DERANGED (1974)
Article 2560 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-8-2008
Posting Date: 8-15-2008
Directed by Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby
Featuring Roberts Blossom, Cosette Lee, Leslie Carlson
Country: USA

On the passing of his mother, a man’s mental condition deteriorates. He digs up his dead mother and keeps her in his house, engages in grave-robbing and taxidermy to keep her from falling apart, and eventually turns to cannibalism and murdering women.

The Ed Gein story was one of the inspirations for, among others, PSYCHO, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS; there’s no doubt that it touches a horrific nerve somewhere. This one is rather modest; rather than using the story to horrify, it attempts to tell a more straightforward account of the Ed Gein murders. I don’t know how accurate the movie is in this respect, but there’s one thing I can say; thanks to some fine casting (especially Roberts Blossom as Ezra Cobb, the Ed Gein role) and a real sense of authenticity, the movie comes across as utterly convincing. Blossoms is really a wonder here; he manages to come across as sympathetic despite his derangement, and we can understand why those close to him didn’t know what he was doing and felt he was no more than a harmless eccentric. Even the conceit of having an onscreen narrator tell us the story on occasion doesn’t break the feeling that we’re seeing a re-creation of real life events. The movie even manages to show a sharp sense of humor on occasion. This movie is powerful, sad, and rather modest in telling its tale.

THE DEMON LOVER (1977)
Article 2558 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-6-2008
Posting Date: 8-13-2008
Directed by Donald G. Jackson and Jerry Younkins
Featuring Christmas Robbins, Val Mayerik, Gunnar Hansen
Country: USA

When his coven-in-the-making walks out on him, a dabbler in the black arts conjures up a demon to get revenge.

Some of the killings show a bit of creativity in this no-budget horror movie, and it’s obvious the filmmakers are having a bit of fun when the character names include Peckinpah, Frazetta, Ackerman, Ormsby and Romero. Given the extremely low budget, it’s no surprise the special effects are bad, so I won’t harp on that. However, it’s the atrocious script and the incredibly bad acting that really make this one memorably bad; I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many bad lines badly delivered in my life. In fact, it’s so bad that I found myself wondering if the movie was intentionally bad in the sense that, say, a Troma film is bad; that is, actually aspiring to badness for the humor value. That may be the case; director Donald G. Jackson would go on to make at least one film for Troma. Still, the movie did give me a chance to see what Gunnar Hansen looks like without the Leatherface mask, and, for the record, he’s one of the few actors who doesn’t embarrass himself in this one. But then, he’s about the only member of the cast who has acted in other movies.

DEATH: THE ULTIMATE MYSTERY (1975)
Article 2557 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-5-2008
Posting Date: 8-12-2008
Directed by Bob Emenegger and Allan Sandler
Featuring Cameron Mitchell, Gloria Prince, Don Felipe

After having had a near-death experience, a photojournalist embarks on a study of the ultimate mystery, death.

This documentary uses the concept of a reporter searching for the truth in its exploration of death. I don’t know if this is supposed to reflect a true situation (i.e. that it’s telling the story of a real reporter’s journey of research), but I can say this – the movie’s attempt to weave the reporter’s research into the subject is one of the biggest strikes against the movie’s credibility. For one thing, if there is a real reporter, why doesn’t he use his own voice rather than that of actor Cameron Mitchell? Also, we never see the reporter’s face; he’s always shot from behind or in the shadows, and at certain times it becomes apparent that the movie is going out of its way to keep his face hidden. Though I suspect this is to provide us with the sense of him being Everyman (and thus, putting us in his place to share his journey), it also gives us a sense that a lot of the movie was staged rather than happening spontaneously. There’s a certain amount of verisimilitude here; it’s obvious that most of the people you meet are non-actors (though the reporter’s female psychologist friend is the most glaring exception here).

As for the subject matter itself, there’s very little new here. Only two tidbits of information that presented itself interested me; one was that, according to one individual who studied the subject, death may not be an unpleasant experience as the shutting down of the body’s organisms may have a feeling somewhat akin to taking morphine, and the other was that one doctor reported that not all near-death experiences involve going joyously toward a light, but that some of them were, in fact, quite dark indeed; it’s just that the people who had these experiences don’t like to talk about them. Other than that, most of the movie is a dull, lifeless retread of stuff I’ve encountered before, especially the last half of the movie in which we have an extended session of hypnotic regression into previous lives followed by a follow-up fact research of the related experience; in short, it’s the whole Bridey Murphy thing regurgitated one more time. And the lifeless direction and editing make this documentary a real snooze.

