Blood Of Ghastly Horror
Blood Of Ghastly Horror
PG | 17 December 1967 (USA)
Blood Of Ghastly Horror Trailers

A mad scientist implants an electronic device into the brain of an injured soldier, which turns him into a psychotic killer.

Reviews
Softwing

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

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UnowPriceless

hyped garbage

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KnotStronger

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

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Geraldine

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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kevin olzak

"Blood of Ghastly Horror" first began life as an unreleased Al Adamson heist feature from 1964 titled "Echo of Terror," then with new footage of go-go dancers and a brutal stabbing slipped out from Hemisphere Pictures in 1965 as "Psycho A-Go-Go" (not to be confused with "Two Tickets to Terror," in reality a rerelease title for 1961's "Half Way to Hell"). Adamson shot new footage of John Carradine in 1966, resulting in a second release, as "Fiend with the Electronic Brain," playing in selected Southern states as early as Dec 1967, courtesy David L. Hewitt's American General Pictures. By 1969, still more footage was shot, with Kent Taylor and Regina Carrol (Mrs. Al Adamson), and still later Tommy Kirk, resulting in what producer Samuel M. Sherman accurately described as an 'interesting editing exercise.' The finished (?) product was issued in 1972 by Sherman's Independent-International Pictures Corporation, simultaneously playing on television under yet another new title, "Man with the Synthetic Brain." Only a devotee of outright schlock could really appreciate what remains, provided they possess the knowledge of its convoluted backstory. We begin with a zombie-like creature named Akro (Richard Smedley) committing several murders, switching gears to a police investigation conducted by Sgt. Cross (Tommy Kirk), relating the background on Dr. Howard Vanard (John Carradine, entering at the 17 minute mark), who had implanted an 'artificial brain component' into almost dead Vietnam veteran Joe Corey (Roy Morton). He succeeded in saving Corey's life, but turned him into a homicidal maniac, later avenging himself on the remorseful Vanard by strapping him into his own device and electrocuting him (at the 37 minutes mark). Sgt. Cross now follows the trail of Dr. Elton Corey (Kent Taylor), father of the dead Joe Corey, who uses his voodoo powers to create the hideous Akro, seeking vengeance now against Dr. Vanard's daughter Susan (Regina Carrol), with most of the final half hour consisting of the original unissued heist footage, and Joe Corey's high altitude pursuit of stolen diamonds. As a director, Al Adamson displays a casual disregard for narrative competence, coupled with an inability to even focus the camera in the right direction, often leaving the performers off screen as they spoke. John Carradine is the biggest name in the cast, and is accorded top billing over Kent Taylor, who only enters at the halfway point, once Carradine's bespectacled scientist bites the dust. Tommy Kirk is the other veteran actor, not what one would expect for a solemn police sergeant, but as the only actor to work with both Al Adamson and Larry Buchanan ("Mars Needs Women," "It's Alive!"), deserves a measure of respect for surviving such highs and lows in a screen career soon to fade. "Blood of Ghastly Horror" is undeniably a bad film, but "Horror of the Blood Monsters" reached a new low even for Al Adamson. Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater aired this film once, July 23 1977, paired with second feature "The Black Cat" (1941).

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dbborroughs

Disjointed horror film that was made from a heist film that was cut apart and had new scenes added. It has something to do about a zombified people going around killing. The original film was a crime caper film about a jewel heist. Watching the film for the first time in years, and for the first time without commercials I found it to be an absolute disaster area of a film. Its awful. Its films like this that make me hate Al Adamson films because they are such patchwork messes with new and old footage mingling freely. After listening to the commentary on the DVD I have to temper my criticism of the film since its clear that the scenes from the original heist film were actually really good. Had that film been released (it couldn't get released because it had no stars) I'm pretty certain that it would have had a nice reputation and Adamson might have gone on not to be a hack. The trouble was that Adamson was willing to sell his film short and shoot and reshoot and cut apart the heist film. Producer Sam Sherman who does the commentary takes the blame for ruining the film with the re-cuts and rewrites. The film as it stands now seems to be about four films blended together, which is about right since the heist, the cops, the zombie and what ever else all seem to be in different films made at different times. Sherman in his commentary said the film plays better with commercials and he ain't kidding. Watching this on TV you can blame the station for hacking it up, however seeing it sans commercials you realize what a nightmare it is. Awful

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Coventry

I watched this Z-grade excuse for a "movie" under its title "The Man with the Synthetic Brain", but I can assure that any form of brain activity is the absolute last thing you should expect to find here. Now I am aware that one shouldn't anticipate much when selecting a movie directed by the notoriously incompetent director Al Adamson (his other "highlights" include 'Blood of Dracula's Castle', 'Satan's Sadists' and 'Brain of Blood') but this worthless excuse for a motion picture is literally insufferable. The first 3 minutes are the only ones worth mentioning, actually. During this falsely promising intro, we witness a Frankenstein-type monster savagely strangling no less than five people. What an awesome opener, you'd think … but then Adamson suddenly opted for a completely retarded and incoherent narrative structure, involving long & confusing flashbacks and unrelated sub plots. Don't even ask to summarize the concept, as it quickly got so boring and uninteresting that I lost all attention. Apart from during the intro, there's absolutely no other action or bloodshed, the acting performances are almost painful to observe and not one of the dialogs makes a slight bit of sense. John Carradine looks really fatigue in his umpteenth role as unstable scientist (and cause of all horror) and Adamson's direction totally lacks style and inspiration. Even horror fanatics that have a weakness for 'so-bad-it's-good' cinema shouldn't view this dud, as it's too terrible.

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emm

Al Adamson was a next-generation Ed Wood who directed many movies in the history of bad cinema, such as DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN, SATAN'S SADISTS, THE FEMALE BUNCH, and lots more. Not too surprisingly, you may have noticed Regina Carroll appearing in almost every one of his films. I believe the public hasn't taken Al Adamson's name in widespread recognition too seriously, but then again, Ed Wood bounced back into popularity due to the highly-praised 1994 movie about his life and career. But enough said....Whatever you'd like to name this picture is totally beyond me! Don't complain about thinking this is a horror film, because it's not. This is a fine piece of work by a respectable genius who made something look like a collage, which complicates everything in the movie's framework. The first thing you see are zombies attacking a woman. Next comes a scene that resembles 007. Later on, a stupid mad scientist and a 10-minute long mom & daughter mountain chase makes you wonder what the hell Al Adamson was doing in making a HORROR movie! Yucksters will definitely enjoy this and his other weird films, but they usually lack the spirit of famously familiar Ed Wood material, however they are a little more modern considering they were released during the early years of the anti-social generation. BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR is okay, but Al's other movies are probably much better than what I saw.

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