A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE'.....STARRING L.A. AS THE DARKEST HEART OF DARKNESS.....THE HORROR....THE HORROR....

A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper (2026)

     Welcome to America's real Heart of Darkness......Los Angeles, the city of Hollywood dreams and drug fueled, blood drenched nightmares, the city populated by the bitter, and desperately impoverished along side the fabulously wealthy titans of industry and media, whose sybaritic lifestyles place them above the law and above all known morality. Or to put it more bluntly, what some would call a snapshot of America today.

     That's the carnival ride of horrors that author Jordan Harper takes you on. It's a twisted, warped funhouse of drugs, perversions, random gore-dripping carnage, all of it overseen by a justice system favoring only the rich and powerful......the only ones who make it out alive while literally getting away with murder.

     Within this maelstrom we follow the fates of three L.A. denizens who run afoul of 'The Kids in the Candy Store' that collection of rotten-to-their-very-core bigwigs whose influence and power can cover up anything and everything.........including young women who disappear without a trace. The ones who don't disappear might resurface as victims of the 'L.A. Ripper', whose mutilations of their bodies defy all rational description.

     This book, as you can imagine, is not for the faint of heart or anyone who cannot stomach graphic violence of any kind. But for those willing to grab on to this Dante's Inferno tour of everything horrible in our modern society, it's a breathless, mesmerizing experience, a perpetual bad dream that nobody can wake up from.

      And I couldn't stop reading until the last drop of blood spills out. If you're up for it, then by all means take the ride. But don't say you weren't warned.....

      5 stars (*****). 

'DARK IS WHEN THE DEVIL COMES'.....TURN ON ALL THE LIGHTS.....CHECK UNDER THE BED AND THE COUCH.....

  Dark If When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce (2026)

     When it comes to authors who can chill you to the bone and fuel up your nightmares, Daisy Pearce is one of the most expert practitioners. And she's back at it with this one guaranteed to make you turn on a few more lights while you're reading it........and checking underneath the couch for.....well, no spoilers can I reveal.

     In a small English country town, Hazel's come back to occupy her parents' vacated home. Reeling from an emotionally bruising divorce, she's hoping to repair the estrangement from her sister Cathy, whose mean streak is well known to everyone who grew up with her. That included Hazel and Cathy's childhood friend Suzie, who now runs the town pharmacy with her husband.

      And here's the point where I think I should cease going into any more particular detail for fear of spoiling the nasty, scary trip this book proceeds to take you on. I'll only say that put in frightening harm's way, Hazel's facing genuine horror.........some of it obvious and some of it indescribable and bound to generate plenty of readers' bad dreams.

     When Hazel drops out of sight, Cathy and Suzie join forces to find her, which leads to a a truly harrowing finale confronting terrors both earthbound........and let's just say something else you'd rather not think about before bedtime.

     An excellent read here for anyone who loves a mixture of a thriller blended with horror and suspense........all in one convenient package. .Well done again, Daisy.

     4 stars (****).

'THE GIRL UPSTAIRS'.....THE CREEPIEST HOUSE IN A CRAZY-FOR-HALLOWEEN TOWN....LOADED WITH TWISTS....

 The Girl Upstairs by Jessica R. Patch (2026)

     Oh my, you can never have enough books set in small New England towns where Halloween is celebrated like a Federally mandated National Holiday.......not to mention having a creepy old house with a virtual traffic jam of ghosts. and murderous histories.

     So welcome to Cold Harbor, Maine where recently disgraced ex-homicide detective Gwen McDaniels, her baby girl Tara and her doctor husband Steven have taken up residence. And guess which prime piece of creepy old real estate they've moved into......heh, heh, heh.........

     In no time at all, Gwen's beset with paranormal sights and sounds and her detective instincts kick in. She's not only determined to delve into the house's haunted backstories but also the origin of a bone recently found on her property.......a bone the town's Chief of Police insists belongs to an animal, not a human, as some in town believe.........and boasts a medical examiner's report to back him up.

