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Bigfoot County (aka The Bigfoot Tapes)

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ImageThe Bigfoot Tapes is an American-made 2012 horror film directed, written and starring Stephon Stewart, which at least means you can save on postage stamps when writing your letters of complaint. Deep in Siskiyou County, California, sightings of the legendary Bigfoot have been rife for years, prompting a group of amateur film-makers to seek the truth behind the myth.

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Three young film-makers venture into thick forest, armed only with the inability to hold a video camera still. Determined to uncover the truth behind a long-held superstition, they soon find themselves the hunted not the hunters…sound familiar?

Resting entirely on the fact that the audience either hasn’t seen or isn’t aware of The Blair Witch Project, The Bigfoot Tapes is one of the most heinous examples of plagiarism imaginable. The three leads are instantly dislikeable, one of the few achievements of the film that you’ll like them even less by the end. The film boldly proclaims that the footage we’re about to see has been lost since 2009 – surely this barely qualifies as temporarily mislaid!

Enlisting the help of an old religious loon, they find themselves completely lost when he freaks out and bolts for home – despite the fact that their predicament is tedious and utterly devoid of Bigfoot, they elect to record every boring second anyway.

There’s a twist halfway through and another right at the end, both so head-crackingly staggering that you’ll temporarily lose faith not only in the film but also your eyes. The real frustration is that the film-makers are not useless, merely lazy and with an absolute contempt for the audience, the re-hashed set-pieces being so obvious and poorly delivered, it’s incredible the film ever saw the light of day. Devoid of laughs, scares, monster of feet of any interesting size, this is truly reprehensible.

Daz Lawrence



Tales of the Frightened – Told by Boris Karloff (albums)

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Tales of the Frightened comprises two volumes of spoken-word vinyl recordings, based on the writings of Michael Avallone. They were both released on the Mercury Records label in 1963. All the stories are read by Boris Karloff and feature subtle but sinister music and sound effects.

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The 1950′s and 1960′s saw the release of many vinyl recordings of short, chilling tales, often featuring the ghoulish tones of horror stars of the silver screen; the two most prolific being Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, as not only were they well-know but also in possession of immediately recognisable voices.

Download: 01-the-man-in-the-raincoat.mp3

Originally written in 1956 by Michael Avallone for a series of pulp magazines, Tales of the Frightened sadly only ran for two issues, but there was enough demand for the twenty-six stories to be collected into a paperback shortly afterwards. These were then presented to Karloff to record for radio broadcast (simply titled The Frightened, they are now believed lost) and were extremely popular. Mercury Records seized upon this and re-recorded thirteen of them across two vinyl records with musical atmospherics provided by early electronic music experimentalists, Tom Dissvelt and Kid Baltan who recorded under the name The Electrosoniks.

Michael Avallone was a prolific writer of what can easily be judged as throwaway chaff but is immensely readable; his works include his film tie-in novelisations of Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Friday 13th Part 3.

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Each tale is introduced with typical Karloff faux-gravitas – “Are you one of the frightened?” and each lasts approximately five minutes, not allowing for any thumb-twiddling or kettle-boiling on the part of the listener. The language is deliriously rich and perhaps a little silly in retrospect but this undoubtedly adds to the charm “Do you whistle past the graveyard?”

Download: 01-the-vampire-sleeps.mp3

Humbly marketed as “one of the most gripping narrative performances in the history of spoken word recording”, these recordings have never made their way onto CD and can be tricky to find in their original form.

Have a glass of port…

Download: 04-dont-lose-your-head.mp3

Daz Lawrence

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The Mighty Gorga

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The Mighty Gorga is a U.S. science fiction/fantasy film. Released in 1969, the film was the brainchild of David L. Hewitt, who stars, produces, directs and wrote the screenplay. The storyline concerns a couple hunting for a giant gorilla (The Mighty Gorga, natch) in Africa for financial gain. Filmed on a minuscule budget, it has become notorious for its poor special effects.

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Financially crippled circus owner, Mark Remington (Anthony Eisley, The Wasp Woman, Dracula vs. Frankenstein) sees the answers to his money woes in an almost mythical African beast, Gorga, a giant gorilla whom he sets off to capture. Once in the jungle, the hunter (Tonga Jack (!) played by B-movie standby Kent Taylor, Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, The Crawling Hand) who reported the sighting is missing in action and Remington sets off with his daughter, April (Megan Timothy) to find him and hopefully the big monkey. Accidentally stumbling upon a secret prehistoric world, which consists of four plants, a few giant mushrooms and some suspicious-looking giant purple eggs, they find themselves fending off first a dinosaur, then the fabled Gorga. Discovering a local tribe (and Tonga Jack who has made himself at home) they find treasure in the caves around the village but an erupting volcano and a far more human presence who has been following the trail to the gems, threaten both Gorga’s world and their own.

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The stupefyingly unconvincing gorilla costume – blinking eyes would at least have been a start – and even more tragic dinosaur are huge fun but despite the obviously joyous limitations, Hewitt elects to minimise their time onscreen, instead plodding around one of cinema’s sparsest jungles with a dislikeable male and female couple in an attempt to justify what should be comedy gold. Eisley, who does more for the tobacco industry during the running time than any amount of TV advertising (try a drinking game every time he lights up and you’ll be unconscious after half an hour) is a rotten hero but worse is yet to come as we have to suffer him slowly arriving in Africa (shot of a plane taking off, in case you’re struggling with the concept), then visiting a zoo, giving him just enough time for some casual racism whilst the cast shiftily check their watches and shuffle their feet.

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Rather like a competitive dad, Hewitt saves the best role for himself, that of the gorilla, the lowest point of primate design in film. This is quickly beaten by a handheld T. Rex, which waggles threateningly backwards and forwards but sadly completely out of sync with the projected human actors who are looking in a completely different direction. Attempts are made at a love connection between April and Gorga when she thoughtfully removes a splinter from his finger. It doesn’t progress to a second date.

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Shoehorned in are some shots of wild animals (in a clearly different environment), a volcano which would decimate everything in sight but doesn’t even bring the actors out in a sweat and, more jarringly, footage of a relatively decent dinosaur borrowed from peplum pic Goliath and the Dragononly serving to exaggerate the woefulness of the other beasts. Released on DVD by Something Weird Video as a double bill with One Million AC/DC, The Mighty Gorga is too long to be genuine fun and not consistently bad enough to be so bad it’s good. The last laugh is Hewitt’s; rather than being laughed out of town, he went on to provide the special effects for the likes of Shocker; Kindred; Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

Daz Lawrence

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Disciple of Death

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Disciple of Death is a 1972 British low-budget horror film co-scripted and directed by Tom Parkinson (producer of Attack of the Sabretooth) in Cornwall. The film was part-financed and stars Mike Raven, an ex-DJ with ambitions to become a horror star. Raven had already appeared in Hammer Films’ Lust for a Vampire and also starred in another vanity project Crucible of Terror. The remainder of the leads are Ronald Lacey (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Stephen Bradley, Marguerite Hardiman, horror film regular Virginia Wetherell, George Belbin, Betty Alberge and Nicolas Amer.

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Hammer Films had been approached by Parkinson and Raven a year earlier and although there was discussion of Disciple of Death being filmed, with Jimmy Sangster directing, the project was shelved. The enterprising duo decided to go ahead and film it themselves but in 16mm. The British censors removed gory shots of a heart being ripped out and blood squeezed into a goblet.

In 18th century England. an enigmatic yet charismatic stranger (Raven) arrives in a rural village to claim his inheritance. The stranger is actually a henchman of Satan who has been unleashed when the blood of a virgin accidentally drips onto the grave of a suicide victim. Aided by a dwarf, he kidnaps and murders young women until the local parson (Lacey) enlists the aid of a wisecracking Jewish Cabalist to resist his evil ambitions…

IMDb | EOFFTV

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Disciple of Death is the worst film I have ever seen. It is quite simply a stinker of remarkable ineptitude – featuring the worst performance by a leading man in the history of celluloid, some truly pitiful special effects, a story which beggars belief and camerawork and direction which… well, I despair.” Chris Wood, British Horror Films

” … if you are a fan of those supreme individualists that exploitation cinema occasionally throw up; amazing, creative, sincere madmen like Ed Wood or Ray Dennis Steckler, then there is plenty here to reward your attention. It’s a film you have to get into a particular mindset to fully appreciate, and – crucially – it is not a Hammer/Amicus/Tigon mindset. This is a film for people who enjoy seeing an individual vision transplanted to the screen with as little filtering through consensus, committee and studio sensibilities as possible. A low budget can only enhance such qualities: it prohibits short-cutting and reliance on cliché; it forces unusual solutions to logistic and creative problems. It’s the kind of environment in which one-of-a-kind imaginations like Raven’s can thrive.” Matthew Coniam, Hammer and Beyond

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” … the film is amateurish and Raven is dreadful in the extreme. Ronald Lacey comes in a close second as a badly bewigged parson … Laughably overacted by everyone involved, the ritual sacrifice scenes are especially hilarious.” Gary A. Smith, Uneasy Dreams: The Golden Age of British Horror Films, 1956-1976 (McFarland, 2000)

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Repligator

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Repligator is a low budget 1996 American sci-fi comedy sexploitation horror film produced and directed by Bret McCormick (The Abomination) from a screenplay by Keith Kjornes (The Devil’s Tomb). It stars Gunnar Hansen (‘Leatherface’ in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre; Mosquito), Keith Kjornes, Randy Clower, TJ Myers, Carl Merritt and ‘scream queen‘ Brinke Stevens.

