Horror Film Review: Monster From The Ocean Floor (dir by Wyott Ordung)

Posted on October 21, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Are you ready to go in the water?

That’s the question asked by the 1954 film, Monster From The Ocean Floor. Taking place in a Mexican fishing village and artist’s colony, Monster From The Ocean Floor features a lot of underwater action. It also features a monster who lives on the ocean floor and who has been terrorizing fisherman, swimmers, and divers. Unfortunately, despite being featured in the title, there’s not really much of the Monster in this film. It takes a while for the Monster to even be acknowledged and, when the Monster finally does show up, it’s over all too quickly. I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised by any of that, seeing as how this is a 1950s Roger Corman production that was apparently made on a budget of $20,000. Producer Corman and director Wyott Ordung had to choose between devoting screen time to a potentially expensive monster or to a one-man submarine that they could use for free as long as they listed the submarine’s manufacturer in the opening and end credits. They went with the submarine.

In fact, the submarine was apparently the main reason that Corman decided to make this film, his first as a producer. He read an article about it in the Los Angeles Times and decided that it sounded like the perfect thing to feature in a movie. In what would become typical Corman fashion, Corman got the submarine first and then built a movie around it.

As for the movie, it features Stuart Wade as Steve Dunning, the hunky Marine biologist who loves the ocean and frequently pilots the submarine. When Steve and his submarine first emerge from the ocean, they briefly frighten Julie Blair (Anne Kimbell), an artist who is at the village in search for inspiration. Later, when Julie actually does briefly see the monster rising from the ocean, Steve and Dr. Baldwin (Dick Pinner) theorize that the Monster From The Ocean Floor is actually a prehistoric creature that was in a Cthulhu-like slumber until it was reawakened by atomic bomb testing on the nearby Bikini Islands.

The people at the village don’t really care where the Monster came from or what the Monster might mean for the cause of science. They just want the Monster go away so that they continue their lives in peace. Pablo (played by the film’s director, Wyott Ordung) and Tula (Inez Palange) think that the solution might be a human sacrifice and they make plans to summon a shark to eat the diving Julie. Agck!

As I mentioned earlier, this film was Roger Corman’s debut as a producer. Corman was only 25 at the time and he didn’t direct the film but still, everything about Monster From The Ocean Floor — from the low budget to the casting of Jonathan Haze (and Corman himself!) in a small role — easily identifies this as being a Corman film. It has its fun moments and, for a 1954 film, Anne Kimbell’s Julie Blair is a refreshingly independent and liberated character. Unfortunately, the overall film is a bit slow and it does seem to take forever for the monster to actually show up.

Ultimately, Monster From The Ocean Floor‘s main importance is as a piece of B-movie history. With this movie, the glorious filmmaking career of Roger Corman began.

Horror on the Lens: The Terror (dir by Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Hill, Monte Hellman, Dennis Jakob, and Jack Nicholson)

Posted on October 21, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Have you ever woken up and thought to yourself, “I’d love to see a movie where a youngish Jack Nicholson played a French soldier who, while searching for a mysterious woman, comes across a castle that’s inhabited by both Dick Miller and Boris Karloff?”

Of course you have! Who hasn’t?

Well, fortunately, it’s YouTube to the rescue. In Roger Corman’s 1963 film The Terror, Jack Nicholson is the least believable 19th century French soldier ever. However, it’s still interesting to watch him before he became a cinematic icon. (Judging from his performance here and in Cry Baby Killer, Jack was not a natural-born actor.) Boris Karloff is, as usual, great and familiar Corman actor Dick Miller gets a much larger role than usual. Pay attention to the actress playing the mysterious woman. That’s Sandra Knight who, at the time of filming, was married to Jack Nicholson.

Reportedly, The Terror was one of those films that Corman made because he still had the sets from his much more acclaimed film version of The Raven. The script was never finished, the story was made up as filming moved alone, and no less than five directors shot different parts of this 81 minute movie. Among the directors: Roger Corman, Jack Hill, Monte Hellman, Francis Ford Coppola, and even Jack Nicholson himself! Perhaps not surprisingly, the final film is a total mess but it does have some historical value.

(In typical Corman fashion, scenes from The Terror were later used in the 1968 film, Targets.)

Check out The Terror below!

Horror on the Lens: Dementia 13 (dir by Francis Ford Coppola)

Posted on October 20, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(I originally shared this film back in 2011, 2019, and 2022 — can you believe we’ve been doing this for that long? — but the YouTube upload keeps getting taken down! So, I’m resharing it today!)

