Guru, the Mad Monk

Guru the Mad Monk (1970)

BOMB (out of 4)

Another film from the infamous Andy Milligan. Guru is the monk at a local prison where prisoners are beaten, executed and so on. Blah, blah, blah. The entire film runs 56-minutes and I was wanting to hit the FF button each and every single minute. The film is horribly made with horrible acting, horrible directing and everything else is equally horrible. Milligan has the reputation of being one of the worst directors ever and I'd certainly have to agree with that. The movies has no pacing and really doesn't have anything going for it.

GURU, THE MAD MONK is a no-budget Z-grade horror flick from schlock maestro Andy Milligan. Everything about this film is awful, particularly the production values: there's never a sense of this being a real movie, just a couple of actors inside an old church playing dress-up.

If Milligan's direction is dull and amateurish, his writing is even worse. The "film" charts the misadventures of the titular monk, played by the extraordinarily wooden Neil Flanagan. Guru's crimes include betraying those he's close to and torturing innocent people in a series of shoddy gore sequences that'll have you laughing instead of wincing thanks to their ineptness.

The acting is terrible across the board, the dialogue is stilted beyond belief, and no effort has been made to bring any part of the screenplay to life. Attempts to depict a medieval tableau are ruined by the all-too-obvious mistakes and screw-ups, like characters using a modern pair of scissors and a heroine wearing fake eyelashes - who knew they were invented hundreds of years back?! In my favourite "bad" scene, two characters converse with a motorbike sitting behind them. How did Milligan not notice? My feelings are that he did, and he just didn't care - a real filmmaker he isn't.

I recently watched Guru, The Mad Monk (1970) on Tubi. The storyline follows a 1400s European priest who runs a church and prison. He has several assistants, including a hunchback, a vampire, and a groundskeeper. When a young woman is tricked into being held in his prison, the odds seem impossible for her to overcome and escape. Is there any hope of her accomplishing her goal of escaping to freedom?

This film is written and directed by Andy Milligan (The Naked Witch) and stars Neil Flanagan (Fleshpot on 42nd Street) Jaqueline Webb, Judith Israel, Jack Spencer (Wildlife Icons) and Paul Lieber (What Just Happened).

This is an extremely low-budget production, with sets, attire, dialogue, and acting that feel more like an amateur theater play than a movie. It features one of the wildest Igors I've ever seen. The acting is overdone and feels inconsistently authentic. The horror elements are just okay, with some fun cult sequences. The storyline has a few twists and turns, and the ending reveal was more fun than good.

In conclusion, Guru, The Mad Monk is a film that can't get past its low-budget feel to make the content worthwhile. I would score this a 3/10 and recommend skipping it.

GURU, THE MAD MONK is another dismally delightful offering from Director Andy Milligan. The basic story is about Father Guru (Neil Flanagan), who needs cadavers for his experiments. Luckily, he knows someone at the local prison, where there are plenty of executions to keep him supplied with subjects.

All of the requisite, Milligan trademarks are here: Non-actors "acting" in a style akin to mannequins on wires; painful, unrehearsed, just-wing-it dialogue; petrified pacing; thrift store costumes; a nonsensical "plot"; and sub-home movie filming techniques. The torture / death scenes are particularly rib-tickling!

Guru himself is a living absurdity, with his garage sale wig and paper pope suit. His conversation with himself in the mirror is a marvel of idiot cinema! Thankfully, this movie isn't quite as brain-smashingly dull as most Milligan output. It profits greatly from its ineptitude, making it a laugh-out-loud classic!

Guru's hunchback sidekick, Igor, is the best imbecile since MANOS' Torgo. The way he bobbles along is almost musical! There's also the cranky old vampire woman, Olga, who runs around in some otherworldly headdress, apparently made from curtains and pot holders!

Nothing can possibly prepare you for the dunderheaded, bellringing finale!

Mr. Milligan, we salute you!...

Neil Flanagan is a good son of the Church on an island where there are a few aristocrats, a prison, him and his church and his hunchback assistant who is, of course, named Igor. To make money to decorate his church an his vestments for the glory of G*d, he does a few favors for the locals, including grave-robbing, draining blood, and other light work.

Were anyone with anything approaching a sense of humor involved in this production, it would have made a heckuva burlesque of the sort of movie that Karloff and Lugosi starred in as the Universal horror franchise wound down into in the late 1930s. It also could have made a savage satire of the politics of the Catholic Church or any organized religion. However, while that thought might have occurred to someone involved in the shoot, there is no sign on the screen that he or she had this impulse. Neither is there any effort to show the disgusting things that this implies.

Not that I'm complaining about that. Just about wasting almost an hour of time.