THE DAYDREAMER (1966)
Article 2555 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-3-2008
Posting Date: 8-10-2008
Directed by Jules Bass
Featuring the voices of Tallulah Bankhead, Victor Borge, Patty Duke, and many others
Country: USA

A young boy dreams of leaving the drudgery of learning his lessons to find the Garden of Paradise. He meets a mermaid, two tailors, and a tiny girl in his quest.

Due to its inclusion in a filmography of Boris Karloff’s, I’d known about this movie for years and hoped to see it someday, largely due to the presence of the great horror actor as the voice of The Rat. Karloff’s presence, as well as that of many other well-known actors such as Tallulah Bankhad, Victor Borge, Patty Duke, Jack Gilford, Sessue Hayakawa, Margaret Hamilton, Burl Ives, Hailey Mills, Cyril Richard, Terry-Thomas, Ed Wynn and Ray Bolger can’t help but keep the interest level up, as also does the fact that it comes from Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. Unfortunately, the movie is marred by a somewhat aimless story and underdeveloped characters, and though many of the songs are melodic enough, they’re a bit on the treacly side and don’t really stand out much. It’s basically a hodgepodge of Hans Christian Andersen stories and characters, and though the movie is well-intentioned, it never becomes compelling or even much fun. For me, the most memorable thing was the giant frog who threatens Thumbelina and the title character at a couple of points in the story. Horror fans will enjoy Karloff as The Rat, of course, as well as the spooky house of his friend, the Mole.

DEAD OF NIGHT (1977)
TV-Movie
Article 2551 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-30-2008
Posting Date: 8-6-2008
Directed by Dan Curtis
Featuring Anjanette Comer, Joan Hackett, Patrick Macnee
Country: USA

A trio of stories is presented. In the first, a man restores an old car and finds himself transported back to the past. In the second, a vampire appears to be on the loose in a castle, and in the third, a woman uses the black arts to conjure her son back from the dead.

Dan Curtis takes a second stab at the anthology format (the first was TRILOGY OF TERROR), and I think it was interesting that he didn’t try to come up with a framing story. Maybe it’s just as well, I’ve found that framing stories usually don’t work all that well, though the best example of one could be found in the British horror entry from the forties which bears the same name as this one. In general, the third story is considered the best, but it didn’t really do much for me. I think it’s because I’ve never really cared much for the basic approach to horror used in this one; it’s the “stalker and stalked” plot, in which person A stalks person B, and we’re supposed to be frightened because person B is frightened. Though I understand the theory behind it, I feel the same way about that approach as I would if a movie tried to be a comedy by having a person A telling jokes and person B laughing at them, and we’re supposed to think it’s funny because person B is laughing. I suppose not liking this particular plot is something of a sacrilege for a horror fan, but there it is. The second story is largely a one-twist affair that I saw coming merely from the title of the story. This leaves the first one as my favorite, which is usually considered the weakest; for some reason, I found the gentle fantasy of this one far more interesting than the blatant scare tactics of the third one.

I can only conclude I’m out of step with a lot of horror fans on this one, but it’s not the first time, and probably won’t be the last.

THE DREAM OF AN OPIUM FIEND (1908)
aka Le Reve d’un fumeru d’opium
Article 2547 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-26-2008
Posting Date: 8-2-2008
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France

An opium fiend has a strange dream.

So just what kind of dream does an opium fiend have? Well, you can expect the Chinaman who gives you the opium to do a silly little dance (though I’m not sure that’s part of the dream). After that, you can expect to find yourself back home and ready to imbibe from a huge glass of beer (does it strike anyone out there as odd that an opium fiend would dream of having a beer), but those darned heavenly bodies will steal the glass and drink the beer themselves. Sure, you can invite the beautiful woman in the moon down to your room, but if you try to take her in your arms, she’ll just teleport away. And if you do catch her…well, it’s not pretty, believe you me. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be an opium fiend.

DARK AUGUST (1976)
Article 2522 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-29-2008
Posting Date: 7-8-2008
Directed by Martin Goldman
Featuring J.J. Barry, Carole Shelyne, Kim Hunter
Country: USA

An artist accidentally kills a young girl while driving in his jeep. The girl’s grandfather places a curse on the artist, who is then haunted by a shadowy figure. The artist seeks a way out of the curse.

