A supremely large gila monster plagues a rural American town and its surroundings. Only hot-roddin' car-repairing future Rock & Roll star Chase (featuring his heart of gold), the local Sheriff and four cases of nitroglycerin stand between the gila monster and a good meal.
As the renaissance man nature of Chase subtly suggests, The Giant Gila Monster is not only a giant monster movie, but also a hot-rod epic and a Rock & Roll exploitation movie (complete with very bad songs). Such is the beauty of B-pictures.
The ill considered mixture even works in a way. Now, I am not exactly calling the movie good, but its completely straightforward silliness is so charming I couldn't help but grin stupidly for big chunks of its running time (well, not when Chase sings). It is like a condensed shot of all clichés of 50s movies.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
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What Lovecraftian terror are you?
You are Cthulhu!One of the most well-known and popular Great Old Ones, you are universally feared and worshiped. You wait beneath the seas until the stars are right, and then you shall rise from your watery prison to ravage across the earth.
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The Horror 51!?: Dead Men Walk (1943)
In a small town in the West of the USA a burial is held for one Elwyn Clayton. No one, not even his twin Lloyd seems very upset about the man's demise, which in the case of Dr. Lloyd Clayton isn't as strange as one might think. Finally driven to act by Elwyn's satanism and his brother's wish to convert Lloyd's daughter to Gail to the worship of EVIL, Lloyd threw his brother down a cliff. He will soon learn that it wasn't his best idea, since his brother returns from the dead as a vampire and starts a campaign to turn Gail and discredit Lloyd as an insane murderer.
What we have here is...an honest to Cthulhu excellent PRC production with George Zucco doing great, nuanced work as Elwyn & Lloyd. Most of the other actors, Dwight Frye as Elwyn's Renfield excluded, aren't exactly great, but no one is really all that bad, even the young hero (in most movies of this caliber the worst actor on screen) is quite tolerable, perhaps because his role as Gail's fiancé and skeptical counterpart to Zucco's Lloyd keeps him off the center stage for most of the film.
What is great is the script: It transfers a very old interpretation of vampirism that owes more to folklore than to Dracula into the (then) modern day and into a (budget-constrained, but still) palpably un-gothic place. Just as important and noteworthy is an idea that even today isn't used in vampire films all that often: people do not believe in vampires and if you are declaring yourself the fearless vampire hunter they will probably think you're insane. Or even an insane murderer.
Another wonderful point is the surprisingly ambiguous character of our real hero, Lloyd, who started the whole mess by murdering his brother.
Director Sam Newfield deserves some praise, too. He makes the most of the low budget and even provides a very dramatic and effective finale, much more poignant than in most of Dead Men Walk's contemporaries.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
The Horror!? 50: House On Haunted Hill (1959)
Millionaire Frederick Lauren and his fourth wife Annabell lead a charmed life. When they are not trying to kill each other with poison or weapons, they caress their beloved other with snide remarks. Or invite five strangers into a sinister house to a ghost party. Everyone who survives twelve hours locked in the haunted house will be rewarded with ten thousand dollars plus the gift he or she receives right at the beginning - a loaded gun. What could possibly go wrong?
William Castle, director and producer of House on Haunted Hill, possibly was the greatest exponent of horror films as carnival rides for a youthful matinée audience. What he and his films lacked in subtlety he compensated with bluster and piercing shrieks, what they lacked in depth with a sense of fun. And House is quite a lot of fun, even if you are neither twelve years old nor have the luck to watch the ending in a cinema for which the king of cheap publicity gags himself provided a flying skeleton. There really is so much to love here, from Vincent Price' gleeful performance as Loren to the EC-like dialogue. Some would argue that movies like Castle's are empty and without deeper worth but I can't keep myself from loving their mix of naivety and hucksterism. Having a fun time with a movie is its own worth.
Darling of the Day:
"Do you remember the fun we had when you poisoned me?"
William Castle, director and producer of House on Haunted Hill, possibly was the greatest exponent of horror films as carnival rides for a youthful matinée audience. What he and his films lacked in subtlety he compensated with bluster and piercing shrieks, what they lacked in depth with a sense of fun. And House is quite a lot of fun, even if you are neither twelve years old nor have the luck to watch the ending in a cinema for which the king of cheap publicity gags himself provided a flying skeleton. There really is so much to love here, from Vincent Price' gleeful performance as Loren to the EC-like dialogue. Some would argue that movies like Castle's are empty and without deeper worth but I can't keep myself from loving their mix of naivety and hucksterism. Having a fun time with a movie is its own worth.
Darling of the Day:
"Do you remember the fun we had when you poisoned me?"
The Horror!? 49: The Monster Walks (1932)
Stop me if you've heard this one before: Eccentric rich man dies. His daughter, the usual spineless whining creature we have to accept as our heroine, returns home with her fiancé, a condescending douche we have to accept as our hero. Soon, someone tries to kill her. Is it the only person with an alibi? Or the "killer ape" (this time not a man in a gorilla costume, but a pitiable chimpanzee) who is somehow able to escape from his cage in the cellar? The audience of the 30s was probably as unsurprised by the "mystery's" solution as the modern viewer.
The most interesting thing I can say about The Monster Walks is that it stands at a stylistic crossroad between silent movie and talking picture. It's obvious how much director and cast stilled struggled with the new technology, the few arresting moments are silent and look and feel as if they belong in a different and wordless film. Most of the time, the film is just kind of dull and very slow.
