Monster From A Prehistoric Planet (1967)

JUNE 12, 2008

GENRE: ASIAN, MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

I have never seen any of the old Godzilla movies, or Gamera, or Gorgo, ... I dunno, Googleo. But thanks to my Horror Classics set, I HAVE seen Gappa, or as it’s sadly known instead, Monster From A Prehistoric Planet (aka Daikyojû Gappa - close enough!), which I assume is pretty much the same: A guy in a suit destroying models, lots of pleasant Asian guys coming up with plans to stop them, a life lesson about mankind’s often false sense of superiority... all that good stuff is here.

It’s also, as far as I can recall, the only color film in the entire Horror Classics set, which is nice. It’s been so long since I have watched anything from the (mostly color) Chilling Classics set that I had forgotten what old, scratched, poorly transferred VHS color looked like. However, there is one thing I don’t miss, and this blatantly obvious cropped imagery:

However, Iwao Yamaz’s reenplay is an entertaining one, with a good amount of destruction, and thus many a model knocked over. I wish he had come up with the idea of having the two monsters (who are seeking their stolen baby monster) maybe split up to cover more ground, rather than constantly staying side by side and destroying the same buildings at the same time (must have inspired the game Rampage), but that’s OK. I also wish he had explained the monster’s power, which is some sort of blue light that emanates from their mouth, which causes toy airplanes to explode into 4 or 5 pieces.

(Note – I love that rather than risk continuity errors, the filmmakers use toys whether the monsters are in the shot or not).

And come on, how can you not be entertained by a monster that looks like this:

Now, as I am not familiar with the others – when there are multiple monsters, they kill off at least one of them, right? We have 3 here, I was assuming that at least one would take a nuke up the ass or something, but no, the happy ending sees the monster family taking off together, all but cheered on by the human beings the monsters were stepping on just moments earlier.

Also, the monsters sound like jets for some reason. Just wanted to point that out.

What say you?

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Asian, Horror Classics, Monster,

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Black Dragons (1942)

MAY 28, 2008

GENRE: REVENGE, THRILLER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

Honestly, I can’t take another one of these movies. I can’t even tell them apart anymore. Even though Black Dragons has a spy plot (with lots of racist overtones – I wasn’t aware major newspapers referred to our enemies simply as “Japs”), it’s essentially yet another movie that takes place in a large house, features a butler, a horror icon (Lugosi here), a wise talking cop, and a dame who is there to see someone with ties to her uncle (or her uncle himself in some of them). Murders are largely off-screen, bodies disappear, people run in and out of a lot of rooms with swinging doors, etc. It’s the same crap I’ve watched a dozen times on this set.

The odd thing about the movie is that the synopsis gives away the film’s twist ending. It says it’s about a guy who is imprisoned after performing plastic surgery on six Japanese men who plan to impersonate six different US leaders. But none of that is really even mentioned in the film’s first 55 minutes or so, it’s only revealed in the final 10 minutes what exactly Lugosi was up to and why he was killing some dudes. It’d be like saying that The Usual Suspects is about a guy named Keyser Soze who fabricates a story to a detective while he awaits bail for his assumed alias of Verbal Kint.

Then again, the synopsis also mistakes Lugosi for Karloff, so I should have known better than to put any stock into it.

It’s also one of the lesser transfers on the set. An entire chunk of the film has white noise over it (it actually sounds like popcorn being popped at an alarmingly delicious rate), and certain reels have sections with what could only be described as electronic mud on the right side of the frame. Somewhere in the world there exists a man who considers this to be his favorite film, and it’s sad to think that he can’t get a decent copy.

That aside, the rest is the same as the others, so if you haven’t seen any of them (and judging from the lack of comments for these movies, you haven’t), there is some mild entertainment to be had from the story, particularly the scenes where Lugosi holds an imprisoned dude down and forces him to ward off visitors by telling them that he is fine and doesn’t need their assistance (Lugosi’s operation on his face left him monstrous). And the dame (Joan Barclay) is pretty cute, which makes it all the more puzzling why not only does she never kiss our hero, but she is also revealed to be an undercover cop in the film’s final act, an issue that is never brought up again or resolved. Why not have her onscreen more? You get eye candy AND resolution of your own generic subplots!

I only have about a dozen movies left on the Horror Classics set; I hope like hell none of them follow this story template. If so I may be forced to take drastic action (like, watch something else that day).

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Revenge, Thriller,

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Vampire Bat (1933)

MAY 7, 2008

GENRE: VAMPIRE (?)
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

There ARE 30s and 40s horror movies that don’t have Lionel Atwill and/or Dwight Frye, right? It seems one or both men turn up in every single old movie I watch, classy (Universal) or not (budget pack). Vampire Bat is one of the 598,569 examples, casting Atwill (looking very Udo Kier-y here) as the resident evil doctor and Dwight Frye as, shocker, a mumbling weirdo that scares everyone.

As these things go, it’s not too bad. Melvyn Douglas as Carl, the film’s “process of elimination” hero (he doesn’t DO anything, but everyone else has a defined role, so hero is all that’s left), is a particular delight, mainly because Carl is, quite frankly, a dick. He scoffs at just about everything anyone says, yet offers no theories of his own. The silly German accents also add to the enjoyment; I never tire of hearing someone discuss a victim’s “JOOG-you-lar vein”.

This also killed me:

So let’s break it down – the bad guy has a bottle of poison, which he has labeled “Sleeping tablets”. Now, either he needs to remind himself what he is telling people they are (or maybe he has different poisons that resemble different medicines), OR he is trying to fool someone who might find the bottle into thinking that they are indeed, actual sleeping pills, and that they ignore the painfully visible POISON label. Either way I laughed my ass off at the sight, hence the screengrab.

One bummer is that the vampire” turned out to be yet another crazy human. In the height of Dracula and such, I’m not sure why so many of these old movies turn out to have such non supernatural endings. This movie even goes the extra mile to throw you off track, as werewolves are also discussed at length, and yet never actually implemented into the storyline. Oh well.

IMdb lists the running time as 64-65 minutes, yet this copy ran a scant 59. Is the IMDb in error, or am I missing 5-6 minutes worth of Atwill talking about coffee and Douglas just being an insufferable cock? I would hate to think Mill Creek was half-assing their responsibilities and thus not providing its customers with the most complete, pristine version of these classics at a cost of 40 cents a piece.

