Man in the Moon (1960)

MAN IN THE MOON (1960)
Article 3240 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-3-2010
Posting Date: 6-28-2010
Directed by Basil Dearden
Featuring Kenneth More, Shirley Anne Field, Michael Hordern
Country: UK
What it is: British comedy

A man whose happy-go-lucky attitude makes him immune to diseases and stress is discovered by a team of scientists intent on sending a man to the moon. However, complications arise when a huge reward is offered to the first man in the moon, and the competing astronauts begin to resent the new man…

This is an amusing, amiable, and somewhat aimless comedy about the British space effort. Actually, I think it’s most amusing at the beginning, when we discover our hero is employed by an institute studying the common cold; the methods they use to try to get their subjects to catch colds are fairly funny. Most of the middle of the movie involves gags about the various methods of training the astronauts; this section is a little disappointing. The actual trip to the moon doesn’t come until the end of the movie, and I won’t say what happens except to warn those hoping for some more pronounced science fiction content will be disappointed. Still, the acting is strong, with Kenneth More very good as the immune man. I initially didn’t recognize Charles Gray as competing astronaut Leo, largely because I’ve never seen him without grey hair before. All in all, the movie is likable enough, but it’s largely content to just wend its way through a series of comic scenarios without any real point to it all.

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The Horrible Sexy Vampire (1970)

THE HORRIBLE SEXY VAMPIRE (1970)
aka El vampiro de la autopista
Article 3239 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-2-2010
Posting Date: 6-27-2010
Directed by Jose Luis Madrid
Featuring Val Davis, Barta Barri, Anastasio Campoy
Country: Spain
What it is: Horrible sexy vampire movie

A vampire is loose strangling topless women. The police think it’s a non-supernatural sadist. The only male descendant of the vampire takes residence in his ancestor’s castle to learn the truth.

Given the title, I wasn’t expecting much, and my expectations were met. Still, I can be grateful that it wasn’t any worse than it was. The vampire has some differences about him; he strangles his victims instead of biting them. I’m not sure how he gets the blood out of them, but giving the marks on the necks afterward, I’m guessing he uses a vacuum cleaner hose. The vampire also turns invisible, which means that some of the attack scenes are rather silly-looking. The plot does seem rather thrown-together, but there’s some odd touches here as well; the vampire hunter is a heavy drinker who is generally considered by others to need a psychiatrist, and there’s an odd but interesting ironic note to the ending. Oh, and did I mention there’s a lot of topless women? These somewhat compensate for the uninspired direction and the hangdog feel of the whole affair, as well as a wealth of time-wasting scenes; if you can find a point for the gas station sequence near the end of the movie, you caught something a lot subtler than I was able to see. In the final analysis, I’d say it’s dumb but harmless, but not necessarily unlikably so.

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Run Stranger Run (1973)

RUN STRANGER RUN (1973)
aka Happy Mother’s Day, Love George
Article 3238 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-1-2010
Posting Date: 6-26-2010
Directed by Darren McGavin
Featuring Patricia Neal, Cloris Leachman, Bobby Darin
Country: USA
What it is: Drama with mystery and horror elements

A teenage boy arrives at a small New England fishing village with the intent of tracking down his true parents. The village has also been the sight of the recent disappearance of several residents. These two events are not entirely unrelated…

This is one of the very few directorial credits of Darren McGavin, famous among fans of fantastic cinema and TV for having played Carl Kolchak in THE NIGHT STALKER, its sequel, and the subsequent TV series. He does a good job here; he assembles an excellent cast, including Cloris Leachman, Ron Howard (as the teenage boy), Patricia Neal, Bobby Darin (in his last role), Kolchak co-star Simon Oakland (in what would turn out to be his last theatrical film role, though he would continue to work in television for some time yet) and newcomer Tessa Dahl. Its reputation is understandably uneven; though it is a horror film of sorts, it doesn’t play by the same set of rules as horror films usually do, and this can easily alienate certain viewers. Anyone expecting bloody mayhem from the start will be very disappointed. It’s structured more like a mystery; we meet the various characters, and piece together the facts to get a complete picture of the situation. There are only a handful of hints of the horror content for the first three-quarters of the movie. Ultimately, I found the story and the ultimate revelations satisfying enough to compensate for the slowness, but your mileage may vary. Still, you probably won’t have to work too hard to figure out the identity of the killer, and if you’re alert enough, you should be able to sort out the boy’s parentage before it is revealed.

