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 take a look at the latter half of the 1920s.
4 Shots From 4 Horror Films
The Phantom of the Opera (1925, dir by Rupert Julian)
Faust (1926, dir by F.W. Murnau)
London After Midnight (1927, dir by Tod Browning)
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928, dir by Jean Epstein)
I’ll admit it right now. I’ve never really been a dog person.
That’s the way it’s been my entire life. According to my sisters, I was bitten by a dog when I was two years old. Needless to say, I don’t remember that happening but that still might explain why, when I was growing up, I was scared to death of dogs. Seriously, if I was outside and I heard a dog barking or if I saw a dog running around loose (or even on a leash), I would immediately start shaking. It didn’t help that, for some reason, I always seemed to run into the big dogs that wanted to jump and slobber all over me. (“Don’t be scared,” one dog owner shouted at me, “that’ll just make him more wild,” as if it was somehow my responsibility to keep his dog under control.)
Then there was that time when was I was ten and I was visiting Lake Texoma with my family. There was another family there and they had a big black dog with them. When I first saw him, the dog was very friendly. He ran up to me and, tentatively and with my sisters standing beside me for moral support, I even patted his head,. He seemed so nice! Finally, I had met a dog that didn’t scare me. My family was really happy. We went down to the lake and everyone told me how proud they were that I had managed to face a dog without running away. As we came back from the lake, I saw the dog laying down next to his family’s van. I smiled at the sight of him. He raised his head, looked at me, and started to growl. He wasn’t growling at my sisters or my parents. He was growling at me. Terrified, I went over to my family’s car and I ducked down behind it. I could hear my Dad telling the dog to stop and then I heard the loudest barking and saw the dog running towards me. I jumped in the car and locked the doors. The dog’s owners eventually grabbed their dog and took him back to their van. They said that I probably looked like someone who had been mean to it a few weeks earlier. One thing that they did not really do was apologize. Instead, they just made me feel like it was somehow my fault. They didn’t seem sympathetic when my Mom explained that I was terrified of dogs. When they realized my Dad was on the verge of punching someone, they retreated to their van and quickly left. At that time, I decided that 1) I would never trust another dog and that 2) dog owners are the most selfish people on the planet. I know that sounds harsh but seriously, I was traumatized!
As I grew up, I mellowed a bit. I met nice dog owners who actually made the effort to control their pets. I even met some friendly dogs and slowly realized that not all of them were going to try to kill me. I became less scared of dogs but they still definitely make me nervous. I still cringe when listening to the barking and I still reflexively step back whenever I see a big dog anywhere near me. Now that I know more about dogs, I have to admit that I feel a little bit guilty about not liking them more. Knowing that dogs actually blame themselves for me not liking them is kind of heart-breaking and I have been making more of an effort to be, if nothing else, at least polite to the canines who lives in the neighborhood. That said, I’m a cat person and I’ll always be cat person. Cats don’t care if you like them or not nor do they blame themselves if you’re in a bad mood, which is lot less of an emotional responsibility to deal with.
1977’s Dogs is a film that seems like it was especially made to give people like me nightmares. It’s a pretty simple movie. At a college in Southern California, the students and the faculty find themselves under siege from a bunch of dogs that have been driven mad by pheromones being sprayed into the atmosphere by a nearby, top secret government experiment. Two professors (David McCallum and George Wyner) attempt to convince everyone to evacuate the college and the town but, in typical Jaws fashion, no one wants to admit the truth about what’s happening. By the end, nearly everyone is dead (and the final scene of all the dead bodies spread across campus is genuinely haunting) and the cats are starting to hiss at humans.
Dogs is a low-budget drive-in flick but it’s still a frightening film, largely because the dogs are relentless and the victims may be largely stupid but they’re all stupid in realistic ways. A group of college students is told to wait inside until George Wyner comes back for them but Wyner takes so long in returning that the terrified students decide to make a run for it themselves. It doesn’t end well but it’s the sort of thing that I can actually imagine happening. No one likes being told to wait and, with no idea of what’s actually going on, making a run for it might actually seem like as good an idea as any. Even when the movie recreates the Psycho shower scene (with dogs instead of Norman Bates), it’s far more effective than it perhaps has any right to be.
Would this film be as effective from the point of view of someone who doesn’t have a history of being scared of dogs? It’s a legitimate question. Dogs aren’t like sharks. Most people like dogs. But when they’re barking and growling and determined to bite your throat, they can be pretty scary! I’ll just say that Dogs is a film that seemed to be uniquely designed to give me nightmares.
