1970s American Horror Part Fifty-Nine

PLAY MISTY FOR ME

(1971)

Dir - Clint Eastwood

Overall: GOOD

Clint Eastwood's directorial debut Play Misty for Me is one of the more effective obsession thrillers from the 1970s; one that has a sinister uncomfortableness aided by Jessica Walter's finely-tuned, unhinged performance.  Right from the offset, Eastwood exhibited a tight, no-nonsense approach from behind the lens, turning the finished product in ahead of both budget and schedule due to meticulous planning and his ability to crystalize his ideas to the cast and crew.  As has usually been the norm, Eastwood is in front of the screen as well, playing the Carmel-by-the-Sea radio DJ who takes a stab at cooling down his promiscuous love life just as a deranged fan enters into it.  Walter has the much showier role, coming off as a wack-job almost from the moment that we meet her and exhibiting frighteningly dramatized BPD tendencies that are counter-balanced by the sincere presentation.  Jo Heims and Dean Riesner's script does a better job than most in allowing us to buy into the disturbing set pieces, even if we know where the story is going far more than Eastwood's character obviously does, so ergo, we may find fault in the initial lackadaisical approach that he takes to his predicament.  Still, it is a meticulously crafted work, ideally performed and with a hip soundtrack including actual footage of the 1970 Monterey Jazz Festival to boot.

 

A NAME FOR EVIL

(1973)

Dir - Bernard Girard

Overall: MEH

 

Despite the fact that Penthouse stepped in on the production end and there is full frontal male and female nudity, A Name for Evil has all of the stylist trappings of a television film, with the personnel to boot.  Writer/director Bernard Girard and actor Robert Culp mainly cut their teeth on the small screen, the nearly incessant, stock quality musical score was done by Dominic Frontiere of Outer Limits fame, and the whole thing runs a measly seventy-four minutes long.  Mixing ancestral possession, haunted house, and psychological horror aspects together with a nonsensical plot line involving an underwritten architect and several other half-baked at best ideas, (as well as a full-blown hippy orgy), the movie is all over the place and resolves itself in an increasingly clumsy manner.  This is likely do to the film allegedly being made by MGM at first, who shelved it for several years where the more naked and exploitative elements were presumably added by Penthouse.  In any event, it has some fascinating tranwreck qualities to it, that is if one can be forgiving of its incomprehensible narrative and instead bask in unresolved character arcs and surreal sequences that seem to be there just to keep the viewer from tuning out of a story that goes absolutely nowhere.

 

SATAN'S TRIANGLE

(1975)

Dir - Sutton Roley

Overall: MEH

One of the earliest of several Bermuda Triangle-themed films made in the later part of the decade, Satan's Triangle was the January 14th ABC Movie of the Week for 1975, directed by career television man Sutton Roley.  Atmospheric in some parts with one or two genuinely freaky bits thrown in, it unfortunately cannot sustain its reasonably seventy-four minute running time as the entire second act resorts to a lengthy flashback that introduces and then does away with a handful of uninteresting characters.  Kim Novak plays a hussy that falls in instantaneous love with two different men, or so we are led to believe as the finale rug-pull sheds some creepy light on the proceedings.  Performance wise, Novak and Doug McClure, (both our main protagonists), are wooden, but the the final few moments offer up some melodramatic posturing, particularly where Alejandro Ray's mysterious Father is concerned.  Considering that the Bermuda Triangle myth was widely speculated upon until being universally debunked, screenwriter William Read Woodfield could have went anywhere with such a concept, choosing to focus on the Devil as a physical presence that seems to perpetually lure anyone to their doom that crosses his oceanic path.  The themes of rational explanation vs the supernatural are arguably the most tired in the genre though and the story does not offer up any unique variations to such a formula.

