The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 American silent horror film adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel of the same title directed by Rupert Julian. The film features Lon Chaney in the title role as the deformed Phantom, Erik, who haunts the Paris Opera House, causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to force the management to make the woman he loves a star. It is most famous for Lon Chaney’s intentionally horrific, self-applied make-up, which was kept a studio secret until the film’s premiere.

The film also features Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gibson Gowland, John St. Polis, and Snitz Edwards. It was adapted by Elliott J. Clawson, Frank M. McCormack (uncredited), Tom Reed (titles) and Raymond L. Schrock. It was directed by Rupert Julian, with supplemental direction by Lon Chaney, Edward Sedgwick and Ernst Laemmle.

The first filmed version of Gaston Leroux’s novel sticks relatively close to it’s source, though nit-pickers will find several rather subtle changes and a fairly significant one in regards to the ending. Regardless, the story is simple and effective; a shunned, disfigured outcast is driven to even greater madness in pursuit of his beloved, only to bring the wrath of Paris upon him in the sumptuous setting of the Paris Opera House and its environs. Chaney was already a huge star and more than a little savvy in spotting a sure-fire hit when it reared its head. Unattached to any studio, he swapped from MGM to Universal, having already worked for them successfully in 1923′s Hunchback Of Notre Dame.

The production was beset by problems from the start, to the extent that it would have been easy to give up on the project at a very early stage. Director, Rupert Julian, came with some history – he was previously an actor, having worked with Chaney in The Small Town Girl and The Kaiser, The Beast Of Berlin, playing villains with more than a little delight. He was notorious in how he humiliated and bullied actors on-set, very much the Klaus Kinski of his day. The film suffered endless re-writes, getting further and further away from the source, though never to detrimental effect. Julian’s on-set rantings meant that both Chaney and comedy director Edward Sedgwick, found themselves directing several scenes in his absence. Universal sank a staggering amount of money into the production of the film, $632,357, including $50,000 on re-shoots alone, when studio head, Carl Laemmle, ordered that several light-hearted scenes be scrapped and the original ending, seeing the Phantom dying of a broken heart, slumped on his beloved church organ, be rather more ‘exciting’. The resulting beating of The Phantom to death is something of an alarming surprise to the audience. The sets used, both above ground and in the Phantom’s lair in the catacombs of Paris, still look staggering. In the final sequence, showing Erik fleeing the Paris mob, the cathedral built for his own Hunchback of Notre Dame, can be seen. Sections of the film were shot using expensive early colour processes, few of which are still in existence. The most famous are those at the extravagant ball, the ”Bal Masqué”, where the Phantom appears skull-masked, and the most famous shot of all with Erik atop the opera house, red robes flowing around him – this shot was re-coloured by computer in 1996. The most famous aspect of the film is Chaney make-up, created, as always, by himself. The description discussed by characters, before he is unmasked in the film, is as follows: “His face is like leprous parchment, yellow skin, strung tight over protruding bones. The nose…there is no nose!” Ever the showman, Chaney went to great lengths to explain how he achieved the effect and then couldn’t stop himself from adding to it. By his own description, he inserted painful discs which clamped into his mouth, raising his cheekbones – this is unlikely, and is almost certainly an effect created by the use of mortician’s wax and collodion. What is confirmed are the methods in creating his skull-like visage and nose. Though some scenes utilise wire and tape, the more ingenious shots are brought to life by attaching translucent strips of fish skin to his nostrils and dragging them towards his forehead with spirit gum and firmly strapping the other end of the skin under his bald cap. Chaney inserted fish membrane into his eyes to give them a misty, deathly appearance. Chaney suffered, inevitably, with frequent nose bleeds but combined with make-up and accentuated gestures, the effect caused many early audience members to faint. Cinematographer, Charles Van Enger, recalled Chaney’s unveiling of his make-up causing him to stumble backwards in fright, a laughing Chaney accepting it as the only feedback he needed. The money Universal spent was repaid in spades – estimated takings were in the region of $2,000,000, with profits of well over $500,000. It was this film that convinced Universal of the enormous market for horror material and to invest the funds that eventually brought us Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman and so on.

The legacy of the film cannot be overstated. There have since been five remakes (1943, 1962, 1983, 1989, and 1990), numerous paeans, including British comedy The League of Gentlemen who adopted Chaney’s nose effects, a stage show and much more, all of which, ironically, draw far more from the film than from the original novel. It was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1998 as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” Despite this, the films exists as a hybrid, a mash-up of various prints, the original long lost (Universal’s official print is believed to be derived from a silent European version). The final twist is that Universal allowed their copyright of the film to slip in 1953, meaning that the film can be bought in many different unofficial versions under public domain guidelines.

The unmasking

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

‘Deadlier than Dracula! Wilder than the werewolf! More frightening than Frankenstein!’

The She Beast  - Italian title: La Sorella di Satana; British cinema release title: Revenge of the Blood Beast - is a 1966 British-Italian horror film. It was directed and co-scripted by Michael Reeves (as “Michael Byron”) who later made The Sorcerers and  Witchfinder General. American writer Charles B. Griffith (The Little Shop of Horrors), a frequent collaborator with Roger Corman, was 2nd unit director and provided some comedy scenes that were mostly deleted from the final edit.

This low budget film stars Barbara Steele, John Karlsen, Reeves’ school chum Ian Ogilvy (also in The Sorcerers and Witchfinder General), Jay Riley, Richard Watson, Ed Randolph, Peter Grippe, and Lucrezia Love (The Sexorcist). American actor and director Mel Welles (Maneater of Hydra) has a cameo role as Vladisvar Groper, a voyeuristic landlord.

In Britain, this twenty-one day quickie-shot horror homage was distributed as Revenge of the Blood Beast by Miracle Films, specialists at circulating European-lensed horror and sexploitation titles, but for US cinema release it went the rounds with Venice-set Italian mystery-thriller The Embalmer as The She Beast.

Although largely unseen for many years, renewed interest in Reeves’ short directorial career in the 1990s ensured that battered 16mm prints began to be circulated as VHS copies. These apparently public domain versions still pop up on the internet but their quality makes them painfully unwatchable. A restored widescreen version of the film was finally released on DVD in 2009 by Dark Sky Films with an audio commentary by producer Paul Maslansky (Race with the Devil) and stars Ogilvy and Steele.

A couple on their honeymoon in Transylvania crash their car into a lake. Her body is then possessed by the spirit of an 18th-century witch who was killed by local villagers, and is bent on avenging herself on them. The witch takes over the wife’s body and it’s up to her husband and a descendent of Van Helsing to save her.

Wikipedia | IMDb

Watch grubby print online if you can persevere:

Buy The She Beast on Dark Sky Films DVD with commentary and extras from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Offline reading:

Michael Reeves (British Film Directors) by Benjamin Halligan, Manchester University Press, 2003

Post by Adrian J. Smith

Embryo (1980s reissue title: Created to Kill) is a 1976 science fiction horror film produced by Sandy Howard (The Devil’s Rain) and directed by Ralph Nelson from a screenplay by Anita Doohan and Jack W. Thomas. It stars Rock Hudson, Barbara Carrera, Diane Ladd, Roddy McDowall and Anne Schedeen. The film is now in the public domain because of a missing copyright indication.

A scientist (Hudson) experiments on a fetus, accelerating its growth within weeks into a beautiful young woman (Carrera). The woman becomes his protégé – the lessons culminating one night in sex. But when she becomes pregnant, the woman begins to age rapidly. From there things go horribly wrong…

Wikipedia | IMDb

“What we have in Embryo is the science fiction equivalent of warning children to get home before dark, or they’ll be caught by the three-headed troll that lives under the bridge. The bewildering thing is that director Ralph Nelson and writers Anita Doohan and Jack Thomas seem actually to have believed in their own troll: the solemnity and self-importance with which the film’s central premise is treated renders the entire project not merely ludicrous, but infuriating.” And You Call Yourself a Scientist!

“Overall, would I recommend to you viewers to watch Embryo? Well, a few conditions apply. You need to like the seventies aesthetic, be tolerant of some clunky plot points – like why won’t Victoria tell Paul of her plight, he’s a scientist and surely could help her – and some clunky acting. Put those aside and you’ve got quite a touching, melancholy piece of medical science-fiction and horror that may leave you with quite a bit to think about. And that super-intelligent Doberman is really creepy.” Girls, Guns and Ghouls

“Ladd as Hudson’s jealous housekeeper helps generate the sexual tension that is essential and which Nelson only too quickly allows to dissipate in the second half of the film” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction, edited by Phil Hardy

Teaser trailer:

Whole film free online:

How Awful About Allan is a 1970 television film thriller, directed by Curtis Harrington, his second collaboration with writer Henry Farrell, and starring Anthony Perkins, Julie Harris, Joan Hackett and Kent Smith (Cat People, 1942). It premiered on the ABC Movie of the Week on September 22nd, 1970, and was produced by prolific television producer Aaron Spelling.

