Archive for 70s horror

Meals for Monsters (Christmas Edition): SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT (1972)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 2012, 70s Horror, B-Movies, Evil Santas, Family Secrets, Grindhouse Goodies, HOLIDAY CHEER, Jenny Orosel Columns, Low Budget Movies, Meals for Monsters, Psycho killer with tags , , , , , , , , on December 25, 2012 by knifefighter

MEALS FOR MONSTERS: SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT (1972)
Special Christmas Review and recipes by Jenny Orosel

SilentNightBloodyNight1974USposterThere are a ton of Christmas horror movies to liven up the season. For every disgustingly sweet animated special with singing toys and perky reindeer, there is a psychopath in a Santa suit screaming about “garbage day,” or a homicidal, wise-cracking snowman. But a truly scary horror film, those are harder to come by. Recently, though, I discovered SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT (1972), and it saved my sanity from the season’s twentieth bad cover of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”.

Something happened in the Butler mansion on Christmas Eve, 1935. Little is known, other than the mansion had been converted into an asylum in order to provide treatment for Wilfred Butler’s teenage daughter. Neither of them survived, and the asylum was shut down. Fast forward three decades and Butler’s grandson is trying to sell the old house. The city’s elite want it destroyed. And people connected to the house are dying at the hands of a masked killer. Who is it, why are they massacring the town one by one, and what does it have to do with that fateful Christmas Eve?

SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT could have easily been a horrible movie. Let’s face it, a psychotic killer and a mental hospital setting are hardly original. Yet somehow writer/director Theodore Gershuny manages to make it as realistic as it can be, consistently suspenseful, and rather unpredictable. The performances were pretty good as well, especially from genre favorites John Carradine and Mary Woronov. There wasn’t much of a budget, but BLOODY NIGHT didn’t need it. The scares came from the great pacing not fancy special effects, so I rarely noticed. It might be that I expected so little going into it but I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had with BLOODY NIGHT.  So much fun, in fact, that I made it the Christmas Meals for Monsters column.

The Christmas Eve of 1935 included a huge feast with champagne flowing freely. In honor of one of the stars, I’ve named the cocktail:

THE GINGER WORONOV:

drink1 part ginger ale
4 parts sparkling wine
1 splash bitters
serve cold

You can’t have a feast–especially a Christmas Eve feast–without a roast. The traditional beef rib roast or Chateaubriand can get pricey VERY fast, and would hardly fit the budget of BLOODY NIGHT. An eye of round is a relatively inexpensive beef roast, and can still be delicious if done right.

CHRISTMAS EVE ROAST BEEF:

dinner3-pound eye of round roast
1 bunch fresh sage
1 bunch fresh tarragon
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS: Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Soak the herbs in water while the oven heats. When the oven is ready, put the herbs in the roasting pan underneath the rack. Salt and pepper to taste. Put the roast in the hot oven for a half hour. Turn off the oven but DO NOT open the door. Leave the roast in the oven for an hour and a half. This will make it medium doneness. If you prefer your beef more cooked through, increase the initial cooking time. Serve sliced thin.

The Christmas Eve scene included a cameo by Candy Darling, one of my favorite “superstars” from Andy Warhol’s stable of actors. Her role was small and added very little to the overall plot, but she was memorable and a nice little addition to the flick. As a nod to her and her inclusion:

CHRISTMAS CANDY DARLING (aka Peppermint Bark)

dessert1 pound dark chocolate (NOT chips)
1 pound white chocolate (not chips, either)
6 candy canes

Smash the unwrapped candy canes until well pulverized. Line a 9×9 square cake pan with wax paper. In the microwave, heat the dark chocolate in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each, until completely melted (you will be tempted to heat it for longer increments. DON’T DO IT! Trust me.) Pour melted chocolate into the pan, spread evenly, and refrigerate until solid. Heat the white chocolate in the same manner. Pour over the cooled dark chocolate and, before setting in the fridge, sprinkle evenly with the candy cane pieces. Once the candy has hardened, break apart into wedges. Will stay good for weeks, as long as it isn’t stored on a radiator.

SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT is in the public domain and easy to get a hold of. Getting a hold of a decent copy, though, is much more difficult. The copy I watched was from Alpha Video and, while grainy, was not unwatchable. And there’s something fun about it, amid the Martha Stewart level of neatness and precision abounding during the holidays, to watch something with flaws and scratches. So relax, let your hair down, and blow off all that holiday season steam with some good, old-fashioned lunatics.

© Copyright 2012 by Jenny Orosel

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Lady Anachronism’s Fallout Shelter: THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (1976)

Posted in 2012, 70s Horror, Apocalyptic Films, Lady Anachronism's Fallout Shelter, Mutants!, Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel Columns, Zombies with tags , , , , , , , on September 18, 2012 by knifefighter

“Lady Anachronism’s Fallout Shelter” Takes on
THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (1976)
By Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel

Pull up a chair, pass around some rations, and get comfortable. Here at Lady Anachronism’s Fallout Shelter, I’ll take you back into time, when Atomic Age cats and dolls fretted over the bomb and visions of alien invaders flickered on the big screen at the local drive-in. Technological or political developments may have made these films obsolete, but I hope you’ll join me in rediscovering forgotten Cold War-era cinema.

THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (1976) is a rare treat, a mélange of science fiction and horror, all while blatantly ripping off George Romero. Directed by Argentinian director Leon Klimovsky (THE WEREWOLF VERSUS THE VAMPIRE WOMAN, 1971), the film opens to a bright bedroom. Lily (Maria Perschy) is awakened by her husband, Victor (Tomas Pico). They have to plan for a party they’ll be throwing later that night.

The scene cuts to the office of a Russian ambassador. We know he’s Russian because he calls someone “comrade,” and there’s a picture of Lenin proudly displayed in his office. He’s speaking with someone on the telephone about leaving the country. We discover something bad might happen, but maybe not, at least according to the ambassador.