1970s American Horror Part Fifty-Eight

SCREAM OF THE WOLF

(1974)

Dir - Dan Curtis

Overall: MEH

One of Dan Curtis' more humdrum made-for-television offerings in his busiest year behind the lens, Scream of the Wolf is a misleading werewolf film for anyone expecting as much considering that there is in fact no werewolf in it.  Richard Matheson adapts David Case's short story "The Hunter" with loads of homoerotic subtext between Peter Graves and Clint Walker, two former hunting buddies with clashing opinions about stopping a chain of local, animalistic killings that are leaving the police authorities perplexed while understandably terrifying the townsfolk.  Unfortunately, Walker's character just comes off like an illogically creepy asshole instead of an interesting, menacing presence, refusing to help track the beast down while smirking and toying with Graves in a petty, childish attempt to make his old friend once again revel in the thrill of manly companionship via animal murder.  The story does not work as a mystery since Walker is painted as the sole culprit the entire time and the only surprise that the final reveal offers is in how difficult it is to buy into.  Matheson's plotting was usually more intricate, leaving Curtis with little to do besides fill up the run time with repetitive talking bits that give it a lethargic pace.

 

THE ASTROLOGER

(1975)

Dir - James Glickenhaus

Overall: WOOF

 

The debut from filmmaker James Glickenhaus, (who would go on to do a number of D-level action movies throughout the following two decades), is the rambling and staggeringly boring kind-of horror film The Astrologer, (Suicide Cult).  Not to be confused with Craig Denney's equally daft vanity project of the same name which was released the next year, this one was allegedly shot for $20,000 after Glickenhaus inherited some money, but it only had a limited theatrical run before being re-released later as Suicide Cult to tie it in with the Jonestown Massacre; a real life event from which the actual movie here bares virtually zero similarities with.  Not that one can easily follow such a comatose-inducing story in the fist place.  It is amazing that something made up of ninety percent dialog could turn out borderline incomprehensible.  A scientific political organization uses astrology to predict catastrophic events, one guy's wife goes missing for a few minutes, there are racially insensitive tribal ceremony scenes, and then it ends.  While it has the look and feel of a competently made movie, (more so than the usual independent regional offering at least), and also has more than enough goofy elements on paper, it is presented in such a lackluster manner as to be irredeemable and insulting.

 

THE EVICTORS

(1979)

Dir - Charles B. Pierce

Overall: MEH

Comparatively more polished, (and less unwatchably awful), than his first two regional horror films, Charles B. Pierce's The Evictors still suffers from comatose pacing and an overall lack of fiendish style towards its subject matter.  A period piece set in 1942 Louisiana where Jessica Harper and Michael Parks recently move into a cursed farm house where various other tenants have met an unfortunate, violent end, the story unfolds both clumsily and sluggishly with a moronic twist ending on top of another twist ending, both of which are unintentionally funny.  Harper's hillbilly accent routinely slips, but at least you can understand her slippery dialect, which is less than can be said about some of the other cast members who lay on the drawl rather thick.  For whatever reason, Vic Morrow received top billing even though he only appears in brief, bookending scenes and Pierce still cannot resist the urge to play off his lousy cinematic exploits as being factual in their influence, giving this one an opening "based on true events" tag and a narrated ending the spells more doom.  Professionally shot with the added advantage of real actors being used instead of just Pierce's local pals, the man's chops as both a director and screenwriter, (assisted here by Paul Fisk and Garry Rusoff), have only mildly improved since the onset of his lousy cinematic career.

1970s American Horror Part Fifty-Seven

SOYLENT GREEN

(1973)

Dir - Richard Fleischer

Overall: GOOD

Arguably the most famous of the 1970's environmental thrillers, Soylent Green's depiction of an overpopulated dystopian future is bleakly realized while cruising along at a popcorn-munching pace.  Director Richard Fleischer had a list of commercial science fiction films under his belt by the time that he adapted Harry Harrison's novel Make Room! Make Room! for the big screen and though the author was allegedly displeased with his non-involvement in the project as well as certain emphases being put on what he considered to be unimportant elements to his source material, Fleischer maintains a grimy, morally-dubious tone with what is utilized.  Charlton Heston is ideally cast as the working class police detective who makes the best out of his downtrodden line of work, even when it means stealing sought-after items from the recently dead/rich or indulging in their attractive, live-in companion female pieces of "furniture".  Completed two weeks before his death from bladder cancer, Edward G. Robinson delivers the most commendable performance as a weathered man who agonizingly remembers when the world had winter, meat, and vegetable life for the taking.

