Gary Morris Movies
- 1972
This silly, cardboard production -- the first of many awful horror oddities from director William Girdler -- stars Carla Borelli as an attractive musician who becomes a literal prisoner in the Pleasant Hill Mental Hospital, a chamber of horrors overseen by the evil Dr. Jason Spector (Charles Kissinger). The devil-worshipping doc's rather unorthodox methods include the regular torture and murder of his patients (with the aid of dime-store rubber spiders and snakes), but he intends to save Borelli for last as the centerpiece in one of the hokiest-looking human-sacrifice rituals on record. Even Ol' Scratch himself puts in a cameo appearance -- or maybe that's just an extra in a rubber ape mask with glued-on rubber ram's horns. The filmmakers undoubtedly undertook this project after stumbling across a post-Halloween clearance sale. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
Senator William J. Tadlock (Kirk Douglas) enlists the help of veteran scout Dick Summers (Robert Mitchum) to lead a wagon train of settlers from Missouri to Oregon in this plodding, routine western. A scared settler accidently shoots an Indian boy who is mistaken for a wolf, prompting Summers to order newlywed triggerman Johnny Mack (Michael Witney) to be hanged to avoid an Indian attack. Sally Field appears in her first big-screen role as the slatternly Mercy McBee. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, (more)
