Today’s horror on the lens is the 1995 Italian film, Cruel Jaws!
As you’ll quickly notice, though the actors speak in English, there are also Japanese subtitles. That’s because the film was barely released in the United States, for legal reasons. (Cruel Jaws is full of footage lifted from better-known shark films.) However, it was very popular in Japan.
This film was directed by the one and only Bruno Mattei. You can read my review here.
Someone is murdering women in Los Angeles and draining them of their blood. A mysterious detective named Michael Fury (George Chakiris) arrives from London and starts to investigate. Fury is a vampire but he is a thoroughly modern vampire. He even has his own special travel coffin that he takes with him on trips. To help him with his investigation, he hires a researcher named Lori (Pamela Ludwig). Lori is convinced that the killings are being committed by a real vampire but Michael believes that they are actually the work of a human who is only pretending to be one of the undead. Michael is worried that this fake vampire will make real vampires look bad. Meanwhile, a crazy photographer (Wings Hauser) stalks Michael, determined to capture a vampire of his very own.
Pale Blood went straight-to-video and does not have the budget to match its ambitions but it is still a fairly good, if overlooked, vampire movie. George Chakiris, who is best known for his role in West Side Story, had the right look to play a brooding vampire and he and Pamela Ludwig made a good team. Not surprisingly, the best thing about Pale Blood was Wings Hauser. In this movie, Wings Hauser gave a performance that was demented even by the standards of Wings Haauser. Hauser is so crazy in this movie that Pale Blood sets the standard by which all other crazy Wing Hauser performances must be judged.
One final note: the vhs cover art, which is pictured above, features a shot of Wings Hauser that was apparently lifted from a different movie.
Val Lewton’s I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE is, despite the exploitative title, one of the most moody and atmospheric horror films of the 40’s. This was Lewton’s follow up to the highly successful CAT PEOPLE (1942), with Jacques Tourneur again in the director’s chair. Though screenwriters Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray based their script on a story by Inez Wallace, producer Lewton had them add elements of Charlotte Bronte’s JANE EYRE, making this a Gothic zombie movie!
Nurse Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) is summoned to the West Indies isle of St. Sebastian to look after Paul Holland’s (Tom Conway ) catatonic wife Jessica. The cynical Holland has an air of melancholy about him (“There’s no beauty here”, he states on the sea trip to the island, “only decay and death”). Upon arrival, Betsy meets Holland’s stepbrother Wesley Reed (James Ellison), a jovial sort until he gets in the presence of…
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Today’s horror scene that I love comes from the 1997 French film, Two Orphan Vampires.
I knew that I really wanted to share a scene from Two Orphan Vampires on this date. It’s my favorite Jean Rollin film. Unfortunately, most of the really good scenes have been taken off of YouTube. That said, I do like the way Rollin uses the color blue in this scene and the opening image of those two blind vampires walking across the bridge is still a strong one. When viewed out of context, the attack on the poet may be seen weak but actually it’s just another example of Rollin’s dream-like aesthetic. If the attack on the poet seems fake, that may be because it wasn’t supposed to have really happened.
Watch the film and it’ll make sense.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
This October, I am going to be using our 4 Shots From 4 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order! That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!
Today’s director: Jacques Tourneur!
4 Shots From 4 Films
Cat People (1942, dir by Jacques Tourneur)
I Walked With A Zombie (1943, dir by Jacques Tourneur)
The Leopard Man (1943, dir by Jacques Tourneur)
Night of the Demon (1957, dir by Jacques Tourneur)
This 1966 western/horror hybrid is just about as stupid as you think it is but it’s also a lot of fun if you’re in the right mood. Notorious outlaw Jesse James (John Lupton) attempts to hold up a stagecoach but, in the process, his hulking partner Hank (Cal Bolder) is serious wounded. Some helpful peasants direct Jesse and Hank to the mysterious German doctor who happens to live in a nearby dark and scary house. That doctor is Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx) and she’s been conducting experiments to bring dead Mexicans back to life. Imagine her joy when the nearly dead Hank shows up at her laboratory. Anyway, Maria performs a brain transplant on Hank and once Hank comes back to life, she informs him that his new name is “Igor.” Yes, she does. That plot description pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the movie but I vaguely enjoyed vaguely paying attention to it. Maria’s German accent is hilariously overdone, the Frankenstein laboratory is full of pointless electrical things, and a character dies halfway through the film just to later show up again with no explanation. It’s that type of movie.
And it’s also the type of movie that you can watch below!
Enjoy!
(Lisa is not just watching horror movies! She is also trying to clean out her DVR! She has got over 200 movies that she needs to watch before January 1st! Will she make it? Keep checking here to find out! She recorded My Daughter Is Missing off of Lifetime on June 25th!)
My Daughter Is Missing and Liam Neeson is nowhere to be seen!
