By Year
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The (1920)- I'm not a big silent movie buff. I like to catch the ones I read are the most influential and of those, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" seems to be the most influential. And this is a great looking film. The painted sets, the jagged malformed doors, windows, and buildings, the whole expressionist experience comes to a head in this film. It was made as an art film but with an attempt to keep the story 'mainstream' so art film buffs and the general film going public could both enjoy it. It must have worked because after almost 90 years this film's influence is still being felt. From 1932's "The Black Cat" to about anything by Tim Burton today, this movie wields its awesome influence. Though not the first expressionist film, it seems to be the best (from what I've read) and most accessible. The plot? A doctor is experimenting with mind control on a somnambulist (sleep walker). The experiment includes seeing if the somnambulist will do things while asleep he wouldn't do while awake. Like murder. The whole story was supposed to reflect the dangers of blindly following leaders, which Germans were reeling from after WWI when this movie was made. However a twist ending was added which in effect reversed the original meaning of the story to say that calm, benevolent leaders are in fact necessary to a society gone mad. So at the end of the day did I like this one or not? Well, I liked "Nosferatu" quite a bit more. This movie felt longer than its 70+ minutes. Yes it is a beautifully filmed movie and deserves the accolades it gets. It is also an interesting story, which is sadly still relevant. I give it an A+ although I found it hard to stay interested in it at times.
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)- John Barrymore plays the title role with some silent movie over acting. Still, keeping in mind the age and style of the times, the transformation and look of Hyde or pretty effective. Over all the plot is standard: Jeckyll is a near perfect doctor, helping the poor, being nice all the time, but what of man's darker side? Everyone has a darker side, even the seemingly perfect Jeckyll. What if he could separate the two sides and eliminate the bad one. Of course he tries but then realizes the dark side knows how to have fun! But that fun leads to trouble, especially when it can no longer be controlled. This is an old one and looks and feels that way. It gets a little tedious (I'm not a big silent film fan anyway) but, all things considered it is still pretty good as far as plot and look goes. B.
Haxan (1922)- Haxan is a brilliant silent docu-drama about Witchcraft. It is a German film from director Benjamin Christenson (who also plays The Devil in the film) that starts as a documentary on practices and superstitions about witchcraft and includes great shots of old wood cuttings of devils, witches, and Hell; That great scary art from BACK in the day. The movie then moves into an example of how witches were accused, tortured, then they accused others and the sickness spread from village to village under the Inquisitors. Of course it is an old silent film but the images are stark and the tinting used very well. The Criterion print is pretty amazing and contains the 1968 re-release narrated by William Burroughs. (That version is slightly shorter and not tinted.) If you're into the history of horror film, witchcraft, or silent movies then this is a must see. If you're not into 1 or more of those then maybe you'll want to pass this up. A+.
Nosferatu (1922)- A lot of times these old movies just get a pass simply because they're old. I tend to do that myself, just give them a higher grade because they are old than I would if they were newer movies. So much was new then and experimental. There was no blue print to go by so I give them the benefit of the doubt. 'Nosferatu' is one movie that, in my opinion, has not suffered from this. It deserves the accolades it gets. A masterpiece in horror, light, shadow, and mood this movie set a high bar very early on. It follows the Dracula story very closely, so closely that the estate of Bram Stoker sued and won. The English courts demanded all copies and negatives burned but luckily the Germans didn't care and kept their copies around. This truly is a masterpiece in cinematography and a milestone horror movie. Yes it's very old, yes it's silent but it's one of those movies that really started it all. A+.
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1923)- This was one of the first ‘big budget’ flicks and you can tell, for its time, it was quite an extravaganza, with impressive sets and costumes. You know the story, hunchback lives in the church as a servant, is held in contempt by the town’s folk, is used for nefarious deeds by the brother of the deacon of the church, is punished, and treated nicely by Esmeralda, then comes to Esmeralda’s rescue when she is framed as all Hell brakes loose. I see why people rate this one really high but I have to admit I had problems getting into it. It was a little too long and tedious at times, although Chaney was brilliant as the hunchback. For completists only. B-
The Unholy Three (1925)- This is often listed as a horror movie, and I guess by 1920s standards it may have been, by today's standards it would be regarded as silly. Anyway, a great ventriloquist played by Lon Chaney, hatches a plot with some sideshow freaks, the strong man and the midget, along with a pickpocket who works the circus crowds, to case rich folks homes. How? Well, they'll open a parrot shop and Chaney will dress up as an old lady and use his ventriloquist skills to make people think the birds talk. They buy them and get them home and they don't talk, they call Lon (Grandma O'Grady) up and he (she) comes over with her great grandson (the midget) and makes the birds talk (while casing the grounds). Shew, it would be easier to just get a damned job and make money legit, but that wouldn't make for a good movie. Anyway, one night Chaney can't go on a run and the strong man winds up killing someone so the hunt is on. Problem is the pickpocket gal has fallen for the guy the Unholy Three (Four?) framed. Despite the insane plot this is actually a pretty good flick. It's too long and dwells too much when it should be moving but other than that it was decent enough. C+
Phantom of the Opera (1925)- You know the story. Man is horribly scared, falls for beautiful woman, must have beautiful woman. A silent classic, maybe more thriller then horror but it proved such movies could be successful on a large scale. Lon Cheney plays the part with old school gusto and his makeup during the Masque Ball and at the unmasking are maybe second only to the original Frankenstein makeup. The tinting during different scenes and the color during the ball are also great so if you can, try and catch the original tinted version. A+
London After Midnight (1927)- OK, I didn't really see "London After Midnight". The last known copy of the film was destroyed in a fire in the 1960s so, unless another turns up, it will never be seen again. What I did see was a Turner Classic Movie restoration project that used stills taken during the filming and inserted dialogue cards and music attempting to give the 'feel' you were watching the movie. This was a pretty influential murder mystery that just might involve vampires. Tod Browning wrote and directed and Lon Cheney starred and again, Cheney created his own makeup and again, it works really well, the guy was a genius. It was one of 10 films the director and actor made together and it was their highest grossing. It is the reason Universal chose Browning to direct "Dracula" and Browning chose Lon Cheney to play the part. Bela Lugosi's fate, and the vampire image was set, when Lon Cheney died before filming began. (Imagine how different our image of Dracula would be now had Lon Cheney lived long enough to play the part. Everything from the movements to the accent is set in stone and is a credit to the indelible image Lugosi left us, but what would Cheney have done?) The TCM treatment was nice but for completists only. A.
Unknown, The (1927)- A Chaney and Browning revenge flick set in a circus. Tod Browning liked this material and seemed to be able to pull them off convincingly. This is no exception and also stars a young Joan Crawford as the love interest. Chaney plays an armless wonder, a man with no arms who throws knives with his feet as his act. What no one but Chaney’s assistant knows is that he does in fact have arms and uses them to rob people in the towns the circus visits. He is madly in love with the circus owner’s daughter and in a fit of rage kills the circus owner. Now he will need to go to great lengths to get the love of his life. A great looking film with a great twist ending (if you like these simple, short, and sweet silent films). I liked "West of Zanzibar" a little better but this one works too. B+.
Metropolis (1927)- Fritz Lang was one of the first directors to realize film was an entirely new medium, not just something to be used to film stage plays. Metropolis is set in the future, a future not unlike that of Orwell’s "1984" or Huxley’s "Brave New World", except Metropolis predated both of those novels. Workers live under the city, manning their machines and living a meager existence, while the powerful live in penthouses built on the backs’ of the workers. When an inventor shows the leader he has made a robot that could replace all the workers, schemes follow and revolution may be at hand. This movie was so far ahead of its time that it is hard to imagine it was made in 1927 (except for the fact the film looks that old and it is silent). It is a masterpiece in every sense of the word and has been copied, imitated, and ripped off for 80 years. It is long for a silent movie and if you don’t dig them you may not dig this one, otherwise I highly recommend it. A+.
West of Zanzibar (1928)- Chaney plays a great magician who finds out his wife is leaving him for an ivory trader and moving to Africa. In an fight the ivory trader pushes Chaney from a balcony and paralyzes him. Sometime later Chaney finds his wife dead with a baby. He sends the baby off to live in a brothel in Zanzibar and moves there himself, using his magic tricks to trick the cannibal natives into thinking he communicates with the spirits. He then sets about stealing the ivory trader's ivory and sets him up for the ultimate in revenge plots, which takes a total of about 19 years to actually pull off, and, after all that planning and patience, everything goes terribly awry. This is actually a really good and underrated silent flick. Chaney is great with his shaven head and evil glances. While not horror by today's standards it still holds up as a good flick if you like silent movies, which I generally don't. B+.
Un Chien Andalou (1929)- This is really ‘horror’ only in the sense that sometimes surrealism is full of nightmare images, which this often is. It is basically a silent movie of thrown together imagery including someone getting their eye slit with a straight razor, someone crashing their bike, someone getting hit by a car, a severed hand sitting in the street, ants crawling out of a hole in someone’s hand, people buried up to their wastes in sand on the beach, molestation, a rape attempt, etc. And really, that pretty much sums up the movie, weirdness connected to the above scenes. Maybe it is all supposed to mean something, maybe the point is it means nothing at all, I have no idea and since it is only 15 minutes long if you’re interested in such things then what the Hell. I really didn’t dig it as much as I thought I would though. C-.
Dracula (1931)- Back in the day I really hated this flick. Old school acting style, very staged feeling. After another recent viewing I have to say maybe I was too quick to judge. Yeah it does suffer from some lack of creativity as far as direction goes and was based too much on the stage play which bogs it down in the middle some, but over-all it is an effective horror movie and telling of the story (Dracula wants to move to England, buys some property from Renfeld, Renfeld sees too much, Dracula moves to England, falls for Lucy, Dr. Van Helsing pursues). The opening sequences are superbly done and it's not until we're in England at Lucy's house do things start slowing down. It's a shame that the creative directing style of the intro for some reason didn't carry over to the body of the movie and we end up with just a filmed stage play. Lugosi is great at the part. People rip on him for being too hammy and staged but when you think of Dracula who comes to mind? That's right, Christopher Lee who copied Lugosi. And Dwight Frye, the ultimate horror sidekick, perfects Renfeld also. B+.
Dracula (Spanish Version) (1931)- I’d heard a lot of things about how much better the Spanish production of "Dracula" was supposed to be. It was filmed at the same time, on the same sets and same schedule (but at night) as the English version, using different actors and a different director. Much of the atmosphere remains in the first act, as does the ‘staginess’ of the second act. Johnathon, Mina, and Lucy’s parts are actually a little better, but I was disappointed in both Van Helsing, and Dracula, which are, needless to say, some important parts! Dracula, played by , was probably more campy and ‘staged’ than Lugosi, which is the main complaint against his performance. And Van Helsing’s cool demeanor and Dutch accent (which goes without saying) are not present in this one. I liked the English version a little better, but this is a good interpretation and actually tells the story a little more coherently. B-.
Frankenstein (1931)- This movie has the expected flaws for one so old. The bad old school acting, the silly 'chase scene' near the end. The story sort of follows Shelley's book, but leaves massive gaps. For instance, it seems the monster 'just happens' to find Dr. Frankenstein's fiancé's room, but we know from the book the monster was smart and planned it all along. But despite its flaws I feel it is the strongest of the original Universal monster movies. The sets are great, especially the lab scenes, which are second to none, and the makeup job on Boris Karloff is probably the best of all time. Plus, despite all the makeup, you realize what a tragedy this is for the Monster. The scenes with Fritz teasing him with the torch and the scene near the lake with the little girl were way ahead of their time, and still very effective. Dr. Frankenstein calling out "Now I know what it feels like to be God" was ahead of its time too. Though it all seems very tame now, this was a controversial flick back in the day. A.
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)- That's Jeekal to you. Old school interpretation of the classic Stevenson story. Maybe a little over acted but it's still very effective. Jeckyll is played with gusto and Ivy is definitely a little slut. The obvious sexual frustration issues are dealt with right up front in this pre-code movie. Jeckyll wants to separate man's good and evil sides and then eliminate the evil side. His experiment works, sort of. There's no question of the evil almost ape-like Mr. Hyde and his masochistic desires. This is still the definitive version of the telling despite a pretty rotten make-up job. A.
M (1931)- Fritz Lang classic with a young Peter Lorre as a serial killer who preys on children. Lang sets a tone that would be mirrored to this day in serial killer movies like "Se7en". The press is having a field day and the police are at a loss. Eight children have disappeared and the killer is teasing everyone with letters to the police and the press. Finally the police crack down on everyone, which begins to cut in on the profits of organized crime. The criminals decide to do something about it so they pool their resources and start tracking the killer on their own. Lang's attention to detail is amazing and his ability to invoke an emotional response with his use of camera and sound is second to none. He lets us know the horror of the crimes by showing a balloon float away and an empty spot at the dinner table. Lang was light years ahead of his contemporaries and understood that film was in fact a new media, not just a way to film a stage play. A+.
The Mummy (1932)- Karloff again becomes a monster, but this time a much less sympathetic, yet more human looking monster. Ironic. Great makeup and sets and a very well acted and directed movie. Influenced by German Expressionism the look is great and Karloff plays his character with great evil restraint. The story is basically the same one used later by Hammer and still again later by Universal in their big budget remake. An ancient Egyptian priest is busted trying to resurrect his princess lover from the dead and is cursed to spend eternity guarding her tomb. Jump ahead to the 20th Century and Egyptian exploration and oops, the Mummy is back. As luck would have it, his lover from way back in the day has been reincarnated again and he must again have her, this time for eternity. Yeah, it's basically Dracula from Egypt rather than Transylvania, but it still works really well. A+.
Number 17 (1932)- Early Hitch about a group of folks meeting up at an address, some by accident and some by design, after a jewel heist. A train that rides a ferry to mainland Europe runs under the house and the crooks want to be on that train. So who are the crooks and who are the cops? To tell you the truth I’m still not sure! This is old and the sound and lighting prove that and it is a very hard to follow confusing plot, made worse by the old look. There are some set pieces and some use of models (train sequence) that shows Hitch was ahead of his time even this early, but I can only recommend this for folks really interested in all things Hitch. C-.
Old Dark House, The (1932)- James Whale's character study about different people all trapped in an 'old dark house' while a storm rages outside. This movie has a lot of talk and little action, which is OK sometimes and works here sometimes, but not all the time. There was some cutting edge frank (for the times) sex talk and talk of atheism and then a lot of mumbo jumbo and by the time we rolled around to the climax I didn't care much anymore. Not a bad flick and pretty far ahead of it's time in the way it is done but not much in the 'horror' department. C+.
Dr. X (1932)- Warner Brothers was behind the curve on the Horror Explosion of the early 30s. Universal had had great success with Dracula and Frankenstein and MGM had made Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Warner wanted something different. They wanted a tale set in modern times. Not a period piece, and they wanted it in color. Those sound like great ideas, until you remember it was 1932. So what do we get? We get terrible dated camp humor, wise cracking reporters, mad scientists, and crappy "two strip" color that looks like one of those shitty colorizing jobs they did on black and white movies in the 80s. The murder mystery angle works as "Moon Killer" is offing people whenever there's a full moon. The gumshoes know it must be a doctor from the local research facility because of the tools used and the accuracy of the cuts (it looks like the victims are being cannibalized). All of the research scientists are involved in the study of something that could be related to the kills (moon light, cannibalism, etc). So who could it be? We are subjected, along with the cast, to a series of scientific tests to determine who the killer is. Everything would work in this movie if it didn't come across as so painfully dated. What is it with damned wise cracking reporters in these old movies anyway? (Before we watched this Jenny asked why there hadn't been a million remakes of this as there had been the other early horror successes. Her question was answered while viewing.) C-.
White Zombie (1932)- Old school zombie flicks and love triangles. A man is marrying a woman who is loved by another man who knows a guy that makes zombies. So of course, turn her into a zombie and keep her as your slave. Lugosi is good as the zombie master filling his factory with free labor. The movie was ahead of its time in use of sound effects and also had some really great sets (especially the graveyard set). Yeah it's dated but I think this is a forgotten classic and deserves more respect. B+
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)- I've read some good things about this movie and some bad things about it so I was stoked to finally see it to decide for myself. What did I decide? First the good: There were some nice use of camera angles and 'points of view'. That always interests me, especially in these old movies when the approach was often just filming a play because the cameras were about the size of a small car so it was hard to do much with them. The lab experiment scene was good and obviously pre-code. The use of light and shadow was also pretty effective as were the outdoor backdrop sets that were obviously influenced by German Expressionism of the silent era. Welp, that about does it for the good. The bad, Bela's character is over the top in a bad way with the crazy uni-brow and big hat. The plot? Bela is a (mad) scientist out to prove Evolution (Darwin is never mentioned but I guess the film was supposed to be taking place around the time Darwin made his discoveries or just before). How will he prove it? By mixing the blood of beautiful young women with that of his trained ape. Uh, yeah, that should do it. Too bad the women usually have impure blood and die from the experiments. Don't ask me. The acting and directing (other than the above mentioned positives) also bit. D-.
Freaks (1932)- I can describe this movie in three words: "Strange but classic". It is the story of circus 'freaks' that seek revenge when someone tries to take advantage of one of their own. There are the 'regular folk' who laugh at the freaks and there are the 'regular folk' who are friends with the freaks, and then there are the two circus performers, the trapeze artist and the strong man, who try and take advantage of a dwarf 'freak' who actually happens to be loaded. This leads to the classic revenge scene at the end. Tod Browning directed and like his direction in "Dracula" he wavers between static staginess and cutting edge technique, the revenge ending being pretty cutting edge for 1932 with the camera stationed under wagons, and in the mud as the 'freaks' crawl through the rain and muck to exact their revenge. Yeah, it's dated and even the best prints are at times hard to hear but this is a must see for anyone interested in the history of horror and censorship. A+
Monster Walks, The (1932)- Here we have yet another take on "The Cat and the Canary". An old rich guy dies; his daughter and her fiancé come back for the reading of the will. The oddball uncle who is an invalid is there as is the housekeeper and her son. Toss in the lawyer and the daughter’s shiftless chauffer (whose ‘real’ name in the opening credits is "Sleep’n’Eat" in a hilarious racist jab at those lazy darkies... seriously man the racism in this one is inexcusable, maybe Hollywood is so full of bleeding heart lefties now because back then it was so full of racist assholes they are trying to make up for it). Anyway, fear ensues as someone is trying to kill of the daughter and red herrings flop around. This is terrible stuff but a must see for the lovers of terrible stuff because the acting and editing and directing are just so bad. This movie is only 60 minutes long but could easily be trimmed down to 30 without cutting anything out at all except people walking around. Toss in the painfully dated racism and you got total crap. An A on the craptacular scale.
Vampyre (1932)- I wasn't sure at first if this was a silent movie or not. Turns out it's not but it's not in English and no one says much so it didn't matter anyway. I'd heard a lot of good things about this movie. The director, Carl Dreyer wanted to create a surrealistic dreamscape of a film where reality and fantasy were indistinguishable. He achieved that goal I think. I knew going in that this movie would have little or no cohesive plotline so I was expecting lots of great artsy black and white shots and symbolic scenes. That's mostly what I got but over all I was a little disappointed. Not sure exactly why, I guess there just weren't enough of those great shots. Although some, like Allan Grey riding in his coffin, were effective, I just wanted more to make up for the lack of plot development. I recommend this for hardcore 'complete-ists' only. C+.
Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)- Lionel Atwell is an artist who creates wax figures for his wax museum. He refuses to sell out and put up displays of murderers etc. in his wax museum and he's losing money. His business partner decides to burn the museum and collect the insurance money. Atwell is left to die in the flames. Several years later he turns up in New York preparing to open his new House of Wax. He was badly injured in the fire and can no longer make the figures but his students do a fine job, maybe too fine. Maybe Atwell lost his mind after the fire. Pretty good acting and great sets, this is more mystery than horror, although there really is no mystery as to what is going on. Plenty of 30s stereotypes, smart-assed female reporter, mad artist, tough editor, smart detectives. Still this is pretty good material. B-.
Testament des Dr. Mabuse, Das (1933)- A classic Fritz Lang movie about a crime boss who controls his syndicate from and insane asylum, dies, but keeps calling the shots even after death. This is an incredibly well filmed movie with that great black and white, blurry on the sides crystal clear in the center cinematography. A dark industrial mood is set at the beginning and holds throughout, the movie includes great special effects for the time too. This movie was banned in Germany for many years because of its hints at leadership perpetrating senseless violence against citizens, perpetrated by "The man behind the curtain." My only complaints are it is too long and is at times a little hard to follow. A.
Vampire Bat, The (1933)- Typical old school murder mystery about a village where folks are being found dead with holes in their necks and drained of their blood. It must be a vampire bat, or a person who likes killing folks like a vampire bat. The locals are all going ape-shit about it but the town’s only detective doesn’t buy any of it, he knows something is up. Red herrings flop around but it’s not too hard to realize who the culprit is. For being predictable ancient stuff this really isn’t a bad film, the actors take it seriously enough and the bad old school camp is kept to a minimum so if you like ‘em old you’ll like this one. I’ll give it a B, all things considered.
The Invisible Man (1933)- Claude Rains rants and raves about taking over the world and such because the serum he invented that made him invisible also drives men mad. James Whale directed this old school Universal Monster movie too. The FX are impressive for the times and the direction is more fluid and less 'staged' than many of the Universal Monster movies. Never the less much of the acting is really bad and the plot mirrors Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde very closely. The characters are flat and you never find yourself sympathizing with anyone in the movie. This may have been the first movie where the makers just assumed the FX would carry the show, they were as wrong then as they are now. C-.
King Kong (1933)- This was one of the first "Big Monster" Monster Movies. Man against nature, beauty and the beast, don't tamper with things, etc. All those themes run deep here and the 50s radiation beasts and sci-fi movies (including the Japanese monsters in the Godzilla films) would take note. You probably know the story; filmmaker goes to uncharted island to film beauty and the beast themed film. Finds more than he bargained for then decides to do more than make a movie when he takes said find to New York City. Chaos ensues. This movie has been re-filmed, rewritten, and reworked many times and in many ways (King Kong sequels, Godzilla movies, Jurassic Park, especially the sequel which basically was King Kong with a T Rex, and on and on). All things considered it is really a variation on the Frankenstein story too. This original holds up pretty well. Yeah the acting is dated as are the effects, but for 1933 this was ahead of its time. I'll give it an A-.
Ghoul, The (1933)- I give these old school flicks the benefit of the doubt, and I’ve read a lot of good stuff about this one, still, I hated it. It is basically a mix up of "The Cat and the Canary", "The Old Dark House", and "The Mummy" but isn’t as good as any of those. An old Egyptologist dies, but believes he will return from the dead as he has been studying and practicing the ancient Egyptian religion and has the secret to immortal life. He warns that if his Egyptian artifacts are tampered with he will return for revenge. The artifacts are tampered with and then we run the gamut about heirs, scary old houses, mystery about the missing artifact and who did it and who’s trying to throw who off the trial, etc. It is well filmed and Karloff does a good job (he was so obviously far ahead of everyone else with regards to acting as he is playing his part while everyone else is just reading their lines like they were practicing for a stage play). I just lost interest in the whole mystery angle and the print I watched was dark so much of the time I couldn’t tell who was doing what. I’ll give this a D as Karloff was good.
Maniac (1934)- Apparently the director of this movie was a real estate agent in Hollywood. He came upon this house that was full of movie making gear so naturally he made some movies. I don't remember his name but you'll find it in the annuls of film history along side other great directors like oh I don't know, Ed Wood. The movie is called "Maniac" but it should be called "Maniacs" because everyone in this show is insane. The mad scientist finds a way to reanimate corpses so he naturally wants to kill his assistant and then revive him. His assistant isn't too much into the idea so he kills the scientist instead and bricks him up in the wall like E Poe's "The Black Cat". Then he dresses up like him and shoots a crazy guy up with drugs that make him crazier and he goes out on a rampage (complete with a pre-code brief nude scene). Somewhere in here the neighbor explains why he breeds so many cats. It has something to do with cat fur and rats. Anyway the cops are looking for the scientist's assistant but don't realize that he is just dressed up as the scientist. They run a scheme to make him think he's inherited some money and then his wife shows up. Somewhere in there one of the neighbor's cats is killed and its eyeball popped out and eaten. Yup, it's a pre-code horror flick. If you're looking for old school insanity you're not going to get any better than this. If you're not then stay away. B+.
Ghost Walks, The (1934)- Think of every cliché you can cram into one old school 'horror' movie from 1934 and then run that list through an amplifier and what you'll get back out is "The Ghost Walks". Wow, this is one dated sumbitch. I mean movies this old have to be forgiven as so much was still new but this is ridiculous. This is like someone doing a movie now and trying to make it LOOK like it was from 1934. From the stage acting and gesturing to the terrible camp comedy relief to horrible sound and hilarious skips in the film this baby is DATED! A playwright sets up a theater producer to come by and see his play and unknowingly be a part of the action. The play is about a killer at a dinner party. When it appears someone actually dies the actors stop the play but the producer never believes them, thinking the play is still continuing. It's an OK plot and it is done professionally, at least in a low budget crappy 1934 way. An odd thing about these old movies is they are really short but seem incredibly long, like a torture session. Not F material but pretty close. D-.
Man Who Knew Too Much, The (1934)- These early Hitch flicks are harder than hell to follow! This is basically the same plot as his later remake; a vacationing couple witnesses an assassination, receive some information about a possible future assassination, and have their child kidnapped because of this information. Things seem to get quickly out of hand and the main character just isn’t believable as the frightened father willing to do almost anything to save his child. There are flashes of directorial brilliance to be sure, especially as the climax builds, but unless you’re a hardcore Hitch fan, stick with the remake! C-.
The Black Cat (1934)- This was originally supposed to be an adaptation of the Poe story "The Black Cat" but was totally rewritten save the name and ends up with next to nothing to do with Poe. I believe this is the best of the old-school Universal horror movies. Except for an occasional bit of camp this movie takes itself very seriously and it has none of the outrages characters, over the top plot lines, or over acting many of its contemporary horror movies have (not that those are bad things). The acting is brilliant and the directing is cutting edge for the times. It makes you wonder what could've been if Universal's horror hadn't fallen into B movie status with too much camp and too much fear of the censors. This was the first, and by far the best, pairing of the two greatest horror movie actors of all time. Bela Lugosi plays a doctor who has been in a Prisoner of War camp for fifteen years and is returning to the man who betrayed him during the war and then stole his wife and daughter, Boris Karloff. Karloff is apparently into taxidermy with interesting results and also a practitioner of the Black Arts. So many classic moments in this film but the best is right after Lugosi arrives and he is explaining to Karloff where he has been. Karloff sits quietly in his black robe with his white face, following Lugosi only with his darkened eyes. It's a brilliant combination of direction and acting. The Bauhaus architecture comes to life in the stark black and white film, complete with great lighting and long shadows. Lugosi is brilliant as the good doctor and Karloff plays his character with great restraint and believability. The censors were none too happy with this movie at the time and the boundaries it pushed led to problems for many years for horror movies (it was inspired by a true account of a couple's meeting famous English Satanist Aleister Crowley). My only complaint is the music which plays almost throughout the entire film is at times over-bearing and pulls the movie down. Still, this is a must see for students of horror or just film in general. A+.
The Raven (1935)- Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff's second teaming has mixed results. Lugosi plays a plastic surgeon whose ego is second only to God's. He's a big E. Poe fan and keeps a nice collection of Poe torture implements and other macabre memorabilia on hand. A rich and powerful man's daughter is in an accident and begs Lugosi to come out of retirement to fix her face. The appeal that he is the only Dr. good enough works and, after the recovered daughter does an interpretive dance of Poe's "The Raven" (don't ask) to thank Lugosi, Lugosi falls for her and must have her. When he realizes he can't have her then everyone, including a black mailed crook played by Karloff, must pay. Lugosi gives his usual over the top performance but only later, after it is realized he has gone insane. For the first part of the movie he is very restrained yet edgy. A lot of folks hate this movie but I really liked it. Maybe it's no "Black Cat" but it still works. There are some silly plot devices (entire rooms that act as an elevators and such) and some typical rotten 30's camp but get beyond the weak points and this isn't a bad film. B.
Mark of the Vampire (1935)- Bela Lugosi returns to play a vampire for the first time since 1931's Dracula in this classic MGM flick. Tod Browning wrote and directed this murder mystery which is basically a remake of his silent "London After Midnight". Lugosi plays Count Mora with Carroll Borland as his daughter Luna. A police inspector refuses to believe vampires are to blame for a recent murder, but a professor believes otherwise, or does he? This is a classic movie with great atmosphere from the foggy graveyard to the terrifying castle (what was it with Browning and possums as rats?) this movie works on many levels. The ending is a let down but everything else works great. A+
39 Steps, The (1935)- Twisty Hitch flick about a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, who can’t trust anyone, especially the cops! Yeah, this is Hitch’s most comfortable theme, and one of his earlier looks at the theme in the 1935 version of ’39 Steps’. Gunshots ring out at a nightclub and in the chaos outside a woman asks a man if she can come up to his apartment as she is scared. He says ‘yes’ and she tells him a story of spies, intrigue, and murder, which he doesn’t really believe, until she winds up with a knife in her back in his apartment, which he is promptly blamed for. He then must prove his innocence, but he isn’t sure who to trust, and might just make the wrong decision. His ability to escape bad situations is at times hilarious, but that was Hitch’s point, inept authorities were one of his favorite targets. A must see for Hitch fans as he develops what he would later explore more thoroughly in ‘Saboteur’ and ‘North by Northwest’. B+
Murder in the Red Barn (1935)- Tod Slaughter had been running around killing people on stage for quite a while by the time he made his film debut in this, which is little more than a filmed stage play, complete with the cast intro. Here Tod plays a rich magistrate, who has actually pretty much gambled all his dough away. He likes one of the young village girls, but has to marry a rich girl to pay off his debts. But before he gets hitched up he gets the poor village girl pregnant, blames it on a gypsy, kills her and buries her in a barn, then... well, you can guess the rest. Actually, if you are hip to Tod Slaughter movies you could’ve pretty much guessed all of the above. This is pretty good stuff if you like ‘em old and melodramatic (and this play was old even by the time it was filmed). Tod also kills a pregnant gal (pregnant with his own child) in this one. Dastardly indeed. This is just goofy fun (although it is loosely based on a true story) over the top stuff. Tod was good here but would get better working in the film medium later on. B+ on the craptacular scale.
Condemned To Live (1935)- Surprisingly decent old school "Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde mixed with a vampire" flick. A pregnant woman, hiding out in a cave from African Voodoo practitioners is bitten by a vampire bat, sealing the fate of her unborn child. Forty years on and her son has grown to be a professor and doctor and is known throughout his community as a generous and charitable man, thought of by the locals as a saint. Lately, in this community people have been getting murdered, having their throats bitten and drained of blood and their bodies deposited in a cave. It is the good doctor (we know this early on) succumbing, because of the stress of his impending marriage and his overwork, to his ‘dark side’, which is not so subtly conveyed by the fact he only turns into a vampire when he is in darkness. This one never won any awards, and it wouldn’t deserve them if it had, but it’s still a good enough hour long flick if you like ‘em old school. B-.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)- I've read a lot of reviews that say this film is superior to the first. I think those reviews might be right. Great atmosphere that you expect from these old black and white Universal movies (they had a great way of lighting that took full effect of the huge sets and the dark shadows they cast), great lab scenes, and a good, well directed story. A doctor who has been doing similar experiments as Dr. Frankenstein wants to create a mate for the monster, who survived the fire at the end of the first film. Aside from some silly, dated 'scientific' mumbo-jumbo and some very silly creations made by this other scientist, the movie is very good. (The campy old maid is a little over the top though.) I think the Monster's looks might have been softened a little to make him more sympathetic, but it still works. Colin Clive gets to work in his famous "It's alive... alive!" line again too. Look for a lot of Christ-figure imagery associated with the Monster in this one, amplifying Dr. Frankenstein's roll of God. A+.
Werewolf of London (1935)- Very dated werewolf flick. The main character is a botanist looking for a flower that only blooms at night. It so happens this rare flower is also an antidote (but not a cure) for "werewolfery, the scientific name is lycanthrophobia." Putting the good doctor in the wrong place at the wrong time. This movie has a more Jeckyll and Hyde plot than an actual were-wolf plot. At one point, when realizing he must kill his wife ("a were-wolf must always kill that which it loves the most"), the were-wolf promptly puts on his coat and hat. A far cry from the modern interpretation, but not necessarily wrong. Still, this movie was slow and the acting wasn't too good. Also, no one seemed too surprised about were-wolves being around. I can see how it was more or less 'forgotten' (other than by Warren Zevon). C-.
Mad Love (1935)- "Masterpiece" may be an over statement but I think this comes close. First what keeps it from being a masterpiece? The dated humor. Why were directors so compelled to try and add humor to their movies back then? It just doesn't hold up. So what works? Pretty much everything else. Peter Lorre plays a genius doctor who cures people with physical ailments for little or no money. He is a compassionate doctor who rose from poverty to the heights of his profession. Yet he can't seem to find love and becomes obsessed with an actress who he later finds out is married. Her husband is a great pianist who is involved in a train derailment and must have his hands amputated, but the good doctor saves them by transplanting the hands of a murderer on him. Now maybe he can drive the actress and her husband apart. Lorre plays his part with his usual subtle flair and then slowly slips into total madness near the end. A great performance and also great use of the camera and the black and white photography. The end was somewhat of a let down though. Get passed the dated humor and the predictable ending and you have A+ material.
Invisible Ray, The (1936): Not bad not great early sci-fi flick about a loner scientist (Boris Karloff) who discovers how to 'view' past events by looking at 'rays' that have been traveling at light speed across space. With this evidence he pinpoints where to find a rare element from a meteorite that crashed into the earth "thousands of millions" of years ago. He finds the element but becomes contaminated. He glows in the dark and kills anything he touches. Luckily Bela Lugosi is the greatest astro chemist in the world and quickly finds an antidote. Boris must take it daily though and it may just drive him insane and make him want to kill those who stole his ideas and his wife. The acting is pretty good for such silly material. Nothing cool about the directing. It moves well for the most part but slows down during some of the 'love' sequences. Just your basic predictable old school sci-fi flick, middle C.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936)- This move has been made and remade and of course became a famous musical play as well. This one has good ol' Tod Slaughter taking the helm sans singing (I read where he played the part over 4000 times in plays). Although he was already known in English Theatre, this flick made him a movie star as well, or at least a dastardly maniacal menace of the horror screen. He would go on to play basically this same part over and over in lots of movies, but he perfected it here, with his rubbing hands, menacing laugh, wild eyes, and hunched walk. You know the story, Sweeney is a barber who kills his patrons as they disembark from long sea voyages, he steels their money and his neighbor bakes them into pies to get rid of the evidence. Of course they had to be careful in how they showed such brutality in 1936 so the cannibalism is only hinted at (as one of a ship’s crew munches on a huge pie and remarks that there wouldn’t be room in the cellar of the shop to bury all the bodies). The subplot of marrying a rich, but indebted shipbuilder is standard fair. Tod gets many a good line (mainly puns like "I’ll polish you off" with the patron assuming he means the beard, of course we know otherwise), and this moves along at a decent pace. Tod Slaughter had a way of making you hate him on screen but yet still root for him in a perverse sort of way, especially after seeing several of his films where you (or at least I) just start to hate the obvious goody goodies he is menacing. This is better than some, worse than others, I’ll give it a B- on the old school insane-O craptacular scale, keep in mind that this is just an old school play with tongue planted in cheek.
Crimes of Stephen Hawke, The (1936)- Good old Tod Slaughter, breaking spines with his bare hands. We start out with Tod casing a huge mansion and deciding, maybe for practice, to kill off a little boy who lives there. Shocking stuff in 1936. We then find out that by day Tod is Stephen Hawke, a nice old money lender and local business man. But he really got rich by cracking spines and stealing jewels, which he continues to do, in what seems like a really bad plan when he does it at a party he was hosting. Deaths pile up, Stephen runs away, but he must return to the scene of the crime to keep his lovely adopted daughter from being blackmailed into marriage because of who he is, an odd touch of sympathy for Mr. Slaughter. Tod was somewhat of a legend in British theatre, always playing ruthless murderers and seemingly taking maybe too much pleasure in his rolls! He solidified his film casting with his portrayal of Sweeney Todd. This one is pretty creaky and definitely shows its age, and with most Slaughter movies, is really just a filmed stage play, complete with a very bizarre radio program intro that is so dated it was actually painful for me. So, if you like over the top salty ham chucks with your ancient serial killer flicks, then this is for you, just skip the first 5 minutes! I’ll give this an A- on the craptacular scale, check out "Crimes at the Dark House" to really see Tod at his batshit best.
Revolt of the Zombies (1936)- A better title might be revolt of the former zombies because the revolutionaries are no longer zombies. I guess this is sort of a prequel to "White Zombie" except it takes place in Cambodia where apparently there are some strong Voodoo Cults or something. Some Voodoo types try and persuade the French that using zombies in the war would be a good idea. (That's WWI by the way.) They seem to agree and then they disagree, and, although confusing, we seem to be off in a nice zombie flick. Switch to Cambodia where some people are on an expedition for something Cambodian. They sit around and talk, there's a love triangle, more talking, a party with love triangle tension and talking. Some walking around, a hilariously rotten staged swamp scene, the finding of the Voodoo formula, talking, zombie making, talking, love triangle mess, zombie making, talking and somewhere in there a revolt of former zombies. Except for the terribly great swamp scene the final grade is an F.
Devil Doll, The (1936)- A scientist who has been locked up in the famous Devil’s Island prison escapes with the help of a banker who has also been doing time. The scientist wants to return to his work, which has been carried on by his wife. He has the idea that if he can shrink every animal on earth to 1/6 its regular size there will be no more world hunger, the problem is when he shrinks anything down it becomes a mere automaton with no will of its own, controlled only by the thoughts of others. The scientist drops dead and the banker realizes he can use these ‘devil dolls’ as a means to get revenge on his banking partners who set him up. Despite the ‘goofiness’ of the story this old school horror/sci-fi flick is actually pretty good. There is quite a bit of character development and we do become involved with the characters and wonder what will happen to the banker and his family, who have been destitute since his imprisonment. And for 1936 the effects are really good. If you like ‘em old school then this is a classic for you. A.
Walking Dead (1936)- Boris Karloff is a simple ex-con who is framed by the mob for killing the judge who sent him away. A medical student who is working with a doctor on reviving the dead happens to be a witness who knows Boris is innocent, but he speaks up too soon and Boris is executed. The med student and his professor bring Boris back from the dead in a lab scene very reminiscent of Frankenstein. Boris isn't quite the same though and he's on a mission to find out why he was framed but every time he gets near one of the mobsters they end up dead. This is an effective movie with good sets, pretty good acting and a decent enough plot. It's another Warner horror set in modern times with science as the co-star. Nothing special but nothing bad either. B.
Dracula's Daughter (1936)- This movie picks up right where "Dracula" left off, with Dracula being killed. We then learn Dracula had a daughter and she's hoping that with the death of her father she may be free from the curse of being a vampire. She ceremonially burns Dracula's body and looks forward to being free while a love triangle (or maybe love square) develops. Plot-wise it is an interesting approach but I have to admit I hated this one. Dracula's Daughter's assistant is nice and creepy but the rest of the movie pretty much plods along in an uninteresting, slow way. D-.
Night Must Fall (1937)- This original version of "Night Must Fall" moves a little slower than the remake and doesn't quite have the sinister edge either. The plot is basically the same. A low class charmer gets a rich old gal's maid pregnant. When he comes to meet the old gal he turns the charm on and worms his way into her life. A murder has recently occurred nearby and the charmer just may know something about it. In the remake we know pretty much everything going in and Albert Finney plays his part with complete insane abandon. This version is played a little closer to the vest and is probably a little more believable because of that, but it does lose some edge. It would obviously be a matter of taste as to which version you'd like better. I think I liked this old version but Jenny liked the remake better. B+
Never Too Late (1937)- Hey, don’t blame me, this was called ‘horror’ before I came along. This is a silly turd that tries to pass itself off as a look at dismal prison conditions in Victorian England, but instead winds up being a vehicle for Tod Slaughter twirling his handle bar stache as he develops his dastardly plans to get a girl young enough to be his daughter. He’s the local Justice of the Peace so he tries to throw her boyfriend in jail, but as luck would have it his buddy goes in his place (that’s where we get the jail time depravity scenes), more plots ensue as Tod digs himself a deeper and deeper hole until the end when we get to see his true batshit insane self in a giggle inducing scene not quite worthy of Dwight Frye. This movie is just ancient looking and doesn’t hold up so well, with bad dialogue and even worse delivery; it feels like someone filmed a stage play put on by a small amateur theatre group. There are a few scenes that work like the tough guy being broken by prison and the kid going bonkers when he has to do more turns on the rack but you’ll have to sit through a lot of crap to get there. It’s a good candidate for the ol’ MST3K treatment but I wasn’t laughing enough to give it a craptacular grade. D-
Son of Frankenstein (1939)- Dr. Frankenstein's son returns to his father's old house, much to the chagrin of the local villagers. He soon finds out that his father's monster is still alive, but not doing so well. Does he destroy the monster and move on, or does he help him and make him a man? Mankind's ego and refusal to accept nature's roll and control are, as always, the theme here. Still, the atmosphere works, the sets are impressive, the acting very good (even a nice performance by the Monster's 'friend' Ygor, played with uncharacteristic restraint by Bela Lugosi). Nice revenge subplot too. Look for the police chief, which seems to me to be where Peter Sellers got his Dr. Strangelove character. Plus, they do a little play on the "It's alive" line made famous in the first two Frankenstein movies. This is the last time Boris Karloff would play the Monster he helped create. A+.
Tower of London, The (1939)- Not really horror material but horrible material as we watch the lengths Richard III would go to to become King of England. Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff return for Universal after making "Son of Frankenstein" with Rathbone as Richard III and Karloff as his executioner ally. Karloff and Rathbone are excellent in their sinister roles and it is one of Karloff's great moments (much of the other acting is dated though). Despite a low budget this one offers some great set pieces and is a great story (loosely based on Shakespeare). A young Vincent Price turns up in his first 'horror' role and he would go on to play Richard III in Corman's 60s remake. B-.
Phantom Creeps, The (1939)- Oh lord, this is some craptacular stuff! Bela Lugosi plays the nefarious Dr. Zorca. He’s a wicked bad inventor with all kinds of inventions all powered by the unbelievable meteorite power source he found in Africa. He also knows he could destroy the world with his power. He kicks around selling it to the highest bidder but when he accidentally kills his wife he gets all bent out of shape and blames the government and decides to exact his revenge. He must have a really good plan cooked up because he seems to pass up every chance he has at getting his revenge. I mean with that meteorite, a giant (hilarious) evil looking robot, and the ability to make himself invisible you’d think getting back at folks really wouldn’t be too tough. (He’s also invented a machine that instantly heals gunshot wounds which in and of itself would make him a fortune.) But the bad Dr. just makes bad decision after bad decision until he just totally flies off the handle at the end. This was originally one of those serials people endured before the real movie started but the version I saw was edited down to about 80 minutes and you could tell! Pretty much everything about this is craptacular so if you like really bad effects, terrible robots, mad scientists with uselessly stupid inventions, blonde bombshell reporters, hip G-Men, and painful stock footage (including the Hindenburg crash) all rolled together in a package of hammy acting and terrible directing then this is for you. I seriously loved it! A+ on the craptacular scale.
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1939)- This remake of the silent classic has a more sympathetic cast, especially the hunchback. Chaney’s Hunchback struck me as being on the edge of rage, as well as being pretty hideous. Laughton’s Hunchback is kind of pitiful, a misunderstood simpleton who’s ugly but not really hideous (it’s no coincidence Disney’s cartoon Hunchback was based on this version’s makeup). Although neither of these is, strictly speaking, horror, of these two versions, this one is less ‘horror’ than Chaney’s. You know the story; Hunchback lives in cathedral as the bell ringer and servant to the bishop’s brother. The bishop falls for a gypsy girl, can’t have her, has the hunchback try and kidnap her, backfires, she is kind to the hunchback, hunchback saves the gypsy girl when she is framed, then saves the cathedral when it is attacked by the townsfolk. This version is more detailed than the silent version, as should be expected, and is a really good production, another big budget flick for the times. For the most part I liked it, a little slow at times, some old school over acting and too many melodramatic soliloquies, which were often par for the course in these types of flicks in that era but if you like the old school classics then this is a must see. A
Return of Dr. X (1939)- This movie is a sequel in name only and has nothing to do with the original, save the name. Someone is killing off folks with a rare blood type. Could it be the hematology expert Dr. Flegg? How about his freak assistant, Dr. Cane (but spelled different than that), played with a weird combination of intensity and restraint by Humphrey Bogart in his only horror role. At the opening a wise cracking reporter (sigh) finds the body of a famous actress and promptly calls his editor and states "Let the cops read about it in the paper". Yeah, that sounds about right. While this is more dated humor and wise cracking reporters it works better than the original (not much better though). C.
The Mummy's Hand (1940)- Everything that was wrong with a lot of old horror movies is crammed into one movie. And that movie is "The Mummy's Hand". Rotten acting, rotten, 'comedy' relief, silly plot, terrible sets, and "Just mail me my paycheck" directing. Some guys need money, one likes a girl, somebody raises a mummy, attempts at people acting scared, mummy gets girl, guy saves girl, and all is well. All ain't well as Universal was in a tailspin after creating such great horror flicks in the 30s. F.
Crimes at the Dark House (1940)- Tod Slaughter laughs his way through quite a few murders in this adaptation of "The Lady in White". First he kills off a guy while prospecting in Australia, Tod returns to England to assume the dead guy’s identity because he is filthy rich, but, it turns out, he isn’t rich at all and now Tod has to try and marry the local rich gal who is being taken care of by her hypochondriac uncle, while he also juggles hooking up with one of the maids. Leering, maniacal laughter, dastardly deeds, and really bad plans follow. I really dug this one. It is insanely over the top moustache twirling mayhem melodrama at its best. If you like this goofy crap then this is a must see and maybe one of Tod’s best, if you hate 40s camp killers then you will REALLY hate this. I think I will give this an A+ on the craptacular scale. It really isn’t ‘so bad its good’, just so campy its good.
Before I Hang (1940)- Here Karloff plays a kindly old doctor looking for the secret to stop aging. He promises a patient, who is suffering greatly from unspecified age related issues, that he will be able to reverse the aging process. When his serums fail the patient begs to be euthanized. Karloff does the ‘mercy killing’ and is sentenced to hang for it. He accepts his fate, hoping someone will be able to continue his work, however, as luck would have it, the prison allows him to work there, he develops his serum, and, just before he is to be hanged he tries it on himself. Just then his sentenced is commuted to life, and his serum starts to work, but with some wicked bad side effects. We’ve all seen the transplant horror movies, get a murderer’s hands, become a murderer, get a murderer’s eyes, and see murders. Here Karloff’s serum is mixed with a murderer’s blood and, well, you can guess the rest. This is pretty slow moving, even for its age. Karloff is good but not great, for Karloff completists only. D+.
Gaslight (1940)- This is the original version of the hit stage play. This is an English version that had never played in the US and four years after it was made MGM bought the rights to the story and to this version to ensure it wouldn't compete with theirs. Story wise this version is very similar with a couple notable exceptions. One, it is the husband who is the nephew of the murdered woman, not the wife as the niece. Two, the person who figures out what is going on is an older retired policeman not a younger detective. This movie moves faster and has a darker feeling to it than MGM's remake (MGM's moves subtly from a bright beginning into a dark end). Much of the plot and story remain the same though. A young wife feels she is slowly going insane as things around her house disappear and she hears noises each night in the attic as the gaslight dims. This version offers no real mystery as to what is going on, although the 'why' is left until the end. It is still a very effective version although the MGM remake is actually a little better. This is basically a filmed stage play and more supsense thriller than horror. A-.
Black Friday (1940): Another Lugosi Karloff vehicle, even though Lugosi is only in it briefly. Karloff is a doctor whose best friend is injured in a car accident caused by bank robbers. Karloff saves his friend by implanting part of a gangster's brain. You can guess the rest. Yeah it's silly but it is nicely paced and contains some decent enough suspenseful moments. It's a nice genre jumping gangster, horror, sci-fi piece. C+.
Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)- This is a classic early noir flick with Peter Lorre as (another) batshit insane killer. A reporter is the only witness to a robbery/murder and his testimony leads to what may be an innocent man going to death row and the reporter getting a raise. When the reporters neighbor is killed he becomes the main suspect (he hated and threatened the neighbor) and he realizes the same killer may have done both murders. It is a low budget entry and makes great use of sets and lighting to achieve a higher budget feel and Lorre, though not in it much, is great as the insane an. I’ll give it an A even though some of the acting is too over the top 40s style.
Invisible Woman, The (1940)- There are probably many movies on my 'Horror' list that many think don't belong. They are too Sci-Fi, too 'Suspense', or not enough 'Horror' and I will debate that. But this movie is indefensible. It simply does not belong here and I apologize. I am a completist and I decided I wanted to see all the 'Big 6' Universal monster movies from back in the day and all the sequels (the 'Big 6' being Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon). So here it is, one of the sequels to "The Invisible Man". This movie however is a comedy. It is about a rich playboy who is now broke from chasing too many women and supporting a quack absent minded professor type. However the professor has just invented a machine that temporarily makes people invisible so everyone's money problems have been solved. But first he must test it on a volunteer. Enter a woman who is tired of her job and overbearing boss and has plans for when she becomes invisible (not really diabolical plans, just sort of Dickens "A Christmas Carol" type plans). Then mobsters find out about the machine and want to steal it. You can pretty much tell it was 1940 because the head mobster is German and has a Hitler haircut. Shemp Howard shows up as a mobster too. So we have invisible dress model, playboy, absent minded professor, playboy's slapstick butler, a Hitler mobster, and the 4th stooge. I like old school horror, gangster, drama, and suspense movies but I don't like old school comedies, unless they have Laurel and Hardy or WC Fields and this one has neither. It was watchable but barely. D-.