GRIZZLY

(1976)
Dir - William Girdler/David Sheldon
Overall: WOOF

One of the more boring Jaws knock-offs that came in the immediate wake of Steven Spielberg's seminal blockbuster, Grizzly is top-to-bottom dull.  Producer/co-writer Harvey Flaxman came up with the initial idea that on paper should have been idiot-proof to pull-off as far as catering to an audience that was chomping at the bit for more ferocious animal mayhem. In this respect, the movie was a success in that it was commercially profitable upon release, but any honest assessment of its merits or lack-thereof cannot deny its clunky presentation.  An eleven-foot tall Kodiak bear stands in for the grizzly of the title, but not only is the beast's screen time detrimentally limited, but every kill scene is edited to smithereens with awkard, lighting-fast close-ups, ADRed roars, and a couple of severed limbs tossed about to try and make up for the fact that the actors had to logically be as far away from the actual animal during filming as possible.  Much more of a problem is the fact that so, so, so, so much time is dedicated to completely uninteresting bumpkin characters squabbling with or casually trading anecdotes with each other that barely provide enough drama to lackadaisically move things along.  Anyone who can make it to the final five minutes where the bear is quickly done away with by way of bazooka blast, (which again, should be much more fun than it is), clearly has at least three cups of coffee keeping them awake until then.

 

LEGACY OF BLOOD

(1978)

Dir - Andy Milligan

Overall: WOOF

 

For actors that no one has ever heard of or would hear from again, Andy Milligan movies were a tour de force of prattling dialog for them to sink their would-be respectable thespian claws into.  His quasi-remake of his own The Ghastly Ones is 1978's Legacy of Blood, not be be confused with the same year's supernatural horror film, (and actual real movie), The Legacy from the same year OR Blood Legacy from 1971 which had a shoehorned in performance from John Carradine and is also equally terrible.  When it comes to bottom-barrel cinema's steadfast trope of "too much talking, too little action", Milligan seems hellbent on perfecting such a faux pas.  Nothing happens, (seriously though, nothing), for nearly an hour here besides unphotogenic actors sitting down and prattling on and on and goddamn on about inconsequential nonsense that has little to no bearing on when the murders finally take place in the final act.  The results are staggeringly boring, even by regional, non-filmmaking standards and with over twenty directorial features on his resume at the time, it is no wonder when viewing this insultingly dull travesty why Milligan never went anywhere substantial in his persistently lackluster career.

1970s American Horror Part Fifty-Six

INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS

(1972)

Dir - Ed Adlum

Overall: WOOF

 

The only film to directed by Ed Adlum was the no budget regional nightmare Invasion of the Blood Farmers, a movie that is as stupid as it sounds.  Shot in Adlum's native Weschester Country, New York, (allegedly on weekends and using his own home for many of the interiors), patrons of such Z-grade material will recognize all of the bottom-barrel tropes.  Actors who have no idea what acting is, (and would also never be seen again in anything), all deliver either wooden or embarrassingly melodramatic performances equipped with one-take, stumbled, cue card line readings and pompous fake British accents.  We also have the least engaging shot construction possible, meandering pacing, inappropriate music that shows up whenever it wants, and a story line that seems as if fifth graders made it up as a prank.  Many of these terrible attributes are amusing though and thankfully there are other uniquely bizarre details like a disgusting gargling sound effect during the blood harvesting scenes, characters "going to bed" and other night time activity taking place when there are birds chirping in bright, sunshine outside, and just oh so many phone calls.

 

TERROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM

(1973)

Dir - Georg Fenady

Overall: MEH

A mildly amusing/mildly lackluster horror whodunit from Bing Crosby's production company, Terror in the Wax Museum has old school genre players John Carradine, Elsa Lancaster, and Ray Milland on board, plus the movie appropriately adheres to the tone of yesteryear.  Set in the 1890's, it fuses the typical wax museum/chamber of horrors/Jack the Ripper cliches together, with the two youngest and most attractive characters of course falling in love with each other while the older veterans bicker over the ownership of the main setting once a mysterious murder sets the plot in motion early on.  Throw in some vague, Oriental fortune telling, a deaf/dumb/deformed hunchback, a nightmare sequence or two, and a less than thrilling finale, and the film certainly stays within its by-the-books comfort zone.  The first theatrically released work from television director Georg Fenady, it unsurprisingly lacks any flare and unless you count a wax statue's hand being cut off, this strictly goes against the grain of exploitation movies from the time period that were riddled with nudity and graphic violence.

