60's Alfred Vohrer Part Three

THE HORROR OF BLACKWOOD CASTLE
(1968)
Overall: MEH
 

Rialto Films' Edgar Wallace adaptation train continues with The Horror of Blackwood Castle, (Der Hund von Blackwood Castle, The Hound of Blackwood Castle), which can be described as a krimi version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes book The Hound of the Baskervilles.  Well, that and a bit of old dark house mystery since it begins with a woman arriving at the spacious abode of the title in order to collect her inheritance from her dead sea captain father; an abode that is full of secret passages, pet snakes, skeletons on wires in doorways, and overall Gothic horror decor.  For anyone who has seen other entries in director Alfred Vohrer and screenwriter Herbert Reinecker's Wallace cycle, they will recognize a few actors, several motifs, and the overall busy tone that is equipped this time by an elaborate plot for the books.  Characters drop like flies, switch sides, go behind each other's backs, and come to conclusions that they only would because they read the tangled script, but part of the fun is how difficult these films are to keep up with in the first place.

 

THE ZOMBIE WALKS
(1968)
Overall: MEH

 

Despite what the American title may imply, The Zombie Walks, (Im Banne des Unheimlichen, The Hand of Power), does not in fact contain a mobile corpse.  Well, not in the literal sense at least.  Another in a long line of Edgar Wallace krimis, (with screenwriter Ladislas Fodor stepping in for director Alfred Vohrer's usual collaborator Herbert Reinecker in the script department), it is based on Wallace's 1927 novel The Hand of Power.  It has blackmail, people faking their own deaths, people after big piles of money, a cocksure female journalist, ineffective police inspectors, and best of all, a villain dressed up as The Misfits mascot the Crimson Ghost with a fedora on, who murders people with a scorpion ring that goes "boink" when it springs into action.  As is always the case with these films, the plot moves fast enough to afford several logical liberties like why do all of the victims freeze so that the killer can take his sweet time caressing their faces, why does no one question that a character has green skin, why would a poisonous gas kill anyone in a huge basement with plenty of ventilation, and why does a funeral full of people just shrug off the fact that they all heard laughing from inside of a coffin without checking it?  Silly, head-scratching stuff to be sure.

 

SCHOOL OF FEAR
(1969)
Overall: MEH

 

Stepping away from Edgar Wallace adaptations though sticking within a krimi formula of sorts, School of Fear, (Sieben Tage Frist, Seven Days of Grace), is a noticeably different affair from director Alfred Vohrer.  Besides working with a new production company and screenwriter this time instead of Rialto Films and Herbert Reinecker, (Roxy Film and Manfred Purzer, respectfully, the latter adapting a novel from Paul Hendriks), the tone is far removed from the lighthearted and fast-paced style of the bulk of Vohrer's 1960s work.  Set exclusively at a boarding school, this one still introduces a slew of characters for red herring purposes, but the humor is absent and the plot gets stuck in a repetitive muck that loses momentum all the way until the killer reveal.  Bodies eventually turn up without the murders being shown on screen, people are questioned, the students and teachers all act like assholes, and it a slog to sit through.  This is also due to the pedestrian presentation, lacking flare and seeming disinterested in its own story.  Even with the racy reveal involving a homosexual affair and an ex-Nazi who identity swaps, it ends on a whimper instead of a bang and by that token, the entire movie can be considered a whimper.

60's Alfred Vohrer Part Two

THE HUNCHBACK OF SOHO
(1966)
Overall: GOOD

The first Rialto Films Edgar Wallace adaptation to be shot in Eastmancolor, The Hunchback of Soho, (Der Bucklige von Soho), is one of the more deliberately silly with a combination of outrageous and gruesome details.  As opposed to most of the other installments through the years, this one is not based on a specific work from Wallace and it is not much a mystery since all of the good and bad guys and gals are laid out from the onset, with no red herrings to be found.  A woman returns to England from America in order to legally inherent her father's wealth, only to get immediately kidnapped by a group of masquerading criminals who run a reform school for girls.  There is also a hunchback character to make good on the title who fulfills the usual role of the hulking, mute muscle that is used by the perpetrators to do villainous things.  It is straightforward from a narrative perspective and director Alfred Vohrer keeps the pace up agreeably, but it is not as visually stylized as his earlier black and white efforts.  The film also has a ridiculous, scatty musical score by Peter Thomas that conveys a mood which is miles away from sinister, but again, it fits the more goofy tone just fine.

CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND
(1967)
Overall: GOOD

Another Edgar Wallace-based outing from the Rialto Films production company by frequent director Alfred Vohrer, Creature with the Blue Hand, (Die blaue Hand), fuses whodunit and old dark house elements into its krimi format.  It is also more deliberately silly with a wacky jazz soundtrack, cartoonish, villainous set pieces perpetrated by an insane asylum overseer with a monocle, and a topsy-turvy plot involving elaborate secret passages, an inheritance, a room full of mannequins for some reason, and a guy with a spiked medieval gauntlet at his disposal to murderize people.  The cast seems to be enjoying themselves with such convoluted hoopla, though as always it is difficult to tell where Klaus Kinski is concerned, who plays twin brothers and seems almost physically incapable of producing a smile unless it is for the most disturbing of purposes.  The plot is so nimble that at times that it is difficult to keep up with and at the end of the day, a generous amount of it falls apart under a microscope.  It is certainly entertaining though in a kooky and amusing way, using its more gruesome components as fun window dressing while letting the absurd story take center stage.
 

THE MONK WITH THE WHIP
(1967)
Overall: MEH

 

Though Edgar Wallace's 1926 novel The Black Abbot was already adapted two years earlier by Harald Reinl as The Sinister Monk, that did not stop Rialto Films from including it in their own long-running series.  The Monk with the Whip, (Der Mönch mit der Peitsche, The College Girl Murders, The Prussic Factor), is also based on Wallace's stage play version The Terror, but screenwriter Herbert Reinecker's script throws in several extra convoluted details that make this one of the more absurd entries of the lot.  A mad scientist invents a quick-acting poisonous vapor, kills his assistant, and then gets himself killed when he sells it to the highest bidder, and this is just in the opening.  A series of murders follow that ultimately prove to be a pointless ruse to throw off the police; a scheme that also involves briefly releasing prison inmates to act as henchman even though the bad guy already has other non-incarcerated henchman, including a bloke in a red hood who likes to whip people.  It is the kind of script that is needlessly overstuffed for the sake of making both the audience and the characters confused as they try to solve the mystery, but director Alfred Vohrer adapts the usual tongue-in-cheek vibe that at least makes the film not insulting in its logical blunders.

