Treasure of Tayopa (1974)

Treasure of Tayopa. I'm not sure exactly what to say about this movie other than it's awful. Awful. Awful. Awful. That's four awfuls just in case you weren't clear on how I truly felt.

Treasure of Tayopa starts off with a cock fight. When I say starts off with a cock fight I mean that the first frame you see in this movie is about halfway through a cock fight. No fade in from black, no title, no credits. Cock fight. That's four cock fights just because it's a funny word. Finally we meet three of the four people you'll be seeing in this movie, all on horses talking about the treasure and the boss that they're going to meet. Finally the boss arrives by plane and... get ready for this... it's a woman! Oh ho ho that will throw a monkey wrench in the plans! I guess.

After the title you're than treated to about two minutes of various scenes overlayed over each other but all showing very uninteresting things.



See that? Actually three different shots going on there. One of just a landscape, one of the four stars riding on horses and one of... lens flare. Hopefully you enjoy watching that kind of scene because you're going to see it a lot. Especially the lens flare.

Let's talk about the six people you'll be seeing in this movie:

Kathryn Delgadillo: She's the boss. Her father told her where to find the treasure of Tayopa (I'm not sure if it's explained why he never went and got it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it never was). She's a tough woman working in a man's world of (badly) treasure hunting.

Sally: He's the crazy one. That's right, he. Maybe it's a boy named Sue kind of thing. All you need to know is that he's crazy... for no real reason. Also if I'm planning on finding hidden treasure that would be worth millions you know the first guy I bring along? The mentally unstable guy. The kind of guy who brings a crossbow along for no reason. Yeah, I want him on my team.

Tom Stoddard: He's some guy. Really, he has very little purpose and you learn almost nothing about him. Good times.

Felipe Estrada: He's the translator. He has very little purpose and you learn almost nothing about him.

Then there's some mexican dude who follows them around for the entire movie (more on him in a moment). I'm sure they might have given his name, but I sure didn't hear it.

And then there's the banditos. The banditos are only there for (bad) plot reasons. Also all of them appear to have taken fashion advice from Speedy Gonzales.

Also there's a narrator. One you see. He comes in twice and explains about the history of Tayopa a bit and that's pretty much his two scenes.

So Kathryn, Sally, Tom and Felipe are on their way to Tayopa when they come across the banditos and our mystery mexican dude. The banditos proceed to hassle the bunch... and by hassle I mean they kind of ride around them yipping and yelping before letting them pass about 15 seconds later. But that's enough to put Sally in a whiny rage. He's complains to Tom that he wants to go back and see what they're up to because of three reasons:

1) Because of what they did to Kathryn.
2) They pulled his hair.
3) They pushed his horse.

What they did to Kathryn is... well nothing. Mostly got in her way and yipped and yelped. And you never actually see 2 or 3 happen. I suppose it all happened off screen or something.

Anyway Sally and Felipe head back to check out the banditos and their leader, the mystery mexican dude(or MMD as he'll be known from now on). The MMD leaves just before Sally and Felipe arrive so the banditos think this is a good time to drink tequila and shoot a rifle into the air. While they're doing this Sally kills them all. Because he's crazy. Also they pushed his horse and pulled his hair. I would kill six people because of this as well. So Sally and Felipe head back to camp (Felipe doesn't tell anyone what happens because... I don't know) and the MMD finds his whole bandit camp slain and decides to follow the four stars for the rest of the movie. At about the midpoint in the movie he cuts the ropes and lets their horses free. They walk and buy new horses. So he follows them some more. This guy is horrible at revenge.

So eventually they get to where Tayopa supposedly is and you learn more about our four stars... and by learn about them I mean you find that the reason they brought Sally is because he's really good at working a metal detector. Apparently they couldn't find a non-psychopath who could also work a metal detector.

All the while Sally is going more and more crazy for no real reason. From here on in this review there's major spoilers. Trust me, it doesn't matter. You don't want to see this movie anyway.

So Sally finds the treasure and proceeds to try and rape Kathryn but I guess midway decides it's better to hit her with his belt a couple times which leaves her close to death. He then proceeds to shoot Tom with a crossbow and Felipe with a real gun. That's another thing, at the first of this movie they gave Sally a gun. Again, you're just asking for trouble when you give the crazy crossbow dude a gun.

Kathryn isn't dead from her five belt lashes and proceeds to smash Sally's head in with a rock. Then she wanders around the desert, kills a rattle snake and eats it raw, finds a dry well and appears to die. Then a priest comes by and gives her water. Cut directly to a narrator who talks a little bit about Tayopa some more. Fin. That's it. The priest is never explained. Frankly I was just happy it was over.

This movie is absolutely awful. Don't watch it. It's not worth the 90 minutes of your life. It doesn't even fall into the "so bad it's good" category. It falls into the "so bad it's awful" category.

5 Birthday Fish out of 5. It's awful.

Squid.

Night Train to Terror (1985)

If I had to describe Night Train to Terror in one word it would be confusing. If I had to describe it in three words it would be awesome and confusing. Night Train to Terror starts off with a great '80s song, with singing and dancing and trains.

Man the '80s sucked

Anyway after their done singing their awful yet catchy song you get to meet God and Satan who apparently travel by train. From what I gather they meet up occasionally to divvy up random souls, and with each soul you get to watch a story of how these people died. Starts off well enough, I mean all except for that godawful '80s song... but when you start to watch the three stories that's when it all goes to hell.

