1960s Mexican Horror Part Ten - (Federico Curiel Edition)

NEUTRON VS. THE DEATH ROBOTS

(1962)
Overall: MEH

An immediate sequel to 1960's Neutron, el Enmascarado Negro that was shot in conjunction with it, Neutron vs. the Death Robots, (Los autómatas de la muerte), ignores the previous film's ending and simply sets up a whole new cockamamie scheme for luchador super villain Dr. Caronte to embark on.  This time, the masked bad guy raises an army of zombie slaves that he bakes in stone ovens, (or something), plus he also needs gallons of blood to harvest the brains of scientists in order to learn bomb secrets, (or something).  He also still has his trusty, baby-voiced pipsqueak, dwarf-sized sidekick Nick who he treats more like a pet monkey than a human and because of the whole blood thing, authorities refer to his exploits as being vampiric in nature.  It certainly ups the weirdness and horror elements from its predecessor film and even with some dragging musical interludes, director Federico Curiel comparatively keeps the pace up at least by cutting right to the chase and loading it with more action than chatty set pieces.

 

NEUTRÓN CONTRA EL DR. CARONTE

(1963)

Overall: WOOF

 

The luchador extravaganza Neutrón contra el Dr. Caronte, (Neurtron vs. the Amazing Dr. Caronte), continues the saga of its title characters, pitting the two wrestlers against each other in ridiculous and boring "mad scientist doing mad scientist shit" fashion.  A less wacky, equally stupid, yet more sluggish follow-up to the previous year's Neutron vs. the Death Robots, the plot line is as moronic as the dialog, with the crazy masked doctor controlling an army of useless stumbling monsters in cheap Halloween masks as Wolf Ruvinskis' hero, (also in lucha libre attire), tries and stops him by mostly standing in rooms while talking.  Both men are in love with the same woman, (Rosita Arenas from The Aztec Mummy "fame"), which complicates things along with idiotic police officers and the dwarf-sized assistant Nick who sounds like Yoda for some reason.  At one point, Jack Taylor's professor proclaims that there is no hope of escaping their captors, only for the very next sentence out of his mouth to be "There is still hope...".  Federico Curiel's direction is lackluster due to the likely rushed shooting schedule and no money that he had to work with, so it is the usual deal of character's regurgitating information between themselves instead of doing anything remotely exciting. 

 

THE EMPIRE OF DRACULA

(1967)

Overall: MEH

 

Above average in some respects, The Empire of Dracula, (El imperio de Drácula), was one of a small number of Mexican vampire films from the 1960s.  Director Federico Curiel was no stranger to the horror genre, having done a handful of Santo vs "fill in the monster" movies as well as the Nostradamus ones, plus he would continue to churn out more macabreness throughout the 70s.  Speaking of macabre, the atmosphere here is well-maintained for something that was clearly made with minimal funds.  Gustavo César Carrión's musical score could not be better, utilizing off-key organ, minimal percussion reverberations, and moans that are mixed with wind noises, all of which is conservatively sprinkled around instead of becoming distractedly bombastic.  There is plenty of fog, an ominous horse-drawn carriage with no driver, and a wonderful underground dungeon lair for the main baddie to resurrect himself by the Hammer method of letting some poor girl's blood get poured onto his ashes.  On that note, Eric del Castillo's Baron Draculstein is one of the most laughably inept vampires in cinema history as he only manages to acquire a single undead bride and gets his ass kicked by every unarmed schlubby man who he attempts to bite.  The plotting is ridiculously lazy and Curiel does his best with the pacing, but it still feels sluggish at regular intervals.  Still, the music and scenery go a long way.

