Category: Ubiquity

Ida Lupino: The Iron Maiden of Prison Noir: Part One ‘Women’s Prison’ (1955)

Ida Lupino: Actress/Director – The Iron Maiden of Prison Noir

“State’s prison, all prisons look alike from outside, but inside each has a different character. In this one"¦ caged men"¦ separated only by a thick wall. From caged women"¦

The system is wrong but it goes on and on and on"¦”

WOMEN’S PRISON 1955

Directed by Lewis Seller, and written Crane Wilbur, (He Walked By Night 1948, The Bat 1959, House of Wax 1953) with the screenplay and story by Jack DeWitt.

Ida Lupino plays Amelia van Zandt the sadistic borderline, psychotic Warden/Matron of a co-ed women’s prison. She is a total institutionalist, exerting strict regulations, with no gray area for sentimentalism. For van Zandt it’s about the cold hard road to rehabilitation… her way… the hard way.

Lupino has described herself as “the poor man’s Bette Davis.” Ida Lupino moved to Hollywood from England, after filming I Lived with You starring the beautiful Ivor Novello. (The Lodger 1927). She started to make some noise as the hard-edged dame in the 40s, starring in 2 powerful Noir films They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941), both starring opposite one of my all-time favorites, Humphrey Bogart.

She starred in two other memorable films which are great contributions to classic Film Noir, Road House 1948 and On Dangerous Ground 1952. For more info about Ida Lupino, the actress, and how she got started as a prolific director of film and television you can read more about her here.

Lupino, while a uniquely beautiful woman, has a face that can convey heartlessness, a hollow shell of a woman, and a militant spinster. ‘The Iron Maiden’, is what I’ve dubbed Lupino for these two particular interchangeable roles.

Women’s Prison is swathed with an ensemble of various Noir Femmes as the rough and weathered inmates. Jan Sterling, Audrey Totter, and Hugo Haas regular Cleo Moore.

There’s also the wonderful Juanita Moore, Vivian Marshall, Mae Clarke, Gertrude Micheal as Chief Matron Sturgess, and one of my favorites, Phyllis Thaxter as the ‘nice girl’ thrust into a ‘bad situation’ who almost loses her mind from the claustrophobic and oppressive iron grip van Zandt keeps on her and the rabid choke hold she keeps on the jugulars of the other female inmates.

And don’t let Thaxter’s role fool you, I’ve seen her play ruthless psychotics in her own right on Boris Karloff’s Thriller episode air date Nov. 6th, 1961  The Last of The Sommervilles as the conniving sociopath Ursula Sommerville. Interesting connection…Ida Lupino not only wrote the script for the episode but directed it as well!

Thaxter is the cunning Ursula with Martita Hunt as the eccentric Celia Summerville.

Although a gritty Noir ‘women in prison film…  could easily sway into the campy territory, Lewis Seller’s Women’s Prison stays very steady on a course of lensing the social implications of a corrupt and brutal institution that extols credit for keeping the female riff-raff out of the community while perpetuating the hard line, and struggle that many of these women face on the outside. Beating them down, and objectifying them as sexless social misfits who need to be kept away from ‘men’ and out of a ‘decent’ society.

Amelia van Zandt is the hyper-exemplification of what can happen when too much power is given agency and allowed to culminate into a destructive force. van Zandt is the linchpin of brute force, and the submission required in order to control a group or perpetuate an ideal. The fact that she is female illustrates that it does not only have to be a patriarchal institution that can break a women’s spirit. It is here that elements of class and social capital come into focus and play a role in predetermining their fate.

Lupino’s character is similar to Hume Cronyn’s sadistic and unempathetic Capt. Munsey in Jule’s Dassin’s Brilliant Brute Force 1947:

Is that a lead pipe Captain Munsey or are you just REALLY happy to see me?

In a way, van Zandt is just another ‘Boogeyman‘ created by an institution that dehumanizes its individuals.

Women’s Prison illustrates what happens when absolute control is given to a person or persons and that control goes unchecked, allowing their private or misguided motivations, mental health, ability to lead, and quite simply the lack of understanding about the human equation to dictate the terms of the human condition in/of an isolated/insulated environment.

Continue reading “Ida Lupino: The Iron Maiden of Prison Noir: Part One ‘Women’s Prison’ (1955)” →

A trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman away! Blood and Roses (1960)

BLOOD AND ROSES 1960

Et mourir de plaisir (To Die of Pleasure)

European Director/Provocateur Roger Vadim (And God Created Woman 1956, Barbarella 1968, Spirits of The Dead 1968, Pretty Maids All In A Row 1971) adapts Sheridan Le Fanu’s tale of sensuality, jealous Obsession, and Vampirism.

The Gorgeous Annette Vadim is ‘Carmilla’ Karnstein who is jealous of her cousin Leopoldo de Karnstein’s (Mel Ferrer) upcoming engagement to the beautiful Georgia Monteverdi (Elsa Martinelli).

Carmilla’s fixation manifests itself in the form of a female ancestor who is a vampire, which possesses her thus beginning a siege of terror at the family estate, culminating in a surreal and stunning bloodbath.

Stumbling onto the ancestral tomb! Is it real or imagined?

This is a beautiful cinematic horror film… a surreal journey that is at times told in dream-like sequences that are utter visual feasts for the Gothic soul. Blood and Roses has some of the most memorable imagery, and tastefully lensed eroticism, especially for ‘Lesbian Vampire’ aficionados. One of my favorite classic Euro horror films of the 1960s.

“To Die of Pleasure”

Happy Trailers- MonsterGirl

Screaming Mimi 1958 Part II: “The way he looks after her, you’d think a bossom was something unique”

Part II in the series. See also Part 1: Ripper vs Stripper"¦

Screaming Mimi (1958) Part 1: Ripper vs Stripper…

Yolanda splayed out on the stage, ‘the penis rope’ stroking her naked legs, she is captivating and captive!