60's Alfred Vohrer Part One

THE DEAD EYES OF LONDON

(1961)

Overall: MEH

 

A West German crime film set in England and dubbed in English by people mostly with American accents, The Dead Eyes of London, (Die toten Augen von London, Dark Eyes of London), was an adaptation of the Edgar Wallace novel of the same name, the Bela Lugosi-stared British version proceeding it by twenty-two years.  Director Alfred Vohrer helmed a handful of other films based off of Wallace's works, this being the first of them.  Focusing more on the police investigation aspects of the story than any horror ones present in the 1939 version, it stylistically dips its toes into more macabre visuals with low angle framing, a heavy use of shadowy lighting, and creepy shots of hairy hands reaching out for doomed victims.  A few other odd embellishments such as a POV shot from the inside of someones mouth while spraying their teeth and a skeleton cigarette dispenser keep it at least visually quirky.  There is also a young Klaus Kinski playing a, (of course), scuzzy low life which is always a plus.  Still, for a German film made only a few short years before they would begin their own cinematic New Wave, the plot is confounding and it all inevitably comes off as dated in both presentation and subject matter.

 

THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS

(1962)

Overall: GOOD

 

Previous done as a British production by director Norman Lee in 1940, The Door with Seven Locks, (Die Tür mit den sieben Schlössern, Chamber of Horrors) is an adaptation of Edgar Wallace's 1926 novel of the same name.  Klaus Kinski has a brief part early on, playing against type as a paranoid weasel before the story starts to weave its intricate plot of family members being picked off systematically from within due to an vast inheritance that is up for grabs.  We also get some stuff about a mad scientist and a fair amount of Gothic window dressing to push the film closer into the horror realm.  There are MacGuffins, (including the well-locked door of the title), a hulking and dim-witted brute, a gorilla in a cage, snakes, a comic relief police inspector named Holms, a guy with a gun for a hand, and Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" pops up on the soundtrack.  Some of the plot points are hilariously convenient and the scheme of Pinkas Braun's character proves to be too ridiculous to buy into, but this is not an issue since director Alfred Vohrer takes a breezy and humorous approach to the typically over-stuffed material.

 

THE SQUEAKER

(1963)

Dir - Alfred Vohrer

Overall: MEH

 

Director Alfred Vohrer continues his series of Edgar Wallace krimis with The Squeaker, (Der Zinker), based on Wallace's 1927 novel of the same name.  This was producer Horst Wendlandt's twelfth such movie and the fourth version of the Wallace book, as well as the only one not made in the 1930s.  Concerning a killer who is dubbed "The Squealer" for ratting on his victims to the police before doing away with them by way of Black Mamba venom, it has Klaus Kinski in his usual role as the unwholesome culprit, (Or is he?), who barely utters any dialog.  There are still some zany closeups courtesy of cinematographer Karl Löb, (a frequent Vohrer collaborator), as well as a flash of animated blood in the opening title sequence to spice things up.  As far as the plot goes, it follows the usual beats and is overstuffed with characters, red herrings, and the usual bouts of comic relief surrounding an ambitious journalist, which is a trope that goes back several decades at least.  It is overly-talky and difficult to stay invested in, but Vohrer and Löb keep the camera moving and there are some macabre set pieces sprinkled in that tip-toe this enough into horror terrain to appease genre fans.

60's Foreign Horror Part Nine

THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE 

(1960)
Dir - Fritz Lang
Overall: MEH

Notable as the final movie from famed director Fritz Land, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, (Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse), also kicked-off an eight-deep film series produced by Artur Brauner.  Lang had previously done two movies with the character, (1922's two-part Dr. Mabuse der Spieler and 1933's Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, respectfully), yet this one was based on an unrelated 1931 novel Mr. Tot Buys a Thousand Eyes by Jan Fethke.  It follows the krimi formula where we are introduced to several characters, the police are investigating a series of murders, some mild comic relief happens, and the culprit can be anyone.  Lang takes an adequate yet unassuming approach to the material, limiting the violence as well as any extravagant visual gags and presenting the convoluted crime story in a manner that would have fit 1940s superhero serials.  The various disguises of the title character are fun, (even if he is ultimately uncovered by something as silly as a dog), with that of a blind clairvoyant being the most striking.  Also, Jesús Franco's favorite actor Howard Vernon shows up as one of Mabuse's thugs.

 

REPTILICUS

(1961)
Dir - Poul Bang/Sidney W. Pink
Overall: WOOF

A rare, (perhaps lone?), giant monster movie from Denmark, Reptilicus is no more or less dated and boring than any of its Japanese or American counterparts, though it boats some of the cheapest production values that one can find for such silliness.  In fact this was a co-production between Denmark and the US, with two different versions being shot in each country's respective languages, though the English-speaking one was heavily reworked by American International Pictures to cover up those Danish accents.  Unfortunately, this is solely for history buffs since it is laughably inept and cliche-ridden as an actual film.  Of course it takes forever until the wiggly-necked dragon creature shows up and it looks about as menacing as a hand puppet, made more ridiculous by the fact that all of its appearances are in broad daylight.  Also of course, the plot has scientists and military people standing in sparsely decorated rooms, endlessly arguing over what can be done about the beast.  For bad movie fans though, there is an extra cringe factor in an off-putting comic relief doofus in overalls and an embarrassing musical number that has none of the banger qualities of the same year's Mothra theme song, plus some people jump off of a bridge and they ultimately kill the monster by filling up a missile with drugs.

