“This moody depiction of the Christmas slayings… is as murky as the script, which dotes largely on obscenities that are no more pointed than the violence, dull direction and pedestrian performances.” — A.H. Weiler, New York Times, October 20, 1975, page 45.
Released in the U.S. on December 20, 1974, just in time for the holiday season, Black Christmas1974 creates an authentically unsettling atmosphere. It features one of the earliest and most compelling portrayals of the Final Girl archetype.
While Black Christmas1974was initially embraced in its country of origin, Canada, it did not fare as well in the United States. Its transformation into a cult classic is attributed mainly to home video releases and revival screenings. For its American debut, the film was retitled Silent Night, Evil Night.
Black Christmas features an interesting cast, including Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin, Lynne Griffin, and John Saxon. The film draws inspiration from the well-known urban legend “The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs” and a series of real-life murders that occurred in Montreal, Quebec. Filmed in Toronto, Canada, in 1974, it was produced on a modest budget of $686,000, comparable to Halloween’s $325,000.
Despite the financial constraints, Bob Clark artfully managed to use the limited resources to create a memorable, deeply disturbing narrative of isolation and terror set against the backdrop of what should be the most joyous time of the year!
Black Christmas 1974 is a groundbreaking horror film that laid the foundation for the slasher genre. It is often credited as the proto-slasher, predating and provoking an abundance of conversations about its influence on later classics like Halloween 1978.
Set during the festive season, the movie follows a group of sorority sisters who become targets of a mysterious and deranged intruder who terrorizes them as they prepare to leave for winter break.
The sorority house begins to receive a series of disturbing, vulgar phone calls that use sexually explicit language to threaten the girls. After one of the sisters goes missing, and the police finally agree to investigate, each of the women is brutally murdered.
Directed by Bob Clark (Porky’s 1981, A Christmas Story 1983) Screenplay by Roy Moore (She Cried Murder 1973 tv movie) Cinematographer Reginald H. Morris (When Michael Calls 1972 tv movie, The Food of the Gods 1976, Murder by Decree 1979, Phobia 1980, A Christmas Story 1983).
Reg Morris’ cinematography brings the shadowy moodiness that was the atmospheric style of When Michael Calls a suspenseful made for tv movie in the early 1970s. Cinematographer Albert J. Dunk created Billy’s POV shots by rigging up a camera harness that would mount the camera on his shoulder as he walked about the house and climbed the trellis and attic ladder himself.
Ironically, Clark who has created a deeply dark and disturbing tale set during Christmas, is responsible for one of the most authentically nostalgic, witty, and whimsical tributes to Christmas, the most beloved A Christmas Story. For a director to create the most splendid narrative that reminisces about a more innocent time, it remains a huge cult indulgence every Holiday Season, as we all collectively love to watch Ralph maneuver through the obstacles in his way of getting a Red Rider BB gun. Darren McGavin is brilliant as his old man whose expletives are still floating over Lake Michigan and the soft glow of electric sex in the window from that fabulously kitschy leg lamp. We’ve got one giving off that soft glow as I write this.
Black Christmasstars Olivia Husseyas Jess Bradford, Keir Dulleaas Peter Smythe, and Margot Kidder as Barbara. Marian Waldman (When Michael Calls 1972 tv movie, Deranged 1974, Phobia 1980) as Mrs. MacHenry, Andrea Martin as Phyl, James Edmond as Mr. Harrison, Douglas McGrath as Sergeant Nash, Art Hindle as Chris, Lynn Griffin as Clare Harrison, Michael Rapport as Patrick, and John Saxonas Lt. Fuller. As an interesting note-Nick Mancuso plays the caller/intruder/psycho.
Queen of Blood 1966 is one of the films made by AIP, at the time Roger Corman was working for them. They utilized a lot of Russian film footage mostly because of their superior big-budget special effects (a soviet fable called Mechte Navstrechu from 1963) shooting the action scenes around the cannibalized footage and finished the film in 8 days. Produced by George Edwards and directed & written by one of MY favorite filmmakers –the very original visionary Curtis Harrington, Queen of Blood possesses a dream-like quality, partly due to the atmosphere and colors set forth by Art Director Al Locatelli(Dementia 13 (1963), American Graffiti 1973, Star Wars IV 1977), Set Designer Leon Smith and Cinematographer Vilis Lapenieks
More Soviet footage appears in other American International movies, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women.
(uncredited The Little Shop of Horrors 1960, Lapenieks worked on Harrington’s other dreamy fantasy/horror masterpiece Night Tide 1961, the underrated The Hideous Sun Demon 1958, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet 1965, Deathwatch 1966, The Hellstrom Chronicles 1971, That Certain Summer 1972 tv movie, M*A*S*H 1972 tv series, Kojak 1974 tv series) With costume design by T. Glinkova.
Queen of Blood (1966) stars Dennis Hopper(working once again with Curtis Harrington having done Night Tide 1961).
The plot centers around 3 astronauts on the rescue mission–John Saxon as Allan Brenner, Dennis Hopper as Paul Grant, and Judi Meredithas Laura James. Included are Basil Rathbone as Dr. Farraday who heads an international space agency that receives the distress message from Mars, and a cameo by film historian, collector, and founder of Famous Monsters of Filmland- Forrest J. Ackerman as Farraday’s assistant.
