Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson

You get a strong look at a career and bizarre death of someone most people may not know. Sure he made garbage movies, but at least they were fun!

Today, July 25th, we're cracking open a cold one for Al Adamson's birthday-toasting the man and this gonzo doc. I've yelled "Al Adamson!" mid-bite more times than I can count - his films makes it to the list of prandial accompaniment, perfect with takeout and cheap beer. If you've ever mainlined a midnight B-movie, you know his name scrawled in exploitation history's grime. If not, this documentary's a wild ride, whether you're a grindhouse junkie or just some curious normie slumming it for kicks.

We're not just here for the "tits and terror" of Adamson's grindhouse empire, but for the untamed spirit of a man who lived hard, made movies harder, and died harder still. David Gregory, the madman behind this doc, nails it-no sugarcoating, no cheap shots. This is a celebration of a guy who just wanted to make movies, any damn way he could. It's a dive into B-cinema's underbelly, complete with a murder-mystery finale straight out of one of his own scripts.

Picture it: late '60s, early '70s. Al's shooting on the fly, even at Spahn Ranch-Manson vibes lingering-while hustling paper routes to pay his crew. Legendary. He dragged Russ Tamblyn into his orbit (years before Tarantino quoted Satan's Sadists at him) and even strong-armed Colonel Sanders into feeding his sets with free buckets of chicken. That's how you run a schlock factory. Adamson wasn't just a director; he was a cinematic alchemist, Frankensteining foreign flicks with fresh gore and go-go girls, then reselling them as something new. He even had Oscar-winning cinematographers like Vilmos Zsigmond and Orson Welles' later-days shooter, Gary Graver, cutting their teeth on his sets and learning the "fast and loose" way. The doc's grainy interviews show the love his crew still holds for him-from the stockbroker-turned-"worst Dracula ever" to actresses who adored his generosity.

And then things get dark. The '90s roll in, and Adamson spirals into Beyond This Earth, a UFO documentary that apparently spooked his girlfriend, Stevee Ashlock, and longtime partner Sam Sherman into radio silence. They refused to discuss the project's unsettling impact on Adamson. Whispers of aliens, government spooks-it's like one of his plots, but terrifyingly real and Al vanishes.

No monster, no Satanic cult-but his own live-in contractor, a supposed friend, Fred Fulford. Murdered. Buried in concrete under his jacuzzi. A ghastly end for a man who lived for fun. Yet Blood & Flesh never forgets his spirit. It's a tribute to a guy who loved movies, no matter how wild or cheap. Proof that the the most interesting lives are lived on the fringes, and the biggest best dreams are built with duct tape and grit. Cheers to Al Adamson-lived hard, died harder, left us pure B-movie magic.

"Blood and Flesh: The Reel Life and Ghastly Death of Al Adamson" was a 2019 documentary detailing the career of Hollywood hustler and director Al Adamson, whose own bizarre demise is the focus for the last 25 out of a lengthy 100 minutes that pass quickly. The gloomy atmosphere that wraps things up with his killer's conviction almost diminishes everything preceding it, an absolutely delightful look at maverick exploitation filmmaking in the late 60s and early 70s, a time when drive-ins still needed product from Samuel Z. Arkoff at AIP, Roger Corman at New World, or Kane Lynn at Hemisphere, the latter the company that brought together would be producer Samuel M. Sherman and wannabe director Adamson. Tentative beginnings with "Half Way to Hell" and "Echo of Terror" (which evolved into "Blood of Ghastly Horror") soon allowed for more pictures to be filmed, such as "Blood of Dracula's Castle," "Five Bloody Graves," "Horror of the Blood Monsters," and "Hell's Bloody Devils," before "Satan's Sadists" opened the door to form Independent-International Pictures to roll them all out month after month while churning out "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" and "The Female Bunch" in 1969, the last film roles for an ailing Lon Chaney. Virtually all the veteran performers who appeared in one of his 30-plus titles receive a mention (John Carradine, Scott Brady, Kent Taylor, Jim Davis), with on screen reminiscences from Russ Tamblyn, Robert Dix, Kent Osborne, John 'Bud' Cardos, Gary Graver, Gary Kent, and numerous others. The shooting of "The Female Bunch" parallels the real life horrors perpetrated by the Charles Manson family, living out at the Spahn Ranch where Westerns were still being made, Charlie using his girls to entice men out into the desert. Adamson's stated goal was not for profit but to make each film as good as possible on whatever limited budget he had, and while the commentators agreed that he wasn't much good at anything he tried he was always an affable dealmaker who would hire anyone looking to work without pay (some even laughed about being paid and wondering where he got the cash, all collected on a spare time paper route!). Exploitation changed with the times and several movies were retitled again and again with a new ad campaign for another go round to infuriate theater audiences, from the late 60s biker trend to blaxploitation ("Mean Mother"), steamy airline encounters ("The Naughty Stewardesses"), an action vehicle for porn star Georgina Spelvin ("Girls for Rent"), kung fu ("Black Samurai"), James Bond rip offs ("Death Dimension"), an X-rated musical ("Cinderella 2000"), beach party hikinks ("Sunset Cove"), Exorcist possession ("Nurse Sherri"), and one final stab at a mishmash with someone else's footage ("Doctor Dracula"). The fun and games come to an end once the corpse of this unassuming filmmaker is found buried beneath a concrete tomb in the summer of 1995, a real life storyline played out to actual coverage and new interviews with investigators. For all the criticism about how bad his movies were, Al Adamson managed to finish them all for a ticket buying audience, a lesson taught to him by his father Denver Dixon, in order to maintain complete control: "if you don't have a way to distribute your films you're in trouble!"

What do Orson Welles, Academy Award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, Lon Chaney, Jr., Colonel Sanders, The Three Stooges, Charles Manson, an international UFO conspiracy, and a wrecked hot tub deep in the California desert all have in common?

Cinema schlock-meister Al Adamson, that's what. The creative force behind such drive-in classics as "Satan's Sadists", "Blazing Stewardesses" and "Dracula vs. Frankenstein", Adamson's oeuvre rivals Ed Wood in the pantheon of bad films. Like Wood, his life didn't end particularly well. As a matter of fact, it matches the title of one of his films - "Blood of Ghastly Horror".

This doc gives him his due. Unlike Wood, he had no delusions of grandeur. It's a very entertaining look at independent/exploitation filmmaking in the '60's and '70's.

Streaming on Tubi TV.

I knew nothing about Adamson before watching the film, but found this documentary highly entertaining. From Al Adamson's outlandish exploitation films to the mystery surrounding his grizzly end, his unique character is lovingly portrayed in this well constructed documentary.