     But something's telling Gwen that all's not well in Cold Harbor and she teams with young coffee shop owner and fledgling true crime podcaster Cady to get to the bottom of things. And that includes the strange writing carved into Gwen's attic floor, ghostly lullabies heard at night and the mysteries surrounding a long missing child. Meanwhile, Steven's exasperation and disapproval of Gwen's relentless sleuthing has set their already shaky marriage to crumbling.

     Everyone who loves a small town eve-of-Halloween atmosphere and a ton of twists will want seek this book out right away. (I'll admit that at least one of those all-of-a-sudden reveals coaxed a gasp out of me). And once the plot really starts coming to a boil, the twists start tumbling all over each other so fast, I slowed down my usual reading speed to make sure I was getting them all.

     Well paced and a whole lot of fun to dive into.......perfect for either a beach read or the spooky season, but you may not want to wait that long to enjoy chilling out with it....or getting chilled by it.

     4 stars (****).

'YESTERYEAR'.....SHE'S DOWN ON THE FARM.....CENTURIES APART....

  Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (2026)

     What a brilliant, funny and deeply unsettling book this is. And a what a powerhouse introduction to this new author.

     Corrosive wit dipped in acid flows throughout this epically sardonic and all too American saga. Author Caro Claire Burke performs a genuine high wire act here, crafting a lead female character that you don't know whether to cheer on,, ridicule, hate with a passion or choke back a tear for.. And sometimes I felt like doing all of those things......all at once.

     Natalie Heller Mills seemingly marries well.....to the youngest son of a wealthy family political dynasty. But Caleb's the dimmest of bulbs, the most unsharpened tool in the shed, lacking intelligence, skills and no detectable ambition whatsoever. But through trial and error (and her father-in-law's money) Natalie creates a social media sensation as a "tradwife', supposedly living the life of a pioneer wife and mother on a supposed early 19th century Idaho farm.........with Caleb overplaying his role of her cowboy-farmer husband. But of course, it's all showbiz smoke-and-mirrors behind the scenes, generating millions of adoring, merch-buying fans and plenty of active haters as well.

     It's a charmed life for Natalie until she wakes up one morning to find herself transported to an actual 19 century Idaho farm, complete with a different set of children, a different version of her husband and none of the 21st century amenities she's used to and depends on. A nightmare? God's punishment? A colossal prank at her expense that's gone viral?

     I'll say only this......I'm still not sure I entirely swallow the staggering final section of this story, but I'm in total awe of how it's pulled off with the same deeply satirical skill and incisive writing that tugs on your emotions in ten different directions.

     No doubt about this.....it's one of the 5 star must-reads of the the year. (*****)

'HOPE RISES'.....THE "NASH FALLS" REBORN HERO MEETS HIS NEMESIS.....

 Hope Rises by David Baldacci (2026)

     The first book in this series, "Nash Falls" had me fully glued to it and "Hope Rises", its sequel is even better. It takes the perilous story of Walter Nash a.k.a. Dillon Hope into some fascinating twists and turns I never imagined or anticipated, with deeper characterization, more action and surprises.

     I would first highly recommend, for full enjoyment of 'Hope Rises you need to read 'Nash Falls' That book details everything it implies in its title..........the utter destruction of the life of FBI informant Walter Nash and the terrible price he pays for functioning as an undercover agent in the company he works for.

     Nash found himself in the crosshairs of ruthless international criminal Victoria Steers, who ordered the killing of his daughter and framed Nash for her murder. as well as other unspeakable crimes. Hunted and on the run, a friend of Nash's father helps him to physically transform himself into an all new identity......that of heavily muscled and expert bodyguard Dillon Hope.. The kind of formidable man who might very well get closer to that cold blooded villainess Steers.

     Dillon Hope does in fact move closer to Steers than he could imagine......functioning as her new bodyguard. And it's no easy job, given that those in Steers' orbit (including her mother) are every bit as ruthless and lethal as she is. Steers has no shortage of enemies and doesn't yet realize that the one who hates her most in the world, Hope, is now within easy killing distance of her..