Those words are spoken in the 1958 film, The Hideous Sun Demon. Sultry pianist Trudy (Nan Peterson) may just be talking about her own nocturnal lifestyle and her job as the entertainment at a bar but those words also have a double meaning to scientist Gil McKenna (Robert Clarke). Whenever the sun comes up, Gil is transformed into the Hideous Sun Demon!
In theory, of course, this is an interesting take on the werewolf legend or even a traditional vampire tale. Typically, monsters aren’t supposed to come out until the sun goes down and they can move under the cover of darkness. The werewolf is transformed by the moonlight. The vampire is destroyed by the sun. (Or, at least, he used to be. Largely due to authorial laziness, many modern vampire tales have abandoned the whole idea of not being able to go out during the day.) Gil, however, reverses the trend. By night, he’s a handsome and brooding scientist. By day, he’s not just the sun demon. He’s the …. HIDEOUS SUN DEMON!
(Seriously, that can’t be good for his self-esteem.)
Like all great monsters, Gil doesn’t want to be the sun demon. He tries to stay in his house until night falls so that he won’t be transformed into a monster. But it’s difficult when he finds himself talking to Trudy and getting lost in their conversation. The beach looks so nice at night but it looks even better at dawn!
As for Gil, he’s got a lot of scientists working on a cure for his condition but he knows it’s hopeless and he’s pretty bitter about it. Poor guy. I may not turn into a demon but I do have red hair so I could slightly relate to his feelings. Redheads don’t tan as much as we just burn. I guess that’s one reason why I love this time of year. The skies are full of clouds and one can safely walk around during the daylight hours.
As for The Hideous Sun Demon, it is a ludicrous and fun B-movie, a quick 74-minute beach romp with a convincing performance from Robert Clarke and an effective monster costume. The scientists investigating Gil’s case are all extremely sober while Gil is extremely mopey and Trudy is extremely sultry and George (Peter Similuk), a bar patron who also likes Trudy, is a true middle-aged 50s tough guy. It’s very much a film for the 50s drive-in crowd and all the more entertaining because of it.
Esperanto was an international language that was briefly promoted by one-world government weirdos but which never really caught on. Four movie have been made in Esperanto but only one is still remembered. 1966’s Incubus features William Shatner, giving a very Shatnerish performance, as a solider who is tempted by a mysterious woman. The cinematography of the legendary Conrad Hall gives this one a very dream-like feel, even before everyone starts to talk.
Yes, this movie has subtitles. But, so what? Who hasn’t wanted to see William Shatner speak Esperanto?
In 2022’s OneCop’sJourney, Keith Knotek (Tim Perez-Ross) is involved in a traffic accident. Because Keith is clearly intoxicated, he’s taken to jail. Because it’s the start of the weekend, Keith is going to have to spend three days in jail before the Magistrate will see him and determine the amount of money that it will take to get him out.
Keith sits in a jail cell for three days. Because he’s a cop, the other police officers treat him with perhaps a bit more sympathy than they would give the usual inmate. You need a private cell? Here you go. You want us to call your wife? No problem! You want to get changed for court in the officer’s locker room? Sure, why not? Here’s a phone, go ahead and call your minister.
That minister is played by Dean Cain. The cop calls the minister and admits to getting a DUI and maybe hurting some people in the car accident.
“We all make mistakes,” Dean Cain replies.
And isn’t that the truth! OneCop’sJourney attempts to show the stress that would lead a cop to start drinking. His partner and best friend is gunned down while pursuing a suspect. Keith, himself, is nearly killed while conducting a routine traffic stop. No one wants to hear the details of what a cop has to deal with on daily basis. His wife has grown tired of him being depressed and emotionally withdrawn all the time and, when she discovers that he never told her about one traumatic incident that happened shortly before they were married, she considers it to be the same as telling her a lie. Worst of all, his teenage daughter decides to attend an anti-police rally, holding a sign that reads “No Justice No Peace,” while her friends all hold signs that read, “Defund the Police.”
Since this is a faith-based film, Keith eventually finds redemption and hope through prayer and he goes on to write a book about the pressures of being a cop. That’s to be expected and, to its credit, the film doesn’t get particularly preachy when it comes to the religious angle. I imagine that most people who would regularly get offended by the religious subtext will be too busy getting upset over the film’s political subtext to really notice.
OneCop’sJourney is thoroughly and unapologetically pro-cop and that’s never more obvious than in the protest scene when the blue collar, salt-of-the-earth policemen find themselves being yelled at by a bunch of bitter geriatrics and a few smirking college students. There’s nothing subtle about it but, then again, there’s nothing subtle about most left-wing movies either. As is so often the case when it comes to political movies, how you react will depend on how you felt about the issue before the movie started. (My own personal opinion is that police reform is something that needs to be considered, especially when it comes to the militarization of the police. At the same time, the “abolish the police” folks were and are living in a fantasy world.)