 

HITCH HIKE TO HELL

(1977)

Dir - Irvin Berwick

Overall: MEH

 

Dialog coach-turned director Irvin Berwick took a nine year break from behind the lens before making his first film of the 1970s, the oddly sombre exploitation cheapie Hitch Hike to Hell.  Delivered as a cautionary tale against teenage runaways, it features Robert Gribbin as a social awkard momma's boy who randomly decides to start picking off hitchhikers who innocently divulged that their hatred for their own mothers is the reason that they hit the road.  Harmonica-fueled folk music breaks up the otherwise sincere tone that, (despite the clearly minuscule production values and completely flat cinematography and shot construction), minimalizes the campy sleaze as not to visually linger on all of the rapes and murders.  We still see snippets of such gruesome crimes especially earlier on, but Berwick trusts that his audience gets the gist after awhile and spares us any images of a homosexual boy and an eleven year old girl getting the unwholesome treatment, all while both parents and detectives become increasingly distraught with the situation.  Real serial killers are name dropped along the way and Gribbin's bespectacled character may have been partially inspired by the look and exploits of Ed Kemper's, for what its worth to true crime aficionados.

1970s American Horror Part Fifty-Five

CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN

(1972)

Dir - Leonard Kirtman

Overall: WOOF

Arguably and astonishingly even more unwatchable than his proceeding Carnival of Blood, Curse of the Headless Horseman makes for a perfect Leonard Kirtman double feature for anyone who never wants to watch movies again and/or would like to be inspired to jump off a bridge.  For all intents and purposes, this incomprehensible and staggeringly boring mess was improvised on the spot by Kirtman and his crew of non-actors who mumble and ramble through meaningless dialog exchanges that improper microphone equipment hardly manages to pick up in the first place.  Nearly every such scene is followed by a folk song montage to further drag out the running time and oh yeah, there is a legend about a headless horseman or something.  Every plot point, (if you can call them that), comes off as an afterthought to just make way for more scenes of obnoxious hippies prattling on about nothing.  The way that the whole thing barely if at all hinges upon some kind of narrative through-line would be laughably embarrassing if not for how torturous it is to sit through.  Ergo this is the worst type of "bad movie" where there is nothing even hilariously inept about it; it is instead just an insulting travesty and a colossal waste of celluloid.

LUCIFER'S WOMEN

(1974)

Dir - Paul Aratow

Overall: MEH

 

The second of only two non-pornographic full-lenghts from writer/director Paul Aratow, Lucifer's Women, (Svengali the Magician), was later reworked by hack-meister Al Adamson into a completely different film Doctor Dracula starring John Carradine.  This version is not-really-based off of George du Maurier's novel Trilby and features the same central character of Svengali, here reincarnated into Larry Hankin's body as an renowned author and magician.  He also belongs to a Satanic cult or something in his possessed form and is instructed to murder a young woman that he has recently fallen for.  Some other jazz is thrown in as well, such as an asshole pimp, various characters casually doing cocaine, a deaf mute clown, and a bisexual woman who sleepwalks through most of her line readings.  There is a surprising lack of exploitative nudity and the occult ceremony sequences are more silly than atmospherically blasphemous.  Hankin makes a striking appearance with his piercing eyes and goofy makeup, but the plot is largely nonsensical and it is difficult to tell how much of the movie is purposely comedic.  It is counter culture trash that has a dated, sleazy charm here or there, but it still ends up being mostly forgettable.

