EQUINOX (1970)

David Fielding is running down a highway from an unseen figure, and is knocked over by a speeding car with no driver. A year later, he is still in a hospital, catatonic and diagnosed as a melancholic. A reporter arrives to do a story on him and is allowed to listen to taped interviews done with David a year ago. In flashback, we see David and his friends (Jim, Susan and Vicki) at an isolated cabin to visit their geology teacher, Prof. Waterman, but are dismayed to find his cabin mostly destroyed and him missing. A studly park ranger who calls himself Asmodeus is both friendly and a bit threatening, and warns the kids away from searching for Waterman. But the group persists and runs into a variety of strange occurrences. They see a castle in the distance which later vanishes. Large claw prints are found in the ground. A giggling old man offers to give them an old book which is a "veritable encyclopedia of evil." Eventually Waterman shows up and the kids discover that he has been using the book to conjure up demons (which will come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with the name Asmodeus). We see that a giant tentacled creature (Cthulhu, anyone?) destroyed the cabin. The rest of the movie consists of the group's adventures involving escaping from a giant ape-like creature, a giant shambling man, and the park ranger who tries to rape Vicki. But one by one, the kids are possessed by the devil until only David is left, running for safety as we saw at the beginning. A satanic creature had predicted that David would die in a year and day, which happens to be the very day the reporter has come visiting.

This amateur film was shot over two years' time, finished in 1967, for some $7,000. The director, twenty-year old Dennis Muren, also co-creator of the special effects, used the film as a demo reel in order to get a job in the movie industry, but producer Jack H. Harris saw its potential as a feature film. He hired Jack Woods to direct a new version and got the cast together to shoot new scenes, with Woods himself playing Asmodeus. Released in 1970, it became a minor cult hit. Muren went on to become a creative director at George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic effects studio, and was a celebrity guest on this year's TCM Classic Cruise. The movie largely vanished until Criterion released a deluxe 2-disc version that includes the original demo film. For me, the appeal of this movie is that it feels like something that anyone could have shot in a backyard (indeed, some scenes were shot that way). To say it's rough around the edges is an understatement: the acting is mostly amateurish because most of the actors were indeed amateurs—Barbara Hewitt (Susan) was a Rose Bowl queen; all the dialogue was post-dubbed, sometimes awkwardly; it's full of plot holes. But all that adds to the charm of the film. 

On top of that, the effects, though also rather roughly done, are effective, especially a really creepy flying devil (pictured top right) that swoops down and carries Susan off. Frank Boers Jr., who plays Jim, was the only actor who went on to a professional career, changing his name to Frank Bonner and playing Herb on the long-running series WKRP in Cincinnati; he's quite good and his dubbed dialogue is excellent. (According to the audio commentary, he was the only one of the actors who had much experience and so he dubbed his own lines; the rest of the cast was dubbed by others.) Though shot mostly outdoors and in daylight, a nicely demonic atmosphere is sustained throughout. I watched the original film (66 minutes versus the later version’s 82 minutes) and the story is basically the same, with the order of events shuffled a bit. Both versions are watchable, though the Asmodeus figure really adds a shot of energy to the longer film. The ending is anti-climactic, as though they ran out of time and money to shoot the final scene, though the filmmakers argue that they intended the conclusion to be a bit ambiguous. Both versions have commentaries that are fun to listen to. Pictured at left are Bonner and Edward Connell as David. [DVD]

THE BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW (1971)

In a small British village in the 1700s, a young farmer named Ralph digs up a buried skull with, oddly, one intact eyeball still in place and a patch of fur. Calling it the face of a fiend, he reports it to the local judge but it vanishes before the judge can see it. But this seems to be the catalyst for a number of odd occurrences in the village. Young Peter brings his fiancée Rosalind to stay in the home of his aunt, where the judge is lodging while he's in town, but that night, she claims that she was attacked in the dark and goes a little nuts, barricading herself in her room. She has to be led screaming out of the house, during which time Peter notices that one of her hands has become a furry paw with claws. The next night, Peter is attacked by a clawed creature and tries to chop away at it, only to find he's cut off his own hand. Meanwhile, Reverend Fallowfield is upset at the "insolent ungodliness" being displayed by the young members of his Bible study group who are falling away into a possibly satanic circle (looking a bit like 60s flower children) led by the sexy Angel Blake who tries to seduce Fallowfield and leads her followers in dangerous games, one of which results in the death of a young boy. The upshot of all this: Angel is conducting black masses to resurrect the demon that Ralph found in his field, with fur sprouting on the skin of various body parts of people which are intended to be used in the reconstruction of the demon. The judge, who left town to study up on fighting the devil, returns for the bloody climax at a ritual intended to be the final step in the return of the devil in earthly form.

Over the past few years, a new horror genre has been identified, folk horror, which is, somewhat like film noir, a label that is being retroactively applied to movies from the past. It usually involves the use of rural folklore and pagan or satanic rituals. 1973's The Wicker Man is the most famous movie to receive the folk horror name, with 2019's Midsommar being one of the more obvious recent entries. The problem with the label—as with the noir label—is that it can end up being too inclusive and losing its definitions. Some people call anything that features witchcraft folk horror—early examples supposedly include Night of the Demon, Witchfinder General and The Devil Rides Out, all of which are good movies but on shaky ground as folk horror—and that makes the genre too elastic for my taste. The more the film involves a small community, locally passed-down rituals or actual folklore (The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, The Blair Witch Project), the more it feels like legitimate folk horror. I think this movie fits the bill, though it's unclear how Angel's teen cult comes into being. Did the demon possess her because she touched a claw remnant? Did she have a bent for evil? Did it involve some elements of the village's past? 

A muted color palette and mostly outdoor settings give the film a darkly folkloric feel, with production values that make it seem like a scruffy version of a Hammer movie. The central presence of teenagers as the main cult members feels like a very Seventies strategy, though it also harks back to Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Specifics of the demonic reconstruction are left rather vague, which for me is a fault, keeping me from fully engaging with the plot and characters. Acting is about average, with the only real standout being Linda Hayden as Angel. I appreciate that the judge, the witchfinder stand-in played by Patrick Wymark, is not presented as evil or perverted, but he is also absent for the bulk of the film and his return near the end doesn't feel organic to the narrative, though it is necessary for the town's salvation. But overall, as an example of folk horror, this is worth seeing. An alternate title is Satan's Skin which is actually more appropriate if less interesting. Pictured top right are Linda Hayden and Godfrey James as Angel's father; above left is Simon Williams as Peter.[Streaming]

GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN (1958)

In Pine Ridge, a small town in a wooded area of California, residents have been dealing with the mysterious mutilation of cattle and horses. Now a man named Banks has been found dead out near Devil's Crag, a spot where geologist Wayne Brooks has been hanging out doing research. The sheriff suspects Brooks, though for no clear reason, or maybe old timer Indian Joe who warns that vengeful Indian spirits may be roaming the area. Enter visiting archeologist Frederick Cleveland and his spunky daughter Janet, searching for the remains of the legendary seven-foot tall Vargas, the Diablo Giant, leader of a group of conquistadors who vanished five hundred years ago. As Wayne cozies up to Janet, the three set up camp at Devil's Crag and, using metal detectors, find some buried conquistador armor and a skull. Also nearby, though they don't see him, is Vargas who has been lying in suspended animation all these years—we're told later that something in the soil might have served as a super-preservative. He dons his armor, grabs an axe, and engages in more mayhem, eventually kidnapping Janet with Wayne, Cleveland, and a posse from the town in pursuit. As monster movies go, this is fairly mild stuff. Though he's definitely menacing looking, Vargas looks more like a cranky old prospector with a mud-caked face. Six-foot-seven Buddy Baer, who plays him (pictured), was the uncle of Max Baer who played Jethro on The Beverly Hillbillies and he's reasonably effective in the dialogueless role. The rest of the actors are just about adequate. Ed Kemmer (Wayne) was the star of an early 50s TV show called Space Patrol and had a long career in television. He has a heroic bearing but never comes off as very commanding. Sally Fraser (Janet) is fine and has decent chemistry with Kemmer. 1930s western star Bob Steele is colorless as the sheriff though Morris Ankrum is a bit more energetic as Cleveland. When we first see Vargas, he appears to be awakening from his long sleep, so I was uncertain if he was indeed responsible for the earlier mayhem. Maybe it was Indian Joe the whole time (though he becomes a casualty of Vargas' rampage). At the end (spoiler!) Vargas falls into a waterfall and is assumed to die, but the promise of a sequel does hang in the air, though it never happened. This B-film is no gem but it’s fine fodder for Chiller Theater night. [YouTube]

