From the Vault- Russ Meyer’s The Seven Minutes 1971

THE SEVEN MINUTES 1971

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The Seven Minutes 1971 is based on a novel by Irving Wallace. Directed by provocateur Russ Meyer (Lorna 1964), Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill! & Mudhoney(1965) with a screenplay by Richard Warren Lewis and an uncredited Manny Diez. This film comes on the heels of his hit at FOX with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls 1970. (Dolls with a screenplay by Roger Ebert) Meyer and Fred Mandl (Checkmate, The Munsters, The Twilight Zone, The Fugitive) create a great visual romp with the cinematography. The opening titles roll over the first almost seven minutes of the film as we hear the ticking of a clock…

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With a very unusual cast of character actors starring Wayne Maunder as Mike Barrett, and Marianne McAndrew  (Hello Dolly 1969, The Bat People 1974) as Maggie Russell. Philip Carey (I’ve always been amazed at how much he reminds me of Charlton Heston) as District Attorney Elmo Duncan.

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Phillip Carey has always reminded me of Charlton Heston in stature and mannerism- a great underrated character actor…

The awesome Jay C. Flippen as Luther Yerkes, Edy Williams as Faye Osborn, Lyle Bettger as Frank Giffith, Stanley Adams as Irwin, Jackie Gayle as pornographer Norman Quandt, Ron Randell, Charles Drake, Olan Soule and John Carradine as Sean O’Flanagan, Harold J. Stone and Yvonne De Carlo as Constance Cumberland.

Boris Karloff’s Thriller The Remarkable Mrs Hawk: A Modern Re-telling of Homer’s Odyssey, Circean Poison with a Side of Bacon.

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the ubiquitous John Carradine. I could watch him in anything… he tickles me…
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the beautiful Yvonne de Carlo here as Constance Cumberland movie actress.
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love love love that Yvonne de Carlo- a kindly beauty (I met her on the set of Laugh-In at the Westbury Music Fair in the 70s while taping the show live… She was an absolute gem, warm-hearted and filled with tangible grace.)

Music by Stu Phillips (Quincy M.E.) with Lionel Newman supervising. BB King sings Seven Minutes.

‘The Seven Minutes’ refers to an artistically erotic banned book published thirty-five years ago in Paris, that essentially opens up the floodgates for the public discourse about pornography, censorship, violence against women, and the dual standards during a time when morality was ambiguous. You know, just like today.

the titles

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Argo Book Stores clerk played by Robert Maloney… arrested for knowingly selling smut… convenient scapegoat for the cause.
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Charles Drake plays vice cop Kellogg entrapping the poor Mr. Fremont book seller for being a clerk where an allegedly filthy book is being sold.

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A bookstore clerk is indicted for selling obscene material which leads to a court trial. There is also the question as to whether this licentious book actually led to the rape of a young girl. The film is part trial based as the defense lawyers try to hunt down any clues that would prove the author of the book was not a smut merchant but trying to express an artistic viewpoint that can not be silenced by censorship.

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Wayne Maundy as Michael Barrett’s defense attorney for bookseller Fremont

The author and the mystery surrounding their identity are key to the plot. Meyers does a high-spirited job of developing this narrative with engrossing scenes that portray a society of zealots and self-serving neophytes in turmoil with themselves. All amidst a groovy 70s palate that’s nostalgic and filled with a colorful verisimilitude.

The film opens with some great 70s devil may care by composer Stu Phillips. At first, we see a beauty chasing her dog passed a small storefront. The story reveals that the vice bureau is staking out the ARGUS bookstore, as Sgt Kellogg (Charles Drake) walks in with his cigarette box tape recorder ready to entrap the clerk for selling smut. He asks the young bookseller for something ‘brand new -unusual, ‘something you wouldn’t find in an ordinary library.’ The clerk (Robert Maloney) just tells him to look around, the jackets tell the story pretty well.

Kellogg casually asks for one particular book on display The Seven Minutes by JJ Jadway and the bookseller repeats the title ‘Oh yeah” Kellogg remarks, “That’s a pretty sexy cover ain’t it?” As Kellogg ogles the pretty blonde talking to the young clerk who tells him she’ll see him later.

Sargent Kellogg (Charles Drake) “You read it?” Clerk -“The new addition at least… the first one was banned thirty-five years ago.” Kellogg- “How come it was banned?” Clerk– “Cause it was considered obscene” Kellogg- “Do you think the book’s obscene?” Clerk– “Why don’t you buy the book and find out for yourself.” “How much is it?” ” $7.30 with the tax.”

“Wrap it up… You the manager around here?” Clerk-“Yeah, the day manager.” Kellogg-“Who do I bring it back to if I don’t like it” The clerk answers– “Fremont, Ben Fremont.” Kellogg waves.

Kellogg’s partner is tape-recording the conversation from the car. “Took you long enough.” “Literary conversations take a little doing, we better start comparing, same jacket same title, same publisher, same publishing date, and copyright… Let’s pay Mr. Fremont another visit.”

They arrest him for knowingly selling obscene matter which is a misdemeanor in the state of California. And this starts the ball rolling in this film. As the powers that be, seek out district attorney Duncan who feels that The Seven Minutes would be found obscene if taken to court.

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Mike and Faye Osborne are bed pals. She’s the spoiled daughter of an influential father.
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Cars the way they used to look… oh those were the days.
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never had one of these… but I know people who did! cool…70s memorabilia. Even the brown striped sheets.

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the hair and the groovy chick appear later on at a funky club but I couldn’t resist putting her in the visual time capsule with the Volkswagon bug and the phone and Selleck…teehee.
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Mr Selleck don’t you look fine! He plays the publisher’s son Phil Sanford of Sanford Publishing. 

Check out that cherry Volkswagon and Corvette, check out that cool 70s phallus phone, Check out that really young Tom Selleck as the publishing guy… who calls hot shot attorney Michael Barrett (a very cool Wayne Maunder) who is representing the publisher Phil Sanford (Tom Selleck) who’s in a panic about the book clerk Fremont going to jail for selling one of Sanford House’s books.

The tower of self-righteousness Elmo Duncan the D.A. (Phillip Carey) wants to be propelled into the Senatorial seat in California. The powers that be who want him to become Senator conspire to exploit this contrived issue of corruption & decency so Duncan has a powerful platform to run on. This elite cabal wants to build a state-wide case in which Elmo Duncan can fight the ‘Smut Merchants.’

