Screaming young girls sucked into a labyrinth of horror by a blood-starved ghoul from Hell.
“A group of gold thieves pull off a heist and flee into the snowy wilderness, only to be pursued by a horrible, spider-like monster.”
Frank Wolf plays a cutthroat gangster Alexander Ward who’s used to getting what he wants. Along for the ride are his two gunmen Marty and Byron and his main girl Gypsy Boulet (Sheila Noonan. Noonan is actually fabulous as a “jaded woman regretting a misspent life”. Natalie the bar girl is played by Linne Ahlstrand. The gang winds up hiding out at a local ski resort instructor’s remote cabin in Deadwood South Dakota, after the heist of some gold. They try to muscle in on a local ski instructor Gil Jackson (Michael Forest) (The Saga of the Viking Women… 1957, One Step Beyond 1960, The Outer Limits ‘It Crawled out of the Woodwork 1963, The Twilight Zone ‘Black Leather Jackets” 1964 he’s 6′” and still acting!!!) who meets the gang at a Hotel Lobby, asking him to help guide them down the treacherous snowy mountains through the Black Hills to his remote cabin after they make a gold heist from a bank in town.-They need Gil as a guide until they can make their getaway. Gil warns them that there have been a series of deaths attributed to a cougar that has been seen in the area.
Later on, a sudden blizzard traps them at Gil’s cabin. Gypsy begins making a play for the wholesome hunk -Gil. She is supposed to be watched over by him at the ski lift until the bank robbery is done. Finally, a fourth partner will pilot a plane and pick up the gang flying them to Canada.
Alex Ward doesn’t mind if Gypsy spends some time with Gil since he plans on doing away with the big handsome lug once the heist is finished. The gangsters make a huge mistake in trying to create a diversion for their heist. Marty plants dynamite in the Broken Boot Mine and inadvertently sets off explosions in the nearby cave which unsettles the sleeping spider-like monster.
While Alex’s jealousy begins to boil watching Gypsy snuggle up to Gil, Marty puts business aside and sneaks off with the pretty barmaid Natalie. He takes her to the mine. Once he’s there, he wanders off just to set up the explosives and discovers a strange egg. While in the midst of a smooching session, Marty and Natalie are attacked by the strange Beast, but Marty manages to escape and returns all shaken, telling Alex that Natalie is dead. The next day, the gang pulls off the heist at the bank, and as Gil begins to lead them to his cabin, all the while he is sensing the presence of the Beast on their trail. At one point Marty hears a woman moaning and a strange wailing in the air. As he goes to investigate he finds Natalie, white as chalk all drained of blood and webbed into a tree wrapped up in a giant cocoon!
Once at Happiness Lounge (Gil’s remote cabin) Alex’s jealousy comes to a head and he fights with Gil over Gypsy who slaps Alex and the thug just slaps her right back to keep her in her place. The radio in the cabin reports about the robbery and the watchman who was killed. Gil wonders why she would even stay with such a sadist. Gypsy just feels like she’s been with him too long to leave him.
For comic relief, Gil’s housekeeper Small Dove, and Byron (Wally Campo) begin a sweet romance. They both hear the strange sound that Marty heard while on the trail toward Happiness Lounge. Marty runs out into the woods with his rifle and comes face with the webby Beast who smacks him down with one of its tentacle-like appendages.
The rest of the chaos unfolds as Alex plans to kill off any witnesses including his gal Gypsy who has now decided that Gil’s rustic life ain’t so bad! How will this all play out? I’ll leave that to you all because The Beast From Haunted Cave is a slice of campy pie with whipped cream. And the Hammond Organ adds a special 1950s cheesy ambiance!
The Beast itself could be considered something out of H.P. Lovecraft’s imagination, created by Chris Robinson. (who has a very impressive & prolific IMDb profile as an actor/director and writer if you care to look!)
Like many of Corman’s fantastic exploitation horror and adventure films, The Beast from Haunted Cave is as writer D. Earl Worth calls it a “tangential monster movie” with one foot in a heist/gangster film.
“Since Monte Hellman directed, the slowly-stirred low boil ingredients of Beast From Haunted Cave had the dry taste of studied existentialism found in his later films, notably The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind (1965)The plot was mostly Charles Griffith imagination working with Roger Corman…)…and the Leo Gordon script of Gene Corman’s Attack of the Giant Leeches in its focus on sleazy people and a type of monster that sucked blood at gruesome leisure.” –D.Earl Worth from Sleaze Creatures: An Illustrated Guide to Obscure Hollywood Horror Movies 1956-1959
Produced by Gene and Roger CormanThe Beast from Haunted Caveis directed by Monte Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop 1971) Charles B Griffith wrote the original story.
Corman had by now gotten a handle on his economic innovation, being able to shoot several films using the same locations or with the same sets. Corman chose South Dakota as it was a right-to-work state and the town itself Deadwood had a lot of potential, as it is a testimony to a legendary past. Corman’s Ski Troop Attack utilizes most of the cast from The Beast from Haunted Cave.
Sheila Noonan plays Gypsy Boulet, Frank Wolf plays Alexander Ward, Wally Campo plays Byron Smith, Richard Sinatra Plays Marty Jones, Chris Robinson plays the Beast and the Bartender.
This film debuted as a double feature with The Wasp Woman (1959) upon its theatrical release.
According to Chris Robinson, the actor who portrayed the monster, he added aluminum stripping to a plywood base, then covered the frame with chicken wire before wrapping it in sheets and muslin in order to create the monster’s skeletal base. He then soaked the frame in vinyl paint in order to waterproof the design, since it had to be used in the snow. The creature’s head was fashioned out of quarter-inch aluminum wire, which was then encased in steel wire and wrapped in muslin. The creature’s fangs and teeth were also constructed with aluminum wire. Robinson then placed putty and patches of crepe hair onto the design before adding spun glass in order to give it a cobwebby appearance.