Foreign Correspondent (1940)- I have to admit, I had a hard time getting into the first 45 minutes or so of this flick. Some dated humor, silly ‘tough guy’ reporter bits, stuff that generally makes dated movies well, dated. A reporter is sent off to Europe to cover the gathering clouds of war in the late 30s. He’s a smartass I guess just out for a story and a good time when a Danish treaty negotiator is assassinated right in front of him. From that point on we’re back in Hitch territory, with tense chase scenes, tense scenes of people hiding and almost getting caught, more assassination attempts, and twisty murder/intrigue plot. Several scenes rank up there as classics including the chase just after the assassination in the rain, shot from above all we see are hats and umbrellas, and the scene in the windmill, with the wind blowing the mill turning and someone lurking around every corner are just two among many. Yes, this is an almost shameless propaganda film trying to convince Americans that remaining neutral was not an option as WWII was starting up, but Hitch was able to pull it off by putting together a great film that despite a few unavoidable dated elements remains strong today. A
The Devil Bat (1940)- Cheap and silly would describe a lot of Bela Lugosi's movies, including this one. Lugosi is a (sigh) mad scientist who works for a cosmetics firm. He sold the rights to his great formula years ago for $10,000 while the company's owners made millions. He's bitter about that so he creates a giant bat and then some after-shave lotion that attracts the giant bat and makes it attack. Then he hands out samples of the lotion to the family members of the company owners. Yeah, it's as bad as it sounds plot-wise but if you dig goofy mad scientist movies with smart-aleck reporters solving the case, and I do, then this is for you. If you hate this 40s trash then you'll really hate this one. C+.
The Invisible Man Returns (1940)- A lot of reviews I've read talk about how great 'The Invisible Man' was. James Whale was a great director by that point, his exploration of megalomania was good, etc. I didn't like it though for reasons stated above. This movie more or less follows the first, but with a better storyline (the first really didn't have much of a story line). The original Invisible Man's brother gives his invisible-making serum to a friend who has been falsely accused of murder and is up for execution, he then easily escapes from prison. A young Vincent Price is the invisible man this time and plays the part with great restraint as he looks for evidence to clear his name and courts his fiancé all while invisible and trying to avoid that slipping into madness the serum eventually causes. Some of the acting is over the top and the camp works sometimes and doesn't at other times but over-all I thought this was a much more thought out story than the first one. A point to note, Price hadn't yet developed his 'horror movie persona' yet so don't expect to recognize his voice right off. B+.
Rebecca (1940)- While obviously not horror in the modern sense this is a classic gothic horror/suspense thriller which many consider Hitchcock’s first real masterpiece. It is dark, moody, unpredictable and well acted and paced (suffice it to say it is well directed but that goes without saying). Mr. DeWinter is filthy rich and spending some time in Monte Carlo, there he meets a snobbish rich lady’s paid companion, falls in love with her, marries her, and takes her back to his English mansion called Manderlay. There the new Mrs. DeWinter (who’s first name we never learn, which is part of the idea of her being a nameless replacement) is haunted by the memory of the first Mrs. DeWinter (the title’s Rebecca) who died in a sailing accident... or did she? Every where she turns there is a memory, or a reminder, but she is too young, too shy, and too naive to really do anything about it. She’s way out of her element and things are only made worse for her by the head house maid, who was a little too fond of Rebecca, and wants to make sure the new Mrs. DeWinter doesn’t supplant the old. I’ll give this one a very strong A, if you like Hitch’s slow paced suspense flicks you’ll like this.
The Invisible Ghost (1941)- Another Bela Lugosi vehicle. This is a cheapy with some bad acting but Bela raises it up from mere mediocrity. He is actually very good and his acting and facial expressions are great. It's a rare Bela film where we get to see him actually act. He gets blamed for being hammy and staged but it was usually the directors and producers who wanted that side of him for the trash flicks he ended up in. When he played it straight, like here, he was a very good actor. Whatever you do, don't try and make too much sense of the plot though. Back in the day they didn't pay a lot of attention to the 'whys' and 'wheres' of a movie storyline. Just watch, suspend belief, and don't ask too many questions. Bela is a rich widow whose daughter is in love and almost engaged to a young man. There have been some murders on his property lately and the young man takes the rap, and is then executed. Of course we know that it's Bela doing the murders. His wife isn't actually dead; she's just insane and living on the property somewhere. She wonders out at night and when Bela sees her he goes into a rage and kills folks. He then 'wakes up' and doesn't remember anything that happened. It may seem I'm giving too much away but it is all revealed as you watch the film, there really are no surprises or twists. Basically I think this is a well-directed but poorly written movie. There are some interesting and creepy camera angles that predate films like "Night of the Living Dead" and "Carnival of Souls" but have that same feeling; a little (OK a lot) more time on rewrites and a little more imagination and this could've been a great movie. B-.
Suspicion (1941)- Let me start by saying again that I realize this is not horror, but it is Hitch so it does get included by proxy. Here we have Johnny an apparently wealthy eligible bachelor that all the upper crust young ladies gravitate towards. His charm, his light heartedness, and his slightly dangerous ‘devil-may-care’ attitude attract them apparently. Johnnie has met Lina though. She seems to be Johnny’s opposite, with her sensible shoes, hair in a bun, and child psychology books, but the attraction is mutual, especially when she over hears her father remarking about how she will end up an ‘old maid’. So they marry and travel Europe and end up in an expensive house when Lina finds out Johnny may not actually be who he seems to be. Can he be trusted? Is he really a great con artist or just a misunderstood gambling addict? Is he capable of murder? Apparently Hitch had a pretty dark ending set up for this one but RKO and Cary Grant’s manager would have none of it so we end up with a great film with a half baked ending that doesn’t really make sense. Too bad the big wigs can’t leave well enough alone. I’ll give this one a B- for a disappointing ending and a slightly too long build up at the beginning (which would have been OK had the pay off at the end been better).
King of the Zombies (1941)- Sure this one is chock full of racial stereotypes typical of the early 40s, but the black man servant Morland made the best of his character Jeff and basically out performed everyone else in this little cheapy. A plane gets lost in a storm near an area where a naval admiral recently disappeared. Luckily there’s an island with enough area to land on and someone on the island is sending radio transmissions. The plane crashes and the 3 occupants, Bill, Mac, and Bill’s valet Jeff find a creepy old house occupied by an Austrian doctor, who claims there is no radio on the island. The plot thickens as we meet the Dr’s wife who is almost catatonic and his niece who seems very nervous for some reason. Jeff soon discovers there are zombies on the island and quite possibly some ghosts too and we’re lured into a spy comedy horror drama that only the WWII era could give us. Yeah, it’s mostly crap and if you’ve seen one of these you’ve seen them all but still, it moves along at a good pace and has a couple of effective set pieces. Yeah the racial stereotypes are played up but if you think about, Jeff the valet is really the only one that is right about everything all along. Not quite craptacular stuff so I’ll give it a D+.
The Wolf Man (1941)- Lon Cheney Jr. was a big ol' boy and probably the right man to play the werewolf, if only he could act. I guess acting isn't in the genes. It doesn't have the staged feeling of the earlier Universal Monster Movies so in that sense it holds up better by modern standards. Cheney returns home after his brother dies, falls for a local girl, and after a date at the carnival, battles it out when a woman is attacked by a wolf, or by Bela Lugosi. Then he either goes crazy or turns into a wolfman. (Why was Bela an actual wolf and Lon a wolfman?) Anyway, this is a good telling of the basic tale and moves along nicely despite some not so great acting. The old gypsy woman is great. B+.
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)- Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman? Gotta be good right? Well... Where the older version may have been over acted, this seems too subdued. Yeah, Tracy's Hyde has no make-up at all and is kind of a quiet evil, which is a nice interpretation, but this movie just doesn't work. Tracy's Hyde is restrained, Ivy is restrained, the sexual angle is restrained, and the story is restrained. I think they tried too hard to make everyone sympathetic except Hyde and it backfires. Compare the two to see how the 'codes' tamed horror back in the day. C.
Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)- Like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees of today, you can't keep a good monster down (and you get to see where many of Jason's resurrections were stolen from). Maybe they should stay down though. Not nearly as strong as the first three Frankenstein movies, Lon Chaney Jr. takes the roll of the monster, and while he's impressive, he lacks the character and tragedy Karloff was able to bring to the role. The plot? Well, Frankenstein's other son finds out that his father's monster is still alive, but not doing so well. Does he destroy the monster and move on, or does he help him and make him a man? Mankind's ego and refusal to accept nature's roll and control are, as always, the theme here. Sound familiar? Too much silly 'scientific explanations' and things like brain transplants for this to really work. Lugosi returns as Ygor though and saves the picture from being total train wreck. C.
Invisible Agent, The (1942)- Universal had an amazing stock of great characters, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, The Mummy, The Wolfman, and later The Creature from the Black Lagoon, yet, with a couple exceptions, they had no idea what to do with them and this is a perfect example, which, not coincidentally came out the same year as the first bad Frankenstein movie "The Ghost of Frankenstein" and a pretty bad Mummy movie "The Mummy's Tomb". Some German and Japanese agents ask the grandson of the inventor of the 'formula' what his price for the formula is and we're off to a really good start. He refuses to sell and then tells the US government who nicely ask him if he'd give them the formula. He says "No" he'd like to forget about it and the nice government man says "OK". Then the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and the man changes his mind, as long as he is the only one that will be made invisible. So does he get injected and slowly loose his mind? Does he become evil like his grandfather and decide to try and take over the world himself? No, he does his job, falls in love with a double agent, and PLOT SPOILER (well not really) after a very successful mission with no side effects and a bright future with the German double agent, all is well, and a German attack has been diverted (imagine if they would've had the character go insane with megalomania and try and take over the world, splitting the WWII backdrop with a crazy invisible man, that could've been great). Pretty dumb stuff. Peter Lorre was good though, but they put glasses on him and made him play a "Jap". D.
Bowery At Midnight (1942)- Another Lugosi Poverty Row flick. Here Lugosi basically plays three characters, by day he’s the brilliant psychology professor, by night he’s the kindly soup kitchen director, by later at night he’s the criminal mastermind behind several jewel heists, using the patrons of his soup kitchen as help. Once they help him out they wind up dead, but apparently only for a short time as the junky janitor of the soup kitchen, whose nickname is "Doc" and who maybe was a doctor before becoming a junky, has found a way to reanimate the dead crooks, and you better bet there’ll be Hell to pay! The cops are already closing in when one of Lugosi’s students recognizes him while visiting the soup kitchen for a class project; the grand plan all comes crashing down, complete with angry zombies. In the end the soup kitchen assistant sets up some wedding plans with a zombie. Weird. I’ve seen better but I’ve seen much much worse. If you like the Poverty Row quickies you’ll like this. Fun dialogue and more shoot first ask questions later cops make this one complete. A strong C+ on the craptacular scale.
Mad Monster, The (1942)- Old school werewolf flick, tedious at best. George Zucco is a mad, and by mad I mean angry and insane, scientist who has been laughed out of the scientific community, but he’ll have his revenge, indeed he will. He has perfected a formula that turns an ordinary "Lenny" into a werewolf that looks more like an ape, and kills people at random. He then goes about exacting his revenge on those that laughed at him. This flick more or less follows the Frankenstein formula right down to the murder of a little girl. It’s slow moving, predictable, and unoriginal. Not really fun for the MST3K treatment either but I’ll give it a D because Zucco’s character is just over the top enough to make it almost fun.
Saboteur (1942)- It’s WWII and the Nazis are looking into a little sabotage on the American home front. A worker at an airfield tries to help fight a fire, turns out there’s gasoline in that fire extinguisher and his friend has died using it. This guy takes the blame but he knows who the real culprit is, too bad the real culprit doesn’t seem to exist. Cross-country chase ensues. Hitch takes us along for the ride from ranch, to truck driver, to blind pianist, to circus freaks, to the desert, to New York City and the Statue of Liberty. This movie is very similar in theme and feel to "North by Northwest", complete with the ending on an American icon. Although a little too long, it is some great directing and black and white cinematography. B-.
Mummy's Tomb, The (1942)- For the first ten minutes or so we are subjected to a flash back to the events from "The Mummy's Hand". I'm not sure when that movie was supposed to have taken place but this one is supposed to be 30 years later which would put it at the very least sometime in the 50s. But Universal, while trying to keep some continuity to their Monster Movies didn't care about much else. The Mummy is just too hard to come up with an original story I guess so they keep telling the same one, which is just a variant of the Dracula story, over and over. Here an Egyptian priest moves the mummy to New England to exact his revenge on those who disturbed the tomb in "The Mummy's Hand". Lon Chaney Jr. takes his turn as the mummy after playing The Wolfman, Dracula, and Frankenstein already. He sucked as the mummy too. Still it was better than "The Mummy's Hand". D-
Cat People (1942)- Strange and original little flick. Not strictly horror I guess but not really anything else either. A man falls in love with a woman who emigrated from a country full of superstition. She is from a family with a strange curse. Kind of an odd play on the werewolf/Dr. Jeckyll Mr. Hyde theme. She wants to love him but is really too weird, or maybe it's something else. Despite its subject matter it is played out in a pretty believable way and has a modern feel to it by working in psychiatry instead of silver bullets. Great black and white cinematography too. B+.
Man With two Lives (1942)- I liked this one better when it was called "Black Friday". A super nice guy from a super nice wealthy family works for a super nice doctor who is working on bringing people back to life. He is engaged to a super nice smart girl too. The night of the engagement party he is driving home for what seems like a long time and then crashes his car, oddly he is still right in front of the house he just left. Still, he is dead now. Can the doctor bring him back to life? Yes, of course there is the problem of soul transmigration and it so happens a ruthless gangster is being executed at the exact time the super nice doctor’s assistant is revived. Alas, he now has the ruthless gangster’s personality because apparently memories are stored in the soul not the body. This one tries pretty hard but you get the idea everyone is just going through the motions in this cheap time filler. Still, there are some interesting moments like when the detective confronts the rich guy at his own house, knowing he is the one now leading the gang. PLOT SPOILER: This has one of those ‘and then I woke up’ endings that totally ruined anything that came before anyway so even if I sort of liked the flick the end ruined it all. I’ll give it an F because of that.
The Ghost Ship (1943)- Val Lewton had a way with production and telling tales that otherwise might fall flat. This is a simple story of an old ship's captain taking on a new third mate and hoping to train him in the ways of authority. The captain is obsessed with the subject and spouts off snippets of his wisdom from years in charge of men at sea. Soon we begin to see many sides of the issue of authority, we see the pressure of constantly being 'in charge' and responsible for everything, including the men's lives, we see the effects of abuse of power and we see people acting as sheep and blindly following their leader. Pretty powerful stuff in this low budget thriller. And again, Lewton's production, despite a lower budget, looks great. Great black and white photography great acting, and great sets. A.
Ape Man, The (1943)- No budget flick about a doctor who has been experimenting with apes and combining human and ape ‘spinal fluid’. I’m not sure what the up side would be but the down side is the scientist is turning into an ape. Lugosi is great in the role of the ape doctor and actually the makeup is impressive for such a low budget piece (in as much as there is makeup, more of a hairpiece and muttonchops), and there were enough bizarre sequences, like Lugosi getting out of the ape’s cage, to make this interesting. This is everything you’d expect from movies like this, smart-assed reporters, careless doctors, stupid ‘comedy’ relief, still, I liked this one but I only recommend for lovers of silly 40s sci-fi or Lugosi completists. C+
Dead Man Walk (1943)- Pretty much just a retelling of the Dracula story, this time out a pair of twin brothers, one good and one evil, square off for the soul of one of the twin’s niece, I’m not sure how that works, maybe it was by marriage. Anyway, apparently the good twin, knowing the bad twin was evil, killed him, but what he didn’t bargain for was the fact the evil twin was in tight with the forces of darkness and would come back as a vampire, complete with Renfield as his assistant (although not named that, it is Dwight Frye more or less reprising that role with a little less zeal). Very familiar territory yes, but really overall it’s not that bad. Keep in mind it is very dated and very cheaply made with some piss poor sets (how come anytime anyone goes from place to place in this town they travel through the woods?), but really not bad keeping those things in mind. B-
The Leopard Man (1943)- Sort of following the basic plot of "She-Wolf of London", 'is it a wild animal or is it a serial killer?' premise. Nicely paced thriller with the usual Val Lewton production values. A performer is asked to walk a black leopard out with her for her act but another jealous performer scares the leopard off and before long girls begin to die in horrible ways. The end, taking place during a procession honoring Indians who had been killed by Conquistadors, is pretty effective. I wasn't surprised by the revelations at the end but I was surprised at what happened after those revelations. Ahead of its time. B.
7th Victim, The (1943): Very interesting and very dark Val Lewton flick. A girl's sister disappears and is no longer paying her way at school, she decides to head to the big city to find her. She meets a load of strange characters that each probably represent something but I won't get into that. (Although it is interesting that Beaver's dad Ward Cleaver is in the film and his last name happens to be Ward in the film, OK, not that interesting but a nice trivia question.) Anyway, one thing leads to another and it turns out her sister ran with some... Well now, I really don't want to give too much away. Lewton flicks are deliberately paced, which is a good kind of slow if you like mystery and suspense and this one is no exception. Plus it has a pretty dark non-Hollywood ending. A+
Shadow of Doubt (1943)- Little Charlie is tired of her boring typical life. She needs some excitement, or at least just some change. She sends a letter to her Uncle Charlie, her favorite uncle, asking him to come out for a visit; little does she know he’s already on his way for a visit, possibly because someone is after him. Uncle Charlie is a strange one and oddly uptight. Charlie’s dad and neighbor love detective stories and are always thinking of ways to pull off the perfect murder, could Charlie actually have already pulled some murders of his own? Is he in fact a serial killer? This is a great Hitch flick complete with suspense, tension, unnerving scenes, and awesome subplots and symbolism. A.
Mysterious Doctor, The (1943)- Strange British WWII propaganda/ghost flick about a headless ghost keeping people from working the English tin mines. Folks who defy the ghost’s wishes wind up with their own heads lopped off. Scientists and security look into the story and what follows is pretty much exactly what you expect to follow. This is silly stuff, even when it is trying not be, even though it holds up better than a lot of the American made flicks of the same era it is still pretty weak. D.
Son of Dracula (1943)- Lon Chaney Jr. plays Dracula this time out. Lon Chaney Jr. shouldn't play Dracula. I think the director knew that because he's not in the film much at all. Dracula moves to America at the request of a woman who is into the occult. It starts out slow and then slows down more, but if you hang in there we find out why she invited the good Count to begin with and the plot turns out to be pretty good. The effects are pretty good in this one too, considering the age of course, and some scenes have that elusive atmosphere. C+.
Revenge of the Zombies (1943)- More or less a sequel to "King of the Zombies" and more or less the exact same movie. This time. Rather than zombifying folks to get information from them, the Nazis plan on raising a zombie army to fight for them. I think I can say, without giving too much away, it totally backfires on the mad scientist, competently played by John Caradine. The idea of a zombie army is good, and was done in 1936’s "Revolt of the Zombies", and done quite a few times after this one too. Racist comedy relief keeps us all in stitches again too. Probably better made than "King..." but that doesn’t mean it’s better to watch. Not fun enough for the craptacular scale. D
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)- I know what you're thinking; why the Hell would I even watch a movie called "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man"? Wouldn't it be everything that I hate about modern horror movie sequels? Bad acting, bad effects, silly plot, rehashed original story in a watered down sequel? Well yes and no. I have a weakness for those old horror flicks, especially the Universal Monsters, which is what this is. This time Bela Lugosi is Frankenstein's monster (he played a were-wolf in The Wolf Man and of course Dracula so he's done the Big Three) and Lon Cheney Jr. returns as the Wolf-Man. He needs to visit Dr. Frankenstein to help him with his little full moon problem; instead of finding the Dr. he finds the castle in ruins and the monster stuck in the basement. Yeah it's silly, but it's also good stuff for those that like this sort of thing. The acting is actually pretty good (Lugosi is an over-the-top Monster, as should be expected though) and the effects, especially the lab scenes are great (of course the wolf transformation leaves a lot to be desired after seeing An American Werewolf In London and The Howling, but hey, it was the 40s). If you like the genre you'll like this, if not you probably won't. I give it a D+.
I Walked With a Zombie (1943)- Very effective and atmospheric tale about a woman who is acting very strangely (actually the whole family is a little off its rocker) and may in fact have been zombified. A nurse comes to the island to help her and a love triangle starts, or is it a love square. This movie purposely avoids judging the zombie angle and the whole thing works really well in a subtle suspense horror way. It starts on a ship and a woman observing how beautiful dolphins are jumping in the ocean. A man remarks that they fear for their lives and that's why they are jumping. It's all down hill for the characters from there. Very dark and there are some creepy Voodoo ceremony scenes. Val Lewton produced and his RKO Productions would save the horror genre from inept no-budget quickies and the "Curse of the Sequels" suffered by the small indie studios and Universal respectively. A+.
One Body Too Many (1944)- The Tin man from the Wizard of Oz plays an insurance salesman who winds up protecting a dead body from family members who want to change the dead man's will. Yeah, it's a strange plot (that's been done a million times on stage and film) but it works for the most part in this murder mystery/comedy. Bela Lugosi plays the (PLOT SPOILER) butler but is just a red herring. They set him up nicely making you think he's trying to poison everyone but it's pretty obvious he's really not. This is a good old school comedy mystery that I recommend if you like that sort of thing and can find it. My only complaint is it drags as it gets near the end and should have been a little shorter. B
Lifeboat (1944)- Hitch loved to put people in tight confines and play out what that would be like and what could be worse than bobbing in a small lifeboat in the Atlantic during WWII? A mixture of crew and passengers makes for an interesting setup, toss in the captain of the German u-boat that sank the ship and you have tension galore along with a debate about humanity, trust, and revenge. There is a little too much obvious propaganda but that aside Hitch makes this one-set flick work on a lot of levels, and not many directors could! Also, props for not making the black character a stereotypical step’n’fetch-it type, an A- for this one.
Monster Maker, The (1944)- Obviously low budget yet fairly original tale about a mad scientist who is an expert in the field of glandular disorders. He has the power to both inflict and cure a particular rare disease, and he uses this power to try and blackmail a famous pianist into making his daughter marry the scientist. We also learn that this may not be the first time he’s used the disease, and he may or may not even be who he claims to be. Yeah, it’s a little far fetched and silly at times (what is it with gorillas in some of these old school flicks?) but it still works as a low budget old school poverty row entry. All things considered I’ll give it a B-.
Return of the Vampire (1944)- Lugosi's first part as a 'real' vampire since 1931'2 Dracula. For the most part this movie works (it was supposed to be basically a sequel to Dracula but Columbia couldn't get the rights to the name from Universal). Professor Armand Tesla who many years before studied vampirism and then became one after death. He is killed in 1918 and staked down but a German bomb during a WWII London blitz uncovers his grave and some workers remove the stake, thinking it is shrapnel, and Tesla returns to exact his revenge on the family of the woman who helped stake him years before. There is some good atmosphere created here and the plot is fairly original and I think I liked this one more than most reviews I've read. There are a few problems but it is a classic old school vampire flick. One problem, Tesla's 'familiar' is some sort of slave werewolf which is silly. I guess Columbia was chasing the success Universal had had combining there monsters in movies like "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man", which also starred Bela as The Monster. B+.
Cry of the Werewolf (1944)- Low budget werewolf flick about a gypsy princess who inherited her mother’s curse of turning into a werewolf. A museum curator is hot on the trail of finding her mother’s grave, whose location is apparently a local legend, and she’s willing to kill to keep it a legend. The curator is killed, his assistant driven mad, tough guy cops show up along with the curator’s son who is in love with his adopted sister (?) and secret tunnels, moving walls, and bad acting follow. Over all it isn’t a bad idea, but it just isn’t executed very well with crummy FX and cardboard acting. File under ‘almost was’. C-.
Mummy's Ghost, The (1944)- Same movie different title. Egyptian priest wants mummy, mummy rises, finds reincarnated princes, kidnaps her etc. Over, and sometimes under acted this movie pretty much sucks. These mummy movies are just plain bad. It is amazing how quickly they dropped off too. The first one is great but the rest were all bad. I will give this one a slightly higher mark as it didn't end the way I expected. C-.
Mummy's Curse, The (1944)- OK, this movie is a direct sequel to "The Mummy Ghost" and supposedly takes place 25 years later, which I figure would put it at the very least in 1975. They didn't even bother to try and make it look like it was in the future but that's probably a good thing. They would've had people flying around with jet packs and a colony on the moon if they would've. Nope, it's 25 years after the last movie, which was a sequel to "The Mummy's Tomb" which supposedly took place 30 years after "The Mummy's Hand". Anyway, some government engineers decide to drain the swamp the mummy disappeared into at the end of the last movie and that brings around an archeologist and his Egyptian assistant. They want to find the body of the mummy, but alas, the Egyptian really wants to wake the mummy and let him wreak a little havoc while looking for his princess, who has already risen sans tana leaves. Another weak and barely coherent entry into the mummy saga, thankfully it is the last. I'll give it a D+ since I'm feeling generous today.
Curse of the Cat People (1944): This isn't really a horror movie per se but was a sequel to "The Cat People". Val Lewton was kind of tired RKO handing him "audience tested titles" so he went off on his own with this little tale of a girl with an over active imagination... or is it just her imagination? Yeah, it probably is. It's also adults trying to crush that imagination out of her and make her like everybody else. Interesting for its themes of imagination and conformism. Nicely paced well-directed story. Not scary in the literal sense but pretty good stuff. B+.
Soul of a Monster (1944)- Preachy and pretentious little film about a woman who is so distraught that neither modern medicine, nor prayers to God will save her dying husband (who is a doctor renowned for his charity work... of course) turns to help from the devil. Satan’s little helper saves the man but he is changed, violent and moody. He hears voices, which seem to be telling him to do wrong, like kill his dog and let his patients die. None of it really makes too much sense and it seems to ride uncomfortably on Val Lewton’s coattails, especially "Cat People", which it mirrors in both direction and plot (the man feels different from everyone else etc.) It did manage to create a little atmosphere and suspense but then the ‘twist’ ending rolled up and I thought "What?" D+.
Gas Light (1944)- Ingrid Bergman's aunt, who she lives with, is killed in a brutal murder and the killer is never found. Ingrid moves to Italy to train to become a great singer like her aunt. She meets the man of her dreams, marries him, and moves back into the house where her aunt was killed. Then she slowly begins losing her mind. Is the house haunted? Is she crazy? Is there foul play afoot? This movie is filled with great acting and great directing and is said to have been a major influence on Alfred Hitchcock. So much so he changed the entire direction of his career to make movies more in this vein (psychological thrillers). That was a good move! I would say that's reason enough to grant an A+.
Invisible Man's Revenge, The (1944)- Well now, if he wants revenge then maybe we're getting back to some edgier stuff like the "The Invisible Man" and "The Invisible Man Returns" and unlike the two pieces of crap that followed. And that's sort of what we get except the guy is crazy before becoming invisible. A guy has had amnesia for several years and when he remembers his past he realizes he was about to find a diamond mine in Africa when he became ill. He breaks out of a mental institution to get his part of the take from the diamond mine and believes that his partners at the time were responsible for his illness. They may have been and may still be willing to do what it takes to keep their money, what's left of it, or maybe not, that part of the plot is never really resolved. The effects in this movie are good for the times with the invisible man sometimes just being transparent rather than invisible and sometimes putting things like flour on his face so he can be seen. Still this movie pretty much sucks with a lame plot and it doesn't tie in with any of the other movies despite the main character's name being Griffon, but it was better than the previous two invisible movies. Now I can say I have seen all of Universal's big six monsters and the sequels too though. D+
Uninvited, The (1944)- Classic little tale about a 'house with a past'. A brother and sister stumble across a big old house that they would like to buy and move into. To their luck the house is for sale, and cheap too. They soon find out there are rumors about the house being haunted but being rational folks they don't buy any of it, until odd things start happening. Is the house haunted? Is someone just trying to drive them away? This is a good movie with a good ending, especially considering how many of these older ghost stories end. I will stop at that and let you figure it out. Well directed and acted and actually believable although it never quite creates the atmosphere of say "The Haunting". A-.
Blue Beard (1944)- John Carradine, though forgotten behind names like Lugosi, Karloff, and Price, is one of the great horror movie actors. He made some good flicks like "House of Dracula". Of course he made some bad ones too like "Blue Beard". A serial killer is on the loose in Paris. Carradine is a puppeteer, painter and, of course, serial killer. He paints; he kills, so he tries not to paint. His agent is pushy though and wants some more paintings to sell. Actually a nice non- Hollywood ending, but I just couldn't get into it much. C.
House of Frankenstein (1944)- Universal Horror was fast becoming a caricature of itself by this point. Formula plots, silly excuses to bring the monsters back, and working in characters from the other franchises. And yet, at least for fans of the studios horror films, it works on some level. Boris Karloff returns not as the Monster, but as a mad scientist bent on continuing Dr. Frankenstein's work, and of course getting in some revenge along the way. A nice idea having Karloff resurrect the monster and some nice irony at the end. The actors took the material serious enough to make it work and the plot moves along nicely. The lab scenes were a little disappointing after the great lab scene from "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman." Another thing about these Universal Monster movies is the attention to continuity they observe. All the details from the previous movies are there and worked in (except one example, at the end of "The Ghost of Frankenstein", the monster becomes blind, and he's blind in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman", however here he isn't). Other than that, for the most part each movie picks right up where the last one left off. Glenn Strange plays the Monster in this film and, although I'm not sure, it seems Herman Munster may have been fashioned from his version. It deserves a D+ but I'll give this one a C+ because I liked Karloff's character.
House of Dracula (1945)- Let's see. Genius doctor thinks he can help all the Monsters (Dracula, the Wolfman, Frankenstein's Monster). He comes up with a plan, implements said plan, and things go awry. So much for Universal's continuity. I was wondering how they'd get around some of the events from "House of Frankenstein", they must have wondered to because they didn't bother trying. Having said all that, this flick was actually fairly strong. John Carradine returns as Dracula and has a good performance, Lon Chaney Jr. is again the Wolfman and is his usual 'not bad not great' self. Glenn Strange returns as the Monster. He must not have been good because the two times he plays the Monster he only shows up in the last 2 or 3 minutes to reek a little havoc. Still, over all not a bad ending for the classic Universal Monsters (although they would later appear in the lamentable "Abbott and Costello Meet..." series). C+.
Place of One’s Own, A (1945)- Ghost story in the vein of ‘The Uninvited’ and a little ‘The Innocents’ tossed in (although this was before either of those). It feels older than its 1945 release date, but that might just be a testament to the fact it was set 1900 and created a pretty good old school feel. A ‘new money’ couple is retiring and has always wanted to own their own house, so they buy a great one, and they get it cheap. Why? Well, it has a reputation of course. When the old lady hires a ‘companion’ the house’s history seems to be repeating itself and the young companion falls for a doctor, and slowly begins to seem a little possessed. This is a very subtle ghost story; those looking for jump scares or some type of shock definitely need to look elsewhere. But if you want a good believable and well directed old school ghost tale that won’t scare the kids (well, nowadays this might just bore the kids but I digress) then I highly recommend this one. A very strong A.
Dead of Night (1945)- An early horror omnibus film with the wrap around story being about an architect who goes to a country house to look at renovating it. Once there he gets a sense of déjà vu and claims he has dreamt of them all and has a vague idea that something bad is going to happen. A visiting psychiatrist tries to explain away the man’s feeling and other guests tell their stories of brushes with the supernatural. Story one is about a girl at a Christmas Party who, while playing hide and seek, hides in a room where a little boy is crying, she puts the boy to bed only to find out some bad news about him. A good enough simple ghost story. A. Story two is about an engaged couple. The woman buys her fiancé an antique mirror but when the man looks into the mirror he sees himself standing in a different room. Turns out the mirror’s original owner went crazy and killed his wife in front of that mirror; will the man be able to avoid that fate? A tad silly but well executed I’ll give it a B. Story three revolves around a race car driver, who after being involved in a crash has a fever dream that a hearse is waiting outside the hospital for him. When he leaves the hospital he thinks he sees the hearse driver from the dream, can the driver save him? Another well done short, A-. Story four is a campy piece about two golfers who wager a game for the hand of a girl in marriage, one man wins and the other commits suicide. The one who commits suicide finds out (on the other side) that the winner cheated so he comes back to haunt him, but has forgotten how to disappear again. This one is goofy and doesn’t seem to fit in but still isn’t horrible. C+. Finally we have a story about a ventriloquist who’s doll seems to have a mid of its own. Yeah it’s been done a lot since but was fresh here and works really well. A+ If you like these British omnibus movies you’ll like this one, which more or less kicked off the whole sub-genre. My average for the movie comes to about an A- but I’ll bump it to an A as the wrap around is really good, especially the insane ending (although the circular logic conclusion was a tad disappointing).
Vampire’s Ghost, The (1945)- Piece of crap B feature from the 40s. A man commits a heinous crime and is then forced to walk the earth forever, seeking human blood. He lives in Africa and runs a night club in a seedy port town, so there is plenty of blood to have. The locals know there’s a vampire about and play their voodoo drums all night, which was apparently the CNN of the time. The weird thing is the guy is cursed but actually seems to dig being a vampire so the curse isn’t all that bad. Anyway, this is pretty silly stuff which probably deserves an F.
Isle of the Dead (1945)- I was stoked to see this Val Lewton flick, but then felt a little let down. Karloff is a general taking a break after a terrible battle has thinned his troops and weakened his lines. He heads to a small island where his wife is buried and is angered to find the tombs disturbed. He finds a cast of strange characters visiting the island for different reasons. Some live on the island and some are bound by old superstitions. When members of the group begin showing signs of a plague Karloff forbids them to leave. Science meets superstition as the debate between plague and wardaluck (vampire type creature) take front stage. Karloff is no nonsense but in the end is faced with the fact we all are powerless, even great generals, science or superstition. This was a good movie with good atmosphere and acting. It was suspenseful and moved along nicely. But in the end I just felt disappointed. I really am unsure why, I just never really got into it and the end was a little disappointing. C+.
Zombies On Broadway (1945)- A gangster is going to open a new nightclub and he wants it to have a zombie theme. He’s promised the public real zombies and a reporter is going to hold him to it. Can his idiot publicity agents get him some real zombies from Bela Lugosi’s dastardly island? Terrible 1940s zomedy not even worth the time on the craptacular scale. Did people actually ever like this crap? F.
Picture of Dorian Grey (1945)- I've heard a lot of good things about this book and this movie so I checked it out from the library (the movie not the book, although I plan on reading the book when I have the time). A young man who is rich and handsome believes youth and beauty are the most important things you can possess so he wishes that a recently finished portrait of himself would bear the brunt of time while he remains the same. He gets his wish but in exchange is forced to do terrible deeds (kind of a 'sell your soul to the devil' deal). Years pass and Dorian remains the same. The movie is black and white but the portrait shots are in color. The portrait ages and becomes more hideous with each evil Dorian commits and this is an effective device. And that's about all that's effective in this movie. No one's all that amazed that Dorian hasn't changed a bit in years and Dorian just goes through the paces. We never know what the evil deeds he does are as they are really only hinted at so we never really even know what's going on. Disappointing. C-.
Spiral Staircase, The (1945)- I often give these old suspense flicks the benefit of the doubt and tend to go easy on them grade wise. Still, I didn’t dig this flick at all. The directing was good, and I dig the stark black and white look, but that was about it. A mute girl may be in danger from a serial killer on the loose. He seems to kill women with some sort of handicap so she fits the profile. The old lady of the house, who bitches and complains a lot, especially about her two sons, keeps warning the mute gal over and over, suspense is supposed to build there, and fails. Will she escape the hands of the strangler? Will the killer be someone we know? Take a wild guess. Interesting directing and if you like old school suspense yarns (and I usually do) you may like this, I really didn’t this time though. D.
The Body Snatcher (1945)- Val Lewton classic with Boris Karloff as the title character. Karloff is a "kindly" cab driver but to make extra cash he provides cadavers for a medical school. How he comes by those cadavers becomes problematic as does his black mail techniques he uses on the not so good doctor. Bela Lugosi has a small role as servant who has some black mail ideas of his own. The black and white photography is great as is the direction and acting. Some critics say Karloff's portrayal here is second only to his Frankenstein's Monster (I'd say his Mummy would be third). They're probably right. A well presented story with a nice twist ending. A.
She-Wolf of London (1946)- Not really a horror film, more of a "family curse" mystery. Interesting and well acted but nothing special. People are winding up dead in a Not a sequel to Werewolf of London at all. More of a strange little "Mystery Play House" type of film. People are dying at night in a London park. Is an animal attacking them? Is it an old family curse on the wealthy family that lives nearby? Nice plot twists and surprises, some of that "foggy old England" atmosphere too. Not strictly horror though, and some dated acting. Still, I'll give it a B-.
Beast With Five Fingers, The (1946)- One of the first 'attacking hands' films, this concept would repeat itself over and over again in horror movies, shorts, and omnibus movies. A musician who is paralyzed on one side but can still play piano with his good hand falls down the steps in his wheel chair and dies. Well, most of him dies; his good hand wants a little revenge. Or does it, maybe it's one of the leaches trying to get a hold of his estate that he has left to his friend and caretaker. This is an effective murder mystery, suspense yarn with an added element of horror. The acting is good and most of the effects work considering the age of the film. Many consider it a classic but I wouldn't quite go that far, Peter Lorre is great though, as usual! B+.
Shock (1946)- This is an early Vincent Price vehicle. Price plays a psychiatrist who accidentally kills his wife when she threatens to ruin his career by exposing his affair with a nurse. A woman in an adjoining room in the hotel where this occurs witnesses the murder and goes into 'shock'. Price then becomes her psychiatrist and has to figure out what to do with her. Price's character is supposed to be a nice guy who is a victim of circumstance but he comes across as a little more sinister than I think he's supposed to so you never really feel any sympathy for him and the woman who witnesses the murder just goes around over-acting. It's a good plot poorly executed but Price is good as the confused doctor. C-.
Bedlam (1946)- More a Val Lewton thriller than horror but here ya go. It's the 1760s, an age of reason, and a fat and powerful English Lord likes to laugh and likes to make fun of the "loonies" in the local asylum run by Boris Karloff. Karloff is a very wise politician and likes things to stay status quo so he uses his powers of persuasion over the none too bright Lord to get his way, like keeping the asylum just the way it is and making sure anyone who wants to make changes ends up as his guest in the asylum. The cunning work and great acting by Karloff carry this one. It's dated and slow moving at times but remains a pretty good story with a pretty good ending. B+.
Valley of the Zombies (1946)- Another movie title guilty of hyperbole. This is a short about a guy who got into voodoo hoping to stay young forever. He dies, but then comes back to life and needs blood to survive. Over-the-top stage acting and horribly dated ‘jokes’ follow as a young doctor is accused of murder and must clear his good name. As I’ve said before, I am often forgiving of older flicks, but not this time. F.
Scared to Death (1947)- I’ve read a lot of reviews stating that this is you’re basic hilariously bad movie so I was expecting something in the craptacular range of an Ed Wood movie. But the movie really wasn’t that bad. Now don’t get me wrong, the plot only barely makes sense at all and the one-hour movie feels like three hours, but it still wasn’t quite as inept as some I’ve seen. The performances are passable, the dialogue terrible, and the directing staged and silly. You’ll laugh at the annoying flashback sequences too. The plot? Well it starts off at a morgue with a couple of doctors talking about how someone so young and healthy could possibly die as the corpse of a woman lies on the slab. The dead woman then proceeds to tell her story, to us the viewer, in a series of flashbacks. In more capable hands this might have been an effective device but here, holy crap it’s funny! The woman is married to a rich doctor’s son, she has a past as apparently everyone else in this movie does. It makes attempts at character development and they fail miserably. Enter Bela Lugosi as a magician who used to live in the house of the doctor when it was an insane asylum!?! He has a dwarf assistant too. Then there’s the bumbling campy cop, who is hassled by the typical 1940s smart-aleck reporter, lay over the top of all that a murder mystery plot with every character playing the part of red herring and you have a mess. A fun mess never the less, only for those seeking out the ‘so bad its good’ flicks. (BTW, this was Bela Lugosi’s only color film and the color in it was surprisingly vivid.)B- on the craptacular grade scale.
Paradine Case, The (1947)- Hitch flick (but not horror, sorry) about a lawyer defending a woman accused of poisoning her husband. The lawyer is smitten with the woman and soon falls for her (people fall in love at the drop of a hat in these old flicks). He’s not building a very good case because he doesn’t ever want to hear anything negative about the gal, or her relationships, I’m thinking he should drop the case, he thinks about it but his wife tells him not to. He proceeds until the interesting court room scene when all the beans are spilled. While not really on par with some of Hitch’s great stuff, this is still an interesting character study with some good acting and an interesting plot and twist at the end. If you like court room dramas you’ll probably dig this one. B+
Rope (1948)- Hitch wanted to film a movie in one continuous flow, like a stage play. A camera could only hold 8 minutes of film at a time though so Hitch used 1 camera and did 8 minute ‘takes’, making the camera flow with the movement on the set, and ‘hid’ the edit points. His use of blocking and camera angles, despite this technique is amazing, as is the acting. The story? We have two obnoxious rich kids, one out going and verging on psychopathic, and one slightly more introverted, nervous, and impressionable. They decide some people don’t deserve to live so they kill one of their ‘friends’, hide him in a chest, and then invite friends and family (including the deceased’s father and girlfriend) over for dinner, which is served on the chest containing the body. The whole thing, from the directing to the acting to the story is pulled off brilliantly. Watch the sun set and the clouds move outside the window too as the whole thing was filmed on a stage. A must see for Hitch fans or film enthusiasts in general. A+.
Third Man, The (1949)- Post WWII Vienna, black market, danger, rubble, and ruins; perfect backdrop for a Hitch flick. A writer from the US shows up for a job offered by a friend, who he learns just after arriving, has been killed. He does a little digging and the details just don’t seem to add up, stories don’t mesh, and the local authorities would really like to see the writer leave, but he is insistent and accepts a job as a lecturer in order to stay on. He keeps digging and definitely does not like what he finds, and what he finds is a scary and perfectly played Orson Welles! A must see for Hitch and or suspense flicks this pretty much has it all, check out Welles’ speech in the park, and the chase scene is one of the best ever filmed. A+
Day The Earth Stood Still, The (1950)- Yeah it's more sci-fi, but again, aliens threatening to destroy the earth are scary. This movie is truly a classic that I still dig, despite it's obvious dated looks and flaws. A flying saucer lands in Washington DC and the pilot gets away, leaving a big ass robot to guard the ship. He goes around and learns about humans, war, etc. from a little kid. The irony. Anyway, eventually the military finds him and shoots him dead in the street and the big extremely slow robot wants to take revenge. Without giving too much away, it turns out alien races are pissed off at humans for using nuclear power for weapons rather than peaceful power. They want people to know they won't hesitate to destroy the earth if we threaten any of them. This movie is full of what would become 50s sci-fi clichés and some 50s silliness too, but they weren't cliches yet. I like it and feel it is a classic worth an A.
Stage Freight (1950)- The reviews I read of this flick seemed unanimous, it was a very underrated Hitchcock film. If almost everyone thought it was underrated... How could it be underrated? Anyway, if it was at anytime rated low, then yes, it was underrated. I think it is a very good flick. Is it a masterpiece? Maybe not, but it is still great. We have a man who is in love with a famous stage actress, who happens to be married. She accidentally kills her husband and turns to the man for help. He helps and then turns to a friend for help... who then turns to her dad for help... And everyone gets deeper and deeper into the events and, of course, things are not at all as they seem. I guess Hitch caught some grief for fooling his audience the way he did in this one (I don’t want to reveal too much) but I think it worked really well and helps raise it above typical 50s murder mystery fair. Plus the cast is excellent, especially Marlene Dietrich as the diva actress and Alastair Sim as the Commodore. Check this one out if you like Hicth murder mysteries. A
Strangers on a Train (1951)- A forgotten Hitch ‘almost masterpiece’. Suspense and black humor permeate this tale of two men who meet on a train. One is a budding semi-pro tennis star, Guy, the other, Bruno, the son of a very wealthy man. Bruno has been reading the society pages and knows Guy wants to divorce his wife and marry the daughter of a powerful congressman. Bruno has an idea. What if he killed Guy’s wife and Guy would kill his father. It could be the perfect crime(s), no motive, no connections, no one would be the wiser and everyone would get what they want. Guy realizes Bruno is slightly off his rocker but after several drinks agrees that the idea might work, hoping Bruno will just leave him alone. Of course Bruno mistakes Guy’s agreement that the ‘idea’ might be a good one and of course implements his plan. We see Bruno edge towards insanity as he tries to get Guy to finish the plan out. Some classic scenes follow like Bruno crashing the high society party, sitting in the audience at the tennis match, and trying to get a particularly important lighter out of a storm drain. Like all Hitch films this movie appeals on many levels (is Bruno gay? Is the merry-go-round a symbol for conformity? Is Guy the ultimate conformist with Hitch actually getting us to root for his demise despite being ‘perfect’? And speaking of Guy being perfect, he obviously has it in him to become physically violent with a woman). Bruno is seen by many to be a prototype for Norman Bates too and I can see that comparison. Although the end may be a little over the top (merry-go-rounds should have governors on them!) this is some great Hitch. A very strong A.
Flight to Mars (1951)- more 50s sci-fi at its best. To be fair this one isn’t quite ‘so bad it’s great’, but it’s close. A rocket is built and sent to Mars, in what really feels like a totally haphazard way. The astronauts are kind of picked at the last minute for weird reasons and when they arrive they are greeted by a great Martian civilization that apparently discovered the mini-skirt prior to earthlings. Subterfuge ensues and we’re not sure who to trust, well, actually we’re pretty sure and the end is a rock’em sock’em smash up of low budget detail. A on the craptacular scale.
The Thing (1951)- Cold War paranoia turns into space ships in the Alaskan ice and a Frankenstein's Monster-like vegetable man who hates electricity. This is some effective 50's scifi horror and plays well with its paranoid trapped surroundings and monster on the lose feeling. B.
Red Planet Mars (1952)- Don't worry, the makers of this film were not communist. After years of trying a scientist and his wife, who is prone to fits of irrationality, silly woman, make contact with aliens on Mars. The aliens beam back their amazement that we are still using fossil fuels, and so all around old fashioned. Of course they are also amazed that we didn't accept Jesus' message of 'Love Thy Neighbor'. Wait a minute are these really Martians talking? Cold War propaganda ensues. This movie is goofy but I have to admit it kept me interested. Not really horror, but the collapse of governments is scary. C+.
War of the Worlds (1953)- 50s sci-fi classic! I really like this flick. Yeah you can mail in all the metaphors it supposedly represents, who cares, it stands up well without all that. Great visual and sound effects for the age and believable acting too. You know the plot. Meteorites crash into the earth, people check them out, and alien invading ships rise from the rubble and destroy entire cities, impervious to our attempts to stop them (even that great 50s God, the A-Bomb is useless) before (PLOT SPOILER) being killed off themselves by of all things germs! Which is a GREAT way to write and end a movie (thanks H.G. Wells!) Yeah it's a little dated but it holds up better than the remake which is all explosions and walking around. A+.
Invaders from Mars (1953)- ’53 was still fairly early in the sci-fi ‘invaders from space act as a metaphor for commies’ genre, but things must have been going downhill a tad already. This flick just doesn’t hold up so well, no I don’t expect great effects, but damn, stock footage of tanks and guys running around in ill fitting green velvet outfits over and over doesn’t really qualify as ‘effects’ does it? This one was aimed at the kiddies and in that vein it does work I guess. A little kid who is overly interested in astronomy sees a space ship land near his house and his dad, and later mom, start acting pretty weird. Since the kid isn’t taken to flights of imagination everyone just pretty much believes him and all the stops are pulled to end the invasion, and by that I mean TANKS! It is a product of its time and keeping that in mind I’ll give it a C+, the minimalist sets and art design work here and there and lend an almost surreal feel at times, despite the clunky acting and dialogue.
House of Wax (1953)- More or less a total remake of "Mystery of the Wax Museum". Vincent Price plays Atwell's part and there is no smart-assed reporter. I think this version works a little better than the original. Again the sets are great and Price plays his part incredibly well. Charles Bronson is also in it, but he's young and doesn't have that crustache yet. Plot-wise it is identical to the original and some of the scenes are even exactly the same. Also, it was originally in 3-D so there are scenes where things are thrown or fall at the camera. B+.
It Came From Outer Space (1953)- Yes, It did. A meteor races across the desert sky and is witnessed by an amateur astronomer and his girlfriend. They go to investigate and he swears he saw a crashed ship, not a meteor, in the crater, but a landslide makes confirming his suspicion impossible and he becomes the butt of local jokes. But when some locals start acting weird, the sheriff realizes something may in fact be amiss. Although pretty weak overall this does have some strong positives. It really doesn’t follow the 50s sci-fi formula done to death by so many of those clones. The ‘law’ is often wrong, and verging on out of control, conformists are NOT rewarded (our hero is kind of an outcast geek who the sheriff believes doesn’t deserve the girlfriend he has), and the aliens in fact are not executing a poorly planned invasion. I hope that isn’t giving too much away. Anyway, a pretty good 50s sci-fi flick, which you will HATE if you hate those, but should like if you can appreciate them. I’ll give it a B on the regular scale because I’m feeling generous today and it was different enough from most of its era/genre to get a reward.
Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)- Classic tale of a giant lizard awakened by nuclear tests. Disbelief leads to fear and military action as ships are sunk and cities are endangered. Sound familiar? After raking in the jack in Japan, Toho would make Godzilla, which was damn near a remake of this Ray Bradbury story based flick. This has it all the sci-fi 50s lovers crave (monster-movie-wise, no aliens though) so if you fall in that mold and haven’t seen this check it out, otherwise it is worth a view if only as an influential curiosity. A+
Phantom from Space (1953)- This felt quite a bit older than it actually was, and that usually isn’t a good thing. The first 5 or 10 minutes are spent tracking a UFO along the west coast, the next 50 minutes are spent driving around in cars with GIANT antennae and chasing a ‘phantom’ around. Said phantom wears a very dated looking space suit that is apparently impermeable and fire retardant. But it gets real interesting when he takes it off because he disappears all together. Why didn’t he just wear an invisible suit too? It makes no sense at all and leaves you wondering ‘who the hell thought this stuff up?’ Close to being craptacular but just too tedious, even at 70 minutes, so I’ll give it an F, although if you like the goofy 50s sci-fi it ‘might’ be worth a viewing for you just for the antennae cars and space suit.