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Defense Attorney Mike Barrett tries to appeal to district attorney Duncan.
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District Attorney Duncan looms large as the figure of ethical fortitude.
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the secret cabal setting up the scenario for Duncan to influence public opinion and win the election. Stanely Adams, Olan Soule & Jay C. Flippen

They have a political agenda to stamp all youthful violence incited by salacious material in reading matter and films, and so this cause has become the lynchpin with which they hope to win an election, making ‘The Seven Minutes’ the subject of their campaign.

Meanwhile, a violent rape takes place involving the son Jerry (John Sarno) of a wealthy advertising tycoon Frank Griffith (Lyle Bettger) who owns a copy of The Seven Minutes and was present at the time of the assault committed by his psychotic friend, the one who actually commits the brutal rape.

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The rape scene is handled with quick cuts interwoven with Wolf Man Jack doing his thing on the air. It’s all very frenetic as the soundtrack “love train” is sung by Don Reed.

The prevailing secret surrounding pathetic Jerry Griffith (John Sarno) is that he’s been emasculated by his domineering father and now can’t get it up, so he’s impotent sexually and in helping Sheri Moore (Yvonne D’Angers) while she’s being attacked by his violent friend.

Jerry takes the blame for the rape and refuses to talk about it, thereby implicating himself as an impotent sissy and allowing the lynch mob and voyeurs to assert that Jerry would not have committed such an act if The Seven Minutes hadn’t been available to him. Duncan is now convinced that a clean boy wouldn’t have done the crime if it weren’t for the availability of the dirty book.

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this is Shawn ‘baby doll’ Devereaux -well it sure ain’t Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan’s vision of Carroll Baker is it…

These hypocritical old cronies have young girls of their own on the side, watching pornography while salivating at the mouth. Yerkes has a girlfriend he calls ‘baby doll’ who dances provocatively for these guys. She’s got ample boobs (It is a Russ Meyer film after all) hanging out of her 70’s style yellow hot pants. Amidst the interesting subject matter Shawn ‘Baby Doll’ Devereaux gyrates and inserts herself into the frame to show us the hypocrisy of these old farts who condemn others for their own personal agenda all the while being the worst kind of purveyors of sinful behavior.

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the wealthy Frank Griffith that wants all this smut taken out of the reach of impressionable teens like his son. What’s carefully framed by Meyers playing in the background is a porn film that the men have been reviewing and enjoying way too much-we witness the HYPOCRISY.

Russ Meyer had his own dealings with censorship so the subject is probably of very personal substance for him. He does a fantastic job of pointing out the duality of persuasions. And he builds the story really well here. Showing the belligerence by equal sides of the coin toward a moral center and a society ripping at the shreds of personal freedom to express, create and destroy.

Wayne Maunder The Seven Minutes

Whether you’re an avid Russ Meyers fan or just think you might like to venture into the complex questions the film evokes, presented in that real 70s style The Last Drive In weeps for most days, it’s a film worth watching, even just to spot the few character actors that pop up on the screen like baby doll’s and Faye Osborne’s (Yvonne & Edy) eh hems… well you know… the cleavage shot!

What appears on the surface as a controversy surrounding a banned book that contains alleged salacious material-The defense evokes some good examples of Henry Miller’sTropic of Capricorn’ or, D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, etc.

What manifests is an interesting commentary on censorship, masculinity, and the spurious connection between perceived immoral content and violence in society.

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Manhood and masculinity is a texture that is not necessarily used as the theme in the story, but let me tell you it is all-pervasive with images of Duncan heaving his heavyweights as he sweats and works out in front of Mike, spouting his holier-than-thou rhetoric. It was almost masturbatory.

He gave Michael that “politician’s holier than thou number” Duncan was hostile while he pumped weights in front of the intellectual Mike Barrett. Dueling of masculinity and the question of causality with pornography and violence against women.

Duncan talks to a church official about ‘freedom’ Duncan– “We only want to penalize those who would corrupt it.”

Duncan and his reprehensible comrades belong to a group called Strength Through Decency.

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The acronym STD... was this intentional? Probably. It’s hilarious as these types of organizations do spread like a social disease. They’re against lust, motorcycles, homosexuals, and lesbians. All the factors that made the 70s so dangerous of course. Those lustful lesbians on motorcycles riding down 5th Avenue in NYC wreaking havoc with our delicate morality. Why I’m surprised we all survived it…

So as much as the words “smut merchants’ are bandied around, and the question of censorship takes priority in full view, the underlying sub-context is the posturing of masculinity and the double standard of sexism & classism and who gets to play and who must obey.

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Marianne McAndrews is fabulous as Maggie Griffith. I really dig those orange orbs… truly the light fixtures I mean…

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I won’t get into the story behind the mystery or the trial, the story behind Jerry’s impotence, the elitism, or the ultimate reveal about the author of The Seven Minutes. The media frenzy that occurs feeds on the sensationalism of the situation who condemn the book but want to hear about the details of rape victim Sherri’s violation.

Is The Seven Minutes a beautiful novel about a woman’s awakening or really filthy trash? You’ll have to find out… but I’ll say that Russ Meyer’s The Seven Minutes is a great addition to the socially conscious sexually charged films of the late 60s & 70s like Roger Vadim’s Pretty Maids All In a Row, and Robert Thom’s  Angel, Angel Down We Go 1969…

Your ever-loving MonsterGirl.

The Film Score Freak recognizes: Paul Williams ‘Old Souls’ from Phantom of The Paradise sung by the sublimely sexy Jessica Harper

Phantom of the Paradise (1974)

Director Brian de Palma’s phantasmagorical phantom of the opera rock opera in the vein of Mephistopheles featuring the music from sensational songwriter Paul Williams who also plays Swan and the fantastic Jessica Harper (actress, composer, singer & writer)as Pheonix. William Finley plays Winslow/The Phantom and Gerrit Graham is Beef.

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The Phantom of the Paradise

I’d never sell my soul to the devil-just your ordinary little soulful MonsterGirl for sure!

MonsterGirl’s – Sunday Nite Surreal: Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972) “You can’t see me but I can see you”

“The mansion… the madness… the maniac… no escape.

Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972)

Alternative title: “Night of the Dark Full Moon”

This is perhaps one of my favorite classic horror films of the 1970s—a gloomy tale of incest, madness, depravity, and revenge. I’ve chosen not to give away any of the plot twists or reveal the secrets of the story. I will not spoil the ending for those who haven’t seen this obscurely surreal gem.