The character of Joann Gypsy Masters refers to Yolanda as her “my new cupcake,” and proclaims her to be “the greatest thing in the history of nightclub entertainment.“

Gypsy Rose Lee..the exotic ecdysiast (Come see what we mean!)  ECDYSIAST-noun: Humorous Origin 1940 coined by U.S. journalist and social critic, H.L Mencken -A striptease performer. ECDYSIS-noun: Zoology-The process of shedding the old skin or the outer cuticle.

Yolanda’s erotic act is presented in a stark black silhouette, her curvacious body supine and defenseless against a backdrop of primal shadow. She begins to pose, her body rhapsodizing and rapturous, in white shredded tatters, her wrists shackled by handcuffs, a slave in bondage to the beat of Red Norvo’s orchestrations. A beautiful captive moving to the rhythm, clinging to a rope, a dangling phallus begging to be gripped by her manacled hands. On the first night of her debut, she catches the eye of ‘night beat’ reporter, the tall and imposing Bill Sweeney who covers the social sewer “everything from who’s playing footsie with who this week, on up to who’s murdering who.”

After Bill introduces himself to Yolanda in her dressing room, Yolanda is attacked once again by a mysterious maniac who slashes her across the belly, in much the same way as an earlier murder committed by the city’s ‘Ripper’ murderer who killed another dancing blonde, Lola Lake.

Devil, Yolanda’s fiercely devoted Great Dane by her side, wards off the attacker, but not before she is injured and sent to the hospital.

In the muffle of voices in the crowd of onlookers at the crime scene, one news reporter says ‘A great dame and a Great Dane!’

 Bill is savvy and has great instinct, although he is drawn to Yolanda physically, he senses that not only is her name phony but there’s too much of a coincidence that she owns the same small statue identical to the one found by the first victim Lola Lane. Of course, the statue is that of the ‘Screaming Mimi‘, a ‘weird-looking dame‘ or ‘the frightened girl’

Even Mac, Bill’s editor tells Bill “You’re getting hot pants for a real story aren’t you junior?” But Bill is on a mission to protect and bed Yolanda and solve the ‘Ripper’ murders. Mac tells him ‘Wear some protection around your gut, at least after dark.’ The scene frames a headline ‘Police Seek Gorilla Man Slayer‘ perhaps this sideline suggests that it is neither strange nor unfamiliar for bizarre crimes to occur in this town.


The film penned for the screen by Robert Blees is as grisly as it is provocative for 1958 theatergoers. Predating Psycho 1960 by two years, the idea of having your belly ripped open or slashed is quite horrific for a decade of films that were supposed to epitomize the American Dream and social moral codes that were stark in contrast to the characters in this story.

Much like Constance Towers’ character of Kelly in Sam Fuller’s Naked Kiss 1964, Kelly tries to run from her past, and relocate to a freshly scrubbed community, only to find that its dark secrets brewing below the surface, just waiting to scorch her for her efforts. Yolanda…in trying to escape her brutal attack and mental breakdown, winds up right in the midst of a very dangerous landscape herself.

Aside from the presence of Red Norvo’s live musical arrangements, the full-of-shade fluidity and dynamic scoring by Mischa Bakaleinikoff ( The Big Heat 1953 Earth vs The Flying Saucer 1956) adds much to the layers of schadenfreude. With additional contributions of stock music by composers, Leonard Bernstein, George Duning, and several others.


You can see traces of the genius of Gerd Oswald’s direction over the camera work in the iconic television sci-fi/philosophical series The Outer Limits. 1963-1965. Aided by the cinematography of Burnett Guffey-

(From Here To Eternity 1953, Birdman of Alcatraz 1962, Bonnie and Clyde 1967) The dark and disturbing Film Noir frames under his direction create an environment where no one seems wholesome, faces are either skewed anonymous or ominous, lecherous, dispirited, melancholy, despairing, pining, or perverted.

Part II

A resounding tremor from a gong cymbal and we’re thrust into the black screen for a brief moment. Suddenly a sea of faces, it’s the audience gazing back at us. Then applause. The lights come up.

Gypsy tells everyone to get up on their feet. “This’ll give us a good chance to empty the ashtrays.” She’s cocky and jovial, sassy and all lit up with sequins and a cheap sort of polished aloofness.

“Sweetie!, the press” She walks over and puts her silver gloved hands behind a brill cream head. Happy she remarks, “Freeload, and they don’t spell our names right, but we love em anyway”
Bill responds, ” I love you two Joanie"¦nice to see you haven’t been raided yet.”

” Yeah,” she crosses her fingers in warding off the very thought then tells Paul the bartender, never give this guy a check"¦.never!

Gypsy goes on to ask Bill, “Dropped in to catch my new cupcake ay? I tell you, Bill, she is the greatest thing in the history of nightclub entertainment”


A nightclub girl comes around selling matches and cigarettes behind Gypsy and Bill and a guy asks her what time she’s getting off.

Suddenly, like a Hawk zeroing in on a predator first, warns him “Uh Uh, don’t touch the candy junior.”
Bill asks where did this chick come from, and Gypsy tells him ‘out of left field.”She walked in here absolutely cold"¦would you like to meet her?” Bill smiles agreeably “Yeah"¦I gotta go to work sooner or later.”


Gypsy grabs Bill’s hand and starts leading him back toward Yolanda’s dressing room.

There are many instances where we see the image of Virginia/Yolanda in a mirror. Is this preparing us for a revelation that she has two very distinct parts of her psyche?