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A top secret military experiment turns burly soldiers into sexy nymphomaniac babes who then turn into alligators when they reach orgasm.

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tn-newf-t_j_myers-repligator_01This isn’t a movie made for the serious cineaste, but rather for those who enjoy the simple things bad, low budget movies can and so often do provide instead of any sort of artistic merit: cheap lingerie, fake boobs, real boobs, dinosaur alligator face masks, zombies (?), horrible optical effects, bad science, characters with horrible names like Dr. Goodbody and Colonel Sanders, and bad, trashy jokes galore. Nobody involved in this project was taking it seriously, that much is obvious, so there’s no need for anyone else to take it seriously either – because once you do that, the movie becomes an endurance test.” Ian Jane, DVD Talk

“It was pretty bad. Awful, actually. It was physically painful to watch the actors deliver their lines as though they’d eaten an entire jar of peanut butter and chased it with a sleeve of Saltines – fumbled, stilted, or just awkward. The writer, Keith Kjornes who also played Dr. Oliver, threw in every comedic trope, meme, joke, routine, or homage he could think of. It was like watching the Three Stooges act out a Scooby-Doo episode with the scripts from the worst Star Trek episodes.” Peggy Christe, Cinema Head Cheese

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Deadtime Stories (aka Freaky Fairytales)

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Deadtime Stories is a 1986 American horror anthology film directed by Jeffrey Delman. The film is also known as Freaky Fairytales (in the UK), The Griebels (European DVD title) and The Griebels from Deadtime Stories (Netherlands).

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Young Brian is unable to sleep (“it’s too dark!”) and beleaguered Uncle Peter, who has seen fit to babysit whilst wearing a shirt and tie, begrudgingly comes to the rescue, agreeing to tell him a story to help him nod off. Off the (shirt) cuff, he begins with a tale about two witches who employ the hero (played by Uncle Peter) into attracting people to their lair in order for them to use them as sacrifices to resurrect a third sibling. Uncle Peter drags his made-up yarn out for an inordinate amount of time, somehow shoehorning some comments about bondage in along the way. His nephew is 8 years-old.

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Happy he’s corrupted the child into slumber, Peter is sadly mistaken, the increasingly annoying Brian summoning him to his room once more as he thinks there’s a monster in his room. Peter expresses his dismay by telling Brian he’s missing Miss Nude USA on TV. Lining up another tale, a re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood, concentrating on the sexual elements, starting off with Ms Hood fantasising about a handsome stranger molesting her. The wolf, actually a werewolf, dispatches Grandma as expected but the issue is complicated by the fact that the werewolf has mislaid some rather important drugs. Are you asleep yet?

Thirdly and thankfully finally, Uncle wheels out his take on Goldilocks and the Three Bears, re-titled Goldi Lox And The Three Baers, seeing the criminal family of Baers escaping a mental asylum, only to break into the house of a psychic female serial killer. The wraparound story concludes with something from the bottom of the props cupboard looming towards Brian whilst Uncle loosens his tie to settle down to Miss Ohio’s talents.

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In the wake of Creepshow and the renewed interest in the anthology film, Deadtime Stories is an unmitigated disaster, three stories that seem to last an eternity, awful acting and some extremely misjudged attempts at throwing ‘comedy’ into the mix. The writing is on the wall from the off, both the intro and outro to the film feature ‘songs’ – truly face-clawing efforts featuring Casio-like synths, horrid drum machines and lyrics which not only challenge everything you ever thought about rhyme but have to be ‘speed-sung’ to get them to fit the tune. I use the word’ tune’ advisedly.

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Uncle Peter, played by Family Ties actor Scott Valentine, appears far too much for an actor of such limited ability, though he can scarcely be blamed for behaviour that nowadays would probably attract the attention of Operation Yewtree. Step forward director, producer, lyricist and yes, actor, Jeffrey Delman, whose other claims to fame are for writing Troma’s Stuck on You and distantly being a relative of genius composer Bernard Herrmann. Elsewhere, actors of ‘note’ include Rachel (the Red Riding Hood lead), played by Nicole Picard, who also had a bit-part in Ghoulies 3, Werewolf Matt Mitler, also seen in The Mutilator, and accidental mainstream breakout, Melissa Leo (Mama Baer) who appeared recently in Tom Cruise box office shoulder-shrug Oblivion and 2013′s annual excuse to cast Morgan Freeman as the President, Olympus Has FallenEight months after the film’s theatrical run, it was released on videocassette in 1987 by Continental Video in the U.S. and in Canada by Cineplex Odeon. The film was initially available on DVD via Mill Creek’s Chilling Classics 50 Movie Pack. That box was later discontinued when it was revealed that Deadtime Stories was not in the Public Domain. Mill Creek did get one thing right – it is chilling.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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Devil’s Pass (aka The Dyatlov Pass Incident)

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Devil’s Pass  (known as The Dyatlov Pass Incident in the UK and pre-production elsewhere) is a 2013 Russian/American/British production concerning the mysterious true events surrounding the deaths of 9 experienced hikers in the Ural Mountains of Russia in 1959. Set in the present day, it follows a group of American students who vow to uncover the truth and presumably get top marks in class.

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The true events of the deaths of the hikers in 1959 has long mystified investigators. Despite being highly experienced climbers and hikers, the 9 individuals (led by Igor Dyatlov) were found in various states of undress in areas around their camp, with signs that they had made concerted efforts to get out of their tents. The bodies were found to contain unusually high levels of radiation and with their bodies crushed by pressure akin to that of a major car accident; one of the members had had their tongue and much of their oral cavity removed. Tragic events indeed and such that only one rational explanation can be given – an avalanche. Apparently not – it was almost certainly aliens. Or a Russian military exercise to keep something secret. Or paranormal intervention. Or a yeti. I don’t think anyone mentions an avalanche once.

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Cut to the present day University of Oregon, where uppity know-it-all Holly (Holly Goss – I’m always suspicious when the character’s name is their own) assembles a group of her annoying student friends to prove her tutor, Professor Kittles (Kittles!), wrong and that there is something waiting to be uncovered in the Urals that will explain what the greatest minds have so far missed. Along for the ride are Jensen (Matt Stokoe), Denise (Gemma Atkinson, doomed to forever be known as GemmaAtkinsonwhousedtobeinHollyoaks), Andy (Ryan Hawley)  and JP (Luke Albright, the only one of them legitimately speaking with an American accent). To Russia we go! It is at least filmed in Russia, possibly the only positive I can give the film. We are immediately treated to shaky camera work, at once lazy but also used in that most baffling of ways, with ‘normal’ camera work used when necessary. Given the camera man and sound recordist at least look like they’re meant to be proficient in their roles, you would think the results wouldn’t look like they’d got a husky to do it. On a very basic level, had they returned to Oregon (spolier! oh, never mind) they would be laughed out of class for producing something so poorly made.

Ominous rumblings in the mountains are the first concern, as well as the fact they are overshadowed by a peak known as the Mountain of the Dead (actually the first falsehood, it’s actually really known as Dead Mountain, quite a difference) though with fresh-faced Denise distracting the chaps (and this viewer) it’s left to Holly to bleat about the peril she’s brought them to. There’s talk of ‘orange lights’ having been seen in the sky back in the 50′s and when large, shoe-less footprints are found near their camp one morning, seemingly appearing and disappearing randomly, a thoughtful tooth is sucked by all. A couple of days into the expedition, a strange (I’ll say) door is found built into the side of the mountain, which evidently only locks from the outside. I think you can guess where this is going.

Post-rockfall, triggered by ghastly noises, they set of their flare (orange lights in the sky), attracting Russians with guns who clearly want rid of them. Escaping to the mysterious door, they uncover a secret lab, CGI monsters, a time wormhole and evidence linking the place to the Philadelphia Experiments of the Second World War, where sailors were found fused to the USS Eldridge, amongst talk of tamperings with space-time continuums. Don’t worry, it’s in the dark, so the shaky cam is now shaky cam with night vision. Gah.

