Tag Archives: Dan Curtis

6 Horrific Trailers For October 25th, 2022

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s Sunday and it’s October and that means that it’s time for another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse trailers!  For today, we have six trailers from the early 70s.  This was the era when horror started to truly get …. well, horrific!

  1. The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970)

First off, we have the blood and scream-filled trailer for Dario Argento’s The Bird With The Crystal Plumage.  This Italian thriller made quite a splash when it was released in America.  Indeed, for many Americans, this was their first exposure to the giallo genre.  This would go on to become Argento’s first (and, so far, only) film to be nominated for a Golden Globe.  (Read my review here!)

2. House of Dark Shadows (1970)

Speaking of blood and screaming, 1970 also saw the release of House of Dark Shadows.  Personally, I think this is one of the best vampire films ever.  The trailer is heavy on atmosphere.

3. The Devils (1971)

In 1971, British director Ken Russell scandalized audiences with The Devils, a film so shocking that it was thought it would never be seen in its full form.  However, times change….

4. Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)

Italy was not the only country sending horror films over to the United States.  From Spain came the Tombs of the Blind Dead.

5. The Last House on the Left (1972)

Speaking of controversy, Wes Craven made his directorial debut with the infamous The Last House On The Left.  The trailer featured one of the greatest and most-repeated horror tag lines of all time.

6. Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)

Finally, even as horror cinema changed and became more extreme, Hammer Studios continued to tell the long and twisted story of Count Dracula.  They brought him into the present age and dropped him in the middle of hippie-infested London.  No matter how much the rest of the world changed, Dracula remained Dracula.

What do you think, trailer kittys?

Horror On TV: Dead of Night (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on television, we’re very happy to present to you, Dead of Night!

From 1977, this television film is a horror anthology, made up of three stories directed by Dan Curtis and written by Richard Matheson.  In the first story, a youngish Ed Begley, Jr. travels through time.  In the 2nd story, Patrick Macnee plays a man whose wife is apparently being menaced by a vampire.  And in the third story, Joan Hackett plays a mother who brings her dead son back to life, just to discover that sometimes it’s best to just let sleeping corpses lies.

The entire anthology is good, though the third story is clearly the best and the most frightening.  Not only is it scary but it’s got a great twist ending.

Enjoy!

Horror on TV: The Night Strangler (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For tonight’s horror on television, we have 1973’s The Night Strangler.

This is the sequel to The Night Stalker and it features journalist Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) in Seattle.  (After all the stuff that happened during the previous movie, Kolchak was kicked out of Las Vegas.)  When Kolchak investigates yet another series of murders, he discovers that paranormal murders don’t just occur in Las Vegas and aren’t just committed by vampires.

I actually prefer this movie to The Night Stalker.  The Night Strangler features a truly creepy villain, as well as a trip down to an “underground city.”  It’s full of ominous atmosphere and, as always, Darren McGavin is a lot of fun to watch in the role in Kolchak.

Enjoy!

Horror On The Lens: The Invasion of Carol Enders (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1973’s The Invasion of Carol Enders (Meredith Baxter) is attacked while walking in the park with her boyfriend (Christopher Connelly) and strikes her head.  At the same time, Diana Bernard (Sally Kemp) crashes her car while driving home in the rain.  Both women end up at the hospital at the same time.  Both die but Carol is brought back to life.  Except now, there’s someone else in Carol’s head….

This is a bit of an odd made-for-TV movie, even by the standards of the 70s.  It’s only 69 minutes long and it was shot on video tape, giving the whole thing the look of an old daytime drama.  It’s easy to watch this movie and imagine that it’s just a supernaturally-tinged episode of General Hospital or Days Of Our Lives.  Both the acting and the plot add to the daytime drama feel of the production.  This is a movie that fully embraces the melodrama.

I think the most interesting thing about this film is that everyone is very quick to accept that Diana has somehow willed her spirit into Carol’s body.  There’s very little hesitation about accepting Diana/Carol at her word and no one even thinks to suggest that maybe Carol is having some sort of mental episode as a result of the attack.  Adam hears that his girlfriend has been possessed and he immediately gets to work helping out the woman who has possessed her.  I mean, good for Adam.  I like a man who is willing to do whatever has to be done.  Still, everyone acts as if possession happens every day.

This is kind of a silly movie, which is probably why I enjoyed it.  It’s short, it’s simple, and it embraces the melodrama.  What’s not to enjoy?

