2015 Horror Part Sixteen

THE PRIESTS

Dir - Jang Jae-hyun

Overall: GOOD

The full-length debut The Priests, (Geomeun Sajedeul), from writer/director Jang Jae-hyun arrived the same year as his short film 12th Assistant Deacon from which it expands upon.  Bringing schlocky exorcism motifs into South Korea has a novelty to it all on its own, but thankfully Jang weaves his familiar materials into something compelling, funny, and agreeably paced.  It brings to mind the usual demonic possession movies that have endlessly spawned in The Exorcist's wake, with a little of Francis Lawrence's A-budgeted Constantine thrown in that focuses on some of the inner politics of Eastern Catholicism and the fun pairing of a rogue Father and a naive Deacon who through personal trauma, find a way to lock horns in squaring off against an ancient demon that of course has ensnared itself in a teenage girl.  The first act dishes in the most humor where Gang Dong-won's bumbling religious student gets tasked with the job; a job that he takes seriously and proves more adept at as his research deepens.  Kim Yoon-seok is equally interesting and amusing as the no-nonsense veteran who has the power of occult knowledge and unwavering faith at his disposal, all of which culminates in a lengthy final act that finally gets to the blasphemy-spewing eviction of the unwanted spirit.  It goes big at this point, but the suspense and emotional turmoil are effectively kept in check.

SECRETS OF A PSYCHOPATH

Dir - Bert I. Gordon

Overall: WOOF

At ninety-three years old, Bert I. Gordon inexplicably returned to the director's chair with Secrets of a Psychopath, though any B-movie fans who may rejoice at such news will quickly be disappointed.  That is because this digitally-shot, minuscule-budgeted sleaze-fest exist in a universe where people behave like people who do not exist in any plausible universe.  Considering that Gordon penned the screenplay as well, it is sadly a case of a noticeably out-of-touch filmmaker who has not seen a contemporary movie in decades, or maybe has not even left his house to interact with anyone younger than him in as many decades.  Mark Famiglietti looks like a typical, boyish CW hunk, playing a character who is impotent, traumatized, and in an incestuous relationship with his sister, (skin queen Kari Wuher), who just so happens to be twelve years his senior.  Every plot point is hilariously "Huh?", from overtly attractive people hooking up, (and even marrying each other), with no safety net on a dating site, the cops having no idea how to follow-up on such obvious leads, Famiglietti burying a guy in his suburban backyard in broad daylight, Famiglietti getting aggressively picked up at a movie theater by an equally good looking lady who finds his childish cackles at race cars irresistible, and every character saying words that are so ridiculous and behaving in such cartoonishly illogical ways that the script would barely have to be tweaked to work in a Larry Blamire production.  If not the worst movie ever made about a guy who bangs his sister and murders people, it is easily the most embarrassing.

 

KILL ME PLEASE

Dir - Anita Rocha de Silveira

Overall: MEH

Brazilian filmmaker Anita Rocha de Silveira attempts her own aimless answer to David Robert Mitchell's also aimless It Follows with Kill Me Please, (Mate-Me Por Favor).  Set in upper class Rio de Janerio, it follows, (nyuck nyuck), a similar shtick of adolescents existing in a hazy world where hardly any adults enter into frame, all while a serial killer or a slew of them are picking off young women around their own age.  This captivates an entire school but not in any palpable way.  Instead, these young women are drawn to the crimes either by unexcitingly gossiping, making Secret Hitler-styled games out of it, or in the case of the particularly aloof Valentina Herszage, letting them morph her persona into someone who would probably fall in line with the group of zombied-out car crash fetishists in David Cronenberg's Crash.  Sadly though, there is no rhyme or reason to what transpires here, either aesthetically or narratively.  Scenes linger on for ages and many of them could be argued as being pointless, but de Silveira's screenplay seems to thrive on such an agenda where only vaguely interesting and disturbing things are happening to young people that are going about their lives unchecked while danger is all but surrounding them.  It is a difficult movie to crack yet unlike some of the surrealist cinema that it clearly channels, there is no oddball humor or emotional connection to be found.

