ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN -- movie review by porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/7/09

 

Old monsters never die, they just fade away... Unless, that is, they're given one last chance to shine, as Universal pictures did for their classic monsters Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein (really Frankenstein's Monster, since it was the doctor who created him who was named Frankenstein -- but, let's face it, people were calling the Monster "Frankenstein" way back in the early thirties, including Universal's promotional department). 

By 1948, the various series starring these definitive movie monsters had wound down -- the scriptwriters were unable to think of new ways to rehash the same old formulas, the Gothic horror style that made these movies what they were had begun to diminish in the shadow of the Cold War and the Atomic Age, and new chapters in these sagas were beginning to end up at the bottom of double bills that drew increasingly smaller audiences. 

And so, as Universal became Universal-International and began to cut budgetary corners wherever possible, many of the men who played these monsters and the technicians responsible for bringing them to the screen were, one by one, given their pink slips and sent packing. 

However, two stars who were having no trouble getting people to buy movie tickets were the comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. And since U-I had all these classic monster characters just sitting around collecting cobwebs, it was decided to team them with the two comics in an attempt to combine the last vestiges of the monsters' popularity with the ongoing success of Bud and Lou, and create what would become a unique and thoroughly entertaining comedy/horror experience. The result was ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. 

Thankfully, the monsters were pretty much allowed to play it straight, without forcing them to perform a lot of pratfalls and silliness. In fact, the opening scene, which finds hapless lycanthrope Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) in a London hotel room fretfully awaiting the rising of the full moon, would have fit perfectly into any of the serious horror films of earlier years. Talbot, it seems, has been on the trail of Dracula, because he knows the infamous King of the Vampires is now in possession of the Frankenstein Monster and is trying to find a suitably compliant brain to surgically pop into his skull and transform the lumbering beast into a willing servant who will do his bidding. 

 

 

Having discovered that Dracula and the Monster have been transported to a "house of horrors" exhibit in Florida, Talbot is desperately trying to contact the shipping company by phone in order to intercept the crates before they're delivered. And who should answer the phone but Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello), who works there with his buddy Chick (Bud Abbott)? 

As Talbot tries to explain the situation to Wilbur, the full moon rises and he begins to sprout hair and fangs (in the first of two excellent transformation scenes). Wilbur hears growling on the other end of the line and thinks that, for some reason, the man has put his dog on the phone. But what he hears is the Wolf Man rampaging through the hotel room, savagely ripping the furniture to shreds in a scene that is every bit as chilling as any of the "official" Wolf Man movies. 

 After night descends on Florida, Wilbur and Chick deliver the crates containing Dracula and the Monster to McDougal's House Of Horrors. Wilbur, of course, discovers them and is suitably terrified, but a skeptical Chick will have none of it. 

Finally Dracula arises from his coffin and takes the Monster to a castle on a nearby island (I know, there aren't very many castles in Florida, but that's not important) where his accomplice, Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert), who possesses the actual diary of Dr. Frankenstein, will perform the brain transplant. Unfortunately, the brain she has chosen for its simplicity and compliance is none other than that of her "boyfriend", Wilbur! 

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN is a dream-come-true for fans of both Bud and Lou and the classic Universal monsters. Although the humor is more situational, with less of the usual comedy "routines" that are found in most Abbott and Costello movies, it is one of their funniest efforts. And it's a real joy to see Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Glenn Strange performing their unforgettable characters one last time. 

Lugosi, denied by Universal the chance to portray his most famous character since 1931 (John Carradine assumed the role in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HOUSE OF DRACULA; Lon Chaney, Jr. appeared as SON OF DRACULA around the same time), relishes the chance to don the famous cape again and gives a wonderfully sinister performance. 

 Chaney, of course, is great as Larry Talbot/the Wolf Man, and even though he wears a masklike appliance here (master make-up man Jack Pierce, who created the famous make-ups for the Monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, et al, had since been let go by the studio, and faster, more cost-efficient methods were now employed), thus making his face less mobile and expressive, still manages to convey the frightening viciousness of the Wolf Man, even in certain scenes in which he must clumsily fail in his attempts to sink his claws into an unsuspecting Lou Costello. 

And Glenn Strange, the former stunt man and bit actor who played the Monster in the last two serious entries in the Frankenstein series (HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HOUSE OF DRACULA) has more to do here than in either of the previous films in which he spent most of his screen time strapped to a laboratory table. 

The climax of the film takes place in the castle as Dracula and Dr. Mornay prepare to transfer Wilbur's brain into the skull of the Monster while Chick and Talbot come to his rescue. As fate would have it, the full moon rises yet again and Talbot undergoes his transformation, which leads to a rare battle between Dracula and the Wolf Man (just as Lugosi and Chaney, and their respective stunt doubles, fought in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN five years earlier), while the newly-recharged Monster breaks free of his restraints and goes after Bud and Lou. This results in an extended free-for-all that will delight fans of both genres. 

