Today’s Horror on the Lens is a classic film that really needs no introduction! Released in 1922, the German silent film Nosferatu remains one of the greatest vampire films ever made. It’s a film that we share every October and I’m happy to do so again this year!
Enjoy!
Hell yeah! GO, MISS LUFICER, GO!
Unfortunately, it appears that Miss Lucifer can’t have too much fun without God interrupting with a lightning bolt but still, at least she got to enjoy herself for a half hour or so.
Enjoy!
Tonight’s episode of The Veil features Boris Karloff as not only the host but also the star of the show!
Karloff plays Captain Elwood, a sea captain who is desperate to be rid of his wife so he can marry a woman who is about to come into a large sum of money. Elwood plots out his wife’s murder but, as usually happens in stories like this, it turns out that getting her out of his life won’t be as simple as he originally assumed.
This is an enjoyably macabre little ghost story. Karloff gives a great performance as a truly despicable man. From what I’ve read, the real Boris Karloff was an unfailingly polite and very kindly gentleman so it’s always interesting (at least to me!) to consider that he would become famous for playing monsters and madmen. He certainly gives a good performance here!
Enjoy!
When Eve VIII (Renée Soutendijk), a robot that has been designed so that she can pass for a human, is taken on a test run though the city, things go terribly wrong when she gets caught up in a bank robbery. When one of the robbers shoots her, it scrambles her circuits and causes her to switch into combat mode. For some reason, someone thought it would be a good idea to install the equivalent of a nuclear bomb inside the robot so now, Eve VIII is wandering around the city, killing anyone who shes views as being a danger, and threatening to send both herself and everyone up in a nuclear fireball.
Realizing that Eve VIII’s test run has become a national emergency, the military calls in the best operative they’ve got and he turns out to be … Gregory Hines!? The legendary Broadway song-and-dance man plays Colonel John McQuade, a special operative who has seen action in all of the world’s hot spots. McQuade works with Eve VIII’s creator, Dr. Eve Simmons (also played by Renée Soutendijk) to try to track down the robot before it’s too late. In a move that makes as much sense as installing the equivalent of a nuclear bomb inside of her, Eve VIII has also been programmed to have the same traumatic memories as her creator. When Eve VIII destroys a cheap motel that Eve Simmons used to wonder about, McQuade announces that the key to trapping the robot is for Dr. Simmons to reval all of her “teenage sexual fantasies!”
The idea of a robot having and acting upon all of the repressed memories and desires of its creator is a good one but Eve of Destruction doesn’t do much with it. Once McQuade and Dr. Simmons head off in pursuit of Eve VIII, it becomes just another low-budget Terminator rip-off. Gregory Hines deals with being miscast by yelling all of his lines. Renée Soutendijk does better as both Eve VIII and Dr. Simmons and even manages to generate some sympathy for the killer robot. Interestingly, Soutendijk is best known for her work with Paul Verhoeven, whose RoboCop was an obviously influence on Eve of Destruction.
Eve of Destruction is a forgettable killer robot film from an era that was full of them. Most disappointing of all is that Barry McGuire is nowhere to be heard. If you do see the film, keep an eye out for the great Kevin McCarthy, playing yet another befuddled victim and, for some reason, going uncredited.
You’re a pizza delivery man! Mr. Desther has ordered a pizza but when you arrives at his house, he tells you that he has a problem with ghosts. They’re all over his home and he wants you to get rid of them. And if you don’t get rid of them, he’s not going to give you a tip. At first, you’re reluctant to get involved but then he offers you £15. (That’s $18.88 for our American readers.) You’ll get rid of the ghosts at the risk of your own life and sanity. And if you don’t do it, Mr. Desther’s pizza is free!
The Haunted House of Hideous Horrors is a short and simple text adventure. It was designed for ADRIFT 4.0, which is the easiest IF interpreter to program for. Unfortunately, ADRIFT’s vocabulary is also extremely limited so playing an ADRIFT game can often feel like an extended session of guess-the-verb. That’s not as much of a problem in The Haunted House of Hideous Horrors as it is in other ADRIFT games. David Whyld keeps things from getting too complicated or frustrating, though there is one notable moment when you’re told that you’ve entered a room that contains a dead body but, whenever you try to “look body” or “examine corpse,” you get a “There’s no such thing here” message.
There’s only one way to die in this game but you’re given so much advance warning that, if you die, it’ll mostly be due to your lack of reading comprehension. Once you get used to the natural limitations of the ADRIFT story engine, this is a simple but enjoyable haunted house game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Download the game and, if need be, ADRIFT for free, get in that house, and earn your tip!