We move on to the party at Lily and Victor’s mansion in the countryside. Lily and Victor discuss who will be attending. It becomes clearer that this is going to be a kinky party. Doctors and businessmen, who are instructed to wear these bizarre rubber masks, are there to have a decadent meal with plenty of wine and narcotics—and a lovely selection of prostitutes to satisfy their needs. (For the under-18 or nudity-sensitive crowd, there is no explicit sex and only a small amount of nudity.)

Before things can get really kinky, the basement room where the Marquis de Sade-inspired debauchery was to take place begins to shake violently. The ceiling cracks open. The servants come in screaming, their eyes completely white. A pigeon crashes into the house, also devoid of its eyesight.

Dr. Fulton (Alberto de Mendoza) tells everyone he believes Europe has been hit by a nuclear bomb. The cellar-level bordello is the perfect place to hide out until it becomes clearer what steps they should take.

The following day, the men venture out to the village to gather supplies in a scene that looks remarkably like something straight out of THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964). While there, they discover everyone in the village is blind, suffering from some strange disease brought on by the nuclear fallout. In one of the stranger scenes, the men break into a grocery store to get some food. They’re accosted by the storeowner, who is blind and doing his best to protect his store. Victor, who seemingly lacks all human decency, takes out his switchblade and jabs it into the guy.

The rest of the men attempt to deliver some of their ill-gotten food to the monastery, where the blinded masses are moaning and wandering around aimlessly. Victor wants nothing to do with their sappy, bleeding-heart charity, and he steps outside to smoke a cigarette. Some of the blind villagers find him and grab at him like zombies. He begins shooting them, but Dr. Robertson (Ricardo Palacios) strangles him to death before he can hurt anyone else.

No one tells Lily what has happened to her husband, beyond the fact that he is dead, out of respect for Dr. Robertson. Even so, murdering Victor takes a toll on Dr. Robertson. He wanders around in a catatonic state for a while, but then starts acting like an animal. The rotund doctor even takes to crawling around the mansion on all fours in the nude. Dr. Messier (Emiliano Redondo) tries to comfort the nutcase with a transistor radio. The radio has been silent since the bomb hit, but Messier tells Robertson that perhaps one day the radio will play music again.

Fulton and the lovely Clara (Nadiuska, who is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Conan’s mother in 1982’s CONAN THE BARBARIAN), find love despite the horrifying circumstances. It’s actually a believable, beautiful relationship, a bond that lasts throughout the film.

The film features Paul Naschy, Spain’s answer to Lon Chaney, who also starred in Klimovsky’s THE WEREWOLF VERSUS THE VAMPIRE WOMAN. He portrays Bourne, a man with flared nostrils who is ready and willing to shoot, punch, or kick anything in sight. Between Bourne and the blind zombie-like folks, the members of the party are in a dangerous spot.

Meanwhile, the blind zombies are being led around by a man who was blind before the bomb struck. He instructs them to attack the members of the party. One woman has her eyes gouged out by the horde. Another is shot in the mouth.

Suddenly, the transistor radio begins playing music. An announcer comes on to tell the survivors of the blast where they should report for further instructions. Between the blind people and the shotgun wielding Bourne, the remaining party members must fight for their lives. Few succeed.

Fulton and Clara make it after escaping into the woods while the others fight it out among themselves and the zombie horde. They flag down a bus driven by two men in radiation suits. Fulton gives them his identification. The two board the bus, which is occupied by other healthy people.

I won’t give away the ending to those who are eager to see this Spanish delight, but it left me feeling cold and frustrated. This was an exceptionally good film with an ending that fell flat for me.

It is obvious Klimovsky was heavily influenced by NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and THE OMEGA MAN (1971), or its predecessor THE LAST MAN ON EARTH. He brought his own style and vision to the table, and it makes for a refreshing take on the theme. The film is not without its plot holes. Some of the characters’ reactions to a horrifying situation don’t make much sense, but perhaps Klimovsky intended to demonstrate that people act irrationally when faced with a crisis. Despite its flaws, I highly recommend it.

© Copyright 2012 by Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel

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In the Spooklight: THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT (1971)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 2010, 70s Horror, B-Movies, Deformed Freaks!, Drive-in Movies, In the Spooklight, Mad Doctors!, Medical Experiments!, Michael Arruda Reviews, Twisted with tags , , , , , , , on July 13, 2012 by knifefighter

The following IN THE SPOOKLIGHT column originally ran in the HWA NEWSLETTER in July 2010.  Look for it and all 115 IN THE SPOOKLIGHT columns in the IN THE SPOOKLIGHT EBook due out from NECON EBooks later this year!
 

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT:
THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT (1971)
By Michael Arruda

 

Are two heads really better than one?

Not when one head belongs to an insane murderer, as is the case in THE INCREDIBLE 2- HEADED TRANSPLANT (1971), a lurid little film which for some strange reason I happen to like a lot.

Bruce Dern, one of my all-time favorite film crazies, is cast against type as Dr. Roger Girard, a scientist who has devised a method to create two-headed beings.  Why?  I have no idea, and the movie doesn’t really give us a reason either.

I wish they had.  It would have made things really interesting.  I mean, think of the things you could do with two heads:  read twice as fast, eat your meal and dessert at the same time, drive while texting, and kiss your wife while flirting with the blonde at the next table.

When an insane killer named Cass (Albert Cole) breaks into Roger’s home, attacking his wife Linda (Pat Priest – Marilyn from TV’s THE MUNSTERS!) and murdering the gardener, Roger and his assistant fight back, and the assistant shoots Cass.  Before the killer dies, they attach his head to the hulking body of Danny (John Bloom), the simple-minded son of the slain gardener.  Nice going!

What is it with mad scientists in the movies?  Why do they always settle for less?  If you were on the verge of some amazing medical breakthrough, wouldn’t you want only the best materials for your experiment?  In this case, these guys have been planning for months to construct a two-headed person, and they choose for one of the heads a murderer?  Don’t you think they could do a little bit better?