Jennifer (1953)- A new caretaker is hired to watch over a scary old mansion in the boonies. She is replacing a caretaker who mysteriously disappeared and who no one seems to remember actually seeing. Lots of potential but falls flat! Over-acting acting, followed by under-acting, plot twists that don’t twist, and an ending that makes no sense at all if you think about it; Nice atmosphere at times but too little too late. Pretty much a waste of time. D-
I Confess (1953)- Interesting (non-horror, sorry) Hitchcock flick about a priest who is confessed to by a murderer, and, as Hitchcock film luck would have it, the priest, through a series of coincidences, is accused of the murder. The plot on the surface could seem a little convoluted but Hitch breaks it down step by step as we move through the movie. As is typical of Hitch we know from the start who the murderer is, Hitch rarely did ‘mysteries’, instead suspense is built by the conclusions drawn by the detectives as they piece together the story of the murder and find an apparent motive and by the continued contact the priest has with the murderer and his wife who live and work at the rectory. The film is full of obvious symbolism and plays on the martyrdom of the priest who steadfastly sticks to his vows. Although never as popular as many of his other films, this one holds up pretty well. A.
Maze, The (1953)- Strong ghost/mystery tale about a man who suddenly inherits his uncle’s castle, moves to it and mysteriously cuts off his engagement. His bride to be won’t be left hanging high and dry and, against pretty much everyone’s wishes visits the castle with her aunt and then all but refuses to leave. Even inviting friends to come by (to see why her ex-fiancée is acting, and looking, so strange). Just as they are about to have the man committed the mystery is revealed and, well, it kind of tanks right there to put it mildly. If you like these old haunted castle type of black and white movies in the vein of ‘The Innocents’ and ‘The Haunting’ then you will probably like the first 70 minutes of this 80 minute flick, but that last 10 minutes, damn. I’ll give it a forgiving A-, I really hated that ending and it ruined it really, but until then the sets themselves bump the grade up.
Man in the Attic, The (1953)- Here in America we’ve had so many serial killers they’re almost a dime a dozen, but the Brits really just have Jack the Ripper, or so it would seem. Here is another Jack the Ripper flick. In this one a guy without an English accent (technically English people aren’t the ones with accents) moves into a room of a family who need a little financial help. He’s a weird pathologist who does blood experiments in the attic of the house. The family’s niece happens to be a dancer bringing her dance troop back from France for some performances. The performances are horrendous but folks seem to really like them so there’s no accounting for taste and besides London is tense with the Ripper killings taking place so they need some relief no matter how crappy. But this guy staying in the attic, he sure is a strange one, could he be the Ripper? Dated feeling despite not really being that old, with performances by Jack Palance and Aunt Bee! Basically just old school 2nd feature time waster, not horribly done, nothing to write home about either, C.
Creature from The Black Lagoon (1954)- Some bad acting, dated, crazy music, and silly plot lines almost doom this one. Almost. The underwater scenes are brilliantly filmed and the "Creature Suit" is very impressive considering the times. On an expedition in the Amazon Jungle an archeologist finds a fossilized hand of some sort of amphibian. With the help of a greedy scientist (which in the 50s replaced the 'Mad Scientist') the archeologist puts together an expedition into the jungle to find the rest of the fossilized remains. Of course what they find is no fossil. The female role in this one starts out like she might be as smart as the men but then winds up being eye candy that just screams a lot. Why did women scream a lot back in the day? Instead of saying "Hey look! He's over here quick!!" She'd just cover her mouth and say "AHaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!" She also goes for a dip in the Amazon, you know, with the piranha, alligators, electric eels, water snakes, etc. One shot across the boat shows each man with a gun, and the physically weakest of the crew, the woman, without one. Ah sexism back in the day. It don't get no better'n that. All flaws aside this is a classic. B.
Snow Creature, The (1954)- OK, right up front, this one is bad! And not really in a fun way but in a ‘Damn this is annoying’ way. A botanist puts together an expedition to study plants in the Himalayas but just before starting out their lead Sherpa’s wife is kidnapped by a Yeti. Of course no one believes the Sherpa so he has a mutiny and forces the expedition to search for the yeti. They find it, capture it, take it to the big city, where it escapes and walks forwards, then backwards, forwards, and then backwards for the rest of the movie. I guess a couple things sum it up, the Sherpa’s ‘accent’ basically amounts to referring to himself in the 1st person and when the botanist and cop search in the sewers for the yeti they are wearing suits. More annoying than craptacular I’ll just cut to the chase and give it an F.
Gog (1954)- Cold War intrigue and espionage all mixed up with a heavy dose of sci-fi. Someone is obviously sabotaging the experiments at a highly top secret underground installation. But who could it be? A Super ISS/CIA/Atomic Bomb Guard is brought in to find out. And for pretty much the rest of the movie we get to see him walk around and be introduced to the scientists and the utterly useless experiments they are working on. They are wasting MASSIVE amounts of government funding, but that really isn’t in the movie, that was just my own observation. A few more scientists die, some jets are scrambled, and things seem to work out, except I was never really sure what the hell was even going on. I do know the janitors have total access to everything in this top secret facility, and I also know that despite all kinds of magnetic jamming, auto-pilot flying technology someone, or something, has found the facility and has found a perfect way to actually take over the main computer which controls everything and make it do pretty much whatever they want. Apparently what they don’t want is to steal any technology and totally destroy the facility, in that order. In fairness this one was ahead of its time, it looks good, is interesting, and fun, but still, A- and the craptacular scale.
Island Monster, The (1954)- This movie has "monster" in the title so it must be horror or sci-fi right? Wrong. It is (supposedly) a suspense thriller with ‘monster’ being used as a metaphor for a horrible person. Still, watching this one I was constantly reminded of the Japanese monster movies with the cardboard acting, horrible dubbing, unimaginative and frozen cinematography, and overly dramatic musical score. In the Japanese monster movies those things actually work in creating what I guess you could call ‘charm’, here they combine to make a rotten movie that moves at a snail’s pace. Boris Karloff is a kindly old doctor who runs a clinic for children on an Italian island, but it’s really a front for his drug cartel. An Italian officer is sent to the island to help the local police uncover the drug ring and confusion, terrible acting, and annoying dubbing ensue. The officer’s little girl’s trained dog is the highlight of this one. Sorry Boris, you flunk. F.
Dial ‘M’ For Murder (1954)- Classic Hitchcock. Originally filmed in 3D using a prohibitively expensive and complicated process, this film is virtually never seen in that way. A former professional tennis player has become accustomed to the good life, which is now provided by his wife’s money since he no longer plays. He discovers his wife was stepping out on him and worries that he may no longer be able to live that life style, so the best thing to do would be to devise the perfect murder so he can get all of her money. The movie picks right up the night before the murder is to take place, even though we find he has been planning it for quite sometime. In typical Hitchcock fashion, we know the entire plot. There is no real mystery here; the suspense comes from not knowing whether the plan will work, seeing the plan unfold, and then sympathizing with the villain. Genius! Of course the plan goes awry, but the husband improvises a new one that just might get him that money after all. This film brilliantly uses plot devices and character’s skills (the boyfriend is a murder mystery writer) to weave us through the story. I have to give this one an A+.
Rear Window (1954)- Jimmy Stewart is a famous photographer. Not the type that takes pictures of models in a studio, the type that takes pictures of wild animals in Africa, or wars in far off lands. Too bad he’s stuck in a wheel chair with a broken leg looking out the window of his apartment, which just looks out at the back of U shaped apartment building. He watches his neighbors with idle curiosity, and then begins to wonder what happened to one particular neighbor’s wife. Did the neighbor kill her or is he looking for adventure in his boring condition? Another paranoid, trapped, Hitchcock masterpiece, setting adventure and mystery in mundane situations. This is one of my favorite Hitch flicks and that says a lot. A+.
Night of the Hunter (1955)- Robert Mitchum went against type in this one. He plays a preacher who also happens to be a greedy murderer. He's half crazed with religious thoughts and weaknesses of the flesh and he plays the part incredibly well. During the depression a man robs a bank and hides the money. He tells his young son where the money is hidden just before the police kill him in a shoot out. Mitchum finds out the man hid some money and pretends to fall in love with the widow woman in order to score the ill-gotten gains. What follows is suspense at its best with great acting and cinematography. The kids in this are great actors as well and you get almost a German Expressionism feel with some of the stark black and white shots. Not strictly a horror film but an incredible suspense film. A+
Swamp Women (1955)- This isn’t really horror but it is a Corman flick included in one of my Horror Themed boxes o’ DVDs. Here we have one of those ‘women in prison’ subgenre flicks. There are 3 women who know where some stolen diamonds are and they won’t tell. So the cops plant a detective in prison with them, fake an escape, and let the crooked women lead the detective straight to the diamonds. Mayhem and curvy gals in short shorts ensues. There is some painful stock footage of Mardi Gras and of birds and alligators but mostly the flick moves along at an OK pace. The acting, dialogue, and poorly staged fight scenes between the gals offer little, but the location shooting in Louisiana is impressive at times, keeping budget constraints in mind. The end is so painfully predictable that I was bummed I spent 70 minutes watching the movie though. This is really just pure low budget fluff, if you miss this one, you ain’t missing much. Still, I didn’t hate it so I’ll give it a C-.
Beast with A Million Eyes, The (1955)- Yeah, now this is what I’m talking about. Movies like this are why I invented the craptacular scale to begin with. So bad it’s GREAT! There’s a family, they live on some sort of ranch or orchard and they are pretty dysfunctional. The wife hates the husband and is jealous of the daughter who wants to leave, and a half-wit who really likes soft-core porn lives in the barn. Perfect set up! A UFO lands nearby and takes over the minds of the birds and animals, then of the half-wit, then begins working on everyone else, but what it didn’t take into account was love and man’s soul! Once again, aliens with piss-poor invasion plans under estimate mankind’s etc. This one is full on bad, with terrible dubbing, a hilarious plot, and basic total nonsense; although to be fair it may have been a slight influence on The Birds. If you like’em hilariously bad then I highly recommend this one, A+ on the craptacular scale!
It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955)- Very typical entrant into the 50s giant monster sci-fi sub genre. A giant octopus is threatening ships at sea and heading toward San Francisco. The Navy and a couple of scientists are on the hunt and love triangle ensues, sort of. Not great stuff even for those that love this stuff like me, still, if you are into these flicks you need to see it for Harryhausen’s octopus (with 6 arms) destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge. C-
This Island Earth (1955)- This is a classic that tries real hard and succeeds in some areas (special effects [for the times] and original plot) but fails in others (acting and dialogue). The plot? Aliens need earth scientists to help them rebuild their defenses during a war with another planet. Intrigue and suspense follow as we are slowly let in on the plot, and are never sure if we should trust the aliens or not. It’s hit and miss most of the time and never quite measures up to other classic 50s sci-fi like "War of the Worlds" or "Forbidden Planet", but it holds its own much of the time. Worth a view as long as you remember it comes across as pretty dated. C+
Trouble With Harry, The (1955)- Hitch whips out his notorious sense of black humor in this one. There’s a dead body in the hills near a small town. A hunter accidentally killed the man. Or did he, maybe it was the dead man’s wife, or maybe someone else. Everyone seems to feel responsible so the body is secretly buried, then exhumed, then buried again. This is an interesting little movie looking at people’s relationships, sense of responsibility, and dealings with death, and also dealing with love. It is an interesting story and an interesting little black comedy and shows really well how Hitch could turn something so simple into a really good movie. Yeah, that’s a young Beaver Cleaver toting around the dead rabbit. A-.
Revenge of the Creature (1955)- Some scientists hope that maybe The Creature wasn't the only Creature in the Amazon. They turn out to be right and bring a Creature back to Florida for study. Then we are subjected to the study which consists of jabbing The Creature with a cattle prod while in the water (is that a good idea?) this goes on for about 6 or 7 hours then the Creature finally breaks lose. He finds the girl he loves, who the main scientist also loves (of course) and then they follow the Creature into the Everglades (which are a lot deeper than one would think) and along the Florida coast for another 8 or 10 hours (yes, this is a 17 hour movie, or so it seemed). No cool underwater photography to look at in this one. Just greedy scientists, "Shoot first, ask questions later" cops, and eye-candy-Creature-attractors. D-.
The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)- After "Revenge of the Creature" I was ready to give up on the franchise but since there was only one more made I thought I'd give it a chance. It turned out to be much better than the sequel and maybe even better than the first. To make a long story short another Creature, or maybe it's the same immortal Creature, I don't know, is captured and experimented on. A scientist wants to make the Creature human and proves the Creature almost is human and can be changed. Silly non-scientific explanations as to why this could work are held to a minimum, and there is a little actual character development. The scientist is older than his eye candy wife and is jealous of her and over protective of her. This whole plot works nicely and kept me interested (is it actually a racist statement being made here?). In the end all Hell beaks loose. Good directing, acting, and actually well written. B+.
Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956)- Ray Harryhausen’s effects are the star in this one. Sure it’s old school stop motion animation but taking everything in context the look of this one is great. The plot? The US is launching satellites into orbit and each one is failing and crashing and all evidence points to them being shot down. The flying saucers show up, destroy the launch facility (after being attacked by ‘shoot first ask questions later’ soldiers), and kidnap the general. After contacting the lead scientist (who is married to the general’s daughter), and telling him they basically mean to take over the earth, all efforts are made to develop a weapon that will interfere with the magnetic drive on the saucers. The aliens realize what is up and make an all out attack on Washington DC with some of the most famous special effects sequences ever filmed. Sure this one is a dated 50s sci-fi flick with typical ‘The Commies' are coming background, but it still has everything for the lover of such flilms. If you dig this stuff this is a must see, if you don’t you’ll be rolling your eyes throughout. I happen to dig it. A.
Black Sleep, The (1956)- You can't go wrong when Rathbone, Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, and Tor Johnson are all crammed in one movie. Rathbone plays a doctor who puts science before everything except curing his wife. He experiments on living people who he pays a gypsy to procure for him. He saves a brilliant doctor from the gallows by making the prison officials think he is dead and then reviving him back at the castle. His experiments continue and with each one, results a failure leaving the person totally insane and often violent. This movie, while a little goofier, managed a little of that Val Lewton atmosphere, and although it was no where near as good, it conjured up parts of "The Body Snatcher" fairly often. Not a bad movie, but no masterpiece either. C+.
Man Who Knew Too Much, The (1956)- I know what you’re thinking. A movie with Doris Day is on my horror site. I’ve said it before, I know Hitch isn’t really horror but I’m a fan and it’s my site. Anyway Doris and Jimmy Stewart are on vacation with their young son in Morocco when they fall into a little political intrigue by accident. When a mysterious man whispers a secret to Jimmy their son gets kidnapped for insurance against Jimmy telling the secret. Many of Hitch’s favorite themes then play out, normal man in a bad, almost helpless situation, inept police, and being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And, as usual, it all works really well. Hitch was the master, and although this may not be considered one of his best, fans of his will appreciate it. B+.
Bad Seed, The (1956)- Strangely over-the-top flick about the perfect little blond mommy’s girl who also happens to be a cold blooded killer. If she doesn’t get what she wants, well, she has her ways, and she knows no one would suspect her, and if they did she can charm her way out of trouble at the drop of a hat. Drawn out hyper-emotional performances and an odd nurture vs. nature debate frame the whole flick, but if you can take the over-emoting stage performing this is a pretty good one. Kind of ‘Leave it to Beaver from Hell’. Maybe a little ahead of its time in content, but not in acting style, the ‘shocking’ ending comes in two parts, part one is pretty expected, part two, not so much! I’ll give this a strong A, I really liked the pseudo-innocence being played up, and get passed the over-acting and it works pretty well.
Bride of the Monster (1956)- What can I say? This is an Ed Wood masterpiece, and those of you familiar with the great Ed Wood know what I mean. Those of you not familiar with Ed Wood, well, there's a reason for that. Anyway, this is full of the usual Ed Wood dazzling special effects (a giant octopus attacks Bela Lugosi), excellent usage of stock footage (nuclear bomb exploding), and amazing sets (Bela's lab, especially the stone masonry work on the walls). Ed Wood tried to make good movies... Well, not really but he did make movies. Anyway, Bela is a scientist who was run out of his own country and is now on the verge of doing something great with his giant octopus so his country wants him to come back. Too many people have been disappearing in the swamps around his house though so the cops and a reporter are snooping around and figure Bela has something to do with the disappearances. They're right of course. Seriously, Ed Wood flicks are great simply because they are not great at all. If you like digging the bottom of the barrel then you'll love this, if not then you'll hate it. Personally I like it but it's not as bad/good as "Plan 9 from Outer Space". B.
Werewolf, The (1956)- Surprisingly good Sam Katzman werewolf vehicle about a man who stumbles into a small western town with amnesia. He leaves a bar with a pocket full of money and one of the bar patrons mugs him. During the mugging the man turns into a werewolf and kills the mugger. Soon we find out the man was involved in a car wreck and was experimented on by a couple of less than scrupulous doctors. Now he becomes a werewolf at times, no full moon needed. This was an interesting take on the werewolf legend, taking all the folklore out of it and turning it into science (yet avoiding too many pseudoscientific explanations). It’s low budget and the make up and effects reflect that, but it is a good short film with an interesting spin on the werewolf subgenre. A.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)- Another allegory for the Red Scare of the 50's. Alien spores turn people into pods that spit out identical albeit alien twins of themselves. Damned Commies. Paranoia and fleeing ensues. Don't trust anyone! I love the paranoid feel movies like this invoke, when it works that is, and here is does work A-.
Indestructible Man, The (1956)- A worn out looking Lon Chaney Jr. stumbles through this craptacular mess in a nether world between Frankenstein’s Monster and Mad Max. Lon is a bad man, or was a bad man. He stole $600,000 and hid it away, then was framed by his lawyer, but even on death row wouldn’t tell where the money was hidden, but he does promise to get revenge, and, in a quirky twist of fate, is accidentally brought back to life by a couple of scientists experimenting on his cadaver. He can’t talk, but we know he’s incredibly pissed off by the close ups of his twitching eyes... Or maybe that’s just those pesky delirium tremens. Anyway, we’re subjected to the noir voice over of the detective on the case as Lon makes his way from San Francisco to Los Angeles to exact said revenge and get his money back too. His plan isn’t all that great by the way, if he even really has one. This is pretty typical revenge flick material not unlike Chaney Sr’s. "The Unknown" and "West of Zanzibar" and very similar to Karloff's "Walking Dead" or later flicks like the aforementioned "Mad Max", except those movies were good. This is a train wreck definitely worth a viewing for the lovers of the craptacular. I’m giving this one an A on the craptacular scale, I might have given it a B+ but that back and forth between the detective and the stripper is just too good. Stripper: "Do you have a first name?" Cop: "Dick." Stripper: "Oh, then I guess it’s a date." And at the end; Cop to stripper: "I just got you fired." Check it out to see why!
Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1956)- This almost deserved a high grade on the craptacular scale. It pretty much offers everything lovers of the craptacular look for. Terrible dialogue, rotten acting, horrid editing, draw the guns first search with no search warrant fascist cops, and things like the fact that due to budgetary constraints they only had one small row boat to work with so commercial fishermen used it, oceanographers used it, scuba divers used it, everyone used it. And the phantom's monster suit, wow, it was worse than the worst Japanese monster flicks’ monster suits, I mean they weren’t even trying! So why do I say almost, well, despite the awesome badness, it was just too damned slow moving at times. One more thing, whenever I hear people talk about how everyone had manners in the ‘50s I’ll tell them to watch this show. Jeez, everyone basically treats everyone like crap, lying to each other, spying on each other, cops treating everyone like total crap and pushing people around, people stabbing each other in the back, screw these people! So what’s going on? People have been dying (while fishing in little row boats) so some scientists start looking into it... Or do some of them actually have something to do with? Is it caused by radiation? Could it be turned into a deadly weapon and sold? Is the ‘Phantom' actually real and does is it guarding something? I’ll give it a B- on the craptacular scale.
Quatermass Xperiment (1956)- Quartermass, a rocket scientist, (apparently pronounced "Quoitamus") launched a rocket with 3 astronauts on board. He had no one's permission to do this and things then go awry. The rocket crashes into a farmer's field and two of the 3 astronauts are gone and the 3rd is in shock. He is put in the hospital for observation and convinces his wife to help him escape. She does and he turns into a monster that begins killing. Meanwhile the police try and figure out what is going on while Quartmass is all cocky and kind of a dick. At the end, despite the death and destruction he has caused, Quartermass is ready to start all over. This was Hammer's first 'horror' film (although it was kind of an combo sci-fi/horror) and is an obvious influence on the plot of "Alien". It was based on a TV series and had 2 sequels ("Quatermass and the Pit" being my personal favorite as I saw it at the theatre when I was a kid during the PTA Summer Movies). There's nothing great about this one, I guess I would call it 'efficient'. B-.
The Seventh Seal (1957)- Ingmar Bergman's art house flick staring Max von Sydow as a knight returning home after the crusades only to find his homeland ravaged by the plague. All he wants is to get to his castle and see his wife but before he can the angel of death shows up to take him away. He challenges the angel to a game of chess; if he wins he lives, if he loses... The angel of death, being very busy at the time, accepts the challenge but can only play when he has time, which gives the knight time to travel home. He meets many characters along the way and the symbolism of it all would take many viewings by me to even begin to put together. Although not really 'horror' I put it in here because of the subject matter. I really liked this movie; it was dark, evil, and funny at times. Just a really good story. A.
20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)- Classic Harryhausen effects fill out this flick about an egg brought back from Venus by tough guy know-it-all 1950s style macho astronauts. The egg hatches and earth’s atmosphere the lizard like creature grows big rapidly. Scientists try and save the creature but in the end it becomes too big and powerful and the military shows up. Yeah, this is typical 50s sci-fi fodder but it probably one of the better films because of Harryhausen’s creature. I dug this one quite a bit for what it is. B+
Monster That Challenged the World, The (1957)- That name is pretty much the definition of hyperbole. An accurate title would be “The Monsters That Killed 5 or 6 People and Were Then Blown Up in a Pond”. But that would maybe give too much away; I hope I didn’t ruin anything for you. This one follows the formula to a T: Monster kills sailors. Odd evidence is found. Researchers witness the monster. Monster kills civilians. Researchers figure out what monster is. Researchers share old school film of what the monster is. A plan to capture the monster(s) is hatched. It goes slightly awry. Plan is tweaked. Plan works. Someone messed up back at the lab and there is one more monster. That monster is killed. Throughout the whole thing the commander might be falling in love with a secretary. A- on the craptacular scale.
Zombies of Mora Tau (1957)- You know you’re in for a treat after just the first couple of minutes of this flick. A young woman is returning to Africa to stay with her grandma and on the ride to the house she sees a man standing in the road. Then ‘bump-bump’, the car drives right over him. The lady freaks out and the driver casually says, "He was one of ‘them’". This is a low budget low grade Sam Katzman production about zombie sailors guarding the diamonds they lost their lives for after their ship was sunk off the coast of Africa. Expeditions keep coming to dive on the ship and retrieve the diamonds but they always end in tragedy. Will the expedition that just arrived end that way too? Hilariously bad underwater (but not really underwater) scenes ensue as zombies attacking divers, zombies kidnap maidens, zombies stumble around, etc. Typical B grade 50s stuff but this one does have some character to it. B+ on the craptacular scale.
Voodoo Island (1957)- I’m a Boris Karloff fan and this one made me sad. Boris was getting pretty old and here he was stumbling around a pretend jungle uttering some of the worst dialogue ever written, not that other movies he made after this were quality but at least he was in a castle or lab or somewhere decent. I really like most of Boris’ Z grade stuff but this one was just sad. The plot? A rich man realizes he owns a small Pacific island that has a reputation as a place of voodoo (in the Pacific? Seriously?) Anyway, he sends a group of engineers there to scout locations for a resort and only one returns and he is all but comatose. Another expedition goes to find out what happened to the first. It includes a famous ‘debunker’ (Karloff), his assistant, and a couple of others, including a designer who will look for color schemes for the resort?!? Of course she’s just there to create sexual tension, as she’s obviously a lesbian who has it for Karloff’s assistant, but it is about as racy as you’d expect from 1957. Anyway, the island is full of carnivorous plants, voodoo dolls, death wish fetishes, bad radio communication, and we crawl along to a pretty terrible ending. I’ll give this a B on the craptacular scale as it is almost a must see for lovers of 50s man-eating-plant type schlock.
Vampire, The (1957)- Well, at least they didn’t overthink the title! This is a ‘modern’ vampire flick that tries to basically put the vampire myth into modern science. A scientist is found dying; before he dies he gives the local town doctor the pills he has been working on. They apparently regress animal behavior, in hopes of then creating a way to advance or speed up evolution. Not sure why we have to go backwards first but anyway, we soon learn two things, read the label on your pill bottles and don’t take pills derived from vampire bat blood. All told this is pretty classic stuff. Some good 50s pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo, sexism, and ‘perfection spoiled’ 50s fear of the misuse of scientific advancement. But you know what, the thing is, goofy acting, terrible makeup, and plot aside, this probably isn’t too far removed from how people might act in this situation, and while over-all it is pretty predictable, I have to admit it didn’t end the way I thought it would. This isn’t really good enough to get a good grade but it’s really not ‘so bad it’s good’ enough for the craptacular scale; a conundrum to be sure. How about just giving it a C+, if you like the 50s sci-fi/horror then check it out, goofy fun to be sure, but not in a bad way I guess.
Incredible Shrinking Man, The (1957)- Goofy 50s sci-fi garbage? Not when Richard Matheson's writing. Yeah it has a definite 50s feel but it still works. A guy is out on his boat when it drifts through a weird fog that leaves him covered in glitter. Shortly thereafter his clothes no longer seem to fit. After awhile it becomes obvious, he's getting smaller... and smaller... and smaller. Mr. Drysdale's goofy sci-fi explanations aside, the rest of this movie is pretty good. The FX are impressive (considering the times) as the shrinking man lives in a doll house, fights his cat, a spider, cardboard boxes, and a leaky hot water heater, and the acting is believable throughout. The un50s-like psuedo-religious ending surprised me, even though it was kind of weak. Strong B+.
Black Scorpion, The (1957)- If you like the giant monster sci-fi 50s sub-genre you’ll probably like this. It has all the (by 1957) cliché elements. Trashed cars, dead bodies, odd sounds, no one knows what any of it means. They slowly piece together the puzzle and realize there are giant dinosaur era scorpions around Mexico City. And what’s more there are giant worms and spiders too as a recent volcanic eruption and earthquake released them. Most of the stop-motion animation, supervised by the guy that did the original "King Kong", works, although there are some really bad prop close up shots and some piss poor mat shots. The scorpions’ underground lair is a nice set piece but, while a classic sequence, the final battle at a soccer stadium leaves a little to be desired. This is pretty much a must for lovers of 50s stop motion monster flicks, all others may want to avoid. I’ll give it a very strong B+ all things considered.
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)- Hammer's first foray into horror and already they got it right. Peter Cushing is the overly ambitious Victor Frankenstein who inherits a fortune at a young age and hires a tutor who eventually becomes his lab assistant. They dabble in resurrecting the dead and then come across a way to make it work. And of course, Frankenstein goes too far and Christopher Lee as the Monster is created. Ego, edginess, science, and insanity are explored in this effective rewrite of the story. Hammer also set the standard for use of color, great sets, costumes, directing, writing, and acting in horror movies with this flick. If you like the Frankenstein story and dig Hammer films and haven't seen this one then it is a must see. Plain great old school story telling. A+.
The Horror of Dracula (1958)- By modern horror movie standards this is a slow mover but remove genre tags and look at this as just the telling of a story (which we should do with all movies anyway), and I think you have a really good one. Apart from the battle between Dr. Van Helsing and Dracula (good and evil) this movie follows little of Stoker's original novel. It's not a retelling but a rewriting of it and it comes across as being a very original and fresh interpretation of the story. Jonathan Harker goes to Castle Dracula as a librarian, there to sort and check Count Dracula's massive collection of books, or so we are told. We soon realize that Harker is undercover and knows who, or what, Dracula really is. When his plans go awry and Dracula begins looking for revenge, Dr. Van Helsing enters the fray. This was one of Hammer's early horror movies and it again showcases the great Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing who were both on their way to horror movie infamy. Hammer proved that you could have a great story, great direction, great sets, and great acting, all on a budget. A-.
Fiend Without a Face (1958)- Yeah, on the surface it seems like another goofy 50s sci-fi flick, but actually, all things considered, this one was pretty far ahead of its time. Deaths begin piling up around a military base that is using nuclear power to drive its new radar stations to monitor Soviet missile and military bases. Could it be the radiation, could it be a local scientist, could it be aliens? This flick is a little more ‘grey’ than most of this era; there really are no good guys or bad guys. Everyone is ‘sort of’ to blame in one way or another (either directly via involvement or indirectly via paranoia). In other words the tough guys are wrong sometimes, the women (woman) isn’t stupid and helpless, and the military doesn’t come off as some perfect spotless organization (although they’ll make sure everything is right by the end). Also, I guess this caused quite a stir when it was released because it didn’t hesitate to show folks being killed and also lots of blood splattering brains (albeit via some not so great Claymation and in black and white!). I’m going to give this one a pretty strong B+, give it a chance unless you absolutely hate 50s era sci-fi.
Night of the Ghouls (1958)- Wow, Ed Wood at his creative peak! Are rowdy teenagers really the biggest problem in society or are strange supernatural events the biggest problem? Footage of teens dancing and fighting and lots of cop cars flying by would have you think the former, but we soon find out it is the latter we should be more concerned with. Or maybe we should be more concerned with con artists ripping off old people by faking supernatural events... Or maybe real supernatural events are the worst, or maybe those ghosts are actually providing a service, but then again they did kill some kids. Crap I don't know. What I do know is some odd things are happening back at "that Mad Scientist's house by the lake" again. Is it just a con artist holding annoyingly bad séances or is it all real, or a combination of both? What can I say; you have to see it to believe it. I just kept thinking "If these were little kids making this movie it would add up but these are adults in their 40s and 50s, they should seriously know better, or at least try harder." If you like total senseless crap you'll like this. I love this stuff except an Ed Wood movie that's 68 minutes long feels like its 2 hours long! A.
I Bury The Living (1958)- This is a tight and surprisingly well done little flick about a man who discovers that by placing black pins in the map of the cemetery, whoever owns that plot will die. He goes a little crazy with that thought and people keep testing him to prove he is wrong with predictable results. The movie actually has a little 'artsy' flair to it I did not expect and the whole thing looked and felt like a good Twilight Zone episode, so if you like the old Twilight Zone you should like this. My only complaint is the twist ending didn't really add up, I wasn't really disappointed but I wasn't impressed either. B+.
Giant from the Unknown(1958)- Craptacular masterpiece about a legendary giant conquistador who led his men into North America looking for gold and was buried in an area that just might perfectly preserve bodies. I wonder what would happen if some archeologists were searching for him at the same time a series of freak thunderstorms began reanimating bodies in said area. This is some awesome 50s nonsense with plot holes the size of oceans, cardboard box acting, and stereotypes galore. SPOILER! I can’t help but mention that when the animal mutilations and first murder takes place the giant isn’t reanimated, so none of the early crimes were solved at all! Anyway, A+ on the craptacular scale.
Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)- Classic sequel to Hammer’s "Curse of Frankenstein", here we find the good doctor about to be executed. Of course he has made a deal with one of the executioner and heads off to continue his work under the name Dr. Stein. He helps the poor (for spare parts of course), and takes a young eager doctor in as his assistant. The man who helped him escape needs a new body, and he gets one as the doc won’t back out of a deal, but the man’s eagerness to try out his new digs gets everyone in trouble. Peter Cushing is great again as Frankenstein, sitting somewhere between evil and sympathetic he pushes the doctor’s ambition to new lengths, and Hammer’s original take on the story works really well. The look and feel of these Hammer flicks is just great. Some of the lab scenes are goofy, like the eyes floating in the aquarium (check it out to see what I mean), but I’m pretty sure that was done tongue in cheek anyway. A
Blob, The (1958)- This, the original Blob, was a nice entrant into the 50s ‘menace from space’ sci-fi sub-genre (or was it really a menace from space, could it be the devouring blob was yet another metaphor for "The Red Menace"?) Anyway, here we have Steve McQueen as a misunderstood rebel without a cause, some of his hot rod driving prankster friends and his date, a young Helen Crump from The Andy Griffith show. They see a meteor crash into the woods and find an old man with what appears to be some blisters on his hand. They rush the old man to the ‘doc’ and the next thing you know the blob is running around eating folks and the cops think the kids are just pulling a prank. This is chock full of 50s stereotypes but it works pretty well on the level it was intended. A little less standing around talking and blaming the 'kids’ for everything might have made it move a little better though. It is original (or maybe they had just run out of ideas for aliens so this was more or less just a surrender), low budget color flick. Like a lot of these 50s sci-fi flicks, if you dig them then this is a must see, if you hate this stuff then you may want to avoid it, unless you’re curious about this one’s cult movie status. I’ll give it a B+.
Fly, The (1958)- Classic 50s sci-fi/horror about a scientist who ‘plays god’ by making a teleportation device. Not sure how exactly making a teleportation device is ‘playing god’ anymore than making a car or an airplane would be. Anyway, while testing the device out on himself a fly gets into the pod and his genes are fused with the flies when he is reassembled, creating a half human half fly, and a half fly half human. Without the fly-human the human-fly can’t try and undo the catastrophe. All this is told in flashback to the scientist’s brother and a police inspector by the scientist’s wife, who is being charged with murder as she admits she killed her husband by putting his head (and arm) in a machine press. Yikes! Vincent Price plays the brother-in-law in a very understated way and over all the acting is great. Yeah, there is the over-the-top ‘gee Beav’ 50s idyllic home life of the mad scientist, his wife, annoying dumbass son, and housekeeper, complete with lots of ‘ain’t life grand’ violin music, which I guess is suppose to juxtapose against the horror that is to come, and yes, the effects are dated, but this is still a better than most 50s monster movies. The colors, directing, and dialogue for the most part work really well. I’d say this is pretty much classic status, and was one more step towards Vincent Price becoming the horror cult icon he became. A.
Space Children (1958)- I went in hoping for some fantastic craptacular sci-fi, what I got was a really weird moody flick, even Gilligan’s Professor is in it and he is a raging abusive drunk who gets his alright. Anyway, the gist of the whole thing is that we should make sure and not blow up the world since it really belongs to our kids. And to drive that point home an alien brain like thing comes from space, hides in a cave, and tells the kids what to do via ESP. The kids in question live on a military base that is getting ready to launch kind of a preventative doomsday machine and the brain wants it stopped, I think. For being obvious 2nd feature material at just over an hour and a near zero budget this thing really isn’t that bad. Sure there are massive plots holes and logic only 50s sci-fi is allowed to have, but I actually think this might have been too good to put on the craptacular scale. The two main kids are just weird enough, and the parents just clueless enough to create a bit of atmosphere. Maybe I’ll give it a C- on the regular grading scale. Yeah, I admit, that is probably crazy generous, but I’m feeling sci-fi nice today.
Night of the Blood Beast (1958)- Zero budget Corman produced flick about an astronaut who crashes back to earth (to hide the fact that the budget was less than a fast food lunch they make this a top secret space mission, that way no helicopters or military uniform wearing extras are needed), apparently dead, but more in a comatose state. What is keeping him alive? What is that huge mud-bird-human looking monster lurking in the woods and how is it connected to the astronaut, who has now returned from the dead/coma? We will never really know because tough guys shoot first and ask questions later. This is typical late 50s horror/sci-fi fair and with a title like "Night of the Blood Beast" made in 1958 you should know exactly what you are getting. I wonder if the writers of "Alien" saw this back in the day. I’ll give it a C+, keeping in mind what it is (cheap) and what it isn’t (good).
Curse of the Demon (1958)- So is demonology real, or a figment of over active imaginations? And if it is real, how does it work? Skeptics run across what appears to be 'the real thing' with regards to someone who conjures demons, hexes, and magic in general. This is a gem of a little atmospheric horror tale, if you ignore the rotten demon sequences, which apparently director Jacques Tourneur didn't want to add, but the producers insisted upon adding. It was after all the monster movie rage of the 50s. Still, this is a nicely paced, well-acted little tale. A.
Screaming Skull, The (1958)- Aahhh the 1950s. Horror became SciFi as we moved from the Jet Age to the Space Age. Aliens, atomic monsters, greedy/mad scientists etc ruled the day. Occasionally a pure 'horror' film would hit the screens but inevitably, like a Scooby Doo episode, there was the logical explanation of the supposed 'super natural' events. So which category does "The Screaming Skull" fall in? A man and his new wife move into the home where he and his former wife, who died in a tragic accident, lived. His former wife was loaded but all he got was the house, luckily his new wife is loaded too. But she's also apparently bat shit insane. Is her husband driving her there again? Is the mentally challenged gardener, who loved the man's deceased wife, to blame? Is his wife just simply nuts? Or are there really ghosts running around the grounds? This is a well filmed, albeit dated movie. It kept me interested and the acting is really good. The red herrings thrown about are never glaringly obvious so it keeps you off guard. The FX are bad and the movie shows its budget when it comes to those but other than that this one works pretty well. A-.
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)- There is little question of what you are getting with this masterpiece. Odd reports of ‘satellites’ are popping up across the globe (satellites? Really?) and sure enough a woman witnesses one up close and personal. Since she is a raving drunk with a past history of mental breakdowns no one believes her so she sets out to prove she’s not crazy this time. Her husband has been looking for an excuse to leave her, but she’s loaded (with money in this case) so maybe this is his way out, or maybe she’ll make him pay. Insane effects, terrible dialogue, and the weirdest news reporter ever tie it all together. A MUST see for the lovers of the craptacular! A+ on that scale.
It: The Terror From Beyond Space (1958)- Classic piece of typical 50s sci-fi double feature material. A ship is sent to Mars for the first manned expedition. We know the ship has landed, however contact was lost right after the landing. Another ship is sent to look into the situation and finds one survivor, who is then charged with the murder of his crew mates. His story about a Martian life form wreaking havoc on the crew during a dust storm is all but laughed at, until, you guessed it, the life form hitches a ride on the rescue ship and is headed back to Earth, and feeding on the crew. Sound familiar, yeah it’s ‘Alien’ way before ‘Alien’. Anyway this is a pretty large and comfortable ship, complete with gravity and waitresses! Oh and hand grenades, lots of guns, a huge blood supply, and tons of giant crates of stuff; weight must not be an issue on the spaceships of the distant future world of 1973 when this takes place! It is top notch 50s schlock to be sure and a must see if you like that, but it is interesting also in that ‘Alien’ is basically (VERY basically) a remake of this. Don’t expect Gieger designs though, you know what you’re getting into with these right? I’ll give this a strong A on the craptacular scale!
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)- Of course the joke is "What happened to plans 1 through 8?" Who cares? Voted as the worst movie of all time (although I think "Showgirls" might have replaced it) it has that sweet "I could seriously do better than this with some crappy gear in my basement" feel to it. Simply the worst sets ever in a movie and the some of the worst acting ever. Which is why it's become such a cult favorite and a favorite of mine! Aliens have apparently been trying to invade Earth and have failed 8 times. Plan 9 has them raising the dead to use as an army of zombies. I'll give it an A for awful.
North by Northwest (1959)- Artistically this may not rank with Hitch’s best, but from a simple mystery/action/adventure standpoint it is at or near the top. Yes, it is basically just a rehash of Hitch’s older flicks ("Saboteur" etc.) but it simply works. I read somewhere that this movie has all the best elements of the old James Bond films, but this one has something those films didn’t have: Hitchcock! This film never takes itself too seriously, from some outrages plot twists to Carry Grant’s constant smart ass remarks we are reminded to just sit back and enjoy the ride. And what a ride it is. Grant plays an ad executive who, by a complete quirk of fate, is mistaken for a government spy, and through error after error is forced to play out the quirk of fate until the end, being chased by assassins, the police, and eventually the feds from New York to Chicago to Indiana to South Dakota. Along the way we get to see many of Hitch’s trademarks like the ‘everyman’ in the wrong place at the wrong time, inept police work, untrustworthy authorities, and conniving women. And of course several famous scenes like the crop duster chase and the climax on Mt Rushmore. Clocking in at over 2 hours it is a tad long but if you immerse yourself in the plot you won’t notice. A+
Beast From Haunted Cave (1959)- Super cheap entry into the gangster-horror-monster-movie sub genre(?). This one is too long at a little over an hour! Still, it has a certain charm to it in that silly innocent 50s way. Some gangsters heist some gold from a small town bank in the Dakotas and hide out in a ski instructor's cabin in the boonies. It turns out the explosion they set as a diversion pissed off a giant spider like creature, which somehow hunts the group down, and they are stuck at the cabin as a blizzard approaches. Though it’s a little stiff, most of the acting is actually pretty good and the directing works. The effects are terrible even for the time but the monster isn’t in it much anyway. The end rolls up and you pretty much think "yeah, that’s what I thought would happen." Not bad enough for the craptacular scale. C-.
Teenage Zombies (1959)- Jerry Warren directed this little masterpiece of horror and suspense. Jerry Warren was a director just as great, if not even better than Ed Wood, and you know how much I love Ed Wood! These teenagers live near an 800 square mile lake. One of them has a nice boat with a V-8 on it and they like skiing. There always seems to be a problem deciding if they should go skiing or horseback riding (I never got to do either when I was a teenager, the 50s must have ruled!). So one group of kids goes skiing, the other goes horseback riding. Those that go skiing wind up on a huge island in the 800 square mile lake that apparently no one knows about. They stumble across a gal in a really nice evening gown who offers them soft drinks and tells them no one ever comes to her island and when the kids go to leave their boat is missing. They are duly captured by a zombie and put in a cage and say things like "What kind of creep joint is this?" Meanwhile the kids that went horseback riding realize something is amiss when the kids that said they were going skiing but went to the island instead don’t show up later in the day. It must be about 7PM by the time the sheriff heads out in his tiny boat to look around the 800 square mile lake. He finds nothing and gives up after searching for what must have been like 10 minutes because then the kids go out and find that island. They said it was 30 or 40 miles away and I’m not sure how they got there and back in their row boat with the little trolling motor on it in the same day but apparently they did and they go and tell the sheriff about it. Then I guess it’s daytime again as the boys break the lock on their cage door and then it’s night again and they leave the girls alone while they build a raft out of an old door and door jam in what looks like broad daylight but apparently was night. Not to give away the plot but it’s a damn good thing they didn’t have to try and float 4 people on that thing as they would’ve drowned for sure (apparently it is a 10 hour swim to the main land). Anyway, they sneak back into the jail to wait until the next night to finish their incredibly incompetently built and dangerous raft but they have no idea the horrors the day holds. One thing leads to another and we find out the lady is a spy from "The East" and is planning on turning Americans into zombie-like slaves. She needs to hurry though as headquarters needs results or they’re just going to nuke us. See, they were dealing with a double agent and now the military is going to search for them state by state starting in California and working their way east, provided they can get enough helicopters and planes from the army, navy, and air force. Soon we get an ape turned into a zombie, an all out fight between spies, a zombie, and teenagers, and later on the ape, and an exciting escape in the sheriff’s tiny patrol boat. In the end the kids can’t decide if they should go horseback riding or skiing and they hope to get a medal. Shew, sorry, I just had to get all that out. You have to see it to truly appreciate it though. For MST3K treatment only. If this doesn’t get an A+ on the craptacular scale, nothing does.
Giant Behemoth, The (1959)- Radiation leak, dead fishermen, giant prehistoric monster that sprays a radioactive fire kind of stuff, destroyed city, etc. Take The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and mix in Godzilla (which was itself influenced by The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms) and you have this very derivative flick; not a bad entry in the large lizard library just not overly original. Anyway, a fisherman dies from what must be radiation burns, evidence of a giant monster is found, the hunt is on, he makes land. You get the picture. C+.
Killer Shrews, The (1959)- A masterpiece of the craptacular! Here we have some researches doing their research on a ‘tropical’ island (and what a strange island, full of oak and maple trees that seem to have lost their leaves for the Fall, but not a single palm tree or the like in site). Captain Roscoe P. Coltrane is bringing them supplies but a hurricane, probably the weakest hurricane in the history of the Caribbean, is on its way so he’s going to have to anchor in their cove for the night. He has a black first mate and the researchers have a Mexican helper, if you watch this with some friends I’ll let you wager which one gets killed first. Anyway, turns out the researchers are trying to make people smaller so they’ll live longer and eat less. They experiment on shrews since they have such high metabolism and short life cycle, and it seems one of their experiments has gone terribly awry, so awry that the effects seem to be the total opposite of making them smaller, and instead they are the size of large dogs. Oddly, they are EXACTLY the size of large dogs, and they are seriously, insanely hungry. This has pretty much everything you would expect from a 50s sci-fi flick called "The Killer Shrews". It has to get a pretty strong A on the craptacular scale.
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)- Vincent Price's wife wants a party, so he throws her one in a big ol' scary house. He's wealthy and she wants him dead. He's wealthy and he wants her dead. It's an interesting dynamic that they pull off really well. This is a great movie pulled off admirably by the great William Castle, a 50's icon of horror schlock. Are the things happening in the house because of Price or because the house is haunted, or both? Very well done, although the twist ending doesn't really hold up if you think back to everything that went down, plus the voice over at the very end by the owner of the house seems oblivious to what actually happened at the end. Get past these weaknesses and you have a great suspense yarn. B+.
13 Ghosts (1959)- This is a decent enough William Castle flick. A man on the brink of bankruptcy inherits his uncle’s old mansion, tax-free no less, and moves his family in. His uncle’s lawyer warns him that his uncle found a way to capture and keep ghosts and that the house currently has 12 ghosts and is looking for a 13th. Undeterred that family moves in and deals with the ghosts and the weird maid (played by the Wicked Witch of the West). It’s also entirely possible that there is a stash of cash in the house and someone is trying to drive the family out, is that someone of this world or of the next... or both? When played at the movies this flick required viewers to use glasses in order to see the ghosts (the characters on screen also have to wear goggles to see the ghosts), which amounted to another Castle gimmick. This is typical 50s Castle material, no body is trying too hard or taking the material too seriously but it works in a fun old school way. Remade in 2001. B.
The Mummy (1959)- In the late 50s Hammer was making a name for itself redoing Universal Monster movies from the 30s. They weren't just re-filming them though they were rewriting them as well. After a pretty creative take on Dracula and a very creative remake of Frankenstein they tackled The Mummy. Christopher Lee was again the monster and Peter Cushing again the hero, and despite this it didn't feel formulaic. The indoor sets and the color of these early Hammer films is second to none (the 'outdoor' sets leave a little to be desired except maybe the swamp scene) and again the story is very creative. An Egyptian priest is having an affair with a princess; when she dies during a journey he ignores protocol and has her buried where she died rather than where she reigned. He is then caught attempting to revive her and is sentenced to be buried alive with her and protect her for eternity. 4000 years later English archeologists have the unfortunate luck of finding her tomb and being the first to disturb it. Lee and Cushing always take their roles very seriously and deliver whatever dialogue is asked with them like the professionals they are. If you like Mummy movies, and I don't, you'll like this one. B.
Head, The (1959)- Standard mad scientist fair about a doctor who figures out how to keep body parts alive with his serum Z, his over ambitious new assistant of course, takes the experiments too far; nurse’s head, meet stripper’s body. It sounds a lot like "The Head That Wouldn’t Die" but really, this is one is way creepier and darker. No it is no masterpiece, it is clunky, slow, and goofy at times, yet it does create a sort of weird oppressive atmosphere over and above most of this type of stuff. This is a tough one to grade because of what I mentioned above, unoriginal, goofy, yet dark and atmospheric at times. I’ll give it a C+, just be warned it is low budget 50s sci-fi stuff.
Hideous Sun Demon, The (1959)- If man is exposed to new radioactive isotopes and then exposed to sunlight will he devolve back to some sort of lizard? According to this movie, yes. He will also be all bummed and avoid people too, hanging out in bars and picking up lounge singers (being hung-over was probably why he got exposed to begin with). Anyway, he kills someone and realizes he liked it and it’s all downhill from there. This is pretty craptacular, but it is also annoyingly slow and pretty depressing actually. Screw that guy man, he deserved what he got and then refused to listen to anyone on top of that! If you like bad 50s sci-fi give it a look, I love 50s sci-fi but more or less hated this so I’m just going to flunk it.
Wasp Woman, The (1959)- Oftentimes the lust after the fountain of youth can become… horrific! Not a real tagline but fitting as the owner of a cosmetics firm begins to look her age her customer base begins to disappear. Who wants to buy cosmetics from an old lady? So she begins experimenting with jelly from a wasp courtesy an almost mad scientist. As the scientist uncovers some unfortunate side effects he is knocked unconscious in a car accident and the cosmetics CEO ramps up her treatments until, well, you can figure out the rest. Pretty typical 50s Corman material, but if you love them that way then you’ll agree it gets a B+ on the craptacular scale.
Giant Gila Monster, The (1959)- I can describe this movie in 7 words and a contraction: Deuce Coupes, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Giant Gila Monster. That’s really all you need to know but if you want more... We have ‘the gang’; a group of hot rod drag racers with their souped up ’32 Fords tear assing around the sticks near this small town. They’re actually a good bunch of kids though, led by All-American caring correspondence course taking gear head Chase. He’s a hard worker and helps folks when he can, while fixing up hot rods and writing songs on the side. Chase works at Compton’s Garage, and Compton stores nitro-glycerin in is shed out back. Cut to the giant gila monster ripping cars right off the road as they pass. The local sheriff is overwhelmed, being the only peace officer for 10,000 square miles. He asks Chase for some help, since the local rich guy’s kid is one that’s missing and he’s breathing down the sheriff’s neck pretty hard. Chase is glad to help, of course, as long as he can steal the parts off of some of the cars the giant gila monster has ripped from the road. They start to figure things out after the giant gila monster tears down a train bridge and the survivors all say they saw it, now they’ll have to believe the town drunk who bought his Ford Model A for $695 in 1932 and saw the giant gila monster too. But first all the teens will head to the barn for a party with a famous DJ and also to debut Chase’s first single, destined to be a hit. While singing what is apparently the b-side to his single the giant gila monster attacks the barn. You can pretty much guess exactly who saves the day and how (Maybe Chase, with his Deuce Coupe, and some nitro... Maybe, I’m just guessing here). I went into this looking for totally inept filmmaking and actually got just plain old inept filmmaking, not totally inept. It has a great 50s sci-fi giant monster feel to it complete with explanations like salt deposits in drinking water cause gigantism and giant animals can live and hide in the underbrush for years and dialogue like "he might have goofed the speed shifter or something" and ‘bare foot’ means bald tires, ‘sore foot’ means flat tire and records are ‘platters’ so you listen and dance to platters at a platter party. I give this a solid B on the craptacular scale.