Stephen King created a brilliant story with IT, though many of us were disappointed in the crab/spider monster as the ultimate reveal. The Beauty of The Beast From Haunted Cave is that it never pretended to be anything but an ancient cheesy creature that drags it’s catch into the cave! Perhaps if Pennywise transformed into something closer to a humanoid spirit that can eat children’s souls it might have had a more powerful impact…. just a MonsterGirl machination…
Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl sayin’ Avoid caves or Beasts that may dwell in them-but… Don’t cocoon yourself-it’s a big world out there!
Directed by Ford Beebe with a screenplay by Clarence Upson Young, with moody frames by cinematographer Charles Van Enger (Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein 1948, Bride of the Gorilla 1951) Set Design by (using sets from The Wolfman 1941 & The Ghostof Frankenstein 1942) Russell A. Gausman (Shadow of a Doubt 1943, Phantom of the Opera 1943, Touch of Evil 1958) and Gowns by Vera West.
Night Monsterfeatures Bela Lugosi in a lesser role as the butler Rolf, Lionel Atwill as Dr. King, Lief Erickson as Laurie the lecherous chauffeur, Irene Hervey as Dr. Lynn Harper, Ralph Morgan as Kurt Ingston, Don Porter as Dick Baldwin, Nils Asther as Agor Singh, Doris Lloyd as Sarah Judd, Frank Reicher as Dr. Timmons, Robert Homans as Constable Cap Beggs, Fay Helm as Margaret Ingston “How many of us are sane? You wouldn’t know, but I shall soon.”Cyril Delevanti as Torque and Janet Shaw as Milly the maid.
Janet Shaw as the waitress Louise Finch who works at the Till Two bar in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt 1943.
Universal billed Night Monster 1942 as a companion piece to The Mummy’s Tomb. starring Lon Chaney Jr.
Ralph Morgan plays a wealthy recluse Kurt Ingston who is bound to his wheelchair never to walk again. Ingston invites to his ominous Ingston Towers, the very group of doctors who left him hopelessly paralyzed with both his legs amputated (there will be a more stunning revelation later on). There, they are assembled at his secluded estate, shrouded in a menacing fog, to witness a miraculous healing session performed by an enigmatic Swami Agor Singh (Nils Asther) who can teach “a method by which man can grow new tissues at will.”Â
The sinister housekeeper played by wonderful character actress Doris Lloyd and psychiatrist played by Irene Hervey.
As Dr. Lynn Harper – “My study of the mind has convinced me how little we know of its powers.”
Agor Singh-“A little knowledge of the occult is dangerous. Unless it’s used for good, disaster will follow its wake. That is Cosmic Law!”
Margaret Ingston –“Blood… the whole house reeks of it. The air is charged with death and hatred and something that’s unclean”
Dick Baldwin-“How is that the blood didn’t dematerialize with the rest?”
Agor Singh-“There are certain details in the process that we are not allowed to explain to the uninitiated.”
Lief Erickson plays the skirt chasing chauffeur and Irene Hervey is a psychiatrist called in to tend to the unstable Margaret Ingston played by Fay Helm!
The Swami played by Nils Asther and Bela Lugosi though receiving top billing only plays a bit part as the disagreeable butler Rolf.
Soon, one by one, the doctors turn up dead along with several meddling servants who know more than they should.
There begin the mysterious sightings of an eerie prowler who roams the fog-drenched grounds of the estate. Also, a guest at Ingston Towers is Irene Hervey playing the beautiful psychiatrist Dr. Lynn Harper who comes to see Langston’s unstable daughter Margaret, and mystery writer Dick Baldwin (Don Porter) who tries to solve the mystery of the murders.
Night Monster acts as an Old Dark House suspense-supernatural classical horror film that possesses an eerie otherworldly atmosphere while not filled with truly shocking moments, most of which happen within the mansion, Beebe has an instinctive touch at creating the air of peril and inducing some real palpable shudders. One of the more potent examples of this is when the terrified maid Milly Carson played by Janet Shaw is racing through the menacing fog-soaked night, pursued by an unseen attacker, off screen we hear her violent screams followed by the night sounds of crickets and swamp frogs. The differentiation between the dead stillness and the nocturnal symphony that resumes is quite effective. Also, a creepy touch is a skeleton that bleeds…
It was just an innocent game… until a young girl vanished for thirty years
Once upon a time in the 70s, Disney took guardianship of some pretty dark films. The Watcher in the Woods is one such film. Directed by John Hough (Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry 1974, Escape to Witch Mountain 1975, Return from Witch Mountain 1978, The Incubus 1982).
The film works as a teenage adventure/fantasy meets Modern Gothic story based on the novel by Florence Engell Randall with contributions to the screenplay by Brian Clemens.
An American couple Helen and Paul Curtis, played by two distinctly charismatic actors David McCallum and Carroll Baker, and their two daughters Lynn Holly Johnson and Kyle Richards as Jan and Ellie Curtis, travel to an isolated house in rural England. Bette Davis commands the screen with less blaze and more secretive self-control as Mrs. Aylwood, a strange widow who befriends the girls and whose daughter went missing 30 years ago. The two young women investigate the mysterious happenings at the manor house and stumble onto the truth behind Karen Aylwood’s disappearance. I will not spoil the reveal of this film, in fact, the DVD has alternative endings due to extensive cuts as well as additions of scenes added under the un-credited supervision of Vincent McEveety. — I can say that prefer John Kenneth Muir’s interpretation of one considered outcome as Karen leaving and returning as a “kind of Orphean Underworld story.” For those of you who might not like just one explanation, I’ll leave it as an enticement to watch Watcher through to the end/ends!
