Day of the Turkey Review: The Swamp of Ravens

A series of events (followed by a fabulous Thanksgiving Day spent with friends) kept me from writing as many reviews as I had planned today, but I should be able to get this one in under the wire, before Thanksgiving Day turns into Black Friday.

The Swamp of Ravens (1974)
Starring: Ramiro Oliveros and Fernando Sancho
Director: Manuel Cano
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

A mad doctor is exploring gene therapy to "cure" the condition known as death and to show its relation to evolution. Or something like that...

"The Swamp of Ravens" is an atmospheric film that sets out to be a modern-day take on the Frankenstein legend, with its protagonist being some sort of medical doctor or scientist bent on identifying the factor that separates life from death. Sadly, its story is so muddled, the motivations of the characters so confused, and the characters so ill-defined that you're going to be left wondering what the heck you've just watched by the time its over.

For example, the scientist SEEMS to have accomplished some sort of scientific breakthrough, given that his assistant is apparently a re-animated corpse... and the "failures" he tosses in the titular swamp outside his secret research shack are likewise undead and lurking just below the surface. Or are they? Are the presence of zombies in the muddy waters just figments of the mad doctor's imagination? They kill a vagrant, so maybe not. But then why isn't he trying to figure out what's animating them?.Is he trying to make the soul/awareness of his subjects stay with the body beyond death? Whether the writers knew or not, you won't by the time the film is over.

Although the film has plenty of atmospheric shots and stylistically presented violence, the creepiness of it all is undermined by perhaps one of the most wildly inappropriate soundtracks I've ever come across. Have you ever seen one of those British sex/manners comedies like the "Carry On" series? Well, that is where this music belongs, not in a film about a mad doctor who is a sexual sadist who turns his girlfriend into a test subject in a fit of jealousy. So, as far as the technical aspects of the film go, it's one point its favor and five points against.

Oh... a minor nitpick: There are no ravens in the film. The swamp in question seems to be home to a flock of turkey buzzards, but no ravens. Still, the shots of the buzzards are pretty creepy... and I suppose "The Swamp of Turkey Buzzards" doesn't make for a very attractive title.

Conrad Brooks tries to out Ed-Wood Ed Wood (and fails miserably)

Gypsy Vampire: The Final Bloodlust (2009)
Starring: Bruce "Porkchop" Lindsay, Mark Byrne, Matt Burns, Gail Maureen Hanson, Donna Burns, John Durham, Judi Durham, and Conrad Brooks
Director: Conrad Brooks
Rating: Zero of Ten Stars

A writer named Raider (Byrne) comes to visit a mortuary for... well, for some reason. Here, Count Lugo (Lindsay), a vampire posing as a mortician and moonlighting as a zombie master, turns him into a vampire so he can lure Dr. Cabasa (Durham) to the mortuary, so he can make him revive a dead woman to be his bride. But when Lugo's chief zombie (Burns) falls in love with Cabasa's lovely assistant (Hanson), he leads a zombie revolt and hijacks the Satanic ritual so he can marry her instead. I think.

Conrad Brooks, the writer/director/producer of "Gypsy Vampire" was a bit-player in a slew of movies during the 1950s and 1960s. He had retired from acting until the combination of a book by Michael Medved and Harry Medved, along with the Tim Burton comedy "Ed Wood" revived interest in Brooks' friend and third-rate filmmaker Edward D. Wood, Jr. Brooks has claim to fame of having appeared in every movie that Wood directed, and for the past twenty years, he's been a fixture on the convention circuit, cashing in the rest of his 15 minutes of fame.

Brooks has often spoken of his affection for Edward D. Wood, Jr.--and he does so at length in a 1990 interview/mini-documentary titled "On the Trail of Ed Wood", the DVD release of which also contains "Gypsy Vampire: The Final Bloodlust".

