On tonight’s episode of Thriller, we see what happens when an aspiring sorcerer (George MacReady) accidentally kills his son. In order to brings his son back to life, he has to have a special suit made by the weird tailor of the title (played by Henry Jones).
This is one of the better episode of Thriller. For once, the use of the word “weird” in the title is not a misnomer! This one was written by Robert Bloch, who adapted his own short story. It originally aired on October 16th, 1961.
Can you figure out what’s going in today’s horror on the lens, the 1965 film Monster A Go Go?
This sci-fi/horror hybrid details what happens when an astronaut lands on Earth and promptly disappears. Much like The Creeping Terror, this film makes frequent use of a narrator. I always appreciate it when movies like this come with a narrator.
Anyway, Monster A Go Go was reportedly started by Bill Rebane in 1961. When he ran out of money, the film sat unfinished for four years. That’s when Herschell Gordon Lewis bought the film, added some additional scenes, and then released it on a double bill with one of his own films. Hence, if Monster A Go Go seems like two different movies crammed together … well, that’s pretty much what it is.
Along with its interesting production history, Monster A Go Go is also well-remembered for its amazingly nonsensical ending. I imagine that this film led to a few drive-in riots.
Enjoy!
(Lisa is not just watching horror movies! She is also trying to clean out her DVR! She has got over 200 movies that she needs to watch before January 1st! Will she make it? Keep checking here to find out! She recorded New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell off of Lifetime on April 23rd!)
“That is some hard wood.”
— Joyce Mitchell (Penelope Ann Miller) in New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell (2017)
Why would Joyce Mitchell, a middle-aged wife and mother, help two convicted murderers escape from a prison in upstate New York?
That was the question that everyone was asking in 2015, even though everyone already knew what the answer probably was. (Bad boys are sexy. Murderers are the ultimate bad boys. Plus, Joyce Mitchell appeared to be a little bit crazy and a little bit stupid.) After breaking out of Clinton Correctional Facility, both Richard Matt and David Sweat spent several weeks on the run while Joyce Mitchell was briefly both the most hated and the most ridiculed woman in America. Interestingly, Joyce Mitchell was not the only prison employee to help out the two convicts. She was just the only woman.
During the manhunt for Sweat and Matt, I did what I usually do. I made a joke. I can’t even remember what the joke was but I do remember that it really ticked off some random people on twitter. Seriously, the way these randos reacted, you would think that I was the one who had helped two killers to escape from prison.
“Certain things are not funny!” they shouted, “CERTAIN THINGS YOU DO NOT JOKE ABOUT!”
(Seriously, can you believe that people could actually get that mad at little old me? What is this world coming to?)
Anyway, I have to wonder if any of those self-righteous losers watched New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell and, if they did, how they reacted to it. New York Prison Break may sound like a standard Lifetime true crime film but it takes a satiric approach to the material. If certain people found my relatively innocuous comments to be triggering, I can only imagine how they reacted to a made-for-TV movie that opened with a bloody recreation of Matt and Sweat’s crimes and then segued to a scene of Joyce making breakfast while listening to a trashy romance novel on tape.
As played by Penelope Ann Miller, Joyce is somehow sympathetic, pathetic, annoying, and frightening, all at the same time. She has a nice house with a perfect kitchen and a husband, Lyle (Daniel Roebuck), who is utterly clueless as to how bored and dissatisfied Joyce has become with her very safe life. It leaves her open to being manipulated by both David Sweat (Joe Anderson) and Richard Matt (Myk Watford), both of whom drew her into aiding their escape by feigning a romantic interest in her. While they both encourage Joyce to fantasize about running off with them and starting a new life in Mexico, Lyle’s idea of adventure is to go out for Chinese food. For Joyce, helping Sweat and Matt escape is like a real-life version of one of her novels.
