. Duray?
Are you trying to play detective again?
No, I'm just trying to find my sister.
I told you to leave that to me, Fontaine.
You've done it.
Now, that'll be something important.
You've got a fireplace, burn some wood in it.
It'll be a lot better than running around loose on the street.
Miss Fontaine, there will be a maniac running loose.
You've got a fireplace, burn some wood in it.
I do not recognize that colloquialism, do you?
No, I do not.
That's something else right there.
Yeah.
Okay.
After this, they cut to the old hippie and the lounge singer strolling on the beach.
And one has to wonder what the fuck has happened to Lon Chaney Jr. and the mad scientist revenge
plot and all the stuff that is actually interesting compared to this bullshit.
Yeah.
It's like, what happened?
Everyone?
Where's the original story?
Where are we at?
What movie are we even in right now?
There is some dialogue, so fuck it.
That's our next clip.
Might as well.
What do you think of my little hideaway?
Oh, Mike, it's beautiful.
It's hard to believe.
There's so much trouble sitting here listening to the sound of the ocean and being here with
someone so nice.
Well, it's about time you admitted it.
I just haven't wanted to get involved.
So many things I have to do.
You're right.
We don't want to get involved, do we?
Just be good friends, right?
They kiss and lay back setting up a submarine race and it cuts to the ocean and then to
the doctor in the mad science lab and Lon Chaney Jr. with him.
So Adamson has learned how to keep this carny trick working.
There is dialogue with these guys and our next clip.
Yes, you're seeing it coming into being now, growing the final stages of the adrenal molecular
structure.
The traumatic shock, which is vibrated through these bodies, has now been tempered, tempered
to an even rhythm.
The blood has reversed through the pulmonary artery.
We are all going through changes of having the same blood.
It is following throughout all our bodies.
We shall soon become more and more as one.
Soon, perhaps we will even look as one.
Your cure is here.
I promised.
I promised you that, but I must have the full force of the serum first.
I can no longer remain in this wheelchair.
I'm chained to it.
I need to feel the earth beneath my feet.
Without that, Groton, none of you will experience a normal life.
What is it, Groton?
I have not given you your shots for transformation for the past twenty-four hours.
You should not be experiencing any forms of metamorphosis.
I will not have that, Groton.
No, I cannot have you work with me like this.
Your only question, this form, is for blood.
You're forcing me, forcing me to give you a portion of the serum, Groton.
You forced me because of your weakness, because of your weakness we will lose a measure of
the serum.
I will not help you again, Groton, not again.
Mike, I've been thinking about what you said before.
About what?
Oh, about Joni being old enough to live by herself.
Are you giving up?
No, I'm not giving up.
Just giving Joni something she's always needed, a freedom from a big sister who thinks she
knows what's right and what's wrong.
I'm sure Joni will thank you for that.
But maybe there's something else you don't know about.
Something else?
I've been thinking about everything that's happened.
He'll come up with a new idea.
You know, everything that's happened in the last week is centered around the amusement
park.
And the only, the only amusement that extends out onto the beach is Dr. DeRay's creature
emporium.
You mean the place where Joni got her parchment?
And who knows what else?
Well, then Dorier is the answer.
Well, not the complete answer.
There's a couple of things I want to check on that may give us enough information to
force DeRay to tell us about Joni.
Lon Chaney Jr. is acting the hell out of his scenes and is narrowly saved from that transformation
with that shot, I guess.
Yes.
And then, you know, then we go back to whether Joni is ready to live alone or not.
I literally wrote in my notes, I guess Adamson decided we've had enough entertaining scenes
as he cuts back to the couple lounging on the beach.
Yeah, right.
Nope, gotta get back to all the horse shit now.
It cuts from that couple lounging on the beach to a couple getting after it in a car until
the Frankenstein monster shows up.
Hey, remember the Frankenstein monster, everyone?
He's in here again.
Holy shit.
He's back.
Well, he attacks, rips the door off of the car, which actually looked kind of cool.
Tosses the dude to the ground, grabs the girl out of the car and tosses the dude off of him
when he tries to attack to get the girl back.
Just as the sheriff shows up, the two sheriff's deputies pull some guns on the monster and
shoot at him.
He drops the girl to slowly lumber at them.
They run out of bullets and then jump at him to be tossed to the ground for good.