While some critics found Watcher in the Woods abysmal there are enough fans who remain devoted to the film as a cult classic. Setting some whiny moments, and a few meandering plot potholes, Watcher in the Woods maintains a certain atmospheric bubble that surrounds the story, and adds nice touches of Gothic motifs, like the abandoned church, as John Kenneth Muir says in Horror Films of the 1980s the crumbling church “representing decay.”Â
I see it also as how the old waits quietly for youth to return.
After he fulfills your deepest, lifelong dream…he’ll tell you the price you have to pay… Never whisper your dreams, for someone might be listening…
Both the novel and screenplay for Something Wicked This Way Comes were penned by the prolific fantasist/dreamer Ray Bradbury.
Directed by one of the most interesting directors Jack Clayton, a man who summons uncomfortable images and mind frames around dysfunction in the so-called conventional family structure, and even more diffuse in his work he personifies the children, those innocent little souls with a will that can not only be menacing but truly threatening and evil. Clayton has painted landscapes of chilling psychological horror and Something Wicked This Way Comes embraces his haunting perceptions in perfect sync with Bradbury’s malevolent story equal parts fantasy equal parts horror. Bradbury retained the nightmarish poeticism that his novel possessed in the screenplay and then adapted it to the screen.
Bradbury’s fantastic tale began as a short story entitles “Black Ferris” which was originally published in Weird Tales Magazine in 1948. Then he adapted it to his screenplay for use by Gene Kellywho unfortunately was not able to get the funding for the project. The success found Bradbury’s story when he released it as a novel in 1962 which found its way yet back once again into a screenplay in the 1970s when an interesting collection of directors were approached– from Sam Peckinpah, Mark Rydell, and even Steven Spielberg. By the time 1982 came around it was Jack Clayton (The Queen of Spades 1949, The Story of Esther Costello 1957, Room at the Top 1959, The Innocents 1961, The Pumpkin Eater 1964, Our Mother’s House 1967), who was tapped to direct the film, perhaps Spielberg might have added a great commercial veneer to the picture, but the dark dreams that Jack Clayton is capable of envisioning, I think, is the right kind of poison (And I mean that in a good way). The atmosphere of the sleepy little Green Town, Illinois, circa 1920 needed to wash off that mainstream Rockwell Painting style veneer and lay bare the secretive and dreadful things that suppurate in a small old-fashioned and quite often repressed Americana town.
For into this quaint and picturesque Midwestern town comes a dark & arcane carnival led by the mysterious Mr. Dark played exquisitely by Jonathan Pryce. And unlike the lyrical circus of The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao starring the wonderful Tony Randall, this carnival is pure evil.
The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao starring Tony Randall.
As enigmatic as Pryce is in this role, equally mesmerizing is Pam Grier who inhabits the sensuous yet deadly Dust Witch! The otherworldly train that is veiled in fog and spirit lights brings “the Autumn People” who march through the town slowly like a funeral dirge preparing their secret ceremonies that will summon the darkness to coax and bedevil the unsuspecting yet desperate people of Green Town who are hungry for magic to change their lives.
The carnival seems to tap into the desires of many of the townspeople providing them with wish-fulfillment, to make their every dream come true. Many of the town folk like Mr. Crosetti played by Richard Davalos out of their loneliness seek companionship or Ed the Bartender played by James Stacy who lost a leg and an arm in the war would love to be that football hero again.
What ultimately happens after these unsuspecting but naive town folk should have realized that they have sold their souls and are damned for an eternity to suffer the irony of their wishes. And in the end, it is a lesson in what we desire weighed against what we regret.
As one of the vehicles for Mr. Dark’s malevolent magical conduits, he employs a menacing merry-go-round which can make the rider can grow either younger or older depending on which direction it turns.
Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade are boyhood buddies–Will sees his father struggle with feeling like an old man, while Jim waits hopelessly in vain for his father to return.
Jim buys a lighting rod from Tom Fury (Royal Dano) who warns of the storm that is coming. That night the boys sneak out into the woods and watch as the train pulls in with no one aboard. They do however learn that it is bringing Mr. Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival to their boring little town.
At the centerpiece of the story comes Jason Robards an aging father and local librarian Charles Halloway who feels he’s failed his son Vidal Peterson as Will Halloway. In the end, it is up to the two to fight off Mr. Dark who would like nothing better than take most of the town along board the malefic train to the next destination, collecting souls along the way.
With music by James Horner, and co-starring Royal Dano who sells much-needed lightning rods, Diane Ladd plays Jim Nightshades’ mother, Mary Grace Canfield plays Miss Foley who has lost her youth and beauty and is narrated by Arthur Hill as an older Will. The special effects of the 80s create a moody, fantastical little carnival nightmare that moves like a beautiful & maudlin ballet.
YOUR EVER LOVIN’ MONSTERGIRL SAYIN’ ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE IF YOU BELIEVE IT SO!
A visual masterpiece directed byRichard Fleischer (Soylent Green 1971) and a screenplay by Earl Felton, who chose to weed out the extremely detailed and descriptive novel by Jules Verne and create a fast-paced visual fantasy that became this fabulous adventure. The film is scored by Paul J. Smith (The Parent Trap 1961) whose splendid music creates a world of majesty surrounding the sets with wonderfully colorful and inventive art direction byJohn Meehan, (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers 1946, The Heiress 1949, Sunset Blvd 1950, Studio 57 1955-58, M Squad 1957 -58 Boris Karloff’s THRILLER-ep.A Wig for Miss Devore 1962), production design & un-credited art direction by Harper Goff(Fantastic Voyage 1966, Willy Wonker & The Chocolate Factory 1971 also un-credited set design on A Midsummer’s Night Dream 1935,The Life of Emile Zola 1937, Sergeant York 1941, Casablanca 1942) and set direction by Emile Kuri (It’s a Wonderful Life 1946, The Paradine Case 1947, Rope 1948, The Heiress 1949, Dark City 1950, A Place in the Sun 1951, Detective Story 1951, War of the Worlds 1953, The Actress 1953, Shane 1953) brought the enigmatic ship to life as almost creature-like, flaunting interiors that are lavish with gadgets that flirt with scientific-industrious designs of the future!