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Utterly rotten to the core on all levels, I’m sick of saying the sub-genre of found footage has reached its nadir but again, hats off, new ground has been broken. There’s something a little uncomfortable about shoddy and silly ideas being used to explain away a real-life tragedy that is still well within living memory of many. The acting is grim and the added sex appeal of Atkinson is highlighted by the fact that she’s barely risked with any actual lines of dialogue. In fairness, the cheaply realised monsters are only half-stolen from REC – they’re also half-stolen from The Descent.  By the time you’re introduced to a wormhole at the end, any dramatic tension (there wasn’t any but you at least want the satisfaction it was worth getting to the end) is lost and you rather wish you’d cracked open that box set of Quantum Leap.

Final word has to be on the director: Renny Harlin! THAT Renny Harlin, Die Hard 2, Deep Blue Sea, Long Kiss Goodnight, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and all those. You could excuse (to some extent) a first-time director trying to hide their inadequacies under the veil of dodgy camera work and choppy editing but this must be the lowest a mainstream director has ever sunk. Renny Harlin!

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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Assignment Terror (aka Dracula vs. Frankenstein)

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Los Monstruos del Terror, also known as Assignment Terror and Dracula vs. Frankenstein is a 1969 (released 1970) Spanish-German-Italian horror film directed by Tulio DemicheliHugo Fregonese and Eberhard Meichsner. The last two were uncredited in the film’s original print.

It is the third in a series of movies featuring the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky, played by Paul Naschy, who also provided the screenplay. It was apparently originally slated to be titled The Man Who Came From Ummo, referring to the alien character played by Michael Rennie (The Day the Earth Stood Still). The film remains very obscure, being — to our knowledge — without an official English language DVD release and only available online in poor quality versions.

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Aliens, running a traveling circus as a cover, revive a vampire, a werewolf, a mummy and Frankenstein’s monster (also Paul Naschy) with a plan to use them to take over the world. They want to discover the reason that these monsters are so frightening to Earthlings. They then plan to create an army of such monsters using their findings.

The werewolf they revive (Waldemar Daninsky) saves the world by destroying the other monsters in hand-to-hand combat and ultimately blowing up the aliens’ underground base, although he is shot to death in the process by a woman (Karin Dor) who loves him enough to end his torment.

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Assignment Terror is weak on every level. A bored-looking Michael Rennie goes through the motions as a supreme being alien but this excuse to revive all the classic movie monsters is a wasted opportunity. There seems to be a sexist sub-text about men holding power over women but the film is so ineffectual it hardly matters. Plodding is the best description for this incompetently presented production and not even Naschy’s presence can save it.

Adrian J. Smith

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“Despite its charming idea, alien invaders led by Rennie set about terrorizing mankind by reviving the monsters of the popular imagination, Dracula, the Werewolf, the Mummy, the Reptile and Frankenstein’s Monster, this is a mediocre film. Even the witty idea of having the aliens in monster form succumb to the emotions of their bodies’ previous owners falls flat.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction

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Buy Paul Naschy: Memoirs of a Wolfman from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

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Wikipedia | IMDb | Download from Internet Archive

We are grateful to Destination Nightmare and Vampyres Online for some of the images above. Please visit these sites via Horrorpedia. Thank you.



Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster

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Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster is a 1965 American science fiction cult film, directed by Robert Gaffney and starring Marilyn HanoldJames Karen (The Return of the Living Dead), Lou Cutell and Robert Reilly. It was filmed in Florida and Puerto Rico in 1964.

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The film was released in the UK as Duel of the Space Monsters. It is also known as Frankenstein Meets the Space MenMars Attacks Puerto RicoMars Invades Puerto Rico, and Operation San Juan. In the United States, it was initially released by Futurama Entertainment Corp on a double bill with Curse of the Voodoo. The film tells the story of a robot who combats alien invaders. Despite the title, neither Dr. Frankenstein nor Frankenstein’s Monster make any appearance in the film.

All of the women on the planet Mars have died in an atomic war, except for Martian Princess Marcuzan (Marilyn Hanold). Marcuzan and her right hand man, Dr. Nadir (Lou Cutell), decide they will travel to Earth and steal all of the women on the planet in order to continue the Martian race. The Martians shoot down a space capsule manned by the android Colonel Frank Saunders (Robert Reilly), causing it to crash in Puerto Rico. Frankenstein’s electronic brain and the left half of his face are damaged after encountering a trigger-happy Martian and his ray gun. Frank, now “Frankenstein”, described by his creator as an “astro-robot without a control system” proceeds to terrorize the island. A subplot involves the martians abducting bikini clad women…

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” … undoubtedly a slapdash effort, lacking any form of suspense, terror, coherency, or social or political commentary. However, the film does pack a number of unintentional laughs and a slew of performances that will have you blushing in embarrassment for the actor or actress. And if there are any other positives to be pointed out, the film has plenty of monster action to keep B-movie fans coming back for seconds and thirds” Anti-Film School

“Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster is actually fairly well made if one can discount some wretched post-synched dialogue. The camerawork isn’t bad and the action cuts are pretty active. Just about all the director had to create space-age ray gun battles are some smoke pots and a few eager actors.” Glenn Erickson, DVD Savant

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” … a thoroughly enjoyable relic that’s well-paced for its brief running time, despite the inclusion of mucho NASA and wartime stock footage. As unconventional a “Frankenstein” film as they come, the film is sort of a cheat in that respect, with the posters promising a more Karloffian figure than what’s delivered in the final product. But with a horribly mangled half-face and scorched astronaut suit, Frank is a memorable movie monster, especially when he’s seen hatcheting a beachside resident, assaulting a young couple’s automobile in the middle of the night, or fighting off the aliens with the one spark of decency he still has in him. Lou Cutell’s grimacing Nadir, with add-on Spock ear tips and a bald cap that looks like it was left over from a grammar school production of “Annie”, adds a dimension of perversion and unintentional chuckles to the proceedings.” George R. Reis, DVD Drive-In

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“In the end, it’s a bad movie. There can be no doubt about it. But it does just enough to instill a giddy smirk and a heap of schaudenfreude. It’s hard not to laugh as aliens target half naked Puerto Rican women for procreation, only to be thwarted by a reanimated corpse astronaut and NASA employees riding around on Vespa scooters, all wrapped up in a groovy 1960′s soundtrack and stock footage from the space program.” The Droid You’re Looking For

‘Portentous dialogue — two of the script-writers were poets — and repeated references to a ‘plan’ mark this camp trash masterpiece out to be in the realm of Ed Wood filmmaking, albeit with a bigger budget, despite the heavy use of stock footage. Highly recommended if you’re in into cinematic sludge’. Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

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Wikipedia | IMDb | Related: First Man into SpaceThe Incredible Melting Man

We are grateful to The Deuce Grindhouse Cinema Database and Zombo’s Closet for images above.


Ho! Ho! Horror! Christmas Terror Movies

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Christmas is generally seen as a jolly old time for the whole family – if you are to believe the TV commercials, everyone gets together for huge communal feasts while excited urchins unwrap whatever godawful new toy has been hyped as the must-have gift of the year. It is not, generally speaking, seen as a time of horror.

And yet horror has a long tradition of being part of the festive season. Admittedly, the horror in question was traditionally the ghost story, ideally suited for cold winter nights, where people gather around the fire to hear some spine chilling tale of ghostly terror – a scenario recreated in the BBC’s 2000 series Ghost Stories for Christmas, with Christopher Lee reading M.R. James tales to a room full of public school boys. That series was part of a tradition that included a similar one in 1986 with Robert Powell (Harlequin) and the children’s series Spine Chillers from 1980, as well as the unofficially titled annual series Ghost Stories for Christmas than ran for much of the 1970s and is occasionally revived to this day.

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

The idea of the traditional Xmas ghost story can be traced back to Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol, where miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three ghosts in an effort to make him change his ways. It’s more a sentimental morality tale than a horror story, though in the original book and one or two adaptations, the ghosts are capable of causing the odd shudder. Sadly, the story has been ill-served by cinematic adaptations – the best version is probably the 1951 adaptation, though by then there had already been several earlier attempts, going back to 1910. A few attempts have been made at straight retellings since then, but all to often the story is bastardised (a musical version in 1970, various cartoons) or modernised – the best known versions are probably Scrooged and The Muppet Christmas Carol, both of which are inexplicably popular. A 1999 TV movie tried to give the story a sense of creepiness once again, but the problem now is that the story is so familiar that it seems cliched even when played straight. The idea of a curmudgeon being made to see the true meaning of Christmas is now an easy go-to for anyone grinding out anonymous TV movies that end up on Christmas-only TV channels or gathering dust on DVD.

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A Christmas CAROL (1999)

Outside of A Christmas Carol, horror cinema tended to avoid festive-themed stories for a long time. While fantasies like The Bishop’s Wife, It’s a Wonderful Life and Bell, Book and Candle played with the supernatural, these were light, feel-good dramas and comedies on the whole, designed to warm the heart rather than stop it dead. TV shows like The Twilight Zone would sometimes have a Christmas themed tale, but again these tended to be the more sentimental stories.