Allan (Perkins) is suffering from hysterical blindness following a fire that killed his university professor father and scarred his sister Katherine (Harris). Returning home after months in a hospital, Allan begins to hear his name being whispered and partially sees a dark figure coming to get him. Is he crazy or is someone really out to get him?

Wikipedia | IMDb

Download for free at Internet Archive [public domain]

“Things unfortunately fall apart a bit at the end, but the cat-and-mouse-through-a-frosted-windshield act is really delicious for a while. I wish that Allan had been a little nicer of a guy to start out with, but when you’ve got hot scenes of a blind man driving off in his ex-girlfriend’s car in a panic and causing mass chaos in the streets, you kind of overlook his bad attitude. The ending is definitely of the WTF? variety, but for the most part it feels similar in tone to other parlor movies of the time (like The House that Would Not Die). Not the best, maybe, but still a lot of fun — and Perkins and Harris make it easy to get through.” Camp Blood

“How Awful About Allan is technically quite well-made— especially for a TV movie— and both Anthony Perkins and Julie Harris give highly effective performances, but none of that can prevent the film from feeling like it’s misplaced its point somewhere.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“The script, meanwhile, is really a perfect mash-up of everything else Henry Farrell wrote; it’s got crazy siblings, dark old houses, unnerving flashbacks, and LOTS of name whispering (by the end of the movie, the name “Allan” will sound a lot like nails raking down a chalkboard).” Tower Farm Reviews

Buy Curtis Harrington’s Nice Guys Don’t Work in Hollywood memoirs from Amazon.com

Image courtesy of VHSCollector.com

The Sealed Room is an eleven minute film released in 1909. Directed by D.W. Griffith, the film’s cast included Arthur V. Johnson, Marion Leonard, Henry B. Walthall, Mary Pickford, and Mack Sennett. The film was also known as The Sealed Door. It is based on the combined writing talents of Edgar Allen Poe, Honoré de Balzac and the American screenwriter Frank E. Woods.

One of the first films made with a distinctly ghoulish theme, The Sealed Room is also one of the first films by the renowned director D.W. Griffith, best known for his controversial The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. Sticking to a template largely nicked from Poe’s tale The Cask of Amontillado (as well as de Balzac’s La Grande Bretèche),  find a 16th Century castle in which a rather foppish King (he could possibly be a Count but either way he’s played by Arthur V. Johnson, wearing a wig and eye make-up that suggest he failed the auditions to join Kiss) and his court gathered to the unveiling of a dovecote he has made for he and his beloved to spend private moments…doing private things. The lady in question (played by Marion Leonard), unbeknown to the King , has a wandering eye, and has the hots for court minstrel (Henry B. Walthall, later to appear in the lost classic London After Midnight), who is happy to reciprocate.

With the king’s back turned, the dodgy duo take no time at all to get cosy in the love nest, sadly making too much noise (probably the guitar playing) to remain undetected. The maddened king quickly decides that such a wicked deed requires an appropriate punishment  and instructs his men to seal the lovers in the room, undetected. When the canoodling ends, the pair soon learn they are trapped and after a quick round of ‘this is all your fault!’ die through lack of oxygen, whilst the king laughs on the other side of the wall.

With a static camera for the scenes showing the various members of the castle’s staff residents, it’s fun to see twenty people frantically trying to squeeze themselves into shot. Those afraid of overly melodramatic acting should take medication well in advance of watching, there is more hanky-waving and flouncing here to fell a hippo. Beyond the make-up and outfits, there really aren’t any laughs here, the ending being rather alarmingly down-beat, though you can’t argue that the masons did a terrific job sealing the room in such a short time, you can’t buy workmanship like that nowadays. Johnson steals the show, by turns hilarious and sinister. Also along for the ride as background characters are Mary Pickford who enjoyed a terrifically long career as an actress and was one of the biggest stars of the silent era. She later went on to form production company United Artists, along with Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.

Daz Lawrence

Image courtesy of Wrong Side of the Art

The Ghost of Slumber Mountain is a 1918 film, written and directed by special effects pioneer Willis O’Brien, produced by Herbert M. Dawley, and starred both men; Dawley played Uncle Jack Holmes, while O’Brien played the ghost of Mad Dick the Hermit. Although most of the film itself is lost, it is often cited as a trial run for The Lost World. It was a box office hit, grossing over $100,000 on a $3,000 budget

Most of the plot is unknown; The Ghost of Slumber Mountain originally took up 3000 feet of film, equivalent to approximately 30 minutes, but Dawley cut it to only 11 minutes for unknown reasons. A restored version runs approximately 19 minutes.

In the version available today, Holmes (Dawley) is telling his nephews about an adventure he had in the woodlands around Slumber Mountain, near the Valley of Dreams. He found the cabin belonging to the late hermit Mad Dick, who Holmes’s friend Joe once saw carrying a strange telescope-like instrument.

That night, Holmes investigated the cabin and found the instrument. Upon doing so, the ghost of Mad Dick (O’Brien) instructs him to use it to look on the peak of Slumber Mountain. When he does, he seemingly looks back into the past, seeing a Tyrannosaurus and a Triceratops doing battle. The Tyrannosaurus proves triumphant, and after killing the Triceratops, somehow breaks the time barrier (unless the instrument had done that itself) and begins chasing Holmes.

But it was all just a dream…

Wikipedia | IMDb

Public information films are a series of British government commissioned short films, shown during television advertising breaks. The US equivalent is the public service announcement (PSAs). The films are intended to advise the general public on what to do in a multitude of situations ranging from crossing the road to surviving a nuclear attack and often show the risks of breaching health and safety regulations by graphically depicting the potentially tragic outcomes of doing so. Public information films reached their dizzying heights in the 1970′s when film-makers pulled out all the stops to scare the British public half to death.

Though they first appeared during the Second World War to impart life-saving information and generally gee up the population, by the 1970′s they had homed in on very specific subjects the Government wanted to educate people on the risks of, from rabies, to swimming in public places to playing near electricity pylons. Though they only lasted 1-2 minutes, they were startling brutal in their presentation, designed to shock the public into using common sense rather than perpetuate bad habits or ape other’s actions. Below are some of the most notorious, imprinted in the minds of many who lived through the 70′s and 80′s.

Charley Says

Young catastrophe magnet, Tony appeared on television throughout the 1970′s and early 80′s in (badly) animated form with the voice of reason, a ginger cat called Charley. Helping him through various scrapes, Charley would dive in at the 11th hour to save Tony from whatever predicament he had found himself in, whether he was about to strike a match, for a lark, or go off with a stranger to look at some puppies. Occasionally, the outcome was less agreeable for Charley, who, for example, found himself wearing a teapot after warning against the dangers of burns and scolds from hot water. The cartoons were animated by Richard Taylor Cartoons who also produced to 70′s kid’s favourite Crystal Tipps and Alistair. Charley spoke in unintelligible meiows and squawks which only Tony understood – Charley’s voice was that of DJ and TV comedian, Kenny Everett (Bloodbath at the House of Death). The six broadcast films were:

1. Charley – Falling in the Water
2. Charley – In The Kitchen
3. Charley – Matches
4. Charley – Mummy Should Know
5. Charley’s Tea Party
6. Charley – Strangers

Protect and Survive

So keenly felt was the Cold War period in Britain during the 1970′s, that public information films were created to essentially not tell the public what might happen but more what they should do after it does happen. These films were especially bleak and instructed the audience as to how to shield themselves from the initial blast as well as more humdrum activities such as how to safely dispose of dead relatives. Ironically, they were also animated by Richard Taylor Cartoons who must have enjoyed a sparkling office atmosphere. They were designed to be broadcast only after a nuclear attack had happened or was imminent, though they found their way onto television through documentaries and discussion programmes. They were narrated by noted voice actor, Patrick Allen, who can also been seen in many films, from Captain Clegg, Dial M For Murder to When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. Some of the films appeared during the British TV classic, Threads, which imagined what would happen if a bomb were to fall on Sheffield. The films ended with perhaps the most terrifying sound ever created and should have come with a warning in its own right.