And the monster picks the girl up and heads the fuck out.
They cut away from this entertaining stuff to the discount mystery gang blonde.
Of course.
Wandering around in the dark under the pier where her sister disappeared when she is cheap
scared by that older hippie dude that might be the leader of the mystery gang.
I guess they have some dialogue and are.
Next clip.
Oh, my God.
I was you.
I was scared to death.
You shouldn't be out here alone.
I know, but I just got tired of waiting for you to come back.
Did you find out anything about Brea?
Sure.
I found out he's a doctor.
All right.
But I still don't trust him.
Come on, let's check the pier under.
Careful, Mike.
We should be under the creature emporium by now.
This could be what we've been looking for.
What is it?
I don't know.
This chain's attached to it.
Doesn't seem to match the others.
If I'm right, it could open like a trap door.
I'm right about that.
I'm right about Dr. Dure.
Come on, Mike.
I don't want to stay here anymore.
Come on.
Let's go.
OK.
We'll go.
I've got to figure out what we're going to do about it.
Mike, do you really believe what you just said?
I believe the doctor is a collector of humans.
Oh, horrible.
I also believe he's trapped in that... trapped in his wheelchair and somebody, something,
does his work for it.
Well, what about that trap door we just saw?
Easy exit for the hunter.
Mike, we just met the man.
I know he's strange, but he's not mad.
How do you... how do you recognize madness of all the aspects of a man?
Madness can be the most impossible to observe.
But there's nothing we can do without proof.
We'll get proof.
Mike, why are you just so freak?
Wow.
You're so surprised, boy.
I told you nobody would catch me.
The young lady, Samantha, is being menaced by bikers.
She runs away and is pursued and part of that pursuit takes us over the full hour mark.
So we're in the middle of the pursuit and the hour is passed.
The rest of this is the run to the end.
Okay.
Let's go.
Fair enough.
The run to the end starts...
Let's get there.
The run to the end starts with more pursuit as padding under the pier as they continue
to menace her until she stops to beg at Russ Tamblyn's legs before he kicks her to the
ground and the baddies begin menacing her as they hold her down and they begin to attempt
raping her but are thankfully interrupted by Lon Chaney Jr. to save her and us from this
rape scene.
He picks up the unconscious girl and the main hippie overhears something having to do with
this because we only have 28 minutes left but they still have to pad out the film.
So that is our next clip.
Did you hear that?
It sounded like a chain.
Mike, let's not talk about that anymore.
I've heard it before, Judith, but now I think I know what it is.
Stay here.
I'll be right back.
Mike.
Mike, don't go away.
Don't argue with me.
Just stay here.
I'll be back.
Mike.
I just couldn't stay there by myself anymore.
Mike, that's true.
That's just about where we were standing over there.
I know.
I could swear I saw something here.
What do you think it was?
It looked like somebody trying to pull themselves up.
Some stunning old mages.
What is it?
Samantha's locket.
Oh, Mike, no.
I'm going to get in there and find her and nothing's going to stop me.
Mike, we've just got to get some air.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Delaney, please.
Hey, you, you got to have a ticket to get inside this, or I'll throw whatever at you.
You got to have a ticket.
You're big.
You can do that to a little man, you wise guy, but I won't be this way very long.
I'll get you.
Your friend waits for you inside.
My friend?
Yes, of course.
Grouskill knows and sees.
Do not fear me.
I am a little man of no use to anyone.
Then you have seen my friend.
Yes, yes, of course.
He's waiting for you inside.
Who's she, Dr. Duré?
I've seen your phony exhibit, Duré.
I want to see what you have down below.
Mike.
Get out of here.
Quiet.
Let's go.
Back this way.
They meet up at the end of the clip and go wandering around looking for that MacGuffin
they hope for as they enter an old dungeon room and rig the door with a brick to keep
it open, taking their sweet old time doing it with some dialogue in our next clip.
At least this will be ready for us when we want to leave.
It's making it too easy.
Yes, I can wait.
Mike, I've got to know what's happening.
Mike!
Mike, it's Joni!
Your sister, alive and well.
You see, you are not visiting a monster's lair.
Joni, are you all right?
She has explained everything to me.
She has experienced the most remarkable scientific venture, but as you see, she is well and no
harm has come to her.
