ATTACK OF THE SWAMP CREATURES (1975)
aka Zaat, Blood Waters of Dr. Z
Article 2300 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-13-2007
Posting Date: 11-29-2007
Directed by Don Barton and Arnold Stevens
Featuring Marshall Grauer, Wade Popwell, Paul Galloway

A mad scientist changes himself into a catfish monster and begins committing murders. The sheriff, a marine biologist, and several INPIT agents investigate. Meanwhile, the monster is searching for the perfect woman to help propagate his giant walking catfish race.

My version of this movie is hosted by Elvira, and though watching a movie with a horror host really isn’t the ideal way to give a movie a fair shake, I do agree with her assessment that it’s one of those movies that is so bad, it’s good. The concept is ridiculous (let’s face it – catfish just aren’t scary), the plot is primitive, the acting is very weak, and the direction isn’t good. Nonetheless, the film is full of unintentionally funny dialogue, the use of sound and music is unique (if wrongheaded), and it’s more charmingly primitive then excruciatingly dull. The mad scientist is so dumpy-looking that his looks actually improve when he turns into a catfish monster, and although he admits that he doesn’t look much like a catfish (and, for reference, we see several shots of catfish), I wouldn’t exactly say he looks beautiful. There’s also something charming about the fact that the catfish monster’s homicidal tendencies are not an unexpected side effect; the scientist actually wanted him to be a murderous creature. As for the various titles of this movie, you won’t want to confuse ATTACK OF THE SWAMP CREATURES with CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE (a movie that is just as bad without being near as much fun). Nor would you want to confuse ZAAT with ZOTZ; the latter movie gave away plastic coins as a gimmick, and I’d hate to see what this movie would have given away. And don’t confuse BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z with THE BLACK PIT OF DR. M, just because it’s not a good idea.

THE ALIENS ARE COMING (1980)
TV-Movie
Article 2294 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-6-2007
Posting Date: 11-23-2007
Directed by Harvey Hart
Featuring Tom Mason, Eric Braeden, Max Gail

An alien spaceship lands on earth and the aliens on board start taking possession of various people.

Was this TV-Movie an attempt to make a pilot for a new version of the Roy Thinnes series, “The Invaders”? One of the working titles for this one was THE NEW INVADERS. I can find no evidence that this actually was a pilot, but it certainly looks like it, what with its open-ended ending and the hint that the heroes plan to continue fighting the aliens. If it was a pilot, it’s just as well that it didn’t make it to a series; our lead hero is supposed to be witty and cute, but I found him dumb and annoying, and the listless direction and a weak script (co-scripted by Herschell Gordon Lewis, of all people) destroy any chance of suspense and excitement. Max Gail was a member of the cast of “Barney Miller”, but, given that his character spends most of the movie possessed by an alien that makes him emotionless, it’s hard to judge his performance here. The cast also features Ed Harris.

ALIAS JOHN PRESTON (1956)
Article 2281 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-21-2007
Posting Date: 11-10-2007
Directed by David MacDonald
Featuring Christopher Lee, Alexander Knox, Betta St. John

A wealthy man makes a splash in a small town where he has just arrived. However, he begins to suffer from nightmares, and calls on a psychoanalyst for help.

Madness is the fantastic element of this thriller, but it never really becomes a horror movie and remains more of a mystery/drama. The mystery is basically centered around the nature of that madness, but you’ll probably figure out the significance of John Preston’s dreams long before the movie reveals them. In fact, the whole movie goes on too long; the movie doesn’t really get going until its second half, and the first half is largely filler, with an unnecessary romantic triangle and overly elaborate coverage of Preston’s rise to prominence in the community. Quite frankly, the movie could have been condensed to a thirty-minute TV episode without losing anything important. Good performances by Christopher Lee and Alexander Knox help, but don’t really save the movie. The best moment is towards the end, after Preston relates his last dream and then sees the back of his psychoanalysts head.

ALABAMA’S GHOST (1973)
Article 2280 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-20-2007
Posting Date: 11-9-2007
Directed by Fredric Hobbs
Featuring Christopher Brooks, Lani Freeman, Karen Ingenthron

An employee named Alabama at a music club dreams of becoming a magician. When he accidentally runs a forklift through the wall in the basement of the club, he comes by the remnants of the equipment of dead magician known as “The Great Carter”. He uses what he finds to blackmail the sister of “The Great Carter” into introducing him the Carter’s assistant, who teaches him Carter’s magic secrets. When Alabama becomes a magician, he soon finds himself tussling with vampires and ghosts.