Virginia Wilson gazes at Yolanda Lange in the mirror.

Yolanda is sitting with her legs up on a table, staring at her image in the mirror. Her bare legs are like two strong legs of a stallion. She looks like a goddess awaiting her maidens. A cigarette hangs freely from her right hand. There is a curious gaze she holds, as she handles her hair brushing it slightly away from her face. Her image is static in the mirror framed by brick on either side. Such a soft visage enclosed within a wall with two small lights to light her dressing table. She’s about to sip her drink, when ‘Gypsy’ knocks on the door and calls out her name “Yolanda” “Yes” “I want you to meet a friend of mine"¦Bill Sweeney"¦he does a nightclub column for the Times.” Yolanda says how do you do. Looking pleasantly at the tall man in the doorway.

Bill tells her, “That’s quite an act you have,” She tells him to thank you. Gypsy interrupts, “Boy I thought tonight was the best ever.”She moves around toward Yolanda who is still sitting at her dressing table.

Bill goes to pet the top of Devil, the Great Dane’s head, now present in mid-screen. We hear his low growls. Yolanda tells him, “He doesn’t like to be patted,” She says softly, “Lye down Devil” This dog is slightly more imposing than her first dog Rusty the little terrier.

I think there is not only the relevance of the size of the dog being a sexual compendium fetish, a hint of bestiality but more as symbolic of the change as Yolanda’s inner fears lay open to future jeopardy emerging, materializing as a giant canine id.

She is guarding herself with ‘bigger dogs‘ since the first attack. Also reflecting how her Id has become more mistrustful and aggressive.

“Well, maybe we can have that drink tonight after the show if you’re not too tired,” Joann ‘Gypsy’ hints that she’d like her to say yes. But Yolanda looks on from behind her changing screen…guarded. She says alright, with exhaustion and disdain as if it’s too much effort even to say those few words.

‘Gypsy ‘now turns to Bill and tells him “You could always mention me in that column of yours if there’s any room left over"¦(she laughs a little) at least El Madhouse.” Both are grinning, flashing their mutual abiding smiles of hobnobbing, a faint drift of pleasure and amusement. All the niceties that come with the territory. Bill says “That’s a promise Joannie.”

‘Gypsy’ leaves the dressing room, closing the door. As Bill walks around the room, he asks the question. “Yolanda Lange?”

She answers him softly by repeating her name, but with her accent it sounds like a faint admonishment for questioning such a thing. He asks “Who made up a name like that?” She tells him, “Does it matter?” Still smiling he tells her “Not to me"¦even if your name was Suzy Swartzkapf I’d uh…I’d like to take you out and see what trouble we could find"¦pure research you understand.”

Yolanda looks over at him, divinely stoic, her beautiful lips and dreamy eyes studying him, tilts her head and says, “Of course.” She is still framed by the camera, Bill asks her, “How tall are you, Yolanda?”

She snaps back ” With heels?” A smile crosses her mouth. She will not give an inch yet. But Bill comes back sharper. “With anybody"¦me for instance.”With heels, I’m 5’10” without, I”m 5′ 7.”

“And you’re Norwegian?” She looks downward, and her guard softens a bit, but she doesn’t answer him. He then points his cigarette at her"¦”Swedish” he smiles. She answers him “Originally.” He puts his cigarette out and tells her that nobody could accuse her of talking too much.

She tells him, “I’ve never found it necessary” All the while a subtle violin is courting their little exchange until Bill reaches down to put his cigarette out in the ashtray and finds a statue of the Screaming Mimi in a box. The distant caution of horns tells us something has shifted with this discovery. Devil the dog begins to growl and bark as Bill removes the statue from the tissue-papered box and holds it out in the middle of the screen. It looks like a goddess being struck down by an unseen force. Clutching at her chest. As Bill studies the piece, Devil becomes increasingly agitated.

Devil acts as the primal gatekeeper of Yolanda’s rage and desires to lash out or destroy that which reached out and has destroyed her innocence. Devil seems like a destructive force. He is an extension of Yolanda’s aggressive nature now, and her primal rage. An id with fangs, much like Morbius‘ monster in Forbidden Planet 1956.

Yolanda now tells him to be careful. Bill asks, “Sure…What is it?” She answers, “It’s just a figure” She brushes off the question. He sets it back in its box. “Weird looking dame isn’t she” Yolanda looks distant, Bill continues to probe"¦”Ah, you’ve never worked around here have you?”

She starts to lighten again, “Well ah, just a little bit around.” As she starts to finish her sentence, Dr. Greenwood comes into the dressing room, calling on her, but sees Bill in the room.

Continue reading “Screaming Mimi 1958 Part II: “The way he looks after her, you’d think a bossom was something unique”” →

A trailer a day keeps the boogeyman away! The Innocents (1961)

The Innocents (1961)

Directed by Jack Clayton (Room at The Top 1959, Something Wicked This Way Comes 1983) and based on the Gothic novel set in Victorian England The Turn of The Screw by Henry James. Adapted for the screen by William Archibald and Truman Capote!

Kerr in The Innocents

Beautiful Lady- Deborah Kerr

Starring the great refined lady of cinema Deborah Kerr  as Miss Giddens, the sexually repressed governess to two impish children Miles and Flora played masterfully by Martin Stephens (Village of The Damned 1960) and Pamela Franklin (Legend of Hell House 1973, And Soon The Darkness 1970 plus too numerous films and television series appearances!)

Miss Giddens is hired by the children’s uncle (Michael Redgrave) to hold the reigns over them at their isolated estate, assisted by Mrs Grose, (Megs Jenkins) the kindly housekeeper.

