(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.
(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.
(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.
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