Unfairly maligned by many critics as the final degradation of the classic Universal monsters, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN is actually a wonderful tribute to them, and a fond way of bidding farewell to these familiar characters that provided so much entertainment to their many fans over the years. If you're one of those fans, and you also appreciate the comedy of Abbott and Costello, this is a film that you'll want to watch over and over again.

 

CASTLE OF THE CREEPING FLESH -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

(Originally posted on 2/4/21)

 

Fans of creepy old castles filled with evil curses--not to mention creeping flesh--will no doubt find the title CASTLE OF THE CREEPING FLESH (Severin Films, 1968) an irresistible invitation to explore the darkest nooks and crannies of this murky German horror-fest.

We're introduced to decadent urban party animals Baron Brack (Michel Lemoine, KISS ME MONSTER) and the lovely but somewhat sleazy Elena (Elvira Berndorff) as they ditch one wild party in favor of a more private one at Brack's secluded villa.

They're joined there by a gaggle of other funseekers, but not before Brack appears to rape Elena in a frenzy of wild-eyed lust. But we wonder about the obviously conflicted Elena since she begins to urge "Harder!" during the act and then spends its aftermath with a dreamily ecstatic look on her face before fleeing into the dark forest.

 

At last they all end up in the even more secluded title castle where the dreaded Earl of Saxon (Howard Vernon, SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY) and his mad, hulking servant Alecos (Vladimir Medar) are quite clearly up to no good behind the Earl's eerily placid fascade, and it all has something to do with the cursed history of his family--including rape, murder, and other unpleasant goings-on.

There's also a dungeon-like surgical cellar with two strangely-garbed doctors wielding some scary-looking scalpels and other instruments as they perform horrific acts on sheet-shrouded patients for no telling what sordid and sinister reasons which, shockingly, will eventually involve the one somewhat likable member of the party, Marion (Claudia Butenuth).

It's all rather solidly set in the "old, dark house" vein but with heaping helpings of sexual perversion (most of the film's alternate titles and publicity seem to feature the word "lust"), including a generous amount of nudity for 1968, and some good old fashioned violence, not the least of which involves a rampaging bear.

 

None of which, to be honest, is all that interesting or exciting save for those who are really into this sort of lurid late-60s Eurosleaze and don't mind settling in for a slowburn sort of plot that takes its sweet time leading us through its various twists and turns.

As such, it's not a bad way to spend an hour and change, although the frequent insert shots of an actual living creature being sliced open and having its still-pulsating internal organs poked and prodded for real are jarringly out of place and seem designed to appeal to the basest blood lusts of a limited segment of the viewing audience. This queasy footage is severely inappropriate and woefully unnecessary to what is already an adequately horrific film on its own.

Still, the creepy-old-castle fans out there with a sweet tooth for 60s Euro-cinema of the gloomily Gothic variety should have little trouble enjoying CASTLE OF THE CREEPING FLESH, at least to a sufficient extent to warrant giving it a visit. Others, however, are advised to attend a more conventional party like the one depicted during the main titles and limit their castle excursions to Disneyland.



Buy it from Severin Films



Special Features:

    Adrian in the Castle of Bloody Lust – Archival Interview with Joyce Hoven and Percy Hoven
    MARK OF THE DEVIL Q&A with The Hoven Family at Austrian Pulp Film Fest
    Locations Featurette
    Trailers – English / German / Alt Title APPOINTMENT WITH LUST
    Textless Opening Credit Sequence
    German Opening Credit Sequence

Disc Specs:

    Scanned uncut & uncensored from the German negative for the first time ever in America
    Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
    Audio: English Mono and German Mono
    Subtitles: English
    Closed Captions: English SDH
    Region 0/Free

NIGHT KILLER -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 6/29/19

 

Italian director Claudio Fragasso, who gave us such films as TROLL 2 and ZOMBIE 4, decided that his final genre film before moving on to more respectable "auteur" projects would be a Bergman-like psychological thriller called NIGHT KILLER (Severin Films, 1988), about a traumatized woman kidnapped by a mystery man who's obsessed with her and who may or may not be the crazed serial killer who caused her to lose her mind.

The producers took one look at Fragasso's heated tale of twisted love and obsession and handed it over to Fragasso's fellow Italian horror filmmaker Bruno Mattei (VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON, ZOMBIE 3, ROBOWAR, SHOCKING DARK), who shot new scenes of graphic gore--such as the fright-masked killer plunging his razor-sharp claw-glove all the way through his screaming victims' bodies--and renamed it TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3.

 

The two styles would seem to be at cross purposes, yet Mattei's stalker-slasher scenes occur mainly in the early part of the film and, in my opinion, actually make Fragasso's thriller much more interesting while raising the stakes for poor Melanie Beck (Tara Buckman, THE CANNONBALL RUN, SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT) when she gets terrorized by the killer in her house during one of the film's most suspenseful scenes.

She survives, but her memory is gone and she no longer recognizes her daughter Clarissa (Tova Sardot) or her friends Sherman (Richard Foster) and his wife who are caring for Clarissa while Melanie's in the hospital. 