Why are you showing us all this, Duré?
Because I want you to understand why you have been chosen to participate in my experiments.
Again, you must understand you are not trapped, but rather you will be spiritually released
by what will occur in the next few moments.
Like millions of others, you believe what you see before you is an uncontested fact.
A moment ago you witnessed the claiming of another being for my experiment.
Some happened.
She is well, but because of what she witnessed, the destruction of three young men who wished
her well, she produced a remarkable cellular conversion.
Her blood has the exact components necessary to complete my serum.
I never thought such an alteration was possible at such a short period of time, but it happened.
It happened, and now I know it can happen again.
You too are loved quite obviously, and when you witness the sudden death of your lover,
the traumatic shock will draw the reservoirs of blood into a single electric stream.
You will think yourself lifted to a new plateau, and this physical resurrection will be the
beginning of a new life for yourself and for others, mainly my friends.
With this, the monster attacks the hippie, the dude from Freaks and Beyond Thunderdome
almost falls through the trap door as the hippie is tossed into the breaker box that
controls it, and he saves himself just in time with his cane.
The barker there loses his grip after pulling a caged puppy down instead of himself, and
then somehow falls onto the axe as he falls below, head first.
These two are actually a team or actually have some care for each other, and the doctor
is just using them both.
Aw, mean.
Why are you such a user?
I'm telling you though, that was probably the coolest thing these films have done yet
with that theatrical trick of him falling on the axe, the way that they cut it, everything
it worked very well.
And also just relax everyone when the puppy falls before the guy from Freaks and Beyond
Thunderdome falls, you actually see the puppy running from the cage just fine, right before
he drops out of the door too.
So I don't know if anybody else may have noticed that or not, but relax, the puppy was fine.
The doctor orders-
Yeah, as long as the puppy's okay, that's all that's concerning me.
The doctor orders Lanchini Jr. to kill both of the hippie gang, and the old hippie orders
the singer to get the fuck out of there, so she does.
Usually you don't get that from the people in these kind of movies, they don't really
listen when they're told to get out of some place.
That's fair.
The old hippie gets knocked down and the doctor orders Lanchini after the girl, so he heads
out of the window in pursuit of her as well.
The doctor pulls a gun and the hippie makes it to the stairs before he gets shot.
They cut from this to Chani chasing the blonde, then to the doctor taking his elevator, then
to Chani climbing out of a wall and a window to get up to the top like where the roof is,
and then they cut to our fifteenth clip.
What about Samantha?
Something must have happened to her.
Look, strange, we're going to check the Emporium, I got a hunch she might be there.
Don't forget we found those three bodies underneath it, come on.
The old hippie hides behind the automated gorilla attack, and the doc hastily unloads
his revolver at him through the display, missing him.
The doc drops the gun and hastily wheels away, running into the guillotine, falling into
place for it like he is either Marie Antoinette or a billionaire once the other 99% finally
have had enough.
Yeah, because they'll ever have enough.
And then activates the guillotine, cutting off his own head.
Just pausing to picture a billionaire there for a second.
Okay.
Yeah, me too.
No, that's not bad.
That's not bad.
That's nice.
They immediately cut away before we realize how cheap that severed head really was.
To the lady climbing on the roof, she is chased by a transformed Chani, and then the blonde
is noticed by the hippie named Strange, I guess his name, and all the pigs, as they
try to find a way to the roof and they shoot at Chani, nailing him and transforming him
into a dummy that falls off of the roof.
I think it was his puppy because the puppy comes over and licks him after he falls.
And that makes me really sad.
And they drive the point out of the puppy was fine.
But now his owner's dead and he's probably sad about it.
But he's still a puppy.
So someone can come pick him up and adopt him.
Right.
Somebody and then he'll forget.
Disco Dracula shows up to menace the lady.
Hey, remember Disco Dracula, everyone?
He's back.
Holy shit.
Dracula's in this movie?
That's it.
I totally forgot.
Anyway, he shows up to use some kind of glamour on her and while he's talking, it's probably
going to be a long thing.
So here's our next one.
I'm afraid your quest for knowledge must end tonight.
Your interference is going to prove very costly to you.
I guess I was fooled.
I just assumed that because he had lots of dialogue before, but I guess.
Yeah.
No, man.