 

THE BLOOD DRINKERS
(1964)
Dir - Gerardo de Leon
Overall: MEH

The first of two vampire films from Gerardo de Leon, The Blood Drinkers, (Kulay dugo ang gabi, Blood is the Color of Night, The Vampire People), sticks to the director's M.O. of combining alluring visuals with nonsensical plotting and wretched pacing.  Catholicism reigns prominently in the story here where an undead doctor wants to resurrect his wife, only to be combated by diligently praying townspeople.  There are fangs, capes, hilariously stupid looking rubber bats, wooden stakes through the heart, and lots of holy symbolism, so all of the standard motifs are in place.  It balances between standard color to scenes that are either blue or red tinted and this mixed with plenty of fog and atmospheric locations create the right kind of Gothic tone.  The bald, main bad vamp is a ridiculous character who is deadly serious at all times while simultaneously making goofy faces and hand gestures, being on the verge of tears professing his love for his lady, and constantly getting people within his grasps only to let them go Tall Man from Phantasm style so that he can do whatever the hell he intends to do with them at a latter, less convenient time.  It all makes for a sluggish watch, with a plot line that grows increasingly incoherent and boring, despite how eerie some of the proceedings look.

60's Italian Horror Part Sixteen

A DOG'S LIFE

(1962)
Dir - Paolo Cavara/Gualtiero Jacopetti/Franco Prosperi
Overall: WOOF

The film which is credited with kicking-off the mondo genre, A Dog's Life, (Mondo Cane), is designed for both the strong-willed and for the faint of heart who are provoked with a barrage of unsettling "real" images.  In typical mockumentary fashion, the film shows actual events by also manipulating them and the specifics as to what was staged and what is genuinely caught on camera is a line left deliberately blurred.  A travelogue with lighthearted narration from Stefano Sibaldi, it is a bizarre watch that fuses up-tempo, swinging music with unrelated vignettes that range from innocently bland to horrifying.  The filmmakers, (three credited directors Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, and Franco Prosperi respectfully), traveled the globe to collect their data, which covers everything from Japanese massage parlors, to water-skying Americans, to naked tribal rituals, to various countries murdering, force-feeding, abusing, and eating animals.  The depiction of the latter unfortunate element is the most egregious and difficult if not impossible to defend in such a sensationalized context that presents itself as educational entertainment yet was actually done for exploitative purposes.  Also, proprietors of the mondo sub-genre would continue to try and one-up each other, ultimately leading to horseshit like the Faces of Death series.  Historically significant for the cinematic movement that it inspired, but still best left unseen.

 

THE POSSESSED

(1965)
Dir - Luigi Bazzoni/Franco Rossellini
Overall: MEH

This adaptation of Giovanni Comisso's 1962 novel La donna del lago, The Possessed, (La donna del lago, Love, Hate and Dishonor, The Lady of the Lake), was the full-length debut from director Luigi Bazzoni, as well as the only credited work from behind the lens from usual producer Franco Rossellini.  American Peter Baldwin's depressed writer decides to look up an old crush at an old vacation spot, only to find that she was either murdered or committed suicide under mysterious circumstances. As a precursor to giallos, the movie plays out with film noir motifs in tow.  We have a gruff protagonist in a trench coat, a femme fatale who may have pulled various heartstrings, suspicious townsfolk, civilian investigations that go cold, and a bleak open ending.  Also, Leonida Barboni's cinematography is evocative and occasionally flashy, focusing on eyes looking through doorways and hazy nightmare sequences, moments that are also enhanced by an eerie and subtlety-used musical score from Renzo Rossellini.  While plenty atmospheric, it looses steam in the third act without any gasp-worthy revelations to bring everything to a more fetching conclusion.

 

SATANIK
(1968)
Dir - Piero Vivarelli
Overall: WOOF

A dull-as-can-be fumetti neri crime film with a sci-fi/magic potion angle thrown in, Satanik's cheap production values, comatose pacing, and sleep-walking performances render it a waste of time.  Though the title character gets her name and transformation gimmick from the Max Bunker and Roberto Raviola comic which ran from 1964 through 1974, the script by Eduardo Manzanos, Luciano Secchi, and director Piero Vivarelli bares no other resemblance to the source material and is its own unique, painfully drab concoction.  Polish model Magda Konopka makes for an alluring antagonist when she is glammed out, but she has the thespian charisma of a bucket of used paint and looks ridiculous with the low-rent "old hag" makeup that represents her natural form before she takes a Jekyll & Hyde type serum that mutates her into a ravishing starlet.  Besides some ominous thunder claps in the opening scene, the rest of the movie is void of any oppressive atmosphere let alone suspense-laden set pieces.  Though some hip wardrobe choices and zippy jazz music by Romano Mussolini and Roberto Pregadio give it a swinging Italian flavor, the meandering plot line never steps on the gas and hefty amounts of screen time are nothing more than musical montages in between one-note guys in suites who talk, sit down, talk some more, poor themselves a drink, shoot guns, and get smitten with Konopka's leggy, villainous vixen.

60's Italian Horror Part Fifteen - (Umberto Lenzi Edition)

KRIMINAL

(1966)

Overall: MEH

 

Umberto Lenzi's fumetti neri adaptation Kriminal bounces around between multiple locales as the title thief dresses in a black and off-white skeleton costume, beds a few women, and is one-step ahead of both the police and the competition in acquiring Buddha statues that hide a map to where rare paintings are hidden.  Though more light on its feet in tone than the comic series that was created by Max Bunker and Roberto Raviola, (the same creative team behind Satanik, which was brought to the big screen in 1968 by director Piero Vivarelli), Lenzi's interpretation still features the character's misogynistic penchant for sleeping with and then brutally strangling sexy women in order to keep his identity safe.  The bouncing musical score by Romano Mussolini, exotic shooting locations, convoluted chase plot, and smirking persona by an otherwise wooden Roel Bos/Glenn Saxson in the lead give it the look and feel of a fast and loose spy movie, even if it ends up being a dull ordeal in the end.  Characters prattle on in place of exciting set pieces and nobody on screen possess any noteworthy personality traits, so for a lazy travel montage version of Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik, this does the trick.