As soon as she's released, however, a crazed stalker named Axel (Peter Hooten, ORCA, THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS) hunts down and abducts her, tying her to a bed and playing life-or-death mind games with her as we wonder if (a) he's the masked killer, and (b) he'll make good on his promise to eventually have the already suicidal woman begging him to kill her.

During these scenes, Fragasso gets to indulge his more artistic side with long takes featuring Axel and Melanie in dramatic close-up interactions of intense  psychological and emotional conflict. 

While the script may seem a bit overheated at times, it's actually quite dramatically engaging and the stars give riveting performances despite the fact (as we learn in one of the disc's bonus interviews) that they actually didn't like each other at all.  This is where Fragasso's desire to create something more than a slasher film really manifests itself and the film takes on perversely romantic overtones.

Meanwhile, on the other side of NIGHT KILLER'S stylistic divide, Bruno Mattei's industrious contributions keep gorehounds happy with at least three bloody murder setpieces, all climaxing with the old claw-glove through the torso bit.

Mattei's lurid, less refined visuals are a real contrast, as is a lengthy sequence of pure 80s flash-dancing in leg warmers and leotards as some really awful dancers practice a routine onstage which is mercifully interrupted by the film's first kill.

To be honest, I doubt I'd have detected the presence of two directors if I hadn't already known of it, since NIGHT KILLER comes off sort of like a suspenseful Giallo whodunnit infused with extra helpings of gratuitous nudity and graphic violence (not to mention a couple of nifty plot twists) to make the whole confection just that much tastier.


Buy it at Severin Films

Scanned in 4k from the original negative

Special Features:

    The Virginia Claw Massacre: Interview With Director Claudio Fragasso
    Mindfuck: Interview With Screenwriter Rossella Drudi
    Trailer

TEENAGE GHOST PUNK -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/12/17

 

The word "lightweight" is usually used in a deprecating way, but in the case of TEENAGE GHOST PUNK (Midnight Releasing, 2014) I don't think anything weightier would've worked.  It would be like dumping an entire pint of ice cream on top of a Twinkie instead of a tasty dollop of Cool Whip.

The Twinkie, in this case, is a pleasant little tale of a displaced family: recent divorcée Carol (Adria Dawn), nervously re-entering the workforce in a new town; teen daughter Amanda (Grace Madigan), angst-ridden about leaving her old school and friends; and kid brother Adam (Noah Kitsos), a prematurely intelligent, erudite little wiseacre who enjoys getting on his big sister's nerves. 

What they don't know is that the neat little two-storey house they're about to move into is already inhabited by the ghost of Brian, a teenaged punk rocker who was electrocuted back in the 70s while playing guitar on the roof in the rain and has been unable, or unwilling, to "move on" since then.

 

At first, there are a few weird POLTERGEIST-type occurrences--rooms found in disarray, silverware spelling out words, bumps in the night--that Carol blames on the kids, but nothing really scary.  It's just lightly, comically spooky stuff because this movie isn't trying to scare us as much as it just wants to be lightly comical.

In fact, the funniest thing about TEENAGE GHOST PUNK to me isn't the ghostly stuff, but rather some of the secondary characters such as Squatchie (Jake Shadrake), a clumsy, extremely hirshute fellow student of Amanda's who keeps trying to get her to go out with him, and Carol's new co-worker Barry (Darren Stephens), a conceited jerk whose constant come-ons are delightfully annoying and groanworthy.

And then there's faux medium Madame Lidnar (Lynda Shadrake), recommended to Amanda by their new neighbors, a mixed-race gay couple who are both named Steve.  But best of all are a ghost-hunting group known as SPIT (Super Paranormal Investigation Team), a funny take-off of shows like "Ghost Hunters" where excitable team members creep around in the dark, jumping at shadows and "hearing" things. 

 

For me, the film's biggest giggles come when this gaggle of idiots are loose in the house or giddily explaining why all their equipment has an "X" in the name (because an "X" makes everything sound cooler).

Naturally, Amanda will eventually form a simpatico relationship with Brian (and his friends, who all hail from different time periods but are equally stuck in the limbo between two worlds) that helps compensate for her recently being dumped by her old boyfriend. 

There are the usual complications when Carol doesn't believe Amanda's ghost stories and blames her for various manifestations, and a twist or two that are so obvious that we must be intended to figure them out in one second flat.  But we know it'll all work itself out by the end because this movie has "happy ending" scrawled all over it.

 

It's all pretty smartly-written and acted in a way that makes even the less interesting scenes watchable, and writer-director Mike Cramer handles it all adeptly.  Still, by the time Amanda's Halloween party arrives--in which all ghosts will be visible to the living and all secrets revealed--the story has begun to lose some of its steam.  But by now it's as comfortable as an After School Special and remains easy to take until the upbeat fadeout.

TEENAGE GHOST PUNK may come up short for those expecting something with more depth and substance. For me, however, it's like a party balloon--lightweight, but colorful and amusing enough until it pops. 