Apaches

Notorious for being one of the most graphic and disturbing of all the public information films, Apaches was made in 1977 and lasted a full 27 minutes in its complete form. Proving that no subject was too obtuse, Apaches warned of the dangers of children playing on farms and portrayed the various hazards through the eyes of a group of young children, innocently playing cowboys and Indians on farmland. One-by-one, each child comes a-cropper, to tractor trailers, farm equipment and noxious chemicals. The most unlikely is, perhaps, drowning in a slurry pit, though it’s pleasingly enacted.

After each child meets heir doom (scream followed by a pool of blood/broken toy) we see the aftermath, subtly shown by an empty coat hook or desk being cleared at their school. The young girl foolishly drinking chemicals (“You’re meant to mime!” – “I forgot”) is harrowing stuff, the blood-curdling screams as the poison kicks in a lesson to horror film-makers as to how to really chill an audience. As the penultimate child, Danny, meets his end after driving a tractor off a ravine, he narrates his own funeral, disappointed to be missing out on the ‘nice party’. The film ends with a list of children killed on farms that year. Director, John Mackenzie, also directed the excellent David Hemmings film Unman, Wittering and Zigo and went on to direct the gangland crime classic, The Long Good Friday.

Lonely Water (aka The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water)

Lonely Water is perhaps the best known and almost forgets itself in the hurry to warn children against playing in public waterways and turns into one of the classics of 1970′s British horror. Lonely Water was produced by Illustra Films and directed by Jeff Grant, having been commissioned by the COI as a result of official concern over the high number of child fatalities in drowning accidents in the UK. Lonely Water was filmed over two days a few miles north of London. Over a dream-like, mist filled 90 seconds on watery wasteland, a grim reaper voiced by the horror legend Donald Pleasence, warns children of the dangers of the murky depths. The Bergman-esque cowled Death ominously stalks the children (“I am the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water, ready to trap the unwary, the show-off, the fool, and this is the kind of place you’d expect to find me”). Like many of the PIF’s of this period, the silence is often deafening and lends true reality to the rather Grimm’s fairytale set-up. Donald is rumbled, Dracula-like by clever youngsters (“Sensible children! I have no power over them!”) though the threat is a real one and morphs into a sinister promise ((“I’ll be back-back-back…!”)

Initial difficulties with the filming included getting the smoke to drift in the right direction, constructing a wooden platform for the spirit to stand on, and the noise of aircraft flying overhead due to the shooting location being close to Heathrow Airport. Planes can be heard in the tracking shot of the rusted cars and cookers, which were brought in specially for the filming.

Was life really so fraught with danger? Did people really hang so much shopping on the front of prams that they overbalanced, catapulting the infant within face-first into a mass of broken glass? Were frisbees flying onto electricity pylons on a daily basis? Presumably so, there were at least two adverts warning against the perils of both walking and standing still…

It’s a wonder any of us got out of the 1970′s alive.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

50 Scariest British Public Information Films [WARNING: Contains scary paedophile Jimmy Savile]

The Thirsty Dead (also released on VHS as Blood Hunt) is a 1974 US/Filipino horror film co-produced (uncredited) and directed by TV actor Terry Becker from a story he concocted with Lou Whitehill (Wonder Women). It stars Jennifer Billingsley,  John Considine, Judith McConnell (The Brotherhood of Satan), Tani Guthrie (Daughters of Satan), Fredricka Meyers and ubiquitous Filipino horror actor Vic Diaz (Beast of the Yellow Night). In the US, the film was PG-rated and double-billed with The House of Seven Corpses. It is available as part of many public domain DVD packages.

In the space of a month, seven young women are kidnapped in Manila by members of a  death cult that needs their blood to remain immortal. The women are being transported to a remote idyll, in order to be sacrificed for their blood so that the cult members can maintain their eternal youth. Once there, they bicker amongst themselves, debate their fate and try to escape…

IMDb

‘The lack of gore and nudity doesn’t really matter, as all the women are likeable and interesting and the film, even when nothing is happening, is quite fun and enjoyable to watch, reminiscent of a kitschy color version of an old Republic serial. The makeup job on the aging Baru is very good, I loved the insane old women running amuck, and somehow the film kept me interested during the entire running time, which is hard for such tame horror outings of the 70s to do. But the film keeps its toes firmly planted in the bizarre enough to make it a captivating watch. A firm thumbs up!’ Casey Scott, DVD Drive-In

‘And that’s the whole problem with the movie: there’s no tension or danger. Our four kidnapped heroines never really seem upset with their predicament (one almost seems to welcome it), and the cult doesn’t “make an example” and kill one of them early on in order to raise the stakes.’ Horror Movie a Day

‘The people are all garbed in simple, pastel-coloured dresses and smocks – though Baru also has a pale blue cloak with a huge stand-up collar – and with the extensive use of hopelessly unrealistic cave sets, the whole film consequently looks alarmingly like a 1960s Star Trek episode.’ M. J. Simpson

From the second half of the 1950s to the mid 1970s, Hammer Films ruled supreme as Britain’s masters of horror. But the company was not unrivalled, as several other producers sought to cash in on the horror boom. Some, like Planet Productions, came and went quickly; others, like Tigon, dabbled with horror as a part of their wider production slate. But one company stayed the course, building a reputation that might not have rivalled Hammer’s, but which ensured them a cult following that survives to this day. That company was Amicus.

Amicus was formed by American producer Milton Subotsky, who moved to the UK in 1959 after distributing films to US television for ten years. His US based partner, Max J. Rosenberg, was the man who would find the money, while Subotsky was in charge of the ‘artistic’ side – getting the films made.

The pair first dabbled in horror in the mid-Fifties, and could claim to have kick-started the Hammer cycle, as they submitted an idea for a new Frankenstein film to Associated Artists Productions, who in turn passed it on to Hammer. While the Subotsky/Rosenberg screenplay, entitled Frankenstein and the Monster, was considered too short and too derivative to be filmed, the pair were paid off and the experience – not to mention the huge success that Hammer subsequently had with The Curse of Frankenstein – set them on the road to fifteen years of horror and fantasy production.

The first Amicus film actually predates the company. The City of the Dead, better known as Horror Hotel, was made before Subotsky settled on the Amicus (meaning “friendly”) name and the film is credited to Vulcan Films. Made just prior to Psycho, this occult thriller is notable for killing off the heroine midway through the story – much as Hitchcock would do later the same year with Janet Leigh.

An effective shocker, City of the Dead holds up surprisingly well today (and thanks to its public domain status, is pretty easy to see). The crisp black and white photography and the almost Wicker Man approach to the subject matter make it stand out as a quality film. It also sees a early non-Hammer British horror appearance from Christopher Lee. Lee, along with Peter Cushing, would become as much regulars for Amicus as they were for Hammer during the 1960s and early 70s.

The next four Amicus films were of a very different strain – It’s Trad, Dad (aka Ring-A-Ding Rhythm – Subotsky’s favourite of his films!), Just for Fun, Girl of the Night and Lad: A Dog (a ‘touching’ tale of a disabled boy and his pet) were mostly forgettable youth and family films. There was little to suggest that City of the Dead had been anything more than a one-off.

Subotsky was a vocal advocate of ‘family entertainment’ throughout his career – something that would have an increasing effect on his approach to horror and fantasy as time went on – and he seemed an unlikely person to create a studio that would rival Hammer, who had eagerly embraced the ‘X’ certificate and were willing to push it as far as they could. But Subotsky was first and foremost a businessman, and he knew that horror would sell.

In 1964, Amicus returned to the genre with a film that set the scene for a decade of horror. Dr Terror’s House of Horrors took its title from an obscure 1940s film and its format from the classic Dead of Night (1945). Consisting of a series of short stories, linked together by Peter Cushing as a sinister tarot card reading doctor who predicts death for all his travelling companions during a train journey. The film set the tone for much of the subsequent Amicus output – over the ensuing years, Subotsky made the portmanteau film his trademark. While Hammer concentrated on the gothic, Subotsky mostly kept his films firmly set in the modern day, and had a particular affinity for the anthology (he was once quoted as saying he liked the format because it didn’t give the audience time to get bored!). It also allowed him to boast surprisingly starry casts, as it was cheap and easy to hire big name actors for a few days work on a short story.

Dr Terror is, in fact, a rather mixed bag – some stories (such as the vampire tale with Donald Sutherland) work well; others just drag or seem silly. But the film was a box office success and set Amicus on the fantastique road. In fact, they rarely made anything outside the genre from that point on. The company never reached the production levels of Hammer (who were making several films a year, across a variety of genres, at their peak) and for the most part stuck with what they knew would sell.

