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13 Tracks to Frighten Agatha Black, the first feature of Bradley Steele Harding, made for $20,000, is impressive. First, it has an original conceit: The film is narrated in Greek chorus fashion with stories from those old Halloween vinyl records of years gone by. Second, while the budget was tiny, this is not a careless production. Almost every shot is carefully blocked, and there is some imagination in the sound design. Finally, kudos for getting the wonderful Udo KIer as the opening narrator.

Some might consider this like one of those elevated "artsy" horror films from A24 with its slow burn and cryptic structure, which are so much in vogue today. I don't. I think the film is more of a throwback to early1970s Italian giallo/supernatural thrillers like All the Colors of the Dark and The Perfume of the Woman in Black. Indeed, lead Bridie Marie Corbett resembles a low-keyed Edwige Fenech. For a film paying homage to a beloved genre, it does pretty well for itself.

Overall, count me in as a fan of this original work. I want to see what Steele does with a bigger budget. It's sure to be cool.

Captain Isotope & the Enemy of Space is one of the weirdest things that I've seen lately. It's a combination spoof/homage of old 1950s TV shows like Space Cadet, done by a few fanboys in, of all places, Tonawanda, New York, who have more heart than funds. (They claim on this page that the budget is about $100. That seems a little high unless they all super-sized their lunches at Burger King.) But although they try, it doesn't really come off like a cute replication of the original product on 60-year-old kinescope, even though it's in black and white. While it does have some cool retro models, most of it is statically filmed in front of a green screen with master shots of cast members standing around reciting dialogue. Except for lead Erik J. Nielsen, acting is strictly sub-middle-school play. Cheryl Syzmczak, as the female love interest, seems to be not bad, but in one of the episodes I saw, her dialogue was almost inaudible due to terrible sound recording, like everyone was sharing a $10 lavalier microphone.

That said, the writing is quite droll and witty--Nielsen has nice timing and delivery--and I was surprised that I laughed out loud a couple of times. And the rinky-dink title song is a hoot. I'm glad that this show, originally a Buffalo regional curio, has found a home on Retro TV alongside that longrunning Buffalo standard, Off Beat Cinema. Captain Isotope, on the network that runs classic Doctor Who, may find an appreciative cult. And I, for one, hope that these folks get some funding to keep doing what they're doing and get better at it. Their spirit is infectious.

Answer: The Amusement Park, an hour-long film on the terrible way society treats the elder commissioned by the Lutherans and directed by the great George Romero in 1973 but not seen until now. I can only imagine that the investors, upon seeing it, said, "WTF did we pay for???"

While it is what it is--a public service film on ageism--there's no mistaking that Romero directed it. (He even shows up as a nasty patron of the park's bumper cars.) It's extremely avant garde, humorless, and depressing. But it's well done on its nothing budget and still has a lot to say on the subject today. No, it's not so terrible or unfinished that it couldn't have been released back in the day. It's was just too much. (And kudos to George's widow and the George A. Romero Foundation for doing a nice job restoring it from a couple of faded 16mm prints.) It's worth a look as a weird curio and footnote to the career of the greatest horror director who ever lived.