ORGASMO
(1969)
Overall: MEH

The domestic takeover thriller Orgasmo, (Paranoia, Une folle envie d'aimer), has some style and sleaze at its disposal, but its loose plotting never affords for the story to disturb.  Actor Carroll Baker and director Umberto Lenzi join forces for the first of four collaborations, with Baker playing a newly widowed and wealthy socialite whose fling with a young manipulative American and his sister leads to the downfall of all parties involved.  How Lou Castel and Colette Descombes manage to effortlessly integrate themselves into Baker's rented Italian villa is straightforward enough as it all begins as a swinging bohemian affair of free love and celebratory excess.  The dial that cranks it into a hostage situation is clumsily turned though as the sibling's blackmail scheme seems to spring up out of nowhere and Baker rapidly loses her mind while playing along with her entrapment.  The finale is laughable, as if Lenzi and his fellow screenwriters backed themselves into a corner and just said, "Well how about THIS happens then?"; ending the whole thing on a random note which simply refuses to let anyone sail into the sunset.  Granted there is no one to root for, (Baker's character is too aloof and underwritten, while Castel and Descombes just come off as soulless brats), but at least Lenzi and cinematographer Guglielmo Mancor keep the camera moving in an attempt to liven things up.

SO SWEET...SO PERVERSE
(1969)
Overall: MEH
 
Competent yet unremarkable, So Sweet...So Perverse, (Così dolce... così perversa), continues the partnership of director Umberto Lenzi and American star Carroll Baker in another backstabbing infidelity giallo.  Besides a knock-out brawl between Jean-Louis Trintignant and Horst Frank, (plus the standard component of women getting smacked around at the whim of the men in their life), all other violence is scaled back as only two murders take place and the camera cuts away from gratuitous bloodshed.  The same goes for the nudity, though Baker and frequent Italian scream queen Erika Blanc each give their birthday suites a twirl, yet such moments hardly take up enough screen time to warrant this as a particularly seedy enterprise.  Ernesto Gastaldi's screenplay does nothing new with the genre, pitting a small group of characters against each other, all of whom seem to be in varying cahoots depending on what plot twist has yet to be revealed.  In this respect, none of them are likeable and all are proven to be untrustworthy, but at least the story avoids the dreadfully stale predicament of revolving around police inspector's repetitive inquiries.  It is still a game of "Who's playing who" that builds itself up to an unavoidably lackluster finale, but the pacing is agreeable for once and Lenzi manages to squeeze some suspense out of the proceedings.

60's Italian Horror Part Fourteen

THE 10TH VICTIM

(1965)

Dir - Elio Petri

Overall: GOOD

 

"Man hunting man", (or "woman hunting man in this case"), thrillers had already gone back several decades before Elio Petri's adaptation of Robert Sheckley's novel Seventh Victim dropped right smack in the middle of Italy's pop art movement.  The resulting film The 10th Victim, (La decima vittima), also throws in romantic comedy and dystopian science fiction, with the hip stylistic touches of European spy movies and A-listers Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress as the dashing leads.  Bipping and bopping along with a kitschy scat score by Piero Piccioni and set a century in the future that never for a moments stops looking exactly like 1965, the story of commercialized murder does not dig deeply into such themes, instead taking a satirical and tongue-in-cheek approach with likeable, smirking characters that seem complacent in the dark joke that is their lives.  Mastroianni in particular comes off as cool as a cucumber, both nonchalantly bored with such a celebrity hunter/victim society and seemingly three steps ahead of everyone in the process.  Andress comes close to matching his low-key energy, leading to a ridiculous ending that is hilariously dry and in keeping with the sharp and overall fun tone of the entire thing.

 

THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH
(1968)
Dir - Romolo Guerrieri
Overall: MEH

The first of several giallos to feature Carroll Baker in the lead and her second Italian film after moving to Europe, The Sweet Body of Deborah, (Il dolce corpo di Deborah, L'adorable corps de Deborah), is uninspired tripe which comes off as if all parties involved where asleep at the wheel while making it.  At one point, Baker and Jean Sorel's newlyweds murder an intruder in self-defense after notifying the police that they are being harassed, only to immediately proclaim that "no one will believe us" so instead of reporting the incident, they bury the body in the backyard of a rented villa that a consistent stream of future guests can discover.  Such laughably lazy plotting is only one issue with the mundane story, one that was allegedly cobbled together from a different, unmade Baker project by producer Luciano Martino and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi.  The finale "twist" renders the previous ninety minutes as both pointlessly convoluted and illogical, but the pacing is dreadful, with the only "exciting" things happening around Sorel thinking that he sees someone he knows or getting annoyed by a piece of classical music being played.  Shot in English, the dialog is ADRed anyway and comes off as clunky if not embarrassing, plus as the title would suggest, Baker's body gets the focus in a few mild nudity instances.  The overall bundle is too lackluster to make such exploitative components worth one's time though.

NAKED VIOLENCE
(1969)
Dir - Fernando Di Leo
Overall: MEH

Mislabeled as a giallo, Naked Violence, (I ragazzi del massacro, The Boys Who Slaughter), is more in line with the poliziotteschi genre and is the first of two Giorgio Scerbanenco adaptations that director Fernando Di Leo would make.  A condensed version of Scerbanenco's crime novel I ragazzi del massacro, the film is bookended by the insinuating rape incident, first shown as stills during the opening credits and later as a surreal nightmare played out over industrial ambient noises.  While these moments are striking and disturbed, everything in between follows a lethargic structure where Pier Paolo Capponi mildly roughs up a group of teenagers, asking the same questions over and over again with no forthcoming answers.  A police procedural drama that is all talk and no action, Di Leo fails to give the stark material much cinematic flourish besides the aforementioned rape sequence.   Italian giallo queen Nieves Navarro is wasted as a social worker that is barely on screen and when she is, utters so few words as to be inconsequential to the chain of events.  There are also bizarre, annoyingly loud screeches on the soundtrack that accompany several zoom-ins to character's faces, which is supposed to punctuate some kind of dramatic intensity but instead come off as laughably grating.

