THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925)

The Paris Opera House, which was built over abandoned catacombs and torture chambers, is being sold, and its new owners are warned about rumors of a phantom that haunts box #5. Indeed, the entire opera company is aware of the caped and masked man who watches operas from that box and is thought by some to live down in the catacombs. One day, Carlotta, the star diva, gets a threatening letter from the Phantom warning her to allow her understudy Christine to sing the part of Marguerite in the next performance of Faust. Indeed, Christine, in her dressing room, has been hearing the disembodied voice of the Phantom, calling himself her Master, telling her that he will help her career and will soon take physical form and be her lover. For her part, Christine is already dating Raoul, who gets a note from the Phantom telling him to give her up. Raoul doesn't want to even though there are tensions between them as he wants her to give up her career to marry him and she won't, something that makes the figure of her unknown Master appealing. Carlotta refuses to bow out so the Phantom causes the grand chandelier in the house to fall on the audience during an aria of Carlotta's. Christine leaves her dressing room through a secret passage behind her mirror and the masked Phantom meets her, taking her in a gondola across the Black Lake under the Opera House into the catacombs. We learn the Phantom's name is Erik, he's an escapee from Devil's Island, and he has composed an opera, Don Juan Triumphant, just for Christine. He wants her to become a star but warns her never to try and remove his mask. While he's playing an organ, she comes up behind him in a playful mood to unmask him. Unfortunately, his face looks like a dreadfully deformed skull, apparently from torture during the second French revolution. She's horrified and he's angry, telling her she must now live as his prisoner. Christine manages to talk him into letting her go back to the Opera House one more time to sing in Faust, but he tells her she must not see Raoul. Of course, she does, meeting him at the glittering masked ball that the opera is throwing (the chandelier incident seems forgotten). But Erik shows up too, elaborately dressed as the Red Death, sees them together, and kidnaps Christine again during her performance in Faust. Ledoux, a member of the secret police, helps Raoul track down Erik and Christine through catacombs and sewers, but will the wily and insane Phantom escape after all?

This silent movie which turns 100 this year is a part of most movie buffs' collective unconscious; even if someone has never seen the film, they know of it and they know its most famous scene, Christine's unmasking of Erik, a moment which still retains its power to shock. Its secret is that there are actually two (maybe three) visual jolts: when Christine rips off the mask, she is behind him and doesn't see his face at first, but we do, so first we see the grotesque face, and secondly we notice that he is shrieking in horror himself, as though we're seeing ourselves shrieking. A third jolt of sorts comes when we see Christine's reaction a few seconds later. It's a masterful scene due to direction (credited to Rupert Julian though at least two other directors also worked on the film), acting by Lon Chaney as Erik, and makeup, also done by Chaney. The story began as a 1910 novel by Gaston Leroux, was adapted to the screen several times, and is now probably best known as the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. I have not seen the musical—and at this point, probably never will—but I have seen at least two other film versions and this is still the best. There are several versions in circulation. The one I saw on TCM (copyrighted 1996, remastered in 2013) has been restored. Most of its scenes are effectively tinted in monochrome colors, magenta being the most interesting, and the masked ball sequence (almost as stunning as the unmasking) is presented in Technicolor. Though this has gained a reputation as a classic horror movie, it's really more a romantic melodrama with a few creepy scenes. As such, it's not especially effective. The backstories of Christine and Raoul are not presented (for that matter, neither is Erik's except for the implications of past torture) and the two actors (Mary Philben and Norman Kerry) have little chemistry. Erik is not a romantic figure here—we see him as an unbalanced stalker—but we do occasionally have some sympathy for him, and might have more if we knew his background. Still, the movie doesn't drag much, though modern day viewers may be anxious to get to the unmasking scene which comes around the halfway point. I've argued that this isn't really quite horror, but it would make good Halloween night viewing just the same. [TCM]

SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN (1929)

Young James Kirkham is something of a playboy dilettante whose latest obsession is practicing shooting so can go off on an adventurous expedition in Africa. (It's not clear how old James is supposed to be; the character would seem to be in his 20s; the actor playing him, Creighton Hale, was almost 50, but with owlish glasses and a smooth face, he can pass for 30-something.) His uncle wants him to give up these foolish ambitions and work for him; James' girlfriend Eve also wants him to settle down with her, but he seems oblivious to their wishes. That night, at an auction of Eve's uncle’s jewels, a gunfight and robbery break out and when James and Eve head out to get the police, they are kidnapped in a car in which steel plates slide down to cover the windows. At gunpoint the two are forced into a dark and creepy mansion where they meet a variety of strange characters including: a dwarf who warns them to "beware the man on crutches"; a wolfish looking man named Moriarty; a pinch-faced woman who claims to be Satan's mistress; a man who looks like Fu Manchu who occasionally rings a gong; and of course a man on crutches known as The Spider. James and Eve soon realize they are prisoners of a figure who goes by the name Satan who will soon enact a sentence on the two (for what reason, they don’t know); a sexy woman tells them that she received a sentence from Satan for 100 lashes. After some chases through the mansion and weird encounters with other weird folks (including a gorilla), James winds up in the middle of a sinister dinner party and is told he must go through the ordeal of the Seven Steps, each step having a glowing digit on it to identify it, leading up to Satan's throne. Four of the steps are of salvation, but the other three are steps of damnation. If he steps only on the salvation steps, he and Eve will be freed; if he steps on two of the three damnation steps, Eve will be freed but James must be enslaved to Satan for three years; if he ends up stepping on all three of the bad steps, he and Eve will die. Is Satan really the devil? Why has James been chosen for this ordeal? Most importantly, how will he fare on the Seven Steps? 

This silent film directed by Benjamin Christensen was based on an occultish thriller novel by A. Merritt, once a popular author of pulp fiction who is largely forgotten today. When I was a teenager, I read it and loved it, but back in the 1970s, the film was considered lost so I seemed to have no hope of seeing it. When prints were found, they were in poor shape with intertitles in foreign languages. TCM put it on their schedule for a Silent Sunday Night showing sometime in the 1990s but pulled it for reasons never revealed. The print I finally saw on YouTube is a 2014 restoration by Serial Squadron with the intertitles translated into English. I'm happy and grateful to have seen this, though the restoration could have been better. Aside from the main plot device of Satan and the steps (pictured above left), the book and movie are completely different. The movie twist is a good one but I won't spoil it here. Things move at a fast pace and rarely bog down, except in the sense that there are so many characters, it's difficult to keep track of them—suffice to say that it's not really important to do so. Creighton Hale (pictured at right), who was mostly known for comedy parts, is OK if, as I noted above, really too old for the part. He has over 300 credits on IMDb, stretching from 1914 to 1958, the vast majority of them uncredited parts; he's probably best known as the leading man in the 1927 comic thriller THE CAT AND THE CANARY. His leading lady here, Thelma Todd, became more famous than Hale partly due to her mysterious death in 1935; it was judged to be an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning due to spending a night in her car in a garage while perhaps drunk, but some still believe it to have been murder. The sets and cinematography are quite good, especially toward the end. Though the plot is interesting, this is a movie to watch for its visuals. There was apparently a Blu-ray release by Serial Squadron but it seems no longer in print. [YouTube]

HENRY ALDRICH HAUNTS A HOUSE (1943)

High school student Henry Aldrich has a crush on Elise, daughter of a chemistry teacher, and is upset to see Whit, a conceited jock, try flirting with her. When Whit tries to pick a fight, Henry backs off, partly because he thinks that "fighting is atavism" and partly because he thinks taking a more intellectual approach to conflict will impress Elise. But as it turns out, everyone (Henry's father, Henry’s buddy Dizzy, and Elise herself) thinks Henry should have stood up for himself. Elise tells Henry that her father has been experimenting on himself with a serum that triples a person's physical strength and that night, Henry, spooked by a nearby lightning bolt, accidentally drinks an entire test tube of the stuff. Meanwhile, Kenniston Manor (known locally as Creep House), the home of a science professor who has been dead for ten years, has been condemned; Bradley, the school principal, and Quidd, a teacher, are in the dark house taking inventory, interested particularly in a mummy which supposedly has a curse on it. The two men are attacked by a hulking shadowy figure at the same time that the disoriented Henry wanders into the house. The next morning, Bradley has vanished (we saw him being dragged into a secret passage by the shadowy figure) and Henry wakes up in bed, hungover from the serum. Remembering little of his walk home, he worries that, emboldened by his extra strength, he is the one who attacked Bradley. Henry takes more of the serum and, joined by Elise and Dizzy, goes back to the house to investigate. 

