Director Robert Siodmak is remembered today for his dark excursions into the world of film noir: THE SUSPECT, THE KILLERS , CRY OF THE CITY, CRISS CROSS . His first entry in the genre is generally recognized as 1944’s PHANTOM LADY , but a case could be made for SON OF DRACULA, Siodmak’s only Universal Horror that combines elements of both genres into what could best be described as supernatural noir.
A train pulls into the station in a sleepy Louisiana town. Frank Stanley (Robert Paige) and Dr. Brewster (Frank Craven ) are there to meet Count Alucard, invited for a visit by Kay Caldwell (Louise Albritton), Frank’s fiancé, who has long been interested in the occult. Alucard isn’t aboard, but his trunks are, and Brewster notices Alucard spelled backwards reads as Dracula. The trunks are delivered to Kay’s family plantation, Dark Oaks. The scene shifts, and…
The 1974 film Silent Night, Bloody Night is an oddity.
On the one hand, it’s pretty much a standard slasher film, complete with a menacing mansion, a horrible secret, a twist ending, and John Carradine playing a mute newspaper editor.
On the other hand, director Ted Gershuny directs like he’s making an underground art film and several of the supporting roles are played by actors who were best known for their association with Andy Warhol.
Personally, I like Silent Night, Bloody Night. It has a terrible reputation and the film’s star, Mary Woronov, has gone on record calling it a “terrible movie” but I like the surreal touches the Gershuny brought to the material and the sepia-toned flashbacks have a nightmarish intensity to them. The film makes no logical sense, which actually makes it all the more appealing to me. As the saying goes, your mileage may vary.
Seriously, those little wooden things totally freak me out. You know how some of you feel about the painted smile on the clowns ‘face? Well, that’s how I feel whenever I see the big eyes of a ventriloquist dummy or that mouth with the fake teeth. And don’t even get me started on those tiny little legs that some of them have! AGCK!
I mention this because there is a ventriloquist’s dummy in the 1980 film, Humanoids From The Deep. There’s really no reason for it to be in the film but suddenly, out of nowhere, there it is. It belongs to a teenager named Billy who, when we first see him, is relaxing in a tent on the beach, trying to get his girlfriend to undress for him and the dummy. Of course, they’re promptly interrupted by a seaweed-covered monster, who rips open the tent, kills Billy, and chases after his girlfriend. The whole time, the dummy watches with a somewhat quizzical expression on his face. It’s a strange scene.
Now, I’ve done some research and I’ve discovered that Billy was played by David Strassman, who was (and still is) a professional ventriloquist and his dummy was named …. I do not kid …. Chuck Wood. So, the whole tent scene was kind of a celebrity cameo. Roger Corman, who produced the film, said, “You know what? This movie has blood, nudity, killer fish-men, and rampant misogyny but it’s still missing something! How about that ventriloquist that I saw on the Tonight Show last night!?”
Anyway, Humanoids From The Deep is basically about what happens when you try to mutate salmon. You end up with a bunch of pervy fish monsters swarming the beach and trying to make like human/fish babies. You end up with a lot of dead teens and unplanned pregnancies. You also end up with the local redneck fisherman (led by Vic Morrow) blaming the local Native Americans, accusing them of killing all of the dogs in town. Jim Hill (Doug McClure) and his wife, Carol (Cindy Weintraub), try to keep the peace but their efforts are continually tripped up by the fact that almost everyone in town is an idiot.
For instance, despite the fact that there’s been a countless number of murders and rapes and that they’ve all been committed a group of monsters that nobody knows how to fight, the town still decides to hold their annual festival on the pier. Of course, as soon as the obnoxious DJ starts broadcasting, the humanoids from the deep show up and basically, the entire festival goes to Hell. And here’s the thing. The film itself is ugly and mean-spirited and misogynistic but the attack on the festival is totally and completely brilliant. I mean, it’s one of the greatest monster sieges of all time, largely because the monsters are apparently unstoppable and that humans are so obnoxious that you don’t mind seeing them all die. I mean, if nothing else, the monster deserve some credit for taking out that DJ.
It all leads to a “surprise” ending, which isn’t particularly surprising but which is so batshit insane that it somehow seems appropriate.
Humanoids From The Deep is an incredibly icky movie, one that has some effective scare scenes but which is way too misogynistic to really be much fun. (Roger Corman hired Barbara Peeters to direct the film but reportedly brought in a male director to film the movie’s more explicit scenes.) Oh well. At least the ventriloquist died.