1990s American Horror Part Fifty-Four

SATAN'S PRINCESS

(1990)
Dir - Bert I. Gordon
Overall: MEH

The penultimate film from director Bert I. Gordon before he briefly reemerged in 2015 to make Secrets of a Psychopath for some reason, Satan's Princess, (Malediction), is a typical straight-to-video thriller in most respects, yet the presence of an overqualified Robert Forster and a handful of ridiculous moments make noteworthy.  For a police procedural, Stephen Katz' script has a fair amount of snappy and wise-ass dialog, most of which is given to Forster who does his professional best to pretend that he is in a better movie.  There are some surprisingly exploitative bouts of gore and sex, including a lesbian relationship spearheaded by Lydie Denier, who Forster also gets to roll in ze hay with while smacking her ass and engaging in dirty talk about wanting to see her tattoo.  The plot gets convoluted at points, throwing in murdered women, an immortal demon, possession, a kid with a mullet and a learning disability, and typical cop movie cliches like dead partners and "I quit the force yet am too obsessed with my job to actually quit" nonsense.  Sleazy in a late night cable kind of way, but Denier tries to drive away in a car in full monster mode after Forster shoots her into a pool with a flamethrower, so that is worth something.

THE DARK BACKWARD

(1991)
Dir - Adam Rifkin
Overall: GOOD

 

Adam Rifkin's The Dark Backward, (The Man with Three Arms), follows up his doofy boner comedy/sci-fi hybrid The Invisible Maniac and is a deliberate midnight movie anomaly.  Accurately described as Eraserhead meets Pink Flamingos, the mark of John Waters is all over the production with its tacky and filth-ridden set design and top-to-bottom oddballs on the screen, not to mention a juvenile reveling in grossness that is as uncomfortable as it is hilarious.  Stylistically, Rifkin goes one further with garish, expressive, and colorful lighting which along with the head-scratching story line and kitschy cynicism, breathes grimy life into a script that the writer/director allegedly penned when he was only nineteen.  Of course the wide cast of familiar faces makes the whole thing even more strange than it unavoidably is.  Judd Nelson is as against type as a spineless protagonist as Bill Paxton is perfectly suited doing a Bill Paxton impression as his scumbag, "human cockroach" cheerleader sidekick, stealing all of his moments with the type of jacked-up hillbilly mugging that only Paxton can effortlessly dial in when called for.  James Caan, Wayne Newton, Lara Flynn Boyle, Claudia Christian, and a cameo by Rob Lowe as a sleazy TV executive, (a year before he would do the same thing in Wayne's World), round out an ensemble of thespians who one cannot believe actually signed on to such a project.

THE KILLER EYE

(1999)

Dir - David DeCoteau

Overall: WOOF

Even by Full Moon Features standards, The Killer Eye is some poorly executed crap.  As was often the case for no budget B-movies directed by David DeCoteau, (utilizing the alias Richard Chasen here), gratuitous nakedness and sex scenes are thrown into an idiotic story line that may as well have been made up on the fly.  DeConteau has proven himself capable of delivering a couple of purposeful nyuck nyucks in his wide assortment of boobie flicks, but his work here is pathetic.  Whatever jokes may be lurking around would take a diligent level of perception to detect as the plot just bounces between roughly three cheaply decorated rooms where characters talk, take their clothes off, and occasionally interact with the killer eye of the title.  Though both Nanette Bianchi and softcore mainstay Jacqueline Lovell show off their birthday suits at regular intervals, the film is oddly homoerotic with guys fondling their shaved chests, two of them hanging out in only their underwear while bro-ing it out with candy-colored drugs, a boy prostitute who becomes the first victim of the monstrous optical organ, and a Reg Park Hercules poster chilling in the background.  The premise is ridiculous and there is no attempt to hide the insufficient production values, but the whole thing is flatly delivered without emphasizing its camp appeal, completely missing the mark in the process.