The Bat (1959)- There's a serial killer on the loose, one the cops had thought was gone. What's he after, hidden money? Inheritance? Or just killing people for no reason? Is Vincent Price in fact "The Bat" or just another red herring? You'll have to watch this goofy murder mystery to get the answers; even after watching it you may not have the answers! Not a particularly good movie but not terrible. Price is good in this early vehicle, before he had really developed his horror persona he'd make famous with Roger Corman. Good enough acting and OK directing but the plot and writing leave something to be desired. C-.
Bucket of Blood (1959): Early Roger Corman cheapie about a halfwit outcast who buses tables at an ultra hip beatnik club called The Yellow Door. Said halfwit wants to be an artist and be accepted in someway but has no talent beyond memorizing other's poetry. Then one night he's trying to make a sculpture, and failing badly, when he accidentally kills his landlady's cat. So to hide the body he naturally encases it in clay and turns it into a statue (knife sticking out and all). His sculpture becomes a big hit with the in crowd and also draws the attention of an undercover cop who's casing the place. Halfwit then proceeds to accidentally kill the cop too. Luckily he knows just what to do with the body. Meanwhile the owner of the Yellow Door discovers halfwit's secret but knows he can make some money from him so he goes along for the ride. This is a pretty decent black comedy cult favorite about loneliness and the desire to be accepted. It is cheap of course and the copy I watched was pretty bad but that aside I liked this one. Nothing great about it just a good story and fair acting, tightly paced and played out. B.
Tingler, The (1959)- This is, on the surface, more goofy William Castle stuff. You probably know the story about seats in the theatre being wired to produce a mild electrical shock to people at the most opportune times as they watched the movie back in the day. Yeah it's goofy and no, it doesn't actually require the warning that you may die of fright but this movie does work on many levels. It is well written (for hokey stuff anyway) and the plot is actually pretty good and tightly directed. The plot? Vincent Price is a coroner but his real interest is in the physiological changes the body experiences while frightened and exactly what triggers and releases those changes. He finds the perfect subject in a woman who is mute and therefore can't scream, which is the hypothesized release. Due to a decent enough plot twist Vincent gets to discover the creature from the title, The Tingler, which is a very silly giant centipede like thing which escapes and then triggered the electrical shocks in the theatre (It escapes in a theatre in the movie, nice touch). It is as silly as it all sounds but somehow it does work and is a pretty original plot. B+.
Invisible Invaders (1959)- It was the 50s and if it wasn't the commies trying to take over America then it was the aliens. Luckily we can learn, as a species, to work together, and, even more luckily, all invading aliens, no matter how advanced or invisible, always have one glaring weakness that will ruin their plans of invasion. These aliens are indeed invisible, but they take over the dead bodies of humans and stumble around in Romero zombie fashion until scientists find that fatal Achilles Heal. This is great 50s schlock complete with terrible effects and hilarious 50s sci-fi props so if you like that sort of thing you'll like this but if not stay away. One think you will notice is this film almost had to have been an influence on Romero and "Night of the Living Dead" as some scenes are very similar. C
Alligator People, The (1959)- A scientist figures out he can cure severely injured patients by giving them alligator DNA as some reptiles have regenerative abilities. The cure works great until patients begin showing signs of actually becoming alligators. The wrap around story is about a nurse who marries an Air Force officer who survived a horrific plane crash, how do you think he managed to survive? Pretty insane 50s stuff right here, but if you like the monster madness you’ll like this low budget (are there any other kind) entry. I’ll give it a B on the craptacular scale, or maybe even a B+ when factoring a drunken Lon Chaney Jr’s drunken part!
Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)- Another early Roger Corman masterpiece. Well, maybe not a masterpiece but it’s better than the title would imply. The acting, directing, and sets for the most part work pretty well for a zero budget 50s monster movie. In the swamps of Florida a poacher disappears after having told some friends that he thought he saw some sort of monster in the swamp. Meanwhile a fat sweaty guy tries to show his eye candy wife that he loves her, but he finds her with another man and chases them out into the swamp with a shotgun, they are taken away by two monsters, right in front of his eyes. The local game warden, eye candy for the ladies, along with the local law enforcement, pretty much get everything wrong and make wrong decision after wrong decision. More folks disappear before everyone realizes that atomic waste, just enough to make leeches huge, is coming down from Cape Canaveral (?!?) The sequences in the leeches' cave are actually fairly effective (not counting the leech suits) for the time. Terrible monster suits, goofy diving sequences (are swamps really that clear), silly dialogue, and stiff as board acting by our hero only make this one more fun. B+ on the craptacular scale.
Manster, The (1959)-Classic piece of low budget nonsense! Basically ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ with two heads! A reporter is on the verge of heading home to his wife. He’s been on the road covering ‘wars and revolutions’ for years and is ready to get off the beat. One last story gets him involved with a mad Japanese scientist who injects him with a formula that has something to do with evolution. Didn’t quite get the connection there but soon the guy discovers the fun-side of Japan, mainly geisha girls and Saki. He also notices his shoulder hurts and he’s given to fits of rage. Soon the shoulder gets worse, an eye grows out, and the next thing you know he has two heads and loves killing folks. What else can the scientist do but inject him with another dose and hope his two personalities split apart into two people! This thing is just insane, low budget, double feature fun. Despite some really bad effects and mail me my check acting the over all look of the flick isn’t that bad, and the title alone bumps it a grade or two on the craptacular scale! I’ll give it an A of the craptacular.
Man From Planet X, The (1959)- An alien ship lands in the moors of Scotland and, through mind control, enslaves some of the locals to help prepare the earth for an alien invasion. The effects are dated but over all the plot, while not terribly original, is still good. This is over all a decent enough 50s sci-fi flick until the end which is incredibly dumb. These aliens seriously need some better plans and they need to stop underestimating us. C+
Eyes Without A Face (1960)- I've seen this movie on many critics' top ten horror movie lists. It's the story about a doctor whose daughter's face was mangled in a car wreck that he feels was his fault. He's an expert in transplant surgery and goes about transplanting girls' faces onto his daughter's, trying to get one that will match. And through it all his daughter is inching towards insanity. This movie sits somewhere between art house and horror. There are lots of scenes of people walking up and down stairs and driving around in hilarious French cars that look like they are made of sheet metal. Much of the soundtrack seems very inappropriate too, like circus music or something. Still, this film is ahead of its time and if it wasn't black and white it could easily pass for something made 20 years later. A.
Atom Age Vampire (1960)- Another film about a guy killing girls to make another girl pretty. An oft repeated theme of this era in Europe ("Eyes Without a Face", "... Dr. Orloff" etc, all of which hearken back to the Lugosi vehicle "Murders in the Rue Morgue"). Anyway, a woman is disfigured in a car wreck and in the incredibly shallow world in which she lives decides to kill herself, just then she is visited by a woman who says she knows a doctor who can help. She takes the gal up on the offer, is cured, sort of, and the doctor falls in what I call "cinema insta-love" with her. When her disfigurement comes back he has no choice but to kill young woman to make more serum. Not sure why he didn’t have to kill women to make the fist batch, that is never explained. He doesn’t have the stomach for murder though so instead he injects himself with an older serum he made that turned people into monsters instead of curing them, yeah, it was an unfortunate side effect, but, like Viagra, he found a good use for it. This would be more aptly titled "Atom Age Dr. Jekyll and My Hyde" but that doesn’t sound as cool. This is typical early Euro-trash complete with hilariously bad dubbing, way over the top acting, and terrible dialogue. There are a couple of inspired moments with some interesting and atmospheric camera work and the monster sequences might have worked if they wouldn’t have felt so 1932 Dracula. This is a tough one to grade, there were some great craptacular moments and dialogue, but it was a little too slow moving to really be too much fun in that regard. I guess maybe I’ll give it a D+, weird, it seems too good for that grade but not good enough for a C-!
Little Shop of Horrors (1960)- Classic little horror comedy that basically follows the same story as Corman’s earlier "Bucket of Blood". A half-wit delivery boy at a florist in ‘Skid Row’ is on the verge of getting fired. He can’t allow this to happen as he has to support his hypochondriac mother so he breeds a new plant that he hopes will make the floral shop famous and him secure. The plant starts out interesting enough but soon gets sick and he accidentally realizes it really likes human blood. The plant grows very quickly on its new diet but where to get more food? A series of accidents leads to bodies which leads to food, which leads to a bigger and hungrier plant. This was remade into a successful musical play and later a remake of the movie in the guise of the musical play. A classic incredibly low budget quickie from the Corman catalogue (with an appearance by a very young and masochistic Jack Nicholson). B
Virgin Spring (1960)- Admittedly, this ain’t for everybody. Ingmar Bergman’s flicks tend to be slowly paced, deliberate, and pretty full of symbolism and general weirdness. Still, this is an incredibly well filmed movie, with its stark black and white, dark vs light motif. Great acting from everyone, as they portray their stereotypes to a T. The doting mother and father, the tired but loyal field hands, the ‘bad girl’ and the ‘good girl’, the depraved rapists who drive the doting parents to vengeance, the young boy who is the conscience of the rapists. The tale is an old one, a young girl is raped and killed, the rapists then accidentally seek refuge in her parent’s home. In this case it is 1400s Sweden, not a great time to be alive, winter is setting in, the young girl is taking candles to church, the rapists steal her clothes and the trap is set. My only complaint is throughout it seems obvious, despite all their piety and prayers, that there is no god answering them, so the very end is confusing to me. Yes, it is basically the same plot as ‘The Last House on the Left’, but executed so much better, and although just as brutal via the subject matter, not as visually brutal, and it doesn’t need to be. A+
Horror Hotel (1960)- More or less forgotten movie that would play an influence on many movies to follow including "Psycho", "Night of the Living Dead", and "Carnival of Souls". Christopher Lee is a professor studying witchcraft. He convinces a student of his to go to an old New England village to do some research. The few inhabitants are strange and the hotel she stays at is very creepy. Some effective scenes and good acting follow as a coven of witches runs the town. This is a classic made by Hammer Studio's biggest competitor of the day Amalgamated. A.
Blood and Roses (1960)- Interesting Italian take on the ‘Carmilla’ story. A man is getting married and his distant cousin is devastated as she has been in love with him since they were children. She can’t take the feelings of rejection and goes a little crazy, or maybe she’s possessed by an ancestor who may have been a vampire. It leaves the conclusion a little open ended, which was kind of nice. I talked before about how my impressions going in often times influence how I feel about a movie, I went into this pretty much expecting crap and wound up really liking it, had I gone in expecting something great I may not have liked it as much. As things stand I’ll give it a generous A. Yeah it’s low budget, the acting ain’t great, and the dubbing is bad at times, but it is a good little modern take on an old story.
Peeping Tom (1960)- This guy is a photographer. He does work in the movies and a little soft-core porn on the side. He also has a strange fetish. He likes seeing women scared, not pretending to be scared but really scared. So, in order to really scare them he makes snuff films. He also gets a charge out of filming the cops and coroner in the aftermath. He knows he's destined to get caught so he hurries to try and get the perfect shot, who will his perfect shot be of? His neighbor who he is falling for? Her mother who is blind and has been 'watching' him? Or someone else? This is a great suspense thriller. It is low budget and the look and beatnik/hard bop soundtrack is dated sounding now, but despite those flaws this movie was way ahead of its time. There is a rawness and 'realness' to it that would become common in the 70s with movies like "Texas Chainsaw..." and "Last House on the Left". 1960 was a watershed moment in realistic modern horror/suspense with the release of "Peeping Tom", France's "Eyes Without a Face", and "Psycho". A.
Flesh and the Fiends, The (1960)- Classic black and white flick telling the mostly true story of Burke and Hare, a couple grave robbers back in the grave robber days who find a local doctor willing to pay top dollar for fresh cadavers, and what’s the best way to get a fresh cadaver? This is almost a black comedy with great performances by Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasance (as well as everyone else). Although not gory by today’s standards, in 1960 this was probably a tad edgy. An all-around great British Horror from the early 60s, A+.
Last Woman on Earth, The (1960)- It is better to aim high and miss... This flick tries pretty hard to be Hitchcock’s "Lifeboat" or an updated "Lord of the Flies", and it fails. Nice idea, but the writing just doesn't hold up. So what's going on here? A rich as Hell businessman, his wife, and his lawyer are on vacation in Puerto Rico (his wife is angry because he can never actually take a real vacation, hence the presence of the lawyer). They decide to actually take a day off and go scuba diving, when they surface it seems there is no oxygen to breath. They leave their tanks on and go ashore, soon realizing that oxygen is coming back, good for them, too late for everyone else (in the world? this we really don't know but a total lack of radio contact suggests they may in fact be the last humans). So the businessman does what businessmen do, he takes charge as the lawyer slowly begins to rebel and things sort of break down. The dialogue tries real hard to wax philosophical about humans and life and civilization but this is a cheap Corman flick so you pretty much get what you’d expect, but without the sly sense of humor present in a lot of his other work of this era. It wasn’t horrible, like I said, a good enough idea, and considering the budget it is well done, but the dialogue just wasn’t good enough to keep it moving along. D+
Brides of Dracula, The (1960)- Pretty classic Hammer material; Great sets, great acting, great use of vivid color, Hammer didn't skimp in those days. Dracula was killed... several times, and is still dead (not undead) throughout this movie (in other words Christopher Lee said "No") so the plot has Cushing's Van Helsing pursuing a vampire who has been chained up in his room by his own mother and kept alive by the blood of young traveling woman, and now has escaped thanks to one of those women. The vampire is so happy that he's asked her to marry him. It's a fairly original take on the legend and it works for the most part. The fight scenes are poorly staged and apparently flying bat special effects technology went nowhere from the 1930s to the 1960s but those are small issues. B-
Tormented (1960)- Low budget little thriller about a guy who kills his ex-girlfriend after she threatens to breakup his engagement to a rich girl. The guy feels guilty right off and you can tell murder isn’t something he was cut out for. Guilt turns to near hysteria as he begins hearing the ex-girlfriend, and eventually seeing her, or at least parts of her, manifesting themselves around him. One thing leads to another and the guy just gets himself in deeper and deeper until there may be no turning back. For being so low budget the acting and look of this one aren’t too bad. The effects leave quite a bit to be desired and it is a tad slow moving at times (the guy is just basically walking around seeing things no one else sees for about 1/3 of the movie), but overall it is an effective piece that evokes a little atmosphere and I liked the ending. B
Angry Red Planet, The (1960)- Another example of "so bad it's good". I have no idea how I draw that line between bad=bad and bad=good and I'm sure most disagree with me but that's another essay. Here a rocket is sent to Mars to investigate but contact with it is lost shortly after it enters Martian orbit. Some time passes before they are able to make contact and bring it home via remote control, unsure if anyone has survived. The rocket lands and a survivor from the crew tells us what happened in flashback. Apparently Mars is covered in jungles and lakes and cities and they are all very very angry at us (yes, the lakes and jungles are angry too)! They are also all a strange tint of red. I mean everything is red. Light wavelengths must be seriously limited on Mars. The makers of this film used something I believe they called Cinemagic to create the (not) dazzling FX of The Red Planet, but they really did it so it would be harder to tell that the sets were all just paintings. Anyway, there are some GREAT 50s sci-fi moments and stereotypes along with crazy Martian Critters to enjoy. A must see for sci-fi B movie fans, everyone else stay away. I got to see it at the drive-in recently! Thanks Horseshoe Lake Drive-in! A for awful.
Black Sunday (1960)- A Mario Bava classic combining legends of vampirism, witchcraft, and Satan worship. A witch and her lover are tortured and killed (by her brother no less) and forced to wear the Mask of Satan, a mask that is basically nailed to the head. The witch curses the family and 200 years later returns to exact her revenge on her look alike descendant and her look alike descendant's father. There's some silly dialogue and some old school over the top acting but I still liked this movie as a well paced witch period piece. B.
Circus of Horrors (1960)- Way over the top flick about a plastic surgeon who operates on a woman with disastrous results. He flees England for France to hide out and winds up running a circus where many performers seem to meet untimely demises! The police can’t prove anything but are watching the circus and when they tour England things go from bad to worse. Joan Crawford’s circus vehicle ‘Berserk’ is similar, and probably a little better, but this one is fun too. Insane over-acting, just watching the facial expressions is worth the price of admission alone, and a ridiculous plot make it work on that ‘just for fun’ level. If you like campy insanity this is for you, C+.
Cape Canaveral Monsters (1960)- Pretty much just garbage, but I like garbage so what the Hell. Aliens are none too happy with humans’ advancements in the space program (of course) so they set out to sabotage our efforts, but they try and do it so we won’t notice it is sabotage for some reason. They have lots of great technology that doesn’t seem to work too well, and can readily move about in kind of an energy/light form but even that doesn’t seem to really do them much good in the end, as it never does in these movies since humans’ ambition, love, or whatever the lesson is will always prevail, even though ambition is often what gets us in trouble, but we’ll learn our lesson, until the next invasion, etc. This one is fun, and short enough to not get tedious, almost a must see for lovers of 50s craptacular fun. An A on that scale.
The Fall of the House of Usher (1960)- Richard Matheson's script is pretty faithful to Poe's tale of a man held prisoner in his house and haunted by the past deeds of his nefarious family members. The house is crumbling around them and there are no heirs and he plans on keeping it that way as a suitor tries to woe away his sister, who he has also kept in his prison. Vincent Price plays Roderick Usher in a very subdued believable manner and we are never totally clued into whether or not Usher is insane or if in fact what he says is true. This is part of the power of the film along with the magnificent sets and great acting. While I liked the film quite a bit I don't feel that it is the masterpiece many reviewers set it up to be so I'll give it a strong B.
Psycho (1960)- What can I say about this flick that hasn't already been said. It is indeed a masterpiece from the master. Hitchcock is that rare example where his popularity and accolades are more than deserved. "Psycho" follows a woman who is in the process of making some bad decisions, these bad decisions lead her to the Bates Motel where she decides to go back and face the music for her decision making, but, as we know, it is too late for that. Hitch kills off his female lead about 1/3 into the movie, so where do we go from here. Well we try and figure out just what happened to her. One of Hitch's devices was to let the audience in on most of what was going on, that way you more or less knew what to expect (or at least you thought you did) and that's one thing that leads to a lot of the suspense, the waiting, and then the twist, and this one delivers a really good twist for those that haven't seen it (if there are any out there). Of course the shower scene is one of the most famous sequences in any genre of movies, from the music to the visuals, it is known more for what it doesn't show, and the influence it would play on future 'slasher' flicks, of which this is really the first. I admit to giving too many As in my grades since I get carried away sometimes but this movie truly deserves an A+.
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)- Vincent Price's dad was an inquisitor and he witnessed some heinous stuff when he was young, including the torture of his mother. Rough childhood. Luckily he's grown out of all that stuff and has a lovely and caring young wife... or has he... or is she... Nice twist on the Poe tale (which as it is wouldn't make for much of a full length movie but makes for a great read). I really liked the twist and twist again ending too. Corman was hitting his stride with these Poe/Price vehicles at this time and I think this is one of his best. Great sets, color, and acting throughout. A.
Scream of Fear (1961)- Hammer, like everyone else, wanted to cash in on the success of "Psycho", and this was one of their tries. The story starts with a body being pulled from a lake and then picks up at a mansion on the French Riviera. A paralyzed girl who has been living with her mother since her parents’ divorce is going to stay with her father, who she hasn’t seen in years. She is a sensitive girl who has recently lost her mother and also her childhood companion, who was apparently the girl they were pulling from the lake at the beginning. Soon after arriving she begins to see the body of her father on the grounds, he appears dead, but she keeps getting told that he is away on business. What’s going on here? It’s actually pretty obvious what’s going on, at least at first, then twist number 2 rolls around and I was surprised. This is a very well directed and acted taut little suspense yarn. It won’t hold up under much scrutiny but I won’t get into that as it would ruin it so suffice it to say, just watch and enjoy. A-.
Mysterious Island (1961)- this is a great setup for a Jules Verne ride, complete with Harryhausen effects. During the Civil War some Union POWs escape in a balloon, which is great except they really don’t know how to fly it so they fly and fly and fly and wind up crashing somewhere in the Pacific on an island inhabited by some heinous giant critters. Some women show up after a shipwreck (convenient) and we are off on an adventure complete with Captain Nemo. If you like these sci-fi flicks (like the Sinbad movies, Jason and the Argonauts etc) you’ll like this one too. I’ll give it a B+, some of the acting is over the top, but sit back and just enjoy.
Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)- Holy...! This flick is a masterpiece of the craptacular. It would be a toss up between which is truly the worst, this or Wood’s "Plan 9...". This thing is a mind boggling must see for lovers of grade Z flicks. Tor Johnson, in his final roll, plays a Russian scientist who is defecting to the US. KGB agents chase him into the desert Southwest where he is accidentally subjected to radiation from a nuclear test. "Progress", the narrator tells us. Tor is transformed into a mindless killing machine... sort of. Or at least a big slow moving guy waving a stick. He offs a couple of people then pursues some kids who got lost in the desert. Meanwhile he’s chased by "shoot first ask questions later" (literally) cops, who shoot the lost kids dad while flying over in an airplane!?! This movie was shot without sound, unsure if that was for budget reasons or a statement by the ‘artist’. All dialogue was added later and it is painfully obvious. The narrator tells the story in what sounds like 8th grade prose and any time two characters speak to each other the director goes out of his way to not show their mouths since nothing would sync up; hilariously awesome. This one gets a strong A+ on the craptacular scale.
Curse of the Werewolf (1961)- Hammer was so incredibly original in their early days and was always able to put a good spin on an old story. After success with the Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Mummy stories they went after the werewolf and again it worked out very well for them. A beggar while in prison rapes a young woman. A local couple adopts her son and the rage left in him from his dark past has a strange way of venting itself, especially after he falls for a woman he really shouldn't be chasing. These earlier Hammer vehicles don't feel so much like "Horror Movies" as "Movies about Horror". The story always comes first, something many studios (as well as Hammer) soon forgot. This is a great period piece with an original story (based on the book "A Werewolf in Paris" but Hammer had some Spanish sets left from another movie so moved the local). A.
Mr. Sardonicus (1961)- This is a William castle movie, and the hokey beginning would lead you to think you are headed down more or less, hokey William Castle road. But that ends up being a false impression. No campy gimmicks, no false "So scary people fainted" stuff (not that those are bad things), instead we have a more or less subtle gothic horror movie about a poor man who must dig up his father’s fresh grave to get a winning lottery ticket. He becomes incredibly wealthy, but also pays the price of having his face frozen in a horrifying ‘death grin’. His new wife’s ex-boyfriend happens to be a genius surgeon who just might be able to fix up his face. Sardonicus’ butler is a sadistic nutjob channeling his best Bela Lugosi and the rest of the cast is almost perfect as well. This is a classic, slow paced and anti-climactic by today’s horror movie standards to be sure but if you like these gothic period pieces you will like this one. B+
Innocents, The (1961)- This flick is based on Henry James' "Turn of the Screw" a long short story. I read "Turn of the Screw" one October and it is a pretty effective ghost story. I could see it turned into a good movie and, for the most part, that is achieved here. The story revolves around a new governess sent to care for orphans whose rich uncle has custody but really wants nothing to do with the kids and makes that very clear from the beginning. The governess begins to see and hear things in the huge mansion and on the property and it seems the kids may somehow be involved, or at least influenced by the things they saw when their previous governess was alive and having an affair with the valet (who is also dead). Simply put this is a psychological thriller set in the guise of a ghost story, however we are never really sure if the ghosts exist in reality, or only in the prudish virginal governess’ mind. There are so many undercurrents happening just below the surface you could write an entire essay on the meaning of it all. This movie predates "The Haunting" by a couple years and you can see where "The Haunting" borrowed quite a bit from a directing standpoint (camera angles, lighting, etc.) but the effect in "The Haunting" is better over-all. "The Others" was also very loosely based on "Turn of the Screw" and takes its name from a line in "The Innocents." This is a slow building unresolved ending ghost story, only those who like that approach need apply. On my second viewing of it I finally understood. A+
Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)- How did Corman actually pull off halfway decent flicks with absolutely no budget? This goofy little spoof plays out like one of those "Airplane!" movies with over the top comedy mixed with a subtle wit. The plot is about a gangster hired by Cuban refugees during the Cuban Revolution to get gold out of their country. He plans on killing the Cubans and blaming it on a legendary monster that lives in the ocean, and then he’ll keep the gold. Of course it turns out the monster is real. The characters are insanely over the top as is the dialogue, but it works as a complete spoof of all things monster-gangster-spy. It gets a little tedious near the halfway point and even at 75 minutes is a little too long. Despite that I’ll give it a B but keep in mind this is low budget comedy schlock.
Bloodlust! (1961)- Mr. Brady, before Carol and the kids, is out for an afternoon at sea with friends. They decide to visit an island. It's a strange island with a strange man living there. He's hesitant to let them leave. What's he got in mind? We know he likes to hunt. Hhhmmmmm, maybe he wants to hunt... PEOPLE?!?! Mr. Brady keeps a cool collected head just like you'd expect though. This is a cheap old school Scream Teen flick that in a cheap old school Scream Teen way works. I wonder if the producers of "House of the Dead" reviewed below saw this one. If you like goofy black and white thrillers, like me, you'll like this. B.
Gorgo (1961)- Deemed the British Godzilla, this flick is a treasure trove of giant monster clichés. Giant monster upsets local fishermen, scientists find giant monster and capture it for the circus, a kid warns them not to, giant monster’s even more giant mother shows up and destroys man made landmarks while trying to save her giant baby. This is a must see for giant rubber-suit monsters fans, and fans of Brit sci-fi from this era. It is, all things considered, very well done. B.
Dr. Blood’s Coffin (1961)- This movie tries pretty hard and comes close. Yeah, it is low budget schlock to be sure but it works as it is well constructed and the acting (all things considered) isn’t bad. The story revolves around a brilliant young doctor returning to his small town roots. Is he there to take over his ageing father’s practice, or is he there to experiment on raising the dead? Oddly ‘accidental’ deaths seem to follow him around and his ambition, as is so often the case, gets him in a tad too deep. This thing starts out like it is going to be a mystery, but drops all mystery pretense pretty quickly, which seemed a weird shift, still, if you find this in the 99 cent bin at Wal-Mart and like low budget insanity this ain’t too bad, as this stuff often goes, I have seen WAY worse. Not bad enough for a craptacular grade. I’ll give it a C, nice effort, oddly put together.
Brainiac, The (1962)- Wow, it SAYS this flick was made in 1962, but it sure ‘felt’ like I was watching a movie made in 1932. From the horribly written, and even worse delivered and dubbed dialogue, to the almost continuous dated music, this terd sinks quick. It is a revenge flick very much in the vein of early Bava fare like ‘The Mask of Satan/Black Sunday’ except it sucks. A guy is tortured and eventually burned at the stake for something or other, being a sorcerer I guess. He curses the ancestors of the people who condemn him and swears to ride back in on a comet when it comes back around in 300 years. This he does in some of the worst unspecial effects I have ever seen. He goes about removing his victims’ brains with a huge forked tongue as he transfers back and forth from the brainiac to himself. He also has Dracula like hypnotic powers which lead to some hilarious ‘hypnotized’ folks. Local astronomers who saw the comet and also happen to be descended from people this warlock guy knew are looking into the comet, and the recent murders, as are a couple of detectives who carry flame throwers. Weird stuff to be sure but a must see for fans of the craptacular. A+ on that scale!
Panic in the Year Zero (1962)- I read quite a few fairly positive reviews on this one prior to watching it so I was expecting a good, although low budget, look at some realistic Cold War Nuclear paranoia. What I got was Ray Milan yelling at his nagging wife and whiny daughter after LA is hit with a nuclear attack. Luckily Frankie Avalon is his son and Frankie, while only semi-annoying, can still sling a shotgun with the best of them. Anyway Ray pretty much just yells at everyone and has a real short temper, he is after-all trying to keep his family alive (which he reminds us, and his family of several times), and doesn’t have time to worry about their concerns or explain his fantastic plans (like trying to drive back into LA, stopping at a diner for a sandwich, giving speeches about law and order while robbing a hardware store). Yeah, it is total anarchy, luckily, or maybe not so luckily really, the only real threats are some greaser hoods that only occasionally carry guns. We do find out that all out nuclear war really wouldn’t be so bad, just camp out in a cave a few days, avoid the greasers, and then everything will work itself out. I know this is low budget, I wasn’t expecting anything great, but it is just poorly executed and the stock footage is so far off from matching up with the ‘action’ that it is as distracting as Ray’s constant annoyance at his pesky family. Hey Ray, why bother even trying to keep them alive? Take the guns and head to ground zero for a real lootenanny. D.
Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962)- Oh my! What’s not to love? Spaceship with oscilloscopes and VU meters for instruments; Chauvinist tough guy astronauts, Cyclops claymated dino-rat thing, stock footage from other moves, mind reading alien, Scandinavian hotties, amazing theme song. Yup, this one has it all and then some. A UN expedition to Uranus leads some astronauts into mayhem as an alien intelligence plans on taking over their bodies to get back to earth. He begins the process by creating sort of a little paradise for the astronauts, complete with women from their past and delicious apples (which is apparently all one of the guys dreams about). Oh and dangerous creatures, and, well, lots of other stuff that really makes no sense at all with regard to the alien’s plan. How they didn’t get sued by Ray Bradbury is kind of amazing as this is basically culled from a couple of his stories. It is just full of everything bad but good and a must see for the lovers of bad 50s sci-fi. A+ on the craptacular scale for the theme song alone!
Day of the Triffids (1962)- Another one of those classics from my childhood. I remember watching this on a cold winter afternoon and digging it. I found it at the library and checked it out. Most of those old flicks I dug as a kid hold up, this one didn't. Pretty rotten special effects (even for the time) and pretty rotten story (although I haven't read it I hear the book is very good). A meteor shower ends up blinding everyone except a few who for one reason or another didn't get to witness it. Then the triffids, plants from space (I guess), begin to grow like mad, move about, and become people eaters. We follow an American who teams up with a little girl and winds up in France. I think M. Night Shamalyan kind of borrowed from here and there for his great "Signs" though. Still, I was disappointed. D-.
The Premature Burial (1962)- Corman and Poe made a good team, even though Poe had been dead for many years. Ray Milland (not Vincent Price) plays the victim of paranoia who fears being buried alive so much that it affects his entire life and of course, the force of his beliefs make the nightmare come true. This is a good old school Corman production with the fog machines working over time. Not as atmospheric as some but it passes. The ending was nice but you could see the twist coming pretty far off so no real surprises. This could've probably been great with Price in the lead. B.
Night Creatures (1962)- Hammer paired two of their favorite actors, Oliver Reed and Peter Cushing, in this tale that basically amounts to moonshiners and country legends, except they're in England back in the day running wine. There's a legend about 'marsh phantoms' that some have used to hide their activities from the revenuers but it won't last for long as the sly Captain is catching on. And why was the notorious pirate Captain Clegg buried as a hero in the church cemetery? Again, the twists at the end were seen miles away but this movie is a nice Hammer production with competent acting and directing and a good enough story. B-.
Phantom of the Opera (1962)- Hammer's take on the classic Universal Monster Movie seems to have a little too much opera and not quite enough Phantom. This is a well-directed and acted movie and seems to have had a generous budget that was well spent, great sets, great costumes, and great music (if you don't mind opera). Over all this is a good movie but definitely leans more towards the romantic side of the story rather than the horror side and the unmasking is very disappointing as the Phantom doesn't really seem all that disfigured, at least compared to Lon Chaney's makeup. Well made but disappointing for me personally. C+.
The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962)- Oh my. Some of the greatest acting, editing, and dialogue ever to make it’s way onto the craptacular scale. There’s this doctor see, and he’s got these notions about transplanting human limbs and such see. His dad is old school man, and he doesn’t like the fact his son practices his experiments on humans. It just ain’t right that’s all. The son doesn’t care. He gets a call from his assistant back at the country house, which gives ol’ dad the creeps, and the son rushes off in a huge hurry with his fiancée. Ignoring the winding road signs the son takes the corners in his girlfriend’s giant 1961 convertible at breakneck speeds... and crashes in one of the most hilarious car crash scenes ever! As luck would have it his girlfriend is decapitated. He must save her head and then find a body for her. After making sure her head is fine in his lab (this lab gives Bela’s lab in Ed Wood’s "Bride of the Monster" a run for worst lab scene ever) he sets out to find a body, and where better to find the perfect body than a strip joint! What follows is some of the best late 50s early 60s horror movie sexiness ever filmed as the buxom ladies sing, dance, and catfight. After all this there’s a beauty contest, and the good doctor winds up at an old friend’s house. She has the greatest body ever, too bad her face was burned in an accident. Perfect! He gets her back to the lab, starts the operation, and... well his Frankenstein like monster that lives in the closet just may throw a monkey wrench in his plans. This one gets a strong A on the craptacular scale.
Carnival of Souls (1962)- Low budget strange flick about a woman who survives a car crash that kills two of her friends. She moves away to start a new life and soon begins to hallucinate that some strange man is following her. The people are odd and the circumstances are odd making this horror movie on the verge of being art house fare. Not that there's anything wrong with that and there isn't. Get over the oddness and almost lack of plot and you'll probably like this little movie for its creepy visuals and bizarre ending. Played an influence on Romero as he was getting ready to make "Night of the Living Dead." A.
Devil’s Partner (1962)- An odd name for an odd movie. We begin with an old man killing a goat and signing a goat’s skin in goat’s blood, a hand reaches in and also signs the parchment and the old man collapses. Cut to a hip guy who doesn’t sweat no matter what the temperature who has come to town to claim his now deceased uncle’s property, his uncle being the old guy at the beginning. So, we know that the old guy sold his soul to the devil and the young may actually be the old guy, either way the young guy can make animals attack people and also make people die from drinking goat’s milk. So is the young guy the devil, or the devil’s partner, or the old guy transmigrated? Yes. And will the sheriff figure it out before the devil mates up with the local doctor’s daughter? You’ll have to find that one out on your own. Anyway, this is an odd little flick, a little slow moving at times with the feel of a long Twilight Zone episode. I read a review of it where someone said if David Lynch had directed it people would be drooling over it, not sure I’d go that far but it is a fair point. This is one of those low budget almost artsy horror flicks that were being made at that time like "Carnival of Souls" (although this isn't that weird) that are kind of hard to grade. I’m going to give it a B because I liked it and it just had an odd atmosphere about it that seemed to work for me.
Tales of Terror (1962)- Pretty strong entry into the Roger Corman Poe Cycle. This is a 3 tale omnibus, story one being that of ‘Morella’. She died young and blamed her infant daughter on her sickness, her husband sent the daughter away when she was young and keeps his wife’s body in the bedroom. The daughter, now 26, returns and all is far from well. It is well acted with great sets and use of color but seems to end a tad abruptly; I’ll give it a B-.Story two combines ‘The Black Cat’ with ‘The Cask of Amontillado’. A drunken wine expert embarrasses a famous wine expert in a contest. The famous wine expert then begins an affair with the drunkard’s wife and things of course do not end well for anyone involved. Peter Lorre is great as the drunkard and Price as the over the top wine taster, A+. Finally ‘The Case of M. Valdemar’ gives us a dying Price character who agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death, against the advice of his doctor and wife, so that moment can be studied. He becomes trapped between life and death and winds up being very unhappy. I’ll give this an A+ too. These are subtle flicks that fall in line with the rest of Corman’s Poe output of this era, if you dislike them then you will dislike this, but if you dig the others then this is a must see. The 3 grades average to an A-.
Burn Witch, Burn (1962)- Nice British horror/mystery about a college professor of Sociology who goes about debunking mythology and supernatural beliefs. As he’s climbing the ladder of success at a small university he discovers his wife has been dabbling in witchcraft (she learned all about it during field study with him). He demands she stop and she does, even though she’s very afraid of the consequences to her husband’s career. And no sooner does she stop protecting him things begin to unravel. I really like the supernatural flicks of this period simple and mysterious but done well, and this is one of the best, with strong (albeit over the top at times) acting and great writing and directing. A strong A.
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962)- Simply put this is a classic. Bette Davis plays Baby Jane Hudson a bitter former child star that tortures her once famous movie star sister Blanch, played by Joan Crawford. Jane and Blanch live together and Jane "takes care of" Blanch as she is wheel chair bound after an accident that Jane may or may not have had something to do with. The acting is second to none in this movie as is the directing. Bette Davis plays her character with such bat shit insane intensity that you get pulled right in. And Joan Crawford is great as the tortured sister who may have caused much of her own grief to begin with. It's also fun to think that in real life the roles were more or less reversed with Joan Crawford being bat shit insane. A+.
The Terror (1963)- Another beloved thriller from my youth. Roger Corman had Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff as well as production staff and sets under contract for a couple more days after flying through one of his famous quickies. What do you do with those actors, crew, and sets for four days? You make another movie of course. "The Terror" was obviously made very quickly for no money. The lighting and sound give that much away. Get beyond the cheapness of those elements and I think you have a fairly classic little piece. Pretty well acted and directed, although it is slow moving at times, it still maintained my interest. Nicholson is a French officer separated from his regiment during the Napoleonic Wars. He stumbles across some strange folk and then stays for a while at Karloff's castle. Some strange happenings are going on at the castle as Karloff carries guilt for deeds he did years before and may be punishing himself for it, or is someone... or something... else punishing him? Nice twists at the end. B+.
Girl Who Knew Too Much, the (1963) - Bava’s obvious nod to Hitchcock, a flick about a tourist from America visiting Italy who witnesses a death (from natural causes), is mugged, and then witnesses a murder... maybe. Maybe she’s just stressed out... or maybe it’s something else, stay until the end to tie it all together. I found this a little hard to follow at times and the campier edge seemed out of place too, but for the most part the directing and cinematography were incredibly well done, Bava, for the most part, borrowed the best elements from Hitchcock and then made them his own. If you’re not a big Bava or Giallo fan this may not be for you but if you like either of those I recommend this one. B.
Twice Told Tales (1963)- A three tale omnibus based on Nathanial Hawthorne stories. Story one involves two old friends celebrating a birthday. The old man whose birthday it is is lamenting the loss of his bride-to-be on their wedding day 38 years earlier when lightning strikes her crypt just outside the house. One thing leads to another and the old man discovers what may be the secret to eternal youth, and what may be their undoing as well, A strong story very well done by Price and the rest of the cast. A. Story two revolves around a young woman apparently held prisoner by her father, a once famous biologist who now has some very poisonous plants, among other things, a tad weaker than story one but still interesting and well done. A-. Story three, based on the famous "House of Seven Gables" is about a man trying to find a vault with the rest of his inheritance, before a family curse does him in, he finds the vault, and also its contents... This one seems rushed, it is pretty well done but they seem to cram too much in the short time these types of movies can allow. B+ This averages to an A- which might be a little bit low but I’ll go with it.
Comedy of Terrors (1963)- A very fitting name! Here we have some of the greatest horror movie actors ever (Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone), one of the great directors (Jacques Tourneur) and one of the greatest horror writers ever (Richard Matheson) all coming together for this horror/comedy about a funeral parlor owner who is falling on hard times and needs some new ‘customers’. There is plenty of scenery chewing over-the-top, 110% or nothing acting and writing going on, all of which is completely spoiled by ‘zaniness’. This falls pretty quickly into piss-poor sound effects, fast motion, and 3 Stooges slapstick (which had to even feel dated in 1963), and well, pretty much sucks because of that. Seriously, I hated this, just not my cup of tea, F.
Raven, The (1963)- Classic from my youth pulling together an old Boris Karloff, a young Jack Nicholson, and Vincent Price and Peter Lorre to boot. Peter Lorre is a magician who is turned into a raven by the magician Grand Master (Karloff) and goes to a reluctant magician (Price) for help. Price ends up back at the Grand Master’s castle for what winds up being an all or nothing battle of magic. Yeah, it is as goofy as it sounds and yet, unlike a similar ‘Comedy of Terrors’, works. Why did this work for me and not the other? This pretends for the most part to take itself seriously, even though it very obviously isn’t, whereas ‘Comedy of Terrors’ goes slapstick from scene one. Still, I realize many folks will hate this, but if you like the low budget Corman quickies (goofy like ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ or serious like ‘Masque of the Red Death’) then you’ll appreciate this I think. I will give it a strong A, keeping in mind it is meant to be goofy stuff.
Sadist, The (1963)- Another 1963 watershed moment. Little known film beyond cult fans and the makers of "Kalifornia", "Badlands", and "Natural Born Killers", it deals with a halfwit couple that can only feel power and control when they make others beg for their lives. The begging doesn't pay off though as the couple kills everyone who gets in their path. Three schoolteachers on their way to a Dodgers' game have car trouble and pull into a repair shop in the middle of nowhere. Little do they know the halfwit couple is there waiting for someone to show up with a car. What follows is, at least by 1963 standards, a pretty good examination of depravity and the battle for control. Some of the acting is a little over the top but the story and the cinematography are pretty cutting edge, especially considering the budget. The payoff at the end works well too as the Dodgers' game plays in the background and life goes on, without a clue as to the darkness in some people's souls. A+
Kiss of the Vampire (1963)- Hammer loved their vampires more than any other creature. In this one a family of vampires lives in a big ol' castle. They like to initiate pretty women into the cult they've built up in the area by having big masquerade balls and making them vampires during the party. Actually some fairly edgy stuff considering the times and pretty original script (OK, all of these were just 'damsel in distress' flicks but it was an interesting way to do it). It had an original albeit very strange ending that again showed the limits of bat special effects technology. A-.
Paranoic (1963)- A little black and white Hammer gem. Apparently some filthy rich folks were killed in an airplane crash 11 years before, their oldest son Tony, depressed with the loss of his parents killed himself 3 years later. Now the middle child, son Simon is about to inherit his share of the family fortune, and he may be getting the youngest daughter's share as well as it seems she is going down the insane path Tony went down. Is Simon driving her insane? Did Tony commit suicide? If not where has he been the last 8 years? And what is the aunt trying to hide in the chapel? Weirdness a 'plenty in this examination of bat shit insane rich folk. Yes the plot is a little convoluted and no, it wouldn't hold up to too much examination but this movie still works pretty well. It moves nicely and is very well directed (if possible catch the letter box version) with nice black and white photography, fluid camera work, and interesting use of light and focus. The acting is mostly good (with a few parts a little over the top) too. A-.
House of the Damned (1963)- Atmospheric little quickie about an architect and his wife who are hired to look into what it would take to remodel an old castle in the Hollywood Hills once owned by an insane millionaire who still lives in a nearby asylum. As soon as the couple arrive strange things begin to happen, the house, or someone in it doesn’t want them to find the secrets the house holds. The couple, along with the attorney who hired them and his wife, search for answers and then, very suddenly, find all the answers and the movie ends. For a low budget filler this movie is very well done with some interesting cinematography and ideas and great sets in the old mansion, but the ending just rolls up and boom it’s over. I guess they ran out of money or time and just decided to end it right there. I’ll give it a B since it kept my interest until the disappointing ending.
Diary of a Madman (1963)- Vincent Price plays a judge who visits a man condemned to death in prison. The man claims to be possessed by an evil spirit, a "Horla", he tries to kill Price but dies in the attempt and the Horla, needing a new host, enters Price (a plot that would be reworked for 1998's "The Fallen"). Price's interest in art is renewed and he hires a model to pose for him, but really it is the evil Horla who wants the model around. This flick is more than a little cheesy and the effects are bad even by 1963 standards, but Price gives his usual 110%, which brings the other actors up a notch and saves the film from being totally forgettable. A classic if you like these 60s flicks. B.
The Birds (1963)- This is a bizarre flick! A man wants to buy some miner birds for his little sister's birthday (this guy looks like he's about 35 years old and he has a successful law firm in San Francisco and his sister is just turning 11, weird). Anyway a spoiled rich girl pretends to work at the pet store and then later delivers the miner birds to the lawyer's weekend home in Northern Cali as a practical joke. Then weird stuff starts happening. Wild birds seem to be occasionally attacking people for no reason, then they begin flocking together and attacking people, and things get progressively worse. I think the real fear in this movie is the constant feeling that it could actually happen (OK probably not but it seems more likely than an alien invasion, zombies, or other 'monsters'). The material is taken very seriously and there are no cosmic explanations thrown about, all we know is huge flocks of birds are randomly attacking people. But even in material that seems like it would be silly, Hitch is able to develop complex characters and interesting sub plots. It's another example of Hitch's ability to pull you into a movie and keep you there until the end, wasting no shots or sequences in the process, and another favorite from my youth. A.
Haunted Palace, The (1963)- Corman directed Price vehicle based on Lovecraft’s "The Curious Case of Charles Dexter Ward", Corman threw in a couple of lines from a Poe poem so he could make folks think it part of his successful Poe series, but it was in fact the first film based on a Lovecraft story. If you like these type of Corman flicks then I think you will like this. I liked it a lot and felt the acting and directing were great as were the sets. Amazing what can be done on Corman budgets! Price plays both the evil Curwin, a warlock who uses a town’s young maidens to try and mate with ‘The Elders’ to create a super race and is then burned by the town’s folk, but not before he curses them all, and his great great grandson, Ward, who inherits the palace and then becomes possessed by Curwin and starts up the old practices again. Price is great in his dual role and obviously relishes the chance to switch between good and evil at the drop of a hat. This film fits right in with his "Masque of the Red Death" and "The Pit and the Pendulum" and is a must see if you liked those. A
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)- Those of you used to modern adventure/fantasy flicks like ‘The Lord of the Rings’ will likely find this ‘quaint’ at best and tedious at worst! It does run slow and features the old school stop-motion animation made famous by the original ‘King Kong’ movie. The plot? Jason’s family (including his king father) are killed by an invading, and very greedy king. 20 years later Jason is determined to get his revenge, with a little help from Hera, Queen of the Gods, he makes his way to get the Golden Fleece to restore the morale of his people and overthrow the king that killed his family. Of course getting the Golden Fleece ain’t gonna be easy! Lots of monsters, double crossings, and mayhem follow him along the way. Not my favorite amongst the Harryhausen flicks but still it stands up really well, and I love the monsters he creates from the giant bronze statue to the winged demon like things that torture the old blind man (can’t remember what they’re called) and everything in between. He obviously loved his work! Typical wooden acting bogs it down at times but like I often say, if you dig these old fantasy flicks, this is a must see, if you don’t, you will hate this! I’ll give it a B+, not quite as good as the Sinbad flicks, but getting there.
Dementia 13 (1963)- Some people say this is an early masterpiece from Francis Ford Coppola and some say it points to the genius to come. I don't know. I think it's basically just a rip off of "Psycho" with some extra nutty family members thrown in and a dead daughter instead of mother. A woman is angry at her husband for not forcing his mother to set up a will so she kills him. She then hangs around the crazy family trying to figure their secret and probably wondering why they are Irish and living in Ireland but have no Irish accents, except for the grounds keeper who has a very fake Irish accent, but this never comes up. It's a little slow moving and you wonder why everyone is so weird but there are some very effective moments. Not great but not terrible. C+
Blood Feast (1963)- Best known as the first ‘gore for gore’s sake’ splatter flick, "Blood Feast" is really a mess, no pun intended. An Egyptian priest is killing women who read his book and using their body parts as part of an Egyptian Feast he is planning for a rich lady’s daughter, of course his real motive is a feast for his goddess Ishtar... I guess. For the most part the plot makes little sense, the dialogue is senseless, and the acting is atrocious all the way around. This is a real train wreck, only a step or two above Ed Wood territory, but then there’s the gore. No the effects aren’t great but, keeping in mind it was made in 1963 you will have to admit, it was ahead of its time in that regard. We see the blood and the body parts removed and the mess left afterwards (as we deal with some hilariously bad grief stricken actors and cops who insist on rehashing the plot for us in case we missed something). Yes this movie is bad bad bad, but if you like’em bad, or if you’re interested in horror history and want to see where much of today’s over the top gore began, then this is a must see. I will give it a solid A+ on the craptacular scale.
The Haunting (1963)- A favorite from my youth. A scientist gathers some psychics into an old haunted house to investigate paranormal activity there and record his investigations. Yeah it's been done to death now ("Legend of Hell House", "Rose Red", "Haunting" remake) but it was still fresh here, and it still worked (based on Shirley Jackson's "Haunting of Hill House", this is one of those rare times when I think the movie is better than the book, which I have read). Very suspenseful and mysterious with a great atmosphere and some great dialogue and acting. It's one of those rare horror movies that just seem real. A+.
Ghost, The (1963)- A sequel of sorts to "The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock", here we have Barbara Steele, with the aid of a young doctor, plotting the death of her crippled husband, Dr. Hitchcock. Their plan works but there are consequences to all actions as they are haunted by a vengeful ghost, a guilty conscience, and a rewritten will complete with missing jewels. This is a good suspense piece, a little over acted but mostly well done. You’ll see the twist at the end a mile away, but the little double twist was nice. It feels very much like a Hammer film. Hammer should’ve hired Steele for some of their productions. B.
Black Sabbath (1963)- A tight little trilogy directed by Mario Bava and hosted by Boris Karloff. Story one deals with a woman who turned her boyfriend in for a crime and he has now escaped and is terrorizing her. A great little suspense piece. Story two deals with the warduluck, which is basically a vampire that preys on its own family. This is a good story but too slow moving. Karloff stars and is effective but it still drags. The third story is one of those 'put the hook in me' works. I was pretty young, 9 or 10, when I first saw this movie. The odd thing is I don't even remember the first two stories but I sure remember this one. It's the story of a woman who goes to sit with the corpse of an old woman who recently passed. She was into séances and such and tended to scare folks when she was alive. She's pretty hideous in death too. The woman decides to steal a ring from the corpse's body, bad idea. The corpse in this movie scared the crap out of me when I was young and, although now it's not really scary, it is still pretty effective. Story one gets an A, story two gets a C, and story 3 gets an A+ which averages to a B+.