Listen, they're trying to figure out a way to get him off camera as quickly as possible.
Nobody wants to see Dracula in a movie called Dracula versus Frankenstein.
No one wants to see it.
No, they want to watch couples take long longing looks at each other while walking on the beach.
Exactly.
So he picks her up to the scaffolding to look out of, or like a scaffolding lookout or a
fire escape of some sort, and then looks at the camera for direction, then pulls a rope
out of nowhere just before the scene cuts to people looking for her.
And then they cut back to the woman very loosely, quote unquote, tied up as the heroes arrive.
I would use that term very loosely and being real liberal with the word tied up.
That's what I was supposed to represent.
And Dracula menaces her once more in our next clip.
This is your last stop this evening, your very last stop.
You are responsible for the death of Dr. DeRay, last of the Frankensteins.
I am Dracula.
The serum he perfected would have rendered me invincible.
But do not worry.
It will not be long before I get all I need of that serum.
When I do, I will return with a league of living vampires, an indestructible army of
the undead.
So do you think anybody's going to stop him then?
Nobody will.
No, nobody.
Gotcha.
After this, the old hippie takes out the monster site with a flare and the monster attacks
Dracula as we see the titular fight.
Oh no, not really.
It's more or less just a strangulation.
And then disco Dracula gets the monster under control and uses his ring to rotoscope lightning
at the old hippie setting his ass on fire.
Holy shit, that was weird and cool.
Yeah.
Get out of there.
You're on fire now.
The girl collapses and they cut to a secluded church at what looks like dusk where the monster
carries the girl for a very differently looking disco Dracula.
They enter the abandoned chapel looking structure and drop the girl in the chair.
Disco Dracula set the mood lighting some candles and then walks off screen before we cut to
a sunrise and then to disco Dracula, quote unquote, tying up the girl again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause I mean, but again, tied up now.
I mean, how many times are you going to tie this person up?
He ends up lighting some more candles and then monologues briefly about a coffin to
explain what he is doing.
And then Frankenstein starts to get horny for the blonde singer as he touches the ropes
holding her in place near her tits, then her face.
Disco Dracula fondles his coffin.
The lady wakes up and that is our ultimate clip.
Okay.
I got sucked in thinking that Dracula was going to monologue again, but we're running
out of time.
So there's no monologue in this.
Nope.
No monologuing.
Dracula goes in for a bite, but the monster is all about that blonde lady and tries to
stop him.
He goes for it anyway.
And the monster has at him.
So they slow motion square off as Dracula backs up until he runs out of room and the monster
takes the special Dracula ring in the struggle.
He ends up smashing his way out of the church using Dracula as a batting ram through the
door and then menaces Dracula into the rising sun for a fight.
They cut to the lady getting loose from the ropes loosely laid on her and definitely not
tied up.
Nope.
Again, not tied up at all.
How many times have they tied her up?
She's not tied up.
And then to the monsters in a forest in what looks like black and white footage as there
is needle drops from actual universal monster movie scores and sound effects in this scene.
I definitely heard the creature like trumpet thing going off while there is more or less
just to shove each other back and forth fight.
That's all that they're doing right now.
Yeah.
They're just like that.
It's like a two like grade school kids want to get into a fight, but they've never been
in a fight before.
So it's just, this is what's happening.
There is overdubbed dialogue about Dracula ripping the monster apart piece by piece as
he was built by his creator and that is exactly what happens as both of the creature's arms
in a row are torn off.
Oh yeah.
Good stuff.
The creature assumes that this is only a flesh wound and he goes after him again.
It's a flesh wound.
But this time the disco Dracula just rips off the fucking head of the creature.
I'm the black knight.
I always triumph.
But he is trapped himself in the forest during the light of morning.
So we start scrambling back to his coffin to hide from the sun.
He makes it to the broken chapel door and the sun is up a rooster crows.
And then it takes its time with cuts back and forth between the sun and some cheap makeup
to age up and rot Dracula.
And they really are just padding out the film to 90 minutes as it's finally over for disco
Dracula.
Why?
The lady frees herself from those totally tight and not at all loosely wrapped bonds
and wanders outside to have a bunch of memory flashbacks to the end of the film.
That's just how they last.
It's just a bunch of flashbacks of things that we've already seen.