1980s American Horror Part Ninety-Nine

BURNED AT THE STAKE

(1981)
Dir - Bert I. Gordon
Overall: MEH

B-movie director extraordinaire Bert I. Gordon took a five year break after the one-two punch of American International Pictures' The Food of the Gods and Empire of the Ants, reemerging with Burned at the Stake, (The Coming); a tweak on the bog-standard "condemned witch back for vengeance against the town's descendants" premise.  Here, it is not an actual female practitioner of the occult who reemerges in modern times, but a stupid little brat that accused an innocent girl of witchcraft back during the Salem trials, even though the not-witch actually possess witch powers while possessing Susan Swift, (who plays both roles).  There is also a modern day witch, the Puritan father of the aforementioned innocent girl inexplicably shows up in his original body instead of possessing anyone, plus a handful of other head-scratching things happen to add to the confusion.  Whatever Gordon was going for gets lost in the weeds, and the neutered, TV movie-style presentation leaves much to be desired, especially emerging in the year where about seven-hundred and eighty-five violent slasher films were barfed out onto the masses.

 

GOR
(1987)
Dir - Fritz Kiersch
Overall: MEH
 
An adaptation of John Norman's first novel Tarnsman of Gor in his sword and sorcery Gorean Saga series, Gor is a deliciously stupid Cannon production that basically plays out as if a socially awkward thirteen year-old Dungeons & Dragons fan with uncontrollable hard-ons somehow managed to get a movie made with both Oliver Reed and nine seconds of Jack Palance on board.  Shot in South Africa with an international cast, (most of whom are dubbed more distractingly than in Italian giallos), it throws college teacher Urbano Barberini into a barbarian world where shades of brown are the only colors, women are objectified to parody levels, and everyone yells, fucks, tortures, and kills like such things are going out of style.  Director George Fritz Kiersch keeps the pacing up with plenty of brawls and scantily-clad actors showing off their tans, plus the rocky desert landscape is well utilized for such a hare-brained story that is miles away from anything intellectual or modernized.  This is even more confounding in considering that the source material was authored by a philosophy professor, but the resulting film is good "bad movie" fun for those who like their 80s fantasy with an extra dose of stupid.

 

MY MOM'S A WEREWOLF

(1989)

Dir - Michael Fischa

Overall: MEH

Director Michael Fischa's follow-up to Death Spa was the even more deliberately childish and stupid My Mom's a Werewolf, which tries and fails to be as funny as one would presume from the title.  Written by Mark Pirro who made a small handful of horror comedies around such a time, it throws a smorgasbord of cliches into the mix, like the neglected housewife, the schlubby husband who is all about work and watching the game, a crappy version of "Little Red Ridding Hood" which is an already crappy song, plus obvious jokes about PMS, sex, how men never leave the toilet seat up, and how much the dentist sucks.  At least they tweaked the horror movie nerd gag by making her a girl instead of a dweebish boy, and John Saxon plays a ladies man werewolf pet store owner instead of a cop.  Otherwise though, surprises are few and far between.  A companion piece to Jimmy Huston's 1987 nyuck-fest My Best Friend is a Vampire except not as charming, it borrows a few undead motifs like werewolves being immortal and having hypnotizing powers.  Saxon seems to be enjoying himself in a hammier role than he was usually allowed, but few if any of the film's intended humor lands,  and when Susan Blakely and Saxon finally show their full bestial forms at an hour and ten minutes in, their cheap Halloween masks underscore an already low-rent affair.

1970s American Horror Part Seventy-Five - (Bert I. Gordon Edition)

NEC'RO•MAN'CY
(1972)
Dir - Bert I. Gordon
Overall: MEH
 
Bert I. Gordon, (one of the primary kings of giant monster B-movies), shifted gears with the trippy and psychological horror film Nec'ro•man'cy, (re-released and re-cut as The Witching in 1983).  Staring an "I'm only doing this for the money" Orson Welles slipping into a British accent, as well as actual British horror mainstay Pamela Franklin doing an American accent, it has moments of unintended silliness and an overall goofy presentation.  Most odd is the snappy editing which eliminates most establishing shots and cuts right to the beginning of every conversation.  While this attempt to trim the fat is refreshing for an era where sluggish pacing was the norm, it also gives the movie a jolting feel, made doubly problematic by the fact that much of it ends up dragging anyway.  There are creepy ideas adherent in Gordon and Gail March's script about a cult leader trying to do occult leader things to bring his dead son back to life, but it is too disjointed and awkward to deliver the proper chills.

