THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (1968)
Article #1670 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-10-2005
Posting Date: 3-9-2006
Directed by Vernon Sewell
Featuring Peter Cushing, Robert Flemyng, Wanda Ventham

Police investigate a series of killings that may be the result of some flying monster.

If I remember correctly, I read somewhere that Peter Cushing had a very low opinion of this movie, and I can see why. Still, the movie does serve as an excellent example of how the British acting style and its practitioners can compensate for any number of problems. Cushing, for example, has one of those roles that is so cliched (the police inspector investigating the crimes) that it must have been tempting to just walk through the role, but his attention to detail fleshes out the character tremendously, he manages to remain in the moment and involved at all parts of story, and he manages to deliver with a certain authority and believability dialogue that, in other hands, might well have netted nothing but horselaughs. This does make up somewhat for the pedestrian direction, the ridiculous premise and the shoddy monsters. Cushing even manages to find the right tone in the scene in which he encounters one of those comic-relief morticians (you know, the kind that have lunch in the room where the dead bodies are kept). Nonetheless, the movie is pretty lame, with an uninspired cliche-ridden script as the primary culprit. I find the ending of this one particularly bad, despite the fact that there is a certain logic to it; in fact, if I had been writing this script (about giant killer death’s-head moths), I would probably have come up with the same idea for the method used here in destroying the monster – and then, hearing in my mind the groans it would elicit, would immediately have tried to come up with something better.

BLACK SUNDAY (1960)
(a.k.a. LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO / THE MASK OF SATAN)
Article #1669 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-9-2005
Posting Date: 3-8-2006
Directed by Mario Bava
Featuring Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi

Two hundred years after her executions, a witch / vampiress is accidentally revived by two travellers and proceeds to wreak vengeance on the offspring of the man who had her executed.

This movie is generally regarded as Mario Bava’s masterpiece, though I do know that there are those who are less impressed with it. It’s beautifully shot, and there are some genuinely harrowing scenes in the movie; the effectively staged destruction of the cross, the explosion of the coffin, and the truly gruesome method of putting the soul of the doctor to rest all come to mind. Yet, taken as a whole, I don’t quite enjoy this one as much as I would something I would call a masterpiece; to me, it falls just a little short. Yet I find it difficult to point to exactly where my problems are with the movie. I think the story itself may be one of the problems; parts of it seem vague, and other parts seem over-familiar. The vagueness comes into play with the fact that I’m never quite sure what kind of supernatural creatures I’m dealing with; they’re called vampires at the outset, but the opening execution looks more like one for witches than vampires. They’re also described as ghosts at one point, and exactly what their powers are remains something of a mystery; there are times I think the movie is making it up as it goes along. The overfamiliarity of some of the plot elements may not be the movie’s fault; most of those elements appear in movies that postdate this one. But I also have a little problem with the characters; they seem a little too two-dimensional to really engage my attention. Granted, the dubbing may be at fault here, since it’s a rare circumstance when the actors doing the dubbing are of the same level as the actors being dubbed. Nevertheless, the movie just misses really engaging my attention fully, and it’s one I more appreciate for individual moments than as a complete whole.

BILLY THE KID VERSUS DRACULA (1966)
Article #1668 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-8-2005
Posting Date: 3-7-2006
Directed by William Beaudine
Featuring John Carradine, Chuck Courtney, Melinda Plowman

Dracula impersonates the uncle of a beautiful ranch owner in order to turn her into a vampire. However, outlaw Billy the Kid is working on the ranch, and begins to suspect his intentions.

Neither this movie or its companion piece (JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER) are considered classics, but this one is generally considered something of a camp classic and the other is considered a tiresome bore. Actually, this one would probably be considered a tiresome bore as well if it weren’t for the presence of John Carradine, who had last assayed the role of Dracula in two Universal movies from the forties. It is his hamming that adds the needed spark (and the inadvertent laughs) to the movie, and it’s hard not to giggle when the camera gives us close-ups of Dracula’s glowering but baggy eyes. Actually, the cast is also a little bit more game here; Virginia Christine is having fun as the immigrant woman who knows a vampire is on the loose, and it’s nice to see old serial star Roy Barcroft as a sheriff. The main problem here is the blandness of Chuck Courtney as Billy the Kid; his performance is singularly lacking in fun. The movie does manage to work up a bit more western-style action in the opening scene than its companion piece ever did as well. The big question is: is the bat wearing a top hat or not? It’s really hard to say; in some scenes it appears so, but since we really don’t get a good look at it (which is probably a good thing), it may only be an illusion caused by the angle from which it was shot. Still, you probably wouldn’t want to bother with this one unless you’re looking for laughs.

BRICK BRADFORD (1947)
(Serial)
Article #1663 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-3-2005
Posting Date: 3-2-2006
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet and Thomas Carr
Featuring Kane Richmond, Rick Vallin, Linda Johnson

Brick Bradford tries to help noted scientist Dr. Tymak to protect his Interceptor Ray from theft by a gang of hoodlums.