Horror Scenes I Love: The Doll Attacks In Trilogy of Terror

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror scene that I love comes from 1975’s Trilogy of Terror, directed by Dan Curtis and starring Karen Black.

In this scene, Karen Black discovers that the doll she recently purchased as a birthday gift has a mind of its own.

Horror Film Review: The Norliss Tapes (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1973’s The Norliss Tapes begins with a disappearance.

David Norliss (Roy Thinnes), a California-based journalist, has vanished.  Before he disappeared, he had started work on a book that would have detailed his own adventures investigating the paranormal.  Though Norliss vanishes, he leaves behind several audiotapes in which he discusses some of the frightening things that he has seen.  Searching for clue about Norliss’s disappearance, his editor, Sanford T. Evans (Don Porter), sits down and listens to the tapes.

(Incidentally, Sanford T. Evans is a wonderful name for an editor.  It’s a name that just says, “My father knew Hemingway and I went to the University of Pennsylvania as a legacy.’)

As Evans listens to each tape, we watch the story unfold from Norliss’s point of view.  In this film, we watch as Norliss investigates an incident in which Ellen Sterns Cort (Angie Dickinson) claims that she was recently attacked by her dead husband, James Cort (Nicki Dimitri).  James was an artist who, in his final days, became obsessed with the occult and fell under the influence of the Mademoiselle Jeckiel (Vonetta McGee), a mysterious woman who claimed to appreciate James’s art and who gave him a scarab ring that he insisted on being buried with.

Norliss interviews Ellen and investigates her story.  He’s far more sympathetic to the idea of James having returned from the dead than the local sheriff (Claude Akins) is.  Of course, the sheriff has problems of his own.  Dead bodies keep turning up in his county, their skin gray and their bodies drained of blood.  Hmmm …. I wonder if that could have anything to do with James Cort and his scarab ring….

The Norliss Tapes is a pretty simple film.  Norliss shows up and then basically waits around until James Cort makes an appearance.  The film only runs 72 minutes and it’s very much a pilot for a television series that never went into production,  Apparently, each episode would have featured Stanford listening to a different tape and hearing about David Norliss and a weekly guest star dealing with some sort of supernatural occurrence.  Director Dan Curtis was also responsible for the cult television series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and The Norliss Tapes feels very much like a dry run for that show.  The main difference is that Roy Thinnes’s David Norliss is nowhere near as nervous as Darren McGavin’s Carl Kolchak.

That said, the exact details for what’s going on with James Cort are almost ludicrously complicated.  It turns out that James Cort is not only trying to cheat death but he’s also helping an ancient Egyptian deity invade our world.  It’s best to ignore the nonsense about the Egyptian Gods and instead just focus on how creepy the undead James Cort is.  With his hulking frame, his gray skin, and his nearly glowing eyes, Cort is a truly frightening monster and he’s certainly the most impressive thing about this movie.  What makes Cort such an effective villain is how angry he seems to be.  Whenever he’s on screen, he’s either bursting through a door or chasing someone.  He’s pure nightmare fuel.

The Norliss Tapes never became a series but it did do well in Europe, where it was released in theaters.  The Norliss Tapes still has a cult following, not bad for a failed pilot.  Who knows what other adventures David Norliss could have had?

Horror Film Review: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1974’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula opens with a familiar sight.

British solicitor Jonathan Harker (Murray Brown) is in Transylvania, where he has an appointment with a mysterious man named Dracula.  The local villagers are superstitious and seem to be frightened of Dracula’s very name.  When Harker reaches Dracula’s castle, he discovers that Dracula (Jack Palance) is a courtly but enigmatic man.  When Dracula sees a photograph of Jonathan’s fiancée, Mina, and her best friend, Lucy, something about it seems to capture his attention.  Later, that night, Jonathan is attacked by several female vampires.  After Dracula saves Jonathan’s life, he forced Jonathan to write a letter home, saying that he will be staying in Transylvania for month.  Jonathan attempts to escape but is instead dragged off to the crypt, where Dracula’s brides await….

Soon, Dracula is in England.  Lucy (Fiona Lewis), who looks exactly like Dracula’s long-dead wife, is taken mysteriously ill and dies.  Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Nigel Davenport), called in when Lucy was showed signs of being sick, suspects that there is a vampire at work.  Lucky’s fiancé, Arthur Holmwood (Simon Ward), doesn’t believe it until he sees, with his own eyes, Lucy raised from the dead and calling for him to come and join her….

