Horror on the Lens: The Little Shop of Horrors (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(It’s tradition here at the Lens that, every October, we watch the original Little Shop of Horrors. And always, I start things off by telling this story…)

Enter singing.

Little Shop…Little Shop of Horrors…Little Shop…Little Shop of Terrors…

Hi! Good morning and Happy October 24th! For today’s plunge into the world of public domain horror films, I’d like to present you with a true classic. From 1960, it’s the original Little Shop of Horrors!

When I was 19 years old, I was in a community theater production of the musical Little Shop of Horrors. Though I think I would have made the perfect Audrey, everybody always snickered whenever I sang so I ended up as a part of “the ensemble.” Being in the ensemble basically meant that I spent a lot of time dancing and showing off lots of cleavage. And you know what? The girl who did play Audrey was screechy, off-key, and annoying and after every show, all the old people in the audience always came back stage and ignored her and went straight over to me. So there.

Anyway, during rehearsals, our director thought it would be so funny if we all watched the original film. Now, I’m sorry to say, much like just about everyone else in the cast, this was my first exposure to the original and I even had to be told that the masochistic dentist patient was being played by Jack Nicholson. However, I’m also very proud to say that — out of that entire cast — I’m the only one who understood that the zero-budget film I was watching was actually better than the big spectacle we were attempting to perform on stage. Certainly, I understood the film better than that screechy little thing that was playing Audrey.

The first Little Shop of Horrors certainly isn’t scary and there’s nobody singing about somewhere that’s green (I always tear up when I hear that song, by the way). However, it is a very, very funny film with the just the right amount of a dark streak to make it perfect Halloween viewing.

So, if you have 72 minutes to kill, check out the original and the best Little Shop of Horrors…

October Positivity: To Hell and Back (dir by Christine Swanson)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Book of Job is a bit of a Biblical Rorschach test.

Job is a prosperous man who always obeys and give thanks to God. The Devil claims that Job’s faith is only due to the fact that he’s successful and has a large family. The Devil boasts that, if he’s allowed to ruin Job’s life, Job will respond by cursing the name of God. Instead of asking the Devil what he’s doing outside of Hell, God says, “Go ahead, just don’t kill him.” The Devil kills Job’s family. The Devil kills all of Job’s servants. The Devil takes away all of Job’s wealth and afflicts Job with terrible sores. Job’s friends tell Job that he should blame and reject God but, because Job refuses to do so, he is rewarded with a new family and even more servants.

Some people look at the story of Job and they see it as being a story about the importance of having faith, even in the most troubling of times. Job refuses to surrender his faith and he is rewarded. Even though Job cannot understand why bad things are happening to him, he refuses to surrender to despair and anger and puts his faith in the idea that God has a plan.

Others look at this story and see Job as a pawn in some private game between God and the Devil. Job keeps his faith and is ultimately rewarded but his family and his servants still all die. Job may be rewarded but why should he have to suffer just to prove a point to the Devil? Indeed, what is the Devil doing in Heaven, debating with God in the first place. I mean, the Devil got kicked out of that place. He’s in Hell for a reason.

The 2015 film, To Hell and Back, is a modern-day retelling of the Book of Job. Joe (Ernie Hudson) is a successful businessman, a man who built his company up from nothing and who now lives in a mansion with his wife (Vanessa Bell Calloway) and his five children. Joe gives money to worthy causes and he is never without his Bible. God and the Devil are heard in voice-over, debating the sincerity of Joe’s faith. God agrees to allow Joe to be tested. One tragedy after another befalls Joe and his family. One son is killed during a burglary. One daughter commits suicide. A car crash leaves another daughter dead and another son in a wheelchair. Joe’s company is driven into bankruptcy by a lawsuit while the last of Joe’s sons leaves to start his own company. Abandoned by even his wife, Joe grows ill and soon finds himself homebound.

Even if the film leaves us wondering why God would hurt someone just to prove a point, To Hell and Back is a well-directed and well-acted film. Ernie Hudson gives a heart-breaking performance as Joe, a man who always tries to do the right thing and is basically punished at every single turn. Joe definitely deserves better than to just be a pawn in a cosmic waver but at least Ernie Hudson gets a chance to show off what a good actor he can truly be.