Though many consider the film a cult hit, it’s still obscure and deserves a first look for those who might be interested in seeing it or who are drawn to the newly discovered beautiful moments that occur in such a low-budget horror film.

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Directed by Theodore Gershuny (Sugar Cookies 1973), Silent Night Bloody Night 1972 was actually filmed in 1970 but not released until ’72. Contrary to some people’s beliefs, Silent Night Bloody Night predates Bob Clark’s Black Christmas by four years. Silent Night Bloody Night plays like an eerie and odd nightmare. I know it gets compared to Clark’s Black Christmas, which is an undisputed masterpiece, but Silent Night Bloody Night was filmed in 1970 and came out two years before. It has its own very unique story to tell.

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Woronov acts as a sort of tour guide/witness, narrating the opening sequence, telling of Butler’s death on the day before Christmas 1950, to the gruesome story that unfolds surrounding the Butler house and its legacy.“One last time I’ve got to see this ground one last time… It’s beautiful now as if nothing had happened here. {…}For twenty years that house lay empty, exactly as Wilfred had left it.”

Based on Jeffrey Konvitz’s story, he wrote yet another of my top favorite horror classics of the 70s, The Sentinel, starring the superb Burgess Meredith as a very cheeky devil. I read both books, which were equally chilling, back when reading the novel was as thrilling as going to see it on the big screen. Silent Night, Bloody Night is being re-released on DVD on December 10th, restored from 35mm. This excites me indeed! My copy has already been pre-ordered.

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What made Silent Night, Bloody Night so richly evocative for me was its uniquely creepy and unselfconsciousness. Dealing with heavy themes, it managed to come across as a startling, fairy tale-like bit of bloodletting with an authentic 70s flair. I don’t need a more hideous version of this movie with hacked body parts as a way to reintroduce this story. This does not frighten me, nor disturb me in a good way. I imagine it might become like every other violent blood show with effects and body violations that will detract from the moodiness of the original.

Silent Night, Bloody Night kicks off with a bang—literally—when old Wilfred Butler is found dead, burned outside his imposing mansion in a small New England town on Christmas Eve, 1950. Decades later, his estranged grandson, Jeffrey, inherits the estate, insisting on selling it off, which brings in a slick city lawyer, John Carter, and his assistant, Ingrid. The local town council is eager to buy the supposedly haunted place for a steal, but as night falls and John and Ingrid decide to spend the night in the house, things go completely off the rails. They’re brutally murdered in their bed by an unseen killer, plunging the town into panic just as Christmas is about to begin.

From there, the film unravels into a tangled web of mystery, violence, and old family secrets. The killer starts making eerie phone calls under the name “Marianne,” summoning townsfolk to the mansion, where they’re picked off one by one, crimes involving axes, candlesticks, and a lot of cleverly staged suspense. Jeffrey shows up, only to find he’s walked into a nightmare. He connects with Diane, the mayor’s daughter, and together, piecing clues from newspaper archives and scribbled notes, they dig into the Butler family’s dark past.

We slowly learn, through an intense sepia-toned flashback, that Wilfred Butler not only lost his wife and committed his daughter Marianne to the house-turned-asylum but fathered a child with her under horrific circumstances. The mansion’s time as a mental institution saw more cruelty, with the staff partying and indulging while the inmates, neglected and abused, finally revolt in a bloody uprising, a sequence as nightmarish as it is tragic.

That legacy of trauma simmers right up to the present. As bodies start piling up, the sheriff, Tess the switchboard operator, and mute newspaperman Charlie Towman, among them, it comes out that the killer is none other than Wilfred himself, who faked his fiery death years ago. He’s been lurking nearby, his life defined by vengeance and unspeakable guilt over what happened in his house. The inmates (Towman, Tess, and the rest) who brutally killed his beautiful Marianne have been living in the town as the respectable people who run the place. In the final chaotic confrontation, both Jeffrey and the mayor are killed, but Diane manages to shoot Wilfred, ending his bloody spree.

The dust settles months later, as Diane returns to watch the mansion—haunted by so many secrets—finally demolished. It’s the kind of ending that’s more mournful than triumphant, really: you get the sense that knocking the house down can’t quite erase the legacy of what happened there. The film wraps all this up in a chilly, Gothic atmosphere, mixing a murder mystery with slasher and haunted house vibes. Silent Night, Bloody Night is part family curse, part small-town horror, and part cautionary tale about the secrets we bury and bodies that refuse to stay hidden.

Patrick O’Neal opens the original film by playing a brief role as a big-shot realtor John Carter who gets axed to pieces in bed with his lover. Cult film star Mary Woronov plays Diane Adams daughter of the Mayor. Walter Klavun is the town Sheriff, Bill Mason.

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John Carradine plays mute curmudgeon Charlie Towman, who publishes the weekly newspaper. Apparently, his croaks and grunts were dubbed in afterward. Walter Abel (Fury 1936, Mr. Skeffington 1944) plays Mayor Adams. And Fran Stevens plays Tess Howard, who operates the switchboard.

Plus, the film is set against the backdrop of an assortment of Andy Warhol’s acting “Factory.” Mary Woronov was once married to director Theodore Gershuny, supporting players Ondine, Candy Darling, Kristen Steen, Tally Brown, Lewis Love, filmmaker Jack Smith, and artist Susan Rothenberg. Character actor Philip Bruns plays the patriarch of the estate, now deceased, the eccentric Wilfred Butler.

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James Patterson, who plays Grandson Jeff Butler (Lillith 1964, In The Heat of the Night 1967), died of cancer shortly after the principal shooting was completed. They substituted Patterson’s voice with another actor. Patterson’s Grandson, Jeff, has a sort of veiled flirtation with Woronov, the mayor’s daughter.

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Henry Shrady’s art direction was responsible for the wonderful sense of claustrophobic ambiance that becomes part of the pervasive madness he created later on with Jack Palance’s and Martin Landau’s hilariously frightening performances in Alone In The Dark in 1982. Shrady also did (Cry Uncle 1971, and Squirm 1976).

In a small rural New England town, (I recently lived in New England for two years and can tell you that writer Stephen King has his pulse on a very real provincial and closed society that keeps its secrets and its turmoil quietly buried underneath the pristine beauty of the landscape) Wilfred Butler, played by Philip Bruns, is the patriarch who reigned over his estate secluded,  away from the small town, dies on Christmas Eve 1950 as he runs from the place set on fire.