For today’s excursion into the world of public domain horror, I offer up the film debut of Francis Ford Coppola. Before Coppola directed the Godfather and Apocalypse Now, he directed a low-budget, black-and-white thriller that was called Dementia 13. In a possible sign of things to come, producer Roger Corman and Coppola ended up disagreeing on the film’s final cut and Corman reportedly brought in director Jack Hill to film and, in some cases, re-film additional scenes.

Regardless of whether the credit should go to Coppola, Corman, or Hill, Dementia 13 is a brutally effective little film that is full of moody photography and which clearly served as an influence on the slasher films that would follow it in the future. Speaking of influence, Dementia 13 itself is obviously influenced by the Italian giallo films that, in 1963, were just now starting to make their way into the drive-ins and grindhouses of America.

Speaking of giallo films, keep an eye out for Patrick Magee, who gave a memorable performance in Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat. Luana Anders, who plays the duplicitous wife in this film, showed up in just about every other exploitation film made in the 60s and yes, the scene where she’s swimming freaks me out to no end. Other films featuring Luana Anders include Night Tide and Easy Rider, in which she played one of the hippies who unsuccessfully enticed Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper to stay at the commune.

As for Francis Ford Coppola, his career has had its up and downs but he’s a beloved figured on the pop cultural landscape and a director whose best films continue to inspire and influence. He is currently filming Megalopolis.

Horror Scenes I Love: Peter Lorre in Tales of Terror

Posted on October 19, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Born in what is now Slovakia, Peter Lorre began his acting career in Europe, appearing on the stage and making quite an impression when he starred in Fritz Lang’s M. When the Nazis came to power, Lorre was one of the many film artists who left Germany. At first, he moved to France but, in 1934, he set sail for the United States and continued his career in Hollywood. A popular character actor, Lorre appeared in such classic films as The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Maltese Falcon, Mad Love, Arsenic and Old Lace and Casablanca. Though his role in Casablanca was small, he still played a key role when he gave Rick the letters of transit.

He also appeared in several horror films, often opposite his good friend Vincent Price and Boris Karloff. In this scene from 1962’s Tales of Terror, Lorre and Price challenge each other to a wine-drinking contest.

Horror on the Lens: The Little Shop of Horrors (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(It’s tradition here at the Lens that, every October, we watch the original Little Shop of Horrors. And always, I start things off by telling this story…)

Enter singing.

Little Shop…Little Shop of Horrors…Little Shop…Little Shop of Terrors…

Hi! Good morning and Happy October 24th! For today’s plunge into the world of public domain horror films, I’d like to present you with a true classic. From 1960, it’s the original Little Shop of Horrors!

When I was 19 years old, I was in a community theater production of the musical Little Shop of Horrors. Though I think I would have made the perfect Audrey, everybody always snickered whenever I sang so I ended up as a part of “the ensemble.” Being in the ensemble basically meant that I spent a lot of time dancing and showing off lots of cleavage. And you know what? The girl who did play Audrey was screechy, off-key, and annoying and after every show, all the old people in the audience always came back stage and ignored her and went straight over to me. So there.

Anyway, during rehearsals, our director thought it would be so funny if we all watched the original film. Now, I’m sorry to say, much like just about everyone else in the cast, this was my first exposure to the original and I even had to be told that the masochistic dentist patient was being played by Jack Nicholson. However, I’m also very proud to say that — out of that entire cast — I’m the only one who understood that the zero-budget film I was watching was actually better than the big spectacle we were attempting to perform on stage. Certainly, I understood the film better than that screechy little thing that was playing Audrey.

The first Little Shop of Horrors certainly isn’t scary and there’s nobody singing about somewhere that’s green (I always tear up when I hear that song, by the way). However, it is a very, very funny film with the just the right amount of a dark streak to make it perfect Halloween viewing.

So, if you have 72 minutes to kill, check out the original and the best Little Shop of Horrors…

Horror Film Review: The Beast With A Million Eyes (dir by David Kramarsky, Lou Place, Donald Myers, and Roger Corman)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1955 film, The Beast With A Million Eyes, has three credited directors and reportedly, Roger Corman also stepped in and took over the direction as well, even though he received no screen credit. That’s a lot of directors for a relatively simple sci-fi/horror film. Reportedly, the problem with the directors came from the fact that The Beast With A Million Eyes was a non-union production and, after one day of production, the unions threatened to picket the set and basically shut down production unless the entire cast and crew signed up for the guilds. The unions eventually got their members and their money but all of the drama set production so far behind that Roger Corman stepped in, fired award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, and proceeded to finish up the film himself.