Today’s horror scene that I love comes from the classic 1958 British film, Horror of Dracula. Horror of Dracula was not only one of my favorite horror films but iit was also a favorite of Gary’s as well and, as I spend today considering how best to honor his memory and his love of cinema, sharing a scene from this film just feels very appropriate.
Horror of Dracula was not only the film that introduced the world to Christopher Lee as Dracula but it was also the film that, for lack of a better term, “rebooted” the whole Dracula legend. It was the film that showed that Dracula could still be intriguing and frightening in the modern era. Even more so than the original Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, the Hammer Dracula films — and Lee’s performance as Dracula — have influenced every vampire film that has come out since.
In this scene, Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) leaves his room at Castle Dracula and runs into one of Dracula’s brides (Valerie Gaunt). Lee’s Dracula doesn’t make an entrance until towards the end of the scene but what an entrance it is!
This scene epitomizes everything that made the Hammer Dracula films so memorable. You’ve got sex, horror, and Christopher Lee playing Dracula. What had before merely been the subtext in previous vampire films was revealed by Hammer in all of its glory.
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 lets the visuals do the talking!
This October, we’re using 4 Shots From 4 Films to look at some of the best years that horror has to offer!
4 Shots From 4 1981 Horror Films
The Beyond (1981, dir by Lucio Fulci)
The House By The Cemetery (1981, dir by Lucio Fulci)
The Howling (1981, dir by Joe Dante)
Possession (1981, dir by Andrzej Zulawski)
(I originally shared this film back in 2011 — can you believe we’ve been doing this for that long? — but the YouTube vid was taken down. So, I’m resharing it today!)
For today’s excursion into the world of public domain horror, I offer up the film debut of Francis Ford Coppola. Before Coppola directed the Godfathers and Apocalypse Now, he directed a low-budget, black-and-white thriller that was called Dementia 13. (Though, in a sign of things to come, producer Roger Corman and Coppola ended up disagreeing on the film’s final cut and Corman reportedly brought in director Jack Hill to film and, in some cases, re-film additional scenes.)
Regardless of whether the credit should go to Coppola, Corman, or Hill, Dementia 13 is a brutally effective little film that is full of moody photography and which clearly served as an influence on the slasher films that would follow it in the future. Speaking of influence,Dementia 13 itself is obviously influenced by the Italian giallo films that, in 1963, were just now starting to make their way into the drive-ins and grindhouses of America.
In the cast, keep an eye out for Patrick Magee, who later appeared as Mr. Alexander in A Clockwork Orange as well as giving a memorable performance in Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat. Luana Anders, who plays the duplicitous wife in this film, showed up in just about every other exploitation film made in the 60s and yes, the scene where she’s swimming freaks me out to no end.
(One final note: I just love the title Dementia 13. Seriously, is that a great one or what?)
So, this really isn’t my type of music but it does seem appropriate for the Halloween season.
Anyone who comes by the house looking like this on Halloween will probably get all the candy that we have to give out. That’ll be followed by me saying, “We’ve given you all the candy, please leave.”
Enjoy!
From 1958, it’s The Veil!
The Veil was a horror anthology series that, because of financial difficulties at Hal Roach Studios, were never actually aired on television. 10 episodes were filmed before production was abruptly canceled. Each episode was hosted by (and often starred) Boris Karloff. Karloff later stated that he was never actually paid for his work on the show but his work as the host did eventually lead to him being hired to host Thriller, a horror anthology series that eventually did air.
As for The Veil, the ten episodes that were produced were never actually sold to a network but, in the 60s, several episodes were edited together to create films that aired on late night television. It wasn’t until the 90s that the episodes were actually released on video. For that, we largely have Something Weird Video to thank.
Each episode of The Veil opened with Karloff promising the lift the veil on a strange, perhaps supernatural, event. (Most of the stories were supposedly based on true stories.) Karloff would also play a role in each episode. For instance, in tonight’s episode, he plays Morgan Debs.
Tonight’s episode is called Girl on the Road. It’s a nicely atmospheric tale about a man (Tod Andrews) who picks up a mysterious woman (Eve Brent) who is stranded on the side of the road. What is the woman’s secret and why is she terrified of Morgan Debs? Why does everyone in the town refuse to talk about her? Watch to find out!
This episode was directed by George Waggner, who is perhaps best known for directing the original Wolf Man.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 