Month: July 2018

La senora muerte (1969)

LA SENORA MUERTE (1969)
aka Lady Death, Madam Death
Article 2761 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-28-2008
Posting Date: 3-5-2009
Directed by Jaime Salvador
Featuring John Carradine, Regina Torne, Elsa Cardenas
Country: Mexico

A deformed woman must kill young women for their blood so that a mad scientist can make her beautiful again.

I watched this one in Spanish without subtitles. I can’t say it was undubbed, though; you’ll see John Carradine’s face, but that’s not his voice issuing from it. So, what kind of horror movie would John Carradine make in Mexico? Well, from what I can tell, it’s no better than the ones he was making elsewhere at the time; this one looks pretty bad. It’s something of a cross between ATOM AGE VAMPIRE and BLOOD AND BLACK LACE; the deformed woman works at a fashion agency, so there’s lots of pretty models around for her to stalk. Unfortunately, as a side effect to this, the movie is heavily padded with fashion show footage; there’s at least two extended sequences of models walking by in the latest styles in front of appreciative audiences, and these scenes do nothing but bring the action (such as it is) to a screeching halt. John Carradine has a mute hunchbacked assistant who bears a certain resemblance to Bud Cort; in the most “touching” sequence of the movie, the assistant tries to make up for the accidental destruction of a bottle of beautiful woman’s blood during his attempted rape of the woman (during one of her beautiful phases) by showing up with a bottle of his own blood in exchange. Let’s face it; if your doctor is John Carradine, you’ve had it, especially if you find his disembodied head appearing to you in your mind urging you to kill. By the way, the doctor’s computer is one of the sillier giant props I’ve seen in a horror movie.

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The Invasion of the Vampires (1963)

THE INVASION OF THE VAMPIRES (1963)
aka La Invasion de los vampiros
Article 2760 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-27-2008
Posting Date: 3-4-2009
Directed by Miguel Morayta
Featuring Ema Martha Bauman, Rafael del Rio, Tito Junco
Country: Mexico

Residents of a hacienda are being terrorized by a vampire called Count Frankenhausen. A student of the occult arrives to take care of the problem.

Like its predecessor, THE BLOODY VAMPIRE, this Mexican horror movie is pretty uneven. On the plus side, it is extremely atmospheric at times, and occasionally makes very effective use of sound. On the minus side, the plot is hard to follow, the dubbing is atrocious, and the bat is pretty silly-looking. Still, it does some interesting things with vampire lore; my favorite touch is that the vampire’s victims don’t rise from the dead and become vampires themselves until the Count’s death, and the result is something like a scenario from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. In the final analysis, I think it’s superior to THE BLOODY VAMPIRE, since it does a better job of sustaining its atmosphere; the scenes of the newly-risen vampires wandering around with stakes in their hearts (a failed attempt to destroy them when the local priest doesn’t allow them to burn the bodies) are quite eerie.

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Bloodsucking Freaks (1976)

BLOODSUCKING FREAKS (1976)
aka The Incredible Torture Show
Article 2759 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-26-2008
Posting Date: 3-3-2009
Directed by Joel M. Reed
Featuring Seamus O’Brien, Viju Krem, Niles McMaster
Country: USA

A magician specializes in the torture of women in his Soho theater act. However, the tortures are real, and he is a white slaver. To get revenge on a critic, he kidnaps a ballerina in order to force her to perform in a sadistic ballet he has written.

The most sickening and repellent film ever made? I can’t say, but if it isn’t, it will do until the real one comes along. I’m not surprised the movie has a cult following; any movie with this much bad taste, sadistic violence, and exploitation of women is bound to have its admirers, especially if it presents itself as some sort of black comedy as this one does. A number of horror movies have had to endure the accusation of misogyny over the years, but if I had to choose a movie where that accusation is most likely to stick, this is the one; almost every woman in the movie only exists to endure humiliation and torture (usually while they are completely naked) for the entertainment and applause of men. In a sense, it hardly matters that the special effects are usually very bad; the sheer level of nastiness combined with the glee of those perpetrating it is cringe-inducing. I suppose movies like this can be useful if they produce a catharsis of some sort, but, to my mind, this one doesn’t. And as far as black comedies go, I didn’t get one laugh from this one. To me, this one is just a descent into sad degradation.