DAY OF THE ANIMALS

(1977)

Dir - William Girdler

Overall: MEH

 

As director William Girdler's follow-up to the similarly themed Grizzly from the previous year, Day of the Animals, (Something Is Out There), pits more than just an eight-hundred pound bear against unsuspecting people gallivanting about in the woods.  Well, at least it does so for a couple of seconds at a time as a break from people arguing with each other.  Co-written by exploitation producer Eleanor E. Norton, it presents a scenario where aerosol spray cans have effected the Earth's ozone layer to such an extent that wild life, (and even some humans under duress), succumb to violent outbursts.  Hardly the most clever or not-stupid idea for a movie out there and sadly, it is one that plays out predictably and ergo boringly.  Most of the animal attacks that befall a small town happen off-screen and the ones that are shown for our hapless campers are done so with laughable special effects and/or are over with almost before they begin.  The latter is the case when Leslie Nielsen goes stark-raving-rapist and wrestles a grizzly in the rain, which is a scene that should have turned out much more hilarious than it did.  Such is the case for the entire film really which sluggishly takes its environmental, nature horror concept seriously while forgetting to keep its tongue-in-cheek where it belongs.

1970s American Horror Part Fifty-Four

MULTIPLE MANIACS

(1970)

Dir - John Waters

Overall: MEH

 

For his first sound full-length, trash pioneer John Waters took his cue from Herschell Gordon Lewis' Two Thousand Maniacs! in the rambling, occasionally riotous Multiple Maniacs.  Shot in his native Baltimore with all of the technical skill of someone who has no idea what a camera is, the rough presentation is befitting to the grandiose treatment of its perverse themes.  In typical Waters fashion, all forms of lewdness are comedically glorified for their transgressive shock value which is perhaps best realized in a lengthy sex scene shot in a church where Divine takes Mink Stole's rosary in his ass while moaning ferociously and narrating about what a glorious experience it was.  Hilarious dialog like "I mean I can only sit around and be insulted by turds for so long, everybody has a limit!" and "I love you so much I could shit!" show that what Waters lacked in technical cinematic skills he more than made up for in tawdry wordplay.  Understandable considering that it was an amateur feature made with as little experience as it had finances, it is largely made up of long-winded chattering that goes on for excessive lengths of time.  Even with laugh-out-loud outrageousness regularly interjected, as well as a finale that sees Divine wrestling with a papier-mâché lobster monster before sledgehammering a car and getting murdered on the streets by cheering soldiers, it could still afford to trim about thirty sluggish minutes.

 

DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN

(1971)

Dir - Al Adamson

Overall: WOOF

Well-deserving of its abysmal reputation, Z-grade filmmaker Al Adamson's Dracula vs. Frankenstein has some delightfully awful moments for bad movie fans, but it is predominantly a sluggish embarrassment.  Apparently, the entire addition of both Dracula and the Frankenstein monster happened after a rough cut was submitted and then found to be unsatisfactory by production supervisor Sam Shermon, so one has to shudder at how even more boring the movie was like in its initial form.  Serving as the final screen appearance for both J. Carrol Naish and Lon Chaney Jr., the latter never looked or performed worse in his career.  Stumbling, profusely sweaty, morbidly obese, and completely inebriated by alcohol, Chaney's scenes were allegedly done in between him laying down in immense physical discomfort, which certainly shows.  Despite such unfortunate casting, Russ Tamblyn appears for a total of about twenty-seven seconds in two useless scenes, Adamson's wife Regina Carrol makes a fool of herself, Forrest J. Ackerman has a cameo, Angelo Rossitto gets a few lines, and Zandor Vorkov, (in his second of only two acting appearances), is a hilariously wretched Dracula equipped with racoon eyes, an afro, exaggerated mannerisms, and a reverberated voice.  It is all punctuated by meandering dialog exchanges and stock music montages, plus Adamson still has no idea how to stage a single shot or generate any momentum for the pathetically asinine story that he is trying to tell.

TILL DEATH
(1978)
Dir - Walter Stocker
Overall: MEH

The only time that actor Walter Stocker was behind the lens instead, Till Death is low on budget and rudimentary on story, but it emphasizes slow-mounting dread for those who are patient.  Opening with an obvious nightmare sequence that foretells events to come, we get a quick wedding ceremony and an automobile tragedy which then puts our protagonist in the position of being trapped in a crypt overnight.  Allegedly shot anywhere between 1972 and 1974 yet given a release date of 1978, the film has lingered in obscurity ever since.  Stocker employed family members to assist in the production, with his son writing the screenplay and his daughter helping out with the wardrobe and props.  The results are crude, unhurried, and predictable, but there is a humble sincerity that comes through and the movie fails to be insulting in its cheap construction.  No one on screen delivers Oscar-worthy performances, but they also do not embarrass themselves and we get plenty of fog, some garish zombie makeup, ghostly apparitions, and an agreeably-used spooky soundtrack.  It is too uneventful and sluggish to recommend, but there are far worse out there from the period which were done within similar means.