Maggie Healey (Linda Blair) is an American nurse in Australia. Freshly separated from her drug addict boyfriend, Maggie gets a job working at a mental hospital. Dr. Jonathan Heckett (Tony Bonner) is experimenting with “dead sleep therapy,” where the patients are kept drugged at night. Maggie notices that the patients keep dying and that Dr. Heckett doesn’t care so she teams up with an annoying activist to investigate what dead sleep therapy is actually about.
This was on TCM at 3 a.m. last night, airing right after Dreamscape. Dead Sleep might be disguised as a horror film but there’s nothing scary about it. When the patients are in dead sleep, they don’t even have nightmares, which is a huge missed opportunity. The movie is so sloppily put together that it doesn’t even reveal why Dr. Heckett is putting his patients in dead sleep, other than he’s just evil. Linda Blair delivers her lines as if she is reading them off a cue card and the entire movie look like it was filmed at a community college. The only amusing thing about the movie was that all of the male patients got to wear hospital gowns when they went under deep sleep while all the female patients slept topless. Normally I wouldn’t complain but it was so blatant what the filmmakers were doing that it was hard not to laugh when the movie tried to pivot to being a serious drama. A film starring Linda Blair has no right to be this boring.
Universal’s 1943 remake of the 1925 Lon Chaney Sr. classic THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is definitely an ‘A’ movie in every way. A lavish Technicolor production with an ‘A’ list cast (Claude Rains, Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster) and opulent sets (including the Opera House interiors built for the ’25 silent), it’s the only Universal Horror to win an Oscar – actually two, for Art Direction and Cinematography. Yet I didn’t really like it the first time I saw it. It’s only through repeated viewings I’ve softened my stance and learned to appreciate the film.
Claude Rains’s performance in particular has made me a convert. As Erique Claudin, he’s a sympathetic figure, and one can’t help but feel sorry for him. When he’s let go from the orchestra by the maestro, after twenty long years as a violinist, his arthritis causing his playing to become subpar, I felt pity for…
There’s a beachside resort town, one whose survival is pretty much dependent upon tourists and big business. If you give the tourists a reason to not show up, the town dies. If you give big business a reason to build their factories and their underground tunnels somewhere else, the town dies.
Unfortunately, something bad is happening in this little town. People are going in the water and they’re never returning. It appears that they’re being killed by some sort of giant sea monster, even though the authorities swear that it’s simply impossible. The town’s leaders are putting pressure on the sheriff to cover up the crimes. A scientist shows up and thinks that everyone he meets is an idiot.
It’s not safe to go in the water but people keep doing it!
Now, you may be thinking that it sounds like I’m describing the plot of Jaws but actually, I’m talking about an Italian film called Tentacles. Released in 1977, Tentacles was one of the many films that was directly inspired by the success of Spielberg’s film. Jaws was such a phenomenal success that it was ripped off by filmmakers across the world. That said, of all the people ripping off Spielberg’s film, the Italians brought an undeniable and frequently shameless flair to the Jaws knockoffs.
Tentacles is a bit different from other Italian Jaws films in that, this time, the threat does not come from a shark. Instead, it comes from a giant octopus! That’s actually a pretty good twist because, in real life, an octopus is actually more dangerous than a shark. Not only are they bigger and considerably smarter than most sharks but if they get enough of their eight arms around you, they can literally squeeze you to death! I mean …. agck! Say what you will about sharks, I imagine getting eaten by one would suck but at least it wouldn’t take long to die. Whereas if an octopus gets you, you would actually be aware of it squeezing you to death and oh my God, I’m never getting in the water.
Anyway, in Tentacles, the octopus is snatching babies off of piers and sailors off of boats and it’s using its octopus powers to rip their skin from their bones. It also attack scuba divers by firing ink at them. The sheriff (Claude Akins) says that it’s nothing to worry about but Ned Turner (John Huston), a hard-boiled reporter, thinks that there’s a story here. Ned’s in town visiting his sister (Shelley Winters). She has a ten year-old son who enjoys sailing. Uh-oh….
Henry Fonda shows up for a few very brief scenes, playing the head of a company that built the underwater tunnel that somehow mutated the octopus. Fonda looks incredibly frail in his scenes (and apparently, he filmed his part while recovering from heart surgery) but his performance in Tentacles still isn’t as cringe-inducing as his performance in The Swarm.