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The film’s prologue shows Wilfred Butler running from the mansion, enveloped by flames. Then we are dropped into the present day. Patrick O’Neal, who plays real estate agent Jack Carter, comes to the small town of East Willard in order to finalize the sale of the Butler house with the town elders. Who are the four sullen and strangely nervous bunch? The excellent casting and presence of these somewhat distressed characters add a nice layer to the creepiness that builds. Fran Stevens as Tess Howard is perfect. Abel as the Mayor, the ubiquitous Carradine as the mute bell-ringer Towman, and Walter Klavun as Sheriff Mason are equally well suited to play this strange and secretive quartet.

Carter reeks of sophistication and arrogance. When Carter arrives at the house with his gorgeous lover Ingrid (Astrid Heeren), as they carry on while spending the night in the house, ultimately, they get themselves hacked up by a mysterious intruder with an axe.

Grandson Jeffrey Butler comes to town as well to sell off the estate. The locals begin to appear agitated, and just to make the story a bit edgier, there’s a nearby insane asylum inmate who has escaped and is on the prowl.

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“Tess… I’ve come back,” says the creepy whispering voice on the phone.

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Once opulent and inhabited by Wilfred and his young daughter Marianne, the Butler house has been uninhabited and abandoned for years. Twenty years after tragedy struck the Butler estate, horrible events begin to unfold again during the Christmas season. Grandson Jeffrey, who has inherited his grandfather’s creepy place, now wishes to sell it. The town elders are also insistent on buying the Butler house, too, with a strange urgency.

But as Christmas approaches, an unmistakable sense of menace creeps through the old mansion and the town itself. A deadly and unbalanced presence haunts both its shadowy halls and quiet streets. One by one, the four prominent townsfolk drawn by their own secrets or summoned by something darker, find themselves lured back to the old house to be butchered. There, in a grim inversion of holiday cheer, they meet violent and untimely ends, each murder peeling back another layer of the town’s genteel facade and exposing the rot that’s been festering beneath for decades.

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Although the film has the appearance of a 1970s’ low-budget’ feature, what has emerged for me as I revisit these films with a sense of nostalgia and the clarity of retrospection is that many obscure films like this one can be considered thrift store classics, minimalist masterpieces because of their sparsely framed environments, authentically offbeat characters, and a realism that doesn’t get covered up by opulent set pieces and star billing. The scratchy, gritty, low lighting creates an eerie darkness and creates its own unease. The film is a pauper’s painting: Beauty and ingenuity flourishing where extravagance is absent.

Still, Silent Night Bloody Night is undoubtedly one of the most atmospheric horrors of the 1970s, like Let’s Scare Jessica To Death. It’s a self-contained world of distorted truths, hysteria, a claustrophobic bit of vintage nihilism, and yet again, a tone of subverted American values.

As the flashback unfolds in Silent Night, Bloody Night, it reveals the mansion’s ghastly second life as a mental institution—a supposed refuge that quickly became a place of deep suffering and profound mistreatment. The story peels back the veneer of holiday celebrations to show doctors and staff feasting and drinking, oblivious or indifferent to the pain in the rooms above, as the patients languish in their cages and cells.

This sequence says a lot about the failures and cruelties of institutional psychiatry: those in power are insulated by privilege and self-indulgence, turning the mansion into a prison of neglect, while at the same time, the most vulnerable are left unheard and abused. The celebration held by the doctors, with its grotesque air of normalcy, underscores just how easily cruelty can hide behind routine and ritual.

Eventually, the mounting resentment and trauma boil over, leading to a rebellion—an eruption of violence that is both horrifying and deeply cathartic. The patients, driven beyond endurance, rise against their oppressors in a sequence shrouded in sepia tones and haunted silence, with the caretakers’ complacency and gluttony ultimately sealing their fate.

Wilfred Butler’s narration captures this chilling contrast:

“Oh I knew that they would gorge themselves into a stupor that afternoon… it was their celebration; I expected no less. Since they had come into my house, they had acted as if they owned it—they had behaved like poor relations, half guilty but finally unable to control their appetites… after dinner, they danced and drank as they usually did.”

We aren’t thinking, “Will the characters survive?” because every aspect of the story sort of lies within the looming darkness as it circles back on the reveal. We’re left to be frightened for ourselves and the creeping dread. The question of escape doesn’t enter into it. The question of ‘what is really going on here?’ does, and it becomes progressively disturbing as we learn the history and the tragedy.

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This is one of the most memorable flashbacks of 70s horror films for me. It is performed in murky sepia and with a wide-angle lens to add to it a sickly, decrepit tone of the archaic mournfulness of a disturbing past. As it shows us what happened long ago at the Butler Estate in the 1930s, it’s one grotesque fête. For me, it’s a creepy, claustrophobic sequence that is unforgettable, and for those post-modern junkies, it’s filled with Warhol minions.

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Gershuny and Adam Giffard frame the plot from the POV of the mysterious killer stalking the house and the townsfolk. Once again, the film predates Bob Clark’s Black Christmas with its use of the point-of-view of Billy, that film’s psychopathic stalker, the freakishly terrifying voice on the phone, and, of course, the grisly murders.

Patterson, who plays Jeff Butler’s grandson, was dying of cancer at the time. He has an interestingly defined face, like Tommy Lee Jones, partially a type of sensuous ugly, and just a bit menacing.

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The townsfolk’s secret is finally revealed. They are not the upstanding citizens they pretend to be. They wanted to purchase the house so they could rid themselves of the history of the place. One by one, they are knocked off by the mysterious black gloved killer.

On his way to investigate the mansion, Sheriff Bill Mason stops by Wilfred Butler’s disturbed grave. There, the killer ambushes him and beats him to death with a shovel, leaving his body at the cemetery.

Tess Howard, the switchboard operator, meets her end when, lured by an eerie, whispering voice over the telephone, she ventures alone into the darkness of the mansion. She’s bludgeoned to death inside the foyer, smacked with a candlestick by the unseen killer.

John Carradine’s character, Towman the mute newspaperman, who constantly rings his bell to grab the others’ attention, although he doesn’t utter a word, exudes a cantankerousness. Charlie Towman is killed when, after having his hands severed by the killer, he blindly stumbles into the road and is fatally run over by Jeffrey’s car.

Summoned to the mansion, Mayor Adams arrives armed with a rifle, ready for confrontation. In the chaos that follows, both he and Jeffrey Butler open fire on each other and are killed in the shootout.