Henry Aldrich was a character on a popular radio show—and later a TV show—called The Aldrich Family (1939-1953) and though largely forgotten today, Paramount made a series of second-feature movies focused on teenager Henry, kind of a B-movie version of MGM's Andy Hardy. In most of the films, Henry was played by the gawky but likeable Jimmy Lydon, who later played the oldest son in Life With Father; Dizzy was Charles Smith, known by me as Rudy, the bicycle messenger in The Shop Around the Corner. From what I've read, this movie sticks to the template of the series: the slightly nerdy Henry gets blamed for some mayhem that isn't actually his fault, and he spends the rest of the movie clearing his name. Mild romantic entanglements also occur, as do conversations with his mother (Olive Blakeney) and father (John Litel), the town's D.A. This film has the added attraction of being a bit spooky, sort of a live-action Scooby-Doo old dark house story. Though it's not a horror film, the shadowy atmosphere makes it perfect for October viewing. Lydon and Smith work well together, and Litel and Blakeney are fine as concerned parents. Making good impressions are Joan Moritmer as Elise and Jackie Moran as the bully Whit who gets his comeuppance. Familiar movie thug Mike Mazurki has a small role as The Goon, the menacing guy who attacks Bradley. Henry's catchphrases, repeated often (and mocked by the principal) are "Gee whiz!" and "Golly Moses!", that last line used often by yours truly because of how it's used by Katherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story. Favorite lines: Elise: "Do you believe in love at first sight?"; Henry: "Gosh, yes! I mean, huh?" Later, Henry to Dizzy: "Do you realize you're growing up to be a moron?" I might watch a few more of these in the future. Pictured: Henry talking to his inner self in a mirror. [YouTube]

THE SHE BEAST (1966)

In present-day Transylvania, an apparently drunk older guy stumbles into a grotto where he has taken up residence and reads from a book by Count Von Helsing. In flashback, we see what he reads about, an incident from two hundred years ago in which a grotesquely disfigured old woman named Vardella, accused of being a witch and being responsible for a child's death, is tied onto a chair at the end of a huge contraption. She is speared from behind with a huge spike and is lowered in and out of a lake until she's dead. In her dying throes, she curses the villagers and vows to return to get vengeance. Back in the present, we discover that the old man reading the book is Von Helsing himself, now something of a local eccentric. He heads to an inn run by Ladislaw Groper where he makes the acquaintance of a honeymooning British couple, Philip and Veronica. He tells them the story of Vardella, but they are more concerned with the strange behavior of the obnoxious and practically drooling Groper. That night, Groper spies on them from outside as they make love and Philip beats him up. Groper then screws up their car so the next morning as they leave the village, the steering system breaks down and they wind up at the very lake where Vardella was drowned. They are taken to town where Philip wakes up unharmed but discovers that the long-dead but now alive Vardella was found in the car instead of Veronica. Von Helsing tells Philip that he can exorcise the witch and bring Veronica back. Meanwhile, Vardella kills a handful of folks (including the reprehensible Groper who attempts to rape his young niece) before Philip and Von Helsing can get Vardella back to the lake and perform the exorcism, and Vardella becomes Veronica—or has she?

You can go to the internet to read about the brief career of young director Michael Reeves who made the classic WITCHFINDER GENERAL in 1968 then died of a drug overdose at the age of 25. This was his first film (of only three) and it's basically a traditional witch revenge story with clumps of would-be political satire (concerning the Communists who ruled Transylvania at the time) and some oddly placed comic relief. The awful Groper is played by Mel Welles for queasy laughs, even during the sex assault scene, and Welles fails utterly in making anything of the character. Horror movie legend Barbara Steele is fine as Veronica—Reeves only had her for a few days, so she has limited on-screen time. Ian Ogilvy (pictured with Steele) can't quite find a way to make Philip sympathetic or even particularly likable, though he's not really unlikable either. John Karlsen plays Von Helsing mostly for laughs but he's not very funny, just kind of sad and depressing. Actually, the whole thing is a bit depressing, like they all got together to make a movie and realized partway in that it wasn't working, but had to finish. A long slapstick car chase near the end is nicely done but ruins any atmosphere that has been worked up until then. The best scenes involve Vardella, played under effectively horrific make up by a man (Joe Riley). Her torture scene at the beginning is the highlight of the movie; nothing else comes close to topping that. [YouTube]

THE GHOST OF YOTSUYA (1959)

In ancient Japan, a wandering ronin named Iemon asks for the hand of Samon's daughter Iwa, but Samon turns him down, calling him a libertine. When Iemon kills Samon and his friend Sato, a wandering apprentice named Naosuke witnesses the murder and helps Iemon get rid of the bodies in exchange for a mutually beneficial partnership; as Naosuke wants to marry Iemon's sister Sode, he gets Iemon to help him kill Sode's fiancé Yomoshichi. During a visit to a waterfall shrine, the two stab Yomoshichi and toss him over the falls, then tell Sode that the killer was actually a fellow named Usaboro. Some time later, Iemon and Iwa are married and living in poverty with a newborn child; she expects Iemon to avenge her father's death and Iemon is unsatisfied with his condition. Naosuke and Sode are also living in low circumstances, with Naosuke selling "Dutch medicines" in the street; Sode won't officially marry (or have sex with) him until he gets revenge for the death of Yomoshichi. When Iemon saves the honor of Ume, a nobleman's daughter, Naosuke convinces Iemon to kill Iwa so he can marry Ume and get good positions for both of them in Ume's family. The elaborate plan involves Iemon setting up a masseur friend named Takuetsu to be found in a compromising position with Iwa so Iemon will be justified by the samurai code to kill his adulterous wife and be free to marry Ume. The plan works, more or less, but with unforeseen consequences involving vengeful ghosts.

This Japanese horror film doesn't look like a product of the 1950s; its widescreen color visuals and splashes of blood and gore (including a fleeting shot of a man's arm being cut off) make it feel more like something from the 1960s. I was also surprised to see the image of a wet, stringy-haired, sullen female ghost which I think of as having emerged in more recent movies like The Grudge or The Ring. The first half of the film is a bit slow as it sets up the various situations calling for resentment and revenge. But the last half builds nicely to a lengthy climax which results in two people being killed, nailed to wooden shutters, and thrown in a river. Needless to say, they don't exactly stay in the river but instead trigger more blood and gore with only a couple of people left alive by the end. It looks like a fairly low budget affair with murky and stagy settings, though to be fair, the opening shots of the film are explicitly set on a stage as a song is sung with lyrics about "the fury of a woman driven mad." (The story is based on a famous Japanese play which has been adapted for film several times.) I find it difficult to judge the acting in Japanese films set in the samurai era because both theatrical overacting (Shigeru Amachi as the angry Iemon) and underacting (Katsuko Wakasugi as the passive Iwa, pictured above) are common. Here, the most interesting performances come not from the two leads but from Shuntaro Emi as Naosuke and Noriko Kitazawa as Sode as the secondary leads who don't seem as bound by narrative convention. Directed by Nobuo Nakagawa with lots of flowing horizontal shots. If you're OK with subtitles, this would be a good Halloween viewing choice. Yotsuya in the title refers to the area where the first part of the film takes place; it's also known as  The Ghost Story of Yotsuya. [TCM/Criterion]

THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED (1957)

At a seismology research lab in Los Angeles, Dr. David Conway has invented a new machine, the pressure photometer, to predict strong earthquakes in order to allow more time for evacuations before quakes. In its first trial run, it predicts a strong quake in California in the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, on the domestic melodrama front, David's assistant Laura Hutchinson is about to leave to marry her longtime boyfriend Brad, though Ellis Morton, another associate, knows that Hutch (as everyone calls her) is harboring a crush on David who is too much of a workaholic to notice. Before she can leave the area, an earthquake does strike, shifting the Earth's axis by three degrees, and with more quakes predicted, Hutch decides to stay to help investigate. They theorize that something is causing the interior of the Earth to press outward, causing the quakes. The three colleagues head to Carlsbad Caverns for some experimental spelunking and discover that a new element, not found among the existing 111 elements (which they cleverly name Element 112) is the problem. Normally in water, it's harmless, but when it comes into contact with air, it catches fire and explodes. Meanwhile, as the quakes continue to occur around the world, new volcanoes pop up, sending poisonous gas into the atmosphere. David's machine predicts that the quakes will become so numerous, the world could be destroyed in less than a month. Our heroes bravely forge on to find a solution to this possible apocalypse.