Warning: Contains demeaning black "comic relief"!
The most interesting thing I can say about The Monster Walks is that it stands at a stylistic crossroad between silent movie and talking picture. It's obvious how much director and cast stilled struggled with the new technology, the few arresting moments are silent and look and feel as if they belong in a different and wordless film. Most of the time, the film is just kind of dull and very slow.
Warning: Contains demeaning black "comic relief"!
The Horror!? 48: Bloodlust! (1959/1961?)
The four oldest teenagers around, consisting of always-scared-gal aka please-make-her-stop-whining-gal, guy with glasses, alpha male and uncharacteristically tough blonde, land on an island (Where? Are they on holiday? Who knows?). They don't know that they are entering the domain of Count Zaroff Dr. Balleau, who in his stint in the Army developed a taste for bloodshed and now spends his ample free time hunting and killing people and building neat dioramas with their taxidermied remains. Alas in the end every hunter falls victim to his own prey.
If you are stealing not insignificant parts of your script from somewhere, it is not a bad idea to steal from the best, in the case of Bloodlust! the (of course superior) The Most Dangerous Game.
Bloodlust! itself doesn't add much of value to the original formula, its characters stay as empty as the acting, but it is more than a little unfair to expect a late 50s drive-in movie to deliver much psychological depth, especially if it stays as conscious of its limitations as this one.
Its tight pacing came as a pleasant surprise and kept me entertained throughout.
Also, I am not sure that I have seen any film produced before Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast that features such an amount of gore effects.
If you are stealing not insignificant parts of your script from somewhere, it is not a bad idea to steal from the best, in the case of Bloodlust! the (of course superior) The Most Dangerous Game.
Bloodlust! itself doesn't add much of value to the original formula, its characters stay as empty as the acting, but it is more than a little unfair to expect a late 50s drive-in movie to deliver much psychological depth, especially if it stays as conscious of its limitations as this one.
Its tight pacing came as a pleasant surprise and kept me entertained throughout.
Also, I am not sure that I have seen any film produced before Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast that features such an amount of gore effects.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Horror!? 47: Shock (1946)
A woman checks into a hotel to await the arrival of her husband coming home from WWII, only to become witness of a murder in an adjoining room. Thanks to really bad impulse control a man kills his wife while they discuss divorce to help him marry his lover. The dear witness falls into a catatonic shock, like every good woman in a psycho thriller should. It's a great way to spare the poor actress having to do much acting and enables the plot to progress, as the soon consulted psychiatrist is not only (young) Vincent Price, but also the murderer. The psychiatrist, Dr. Cross, talks the finally returned husband into committing her to his psychiatric clinic.
At first he only tries to brainwash her into forgetting what she witnessed, but soon his femme-fatal-ish lover, who works as a nurse in the clinic, convinces him to murder his patient in the course of insulin shock therapy.
As you can see, the script is not very original, but at least it is tight and plays quite well with the fear of sane people in the grip of a malicious psychiatric system. An effect that is even stronger on the modern viewer, since the state of psychiatry in the 40s today seems primitive and barbaric, treatments and curative principles dangerous and ineffective, not to say not quite sane.
The direction is mostly basic, though not distractingly so. In its early scenes the movie promises something more in a short but technically very interesting dream sequence. This kind of stylistic flourish sadly soon disappears.
And then there is Vincent Price, who doesn't portrait Dr. Cross as demonic maniac, but as a driven man full of self doubt who just isn't strong enough to do the right thing although he very much knows what is right or wrong. Price's performance is what gives Shock a much needed sense of originality and life and makes it a movie well worth seeing.
At first he only tries to brainwash her into forgetting what she witnessed, but soon his femme-fatal-ish lover, who works as a nurse in the clinic, convinces him to murder his patient in the course of insulin shock therapy.
As you can see, the script is not very original, but at least it is tight and plays quite well with the fear of sane people in the grip of a malicious psychiatric system. An effect that is even stronger on the modern viewer, since the state of psychiatry in the 40s today seems primitive and barbaric, treatments and curative principles dangerous and ineffective, not to say not quite sane.
The direction is mostly basic, though not distractingly so. In its early scenes the movie promises something more in a short but technically very interesting dream sequence. This kind of stylistic flourish sadly soon disappears.
And then there is Vincent Price, who doesn't portrait Dr. Cross as demonic maniac, but as a driven man full of self doubt who just isn't strong enough to do the right thing although he very much knows what is right or wrong. Price's performance is what gives Shock a much needed sense of originality and life and makes it a movie well worth seeing.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The Horror!? 46: The Brain Machine (1977)
MilInCo strikes again. An evil government operation secretly abuses a not terribly well defined experiment about environmental issues (don't ask me, I didn't write the script), consisting of running four volunteers through psychological tests and then locking them into a room with slowly enclosing walls as well as some gibberish about bio-feedback, as a testing ground for their development of mind reading technology. As always, the experiment goes horribly wrong.
This at least surprisingly unflinching TV production could have been a very interesting little SF movie about the themes of paranoia and surveillance or an interesting little thriller about people falling apart under pressure, alas it does not look like the three scriptwriters did agree on what exactly The Brain Machine was supposed to be about. So they opted for the old tactic of very very slowly setting up any damn thing that came to mind (a useless prologue, a whole angle about the scientists not knowing for what their experiments are used and so on and so on), leaving about twenty minutes for half a dozen pay-offs that never really come to pass.
