3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"It Had Blood, It Was Ghastly, And It Was Horrible!", May 19, 2009
This review is from: Psycho a Go Go / Rawhide Terror (DVD)
"Psycho a Go-Go" is a stunning and rare movie from legendary schlockmeister Al Adamson. The film opens with some exceptionally bad nightclub dancing and the even worse song stylings of Linda Clark. The film then cuts to a robbery (which involves the longest elevator ride I have ever seen onscreen) which ends in gunplay. (If you're interested the robber who is shot is none other than Al Adamson himself.) The robbers fling the loot into the back of a pickup truck which is unwittingly driven away by Dave Clark, Linda's adoring husband. When Dave gets home, he gives his daughter Nancy a horrifying singing doll for her sixth birthday. The parents agree to take her to the nightclub to celebrate her birthday that night, but in the meantime Nancy stuffs the jewels in the doll unbeknownst to anyone.
The film is generally very slowly paced and features lots of pointless padding and plotpoints (what did killing a secretary do to further the plot?) Immediately after the show Linda and Nancy get on a bus to Lake Tahoe, while workaholic Dave stays home. When he gets back to his house, the robbers (and their boss, Vito) jump him. He (really) knows nothing, and the evil Joe (Roy Morton) decides to intercept Linda and Nancy in Sacramento. There's a long drive in the desert, a mute former boxer named Curtis, and intragang fighting over the one hoodlumette stupid enough to be associated with this pitiful crime organization. Joe puts the moves on Linda, and Curtis heroically intervenes while the girls escape in a car. Joe immediately follows in another car. This is the most painful and slowest car chase ever put on film. You understand the scope of Linda's brainpower when she stops at a closed Shell station to beg for help (yet escapes again) and then (after not learning her lesson the first time) abandons the car for a foot chase through the forest with Nancy and the doll in tow. This goes on so long that night turns into day, and the police and Dave join the foot pursuit.
It will come as no surprise that the creepy singing doll gives away the girl's hiding place, that the doll is dropped down the mountain, that Joe finds the doll filled with jewels, and is immediately plugged by a cop while the closing credits roll to the tune of the doll singing.
The movie was Al Adamson's directorial debut, and has weird aura, kind of like if Ray Dennis Steckler had remade "Manos, The Hands of Fate." The quality of the DVD print is not especially good, but it makes up for it by being a very rare release. The DVD does include several extras, including a commentary track by producer Sam Sherman on the genesis and troubled birth, life, and death of the project. The commentary is occasionally tedious (like when Sherman explains that he had just gotten himself some cranberry juice,) but is more interesting than the movie itself.
The commentary reveals that the film was originally made as "Echo of Terror," but the studio bosses wanted a more hip angle, and suggested adding go-go dancing. Adamson then shot some go-go dancing and recut the entire thing which became "Psycho a Go-Go." The film got very little play and sat in a vault for years when someone got the idea that it needed a new title and a new "monster" angle, which is when Adamson shot footage of John Carradine as a (surprise!) mad scientist, and released it under the title "Blood of Ghastly Horror," which I have also seen and highly recommend. "Blood of Ghastly Horror" is the far more popular release as theaters really liked the title; it makes no sense of course, but it was more popular. After that it was repackaged one last time for television as "Man With the Synthetic Brain."
Sherman points out that the original movie was a fairly good little movie, but each time it was remade it got worse. He said of the virtually nonsensical "Blood of Ghastly Horror" "It had blood, it was ghastly, and it was horrible!" The commentary gave me a lot of empathy for Adamson and the difficulties of selling a movie like this. Oddly, the commentary track ends half an hour before the end of the movie, something I have never seen before.
Also included is a black and white movie "The Rawhide Terror" which I had extreme difficulty enduring. It was made as a serial and then spliced together. It's a typical western (complete with stirring conclusion) that will just make you yawn.
I recommend this film to fans of historic B-movies. Al Adamson made some of the best known films in the genre, and this was his first. Thanks to the efforts of Sam Sherman you can now see it in it's original restored glory.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Incredibly terrible, August 8, 2005
This review is from: Psycho a Go Go / Rawhide Terror (DVD)
This was an absolute chore to sit through. It was so bad I considered shutting it off many times, but if I did, how could I do this review?
Thugs attempt to steal millions of dollars worth of diamonds, but something goes wrong. A robber is shot by a guard, but not before he throws the bag of diamonds into someone's pickup truck. The rest of the gang try to retrieve them. The truck belongs to a man whose wife is a singer, and his daughter just happenes to be having a birthday.
The robbers tie up the dude trying to find out where the loot is. Of course he knows nothing about it. So they kidnap the wife and daughter. The 'climax' is a wild foot chase on a snow covered mountain. The bad guys are defeated and we learn in the last scene that the daughter had hid the diamonds inside her birthday doll.
The acting is terrible even for a B-grade. The killing scenes are many, but are extremely lame. It was as if the movie had a budget so tight they couldn't even afford blood. Invisible gun wounds from cap guns is about what it comes down to. A stabbing with scissors (off screen) results in a dab of blood in the stomach and a little bit dripping from the mouth.
I'll never watch this again. Very little to no entertainment value.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Worst Than Plan-9 !!, November 10, 2005
This review is from: Psycho a Go Go / Rawhide Terror (DVD)
My, my, my.... Where do I begin.....? There are 5 movies on my list of all time worst movies ever made. This movie "Psycho A Go-Go" is number 5 and deserves it. The only reason to view this movie is if you are passed-out drunk. That's it. No other reason. I'd give it -5 Stars, if I could. But the other 4 that actually beat this one, are: #4 "Plan-9 From Outer Space", #3 "Beast Of Yucca Flats", #2 "The Killer Shrews", and the number one worst movie of all time ever made is: #1 "Cornman". If you are bored and desperately need a little entertainment please see "Little Voice" or "Flirting With Disaster".
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