(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.
(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.
(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.
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