On the surface, this 15 chapter serial has a lot to offer fans of fantastic cinema. Sure, it has a scientist with a death-ray (don’t most of them?), but the scientist has a lot of other fun inventions up his sleeve, including an invisibility ray, a teleportation machine (that sends our heroes to a surprisingly well lit dark side of the moon) and one of cinema’s earliest time machines. Furthermore, the serial has two of my favorite familiar serial faces in it; John Merton as Dr. Tymak, and Wheeler Oakman as his assistant Walthar. It also has Fred Graham, who I will always remember as the Sheriff from THE GIANT GILA MONSTER. And to top it all off, the comic relief sidekick (Rick Vallin) is actually pretty funny. The serial manages to find a little variety of setting by having a few episodes take place on the moon, and a few others take place back in pirate times. However, once all of Dr. Tymak’s inventions are stolen (they’re being hauled around the countryside in a station wagon that seems entirely too small to contain them all), the serial reverts to pretty standard form, and it’s then you notice that the cliffhangers are singularly lame (many of them are the “booby-traps-that-wouldn’t-work” variety, and most of the resolutions are of the “gosh-we’re-lucky-that-didn’t-kill-us” type) and the villains are fairly dull. Nonetheless, I like this one well enough despite the cheapness, and I do admire the simple but fun special effects used to show time and space travel.

BEGINNING OF THE END (1957)
Article #1661 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-1-2005
Posting Date: 2-28-2006
Directed by Bert I. Gordon
Featuring Peter Graves, Peggie Castle, Morris Ankrum

Chicago is threatened when grasshoppers eat radiated grain and grow to tremendous proportions.

At one point in this movie, Peter Graves tries to convince the military of the degree of the grasshopper threat by presenting a film of grasshoppers and giving a talk (this is SOP for big bug movies). He solemnly mentions at one point that grasshoppers attack humans. I can attest to the truth of this assertion. Let me now pass on to you my harrowing true life account of how I survived a grasshopper attack.

MY ENCOUNTER WITH THE GRASSHOPPER

“It was one of those summer days that seemed ideal for walking. Intent on trying to keep my weight down, I made my way to the nearest bike trail and began my walk. The grass on either side of the trail was teeming with insect life, and I would often see the little creatures making their way across the trail to feed on the tasty pickings on the other side.

“It was then that my path along the trail intersected the path of another traveller, but whereas I walked on foot, this one hopped. His goal was the other side of the trail, but my presence blocked his way. This was how it came to be that the grasshopper landed on the sleeve of my jacket.

“Our eyes met. We considered each other for a second. I thought to discourage my foe from continuing his attack by shaking my arm, but the grasshopper clung to me with tenacious determination. It was then that I knew that I was dealing with a grasshopper with great will.

“I considered brushing him off with my hand, but this would have involved invading his personal space, and even though this might have accomplished my immediate objective, my flouting of the Grasshopper Encounter Guidelines of the Geneva Convention would have clearly given the moral victory to my foe. Obviously, a more subtle form of strategy was needed.

“It was then that I realized that my best weapon of defense was patience. Sooner or later, the grasshopper would have to lessen his hold, and when that moment came, I would be able to go on my way unhampered. So I observed my foe for what seemed like eons, but was, in reality, a mere five seconds. At that time, the grasshopper leaped off, but not at my face as I expected, but across the trail to the other side. Obviously, I had intimidated him.

“I passed my way back down the path. To this day, we have never met again.”

THE END

Now, doesn’t that story make your blood curdle?

No?

Well, it shouldn’t. The worst problem I’ve had with grasshoppers is they tend to stick to you when they hop. Sure, they can be a threat if you get ten thousand of them together and they eat your crops, but that’s hardly the same type of gut-level threat that you get from bees or poisonous spiders.

In short, grasshoppers are not scary. Though to some extent, I admire Bert I. Gordon’s ambitions in trying to make a big bug movie on a tiny budget, he ended up choosing an insect whose fear value was on the level of ladybugs, butterflies, potato bugs, inchworms and fuzzy caterpillars. Let’s face it; they don’t even have a fearsome face, and every time I see a close-up of one of their faces in this movie, I get the same doleful sense I get when I look at the face of a basset hound. Granted, given Gordon’s special effects techniques, I understand why he chose grasshoppers for his insects; they were probably fairly safe to handle. I even don’t mind the special effects of having the grasshoppers climb up pictures of buildings, which is actually a pretty clever low-budget special effect idea; he just should have made sure they didn’t step off onto the sky. No, the main problem is that the movie just failed to make the grasshoppers seem scary and frightening.

I will give Gordon credit for the title of the movie, though; if there’s one thing he learned from THEM, it was that a vague title would make the nature of the threat more of a mystery. On the other hand, maybe he realized that was the only way to effectively sell the movie; I don’t think he could have seriously called it ATTACK OF THE BIG HONKIN’ GRASSHOPPERS.