Queen Of Blood, aka Planet Of Blood, USA 1966, Directed: Curtis Harrington, Starring: John Saxon, Basil Rathbone: Image Age Photostock
The year is 1900 and Earth has made contact with an Alien radio transmission. Saxon, Hopper, and Meredith stumble onto a crashed spaceship on Mars that is inhabited by a mysterious sole survivor Velena (Florence Marly) who glows the most trippy verdant alien green, and her hair, well– it is a marvelous killer bee bouffant.
Do you remember this green gal from Lost In Space? She fell in love with Dr. Smith, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t lay jiggly red eggs and suck people’s blood!
They quickly discover that the hemophiliac Alien Queen as she is credited, crazes, no NEEDS blood to sustain herself, like a space vampire. Once upon the crew’s space ship, sets out to kill each of the members. Hopper begins to feel attracted to the Alien Queen who has a strange and sexually deviant mesmerizing lure, eventually, he realizes what she really is, “She’s a monster… We ought to destroy her right now!”
In the end, Meredith is the one who manages to destroy her but cutting her and she winds up bleeding to death. Things of it is, she leaves behind a vampiric aerie of her eggs. which Dr. Farraday decides like all inquiring scientific minds do putting the rest of us at risk, to take the Alien Queen’s spawn back to Earth to study. What he doesn’t realize is that she has already hidden hundreds of her eggs on board the ship. And though Allan keeps saying “We have to destroy them!”Rathbone is insistent on keeping those creepy pulsating red aspic eggs for research! Damn scientists!
Though the story may sound simplistic, Harrington brings his brand of atmospherics to each scene, injecting a sort of queer distorting sense of reality, and as Marly begins her blood feasting, the menace and the fantastical color palate permeates each frame like a nightmare set in space.
From Curtis Harrington’s book Nice Guys Don’t Work in Hollywood. He talks about the Soviet film Mechte Navstrechu in which he took footage by acquiring the American rights to the property, to work from in Queen of Blood. The Soviet version is about “the world’s natural fears of the nature of aliens…)… discovering at the end that the alien wants to be friends.”Harrington wanted to do the complete opposite of that with his film.
“I devised a tale in which the queen of the aliens–brought back to earth by a group of American astronauts –is a vampiric creature who seeks a new food source for her dying planet. The food source, as it turns out, is the human race. Some years later, it was very flattering to realize that I had created the prototype for a whole series of science-fiction movies dealing with monstrous creatures from outer space, beginning with Ridley Scott’s Alien.”
IMDb trivia –
The film was released in the United States in March 1966. Even before the release, its quality was sufficient for Universal to hire Harrington and producer George Edwards to make the feature film Games.
Director Curtis Harrington felt that Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) must have received some inspiration from his feature, saying “Ridley’s film is like a greatly enhanced, expensive and elaborate version of Queen of Blood”.
This was an ultra low budget production. The elaborate special effects were taken (uncredited) from two big budget Soviet productions, Mechte navstrechu (1963), and The Sky Calls (1959). The film is based on the screenplay for the earlier Soviet feature film Mechte Navstrechu (A Dream Come True).
John Saxon later claimed that Gene Corman had more to do with Queen of Blood than Roger. Saxon estimated that his scenes were shot in seven to eight days and that Dennis Hopper “was trying very hard to keep a straight face throughout” during the making of the film.
Czech actress Florence Marly was a personal friend of director Harrington. He later said that he had to fight with Roger Corman in order to hire her “because she was an older woman. Harrington would say, “I’m sure he had some bimbo in mind, you know? So I fought for Marly because I felt she had the required exotic quality that would work in the role.”Harrington also said Dennis Hopper “was like a part of my little team by then,” so he agreed to also appear.
Harrington had made his name with the feature Night Tide, which impressed Roger Corman enough to offer the director a film project. “Of course, I would like to do a more individual film than Queen of Blood”, said Harrington at the time, “but I can’t get the financing. However, the film is entertaining, and I feel I was able to say something within the context of the genre.”
Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl sayin gaze into my eyes and tell me, do I look green to you?
Directed by Michael Gordon, Produced by Ross Martin, based on a play, and adapted to the screen by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, this crime melodrama is filled with all the right tawdry drama and campy dialogue that makes watching films from the fabulous 60’s so much fun!
Starring Lana Turner as Sheila Cabot a woman who is married to a dying shipping magnate Matthew Cabot ( Lloyd Nolan). Anthony Quinn portrays Dr. David Rivera, Matthew Cabot’s attending physician. The wealthy couple lives in a sumptuous home in San Francisco.
Sheila and the good Doctor, begin having an affair, and soon after their sparks fly, the lovers decide to murder Sheila’s nasty yet, terminally ill husband.
But as often the way these juicy tales of murder and passion go, someone knows the lovers have killed off the rich old Cabot, and begins blackmailing them.
Sandra Dee plays Cathy, Cabot’s daughter from his first marriage. Richard Basehart is Howard Mason, Cabot’s greedy business partner. John Saxon plays Blake Richards, the chauffeur, who is pursuing Cathy, and Ray Walston, Virgina Grey and Anna May Wong fill out the cast of dubious characters, all of whom might be the ‘one’ who knows about their crime!
Oh the flashy melodramatics, Oh Turner’s wardrobe! There are thousands of films in my collection, this is just one of those deliciously trashy ones.- MonsterGirl…
