Once again, it was time to test our prowess when it came to endurance and sheer will power.  And once again, I was joined by Dr. AC who willfully joined us for another year of film, fun, and fanatical devotion to test our sanity.  Guess he didn’t learn last time.

King Dinosaur (1955) – Since we had touched upon Mr. BIG last year with Food of the Gods (1976), we thought it would be a good idea to start this year with one of the films from the start of Gordon’s film career. Now even though ‘dinosaur’ is in the title of the film, what we actually get is an iguana and a baby alligator. The iguana is even referred to as a T-Rex in the movie. Boy, did someone miss a few of their paleontologists’ classes. When Gordon has these two creatures battling it out for world domination, it was something possible way before the likes of PETA were around. But even better than the creature fighting is just the dated dialog and actions of our small cast. These were the days when it was pretty normal just to have a small thermonuclear device that   you could carry around, and bring to another planet…just in case you’d need it.

Four scientist travel by rocket to the planet Nova, which had recently entered our solar system. Even though the planet looks pretty similar to Earth, more so Bronson’s Canyon in California, the giant creatures there tend to put off our scientist and decide that blow up the place since we couldn’t live there. Once they make their escape from the giant creatures, one of guys says “I brought the atom bomb. I think it’s a good time to use it!” That is the high quality of intense dialog that you’ll hear throughout this movie.

In the short running time of the film, it is padded out by a lot of stock footage. A lot of stock footage. Then there is the way they treat the lemur, and even the way the two female scientist are treated. Sure, this is the ’50s and a much different time. But watching it today will get plenty of laughs out of the guys. Just make sure you’re not laughing in front of any significant other of the female persuasion. But even with all of that, if you’re expecting a nice Turkey Day movie, then you will enjoy this one a lot.

Evil Clutch (1988) – Next up was one tough hill to climb. It was a film that I had seen before, but apparently had forgotten just how awful it is. And even worse (for her career), that it stars a good friend of ours, Coralina Cataldi Tassoni. This is the movie that she hates, and rightfully so. Folks, not only is this is one bad movie, but it really hurts to try and get through. Even being a huge fan of Italian cinema, especially from the ‘80s when the blood and gore was flying around like parmesan cheese at an Italian restaurant, this is just a terribly made film. There is a chase sequence at the end of the film that just seems to go on forever! Andreas Marfori wrote and directed this mess, and thankfully didn’t work that much more in the film industry. Truly a film to earn its place in any Turkey Day marathon, but is one tough piece of meat to not only chew, but to also keep down. So if you decide to watch this film, take heed.  Do it with a friend, or not at all. This is one that you really need a spotter on.

The Frozen Dead (1967) – So trying to recover from that misery, we put in a title that I knew was going to be a bit more fun. When you’re dealing with Nazis and strange medical experiments on the dead, how can it not be, right? As a kid, there was a movie that I had seen on TV late one night, that I didn’t remember the title or a lot of the movie itself, but there were a few scenes that stayed with me for years afterwards. There is the shot of the wall of several arms hanging there. There were these soldiers that could only do one simple task, like comb their hair or dig a hole with an imaginary shovel. And of course, the scenes with the animated decapitated head, burned into my psyche like a soldering iron.

The movie starred Dana Andrews as a German doctor who is working on an experiment of reviving Nazi soldiers that after the war was over, volunteered to be frozen solid and revived once they could start a new war, and hopefully creating a new breed of super soldiers. Of course, there’s a few glitches in the process of re-animating them, since their brains don’t function too well. Not too promising for the new Third Reich.

This is not a great film by any means. But Andrews gives his performance with all the gusto he can. Everyone involved here were doing that. Even some of the dialog is cheesy, but said with great conviction. It’s films like this that stay memorable, even after many years, they are always enjoyable to watch and have a good time with.

Tentacles (1977) – Our last film for the day almost put both of us to sleep. Not necessarily because it was boring, but it was way too freaking long! Personally, I can never get enough of all the Jaws inspired movies that followed it’s success, and this film from Ovidio G. Assonitiswas one of many. But I swear that movie felt like it was 3 hours long.  It featured a great all-star cast, with big names like Henry Fonda and John Huston. Even had Shelly Winters as a flirtatious bar-hopping floozy, which was scarier than any giant octopus. While we did have a great idea for a Jaws rip-off, and even had some great sequences, the film just gets too bogged down and really, really……really drags on.

Following the basic theme to a T, Tentacles is about a “evil” corporation that just might be spilling some nasty stuff into the ocean during one of their underwater constructions. And this might just have caused a octopus to grow to enormous size. Big enough where it’s snatching babies off the beach!  Fun stuff here folks…at least during some parts of the movie. But the movie gets too bogged down with trying to tell the story and not getting to enough action.  That might have had something to do with having such an all-star cast and not wanting to waste them. One difference in this film from the other Jaws rip-offs is that to battle this giant multi-legged creature, they get a couple of trained killer whales to attack it, with the help of their trainer Bo Hopkins.

So after that film that seemed to take forever to finish, afterwards, we knew we our marathon for the day definitely was over as well. An attempt on another movie would have been futile since we both would have been asleep. So after four films, some damn entertaining, and some just tough to sit through, we made it through another Turkey Marathon.