KISS OF THE VAMPIRE (1963)

At a funeral in a Bavarian village, Prof. Zimmer arrives and thrusts a shovel into the coffin. From inside comes a scream and a flow of blood. Has a vampire just been destroyed? Next we see a honeymooning couple, Gerald and Marianne, run out of gas and take a room at an inn where Zimmer, an alcoholic, happens to be staying. Dr. Ravna, the owner of a huge nearby castle, sends the couple an invitation to dinner which they are happy to accept. The next night, they attend Ravna's elaborate masked ball and we soon discover Ravna's secret: he is a vampire and is the head of a vampire cult whose members wear white robes for their meetings. Marianne is spirited away and given an initial bite, and Ravna plans for her full initiation into vampirehood the next night. A drugged Gerald is returned to the inn alone and the innkeeper denies that Marianne ever existed. Luckily, Gerald gets help from Zimmer, whose own daughter had become a victim of the cult (and whom Zimmer destroyed in the opening scene). The two men engage in what Bram Stoker, in Dracula, called "wild work" in an attempt to free Marianne from the cult's bondage. Plotwise, this Hammer horror film doesn’t stray far from their 1960s formula as established in the 1958 HORROR OF DRACULA. Though Dracula is not a character, there is a European village, scared villagers, busty women, blood trickling from lips, and brave men trying to save a young woman from a fate worse than death. The addition of the Satanic-like cult is welcome, and the typical baroque and colorful sets are effective. Zimmer doesn't quite have the solid authoritative personality that Van Helsing does, but Gerald is glad to have anyone on his side. The final scene in which Zimmer conjures up evil to fight evil is one of Hammer's better climaxes. Acting is so-so. Noel Willman as Ravna is OK as a decadent castle owner but not as commanding as he should be as a vampire. Clifford Evans is better as Zimmer, but none of the characters have much presence which waters down to some degree how invested we are in Marianne's rescue. Still, I give points for the cult and for the ending. Also for a scene in which a potential victim scares away a vampire by making a crucifix shape in blood on his chest. Directed by Don Sharp who later did a couple of the Christopher Lee Fu Manchu movies. Pictured is Clifford Evans. [DVD]

ATTACK OF THE MAYAN MUMMY (1964)

Dr. Munson is leaving his old life as a TV commentator behind as he is tired of chasing empty dreams of riches and glory, and tells a reporter an improbable story from his past. Munson worked with a doctor named Redding who dabbled in hypnotic regression though Munson was eventually ousted from his job. Redding's best subject was Ann Taylor who apparently lived a previous life as a Mayan princess. She was sacrificed to the gods but knew the location of a Mayan breastplate which is the key to finding a hidden treasure, though it is supposedly guarded by a mummy. Munson, through Redding's teenage stepson Timmy, keeps tabs on Redding and his plan to head to the Yucatan with Ann, find the Mayan pyramid where the treasure is, and take it. When they get there, the mummy kills Redding and is taken back to Pasadena to be studied. The mummy gets all hot and bothered for Ann and kidnaps her, but both are killed in a car accident. Back in the frame story, the reporter decides that Munson’s tale is too far fetched for publication and tosses the story in a wastebasket.

This movie was put together by B-film producer and director Jerry Warren who was notorious for buying the rights to foreign films, usually horror or sci-fi, cutting them up and piecing them back together with cheaply shot new footage with different actors, sometimes shot years after the original film. This is Warren’s version of the 1957 Mexican film The Aztec Mummy. Munson's story, shot by Jerry Warren, is cut into huge chunks of the original Aztec Mummy movie. The characters from that movie have new names—Redding is Alamada (Ramon Gay, pictured) and Ann is Flora (Rosita Arenas)—and any footage that even comes close to being exciting or scary is from the original film (probably half of this movie's 75 minute running time). But Warren didn't bother to dub that dialogue; instead, we get narration from Munson over virtually every scene with people talking. Most of Warren's footage consists of two dumpy guys talking (Munson and the reporter, Munson and a former colleague). The scene that gets the most attention from online critics features Munson getting info from Timmy in a soda shop where we are distracted from dumpiness by watching teenagers dance rather badly. Without the context of how this was put together, I imagine this would be nigh unto impossible to sit through. Luckily (one way of putting it), I came to this after watching the original Aztec Mummy trilogy so I had some fun seeing how footage was appropriated and how relationships among characters were altered. For the record, George Mitchell is Munson and Bruno VeSota, a B-actor who has a bit of a cult following, is the reporter. Do I recommend this? Hell, no. But if you've seen The Aztec Mummy, you might get a mild kick out of this. [DVD]

THE LIVING HEAD (1963)

In 1525 Mexico, we see an elaborate Aztec human sacrifice ritual. The great warrior Acatl has been killed in battle and a cowardly soldier blamed for his death is sacrificed to the goddess Quadiliku by having his heart ripped out. Acatl's head is buried in a tomb, and the high priest Xiu proclaims that he and the high priestess Xochiquetzal are to be buried alive in the tomb to protect Acatl should his tomb be profaned. In 1963, Professor Muller and his assistants Charlie and Tony find the tomb with the head of Acatl (whom Muller, in the English dub, refers to as a "great military celebrity") still intact. Also intact is the body of Xochiquetzal, though it quickly crumbles to dust, and the beefy body of Xiu, holding a large ceremonial knife, which does not crumble. A "ring of death" is also found which sometimes glows and which Muller unwisely gives to his daughter Martha. Muller takes all his booty to his home to examine further, though Martha's boyfriend Robert thinks it all belongs in a museum. Another unwise thing that Muller does is to ignore a parchment that mentions a curse on all defilers. Soon, Charlie is found stabbed to death, then Tony, with a knife very much like Xiu's. The ring that Martha wears allows Xiu to control her. The last person Xiu needs to kill is Prof. Muller, and it looks like Xiu will enlist the unwilling Martha, who looks a lot like the gone-to-dust Xochiquetzal, to help out.

This cheapie Mexican horror film is a rehash of ideas from the Universal Mummy movies of the 1930s and 40s, even though the mummy character, Xiu, doesn't look at all like a mummy in his Aztec garb and face paint, though the way he stands still in his stand-up coffin conjures up Boris Karloff in the opening scene of the first Mummy movie. The opening segment in 1525 is nicely done, with lots of extras and good sets, but the rest of the movie looks cheap, shot almost entirely in Muller's house. The ring of death is a silly gimmick; even when Martha has gotten rid of the ring, she is still under Xiu's power so there seems no reason for it to exist. Ana Luisa Peluffo plays both Martha and Xochiquetzal; it could be that when the Aztec priestess crumbles, her spirit enters Martha's body, but that’s never clarified. Oddly, Mauricio Garces plays both Robert and the head of Acatl, though I didn't notice this during the movie—as Robert, Garces resembles Clark Gable, and as the head, he just opens his eyes occasionally and glowers. The creepiest scene for me is when a big spider crawls across Acatl's face. (BTW, the way that Acatl's name is pronounced causes the auto-generated subtitles to interpret it as "a cuddle" which made me chuckle every time.) Guillermo Cramer has the thankless role of Xiu (pictured), looking moderately threatening most of the time. Abel Salazar, a prolific filmmaker and actor, plays the fairly unimportant role of the cop whose men continue to shoot at Xiu even though bullets don't hurt him. He also produced the film. Directed by the even more prolific Chano Urueta—over 100 credits on IMDb. The English dub (original title: La cabeza viviente) was produced by the infamous K. Gordon Murray. Mostly slow and dull. [YouTube]