Our two-headed friend eventually breaks loose from the lab and goes on a murderous rampage, as the movie becomes a straightforward “monster on the loose” story during its third act.

If you can get through the horrible theme song—a song so bad it makes you wonder what racy photos the songwriter and singer had of the director—you’ll be rewarded with a deliciously lurid movie that will tickle your horror movie funny bone.

Bruce Dern is always worth watching, even in movies as bad as this.  And John Bloom who played the giant Danny actually went on to appear in many genre films.  He played the Frankenstein Monster in another infamously bad low-budget shocker, DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (1971), and he also appeared in HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS (1987) and STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991).  He passed away in 1999.

And hey, Casey Kasem plays the hero in the film!  That’s right, the Casey Kasem, of America’s Top 40 fame, and the voice of Shaggy from the SCOOBY DOO cartoons.

He has two heads, but only half a brain!

The screenplay by James Gordon White and John Lawrence never rises above standard low-budget 1970s horror fare, but that’s part of the fun.  Believe it or not, these same two guys also wrote the screenplay for THE THING WITH TWO HEADS (1972) (starring Ray Milland and Rosie Grier!)

Director Anthony M. Lanza does an adequate job with the material, but his idea of a scary scene is the 2-headed monster fighting chain wielding biker dudes.  This is the type of movie best watched at the Drive-In Theater.  You can go for the same effect by watching it at home late at night on a hot summer evening with the windows open.

The special effects are pretty bad.  You’ll laugh at the long shots of the obviously fake rubber head bouncing up and down on John Bloom’s shoulder.  It looks like something out of a Monty Python sketch.

THE INCREDIBLE 2-HEADED TRANSPLANT isn’t really all that incredible, unless you interpret “incredible” to mean unbelievable.  But it is an entertaining little piece of 70s horror cinema, and it’s a nice reminder of what low-budget horror movies were like back then.

—END—

© Copyright 2010 by Michael Arruda

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Transmissions to Earth: ZAAT! (1971)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 2012, 70s Horror, Campy Movies, Cult Movies, LL Soares Reviews, Mad Doctors!, Monsters, Mutants!, Revenge! with tags , , , , , , , , on July 3, 2012 by knifefighter

Transmissions to Earth: ZAAT (1971) (aka THE BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z)
Movie Review by L.L. Soares

This is exactly the kind of movie that inspired me to start my “Transmissions to Earth” column in the first place. I saw about ten minutes of ZAAT (then called THE BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z) on late night television when I was a kid. It was in the middle of the movie, and I had no idea what was going on. I just knew the monster was downright goofy looking.  It took me a long time to finally track down a copy of this movie and watch it in its entirety. It was worth the search.

ZAAT begins by introducing us to Dr. Kurt Leopold (Marshall Grauer), who is working in a strange laboratory full of clunky, old-fashioned computers (full of flashing lights and making lots of cool weird sounds), and tanks full of all kinds of fish and assorted sea life. He speaks to us in voice-over, and, at first, I was worried this would be like one of those Doris Wishman movies where everyone talks in voice-over and no voices are actually in synch with the characters. But things go back to normal later. We only get the voice-over when Dr. Leopold is on screen.

Leopold tells us (well, he’s more likely talking to himself), that his goal is to create a new species that is part man, part fish. He was inspired by the “walking catfish” that were found in Florida at the time, fish that could slither around on land, as well as live in the water. What if such a creature were combined with the DNA of a human being? If this sounds insane to you, you’re not the only one. When this creaky old lab was originally being used in the 40s, Dr. Leopold worked there then as well, and was trying to do the same kind of experiments. When he asked to use death row prisoners as human guinea pigs for his experiments, his superiors balked and fired him. So, obviously, he wants to prove them wrong. And he wants revenge on them for halting his plans back then.

You don’t have to wait very long to get a good look at the monster in ZAAT!

In ZAAT, the monster is not much of a surprise. We don’t have to wait through most of the movie to finally get a good look at him. This is because as soon as Dr. Leopold gives us that speech in the beginning (punctuated by all kinds of stock footage of undersea life, presumably to save money), he takes off his clothes (leaving on his oversized boxer shorts) and  transforms himself into a giant man-fish. This involves injecting himself with a giant needle of green fluid, and then sticking a hose into a pool of water. Something coming out of the hose turns the water bright red (thus the alternate title of this movie, THE BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z, even though there is no Dr. Z in this movie, only Dr. Leopold), and he submerges himself in the pool. The scrawny scientist arises from the water in one of the worst monster costumes in the history of cinema (and now a different actor, Wade Popwell, is in the suit). The ZAAT monster is almost as bad as the Styrofoam and Ping-Pong ball monstrosities you can see in early Roger Corman flicks of the 50s.

And, unlike a lot of monster movies, Dr. Leopold cannot change back to his human form. Nope. Once he changes into ZAAT, it’s permanent. So he has to continue with his experiments with clunky, oversized hands and a big, bulky body. A lot of times he stumbles around. It’s kind of funny.

Zaat’s name, by the way, is actually a chemical formula: the combination of two new elements that Dr. Leopold discovered (Za and At), which are also the ingredients of his “secret formula.” How clever!

His first order of business is to track down the fellow scientists who laughed at his work. One man is fishing in a boat with his wife and kid, when Zaat tips the boat over and drowns them. Another scientist is home watching television when Zaat comes up behind him and strangles him to death. Also, his claws don’t just rip open flesh, they burn! Must be that radioactivity in the formula.

Even though the monster is big and clumsy, it takes a long time for anyone to catch on to what is happening.

ZAAT’s was also released (and shown on late night television) as THE BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z, even though there isn’t a Dr. Z in this movie!

Meanwhile, Sheriff Lou Krantz (Paul Galloway) has called in marine biologist Rex (Gerald Cruse) to take some tests in the area to determine why there is a sudden influx of “walking catfish,” those fish we saw earlier than can wriggle around on land. It turns out they’re also very aggressive and have been eating other fish, and bothering people, who see them as pests. Rex takes all kinds of water samples. At one point, he determines that there is a trace of radioactivity in some of the samples. When Sheriff Krantz asks what he means, Rex says “In your language—pollution.”