 

HELLISH SPIDERS

(1968)

Overall: WOOF

 

Another ridiculous luchador mash-up featuring the Blue Demon, Hellish Spiders, (Arañas infernales), finds the lucha libre beefcake squaring-off against a planet of spider aliens who are on an Earth-conquering quest to harvest human brains.  Said extraterrestrial race's leader is a furry puppet arachnid with an adorable old lady voice and they control their spacecraft from their pitch-black lair with over-sized Christmas ornaments hanging from strings.  The movie frequently detours into tortuously boring wrestling matches and training sequences, yet the last of them is a hoot as the Blue Demon faces the planet Arácnea's own shirtless, mildly muscular prize fighter whose hand turns into a spider stuffed animal near the end of the match.  Such absurdity sounds more fun on paper than it is to actually watch though, as director Federico Curiel once again is unable to maintain a sense of acceptable pacing, even outside of the numerous minutes dedicated to men tossing each other around the ring; minutes that advance the plot in no way whatsoever.  Overly talky and laughably cheep, (including Ed Wood-worthy flying saucer shots, barren sets, "standing around and repeating the same dialog over and over again" scenes, and recycled musical cues), there are at least frequent moments to make fun of, if one is in the right "bad movie night" spirit.

LA SOMBRA DEL MURCIÉLAGO

(1968)

Overall: MEH

More Blue Demon-stared silliness with La sombr del Murciélago, (The Shadow of the Bat), which is more or less a luchador version of Phantom of the Opera except cheaper and catastrophically more boring.  The usual handicaps are in place; Blue Demon and other characters with zero personality stand in rooms while discussing details of crimes being committed in stagnant medium shots, several wrestling matches slow everything down, several musical numbers slow everything down further, everyone repeats the same dialog whenever they are given the chance, and the camera lingers on scenes far longer than is necessary.  That said, the whole wrestling angle is actually integral to the plot where Fernando Osés' megalomaniacal, organ-playing former lucha libre champion kidnaps both women and fellow fighting athletes in order to humor himself and reclaim his former glory.  Still, the production is so lackluster and the film so poorly shot that even its would-be exciting bash-em-up scenes are rendered anticlimactic.  As a genre hybrid, some of it is goofy enough to endure, plus it is no better or worse than the gallons of other movies featuring either the Blue Demon or any other lucha libre hero battling some kind of alien, supernatural, or criminal force.

1960s Mexican Horror Part Nine - (Rafael Baledón Edition)

THE HELL OF FRANKENSTEIN

(1960)

Overall: MEH

 

Actor-turned-director Rafael Baledón had as prolific of a career behind the screen as he did in front of it and his Universal monster throwback The Hell of Frankenstein, (Orlak, El Infierno de Frankenstein, Orlak, the Hell of Frankenstein, El monstruo infernal), is better than one would expect despite its occasionally repetitive shortcomings.  Presented as four chapters more like a television serial, such a tactic is narratively unnecessary as the breaks come at arbitrary times and were presumably done to ward off censors that were more strict with theatrically released products.  In any event, the story concerning a vengeful criminal and a mad scientist baring the Frankenstein name, (both teaming up for logically flimsy reasons), plays out predictably with cockamamie "science" that allows for the monster to be controlled first by remote control and then by telepathic reading glasses.  Said monster is a doppelgänger of said criminal for some reason, which allows him to murder all of those that he feels had wrongfully accused him while simultaneously having the perfect alibi by actually being somewhere else at the time.  Armando Calvo makes both a solid, slimy villain and a dead-faced killing machine, plus many of the plot points are silly enough to enjoy, even with Baledón handling the whole affair in a deadly serious manner.

 

THE CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN

(1961)

Overall: MEH

 

Though atmospheric and well sprinkled with an acceptable amount of macabre visuals, (a woman with swollen blackened eyes, vicious dog attacks, a creepy mansion, a deformed prisoner, a vampiress staked to a wheel), unfortunately the spooky and gruesome window dressing is the only thing The Curse of the Crying Woman, (La maldición de la llorona), has to offer.  It is amazing that a film spending so many scenes repetitively explaining its own lore ends up making so little sense.  Cliched things happen like a family curse that only works as such when the script needs it to and of course the castle collapsing upon itself for the finale since it was practically impossible to get a Gothic horror movie green-lit at the time without that being part of your ending.  Characters do and say things, (usually the exact same things over and over again), just to do and say them and while this is all fine and silly, it is a shame that the movie is so mind-numbingly tedious.  The atmospherics are in proper tow and José Ortiz Ramos' cinematography is fitting for the sinister material, but the drab pacing only hinders matters as it reaches its climactic finish.