TEENAGE ZOMBIES (1959)

We meet cleancut teenagers Reggie and Julie at the Campus House soda shop, meeting their friends Skip and Pam to go water skiing at a nearby lake. Reggie makes plans to pick up their friends Morrie and Dot at a horse ranch when they get back. Skip tells Reggie about the existence of an island several miles out, and when they get there, they think the beach would make a great spot for summer partying. Soon they see disheveled laborers (who look "doped or dead or something" according to Reggie) led by a sexy lady in an evening gown and cape. When they try to leave the island, they discover their boat is missing. The boys seek help at the only house they can find; the gowned lady, a Dr. Myra, invites them in but insists she knows nothing about the boat. She takes them to a basement laboratory where Ivan, a hulking zombie assistant, has Julie and Pam in cages. He tosses the boys in as well, and when Reggie asks, "What kind of creep joint is this?" she replies, "A place where science is free from the interference of stupid politicians!" Myra is working with two agents to develop a gas that, when dropped from the air, will paralyze the will of people and turn them into mindless zombies. Their bosses ("from the East") are pressuring Myra to deliver the gas now even though she hasn't worked out all the kinks, so she plans on making the teenagers her next and final subjects. Meanwhile, Morrie and Dot, concerned that their friends never showed up, come to the island looking for them. A run-in with Myra convinces them that all is not well and back on the mainland, they get the sheriff to go with them to the island. But the sheriff is actually in cahoots with Myra; he has been providing her with drunks and lawbreakers for her experiments. Now it's six teenagers versus four adults and some zombies (and, oh yeah, a completely ineffective gorilla). The bad guys don't have a chance.

Critics really hate this movie, and with good reason. The director is Jerry Warren, renowned for his amateurish B-films; it's cheaply made with sets that are just a notch above Ed Wood sets; the 70 minute movie is padded out with long scenes of the teenagers walking from place to place; the final fisticuffs scene is people rolling around on the floor waiting for the director to explain his vision; the adult actors, especially Katherine Victor as Myra, are terrible; despite the title, there are no teenage zombies (though Julie and Pam are briefly stupefied by the gas), nor are there many teenagers—the "teen" actors whose birth dates could be verified are all between 25 and 30, and only Morrie (Jay Hawk) looks like he might be a teen. Actually, there are damn few zombies of any kind; aside from the string of laborers we see near the beginning, creepiness is supplied only by the mute and scruffy Ivan (Chuck Niles, a jazz DJ in real life). But I sat through this movie and must take my pleasures where I can get them, with the six teenagers. They are all attractive and are more adept at dialogue than most of the adults. Don Sullivan (Reggie) had a short career in the late 50s in B-films (see THE GIANT GILA MONSTER) and TV, and he and Paul Pepper (Skip) are believable protagonists. The other teens (Jay Hawk, Mitzi Albertson, Brianne Murphy and Nan Green) hold their own. Katherine Victor's bland performance as Myra sinks any possibility this movie had for being a camp classic; an over-the-top performance in the main villain role would have been welcome, though Victor does get to wear, by my count, three different evening gowns (sometimes with a lab coat), doing none of them justice. Whatever you do, don't pay to watch this, but as a YouTube algorithm discovery, this was bearable. There is conflicting information about the movie's date. It was made in 1957 and got a general release in 1960, but played some theaters in 1959. Pictured are Sullivan, Pepper, and Victor. [YouTube]

TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972)

While taking a tour of old catacombs, five people get separated from the group and wind up in a room with a robed and hooded man seated on a stone throne in front of a rock background sculpted like a skull face. This man, the crypt keeper, tells them, one by one, stories that they think will predict their future. 1) On Christmas Eve, while her little restless daughter waits in bed for Santa Claus to arrive, Joan Collins kills her husband, drags his body out of the living room, and cleans (astonishingly well) the bloody white carpet where she attacked him. Meanwhile, the radio reports that a murderous lunatic dressed in a Santa suit has escaped a nearby asylum. Of course, he shows up at her door (pictured at left). 2) Ian Hendry has run away from his wife with his mistress (Angela Grant), but their car goes off the road during a storm and catches fire in a ravine. Hendry comes to, having been thrown from the car, doesn’t see Grant, and leaves the scene. As he makes his way home, every person he has contact with looks at him and screams. Finally finding Grant alive and at her home (which was supposed to be their new home), he discovers that more than a year has passed since the accident, and also discovers why he is eliciting shrieks of horror from all who see him. 3) Upper-crust Robin Phillips is upset that his elderly neighbor's (Peter Cushing) house is in disrepair and his antics while entertaining neighborhood children are bothersome. Phillips gets Cushing's beloved but noisy dogs confiscated, spreads rumors that Cushing is a child molester, and on Valentine's Day, sends him dozens of cruel valentines supposedly from the neighbors. Cushing kills himself. A year later, Cushing climbs out of his grave and visits Phillips, and pulls his own bloody Valentine's Day prank.

4) Richard Greene tells his wife (Barbara Murray) that his business dealings have gone sour and he has to sell off his art collection. But when Murray runs across an ancient Chinese statuette that promises the owner three wishes, she wishes for money. She gets her wish, but only because her husband is killed in a car accident and she inherits his insurance. Her lawyer (Roy Dotrice) points out the similarity of her situation to the one in the famous tale The Monkey's Paw but she ignores him and wishes for Greene to be returned as he was just before the accident. She comes to regret her wish as well as the one she tries to use to set things right. 5) Nigel Patrick, a former army officer, takes over the running of a home for the blind, bringing his faithful German Shepherd with him. Patrick runs the place with a tight fist, cutting back on food, heat, and blankets to save money. After trying to talk Patrick into changing his ways, Patrick Magee, one of the patients, leads the rest in a plot for revenge in which the dog plays a big part. Finally, the five listeners realize that, rather than the future, the Crypt Keeper has told them their recent pasts before they are sent through a passageway leading to Hell.

In the early 1950s, EC Comics published a popular line of horror comic books with titles like Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and Weird Fantasy. The stories, like similar stories that Rod Serling wrote a few years later for The Twilight Zone, were usually ironic tales of revenge, with gory details in the artwork, and often a darkly humorous twist. As they appealed to children, censorship problems broke out and EC quit publishing the line in 1955. Since then, they have reprinted often, and a TV series, Tales of the Crypt, had a long run on HBO. This British anthology film from Amicus dramatized five EC stories, two of which I have vivid memories of from paperback reprints in the 60s: "And All Through the House," the Christmas story, and "Wish You Were Here," the Monkey’s Paw adaptation,  both of which had particularly disturbing final panels. This movie has a PG rating, so the visuals are not as explicit as the comics were, but still there are a few nice horror jolts here along the way. The Santa story and the Valentine's story, are the best vignettes here, with the final story the weakest, partly because it's too long and partly because it strains credibility. The acting is adequate, with Ralph Richardson effortlessly taking the honors as the Crypt Keeper—he's never referred to by that name in the movie but in the comics, a different version of him narrates the stories—a role he apparently filmed in one day. Joan Collins and Peter Cushing are also good. Your reaction to Patrick Magee (pictured at right) will depend on your reaction to his over-the-top style, which I happen to like. The production values are not especially high but, like the acting, they're adequate. It’s been pointed out that not all the main characters deserve to be sent to Hell, but there’s no need to think about that too much. I reviewed the sequel, THE VAULT OF HORROR in 2023. [Streaming]

THE MUMMY AND THE CURSE OF THE JACKALS (1969/1986)

Amateur archeologist David Barrie lives in Las Vegas and keeps two coffins in his somewhat dilapidated house. They were being transported from Egypt when the plane they were on crashed and they wound up in Lake Mead from where David retrieved them. One, a glass coffin, contains the perfectly preserved body of a 4,000 year old princess named Akana; the other stores the mummified body of a fellow named Sirakh. Any classic-era Mummy movie fans will figure out quickly that there is a curse involved with these two, and that Sirakh is the guardian of Akana. Akana is set to wake up soon, and thoughtfully, her father gave her the gift of being able to know the language of whatever land she's in when she wakes up. At the full moon, anyone who is in the presence of the princess is cursed with turning into a were-jackal. David knows all this and, in the spirit of blasphemous fun, decides to spend the next full moon night in the coffin room. Surprise! He turns into a human jackal, then goes nuts, assaulting and killing some cops and winos on the streets of Vegas. The next day, Akana has come to life and we learn her mission is to spread the worship of the rightful Egyptian gods to the whole world. David, her new acolyte, teaches her how to put on a bra (!) and dresses her up to go out on the town with his friends. She also wears a snake ring with mildly hypnotic effects. But soon Sirakh, with one bulging eye, a pot belly, and oven mitts on his hands, awakens and goes on a bit of a rampage, winding up in a strip club and killing a dancer in an Egyptian headdress. In the end, a bit ramshackle because of the circumstances of filming (see below), Akana disintegrates as the mummy and the jackal fight in a lake.

