Category Archives: Horror

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

Posted on 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.

Horror On The Lens: House On Haunted Hill (dir by William Castle)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The original The House on Haunted Hill is a classic and one that we make it a point to share every Halloween.  And since October is now halfway over, now seems like the perfect time to do so!

Be sure to check out Gary’s review by clicking here!

Enjoy Vincent Price at his best!

Music Video of the Day: Spirit by Bauhaus (1982, directed by Christopher Collins)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this video, the Bauhaus perform their song Spirit for actual spirits.  Spirit was the seventh single to released by Bauhaus.  It peaked at Number 42  on the UK Singles Chart.

Director Christopher Collins is directed with overseeing three other videos, all for Bauhaus: Bela Lugosi’s Dead, Mask, and In The Flat Field.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Nightmare Café 1.3 “Fay & Ivy”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Nightmare Cafe, which ran on NBC from January to April of 1992.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, Fay’s sister comes to visit!

Episode 1.3 “Fay & Ivy”

(Dir by Christopher Leitch, originally aired on March 13th, 1992)

The third episode of Nightmare Café opens with a young woman named Ivy (played by Molly Parker) coming to the big city with her boyfriend, Jesse (Peter Outerbridge).  Ivy is totally excited to be in the big city because she thinks that she’s going to finally track down her older sister.  Ivy’s sister left home ten years ago and Ivy isn’t even sure what she looks like.  However, for ten years straight, Ivy’s sister sent her letters about how great life in the city was.  The last of her sister’s letters invited Ivy to come out to the city herself.

Jesse is a bit less excited about the prospect of finding Ivy’s sister.  In fact, Jesse is a bit of a controlling jerk who “accidentally” drops one of the letters while he and Ivy are getting off the train.  Jesse is coming to the big city so that he can find new ways to make money, like robbing a convenience store while the clueless Ivy waits outside.

As for the dropped letter, it’s picked up by Robert Englund’s Blackie, who reads the letter, has a good laugh, and then speaks straight to the audience.  Blackie informs us that Ivy’s sister is Fay and that Fay probably doesn’t even remember inviting Ivy to come see her.

As Blackie puts it: “I wonder if she remembers issuing this invitation.  She’d just as soon forget.  You suppose the café will let her forget?  I don’t.”

And, sure enough, Ivy and Jesse eventually end up in the Nightmare Café. were Fay is the waitress and Frank is the cook.  Fay, who earlier was saying that she felt like there was still some things in her former life that she needed to take care of, is shocked to see Ivy.  For her part, Ivy doesn’t recognize Fay.  And, for Jesse’s part, he gets upset when Fay starts asking Ivy too many questions about her life back home.  Jesse grabs Ivy and the two of them leave the café.

Frank leaves the café to search for Ivy and Jesse, saying that he’s getting bored with being stuck in the building.  (In a mildly amusing subplot, the café actually gets offended by Frank’s comments and requires Frank to apologize before he’s allowed to later reenter the building.)  Ivy and Jesse, meanwhile, end up in a tattoo parlor where Jesse gets a tattoo from none other than Blackie himself.  (Robert Englund appears to be having a ball playing a tattoo artist.)

As for Fay, she uses the cafe’s phone to call her mother.  When Fay identifies herself, her mother (Penny Fuller) refuses to believe that Fay is calling.  Fay, realizing that her mother has never forgiven her for leaving home, tells her mom that Ivy is in the city and that she’s in trouble.  Fay then has what appears to be a café-inspired hallucination in which she finds herself talking to her mother face-to-face and the two of them discuss their strained relationship.  It’s a touching scene, well-played by Penny Fuller and Lindsay Frost.

In the end, everyone ends up back at the café.  Jesse returns to the café to try to rob it and he drags Ivy (who now knows that Fay is her sister) with her.  Frank returns to the café with Ivy’s mother, who says that she came to the city after having a weird dream in which Fay called her to tell her that Ivy was in trouble.  Finally, Blackie shows up so that he can zap Jesse into the back of a police car.

With Jesse gone, Fay, Ivy, and their mother have a cup of coffee.  While declining to mention that she’s actually dead, Fay does say that it’s a bit too late for her to fix her relationship with her mother.  But there’s still time for her mom and Ivy to talk and get to know each other.  Ivy and her mom, for their part, both think that Fay left home and disappeared because she works for the federal government.

