(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH
For episode one, the Lon Chaney Jr. hosted, English-langue, Swedish horror television anthology series 13 Demon Street kicks off with a variation of Maurice Renard's 1920 novel Les Mains d'Orlac, which had been adapted to the big screen numerous times. As the title would allude to, it concerns an amputated appendage with a sinister mind of its own, one that a renowned surgeon decides to give himself after a car accident. It becomes readily apparent that the story from screenwriter Richard Jairus Castle and director Curt Siodmak is not concerned with iron-clad logic as things rush along with glaring inconsistencies. This would set the tone for the series though which would deal with otherworldly scenarios condensed to twenty-odd minutes for melodramatic consumption. In this respect, it is a serviceable if still fragile under a microscope.
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: GOOD
Writer/director Curt Siodmak concocts a unique tale for the second 13 Demon Street episode "Fever" where a demented painter becomes obsessed with a neighbor across the street that may or may not exist in a consistently corporeal sense. The actual protagonist is not said artist but instead a doctor who visits him due to complaints of a fever, a fever which he too succumbs to after likewise becoming infatuated with the beautiful woman the smiles from a castle window on the other side of the road where there is no such castle to be found. Specifics are kept vague, more due to the brisk running time that each of the program's installments dictated than any weak writing on Sidmak's part, and this gives the tale a fittingly eerie tone that is well-maintained.
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: GOOD
The excellent and chilling "Condemned in the Crystal" was the only 13 Demon Street screenwriting contribution from Dory Previn, who works wonders within the framework of a stoic gypsy woman foretelling an unavoidable and tragic fate. Director Curt Siodmak certainly favored such terrain as his most famous credit amongst several is for being the author of Universal's The Wolf Man, and while there are no lycanthropian elements to be found, the episode is a consistently tense musing on the inevitability of fate, if one is to believe in such a thing. Of course our lead protagonist, (portrayed by usual Western man Michael Hinn, who looks like he could have been a close relative to René Auberjonois), does not believe in such supernatural mumbo jumbo, or at least persistently tells himself that as his analyst suggest that he visits a place from his childhood that has been giving him vivid nightmares. Why do TV and movie therapists always suggest that their patients revisit a place of trauma in order to "conquer" it? Does that ever work?
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH
Though it gets off to a fine start as an atmospheric if still bog-standard haunted house yarn, "Green Are the Leaves" goes through some clunky motions in its closing moments. It immediately recalls the second season Tales from the Crypt episode "Television Terror" where a film crew sets up in a haunted abode in order to broadcast their otherworldly findings for some rating boosts. Other stories have come down the pike with similar premises, and this one has less sleazy characters than usual, focusing on a small handful of them who seem generally if still cynically curious to uncover any supernatural mystery. The spacious mansion setting is ideal, as is some brooding cinematography and a stark sound design that emphasizes a still tension until one particular room in the place makes good on its nasty reputation when midnight strikes. Unfortunately, it hits a peak when it still has several minutes left in the running time, ending in a clumsy and melodramatic fashion that dilutes the previously established spooky mood.
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