October Hacks: The Redeemer (dir by Constantine S. Gochis)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A truly odd film that was first released in 1978, The Redeemer opens with a young boy named Christopher (Christopher Flint) emerging from a country lake, fully clothes and also completely dry. Christopher walks to a road, where he’s picked up by a church bus. He’s dropped off at the church, where he sings in the choir and then listens as a preacher (T.G. Finkbinder) delivers a fire-and-brimstone message about the nature of sin and how six 1967 graduates of a nearby abandoned high school have all grown up to live a life of nonstop sin.

Those six graduates all receive invitations to a reunion at the old high school but, when they arrive, they discover that, with the exception of a janitor, they’re the only ones there. The janitor allows them to enter the high school and to celebrate their mini-reunion. Of course, it’s not long before one of the graduates stumbles upon the rotting, maggot-covered corpse of the real janitor.

The Redeemer of the title has invited the six graduates back to the school specifically so he can kill them as a way to punish them for representing what he considers to be the sins of the world. John Sinclair (Damien Knight) is a criminal defense attorney who will defend anyone as long as the price is right. Terry (Nick Carter) is a lazy mooch who still doesn’t have a real job. Roger (Michael Hollingsworth) is an impossibly vain actor. Jane (Nikki Barthen) is a superficial, upper class housewife. Cindy (Jeanetta Arnette) is still too busy partying to grow up. And finally, Kirsten (Gyr Patterson) coldly refuses her girlfriend’s request to attend the reunion with her because she doesn’t want her former classmates to know that she’s a lesbian. The six of them find themselves being pursued by a killer who can apparently change his appearance at will, going from being the janitor to a seemingly friendly hunter to even a clown. This is definitely not a film to watch if you have a thing about clowns.

As I said at the start of this review, The Redeemer is a bit of an odd film. On the one hand, it’s a slasher film, complete with the usual collection of victims, a masked killer, and an isolated location. On the other hand, because it was released the same year as Halloween and before the success of films like Friday the 13th defined the rules of the genre, The Redeemer is a bit different than some of the other slashers of the era.

For one thing, the killer is considerably less quippy than some of the slasher killer who would follow. There are no snappy one-liners in The Redeemer. Instead, the killer spends most of his time ranting about “avarice, lust, decadence” and everything else that he considers to be a sin. Compared to the slasher film that followed, The Redeemer is a grim film, one that offers little in the way of deliberate humor and next-to-no-hope for the prospect of a final girl who will somehow get the upper hand on the killer. If other slasher films were defined by the stupidity of their victims, the unfortunate people in The Redeemer die not because they were stupid but because this is a film that offers up absolutely no chance of survival. It’s a dark and ominous film, with the a supernatural element giving the film a surreal edge. It’s a film that requires a bit of patience on the part of the viewer, especially since the opening few minutes are so disjointed that it’s next to impossible to know what’s really going on. But the kills are memorable and the acting is adequate, particularly when compared to some of the other low-budget, indie horror films of the era. The Redeemer is a memorable villain. Horror fans will find much to enjoy here, even if they’ll also probably find plenty of things that will leave them scratching their head.

As was often the case with films like this, The Redeemer was released under several different titles. It’s also known as Son of Satan, which I guess is a reference to the mysterious Christopher emerging from that lake. Finally, The Redeemer has been released on video under the title Class Reunion Massacre. Personally, I prefer The Redeemer as the film’s title. As a title, it’s enigmatic …. just like the film itself.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #226: Double Threat (dir by Shane Stanley)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the 2022’s action film, Double Threat!

Why Was I Watching It?

I attended two watch parties on Monday and Double Threat was the second feature. Jeff, Leonard, and I watched Double Threat with out friends Brad and Sierra and a few others. Sierra was the one who recommended the film, having seen it while at work the previous week. It was a fun night! We enjoy watching movies together.

What Was It About?

Natalie (Danielle C. Ryan) has a job at a huge convenience store that is sitting in the middle of nowhere. She does a good job working at the place, though her only regular customer is just an old man who enjoys asking Natalie to climb a ladder for him.

When an army of gunmen show up looking to kill Natalie, Natalie slips into her second personality of Natasha and goes on the run with a mild-mannered guy named Jimmy (Matthew Lawrence) who just happened to be in the store at the wrong time. As Nat explains it to Jimmy, the convenience store was actually a front of the mob and Natasha (but not Natalie) was skimming money. So now, the entire mob is looking to kill her. Meanwhile, Jimmy just wants to make it to the coast so that he can spread the ashes of his dead brother. (Awwwwwww!)