This B-film is about par for the course for sci-fi disaster movies of the era. The budget isn't big enough for much in the way of special effects, so the destruction of the world, such as it is, either happens offscreen or via newsreel stock footage of natural disasters. However, the filmmakers did shoot some of the Carlsbad Caverns scenes on location, and the cave scenes in general are effective. One interesting plot point which certainly resonates today involves a theory that the Earth is striking back at us for looting its natural resources, though nothing is really done with this. The acting is solid if not distinguished. William Leslie, whom I called "a blandly vanilla baby-faced hero” a few days ago, remains blandly vanilla, also cool and logical, and eventually even figures out that he needs Hutch as more than just a cave exploring partner. Kathryn Grant, who married Bing Crosby just months after this movie's release, makes a fine spunky sci-fi heroine. In an early scene, her idea of helping the menfolk make sense of the quake predictions is to make coffee for everyone. But in the caves she proves a valuable asset, even though she freezes in fright on her first descent and David has to shame her into finding her bravery. Tristram Coffin, the older Ellis, is colorless but OK. The only other actors to make much of an impression are Fred Coby and Paul Savage as park rangers who accompany our group in the Caverns, with one of them becoming an early victim of Element 112. A disappointing and somewhat laughable line, from David, comes when, as the quakes begin, someone suggests we need to hope for a solution, and David replies, "We better do more than hope—we better pray!" I'd have thought a scientist would have come up with a more realistic option, which eventually he does. The most effective scene involves the sight of several dead bodies at a dam due to the volcano gases. Pictured are Grant and Leslie. [YouTube]

THE VAMPIRES NIGHT ORGY (1973)

Somewhere in Central Europe, a busful of people who have been hired to work at an aristocrat's mansion are heading to the town of Bojoni when the driver has a heart attack and dies. A big beefy guy named Ernesto takes over as driver and they decide to stay overnight in the village of Tolnia but the place is deserted, even though the dining room looks ready for diners. They meet Luis, another visitor, who notes that in addition to no villagers, there are no churches. The group make themselves some dinner and sleep in the rooms upstairs, and Luis discovers that he can use a peephole in his room's closet to peep at the lovely Alma, in whom he has already taken an interest. In the middle of the night, the restless Ernesto wanders through the village and winds up encircled and attacked by sinister looking villagers. As we have guessed based on the movie's title, the villagers are vampires. The next morning, the village is full of people (they claim they were all at a midnight funeral) with Ernesto wandering about as if in a trance. Neither the bus nor Luis' car is working and the Countess, the sexy and wealthy chief citizen of the town, insists they stay until they can get mechanical help. Most of the travelers are fine with this arrangement but one by one, they begin vanishing and we discover that the vampires are also cannibals—a finger even turns up in Alma's meal. Eventually Luis and Alma are the last unbitten passengers and manage to escape the village, only to return the next morning with some police to discover that the entire village has vanished.

Yes, this Spanish Eurohorror film ends up being a sort of twist on Brigadoon, the appearing and disappearing Scottish village from the Lerner & Loewe musical. It has its moments but it is directed with little style by Leon Klimovsky and lazily scripted. I do have to say there is a fairly credible reason given for the vampires' ability to roam about in the daytime; the village is in a valley where no sun reaches. The English dubbing is atrocious so it's difficult to evaluate the acting. American actor Jack Taylor is pretty good as Jack; Belgian actress Dyanik Zurakowski is fine as Alma. Few others are differentiated much, though David Aller, as an actor named Cesar, gets a sex scene with the Countess (Helga Line, pictured) during which music with lots of sexy moaning is played, reminding me of the notorious 70s hit "Jungle Fever" by the Chakachas. Otherwise, the musical score is usually ludicrously inappropriate; some online critics assume that the score mostly comes from library music written for other movies. There are bare breasts and a little gore here and there, and the vampire attacks are effective enough. The cannibal aspect seems to arise because the villagers don't actually eat meat but they feel they have to serve meat to the visitors. Which begs the question, why not just kill all the passengers on the first night? There are only about ten passengers versus at least a couple dozen of vampires. There are scattershot pleasures here but don't expect too much. And, BTW, there is no orgy, day or night. [YouTube]

THE INCREDIBLE PETRIFIED WORLD (1959)

Over footage of a shark battling an octopus, a narrator tells us about the sea, and a "phantom layer" filled with creatures that live in darkness and that rise and fall from night to day. Does that make sense? Don't worry, it never comes up again. We join scientist Millard Wyman off the Florida Keys about to send some folks down into the sea in his new, experimental diving bell. The lucky four (all dressed in regular street clothes) are oceanographers Craig and Paul, grad student Lauri, and reporter Dale who is, as reporters always are in sci-fi B-movies, a pain in the ass. They are apparently supposed to be exploring that phantom layer we heard about, but at 1700 feet, a cable breaks; they lose communication with Wyman and go into deep water freefall. Dale gets hysterical until they all notice a brightness coming from the windows. They climb into scuba gear and find a phosphorescent rock formation which leads them to a series of caves with breathable oxygen. Craig and Paul go back to the bell to get supplies to sustain themselves until they find a way to the surface. On the surface, Wyman gets another scientist who is working on his own diving bell to use it in a rescue attempt. In the caves, the four find a skeleton and a bearded, mostly crazed old man who says he wound up in the caves "same as they did" and has stayed alive for fourteen years. The old man says there is a volcano off in the caves somewhere, and Craig thinks they could use that as an escape method. More time passes and tensions build, with Craig romancing Lauri, Dale jealous of the attention Lauri's getting, and the old man getting crazier. Eventually, the second diving bell finds the disabled one, and Craig and Paul make contact with them, but when the volcano starts to erupt, will they be able to get out in time?

This movie is not incredible and isn't really about a petrified world. Based on the drab plain sets, the budget was low as can be; it is ineptly shot, poorly written and listlessly acted. Phyllis Coates (Dale), the original Lois Lane on the 50's Superman TV show, gets acting honors for her hysterical outbreak which at least gives this movie some life for a minute or so. Robert Clarke, who specialized in low budget sci-fi and horror movies of the era, is OK in the role of the hero (though he does little that is heroic, he does order people around like he intends to be a hero). John Carradine (Wyman) is energetic and again gives his all, as he usually does even in such low circumstances, even when he's just spouting backstory. For the record, Sheila Noonan is Lauri and Allen Windsor is Paul; neither actor made many more movies. Directed by Jerry Warren who specialized in low budget schlock. The cave scenes were filmed at Colossal Cave in Arizona (a place I actually visited when I was a kid), so that setting is fairly believable. Despite the appealing title and the clear print on the DVD, I don't recommend this one. Pictured are Windsor and Clarke. [DVD]

CROWHAVEN FARM (1970)

Maggie Porter inherits some trinkets from her cousin Evelyn, while another cousin, Henry Pearson, inherits Crowhaven Farm, a nice bit of land in rural Massachusetts. But when Henry drives out one night to take possession of the farm, he sees a young blonde girl in the road; he swerves and hits a tree, and the car bursts into flames, killing him. The girl just smiles wickedly. Maggie, now the owner of the farm, moves there with her husband Ben, hoping perhaps that they can put some tensions behind them. He's a struggling artist and the two have just about given up on having a child, something Maggie really wants. They are accepted quickly by the townspeople who include the sexy Claire, the handsome Kevin, a doctor, and an oldtimer named Harold who gives Maggie a bunch of books about the history of the town, Brompton, which includes a period in the 1700s of witch fever when several women were executed. Strange things begin happening. Maggie feels like she's been in the house before, as she knows exactly where some secret panels and passages are. An old handyman keeps popping up in the house at odd times. Maggie has dreams of people in Puritan clothing pressing a witch to death under heavy stones, and hears the cry of a girl in the night. Things look up a bit when Kevin gets Maggie a secretarial job in Boston at a law firm, but Ben immediately gets jealous, even though Maggie doesn't actually work with him. Soon, a neighbor named Mercy Lewis who is dying of cancer asks Maggie to unofficially adopt her 10-year-old niece Jennifer (who looks like the strange girl that Henry saw just before his death). After leaving Jennifer for a trial stay with the Porters, Mercy kills herself and Maggie and Ben keep the girl. One night, Maggie stays at Kevin's apartment in the city because the roads are flooded; even though Kevin wasn't present, Maggie lies and tells Ben she stayed in a hotel. Ben's artistic career begins to pick up. Then, at a New Year’s Eve party, after Kevin kisses Maggie and Ben kisses Claire, Maggie breaks the news that she's finally pregnant. 