Thanks to the Medved Brothers and Burton's movie, Edward D. Wood, Jr. is often labeled as "the worst filmmaker ever" by reviewers and critics who can't be bothered to actually watch his movies (or, at best, they label "Plan 9 From Outer Space" as "the worst movie ever"). Uwe Boll is starting to become the "new Ed Wood" for such lazy commentators, but the label of "worst filmmaker" is equally false when applied to either gentleman. Anyone who has devoted any real time at all to trawling through random films at the bottom of the cinematic barrel knows for a fact that Wood Boll are nowhere near the worst directors, and none of their films come even close to being the worst that is out there.

Conrad Brooks, for example, has made a far more awful movie than either Wood or Boll have ever been brazen enough to inflict upon the public. With random posterization of some scenes and others being in black-and-white for no discernable reason; costumes and make-up effects as awful as the actors wearing them; a nonsensical storyline; camera-work barely suitable for YouTube video than a film; and editing so bad a it would earn any beginning film student a failing grade, even if he or she was sleeping with the professor, there is nothing in this film that is at all competently made.

I'm not sure what Brooks was trying to achieve with this movie. Perhaps just to have a good time with a bunch of young actors. Perhaps he was trying to emulate his old friend Ed Wood and make a movie that out-Ed-Wooded Ed Wood. If it was the latter, Brooks certainly managed to make an awful movie, but he failed to capture that intangible, poetic quality that Ed Wood managed to bring to the messy pictures he created.

Watching this movie, I found myself wondering if Brooks ever paid attention to movies while he was watching them. Such niceties as varying between close-ups and two-shots, the ocassional zoom and reverse angle shots are all simple cinematic elements that anyone should be able to see the value in after just watching one or two movies. But not, apparently, Conrad Brooks. This movie is so incompetently and amateurishly made that watching it through to the end is a test of stamina, and it deserves the dubious honor of being at the very bottom of the scale.

(If you have a "bad filmmaker" that you have a warm spot for in your heart, you should bring up this movie the next time you see someone tossing out that "worst filmmaker" or "worst movie" label. If the critic casting aspersions hasn't seen "Gypsy Vampire: The Final Bloodlust", they are in on position to judge what is and isn't "the worst movie ever."

The cleverest thing about the film is that it was shot in a pair of famous "haunted Halloween houses,"--Creekside Manor in Maryland, and Darkwood Manor in Virginia. A few years back, I did security of one such Halloween haunted house, and I often thought its various sets would work well if one were to film a low-budget horror picture on them. It's nice to see that great minds think alike. Of course, Brooks also used many of the actors who perform in the Darkwood Manor spook-maze in his flick, which wasn't such a good idea. I've no doubt they're perfectly capable of spooking people in dark hallways, but virtually none of them understood how to act in front of a camera. It really is a toss-up between who was more incompetent, director Brooks or almost any member of his cast you could mention. (The exception are Brooks, who with more than half a century's experience should probably do better than he does, but he looks like Boris Karloff next to the people he shares scenes with, and Donna Burns, who showed enough presence that I think she could have done far better if she had been delivering better lines in scenes that had been properly edited.)

'Revolt of the Zombies' is a dead zone

Revolt of the Zombies (1936)
Starring: Dean Jagger and Dorothy Stone
Director: Victor Halperin
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

At the height of World War I, a French officer (Jagger) brings to his generals the ultimate weapon: the secret to creating impervious zombie soldiers! Unfortunately, before the Cambodian monk can be made to share this secret with the Europeans, he is murdered by a sinister enemy agent. A military expedition is sent to the darkest heart of Cambodia's jungles to see if the secret can be recovered.

"Revolt of the Zombies" actually has a really interesting plot at its heart. Too bad the filmmakers completely botched this movie, with awful dialogue and pacing that is at once too slow and too fast--important events happen off-screen and are then relayed to the viewers by the characters in boring exposition. Worse, the movie ultimately chickens out in regards to both its use of zombies in the story AND in regards to what seemed to have been its message about the negative impact of European colonialism with an "absolute power corrupts absolutely." What's more... there ain't no damn zombie revolt in the film (but that's because there aren't any real zombies, either).

I probably would have shrugged my shoulders at this one--it's just another low-budget, crappy horror film--but it was made as a follow-up to the fabulous "White Zombie." I expected more of "Revolt of the Zombies" because "White Zombie" is a dyed-in-the-wool classic horror film, one of the best zombie movies ever made (and perhaps even the *first* zombie movie ever made), and it was as low-budget as "Revolt."