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Buy Dead of Night on Blu-ray | DVD from Amazon.co.uk

The only film to really hint at Christmas creepiness was 1945 British portmanteau film Dead of Night, though even here, the Christmas themed tale, featuring a ghostly encounter at a children’s party, is more sentimental than terrifying. Meanwhile, the Mexican children’s film Santa Claus vs The Devil (1959) might see Santa in battle with Satan, but it’s all played for wholesome laughs rather than scares.

Santa Claus vs The Devil

Santa Claus vs The Devil

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the darker side of Christmas began to be explored, and it was another British portmanteau film that began it all. The Amicus film Tales from the Crypt (1972) opened with a tale in which murderous Joan Collins finds herself terrorised by an escaped psycho on Christmas Eve, unable to call the police because of her recently deceased hubby lying on the carpet. The looney is dressed as Santa, and her young daughter has been eagerly awaiting his arrival, leading to a suitably mean-spirited twist. The story was subsequently retold in a 1989 episode of the Tales from the Crypt TV series.

Tales from the Crypt

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This film would lead the way towards decades of Christmas horror. Of course, lots of films had an incidental Christmas connection, taking place in the festive season (or ‘winter’, as it used to be known). Movies like Night Train Murders, Rabid and even the misleadingly named Silent Night Bloody Night have a Christmas connection, but it’s incidental to the story. Those are not the movies we are discussing here. No, to REALLY count as a Christmas film, then the festive celebrations need to be at the heart of events.

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Two distinct types of Christmas horror developed. There was the Mad Santa films, like Tales from the Crypt on the one hand, and the ‘bad things happening at Christmas’ movie on the other. The pioneer of the latter was Bob Clark’s 1974 film Black Christmas, which not only pioneered the Christmas horror movie but also was an early template for the seasonal slasher film. Some critics have argued, with good cause, that this is the movie that laid the foundations for Halloween a few years later – a psycho film (with a possibly supernatural slant) set during a holiday, where young women are terrorised by an unseen force. But while John Carpenter’s film would be a smash hit and effectively reinvent the genre, Black Christmas went more or less unnoticed, its reputation only building years later. In 2006, the movie was remade by Glen Morgan in a gorier but less effective loose retelling of the original story.

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Black Christmas

Preceding Black Christmas was TV movie Home for the Holidays, in which four girls are picked off over Christmas by a yellow rain-coated killer who may or may not be their wicked stepmother. A decent if unremarkable psycho killer story, the film was directed by TV movie veteran John Llewellyn Moxey.

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Also made for TV, this time in Britain, The Exorcism was the opening episode of TV series Dead of Night (no connection to the film of that name) broadcast in 1972. One of the few surviving episodes of the series, The Exorcism is a powerful mix of horror and social commentary, as a group of champagne socialists celebrating Christmas in the country cottage that one couple have bought as a holiday home find themselves haunted by the ghosts of the peasants who had starved to death there during a famine. While theatrical in style and poorly shot, the show is nevertheless creepily effective.

Christmas Evil

1980 saw Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out), a low budget oddity by Lewis Jackson that has since gained cult status. In this film, a put-upon toy factory employee decided to become a vengeful Santa, putting on the red suit and setting out to sort the naughty from the nice. It’s a strange film, mixing pathos, horror and black comedy, yet oddly it works, making it one of the more interesting Christmas horrors out there.

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Also made in 1980, but rather less successful, was To All a Goodnight, the only film directed by Last House on the Left star David Hess and written by The Incredible Melting Man himself, Alex Rebar. This generic slasher, with a house full of horny sorority girls and their boyfriends being picked off by a psycho in a Santa outfit, is too slow and poorly made to be effective.

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The most notorious Christmas horror film hit cinemas in 1984. Silent Night Deadly Night was, in most ways, a fairly generic slasher, with a Santa-suited maniac on the loose taking revenge against the people who have been deemed ‘naughty’. The film itself was nothing special It’s essentially the same premise as Christmas Evil without the intelligence), and might have gone unnoticed if it wasn’t for a provocative advertising campaign that emphasised the Santa-suited psycho and caused such outrage that the film was rapidly pulled from theatres.

Silent Night Deadly Night

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Nevertheless, it had made a small fortune in the couple of weeks it played, and continued to be popular when reissued with a less contentious campaign. The film is almost certainly directly responsible for most ‘psycho Santa’ films since – all hoping to cash in on the publicity that comes with public outrage – and spawned four sequels.

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Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 is notorious for the amount of footage from the first film that is reused to pad out the story, and was banned in the UK (where the first film was unreleased until 2009). Part 3 was directed, surprisingly, by Monte Hellman (Two Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter) and adds a psychic element to the story. Part 4, directed by Brian Yuzna, drops the killer Santa story entirely and has no connection to the other films beyond the title, telling a story of witchcraft and cockroaches, while Part 5 – The Toymaker – is also unconnected to the other movies.

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Also made in 1984, but attracting less attention, Don’t Open Till Christmas was that rarest of things, a 1980s British horror film – and one of the sleaziest ever made to boot. Starring and directed by Edmund Purdom from a screenplay by exploitation veterans Derek Ford and Alan Birkinshaw, the film sees a psycho killer, traumatised by a childhood experience at Christmas, who begins offing Santas – or more accurately, anyone he sees dressed as Santa, which in this case includes a porn model, a man at a peepshow and people having sex. With excessive gore, nudity and an overwhelming atmosphere of grubbiness, the film was become a cult favourite for fans of bad taste cinema.

Don't Open Till Christmas

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The third Christmas horror of 1984 was the most wholesome and the most successful. Joe Dante’s Gremlins is all too often overlooked when people talk about festive horror, but from the opening credits, with Darlene Love’s Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) belting out over the soundtrack, to the carol singing Gremlins and Phoebe Cates’ story of why she hates Christmas, the festive season is at the very heart of the film. Gremlins remains the most fun Christmas movie ever made, a heady mix of EC-comics ghoulishness, sentiment, slapsick and action with some of the best monsters ever put on film.

Gremlins

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Gremlins would spawn many knock offs – Ghoulies, Munchies, Critters and more – but only Elves, made in 1989, had a similar Christmas theme. This oddball effort, which proposes that Hitler’s REAL plan for the Master Race was human/elf hybrids. When the elves are revived in a pagan ritual at Christmas, only an alcoholic ex-cop played by Dan Haggerty can stop them. It’s not as much fun as that makes it sound.

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Family horror returned in 1993 stop-motion film A Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick and produced / co-written by Tim Burton. This chirpy musical see Pumpkin King Jack Skellington, leader of Halloween Town, stumbling upon Christmas Town and deciding to take it over. It’s a charming and visually lush movie that has unsurprisingly become a festive family favourite over the last twenty years.

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Santa Claws

Rather less fun is 1996′s Santa Claws, a typically rotten effort by John Russo, with Debbie Rochon as a Scream Queen being stalked by a murderous fan in a Santa outfit. This low rent affair was pretty forgettable. It is one of several low/no budget video quickies that aimed to cash in on the Christmas horror market with tales of killer Santas – others include Satan Claus (1996), Christmas Season Massacre (2001) and Psycho Santa (2003).

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1997 saw the release of Jack Frost (not to be confused with the family film from a year later of the same name). Here, a condemned serial killer is involved in a crash with a truck carrying genetic material, which – of course – causes him to mutate into a killer snowman. Inspired by the Child’s Play movie, Jack Frost is pretty poor, but the outlandish concept and mix of comedy and horror made it popular enough to spawn a sequel in 2000, Jack Frost 2 – Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman.

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That might seem as ludicrous as Christmas horror goes, but 1998 saw Feeders 2: Slay Bells, in which the alien invaders of the title are fought off by Santa and his elves. Shot on video with no money, it’s a film you might struggle to get through.

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Rather better was the 2000 League of Gentlemen Christmas Special, which mixes the regular characters of the series into a series of stories that are even darker than usual. Mixing vampires, family curses and voodoo into a trilogy of stories that are linked, Amicus style, it’s as creepy as it is funny, and it’s perhaps unsurprising that Mark Gatiss would graduate to writing the more recent BBC Christmas ghost stories.

The League of Gentlemen

The League of Gentlemen

Two poplar video franchises collided in 2004′s Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys, with the great-nephew of the original Puppet Master battling an evil organisation that wants his formula to help bring killer toys to life on Christmas Eve. Like most of the films in the series, this is cheap but cheerful, throwaway stuff.

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2005′s Santa’s Slay sees Santa reinvented as a demon who is forced to be nice and give toys to children.Released from this demand, he reverts to his murderous ways. Given that Santa is played by fearsome looking wrestler Bill Goldberg, you have to wonder how anyone ever trusted him to come down their chimney and NOT kill them.