That is a lot of plot for a 75-minute TV movie, and we're only about halfway through when the supernatural element, present around the edges, kicks in. Old Harold dies in a fall, and when Maggie finally starts reading his history books, she discovers that one of the accused witches from the past was named Meg, was considered barren, suddenly conceived a child—it was assumed with Satanic help—and was tortured by stone pressing into betraying other witches in the community. Maggie sees parallels with her own life (her maiden name, Carey, is the same as Meg's). When Maggie goes to a stone quarry on the property that was rumored to have been used for coven meetings, she has a vision of a blood sacrifice being made by folks in Puritan clothing, and finds fresh blood on the stone altar. She gives birth prematurely to a healthy son, but when Ben finds out (from Jennifer) that Maggie spent a night at Kevin's apartment a few months before, things begin falling apart quickly and the movie rushes to an ending that is a bit predictable if you think of Rosemary's Baby—a Satanic pregnancy—and Thomas Tryon's novel Harvest Home—rural witchcraft. Still, it's satisfying with a nice hint of ambiguity at the very end.

As I've noted before, the 1970s was a golden age for TV movies, and the horror genre in particular, especially films centering on devil worship or witchcraft. This is one of the best-known examples. Stylistically, it's a bit clunky in the low-budget way of TV movies, but the plot and acting help lift this. Hope Lange is very good as Maggie, keeping us wondering, for a while at least, whether all this witchery is real or imaginary. She was nominated for an Oscar for the film of PEYTON PLACE but was perhaps best known as Mrs. Muir in the TV series version of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir; she also played Laura Dern's mother in BLUE VELVET. Paul Burke (VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, TV's Dynasty) is equally good as Ben, the nice-guy husband who is eventually driven to a horrific act. There is a large supporting cast with most members limited to fairly small amounts of screen time. Lloyd Bochner (Kevin), Virginia Gregg (Mercy), Cyril Delavanti (Harold), and Milton Selzer (the doctor) are standouts. John Carradine is the handyman who has very little to do except look creepy. 12-year-old Cindy Eilbacher is very good at being both innocent and sinister as Jennifer. One unusual scene that makes current-day viewers uncomfortable has Jennifer crawling into bed with Ben on the night that Maggie stays at Kevin's. Eilbacher has to look almost flirtatious and Burke has to look oblivious to her possible intention, accepting casually that she's just rattled by a storm, and due to them, I think the scene works—there's an unsavory frisson present but it doesn't get vulgar or queasy. There is no gore and only a splash of blood, and much of it is set in broad daylight, but the mood of evil is built carefully and sustained well. I rather like the McCarthyish twist of Meg being punished for naming names. For fans of 70s TV-movies, this is a must-see. Pictured at right are Burke and Lange; at the top, a shot of a coven meeting. [YouTube]

THE WORLD OF THE VAMPIRES (1961)

The vampire Count Sergio Subotai rises up from his coffin and walks slowly past an altar, where the demon god Astaroth is worshipped, to play at an organ made of human bones. On a nearby road, the Count materializes in front of a car, stopping it in its path. A swarm of bats descends, turning into freaky humanoid beings, and the man and woman in the car are taken to Sergio's castle where the servant vampires feed on the man while Sergio bites the woman which seems to give her the power to see Sergio's past (his family was wiped out a hundred years ago by a man named Colman) and to see the remaining Colman relatives, a father and his two nieces, who live nearby and are currently in the middle of a cocktail party. The count visits and meets the Colmans and their important guest Rudolfo Sabre, a pianist and folk music expert who winds up playing music that can supposedly raise the dead, and other music that can defeat the undead. Sergio reacts negatively to the music. One niece, Martha, can see that Sergio has no reflection in a mirror, but she says nothing. The Count decides to seduce Leonor, the other niece, turns her into a vampire (sort of; the vampire rules here are a bit ambiguous) and plans to make her the high priestess of his demonic cult. He also captures her uncle and keeps him tied up in the altar room. Leonor puts the bite on Rudolfo who doesn't become a vampire but instead gets an excessively hairy hand, the first stage perhaps of some kind of horrible transformation, maybe to become a werewolf, though this is never really explained. Ultimately, Rudolfo saves Colman and Martha by playing his anti-undead music at the bone organ, driving Sergio to leap to his death into a pit full of sharp spikes. Lenor is too far gone and leaps with Sergio to her death on the spikes.

This Mexican vampire film (El Mundo de los Vampiros) was first released in Spanish in 1961, then adapted and dubbed into English and bought by American International in 1964 for syndicated television broadcast. It's a cheapie with unimpressive makeup and effects—Sergio's fangs, when they show up, are laughably large, and the bats look like small party favors. There are limited sets, but the atmosphere is kept nicely creepy. Performances are adequate, no more, with Guillermo Murray (Sergio, pictured) and Mauricio Garces (Rudolfo) the standouts. As I noted, the vampire conventions are not made clear, especially in the case of Rudolfo's hairy hand, but what sort of makes this worth seeing is the musicology aspect. The idea that music can control the vampires is interesting and works well at the climax. There doesn't seem to have been any reason to include the couple from the car in the film at all—I'm not even sure what happens to them. It's also not clear why there is a pit of spikes in the altar room but it does make for a nice visual at the end. A plot strand about the vampires taking over the world, hence the title, is presented but nothing is done with it. Fine for those who know what they're in for when they settle in to watch a 1960s Mexican horror movie. [YouTube]

THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK (1958)

Dr. Jeremy Spensser, creator of a number of helpful inventions that have helped mankind, has just returned from Europe after receiving an international peace prize (read: Nobel Prize) for work on fighting hunger. When he returns home, he is killed by a truck when he tries to save his son Billy's toy airplane from a gust of wind. Jeremy's father William, a brain surgeon, removes his brain and keeps it alive in an attempt to transplant it into a gigantic robot. Carrington, an old friend of Jeremy's, argues against this plan, mentioning the possible dangers of separating the brain from the soul (which the robot would lack), leading to the dehumanization of the being, but William forges ahead with help from his other son Henry. When Jeremy is brought to consciousness in the huge robot body (as the Colossus), he is horrified and asks to be put to death, but William tells him he owes it to the world to keep making scientific discoveries. He is told that his wife and child are dead, and works intensely on his hunger-fighting experiments, but the Colossus soon develops mental telepathy and discovers that his family is still alive and that his brother Henry has fallen in love with Jeremy's wife Anne. Despite meeting and forming a relationship with his young son, the Colossus realizes that it is folly to try and help mankind, and destroying it might be better. The climax takes place at the United Nations building (hence the title) as Billy, the son, tries to stop his father, who can shoot death rays from his robot eyes (as pictured), from unleashing destruction.

