This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 Shots From 4 Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we close out the 70s!
4 Shots From 4 Films
Suspiria (1977, dir by Dario Argento)
Halloween (1978, dir by John Carpenter)
Zombi 2 (1979, dir by Lucio Fulci)
1989’s The ‘Burbs takes place in …. well, it’s right there in the title.
Welcome to the suburbs! It’s place with big houses, green lawns, and neighbors who often don’t have much to do other than watch each other and gossip. Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) lives with his wife, Carol (Carrie Fisher), and is friends with Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun) and Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern). Ricky Butler (Corey Feldman) is the local teenager. It’s a nice neighborhood …. at least, until the Klopeks move in.
The Klopeks are viewed with suspicion from the minute they show up. They’re from a different country, they always seem to be burying something in their backyard, and Dr. Werner Klopek (Henry Gibson) is oddly stand-offish. When Walter Seznick (Gale Gordon) disappears and the the Klopeks are seen around Walter’s house and with Walter’s dog, Ray and his friends start to suspect that their new neighbors might be ritualistic murderers!
Oh, how I love The ‘Burbs. The film’s portrait of the suburbs as being a hotbed of paranoia may be a familiar one but it doesn’t matter when you’ve got actors like Tom Hanks and Bruce Dern throwing themselves into their roles. As always, Hanks is the glue that holds the film and its disparate parts together, giving a likable performance as a man who goes from being the voice of reason to being convinced that his neighbors are cannibals. Bruce Dern gleefully sends up his own image as a paranoid Vietnam vet but there’s also a sweetness to Dern’s performance that really makes it stand out. Dern’s character might be a little crazy but he does truly care about his neighbors.
Just as he did with Piranha and The Howling, Dante balances humor with suspense. He does such a good job of telling the story and getting good performances from his cast, that even the film’s big twist works far better than one might expect. It’s an 80s film so, of course, a few things explode towards the end of it. The film’s character-based humor is replaced with some broader jokes but no matter. The Burbs is an entertaining trip to the heart of suburban paranoia.
As the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you.
Previous Guilty Pleasures
Disco Dracula!
In 1979’s Love At First Bite, George Hamilton plays Dracula, who goes from living in Transylvania to trying to make it in New York City. Even when you’re the King of the Vampires, it turns out that New York can be a difficult place to live. No one has much respect for the tanned man in the cape, even after he shows off his powers. He falls in love with a model, Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James), but she doesn’t buy into the idea that he’s a vampire. She’s a New Yorker and she’s in therapy. Her therapist, Dr. Jeffrey Rosenberg (Richard Benjamin), is a direct descendant of Prof. Van Helsing and he does believes that “Vladimir” is a vampire but he can’t get anyone to believe him. When he takes his concerns to the NYPD, Lt. Ferguson (Dick Shawn) dismisses him as being insane. Which, to an extent, he is but only because no one will believe him….
Meanwhile, Dracula’s faithful servant, Renfield (Arte Johnson), starts every morning by leaning out of his apartment window and pretending to be a rooster. It’s his signal to let Dracula know that it’s time to come home. Dracula is so in love with Cindy that he sometimes forgets to keep track of time. It’s a New York love story….
Love At First Sight is a comedy that essentially gets a lot of mileage out of a handful of jokes. The main joke is the idea of George Hamilton, with his perpetual tan, playing Dracula and speaking with a Bela Lugosi-style accent. Hamilton plays Dracula as being very confident and very smooth but also rather befuddled by 1979. He’s a gentleman of the “old world” after all. The other big joke is that Dracula is in New York, a city where no one is impressed by anything. This is very much a “New Yorkers Will Be Rude To Anyone” movie, a genre that was very popular in the 70s. Some films, like Taxi Driver, used the rudeness of New York as a metaphor for paranoia and detachment. Love At First Bite uses it for laughs.
(For the record, my favorite “New Yorkers Will Be Rude To Anyone” movie is the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Also, the last time I briefly visited New York, everyone was very nice and polite to me. Only once did someone yell, “Look out, lady!” and I’m still not really sure what I was supposed to be looking out for.)
There’s a lot to like about Love At First Sight. Susan Saint James and George Hamilton don’t exactly have a ton of chemistry but Hamilton himself is fun to watch. “Children of the night — shut up!” he yells at the wolves and it’s hard not to smile. It’s just so goofy. Hamilton and Arte Johnson are a good comedic team and, for that matter, so are Richard Benjamin and Dick Shawn. It’s a film of set pieces. Dracula and Renfield rob a blood bank. Jeffrey confronts Dracula at dinner. Dracula pops out of his coffin at a church. Some of the set pieces work better than others and this is very much a film of its time but overall, it’s a genial and amusing send-up of the vampire genre.