Shortly after Miss Giddens takes charge, she is soon haunted by visitations from the spirits of the former governess Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop) and her lover, the sadistic valet Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde)

Convinced that they are possessing the souls of the children. Giddens sets out to exorcise these ominous characters, but at what risk?

Is she truly seeing ghosts or is she spiraling into a world of utter madness?

An absolutely stunning chiller that is not only nihilistic in its atmospherics but darkly riveting til the very end!

“Apparitions? Evils? Corruptions?”

“A strange new experience in shock.”

Here is the song mash-up I did use my piece off the album Fools and Orphans called  I Shudder For The Clouds Have Tempted Madness & scenes from The Innocents (1961)!

Happy Trailers MonsterGirl!

A trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman away! Queen for a day!

QUEEN OF BLOOD (1966)

Writer/Director Curtis Harrington’s (Night Tide 1961, Games 1967 What’s The Matter With Helen 1971) space fantasy about a female alien specie emblazoned with a silver 60s bee hive hairstyle and a proclivity for drinking blood and laying eggs, takes over the crew of a rescue ship sent to Mars. Starring the swarthy John Saxon, as astronaut Allan Brenner Basil Rathbone as Dr. Farraday Judi Meredith as Laura James Dennis Hopper, Paul Grant, Florence Marley as Alien Blood Queen, and a cameo spot for Forrest J Ackerman as Dr. Farraday’s aid.

“A deathless witch who devours men…turns the milky way into a galaxy of GORE!!!!!!!”

QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE 1958

A crew of daring space explorers landing on Venus…are captured by long-limbed beauties! They take them to their leader…the queen of outer space.

They are the only men on the whole planet. Oh boy! But!!!… Will they ever be able to return to Earth?????

Starring Zsa Zsa Gabor as Talleah, Eric Fleming as Capt. Neal Patterson, Paul Birch as Prof.Konrad, Dave Willock as Lt. Mike Cruze and Lisa Davis as Motiya, Laurie Mitchell as Queen Yilana, and Barbara Darrow as Kaeel. Directed by Edward Bernds and written for the screen by Charles Beaumont from a story by Ben Hecht.

“You’ll see a revolt that brings the planet under the domination of strangely masked females who HATE and FEAR the male animal!!!!!”

Happy Trailers MonsterGirl -who doesn’t hate the male animal…

Coming soon to The Last Drive-In “Ida Lupino:The Iron Maiden – “Women’s Prison (1955) & Women in Chains (1972)

Who doesn’t love a good teeth grinding ‘Women in Prison’ movie! I know I can’t resist. And so I thought I’d pay a little tribute to two fabulous guilty pleasures of mine starring actress/director Ida Lupino!

The incredible Ida Lupino

I’ll go further in depth as to Ida Lupino’s extraordinary contributions to film and television when I do the full post!

The first film Women’s Prison 1955 is a taut Prison Film Noir piece starring the ineffable Ida Lupino who gives a stunning portrayal of a brutally sadistic prison warden Amelia van Zandt who holds sway over these chained women, slowly exposing herself to be a psychotic, as she institutes her savage brand of rehabilitation!

The film stars Jan Sterling as Brenda Martin

 Cleo Moore

Audrey Totter as Joan Burton

Phyllis Thaxter  (One of my favorite character actresses)as Helene Jensen a nice girl in prison on the verge of an irreversible nervous breakdown!

Juanita Moore as Polly Jones

Mae Clarke as Matron Saunders

and Lupino’s real life  husband Howard Duff as the sympathetic Dr. Crane and Warren Stevens as Glen Burton the man who can’t keep his mitts off his fellow inmate wife!

“Sensational scandal rocks women’s prison!“

Women’s Prison (1955)

Then once again…now in that glorious made for tv color!!!!!!

Lupino reprises her role as the equally brutal Claire Tyson in THE ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK !!!!!!!

The film stars 70s tv and drama staples Lois Nettleton , Jessica Walter, and Belinda Montgomery

Lois Nettleton plays parole officer Sally Porter who goes undercover to expose prison brutality at the hands of the vicious matron Clair Tyson! The film also stars Neile Adams, Hazel Medina, Kathy Cannon, BarBara Luna and the great Lucille Benson.

Women in Chains (1972) tv movie

Also coming here at the Drive-In Part 2 of Screaming Mimi and MonsterGirl Asks Film Scholar Aviva Briefel

Screaming Mimi (1958) Part 1: Ripper vs Stripper…

Screaming Mimi 1958 starring Anita Ekberg


Anita Ekberg-Actress, Goddess and kitten lover!

Yolanda and her Great Dane known as “DEVIL” ouch!!!!!!!!!!

Screaming Mimi 1958 A psycho-sexual KINKY/ FILM NOIR, Starring the Swedish Love Goddess Anita Ekberg, Phil Carey, Gyspsy Rose Lee, Harry Townes, and features the music of The Red Norvo Trio

Screen Play by Robert Blees Based on the book by pulp writer,  Frederic Brown.

Frederic Brown- Mystery Pulp Novelist

Frank A.Tuttle is responsible for the ultra realism set direction (From Here To Eternity, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, Elmer Gantry ,The Caine Mutiny, Straight Jacket and Dead Heat on A Merry Go Round, Marooned and Thriller's Dark Legacy episode "˜61) Not to be confused with director Frank W. Tuttle This Gun For Hire 1942, A Cry in The Night 1956. The musical score is conducted by Mischa Bakaleinikoff.

This film to me falls under my definition of the noir canon. It's extremely stark use of counter black and white space. The distinctive style that uses prominent shadow and brightly contrasting whites. The crime theme, psycho-sexual component with several unsavory or damaged personality types. The coded gay characters, such as her step brother Weston and Gypsy Rose Lee's character “Joann ‘Gypsy’ Masters and younger lover, who waits tables at El Madhouse. The Identity crisis. These are all methods of the film noir canon, especially the beautiful black-and-white noir cinematography of Burnett Guffey, And a shower scene that predates Hitchcock’s Psycho 1960 by 2 years!