What interesting ideas and psychological intricacies are still left, are then utterly ruined by acting flat as a pancake.
This at least surprisingly unflinching TV production could have been a very interesting little SF movie about the themes of paranoia and surveillance or an interesting little thriller about people falling apart under pressure, alas it does not look like the three scriptwriters did agree on what exactly The Brain Machine was supposed to be about. So they opted for the old tactic of very very slowly setting up any damn thing that came to mind (a useless prologue, a whole angle about the scientists not knowing for what their experiments are used and so on and so on), leaving about twenty minutes for half a dozen pay-offs that never really come to pass.
What interesting ideas and psychological intricacies are still left, are then utterly ruined by acting flat as a pancake.
The Horror!? 45: Crimes at the Dark House (1940)
Another Tod Slaughter vehicle, with even more atrociously theatrical acting by just about everyone in the cast. I'll take the woodenness of many Hollywood Poverty Row actors over this gathering of bombastic hacks any day. At least the Americans knew that there is a difference between acting for film and acting for theatre. Not that the screaming and mugging found here (the true crimes at the dark house) would be more tolerable on stage.
As there is nothing else about this movie worth talking about, I'll let the curtain drop.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The Horror!? 44: Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)
AotGL is an archetypal specimen of late Fifties Roger & Gene Corman co-productions. So it is a strange mixture of the merely competent, the amateurishly incompetent and the surprisingly effective. "Merely competent" is the direction by future TV director Bernard L. Kowalski, and the script. Obviously scriptwriter Leo Gordon had a grip on concepts like theme and character, a less good grip on the concept of dialogue and no idea what plotting is supposed to mean at all.
"Surprisingly effective" is some of the acting (the part that doesn't fall under the description of "amateurishly incompetent"), some moments of actual suspense and some quite creepy scenes. Letting the monsters keep their victims alive to suck them dry over some time is a gruesome and effective touch, for example.
The "amateurishly incompetent" part of the movie lies in the nonsensical and baffling cutting. I dare anyone to try and explain what happens in the action scenes at the end. And then there are the monster costumes...
Did you know that leeches have arms, eyes and suction cups like an octopus has all over their bodies? Or that they wear air tanks under their skin? Well, the special effects crew (if you want to call them that) did.
But there are worse ways to waste an hour than with Giant Leeches.
"Surprisingly effective" is some of the acting (the part that doesn't fall under the description of "amateurishly incompetent"), some moments of actual suspense and some quite creepy scenes. Letting the monsters keep their victims alive to suck them dry over some time is a gruesome and effective touch, for example.
The "amateurishly incompetent" part of the movie lies in the nonsensical and baffling cutting. I dare anyone to try and explain what happens in the action scenes at the end. And then there are the monster costumes...
Did you know that leeches have arms, eyes and suction cups like an octopus has all over their bodies? Or that they wear air tanks under their skin? Well, the special effects crew (if you want to call them that) did.
But there are worse ways to waste an hour than with Giant Leeches.
The Horror!? 43: The Mad Monster (1942)
PRC had the dubious honor to be a Poverty Row studio even more budget deficient than Monogram. So if they needed (equally dubious) star power, they couldn't even afford poor old Bela Lugosi but had to use someone like George Zucco as their own kind of star. Which doesn't mean Zucco was a bad actor. In fact I would call him a better actor in a traditional sense of the word than Lugosi. At least he made a damn fine mad scientist. In the case of The Mad Monster he is the only participant who can be described with the word "actor" at all. I am at a loss what word to use to describe the person who "plays" our hero, young reporter Tommy, though "Jimmy Olsen" probably fits.
My personal hero is of course Zucco's Dr. Cameron, who has been -mostly through the words of four colleagues- discredited in the public eye as well as in the scientific community. In truth he has invented a way to transfer animalistic characteristics to humans, namely his favorite human guinea pig, his mentally handicapped handyman Pietro (or Pedro, as Jimmy Olsen calls him), thus creating a wolf man. He even thought of a useful application for his serum: He plans to sell it to the US Army and help create an army of uncontrollable, murderous wolf men, who will win the War (and probably eat the civilian population of Europe, but oh well). Dr. Cameron is a man with clear priorities, though, so he initially proceeds to let his own private wolf
man kill the men who are responsible for his disgrace (and a few innocents, but oh well).
All this is very, very entertaining for people who like this kind of stuff, especially since Zucco is great, the script merely stupid, and Sam Newfield's direction at least not too terrible (which is more than you can ask for of the director of White Pongo). I even found one relatively clever moment: The early grand exposition scene is handled by letting Zucco hold an impassioned speech to his enemies - or to be more precise, his hallucinations. If this is not a wonderfully budget conscious way to inform the viewer of all things of import and interest, including the good doctor's state of mind, I don't know what is.
