BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR (1972)
Article 3270 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-2-3010
Posting Date: 7-28-2010
Directed by Al Adamson
Featuring John Carradine, Kent Taylor, Tommy Kirk
Country: USA
What it is: A mess

A zombie is killing off people. Police investigate. It all has to do with a mad scientist and a psychotic jewel robber.

Anybody watching this movie for the first time will probably end up scratching his head over the confused mess, so, for here’s my handy-dandy guide to making sense of the movie –

Dave’s Handy-Dandy BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR guide.

This movie essentially went through three different stages, which we will call Movie 1, Movie 2 and Movie 3. In order to have any chance of following this, you need to know which movie you’re watching at any particular moment. The following clues should help you keep track of this.

MOVIE 1: This was originally shot as PSYCHO-A-GO-GO, which I’ve already covered for my project. This movie is more of a heist movie than anything else; it involves a jewel robbery in which the stolen booty is accidentally left in a truck being used by a suburban family. The criminals, one of which is a sadistic psychotic, terrorize the family in the hope of recovering the jewels. The only fantastic element here is the slight horror element of the sadist. If the section you are watching involves the search for the stolen jewels by a vicious sadist, you’re watching movie 1. There are no name stars in this movie.

MOVIE 2: This movie attempts to give a backstory to Movie 1. In it, we discover that the reason the one jewel robber is so sadistic is that he was the subject of a brain experiment designed to fix the damage he underwent on his stint in Vietnam; however, the experiment went awry, leaving him a sadistic psycho. John Carradine is the scientist who performed the experiment on the psycho. If John Carradine is in the scene, you’re watching movie 2. The only shared character between the two movies so far is the sadistic psycho played by Roy Morton.

MOVIE 3: In a sense, this movie is a sequel to Movies 1 and 2. In it, another mad scientist (played by Kent Taylor) who is the father of the sadistic psycho, has created a method of turning people into killer zombies. Infuriated over the death of his son, he swears revenge on the daughter of the scientist who initially experimented on the psycho; the daughter is played by Regina Carrol. Meanwhile, cops investigate, including one played by Tommy Kirk. This movie shares no characters with the other two movies. If the footage involves a zombie missing an eye, Tommy Kirk, Regina Carrol or Kent Taylor, you’re watching movie 3.

That’s everything you need to figure out what the hell is going on in this one. Not that it makes this awful piece of tripe any better, but at least it gives you something to occupy your mind while watching it. The only enjoyment I ever got from watching the movie was trying to figure the plot out, and I had to watch it several times to get that much out of it. Now, with the above guide, you can figure it out in one sitting. Or skip it altogether.