Heading up the search for Nat is Ask (Dawn Oliveri) and Ellis (Kevin Joy). Ellis is the son of a mob boss and he’s eager to prove that he’s more than just the boss’s son. However, he’s also Natasha’s former boyfriend and, whenever he has a chance to shoot her, he tends to instead start demanding to know why they broke up. No wonder Ask keeps getting frustrated!

What Worked?

Danielle C. Ryan did a good job playing both Natalie and Natasha and she had very likable chemistry with Matthew Laurence. They made for a natural couple and I did find myself really hoping that things would work out for the two of them.

Most of the action took place in the country. I’m a city girl at heart but I do still have a soft spot for the natural, undeveloped corners of America and this film provided a lot of nice scenery.

What Did Not Work?

The plot was a bit too overly complicated. To be honest, I think the film would have worked just as fine (and would probably have flowed a bit better) if it had abandoned the whole idea of Nat having multiple personalities and had instead just had her be a badass who happened to work at a convenience store.

While I did occasionally laugh at Ellis’s inability to corner Natasha without demanding to know why she had dumped him, the scenes with Ellis and Ask got a bit repetitive.

“Oh my God! Just Like Me!” Moments

Nat and I definitely have the same philosophy when it comes to driving. Of course, Nat had the excuse that she had a bunch of mob assassins after her. I just like to drive fast.

Lessons Learned

Never accept a job working at a mob front. Not only do you have like absolutely no job security but apparently, you’ll end up having to run the entire store by yourself.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Crypt of Dark Secrets (dir by Jack Weis)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1976’s Crypt of Dark Secrets is yet another low-budget horror film that takes place in the bayous of Louisiana.

Seriously, what is it about the bayous that seems to attract the darker side of everyone’s imagination? I’ve been to the Louisiana bayous and …. well, actually they are pretty creepy. I guess if you were going to make a horror movie, the Louisiana bayou would be a good place to film. It’s not like you have to spend a lot of money trying to create atmosphere or anything like that. That bayous have got their own built in, free atmosphere. You just have to start filming.

Anyway, Crypt of Dark Secrets does not feature a crypt but it does feature an island that’s sitting in the middle of the Louisiana swamp. There are many legends about the island, with the locals saying that it’s protected by voodoo and “the ghosts of Aztec priests.” There is always a fog on the island, regardless of how hot or otherwise sunny the day may be. And there’s always a cool breeze in the middle of the fog.

There’s also a black snake that is often seen swimming in the water around the island. Whenever the snake slithers onto the land, it turns into Damballa (Maureen Ridley), a swamp witch who is apparently at least a century old. She protects the island and she has the power to not only conjure quicksand but to also raise the dead. She also knows where a pirate’s treasure has been buried on the island but she’s certainly not going to let anyone find it.

Damballa has fallen for the island’s latest resident, a Vietnam vet named Ted Watkins (Ronald Tanet), who just wants the world to leave him alone. He lives in a small house on the island and he refuses to keep his money in the bank, despite the fact that his military pension has made him a very wealthy man. When three local losers, Max (Harry Uher), Earl (Butch Benit), and Louise (Barbara Hagerty), overhear that Ted keeps all of his money in a breadbox, they decide to pay him a visit and take that money for themselves. Ted ends up dead and Max and Earl are shocked to discover that money is now covered with blood and basically useless to them.

Damballa does a naked dance over Ted’s body, which brings Ted back to life. Despite Ted telling Damballa that he isn’t interested in vengeance and that he decided to leave hate and violence behind when he got out of Vietnam, Damballa teams up with the local voodoo priestess to get revenge on the three thieves. As Damballa explains it, evil has to be punished.

Ted’s status as Vietnam vet adds an interesting subtext to Crypt of Dark Secrets. During the same year that Taxi Driver was solidifying the image of the crazed Vietnam vet in the minds of many American filmgoers, Crypt of Dark Secrets featured a vet who just wants to be left alone to his own devices and who has no desire for further violence. Indeed, for a film that centers around vengeance, Ted is remarkably forgiving.

As for the film itself, it’s fairly slow but, having been shot on location in Louisiana, it’s got a lot of authentic swamp atmosphere and its portrayal of voodoo is an interesting one. (Voodoo, the film suggests, is the way that unwritten laws are enforced in the swamp.) The performance are a mixed bag, with Ronald Tanet giving a convincing performance as Ted while Maureen Ridley delivers her lines in a strangely formal fashion that doesn’t feel right for her swamp witch character. The actors playing the thieves are all convincing, as are the actors playing the inevitably portly Southern cops.

