50's British Horror Part Six

GHOST SHIP
(1952)
Dir - Vernon Sewell
Overall: WOOF

This stuffy, faux-supernatural melodrama from director Vernon Sewell features the husband wife duo of Dermot Walsh and Hazel Court as the leads, but is otherwise as unmemorable as they get.  Sewell inexplicably adapted the French play L'Angoisse to the screen four times in his career, Ghost Ship being the third and only version to be set on a boat.  We are presented with a few lengthy flashback sequences, each of which is equally dull and provide zero macabre atmosphere to soak in.  The same goes for the present day narrative which concerns Walsch and Court's likeable newly-wed couple who buy a small yacht for funsies, only to discover that there is a vague tobacco smell aboard even though nobody smokes.  It is not an exaggeration to state that this is the only "ghostly" occurrence in the entire film, which is amazing that the parties involved are even concerned about it enough to bring a psychic medium on board to get to the bottom of things.  The twist resolves itself within about half a second, (also not an exaggeration), and Sewell directs the entire affair with the exuberance of a human vegetable, rendering this as more of a sure-fire sleeping pill than an engaging piece of celluloid.

 

THREE CASES OF MURDER
(1955)
Dir - David Eady/George More O'Ferrall/Wendy Toye/Orson Welles
Overall: MEH

 

A three-part anthology thriller, the aptly-titled Three Cases of Murder is as inconsistent as the form often dictates, but is has its redeemable qualities.  The most notable aspect is the presence of Orson Welles, (who by some accounts backseat driver-directed his segment, unceremoniously taking over from George More O'Ferrall shortly into shooting), and he delivers an effortlessly solid performances in "Lord Mountdrago" as a pompous politician who is plagued by his rival via nightmares.  Director David Eady's "You Killed Elizabeth" is the most passable, merely a love triangle double-cross between two underwritten best friends.  The opening "In the Picture" from Wendy Toye is the most sinister and fun, utilizing a unique supernatural premise as something that would have ideally fit into Rod Serling's Night Gallery some decade and a half later.  Alan Badel appears in all three stories, barely in the second one, yet delivering some manipulative scenery-chewing in the bookending segments.  Without any unifying link between the material and the uninteresting middle piece slowing things down too much, the movie as a whole cannot be considered a success, but omnibus horror buffs may appreciate what it gets right and if anything else, seeing Welles in such a genre film is a novelty in and of itself.

THE WOMAN EATER

(1958)

Dir - Charles Saunders

Overall: MEH

Some mild, Amazon tribal/mad scientist exploitation from British director Charles Saunders, The Woman Eater, (Womaneater), is a goofy B-movie that forgets how goofy it is.  Saunders and producer Guido Coen reunite with bad guy actor George Coulouris after the previous year's abysmal The Man Without a Body and he portrays an equally unlikable megalomaniac who kidnaps a carnivorous tree from the jungle in order to feed hapless young women to it which somehow ties into him being able to resurrect dead people and become world renowned.  It sounds like the type of shoddy screenwriting that was likely cobbled together in a drunken afternoon, yet sadly, the production is straight-faced the whole way through.  We get some Juju drum sacrifices since Coulouris' villain was also able to convince a scantily clad Amazon native to accompany him back to England which is where the bulk of the story unfolds, with women being at the mercy of men who are either madly in love with them or find them disposable.  All of the characters are flatly written so that nobody on screen can do much with what they have to work with, but Coulouris at least chews the scenery at irregular intervals.  It could be cheaper looking and it could be worse, but it is still a sluggish exercise that resembles various other genre films without adding anything memorable to the pile.

50's British Horror Part Five

TIMESLIP

(1955)

Dir - Ken Hughes

Overall: MEH

 

A poorly realized espionage thriller with wasted science fiction elements, Timeslip, (The Atomic Man), ends up being a dull drive-in double feature amongst many.  It was an unofficial American/British co-production, (hence the two leads Gene Nelson and Faith Domergue being from U.S. soil), though it was shot in England by director Ken Hughes who was almost exclusively versed in crime movies at this point.  Thus the angle is thrown in of spies trying to blow up an atomic research institute via a cockamamie scheme of performing plastic surgery on a guy so that he looks like a nuclear physicist.  Said physicist also happens to be the victim of radiation and now lays in a hospital bed experiencing time at seven and a half seconds in the future.  This provides the movie with its one and only nifty revelation as Charles Eric Maine's chatty and largely actionless script goes in circles and doubly confuses and bores the audience long before the stakes finally seem dire in the closing minutes.  Nelson's infrequent attempts at comic relief do not do the movie's serious tone any favors either, but even if the whole thing could have easily ended up more stupid than it is, it is still dull.

THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY
(1957)
Dir - W. Lee Wilder/Charles Saunders
Overall: WOOF

A nonsensical dud that was also one of many animated head B-movies from the era, The Man Without a Body, (Curse of Nostradamus), boasts an absurd plot that would have been hilarious if not for how drab the entire presentation is.  Though a British production, it brought over a top-billed American Robert Hutton and also W. Lee Wilder behind the lens, the latter of whom shares directorial credit with Charles Saunders who was allegedly only on set for union purposes.  This makes sense for anyone familiar with Wilder's work which was uniformly poor and this is no exception.  Uninspired from top to bottom, Wilder fails to capitalize on both a larger budget than he was usually allowed to work with in his native US and the ludicrous concept of Nostradamus' severed head being revitalized only for a cartoonishly unlikable millionaire with a brain tumor to try and inflict his will upon it so that he can stay filthy rich from beyond the grave, (or something?).  These poor actors play such material straight while Wilder stages everything in the most pedestrian manner possible, creating an experience that is both lame and alarmingly stupid.  The film's reputation is infamous and well-deserved in this respect, so approach with caution.

THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X

(1958)

Dir - Gilbert Gunn

Overall: WOOF

A low-budget adaptation of Rene Ray's 1957 novel of the same name, The Strange World of Planet X, (Cosmic Monsters), is problematically paced and barely moves an inch towards anything interesting, instead just coming off as a poor man's Quatermass serial.  Fusing a little The Day the Earth Stood Still in with giant bugs, a reckless scientist, and some seriously comatose-inducing dialog exchanges for ninety percent of its running time, the film is a hopelessly slack realization of its ingredients.  This would be the only science fiction movie in in the not-that-extensive filmographies of director Gilbert Gunn and screenwriter Paul Ryder, neither of whom show a particular knack for the material.  It takes ages before any mayhem starts to present itself as we are merely told about the concerning results of magnetic metal experiments that eventually effect the ionosphere in only a small portion of the area, resulting in some humans going crazy as well as insects and lizards growing to destructive sizes.  In addition to all of this only showing up on screen within the closing minutes, it is quickly resolved, which only further enhances the lackluster and low-stakes issue in the first place.  From the performances to the drab direction and entire presentation, it is forgettable in all details.

50's Jack Arnold Part Two

TARANTULA
(1955)
Overall: MEH

Universal's intentional answer to Warner Bros. previous year's Them!, Tarantula was another giant insect run amok film, this time directed by Jack Arnold and even based off of a story of his, which was inspired by a Science Fiction Theater episode "No Food for Thought".  While it is fine for what it is, the problem with huge monster movies in general is that everything else happening besides the giant monsters terrorizing people on screen is dreadfully dull.  The characters are all flat and generic, (there is an overweight sheriff, a handsome doctor/hero, a pretty girl who gets saved by said hero, an old doctor doing secret experiments in a laboratory, etc), and because the movie is called Tarantula, the fact that it takes over thirty minutes to see the title creature in its full, humongous glory is problematic.  The other issue is that when your monster is just a big, mindless thing, the creature has no personality so unlike Arnold's own Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, or pick your favorite, it is more of a bore to watch people make small talk while we wait for the giant beast to just get blown up by bombs.  There are a couple of unique elements here like the effects of the scientist's radioactive serum on themselves, but it is still mediocre stuff.

 

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN
(1957)
Overall: GREAT
 
Though Universal's classic monster cycle was spent by 1957, they still had a few ingenious genre films up their sleeves and The Incredible Shrinking Man is easily one of the strongest.  During that decade, Jack Arnold proved to be the studio's tightest and most accomplished director and while he continued to be prolific up until 1980, this ended up being his last truly memorable production.  Speaking of prolific, this also served as the first screenplay from Richard Matheson, who adapted it from his own novel The Shrinking Man, which infused some of his own frustrations with being a struggling provider for his family.  The film manages to feature a slew of impressive set pieces, turning the contemporary suburban home of Grant Williams' protagonist into a treacherous landscape where everything from a doll house to a pencil puts him in life or death peril.  In addition to the spider-fighting/cat-fleeing spectacle of it all, Matheson's script maintains its focus on the crippling psyche of such a strange affliction.  As Williams' plight becomes more and more hopeless, his sanity, masculinity, and compassion as a human being continues to break down.  All of this plus Arnold's brisk pacing makes the movie increasingly compelling as a bizarro-world tragedy on par with the best of them.

 

MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS

(1958)

Overall: MEH

Jack Arnold's last foray into straight horror, Monster on the Campus, (Monster in the Night, Stranger on the Campus), was Universal's cash-in on American International Pictures' slew of contemporary teen-centered films of an identical ilk.  More of a lab coat melodrama than a teenager genre romp, it centers around Arthur Franz' college professor who inadvertently reverts to a primitive form after coming in contact with a rare, million year-old preserved coelacanth fish.  Suffering from the usual issues with such movies in that we do not get a full look at the monster until over an hour in and that it is padded with bland characters talking in rooms to each other, Arnold was skilled enough from behind the lens to keep the pacing more agreeable than would be surmised.  David Duncan's script offers up no mystery for the audience, so watching everyone on screen try and get to the bottom of who is murdering people around town is hardly the most gripping of narratives.  The title monster looks more silly than frightening, yet thankfully there are some quirky/brutal elements like a giant dragonfly showing up and the aforementioned beast man hurtling a hand ax at a policeman's head.  It is better than your average I Was a Teenage Whatevers, but still nothing extraordinary.

50's Jack Arnold Part One

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
(1953)
Overall: MEH

Made in between such similar sci-fi vehicles as 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still and the following year's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Came from Outer Space was another crucial Cold War era metaphor that in this particular case featured benevolent aliens whose only threatening actions are due to their logical distrust of the human beings whose planet they have inadvertently landed on.  Utilizing a story from prolific and renowned author Ray Bradbury and serving as the first sci-fi/horror vehicle for director Jack Arnold, the film has a solid amount of clever, false scares and some unnerving moments involving the townspeople who get coldly taken over.  The only problem is an unfortunately major one in that the story drags.  Everyone of course keeps on not believing Richard Carlson's character and even when they do, a predictable "angry villagers" type scene transpires with little happening that is of interest until then.  Arnold keeps the tone in check though and it works as a cautionary tale of mankind's "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality that was explored in many other such films throughout the decade.

 

REVENGE OF THE CREATURE
(1955)
Overall: MEH

Besides switching up the location from the Amazon to an Oceanarium in Florida, few fresh ideas come into play with Universal's Creature from the Black Lagoon sequel Revenge of the Creature.  Jack Arnold sticks around behind the lens, Nestor Paiva shows up at the beginning as the boat captain once again, Ricou Browning still plays the creature in the water, and the famous "Da da daaaaaaa" music punctuates as many Gill Man appearances as it did the first time around.  The story is less exciting though, dragging for large parts around a stock romance between John Agar and "pretty young scientist" Lori Nelson.  The Creature himself spends the entire middle of the movie chained up while tourists look at him through windows, yet once he inevitably escapes, there are a couple of heart-racing moments as he once again pursues the sole female in the cast.  The script has a number of logical problems though, namely how does the Gill Man manage to stalk people when they keep changing bodies of water and how does Nelson's character manage to hold her breath underwater long enough once she is captured by him?  Silly B-movie plot points to be sure, but the whole presentation is unarguably weaker than in its legendary predecessor.