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Santa’s Slay

Also in 2005 came The Christmas Tale, part of the Spanish Films to Keep You Awake series, in which a group of children find a woman dressed as Santa at the bottom of a well. It turns out that she’s a bank robber and the kids decide to starve her into handing over the stolen cash. But things take a darker turn when she escapes and the kids think she is a zombie. It’s a witty, inventive little tale.

A Christmas Tale

A Christmas Tale

2006 saw Two Front Teeth, where Santa is a vampire assisted by zombie elves in a rather ludicrous effort. Equally silly, Treevenge is a 2008 short film by Jason Eisener, who would go on to shoot Hobo with a Shotgun. It’s the story of sentient Christmas trees who have enough of being cut down and displayed in people’s home and set out to take their revenge.

Treevenge

Treevenge

Recently, the Christmas horror has become more international, with two European films in 2010 offering an insight into different festive traditions. Dick Maas’ Sint (aka Saint) is a lively Dutch comedy horror which features a vengeful Sinterklaas (similar to, but not the same as, Santa Claus) coming back on December 5th in years when that date coincides with a full moon, to carry out mass slaughter. It’s a fun, fast-paced movie that also offers a rare glimpse into festive traditions that are rather different to anything seen outside the local culture (including the notorious Black Peters).

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Finnish film Rare Exports, on the other hand, sees the original (and malevolent) Santa unearthed during an excavation, leading to the discovery of a whole race of Santas, who are then captured and sold around the world. Witty and atmospheric, the film was inspired by Jalmari Helander’s original short film Rare Exports, Inc, a spoof commercial for the company selling the wild Santas.

Rare Exports

Rare Exports

But these two high quality, entertaining Christmas horrors were very much the exception to the rule by this stage. The genre was more accurately represented by the likes of 2010′s Yule Die, another Santa suited slasher, or 2011′s Slaughter Claus, a plotless, pretty unwatchable amateur effort from Charles E. Cullen featuring Santa and the Bi-Polar Elf on an unexplained and uninteresting killing spree.

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Slaughter Claus

Bloody Christmas (2012) sees a former movie star going crazy as he plays Santa on a TV show. 2009 film Deadly Little Christmas is a ham-fisted retread of slashers like Silent Night Deadly Night and 2002′s One Hell of a Christmas is a Danish Satanic horror comedy. Bikini Bloodbath Christmas (2009) is the third in a series of pointless tits ‘n’ gore satires that fail as horror, soft porn or comedy.

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And of course the festive horror movie can’t escape the low budget zombie onslaught – 2009 saw Silent Night, Zombie Night, in 2010 there was Santa Claus Versus the Zombie, 2011 brought us A Cadaver Christmas, in 2012 we had Christmas with the Dead and Silent Night of the Living Dead is currently in pre-production. None of these films are likely to fill you with the spirit of the season.

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So although we can hardly say that the Christmas horror film is at full strength, it is at least as prolific as ever. With a remake of Silent Night Deadly Night, now just called Silent Night, playing theatres in 2012, it seems that filmmaker’s fascination with the dark side of the season isn’t going away anytime soon.

Silent Night

Silent Night

Article by David Flint


Night Train to Terror

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Night Train to Terror is a 1985 independent American horror film directed by John Carr, Phillip Marshak, Tom McGowan, Jay Schlossberg-Cohen, Gregg C. Tallas, and written by Phillip Yordan and has since become an infamous cult classic of grade-Z movie fare. It stars Cameron Mitchell, Richard Moll, Marc Lawrence and John Phillip Law.

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God and Satan are on board a train and discuss the fate of three individuals. In the first story, “The Case of Harry Billings”, a man is kidnapped and taken to an insane asylum where he is put under hypnosis and lures victims to be tortured and murdered as part of an organ-harvesting operation. The second story, “The Case of Gretta Connors”, entails two young lovers who become involved in a sinister cult of people fascinated with death. The final story “The Case of Claire Hansen” involves an apprentice to the Devil who is out to destroy mankind and a group of immortals who are out to stop him.

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Night Train to Terror is actually pieced together from three other films:

Cataclysm (1980)
Death Wish Club (1983)
Scream Your Head Off (unfinished)

Footage from this film was also later edited into Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars (1992). In the end credits, Satan is credited as being played by “Lu Sifer” and God by “Himself”.

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“Bad karate that can only be stopped by a bearded guy with a net. Flubutu’s amazing electrocution. Boobies. Richard Moll fondling boobies. Decapiation. Giant wasp makes guy’s head explode. Head’s in jars. Closet full of body parts. Giant demons. Crazy spider monster. Breakdancers. Bad eighties fashion. Repetitive music. God and Satan looking out a window and enjoying story time together. All of this sounds completely random and unrelated, and it is, this really just a series of bizarre set pieces strung together but damn it, it’s a lot of fun.” Rock! Shock! Pop!

Night Train to Terror is a delectably wild, out of control piece of obscure horror cinema…a piece-meal juggernaut of a loco-motive, barreling recklessly down the tracks, with seemingly no one in the driver’s seat. For that reason, this clearly one of those films which you’re gonna indisputably despise, or you’re gonna absolutely relish with maniacal glee.” Cinema Head Cheese

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Horror films involving trains: Creep | Death Line (Raw Meat) | Horror Express | The Midnight Meat Train | Night Train Murders | Terror Train | Train

Wikipedia | IMDb

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Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby

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Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby is a 1976 TV movie directed by Sam O’Steen, and a sequel to the 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby (which O’Steen edited). It has little connection to the novel by Ira Levin, on which the first film was based. It stars Stephen McHattiePatty Duke AustinGeorge MaharisBroderick CrawfordRuth GordonRay Milland and Tina Louise.

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A coven are preparing for a ritual, only to discover that Adrian (Rosemary’s baby), who is now eight years old, is missing from his room. Knowing Rosemary must be responsible for this, the coven members use her personal possessions to enable the forces of evil to locate her. Rosemary and Adrian are hiding in a synagogue for shelter. While hiding there, supernatural events begin to affect the rabbis. However, as they are seeking sanctuary in a house of God, the coven is unable to affect them.

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The next morning, Guy (George Maharis), who is now a famous movie star, gets a call from Roman Castevet. Roman informs Guy that both Rosemary and Adrian are missing and that Rosemary may attempt to contact him. Later that night, Rosemary and Adrian are sheltering in a bus stop. Rosemary makes a phone call to Guy, while Adrian plays with his toy car nearby. As soon as Guy answers the phone, Rosemary immediately issues instructions on how to send her money. Outside, some local children start teasing Adrian and bullying him by stealing his toy car. Suddenly, in a fit of rage, Adrian knocks the children unconscious to the ground. Attempting to flee, the pair are accosted by Marjean, a prostitute who was witness to the incident. Marjean offers them to hide the pair in her trailer…

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“Everything involving Duke and her young child on the run from evil Satanists is cheaply done but automatically fun. Flash-forwarding the “action” years into the future is a mistake that the film should never have attempted in the first place. Lizard-faced Stephen McHattie is well cast as the adult demon seed Andrew/Adrien, but has little to do but act confused. Ray Milland is a great pick to take over for the deceased Sidney Blackmer as cult leader Roman Castevet, but it doesn’t make up for the sinful waste of a downgraded returning Ruth Gordon as wife Minnie, who rarely does more than echo her husband.” Kindertrauma

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“Suffering from such maladies as a psychotic script, some stilted acting, and sub-par special effects (whenever such things are attempted) you may correctly assume that this sequel to Roman Polanski’s 1968 suspense film does not live up to its heritage. What a pleasant surprise, then, to find that this ultra-obscure sequel to a horror classic is a wacky 70s Doom film full of hallucinogenic images and a constantly downbeat tone.” Groovy Doom

“The acting, directing, writing, pacing, and climax where all horrendously bad. There is not one redeeming thing going for the film (and for a laugh, it tries to recreate the famous rape scene from the first film). It’s just sad to watch. Stick with the original, and count your blessings if you haven’t seen this.” Karmic Cop

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Wikipedia | IMDb | We are grateful to VHS Collector for the video sleeve image


Tender Dracula

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Tender Dracula, or Confessions of a Blood Drinker (French: Tendre Dracula or, alternately, La Grande Trouille) is a 1974 French horror film directed by Pierre Grunstein. It stars Peter Cushing, Alida Valli, Miou-Miou, Bernard Menez and Nathalie Courval. The plot involves two writers who take their girlfriends to a castle where an actor (Peter Cushing) who has played vampires in many films is living. The longer they stay in the castle, the more likely it seems that the actor is an actual vampire.