Also showing up is a marine biologist named Will Gleason (Bo Hokpkins). Fortunately, Gleason owns two killer whales so, after the octopus kills his wife, Gleason sends out the orcas to track it down. Before doing so, he gives them a pep talk. Apparently, killer whales respond to positive reinforcement.
Tentacles is unique in that it’s an Italian production that managed to rope in a few well-known American actors. It’s an odd film to watch because, on the one hand, the film is full of risible dialogue and it’s painfully slow whenever the octopus isn’t attacking anyone and no one really seems to be that invested in any of their characters. (When the octopus kills a baby, the actress playing the baby’s mother underacts to such an extent that the scene becomes almost surreal.) This isn’t like Jaws, where you actually care about Brody, Quint, Hooper, and the Kintner boy. On the other hand, the octopus itself is actually kind of frightening so, on that very basic level, the film works.
In the end, Tentacles is one of the lesser Jaws rip-offs but you’ll never forget that octopus.
“Nom nom nom nom,” says that monster under the sand.
“Agck! Agck! Agck! Agck!” says the people above the sand.
And that’s all you really need to know about the 1981 film, Blood Beach.
Blood Beach takes place on a beach that also happens to be a hunting ground for this mutated worm thing that lives underground. Basically, whenever anyone takes a stroll on the beach, they get sucked down into the sand and, for the most part, they’re never seen again. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing, as in the case of a wannabe rapist who ends up getting castrated while being pulled down into the sand. But, far too often, the victims are innocent people who were just walking their dog, chasing after their hat, or searching for buried treasure.
The beach becomes so well-known for being a death trap that the locals start to call it Blood Beach but, for some reason, that doesn’t seem to stop people from wandering out on the sand at inopportune times. I mean, it would just seem logical to me that if there’s a monster killing people on the beach then maybe it would be a good idea to avoid the beach for a while. I mean, you could go see a movie or you could lay out and work on your tan in your back yard. Believe it or not, you do have the option of not going to a monster-infested location.
Strangely, there’s one person who is always on the beach but never gets killed. That’s Mrs. Selden (Eleanor Zee), a somewhat odd woman who always seems to be nearby whenever someone is getting dragged into the sand but who never gets attacked herself. Interestingly, Mrs. Selden never seems to be particularly concerned by all the carnage around her. (One victim is even killed while specifically checking to make sure Mrs. Selden is okay.) I kept expecting some sort of major twist where it was revealed that Mrs. Selden was a witch or something but it never happened.
Now, you would think that the presence of an underground monster would be the perfect excuse to call in the national guard but instead, the local police (led by John Saxon’s Captain Pearson) handle it. Sgt. Royko (Burt Young) heads up the monster investigation, which in this film means that he kinda of stumbles from scene-to-scene, never looking particularly impressed by or interesting in anything that’s happening around him. If anything, Royko seems to be annoyed that he’s having to give up time that he could be using to drink beer and watch TV and that attitude makes Royke the hero of this film. Forget the scientist who wants to understand where the monster came from. Forget the habor cop who wants to rekindle things with an old flame. Royko doesn’t care about science or love. He just wants to blow stuff up, which makes him the perfect audience surrogate
Anyway, Blood Beach sounds like it should be a fun movie but it’s not. The movie delivers a lot of beach but very little blood. There’s a lot of “nom nom” but very little “agck!” Blood Beach is almost as much of a misfire as spending spring break in West Texas.
For today’s horror on the lens, we offer up 1965’s The Beach Girls and the Monster. In this one, a monster that might be a mutated barracuda is hiding out on the beach and killing teenagers. Can Dr. Otto Lindsay (played by the film’s director, Jon Hall) figure out how to defeat the monster? Will Otto’s son Richard (Arnold Lessing) ever stop surfing long enough to get back to studying science? Will Otto’s much younger wife Vicky (Sue Casey) seduce the troubled and crippled sculptor Mark (Walker Edmiston)? And will it ever occur to anyone to just go to a different beach?
Complete with a ludicrous monster, a great soundtrack, tons of dancing, melodramatic acting, and a twist ending that will surprise no one, The Beach Girls and the Monster is low-budget favorite of mine. It’s also, I think, a perfect movie to watch on a rainy October Saturday.
The Revenant …. nooooo not the one where Leonardo Di Caprio gets Bear Married (Bearried?)…this is the one where David Anders (iZombie- Blane) and Chris Wylde become crime fighting zombies in Los Angeles!!!! There are certain films that are just fun. So, pop open a PBR, hang with your buds or your SO, and enjoy a truly great Vampire/Zombie film.