A sort of Frankenstein story in different garb which examines the separation of pure reason and more complex humanity, this B-film has a kiddie movie feel at times (mostly through the interaction of the Colossus and Billy). Some critics have noted that the low budget actually enhances the film at times, giving scenes, including the UN climax, a dreamlike feel. More than fifty years later, this theme feels old hat but still the way in which Jeremy's brain decides he should undo the good he did while alive is interesting. The look of the monster, with a Roman-like robe, is unusual. Acting is average all around: Otto Kruger is mostly effective as William, Ross Martin (Artemus on The Wild Wild West) is Jeremy (briefly), journeyman TV actor John Baragrey is Henry, Robert Hutton is Carrington, and busy B-actress Mala Powers is Anne. 10-year-old Charles Herbert, who had over 60 credits, mostly TV, before he left acting at the end of 1960s, is fine as Billy. This is a movie I had seen stills from in the monster magazines I read as a child and always wanted to see, but all these years on, it was a bit of a letdown. Still, with lowered expectations, it's worth a view. [DVD]

IL DEMONIO (1963)

In an Italian village where traditional Catholic belief is closely tied to paganish superstition, Puri is regarded as a slut and a witch, beliefs she is not at pains to dispel. She is obsessed with Antonio who is to marry someone else. Literally throwing herself at him, he rejects her (though there are hints of a past relationship). She spikes his wine with her blood and says he is now cursed. On his wedding night, she stands outside his bedroom and uses a dead cat to curse them with a stillborn child. She runs off and hides with a shepherd who ties her up and rapes her. The next morning on her way back to the village, she chats briefly with a young boy who was deathly ill but is now healthy and bathing by a stream, but in town when she mentions her encounter, she is told the boy died that morning. During a mass outdoor confession ritual, people reveal terrible sins (one man admits that he craves his teenage daughter's body), and Puri says she speaks with the devil. She is handed over to an exorcist (who is not a clergyman) who proceeds to assault her. In bed that night, she undergoes terrifying bodily contortions that she can't control and is given a more traditional exorcism in church, during which she engages in an unsettling backwards spider walk (as in the director's cut of The Exorcist). This is too much for the villagers who want to burn her. She escapes to her family's home but her trials are not over: she undergoes a stoning and goes to a convent where she attacks a nun who prays for her. [Spoiler:] In the end, she entices Antonio, who is suffering from an unexplained rash and dreams of blood, into having sex with her in a nearby field at night, and the next morning, he wakes up and stabs her to death.

This Italian film is not gory or very graphic, but it is almost as intense as The Exorcist, and occasional shots may conjure up Ken Russell's The Devils. The summary above may sound a bit over the top, but it's the performance of Daliah Lavi (pictured) as Puri that carries the movie and overcomes some of its excesses. (Though there is virtually no lightness or humor here, I did chuckle at a scene in which the mother superior is strolling through the convert with some nuns, discussing what to do about Puri; it felt like a "How do you solve a problem like Maria" moment from The Sound of Music.) Lavi throws herself full-bloodedly into the role, her unbridled emotions and fearless physical performance threatening but never quite reaching camp level. Frank Wolff as Antonio is fine, though he vanishes from the main action for long stretches. This is considered an example of the folk horror genre—a name applied retroactively in recent years—along with films like The Blood on Satan's Claw, The Blair Witch Project, and, more recently, Midsommar. Viewers have differed on whether the film should be seen as supernatural or psychological horror. Indeed, the only truly supernatural thing seen here is the manifestation of the dead boy, but as that is not witnessed by anyone else, it could be part of Puri's psychosis. It does not have the typical horror atmosphere: no old dark houses, no gore, and lots of scenes happening outside in broad daylight. Still, the movie is quite punishing to Puri and viewers may feel pummeled by what happens to her. Directed by Brunello Rondi who was a screenwriter for Fellini (8-1/2, Satyricon). [Criterion Channel]

THE MANSTER (1959)

A big shaggy beast breaks into a house and kills a woman, her blood spattering across the window, and we see he's gone on a rampage outside with dead women littering a pond. The beast is Kenji; his brother, research scientist Dr. Suzuki, has been experimenting with drugs he thinks can alter the course of evolution but all his subjects become violent brutes, including Kenji and Suzuki's wife who is now a bestial woman he keeps in a cage. Suzuki kills Kenji and looks for another subject, which he finds in Larry, an American reporter who has come to interview Suzuki at his isolated house and lab in the mountains near a volcano (maybe that's Chekhov's volcano?). The doctor gives Larry a knockout drug, injects him with the experimental serum, and Larry wakes none the wiser. Though the reporter is supposed to head back to the States to see his wife, he winds up being shown a good time in Tokyo by Suzuki and his lovely assistant Tara; rationalizing his behavior to Tara, Suzuki proclaims that in the name of scientific progress, what happens to any one man makes no difference. Larry starts to feel pains in his shoulder and hands, and is kept drunk and decadent by Tara and Suzuki. When his wife Linda shows up, catching him dallying with Tara, Larry finds his hands transforming into hairy paws and he heads out into the nighttime streets where he blacks out and goes on a rampage, eventually entering a temple and killing a priest. More blackouts and deaths follow until Larry discovers an eyeball growing on his shoulder, which eventually mutates into a second head. Soon, with the cops on his trail, Larry heads back to Suzuki’s lab where the doctor has an attack of conscience and gives Larry a serum that might enable Larry's monster half to split apart. The fairly exciting climax occurs on the edge of the volcano. Though filmed in Japan with several Japanese actors, this horror/sci-fi film is primarily a Hollywood production, with British actor Peter Dyneley and his wife Jane Hylton playing Larry and Linda, and the dialogue is mostly delivered in English. Despite a reputation as a bargain basement Z-film, it's not bad. It does have a low budget, but the monster outfits are effective, and the two-headed effect is done very well and used sparingly. We’re meant to have a good deal of sympathy for Larry, but because we see little of him before he's driven to bad behavior by Suzuki, it was hard for me to really care much about his fate. [Spoiler!] The fact that Larry's monster half does split off and good Larry survives was a bit surprising, and the effect is done well. Performances are adequate, though Satoshi Nakamura never quite gets as crazed as most mad doctors of the era do. I’d seen this years ago in a murky, splicy print, but the version currently on YouTube is in very nice shape, taken, I assume, from a recent Blu-ray disc.

THE UNKNOWN TERROR (1957)

Jim has gone "south of the American continent" in search of the legendary Cave of the Dead, but has vanished without a trace. His sister Gina (Mala Powers) and her husband Dan (John Howard) undertake an expedition to find him, joined by Pete (Paul Richards), an old flame of Gina's who saved Dan's life years ago in a spelunking accident but who now has a permanent limp. In a Central American village, they get some help from Raoul, an interpreter. They hear a local folk singer sing a song with veiled references to the Cave of Death, with the cave as a kind of purgatory for the newly dead, but when they ask Raoul to interpret it, he refuses and runs off. An American doctor named Ramsey (Gerald Milton), who spends most of his time experimenting with molds grown in jars of fruit, tells them that the cave does not exist, but also mentions the human sacrifices that occur occasionally in the village, and says he saves the people from death and puts them in "a safe place." Ramsey's wife, a local woman named Concha, flirts a bit with Pete and soon takes him off to the jungle to hear the rumored voices of the people in purgatory. What develops is that Ramsey has been putting the villagers he saves in the Cave of the Dead, which is right below his house, and experimenting on them with the fungi he grows, turning them into fungus monsters who occasionally escape and wreak havoc aboveground. These are the purgatory voices that Concha hears. Later, Gina is menaced by a creepy deformed mutant, one of Ramsey’s subjects, at her bedroom window. The climax involves lots of cave exploring, lots of bubbly fungus dripping down the walls of the cave, and a possible threat to the entire planet from the fungus, which has gotten out of Ramsey's control.

This little-known second feature is completely average for its genre, horror with SF and adventure elements. I like the ideas that drive the plot—the experiments, the sacrifices, the enigmatic folk song, the vague outline of a romantic triangle—but despite the sheer number of plot points, things still bog down here and there, especially as we near the climax. Old pro Howard (Bulldog Drummond, The Philadelphia Story) is good, giving no sign of thinking he's slumming. Powers is in her element as the damsel in distress. Paul Richards is a bit too low-key as the noble sufferer (whose handicap sort of comes and goes depending on the scene). Gerald Milton doesn't bring much to the mad doctor part. The movie looks way better than it has a right to; the Blu-ray print of the black and white widescreen film is clean and vivid, and the sets are good, though the fungus effect, mostly tons of soap bubbles, leaves something to be desired. Its production values put it ahead of the typical Roger Corman horror flick of the day, but it lacks the rough charm of those movies. The folk singer is Sir Lancelot, the calypso singer who features prominently in Val Lewton's I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. Pictured are some of the fungus monsters in the cave. [Blu-ray]

THE SPELL (1977)

