Intimate, uproarious documentary about the B movie legend is also a tragic true crime film

David (LOST SOUL) Gregory’s latest document of cinema eccentricity BLOOD AND FLESH: THE REEL LIFE AND GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON, is first and foremost a tragedy. It begins at the end, in 1995, when mainstream media headlines screamed about the grisly discovery of a “horror movie director” who was found entombed in the basement of his California home, the victim of a sociopathic handyman who then went on the lam. It was a sensational finale to a fascinating life making movies whose go-for-broke (in many cases, literally going broke) sensibilities served as a middle finger to good taste. Adamson made pictures that were often rightfully lambasted by the critics, but thrived primarily in the undiscriminating passion pit worlds where cheap, dark fantasy thrills served as background noise to whatever shenanigans were going down in the backseats. Indeed, the gentle, likable director lived to make movies but his sad, cruel death was something that even he couldn’t have imagined.

The son of pioneering Western movie star Denver Dixon, Adamson was literally raised in the movie business and soon fell into directing films in the late ’60s and ’70s, at a time when there really was a healthy market for movies like HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS, BRAIN OF BLOOD, BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR, BLOOD OF DRACULA’S CASTLE and, of course, his most notorious (and perhaps most successful) effort, the deranged DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN. Adamson, along with his frequent collaborator, producer Sam Sherman, unleashed an endless supply of psychedelic skid row schlock , movies made with energy and oddball vision and starring many aging Hollywood legends, like John Carradine, The Ritz Brothers and Aldo Ray. Adamson’s work may not have been “good” by standard definitions of the word, but seen as a body of work it was -and remains – unique, colorful and admirably consistent.

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Director Floria Sigismondi delivers a serious-minded, stylish and surreal fever dream

Somebody somewhere screwed up the story and spread the belief that all horror movies had to tear you to pieces, saturating the screen with sadism and nihilism and other sorts of negative isms. They forgot that once upon a time, people turned to darker filmed fantasies to immerse themselves in beauty, to experience a sort of sinister, out-of-body, sensorial trip; to lose oneself in a work of macabre imagination, of somber moods and grandiose imagery. I can’t be sure exactly when jolts and jumps and spoon-fed, mundane logic superseded aesthetics in horror, but I know how lousy I feel when the world shrugs its shoulders in the wake of the release of a film – and a filmmaker – who has NOT forgotten what the essence of the genre is.

Such a picture is THE TURNING, and such a director is Floria Sigismondi, the artist whose landmark work making videos for David Bowie and Marilyn Manson (and many, many others) defined the look and feel of darker rock ‘n’ roll in the 1990s. Her 2010 feature film debut THE RUNAWAYS was a logical extension of her love of sound and image, telling the story of Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) and the titular band in a visually flashy fashion. But that movie’s greatest power was when it dialed things down, when it focused on faces, inner voices and emotion. The brief sequence where a tired, homesick Currie hears Don McLean’s “Vincent” on the radio during a drive between gigs is in itself a small, moving piece of cinema as poetry and secretly encapsulates everything the movie is about. Her second film, the recently released THE TURNING is indeed a horror picture, yet another dive into the well-worn weird-world painted in Henry James’ novel “The Turn of the Screw”.  And while the trailer for this one speaks to appeal to the Friday night Blumhouse crowd, its PG-13 rating inviting almost all audiences in to see it, the actual film itself is something else, or rather it slowly, surely, becomes something else. In fact, THE TURNING has the ultimate effect of actually turning, of rotating, sensually, seriously. It’s a movie that begins as a whole and then sort of melts into a swirling death-pool of subconscious imagery and primordial terror. In other words, it’s the work of a great artist trying to remind the world of the real deal power of horror cinema and what it can do to its audience.

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Legendary cult actress to sign copies of DELIRIUM #22 and PANTHER SQUAD Blu-ray and DVD

Legendary actress will appear to sign at Dark Delicacies in Burbank

What do you get when legendary exploitation studio Eurocine (ZOMBIE LAKE, OASIS OF THE LOST GIRLS) enlists the arresting presence of Amazonian cult movie goddess Sybil Danning (HOWLING II, HERCULES) to kick some international terrorist tush? Why, PANTHER SQUAD of course! The coolest and craziest downmarket action movie of the 1980s!

Full Moon is excited to be bringing this rarely seen French/Spanish gem back from VHS rental oblivion with a crisp new remastered HD transfer on both Blu-ray and DVD FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, available for sale THIS WEDNESDAY (1/15) only at Full Moon Direct! Special features include a BRAND NEW Sybil Danning audio commentary moderated by DELIRIUM magazine editor Chris Alexander. And SPEAKING of DELIRIUM, we’re unleashing the sexy and color-soaked 22nd issue of our beloved cinema journal on February 5th, featuring our blow-out PANTHER SQUAD cover story and a pair of KILLER new Sybil Danning interviews!

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1977 psycho thriller packs a cheap, shocking punch

Director Irvin Berwick (MALIBU HIGH) may not have made many movies in his day, but – as we all know – quality trumps quantity and his 1977 exploitation psychodrama shocker HITCH HIKE TO HELL is not only his best work, it’s one of the weirdest and most potent pictures of its kind, and that’s saying something considering the company the movie kept during that most sensational era of “passion pit” drive-in potboilers. And really, “quality” is a subjective term. By conventional standards, the shoestring-budgeted HITCH HIKE TO HELL isn’t a particularly well produced work. But man, does it pack a disorienting, primal punch.

The film tells the tawdry tale of Howard (Robert Gribbin), a dry-cleaning delivery driver who is seemingly happy, upbeat and well-liked by all. Certainly the wayward women hitchhikers he picks up dig his company. He’s kind and a good listener. But the problem is, when said runaway ladies start taking trash about their domestic lives – specifically griping about their mothers – Howard starts to get dark. Then, he gets darker. Within minutes, Jekyll become Hyde and Howard drives his poor passengers to a remote locale, yanks them screaming out of his van and beats and savagely rapes them before brutally murdering them. And then it repeats.

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Deeply weird Canadian kid-flick is the first release from Severin Kids

Kids growing up in Canada in the 1980s who were blessed with access to PayTV will recall – fondly or otherwise – director Michael Rubbo’s bizarre and oh-so-French-Canadian eyesore THE PEANUT BUTTER SOLUTION. The movie – part of producer Rock Demers’ perpetually odd “Tales for All” cinema series – seemed to ALWAYS be on channels like First Choice and Superchannel (and then, when the two stations merged, First Choice/Superchannel) and, with its low production values, weird dubbing and terminally insane plot mechanics, THE PEANUT BUTTER SOLUTION became the kind of curio that kids watched when there was nothing else to watch.

Which is not to say THE PEANUT BUTTER SOLUTION is bad. It’s neither good, nor bad. It just is! There’s never been a movie like it before or since, and apparently – according to Severin Films’ copy on their new Blu-ray release – it terrified younger tots who stumbled upon it. I don’t quite get the fear factor, but there is most assuredly an arch, other-worldliness to the picture and a streak of sadism and surrealism that gave and still gives the picture a unique fingerprint.

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Comprehensive coffee table book charts the entire HALLOWEEN franchise

DELIRIUM has a pair of copies of authors Dustin McNeill and Travis Mullins’ massive new book TAKING SHAPE, a definitive glimpse at the making of every single picture (to date) in the HALLOWEEN feature film universe. Loaded with exclusive interviews, tons of rare photos and even a peek at the legendary novelizations of the films!

To grab a copy, email chris@fullmoonfeatures.com with the words TAKING SHAPE in the subject line. Two winners will be selected at random.