It is said that Dario Argento’s iconic Giallo film Bird With The Crystal Plumage 1970 is loosely based on Brown’s book. The Screaming Mimi is a mystery novel by pulp writer Fredric Brown. It was first published in 1949.

  • Describing a female individual who screams a lot.
  • A nickname for the Nebelwerfer, a piece of German World War II rocket artillery.

A Quick Overview:

Exotic dancer Virginia Wilson almost dies at the hands of an escaped maniac with a big knife. He attacks her while she is in the outside shower stall on her step-brothers property. Brother Charlie Watson sees what’s happening and shoots the killer dead in front of the traumatized Virginia. She is put into an institution under the care of Dr. Greenwood a psychiatrist who tries at first to administer therapy until he becomes obsessed with his beautiful patient.

He falls in obsessive/love with her and begins to takes over her life, having a Svengali like hold over her consciousness. After changing her name to Yolanda, she insists on continuing her career and winds up as the newest rage at the El Madhouse nightclub. The club’s sassy owner is portrayed by Gypsy Rose Lee who plays ‘Gypsy’. The traumatized Virginia is suspected of a series of murders with one common theme. There is an element of fetish as, each victim had purchased a contorted sculpture of a woman called the Screaming Mimi. This sculpture happens to have been created by her step-brother Charlie, you know, the one who was also responsible for shooting her attacker. Now enter the picture  handsome columnist Bill Sweeny who falls for Virginia/Yolanda, knowing that she is hiding a deep dark secret, and sets out to uncover the truth! And so the film goes, with all it’s fabulous cheap thrills and B-Movie appeal. And a Great Dane known as ‘Devil”….!

The Ocean crashes against the rocks, the foamy surf is narrated by satiny whispering flutes and French horn. A contorted statue of a highly stylized feminine form, overemphasizing her breasts and what Jung considered her anima, the inward subconscious primal essence, thrusts itself to the forefront of the screen! A bluesy jazz trail of horns bring the credits along. Directed by Gerd Oswald (The Outer Limits original series 1963, A Kiss Before Dying 1956 and Crime of Passion 1957) This is an interesting period in film making of the 50s that is fresh because Gerd Oswald allows the film’s direction to touch on several kinky items such as perversion, Fetish, bondage, homosexuality and a Lesbian subtext, amour fou and serial killers. The film creates several varying viewpoints, the Male Gaze, the female Gaze and the Collective Voyeur.

The waves break against shore, bringing with the tide, the figure of a beautiful blonde goddess, emerging from the water, as if being spit out of the primordial blue rapturous ocean's mouth. Running up the sands to greet her little terrier who stands waiting patiently then running along side his girl, up the stone stairway from the sandy beach, now in the lead.

The mood is blissful, hazy, and untroubled. He leads her to the outdoor wooden shower stall. She is glistening, washed by the recent swim, her gorgeous white teeth bare a maiden's smile. Her little dog in a pointer's stance, becomes rigid in the brush, sensing something or someone rustling in the bushes. He starts to bark at the unseen presence. She laughs and tells Rusty not to get so excited, that it's just a rabbit. But we can see far left of the screen a shadowing figure at first a black form, and then starting to emerge. As Rusty starts to confront the figure, the screen switches back to the girl. Off-screen the little dog cries out in distress, and her beautiful face begins to tighten.

The dark form, becomes a grimy, grubby, sweaty man, now straightening up from a crouch, a wildly disheveled fiend who stands up but makes no sound, apparently just having killed Rusty, now setting his burning stare upon naked Virginia with merely the beach worn wooden shower between her and her attacker. She screams in abject terror, framed by the shower, her black swimsuit, and lace panties hang over the edge, her underthings dangling there, letting us know that she is vulnerable. She is laid bare. He begins to move closer unaffected by her screams. In the foreground a shorter, older-looking gentleman is aroused by the screams, and walks out onto the front porch, realizing what is happening we see him run back into the house. As the attacker draws closer to Virginia, we see the back of his soiled shirt read HIGHLAND SANITARIUM. He is an escapee from the local lunatic asylum, and now he's wielding a large butcher’s knife about to strike out at the defenseless girl.

The Screen shot shows us a hairy hand puddled with blood as he holds the knife as close to her face. The screams still escaping her beautiful lips, her blonde hair still salt curled from the ocean.Is the blood from her little dog Rusty? He again thrusts the large blade toward her, but we are shielded by the wooden shower stall. She tries to push herself out of the stall. Pushing toward her attacker still screaming, oblivious to the blood stained knife, pushing pushing the door, trying to flee.

This shower scene actually predates Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by 2 years!

Suddenly the other man on the porch Charles Weston, Virginia’s half-brother, comes out holding a rifle. He aims his gun, but the fiend manages to plunge the knife into Virginia’s chest. We see her face conform to the pain, a little weakened and stunned by the actual blow.

Out in broad daylight this horrific slaughter box on the beach, under the sun’s rays, burning the blood from red to burnt sienna, we can only imagine in this black and white film noir of twisted psychosexual regression and utter senseless barbarity. With her white creamy face, and her beautiful full lips, she sinks downward inside the wooden stall like a coffin. The musical direction is dire. The horns cry out for release.