This was apparently filmed in 1969, but funding dried up and the movie was never really finished. A feature length version of the footage was pieced together and released on home video in 1986 and has garnered a bit of a cult reputation since then. (There are unsubstantiated rumors that it played at a theater in LA in 1969, and I did find a newspaper press release from that year that mentions the movie has been finished.) The director, Oliver Drake, was mostly known as a writer, having worked on over a hundred screenplays and teleplays. It will not come as a surprise that he did uncredited work on Universal's THE MUMMY'S CURSE, which the plot of this film resembles a bit (not to mention that its Egyptian temptress is named Ananka). I'll try to ignore comparisons to the work of Ed Wood; instead, I’ll say this felt like chunks of a home movie that some enthusiastic amateurs who lived in Las Vegas were putting together. There are two professionals in the cast. Anthony Eisley, of whom I have fond memories from the 1960s TV show Hawaiian Eye, is David, and though he seems uncomfortable at times, he gives it his all. Old reliable John Carradine showed up for probably a day's worth of work and delivered a bunch of (mostly non-essential) backstory. Robert Alan Browne, as David's buddy Bob, had a decent career in small roles through the 1990s. Most of the rest of the cast didn't go on to other film roles. Marliza Pons (Akana) was a belly dancer in Vegas, and perhaps coached the dancing girl who gets attacked by the mummy. The production has the cheap and sleazy look of a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie like 2000 MANIACS. The mummy costume looks like it was slapped together in a hurry–when he shambles about the Vegas strip, onlookers are more amused than scared—and the were-jackal makeup is not terrible, even if it looks like a cross between a bear and a dog. Honestly, the best thing about this movie is the soundtrack, a mish-mash of jazz, lounge music, sci-fi sounds, organ funk, and rock. Bad movie fans will have fun with this as will fans of Eisley (there must be a few more out there like me!). Pictured at top is Pons; at right, Browne and Eisley. [Streaming]

DEVILS OF DARKNESS (1965)

In 1600s rural France, Count Sinistre was buried alive for his decadent behavior. Some time later (the timelines in this film are unclear), an acolyte in a red robe helps facilitate the resurrection of Sinistre as a vampire (again, how it's done is unclear). During a gypsy wedding in the woods, Tania and Bruno have a blood commingling ceremony during which a huge bat flies in and Tania falls dead. After her burial, Sinistre awakens her and claims her as his vampire bride. In the present day, a group of tourists are staying at an inn in Brittany. Paul, a writer, pals around with two spelunking lads (Dave and Keith) and their friend Anne (Keith's sister), and a visiting antiques dealer named Madeleine encourages them to witness a local All Souls' Day ritual. In the caves, they run across a stone coffin; Keith is left dead and Dave is never seen again. We see the mourning Anne meet up with the suave and caped Armond (actually Sinistre) as she walks by a lake, and soon she is found drowned in that lake. The official consensus is that the she committed suicide, but between noticing bite marks on Keith's neck and finding a silver bat-shaped talisman near the lake, Paul is suspicious. Back in London, Paul keeps up ties with Madeleine, who runs a hip antiques shop called the Odd Spot where she is inclined to throw decadent parties. Sinistre, as Armond, is also in London as an artist, with the gypsy girl Tania as his wife, and he wants his talisman back. Paul meets and is taken with the voluptuous Karen, an employee at the shop, and Sinistre decides to hold Karen as a hostage to get his talisman back. Oh yeah, Sinistre, in league with Madeleine, is the head of a Satanic cult who throw their own decadent parties, at one of which, held at a country estate, things come to a climax that ends in fire and destruction.

Many critics don’t like this B-film from Planet Productions because they assume it's trying to be Hammer lite (no gore or heaving bosoms). Well, it is and that's fine. I like that it has a Dennis Wheatley (THE DEVIL RIDES OUT) feel, as it throws vampires, Satanists, black magic and even voodoo into the mix. The film has a drab visual look except for the wild parties, and the acting is a bit all over the place. One of my B-movie favorites, William Sylvester (Paul), is maybe a bit too low-key for the proceedings, and Hubert Noel (Sinistre) is not terribly charismatic and rarely as threatening as he should be. But the women are fine (and sexy): Carole Gray as Tania, Tracy Reed as Karen, and Diana Decker as Madeleine. Eddie Byrne is a doctor, and the handsome Burnell Tucker appears briefly as Derek, another antiques shop employee who looks good in a devil worshipper robe. I don't think it’s ever made clear why Sinistre needs the talisman so badly—he says it protects the vampires though how is not explained—or even why Paul hangs onto it, just plot demands, I guess. The director, Lance Comfort, could turn out B-movies in his sleep, and it’s true that a Hammer director like Terence Fisher or Roy Ward Baker might have made this a better looking film with stronger atmosphere. For what it's worth, some claim that this was the first British vampire movie set in the modern day, Not top-rank horror, but worthy of at least one viewing. Pictured are Rona Anderson (Anne) and William Sylvester. [YouTube]

CURSE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY (1957) / THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY (1958)

As you may remember from the first movie in the Aztec Mummy series (which I reviewed many years ago), Dr. Krupp is a criminal mastermind known as The Bat, and something of a Dr. Moreau type who did horrible experiments on animals. He was jailed after his attempt to steal an ancient Aztec breastplate and bracelet, discovered by Dr. Almada, which is thought to be the key to finding Aztec gold. CURSE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY begins as Krupp's gang helps him escape, and Almada and his girlfriend Flor fear he'll return for the breastplate. In a flashback sequence from the first film, we see how Almada had put Flor under hypnotic regression and discovered that she is the reincarnation of Aztec princess Xochi. Now the freed Krupp does indeed return to kidnap Flor. Krupp and his men will have to deal with Almada, his cowardly sidekick Pinacate, Almada’s young brother Bobby, and Popoca, the Aztec mummy whose job is to protect the breastplate. But this time, Krupp will have to face a new enemy, the masked wrestler called the Angel (pictured at right), whom Bobby can call on at a moment's notice. Near the climax, as Krupp tries to make Almada translate the markings on the breastplate, Krupp throws the Angel into a snake pit and the Angel has to call on Bobby to be saved. Eventually, the Angel is unmasked as Pinacate and the shambling mummy tosses Krupp into the snake pit and leaves with the breastplate and bracelet intact. Despite the title, the mummy does not play a big role in the proceedings. 

