70's Asian Horror Part Seven

GHOST OF GUTS EATER

(1973)
Dir - Sanit Kosaroth
Overall: WOOF

A rare, early 1970s horror film from Thailand that managed to escape its native country, the hilariously titled Ghost of Guts Eater, (Krasue Sao), is more of a novelty than anything else.  One of the earliest movies to feature a krasue demon of Southeast Asian folklore which manifests itself as a vampiric, flying woman's head with its vital organs hanging from it, sadly this creature is only given a few brief scenes even though there are more than one such monster present.  It is a tortuously slow watch for a number of other reasons though. At a hundred and five minutes in length and with an episodic structure, characters with either no personality or an obnoxious one deal with the fact that one of them is possessed by the krausue spirit of her dead grandmother, but this hardly has an exciting pay off at any instance.  Sometimes they profess their love for each other, sometimes they bust into spontaneous fist fights, sometimes they die, and it is all spread out so long over inconsequential whining and babbling that one is likely to lose their place in the convoluted plot line before even the halfway point.   It is sad that an export with some historical significance would be so unwatchably dull, but here we are.

 

INUGAMI NO TATARI

(1977)

Dir - Shun'ya Itô

Overall: MEH

Director Shun'ya Itô's first film outside of the Female Prisoner series was Inugami No Tatari, (Curse of the Dog God); a contemporary, supernatural, curse/revenge story with environmental elements plus others right out of The Exorcist.  At an hour and forty-three minutes, the movie is brimful of genre motifs and ideas; something that is actually part of the problem.  There is simply too much packed into the proceedings which leaves the plot no other alternative then to regularly stagnate so that it has time to introduce another bloated chain of events that give it all an exhausting feel.  Some of the ideas even seem rushed or shoehorned in there like a woman possessed, a family getting terrorized by superstitious locals, a uranium company mining on their land, a husband struck with grief between the two opposing forces, and then more possession, screaming, fires, vengeful spirits attacking, and darkly magical forces unleashed.  Tone wise, it has the usual bouts of Japanese melodrama that comes off as unintentionally silly and creepy at the exact same time, such as an over the top exorcism ceremony conducted by shamans and a climax that sees another possessed lady jumping all over the place and causing havoc.  It becomes a lot to keep track of and despite some atmospheric moments and Itô's general commitment to keeping it more on the serious end of the spectrum instead of collapsing into mere quirky camp, it could probably just use a significant edit to truly deliver.

RETURN OF THE DEAD

(1979)

Dir - Han Hsiang Li

Overall: MEH

Following up The Ghost Story from the same year, director Han Hsiang Li's Return of the Dead, (Xiao hun yu), is more of a tradition anthology horror film, set up in an insane asylum where three random inmates tell the tale of how then ended up there.  The first segment is a by-numbers adaptation of the age old "Monkey's Paw" story, (which was also utilized in Amnicus' Tales from the Crypt seven years prior), the second concerns a naked ghost who lures a former love interest back into her clutches for revenge purposes, and the last features a recently deceased, beautiful, and wealthy actor who befriends a friendly rickshaw worker, only to trick him into winning counterfeit silver coins.  The film runs over ninety-minutes and unfortunately feels far longer, with each segment well-deserving of a trim to tighten up the cumbersome pacing.  A big part of the issue is that the entire presentation lacks any violence or hilariously strange set pieces, but it also fails to generate much spooky atmosphere with only some minor chills delivered within the last minute of each story.  By comparison, the nudity is more prevalent than any over-the-top or even subtle horror movie window dressing, but this is still a far less horny affair than others that were produced by the Shaw Brothers in the following decade.

70's Asian Horror Part Six

THE BRIDE FROM HELL

(1972)

Dir - Hsu-Chiang Chou

Overall: MEH

Another silly horror production from the studios of the Brothers Shaw, The Bride from Hell, (Gui xin niang), is more deliberately comedic than most, though its quirky tone may still be in part accidental.  The premise is assuredly moronic as two men accidentally see two women naked and by the rules and logic of this universe, that means that they must marry them immediately.  From there, it has elements of a typical vengeful spirit story where the bride of the title poses as being still alive in order to deliver comeuppance towards the wealthy family that murdered her twenty years prior; a family whose son is her chosen groom.  Virtually the only thing that happens throughout the running time is Fan Yang being clueless as to his new wife's supernatural nature while everyone else in the village keeps telling him otherwise, plus his servant is a dumb fat guy who is afraid of everything.  Some of the visuals use vibrant colors for eerie effect ala Mario Bava, but save for a scene where a giant shows up out of absolutely nowhere, the film is low on the outrageousness that is usually found in the Shaw Brother's other genre offerings and is remarkably dull because of this.