Fortunately, Sara (Miranda Raison) was in Belgrade when her daughter was kidnapped by a Serbian human trafficking ring. Even more importantly, Sara is a former computer hacker and, in the world of Lifetime, there is literally nothing that the internet cannot do.
Need to view the security footage of your daughter being kidnapped from the club?
Use the internet!
Need to find out who is behind human trafficking in Eastern Europe?
Use the internet!
Need to figure out who you can trust or who you can’t?
The internet will explain all!
The other thing about Lifetime films is that mom will always be proven right. Sara told her daughter to be careful. Her daughter wasn’t and now, she’s about to be sold to the highest bidder. Sara told the cops that her daughter had been kidnapped. The cops didn’t believe her and now Sara’s going to find the proof on her own. Fortunately, she knows how to use a computer and, as we’ve already established, computers are magic.
To be honest, Sara really should have been named “Mary Sue” because she is one of the biggest Mary Sues that I’ve ever seen on Lifetime. Not only does she have a tragic and dramatic backstory but the main theme of the movie appears to be that everyone in the entire world is stupid except for Sara. Whenever Sara uses the internet to prove everyone wrong, you can be sure that at least one person is going to say, “No one should ever have doubted you, Sara.”
(My favorite part of the movie is when Sara tracks down the web site for the auction and all the “hackers” standing behind her gasp in amazement and say stuff like, “She’s on the dark web.”)
Anyway, this movie was shot on location in Belgrade. That does add a little authenticity to the film, though it doesn’t last long. There’s a line towards the end of the film, where a sympathetic character points out that there’s more to Belgrade than just political corruption and sex rings. That was nice of him to say because, otherwise, the movie probably isn’t going to do much for the tourism industry.
I ended up throwing a high heel in the direction of the TV while I was watching My Daughter Is Missing. That’s my favorite way of expressing displeasure. I guess the plot of My Daughter Is Missing would be intriguing if I had never seen Taken but I have seen Taken and this movie was a pure substitute. Not only is the plot predictable but Sara is literally too perfect. It’s hard not to get annoyed with her — and only her — being right all the time while every other person in the movie was portrayed as being either evil or willfully ignorant. By the end of the movie, I was expecting someone to declare, “You’re the best mom ever!”
I should admit, however, that the movie didn’t go that far. Maybe they’re saving it for the sequel.
Granny Gargoli (Stella Stevens) is an old, wealthy, and dying. With the exception of her niece, Kelly (Shannon Whirry, wearing glasses so it’s clear that she is not a gold digger), Granny hates her entire family. When they come by for Thanksgiving dinner and start arguing about who is going to inherit Granny’s money, Granny snaps at her oldest son, “You’re the load that I should’ve swallowed!”
Since Granny does not want anyone to inherit her money, she decides that the best course of action would be to never die. She buys a magic elixir that will grant immortality to whoever drinks it. The salesman (played by director Luca Bercovici) tells her that it is very important to keep the elixir out of direct sunlight. Of course, that gets screwed up faster than a mogwai turning into a gremlin. When her family poisons her, the corrupted elixir does not keep Granny from dying. Instead, it allows Granny to return as a demon who hunts down her greedy relatives one at a time. One son is castrated. A daughter-in-law is attacked when her mink stole comes to life. Even after being killed, the members of the family return as wisecracking members of the living dead.
A mix of comedy and horror, The Granny used to show up regularly on late night Cinemax. It may not be scary (though the castration scene is the reason why I get nervous whenever I see scissors) but, with the exception of Kelly, everyone in the family is so hateful that it is still fun to watch all of the get what they deserve. Stella Stevens and Shannon Whirry are the main reasons to watch The Granny. Stella gets all the best lines while Shannon Whirry shows why those who grew up watching late night Cinema still debate which Shannon was the best, Whirry or Tweed?
Don Coscarelli, the man who brought you the PHANTASM series, scores a bulls-eye with BUBBA HO-TEP, a totally unique film based on Joe R. Lansdale’s novella. Lansdale is well known to fans of horror fiction for his books and short stories in the filed as well as other genres (crime, westerns, even comic books). Coscarelli’s adaptation is a delightful blend of horror and humor, and a bittersweet reflection on aging, if not gracefully, then with courage.
Bruce Campbell (ASH VS EVIL DEAD) stars as Sebastian Haff, former Elvis impersonator who may or may not really be The King. He believes he is, and that’s what matters. He’s stuck in a Mud Creek, Texas rest home, confined to a walker and battling a weird growth on his pecker. People at the rest home are dying, as you’d expect in a place like this, but under some strange circumstances that’re causing Elvis…
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Today’s horror scene that I love comes from the 1994 Italian film, Dellamorte Dellamore.
Viewed out of context from the rest of the film, this is not an easy scene to explain. My suggestion is enjoy it for the beauty of the images and Rupert Everett’s mournful performance. And, if you haven’t seen it, watch Dellamorte Dellamore as soon as possible.