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Turkey Shoot (1982)

TURKEY SHOOT (1982)
aka Escape 2000
Article 2758 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-25-2008
Posting Date: 3-2-2009
Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith
Featuring Steve Railsback, Olivia Hussey, Michael Craig
Country: Australia

In a totalitarian future, nonconformists are taken to a prison camp for “re-education”. The commander of the camp decides to offer five of the inmates a chance for freedom… if they survive an ordeal in which they are the prey in a hunting expedition.

Let’s see here – we have a dystopian near-future prison camp movie crossed with THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME with obvious one-dimensional characters, a helping of nudity, an incredibly large slice of sadistic violence, and one of those plots that you see mapped out for you within two minutes of the movie starting. If you like bloody violence and hate surprises, this is a movie for you. I was easily able to predict most of the plot developments in this movie, including who would live and who would die; the only mistake I made was in the ending, and that’s only because I failed to take into account that we were no longer in the pessimistic seventies when this was made.

I’ve been quite disappointed in recent years to discover that my local Borders bookstores classify science fiction in the action section. It’s movies like this that are the reason why.

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Daughters of Satan (1972)

DAUGHTERS OF SATAN (1972)
Article 2757 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-24-2008
Posting Date: 3-1-2009
Directed by Hollingsworth Morse
Featuring Tom Selleck, Barra Grant, Tani Guthrie
Country: USA / Philippines

A man buys a painting of three witches and a dog being burned because the witch in the middle resembles his wife. However, when two other women and a dog appear that resemble the ones in the painting, he begins to suspect something sinister is going on…

Sometimes just a few telling details set the tone for how you feel about the movie. In the opening scene, we see a woman being tortured by a witch wearing purple tights, something no self-respecting worshiper of Satan would be caught dead in. Shortly after that, I noticed that the antique dealer had the most ridiculous widow’s peak I’ve ever seen. Soon after that, a dog shows up with the number 666 on his collar. For some reason, these three events all struck me as supremely silly, and I was prepared to find the whole movie like that. Fortunately, it’s a little better than that; there’s some interesting events surrounding the painting, the score is quite good, and there are a number of curious scenes that give the movie an unusual edge (such as one where three women all regain their original personalities after a car accident occurs elsewhere). It’s still got plenty of flaws; the story proves to be quite cliched once you get down to it, the direction is utterly lifeless (I largely associate Hollingsworth Morse for having directed the Rocky Jones series, but if I ended up liking the series much more than I thought I would, it wasn’t for its direction), and I was disappointed by the blandness of Tom Selleck’s performance, an actor who I generally like. Overall, I thought the movie was a little better than its reputation (it has a 3.6 rating on IMDB), though it is fairly weak.

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The Children (1980)

THE CHILDREN (1980)
Article 2756 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-23-2008
Posting Date: 2-28-2009
Directed by Max Kalmanowicz
Featuring Martin Shakar, Gil Rogers, Gale Garnett
Country: USA

A leak at a nuclear power plant causes children to become zombies with the abiliy to kill with a touch.

I like the first twenty minutes of this variation of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD best. At this point, the sense of mystery is quite strong (a school bus is left running on the side of the road with the driver and children nowhere in sight) and the movie introduces several interesting small-town characters, and these two things caught my attention. Unfortunately, the first actual attack struck me as more comic than scary, and from this moment onward the movie’s effectiveness went down the tubes. For me, the worst problem was that no one seemed to put any thought in the inner reality of the monsters; they just kill because they’re monsters (whereas Romero’s zombies killed out of hunger, for example), and when they stand around with their arms outstretched, it just seems like the director told them to “act like monsters”. No explanation is given why only children are affected, why it takes one child a while to turn into a zombie whereas for the others it must have been almost instantaneous, etc. – quite frankly, it looks like it was being made up while it was written. Oh, it has its moments before it’s all over, but I didn’t find it anywhere near as scary as it wanted to be. And the protracted final twist after the rest of the movie is over both obvious and tiresome.