WOLF GUY

(1975)

Dir - Kazuhiko Yamaguchi

Overall: MEH

Though it is a marked improvement over the comparatively goofier and awkard Horror of the Wolf, the sequel Wolf Guy, (Urufu gai: Moero ôkami-otoko, Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope), is still disappointing in some respects.  Once again adapting Kazumasa Hirai and Hisashi Sakaguchi's manga of the same name, the personnel both behind of and in front of the screen is entirely different and it narratively may as well be unrelated to its cinematic predecessor.  A slicker and more hip production overall, its crime genre attributes are more successful and enticing than the horror ones which are more or less an afterthought.  The concept of a raped, traumatized woman having the superpower to turn her rage into an incorporeal tiger is a bizarre one and provides the movie with its tripped-out, otherworldly slant.  Sadly the same cannot be said for the werewolf shenanigans which are aesthetically a let down since martial arts star Shin'ichi Chiba in the title role never actually transforms physically into a beast.  There is a liberal amount of bright red gore, loads of violence, naked women, fetching stylistic choices by director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, and a funky soundtrack to drive things along, but the plot loses steam during the finale.  It then resorts to a series of stand-offs, flips, and boatloads of bad guys shooting guns until everything wraps up on a mostly miserable end, all which slams home the central theme of humanity being, well, lousy.

 

KILLER BUTTERFLY

(1978)

Dir - Kim Ki-young

Overall: MEH

A bizarre indulgence in incoherence, Kim Ki-young's Killer Butterfly, (Salin nabireul jjonneun yeoja, A Woman Chasing a Killer Butterfly, Woman Chasing the Butterfly of Death, A Woman After a Killer Butterfly), has several textbook, midnight movie qualities yet also a rambling, bloated narrative.  The first act sets up the more strange incidents where the lead protagonist encounters a random woman who poisons him and demands that he die with her.  Then another random weirdo who manically insists that his will to live will keep him from dying even as he is stabbed, buried, and burned to a skeleton shows up, followed by a set of two-thousand year-old bones that come back to life as a beautiful woman who has sex with him while simultaneously demanding that she eat his liver in order to maintain her flesh.  A promising, wackadoo start to be sure, but the bulk of the running time meanders after that where an archaeologist's daughter wails and complains about love, not wanting to die, and being resurrected as a butterfly for over an hour.  It is difficult to tell if the head-scratching melodrama is supposed to be amusing or just adhering to a cultural, art-house tone that is lost on viewers who are not both South Korean and living in the late 1970's.  In any event, it can certainly afford to trim about forty-five minutes to keep viewers invested, but it is unique enough to stand as a curiosity.

70's Asian Horror Part Five

THE ENCHANTING GHOST

(1970)

Dir - Hsu-Chiang Chou

Overall: MEH

Director Hsu-Chiang Chou's first venture into horror The Enchanting Ghost, (Gui wu li ren), takes its narrative from one of the entries in Qing dynasty author Pu Songling's collection of ghost stories Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.  One of numerous films in the genre to be produced by The Shawn Brothers that decade, the most noticeable angle taken was in casting Li-Hua Yang as a male "master"; a scholar who gets evicted from his/her family home by a shady uncle, only to stay the night in an alleged haunted house where he/she meets a beautiful female love interest.  The gender reversal of the central character is never addressed, so it inadvertently plays out as a lesbian romance between two women that are just trying to live happily in a dilapidated abode without gossipy townsfolk interfering and insisting that Yang's bride is of supernatural origin.  While the movie looks lovely and has an amusing theremin score that creates the correct spooky mood, the soundtrack also makes that unfortunately common and annoying mistake of having blaring brass noises every couple of seconds for jump scare purposes.  The plot line is also monotonous and despite a lighthearted, macabre atmosphere that suggest otherwise, the supernatural set pieces do not emerge until the third act and lead to a dour, unsatisfactory ending.

