FIVE BLOODY GRAVES • NURSE SHERRI

Al Adamson Double Feature

U.S.A. | 1970, 1978
Directed by Al Adamson
Starring
Robert Dix, Scott Brady
John Carradine, Jill Jacobson
Geoffrey Land, Marilyn Joi
FIVE BLOODY GRAVES: 82 Min.
NURSE SHERRI: 85 Min.
Color | R
Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC | 2-disc set)
POP Cinema/Retro Shock-O-Rama

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Uh... Shouldn't there be at least a LITTLE blood?

Disc 2 Main Menu: NURSE SHERRI — the "sexy" version.

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Five Bloody Graves

Nurse Sherri

SNEAK PREVIEW | DVD Release Date: Oct. 30, 2007

'Action-packed' icon is for GRAVES; 'Bare Flesh' for NURSE SHERRI
'Extra Cheese' icon applies to both films

A double dose of cheesy schlock from Al Adamson, the impoverished cut-and-paste 'auteur' responsible for such so-bad-they're-good atrocities as Horror of the Blood Monsters and Dracula vs. Frankenstein.
    Five Bloody Graves (1970): Writer/co-producer Robert Dix (Hell's Bloody Devils) stars as Ben Thompson, a hard-bitten gunman on a mission of vengeance in the post-Civil War West. He's trailing Setago (John "Bud" Cardos), the fierce Apache chieftain responsible for the death of his wife. He wants to kill Setago, of course, but it's everybody else whom Ben comes in contact with that seems to end up dead. You see, Ben doesn't travel alone... An invisible companion is always at his side, manipulating him like the proverbial pawn on a chessboard. That companion is no less than "Death" itself, who narrates the story via voice-over dialog. It's an interesting concept that the movie unfortunately does nothing with. Just as Ben closes in on his nemesis, the responsibility for saving the members of a stranded wagon train is dumped in his lap. Among these are a trio of dancehall girls, a tough-talking gambler (Scott Brady) and a lecherous, pistol-packin' preacher (John Carradine). Ben helps the party fend off attacks by Setago's warriors but the odds aren't looking good. Two shifty saddle tramps (to include Jim Davis of TV's Dallas) join the group, seeking safety in numbers. So does Setago's half-brother, Lightfoot (Cardos again), who has his own score to settle with the renegade Apache...
    As with most of Adamson's films Five Bloody Graves was assembled over a period of years, in fits and starts as money permitted. The idea, I suppose, was to make a 1950s-style Hollywood western but with a nod to the grittier, more violent edge brought to the genre by the likes of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah in the '60s. The animated opening credits sequence — a staple of Independent-International releases at the time — has something of a spaghetti western vibe to it (at least in the visual sense), but the rest of the movie definitely does not. It's aimless, episodic and mostly dull. The production looks slapdash and cheap (because it was), although Adamson wisely lets the natural beauty of the Utah desert, as lensed by future Oscar winner Vilmos Zsigmond, serve as the main backdrop. The familiar B-movie actors duly earn a quick paycheck (Carradine, as usual, is amusing) and Dix actually isn't half-bad as the laconic gunslinger type, yet there's really nothing they can do to rescue this thing. All of the Apaches are white actors slathered with tons of skin bronzer (including the director, who makes an action-packed cameo), looking about as authentic as the Native Americans in Billy the Kid vs. Dracula — which is to say, not very. The ineptitude of the action/death scenes will provide the occasional snicker, but it's the wildly inappropriate music score, assembled entirely from library cues, that gives the film its psychotronic sheen. (Jazz drum solos during the knife fights, etc.) This one's for hardcore Adamson acolytes only.
    Nurse Sherri (the "sexy" version; see below): This 1978 mishmash of the naughty nurses and demonic possession genres was made when both of those drive-in staples were already falling out of vogue. It was eventually released under no less than seven different titles, to include Beyond The Living, Hospital Of Terror, and Black Voodoo. The sex and most of the nudity were excised in favor of additional plot development before it was released to theaters, which in my judgment was a major mistake. Now we can see it as originally shot.
    Insane cult leader Thomas Reanhauer (Bill Roy) has a heart attack while trying to raise one of his flock, deceased and decomposing, from the dead. He's transported to the hospital and — against his wishes — undergoes emergency surgery, dying on the operating table anyway. But Reanhauer's evil spirit lives on. During the night the ectoplasmic entity (a laughable cartoon effect) invades the apartment of Sherri Martin (Jill Jacobson), a nurse present at Reanhauer's physical demise. Susceptible to such things (as we're later told), shapely young Sherri is possessed by the cult leader's spirit; whenever it takes control of her she has no memory of what it makes her do, namely murder the doctors who performed the ill-fated operation. (We're treated to an unintentionally funny slaying by pitchfork.) Sherri's doctor boyfriend (Geoffrey Land) and her two best friends, fellow nurses Tara (Marilyn Joi) and Beth (Mary Kay Pass), try to find out why she's acting so weird, like talking in a dead man's voice. An injured pro football star (Prentiss Moulden), recuperating in the hospital after an accident, provides the answer. Turns out he knows a lot about voodoo. Only by digging up Reanhauer's corpse and burning it will Sherri's soul be free of supernatural domination...
    Cheap, tacky and weird — Adamson hits the trifecta here, which still means you get an abysmal movie but at least one that's amusing. Horror elements can't be taken seriously for a nanosecond; the only truly horrifying thing in this movie is the hideous '70s decor, be it the puke green upholstery or the blindingly striped wallpaper. Pointless sex scenes which have absolutely nothing to do with the story — the very definition of "gratuitous" — are happily sprinkled throughout to add a little R-rated spice and pad the running time. (Post-coitus, Sherri and her beau exchange stories about their strangest sexual encounters, recounted in flashbacks detailing an under-the-podium blowjob and Sherri's only lesbian experience. None of this has anything to do with the rest of the movie.) As expected, the thesping is poor and the dialog atrocious. Thank God, too. The scenario is just too ridiculous to have worked in a film with adequate funding and experienced actors. In his inimitable ham-fisted style (or rather, lack of style), Adamson unintentionally forges a modestly entertaining comedy from a real train wreck of a sex 'n' horror pic.