 

THIS ISLAND EARTH
(1955)
Dir - Joseph M. Newman/Jack Arnold
Overall: GOOD

Both because of and in spite of its dated, high camp level special effects and textbook "warning to all humans" message, This Island Earth remains one of the better sci-fi monster films from its era.  Produced by Universal and based off Raymond F. Jones' novel of the same name, it was primarily directed by Joseph M. Newman until Jack Arnold was brought in to re-shoot most of the scenes that take place on the doomed planet Metaluna.  The pacing is surprisingly solid throughout and it is much to the film's benefit that a dramatic musical score is used more sparingly than usual.  With many key scenes playing out silently, they are that much more suspenseful and it is intriguing to find out what all of the human-looking-with-larger-forehead aliens are up to.  There are plenty of silly details all over the plot, the square-jawed hero is hilariously manly with a voice so deep that it sounds dubbed, and the famous alien creatures advertised on the poster are only given about four minutes of screen time, but these hardly make the movie "bad" due to how actually compelling its overall presentation is.

50's Edward L. Cahn Part Three

IT!  THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE

(1958)
Overall: MEH

Dated and amateurish, It! The Terror from Beyond Space is typical low-budget drive-in hogwash where yet another Martian in a silly costume causes a bunch of hoopla for a crew of astronauts.  This is essentially the kind of set-up that Alien would utilize to a far more captivating, serious, and professional extent two decades later, but here the tiny budget and unintended campiness of the era is impossible to miss.  The cast does an adequate job without anyone hamming it up, though the women members of the crew are wasted and are only there to get lightly sexually harassed while taking care of the big strong men when they get hurt.  This is pre-Women's Lib of course, when most females in cinema where depicted as mere housewives anyway.  Infamous for its inadequate monster design and flimsy, loose-fitting costume which could have afforded to have been shot entirely in shadows to actually work, the meat and potatoes plot does not make for an exciting experience to begin with.  Everyone just keeps trying different things to kill the alien before running away and then talking about what other things they can try in order to kill the alien and run away again.

 

THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE

(1959)

Overall: MEH

 

An oddball premise helps distinguish The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake apart from other culturally insensitive voodoo-tinged cheapies from the time period, but the usual issues of poor production qualities and insufficient pacing do a disservice to the finished product.  English character actor Henry Daniell is ideally cast as the villainous shrunken-head practitioner who basically serves as a mad scientist stand-in with a mute assistant to boot, (played by another quirky character actor in six foot six Paul Wexler, who is heavily made up as a primitive native with a sewn-up mouth and putty on his face).  Orville H. Hampton's preposterous script has a "vengeance against the white man" angle via a family curse, but the plotting quickly gets stuck in the muck.  Characters talk, investigate, talk some more, lie in beds, and then talk a lot more with only about two or three set pieces thrown in that liven things up.  Edward L. Cahn's direction is as pedestrian as ever, but there is at least an attempt here to have a mystical and spooky atmosphere with the floating skulls of the title invading people's dreams, close-ups of the inherently eerie shrunken heads, Daniell in an elaborate voodoo mask, and Wexler's unnerving physical appearance.

INVISIBLE INVADERS

(1959)

Overall: MEH

 

John Carradine collects a paycheck in Edward L. Cahn's typically lackluster Invisible Invaders; an alien takeover B-movie that is heavy on narration and stock footage while being low on momentum and budget.  In this particular cockamamie sci-fi scenario, bodiless extraterrestrials decide to takeover the globe by reanimating human corpses, all because world governments will not stop engaging in nuclear bomb developments.  So once again, mankind's stubborn insistence on putting their efforts into technology that will eliminate people who live in different countries is used to justify the aliens saying "enough is enough" and just deciding to come down and wipe us all out before we do it ourselves.  Hardly original yet sufficient for such a cheaply made drive-in product such as this, the performances are sincere considering the dopey material and various shots of walking corpses with sunken eyes, a toy spaceship, invisibility sight gags, a sound gun firing, and glowing humanoid forms make for some fun, campy visuals.  The already brisk, sixty-seven minute running time is padded with scenes from other low-rent films as well as natural disaster footage, Carradine gets done away with early on, and almost every scene is nothing more than characters standing in rooms while talking, as was the norm at the time.

50's Edward L. Cahn Part Two

ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU
(1957)
Overall: MEH

More voodoo, more zombies, more greedy characters, more boredom, etc.  Zombies of Mora Tau, (The Dead That Walk), is another mediocre drive-in yarn with little going for it outside of the usual low-rent production values and recycled tropes.  Set off the coast of Africa yet oddly missing the motif of primitive natives dancing around to tribal drums, (which presumably was too expensive this time to include for Columbia Pictures' B-unit), it has a bunch of cock-sure and sassy white people exchanging snappy dialog with each other, none of whom stand-out except maybe Marjorie Eaton's no-nonsense grandma who is the only one that knows all to well what sinister forces are threatening everyone.  Scream queen Allison Hayes joins the legions of normal-looking, slow-moving undead, which would be a hoot if not for the fact that she merely stumbles around with her eyes wide open while looking glamorous.  The story is not worth paying attention to, but the sixty-nine minute running time is agreeable, there is some awkward, unintended humor sprinkled about, and director Edward L. Cahn and cinematographer Benjamin H. Kline manage to get some spooky shots of zombies rising from their watery resting place in the finale.

 

INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN
(1957)
Overall: MEH

A dopey and lighthearted teenager sci-fi cheapie, Invasion of the Saucer Men, (Invasion of the Hell Creatures), has an early appearance from a twenty-four year old Frank Gorshin and about twenty seconds dedicated to Paul Blaisdell's giant-craniumed extraterrestrials, but it is otherwise forgettable hogwash.  Filmed almost entirely on a sound stage, it was allegedly meant to be a straight-ahead horror romp with aliens, but a decision was made at some point to instead make it a comedy, at least on paper.  If such a last minute tonal shift occurred after Robert J. Gurney Jr. and Al Martin turned in their screenplay that was based off of Paul W. Fairman's short story The Cosmic Frame, that would explain why the movie has maybe a grand total of five jokes in it, all of them nowhere near amusing.  A failure in that respect, it is still difficult to hate a movie that does not take itself seriously and has hardly any unlikable characters in it, even if Gorshin is killed off early on as the outer space creature's first hapless victim.  Still, at less than seventy-minutes, director Edward L. Cahn manages to make it feel about a half hour longer, but in his "defense", it is only as boring as most of the other B-movies from the time, where actors in stupid monster costumes square-off against teenagers who annoy grownups with their top-down convertible make-out sessions and the like.

CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN
(1958)
Overall: MEH

 

Basically a Universal Mummy sequel in all but name, Curse of the Faceless Man surprisingly has more character to it than such a low-level B production should.  Shot cheaply and within seven days, science fiction writer Jerome Bixby's script concerns a revitalized Roman gladiator and a painter with a psychic connection to said gladiator who bares a significant enough resemblance to his long lost love from Pompeii.  The plotting is horrendously stagnant, the narration by radio actor Vic Perrin is unnecessary, dated, and lame, plus Edward L. Cahn exhibits his usual and boringly competent, minimal-effort skills from the director's chair.  This is not helped by a top-to-bottom crop of uninteresting characters who are portrayed by actors that clearly only took the job for the rent money.  Still, Gerald Fried's musical score actually has some memorable and sinister motifs to it and the early scenes featuring the awoken, silent, and hulking Quintillus Aurelius, (portrayed by Bob Bryant), are suspenseful enough to get by.  The whole thing settles into a talking room drama all too easily, but it, (accidentally perhaps), gets a few aspects right along the way.

50's Edward L. Cahn Part One

CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN
(1955)
Overall: MEH

By the mid-50s, so, so many sci-fi horror yarns had come out where someone controls an unwilling sap through science or voodoo or whatever to murder people for some reason, and this makes Columbia Pictures' Creature with the Atom Brain undeniably banal.  To be fair, the stale premise is given an oddball tweak in that a gangster is the one pulling the strings as a surprisingly benevolent, foreign, ex-Nazi scientist has to make zombies out of people who speak through the gangster's voice.  Sadly, all of that sounds more wacky and fun on paper than it does in execution.  A problem with films like this is the using dramatic irony where we the audience know what is going on, yet half of the characters spend the entire movie trying to figure that out.  It makes for a lackluster watch in the wrongs hands and only one scene involving a former good guy-turned zombie who enters his friend's house and hangs out with his young daughter comes anywhere near being suspenseful.  The rest of the movie is police detectives and guys in lab coats spouting scientific gobbledygook while the bad guys stay in one set the entire time making their walking corpses stumble around lazily.

 

THE SHE-CREATURE

(1956)

Overall: WOOF

 

A textbook, dopey B-movie in every respect, The She-Creature was one of many such drive-in cheapies pumped out at the time by American International Pictures, a company that specialized in them.  It was inspired in part by Morey Bernstein's book The Search for Bridey Murphy, which sensationalized a past-life/hypnotism scam that was all the rage for a hot minute in the mid 1950s.  Of course as every horror movie from the period was practically required to have, a "man in a rubber suite" monster also shows up and the results are understandably ridiculous.  The "She Creature" of the title barely gets any screen time anyway, but what does get screen time is doctors, detectives, and a suspicious carnival hypnotist standing in rooms talking about said creature that we hardly see.  Edward L. Cahn's direction is underwhelming and the performances are stiff across the board.  If the camp level was sufficient for what the silly material deserves, this could be a less forgettable offering.  Sadly, it is instead played too straight, with no star power, no pizazz, a lame villain, and a lame monster that again, barely shows up in the first place.

VOODOO WOMAN
(1957)
Overall: MEH

Bringing back actors Marla English and Tom Conway from the previous year's The She-Creature, director Edward L. Cahn and producer Alex Gordon churn out another brainless cheapie with Voodoo Woman; one of several culturally insensitive B-movies to depict Third World natives gallivanting around half-naked to incessant jungle drums while practicing their primitive tribal rituals.   To screenwriter Russ Bender and V.I. Voss' credit though, it is the Caucasians here who come off as the most unlikable, with Conway conducting a convoluted scheme to transform a native lady into a mindless killing machine with a ridiculous monster costume on, (actually a modified version of the one from the aforementioned The She-Creature, here worn by visual effects man Paul Blaisdell), and Marla English blindly ignoring all signs of danger in order to get her greedy mits on some gold.  The tall, chiseled heroes smirk as much as the bad guys do if not more so, the African characters speak like cave men, Conway's way-younger wife cries and acts hysterical, and hardly anything interesting happens for seventy-seven minutes.  So in other words, no better or worse than any other drive-in double feature with a couple of minutes of creature action padded with over an hour's worth of boring characters talking boringly.

50's American Horror Part Thirty-One

PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE
(1954)
Dir - Roy Del Ruth
Overall: MEH
 

Serving as a companion piece to the previous year's House of Wax, Warner Bros. made another Technicolor, 3D, updated version of a story that was already brought to the screen two decades earlier.  Here, it is Edgar Allan Poe that is tapped into with Phantom of the Rue Morgue, an adaptation of the famed 1841 shorty story The Murders in the Rue Morgue which gets a flashier treatment than the 1932 version with Béla Lugosi.  Flashier does not equal better of course and the lack of horror star power is yet another differentiating quality, though the cast is hardly made-up of nobodies, with Karl Malden for one taking over the Lugosi part in a lively manner.  Director Roy Del Ruth and cinematographer J. Peverell Marley stage some showy shots for the 3D gimmick, but the film does not move at an agreeable enough quip.  Part of this is due to the mystery that is hardly a mystery for those who are familiar with the story and a lot of screen time is spent with Claude Dauphin's police inspector interrogating the wrong man and everyone discovering things that have already been explained to us in previous scenes.  We do not get any killer, "man in a gorilla suit" action on screen until the last act as well, but despite the movie's less-than-memorable presentation, it is a classy and well-performed production.