In 1965, for instance, apart from the compilation film The World of Abbott and Costello, all four Amicus productions were horror or science fiction. Best remembered of the films is Dr Who and the Daleks, a popular reinterpretation of the BBC series with Peter Cushing in the title role. The film deviated considerably from the TV series format, but was successful enough to spawn a sequel the next year, Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD. This film was less successful (possibly because the audiences flocking to the first film were rather disappointed with the changes made) and plans for a third film were shelved. Interestingly, for contractual reasons, both films were credited to ‘Aaru Films’.

The other 1965 films were the obscure thriller The Psychopath, The Deadly Bees (which is as dull as every other bee film) and The Skull, an ambitious but plodding adaptation of Robert Bloch’s short story The Skull of the Marquis de Sade. Poor as the film was, it did mark the beginning of a long relationship between Bloch and Amicus. This was consolidated in 1966 when he supplied the source material for the second Amicus anthology, Torture Garden.

Torture Garden

Not to be confused with Octave Mirbeau’s erotic classic of the same name (the title is, in fact, nonsensical and has nothing to do with the film), this turned out to be another uneven collection, despite having some excellent short stories as inspiration. Directed by Freddie Francis (who would become a regular for Amicus), only the story The Man Who Collected Poe, with a twitchy Jack Palance, came close to matching the original Bloch story.

Also in 1966 came two science fiction films. The Terrornauts, directed by Montgomery Tully, was a pretty awful children’s film, while Freddie Francis made the slightly better They Came from Beyond Space, a paranoid tale of invading aliens and mind control. Science fiction, it seemed, was not something Amicus excelled at, lacking the budget and the ideas to make it work. However, it did fit with Subotsky’s wish to make family films.

A couple of lean years followed. 1967′s sole Amicus film was forgotten thriller Danger Route while 1968 saw Thank You Very Much, a kitchen sink drama, and an attempt to move upmarket with an adaptation of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party. None of these films made much impact. 1969 saw the intellectual science fiction drama The Mind of Mr Soames and, more significantly, Scream and Scream Again.

It perhaps shows how out of touch Subotsky had become by this time with audience – and genre fan – tastes that he had a dislike of the film. Interviewed by Cinefantastique in 1973, he commented “strangely enough, Scream and Scream Again made a lot of money and that was different from any film we’ve ever done. I don’t know why, it wasn’t all that good. It might have been because we used three top horror stars and it had a very good title.”

Or perhaps it’s because it spoke to modern audiences in a way that the increasingly old-fashioned Amicus horror films that followed didn’t. One imagines a company like AIP would have noted the success of the film and reacted accordingly. Amicus, unfortunately, blithely ignored it and went back to their safe formula.

The House That Dripped Blood

1970 saw The House That Dripped Blood, a decent anthology film again based on Bloch stories. It was more successful than Torture Garden, and even the token comedy story (The Cloak, starring Jon Pertwee and Ingrid Pitt) worked. Less successful was I, Monster, directed by Stephen Weeks – a young filmmaker with a unique vision that often made his films hard work. Putting an pseudo-arthouse director in charge of an adaptation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for a commercial filmmaker like Subotsky was always going to be problematic. Shooting it in a new, experimental form of 3D was utter madness.

I, Monster

Opinions differ on what exactly went wrong. Subotsky cheerfully blamed it on Weeks’ ‘inexperience’; Weeks says it was non-starter from day one. It was certainly Subotsky who insisted on the 3D format (which turned out to not work) – he had something of a fixation with the format, announcing several 3D movies in the 1970s, none of which were made. Even if the 3D had been successful, it’s hard to see how it would have saved this stilted, talky film.

1971 saw the acclaimed and very un-Amicus psycho thriller What Became of Jack and Jill, an unpleasant tale of granny killing that fits well with other British twisted tales of the era (Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly, Goodbye Gemini, Straight On Till Morning), as well as the more traditional Amicus anthology Tales from the Crypt.

Tales from the Crypt

Taken from the EDC comic books, this compendium proved to be the biggest Amicus horror hit and might be the best of the series. More or less all the stories work, and while the film doesn’t have the gleeful black humour of the original stories, it is nevertheless ghoulish fun. A sequel was inevitable, and The Vault of Horror, unfortunately not nearly as good, appeared a year later.

The Vault of Horror

Also in 1972 came Asylum, again based on Robert Bloch stories. Two anthologies in one year? I’m afraid so, and Asylum suffered from weak material – presumably, the best (or at least most movie-friendly) Bloch stories had been used up, and this was very uneven.

Asylum

In 1973, Amicus strayed into hammer territory with the period piece And Now the Screaming Starts. It wasn’t the best timing – Hammer themselves were struggling to sell their gothic horrors by this point, and this rather plodding Amicus imitation didn’t do well. The same year saw the final anthology, From Beyond the Grave. Hailed by some as the best of the series, it benefited from above average stories by R. Chetwynd Hayes, a witty linking performance from Peter Cushing and fresh direction by Kevin Connor.

The final Amicus horror film was the eccentric The Beast Must Die in 1974. You have the credit Subotsky for taking a chance on this inadvertently hilarious film, which has Calvin Lockhart as a latex suit-wearing big game hunter who invites a group of people to his country estate, believing one of them to be a werewolf. A mix of murder mystery, horror and The Most Dangerous Game, the film includes the infamous Werewolf Break, where audiences were supposed to shout out who they think the werewolf is. There are no records to show what audiences ACTUALLY shouted…

The Beast Must Die

Curiously, Amicus had their biggest hit at a time when the British film industry in general seemed on its last legs. In 1975, they made the prehistoric romp The Land That Time Forgot, which was a huge box office success. Horror was suddenly out – not only were giant monster films making more money, but they also fitted in with Subotsky’s own wish to make wholesome films for kids to enjoy. It was followed in 1976 with another Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation, At the Earth’s Core, which proved to be another popular success.

Unfortunately, the relationship between Subotsky and partner Rosenberg was becoming increasingly strained, and in 1977 the business was dissolved. Although The People That Time Forgot was in development at the time, it would eventually be credited to AIP. Rosenberg, never high profile to begin with, continued in distribution and production, often uncredited (among his executive producer credits are The Incredible Melting Man, Bloody Birthday, Cat People and Perdita Durango). Subotsky, not a great money man, was left floundering. He finally teamed up with Andrew Donally to form Sword and Sorcery Productions.

In the mid-Seventies, Subotsky had toyed with the idea of filming Robert E Howard’s Conan stories, but finding them too violent, instead went for Lin carter’s Conan knock-off Thongor. Subotsky planned a major action epic, family friendly of course, with little dialogue, lots of stop motion effects and Dave Prowse in the title role. Harley Cockliss was brought in as director and the search for financing began. AIP showed interest but wanted to make changes. Subotsky declined, fearing that they wanted to turn it into an R-rated movie. Eventually, United Artists agreed to back the film and gave S&S development money. Storyboards and monsters were designed and Thongor in the Valley of the Demons was scheduled for production in 1980. Six weeks after announcing the film, UA dropped the project, possibly because all their money was being gobbled up by Heaven’s Gate.

The Uncanny

Other films that failed to get off the ground included comic book adaptations The Incredible Hulk, Creepy and Eerie and science fiction epic The Micronauts. Then Sword and Sorcery finally did get a film into production, it was a return to what Subotsky knew best – a three story anthology about killer cats called The Uncanny. This was followed by lacklustre psychological thriller Dominique, like its predecessor a Canadian-UK co-production. Neither film was a success.

By 1980, Subotsky was in something of a quandary. Having poured most of his time and money into the now defunct Thongor, he’d also spent his remaining financial resources buying the rights to six of Stephen King’s short stories. He needed to make a film, and soon.

Now, you might wonder why, having bought the rights at a time when the author was at his cinematic hottest (with The Shining and hit mini series Salem’s Lot), Subotsky didn’t make a King movie. Instead, he dusted off an old screenplay and set about making his grandest folly, The Monster Club.