It’s all gruesome and opaque, making this film a uniquely satisfying chiller.

Diane grabs Jeffrey’s revolver and shoots Wilfred Butler—her grandfather and the actual murderer- three times, sending him tumbling down the stairs and ending his murderous rampage. The film ends with Diane as the sole survivor, watching in subdued shock as the haunted Butler mansion is finally demolished, its secrets and the horror that gripped the town buried beneath the rubble. The chilling sense remains that, while the house is gone, the scars of its dark history endure just beneath the surface.

The film possesses some truly effective, grisly death scenes: axe murders and uncomfortable themes. I won’t call this film a slasher flick, though it is referred to as such at times. What is characteristic of 70s atmospheric horror stories is that they emerge more potent in retrospect than when they were initially viewed. I credit this to a sense of unselfconscious filmmaking. Some low-budget horror films possess a natural eeriness that is allowed to come to the surface. Therefore, it forms an organic, horrifying realism and sense of dread.

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James Plumb remade Silent Night, Bloody Night in 2013, released as Silent Night, Bloody Night: The Homecoming.

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Merry Bloody Christmas from your EverLovin’ 70s MonsterGirl!

MonsterGirl’s 150 Days of Classic Horror #4 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein 1948

MonsterGirl’s 150 Days of Classic Horror!

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) is a horror-comedy that brilliantly combines the comedic talents of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello with Universal’s iconic monsters. The film follows baggage clerks Chick Young (Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Costello) as they become entangled with Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s Monster. The comedy stems from the duo’s classic dynamic: Abbott is the duo’s straight man as usual, maintaining a cool demeanor – Lou Costello, as the funny man, is growing increasingly agitated. Their humor relies on their signature clever wordplay and witty banter
not to mention the brilliant physical comedy of Costello’s exaggerated reactions to the scary yet campy situations.

The film showcases their trademark routine of Costello witnessing frightening events, only for Abbott to miss them and dismiss Costello’s claims. This creates a humorous contrast between Costello’s terror and Abbott’s skepticism.

The Universal monsters are portrayed by their iconic actors: Bela Lugosi as the most mesmerizing of DraculasLon Chaney Jr. as the sympathetic the Wolf Man. This time, after Boris Karloff decided to retire his beloved character, Glenn Strange takes up the mantle of Frankenstein’s Monster.

The movie successfully merges Universal’s horror and comedy franchises, using familiar horror tropes as a backdrop for Abbott and Costello’s comedic antics. It serves as both a parody and a continuation of Universal’s monster films, creating a unique blend of humor and traditional horror elements. Lenore Aubert plays co-stars as Dr. Sandra Mornay, a mad scientist who partners with Dracula to reactivate Frankenstein’s monster, and Jane Randolph plays Joan Raymond, a romantic interest and one of the main characters who helps unravel the mystery. Special appearance, in velvet voice only, of Vincent Price introducing himself as The Invisible Man in a hilarious twist ending!

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN 1974

Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein is one of the most preciously hilarious spoofs on the Universal classics of the 1940s. It’s a masterclass in affectionate parody, a film that manages to both lampoon and lovingly resurrect the spirit of the Universal monster movies it pays tribute to. Released in 1974, the film is a riotous blend of Brooks’ signature anarchic humor and a meticulous, almost reverent recreation of the Gothic style and atmosphere of James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Brooks, never one for half-measures, insisted on shooting in black and white, using high-contrast lighting and even borrowing original Strickfaden lab equipment from the 1931 classic, all to ensure that every bolt of lightning and every shadowy corridor felt like it had been plucked straight from the golden age of horror.

At the heart of the film is Gene Wilder’s Dr. Frederick Frankenstein—sorry, that’s “Fronkensteen”—a man desperate to distance himself from his infamous grandfather’s legacy, only to be drawn inexorably into the same madcap quest to reanimate the dead. Wilder, who co-wrote the script with Brooks, delivers a performance that is both manic and deeply sincere, veering from wild-eyed hysteria to moments of genuine pathos. His comedic timing is impeccable, whether he’s wrestling with his own tongue-twisting name or leading the Monster in a show-stopping rendition of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

The supporting cast is a gallery of comic brilliance. Marty Feldman’s Igor (what hump?) is a bug-eyed, fourth-wall-breaking delight, his every line and physical tic a wink to the audience. Teri Garr’s Inga is all exuberant, wide-eyed innocence and sly innuendo, while Cloris Leachman’s Frau Blücher (cue the neighing horses) is a deadpan marvel, her every utterance dripping with Gothic menace and secret longing. Peter Boyle, as the Monster, brings a surprising tenderness to the role, his lumbering physicality offset by moments of childlike vulnerability and, in one of the film’s most famous scenes, unexpected showbiz flair. Madeline Kahn, as Frederick’s high-strung fiancée Elizabeth, is a comic force of nature, her every entrance and exit a study in escalating absurdity and sublime genius.

Brooks’s brand of humor is on full display throughout: irreverent, physical, and unafraid to mix highbrow references with lowbrow gags. He delights in wordplay, slapstick, and the kind of running jokes (the horses’ reaction to Frau Blücher’s name, the ever-shifting hump on Igor’s back) the brain in the jar that says Abnormal – (you know, Igor tells Frederick the brain he sent him to get came from Abby someone – Abby Normal) from that reward repeat viewings.

However, what sets Young Frankenstein apart from lesser parodies is its genuine affection for its source material. Brooks and Wilder don’t just poke fun at the old horror films—they inhabit their world, recreating their look, sound, and even their pacing so that the comedy feels organic rather than imposed. After all, we’re in the presence of comedic genius firing on all cylinders—improvisation so sharp it could slice through a graveyard fog!

The film’s style is a loving pastiche: Gerald Hirschfeld’s cinematography bathes the sets in the same expressionistic shadows and fog that defined the Universal classics, while the sets themselves are filled with Gothic arches, cobwebs, and flickering candlelight. The special effects, from the crackling lab equipment to the elaborate reanimation sequences, are both a send-up and a celebration of the practical magic of early horror cinema.

Young Frankenstein is more than just a collection of gags; it’s a film with real heart, exploring themes of legacy, acceptance, and the search for connection—albeit through a lens of gleeful absurdity. As Mel Brooks himself put it, he wanted to capture not just the silliness but also “the haunting beautiful quality that James Whale got with Boris Karloff.” The result is a comedy that, fifty years on, still feels fresh, smart, and—like the Monster himself—very much alive.

