AL ADAMSON

Date of Birth: 1929-07-25
Date of Death: 1995-08-02

Adamson, best known for Dracula Vs. Frankenstein and Satan’s Sadists, directed a bunch of B (as in Bad) movies. Tarred with the same inept “Golden Turkey” brush as Ed Wood, his movies are almost as bad as that comparison might make you think they are. They may be laughable, yes, but they move along and are entertaining. Shot in bits and pieces over time and often patched together with parts from other movies, Adamson is a shining epitome of the theory of the fantastic hack. He occasionally worked with good folk, like cinematographers Vilmos Zsigmund and Laszlo Kovacs, but is more famous for working with actors who were at or beyond their expiration date.
Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (not the Franco film) is a fine example of his work. Cheap and ludicrous, with beloved badguy actor J. Carroll Naish doing his part from a wheelchair. Both he and Lon Chaney, Jr. look ready to die—from embarrassment! Soon afterwards Naish and Chaney really did die- Naish from emphysema and Chaney from liver failure and beri beri!! Hippies, House of Horrors, ghoulish experiments and a cameo from Famous Monsters’ Forry Ackerman. Cheap L.S.D. freak-out scene and dance routine from Adamson’s wife, the bosomly Regina Carrol. And Russ Tamblyn! He sure liked to throw everything into the mix.
Born to a no-budget western director, Denver Dixon (given name: Victor Adamson), son Al Adamson continued the family tradition of making bare-bones movies, starting with 1964’s Two Tickets To Terror. He dabbled in several genres-vampires (Blood of Dracula’s Castle), bikers (Satan’s Sadists), sexploitation (Blazing Stewardesses), martial arts (The Dynamite Brothers), even blaxploitation (Black Samurai and Black Heat), before slowing his prolific output in the 80s. His last film was 1981’s Carnival Magic.
In June 1995, Al Adamson was murdered by his handy man and buried under his own house! After catching his contractor stealing from him, he threatened him with jail if he didn’t repay the money (about $4,000 in unauthorized credit card charges). He told his brother Ken about it, and that was the last anyone saw of him. His contractor, Fred Fulford, who was living in Adamson’s home while he re-modeled it, bashed Adamson’s head in, and threw him in the hole of what once held a Jacuzzi. He filled the pit with 4 tons of cement and covered it with tiles. He proceeded to forge Adamson’s name on checks and other documents, and hightailed it to Florida, where he shipped Adamson’s cars and sold them.
His brother contacted police 5 weeks after his disappearance. Fulford was caught two months after the murder but not brought to trial until 1999 after years of extradition battles, when he was convicted and sentenced to 25 to life.
Adamson’s films were often technically better done (i.e. in focus and audible) than films of other revered trash gods such as H.G. Lewis. Yeah, faint praise, indeed, I know, but if anyone’s movies can be considered “trash films”, Adamson’s output certainly qualifies. He liked to throw a bunch of stuff in a movie –something had to work! All I know is that I was subjected to multiple showings of Blood Island when I was an impressionable youth on Creature Features. I grew to love it after all those viewings, but the movie never got any better, no matter how many times I watched it.
Meanwhile, thanks to the miracle of videotape (and disc) you can watch all of Adamson’s “classics” and not have to brave the drive-in (if you can even find one in your area these days!) His films are habitually known under several different titles-- I know, I’ve been suckered into watching the same movie several times! For more on Adamson, go to this terrific graphics heavy fansite at http://gregkrieger.tripod/com/aladamson/adamson.index.html . Informative and gorgeous, it has audio clips of stilted dialogue and film clips of ghoulish behavior.

-by Hysteric Eric

FILMMOGRAPHY

Beyond This Earth (1995)
Carnival Magic (1981)
Doctor Dracula (1981) aka Svengali
Death Dimension (1978) aka Black Eliminator, aka Icy Death, aka Kill Factor, The
Nurse Sherri (1977) aka Beyond the Living, aka Black Voodoo, aka Hands of Death, aka Hospital of Terror, aka Killer's Curse
Cinderella 2000 (1977)
Black Samurai (1976) aka Black Terminator
Black Heat (1975) aka Girl's Hotel, aka Murder Gang, The
Blazing Stewardesses (1975) aka Cathouse Callgirls, aka Great Truck Robbery, The, aka Texas Layover
Jessi's Girls (1975) aka Wanted Women
Naughty Stewardesses (1975)
I Spit on Your Corpse! (1974) aka Girls for Rent
Dynamite Brothers (1973) aka Dynamite Brown, aka Stud Brown
Angels' Wild Women (1972) aka Rough Riders, aka Screaming Eagles
Blood of Ghastly Horror (1972) aka Echo of Terror, aka Fiend with the Atomic Brain, The, aka Love Maniac, The, aka Man with the Synthetic Brain, The
Brain of Blood (1972) aka Brain Damage, aka Brain, The, aka Creature's Revenge, The, aka Undying Brain, The
Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971) aka Blood Seekers, The, aka Blood of Frankenstein, aka Revenge of Dracula, The, aka Satan's Bloody Freaks, aka Teenage Dracula, aka They're Coming to Get You
Five Bloody Graves (1970) aka Gun Riders, aka Lonely Man, The
Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970) aka Blood Creatures from the Prehistoric Planet, aka Vampire Men of the Lost Planet
Hell's Bloody Devils (1970) aka Operation M., aka Swastika Savages
Female Bunch, The (1969) aka Time to Run, A
Satan's Sadists (1969) aka Nightmare Bloodbath
Blood of Dracula's Castle (1967) aka Castle of Dracula, aka Dracula's Castle
Psycho a Go-Go (1965) aka Echo of Terror
Half Way to Hell (1961)