My personal hero is of course Zucco's Dr. Cameron, who has been -mostly through the words of four colleagues- discredited in the public eye as well as in the scientific community. In truth he has invented a way to transfer animalistic characteristics to humans, namely his favorite human guinea pig, his mentally handicapped handyman Pietro (or Pedro, as Jimmy Olsen calls him), thus creating a wolf man. He even thought of a useful application for his serum: He plans to sell it to the US Army and help create an army of uncontrollable, murderous wolf men, who will win the War (and probably eat the civilian population of Europe, but oh well). Dr. Cameron is a man with clear priorities, though, so he initially proceeds to let his own private wolf
man kill the men who are responsible for his disgrace (and a few innocents, but oh well).
All this is very, very entertaining for people who like this kind of stuff, especially since Zucco is great, the script merely stupid, and Sam Newfield's direction at least not too terrible (which is more than you can ask for of the director of White Pongo). I even found one relatively clever moment: The early grand exposition scene is handled by letting Zucco hold an impassioned speech to his enemies - or to be more precise, his hallucinations. If this is not a wonderfully budget conscious way to inform the viewer of all things of import and interest, including the good doctor's state of mind, I don't know what is.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Horror!? 42: Atom Age Vampire (1960)
An exotic dancer is disfigured in an accident. Since nobody can restore her face, she lets herself be used as a guinea pig by a mad scientist. His treatment is partly successful. Her face is restored for a certain time, but afterwards her disfigurement returns. Without her knowing the scientist, who has fallen madly in love with her, starts to murder women for their treasured glands and treats her with them. But murder isn't that easy, so he transforms himself through the wonders of radiation into a hilarious hideous beast. He even finds a scapegoat for his deeds in the form of an escaped ape. But the police and the dancer's (semi-ex-)boyfriend can not be fooled forever...
This American cut of an Italian movie is full eighteen minutes shorter than the original, so its grinding stupidity and mindboggling cutting could very well not be the movies fault alone. But I highly doubt that eighteen more minutes of boredom could make it a better film. The plot is more a less a relapse to the horror style of the 30s and 40s, only without Lugosi, Zucco, Naish or Karloff and with a much longer running time.
Atom Age Vampire's real problem is of course a simple one: It is just plain boring.
The Horror!? 41: The Invisible Ghost (1941)
If not for some small and one big problem The Invisible Ghost could have been the rarest of creatures: a good Monogram film starring Bela Lugosi.
Lugosi is Mister Kessler, a (honestly) nice man living with his daughter and a few servants (including something virtually unheard of in films of this vintage - a black butler who is treated as an actual human being!). He seems to have only one problem. His wife left him some time ago for another man and broke his heart. What Kessler doesn't consciously know is that his wife and her boyfriend had a car accident that killed the man and drove Mrs. Kessler insane. For some reason Kessler's gardener keeps Mrs. Kessler secluded in some kind of cellar, possibly in the hope that no treatment of her mental illness and total isolation are the fastest way to her cure. Of course there is something that the gardener doesn't know - from time to time Mrs. Kessler sneaks out of her hiding place, stares through a window into the Kessler mansion and makes eye contact with her husband...who falls into some kind of trance/goes temporarily insane and strangles the next person he can find with his dressing gown. And here you can see the film's big problem in action: the script doesn't make a lick of sense. Or did you know that the police will not ever suspect the owner of a mansion to be the murderer who kills only people in his own damn house? Or that you can sentence people to death without any proof at all? The list of idiocies goes on and on.
All this could be quite fun, if the film itself wouldn't try to take the script seriously. Director Joseph H. Lewis does his best to use unusual camera angles, movement and the play of light and shadow to imbue the movie with atmosphere, but can barely make the idiotic watchable. He mostly directed Western and it is a real shame that one of his few horror/mystery efforts is such a waste of an obvious talent for mood and atmosphere.
Lugosi is surprisingly subtle and very likable when portraying Mister Kessler in his sane state of mind, only to go badly over the top when he has his fits, reminding me of a five year old imitating a mummy.
The rest of the cast, excluding Clarence Muse as the black butler Evans, who is very obviously the best actor of the lot, is as wooden as usual in Poverty Row features.
Lugosi is Mister Kessler, a (honestly) nice man living with his daughter and a few servants (including something virtually unheard of in films of this vintage - a black butler who is treated as an actual human being!). He seems to have only one problem. His wife left him some time ago for another man and broke his heart. What Kessler doesn't consciously know is that his wife and her boyfriend had a car accident that killed the man and drove Mrs. Kessler insane. For some reason Kessler's gardener keeps Mrs. Kessler secluded in some kind of cellar, possibly in the hope that no treatment of her mental illness and total isolation are the fastest way to her cure. Of course there is something that the gardener doesn't know - from time to time Mrs. Kessler sneaks out of her hiding place, stares through a window into the Kessler mansion and makes eye contact with her husband...who falls into some kind of trance/goes temporarily insane and strangles the next person he can find with his dressing gown. And here you can see the film's big problem in action: the script doesn't make a lick of sense. Or did you know that the police will not ever suspect the owner of a mansion to be the murderer who kills only people in his own damn house? Or that you can sentence people to death without any proof at all? The list of idiocies goes on and on.
All this could be quite fun, if the film itself wouldn't try to take the script seriously. Director Joseph H. Lewis does his best to use unusual camera angles, movement and the play of light and shadow to imbue the movie with atmosphere, but can barely make the idiotic watchable. He mostly directed Western and it is a real shame that one of his few horror/mystery efforts is such a waste of an obvious talent for mood and atmosphere.