     I would not dare to reveal the host of stunning complications and revelations that befall both Hope and Steers, taking this action-packed story into directions that challenge these characters like never before and raise the stakes ever higher.

     After reading the first book ,I had my own ideas as to where this story was going (all wrong, as it turned out) but the only thing I did expect was that David Baldacci would hit this one out of the park. And in 'Hope Rises' he doesn't disappoint.

     5 stars (*****).

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL 'EXTRAORDINARILY BRILLIANT' EDITION.....

 Dear Trump voters: Your rotting orange pumpkin recently described himself as (and we quote exactly) "an extraordinarily brilliant person". 

      Please remember that the next time you stop to put gas in your car, read your supermarket receipts, and figure out how you'll ever pay for medical care.......

And never forget......

To BQ visitors: Great weekend to you all!

To "But I didn't vote for THIS!" Trump voters: Yes...You....Did. Please continue suffering in the hell you helped unleash upon the world. 

'THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT'......FOX'S BIG SUMMER 1977 BOX OFFICE BLOCKBUSTER!......UH...SERIOUSLY?.....FOR REAL?....HONEST?.....

 The Other Side of Midnight (1977)

      No mistake. Yes, you read the sub-title of this post correctly.....

       The studio pinned all its summer 1977 hopes on this lavishly budgeted romantic melodrama based on yet another trashy best seller cranked out by Sidney Sheldon.

       Fox executives held little or no hope for their other summer release of that year.....that bizarre little outer space fantasy concocted by its equally oddball young movie brat writer-director.....George Lucas. Something with robots, furry creatures and laser swords called.....what was the name of it? Star something.....Star Wars?

        Who in hell's gonna watch that thing except little kids dropped off by their parents?

          Playing hardball with theater owners, Fox forced them into booking "Star Wars" if they wanted their chance to play a sure fire crowd pleaser like "The Other Side of Midnight". 

          Of those two films, anybody care to guess which one audiences mobbed theaters to see and which one sank like a cement stone faster than Donald Trump's approval ratings?  Anybody? Anybody? 

          Which is why BQ felt burning curiosity about 'Midnight' and decided, after all these years, to check it out......

          And now here we sit, mourning the precious 165 minutes of our life we wasted enduring this mind-numbing, unwatchable molasses-paced, dead-on-arrival, worthless-on-every-level turd of a movie. 

          A Guilty Displeasure to live in infamy.

         Keep in mind, we're far from snobs in regard to high-gloss Technicolored soapy wallows. We love luxuriating in grand, Golden Age weepers like Douglas Sirk's "Imitation of Life", "Written On The Wind", "All That Heaven Allows" and "Magnificent Obsession" and also Delmer Daves "A Summer Place", "Spenser's Mountain", "Youngblood Hawke" and "Rome Adventure".

         But 'The Other Side of Midnight' fell into the incompetent hands of Charles Jarrott, an unimaginative British journeyman director whose credits included the catastrophic, laughable musical re-make of 'Lost Horizon'. 

          'Midnight's lengthy storyline certainly doesn't lack for historical sweep, high emotions, passionate sex, wounding betrayals, lush backgrounds and a twisty ironic finale.  Sirk or Daves would've had a delicious romp with this material, pumping up an audience to swoon and gasp.

          But non-entity Jarrott directs the film as if he's half asleep.....or possibly even unconscious. With a complete lack of energy or urgency, his actors plod through their scenes like they're still doing the initial table read while sipping coffee and munching donuts.  From the way the film's cut together, we can only assume the editors were on the same heavy sedatives as Jarrott. 

         To put it mildly any oil painting moves infinitely faster than this film. We were barely an hour into it before we'd lost the will to live. 

