THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE (1963)
Article #618 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-23-2002
Posting date: 4-18-2003

A newly-married couple become stranded on their honeymoon, and encounter a friendly nobleman who turns out to have vampiric plans for the bride.

A single glimpse at the title tells you it’s about vampires, and if it played out all the usual vampire scenarios and trappings I wouldn’t have a great deal of use for the movie. However, that is not the case; the vampires here have a social structure of sorts which makes their modus operandi a very different thing than you usually find in movies of this ilk, and the movie gets a great deal of mileage out of carefully drawing you into their methods. Furthermore, there are some interesting characters; the Van Helsing type may be a hero, but he is also a grief-stricken drunkard, definitely not the usual hero type. In fact, personal loss and tragedy plays a strong role in this movie, making it more immediate and compelling, more sad and more real. The only unfortunate part of the movie is that the ambitious ending is marred by less-than-convincing special effects, but I’m willing to forgive the movie this, if for no other reason that it works so strongly, sadly and beautifully up to that point. Though I am not a particular fan of Hammer, this one has very quickly become one of my favorites of theirs.

KISS ME DEADLY (1955)
Article #417 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-6-2002
Posting date: 9-29-2002

Mike Hammer investigates the death of a woman who stopped his car on the highway, and finds himself caught up in a scheme far bigger than he expected.

There isn’t much in the first hour and a half of this dark, violent film noir to indicate that it will swerve into science fiction before it’s all over; even those who read the novel on which was based would be surprised, as the science fiction element did not appear in the original novel. Though that element of the fantastic definitely gives the movie a bigger ending than it might otherwise have had, the movie probably still qulifies as marginalia. Nonetheless, one of the great things about covering marginalia is it gives you a chance to get a little variety into the viewing schedule, and this great little film noir is a welcome diversion; you know you’re watching something special when the credits roll by in the opposite direction at the top of the movie. There’s a great cast here, with Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Cloris Leachman (in an early role), and Jack Elam. Robert Aldrich would later go on to direct WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE, and created a whole new type of horror movie in the process; I suspect he would be one director whose oeuvre would be very interesting to investigate.

THE KINGDOM OF THE FAIRIES (1903)
Article #370 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 3-20-2002
Posting date: 8-6-2002

A prince must go on a quest to save his betrothed from the clutches of an evil witch and her hellish minions.

Only a year after pioneering the science fiction epic, Melies takes on epic fantasy. Those who think of older movies as slow-moving should really check these very early films, which fit almost two hours of storyline into ten minutes. Granted, this one took some real concentration; unlike the other Melies films I’ve discussed, I had no handy narration to explain the action to me this time, but I managed all right. It even takes itself somewhat seriously, with the possible exception of the comic whale which pops up about halfway through the story. I can’t watch these early Melies films without feeling a bit of awe at the vast amount of special effects they contain: I can only imagine the amount of precision work that must have gone into this ten-minute picture.

KRONOS (1957)
Article #235 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-6-2001
Posting date: 3-22-2002

A scientist is possessed by an alien presence. He then helps organize an invasion on earth by an alien machine intent on sucking energy from the planet.

This science fiction movie is pretty uneven, but I find the machine (called Kronos) to have such a striking alien presence, that it gives the movie a certain ominous appeal. There’s also a number of familiar faces to fans of fifties SF; Jeff Morrow (who is one of my favorite leading men in the genre), John Emery, and Morris Ankrum are all on hand. Kronos steals the movie, of course, but it’s a lot more effective when it’s standing still; when it’s moving, it’s so obviously animated it destroys the illusion somewhat. I am fond, however, of the scene where our heroes land on top of Kronos and walk around on its surface; you rarely get this up close and personal with a giant “monster.”

KING OF THE ZOMBIES (1941)
Article #233 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-4-2001
Posting date: 3-20-2002

Two men crash-land on an island with their manservant. There they encounter a suspicious doctor and a horde of zombies.

This sporadically dull horror film is noteworthy for two things; the first is that it actually netted an Academy Award nomination (Best Scoring for a Dramatic Picture), which was apparently a result of how pictures were chosen for nomination in those days. The other is more significant; the movie has a bang-up comic performance from Mantan Moreland, unfortunately working in a black manservant type of role that is considered stereotypical nowadays. This is sad, as he is truly hilarious and easily the best thing in the movie.