60's Italian Horror Part Thirteen

NIGHT OF VIOLENCE
(1965)
Dir - Roberto Mauri
Overall: WOOF

A stodgy police procedural with some bare-bones components of the more sensationalized giallos that would soon emerge in droves, Night of Violence, (Le notti della violenza, Call Girls 66), has little to offer for those who can stay awake throughout its running time. Misogynistic in all of the typical lazy ways, (women getting raped, endlessly smacked around, resorting to prostitution, defending the men who abuse them, and even getting slagged off by the police who refuse to offer one of them protection for the night), it is surprisingly low on the violence that is promised in the title.  Instead, we have people talking, driving around, talking some more, driving a little more, making room for a lot more talking, getting behind the wheel again, and then cramming another tremendous amount of talking in between such excitement.  Throw in some teenagers dancing to stretch things out even further, plus a final shot of the masked killer's hilariously deformed papier-mâché face that was caused by the aftermath of one of Japan's atomic bomb travesties, (as good of an excuse for a guy to go on a raping/murdering rampage as any), and the movie barely has enough arbitrary ingredients to break up all of the talking.  Seriously though, so, so much talking.

 

A BLACK VEIL FOR LISA
(1968)
Dir - Massimo Dallamano
Overall: MEH

A West German/Italian co-production from director Massimo Dallamano, A Black Veil for Lisa, (La morte non ha sesso, Showdown, Das Geheimnis der jungen Witwe), is more in line with Edgar Wallace krimis than giallos; a dull infidelity thriller with none of the pizzazz associated with Italy's stylized slashers.   John Mills plays a paranoid police inspector, the head of the narcotics department whose stool pigeons keep winding up murdered just before they are to divulge incredulous information to him.  He is also convinced that his half-his-age wife Luciana Paluzzi is up to no good behind his back and each plot line gradually emerges into one, yet unfortunately they do so at a stodgy pace.  The plot line fails to interject any outlandish set pieces, clever humor, or sleaze into a story that is barely worth paying attention to in the first place.  Dallamano seems bored from behind the lens with a "point the camera at the actors until the scene is done" style, staging almost everything in lackluster mid-shots and complete takes that offer zero excitement at any time.  There are exceptions to this of course, but a thriller with no suspense is like a comedy with no laughs, meaning that the whole thing falls flat on its face in a merely competent manner and is instantly forgettable in the process.

 

THE LAUGHING WOMAN
(1969)
Dir - Piero Schivazappa
Overall: GOOD

The theatrical debut The Laughing Woman, (Femina ridens, The Frightened Woman), from writer/director Piero Schivazappa is a wacky psychological thriller that spins Stockholm syndrome motifs on its head in a stylish Euro-camp way.  Philippe Leroy and giallo regular Dagmar Lassander are virtually the only two actors on screen who embark on a deranged and sexually-charged game of captor and captee where the manipulated become the manipulator and feminist empowerment takes on an usurping agenda.  While the outcome to Shivazappa's quirky story may seem predictable in hindsight, there are enough outrageous surprises early on to give it a level of suspense where anything can drastically shift at any moment and indeed does.  Leroy's eccentric philanthropist-posing doctor has a ridiculous fear that women are stockpiling sperm in a grand conspiracy to do away with the male half of the species, justifying him to engage in BDSM experiments and perverse psychological torture on unsuspecting ladies who cross his path.  This puts the audience right in the clutches of Lassander's journalist protagonist who starts off as the victim before gradually unveiling the insecurities of Leroy's character, leading to a satisfying climax that is full of odd set pieces and striking modernist set design.  Throwing in a giant statue of a woman's spread legs whose vagina leads to a doorway of teeth with a skeleton inside of it is just another delightful addition.

60's Italian Horror Part Twelve - (Riccardo Freda Edition)

THE WITCH'S CURSE
(1962)
Overall: MEH

Riccardo Freda's The Witch's Curse, (Maciste all'inferno, Maciste in Hell) begins as countless other horror films do with a bunch of ignorant villagers burning a woman alive as she curses them for centuries to come.  It is in fact part of the peplum brand of film in Italy though, the cinematic Maciste character going all the way back to the 1910's.  It is neither the first clever pairing of the two genres or the first to utilize such a setting, serving as a quasi-remake of the 1925 film Maciste all'inferno.  A good chunk of screen time is dedicated to lead body building actor Kirk Morris flexing and lifting heavy things as he is dressed like a He-Man action figure and facing-off against the forces of evil in all of his sweaty glory.  The surrounding locale in which he does so in the actual Castellana Caves in the Apulia region of Italy is impressive, as are the numerous sequences using a heard of cattle, oodles of extras flaying about in torment, giants, and battles with various ferocious animals.  Silly nonsense through and through, yet amusing for what it is.

 

THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK

(1962)

Overall: WOOF

 

For the first seventy minutes of Riccardo Freda's The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, (L'Orribile Segreto del Dr. Hichcock), things move along in a standard if not altogether unexciting manner.  Despite some pacing issues that are common with such films, the big mystery concerning Barbara Steele's possible madness, her title character husband's genuine madness, and just what all the ghostly goings on and undoubted depravity was building up to is compellingly conveyed enough.  Freda uses numerous clever, slight-of-hand directorial touches and stages some tense moments that establish an appropriately eerie mood that is less camp-fueled than the material deserves.  Sadly, this becomes a disastrous example of an ending completely undoing everything that came before it.  While the almost laughably grotesque subject matter concerning necrophilia and the like is fun in a shocking-for-the-times way, the end reveal is so insulting that such would-be enjoyment is evaporated.  Considering that Steele allegedly took ten days off of Federico Fellini's seminal 8 1/2 to film this, she probably would have been better off simply hitting the beach instead. 

 

THE GHOST
(1963)
Overall: MEH

If you have ever wondered what an Italian, Gothic horror, badly dubbed version of Les Diaboliques with Barbara Steele in it would be like, your questions are answered in The Ghost, (Lo Spettro, The Spectre, Lo Spettro del Dr. Hichcock).  Director Riccardo Freda teams up with Steele again after working together on the previous year's The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, even using the name "Dr. Hitchcock" once more for a different character, meaning "the ghost" himself, played here by Elio Jotta.  Beginning with a seance and a priest saying some nonsense about the Devil being real, neither of these elements have anything to do with the following story and merely provide a macabre jumping off point.  The atmosphere is sufficiently creepy with scattered about skulls, a couple of moments in a crypt, and some well-mannered ghostly set pieces.  The ending explains everything in plainly-dubbed English to the point that a two-year old could understand it, but it at least does not derail the entire film.  Pacing wise though, it is as slow as any other low-budget big of Euro-horror from the era and a plentiful number of edits would have kept things moving at a more agreeable clip.