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Vampire,

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Maniac (1934)

APRIL 30, 2008

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

“Once a ham, always a ham.”

A fantastic line from a fantast- well, from a movie.

But hey, can you go really wrong with a 1930’s era, COMPLETELY non-Code-following production called Maniac? Well, yes. You can go wrong with a lot of things. Luckily, this odd little (very little – the running time is shorter than that of the studio edit of Les Cousins Dangereux) movie more or less delivers it’s non promise of a maniac and visuals that are quite frankly pretty shocking for the era.

What does it deliver, besides odd dialogue about luncheon meat? For starters, and to quote Mike Starr: “Tits!”. Yes, despite being, you know, old, this movie has lots of nudity (the full title was Sex Maniac), which was a surprise to me not just because I thought such things were outlawed back then, but also because, as it is a budget pack movie, I was watching it at work, and had to quickly minimize the window before my co-workers saw (one of them was watching FOX news at the time, so I doubt whatever bullshit they were airing was any less graphic, but still). The whole point of the budget pack is to allow me to watch movies at work when I don’t have time to watch one at home (tonight I am seeing Speed Racer, and then punching out whoever assorted Liberty City denizens tell me to), due to the fact that they “definitely” don’t have not-work-safe things like nudity or graphic gore. What’s next, drug use and on-screen murder?

Well Maniac has those too. The story concerns a doctor who is killed by his assistant while they are attempting to revive dead tissue (pretty much the modus operandi for all mad scientists. Just once I want to see a mad scientist whose primary objective is to cure anosmia). For reasons that never quite make sense, the assistant then disguises himself as the doctor and continues the work. He was an older man – why not just say he died? Or Even still, why disguise yourself at all when you constantly have to explain where the “assistant” went anyway? Stupid mad scientists!

The most unique aspect of the film is that it continually presents us title cards providing us very stripped down (and now outdated) facts about paranoia, manic-depressives, etc. They pop up every 5-10 minutes and deliver info that isn’t quite relevant to what is on screen (he’s not manic depressive, he’s just a fucking loon, and terrible criminal mastermind to boot!). The scientist also occasionally freaks out, and we see the terrible visions in his mind – all of which happen to be footage from films such as Fritz Lang’s Siegfried. It reminded me of a “self portrait” I had to do in film school – the camera zoomed into my eye and you saw my “brain”, which consisted entirely bunch of clips from Fletch and Armageddon, plus snippets of bad rock ballads about broken hearts. Good stuff.

And star of Demon Knight.

Oh and the doctor pops a cat’s eyeball out for some reason. The director goes to great lengths to ensure the audience that it’s not a real cat (the one he squeezes in close-up is orange, despite the fact that it is a black cat that he captures), but still, it’s hardly the light fare I am used to for any film that cost me 40 cents.

If anyone has a copy of this movie on its own DVD, I am curious – is the title card quite obviously a still from the movie with the title imposed with computer based technology (i.e. Avid title tool)? Because it’s really jarring as presented here, and I am wondering what the deal is on that.

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Mad Scientist,

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The Beast Of Yucca Flats (1961)

APRIL 22, 2008

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

Really, what else do you need to know?

My favorite all time episode of MST3k is Red Zone Cuba, an incomprehensible action movie about robbers, treasure, Castro, prisoners, hobos... I’ve seen it probably a dozen times and still don’t have the slightest clue as to what the hell is going on at any given time. It’s also hilarious, with many of my favorite sayings coming directly from Mike and the ‘bots comments (if you’ve never heard me randomly sing “Drink Night Train, go to the basketball game; throw up under the bleachers...” – you just don’t know me, man). So I had immediately checked out the episode The Skydivers, which was another film by the same guys – Coleman Francis and Anthony Cordoza. The episode sucked. Disheartened, I opted not to watch their treatment of the 3rd Francis/Cordoza masterpiece; The Beast Of Yucca Flats, until I had seen the movie itself, figuring I could tell whether or not it would make for a good episode based on how funny it was without them.

And let me tell you – this movie doesn’t even need the guys on the Satellite of Love. I was laughing my ass off almost nonstop. It’s also gotta be a ridiculously short episode – the movie only runs 54 minutes! Was this acceptable back in the 60s? I feel gypped if I see a movie under 80 minutes, let alone one under 60. Christ, some episodes of Star Trek run longer than that!

And yet, it’s a padded film. There’s an opening scene that has absolute zero connection to the film (it’s a woman being killed by a guy who’s allegedly Tor Johnson, but she’s in a house and he spends the entire film in the empty desert), a lengthy North by Northwest wannabe sequence that results in the death of a guy looking for his two kids, etc. There is also an attempt to make the plot look more complicated than it is, with the narrator rambling on and on about things that ultimately have no real bearing on the film itself.

Speaking of the narrator, he doesn’t narrate so much as he just sort of says things that sound interesting. Everything he says would begin and end with ellipsis if his dialogue was written. My favorite is early on, when he says “Yucca Flats... the A bomb... secret data... the first rocket to the moon....” in succession, as we see guys in a car drive around and shoot (pfft, I mean, wave guns) at some other guys. It’s beautiful. Even his dialogue is padded, as he offers no-shitteries such as “Vacation time... people travel east, west, north, or south...” for no reason whatsoever. And in what may be the most useless line of dialogue ever recorded until Vampires came along, Francis tells us that it’s “110 in the shade... and no shade.” How profound.

At least the narrator has a reason for being a disembodied voice. Francis shot the film without sound, and rather than try to sync stuff, he just had everyone talk off camera. I don’t think there’s a single shot in the film of someone talking where you can see their mouth. Some scenes include speakers that are never actually seen, which results in more than one occasion where you might be tempted to think that the characters are all insane, talking to non-existent people.

Hilariously, the transfer is one of the best I’ve seen yet on the Horror Classics set. Picture quality is crisp, the sound detail isn’t muddled, etc. And the end credits, seen at the beginning of the film (they scroll up! Opening credits don’t do that!) are all perfectly legible. Then again, since it’s not even a full length film, I guess they had more disk space to work with on the DVD. Sucks to be you, filmmakers who put effort into their stories and came up with 75 minutes or so of material! Enjoy your blocky, washed out image! Coleman and I will be up in a biplane, firing at random people in the desert and laughing all the way to the bank!