Though it’s a true story, it’s also a very absurd story. New York Prison Break emphasizes the strangeness of it all. Scenes of Joyce and Lyle discussing the ins and outs of fabric softener are mixed with scenes of Sweat and Matt bickering over whether they should go to Canada or to Mexico. Joyce’s desperate attempts to cover up her own involvement in the escape are contrasted with Sweat and Matt bonding outside of the prison. Joyce may have been in love with both of them but, as the film makes clear, Sweat and Matt only loved each other. And, as it eventually turns out, they didn’t even love each other that much…
“Mrs. Mitchell,” one detective asks, “you knew these men murdered and tortured a man and you gave them the means to escape from prison?”
“Everyone says I’m too nice,” Joyce explains.
New York Prison Break is a superior and well-made Lifetime film, distinguished by a quartet of strong performances. Penelope Ann Miller, Daniel Roebuck, Joe Anderson, and Myk Watford are all at their best and it makes for very compelling viewing.
In tonight’s episode of Thriller, Boris Karloff not only hosts but also stars!
An adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe short story, this episode is about a man (Sidney Blackmer) who has very good reason to fear that he might end up being buried alive! Karloff appears as his loyal physician, who might be Blackmer’s only hope to avoid being murdered by his wife and her lover.
Enjoy!
Hell of the Living Dead, a 1980 Italian zombie film, is a movie known by many different names. Some of these names are more memorable than others.
For instance, it’s known as Virus, which isn’t a very good name. It’s kind of boring. Plus, a virus could lead to anything. Sure, a virus could turn someone into a zombie but it could also just mean a week in bed. Plus, there’s already a thousand movies called Virus.
Night of the Zombies is a bit more specific, though still rather generic. Just about every Italian horror film that came out in 1980 was about zombies and most of them took place at night.
Island of the Living Dead, at the very least, let’s you know where the majority of the movie takes place. That said, it’s kind of a dishonest title. The island isn’t just occupied by the living dead. There’s also a primitive tribe, the members of which pop up occasionally to throw spears at a group of soldiers and a journalist.
I absolutely love the title Zombie Creeping Flesh. Seriously, I don’t know why they bothered to come up with so many alternate titles when they already had Zombie Creeping Flesh.
However, this film is best known as Hell of the Living Dead and, actually, I guess that’s a pretty good title. I mean, it’s totally and completely over the top. Add to that the title almost feels like a challenge being specifically issued to the fans of George Romero’s zombie films. It’s as if the film is saying, “If you can’t handle the Night or the Dawn, the Hell is absolutely going to kill you!”
Anyway, this is an extremely low-budget film from director Bruno Mettei and screenwriter Claudio Fragasso. The team of Mattei/Fragasso were famous for producing some of the most ludicrously silly horror films to ever come out of Italy. (Outside of his collaboration with Mattei, Fragasso is best known for directing Troll 2.) A typical Mattei/Fragasso film is entertaining without being particularly good. They were never ones to allow a thing like a lack of money to stand in the way of their narrative ambitions.
For instance, in Hell of the Living Dead, there’s one isolated scene that’s supposed to take place at the United Nations. The scene appears to have been filmed in a lecture hall at a small university. One delegate angrily declares that he is sick of everyone exploiting his zombie-occupied country. Someone else suggests that maybe they should take a break until tomorrow. It’s an incredibly inauthentic scene that adds nothing to the story but that didn’t keep the team of Mattei and Fragasso from including it in the film. They were determined to have a UN scene and they weren’t going to let a lack of money or access stop them.
Anyway, the majority of the film deals with a zombie outbreak on a small tropical island. The island is almost exclusively made up of stock footage. A typical scene will feature a character like journalist Lia (played by Margit Evelyn Newtown) standing in the middle of the frame. She looks to the right and we get some grainy stock footage of a bat or something similar. She looks to her left and we get some faded stock footage of a tiger.
As I mentioned previously, the island also has primitive natives. Whenever you hear the drums in the distance, it’s important to toss off your shirt, paint your face, and start jogging. Otherwise, you might get killed. You know how that goes.