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The Grim Reaper (1980)

THE GRIM REAPER (1980)
aka Antropophagus
Article 3237 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-30-2010
Posting Date: 6-25-2010
Directed by Joe D’Amato
Featuring Tisa Farrow, Saverio Vallone, Serena Grandi
Country: Italy
What it is: Gory cannibal horror flick

Several tourists arrive on a Greek island to discover that the village is empty… and that someone is stalking all of them with the intent of making them meals… his meals, that is.

I’m assuming I watched the cut version of this movie; it’s mostly in English, though there appear a few scenes in foreign languages with subtitles, so I suspect it was put together from more than one source. I haven’t been particularly impressed with the D’Amato movies I’ve seen so far, but in this one, I grew to appreciate that he occasionally has the ability to set up a good surprise moment; there are times here where unexpected events happen at just the right moment, and though I wouldn’t call them ‘jump’ scenes per se, they do put you slightly on edge and are interesting to watch. It doesn’t always work; occasionally the set-ups are so blatant that the end result is more comic than scary, such as the scene with the bucket here. My biggest problem with the movie may be more with my print than the movie itself; so many of the night scenes are so dark that it’s impossible to make out what’s going on. If that was actually an intent on the part of the director, than he overused it. Overall, the movie worked passably well; though it didn’t exactly have me on the edge of my seat, it didn’t bore me either. I suspect the movie is mostly remembered for its two central gore set pieces, one involving a pregnant woman, and the final scene of the movie; I’d heard about the former scene beforehand, so I was prepared. As for the final scene, I found myself trying to decide if it was the stupidest gore set piece I’ve ever seen or one of the most grotesquely transcendent ones; at any rate, it does add a whole new level of meaning to a certain five-word catchphrase involving food.

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Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971)

DR. JEKYLL & SISTER HYDE (1971)
Article 3236 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-29-2010
Posting Date: 6-24-2010
Directed by Roy Ward Baker
Featuring Ralph Bates, Martine Beswick, Gerald Sim
Country: UK
What it is: Jekyll/Hyde variation

Dr. Jekyll is searching for the elixir of life and finds it in female hormones. However, the hormones have a side effect of changing the sex of the user. And his methods of acquiring materials for his experiments requires some drastic means…

This was another of Hammer’s attempts at the Jekyll and Hyde story, and is perhaps the most gimmicky film they put out. The gimmick itself is captured in the title, and the promise in the ads that “the sexual transformation of a man into a woman will actually take place before your very eyes” was destined to be disappointing when you consider the movie’s PG rating in the states. For good measure, writer Brian Clemens throws in the Burke and Hare story and the Jack the Ripper story into the mix; of course, they make hash of the original novel (Jekyll is hardly less evil than Hyde here), but we should probably be grateful that the movie doesn’t fall apart at the seams; it’s actually a fairly entertaining Hammer film. Still, this is one of the dimmer Dr. Jekylls I’ve ever encountered; he apparently can’t remember that there are simply times when one must wash ones bloody hands and lock ones door. Ralph Bates gives one of his better performances here; in fact the whole cast is fairly strong. Not the best Dr. Jekyll movie out there by a long shot, but far from an embarrassment.