And it features Dracula at a disco! It’s a 70s movie and it stars George Hamilton so it’s not really surprising that the action moves to a disco. Still, if you can’t appreciate the sight of a caped Dracula showing off his best moves, I don’t know what to tell you.
Love At First Sight is a reminder that not every Halloween movie has to be terrifying. Some of them can just make you laugh.
1956’s The Black Sleep opens in a London prison cell. The year is 1872 and Dr. Gordon Ramsay (Herbert Radley) awaits execution. He’s accused of murdering a chef who twice sent rubbery scallops to the pass …. wait, a minute, sorry. Wrong Gordon Ramsay! This Gordon Ramsay is accused of murdering a man named Curry and he’s considerably more whiny than the modern-day Gordon Ramsay.
Ramsay is visited by Sir Joel Cadman (Basil Rathbone) and Cadman’s associate, Odo the Gypsy (Akim Tamiroff). Cadman explains that he has developed a potion called “The Black Sleep.” Drinking it will put the drinker in a state of suspended animation that can pass for death. And, indeed, it will turn into death unless Cadman administers the antidote. Cadman offers to give the potion to Ramsay, in return for Ramsay helping Cadman out with his own experiments. Ramsay agrees.
Ramsay is found “dead” in his cell. His body is claimed by Cadman and Odo. (Odo mentions that, in a past life, he was a grave robber and that he died as a result of the guillotine.) Ramsay is revived and goes to work with Cadman. As soon as Ramsay enters Cadman’s mansion, he finds himself surrounded by several familiar faces. For instance, Lon Chaney, Jr. plays the twisted Mungo, who stumbles through the hallways of the mansion and can only be controlled by Daphnae (Phyllis Stanley). Bela Lugosi plays Casimir, the mute butler. Bohemud (John Carradine) is a bearded man who rants and raves and calls for Biblical vengeance. And finally, in the basement, there’s Mr. Curry (Tor Johnson), the man who Ramsay was convicted of murdering! It turns out that Cadman isn’t quite as benevolent as he presented himself as being.
The Black Sleep may feature an incoherent story but it has a great cast and it is entertaining to see Carradine, Chaney, Tor Johnson, Akim Tamiroff, Bela Lugosi, and Basil Rathbone all living under the same roof and trying to outdo each other as far as the scenery chewing is concerned. Admittedly, some members of the cast look healthier than others. Rathbone is as imperiously dashing as always and John Carradine appears to be having a lot of fun with his role. Akim Tamiroff gets all of the best lines as Odo and he delivers them with just the right amount of wit. Unfortunately, neither Chaney and Lugosi were in good shape when they appeared in this film. Lugosi was ill when he did the film. Chaney, meanwhile, had seen his one-promising career sabotaged by his own alcoholism and, by the time the 50s rolled around, his once handsome features were now ravaged by his drinking. It transformed him from being a somewhat dull leading man to a craggly character actor. (Producer/director Stanley Kramer considered Chaney to be one of the best character actors in Hollywood and cast him in both High Noon and The Defiant Ones.) In The Black Sheep, Chaney’s face is twisted and almost ravaged. It works for the film but it’s still sad to see. As for Tor Johnson …. hey, he’s Tor Johnson. He growls and he tosses things around and he does so convincingly.
(In an interview shortly before his death, Tor said he was offered the role of Oddjob in Goldfinger. It’s sad to think the world was robbed of the Sean Connery/Tor Johnson team-up it needed.)
This was Bela Lugosi’s final film performance before his death in 1956. (The footage that appears in Plan 9 From Outer Space was filmed before The Black Sleep.) It’s a shame that Lugosi wasn’t given more to do in his final film. Lugosi, with that famous voice, ending his career playing a mute just doesn’t seem right.
1942’s The Corpse Vanishes opens with a young bride collapsing at her wedding. A doctor runs over to her and says that she’s died. A hearse — or a “stiff wagon,” as one witness puts it — pulls up and takes the body. However, the body never reaches the morgue!
It turns out that this is not the first time this has happened. In fact, there’s an epidemic of brides dying on their wedding day and their bodies disappearing. One would think that this would cause a citywide panic or, at the very least, it would cause some people to maybe get married out-of-town. Considering that the most recent victim was the daughter of one of the richest families in the community, you would think solving this mystery would be the police’s number one priority.
