Touches You

Excellent adaptation.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The first must-see film of the year.

"Hell Raiders" was one of several movies American-International Pictures commissioned from low budget movie maker Larry Buchanan to be released on television. Having seen this film as well as a couple of others made from this agreement, I am not surprised that A.I.P. didn't put their name on the finished product. To call this a cheap movie would be a kindness; there is almost nothing in the way of "production values" on the screen. But the movie suffers from far more than a shabby look. Though the movie only runs 77 minutes long, it is relentlessly padded, such as with liberal use of stock footage, but also with nothing else of significance happening. The mission for the title squad doesn't start until about three-quarters of the movie has passed! And it's not worth the wait - the "action" sequences have absolutely no excitement or bite. Only for those who want to see John Agar at his lowest point in his career.

1968's "Hell Raiders" is a real anomaly in the jaw dropping career of grade Z director Larry Buchanan, the 7th of his 8 Azalea Pictures titles, and the only one not of the horror/science fiction genres. While Buchanan acknowledged that the Azaleas would be the films he would be best remembered for, he clearly had little affinity for their subject matter, and he displayed even less flair for this actionless WW2 adventure. It remains a mystery as to why Samuel Z. Arkoff decided to do a color remake of AIP's 1958 black and white war picture "Suicide Battalion," starring Mike Connors and John Ashley, rather than another science fiction title, shot in Texas (non union) like most of the others. Some sources have cited this as a lost film, but it has turned up on Encore's Action channel, plus a DVD release in a boxed set of obscure war films. The uncredited script was penned in 1958 by AIP regular Lou Rusoff, Arkoff's brother-in-law, dead at age 51 by 1963 (his last film was "Beach Party"!). The drab story is simple: Major Ronald Paxton (John Agar) and Captain Brad Stevens (Richard Webb) lead a band of 6 volunteers on a suicide mission to destroy a deserted Allied headquarters in 1944 Italy, a lakeside location with barren trees revealing an autumnal landscape, previously used by Buchanan in 1967's "Mars Needs Women." Inept filmmaking at its most visually unexciting, compounded by a constant barrage of offscreen gunfire and explosions, all obviously dubbed in post production (nearly every gun that fires, no bullets are seen). Five minutes of actual black and white war footage is woven into the first half hour of exposition, followed by the soldiers partying on leave in a deserted town for 72 hours (though another 25 minutes, it only SEEMED like 72 hours!). The actual mission only begins after 55 minutes, and is no better than anything that came before. In what turned out to be his last starring role, John Agar, veteran of Buchanan's earlier "Zontar the Thing from Venus" and "Curse of the Swamp Creature," is at least professional, but the character, like all the others, is strictly one note. Richard Webb and guest star Joan Huntington, busier on television than in lower budgeted fare, supply the other two thirds of a laughable romantic triangle (once Agar kisses her goodbye, she's never seen again). Buchanan regular Bill Thurman, perhaps best remembered by non horror fans as Cloris Leachman's inattentive husband in 1971's "The Last Picture Show," easily stands out in a showy part as Tex, forever a private, who looks after the younger members of the squad. Jeff Alexander, like Agar from both "Zontar..." and "...Swamp Creature" (plus 1973's "Horror High" aka "Twisted Brain"), only gets a minute or two as an unnamed German captain, disappearing just when it seemed we would get a slimy villain to spice things up. By far the worst performance comes from Annabelle MacAdams, the acting pseudonym for Azalea's regular dialogue director Annabelle Weenick, best remembered for her villainous asylum director in 1973's Texas-filmed "Don't Look in the Basement," helmed by former Buchanan editor S. F. Brownrigg. She resembles no less than notorious San Francisco loon Nancy Pelosi with her wide eyes and brunette wig, mangling the English language as an Italian brothel madam. It's no wonder there are few comments on this obscurity, little seen even in its heyday (I did catch it during the 80s on Cleveland station WJW-TV), and easily the most forgettable title among Larry Buchanan's popular Azalea features, strictly for completists only (I'm sure Larry would not disagree).

Wow. Found it on Movieplex Echoes of War. Let's see. First the two officers, Agar and Webb, are way too old. The Uniforms seem to be a hodgepodge of Vietnam-era and WWII/Korean War-era clothing. The Germans at first seem to be carrying Gewehr 41(W)semi-auto loaders, but then the German soldier who is watching the "squad" take 10 and shoots the stereotypical young and scared soldier is using what appears to be an early wood-stocked model of the FN91, a post war rifle.Constant battle sounds that are looped, the American weapons, when they fired, (M1s, M1-carbines, .45 pistols, etc) only fire one round, though semi-automatic. This was due to the film makers evidently not using blank adapters in their weapons. When they show the Americans firing, each fires a round, and then the action cuts to the Germans. As we watch the Germans, we hear intense American firing.When a German soldier is firing at the squad with an American .30 caliber machinegun, they move to a close up of him as he shakes the weapon and you hear the firing. Funny, he continued to shake as the firing stops then starts again.I could go on, but after about 30 minutes, I had had enough. I can't believe I wasted so many electrons watching this horrid excuse of a movie.

One of a series of AIP features remade for television by the legendary Larry Buchanan, Hell Raiders tells the story of a select group of GIs sent on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines in exchange for three months wages and some extra leave. John Agar stars as Major Paxton, who leads his men into battle and through an overwhelming barrage of stock footage. Likewise, the score seems to consist of cues recycled from westerns and sci fi films. Based on 1959's Suicide Battalion, Hell Raiders commits the unpardonable sin of being incredibly boring and spends far too much time on boring romantic subplots. It's even worse than Buchanan's Creature of Destruction, which is quite an accomplishment.