BLOOD REINCARNATION

(1974)
Dir - Shan-Hsi Ting
Overall: MEH

An anthology horror outing from one of Hong Kong's lesser known production companies, Blood Reincarnation, (Yinyang jie), seems like a slapdash effort with three unrelated stories of inconsistent length thrown together without a linking narrative.  While this was nothing new to the formula, it is jarring that the first segment is just over ten minutes, the second twenty, and the third a whopping hour long.  They also vary in tone with the opening story coming off like a barely comprehensible fever dream suffered by a woman in labor, the next a lighthearted vengeful spirit story with a murdered husband inflicting supernatural drowning gags on his wife and her lover, (and making the guy unable to stop peeing), all leading to the final, feature-length tale involving a wrongfully accused doctor who comes back from the dead via the movie's title ritual.  As a whole, it is a disjointed mess and begs the question as to why it was structured as such, but there are at least some amusing and surreal moments to be found in the first two tagged-on segments.  Sadly, the closing one that gets the prominent emphasis is tortuously sluggish and grows unbearably obnoxious by its conclusion which is nothing more than a repetitive series of melodramatic whaling as characters repeat the same dialog over and over again while inconsolably, (and loudly), crying.

THE RITES OF MAY

(1976)

Dir - Mike De Leon

Overall: GOOD

The full-length debut from Filipino filmmaker Mike De Leon, The Rites of May, (Itim), is a stark, atmospheric musing on guilt and tragedy.  Stylized as a sobering art film as opposed to a conventional horror one, De Leon makes conservative yet effective use out of incidental music, letting enormous amounts of time play out to an increasingly intense silence where no tension is released and only some select moments of a kind of waking nightmare-type creepiness transpires to slightly liven things up.  Mostly shot in an unassuming manner, the hazy cinematography from Ely Cruz and Rody Lacap is persistently lovely.  The running time could perhaps be trimmed to move things along more agreeably, but the dread-inducing atmosphere is so mild and almost subliminal that the entire hour and forty-five minutes never overstays its welcome.  Narratively, there is a lack of complexity that is refreshing even if it takes until the final set piece to truly understand the full weight of what has been laying so very heavy on most of the character's minds the whole time.  For the small number of people on screen and their isolated community, Christian religion of the more superstitious variety appears to lurk in the very air and this gives way to some startling, surreal sequences that are ominous without being showy in their intensity.

70's Asian Horror Part Four

SCHOOL OF THE HOLY BEAST

(1974)

Dir - Norifumi Suzuki

Overall: GOOD

One of if not the first prominent nunsploitation work to emerge from Japan was School of the Holy Beast, (Seijū gakuen, Convent of the Sacred Beast, The Transgressor), which is typical in its shock value yet bordering on art film in much of its aesthetic.  Co-writer/director Norifumi Suzuki would immediately follow this with his first of several in the action/comedy Torakku Yarō franchise; comparatively more lightweight then his adherence to pinky violence here.  On paper, many of the set pieces and plot points are assuredly ridiculous with rape, incest, lesbianism, and torture all played for boundary-pushing effectiveness.  Yet the sly, satirical aspects of extreme religious hypocrisy are at the heart of the agenda.  Several Sisters of the Sacred Heart Convent are caught engaging in lustful, self-serving, blasphemous, and/or sadistic acts, punishing and ratting each other out while Yumi Takigawa's vengeful protagonist is determined to bring the whole house of cards down.  Remarkably stylized, Suzuki's use of music and Masao Shimizu's camera work in capturing evocative visuals takes center stage and it is this striking presentation that separates it from the heard of other conceptually similar additions to the sub-genre.

