FUN WITH CAPTIONS!!!

Faced with being stuck on another season of HEROES, Hiro took the honorable way out.

BILLY THE KID VERSUS DRACULA (1966)

You've simply gotta love any movie poster in which the hero looks like he just took a huge, fear-fueled dump in his jeans.

I dunno what the hell was going on back in 1966, but it sure was a banner year for the zero budget horror/western hybrid movie, what with JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER and this being unleashed around the same time. I was barely a year old when those landmarks in cinema came out, but some three years later I clearly recall encountering BILLY THE KID VERSUS DRACULA on TV, placing it among the very first handful of movies I ever saw, and I remembered parts of it vividly upon seeing it again nearly forty (!!!) years later.

Just like its sister film, JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER, BILLY THE KID VERSUS DRACULA was directed by William "One-Shot"Beaudine, but is the far livelier of the two movies thanks in no small part to the presence of legendary actor/whore John Carradine , whose famous deeper-than God's balls voice gave the film's vampire a bit of extra "oomph." Oh, and for the record, the vampire in this story is never identified as Dracula or even given a name at all, so go figure.

John Carradine as the film's vampire (significantly not Dracula), working the Jedi Mind Trick.

Much like its sister film, this flick bears the look and tone of an especially whacked-out episode of BONANZA, and the story kinda/sorta manages to outdo JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER thanks to being a lot more lively and featuring one of the worst (best?)endings in the history of either the Western or horror genres, but more on that shortly.

The movie opens as a family of German immigrants sleep outdoors next to their covered wagon and the unnamed vampire shows up to slake hisbloodthirst upon the family's nubile daughter, but he's driven off by a handy crucifix. Thwarted, the vampire hitches a ride with a stagecoach bearing a whiskey salesman, a widow who owns a ranch (which is the stagecoach's destination) and her bachelor banker brother from Boston. During a brief stopover, the vampire spots some friendlyInjuns and of course drains one of their number (a cute actress in cheesy costume shop Pocahontas drag), thus spurring said Injuns to totally massacre the stagecoach, killing everyone onboard . The vampire waits until the dust has settled and steals the banker's identification so he'll have an alias ready for when he shows up at the widow's ranch, his objective being the seduction andvampirism of the widow's comely niece, Betty (Melinda Plowman), so he'll have an undead squeeze to keep him warm on those lonely nights, er, days. Now going by the name of "Mr.Underhill ," Dracula (or whoever the fuck he is) arrives at the ranch and announces he's the new owner/proprietor now that the widow is dead, but first he kills the German immigrant girl whose family is staying at the local boarding house.

In case you're wondering how the hell Billy the Kid (Chuck Courtney) figures into all of this, he's now a reformed outlaw and the foreman at the ranch and is involved in a tepid territorial pissing contest with the previous foreman over him having usurped both the guy's job and his girl, the aforementioned Betty (the actual Western-style ranch conflict plot is utterly beside the point, so it won't be discussed any further, except to say that at one point the former foreman kicks Billy's ass likenobody's business). Anyway, Billy befriends the now-childless Germans and gets them jobs at the ranch, much to Drac's annoyance since they both have his number as being an undead suckface and know all the lore of how to spot and handle undead suckfaces (mirrors, wolfsbane at the windows, etc.). Needless to say, nobody believes the pair — although Billy begins to catch on — and their obvious suspicion of Drac doesn't please him one bit...

I'll spare you the rest of the particulars, but it all comes to a head when Drac kidnaps and semi-vampirizes Betty in order to make her his undead mate, and Billy hauls ass to her rescue. Upon arriving, Billy empties his revolver into the vampire, who merely looks at the outlaw like he's completely out of his mind and promptly hands Billy a pretty decentbeatdown (the second he's received thus far. Some Western tough guy!).

Dracula (or whoever he is), kicking Billy's ass.

As Billy lays on the ground, the sheriff and the town doctor show up and the sheriff also empties his gun into the vampire, who this time around actually states aloud that guns are useless against him. Once the sheriff's gun is empty, Billy gets up from the floor and grabs the sheriff's gun, lobbing it square into the vampire's face, sending him toppling to the floor unconscious. Billy then borrows a scalpel from the town doc and uses it in place of the traditional stake to polish off the evilsuckface. THE END.

No, seriously! That actually happens, and you can click here to see this flaming bit of lunacy for yourself!

