CreepTales (2004)
Article 5779 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-28-2020
Directed by several people
Featuring Jess Sherman, Michael Minton, Tim Choate
Country: USA
What it is: Horror anthology

Two hunchbacks try to find a video tape for their party. When they find the video store closed, they dig up the grave of Uncle Munger and take the video he was buried with, CREEPTALES. Will they enjoy it? Will Uncle Munger want it back?

Apparently, the various individual stories in this anthology were purchased from others rather than having been made exclusively for this movie. This is probably why any one of the individual stories is superior to the wraparound, which is a loud, incoherent mess. There’s a story about a mad aunt (this story also appears in another anthology, TALES FROM THE UNKNOWN), a purse-snatcher, a kid frightened by what’s in his closet, a group of men hunting a werewolf, visitors to a creepy town, and a woman who cleans up her life with a strange vacuum cleaner. The stories about the purse-snatcher and the vacuum cleaner were my favorites; the rest I found rather tiresome. I found this one on one of a set of DVD anthologies put out by Brentwood a couple of decades ago; each one had ten movies on five double-sided discs, and featured really ugly artwork on the front cover. Overall, this one is pretty forgettable, but it might be better if you fast-forward through the wraparound.

Creepers (1985)
aka Phenomena
Article 5778 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-27-2020
Directed by Dario Argento
Featuring Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence, Daria Nicolodi
Country: Italy, Switzerland
What it is: Argento, of course

The daughter of an American actor is sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. She sleepwalks, has telepathic communication with insects, and helps an entomologist track down a serial killer.

I take my hat off to Argento; I find it fascinating the way he can jumble together a bewildering array of plot elements (enough for three movies) all in one movie and not have it collapse into incoherence. Which is my way of saying that this movie more or less works, especially during a climax which has a few surprises up its sleeve. The version I saw was only 88 minutes, though there is an hour and 56 minute version of it out there. If IMDB is correct, it’s Argento’s favorite of those he directed, though I still prefer SUSPIRIA (which shares a few plot elements with this one). All in all, I found this one pretty good, though it is occasionally bewildering.

Crazy Town (1954)
Article 5776 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-25-2020
Directed by Izzy Sparber
Featuring the voice of Jack Mercer
Country: USA
What it is: Crazy

Welcome to Crazy Town, where things happen in ways we’re not used to in the normal world.

There’s no real story here; it’s just a bunch of gags, mostly of the “exactly opposite of what we’d expect” variety; for example, people walk in the streets and cars use the sidewalks, and storks deliver parents to babies. Some of the gags are hackneyed and obvious, but there are some genuinely surreal and original moments here. Oddly enough, the running gag involving a man (or anthropomorphic animal, as the case may be) trying to build a house feels out of place here; it doesn’t quite fit in with the theme. Since this place can be seen as existing in an alternate universe, it classifies as fantastic content. I wished it worked a little better rather than being so scattershot, but most “random gag” cartoons like this have the same problem.

Crawlspace (1986)
Article 5775 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-25-2020
Directed by David Schmoeller
Featuring Klaus Kinski, Talia Balsam, Barbara Whinnery
Country: USA / Italy
What it is: That’s what we’re trying to figure out.

A young woman becomes a tenant in an apartment building, unaware that the landlord is the homicidal son of a Nazi surgeon.

Is it a slasher, or is it a psycho killer movie? In this one, it’s a little hard to tell. If it’s the former, then getting Klaus Kinski to play your slasher villain is overkill. Still, on the plus side, he’s probably going to make the villain a lot more interesting than it might otherwise be. On the down side, you cast Kinski at your own peril; director David Schmoeller would reflect on the unpleasantness of the experience in a short called PLEASE KILL MR. KINSKI, a plea that was made to the director by the other cast and crew members. On the other hand, if it is a psycho killer movie, we need a somewhat more complex character for our killer than we find here; for example, having our killer be the son of a Nazi surgeon should feel like an organic choice rather than a gimmick. And, once we reach the climax of the movie, it seems to follow the slasher playbook closely. The odd little touches here and there keep the movie from being entirely routine, but overall, it’s a bit on the disappointing side.