 

THE FOOD OF THE GODS

(1976)

Overall: WOOF

The second adaptation of H.G. Wells' 1904 novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth from writer/director Bert I. Gordon, (the first being 1965's Village of the Giants), The Food of the Gods, (H.G. Wells' The Food of the Gods), is an abysmal giant animal movie that makes over-sized rats, chickens, wasps, and worms come off as ridiculous as you can imagine.  Gordon had stepped away from such movies for eleven years at this point and the dated special effects are but one problem, utilizing the age old tricks of normal-sized animals interacting with miniatures and spliced together with the actors pretending to fend off against them.  Throw in some children in rat suits and unconvincing closeups and it becomes a consistently laughable film and one that seems downright embarrassing from a special effects perspective, especially considering that Star Wars was in production at the time of its release.  Gordon's screenplay is worse than the visuals though; not insultingly bad, but just lazy and hare-brained in its environmental angle and poorly thought-out characters.  The following year's Empire of the Ants would utilize the same tactics and suffer from similar ailments, but it would fare better in comparison for anyone in the mood for a bad over-sized monster double feature.

 

EMPIRE OF THE ANTS

(1977)

Overall: MEH

Filmed in part in the Florida Everglades, Empire of the Ants was the final "giant creature" movie of director Ber I. Gordon's career and is also a loose adaptation of H.G. Wells' 1905 short story of the same name.  While some of the shots all too clearly broadcast the budget's shortcomings, the film still works well as a special effects showcase.  Fusing some of the tricks that Gordon used on 1957 film Beginning of the End, (mixing over-sized closeups of the ants with actors and miniatures, plus spastically wiggling fake insect limbs around), all manage to do the trick.  Unfortunately, Gordon and co-screenwriter Jack Turley's script leaves everything to be desired, loading it up with one forgettable character after the other and taking a full thirty minutes until any oversized bug mayhem goes down.  Even with A-lister Joan Collins on board and a third act revelation that makes good on the opening narrations promise that ants use mind-altering pheromones to get what they want, the story endlessly drags.  A Jaws/Invasion of the Body Snatchers hybrid sounds intriguing on paper, but the whole thing only comes alive in all too infrequent fits and starts.

1960s American Horror Part Eleven

THE LEECH WOMAN

(1960)

Dir - Edward Dein

Overall: MEH

 

A forgettable, late monster entry for Universal Pictures' B-level branch, The Leech Woman has all of the typical, overtly-talky pratfalls of such dramas with dated cultural aspects thrown in for "good" measure.  This includes Hollywood's steadfast, insensitive depiction of natives who are seen as half naked, tribal primitives that will kill any white people who discover their ancient secret of rejuvenation and eternal youth.  This plays off of the particularly superficial characters who treat Coleen Gray as an annoyance at best and a leper at worst, unless she is temporarily rendered beautiful and irresistible after working the African mojo on herself, which naturally comes at the price of murdering people.  While there is plenty going on for a campy drive-in movie, everyone on screen is unlikable, several to a comical extent where their short-sided, vain behavior makes them difficult to relate to on any logical level.  Pacing wise, it is a chore to sit through and the old, withered makeup effects are awful, unconvincing, and not at all frightening if that was actually the intention.  In this regard, it barely belongs in the horror genre in the first place and serves a far greater purpose as mock-fodder for Mystery Science Theater 3000, which of course it was.

 

THE DISMEMBERED

(1962)

Dir - Ralph S. Hirshorn

Overall: MEH

An independent, Philadelphia-shot oddity and the lone full-length directorial effort from Ralph S. Hirshorn, The Dismembered is a long forgotten/barely remembered, regional cross between Roger Corman cheapies, sitcom humor, and local theater acting and production values.  The movie had a limited release in its own area, only to disappear for five decades before getting randomly unearthed in 2017.  Hardly any of the personnel on board went on to greater or better things, (if they went on to anything at all), but the results are actually more competent than one would expect from something that was allegedly made for less than $5,000.  Things begin far more hilariously than they continue with self-depreciating opening credits that clearly announce that the filmmakers were in on their own quirky joke, a joke that was done far outside the confines of Hollywood.  Sadly, the pacing takes a hefty drop after this with a monotonous structure involving a democratically organized stable of ghosts who have various sit-down meetings as to how they should deal with the small gang of criminals that are holding up in their cemetery-adjacent haunted house.  It has some spooky atmosphere here or there which mostly stems from the sound design, but it is far more charming as a curiosity than as a properly engaging movie.