This was kind of a sad episode, really.  Fay wants to heal her relationship with both her mother and her sister but, in the end, she’s forced to accept that she’s dead and they’re not.  Fay and Frank can help people live better lives but their own lives are pretty much over and they’re going to spend an eternity in the Nightmare Café.

I liked this episode, which was considerably more straight-forward in its storytelling approach than the previous two.  What it lack in surreal imagery, it made up for in genuine emotion.

Next week, the café helps a dying detective sold one last murder!

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 5.16 “Hootch” (dir by Leon Marr)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker depicts what happens with a greedy woman (Stephanie Zimbalist) attempts to force her Vietnam vet brother out of the house that has been his only sanctuary from all the troubles of the world.  Needless to say, things do not go well.

This episode originally aired on September 16th, 1989.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Garden of the Dead (dir by John Hayes)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1972 film, Garden of the Dead, takes place in a prison camp that sits out in the middle of what appears to the bayous.  The prisoners spend their days working on the chain gang, breaking rocks and cleaning highways.  The tough-as-nails guards spend their days watching the prisoners and carrying around their rifles.  This is the type of prison camp where the prisoners are all talkative and boastful and the guards all wear sunglasses and every day is just like the next.

A group of prisoners are trying to brighten things up on the chain gang by using some experimental formaldehyde to get high.  I’m sure that won’t lead to any complications!  When the prisoners later try to escape from the prison camp, they’re quickly captured by the guards who proceed to violate all sorts of laws by gunning the prisoners down and then ordering the other prisoners to bury the dead bodies in the prison camp’s garden.

That night, the dead prisoners come back to life as zombies.  Does this happen because they were getting high off of the formaldehyde or is it because the chemicals themselves were leaked into the garden?  The film doesn’t make it particularly clear but it doesn’t matter.  What’s important is that they’re now zombies.  You really don’t need a whole lot of explanations when it comes to zombies.  The dead prisoners are still obsessed with getting high and they start to kill everyone in the camp as a part of their effort to get their precious formaldehyde.

I’ll just admit right now that I absolutely love Garden of the Dead.  Some of that is because Garden of the Dead is a very short movie, clocking in at barely an hour’s running time.  It was a film that was obviously designed to be the second half of a double feature but no matter!  That short running time means that there’s no need for extra padding and the action move quickly.  The film ends before the viewer gets bored with the somewhat repetitive zombie action.  Seriously, we need to normalize 50 minute films.

Another thing that I love about Garden of the Dead is that it is full of foggy bayou atmosphere.  The film itself was obviously shot on a very low budget and on very cheap film but the grainy images actually contribute to the film’s nightmarish feeling.  The film captures the feeling of being isolated in the middle of nowhere.  One reason why the zombies in this film are frightening is because there’s literally nowhere safe to hide from them.  Even if you can get out of the prison camp, you’ll still have to brave the wilderness that surrounds it.

Finally, I liked that the zombies in Garden of the Dead were smarter than the average zombies.  Instead of just stumbling around and trying to eat every living thing that they met, these zombies worked together to get what they wanted.  I especially liked the spazzy zombie who was always running around the prison camp and jumping and yelling at everyone.  These are zombies who clearly enjoy being zombies and it makes Garden of the Dead all the more effective.

Garden of the Dead is a grindhouse gem!

<– October Hacks: Meatcleaver Massacre (dir by Ed Wood)

The Phillies Win Game One Of The NLCS  –>

October Hacks: Meat Cleaver Massacre (dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed, reportedly over the course of a few days, in 1974 but not released until 1977, The Meatcleaver Massacre is known for two things.

First off, it’s known for opening and ending with on-screen narration for Christopher Lee.  The distinguished-looking Lee begins the film sitting in what appears to be his own personal office.  He talks to us about the history of the supernatural and the paranormal and he suggests that the story that we’re about to see, may very well change someone like me from being a skeptic into a believer.

Secondly, Meat Cleaver Massacre is known for being one of the last films to be directed by the infamous Edward D. Wood, Jr.  Now, it should be understood that Wood didn’t have anything to do with writing or producing the film.  And when filming started, the director was a guy named Ken Burns who I assume is not the famed documentarian.  Unfortunately, Burns was judged not to be up to the role of directing and he was fired.  Edward D. Wood, Jr., who by this point was living in alcoholic squalor in Los Angeles and making his money through writing pornographic books, was brought in as his replacement.  When the film was released, the director was credited as being “Evan Lee.”  It wasn’t until 2022 that the film’s cinematographer (who was not paid for his work on the film) posted on Facebook that Ed Wood was the director.  The cinematographer’s claim was backed up by the film’s editor.