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Castle of the Creeping Flesh (1968)

CASTLE OF THE CREEPING FLESH (1968)
aka Im Schloss der blutigen Begierde
Article 2755 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-22-2008
Posting Date: 2-27-2009
Directed by Adrian Hoven
Featuring Janine Reynaud, Howard Vernon, Michel Lemoine
Country: West Germany

Several guests of Baron Brack find themselves in the castle of the Earl of Saxon, a madman intent on reviving his daughter and finding her rapist/murderer.

Ten thoughts on CASTLE OF THE CREEPING FLESH.

1) Advance warning on this movie had me prepared for a certain degree of nastiness. However, no advance warning prepared for me for just how silly it was. Caveat emptor.

2) There’s really not much creeping flesh in this castle (though, admittedly, I’m not sure just what “creeping flesh” is supposed to be”). The more accurate alternate title, CASTLE OF BLOODY LUST, is, however, quite accurate.

3) Let’s handle the lust first. This movie features two rape scenes, one consenting sex scene, and some of the stupidest erotic flirting I’ve ever seen; the scene where the woman tries to tempt the Baron by erotically nibbling a chicken leg and lusciously licking the bone while the rest of the cast looks at each other is enough to have you doubled over in pain or in giggles.

4) Speaking of “looking at each other”, I suspect Adrian Hoven has a weakness for actors that can act with their eyes; the movie is full of scenes of people giving meaningful glares and eye-shifting. Unfortunately, the utter lack of subtlety in these scenes (as well as everywhere else in the movie) undercuts whatever effectiveness they might have had.

5) Now, let’s get to the blood. Let me just sum this up by concocting a quote that I imagine may have been said by the director during the making of this movie – “Look, I bought all this stock footage of open-heart surgery, and I’m damn well going to use it all!”

6) You know, I would try to cut this movie some slack since it’s dubbed, because the incredibly bad poetic dialogue about life, love and death could be just bad translation. But there’s something about it all that makes me suspect that it’s not much better in its original language, and, given the exploitation nature of the rest of the movie, it’s incredibly out of place. But then, the story is supposedly inspired by King Lear and came from Jesus Franco.

7) Director Adrian Hoven is mostly known as an actor. The only other movie he’s directed that I’ve seen is the softcore MAIDENQUEST, aka THE LONG SWIFT SWORD OF SIEGFRIED. Why am I not surprised?

8) Note to the man responsible for the score – Symphonic or Jazz – make up your mind.

9) Note to director – modern day or period piece – make up your mind.

10) Oh, by the way, I like the knocker. No, I don’t mean Janine Reynaud’s (she’s got two of them, anyway), but the one on the door.

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002 agenti segretessimi (1964)

002 AGENTI SEGRETISSIMI (1964)
aka Oh Those Most Secret Agents
Article 2754 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-21-2008
Posting Date: 2-26-2009
Directed by Lucio Fulci
Featuring Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia, Ingrid Schoeller
Country: Italy

Two incompetent burglars are mistaken for secret agents and find themselves pursued by spies from several countries.