Meanwhile, Zaat is going around with a spray bottle spraying the ponds and lakes with some kind of weird substance. His plan is to contaminate the area and mutate all of the underwater life to be more like him. He wants to bring about an apocalypse that will get rid of all the pesky land dwellers.

Based on Rex’s findings of radioactivity, the government sends in a couple of INPIT agents to investigate. They are Martha Walsh (Sanna Ringhaver) and Walker Stevens (Dave Dickerson). They’re young and they’re hip and you can tell Rex likes hanging out with them.

Once Zaat has killed some of his enemies, he turns his attention to girls in bikinis. Because, as you ‘ll know if you’ve seen any of these kinds of monster movies, the monsters always eventually want to kidnap human women and mate with them. It’s just what monsters do, and it’s almost always what leads to their downfall.

Dr. Leopold/Zaat wants to turn a woman into a monster like him, so that they can spawn a new race of fish people to repopulate the earth when they get rid of all the humans. Since he’s only killed a couple of people so far, Leopold sure has high hopes of his plan succeeding to such a degree that he will inherit the earth. But I guess we all have to have goals. And it’s no surprise that Zaat’s goal involves sex.

Zaat kidnaps a hot blonde in a bikini and brings her back to his lab, where he injects her with the big needle and dumps her into the pool of rumbling red water. But it doesn’t work and she dies. Zaat goes nuts and starts trashing his equipment (but he can’t be doing much damage—the next time we see the lab, it’s back to normal). He then dumps the poor girl’s body into a pool of acid that turns her into a skeleton!

Back to the drawing board!

And for Zaat, it really is a drawing board. He has this giant wheel on the wall of his lab, where he writes down all his notes. It looks like a really primitive version of the WHEEL OF FORTUNE that Pat Sajak spins every night on TV. Pinned to the wheel are photos of his enemies (which he crosses out with a marker once he gets rid of them) and he draws pictures of the girls he seeks to mate with before he dumps them in the red pool (he’s actually a good artist, considering his oversized paws).

ZAAT has his very own WHEEL OF FORTUNE! Wanna play?

Once Rex and the INPIT agents see Zaat in the flesh, they convince Sheriff Krantz to declare a state of emergency and the lawman tells everyone in town to stay inside and lock their doors. This leads to a scene where the Sheriff finds a bunch of long-haired hippies in an abandoned building playing guitars and singing. After sitting down and enjoying their music for a spell, he leads them, like a Pied Piper, to the jailhouse where he locks them up. He says it’s to “keep them safe,” but you know he probably just wants an excuse to lock up hippies.

After Walker stabs Zaat in a confrontation, the monster later breaks into a pharmacy and gulps down antibiotics, before trashing the place (the counter holding the cash register has ads for “Pillow Cases $1.00” and “Shower Caps 11¢”). He then attacks a couple of kids making out, and after he claws up one kid, he starts drinking his blood (a new development in his evolution? Or just another way to make Zaat more creepy?)

ZATT goes on a drug-drinking binge at the local pharmacy. Must be the influence of them hippies!

Zaat has a thing for blondes and is soon abducting government agent Martha to become his mate. The Sheriff, Rex and agent Walker try to stop him. Of course, while hunting down the monster who took his girlfriend, Walker is bitten by a water snake and has to tie a tourniquet around his leg, making him much less of a threat to the vicious Zaat.

Zaat’s attempts to transform Martha are interrupted, but that doesn’t stop things from ending on a creepy note. I actually found the ending satisfying in an odd way.

The acting isn’t great, but the actors are a little better than you usually find in these kinds of movies. And despite the completely laughable monster costume, I found myself really liking this movie. In the version I saw, director Don Barton explains how the movie disappeared after its initial theatrical release for almost 30 years (I guess he doesn’t count the movie’s stint on late night TV under its alternate title), yet fans didn’t forget about it, and demanded it finally get re-released on video. He also says that, when it was time for his small Florida film studio to make its first feature film at the time, they decided to make a “creature feature.” A cult of rabid fans developed, which isn’t a surprise for this kind of movie.

ZAAT is not for everyone. Some of the chase scenes are a little slow, and there’s way too much stock footage of fish, but it’s worth wading through the weak parts to see Wade Popwell stumbling around in his hilarious monster costume, searching for blonde bikini babes.

-END-

© Copyright 2012 by L.L. Soares

 

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Bill’s Bizarre Bijou: THE BABY (1973)

Posted in 1970s Movies, 2012, 70s Horror, Bill's Bizarre Bijou, Controverisal Films, Disturbing Cinema, Family Secrets, William Carl Articles with tags , , , , , , on March 1, 2012 by knifefighter

Bill’s Bizarre Bijou

William D. Carl

This Week’s Feature Presentation:

THE BABY (1973)

Welcome to Bill’s Bizarre Bijou, where you’ll discover the strangest films ever made.  If there are alien women with too much eye-shadow and miniskirts, if papier-mâché monsters are involved, if your local drive-in insisted this be the last show in their dusk till dawn extravaganza, or if it’s just plain unclassifiable – then I’ve seen it and probably loved it.   Now, I’m here to share these little gems with you, so you too can stare in disbelief at your television with your mouth dangling open.  Trust me, with these flicks, you won’t believe your eyes.

Don’t you miss the Seventies?  Movies were made and distributed to theaters and drive-ins all over the country that were shocking, icky, monstrous, fun, and morally ambiguous, usually all in the same film.  You couldn’t make a movie like these today, let alone find a way to get them shown to people in real cinemas.  At least, not without being arrested.  And we’re only talking about the PG rated ones!  Such a film is 1973’s THE BABY, a psycho drama / black comedy / social issues film / horror / slasher / camp-fest.  Let’s face it; the damn thing’s not going to fit into one labeled box.  And that’s part of what makes me love it so much!

Anjanette Comer (THE LOVED ONE-1965, FIVE DESPERATE WOMEN-1971, DEAD OF NIGHT-1977) stars as Ann Gentry, a fresh-faced, enthusiastic welfare case worker who has begged to be put on the ‘Baby’ case.  When she goes to the run-down house to investigate for the state, she finds a young man simply called Baby who has, in his twenties, gone far beyond being mentally challenged,.  He can’t talk, can’t walk, can’t feed himself, and Ann believes he is being kept in this advanced stage of retardation by negative reinforcement doled out by his mother, Mrs. Wadsworth (the great Ruth Roman of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN-1951, THE WINDOW-1949, THE FAR COUNTRY-1954, and numerous television credits.)  Mrs. Wadsworth is an odd duck, all right.  Boozily flouncing around, she proudly informs Ann that the whole family lives on the welfare checks Baby earns for them.  If you think the mother is a nut-job, wait till you meet the two adult daughters.  Marianna Hill (Cleo Patrick on the 1966 BATMAN TV series, MESSIAH OF EVIL-1973, and BLOOD BEACH-1980) is Germaine, a statuesque gal with crazy piled up hair that makes her look as though she’s on her way to a midnight meeting of the local coven.  She also has Sapphic tendencies toward Ann and likes to sneak into Baby’s room to breast feed him at night.  Ewww!  The other daughter, Alba, is played by Suzanne Zenor, who had small roles in films as varied as PLAY IT AGAIN SAM-1972, THE WAY WE WERE-1973, and the Joan Rivers/Billy Crystal fiasco RABBIT TEST-1978.  She always has an odd facial expression, as though she smells something rotten in the room, and she likes to “discipline” Baby with a cattle prod.  Yes, there’s definitely something nasty going on in the Wadsworth domicile.

Marianna Hill as Germaine in THE BABY.

Ann is determined to get Baby out of the hands of these three clearly insane women.  First, she attempts to prove that Baby has normal musculature and tries to get him to walk.  She then attempts to get Mrs. Wadsworth to take Baby to a psychiatrist or a group home.  “It’s not like an asylum,” she chirps.  “It’s more like a spa.”  Mrs. Wadsworth stands firm, finally tiring of Ann’s snooping around.  So, she reports Ann to her boss, claiming some horrible action that gets Ann thrown off the case.   By now, our chipper little case worker is completely obsessed with Baby, to a point where you begin to wonder who the craziest person in the room is.  After all, Ann is living in a huge mansion with her manly mother-in-law and she claims that her husband has had a terrible accident.  Where’s the husband?  What happened to him?  And why does the mother-in-law look and dress like a prison matron?

Baby has a birthday bash in THE BABY (1973)

 

Mrs. Wadsworth invites Ann to Baby’s birthday party, so she can see for herself how the family interacts in a typical social environment.  Well, if this is typical, I was brought up all wrong!  Everyone is smoking doobies, everyone is disco dancing to wild wah-wah guitar music, everyone is collapsing onto sofas in groups of two or three and kissing, all while Baby crawls around their gyrating legs with cake icing on his face.  At one point, Germaine is hit on by Dennis, a party guest, who then switches his fixation to Alba.

Dennis-“You have beautiful skin.”

Germaine-“Are you a dermatologist?”

Dennis-“No, just a skin freak.”

Dennis is played by the wonderfully sleazy character actor Michael Pataki, who graced such films as THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA-1971, THE BAT PEOPLE-1974, DRACULA’S DOG-1978, THE ONION FIELD-1979, and ROCKY IV-1985.  He’s hilarious in this scene.  All the time he’s flirting shameless, Mrs. Wadsworth and her girls drug Ann and drag her into another room, where they tie her up and plot how to kill her.  Dennis remains oblivious.

Ann escapes, and she takes Baby with her, kidnapping the young man, taking pictures of him standing on his own, and sending the photos to the Wadsworths.  The women are infuriated, and they arm up and head off to Ann’s mansion where the final showdown – and the final secrets of the plot – will all unravel.  Will Baby end up with Ann or the Wadsworths?  Why has Ann been so obsessed with this case?  And what’s up with the weird masculine mother-in-law?  The ending is shocking and horrifying in a way the rest of the movie isn’t.  In the final scenes, when we discover exactly what is really going on, we are forced to question everything we’ve seen thus far, and the final shot is one haunting freeze frame.

Mama loves her baby! Ruth Roman in THE BABY

Yes, THE BABY is a freaky movie that will simultaneously delight and disturb you.  On one hand, the movie is campy as all get-out, filled with great one-liners you want to immediately repeat.  But no one can say these lines like Ruth Roman.  Rolling her eyes, gnashing her teeth, her cigarette always in the corner of her white-trash cussing mouth, and her hair always getting higher and higher, she is the poster child for Munchhausen Syndrome.  Or Joan Crawford Acting School Syndrome.  She gives it her all, growling, barking, screaming, and petting Baby in an entirely inappropriate manner.  She really makes the movie horribly hilarious.  But, on the disturbing side, we can’t forget Anjanette Comer, who creates a very disturbing character, one who has her own set of issues and a horrifying agenda, all masked by a beautiful face and a great set of gams.  The battle over Baby between these two formidable women makes the movie fun in a way that may make you want to take a shower later.  You won’t easily get the movie out of your head.

The director, Ted Post, made a name for himself in television, directing episodes of 1960s and 70s shows like GUNSMOKE, COMBAT, RAWHIDE, and THE TWILIGHT ZONE.  He also made great creepy TV-movies like DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE, OR MUTILATE (1971) and DR. COOK’S GARDEN (1971).  He also directed the very good BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES in 1970.  THE BABY relies on his television roots.  It looks flat and the color palette pretty much seems like sun-washed California, all quite serviceable if a bit pedestrian.  It has the subdued look of an ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK.  It’s the script by Abe Polsky (REBEL ROUSERS-1970) that brings this one to life.  You have to wonder what kind of crazed mind came up with this sick plot.