         On the eve of the German occupation of France, sweet young Noelle (Marie-France Pisier) falls for charming hunka-hunka American pilot Larry (John Beck). Larry's actually a world-class dick who abandons girls after impregnating them. A heartbroken Noelle gives herself a coat hanger abortion then becomes first a movie star than a trophy wife on the arm of a ruthless Greek tycoon Constantine (Raf Vallone). Meanwhile across the pond, the odious Larry has hooked up with poor, quirky, deer-in-the-headlights Catherine. (Susan Sarandon, trying her level best as she delivers lame pseudo-witty gag lines.)

        Post war, Larry's mostly drunk and unemployable, but revenge-fueled Noelle has Constantine hire him as her personal pilot to further humiliate and destroy him. But with hormones raging, Larry and Noelle fall back into their hot 'n heavy love affair and then conspire to kill off Catherine.....who turns out difficult to bump off. 

        This all sounds like juicy fun, right? Lifestyles of the rich, rotten and infamous.....perfect for ooo-ing and ahh-ing the scenery and watch the leads do the horizontal mambo. 

         Forget it. Not a chance. Not when the movie's constructed like a slow motion funeral and two of the lead actors (France-Pisier and Beck) are about as exciting together as grass growing. 

         As the entire world flocked to 'Star Wars', 'The Other Side of Midnight' played to empty theaters and instantly forgotten.  (As screenwriter William Goldman once remarked about studio executives, "Nobody knows anything").

         And now it's our turn to forget it forever.....as should everyone else. Unfit for all. Zero Stars (0).

'THE SCOOP'.....A NO HOLDS BARRED TABLOID TAKEDOWN....EXECUTED WITH KNIFE EDGED WIT.....

 The Scoop by Erin Van Der Meer (2026)

     Fasten your seatbelts for this one......a book that takes a reader on a cringe-filled safari through the most vicious Heart-of-Darkness contemporary jungle imaginable......the absolute abyss of a tabloid website. It's where the moral compasses of journalists spin faster than helicopter blades in the pursuit of click-bait dirt. It's where misery, tragedy and celebrity collide and we just can't help ourselves if we stop in to munch on a few tasty McNuggets of bad news for the Rich and Famous among us.

     29 year old magazine writer Frankie Miller, unemployed and desperate to continue living her dream of a journalism career, sells her soul to 'The Scoop' an on-line tabloid ruthlessly overseen by its Editor-in-Chief David Brown. Newly installed as the 'The Scoop's night editor, Frankie at first tries holding on to what's left of her scruples but....fat chance. David's brutal tirades give her a boot camp schooling in the world of the take-no-prisoners tabloid meat grinder. that needs constant feeding.

     When a long forgotten pop singer's spotted in less than flattering photos, David targets her for non-stop humiliation, contrived scandal and around the clock paparazzi stalking. And Frankie, now enraptured with the nationwide and worldwide attention her bylines earn for her, succumbs and embraces her notorious success, even at the cost of losing her closest friends. But what happens when the repercussions of her choices finally come back to shake her to her core?

     I can only say that you do NOT want to miss Frankie's response and ultimate ironic fate. .

     Author Erin Van Der Meer not only eviscerates the tabloid world but takes a knowing, unflinching look at the challenges faced by ambitious, talented working women in a Patriarchal marketplace.. And I was amazed at how absorbed I became with Frankie's calamities given that her shifting morality renders her unlikable and the book spends a little too much time with her repetitious internal anxieties.

     There's real live wire energy in the storytelling here and a sense of cruel wit runs through the entire book. Not a pretty picture of the way we digest news these days, but you won't want to stop reading till Frankie (and author Van Der Meer) have the last word.

     4 stars (****).

'THE PATRIOT'S DAUGHTER'.....A BEAUTIFUL CIA AGENT VS. A DIRE RUSSIAN PLOT TO UPEND U.S. DEMOCRACY.....

 The Patriot's Daughter by Brittany Butler (2026) 

     I expected to shower unconditional love on this book because it contains the mixture of everything I crave in a contemporary espionage thriller.......American and Russian spies facing off with the fate of U.S. and the entire civilized world hanging in the balance......suspenseful stealing of top secrets....double agents, triple agents, maybe even quadruple agents, none of whom trust each other for a single second (nor should they.)