This is one of those movies that left my jaw hanging open. Imagine, if you will, a cross between a hokey melodrama, a blaxploitation flick, and an underground art movie. Then weave into the plot the following elements; magic, psychedelic rock music, female Nazi scientists, vampires (who feed from their victims on an assembly line), black magic, robots, frogs, ghosts with beating hearts outside of their bodies, dixieland jazz, and an elephant. The end result, in this case, is pretty awful, but at least it’s awful in an interesting way, though it does get more than a little shrill on occasion. Whatever you can say about the movie, it does appear that director Fredric Hobbs had a vision of sorts, and I find myself all that much more curious now about what is perhaps his best known movie, GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS. Believe me, low-budget horror doesn’t come much stranger than this one.

THE ATOMIC BRAIN (1964)
aka Monstrosity
Article 2262 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-28-2007
Posting Date: 10-22-2007
Directed by Joseph V. Mascelli
Featuring Marjorie Eaton, Frank Gerstle, Frank Fowler

A rich elderly woman finances a scientist using atomic energy in the hopes that he will develop a way to transplant her brain into the head of a young woman.

A wretched script, dead-in-the-water direction, a goofy musical score, atrocious acting and static presentation all conspire to make this low-budget foray into science fiction horror one of the worst ever made. If it works at all, it’s because some of the exploitation elements have a little bite to them. The near-nudity of the bodies in the atomic reactor is certainly attention catching, and there is something really creepy about the eighty-year old woman ogling the bodies of young women; granted, we know she’s shopping for one for herself, but you wonder what’s going through the minds of the women she’s ogling. The accents are horrible; the English girl’s accent comes and goes with the wind, the Austrian girl has no accent at all, and the Mexican girl’s accent is spectacularly bad. And you do have to wonder about the scientist’s emergency plan in case they get caught by the police, as it involves destroying everyone involved in an atomic inferno. This is Joseph V. Mascelli’s sole directorial outing, though he would act as cinematographer for a handful of movies, including two from Ray Dennis Steckler.

THE ALIEN ENCOUNTERS (1979)
Article 2248 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-12-2007
Posting Date: 10-8-2007
Directed by James T. Flocker
Featuring Augie Tribach, Matthew Boston, Phil Catalli

An unemployed astronomer loses his job when a radio telescope is destroyed while he is hearing messages from outer space. He then tracks down a scientist who is building a machine to extend life, only to discover the scientist is dead. He visits with the scientist’s wife and son, and discovers about the scientist’s own encounter with UFOs.

This amounts to an extremely low budget variation on CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. With its indifferent acting, constant narration, static presentation, and IMDB rating of 1.9, you won’t be expecting much. Nevertheless, I found it not without interest value. The narration isn’t quite as annoying as it could have been, and after a while you’re a little grateful for it; whenever he switches to dialogue, writer James T. Flocker displays a tin ear. Also, given the budget, the special effects aren’t half bad, the story has some nice touches, and I like the locations. The biggest problem is that the director just doesn’t know when enough is enough; though it is rather interesting to have the scientist’s son being shadowed by a friendly floating sphere, the movie indulges in endless footage of him walking through the desert with the sphere, for example. The overly laid-back pace is also an impediment; if you don’t get into the groove with this pace, the movie will be a total bore. My best advice for those wishing to tackle this one is to keep the expectations low, and to sympathize with the low budget; it makes you appreciate some of its better points.

AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS (1973)
Article 2234 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-28-2007
Posting Date: 9-24-2007
Directed by Roy Ward Baker
Featuring Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee

A man brings his bride to his ancestral home without telling him about the curse on the family. She finds herself terrorized by the ghost of a woodsman with missing eyes and a missing hand, which crawls around and attacks people as a separate entity.

Don’t let that lineup of well-known horror actors listed above deceive you; Cushing doesn’t appear until half the movie is over, Herbert Lom appears as a cameo in a flashback sequence, and Magee has a secondary role. The main roles belong to Ian Ogilvy and Stephanie Beacham as the cursed couple, and Geoffrey Whitehead as the woodsman. Amicus Productions took a break from their horror anthologies to make this one-story movie. The acting is certainly acceptable throughout, with Cushing giving the movie a real boost when he finally shows up, but at heart, his character doesn’t really have much to do other than to weed out the background legend that drives the story, largely for the benefit of himself, the bride, and us, the audience; everyone else in the story seems to know the legend already, and to my mind, the movie tries to mine a little too much suspense from people not telling what they know. In fact, that’s the central problem with the movie; it overplays its hand in trying to up the horror quotient, and the action becomes a little too repetitive, a little too grotesque (especially when Ogilvy’s character goes wild near the end of the movie) and even inadvertently comic (in the scene where Beacham tries to destroy her unborn child). It’s the weaknesses of the script that drag this one down, though that does not apply to the original novella (if that is the correct word) by David Case, which I have read and found quite effective and much more restrained.

