Today’s horror scene that I love is from the 1961 Roger Corman film, The Pit and The Pendulum!
Not only is that pendulum nightmarish as Hell but check out that set design! One can see that Corman definitely took some inspiration from Hammer’s Dracula and Frankenstein films. Watching this scene, it is easy to see why Corman devoted so much of the early 60s to directing Vincent Price in various Edgar Allan Poe adaptations.
Enjoy!
The late, great George A. Romero’s first feature, NIGHT OF THE LVING DEAD, was shot in the wilds of Pittsburgh, PA on a budget of $114,000. This unheralded, gruesome little indie became a landmark in horror, influencing and inspiring generations of moviemakers to come. Better scribes than your humble correspondent have written countless analyses on the film, so I’m going to give you my perspective from my first viewing of the film… at the impressionable age of 13!
My cousin and I, both horror buffs, first saw it as the bottom half of a double feature in 1970. The main attraction was EQUINOX , which came highly recommended by Forrest J Ackerman , editor of the Monster Kid’s Bible, FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. As we eagerly awaited the main attraction, we sat through the warm-up, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. At first, we thought it was an older rerelease, because…
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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 is Freddie Francis. Though Francis may be best remembered as a cinematographer (who worked on three David Lynch films), he was also a director who did memorable work for both Hammer and Amicus in the 60s and 70s.
4 Shots From 4 Films
The Evil of Frankenstein (1963, dir by Freddie Francis)
Torture Garden (1967, dir by Freddie Francis)
Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968, dir by Freddie Francis)
The Creeping Flesh (1973, dir by Freddie Francis)
It’s time, once again, for another October edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film trailers!
This week’s edition was inspired by watching TCM Underground last night. In fact, the last two trailers features are for the two films that I watched.
This film was also released under the title Black Exorcist. Warner Bros. actually brought suit against Abby, claiming that it was such an obvious rip-off of The Exorcist that it should not be allowed to play in theaters. Warner Bros. actually won their suit but not before Abby made a lot of money.
2. Sugar Hill (1974)
Sugar Hill is a popular film here at the Shattered Lens. Check out the reviews from both Arleigh and Gary! And be sure to watch the trailer.
3. Blackenstein (1973)
Blackenstein is one of those titles that sounds like it has to be a parody but no, it’s a real movie. There’s even a trailer to prove it.
4. Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976)
Again, the title might sound like a parody but this is a very real film and, from what I’ve read, apparently a rather highly-regarded one as well. This is on my list of films to see, though I have a feeling that Gary will probably beat me to it.
5. Blacula (1972)
From William Crain, the director of Dr. Black and My Hyde…
And starring William Marshall, the star of Abby…
It’s Blacula! This is the first film that I watched on TCM Underground and it’s a legitimate classic. Check out Gary’s review here! And watch the trailer below:
6. Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973)
Of course, any successful film is going to get an inferior sequel. This was also the second movie that I watched on TCM Underground last night.
Much like watching Plan 9 From Outer Space, Night of the Living Dead, Treevenge, or Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, watching the 1962 independent film Carnival of Souls is a bit of a holiday tradition here at the Shattered Lens.
And you know how much I love tradition!
Directed in a dream-like fashion by Herk Harvey (who also directed several of the educational short films that I’ve occasionally shared on this site, including Cheating, The Show-Off, andThe Gossip), Carnival of Souls tells the story of Mary (Candace Hilligoss) who, after a car accident, finds herself haunted by visions of ghostly figures. Independently produced and distributed, Carnival of Souls did not get much attention when it was originally released but it is now generally acknowledged as a horror classic. Reportedly, David Lynch loves this movie and, when you watch it, you’ll be able to see why!
It’s October. It’s 16 more days ’til Halloween. It’s time to watch Carnival of Souls!
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If, on Saturday you were having trouble sleeping at three in the morning, you could have turned on TCM and watched the 1969 film, The Arrangement.
The Arrangement is one of those films where a rich guy gets hit by a sudden case of ennui and, as a result, spends the entire movie acting like a jackass. However, as often happens in films like this, The Arrangement makes sure that we understand that it’s not the guy’s fault. Instead, it’s his wife’s fault for not being as much fun as his mistress.
In this case, the guy is an ad executive who goes by the name of Eddie Anderson (Kirk Douglas). His original name was Evangelos Arness but he changed his name when he was younger because he apparently didn’t want anyone to know that he came from a Greek family. When we first meet Eddie, he’s attempting to commit suicide by driving his car into an 18 wheeler. If he had died, the movie could have ended quickly. However, since Eddie survived, the audience is now required to spend two hours watching Eddie as he tries to figure out what it all means.
Eddie’s father (Richard Boone) is dying. His long-suffering wife (Deborah Kerr) just doesn’t understand that Eddie needs more than a big house and a nice pool to feel like a man. Eddie’s mistress is Gwen (Faye Dunaway), whose new baby may or may not be Eddie’s. Who could blame Eddie, the film demands to know, for being disillusioned with his comfortable life?
The Arrangement was one of the last films to be directed by Elia Kazan, who was a big deal in the 40s and the 50s and whose goal with The Arrangement was apparently to prove that he should still have been a big deal in the 60s and 70s. Kazan’s way of doing this is to fill The Arrangement with all types of tricks that were designed to make young filmgoers say, “Man, that Eliza Kazan may be old but he’s one of us!”