But wait, there’s more! THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY begins with a statement that this film is based on fact (verified by testimony of a notary public!). Set years after the conclusion of CURSE, we get at least twenty minutes of flashbacks from the first and second movies to bring us up to date. By now, Almada and Flor are married and we learn that Krupp managed to escape the snake pit and has invented an atomic "human robot" that he plans to use to battle Popoca, the mummy, in order to get the breastplate. He has the typical mad scientist dreams of world domination with an army of these robots, put together like the Frankenstein monster with a human brain inside, and needs the riches of the hidden Aztec treasure to bankroll his plans. Flor is hypnotized to reveal the location of the breastplate, and Almada gets involved in the climactic battle between, yes, the Robot and the Aztec Mummy. Oddly, the sidekick Pinacate is back but he doesn't have a masked wrestler alter ego, or at least he doesn’t show it, and the flashback to the previous film doesn't depict him in his outfit. The final battle goes on for four minutes of not terribly thrilling action and this time, the mummy makes sure to kill Krupp.

Supposedly all three of these Aztec Mummy movies were filmed back to back, and, like The Empire Strikes Back, CURSE feels a bit like a placeholder between movie #1 and movie #3, even though it has more "new" action than the third movie. The inclusion of the flashbacks is annoyingly repetitious if you sit down and watch these films over a weekend, but they also allow a viewer who has allowed more time to pass between viewings to catch up. Your enjoyment of these films will depend on your tolerance for low-budget English-dubbed horror movies. I liked CURSE best, largely because of the weird and semi-kinky masked wrestler aspect—interestingly, the Angel is mostly ineffective until the end battle—though I must admit that the Robot is a pretty cool construction considering the genre. No one spends a lot of time critiquing the acting in these films, though I will say that Luis Aceves Castaneda is nicely hammy as Krupp. Ramon Gay and Rosita Arenas are fine as Almada and Flor. Crox Alvarado gets to shine in CURSE as the mild-mannered sidekick and the wrestling Angel. These are fun movies for a weekend matinee or a midnight showing with beer and popcorn, but I haven't decided yet if I'm going to give Wrestling Women Vs. the Aztec Mummy, related but without the same main characters, a shot. Pictured at left are Alvarado and Gay. [DVD]

VAMPIRE CIRCUS (1972)

Count Mitterhaus lives in a castle in the village of Stetl and is rumored to be a vampire, responsible for the disappearance of several young women of the village. Albert Mueller discovers that his wife Anna, under the count's power, has taken their daughter Jenny into the castle to serve as a blood sacrifice to Mitterhaus. He gathers several villagers together to attack the castle and manages to drive a stake into Mitterhaus, but with his dying breath, the count curses the village and sends Anna off to find his cousin Emil who is with the traveling Circus of Night. Fifteen years later, though the Count's castle has been destroyed, a plague has spread through Stetl, leading nearby villages to block their roads to stop its spread. When the Circus of Night comes to Stetl, the villagers embrace the gypsy troupe, with its dancers and acrobats, its animal performances and hall of mirrors, as a way to forget about the plague. We soon discover that evil lurks beneath the surface: a pair of acrobats seem to turn into bats high in the air, and the darkly handsome Emil, Mitterhaus' cousin, is a shapeshifter—he can turn into a panther—and a vampire. Emil and the circus members plan to resurrect Count Mitterhaus. While a town doctor heads out to get medicines for the plague, the circus folk begin terrorizing the village, mostly the children (some of whom disappear in the hall of mirrors) and the doctor's son Anton and his girlfriend Dora are left, with only crucifixes as weapons, to fight the vampire plague. 

This Hammer film is colorful, stylish, and a little sexy, and it's nice to see them leave the Dracula movie formula, which they used for years to the point of overkill, behind and try something a little different. The whole thing has a folklore feel to it, and the concept of the Circus of Night is intriguing, though it ends up not being exploited as much as it could be. Characterization is minimal; when we discover that a gypsy woman with the circus is Anna Mueller from the opening, there is no real impact. The atmospheric look of the movie is its biggest selling point, with the circus at times conjuring up Ray Bradbury’s sinister circus in his novel Something Wicked This Way Comes. Adrienne Corri, usually an asset in her movies, is mostly wasted here. John Moulder-Brown and Lynne Frederick are fairly bland as the young heroes Anton and Dora. Anthony Higgins (Emil) doesn't really have a lot of acting to do—he just has to look mysterious or menacing—but he certainly looks the part of a sexy and evil panther man. The animal transformations are a welcome addition to the Hammer template. Recommended. Pictured are Corri and Higgins. [Amazon Prime]

THE EVIL (1978)

Old handyman Sam is trying to clean up the Vargas house, a Civil War-era mansion that has been empty for years. He gets freaked out, first by all the cobwebs then by weird sounds that lead him to the basement where a fireball shoots out of the furnace and burns him to death. Next, the house's new owners show up: a psychiatrist (Richard Crenna, at left), his wife (Joanna Pettet), and a teacher (Andrew Prine) who are planning to open a drug rehab center in the house. They've brought a group of students and former rehab patients to help out and they're all pretty gung ho about pitching in to work, but odd things begin happening right away: Pettet sees a demonic statue turn its head to face her, and a dog that belongs to one of the students wanders down to the basement and goes nuts, attacking his owner (Cassie Yates) then disappearing into the bowels of the house. Crenna is a strict rationalist so he has problems when his wife, who is of a more spiritual bent, starts seeing blurry visions of a ghost that she soon figures out is the original owner, Vargas, trying to warn the group to leave the house. Unfortunately, Crenna, poking around in the basement, sees a trapdoor in the floor, held shut by a huge metal crucifix. He pulls the cross out and, literally as we will eventually discover, all hell breaks loose. The doors and windows slam shut on their own and the film becomes a haunted house slasher movie as one by one the mansion's inhabitants wind up attacked (one woman is sexually assaulted by an invisible presence), injured (Prine slices into his own hand with a circular saw) or electrocuted. In the end, Crenna and Pettet go through the trap door and discover the devil (Victor Buono, below right), something of a dandy decked out in white. Can the two manage to lock Satan back up with the crucifix?

This overlooked and underrated B-movie is one of the better haunted house films. It’s not quite in the same rank as The Uninvited, The Haunting (1963), or The Amityville Horror, but it certainly is as good as other second-rank films like Burnt Offerings or The Sentinel, and it's way way better than the awful Haunting remake from 1999. After a few introductory scenes, it all takes place in the house, a very effective setting which combines some gothic set design with large empty rooms which become quite scary. The first part is a bit of slow burn, but by the time of the dog attack, around the 22-minute mark, things pick up and never let go. The acting gets better as the story goes along, with everyone going balls-out in the last half. Crenna, Pettet and Prine are professionals who might feel like they're slumming but they try not to show it. George O'Hanlon Jr. is good as a cocky clowny fellow who provides a nice fake scare early on, and Lynne Moody is equally good as the woman who is assaulted. The director, Gus Trikonis, started out as a dancer, played one of the Sharks in West Side Story, was married for a few years to Goldie Hawn, and wound up in a long career directing B-movies and TV shows. He provides some nice stylistic touches here, mostly in the scenes of menace. 

Even critics who love this movie usually point to the ending as a major mistake. After spending the whole time in the dusty old mansion, Crenna and Pettet end up in a bright white room with the chortling and chubby Victor Buono as the devil. He looks nothing like any depiction of the devil that I've ever seen, though Mick Jagger's description of him as "a man of wealth and taste" in "Sympathy for the Devil" might be what the director was going for here. As the scene continues, his face takes on a more satanic look, complete with horns. Buono underplays and comes off as slimy rather than truly evil. I don't think anyone who has written about this movie actually likes the ending, with most reacting with laughter rather than terror. For some, it ruins the whole movie. I have to agree that I would have liked to have seen a more traditionally dark and Satanic climax, but if you just accept it, it works OK. (The first time I saw this, I admit the ending made me laugh, but this time around, maybe because I was prepared for it, I didn't really have a problem.) There are rumors that some prints of the film left out the entire scene with Buono, but I've never seen that confirmed and it's unclear how the movie would have had a satisfying ending. As a solid B-horror film, I recommend this. [YouTube]

EARTH VS. THE SPIDER (1958)