Like From Beyond the Grave, the film was based on short stories by R. Chetwynd Hayes. But unlike that film, The Monster Club became a textbook example of How Not To Make a Horror Film. Again, part of the problem was Subotsky’s fixation on family entertainment. As far back as The House That Dripped Blood, he’d wanted to make a film that kids could see (in Britain; in America, these films were routinely rated PG anyway). He’d complained bitterly that the BBFC had rated that film ‘A’, only to change it to ‘X’ on the insistence of the distributor. Condemning sex scenes as ‘boring’ and expressing a dislike of ‘gratuitous’ violence, he was now determined to make a horror film for all the family. The only problem was that this was 1980. A Fangoria generation was fixated on Dawn of the Dead, Phantasm and Friday the 13th and were just gaining access to those films – and stronger – through home video. Kids didn’t want to see a horror film aimed at them. And if the kids weren’t interested, adults definitely weren’t.

Worse still, the film was incredibly dated and pitifully under-budgeted. I remember sitting in my local cinema watching this film as the audience hooted, howled and yelled abuse at the awful monster masks, the tired direction by Roy Ward Baker and the terrible rock bands that Subotsky though would add youth appeal (B.A. Robertson? The Pretty Things?). In the year that audiences were flocking to violent slasher films, Subotsky was still thinking that Vincent Price and joke shop level werewolf masks were the way to go. Rarely has a film been so spectacularly out of step with reality. The film bombed, failing to even secure US distribution, and plans for a sequel (Monsters and Meanies, would you believe!) were quickly abandoned.

Subotsky’s career was pretty much over. He did co-produce the TV mini series The Martian Chronicles, and in later years had credits on Cat’s Eye and The Lawnmower Man – that shrew investment in Stephen King stories at least paid off to that level. He died in 1991. Rosenberg died in 2004.

Amicus never achieved the popularity or reputation of Hammer, and truth be told, their films rarely equalled those of their great rival. But the company did produce a handful of entertaining, sometimes excellent, sometimes terrible movies and they deserves to be remembered with a mix of affection and frustration.

David Flint, Horrorpedia

Horror (aka The Blancheville Monster) is a 1963 Italian/Spanish horror film directed by Alberto De Martino from a screenplay by Bruno and Sergio Corbucci, Giovanni Grimaldi based upon an (uncredited) story by Edgar Allan Poe. The cast includes: Helga Liné (Horror Express, The Dracula Saga, The Lorely’s Grasp), Gérard Tichy (Pieces), Leo Anchóriz and Ombretta Colli. On November 19th 2013 it was released in the US by Retromedia as a 50th Anniversary DVD in 1:66:1 widescreen and in high definition.

Brittany in France, 1884: Emily De Blancheville returns to her ancestral home from finishing school to find that her brother has sacked the entire staff and all the new servants act suspiciously. Her father – whom she had believed to be killed in a fire – is discovered to be alive but ‘horribly disfigured’ and having been driven insane. The family keep him locked up in the tower. It transpires that there is a curse on the De Blancheville line, and their father believes that the curse can only be broken if Emily is killed before her 21st birthday…

“Fun aspects here include: Roderick’s great harpsichord playing; some fantastic sets including the old manor house and the ruined abbey nearby; a great spookshow sequence with Lady Blancheville’s friend wandering through the darkened manor and finding her way to the tower with some genuinely creepy moments; and the Scooby-doo mystery of the scar-faced man, which wasn’t too hard to figure out but still fun … And for the b-movie perv in all of us, some extended moonlight sleepwalks by Lady Blancheville with the backlit-gossamer gown shot in full effect. Rowr!” Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies

“The Blancheville Monster is quite atmospheric and it benefits a lot from the amazing, spooky castle and the fetching ladies. A few scenes are really good. But as a whole, well, this is nothing special.” Pidde Andersson, Xomba.com

” …solid midnight viewing thanks to its dank theatrics and comforting adherence to genre conventions. Best scene: the Blancheville family and friends bury poor Emily… unfortunately, they don’t realize she’s still alive.” The Terror Trap

Belgian poster image courtesy of Poster Perversion. We recommend their great site.

Track of the Moon Beast is a 1972 American horror film, directed by Richard Ashe and written by Bill Finger (co-creator of Batman in 1939) and Charles Sinclair (Finger and Sinclair also scripted The Green Slime). It remained unreleased until 1976 and is now in the public domain. The film stars Chase Cordell, Leigh Drake, Gregorio Sala, Patrick Wright, Francine Kessler, Timothy Wayne Brown, Crawford MacCallum and Jeanne Swain. Makeup artist Joe Blasco (Shivers) played the titular Moon Beast. It is one of the few horror movies filmed in New Mexico.

Mineralogist Paul Carlson (Chase Cordell) is struck by a lunar meteorite while observing a meteor shower. Lodged in his brain, the meteorite causes him to transform into a strong and vicious lizard demon whenever the moon comes out. In his lizard form, Paul loses all traces of his human self and goes about killing people at random. While human, Paul is subject to spells of dizziness and nausea, causing his girlfriend Kathy Nolan (Donna Leigh Drake) and friend and former teacher Johnny Longbow (Gregorio Sala) to become concerned.

Eventually it is shown that Paul is the monster, and deduced that the meteorite fragment in his brain is the cause of his transformations. Plans are made to remove it from his skull, but the NASA brain surgeons realize, after another X-ray and Johnny remembering some Native American legends documenting similar phenomena, that the meteorite has disintegrated and will eventually cause Paul to self-combust…

“The acting is universally wooden, the dialogue atrociously written, and the camerawork and other production values are barely competent. In some cases they aren’t even that, such as during the painfully bad time-lapse photography sequence of Paul transforming into the Moon Beast. Or maybe when one changes from a human to a giant, humanoid reptile, an extra set of eyes and a nose appear and disappear as part of the process.” Steve Miller, 150 Movies You Should Die Before You See

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“Incredibly, having your hero be a geologist wasn’t boring enough… they had to add a few supporting radiologists to move the story further along. Approximately 15 minutes or so of Track of the Moon Beast’s runtime is spent in an X-ray exam room… Approximately 2 minutes into that scene, you’re already saying to yourself “Why in the hell are they still in the X-ray Exam room?!?”.  But don’t worry. If you are able to make it through those parts, you’ll be rewarded with terrific action sequences such as digging up ancient pottery…. and engaging dialouge like “His name is Ty. Which is short for Tyrannosaurus.”…. and spectacular scenery such as Albuquerque, N.M.” Cinema Bandits

“Folks, there are horrible guy-in-a-rubber-suit films from the 1970s, and then there’s Track of the Moon Beast (1972). Like its contemporaries Octaman, The Milpitas Monster, and Slithis, the New Mexico-lensed Track rehashes monster movie tropes from the 1950s against a backdrop of the eco-conscious but fashion-challenged 1970s. Only, unlike its contemporaries, Track of the Moon Beast sports an excellent musical interlude and a really long scene about making soup.” Brian Albright, The Dead Next Door

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Wikipedia | IMDb | Interview with Charles Sinclair

The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! is a 1972 American film written and directed by Andy Milligan. It features Hope Stansbury, Jackie Skarvellis, Noel Collins, Joan Ogden, Douglas Phair, Ian Innes and Berwick Kaler. The film is considered to be in the public domain.

It was initially filmed in England in 1969 as Curse of the Full Moon back-to-back with other Andy Milligan directed films which included The Body Beneath, Bloodthirsty Butchers, and The Man with Two Heads. Additional scenes – which contain many references to Charles Dickens and briefly feature the rats in the title – were filmed nearly two years later in Staten Island, New York, at the request of producer William Mishkin to pad out the short running time and to cash-in on the success of box-office rodent stars Willard and Ben (both name checked).

Buy Gutter Auteur: The Films of Andy Milligan from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

The eccentric Mooney family live in a large house in England in the early 1899. The invalid patriarch ‘Pa’ Mooney (Douglas Phair) is a retired medical doctor who claims to be 199 years old and talks of Jules Vernes. His eldest daughter, Phoebe (Joan Ogden), more or less cares for him and is head of running the household. His eldest son, Mortimer (Noel Collins), is a businessman whom conducts the finances of the family and contributes to the family income. Younger daughter Monica (Hope Stansbury) is a sadist who keeps live rats as pets and frequently mutilates them and other small animals. Youngest son Malcolm (Berwick Kaler) is a halfwit with animalistic tentencies in which the family keeps him locked up in a room of the house with live chickens. The family has a secret: they are all werewolves! They are natural born, not made, werewolves whom turn once a month on the night of the full moon and Pa Mooney has been researching for years to find a way to break the family curse.

Youngest daughter Diana (Jackie Skarvellis) returns home from medical school with a new husband, a former classmate named Gerald (Ian Innes), which Pa Mooney heartily disapproves of. Pa tells Diana that she is the last hope that the family has to overcome the ancient curse since she is the only member of the family who does not turn into a werewolf on the night of the full moon. Will Diana succeed? However, Diana is eventually revealed to have other plans, and on top of that, she has her own secret to why she is “different” from the rest of the werewolf Mooney family.

