From prolific genre documentary maker David Gregory - the man behind the coverage of real (reel?) life madcap genius in 2014's Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr Moreau: a document of one visionary director's descent into insanity amidst the febrile conflagration of actorly egos that really must be seen and is highly recommended to anyone who has yet to see it - comes this intriguing insight into the career and subsequent murder of exploitation movie icon Al Adamson.
About a year or two ago, during one of my many nights of fitful sleep, I came across one of those American 'true crime' TV shows that air on obscure digital channels in the wee hours of the morning to fill airtime and found myself watching it. Entitled A Stranger In My Home: Death's Final Cut, it was in the midst of detailing the lonely and gruesome murder of a man by a business associate on a ranch in the middle of the Californian desert. My attention was gripped however when the name "Al Adamson" was mentioned. The Dracula versus Frankenstein guy?
Featuring interviews with friends and colleagues of Adamson such as his longtime co-conspirator in Independent-International Pictures Sam Sherman, actors Russ Tamblyn, Robert Dix and the elusive Roger Engel (aka Zandor Vorkov himself!), cinematographers Gary Graver and Vilmos Zigismond and directors Worth Keeter, Greydon Clark and Fred Olen Ray the documentary paints a riveting picture of Adamson's life from his youth growing up in the film business as the son of Poverty Row Western actor Victor Adamson (alias Denver Dixon), a real life cowboy from New Zealand who travelled to the US and parlayed his roping and horse riding skills into an acting and directing career, through his early directorial efforts along with producer Sherman (his first effort Echo of Terror slowly transmuting via a long series of re-edits and reshoots through various mutations such as Psycho-a-Go Go, The Fiend with the Electronic Brain and finally Blood of Ghastly Horror as the years passed and a straight psychological thriller became a mad scientist flick starring John Carradine) and the formation of Independent-International.
We are also privy to Adamson's private life, from his obsession with actress Vicki Volante (which led Ms Volante to ask Greydon Clark to accompany her on set and pretend to be her boyfriend) to his deeply loving marriage to his muse Regina Carrol (the Lina Romay to Adamson's Jess Franco), tragically curtailed by her death from cancer in 1992 at the early age of 49 - leading to Adamson's gradual withdrawal to his desert holding where he would in turn be cut down too soon at hands of employee Fred Fulford in the summer of 1995 - though due to Fulford's concealment of the corpse and continued usage of Adamson's credit cards the crime would not be revealed until more than a month later.
A very good and intriguing release from Severin that i'd recommend to any connoisseurs of exploitation and horror films, or those interested in the life and tragic end of a man who lived to make motion pictures (even if the consensus on his output doesn't exactly put him in the same bracket as Werner Herzog).
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