PICTURE MOMMY DEAD

(1966)

Dir - Bert I. Gordon

Overall: MEH

The final directorial effort of the 1960s from Bert I. Gordon, Picture Mommy Dead is a snoozer with a derivative script involving unwholesome characters backstabbing each other in various fashions over a hefty inheritance that is tied up in legal formalities.  This includes grown child star Susan Gordon who returns from a convent years after her mother died in a fire, only to find her dad, former governess-turned-mother-in-law, and a butler with half a burnt face all clamoring for money while being in one-sided love with each other.  Of course Gordon immediately starts to question her sanity as a number of hallucinations occur where she sees her dead mother who keeps pointing her in the direction of a swanky, diamond necklace that everybody else on screen eventually seems obsessed with locating as well.  Don Ameche, Martha Hyer, and Zsa Zsa Gabor round out the familiar faces with Wendell Corey making an obnoxious cameo as an unnecessarily rude lawyer who unintelligibly mumbles all of his dialog.  There is a fair amount of lost potential to do something more spooky with the large, Gothic estate that the entire film is set in, plus the eventual reveals in Robert Sherman's overly-talky screenplay are not even silly enough to provide some unintended chuckles.

1960s American Horror Part Ten

TORMENTED

(1960)

Dir - Bert I. Gordon

Overall: MEH

 

A conventional and dopey, psychological B-movie from writer/director/producer Bert I. Gordon, Tormented delivers some silly scares within its elementary yet sensationalized plot.  It is a more intimate, stripped-down affair coming from Gordon who had previously made a name for himself with special effects showcases like The Amazing Colossal Man, Earth vs. the Spider, and Attack of the Puppet People.  Though there is effects work here as well, it comes off as laughable by involving a floating head or crawling hand from a recently deceased mistress who, (as the title would suggest), spends the entire film "tormenting" her former lover that is about to marry another woman.  Accompanying such set pieces is a random hodgepodge of stock music, with blaring, up-tempo jazz causing a particularly clashing effect when things are supposed to be suspenseful.  Granted Richard Carlson of Creature from the Black Lagoon fame plays a jazz pianist so maybe the daft soundtrack choices were intentional, but they come off as no more or less inappropriate than in any other cheapie drive-in movie from the era.  Other unintentional laughs like an obnoxious beatnik blackmailer who calls everyone "dad" every three seconds, a blind housekeeper, and uncomfortable tension between Carlson and his wife-to-be's kid sister may provide enough campy fun for some viewers.

GAMES

(1967)

Dir - Curtis Harrington

Overall: MEH

 

Featuring early performances from both James Caan and Katherine Ross as an upper-class couple engaging in various acts of frivolous boredom that of course goes horribly awry, the simply titled Games backs itself into a predictable corner with its twists-on-top-of-twists framework.  A much different follow-up for filmmaker Curtis Harrington whose previous Queen of Blood was one of the many sensationalized, drive-in genre offerings of the day to be distributed by American International Pictures, this one plays out as an elongated Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode with a dash of classic domestic financial manipulation thrown in.  It is likely no accident that Les Diaboliques's Simone Signoret appears as the plot here bares several similarities to said landmark, French psychological horror film from Henri-Georges Clouzot.  In fact it is too similar in structure to various other movies where a woman is clearly being driven mad by the main characters around her, (usually the husband), which unfortunately dilutes the suspense-laden impact of the final act.  The one-hundred minute running time is also problematic as if feels cluttered with unnecessary filler, so the whole thing could have been punchier if told in a more compact manner.