We hear a gunshot, the shot is framed from the man’s knees down to the wooden planking of the floor, as he falls into a huddled lump of institutional denim and crazed sweat. As his back remains to us, stiff and lifeless, we see the bare feet of Virginia standing next to him. She comes out of the stall wrapped in a white robe. Clutching her head, her fingers grasping in between strands of her fear-soaked hair. The man in white approaches her. Realizing that she is holding the bloodied knife now, she drops it onto the floor, hands open and up in the air, staring down at the weapon. The man in white stands there still holding the rifle. She holds her hands up to her face and then collapses into shock.

Continue reading “Screaming Mimi (1958) Part 1: Ripper vs Stripper…” →

A trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman away! “The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)

The Monster That Challenged the World 1957

Spawned by an earthquake that unleashes giant prehistoric mollusk monsters who attack Californians and bunnies alike, it’s up to Naval officer Lt. Cmdr. John ‘Twill’ Twillinger ( Tim Holt) and several scientists to stop these ornery creatures! Once they escape into the canal system of California’s Imperial Valley all hell breaks loose!

Also starring the beautiful Audrey Dalton television and film star who played (Meg O’Danagh Wheeler in The Hollow Watcher…one of the best episodes of Boris Karloff’s Thriller  tv show of the 60s) and Hans Conried

“An upheaval of nature tears loose a creature out of the nightmare of time!”

Happy Trailers! MonsterGirl

MonsterGirl Asks Dante Tomaselli: American Indie Filmmaker / Auteur of the Nightmare Realms

The Nightmarish Journey of Dante Tomaselli

Why are Nuns almost as scary as Clowns?…a scene from Desecration

Dante Tomaselli was born October 29, 1969, in Paterson, New Jersey is an Italian-American horror screenwriter, director, and score composer. He studied film making at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute and then transferred to the New York School of Visual Arts, receiving a B.F.A. degree in Advertising there. His first film was a 23 minute short called Desecration which was screened at a variety of horror and mainstream film festivals. Later on, Dante Tomaselli expanded Desecration into a feature length film and in 1999, the film premiered to a SRO audience at the prestigious Fantafestival in Rome, Italy.

It’s no wonder that he’s “just this guy from New Jersey with odd visions” and a life long supernatural / horror aficionado considering himself as a ‘supernaturalist, NOT a ‘satanist’, who also happens to be the cousin of film director Alfred Sole the director who brought us the edgy , cult Catholic themed horror favorite , Alice Sweet Alice (1976) which I loved,the clear mask, the yellow raincoat…and I only have one criticism of that film, which is the little psychotic brat killing the big greasy fat man’s kitten. That was heinous, and I could have done without that scene.

But I digress.

Dante’s 2nd feature film, is Horror (2002) which was Tomaselli’s first commercial success, and has maintained a wide release on DVD.

Tomaselli then made Satan’s Playground (2005), It stars 70’s and early-80’s cult-horror icons Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Ellen Sandweiss (The Evil Dead), and Edwin Neal (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre). The film is set, and was filmed in, New Jersey’s infamous Pine Barrens Forest.

Dante just completed his fourth feature, Torture Chamber the fourth installment in his nightmarish journey exploring the imaginations of Hell and damnation.

From Horror Movies.ca “Torture Chamber is about a 13-year-old boy possessed by unspeakable evil. It’s probably the first serious independent horror film in a long time that’s in the vein of The Exorcist. The demon is called Baalberith, which, if you believe in demonology, tempts its host to blasphemy and murder,” he told the site. “Jimmy Morgan is a pyromaniac, horribly disfigured from experimentation with drugs. This Catholic boy’s family is crawling with religious fanatics. His mother believes he was sent from the Devil to set the world on fire. His older brother is a priest who tries to exorcise him. When Jimmy murders his own father, he burns him to death. Because of this, the troubled boy is sent to an Institution for disturbed youths. While there, Jimmy has a Charles Manson-like hold on the other kids from the burn unit. Together, they escape and Jimmy finds an old abandoned castle for shelter. That’s where the burned kids find a secret passage way that leads to a medieval, cobwebbed torture chamber.”

COMING SOON!

First I have to start off by saying that I had the great fortune, or if you believe as I do in synchronicity, fate led me to a copy of Desecration (1999), Dante Tomaselli’s first horror film/ Hallucinatory project, which was being sold at our local indie video store in Madison Wisconsin, a very hip and fully stocked video store known fairly nationally as a outre funky ‘go to’ place where the clerks knew every film in existence and could spout synopsis on a dime if asked by a customer.

You needed to take a very grueling test to work at that place, which I passed with flying colors, yet I worked there for only one evening, before having a panic attack outside, when I couldn’t handle the pressure of helping undergrads and frat boys who had little patience for me training on the register. The experience shamed me away from Four Star Video Heaven  for the remaining years that I lived in Madison, BUT.. came away from it with one great thing, which was I had an inside crack at the mark down videos there during my week of training.

A few scenes from Desecration

And there were many obscure gems there that I scored because of that. One of them was Dante Tomaselli’s Desecration on VHS. (Which I still own) I quickly took the video home and watched it by myself, taking in all the imagery and discovering that I had stumbled onto a new film maker that I admired and respected greatly.

An overall impression of Dante’s work I’ll give right now. I internalize the Tomaselli experience like one of my sleep paralysis episodes or any number of horrific nightmares I’ve had from childhood to adulthood.

A few scenes from Horror

NOTICE THE CHILDREN’S DOLL HOUSE JUXTAPOSED WITH THE SYRINGE OF HALLUCINATORY DRUGS

Dante’s work does come closer to examining a nightmare, than most dream sequences attempted by other film makers. The dreams that truly frighten us are the ones that are more REAL.

