AnhartLinkin
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Gary
The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
HumanoidOfFlesh
Christopher Brooks gives an energetic performance as the rising magician Alabama who is treated like a celebrity.He learned all his magic tricks from the dead Carter the Great whose ghost still haunts him.A big promoter turns out to be a megalomaniac vampire planning to enslave a viewing audience with zeta rays.There's also a Nazi femme scientist named Dr. Caligula who builds a robot version of Alabama!I'm not sure how to treat this surreal mix of horror,comedy,musical and sci-fi.One thing for sure:there were copious amounts of LSD involved.Director/producer/writer Fredric Hobbs of "Godmonster of Indian Flats" fame has crafted an utterly bizarre,multi-layered film which can only be described as one-of-a-kind.Still the action is dull in spots and the suspense is replaced by weirdness.Fans of surreal cinema should give this film a chance.
EyeAskance
Frederic Hobbs, a famously reclusive film industry dissenter, upreared a brief syllabus of titles during his 70s-era tenure...movies so waywardly absonant and creatively impulsive that only a highly preferential entente is likely to ardently apprize them. Case in point...ALABAMA'S GHOST.The demented story(which is overdeveloped to Rube Golberg proportions) concerns Alabama, a San Francisco jazz club employee, who discovers by mere chance the hidden bounty of a legendary magician. Among the relics is an experimental Nazi drug confection which has been long sought-after by a groovy underbelly society of rock-music industry vampires. These creatures of the night learn of Alabama's discovery, and devise a scheme to make him an unwitting gambit in their sinister world domination plot. As is case with the director's other projects, ALABAMA'S GHOST exhibits surprisingly streamlined professionalism for such barmy, capricious material. The film presents well-defined characters, solid performances, and acceptable effects for the time. To think that genuine erudition and skill were applied to this kaleidoscopic hash-dream is mystifying...but maverick 'metteur en scene' Hobbs did it again with GODMONSTER OF Indian FLATS, an equally nonrepresentational and surprisingly well-crafted celluloid freakshow. A most exotic truffle, though enjoyable to only the most...um...distinguished palates.6/10
eminges
Race car drivers say that 100 mph seems fast till you've driven 150, and 150 mph seems fast till you've driven 250.OK.Andalusian Dog seems breathtakingly bizarre till you've seen Eraserhead, and Eraserhead seems breathtakingly bizarre till you've seen Begotten.And Begotten seems breathtakingly bizarre till you've seen the works of C. Frederic Hobbs. Race fans, there is NOTHING in all the world of film like the works of C. Frederic Hobbs.Alabama's Ghost comes as close as any of his films to having a coherent plot, and it only involves hippies, rock concerts, voodoo, ghosts, vampires, robots, magicians, corrupt multinational corporations, elephants and Mystery Gas. And the Fabulous Woodmobile, cruising the Sunset District in San Francisco, of course.What's really startling is that somebody gave him a LOT of money to make Alabama's Ghost. There's sets, lighting, hundreds of extras, costumes, lots and lots of effects. Somehow that makes Alabama's Ghost SO WRONG. You watch some awful cheeseball like Night of Horror or Plutonium Baby, and at least some part of the weirdness is excusable on the basis that they were obviously making the film off the headroom on their Discover cards. But Alabama's Ghost was made with an actual budget, and that's EVIL. I mean, I've got a script about a tribe of cannibals living in Thunder Bay, Ontario, building a secret temple in the woods out of Twizzlers, and nobody's beating down MY door waving a checkbook - how did this guy get the funds for FOUR of the flakiest movies ever made?
cfc_can
If you like cult movies, you'll love Alabama's Ghost. It's about a black man who discovers a cave full of old magician's equipment and uses it to become a national celebrity. It turns out that his magical equipment is more powerful than he thought. The movie then takes on several bizarre twists involving a cult of vampires and a take-over-the-world plot. There's even an elephant at the end that plays an important role. It's hard to tell what this film was intended to be as it covers so many targets. It may take a couple of viewings to really understand it but it is definitely one of the most unusual films of the early 70s and is far more intelligent than a cheap schlock horror flick.
