50's British Horror Part Three

DEATH IS A NUMBER

(1951)

Dir - Robert Henryson

Overall: MEH

 

An obscure, fifty-minute feature helmed by a director who only did four other shorts and made by an equally obscure British company that only produced thirty films, Death Is a Number is a curious entry that is rarely discussed in the annals of black and white horror.  This is rightfully so, even though the movie is far from terrible yet also just as far from memorable.  A major issue is the unorthodox structure as it merely revolves around a dandy gentleman recalling a quasi-strange tale about an acquaintance of his whereby supernatural things involving swirling vapors, uneasy feelings, astrology, and the number nine for whatever reason are described as far more sinister than they appear on screen.  In fact the film is so cheaply made that it seems cobbled together as an afterthought, with stock footage and narration explaining things that seem to be artificially thrown into unrelated footage.  Whether this is the case or not, it is about as compelling of a watch as sitting on the floor and looking up at someone telling a barely interesting ghost story, leading one to believe that all parties involved here largely forgot the whole "motion picture" part of, well, motion pictures.

 

THE TROLLENBERG TERROR

(1958)

Dir - Quentin Lawrence

Overall: MEH

The feature-length version of the ITV "Saturday Serial" installment of the same name, The Trollenberg Terror, (The Crawling Eye), is a standard, low-budget B-movie that has garnished a more pathetic reputation than many due to some of the most appalling special effects of any era.  Serving as the non-television debut from director Quentin Lawrence, (who was also behind the lens for the aforementioned ITV original), he wisely spares the viewer from the atrocious visuals for as long as possible, but even early moments feature hilariously dated rear projection that Alfred Hitchcock would have even balked at.  As far as the story goes, (which was initially penned by three different people under the pseudonym Peter Key and here done by Hammer mainstay Jimmy Sangster), it sacrifices most of the action for all of the characters walking into different rooms to discuss the script.  There are a couple of beheadings, (shown off screen of course), and one or two moments where certain people get inexplicably possessed by an alien lifeform that lives in a hovering cloud, (ala Jordan Peele's Nope from nearly sixty-five years later), but it is paced too leisurely to make any of these segments as exciting as they should be.  When they finally have no other choice but to showoff the tentacled, one-eyed extraterrestrial behemoth, it is an unintentional laugh fest that makes the entire affair impossible to take seriously.

THE HEADLESS GHOST

(1959)

Dir - Peter Graham Scott

Overall: MEH

 

Written in two weeks and filmed in three in order to squeeze another drive-in feature for double-billing with Horrors of the Black Museum, The Headless Ghost sure comes off like the haphazard, disposable rush job that it is.  Running at under an hour, it feels twelve times as long with the production crew utilizing preexisting sets from the aforementioned Horrors of the Black Museum which was still being edited as shooting began here.  The story was cobbled together by Aden Kandel and producer Herman Cohen and is not altogether bad.  Ideally suited for such lighthearted, comedic fare, it concerns three college students hiding out in a haunted castle after a tour in order to satisfy their curiosity as to the existence of supernatural forces.  A couple of ancestral paintings come to life and deliver the characters a cockamamie quest to retrieve the title spectre's missing head, all before things wrap up in a jolly ole fashion.  The problem of course is that the film is enormously padded, with the camera lingering on scenes far after they have already ended and every character spending endless amounts of time reiterating the same information to each other.  On the other hand, the viewer probably cannot keep their eyes open anyway and could honestly use such reminders as to what is going on.