I’ve seen his work being compared to Argento and Fulci, and while I’m sure that Dante might take this as a compliment on one hand, it doesn’t give enough credence to his own originality as an auteur. I speak from experience since I’ve been lazily compared to Tori Amos, when I’d like to think of my work as it’s own very unique ‘thing’

I see Dante Tomaselli’s work as uniquely his own imaginary / hallucinatory vision. Dante’s works are like little filmic exorcisms, for childhood fears. Where the danger surrounds anyone who is young, and the adults become the monsters. Where religion becomes the monster, and where fanaticism, repression and abuse, drives people toward possession, damnation, and inevitably to Hell, or a hellish nightmare world where there is no escape nor salvation.

A few stills from Desecration

Here is an excerpt from The Inferno of Dante. It illustrates much of how I see a Dante Tomaselli nightmare world coming close to a reality of Hell, a more protracted vision from the descriptions of the classic Inferno Hell.

Dante’s Inferno Canto VII line 10

That savage beast fell shrinking to the ground.
So we descended to the fourth defile
To experience more of that despondent land

That sacks up all the universe’s ill.
Justice of God! Who is it that heaps together
So much peculiar torture and travail?

Classical Map of Hell by Bartolomeo

Saint Anthony’s Catholic Academy

Still courtesy of Dread Central.com and Dante Tomaselli. A scene from Torture Chamber

A still courtesy of Dante Tomaselli from the upcoming Torture Chamber…

Desecration and in particular Horror, are brutal nightmares that are underpinned by transgression, guilt, strong Maternal symbolism, fear of matriarchal control. Then add all the religious delirium,and the use of fetish. It’s all very primal...Tomaselli, coming from an Italian Catholic upbringing which inhabits it’s own magical realm within Christian dogma, the ferocious nuns and mysterious Saints, and austere priests. The abject fear of retribution by God… it’s all rather scary!

Some more scenes from Desecration

Brides married to Christ, but the candle wont light for Sister Madeline

Yet on a very Americana landscape, with a truly American Gothic narrative due to the fixation on Catholicism, Italian east coast Catholicism and the ordinary American family, the church and the surrounding childhood fears, perversion, fanaticism and madness. Which have manifested into these Surreal nightmarish paroxysms on screen.

Bobby’s Mother…and the repressed fear of matriarchal control. Mothers are scary when they don’t approve of us, or they want something that we as children cannot give them.

I also see amidst the imagery…agony, fixation, rage, desire , craving. frenzy, hysteria and desolation, as the proponents of the narratives, of Desecration and Horror.

I have not seen Satan’s Playground yet, but plan to very soon. I understand that Satan’s Playground is more linear and self contained. Based more on a particularly creepy family who live in the woods, and blending the mythos of the Jersey Devil, (Which I believe is just a fisher, which is in the weasel family..they eat cats..I hate them, they are Devils!) but I digress as I am apt to do…

In his films there lays bare a simplicity that straddles both surrealism and more of a realism.,which adds to the nihilistic atmosphere. And as I’ve said, he paints a landscape that is closer to the true nightmare experience, which taps into pain and unconscious guilt.

There’s an authentic American angst about ours sins swallowing us up and spitting us out into Hell. In Dante Tomaselli’s dream world, there exhibits a charismatic starkness, which exposes us down to a raw nerve and makes us feel closer to what might be a more straightforward Hell, than the depictions from classical paintings and literature.

“Torture Chamber, at the core, is about a family in deep psychic pain. All my films are about peeling back layers of pain and guilt buried in the unconscious mind.”- Dante Tomaselli

Now, that I’ve given some of my own impressions, I can continue with this next installment in the MonsterGirl Asks series. Dante Tomaselli has been extremely gracious in allowing me to ask him a question, in the midst of his busy schedule, after having just finished his 4th contribution to his hallucinatory works of horror art…this last film called Torture Chamber, which I have been given a special private screening of  the trailer which will be up on-line in a few weeks! and I have to say, it will continue to brand Tomaselli a hallucinatory auteur and broaden his landscape a bit more, but does not scale back on the schadenfreude emotional shivers and psychic acrobatics that his earlier works cause the viewer to go through, definitely me for sure.

Before I go to my question…First let me tell you about his first film Desecration (1999)

Desecration is an eerie psychological chiller about a young 16 year old boy named Bobby Rullo played by Danny Lopes. It also stars Christie Sandford as Sister Madeline/ Mary Rullo (Bobby’s mother) Sandford brings a certain arresting presence to both characters.

Bobby is an outsider, a loner. Bobby suffers from a repressive Catholic upbringing, and the emotional turmoil caused by his mother’s unexpected death. It is only after he inadvertently causes the death of a nun, that a series of supernatural chain of events begin to unfold. Bobby begins a journey through Hell, coming face to face with his dead mother. There begins a landscape of powerful childhood nightmare, where demons are unleashed upon the senses and innocence must find its way out of this decent, while the gates of Hell open wider.

The film acts as a set piece for our childhood fears, and the overpowering influence of abuse, fanaticism and repression, which wreak havoc on our innocence. You can call it surrealist, art house, abstract, experimental, what ever way helps you describe, a film that is more about evoking feelings, than supplying you with gratuitous gore, violence with no context or morality sewn into the seams of the plot, or loaded budgets with high gloss CGI but no substance.

Desecration is in effect a film you experience from the inside out. You’re not supposed to make sense of it. There is no sense to one’s madness, or one’s descent into a nether region, possibly Hell, possibly hallucination. It’s like trying to describe what you see in a series of colored splats on a canvas that doesn’t need to define a literal depiction of ‘something’. Modern Expressionism art is like that. a) You can not describe accurately what agency is behind a blue splotch, it is representational. And b) The experience will mean different things to different lookers, viewers, gazers.

Now Horror (2002), utilizes some of the same imagery as Desecration, in fact Danny Lopes plays the character Luck.