And then that's even more padding as she stares at the compost heap that used to be the Dracula
and the Dracula outfit that is below it.
And we see Dracula's ring and then they finally roll those fucking credits.
Okay.
Like I said, this is your entry point.
As much as we were having fun with it and goofing on it, this is the one that you could
have fun watching with someone and just really riffing on and just goofing off.
Or you could try and watch it on your own to see if this is the sort of thing that you
enjoy solo.
Cause I watch this kind of shit solo all the time.
Yeah.
I mean, if you'd have some fun with it, but yeah, it's, it would probably be more fun
with like a group of people and everyone having a couple of drinks or just goofing off.
Yeah.
Somehow in the early 1970s, Al Adamson heard our complaints here in 2024 and adjust them
on his next film that we watched.
It was, it was very nice of him to do that.
I rather, maybe he figured out how to use that time machine for something more practical,
but whatever.
He died in 1995, so I don't think he's going to use that time machine to do this.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, yeah, that's true.
Okay.
So I don't really have a whole lot else to say about the film.
I mean, we really kind of dug in while we were digging in because we had to riff on
it because this was the, that's the fun of it.
This is what you would say while you're watching the film, right?
And that's where the fun is.
Yes, exactly.
So yeah.
Why don't we just break here?
We'll do a quick break and actually, yeah, we can do a story time.
Why the hell not?
So up first on the pirate radio edit before our story time is Van Morrison with the song
wild night.
And then we'll have a story time right after this.
[music]
All right.
So Van Morrison, wild night.
I mean, it makes sense, right?
Like everything that happened in one night, that's a wild night.
So that is a wild night night.
And I guess I'm going to have to probably tell a story about a wild night in my next
story time.
All right.
So Matt wasn't here for this, but your wife was and the wild night was what took place
after we came back from a pub on our wedding day.
My wife and I, we took the whole entire crew out.
So this is basically what happened, right?
Had the wedding.
Everything was done.
Bev decided that she didn't want all our friends from college and all the people that made
the trip that we haven't seen in forever to not get some more time with us than what they
could have had.
So we let the older family members go to bed at the end of the wedding and we spent the
time with them.
And then like the younger crowd came with us and we went to this Irish pub.
It was a decent walk down in downtown Erie, if anyone's ever been there, it was a decent
walk away, but it wasn't too terrible.
Now Erie has fallen on some economic hard times, even in when I got married 12 years
ago.
I've since rebounded, but when we were there 12 years ago, it was empty and there was like
a lot of like urban decay looking areas because, you know, they hadn't really revitalized or
anything.
And, uh, you know, it, it just basically was sort of falling apart a little bit.
And Bev was telling everyone that it's safe to walk to the pub, right?
And, and I'm like, yeah, it's fine.
It's just, it's Erie.
It looks run down.
Yes.
But it's a still, it's not that big of a town.
It's small.
It'll be fine.
You know, and we're, we're reassuring everybody that hadn't been there before that they're
going to be perfectly safe, right?
So we all walk down and, uh, we have a night at the pub and it's a blast, right?
We're all drinking.
People are buying us drinks.
Everybody's hanging out.
Um, the bar is starting to compass drinks because we're a wedding party and like people
are just like having a good old time because we're all celebrating.
It was a totally fun night.
I'm not going to, you know, go too crazy about it.
And it's just a lot of bullshitting and drinking and just people trying to catch up, but like
not getting like sloppy hammer drunk, but like getting tipsy enough to where it's maybe time
to go to bed.
You know?
We walked down the bar, which I believe at that time was 2 a.m. in PA, give or take,
right?
Yeah, I got that.
I have no idea.
I think the staff may have even let us stay a little bit later.
Right?
So it's late.
It's really, really late.
I'm fucking exhausted.
Bev is exhausted.
The wedding party is exhausted.
Everybody pretty much is ready to go.
And pretty much we have just this small group of people and we didn't want anybody walking
back on their own.
So we had people walk back, you know, like in groups, obviously, because, you know, there
were people that were a little bit worried and also it's still a city.
So on our way back at like two ish, three ish in the morning, we see smoke.
We see cop cars.
We start walking past a restaurant that has like a window blown out of it and like broken
up all this shit.
And there was like a small fire or something like that.