However, the police are useless. And when the police can’t get the job done, it falls to journalists. At least, that’s the way it worked in movies from the 1930s and the 40s. While the cops were busy saying, “Scram!” and “Beat it, buster!,” it fell to the cynical and quick-witted journalist to find out what was going on. In this case, Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters) investigates and discovers that all of the brides received an orchid on their wedding day. (How the police didn’t notice this, I don’t know.) Patricia tracks down the eccentric Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi), who was once quite renowned for his orchids.
Dr. Lorenz now lives in a secluded mansion. He’s polite when Patricia comes to speak to him but it’s obvious that he’s hiding something. A sudden thunderstorm leads to Patricia and Dr. Foster (Tristram Coffin) getting stranded at Lorenz’s mansion. Foster was visiting the mansion to examine Lorenz’s wife, the Countess (Elizabeth Russell).
Lorenz, as you probably already guessed, is behind the corpse abductions. Except, of course, the brides aren’t dead. Instead, the orchid has put them into a state of suspended animation. Lorenz is extracting their blood and using it to keep his wife young. Helping him out are his servants, a dwarf named Toby (Angelo Rossitto), Toby’s hulking half-brother, Angel (Frank Moran), and their mother, Fagah (Minerva Urecal). Patricia figures out what is going on but will she be able to convince anyone else!?
From what I read about the film online, it would appear that The Corpse Vanishes has got a terrible reputation but, when I watched it, I actually found it to be entertaining when taken on its own Poverty Row terms. No, the plot doesn’t make any sense. But Bela Lugosi’s smile manages to be both sinister and inviting and Toby and Angel make for good henchmen. The movie only has a 64-minute runtime and, as a result, the plot has to keep moving fairly quickly. The film also features a lot of snappy “newsroom” dialogue between Patricia and her easily-annoyed editor (Kenneth Harlan), all delivered at a fast pace and with the the casually cynical outlook that makes 1940s newspaper movies so entertaining. The Corpse Vanishes is a thoroughly ludicrous film that epitomizes an era and, as such, it’s far more diverting than one might otherwise expect.
1933’s Night of Terror opens with a character known simple as The Maniac (Edwin Maxwell) attacking random people with a knife. The Maniac is on a murder spree. He leaves taunting newspaper articles on the bodies. (Don’t look at me, I didn’t write the script,) Wisecracking newspaper reporter Tom Hartley (Wallace Ford ) would love to track the Maniac down.
Meanwhile, the richest man in town has been murdered. Was he killed by the Maniac? No one is sure. What is known is that he divided his large fortune amongst not only his heirs but also his servants. Of course, if an heir or a servant should die, that just means more money for everyone else! Meanwhile, the man’s nephew — scientist Arthur Hornsby (George Meeker) — is busy trying to talk his family into burying him alive so that he can test his new suspended animation serum. Arthur swears that he’s figured out a way for people to live without oxygen for a period of time!
Okay, Arthur, that’s great. Anyway….
This sixty-one minute horror film features Bela Lugosi as Degar, the butler. Degar and his wife, Sika (Mary Frey), are regularly referred to as being “heathens” by some of the other members of the family. And yet, when the family needs someone to hold a seance so that they can figure out who is trying to kill all of them, who do they ask to conduct it? Degar’s not happy about it but Sika agrees to do so. Needless to say, things don’t go well.
It’s a bit of silly film and the final twist doesn’t make much sense. One gets the feeling that the script was written over the course of one night and no one really spent that much time worrying about whether or not it all came together to tell a coherent story. Moments of humor are mixed in with moments of would-be terror. The family chauffeur is easily scared. The members of the family all toss out insults at each other. When the police show up, they speak in the rat-a-tat fashion of 1930s police officers. No one in the film yells, “Scram!” and yet it seems like they should have. It’s that type of movie. My favorite scene featured a handcuffed Lugosi offering a police officer a cigarette from “Asia.” Needless to say, the cigarette caused the cop to pass out. Its 1930s stoner humor.
Bela Lugosi got top-billing but his role is actually pretty small. Still, Lugosi gives a good performance and delivers his lines with a straight face. He gets the honor of explaining the mystery to all of the police officers and family members. That said, the film is stolen by Edwin Maxwell as the Maniac. Maxwell gets to break the fourth wall at the end of the film and he probably sent many young audience members home with nightmares. The Maniac tells the audience not to reveal how the film ended, lest they want to be haunted by him. Hitchcock would have been proud.