The film stars Kirk Douglas as Ned Land and James Mason as Captain Nemo. Co-stars Paul Lukas as Prof. Pierre Aronnax, Peter Lorre as Conseil, Robert J. Wilke as first Mate of the Nautilus, Ted de Corsia as Capt. Farragut, Carlton Young as John Howard, J.M Kerrigan as Old Billy, and Percy Helton as the coach driver. 20,000 Leagues helped Peter Lorre step out of his sinister-mystery roles and add great comedic versatility as a character actor to his full career.
“20000 Leagues Under the Sea” Kirk Douglas 1954 Walt Disney Productions
Walt Disney began to depart from the expensive endeavor of producing animated features and started to experiment with live-action films. Disney became aware of George Pal’s desire to persuade Paramount to allow him to produce Verne’s beloved novel initially utilizing a screenplay by Kurt Neumann. Disney got George Pal to relinquish the rights and took over the project, hiringRichard Fleischer (Follow Me Quietly 1949, The Narrow Margin 1952, Compulsion 1959, Fantastic Voyage 1966, The Boston Strangler 1968, Tora! Tora! Tora! 1970, 10 Rillington Place 1971, See No Evil 1971, The New Centurions 1972, Soylent Green 1973), to direct, and Neumann’s script was out. It’s no wonder Fleischer was tapped to do more fantasy science fiction films, though his psychological thrillers/documentary-style crime films are outstanding contributions.
Adapted from Jules Verne’s fabulous adventure the action takes place in the 19th century – where sailors told tall tales of giant sea creatures that wrecked and devoured sailing ships and the oceans held deep unknowing secrets as unfathomable as the heavens above. The legend of a strange horned sea monster has been wreaking havoc with sailing vessels in the South Pacific. Professor Pierre Arronax (Paul Lukas) and his sidekick Conseil (Peter Lorre) join an American expedition that includes crooning whale hunter Ned Land (Kirk Douglas) in search of this calamitous sea creature. The trio is confronted by the beast and is swept overboard then taken prisoner by the mysterious Captain Nemo (James Mason) whose drill-ornamented submarine ‘the Nautilus’ turns out to be the sea monster of legend.
Nemo turns out to be a fanatic who’s dark mission is total destruction of all the warships responsible for the evils of mankind. There’s a memorable underwater hand-to-tentacle fight with a giant squid!
Capt. Nemo: Think of it. On the surface there is hunger and fear. Men still exercise unjust laws. They fight, tear one another to pieces. A mere few feet beneath the waves their reign ceases, their evil drowns. Here on the ocean floor is the only independence. Here I am free! Imagine what would happen if they controlled machines such as this submarine boat. Far better that they think there’s a monster and hunt me with harpoons.
Captain Nemo: “The natives over there are cannibals. They eat liars with the same enthusiasm as they eat honest men.”
Ned Land: There’s one thing you ought to know, Professor: Nemo’s cracked. I’ve yet to see the day you can make a deal with a mad dog. So while you’re feeding him sugar, I’ll be figuring a plan to muzzle him.
IMDb Trivia:Actors portraying the cannibals chasing Ned Land painted humorous messages on their foreheads (not legible on-screen). In particular, one actor wrote “Eat at Joe’s” while another actor behind him wrote “I ate Joe”.
The climactic squid battle on the Nautilus was originally shot with a serene sunset and a calm sea. Director Richard Fleischer was troubled by the look of it because the cams and gears that operated the squid could easily be seen, making it look obviously fake. Walt Disney visited the set one day and Fleischer told him about the problem. Disney came up with the idea of having the squid battle take place during a fierce storm (another story is that it was actually screenwriter Earl Felton who came up with the idea). The scene was reshot that way and is considered by many to be the highlight of the film.
One of the models of the Nautilus created by Harper Goff was a “squeezed” version which could be filmed with a standard lens and still look normal when projected in Cinemascope.
Clawing Monster From A Lost Age strikes from the Amazon’s forbidden depths!–Creature from a million years ago!… every man his mortal enemy… and a woman’s beauty his prey!–From the Amazon’s forbidden depths came the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Creature From the Black Lagoonshowcases Universal’s iconic Gill Man directed by science fiction & noir icon Jack Arnold. (The Glass Web 1953, It Came from Outer Space 1953, Tarantula 1955, The Incredible Shrinking Man 1957, Man in the Shadow 1957, The Tattered Dress 1957) Stars Richard Carlson as Dr. David Reed, Julie Adams as Kay Lawrence, Richard Denning as Mark Williams, Antonio Moreno as Carl Maia, Nestor Paiva as Lucas, and Whit Bissell as Dr. Edwin Thompson.
The Creature or Gill Man is one of the most famous monsters that has endured, and perhaps one of the most emblematic figures of 1950s science fiction. His suit was designed by Bud Westmore and a team of uncredited designers. As Tom Weaver points out the creature suit “is so logical in design that designers of other underwater monsters have to be very careful not too obviously to imitate the monster they are imitating” Visionary Master Guillermo del Toro’s team of designers and special effects artists did an outrageous job of paying homage to the Gil Man while still maintaining an original, and arresting modern edge to the Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water (2017) The Gill Man still remains the most iconic monster of the 1950s
Creature From The Black Lagoon was also adapted to be shown in 3D! It was after Universal had a hit with Jack Arnold’sIt Came From Outer Space in 1953 that they saw the potential for box office success with a science fiction film especially one they could easily adapt to 3D format.