BLACK MAGIC 2

(1976)

Dir - Ho Meng Hua

Overall: MEH

 

While it nearly redeems itself with an ultra spooky zombie-fest finale, The Shaw Brothers Black Magic 2, (Gou hun jiang tou, Revenge of the Zombies), suffers from a combination of goofy and lackluster attributes in a similar fashion to the initial movie from the previous year.  Once again featuring the director/screenwriter team of Ho Meng Hua and Ni Kuang respectfully, (as well as many of the same actors now playing different roles), this stand-alone sequel recycles a similar plot of a bad guy charging people money for spells while taking shady tactics to get them under his power once the business transaction is done.  There is also another good wizard to counter him, though this fellow is reduced to a few scenes and quickly meets his end under Lo Lieh's more powerful, undead-raising magician.  Most of the enjoyment here is basking in the campy production values and loose plotting.  The makeup effects are frequently embarrassing and one hilarious rear projection scene would look just as thoroughly unconvincing back in the silent film era.  Also, the characters are morons from top to bottom with the script hardly making any logical behavior a priority as such things would inevitably get in the way of the steady combination of boring dialog exchanges and unholy set pieces.  There are some highlights to be found as well as unintended humor, but not a significant enough amount of either.

 

EMPIRE OF PASSION

(1978)

Dir - Nagisa Ōshima

Overall: GOOD

 

Continuing in the trajectory established with his infamous, quasi-pornographic art film In the Realm of the Senses, Japanese New Wave director Nagisa Ōshima followed it up with the comparatively less daring yet still explicit Empire of Passion, (Ai no Bōrei, In the Realm of Passion).  Once again collaborating with actor Tatsuya Fuji and the French production company Argos Films, this story's focus on tragic lovers incorporates the kaidan tradition of vengeful spirits, here taking the form of a well-meaning rickshaw driver who is murdered by his wife and her jealous lover before being thrown down a well.  As the title would suggest, the doomed protagonists are primarily driven by sexual passion for each other as Kazuko Yoshiyuki gives into Fuji's persistent flattery and initial assault.  Both parties exhibit obsessive, psychological dependence on each other throughout their prolonged affair and while their behavior is certainly not meant to garnish universal sympathy, their all-too-human faults still resonate in such an extreme setting.  Ōshima stages every supernatural encounter in a hushed manner, with eerie lighting and sparse music that makes them exceptionally moody and fitting for the overall naturalistic tone.  It works both as a simple, chilling ghost story and as a provocative exploration of traumatic lust, so it stands as a benchmark exploitation film that is far more respectfully gripping than all-out sleazy.

70's Asian Horror Part Three

HORROR OF THE WOLF

(1973)

Dir - Masashi Matsumoto

Overall: MEH

 

One of a select few films to be directed by Masashi Matsumoto was the adaptation of Kazumasa Hirai and Hisashi Sakaguchi's manga Wolf Guy, here titled Horror of the Wolf, (Urufu Gai, Crest of the Wolf).  As is typical of Japanese horror movies involving beastly transformations, the lycanthropian look here is much more akin to a cat, (or more accurately), a cat/wolf/fox hybrid that is unique for werewolf cinema in general.  As far as the story goes, it involves the world's most violent middle school to ever exist where the offspring of the yakuza run rampant, terrorizing any and all members of both class and staff.  That is until Tarô Shigaki shows up, playing an anti-social exchange student who just wants to be left alone and avenge his parent's death.  He also turns into the wolf of the title when the script tells him to.  The plot is monotonous and features an unfortunately standard amount of misogyny and rape for exploitation movies of the era, as well as a confused soundtrack including a whimsical folk song that creates the opposite of an ideal atmosphere for women getting terrorized, people getting killed, and everyone else perpetually getting the shit beaten out of them.

BLACK MAGIC

(1975)

Dir - Ho Meng Hua

Overall: MEH

 

The Brothers Shaw venture into the occult with the aptly titled Black Magic, (Jiang tou), one of several films to be directed by Ho Meng Hua and authored by the even more prolific screenwriter Ni Kuang.  Though the personnel involved come from a sufficient assembly line work ethic and are plenty equipped to handle the low-budget silliness on display here, (silliness that is fully in line with the production company's stable of kung fu movies), this is a disappointing venture.  The main problem stems from the repetitive script which features three different characters casting spells on each other to make them either fiendishly in love or cursed to die within three days.  Ku Feng and Ku Wen-chung play dueling wizards with various arbitrary tricks up their sleeves to thwart each other's magical prowess and the inevitable fight between them in the finale has a hilarious cornball charm to it that makes fun use out of such meager production values.  Elsewhere though, it has a back-and-forth feel that never picks up any steam, with the only narrative surprises being how many cockamamie, mystical tricks can spring up to get someone temporarily in or out of a jam.  Some of these details are gross or just plain ridiculous, but equipped with all of the dated wah-wah guitar music and bright colors, it has aged about as well as any other Samurai Sunday goof-fest, except with love potions, terrible makeup, and bugs in place of flips, kicks, and abnormally loud punch noises.

