Trick or Treat! It’s….MonsterGirl !!!!!!!!!
This post continues from Part 1 at the link above!
And now, Part II
The child per se makes us uneasy, ambivalent ; we are anxious about the human propensities concentrated by the child symbol. It evokes too much of what has been left out or is unknown, becoming easily associated with the primitive, mad and mystical. – James Hillman ” Abandoning the Child” in Loose Ends.
To continue with this blog post about one of Lewton’s very precious stories, less dark than his others, and dealing with childhood, the fears of and by children.
All of Lewton’s works dealt with subject matters that forced us to push the boundaries of ‘the familiar.’ They challenged us to face a darker, more mysterious reality of the natural world and the incomprehensible landscape of the human psyche.
Curse of the Cat People (1944) acts as a cinematic continuum to Lewton’s Cat People 1942, featuring Simone Simon once again as the alluring and sensual Irena Dubrovna Reed, who may or may not have belonged to a race of beings that could shapeshift into the physical form of a large cat or black panther when sexually aroused.
The symbol of Irena synthesized the fear of women’s sexuality, sexual freedom, the women’s body, and often the correlation that is made with women’s emotional existence and madness. What is engendered in Cat People (1942) is far less about a woman who can morph into a predatory feline and more about the collective fear of ‘The Monstrous Feminine.’
While Amy is not Irena’s biological daughter, Amy is truly more of a progeny to Irena and the mystique she embodies because they are both alienated figures who are frustrated and misunderstood. Who stand outside the social community which is pumped from the veins of ‘rational’, normative thoughts and behaviors. Amy is the figure of ‘The Fearing Child,’ an innocent who not only has ‘power’ but can wreak havoc in our ‘normal’ world.
Both characters are imaginative and rely on their senses. They are more connected to the natural world, to the darkness, which is associated with feminine energy, and less intellectual, which is considered a masculine marker. They are considered emotional, irrational, and dangerously unpredictable. The character of Oliver Reed is just as frightened and, moreover, threatened by his six-year-old little girl as he was of his beautiful and tragic wife Irena, who was more a victim than ever, the ‘monster’ she was perceived to be.
In Cat People, Curse of the Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie, The Leopard Man, The 7th Victim, and Isle of The Dead, there aren’t concrete Monsters as in Universal films, as in Frankenstein’s creation, Dracula, or The Wolf Man.
RKO studio heads had a mistrust of Lewton’s creative vision, his unconventional approach to some esoteric subject matter, or volatile subjects such as a woman’s sexual desires. Lewton, rather than using literal lumbering, fanged, or hairy monsters, used the powers of suggestion and shadow to tell the story.
Lewton disliked mask-like faces that were hardly human, the kinds of images that were expected from the horror genre he was infiltrating. Lewton liked to reveal the monsters that were lurking in the subconscious primitive recesses of our own imaginations. Shadows become the monster in these films, they are the mysterious layer that surfaces in world that only makes sense in the light of day. And Amy draws the shadows to her…
They do not have scary faces, they are quite human and in fact ordinary. He takes the ‘familiar’ and inverts it, subverts it, rattles the soundness of an accepted experience, and turns it into either an illusion, a nightmare, or a fit of paranoia. He taps into our childhood fears and sets those fears on the frightened characters in his shadow plays. Usually, the thing they fear is uprooting their own personal desires and the fear of coming face to face with them.
Oliver couldn’t handle Irena’s sexual desires, nor her desirability; it triggered too much of his own primal urges, and so he demonized her, a fragile girl in a foreign country who believed in folklore from her very ancient set of beliefs handed down for centuries.
A story which quite often itself was ambiguous as to whether the threat was real or imagined. RKO wanted to be in competition with Universal, so they added footage of a menacing Panther, which was inserted into several scenes of Cat People.
Val Lewton’s short story ‘The Bagheeta’ appeared in Farnsworth Wright’s July 1930 issue of Weird Tales Magazine. Lewton was dabbling in concepts of terror, before he even got to RKO.