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Monster,

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One Body Too Many (1944)

APRIL 9, 2008

GENRE: COMEDIC, THRILLER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

You don’t often get a spoiler right in the title, but One Body Too Many is an example. A guy goes to sell insurance to a man who, unbeknownst to him, has just died. That’s the One Body. But over the course of the film, which is the 33748th about people in a house fighting over an inheritance, only one other person dies, thus One Body TOO MANY. It's like, "this is what you're in for, we promise nothing more than what is in the title." Thus, I propose we change the title of Friday the 13th to 10 Bodies Too Many.

However, even with the relative lack of suspense thanks to the jerk title, this one’s actually pretty fun. The comedy is typical of the era, but I got a few laughs out of it, particularly during the reading of the will (or the introduction to the will, rather), where the guy mocked each and every one of his benefactors in writing. I plan to do the same. “And how can I forget you, Jeff and Kolleen, the schmucks who did not appreciate Joshua....”

The main guy is a hoot, too. His name is Jack Haley, better known as the Tin Man. Other than that, I've never seen him in anything else, but there’s one line alone that makes me want to watch every single movie he’s ever done just to see if he does it again. There’s a point in the film where he wants to leave, and he’s giving a big ‘farewell’ speech. At the end he goes “I’m leaving!” and then proceeds to let out a weird little groan/sigh/thing. I would spell it “Wyeeeaahhh!” It’s pure bliss.

The typically bad Mill Creek transfer results in some other laughs, such as when everyone gasps in shock at a line that was completely skipped over due to them using an obviously broken film print. There’s another scene where Haley accuses Bela Lugosi of being the bad guy (who can blame him?). He says “Then where’d you get the mud on your shoes?” At this point the camera pans down to presumably show said mud on said shoes, but damned if I can see a goddamn thing once the image gets darker with the down pan. I’ll take Haley’s word for it, I guess. Plus it’s Lugosi, he probably shot up at the bottom of a ditch between takes and they had to write his dirty shoes into the film.

Anyway, fun little movie, and even a tad longer than most Horror Classics, coming in at over 70 minutes. Audiences back then must have demanded an intermission.

What say you?

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Comedic, Horror Classics, Thriller,

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The Invisible Ghost (1941)

APRIL 2, 2008

GENRE: POSSESSION
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

Did they have trailers before the movies back in the 40s? I like to imagine they did, and that there was a particularly sarcastic audience member who pointed out how many of the movies coming out were identical to the one they were about to see: bunch of folks in a house run by a horror icon, a couple of murders, a street smart detective, the idea that the causes for the murders is supernatural when its not, and really kind of lame to boot... Imagine going to see Shutter and seeing the trailers for One Missed Call, Pulse, The Eye, The Grudge, The Ring, and Dark Water... Christ.

Anyway, The Invisible Ghost (which doesn’t feature a ghost, or Chevy Chase*) is just like a bunch of other movies I’ve already watched/written about from the Horror Classics set, so I really don’t have much to say about it. It’s good to see Bela Lugosi in a rare ‘normal’ role (he’s the killer, but he’s possessed when he kills, and the rest of the time he’s quite pleasant, if terrible at chess). Also, the African American character (Clarence Muse) isn’t played as a stereotype, unlike Jeff in King of the Zombies, so that’s a plus.

He also has my favorite line in the movie. At one point the cops suspect him of being the killer. One cop says “Where were you the other night?” to which Muse responds “Have you had your coffee yet?” The cop says no, and instantly forgets all about that whole ‘possible killer’ thing. I plan to use this very same ruse the next time I am suspected in a murder. I just hope I have some coffee around. It’s always embarrassing when you try to distract someone away from the idea that you are a bloodthirsty murderer by offering them some coffee, only to discover you’re completely out.

The one good thing about all of these old movies is that they are ridiculously short. At 64 minutes, this one is over before you realize how boring it is. Lugosi’s possession sequences aside, the rest of the movie is just folks talking about not very interesting things, or accusing one another of killing everyone else; which is kind of moot when we are shown almost right from the start that Lugosi is the killer. Oh well.

What say you?

*Speaking of which, Memoirs Of An Invisible Man is airing on the HDNet movie channel this week! See the only film Carpenter didn’t put his name above the title on in glorious high def! Watch Chase’s career (this was his last non family movie) disappear literally and figuratively in 1080p!

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Horror Classics, Possession,

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The Amazing Mr. X (1948)

MARCH 20, 2008

GENRE: GHOST, MAGICIAN
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

With a title like The Amazing Mr. X, I thought this was going to be some sort of sci-fi heavy monster movie. But no, it’s a movie about an inordinate amount of magicians (both professionals and hobbyists) doing their thing for little reason other than to nail one of two sisters. In theory, not a bad idea!

Like a lot of the budget pack movies, this one is a. so short and b. has just enough laughable moments to warrant giving it an OK mark. For example, within 3 minutes of the film’s beginning, we hear a woman say: “If a man ever chased me into the ocean in the middle of the night, I’d shoot him!” If you had a gun, why did you let this theoretical attacker chase you all the way into the ocean? And does the time matter? Is it more acceptable to be chased into the Pacific during broad daylight?

The conversation even gets more puzzling as the two women begin discussing whether or not one of them will accept a man’s proposal later that night. We are given the impression he has asked her before, and their entire attitude about the possible engagement is impressively laid back; they might as well be discussing whether or not they will go to church on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. Later, during the actual proposal, the guy seems just as shruggish about it; you get the idea that if the phone rang or something that he might forget to ask entirely. The movie’s message seems to be: Marriage - eh, why not?

Later in the film, it seems as if the writer was just trying to be a wiseass, which results in scenes like this:

(A sinister guy opens a door into a house, where the good guy is already inside)
Good guy: “What are you doing here?”
Sinister Guy: “Right now? Opening this door.”

This is even topped in dry hilarity about 10 minutes later. The bad guy has one of the good guys at gunpoint, and the good guy seems to think the bad guy is out of bullets. So he begins, “I started with 7 shells... I have one in the chamber-“ – and then he is cut off by the cops, who riddle him with bullets before he gets a chance to finish his line. It’s fucking hilarious.