THE GHOST STORY

(1979)

Dir - Han Hsiang Li

Overall: MEH

The first of two Shaw Brothers horror films from director Han Hsiang Li to come out in 1979, The Ghost Story, (Gui jiao chun), is one of the studio's more wildly inconsistent tonal offering amongst many.  A combination of lighthearted comedy, wild supernatural set pieces, profuse horniness, and a dash of gore hits several of the hallmarks found in wild, Hong Kong genre offerings.  An anthology movie of sorts, it adapts elements from Pu Songling’s 18th century, short story collection Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, namely "The Painted Skin" and "Making Animals".  What differentiates it from most omnibus horror films is that the two segments presented share certain actors and the second one takes up an hour of the running time, just with a few interruptions from an old man regaling children and adults in campfire stories.  A steady theme runs throughout of men not being able to keep in in their pants as the first sequence features prostitutes who turn guys into livestock after fucking them.  The second story focuses on a married man who has an affair with a ghost witch who is eventually defeated after turning into a gigantic, multiple-armed statue that can summon topless, female ninja warriors.  Such ridiculous attributes only rev-up in the final act and though they are hilariously inventive, the bulk of the movie is poorly paced and awkwardly sub-par.

70's Chih-Hung Kuei

THE KILLER SNAKES

(1974)

Overall: MEH

With The Killer Snakes, (She sha shou, The Sex Snakes, Se Sat Sau), the Shaw Brothers come to the rescue for anyone who wanted to see a reptilian version of Willard with the lead human protagonist being a sexually traumatized pervert.  The movie can be applauded for the relentlessly dour series of events that transpire, as much as it can be heralded for maintaining such a miserable tone.  Kwok-Leung Kam plays a hopelessly disturbed loser who never gets a single break throughout the hour and thirty-nine minute running time.  He is fired from his jobs, robbed every time that he has any money on his person, beaten to a pulp by hoodlums, laughed at by prostitutes and pedestrians alike, and his only friends are various snakes that are otherwise used for getting their gallbladders removed as a delicacy in restaurants.  The sadism angle is prominent as well, with Kam having witnessed, (presumably), his mother getting mercilessly beaten into ecstasy as a young boy, so now he fanatically struggles with such sexually violent temptations himself.  Things play out brutally and the Hong Kong slums setting is naturally captured by director Chih-Hung Kuei in all of its grimy glory.  It is not for most tastes, but it has plenty of exploitation hallmarks for the already initiated.

 

GUI YAN

(1974)

Overall: GOOD

 

Over-long and not without its share of plot holes, Gui Yan, (Ghost Eyes), remains one of the more interesting supernatural horror films from the Shaw Brothers.  This was director Chih-Hung Kuei's second crack at the genre and he and cinematographer Chi Yu do some top notch work with eerie color schemes and camera angles to create a visually compelling atmosphere that is as much Mario Bava inspired as it is fittingly rooted in the Shaw Brothers quick-edited template.  Whether it is merely a subtitle malfunction or a tweak on the screenwriter's part, this particular interpretation of "vampires" is unique to say the least.  An ophthalmologist gets burned up in a fire only to return three years later as a rapist ghost who terrorizes Szu-Chia Chen by way of otherworldly unremovable contact lenses.  There is no blood sucking to be found, but Wei Szu's nasty antagonist does have an aversion to mirrors at least.  He is also undone in part by incense sticks, presumably triggering his human demise by way of burning alive.  Thankfully, much of the rape and unwholesome murders happen off screen which may disappoint gore hounds and exploitation fans, but it actually allows for the film to focus on its dread-fueled mood where Chen is relentlessly hounded with seemingly no end in sight.  That said, the characters make some asinine decisions and obvious maneuvers allude them at times, but it still gets by on its sinister presentation.