 

DOUBLE FACE

(1969)

Overall: MEH

Director Riccardo Freda's closed out the 1960s with the Italian/West German co-production Double Face, (A doppia faccia, Das Gesicht im Dunkeln); one of numerous krimi films churned out at the time period which ran concurrently with the emerging giallo sub-genre.  As was sometimes done as a marketing ploy, the story here bears no resemblance to any of Edgar Wallace's works despite how it was advertised as a tie-in to Berlin's Rialto Film's batch of the author's adaptations.  Instead and in typical fashion for low-budget Euro productions, several people were credited with the story and/or screenplay, one of them being none other than Lucio Fulci.  Scoring the naturally unsettling Klaus Kinski in the lead, (who had been making a steady career with such appearances), serves as a red herring since he is portrayed more as the victim than the diabolical culprit.  Yet because of course, Kinski clashed with Freda on set and allegedly caused the latter to proclaim the notoriously difficult thespian as "The Crown Prince of Assholes", which would have been a fitting title for the actor's tombstone.  As far as the movie itself, it is poorly paced, almost non-existent on action, and forgettable save for a snappy theme song from Nora Orlandi.

60's Michael Findlay Part Two

A THOUSAND PLEASURES

(1968)

Overall: WOOF

 

Going for a sort of Z-grade arthouse goofiness as opposed to just straight women-hating sleaze, Michael Findlay's A Thousand Pleasures is still pornographic, still has naked ladies being killed, and is still not a real movie, but it also has a nonsensical surrealness that is equal parts boring and fun to laugh at.  Findlay kills his nagging wife Roberta in the opening scene, (dialog done off camera of course), only for him to drive away and pick up two women, one of whom blows him immediately.  We then go to the hitchhiker's house which has a naked woman in a diaper who is another woman's "baby" and "was doing things to herself that babies aren't supposed to do".  Long story short, they need Findlay's sperm to procreate and he ends up being kidnapped and tutored, cue lots more ugly nakedness.  Considering that Findlay has all of the sex appeal of Ron Jeremy at his worst, the cinematography is one notch below incompetent, and the whole thing has the feel as if it was shot in other people's homes illegally when they were out, it certainly puts the "rough" in "roughie".  Still, Finlay's inner monologuing is hilarious and the details are quirky enough to make this a dingy bit of garbage that at least can maintain one's interest for a few seconds at a time.

MNASIDIKA

(1969)

Dir - Michael Findlay/Roberta Findlay

Overall: WOOF

 

Kicking up the ambition and stepping away from the seedy aesthetic of their early roughies, husband/wife duo Michael and Roberta Findlay's Mnasidika is a fantasy "movie" of sorts that takes place in ancient Greece, (i.e. the woods with some togas), and has Pierre Louy's poetry being unintelligibly spoken over it.  The title character comes from Louy's 1894 The Songs of Bilitis collection and Findlay plays a guy who gets transported to the period setting because reasons, quickly raping and murdering a naked woman also because reasons.  He then disappears for about forty minutes in the middle so that lesbians in their birthday suits can frolic around unchecked.  At its core, this is still nothing more than an excuse to have misogyny and naked body parts presented on screen so that movie theater patrons of the perverted variety had a place to jerk off, but the Findlay's adapt a pretentious student movie agenda, disguising the gross sleaze as something that arthouse critics could make fun of.  In this respect, the film can be seen as a success since it is hilariously stupid and pathetic in whatever the hell it thinks that it is doing, but it is also brain-damage-inducing in its lifelessness.  Labeling this as the worst thing in the Findlay's filmography would be like choosing the most worst Limp Bizkit song, but it is still as unwatchable as it gets.

THE ULTIMATE DEGENERATE

(1969)

Overall: WOOF

All of the hallmarks in Z-movie proprietors Michael and Roberta Findlay's work are present with the apply-titled The Ultimate Degenerate, another bottom-barrel sleaze-fest that is as yucky as it is bizarre as it is boring.  Here, Findlay portrays the title character who is a wheelchair-bound and wealthy recluse that hires women to do weird naked things with each other, himself, or with food.  The women all have either a different hairstyle or ethnicity so one cannot say that the Findlays were not inclusive, but the movie stops dead of having a plot once the premise is laid out.  We have two different narrators, (Uta Erickson at first and Earl Hindman after that), but nothing happens besides one nonsensical scene after the other where none of the ladies are allowed to have clothes on.  The closing moments sort-of switch gears to a blurry and surreal nightmare montage, but it is still just naked people riving around until we get a POV tour of the entire house that culminates by zooming into Findlay's screaming mouth.  The goofy dialog is all dubbed, (badly), the library-cued music never stops, it has a gay joke(?) ending, and it all looks as if it escaped from some pervert's basement, which is probably a compliment.

60's Michael Findlay Part One

THE TOUCH OF HER FLESH

(1967)

Overall: WOOF

The first in roughie sleazebag "filmmaker" Michael Findlay's Flesh Trilogy was The Touch of Her Flesh, which sets up the saga of his misogynistic, women-murdering, eye-patch-wearing sociopath.  After catching his stripper wife cheating on him, Findlay's Richard Jennings runs out into the street, gets hit by a car, loses his eye, is crippled for a few months, and then decides that all women who take their clothes off deserve to be killed.  To say that there is anything else to this movie or the following two in the series would be disingenuous, but the seedy nature of the "story" is only part of its lasting infamy.  Shot with no sound, the sparse dialog that never matches anyone's lips is added in post and at least an hour and seventy minutes of the hour and seventy-eight minute running time is spent with naked women dancing, fornicating, or just being naked.  It may be of historical interest to slasher buffs since it kind of qualifies, (be it on the Z-grade nudie flick variety), but make no mistake, this is the definition of trash when it comes to celluloid.