Blanchville, Monster, the (1963)- Crazy low budget flick with a twist ending you’ll see coming for miles. If you look up ‘melodrama’ in the dictionary this flick should be listed! A gal returns to her scary castle after graduating college, she’s brought some friends with her to meet her weird brother. Lot’s has changed at the castle since she’s been away, mainly her dad is dead, and then there’s that nasty little family curse that says she must die before she turns 21, and her 21st birthday is just days away, but nobody believes family curses do they? Toss in a weird housekeeper and a weirder doctor and red herrings flop all around. B+ on the craptacular scale.
The Last Man on Earth (1964)- Another take on a Matheson novel. This is based on his "I Am Legend". A great book about a virus that turns people into vampires. Matheson hated this movie, as I believe did its star Vincent Price but I like it quite a bit. You can really see where modern zombie movies comes from, as this movie is a bridge between the old school Voodoo zombies and the cannibal zombies of Romero. Price is locked away in his house all night waiting out the vampire/zombies as they try to get in and kill him. During the day he reinforces his house and kills the sleeping vampires/zombies. There are some suspenseful moments as he is late getting home etc. and the ending, though weird, is effective. The pseudo-scientific explanations work too rather then getting in the way of the story and the flash backs to the plague sweeping Europe and coming to America work well for me. I'm not sure why this movie is looked down on most of the time; yeah it's cheap, slow at times, and the editing is pisspoor but over all it still works on a B movie level. B.
HG Wells’ First Men on the Moon (1964)- This is an old school sci-fi flick with some good stop motion from Ray Harryhausan. It is about a UN expedition to the moon which everyone believes to be man’s first, until the expedition discovers a letter and a British flag near the landing site, and maybe the ranting about being on the moon of a senile old man aren’t so crazy after all. His story is told in flashback and it takes awhile to get going as we head into some campy almost ‘Nutty Professor’ type of bit. Once on the moon though Ray’s insect aliens take over (most of the insect aliens are actually people in bad costumes but the animated ones are pretty cool). If you like Ray’s work or like goofy sci-fi fluff then this is probably a must see, but if you aren’t into either of those you won’t be missing much. I’ll give it a really strong C+, less nutty professor, more stop motion insect moon people would’ve been better.
Dead Ringer (1964)- This falls under ‘suspense thriller’ more than horror for sure, but also was part of Bette Davis’ resurgence after "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" and "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte". Here Bette plays a dual role as twin sisters (sort of a rehash of an earlier movie she made called "Stolen Life"); one sister is rich as Hell (Maggie), the other on the verge of bankruptcy running a crummy bar on the ‘other’ side of town (Edie). We learn early on that Maggie is rich because she stole Edie’s rich boyfriend back in the day, and Edie will obviously never forgive her. So what is an identical twin to do if she is down on her luck and has a rich sister who she hates more than anything? She has to kill her sister, make it look like it is her who committed suicide, and then assume her sister’s life; much easier said than done as we find out. Here I would say PLOT SPOILER but you can probably guess that this plan isn’t going to work. But I have to admit, the plot twist that ends up fouling up the plot caught me off guard, and the end was actually very well done. The acting and directing are also really good, my only complaint would be, at almost 2 hours, there are times it seems to drag a little, but they are few and far between, and yes, the plot is very far fetched so just hold on for the ride. If you like the suspense films or Bette Davis’ output as she got older then this is recommended. A very strong B+
Gorgon, The (1964)- Strange little Hammer film which brings the Greek Gorgon/Medusa myth into more modern times, placing it in turn of the century Germany (I figure Hammer already had the sets and costumes at the ready). A town is plagued by a curse in which some people are found dead, turned to stone. The local doctor just writes the deaths off as heart failure, but that won’t due when some important people start turning up dead. Mainly, an artist whose rich influential father isn’t buying the story his son committed suicide after getting a local girl pregnant. The father shows up, and also dies a mysterious death, but not before writing a letter to his other son. The lid will soon be blown off the town’s secrets. Very little in the way of explanation is ever offered, the lines between good and evil, right and wrong are blurred and everything is played out like a Greek tragedy, which it is more or less based on, as love is what ends up getting everyone in the most trouble. Well acted and directed, the colors and sets and ‘feel’ are perfect early Hammer. This is only for those looking for the subtle atmospheric horrors, despite the subject material this is no monster movie, keeping that in mind I will give this a B+.
Castle of Blood (1964)- A skeptic reporter meets up with Edgar Allan Poe and disputes that his stories are based on fact. An acquaintance challenges the reporter to survive a night in his haunted castle, the bet is accepted, the reporter is warned that he will have to relive all the deaths that have taken place in the castle over the years, he goes anyway and of course, things don’t go as planned, or maybe they go exactly as planned depending on who’s side you’re on. Yeah, this is cheap early Euro-horror with very bad dubbing at times, but it does manage to create a really good atmosphere. If you like the haunted castle atmosphere then you’ll like this. B+
Witchcraft (1964)- Surprising little gem in the vein of ‘Burn Witch Burn’, although the plot, a witch’s grave is disturbed by a construction crew so revenge must be had, is pretty typical, the execution of the plot just works well. It is well directed, tightly paced (for the most part) and well-acted. The sub-plot about the families involved having a very long history and the Romeo and Juliet of the youngest members of the family set us up for an ending that surprised me to be honest. If you like the British horror of this era this is a must see; a strong A.
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)- This was planned as another vehicle to get Joan Crawford and Bette Davis to work together again after the sleeper success of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane", but Joan Crawford dropped out of the project at the last minute and was replaced with Olivia DeHavilland. In the prologue we are introduced to Charlotte's father who is pretty angry about something. We soon find out Charlotte is having an affair with a married man and the two of them plan on eloping. Her father puts a stop to it and warns the man to break it off. He does so and winds up dead, his headless body found by Charlotte (or did she just 'find' him?) We jump ahead roughly 40 years and find Charlotte living alone in her mansion, only her guilt and her white trash maid to keep her company (and the fact she hasn't spent any of her sizable inheritance). She's trying to stop the great state of Louisiana from tearing down her house and dozing her property to build a road and bridge. The locals figure her father's wealth saved her from prosecution all those years ago. It's also common knowledge that she's bat shit insane... Or is she? She contacts her long lost cousin to help her stop the demolition of her house but her cousin just insists on helping her pack and accepting the inevitable. Twists and turns that would make Hitchcock proud abound in this murder mystery. The photography and acting and great as is the story. I can usually figure these movies out but every time I thought I had it figured out I turned out wrong (except one major piece of the puzzle which I did have right). Bette Davis is great but the movie itself isn't quite as good as "...Baby Jane". A
Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)- The second in Herschel Gordon Lewis’ ‘Blood Trilogy’ ("Blood Feast" and "Color Me Red" being the other two), these films mark the spot where on screen gore began being part of the horror genre. This flick is about a town of 2000 people who are celebrating a centennial (they always seem a little hesitant to say exactly what it is the anniversary of). To celebrate they trick some "Yankees" into driving into town and then promise them a grand time, and instead torture and kill them in odd and brutal ways (and we find out it is the centennial of the Northern Army destroying the town in the Civil War). The film was way ahead of its time, predating similar flicks like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Last House on the Left" by 10 or so years, however, keep in mind that this is low budget drive in movie stuff. It is injected with a silly script, bad acting, and some terrible camera work. Still, it works really well on a lot of levels, a great story, and some great over the top characters (especially the mayor) and plenty of goofy black humor to go around. It is an important horror film and great for lovers of bloody cheese! A+ on the craptacular scale.
Strait Jacket (1964)- After the success of "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" Joan Crawford and Bette Davis were back in demand. Bette went on to make A movie material like "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" and Joan went on to work with... William Castle. Apparently the theatres were getting tired of Castle’s gimmicks so for his next movie his gimmick would be landing a star like Joan. Plot? She comes home early from a trip to find her husband in bed with a woman and proceeds to decapitate them, while their young daughter looks on. She’s institutionalized and the young daughter is sent to live on a farm with her aunt and uncle. 20 years later mommy dearest comes home to stay and try and reconnect after 20 years and two murders. And of course, folks wind up getting their heads chopped off. Mommy is obviously insane... Or is she? Like Bela and Boris, Joan gave 110% no matter how bad the material and she is able to lift this unoriginal and poorly written material above par. Without Joan this would’ve just been another forgotten title, with Joan it is a cult classic. Yeah it’s 60s schlock but it works on that level better than most. B.
Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964)- Hammer revisits the mummy legend, this time without Cushing or Lee. It’s basically the same story as pretty much every other mummy story, Egyptologists find a tomb, disturb it, are cursed, die at the hands of a mummy. This time out an American is funding the research. Once the tomb is found he plans on taking the artifacts out on tour with his circus, which doesn’t sit too well with the Egyptians, or the archeologists either. Of course we know that the mummy won’t be having any of that anyway. The twist at the end was a nice change in the story, even though you’ll know pretty early on who the ‘bad guy’ is. This wasn’t a bad entry in the Hammer cycle, a little slow starting and the mummy makeup was effective, but I still kept feeling like I’d seen it all before, which I more or less had since all mummy movies are more or less the same. C
Marnie (1964)- This film seems too long and a little too ‘talky’ to me but then if it was reedited what part would be cut out? Hitch never wasted a shot so each scene and each conversation leads to a deeper understanding of each character as they develop. And this film has great character development and is of course incredibly well directed. Hitch’s camera angles and blocking and his ability to tell the story through these techniques is nothing short of genius. The plot? Marnie is a thief and a con artist who happens to be deathly afraid of thunderstorms and the color red. She wants nothing more than to impress her frigid mother so she steals in order to buy her things. She is finally caught by her current boss, who gives her a choice, marry him or be turned in to the law. Marnie’s clepto ways and her sordid past can’t easily be erased though and Hitch takes us along for the ride. B+.
Evil of Frankenstein, The (1964)- Hammer did make Frankenstein out to be one evil cat except in The Evil of Frankenstein where he's suddenly a misunderstood scientist. Frankenstein is again run out of town so this time he returns to the original town he was run out of to start his experiments again in his own castle, which has been looted but good by the locals. Luckily he stumbles across his old monster (this movie has no continuity with the older Hammer Frankenstein movies). This movie has the usual good Hammer productions and Peter Cushing does his usual professional work as the Dr. but it ends up being a let down. The monster is a pale copy of Jack Pierce's Universal make up and never really produces any feelings of horror or sympathy. The Frankenstein mythos is just so much harder to work with than the Dracula/Vampire mythos. C-.
Onibaba (1964)- Lots of great reviews about this Japanese feudal period piece. The story centers on a woman and her daughter-in-law who kill lost samurai in order to steal and sell their gear. The whole country has been ravaged by war and all the crops have been destroyed and it has sunken to kill or be killed, then their neighbor, who was drafted along with the old woman’s son (and young woman’s husband) returns, alone. He strikes up an affair with the young woman and things slide even further downhill from there. This flick treads all around right and wrong, good and bad, love and hate, black and white, yin and yang, etcetc. And in my opinion does so poorly. Yeah it ‘looks’ good but moves too slow and really, I just didn’t care what happened to the selfish asshole characters in it. I’m giving this a D-, I really wanted to like it but just didn’t.
Long Hair of Death, The (1964)- In a plot that closely mirrors "Black Sunday", Barbara Steele's mother is executed for a murder she didn't commit (and for witchcraft), then Steele is killed for knowing the truth. Before her death her mother cursed the family that sentenced her. Barbara's sister, who was young at the time, grows up and is forced to marry the son of the man who sentenced her mother to death. Barb's family then gets their revenge. Although very slow moving and not terribly original there are still some effective scenes and atmospheric directing. By no means a masterpiece, it still is a decent enough ghost/witch story. C+.
Sound of Horror, The (1964)- Main lesson to take away from this one, if your effects budget is near 0 just make the monster invisible. No budget Spanish horror flick set in Greece. Some war buddy adventurers are looking for war treasures hidden in a cave. They are warned about curses by the locals, light sticks of dynamite, find a mummy, find a petrified egg, release an invisible monster, hide out in a house that you would think would be pretty easy for the monster, with such an awesome advantage, to get into, and come up with a plan to get out of the mess they created by ignoring local folklore in the first place. Toss in a couple of scream queens and their dances and everything is complete. This one is a blast and a fun ride for anyone looking for senseless ‘horror’ to rip on. A must see for fans of the craptacular, A+.
Masque of the Red Death (1964)- Roger Corman took Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" and mixed it up with "Hop Frog", added in some of his own elements and ideas and wound up with this colorful movie. A very well acted and interestingly directed movie about a sadistic prince who worships Satan and hides out in his castle with a large group of invited guests while a plague ravages the countryside. Corman's interesting use of color (which comes from the name of the story and the plot but is used well visually in this adaptation) along with some great acting by everyone, especially Price who revels in the role of a terribly evil person, make this worth a view. It often mirrors in both feel and subject matter Igmar Bergman's "Seventh Seal". B+.
Coffin Joe: At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964)- Surprisingly atmospheric little no-budget flick out of Brazil. Joe Coffin, or Ze, is the local mortician. He deliberately antagonizes the locals with his blatant disregard for their religion and traditions, eating meat on Good Friday, and forcing others to do the same, getting loaded in the local saloon, picking fights, and hitting on the ladies, he basically treats everyone like crap. He seems to have a pretty bad temper but it is never really explained if his powers are somehow supernatural, his contempt for such things makes it seem unlikely, he just must have really high blood pressure. But all he really wants is a son so his sterile wife has to be eliminated, as does his friend, if he wants his friend’s fiancé. Murder, suicide, and curses ensue until the procession of the dead shows up. This flick had to have been made for pretty much nothing yet it has a certain atmosphere and feel to it that seems to work and allows it to rise above some bad acting, terrible dubbing (the version I saw was subtitled but the voices still didn’t match up!), and insane effects at the end. If you’re not into low budget foreign efforts then steer clear, but if you like the bizarre cult horrors then this is a must see. A-
Night Must Fall (1964)- Albert Finney is an odd combination of James Dean's Rebel Without A Cause and Anthony Perkins' Psycho. He's a charmer out to play whatever role the women he decides to keep company with expect him to be. This could've been better with a little more restraint and a little more mystery, although it didn't end as I expected we did all know from the start that he was a actually a psychotic murderer. It's the Hitchcock approach, spill enough beans to clue the viewers in so they get to watch like the voyeurs we are, what happens to the people's lives that don't know the truth in the movie. I liked it, I just felt it could've been much better. B.
Nightmare (1964)- Little Hammer flick in the vein of "Paranoic". A girl saw her mother kill her father when she was young. Her mother was put in an asylum as she was totally bonkers. The girl, now away at finishing school, is afraid the same thing may happen to her. She is sent home because of her nightmares and inability to fit in at the school. After she arrives home the nightmares actually intensify and just may not actually be nightmares. Is she going insane? Is someone just trying to make her believe she is going insane? A couple twists at the end that aren't really too shocking but over all this movie works pretty well as a well paced well acted suspense thriller. B+.
Skull, The (1965)- Classic British horror tale with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee as competing collectors of occult objects. Cushing is given the opportunity to buy the cursed skull of the Marquis de Sade and asks Lee what he thinks. Lee tries to convince Cushing to never buy the skull, but Cushing can’t help it, and soon realizes his disbelief in the occult will not save him from it! A really good flick in the Hammer tradition (though not Hammer) that remains strong throughout with great performances by everyone; although the very end tries the old horror movie cliché pseudo-endings, which I hate. Chop off about the last 10 minutes and this is some great stuff! A
Color Me Blood Red (1965)- The third installment in Herschel Gordon Lewis’ ‘Blood Trilogy’ (Blood Feast and 2000 Maniacs being the first two) finds an artist who hates being criticized and when a famous art critic tells him his use of color is lacking he goes kind of bonkers. When his girlfriend cuts herself on a nail and gets blood on his canvas he has an idea, paint with his blood, but he can only loose so much before passing out. Where to find fresh blood? Like the first two in the ‘Blood Trilogy’ (trilogy is used loosely, these movies have nothing to actually do with one another) this is LOW budget, poorly directed, and badly acted. The dialogue alone will have you wanting to punch a wall, let alone the terrible ‘water-bike’ things! But horror historians and movie buffs should see the entire blood trilogy as this is really where the gore and depravity more or less began. Yeah, there were movies which came before that had a little of one or the other but these movies tied it all together in a terrible package! This is the worst of the 3 flicks though and is really just a bad retelling of Corman’s ‘Bucket of Blood’. I’ll give it an A- on the craptacular scale.
Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)- Six strangers riding on a train. One happens to be well versed in the art of tarot reading and future predicting. So we get an Amicus omnibus, the first actually, from the Hammer copycat and it ain’t all that bad. Story one has a man return to his ancestral home to help the current owner remodel. Little does he know the current owner isn’t too happy with the previous owner’s family, and they have a history of werewolfism! Well told and well-paced, I’ll give it an A. Story two has a family returning from vacation to find a strange vine growing next to the house. They can’t seem to remove it so they call in some experts and they quickly realize that ‘a plant like that could take over the world’, especially if it figures out how not to be scared of fire. Campy but fun I’ll give it a B. Story three has a smart assed jazz musician play a gig in the West Indies. He comes back with the music he heard the voodoo practitioners play and despite being warned not to play it, he does so anyway and doesn’t get the results he’d hoped for. Not bad, played more for laughs and approached that way it works. A-. Story four involves a pretentious art critic who is always belittling an artist. The artist gets his revenge, but the critic is so humiliated he runs the artist over with his car, severing the artist’s hand. The rest is pretty easy to predict, complete with terrible FX. Christopher Lee is in this one as is Gandolf, but the FX are so bad it is distracting. C-. A young Donald Southerland winds up getting hitched to a young vampire in the fifth story and is convinced to kill her, and then, twist! I’ll give it an A-, well-acted and well-though out. So the wrap comes to a conclusion and you kind of think “Wait, so that wasn’t really anyone’s future?” Anyway, a pretty good flick if you like the Amicus omnibus approach, plus Cushing and Lee are both present! The grades average to a B+.
Satan Bug, The (1965)- Not really a horror flick, but, as I’ve said before, the end of the world is pretty horrifying. Scientists at a secret government installation have invented a virus for a germ warfare project; this virus has a 100% death rate and spreads extremely fast. If it is released it would end civilization in a matter of weeks. The virus is stolen, along with several vials of another deadly, but less effective virus and Cold War espionage follows. It’s a little hard to follow at times and is very dated but it still works pretty well, the end is kind of a disappointment though. B-.
Die! Die! My Darling! (1965)- Hammer saw the success of "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane" and took the theme of old actresses playing intriguing and bat shit insane parts for this suspense thriller. This flick, obviously inspired by Hitchcock also, is the story of an American, played by Stephanie Powers, who is going to England to marry her fiancée, but first she feels obliged to meet her former fiancée’s mother who lives in what looks like it was at one time a nice house but has fallen into disrepair in the English countryside (her first fiancée has died in what we are told was a terrible manner). After arriving at the old gal’s house, and meeting her help, we learn the old gal is a tad on the religious side, putting it mildly, and a light hearted comedy about the old fashioned and the modern seems to be underway. It isn’t long until things begin to turn sinister though, as we realize that the old gal, along with her help, plan on making sure Powers stays pure for when she is reunited with Steven in the afterlife. This is a very suspenseful movie that works really well and gives great performances by all involved, but especially Tallulah Bankhead in her final role, spouting off religious quotes and talking about how corrupt the rest of the world is (a lesson in hypocritical religiosity very relevant in today’s world). Bette Davis still keeps the reward for insane old lady parts in "... Baby Jane" but Tallulah comes in second in a photo finish. A
Kwaidan (1965)- An amazing Japanese art house omnibus horror film. Let me start by saying if you don’t like Asian horror, or artsy styling with your horror, or very subtle ‘ghost’ type stories, then this is definitely not for you. This is all of those things, very Asian, artsy, and slow paced suspense over any ‘shocks’. My only real complaint would be it gets a little too slow paced at times, but for the most part that just lends to the dream-like feel of the whole thing. Story one is called "Black Hair" and revolves around a young selfish Samurai who leaves his wife and their poverty behind and marries the daughter of a wealthy man. He finds his new wife to be selfish and discovers his own selfishness in the process. He returns to his first and only true love, only to find things in his old home town a little out of sorts. I give this a strong A. Story two, "The Woman in the Snow", is about a woodcutter’s apprentice who gets caught in a blizzard with his teacher. They take refuge in the boatman’s cabin (the boatman is on the other side of the river). The apprentice awakens to see a woman breathing on his teacher, who then freezes. She moves to do the same to the apprentice but takes pity on him, telling him to never tell anyone what he has seen. The apprentice goes on to be a successful woodcutter and marries a beautiful girl, who he soon tells about the night in the cabin, which he shouldn’t be doing. This is a very dream-like piece and was my favorite, incredibly well directed and staged, A+ (also the 1990 movie "Tales From the Dark Side" had a story based on this one.) Story three is called "Hoichi the Earless" and tells the tale of a blind musician who is summoned each night to perform his rendition of a song about a great battle that took place between warring clans. What he doesn’t know, and soon finds out, is that the people who are summoning him were in the battle... And now he has to find a way to get out of the performance. This is also an amazing story, incredibly well filmed with great visuals, but I have to admit, at times it just felt like it went on and on and on and I was loosing interest quickly. I should’ve started the movie a little earlier I guess. I will give this a strong B+, over all it probably deserves better, but unless you have a great attention span you’ll see what I mean. The final story is an odd nightmare about a guard who see a reflection in his tea cup, later, while on duty, he sees the person from the reflection and attacks him, only to see him disappear. Later he is visited by three men and warned that he must pay for what he has done, a very odd story that I will give an A to. Overall I give this an A+, keeping in mind my reservations mentioned above.
The Tomb of Ligeia (1965)- This was a favorite of Vincent Price's and many say it is one of the best of the Corman Poe adaptations. It does have great acting and great sets (including external location shots which were rare on Corman budgets) but despite all this I couldn't much into this flick. A strange widower lives in the ruins of a castle. He eventually falls for a woman and marries her. He wants to leave the old castle but is forced to remain for some unseen reason. He never sleeps with his new bride and she is beginning to hallucinate. Is the ghost of Prices' wife about? The movie was Ok and had some good suspense but the end kind of went on and on and wasn't really satisfying. C+.
Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)- Strictly speaking this isn't horror. Strictly speaking I'm not sure what it is. Some would lump Russ Meyer in with the Ed Wood types but that wouldn't be quite fair. Meyer's stuff is much edgier and better directed, maybe not much better written, but just done better. Here we have three go-go dancers out for some fun. Their 'leader' is an anti-social verging on psychopath. She winds up killing a guy after a car race and then takes his girlfriend along since she is a witness. They come across an old cripple who lives with his sons and may have some money stashed on his ranch. The girls would like to get their hands on that money but just maybe that crippled old guy has plans of his own for the women. Chronologically and thematically it sits right between that 60s loss of innocence with Kennedy's assassination in 1963 and the hippy Summer of Love in 1967. This is an edgy, funny, and at times annoying movie that is really hard to grade. I liked it as it was original but it is not quite a masterpiece, in the 60s kitsch sense of the word. B+
Terror Creature From The Grave (1965)- Another revenge tinged Italian Barbara Steele vehicle. So who’s out for the revenge? Is it Barbara, is it her creepy gardener, a villager, or could it be the ghost of her dead husband... or is he in fact actually dead? What am I talking about? A law firm receives a letter about helping a man with his will, when the lawyer arrives it turns out that the man has already been dead nearly a year, ironically the one year anniversary of his death is just two days away. Is the letter a hoax? The setting is a castle that sits where a hospital sat during the plague, many entered the hospital, none left, and those believed to be spreading the plague were tortured and killed there as well. So will this just turn out to be a Scooby Do episode or are there supernatural powers at work here? This movie succeeds in creating a great atmosphere and suspense. There is some bad acting, especially from the dead man’s daughter, silly poorly dubbed dialogue at times, and a couple of plot holes that confused me a little, and what does pure water have to do with anything? I guess they needed an ‘out’. Still, I liked this for it’s gothic sets and ghost story approach (look for the recording on the cylinder, very similar sounding to "The Evil Dead"). B+
Repulsion (1965)- Polanski delves into paranoia, isolation, guilt, and sexual insecurity in this tale about a young woman’s rapid slide into insanity. Her world, at least in her eyes, is literally crumbling around her. It is, more or less, filmed from her perspective as small annoyances become large problems and those around her seem to refuse to believe that a pretty young woman could be slipping so rapidly into mental breakdown (an afternoon off of work or maybe taking in an old comedy at the movies will help). A man she has apparently dated is the only one who seems to realize something maybe a little deeper is bothering her, but he never realizes that a major part of her problem is in fact men! There is very little dialogue, very little in the way of ‘action’, we are pulled along in a downward spiral until all is lost and there is no turning back. This is a slow burner and not for everyone, but if you like movies that delve into the psychology of our existence without placing any judgment or drawing any conclusions then this is for you. I liked it quite a bit and will give it a very strong A, great directing, great acting, and a slowly paced slide.
Devils of Darkness (1965)- Pedestrian effort at mimicking Hammer. Here we have a French satanic cult headed up by a vampire. I’m not 100% sure what the cult’s end game is but two friends of a British tourist are killed while vacationing in a French village. The Brit isn’t satisfied with what the local authorities tell him so he heads back to England with the idea of having a second autopsy done on the two bodies, and also carrying a strange talisman he found at the scene of one of the deaths. That vampire wants his talisman back so he takes his crew to England (and already has some cult members there anyway) where a really groovy mod scene is going down. He falls for a model he original intends on using as bait and then all of a sudden the movie just ends! Pretty anti-climactic but that’s OK, I didn’t want it to be any longer. This is goofy and at times really annoying stuff (“daahhling”) and struggles to create any real atmosphere. Just as you start to feel a little tension as to who is in the cult vs. who isn’t it’s quickly watered down by bad acting, worse dialogue, or terrible over-the-top attempts at being hip. Still, despite all those negatives I have to admit there is a certain charm about the English horror flicks of this era and it fits in well with them, although not one of the better ones it works on that level if you dig ‘em. So for that reason I’ll give it a C.
Nightmare Castle (1965)- Another Barbara Steele Italian horror movie about revenge from the grave, a pretty popular subject apparently. In this one Barbara’s cold scientist husband is off to a convention, she calls on the gardener to get some satisfaction, only to get busted by the husband. He catches them, ties them up and proceeds to torture them. He runs into a snag when Barbara tells him she has changed her will (she’s loaded and he needs the cash for his experiments) to her sister who is in an asylum, how will he get all her money? Hubby kills her anyway then marries up with the sister in order to continue his experiments. He plans on driving her even more insane with the help from his eternally youthful (thanks to his experiments) maid/lover. So what we end up with is a love pentagram, with two of the participants dead! Will the sister go insane? Will the dead lovers have their revenge? Does the psychiatrist love the sister making this in fact a love hexagon? This isn’t very original material and my copy is not too good, but over all it is effective enough. Some nice atmosphere is created and the story kept me interested. I’ll give it a B-.
Planet of the Vampires (1965)- What’s not to love?! This flick is perfect in every way, but only if you want some tasty almost art deco 60s sci-fi pulp! And I mean that in a good way; brightly colored, imaginative sets, classic costumes, inventive plot (to be mirrored to some degree years later in ‘Alien’). Two ships land on a distant planet to answer some sort of signal they have been receiving. They find a very strange planet where they are compelled to attack one another and do things against their will. Turns out a race of beings on that planet needs the visitors’ bodies to stage an escape from their own dying world. Will it work? Double twist ending wasn’t overly satisfying but everything else was! This flick managed to work every great sci-fi ‘look’ from this era into one flick and proves Bava was one of the best 'directors on a budget'. A
Die, Monster, Die (1965)- Based on Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space", this little American International flick moves along at a nice pace. A guy heads to not so jolly old England to visit his college sweetie and soon finds no one will help him find his way to the house. Cursed it must be. He eventually makes it to the house, after walking through some barren landscapes that is. Turns out the girl's family has a dim past of demonology and insanity. The girl's father, played by Karloff, will have none of that and looks for scientific reasons for what has happened there in the past, with typical devastating results. A great line that sums it all up "It's like a zoo from Hell... A menagerie of horrors." This is great fluff that sits somewhere between horror and sci-fi. The actors are just going through the motions (except Karloff who always took his roles seriously), most of the sets look good. If you like 60s goof then you'll like this, if not stay away. C-.
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)- A couple and their young daughter head out on the road for a vacation. They drive, and drive, get lost, drive some more, until finally they come to a ranch in the desert. Torgo, the caretaker, answers the door and flatly denies the family the right to stay on the property. The wife agrees and tells the husband they should just move on. The husband refuses to listen to either and all but insists Torgo let them stay. Torgo relents, despite his knowing The Master will not be pleased. Torgo, totes the families bags in, despite his desire they not stay there and despite an incredibly odd deformity that causes him to walk strangely and slowly. Once inside after some talk about The Master being dead, but not dead, and seeing some Satanic looking paintings of The Master and his Doberman the couple decide maybe it would be best if they did leave, but after much deliberation they again decide to stay. Things begin to go bad when their daughter’s dog is killed by a wild animal in the desert and Torgo comes onto the wife, so the couple again decide to leave, but this time the car won’t start so they decide to stay. The husband, while looking for Torgo gets knocked unconscious and I'm getting confused. The Master, who is lying on slab in the desert and is surrounded by his many comatose wives who stand against poles, wakes from his death/sleep. He says some incantations, his wives awake and bicker about killing the child and then an all out fight between The Master’s wives breaks out and continues for roughly 15 minutes. Meanwhile the husband comes to and heads back to the house. The couple decides again to leave, this time on foot. After traveling roughly 100 yards or so the wife collapses as she is too tired so the couple decide not to leave and head back to the house. As they head back Torgo is sacrificed by The Master’s wives (they execute him by pushing him around) for letting the people stay and for making advances on them while they are comatose. Meanwhile The Master is waiting back at the house for the couple and now they must become his caretaker and wives. My oh my. I have no idea what to grade this. This could possibly the greatest worst movie ever made. I don’t doubt there are worse Camcorder Coppola productions but as far as a movie that was made for wide release and actually had a big premier party, this has to simply be the worst thing ever made. Complete and total ineptitude in every aspect of filmmaking. Directing, acting, sound, lighting, writing, cinematography, editing, you name it, they messed it up. Plus the soundtrack, Jesus, it sounds like Coltrane’s band on a very VERY off night. For reference, Manos translates as hands so the title of this movie is "Hands: Hands of Fate". I don’t know what to grade this. Is an F on the craptacular scale even possible? For completists who love terrible, terrible stuff only.
Shuttered Room, The (1966)- This is a strange moody tale based on an HP Lovecraft story. A 4 year old girl is sent away from an island when her parents are killed in what we are told is a freak lightning strike. She returns to her home after she marries an older man and in their trip they run into a bizarre group of folks who threaten them and basically treat them like crap. They are also told about curses, the woman is basically threatened with rape, and they are repeatedly told to leave. Despite all of this they decide to stay (I guess because the husband is good at the ol’ Karate Chop). Everyone on the island is afraid of the old mill where the girl once lived and is staying again, yet everyone seems to cruise out there and hang out, sometimes even inside. What started the rumors of a curse, what is it in the attic, and what the hell is the rebel rouser gang’s problem? This is a weird one with a somewhat silly twist at the end and a sometimes fairly annoying Free Jazz soundtrack and ‘artsy’ interludes that fall flat. Some of the acting is weird as Hell too, especially Oliver Reed’s character who just runs around all the time acting all pissed off and rebellious (he thought he was going to inherit the mill). Anyway, it had good atmosphere and some parts worked so I will give it a C+, just don’t expect too much.
Zontar: The Thing From Venus (1966)- Craptacular check list: Terrible dialogue? Check. Overacting? Check. Cardboard-like underacting? Check. Nonsensical plot? Check. Aliens with a terrible invasion plan? Check. Obvious use of stock footage? Check. Ill-fitting soundtrack? Check. Terrible effects? Check. Once again, mankind’s space efforts don’t seem to be working out too well. Could it be aliens from Venus wanting to invade earth, or stop our space-race, or something like that? Yes. And one scientist can communicate with them on his giant tube driven ‘set’. Or is that some progressive jazz he’s listening to? No it is Zontar from Venus. He wants to befriend mankind, if he exists, or maybe he wants to enslave mankind for some reason. Why is he alone? And why is his invasion plan so poorly planned and executed. Shouldn’t he have made more of those control things prior to the invasion? These and many many more questions may never be answered. A+ on the craptacular scale.
Plague of Zombies (1966)- A Hammer Classic. In the scheme of zombie flicks, zombies are still Voodoo slaves but have moved along into scary looking, evil doing folks, not just sleep walking slaves, which is a big leap forward. A man is slowly turning townsfolk into zombies to work his mines. A brilliant young doctor is out of ideas as to why people are dying so he calls in his professor to help out. Some shocking and influential scenes come from this movie including the dropped and broken coffin, mass rising of the dead in the graveyard, and the shovel decapitation. There are some nice camp moments too like the police catching the good doctors digging up graves. Well-directed, written, and acted story when Hammer was still peaking. A.
She-Beast, The (1966)- Is it a slapstick comedy or a horror movie. Some scenes try hard to create some good horror atmosphere, and come close, and some try pretty hard to look like something from the Keystone Cops, complete with a fast motion car chase scene and cops falling down a lot. Back in the 1700s a witch was caught kidnapping children and executed by being drowned in a lake. Before being killed she cursed the families of those present. Jump ahead to ‘now’ and a couple on their honeymoon. After some weird scenes in a run down hotel the couple wind up crashing their car into the lake and low and behold, the woman (Barbara Steele) is pulled out and she is the witch in some pretty bad witch makeup. Will the descendent of Dr. Van Helsing (?) be able to exorcise her in time? I’ll be blunt, this movie pretty much sucked. D.
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966)- Yeah, I was hoping for the craptacular masterpiece the name leads you believe it would be, but really, it’s not so bad it’s good, and it’s not good either. Yeah, there are moments that had me chuckling at crazy plot holes and lapses of logic, but really, it just sucked for the most part. Apparently Dr. Frankenstein’s grandkids (yes, his grandson and granddaughter, not daughter at all) move to America to continue the good doctor’s experiments. The abundance of lightning out in the plains makes all those electrical gizmos in the lab work much better. So anyway the Frankenstein’s kill off some of the locals and then Jesse James comes knocking after his half-wit side kick takes a bullet in a heist gone wrong. Lab scenes one step above cartoon, acting that makes cardboard seem interesting, and TERROR follow. Maybe my problem was I was expecting a craptacular masterpiece rather than just going in with an open mind. But that title, oh well, either way I pretty much hated this one. F.
Torn Curtain (1966)- Paul Newman is a scientist pretty pissed about the funding for his missile defense shield project being cut. So he takes the drastic measure of defecting to develop the technology with the East German’s, who he knows are very close to completing the same type of project. The problem is his fiancé is suspicious and is secretly tagging along. Political intrigue and suspense ensue. This is Hitchcock at his best (no it’s not horror but...). The backdrop of the Cold War creates a perfect atmosphere for his brand of paranoid suspense. Who can you trust? How can you escape? Two of the greatest sequences are a murder scene of an East German secret police ‘body guard’ and the ‘good bus bad bus’ sequence. Even when you have a pretty good idea of what the outcome will be Hitch somehow pulls you into the action. A+.
Kill Baby Kill (1966)- This is a strange murder mystery with a supernatural story. It has the look and feel of a Hammer film but at the end of the day ends up a little more stylistically directed by Bava. A doctor is called into a small village to perform an autopsy on a woman who it seems committed suicide but a police inspector thinks otherwise, and the scared locals won’t talk at all because they are afraid of a curse on the village. This is a very atmospheric horror film with little or no gore, as I said, like Hammer films of the same period, but Bava kicks it all up a notch with his use of camera angles and colors. An obvious influence on flicks by directors like Dario Argento. A strong A.
Curse of the Swamp Creature, The (1966)- Let me see if I can explain this one. An oil man is staying in a small southern town waiting for a geologist to show up to look for oil in the swamp. While drinking at a bar the locals try and rip him off, he gets wise and they kill him. One of the locals then poses as the dead man’s wife so she can go into the swamps looking for oil with the geologist. All the while a mad scientist is trying to create some sort of manimal that can survive in the swamp more easily… or something like that. His experiments continue to fail and he continues to feed the alligators in his swimming pool/swamp but a local cult is putting a hex on him, I think. So finally at the very end pretty much everyone that deserves it, gets theirs, and the swamp creature shows up for a minute or two. This thing is a trainwreck if there ever was one. If I made a list of absolute worst movies this would be near the top (or would that be bottom?). Which is why it gets a B+ on the craptacular scale, yes, it is hilariously bad, the mismatching stock footage alone is worth a viewing, let alone the insane plot and terrible dialogue.
War of the Gargantuas (1966)- Probably the greatest non-Godzilla Japanese monster movie of all time! Simply a masterpiece of giant monster fighting and destruction, if you like that sort of thing, yeah, it is hokey as Hell with some hilarious dialogue and crazy jumped to conclusions, but giant monsters were common place in Japan I guess. Here we have a pretty foul tempered giant green gargantuan who is wreaking havoc, eating folks etc. and just might be the little gargantuan all grown up that escaped from what must have been a VERY bizarre lab. Low and behold a brown gargantuan shows up to try and put a stop to the mayhem, more mayhem follows. If you hate these flicks, you’ll really hate this one, otherwise it is a must see for fans of the genre. A+
X From Outer Space (1967)- Classic Japanese turd about an egg brought back from space that grows into a giant monster after feeding on power from power plants (of course). Everything about this movie is hilarious. If you like cheese you will love this one. From the name of the scientists' space ship, "The Astro Boat", to the character's constant need for a cocktail, to the monster costume you are in for a treat. If nothing else try and catch it for the lounge lizard jazz soundtrack. Priceless. This is so bad it's great. A.
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)- Another example of pretty goofy material played straight as an arrow by Peter Cushing. Everyone involved knew this was pretty bad stuff. Frankenstein finds a way to trap the human soul and when his assistant is wrongly executed for murder, well, a perfect opportunity to try out his experiment; Couple that with his assistant’s girlfriend committing suicide when she finds out her boyfriend has been executed and you have a fresh place to put the soul. It is an insane take on ‘Romeo and Juliette’ for sure, along with the ‘Frankenstein should stop messing with Mother Nature’ lesson. It is very goofy, and a tad disappointing, but if you must see all things Hammer, then by all means, check it out! C+
Coffin Joe: This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse (1967)- Part two in the Coffin Joe trilogy picks right up where part one left off. Joe has been attacked, but the villagers, for some unknown reason, save him and he’s then acquitted of his crimes due to a lack of evidence. Joe quickly resumes his old ways, this time with the help of hunchback Bruno, of trying to find the perfect woman to have the perfect child with. Joe knows the only real immortality is through our offspring. So how do you go about finding the perfect mate to breed with, well, you kidnap a bunch of women and then try and scare the crap out of them with spiders and snakes, the one that doesn’t get scared is the chosen one, the ones that do get scared, well they don’t get to live. So Joe sets about kidnapping, scaring, and torturing women, but before he finds his dream girl he is cursed. Joe is Nietzschean atheist so curses don’t scare him (despite what happened the last time he was cursed) and he finds, and impregnates, his perfect mate, and soon after he is dragged away to spend a night in Hell. This has all the atmosphere of part one with a slightly higher budget (or maybe it just looked that way) and a little surrealism thrown in. Joe’s trip into Hell is in color (the rest being in B&W) and feels like it was right out of Dante and despite the budget is a pretty effective set piece. Like part one this stuff ain’t for everybody but if you appreciate low budget foreign cult films then this is a must see. Although the story actually makes less sense than part one I will give it a slightly higher grade as I liked it a little more. A
Berserk (1967)- Over the top circus movie with Joan Crawford as the circus owning vamp. Someone is murdering the circus folk, are they trying to shut the circus down, or are they trying to generate publicity to make more money? Red herrings swim in all directions and I can usually figure these things out but I turned out to be wrong this time, and that makes me want to "Kill, kill, kill" (you’ll have to see the movie). I won’t give too much away but suffice it to say, we get the ultimate in poetic justice at the end. This one’s campy and fun and worth a viewing if you like such 60s flair, complete with Joan Crawford saying things like "We’ve eaten caviar and we’ve eaten sawdust". Too many damned circus performance stock clips though, and the musical piece with some of the ‘freaks’ caught me off guard! Classic stuff though. B.
Yongary, Monster from the Deep (1967)- Train wreck of an Asian giant monster movie. This time South Korea is under attack, first by some sort of mobile earthquake, then by Yongary, a giant monster who is awakened by said earthquake. Yongary proceeds to wreak some havoc, sleep, dance, etc. An annoying little kid likes Yongary and inadvertently helps kill him. I guess the best way to describe it is to just say ‘nothing to see here, move along’. For hardcore Kaiju fans only. D.
Fearless Vampire Killers, The (1967)- If Benny Hill had made a vampire movie, this would’ve probably been it. Slapstick combined with innuendo, bathing women, and cleavage. A couple bumbling vampire hunters are on the trail of a count. While staying at an inn the count kidnaps the inn keeper’s daughter, makes a vampire or two and hijinks ensues. Polanski directs and stars and also, in a weird way, makes this work. It looks good from the out door shots in the Alps to the indoor sets filmed in England everything is picture perfect, and the acting, while obviously over the top in a 3 Stooges sort of way, works also. If that sounds like your bag be sure and check this one out, I’ll give it a very strong B+, could’ve used a tad faster pace at times.
Torture Garden (1967)- Another British Amicus omnibus story featuring Burgess Meredith as a side show barker at a carnival. His bit is showing people their futures and seeing if they have the courage to change. Story one is about a man who wants his uncle’s inheritance and gets it, along with the source of the wealth, a witch in the form of a cat. Very well done and a strong start. A. Story two is about an overly ambitious young actress who will do almost anything to get a movie roll, and is shocked to find out what other actors have done to stay young. It was OK but the payoff wasn’t so good. B-. Story three is the weak point, a story about a jealous piano. C-. Story four is great and is about a man who is obsessed with buying original Edgar Allan Poe books, he meets his match in Peter Cushing. A+. Overall this flick wavers around between serious and campy, but for the most part it works pretty well and the wrap around is good too with a strong enough ending. This averages to a B+ which seems about right.
Mad Monster Party (1967)- Rankin and Bass made a lot of classic Christmas stop-motion cartoons like ‘A Year Without Santa Clause’, ‘Rudolph’ etc. And here they played their hand at a feature length Halloween show with all the monsters, Frankenstein (and his monster and the bride of the monster), Dracula, The Wolfman, The Mummy, The Creature (from the Black Lagoon), Dr. Jekyll, The Hunchback, various zombies etc. all in a cartoon about Dr. Frankenstein, who heads up the monster union, getting ready to retire and hand over the leadership role to his less than capable nephew. It’s not a bad try, some parts are good and I’m sure had I saw this when I was young I probably would’ve dug it, but seeing it for the first time now it felt kind of poorly edited (setup-bad pun- fade to next shot), the voices (other than Karloff’s of course) were bad (why does Dracula at times sound like Mel Brooks?) and the songs just didn’t seem to quite fit either. I was a little disappointed, being a fan of their Christmas shows, but I am admittedly not exactly the target audience. C+
Night of the Living Dead (1968)- Another of my all time favorite flicks. The recently deceased are rising up and eating the living. Yeah they're slow and stove up with rigormortus but there's so damned many of them. Definitely influenced by "The Last Man on Earth" which was an adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel "I Am Legend", and by "Carnival of Souls", this is still an original take on what amounts to the vampire legend. Ignore the flimsy explanation as to why this is happening. Great beginning, incredibly tense, well-directed middle, and a great non- Hollywood ending. Some great performances too. A+.
Crimson Cult, The (1968)- Tigon tried to clone Hammer’s formula and comes close in this groovy 60s witchcraft, psychedelic, orgy, partying piece of nostalgia. Ahh, the 60s, they must have been fun, as long as you stayed away from Satanism and witchcraft! Christopher Lee plays his part straight as an arrow as the descendent of a witch burned at the stake, when antique dealer brothers show up in town, and Lee finds out they are the descendants of the judges who burned his ancestor, pay they must. Toss in witch expert Boris Karloff, who adds a little needed camp, and this turns out to be a pretty good one, despite the weak ending. Masterpiece? Not even close! But if you like the British 60s era horror then this is a good representative. B-.
Fangs of the Living Dead (1968)- I was stoked when the wife scored this pre "Blind Dead" Ossorio flick for a buck. After seeing it I realized why it was a buck. It starts of with a woman finding out, just before her wedding, she has inherited a castle from the mother she never knew. She heads out to find out what gives and we’re off to a pretty unoriginal start. After arriving we get the typical scared villagers, cranky henchman helper, and large scary castle sitting above the village below. Turns out the women’s family are vampires created by her grandmother back in the day as she experimented with extending life, or something like that. Or maybe the whole thing is an elaborate plot to steal the gal’s inheritance. To be honest I have no idea. This is a slow mover and terrible acting, rotten dubbing, and piss poor comedy relief ruin any good atmosphere it creates. I’ll give it a D- because the locations were good.
Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968)- The villagers still won't go to church and why? Because Dracula's Castle's shadow falls on their church in the evening. But Dracula has been killed everyone knows that. Well the monsignor will have no more of this. He forces the local village priest to go with him up to the castle to bless it and place a large cross on the door. Man does that plan backfire. As the title suggests, Dracula rises from the grave and is pretty pissed to find that big cross on his front door. The monsignor must pay for that one. And what better way to do it than take his eye candy niece? Pretty effective Dracula story and Christopher Lee hits his stride as Dracula. B.
Rosemary's Baby (1968)- Things are going great for Rosemary. Her and her husband found the perfect apartment, they have nice and caring, albeit eccentric neighbors. Her husband has found some good work (he's an actor). And she's pregnant. Despite all this something seems terribly wrong. Could it be a hormonal imbalance caused by the pregnancy? Maybe she is just becoming a little paranoid, or worse, going crazy. Or maybe... Just maybe there is a big conspiracy with practically everyone she trusts involved and she is in fact pregnant with Satan's child. You decide. This movie is handled with seriousness and is pulled off with great direction and acting. A very paranoid, claustrophobic feeling is created and held throughout and we get the feeling, in no uncertain terms, that the late 60s marked what may just be the beginning of the end times and horror has run with that idea ever since. It's an excellent adaptation of an excellent book and a very influential movie in the horror movie pantheon. A+
Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1968)- A French- Italian omnibus effort based on Poe stories that, basically, to be honest right up front, I hated. Story one has a spoiled rich gal who lives in a big castle and has constant orgies and treats everyone like crap suddenly falls for her distant cousin who lives in the next castle over and hates the way she lives her life. He ignores her, she burns down his stables, he’s accidentally killed, and she goes horse back riding. I was bored to tears; F. Story two is a little better, but not by much. It is the story of another person spreading depravity from his school boy days, into college and into the military, and just as he’s about to carry out a great feat like torture or murder, he is interrupted by someone who looks just like him and has the same name, and calls him out each time. You can see the end of this one coming for miles (which is a good thing since the ending of the first story made no sense at all). I’ll give this one a D-. Story three is interesting at least and would’ve been pretty good if I hadn’t been so frustrated and tired from sitting through the first two. It is about a rich movie star who goes to Rome, is trotted about as a great celebrity and then gets in a little over his head... sorry about that reference but if you can sit through the first two you’ll understand. Anyway, it is a surreal and interesting story but I was burned out by the time it rolled around and just wanted it to end, still I’ll give it a B- for a total grade of D-.
Spider Baby (1968)- Lon Chaney in one of his last roles plays the chauffer/butler to a family of inbred maniacs. They suffer from a rare disease (so rare that it is named after this family and apparently only inflicts them) that causes them to mentally regress to dangerous adult/children who have no control over their impulses. There are the two daughters, one of which likes to pretend she is a spider and ‘stings’ people with a couple of huge knives, the son, who is further regressed to looking and acting like a giant toddler, and an aunt and uncle who live in the basement. Lon tries to make their lives happy, but when some greedy distant relatives show up with lawyer in tow, ready to take the family’s money, well, desperate measures are called for. This is an insane flick, often bordering on black comedy, but never completely falling off that cliff. It is low budget for sure and seems to be hated by many horror fans, yeah, it doesn’t make much logical sense and some parts just don’t even seem to fit (why is the greedy lady trying on her sexy lingerie in that dirty house full of freaks). I liked it though, for every silly scene there is a classic (the dinner) and it was an obvious influence on many movies to come ("The Hills Have Eyes", Texas Chainsaw Massacre", maybe to some extent "The Last House on the Left" etc). The only real problem I see are too many extended "Cat and Canary" chase scenes. This is a cult classic for a reason, but you should know what to expect when something gets the moniker ‘cult classic’. I’ll give it a hesitant A.
Hour of the Wolf, The (1968)- Ingmar Bergman’s surreal exploration of isolation, guilt, and the tormented artist. Here we have the story of a semi-famous painter and his wife who move to an island to be alone so he can work and "not see another person". This doesn’t end up working out as some very bizarre locals hover around and make life almost unbearable for the painter... or do they? Are they even there at all? Is any of this happening? I have no idea, as I mentioned, this is pretty much just surrealistic symbolism and Ingmar took that storytelling style to the hilt on this one. Comparisons to later David Lynch material (like ‘Eraserhead’) are inevitable, as well as, to me at least, a comparison to ‘The Shining’. I really liked this one quite a bit, but if you dislike this type of art house film making then steer clear, it ain’t for everybody, and I only like it in small doses. A+
Witchfinder General (1968)- Vincent Price stars as witch finder Mathew Hopkins in this account loosely based on a true story. Price is cool, cruel, and calculating as Hopkins, who travels the English countryside accusing witches and being paid by local magistrates for his services, and those of his assistant John. He is making a good living torturing and killing women (and men) and occasionally taking advantage of the women in order to ‘save’ them too. He makes a mistake however when he kills a Catholic priest who happens to be taking care of a niece, who is engaged to a soldier. Hopkins has his way with the woman, promising to save the priest in return for her favors, but decides to kill the priest after his assistant rapes the woman. The soldier returns to hear the story and tracks the pair of witch hunters down and exacts his revenge as he and his now wife slip into insanity. This is a great looking film and is brutal, especially for 1968. It is definitely one of Price’s best rolls; the mutual dislike between he and the director only making the movie more tense, obviously bringing the best out of Price who left his often campy style at home to play the part with cold brilliance. And the dark ending is perfect for the close of the film. A nice look at what a paradise we could have if we’d only let the religious run everything. A+.