Freeze frames? Kazan’s got them! Flashback after flashback? Kazan spreads them all throughout the movie, even when they don’t really have anything to show us. Scenes where the action is sped up for no identifiable reason? Just watch Kirk Douglas trot down that hallway! Rack focus shots? Zoom shots? A scene where the young Kirk Douglas argues with the old Kirk Douglas? Casual nudity that’s still filmed in such a way that it feels oddly reticent, as if the filmmaker was just including it to try to establish his rebel credentials? The Arrangement has it all!
It also has a lot of close-ups of Kirk Douglas. In far too many scenes, he’s just sitting around with this blank look on his face and it doesn’t quite work because, as an actor, Douglas has never exactly come across as the type to get trapped in an existential crisis. We’re supposed to view Kirk as being depressed and conflicted but, in all of his films, Kirk has always come across as someone who hasn’t known a day of insecurity in his entire life.
There are also a few scenes of Kirk just laughing and laughing. For some reason, movies in the late 60s and early 70s always seemed to feature at least a handful of closeups of people laughing uncontrollably. I’m not sure why. (If you want to see the most extreme example of this, check out Getting Straight.) These scenes are always kind of annoying because there’s only so much time you can spend watching someone laugh at the absurdity of it all before you want them to just close their damn mouth. Especially when the person in question is a middle-aged man. I mean, shouldn’t have Kirk figured out that the world is absurd before his 50th birthday?
Anyway, The Arrangement is a pretentious mess. Of course, most films from the 60s are pretentious. The problem with The Arrangement is that it’s also boring. If you’re going to be pretentious, at least have some fun with it, like The Graduate did. The Arrangement goes on forever and it’s never quite as profound as it seems to think that it is. I once read a short story that a former friend of mine wrote. She explained that writing the story had caused her to realize that, the longer you know someone, the more likely your initial impression of that person is going to change. “You had to write an entire short story to figure that out?” I replied. (That’s one reason why she’s a former friend.) But that’s kind of how The Arrangement is. For all the drama and the technique and the pretension, it has nothing to teach us that we shouldn’t already know.
Previous Insomnia Files:
British director Michael Reeves cemented his reputation in horror with three films before his untimely death from a barbiturate overdose at age 25, all featuring icons of the genre. The first was the Italian lensed THE SHE BEAST (1966) starring beautiful Barbara Steele. The second, 1967’s THE SORCERERS , headlined none other than Boris Karloff. Reeves’ third and final production, 1968’s THE CONQUEROR WORM (also know by the more apt WITCHFINDER GENERAL), saw Vincent Price give one of his greatest performances as the cruel torturer Matthew Hopkins.
1645: England is engaged in a bloody civil war between Charles I’s Royalists and Oliver Cromwell’s army. Amidst this unrest, Matthew Hopkins and his assistant Stearne roam the countryside, hunting down, torturing, and killing accused witches for profit. It’s “The Lord’s work and an honorable one”, states Hopkins, as he and Stearne commit acts of atrocity upon the helpless innocents. They arrive in Brandeston and target…
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Josh Baker (Eric Roberts) is an extroverted artist for Marvel Comics who meets Cheryl (Janine Turner) while walking around New York City. Josh and Cheryl hit it off but when Cheryl suddenly collapses, she is picked up by a mysterious ambulance. When Josh goes to the hospital to check on her, he is told that Cheryl was never brought in. Soon, Josh discovers that people all over New York have been put into back of the ambulance and have never been seen again. Unfortunately, nobody believes Josh. Not the veteran NYPD detective (James Earl Jones) who Josh approaches with his suspicions. Not the staff of the hospital. Not even Stan Lee! The only people willing to support Josh are an elderly investigative reporter (Red Buttons) and an inexperienced detective (Megan Gallagher).
Yes, Stan Lee does play himself. While he had made a few cameo appearances on television and had previously narrated a French film, The Ambulance was Stan Lee’s first real film role. Josh works at an idealized version of Marvel Comics, where the artists are well-paid, no one is pressured into producing substandard work, and Lee is an avuncular father figure. It is the Marvel Comics that I used to imagine working at when I was growing up, before I found out about what actually happened to artists like Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, and Steve Ditko.
Idealized though it may be, the Marvel connection is appropriate because The Ambulance is essentially a comic book adventure. It does not matter how many times Josh gets hit by a car or falls out of a window, he always recovers in time for the next scene. When Josh does discover who is behind the ambulance, it turns out to be a villain who would not be out-of-place in a Ditko-era Spider-Man story.
The Ambulance is another one of Larry Cohen’s New York horror stories. Like most of Cohen’s films, it is pulpy, cheap, and entertaining. Eric Roberts is as crazy as ever and the movie is full of good character actors like James Earl Jones, Red Buttons, Richard Bright, and Eric Braeden. The Ambulance may be dumb but it is always entertaining.
Today’s horror scene that I love comes from the 1957 British film, Night of the Demon.
This is one of those films that deserves to be better known than it actually is. Directed by Jacques Tourneur, this is a moody and intelligent horror film, one that’s full of atmosphere and features a surprisingly effective demon. Reportedly, Tourneur didn’t want to show the actual demon in the film but he was overruled by the film’s producers. Typically, I usually side with the directors whenever it comes to stories of behind-the-scenes conflict but, in this case, I think the film actually works better with the demon as an actual physical presence.
Enjoy!
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: one of the masters of Hammer horror, Terence Fisher!
4 Shots From 4 Films
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957, dir by Terence Fisher)
The Horror of Dracula (1958, dir by Terence Fisher)
The Mummy (1959, dir by Terence Fisher)
The Gorgon (1964, dir by Terence Fisher)
