(1966)
Dir - Don Weis
Overall: MEH
The final installment in American International's ridiculous Beach Party series, (though they had to merely settle for a swimming pool here), was The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini which was the only one to be half horror. Boris Karloff and Susan Hart, (wife of James H. Nicholson) were added after the movie was completed to give it an even more convoluted plot, one which was already as juvenile and enormously stupid as it gets. This was nothing new to these films though which all featured random, terrible songs, scantily-clad women, young, tanned white people partying, a motorcycle gang for no reason, and non-stop, bottom of the barrel slapstick humor that is rarely if at all funny. All of this is present here and thankfully the filmmakers have the good sense to treat it as preposterously as it deserves. While this makes it more groan-worthy than anything and something to make fun of at best, the horror angle saves it from being completely forgettable. Under various directors, (primarily Roger Corman), AIP still generally produced wonderfully fun, spooky sets and visuals. On that note, there is a fog laden cemetery and a haunted house with a "chamber of horrors" torture chamber hidden in it that get an adequate amount of screen time here. Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff being on board is likewise wonderful, particularly the former who gets to indulge in physical comedy for a change.
(1968)
Dir - Juan Ibáñez/Jack Hill
Overall: MEH
The first released of four Mexican/American co-productions that Boris Karloff starred in just before his death was Fear Chamber which is probably the most absurd movie the legendary horror icon was ever in. The plot, (if you can call it that), so desperately tries to combine cliched sci-fi elements like mutated life forms and scientists conducting the vaguest of experiments while using giant computers and analyzing data, all with random nudity, sadism, and even occultism kinda not really thrown into the mix. The disastrous result is pretty consistently hilarious as the film jumps wildly all over the place when it is not settling down for actors to dub some of the most shockingly asinine dialog in the most shockingly bad of ways. One lumbering ogre of a lab assistant spends the last twenty or so minutes of the movie manically ranting about how much he loves diamonds and is "king of the world" and it gets more embarrassingly stupid from there. Elsewhere, this may have the most pointless nude scene in all of cinema and even more moronically, practically none of the characters are kept in check, illogically behaving completely different at a moment's notice which includes randomly killing people at times. It is nonsense from top to bottom yet kind of a hoot because of it. Also, an early scene where we get to see Karloff baptize women in the name of Satan is just wonderful.
(1968)
Dir - Juan Ibáñez/Jack Hill
Overall: MEH
It is on the one hand admirable that Boris Karloff kept working up until the very end of his days but on the other, the rather abysmal and last to be released while he was alive House of Evil, (aka Dance of Death), was hardly a necessary movie to make. As part of his four picture deal with Mexican producer Luis Enrique Vergara, Karloff's scenes here were filmed all at once by American exploitation director Jack Hill and the veteran actor was quite ill while suffering from emphysema at the time. Whatever the particular reason, Karloff is more hammy here than usual, over-dramatizing much of his lines and mannerisms though not necessarily to a fault. That lies on the shoulders of everything else going on. The dubbing is typically horrendous and nearly derails the film on its own, but the cinematography is also atrocious where a frequent number of scenes play out virtually in pitch blackness. The story though, (credited sort of barely to the work by Edgar Allan Poe), is a stupid mess where a family full of people we do not care about are invited to get Karloff's Matthias Morteval's fortune and then for some reason animated toys/people dressed up as toys try and kill them or something.
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