Black Sunday.

Bava is a legend.  And this movie, about an undead witch (played by Barbara Steele) coming back to do bad shit, was a damn good one from what I can gather.  The movie starts with Barbara Steele being executed for being a witch, and as they hammer a devil mask to her face and kill her, she tells them that she will return, armed with the power of Satan to KILL THEM ALL.  So, this ain’t no fake witch.  She’s a straight up evil woman.

[...]

Starkwell: Music in movies was so much damn better back then.

[...]

Bava’s a real pro, and it shows IMMEDIATELY.  The production is fantastic.  The cinematography looks genius, and the sets look absolutely mystical and terrifying.

[...]

Lovelock: So much fog!  How did they do that?

Starkwell: By actually caring about how the movie looks.  Something modern day film makers should learn.

[...]

[Two main characters, doctors, ask their carriage driver to take a shortcut through the HAUNTED WOODS.]

Starkwell: Pretty dumb for a couple of "doctors".

Lovelock: Rational science is about to FAIL YOU!  GHOSTS ARE REAL!

Starkwell: Wait… you mean in this movie, or… ?

[...]

Then the two doctors go into a crypt that they stumble upon, and therein find the Witch’s Tomb.  While fighting with a seriously awesome looking fake bat, the doctor breaks the cross that sits above the witch’s tomb.  Then he takes off her mask.  Then he accidentally feeds her a couple of drops of blood after cutting his hand on the glass.

[...]

[The Princess appears to them, and she has two big fucking dogs with her.]

Starkwell: How did the doctor manage to do THREE accidental things that could potentially lead to the re-animation of the satanic witch?

Lovelock: Blind luck?

Starkwell: Doctor Whateverhisfuckingnameis?  More like Mr. Magoo.

[...]

[The younger of the two doctors is clearly smitten with the princess.]

Starkwell: Quite possibly the two dumbest doctors in the history of medicine.

Lovelock: Mr. Magoo and his sidekick, Boner MD.

[...]

The shots of the witch corpse are utterly horrifying, crawling with worms, maggots and oozing black tar of some kind.  It’s both effective, and creepy as balls.  So Barbara Steele plays the present day Princess, living at the mansion with her brother and father.  I assume this also means that she is a descendent of the witch from the beginning of the film.

[...]

[Young girl goes through the woods to get to the barn to milk the cow.]

Lovelock: Talk about a shitty mom.  Sending her daughter out, in a storm, through the creepy woods, NEXT TO A CEMETERY, to milk a cow.  In the middle of the night.  Who keeps their cow there?

Starkwell: Those shots following the girl through the woods are amazing.  I’m actually kind of scared.

Lovelock: That’s because you’re a fucking pussy.

[Creepy Witch Corpse starts talking, telling dead people to “RISE”.]

Lovelock: Well, shit, now I’m scared.

[...]

Then a devil-masked zombie rises from the grave, and Lovelock and Starkwell high-fived and started doing roundhouse kicks and playing air guitar.  It’s amazing that they didn’t break anything.  I should add that the zombie has a shirt with a shiny winged dragon on it.

[...]

[Dr. Magoo follows zombie dude into the crypt, where he then witnesses the witch RISE.]

Starkwell: There he goes, blindly following again!  Good ol’ Magoo!

Lovelock: Maybe she’s going to grant him three wishes for freeing her?

Starkwell: You’re thinking of a genie, and no, I don’t think that’s about to happen.

Lovelock: You ain’t never had a friend like me.

[Dr. Magoo makes out with the corpse, dies and becomes a zombie.  The witch, however, is fully awake now, and continues to order around her zombie horde (currently consisting of two zombies).]

Starkwell: A whole new world.

Lovelock: Don’t you dare close your eyes.

[...]

The plan seems to be to get the witch into the Princess body, and then she can be all alive and sexy again.  Walk around, kill people, get revenge, etc.  Later that afternoon, Dr. Boner finally wakes up from his hangover and realizes that Dr. Magoo is gone, and goes off to find him at the castle.

[...]

[Princess Katia faints into Dr. Boner’s arms and he carries her to his room, staring at her breasts, pretty much the whole time.]

Starkwell: Boner MD certainly is handsy.

Lovelock: Can you blame him?  Barabara Steele is stunning.

[...]

Zombie Magoo botches an attempt to kidnap Katia for the Witch, and it only further drives her into the arms of Boner MD, much to his delight I’m sure.  Anyways, Boner and the Prince and the Priest continue to investigate and get to the bottom of what is happening.  After a few choice deaths, an exorcism, some zombie on zombie action, and an incredible burning corpse scene, Katia is brought before the witch.

[...]

[Shiny Dragon Shirt Zombie tears her shirt off.]

Starkwell: Did the witch really need for her undergarment to be exposed to complete the ritual?

Lovelock: Probably not.  Bava likely just wanted to see them boobies shake.

[...]

Well, Boner shows up just in the knick of time to save Katia from the witch, but he fails to really do anything, because he sees the witch and she looks at him with her captivating eyes, and he goes all "boner" and just sits there spellbound.  And Katia looks dead.  Thankfully, a mob of townspeople show up and set the witch on fire and Katia comes back and immediately makes out with Boner MD like crazy.  Fucking awesome.

