Guru, the Mad Monk

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.

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.

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!!!!

I know this movie is bad. I know I shouldn't like it. But there's something about it that holds my attention when it plays. Something in its crude simplicity compels me forward to the end. It happens every time I watch it. I don't know what it is.

Guru (odd name for an orthodox priest) is a bit hammy but not overly so. Carl delivers his lines in one of the oddest intonations I've heard. He later appeared as Detective Eric Dorsey, a minor character on the Barney Miller show. Olga, who apparently is a vampire (?), can't seem to speak her lines fast enough. Pay attention or you'll miss 'em! Igor is fun to watch, as is the cute girl (Nadja) in the attic who befriends him.

Watch for the modern claw hammer, the modern scissors, the steel bars on the windows, and the prisoner wearing corduroy pants!

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!...