For tonight’s horror on television, we have the 11th episode of Hammer House of Horror! This atmospheric episode features Kathryn Leigh Scott as a woman who fears that she is being haunted by the ghost of a would-be rapist that she earlier killed. Simon MacCorkindale plays her husband, who has secret of his own.
This episode originally aired on November 22nd, 1980.
In this 2014 shocker, a young couple moves into what seems like a perfect 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment. Rachel (Michele Hooks) and Kevin (Andrew W. Walker) are hoping to start a family in their new apartment. Their landlady (Dee Wallace) is very happy to hear that. In fact, it’s hard not to feel that she’s a bit too happy to hear it….
In many ways, 2 Bedroom 1 Bath is a typical “is it haunted or not?” thriller. From the minute that they move into the apartment, Kevin starts to have strange and nightmarish visions. He imagines himself trying to pick up a baby, just for it to fall to the ground and shatter like a doll. Dark shadows move in the background while pale faces are reflected in the windows. After taking a shower, Rachel doesn’t notice that ghostly figure in the mirror behind her. Things get creepier and stranger after Rachel gets pregnant and Kevin finds himself not only tempted by student but also taunted by mysterious messages that appear in the mail box.
It’s a bit predictable but Hooks and Walker both give strong performances and director Stanley Yung does a great job of creating an ominous and dream-like atmosphere. This is a film that features several dozen jump scares and just about everyone of them is effective. It’s an effective piece of haunted apartment horror.
As for Eric Roberts, his role is a small one. He plays the fertility specialist and he has three scenes with Rachel and Kevin. When Roberts first appeared, I assumed his character was going to be revealed to be a part of the supernatural conspiracy but no. He was just a well-intentioned doctor with two patients who had no idea how much trouble they were about to face. To be honest, I’m so used to seeing Eric Roberts playing villains that it was kind of nice to see him playing a sympathetic professional for once.
Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:
In the 1979 made-for-TV movie, Mind over Murder, Deborah Raffin stars as Suzy.
Suzy is a model and an actress. She has a nice apartment, which she shares with her football-loving boyfriend, Ben (Bruce Davison). She has a best friend (Penelope Willis), who is constantly looking to get laid. Her latest job requires her to dance with a man who is dressed up like a giant hamburger. It would seem that, by the standards of 1979, Suzy has the perfect life.
However, her life is turned upside down when she suddenly starts having visions. All of the action around her will either switch to slow motion or stop altogether while Suzy has a vision of a scary-looking bald man (Andrew Prine) stalking her. Her most disturbing vision involves Suzy hearing the sound of a pilot begging for help while his airplane crashes. Ben tells her that she’s probably just working too hard but, the next morning, Suzy looks at a newspaper and immediately sees a headline about a plane crash.
With Ben dismissing her concerns, Suzy takes it upon herself to meet with the two detectives (David Ackroyd and Robert Englund — yes, Robert Englund!) investigating the plane crash. They are surprisingly sympathetic to Suzy’s story of hearing the plane crash before it happened. They arrange for her to meet a psychic researcher, who explains that Suzy must have some sort of mental connection to whoever was responsible for the crash. While Ben continues to be skeptical and jealous of all the time that she’s spending with one of the detectives, Suzy keeping having disturbing visions of the bald man….
Considering its origins as a made-for-TV movie, Mind Over Murder is a surprisingly frightening film. This is a film that proves that slow motion can make just about anything creepy and Deborah Raffin does a good job of showing us just how much Suzy dreads those moments when everything starts to slow down and she realizes that she’s about to get hit with another vision. That said, what truly makes this film frightening is the performance of Andrew Prine, who plays the bald man as being every woman’s nightmare. He’s a misogynist, the type who is convinced that every woman should be in love with him and that those who aren’t should be punished. Whether he’s appearing in Suzy’s visions or stepping into her reality, Andrew Prine is never less than terrifying.