Planet of the Vampires.

Although it is misleadingly titled "Planet of the Vampires", this 1965 effort from the legendary Mario Bava involves Alien Possession and crew members turning on each other.  I’ve heard tell that this is often considered to be ahead of its time.  I could see why, at least based on the description.  Anyways, we’ll see.  Well, actually, Starkwell and Lovelock will see.  The intro credits featured close-ups on two model spaceships, that were completely immobile, and hanging up in a room painted to look like space.  I had to pause the film for a bit so that they would stp giggling and actually pay attention to the movie.  Off to a good start.

[...]

[Spaceship crew, investigating a planet from orbit.]

Starkwell: Apparently in the future, the collars will be HUGE!

Lovelock: They kind of look like the X-Men.  But with much bigger collars.

Starkwell: They look like the lamest biker gang of all time.

[...]

They made fun, but admitted that the surreal quality of the spaceship and the outfits was actually kind of interesting.  They were talking about how the deck was ENORMOUS, and about how impractical it seemed to make a spaceship huge just for the hell of it… but then it cut back to the model spaceships and the giggling started again.  Through the giggles, the entire ship’s crew seemed to pass out as they landed on the planet.

[...]

[Captain Sweatyface switches the controls to manual.]

Starkwell: There aren’t any labels on any of the lights and switches.  Doesn’t seem like a very well-designed control system.

[Cut to model with flashing lights.  Giggles galore.]

[...]

The crew wakes up, half of them start attacking each other.  But then they stop attacking, usually after a good shake, or a slap to the face.  And then as soon as they snapped out of it, someone else goes nuts and starts attacking.  It’s like a horrible game of tag.

[...]

[Possessed Doctor leaves ship.  Has trouble breathing, then comes to.  Two crew members come out to retrieve him.]

Starkwell: How come they need to wear those air helmets and the Doctor doesn’t?

Lovelock: Is the answer continuity?

Starkwell: Probably not.

[This is the last time anyone had to wear a helmet on the planet.]

[...]

Don’t get me wrong, both Lovelock and Starkwell agree that the sets looks cheap and hilarious, but simultaneously agree that somehow it works and that “they don’t make’em like this anymore.”

[...]

[The crew ventures across the planet to locate the other ship, which had sent them a distress signal.]

Starkwell: Now none of them need their little helmets, they only need those little bathing caps?

Lovelock: In the future, people need to breathe… sometimes?

[...]

Lovelock: I know I said X-Men before, but now I’m thinking TRON.  They look like they’re in the game.

Starkwell: Well, if the game was showing old dudes’ dickprints, then I think Bava won the gold for this movie.

[...]

After finding the other crew and realizing that they had all gone mad and killed each other, the crew goes into panic mode.  They then walk around the planet aimlessly looking for answers.  I think.

[...]

Lovelock: Hey, Mario, we get it… there’s a lot of greensmoke and fog on this planet.  Holy shit.

[...]

Then there was a scene where the deceased crew members started rising out of their tombs and tearing open the plastic wrap they had been encased in.  Lovelock proceeded to do a backflip while Starkwell did at least three consecutive fistpumps.  After that they high fived.  It was that awesome.

[...]

[Zombie crew member rips collar off of outfit.]

Starkwell:  The collars come off?  Why on Earth would they ever keep them on?

Lovelock: They’re not on Earth, IDIOT.

[...]

[Zombie Burt scares Blonde Beehive, she faints.]

Starkwell: Was it really necessary to show her making photocopies of the medical records for so long?

Lovelock: He was building tension.

Starkwell: He was building MY IMPATIENCE.

Lovelock: This movie is a solid boredom builder.

[...]

Then randomly, the main characters were wearing orange spacesuits instead of the black leather ones.  Likely, because the other outfits were being cleaned that day of filming.  The collars were much smaller.  They kind of looked like Michael Jackson did in "Thriller", or how Eddie Murphy looked in "Raw".  Anyways, they went off to explore some other spaceship that they found, full of HUGE skeletons.  Everything LOOKED really cool.  Starkwell and Lovelock were singing Bava’s praises for how the film looked.  The plot on the other hand is as Starkwell put it “as messy as sneezing with a nosebleed.”  Apparently the alien parasites wanted to travel with them back to their planet and possess everyone.

[...]

[Brawl between crew members, half possessed, half normal.]

Starkwell: Honestly, I don’t know who is who anymore.

Lovelock: What happened to the orange outfits?

Starkwell: Is the redhead dead?

Lovelock: What is that bubbling stuff?

Starkwell: Who were those big skeletons?

[...]

The questions went on like this for the remainder of this confusing movie.  There was a twist at the end, where the aliens ended up losing their navigation system and ending up going to EARTH!!!!!  Pretty solid twist actually.  Anyways, take a dash of "Alien", sprinkle in some "Ghosts of Mars", pour on a heavy cream of bizarre set design, rip off "Body Snatchers" a little, then remove any and all budget, and you sort of get this movie.  Ahead of its time?  Starkwell and Lovelock seem to think so.  Worth the time spent watching it?  Undecided.  I still think it was fun, but it leaves a really bad aftertaste.  But don’t take my word for it.

[...]

Lovelock: ZZZzzzzzzzzz…