Producer William Alland –(according to writer/historian Tom Weaver)– had heard of a legendary half -man half-fish creature who lived in the upper regions of the Amazon. The Creature suit was extremely form-fitting, too tight to be worn over aquatic breathing equipment. The swimmer would have to hold his breath for extended periods of time. Ben Chapman played the part out of the water wearing ‘the land suit’ modeled with paint (a dark silvery green and red highlights) by Millicent Patrick– Chapman not being a good enough swimmer. Ricou Browning wore the underwater suit which was lighter is color in order to make it stand out in the darker underwater scenes. Because he was able to hold his breath for five minutes, Browning was responsible for the stunning underwater scenes.
“Jack Arnold, started adding fins and gills to a sketch of the Motion Picture Academy’s Oscar statuette, and arrived at the basic look of the new monster. Arnold and Alland did play their originating the design , but actress and artist Millicent Patrick was chiefly responsible for the look of the Gill-Man. At the make up shop, Chris Mueller developed a bust of the Creature using one of Ann Sheridan as the basis. Also contributing to the design were Jack Kevan and Westmore himself, head of the make up division.”
Both Browning and Chapman had full body molds made, so that suit would fit their bodies perfectly. “The result is a remarkably convincing monster, which looks like a suit almost solely because it has to be a suit (…) a tendency fir the suits to look a little rubbery around the joints, The Gill Man is life-like, enough so as to engender a happy suspension of disbelief by most viewers, as the film proved enormously popular.”
Lucas:-“There are many strange legends in the Amazon. Even I, Lucas, have heard the legend of a man-fish.”
We can sympathize with monsters, like Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s undead creation, & The Gill Man from Creature From the Black Lagoon. We can find our involvement (at least I can), as one viewed with empathy toward the monster’s predicament. Embedded in the narrative is a simultaneous pathos, that permits these monsters to express human desires, and then make sure that those desires are thwarted, frustrated, and ultimately destroyed.
Richard Carlson Julie Adams Richard Denning and Whit Bissell and Dr. Edward Thompson study the fossil of an amphibian man found near the Amazon. The crew catches something in their net… and whatever it was… has ripped a giant Gill Man size hole in it leaving behind a claw!
Mr. ‘It’s mine all mine” and Kay and Mr. “But think of the contribution to science!” looking at the poor trapped Gill Man-a lonely prisoner of scientific hubris and egocentric men.The creature trapped in a bamboo cage… floats, quietly thinking deep thoughts–while the three look on pondering what to do with him.
“˜The Outsider Narrative” of 1950s science fiction can be seen so clearly in Jack Arnold’s horror/sci-fi hybrid Creature From The Black Lagoon. Film monsters like The Gill Man form vivid memories for us, as they become icons laying the groundwork for the classic experience of good horror, sci-fi, and fantasy with memorable storytelling and anti-heroes that we ‘outliers’ grew to identify with and feel a fondness for.
As David Skal points out in The Monster Show, he poses that films like Creature From the Black Lagoon …are the “most vivid formative memories of a large section of the {American} population…{…} and that for so many of these narratives they seem to function as “mass cultural rituals.”
Director/Auteur Abel Ferrara’s (The Driller Killer 1979, King of New York 1990, Bad Lieutenant 1992, Body Snatchers 1993, The Addiction 1995, The Funeral 1996) distressing cult classic ushering in the 80s–a gritty-elegant rape-revenge masterpiece, a brutal ballet starring Zoë Lund (she was 19 years old at the time she played Thana and died tragically at age 37 from heroin-related heart failure) as a young mute seamstress working in the garment district of New York City who survives two assaults in one day inevitably sending her into a mental tailspin, and goes on a mission of retribution by way of subterfuge. An avatar of vengeance striking back at patriarchal oppression and exploitation of women. Dressing as a purposefully seductive decoy Thana prowls the night streets of the city luring her prey in order to take back the power that had been ripped away from her, drawing out any low-life male predators with her sweet weapon of annihilation –her 45 caliber canon.
From Reverence to Rape:The Treatment of Women in Movies by Molly Haskell– “In this, the most significant development of the eighties, movies have served up an endlessly expanding category of neurotics , murderers , femme fatales, vamps, punks, misfits, and free-floating loonies whose very existence was an affront, not only to the old, sexist definitions of pliant women (or even categorizable psychotics), but also to the upbeat rhetoric of the women’s movement. The violence unleased ranged from the homicidal (the women shoppers in Marleen Gorris’s A Question of Silence: the rape victim turned murderer in Ms. 45; Martha Henry as the worm-turned husband-killer in the Canadian film Dancing in the Dark; Chantal Akerman’s powerful study of housewifely anomie, Jeanne Dielman; and Theresa Russell’s greedy disposer-of-men in Black Widow…”
“Louise’s life downstairs is a living hell… and upstairs lurks a haunting nightmare!- She’s Daddy’s Little Girl … FOREVER!”Â
Carrie Snodgress has always been an actress possessed of great dimension, just watch her as Tina Balsar the persecuted down-trodden housewife in director Frank Perry’s Diary of a Mad Housewife 1970. In The AtticSnodgress is yet again a repressed character Louise Elmore, this time a Librarian who is caring for her cruel and ruthlessly controlling wheelchair-bound father Wendell portrayed by a particularly nasty Ray Milland.
Milland toward the end of his career had started appearing in some of these low budget horror/exploitation films like X, The Man with the X-Ray Eyes 1963, Daughter of the Mind 1969,Frogs 1972. The 80s started to really slide into a kaleidoscope of cheap themes and shock value moments. It doesn’t detract from Milland’s contribution to film history, nor does it malign either his or Snogress’ depth of acting. Director George Edwards ( produced Frogs 1972 with Milland, Queen of Blood 1966, Games 1967, How Awful About Allan 1970, What’s the Matter with Helen? 1971, The Killing Kind 1973, Ruby 1977 – all these films with the exception of Frogs, Edwards worked with Curtis Harrington as the director.