Not to be confused with the Francis Ford Coppola film, 1974’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula was directed by horror impresario Dan Curtis.  It’s a rather loose adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel.  For one thing, Jonathan Harker does not return to England.  Dracula is, from the start, more interested in Lucy than in Mina.  Lucy’s other suitors — Quincy Morris, John Seward — are not present.  And Dracula himself does not get younger as the result of drinking blood.  In fact, it’s such a loose adaptation that it’s actually difficult to justify calling it Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  (In fact, the film is also known as Dan Curtis’s Dracula, which is a far more appropriate title.)

That said, it’s still an entertaining vampire movie.  Jack Palance, who previously worked with Dan Curtis in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, gives a properly intense performance as Dracula.  He doesn’t try to adopt any sort of Eastern European accent or anything like that.  Instead, he delivers his lines through clenched teeth (or, perhaps, fangs) and he fixes his victims with a powerful stare that hints at the animalistic urges behind his controlled demeanor.  Palance plays Dracula as being arrogant and convinced that no mere mortal can defeat him.  At the same time, there’s a vulnerability to Palance’s Dracula.  Watch how his face briefly lights up when he sees Lucy’s picture and is reminded of his long-dead wife.  Watch his fury when he discovers that Van Helsing and Arthur have gotten to Lucy before him.  His love for his wife is the one shred of humanity that Dracula still has within him.  When he loses her a second time (in the form of Lucy), he’s prepared to go to war.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula was originally meant to air in October of 1973 but the showing was pre-empted by the announcement that Vice President Spiro Agnew had resigned.  As a result, this film — so clearly meant for Halloween — did not air until February of 1974.  That doesn’t seem fair.  Poor Dracula.

Horror Film Review: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (dir by Charles Jarrott)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1968, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a somewhat loose adaptation of the famous novella by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Jack Palance stars as Dr. Henry Jekyll, a mild-mannered and respected doctor who lives in Victorian-era London and who is convinced that there is a good and dark side lurking in every single person.  The dark side is what forces people to break the law and fight with each other.  Jekyll feels that his experiments will allow people to get closer to their dark side and, in doing so, defeat it.  When Dr. Jekyll explains his theories to a medical association, he is violently jeered and booed.  Jekyll returns to his home, enters his laboratory, and takes a drink of the serum that he’s been developing.

The next morning, Dr. Jekyll wakes up with a hangover and no memory of how he spent the previous night.  Trying to retrace his steps, Jekyll finds himself in a dance hall where everyone is talking about a well-dressed but ugly man named Edward Hyde.  Hyde showed up the previous night, spent a lot of money on a woman named Gwyn (Billie Whitelaw), and then got into a fight with two men.  Hyde broke a window to make his escape.  Jekyll, sensing what must have happened, pays for the window on behalf of his “friend,” Edward Hyde.

Jekyll continues to drink the serum and he continues to indulge in all of the forbidden vices as Edward Hyde.  Eventually, we get to see Palance as Hyde.  Unlike a lot of other actors who have played the role, Palance uses a minimum of makeup to suggest his transformation.  Instead, he hunches over, scrunches up his face, and he has a unibrow.  One of the stranger things about this production is that we are continually told that Hyde looks nothing like Jekyll but we know that’s not true.  Instead, Hyde looks exactly like Jekyll making a funny face.

Palance gives one of his more eccentric performances as Jekyll and Hyde.  Somewhat surprisingly, he’s far more convincing as the kindly and troubled Dr. Jekyll than as the villainous Mr. Hyde.  (As Hyde, Palance is often trying to so hard to maintain his facial paralysis that it’s hard to understand exactly what it is that he’s saying.)  With each drink of the serum, Jekyll becomes a bit more confident in himself.  However, he also finds himself losing the ability to control the transformations.  One morning, he wakes up in his bed and is shocked to discover that he is still Hyde.  That same morning, he learns that Hyde is suspected of committing a senseless and brutal murder.  Jekyll has no memory of it but he knows that Hyde is guilty.  And if Hyde is guilty, so is Jekyll.  (Those who make the argument that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is ultimately about drug addiction will find plenty to back up that argument in this production,)  Jekyll’s anguish as he realizes what he has become is rather poignant to watch.