The story takes place in Ukraine (from which MonsterGirl’s people hail!) and is a coming-of-age story about a 16-year-old boy named Kolya who helps his Uncle forge armor. Someone comes into the village with a slaughtered sheep, who claims to have seen a Bagheeta, a monstrous black leopard that can change its form into a beautiful woman. Only one person can kill a Bagheeta, and that is a virgin male, for he needs to be able to resist her seductive powers. If he is seduced, the woman will change back into the black leopard and kill the boy and eat him! Lewton would eventually adapt and produce his story for RKO in the form of Cat People in 1942 starring Simone Simon, the suggested embodiment of a Bagheeta.
His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world.
As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful, soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.
Only at times the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly — An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
Produced by Val Lewton and directed by Robert Wise and Gunther von Fritsch, scripted by DeWitt Bodeen, and stars Simone Simon as the ghost of Irena, Kent Smith as Oliver Reed, Jane Randolph as Alice Reed, Eve March as Miss Callahan, Julia Dean as Mrs. Julia Farren, Elizabeth Russell as Barbara Farren, Sir Lancelot as Edward, and Ann Carter as Amy Reed. Ann Carter played Beatrice Carroll in the riveting noir classic The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)with Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck.
Curse of the Cat People is filled with poignant original music by Roy Webb and with Cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca (Cat People 1942, The Fallen Sparrow 1943, The 7th Victim 1943, The Spiral Staircase 1945 Bedlam 1946 and Out of The Past 1947) It’s no wonder Curse of The Cat People has many of the elements of a classic film noir piece.
After the tragic death of his wife Irena, played by the beautiful Simone Simon, Oliver Reed, once again played by Kent Smtih, has remarried his co-worker Alice (Jane Randolph). They now have a very serious yet gentle six-year-old girl named Amy (Ann Carter) who is taken to daydreaming and being a loner.
She does not mix in well with the other children at school who do not understand her sensitivity or her private world of fantasy that she has built around her as a survival mechanism.
Amy’s father, Oliver, constantly wields authoritative criticism of his daughter’s daydreaming and wants her to play with the other children and exist in the ‘real’ world. Amy has a birthday party for which she invites the children in her class, but no one shows up that day, and Oliver discovers that she has mailed out the invitations by placing them in the magic wishing tree, which is a hollowed-out knot of the large tree out behind the house.
.
Oliver had told Amy this was a magic spot when she was younger, and she remembers it, understanding it to be true because her father told her it was. She was taught to believe in magic and then, without preparation, was expected to denounce all things wondrous without any serious provocation on her part. She is only six years old, after all.
Saddened by her classmates’ absence at her party, Oliver, Alice, and Edward, the manservant from Jamaica, throw Amy a smaller party instead, complete with a birthday cake decorated with six little candles.
Amy is told to make a wish but not to tell anyone what it is, or it won’t come true. Again, Amy is conflicted by the mixed messages the adults in her life are giving her. She tells her father that wishes don’t come true. Oliver tells her, “Some do.” Her mother, Alice, embellishes by saying that you just can’t say it out loud, or it will nullify the magic wish.
Once again, there is a suspension of disbelief on their terms, disavowing Amy and her ability to develop a clearly defined sense of fantasy and reality. How can she properly order her world?
The children at school are furious with Amy for not inviting them as promised. As they shun her, they lead her to an old, sinister-looking mansion, where someone calls to her from the window. A voice calls out to her to come closer. Amy looks around, and the unseen person throws down a white handkerchief threading a gold ring.
Directed by Terence Young, and starring Eric Portman, Edana Romney, and Barbara Mullen. Edana Romney co-wrote the script.
Eric Portman plays Paul Mangin, who thinks he is Cesare Borgia reincarnated and that Mifanwy Conway (Edana Romney) is his lost love from a previous life. Corridor of Mirrors also showcases appearances by Christopher Lee and Valentine Dyall. A table at a nightclub with Mifanwy and her companions offers a fleeting glimpse of an astonishingly young Christopher Lee in his film debut, marking the beginning of a legendary career.