You can see Harrington’s influence on The Attic as it represents a small enclosed family environment creates psychological demons, mental disturbances or what I call director Harrington’sThe Horror of Personality. Withmost of Harrington’s work the narrative is less centered around supernatural forces building it’s framework around the product of mental illness and the dysfunctional family trope acted out within closed in spaces, where relationships over time begin disintegrating, with acts of cruelty, despair, loneliness, fear and repression- the family then, becomes the monster…
“…Some will be crowned, others will lose their heads”
This is one of the earliest masked killer slasher movies where sexually active teenagers are being stalked on the night of their prom because they were responsible for the death of their classmate years ago. Prom Nightfeatures Scream QueenJamie Lee Curtis who set the trend for good girls or The Final Girltrope… you know- the one who survives because of their integrity, purity, and smarts! Also starring one of my favorites Leslie Nielsen and Antoinette Bower.
During her first semester at college co-ed Scotty Parker (Rebecca Balding) is one of several college students who rents a room from Mrs. Engels, the Junoesque Yvonne De Carlo. But there is something very strange going on at this seaside mansion/boarding house–even murder! Mrs.Engels lives at the mansion with her weird neurotic son Mason (Brad Rearden) Scotty is joined by Steve Doubet (Jack Towne), Peter Ransom (John Widelock), and Doris Prichart (Juli Andelman). When Widelock is stabbed to death out on the beach, Police Lt. Sandy McGiver (Cameron Mitchell) investigates and uncovers the family secret. Silent Scream is a more eerie and less typical 80s slasher flick, perhaps it’s due to the weight of the strong cast that inhabits their roles, in what might be a predictable script still possesses that ability to convey the dread in a quietly stylish manner. Co-Produced by Joan Harris
Silent Scream has a claustrophobic melancholic atmosphere instead of utilizing gore it relies more on its Gothic gloomy sensibility, a sense of creepy voyeuristic camera work that makes you feel uncomfortable.
Two names -All you need to know to see this eerie obscure 80s gem Yvonne De Carlo as Mrs. Engels and Barbara Steele as Victoria Engels.
Director Wes Craven delves into American rural Gothic horror
After her husband Jim, an ex-Hittite (Doug Barr) has been shunned by his people for having moved away, and marrying an outside. One night after they’ve moved back near the neighboring sect, Jim goes outside to find the word Incubus painted on their barn and then is mysteriously crushed to death by his tractor. A series of grisly murders ensue mostly in broad daylight, as Jim’s widow Martha Schmidt (Maren Jensen) feels increasingly threatened by the sinister neighboring religious community led by the enigmatic Isaiah Schmidt (Ernest Borgnine) who seems to be fanatically obsessed with the idea that Martha is an ‘incubus’ and must be dealt with fire and brimstone!
Deadly Blessing also plants a figure of a dated trope–the ambiguous gender & sexuality of one of the characters. That trope stems from a time when gay or transgendered characters were represented as obsessive, neurotic & at times, dangerous. I don’t endorse this weak and disparaging area of the plot, yet I allow myself to experience Wes Craven’s provocative film as a slice of horror history from a decade that hadn’t gotten it quite right yet. Where the film could have taken a bold step in expanding on this subplot instead it is fueled by subversive incitement.
Craven’s film ultimately relies on the supernatural subtext that is fueling the horror and leaves the other theme to hang out there on its own to be (justifiably to some)- offensive. Too many films with gender-fluid characters in past films were represented by psychos, deviants, and killers.
Deadly Blessingsco-stars a young Sharon Stone, popular 70s actress (and one of my favorites) Lois Nettleton, Susan Buckner, Lisa Hartman, and familiar Craven regular Michael Berryman. Directed by Wes Craven
Some IMDb Trivia
Sharon Stone’s first big speaking role in a theatrical feature.
The name of the isolated rural farm where the farmers and Hittites lived and worked was “Our Blessing”.
Wes Craven compared his work with actor Ernest Borgnine to John Carpenter’s work with Donald Pleasance in the original “Halloween”. He states that Borgnine was the first “big name actor” he had worked with and was at first intimidated by the actor.
Ernest Borgnine had to be taken to the hospital to be treated for a head injury following a mishap involving a horse and buggy. Moreover, Borgnine returned to the set to continue acting in the film three days later.
Actor Ernest Borgnine, who had won a Best Actor Academy Award for Marty (1955), which also was Borgnine’s only ever Oscar nomination, was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor for Deadly Blessing (1981), but lost out on the Razzie to Steve Forrest for Mommie Dearest (1981).
“The dreams. The nightmares. The desires. The fears. The mystery. The revelation. The warning: He is the destroyer”
WARNING: Though not overtly graphic Incubus is suggestive of rape. For anyone who might be triggered by sexual violence in film, I would advise you to skip this portion of the post and/or the film entirely!
Back in the day when I read a lot of horror fiction, I have a vague recollection of Ray Russell’s (Mr. Sardonicus 1961, Premature Burial 1962, X-The Man With The X-Ray Eyes 1963), novel knocking me out with its supernatural mythology and its brutality. Of course, when it was adapted to the screen in 1982 directed by John Hough (The Legend of Hell House 1973, Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry 1974, The Watcher in the Woods 1980, American Gothic 1987) you know I was there with my milk duds, raisinets, popcorn and a large icy cup of Pepsi expecting something powerful and Incubus collided with the accepted one-gendered fiend that I had grown up seeing within the constraints of a fairly “cultural conservative” as Carol Clover puts it, driven classical horror industry, stories like werewolves, vampires, mummies, phantoms and mad doctors turned into vile fiends.
As Carol Clover states in her Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film-“stories that stem from the one-sex era, and for all their updating, they still carry with them, to a greater or lesser degree, a premodern sense of sexual difference…}…{and some people are impossible to tell apart (the figure in God Told Me To who is genitally ambiguous -the doctor did not know what sex to assign, the pubescent girl in Sleepaway Camp who turns out to be a boy, the rapist in The Incubus whose ejaculate consists of equal parts of semen and menstrual blood.”