As for, you know, the actual MOVIE? Eh. It reminded me of a few other budget pack ones, including Tormented. Like I said, it’s hardly long enough to get boring, and it’s kind of cool to see so many magicians act snooty with one another, scoffing at the others’ knots and such. There isn’t much in the way of horror, especially when the ‘ghost’ is revealed to be a hoax around the halfway mark or so, but it still moves along nicely, and director Bernard Vorhaus and/or DP John Alton are much more inventive with their camerawork and lighting than many of their peers (there’s a lot of great use of single light sources illuminating just the face on a portrait in a wide shot of a room, and things like that).

Unfortunately, the transfer doesn’t do the film justice. It may be one of the worst on the set thus far, in fact. The usual frame skips are larger than usual (at one point it seems a good 5 seconds is missing) and there picture is off center.

Can YOU read any of this shit?

There’s also the strangest transfer flaw I’ve ever encountered; strange to the point where I am convinced I am imagining it. During several scenes I swear I heard a “TV in the next room” type sound. It certainly wasn’t coming from any defined source in the film itself. If anyone else has the Horror Classics pack, please check on this. I can hear it particularly in the scene where the heroine goes to the house and sees a bird before talking to one of the magician guys. You might need headphones, for it is very faint. And possibly non-existent.

What say you?

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Ghost, Horror Classics, Magician,

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Last Woman On Earth

MARCH 6, 2008

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

If there’s one thing Roger Corman doesn’t usually skip on, it’s the horror. Plot, acting, sets, all that stuff is usually an after-thought, but there will ALWAYS be a monster, some gore, a few kills... except for Last Woman On Earth. The horror stems from there being only two men and one woman left in the world (note – the other way around could be the plot of a very different and vastly more exciting type of movie), but that’s it. I was expecting maybe an insane monkey man or maybe a fish monster would also survive the apocalypse, but nope.

So what happens in the movie? Uh... nothing. Our survivors have lived because they were underwater at the time the whole world lost oxygen (must have been a pretty slow day for the scuba diving industry). As the title reminds you, there’s only one woman left, but also two guys, so naturally they both fuck her, and then whale on each other (which results in the film’s only bloodshed – a cut on the loser’s face). Granted, this IS Corman, so I wasn’t expecting scenes like the one in The Stand when they go through the tunnel (the after effects of the end of the world are shown via one guy on the ground next to his car, and another car with a dead driver crashing gently into a curb some 5-6 hours after he should have died).

And again, even for Corman, this feels entirely too cheap. Other than those two guys I mentioned, and another random corpse later on, there is literally zero evidence that anything has occurred. The editing is also choppy as hell, and the three survivors barely ever seem really concerned that they are the only ones left. If the recent I Am Legend got anything right, it was this type of stuff – the isolation and just general creepiness associated with an empty world (and based on the vampire effects, I can only assume that film had as big a budget as Corman’s). This movie is more about the “let’s sit around and yell at each other” situations of an apocalypse.

That said, it’s not without its occasional charm. Robert Towne (from the other Corman quickie that this film was filmed back to back with, the similarly 'The'-less Creature From The Haunted Sea) demonstrates an utterly bizarre way of rinsing his eyes – dipping his fingers into a freshly poured glass of Scotch and rubbing his pupils with them. He also fights the other guy over, of all things, oxygen. “Leaves need oxygen!” he shouts, as he grabs the other guy’s shirt and shakes him violently back and forth. Man loves 3rd grade science. Towne’s script also contains a precious few moments of wit – love the bit about “1/3 of the human race.”

Also the broad’s pretty hot, so it’s perfectly understandable that both guys want to nail her, what with all the other women not only dead but totally vanished from the world.

At 71 minutes, it’s a harmless enough timekiller, but the utter lack of, well, HORROR, makes it pretty disappointing. Luckily, per my own made up rule #4 (“Any film classified as horror by the IMDb is eligible”), it’s enough to get me through another day. And since it’s been out for 48 years, I imagine Mill Creek won’t make me take down the review to exert their authority.

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Post-Apocalyptic,

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The Monster Maker (1944)

MARCH 5, 2008

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

Well after the insanity of Repo, anything would probably seem boring today (I should watch my beloved Armageddon and see if I find it “too slow” now). But The Mad Monster is especially slow, with less action than normal for a film of the era and not a lot going on otherwise.

Here’s another one for “someone remake THIS!” list. The plot is actually kind of awesome: a mad scientist turns a guy into an Elephant man, holding the cure ransom. The desired reward? The guy’s daughter, who the scientist thinks is a spitting image of his late wife (who he accidentally killed when he tried to make her ugly so that no one else would want her). Someone like Cronenberg could make an AMAZING movie out of this. But director Sam Newfield (who did the much better Dead Men Walk) and writers Pierre Gendron and Martin Mooney don’t really do much with the concept, or a giant ape that the scientist keeps in a cage. When your movie has a giant ape, he damn well better kill lots of people OR play hero at the end. In this movie, the damn thing disappears with another 20 minutes to go.

And what’s with all the horror movies that use the pituitary gland as a means for crazy scientific nonsense? In this movie it has something to do with turning folks into Elephant men. In Leech Woman, she used it to keep young. And other movies have come up with different uses for this largely un-cared about part of the human body. My theory is, since no one other than doctors and scientists really know what it does (as opposed to say, the uvula, which you gotta be fucking stupid not to know about!), screenwriters have the creative license to use it for whatever nonsense they come up with for their silly horror movies.

My favorite part of the movie came at the very beginning. A guy walks into the room and tells our eventual victim, “A man is here to see you, he says his name is Doctor Igor Markoff.” He then hands over the guy’s card, and we are treated to a closeup:

LOL. Well at least he wasn’t lying. There’s also an odd credit at the end for the dog in the film: “Ace.... By Himself”. I am not familiar with mid century lingo – is saying BY himself instead of AS himself something folks just did? Or was the creditor just a bit confused on his adverb prepositions? Well, whatever. Other than the wonderfully evil J. Carroll Naish as Markoff, there’s not much here to recommend unless you are a fellow budget pack obsessive.