Corruption (1933)
Article 5774 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-22-2020
Directed by Charles E. Roberts
Featuring Evalyn Knapp, Preston Foster, Charles Delaney
Country: USA
What it is: Political crime drama

When a newly-elected crusading anti-corruption mayor turns out to mean what he says, his party tries to frame him and get him out of the way.

I was about two-thirds through with watching this movie when it occurred to me that it might qualify for my review criteria. I finally found it listed in the “Forgotten Horrors” book, where it makes it on the grounds of the existence of a mad scientist in the story. This didn’t occur to me at first. What did catch my attention was a murder method that may fall within the bounds of science fiction; as explaining it might involve giving away spoilers, I will say no more. I will say, however, that those elements are the most interesting thing about the movie, which is otherwise your typical B movie material; it’s passable but uninspired, though it does have a couple of interesting characters. Mischa Auer was the only really familiar name I saw in the cast, and he plays the most memorable character.

Confidence (1933)
Article 5773 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-20-2020
Directed by William Nolan and Walter Lantz
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Animated allegory

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit wakes up one morning to discover that his chickens have all become too dispirited to lay eggs. He runs to visit the doctor, who points him the way of the one who can really help him.

If “Confidence” seems like an odd title to an animated cartoon, that’s because it is, but you’ll figure out soon enough that this cartoon is an allegory for the then-current situation rather than just entertainment. The fantastic content of this cartoon is the first hint; we see a spectral figure named “Depression” rising out of the swamps and flying throughout the world, with a noted stop at Oswald’s chicken coop. By the time it started to occur to me that the depression in question was economic rather than emotional, the cartoon was making other statements to clarify it; Oswald’s race to the doctor coincides with anthropomorphic animals demanding their money from the banks, and of course the doctor’s advice is to go to Washington and visit FDR, who appears as an animated figure, sings the title song, and allows Oswald to draw from a barrel of Confidence he keeps in the oval office. No, it’s not a great cartoon, but it’s more about hope in a bad time rather than laughter, and so many cartoons from this era feel unfocused that it’s a genuine novelty to find one with a clear purpose and message. Put this one in the category of “Of Historical Interest”.

The Cobweb Hotel (1936)
Article 5771 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-16-2020
Directed by Dave Fleischer and Dave Tendlar
Featuring the voice of Jack Mercer
Country: USA
What it is: Fleischer cartoon

A newlywed fly couple decide to spend the night at the Cobweb hotel, only to discover that the place is a trap run by a hungry spider.

it doesn’t speak well for the mental acuity of our newlywed fly couple that the name of the hotel wasn’t enough to warn them. The opening scene in which the spider sings a song while we see trapped flies screaming for their lives is certainly enough to get this one classified as a horror cartoon of sorts. And, truth be told, it’s pretty much played for thrills rather than laughs, though there are moments of whimsy. I can’t help but notice that our spider is short a couple of his legs, but that’s a minor quibble. This one passes muster.

Claws for Alarm (1954)
Article 5770 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-15-2020
Directed by Chuck Jones
Featuring the voice of Mel Blanc
Country: USA
What it is: Looney Tunes

Porky decides to spend the night in a deserted hotel in a ghost town, but his cat Sylvester becomes aware that the other residents of the hotel are a gang of homicidal mice.

This is part of a short series of cartoons from Warner Brothers which are noteworthy for two reasons: 1) they are among the few cartoons where Sylvester is treated as a sympathetic character, and 2) they are perhaps the most horrific entries the animation department ever did. These mice aren’t just being mischievous; they’re sadistic and homicidal, which is part of the reason that they mostly remain shadowy figures. The humor is largely centered around Sylvester being the only one who knows of the threat, and his attempts to save Porky’s life are mistaken for madness or (even worse) attempts by himself on Porky’s life. It also serves as an example of how Chuck Jones could take a stock character from the company and rethink it to serve his own purposes; this is one of the very few times he ever used Sylvester (who mostly got a workout on the Tweety and Speedy Gonzalez cartoons, which were done by others), and he chose to make him non-speaking and with his nerves on edge every second. It’s also no surprise that he humor isn’t so much knee-slappingly funny as malicious and darkly ironic. This is why I suspect only a very small handful of these were made (I think there’s at least one other); my guess is that they were a little too strong for the studio.