As for the film itself, it takes place in the California countryside. Allan Kelly (Paul Birch, who was one of the first guys to get killed in The War of the Worlds and later played the dying alien in Corman’s Not Of This Earth) has no use for modern society and he has moved his family to a ranch in the California desert. His family is not particularly happy about this. His wife, Carol (Lorna Thayer), hates being isolated from the world. Their teenage daughter, Sandy (Dana Cole), is lonely and has a strained relationship with her mother. The only thing that makes Sandy happy is her boyfriend (played by Dick Sargent, who would later take over the role of Darin on Bewitched) and her dog. Perhaps the worst part of living out in the desert is that their handyman is a weirdo known as Him (Leonard Tarver).

Now, I should mention that, when I was growing up, my family moved around a lot. I spent a while living on a few farms that were owned by my aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Even after we finally settled down in Texas, I would still frequently visit their farms. I enjoyed visiting the farms, even though I’m pretty much a city girl at heart. I can say that The Beast With A Million Eyes definitely captured the isolated feel of country life. Watching the film, I could feel the heart of the unforgiving sun. I could feel the feeling of tall grass against my bare legs. And, at times, I could even remember the sound of roosters in the distance and crickets and grasshoppers chanting in the night.

Fortunately, my family was never bothered by aliens while we were on the farm. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the family at the center of The Beast With A Million Eyes. An alien decides to test its invasion plan on the family. First, the animals turn against the family, including the poor family dog. (This is probably not a film to watch if you feel about dogs the way that I feel about cats.) Then, the handyman suddenly turns against the family as well. The alien is taking over the minds of the living beings around, starting with animals and then moving on to humans. Can the family defeat the aliens? And will nature ever be the same?

Hey, I liked The Beast With A Million Eyes! Usually, when the film has a lot of directors, it results in a disjointed mess but The Beast With A Million Eyes actually had an interesting story and a lot of country atmosphere. As opposed to the stereotypically perfect 50s family, the family at the center of The Beast With A Million Eyes is believably dysfunctional but, in the end, they have to come together to save the humanity. I just hope the rest of the world would be willing to do the same.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Roger Corman Edition

Posted on October 11, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

This October, I am going to be using our 4 Shots From 4 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order! That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!

Today’s director is one of the most influential figures in American film history, the one and only Roger Corman!

4 Shots From 4 Roger Corman Films

Not of this Earth (1957, dir by Roger Corman, DP: John Mescall)

The Little Shop of Horrors (1960, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Archie R. Dalzell)

X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes (1963, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)

The Masque of Red Death (1964, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Nicolas Roeg)

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Sweet Kill (dir by Curtis Hanson)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As the saying goes, everyone has to start somewhere and, for Curtis Hanson, that somewhere was with 1973’s Sweet Kill.

Curtis Hanson, of course, would go on to become one of Hollywood’s top genre directors, directing films like The River Wild, Bad Influence, Wonder Boys, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, 8 Mile, and the Oscar-nominated L.A. Confidential. But, in the early 70s, he was just one of the many recent film school grads who approached Roger Corman for a job.

Having previously worked on the script for the Corman-produced Dunwich Horror, Hanson approached Roger and told him that he had an idea for a Psycho-inspired movie about a female serial killer. Corman replied that he would help finance the film if Hanson made the killer into a man. Hanson did so but Corman still ended up only putting up a third of the film’s budget as opposed to the two/thirds that he had originally offered. Hanson ended up convincing his parents to take out a mortgage on their home to help finance the movie.

Hanson shot the film in 1971. Corman said that the film showed promise but that it needed more nudity and a better title if it was going to be successful. Corman re-edited the film and additional nude scenes were shot and inserted into the film. Despite this, Sweet Kill was a box office disappointment when it was originally released. Corman re-titled the film Kisses For Eddie but it didn’t help at the box office. Finally, the film was released under a third title, The Arousers. Despite a lurid ad campaign built around “the arousers,” the film once again failed at the box office. It wouldn’t be until years later, when Hanson started to achieve some mainstream success, that Sweet Kill would be rediscovered.