Crypt of Dark Secrets is flawed but it gets by on atmosphere.

Demonoid (1981, directed by Alfredo Zacarias)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Demonoid has a great title and it had a good one sheet but don’t be fooled. The sword-wielding devil is barely in the move and the women at his feet may have appeared on the cover of every heavy metal album in the 80s but they’re not in the movie.

Exploring a recently uncovered tomb in Mexico, Jennifer (Samantha Eggar) and Mark Baines (Roy Jenson) are intrigued by a number of bodies that are missing their left hand. Their guide explains that, centuries ago, men, women, and children were sacrificed to the Devil by having their left hands cut off. When Mark and Jennifer discover a casket with a severed hand, they decide to take it back to the hotel with them. Of course, the hand is not dead. It springs from its casket and possesses Mark. This leads to Mark fleeing back to the United States, trying to find a way to get rid of his possessed hand. Unfortunately, the hand has a mind of its own and, even after Mark ends up getting set on fire, the hand continues to live and possess one person after another. Jennifer teams up with Father Cunningham (Stuart Whitman), trying to bring an end to the hand’s reign of terror and giving the audience a chance to wonder how these two actors went from being Oscar nominees to co-starring in Demonoid.

Demonoid is a strange film that starts out as a leisurely travelogue of Mexico and then suddenly turn into a cinematic Grand Guignol, with person after person trying to figure out how to chop off their left hand without doing permanent damage to themselves. Because the hand is immortal, it has no problem trying to kill whoever it is currently attached to, which leads to not only several scenes of actors fighting with themselves but also several detached hands running across the screen. A detached but moving hand is creepy the first time you see it but it becomes progressively less so the more time that you spend with it. The plot is ridiculous enough to be initially intriguing but ultimately, Demonoid is a handsy bore.

October True Crime: Kemper: The CoEd Killer (dir by Rick Bitzelberger)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The city of Santa Cruz, California is gripped by fear as two separate serial killers stalk and murder young women. Detective Tom Harris (Christopher Stapleton) may not have many clues but he does have a brilliant best friend named Edmund Kemper (Robert Sisko). Though most people just see Kemper as being a nerdy, middle-aged house painter who lives with his abusive mother, Harris understands that Kemper is actually a genius who has an instinctive understanding of the criminal mind. With Kemper’s help, Harris is able to take down one of the killers. Kemper celebrates by murdering his own mother and then calling Harris and revealing himself to be the other killer. Harris must now track down Kemper before he can murder again.

2008’s Kemper: The CoEd Killer is very loosely based on the true story of serial killer, Edmund Kemper. And by loosely, I mean that it has next to nothing in common with what actually happened. In real life, Kemper was indeed a genius who lived with his mother and he did kill several hitchhikers. However, Kemper committed the majority of his murders in the early 70s and, by most accounts, he did not have any friends on the police force. Nor did he play a cat-or-mouse game with the police. Instead, he committed ten murders and turned himself into the police after killing his mother and her best friend. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Once in prison, he was frequently interviewed by FBI agents who were looking to understand how the mind of a serial killer works. According to veteran profile John Douglas, Kemper proved to be an amiable and honest interview subject and much of the science behind what is known as profiling is a result of the insights that Kemper provided. Douglas has described Kemper as being the most likable serial killer that he ever met, which is something that I’m sure provided little comfort to the families of the women that he killed.

In the movie, Kemper is a modern-day serial killer who calls the police on his cell phone. (A major plot point involves Detective Harris trying to trick Kemper into getting frustrated enough to call the police station’s landline so it will be easier to trace his call.) Kemper taunts the police and kidnaps a woman and holds her hostage in an attempt to mess with Detective Harris’s mind. Kemper doesn’t so much come across as being particularly clever as much as the police themselves just come across as being amazingly bad at their jobs. Somehow, they can’t find Kemper in the city, even though he never makes an attempt to disguise his distinctive appearance and continues to eat at the same diner where he and Harris ate at before Kemper revealed himself to be a killer. The film’s version of Edmund Kemper takes the idea of hiding in plain sight quite literally.

The film has the same flat, made-for-video look that one tends to find in a lot of these low-budget serial killer biopics. None of the acting is particularly effective, though Patricia Place does have a few memorable moments as Kemper’s foul-tempered mother. For the most part, this is a true crime film that you can safely skip.