 

MUSEO DEL HORROR

(1964)

Overall: MEH

A Mexican House of Wax, Museo del horror, (Museum of Horror), features some striking cinematography courtesy of Raúl Martínez Solares and fans of south of the border genre offerings will appreciate Joaquín Cordero playing the mad, murderous wax sculptor.  Sadly, these are the only elements here that are worth the price of admission as the film is slow on its feet and horrendously boring in the process.  First of all, it centers around a typical scenario where the police are trying to track down several disappearances, yet the audience is fully aware of exactly who is committing said body snatching so that there is no mystery to be invested in.  Watching Cordero, (or presumably a stunt double), run around in a black trench-coat and with a mummified face as a disguise is fun up until a point, but his grand scheme of pouring boiling hot wax on his victims and then displaying them for the public so that they can be easily identified is only half as stupid as the fact that no one does identify them for so long.  Also, a Burke and Hare-styled subplot proves pointless as it only seems to be there to excuse a couple of fog-lit cemetery scenes, but at least these moments and several shots of barren streets at night convey the right type of sinister atmosphere.

 

THE SHE-WOLF

(1965)

Overall: MEH

 

La Loba, (The She-Wolf), is a charming bet it flawed, super low-budget offering from actor/producer/director Rafael Baledón.  Throwing mad scientists, musclebound mute servants, and werewolves all into the mix with insufficient production funds to achieve any convincing cinematic effects, it is easy to laugh at a movie like this while still being able to enjoy how seriously everyone is taking it.  The day for night scenes are some of the "best" examples of how NOT to do them, hardly any character behaves rationally, and the werewolf design looks more like a hippy crossed with a caveman vampire.  The opening scene where a wolf lady crawls out of a tomb and leaps around murdering several people and the ending where nearly every character is brutally mangled to death are fun though.  Likewise, the addition of a mysterious werewolf hunter and his faithful dog is a nice touch even if said character does not end up accomplishing much of anything.  As strange as Mexican horror could be from the country's golden period, there is enough here to make it watchable, even if it is still technically poorly done.

LA MUÑECA PERVERSA

(1969)

Overall: MEH

Director Rafael Baledón's last film of the 1960s as well as his final work in the horror genre, La muñeca perversa, (The Perverse Doll), is an old dark house thriller that is centered on a dysfunctional wealthy family who shack up uneasily on the eve of their mother's funeral.  There are poisonings, stabbings, drownings, an annoying kid being tormented, a house being burned down, and double-crosses committed because why would there not be?  Norma Lazareno is quickly proved to be behind such unwholesome shenanigans so that there is no mystery to be solved.  Because of this, (and despite its demented plot points and macabre tone), the script by Baledón and Ramón Obón meanders more than it chills and the pacing lags in the process.  Baledón and cinematographer Fernando Colin at least visually get the most out of the proceedings though with some flashy camerawork and atmospheric lighting when the situation calls for such things.  Besides Lazareno who was in Carlos Enrique Taboada's The Book of Stone and Even the Wind is Afraid amongst others, the cast has other familiar genre faces, most notably Dr. Satán himself Joaquín Cordero whose filmography is over two-hundred titles deep. 

1960s Asian Horror Part Fourteen

YONGARY, MONSTER FROM THE DEEP

(1967)

Dir - Kim Ki-duk

Overall: MEH

 

A South Korean/Japanese co-production kaiju film from the genre's heyday, Yongary, Monster from the Deep, (Daekoesu Yonggari), is unique due to the fact that it never spawned a franchise as well as being a rare collaboration between the two countries.  The original version is considered lost, with the American International Pictures edit still being available and featuring the usual dopey English dubbing, some of which manages to give everyone a generic Asian accent.  Though Japan's Toei company handled most of the special effects, this is a South Korean film in every other respect and can be seen as a metaphoric answer to the Korean War, just as Godzilla mirrored post-World Wart II and atomic bomb trauma.  That is being generous here though since the story is formulaic to a fault, relying on a snore-inducing first act, absurd comic relief like a little kid and the title monster dancing to rock music, and a plot that is nothing more than military people trying to come up with ways to stop the giant creature with bullets and missiles that do absolutely nothing.  The suitmation and miniature work is dated and unconvincing of course, but it is also given plenty of screen time once we are a half-hour in, so this still provides some fun silliness if not any suspense or human characters to remember.