At a mercifully short seventy-three minutes, BILLY THE KID VERSUS DRACULA must have been intended as part of a double or triple bill when originally released, and at so short a running time it's over and done with before it has a chance to get boring, so give it a look for a few cheap laughs if nothing else. And kids love it!

A ROVING GANG OF SHRUB-DEVOURING BAMBI LOOKALIKES DECIMATES THE CONNECTICUT BUNCHE HOMEBASE

A couple of days ago I visited Connecticut for an early celebration of my mom's birthday and while there I was once more treated to the revolving door of fauna that is my old homestead's yard, a place replete with brazen wildlife no matter the time of year. We get groundhogs, foxes, pheasants, raccoons, Tom turkeys and who knows what all else, but the most common sight is that of the roving gangs of deer that infest the area, pitifully driven out of their once secluded woodland haunts by development and now in search of food wherever they can find it. Needless to say, that task is a bitch thanks to the sheer number of disenfranchised deer and as a result the competition for grub is fierce.

Anyway, on Sunday morning I spotted five deer in locations on the front and side of the house, indiscriminately nibbling at any and all leafy sustenance they could find, and for once I was able to photograph them up close and personal without scaring the skittish creatures away. Even my mother, who wages passionate war against them when her flower garden is in season, took pity on the hungry critters and shared in my admiration of their undeniable cuteness. So now, as a break from the usual sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, giant monsters, comic books and gratuitous violence I usually focus this blog's attention upon, here are the results of my clandestine photo safar from within the confines of the old homestead's living room, family room and dining room.




A long-standing Bunche family mystery solved at last: exactly why the front yard's shrubs bear rather spotty foliage.


A cloven-hooved interloper strolls past the porch where my cronies and I used to get stoned off our asses around two decades ago.

One look at the sad pickings on the bush this deer has chosen as its buffet will give you some idea of just how hard-up these poor wanderers are.

Yeah, it's cute as hell, but the whole time all I could think of was plugging one of the adorable little bastards and carving it up into venison steaks to be seasoned with some salt, pepper and minced garlic before being very slow-cooked on my mom's backyard grill...


And my favorite photo out of the whole lot:

The magnificence of the double-barreled venison moon-shot.

FUN WITH CAPTIONS!!!

"Actually, Lois, that headline's a misprint. It's supposed to read 'dry-humps' instead of 'rescues!'"

JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER (1966)

One of the many things I love about bad movies is the more often than not unintentional towering ludicrousness wielded by many films in the sub-genre. A good case in point would be 1966's JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER, a bit of camp candyfloss that's remembered these days for little other than its colossally silly title and its nonchalant fusion of horror and Western tropes. I seriously doubt a bunch of Hollywood film producers spent weeks (or even hours) brainstorming over their next sure-fire creation and settling upon a film in which the famous outlaw has it out with a descendant of of everyone's favorite crafter of man-made monsters, but nonetheless somebody figured making such a film would be a good idea so there you go.

Considering when it came out, JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER could have gone a number of ways with its game of genre-fusion, possibly having been influenced by the groundbreaking Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone or the atmospherically gory and tits-a-plenty splendor of the Hammer films horror cycle, but instead the finished product reads like an even more studio-bound and artificial-looking episode of BONANZA had it been written by a staff script hack ripped on a dangerous cocktail of Percodan and Jim Beam. Directed by William "One-Shot" Beaudine — so nicknamed due to his tendency to make do with only one take of any given shot — the flick is sadly lacking in any scares whatsoever, titties, gore (although there's an "artificial" brain, but that doesn't really count), suspense or even excitement of any kind, but what it lacks in those it makes up for by being a played-totally-straight example of "camp" in that distinctly 1960's sense of the term, and being totally suitable for the kiddies dropped off at matinees when it originally played. In fact, the movie kind of has the feel of a kid's Western as filtered through the perceptions of a child suffering a high fever, something I experienced a number of times as a kid, only with films of other genres (most memorably the horrendous THE LAST DINOSAUR).

JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER is a bit of a misnomer since the titular Frankenstein is actually the good Doctor's grand-daughter, but why quibble when you have a story like this: Dr. Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx) and her brother Rudolph (Steven Geray) have fled Germany due to their medical experiments being too heinous even for that locale and have now set up shop in a convenient mansion somewhere in or near Mexico (the exact location is utterly beside the point), there to continue their delving into forbidden knowledge.

Narda Onyx as Maria Frankenstein, grand-daughter of the original slab-jockey: it takes a special caliber of actor to keep a straight face in a role — and helmet — like this one.

