Eddie’s 31 Days Of Halloween 2021: Day 1: Dead & Buried (1981)

This is the tenth anniversary of when I started Eddie’s 31 Days Of Halloween back in 2012 and it has been my favorite thing to do every years since. I have always loved revisiting some classics in the beginning to discovering new films as we went along. Believe it or not, there are still a ton of films that I have not seen out thousands and today’s film is a prime example of one that I have seen the poster art for, but have never seen. The film that I am talking about is 1981’s Dead & Buried which was directed by Gary A. Sherman (Poltergeist III) and it stars James Farentino (Jesus Of Nazareth) as Sheriff Dan Gillis of a small island town known as Potter’s Bluff. Now Potter’s Bluff is a beautiful town that has a lot to offer tourists, but something strange is happening in this small quiet town. You see all of the tourists are being killed and Dan has no answer as to why, but things start to become more clear when the dead start coming back to life. The film also stars Melody Anderson (Flash Gordon) as Janet Gillis, Jack Albertson (Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory) as Dobbs, Robert Englund (A Nightmare On Elm Street) as Harry, Dennis Redfield (Problem Child) as Ron, Nancy Locke (No Safe Haven) as Linda, Lisa Blount (Prince Of Darkness) as Nurse Lisa, Bill Quinn (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) as Ernie, Michael Currie (Halloween III: Season Of The Witch) as Herman, Christopher Allport (Jack Frost) as George, and Joseph G. Medalis (Kentucky Fried Movie) as Doc.

The film is very interesting and I love the take they have on voodoo cause it’s definitely a different approach to the genre. What if someone could bring back the dead and they act and look like normal functioning people in society? You would never know the difference and that is the big thing in this film is that the sheriff can not figure it out as to who is a reanimated corpse and who isn’t. They also have this obsession of taking photos and video of their victims along the way and they are pretty violent. I love seeing Robert Englund in his pre-A Nightmare On Elm Street days because his roles are very different and it’s interesting to see him act as we are so accustomed to him being Freddy Krueger. He has a very minor role in this film, but when he appears on screen he definitely makes the best of it. I loved the acting in the film as it features some legends of cinema in it along with some fresh faces. The film has a very mystery horror film feel to it and that was another favorite part of the film for me was definitely in the writing. Even though I was wondering how they were going to pull it off, they did a very god job tying up any loose ends when you get to the big reveal. I definitely recommend this film to anyone looking for a different take on the voodoo/zombie genre and with that being said I am going to give the film an A- for a final grade because they have some impressive kills to go with it.

Cheeseball Cinema: Ilsa, Harem Keeper Of The Oil Sheiks (1976)

Sexploitation and Cheeseball Cinema go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly, they just go well together. Plus, we covered Ilsa, She Wolf Of The SS sometime ago so I wanted to check out the sequel. So, what we have here for you today is Ilsa, Harem Keeper Of The Oil Sheiks which was released in 1976 and once again stars the beautiful Dyanne Thorne as Ilsa. Ilsa this time is taking care of the operations for Sheik Al Sharif (Jerry Delony) as she takes care of all his sex slaves. Ilsa and the Sheik begin to suspect that their guests, Dr. Kaiser (Richard Kennedy) and Cmdr Scott (Max Thayer) are not just their to negotiate a plan for oil, but to sabotage his operations.  She tries to seduce the Commander, but Ilsa may have found her match. The film also stars Haji (Supervixens) as Alina, Uschi Digard (Supervixens) as Inge, Sharon Kelly (Supervixens) as Nora, George ‘Buck’ Flower (They Live) as a begger, Tanya Boyd (Black Shampoo) as Satin, Marilyn Joi (Kentucky Fried Movie) as Velvet, and the film was directed by Don Edmonds (8 Million Ways To Die).

From Left To Right Clockwise: Dyanne Thorne, Sharon Kelly, Su Ling, and Uschi Digard

You automatically know what you are going to get when you watch a sexploitation, women in prison film which is a whole lot of T&A. The great thing about this film is that it actually has a pretty good story attached to it and the acting is actually pretty good for the most part. The only thing is how old is Ilsa? She served the nazi party during world war 2 and now she serves the oil sheiks some years later and she doesn’t look like she aged one bit. But that is the beauty of these films where you don’t need continuity moving on for every sequel. I actually look forward to seeing the other films in the series for more Cheeseball Cinema entries. As I said before, there is plenty of T&A as well as some unkempt seventies bush and some of the torture devices they came up with for this film were actually quite clever, but a little on the kinky side with some like the boob vice or the exploding vagina. Check out the film on Youtube right now if you would like to because it’s there. On a scale of 1 being close to an A-List Hollywood film and 5 being the cheesiest film of all time, I am going to give the film a 3.5 because it’s practically softcore porn, but with some action and violence. Plus, a lot of the actors were painted to look Arab and it’s a little too obvious.