The three stories of the people's death? They make absolutely no sense. With a little bit of research you'll find out why. You see, most movies would film their own stories if they were going to put them in a movie... but not Night Train to Terror, it's different. You see the three stories you're seeing are actually just other movies edited down to around 20 minutes to make these stories.

The Case of Harry Billings? Actually a movie called Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars. The Case of Gretta Connors? Carnival of Fools. The Case of Claire Hansen? Cataclysm. If you add up the length of all these movies they're about 270 minutes long. Night Train to Terror is 93 minutes long. Think something might get lost in translation?

You bet ya! Night Train to Terror is like giving someone a 350 page book... except 179 pages are ripped out... and what is left isn't necessarily in order... also every 60 pages there's a bad '80s music video.

That's right, they even managed to screw up editing these movies correctly. Occasionally it's very noticeable that the scene you just watched happened after the scene you're watching now. In the second story the couple goes from hating each other and the girl having short hair to the couple being madly in love and the girl having long hair. I'm pretty sure you can't miss something like that so it tells me they just didn't care.

So here you have three 90 or so minute movies that you have to edit down to about 20 or so minutes each and try to make it at least somewhat coherent. If you were going to do that do you think you would pick two movies that didn't have THE SAME ACTOR IN THEM? Night Train to Terror didn't.

Richard "Bull" Moll

That's right, the first and third story both star Richard Moll. Seriously though of all the confusing things int his movie I don't think that even ranks in the top ten. There are so many things in this movie that confused me that I think I spent about 85 of the 90 minutes laughing and saying out lout "What the hell just happened!?"

This movie is bad. Really, really bad. So bad it's good. Hilariously good. You can't watch this movie without laughing. Confusing as hell, but so bad it's good.

2 Birthday Fish out of 5

Squid.

Mama Dracula (1980)

I'm not even sure where to begin with Mama Dracula. Imagine taking a horror movie and crossing with a comedy movie, failing at both and then not telling your actors whether they're in the comedy movie or a horror movie. That pretty much sums up Mama Dracula.

Mama Dracula starts on a serious tone telling us the history of Countess Dracula (played by Academy Award winner Louise Fletcher) and how she ruled the countryside of Transylvania with cruelty, bathing in the blood of virgins to give her immortality. It then takes that somewhat serious tone and throws it right out the window and introduces us to Professor Von Bloed. Professor Von Bloed is a scientist who is trying to produce artificial blood... in what appears to be his basement.

Professor Von Bloed receives a letter inviting him to attend the "world blood congress" in Transylvania from Countess Dracula. Since I can only assume he spends a lot of time trying to make blood in his basement and doesn't have time to read books or watch movies, this doesn't send up any red flags. So Professor Von Blood boards a giant ocean liner and is off to Transylvania because apparently Delta doesn't have a hub there.

The Professor arrives and gets on a train, and this is where the movie take a giant turn for the WTF. This movie is set in modern time... and yet when the Professor gets off the train Transylvania it appears to be about the 1800's. For no apparent reason. It's not like accidentally got on the train from Back to the Future 3 and was transported back in time, because the rest of Transylvania is modern time as well. It's just this one village that appears to be stuck about 200 years in the past... and I'm not sure if it's ever explained, but they pop up inexplicably throughout the movie.

I could go on and keep explaining every single scene in this movie that makes no sense, but I really don't have the time so I'll just give you a brief synopsis.

Countess Dracula needs virgin blood, but in this day and age (the '80s) everyone is apparently a whore and there just aren't enough virgins to throw on the juicer so that she can bathe in their blood. So she hires Professor Von Bloed to synthesize virgin blood so that she can bathe in constantly.

Apparently before Professor Bloed came into the mix the Countess would get virgin blood with the aid of her two twin sons who look like they're wearing vampire Halloween costumes. They own a department store and when a virgin comes in to try clothes on they frighten her, she faints, and they haul her back up to the house so they can take all her precious, precious virgin blood. That's the plan, that's apparently how you get virgin blood.

Somewhere in this story there's a detective and his assistant (played by Maria Schneider) who are hot on the trail of whoever is kidnapping virgins, and by hot on the trail I mean the detective is more incompetent than Inspector Clouseau and Maria Schneider somehow manages to get herself kidnapped and imprisoned by the Countess.

And it all ends with a fashion runway show, Professor Bloed inviting artificial virgin blood, everyone having the option of becoming a vampire, and Maria Schneider marrying the two twin sons who up until this point I thought were gay. Yeah, makes perfect sense to me too.

There are little things here and there that I missed, but at the end of the day it probably doesn't matter because at the end of the day this movie is just plain awful. It wants to be a horror movie and comedy and fails at both. At the end of the day the movie is just too bad and too incoherent for it to be anything.

I really wanted to review this movie differently, I really did. I wanted to get a bit more in depth with this review... but I swear to God my brain just turned off about 3/4 of the way through. It had enough and wanted out. If I had to pinpoint the precise moment when this happens it would be at 57:13 when this happens:


I'm not sure what it is. From what I can tell is that it's some kind of fish that wanted to wish the Countess a happy birthday. That one picture pretty much sums up the movie for me.

Instead of stars I'm going to rate out of Birthday Fishes. 1 Birthday Fish being an okay movie that may actually be worth watching, 5 Birthday Fishes being an absolute mess of a movie. Mama Dracula gets 4 Birthday Fishes, and I hope not all of the movies are this bad.

Squid.