The pair kidnap local Mexican kids and transplant artificial brains into their crudely-trepanned craniums in hope of creating someone who'll do their bidding (exactly what their agenda is is never explained) rather than piecing together random parts of the deceased and coming up with a towering monstrosity, but each experiment is met with fatal failure for their subjects (they're actually poisoned by Rudolph in hope that his sister will think she's destined to fail, thereby abandoning her madness). Undaunted, Maria determines that what her experiment needs is a grown, muscular giant of a man, but where to find one when every single Mexican in town is either dead or has wisely left the area?

Enter famous outlaw Jesse James (John Lupton) and his hulking pal Hank Tracy (Cal Bolder), who get mixed up in a "who cares?" heist that results in Tracy getting wounded. The pursuit of timely medicalassistance leads the pair into contact with peasant girl Juanita Lopez (Estelita Rodriguez) and her parents, all of whom fled town when Juanita's little brother fell victim to the Frankenturds , and Juanita leads Jesse and Hank right to the Doctor's door, hoping to discover the truth about her brother's suspicious demise while Hank receives medical help (not a very good idea if you ask me). Finally obtaining the raw materials for her experiment, Maria devises a plan to keep Jesse out of the way while she transforms Hank into a robotic thrall of flesh and blood, renamed "Igor." Will Juanita discover the truth? Will Jesse get some more G-rated nookie from Juanita (the first round of which occurs after a tasteful TV-style fadeout)? Will Maria have her revenge on Jesse after being spurned by him in favor of Juanita's south-of-the-border sexiness? Will Hank ever wear a shirt again? Will a jealous former-outlaw and the local sheriff nab Jesse and turn him into a human pinata?

Hank (Cal Bolder), post-insertion of artificial brain and renamed "Igor" for no apparent reason (no, seriously), as the Doctor checks out his impressive pecs.

The answers to all this (and less) will be had by the time the words "The End" magically appear onscreen, but it's a decent enough waste of time getting to that point. Yeah, it's pretty much "baby's first horror movie," but it's harmless fun that will definitely hold your interest if you've ever sat through any of the legion of TV Westerns unleashed on the airwaves between 1955 and 1970. The acting is about standard for something of this ilk, but special props must be given to Onyx and Rodriguez, both providing over-the-top performances that team up to create an unintentional "Battle of the Ridiculous Accents." My only real complaint here is that there's no decent '60's-eraHammeresque red stuff to be had, because it would have been awesome to see Hank in full-on-Frankenstein mode crush Rudolph until at least some amount of blood spewed out of his mouth, ears or eyes, accompanied by the sound of bones crunching beneath the onslaught of Hank/Igor's muscles.

Oh, what Hammer studios could have done with this...

But whatever. If this turns up on American Movie Classics or Turner Classic Movies, or even your local TV station at Jesus O'Clock in the morning, give it a look just so you can say you've actually seen a movie with a title this stupid.

A PROPER SENDOFF

Sent in by Larz of the North.

NY COMICON 2009: COUNTING DOWN

Well, it's that time of year again and I'm gearing up for the crowded, sweaty and totally insane throng of geekish humanity that is the New York Comicon at Mahattan's Jacob Javits Center, and I just received word from my pal Declan Shalvey, talented illustrator of works such as FRANKENSTEIN and an upcoming adaptation of SWEENEY TODD, that he'll be hopping over from Ireland to attend.

Yer Bunche with Declan Shalvey at last year's NY Comicon. Lock up your daughters, NYC-area parents!

Many other friends and former colleagues will be arriving from all over the world of comics geekdom and I can't wait to see each and every one of them. It all gets underway on February 6th, two weeks from this coming Friday, and I've already begun to plan my course of action, so expect full-blown coverage akin to last year's from-the-floor photo safari!

NOW IT'S OFFICIAL: WE GOT A BRAND NEW FUNKY PRESIDENT!!!

I just watched Barack Obama getting sworn in as the nation's 44th president and was honestly more moved by his speech than I ever thought I would be. So all I have to say now is: Well done, Mr. President. Well done.

Now let's see what you've got.

FUN WITH CAPTIONS!!!

A respectful silence fell as the Christopher Street chapter of the Sam Peckinpah Appreciation Society passed by in the Pride March.

FUN WITH CAPTIONS!!!

Remembering their mother's warning too late, Nancy and Jill discovered that "Spin the Bottle" really was the gateway to Hell.