Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

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

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.