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The Creature with the Blue Hand (1967)

THE CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND (1967)
aka Die blaue Hand
Article 3235 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-28-2010
Posting Date: 6-23-2010
Directed by Alfred Vohrer and Samuel M. Sherman
Featuring Harald Leipnitz, Klaus Kinski, Carl Lange
Country: West Germany
What it is: Edgar Wallace mystery

One of a pair of twin brothers is committed to an asylum for the murder of the family gardener. When he is mysteriously helped to escape, he returns to his family home and takes up the identity of his twin brother, who has disappeared. But someone is now killing off the family members with a blue gauntlet of retractable razor-sharp blades. Is the twin being framed…?

One of my memories from my childhood was seeing a big ad in the newspaper for a drive-in double feature of BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT and CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND; for some reason, that ad haunted me. I finally got to see the first feature this year for the first time, and was quite disappointed. This, the second feature, I’d first seen years ago when it popped up on my local creature feature; I remember being a little disappointed that there was no real creature, (just someone using that blue gauntlet), but certain scenes in the movie did stick with me. It was only later that I knew the movie was part of the West German krimis of the sixties, and it is the first one I ever saw. I think this one holds up all right, especially if you’re familiar with krimis and know what to expect; the plot is overall confusing, but individual moments work well enough. Most memorable here are the blue hand attacks, and a scene in an asylum involving snakes and rats. The comic relief is subtler than usual here, with an odd butler and a pompous police inspector the primary sources. Years later, extra footage involving cannibalism would be grafted onto the movie by Samuel M. Sherman, an idea which certainly could not have improved the movie at all. All in all, I consider this one of the more enjoyable examples of the krimi form.

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The Black Cat (1966)

THE BLACK CAT (1966)
Article 3234 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-27-2010
Posting Date: 6-22-2010
Directed by Harold Hoffman
Featuring Robert Frost, Robyn Baker, Sadie French
Country: USA
What it is: Low-budget Poe adaptation

If this movie seems to be famous for anything, I’m guessing it would be the effectively gory axe murder sequence; I remember seeing stills of that one. And since the axe murder does take place in the original Poe story, we can’t really call it gratuitous. In fact, I do have to credit the makers of this movie for attempting a certain type of fidelity to the original story; it’s updated to the present, and fleshes out the characters and situations, but it manages to be true to the story as written. Still, it doesn’t quite flesh things out enough to hold the interest level high throughout the running time of the movie, and some of the additions are obvious (let’s have lots of scenes of him drinking, let’s have lots of scenes of him talking like a loony, let’s have a car chase, etc.). Fortunately, some of the touches are nice; I like that our main character has other pets around as well as the cat, I like the bizarre sequence where he his serenaded by a rock band of one-eyed men, and I like his startled attack on a black purse. Let’s face it; for a movie made on an extreme low budget, this one works pretty well. I just wish they had taken extra care with spelling Edgar Allan Poe’s name correctly. Incidentally, I suspect the Robert Frost of this movie is not the well known poet, despite his opening lines of poetry.

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Alien Warrior (1985)

ALIEN WARRIOR (1985)
Article 3233 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-26-2010
Posting Date: 6-21-2010
Directed by Ed Hunt
Featuring Brett Baxter Clark, Pamela Saunders, Reggie De Morton
Country: Canada
What it is: Liberal Christ fantasy/violent exploitation flick

A visitor from outer space comes to Earth to prove his worth by defeating a Great Evil, which comes in the form of a violent drug dealer. However, the visitor has a limitation; the use of violence on his part causes him to weaken.