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Mad Scientist,

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The Mad Monster (1942)

FEBRUARY 20, 2008

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, WEREWOLF
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

One thing I tend to forget about when I am watching older movies like The Mad Monster is the Production Code, only to have an implementation of one of its "rules" completely take you out of a scene. It’s pretty fascinating when you think about it, and if you’re unfamiliar with it I urge you to check out the Wikipedia for it (or even a real encyclopedia, if that’s your bag). Sometimes I wonder how the film industry would be had the code never been (rightfully) abolished. The Saw films would certainly be interesting... the damn Code wouldn’t have allowed the friggin SETTING (a bathroom) for half the time!

Anyway, I was reminded of it late in the film when a guy goes to give our requisite guinea pig (a guy who ironically looks a bit like future Wolf Man Benicio Del Toro) a shot. He walks over, and then there’s a fade to probably 20 seconds later once the shot has been given and the needle withdrawn. Because, even though it was technically being used for a medical purpose (as opposed to heroin), it apparently still fell under “illegal drug use”, something forbidden by the Code. So poorly thought out the thing was, that narrative flow was ruined in this and dog knows how many other films just to spare the audience the sight of something that they had all seen (and probably used) in their life. Nice work. Shit makes the nonsense of Joe Lieberman look reasonable.

The Code cannot be entirely blamed for the (still chilling) scene where the wolf kills a little girl. Naturally, we don’t see the act, but instead the poor kid’s ball rolling out of her bedroom, following by her mother’s panicked screaming. Great scene, rivaling any of the similar kid killings in the old Universal movies. I assume that even if such a thing were allowed to be seen in a film, it would still be filmed the way it was (and the scene would probably have been weakened had actual violence been shown).

Also, this movie may have the earliest appearance of the monster in mad scientist history. The movie’s not even 5 minutes old by the time we get our first transformation scene! Naturally, it slows down considerably afterwards, but at least they got things started on the right note. This is even more important when you consider the rather weak plot, which is just yet another variation on the “Scientist gets revenge on the other scientists who doubted him” plot. Look, if any scientists are reading this, listen up: if a colleague says he’s developing some ridiculous new formula, BACK HIM! Even if it’s just a “Well good luck, buddy!”, it’s a hell of a lot better than telling him he’s insane and then getting yourself mauled to death later when the formula turns out to work after all.

Like last week’s Dead Men Walk, this one stars George Zucco. I must admit I never heard of the gent prior to watching these films, but I’m quickly becoming a fan. In addition to his lovably demented demeanor in both films (did he ALWAYS play a guy seeking revenge?), both of his roles required him to be probably the first actor to talk to empty sets for future effects scenes. In Walk he had to do some split screen stuff to play both roles of twin brothers, and here he has a rather odd scene where he talks to four ghosts, all of whom are opaque. It’s a really well done scene.

At 76 minutes, this is one of the longest movies on the Horror Classics set (and according to the IMDb, the longest B-film from the 1940’s “poverty row” line), and I would just like to point out again that I really hate the Creek for not putting all of the running times next to the titles on this set, as they have for all of the others. Jerks.

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Mad Scientist, Werewolf,

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Dead Men Walk (1943)

FEBRUARY 15, 2008

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

One thing I love about old movies, besides the length (I’m a busy man, I don’t have time for these two hour Argento opuses every day!), is how uncomplicated they are. Dead Men Walk is about a guy who kills his brother, but the brother was into black magic so he comes back as a vampire, and then seeks revenge. That’s it. Nowadays, there’d be a third brother, a real estate scam, some double crosses, a talking sandwich, a few dancing girls, a space shuttle...

This is actually one of the better old-school vampire movies. As expected, you don’t get a lot of violence, but the atmosphere makes up for it, and it also has what had to be one of the first “twin” effects (via a split screen). George Zucco doesn’t fight himself, Van Damme style, but the effect works beautifully and that’s all that matters. There’s also a great deal of fire in the movie; in addition to the standard fiery finale (which contains the longest “thing falls over that starts the fire” shot in cinematic history I think), there’s also 2-3 scenes of book burning in the first 15 minutes.

And also this guy, who resembles a redneck Robert Englund impersonating a chicken when he moves:

Dwight Frye also appears in the film as... the bad guy’s servant! Wow! But to be fair, his role of Zolarr is nothing at all like his Renfield or Igor roles, since this movie wasn’t based on a book. This was a wholly original character, one who just happens to do the same sort of shit that his other ones do. Poor guy. I looked him up on Wikipedia today and found that he died on a bus. A terrible way to go for anyone, but he was about to begin filming a role in a big budget drama about Woodrow Wilson, which must have been pretty exciting for him, since the role probably wouldn’t require him to yell out MASTER! or something to that effect.

Anyway, good stuff. The story might not be groundbreaking, but for 62 minutes you can’t really complain. You CAN complain about the transfer though - it's possibly the worst on this budget pack yet, with lots of that weird shifting effect (where small objects in slow moving shots seem to drift around). Apparently when Turner Classic aired the film a while back, their transfer sucked too. That's one really awesome thing about the digital format - treasures like The Attic will be preserved for hundreds of years to come.

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Vampire,

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The Monster Walks (1932)

FEBRUARY 8, 2008

GENRE: PREDATOR, REVENGE
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

Another Friday, another racist budget pack movie. While not nearly as offensive as King Of The Zombies, the character of Exodus (billed as Sleep n' Eat, for some reason) in The Monster Walks will most likely give a modern audience pause, especially in his final scene when Darwin’s theory of evolution is briefly explained to him (he believes it because his grandfather looked like an ape, only he was lazy). He also points a gun at himself while he talks. Nice.

Sadly that’s probably the only interesting thing about this dull movie. At only 59 minutes (the IMDb lists 63, so there are 4 possibly racist minutes left to the imagination) it still moves at a snail’s pace, and I don’t think I need to remind anyone how sick I am of movies in which folks in an old house kill each other for an inheritance. Granted, instead of a fake ghost or whatever, the villain sets up a poor ape as the murderer, which is a bit different, but not nearly enough to retain my interest.

Not helping matters is the odd audio problem over most of the film. Namely, it sounds like everyone is underwater. Now, none of the budget pack transfers are going to win any awards, but this an issue that is (so far) unique to this film. It wouldn’t be as much of a problem if there was a lot of action, but since 95% of the film is just people talking (the first 15 minutes are comprised of nothing but discussions over where everyone should sleep for the night), it’s a bit annoying.