CHILD'S PLAY (Blu-Ray) -- DVD review by porfle

 

(Originally posted on 10/11/09. Blu-Ray comments by Ian Friedman.)

 

The last time I saw CHILD'S PLAY (1988) was right after its original VHS release, and I wasn't very impressed at the time. But watching it again for the first time in over twenty years, I'm now of the opinion that this movie is a real hoot.

For those of you who are unaware of the premise, here's the short version: a psycho killer named Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), at the moment of his death, uses black magic to transfer his soul into a "Good Guy" doll--similar to the old "My Buddy" dolls for boys--which is then purchased by Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) to give to her little boy Andy (Alex Vincent) for his sixth birthday. The doll, "Chucky", comes to life, kills Andy's babysitter Maggie (Dinah Manoff), goes after a former accomplice who double-crossed him (Neil Guintoli), and then sets his sights on Detective Norris (Chris Sarandon), the cop who killed him and is now investigating Maggie's death. Worst of all, Chucky has discovered that he has the power to transfer his soul into the body of Karen's son Andy, who becomes the killer doll's final target.

Director Tom Holland, who gave us that other modern classic FRIGHT NIGHT (also with Chris Sarandon), doesn't dwell much on violence or gore and gives us just a few cursory nods to the horror genre. Instead, much of CHILD'S PLAY is directed like a tense, 80s-style cop movie with a revenge-crazed killer on the loose who just happens to be an animated doll. Some of the suspense sequences, such as Maggie's murder, remind me of something out of an old Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson flick. And one scene in which Chucky attacks Detective Norris in his car is pure action-movie stuff, with the out-of-control speeding car crashing through barriers and throwing off sparks as it scrapes against walls.

Chucky himself, as voiced with evil relish by Brad Dourif, is an awesome character. All manner of animatronics, puppets, midgets in suits, and camera tricks are used to convince us that the malevolent doll is alive. Nowadays, of course, they'd just take all the fun out of it by doing the whole thing up with CGI, like George Lucas eventually did with Yoda. Yawn.

The edge-of-your-seat finale takes place in the Barclay apartment, as Chucky goes after Andy with the intent of stealing his body while Karen and Norris try to stop him. This is a harrowing sequence that had me giddy with suspense even as I was groaning at some of the hokier elements (the gun's jammed?) that Holland shamelessly tosses into the mix. At one point, when it looks like the end for Chucky, the little boy gets to deliver an Arnold Schwarzenegger-sized zinger that almost had me howling with laughter. The kid pretty much nails the line, too.

My only complaint is the same one that I recall having back in '88--the ending is one of those "he's dead...he's not dead" things that they used to drive into the ground back in those days. But the whole thing is just so much fun that I didn't really care. Plus, Holland manages to maintain interest during this scene even when he's teetering over the top.

Catherine Hicks gives a really intense performance as Karen, and I just have to say that I find her really likable for some reason. As Detective Norris, Chris Sarandon is his usual cool self, and Alex Vincent does a great job as the cute little kid, Andy, mainly because he is a cute little kid. Neil Guintoli (MEMPHIS BELLE) doesn't get to do much, but his character has some nice hair for a change. Dinah Manoff as Maggie is cute and funny as usual.

The new 2-disc BD/DVD combo from 20th-Century Fox/MGM Home Entertainment is 1.85:1 widescreen with English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.9 audio plus Spanish 5.1 and French 2.0. Subtitles are available in English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and French. The image looks great for what was a low-budget horror film, with vivid and properly balanced colors. You can even seen the wires used to make a character fly back during one explosion. There is no sign of any digital encoding errors. The detail displayed by the film is also excellent.

All these years I thought I didn't like CHILD'S PLAY, when all I really needed to do was to get reacquainted with it. Now that it's a couple of decades old and I've begun to feel nostalgic for that era in filmmaking, it has a whole new appeal for me. Besides, it's just a really fun movie.

Buy it at Amazon.com

SICK NURSES -- movie review by porfle

 

(This review has appeared online in 2007 and again in 2012.)


SICK NURSES (2007) is a mind-boggling horror flick from Thailand that plays around with all those Asian ghost-story cliches and offers some of the most flabbergasting, over-the-top death scenes I've seen in quite a while.  It's a wickedly fun tale of revenge, summed up pretty well by Michael Madsen's "Budd" in KILL BILL:  "That woman deserves her revenge...and we deserve to die."  But Budd got off easy in that movie, because if he'd been in this one, he would've ended up worse off than Paula Schultz.

Dr. Tar (Wichan Jarujinda) is a celebrated young doctor who's engaged to the lovely nurse Tahwaan (Chon Wachananon).  But when she catches him fooling around with another nurse--her own sister, Nook (Chidjan Rujiphun)--she goes ballistic and threatens to expose the dirty secret that he sells bodies on the side.  As the rest of the nurses hold Tahwaan down, one of them stabs her to death.  Exactly seven days later, right before midnight, the ghost of Tahwaan returns to the hospital to wreak bloody vengeance upon Dr. Tar and the other nurses. 

