DEATHMASTER (1972)
Article #1137 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-25-2004
Posting Date; 9-22-2004
Directed by Ray Danton
Featuring Robert Quarry, John Fiedler, Bill Ewing

A vampire insinuates himself into a house of hippies.

I like the central premise of this movie. This is that a group of hippies who embrace the counterculture and reject the establishment would prove to be ideal victims for a smooth-talking and charismatic vampire. The movie is also helped by a good performance by Robert Quarry, who captures well the kind of personality that would take in this group of people. However, the movie becomes dumber as it progresses; as several characters act with supreme stupidity. To specify, I put forth DS’s rules for vampire hunting.

If you are going to enter a house that you know is inhabited by vampires, remember these three rules:

1) Enter the house during the day when the vampires are at their least powerful.

2) Arm yourself with items that can be used to protect yourself from vampires and with which you can destroy them.

3) Also arm yourself with anything you need to protect yourself against the vampire’s human minions.

I can forgive someone forgetting the third rule. However, if you forget either of the first two, you’re being stupid. And if you forget both of them, you’re being supremely stupid. The heros in this movie forget both of them.

And why does the vampire keep leeches in a bowl near his coffin? He doesn’t need them to suck blood (he can do that on his own). And as far as pets go, he already has a cat.

THE DAY THE SKY EXPLODED (1958)
(a.k.a. LA MORTE VIENE DALLO SPAZIO)
Article #1136 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-24-2004
Posting Date; 9-21-2004
Directed by Paolo Heusch
Featuring Paul Hubschmid, Fiorella Mari, Madeleine Fischer

When a rocket explodes in space, it puts a cluster of meteors on a collision course with Earth.

This French/Italian end-of-the-world crisis tale is uneven. On the plus side, it’s directed with a certain amount of energy, the special effects are interesting (if not always entirely convincing), and Mario Bava handles the cinematography. On the other hand, it suffers from an assortment of cliches, including the guy trying to hit it off with the brainy female computer operator (which they keep referring to as a calculator) and the guy who cracks under pressure and tries to hoodwink the scientists’ attempt to save humanity. It also uses a lot of rocket launch stock footage, and the science-fiction sound effects (especially one “oooooooeeeeee” sound) are overused. Consequently, the movie never quite reaches the level of tension it needs to be really effective, but it is a lot more exciting than a lot of Italian science fiction. Oddly enough, the movie runs 82 minutes, but my print runs 90. Is it loaded with extra footage? No, but it does loop back at one point so that I see about eight minutes of footage repeat itself. This one is not to be confused with THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED.

DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS (1971)
(a.k.a. LE ROUGE AUX LEVRES)
Article #1134 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-22-2004
Posting Date: 9-19-2004
Directed by Harry Kumel
Featuring John Karlen, Delphine Seyrig, Danielle Ouimet

A newly married couple stay at a nearly empty but sumptuous hotel where they end up encountering Countess Bathory and her friend.

You know, I’ve heard a lot of talk over the years about how vampirism and sex are connected, and plenty of movies have played up the theme. However, most of those movies do nothing more than play up the “victim-loves-to-be-bitten” angle and have all the vampires look as sexy as possible. This one is a rare exception; it goes much deeper into the various aspects of sexuality, seduction, sadomasochism and dominance/submission games. You really become fascinated with how each character relates to and feels about the other characters, and things never quite happen in the way you expect. Straightforward horror fans will probably be disappointed; the movie abjures many of the usual vampire trappings (for example, there are no obvious barings of vampire fangs, though other things are bared) for more subtle types of horror. In fact, the sexual dynamics make the movie feel more like film noir than horror. Despite a lot of nudity and a certain amount of blood-letting, the movie somehow deftly avoids being merely exploitative. It’s not for everyone, but it is definitely worth a look.

DANGER!! DEATH RAY (1968)
(a.k.a. DEATH RAY/IL RAGGIO INFERNALE)
Article #1116 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-4-2004
Posting Date: 9-1-2001
Directed by Gianfranco Baldanello
Featuring Gordon Scott, Maureen Denphy, Nello Pazzafini

Superspy Bart Fargo is sent out to rescue a kidnapped scientist.

The more things change, the more things remain the same. During the twenties and thirties, death rays were all the rage and served as gimmicks in all sorts of action movies and serials. Now here we are in the sixties with the advent of the James Bond-type of action thriller, and what’s all the fuss over? A death ray.

This is, of course, another of those Italian takes on the superspy movie. It opens with a kidnapping sequence that takes nearly twenty minutes; your typical James Bond movie could have done the whole thing in a five minute pre-credits sequence, so we can throw efficient story-telling out the window. The dubbing is bad (as usual), and I hope you like the two musical themes, which get recycled ad nauseum before the movie ends. Even by Italian spy movie standards, this one is pretty cheesy.

