FLESH & BLOOD: THE REEL LIFE & GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON (2019)

Wednesday, December 31, 12:01 am

Late last night I suddenly and impulsively watched FLESH & BLOOD: THE REEL LIFE & GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON on Amazon Prime.

I thought it was GREAT.

To be honest, I was not a fan of exploitation/genre filmmaker Al Adamson's work to begin with, so that fact made me only vaguely aware of his actual filmography. As I watched the documentary, I realized and slowly remembered, that a film called DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (1971) was by him. I think it might have been stills from that film of the Frankenstein monster that informed my disinterest in Adamson's work. I was not impressed with the make-up. That terrible makeup gave me a sense of how cheaply made these films were. Usually for me that isn't a turn-off but a turn-on, but my artistic tastes are capricious.

Anyway, backing up a little, the documentary focuses on Adamson's film career and also his shocking death: his body was discovered buried in the floor of his house after he had gone missing. That's how the doc starts, so that's not a spoiler. But then we go through Adamson's life and eventually learn the details of his death.

I love this film. NOW I want to see these awful movies, hahaha!

It's delightful listening to his friends, past cast and crew members tell stories of the man and working with him.

All the stories and clips are pretty terrific, but I especially loved the anecdotes from DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (and working with actor J. Carrol Naish). Also, Sam Sherman, Robert Dix, Russ Tamblyn offer great stories, but I was especially delighted to see Fred Olen Ray offering great commentary as well. Another favorite aspect I've now discovered of Adamson's films is how they re-titled them and re-released them to blatantly capitalize on current fads and trends. For instance, BLAZING STEWARDESSES was a mildly T&A film that had primarily western genre trappings to take advantage of BLAZING SADDLES' popularity. BLAZING STEWARDESSES would later be re-released under three other titles: TEXAS LAYOVER, CATHOUSE COWGIRLS (to capitalize on the popularity of THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS), and THE GREAT TRUCK ROBBERY (with some additional footage of a truck robbery, because CONVOY and other trucker movies were then popular).

There's a section on a UFO documentary that Adamson shot, BEYOND THIS EARTH, and as they discuss this film, there's a strange mood change from Sam Sherman and friend/actress Stevee Ashlock (who played a woman abducted by aliens). There seems to be a sinister secret attached to the making of this film, a sort of conspiracy vibe about UFOs, which is both unexpectedly weird, serious and fascinating since the vibe comes from both Sherman and Ashlock in separate interviews Adamson was devoutly a non-believer of UFOs going into making his film, but this weird meeting Ashlock talks about during filming seemed to change his mind. Really weird.

The stories about his one children's film (!), CARNIVAL MAGIC, are pretty good, too!

The final section on Adamson's murder is also well done and his housekeeper's comments during this section are simple and straight forward but ultimately compelling.

An excellent documentary from director David Gregory and Severin productions. Meanwhile, check out Al Adamson's filmography at your own risk!: PSYCHO A-GO-GO! (later reworked and re-titled as THE FIEND WITH THE ELECTRONIC BRAIN and then majorly overhauled and again re-titled as BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR); BLOOD OF DRACULA'S CASTLE; FIVE BLOODY GRAVES; SATAN'S SADISTS; HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS aka VAMPIRE MEN OF THE LOST PLANET; ANGELS' WILD WOMEN aka SCREAMING ANGELS; DYNAMITE BROTHERS aka STUD BROWN; DEATH DIMENSION aka DEATH DIMENSIONS aka FREEZE BOMB aka ICY DEATH aka THE KILL FACTOR aka BLACK ELMINIATOR; and many more.