Truck driver Jack Flynn is heading home one night with a bracelet he bought as a birthday gift for his teenage daughter Carol when, just outside the small town of River Falls, he hits a thick sticky rope stretched across the road and something attacks his truck: the last we see of him is blood spurting from his slashed face. The next day, a worried Carol gets her boyfriend Mike to search the roads. They find the sticky rope and the wrecked truck with her gift inside but no dad. Entering some nearby caves to see if Dad wandered into one, they find some skeletons and fall into a huge sticky web spun by a giant tarantula. They escape and contact the police who investigate, with the encouragement of Kingman, the science teacher, and manage to kill the spider with insecticide. Kingman has the spider taken back and stored in the high school gym so he can study it, but it turns out it’s not quite dead, and when a rock band enters the gym to rehearse for a dance, and a bunch of students follow them, the stage is set for giant spider mayhem, though it’s less Earth vs. the spider than River Falls vs. the spider. This was made during the heyday of horror and sci-fi movies which focused on teenage characters. Gene Persson (Mike) and June Kenney (Carol) were both in their mid-twenties and could more or less pass for students, though Troy Patterson, as Mike's buddy Joe, was 35 and looked it. Their acting sort of passes muster, but it's the special effects that people watch these movies for, and the giant spider is handled pretty well. Mostly we see real spiders photographed up close with a fake background or, most effectively in the gym scene, a split screen effect (pictured at left). Too much time is spent on Carol insisting on putting everyone in danger to get her bracelet back, which she lost in the spider cave. Produced and directed by B-movie royalty Bert I. Gordon; there are references here to two of his other films, ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE and THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN. Also released as THE SPIDER. A fine Chiller Theater watch. [DVD]

BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT (1971)

Southeast Asia, 1946. U.S. Army deserter Joseph Langdon, on the run in the jungle while leaving behind a trail of dead bodies, is confronted by a serpent who calls him evil. The serpent transforms into a chubby, loinclothed Satan who makes a deal with him. If Langdon will give up his soul, Satan will give him eternal life, reincarnating Langdon at the point of death, remaining evil in each new identity and "awakening the latent evil" in the people he comes into contact with. Some 25 years later, Philip Rogers, horribly mangled in an industrial accident, has died, or so the doctor thinks. But Satan has Langdon inhabit his body and when his bandages come off, he looks like Langdon. Philip's wife Julia, assuming his new face is from plastic surgery, takes him home where he resumes Philip's life, trying to free himself of Satan's influence. But Satan throws in a new twist: at certain moments, Langdon turns into a werewolf-type creature and literally feeds on human beings. It's unclear what triggers the transformations—Satan seems to cause them, but at one point, Satan says that Langdon brings them on himself. They mostly happen at moments of high emotion, including when initiating sex. During a bestial rampage, Langdon bonds with a blind man who tries to help the obviously disturbed Langdon. Though he keeps turning into a monster, Langdon begins to think that he may be on a path to salvation and with the blind man's help might be able to finally die for good and escape his cursed existence. 

This is another low-budget Filipino horror film written and directed by Eddie Romero and starring John Ashley (who was also a producer), pictured. Like the others (THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE, for example) it looks and feels cheap and shoddy though it has its moments. The script is ambitious, with a fair amount of philosophical chatter about life and death and good and evil bandied about, but these themes don't take root, and such talk winds up detracting a bit from the horrific elements. It would have been nice to have spent maybe ten minutes or so on the life Langdon leads between 1946 and the present—Satan notes in the jungle that Langdon's physical body is about to die from eating poisoned seeds, so he had to be somewhere for those 25 years. But undoubtedly I'm thinking too hard about this. As usual, Ashley is fine in the lead role and his frequent co-star Vic Diaz is, if not really good, at least entertaining as a slightly goofy Satan. Mary Wilcox (Julia) seems to have been given little direction and she's a bit wooden. Slightly better is Eddie Garcia as a sympathetic cop. Some critics make fun of the beast makeup, but it's really not bad. I like that he turns into a beast, not a wolf, though the "yellow night" reference in the title is never explained, and there are a couple of decently gory moments. If the phrase “Filipino horror” or the name John Ashley mean something to you, you'll want to see this. [DVD]

THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA (1960)

In the pre-dawn hours in a European village, a young servant named Brigitte is attacked by a caped figure, but is saved by farm workers and taken to a nearby home. This is the third attack by an assailant who strikes during the full moon and leaves bite marks on the neck of his victim. Meanwhile, a group of scantily clad women are staying in the home; they are a ballet troupe, with the only males being the blondish Luca, the ballet master, and the beefy mustachioed Giorgio, the music director, and they are rehearsing at the home of Luca's uncle, a professor. There is, of course, talk of the vampire myth, the assumption being that the attacked women become anemic and beholden to the will of the vampire. Brigitte dies and later at her funeral, we see her face, looking alive and horrified, visible through a glass panel in the coffin. Two of the dancers, Francesca and Luisa, go for a walk in the woods and when a storm comes up, Luca goes looking for them. They wind up taking refuge in what looks like an abandoned castle, but they are greeted by the Countess Alda and her old and creepy servant Herman. When Luisa goes exploring, she is bitten by Herman, and we soon figure out the vampire setup: Herman goes trolling for women, he drinks their blood and turns young, then goes back to Alda who drinks his blood and he turns old again while Alda keeps her youthful (and buxom) looks. It's hinted that, despite Herman acting like a servant, he is actually the ruler of her in a sadomasochistic relationship. Luisa, who doesn't recall the attack, survives and back at the professor’s place, all the loose talk inspires Giorgio to create a vampire dance. But Alda, smitten with Luca, seems to want to replace Herman with him. The plot eventually goes a bit haywire; things seem to happen based on the conventions of the vampire movie, not because of plot considerations. The climax, on the roof of the castle at dawn, is nicely done.

I liked a later movie by the director, Renato Polselli, the similarly themed THE MONSTER OF THE OPERA, so I backtracked to find this one. Vampires and dancers are central to both, and like OPERA, this one has a few sexy dance sequences, the best being the improvised vampire dance done to Giorgio's music. The women playing the female leads are rather interchangeable and only adequate in acting talent. In fact, the only good acting comes from Maria Luisa Rolando as the countess. She's attractive and sensual and, though the part was apparently written for the great Barbara Steele, Rolando is fine. The male leads, Isarco Ravaioli as Luca and John Turner as Giorgio, are less interchangeable and moderately attractive but also a bit weak in the acting department. Some sapphic touches are presented here and there but not dwelled on. The music is interesting, and at one point, a crazy big band tune breaks out from nowhere. The make-up for the old Herman makes him look less like an old vampire and more like a sci-fi mutant freak. But the make-up for the final scene of the vampires in the sun is nicely gooey, inspired perhaps by Christopher Lee's demise in HORROR OF DRACULA (which I must get around to reviewing one of these days). My favorite line is Luca addressing Alda, "Lady, demon, countess or whatever you are!" I liked OPERA better but this has its moments of fun. Pictured at top left is Maria Luisa Rolando; at right are the two heroes, Isarco Ravaioli and John Turner (aka Gino Turini). [YouTube]

HOUSE OF THE DAMNED (1963)

Architect Scott Campbell, in need of work, is called by his friend Joe to do an architectural survey of an old mansion called the Rochester Castle. The owner, a former actress who is now institutionalized, had leased it to a carnival owner named Arbuckle for nine years but he has recently vanished and the real estate agent is looking to make changes to make it more appealing for the housing market. Scott and his wife Nancy head to the house to stay a few days to examine the property. Odd things happen from the start. First, their way to the house, up a winding road into hills overlooking the ocean, is blocked by dead end signs. Then a creeping shadow is seen on a wall. That night, we see what appears to be a legless man come into their room and take some keys off of a keyring containing thirteen keys, leaving only eleven, and they soon discover that one door in the house can't be unlocked. The next day, Joe's wife Loy shows up seeming a bit disgruntled, then Joe shows up and the two are at odds over his possible infidelities. Just as we're wondering if Joe and Loy know something that Scott doesn't, we see Loy scream in the night and the next morning, her decapitated body is seated in a chair. A visit to Mrs. Rochester shows that she is freaked out by the house. Will our trio discover the secret to the house of the damned?