Targets (1968)- Byron Orlock is retiring. He realizes his brand of horror isn't scary anymore. Why would "painted monsters" scare people in a society so full of violence? People are laughing at his old movies that were once considered the scariest movies made. He agrees to make one more appearance to promote what will be his last movie. And his 'brand' of horror comes face to face with the real thing. This is an almost forgotten classic movie. One of the first in a line of 'realistic' horror movies that directors like Wes Craven ("Last House on the Left") and Tobe Hooper ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre") would run with a few years later. Boris Karloff plays Byron Orlock, but he is really just playing himself. Old, fragile, and no longer taken seriously, let alone considered 'scary' he knows his time has come and gone, but the seeds he planted have long roots as he comes to realize. A low budget classic. A+.
Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell (1968)- First Goke (pronounced Go Key) aren't really body snatchers. Second they aren't really from Hell. Maybe something is lost in translation. Either way this is a not so subtle anti war character study masked as a Japanese Horror/Sci-Fi movie. In the character study we have the corrupt politician, representing the failure of leadership and man's self-centeredness, the capitalist business man, representing greed and over ambition, succeed at any cost attitude, the business man's wife who he has whored out for the success of his business, representing the oppressed (particularly those oppressed by the greed of others), we have the psychiatrist, representing cold hard reason, the assassin, representing violence and death, the widow, representing the result of the violence and death, and the pilot and stewardess, representing leadership and man's ability for self sacrifice. They are on a plane that crashes after flying into a blood red sky and under a UFO. The survivors, listed above, argue at each decision to be made, and become paralyzed with indecision while each of them becomes the victim of the creature from the title. There are some effective scenes but we are constantly subjected to the movie's moral (the widow at one point exclaiming "War is terrible, it makes everyone miserable", maybe something is lost in that translation as well... oh wait, she speaks English). This is one of Quentin Terrentino's favorite Japanese Sci-Fi flicks and it does work much of the time despite some obvious flaws. If you like Japanese Horror/Sci-Fi you'll like this. B-.
Planet of the Apes (1968)- This is a sci-fi classic that has been honored and parodied, held in esteem and laughed at over the years. Although some bits are dated and Charlton Heston is a pretty rotten actor (and also a terrible leader, how did he get chosen to be the captain of the ship?) I still say this is a great one that holds up well. You probably know the story. A three man one woman crew set off in a spaceship which travels near the speed of light. They’re trying to find new worlds and explore them, although they know they will never be able to return to Earth since time travels much slower for those going near the speed of light. They land on a planet remarkably similar to Earth and find primitive humans and soon discover the humans are hunted and experimented on by apes. The topics that are tackled next are none too subtle as we realize that the ape religion and rule of law are trying desperately hard to conceal the truth from the larger ape population. Man is simply too violent and too destructive to be trusted, but who was actually advanced first? Although I won’t bother revealing it I’m sure everyone knows the classic twist ending (the remake followed the book closer, including its twist ending). A+.
Topaz (1969)- Not horror, but another spy espionage flick from Hitch, based on a spy thriller novel about behind the scenes goings on around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Not one of Hitch’s masterpieces but over all not a bad flick, it kept me interested despite its 2+ hour run time. A Russian defector brings news about Cuba to the US and they must depend on a French agent to get inside Cuba to confirm the information but what he finds is a leak at some of the highest levels of his own government. We jump around a lot and are introduced to a lot of characters but personally I thought Hitch pulled it off fairly well. Not great, but not bad either. B-
The Oblong Box (1969)- Vincent Price is a member of a rich family with large land holding in Africa. After a terrible accident a curse is placed on his brother and they return home to England to live in isolation. His brother is determined to get out of that attic he's locked in and comes up with a pretty desperate plan that then backfires, sort of. Christopher Lee shows up as a doctor who becomes the victim of some blackmailing. All in all this is a pretty effective movie with some cool witchdoctor/voodoo scenes and pretty effective ending, and plot twist. Interesting, original, well filmed (except the day for night scenes) and well acted. The only exception would be the weak makeup job on the cursed brother. A-.
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)- The good doctor keeps having his experiments messed up by people and now the police are hot on his trail again. He takes on another alias and moves in a boarding house to lay low, but ego and good fortune (or other's misfortune) get him again and open the door for more experiments. This time he must save a colleague, who was into the same experiments, from insanity and the insane asylum. He must do this by performing a brain transplant. A very original and well-acted extension of the Frankenstein story. It goes without saying that the monster is actually Frankenstein, not, well, The Monster, which isn't in this one anyway. If you like Hammer films you'll really like this one. A.
Night Gallery (1969)- Made for TV omnibus which was supposed to be Rod Serling’s return to the Twilight Zone format. Here we have three stories: #1 is the story of a man who discovers his long lost uncle. The uncle is rich, and not in the best of shape, an ‘accidentally’ left open window finishes off the old man... Or does it? The old man’s paintings may have the last word. It’s a pretty over the top story, with a double twist ending that isn’t too surprising, but Roddy McDowall is perfect in his part as the nephew and over all it is very well done. A-. #2 has a wicked (of course) Joan Crawford who is rich as hell and has been blind her whole life. She hears about a surgery that may give her sight, although briefly and at the expense of another person’s eyes, but she is determined to blackmail her way to see, even if it is for a short time. Bad luck follows. This was one of Steven Spielberg’s first directing gigs and he holds his own. I would’ve liked to know what happened to the guy who gave his eyesight (Howie Cunningham no less). Still, this one worked, more or less. B. #3 takes us to Argentina and a Nazi war criminal who is haunted by his past and hunted by those who want him brought to justice. He prays for peace of mind, but never really for forgiveness and decides he can loose himself in art, which does indeed end up being his fate. Of the three stories this one ‘feels’ more like a Twilight Zone episode, but in a way it also fails as it never really builds the suspense it shoots for and the main character just comes off as too unsympathetic. C+. This averages to a B, which is probably about right.
Scream and Scream Again (1969)- This is the only movie to have Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing, 3 of the greatest horror movie stars ever, in it. That's a drag. It's a drag because putting those 3 together could produce some good movies and also because this movie pretty much sucks. From the terrible 60s 'Spy Hunter' soundtrack to weird Nazi wannabe characters, to the much too long chase scene with the never-satisfactorily-explained vampire character, this movie just fails. Apparently scientists are developing super humans, kind of "bionic people". These Nazi types have a British spy plane pilot and want to see the case notes on these bionic people. Random stuff happens. The acting is pretty good, the directing is very dated as is the terrible music mentioned above. This is kind of sci-fi meets horror via James Bond. Fairly original but only because it's a bad idea, D-.
Astro-Zombies, The (1969)- Oh my! An absolute must see for fans of the craptacular! Here we have dancing go-go girls, bubbling chemicals, save the day G-Men, scientists and their hotty assistants, mad scientist and his hunch-back assistant, solar powered remote controlled zombies (you read that right!), spies from ‘The East’, day for night shots, stock footage, etc. YES! A scientist figures out a way to control people with brain waves, the government thinks it would be a good idea to use for the space program, the scientist however experiments on military men and is fired, so he opens up his own lab where he gives long winded explanations as to exactly what he is doing to his hunchback assistant (thereby clueing us in on the plot, or what there is of one). Spies, intrigue, and painted dancing girls ensue! Toss in lots of stock footage of cops parking cars and you have suspense! Well not really but if you like ‘em bad you have GOT to catch this one. A+ on the craptacular scale, just for the rock’em, sock’em like robot intro!
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)- Some old pretend to be pious rich guys are getting tired of the limited thrills visits to the local whore house can afford them. They want some real thrills so they enlist the help of the local disowned ex-royal brat who is known to run with some devil worshipping types. He comes up with a great plan, raise the Prince of Darkness himself, Dracula, from the dead. He knows how to do it too. With the help of some stuff from the last movie in the franchise (nice tie in). The old pretend to be pious rich guys bale before the ceremony is completed and the local disowned ex-royal brat dies. Dracula does come back though in a pretty effective scene and is pretty pissed that those guys left his servant to die. How to get back at them. Hhmmm... How about taking their eye candy daughters. That should do it. Actually I thought this was one of the more effective Dracula/Hammer films. Despite the material the participants take their parts very seriously and it all just works for me. Nice Hammer color and sets too. A-.
Crucible of Horror (1970)- Atmosphere! This has it. An almost repressive feeling of being trapped in a nightmare permeates this whole movie, and when the instigator of the trapped feeling is removed, it gets even worse. Walter is a perfect English gentleman. Outside his house; inside his house he is a sadistic obsessive compulsive who has an unhealthy like for whipping his 16 year old and feeling her bicycle seat. The darker aspects of his doing are only hinted at, but we know no matter how much he washes his hands he can’t wash those sins away. After one particularly bad beating mother and daughter decide to do away with Walter. They plan it out to look like a suicide, things seem to go as planned, but with enough guilt to go around, everyone in this flick, with maybe the exception of odd brother Rupert, who seems to enjoy the sadism from a distance, are trapped in their own shared Hell. This one verges on too artsy at times, with odd dream sequences, lightning fast flashbacks, and an ending that leaves way more questions than answers, but this time out it worked for me. Some will call this slow, yes it is slow, but in a Hitchcock suspense building way, which I like, not in a ‘let’s get on with it’ way, in my opinion. I’m going to give this a very strong A, it definitely ain’t for everybody but if you like the weird atmospheric British horror flicks of the late 60s early 70s then you will like this one.
Count Yorga, Vampire (1970)- Count Dracula in modern (well almost modern) LA. I could probably just end the review right there. Some hipsters decide to have a séance for their friend’s mother who recently passed away, things get weird and the medium, a strange Count from Bulgaria, needs a ride home in someone’s awesome VW micro-bus. After dropping the Count off the VW gets stuck in a strange patch of mud, being too heavy to push out I guess, the hipsters stay the night in the van, but hipster girl winds up with anemia and two puncture wounds. So on and so forth; seriously this is so predictable I probably don’t need to go on. Never the less, despite being more of the same it is pretty well executed, yeah it is dated and the hipsters were obviously not hip even when this was made but it is a nice snapshot of vampire horror circa early 70s (although Hammer it ain’t) and has some effective bits, I’ll give it a B.
Slaughter of the Vampires (1970)- A newly wed couple throws a party in their new castle and a mysterious stranger shows up and begins seducing the new bride. The husband is becoming concerned at his wife’s almost comatose behavior and winds up calling in a specialist, a specialist in vampires that is! Sound familiar? Yeah, it is basically Dracula without the whole moving to England sequence. Crazy over the top soliloquies make it fun as does the Euro-Goth atmosphere. If you like these slightly weird and subtle European horror flicks from this time (although this one gives the impression of being older than 1970, more like 1960) then you’ll like this, nothing new to offer, but not horrible. If you don’t like the bad dialogue and snail’s pacing then steer clear. I’m on the fence so I’ll give it a C-.
Bird With the Crystal Plumage, The (1970)- Argento’s debut as a director finds him copping a lot from Hitch, but not in a bad way. We have an American tourist in Rome who witnesses attempted murder, becomes a suspect, clears his name, and then becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of who was trying to kill the woman. Twists and turns abound (along with some dead ends that don’t make much sense upon reflection) and we wind up with a very satisfying murder mystery. Yeah, there are some plot holes, and some bad dubbing, to be expected really, but for the most part of you like Euro-Giallo Hitch like flicks then this is a must see. A
Dunwich Horror, The (1970)- This is an interesting adaptation of the Lovecraft story of the same name, it’s just that Lovecraft stuff doesn’t always translate well to film. Sometimes it is just better to imagine things than to try and actually ‘see’ what they look like. Dean Stockwell plays a very low key role as a member of one of the ‘cursed’ families Lovecraft liked writing about. Stockwell’s family was once into black magic and his grandfather was hung for it, however it seems his experiments succeeded and Stockwell is the result of those experiments, but he’s only half the result, his twin brother is stuck between our world and the world of the Elder Gods, who are trying to return to earth (as in Lovecraft’s cosmology). Stockwell will need the help of an innocent young maiden to complete the deal, bad special effects and late 60s art cinematography ensue. Over all this isn’t a bad flick, but it isn’t great, I couldn’t really tell if they were being serious or hamming it up here and there, I think it was a little of both. This doesn’t quite measure up to the American International Poe movies but if you like the Lovecraft mythos and don’t mind a little cheese smeared on top of it you’ll probably like it. I’ll give it a C.
Horror of Frankenstein, The (1970)- Hammer was trying to restart the Frankenstein series here with a new Frankenstein, a new monster, and a new approach. The camp was quite a bit higher in this one and Frankenstein was a young rebel who liked to surround himself with pretty girls, and wasn’t above getting them ‘in trouble’. He was also a single minded brilliant sadist/scientist. His father refuses to allow him to go to university, so he kills his father and heads off to school, where he gets in some trouble, but also learns enough to move back home and continue his anatomy experiments. Paying highly for fresh body parts from the local grave robber, shacking up with the help, and trying to stay above the slowly building pile of bodies is how he fills his time until he eventually makes his monster, complete with damaged brain (remember Whale’s original?), an almost uncontrollable Hulk-like beast. This is a fun take on the story and kept me interested. It is a tad slow moving at times and we don’t really get a monster until the end and when he does arrive there’s not much development there. Still, the good acting, camp, and black humor worked for me as did the almost goofy ending. B+
She Killed In Ecstasy (1970)- Jess Franco made a career out of soft-core porn horror movies with terrible soundtracks, I guess they call it 'acid rock' but it never fits the mood of what is happening visually, it just goes on and on sounding silly and dated. So what is happening visually? Mostly sex and murder. A man who is supposedly a great scientist decides on his own to experiment on human embryos, but in all the pictures they are fetuses that look nearly ready for birth, floating in formaldehyde. Anyway, he is banned from medicine and research and then goes totally insane and basically catatonic before finally killing himself. His wife then wants revenge and to get it she has sex with the doctors she blames for her husband's suicide (including a female doctor), and kills them during the act, while fantasizing that it is her husband she's having sex with but apparently not killing. For good measure she keeps her husband's body, which is remarkably well preserved, back home in bed. At the end a policeman says Mrs. Johnson was a normal woman driven to kill by her husband's mistreatment. Uh yeah, any woman who's husband commits suicide would go out and kill the people she blamed for it while having sex with them and keeping the dead body back home in bed. The best I can say is this movie is competently made in an exploitative way despite the rotten soundtrack, some bad acting, and silly dialogue. Over look those and it gets a C-.
House of Dark Shadows (1970)- This movie was based on a horror 'soap opera' and has that 'made for TV' feel. A vampire is resurrected and comes across the reincarnation of his lost love. Not too original. Still, there are some effective moments as the vampire plays like he is his own decedent to fool his real decedents. Some nice atmosphere is created too as vampires begin appearing. Over all this isn't great but it is far from terrible. B-.
Equinox (1970)- Tough one to grade, it was student film (so it may have actually gotten a real grade) that Criterion did their treatment to. It is chock full of goofy dialogue and “Hey let’s explore that cave and hang around these woods despite all the signs we should really just leave” kind of disjointed horror movie logic. The acting is painful at times and the dialogue and dubbing verge on hilarious. But it tends to rise above those things (keeping in mind the budget etc) at times with an interesting plot which would be fairly closely mirrored in Raimi’s first ‘Evil Dead’, pretty good Claymation monsters (I’m not saying the FX are good, but more than passable considering), and a nice wrap around ending. The plot follows a college student who gets a weird call from one of his professors. He wants to head out to the professor’s cabin in the woods to find out what is up, but his friend wants to go on a double date/picnic so they kill two birds with one stone and head out to picnic after checking in on the professor. What they actually find is the professor’s cabin demolished and a weird old guy who has a book full of spells and incantations. The book is apparently in demand too. If you like to check out the cheap goofy horror flicks, student projects, or are curious about the plot since you like ‘Evil Dead’ (I’m not saying this is much like ‘Evil Dead’, just a similar plot), then be brave, check it out. I’m not sure what to grade it to be honest, it seems almost unfair to put it on the craptacular scale, but it would also be unfair to good movies to NOT put it there, so I will give it an A+ on the craptacular scale.
Vampire Lovers, The (1970)- Hammer was looking for ways to spice up their horror lineup, which modern audiences were starting to find a bit, well, dated. Toss in some tits and lesbian kissing and wah-la, modern version of a period vampire tale. Yeah, the exploitation is obvious but really this isn’t a bad flick in a retelling of the ‘Carmilla’ story. A vampire gets herself kind of ‘injected’ into different families and starts relationships with the rich people’s daughters and or nieces. She travels around doing this until someone figures out what is up. It’s no masterpiece but the acting, directing, and over-all look do work. B
Coffin Joe: Awakening the Beast (1970)- I tried to be open minded, seriously I did, and I do like the surrealistic... usually. But this one, Christ! Here we have a group of psychiatrists talking about the negative effects of drugs, we are shown those effects in snippets of the psychedelic experiences the drug users have, which usual amount to degrading women through sex, violence, and pissing in a pot, oh and being forced to listen to some terrible music and bad philosophy 101 essays. Eventually we get to the color segment where one psychiatrist is trying to show the effect of LSD, or maybe the effect of Coffin Joe movies, I was losing interest. Anyway, we wind up with an anti-establishment, evil-begets evil type of film. The strange thing about the Coffin Joe trilogy is José Mojica Marins, the writer, director, and star always seems to undermine his own philosophical stands by proving that what he is trying to prove is right in fact wrong. Check the trilogy out to see if you agree. Anyway, I have to admit I hated this one, I’ll give it a D- as some of the color sequences were interesting.
Vampyros Lesbos (1970)- What can I say? The title pretty much sums it up, especially if you know it's a Franco film! Franco loves the color red! Red kites, red scarves, red posters, red sofas, red wine, red blood... ooohhhhh I get it...Anyway this one starts off at a nightclub where the stage act is a lady undressing herself and dressing a 'live' mannequin. The scene goes on forever as we are subjected to the most dated sounding music imaginable. Anyway, after that we find out the main character is having lesbian fantasy dreams every night and they are about the same lady. A lady she'd never seen until she went to the nightclub and low and behold it's the stage act lady, who happens to be a very rich countess and heir to Count Dracula (it's never explained why she works at a strip club). Anyway the lady then goes to the countess' island to help her sort out her inheritance and lesbianism ensues, sort of. It's all supposed to be kind of artsy and it fails badly. Anyway, apparently Dracula made the countess a vampire back in the day and she has gone through life hating men and making women want her (like the lesbian Renfeld character who seems to be the only patient in an insane asylum run by a guy who's coincidentally real interested in vampires) but now she wants this other woman real bad. Not much makes sense after that and the lesbian vampire SPOILER ALERT just drops dead later on. Franco films strike me as movies made today that are trying to make fun of 70s sexploitation films, that's how bad this one is. It's great for a laugh though. Soundtrack A+++, movie F.
Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)- Bava goes artsy mod on us and it fails. Sure the film for the most part ‘looks’ good, it is Bava after all, and some of the black humor works (the bodies dangling in the walk in freezer), but Bava seems to get lost in the look and forgets the story, and I won’t even get into the acid jazz Hammond B3 drenched soundtrack! Anyway, a rich guy has some friends over to his island and hopes he will be able to buy a formula from a visiting chemistry professor. The professor won’t budge with regard to selling and the visitors start dying off. Bava was often almost as good as Hitch but he just tried to be too ‘hip’ on this one. D.
Beneath The Planet of the Apes (1970)- The first "The Planet of the Apes" tried pretty hard, and for the most part succeeded, in avoiding the 60s sci-fi clichés (except for the goofy disgruntled teenage chimpanzee near the end). "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" makes no such attempt. We are clubbed over the head with warrior class, nonviolent peace protestors, Nazi like fascism, violence solves nothing, nuclear bomb cold war era paranoia complete with bizarre pseudo-religious zeal and psychedelic effects. The entire first 2/3 of this movie are nothing more than filler for the annoying climax of fall out scared humans who worship a doomsday bomb and sing hymns to its greatness as the gorillas attack. Very little makes much sense until you plug in the ‘violence never pays’ moral of the story. I’m a fan of the "Planet of the Apes" movies and this is by far the weakest. I’ll give it a C though as some of the scenes of the gorillas training for war and the makeup jobs are still great. I was a huge fan of these flicks when I was a kid and wanted nothing more than one of those gorilla masks. C.
Omega Man, The (1971)- This is a remake of "The Last Man On Earth" which it seems many people hate but I actually liked well enough. Both are of course based on Richard Matheson’s book "I Am Legend" (as, at least to some degree, is "Night of the Living Dead", "28 Days Later" and of course film of the same name) but this one adds a bigger budget and a tougher main character in Charlton Heston. Heston is apparently the last (Omega) man on earth and tools around LA in some nice rides, scavenging for whatever he needs. He’s obviously lonely as Hell and we soon learn is being hunted by some sort of zombie/vampire types, but he hunts back! It’s not long before we are then assaulted by some pretty heavy handed 70s clichés, music, slang, race relations, and clothes as Heston takes on the zombie/vampires and learns he is in fact not the last man (or person) on earth. The end is pretty predictable and that last shot of Heston is well, an interesting choice. They tried so hard to make the movie relevant to the times that they made it totally irrelevant to any time so it really doesn’t hold up too well at all but early on it almost manages to capture that elusive ‘feeling’ of desolation these movies need to succeed for me personally. Yeah, it is very dated and definitely looses steam and believability with ‘honky paradise’ type of lines and the heinous soundtrack but still, it is a classic. B.
Escape From The Planet of the Apes (1971)- The Planet of the Apes series redeems itself with this 3rd entry. Cornelius, Zira, and Dr. Milo (a filler character used to explain how the apes learned to fly the space ship) take Taylor’s ship back in time to 1973 just as the world ends (the doomsday bomb in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes") in their time. The apes become celebrities until a scientist begins putting 2 and 2 together and figures their offspring (Zira’s pregnant) could lead to man’s downfall, which is obviously part of the future if things aren’t done to stop it. It is interesting to me that it is actually a doctor that is the ‘villain’ and wanting to abort the baby chimp and sterilize the remaining advanced apes and not a military general or politician, who are the usual close minded culprits (the president actually argues that if it is man’s destiny to fall then so be it). Much of the film is a feel good story about the apes as they live the good life, but the sinister streak running just below the surface is soon exposed and we are subjected to tragedy of Shakespearian proportions. A
Graveyard of Horror (1971)- The collapse of rural life, the dissolution of heritage, and the constant pull of temptation, temptation for sin and for immortal greatness are just some of the heady topics explored in this Spanish gothic horror masterpiece reminiscent of the atmosphere and look of some of Hammer’s best films. And by "Spanish gothic horror masterpiece" I mean hilariously bad piece of crap. I read a review where someone called this "Graveyard of Unintentional Humor". That sums it up! The jarring editing, bad acting, even worse dubbing, riotous soundtrack, and plot, oh the plot. At least what I could make out of a plot. It goes something like this: A man returns to his home, a castle in the boonies, his wife has recently died during a complicated pregnancy, also loosing the infant. He wants to know how she died (dying during a complicated c-section in the boonies not being a good enough explanation) so he goes to his sister, then his sister-in-laws, then his mother-in-law, then the local doctor, then the family doctor, where he finally finds the truth, his wife died during the c-section process of a complicated child birth, then he disappears, but then shows up here and there, or is that the local cop pretending to be the guy, and if so why? The family doctor is really weird though and must be a bad guy because he has huge caterpillar like eyebrows and an organ plays every time he enters a room. Something else must be a foot. I guess other folks have died, including the guy’s brother, who was a great scientist and an earl too. Also the gravedigger is selling heads from the graveyard and has something to do with this, as do all the women wearing very impractical shoes for such a snowy climate. I think the doctor has to feed a lizard man bodies each ‘cycle’ which apparently means monthly, 6 months in he gets nervous as people are starting to realize that each month someone else dies. Not a very well thought out plan I guess. Anyway, this is a total train wreck which gets a very strong A on the craptacular scale, I’d give it an A+ but at 83 minutes it is just WAY too long!!!
Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)- Argento, obviously influenced as always by Hitchcock, weaves a tale of mystery and murder. A musician feels he is being followed by someone, and when he confronts his stalker he accidentally kills him. Someone happens to photograph the killing but instead of turning him in, the photographer instead uses the incident to try and drive the musician crazy, as more people get involved, more people die until the big reveal at the end. Like Hitch, Argento throws in the element of humor amidst the mayhem and also surrounds the musician with some oddly colorful characters. This is a strong outing for Argento in my opinion. Great direction, camera use, color use, characters, the things folks like about Argento are here, but without the negatives he brings to his flicks at times (although the bit about photographing a dead person’s eye to see the last image they’ve seen seems pretty dumb and why didn’t they use that on the others who had been killed? But you can’t think too much about any Argento flick!) I’m giving this a strong A, if you like Italian Giallo this is almost a must see.
Bay of Blood (1971)- After Bava tried to be hip with "Five Dolls..." he came back with this hugely influential flick about folks trying, and dying to get their hands on the real estate around a bay. Lucrative land which could easily be turned into a resort, but who really should inherit it, and do they all want to see it turned into a crass commercial tourist trap? Lots of bodies pile up and no one is really innocent in this true originator of the ‘body count slasher’ sub-genre (even I usually give credit to Clark’s "Black Christmas" for starting the trend but Bava beat Clark by 3 years!) You see Bava’s Hitchcock inspiration, and you also see where "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" et al got their inspiration as well. A must see for any fan of the slasher flicks. A+
Lady Frankenstein (1971)- Not really as bad as the title might lead you to believe. Dr. Frankenstein’s daughter returns from University, where she excelled at biology just like daddy did. She has even more far out ideas and when dad dies at the hands of his own creation, she steps in to further his experiments. She falls in love with her father’s assistant, who is older and, well, some of the pipes don’t work so well. I bet if they kill someone and transplant his brain into a younger body… all the while the first monster is killing people… toss in torch carrying villagers… you get the idea. To sum up, the way they obtain a body for the lab assistant? Well, lady Frankenstein strips down, starts riding the guy they are going to kill, and continues riding him while the assistant is killing him, and seems to pretty much dig the proceedings. Yeah, it’s typical Euro-horror, bad dubbing, terrible monster make-up, and some senseless plotlines, but really not a bad retelling of the story. C+.
Countess Dracula, The (1971)- An old countess is widowed and accidentally discovers that if she gets a virgin’s blood on her she will suddenly look a lot younger. So she needs some dead virgins, of course each time the effect wears off she looks worse and needs more blood. An allegory for drug addiction anyone? Or maybe an allegory for aging gracefully, either way this is a pretty good late entry into the Hammer Horror Pantheon. B
Night of Dark Shadows (1971)- Movies like this slay me. First, the name makes no sense. This movie doesn’t take place in one night and I guess "Nights and Days of Dark Shadows" just didn’t have the appeal ( I know I know it is a sequel of sorts to "House of Dark Shadows" and also the TV show). Second, this is one of those early 70s horror flicks that went more for subtle scares, which I respect, but failed, which I don’t respect. And last, the soundtrack, good Lord!!! Lots of classical guitar and harmonica, plus some early electronica, none of which ever seems to fit what is happening on the screen. So what is happening on the screen? A newlywed couple moves into the husband’s family’s old mansion where a relative of his did some bad things. He slowly becomes possessed by that relative and someone has to pay. Of course none of it really makes any sense and it moves at a snail’s pace. And the ending you can see for miles, did they really think they were fooling people? Kind of fun to rip on but not enough so I can’t really give it a craptacular grade so I’ll give it an F. (Hardcore fans will be mad at my grade and remind me the film was edited by over 30 minutes by MGM, maybe those 30 minutes could’ve saved it, maybe they would’ve made it totally intolerable, I don’t know.)
Devil Came From Akasava, The (1971)- OK, this isn't horror, it's James Bond spy action adventure with kind of a sci-fi twist, but it was billed as horror and played on Halloween night on the Sundance Channel so if they can do it so can I. Anyway, a scientist discovers a rock that can transform other rocks into gold (were all the rocks around this rock in the mine gold? I don't think they were so it must not have worked). Anyway the downer is it kills people who see it. The scientist is then killed... or is he... spies, cops, and agents, etc. all swarm around the place. Who's on whose side? Who cares? Since this also is a Franco film the main spy doubles as a prostitute and her cover in going to Akasava is she's an exotic dancer. Her act consists of sitting in a chair and taking her clothes off. Everyone is amazed at how talented she is, if they only knew she was a spy too! How exotic! Typical Franco 70s funk acid rock Hammond B3 organ soundtrack which fires up at the standard inappropriate times. If Muzak covered James Brown you'd have a Franco Soundtrack. Priceless! Still, this movie gets a D-.
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)- Price plays Dr. Phibes, a psychopath genius that is believed dead. He blames several doctors for his wife's death and sets out getting his revenge using the seven plagues of Egypt as inspiration. Man they would come up with a lot of interesting ways to kill people in these movies (and modern movies like "Se7en" and "Saw" would pick up on that). The movie has that odd 60s psychedelia going for it, which works sometimes and gets old sometimes. Price plays the part with strange restraint (his character can't talk) and the sets are equally strange. Somehow, between the weirdness it still all works. The camp relief of the bungling police is a nice touch too. The same theme would be developed further in "Theatre of Blood" and to some extent in "Madhouse". A-.
Brotherhood of Satan, The (1971)- I’ve mentioned it before, folks in the late 60s/early 70s were seriously afraid of cults and Satan. Must have been the drugs. Anyway, some Satanists in a small California town seem to be stopping anyone from getting in or out of town, and also seem to be snatching up the kids for their own nefarious deeds. Dimwitted police, insane residents, and a superstitious priest fill in the gaps while Strother Martin takes the whole thing up and over the top. This is one slow moving pile, but if you’re in the mood for fun, it is great to rip on, like the extended shot of the couple driving along listening to elevator music, the dream sequences, the priest, and general over-acting galore, not to mention the hilarious dialogue. I’ll give this a B+ on the craptacular scale.
Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)- Huge disappointment on my part here as my DVD of this won't play non stop all the way through and I've been wanting to see this one for quite some time. Still I got to see most of the film (although it took awhile as it kept stopping and restarting and I had to keep going to the chapter selection and finding what I'd seen and hadn't seen). The story is about Knights Templar who return from Crusades in Egypt with pagan knowledge and practices. They torture and abuse the locals and are eventually killed by them. Now the locals avoid the castle where they lived because the Knights will return for dinner whenever someone is there. The Knights are effective (although maybe a little too much of them riding horses in slow motion is shown). I liked this film quite a bit although it is a little 'clunky' and has some plot holes. It was pretty far ahead of its time and became a huge influence on later Euro-trash. B+
Duel (1971)- Another Matheson work. The movie description on satellite was something like "A truck driver tries to run a traveling salesman off the road." Which does pretty much sums up the movie but it is a little more exciting than that description would lead you to believe. This was released as a made for TV movie directed by Steven Spielberg (before he made a name for himself with "Jaws"). This is a tight little thriller that pulls you right in from the beginning and holds you there until the very end, despite most of the movie just being Dennis Weaver trying to out run a huge tanker truck in his little Plymouth. I remember digging this movie a lot when I was a kid and it holds up well. I can't find a specific reason to give this an A+ but I can't really find a reason not to so it may not really deserve it but I am going to give this one an A+ simply because I like it a lot.
Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971)- Lon Chaney Jr’s final film, I was never a big Lon Chaney Jr. fan but still, I hate to see someone go out like this! This is a total train wreck... But to be fair it is a good train wreck. Make that a GREAT train wreck! This is one of the best worst films I’ve seen in a long time. Dracula needs a serum to make him stronger, he hunts down Dr. Frankenstein, who is hiding out and conducting his experiments under the cover of a carnival sideshow manager. His runs a pretty crummy, and tiny show, which gives him time to pump serums he derives from frightened girls who have been decapitated and reanimated into his assistant Bruno. Dracula, who in keeping with the times has grown his hair out into a nice jewfro and sports a goatee, needs some of that, but the sister of one of the doctor’s victims aims to find out what is going on. I don’t know even where to begin, the unhip hippies, the crazed bikers, Dracula’s very odd reverberating voice, his lightning shooting death ring, the soundtrack, the drug induced scenes, the parts that were obviously just spliced in here and there. If you love them bad then this is a must see! A+ on the craptacular scale.
Mephisto Waltz, The (1971)- I really hate it when people use the word ‘boring’ to describe a movie as I’m not sure exactly what that means. Some people get easily bored if they have to sit for 90+ minutes watching a movie so are they just bored. Anyway, this movie was boring. There just didn’t seem to be much going on; a music journalist goes to interview a famous pianist. The two seem to become friends and some pretty obvious decadence comes to the surface during a New Year’s Eve Party. Are the rich freaks worshipping Satan? And what exactly do they want from this mediocre writer and his wife? The acting is good, the directing pretty dated though. It just feels like it is trying to be ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ without the pregnant lady, but it lacks the suspense to pull it off. File under ‘Typical 70s Satan-Worshipping-Hysteria’. C-.
Twins of Evil (1971)- Hammer kept trying, you have to give them that much. So your flicks are falling out of favor with the public? Then add some blood and some tits and watch the profits soar. Well it didn’t quite happen that way. Here we get Peter Cushing trying like Hell to bring the subpar material up to muster, and it almost works. Cushing is an over-zealous witch hunter, who loathes the local count, who is a devil worshipper and maybe a vampire to boot, but can’t do anything about it. When his twin nieces come to live with him he realizes something has to be done as one of them becomes infatuated with the count. But which witch is which. Sorry, anyway, this isn’t a bad flick, simply because Cushing manages to be both horribly evil while wanting to only do good. You hate him, but he may be the only one who can help the village. Nothing is overly black and white in this one and Cushing is able to make that work, so for that I give it higher marks than maybe it deserves. B
Hands of the Ripper (1971)- Almost forgotten hammer flick about Jack the Ripper’s daughter. Hammer was trying to reinvent itself with reworking familiar tales and this was their stab at Jack the Ripper (sorry). As a young girl Jack’s daughter sees him kill her mother, now as a used and occasionally abused 17 year old she starts stabbing people whenever she sees something that reminds her of her father. A local doctor out to try and prove some of Freud’s latest theories takes the girl in and covers up for her, despite the piling up bodies. Yeah, it gets a tad silly as she goes into murder mode at the drop of a hat and always seems to get away with it, and the good doctor just keeps going along like he can save her (but not the folks she’s offed), but I liked it well enough. The acting is strong, the period look and feel work pretty well, and while not overly original it is written fairly well. This is nothing special, but it’s far from bad. If you like the Hammer period pieces this one holds up pretty well. B+
Snake People, The (1971)- Another sad entry into the final days of Boris Karloff. This low budget Spanish/Mexican zombie-voodoo-sci-fi-mad-scientist train wreck I believe was his 2nd to last film. Here Boris plays a super rich guy who lives on an island melting pot of folks, which makes sense since the island may be in the Caribbean, but when they show it on the map it is the South Pacific, but it looks more like a desert than the tropics either way. Why can’t low budget film makers set their movies in places that at least look like where there are filming? Anyway, Karloff’s niece comes to visit at the same time a police captain shows up. They are both there to clean up the island, her by trying to spread the temperance movement, him by stopping the laziness and corruption in the police force. Mexicans with French accents and Americans who are supposed to be French but have no accent abound as we find out some islanders have telekinesis, which is what Karloff is there studying. They are also into cannibalism, snakes, and bringing zombies back from the dead to work in the fields, scratch their backs, and fan them. The cult is getting ready for a major ceremony in which it must sacrifice a human in order to bring back their great deity Baron somethingorother. Will the police be able to stop them? Who is the cult’s true leader (you won’t see that one coming for miles)? This movie barely made any sense and rather than try and be scary I think the director just tried to be psychedelic and ‘sexy’ by tossing in tons of belly dancing sequencing, lots of women holding (and sucking) phallic snakes, and an odd dream sequence where the goody temperance niece unveils her penis envy and deep seated love for herself! Oh and there’s also a midget called Midget. This was pretty craptacular but by the same token it was just too tedious to really be fun, for Karloff completists only. I will give it a D+ because the plot, where it was visible at all, was pretty good and would be done with more success in "The Serpent and the Rainbow".
Frenzy (1972)- A later Hitchcock vehicle about a man wrongly accused of serial rape and murder. The tale is weaved around the man, his running from the law, professed innocence, and his set up by the real killer. Like many Hitchcock films we the audience are pretty much let in on what is happening and who is to blame as the plot develops so the suspense doesn't derive from any mystery but instead from our desire to see the story through and find out just exactly what will happen to the guilty and to the innocent (if in fact there really are any innocent). This movie is full of the typical black comedy and light humor that Hitch so often put in his movies. He somehow always maintained a perfect balance of so many emotions and so many layers in his films and this is a perfect example of that. A.
Moon of the Wolf (1972)- Made for TV flick from 1972, you know this is hilarious right? Well hold on a minute. A local girl is found dead near a swamp, the locals assume it was a pack of feral dogs but the doctor knows better, as does the gals half-crazy old man. Someone punched the gal before she died. Soap opera calisthenics fill in the next 30 minutes or so as we try and find out what was going on in that small town, not to mention the weird dynamics between rich and poor! And exactly how many of them are left handed, or not left handed. But in the end we wind up with a not-so-bad werewolf flick. Does it measure up to big budget big theatre fair, no, not at all. But if you remember those made for TV flicks that would show up around Halloween and want a little flash back then this is for you. It won’t scare the tykes either as even when the werewolf finally shows up at the very end, the makeup is so bad it doesn’t matter! Still, as far as this stuff goes this one is pretty good, I’ll give it a strong B+ keeping in mind what it is.
Raw Meat (1972)- This one is ALMOST a classic, as it stands though I would have to label it as an interesting cult favorite. When digging out London’s underground back in the 1800s there was a cave in, the company went bankrupt before they could dig the bodies out. Little did they know that the workers survived and set up a small community of cannibals underground. The last of their descendants is now trying to feed his pregnant and very sick wife. So why a classic (or almost), well for 1972 it feels pretty far ahead of its time with violence and gore (although not excessive by today’s standards for 1972 it was pretty intense), the plot also predates flicks like ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ by several years, and the bleak British humor and Donald Pleasance’s ‘ironic’ performance all raise it above mediocre. Why ‘Almost’? There are times when it is interminably slow moving; long camera shots of almost complete darkness, crying and wailing by the cannibal, lengthy conversations. Had that been edited down and more of the conflict with Christopher Lee and Pleasance (which as it stands goes nowhere) explored, more background on the cannibals, more on the virus they apparently carry, or something, I don’t know, but damn! Anyway, if you’re interested in 70s horror like ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ etc and want to see an early entry in the ‘meat-flick’ sub-genre then check this out, I’ll give it a pretty strong B- and say again it was ‘almost’ a classic.
Psychomania (1972)- Really, the name says it all. This is more a product of its times than maybe any movie I have ever seen. Very groovy soundtrack (‘acid rock’ and even a nice folk ballad thrown in for good measure), educated bikers wearing turtleneck sweaters, amazingly fantastic wallpaper, the hippest furniture made, tons of motorcycles, and of course, the occult! What more could you ask for? How about an awesome plot that has the leader of a biker gang realize (through his devil worshipping mother) that if you want to live bad enough, you can come back to life after killing yourself. You have to want to live so bad that you want to die, kind of a Catch-22. Anyway, he pulls it off, and then convinces his gang to do the same so what we wind up with is a zombie biker gang. Brilliant!!! What you have to realize going in however is that this is done tongue in cheek as they say. Although the actors are taking their roles very seriously, everything else is played up for effect. Like a lot of the British horror movies with insane dialogue and ridiculous circumstances and Peter Cushing et al playing their roles like it is Shakespeare. This flick takes that approach to its logical conclusion, completely ridiculous, played straight as an arrow, no irony or winking at the camera so to speak. Also no sex and although there is a lot of violence, it is really bloodless and more slapstick than anything. I know some will hate this movie but I loved it for what it was. A+
Murder Mansion (1972)- I know, with a title like that... This one was made at the height of Spanish horror films and it walks a thin line. A thin line between suspense and boredom, good acting and overacting, good cinematography and dark poorly contrasted shots, good writing and unbelievable plot, and intricate story line and confusing mess. Yes, it is all those things. Several people get lost in a thick fog in a mountain valley and all wind up staying at an old and possibly haunted mansion. Were they funneled there by death itself, or is it a more terrestrial dastardly plot? Anyway, ghosts are seen walking about the property, eventually bodies are found, and then the payoff comes. Sort of... If you put much thought into this one it makes no sense at all. What did they hitchhiker, motorcycle rider, and guy in the Mustang have to do with anything? Did they just get stuck in the web cast for the crazy lady who hated her father (we know this because of some oddly timed flashbacks). Was there a hint at a lesbian angle with the lady who owned the mansion even though PLOT SPOLIER she was out to kill the crazy lady who hated her father? And then why did the guy having the affair with the gal that pretended to own the mansion end up killing pretty much everyone? I don’t know. There was some really good atmosphere and at times I was really into this one. It built up some good suspense but in the end just didn’t hold up so well. C-.
Fury of the Wolfman (1972)- A great early 70s train wreck brought to us by the great Paul Naschy! Really nothing about this one makes any sense at all. A man is bit by a werewolf and carries the curse; a woman scientist wants to control him. She has a bunch of freaks chained up in the basement of her castle. She captures the werewolf guy and chains him up, he escapes, goes on a rampage, apparently changes clothes, rampages some more, changes back, fights a zombie werewolf hybrid in his wife who he killed sometime earlier, and then a twist ending I am still trying to figure out rolls around. If you like horrifyingly bad dialogue, dubbing, acting, and editing that takes something already bad and lifts it to the realm of surreal then this is a must see! A+ on the craptacular scale.
Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)- Dr. Phibes put himself in suspended animation at the end of the first film and now is back, looking for the River of Life in Egypt to resurrect his beloved Victoria, who, if you can recall, died on the operating table after an accident and the doctors who couldn't save her were killed off in the first Phibes film. When Phibes wakes up he realizes his house has been demolished and his map to the River of Life is gone. The guy who has the map has his own reason for wanting to find the River of Life so Phibes kills off anyone in his way in some interesting ways. This movie revives the very 'oddness' of the first and also the black comedy, which still holds up. It is an interesting plot but over all a weaker effort than the first. I liked the ending though, not what I expected. B.
Baron Blood (1972)- A great atmospheric piece by Bava about a man who returns to his roots by trying to find some of his heritage in his family’s Austrian castle. He jokingly reads an incantation ends up working and resurrects a brutal ancestor. This directing and suspense work really well (as should be expected) and this film works really well being what it should be, horror suspense. It is a great Euro-Horror and my only complaint would be a let down of an ending, pretty anti-climactic. B
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972)- With a title like that there really is no going wrong. Bob Clark wrote and directed this and went on to make "Black Christmas", "Porkey's", and "A Christmas Story" among others. This is a low budget offering to be sure but the cast and crew made due with what little they had and like Peter Jackson's early low budget work you realize that there's quality under the hood. The story is about a smart-assed theatre troop director who takes his smart-assed actors out to a burial island to dig up a grave and try out some black magic to see if it really works. The theatre director is a pompous ass and continually holds his position as the actors' boss and how hard it is to find work as an actor over the heads of his cast. At first they are willing to go along with his insanity and view it as a great gag but then things go too far, sadly, by then it's too late as an entire cemetery's worth of zombies are on the hunt. This is a black comedy in the vain of "The Evil Dead" which I think borrowed quite a bit from this movie. It's no masterpiece but if you like the stumbling Romero zombie vision (and this was riding on "Night's..." coat tales) then you'll probably like this. There's something about this movie that I liked even though I honestly can't quite put my finger on what it is. A-.
Messiah of Evil (1972): I read that this was a good zombie movie in the vein of "Night of the Living Dead" but more subtle. That sounds pretty awesome. Not sure who wrote that review but I have to disagree with them. The plot? A lady is worried because she hasn't heard from her dad in quite awhile so she heads to the town were he lives to investigate. She runs into weirdness from the get go and things just get weirder. Lots of talk and attempts at good writing follow. Boring stuff! Yeah, there are a couple cool shots, like near the beginning when the lady is gassing up just outside of town. The other guy gassing up obviously has something to hide! There's a cool scene in the grocery store where a pack of zombies is horded around the meat counter munching and near the end the zombies start dropping through a skylight. But those scenes are few and far between. It's all rounded out with a good dose of bad acting. D.
Witch's Mountain (1972)- This movie is dark, and I don't mean atmospherically, I mean someone didn't pay the light bill (I know I have a crappy print). Anyway, the plot idea seemed good. A photographer heads out into the mountains to take pictures for a book. He has just broken up with his girlfriend who we know from the intro is capable of murder. Anyway, he heads into the mountains with his new girlfriend and comes across a coven of witches who may want to make a sacrifice and/or keep themselves a slave or two. Yeah, the idea seemed good, but the execution of said idea... not so good. The photographer was ahead of his time fashion-wise as this movie was made in 1972 and looked like he had fallen right out of some gay porn from 1976. And the 'sexy' witches do some interpretive dance that looks like something from a very bad production of Jesus Christ Superstar. This movie just plods along with no real direction, going from scene to scene and place to place with no real point and with the worst soundtrack I have ever heard. There is one part where the guy's Jeep is stolen and he wonders around looking for it. That's pretty much the way I felt through the whole movie, wondering around looking for a reason for what was going on. By the time the 'twist' ending rolled around I just didn't care enough. F.
Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)- Did something get lost in the translation of the title of this one? Luciano Fulci explores some Giallo territory in this murder mystery. A group of kids who tend to get into trouble are, one by one, winding up dead. Red herrings abound: Is it the half-wit who threatened to kill the kids when they picked on him, is it the crazy voodoo lady who also hated the kids, is it the weird rich lady who seems to have an unhealthy love for young boys, or is it some other insane person in this small Italian town with a mob mentality? I actually had it figured out fairly early, if you watch really closely you will too. Still, over all this is a stylish Italian mystery, a must see if you like these, but if you’re not a fan you will just see it as more of the same. I’ll give it a B.
Vampire Circus (1972)- Hammer was running out of cash and out of ideas by the early 70s. Backers were getting hard to find, distribution was getting hard to get, and their gothic tales were falling out of style. Their solution? Lower budgets, more gore, and more T and A. ‘Vampire Circus’ is standard material; a local count happens to be a vampire and has been stealing the wives and children of the locals. Tired of this they storm the castle, torches in hand; stake the count and burn the castle, but not before the obligatory curse via the count. The count’s lover (who we just saw in a pretty bad early 70s semi-psychedelic love scene), who also happens to be the village teacher’s wife, gets away. Jump ahead 15 years and the village is dying off due to the plague, and is isolated from the rest of the country when a circus comes to town, you can guess the rest due to the name of the movie. As a vampire period piece this isn’t too bad, pretty predictable, some really good, mixed with some really bad acting, but as Hammer flick it falls a little short for me. The varied reviews from ‘underrated masterpiece’ to ‘worst Hammer movie’ are probably over the top too so I’ll drop it near the middle of the pack with a C-.
Demons of the Mind (1972)- Over-the-top Hammer production about a family that is believed to be cursed. A man decides he must marry a ‘peasant’ in order to make sure and end the curse. His plan backfires as his wife kills herself in front of their two kids, so he must now protect his two kids by locking them in the attic. Is he insane? Is the family insane? Is it from so much in-breeding? Are they possessed? Yeah the father is nuts but he wants to cure his kids via leeches and quack psychology, and what’s up with the villagers? This is a weird one, it does manage some good mood and atmosphere, but over acting and general strangeness doom it in my opinion (the nutty priest, the weird locals and their traditions, the ending all just make no sense with regards to the plot unless I guess you go the possession route). Anyway, I love Hammer, and I didn’t hate this, but didn’t much care for it so I’ll give it a weak C-.
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)- For me, The Planet of the Apes franchise is a roller coaster ride. I really liked the first one, hated the second, liked the third, and well, this one isn’t as bad as the second but leaves quite a bit to be desired. Most of the problems stem from the low budget though and those are forgivable, mainly the lame battle scenes, which last forever. One of the things I liked about the first film was it avoided that ‘60’s sci-fi’ feel. The second film was nothing but ‘60’s sci-fi’ feel. The third film recovered and impressed by not going with the stereotypical characters, the fourth was nothing but stereotypical characters. The evil governor and his torture happy henchmen, the ape control officers who’s uniforms look remarkably like Nazi uniforms, the sympathetic black man who had ancestors who were slaves, the rich people who mistreat the apes. There is no doubt at all who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. And just exactly how did Caesar teach those apes how to fight so quickly? Anyway, this film picks up about 20 years after "Escape..." Caesar is visiting the city with the circus owner from the last film. He is seeing how apes are treated and not digging it. He accidentally talks and gets Ricardo in trouble but he escapes. Revolution (somehow) ensues. This isn’t a bad film, I like the idea and the writing is OK, it is just made on the cheap and paints such an obvious black and white picture. Plus, you need to do more than the usual ‘suspending of belief’. C+
Tales From The Crypt (1972)- This Amicus omnibus flick is based on the 50s comics of the same name (as is the 80s version). Story one has Joan Collins killing her husband on Christmas Eve to collect the insurance, she’s so wrapped up in the murder that she gets a little neglectful of the news report of an escaped homicidal maniac dressed as Santa Clause in her neighborhood. I give this one an A, almost an Italian Giallo. Story two has a man leaving his family to live with his mistress, during the move he dreams that they wreck the car and he becomes a corpse, or is it a dream? This one was OK, a little too circular for me, B. Story three has Peter Cushing playing a kindly old garbage collector. His neighbor would like to run him out of the neighborhood as his house is a mess, but he owns it outright so instead he plays a series of tricks on the old man, which of course backfire in a horrible way. This one is great and gets an A+. Story four has a rich businessman forced to declare bankruptcy, but just before he does he and his wife discover an old statue that has the power to make three wishes come true, of course, in Monkey’s Paw fashion, these wishes don’t turn out like they hope. I knew what was going to happen but the ‘how’ it happens is great. A. And finally story five has a miserly old military retiree taking over a home for the blind. While he lives in warmth and luxury, the home’s residence freeze and eat slop. Needless to say, he gets his in a most creative way! Good stuff but not the strongest of the stories. A-. All of the stories are very well acted, paced, and directed. Highly recommended if you like the British omnibuses of the 70s. A.