‘It takes a certain kind of person to appreciate a movie like The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!. But that kind of person is richly rewarded with a bizarre, angry and ugly film that has the energy of a live production. A live production of shrieking hate.’ Devin Faraci, Bad Ass Digest

Buy The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Andy Milligan from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com 

‘Still, I found this movie fascinating–maybe in the way highway accidents and public arguments between enraged relatives are fascinating. Somehow all that bile and venom and hate got under my skin and made it hard for me to look away. And I think there’s something to be said for a movie that can get to you like that, however badly made it is on a technical level. So would I recommendTRaC!TWaH! to the unintiated? Probably not. But rating it on my own reaction, I’m giving it 2 thumbs. If you’re looking for something different and possibly unique, give Milligan’s movies a shot. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies

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‘Is it good? Well…that depends on your tolerance for no budget filmmaking by somebody who worked better without a camera. The acting is on a level of early John Waters, and there is very little humor in the movie to get you through the shouting and the amateurish camera work. But, once you get past the student film aesthetic there is something that is undeniably pulsing about the content in this film. You just have to have a black soul to find it.’ Julius Kaffendorf, The Other Films

We are grateful to Zombo’s Closet and Temple of Schlock for some of the images above

Wikipedia | IMDb | Internet Archive

Teenagers from Outer Space (aka The Gargan Terror) is a 1957 (released 1959) science-fiction film written, directed and produced by Tom Graeff, who was also responsible for the editing, cinematography and appears as a reporter. It stars David Love (Graeff’s real-life lover), Dawn Bender, Bryan Grant, Harvey B. Dunn (Bride of the Monster, Night of the Ghouls) and King Moody. The film’s score came from stock, composed by William Loose and Fred Steiner. Incidentally the same stock score has been recycled in countless  low-budget movies such as The Killer Shrews, and most notably Night of the Living Dead.

In 1956, Tom Graeff was hired as Roger Corman’s assistant on Not of This Earth and also played a minor role. When filming wrapped, Graeff decided to pen a science-fiction feature of his own and look for funding. Securing a modest budget from actor Gene Sterling, Graeff placed an ad in the Hollywood Reporter looking for more investors. The ad was answered by British actor Bryan Pearson, who put up $5000 in exchange for playing the villain, Thor, and casting his wife Ursula Pearson in a small role. Filmed entirely on location in Hollywood in the fall of 1956 and winter of 1957, the low-budget film went through several titles before it was released by Warner Brothers in June 1959. Though the film was profitable, Tom and his investors saw no money from the release. Bryan Pearson eventually sued Graeff to get his original investment back. Teenagers appeared as the lower part of a double bill alongside Godzilla Raids Again, released under the title Gigantis the Fire Monster, and was shown largely at drive-in theaters throughout the country.

In the early 1960s, Teenagers was sold to television, where it played frequently for the next thirty years, noted for its infamous ray gun that turned living things into instant skeletons, an original effect that showed up again in Tim Burton’s film Mars Attacks!.

An alien spacecraft comes to Earth, while searching the galaxy for a planet suitable to raise “gargons,” a lobster-like (but air-breathing) creature which is a delicacy on their homeworld. Thor (Bryan Grant), the lead alien, shows his contempt for Earth’s creatures by vaporizing a dog named Sparky. Crew member Derek (David Love), after discovering an inscription on Sparky’s dog tag, fears that the gargon might destroy Earth’s local inhabitants, making the other spacemen scoff. Being members of the “supreme race”, they disdain “foreign beings,” no matter how intelligent and pride themselves that families and friendships are forbidden on their world. Derek turns out to be a member of an underground which commemorates more humane periods of his world’s history.

Their one gargon seems to be sick in Earth’s atmosphere. While his crewmates are distracted, Derek flees. Eventually, the gargon seems to revive. When the Captain reports Derek’s actions, he is connected to the Leader (Gene Sterling) himself. It turns out that Derek is the Leader’s son, though Derek is unaware of this. Thor is sent to hunt Derek down, with orders to kill to protect the mission…

In 1959, Graeff placed an ad in the Los Angeles Times proclaiming that he was to be called Jesus Christ II, and that God had shown him truth and love. The next year, Graeff filed to have his name legally changed to Jesus Christ II. After this incident and a subsequent arrest, Graeff vanished from Hollywood, fleeing to the east coast. He returned to Los Angeles in 1964 and is credited as an editor on David L. Hewitt’s 1964 ultra low-budget film The Wizard of Mars. In 1968, Graeff took out an ad in Variety, announcing that his screenplay, entitled Orf, was for sale for the unprecedented sum of $500,000.  After the ad appeared, he was publicly lambasted by LA Times columnist Joyce Haber. When Graeff insinuated that a number of high profile people were attached to the project (including Robert Wise and Carl Reiner), Haber outed him as “Jesus Christ II”, putting the final nail in his career. Unable to find work, Graeff moved to La Mesa, California, near San Diego. He committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage on December 19, 1970.

In a 1993 edition of Scarlet Street magazine. an article by Richard Valley and Jessie Lilley featured interviews with Bryan and Ursula Pearson, who revealed that Graeff and David Love/Chuck Roberts were romantically involved. For over 25 years, major publications, including Leonard Maltin’s movie guide, had erroneously written that Love and Graeff were the same person. Shortly after the article appeared, some trash cinema fans dubbed Graeff the gay Ed Wood.

‘After the fly-by-night production values, the most conspicuous thing about Teenagers from Outer Space is how much more elaborately plotted it is than the typical late-50’s sci-fi B-movie. Though it is only slightly longer than the comparable films AIP and Allied Artists were cranking out at the time (just shy of an hour and a half, as opposed to 75 minutes or less), it tells a much busier, more involved story, and seems to follow the five-act structure of Elizabethan drama rather than the more familiar three-act model favored by most filmmakers. There are three separate climaxes, involving three different aspects of the extraterrestrial threat, and the relatively short running time allows for hardly a minute’s pause along the way. Much of the charm of Teenagers from Outer Space stems from the imbalance between Graeff’s grand ambitions and the paltry resources he was able to bring to bear in furtherance of them.’ 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

‘Pretty standard, low budget late 50s sci-fi fare that moves quickly and is enthusiastically performed by its cast, although I kept expecting Love to burst into song at any point, serenading his new found lady fair Bender about the wonders of earthly love.’ Horror 101 with Dr. Ac

Wikipedia | IMDb

There will always arguments about what the first horror film is – some would claim it to be L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat, which – according to urban legend – sent audiences screaming for the exits when first projected in January 1896. But most agree that is was The Haunted Castle (aka The Devil’s Castle), a three minute romp from later that same year, which showed how quickly cinema was growing – from a simple shot of a train pulling into a station to demons, bats, ghosts and ghouls featuring crude yet effective special effects, within a few months.

The Haunted Castle showed that there was an audience for chills and thrills, even within the short formats of early silent cinema. Obviously, there was no room to develop horror as we know it, but images of the supernatural, the weird and the bizarre became increasingly popular with filmmakers, even if their stories were (even at the time) likely to induce as much laughter as horror.

A typical example of these early spook show movies is The X-Ray Fiend, a one minute extravaganza that was directed by G.A. Smith in 1897. The film, starring Laura Bayley and Tom Green, takes advantage of the newly discovered (two years earlier) X-ray photography technique. Throwing scientific accuracy to the wind (and thus setting the scene for over a century of science fiction film makers to come), Smith’s film features a canoodling couple who have an ‘X-ray Camera’ pointed at them. Amazingly, they then turn into a pair of kissing skeletons!

While it is unlikely to shock or amaze anyone today, The X-Ray Fiend is notable as a pioneer of the horror film. If you can spare a minute, the whole thing can be seen below.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1920 horror silent film, produced by Famous Players-Lasky and released through Paramount/Artcraft. The film is based upon Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and starring actor John Barrymore. It was directed by John S. Robertson and co-starred Nita Naldi. The scenario was by Clara Beranger and the film is now in the public domain.

Plot teaser:

Henry Jekyll (John Barrymore) is a doctor of medicine, but he is also an “idealist, philanthropist.” When he is not treating the poor in his free clinic, he is in his laboratory experimenting. Sir George Carew (Brandon Hurst), the father of his fiancée, Millicent (Martha Mansfield), is “piqued” by Dr. Jekyll. “No man could be as good as he looks,” he observes.