FEARFUL INTERLUDE

(1975)
Dir - Chih-Hung Kuei
Overall: MEH

One of a handful of anthology horror films made by the Shaw Brothers in the 1970s, Fearful Interlude, (Gu zhi se lang), was allegedly commissioned as such due to its final, (and by far worst), segment being abandoned as a full-length during production.  Two more stories were then filmed, thus combining the three into its final form.  With no framing narrative, it simply presents them one after the other, each story with enough macabre details to thematically link them.  The first, best, shortest, and most self-explanatory is "The Haunted House" which utilizes the ole scenario of a guy with a lot of money betting his friends to stay the night in a specter-ridden abode.  Wonderfully photographed, it is loaded with spooky atmosphere and gets in and out before becoming too redundant.  This is followed by "The Cold Skeleton" which is overlong but is also properly atmospheric and concerns a grieving son who is tormented by his recently deceased mother that repeatedly returns from the grave, (or so he and the audience may think).  Sadly, the longest and worst of the lot "A Wolf of Ancient Times" closes things out and why this one was dropped as its own feature is wholly understandable.  This is because it features a "comedic", horse-toothed protagonist who not only disgustingly adheres to bygone, Western stereotypes of Asian people, but is also as funny as a gymnasium full of baby seals getting tortured while children cry.

SPIRIT OF THE RAPED

(1976)

Overall: MEH

Though it has the standard Shaw Brothers kinetic energy at regular intervals, Spirit of the Raped, (Suo ming), is too low on plot to captivate as much as it should.  The last horror film from director Chih-Hung Kuei at least until the 1980s rolled around, the vengeful spirit story is laid out within the first act where the husband in a newlywed couple is murdered at knife-point by a bunch of thugs, only for the widow to get swindled and then drugged and raped later on by a fresh crop of unrepentant, awful people.  It would be an exclusively miserable viewing experience if not for the bizarre and outlandish set pieces that keep things on the ridiculous side.  These include a woman turning into a bloated, vomit-eating, possessed, boil-covered lunatic, a guy getting a "ghost ulcer" that aggressively grows out of his neck, and another guy gouging his eyes out on spikes.  The gore is disgustingly gleeful for fans of the nonsensical variety and as far as comeuppance spectacles go, the movie delivers the bad guy justice with a fervor.  Sadly though, Kuang Ni and On Szeto's script forgot to include anything besides gross-out nonsense, with the story's sole victim disappearing into the otherworld early on and the bulk of the narrative being nothing more than horrible people dying by also horrible, arbitrarily supernatural means.  If that all sounds delightful then by all means, please partake.

70's 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.

70's 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.

70's 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.

70's 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.

70's 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 of 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 a complete 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.

70's 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.

BUG

(1975)

Dir - Jeannot Szwarc

Overall: MEH

As far as nature horror goes, director Jeannot Szwarc's second theatrically released full-length Bug is one of the more dull and lethargically paced ones.  Notable as the last film that famed gimmick movie producer/co-writer William Castle was involved in before his death two years later, it is an adaptation of Thomas Page's book The Hephaestus Plague and it is given a surprisingly sober and sincere presentation by Szwarc.  Even with a premise of killer cockroaches running amok, the only element that is played for over-the-top hysterics is the off-putting performance by Bradford Dillman who portrays one of the biggest dipshit morons in cinema history  Why a seemingly normal teacher decides to mutate a newly discovered, highly dangerous species of killer insect right when they are on the verge of extinction is never convincingly explained, nor is Dillman's rapid mental deterioration which comes with beard-growing, complete solitude, and sweaty panic attacks that would make Oliver Reed proud.  Besides the plot line being idiotic at best, it is also aggressively boring with only a handful of firey super roach attacks thrown in to break up the monotony of Dillman losing his mind and talking to himself while conducting experiments.  The production gets a pass for taking a serious approach to something that should have been unabashed schlock, but perhaps the latter route would have actually been the more enjoyable one.

70's 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.