The film was directed, written, edited, and special-effected by D. Kerry Prior. This film is totally in the same vein as Evil Dead. Many people making the film knew one another, D Kerry Prior wore many hats, and they managed to show it at many festivals and did well. This is a great example of how fun horror can be without a lot of money….IF you have a good script and dedicated people working with you. This is so amazingly over the top; there is even a scene where a disembodied head speaks with the assistance of a sex toy on his vocal cords. You just don’t see that everyday!
The film takes the idea that Vampires are basically zombies, but still sapient after their reawakening; therefore, they call them Revenants as in returning. Yes, they still drink blood, but they look like zombies with the rotting and the yellow eyes and such. D. Kerry Prior took the idea that if they are still sentient post-return maybe they’d use their invincibility for good. And what is best thing a person can be you ask????? A Zombie/Vampire/Crimefighter. Yes, they fight crime!
The film begins in Iraq with Sergeant Bart Gregory (David Anders) who gets shot and turned into a a Revenant (zombie/vampire) by a baby zombie/vampire who is pretty gross. Bart’s body is shipped home and reanimates. The only knock I give the film is that Bart goes from SGT to Lieutenant from one scene to the next, but you just have to let it go. Bart relies on his friend Joey to adjust to his new Revenant undead lifestyle. They learn that not only does Bart survive on blood, but there are a panoply of criminals in Los Angeles waiting to be tapped for Bart’s plasma needs.
Eventually, Joey gets shot during one their criminal harvests and Bart turns him into a Revenant to save him. Then, they have an awesome montage of killing and blood eating. It’s just great! All the while, there is a subplot of his relationship between Bart and his girlfriend Janet who eventually get turns as well. This creates a Yoko situation and Joey and Bart try to kill each other. Joey flees and tries to harvest on his own and ends up getting decapitated …. and the head lives! Bart has to put Joey down, leaving Bart with no reason to unlive. Bart tries to commit suicide in a number of interesting ways and it just doesn’t work. I won’t give away the ending, but it’s pretty interesting.
I’ve seen this film about five times and I’ve been entertained every…single…time. After I first saw it, iZombie premiered shortly after with David Anders as the main villain, making this movie doubly awesome because we got to see David Anders pre-stardom. There are a number of low-budget TERRIBLE horror movies and I’ve watched MANY of them. This film is testament to how far you can push this genre creatively and still do it on low-budget. I highly recommend it as a must see!
After her lover and employer commits suicide, nurse Susan Manning (Jennifer O’Neill) needs a new job so she applies at an experimental mental hospital that is known as the Institute. The director of the Institute, Dr. Magnus Quilly (William Windom), explains to her that he cures his patients by allowing them to live out their fantasies in a controlled environment. He asks Susan is she’s prepared to “commit” herself to being a nurse. Susan says that she is and signs the papers that Dr. Quilly hands to her.
Too late, Susan discovers that Dr. Quilly didn’t hand her an employment contract. Instead, Susan has just signed her own commitment papers and is now a patient at the Institute! Dr. Quilly tells her that, as he does with all of his patients, he will allow her to live out her fantasy of being a nurse. After discovering than an electrified fence makes it impossible to escape, Susan starts working as a nurse but she soon discovers that she is not the first person to be tricked into working at the Institute and that almost all of her predecessors died under mysterious circumstances.
Committed is one of many films about what happens when the lunatics literally take over the asylum. (This is a plot that was first used by Edgar Allan Poe in The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether.) The film is hurt by its low-budget but veteran B-movie director William A. Levey does a good job playing up the claustrophobia of being trapped in one location and Committed features eccentric performances from actors like Robert Forster, Ron Pallilo, and Sidney Lassick. Committed asks, “Who is actually sane in an insane world?” and answers, “Everyone’s crazy!”
The best thing about Committed is that it stars Jennifer O’Neill, a beautiful model-turned-actress who found brief stardom when she appeared as the war bride in Summer of ’42. Though O’Neill’s career never lived up to the promise of her first film, she was a better-than-average actress and she’s pretty good in Committed. Both she and the film keep it deliberately ambiguous about whether or not Susan is really a nurse or if her whole backstory is just something that she’s fantasized.
Committed is a well-made B-movie from the golden age of straight-to-video thrillers and late night HBO premieres. Despite a low-budget, this movie shows the good work that a cast and a director can do when they’re fully committed.
Through the Shattered Lens