As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, we’ve got 1987’s The Barbarians!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
The Barbarians is available on Prime and Tubi! See you there!
Garage rock bands sprouted up everywhere during the 60’s. Any teen who could master three chords on guitar or bang on a drum kit wanted to be a rock star, mainly because all the girls were ga-ga for teen idols. Cape Cod, MA was no different, and The Barbarians rose to #55 on the Billboard charts with their long haired anthem, “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?”:
The difference between The Barbarians and all those other would-be Beatles was their drummer, Moulty, who had a hook in place of his left hand. Victor “Moulty” Moulton lost his hand in a homemade pipe bomb explosion at age 14, but that didn’t stop him from joining the rock revolution. He had his hook modified to fit a drum stick, then he and the band grew their hair out longer than the popular Beatle-bowl cut. Their unique looks helped land The Barbarians a gig in THE TAMI…
Five years before Woodstock, there was T.A.M.I. Show.
In 1964, a concert was held over two days at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Free tickets were distributed to local high school students and the best footage from the two shows was edited into one movie. Distributed by American International Pictures, T.A.M.I. Show was one of the first concert films.
T.A.M.I. stood for Teenage Awards Music International but no awards were given out during those two days. Instead, 12 of the most popular music acts of 1964 performed on one stage. The Beatles may not have been there but almost every other hitmaker of the year showed up.
Among the highlights of T.A.M.I. Show was the performance of James Brown and The Famous Flames, which many consider to be one of the best musical performances ever captured on film.
James Brown’s performance was followed by The Rolling Stones. Though Keith Richards once claimed that trying to follow James Brown was the biggest mistake of their careers, T.A.M.I. Show was the first time that many American teenagers actually saw the Stones perform.
Also performing: The Supremes, at the height of their popularity.
The Beach Boys’ performance has become semi-legendary because, as a result of copyright issues, it was edited out of prints of T.A.M.I. Show following the initial theatrical run.
For years, T.A.M.I. Show was unavailable for home viewing but finally, in 2010, Shout Factory released this landmark of movie and music history on DVD and they even included the long censored footage of the Beach Boys. For music lovers, T.A.M.I. Show is a must-see record of the rock scene in between the start of the British invasion and the rise of the counterculture.
On June 20th, it was announced that the body of veteran character actor Richard Lynch had been found at his home. Richard Lynch was never a household name but, if you’re a fan of exploitation and grindhouse cinema, you’ve probably seen him at least a few times. He was the tall, blonde actor with the scarred face who was alway either killing people or having them killed. Richard Lynch was one of those actors who, as soon as he showed up on-screen, you knew he was the bad guy.
As an actor, Lynch always brought something special to even the simplest of his roles. He was always the villain who you knew would probably easily kill the hero if the two of them ever met in the real world. He was so good at being bad that you often couldn’t help but root for him.
I first became aware of Richard Lynch when I bought a movie called Premonition on DVD. This atmospheric 1976 film featured Richard Lynch in the role of a villainous yet oddly sympathetic carnival clown-turned-kidnapper. When Lynch was on-screen, I literally could not look away. Even better, the DVD included an interview with the now white-haired Richard Lynch in which he discussed his career. Imagine my surprise to discover that this rather creepy and scary-looking actor was actually a very articulate and witty man.
A few days after I saw Premonition, I watched another 1976 film on DVD. This one was Larry Cohen’s Gold Told Me To and, to my surprise, it also featured Richard Lynch. This time, he was cast as an alien messiah who inspired all sorts of mayhem in New York City. From that moment on, Richard Lynch was one of my favorite of the old exploitation actors.
After Richard Lynch’s body was found, there were several news stories that mentioned his passing. Almost all of those stories repeated the story that Lynch’s distinctive facial scars were the result of him setting himself on fire as the result of bad LSD trip in 1967. A few mentioned that he was a longtime friend of Al Pacino’s. Most of them took a rather dismissive attitude towards the majority of Lynch’s films.
In fact, it seemed like the only place that Richard Lynch got the proper amount of respect was on twitter. And that’s a shame because an actor like Richard Lynch deserved a lot more.
The sad thing is that actors like Richard Lynch are rarely appreciated because elitist (and wannabe elitist) filmgoers and critics are rarely willing to admit that it does take a certain amount of talent to be an effective and memorable villain. As an actor, Richard Lynch appeared in some good films and he also appeared in a lot of very bad films but he always gave a good performance. Unlike so many other actors, he never used subpar material as an excuse to give a subpar performance. Regardless of the films he found himself in, he always gave it his best and that’s why this super-sized edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers is dedicated to Richard Lynch.
1) God Told Me To (1976)
Arguably, this film from director Larry Cohen was the best movie that Richard Lynch ever appeared in. Though he doesn’t get a lot of screen time in either the film or the trailer, he easily dominates both, if just for the fact that Lynch plays the God of the title.
2) Deathsport (1978)
Richard Lynch vs. David Carradine.
3) The Sword and The Sorcerer (1982)
Though I haven’t seen it, this film is a favorite of many of my fellow contributors here at the Shattered Lens.
4) Cut and Run (1985)
This film was directed by Ruggero Deodato and apparently, it gained a certain amount of fame after it was banned in several countries. I’ve seen it on DVD and all I can say is that this is one of the most misleading trailers ever made. However, this film also features one of Richard Lynch’s most intimidating performances.
5) Savage Dawn (1985)
For some reason, I doubt that the character being played by Richard Lynch is a real priest.
6) Invasion USA (1985)
Judging from the response to Richard Lynch’s death on twitter, this Chuck Norris movie might be the film that he’s best known for.
7) The Barbarians (1987)
This film, which appears to feature Richard Lynch in full villain mode, was also directed by Ruggero Deodato.
8) Bad Dreams (1988)
Richard Lynch is all sorts of creepy in this trailer. Knowing about his own true life story makes this trailer all the more odd to watch.
9) Trancers 2 (1992)
Helen Hunt’s in this?
10) Werewolf (1996)
Thisone looks like fun, to be honest.
11) Wedding Slashers (2006)
“Til death do us part…”
12) Mil Mascaras Vs. The Aztec Mummy (2006)
Finally, let’s finish things up with the trailer for this Mexican film in which Richard Lynch was cast as the President of the United States.
Through the Shattered Lens 