 

SHE DEVIL

(1957)

Dir - Kurt Neumann

Overall: MEH

 

A bog-standard B-movie from 20th Century Fox, She Devil utilizes its femme fatale meets pseudo-science scenario as well as can be expected.  One of the later features from prolific director Kurt Neumann who worked in a handful of genres throughout his several decade-long career, it does not boast much star power besides Mari Blanchard in the lead who gets her meatiest role here as a mysterious woman that is interjected with an experimental serum when she is on her death bed, only to miraculously recover with superpowers and a temperamental attitude.  Usually cast as a bombshell of some sorts, most of the male characters here fall instantly in love with Blanchard, which is fitting to her newfound take no prisoners lease on life as a, (literally), strong woman who is going to get what she wants come hell or high water.  It is ridiculous that she appears unrecognizable to people merely by changing her hair color and she only does a small handful of diabolical things anyway since the movie is instead padded with Jack Kelly and Albert Dekker talking doctor stuff, particularly about what should be done about the title vixen's newfound, reckless ways.  With a dopey script and little action, it does not achieve any zany or memorable heights the way that Neumann's The Fly from the following year did, per comparison.

 

THE SCREAMING SKULL

(1958)

Dir - Alex Nicol

Overall: MEH

 

Though great it certainly is not, the infamous cheapie The Screaming Skull from American International Pictures is hardly the world's most boring and inept B-movie to emerge during the 1950s.  Actor-turned-director Alex Nicol takes his first crack at something from behind the lens and though he struggles to keep the pace from stalling, he pulls off a couple of campy and macabre moments, including a hectic finally where the screaming skull of the title flies at the screen and chases around John Hudson.  Producer John Kneubuhl's story is pedestrian and predictable for the most part and anybody who has seen a movie where a guy's wife dies mysteriously and his new wife is gaslit while being tormented by supernatural tomfoolery will easily put together who the bad guy is.  Best of all is Floyd Crosby's cinematography which is more atmospheric than the hokey material deserves.  If not for the dragging nature of the plotting as well as the uninspired script, this would have had a better chance at being a memorable bit of psychological spookiness.  Instead, it falls short of the William Castle aura that it sets out to achieve, down to the gimmicky opening where it promises free burial services for any audience member who dies of fright.  A promise that was likely never taken up upon.

50's American Horror Part Thirty - (Jerry Warren Edition)

MAN BEAST
(1956)
Dir - Jerry Warren
Overall: WOOF
 
When Fred Olen Ray allegedly goes on record in stating that your film is "incredibly boring", you know that you got something that is the antithesis of special on your hands.  Man Beast is the debut from director Jerry Warren that was made with no money and much footage from other films thrown in for padding and it fails as an engaging viewing experience in every possible way.   Though it is only sixty-seven minutes long, fifty of them is spent with characters talking to each other about missing brothers and treacherous mountains, while another sixteen and a half minutes is made up of expedition scenes from Allied Artists and Monogram movies, plus some that was allegedly taken from an unreleased Mexican one.  If you are doing the math, that leaves thirty seconds for having any yeti on screen whatsoever and considering that the entire affair is marketed as an abdominal snowman movie, that is a big fat swing and a miss.  To be fair, the reworked ape costume from the 1945 film White Pongo looks fine during the "blink and you'll miss them" moments that it shows up and the plot twist of a native guide who is actually a silver-haired/eyebrowed decedent of the yeti whose master-plan is to kidnap women in order to mate with them is sufficiently exploitative.  Too bad they just forgot to do anything else correctly.

THE INCREDIBLE PETRIFIED WORLD

(1959)

Overall: WOOF

 

Shot in 1957 yet not released until two years later on a double bill with Teenage Zombies, Jerry Warren's The Incredible Petrified World is anything but "incredible".  Well, unless you consider it incredible that it is so lackluster.  While technically an under sea romp where ocean explorers get trapped in a volcanic cave after their diving bell breaks, the two women/two man crew of bland Caucasians sit around talking, exploring, arguing, and eventually coming in contact with a bearded man who has been inexplicably living down there for over a decade.  Meanwhile, John Carradine tries to rescue his crew and eventually does so in one of the most anti-climaxes that you are likely to find, even in D-grade crap like this.  There are no monsters, no dangerous sea critters, of course some stock footage, and the only alarming thing that happens besides everyone spending the movie slowly losing hope of being saved is when the aforementioned bearded guy grabs one of the women before some rocks fall on him.  Warren occasionally has his cinematographer move the camera around this time and the sets are more impressive than just a mid-sized room getting redecorated, but it is still a waste of time from front to back.

TEENAGE ZOMBIES

(1959)

Overall: WOOF

Shot with his usual "bah, who cares?" level of production values, Teenage Zombies is Jerry Warren doing what he does "best".  Infamous and rightfully so, Warren threw this lazy drive-in effort together in what looks like about two days and for twenty cents, putting a bunch of poor no-name actors in front of the screen who never get a break from saying embarrassing dribble.  The performances are uniformly bad since how could they not be, with Jacques Lecoutier's script serving as a series of lazy "mad scientists dominating the world" tropes and jolly-wiz youngsters who have to make the most out of the fact that Warren seems allergic to yelling the word "cut" until the scene is over.  This is to say that his direction deserves the brunt of the scorn since the man has the pacing sense of a sloth reading War and Peace.  The music never stops playing and was likely taken from whatever library cues were the easiest to obtain, plus besides some repetitive transition scenes on a speeder boat, it may as well have been filmed in a single room since the camera never cuts away from an unending stream of wide-shots, with just enough decor to signify what is supposed to be a laboratory or a diner.  One guy stumbles around doing a Frankenstein monster impression as a zombie and another guy wears an appropriately cheap gorilla costume since what no-budget horror movie is complete without one of those?  The point is, stay away; stay far away.

50's American Horror Part Twenty-Nine

RED PLANET MARS

(1952)

Dir - Harry Horner

Overall: MEH

 

The debut from director Harry Horner, Red Planet Mars is more of a simple-minded, Cold War melodrama than an alien takeover film.  In fact, whatever extraterrestrials may be lurking about are both never seen and hardly concerned with physically infiltrating our planet, instead sending coded messages that are Biblically interpreted and eventually bring about some semblance of world piece with both the Russian and American military sides ceasing their long-standing one-upmanship and distrust.  A nice concept delivered in a talky and relentlessly boring fashion, but the way that the story boils entire societies down to rudimentary cliches that are brought together by Christian dogma is laughable and made almost surreal due to the sincere approach.  An adaptation of John L. Balderston's 1932 stage play Red Planet, (Balderson sharing screenwriting credit with Anthony Veiller), the unintended goofiness is the only thing that may keep any viewer interested.  Well that and some heavy performances by Peter Graves, (in his first top-billed role), Andrea King, and Herbert Berghof as an anarchist encoder who is pulling both sides along for his own sadistic glee.  Still, the first half is unwatchably dull and there can be no denying how stupid the finale is.