And there's a guy with the cops sitting on the curb that got arrested and he's further
down on the way up the walk.
Like we're walking through and it looks like a post-apocalypse is setting in as we continue
further and further down towards our hotel.
It just keeps getting worse and worse.
And meanwhile, Bev and I are looking at each other and then looking at everybody else that's
walking with us that we are assured would be perfectly safe, you know, there's like
even like the guy that got arrested, there was a guy that got arrested that had broke
the window of the restaurant and he had a cut.
So there was blood with the glass too, cause he cut himself breaking the window open.
And I think, I don't know if the fire was in the restaurant, but there was like smoke
coming off of something that was like, you know, like a fire had just been put out like
somewhere else, you know, in the vicinity of where we were at.
And it was just this whole like apocalypse view walking back to the hotel.
We get back to the hotel and then everybody's looking at us and then Bev is like, obviously
embarrassed.
And she's like, I don't know what happened.
It's never like this.
And we're just kind of like, okay, everybody get to your room safe.
All right.
Everyone go to sleep.
We'll talk to you all later.
Right.
Right.
So we get up the next day and we kind of check the news and everything.
And it was kind of like a few isolated incidents that have all kind of happened along the street
that the path we were walking to get back from the pub.
And it wasn't anything that was like a huge deal.
It was like a guy that got fired and was coming back to fuck up the restaurant.
And then like a car fire in an alley that someone pulled over or something like that.
Like it wasn't anything huge.
Just a comedy of events there.
Right.
Right.
It was just the perfect storm of events.
After we assured everyone it would be perfectly safe to walk back from this pub at late at
night.
Yeah.
Right.
So that's my story time of a wild night.
Nice.
Well, that sounds fun.
I'm sad I missed it.
We're going to go ahead and end this show.
I'm going to play the show housekeeping here.
And then immediately after that on the pirate radio edit for our folks because they were
in Venice.
I think that's near L.A.
So I just chose the doors with L.A.
Woman.
Because it's also in 1971.
There you go.
When this movie was released right after this.
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Thanks for listening to the show.
I know you can't believe that you're subscribed to us or here every week just like us.
a little bit.
Alright everybody, if you want to argue with me on whether or not Venice and LA are close
enough even though they're both in California.
I mean, it's also 1971 is why I picked the song.
So maybe it was just an excuse to get the doors on here.
I don't know.
I remember when they used to say Hokkoi was Venice Beach, California when he was actually
from Florida.
Well, you're out there wondering why Matt just threw in that WWE.
It's WrestleMania weekend, dude.
Info for no fucking reason, kick the fuck out of this week and make it your bitch.
While you enjoy the who from 1971 with won't get fooled again.
Like we won't.
I'm watching out of show.
, I'm watching out of show.
I'm watching out of show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, at least you're coming through your actual microphone and not your watch
this week.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, my watch is not even on.
All right.
Let's get this show on the road.
What?
Recording in progress, there we go.
You record me, sir.
That's the whole point of being a podcaster, you dumb fuck.
Oh, yeah.
You know, you don't have to be mean about it.
Have you fucking met me?
Yeah.
What the fuck is up with you today?
Jesus Christ.
Get high already.
What's with you?
What's with today?
Today?
I don't know.
Jesus Christ.
I'm fucking quoting.
Something is wrong with me.
I'm quoting the Empire Records movie is what I just quote.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
Oh, my good Lord.
Yeah.
Get the show on the road.
I am doing Dracula versus Frankenstein and you did the female bunch, correct?
The female bunch.
Yep.
Sweet, sweet.
All right.
I want to hold it all in.
So we're ready.
Hold it in.
Yeah.
Here we go.
You know, Johnny and I, we're both orphans.
This is like six minutes.
It was 10 minutes of screen time, but I cut it down to just under six.
I am going to skip this, but I'm going to play the very end of it so you know where we left
off, because this is her coming in and finding her sister.
It's all that set up.
Yeah.
All right.
So, all right.
Then we see what happens with the beheaded girl in the lab, all of that kind of stuff.
Skipping that.
Putting my mark on my notes here as if I'm a professional podcaster and not some...
I'm a professional.
All right.
Well, you're out there wondering why Matt just threw in that WWE.
It's WrestleMania weekend, dude.
We're gonna go ahead and end it.
Yes.