After all of the drama that went into post-production, it would be nice to be able to report that Sweet Kill was some sort of overlooked masterpiece but, to be honest, it’s pretty bad. The film stars Tab Hunter as Eddie Collins. When Eddie was a kid, he used to hide in the closet and watch as his mother lounged around her bedroom in lingerie. Now that Eddie is a grown-up and working as a high school gym coach, he is still so haunted by his mother that he’s impotent. As a result, Eddie spends his time breaking into apartments, stealing underwear, and having a prostitute dress up like his mother so that he can undress her while sobbing. After a chance meeting with a hippie girl leads to Eddie once again failing to get it up, he shoves the girl hard enough to kill her. The film implies that this act of violence leads to Eddie getting aroused for the first time and soon, Eddie is killing people and …. well, that’s pretty much the whole movie. There’s not really a plot, beyond Eddie looking confused and trying to keep his sympathetic neighbor from finding out that he’s a serial killer.

Sweet Kill has gotten some attention because of the casting of former teen idol Tab Hunter in the role of psycho Eddie. Tab Hunter has the right blonde look for Eddie, who is basically a homicidal beach bum, but otherwise, Hunter’s performance is fairly dull. Watching the film, it’s obvious that he wasn’t particularly comfortable with the role of Eddie and, as such, he sleepwalks through the performance. (Ironically, Eddie was based on Norman Bates, who was played by Hunter’s former partner, Anthony Perkins.) There are a few creepy moments where Hunter stares off into the distance with a blank look on his face but otherwise, this isn’t a particularly memorable performance nor is Sweet Kill a particularly interesting film.

That said, Curtis Hanson went on to have quite a career so, on that level, Sweet Kill‘s bland badness is inspiring. If the director of Sweet Kill could still go on to direct and produce some of the best films of the past 50 years, there’s hope for everyone looking to achieve their dreams. Don’t let one failure get you down.

October Hacks: Sorority House Massacre (dir by Carol Frank)

Posted on October 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1986 film, Sorority House Massacre, tells the story of two people who share a psychic bond.

Beth (Angela O’Neill) is a college student who can’t remember anything about her childhood and who was raised by her aunt. After her aunt dies, Beth joins a sorority and moves into their house. Almost from the minute that she arrives, Beth starts to have disturbing visions and dreams of a man with a knife and blood dripping from the ceiling. With most of the members of the sorority leaving for the Memorial Day weekend, Beth ends up staying with Linda (Wendy Martel), Sara (Pamela Ross), and Tracy (Nicole Rio). The other girls want to have a fun weekend but instead, they find themselves dealing with Beth and her glum attitude. Linda and Sara sincerely want to help. Tracy is a bit annoyed with the whole thing and I don’t blame her.

Meanwhile, a man named Bobby (John C. Russell) is a patient at a mental asylum. He’s been a patient ever since he was arrested for murdering almost his entire family. Bobby has been in a rage for the past few days, beating his head on the walls and attacking anyone who enters the room. Just as Beth finds herself having visions of Bobby, Bobby has visions of Beth. When Bobby does finally manage to escape from the hospital, the first thing he does is break into a hardware store and steal a hunting knife. (He uses the knife to take care of the owner of the store.) Then he steals a car and promptly drives off towards Los Angeles and the sorority house.

Sorority House Massacre was produced by Roger Corman and, just as he did with Slumber Party Massacre, he hired a woman to both direct and write the film. As such, while Sorority House Massacre has all of the usual scenes of sorority girls taking showers, trying on clothes, and running around in states of undress, it’s still never as misogynistic as some other slasher films. Beth, Sara, Linda, and Tracy all come across as being fully-rounded characters and the viewer doesn’t want anything bad to happen to any of them. If anything, in this film, it’s the various boyfriends who are portrayed as being somewhat disposable and easily victimized. Certainly, not a single one of the guys proves to be particularly useful once Bobby shows up at the sorority house and starts his massacre.

Why is Bobby fixated on the sorority house and Beth in particular? Director Carol Frank does a good job of portraying the killer’s mental state, with a good deal of the film’s scenes being shot from his own point of view. (Perhaps the scariest moments are not the ones featuring blood and knives but the ones in which the killer moves from location to location and we see, through his point of view, just how relentless he is.) Frank also takes us straight into Beth’s mind, showing us her vivid hallucinations as they happen and the end result is that Sorority House Massacre often has an unexpectedly surreal feel to it. It’s a low-budget slasher film that plays out like a filmed nightmare and it sticks with you, even after the end credits.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Roger Corman Edition

Posted on April 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Roger Corman in The Godfather Part II

4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.

Today, we wish a happy 97th birthday to the legendary filmmaker, Roger Corman! And that means that it’s time for….