Now, my immediate reaction to learning this was to think: “Oh my God, Ed Wood directed Christopher Lee!”

Well, sorry …. no.  All the evidence points to Wood directing Meat Cleaver Massacre.  It’s an Ed Wood film, even if it doesn’t feature Wood’s trademark obsession with angora.  But the two scenes with Christopher Lee were apparently filmed for a different project, one that was abandoned.  In 1977, the distributors of Meatcleaver Massacre purchased the footage of Christopher Lee and inserted it into their film, which was promptly sold as a Christopher Lee film.  But the truth of the matter is that Lee’s footage was obviously meant for a far “classier” film than Meatcleaver Massacre and, judging from how dismissive Lee tended to be of the work that he did strictly for the money, it’s totally possible that he didn’t even know that he had become the star of Meatcleaver Massacre.  

As for Ed Wood, he died a year after this film was released.  At the time of his death, he had been evicted from his apartment and his landlord apparently threw away all of his scripts and movie memorabilia.  Sorry, everyone.  The first half of Ed Wood’s life story may be popular and funny but it definitely did not lead to a happy ending.

But what about Meat Cleaver Massacre, you may be asking.  Well …. actually, it’s not terrible.  It’s definitely a low-budget affair and none of the actors are particularly impressive but there are a few scenes that work when taken on their own terms.

James Habif stars as Professor Cantrell, who is first seen teaching a class on how to summon an Irish demon and then returning home to his family.  Unfortunately, that night, one of this students, Mason (Larry Justin), orders his gang to break into Cantrell’s house.  Mason says that he just wants to play a prank on the professor but instead, he and his idiot friends murder Cantrell’s family and leave Cantrell in a paralyzed state.  That said, Cantrell may be paralyzed but he can still summon the demon Morak to hunt down and kill all of Mason’s friends, one-by-one.  The deaths are grisly, with Mason’s home invasion bringing to mind the crimes of the Manson’s family and the demon’s acts of vengeance ranging from a disembowelment in the desert to an accident in a garage to an exploding movie projector.

As with most of Ed Wood’s film, the pacing is a bit off and the film is edited in such a way that it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of how much time has passed between scenes.  The acting isn’t great, though it’s really not any worse than the acting you would expect to find in a low-budget 70s horror film.  The scene in which one of Mason’s gang meets his fate in the desert is actually rather well-done and intentionally surreal.  To be honest, there’s not much about the film that would make you think it was an Ed Wood production.  As I said before, there’s no references to angora.  There’s no Kelton the Cop.  Criswell doesn’t make an appearance.  By most accounts, Ed spent the final decade of his life broke and doing whatever he had to do to scrounge up enough cash to pay his rent and keep drinking.  Doing whatever he had to do included directing films like Meatcleaver Massacre.  I wonder how many other films were secretly directed with Ed Wood?

Anyway, if you’re a Christopher Lee or Ed Wood completist, Meatcleaver Massacre is currently available on Tubi.

Horror Film Review: Goodnight Mommy (dir by Matt Sobel)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Naomi Watts.

I mean, let’s just be real here.  Naomi Watts is an excellent actress.  One could argue that she’s one of the best actresses working today.  She’s someone who can be convincing in just about any genre.  She can do drama.  She can do comedy.  She can do horror.  She can star in small indie films and expensive blockbusters.  She can play suburban housewives and sultry femme fatales with equal skill.  She’s an actress who has played a wide variety roles and has shown a willingness to take risks in her career.

And yet, far too often, she gets cast in disappointing and misconceived films.  Indeed, it sometimes seem like David Lynch is the only director to really understand just how good Naomi Watts can be, whether he’s working with her in Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, or Twin Peaks: The Return.  Watts provided Twin Peaks: The Return with a heart and the scene where she tells off the two crooks who are extorting money from her husband still carries a punch.  She brought a lot of genuine and needed emotion to a miniseries that would have otherwise been cold and impersonal.  Unfortunately, not every director has the insight or the skill of a David Lynch.

Just consider 2022’s Goodnight Mommy, a thoroughly unnecessary remake of a 2014 Austrian film.  Watts is cast as the Mother, a former Hollywood actress who now lives on an isolated farm and who spends most of her time drinking and sulking in her room.  Due to some recent plastic surgeon, the Mother’s face is completely and totally bandaged.

This concerns her twin sons, Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lukas (Nikolas Crovetti).  They worry about how strange the Mother has been acting ever since they moved out to the farm with her.  (While the Mother was getting plastic surgery, the twins were living with their father.)  The Mother orders them to stay out of her room and hardly speaks to them.  When Elias notices that his mother’s formerly blue eyes now appear to be green, he worries that his real mother may have been replaced with an imposter.

As I mentioned earlier, Goodnight Mommy is based on a 2014 Austrian film.  The original film, if I remember correctly, was effective creepy, well-acted, and full of atmosphere.  The remake feels more than a bit pointless and slow.  The big twist that was so effective in the Austrian film falls flat in the American remake, largely because the kids playing the brothers in the remake are both directed to give boring and inauthentic performances.  The remake of Goodnight Mommy mistakes a slow space for a creepy atmosphere.

That said, Naomi Watts gives a good performance as the Mother, one that will probably keep viewers guessing if they haven’t already seen the original film.  In fact, Watts is so good that it just makes it all the more disappointing that the film itself feels so pointless.  When it comes to Goodnight Mommy, go with the original and ask your local film producers to give Naomi Watts a role in a decent movie.

KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park (1978, directed by Gordon Hessler)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In 1978, KISS appeared to have it all.  The band was famous for both their makeup and their anthemic stadium rock.  They had just released not only a new studio album but also four solo albums.  They had starred in their own Marvel comic and gained notoriety for supposedly allowing their blood to mixed in with the comic’s ink.  Teenagers loved KISS and parents and religious leaders feared that the band’s name stood for Knights In Satan’s Service.  KISS had everything except for motion picture stardom.

KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park was supposed to change that.  The film starred Anthony Zerbe as Abner Devereaux, an engineer and an expert at animatronics who loses his job at Magic Mountain and seeks revenge by using robot versions of KISS to drive the audience of their concert to riot.  Fortunately, the real members of KISS are not just rock stars but also alien beings who descend from the heavens and shoot lightning bolts from their eyes.  (Gene Simmons can breathe fire.)  The real KISS isn’t going to allow their fan to be manipulated by a robot version of the band, which leads to a battle between KISS and the robots that protect Abner’s underground lair.

KISS Meets The Phantom of the Park aired on NBC on October 28th, 1978.  It was later given a theatrical release in Europe, where it was re-edited and retitled Attack of the Phantom.  Since then, it has become a very difficult film to see.  (On Amazon, old VHS copies go for several hundred dollars.)  One reason why the movie is so hard to see is because the members of the KISS hated the movie and felt that they were portrayed as being clowns instead of super heroes.  Even though the members of the band have since mellowed out about the film (with Gene Simmons suggesting it should be viewed on a double bill with Plan 9 From Outer Space), KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park is still a film that is more talked about than actually watched.

While looking for clips of the movie on YouTube, I came across an upload of the entire film.  The only problem was that all of the dialogue was dubbed into German and that’s not a language that I speak.  Still, figuring that you have to take your opportunities when they’re available, I decided to watch.  I figured that the dialogue might not actually be that important and it wasn’t.  I was able to follow the plot just fine.  (The only weird thing about watching the move in German was listening to the members of the band speak in something other than a New York accent.)  Fortunately, there’s actually more singing than talking in Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park and the songs are untouched and in English.  KISS plays Magic Mountain in the film and they actually performed a real concert for filming.  Those are real fans of the band going crazy whenever Gene Simmons sticks out his tongue.

The movie itself is definitely a product of its time and not meant to be taken seriously.  The members of KISS are both aliens that descend from the heavens and rock musicians and they are never seen without their makeup.  Even when they’re hanging out at a hotel pool, they are in full costume and they’re wearing their makeup. When the members of the band enter the Phantom’s underground lab, they have to fight a series of very 70s robots, including some that know karate and two who have lightsabers.  For better or worse, it’s a very silly move that epitomizes an era.  The special effects are cheesy, the members of the band often look straight at the camera, and the rest of the cast does what they can with what they’ve been given.  Anthony Zerbe plays the Phantom with a hint of empathy while Deborah Ryan is the ingenue who searched for her missing boyfriend while Beth plays on the soundtrack.  Keep an eye out for Brion James, playing a security guard.

Overall, the band probably would have been smarter to just release a concert film but then the rest of us wouldn’t have the fun of watching Paul Stanley face off against a robot version of Bruce Lee.  KISS Meets The Phantom of The Park is worth watching at least once, even in German!