Just when you thought it was safe to see another Italian spy comedy, here’s Franco and Ciccio again. Well, maybe I’m being too hard on them; after all, most of the work I’ve seen of theirs so far has been in unsubtitled Italian, and the only English movie I’ve seen (DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS) is reputedly one of their worst. In truth, I have no problem with Ciccio (the tall, skinny one), but Franco is one of the most incessant muggers in cinema history; he makes Jerry Lewis, Larry Storch and Jim Carrey all seem subtle and restrained. Nonetheless, they made a whole slew of movies, and that wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t doing something right. I’m guessing that they did possess a certain comic timing; every once in a while, a joke hits home in a way that even transcends the language barrier, and they do get an occasional laugh out of me. Still, I will argue that this is despite (not because of) Franco’s mugging. There’s also some good ideas here; I like the concept of two comedians trying to cope with bad sunburn, and the scene in the seductress training class is amusing. The most obvious fantastic content in this one is the talking computer one spy uses, and I will credit the movie for having a good feel for the spy genre. I just wish Franco’s mugging didn’t make it all so heavy-handed.

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Les Vampires (1915)

LES VAMPIRES (1915)
aka The Vampires
Article 2753 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-20-2008
Posting Date: 2-25-2009
Directed by Louis Feuillade
Featuring Musidora, Edouard Mathe, Marcel Levesque
Country: France

A reporter matches wits with a criminal organization known as the Vampires.

Nowadays this is probably Louis Feuillade’s most famous serial, though I think I prefer FANTOMAS. I’m glad it is a serial; at more than six and a half hours, this is the longest single work I’ve reviewed for this series, and it was nice to be able to stretch the viewing over several nights, with each episode preceding my movie. Still, they were long nights, since the serial is only ten episodes, and some of the episodes clock in at almost an hour.

Despite the title, the closest we get to a real vampire is a character in a musical performance in the second episode. Still, there are some marginal fantastic items throughout; there’s a few light science fiction items (various types of poison, including one that paralyzes its victims) and a few horror touches (a severed head, people seemingly coming back from the dead, a crooked medium, hypnotism, etc). In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if every episode had some element that would push it at least marginally into fantastic territory, though the serial as a whole remains squarely in the crime genre. It’s quite entertaining and fairly light-hearted, though the preponderance of coincidence as a driving plot element makes it somewhat hard to swallow. I like the general structure; the early episodes are shorter and keep the plots simple, but as the serial progresses, more characters are introduced and the plots get more elaborate. In fact, I had to restart and rewatch one episode when I lost the plot thread of it, something that I rarely have to do with other serials. At points, the complexity becomes almost comic; in my favorite episode, two different groups of criminals plot to steal a fortune from another criminal, only to discover that that criminal’s fortune has fallen into the reporter’s hands.

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Son of Godzilla (1967)

SON OF GODZILLA (1967)
aka Kaijut no kessen: Gojira no musuko
Article 2752 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-19-2008
Posting Date: 2-24-2009
Directed by Jun Fukuda
Featuring Tadao Takashima, Akira Kubo, Bibar Maeda
Country: Japan

A group of scientists experimenting with weather control encounter difficulties when they discover the island they are working on is the home of Godzilla and his newly hatched son.

There’s only so much you can do with the concept of a giant monster, but I have to give Toho credit for trying to find as much variety as they could with the premise; all of the Godzilla movies for the first fourteen years or so were somewhat different from each other. It wasn’t until after DESTROY ALL MONSTERS that the series began resorting to formula. Some of the attempts to find something new to do with the Godzilla were pretty far out; I tend to place this movie, GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER, and GODZILLA’S REVENGE in a group by themselves as ones that gave us the most radical departures from the usual giant monster mayhem. You have to have a high tolerance for cute with this one; the scenes of Godzilla trying to teach his comic-relief son could be either delightful or painful, depending on how you feel about Minya. I have to admit to having a weak spot for Minya, and I was highly amused by the fact that he originally blew smoke rings and had to be trained to use his radioactive breath. Plotwise, it’s a mess, though; between the scenes of the monsters, we have an extremely episodic and not very interesting human story about scientists experimenting with weather, and this story really has no forward momentum and only cursory interest level; they’re just there to fill in time between the monster scenes. Still, whatever its weaknesses, the final shot of Godzilla, covered with snow, cradling his son in his arms, and preparing to go into hibernation, is somehow more powerful and moving than you might think; it’s one of my favorite images from the series.

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