Terence Young’s film is a masterpiece of exquisite British filmmaking, immersing us in a rich atmosphere and evoking a mood that rivals the best psychological suspense thrillers and horror films from the forties, like the shadow plays of Val Lewton and the Gothic dark romances such as Wuthering Heights 1939, Rebecca 1940, and Jane Eyre 1943.
Corridor of Mirrors evokes an atmospheric, hallucinatory spectacle akin to Henri Alekan’s cinematography as he follows Josette Day’s travels through the mansion in Cocteau’s 1946 fable-like masterpiece Beauty and the Beast, imbued with its baroque, gilded, and ornate set design. Andre Thomas’s poetic lighting and camera angles suffuse the landscape of labyrinthine corridors, creating a somber and otherworldly landscape that evokes traces of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland as Edana Romney journeys through the dreamy complexity of the mansion, trying to break free of the spell, as she pursues the white cat, who is an emblem of Alice’s white rabbit.
Terence Young’s haunting directorial debut is one of those rare films that sweeps you straight into its opulent, unsettling dreams. It is a stunning and dreamlike gothic noir steeped in romantic obsession, sorrow, and psychological unease. At the center of it all is Paul Mangin, an enigmatic, larger-than-life artist absolutely obsessed with the past. The story spirals around this mysterious figure who cloaks his mansion and himself (in velvet capes), in Renaissance grandeur and holds the profound certainty that his soul has spent lifetimes, shaped by love and loss, echoing across centuries. Paul’s interest in Mifanwy is nothing more than a reflection of a cherished image, a portrait whose allure her appearance unsettlingly echoes, devoid of true understanding or affection.
Edana Romney wasn’t just cast as Mifanwy; she shaped the role herself, working closely with co-producer Rudolph Cartier to adapt Chris Massey’s novel into the screenplay. Watching her on screen, she moves almost like she’s sleepwalking, and while her acting is somewhat restrained, it actually adds to the film’s hypnotic, dreamlike quality. Throughout, she’s shadowed by a mysterious woman and a fluffy white cat, both quietly watching, which only deepens the sense of eerie voyeurism and subtle unease.
When Paul meets the beautiful Mifanwy Conway, lovely, possibly shady, and just curious enough to get drawn into the sinister spell, his fixation deepens. He’s convinced she’s the reincarnation of a long-lost lover from centuries ago and seeks to shape her to fit this spectral ideal. She rides beside Paul through shadowed London streets, the horse-drawn cab winding toward a vast, brooding mansion at the city’s heart. Paul, a forbidding aesthete veiled in grand delusions of a past life as an Italian noble, seeks to ensnare the sensuous Mifanwy in the dark embrace of his twisted reverie.
From its shadow-drenched corridors and warped reflections, the film blurs the boundary between reality and hypnotic fantasy. Corridor of Mirrors is a wild, shadowy fever dream drenched in mystery and illusion. It carries you from these dark, mirror-lined hallways and the lavish costume balls right into haunting galleries filled with faceless mannequins. Reality and fantasy melt together here; sometimes, you aren’t sure which is which. It’s like stepping into a twisted fairy tale. Each scene pulses with the quiet torment of lives trapped in mirrors, echoes of Pygmalion, Bluebeard, and Cocteau’s haunted fairy tales. It is as if the characters are caught in a maze of glass, unable to escape their own reflections and obsessions.
Paul Mangin’s obsession leads to madness, murder, and a shattering denouement amid wax effigies in Madame Tussauds, where the film’s onyx gloom gives way to truth and a tragic sense of justice.
The film’s Gothic atmosphere occupies a rare and haunting space, yet it draws subtle echoes from both Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and Fritz Lang’s eerie 1947 thriller, The Secret Beyond the Door. In the latter, a new bride, Joan Bennett, uncovers a chilling secret: her husband’s obsession with recreating rooms where murders have taken place, a macabre blurring of the lines between love and death, passion and violence.