Susan Myers (pictured) is a lonely high school student who is mocked by her classmates for being fat (which, BTW, she is not, she's just plain; it would have made more sense if she had been ostracized for her prickly and isolating behavior). Susan's gym teacher (Lelia Goldoni) is sympathetic—and during gym class, a popular student who mocks Susan falls during a rope climb and breaks her neck. Susan's parents are less sympathetic with her, and totally unable to deal with her problems or her mildly rebellious behavior, such as arguing with her younger sister (Helen Hunt) and ignoring chores. Her dad (James Olson) is distracted and lacks empathy; her mom (Lee Grant) is understanding but also ready to tell her to move out if she doesn't shape up. During a confrontation with her mom, Susan seems to fall into a trance, chanting things like, "Each deed is written in fire" and "I reproach myself." While out at dinner, Olson is forced telepathically to leave to go home, and is almost hit in the parking lot by a work friend who suddenly seems very drunk. Meanwhile, a neighbor of Grant's has convinced her husband that she is under attack by occult forces, and indeed, dies from what appears to be spontaneous combustion. A parapsychologist who was trying to help the neighbor suggests to Grant that her family is in trouble, and after Hunt almost drowns in a pool, it seems possible that Susan is meddling in dark forces that she may not be able to control. This TV-movie seems to have been inspired by the movie of Stephen King's Carrie, though in that story, Carrie's powers come from within whereas here Susan is getting help from another occult dabbler, and the high school context pretty much drops out after the opening scene. For a TV movie, the effects are good even if the teleplay feels a bit weak—often, these characters don't act like real people, and the father in particular seems unbelievably out of touch with his family. The subplot with the neighbor who burns to death seems stuck in to pad the film out to 90 minutes, though the scene itself is nicely done. But the acting helps make up for other weaknesses. Myers, who had a short career in TV, is excellent, and all the more effective for underplaying her role. Grant and Hunt (only 14 at the time) are both good. I always like Olson who has a knack for passive but likable average guys—here, his character is not so likable but Olson's bland charm still works. Goldoni is fine but her role should have been beefed up. The finale, which I did not predict, is very cool indeed. It's got a TV-movie look but a B-movie heart, which is a good thing. [Criterion Channel]

THE MAN WHO TURNED TO STONE (1957)

All is not well at the La Salle Detention Home for Girls where juvenile delinquents (all white and wholesome looking, and some played by actresses in their 30s) live in a dorm-like residence. It actually looks like a fairly decent place to be reformed except for the creepy screams occasionally heard in the night, usually followed the next day by an announcement that a girl has died. The new girl Anna is particularly fragile and has a heart murmur, and two gals, nice girl Tracy and tough cookie Big Marge, take a liking to her. That night, a scream is heard and a death by heart attack is announced the next day. Tracy goes to social worker Carol Adams to express her concern about the increasing death rates and when she decides to investigate, staff members, including the chief administrator Dr. Murdock (Victor Jory) and the nurse Mrs. Ford, are not happy. When Marge mouths off to Mrs. Ford, she is put in isolation and labelled a possible psych case. Supposedly concerned about Anna's health, Ford puts her in the infirmary, then we see the tall, creepy mute staff member Eric carry her off in the night. We soon learn that all the members of the staff are scientists born over 200 years ago. They are staying alive by draining "bioelectric energy" from young women which enables their cells to be rejuvenated, but killing the women. But they have recently discovered that this process will only work for so long, and Eric is the first one to fall prey to the main weakness—the slow petrification of the flesh, which will lead to death. We see Anna go through the process and that night at bedtime, her body is found hanging from the rafters in the dorm. Tracy is certain she would not have committed suicide, and when Carol keeps digging into death records, Ford replaces her with psychiatrist Jess Rogers. As Carol packs up her things, she shares her concerns with Jess; he becomes concerned as well and asks her to stay as an assistant. Even as the staff have to deal with these suspicions, another member, Dr. Cooper, begins deteriorating and expresses doubts about continuing their project. But Murdock will not be deterred; he's willing to sacrifice Eric but not himself. When Jess finds out what’s going on, Murdock's days may be numbered, and he might turn into the title character.

In terms of story and acting, this B-movie works well enough. But, my God, this is a drab, ugly film which plods along predictably. It's an interesting premise, though once the process is a given, we get no fleshing-out of the idea, no probing into the plight of people striving to be immortal. Some reviewers mention the film's unique melding of Gothic horror, science fiction, and teenagers, but it's done lackadaisically, generating little interest. It's unimaginatively directed by Laszlo Kardos and cheaply produced by Sam Katzman. The black & white widescreen DVD print is in great shape, allowing us to fully appreciate the poor production values. The dorm and the offices are cheap looking sets, though the exteriors look to have been shot at a college campus. The girls in need of reform are all as squeaky clean as Annette Funnicello, and Eric's stone-face makeup is barely adequate. The acting is much better than the film deserves. Victor Jory, who had a long and full career (Gone With the Wind, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Miracle Worker) goes for dignified and misunderstood evil rather than campy histrionics and is not bad. Likewise for Paul Cavanagh, a British character actor with over 150 credits, who is even better as Cooper who eventually opposes Jory's plans. Charlotte Austin as Carol is fine, and William Hudson (the pitiful husband in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman) as Jess is very good—he's no hunk but he is B-movie handsome which counts for a lot in my book. Jean Wiles and Tina Carver are fine as Tracy and Marge (I was sorry that Marge's character gets sidelined so quickly).The very busy Ann Doran gives Mrs. Ford a little polish but she is generally a little too low-key. The climactic action manages to work up some excitement, but overall this one is pretty blah. Pictured are Jory and Hudson. [DVD]

DESTINY (1921)

Two young lovers (Lil Dagover and Walter Janssen) are riding in a carriage on their way to a small German village where they plan to get married. Along the road, a tall man in black materializes and the carriage stops to give him a ride. When the village dignitaries gather at the Golden Unicorn Inn for their evening nightcap, they are abuzz with talk of the mysterious stranger (Bernhard Goetzke, at right) who wants to buy up a large plot of land adjacent to the cemetery. After the purchase, the stranger surrounds it with a huge wall with no door or gate. One night at the inn, Janssen and the stranger go missing, and when Dagover goes to the stranger's wall, she sees a parade of transparent ghostly figures walking through the wall, and one of them is Janssen. Realizing that the dark stranger is Death, she approaches him insisting that love is stronger than death and begs him to release Janssen to the land of the living. Death makes her an offer: she will enter the lives of three people destined to die, and if she can keep one of them alive, he will bring Janssen back. What follows are three vignettes in which Dagover, Janssen, and Goetzke become the three main characters. The first, set in Baghdad at Ramadan, involves a princess in love with an infidel who is marked for death by her brother, the caliph. In the second story, set during Carnival in Venice, a noblewoman, set to marry a nobleman, is in love with a commoner, and plots to kill her fiancé before he can kill her lover. Lastly, the Emperor of China demands not only that the magician A Hi perform for him on his birthday, but also wants to take his female assistant Tiao Tsien as a gift. Her lover Liang is captured and she uses the magician's magic wand to set things right, with mixed results. As you might guess, Dagover is unable to save any of the three destined victims. Will Death comply with one last wish of hers?

The German title of this Fritz Lang film, Der mude Tod (Weary Death), refers to the weariness that the Death figure feels; he explains to Dagover that he is simply doing God's will, just another worker at a job that doesn't make him happy. The German subtitle is A German Folk Song in Six Verses, and though this is a silent film with no songs, the whole thing feels like something that a troubadour might have sung about. As in a song or folktale, we have to take the lovers' feelings for granted since we get no real background or development of character. Lang's visuals are striking. Among the more memorable images: the gargantuan wall, the flying carpet in the Chinese story, a large dark room filled with flickering candles, each representing one life, each being snuffed out when each life comes to an end; the eerie figure of Death himself. The stories all bog down a bit because the frame story is the most compelling; as for the actors, Goetzke stands out just because of his look and demeanor. The saddest and most resonant moments in the film are in the last section. Dagover has been sent through the village to find a person, already close to death, who will give up their life to save Janssen, but each person, despite being old or sickly, says no, replying that they will give up "not a single hour, not a single day, not a single breath." A dark and moody film which has a satisfying if ultimately sad ending. [Blu-ray]

THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS (1964)

The humanoid (and very tall) alien Kolos approaches Earth on a mission to start a colony there in order to expand the Intergalactic Council's “galaxy domination” program. He teleports from his spaceship to Earth and visits Prof. Dornheimer at his isolated mansion where the scientist has been working in cybernetics to fix human deficiencies such as his niece Lisa’s blindness. Kolos forces him (and his two busty but silent female assistants) to turn his work to creating androids which could replicate any living being (now we would use the word "clone"). Meanwhile, police are stymied by a series of robberies of high-tech equipment by highly placed scientists. The latest incident involves Dr. Munson who arrives at work in what seems like a trance state, breaks into a room to steal material, and despite being shot at close range, escapes unharmed, his body found in a canyon miles away; it's discovered he was actually dead before the robbery. Glenn Martin of the National Intelligence Agency investigates. He talks to Dornheimer and meets Lisa, who has become suspicious of Kolos's presence. Later Glenn finds a way into Dornheimer's basement labs through a cave system and finds android figures of various scientists. Soon, not only have Dornheimer and his assistant Thor been duplicated, so has Glenn. Glenn's android is caught in a robbery attempt by fellow agent Gale Wilson, and his artificial arm is ripped off by a sliding door. The real Glenn is held prisoner with the real Dornheimer, and Thor has been duplicated over a dozen times to produce a small group of thugs under Kolos's command. When the duplicate Dornheimer starts ranting about building a master race, Kolos begins to question his assignment, especially when he realizes that he himself is an android.