Lugosi is surprisingly subtle and very likable when portraying Mister Kessler in his sane state of mind, only to go badly over the top when he has his fits, reminding me of a five year old imitating a mummy.
The rest of the cast, excluding Clarence Muse as the black butler Evans, who is very obviously the best actor of the lot, is as wooden as usual in Poverty Row features.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Horror!? 40: The Crimes of Stephen Hawke (1936)
I already explained my thoughts about movies as windows into another time. This is a very interesting, but in no way entertaining case in point. Stephen Hawke is a vehicle for British actor Tod Slaughter who was a popular stage actor in villain roles of Victorian melodramas and most of his films seem to follow the same formulas. He didn't change is acting style for film a single bit, leading to a performance so broad and stagy that Bela Lugosi looks like a most subtle and nuanced actor. Most of the other actors are even worse, while the even in 1936 quaint and old fashioned style of dialogue does nothing to lessen those problems.
My biggest problem with the movie is its (its director's? its star's) unwillingness to actually be a film. There is (again, even given the possibilities of the time) no interest in the visual part of filmmaking. The damn thing even starts as a filmed radio show (complete with vaudevillian song, comedy and interview with Slaughter - who is even more scene-chewing there!) before it transforms into something like a film.
I don't know much about British cinema of the Thirties, so I can't say if this kind of production is more typical of its time and place than more advanced movies, but like to imagine Stephen Hawke as an anachronism.
At least I know now how Victorian popular plays were supposed to be acted.
My biggest problem with the movie is its (its director's? its star's) unwillingness to actually be a film. There is (again, even given the possibilities of the time) no interest in the visual part of filmmaking. The damn thing even starts as a filmed radio show (complete with vaudevillian song, comedy and interview with Slaughter - who is even more scene-chewing there!) before it transforms into something like a film.
I don't know much about British cinema of the Thirties, so I can't say if this kind of production is more typical of its time and place than more advanced movies, but like to imagine Stephen Hawke as an anachronism.
At least I know now how Victorian popular plays were supposed to be acted.
Friday, April 18, 2008
The Horror!? 39: The Corpse Vanishes (1942)
Alright, this might be the most deranged of all Monogram horror cheapies featuring the great Bela Lugosi. Of course in my little world "deranged" equals "fun" and I really don't want to imagine someone who can watch this film without having any.
Bela overacts his role of a mad scientist in a gloriously unhinged fashion even surpassing his grand performance in The Devil Bat. Again our villain needs glands, this time to keep his insanely bitchy wife young. So he devises a most devious plan to collect the glands of young women: he sends poison orchids to women who are going to be married, so they are (seemingly) dying right at the altar. He then proceeds to steal the supposed corpses to harvest his beautiful fresh glands and keep his wife comparatively satisfied (I should add that they are sleeping in separate coffins).
But he is not alone. Helping him are a boring dude who can drive a car, a dwarf of dubious sanity, an old woman with an unnerving tendency to look unnerving and her son, the hunchback Angelo aka "The Angel", who really, really likes to fondle the hair of dead or unconscious women. All of them are acted in equally hysterical fashion.
Our heroes are a spunky young lady reporter and a young doctor, but who cares about them?
Much more important is our local freakshow in the old dark house.
I don't know what the producers, writer and director of the movie might have been thinking, but I know enough about poverty row creatives to be absolutely sure they didn't plan to make one of the weirdest -okay, let's be honest: completely insane- movies ever conceived. The actors however were surely in on the joke. There is no other explanation for the sublime quality of their performances.
Oh, and the dialogue!
Darling of many days to come:
"I find a coffin much more comfortable than a bed. Many people do so, my dear."
Bela overacts his role of a mad scientist in a gloriously unhinged fashion even surpassing his grand performance in The Devil Bat. Again our villain needs glands, this time to keep his insanely bitchy wife young. So he devises a most devious plan to collect the glands of young women: he sends poison orchids to women who are going to be married, so they are (seemingly) dying right at the altar. He then proceeds to steal the supposed corpses to harvest his beautiful fresh glands and keep his wife comparatively satisfied (I should add that they are sleeping in separate coffins).
But he is not alone. Helping him are a boring dude who can drive a car, a dwarf of dubious sanity, an old woman with an unnerving tendency to look unnerving and her son, the hunchback Angelo aka "The Angel", who really, really likes to fondle the hair of dead or unconscious women. All of them are acted in equally hysterical fashion.
Our heroes are a spunky young lady reporter and a young doctor, but who cares about them?
Much more important is our local freakshow in the old dark house.
I don't know what the producers, writer and director of the movie might have been thinking, but I know enough about poverty row creatives to be absolutely sure they didn't plan to make one of the weirdest -okay, let's be honest: completely insane- movies ever conceived. The actors however were surely in on the joke. There is no other explanation for the sublime quality of their performances.
Oh, and the dialogue!
Darling of many days to come:
"I find a coffin much more comfortable than a bed. Many people do so, my dear."
The Horror!? 38: Black Dragons (1942)
Why does mad Bela Lugosi kill the American members of a Japanese fifth column cell? I'm certainly not going to tell. This kind of surprise is something one has to experience for herself.
Welcome to the wonderful world of WWII anti-Japanese propaganda movies, surprisingly enough almost completely without white people in offensive make-up or Asian people.