OneCop’sJourney is only 63 minutes long and there is an effective dream sequence in which Keith finds himself looking at the headshots of everyone who he feels he has left down. That said, the film still had far too many slow spots for so short of a production. Putting Keith in the jail cell really did make the whole thing feel pretty stagey. Still, the film did find the time to share some information about Post Traumatic Stress amongst first responders. It’s heart was in the right place.
In 2021’s Grim Reaper, escaped mental patient Victor Cunningham (Deron Cunningham) is wandering around a small country town and killing people.
That’s pretty much the entire plot. Grim Reaper is only a 70-minute film and the majority of those minutes are made up of either Cunningham wandering around in his grim reaper mask, Cunningham’s victims being stalked, and the police being ineffective. (The main detective wears a baseball cap that read: POLICE. It’s a good thing that the guy was wearing that baseball cap because, otherwise, I would have just mistaken him for a local bartender.) Our final girl has a big bruise on her face and is trying to escape an abusive relationship, which adds a level of poignance to her story.
There’s a tendency amongst many to be automatically dismissive of DIY slasher films like GrimReaper. It’s true that Grim Reaper has its amateurish moments and that the soundtrack leans a bit too heavy on the metal and it’s also obvious that most of the actors were not professionals but I have to admit that I kind of enjoyed the movie and not just in an ironic sense. It helps that the film was obviously made by people who appreciate the genre and, watching the film, one gets the feeling that it was a fun set. It may seem like a backhanded compliment to say that the film is comfortable with being what it is but you need only compare it to some of the current big budget horror films to see the difference between a horror film made be fans of the genre and people who think that they’re somehow better than the horror label. Even shot on video, the film still had somewhat effective shots. Director James Ian Mair appears to have a good eye and he even manages to make good use of natural light. That’s the same thing that got Chloe Zhao an Oscar and a Marvel movie.
Sometimes, you just have to be willing to appreciate a film for what it is.
Charles Bronson played a cop a bunch of times in the 1980’s, but my personal favorite is Leo Kessler from 10 TO MIDNIGHT. Kessler wants to be a better dad to his daughter Lori (Lisa Eilbacher), but first he needs to catch a psychotic killer who’s murdering beautiful young women. One of the most interesting things about 10 TO MIDNIGHT is the way it tries to fuse a badass cop film with the popular slasher films of the 1980’s. It’s arguably Bronson’s best Cannon film, and Gene Davis is a certifiable creep as the slasher, Warren Stacy. Enjoy this infamous scene where Kessler confronts Stacy about his, ummm… private sexual activities!
In 1979’s The Toolbox Murders, someone is murdering the female tenants of a building in Los Angeles. The killer, who wears a mask and a leather jacket, uses tools. One woman is killed by a hammer to the head. Another is skewered by a power drill. One is stabbed with a screwdriver. Another is shot with a nail gun. The identity of the killer would be a total mystery if not for the fact that we’ve already seen Cameron Mitchell’s name in the cast list.
Indeed, it’s a bit pointless to cast Cameron Mitchell in any sort of whodunit-type of film. Nine times out of ten, Mitchell being in a movie means that that Mitchell (who, in the early days of his career, originated the role of Death of a Salesman‘s Happy Loman on Broadway) is going to be revealed as the murderer. In this case, Mitchell plays Vance Kingsley, the owner of the building. Vance has never recovered from the death of his daughter so he’s punishing women who he considered to be sinful.
The actual toolbox murders are pretty much finished after the first twenty minutes of the film. The rest of the movie deals with Laurie (Pamelyn Ferdin), a 15 year-old girl who is kidnapped by Vance and his nephew, Kent (Wesley Eure). Joey (Nicholas Beauvy), who is Laurie’s brother, attempts to find and then rescue his sister and turns out to very much not up to the task. The film itself ends on a rather sick note, one that is followed by a title card that informs us that the film is based on a true story. Yeah, sure, it was.
The Toolbox Murders has somehow earned a reputation for being a gory and shocking grindhouse film. It was among the films that was banned in the UK for several years. It’s actually not that gory and the use of tools to commit the murders is not quite as clever as the film seems to think it is. Even the nail gun murder (which is the film’s best known moment) feels rather awkward as the victim (Kelly Nichols) never really makes a run for it despite the fact that Vance has to stop to reload after every nail that he fires.