     Chases.....daring escapes......startling twists......bullet-riddled action a plot that corresponds to today's current events......and to top it all off, a fast boiling romance between Ava, our fearless lead CIA spy and Ben, a tradecraft-savvy battle hardened counterintelligence agent.

     The stakes and the danger levels couldn't be higher here. And I was fully enthralled with Ava's combing her save-the-world-as-we-know-it mission with her clandestine agenda to discover the secrets surrounding the betrayal and death of her mother, also a CIA agent.

     While I had an exciting time reading everything I've detailed above, the book's incredibly poor editing (or complete lack thereof) threatened to sabotage the novel even worse than what its Russian villains were trying to do to U.S. democracy..

     I grew increasingly frustrated with the gaping plot holes, continuity gaps, jarring transitions from one scene to another, a last minute introduction of a formidable villain who then disappears altogether and twists with no rational explanation to back them up.

     The overall effect was similar to watching a two hour movie thriller that looked like a half hour of footage was randomly chopped out of it, rendering parts of it senseless.

     If all these grievous errors in story construction and plotting had been addressed, I would've easily given "The Patriot's Daughter" 2 more stars than its getting now. And yet I wouldn't mind seeing Ava take on more global adventures, but only if there's huge improvements made from this first one.

      3 stars (***).

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL "DIDN'T YOU ALL GET IT? I'M A DOCTOR WHO COSPLAYS CHRIST!" EDITION.......

 

Have a blessed weekend free of more madness....see you all Monday!

'THRASH'......STORMY, WITH A 90% CHANCE OF SHARKS.......

 Thrash (Netflix-2026)

    Once again, after joyfully giggling at the Kung Fu Ballerinas of "Pretty Lethal", we're faced with yet another monumental Guilty Pleasure, which we couldn't possibly defend on any artistic level.....

     .....not with a straight face, anyway. 

     If you want the key to enjoying a film like this, we'd refer you our reviews of 2020's "Crawl" on 9/23/20 and Netflix's 2024 "Under Paris" on 8/824.

      Think of them as successor to the infamous, notorious "Sharknado" movies. You either go with the lunatic flow of these things or avoid them altogether. 

       As in "Crawl", we're back in what's now a favorite horror movie destination.....a small Florida town hit with a Category 5 hurricane. This time the storm's flooded the town not with alligators, but with bull sharks....and one jumbo Great White.

       As in "Under Paris", Climate Change is front and center as the genesis of monstrous death facing us if we don't start cleaning up our act.....(much like radiation and atomic bomb testing in sci-fi monster movies of the 1950's.)

       But enough explanation, let's get right to the good stuff.....what we crave and demand in a film like this - plenty 'o hapless humans served up as shark chow. 

       Among the unlucky Floridians who chose to stick it out as the incoming Atlantic turns their town into matchsticks......three plucky foster kids under the abusive rule of their greedy caretakers, who've deprived the kids of their secret stash of prime steaks and kept the government payouts for the kids' care for themselves. And then there's teenage Dakota who won't leave her recently deceased mom's house and very pregnant Lisa, who finds herself constantly trapped in small spaces with the water rising over her head.....and her on the verge of popping out her baby.....

       To paraphrase Thelma Ritter's immortal line from "All About Eve"...."Everything but the wolves yappin' at their heels....."

         Not wolves, but sharks..... flowing through the flooded town like it's an all-you-can-eat human buffet. 

          Let us now salute Whitney Peak as the terrified but resourceful Dakota and Phoebe Dynavor as the universe's most unluckiest, besieged woman who shrieks with labor pains as the sharks circle and the water's hitting glub-glub-glub level......

        What can we say?  Unrepentant brainless junk but expertly designed to get a rise out of you even as you're snickering at every minute......(and having no trouble whatsoever guessing which people end up on the menu.....)