Compared to King of the Zombies, Black Dragons is a masterpiece of logic and suspense. Alas in the real world I would call it perhaps slightly entertaining, especially for people who slog through the "acting" (not even Bela seems to be trying), "script" and "dialogue" to the very silly conclusion.
Darlings of the Day:
"Alice, will you marry me?"
"For what?"
"So I can beat you up!"
"A businessman has no time to engage in feminine emotions."
Welcome to the wonderful world of WWII anti-Japanese propaganda movies, surprisingly enough almost completely without white people in offensive make-up or Asian people.
Compared to King of the Zombies, Black Dragons is a masterpiece of logic and suspense. Alas in the real world I would call it perhaps slightly entertaining, especially for people who slog through the "acting" (not even Bela seems to be trying), "script" and "dialogue" to the very silly conclusion.
Darlings of the Day:
"Alice, will you marry me?"
"For what?"
"So I can beat you up!"
"A businessman has no time to engage in feminine emotions."
The Horror!? 37: King of the Zombies (1941)
In short: Nazi spy on island uses hypnosis and voodoo hoopla to do mean things. A government agent and his incredibly racist depicted comic relief servant intervene.
Supposed to be funny, actually very uncomfortable to watch and atrociously unfunny.
Oh and: Dear Lord, please make the people on IMDb who think Mantan Moreland's performance is somehow subversive see the error of their ways. What to do about the people who call this movie "funny" I really don't know, but I'm sure you'll think of something.
Supposed to be funny, actually very uncomfortable to watch and atrociously unfunny.
Oh and: Dear Lord, please make the people on IMDb who think Mantan Moreland's performance is somehow subversive see the error of their ways. What to do about the people who call this movie "funny" I really don't know, but I'm sure you'll think of something.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Horror!? 36: Monster From A Prehistoric Planet aka Gappa (1967)
The greedy owner of Playmate Magazine sends an expedition to a tropical island to populate his soon to be opened theme park (Playmate Land!) with exotic flora and fauna. The explorers soon find something better - a freshly hatched amphibian dino-bird thingy whom the native population calls Gappa. Of course the (very friendly and peaceful) plead with our intrepid imperialists and warn them of Gappa's rage. And yes, of course the thieving bastards ignore it. Soon after our "heroes" leave, the little one's parents appear, finding their child missing and stomping the innocent natives to death. To everyone's delight this will not be the last stomping to occur.
And the stomping is what makes the film worthwhile, although the rest of the movie also has its charms if of a more troublesome kind.Unfortunately the first half of the movie is painfully slow, all set-up without much payoff until the destruction finally starts.
Our heroes are morally reprehensible and their so called "change" is of a sappy dishonesty that would be disgusting were it not so funny. And it's obviously supposed to be a good thing when a female photographer intends to give up her job to become a housewife and marry "an honest and hardworking man".
The monster suits look suspect. The effects scenes are silly but effective if you like your giant monsters battling the Japanese Defense Forces and causing fake looking tidal waves (and who doesn't?).
But the most priceless moment of all is the grand reunion of Little Gappa and its parents, played in an absolutely bizarre mode of honesty and bathos. Afterwards our sweet little family literally flies into the sunset.
And the stomping is what makes the film worthwhile, although the rest of the movie also has its charms if of a more troublesome kind.Unfortunately the first half of the movie is painfully slow, all set-up without much payoff until the destruction finally starts.
Our heroes are morally reprehensible and their so called "change" is of a sappy dishonesty that would be disgusting were it not so funny. And it's obviously supposed to be a good thing when a female photographer intends to give up her job to become a housewife and marry "an honest and hardworking man".
The monster suits look suspect. The effects scenes are silly but effective if you like your giant monsters battling the Japanese Defense Forces and causing fake looking tidal waves (and who doesn't?).
But the most priceless moment of all is the grand reunion of Little Gappa and its parents, played in an absolutely bizarre mode of honesty and bathos. Afterwards our sweet little family literally flies into the sunset.
The Horror!? 35: The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955)
Oceanographer Professor King is somehow involved in triggering underwater radiation that creates one of the most boring creatures around. Little does he know that the government and a square-jawed scientist are already on his case. He is equally clueless about his assistant's (who isn't allowed to enter the lab anyway) plan to sell the secret the movie never bothers to define to "a foreign power". I would gladly say that the monster goes on a rampage, but grappling with two or three people and shoving them out of their rowboats is the best it does manage. The actually killings seem to be done by the underwater death ray anyway, I think. Not that the movies bothers to tell us.
We have here a monster movie/spy film crossover with a script as undramatic and illogical as possible, bad-but-not-funny dialogue, wooden acting, and an uninteresting monster. I am bored now.
We have here a monster movie/spy film crossover with a script as undramatic and illogical as possible, bad-but-not-funny dialogue, wooden acting, and an uninteresting monster. I am bored now.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The Horror!? 34: One Frightened Night (1935)
And another mansion mystery, although gorilla free and really quite good. An old millionaire invites his prospective heirs into his old dark house to inform them, that he'll give each one of them an equal part of his fortune, unless his estranged granddaughter arrives until midnight. Two women claiming to be the heiress arrive, and soon one of them is murdered. With a house full of suspects and the usual comedic cops, the millionaire himself must solve the case.
