Self-taught filmmaker and cinema enthusiast Andy Milligan knew that working with limitations forced creative innovation. He wore all hats, working as writer, director, editor, actor, set dresser and costume designer, among other roles. Inspired by the Warhol scene sweeping the Lower East Side, Milligan spent his career churning out sexploitation and horror films on a miniscule budget and often using the cheapest equipment available. Guru, the Mad Monk (1970) is perhaps his most refined film. Shot on 35mm and displaying Milligan’s penchant for using limited locations glossed up to transport audiences to another time, Guru is schlocky horror at its best. Donning an all silk, all-red wardrobe, Father Guru (Neil Flanagan) orders his hunch-backed assistant Igor (Jack Spencer) to rob graves. The morally questionable priest’s crimes grow more heinous as his hunger for power becomes unquenchable, but how long will the exploited allow themselves to sit by? Filmed entirely on location in and around a church in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, the film isn’t without its anachronisms, with the metropolis threatening (and sometimes succeeding) to creep into the setting. Milligan keeps the film rooted in a quasi-Medieval world, replete with hay on the floors, torches hanging on the walls and a dusty bell tower – but be sure to look out for the scooter which appears for a few frames mid-movie.
by Thomas Davant