POP Cinema subsidiary Retro Shock-O-Rama reissues Nurse Sherri with this new DVD set, having previously released it as The Possession Of Nurse Sherri. The set contains two different versions of the movie: the "horror" cut is paired with Five Bloody Graves on Disc 1, while the "sexy" cut is located on the second disc. (Graves was released on DVD by Brentwood in 2002; that edition has been out of print for awhile now.) The above film review is based on the sexy version, which is the preferred path to true trash enjoyment. In the horror version, a mostly tedious subplot involving a member of Reanhauer's cult is substituted for the T&A scenes. Now who the hell wants to see that?
    Neither version of Nurse Sherri looks that hot, as grain and debris abound, but they're passable enough on anything but a ginormous TV. The sexy version has the edge in the nighttime scenes, though, which are significantly clearer. Both are presented fullframe. This doesn't really compromise the visuals to any significant extent, which is certainly not the case with Graves. It, too, is fullframe (likely a TV broadcast copy), destroying the original 2.35:1 cinematography. It's not even pan & scanned, so there are quite a few scenes in which the action at the sides of the shot is completely lost... We hear a horse, know we should be seeing one, but instead we're looking at the boulders and sagebrush dead-center in the middle of the frame. Colors are bright but the print is beat-up looking and fuzzy throughout. As for sound, the Nurse Sherris can claim decent if occasionally muffled audio, acceptable enough for this sort of thing. Graves' track is likewise okay but suddenly takes a nose-dive at the 10:55 mark; after a loud beeping noise aural output drops by half, staying that way for the remainder of the film.
    Happily there are quite a few extras on hand. Foremost among these are two audio commentaries by low budget impresario Sam Sherman, whose company Independent-International distributed the bulk of Adamson's filmography. The tracks are for Graves and the "horror" cut of Sherri on Disc 1, ported over from earlier DVD releases. (Graves' comes from the OOP Brentwood edition.) As usual, Sherman crams in a lot of interesting lore about the indie film biz in the '70s. During the Graves commentary he plays two excerpts from a recording made in 2001 by Robert Dix, who speaks about the film, his career and movie star father, Richard. Disc 1 also contains deleted footage from Graves featuring Dix in a pre-titles sex scene set to acid-rock guitar riffs. A 13-minute interview featurette with Marilyn Joi, fondly recounting her collaborations with Adamson, is located on Disc 2.
    Spread across both discs are a number of Adamson film trailers (for the two features, plus others such as Mean Mother and The Murder Gang) as well as drive-in intermission advertisements. The latter feature the expected assortment of concession stand snack ads, but also one that's something of an historical artifact — a pitch for "Drizzle Guard", a roll-up, snap-on windshield awning that allows one to enjoy the show in the rain without switching on the wiper blades. A booklet of liner notes by Chris Poggiali (interviewing Adamson scholar David Konow) tops off the bonus supplements.
    All told, for the price this is a pretty good package, warts and all... but only if you're a real cheesehead or Adamson fan. (Pretty much the same thing, really.) The extras definitely enhance its value, in compensation for the less than stellar condition of the films. 6/27/07

UPDATE For unknown reasons this title was withdrawn from the market on its original announced street date (July 10, '07). It was finally released three months later.

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