In this 1943 film, a mysterious man suggests to reporter Jeff Carter (Wallace Ford) that he should go out to the mansion of Dr. James Brewster (Bela Lugosi) and look into the recent disappearance of the doctor. Dr. Brewster’s sister (Minerva Urecal) is a well-known ghost hunter and Carter’s editors likes the idea of Carter and photographer Billie Mason (Louise Currie) heading out to the mansion and getting a picture of a ghost.
Carter is upset because he’s having work with a — gasp! — woman. Bliie is not impressed by the fact that Carter is still in America while all the other men his age are fighting overseas. Carter explains that he’ll be enlisting in the Navy in a week. Billie realizes that Carter is not an unpatriotic coward and we, the viewers, are reminded that this film was made during World War II. I like the fact that America was so unified during World War II that even fictional characters were expected to explain what they were doing for war effort.
For the record, Dr. Brewster’s mansion is not haunted by ghosts. Instead, the problem is that Dr. Brewster’s experiments have turned him into a man-ape hybrid. He has a beard, he walks like a monkey, and he fears that he’s turning more into an ape everyday. He spends almost all of his time locked up in a cage with a gorilla. Dr. Brewster has (somehow) discovered that the only way to reverse the process is to get regular injections of spinal fluid. However, it’s impossible to extract the spinal fluid without also killing the donor. Dr. Brewster’s colleague, Dr. Randall (Henry Hall), refuses to be a party to murder but he still wants to help Brewster. Unfortunately, Brewster is beyond saving and he’s also losing his mind as he finds himself slowly becoming more and more of an ape.
The Ape Man was directed by William Beaudine, a filmmaker who directed 179 movies over the course of his long career. Beaudine worked in all genres, starting off as a major director during the silent era before then becoming a prolific B-movie maker during the sound era. As a B-movie director, Beaudine was famous for rarely doing second take. If someone flubbed a line or a piece of scenery nearly fell over, that was too bad. Of course, it should be noted that Beaudine was working for various Poverty Row production companies and he probably didn’t have the budget to do multiple takes. His job was to get the film shot quickly and for as little money as possible.
That certainly seems to be the philosophy between The Ape Man, which is only a little over an hour long and which features all of the usual plot holes and continuity eras that one might expect to find in a film that was tossed together in just a few days. That said, The Ape Man is kind of a fun movie. Bela Lugosi does his best, even when he’s wearing a totally ludicrous beard. Wallace Ford and Louise Currie deliver their lines in the rat-a-tat fashion that seemed to be popular with journalists in the films of the 30s and 40s. The plot’s cheeful lack of coherence actually becomes rather charming and the story ends with a nice moment of 4th wall breaking, as the film itself is saying, “Hey, we had fun, didn’t we?”
1943’s The Return of the Vampire opens in 1918.
Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort) and her colleague, Dr. Walter Saunders (Gilbert Emery), suspect that there might be a vampire active in London. After reading a book on vampirism that was written by Dr. Armand Tesla, they manage to find the vampire’s coffin. As the vampire’s servant — a werewolf named Andreas (Matt Willis) — watches, Lady Jane and Dr. Saunders drove a metal stake through the vampire’s heart. It turns out that the vampire was none other than Armand Tesla himself! Andreas turns back into a normal person and becomes Lady Jane’s assistant.
Jump forward to the 1940s. During an attack by the Germans, a bomb explodes over Tesla’s grave and exposes not just his coffin but also the metal pole in the middle of his skeleton. Two workmen assume that the pole is just bomb debris and they remove it. Tesla (Bela Lugosi) promptly comes back to life and Andreas turn back into a werewolf. Tesla sets out to get revenge on Lady Jane and the daughter of Dr. Saunders, Nicki (Nina Foch).
The Return of the Vampire is an interesting film. Since the film was not made by Universal Pictures, it could not use the name “Dracula” for its vampire but it’s obvious from the start that Armand Tesla is meant to be Dracula. Tesla wears his Dracula costume, speaks in his Dracula voice, and gives his Dracula performance. To his credit, Lugosi actually gives a very strong performance in The Return of the Vampire. His anger towards the people who staked him feels very real and there’s nothing of the intentional campiness that marred some of Lugosi’s later performances. Lugosi leaves little doubt that Tesla is not only evil but he’s someone who truly enjoys being evil. He can’t leave England until he gets his revenge on the people who previously defeated him. For all the talk of stakes, sunlight, and crosses, the vampire’s true weakness is its own vanity and its inability to let go of a grudge.