Incubus is a supernatural film that sneaks into the 80s but carries with it the demonology sensibility of the early-mid 1970s, The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976). Adapted from Ray Russell’s disquieting novel about a demon with a dangerously sized phallus who can incarnate in human form, committing several savage sexual assaults and murders in the small California town of Galen. John Cassavetes plays Dr. Sam Cordell who examines the survivor of one of the assaults and is disturbed by the violence of the attack, learning that her uterus has been ruptured. When the local librarian is killed, John Ireland is his usual brackish self this time playing Sheriff Hank Walden, and team up believing that these brutal attacks are the work of only one perpetrator and not a gang. Kerrie Keane plays a reporter Laura Kincaid who insinuates herself into the investigation and begins an affair with Sam. Erin Flannery plays Sam’s young teenage daughter Jenny who is dating Tim Galen (Duncan McIntosh) who has nightmarish visions of the attacks while he is in a sleeping state. His Grandmother Agatha (Helen Hughes -Storm of the Century 1999 tele-series) tries to convince her Grandson that he is not responsible for these horrible events, but she knows more than she is telling, about the arcane secret the town is hiding and the true history of the venerable family name of Galen.
A is for Apple B is for Bed C is for Co-ed D is for Dead F is for Failing to keep your Head!
Aka known as Terror Eyes
Night School has an unnerving tone, an almost oppressive atmosphere that looms over the film. The 80s was fertile for the slasher films that were popping up in variations of the same narrative, using different methods of death as the centerpiece to highlight the story. In this film, a mysterious killer is decapitating students at a night school for women. I won’t reveal the killer, but I will say that there is misogyny afoot. Originally picked to direct was Alfred Sole, best known for his phenomenal psychological horror masterpiece Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) which would have most definitely improved on the depressing aura the film gives off. Directed by Ken Hughes who wrote the screenplays for The Trials of Oscar Wilde 1960 and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 1968. His direction was superior in the dark and dogged Wicked As They Come 1956 starring Arlene Dahl and Phillip Carey.
Night Schoolstars Rachel Ward, Leonard Mann, and Drew Snyder.
“They’re out… for blood! Don’t let them find you!”
Along in the Dark is a highly charged psycho thriller that wants to be a black comedy. The inmates let loose upon an unsuspecting town and mayhem ensues when they target the home of Pleasance’s (Dr. Leo Bain) therapist Dr. Dan Potter (Dwight Schultz) psychiatrist. During a statewide blackout, a group of 3 particularly nasty homicidal maniacs get free from their maximum security ward at the mental Institution and set out on an adventure. Alone in the Dark opens with Donald Pleasance as a short-order cook who has gone berserk and wielding a meat cleaver.Martin Landau is splendid as crazed Byron ‘Preacher’ Sutcliff who likes to set things on fire. Then there’s Erland Van Lidth (from The Wanderers 1979) as a sex maniac Ronald “fatty” Elster with a penchant for younger kids. The best psycho next to Landau, is Jack Palance. The Special Effects are by Tom Savini.
Alone in the Dark is a frenetic ride and you must watch out for the scene when Preacher insists he wants the mailman’s on the bicycle’s hat!
An anthology that tells five terrifying tales based on the E.C. horror comic books of the 1950s. Directed by George A. Romero, with the original screenplay by Stephen King. Stars include Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, Leslie Nielsen, Carrie Nye, E.G. Marshall, Viveca Lindfors, Ed Harris, Ted Danson, Stephen King,
After the failure of Halloween II (1978) to excite people at the box office, John Carpenter decided to put a different twist on the creepy goings on for Halloween III (1983)and adapt a script from Nigel Kneale who wrote the Quartermass series, who removed his name from the credits, leaving Tommy Lee Wallace as the writer. I do not hate this film in the way that other fans do. I rather like the odd and malevolent tone of the film, like a dark Halloween fairy tale journey. The idea, children all over America can not wait to get their hands on 3 frightfully popular offerings of rubber masks for Halloween. The jingle for the TV ad alone is enough to send suspicious shivers up a more discerning eye. There is a plot run by an old Druid toy-maker (Dan O’Herlihy) who is perfectly menacing and wants to actually harm the children once they wear the deadly masks, in order to bring back the olden days of black witchcraft and magic. There’s also a sense of a vengeful bitter spirit in Conal Cochran (O’Herlihy) toward consumerism and the misguided exploitation of Halloween.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch also stars Tom Atkins and Stacey Nelkin.
This is British director Roger Christian’s first feature film he worked as assistant art director on the tense thriller And Soon the Darkness (1970)
The Sender works on so many levels, first of all, it stars an impressive cast of accomplished actors. The incredible Shirley Knight, and two very thoughtful actors from the 1980s- Kathryn Harrold, and Zelijko Ivanek.
From Kim Newman’sNightmare Movies talks about the trend that began with Brian DePalma’s Carrie (1976) “created a briefly popular horror movie sub-genre, the ‘Psichopath’ film. Damien Thorn and Carrie White, like Jim Hutton in Psychic Killer (1975), Alan Bates in The Shout (1978), Lisa Pelikan in Jennifer (1978) Robert Thompson in Patrick (1979) and Robert Powell in Harlequin (1979) are ‘Psichopaths’, seemingly ordinary individuals with hidden, awesome paranormal powers. The wish fulfillment fantasy element of the Psichopath film is obvious.The usual formula finds the Psichopath humiliated, abused and pushed beyond endurance, whereupon immense mental powers are unleashed in an orgy of mass destruction.”
I would also include Brian DePalma’s The Fury (1978) featuring Amy Irving who possesses the psycho-kinetic powers.