This is one weird, gory, surrealistic movie.  Tahwaan's ghost is jet-black with piercing eyes and long, long black hair, which she uses for all sorts of fun things like cocooning people or hanging them from the ceiling.  And that's just for starters.  She can also turn your arms and hands black and take control of them, causing you do commit grave and usually very ironic injury to yourself.  A bulemic nurse who spends most of her time binging and purging ends up stuffing herself with some extremely unhealthy items until her jaw-dropping demise, while a couple of cute twins who deeply admire one another's beauty are eventually compelled to lay into each other with hacksaws.  As for Nook, who is pregnant with Dr. Tar's child...well, you can imagine her ironic fate.

The setting is what must be the emptiest hospital since HALLOWEEN II--there isn't a patient in sight--and the nurses all seem to have their own private, girly bedrooms and don't ever actually do anything except scamper around in sexy uniforms.  It's more like a big giddy sorority house run by SCTV's Johnny LaRue than a hospital.  This doesn't matter, though, because once the terror begins, logic would just get in the way.

At first it seems as though there's barely any story at all, but little scraps of the narrative fall into place along the way, mostly in flashbacks, to make things interesting between bursts of bloody horror.  And there's an awesome twist ending which, I must admit, I didn't see coming at all.  It doesn't make total sense, but that's one of the endearing things about this movie--it's so freakishly entertaining that it doesn't have to.

The simple premise is similar to dozens of killer-on-the-loose borefests we've sat through over the years, but here, lots of visual style and a truly imaginative sense of the bizarre set it apart.  SICK NURSES benefits from an enthusiastic young cast (composed mainly of lovely young ladies), impressive gore effects with a minimum of bad CGI, and an attitude that's as gleefully sick as those titular nurses.

THE VAULT OF AMICUS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

(Originally posted on 12/19/17)

 

THE VAULT OF AMICUS is exclusive to "THE AMICUS COLLECTION" (Blu-ray 4-volume box set) from Severin Films.
(And Now the Screaming Starts/Asylum/The Beast Must Die!/The Vault of Amicus)

So you like Amicus Pictures, and you also like trailer compilations, eh?  Well then, Severin Films has just the thing for you--namely, their new Blu-ray collection entitled THE VAULT OF AMICUS (B&W/color, 63 min.), which gathers 30 or so Amicus trailers from 1960-81 together into one nice, watchable batch and also adds a commentary track and a couple of lengthy interviews with the company's founders, Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky, for good measure.

It's exclusive to Severin's new 4-volume boxed set, THE AMICUS COLLECTION, which also contains Amicus classics ASYLUM, AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS, and THE BEAST MUST DIE!  The trailers for these show up later, of course, but the disc begins with Rosenberg and Subotsky's pioneer foray into film, a pre-Beatles teen music show called "Ring-a-Ding Rhythm" which is delightfully out of touch with where pop music was headed at the time.

What follows is an account of how the producing partners followed trends, tried new things, learned their craft through trial and error, and ended up putting out a widely-varied body of work which happened to concentrate mainly upon horror and science-fiction, the two most lucrative genres for the independent filmmakers. 

Some of the more familiar titles in the latter category are "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors", "Dr. Who and the Daleks", "The Skull", "Daleks Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.", Robert Bloch's "The Psychopath", "The Terrornauts", "They Came From Beyond Space", "The Mind of Dr. Soames", "Torture Garden", and one of their least successful efforts, "The Deadly Bees." 

A departure for them was the spy thriller "Danger Route" with Richard Johnson.  Forays into more high-brow and/or experimental territory would come with such films as "The Birthday Party" with a young Robert Shaw (who would later play Quint in "Jaws"), "What Became of Jack and Jill" (a psychological thriller), and "Thank You All Very Much" with Sandy Dennis.

But it's the good stuff (as far as I'm concerned, anyway) that Rosenberg and Subotsky kept coming back to.  As the commentary points out, experience taught them what worked and what didn't, so they just kept doing what worked as well as they could.

This resulted in a string of classics and near-classics that gave Hammer Studios a run for their money in the 60s and 70s, with such titles as "The House That Dripped Blood", "Scream and Scream Again", "I, Monster" (Christopher Lee doing Jekyll and Hyde), "Asylum", "And Now the Screaming Starts", "The Beast Must Die!", "From Beyond the Grave", "Madhouse", and that beloved duo of EC Comics adaptations, "Tales From the Crypt" and "The Vault of Horror."

Later, Amicus would venture into Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy-adventure romps with "The Land That Time Forgot", "At the Earth's Core", and "The People That Time Forgot."  Rosenberg and Subotsky's partnership would conclude with "The Uncanny" and "The Monster Club."

This is the stuff I read about in "Famous Monsters" magazine as a kid and was occasionally lucky enough to see on the big screen. I particularly recall seeing "Dr. Who and the Daleks" as the second half of a double bill with "Night of the Living Dead."  The colorful and relatively cheerful "Daleks" came as quite a relief for a kid who just endured Romero's grueling nightmare of terror for the first time.
 