         How can we deride a movie so without shame as to rip off the climactic crowd-rousing moment of the "Jurassic Park" finale?  (And found ourselves still laughing nonetheless....)  So bravo to writer-director Tommy Wirkola, for fully reveling in the outrageous nonsense of it all, showing us the good time we demanded.......which, in a movie like this, is all you can reasonably ask for. 

         That one-last-sting-of-the-tail at the very end may be an all too typical trope but in this case, pay attention to this one....... funny and frightening all at once, but it's not fantasy and perfectly illustrates the written warning given at the movie's start.   

         3 stars (***). For all Guilty Pleasure-seekers, a pre-summer splash in the pool......

'PRETTY LETHAL'......WELL, AT LEAST THERE'S MORE LAUGHS IN IT THAN JOHN WICK'S' 'BALLERINA'.......(MORE BALLET TOO).....

 Pretty Lethal (Amazon Prime 2026)

       As action fans well know, this is not the first movie to point out that ballerinas are, physically, some tough cookies......called upon to exhibit more strength and endurance than Tom Brady....put together. 

        Their training, exact, demanding and never ending, takes a punishing toll on their bodies, especially their feet. (Even Quentin Tarantino, that great admirer of women's feet,  would hurl if he ever tried to gaze at a ballerina's brutalized, bloodied tootsies. 

         So no wonder more than one filmmaker thought showing  delicate dancing divas kicking ass could pump up the carnage level to delirious heights. 

        But director Vicky Jenson and writer Kate Freund may be the first to put the tutu-tiara corps into take-no-prisoners action while they're actually dancing....

         Oh yeah, baby.....there's a reason these Red Shoes are a deeper shade of red......

         You heard that right. If you've ever dreamed of seeing the 'Nutcracker Suite' performed  with actual guys' nuts getting cracked, here's your vision come true. Not to mention assorted throat cuttings delivered by the ballerinas via blades stuck into their toe shoes.  And you don't even have to wait til Christmas to savor every lip-smackin', splattering kill.  Think of it as Ballet-Fu, or TaekwonTutu.......

         Our five lovely girls (Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Avantika, Millicent Simmonds, Iris Apatow) were on their way to strut their stuff in Budapest when their bus breaks down. They end up at a castle-like, middle-of-nowhere Inn run by a former legendary Prima Ballerina (Uma Thurman, reveling in villainy, sounding like she's also looking for payback on Moose and Squirrel.)

        But the place is also a major hangout for the world's worst Euro-gangsters, one of whom murders the girls' coach right in front of them. Ooops, time for  Madame Uma and her unsavory customers to dispose of the witnesses......

        But they didn't the reckon on the ferocity and survival instincts of the girls' unofficial Alpha (Ziegler), who rallies the troupe into extended 'Kill Bill' slaughterfests against the equally determined Euro-Goons. Leotarded feet fly in perfect choreographed unison as these Sugar Plum Fairies knock 'em dead.....literally. 

        Okay, we'll admit we laughed and cheered through all the lunacy. And the film's clever enough to include a scene where powerhouse Ziegler confounds the gangsters' on-call torturer by laughing as he pulls out one of her toenails. For her, it's just another painful day at the office, since as a battle hardened dancer,  she's more than used to pulling out her own toenails..... 

        One of the best Guilty Pleasures we've enjoyed this year so far...indefensible on any level, but as BQ always says, you can never have enough sweet, pretty girls decimating thugs until their ballet costumes are decorated with arterial spray. 

          3 stars (***). 

          

'THE OMEN REBORN- PART 2'.....JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE.....HE'S BAAAAAAAACCCCCCK.....

 

Welcome to 24 hours a day of Maga Madness.....

The actual caption reads:

     Jesus:  "I'm sorry, Donald, but you've hurt so many people, committed so many sins, done so many stupid things......I tried to plead your case with Dad, but His decision is final. You're going straight to hell, with no chance of a pardon....bring comfortable clothing, summer stuff, know what I mean?  Oh and by the way, that 'I was a doctor in that picture' excuse you tried? Nobody but Lindsay Graham bought it....."

