No I am not making this one up. And yes, I did see it in high school. The cover featured a Stevie-Wonder-like figurine (i.e. braids) with bloody fangs. I thought, what the hell, even if it sucks, I can say that I saw Black Devil Doll From Hell. Since then I have said that about a lot of things. "Hell, even if sticking my daddy parts on this electric fence stings a little, at least I can say that I did it."

I could not watch, but I could not look away. I spent most of the running time with my eyes defocused.

From the best I can figure, Chester Novell Turner, star and director, shot it on Betacam or S-VHS and scored the music on a Casio-1100C. Imagine, if your fevered brain can, a throwaway shot of a man driving up to a house, an incidental establishing shot in any other film. But Turner twists it to his own artistic purposes. He is urging us to say "show me the damn doll." And we do. "Show me the damn doll, you bastard!" Then he does, a low-end Cabbage Patch rip off with Stevie Wonder braids with hands that velcro around the actor's neck. "I've seen enough of the doll. He can go away now."

Again, I am not making this one up. Click on the IMDb link and see for yourself. I just wish they had the cover art so I could steal it and post it here.

Those of us who lived through it call it BBDFH so that the full name would not be uttered and the spirits therin would not be released. You may want to do the same.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972)

Again, I saw this one years ago because I liked the packaging. I saw the poster in a catalog, featuring a composition similar to the bottom of the poster you see above, but with two kids seated on a sofa with the decaying man between them. The mixture of childhood innocence and the often cheesy genre of over-the-top horror made for an interesting brew- on the poster, anyway. It was almost twee. Actually, the movie itself is just a genuine spooky movie, like Night of The Living Dead only with slightly higher production values.

Slightly.

A group of teenagers are trying out for the high school varsity Satan worshiping team but can't find a body to desecrate for the try-outs. If they don't find one soon, they'll never make the squad. But then they dig up a lovable corpse named Orville and the wackiness ensues.

"I loved it!" Says Rex Reed of Tower Records. "It pre-dates Weekend At Bernies by nearly two decades! It takes you back to those Satan worshiping days of youth!"

I love how director Bob Clark changed his name to get away from the taint of this film, then changed it back (with quotes [see image avove]) on the eve the kitschy re-release.

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1963)

Originally, the director was listed as Ray Dennis Steckler, and the headlining star as a guy named Cash Flagg. Today the IMDb has them both credited to Steckler which is fitting in a way since they were always the same person. During an interview on the much-mourned USA Nightflight, Steckler gave interviews as both himself and Flagg. It went something like this:

Medium shot of Steckler sitting in a chair wearing a hooded sweatshirt. "I thought the production went well, but the star was such a pain in the ass. He kept asking for script changes."

Close-up of Flagg wearing the same sweatshirt, but the hood is up and pulled tight around his face. "If I ever see Steckler again, I'll put a knife in him."

Believe me, the interview was about ten times more entertaining than the movie, but it makes more sense if you've seen it. But then, you would have had to have pulled your eyes out and replaced them with taffy apples. And nobody wants that.

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies has two records to its credit. As you might imagine, The Guiness Book of Records had it listed as the longest movie title for quite some time. I think that an Indian film now holds that rank (and why not?). Also, it is the only film in the IMDb to be listed in both the horror and musical genres. Yes, you will have to rip out your cochlea with a shrimp fork as well to get through this one. The musical (yes, and dance, too) numbers look as though they were made up while the camera rolled as a method of filling the movie out to feature length. So, there are lots of them, and they don't have any bearing on the plot (it has something to do with hypnosis and gypsies, after communism, the two great scourges of the early 1960's).