AVENTURA AL CENTRO DE LA TIERRA (1965)
aka Adventure at the Center of the Earth
Article 2232 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-26-2007
Posting Date: 9-22-2007
Directed by Alfredo B. Cravenna
Featuring Kitty de Hoyos, Javier Solis, Columba Dominguez

Adventurers go down into the earth to face monsters.

Once again, I find myself watching a Mexican movie without the benefit of dubbing or subtitles, so the plot subtleties are lost on me. However, since this movie gives us plenty of monsters on the loose, there’s still some fun to be had here. In fact, it looks like our adventurers prepared for the journey by prehistoric monster footage; they watch a film featuring as much dinosaur stock footage as they could get their hands on, including Ignatz and Rumsford engaged in their battle from ONE MILLION B.C ., as well as the slow-moving dinos from UNKNOWN ISLAND . There’s also some primitive stop-motion dinos and puppet ones; after all, dinosaurs come in all shapes and sizes. Underground they face off against a big cyclops lizard and a fanged bat creature, who is not entirely unsympathetic. It’s a lot of fun, though it’s another movie that looks like real animals were hurt in the making of it; at one point, they set fire to a pit of snakes, and it doesn’t look like special effects. However, the cardboard bats that terrorize a man crossing a rope over a lava pit definitely do look like special effects, if not particularly special ones. All in all, it was fairly entertaining.

ALLIGATOR (1980)
Article 2222 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-16-2007
Posting Date: 9-12-2007
Directed by Lewis Teague
Featuring Robert Forster, Robin Riker, Michael V. Gazzo

A giant alligator is loose in the sewer system of Chicago after having been kept as a pet and then flushed down the toilet and forced to dine on the carcasses of animals used in scientific experiments.

On the surface this movie is just a rather ordinary JAWS variation. Those who look a little closer, though, might find a number of amusing little touches that give it an added boost. A welcome and subtle sense of humor is one of the big pluses, and for those who keep a sharp lookout, you’ll see references to “The Honeymooners”, THE THIRD MAN, and a popular comic strip. There’s even a visual reference to the James Bond movies; at least I thought so during one of the shots of a sewer tunnel. It also has one scene-stealing performance; Henry Silva shows up as a big game hunter who is intent on bagging the giant gator himself, and he is wonderful. If you’ve seen as many jungle movies as I have, you should appreciate the satire in the scene where he tries to hire some of the “native help”. These fun touches help compensate for the occasionally flat direction and some rather cliched characters. The story was co-written by independent filmmaker John Sayles, who has occasionally ventured into fantastic territory; he worked on PIRANHA, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, THE HOWLING and THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET, to name a few. The movie also features Dean Jagger and, in a memorable cameo, the great character actor Mike Mazurki.

ALIEN TERROR (1971)
aka THE INCREDIBLE INVASION
Article 2190 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-15-2007
Posting Date: 8-11-2007
Directed by Jose Luis Gonzalez de Leon, Juan Ibanez and Jack Hill
Featuring Boris Karloff, Enrique Guzman, Christa Linder

In order to prevent mankind from benefiting from a scientist’s new invention, aliens possess the bodies of human beings to discredit him.

All four of the Mexican movies that marked the end of Boris Karloff’s career are quite awful, but there is some variety in the range of awfulness. For my money, I consider this the best of a bad lot; it’s not as repugnant as THE FEAR CHAMBER, it’s not as deadly dull as DANCE OF DEATH, and it is more coherent than SNAKE PEOPLE. Karloff actually has a major role in the proceedings as well, which means he gets a little more in the way of screen time, and given that he’s easily the best actor on the lot, that’s a good thing. Still, the story doesn’t really make much sense; in particular, I can’t quite figure out why the aliens would wish to possess a known serial killer when he’s really more trouble than he’s worth. The movie is technically ghastly; keep your eyes open for some of the most blatant actor substitutions in the fight scenes, and marvel at the fact that the actor who dubbed in a line for Karloff at one point not only doesn’t sound remotely like him, but doesn’t even appear to be trying to do so. The movie does muster up a bit of life near the end, but most of the various elements (the aliens, the deformed assistant, and the serial killer) never mesh into a satisfying whole, and the incompetent editing and sometimes queasy special effects (especially during the murder sequences) don’t help matters any. Mexican movie fans might want to keep their eyes open for Yerye Beirute, who has appeared in a few other Mexican horror movies such as THE VAMPIRE’S COFFIN; he has one of those faces you can’t forget.