 

I, THE EXECUTIONER

(1968)
Dir - Tai Kato
Overall: MEH

Stylistically adventurous, Tai Kato's I, the Executioner, (Minagoroshi no Reika, Requiem for a Massacre), suffers from a ludicrous plot and wretched pacing.  A revenge story based on flimsy logic, it concerns five women who are systemically picked off by a brooding Makoto Satō; a man with no sense of humor who rapes and murders said ladies for reasons that are head-scratching once they are explained in the closing moments.  Right from the opening scene though, director Kato and cinematographer Keiji Maruyama put the viewer on edge by showing Satō's viscous acts with no context or dialog.  This and many of the sequences that follow are filmed in a bold manner, bouncing between claustrophobic close-ups, wide-shots done in lingering takes, the camera placed ridiculously low to the ground, and various other unorthodox visual tactics.  Sadly, the movie is better to look at than it is to endure since the story meanders endlessly, growing repetitive and frustrating before both the poorly-thought out instigating moment and Satō's motivation is spelled out.  The tone is relentlessly dour, which would be tolerable with a more engaging and focused story, but instead, this is a flashy experiment that drops the ball.

 

A THOUSAND YEAR-OLD FOX

(1969)

Dir - Shin Sang-ok

Overall: MEH

Ace South Korean director Shin Sang-ok and screenwriter Il-ro Kwak deliver another work in supernatural fairytale horror with A Thousand Year-Old Fox, (Cheonnyeon ho, Thousand Years Old Fox); a film that unfortunately suffers from a start-and-stop plot that never delivers enough on its lush, atmospheric potential.  Utilizing the kumiho creature from Korean folklore as its female-possessing adversary, said entity resides in a haunted pond here and possesses a woman whose husband has been courted by the local Queen, exiling the nuisance wife only for her and her baby to get attacked by bandits.  This ushers in the revenge spirit angle and the rest of the movie plays out where Kim Ji-su turns into the floating ghost lady with a wicked make-up job at night, arising in the morning with no memory of her vengeful doings.  These wire-work moments are fun and the production takes its mystical subject matter seriously, but the melodramatic love triangle tragedy plays out in a talky fashion and despite some hysterical crying and scenery-chewing from the cast, the characters remain bland and forgettable.

1960s Asian Horror Part Thirteen

MADAM WHITE SNAKE

(1960)
Dir - Shin Sang-ok
Overall: MEH

More of a supernatural fairy tale than anything adhering to strict horror tropes, Madam White Snake, (Baeksa buin), is one of a handful of films in the genre from director Shin Sang-ok.  In fact he remade it nine years later as The Snake Woman, (a movie that seems to be lost to time), with this one having an unhurried tone that unfortunately feels its length even if it is sufficiently crafted.  The story is inspired by the Chinese "Legend of the White Snake" crossed with the old kaidan motif of a beautiful ghost woman and her companion fooling a handsome man that crosses their paths into thinking that they are very much alive.  Despite her reptilian origins and manipulative nature, Choi Eun-hee portrays such an undead angel snake lady as benevolent and kind, doing everything in her power to stay on Earth and live out her domestic bliss, defying the supernatural rules of sky-dwelling divine beings in the process.  The plot line follows a tragic trajectory where humans and whatever Choi is are simply not allowed to be together and mankind's inherent follies are held accountable for such a fate, but it ends on a pleasant note where Buddha's mercy reigns supreme.