This short B-film scores high in visual creepiness (an old dark house full of shadows and half-glimpsed figures) but fairly low on actual horror, the headless body notwithstanding. It sets up some potentially interesting narrative paths but they all pretty much lead nowhere. In the early scenes, Scott and Nancy have an odd vibe together which is promising but again, nothing is really done with that. There is an explanation that is satisfying but not especially thrilling. Many online reviews give the ending away but I won't because if you know from the beginning what's going on, there’s not much impetus to stick with it. The actors range from bland to adequate: Merry Anders, probably the most recognizable actor here, having racked up nearly 100 credits in her career, mostly on TV, is Nancy; Ron Foster is Scott; Erika Peters is Loy. Best is Richard Crane (pictured), star of the 50s sci-fi TV series Rocky Jones, as Joe; though his is technically a supporting role, he's the only person we miss when he's not on screen. Richard Keil (Jaws from the James Bond movies) has a small role. The movie is an hour long; there's not quite an hour's worth of story here, but I wasn't ever exactly bored. Shot in widescreen black and white, the film at least looks good—I'm assuming the YouTube print I saw was taken from a DVD. [YouTube]

THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER (1973 TV-movie)

Alice Shaw is clearly in emotional distress at church though she rebuffs her priest when he tries to help. In her apartment, she is confronted by a crippled man walking on two canes (whose face we don't see) who has come to claim her 21-year-old daughter. Alice tries to shoot the crippled man, who claims to be the girl's father, but the bullets have no effect and she drops dead. At Alice's funeral, her daughter Diane is comforted by Lilith, an old friend of her mother's. Lilith is friendly but a bit aggressive and insists that Diane stay with her to let Diane sort out her life. Lilith introduces Diane to some eccentric neighbors and gives her a ring with a distinctive insignia, like a cross overlaid with an X, that she says belonged to Diane's mother. Diane notices a sinister looking painting in Lilith's living room of a creepy looking man in a cloak against a blood red background, and the ring insignia is present in the corner of the painting. We soon discover that Alice and Lilith were both in a cult of devil worshippers; apparently, the Devil himself (or perhaps a lesser demon), as pictured in the painting, fathered Diane, and Alice promised to give the girl up to the group when she turned 21. Now Lilith and the cult are trying to snare Diane into becoming their Princess of Darkness who will mate with the Demon of Endor. Diane's attempts to escape the influence of Lilith are ineffectual until she starts dating Steve, a handsome neighbor. Between Steve and the kindly judge who was the executor of Alice's will, Diane thinks she has escaped the clutches of the cult—but has she?

Between the title, the visuals, and the overdetermined narrative, it's obvious right from the get-go that this is basically a TV-movie version of Rosemary's Baby—the opening credits roll over an image stolen from the famous Rosemary's Baby poster. Almost every plot beat is predictable and, it being a 70s TV-movie, we also know that it's likely to have a downbeat ending (upbeat for the Satanists). Still, this was fun largely due to a good cast. Shelley Winters is fabulous as Lilith; she resists her scenery-chewing ways except for one scene in which she goes ballistic when Diane announces she's moving out, and it's a good scene. Belinda J. Montgomery (later Doogie Houser's mom) alternates between frightened and strong as Diane. Joseph Cotten has a glorified cameo as the judge. Jonathan Frid (Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows) plays Lilith's mute butler; it's a small role but he plays the one cult member who actually is on Diane's side. Abe Vigoda, the year after The Godfather and the year before Barney Miller, looking a bit like Boris Karloff, is a cult elder. Robert Foxworth is handsome and serene as Steve. Martha Scott plays his mother and Diane Ladd is Diane's mother. Admittedly there are moments that verge on laughable, such as the chanting of "Diane, Princess of Darkness." But the ending, though predictable with the Demon of Endor showing up with glowing eyes (above right), is effective. Somehow I missed this one in my childhood but I'm glad to have caught up with it. Pictured at left are Winters and Frid. [Ok.ru]

TERROR-CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE (1965)

A nervous man runs through the streets of a town at night. He arrives at a stable and saddles up a horse, but is kicked to death by it. Next, we see lawyer Albert Kovac arrive at the Villa Hauff to consult with Jeronimus Hauf about his will. But Hauf's wife Cleo and her stepdaughter Corinne are surprised because Jeronimus died a year ago. In fact, his body is about to be transferred from a grave to the family vault. Hauf dabbled in the occult and bought the mansion because it was built on the ruins of a 15th century plague hospital. Some patients were thought to have spread the plague on purpose, and their mummified severed hands are on display in the villa. There is a belief in the village that Hauf had made contact with some dead plague victims, and Hauf's death, after a fall from a narrow stone staircase, was a bit mysterious, with the five people who were present in the house at the time having signed the death certificate. Oddly, two of those people have died in the past year (one being the man from the first scene), and that day, another of the five, the town's mayor, is found dead with acid splashed on his face. That leaves a wheelchair-bound man named Stinnel and a fifth person whose signature is too smudged to read. There is another belief that sounds of ghostly carts that collected the plague dead can be heard around the villa, and sure enough, Stinnel hears it just before he kills himself in a particularly gory way. The final element in the plot is an old folk song from the plague days that says, "Pure water will save you" from the death carts. Everything is now in place for the playing out of the return of the dead plague spreaders as revenge against those responsible for Jeronimus’ death.

This has a terrible title that conjures up a trashy grade-Z horror movie, but actually it's is a well-produced and photographed Gothic thriller with supernatural elements—somewhat oddly, we don't actually see the grave creatures, even though they are real. The literal translation of the Italian title, 5 TOMBS FOR A MEDIUM, is much better if still a bit misleading—there is no traditional medium present. The big draw here for horror fans is the presence of Barbara Steele looking and acting every inch the way she always looks and acts, as Cleo. She is top-billed though Mirealla Maravidi, as Corinne, has a larger role. Walter Brandi (Albert) is the hero, though he doesn't get to act especially heroically and he's not quite as young and handsome as he should be opposite the two attractive female leads. The spooky Gothic atmosphere is kept up well, and the severed arms are a nice touch with a creepy payoff near the end. It never becomes clear why the opening scene is present; it's almost as if it was footage from a different movie that got spliced on to add five minutes to the running time. The director is assumed by fans to be Massimo Pupillo, but the onscreen credit goes to Ralph Zucker, also a co-producer. The story is that Pupillo directed it but didn't like the outcome so gave credit to Zucker. However, at least one cast member has said that Zucker did indeed direct at least some of it. Credit is given to Edgar Allan Poe for inspiration, but that's a weak claim; the plague background is a faint echo of Masque of the Red Death, and the character of the lawyer might remind one of the narrator of The Fall of the House of Usher. The proceedings bog down a bit in the middle, but for atmosphere, this makes great October viewing. Pictured are Steele, Maravidi, and Brandi. [Blu-ray]

A BELL FROM HELL (1973)

Young John is sitting in a room in an asylum making a plaster cast of his own face. Next, John is being released from the asylum (it seems more like a college dorm) on a kind of probation during which he has to report to his doctor every eight days. He lives in his late mother’s old house and frequently visits his Aunt Marta and her three young daughters. We don’t know why John was institutionalized or for how long (he looks to be in his early to mid 20s). In fact, we learn very little else about John's situation except seeing home movies which show that John and his cousins were close in their childhood. His reunion with his family is fraught with tension; it is vaguely implied that his aunt may have had him put away in an attempt to take his inheritance, and it's even more vaguely implied that incestuous feelings may have (and may still) run rampant among the four cousins. John briefly takes a job in a slaughterhouse but leaves after one day, saying he's learned enough—the slaughterhouse footage here is real and explicit. We soon learn that John enjoys pulling pranks. Some are fairly harmless, like the one he pulls on a visitor to the aunt's house that is taken from the famous Saki story “The Open Window.” Some are more harmful, such as when he pretends to rip his eyes out in front of a neighbor's wife; she faints and he puts her body on her couch and leaves a note implying that he raped her. On the other hand, he acts as a rescuer to a young girl who is threatened with gang rape by four hunters. The next day, he pulls a vulgar prank on one of the men involving pissing in a urinal. John is hard to figure out, and when he begins to plan revenge against Marta and his cousins, his actions are even more bizarre. He assaults one of the cousins, though it seems to turn into consensual sex at some point. He sprays Aunt Marta's unconscious face with honey then sets a colony of bees on her. He outfits his basement like a slaughterhouse then ties his three cousins up as if planning to slaughter them. The bees don't kill Marta and he can't go through with the slaughter (or perhaps he never intended to, though that is not made clear) but Marta gets her revenge, with some help from old pal Don Pedro, when John is tied to a new church bell (the title bell, I assume, which we see off and on through the film), bricked in, and left to be hung when the bell is rung for the first time the next morning. But there’s a nifty little final scene which shows Don Pedro paying for his crime.

