Blood of Ghastly Horror

Rating:
Summary: Cheerfully Awful
Review: Agressively, earnestly stupid dialog and an insane plot - actually, three or four insane plots, held together by not much at all - so it's a tribute to the human spirit, or something, that a lot of it is really nicely shot, especially the exteriors. Almost a Russ Meyer-ish feel, like the director is having more fun than anybody on the set. A bad movie to show when you have friends over who aren't dead sure about this "bad movie" thing.

Tommy Kirk demonstrates that, after having fallen from Absent-Minded Professor to Mars Needs Women, it's possible to KEEP FALLING.

Rating:
Summary: Blood of Ghastly Horror
Review: Alot of twists & turns in this one. If you like'm off-the-wall, and with a "B" movie appeal, you gotta check it out. I love John Carradine in any role. He was made for low budget horror.

Rating:
Summary: Al's done better.
Review: As I sit typing this I've concluded that Al Adamson's 1971 Blood of Ghastly Horror reigns as the most convoluted mess of a movie that I've ever seen in my life. The acting, lighting, directing and editing is of immeasurable low quality, and the narrative? Whoa! No movie could possibly deliver all that this one claims to, well not competently anyhow.

Al's '71 celluloid offspring is no less than 4 films patched clumsily together in a feeble attempt at creating an enjoyable motion picture. It was shot in `chill-o-rama' but truthfully it should have been `confuse-o-rama' because the only chill you'll feel is the whisking of air through the empty spot in your wallet where you once had some cash but now you have this DVD.

Blood of Ghastly Horror seems to have been doomed to an endless amount of uncertainty from the get-go. Initially it was a jewel heist movie called Two Tickets of Terror (1964) then changed later that same year to Echo of Terror. Poor Al couldn't sell it; hell he couldn't give it away. Plan B was put into effect and in 1965 he added some dancing chicks and re-christened it Psycho A Go Go, but still no go (go). Fine, he pulls out all the stops and hires waning but always-proficient actor John Carradine to star alongside the cavernous cleavage of Regina Carrol. Seven years after it was originally shot Adamson threw in a `Nam vet gone mad subplot along with a few zombies and some nonsensical voodoo (...), re-titled it Blood of Ghastly Horror and off to the drive-in we go.

As if all of this wasn't puzzling enough `ole Al gave it an alternate moniker for the southern regions that couldn't or wouldn't run a movie with `blood' in it's title. So The Man with the Synthetic Brain became the obvious answer and this also served as the T.V. label as well. Sound good? Well it's not. There are no smooth transitions here, just cut, chop, slice, paste and insert. The hair-do's change chaotically as do the vehicles and décor. You either give into its inanities or you simply turn it off. Producer Sam Sherman said that it was a big hit in Pakistan.

By Christopher Curry

Rating:
Summary: Blood of Ghastly Horror
Review: EXCELLENT!!! IF OLD B-MOVIES IS YOUR BAG, WITH A TOTALLY UNPREDICTABLE STORY, THIS IS YOUR MOVIE. THE MOVIE HAS MANY DIFFERENT TURNS, WITH MULTIPLE STORIES, WHICH WILL NOT MAKE THE ENDING EASY TO GUESS. IT ALSO HAS THAT GREAT 60'S B-MOVIE CHARM. THIS IS BAD DRIVE-IN CINEMA AT ITS BEST.

Rating:
Summary: Al Adamson fails again.... Stay away!
Review: I had seen two movies by Al Adamson before this one, "Dracula vs Frankenstein" and "Vampire Men of the Lost Planet", so needless to say, my expectations weren't very high, but this movie still managed to disappoint me.

As usual, it doesn't take long until Al Adamson seems to forget the main plot, and instead focuses on totally uninteresting side plots. And unlike "Vampire Men of the Lost Planet", this movie isn't the least "good-bad", it doesn't have any entertainment value at all except maybe in some of the scenes in the beginning with John Carradine. He gets top billing but his part is actually pretty small.

I can not recommend this movie, not even to fans of bad movies, like myself. Save yourself the time and money.

Rating:
Summary: Al Adamson fails again.... Stay away!
Review: I had seen two movies by Al Adamson before this one, "Dracula vs Frankenstein" and "Vampire Men of the Lost Planet", so needless to say, my expectations weren't very high, but this movie still managed to disappoint me.

As usual, it doesn't take long until Al Adamson seems to forget the main plot, and instead focuses on totally uninteresting side plots. And unlike "Vampire Men of the Lost Planet", this movie isn't the least "good-bad", it doesn't have any entertainment value at all except maybe in some of the scenes in the beginning with John Carradine. He gets top billing but his part is actually pretty small.

I can not recommend this movie, not even to fans of bad movies, like myself. Save yourself the time and money.

Rating:
Summary: blood of ghastly horror
Review: I just bought this movie, & must give it 4-stars for that old time, low budget appeal. Good movie to watch when you want something ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. Normally, I can figure out the ending, or what will happen next, but not in this one. It will keep you guessing. Reminds you of those summer nights at the Drive-in movie.

Rating:
Summary: blood of ghastly horror
Review: I just bought this movie, & must give it 4-stars for that old time, low budget appeal. Good movie to watch when you want something ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. Normally, I can figure out the ending, or what will happen next, but not in this one. It will keep you guessing. Reminds you of those summer nights at the Drive-in movie.

Rating:
Summary: Charming Trash
Review: This is one beauty of a head-scratcher. It is, literally, 3 movies in one. Al Adamson made the tight-yet-pointless heist film ECHO OF TERROR (a/k/a TWO TICKETS TO TERROR) in 1964, only to see it chopped up and intermixed with new footage several years later (starring John Carradine as an ethical but mad scientist) and retitled MAN WITH THE SYNTHETIC BRAIN, and sold as a horror cheapie to television. Not to be outdone, he and producer Sam Sherman further complicated matters by adding a third plot strand to the mix (something to do with killer zombies and yet another mad scientist, not to mention a rather sickly looking Tommy Kirk), and another new title, BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR. In order for the final incarnation to make sense, there are flashbacks-within-flashbacks all over the place. There was yet another version, PSYCHO-A-G-GO, which had musical numbers spliced amongst the madness!
Amazingly, it's quite an enjoyable viewing experience following the severely warped logic of the narrative, which only gets more confusing with each viewing.
Toppping it off is some of the best commentary I've yet heard on any dvd, provided by Sam Sherman, who promises to some day restore the integrity of Adamson's ECHO OF TERROR to its original glory (well, one can hope).
As with Ed Wood, it's hard not to admire director Al Adamson's earnestness, and Vilmos Szigmond's cinematography (on the ECHO OF TERROR portions), despite the faded print used for the dvd, shows a precocious eye for composition. A most unusual recommendation!

Rating:
Summary: sorry if u don't get it
Review: This movie rocks. While it does seem at times - well, pretty much the whole movie - that the end result is just a bunch of disparate clips strung together, there actually is a semblance of a plot that rears its head unexpectedly. But even looked at in terms of its fragmentary nature, this flick is a great exercise in dadaist, hallucinogenic filmmaking. It is supremely entertaining in a "so bad it's good" way, and should be approached with an open mind and relaxed critical hackles. If you still just don't get it, like the previous reviewer , then that's your loss, pally.