 

A DEVILISH HOMICIDE

(1965)

Dir - Lee Yong-min

Overall: MEH

 

South Korean filmmaker Lee Yong-min made a steady handful of horror movies in the last half of his career, yet sadly almost all of them are too obscure to find or simply lost altogether.  Thankfully, A Devilish Homicide, (Salinma, A Devilish Murder, A Bloodthirsty Killer), has remained intact and if it is any indication of the writer/director's work in the genre, it showcases a bizarre vision that treads incoherent ground yet busts out random supernatural high jinks at a reckless rate.  The first half here is unwavering in this respect, featuring a floating ghost lady that is hellbent on murdering a string of people that apparently wronged her ten years earlier.  Lee utilizes sparse spooky music, otherworldly howls from beyond the grave, and freaky visuals like a melting painting and an elderly lady who gets possessed by a cat or something that starts licking her own grandchildren as they sleep.  Yuck.  It is a shame that things eventually settle down with a lengthy flashback sequence arriving an hour in, which shines a melodramatic light on the undead woman's grudge, involving blackmail and extramarital affairs and the like.  The messy plot and inconsistent structure aside, it packs in plenty of macabre weirdness.

BAKENEKO: A VENGEFUL SPIRIT

(1968)

Dir - Yoshihiro Ishikawa

Overall: GOOD

 

Japan had a penchant for ghost feline vengeance movies, particularly during the late 1950s through the late 1960s, Bakeneko: A Vengeful Spirit, (Kaibyô noroi no Numa, The Ghost Cat of Cursed Pond), bearing a strong resemblance to many of them.  The usual motifs are present; a small body of water that curses those who come near it, overlords subjugating their servants, people being tricked into murdering other people due to supernatural manipulation, people being possessed by other dead people, samurais wielding swords wildly in a panic, doomed lovers, and of course cats being the unholy harbingers of retribution.  It takes some time to get to the bloody and ghostly shenanigans as we witness history repeating itself as two different couples meet their end due to their corrupt masters, but director Yoshihiro Ishikawa makes it a point to pepper the film with eerie atmospherics even before the last act gets things properly underway.  We are treated to more than one sequence where severed heads understandably scare the bejesus out of their victims, and these plus the usual bouts of women in demonic feline makeup and bestial meows contribute to the surreal and ghoulish tone.  It lacks memorable characters and is too formulaic plot-wise to be a renowned work in the genre, but it delivers plenty of spooky spectacle for golden era J-horror fans to appreciate.

1960s Asian Horror Part Twelve - (Hiroshi Teshigahara Edition)

PITFALL

(1962)

Overall: MEH

The first full-length from filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara, Pitfall, (Otoshiana, Kashi To Kodomo), at one point asks "Must a man become a demon just to survive?" and this is the poignant question at the heart of a story about brutal living conditions, trade union hardships, and the type of inhumane corruption that keeps such people in dire straits.  Also, it is a ghost story, which is something that works as a metaphor for both the living and the dead who are unable to escape their present condition, plus the concept that the more which they discover, the worse their existence will be.  The first of four collaborations between Teshigahara and novelist/screenwriter Kōbō Abe, the film was an adaptation of the latter's television play Rengoku and was shot on location in Kyūshū, utilizing almost undetectable stock footage of malnourished children and mining disasters which blends seamlessly with Teshigahara's cinéma vérité aesthetic.  Such a low-key presentation is ultimately at the cost of a haunting narrative and agreeable pacing since the movie lingers more than it propels forward, but it is still an affecting allegory that explores real life adversity through an otherworldly lens.

 

WOMAN IN THE DUNES

(1964)

Overall: GOOD

 

A pivotal work in Japan's New Wave, Woman in the Dunes, (Suna No Onna), is a richly photographed parable about the nature of finding meaning in existence.  Shot on location in the sand dunes of Omaezaki, the focus is on only two characters who each for different reasons, find themselves at the mercy of a perpetual survival system where they must dig up sand in order to both not drown in it and receive necessities in order to carry on one more day at a time.  The specifics are not grounded in scientific logic, yet they are merely in place to service a broader allegory.  Stuck in a ceaseless continuation, Eiji Okada's character resists his newfound predicament in a manner that anyone would, while Kyōko Kishida has long accepted her fate.  As time goes on though, the freedom that one lifestyle may grant seems interchangeable with the other, since at the end of the day and for every day afterwards, humans can only adapt, accept, and find triumphs where they can.  Hiroshi Segawa's cinematography makes the harsh landscape seem evocative and awe-inspiring at times, juxtaposed with Toru Takemitsu's minimalist score which utilizes tribal percussion and dissonant violin swells to create a sinister atmosphere when it emerges from the otherwise natural silence of the soundtrack.