Following dinner one night, Carew taunts Dr. Jekyll in front of their friends, Edward Enfield (Cecil Clovelly), Dr. Lanyon (Charles Lane) and Utterson (J. Malcolm Dunn) proclaiming “In devoting yourself to others, Jekyll, aren’t you neglecting the development of your own life?” “Isn’t it by serving others that one develops oneself,” Jekyll replies. “Which self? Man has two – as he has two hands. Because I use my right hand, should I never use my left? Your really strong man fears nothing. It is the weak one who is afraid of experience. A man cannot destroy the savage in him by denying its impulses. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. With your youth, you should live – as I have lived. I have memories. What will you have at my age?”

And thus the seed is sown, and Jekyll begins his experiments: “Wouldn’t it be marvellous if the two natures in man could be separated – housed in different bodies? Think what it would mean to yield to every evil impulse, yet leave the soul untouched!” Finally, Jekyll develops a potion that turns him into a hideously evil creature that he calls Edward Hyde…

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Reviews:

“In addition to the disturbing transformation scene and appearance of Mr. Hyde, this one was considered almost scandalous for its day.  Mr. Hyde gallivants with whores and beats women regularly. Naturally none of these activities made it to the silver screen in the 1920s – a time when showing one’s shoulders was considered lewd and lascivious.  Yet they are inferred through more subdued actions.” Best Horror Movies

“Hyde is genuinely alarming-looking: leering, hollow-eyed, malevolent. Barrymore’s full-body work is just incredible as he shifts from Jekyll’s regal carriage to Hyde’s spidery hunchback walk. Every gesture is deliberate – it’s like watching a ballet.” Anne Elisabeth Dillon, Los Angeles Times

“Players-Lasky’s adaptation was put together in their Long Island studios with a scenario expanded to six reels and production values increased to match. The good-girl / bad-girl female leads invented by Sullivan for his stage play (named Millicent and Gina this time around) were allowed more screen time than before, offering insight into Jekyll’s motivations and adding a lecherous tone to Hyde’s formerly one-dimensional villainy. This sexual subtext is underlined by frequent borrowings from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.” The Devil’s Manor

Wikipedia | IMDb

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‘The name written in blood!’

Eegah is a 1962 American sci-fi fantasy horror film written by Bob Wehling. It stars Arch Hall, Jr. (The Sadist), Arch Hall, Sr. (who directed as Nicholas Merriwether, co-produced The Thrill Killers; and wrote The Corpse Grinders), Marilyn Manning and Richard Kiel in the titular role, the same year he was in the classic Twilight Zone episode ‘To Serve Man’. 7 foot two inch tall Kiel would go on to appear in House of the Damned (1963) twice play Jaws, a James Bond villain, star in Italian sci-fi film The Humanoid (1979) and play ghost Captain Howdy in horror spoof Hysterical (1982).

Assistant cameraman Ray Dennis Steckler appears in the picture as Mr. Fischer, the man at the hotel who is thrown at the pool near the end. Steckler made his directing debut the next year in the Arch Hall Jr. vehicle, Wild Guitar. Steckler’s first independent feature, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies was later distributed by Fairway-International, owned by Arch Hall, Sr.

Eegah is often cited as being one of the worst films of all time but there are many worse.

Plot teaser:

One night after shopping, Roxy Miller (Marilyn Manning) is driving to a party through the California desert when she nearly runs her car into Eegah (Richard Kiel), a giant cave man. She tells her boyfriend Tom Nelson (Arch Hall, Jr.), and her father Robert Miller (Arch Hall, Sr.) about the giant. Her father, a writer of adventure books, decides to go into the desert to look for the creature and possibly take a photograph of it.

When his helicopter ride fails to show up at his designated pickup time, Tom and Roxy go looking for him but the latter is soon kidnapped by Eegah and taken back to his cave…

Reviews:

“Eegah! is considered by many to be the worst movie ever made. We think we’ve seen worse, but there’s no denying that Arch Hall Sr’s caveman epic is among the most poorly made motion pictures of all time. Hall cast himself, his son, and his secretary in the lead roles, and all three of them are low on talent. The only person involved with this film that has any scrap of talent whatsoever is Richard Kiel…” Shameface.com

” … bad movie fans have a special place in their hearts for the efforts of the Halls, and for Eegah especially, perhaps because of the deeply emotional reverberations it leaves in the minds of all who see it. Or maybe because it’s a good laugh.” The Spinning Image

“Terrible in all the right ways, Eegah is about as bottom of the barrel as they come but no less enjoyable for it if you’re in the right frame of mind. It’s not often a movie combines dune buggies, rock n roll, cavemen and helicopters in on ninety minute mainline hit of celluloid weirdness, but here it is. Hall’s typically clunky direction is on display and the film’s miniscule budget shows throughout (Eegah lives in a cave that appears to be made out of a dirty drop cloth!). Kiel is actually well cast as the grunting caveman and not entirely unsympathetic in his part, while Arch Jr. is as dopey and as goofy as they come, singing his way through the movie with nary a care in the world.” Ian Jane, DVD Talk

Cast:

• Arch Hall Jr. as Tom Nelson
• Marilyn Manning as Roxy Miller
• Richard Kiel as Eegah
• Arch Hall Sr. as Robert Miller
• Clay Stearns as Band Member
• Bob Davis as George
• Deke Richards as Band Member
• Ron Shane as Detective
• Addalyn Pollitt as George’s Wife
• Lloyd Williams as Kruger
• Ray Dennis Steckler as Mr. Fishman
• Bill Rice as Chef
• Carolyn Brandt as Fishman’s Girl

Wikipedia | IMDb | Internet Archive

‘Makes Psycho look like a Sunday school picnic’

Dementia 13 – aka The Haunted and the Hunted – is a 1963 horror-thriller released by American International Pictures, starring William Campbell, Patrick Magee, and Luana Anders.

The film was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola (Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Twixt) and produced by Roger Corman. Although Coppola had been involved in at least two nudie films previously, Dementia 13 served as his first mainstream, “legitimate,” directorial effort. It was released in the fall of 1963 as the supporting feature of a double bill with Corman’s X.

Corman offered Coppola the chance to direct a low-budget horror film in Ireland with funds left over from Corman’s recently completed The Young Racers, on which Coppola had worked as a sound technician. The producer wanted a cheap Psycho copy, complete with gothic atmosphere and brutal killings, and Coppola quickly wrote a screenplay in accordance with Corman’s requirements.

Although he was given total directorial freedom during production, Coppola found himself fighting with Corman after the film was completed. The producer declared the movie unreleasable and demanded several changes be made. Corman eventually brought in another director, Jack Hill, to film additional sequences.

Gary Kurtz, one of Corman’s assistants at the time, recalled, “So we shot this stupid prologue that had nothing to do with the rest of the film. It was some guy who was supposed to be a psychiatrist, sitting in his office and giving the audience a test to see if they were mentally fit to see the picture. The film was actually released with that prologue.” 

The prologue was directed by Monte Hellman. This William Castle-style gimmick also included a “D-13 Test” handout given to theatre patrons that was ostensibly devised by a “medical expert” to weed out psychologically unfit people from viewing the film. The test consisted of such questions as “The most effective way of settling a dispute is with one quick stroke of an axe to your adversary’s head?” and “Have you ever been hospitalized in a locked mental ward, sanitarium, rest home or other facility for the treatment of mental illness?”, with Yes or No as the only possible answers.

The Roan Group released a laserdisc and DVD of the film, both of which included an audio commentary by Campbell. The DVD also featured the written version of the “D-13 Test” in digital form as an extra. However, the filmed five-minute prologue featuring the test has not been included on any of the numerous available home video versions of the title. On April 26, 2011 the film was released in the US on Blu-ray.

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Plot:

One night, while out boating in the middle of a lake, John Haloran and his young wife Louise argue about his rich mother’s will. Louise is upset that everything is currently designated to go to charity in the name of “a mysterious Kathleen.” John tells Louise that if he dies before his mother does, she will be entitled to none of the inheritance. He then promptly drops dead from a massive heart attack.

Thinking quickly, the scheming Louise throws the fresh corpse over the side of the boat, where he comes to rest at the bottom of the lake. Her plan is to pretend that he is still alive, in order to ingratiate her way back into the will. She types up a letter to Lady Haloran, inviting herself to the family’s Irish castle while her husband is “away on business”.