#4 with 146 days left to go! Your EverLovin Joey formally and affectionately known as MonsterGirl!

The Night God Screamed (1971) – Leave Your Faith, Fear and Sanity at the Water’s Edge. Part II

“Scream – So they’ll know where to find your body!”

THE NIGHT GOD SCREAMED (1971)  

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Directed by Lee Madden (Angel Unchained 1970, The Manhandlers 1975), he offers us another cult hippie psycho drama feeding off the unsettling vibe and turbulence of the Charles Manson hysteria.

Charles Manson
The notorious mass murderer Charles Manson.

No matter how often I think I’ve uncovered the most obscure cult thriller, there’s always another lurking under a rock somewhere for me to feast my wide-eyed stare upon, mouth agape, and mind working over time to integrate the confluence of cultural debris that emerges like the dregs when you roil the sediment secretly settled on the bottom of the cinematic barrel. This is one such obscure film.

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Starring screen beauty Jeanne Crain (Leave Her To Heaven (1945), Pinky (1949), A Letter to Three Wives (1949). The Tattered Dress (1957).

Jeanne Crain
The beautiful Jeanne Crain.

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Who probably would have rather been given a better role and script, plays the frail and persecuted Fanny Pierce. Alex Nicol plays Fanny’s husband, the man in search of his own prosperous church in a better neighborhood. Preacher Willis Pierce (How could we ever forget Nicol’s wonderfully grimy, pathetic, and bizarre character Mickey in 1958s The Screaming Skull, or his dizzying performance as the drunken loser husband Jay Fowler in Look in Any Window 1961) No… he’s gotten to play a man’s man plenty, but he is sort of a victim magnet.

Alex Nicol Ruth Roman Look in Any Window
Alex Nicol and Ruth Roman in the provocative Look in Any Window 1961.
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Alex Nicol as soiled oddball Mickey in one of my favorite cult classics, The Screaming Skull 1958.

Dan Spelling plays the bourgeois Judge Coogan’s son and the irritatingly preppy Peter. Barbara Hancock plays sister Nancy Coogan, Dawn Cleary plays sister Sharon, and very busy actor and stuntman Gary Morgan plays little brother Jimmy.

The judges son

judges daughters

The Night God Screamed opens with a foreboding shape floating as if gliding on top of water, through the eerie sylvan landscape wearing a monk’s robe, his large, draped cowl-like hood obscuring the man’s face altogether. He grips an arcane cruciform staff. He approaches a small pond inhabited by the frolicking free love rejects, society’s much-reviled flower children of the ’60s & ’70s sub-subculture. In other words, as South Park’s irreverent and outrageous Eric Cartman would say, ‘dirty hippies’ have lots of random sex and get high.

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The pervasive cut-off tone reveals that they belong to a Manson-esque cult, which is led by the vitriolic Billy Joe Harlan, a fanatical cult leader who baptizes a few followers and then proceeds to spout a trippy fire and brimstone rant, his own distorted anti-socially virulent version of the Gospel. Much like Manson, his rhetoric engenders a lot of animosity toward the establishment, law enforcement, or, if you will, ‘pigs’, citizens, squares, and anybody who doesn’t see the world through Billy Joe’s lens.

Billy Joe is a violent sociopath who commands his fledgling minions to destroy any phony preachers, combat pigs, and try to bring his new version of the Gospel to the youth of America.

Hung up on how Christ was betrayed, he riles his flock of murderous flower children to manifest the power to punish those who do not follow his gospel. To make an example of the dangers of dissension and betrayal, he chooses a young girl who has refused to be baptized. And so he gives the word to his faceless, hooded angel of death named ‘The Atoner’ to drown her in front of the flock.

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“They was all just a bunch of sinners, Lord, fighting and bothering each other…But I saved them, Lord! I showed them that using dope was the way to turn on to You!”

“We got trouble! The Heat won’t leave us alone! They want to bust us for being hooked on you! Them pigs is watching us, Lord…they don’t dig our kinda thing!”

As this soldier of God, known as THE ATONER, executes the young girl in front of the mindless youth, the rest of the nasty flock watches without doing a single thing to help the poor girl as she is submerged under the baptismal waters, causing her to drown.

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The film cuts away to a scene where the wife and good Christian Fanny Pierce (Jeanne Crain) is bringing groceries to the mission where her preacher husband (Alex Nicol) is feeding a hungry collection of bums and down-and-outers. Right before she can make it inside with her bag of groceries, a very unsavory bum with quite an unattractive tongue, mugs her for the brown paper bag of food, leaving her standing ironically empty-handed and assaulted right outside the very soup kitchen where she and her husband have been trying to bring the good works of Jesus to these poor destitute men.

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Fanny starts to have her own crisis of faith and becomes disillusioned with her husband and his mission. Preacher Willis Pierce appears more worried about the loss of the groceries than concerned for his own wife’s safety. He possesses a resolute patriarchal hubris with his grandiose dreams of bringing the gospel to his people, much like Billy Joe, yet not imbued with vengeful and malevolent fortitude.

Willis wants to build a sizable church in ‘better areas of town’, which would mean more money, more offerings, and more notoriety to his name. This is the kind of man Billy Joe despises and is on a crusade to annihilate with his cult of venomous sycophants.

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Fanny tells Willis, “God isn’t going to make our house payment!”

In a ridiculous gesture, Willis’s scheme is to erect his new mammoth wooden cross at the revival meeting he plans on holding later that night. He believes that this will help bring in enough cash for ‘offerings’ to start up his new church. So, without consulting Fanny, Willis spends an enormous amount of money on the large, ludicrously enormous artifact that symbolizes Jesus’ sacrifice but smacks of Preacher Willis’ own egoism. He has used all their savings on this religious ‘manstrosity’, that he will erect in the revival hall, which he has rented in a more affluent part of town.

As they haul the large wooden totem across the countryside on top of their old truck, the tension between Fanny and Willis grows. Fanny tells Willis that she’s sacrificed over twenty-five years of her life in service to his cause. Willis tries to convince her that the giant cross will be their ‘meal ticket.’

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While stopping at a gas station, Billy Joe and one of his religious biker culties Izzy (Richard Smedley Brain of Blood, The Abductors 1972, The Naughty Stewardesses 1975 ) espy the Pierces and their truck with the cross-tied on top and pull in alongside them with their motorcycle. It’s here that sets forth the moment of confrontation with fate, and the narrative’s tragic and violent relinquishment of faith sparks.