Produced by horror impresario Dan Curtis, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can seem a bit creaky today.  It was apparently highly acclaimed when it first aired but, seen today, it can feel rather stagey and talky.  That said, the film has a strong supporting cast, with Denholm Elliott especially giving a good performance as Jekyll’s best friend.  Jack Palance’s performance is so bizarre that it transcends the usual standards used to determine good and bad.    It’s definitely a film worth watching.

Horror On The Lens: Scream of the Wolf (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, how about a little werwolf action?

In the 1974 made-for-TV movie, Scream of the Wolf, Peter Graves is a writer who is asked to help solve a series of mysterious murders.  The fact that both human footprints and wolf tracks have been found at each murder scene has led some people to assume that the killer must be a werewolf!  Will Graves be able to prove them wrong or will it turn out that they are right?  Graves calls in a famous hunter (Clint Walker) to help track down the killer but it turns out that the hunter has secrets of his own.

Scream of the Wolf features a screenplay from Richard Matheson and it was directed by television horror specialist, Dan Curtis.  It feels like it was probably meant to be a pilot in which Peter Graves would deal with a supernatural mystery on a weekly basis.  Even if the movie didn’t lead to a series, it’s still enjoyably atmospheric.

 

Horror Film Review: Trilogy of Terror (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1975’s Trilogy of Terror is a true classic, a rare made-for-television horror film that could have just as easily and effectively been released in theaters.

As one can surmise from the title, it features three stories.  Each story is directed by Dan Curtis and written by Richard Matheson.  Each story also features Karen Black in the lead role, giving Black a chance to play not just one but four very different characters over the course of one film.  One of the things that makes this film work so well is Karen Black’s totally committed performance.  Sadly, Karen Black later expressed some regret about having appeared in the film because it led to her being typecast as a horror actress, which she definitely hadn’t been before.  (One need only watch Karen Black in Five Easy Pieces, Nashville, or Family Plot to see what a good actress she was.  Even in something like Easy Rider, where she had only a small role and very few lines, her talent is obvious.)  As a result, Black was no longer considered for the big studio films that she had appeared in previously and instead, she spent the remained of her career appearing in low-budget horror films.  That’s a shame because Trilogy of Terror really does show what a strong actress Black was.

The first segment features Black as Julie, a seemingly uptight teacher who somewhat surprisingly agrees to go out on a date with Chad (Robert Burton), a sleazy college student.  Chad drugs Julie’s drink during their date and later undresses her and takes pictures which he then uses in an attempt to blackmail Julie into basically being his sex slave.  Julie, however, turns out to have a big secret of her own and Chad discovers too late that he was the one who was being manipulated.  This segment was the least interesting of the three stories but the ending was very satisfying.  Anyone who has ever dated a “nice guy” who turned out to actually be a jerk will enjoy Julie’s revenge.

The second segment is enjoyably sordid, an over-the-top soap opera that I can’t talk too much about without spoiling the plot.  Black plays Millicent, a repressed brunette, who is hatefully obsessed with her twin sister, blonde Theresa (Black again).  Millicent fears that Therese is planning to corrupt and destroy her boyfriend, Thomas (John Karlen).  Millicent explains to her therapist (George Gaynes) all of the terrible things that Therese has done.  Of course, the truth turns out to be much more complicated.  This story was entertaining and featured a surprisingly effective twist.

The third segment is the one that everyone remembers.  Amelia (Karen Black) lives alone in a high-rise apartment and has recently purchased, as a present for her anthropologist boyfriend, a wooden fetish doll in the form of a misshapen aboriginal warrior with pointed teeth and a spear.  The doll comes with a scroll that explains that the doll is inhabited by the spirit of a Zuni hunter and that the only thing keeping the doll from coming to life is the gold chain adorning the doll.  Of course, the chain eventually falls off and Amelia finds herself being pursued through her apartment by a viscous doll that is obsessed with killing her.  This is the simplest and the scariest of the Trilogy of Terror’s three stories.  It’s easy to say that it’s just a doll until it pops out of nowhere and stabs Amelia in the ankle.  This story ends on a properly dark note and that final image of Karen Black is haunting.

For a fifty year-old film, Trilogy of Terror holds up remarkably well.  Watch it and witness just how good an actress Karen Black truly was.

Trilogy of Terror (1975, dir by Dan Curtis. DP: Paul Lohmann)