DAUGHTER OF THE MIND

(1969)

Dir - Walter Grauman

Overall: GOOD

 

This ABC Movie of the Week adaptation of Paul Gallico's 1964 novel The Hand of Mary Constable explores the usual angle of how supernatural activity emotionally effects hard-edged skeptics who are particularly susceptible to its influence, yet it also uniquely mixes it with Cold War conspiracy.  Daughter of the Mind was one of many television films from director Walter Grauman and he keeps up an impressively brisk pace for something that is heavily talky and low on action.  Ray Milland's grieving father is a wonderfully two-dimensional character who is a career cybernetic expert that is not prone to taking ghostly activity at face value.  So, when his daughter presumably returns from the grave with vague warnings pertaining to his national security-sensitive work, he enlists someone who can utilize paranormal pseudo-science to get to the bottom of things.  Some room-tapping government agents, sleeper spies, and foreign mystics later, it all uncovers a satisfyingly convoluted series of events that is played straight enough as to not become ridiculous.  Perhaps the only downside for horror enthusiasts is that the would-be spooky bits do not convey a chilling atmosphere, but the presentation is compelling enough to keep the audience guessing.

1950s Bert I. Gordon Horror Part Two

THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN

(1957)
Overall: MEH

 

As a counter-point to Universal's The Incredible Shrinking Man which saw significant box office returns six months earlier, American International Pictures reversed the gimmick for The Amazing Colossal Man.  The concept of a giant whatever stomping around and causing havoc was all the rage in 1950s drive-in movie theaters and this time it is a plutonium bomb explosion that makes Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning's body cells grow to the point where he gains eight feet in height per day.  The story is elementary enough that a small child could follow it, (or write it), and even some war footage meant to flesh out the title character's background does not give it much significant cultural weight for the time.  Godzilla by comparison hit much deeper with the creature's origins spawning from the atom bombs that were dropped on Japan during World War II, per example.  Intellectual depth is hardly on the menu here though as it is mostly just boring characters standing around talking about what to do with the big guy who gets more aggravated with his condition as the running time plows on.  A little bit of life is finally shot into the proceedings within the last fifteen or so minutes when the Colossal Man wanders around Las Vegas and smashes some billboards.

ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE

(1958)

Overall: GOOD

 

Once again, B-movie studio American International Pictures takes a cue from Universal whose The Incredible Shrinking Man proved to be a hit the previous year, one-upping the doll-sized human gimmick with Attack of the Puppet People, (Six Inches Tall).  The film has the unique narrative concept of its villain being a seemingly benevolent, soft-spoken and polite old toy maker who shrinks his victims out of pure loneliness.  In his mind, he is taking loving care of his "dolls", sparing them from the stressful day-to-day inconveniences of normal everyday life.  This makes his horrific actions as sad as they are odd, plus Bert I. Gordon's straight-faced direction keeps the material much more tense and chilling that it reads on paper.  The visual effects are impressive for the day, with a handful of inventive scenes involving oversized sets and props.  Sadly, the title people are not terrorized by a house cat as the poster promises, though they do quickly run away from one and also save themselves from a barking dog by hiding inside of a box.  It is overall a refreshing example of a small budgeted, drive-in movie that seemed to have enough care put into it to elevate it above its quasi-knock-off intentions.

 

WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST
(1958)
Overall: MEH

For the inevitable sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man, American International Pictures managed to pump out an even more boring, D-budgeted talking fest with War of the Colossal Beast, (Revenge of the Colossal Man, The Colossal Beast).  Producer/director Bert I. Gordon runs the show once more with returning screenwriter George Worthing Yates, yet the entire cast is different which includes the now seventy-foot tall title character.  To disguise the fact that Colonel Glenn Manning is a different actor, half of his face is disfigured and his "dialog" is limited elusively to animalistic grunts and moans.  To be fair though, Duncan Parkin makes a fine stand-in for Glenn Langan as most filmgoers would hardly notice or care about the switcheroo.  The story brings in Manning's sister who was never mentioned before and revolves around the military trying to find the giant, communicate with him, and then find him again.  Even by the typical, rushed drive-in movie standards of the era, this one is particularly monotonous and vacant on suspense.  Besides the Colossal Man lifting up a buss full of children, absolutely nothing worthy of anything besides a yawn occurs.  The short running time is the only saving grace, along with the fact that no further snore-fests were produced in this particular series.