CORMANIA! BQ TOURS THE MAD, MAD, CHEAP, CHEAP WORLD OF EARLY ROGER CORMAN.....

 

The Beast With A Million Eyes (1955), Five Guns West (1955), Teenage Doll (1957)

         God Bless You, Turner Classic Movies for this April's Friday Night festivals of  films from the oeuvre of the late Roger Corman.....the tireless producer-director of hundreds of low budget exploitation movies and unlikely mentor of some of cinema's most brilliant talents along the way....(Scorsese, Cameron, Ron Howard, Jack Nicholson, Francis Coppola and so many more....)

         There aren't enough hours in the day to cover Corman's voluminous output, but we took the time to sample three of  his earliest films.  No one's going to mistake them for timeless epics, but each one was bore the classic Corman stamp.....make 'em fast, cheap, fun to watch, then move on to the next two or three....

      The Beast With A Million Eyes (1955) is, until the film's last few minutes, an unseen alien invader who remotely controls birds and animals to wreak lethal havoc on the few cast members Corman could afford. 

        Maybe that's why the alien, ensconced in a metallic teapot with blinky lights, picks a lonely date farm in the middle of a desert to set up shop. Its primary victims, a farm family and their creepy mute handyman run afoul of  pre-Hitchcockian bird attacks, a mad dog and madder cow and more blinky lights and woo-woo sci-fi sound effects. 

All of this is riotously scored to the most bombastic public domain classical music that Corman could get his hands on....in case you're wondering how in the world a film this cheap could afford a pounding symphonic soundscape.....

         The acting falls one level below Ed Wood Jr. (with the exception of reliable busy character actor Paul Birch)  but the alien monster reveal's a hoot......a floating eyeball superimposed over a toothy booga-booga puppet. And the earth family learns staying together makes them stronger, along with what doesn't kill them.....2 stars (**).

Five Guns West (1955), if nothing else, boasts a kickass western title and not a bad storyline set-up either. As the Civil War rages in the Southwest, the Confederate army pardons five due-for-hanging prisoners, sending them out to grab a traitor and a chest of stolen gold. Naturally, they're all out to double-cross each other at a moment's notice.....

       The take-charge leading man (John Lund) has to somehow wrangle two trigger happy brothers, a snaky card shark, and an old cattleman to complete their mission. Showdown time arrives at an abandoned mining town still populated by a drunken old Stagecoach agent and his lonely niece (played by Oscar winner Dorothy Malone). You can also spot able Corman regulars Jonathon Haze ("Little Shop of Horrors") and once again, Paul Birch ("Not of This Earth") And yes, that's Michael 'Touch' Connors (of the long running "Mannix" TV show) as the no good gambler.

        Very standard western stuff, but we couldn't help wondering what a blistering little shoot 'em up like this would have been in the hands of James Stewart directed by Anthony Mann......2 stars (**).

        Teenage Doll (1957) plunges right in to that ripe recipe for making big bucks from the drive-in theaters and their teen customers.....delinquents!

         The girls and guys in the gangs are equally dangerous here, especially wild-eyed, hot tempered 'Hel' (Fay Spain). Hel hath plenty 'o fury as she and her gang girls go on the hunt for harmless Barbara (June Kenney) whom they blame for the death of one of their members. 

          Spain clearly takes command as this little movie's fierce MVP and the pace and plot suffer when she's not there on camera to pepper the bubbling melodramatic stew. Both delinquent genders finally rumble amid an auto junkyard before the cops show up to calm down all the nasty doings, spoil sports that they are. 

      Not by any means one of the best of the teens-gone-wild 1950's cheapies, but it serves as a good enough example of Corman's cut-print-moving-on filmmaking. .....2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).

        (And stay in touch with the BQ as we continue to cover the onslaught of the vast Corman inventory.....we wouldn't dare miss it and either should you!)