The trailers, as usual for a collection such as this, are a mixed bag with some more interesting than others, but all in all it's a splendidly entertaining set.  Casting was an Amicus strong point, so many of them are jam-packed with familiar faces such as Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price, Jack Palance, Burgess Meredith, Patrick Magee, Caroline Munro, Ingrid Pitt, Diana Dors, Harry Andrews, Carol Lynley, Robert Vaughn, Nigel Davenport, Patrick Wymark, Doug McClure, Robert Powell, Terence Stamp, and many others.

The commentary track by horror authors Kim Newman and David Flint is knowledgeable and fun, with nary a dead spot.  The bonus menu consists of very lengthy, in-depth interviews and remembrances by Rosenberg and Subotsky themselves (with accompanying pictures) which should prove absolutely invaluable to any interested parties. 

The trailers themselves have that wonderful grindhouse look that fills me with nostalgia--most of them look like they've been around the block a few times. (Look for the really cool Easter Egg for some fun TV spots.)

THE VAULT OF AMICUS, like any good trailer compilation, is a treasure trove of juicy clips from lots of great movies, in this case the best of a legendary production duo whose solid genre output kept us horror and sci-fi fans going back in the days before such things became mainstream and plentiful.  It's the kind of nostalgia that you just want to settle into and wallow around in for awhile.


THE VAULT OF AMICUS is exclusive to "THE AMICUS COLLECTION" (Blu-ray 4-volume box set) from Severin Films.
(And Now the Screaming Starts/Asylum/The Beast Must Die!/The Vault of Amicus)

Order THE AMICUS COLLECTION (Blu-ray 4-volume box set) from Severin Films

Read our reviews of:
ASYLUM
AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS
THE BEAST MUST DIE!

CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/5/21

 

Currently rewatching: THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961), starring Oliver Reed (GLADIATOR, PARANOIAC, TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, THE BROOD) and several other faces familiar to fans of Hammer Films.

It is, indeed, one of the premiere Hammer productions, providing that lush, picturesque, and theatrical-yet-visceral quality that makes the company's early films so unique.

Production design is first rate from the start, as we follow a starving beggar (Richard Wordsworth, THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT, THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN) from the streets of an unfriendly village to the opulent wedding celebration of sadistic Marques Siniestro (Anthony Dawson, DR. NO, DIAL M FOR MURDER), who ridicules the poor wretch for the amusement of his guests before throwing him into his dungeon to be forgotten.

 

 
The beggar befriends the daughter of the dungeon keeper, a young mute girl, but grows increasingly insane during his years of captivity. One day the girl herself is imprisoned for refusing the sexual advances of the Marques, whereupon she is then molested by the crazed old beggar.

She escapes and survives in the woods until, now with child, she is taken in by well-to-do doctor Alfredo (Clifford Evans, "The Avengers: Dial a Deadly Number"/"Death's Door", KISS OF THE VAMPIRE) and his kindly servant Teresa (Hira Talfrey, THE OBLONG BOX, WITCHFINDER GENERAL).

The screenplay by Hammer mainstay Anthony Hinds, based on the novel "The Werewolf of Paris" by Guy Endore, takes its sweet time developing this backstory for our main character--Leon, the servant girl's child--who isn't even born until roughly half an hour into the film. It's this kind of meticulous storytelling which, when done well, allows the viewer to settle into a story that is as engrossing as a 19th-century novel.

 

 
Plagued with various curses borne out by superstition (not the least of which is being an illegitimate child born on Christmas Day), Leon grows up to be a turbulent soul who must be surrounded by tranquility and love lest he transform, by the light of the full moon, into a ravenous, bloodthirsty beast possessed by the spirit of a wolf.

While Alfredo and Teresa provide such love during his childhood (his mother having died in childbirth), the adult Leon strikes out on his own and soon encounters a harsh, hostile world that brings his murderous wolf spirit to the fore.

THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF came four years after the film that made Hammer the horror giant that it became, 1957's CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (HORROR OF DRACULA would follow a year later), while the soon-to-be legendary British studio was still in its prime. 

 

 

 

Terence Fisher, arguably Hammer's finest director, lends his impeccable visual artistry to a film which also benefits from the kind of colorful photography, production design, and costuming that made Hammer films some of the most visually lavish of the era.

In the lead role, a strikingly intense young Oliver Reed could not be a stronger and better choice, physically imposing and demanding of our attention with his every move and expression.

Reed is completely effective whether struggling to suppress his savage instincts, clinging desperately to the calming influence of his beautiful but forbidden love Cristina (Catherine Feller, THE BELLES OF ST. TRINIAN'S), who is promised to another, or, finally, transforming (thanks largely to Roy Ashton's brilliant makeup) into what may be the fiercest, most terrifying screen werewolf of all time.

We never see this fearsome beast during its initial murderous rampages, but those scenes are so well-handled as to be effective even while withholding the monster's actual visage. 