Along with featuring a scary performance from Prine, this film also features a genuinely likable one from Robert Englund. Englund is playing a nice guy here. In fact, before he made horror history in A Nightmare in Elm Street, Englund almost always played nice guys. It’s interesting to watch him here, with his friendly manner and his polite style, and to imagine the roles Englund would have ended up playing if he hadn’t gotten typecast as a horribly scarred serial killer.
The first hour of Mind over Murder is brilliant. The final 30 minutes, unfortunately, find the film turning into a far more conventional thriller, as Suzy’s visions are replaced by the Bald Man actually coming after her. That said, this is still an effective horror thriller and one that deserves to be rediscovered this Halloween season.
The Time Lords once again decide that they need the Doctor to do their dirty work for them. The TARDIS, with the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) on board, is sent to the rocky planet Karn.
On Karn, the crazed Dr. Solon (Phillip Madoc) lives in a castle and is kidnapping shipwrecked travelers and using their limbs to build a body for Morbius (Stuart Fell with the voice of Michael Spice). Morbius was once a Time Lord but, after being found guilty of war crimes, his body was destroyed but his disembodied brain survived. It now sits atop a makeshift body that has been constructed out of several different alien races. Solon takes one look at the Doctor’s head and decides that it would be the perfect house for the brain of Morbius.
There’s a subplot about the Sisterhood of Karn and the Elixer of Life but make no mistake. This is Doctor Who‘s take on Frankenstein, with the Baron reimagined as a mad scientist on a distant planet and the Monster reimagined as being not at all sympathetic. When I was a kid and first watching these episodes of PBS, The Brain of Morbius was one of my favorites because of the Frankenstein connection and also the look of Morbius. The original Doctor Who was known for its often-shoddy monsters but Morbius was a definite triumph. The brain sitting in a transparent bowl atop a stitched together body was one of the defining images of classic Doctor Who.
The Brain of Morbius is also known for a controversial moment during the final episode, where the Doctor and Morbius engage in a battle of the minds. On a view-screen, the faces of the three former Doctors appear, followed by several faces that had never been shown before. It was actually an in-joke on the part of production. The faces were all members of the Doctor Who crew. For decades, though, this in-joke led to a fierce debate whether or not William Hartnell was actually the first Doctor. This, of course, was back when it was still believed that a Time Lord could only regenerate 12 times. The Doctor Who revival tossed out that idea, along with a lot of other good ideas.
All these years later, The Brain of Morbius still remains one of my favorites of the Fourth Doctor’s adventures. This serial was the Tom Baker/Elisabeth Sladen era at its best.
In ancient Greece, Hercules (Steve Reeves) saves the life of the princess Iole (Sylva Koscina) when she nearly loses control of her chariot. Iole tells Hercules about how her father, Pelias (Ivo Garrani), become the ruler of the kingdom after the murder of the previous king and the exile of the rightful heir to the throne, Jason (Fabrizio Mioni).
Hercules accompanies Iole back to the kingdom, where he proves himself by doing typical Hercules things like defeating both a lion and a bull. When Hercules’s discovers that his best friend, Chiron (Alfo Poli) is the number one suspect in the murder of the previous king, he goes on a quest with Jason to recover the Golden Fleece, which will reveal the truth.
All sorts of Greek myths are crammed together as Hercules and Jason search for the Golden Fleece, fight a dragon, and are briefly held prisoner by Amazon Queen Antea (Gianna Maria Canale). (The dragon’s roar was lifted from a Godzilla film.) Hercules was the first of several Italian film to be made about Hercules. American bodybuilder Steve Reeves had the right physique for Hercules but the wrong voice and, even in the English language dub, it’s obvious that we are not actually hearing Reeves when he speaks.
