Five Bloody Graves / Nurse Sherri (1970/1978) - By Brian Morton

Film Reviews: Five Bloody Graves / Nurse Sherri (1970/1978) - By Brian Morton
Posted on Friday, June 01, 2007 @ 00:05:00 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

If you know anything about the history of the drive-in movie, then you've probably heard the name Al Adamson. Al is responsible for movies like Blazing Stewardesses, Cinderella 2000 and I Spit On Your Corpse, and he's responsible for the latest Retro-Shock-O-Rama release that features a grindhouse double feature of Five Bloody Graves and Nurse Sherri.

Now, while either of these movies are chock full of enough 70s schlock to warrant a release on it's own, as a double feature, this harkens back to what the drive-in was really like. This two DVD set features drive-in promos for Coke, the concession stand and even coffee, that you would see during the intermission at the drive-in, but the movies are what we went to the drive-in for, and these two movies are drive-in classics! Five Bloody Graves is a B western that follows tough gunfighter Benn Thompson who's on the revenge trail after the Indian chief who killed his wife. The charm of this movie is that Death is the narrator of the film, telling us that Ben is his tool and that while these men bent on revenge are seeking death, they won't have it until their mission for Death itself is fulfilled. It's not a long movie, and the appearance of Adamson stock player, John Caradine, is cool.

The second feature, Nurse Sherri, is also titled, The Possession Of Nurse Sherri. In this tale, the spirit of a satanic priest who has died in the hospital where she worked possesses Nurse Sherri. The spirit that has taken over her body is seeking revenge on all the doctors who didn't manage to save his body, sending Sherri out with everything from a knife to a pitchfork to kill off these unsuspecting medical men. While, this too, is definitely a B movie, it also has a charm all it's own. From the acting to the story itself, Nurse Sherri isn't breaking any new ground, but its low grade enough to be funny at times and interesting at others. The second disc in the package contains the alternate cut of Nurse Sherri, that's different only in the nudity it features, more drive-in intermission commercials and trailers, and an interview with Marilyn Joi, who was an Al Adamson stock player in Nurse Sherri, Mean Mother and other drive-in classics.

With the recent release, and failure of, Grindhouse, the interest in this genre is a bit higher, and this double DVD set, it probably more what you actually saw at the drive-in, rather than what Tarantino and Rodriquez gave us. I highly recommend the Five Bloody Graves/Nurse Sherri 2 DVD collection, if you ever wondered what going to the drive-in was really like, this is much closer than what we got in the theatre recently. I'm giving this DVD set four out of four cigars, because I enjoyed it so much, I'm going to watch it again in my car, so I can get the full experience! You can get one for your own car by going to Shock-O-Rama.com. So, until next time, when they'll try to lure me out of my car with food, remember that the best movies are bad movies.