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A frantic television executive dispatches two bungling writers, Alfred (Bernard Menez, La Grande Bouffe, Dracula and Son) and Boris (Stéphane Shandor), to convince acting legend MacGregor (horror mainstay, Peter Cushing) not to throw away his peerless career playing a vampire in order to branch out into the world of slushy romance. They head off to a remote Scottish castle where the actor resides, taking with them two budding actresses, Madeleine (Nathalie Courval) and Marie (a regularly undressed, be-wigged Miou-Miou) and soon encounter resident butler Abélard (Percival Russel) and MacGregor’s wife (Alida Valli, another horror legend, seen in the likes of Suspiria and Lisa and the Devil), both of whom veer from Carry On to existential experimentation in the blink of an eye. We finally meet a Keats-spouting MacGregor, already way beyond convincing to change his new career path but the remaining 70 minutes care little about such frippery.

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Struggling to decide which genre it wants to demolish, we are regularly distracted by a stream of gratuitous nudity, none of which is anything other than typical 70′s softcore but all of it somewhat jarring when considering Mr Cushing’s name is above the title – those alarmed at his participation in the sleazy Corruption should take a cold shower.

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Some singing also ensues but fortunately both Valli and Cushing steer clear, both looking occasionally like they are prepared for the film to start in earnest. As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell whether the actor is leading his guests along or he has grand designs on his prey.

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The presence of Valli and Cushing, as well as a castle, should be foolproof enough to ‘get by’ but this oddly-pitched French production is far too satisfied with its props to go to the effort of story/script/wit/point. This, mercifully, was Pierre Grunstein’s only directorial effort, though his career as a producer (Jean de Florette, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) would suggest he wasn’t utterly blind to talent and film-making skill. Made in the period during which Cushing was in deep mourning for the loss of his wife, Helen, it is easy to see the actor throwing himself into any old project to distract him from his misery, though this is somewhat wobbly as an appeal, given it also being the period of some of his greatest roles, Tales from the Crypt, Horror Express, Madhouse and so on.

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The muddled cast, with Cushing’s voice dubbed by French acting titan Jean Rochefort in the original release, appear to be acting alongside rather than with each other; both Courval and Miou-Miuo regularly burst out into song in a strange Greek Chorus, seemingly an attempt to remind everyone where we are in the plot. In the most preposterous scene, Cushing spanks Miou-Miou, the kind of thing you could get away with in 1974, with the chances of English-speaking audiences ever viewing the film being slim. What we do get is a glimpse of is Cushing as The Count, more redolent of the smooth Lugosi vamp than Lee’s aristocrat but still only an interesting footnote than a statement.

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So confused is the aim, especially as Euro-humour rarely travels well at the best of times, that it’s hard to be too damning of the film, purely because it’s difficult to know what the point was in the first place. Towards the end, Cushing’s character flicks through a scrapbook containing photos of some the real actor’s most famous roles. You’d think that at this point someone would have twigged that something had gone terribly astray in the very production they were working on.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Some of the images above appear courtesy of the Peter Cushing Blog

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Autopsy of a Ghost

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Autopsy of a Ghost (original title: Autopsia de un Fantasma) is a 1968 Mexican horror-comedy film, directed by Ismael Rodríguez and starring Basil Rathbone (cinema’s most famous Sherlock Holmes), John Carradine (Houses of both Frankenstein and Dracula) and Cameron Mitchell (Blood and Black Lace, The Toolbox Murders). The remaining cast were all Spanish speakers – the film is particularly notable as the final screen role for Rathbone.

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Elizabethan dandy, Canuto Perez (Rathbone), roams the Earth in limbo, having committed suicide 400 years previously, doomed to potter about as a ghost in a lonely castle. For company he has his own skeleton, which has managed to separate itself from his person and interacts with him as an individual entity, usually being contrary, and a chuckling tarantula. Perez’s previous life had seen him carousing with ladies without much thought for their feelings and his suicide came as an escape from the Earthly punishment which faced him. A little overdue, Satan (Carradine) appears and offers him a way out – he has four days to make one of four women fall in love with him to such an extent that they would be willing to die for him. The catch is that he mustn’t venture beyond the four walls of the castle and must rely on the Devil to tempt the unlucky females into his lair. Cue much dressing up, a robot and a child who’s at least 30 years old.

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The same year George Romero was re-writing the horror rule-book, Carradine and Rathbone had serious gas bills to pay and lowered themselves to appearing in Mexican farces, the horror and comedy of which would already have been outdated by their heydays in the 30′s and 40′s. The pair had already disgraced themselves (along with Lon Chaney Jr) in the previous year’s Hillbillys in a Haunted House but little could prepare them or the audiences, such as they were, for this jaw-dropping mess. It actually starts rather entertainingly, the jokes are passable, the sets are well decorated and it’s huge fun to see three such famous faces in such bizarre circumstances. Sadly, the joke wears thin extremely quickly, a particular shame as the running time is gargantuan for what it is – approaching the two-hour mark. Worse still, so excited are the film-makers, they forget to include our heroes for around half the film.

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Carradine later asserted that Rathbone’s death, shortly after filming, could be attributed to the high altitude they filmed at. That, or presumably, he got to watch the film. It would seem that Rathbone and Carradine both read their lines in English and were dubbed, rather than learning phonetically; Mitchell, the show-off, spoke his, like the rest of the cast, in Spanish. Though the few supporters of the film would claim that Rathbone is having some fun in his twilight years, his scenes as Cyrano de Bergerac and reading Hamlet rather smack of ridicule at his expense.

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Shot in colour on a budget seemingly stratospherically higher than standard Mexican films, the urge to pack as much in as possible makes it absolute torture to watch, a constant parade of ridiculous characters, none of whom are any real fun or offer anything of interest. Rightly buried, this will never see the light of day officially, there simply isn’t an audience that would appreciate it. You can watch it for free online (see below), though you may feel overcharged.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Big thanks to BasilRathbone.net for some of the pictures.

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Highlights of the film:

Whole film online:


The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

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The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies is a 1964 American monster movie written, produced and directed by Ray Dennis Steckler, who also starred, billed under the pseudonym ”Cash Flagg”. Produced on a $38,000 budget, much of it takes place at The Pike amusement park in Long Beach, California. The film was billed as the first “monster musical”, beating The Horror of Party Beach by a mere month in release date. The film was apparently to be titled The Incredibly Strange Creatures, or Why I Stopped Living and Became a Mixed-up Zombie, but was changed in response to Columbia Pictures’ threat of a lawsuit over the name’s similarity to Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, which was under production at the time.

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Much of the movie was filmed in an old, long-empty Masonic temple in Glendale, California, owned by actor Rock Hudson. The nine-story building was a series of makeshift “sound stages” stacked floor after floor, some big enough to create the midway scenes indoors. This was the studio used that year for production of The Creeping Terror, another low-quality monster movie.

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The film was originally released by Fairway-International Pictures, Arch Hall, Sr.’s studio, who put it on a lower half of a double bill with one of his own pictures. Dissatisfied, Steckler bought the distribution rights back from Hall, purchased the rights to the Coleman Francis picture, The Beast of Yucca Flats  and roadshowed the picture across the US. In order to get repeat customers, Steckler re-titled the film numerous times, with monickers such as The Incredibly Mixed-Up ZombieDiabolical Dr. Voodoo and The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary.

Plot:

Jerry (Steckler as “Flagg”), his girlfriend Angela (Sharon Walsh), and his buddy Harold (Atlas King) head out for a day at the carnival. In one venue, a dance number is performed by Marge (Carolyn Brandt, Steckler’s wife at the time), an alcoholic who drinks before and between shows, and her partner, Bill Ward, for a small audience. There Jerry sees stripper Carmelita (Erina Enyo) who hypnotizes him with her icy stare and he is compelled to see her act. Carmelita is the young sister of powerful fortune-teller Estrella (Brett O’Hara), and Estrella turns Jerry into a zombie by hypnotizing him with a spiraling wheel. He then goes on a rampage, killing Marge and fatally wounding Bill. Later, Jerry attempts to strangle his girlfriend Angela as well. It develops that Estrella, with her henchman Ortega (Jack Brady), has been busy turning various patrons into zombies, apparently by throwing acid on their faces…

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Reviews:

“… this flick doesn’t just rebel against, or even disregard, standards of taste and art. In the universe inhabited by The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, such things as standards and responsibility have never been heard of. It is this lunar purity which largely imparts to the film its classic stature. Like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and a very few others, it will remain as an artifact in years to come to which scholars and searchers for truth can turn and say, “This was trash! ” Lester Bangs, In Greil Marcus. Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (Random House, 1987)

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“As a film, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies is too boring for even unintentional laugh potential. Ray Dennis Steckler directs seemingly without involvement. Almost half the running time is taken up by the monotonous rock‘n’roll numbers, although these are made near incoherent by the shoddy recording. (If this were a film made in the 1980s or 90s, you would regard the endless songs as a cynical marketing excuse to sell a soundtrack album, but that was not the case back then). Director Ray Dennis Steckler also plays the hero under the name Cash Flagg and manages to give an incredible geeky performance – he is a gangly beanpole, like a Pee Wee Herman played straight.” Richard Scheib, Moria