MAN IN THE ATTIC

(1953)

Dir - Hugo Fregonese

Overall: MEH

Yet another adaptation of Marie Belloc Lowndes' 1911 novel The Lodger and the last which was theatrically released until David Ondaatje's 2009 take on it, Man in the Attic scored Jack Palance in the lead, which is about the only differentiating quality that it has compared to previous versions.  It most closely adheres to the plot and structure of the 1944 one which was directed by John Brahm considering that it utilizes the same script from a credited Barré Lyndon, though screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr. was also involved with providing its few narrative tweaks.  Argentine director Hugo Fregonese had bounced between Westerns and film noirs at this point in his career and despite the movie's talky nature, he still keeps up a steady pace aside from some brief musical numbers that grind things to a halt, be it temporarily.  Palance had yet to develop his perpetual smirk and exaggerated, breathy delivery and he turns in a low-key performance that is in keeping with this story's version of Jack the Ripper as a cautious and neurotic loner who becomes infatuated with the one woman that shows him admiration.  The finale is not that riveting and since there is no mystery as to who London's lady murderer is, the plot once again simply goes through the motions until it wraps up.

 

THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER
(1957)
Dir - Ronnie Ashcroft
Overall: WOOF

 

One of several crap-budgeted B-movies that was churned out as the second feature in a double drive-in bill, The Astounding She-Monster, (The Mysterious Invader), is the first of only three films to be directed by editor Ronnie Ashcroft.  Ed Wood Jr. allegedly worked on the script in an unofficial capacity and it bares several of his inept trademarks.  The pacing is snore-inducing due to Ashcroft's flat direction that favors stagnant wide shots and tedious character behavior, plus there is a goofy and mute extraterrestrial babe played by Shirley Kilpatrick and terrible early narration from Scott Douglas whose whispery and effeminate line-readings sound as if he can barely stay awake while delivering them.  As one could guess, the ridiculous story never picks up any momentum as we spend almost the entire movie in a cabin where some gangsters argue with each other and Kilpatrick occasionally murders them with her glowing body suite on.  The performances are wooden at best, but these poor actors can hardly be blamed with what they have to work with.  It manages to not be insulting in its feeble attempts as a melodramatic crime/sci-fi hybrid and is mercifully only an hour long, but there is still nothing here worth remembering.

50's American Horror Part Twenty-Eight - (Curt Siodmak Edition)

BRIDE OF THE GORILLA

(1951)

Overall: MEH

The Wolf Man except in the jungle, Bride of the Gorilla sees director Curt Siodmak trying to recapture his previous success with the Universal classic, going as far as to cast Lon Chaney Jr. though only in a supporting role.  Raymond Burr steps in to play the doomed individual that gets cursed/drugged by a native woman so that he can turn into a primate beast, but he is a less sympathetic character than Larry Talbot which gives Siodmak's script another differentiating quality besides the exotic setting.  A B-movie that was allegedly shot in ten days, the love triangle plus Burr's transformation from a gruff plantation manager who kills his boss in order to snag his wife into a guy in a monkey suit has enough melodrama to keep the pacing from dragging.  Still, the film makes a detrimental misstep in that it fails to show said monkey throughout almost its entire running time.  The most that we get are a couple of shots of Burr's hands going all black and hairy, plus one or two moments where we see his ape reflection in the mirror.  This is a bogus error for a cheap monster flick that did not have the budget for some ghastly make-up to throw on its star, but the serious presentation of a silly premise almost gets by otherwise.

THE MAGNETIC MONSTER

(1953)

Dir - Curt Siodmak/Herbert L. Strock

Overall: MEH

 

The first in a series of science fiction films from screenwriter Ivan Tors, (who initially pitched it along with actor Richard Carlson as a television series), The Magnetic Monster is one of the more talky B-movies of an era that was ripe with far too many of them.  A low-budget production from Tors' own company, it recycles a few minutes of special effects footage from the 1934 German film Gold, which provides the only visual flourishes to white people having endless conversations about a magnetic substance that continues to grow in size and ergo threaten humanity with its deadly radioactive content.  There are a couple of familiar faces on board besides Carlson, with Invasion of the Body Snatchers' King Donovan as his Office of Scientific Investigation partner and sour-puss character actor Kathleen Freeman as his secretary, but they can only do so much with such uninteresting material.  The "all talk, no action" presentation is the reason for its lackadaisical pacing which discusses the danger that is facing everyone instead of showing it enough for the viewers to give a shit.  The concept itself is too boring and inaccessible, (magnetism, how terrifying), to even work with a bigger budget and punchier script, but the cast and crew try their best at least.

CURUCU, BEAST OF THE AMAZON

(1956)

Overall: WOOF

Though it was distributed by Universal as part of its B-unit of monster movies, Curucu, Beast of the Amazon has more of the hallmarks of Poverty Row junk heaps and is a far cry from the studio's better works in the genre.  As the title would suggest, it was shot on location in the Amazon River in Brazil and actually gives some native actors dialog instead of delegating the speaking roles to Caucasians in brown face.  The Scooby-Doo plot twist may further disappoint fans who were expecting an Amazon creature of immense power and destruction, but the monster of the title looks cheap and ridiculous anyway so it is probably a good thing that it barely shows up.  On that note though, this leaves a talky and ergo disappointingly dull script to play itself out where forgettable, chisel-jawed hero John Bromfield and sci-fi queen Beverly Garland have boring conversations and no chemistry with each other throughout the jungle landscape.  Writer/director Curt Siodmak's few efforts from behind the lens were never that impressive to begin with, but one would think that the guy who wrote The Wolf Man could at least deliver something better than this.