Here Dante Tomaselli merges two disturbing narratives. The two plot lines will eventually cross paths with each other. Teenage runaways abusing drugs escape from a drug rehab and follow the psychopathic Reverend Salo Jr. with the promise of salvation to the isolation of his family farmhouse.

Still more stills from Horror

There is an eerie connection to Salo Sr. and the existence of child abuse, and once again fanaticism and religion. Leading the group of teenagers is a boy named Luck played by Danny Lopes. He is already tripping on major hallucinogenics. They are led to the secluded farmhouse where the intersectionality of the plot begins.

Dante and Raine Brown

Living on the farm is Grace, Salo Jr’s sullen daughter played by Lizzy Mahon whom her father and his extremely peculiar wife Mrs. Salo (again the great Christie Sanford ) have enslaved Grace by forcing to her to take drugs and by means of psychic brainwashing.

Grace’s feels a psychic connection to her paternal grandfather Salo Sr, played by Kreskin, as Reverend Salo Sr. Is he the only salvation who appears to be guiding Grace? Or are his comforting visitations revealed to be luring her into more dangerous territory. Grace’s visions lead her to ultimately learn about her parent’s demonic preoccupations and devil worship.

Scenes from Horror

The painting morphs into a savage visage of Grandfather Salo The Reverend Sr. The scene is gripping and effective and brings me back to the Pilot episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, where Roddy McDowall kills his wealthy uncle and the painting which keeps changing, foretelling of his retribution on his murderous nephew. There are little pockets of powerful gusts of energy in Dante’s films.

Raine Brown plays Amanda, Jessica Pagan is Marissa, Kevin Kenny is Kevin and Chris Farabaugh (Satan’s Playground) is Fred. Felissa Rose plays an art therapist at the Rehabilitation Center. On another note Tomaselli’s casting is spot on. These actors truly bring to life these characters, make them believable and are absolutely perfect for the roles they’ve been given.

Salo Sr. is played by The Amazing Kreskin, who’m I remember from my childhood as a celebrity mentalist. I don’t remember if he was amazing!, but I think he was pretty cool, and I love that Tomaselli is utilizing his creepy vintage prestige to add to the film’s atmospherics as well as a nod to the good old days.

AND NOW FOR THE QUESTION I ASKED DANTE TOMASELLI

MY QUESTION IS THIS: (MonsterGirl and Daisy Asks)

What strikes me as a very key component to a Dante Tomaselli experience is the use of sound in your films, which you yourself do all the scoring.

The soundscapes and the utilization and presence of auditory ‘spirit’ add to the occupying level of concentration that attaches itself to your stories. It’s partly what creates a disturbing influence to the atmosphere. I’ve read that you compose the soundtrack like you were making an album.

Tell me about your experiences trying to bring to life another level of the senses ‘SOUND’ which inhabits your hallucinatory/nightmarish realms, what does the sound design mean to you? What does it add to the film or as you would say the ‘equation.’ ?

Dante Tomaselli – The Sound Hunter!

DANTE TOMASELLI’S ANSWER:

When I was a little boy, I used to play an electronic organ. I’d sit there for hours and imagine strange images: ghosts, witches, quicksand, nuns, bats and haunted houses. I’d see rolling hills…with graveyards. I had so many nightmares…endless nightmares…and I remembered them so clearly. I always imagined…or feared…another world poking through…the spirit world. Somewhere on the other side was a shadowy realm with a cage or deep hole or cobwebbed torture chamber. Now as an adult, once the film is shot, I’m left alone with my footage, I love sound mixing. I feel like I’m home. It’s like the missing link. It’s me as a child all over again…playing my horror music on the organ, seeing pictures. Channeling something from far away…or deep within, something demonic, something celestial. I’m a sound hunter. If I’m missing a certain effect, anything, then I’m on the hunt for it. I can’t rest until I find it. Since I’m the film’s sound designer, music supervisor and main composer, everything, sound-wise is my responsibility. I like that. In the studio, I work with the engineer, all alone, just like I’m making an album. It wouldn’t be my film if I didn’t design the soundtrack. It is 50% of the film’s equation. On Torture Chamber, I brought on a small group of eclectic musicians to create some additional sound fx, soundscapes and tones. These musicians didn’t compose to picture, per se. They didn’t see the film. I didn’t want them to. I’m more interested in what is in the imagination. I’ll send a section of the script with some direction. What comes back to me is sometimes totally off the mark and not usable but occasionally something really gels and there’s this odd, fresh dynamic at work. Something unexpected.

So once I choose another composer’s soundscape, I’ll grab the best moments. Then I’ll mix those highlights with my own music and sound fx, usually a lot of low tones and glacial stings.

It’s this mixture that feels like a witches brew. I like to be surprised by the result of all that swirling and stirring. I want it to feel unpredictable, a little dangerous. Composing the score, I listen to sounds individually and mix them in my mind. I fantasize and watch the footage. It stays in my head and I eventually write it down. Once in the studio, I mix and match and it feels very much like sculpting or painting. I’m painting with sounds.

A still from the upcoming Torture Chamber courtesy of Dante Tomaselli

Thank You so much Dante, for that very eloquent and enlightening answer that sheds a little more light on your working process as a film maker.

And there YOU have just a little hint at Dante Tomaselli’s world, his work. Please visit his official sites,

http://horrorthemovie.com/

http://enterthetorturechamber.com/

http://www.myspace.com/horrorthemovie

Watch one of his films, and see for yourself, what can be done with an intensely ethereal imagination and a low budget and an inner vision of the landscapes where nightmare’s live and breath.

It’s been a supreme pleasure chatting with Dante Tomaselli,

MonsterGirl thanks him, and wishes him good dreams and productive nightmares!

And Happy Nightmares To You All- Dream on- MonsterGirl