Despite the obvious budgetary constrictions, THE BABY emerges as a taut thriller, a campy twisted comedy, a horror film, and a disturbing look at what people will do when they are desperate.  God, I do miss the Seventies!

THE BABY gets three and a half giant hair-dos out of four.

© Copyright 2012 by William D. Carl

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In the Spooklight: THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1971)

Posted in 2011, 70s Horror, Amicus Movies, Anthology Films, Christopher Lee films, In the Spooklight, Michael Arruda Reviews, Peter Cushing Films, Vampires with tags , , , , , , on October 28, 2011 by knifefighter

This IN THE SPOOKLIGHT column, on the Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee anthology movie THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD is from 2004, and it was actually reprinted in October 2010 in the HWA NEWSLETTER, so this marks the third time this particular column has made it into print. Not sure why I chose this one today, except that I figured now was as good a time as any to finally review a Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee movie for CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT.

—Michael Arruda, October, 2011

 

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT
THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1971)
By Michael Arruda

There’s a lot to like about THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1971), the third anthology movie by England’s Amicus Productions.

Amicus is England’s lesser known horror film company, having operated in the shadow of the more famous Hammer Films. Amicus made horror movies during the same years as Hammer, and even used some of the same stars, such as Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, but never quite made it as a phenomenon.

Yet, Amicus churned out quality horror movies in abundance throughout the 1960s and 70s, and THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD is no exception.

There are four tales in THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD, plus a linking story, all of them written by the great Robert Bloch, which is one of the main reasons why the film is as enjoyable as it is. It goes without saying, it’s a well-written movie! The stories all take place in the titled house, each chronicling a different owner’s experience within its walls.

The first story, “Method for Murder,” is a neat little tale in which a horror writer (Denholm Elliott) creates a sinister murderer in his latest novel, a strangler by the name of Dominick. The writer is excited about his latest work, until the strangler he created shows up outside his window! A very creepy tale that works surprisingly well.

The second tale “Waxworks” starring Peter Cushing is probably the weakest of the movie and involves strange goings-on inside a wax museum. Director Peter Duffell said the story was basically a “contrivance to get Peter Cushing’s head on a plate” which is one of the more famous images from the film, and later immortalized on a cover of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine.

The third story stars Christopher Lee and is called “Sweets to the Sweet.” It’s about Lee’s strange relationship with his young daughter. He’s terribly frightened of her, and as we find out in the story, with good reason.

The last tale, “The Cloak,” is the story of a horror movie actor (John Pertwee) who buys a cloak for his role as a vampire. When he puts on the cloak, he becomes a real vampire. He has the best line in the film when he’s talking about classic horror movies, he says “That’s what’s wrong with your present-day horror films, no realism! Not like the old ones—the great ones! Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, Dracula—the one with Bela Lugosi, of course, not that new fella!” This tale also stars Ingrid Pitt who also gets to wear the cloak and strut her stuff as a vampire. Mostly played for laughs, “The Cloak” is the most fun tale of the movie.

First-time director Peter Duffell does a very good job, imbuing the film with both atmosphere and genuine shocks, though he wanted to call the film DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, because he felt THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD was too trashy. Personally, I kinda like THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD.

But the main reason the film succeeds so well is the same reason why so many of the Hammer/Amicus films work, and that is, the people involved take them very seriously. Actors like Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing play it straight, so when Lee fears his young daughter, as silly as it seems, you see the look on his face and you believe it too.

THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD is a good Halloween movie, spooky, well-made, well-acted, well-written, and fun.

This Halloween, why not stop by for a visit? I hear they’re looking for new tenants.

—END—

© Copyright 2004 by Michael Arruda

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Transmissions to Earth: DERANGED (1974)

Posted in 2011, 70s Horror, Drive-in Movies, LL Soares Reviews, Low Budget Movies, Psychos, Serial Killer flicks, Trasmissions to Earth with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on June 21, 2011 by knifefighter

TRANSMISSIONS TO EARTH: DERANGED (1974)
By L.L. Soares

Y’see, Ezra Cobb just can’t let go.

He seems like a nice enough fellow. He keeps to himself. He’s very devoted to his mother. But there’s something wrong with Ezra. Maybe he’s not all there in the head. Maybe he’s not fully in touch with reality.

The Ed Gein murders of the 1950s inspired all kinds of books and movies, from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic PSYCHO (1960) to the equally classic THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974). But those movies took a lot of liberties with the source material and went in very different directions. DERANGED sticks to the original story a little closer than most.

Ezra (Roberts Blossom) is a quiet, middle-aged man who lives on a farm in Wisconsin with his very possessive mother (Cosette Lee). She pretty much controls every aspect of his life, which is fine by him, since Ezra seems a bit slow on the uptake. When Mama dies, Ezra doesn’t rightly know what to do. Everyone tells him he’s got to bury her, but a year after she’s put in the ground, Ezra’s still saving her a place at the table and writing her letters. And he’s convinced her voice is telling him to go get her. She sure seems lonely out there in her grave all alone. So he digs her up and brings her back home. Because she’s started to rot a bit, he teaches himself taxidermy to repair the places where her skin isn’t so fresh.

A local family, the Kootzes, takes Ez under their wing when his mother dies. He does general handiwork around town, mostly for them, and they often invite him over for family dinner. He’s like the family dog or something. Ezra seems nice enough, if maybe a little eccentric, and he sure does say some awfully strange things every once in a while. Whenever he talks about digging up graves or putting people out of their misery, the Kootz family think he’s joking and are sure he just has an odd sense of humor.

At one point, Ma and Pa Kootz tell Ezra they’re worried about him. He’s getting older and he’s never had a wife. A man needs companionship. So they encourage him to date.

The thing is, Ezra’s mother always told him a million times how evil women were and to stay away from them, unless you want to get a nasty disease (“The wages of sin is gonorrhea, syphilis and death!”). The only woman she ever said anything nice about was Maureen Selby (Marion Waldman). It seems the two women were friends once, until Ezra’s mother got offended for some reason and stopped talking to Maureen. Old Ma Cobb certainly was one to hold a grudge. But since his mother mentioned Maureen to him, to contact her if he ever needed help, Ezra seeks the lady out.

Maureen turns out to be an odd duck as well. She’s lost her husband and is sure he still talks to her. So Ezra and Maureen start to spend some time together, until the day Maureen says she wants to have a séance so Ezra can meet her deceased husband.  During the “séance,” Maureen seems to be possessed by her late hubbie (this part is actually very funny) and tells Ezra that she has needs and that he should take care of them, since hubbie can’t do it anymore. Could it be that Maureen is trying to hoodwink Ezra into having sex with her? Ezra believes her story. The thing is, he also knows sex is bad, and when he feels tempted, he pulls out a knife instead of dropping his drawers.

Not only does the knife prevent temptation. It also provides Ezra with human flesh to repair old Mama with, when she starts to get a little rotten here and there. Up til now, Ezra had been using animal skin to cover up the rough patches, but human skin works so much better.

Mama said to stay away from girls, but Ezra can’t seem to help himself. He finds himself getting sweet on a waitress at a dive bar named Mary (Micki Moore), but it ends badly, and things really get out of hand when he meets the sweet young girlfriend that Brad Kootz (Brian Smeagle) brings home to meet the family. Her name is Sally (Pat Orr), and Ezra kind of becomes kind of obsessed with her and is determined to take her for his own. That’s when the real trouble starts.

With a mummified mama (and a bunch of other mummified ladies to keep her company), human skin masks, and other delightful hobbies, Ezra has a lot in common with old Ed Gein. And folks are just as horrified to find out the secrets about Ezra Cobb as they probably were when they discovered what Ed Gein was up to.

DERANGED is a very low-budget film that almost looks like an old television show at times. There’s even a narrator, Tom Sims (Leslie Carson), a “newspaper columnist” with spectacles and a serious tone, who pops up from time and time to break the fourth wall and talk directly to us. But his appearances are more distractions than anything else. It’s better when they just let the story unfold.

The acting ranges from good to awful, but Roberts Blossom has an eerie presence as Ezra. He makes the character believable enough. You kind of feel sorry for him, even as you’re horrified by the awful things he does.

Co-directed by Jeff Gillen, who was also an actor in movies like CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (1973) and was the department store Santa who kicks little Ralphie down the slide in A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983), and Alan Ormsby, who wrote scripts for movies like CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS, the 1980 remake of CAT PEOPLE and PORKY’S 2: THE NEXT DAY (1983), DERANGED is regarded as a low-budget classic of its kind, and rightly so. If you can look past the almost non-existent production values, you might just enjoy this one. And it has such a strange tone to it all that DERANGED almost seems like a black comedy a lot of the time.

Despite the ghastly crimes Ezra commits, there isn’t much in the way of nudity or gore until the end. But if you sit for the end credits you’ll see that some feller named “Tom Savini”  helped do the make-up effects. In fact, it was the first movie he did make-up for.

While most people know it as DERANGED, it also seemed to have a longer title at one point,  DERANGED: CONFESSIONS OF A NECROPHILE. But that title ain’t very nice. We never do see Ezra do much in the way of necrophilin’.  Although, who knows what he was up to between the scenes?

As a curious artifact from another time, DERANGED is worth seeking out. Roberts Blossom’s performance as Ezra alone is enough to make it worth seeing. And tell them Ma Cobb sent you, you hear?

© Copyright 2011 by L.L. Soares

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GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE

Posted in 2010, 70s Horror, B-Movies, LL Soares Reviews, Trasmissions to Earth, Vampire Movies with tags , , , , , , on November 17, 2010 by knifefighter

TRANSMISSION TO EARTH: GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE
by L.L. Soares


Here’s an odd one.

You may not know it, but way before David Chase created THE SOPRANOS for HBO, he had his early roots in the horror genre. During the one and only season of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER (1974-1975), Chase wrote teleplays for eight episodes (!), and was a story consultant for the show, which just might be my favorite horror television series ever. In 1974, he also wrote the screenplay for a little movie called GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE, which a lot of people might not know about.

GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE is a strange tale indeed. In this one, a couple of college kids parked in a graveyard and making out in the back seat of a car are attacked by a vicious vampire named Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki). Croft breaks the guy’s back over a tombstone and drinks his blood, then he grabs the girl and throws her into an open grave, where he proceeds to rape her. Interrupted during his wave of violence, the vampire flees the scene, but not before impregnating his unfortunate victim.

Soon afterwards, we see his victim singing to her baby, who won’t drink mama’s milk. She accidentally cuts herself and the baby gets pretty damn thirsty all of a sudden when some blood drops fall on his lips, so she starts filling baby bottles with her blood.

This bloodthirsty little boy grows up to become James Eastman (William Smith, who exudes cool here), a man who knows the truth about his conception, and who has made it his personal mission to hunt down and kill Caleb Croft. His hunt takes him to a college where Croft, now called Professor Lockwood, is teaching a night class on superstition and creatures of the night. The class is full to bursting (Lockwood has to turn some students away because there aren’t enough seats).

As the movie moves towards its eventual showdown, a couple of women get in the way – roommates Anne Arthur (Lyne Peters) and Anita Jacoby (Diane Holden). James and Anne fall for each other pretty quickly, and Anita discovers the truth about Professor Lockwood and plans to blackmail him into making her a vampire like him.

Later, a séance at Professor Lockwood’s mansion home ends badly and father and son finally have their fight to the death.

GRAVE is a very low-budget film. The sets are a bit shabby and it looks like the kind of movie you would have seen on late night television back in the days before cable TV. Despite that, it has an undeniable charm to it. And the script, while not in the same league with Chase’s later work, is an interesting variation on the vampire yarn (David Chase’s script was also based on his novel “The Still Life,” although the novel is not mentioned in the credits). Director John Hayes does an okay job bringing Chase’s script to life, even if the movie does have its awkward moments.