Though this film does not have a good reputation—it's cheap looking and indifferently acted—the ideas behind it are interesting enough. It was influenced by Invasion of the Body Snatchers, though that movie's paranoid atmosphere isn't duplicated here, and includes spaceships, crime investigation, Nazi philosophy, and fisticuffs. Richard Kiel (pictured) is Kolos; we all know him as the tall alien in the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man," as the tall caveman in EEGAH, and the tall villain Jaws in a couple of James Bond movies. His ability to act beyond being a hulking threat is often questioned by critics. Here, he reads his lines like a sleepy amateur, but he has said that he was following the dictates of the director, Hugo Grimaldi, sounding casually robotic. At any rate, it's his physical presence that is more important here and he's fine. The lead, George Nader, was a B-movie slice of beefcake who started acting in the early 1950s, and by this time his looks, if not his physique, were fading, as was any talent he had. He makes his character uninteresting and uninspiring. Years later, he came out as gay and wrote the first major gay SF novel, Chrome. Barbara Nichols, who specialized in blonde floozies with strong Brooklyn accents, is Gale; she's not a floozy here but she does have that Brooklyn accent, and her character is pleasingly different for a sidekick role like this. Dolores Faith is Lisa, George Macready is Dornheimer, and Hugh Beaumont (Ward Cleaver in Leave It to Beaver) has a small role as the NIA boss. The doc's mansion has the look of a TV movie version of a Hammer mansion; the caves beneath have a bit of a gothic look what with androids being kept in coffins. The small army of Thor duplicates is very effective, as is the ceramic shattering of some of the android faces. Released on a double bill with MUTINY IN OUTER SPACE (both featuring Dolores Faith and directed by Hugo Grimaldi). Not really recommended but painless matinee viewing with beer and popcorn. [YouTube]

MUTINY IN OUTER SPACE (1964)

In the future era of the 1990s, Major Gordon Towers and Capt. Dan Webber return from the moon in their 2-man craft to Space Station X-7 with samples of ice taken from newly discovered lunar ice caves. Dan returns with a worrisome leg bruise, but Gordon is happy to be reunited with his main squeeze, biologist Faith Montaine, who works in a small greenhouse. Communications officer Connie Engstrom is sweet on the station commander, Frank Cromwell, but warns him that he's showing signs of exhaustion and needs to take some time off, perhaps suffering from what they call space raptures. Despite looking like he's on the verge of collapse, he insists he's fine. The astronaut who actually does collapse is Dan, whose bruise is diagnosed by Dr. Hoffman as some kind of moon fungus. The fungus eventually encases Dan's body, killing him, and Gordon tells Frank that he should tell Mission Control that they need to be put in quarantine when they land on Earth. But the paranoid Frank thinks Gordon is suggesting mutiny. Meanwhile, a meteor shower bangs the station up a bit, and some of the ice cave samples break open. Next thing you know, the ship is overrun by creepy crawly fungus tendrils, both inside and out. Hoffman, who has been infected with the fungus, thinks that it thrives in heat and suggests that cold will effectively fight it. Mission Control sends up a rocket which will expel a cloud of subzero particles that should envelop the ship and kill the fungus. But by now, Frank has gone full nutjob, threatening not just the rescue mission but all the astronauts, and a mutiny does indeed break out.

Reading online reviews of this movie, you would be tempted to think that there are two different versions in circulation. Some folks think this is as bad as an Ed Wood movie, citing the cheap sets, cardboard miniatures, and lackluster acting. Others like the retro look and the plausible screenplay, and note some visual similarities to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I'm in the middle. Exterior shots of the rotating space station are very bad, with the ship looking like it was made of paper plates and aluminum foil. The fungus looks like a bunch of feather boas strung together. But honestly, the amateurishness of the proceedings is a little charming. The interiors of the space station don't look bad; a reference to old satellites as space junk feels relevant today; we have indeed found ice on the moon. Worries about astronauts returning contaminated by a foreign substance were real. It's mildly interesting that in a crew of about a dozen, two members are women; both are attractive but also able to handle themselves well (most of the time). The acting is pretty good, considering the movie was shot in six days. William Leslie is fine as Gordon, the blandly vanilla baby-faced hero, though he seems distinctly uninterested in his kissing sessions with the botanist (Dolores Faith, only so-so). Pamela Curran, something of a blonde bombshell, is better as Connie who goes from defending Frank to joining the mutiny. Richard Garland is a bit of a letdown giving a one-note performance as Frank, though Glenn Langan is fine as the general at Mission Control who is cut to every so often. The familiar character actor James Dobson may come off the best as Dr. Hoffman, though I don't think we ever find out what happens to his character. After his infection, he is put in a refrigeration unit to kill off the fungus; we're told his theory was successful but we never see him again. Carl Crow is the newbie Capt. Dan who is sacrificed early on; Harold Lloyd Jr. gets a special credit in the tiles, but winds up with little to do; this was his last movie before his untimely death a few years later. Pictured are Crow and Leslie. [YouTube]

DARK INTRUDER (1965)

In 1890 San Francisco, we see a woman chased down an alley at night and killed, with claw marks on her face and a grotesque statuette left behind. This is the fourth such murder and the police force is coming under pressure from the press and the city government to make some progress on the hunt for the killer. Brett Kingsford does occasional work for the police, as an informer and as an occult expert—I don't think we ever learn how he makes a living, but he lives comfortably in a nice house with a dwarf butler named Nikola. Brett surmises that the statuettes represent a Sumerian demon, and the murders have something to do with the demon eventually taking human form. Meanwhile, Brett's close friend Evelyn is worried about her fiancé Robert, an antiques dealer who's been suffering from sleepwalking-like fits and fears that he might be the killer. Brett himself is attacked by a brutish caped figure, and soon he figures out that only one more death is needed to bring the demon back to life. This short movie was originally produced as a TV pilot but when it was considered a bit too scary for television, some extra material was added to bring it to fifty-nine minutes and it was released as a second feature. The idea of a show revolving around an occult investigator might have been more palatable a few years later, and based on this film, it might have worked out nicely. Leslie Nielsen, years before his fame as a comic actor in Airplane! and The Naked Gun, looks the part perfectly with his fancy smoking jacket and sideburns, but his performance, though not comic, is oddly light-toned, perhaps in an attempt to balance out the darker material. He’s not off-putting and has a couple of strong moments, but makes a few too many jokey asides. Mark Richman (later known as Peter Mark Richman, pictured) is the real star of the show as the troubled Robert; Judi Meredith, the princess in Jack the Giant Killer, is serviceable as Evelyn; Werner Klemperer is buried under makeup as Malaki, a spooky fortune teller; Charles Bolender makes a solid impression as Nikola, even though he has little to do. I felt a Lovecraft influence here in the vague presentation of the demon backstory—the god Dagon is mentioned in passing, an actual Sumerian god but also a figure of evil in a Lovecraft story. Brett has a mandrake plant that sways on its own. The sets are elaborate and the visuals are nicely atmospheric. Coincidentally, the cinematographer, John F. Warren, also worked on the movie Zero Hour which was the movie parodied in Neilsen's Airplane! A good choice for October viewing. [Streaming]

THE DEVIL'S PARTNER (1961)

In a dilapidated shack in rural Texas, an old man kills a goat in a Satanic ritual, uses its blood to mark up a hexagon sketched out on the floor, then writes something on goat skin. Days later, Nick Richards shows up in Furnace Flats asking about his uncle Pete. Doc Lucas tells him that Pete, the old man in the first scene, was found dead a few days earlier, not mentioning the blood and the goat, signs that Pete might have been murdered, though no one knows why. Pete raised goats to sell goat's milk to the townspeople and Nick decides to stay in town and continue the business. He meets Nell, the doc's daughter and Pete's delivery person, and her boyfriend David, the local gas station owner. Nell takes it upon herself to help the somewhat standoffish Nick meet people in town, but unknown to Nell, we soon find out what we already suspected: Pete made a deal with the devil and Nick is a reborn younger version of Pete. Nick is soon performing rituals in the shack's hexagon, the first of which results in a man dying of poisoned goat's milk. Another ritual causes David's German Shepherd to maul him, leaving him with facial disfigurements. Nick runs the gas station while David recovers, but David's social withdrawal leads Nell to cozy up to Nick. When a renowned plastic surgeon is called to town to work on David, he is killed in a car accident caused by a cow standing in the middle of the road. The doc and the sheriff begin to suspect that Nick is somehow behind these attacks, but can they stop him before more townsfolk die?