André Thomas’s cinematography is a world unto itself, with its eerie, poetic visual style transforming the film into a hypnotic dreamscape. He plays with light and reflection brilliantly so that you almost lose track of where the real world ends and fantasy begins, those iconic mirrored corridors, where characters and their secrets multiply endlessly in flickering candlelight, and movement, fracturing reality and plunging the film’s characters into a labyrinth of shifting perspectives. Thomas’s cinematography exquisitely captures the film’s sumptuous costumes and intricate décor, draping each scene in a play of shimmering shadows and delicate highlights. His lens lingers on textured fabrics and ornate surroundings, bathing the opulence in a luminous glow that feels both intimate and grand, inviting us to step into a world where every detail is a visual feast. Thomas bathes the set in a chiaroscuro haze in key sequences, such as Mifanwy’s passage through the mansion’s long, mirrored hall lined with faceless mannequins. Nothing is quite what it seems. This approach blurs the line between fantasy and reality, uniting the film’s aching romantic longing and its creeping psychological dread. In every veil and distortion, the characters’ tangled obsessions and fractured selves mirror each other.
George Auric’s (who scored Cocteau’s La Belle et La Bête) score for Corridor of Mirrors flows like a dark, Gothic, melancholic river beneath the film’s haunting imagery, its melodies rising and falling with the rhythm of obsession and longing. The music is at once ethereal and grounded, shimmering with delicate strings that weave through shadowy passages and shadow-drenched ballrooms, while moments of brooding brass and subtle piano suggest the deep undercurrents of psychological unease and brooding desperation. The late moments, underscored by sweeping, delicate orchestration, evoke the grandeur and tragic beauty of the unfolding drama, making his score an essential part of the film’s haunting allure. Auric’s composition turns every whispered secret and silken touch into a symphony of passion and peril. The gowns were designed by Owen Hyde-Clark and constructed by French couturier Maggy Rouff.
“In projecting the slow abandonment of one’s identity, her third and final performance on the big screen evokes the pleasure, and the terror of romantic submission, Smith says — Mifanwy is a princess who, unlike Cinderella, who waits for a prince, or Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, immobile without the touch of a man’s lips, must break her own spell.” (Imogen Sara Smith for Criterion)
Corridor of Mirrors is a lush, visually extravagant meditation on identity and desire, where the past’s spectral grip suffuses every candle-lit room and character’s haunted gaze. The artistry of set and cinematography deepens its poetic melancholy, making the film a rare British gem, finely blended of exquisite and unsettling, and forever suspended between passion and despair, somewhere between the promise of love and the weight of memory.
See you in the mirror soon, MonsterGirl
David Niven is the Marquis Philippe de Montfaucon who is called back to his castle Bellenac because the dry season is destroying his vineyards. He reluctantly lets his wife (Deborah Kerr) and children join him. de Montfaucon has a superstitious secret, as the people surrounding him hold pagan rituals, for his legacy is connected to a great sacrifice…also stars Sharon Tate, Donald Pleasance, and David Hemmings. Directed by J. Lee Thompson.
A 19th Century New Hampshire farmer who makes a compact with the Devil for economic success enlists Daniel Webster to extract him from his contract. Stars Edward Arnold, Walter Houston as you know who, and Jane Darwell. Directed by William Dieterle
An old man sells his soul to the devil and turns into a young man. He then uses witchcraft and black magic to win a woman from his rival. Stars Ed Nelson, Edgar Buchanan, Jean Allison, and Richard Crane.
A man is haunted by visions of a beautiful woman. When he finally meets her, he winds up involved in a satanic cult. Stars Robert Alda and Linda Christian.
Roland Brissot bought a nickel a talisman that gives him love, fame, and wealth. The talisman is a cut left hand..directed by Maurice Tourneur
Sylvia Walton returns from Harlem to take over a Jamaican plantation from her vindictive half-sister, amid the growing sound of drums. Stars Nina Mae McKinney, Jack Carter, and Ida James.
A young girl whose mother had sold her soul to Satan when she was born is told by Satan that she must marry a fellow demon. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc and starring Shelley Winters and Belinda Montgomery. The 70s made for tv movie!
Two couples vacationing together in an R.V. from Texas to Colorado are terrorized after they witness a murder during a Satanic ritual. Starring Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, Lara Parker, and R.G. Armstrong.
A bunch of Satanists in the American rural landscape have terrible powers which enable them to melt their victims. However one of the children of an earlier victim vows to destroy them. Stars Ernest Borgnine, Ida Lupino, William Shatner and Eddie Albert. Directed by Robert Fuest.