 

 

This is reserved for his final transformation while imprisoned in a jail cell, as Leon's terrified cellmate witnesses his gradual change into the raging beast that will kill him before escaping to wreak havoc upon the town's panicked citizenry.

Also appearing are Hammer regulars Michael Ripper and Charles Woodbridge, future James Bond regular Desmond "Q" Llewelyn in a bit part as one of Marques Siniestro's footmen, and Warren Mitchell ("The Avengers: The See-Through Man"/"Two's A Crowd") as the village wolf hunter. Benjamin Frankel, who composed the music for the John Huston classic NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, provides a robust score.

With its rich atmosphere and thrilling monster, THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF was one of my childhood favorites, and it's still a full-blooded horror experience today. Along with CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HORROR OF DRACULA, THE MUMMY, and a few others, it's one of Hammer's all-time best.

GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 12/14/20

 

One fan's cheesy low-budget monster mash is another fan's treasure.  Film Detective has taken a prime example of this, director Richard Cunha's 1958 debut feature GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN, and served both kinds of fans (including those of us who are both) with a crisp, finely-rendered restoration.

Filmed mostly on location in the rugged mountains and forests of southern California, this is the tale of a monstrous Spanish conquistador named Vargas who wakes after being frozen alive in solid rock for centuries and goes on a rampage that leaves ravaged bodies both animal and human in his wake.

Played by 6'6" actor Buddy Baer (FAIR WIND TO JAVA, QUO VADIS, AFRICA SCREAMS), brother of famed boxer Max Baer, the armor-clad behemoth sports a fearsome visage created by former Universal makeup maestro Jack Pierce and swings a deadly battle ax.

While the local sheriff (cowboy star Bob Steele, later to be a regular on the TV classic "F Troop") tries to solve the mysterious murders, archeologist Wayne Brooks (Ed Kemmer, THE SPIDER, "Space Patrol") heads into the wilderness with fellow explorer Dr. Cleveland (Morris Ankrum, ROCKETSHIP X-M, EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS) and his beautiful daughter Janet (Sally Fraser, WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST, IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, THE SPIDER), where their search for ancient relics brings them frighteningly face to face with a live one.

As they inch closer to the truth behind the recent murders, Vargas follows up his killing of more townspeople by setting his sights on Janet.  This will eventually bring every able bodied man in town into the hunt for the monster, who uses his fierce strength and cunning to fight them off. The film climaxes with a furious confrontation between him and the vastly outmatched Brooks.

 

For fans of low-budget movies, this is a fascinating opportunity to observe Cunha's handling of his meager resources and limited experience (before this, he'd done mainly commercials, industrial films, and the like), and a solid cast composed largely of film veterans doing their best with an often awkward script, to turn in what is a professional-looking effort that entertains despite a slow pace and some dull spots.

Technical aspects are well-handled, with photography and camerawork especially good. Composer Albert Glasser turns in his usual wildly bombastic score. Pierce's makeup mastery creates a monster who resembles a huge stone Golem, with Baer using his wide, glaring eyes to good effect. 

 

The Blu-ray from Film Detective is a 4k transfer from the original camera negative. Bonus features include a commentary track by noted horror/sci-fi film historian and author Tom Weaver which also includes comments by Cunha and others involved in the film. There's also an illustrated booklet with additional information and trivia. Several other features are listed below.

Fans of Cunha's other films such as FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER, SHE DEMONS, and MISSILE TO THE MOON will likely find this relatively modest but nicely-done effort of great interest. While B-grade at best, and only moderately exciting, GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN nevertheless remains one of those minor gems from which appreciative genre fans can derive a special kind of pleasure from watching.

 

Order it from Film Detective


Retail Price: $24.95
Release Date: 1-19-2021
Runtime: 77 minutes
Genre: CULT CLASSIC, DRAMA, HORROR
Language: English
Color/BW: BW

Also available in DVD and red-label Blu-ray

 

BONUS MATERIALS:

Audio Commentary with Author/Historian Tom Weaver and Guests; 

Audio Commentary with co-star Gary Crutcher; 

'YOU'RE A B-MOVIE STAR, CHARLIE BROWN' - An all-new interview actor/screenwriter Gary Crutcher; 

'THE MAN WITH A BADGE: BOB STEELE IN THE 1950'S' - An all-new interview with author/film historian C. Courtney Joyner; 

Collector’s booklet with still gallery and liner notes by Tom Weaver; 

Original Theatrical Trailer

TRAUMA -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/21/18

 

When it comes to horror movies, how extreme do you want to go?  With TRAUMA (2017, Artsploitation Films), Chilean writer-director Lucio A. Rojas (ZOMBIE DAWN, PERFIDY) answers that question for us in ways that will have some viewers gasping with perverse thrill and others scrambling to put as much distance between them and this movie as humanly possible.

Even the first few minutes had me feeling nasty and kind of disgusted with myself for even watching it.  The film opens with a scene of the most vile torture porn imaginable, easily earning its original NC-17 rating (and this is the unrated director's cut).