Lisa and the Devil (1973)- In the mood for EuroArt horror? Don’t care that much for story line and continuity? Then this is for you. Bava’s masterpiece of mood and color follows Lisa, a tourist who gets separated from her tour group. She winds up at an odd castle with a couple on the verge of divorce, their chauffer, and a mother and son who live in the house along with their very strange butler and his life-like mannequins. Apparently Lisa very closely resembles someone who once lived at the house as well and things start breaking down there. If you like these almost art house type of flicks then this is a must see, Bava’s use of color, and his use of set pieces and even costume (pay close attention to what everyone is wearing) is second to none. If, however you’re not a fan of this type of fair, then I would pass on it if I were you. Know what you are getting into here! I really liked this one and will give it a very strong A.
House of Exorcism (1973)- Bava’s "Lisa and the Devil" flopped. "The Exorcist" came out and was a huge hit. What could the Italians do? They could reedit "Lisa and the Devil" into a story about a possessed tourist. So, they took the scenes from "Lisa..." and added in a new back story about the main character being possessed and telling the goings on back at the castle to a priest. Sound pretty weak? Yeah, it is pretty weak. The exorcist scenes are very lame and I felt sorry for the actors trying like hell to take it all seriously, they had to work pretty hard to keep from laughing. The, for lack of a better word, elegance of Bava’s original is totally lost in this one. Stick with "Lisa and the Devil" of you’re inclined to ‘artier’ Euro-horror and check this out only if you’re curious for a comparison. D-
Scream Bloody Murder (1973)- Wow, this one is hard to describe. Horrible acting, terrible editing, lighting, sound, etcetcetc. Yeah it is cheap, but is it good? A kid kills his dad, I guess to have his mom all to himself. He is put in an asylum and when he gets out his mom has remarried, which just won’t do. The kid (now somewhere between 16 and 46) then kills his new stepdad, mom, and then goes travelling, and keeps killing his mom over and over, sort of. It could have been an interesting idea (which was done quite a bit better in a movie called ‘Psycho’) but it was just done so bad! There are ‘so bad it’s good’ parts but still, too annoying for the craptacular scale so I’m giving it an F.
Vault of Horror (1973)- Follow-up to Amicus’ "Tales From The Crypt" omnibus, and this follows more or less the same pattern. Story one has a man looking for his sister, who has been in hiding. She is apparently the sole heir of their father and he is none too happy about it, but she lives in a town with a secret, and he’s going to find out the secret the hard way. Well done. A+. Story two has an older neat freak getting married. If you’re a neat freak and have been living alone for years, maybe you shouldn’t get married, as it is possible you could drive your new spouse totally insane. Pretty good, not all that horrific though. B+. Story three has a magician looking for new tricks in India, when he finds one that will make him rich he can’t figure it out, and he’s willing to go to great lengths to do so. Pretty predictable but still well done. B-. Story four sees a man who thinks he has the perfect plan for bilking his insurance company. Allow himself to be buried alive, and then dug up and share the money with his partner. Of course things don’t go as planned, I liked the double twist ending, twist one being predictable, twist two not so much! Very similar to "The Oblong Box" in that regard. A. And story five is the story of a painter who has been getting ripped off by his agent, gallery owner, and an art credit, who have worked together to profit from the man’s work. He goes to a voodoo priest to get revenge, but revenge is never as sweet as you think it will be. A perfect ending! A+. Like "Tales..." this film is very well done with good acting and writing. It may not have been as inspired as "Tales..." but it makes up for it with a lighter approach and is a little campier than "Tales..." which in some respects makes it stronger I think. A
Bell from Hell (1973)- Euro-trash goes artsy! Lots of close-ups and long shots, and long rolling shots of pretty much nothing all lead up to a pretty monotonous flick. It was tough to stay awake there for a while. The plot follows a man who has been put in an asylum, he may or may not be crazy, but it looks like his relatives have tried to keep him there in hopes of getting his money. He does kind of go bonkers working in a slaughterhouse (al la ‘Texas Chainsaw’ vibe) and winds up getting the last laugh (literally I guess). This was weird and tries to be Argento, but falls short. C-.
Theatre of Blood (1973)- The perfect vehicle for Vincent Price to go over-the-top as an over-acting over-emotional Shakespearean actor. It has the perfect mix of camp, gore, and murder. There are no real surprises in this one but the acting and the plot are great either way. Price is a stage actor who was denied an award he believed he'd earned. He attempts suicide and everyone believes he was successful; he wasn't and returns to kill off the critics that denied him his award. One by one he kills them in creative ways all inspired by the Shakespeare plays he was in the season he was denied his award. Everything just works in this movie and I have to say I liked it a lot. A.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)- A young couple inherits an old house, moves in, and promptly starts remodeling. The old caretaker knows it’s now a good idea and warns them about removing the bolts from the door that leads downstairs and about not opening up the currently bricked up fireplace, but silly advice from creepy old guys is meant to be ignored. Then the whispers begin and the little demon things show up and, well, you can guess the rest. Like many people my age, I saw this on TV back in the day and it scared the living crap out of me. I mean I couldn’t go anywhere without a light on. Now I find that fascinating, that a movie could do that to someone, even a little kid. It would be interesting if we could hold onto that imagination as adults, or maybe not. Anyway, I recently saw this again and, although it really isn’t scary now, it does hold up fairly well. It’s hard to give this a fair grade since I remember it so well from back in the day so I’ll give it a B.
Satan’s School for Girls (1973)- All these years later Satan is still bent about having his witches killed during the Salem Witch Trials, so he is working on getting some new recruits at an old all girls’ school. Will his dastardly plan work, and exactly who is in on it? Not really too many surprises in this one, I had it more or less figured out halfway through. Still for a safe made-for-TV flick it ain’t too bad, if you need something to watch while the kids are up you could do much worse, plus some great plaid jackets and giant bellbottoms and plot holes big enough to drive a ‘73 muscle car through! Also, Argento probably saw this before make 'Susperia'. Not good enough for a good grade but not really bad enough for the craptacular scale so I’ll give it a middle C.
Curse of the Devil (1973)- Paul Naschy is at it again, this time a family curse put on his ancestors turns him into a werewolf. Apparently his ancestors killed off a coven of Satan worshipping witches so they cursed his family and their descendents (actually they only cursed one of his descendents in a somewhat random fashion), a group of foxy hot gypsies, makes sure the curse goes down. It is an extremely complicated curse that I didn’t quite get and it seemed like a very bizarre way to get back at the people who executed you but whatever. This is typical EuroTrash, completely illogical and lots of sex scenes with busty gals that strive for a little controversy, or maybe they are just there to break up the boredom. If you trimmed down the sex scenes and the scenes of people walking around and looking at each other this flick would’ve only been about 45 minutes long, throw in some sex and some walking around and you have 90 minutes of TERROR! Well, not quite. For Paul Naschy fans or Spanish werewolf film completists only. F
Season of the Witch (1973)- Officially released as ‘Jack’s Wife’, this flick is about Jack’s wife. That’s pretty much it. OK, there’s a little more to it than that. Jack’s wife has a lot of bad dreams. They symbolize her isolation as her husband works constantly, and is occasionally abusive towards her. Her daughter is going to college and no longer needs her ‘stay at home mom’ and her friends are alcoholic, depressed, and shallow. Jack’s wife is looking for something, she really doesn’t know what as, one review I read stated, she’s caught between her generation’s boring shallow bourgeois society and her daughter’s superficial answerless counter culture mores. She has a couple flings with her daughter’s substitute professor, who spouts off goofy pretentious counter-culture bullshit but what really intrigues her is when she finds out a friend of a friend is a witch, not just witch who dabbles in it for fun and a but a real witch. So Jack’s wife dives into witchcraft full on, and guess what, it works! This would’ve made a great half hour Twilight Zone, or maybe even an hour long Night Gallery, but at a little over 90 minutes (full Anchor Bay addition) it is WAY too long. Lots of piss poor dialogue and too many dream sequences weigh it down, but sadly don’t really take it anywhere either. Typical early Romero bad camera and editing come at no extra charge. I found myself thinking ‘come on already, something has to happen here’. Having said that, Romero was still able to get enough tension built up to keep me watching, and although some hated the end, I have to admit, it tied it together nicely if you’re paying close attention. But bottom line is it wasn’t worth the wait. D-.
Tales That Witness Madness (1973)- Another English omnibus. Here Donald Pleasance leads us through his asylum showing us four patients and relating their tales of madness and murder. Or are they mad, are their stories true? Dr. Donald has a theory about it all and the obvious ending reveals that theory, sort of. Story one is about a young boy whose super rich parents are always fighting; his imaginary tiger friend doesn’t like his parents. This was painfully predictable but done well enough; I’ll give it a C. Story two revolves around an old bicycle and a portrait of ‘Uncle Albert’. The current owner is forced on the bike by an unseen force and taken back in time. When his girlfriend tries to stop him, the force gets angry. This one had me curious and I was into it wanting to know what was going on and why he was being taken back in time, but there was no real payoff at all. I’ll give it a B for being interesting but should probably give it a lower grade. Story three basically has a guy fall in love with a tree stump, predictable and goofy I’ll give it a D. Story four gives us a big party, all done up with Pacific islander tradition, which includes ritual sacrifice and cannibalism, I’ll give it a B as well. All told this was a nicely paced set of predictable stories that actually almost seemed too short (at least story 2 and 4) as too much felt left out, the same could be said for the weak wrap around. I’ll average this to a C, for the most part the stories were told well, just not overly well written.
Return of the Blind Dead (1973)- I read a review which stated that this was the strongest of the 4 Blind Dead movies and I agree. It isn’t really a sequel as the Templar Mythology is different (in the first one they were hung and had their eyes eaten by crows, here they have their eyes burned out before being burned at the stake). A small town in Portugal is having their big yearly celebration, it is the 500th year since they defeated the Templars and there will be drinks, fireworks, and Templars burned in effigy. But this time out the Templars decide to also attend the festivities. Using the same resurrection scenes from the first film the Templars rise, mount their horses and ride to town, offing folks along the way. Sub plots involving the mayor and his love of his assistant, his other assistant who also loves the assistant, and a fireworks expert hired to put on the fireworks show who used to love the mayor’s assistant and may still love her take up the time when the Templars aren’t on screen. Obvious ‘hat tips’ to "Night of the Living Dead" crop up, especially in the siege of the church and the attempt to get in the car by scaring the Templars away with a torch. For zombie movie fans the scene when the Templars first arrive in town is one of the greatest in zombie cinema. Bad dubbing, silly dialogue, and some bad acting don’t do much to lesson my grade this time out, I did like this one quite a bit and will give it an A-.
Werewolf of Washington, The (1973)- More comedy than horror we get a look at the ineptitude of the government, ignoring obvious facts (like the president’s assistant press secretary is a werewolf) and seeing only what they want to see. Dean Stockwell showing his comedy chops is sent to Hungary after having an affair with the president’s daughter, the president wants him back though, so he comes back to be the assistant press secretary but is bitten by a werewolf before leaving Hungary. Murders and hippy hatred follow. This is a light hearted low budget slam on the government; it doesn’t pretend to be anything more and is just weird enough to pull it off. Yeah, it is dated, but it is supposed to be a snapshot look at the times and at this it probably succeeds pretty well. B+
Vengeance of the Zombies (1973)- Groovy baby! Someone is raising hotties from the grave to exact revenge. A gal has to visit her guru after said zombies attack her. Her guru is an Indian mystic who talks a lot about finding himself. Could he have something to do with all this? Is there actually somehow a connection between Indian mysticism and voodoo? Incredibly inappropriate acid jazz/rock soundtrack envelops everything, as should be expected. This is a classic piece of history right here and worth the price of admission for the hilarious music! From a true horror movie perspective there’s little to offer, although there does end up being a little good atmosphere and some of the effects, like the train station attendant’s suicide, are really well done. Still, this is for completists or those looking for Mystery Science Theatre laughs only. B- on the craptacular scale.
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)- What the... It’s like 20 years after the ape revolution and all of a sudden the apes can talk, and are in school learning to read and write. The apes and humans are trying to live together but those gorillas just hate humans too much. Apes are so peaceful though, or are they? Caesar goes back into the city, which was destroyed by a nuclear bomb, to learn the truth about how apes destroy the world, leading to his parents escaping and traveling back in time and leading to more sequels. Once the mutants still living in the city realize apes have their own future primitive city, revenge is plotted. I think over all this is a better film than "Conquest..." It’s still cheap but good and evil aren’t so easily differentiated and the conflicts seem more real. Yeah, the time sequence doesn’t add up so don’t ask too many questions but it is a nice ending to the franchise, which ties a lot of things together and leaves you wondering if Caesar was able to change the future. B
Crazies, The (1973)- Romero's 3rd film it delves a little deeper into themes he had touched on in "Night of the Living Dead". Where that is about a society of consumers and isolation, this is about mistrust in the military and the government. A government plane carrying a man made biological weapon (a virus) crashes near a small Pennsylvania town and leaks the weapon into the water supply. The town is quarantined by the military and misinformation, lack of preparation, and general disarray cause a black comedy of errors that all but ensures the spread of the virus, which effects different people in different ways, causing some to act 'high' and some to become very violent. It is a typical Romero film with a cast of no names, some of which are really good and some, well, not so good, fairly shoddy editing and camera work, which isn't a bad thing in Romero's case and makes for a better film (I think he has been a huge influence on the look and feel of horror movies today with the over exposed and shaky shots, which now often seem forced but in Romero's hands give the film an edgy documentary feel). This is a good movie with an obvious and still very relevant message but it doesn't hold up, in my opinion, to Romero's Dead films. For me it just doesn't quite capture that elusive 'atmosphere' many of his other films capture. B-
Wicker Man, The (1973)- Another film that I'd heard a lot of good things about. It starts off with a very 60's vibe to it, and I don't mean that as a compliment. A policeman visits an island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. He is determined to get to the bottom of what is going on, despite the strange doings of the locals who appear to be members of some old fertility cult. One twist leads to another until we meet The Wicker Man. If you can get through the terrible dated first half hour or so you're in for a pretty good ride. Well acted, well directed and believable (after those first 30 minutes or so that is). I'd give it an A but it just took too long to get started. B+
Horror Express (1973)- Lee and Cushing together again, this time in a Spanish production set on a Russian train leaving China for France in 1909. The copy I have isn't so good. The picture is dark, the color and sound bad. Still I enjoyed the movie. Lee is a smug archeologist who believes he has found the 'missing link' between man and ape. Cushing is a somewhat jealous compatriot who wants to know what Lee is up to. Lee loads his find into a big crate and gets on the train with Cushing and several other colorful characters. Chaos ensues as the missing link turns out to be alive and thirsting for ... knowledge? Find the movie and watch it to find out what I mean. Over-all effective movie, especially the blind zombies at the end, stick some zombies in a movie and it'll almost always bump its grade a letter. Basically it's 'The Thing' on a train. Or maybe better "The Creeping Flesh" which came out the same year and also stared Cushing and Lee. Solid B.
Don’t Look In The Basement (1973)- Dr. Stephens runs his own sanitarium. It’s an odd place where patients are allowed to roam free, treated, and expected to treat each other, as family. To this end the sanitarium is actually just a really large house. Dr. Stephens’ methods backfire and he’s axed by one of his patients. Soon after a nurse he hired prior to his run in with the ax shows up and allowed by Dr. Stephens’ assistant to take her position. The new nurse soon realizes all is not what it seems, but did she realize it too late? The acting in this low budget indie isn’t too great and the cast of loonies aren’t overly believable, but the cinematography is good for such low budget material and the story is interestingly presented. Although a pretty nice atmosphere of trapped paranoia develops it is never really explored so it falls a little short in that department too. Still, I was pleasantly surprised. B-.
The Exorcist (1973)- A little girl is possessed by the devil, or maybe she's just really pissed that her dad abandoned her and her mom is always working. One priest believes the latter but another believes the former. They perform the exorcism. In my humble opinion this is the greatest horror movie ever made and I doubt it will ever be outdone. The acting and directing make it feel almost as though you're watching a documentary and the effects, especially the sound, are second to none. There simply are no weak spots in this movie (or in the book it was based on). A+.
Don't Look Now (1973)- Art house flick with Donald Sutherland as a restorer of old churches. During a moment of deja-vu he realizes his daughter is drowning but arrives too late to save her. He and his wife go to Italy to restore an old church. A blind psychic lady reassures Don's wife that their daughter is OK. He doesn't like blind psychic ladies. Weird stuff happens and people act real weird and then the end rolls around and I thought "What the ... ?" This is one of those movies that are filled with symbolism and stuff for people to coo over and for the director to prove how smart he is. Sometimes I like those movies, this time? Well... It did have great atmosphere and suspense and kept me interested, even though a fair amount of the time I was confused and there didn't seem to be a plot. I guess it boils down to this, I liked the movie until the very end and then I felt pretty let down. B-.
Crypt of the Living Dead (1973)- Much maligned Spanish vampire flick about a man who goes to a small fishing village on an isolated island to recover the body of his father, who died under some mysterious circumstances. The father died while investigating vampirism as the island was once known as Vampire Island and legend has it was populated by nothing but vampires until they were killed off around the time of the crusades. The vampire queen is buried in a tomb and the man’s father is lying smashed under her incredibly heavy tomb. He convinces the locals to help him get his father out but what they don’t bargain for is the opening of the tomb itself. Of course, the queen of the vampires is perfectly preserved. The downside is we know, right form the start, that the man’s friend was to blame for his father’s death so the ending comes as no surprise at all. That pretty much sums up this one, lots of potential but little payoff. Still, I liked it and felt despite the low budget, bad sound, and dark transfer (I’ve read this one was actually filmed in color but mine is in black and white), and bad dialogue that the movie was able to create some atmosphere and had some cool images. File under damn near good. C+
Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon (1973)- Surreal horror based loosely on Poe and made by some of the same bizarre Mexican filmmakers that gave us ‘El Topo’. A writer visits an insane asylum where new techniques are being used to help the insane, and for some reason the writer doesn’t notice right off that something is seriously wrong here. This is a bizarre one and if you’re into the cult midnight movie like foreign flicks then this is a little gem you should check out, if you hate that stuff then stay away. It makes little sense and wavers between fairly intense (rape scenes and such) to comedy (chicken people), and covers the surreal in between those extremes. Not 100% sure why as I often like material like this, even if I find it craptacular, but this one just pissed me off. It was late and maybe I was way too tired to try and wrap my brain around it but I think I am going to just give it an F.
Vampire’s Night Orgy (1973)- This one isn’t nearly as provocative as the title implies! There are a few good atmospheric scenes (like a vampire mother dragging her recently deceased daughter through the cemetery), some good camp (like a guy getting his leg chopped off and then cut to a scene of folks eating a roast curiously shaped like a human leg), and also some unintentional humor (like the entire escape sequence), toss on top of that one the worst and most ill-fitting jazz soundtracks ever and you have another Spanish horror film (what is it with 70s Spanish Horror and TERRIBLE soundtracks?) Some workers are heading for a mansion in the boonies to be servants, their buss driver has a heart attack so they stop in a nearby town, the town is infested with vampires, and these are cannibalistic vampire types who swarm their intended victim. Rotten acting and general weirdness ensue. To be honest I think this was too good to make the craptacular scale (although it was really fun to rip on while watching) but not good enough to get a good grade so I’ll give it a D for OK atmosphere, actually, if the acting would’ve been better and that heinous soundtrack was different this would’ve been an OK piece of 70s trash.
Sisters (1973)- Early Brian DePalma flick. A woman takes a man home after meeting him on a game show and the man winds up dead, murdered by the woman's twin sister, who it turns out was actually her separated Siamese twin sister. The woman's jealous ex-husband hangs around quite a bit too. Yeah it's a little odd. It is a very obvious Hitchcock derivative and, although plot wise is different, 'feels' quite a bit like Hitch's "Frenzy" which came out a year before. Still it is a good story that was very well directed (including DePalma's trade mark 'split screen') and acted so it works despite some plots holes and the twist ending being visible for miles. A.
Madhouse (1974)- Vincent Price is an actor famous for his horror movies, in real life and in Madhouse. In Madhouse his fiancé is found decapitated and while most believe Price did it, it can't be proven, and Price's character doesn't remember the event at all and slips into insanity. Years later he is asked to make a come back playing a character from one of his movies in a TV series. He reluctantly agrees and murders again begin to follow him. This is a nicely paced piece with fine performances from Price and Peter Cushing. The murder mystery is carried off nicely and the ending is satisfying, although the murderer sure took the hard way to try and accomplish his goal. Also, just to throw this out there, the murder of Price's fiancé is actually never solved in the movie. Nice touch. A.
Beast Must Die, the (1974)- Wow, this movie is a child of the 70s in every way imaginable. The clothes, the cars, the music, even the dialogue feels 70s (with great Shakespearean delivered lines like "You... make... me... ssssiiiiick..."). Remember boys and girls, when you try to be hip all you are probably really doing is dating yourself! A super rich guy who likes going on safaris decides to hunt the ultimate prey. Man? Close. Werewolf. He outfits his huge mansion and surrounding land with cameras, microphones, and sensors and then invites several people over who may or may not be serial killers and cannibals. He knows at least one of them is a werewolf too. I have no idea quite how he knows but Peter Cushing is along for the ride as the Van Helsing of werewolves. Red herrings flop all around as the director must have realized he had no where near enough material to make a full movie so he just extended it with tedious explanations and strange chase scenes (I guess the guy has basically kidnapped these people). Anyway, the decidedly unfair hunt is on but the werewolf makes a go of it and winds up with the advantage somehow. This is fun 70s craptacular stuff, a must see for those that love the Velveeta Cheese filled classics (where can I get the soundtrack?) I’ll give it a B on the craptacular scale, it’s actually well done, just pretty goofy.
It's Alive (1974)- Another in the late 60s early 70s ‘We’re scared of the younger generation’ horrors. This time out we also get lessons on corporate profits, birth control, abortion, pollution, and business and family loyalty all at no added charge (oh and 70s design and fashion too, watch for these!). A woman is pregnant and in maybe the mellowest 70s labor ever gives birth to a monster that proceeds to kill everyone in the delivery room except the mother and then escapes through the skylight. Rather than figure someone snuck into the hospital, committed the crimes and stole the baby, they pretty much just assume the new born did it. Camp played straight as an arrow follows as the little baby tries to find his way home, leaving a trail of dead along the way with one of the most classic endings ever! This movie more than many, is a product of its time, it looks and feels VERY mid-70s and I’ll give it a B+ for trying to be nothing more than that, which is to say, trying to be a little bit of EVERYTHING!
Black Christmas (1974)- It's Christmas and most of the sorority girls are already gone from or leaving the sorority house for Christmas. Those that remain exchange gifts and drink a little, trying to enjoy themselves. Little do they know, a homicidal maniac has gotten into the attic and has set about killing the girls off. Sounds familiar right? It should, this Bob Clark ("Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things", "Porkey's", "A Christmas Story") plot has been worked, reworked, done and redone, however, when you remember that this film was made in 1974 then you see it's significance. It was an obvious influence on Carpenter's "Halloween" and deserves the credit, or blame, for kicking off the whole 'teens in distress/slasher' sub genre. So in context it is an important film, it is well made, well acted and suspenseful. It is a little slow moving at times though. It probably deserves an A+ because it set the standard for so many films that followed but I think I will give it an A- because it drags a little and leaves too many unanswered questions.
From Beyond the Grave (1974)- British horror omnibus with Peter Cushing running an antique shop called ‘Temptations’. You will find what you want in his store, but be careful not to try and take advantage of the old man, he knows the value of his goods, and he’ll cut you a deal, but you will be the one who pays! In story one a man buys an old mirror which seems to make people want to hold séances, and, as it turns out, there’s a reason for that. Someone is trapped in the mirror and they need human blood to trade places with someone outside. Predictable but well played I’ll give it a B. Story two sees a businessman, very unhappy with his home life, befriend a beggar (he steals a war medal from the shop in the wrap around story to impress the beggar) and winds up getting on very well with the beggar’s daughter. As the businessman’s dreams of a happy life look to be coming true, we realize something isn’t quite right, but of course it’s too late. This was a strange tail very well executed; I’ll give it a strong A. In story three a man trades the tags on an expensive snuff box to get it for cheap and winds up with an elemental on his shoulder. Only an eccentric psychic can see the elemental but soon enough the man believes her and wants an exorcism. This is more a comedy relief type of story and it works really well on that level, another A I think. The final story involves a man who must have a very ornate door for his pantry. Of course once mounted the door doesn’t open to his pantry, but to a large blue room with someone who seems intent on trapping people there. While this story seemed the weakest overall to me, the tie in to the wrap around was pretty good so watch closely. I’ll give it a B. That averages to an A- actually but I liked the wrap around with Cushing so much I’ll bump it to an A even.
House on Skull Mountain (1974)- One word. Hilarious! This flick is almost custom made for some MST3K treatment; 70s Blaxploitation horror at its best. An old voodoo priestess dies but just before she does she sends for her distant great-grandchildren who didn’t know her. They get together for the reading of the will, and begin dying off. No real need for red herrings in this as everything is painfully obvious as the plot unfolds. Actually ‘unfolds’ might be too strong of a word, maybe ‘flops out’ might explain it better. Luckily Victor French who is unexplainably related to the black folks is there to run around and save the day, well, sort of save the day. He stands around watching people die until the last minute and then kind of figures everything out. Seriously, this is a must see if you like the craptacular, mainly because everyone is trying so hard to take it serious, and failing so bad. A+ on the craptacular scale.
Kidnapped (1974)- Bava drops the black humor goes balls out violent in this flick about a pay roll heist that goes wrong. The criminals, surrounded by the cops, kidnap a woman, after killing her friend, and escape in her car, they then carjack another car, driven by a man who is taking his son to the hospital for emergency surgery. What follows is a very tense, well directed study of depravity and criminal mayhem, all of which almost exclusively takes place in the car. Some of the tension building scenes (the woman’s escape attempt, sexual depravity, the fender bender in the traffic jam, etc.) are brilliantly directed. Almost everything works, especially the twist ending, which to be honest I had pretty much figured out. Some of the acting goes a little over the top at times but other than that this one works very well. A
Antichrist, The (1974)- Yes this is a blatant rip off of "The Exorcist". Yes it is an over the top European spin on the subject of possession, and yes, it sucks. Rather than bother with any coherent plot or character development the movie just goes for the groin, literally. It’s all sex and vulgarity. Now I’m not one to put that down, but in this case, we end up with crap. The plot. A young girl is paralyzed after a car accident that also kills her mother, but it turns out her paralyses is purely mental, there is nothing physically wrong with her, even though in a flash back of the accident she is crying and screaming that she can’t feel her legs, and all this somehow triggers memories that she has of an ancestor who apparently was a member of a satanic cult that had big orgies in the woods and licked goat assholes. Years later she has lost faith in God, wants to have sex with her dad... I guess... I’m not sure what the Hell it all meant but it did seem that that gal was old enough to stop being such a whiney little bitch. Aside from a creepy and atmospheric intro this possession flick shows why possession flicks so rarely work, they wind up being funny rather than scary. Maybe I should rate this one on the craptacular scale but I was just too disappointed after thinking it would be pretty good. F.
Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter (1974)- Hammer was looking for a way to reinvent itself so it looked for ways to basically rebuild the old mythos with ‘Dr Jekyll and Sister Hide’ and ‘Captain Kronos’, which was supposed to be a series of films and maybe a TV spin off but as it was, there simply was no budget to promote anything so this fell into obscurity until the DVD market brought back from the brink. Captain Kronos, well, hunts vampires, and in his travels he comes across a village in the thrall of a vampire, and as mentioned, much of the old vampire mythos gets thrown out the window, to good effect in my opinion. This is a really good period piece typical of post-decent-budget-Hammer, which is still better than a lot of what was being put out in the early 70s. The acting is a tad stiff compared to some of their other flicks but I’ll give this a B, with a little more effort it could’ve been great.
Ghost Galleon, The (1974)- If part two of the Blind Dead movies is the best, then this, part three, is the worst. A couple of fashion models take a boat out into the open ocean (a little speed boat?!?) in hopes of being rescued by a passing merchant ship and then creating lots of free publicity for the marketing firm they work for. A terrible plan that goes terribly awry when the girls wind up boarding the old apparently abandoned ship they float up to. A rescue party goes looking, but must enter another dimension to find the galleon and the girls. They do so and find the Templars and their treasure. Will dumping the Templars coffin/crates into the ocean save them? A couple of "I don’t know about you but I’m getting out of heres" later and we find out the answer to that one. This movie is ripe for the ol’ MST3K treatment. Horrible acting, hilarious dialogue, long boring sequences, no where near enough Templar zombies, and probably the worst 'ship on the ocean' effects ever filmed outside someone's bathtub. B on the craptacular scale.
Deathdream (1974)- Retelling of ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ story. A kid is killed in ‘The War’ (we’re never really told what war other than it is not WWII or Korea so it is a pretty safe assumption that it is Vietnam). His family is devastated when the telegram arrives, especially the mother who just refuses to accept the truth. Then suddenly late one night the kid (Andy) shows up at home (other than him hitchhiking we are never really cued in as to how he got home) and everyone is relieved and amazed at the mistake the army made. But all is not well as Andy spends his days sitting and staring into space, or rocking in his rocking chair staring at the walls. He doesn’t want a party, he doesn’t want people to know he is home, and is showing violent reactions when he doesn’t get his way. And then there is the truck driver who was killed by a hitchhiker in an army uniform the night Andy arrived. Everyone starts to notice these things except his mother who lives in denial, content that her son is home from the war. This is a product of the low budget 70s and it shows. Bad lighting, poor cinematography, etc. but it still holds up well, with some good acting and engrossing story. At the simple horror movie level it also works, a tad slow at times but there are some classic sequences (the drive-in scene among the best), but on a deeper level as a metaphor for the effect loosing a son (or daughter) in a war has on a family is pretty heavy, and maybe even heavier is the idea that some of those who do return home alive are not the same, with post traumatic stress disorder, etc. clouding them the rest of their lives. So yeah, it is OK as a horror movie, but as a study of the effects of war disguised as a horror movie it works really well, despite the few weaknesses mentioned above. A-.
Deranged (1974)- Like ‘Psycho’ before it and ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ which came out the same year, this is based on the story of Ed Gein. Here we have a man who is a tad too close to his mother, and when she dies he digs her up to keep her around. He needs to learn how to preserver bodies and he also needs to find her some friends! This is a pretty gruesome flick, not so much from a gore perspective but from a subject matter perspective; He takes no qualms about having dead bodies and body parts around the house, I guess in a way this combines ‘Psycho’ (a boy and his mother...) with ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ (wearing skin masks and the infamous dinner scene). But as a bonus, the director isn’t afraid to poke a little black humor in here and there as well, and it works. I am going to give this an A+ simply because, despite a low budget and dated feel, the main character (Ezra) was perfectly played. Kind of an ‘Ernest Goes Insane’ feel!
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (1974)- After over 30 years this is still a very powerful movie. It hits at such a visceral level and keeps rubbing those nerves. A group of college-aged kids are traveling through Texas and a couple of them want to visit their grandparents' old house. They stop and are then hunted by 'leather face' and his psychotic family who live near the old slaughterhouse. This is a dark movie that boils over with a demented sort of atmosphere that pervades from the picked up hitchhiker to the final scenes on the highway (what ever happened to that truck driver anyway?), and has the ultimate black comedy scene as grandpa, who was a master at killing cattle in his day, tries to hammer one of the kids with poor results. By today's standards the gore is actually pretty tame but that doesn't subtract from the power of this film (if anything it adds to it). So many movies would try and go down this road and fail; this one set the standard for years to come and its influence is still evident in new movies. From the family's house to the 'trapped and hunted' feel there are few films that can measure up. A+.
Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1974)- Hammer’s last foray into the Frankenstein character and they bring it to a close on a pretty strong note. Here we find the baron living nicely in an insane asylum. There are plenty of test subjects in a place like that, and luckily, a bright new assistant too. The baron has some dirt on the asylum’s director so he pretty much has the run of the place and has been building a new man, with his usual ‘science first’ completely emotionless approach. Peter Cushing had perfected this part and plays it perfectly straight here for the last time. B+
Satanic Rites of Dracula, The (1974)- I've read so much bad about these later Hammer flicks that my expectations were really low, so naturally I liked it. I think this is an underrated movie. Yeah, the plot is convoluted espionage 70s James Bond hokum and the terribly dated music reflects that angle but it still worked pretty well. Yeah, it is an excuse to get some damsels in distress and for another face off between Dracula and Van Helsing so at the end of the day there is nothing really new but it is an OK take on the characters. Dracula has enlisted the help of some scientists as he has decided to destroy the world with a new and more deadly strain of the black plague. But won't that kill Dracula too since there will be no food? Van Helsing thinks that just may be Dracula's plan. There are some odd senseless devil worshipping scenes complete with naked lady alter, probably to generate some controversy and free hype thrown in for good 70s measure. And another thing you really notice from these Hammer vampire stories. These vampires have a TON of weaknesses. I mean really all you have to do is pick up a couple twigs and hold them up in a cross and DON'T DROP THEM! Or have some silver, or garlic, or sunlight, or holy water, or ... A B+ may be generous but that's what I'm giving it since I expected total crap and got a decent story.
Trilogy of Terror (1975)- A trilogy of terror penned by Richard Matheson. Story one is good and is about a college student seducing his timid English teacher, or is she really so timid? Story two is terrible. It's about twin sisters, one evil and one good. You'll see the ending a couple miles away. Which brings us to story three. The Zuni Fetish Doll. A woman hold back by her nagging mother buys her new boyfriend a funny little doll. The doll promptly comes to life and attacks her. Great use of sound effects and nice camera work without resorting to crappy clay-mation and the like. Classic ending too. Story one gets a B-, story two gets a D, and story three an A+, which averages to about a B-.
Devil’s Rain, The (1975)- Holy Crap! As if a cast of Eddie Albert, John Travolta, and Tom Skerrit weren’t enough add Ernest Borgnine and William Shatner dueling it out for human souls and we have a masterpiece! I was pretty young through the 70s but what a great time that must have been. Everyone was afraid aliens were taking over, big foot was real, and of course, everyone was joining a Satanic Cult! Yup, and Shatner has inherited a book that Borgnine wants so he can get folks’ souls, can Shatner withstand the Devil’s power and keep the book? And what price will ultimately have to be paid? Typical 70s Satan vehicle, everything you’d expect from this genre in this era, I’ll give it a B+ on the craptacular scale.
Deep Red (1975): Dario Argento's Giallo piece obviously influenced by Mario Bava and obviously influential towards Carpenter's "Halloween"; It sits squarely between those two worlds, murder mystery and slasher flick. The directing is very interesting as Argento's use of color, camera angle, and point of view is always good (and must have been a big influence on John Carpenter), but his jarring editing and often intentional slow pace and over written scenes detract from the suspense rather than add to it. The plot is flimsy at best and hard to follow at times and centers around a pianist who witnesses the murder of a psychic who, through her ESP, knew about a murderer's past and that he/she would kill again. Anyone who gets close to the truth winds up dead. The investigations take bizarre and pointless turns yet somehow I hung in there until the end. This was an influential flick that held my interest but could've been better. B-.
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1975)- Surprising little zombie flick about farmers in the English countryside using a machine to kill off the insect pests, one unfortunate side effect of this machine is it tends to reanimate the nervous systems of the recently deceased, and, as would be expected, they aren’t too happy about it. A couple, thrown together by accident, literally, wind up at the center of a murder investigation as bodies start piling up about the time they arrive, which also happens to be about the time the insect machine goes into use. There are some effective moments and nice atmosphere in this Italian, set in England, zombie movie. It feels like it could be a Hammer film at times, which is sad because by 1975 Hammer was all but finished. If you’re looking for Italian Zombie movies a la Fulci then this isn’t for you, but if you’d like a subtler well-paced zombie story then check this one out. A
The Omen (1976)- The late 60s seemed like they might just be "The End Times" and movies like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist" played on those fears. "The Omen" more or less picks up where "Rosemary's Baby" left off. A terrible secret comes back to haunt Ambassador Thorn. Apparently his son died at birth and he has been raising someone else's son, or, maybe 'something' else's son. This movie takes its subject matter very seriously and maintains a level of believability often missed in movies like this. This really is a classic that holds up well. Followed by two pale sequels. A+
Food of the Gods (1976)- Wow, giant wasps, giant worms, giant chickens, and giant rats and this ain't even Japan! These creatures find The Food of the Gods, greedy folks, scientists, professional football players, a pregnant lady, a bible beater... What more could you ask for? Some football players need to get away so they cruise out to the boonies and are soon set upon by giant beasties. All Hell breaks lose and one of the football players tries to help people survive while all they do is piss and moan without offering any other solutions. This is very bad stuff! I'm going to give this a B because it is one of those train wrecks that are so much fun to watch and make fun of. Yes, MST3K away! Deserves an F but... B
God Told Me To (1976)- Man, this one starts off great! Regular folks are going on rampages and killing for no other reason than "God told them to". A deeply religious detective takes up the case and a deepening mystery builds up. And then... We take a 90 degree left turn and all sense is left at the door. Suddenly we’re thrown into a story about alien abduction, virgin births, and the director’s apparent vagina obsession (it’s not a good thing either). I really dug about the first half of this, and really hated the second half. It starts off with such a mysterious, gritty, indie New York film feel, and ends up as being some goofy 70s sci-fi trash. D.
Brood, The (1976)- Cronenberg explores the demons in us all, or in this case the snowsuit wearing little devils in one particularly strange lady who had a rough childhood, and plans her revenge, via her subconscious and her psychiatrist, together the three of them birth these wicked little things. Yeah, this is a weird one and a little hard to explain really. The acting is really good, as is the directing, and the dialogue works for something so seemingly silly on the surface. No, it isn’t extremely frightening, and may even at times be almost laughable, still, I liked it, it is fairly unique and creates a good little atmosphere. B.
Cathy’s Curse (1976)- Bizarre little Canadian film obviously cashing in on movies like "The Omen". One night a mother takes her son and leaves her husband, inexplicably leaving her daughter behind. When her husband gets home and finds his daughter alone in the house and his wife gone with their son he is furious. He heads out to find her, dragging his daughter along and berating women along the way. A fiery car crash kills them both. Jump ahead 20 years and the son who left with his mother is grown, with a daughter of his own, and moves back into the house where the story began. Anyway, we learn early on that his wife has suffered a nervous breakdown and is determined to give viewers one also with her terrible acting and whiny voice. Eventually their daughter finds an old doll that apparently belonged to her aunt (remember, she was killed in the car crash). She becomes possessed, I guess by her aunt or maybe by her uncle, they never really say, and more than a little pissed at women, apparently blaming her death on her mother rather than her drunk father. Rotten special effects, senseless dialogue, and terrible directing follow. I guess the mother, recovering from the nervous breakdown, is loosing touch with reality as she doesn’t seem all that surprised that her daughter can disappear and reappear and that the house itself shakes and moves, slams doors and windows, and locks and unlocks doors whenever she tries to get in or do something. The father is totally oblivious to everything that is going on. I put this in the ‘could’ve been good’ file. If they would’ve taken a more subtle approach (less telekinesis, less Casio keyboard music, less silly special effects, and more suspense, and approaching the story in a way that forced the viewer to decide whether that mother was in fact crazy or the daughter was in fact possessed), it could’ve possibly worked. Because it does, although rarely, generate some atmosphere I’ll give it a D-.
Burnt Offerings (1976)- Another 70s classic courtesy of Dan Curtis. I loved this flick when I was a kid and re-watching it was pretty fun. It doesn’t hold up quite as well as I thought it would be still, it is a classic. A family gets to rent a great old mansion for the summer at a crazy low price, the catch? They have to look after the mother of the crazy brother and sister who own the place. At least at first that seems to be the only catch, they soon realize there is a little more to the house than they thought, and to the mother as well. A great twist on the ‘old haunted house’ tale really, executed pretty well in a 70’s made-for-TV sort of vibe, and another book/movie Stephen King stole (He called it “The Shining”). I’m giving it an A, probably because I loved it so much when I was young.
To The Devil A Daughter (1976)- Christopher Lee gives his all in what would sadly become Hammer Studio’s final film. In the late 50s early 60s Hammer was ahead of the horror game, but by the late 60s, with the release of films like "Night of the Living Dead" and "Rosemary’s Baby" and the early 70s release of "The Exorcist", Hammer’s gothic period pieces seemed pretty out of date. They proved they could make the modern horror film with hits like this, but the writing was already on the wall. Lee plays an excommunicated priest who feels that the devil (or in this case a demon) is the true god, so he’s devoted his life to ensuring the demon a human host in the guise of an eighteen-year-old girl, whose life was signed over to him at birth by her parents. Her father now regrets the decision and enlists the help of a novelist who has written about Satanism and cults. Although dated and slow moving at times this does prove to be a tense and effective horror vehicle, until the end when we get a puppet devil baby and a thrown rock. I’ll just leave it at that but suffice it to say, the ending was a disappointment! I’m compelled to give this a B-, but that might be a little generous.
Family Plot (1976)- A Hitchcock dark comedy about a fake (or is she fake?) spiritualist who is tasked with finding the rightful heir to a huge fortune. He was born out of wedlock 40 years prior to a family that didn’t want to deal with a scandal so he was adopted out. Turns out he isn’t such a great guy now and makes a good living as both a jewel salesman and crook and isn’t above murder either. This is a very well made flick and full of good plot twists and turns but I’m not sure who the intended audience is. Not one of Hitch’s better flicks and the suspense is subdued by the comedy elements, probably really only good for Hitchcock completists. I’ll give it C+.
Tenant, The (1976)- This is an odd one, more of a psychological thriller I guess than straight up horror but not really a thriller either, maybe a psychological mystery. Anyway, Roman Polanski stars and directs in this tale about an introvert file clerk who moves into a somewhat run down apartment where the previous tenant had committed suicide. It starts off as more humorous than anything, but an odd tension slowly builds, hardly noticeable at first, just traces of weirdness like people complaining about noise that doesn’t seem to exist, people staring off into space while standing in the only bathroom in the building. But things begin to unravel and deteriorate quickly from there as Polanski’s character is unsure of what is going on or if possibly he is loosing his grip on sanity. I was confused a good portion of the time with this one I have to admit and am unsure if I would give it the near masterpiece status many reviews I’ve read give it. Still, I have to admit, the mystery (what exactly is going on in that place), how the decline into insanity is portrayed, etc were very interesting. I would like to watch it again as I feel I missed quite bit the first time through with the odd characters and symbolism. I’ll give it a strong A, it is odd, and slowly paced at first but it held my interest.
Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane, The (1976)- This flick was often billed as a horror movie, or at best a thriller, but it falls maybe a tad short in both respects. The story is about a little girl... who lives down the lane... Sorry, anyway, we soon find out she is actually living there alone (at age 13) and she is pretty much willing to do whatever it takes to remain an independent little girl as she deals with the landlord, the bank, and the landlord’s pedophile son (with some help from her crippled magician boyfriend?!?). A tad strange, definitely far fetched, and at times pretty dated feeling too, despite the rave reviews I’ve read I just couldn’t really get into it. The acting was actually really good and it is well written and directed, and I liked the idea of the adults being suspicious but still too wrapped up in there own hang-ups to really notice anything, but still, despite all these positives, the package as a whole fell a little flat for me. C.
Blood Sucking Freaks (1976)- What can I say, this is just misogynistic torture exploitation at its best, which means worst. The plot follows a stage show that features naked women being tortured, the audience is amazed at how real it is; little do they know it actually is real. When a critic refuses to even write a review of the show, things go from bad to worse for everyone, if that’s possible. If you’re into this type of exploitation then A) I feel sorry for you, maybe you should move out of your mom’s basement, and B) you’ll probably like this. Lots of naked ladies screaming and crying padded with lots of terrible acting and effects. How do I grade a flick that was meant to be trash and succeeds? I’ll give it an F, even though I’m pretty sure that this is exactly what Troma had in mind when they released it.
Carrie (1976)- Before Stephen King became cliché there was Carrie. Written by King, directed by Brian DePalma, and starring Sissy Spacek, how could you go wrong? A high school girl is an outcast at school, considered weird her peers and a sinner by her religiously psychopathic mother; Carrie's rage burns into telekinetic power. Her full power is unleashed after a terrible joke is played on her at her prom. This is a classic suspenseful movie well acted and directed and it pulls the viewer right in, whether you were the high school bully or the victim of said bully, or somewhere in between, most can relate to this movie. A+
Squirm (1976)- Worms really aren't scary at all... Unless there are billions and billions of them and then, well, they still really aren't all that scary. Power lines go down, worms come up and attack, sort of. Really they just crawl around in HUGE numbers. They invade buildings, houses and such. People are scared, they scream, and run. Then a guy becomes like some worm zombie type creature. I really didn't get this movie at all and was having trouble staying awake. Anyway, so how are people going to get out of this mess? PLOT SPOILER! They won't have to. The next morning they wake up and all the worms are gone and the power is back on. Yippee! I love bad movies that are fun to make fun of but this one just sucked. (I'm not sure how I decide which movies suck but are fun and which movies just suck. I guess it's totaly subjective. I've heard MST3K actually gave this one the treatment but I haven't seen that. That would be worth it!) F.
Rabid (1977)- AKA ‘Rage’ this is a typically bizarre little flick that further explores Cronenberg’s fear of women in general and vaginas in particular. A woman survives a pretty bad motorcycle wreck but her torso is burned pretty badly. Luckily a hospital specializing in plastic surgery is nearby and they do some experimental surgery, which seems to have worked (we see her tits quite a bit), except for the awkward side-effect of turning the woman into a blood craving vampire who uses a bizarre boney needle clitoris kind of thing in her armpit. Even worse, the folks she ‘drinks’ blood from become violent ‘zombie-like’ monsters who spread the disease far and wide. This is an interesting and early take on the ‘insanity contagion’ sub-genre. Yeah, it is basically Romero’s ‘Night...’ mixed with his ‘Crazies’, but it did beat ‘Dawn...’ by a year. I knock it some for some bad acting and goofy dialogue. B+
Sisters of Death (1977)- I was in the mood for the craptacular, and that’s what I got. During the initiation ceremony for some weird all girls club a pledge is shot. Somehow everyone is let go as the shooting is ruled an ‘accident’ (how could you ‘accidentally’ shoot someone point blank in the head?). Either way the father of the dead girl wants justice and invites the survivors to a reunion at his compound in the desert. What would you do if you were invited somewhere you’ve never been by someone you don’t know to a party and all was very weird and mysterious? Well, you’d party naturally. What would you do when you found out that an insane man whose daughter you ‘accidentally’ killed some years before was there and vowed revenge? We’ll you get in your nightgown and go to your room and sleep. What would you do when you realized maybe one of your ‘friends’ was actually in on it with the old man? Well you’d come up with a great plan and then tell everyone, including whoever the accomplice may be, ensuring that the plan will not work at all. These and lots of other ENORMOUS plot holes and lapses in logic await you in Sisters of Death! A+ on the craptacular scale.
Shock (1977)- Mario Bava’s last flick and he went out riding the wave of possession flicks of the period. A lady and her new husband and her 10 year old boy from a previous marriage move back into the house where her first husband killed himself. Her son begins to freak out and say and do some weird things, is he possessed? Did the husband kill himself? Is the lady just nuts? Does the new husband know something? Slow burn buildup winds up with a batshit insane ending that ends up feeling a tad anti-climactic for some reason, which is a shame as for a low budget, poorly dubbed, half-ass acted Italian flick, this ain’t bad. If you dig Bava and haven’t seen this then check it out, if you are new to Bava look elsewhere for an intro, this feels too much like a ripoff of Argento, which is fair as he ripped off Bava at times too. I’ll give it a B-.
Martin (1977)- Martin is a vampire, or a twisted serial killer from a twisted family. He has gone to stay with his cousin, who is curiously older than him (Martin looks to be around 18 or 19 but claims to be 84) and who is a very religious man who plans on saving Martin’s soul, and destroying his body constantly referring to him as "Nosferatu". From the beginning there is no doubt Martin is a killer who drinks blood, but he uses sedatives and razor blades to get his victims, no fangs, no hypnotizing eyes. He’s also frustrated at what Hollywood has done to the vampire. Garlic, crucifixes, holy water, this magic simply doesn’t work in real life according to Martin on one of his late night calls to talk radio (and he proves it to his religious cousin as well). Romero does to the vampire mythos what he did to the zombie mythos, breaks all the rules and severs all ties to the past (just as Romero’s flesh craving zombie hordes had little to nothing in common with the voodoo witchdoctor created zombies of the past, Martin is about as far from the Dracula stereotype vampire as you can get). While throwing away the past Romero examines the generation gap, old vs. new, magic vs. science, superstition vs. reality, old ideas in a new world, and tosses in objectification of women and relationships to boot. And it works pretty well. Yeah, it is very low budget and has a very 1970s look so in that regard it may not hold up well, and if you’re expecting lots of blood and guts a la his zombie films you will be disappointed. This is a subtle, slowly paced psychological thriller about a serial killer/vampire (we never truly know which it is) as he tries to deal with life and acceptance (or the lack there of). A strong A.