Hercules has a deserved reputation for being campy but it’s not as bad as you might think if you’ve only seen the washed-out and heavily edited version that was used for Mystery Science Theater 3000. (I say that as someone who loves MST 3K and who dreamed of being one of their writers when I was growing up.) If you can actually see a restored print of the film, ancient Greece actually looks pretty good and the the deep colors go a long way towards establishing the grandeur of a mythological age. It’s easy to laugh at Steve Reeves and his expressionless acting but he had the right look for Hercules. The only thing really required of Hercules in this movie is that he be strong and Reeves was definitely that.
Distributed in America by Joseph E. Levine, Hercules was a worldwide success and there would be 18 sequels, with Reg Park eventually taking over the role. Steve Reeves, having been seriously injured while filming The Last Days of Pompeii in 1959, eventually retired from acting and spent the rest of his life running a ranch in Valley Center, California and promoting drug-free bodybuilding. Arnold Schwarzenegger frequently cited him as an inspiration for his own acting career. Steve Reeves passed away at the age of 74 in 2000.
The British-born actress, Barbara Steele, became a star in Italy in the 60s, working with directors from Riccardo Freda to Mario Bava to Federico Fellini. One of Steele’s defining roles was in Bava’s 1960 film, Black Sunday.
In this scene, Steele’s witch is sentenced to be executed and, since this is a Bava film, it won’t be a quick execution. What makes this scene stand-out is Steele’s defiance. It’s hard not to admire her refusal to give those judging her what they want. You watch this scene and you have no doubt that if you get cursed by Barbara Steele, it’s going to be a curse for life.
Kill, Baby…. Kill!, Mario Bava’s 1966 masterpiece, opens at the turn of the 20th Century.
In a small German village, a woman named Irena Hollander (Mirella Panfili) runs up a set of stairs at an abandoned church. From the bell tower, she either falls or deliberately jumps and crashes into the sharp spikes of the gate below. Agck! Falling from that high of a spot is bad enough without then landing on a gate and getting pierced by several sharp points at once. Making it even more disturbing is that it’s suggested that the spikes don’t instantly kill Irena. It’s a grotesque and disturbing image, shown to us in bright color. It’s death as pop art. It’s the sort of thing that only Mario Bava could have paid off.
Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) is summoned to the village by Inspector Kruger (Piero Lulli). Kruger suspects that Irena may have been intentionally pushed and he wants Paul to conduct an autopsy. However, the superstitious townspeople say that her body must be buried immediately and Paul and Kruger actually have to rush out to the local cemetery to prevent the Irena from being buried. The gravediggers warn Paul and Kruger that they will be bringing a curse on themselves by not burying Irena. Paul and Kruger don’t listen. At the autopsy, a local medical student named Monica (Erika Blanc) is assigned to serve as the witness. Paul discovers that a silver coin has somehow been embedded in Irena’s heart.
Paul discovers that the villagers live in fear of the ghost a little girl. They claim that if you see the girl, that means you are cursed to die. Paul, being a man of science, is skeptical. When the daughter of the local innkeeper becomes horrified after saying that she has seen the little girl, Paul is critical of the treatment offered up by her superstitious parents. (That treatment include a chain of leeches — agck!) Meanwhile, Kruger goes to the estate of the mysterious Baroness Graps (Giovanna Galletti) and disappears! It soon becomes clear that the key to mystery lies in the estate of the Baroness and her past. Karl (Luciano Catenacci), the burgomaster, knows the secret of the Baroness but soon, he finds himself being targeted by the little girl.
Maria Bava is a director who has been cited as an influence by everyone from David Lynch to Martin Scorsese and Kill, Baby…. Kill! is his masterpiece, a work of horrific pop art that is full of atmosphere, creative use of color, and an intentionally surreal style of plotting that makes the film less a standard story and more of a filmed nightmare. Towards the end, as Paul pursues the ghost of the little girl, an overhead view of a special staircase, lit in blues and greens, brings to mind Hitchock’s Vertigo while the village itself feels as if it could have been transported over from a Hammer horror film. Paul is a man of science and the villages are people of superstition and, in the end, both seem to be equally destructive. Paul is too quick to dismiss the old traditions while the villagers are too quick to put their faith in herbs and incantations. Bava creates an atmosphere in which everyone seems to be equally doomed.