And then there’s the zombies, of course. The zombies get an origin story, something to do with an accident at top secret chemical plant. At the start of the film, a rat attacks a scientist. I’m assuming the rat was carrying the virus but it’s just as possible that Mattei just decided to throw in a random rat attack. (His best film was literally just 90 minutes of rat attacks.) Regardless, the zombie effects actually aren’t that bad but the problem is that whenever the zombies show up, they have to compete with all of the stock footage. When the zombies aren’t dealing with animal footage that was originally shot for a mondo film, they keep busy by eating nearly everyone that they meet. A group of soldiers have been sent to take care of the zombies but since none of them are particularly bright, they don’t have much luck.
Hell of the Living Dead has a reputation for being one of the worst zombie films ever made. I don’t know if I would go that far. It’s watchable in a “what the Hell did I just see?” sort of way. And in the end, isn’t that kind of the point of a film like this?
Do you believe in curses?
Personally, I could go either way as far as curses are concerned. I went through a period of time when, though I kinda kept it to myself, I was really into learning about the history of magick and trying to learn how to cast hexes and all the rest of that but then I realized that I could continue to wear black without necessarily having to tap into any supernatural powers. As well, I’ve never bought into the idea that karma’s going to get anyone. To me, the universe is a pretty random place. Not everything happens for a reason. That said, I would never say that I’m a complete unbeliever. A rational world is a boring world. If I had to choose between hanging out with teacher at Hogwarts or Neil DeGrasse Tyson, I’m going with the wizard.
I may not completely believe in curses but I do find them interesting to read about. That’s why I’ve always enjoyed reading Hollywood Hex, a copy of which I found at Recycled Books in Denton, Texas. (This was during the same shopping trip that led to me finding and buying A Taste of Blood and House of Horror. It was quite a productive trip for this lover of all things horror!)
Hollywood Hex is a tour through the history of morbid Hollywood, providing details on not only the death cults that have sprung up around certain ill-fated actors but also the films that have, for whatever reason, come to be known as cursed. Many of these films, like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, were originally sold as being cursed as a publicity stunt before real-life events caused even the most sober of minds to wonder if maybe there really were demonic forces at work. (The chapter that covers both the production of Rosemary’s Baby and the crimes of Charles Manson is especially creepy.) Some of the other films — like Twilight Zone — The Movie and The Crow — were cursed by onset negligence. And, finally, there’s the incredibly tragic stories of the Poltergeist franchise. If any films could truly claim to be cursed, it would be those films.
Hollywood Hex is fascinating reading for both the morbidly and cinematically-minded.
Ever since I made the mistake of watching Wolves at the Door a few weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about the 2008 home invasion film, The Strangers.
I’ve always struggled with my feelings towards The Strangers. On the one hand, this is a horror film that actually scared me. Considering the amount of horror films that I’ve watched (not to mention the number of home invasion films), that’s really saying something. Since a horror film is meant to frighten, The Strangers has to be considered a success. At the same time, The Strangers always leaves me so upset that, after watching, I inevitably swear to myself that I’ll never watch it again. And yet, whenever I see it playing on cable, I can’t help but watch at least a little of it. Even knowing what’s going to happen and how the film is going to end, The Strangers retains a hypnotic power.
The Strangers is a simple film. There’s a house out in the middle of nowhere. Having just left a wedding reception, James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and his girlfriend, Kristen (Liv Tyler), arrive at the house. James and Kristen are not having a good night. James asked Kristen to marry him. Kristen turned him down. That’ll make any night awkward, regardless of how nice the house is.
James and Kristen settle into the house for the night, both of them eager to get away from each other in the morning. Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door. A young woman (Gemma Ward) is looking for someone named Tamara. When told that there is no Tamara in the house, she replies, “See you later.”
The girl’s not lying. Later, while James is out sulking, Kristen realizes that she’s not alone. There are three strangers, all wearing masks. They’re watching. They’re waiting…
The rest of the film details, in excruciating detail, the rest of the night. What makes the film particularly disturbing is that neither James nor Kristen are dumb but they’re still powerless against those three strangers. Just as the strangers hide their faces, they also hide their motive. The closest that Kristen and James get to an explanation for why they’re being targeted is that “You were home.” To the strangers, it’s a game. They’re like three cats, playing with a cricket. They’re not going to back off until they’ve removed at least one leg.