Lady Dracula uses Dracula’s ring to lure beautiful girls to her castle, where she murders them so she can bathe in their blood. Starring Mark Damon and Rosalba Neri.
Christopher Lee is Nicholas the Duc de Richleau who travels to England to visit a friend and discovers a satanic cult! Also stars Charles Gray and is directed by Terence Fisher.
An American occult novelist battles to save the soul of a young girl from a group of Satanists, led by an excommunicated priest, who plans on using her as the representative of the Devil on Earth. Stars Christopher Lee, Richard Widmark, Honor Blackman, Denholm Elliot and Nastassja Kinski.
A notorious outlaw being escorted to prison by a homesteader and his wife turns out to have satanic powers. He uses them on the man’s wife to try to possess her and help him escape. ABC movie of the week starring Janice Rule and Gene Barry.
Grave robbers supply a doctor with bodies. Based on Burke and Hare. Directed by Freddie Francis and starred Timothy Dalton, Jonathan Pryce, Julian Sands, and Twiggy.
a 12-year-old whose father has died in the Spanish Civil War arrives at an ominous boy’s orphanage he discovers the school is haunted and has many dark secrets that he must uncover. Guillermo del Toro’s hauntingly beautiful film.
A woman on the run from her abusive husband encounters a mysterious hitchhiker. Stars Robert John Burke, Chelsea Field, and Zakes Mokae.
An escaped Devil’s Island convict uses miniaturized humans to wreak vengeance on those that framed him. Story by Tod Browning and uncredited for his directing it stars Lionel Barrymore as Paul Lavond/Madame Mandilip, and Maureen O’Sullivan as the daughter he is cheated of.
Cynthia Kyle murders her parents while having sex. Eights years later she is plagued with nightmares! Directed by Ray Dennis Steckler
An evil hypnotist/ventriloquist plots to gain an heiress’ millions.Â
A dog that is a minion of Satan terrorizes a suburban family. Oh well, not one of Curtis Harrington’s shining moments. Stars Richard Crenna Yvette Mimieux and Kim Richards. Another ABC Movie of the Week from the 70s!
Following a horrifying experience with the occult in Africa, a schoolteacher moves to a small English village, only to discover that black magic resides there as well. Stars Joan Fontaine, Kay Walsh, and Alec McCowen.
When Max dies in an accident, he winds up in hell. But the devil Barney makes him an offer: if he can get three innocent youths to sell him their souls, Max can go back to earth. Stars Bill Cosby as Barney Satin and Elliot Gould as Max Devlin.
A GORGEOUS DEMON! They created an inhuman being who destroyed everything she touched! The woman they couldn’t kill! Directed by Kurt Neumann and starring Mari Blanchard and Albert Dekker.
Two brothers, both of whom are warlocks, use their powers and the covens of witches to battle over the family fortune. Stars Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, and Andrea King.
A secret vampire cult, which has its headquarters beneath the town cemetery, searches for victims for its human sacrifice rituals. Stars William Sylvester and Carole Gray. Directed by Lance Comfort.
The patriarch of a wealthy family fears that he will show up one day in vampire form. Should this happen, he warns his family not to let him back in his house, no matter how much he begs them. Stars Giani Garko and Agostina Belli.
An evil ruler uses witchcraft and evil spirits to keep his subjects in line, but his reign of terror prompts the people to revolt. Stars Paul Naschy and Norma Sebre
An all-female motorcycle gang, called ‘The Maneaters’ holds motorcycle races, as well as terrorize the residents of a small Florida town, and clashes off against an all-male rival gang of hot-riders. Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis.
In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun. Ken Russell’s vigorous take on the true story of The Devils of Loudun. Starring Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed.
Euro-Exploitation thriller starring Carroll Baker, George Hilton, and Stephen Boyd. It’s got Carroll Baker nuf said!
Adult/Fantasy about Miss Justine Jones who is tired of her life and commits suicide. Will she end up in Heaven or Hell? Starring Georgina Spelvin as Justine Jones. Directed by Gerard Damiano.