Question for those of you who own and/or use whips – are there often handstraps on the handle that you use to secure the whip to your hand? The killer is done in because he couldn’t free his hand from the strap in time (the ape pulls him against its cage), but it seemed a bit silly that he’d even have such a thing. A good whipper should be able to hold onto his weapon!

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Predator, Revenge,

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King Of The Zombies

FEBRUARY 1, 2008

GENRE: COMEDIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

“If there’s one thing that I don’t want to be twice, zombies is both of them.”

So says Jeff, the delightfully stereotypical black guy who is a servant to the “hero” of King Of The Zombies. Throughout the film he pretty much does everything you’d expect an African American character to do in a film from the era, and damned if it doesn’t get a little offensive at times. Especially since I’m pretty sure a lot of it is supposed to be played for laughs - when he’s not making bug eyed faces, he’s just hamming it up for no apparent reason.

The concept of the film is fine, some folks crash on an island and discover that the inhabitants are a bit weird (would make a great TV show!). However, I could tell from the plane crash that this one was gone be a lot of talk and no action. In the cheesiest ‘crash’ scene ever, the guys in the plane just suddenly scream (half-assed) and then sort of lean sideways in their seats (also half-assed). Then there’s a fade, and we see everyone was tossed from the plane in the most gentle manner possible (not even a scratch) but the plane looks like it was cut in half. Obviously they didn’t have CG and all that back in the day, but it seems like they weren’t even trying to sell the idea of the crash. So it’s not much of a surprise that a good chunk of the next hour is just folks talking about the island, talking about zombies, talking about earrings... It doesn't help that the bad guy is a boring lout (the role was intended for Lugosi - who would have at least been a bit more entertaining).

Plus, the humor never works once in the film, which is a problem when the Jeff character is constantly trying to be funny. The shtick may have worked back then for bigoted white people, but now it’s just sort of offensive all around. It doesn’t help that he seems to be the only guy in the movie with half a brain, and he is constantly dismissed by his two alleged friends (they don’t even care when he’s not given a drink or a decent bed). I know it was how things were, but it’s still a major distraction – when I watch a budget pack horror movie, I want to be focusing on the boring and stupid plot, not racial stereotypes!

In fact, the only actual ‘horror’ in the film comes at the end, during the typical voodoo dance/fire/guys in masks scene from a million other movies of its type (I had a very strong West Of Zanzibar flashback). The zombies are told to attack the hero, but he says “no, attack the bad guy” (not an exact quote) and pretty much immediately, they do. It’s a nice little scene. And it’s preceded by a hilarious bit where Jeff is looking for a hidden entrance to the voodoo room. “How did I get in there?” he ponders, and leans against the wall. Then, all of a sudden, the film speed is cranked up, and Jeff does this odd sort of stop-motion looking thing as he accidentally discovers the way inside. It’s fucking hilarious.

There’s also this “suspense” scene, as the hero looks for his friend and is watched by one of the zombies. Unfortunately, in order for the scene to work as filmed, you have to assume the hero is retarded, or blind:

He doesn’t see the guy on the right side of the image. Then he walks around the bend and-

-still doesn’t see him. Jesus.

So I guess if you are interested in seeing an early horror/comedy that demonstrates how African Americans were portrayed in films of the era, by all means check this out. Otherwise, unless you’re a budget pack completist, there’s very little to recommend here.

What say you?

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Comedic, Horror Classics, Zombie,

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Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1920)

JANUARY 25, 2008

GENRE: CLASSIC, MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

I do believe that Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde is the first silent film for Horror Movie A Day. Hurrah! It’s a good thing I like endless, inappropriate orchestral music! What’s that? I don’t? Oh. Well it’s a good movie anyway.

Once I got over the depressing realization that everyone in the film is dead, this one was pretty enjoyable. I have never read the book or seen any of the other 478459 versions of this particular film, so I didn’t really know what it was about other than a guy turning into a monster and back at will. Luckily, at no point did he fight Hugh Jackman or team up with Sean Connery and some other folks, so there’s something. There’s even an impressive scare scene – the spirit of a spider crawls out of Jekyll, and then right back inside, turning him into Hyde. It’s pretty terrifying, because, well, giant spiders are terrifying.

I also got a lot of enjoyment out of things I shouldn’t. Such as the guy who pretty much sets Jekyll on his destructive path. After pondering whether or not he should use his left hand when he always uses his right (snicker), he says that the only way to avoid temptation is to give into it. Clearly this guy has some sexual issues. There’s also the idea that women would be charmed by Hyde, when he is, quite simply, a freak. He looks a bit like Bill Moseley in Chainsaw 2, yet a standard 1920’s movie woman (short curly hair, dark rings around her eyes) is completely smitten with his advances and pawing.

Also, the first time Jekyll becomes Hyde, he almost immediately reverts back to Jekyll. Seriously, maybe 30 seconds go by and he throws in the towel without as much as a single “oh hey look I have super strength now” or whatever scene. Kind of a bummer. I’m also a bit baffled by this image:

How does a horse looking at a drunk on the ground symbolize a free clinic?

And what the hell was with people’s ability to read back in the 20s? I had time to read every title like 3 or 4 times, easily. This movie would probably be about 10 minutes shorter if the editor had any faith in his fellow man’s ability to process “What is wrong, Jekyll?” in less than 20 seconds.

Still, it’s much better than the old Hunchback or Phantom films (also on this set, though watched pre-HMAD). Barrymore is pretty good, and all the actors do a good job emoting what is going on in between the subtitles. And as oft-huh? the music is, it’s pretty good. Also, the makeup on Barrymore is pretty good considering that the film occurred before there was even an Oscar for doing makeup effects!

What say you?

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Based On Novel, Classic, Horror Classics, Monster,

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Attack Of The Giant Leeches

JANUARY 23, 2008

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

Hot on the heels of The Giant Gila Monster comes Attack Of The Giant Leeches, another alleged monster movie which features a ratio of about 1 monster scene for every dozen or so involving middle aged guys standing around arguing with one another. This one even goes a step further, pluralizing leech when there’s only one in the film, so far as I can tell anyway.

Oh, and Corman produced it.