THE CURSE OF HER FLESH

(1968)

Overall: WOOF

 

For round two of the Flesh Trilogy, Michael Findlay and wife Roberta made a comparatively more professional "movie", (meaning that there is actual proper sound recorded this time and not just loose dialog tossed in off camera), but one should still have their expectations lower than low with the resulting The Curse of Her Flesh.  Findlay's serial killer returns with no explanation as to how he survived being shot in the heart with an arrow, plus we also get his dead wife's lover as an even worse character, one who prattles on and on like a beatnik chauvinist and shares Findlay's disdain for any woman that has had sex with anyone.  Once again, the opening credits are the most interesting part, (they were projected on Roberta's naked body in The Touch of Her Flesh and here they are graffitied on a bathroom wall), plus Findlay stages a genuinely dangerous fight scene on a moving pickup truck for the finale.  Otherwise, this is the same insultingly boring hogwash that shoehorns in a "plot" yet is overwhelming focused with naked ladies doing naked lady things for untold minutes at a time.

THE KISS OF HER FLESH

(1968)

Overall: WOOF

Closing out the Flesh Trilogy was The Kiss of Her Flesh; Michael and Roberta Finlay's third and last movie from 1968 which collectively look as if they cost eighty-five cents to make.  This roughie continues the Jezebel-killing exploits of Finlay's Richard Jennings, (and the credits show up as pieces of paper over you guessed it, a naked lady's body), only this time he is hunted down by the sister and her husband of the guy that he killed at the end of The Curse of the Flesh, so oh how the tables have turned.  The opening scene features Findlay sucking on boobs and torturing a woman with crab claws before electrocuting her through her hoop earnings and things do not get anymore wholesome from there.  As opposed to the previous entry, we are back to recording everyone's dialog in post and then poorly matching it to the actor's mouths, but the lustful depravity is even more icky than usual since we also have acid douche, poison semen, incestual sister sex, fake German accents, anal beads being pulled out of Earl Hindman's ass, and Findlay's dong getting tied to a string that is attached to a gun that will go off if he gets a hardon.  It is easily the most inventive in the series when it comes to diabolical sleaze, but it is also the one that will most require a shower after viewing.

60's American Horror Part Twenty-Eight

CAPE FEAR
(1962)
Dir - J. Lee Thompson
Overall: GREAT

A top-notch thriller that would in turn spawn a memorable remake by Martin Scorsese as well as arguably the finest Sideshow Bob episode of The Simpsons, Cape Fear is a stand-out work for its director J. Lee Thompson as well as stars Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum.  Due to the censors at the time, John D. MacDonald's 1957 source material novel The Executioners was re-worked, alluding to instead of explicitly addressing the rape crimes committed by Mitchum's antagonist, as well as changing him to a southern thug instead of a disgraced soldier.  The source of horror comes in the frustration faced by Peck's attorney and family who do everything in their power to reason with the unreasonable; a man that makes one sly move after the other to avoid prosecution for his revenge agenda.  This in turn pushes the good guys to do things against their moral compass, which plays right into the hands of Mitchum's odious villain who longs for the slow and painful psychological torment of his prey.  Thompson deliberately channels Alfred Hitchcock from the director's chair, (and the master of suspense's Bernard Herman was even snagged to do the memorable score), and the whole thing expertly builds to a taught climax that is both satisfying and exhaustively ravaged.

 

LADY IN A CAGE
(1964)
Dir - Walter Grauman
Overall: GOOD

This nasty and claustrophobic thriller from director Walter Grauman and producer/screenwriter Luther Davis transcends its plot gimmick by becoming a transgressive assault on the tumultuous decade in which it was made.  Trapping Olivia de Havilland in an electronic lift in her spacious home has the potential to solely examine the gradual psychological turmoil that such a thing would inflict, but Davis' script for Lady in a Cage throws in numerous other angles to up that turmoil.  It has a note from her son that could be read as a suicidal cry for help, a wino burglarizing her and then bringing his friend along, three hoodlums also breaking in to cause way more unwholesome mayhem, and a nihilistic tone where nobody does the right thing and our protagonist's desperate pleas go unanswered and mocked.  While 1964 studio pictures were not versed in completely downtrodden endings, the overarching bitterness still presents a movie with no winners, only those who get their just desserts or in the case of de Havilland, end up emotionally and permanently bulldozed by the chain of events.  It pushes things further than most in this regard and the performances go for melodramatic gusto which is fitting for material.  James Caan in his first credited role does his best Marlon Brando impression and is particularly ghastly.

 

THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS PALS

(1966)
Dir - T. L. P. Swicegood
Overall: WOOF

Three years after Herschell Gordon Lewis dropped what is recognized as the first gore film Blood Feast, the ridiculously named T. L. P. Swicegood made his own tasteless, Z-grade crud rock in a similar vein.  The Undertake and His Pals is Swicegood's only movie as director and that is the best thing that one can say about it since unlike Lewis, he never unleashed a series of these throughout the years.  The premise can only be handled in a comedic fashion where an undertaker overcharges people and splits some of their body parts with two yahoos that run a restaurant that is perpetually out of anything that anybody orders.  Of course this means that human meat is always substituted on the menu, but what logic if any pertains to their arrangement with the undertaker of the title is never convincingly explained, nor important.  The violence is primitive even by Lewis' standards, but there is still plenty of bright red blood splatter and some stock surgery footage of an open chest.  Also, lots of people die in lackluster and moronic ways, some of which are played for laughs that never come.  This optimizes the entire film; one that tries to be funny yet is more embarrassingly stupid and cheap than anything.  That in and of itself though can provide some chuckles for the trash enthusiast out there.

60's American Horror Part Twenty-Seven

DOG STAR MAN

(1961-1964)
Dir - Stan Brakhage
Overall: MEH

The most known of experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage's works, Dog Star Man is a series of silent shorts that were made over the course of four years and are collectively linked despite having no decipherable narrative.  For those that are either inexperience with or have an adverse reaction to deliberately unconventional cinema, this will be a confounding endeavor since the entirety of the project is nothing more than heavily manipulated images which are exposed on top of each other with no sound design whatsoever.  Most of these visuals are illegible and meant for reactionary interpretation, creating a subjective viewing experience that is more akin to a moving and kinetic form abstract art that can only be seen as having a "story" if one's own imagination is engaged along with what is presented on screen.  As far as the shots themselves, they range from Brakhage and a dog climbing a mounting, to a baby being born, naked bodies, outdoor scenery, and various scratches, deliberate film imperfections, and morphed images that can be grotesque, haunting, beautiful, and always stupefying.   Certainly not for everyone and sitting through the entire seventy-eight minute collection will offer no further insight than simply witnessing one of the five sections on their own, but it is as good of a place to start as any when venturing into the world of experimental movie-making.

