(1962)
Dir - Ray Milland
Overall: GOOD
One of only a handful of films to be directed by Ray Milland, (all of which featured him in the lead as well), Panic in Year Zero! is a relentlessly cynical bit of Cold War paranoia and all the more effective because of it. The script by Jay Sims and John Morton paints a bleak picture where civilization immediately begins to deteriorate as soon as evidence of a nuclear fall-out is witnessed by country-dwelling civilians. Milland and family, (which also includes Frankie Avalon), make impossibly cutthroat decisions while trying to maintain their humanity, slowly succumbing to the more aggressive acts of desperation that they are justifying defending themselves from. It is a simple exploration of mankind's innate struggle with survival when the fabric of normalized behavior goes out the window, but Milland handles the purposely claustrophobic material with a solid sense of momentum. The only drawback is the atrociously inappropriate musical score from Les Baxter which almost exclusively uses uptempo, borderline comical jazz music to propel even the most downtrodden scenes.
(1965)
Dir - Harold Daniels/Jerry Warren/Reginald LeBorg
Overall: MEH
A slapdash mess comprised of footage shot by three different directors, House of Black Death, (Blood of the Man Devil), is only a minor curiosity for Golden Era horror fans who wish to see an aged Lon Chaney Jr. and John Carradine playing rival, Satanic cult leaders who never share any scenes together. Harold Daniels and Reginald LeBorg in a minimal capacity initially shot the movie before producers hired Jerry Warren to throw some more talky nonsense into the proceedings, which mucks things up as much as would be expected. Warren brought in his frequent on-screen collaborator Katherine Victor, though her role is no more prominent than any of the other forgettable faces present who are merely collecting a paycheck. While Chaney dons small devil horns underneath his robe and grins in a drunken stupor as glamour model Sabrina belly dances many times, Carradine is largely absent or bedridden until he finally gets to spout some unholy gibberish at the end. A guy does turn into a werewolf kind of while rolling around on the floor which is minimally hilarious, but as far as everything else that happens, it is not worth paying attention to and rendered nearly incomprehensible by the sloppy, low-budget production.
(1969)
Dir - Joseph Adler
Overall: WOOF
Larry Cohen already had a hefty amount of television credits and a handful of film scripts under his belt when he penned Scream, Baby, Scream, (Nightmare House), for low-budget director Joseph Adler. Sadly, the lousy screenplay could have been authored by anybody as one would have to stretch to link it in with Cohen's latter efforts as a filmmaker himself. Focusing on art college students that are either unlikable, annoying, or dull if not all three at once, endless amounts of screen time are dedicated to their petty, uninteresting squabbles which are only interjected by a few seconds at a time with a Cesar the somnambulist-looking murderer in garish makeup. Eventually, everybody trips on acid which is far, far less compelling of a watch that one would hope for and then the final act kicks off with a lengthy flashback that slows things down even more. The characters remain detrimentally obnoxious throughout the entire movie so that when a sinister element is finally established concerning Larry Swamson's smirking art teacher who engages in disturbing face-ruining experiments, no one watching is likely to even care.
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