(James and Kristen, I should add, are not the only potential victims in The Strangers. There’s also Mike, who is James’s best friend and who is supposed to pick him up in the morning. Of everyone in the movie, I always feel the worst for Mike. For one thing, he was just trying to do his friend a favor. For another, he’s played by Glenn Howerton. Has It’s Sunny In Philadelphia done a The Gang Plans A Home Invasion episode?)
The Strangers is an absolutely terrifying film, specifically because it’s so easy to relate to Kristen and James. They remind the viewers of their friends. They remind the viewers of themselves. Watching them, we’re reminded of every time that we’ve heard a strange sound in the night and tried to tell ourselves that it was nothing. We live in an increasingly unstable world and The Strangers perfectly captures the feeling of living under the shadow of death. It’s a bit like Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, without any “it’s just a movie” moments to provide us with any sense of security. The film starts with a message telling us that we’re about to see a true story. Even though we know that might just be hyperbole, we also know that what we’re seeing could very well have happened. In fact, it could happen to us as soon as the movie ends.
That’s the hypnotic dread of The Strangers.
Here’s the main lesson that I’ve learned from watching the 1977 horror film, The Sentinel:
Even in the 1970s, the life of a model was not an easy one.
Take Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) for instance. She should have everything but instead, she’s a neurotic mess. Haunted by a traumatic childhood, she has attempted to commit suicide twice and everyone is always worried that she’s on the verge of having a breakdown. As a model, she’s forced to deal with a bunch of phonies. One of the phonies is played by Jeff Goldblum. Because he’s Goldblum, you suspect that he has to have something up his sleeve but then it turns out that he doesn’t. I get that Jeff Goldblum probably wasn’t a well-known actor when he appeared in The Sentinel but still, it’s incredibly distracting when he suddenly shows up and then doesn’t really do anything.
Alison has a fiancée. His name is Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon) and I figured out that he had to be up to no good as soon as he appeared. For one thing, he has a pornstache. For another thing, he’s played by Chris Sarandon, an actor who is best known for playing the vampire in the original Fright Night and Prince Humperdink in The Princess Bride. Not surprisingly, it turns out that Michael’s previous wife died under mysterious circumstances. NYPD Detective Rizzo (Christopher Walken) suspects that Michael may have killed her.
(That’s right. Christopher Walken is in this movie but, much like Jeff Goldblum, he doesn’t get to do anything interesting. How can a movie feature two of the quirkiest actors ever and then refuse to give them a chance to act quirky?)
Maybe Alison’s life will improve now that she has a new apartment. It’s a really nice place and her real estate agent is played by Ava Gardner. Alison wants to live on her own for a while. She loves Michael but she needs to find herself. Plus, it doesn’t help that Michael has a pornstache and may have killed his wife…
Unfortunately, as soon as Alison moves in, she starts having weird dreams and visions and all the usual stuff that always happens in movies like this. She also discovers that she has a lot of eccentric neighbors, all of whom are played by semi-familiar character actors. For instance, eccentric old Charles (Burgess Meredith) is always inviting her to wild parties. Her other two neighbors (played by Sylvia Miles and Beverly D’Angelo) are lesbians, which the film presents as being the height of shocking decadence. At first, Alison likes her neighbors but they make so much noise! Eventually, she complains to Ava Gardner. Ava replies that Alison only has one neighbor and that neighbor is neither Burgess Meredith nor a lesbian.
Instead, he’s a blind priest who spends all day sitting at a window. He’s played by John Carradine, who apparently had a few hours to kill in 1977.
But it doesn’t stop there! This movie is full of actors who will be familiar to anyone who enjoys watching TCM. Along with those already mentioned, we also get cameos from Martin Balsam, Jose Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, Eli Wallach, Richard Dreyfuss, and Tom Berenger. There are 11 Oscar nominees wasted in this stupid film. (Though, in all fairness, Christopher Walken’s nomination came after The Sentinel.)