As a history nerd, I found myself fascinated with how the film worked the then-current Blitz into its story. The main villain may have been played by Bela Lugosi but the Germans definitely played their role as well, launching the bombing raids that distracted the authorities from the vampire in their midst. Indeed, it’s probably not coincidence that it was a German pilot who brought Tesla back to life in the first place. The German pilot is shot down but not before he drops a bomb on Tesla’s crypt. The film says to be aware of the outside threat but to also be aware that threats can come from the inside as well. While the Germany terrify the citizens of London, the vampire coolly moves through the night.
Clocking in at a fast-paced 69 minutes, The Return of the Vampire also features a stiff upper lip Scotland Yard inspector (Miles Mander) who, of course, is skeptical of the existence of vampires. At the end of the film, he asks his subordinates if they believe in vampires. They reply that they do. He then looks at the camera and asks us, “And do you, people?”
Well, do you?
Because today would have been Bela Lugosi’s birthday, it seems appropriate to showcase him in a bonus horror on the lens!
In the 1940 film, The Devil Bat, the owners of a company in the small town of Heathville are super-excited because they’re going to be given their head chemist, Dr. Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi), a bonus check of $5,000. However, since Carruthers’s inventions have made millions for the company, he is offended by the small check and decides that the best way to handle this would be to sue in court and demand fair compensation …. just kidding! Instead, Dr. Carruthers sends his army of giant bats to kill the families of his employers.
The Devil Bat was produced by Production Releasing Corporation, a poverty row studio that specialized in shooting quickly and cheaply. Going from Universal to PRC was technically a step down for Lugosi but The Devil Bat is actually an excellent showcase for Lugosi and he gives one of his better non-Dracula performances as the embittered Dr. Carruthers. Indeed, one can imagine that Lugosi, who played such a big role in putting Universal on the map, could relate to Carruthers and his bitterness over not being fairly rewarded for the work he did to make others wealthy.
Enjoy The Devil Bat, starring the great Bela Lugosi!
If you’re new to Iron Maiden and want to experience a melodic metal song that doubles as a horror anthem, “Fear of the Dark” is a must-listen. Written and composed by Steve Harris, Iron Maiden’s bassist and primary songwriter, the song vividly captures that feeling of walking alone at night with the uneasy sensation that something might be lurking just out of sight. It’s a powerful exploration of a common fear—the discomfort and paranoia that darkness brings—which makes it feel like a spooky bedtime story set to powerful music.
What really makes this song stand out is how the music and Bruce Dickinson’s dramatic vocals work together to build tension and then release it. The guitars start slow and eerie, setting a creepy atmosphere, then shift into faster, catchy melodies that ramp up the excitement and nervous energy. Dickinson’s voice is full of drama and really sells that feeling of fear mixed with urgency. It’s not just heavy music; it’s storytelling with heart and melody.
Plus, the lyrics reference classic horror themes like watching scary movies and ancient folklore, which makes the song feel timeless and accessible. It’s a perfect gateway into how metal bands can blend melody with horror themes, making it approachable even if you’re not usually into heavy music. Overall, “Fear of the Dark” showcases Iron Maiden’s skill at creating music that is not only thrilling but also emotionally gripping and narratively rich.
Fear of the Dark
I am a man who walks alone
And when I’m walking a dark road
At night or strolling through the park
When the light begins to change
I sometimes feel a little strange
A little anxious when it’s dark
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a constant fear that something’s always near
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a phobia that someone’s always there
Have you run your fingers down the wall
And have you felt your neck skin crawl
When you’re searching for the light?
Sometimes when you’re scared to take a look
At the corner of the room
You’ve sensed that something’s watching you
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a constant fear that something’s always near
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a phobia that someone’s always there
Have you ever been alone at night
Thought you heard footsteps behind
And turned around, and no one’s there?
And as you quicken up your pace
You find it hard to look again
Because you’re sure there’s someone there
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a constant fear that something’s always near
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a phobia that someone’s always there
Watching horror films the night before
Debating witches and folklore
The unknown troubles on your mind
Maybe your mind is playing tricks
You sense, and suddenly eyes fix
On dancing shadows from behind
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a constant fear that something’s always near
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a phobia that someone’s always there
When I’m walking a dark road
I am a man who walks alone
Through the Shattered Lens 