Upon arrival, she immediately notices that things are a little strange in the castle. She observes John’s two brothers, Billy and Richard taking part in a bizarre ceremony with their mother as part of a yearly ritualistic tribute to their youngest sister, Kathleen, who died many years before in a freak drowning accident. Lady Haloran still mourns for her, and during this year’s ceremony, she faints dead away. As Louise helps her into the house, her mother-in-law tells her that she fainted because one of the flowers she had thrown had died as it touched Kathleen’s grave…

Reviews:

“Under the stolid direction of Francis Coppola, who also wrote the script, the picture stresses gore rather than atmosphere, and all but buries a fairly workable plot.” The New York Times

“The location (an Irish castle) is used imaginatively, the Gothic atmosphere is suitably potent, and there’s a wonderfully sharp cameo from Patrick Magee…” Tom Raynes, Time Out

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“A skilful piece of small-scale horror, filmed in Ireland which showed Coppola’s skill as a director (before he succumbed to the inflation of big budgets and big subjects) and Corman’s ability to pick embryo talent.” Alan Frank, The Horror Film Handbook

“a remarkably confident and proficient thriller. Several of its components hint at the creativity that was still to come from Coppola, and the finished product is a testament to his ingenuity…” John Charles, Video Watchdog

“Coppola… works fast and creative in Dementia 13, making memorable, shocking little sequences out of the killings and the implied haunting, using his locations well and highlighting unexpected eeriness like a transistor radio burbling distorted pop music as it sinks into a lake along with a just-murdered corpse.” Kim Newman

“The horror story is heavily red-herringed and none too credible, and the film doesn’t escape looking a bit of a quickie. But the director, Francis Coppola, has confidently assembled the film and given it a sharp sense of atmosphere.” Films and Filming

Cast:

• William Campbell as Richard Haloran
• Luana Anders as Louise Haloran
• Patrick Magee as Dr. Justin Caleb
• Bart Patton as Billy Haloran
• Mary Mitchell as Kane
• Eithne Dunne as Lady Haloran
• Peter Read as John Haloran
• Karl Schnazer as Simon, the poacher
• Ron Perry as Arthur
• Derry O’Donovan as Lillian, the maid
• Barbara Dowling as Kathleen Haloran

Locations:

Howth Castle, Dublin

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘Sex and horror in one gigantic thrill show!’

Revolt of the Zombies is a 1936 American horror film directed and produced by the Halperin Brothers which stars Dean Jagger and Dorothy Stone. It is one of the earliest zombie films.

Although it was conceived as a loose sequel to Victor Halperin’s moderately successful 1932 film White Zombie, when compared with Halperin’s previous work, this film is generally regarded as a disappointment.

Although he is not credited in the film, Bela Lugosi’s eyes appear in Revolt of the Zombies whenever zombifying-powers are used; it is the same image of Lugosi’s eyes used in the film White Zombie.

Reviews:

‘” …the most celebrated elements of White Zombie are left out and traded for bigger versions of its weakest parts. Halperin, who must had been more comfortable in silent cinema, seems lost at directing a sound film, with the characters reciting their lines as if was a theatre. The overall style of the acting is too stagy, as if the film was merely a filmed play. And not even a good play to begin with.” W-Cinema

“There are so many scenes of people standing still in front of photographed backdrops, mouthing clumsy and insipid dialogue full of coagulating curds of lumpy exposition … You might be asking yourself how anyone could possibly make an unbearably boring movie about zombies in Cambodia, amongst the majestic ruins of Angkor Wat. It’s an awfully tall order, but the Halperins found a way.” Nigel Honeybone, HorrorNews.net

“The film is briefly interesting when Armand starts to raise his zombie armies, but they never actually do anything. Revolt is only noteworthy in being unusually grandiose for its time – the swiftness with which Armand gains control over the minds of an entire nation anticipates the apocalyptic proportions of later zombie movies.” Peter Dendle, The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia

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“The film promptly degenerates into a silly triangular affair, which though it echoes White Zombie, is even more atrociously acted and lacks that films saving graces.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror

“‘B’ picture silliness with the germ of a good idea.” Alan Frank, The Horror Film Handbook

“Terribly inept, almost unwatchable. A low point in the career of Dean Jagger…”John Stanley, Creature Features

“You’ll spot the villain right away, as he does his best to overact every sinister eye shift.” Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg, Andrew Herschberger, Zombiemania

Wikipedia

The Vampire Bat is a 1933 American horror film directed by Frank R. Strayer (Condemned to Live; The Monster Walks) from a screenplay by Edward T. Lowe (House of Dracula; House of Frankenstein).

The film stars Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray (King Kong), Melvyn Douglas (Ghost Story; The Tenant; The Old Dark House), and Dwight Frye.

Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill had been in the successful film Doctor X the previous year and had already wrapped shooting on Mystery of the Wax Museum for Warner Bros. This was quite a large-scale release and would have a lengthy post-production process. Seeing a chance to exploit all the advance press, poverty row studio Majestic Pictures Inc. contracted Wray and Atwill for their own “quickie” horror film, rushing The Vampire Bat into production and releasing it in January 1933.

The film was shot on the Eastern European village set from Universal’s Frankenstein (1931) and the cave scene was film was in Bronson Canyon, while some interiors were from The Old Dark House (1932).

Plot:

When the villagers of Kleinschloss start dying of blood loss, the town fathers suspect a resurgence of vampirism.

While police inspector Karl Brettschneider (Douglas) remains skeptical, scientist Dr. von Niemann (Atwill) cares for the vampire’s victims one by one, and suspicion falls on simple-minded Herman Gleib because of his fondness for bats. A bloodthirsty angry mob hounds Gleib to his death, however the vampire attacks continue…

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Reviews:

” …The Vampire Bat is far better than you’re entitled to expect. It remains moody and atmospheric, and tries hard, if unsuccessfully, to give the plot a rational underpinning – plus it gives me an excuse to stare at Fay Wray for an hour or so, which can’t be a bad thing.” Nigel Honeybone, HorrorNews.net

“The Vampire Bat is a fun trip, getting by on looking okay and playing with enough conventions to still seem sprightly, even with wooden direction and some lame comic relief. It serves as a fascinating mix of every genre trope that had emerged in both the silent era and the early sound years.” Danny, Pre-Code.com

“Like most of the early horror talkies, The Vampire Bat is exceedingly, well, talky, but Strayer does a good job of minimizing the damage caused thereby. He has a great eye for frame composition, he makes deft use of some unconventional transitional techniques between scenes, and most importantly, he keeps the camera moving, panning and zooming and winding busily around the set.”

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“Quirky, odd, and different, The Vampire Bat is a horror film about vampires that take the concept to a whole different direction.” J. Luis Rivera, W-Cinema

“It offers numerous surprising or creepy sequences and images: the close-up of the dog, the chase through the torch-lit cave, the blood transfusion, the caped killer at the window. The defects include a lack of atmosphere and consistency…” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers

“One of the best independent films churned out to meet the new vogue for horror (most of which were more darkish thrillers than pure horror).” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror

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“Atwill and Dwight Frye act as though they believed everything in a cheap quickie that starts as a vampire movie and turns into yet another variation on the standard mad scientist plot.” Alan Frank, The Horror Film Handbook

“Edward T. Lowe’s script and Frank R. Strayer’s direction are outdated but this is worth seeing for the cast…” John Stanley, Creature Features

“Dated low-budget horror comic with a few well-dash handled moments amongst the talk.” Howard Maxford, The A-Z of Horror Films

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Choice dialogue:

Burgomeister: “Vampires are at large, I tell you. Vampires!”

Dr. Otto von Niemann: “Mad! Is one who has solved the secret of life to be considered mad? Life! Created in a laboratory! … Living, growing tissue. Life! That moves, pulsates, and demands food for its continued growth! Ha!”

Cast and characters:

• Lionel Atwill as Dr. Otto von Niemann
• Fay Wray as Ruth Bertin
• Melvyn Douglas as Karl Breettschneider
• Maude Eburne as Gussie Schnappmann
• George E. Stone as Kringen
• Dwight Frye as Herman Gleib
• Robert Frazer as Emil Borst
• Rita Carlisle as Martha Mueller
• Lionel Belmore as Bürgermeister Gustave Schoen
• William V. Mong as Sauer
• Stella Adams as Georgiana
• Paul Weigel as Dr. Holdstadt
• Harrison Greene as Weingarten
• William Humphrey as Dr. Haupt
• Carl Stockdale as Schmidt
• Paul Panzer as Townsman

Wikipedia | IMDb