There are no big stars here, but character actors William Smith and Michael Pataki might look pretty familiar to you anyway. Back in the 70s, they were both in tons of movies and television shows. Pataki was in everything from TV series like THE FLYING NUN and LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRARIE and was in some classic horror films like THE BABY (1973) and  DEAD AND BURIED (1981). He was even the voice of George Liquor on the old REN AND STIMPY cartoon (!).

William Smith was in everything from INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973) to roles in hundreds of TV shows in the 60s, 70s and beyond, including THE MOD SQUAD, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and the original HAWAII FIVE-O. These two guys might not be household names, but they were definitely talented professionals who make GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE a lot better than it would have been without them.

GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE was one of those low-budget genre movies pumped out in large quantities in the early 1970s. While it was available on DVD at one point, I’m not sure how easy it is to find now. But it has enough going for it to still be worth viewing now, if for no other reason than to see the early work of David Chase.

© Copyright 2010 by  L.L. Soares

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THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED!

Posted in 2010, 70s Horror, Drive-in Movies, LL Soares Reviews, Slasher Movies, Trasmissions to Earth with tags , , , , on November 12, 2010 by knifefighter

Transmissions to Earth: THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED (1973)
by L.L. Soares

The movie poster for THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED sure looks a lot like the original LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.

This is an obscure one.

Back when I was about ten years old, I remember hearing a radio ad for a horror movie called THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED (1973). It was playing at the local drive-in, but I was too young to see it. I remember that ad as being especially creepy. Later, I realized why. The ad, and the movie trailer, were rip-offs of THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972), right up to using the “Tell Yourself It’s Only A Movie…Only A Movie” tagline from LAST HOUSE. It’s even on the movie poster!

Recently, I got the urge to finally see THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED for myself after all these years. That was easier said than done. It’s not available on DVD, and I had to search down an old VHS copy (yes, I still have a VCR, and actually still use it on occasion). Was it worth the trouble to track it down? Not really.

First off, THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED has nothing in common with the original LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. And it certainly isn’t as intense as Wes Craven’s classic. If anything, THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED reminded me of one of the more mediocre Italian giallo films from the 1970s. You know, those rather violent murder mysteries that Dario Argento turned into an art form back then?

This is not Argento.

The plot is a letdown. We start off with a model named Valerie Jennings (Andrea Allen), who has a criminal boyfriend named Terry (Alex Leppard). Terry takes her on a date that ends up in a mansion way out in the middle of the woods. Are they there for a romantic rendezvous? No, Terry plans to rob the place. He breaks in and looks around for a safe. Valerie gets sick of waiting in the car (some date!) and goes into the house to find him. While they’re talking and Terry continues to look for a safe in the wall, poking behind paintings and photographs, they hear a car pull up. Someone’s coming home!

Valerie and Terry hide in a closet, while some mysterious guy wearing gloves comes in with a girl. We don’t see the guy (he’s sitting in a chair with his back to us), and he doesn’t say a word, but the girl with him proceeds to talk non-stop as she takes her clothes off. She’s actually pretty annoying. Instead of having sex with her, the guy with the gloves pulls out a knife and stabs her to death, all while Valerie and Terry watch from their hiding place.

Valerie bolts out of the house and is pursued through the woods by the killer. She ends up in a junkyard, hides in the hulk of a junked car overnight, and then hitches a ride back to London when the sun comes up. When she goes looking for Terry the next day at his flat, it looks like he never came back, and he’s nowhere to be found. However, not much later, someone leaves Terry’s empty car in front of Valerie’s house. She’s sure the killer has done this. She’s also sure the killer now knows where she lives and who she is, and he’s just biding his time before he kills her too.

Since Terry was robbing a house when they saw the murder, Valerie’s friends urge her not to go to the cops. But then more people get killed. And Valerie is sure it’s only a matter of time before she’s the next victim.

So who is the killer? Is it the weird guy who moved into the apartment below her, who wears leather gloves and keeps pigeons in his room (supposedly to study them). Is it the jealous photographer who seems to be taking pictures of Valerie every day, and who is jealous she doesn’t seem interested in him. Is it the weird young guy named Paul (Karl Lanchbury) who makes ceramic masks and lives with his aunt (there’s a weird scene where the guy and his older aunt get naked and have sex – one of the weirder sex scenes you’ll see).

The movie tries to keep us guessing, but it’s not too hard to figure out. The ending is supposed to be a shock, but it’s actually rather dumb, and doesn’t make a lot of sense (how do cops know where and when to show up?).

The title of the movie also doesn’t make much. When Valerie and Terry first go to the house in the woods, it’s a foggy night. When her friends ask her days later if she could find the house again, she says she doesn’t think so (they do find the junkyard where she hid overnight from the killer, however). Later on, she finds herself back in the house – without even realizing it at first.

The house does not vanish. Not even once. In fact, for a majority of the movie no one is even looking for it. And when Valerie does find it again toward the end, it’s completely by accident.

The murders are bloody but nothing particularly shocking. And there’s a huge lag between the beginning scenes where Valerie and Terry witness the murder and the big “shock ending.” There are whole stretches where nothing really happens. So it’s not the most exciting movie you’d come across.

The women are pretty enough, and there’s a good amount of nudity. Star Andrea Allen (who also went by the name Ellie Reece Knight) is a striking blonde, and you believe she could really be a model. In fact, in real life she was the Playmate of the Month for the December 1975 issue of French Playboy. She also appeared in the early 70s British sci-fi series UFO, as well as playing various roles on THE BENNY HILL SHOW.

After so many years of wondering if this movie was any good, I was pretty badly disappointed. THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED wasn’t scary at all. And there certainly is no reason to keep telling yourself, “It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie…”

Here’s the original trailer that started it all.

© Copyright 2010 by L.L. Soares

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