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“With a film so deliriously absurd and hard to describe in plain English, it’s easiest to entice the uninitiated to pick up this flick through Steckler’s advertising technique: ‘SEE a bizarre dream sequence with screaming, laughing showgirls, ballet dance moves, swirling opticals! SEE Ray Dennis Steckler, aka Cash Flagg, dressed like the Unabomber stab a dancing couple to death on-stage! SEE musical numbers which have nothing to do with the actual film! HEAR a Brenda Lee-wannabe crooning “It Hurts” and “Shook Out of Shape”! SEE the ugliest hunchback ever captured on film! SEE the Hypno-Wheel and its disastrous results! SEE the worst stand-up comedy routine ever! SEE the Mixed-Up Zombies attack their mistress Brett O’Hara, famous look-alike and stand-in for Hollywood legend Susan Hayward! SEE a goofy beach chase! SEE endless footage of the carnival to bring back that good old feeling of nostalgia! SEE swirling camerawork by Laszlo Kovacs, Vilmos Zsigmond and Joseph Mascelli! HEAR hip beatnik dialogue! FEEL the nausea induced by yet another…and another…and another musical number! LEARN the “Zombie Stomp”!’ In other words, every cult/drive-in/exploitation/kooky film fan should have a copy of this on their shelf pronto!” Casey Scott, DVD-Drive-In

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“It’s an incredibly bad movie made worse by the many slow patches and the muffled sound, but the film’s lovely visuals, shot by no less than Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and Laszlo Kovacs (Easy Rider), shine through (even if Media Blasters didn’t have the time or the money to remove print scratches and other impurities). And it’s an absolute must-see from the annals of legendary bad movies.” Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

Wikipedia | IMDb

We are most grateful to Wrong Side of the Art! for some wonderful images above



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Hotel Inferno

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Hotel Inferno is a 2013 action/crime/horror film written, produced and directed by Giulio de Santi.

Review:

This will probably be easier if I transcribe the film’s description direct from their website:

“The contract killer Frank Zimosa has just been hired for a ridiculously lucrative mission by the rich and powerful Jorge Mistrandia. The objective: to kill a couple of people hiding in one of his European hotels. What would look like one of the simplest jobs Frank has ever had is just about to turn into a living nightmare. He will soon realize he’s nothing more than prey for Mistrandia and his army of crazy henchmen that have hiding in the hotel along with an ancient and unstoppable Horror. In their hotels you can only rent rooms….in Hell! See everything through the eyes of the anti-hero Frank Zimosa and boost your mind with an overdose of: nonstop violence, adrenaline, and pure fear, surrounded in a mysterious, deep and twisted story. You won’t just watch it, you will experience it”.

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Directed by Giulio de Santi and from the Necrostorm stable, also home to Adam Chaplin, the unique selling point of the film, aside from the utterly gratuitous gore-flinging, is that the whole film is shown in first-person. The ruse that allows this to pass is that Zimosa, as part of his contract, is obliged to don a pair of spectacles that will record all his killings for the benefit of his mysterious employer. This conceit rather presupposes that there was a demand for such an innovation and initial fears that this is going to be a tricky technique to carry over full-length movie (albeit 80 minutes) soon prove sadly correct – angles, characters, motives and spatial awareness all being thrown into the air with good intentions but bad catching skills.

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Zimosa (who I kept hearing as ‘Samosa’, a distinctly un-chilling name) is required to only perpetrate the killings using only the weapons (under no circumstances these being guns) provided and remove his victim’s brain and viscera, without ever questioning why. If this sounds a flimsy excuse to show an array of blunt implements being used to cave-in heads, you’re possibly already above the intellectual expectation the film-makers envisaged this movie attracting. Zimosa screws up these instructions almost instantly, condemning himself to becoming a permanent resident in the hotel in a plot that takes what it probably imagines to be a Lovecraftian twist but which is sadly neither lovely, crafty nor twisty.

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There is, for those who are less fussy about plot and more picky about innards, a staggering about of lingering gory sequences, executed in an accomplished but rather childish manner. To allow for the relatively costly effects, much money was evidently saved on the actors and script – essentially there are only three roles that require voices, Zimosa (Rayner Bourton (Outland, You’re Dead), his nagging girlfriend and Mistrandia (Michael Howe, whose career has swung from The Two Ronnies comedy to The Hunger to the Unman of Unman, Wittering and Zigo). All these vocal performances are catastrophic.

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Which brings us to the crux of the issue; this film is made almost exclusively for a generation of video game players, who have descended into such laziness that they now require someone to play the game for them. The voice-acting, is entirely in keeping with the unconvincing but to-the-point delivery of innumerable slash ‘n’ dice console games, as is the dizzying pace which dispenses with sense and subtlety before you’ve even begun to query why someone keeps asking for samosas.

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At the film’s best, it’s Bad Taste without the fun, at its worst, you begin to feel guilty for not pressing ‘stop’. There are brief moments where the first-person view hints at potentially claustrophobic set-pieces but these are soon shuffled along as neither film-maker nor audience can evidently wait longer than two minutes for a crushed cranium. The DVD is stuffed with extras, a special edition even included a Hotel Inferno cigarette lighter. It’s a shame the audience that would enjoy this best is actually too young to smoke.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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IMDb


Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks

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Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (originally: Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette – “Terror! The Castle of Cursed Women”) is a 1974 Italian horror film produced and directed by exploitation entrepreneur Dick Randall. It is very loosely based on the Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein.

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The film is also known as Dr. Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (American video title), Frankenstein’s Castle (British video title), Monsters of Frankenstein, Terror, Terror Castle, The House of Freaks and The Monsters of Dr. Frankenstein

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In a non-specified time in an undisclosed European country, neanderthals roam the countryside, upsetting the local villagers. Seeing an opportunity to rid themselves of their tormentors, they corner one of the brutes (Goliath, Loren Ewing from Devil in the Flesh), evading the tree trunks and rocks he hurls, to bash him over the head and kill him. Leaving his corpse, this is soon collected by some shadowy individuals and taken to the castle laboratory of Count Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi, slumming it somewhat post-The Barefoot Contessa and The Italian Job) so that he can continue to conduct his unholy experiments. The Count is most disappointed that the other (female) cadaver collected up has been tampered with by his necrophiliac dwarf assistant, Genz (Michael Dunn, The Mutations, The Werewolf of Washington)

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The locals are becoming alarmed – they’re suspicious as to what is going on at the castle and also a tad unhappy that the graves of their loved ones are being robbed. Not for the first time in the film, they are told to go away and stop being silly by the hopelessly inept head of police, played by familiar trash movie face, Edmund Purdom (The Fifth CordAbsurd; Pieces) in fairness it’s a very sparse mob with a touch of the Monty Pythons about it. Elsewhere, Genz has befriended the other marauding caveman, Ook (the brilliant character actor Salvatore Baccaro, aka Sal Boris but here under the worst pseudonym ever, Boris Lugosi) and… if you’ve made it this far, it probably doesn’t matter.

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Some female nudity, comedy caveman grunting, some pervy dwarf action and some endless experiments with the world’s smallest lab set-up, the ending can’t come quickly enough – indeed, rather like the opening scene, when it does come it seems out of place.

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Directed by Dick Randall (here as Robert H. Oliver), best known as a producer of low-budget schlock and horror (The Mad Butcher; Pieces; The Urge to Kill), the film was made in Italy and features many bit-art actors from genre of the time – or more correctly, slightly before the time, many of them clearly having fallen on bad times – also along for the ride are the likes of German stunner Christiane Rücker (Castle of the Walking Dead), buff strongman Gordon Mitchell (Satyricon, Frankenstein ’80), Xiro Papas (The Beast in Heat) and Luciano Pigozzi (Blood and Black Lace, Baron Blood, All the Colours of the Dark).

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The real wonder of Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks is that it conspires against the odds so wilfully to become one of the most painful horror films to watch. As the script is at pains to clarify, the story is broadly speaking that of Frankenstein and so one might assume the hard work has been done… but no, endless, pointless twists, cut-aways, a breathtakingly slow operation (Frankenstein spends longer shaving Goliath’s head than Colin Clive did making two monsters come alive) and some mild hanky panky spiced up with the inclusion of a dwarf and a caveman who communicates through grunts, only serve to make this a harrowing mess.

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Worse still, bad enough that the likes of Brazzi are disgracing themselves but that the film is so bad that even aforementioned Dunn and Baccaro (also seen in The Beast in Heat and briefly in Deep Red), usually arresting and air-punchingly fun in their performances are unable to save this is alarming. The squelchy, grimy score is by Marcello Gigante, better known, and suited, for his work on Italian Westerns. The settings are meagre and rather harbour the feeling that if the camera moved slightly to the left they’d get a decent shot of the car park; as it goes, the gothic flavour is one of the few nearly-ticks.

