THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
(1973)
Dir - Glenn Jordon
Overall: MEH
Producer Dan Curtis' third famous literary horror adaptation for the small screen was Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, a well-acted if overlong and underwhelming version that can only do so much within its television presentation. As usual for Curtis' similar projects, this was an American production with a British cast that has the same shot-on-tape aesthetic of Dark Shadows or any other BBC property/soap opera from the time period. It also has the same sinister music from Bob Cobert that Curtis' horror properties were apparently incapable of not using. Baby-faced Shane Briant was born to play the title character; a smug and filthy rich young man who becomes obsessed with maintaining his swoon-worthy good looks, thus making a Faustian pact where a painting of him grows old while he stays youthful at the cost of losing his soul. By comparison, Briant is actually more excitable than Hurd Hatfield in the 1945 MGM interpretation, growing genuinely disturbed and paranoid by his supernatural situation, as well as the death of those around him who he is either directory or indirectly responsible for. It makes enough correct turns to be of interest to fans of the source material, but a tighter edit and some flare would have elevated it.
(1973)
Dir - Glenn Jordon
Overall: MEH
Producer Dan Curtis' third famous literary horror adaptation for the small screen was Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, a well-acted if overlong and underwhelming version that can only do so much within its television presentation. As usual for Curtis' similar projects, this was an American production with a British cast that has the same shot-on-tape aesthetic of Dark Shadows or any other BBC property/soap opera from the time period. It also has the same sinister music from Bob Cobert that Curtis' horror properties were apparently incapable of not using. Baby-faced Shane Briant was born to play the title character; a smug and filthy rich young man who becomes obsessed with maintaining his swoon-worthy good looks, thus making a Faustian pact where a painting of him grows old while he stays youthful at the cost of losing his soul. By comparison, Briant is actually more excitable than Hurd Hatfield in the 1945 MGM interpretation, growing genuinely disturbed and paranoid by his supernatural situation, as well as the death of those around him who he is either directory or indirectly responsible for. It makes enough correct turns to be of interest to fans of the source material, but a tighter edit and some flare would have elevated it.
(1978)
Dir - Don Dohler
Overall: WOOF
The crudtacular career of writer/director/producer/former restaurant manager Don Dohler began with The Alien Factor; a film that bares the hallmarks of regional movie-making and Dohler's brand in particular. Shot over the course of eight of the lousiest weather months in Baltimore, Maryland with non-actors and presumably the cast and crew's homes and places of work serving as the shooting locations, it is an ambitious DIY project that sometimes falls down the stairs spectacularly in its attempts. Three extraterrestrials crash land in the boonies and terrorize the local yokels, but not enough to stop everyone from having comatose-inducing conversations with each other instead of doing remotely exciting. We also get a way-too-long sequence of some guy drinking in a bar, listening to an entire song performed by a band with a random dude miming the drums worse than anyone in screen history has ever done, and then going back home to get killed by one of the aliens. So in other words, Dohler cobbled together whatever footage and no effort ideas that he could in order to get the movie up to a full-length running time and it noticeably suffers because of this. Still, the monster costumes, (usually shot in the day time), have a tacky charm to them and some stop-motion animation springs up out of nowhere to give us something to both laugh at and appreciate due to the lack of talent and money available for such a production.
(1979)
Dir - Denny Harris
Overall: MEH
A troubled production that was initially filmed in 1977 only to be deemed unreleasable by producers and almost entirely reshot with a new cast and new screenwriters on board, The Silent Scream ends up being just another schlocky slasher movie with motifs that recall many. This was the lone film of any kind from director Denny Harris and keen genre fans will recognize the Smith Estate from Spider Baby as the shooting location, except this time we get to see the beach behind it. Cameron Mitchell, Barbara Steele, and Yvonne De Carlo are all on board, (which on paper should be enough), but they were all part of the recasts, are given little to do, and it makes one wonder how dull the film was in its initial form before such noted genre thespians were brought on board. Rebecca Balding makes her first of two lead appearances in a horror movie, (the silly yet comparatively superior The Boogens proceeded this), playing a college student who is desperate for a place to stay and settles on the only house in town that will take her. The good news is that her student roommates are all likeable, but the bad news is that somebody in the abode is prone to murdering people with a knife while Psycho violin screeches play over the soundtrack. It is a dopey and predictable story which means that Harris has a helluva time making any of the set pieces suspenseful, but at least Steele gets to act crazy and Mitchell does not just deliver his dialog from a chair.
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