Billy Joe begins to question Preacher Willis, fascinated with his sizable wooden cross, and wants to know what he plans to do with it, asking about the plans for the revival meeting.

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It is a moment that points out the deliberate contrary notions of religion while simultaneously forging an ironic relationship between the extreme zeal and the unfettered fanaticism of the two self-styled evangelists.

Willis is prideful and enthusiastically offers his fund-raising motivations for his ‘mission’. Billy Joe begins to formulate his vexation and sets out to dispense Willis with his wrath for being a false and ‘plastic prophet’. As the Pierces continue on their road trip to the revival meeting, Billy Joe summons his nefarious apostles and unleashes his craving to destroy Preacher Willis.

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“We’re going to a revival meeting tonight… We’re going on a crusade! Just you, and me, Izzy… And the Atoner!”

Preacher Willis gives his sermon at the College Lecture Hall. Unfortunately, the congregation does not bestow upon him the funds needed for his plans to build his church in a ‘good’ neighborhood. After the sermon, Fanny and Willis’ assistant Paul go outside, leaving Willis alone in the revival hall.

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In a scene that is quite disturbing, as the events happen mostly in an utter bluish darkness or diverted to the realm off camera, the cult attacks Willis. They are draped in shadow. Billy Joe begins to persecute Willis, pronouncing him a ‘ false prophet’ and demanding that he be put to death. And so while Billy Joe’s followers restrain and torture poor Willis, the Atoner slowly and painfully nails Willis to his own mundanely magnificent cross.

Fanny is startled by the screams of her husband, who is crying out in agony. She comes back inside the hall, but shrouds herself in the darkness, afraid for her own life, as he cries, “Fanny, Help me, For God’s sake, Help me.” She remains motionless, doing nothing to help him; he is left to die alone, now a Christ-figure of the film.

The scene switches to a courtroom, where Billy Joe and his cult followers are all on trial for the murder of Willis Pierce. Judge Coogan pronounces a death sentence on the hippie messiah. Billy Joe explodes into a tirade.

Billie Joe in Court

“You son of a bitch! You DUMB son of a bitch! YOU’RE MAKING ME A MARTYR! AHAHAHAHAHA!”

Jesus Freakery

While Billy Joe is convicted and sentenced to death, the remaining cult members encircle and besiege Fanny, vowing revenge for Billy Joe. Fanny, who was already starting to devolve in her encumbered world, now anguished with guilt for not having helped her husband Willis in his moment of horrific need, wanders away in a somnolent haze.

She remains in this state of dissociation for the rest of the film. The judge hires Fanny as a sort of matron to help with his two sons and teenage daughters, who need to be kept in line, shown morals, and keep from acting too wild while their parents go away on a weekend vacation. The Judge grounds the kids and makes them stay in the house with Fanny, who is still wholly uptight and out of her mind with guilt over her husband’s brutal death.

This breathes even more agitation into the film, which is saturated with male hubris and female hysteria. The archetypal hysterical woman lives once again in the embodiment of Fanny Pierce.

On the way to bringing Fanny to his house for the weekend, the Judge dismisses her worries about the two hippies on motorcycles who seem to be following them and then goes on to instill some social relevance in the bigger picture. “Those kids, like the ones who murdered your husband… they come from broken homes… poor education… they’re just dropouts! Not like ‘my’ kids!”

Of course, we are to understand that this is a cue of foreboding irony, reflexive and dilating, as Fanny is charged to take care of the Judges adult teens, who inadvertently become mixed up in the nightmare, as the Atoner and remaining worshipers take siege of the household and terrorize Fanny and the teenagers. Fanny becomes even more unhinged, amidst an ensemble of entitled youths who are the binary figures of the film’s contemporary youth culture. One set of outliers rebelling against a system that reviles them, and the other is just as combative and anti-social, yet given the opportunities to reflect their personal freedoms because of affluence and social capital. Dan Spelling as Peter Coogan, the judge’s eldest son, is a bit of a social superior, a quiet sociopathic teen whose poison is brewing under the surface of his perfectly pressed pants and yuppie tennis sweater.

Continue reading “The Night God Screamed (1971) – Leave Your Faith, Fear and Sanity at the Water’s Edge. Part II”

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) & The Night God Screamed (1971)-Leave Your Faith, Fear and Sanity at the Water’s Edge. Part I

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” — Edgar Allan Poe

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‘Leave Your Faith, Fear, and Sanity at the Water’s Edge – Jo Gabriel

 “There are terrible creatures, ghosts, in the very air of America.” -D.H. Lawrence

Taken from his chapter The Bloody Chords of Memory, which I think is very appropriate for this discussion, Scott Poole from Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting states that, “it would be too simplistic to view monster tales as simple narratives in service of American violence. The monster is a many-headed creature, and narratives about it in America are highly complex. Richard Kearney describes the appearance of a monster in a narrative, in a dream, or in sensory experience ‘as a signal of borderline experiences and unattainable excess.’

The isoloation of madness

In 1971, two films were released with a sort of queasy verisimilitude, using a monochromatic color scheme and protracted themes of insanity, fanaticism, and self-annihilation. One drawing more of its flicker from the time of cult murders by religious fanatics, and an anti-establishment repudiation reflected in the cult fringe film. The Night God Screamed utilizes as its anti-hero the motorcycle gang who hate ‘citizenship’ and phony institutionalized prophets. These outliers are dirty, rebelliously dangerous hippies who are hyped up and deluded into following a charismatic cult leader, a Neanderthal named Billy Joe Harlan, performed with a Shakespearean griminess by Michael Sugich.

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Michael Sugich as the maniacal Mansoneseque cult leader Billy Joe.

He’s quite a Mansonesque figure with his malefic unibrow. This offering, aptly called The Night God Screamed, even boasts a scene where the cult actually crucifies the clean-cut minister Willis, a man of traditional gospel played by Alex Nicol. They essentially nail him to his own pridefully giant wooden phallic cross. Leaving his wife Fanny (Jeanne Crain) to scramble in the darkened halls, conflicted as to whether to try and help her husband or save herself from the cult’s ferocious blood lust, driving her into a numb moral and cognitive stasis of unresponsiveness, reason, and human connection. I will talk about this film in Part II.

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The beautiful Jeanne Crain.

Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971) is a film that hints at a post-modern Americana Gothicism permeated by a rustic folksy style of vampirism, with its small town coteries, paranoia, and the archetypal hysterical woman in a sustained level of distress and adrift on a sea of inner monologues and miasma of fear. I’ll begin in Part I with my much-loved classic horror…

LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH 1971

“Leave your insanity at the door.”