It will get, if not worse, then just as bad in different but equally horrific ways.  The first home invasion sequence, in which four young women vacationing in a secluded cabin find the world's sickest psycho (Daniel Antivilo as "Juan") and his son at their front door, almost makes I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE seem like a rom-com.

Other atrocities, including a tour of psycho dad's hellish chamber of horrors and its woefully unfortunate captives, take everything that was vile and repellant about TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and turn the dial to eleven.

And I'm saying this as someone who has been watching extreme horror movies for several decades.  This wallow in utter depravity and degradation is the kind of stuff that movie theater walkouts are made of.

Okay, there's that.  In addition to the almost invasive nature of TRAUMA's horrific images is something else that director Rojas is really good at, which is building suspense.  This is one of those movies that manages to keep us painfully on edge, not just during the torture scenes but in other ways as well.

The survivors of the initial attack must decide whether or not to make their way to Juan's secluded torture chamber in the woods to help a little girl who has been kidnapped by him.  With a near-useless young local cop as their only help, Andrea (Catalina Martin) and the others embark on a rescue attempt that will lead to prolonged, stomach-churning suspense.

Through it all, there's an underlying message about how violence and hatred are passed down from generation to generation, sickness breeds sickness, etc. which we see in flashbacks to Juan's boyhood.  The dead seriousness of the film adds to its effectiveness--there's no distancing humor or satire to make the horror more palatable.

Nor does it have any amusing technical deficiencies.  Rojas' direction is entirely effective, his script literate.  The cast, especially Catalina Martin and Daniel Antivilo, are fine.  Photography (including some sweeping aerial shots) and other technical elements are above-average.

The Blu-ray from Artsploitation Films is in 2.35:1 widescreen with 5.1 surround sound.  Spanish soundtrack with English subtitles.  A trailer is the sole extra.

Gorehounds who like to get as down, dirty, and just plain twisted as possible with their horror movies should definitely check out TRAUMA as soon as possible. Everyone else--you've been warned.  As for me, I'm a notorious "re-watcher", happily viewing my favorite films time and again over the years, but for this one, once is way more than enough.

CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/25/20

 

CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS (Indican Pictures, 2018) enters the undead arena with a dash of "Mad Max", a pinch of Rob Zombie, some spaghetti (western) sauce, and a flashback intro in which a cousin of Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" book appears and cooks up a passel of the same brand of hell-spawn zombies to terrorize a poor little desert community (and, we assume, the rest of the world).

Into this apocalyptic wasteland comes a ragtag group of misfits who look like they just stumbled out of "The Devil's Rejects" and have cool names like Pike (Dennis Haggard), Ruby (Theresa Holly), cranky old hermit Slim (Chris Shumway), Scar (Katherine Norland), and group leader Boots (Nate Philo). These are the good guys, since they're only interested in survival. (Okay, Pike has a much loftier aim in mind, but that's for later.)

Fortunately for us, this survival includes lots of zombie killing that's bloody, gory, gutsy, grotty, and very action-oriented. The zombies in question are horrifically aggressive, again more in line with Raimi's "hellish speed-freak" model than the simple, shambling reanimated corpses of yore.

The makeups are consistently good, as are such production elements as locations (I kept wondering where they found all these trashed neighborhoods and other decayed desert architecture), costumes, props, and cars.

On the minus side, most of the cast indulge in relentless overacting of the "scream obscenities really loud" and "make spaghetti western faces" varieties, while director Joaquin Montalvan (LEGEND OF THE HILLBILLY BUTCHER) has a loose, freeform style that's sporadically effective.

As with many low-budget flicks these days, there's a heavy reliance on sweeping drone camera shots which take good advantage of the desert surroundings.

As the main characters slowly make their way to a tiny desert burg called Jawbone (first in Slim's van, then on foot), flashbacks from each person's past reveal the reasons why they've ended up as messed up as they are.

(For example, "Scar" had to shoot her own zombie son in the head as he was administering her namesake facial wound.) These brief episodes flesh out the characters and give the story some of its best scenes.

Meanwhile, the Magistrate (Ron Jason), a psycho hick who discovered the book and acts as a go-between for Ava, vile princess of evil (Charlotte Bjornbak) and her slack-jawed minions, waits in an abandoned church as the evil forces prepare to do battle with our heroic good guys.

The final clash on the dusty main drag of Jawbone is more of the clunky fight choreography and nerve-wracking sound effects we've experienced throughout the film, enhanced by more of those nicely-rendered gore effects and cool-looking zombie makeup.

The bonus menu consists of a making-of featurette, an interview with the sound designer, and extended/deleted scenes.

Alternately entertaining and irritating, CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS practically grabs us by the lapels and screams "I'm a cool cult film, dammit!" It's one of those doggedly earnest low-budget indy flicks that works overtime to prove how cool it is in every shot.

 
Buy it at Indican Pictures

TECH SPECS

Runtime: 100 minutes
Format: 1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Sr.
Country: USA