THE DEVIL’S MASK (1946)
Article #1059 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-7-2004
Posting Date: 7-6-2004
Directed by Henry Levin
Featuring Jim Bannon, Barton Yarborough, Michael Duane

This is the second movie I’ve seen from the short-lived Columbia series based on the “I Love a Mystery” radio show, and I must say I find myself rather fond of the series. Part of it is the main characters; I like both Bannon and Yarborough in the roles of Jack Packard and Doc Long, in particular the latter, as he manages to stay just this side of making the character pure comic relief. It’s a mystery rather than a horror movie, of course, but it makes quite a bit of use of horror elements. There’s a spooky museium, a collection of shrunken heads, murder by poisonous blowdarts, a headless body, and a man who keeps a panther for a pet. You probably will figure out the murderer early on if you’re familiar with the way these mysteries work themselves out. It’s a fun little B programmer of the period.

THE DRAGON MURDER CASE (1934)
Article #1019 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-29-2003
Posting Date: 5-27-2004
Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone
Featuring Warren William, Margaret Lindsay, Lyle Talbot

When a man dives into a swimming pool and never comes up, Philo Vance is called in on the case.

Warren William was one of the less interesting actors I’ve seen in the role, but he had to eradicate memories of William Powell and Basil Rathbone for starters. As it is, it’s some of the other characters that make this one interesting; it’s fun to see a young Lyle Talbot in the role of Dale Leland, Etienne Girardot is great as a fussy coroner, and Eugene Pallette steals the show as Sergeant Heath. This one also has a marked horror element, as the murder is believed (by certain people) to be the work of a mythical “dragon” that resides in the pool (hence the title), an explanation that comes a little closer to the truth than you might expect. It also doesn’t waste time, as it runs around sixty-eight minutes. This is a fun entry in the series.

DICK TRACY RETURNS (1938)
(Serial)
Article #995 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-5-2003
Posting Date: 5-3-2004
Directed by John English and William Witney
Featuring Ralph Byrd, Lynne Roberts, Charles Middleton

Dick Tracy takes on a gangster known as Pa Stark, who runs a gang with his five sons.

This sequel to the 1937 serial DICK TRACY has a reputation of being better than the original, but I have to admit to having been disappointed with this one. It’s not badly done by any means; it just came across to me as a mostly very ordinary serial, hampered by a lack of really interesting cliffhangers and a shortage of interesting characters. Byrd and Middleton are the only real memorable actors as Tracy and Stark, but Pa Stark just doesn’t seem to me to be a particularly interesting villain, though his sons have some colorful names (“Dude”, “Champ”, “Kid”, etc.). The final episode is very strong, though, which makes up at least a little for the general predicatability of the rest of the serial and the fact that two of the episodes merely rehash footage from earlier in the serial. The fantastic elements are very slight; some of Stark’s crimes involve trying to get his hands on test airplanes and test torpedo boats, and that’s about it. And one of these days I’m going to start keeping scorecards on these things to warn people how many times the cliffhanger involves a vehicular accident which is resolved in the next episode by discovering that the hero saw it coming and jumped out right before the accident; this particular cliffhanger is so pervasive it’s become a major annoyance for me.

DREAM NO EVIL (1970)
Article #988 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11/28/2003
Posting Date: 4/26/2004
Directed by John Hayes
Featuring Edmond O’Brien, Marc Lawrence, Brooke Mills

A woman obsessed with finding her father discovers him in a morgue, where he rises from the dead and kills his undertaker. She then moves with him on to his farm, where he sporadically kills people.

The book from which I got this title to add to my list described it as a PSYCHO variation, though it’s a good thirty minutes into the movie before that becomes noticeable. However, that makes it quite similar to its model; you’re a good ways into that movie before the real direction of the story becomes apparent. This one, however, has some voice-over narration that essentially gives away the game at a crucial point in the movie; you’re pretty much in on the truth of the situation before the first murder even occurs. Still, this is not to say that this movie doesn’t use some interesting approaches to telling its story, and there is a real surreal oddity that cuts through many of the scenes to help compensate for the extreme low-budget of the undertaking. Nonetheless, I don’t think O’Brien considered this as one of the high points of his career. The movie also features Arthur Franz and Michael Pataki.

DECOY (1946)
Article #978 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-18-2003
Posting Date: 4-16-2004
Directed by Jack Bernhard
Featuring Jean Gillie, Edward Norris, Robert Armstrong

A moll intent on getting the fortune of her convicted gangster boyfriend recruits a crook and a naive doctor into her scheme.

Despite the fact that film noirs rely as much on mood as horror movies do, I haven’t had much of a chance to cover them as part of this series because they so rarely cross the line into the fantastic. This one does, however, since part of the plot involves a drug that can revive a man sent to the gas chamber if the body can be retrieved in an hour’s time. This one is quite memorable, with a great opening sequence, a fascinating story, and a scene-stealing performance by Sheldon Leonard as the nattiest flatfoot in town. The title doesn’t make a lot of sense until you get to the end of the movie, so be patient; it’s definitely worth the wait.