Liberal do-gooder fantasy or sex-and-violence exploitation flick? Take your pick; the movie is obviously trying to have it both ways. Unfortunately, rather than achieving an amazing amalgamation of diverse genres, it comes across as merely split-personality goofiness, probably because it does neither one well, though it’s obviously more at home with the sex and violence. Our visitor arrives on Earth naked (someone has seen THE TERMINATOR), but, thanks to a friendly wino who just happens to have an extra set of clothes, he is soon ready to look for Great Evil. On the way he saves a woman from a gang of rapists, and then reforms the gang by getting the leader to face his shame over being called “stupid”, and then getting the boy to read “Alice in Wonderland” while he himself peruses a complete set of encyclopedias. With the help of the wino and his reformed-gang friends, he builds a really cool car that he uses to impress and reform the members of a protection racket so they can come to the reading center and break-dance, and then he… well, I could go on, but suffice it to say that interspersed between these moments are scenes where the “Great Evil” takes voyeuristic movies of his harem making love to members of the local police force or doing away with rivals in as violent a way as possible. It’s rating on IMDB is 4.3, but don’t let that fool you; the user comments are split between those who think the movie is godawful and those who think it is a hilarious camp classic, which, if you do find yourself watching it, is perhaps the best way to approach it.

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Torticola contre Frankensberg (1952)

TORTICOLA CONTRE FRANKENSBERG (1952)
aka Twisted Neck vs Frankensberg

Short
Article 3232 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-25-2010
Posting Date: 6-20-2010
Directed by Paul Paviot
Featuring Michel Piccoli, Roger Blin, Daniel Gelin
Country: France
What it is: French art film as parody of creaky horror movie in the form of a silent serial

The sinister Dr. Frankensberg plans to experiment on a beautiful woman, but will the monster that loves the girl object?

The first hint I had that this was meant to be comic was during an eerie scene when hooded monks make their way around a Stonehenge-style rock arrangement; one of them obviously trips, breaking the mood completely, and the fact that the scene was left in on purpose clearly stated the intention of the short. Given that it’s in unsubtitled French, I can’t say I understand the film completely, but I was consistently amused, especially in the way it plays with horror style; I’ve never seen a coffee-sweetening scene with as much foreboding as I did here. On top of Frankensberg and Torticola (think of Frankenstein and his monster), we have an assistant with an agenda of his own, an old woman who sharpens scalpels on an old whetstone, a man who thinks he’s a cat, a cat who speaks English, the maiden in distress, and the ever-present procession of chanting monks (if you want a few extra laughs, listen carefully to the melodies they chant). I’d love to see it English; in particular, I’d like to figure out the references to Freud. Though it’s a classier film in every way, I couldn’t help but be reminded of two other horror-themed shorts I’ve seen; MONSTERS CRASH THE PAJAMA PARTY and THE PROFESSOR.

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Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (1975)

MARY, MARY, BLOODY MARY (1975)
Article 3231 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-24-2010
Posting Date: 6-19-2010
Directed by Juan Lopez Moctezuma
Featuring Cristina Ferrare, David Young, and John Carradine
Country: Mexico / USA
What it is: Non-traditional vampire tale

A successful female artist is also a vampire; she drugs her victims, cuts their throats with a knife, and drinks their blood. The police follow the trail of murders and suspect the artist’s boyfriend. Meanwhile, an unknown person who also commits the same type of murders is stalking the artist.

Those drawn to this movie by the third word in the title will probably be satisfied by the blood-drenched finale to the movie, though the first half will probably be a bit of a drag. Those drawn to it by the presence of John Carradine need to know that he left partway through the production and was replaced by a double for the remaining scenes; however, since most of his character’s scenes are action sequences of one sort or another that would have been a big strain on a man pushing 70, I think we would have seen a lot of the double even if he’d stayed on board. At any rate, his appearance is little more than a cameo. Those hoping for a satisfying explanation of the non-traditional vampirism here (they don’t sprout fangs, they aren’t afraid of sunlight, they don’t have to be killed in a special way, etc.) will not get one. Those hoping for some sort of intelligence on the part of the police will be appalled. Those expecting characters to act sensibly should feel free to walk away from this one any time they want to. Those who like zoom shots and bizarre editing will be happy enough. Me, I like a few of the characters, but overall, this one just didn’t trip my trigger. I do like the surreal paintings, though.

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