Horror Film Review: The Return of the Exorcist (dir by Angelo Pannaccio and Luca Damiano)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1975 Italian film, The Return of the Exorcist, opens with a disjointed series of flashbacks that gradually reveal why a young man named Piero (Jean-Claude Verne) is currently bound in a bed in a monastery. What the flashbacks do not reveal is why Piero features one of the most fearsome mullets to ever been seen in an Italian film. Seriously, I get that this film was shot in 1975 but it’s a little bit hard to be intimidated by someone who obviously spends hours a day obsessing over his mullet, regardless of what may or may not have possessed him.

Piero, we learn, is 17 years old and his troubles started when he was outside with his camera and he came across a naked woman (Mimma Biscardi) standing in the middle of a lake. Piero took her picture and the woman laughed at him. When Piero’s friends approached, the woman suddenly vanished. When Piero developed the pictures, the woman was not in them. He went back to the lake and discovered a medallion which, rather foolishly, he chose to wear.

Of course, because of the film’s flashback structure, we already know that the woman was previously sacrificed at a Satanic orgy and that her body was possessed by a succubus and, because Piero was stupid enough to put on that medallion, the succubus has now entered him. Piero is soon acting strangely. When he insults his girlfriend, Sherry (Sonia Viviani), she abandons him and eventually ends up at a club where she dances the night away. Meanwhile, in his bedroom, Piero has a vision of the woman mocking him. Piero grabs a knife and slashes it across the woman’s throat. While this doesn’t effect the woman, it does lead to Sherry dying at the club.

The strangeness continues and Piero’s actions become progressively more and more disturbing. After Piero attempts to assault both his mother (Francoise Prevost) and his sister, a nun named Elena (Patrizia Gori), the decision is made to call in an Exorcist. The Exorcist arrives at the monastery and….

IT’S BARZINI!

Well, no, actually The Exorcist does not have a name. In the credits, he is simply listed as “Exorcist.” One can guess from the film’s title that the plan was to trick audiences into thinking that the character was either Father Merrin or Father Karrras from The Exorcist but anyone who has seen that film know that would be impossible. The important thing is that this film’s Exorcist is played by Richard Conte, who previously played Barzini in The Godfather.

(For the record, Richard Conte actually had a pretty long career and played a lot of roles before he was cast as Barzini. In fact, Conte was prominent enough that he was initially considered for the role of Don Vito Corleone. Before The Godfather, Conte appeared in films like Ocean’s 11, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Big Combo, Tony Rome, and Lady in Cement. After The Godfather, Conte appeared in several Italian films, like this one. The Exorcist was actually his final film role, as he died of a heart attack shortly after shooting.)

What type of exorcist is Richard Conte? He’s a very tough one. As opposed to the scholarly Merrin and the conflicted Father Karras, Conte’s Exorcist comes across as if he’s ready to step into that bedroom and just literally slap the Hell right out of Piero. And considering just how annoying a character Piero was, I don’t think anyone would have objected.

Anyway, Conte really doesn’t show up in the film until it’s close to being over and the Exorcism plays out pretty quickly. The majority of this film is made up of scenes of Piero imagining the Succubus naked or the Succubus taking over Piero’s body so that it can go after his girlfriend, his mother and his sister. There’s reason why this film is also known as Naked Exorcism. It’s unapologetically sleazy, as many of the Italian Exorcist films were. It’s also a bit boring, mostly because Piero is such a doofus that you really don’t care what happens to him. They should have just tossed him in the lake and tested whether he weighed more than a duck. Conte is a tough exorcist but the film itself is forgettable.

Horror Film Review: 13 Eerie (dir by Lowell Dean)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2013 film, 13 Eerie, takes place on an island that is not quite as deserted as our heroes originally assumed.

The island, known as the Eerie Strait, was once the home of a brutal, maximum security prison. The island is full of abandoned buildings and abandoned vehicles, all of which sit there as monuments to the brutality of mass incarceration. Prof. Tompkins (Michael Shanks) teaches a class in Forensic science and he brings six of his best students (played by Katharine Isabelle, Brendan Fehr, Brendan Fletcher, Jesse Moss, Kristie Patterson, and Michael Eisner) to the island. With the help of an ex-convict named Larry (Nick Moran), Tompkins has set up several fake crime scenes (often featuring very real corpses) for his students to investigate. For the class, the students are required to work in teams of two and the teams are not allowed to communicate with each other. However, each team is given a walkie-talkie so that they can still communicate with Tompkins.