The scenes with Laurie being held hostage are far more disturbing and weird, largely due to Mitchell’s characteristically over-the-top portrayal of Vance’s psychosis. When you watch a movie called The Toolbox Murders, you’re probably not expecting a lengthy scene where Laurie — pretending to be Vance’s dead daughter — tells a long story about what it’s like in the afterlife. In the role of Vance’s nephew, Wesley Eure is even more disturbing than Mitchell. As opposed to the sinister-looking Mitchell, Eure actually has the look of a nice, young community college student and that makes his actions at the end of the film all the more icky to watch.
The Toolbox Murders doesn’t quite live up to its bloody reputation but it’s still a disturbing film nonetheless. Did you know that Heaven smells like lollipops? After this film, you’ll never forget.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001. The entire show can be purchased on Tubi.
Today, I start a new series of reviews. Since I already did Baywatch Nights, it just made sense to go ahead and do Baywatch. All together, this show ran for 11 and a movie so it should only take 241 weeks to finish up the series….
“Baywatch: Panic At Malibu Pier”
(Dir by Richard Compton, originally aired on April 29th, 1989)
It’s not easy being a lifeguard.
That would seem to be the main theme running through Panic at Malibu Pier, the two-hour movie that also served as a pilot for Baywatch. Consider the drama:
Mitch Buchanan (David Hasselhoff) loves the beach and he loves getting in the water but it’s cost him his marriage and now, his ex-wife (Wendie Malick) is suing for sole custody of their young son, Hobie (Brandon Call). Hobie doesn’t like going to school. He doesn’t understand why he can’t just spend all day on the beach like his father. Mitch, meanwhile, has been promoted to lieutenant of Baywatch and he’s now no longer supposed to do rescues. He’s just supposed to supervise the other lifeguard. His boss, Captain Thorpe (Monte Markham), is very insistent on that. Mitch explains that he doesn’t even like wearing socks. Ewwww. You have to wear socks, Mitch!
Eddie Kramer (Billy Warlock) is a rookie lifeguard. He finished at the top of his class but he’s also a tough kid from Philadelphia who grew up in the foster system. Shauni (Erika Eleniak) is another rookie lifeguard who freezes up when she has to provide CPR to a drowned girl. Her mentor, Jill (Shawn Weatherly), tells Shauni that it happens to every lifeguard. I bet it’s never happened to Mitch. Shauni seems to have a crush on Eddie and Eddie seems to be driven to prove himself. Eddie has guts because he wears a Philadelphia t-shirt in California.
Al Gibson (Richard Jaeckel) is the veteran lifeguard who is reaching retirement age and who dies at the end of the episode and gets a big lifeguard funeral on the beach.
Trevor (Peter Phelps) is the Australian lifeguard who calls everyone “mate.”
Finally, Craig Pomeroy (Parker Stevenson) is the attorney who prefers to spend his time in his lifeguard tower. Even when he should be at the office and working for his clients, Craig just hangs out at his tower. He saves the life of a disturbed teenager named Laurie (Madchen Amick). Laurie subsequently becomes obsessed with him. When the married Craig tells her to stay out of his lifeguard tower and stop taking off all of her clothes, she accuses Craig of assaulting her. Later, she tries to murder Craig’s wife (Gina Hecht). This all could have been avoided if Craig had just gone to his office like he was supposed to.
This pilot film for Baywatch has everything that the show would make famous — stiff line deliveries from the supporting cast, red swimsuits, David Hasselhoff’s earnestly goofy sincerity, slow motion, and plenty of musical montages. Amongst the guest cast, Madchen Amick stands out at the obsessive Laurie, showing an ability for handling melodrama that would be put to good use on Twin Peaks. Take a drink every time Mitch says, “Rescue can,” and see how long you can go before passing out. Unlike a lot of pilots that don’t really resemble the eventual show, Panic at Malibu Pier is unmistakably Baywatch.
And, watching it, you can see why the show eventually became a success. The beach scenery is nice. The men are athletic, the women are pretty, and the slow motion is cool the first time you see it. Of course, the most important thing about the pilot — and the show itself — is that it doesn’t require a good deal of attention. It’s one of those things where you can step away from the screen for a few minutes and then come back without having worry about having missed anything important.
Panic at Malibu Pier was a ratings hit. Baywatch followed. We’ll get into that next week.
Today would have been the 102nd birthday of actor Charlton Heston.
This scene that I love comes from one of the few horror films in which Heston appeared. An adaptation of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, 1971’s The Omega Man featured Charlton Heston as Robert Neville. By night, Neville protects his house against the mutant horde. By day, he tracks those sleeping mutants down and watches Woodstock over and over again.
Through the Shattered Lens 