Of course, the main reason why Kill, Baby…. Kill! works is because that little girl (played by Valerio Vali, about whom little is known) is absolutely terrifying. When she suddenly shows up at a window and stares straight at her latest victim, it’s a true jump scare. She had an intense stare but, even worse, she seems to be so happy after she’s cursed someone. The true horror is that she can basically pop up anywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good person or a rational person or someone who doesn’t even believe in ghosts. Fate cannot be escaped.
Kill, Baby…. Kill! is a both a story of nightmarish horror and a love letter to pure cinema.
Kill, Baby, Kill
Angel Maturino Resendiz, now there was a scary person.
Resendiz was a drifter who hitched rides on trains and who killed at least 15 people over the course of 13 years. Because he traveled by stowing away on trains, his first few crimes went undetected. Even when people realized that there was a serial killer haunting the nation’s railroads, no one knew exactly where Resendiz would next turn up. He committed the majority of his murders in Texas, killing random people and using whatever method happened to be most convenient at the time. However, he also killed people in Florida, Georgia, California, Kentucky, and Illinois. He would steal his victim’s jewelry but leave behind their money. (He would return to his home in Mexico to give the jewelry to his sister and mother, both of whom apparently had no idea where he was getting his gifts from.) After he was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, Resendiz eventually surrendered himself in 1999. Resendiz was apparently under the impression that he would not be given the death penalty if voluntarily turned himself in. Resendiz was wrong about that and he was executed in 2006.
Until Resendiz surrendered himself, everyone living near a railroad track was nervous. I know this from personal experience because, in 1999, my family lived close enough to the tracks that I could lay in bed in the middle of the night and listen to the sound of the trains rumbling in the distance. Resendiz was a killer who targeted those who were smaller and weaker than him, which basically would have included me, my mom, and my sisters. Apparently, whenever he did a home invasion, he would also eat whatever food he could find in the refrigerator. Whereas most killers would probably want to get away from the scene as quickly as possible, Resendiz would sit down and eat leftovers. For whatever reason, that little detail is the one that creeps me out the most.
2020’s The Texas Railroad Killer is loosely based on the crimes of Angel Resendiz. The film features Resendiz (Lino Aquino) as he wanders around South Texas, randomly killing. As played by Aquino, Resendiz comes across as being a somewhat dazed, paranoid shell of a human being, a shadow of death who doesn’t seem to be aware of the difference between reality and what’s only happening in his mind. Does he really witness a group of strippers being gunned down by law enforcement or is it something that he only imagined? It’s hard to tell. After Resendiz commits a murder, he looks over his victim’s identification as if he’s trying to absorb the life that he just ended. And yes, he does eat in a victim’s house. Agck!
The Texas Railroad Killer is an extremely low-budget film. Lino Aquino is convincingly out-of-it as Resendiz but some of the other performers are noticeably less convincing in their roles. The film is largely plotless and the slow pace will be a turn-off for many viewers. And yet, there’s a disturbing power to the film’s sun-drenched visuals. The images of the sweaty Resendiz walking down broken streets or stumbling dazed out of someone’s home stick with you. Flaws and all, the film captures the soulless existence of a man who lives for no other reason than to kill.
Personally, it makes me glad that he’s dead.
Mike Oldfield didn’t write Tubular Bells specifically for The Exorcist but it’s a song that works perfectly for the film. Oldfield’s song, which was rumored to have originally envisioned as being a Christmas instrumental, become an iconic horror them.
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 continue to look at the 1950s.
4 Shots From 4 Horror Films
La Bruja (1954, dir by Chano Urueta)
Cult of the Cobra (1955, dir by Francis D. Lyon)
Dementia (1955, dir by John Parker)
The She Creature (1956, dir by Edward L. Cahn)
Through the Shattered Lens 