Personally, The Sentinel bugged me because it’s yet another horror movie that exploits Catholic iconography while totally misstating church dogma. However, the main problem with The Sentinel is that it’s just so incredibly boring. I own it on DVD because I went through a period where I basically bought every horror film that could I find. I’ve watched The Sentinel a handful of times and somehow, I always manage to forget just how mind-numbingly dull this movie really is. There’s a few scary images but mostly, it’s just Burgess Meredith acting eccentric and Chris Sarandon looking mildly annoyed. If you’ve ever seen Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, or The Omen, you’ll figure out immediately what’s going on but The Sentinel still insists on dragging it all out. Watching this movie is about as exciting as watching an Amish blacksmith shoe a horse.
There’s a lot of good actors in the film but it’s obvious that most of them just needed to pick up a paycheck. I’ve read a lot of criticism of Cristina Raines’s lead performance but I actually think she does a pretty good job. It’s not her acting that’s at fault. It’s the film’s stupid script and lackluster direction.
For today’s horror on the lens, we have the 1946 suspense film, The Spiral Staircase!
In this film, Dorothy McGuire plays Helen, a young mute woman who has been hired to serve as a caretaker for wealthy old Mrs. Warren (Ethel Barrymore, who was nominated for an Oscar for this film). At the same time, someone is murdering women in the same town. Are they all connected? Of course, they are! The fun of the movie is discovering how they’re connected.
I was introduced to The Spiral Staircase by my friend and fellow member of the Late Night Movie Gang, Chris Filby. It’s a gothic murder mystery, full of atmosphere and menace. I think you’ll like it so, if you have 80 minutes to spend on it, please watch and enjoy!
(Lisa is not just watching horror movies! She is also trying to clean out her DVR! She has got over 200 movies that she needs to watch before January 1st! Will she make it? Keep checking here to find out! She recorded Open Marriage off of Lifetime on February 4th!)
Sometimes, cleaning out the DVR really does make you feel as if you’ve stepped into a time machine.
Take Open Marriage, for instance. I recorded this film on February 4th and, as soon as I watched it, I was transported back to those romantic days leading up to Valentine’s Day. Suddenly, I once again found myself in a time when every other commercial was either for Fifty Shades Darker or Adore Me lingerie. I was reminded of how, from the beginning of January to the end of March, not a single day went by that I didn’t say to my boyfriend, “You like it too. Right, babe?”
(If you’ve seen the commercial, you know what I’m talking about. If not, don’t worry about it.)
Anyway, it’s appropriate that Open Marriage aired in between all of those commercials for Fifty Shades Darker. Much like the Fifty Shades movies, Open Marriage is one of those films that pretends to be all decadent but which is actually kind of silly. Ron (Tilky Jones) and Becca (Nikki Leigh) are young, pretty, and married but they’ve got some problems. Ron recently hurt his back and he’s been out of work for a year. They’ve got a huge house but they’re struggling financially. Despite Ron’s big sexy tattoo, there’s no more spark to their marriage.
However, things change when they visit their friends, Mindy (Kelly Dowdle) and Max (Jason Tobias). Mindy and Max are young, pretty, and married but they don’t spend all of their time fighting. How is this possible!? Could it be because they’re rich and have an even bigger house than Ron and Becca? Or could it be the fact that they have an open marriage? Ron and Becca may say that they’re skeptical about the whole open marriage thing but they get so turned on by the idea that they have very passionate Lifetime-approved sex right before the first commercial break.
Naturally, all of this leads to the two couples experimenting with each other. This means going to a secret club and getting a private room in back. One of the rules is that the two couples always have to be together but, instead, Becca and Max go off on their own. Ron gets upset and demands an end to all the swinging. Becca agrees but soon finds herself tempted to return to the club. The club, by the way, is named Caligula. I assume that Nero was already taken.
Anyway, I liked Open Marriage because it offered up three of my favorite things: trashy sex, trashy lingerie, and trashy melodrama. On the one hand, the movie is totally ludicrous and kind of silly. On the other hand, it’s so totally over the top that it’s impossible not to be amused and entertained by it all. If nothing else, Open Marriage was better than Fifty Shades Darker so let’s give credit where credit is due.
Through the Shattered Lens 