Guru, the Mad Monk

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.

Thank God I had the chance to see this thing! Did you understand how I felt watching CARNIVAL OF BLOOD? Well, you ain't seen nothing yet! If you're one of the few lucky ones to read this message, prepare yourself to witness the greatest cinematic catastrophe mankind will ever encounter since Neil Armstrong landed on the moon! Before you start blabbing to your friends and loved ones that PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is the worst movie ever made, tell them GURU THE MAD MONK is the most horrifying movie that ever existed! And I'm not talking about the things that go bump in the night! No, I'm talking about how experienced film producers with a college education would make such a BAD piece of cinematic trash for the whole world to see! At 57 minutes, Andy Milligan and friends created a rush job in getting this movie released to the local drive-ins in hopes of earning quick revenues. A bunch of poorly trained actors and a ludicrously atrocious script explains why. Things don't get any worse in Badmovieland!

Get a barf bag, NOW!!! You'll be glad you did!

Some of the highlights in GURU THE MAD MONK are light years beyond deliriousness. You won't believe the possibilities of the human senses! They include:

***A bishop standing on Guru's cape and ripping it! You can actually hear the sound of it!

***Olga, who stutters in her sentences and can't make up her mind on what to say!

***A villager who gets executed in a small pair of corduroys!

***The opening movie title made up of magnetic toy lettering!

And much, much, MUCH more!

Watch GURU THE MAD MONK all the way through for the first time without stopping and I'll guarantee you've survived a one-way ticket to Drive-In Hell with minor first-degree burns! I strongly recommend this one for viewers with bad taste and who are die-hard collectors of obscure cinema.

Lord have mercy!!!!

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.

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.