Ti West directs this contemporary horror flick that looks like it was truly made In the 1980s. College student Samantha Hughes (Jocelyn Donahue)takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov plan to use her in a satanic ritual.
In this feature version of the Swedish TV series “13 Demon Street,” a 50,000-year-old woman is found frozen in an ice field, and a man’s death is foretold in dreams. Narrated by Lon Chaney Jr.
Based on an ancient Scottish folk song, an older woman uses witchcraft to keep her young jet-set friends. Directed by Roddy McDowall starring the amazing Ava Gardner, Ian McShane, Stephanie Beacham, and Cyril Cusack.
The wife of a cruel headmaster and his mistress conspire to kill him, but after the murder is committed, his body disappears, and strange events begin to plague the two women. Henri-Georges Cluzot’s macabre masterpiece starring Simone Signoret, Vera Cluzot, and Paul Meurisse.
Elke Sommer is Lisa a tourist in an ancient city, who stumbles onto an old mansion and soon becomes the victim of a diabolical evil. Also starring Telly Savalas as Leandro a devil! and Alida Vali as the countess. Directed by the master of Gothic horror-Mario Bava.
A photographer for a men’s magazine is disturbed by a recurring dream he has that he is killing his models by various gruesome means…Directed by William Byron Hillman and stars Michael Callan and Joanna Pettet.
A young woman is stabbed to death in an alley. The crime is heard and seen by some of the residents of a nearby apartment building, but not one of them tried to help and now they refuse to get involved with the police during the investigation.
Based on actual events. Directed by Richard T.Heffron with a stellar cast, including Raul Julia, John P Ryan, Edward Asner, Luci Arnez, Art Carney, Diahann Carroll, Kate Jackson, Cloris Leachman, Tina Louise, and Nancy Walker.
A troubled wife is having a midlife crisis. She meets a lighthouse keeper and they become lovers. They run off to Scotland. While making love on a beach, the lighthouse keeper dies, and that’s where the true story begins. True love never dies, Hugh comes back from the dead, to Anna’s wanting arms, but he’s not quite the same, and he’s decomposing! Directed by Fred Burnley, and starring Susan Hampshire, Frank Finlay, and Michael Petrovitch.
The crazed brother of a condemned killer sent to the gas chamber swears vengeance on those he holds responsible for his brother’s execution. Directed by Boris Petroff, and starring Ronnie Burns, Pamela Lincoln, and Darrell Howe.
An American pilot AWOL from the States is framed for his wife’s murder and has just 36 hours to prove his innocence. Directed by Montgomery Tully, and starring Dan Duryea, Elsie Albin, and Gudrun Ure.
Emmaline, who, as a teenager, discovered the drowned body of her aunt (Lynn Bari), returns to the family mansion as a married woman. Eventually, she falls for the caretaker’s nephew and remembers who the real killer was. Directed by Robert M.Young, and starring Lynn Bari, John Conte, and Lorrie Richards.
The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave. Everything starts to devolve as their pretenses fall away, and they start acting like desperate animals.
Directed by Luis Bunuel and starring Sylvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, Enrique Rambal, Claudio Brook,
A newlywed couple checks into an old hotel, and soon the wife finds herself having hallucinations and wandering the halls aimlessly. A voodoo priest has put a curse on Marianne and now wants to take her soul.
Directed by Noel Black and starring Kitty Winn and Peter Donat.
Mad scientist teams with an evil, disfigured woman to kidnap and operate on young women to make them look beautiful again. Directed by Jaime Salvador starring John Carradine, Regine Torne, and Elsa Cardenas. Great Mexican horror thriller!
A trilogy of the Edgar Allen Poe stories, “The Case Of Mr. Valdemar,” “The Cask Of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” It starts with the housemaid sitting down to read some stories on a stormy night. Directed by Enrique Carreras, with a screenplay by the great Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (The House That Screamed 1069).
Starring Narciso Ibanez Menta, Osvoldo Pacheco and Ines Moreno.