DEATH CURSE OF TARTU

(1966)
Dir - William Grefé
Overall: MEH

A typically sluggish crud rock from regional exploitation filmmaker William Grefé, Death Curse of Tartu, (Curse of Death), pits a teenage archeologist team against a dead voodoo priest that can turn into animals and unleash stock footage on people when his grave is disturbed.  Shot in the Everglades, the jungle setting is at least authentic, actor Frank Weed provided the animals that actually interact with the characters on screen, and there is some accidental mood-setting when the library-cued music shuts up and we get a couple of shots of Doug Hobart in zombie makeup.  The story is so rudimentary and unimaginative that it is almost impossible to pay attention to, something that is not helped by Grefé's wretched sense of pacing and the poor no-name actors who have to embarrass themselves with such tripe.  As a gripping bit of "boring white people vs supernatural jungle forces" action, the movie is an unmitigated failure, but as an accidental documentary about how dangerous the Florida wilderness is, it achieves some semblance of success.

 

HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE
(1967)
Dir - Jean Yarbrough
Overall: WOOF

With a title like Hillbillys in a Haunted House, one's expectations should be set before a single frame is viewed. In this regard, it "delivers" on being a dopey genre mash-up, but whether or not anyone with half a brain cell would find it entertaining, that is another matter.  Sadly, this was the final screen performance of Basil Rathbone that was released in his lifetime and it also features other former genre heavyweights Lon Chaney Jr. and John Carradine, both of whom were well into the "anything for a paycheck" phase of their careers.  Seeing these three gentleman try and save face in such a lame-brained horror comedy is a painful experience, not because the movie beats you over the head with how stupid it is, but more by how lazy it is.  Both Ferlin Husky and Don Bowman, (who reprise their roles from the previous year's The Las Vegas Hillbillys, which this is a sequel to), have insufficient charisma to be the two leads and the plot seems like it was concocted within five minutes.  It revolves around cookie-cutter country singers who stay the night in a house where spies are doing something about a rocked fuel formula and also have a caged guy in a gorilla suite because apparently a goal of this movie was for Rathbone, Carradine, and Chaney Jr. to join Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi in sharing screen time with a primate.  Besides Merle Haggard showing up twice, the rest of the many country music interludes, (including the entire last fifteen minutes), just slow down an already lifeless B-movie that should probably be the last one in anyone's filmography here that you should get to.

60's American Horror Part Twenty-Six

THE SLIME PEOPLE

(1963)
Dir - Robert Hutton
Overall: MEH

Character actor Robert Hutton takes his only, (embarrassing), stab at directing with the unintentionally craptacular The Slime People; a film that allegedly ran out of money quickly and whose cast and crew were not paid for much of the shooting.  The results of such shoddy production values are unmistakable on the screen, though to be fair, the title monsters sound and look about as ridiculous and fun as any from the drive-in double bill era.  Much criticism has revolved around the poor use of fog which obscures the visuals too much instead of creating an ominous atmosphere.  The snore-inducing pacing and monotonous plot finds Hutton and a small group of survivors fending off against a race of grotesque underground humanoids with pointy sticks and everyone goes from one location to another, engaging in lots of talking along the way.  The performances are of the goofy and melodramatic variety and everyone behaves like a buffoon most of the time, but not enough to elevate such dull proceedings.

THE TIME TRAVELERS

(1964)
Dir - Ib Melchior
Overall: MEH

Danish-born screenwriter turned-director Ib Melchior takes his second and final crack at a full-length from behind the lens with American International Pictures' The Time Travelers; a science fiction film that is worth a hoot or two for its dated set and costume design, plus some low-end special effects.  Lighthearted in tone with a goofy and cartoon-worthy musical score by Richard LaSalle that fits along with the v-neck uniforms, fleshy and rubber-masked androids, toy model work, and Roger Corman-worthy underground cave station, (most of which are brightly-colored and far from ominous in aesthetic), it is all kitschy, cheap, and void of anyone besides white people since the future has apparently done away with minorities.  Worry not though, women still have time for dance parties, to work on their tans, and to banter about which cute guys they want to procreate with once they repopulate another planet.  It gets by OK for what it has to worth with and at least affords for some quirky details, but like nearly all films of its kind, it is also detrimentally talky and flatly directed.   At least the mutants look like Michael Berryman in The Hills Have Eyes and do some damage during the finale, which ups the race-against-time plot that gives the whole thing a much-needed adrenaline shot to go out on.

 

THE OMEGANS

(1968)

Dir - W. Lee Wilder

Overall: WOOF

The penultimate film to be directed by no-budget schlock-peddler W. Lee Wilder, The Omegans shows that the man has learned absolutely nothing about engaging storytelling in his two decades from behind the lens.  Shot on location in the Philippines, (as many bottom barrel exploitation movies from the era were), this is one of a career's worth of missed opportunities in Wilder's filmography that fails to do anything with the exotic setting or even a pre-Hammer Ingrid Pitt brought on board to awkwardly deliver her uninteresting dialog, (which for the last act consists entirely of asking for water, where Chuck is, and wanting to see a painting).  Speaking of uninteresting, the title may suggest some sort of otherworldly presence or race lurking about, yet the actual case is far more lame since this is nothing but a woman having an affair with her rich husband who finds out and then poisons her and her lover.  It is staggering how uneventful the "drama" is, to the point of being undetected due to Wilder's wretched direction.  Even with some glowing things and cheap putty makeup thrown on Pitt and Keith Larson in the final two minutes, the pacing is so dreadful and lacking in agency that there is nothing to recommend here except exhibiting it for film students as an example of what they should never make under any circumstances.