The 90's, what a weird ass decade. So far we've seen punk rock turned into Top Forty, and enjoyed by the same meat-necks who used to slam you against a locker in the early eighties for listening to The Dickies. There has been a major studio film based on the life of cross-dressing film maker Ed Wood Jr. A former video store employee has become a cultural icon by ripping off 60's and 70's exploitation films and coming off as an American original. Mainstream videos and television commercials are shot using the same techniques formerly employed only in ultra-obscure, underground films (shaky camera work, over exposure, etc.) Pseudo-hipsters stroll around smoking cigars in sideburns and leopard skin, who wouldn't know Maime Van Doren from Marilyn Manson. And with all of these "trendmakers" falling all over each other to dredge up the next big thing from our way to recent past, why is it that no one has thought of Al Adamson? Who, you may ask, is Al Adamson? Well read on, you may learn something.
Albert Victor Adamson Jr. was born to show business parents in Hollywood Ca., in 1929. He too was bitten by the movie bug in his early 20's, but felt he was not good enough to make it as an actor. His first entry into directing was in '55 with a western starring his father called HALF WAY TO HELL. It didn't go so hot, and Al abandoned filmmaking for almost a decade. He was back in action in '65 with PSYCHO A GO-GO. Originally titled, ECHO OF TERROR, PSYCHO was lensed by Vilmos Zsigmond. Zsigmond was a favorite cinematographer of many low budget directors in the 50's, 60's, and early 70's, including Ray Dennis Steckler (THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED UP ZOMBIES), Arch Hall Sr. (THE SADIST, DEADWOOD '76), and Ib Melchior (TIME TRAVELERS, ANGRY RED PLANET). He later went on to shoot A features like DELIVERENCE in '72, and won an Oscar for his work in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND in '77! Psycho was later reworked with scenes of John Carradine as FIEND WITH AN ELECTRONIC BRAIN. These two are impossible to find today as they were reworked yet again and released as BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR1 in '71, a harbinger of Adamsons "patchwork" style of film making that was to become his trademark. Another Adamson trademark was in his casting of famous, yet waaaaaaaaay past their prime, and often out of work, horror stars. John Carradine (BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN '35, THE GRAPES OF WRATH '40, THE HOUSE OF DRACULA '45, among over 160 others!!!), Lon Chaney Jr. (THE WOLF MAN '41, ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN '48, SPIDER BABY '64), Angelo Rossitto ( FREAKS '32, THE CORPSE VANISHES '42, BABES IN TOYLAND '43 ), and J. Carroll Naish (RETURN OF THE TERROR '34, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN '45, THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS '46), many of whom made their last screen appearances in his films.
The real reason to include Adamson in any horror issue, however, has to do with his two most famous (read: infamous) films, and his incredibly appropriate death. Films first. HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS, AKA CREATURES OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET, AKA HORROR CREATURES OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET, AKA SPACE MISSION OF THE LOST PLANET, AKA VAMPIRE MEN OF THE LOST PLANET (you know a film is going to be good when it has five different titles), is inarguably Adamson's finest patchwork masterpiece! It starts off "normal" enough with a prologue about a plague of vampirism begun in outer space.2 Next we have John Carradine, Robert Dix, and Vicki Volante3 blasting off in a super lame, children's toy-like, rocket ship, the XB-13 to investigate. Now here is where things get goofy. When the astronauts land on the vampire's planet they are greeted by snake men, bat demons, and claw creatures. They also encounter chromatic radiation. What the hell is chromatic radiation, you may ask? Well, chromatic radiation is the tinting of footage Adamson bought from a Filipino vampire film. Unfortunately the footage he bought was in black and white and Al's new scenes were shot in color. So to explain the difference he came up with chromatic radiation. Not content to merely tint black and white film stock in annoying primary colors, Adamson advertised the technique as "Spectrum-X," and tried to pass it off as a new screen gimmick like the still popular 3-D, and Cinemagic. Even the over the top narration by Brother Theodore can't help make sense of this mess. The result, one of the coolest, most surreal sci-fi films ever made. David Lynch wishes he was this twisted!
And speaking of twisted, let's talk about Satan's Sadists. While not exactly a horror film per-se, it is suitably horrible enough to warrant inclusion here. By '68 Adamson had directed THE FAKERS, HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS, and BLOOD OF DRACULAS CASTLE but had no distribution. So he and an associate from his Hemisphere pictures days, Sam Sherman, formed Independent International pictures. They decided that they needed a leader, a new film to serve as flagship for a distribution package. Enter SATAN'S SADISTS. By early '69 the Biker film genre was still in full swing. Films like HELL'S ANGELS ON WHEELS, and ANGELS FROM HELL were enjoying great box-office at drive-ins across America, and Al figured he had to strike while the iron was hot. They cast former child star Russ Tamblyn4 as the Satan's leader, Anchor, and newcomer Regina Carrol5 as "the freak out girl." The story concerns a rowdy biker gang terrorizing the southwest until they run into a Vietnam vet who picks 'em off one by one. Sound pretty typical so far? Well, aside from the fact that SATAN'S is ten times more violent than the average chopper opera, you're right. Until you consider how the film was marketed. You see, Al just happened to be at the right place at the right time. That right place being the Spahn ranch, where SADISTS was shot, and that right time being shortly after Sharron Tate's murder. It's not hard to imagine the gears turning in the heads of Sherman and Adamson. "Hey," they thought. "Let's cash in on this thing!" And cash in they did. They churned out ad copy and trailers with lines like: "It's as if the actual killers appear in the movie," and, "They lived as the Tate-Hippie killers lived!" Wow, try pulling that kind of sleaziness off in today's P.C. world. The closest example I can think of is if Speilberg had billed SHINDLER'S LIST as a women in prison Nazi sex epic like the ILSA films. I don't think he would have gotten the Oscar, but I would have gone to see it.
So how do you top off an illustrious career like Adamson's? By being murdered under mysterious circumstances, of course. He was found entombed in concrete beneath his whirlpool hot tub in his Indio, CA, home in '95! Yikes, what a way to go. Do you think Tarantino will go out like that? How about Spike Lee, or Richard Linklater? No way. They will probably live to a ripe old age and die in a retirement home or something. Wussies! Doesn't anybody have any panache anymore? Is showmanship dead and buried? I hate the freaking 90's! By the way, anyone who is interested in purchasing the film rights to this article can contact me through Lies. Only serious inquiries please!
1BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR is worth watching just for the great scene in which Tommy Kirk receives a severed head in the mail. You may recognize Kirk from his roles in 50's Disney movies like THE SHAGGY DOG, and THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR. He was allegedly let go in the early 60's when Disney executives discovered that Kirk was gay. There's your family values.
2Look for Al himself as one of the attacking vampires! You think Hitchcock would appear as a vampire in a cameo walk-on? Fuck no!
4Tamblyn stared in TOM THUMB in '58, and was the leader of the Jets in WEST SIDE STORY before embarking on his impressive exploitation career in films like FREE GRASS, and the Toho studios giant rubber monster movie, WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS. Recently he has shown up as Dr. Jacoby in the TWIN PEAKS TV series, and the shark man in CABIN BOY. Talk about versatile acting!!!!
5Regina later became Adamson's wife, not to mention starring in many of his films.