When The Sender (Ivanek) is sent to an Institution after a public suicide attempt, psychiatrist Kathryn Harrold as Gail Farmer realizes that he possesses the ability to channel his frightening and often volatile visions to receptive people on the psyche ward. There are truly enigmatic hallucinatory segments of the film which create real apprehension and shivers. In one particular scene where they are juicing Ivanek with electro-shock therapy, his mental waves send a storm of havoc through his personal pain. In the midst of this theme there lies an even dark more disturbing element to the story. There are ghostly visitations from his creepy mother played by the amazing Shirley Knight as Jerolyn. She would make a formidable more temperate yet sinister sister of Carrie White’s hellacious mother -Piper Laurie!
I have followed Shirley Knight’s underrated and outstanding career from her divine performance as Polly in Sidney Lumet’s The Group (1966), the tv series Naked City 1962, The Eleventh Hour 1963, as the gently Noelle Anderson in The Outer Limits 1963 episode The Man Who Was Never Born co-starring Martin Landau. The Defenders 1964, The Fugitive 1964-66, Petulia 1968, The Rain People 1969, The Bold Ones, Circle of Fear, Streets of San Fransisco 1973, Medical Center, Marcus Welby, M.D, Murder, She Wrote, Law & Order 1991 and more… The gravity of each of Knight’s performances has a quality that draws you into her orbit –experiencing her as genuine and engaging. Even as the wraith-like mother figure who comes calling on her son- The Sender, Knight makes you believe in the low-key, spine-chilling moments on screen. She is the catalyst for The Sender’s secret dilemma.
At times The Sender sends its universe into mayhem, at other times it’s a very creepy, restrained atmospheric horror story that is perhaps one of the best films of the 1980s.
The one impression I took away from Curtains is the iconic sinister hag mask that the killer wears and the scythe or sickle they wield as they creepily skated across the small pond. It’s the kind of moment from a moment that stays in the brain forever!
This stylish Canadian horror film is directed by cinematographer Richard Ciupka (Atlantic City 1980) Curtains stars John Vernon as the typically caustic alpha male Jonathan Stryker director and British Scream Queen Samantha Eggar (The Collector 1965, Doctor Doolittle 1967, The Dead Are Alive 1972, A Name For Evil 1973, All The Kind Strangers 1974, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution 1976, The Brood 1979) who plays Samantha Sherwood an actress who has always gotten top billing in Stryker’s works and in his bed. Samantha believes she is getting the role of a lifetime, the chance to play ‘Audra’ in his next film. Stryker insists that Samantha inhabits the role, to bring out the realism of Audra’s character by having herself committed to an asylum as background research. (It seems Audra was a psychiatric patient.) Stryker is a sadist and leaves Samantha in the hospital for an indeterminate amount of time, while he auditions other young actresses- each who has their own motivations for desperately wanting the part.
Samantha escapes her confinement and goes back to the menacing old mountain cabin during a snowstorm, where Stryker is putting the various women through their acting trials.
Interesting that the character of Samantha in studying the mindset of a mentally ill woman, becomes too well aware of insanity during her own ordeal. The film does a particularly effective job of projecting the intensity that actors experience when trying to lose themselves in a role, keeping their footing in reality.
At the center of this interesting chamber piece is the psychopath in a nightmarish old hag mask who begins killing off the women!
According to Mark Allan Gunnells in his essay in Hidden Horror edited by Aaron Christensen-Curtains took 3 years to make it to it’s release due to reshoots and rewrites. “It is suggested that a lot of the problems stemmed from producer Peter Simpson who, having produced the Jamie Lee Curtis vehicle Prom Night, wanted another straight forward horror flick. Director Richard Ciupka, on the other hand, chose to go against the established slasher grain, bringing more European sensibility to the production. The original screenplay even had a supernatural element, with a creature designed (but never used) by makeup legend Greg Cannom (…) As Gunnells points out about the films many chilling scenes, a few that stand out are the dream sequence with a creepy life size doll and the chase scene that involves a hiding place that winds up becoming a “deathtrap.”
This is Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl sayin’ See ya round the snack bar! Save me a big box of Raisinets!
Opening crawl: In Haiti, a corpse walks, as a Zombi! In primitive India, the dead return as animals! On certain Pacific Atolls, a warrior treacherously murdered, my turn into a tree! Or so it is said by the Shamans… Our story occurs on a savage island where a Prince is killed unjustly. The victim was buried upright in a hollow tree trunk. The legend says that “the tree walked to avenge its wrongs!”
On a South Seas island, Prince Kimo (Gregg Palmer) is purposefully accused of murdering the tribal chief in order to get him out of the way for Maranka to be crowned the new chief (Baynes Barron) with his conniving witch doctor Tano ( Robert Swan) controlling everything. Before Kimo is executed he vows revenge on those who have wronged him, including his treacherous wife Naomi (Tani Marsh) The Mad Doctor of Market Street 1942.
Kimo comes back as a tree monster Tabanga, the ancient spirit of vengeance who wreaks havoc on the island. Meanwhile, a group of American scientists Tod Andrewsas Dr. William Arnold and Tina Carver (Hell on Frisco Bay 1955, The Man Who Turned to Stone 1957), as Dr. Terry Mason who are not trusted by the tribe, are busy setting up their scientific research lab. They are studying the effects of atomic fallout and radiation and get caught up in the mayhem!
First, the Tabanga shows up at the sight of Kimo’s grave as a little stump in the dirt. Then as it begins to push out of the ground, the scientists dig him up and bring him back to the laboratory, where they discover the tree monster has a heartbeat!
The standout besides the great Tabanga himself is the always feisty presence of Linda Watkins as Mrs. Mae Kilgore.
Dr. Arnold:“Maybe we ought to ship it back to the States. It would make a greatscarecrow.”
Hey! Don’t get that sinking feeling, I’ll be back here soon! Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl
