- Born: 1929
- Died: 1995 07
- Occupation: Director
- Active: '60s-'70s
- Major Genres: Action, Horror
- Career Highlights: Hammer, Cry Rape!, Carnival Magic
- First Major Screen Credit: Two Tickets to Terror (1964)
Biography
Director/producer Al Adamson was famous for making low-budget exploitation and horror films during the 1960s and 1970s. The son of longtime director Denver Dixon, Adamson made his directing debut in 1964 with Two Tickets to Terror. Subsequent films usually came with more than one title, including Psycho-a-Go-Go/Blood of Ghastly Horror/The Fiend With the Atomic Brain/The Love Maniac, a horror film described in author Michael Weldon's The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film (1983) as "an amazingly incoherent mess." The incoherence of many of the director's films came from his tendency to add new or old footage to existing films, then change their titles. His Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1970) featured the final performances of internationally famous horror veterans Lon Chaney Jr. and J. Carrol Naish. Adamson's exploitation films include Blazing Stewardesses (1974) and Angel's Wild Women (1972).The circumstances surrounding his death were as lurid as his fllm titles. In 1995, he had been having his Indio, CA, home remodeled by live-in contractor Fred Fulford. According to police estimates, Adamson disappeared sometime in mid-July, that year. The director's mysterious disappearance concerned Adamson's brother and he called the police. The case was solved on August 2, 1995, when investigators discovered Adamson's body in a whirlpool tub beneath a thick layer of tiled-over concrete. An autopsy revealed he had been killed by a blow to the back of the head with a large blunt object. The contractor Fulford was the prime suspect in the case. He was later convicted of murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