 

THE FACE OF ANOTHER

(1966)

Overall: GOOD

Director Hiroshi Teshigahara and author/screenwriter Kōbō Abe take on the duality of man in a literal sense with their third collaboration The Face of Another, (Tanín no Kao).  Painstakingly stubborn in its deliberate tone, it concerns an engineer whose face was permanently disfigured until a sympathetic doctor agrees to make him a prosthetic mask in order for his patient to reclaim some semblance of normalcy.  A straight-forward, almost mad scientist scenario on paper, the subject matter morphs into an existential crisis of morality, identity, and isolation where people can disappear into a completely different persona at the cost of their humanity and perception of oneself that is both alien to some and unavoidably recognizable to others.  Featuring exceptionally drawn-out takes as well as several that are looped verbatim from earlier scenes, it forces the audience to sit with Tatsuya Nakadai's largely aloof protagonist who struggle to come to terms with the possibilities and reality of his second chance situation.  Yet it does so through a deliberate veil, as the camera is often obscured by surreal set design and shot constructions.  This creates a juxtaposition of intimacy and distance, which is exactly how Tatsuya Nakadai's tragic character tries to interject himself into a world that he cannot fully become immersed with.

1960s British Horror Part Twenty-One

KONGA

(1961)

Dir - John Lemont

Overall: WOOF

 

Michael Gough back again as another deplorable asshole, Konga is a mad scientist/giant monster bit of stupidity.  A British/US co-production that was put together by American International Pictures as an Eastmancolor version of King Kong with some of their teenage horror tropes from the era also thrown in, it was shot in England with an exclusively British cast.  Unfortunately it is a stuffy production, suffering from a plodding first and second act where Gough prattles on with his lazy excuses for mutating both plants and his pet monkey, meanwhile being all to quick to kill anyone who disagrees with him, (including a house cat that he shoots at point blank range).  Even more silly is his housekeeper who insists that he marries her in order to maintain her silence upon discovering his atrocities, as well as Gough becoming infatuated with one of his students, and her boyfriend flying off at the handle at him because of jealously, both of which happens without any warning or build up.  The guy in a gorilla suit scenes are few, far between, and laughably pathetic when they do arrive, particularly in the end when it picks up an adorable puppet sized version of Margo Johns and throws her into a burning laboratory.

A STUDY IN TERROR

(1965)

Dir - James Hill

Overall: MEH

 

Pairing Sherlock Holmes with Jack the Ripper for the first time on screen, A Study in Terror is also noteworthy for being the only finished production from Sir Nigel Films, a company that was put together by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate to make their own Holmes properties.  Ironically, the movie is not based on any of Doyle's works and is instead an original creation by three screenwriters, only two of which were credited.  Noted thespian John Neville makes an agreeable and dashing Holmes and Donald Houston goes through the usual motions as Dr. Watson, being continually enamored by his partner's ingenious deductions.  The tone bounces between lighthearted and menacing, with chipper music and breezy comic relief coupled with some gruesome details and brutal murder sequences of the Ripper doing away with prostitutes in bedrooms or on dark, fog-laden London alleyways.  Though it is as well performed as could be hoped for and Desmond Dickinson's cinematography has some pizazz to it, the chit-chat is overbearing and several distracting side-arcs are given too mush screen time in place of the more sinister acts of the killer.  By the time that the climax lands and the murderer is revealed, the long-winded banter on the way to get there will probably force most viewers to drop out.

CARRY ON SCREAMING!