Directed by Alfredo Rizzo and starring the gorgeous Femi Benussi and Krista Nell, with Giacomo Rossi-Stuart
An obscure Gothic horror about a man who invites a theatrical troupe to his mansion, and of course the women start turning up dead.
It is the future ice age, humanity is dying off. So the survivors play a game called “Quintet” For one small group, this obsession is not enough; they play the game with living pieces … and only the winner survives. Robert Altman directed this sci-fi thriller, starring Paul Newman, Vittorio Gassman, Fernando Rey, Brigitte Fossey, and Bibi Anderson.
A psycho-artist kidnaps models and slices up their faces to create his own grotesque form of art.
Directed by Joseph Adler, and starring Ross Harris, Eugenie Wingate, Chris Martell, Suzanne Stuart, and Larry Swanson. Written by Larry Cohen!
A prominent London Psychologist seems to have taken his own life, causing stunned disbelief amongst his colleagues and patients. Directed by Charles Crichton and starring Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Richard Attenborough, and Pamela Franklin.
Ben Gazzara plays Jocko De Paris, a sociopathic cadet lead in a Southern military academy. He manipulates several of the people into various stages of duress, in particular a cadet that Jocko terrorizes into dating a girl from the town named Rosebud…hhm? Directed by Jack Garfein and also starring Pat Hingle, Peter Mark Richman, Paul Richards, and Julie Wilson as ‘Rosebud’
A historian goes to a castle library to translate some ancient erotic literature. While there he discovers what he believes to be supernatural forces at work. Directed by Damiano Damiani and starring Richard Johnson, Rosanna Schiaffino, and Gian Maria Volonte.
Although the police have termed her mother’s death a suicide, a teenage girl believes her step-father murdered her. Directed by Guy Green and a screenplay by Jimmy Sangster. Starring Peter Van Eyck and Betta St. John.
This is a Russian horror/fantasy film about a young priest who is ordered to watch over the wake of a witch in a small old wooden church in a remote village. He must spend three nights alone with the corpse with only his faith to protect him. Based on a story by Nikolai Gogol.
This is a 70s version of the infamous tale of Bluebeard. A World War I pilot Kurt Von Sepper (Richard Burton) whom everybody envies as a “ladykiller” actually is one – after he beds the women he’s after, he murders them. Directed by Edward Dmytryk, and starring Richard Burton, Raquel Welch, Verna Lisi, Natalie Delon, Agostina Belli, Sybil Danning, and Joey Heatherton.
An obese woman recently released from an insane asylum kills anyone who attempts to get her to stop eating. Director Nick Millard casts Priscilla Alden as Ethel Janowski who lives with her Grandmother, and doesn’t want anyone taking away her food!
The film takes place in rural Nebraska after WW1, six veterans head out together on their motorcycles and ride into the little town of Bingo. When one of them beats a local kid in a drag race, they are driven out of town.
They hide out at a farmhouse run by two sisters. One of them tries to rape one of the girls, who is part Native American, and now her sister wants revenge by casting a hex on them!
Directed by Leo Garen and starring Christina Raines, Hilary Thompson, Keith Carradine, Mike Combs, Scott Glenn, Gary Busey, and Robert Walker Jr.
Stanley and Paul are hiding out from the law, so they rent a house in the suburbs and decide that Paul should dress in drag, pretending to be Stanley’s Aunt Martha. Stanley brings a girl home one night, and since Paul is crazy and violent, he murders her. Now, Aunt Martha is a dangerous woman to approach! Directed by Thomas Casey and starring Abe Zwick as Paul and Wayne Crawford as Stanley.
Orson Welles plays Mr. Cato, the head of a witches coven in the town of Lilith, where he needs the powers of Pamela Franklin to raise his son from the dead. Directed by the fun Bert I. Gordon. Also starring Lee Purcell and Michael Ontkean
A faulty blood transfusion turns Dracula’s wife black. Directed by Clive Donner and starring David Niven, Teresa Graves, Peter Bayliss, and Veronica Carlson.
A wrong turn on a jazz singer’s road trip results in her car breaking down near an isolated lodge run by a faded starlet and a young, homicidal Elvis impersonator. Directed by Richard Robinson and David Worth, the film stars Leslie Uggams, Shelley Winters, Michael Christian, Ted Cassidy, Dub Taylor, and Slim Pickens.