At 62 minutes you can’t say that the movie is too long (well, you can I guess, if you're a jerk), but the fact that it’s 62 minutes and almost 60 of them don’t feature any monster is kind of a problem. And unlike Gila, this time we don’t even get to learn how to change a tire or something in the process; these bland bastards just talk about whatever’s going on and whether or not they should do anything about it. Christ, it doesn’t even deliver on the age-old tradition of the “bad guy” getting his comeuppance from the monster. You know, he doesn’t believe the monster exists, thwarts the hero’s attempts to figure out what is going on, etc. and then at the end he gets eaten. Right? Not here. No, our doubting Thomas simply says “wow, never seen one of those before,” and shuffles out of the film along with a few other nondescript folks.

In fact, the entire climax of the film is the equivalent of a shrug. Our James Denton-y hero sets off an explosion which sends the Leech to the surface of the water, presumably dead. He just looks at it, saying nothing. A few other characters follow suit. Then the editor cuts to a few random establishing shots around the swamp, and finally THE END appears on screen. You know when you’re playing Rock Band by yourself, and you reach a part of the song that doesn’t require your instrument, so you’re just standing there awkwardly waiting? That’s the ending of this movie.

There’s also a lengthy sequence in which cops and others accuse a guy of killing his wife and her lover. They don’t believe his ‘giant monster’ theory, of course, so they send him off to jail. Then he kills himself out of despondence. The problem is, we know perfectly goddamn well that the monster really DID eat them, so all of this is pointless. Had there been some reasonable doubt they might have had something, but without it, it’s just padding.

Strangely, the Creek saw fit to present the film in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, one of only two in the entire Mill Creek pantheon (so far) that isn’t full frame. The problem is, the movie is SUPPOSED to be full frame – if you watch the MST3k version (even that takes a lot of effort to remain interested in this movie) you can see the difference. But whatever.

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Monster,

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The Giant Gila Monster

JANUARY 11, 2008

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

Huh. It’s not often you get to see a giant monster movie that features maybe 4 total minutes of “giant” monster action and about 60 about car repair. But hey, that’s what The Giant Gila Monster offers us, and more! And by more I mean less.

A big part of the problem with this movie is how lazy they were in demonstrating the monster’s size. On maybe three occasions they use models and a regular lizard to make him look big, but for the most part, they just have closeup shots of an obviously regular sized lizard crawling (if that) near obviously regular sized things like twigs and leaves. No rear projection or forced perspective that I can recall. This renders several early scenes utterly baffling, because I thought the monster had yet to become giant, assuming some nuclear explosion at the end of the first act would result in him becoming a monster. For example, there’s a scene where a guy is driving along in a truck, then the lizard (which is somewhere else entirely) sticks his tongue out, and suddenly the truck flips over and explodes. Huh? OH, he’s giant. Right.

The first 60 seconds are comprised of five shots, the first of which makes up about 50 of those seconds. We see an empty forest/swamp thing as a guy narrates, then suddenly, Michael Bay apparently takes over. BAM! A car. BAM! Two kids in the car getting startled. BAM! The car falls down a cliff. BAM! A monster makes what appears to be the “No cameras!” hand motion. “What the hell just happened?” you may ask, and you’d be absolutely right.

Wait, what?

Anyway, like I said before, the movie is mainly about car repair. We see our hero banging away on a driver’s side door, discussing how he towed a car, explaining why his tires are on a different car... Even when they know perfectly well that there are more pressing matters, some guy begins threatening to have him jailed for using a victim’s car for spare parts. There are occasional folk songs to break up all of the car repair scenes, but not nearly enough (at one point I sort of gave up hoping for any monster action, only something besides auto repair “intrigue”).

OK, there’s the broken cigarette, but where is the penny?

Speaking of the music, once again we have inappropriately implemented library music in a horror film. The scene I described with the kids we don’t know suddenly falling down a cliff, possibly the result of a paparazzi hating creature, has some sort of Benny Hill type thing under it. Then later, one of the interminable car repair scenes (“I thought I told you to fix that headlight.” “I thought it was a suggestion.” “How much does it cost to fix one of those?”... and so on), they play what sounds like “our hero is about to tell his tragic backstory” music. My choice would be, of course, to cut away from two boring people talking about the cost of headlight repair and maybe show a GIANT GILA MONSTER doing something.

The movie also stops cold in order to show a little girl with leg braces try to walk. After she fails, twice, the movie begins again, in that the hero begins singing a folk song. I asked my mechanic about the scene, and he said he didn’t understand how it fit into the rest of the film, which he otherwise loved.

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Monster,

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The Terror

JANUARY 7, 2008

GENRE: GHOST, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

I used to refer to The Terror as my "Bedtime Movie". I bought it on VHS for like 39 cents when I was 16, thinking it was some lost gem. “How can it be bad, with Karloff AND Nicholson?” I said to myself. “Stop talking to yourself!” replied the clerk at Suncoast. Anyway, a few attempts to watch the film over the next week all resulted in me falling asleep within minutes. From then on, whenever I had trouble falling asleep, I would put it in and let nature take its course (this is back when I used to be allowed to have a TV in the bedroom. Never get married, kids!). Until today, I had never seen the whole thing (I even re-bought the film on its own DVD and still never made it through, making this budget copy version the 3rd copy I have owned!).

I don’t know how the hell I used to fall asleep during the first 10 minutes though. In the first SIX SECONDS we are given a spooky castle, waves crashing violently on the shore, and Karloff walking down some stairs. OK that’s not very exciting, but the way the 3 shots are edited together is so rough and violent, it seems like it is. Over the next few minutes we’re also treated to Jack Nicholson throwing his compass away because it’s not working in the spot he’s in (which is like when a guy in an action movie throws away a gun when it runs out of ammo. They’re not disposable!!!); a near drowning or two, Nicholson yelling at a woman, a bird attack, Nicholson trying to punch said bird, and what I am pretty sure is Dustin Hoffman in drag:

There’s also a nifty opening credit sequence that features some animation, giving the film a bit of extra production value (this is a Roger Corman movie, so PV is welcome wherever it can be found). This credit sequence also features several future names, including Monte Hellman and Francis Ford Coppola (both of whom were among the many uncredited directors of this movie), and the odd listing of RICHARD Miller instead of the usual Dick. Miller is at his most serious in this movie (never cracks a smile or does anything amusing.... hell, his character isn’t even named Walter Paisley), which is perhaps why he used his full name. Also an animated dove, for some reason.

I hope I still have that old DVD, because the compression on this is the worst I have ever seen on these budget packs. There’s a lot of water in the film (always a tough thing for compression, even on otherwise respectable DVDs), which doesn’t help, but even in non-water scenes, it’s very pixely. The whole climax of the film (it’s actually considered trivia that this Corman film has a water finale instead of a fire) looks less like a film and more like a very unattractive mosaic:

As for the movie itself, I haven’t a clue. There’s a woman who may be a ghost, a Baron who may not be the Baron, Nicholson supposedly being in the French army, a witch with a bird she can control, a mute... it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the film was made up as they went along, with several directors shooting stuff more or less at random. At one point, Miller explains that Karloff’s character killed the real Baron and took his place, and now believes he really is the Baron. Didn’t anyone notice? Is his Baron title just sort of honorary?

Corman apparently spent some time just shooting all of the actors walking up and down stairs, figuring he could work it all into the film somehow (and he does! That first shot of Karloff makes sense now!). As was often the case with Corman, the film was shot over a few days, using sets that were about to be torn down. The result is as slipshod as you might expect from such a shooting design, but yet it’s still strangely appealing, with the nonsensical story always moving along, plus some occasional gore. The end of the film, featuring a melting woman (no idea) was on my Doorways to Horror game that I mentioned in another review. So you know it’s good.

There are lots of errors in the movie (including “stones” that float), but my favorite was the giant metal door. Karloff raises the thing using a chain. He ducks under it, and it immediately falls back down (since no one is holding the chain). Then Miller and Nicholson open it, but this time it stays open, for no reason other than the fact Nicholson has to run back outside a few moments later. As he does, the door dutifully drops back down as soon as he gets through. It’s like the world’s first automatic door (the movie it set in 1806). Amazing.

What say you?

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Ghost, Horror Classics, Revenge, Supernatural,

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Revolt Of The Zombies

JANUARY 4, 2008

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

I can remember the running time of every Halloween sequel, the number of kills in each Friday the 13th movie, and the phone number of my friend from grade school who I haven’t called since, well, grade school. And yet for the life of me, I can never remember that any “zombie” movie made prior to Night of the Living Dead will have absolutely nothing to do with flesh eaters. This is why I get so easily bored with a film like Revolt Of The Zombies, though by any account (that I have found on the IMDb anyway) this one’s a dud with or without expectations of cannibalism.

In 61 minutes, I was only occasionally amused, usually by odd lines delivered by bad actors, such as “Gentlemen, the Priest was murdered. Murdered by someone who did not want the Allies to benefit by his power to create robot soldiers.” There’s also a hilarious scene where someone checks an injured person’s pulse. This is standard movie behavior; checking the pulse to see if the guy is unconscious or dead. All well and good, except the injured party is TALKING throughout the scene, rendering the pulse checking a bit pointless. Besides that, the only highlight is Bela Lugosi, or at least his eyes, which are super-imposed over about 40% of the film (it’s an image taken from the superior White Zombie, which this film is a sort-of sequel to, but has no actual connection except for the damn eyes):

In fact, the “Revolt” doesn’t even occur until the film’s final two minutes, and making matters stupider, they aren’t even in their zombie state at the time! Talk about a misleading title.

No, seriously, go talk about misleading titles. Beats watching this movie.

So what DOES happen in the film? Well, most of it is comprised of boring, talky scenes where the characters constantly “mock” one another. I use mock in quotes because their jokes seem quite funny to the other characters, but don’t seem particularly funny to me, the viewer, who doesn’t know and thus far doesn’t care about any of these assholes. They all sound like the jokes your girlfriend’s lame but well-meaning uncle might make at dinner the first time you meet him, and you’re just sort of “what the FUCK does that mean?” while smiling politely and eating your stuffing.

Oh well, it’s good to know that even in the golden age of horror cinema, there was still a few turkeys to balance things out and forever ensure that the horror genre would be more miss than hit. Thanks, guys.

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Zombie,

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Atom Age Vampire

DECEMBER 20, 2007

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

Maybe it’s because I was so happy to watch a budget pack film shot on actual film and with actual actors, or maybe it was all the rumballs I ate while watching it, but I really enjoyed Atom Age Vampire (aka Seddok, l'erede di Satana), despite the lack of vampires and a fast pace. Hell, it was even letterboxed (sort of), the only film across any of my three Mill Creek sets that wasn’t entirely full frame (so far).

As this is an Italian film, some things are a given. There will be bad dubbing. There will be nonsensical translation errors (my favorite, from one man to another - “You know professor, I’d say I know you intimately.”). There will be an alternate version listed on the IMDb that runs another 15 minutes, yet they won’t provide any details or useful information concerning what is different (it’s the IMDb’s own version of “I know something you don’t know!”). Etc. As a bonus, there’s even a guy named Mario Fava in the credits. The legendary Italian horror bean.

On that note, I can’t imagine that the film would be longer. Even in this version, which runs just shy of 90 minutes, it seems like there’s a lot of padding. For example, late in the film, some cops go to a theatre to investigate the seat where the bad guy was seen sitting. For what seems like 5 straight minutes, they discuss where he was sitting, where the witnesses sat, what he wore, etc. It’s all pretty pointless, since they find him through other means a few scenes later anyway.

But there’s something sort of alluring about the film. Maybe it’s the cute little bat animation at the beginning, or the out of nowhere Casablanca homage, or the hero who says things like “Am I wrong or are you getting fatter?” to a girl who actually seems flattered by his remark (remind me to try this on a woman)... or a combination of them all!

Plus, you know, the actual horror movie elements. The mad scientist guy is killing folks to use their vital... whatever in order to heal a beautiful woman who was badly scarred. But he sort of gets sick of doing that and goes nuts. That’s cool, and some of the murder scenes are pretty stylish, particularly one about halfway through at a university. The finale seems lifted out of any old Universal horror movie, with the monster and hero punching one another and knocking over tables while a woman screams, but that’s OK. No one ever watches an Italian horror movie and expects total originality.

What say you?

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Horror Classics, Mad Scientist, Monster,

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