(1966)

Dir - Gerald Thomas

Overall: MEH

The twelfth in producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas' thirty-one deep Carry On series and the last from the Anglo-Amalgamated's production company, Carry On Screaming! is the only one with a deliberate horror angle.  Specifically targeting the country's famed Hammer movies as well as goofy American properties like The Addams Family and The Munsters, it has many common genre and British humor tropes in proper tow.  There is a police detective with an overbearingly nagging wife, another police detective who goes in drag because reasons, a mummy because reasons, not one but two brutish Frankenstein monsters with bad facial hair, a Lursh-esque butler, crashing lighting, a creepy house full of cobwebs, an effeminate dead guy, a vampiric beautify with rocking cleavage, wax figure-making vats of goo, a Mr. Hyde type potion, tons of bad puns and sexual innuendos, plus Jon Pertwee as a scientist who makes goofy faces.  The story is too stupid to pay attention to, but some of the laughs land even if they are strictly of the groan-worthy variety, plus Thomas keeps up a snappy pace where most of the characters are charmingly clueless and overact to their heart's content.

1960s British Horror Part Twenty

FACES IN THE DARK

(1960)

Dir - David Eady

Overall: MEH

 

Director David Eady's adaptation of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac's 1952 novel Les Visages de l'ombre is a bog-standard blind man paranoia thriller, made more problematic by the fact that its protagonist is a bitter and aggressive curmudgeon long before he begins to suspect everyone around him of double-cross.  To be fair, John Tully and Ephraim Kogan's script for Faces in the Dark gradually shifts the audience's sympathy toward John Gregson's recently blinded inventor/business mogul, but he is so crotchety and short-tempered the whole way through that even if he does end up being the victim of people who have had enough of his overbearing stubbornness, we still cannot feel the suspense of the situation due to his rotten personality.  While Ken Hodges' black and white cinematography gets the job done and paints a world full of claustrophobic shadows, Eady only mildly revs up the tension and the "twists" are far from clever.  Ultimately, it makes one wonder why nobody does away with Gregson's character far earlier or at the very least, punches him in the mouth.

CATACOMBS

(1965)

Dir - Gordon Hessler

Overall: MEH

German-born director Gordon Hessler's full-length debut Catacombs, (The Woman Who Wouldn't Die), has a formulaic enough premise that cobbles together Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques with Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train.  Based on Jay Bennett's 1959 novel of the same name, it unfortunately suffers from a tame first half where the only unnerving thing that happens involves the romance between Gary Merrill's gold-digging uncle and his way younger than him niece, played by minor scream queen Jane Merrow.  Eventually though, it goes through some bog-standard yet effective motions where both Merrill and Merrow become convinced that his dead wife and her dead Aunt's ghost or still-alive body is rapping at their door, standing over their beds, or turning on water faucets in order to torment them over their unwholesome affair.  Of course, there are no genuine bump-in-the-night tomfoolery about as the predictable twist dictates, but Hessler at least stages these later moments with some subtle and creepy assurance.

CUL-DE-SAC

(1966)

Dir - Roman Polanski

Overall: GOOD

Roman Polanski followed up his first English language full-length Repulsion with the more comedic Cul-de-sac; yet another collaboration between he and screenwriter Gérard Brach.  Scoring Catherine Deneuve's sister Françoise Dorléac, tough guy character actor Lionel Stander, and Donald Pleasence in one of his finest performances as a docile Englishman living in a remote castle on the beach, it is more of a silly tragedy than a proper crime thriller.  The film is set up as a typical "gangsters on the run" caper, except stereotypes are tweaked and the black comedy angle is made the primary focus.  This is a story where the characters are not that bright, villainous, or courageous.  Instead, they fumble through a situation that none of them wants to be a part of, haphazardly looking for ways out of it while growing more and more frustrated that things just keep staying stuck in the mud, (a literal metaphor is used for this where early on, the criminal's car gets cemented when the tide comes in around it).  The three person cast all do funny and impressive work and Polanski forgoes the surreal claustrophobia of his previous movie so that the clumsy chain of events can unfold in a more grounded fashion.