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Unfriendly Locals

Let’s Scare Jessica To Death 1971) is not only a far superior film, but it also—perhaps unintentionally—embodies the most iconic 1970s tropes, capturing what made that remarkable wave of horror films from the era so extraordinary.

Continue reading “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) & The Night God Screamed (1971)-Leave Your Faith, Fear and Sanity at the Water’s Edge. Part I”

The Film Score Freak Recognizes iconic 70s songwriter-Paul Williams

PAUL WILLIAMS

Paul Williams

Paul Williams sings

Paul and Kermit

Growing up in the 7os, a lot of what inspired me to follow my journey as a singer/songwriter had much to do with the brilliant, evocatively poignant and memorable compositions by artists like the great Paul Williams. I still can’t listen or sing one of his iconic songs without becoming a fountain of tears, melting into an emotional puddle of ‘feelings.’ His contribution to the world as a singer/songwriter has been so immense, that I feel inadequate just showing a little love here, instead of doing one of my long winded posts.

But I am too agitated with excitement about the documentary Paul Williams Still Alive, and to have found him  alive and well on Twitter. I love you, We love you Paul Williams.

You have given us a magical, alchemical concoction of music that will forever flare up like molten gold in our hearts. It’s so good to see you again.

So here’s a just a little reminder of SOME of the things this beautiful, brilliant man has brought us from his heavenly throne where he sits with the other musical angels.

From the new documentary, here’s the official trailer for Paul Williams Still Alive

Karen Carpenter sings Rainy Days and Mondays

Kermit the Frog sings The Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie

Karen Carpenter sings We’ve Only Just Begun

Barbra Streisand sings Evergreen from A Star is Born

Jessica Harper sings Old Souls from Phantom of The Paradise

Here’s to the immortal genius! – With love Jo Gabriel the little singer/songwriting MonsterGirl

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! 2 Tales of Matrimony On the Treacherous Rocks!

“An Absolute Ball”

X, Y and ZEE  1972

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Elizabeth Taylor wears the role of Zee Blakeley, a Machiavellian temptress, who is married to the wealthy yet miserly, miserable, and misogynistic architect Robert, played deftly by Michael Caine who partakes every bit in the nasty psycho-sexual game playing their afflicted marriage has manifested over the years.

Zee is wild, possessive, and cunning, and Robert is melancholy, brutish, and at times downright violent. Longing for a change he pursues the lovely Stella played by Susannah York, who he meets at a party given by a friend, the bird-like, arty, jet-setting, gold Lamé, pink fluffy-haired Gladys (Margaret Leighton) who collects people and things for her ‘cocktail parties’ strewn with beautiful types, fags, artists and anyone with a title attached to their name.

Gladys and Stella and Robert

Zee and Stella

Life and love are cutthroat in this film, and Taylor’s portrayal of Zee is unnerving and difficult to watch at times, as she fluctuates between venomous seductress and wounded little girl. York as always is like a fawn from the eldritch woods with those dreamy eyes. But talk about eyes, no one has a pair that arrests you quite like Elizabeth Taylor.

Liz Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor as the beautiful, tumultuous Zee Blakeley…

Once Robert decides to play house with Stella and leave Zee to wallow in her jealous vitriol, Zee goes on an orchestrated rampage to try and destroy their burgeoning romance, uncovering the shell of sweet Stella exposing that she has some secrets of her own. Written by Edna O’Brien, and directed by Brian G. Hutton who also directed Taylor in the thriller, Night Watch 1973, another equally disturbing film about the deep-rooted ugliness and danger of an ill-fated marriage.

With fabulous Costume designs by Beatrice Dawson.

Next up…

SUCH GOOD FRIENDS 1971

Such Good Friends film poster
Such Good Friends title design by Saul Bass

“The little black book that became a national bestseller.”

Based on the novel by Lois Gould, with a screenplay by Elaine May using her pen name Esther Dale, and an uncredited  Joan Didion (A Star is Born 1976, Panic In Needle Park 1971) Directed by the omnipotent Otto Preminger.

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The Great Otto Preminger

Dyan Cannon is Julie Messinger a New York housewife who finds out that her husband magazine editor Richard (Laurence Luckinbill Boys In the Band 1970) has been cheating on her because he ‘doesn’t like her feet.’ She stumbles onto his little black book with the names of several ‘women.’

Nina Foch, plays Julie’s mother an annihilating, narcissistic harpy who criticizes her about everything.

Nina Foch

Such Good Friends

When Richard winds up in a coma from complications stemming from a simple mole removal, Julie’s good friends gather around her for support. Including an impromptu cocktail gathering in the blood donor ward of the hospital…

It’s a biting, black comedic sexual romp through the self-explorative 70s, with a fabulous cast of characters.

Cannon and O'Neill

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James Coco as

Dyan Cannon

Howard and Cannon

Co-starring the wonderful  James Coco as Dr. Timothy Spector, Jennifer O’Neill, as Miranda, Ken Howard as photographer Cal Whiting, Louise Lasser, Burgess Meredith, Sam Levene, William Redfield, James Beard, Rita Gam, Lawrence Tierney, and Doris Roberts. And an uncredited Salome Jens as a Blood Donor at the hospital and Joseph Papp and his Shakespeare Theatre.

Nurse-“Have you ever had venereal disease?”

Blood Donor-“No I was never even in the tropics!”

It’s been a ball-MG

Coming next to The Last Drive-In: A Chilling Double Feature

I feel like it’s time to show some love to one of my most very treasured classic horror films of the 1970s, a film that I’ve placed within my top 25 best horror films of all time. I’m talking about the atmospheric and illusory!

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) Starring Zohra Lampert

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at the water's edge

Let's Scare Jessica

Zohra Lampert Let's Scare Jessica

I’ll be covering this chilling gem in the next week and have decided to couple it with another rare oddity of the obscurely horrific 70s genre that is quite brutal and I feel works well as a companion piece. Starring Silver Screen beauty, Jeanne Crain in The Night God Screamed (1971).

Jeanne Crain The Night God Screamed

Alex Nicol Night God Screamed

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So keep your genre fan eye’s peeled for my upcoming-

Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971) & The Night God Screamed (1971)- Leave Your Faith, Fear and Sanity at the Water’s Edge.

Jessica at the water's edge

See ya at the water’s edge-MG