50's American Horror Part Twenty-Seven - (W. Lee Wilder Edition)

PHANTOM FROM SPACE

(1953)

Overall: MEH

 

Schlock director W. Lee Wilder's first of several D-grade genre cheapies for he and son Myles' production company Planet Filmplays, Phantom from Space is typically shoddy.  Nothing but interchangeable white people with no personalities stand in rooms talking, only to cut to another scene where a different combination of them are standing in a different room talking some more.  This is only rarely interrupted by stock footage and some invisible alien antics that do not arrive until the halfway point.  On that note, the extraterrestrial visitor here wears a helmet with a tiny window in it to see out of and even though he hectically runs around, numerous people still claim with full conviction that they were able to tell that there was no head inside of said helmet.  This is a nitpick, but it is just one of many plot points that seemed to be devised without a second thought given to them since who cares about logical specifics when it is clearly way more important to get back to more scenes of boring Caucasians talking in rooms?  These are the jokes folks.  To be fair, the invisibility special effects hold up as good as anything from the period and the busy theremin score is annoyingly fun, but otherwise, this is a minimal effort dud.

 

KILLERS FROM SPACE

(1954)

Overall: MEH

 

Literal bug-eyed aliens eventually show up a half hour into W. Lee Wilder's Killers from Space, (The Man Who Saved the Earth); the director's second low-budgeted sci-fi yarn for his Planet Filmplays company.  Distributed by RKO, it has one of the earliest top-billed performances from Peter Graves as well as the usual goofy ingredients of library-cued music that never shuts the hell up, extraterrestrials in ridiculous costumes who need a new planet to inhabit because theirs is doomed, doctors using truth serum as if it is a real thing, plenty of stock footage, plus sets and gadgets that Roger Corman would even be embarrassed by.  A long flashback sequence thrown in the middle finally jolts the viewer out of the torturous boredom of white people talking a lot, which is thankfully enough to sustain interest until Graves single-handedly confronts the otherworldly invaders with a plan that he concocts while scribbling down some equations in a hospital bed.  There are some variations in William Raynor and Myles Wilder's script to just another unimaginative scenario where doctors and military men discuss what types of weapons to use, with Graves being the lone person who is hip to the alien's plan and being treated like a mentally ill person with shell shock.  Every other character is entirely forgettable though, yet thankfully not given much screen time.  At least the wacky Ed Wood-worthy human aliens are stupid and fun. 

 

THE SNOW CREATURE

(1954)

Overall: WOOF

 

Though historically notable as one of if not the first Yeti movie, The Snow Creature is also one of if not the most dull.  Instead of merely opening with narration over stock footage, (as was the case with director W. Lee Wilder's previous two science fiction films Phantom from Space and Killers from Space), Paul Langton interjects some commentary throughout the whole thing, recalling how he and a scientific expedition uncovered an abominable snowman that was then brought back to the US for further study.  Such a tale is nearly void of action or anything remotely interesting though.  Most viewers will not be able to make it through the first act where Americans and Japanese, (who are mountain climbing in India but whatever), trade a couple of mildly heightened conversations with each other, all while Wilder keeps his title monster off screen besides some silhouettes and shots of it behind ice.  Things do not get any better once we get stateside, with more talking in rooms about finding the now missing creature, all while Wilder continues to keep it off screen.  The usually competent and future Roger Corman collaborator Floyd Crosby's cinematography is sadly awful and makes an already boring movie that much more unwatchable, then throw in a hilariously anti-climactic ending and yeah, this is crap.

 

FRIGHT

(1956)

Overall: MEH

 

A cheap variation of the same year's The Search for Bridey Murphy from Paramount, Fright, (Spell of the Hypnotist), is the only psychological thriller from the father/son writer/director team of Myles and W. Lee Wilder.  After an intense opening scene where a murderer is cornered by both police and bystanders on a bridge, followed by Eric Fleming talking said murder off of said bridge via hypnosis, the main resurrection story gets underway involving Nancy Malone who seems to have a German baroness living inside of her.  As usual, Wilder's direction is lifeless and even if the script was loaded with compelling revelations and the actors had overwhelming charisma, (neither of which is the case), it would still crumble under the stagnant presentation.  Also, Fleming is dreadfully dull in the lead as if his face is perpetually stuck in a "Let's just get this over with so I can get a paycheck" grimace.  It treats the concept of hypnotic manipulation as loosey-goosey as any sensationalized B-movie does and the final act throws a particularly cockamamie scheme into the mix that would be hilarious if anyone watching could stay awake long enough to notice it.

50's American Horror Part Twenty-Six

MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR

(1954)

Dir - Wyott Ordung

Overall: WOOF

 

Notable as the first production job for Roger Corman, Monster from the Ocean Floor is only of historical interest as it set the course for the rest of the man's career and is otherwise insultingly comatose-inducing.  Corman scrounged up enough funds from selling his Highway Dragnet screenplay to get the movie underway, bringing in actor friend Wyott Ordung to direct who allegedly put him in contact with soon-to-be Corman regular Johnathan Haze, cinematographer Floyd Crosby, and producers James Nicholson and Samuel Arkoff from American International Pictures fame.  Always the huckster, Corman even got free use out of an electric-powered one-man submarine by crediting its inventor and as one could surmise, all of these behind the scenes details are light years more interesting than anything that transpires on screen.  The plot is so uninteresting that it almost undetectable, the characters are as bland as can be, Ordung's direction is shockingly lifeless, and we only get a couple of seconds worth of the undersea monster that is nothing more than an over-sized octopus.

 

PHARAOH'S CURSE
(1957)
Dir - Lee Sholem
Overall: MEH
 
A low-grade dud from Poverty Row studio Bel-Air Productions, Pharaoh's Curse has little to offer for horror fans of the Ancient Egypt variety.  Everything about the film is pedestrian, from Lee Sholem's flat direction, Richard H. Landau uninspired screenplay that does not even bother to throw a proper mummy into the mix, a cast of forgettable Caucasian actors who are all going through the motions, and shoddy set design that conveys none of the mysterious majesty of unventured tombs full of sinister curses and the like.  Arriving in the late 1950s, the material itself comes off as dated since Universal stopped churning out their increasingly lackluster Mummy sequels over a decade earlier, though Abbott and Costello at least held their own two years previous with the apply titled Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.  There is a suspicious foreign woman who joins a party of soldiers that are investigating an archeological expedition, (played by actual Israeli/American actor Ziva Roddan), some domestic squabbling, and a guy who turns into an old man make-up "monster", but there is nothing else going on here.