I think I can see what this movie was trying to do. It attempted to flesh out a fairly standard occult story by involving us in the lives and the personalities of our characters. This can be effective if the characters and their lives are strong enough to hold our interest, but, though this movie does make a valiant effort, it doesn’t happen here. After a while, the character scenes (the artist has a jokey western showdown with a friend, the artist gets an unpleasant call from his separated wife, to name just a couple) start to come across as filler, mere roadblocks in the way of getting on with the story. The movie also tries for subtlety and a certain visual poetry, but once again, it just falls a little short in accomplishing these tasks. The end result is a movie that just takes too long to get about its business. The last twenty minutes of the movie are the best, with the scene in which a local witch tries to lift the curse a highlight, but even this scene lacks the necessary energy to really make it gripping. As it is, it’s more of a nice try than a success.

DEMON AND THE MUMMY (1976)
TV-Movie
Article 2504 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-11-2008
Posting Date: 6-20-2008
Directed by Don McDougall and Don Weis
Featuring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland, Jack Grinnage
Country: USA

Carl Kolchak finds himself following the trails of two sets of murders; a group of young college men find themselves dying of heart attacks next to women who had died some hours earlier, and various other people are discovered with their hearts pulled out. He begins to suspect ancient horrors are at work in both of the cases.

One of my favorite series, “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” also suffered the same fate as “Planet of the Apes”, “The Starlost” and other series; several episodes were edited together into features for TV distribution. In this one, the episodes “Demon in Lace” and “Legacy of Terror”, about a succubus and a mummy (neither of which caught the series at its peak in my opinion), were mashed together to make a feature. This one gets a little ambitious in its editing; rather then telling one story and then the other, this one tries to intermix them; we get the first half of “Demon in Lace”, followed by “Legacy of Terror” in its entirety, followed by the second half of “Demon in Lace”. It takes advantage of the fact that much of the exposition in the series was handled by Darren McGavin’s voice-overs, and either McGavin himself or someone doing an imitation of him supplies new voice-overs in an attempt to tie the two stories together. This mostly consists of him referring to the events of the other episode, often with the comment of how he doesn’t feel the two sets of murders are related. No, it doesn’t work; it just makes the structure seem that much goofier. Still, since I enjoyed the series, I even enjoy it in this butchered format; I’ve always loved McGavin as Kolchak and Simon Oakland as Tony Vincenzo, enjoyed Jack Grinnage and Ruth McDevitt, and we get some familiar faces in the surrounding cast as well, such as Erik Estrada, Andrew Prine and Keenan Wynn. And is that Milton Parsons popping up at one point?

If I remember correctly, the four episodes that were edited into TV-Movies were then omitted from the lineup when the show did go into syndication. Fortunately, in the era of DVDs, we can enjoy the whole series without this problem.

DEADLY DREAM (1971)
TV-Movie
Article 2502 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-9-2008
Posting Date: 6-18-2008
Directed by Alf Kjellin
Featuring Lloyd Bridges, Janet Leigh, Carl Betz
Country: USA

A scientist working on a formula to spread the intelligence DNA finds himself plagued by nightmares in which he is pursued by a Tribunal intent on putting him on trial for his crimes. He begins to suspect that his dreams are real.

The science fiction element here is a Gizmo Maguffin, to begin with. This movie is essentially a fantasy about the nature of dreams and reality. This movie has a fairly high rating on IMDB, and I can see that; if the central concept that explains the movie is new to you, the movie has the potential to have a strong impact. If you’re already familiar with the concept, you might be less impressed. Me, I hit upon the concept early on in my own attempts to figure out where the plot would go, and so I really wasn’t surprised, and this rather marred my enjoyment of the movie. Make no mistake; I think the movie is good enough; I just think the whole thing could have been handled more efficiently in an episode of “The Twilight Zone”, and, who knows, maybe there was an episode that used the same concept.

DOUBLE FACE (1969)
aka A doppia faccia
Article 2501 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-8-2008
Posting Date: 6-17-2008
Directed by Riccardo Freda
Featuring Klaus Kinski, Christiane Kruger, Gunther Stoll
Country: West Germany/Italy

An industrialist loses his wife in a car accident. However, when he sees a veiled woman in a racy film that resembles his wife, he begins to suspect she’s still alive…

It was pretty late in the game for the Edgar Wallace mysteries from Germany by this time. This one has several pluses; it’s in color, it features Klaus Kinski in a leading role for once, and it looks as if some care was taken with the dubbing. Furthermore, the movie is coherent, though the story itself is a little confusing. Its biggest problem is that it’s a little low on the energy side and slow-moving at times. Lucio Fulci was one of the writers, and the director was one of the pioneer horror directors from Italy, Riccardo Freda, who also gave us the THE DEVIL’S COMMANDMENT, the Dr. Hichcock movies, and some sword and sandal movies as well.

Oh, and the fantastic content? Without giving too much away, let’s just say that surviving a road accident won’t necessarily leave your good looks intact.