This fairly obscure B-film was made in 1958 but not released until Roger Corman acquired it in 1961. Between its cheap look, spotty narrative, and short running time, it sometimes has the grimy feel of the notorious 60s cheapie Manos the Hands of Fate (also set in rural Texas). But this involved professionals. The director, Charles Rondeau, went on to a long career in directing television (Hawaiian Eye, F Troop, Love American Style). The top billed actor in the opening credits is Edgar Buchanan as Doc; though his role is not large, he probably got the billing because of his long career as a character actor in TV and movies since 1940. Ads for the film give first place, more accurately, to Ed Nelson (Nick, pictured), who debuted in movies in 1955 but didn't get famous until he played a major character in TV's Peyton Place in 1964. Richard Crane (David) was Rocky Jones on TV in the 50s and was a regular for two seasons of Surfside 6 in the early 60s. Nelson and Crane are good, Jean Allison (Nell) is a little less effective. The script has good ideas but could have used some doctoring here and there. The opening sequence is nicely creepy, but the film never quite rises to that level again. Still, a nice rediscovery to watch on a Chiller Theater night. [YouTube/Blu-ray]

DEAR DEAD DELILAH (1972)

In 1943, young Luddy is preparing to go out on the town while she talks to her mother about marrying her soldier boyfriend Don when he comes back from the war. But we soon see that Luddy's mom, who didn't approve of Luddy's behavior, is dead, her arm cut off with an axe. In the present day, Luddy is released from prison and, with nowhere to go, wanders through a park where she watches some people playing touch football. She is accidently knocked over by the young hunky Richard. He and his wife Ellen, a nurse, take her back to her family's mansion to recover, and they ask her to stay to be a companion to Ellen's wealthy aunt Delilah, who is slowly dying (and has been for quite some time). In addition to Ellen, who has lived at the mansion for years taking care of Delilah, and Richard, there are others around the plantation: Delilah's brothers Alonso, a heroin-addicted doctor who has lost his license, and Morgan, a would-be playboy who has arrived with his younger gold digger girl Buffy; Delilah's alcoholic sister Grace; and Roy, the family lawyer. Delilah announces that this time, she really is dying and it's clear that the relatives are hoping for a big payday, but she surprises them with the news that she is giving them small cash settlements, leaving the property to the state. Then she teases them with rumors of buried money on the estate, some $600,000. They call it "horse money" because supposedly Delilah's husband got the cash when he pulled an insurance scam, burning down a barn and killing a number of valuable horses. Delilah says whoever finds it gets it, which in grand old melodrama style gets all the interested parties hunting for the treasure between drinking, taking drugs, and arguing. Then people start getting axed to death. The quiet, passive Luddy, though still wrestling with her demons, is too obvious a suspect, so who is it?

This low-budget movie fits right into the "scream queen" flicks of the era with stars like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford starring in horror films like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and Strait-Jacket. But Agnes Moorehead was never as big a star as Davis or Crawford—her lasting fame is as Endora in the TV sitcom Bewitched—and this movie has made me realize that Moorehead, though fabulous as Endora, is not quite in the top rank of actors. Even in her best known parts (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte), she comes off as an oddly mannered, second-tier Judith Anderson. She's OK but no better here as Delilah; to be fair, she was apparently under treatment for cancer while filming, dying two years later. Everyone else seems a little low energy, possibly the fault of the director, John Farris, better known as a writer. The best performance comes from Patricia Carmichael as Luddy. This is her only movie and she gives a solid, unshowy performance as a passive, broken woman, almost autistic in her affect. Dennis Patrick (from Dark Shadows) is good as the similarly broken Alonso, who seems to be dabbling in romantic overtures to Luddy. Everyone else is a bit drab, including Michael Ansara as Morgan, Anne Meachem as Grace, and Robert Gentry (pictured) who gets a couple of shirtless scenes as the studly Richard. Farris also wrote the weak screenplay, and ultimately Luddy's story never meshes well with the Charles family plot. There are some surprisingly gory death scenes, including a silver-faced figure who whacks off someone's head while galloping by on a horse. Another person is found hanging in a smokehouse with a bunch of hams. An attempt is made at exploring psychological motivations, but it all comes off as underheated Tennessee Williams melodrama mixed with underfunded William Castle horror. It’s not terrible, but a bit disappointing. [YouTube]

NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST (1958)

Astronaut John Cochran is reentering Earth orbit when something goes wrong; he loses control of the capsule, saying that it feels hundreds of pounds heavier. He crashes in a desert area and is found by two space scientists. The ship has a huge hole in it, the outside is covered with muddy slime, and John is found dead inside. When the recoverers return with more help, much of the slime is gone and the hole is bigger. Even stranger, Cochran's body shows no signs of decomposing. Back at the tracking station, they discover that Cochran still has normal blood pressure, and a sample of his blood shows strange foreign cells in it. (A bad movie clue: the blood sample seen through the microscope is poor quality cartoon animation. Another clue: the actress playing the photographer is awful and only made one more movie.) Next thing we know, Cochran has come back to life, the communication radios aren't working, and a creature that looks like a bear is skulking around outside in the dark. In short order, we discover that the creature, who apparently hitched a ride on the space capsule, can communicate, sort of, with Cochran, and Cochran's body is now host to a number of alien fetuses (which we discover through more cheap animation). At night, the creature breaks in and kills the doctor, tearing off a chunk of his head—despite the movie's poster art showing this scene, we see nothing graphic. It consumes the head and later, when they find the monster in a nearby cave, it speaks in the doctor's voice and claims that the doctor has achieved immortality. Next, the fetuses inside of Cochran will be born and begin the task of taking over the Earth (supposedly to save us from ourselves and our misuse of scientific knowledge) unless our band of scientists can stop it.

Every October, I watch and review horror and sci-fi movies, particularly ones that might have been shown on Chiller Theater, a Friday night double feature show that aired here in Columbus in the 1960s and 70s. They mixed classics like DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN with super cheap B-films like ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU, but as a kid, they all seemed just dandy to me. For the last few years, I have thought I was scraping the bottom of the barrel every October, but I keep finding more to watch thanks largely to YouTube. So here's to another month. This hour-long B-movie from Roger Corman and his brother Gene (though directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, who had a very active career as a TV director well into the 1990s) has some good ideas but there isn't the budget or imagination to produce a very interesting movie. It’s not a total loss: a grim and moody atmosphere is built up in the isolated tracking station, the mystery of the dead/alive Cochran is developed nicely, and some of the actors are fine. But the monster is silly, the sets are cheap, and aside from the main ideas, the script is weak, with not quite enough plot for the full hour. I imagine that the idea of a man being pregnant with aliens was either considered shocking or laughable back then, though this idea was resurrected twenty years later in the original ALIEN. Michael Emmet (Cochran) is fairly compelling as Cochran—he's shirtless for a little while, providing some OK B-beefcake, hairy if not hunky. (He's pictured shirtless in the company of the Blood Beast at top right, and his face is seen at left.) Ed Nelson (Dave, the scientist who finds the wreck), who sustained a TV career into the 90s, and Angela Greene (Julie, Cochran's girlfriend) are adequate. This is included on some lists of the worst movies ever; it isn’t that bad, and I might even say it's somewhat memorable for, if nothing else, the pregnant man gimmick. Decent watching for an October B-movie party. [Streaming]