 

THE RETURN OF DRACULA
(1958)
Dir - Paul Landres
Overall: MEH
 
A contemporary American suburbia retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula done on a modest budget, The Return of Dracula, (Curse of Dracula, The Fantastic Disappearing Man), is one of the rare and better of such "classic monster" movies made on U.S. soil in the era where alien or over-sized creatures were the new norm.  Directed by Paul Landres who mostly dabbled in Westerns, (as well as being behind the lens on the previous year's similar undead yarn The Vampire), it sets the Count himself in white picket California, posing as a European cousin who all too easily dupes his now-adopted "family" into thinking nothing of his antisocial mannerisms and unavailability during the day time.  Though he poses absolutely zero menacing threat and minimal sexual energy, Austrian/Hungarian actor Francis Lederer is as logical of a choice to play the famed title character as any, with his natural foreign accent and friendly charm when convincing everyone around him that he is just a normal bloke from Central Europe.  Released the same year as Hammer's game-changer Horror of Dracula, this particular entry has no chance but to be the more obscure of the two and rightfully so, but it has an agreeable pace, the same recognizable "Dies Irae" musical motif that was utilized in The Shining, and one or two ghastly, atmospheric set pieces.

50's American Horror Part Twenty-Five - (Nathan H. Juran Edition)

THE DEADLY MANTIS
(1957)
Overall: WOOF

Another cookie-cutter snooze-fest of a giant monster movie, Universal's The Deadly Mantis was the first of several in the science fiction vein to be directed by Nathan H. Juran.  Written by Martin Berkely, (who had also authored the interchangeably lackluster and similar Tarantula two years earlier), and based off of a story concept by producer William Alland, it delivers the over-sized arthropod of the title yet sadly only does so for maybe a grand total of six minutes.  The hydraulic, papier mâché model work is goofy looking and persistently unconvincing when it does show up, yet the production at least had the good sense to use an actual praying mantis for a brief moment where it climbs the Washington Monument.  Elsewhere, it is the usual combination of military stock footage and unrecognizable, Caucasian B-actors delivering exasperatingly dull dialog to each other while standing in rooms.  When the big, silly looking monster is flying through the air as fighter jet clips from other movies are utilized to make it look like a heart-racing battle is happening, the film almost livens up to remind the viewer that they are watching some factory-assembled camp.  It is more likely though that you will be too bored to even notice that such an aviation vs insect showdown is even happening in the first place.

 

20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH
(1957)
Dir - Nathan Juran/Ray Harryhausen/Charles H. Schneer
Overall: MEH

The first of three collaborations between stop-motion artist Ray Harryhausen, producer Charles H. Schneer, and director Nathan H. Juran, 20 Million Miles to Earth, (The Beast from Space), is a highlight for some of its effects work, but otherwise standard to lackluster.  Filming was broken up between Italy and the US, with the former allegedly being chosen because Harryhausen, (who initially pitched the story concept), wanted to vacation there.  This resulted in different sequences being directed by three different people, depending on the locale.  Not that it matters though since the narrative merely serves the purpose of getting us to the next monster-go-smashy set piece and thankfully there are several of them to enjoy.  The beast here, (which was originally refereed to as a Ymir after Norse mythology), is a splendid and unique creation from Harryhausen as it grows exponentially throughout the movie.  It also garnishes the audience's sympathy early on when it is relatively harmless, up until it is hunted down by the military who keep forgetting that bullets do absolutely nothing to harm it.  As far as the characters and the plot go, it is wooden and flimsy stuff respectfully, but the pacing is agreeable for a change and Golden Era Hollywood giant monster fans will have plenty to savor.

 

THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS

(1957)

Dir - Nathan H. Juran

Overall: MEH

 

An alien possession B-movie done on the cheap, The Brain from Planet Arous takes unofficial inspiration from the 1949 novel Needle by Hal Clement and is an equally dopey and talky effort, but its plot is wacky enough to remain amusing.  The evil, extraterrestrial brain of the title hangs out in a cave until a scientist happens to walk in there and then proceeds to take him over, proclaiming that he was carefully chosen even though his walking into said cave was an arbitrary act.  Then a useless yet good hovering brain shows up, possesses a dog, and follows the evil brain/scientist guy around while being in cahoots with his fiance and soon-to-be father in law.  This has plenty of unintentionally outrageous details to laugh at considering that the bad alien favors aggressive smooching, is prone to megalomaniacal outbursts, can explode entire cities by looking at them with silver eyeballs, and is ultimately outwitted by his host body merely overcoming him with an axe.  Director Nathan H. Juran never leans into the inherent schlock of the whole thing, but John Agar thankfully gets to mug it up in his dual role while Dale Tate's alien voice-over indulges in "all of you puny humans will be my slave" type of dialog.

ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN
(1958)
Dir - Nathan Hertz
Overall: MEH
 
Allied Artists jumps on the bandwagon with Attack of the 50 Foot Woman; yet another sci-fi B-movie with a "human is a different size than they should be" gimmick.  This time the victim is a female who comes in contact with a glowing sphere with a creepy bald giant nestling inside of it.  Whatever that is about.  As is usual for these drive-in yarns, the first act is a slog and primarily focuses on a scumbag husband and his mistress, while his wife, (the eventual fifty-foot title woman), is persistently agitated that no one believes what she saw.  Things eventually start to get amusingly odd, but it is still mostly doctors and police officials standing around talking about things as we wait and wait and wait for the action promised on the movie poster to start happening.  Which it finally does...fifty-six minutes in.  Definitely a case of too little too late, the script by Mark Hanna feels padded despite some quirky details and an unmistakable, quasi-cautionary theme of emotionally frail women who are pushed to the point of vengeance.  Plus, how did Allison Hayes grow a scantily-clad outfit that she does not wear at any other time in the film?  Probably the same reason that Bruce Banner's jeans never exploded off of him when he turns into the Hulk.