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)- I dig these old fantasy flicks and while there are better ones, this one is still pretty cool. Sinbad has to save the prince, who has been turned into a baboon by a witch who wants her son to be caliphate. Sinbad is in love with the prince’s sister, has to find a Greek magician to help, then has to go to the ends of the earth to reverse the spell, with the witch in hot pursuit. Maybe not too original as fantasy adventure goes, and the acting leaves quite a bit to be desired, but really, this is about the monsters and there are some classics here, from the fire demon things to the brass Minotaur Harryhausen was having some fun and it shows through. For ‘claymation’ lovers only. A-
Eaten Alive (1977)- Tobe Hooper’s follow up to "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" has us visit another piece of 70s dying Americana in a hotel with a ‘zoo’ sideshow. The hotel is set back in the swamps of the south and run by a muttering insane war vet who keeps a crocodile (not a little ol’ gator) in his swamp. All Hell breaks loose when he realizes one of his guests is a whore from the local brothel, and he’s having none of that in his hotel. He feeds her to the croc and then, in a black comedy of errors, continues his rampage. Filled with oddball characters and skirting that boundary between reality and nightmare, this flick is just plain odd. It follows the formula of "Texas...", with a little more oddity tossed in, for instance the characters are at times even more over the top, like Buck the local redneck, the old bat that runs the whorehouse, the oddball parents whose daughter’s dog is eaten by the croc, and of course Judd, the great character who runs the hotel, and the red tint used throughout much of the movie, but the film lacks that visceral bunch in the gut that "Texas..." provided. If you like 70s drive in insanity then you’ll want to see this, but for me, other than the character Judd, it just didn’t offer up much but lots of screaming. I’ll give it a C+ because Judd was awesome.
Empire of the Ants (1977)- Hilarious giant ant flick chock full of 70s fashion, over-acting, under-acting, and basic non-sense. I love these flicks and this one gives the best of the worst 50s schlock a run for its money. Joan Collins is a snippy bitch who makes a living ripping people off with bogus land deals. Her latest deal has her treating everyone like crap and asking folks to buy beach front land, beach front land near where they dumped some nuclear waste. Needless to say ants have eaten the waste and have become HUGE! Is this a sequel to ‘Them’? Anyway, there is lots of screaming (by the ants), hilariously bad effects, and geography that makes no sense at all (this is an island they had to take a boat to but they wind up in a river that apparently somehow does NOT empty back in the ocean, then they find a town with highways and everything, maybe that was part of the rip off deal Joan was running.) Anyway, this gets a solid A+ on the craptacular scale!
Shock Waves (1977)- Nazi Zombies! Peter Cushing and John Carradine! Awesome! Almost. Some annoying tourists get trapped on an island in the Caribbean after their boat is hit by an ancient looking freighter running at night with no lights. The captain, a pissed off Carradine, quickly winds up dead despite being an old salt full of all reason and no superstitious sailor stories. Everyone else takes the tiny dingy to the nearby island and find Peter Cushing waiting on the return of his SS squad, who he knows will be out to get him, and everyone else. When the Nazi Zombies do show up they are pretty effective and there are some pretty awesome shots and atmosphere generated here and there. Obviously shot on a budget (most of which probably went to Cushing, Caradine, and the underwater camera), this flick does muster some atmosphere and is important in the scheme of Zombie movies I think, but it does drag on with scenes of people walking around and Cushing’s part all but wasted. Too bad, this one is just full of potential and not much else, also, if you’re a gut munching gore zombie fan you’ll hate this one. More Nazi Zombie flicks followed, mostly terrible, but Carradine starred in ‘Revenge of the Zombies’ which was probably more or less the first Nazi Zombie flick in 1943. I’ll give this a B, I really dug some of the shots but felt like too much was left out for it to work well.
Creeper (1977)- Although technically released prior to the slasher flick cycle this one more or less falls in that category. A group of doctors head out into the Canadian wilderness for a week long vacation, things seem to be going fine until they realize someone as stolen their boots. It’s all down hill from there as the doctors are picked off one by one in increasingly disturbing ways. Not graphic and low budget, this movie does create some great suspense and is well acted and directed. There are some plot holes but I’ll leave that to you so as not to reveal too much. A-.
Night of the Seagulls (1977)- I would say this was the best of the four Blind Dead flicks, the acting was better, the plot believable (believable in the sense that cult-black magic-zombie movies are believable), the cinematography was good, pretty much everything worked, except the glaring fact that the film was pretty unoriginal. Basically Ossario took the best elements from the first 3 films and crammed them into this one, all wrapped up with a plot very similar to movies like "The Wicker Man" (small village, pagan rites, etc.) What is the plot? A new doctor and his wife move to a small village where they are greeted with the cold shoulder by the locals. They hear the ‘quaint’ nightly rites taking place but think they are innocent superstitions of the locals. Soon they find out that the locals are tying up young virgins to the rocks on the beach for the Templar zombies to come and take them away. Every seven years for seven nights seven virgins have to be sacrificed, and when the locals try and kill the village idiot and take the doctor’s little hottie house keeper, well, times must change. Really it all works pretty well (if you like Euro-trash I mean) and I liked the flick but I have to knock it a mark or two for such a lack of originality and such a lame ending. B-.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)- Of course it’s scifi but I remember seeing this at the drive-in when I was knee high to a grass hopper and it scared the crap out of me, especially the part where the kid opens the door and everything is red outside. Anyway, after many folks in Indiana see some UFOs things for several people begin to change. The movie focuses on two, Richard Dreyfuss and his family and Melinda Dillon and her young son. They become obsessed with UFOs and a particular mountain looking form they can’t quite explain. After loosing his job and his family because of his behavior, Dreyfuss realizes what he is seeing is Devils Tower in Wyoming, where the government is evacuating everyone because of a nerve gas spill... or is that really why? Throughout much of the movie we aren’t really sure if these are invading aliens or if they are benevolent aliens and we never see much more than lights in the sky and strange electromagnetic interference with everything from kids’ toys, to cars, to electric stoves. Spielberg directed and it has much the same feel as his other movies around this time including "ET" and "Poltergeist" (which he produced). It was also an obvious influence on M. Night’s "Signs". Sure the movie feels a little dated now but it still works. B+
The Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)- Basically in my opinion "The Exorcist" is the greatest horror movie ever made, bar none. To rise to heights like that and then follow with CRAP like this is amazing. I mean sequels usually pale in comparison to the originals but this is CRAZY!!! "The Exorcist" had people fainting and running from the theatre in fear. "The Exorcist II" had people laughing and running from the theatre while laughing their asses off. Regan's a little older now and has some bad memories, blahblahblah. This one is only good for the ol'MST3K treatment. F
Audrey Rose (1977)- Want emotions? This flick has them. We start off with idyllic love and near perfection (represented by the family’s wonderful excursions around New York). Slide into parents’ slight fear and paranoia (somebody’s following them around), next we go to a father’s simmering rage (gritting teeth, angry eyebrows), a lawyer’s concern (we’ll catch this lunatic bastard), then a daughter’s fear (lots of screaming, running around, pounding on windows), then a mother’s extreme terror (uncontrollable sobbing and praying), and Anthony Hopkins’ understated paternal instinct (and yelling the name ‘AUDREY ROSE’). Hopkins tries his damnedest to convince the parents of an 11 year old girl that her soul is in fact the soul of his daughter, who died minutes before their daughter was born, and since the daughter has nightmares around the time of her birthday each year then he must be right. Hopkins is afraid his daughter’s soul went into the girl’s body too soon after it was released from his daughter or something or other, we end up with Hopkins charged with kidnapping and a trial where his defense includes the reincarnation story. In the end a psychiatrist is brought in to hypnotize Ivy and see if she is in fact Audrey as well and things go from bad to worse. This follows the successful ‘exorcist’ formula very closely, which makes sense since that flick made the impossible seem possible, here? Not so much. It just seemed too over-the-top emotional, not bad acting necessarily, just too much decent enough acting if that makes sense, and the plot just spirals out of control by the time we get to court. I think had they approached it more like Hopkins was insane and dangerous it might have worked, instead he comes off as probably being right all along. I remember seeing this flick when I was really young and it freaked me out pretty good, but after recently re-watching it doesn’t seem to hold up all that well, not bad, but not too good either. I’ll give it a C-.
Suspiria (1977)- Quite a while back I watched this movie expecting one of the greatest horror movies ever as I had read so many great reviews. I ended up all but hating it. I have been revisiting some of those types of movies recently and thought it was time to revisit "Suspiria". The plot revolves around an American girl who goes to a famous ballet school to perfect her art, the night she arrives there is a brutal double murder and it slowly becomes apparent all is not what it seems at the school which, it turns out, is run by a coven of witches. Argento often leaves behind the narrative to focus on the look and sound of his films, and in that regard this truly is a masterpiece. He use of bright Technicolor throughout is amazing, as are the set pieces and camera work. Simply put this flick ‘looks’ amazing, but the awesomeness ends there. I really love a lot of Argento’s stuff, but seriously, to be classified as a truly all around great director you really should be able to get better performances out of the actors and realize when dialogue is stilted and phony sounding, and that is where "Suspiria" gets chopped. The acting and dialogue are just piss poor. I know that isn’t the focus, but if everything in this movie would’ve been exactly the same but with good acting and dialogue then you truly have a full masterpiece. No, the story really makes no sense at all; I can ignore that easily enough since I don’t believe in witches anyway (at least not these types of witches), but for me this film just never rises above ‘great looking’. If you like really well done suspense, and great looking setup ‘parts’ and aren’t worried too much about acting and dialogue then I highly recommend this, otherwise view with caution. What would I have thought if I hadn’t read so many accolades about this movie prior to seeing it? Hard to say, for look and ‘feel’ only I would give it an A, but for acting, story and dialogue a D, so I suppose I could average it to a B-, and I feel that might be generous. I’m sorry "Suspiria" fans, I still feel this one is over rated.
Eraserhead (1977)- Um... A guy gets a girl pregnant and goes to meet her parents who serve him these Cornish game hen type of things that wiggle their legs and eject blood from their asses. The girl then has a mutant baby and the two live in a terrible apartment where a lady lives in the radiator and sings and the baby cries all night. The guy has his head turned into pencil erasers and a guy pulls levers that control things, or maybe not. I first saw this film when I was about 13 and it left an indelible impression on me that I can't quite shake to this day. It is a masterpiece but one only to be viewed by people who appreciate edgy avante garde bizarreness. I loved it and knew if I ever made a movie it would be much like this, with no connection to reality and no cohesive plotline. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want every movie to be like this one, but when they are done this way and they work I really dig them. I read one time that if a movie could cause actual psychological damage "Eraserhead" would be the one to do it. Yeah, that's about right. It is a dark and ugly world these people live in and after watching the film I felt 'dirty'. David Lynch wrote and directed this and filmed it in black and white. Perfect in almost every way and Lynch would go on to direct critically acclaimed films such as "The Elephant Man" and big budget fair like "Dune" as well as other art house stuff. A+
Hills Have Eyes, The (1977)- Wes Craven liked to explore the "Lord of the Flies" theme of normal people becoming savages in the face of impossible circumstances. He explored a normal family's reaction to the rape and killing of their daughter in "The Last House on the Left" and here he explores a normal family's reaction to being hunted by cannibals in the desert of the American Southwest. A retired cop, his wife, 2 daughters, son, son-in-law, and granddaughter are heading for California on their 25th anniversary. They want to explore an old silver mine since it is their silver anniversary. They are warned to stay out of that section of desert but they, of course, don't head the local's warning and end up wrecking the car and getting stranded. This movie has a 'real' feel to it, no action heroes, just normal people in terrible circumstances as they are hunted and killed by deformed mutants that live in a cave in the desert. We get their history from the old man who warned the family and all Hell breaks lose. This is a raw movie that plays on our base emotions of family and care for children, which the mutants don't feel, but do understand as the father of the mutants knows they are in trouble when they don't get the entire family on the first try. Well directed and acted and believable this is a cult classic for good reason (but rides a little too comfortable on Texas Chainsaw's coattails). A.
Drive-In Massacre (1977)- Well, with a name like that… This is a pretty stupid attempt at being scary using old William Castle-like methods that went over great in the 50s when used on 12 year olds; Mid-70s on kids old enough to drive, probably not. A killer has taken to decapitating and slitting throats of couples at a particular drive-in. This drive-in used to be a carnival; does that have anything to do with it? A couple of the people working at the drive-in were carnies with jobs like sword swallower and knife-thrower; does that have anything to do with it? A guy wielding a machete takes a hostage at a warehouse; does that have anything to do with it? One guy in particular likes going to the drive-in to “beat his meat” (actual quote); does he have anything to do with it? A couple fat dim witted cops are out to find out. This flick could have easily been about 30 minutes long and nothing would’ve been missed. Needless to say it sucked, and yet there was such a crappy ‘we have no idea how to make a movie but we’re going to try anyway’ charm to it that I just can’t flunk it so I’ll give it a D+. Not worth seeing unless you are a sadist who must see every slasher-type movie ever made regardless of how crappy.
Halloween (1978)- I caught this on Scifi awhile back so it was edited for content but I've seen both versions several times. I can't add anything that hasn't been said about this movie. Simply put it is a classic and, in my opinion, the best slasher flick I've seen. Michael kills his sister when he is very young and is put in an institution. Several years later he escapes and Dr. Loomis pursues because he knows Michael is really the embodiment of evil. Michael returns home to terrorize his old neighborhood. Everything about this movie works from the acting, to the directing, to the scares, to the music. A+.
Fury, The (1978): This starts out as an action adventure, slides into a rip off of "Carrie", eases back into spy/action/adventure mode, then ends with a terrible 70s sci fi thing. A secret agent man's son has very powerful ESP. He wants to send him to a special school to learn how to use it. Then "The Agency" kidnaps the son for some reason and proceeds to send him to the school his dad was sending him to anyway. His dad wants him back. At the same time a girl also has very powerful ESP. We know this because of experiments in her... ESP class? Anyway, kids make fun of her and she makes their nose bleed. Then she ends up in that special school, being watched by "The Agency". The agent wants her to help him find his son too. Cold War type espionage ensues. I was caught and pulled into this movie and liked about the first 2/3 but that last 1/3 was just too dumb. D+.
House of the Dead (1978)- Another one of those movies that are really an excuse to do some film shorts and tie them all together. A mortician telling 'interesting' stories about the people in his funeral home and how they met their demise ties them together. Seriously man, if you're going to make a movie like this make sure the stories have some sort of twist to them. You can't just film lame half thought out ideas. Anyway, story one is about a grade school teacher who hates kids so kids with bad teeth kill her. Story two involves a guy that films himself killing women and then gets busted and apparently executed. Next up is a story about two great detectives competing to be the greatest detective. They wind up killing each other in their quest. Finally we get a story about a guy who's real busy and won't help bums so he is trapped in an elevator shaft by someone and given nothing but liquor to drink and then released some time later as a bum and then I guess dies and winds up in the funeral home. Of course then the final coffin is empty and that is for (GASP PLOT SPOILER) the guy the mortician is talking to. Didn't see that one coming 5 minutes into the movie. I like to give these low budget flicks the benefit of the doubt but they have to at least try and make something good. Anyway, story 1, 2, 3, 4 all get Fs which averages to F.
Living Dead Girl, The (1978)- European sexploitation and horror; nothing to see here, please move along. A dead girl’s crypt is disturbed by toxic waste and general dumbassery. She gets up and craves blood, kills some naked folks, gets naked herself etc. Her former lesbian lover happens to be a real estate agent trying to sell the now living dead girl’s castle. They made a promise to stay together forever so the real estate agent works to get the living dead girl the blood she needs. Pretty standard stuff with some of the worst ‘acting’ I have ever seen. And in typical low budget Euro-trash ways people kind of stand around and let themselves get eaten; assuming screaming is a better defense than beating the crap out of somebody or just running like Hell. Anyway, there is an interesting change of positions as the living dead girl begins to feel guilty about killing folks but the living real estate agent seems to start to enjoy it, could’ve been an interesting angle to explore. I understand some cats really dig this stuff, I guess I also sort of understand why to be honest, but I just generally don’t dig it all that much. I’ll give it a C-.
Grapes of Death, The (1978)- What happens when folks decide to make their own pesticide and spray it on their grape crops and then make wine with said grapes and then have a harvest bash and invite the whole village and get them loaded up on the wine made from the grapes that had the homemade pesticide sprayed on them? You get French people decaying before your eyes and going batshit insane. A girl is heading to be with her fiancé who works at a winery. At a stop a man boards the train obviously in very bad shape; he kills her companion and then chases her. She runs, and runs, and runs, meets a few more folks who seem to be decaying both physically and morally. She runs some more. She gets a gun, which she seems to have sometimes, and not have sometimes. Although she hasn’t had any of the wine, she is obviously loosing her mind. Finally she reaches the village with the help of a very bizarre and whiney blind girl. The entire village is deserted... or is it? Blood, puss, and decapitations follow. Only the French could make a zombie movie like this (though technically not zombies). It does have its moments, some genuinely creepy atmosphere, some good effects (and some bad mixed in), but also tends to drag and leaves you screaming "no one would act like that in that situation" as the girl kind of ambles around and watches as horrifying things go down. A slow mover at times to be sure but it is after all French and the French do like to show people walking around a lot in the their movies (people walking around with the intermittent tit shot). My main complaint is the atrocious editing though, the now she has it now she doesn't pistol, the blond gal's ability to change clothes at the drop of a hat (and where did those dogs come from), it is jarring at times, almost moves the movie into a surreal feel, but I don't think they really wanted it to go that way. With some judicious editing this could've been great but...If you are a ‘must see all things zombie related’ kind of fan then you should see this one, but I can’t recommend it too highly. However, keeping in mind it was made in 1978 it does hold an important spot in the pantheon of zombie horror, beating the Italian cycle by a couple of years. B-.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)- Romero's follow up to "Night of the. Living Dead". Sometime has passed since the problems with the living dead began. Inner cities are becoming unlivable. Some members of a SWAT team, after a botched raid, decide to get out of town. They hook up with a reporter and a news helicopter pilot and fly off to safety, but little safety is to be found. They wind up barricading themselves in a shopping mail. The rest is zombie movie history. Romero likes his horror with a message, like we are a consumerist society bent on consuming everything, including each other. What better way to symbolize that than cannibal zombies at a shopping mall? This a great zombie flick and one of my favorites, some of the effects are a little dated and I don't understand why the mall never loses power but still great story with great direction and a great Romero ending. A+.
Dawn of the Dead (Zombi) (1978)- Dario Argento would help finance Romero’s "Dawn of the Dead" if he could do his own European edit and keep all the European profits. A match made in horror heaven! This is the same flick as Romero’s but with a different soundtrack (provided by Argento’s favorite band The Goblins) and ‘some’ of the ‘American’ humor removed. For instance we still get the zombies tumbling down the escalator to Muzak, but we don’t get the zombies walking into the helicopter rotors. The movie has a faster paced ‘feel’ to it and in some points the new soundtrack adds to the suspense, but in some spots actually detracts from it, sounding very techno 70s dated, which of course it is. I didn’t watch the two versions back to back so it’s hard for me to say which I liked better. As it stands I’d just say this one is a little different, not really better or worse, which means it gets an A+.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)- Hollywood felt it was time to remake the classic tale of suspense. The original was a nice metaphor for the Red Scare, not sure about this remake. There are some obvious religious cult over tones (Born Again) and also a look into how our modern lives are becoming devoid of emotion but metaphors aside is this good? Well the plot is basically the same except now we're in San Francisco. The alien pods hatch out their clones while the real people sleep, they look like the regular folks but there's just something not quite right. A nice feeling of paranoia is built up and the acting and directing work for the most part. And this one has a pretty classic ending that I still dig. There are some weaknesses such as the dog with human head clone, seriously man, that wasn't necessary, and the silly "We've been floating in space... riding the solar winds... we survive... we adapt..." speech. Why would these aliens feel compelled to explain themselves at all, especially when said explanation is a poorly written 70s sci-fi goofy speech. Still, weaknesses aside this is a classic. A-
Swarm, The (1978)- Disaster movies and the 70s go hand in hand like bell-bottoms and the 70s. Here we have a huge swarm of Africanized killer bees that have evolved to not only be highly aggressive but also have a more lethal sting. The military wants to just blow everything up, of course, but a few self-sacrificing scientists who are experts in everything are calling the shots, until they screw everything up and the bees get inside a nuclear reactor, blowing it up and killing almost 40,000 people (but apparently not the bees?!?). Yup, these bees are not only dangerous (in a bee suicidal sort of way) but also smart, well smart in that they know how to attack a lot of stuff but not really all that ‘self-preservation’ kind of smart. This movie, like many of its 70s counterparts, is chock full of famous and formerly famous faces who are obviously just there to collect a pay check and read through torturous dialogue. Among the names dropped are Michael Caine, Peter Fonda, Patty Duke, Richard Widmark, Slim Pickens, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia De Havilland, Fred MacMurray, and others. You pretty much know this is a train wreck (both literally and figuratively) from the start. Still, I’ll give it a very strong B+ on the craptacular scale. A must see for the ol’ MST3K treatment if you’re into crap like me. Make a night of it and double feature this with "Food of the Gods"!
Phantasm (1979)- Another horror flick from my youth. I remember catching this on the late show one night when I was probably about 10 or 11. The tall man really freaked me out. A kid is watching a funeral when he notices the tall man lift a coffin by himself despite it weighing well over 500 lbs. One strange event leads to another when we find out aliens are actually running the funeral home for their own nefarious purposes. There is some more detail involving gravity but let's not get into that. This is an effective horror movie with a scifi twist. It's a pretty original idea too so I give it credit in that department. The special effects are bad and the acting is terrible at times. The older brother is the worst and the younger brother needs a good beatin'. A bad 70s song and a little camp involving an ice cream truck round it all out. I still dig it. B+.
Dracula (1979): This film sits between Lugosi's 1932 Dracula and Oldman's 1992 Dracula both chronologically and thematically. It is a very good, albeit at times dated, variation on the theme. It follows the book closely and the acting, sets, and atmosphere work pretty well. There are some 70s effects and 70s looks here and there but over all a pretty faithful adaptation of the story. The acting from Laurence Olivier, Donald Pleasance, and others is good and believable, Dracula's acting is good also but he had kind of a 'disco era' feel to him, which didn't help, overall a strong B.
Zombi (1979)- Italian zombie flick that was promoted in Europe as a sequel to Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" and actually called "Zombi 2". A sailboat is found in the harbor at New York. Police board it and are killed by a messed up raving lunatic. The woman whose father owned the boat sets out with a reporter to find out what happened to her father. They set off for the Caribbean, where her father was working. There they discover a zombie plague (and some "Plague of Zombies" influences too.) Full of what would become typical Euro-trash effects and gore but here they are still fresh. The story works even though the acting and direction don't hold up incredibly well. Nice ending that would 'sort of' be repeated in the remake of "Dawn of The Dead". One influenced one that influenced another I guess. A-
Alien (1979)- This has been called a 'haunted house in space' movie and the tag line "In space no one can hear you scream" bares that out. A plot similar to Hammer's "Quartermass Xperiment" has aliens using humans as hosts for their young. The effects still hold up, as does Giger's Alien design (when I went back and looked up the year this was released I was actually surprised it came out in 1979, it holds up really well). A mining company's ship is rerouted after it receives an SOS signal, which in time turns out to actually be a warning. The ship's crew investigate and find a hive of alien eggs, eventually an alien hatches on board the ship, and what follows is sci-fi horror at its best. Many have said this movie took what was best about "Star Wars" and what was best about "Halloween" and put them together. That'd be more or less right. One of my favorites. A+.
Nosferatu: The Vampyre (1979)- Remake of the classic silent flick, this is a slowly paced moody flick to be sure. If you want action, gore, and fast pace then this might not be for you, but if you are looking for a really heavy and strange atmosphere with your horror then look no further! It is a fairly straight retelling of the Dracula story and I really dug it. Yeah some of the artsy surreal shots got a little long in the tooth as it went (not sorry) but if you like weird, slowly paced, atmospheric Euro-horror then check this one out! A+.
Evictors, The (1979)- Low budget flick with a Made for TV feel. A couple moves into an old house that apparently has a reputation for fatal accidents, or maybe they aren’t accidents, that started occurring after the owners were evicted in the 20s. Is it their ghosts? Or is someone just trying to keep folks from living in the house. This movie was about as exciting as my description and the goofy twist ending I saw coming for miles didn’t help either. Over all this is pretty tame stuff, I didn’t hate it, but I sure didn’t like it much either. D
Driller Killer (1979)- This is the story of a struggling artist in New York City in the late 70s. He is obviously talented and is looking for that big break and thinks he has found it with his latest masterpiece, but he’s struggling for inspiration to finish it. He knows he and his two live in girlfriends are living on the edge as they’ve missed the rent payment and can’t afford the phone bill and electric bill. He becomes obsessed with the homeless fighting, sleeping, drinking, puking, and pissing in the streets around his apartment building in the asscrack of late 70s New York; obviously afraid that may end up being his fate. His paranoia slips into schizophrenia as a local punk rock band moves into the same building and take to practicing night and day. To find inspiration, relieve stress, and fight back against what his future holds he buys a portable power pack and takes to killing the homeless with his drill. He seems surprised when his actions start making the papers. After having his latest masterpiece rejected by his agent his girlfriend leaves him and the violence becomes personal and our artist slips beyond the point of no return. This movie sits in the never land between art house and grind house. It is very low budget and the acting and dialogue are pretty bad at times, but there is something in the cinematography that works and captures that bleak urban often hopelessly trapped environment. I think this could’ve been a great film if it had been edited a little more judiciously, the camera at times lingers too long in scenes and some parts just seem to go on forever with no real connection to the rest of the film. Basically, when it works, like the suspenseful sections and the scenes of the artist’s sanity slipping away it works, but some sections, like backstage at the club with the band, do nothing but take away from the pacing and feel of the film. It also offers us a real glimpse of the dying embers of the New York punk scene, not the forced punk silliness of "Fear No Evil" or the punk camp of "Return of the Living Dead". Although not nearly as violent as its reputation would have you believe, this still ain’t for everybody. C+.
Shining, The (1980)- In my book Stephen King has had way more misses than hits, but I see this as one of his hits. A writer feels he has neglected his writing to make ends meet as a teacher. He gets what he hopes is the perfect job, watching The Overlook Hotel during the off season of November to May, which will allow him to write again. He and his son and wife will stay there by themselves through the blizzards and make sure the place is kept up. His weird little kid seems to have ESP though and doesn't really want to go. Something is wrong in that place. The Stephen King staples of childhood and stressed writers hadn't gotten old yet, plus the directing, sets, and cast keep it afloat even if those subjects were old. The movie maintains a creepy feeling and is fairly solid all the way through. Why they had to kill off Scatman that way is a drag and pointless and Shelly Duval running and screaming near the end starts getting a little old but weaknesses aside this remains a modern classic (stay away from the pointless miniseries remake though). A.
Motel Hell (1980)- Black comedy about a motel owner who’s motel business ain’t all that great but his smoked pork business is booming. He has super secret smoking techniques, plus a very special secret ingredient he gets from his farm. You can guess pretty quickly that the ingredient is ‘people’, but how he harvests them is the interesting part! An uncomfortable love triangle may be his undoing though. Weird, but its supposed to be weird. It is a tough one to grade, it is really just a very odd twist on ‘Sweeny Todd’, it is done well enough too. I think I’ll give it a B, worth a viewing if you like weird and dark comedy horrors.
Inferno (1980)- Argento’s sort of sequel to "Suspiria". Apparently the Suspiria witch wasn’t the only one, there are two more, and this one revolves around the second... I guess. There really is no coherent plot. A woman stumbles across a book about the 3 witches, they apparently had an architect build them each a building in different countries, from which they will rule the world. This lady realizes she lives in one of the buildings, she calls her brother who is studying music in Rome, and he rushes to help her and is tossed into a bizarre nightmare world of murder and witchcraft. This is a strange one and has a lot of bad acting in it to boot, but if you like movies that ‘look’ good, well then here you go. This is a beautifully filmed movie (I think that is the first time I’ve ever used that phrase, I will try and make it the last), the color saturation, the long shots of the maze like apartments, the exteriors and the use of the moon, clouds, and rain. Everything is based on a look and atmosphere, little or no time was spent on dialogue or story, and you can tell this was done on purpose. If you don’t mind sacrificing the narrative for the look, then this is for you, if you hate that approach I recommend you stay far far away! I liked this but wouldn’t say it was the masterpiece some say it is. If Argento is such a great director how come he can’t get good performances out of his actors? I know that’s not where he focuses his attention, but if the acting was just a little more believable this could’ve been amazing. A
City of the Living Dead (1980)- The first in Fulci’s loosely tied together zombie trilogy (followed by "The Beyond" and "House by the Cemetery"), these zombies are some oddly powerful supernatural zombie ghost like things. Here we have the priest of a small town parish (probably not coincidentally called "Dunwich") who, by hanging himself in the cemetery, opens the gates of Hell. He, along with his victims, walk around town killing folks, either by causing them to regurgitate their innards, bleed from their eyes, or their apparent favorite, squeezing the brains from their heads. Although there are no stabbed, removed, or poked out eyes, we do get lots of close-ups of eyes and we also get a drill through the head. Most of the effects work pretty well, and while there isn’t exactly a great narrative story going on here, we do get some good Fulci atmosphere and gore. I like "The Beyond" a little better despite its obvious flaws, and neither measure up to "Zombi 2" but this one was still pretty good. C+
Nightmare City (1980)- This zombie/cannibal/vampire/nuclear accident Eurotrash flick starts strong with an unidentified airplane landing at the airport and unloading a cache of starving zombies (actually the director insisted they weren’t zombies but people who needed human blood to replace their blood as it broke down with radiation poisoning, the fact only a head shot will kill them along with the obvious influence from Romero and Fulci tips the directors zombie filled hand). The zombie attack everyone, drinking their blood and contaminating more and more people. Sadly, the intro is as good as it gets as from there on we’re subjected to about every late 70s Eurotrash cliché. Bad music, low budget, bad acting, bad dubbing, ineffective gore, TERRIBLE makeup and lots of ‘what the’ moments like the TV station that apparently only broadcasts Solid Gold dancers, people barricading doors with barrels on the inside even though the doors open ‘out’, stopping to discuss nuclear power over a hot cup of joe while being chased by zombies, and lots of excuses to show tits, including one being cut off a Solid Gold dancer. Now I can take that if we substitute some atmosphere, gore, and over all weirdness, but here there's none of that. Anyway, the zombies pretty much take over the city and we follow a reporter and his doctor wife as they try and stay alive and end up with a disappointing twist circular logic ending. D-.
Funeral Home (1980)- This Canadian export has that 'made for TV' feel to it. There's not much budget, but who needs that really, and there's very little originality, this movie makes no bones at all about basically being a reworking of "Psycho" (and it tips its hat at the end with a swinging light scene). The plot is pretty easy to figure out too with a not so well planted red herring. Still, this movie is a nicely paced, competently directed and acted little suspense thriller. An old lady who's husband has disappeared decides to turn his old funeral home into a bed and breakfast and with the help of her granddaughter she seems on the road to success. But those pesky guests keep disappearing too. The old gal does some great acting, as she mixes piety with insanity. The end, while maybe a tad too long, is well executed (no pun intended). B-.
Virus (1980)- Surprisingly well-made Japanese dooms day flick. During some Cold War espionage a man made virus, which has the ability to attach to common viruses like the cold, and replicate and spread at high rates, is released into the Russian backcountry. Eventually the virus spreads to Italy where it is given the name Italian Flu and where it spreads across Europe, Asia, and eventually Africa and the Americas. The Americans learn too late that it is in fact a virus their of own invention; humanity is all but whipped out, save those staying in outposts in Antarctica, where the cold weather makes the viruses spread impossible. The action switches to Antarctica where the issues of safety, infection, and horniness are addressed in a more or less believable way. It is a slow mover at times and fails at attempts of depth and introspection, instead falling victim to sappy dialogue and shallow silliness. I saw the Americanized version, which is shorter and, from what I’ve read, not as well edited as the Japanese version. Still it is competently made and acted doomsdayer. C.
Children, The (1980)- All I can say is this is law enforcement at work! This flick follows the trials and tribulations of a small town sheriff as he half-heartedly tries to solve the mystery of ‘where the kids went’. Or at least where 5 or 6 of them went. What we know but he doesn’t is that their school bus drove through a radioactive cloud caused by some seriously lazy half-wit nuclear power plant workers who didn’t want overtime. Said cloud causes the kids’ fingernails to turn black and makes them want to hug folks to death. Pretty much everyone in this flick is nasty and deserves to die from the sheriff who always acts like he’s in a big hurry but winds up just standing around, to the local lady doctor who is a complete bitch, and I guess her lesbian partner who is blind and spends her days apparently looped on pain meds. Then there’s the vanity couple who don’t care about their daughter but lift weights and sunbath nude while toking up. The deputy looks to be about 21 and he is dating a gal that might be 16 and she gets pissed when he has to do his job. And don't forget the poaching drunk rednecks the sheriff chooses to man his roadblock! Then the main couple who the sheriff ends up hanging out with are just hysterical dim-wits with the pregnant wife whining and losing control and the husband barking out orders and withholding what one might consider vital information. Can you tell this is one of those train-wrecks that I really liked? They do try pretty hard and there are a couple creepy late 70s-early 80s scenes but over all this thing is a hilarious romp through the craptacular. Be warned, it gets a tad slow near the end as you can’t help but think A) I know exactly how this is going to end and B) PLEASE JUST END ALREADY! Still, if you like ‘em bad then check this one out! A on the craptacular scale.
Metamorphoses (1980)- Cheap ain't the word. This baby is low budget, but that's OK... Sometimes. Here? Well... A research scientist is using funds from a private university on research and no one knows what he's spending his money on. The board wants to know and wants his books. First he must finish his experiment so to hurry up the process he, naturally, experiments on himself. His experiment is on DNA and how to regenerate cells, essentially stopping the aging process and making people immortal. Said plan backfires in a terrible way. Yeah, his cells regenerate but they also mutate, problem is they mutate to a primitive life form, a monster! This movie actually predates "Altered States" and the remake of "The Fly" but the plot is essentially the same here, and many other sci-fi movies that predate this one. It's typical 80s pap complete with over indulgent sex scene. The acting isn't too good, the directing is bad, the plot doesn't make a lot of sense and the ending is hilarious. Still, having said all that I didn't actually HATE this flick. D+.
Friday the 13th (1980)- Move the town-with-a-secret movie to a campground and you have a whole new movie to make. Jason was a freak and the camp counselors made fun of him. Then he drowned in the lake and they closed Camp Crystal Lake. Then, some time later, they reopened Camp Crystal Lake and sure enough, revenge is exacted on kids that had nothing to do with the Camp Crystal Lake back in the day. This was an OK movie, but not very original. The twist at the end got me the first time I watched it but I was pretty young so I don't know if it would work on me now (if I hadn't seen it before). Jason is a pretty good horror movie character but (PLOT SPOILER AHEAD) he isn't actually even in this movie and I'm pretty sure this one is responsible for more terrible sequels than any horror movie franchise, but I can't blame this one movie for all those train wrecks. Aside from creating a great character this franchise has little to offer. C.
He Knows You’re Alone (1980)- This is one of those flicks that give horror movies in general a bad name. Not because of gore and gratuitous sex, there’s really not much of that here, but because it is painfully unoriginal and the characters do incredibly stupid things. Unoriginal in that it is "Halloween" mixed with "Black Christmas" (of course those were "Psycho" inspired but there is a difference between being influenced and basically steeling camera angles, characters, and music). As far as doing stupid things? Take your pick. Why doesn’t the obsessed cop tell the local police what he thinks is going on and stake out the address he finds, thereby getting the killer before he kills again. Of course the movie would be too short then. When the killer is on the top of the car why doesn’t the driver slam on the breaks? When the girl goes to hide in the coroner’s office why doesn’t she lock any doors behind her... Why aren’t the doors locked in the first place? Why does the killer kill the guy that fits dresses? I could go on and on, suffice it to say, this isn’t very thought out. The plot? A guy is jilted at the alter and decides he will kill off brides at random, and apparently anyone else who knows the brides. Add a young bride having second thoughts, her friends, an obsessed cop, a dressmaker, a cheating professor, a goofy ex-boyfriend, Tom Hanks, 70s fashion, bad dialogue, and you have this formula. Watchable in the context of being an early "Halloween" slasher clone but don’t expect too much. D+.
Mother’s Day (1980)- Formulaic slasher/revenge flick (more revenge than slasher though as there is a low body count) about 3 women who were college roommates back in the day and now go out together once a year for an adventure. This year’s adventure has them camping near a lake in the boonies, little do they know an insanely dysfunctional and depraved family lives in those same woods. The women are kidnapped by the family (a mother and her two sons) and are brutalized by them. There is nothing original about this one, but to be fair it isn’t bad. It is campy at the right times (and also sometimes funny when I think it wasn’t supposed to be) but it also delivers some intense suspenseful scenes as well. It is well acted and directed (considering budget constraints) and even manages to pull in some social commentary along the way. (The mother is raising her sons according to what she has learned on the TV, which is on in the house continually, and they brag about being ‘citified’ with pop culture references everywhere and graffiti on the walls of the house.) An odd subplot has the mother training the boys to protect her from her (even more) insane sister who lives in the woods, which leads to an ending you can see coming for miles. Still, all things considered, this ain’t a bad entry in the 80s slasher/revenge type subgenre and if you like that era and don’t mind a low budget then... B+.
The Changeling (1980)- George C. Scott has a good life, nice wife, smart, young daughter, and then tragedy strikes. Right before his eyes he sees them killed on a snowy highway. George tries to put it all behind him by moving to a new place in a massive old mansion that is on the local historical register. And then weird things begin to happen. Is it his deceased family? Or is there something sinister that happened in that old house? This is a really good ghost story. It's hard to come up with an original haunted house feature but it works really well here, from great acting and directing to nice twists. Always a favorite of mine. A.
Zombi Holocaust (1980)- Another Euro-trash Zombie flick. This time out its more about a group of cannibals than zombies though. Some folks stumble across a cult of cannibals that are munching on cadavers at the local medical school, one thing leads to another and we wind up in the South Pacific hunting cannibal cults with some adventurous types. Zombies show up along the way and the whole thing is tied together with a plot twist at the end that doesn’t really make sense if you think about the whole movie. But what did I expect? There is mucho gore in this one (do the dead people have bones?) and some good (some of the cannibal munching scenes) and some really bad FX (watch the suicide scene near the beginning closely, the guy jumps out a window and the mannequin that is supposed to be him hits the ground and the arm flies off, awesome!) The zombie makeup is terrible as the faces are mangled up but you can plainly see where the makeup ends at the neck. Still, all in all if you’re into EuroTrash zombie movies then this one is for you. It tried really hard to copy Fulci’s "Zombi 2" and although it failed at least it shot for the right target. C+
Hell of the Living Dead (1980)- A classic masterpiece of total EuroTrash, I would even cal it Ed Woodian in scope. A corporation leaks a gas from one of its third world factories and soon zombies are roaming all around. A SWAT team is dispatched to clean things up (A SWAT team? That makes no sense, where did they get an idea like that... oh yeah, "Dawn of the Dead"). Throw in TONS of stock footage that doesn’t fit, totally inane dialogue, the poorest excuse for tit shots in cinema history, and bad zombie makeup and you’re in for a ride down Craptacular Lane. This flick is hilariously bad and a must see of zombie film lovers. It unapologetically rips off "Dawn of the Dead" (Argento’s cut with The Goblin soundtrack) throughout and moves steadily from one train wreck to another. Watch as a rat attacks a factory worker and his co-worker stands by and watches. Watch as terrorists kidnap folks and are then brutally murdered by the SWAT team who yell "Drop your weapons" then open fire before giving them a chance to comply. Watch as said SWAT team is dropped into the jungle (well, what passes for a jungle) and are apparently given no orders, directions, or transportation once there. Watch as a female reporter whips her tits out to prove she lived with natives, then jogs down a road with the SWAT team right behind her in a Jeep. Watch as archival footage of a tribal funeral ceremony is poorly edited into the movie, along with slo-mo shots of monkeys and birds. Watch as the SWAT team uses their guns as baseball bats rather than as, well, guns. Watch as a SWAT team member, while looking for zombies, puts on a little tutu and top hat and dances around. Watch as the SWAT team escapes in their Land Rover, but not fast enough to get away from stumbling zombies. And finally, watch as the survivors make it to the factory and then seemingly forget there are zombies everywhere. Every cliché imaginable is crammed into this one movie, and don’t let people tell you the gore is good. Oh yeah, there’s lots of it, and if quantity defines quality then they are right, but when someone gets bit on the leg, intestines don’t come poring out. A+ on the craptacular scale. They don’t get any better/worse than this.
Dead and Buried (1981)- Twist on the ‘town with a secret’ flick, this town has a secret, and it’s a doozy! New folks who show up in town wind up dead, killed in some pretty heinous fashion as to mutilate their looks. But then they turn up as town residents later on. The local sheriff starts looking into the deaths, and starts to wonder just how his wife and the local weirdo mortician all fit into the mystery. Very well done by horror master Dan O’Bannon, this is a fun ride, frightening, mysterious, and campy to boot. An almost perfect mix (that Dan would perfect a little later with "Return of the Living Dead", this is kind of almost "Return of the Living Dead" light). The ending probably could have gone one of two ways; I think it went the right way over all (you knew it had to be one or the other, that’s all I’ll say.) I liked this one a lot, nothing great, but no glaring weaknesses either. A-.
An American Werewolf in London (1981)- Another classic from my youth. American hitchhiking tourists have no respect for local custom or local's advice. One dies, one becomes a werewolf. The one that becomes a werewolf is visited by his dead friend and later by his victims, which makes for some great camp. Enter a nurse love interest and you've got a classic horror comedy. Great effects for the day and a great twist on an old tale. A+.
Burial Ground (1981)- A classic piece of Euro-Trash and a must see for Italian zombie movie fans, Hell, the bizarre man-child with the Oedipus complex is worth the price of admission alone. Plus dialogue like "Mommy, this cloth smells like death", man, what can I say? A scientist apparently raises up some zombies who then go on a rampage after some weird folks staying at a mansion in the boonies. Not sure what they are doing but it seems they may be prepping for an orgy. Some of the effects are good, some of the zombie make up is good, some of it is bad. Over all this is just a classic piece of work of total trash. I think this gets an A+ on the craptacular scale.
Oasis of the Zombies (1981)- This movie is one big ol' turd! Let's see if I can lay it out for you. A couple whiny bitches are exploring an oasis out in the middle of the desert (I'm assuming somewhere in North Africa), one is very whiny and wants to leave and one wants to explore. They die. Cut to a meeting. A guy tells another guy where to find some treasure; it's in the oasis in the desert. The guy who told is killed, or drugged, or something. Zombies take forever to get out of the sand and the makeup job looks like something a 10 year old would do for Halloween (are these really supposed to be German WWII soldier zombies?). A story about Nazis with a load of gold being ambushed is told with a fairly well staged flashback, camera lingers on desert, people, stuff, time stands still. Man who told where gold is son and his annoying friends decide to find the gold. Camera lingers on desert, pointless stuff happens, time stands still. Camp is set up, other people want the gold, forced sex scene to ensure R rating, camera lingers on desert, I'm screaming at the TV to get this agony over with. Zombies rise from the sand again and attack, sort of, if that really passes for an attack. Some kids die, zombies are burned, really bad 'philosophical' ending finally roles around. This movie had bad lighting, camera work, direction, acting, dialogue, dubbing, and pretty much everything else you could think of. Kind of fun to rip on but it just moved so slow that I can't even recommend it for that. F
Halloween II (1981)- Although it doesn’t compare to the fall off between "The Exorcist" and "The Exorcist II", there is still a fairly big fall off between this and the original. Michael Myers is still an effective character and hasn’t become the cartoon he would eventually become and there are some effective moments but it all seems to be rehash of the original but without the intense suspense. Once we know a character like Michael Myers the surprise is gone and the overall effectiveness is lost, so we wind up with gore replacing suspense (despite its reputation there is virtually no gore in "Halloween"). Plot-wise we pick right up where "Halloween" left off. The bodies are discovered, Lori is whisked off to the hospital, cops quell the masses, and Michael kills more folks as he heads off to try and finish the job on Lori. There is some unintentional humor in spots like the boy being run over by the police car, which also lessons the overall horror of the movie. The subplot of Michael and Lori being brother and sister is revealed and an unnecessary and unexplored pagan element is added with Michael’s writing "Samhain" on the black board of a school he’s broken into. Not a bad effort, especially when compared to the terrible slasher flicks which followed closely on its heels, but still nowhere near as effective as the first. B.
Beyond, The (1981)- Italian Zombie Master Fulci Strikes Again. Here's how I figure the planning for this movie went down. Meeting #1: "Hey I have an idea. Let's do a movie about a hotel built on top of a gateway to Hell and strange things start happening when someone decides to restore it." "Great idea!" Meeting #2: "Hey let's make this movie extremely gory with lots of slow death scenes throughout!" "Great idea when do we start?" "How about right now?" "But we don't have a script or have the plot hashed out yet." "That's OK, ACTION!" So, if you're looking for a coherent plot with good dialogue and acting look elsewhere. If you're looking for an atmospheric gory Eurotrash Zombie flick, look no further! Fulci gets in lots of eye obsessed kills which include but aren't limited to eyes gouged out, spider eating an eye, and a nail through the back of the head and popping out through the eye socket in front. Some of the dialogue is great too. At one point the lady who now owns the hotel and is trying to restore it finds out about the hotel's past (a man had found the key to Hell and was killed there as a devil worshipper) she says something to the effect "I'm not going to let a few electrical problems and a silly story scare me away." Of course she has left out the fact that her painter fell from the second story and was mumbling incoherently about 'The eyes' after the fall and then the plumber was inexplicably murdered in the basement by having his eyes gouged out and a body was discovered severely mutilated and bricked up in the wall and then the plumber's wife is killed by acid being poured on her face while at the morgue. Regardless, this lady ain't scared PERIOD! Some of the effects are really good some are really bad. The spider scene is hilarious as they very obviously only had two real spiders to use and used very poorly executed blurred camera work, quick editing, and some fake spiders pulled along on strings to make it look like more spiders. Another scene has a doctor hook a 'brain wave machine' up to a corpse that's been dead for 60 years, I'm not sure what he's expecting to see. A close up of the 'brain wave machine' reveals it is an old oscilloscope, not very impressive. Of course it eventually does kick on but seems to be showing heart rate rather than brain waves. Also look for the sign on the morgue "Do Not Entry", which the plumber's wife duly ignores as she goes in amongst the dead to put her dead husband's best suit on for his funeral. Is that a European custom? . And wow, I would love to get me one of those self loading .357s that doctor has in his desk (that must be one rough New Orleans neighborhood if the dotor keeps a handgun in his desk at the hospital)! And seriously, even if you didn't know it takes a head shot to kill a zombie wouldn't you be able to figure that out? I mean shoot on in the head it drops./ the next one you shoot in the shoulder, stomach, arm, it keeps coming then you shoot it in the head and it drops. Next one you shoot in the neck, shoulder, stomach, keeps coming. Shoot it in the head it drops. After about TEN OR TWELVE OF THOSE IT WULD STAND TO REASON TO JUST SHOOT THE DAMNED THINGS IN THE HEAD!!! Anyway...This is generally one of those love it or hate it flicks. Having said that I fall somewhere between, it is over rated stuff by many zombie fans but not as bad as the haters would have you believe. I'll give it a B for atmosphere and pure discomfort level. Fulci's "Zombi II" is better.
House By The Cemetery (1981)- The third in Fulci’s not-tied-together zombie trilogy. What do you get with a Luciano Fulci film? You get atmosphere, creative camera angles and shots, gore galore, and did I mention atmosphere? You also get bad acting, bad dubbing, and virtually no coherent narrative plot. So if you want storyline with your horror, leave Fulci at the door, if you want atmosphere and gore, then check this one out. A family moves into an old house by a cemetery so the father can continue the research of his predecessor who committed suicide. The couple’s incredibly annoying and poorly dubbed son keeps seeing and talking to a little girl, who may or may not be a ghost, and who warns him about moving into the house. They move to the town, a place the father may or may not have been before, and hire a babysitter who may or may not be in on some sinister plot or something like that. Then the zombified remains of the crazy doctor that lived in the house back in the day starts killing people off in gruesome and slow ways. We end with a typical Fulci circular logic ending and wonder to ourselves "What?" I’ll give this one a B because I like Fulci’s direction and vision, but don’t expect great acting, dubbing, or a story that makes much sense. This is only a step or two away from "Eraserhead".
Hell Night (1981)- The slasher genre, born in 1960 with Hitch’s "Psycho" and hitting puberty in 1974 with Clark’s "Black Christmas", graduated in 1978 with Carpenter’s "Halloween", which did for slashers what "Night of the Living Dead" did for zombies. Hell Night falls neatly into that high school/college kids in trouble slasher cliché that got so huge in the 80s. Despite the obvious comparisons to other flicks and the predictable plot and outcome, this is actually a fairly effective story. Not a lot of gore for gorehounds but there is some good suspense, atmosphere, directing, and acting (albeit a little over the top at times). 2 sorority and 2 fraternity pledges have to spend the night in an old mansion where a father reputedly killed his whole family, which apparently consisted of deformed kids, and then killed himself. When the police arrived they only found 3 of the 6 bodies, and a note detailing what had happened. Could survivors still be living in the house? Anyway, the kids get set to spend the night while other members attempt to scare them and they start dying off. Is everything that is happening practical jokes? Are any of the kids actually the murderer? Like I said, there isn’t much new here and over all it’s pretty predictable, but there is some good acting, suspense, and location. Suspend a little belief and have an 80s flashback. B.
My Bloody Valentine (1981)- Let me start by saying "Halloween" was a great movie, great directing, great story, original plot (although "Black Christmas" actually got there first) etc. The only bad thing I can say about "Halloween" is that it spun off so many 'wanna-bes'. "My Bloody Valentine" would fall in this category. Pretty blatantly ripped from the "Halloween" small-town-with-a-secret-escaped-lunatic-killer-on-a-killing-spree mold. A small mining town called Valentine has a traditional Valentine dance. Then one Valentine's Day 20 years ago there was an accident at the mine. While the rest of the town partied, miners were trapped. When they finally found the trapped miners, one had gone