A while back, we covered Satan's Sadists, the movie that was Al Adamson's initial big hit. Psycho-A-Go-Go is where he got started.

Adamson was the son of silent film stars Denver Dixon and Dolores Booth. After working on some of his father's later films, he started his own production company with Sam Sherman called Independent-International Pictures.

From tinting a Filipino horror movie neon hues and releasing it as a movie shot in Spectrum X - Horror of the Blood Monsters - to filming two movies at Spahn Ranch and making two softcore stewardess movies in one year (1975's The Naughty Stewardesses and Blazing Stewardesses, which actually had parts written by the elderly Three Stooges who were unable to appear),Adamson's movies are all over the map. His films Dracula vs. Frankenstein and Carnival Magic are both shockingly inept and amazingly transcendent, sometimes at the very same time. Yeah, I get the incongruity of this statement.

This movie was to be a straight action picture, back when it had the title Echo of Terror. But soon, it turned into a vehicle for Adamson to promote Tacey Robbins' singing amidst a plot where a murderous jewel thief stalks a woman and her child after jewels are hidden inside the girl's Christie Minstrel doll. Yes, a singing black baby doll that sings old slave songs, 1965 grindhouse fare ain't the place to find woke storylines. I'd imagine that this plot point was cribbed from The Night of the Hunter.

Amazingly, Adamson would resurrect this movie numerous times over the next several years, turning it into a veritable zombie of a film. In 1969, it was completely re-edited, with John Carradine as a mad scientist added after the fact, and re-released as The Fiend with the Electronic Brain.

Two years after that, Adamson added even more footage to the film, including scenes with his wife Regina Carrol, and created an entirely new version called Blood of Ghastly Horror. The fact that three different movies are vying for one coherent narrative probably didn't matter to Adamson. All of this was released one more time as a fourth version of the film, The Man With the Synthetic Brain. I can only imagine the confusion of some viewers who had to be sure they'd seen this movie before, as the main villain's motivations go from being simply villainous to being experimented on by an evil doctor to dying early in the third and fourth versions of the film before his father brings a zombie to gain revenge on the family of the evil doctor. Imagine a movie being a sequel to itself but never telling you! Talk about confusing!

Adamson would end up with a rough end to his life, with his wife dying from cancer and then being murdered by his live-in contractor and buried in the concrete for his new pool.

Al Adamson has to be one of the worst directors in film history. However, like Hershell Gordon Lewis (another dreadful director and the man who made the cult classic TWO THOUSAND MANIACS),it just proves that even an incompetent boob at the helm can still get lucky once in a while. I've seen many Adamson films and was absolutely shocked that PSYCHO A GO-GO (probably one of the poorest named films of all time) was a pretty decent film--especially since it had a budget of only about $89. This is nothing like his long string of ultra-shlocky horror films he made later in the 60s and into the 70s--these films, believe it or not, are probably WORSE than the Ed Wood films (I kid you not--this is possible). If you don't believe me, try watching his HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS or Dracula VS. FRANKENSTEIN. To quote Colonel Kurtz, "...the horror".

I think that despite having an abysmally low overall rating just over 2.0, the other reviewers did a good job on this film. None of them disliked the film or gave it a bad review--understanding that for the money, it was an awfully watchable film. In particular, I ask you to read the review by 'sol', as it explains the plot very well--so well that my going over it in any detail is irrelevant. Instead, I'll just give a very quick synopsis.

A gang of crooks make a daring jewel robbery but the operation goes haywire when one of the victims triggers an alarm. In their haste to escape, one of the gang throws the bag with the loot into a nearby pickup truck. However, when the innocent driver of the truck soon leaves the vicinity, the gang track him down and brutalize him and his family. Of all the crooks, the most evil and menacing is Joe, who takes great delight in murdering innocent people. Will Joe kill the nice wife or the slightly annoying young daughter? Tune in yourself to see.

First, there is a lot to like. Joe was a great character and Roy Morton seemed competent playing this role (a rarity in an Adamson film--to have anyone who can act is usually a mistake) and was easy to hate. The music was also excellent, though at times repetitive. It was certainly unusual to hear such a lovely voice (Tacey Robbins) in a low-budget film as well. As for the script, it also wasn't bad and plays a lot like a Film Noir film of the 60s with a little gore and violence added into the mix. In addition, the location filming (especially at the end) was surprisingly and improved the film.

As to what was bad, the worst problem was probably the direction, as some of the shots were poorly framed or should have been redone--but Adamson, having the talent of a lemur, just wasn't up to the rigors of directing or spending more than $100 making any film! Smaller problems were acting as well as the presence of the minstrel doll (something that would no doubt offend many today) and the plot holes involving the escape of the mother and daughter. The child, though semi-competent, comes off as a bit whiny--worrying about this stupid doll as a psycho is chasing them! However, this is a minor concern. But a bigger concern is the writing after the two escape. Several times the mother COULD have ended it all (such as just picking up the gun when Joe was fighting with the boxer, running over Joe when he was standing in the road, etc.). Again, however, due to the budget, you can't nitpick too much. Overall, a decent very low budget film and one that has an unfairly low score.

A way under-rated movie, if ever there was one. I found it so exciting and terrifyingly suspenseful, that I watched it twice! The demented killer would have to be one of the ugliest and most terrifying ever! And the rest of the players - even the little girl - give outstandingly realistic performances.

I even liked the musical numbers as they were not only very 1960s in style and presentation, as well as nice and jumpy and pleasing in themselves, but this nightclub scene allowed us to settle in with the very realistic characters (notice how well dressed the singers and the band and the background dancers were - not sloppy like today's so- called entertainers) and absorb their backgrounds, their hopes, their dreams. All the villains - not only the psycho - were both terrifying and realistic. And the climax in the snow is a real tour-de-force, if ever there was one! It had me sitting on the edge of my seat!