Two strange sisters played by Lee Grant and Carol Kane, live in a decaying mansion where they keep their father’s pet ape locked in a cage. One of the sisters is descending into violent madness.
Directed by Karen Arthur also stars Will Geer.
A psychopathic plastic surgeon transforms a young accident victim into the spitting image of his missing daughter. Directed by John Grissmer and starring Robert Lansing and Judith Chapman. An interesting thriller in the ‘surgical horror’ genre.
A female school teacher is implicated in a murder in a Sicilian town only hours after her arrival. The dead man insulted her on the bus on the way into town. Directed by Luigi Zampa and starring the beautiful Jennifer O’Neill, sexy Franco Nero, and James Mason.
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Hoping to cure his violent seizures, a man agrees to a series of experimental microcomputers inserted into his brain but inadvertently discovers that violence now triggers a pleasurable response in his brain. Directed by Mike Hodges and starring George Segal, Joan Hackett, and Richard Dysart.
After a bus accident, a woman comes to believe that she’s actually a 300-year-old witch. Stars John Loder, Nancy Kelly, and Otto Kruger.
Directed by Jean Leon, this French black comedy thriller Roman Polanski has written another dark kinky story about cannibalism. It stars Sophie Daumier and comes across as a piece of Film Noir.
Starring Lorna Maitland, who’s married to Jim (James Rucker)but isn’t satisfied sexually. While Jim’s at work in the salt mine, she is raped by an escaped convict. (Mark Bradley) Strangely she finds him fascinating, as he has brought out her lustful side. One of Meyer’s best films! The cinematography is so starkly beautiful.
Director Mervyn LeRoy’s darkly psychological drama starring the incredible Jean Simmons as Charlotte a woman recovering from a nervous breakdown. Once she leaves the safe hospital environment, she must return home to face the same demons that were haunting her there from the beginning. Also stars Dan O’Herlihy, Rhonda Fleming, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.and Marjorie Bennett.
A suave but cynical man supports his family by marrying and murdering rich women for their money, but the job has some occupational hazards. Directed and starring Charlie Chaplin, Mady Correll, Allison Roddan, Robert Lewis, Audrey Betz, Martha Raye, Ada May, and Marjorie Bennett.
Directed by Lewis Allen and starring Joel McCrea, Gail Russell, Herbert Marshall, and Norman Lloyd. A mysterious figure is viciously killing people in a shadowy alley. Russell plays a Governess haunted by mysterious goings-on. Scripted by Raymond Chandler and Hagar Wilde. Gail Russell also played Stella in the wonderful ghost story directed by Allen, The Uninvited…
A black cat is suspected of being possessed by the spirit of a dead girl. Directed by Erie C. Kenton, starring Noah Beery Jr., Lois Collier, Fred Brady, Paul Kelly, Douglass Dumbrille, and Rose Hobart…
-MonsterGirl
There’s just sooo much that can be said for Val Lewton’s contribution and influence on cinema. I have been dragging my feet with a feature, myself, but this years blogathon gives me a chance to talk a little bit about the man who truly created several masterpieces of cinematic history. So join Kristina, and Stephen and all the other bloggers who will be contributing their coverage.
I am working on a piece for Curse of The Cat People 1944 which was the follow up to Cat People, still appearing is Simone Simon as the ghost of Irena. I’ll be discussing a few things, The Merging of Reality and Fantasy,
The Fear and Threat of Children, the corruption of their innocence, imagination and how their freedom of expression challenges us to either push the boundaries of belief or succumb to Christian myth that would crush it, deem it evil, or call it mental illness.
Also I’ll talk about the Fear of The Female Monster and The Feminine. Especially in this case, a female child….!
And of course being an avid cat worshiper I’ll address that absurd superstitious malarkey centered around fear of cats being servants of the Devil… in particular black cats. So, stay tuned for a very informative and beautiful ride through the Shadowlands of one of the greatest film makers of all time-
See it here: Oct 31st 2012
See you there-MonsterGirl!
