THE NIGHT STRANGLER (1973)
Article #1224 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-21-2004
Posting Date: 12-18-2004
Directed by Dan Curtis
Featuring Darren McGavin, Jo Ann Pflug, Simon Oakland

Kolchak covers a series of strangulation murders which point to a killer who may be more than one hundred years old.

I first became familiar with Carl Kolchak via the TV series, and when I watched THE NIGHT STALKER for the first time many years after this, I was slightly put off by the differences in Kolchak’s character from that movie in comparison to how he would later develop. The Kolchak here is much closer to the one of the series, and this TV-movie plays somewhat like an extended episode of the series, though I would have to say that it does a better job of building the tension, especially during the final fifteen minutes. Darren McGavin and Simon Oakland are excellent as usual here, and it’s a great deal of fun watching Carl Kolchak interact with characters played by the likes of John Carradine, Wally Cox, Al Lewis, and the wicked witch herself, Margaret Hamilton. That was one of the joys I’ve always had from the Kolchak series; though the character of Kolchak is one the greatest and most memorable I’ve ever encountered, the stories never relied solely on his appeal, but were peopled by other strong and interesting characters. The basic story is a variation on THE MAN IN HALF MOON STREET, and the cast also included Jo Ann Pflug and Richard Anderson.

NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES (1968)
(a.k.a. LA HORRIPILANTE BESTIA HUMANA)
Article #1223 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-20-2004
Posting Date: 12-17-2004
Directed by Rene Cardona
Featuring Armando Silvestre, Norma Lazareno, Jose Elias Moreno

A doctor desperate to save the life of his son transplants the heart of a gorilla into his body. Unfortunately, this turns his son into a half man / half beast who then goes on a violent rampage.

One of the things I love about much of the Mexican horror I’ve screened so far is underneath all the silliness and wrestling there was a sense of charming innocence. This remake of DOCTOR OF DOOM has certain things going for it. For one thing, I like the use of color; especially during the wrestling scenes. Also, I like the fact that the doctor performing the operations is not a madman out to rule the world, but a grieving father who wishes to save the life of his only son. However, the sense of innocence is gone. In its place, we get gratuitous gore (open-heart surgery, several graphic mutilation sequences) and gratuitous sex and nudity (a rape sequence and a lot of female nudity). It’s always a bit gratuitous to have a woman interrupted while she’s in the shower; to have it happen twice in the same movie also shows a real lack of imagination as well. In some ways, it shows a bit more skill than some other Mexican horror movies, but I really mourn the loss of innocence here, even if much of the silliness is still intact; after all, how many movies have their monster running around in pajamas during the last half?

NIGHT GALLERY (1969)
Article #1221 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-18-2004
Posting Date: 12-15-2004
Directed by Boris Sagal, Steven Spielberg, Barry Shear
Featuring Joan Crawford, Ossie Davis, Richard Kiley

Rod Serling puts on display three paintings, each with a tale of horror behind it.

It’s easy to see why this TV-movie pilot produced a series; it’s an excellent movie, well directed, written and acted throughout, and the three stories are all quite effective. The actual paintings play pivotal roles in both the first and third stories; in the second story, the painting does appear, but it is not crucial to the proceedings. The first story is probably the weakest of the bunch; the final twist seems a little forced to me, and I really got tired of hearing the name of the Ossie Davis character repeated ad nauseum. Both the second and third are truly wonderful, and both have final twists that are truly satisfying. The middle one was directed by Steven Spielberg, and you can see various touches that demonstrate exactly why he would later become such a renowned director. All three of the stories were written by Rod Serling.

THE NAKED JUNGLE (1954)
Article #1219 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-16-2004
Posting Date: 12-13-2004
Directed by Byron Haskin
Featuring Charlton Heston, Eleanor Parker, Abraham Sofaer

A woman marries a plantation owner by proxy, but when she arrives on his plantation, they have trouble getting along.

If this were your typical jungle movie, it would be marginal at best in terms of belonging to the fantastic genres. And given the above plot description, you might well think it’s even more marginal than the usual jungle movie. Don’t worry; though it’s not a horror movie, the horrific content that manifests itself in the last third of this movie (when Leiningen attempts to defend his plantation against an onslaught of soldier ants) is the very stuff of nightmares. The last third of the movie is absolutely gripping, but real credit has to go to all involved for making the first two thirds of the movie interesting as well, especially when you consider that the romantic relationship that takes center stage throughout the movie is fairly cliched. It’s interesting to note that THEM! wasn’t the only scary ant movie of 1954.

NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947)
Article #1171 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-29-2004
Posting Date: 10-26-2004
Directed by Edmund Goulding
Featuring Tyrone Power, Coleen Gray, Joan Blondell

A carny decides he can crack the big time with a mind-reading racket when he learns a code from a down-on-her-luck mindreader.

This sad, powerful and somewhat disturbing film noir isn’t strictly horror, but the atmosphere is thick at times, and the tarot cards do show an uncanny ability to predict the future. Furthermore, the carnival background is like something out of a Tod Browning movie, and the mind-reading and spiritualist aspects should also be familiar territory to horror fans. The story is first-rate, the direction and cinematography are wonderful, and the acting throughout is top-notch. Tyrone Powers gives a strong performance as Stanton Carlisle, a man whose ability to put on an act is so great that he fails to realize that someone else might actually have a better act, but the best performances come from Joan Blondell as the down-and-out mind reader and Ian Keith, whose portrayal of the alcoholic Pete serves as an example of the type of man whom Stanton could become. Still, there’s an even more alarming example of Stanton’s potential fate, but I’ll leave that for the viewer to discover. My highest recommendations go out with this one.

THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED (1957)
Article #1105 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Day: 3-24-2004
Posting Day: 8-11-2004
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Featuring Kathryn Grant, William Leslie, Tristram Coffin

A rash of earthquakes is being caused by a new element that reacts with nitrogen to cause violent explosions.

You know, if I were to stage a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, I would try to make sure my orchestra consisted of something more than a triangle and a kazoo. Though this is overstating the case somewhat, I think it does capture the way I feel about this movie. The idea is fairly good, the story is told efficiently, the script is decent enough (except for a very bad scene where the heroine gets terrified trying to climb down a rope ladder), and the actors would be acceptable with a little sympathetic direction. But to really do justice to the idea, you need to throw a decent amount of money at it, and that just doesn’t happen here with Sam Katzman holding onto the pursestrings. Consequently, the movie never moves into the realm of believability, and you spend your time thinking about how much better it would have been given a proper treatment. As it is, it is interesting to sit back and try to figure out how you would change certain scenes around to make them work better, or how you would direct the actors to add more drama to the scenes, or even where you would add music to accentuate the proceedings (except for during the credits, there is no music at all). And it does have one good unintentional laugh during a scene in which a man talks about the volcano that has arisen just outside his window.

NIGHT KEY (1937)
Article #1104 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Day: 3-23-2004
Posting Day: 8-20-2004
Directed by Lloyd Corrigan
Featuring Boris Karloff, Jean Rogers, Warren Hull

An elderly inventor is cheated for the second time when he tries to sell his new alarm system to a burglar alarm company. He then invents a device that hoodwinks their current alarm system in order to force them to install his new invention.

So what do you do with a horror actor when horror has fallen out of favor? 1937 was one of the lousiest years for horror movies, and so that’s why we found Boris Karloff as a lovable and distinctly non-threatening grandfatherly type in what is a fairly standard crime melodrama with touches of science fiction. Oddly, it opens like many of his horror movies do, only in those movies his revenge was much more sinister; here, he breaks into stores to set up harmless practical jokes which nonetheless display his ability to subvert the alarm system. It’s a decent enough little film, well acted by all (especially Karloff), but it was really too minor a film to effectively open up a whole new genre of film for Karloff. Fortunately, horror would be back in a couple of years, and he would find himself in much more demand. The movie also features Ward Bond as one of the gangsters.

THE NIGHT HAS EYES (1942)
(a.k.a. TERROR HOUSE)
Article #1062 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-10-2004
Posting Date: 7-9-2004
Directed by Leslie Arliss
Featuring James Mason, Joyce Howard, Mary Clare

Two schoolteachers decide to spend the summer investigating a moor where a fellow teacher vanished the year before; when they get caught in a storm, they take shelter in an isolated house inhabited by a mysterious man with a dark secret.

For the most part this movie is only borderline horror; it’s more gothic romance a la “Jane Eyre”, and after a while that’s the sort of story you grow to expect. Granted, gothic romance shares quite a bit of the same mood as horror, and the foggy moors, mysterious house and dreadful secrets are all elements that make up either genre. However, the story becomes more overtly horror as it goes along; the mysterious secret turns out to be a fairly compelling, though I was able to figure out how it would all end once you take into account how true love always triumphs in this sort of movie. The movie is also helped by some good performances and some odd touches. And remember, it’s not a monkey, it’s a capuchin.

NIGHT STAR, GODDESS OF ELECTRA (1964)
(a.k.a. WAR OF THE ZOMBIES/ROMA CONTRO ROMA)
Article #1029 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-8-2004
Posting Date: 6-6-2004
Directed by Giuseppe Vari
Featuring John Drew Barrymore, Susy Andersen, Ettore Mani

An agent from Rome investigates the doings of a strange cult that is fighting a battle with them.

This movie opens with a scene of villagers battling helmeted men on horseback; you need go no farther than this to know that you’re watching a peplum. However, the second scene shows several ugly, slightly deformed men stripping the dead soldiers of their gear, and this should clue you off that this is no ordinary peplum. In fact, this is perhaps the most horror-oriented peplum this side of HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD, and it’s the horror elements that bring this one to life, particularly near the end when an army of dead soldiers arises to do battle. This makes up for the fact that the movie is quite slow at times and that the middle section (with lots of double-crosses, traps and betrayals) is quite confusing. Still, I do wonder who comes up with these titles; there’s no Night Star or Electra mentioned in the movie (though I’m sure the one-eyed statue is one of them), so I suspect that whoever gave the movie its English title didn’t bother to watch much of it first.

THE NUDE VAMPIRE (1969)
(a.k.a. LA VAMPIRE NUE)
Article #1015 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-25-2003
Posting Date: 5-23-2004
Directed by Jean Rollin
Featuring Olivier Martin, Maurice Lemaitre, Caroline Cartier

Plot description: Huh?

First of all, I consider the title somewhat redundant. This being a Jean Rollin film, I would actually be surprised if the vampire didn’t turn up nude sooner or later. Now, I find that figuring out what’s going on in a Jean Rollin film can be a chore even under the best of circumstances; the print I found for this one is not only in very poor condition, but is neither dubbed nor subtitled in English, so that should go a ways toward explaining the plot description above. Another aspect about this being a Rollin film is I find myself wanting to go back to three adjectives of Rollin; arty, erotic and gory. However, I’ll throw out ‘gory’ in this case; in comparison to other movies I’ve seen, this one is relatively bloodless. It also looks like it might be somewhat easier to figure out than RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to wait for subtitles. There are some striking visual moments, however, and there’s a nice, rather curious scene with a crucifix that I quite liked. I’ll leave it to Rollin fans who can speak French to figure out this one.