This Spanish film was directed by Claudio Guerin who fell to his death from the bell tower set on the last day of shooting—despite rumors, it's unlikely to have been a suicide. Though Spanish, the film partakes of some elements of the Italian giallo genre, with interesting use of color, atmospheric cinematography, some potentially gory moments (though oddly, there is only one death shown in the movie and it's bloodless), some near-nudity, and a somewhat incoherent script. One online critic says it took him three viewings to figure everything out. I have no desire to sit through this again (unless I can find a cleaned-up DVD print; the YouTube prints are all smudgy and murky) and I think my plot summary is mostly accurate. French actor Renaud Verley (pictured) is handsome and effective as John. I'm not sure that Verley knew what was going on with his character any more than I did, but he strikes a nicely ambiguous persona and we are sometimes in uncomfortable sympathy with John. The busy and respected Vivica Lindfors gives the wheelchair-bound Marta some gravitas even as we're pretty sure she's a villain. We never really know how conniving and controlling she is; the only truly deplorable thing we see her do is to withhold John's passport so he can't leave the country and start a new life. (In one fairly big plothole, we are told that John never shows up to his probation visits, but he suffers no consequences for this.) The plot is confusing and disjointed, and the tone unpleasant, but if I got the chance to see a clear print, I might watch this again—though three times is out of the question. [YouTube]

TARGET EARTH (1954)

A woman in her scanties wakes up in bed, the noon light coming in through the window, surrounded by scattered sleeping pills. The groggy Nora, who has apparently tried to kill herself, discovers that her apartment building has no power or water, and when she heads outside, finds the streets are oddly empty. She sees a dead body, then runs into a man named Frank who spent the night unconscious after being mugged. The two assume the city was evacuated during the night and they both slept through it. Passing a bar, they find a man and woman doing some piano playing and daydrinking. Jim and Vicki got dead drunk last night, also missing the apparent evacuation. On the streets, they discover that all the cars have their distributor caps missing, a move that would indicate an attempt to stop an invading army (remember the nuns and the distributor caps at the end of The Sound of Music?). The group picks up another straggler, Otis, who finds a newspaper with headlines about an invasion by a mystery army. In the streets, Otis looks up and sees the shadow of what looks like a giant robot. From the rooftops, the robot shoots Otis with a fatal blast of energy, and the others retreat to an empty hotel. At about thirty minutes into this real-time drama, we cut to backstory scenes of the Army preparing to fight off an army of hundreds of aliens from Venus. The military manage to put a robot out of commission and a scientist examines it hoping to discover vulnerabilities. Meanwhile, a trigger-happy thug named Davis shows up at the hotel and the movie cuts between their tense situation and that of the military as they plan to attack the aliens in the city. What will happen when our small group gets caught between the Army and the aliens?

The low-budget science fiction film benefits from the eeriness of the empty city streets; the city is never identified by name but it was shot on Los Angeles locations. It becomes an interesting mix of a severely limited cast caught in melodramatic situations and larger scale scenes of the military. The robots themselves are effective enough considering the budget and the era. We never see an army of them because only one was actually constructed and used over and over, but that limitation is never too obvious. After the first ten minutes or so, the tension dissipates a bit but we remain invested in the characters, thanks partly to OK performances from the cast, primarily Kathleen Crowley (Nora), Richard Denning (Frank), Robert Roark (Davis) and Whit Bissell (the army scientist). I've never been a big fan of Denning, as I find his hero persona lacking, but he's serviceable here. Not bad for an early version of the genre of film in which a small group of strangers try to survive apocalyptic conditions—later came FIVE and THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED and PANIC IN YEAR ZERO among others. [YouTube]

ISLAND OF TERROR (1966)

On Petrie's Island, a small Irish island with no telephones and limited transportation to the mainland, Dr. Philips is doing secret work in a chemical lab to find a cure for cancer by creating living tissue that can fight and kill cancer cells, but as an experiment reaches a climax, there is an explosion. Farmer Ian Bellows hears odd noises coming from a cave and goes to investigate but doesn't return. His body is found by Constable Harris, but it's all soft tissue, with the bones completely sucked out—Harris tells Dr. Landers that Ian's face is "a horrible mush with the eyes just sitting on it" (though when we actually see the body, it's not quite as horrible looking as that description would have it). Landers goes to London and gets pathologist Brian Stanley and brilliant young scientist David West to come to the island to investigate. They assume a disease is to blame, but when they visit Philips' lab, they find Philips and his associate dead and similarly boneless. A farmer's cow is found dead in the same condition, and West deduces that the failed experiment created a new creatures which they call silicates that feed off of calcium phosphate, which is found in bones. After a couple of almost-reveals, we see these creatures: they are large turtle-like beings with a snake-like tentacle that grabs people and starts the process of deboning. They can also split in two, which they do at a rapid rate, possibly able to cover the island in just a few hours. The constable is killed by one, as is Dr. Landers when he tries to dispatch one with an axe (which is unable to penetrate its body). Campbell, the town's leader (maybe the mayor but that’s never made clear), and his assistant Argyle, put themselves at the disposal of West and Stanley, and soon it's figured out that radioactivity is the only thing that can kill the silicates. West and Stanley go back to Philips' lab to get some Strontium 90 (in an unnecessarily long scene showing the two suiting up in protective gear); the men have Campbell gather the islanders at the town hall while a bunch of cattle are injected with the radioactive element, the hope being that the silicates will eat the cattle and then die off. Unfortunately, if this doesn't work, it means the islanders are all potential food for the monsters.

Hammer director Terence Fisher made this film for Planet Film Productions, a short-lived outfit specializing in sci-fi horror. The movie starts off well; the feel of the island is authentic and most of the performances are appropriately low-key. Peter Cushing is his usual reliable self as Stanley and Edward Judd is quirkily handsome and commanding as West. His girlfriend Toni (Carole Gray) tags along though the narrative implies that Toni may have just been a one-night stand; it’s not really important but still a weird plotpoint. The supporting actors are surprisingly good at being innocent folks caught up in the quickly growing and potentially apocalyptic situation. They include Sam Kydd (the constable), Eddie Byrne (Landers), Niall MacGinnis (Campbell) and James Caffrey (Argyle). The creatures are a bit silly looking in the beginning, especially when they are indoors and move about like big Roombas. Outdoors they are fairly effective, and even more so when they drop out of trees or smash through windows, and the climatic scene at the town hall has a nice CRAWLING EYE feel. Overall, though, the whole thing has a bland look and a predictable by-the-numbers approach to narrative. The movie ends with the menacing creatures all wiped out. The usual "Don’t tamper in God’s domain" message is undercut a bit when West notes that "science has its risks but the risks aren't enough to hinder progress," but a last shot of a Japanese lab subverts that by providing a Gotcha! moment. BTW, a later Planet movie, NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT, is very similar to this in setting and plotpoints, with the same director and with Cushing as a star. In fact, when I started watching this, I thought it was BIG HEAT which I'd already seen so I almost stopped watching. Pictured are Judd, Gray, and Cushing. [Blu-ray]