Roberta Findlay and her husband, Michael Findlay, wrote and directed the bulk of the movie that became Snuff when a simulated snuff killing was tacked onto the end of it to turn the movie into an urban legend. Michael Findlay's best known horror film was the awful Shriek of the Mutilated from 1974. Tragically, he was... well, I'll just post from the short bio on the imdb.
Horror film maker Michael Findlay was killed in a helicopter accident on the roof of the (then) Pan Am Building in New York city. On his way to John F Kennedy airport to connect with a Paris-bound flight, Findlay was planning to demonstrate his new 3-D camera to potential backers in France. Findlay and three other passengers were about to board the helicopter when its landing support collapsed. The helicopter fell onto one side and its spinning rotor blades decapitated Findlay and killed three other passengers. A woman on the street below was also killed when she was hit by a detached rotor blade from the helicopter.
That's a disturbing story and a bit more than I needed to know, but that is the most prominent information about Michael Findlay on the internet! I don't know if the camera, used in his 3-D porno, Funk, is still used today. Imaging getting your hands on one of those! I'm in the market for a camera myself for one of my film classes. Unfortunately we are working with the lowly video medium.
After the death of her husband in 1977, Roberta Findlay continued to direct movies for twelve more years, finishing her career with a handful of horror films in the late eighties. Blood Sisters is one of those last movies. Apparently a couple of these titles are available on DVD with interviews and full commentary from Findlay where she tells crazy stories and rips on the horror genre and her fans in general. I'm not usually one to give a shit about special features, but the reviews I've read of these discs have been very positive and I am intrigued.
I've got Blood Sisters on tape, no extras, no documentaries, just a bad slasher that I did not enjoy watching. Sorority girls spend the night in an abandoned whorehouse where a fat hooker and her client were shot 13 years earlier. Of course there are all sorts of scares. Some are just gags set up by the fraternity boys, others are more serious, there is a killer in the house, and a number of ghosts. The appearances by the ghosts are just about as goofy as the plastic toys and spiders that the frat boys left behind. One by the girls are picked off by a psycho as they wander through this house, never crossing each other's paths, on the endless scavenger hunt. The script is the problem. It's just not very tight, original, or engaging in any way.
generic box, generic titile...
Unrelated links!
Groovy Age of Horror tipped me off to this must see flickr gallery of movie posters.
The strange blog dirtpoet gives a negative review to The Zodiac Killer, directed by Ulli Lommel and featuring an appearance by David Hess.
a new controversial device: The "Rapex" device is inserted into the vagina by a woman who feels she is at risk of rape, and if she is attacked, small burr-like teeth will attach themselves to the tip of the rapist's erect penis, explained inventor Sonette Ehlers.
As he withdraws and becomes flaccid, it is only possible to remove the device by surgery, Ehlers said ahead of a launch and demonstration at Kleinmond near Cape Town. (article 1)
I'm all for it, here is one reason why: It also reduces the chances of a woman falling pregnant or contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases from the attacker by acting in the same way as a female condom. (article 2)
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