1970s American Horror Part Fifty-Three

DOCTOR DEATH: SEEKER OF SOULS

(1973)

Dir - Eddie Saeta

Overall: MEH

 

A cornball bit of macabre schlock and unabashedly so, Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls should be more ghoulishly fun than it is.  The only feature film to be directed by Eddie Saeta, it also has historical significance for featuring Moe Howard's final screen appearance, though he is almost unrecognizable in a small cameo early on.  Elsewhere, the plotting is less than satisfactory as the second half of the movie is nothing more than John Considine's title character murdering one woman after other in his frustrated attempts to have their souls enter the body of a stubborn corpse.  Long story there.  As the dashing hero, Barry Coe is dreadfully uncharasmatic, which just puts that much more pressure on Considine to carry the whole thing through.  Thankfully he does so and is legitimately enjoyable as an immortal practitioner of the supernatural arts, with his wide-eyed smile and super villain confidence making him a campy delight.  The cinematography by Emil Oster and Kent L. Wakeford utilizes the dated, tacky decor and some stylistic flourishes to decent effect, but the monotonous second half and hare-brained story are too problematic to forgive.  That said, those who appreciate tongue-in-cheek horror from the time period, (namely Count Yorga or Dr. Phibes fans), will probably be more patient with the movie's blunders to at least give it a solid C+ for effort.

 

HOMEBODIES
(1974)
Dir - Larry Yust
Overall: GOOD

A unique and mostly successful dark comedy thriller centered around the elderly, Homebodies was one of only a small handful of theatrically released full-lengths from director Larry Yust.  Bookended with the jaunty "Sassafras Sundays" song, the tone shifts wildly as a condemned building full of geriatrics stubbornly refuse to leave their abode of several decades instead of being relocated to cramped, impersonal senior dwellings so that a bigshot millionaire can put up high rise apartment complexes.  Most of the proceedings are heartfelt and sad as we witness these people get tossed aside by everyone else that they come in contact with.  This allows for our sympathies to lie with them when they unassumingly fight back, that is until the paranoia and trauma of the situation unavoidably pushes things too far.  The story offers no answers to its real world predicament, one that has been endured in various urban areas that are powerless against the corporate machine.  This presents a bleak outlook to be sure, but the cast of veteran character actors truly get to shine in subdued performances that makes them both chilling and warm.  Some of the sporadic comedic beats are awkwardly clashing, but it is an engaging, melancholic film whose themes unfortunately remain timeless.

 

KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS

(1977)

Dir - John Cardos

Overall: MEH

If Night of the Living Dead was Jaws and also sucked, Kingdom of the Spiders would be adjacent to the results.  A nature horror movie that takes nearly an hour to deliver any arachnid mayhem besides one or two off-screen livestock attacks, it is one of William Shatner's several post-Star Trek/pre-T.J. Hooker genre offerings of the B-level variety.  Shatner keeps his wits about him as a charming rancher/veterinarian and there is refreshingly little to no Romero-esque squabbling amongst characters, i.e. no one is an obnoxious asshole.  That said, maybe some small town drama would have helped move things along, at least until the tarantula army finally starts to cause a ruckus in the third act and third act only.  Until then, it is just Shatner and his newfound love interest Tiffany Bolling having some pleasant banter between them while everyone else around only seems mildly concerned that cattle are dying and that they might be quarantined for a state fair on the horizon.  Director John Cardos and cinematographer John Arthur Morrill agree on some clever POV shots that are super low to the ground, but any other visual flare begins and ends there.  Besides an ominous be-it anticlimactic ending, a shot of a guy encased in webs, and an a woman hilariously shooting a revolver at one spider at a time, there is absolutely nothing memorable that transpires.