Incidentally, the doctor played by Henry Victor in the movie was originally intended to be played by Bela Lugosi (who would have been a lot more fun).

KILLERS FROM SPACE (1954)
Article #232 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-3-2001
Posting date: 3-19-2002

When a pilot from an A-bomb test mysteriously reappears after having supposedly died in a plane crash, he has strange scars on his chest. Later, he is caught trying to hide secret military information under a rock and crashes into a tree trying to escape. Under sodium amatol, he reveals that he was captured and hypnotized by aliens.

If you’re watching this movie for serious science fiction thrills, good luck to you; this movie directed by W. Lee Wilder is sluggish, badly timed, and poorly edited. Those looking for a good laugh should fast forward to about halfway through the movie, where Peter Graves encounters the bejumpsuited ping-pong-ball-eyed aliens and their menagerie of big bugs and lizards which keep the foley artist working overtime. The highlight is, of course, Peter Graves’ run through the caves where he encounters these creatures, though you most likely will never believe he’s actually near a single one of them. The final shot of a nuclear explosion seen through venetian blinds is not only unconvincing, it’s postively surreal; you’d think someone would duck and cover. This certainly isn’t W. Lee Wilder’s best movie, but it is probably his most well known.

KONGA (1961)
Article #86 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-10-2001
Posting date: 10-24-2001

A scientist returns from Africa with a chimpanzee named Konga and some meat-eating plants. He experiments with them and creates a formula that turns the chimp into a gorilla. He uses the gorilla to knock off those in his way. Then his assistant gives the gorilla even more of the formula…

Just as a general rule of thumb, if a movie is about a giant gorilla, and you don’t see Willis O’Brien’s name in the credits, watch out. This isn’t the worst of the giant ape movies (I can think of two others that are worse without straining), but it’s still pretty awful. It’s a little reminiscent of Herman Cohen’s HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM, only replacing that movie’s visceral thrills with bad special effects; even Michael Gough doesn’t help much here. The film is loaded with unpleasant characters in unhealthy relationships, and it’s really no fun at all to spend as much time with them as you do in this movie. As for the giant ape, he doesn’t manifest himself until the movie is nearly over; in fact, the trailer for this film is almost entirely made up of footage from the last five minutes. All in all, I thought the movie was witless, and watching it a depressing experience.

It does have one memorable line, though: “Fantastic! There’s a giant gorilla that’s constantly growing to outlandish proportions loose in the streets!” Say it out loud to get the full effect.

KING KONG (1933)
Article #85 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-9-2001
Posting date: 10-23-2001

A movie crew seeks out a strange creature on an uncharted island. There they encounter a giant ape known as Kong.

Though Ray Harryhausen is often cited as the greatest master of stop-motion animation, I have to throw in my vote for Willis O’Brien. To my mind, Harryhausen never quite came up with a character as well-rounded as Kong, who, as well as having all the usual giant-monster qualities you would expect, also has a number of nice little touches, such as his tendency, after a fight with a dinosaur, to double-check that his opponent is really dead, or the way that his expression reveals that he has no idea what is happening to him when he notices his own blood atop the Empire State Building. Willis O’Brien not only knew how to make monsters, he knew how to make them act; I consider Kong to have given the very best performance by a stop-motion being. Credit for the movie must also go to Cooper and Schoedsack, producer/directors of KING KONG; they specialized in far-flung adventure movies, and they augment the proceedings with their sense of what makes adventure movies work. (They also play the pilot and machine-gunner in the plane that downs Kong). Both Robert Armstrong and Fay Wray are memorable in their respective roles.

As a side note, I always think too much is made of the “Beauty and the Beast” connection; outside of their being a beauty (Fay Wray) and a beast (Kong) that is attracted to her, I think it has very little in common with the fairy tale of that name. This is not to say that the movie isn’t rich in a variety of other ways; after all, this is one of those movies that has been discussed (and interpreted) so often by others, that I’m not really confident that I have anything original to say on the matter.