One Frightened Night takes one or two interesting deviations from the usual direction of this kind of mystery fare, which -added to snappy dialogue and a breezy pace- is more than I expect from movies of the type. I even found myself laughing a few times. Of course not about the (fortunately tolerable) buffoonish comedic relief, but about some really clever lines, most of them delivered by our unusual hero.
One Frightened Night takes one or two interesting deviations from the usual direction of this kind of mystery fare, which -added to snappy dialogue and a breezy pace- is more than I expect from movies of the type. I even found myself laughing a few times. Of course not about the (fortunately tolerable) buffoonish comedic relief, but about some really clever lines, most of them delivered by our unusual hero.
The Horror!? 33: Voodoo Black Exorcist (1973)
Ah, Voodoo Black Exorcist, who are you trying to fool? To nobody's surprise VBE contains no voodoo black exorcists. In truth it is a kind of remake of the classical The Mummy, only with (supposedly Nigerian) voodoo and without talent or taste. We get a cruise ship and a very sweaty policeman instead.
But at least we are in the world of wonderfully inept filmmaking where camera work is highly original/batshit insane, acting is a subset of sweating and nothing makes any sense at all. As a bonus this dubbed version presents us with a battered and bruised and absurdly framed full frame print plus very inappropriate dubbing. I should probably mention the blackface and the exceedingly red flashbacks too. And the fire-eating/dancing sequences that made me think wistfully about watching Vampyros Lesbos again.
Darling of the day:
"You speak English well."
"Three centuries in museums. I have learned many, many things."
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The Horror!? 32: The Head (1959)
Wonderfully mad scientist Dr. Ood (Horst Frank), who -as he will tell you while foaming at the mouth- is a genius. Not only does he preserve the mind of famous Scientist Prof. Dr. Abel by keeping his disembodied head alive (and really, why does the old fart Abel not like it?), he even exchanges the heads of a hunchbacked nurse and a striptease dancer to create a much more pleasing nurse-head/striptease dancer-body combination. I certainly can't say why he's called a mad scientist. One or two murders in the name of science aren't really that bad.
Die Nackte und der Satan (the original title means "The Naked Woman and the Demon") is something very special. In Germany after World War II up until the 80s the horror genre (apart from Edgar Wallace Krimis) wasn't really a part of local film production, so a horror movie like this that today seems like an obvious forerunner of the peculiar European horror style I love so much is something I treasure. Especially when the film is not just obscure but excellent.
Visually it is obviously heavily influenced by the expressionist German horror movies of the silent era - architecture, nature and shadows seem to lead a life of their own and lend a surprising measure of style to the pulpy plot. Heavy (for 1959) overtones of sleaze and equally heavy undertones of psychosexual intricacies are also part of the fun. Add to this well known German character actor Horst Frank's delirious performance and you will find one of the weirdest (in every sense of the word) movies of the 50s.
As an aside: There is no German DVD of The Head, so this dubbed English version is the best way to see one of the few German movies of the 50s worth watching.
Die Nackte und der Satan (the original title means "The Naked Woman and the Demon") is something very special. In Germany after World War II up until the 80s the horror genre (apart from Edgar Wallace Krimis) wasn't really a part of local film production, so a horror movie like this that today seems like an obvious forerunner of the peculiar European horror style I love so much is something I treasure. Especially when the film is not just obscure but excellent.
Visually it is obviously heavily influenced by the expressionist German horror movies of the silent era - architecture, nature and shadows seem to lead a life of their own and lend a surprising measure of style to the pulpy plot. Heavy (for 1959) overtones of sleaze and equally heavy undertones of psychosexual intricacies are also part of the fun. Add to this well known German character actor Horst Frank's delirious performance and you will find one of the weirdest (in every sense of the word) movies of the 50s.
As an aside: There is no German DVD of The Head, so this dubbed English version is the best way to see one of the few German movies of the 50s worth watching.
Monday, April 14, 2008
The Horror!? 31: Man with Two Lives (1942)
I wasn't sure what to write about this film while watching it, but the "final twist" saved me. I don't even have to go into the plot much, because, as the last scene shows, the whole fucking slog was a hallucination of our hero after a hit on the head.
And you know what? This is the only rule every artist in every narrative art should follow: "If you think your plot is such a piece of crap that you have to make your complete book/movie/play/whatever a hallucination, can it."
And you know what? This is the only rule every artist in every narrative art should follow: "If you think your plot is such a piece of crap that you have to make your complete book/movie/play/whatever a hallucination, can it."
The Horror!? 30: The Atomic Brain aka Monstrosity (1964)
Just imagine yourself as a rich and mean old woman. You've got money, a (not very much) younger lover, but you know that you soon will die. It just isn't fair.
Fortunately the world of z-grade movies holds the solution to all of your problems. What could be easier than to employ one of those mad scientists and let him install a nuclear reactor in the basement of your mansion, so he can transplant your brain into a younger body?
Well, you didn't expect all the problems that would arise. Violently phony British accents and a narrator who just doesn't know how to shut up are the least of your problems, with earlier experiments of your scientist running loose, everyone's inability to act and your scriptwriter's inability to make anything make any sense at all still not the worst. No, what's worse is this damnably cat brained girl with her absolutely hilarious cat imitation and the traitorous doctor transplanting your brain into the cat's body in shameful ignorance of the basics of physics.
But there's always the reactor's self destruct system. Even a kitty can use it.