Now, just speaking for myself, I would probably drop the class rather than take part in any of this. Seriously, as soon as you tell me that I’m going to have to spend my weekend hanging out at an abandoned prison and examining real corpses, I would probably walk out of the classroom and switch majors. (Then again, I probably wouldn’t be majoring in forensics to begin with.) But Tompkins’s students are very enthusiastic about heading off to the island. I guess if doing obviously dumb things, going off to an isolated location with an ex-con would be an attractive option.

Anyway, the students head over to the Island and — surprise! — it turns out that there’s a lot of extra dead bodies lying around. At first, the students think that the extra bodies are all a part of their class but then some of the dead bodies come back to life. It turns out that the island — much like the prison camp in Garden of the Dead — was once used a place to experiment on prisoners. As a result, many of the former prisoners have now been transformed into flesh-eating zombies who roam the island and look for new victims.

(And again, anyone who has ever seen a zombie movie, should have realized that this would happen. It always amazing me that people in zombie movies have apparently never come across Night of the Living Dead on television late at night. At the very least, you would think that these people would have at least read an article or two about The Walking Dead. And really, even if you have somehow gone your entire life without being exposed to any zombie media, the sight of the dead walking around should be enough to convince most people to run away.)

13 Eerie has some atmosphere but it doesn’t really bring anything new to the zombie genre. In fact, it so closely follows the rules of the genre that it actually gets kind of boring. I appreciated, as always, the committed performance of Katharine Isabelle and I also liked that the film ended on a bit of a down note. But, for the most part, 13 Eerie doesn’t bring anything new to the world of the living dead.

Horror Film Review: The Beast With A Million Eyes (dir by David Kramarsky, Lou Place, Donald Myers, and Roger Corman)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1955 film, The Beast With A Million Eyes, has three credited directors and reportedly, Roger Corman also stepped in and took over the direction as well, even though he received no screen credit. That’s a lot of directors for a relatively simple sci-fi/horror film. Reportedly, the problem with the directors came from the fact that The Beast With A Million Eyes was a non-union production and, after one day of production, the unions threatened to picket the set and basically shut down production unless the entire cast and crew signed up for the guilds. The unions eventually got their members and their money but all of the drama set production so far behind that Roger Corman stepped in, fired award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, and proceeded to finish up the film himself.

As for the film itself, it takes place in the California countryside. Allan Kelly (Paul Birch, who was one of the first guys to get killed in The War of the Worlds and later played the dying alien in Corman’s Not Of This Earth) has no use for modern society and he has moved his family to a ranch in the California desert. His family is not particularly happy about this. His wife, Carol (Lorna Thayer), hates being isolated from the world. Their teenage daughter, Sandy (Dana Cole), is lonely and has a strained relationship with her mother. The only thing that makes Sandy happy is her boyfriend (played by Dick Sargent, who would later take over the role of Darin on Bewitched) and her dog. Perhaps the worst part of living out in the desert is that their handyman is a weirdo known as Him (Leonard Tarver).

Now, I should mention that, when I was growing up, my family moved around a lot. I spent a while living on a few farms that were owned by my aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Even after we finally settled down in Texas, I would still frequently visit their farms. I enjoyed visiting the farms, even though I’m pretty much a city girl at heart. I can say that The Beast With A Million Eyes definitely captured the isolated feel of country life. Watching the film, I could feel the heart of the unforgiving sun. I could feel the feeling of tall grass against my bare legs. And, at times, I could even remember the sound of roosters in the distance and crickets and grasshoppers chanting in the night.

Fortunately, my family was never bothered by aliens while we were on the farm. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the family at the center of The Beast With A Million Eyes. An alien decides to test its invasion plan on the family. First, the animals turn against the family, including the poor family dog. (This is probably not a film to watch if you feel about dogs the way that I feel about cats.) Then, the handyman suddenly turns against the family as well. The alien is taking over the minds of the living beings around, starting with animals and then moving on to humans. Can the family defeat the aliens? And will nature ever be the same?

Hey, I liked The Beast With A Million Eyes! Usually, when the film has a lot of directors, it results in a disjointed mess but The Beast With A Million Eyes actually had an interesting story and a lot of country atmosphere. As opposed to the stereotypically perfect 50s family, the family at the center of The Beast With A Million Eyes is believably dysfunctional but, in the end, they have to come together to save the humanity. I just hope the rest of the world would be willing to do the same.