Picked up by Harry Novak‘s Boxoffice International Pictures and unleashed in cinemas during 1974, the film has not improved with age and is so ponderous it’s difficult to even reappraise it as kitsch. The film found its way onto the home market initially through the likes of Magnum Video and later seen alongside Randall’s far more accomplished production, The Mad Butcherthrough masters of lo-fi Something Weird.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

 

 

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Cry of the Werewolf

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Cry of the Werewolf, also known as Daughter of the Werewolf, is a 1944 film starring Nina Foch, based on a story by Griffin Jay and directed by Henry Levin. Following The Return of the Vampire, this was Columbia studio’s second broadside-attack on Universal’s stranglehold of the horror market.

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Plummy-toned tour guide, Peter Althius (John Abbott, the voice of the wolf in Jungle Book) enthrals a captive audience with tales of the strange goings-on in the stately home of the deceased Marie LaTour, rumoured to have been a werewolf.

Cry of the Werewolf John Abbott: "We will now proceed to the Voodoo Room..."

John Abbott as the guide

To cover all bases, voodoo and vampirism are thrown into the talk as well, though we are informed that being a werewolf is the worst of the lot, a fact proven by the evil quotient being so high that the being cannot help but transform into a bestial form to conduct its killings.

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Dr Charles Morris (Fritz Lieber, previously glimpsed in Charles Laughton’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame) , the museum’s director, believes he has discovered the sinister secret about the lupine history of the house, prompting the museum’s janitor to warn LaTour’s daughter/gypsy princess, Celeste (the film’s biggest acting draw, Dutch-born Nina Foch, also seen in the aforementioned The Return of the Vampire and later in epics such as Spartacus and The Ten Commandments).

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Celeste acts (at least in the movement sense) and burns the offending evidence and we are introduced to a secret series of rooms accessed by a secret panel in the mantlepiece. Morris is also found dead and his son Bob (Stephen Crane, barely acted again, if you count his appearance in this as acting – he went back to being Lana Turner’s husband – briefly) and future Transylvanian wife, Elsa (Danish-born Osa Massen, later seen in Rocketship X-M) try to piece together the evidence to solve the mystery of the house, past and present.

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Also along to fight crime is hard-boiled Lt. Barry Lane (Barton MacLane, The Mummy’s Ghost, 1941’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) who starts as he means to go on, barking (or howling) up the wrong tree and ignoring the supernatural elements and pointing fingers at more obvious suspects. Amidst the perpetual long shadows, Celeste and Elsa face-off to hide/uncover the wolfy goings-on, whilst the men of the picture wander around haplessly spending more time preening and checking legal paperwork than stopping marauding monsters.

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Is this the worst werewolf film ever made? Well, latter-day shot-on-video or CGI efforts would definitely take that crown but this is a genuine contender, made worse by the fact that Columbia were making a concerted effort to erase all Universal’s efforts in the process. Their previous horror outing, The Return of the Vampire had been well-received in many quarters but had the added attraction of Bela Lugosi and a thinly veiled (and copyright-dodging) storyline which expanded on 1931’s Dracula, in all but name. Cry of the Werewolf has none of this; Foch is alluring but unbelievable as either a werewolf or gypsy royalty; MacClane is fun but clearly hasn’t been told he’s in a horror film and turns the whole film into a plodding noir crime yarn – elsewhere, some of the acting is excruciating, Crane, it goes without saying but also Abbott who sounds like jumper-wearing comic-folk minstrel Jake Thackray.

c15In pre-production, film was intended to build on their previous success and be titled Bride of the Vampire, elements of this evidently remaining in the plot, but the success of 1942’s Cat People and the opportunity to exploit a more tragic angle proved too enticing and by the time of filming, vampires has taken more of a back seat. The frantic re-write by Griffin Jay who had, it must be said, more of an affinity with bandages (The Mummy’s Ghost, The Mummy’s Hand and The Mummy’s Tomb were all his) lacks any threat whatsoever, has far too many irrelevant characters and still wasn’t entirely sure where it was going – even at filming stage, it was due to be titled Daughter of the Werewolf. The film marks the debut of director Henry Levin who had a long career, fortunately avoiding further horror films – his most famous effort is probably Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

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Perhaps inevitably, given that World War Two was raging, the budget was meagre… and it shows. There is a distinct lack of music in the film, what there is being recycled stock cues. The ferocious werewolf is actually an alsatian, the remedy for the poor hound’s lack of terror being an elastic band wrapped around his muzzle so that it permanently exposes its teeth. Of course, this is also visible to the audience. Inevitably, even War-weary audiences failed to warm to the film and it was hastily repackaged as a double-bill with The Soul of a Monster, at least offering twice the value if not twice the quality.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Thanks to Horrorfind.com for some of the pics.

Choice dialogue:

“A woman likes to have a man a little afraid of her.”

Nina Foch + Osa Massen in Cry of the Werewolf 1944

Nina Foch and Osa Massen

Cry of the Werewolf Milton Parsons

Milton Parsons as Adamson, the exuberant funeral director

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Cast:

Wikipedia | IMDb


Cannibals aka White Cannibal Queen

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Cannibals (also known as Mondo CannibaleWhite Cannibal Queen and Barbarian Goddess) is a 1980 French/Spanish/Italian cannibal film directed by prolific Spanish exploitation director Jesús Franco which starred Sabrina Siani . It is one of two cannibal films directed by Franco starring Al Cliver, the other being Man Hunter (aka Devil Hunter).

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Plot teaser:

Doctor Taylor, his wife Elizabeth and their teenage daughter Lana go to an isolated hospital in the Brazilian jungle. They are attacked by savages and the doctor witnesses them kill and eat his wife, and abduct his daughter. Taylor manages to get back to civilization, but he needs psychiatric help; only Doctor Ana believes his story about cannibals, and takes the risk of going with him and a few rich people who can pay for a safari in the remote jungle. The cannibals decimate a number of the safari members in a succession of attacks, and only Taylor, Doctor Ana, and a photographer reach the cannibal tribe – only to discover that his daughter is now the wife of the tribe leader, and considered a goddess…

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The film is notable for the fact that it shares an amount of footage with Cannibal Terror. While many sources suggest that Franco’s footage was ‘borrowed’ for Cannibal Terror, a closer examination reveals that there are more connections than this between the two films. Both films share a number of locations, cast, and even dubbing actors. Some connections which suggest more than a mere borrowing of footage are:

Sabrina Siani is the eponymous White Cannibal Queen of Cannibals, and also appears (as a fully clothed adult) in a bar scene in Cannibal Terror. Several shots of the dancing cannibal tribe in their village are common to both films, and several shots appear only in one or the other. One actor with a very distinctive face and large Mick Jagger type of mouth is seen in Cannibal Terror in no less than three roles (two cannibals and one border guard) and is also quite visible as one of the cannibals devouring Al Cliver’s wife in Cannibals. Porn star Pamela Stanford plays Manuella in Cannibal Terror, and has the brief role of the unfortunate Mrs. Jeremy Taylor in Cannibals. She also appeared in a number of Jesus Franco’s other films around this time period, perhaps most notably, Lorna the Exorcist. As well, the actor who plays Roberto in Cannibal Terror is the captain of the boat at the beginning of Cannibals.

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Cannibals is considered even by Jess Franco himself to be the worst cannibal film ever made, due to its slow pacing, bad acting, terrible special effects and awful camera work. Franco said that he only did the two cannibal films for the money, and admitted he had no idea why anyone would want to watch them. He said that Sabrina Siani was the worst actress he ever worked with in his life (second only to Romina Power) and that Siani’s only good quality was her delectable derrière which he shows off to good effect in this film.

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Buy Cannibals on DVD from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“Franco’s film is no masterpiece by any means, but it certainly deserves its place in the pantheon of cannibal films that appeared in this period of exploitation film history. Omitting the animal cruelty, that seemed to be part and parcel of so many of the Italian entries, Franco actually brings in a reasonably competently made slice of cannibal mayhem without resorting to such shock tactics. The cannibal attacks are also quite nightmarish and unpleasant and very effective, as they play out in close-up slow motion”. Sex Gore Mutants

“This film is one of the most uninspired that I have seen in while from Jess Franco and I was totally caught off guard how tame and restrained he made the cannibals. Ultimately is you have climbed to the top of the cannibal mountain with films like Cannibal Ferox or Cannibal Holocaust then a film like Cannibals might be to tame and uneventful for you”. 10,000 Bullets

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“If you are one of those people who clings to the misguided belief that Uwe Boll or Paul W.S. Anderson are the worst directors in history you need to watch more Franco. Seriously. Cannibals is a piece of shit, and is really for cannibal completists only. Not even rabid Francophiles will find much value from this bland atrocity.” Digital Retribution

Further reading: Jungle Holocaust: Cannibal Tribes in Exploitation Cinema – article

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Buy Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Wikipedia | IMDb

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