Fortunately the world of z-grade movies holds the solution to all of your problems. What could be easier than to employ one of those mad scientists and let him install a nuclear reactor in the basement of your mansion, so he can transplant your brain into a younger body?
Well, you didn't expect all the problems that would arise. Violently phony British accents and a narrator who just doesn't know how to shut up are the least of your problems, with earlier experiments of your scientist running loose, everyone's inability to act and your scriptwriter's inability to make anything make any sense at all still not the worst. No, what's worse is this damnably cat brained girl with her absolutely hilarious cat imitation and the traitorous doctor transplanting your brain into the cat's body in shameful ignorance of the basics of physics.
But there's always the reactor's self destruct system. Even a kitty can use it.
The Horror 29!?: Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride aka Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
Count Dracula leads a satanic cult that plans to destroy mankind through use of a mutant strain of the bubonic plague. His arch enemy Van Helsing and his granddaughter, a Scotland Yard inspector and a few secret agents are trying to stop him.
The last Hammer Dracula film and the second that tried to modernize the series by dragging the Count screaming into the light of the modern day. Only here, quite in opposition to Dracula A.D. 1972, it actually was the modern day of its time and not what an eighty year old of the time thought about the modern world. What I like most about Satanic Rites is that this update does not try to drag Hammer's old style of horror into the Seventies but goes to great length to find a new formula for the series by crossing it with the spy movie genre, or to be more precise, British spy television shows like The Avengers or Secret Agent Man.
Most viewers seem to hate the film for exactly that reason, while I find myself more or less convinced by its idea and execution.
The acting, as was always the case with Hammer, is solid to great (although Christopher Lee really hams it up this time), the script tight but not great, the production values not as high as they used to be in the studio's golden age, but still used with obvious care. Only Alan Gibson's direction is a little pedestrian, though solid enough to make for a very fun movie.
The movie's commercial failure is a little tragedy, not only because it marked the beginning of the end for Hammer, but also because it deprived us of a lot of copy cat movies in the Occult Spy Film genre that never was. Just to think was Roger Corman or Jess Franco would have made of it!
The last Hammer Dracula film and the second that tried to modernize the series by dragging the Count screaming into the light of the modern day. Only here, quite in opposition to Dracula A.D. 1972, it actually was the modern day of its time and not what an eighty year old of the time thought about the modern world. What I like most about Satanic Rites is that this update does not try to drag Hammer's old style of horror into the Seventies but goes to great length to find a new formula for the series by crossing it with the spy movie genre, or to be more precise, British spy television shows like The Avengers or Secret Agent Man.
Most viewers seem to hate the film for exactly that reason, while I find myself more or less convinced by its idea and execution.
The acting, as was always the case with Hammer, is solid to great (although Christopher Lee really hams it up this time), the script tight but not great, the production values not as high as they used to be in the studio's golden age, but still used with obvious care. Only Alan Gibson's direction is a little pedestrian, though solid enough to make for a very fun movie.
The movie's commercial failure is a little tragedy, not only because it marked the beginning of the end for Hammer, but also because it deprived us of a lot of copy cat movies in the Occult Spy Film genre that never was. Just to think was Roger Corman or Jess Franco would have made of it!
Saturday, April 12, 2008
The Horror!? 28: White Pongo (1945)
The jungle adventure movie genre is one I haven't been able to warm. White Pongo certainly won't change that. In fact it incorporates everything that irritates me about jungle movies. So it features casual and not so casual racism (a head porter called Mumbo Jumbo!?), a script without a single clue about Africa, minutes and minutes and minutes of stock animal footage. Oh, and not much adventure of course. In addition to the stock animal footage the film also grants us minutes and minutes and minutes of men in bad gorilla suits making really strange noises and (like the actors not in gorilla suits) doing not much of interest and further minutes and minutes and minutes of White Pongo, the "missing link", a man in a white gorilla suit, staring and staring and staring at the expedition that is supposed to catch him.
But viewer beware! There is (kind of) something happening in the last few minutes, which at this point in the film looks like the most thrilling thing you have ever seen. I nearly woke up!
Of course I can not and will not spoil these incredible action packed final moments. Whoever makes it this far into White Pongo deserves at least the little the film has to offer unspoiled.
But viewer beware! There is (kind of) something happening in the last few minutes, which at this point in the film looks like the most thrilling thing you have ever seen. I nearly woke up!
Of course I can not and will not spoil these incredible action packed final moments. Whoever makes it this far into White Pongo deserves at least the little the film has to offer unspoiled.
The Horror!? 27: Horror of the Zombies (1974)
is one of the half a dozen titles the third Blind Dead movie is known by. Reading them all is the most entertaining thing pertaining to the film you could do. I really recommend to abstain from trying to watch it.
"Is there a plot?" you might ask yourself before watching. Afterwards, you will still ask yourself the same question. But I am feeling helpful today so I'll give you three cues: people, galleon, Blind dead. And another sentence: Please make it stop. Not that there's anything happening or any mood built or any acting taking place, but please make it stop anyway.
"Is there a plot?" you might ask yourself before watching. Afterwards, you will still ask yourself the same question. But I am feeling helpful today so I'll give you three cues: people, galleon, Blind dead. And another sentence: Please make it stop. Not that there's anything happening or any mood built or any acting taking place, but please make it stop anyway.
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