Click here to read my review of "White Zombie" at The Bela Lugosi Collection.

Even zombies are ashamed of this one

Celebrating the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany with a bomb bigger than any than anything ever dropped on Berlin. (A revised version of this review is also included in 150 Movies You Should (Die Before You) See.)

Oasis of the Zombies (1981)
Starring: Actors who didn't want their real names on the film
Director: Someone who was too embarrassed to admit who he really was (even if the world now knows it was Jess Franco, making a worse-than-usual movie, even by the low expectations we have of him)
Rating: Zero of Ten Stars

Two competing groups head to a distant oasis in search of Nazi gold. They are eaten by Nazi zombies, who are guarding the treasure for who-knows-what-reason. These Nazi zombies are of a special variety of zombies who always fondle a woman's crotch while attacking her; they don't seem to do the same to their male victims, though. No siree, no homos in the Third Reich, not even among zombies! In the end, a pair of survivors, our cypherous hero and our bland heroine, discover the meaning of life... but they never do find the treasure.


Yes, I spoiled the movie by giving away the ending.

Actually, I can't really spoil it, because it's one of the absolute worst movies ever made. I wouldn't have thought someone could go wrong with Nazi zombies guarding a massive haul of loot... but leave it to Jess Franco to screw up a sure thing.

Don't get ANY of the standalone versions, even if they're probably copied from better quality prints than the one I viewed (which was included in "Chilling Classics" and was so faded at points it was impossible to see what was going on. Which was probably a blessing.)

I've written far more about "Oasis of the Zombies" than it deserves, but I feel it's my duty as a compassionate human being to warn the B-movie lovers of the world that in the case, the "B" stands for "Bowel-movingly Bad". Not even the sexy chicks in short-shorts and tight tops make this film worth watching.

Girls in swimsuits vs. zombies = Idiot proof concept? Alas, no.

Attack Girl's Swim Team vs. Undead (2007)
Starring: Sasa Handa, Yuria Hidaka, and Ayumu Tokitô
Director: Koji Kawano
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

All teenaged Aki (Handa)wants to do is to fit in at her new school. However, on her first day, the student body and teachers are turned into zombies by a mysterious virus... except for the swim team who are immune because of their exposure to chlorine in the pool. Now, they must fight off the undead (and mad scientist rapists) if they are to stay alive. Good thing Aki's been trained to fight undead from a young age.


That is one cool cover image, wouldn't you say? It certainly sold me on the film. That and the promise of boobs and bloody gore. Unfortunately, it is like the majority of American horror-themed softcore porn flicks, except with a better marketing department creating imagery to sell it.

The biggest problem with this film is that cheapness wafts off it like the moldy smell of a wet swimsuit that's been left in a plastic bag for too long. It was shot on video by a crew that didn't understand how to light a scene properly or even place the camera for maximum dramatic effect. It features actresses who were hired first for their willingness to throw off their clothes for on-camera nudity and simulated sex (both consensual and forced) and for their acting talents second. The make-up and special effects--from most of the gore effects to some very poorly done CGI explosions--is strictly amateurish and on a level that shouldn't be seen outside films made by high schoolers with extra time on their hands. Finally, most of the fight scenes are badly choreographed and even more ineptly filmed. It will probably never cease to amaze me how many filmmakers who think they know how to make actions films underestimate the importance of camera placement when it comes to making it look like the actors are actually beating on one another.

The movie is not all bad. It moves along at a fairly fast pace--faster than most American movies to this type--and there are a few scenes that do work. The scene where a zombified teacher starts killing students with a ruler and the one where another teacher goes at our swim team heroines with a chainsaw are fairly well done. The same is true of a couple of the sex scenes.

And then there's the vagina laser. One mustn't forget the vagina laser.


If you want to look at young Asian women in little or no clothing while getting a fair dose of blood and gore along the way, you'll find what you're looking for in this film. Just be aware that it's all presented in a fairly lackluster way. (Except the vagina laser. There's no way to present that in a lackluster fashion.)