Double Feature: New 35mm Print! IT’S A BIKINI WORLD, 1967, MGM Repertory, 86 min. Set the Wayback Machine to 1966, where you actually get to go inside the notorious Haunted House club on Hollywood Boulevard. Originally a Schindler-designed L.A. version of the Broadway theater watering hole Sardi’s (’30s), then the incredible Zardi’s Jassland (’50s), the Haunted House is definitely the star of this movie. The psychotronic monster-au-go-go stage featured shimmy-shake dancers and bloodshot eyeballs that rotated while "smoke" (dry ice) was snorted onto a packed dancefloor (eat your heart out, Led Zep). Not a bad effect when orbing The Animals, who groove to "We’ve Gotta Get Outta This Place," teen garage punk godz The Castaways ("Liar Liar"), R&B girl group The Toys and Chicano rock ’n’ rollers Pat & Lolly Vegas. For good measure, The Gentrys of "Keep on Dancing" fame perform some great mid-‘60s slop at a beach pad with Pop Art on the walls. The Mike Curb soundtrack features an early Moog cut plus a kinetic surf instrumental theme by Bob Summers. Also featuring Sid "Spider Baby" Haig as Daddy (a takeoff on hot rod king Ed Roth), monster-mashin’ Bobby "Boris" Pickett, Disney teen geek Tommy Kirk and beach flick starlet Deborah Walley (as Delilah) in a quasi-feminist plot; she competes with Kirk at the drag strip, in skateboard races and other dares thought up at Wil Wright’s Ice Cream Parlor. Directed by Stephanie Rothman, who later got auteur cred for GROUP MARRIAGE, THE VELVET VAMPIRE and the women’s-prison flick TERMINAL ISLAND. Rothman would say of this film, "I became very depressed after making IT’S A BIKINI WORLD." Perhaps it was the crud culture, or the instinct that the world would never be as cool again. NOT ON DVD New 35mm Print! ANGEL, ANGEL, DOWN WE GO (aka CULT OF THE DAMNED), 1969, MGM Repertory, 103 min. Robert Thom (writer of WILD IN THE STREETS) scripted and directed this jaw-dropping hymn to purple prose and psychedelic nihilism. Washed-up star Astrid (Jennifer Jones), her jaded millionaire spouse (Charles Aidman) and their searching-for-meaning daughter (Holly Near) all have the misfortune to meet Machiavellian pop star Bogart Peter Stuyvesant (Jordan Christopher) who worms his way into the household with his band, The Rabbit Habit (!), in tow. While occasionally belting out catchy songs by Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil (more WILD IN THE STREETS alumni), and with the help of plenty of LSD, he alternately charms and intimidates everyone in this dysfunctional family. Imagine a remake of Pasolini's TEOREMA done in the American International drive-in mindset, and you’ll get some idea of what to expect. An absurdly tasteless vision of the evil flipside of the late ‘60s Hollywood counterculture. Be sure to look for Roddy McDowall and Lou Rawls in Jordan Christopher’s spaced-out entourage! NOT ON DVD Introduction to the screening by Domenic Priore.