 

EARTH VS. THE SPIDER

(1958)

Overall: MEH

The last film that director Bert I. Gordon made for American International Pictures until 1976's The Food of the Gods, Earth vs. the Spider, (The Spider), continued his several movie string of low-budget, "giant or tiny something" genre spectacles.  Done on a typically small scale and set in a single town with only a handful of characters and sets, it is paced surprisingly brisk for something of its kind.  László Görög and George Worthing Yates's script wisely omits any explanation as to why an over-sized arachnid lives in a cave off of the highway, as too many meandering talking points between scientists, teenagers, and law enforcement officials would have derailed the proceedings.  Such "characters in rooms discussing things so that the teenagers in the audience can stop paying attention and make-out with their dates" moments are still present, but they are kept to a minimum as the plot actually has enough momentum to get to the monster stuff.  The projection special effects work by Gordon and Paul Blaisdell is dated of course, but the cost-efficient fact that they used footage from a real live tarantula instead of a puppet or stop-motion is a plus in some respects as at least the monster looks real enough during closeups because, well, it is real.  Also the cave sequences which combine stills from New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns and interiors shot in Los Angeles' Bronson Caves in Griffith Park look atmospherically imposing, as intended.

1950s Bert I. Gordon Horror Part One

KING DINOSAUR

(1955)
Overall: WOOF
 

B-movie peddler Bert I. Gordon started off his directorial career with King Dinosaur; a movie bad enough to make one seriously ponder how he ever was allowed behind the lens again.  Not that the abysmal results of the film are entirely Gordon's fault as it was shot in seven days and he is working with a completely inadequate budget even for the standards of drive-in schlock from the era.  The dopey story involves a new planet that just strolls on into Earth's atmosphere shortly into the future, which gives the excuse for four no-name Caucasian actors to travel there to see if it is inhabitable.  Said characters spend about forty minutes doing so with no sense of urgency before the not-so-special effects showcases start involving split screen shots of iguanas and armadillos that stand-in for prehistoric monsters.  This tactic goes all the way back to the silent era and was still used decades later for anything that could not afford a stop-motion crew for more stylized results, but it of course comes off as ridiculous when we are supposed to be afraid of a "Tyrannosaurus Rex" that is clearly just a common house lizard.  The movie's underwhelming visuals are hardly the biggest faux pas though as the movie is atrociously boring despite all of the stock footage of atomic bombs and woolly mammoths meant to distract you.

 

BEGINNING OF THE END

(1957)
Overall: MEH

One of the many cheaply made, giant insect cash-grabs that was churned out in the 1950s, Beginning of the End is no better or worse than the most forgettable of them.  Speaking of Them!, the film was tailor-made to rehash the same basic concept and threat, this time being over-sized locusts instead of ants that start terrorizing the Illinois countryside.  They eventually make their way to Chicago where no military weapons can stop them, (well, besides the few times that they do), and Peter "Ever seen a grown man naked?" Graves concocts a plan to lure all of the pesky bugs into Lake Michigan by way of an artificial mating call.  The movie opens with an eerie concept of an entire town being destroyed and all of its inhabitants having vanished into thin air, but things quickly become formulaic after that with characters making fully-fledged conclusions in the blink of an eye and reverting to the usual desperation attempt to just drop a bomb on the problem, which is in keeping with every other science fiction and/or disaster movie from the period that played stereotypically into Cold War fear tactics.  Director Bert I. Gordon supplied his own special effects which utilize the same split screen and rear projection that produced equally awful results in his previous King Dinosaur crud rock, but at least there is plenty of such grasshopper mayhem on display to laugh at.

 

THE CYCLOPS

(1957)
Overall: MEH

Though writer/director/producer Bert I. Gordon's third feature The Cyclops includes a good amount of screen time for an, (allegedly), aggressively drunk Lon Chaney Jr., it also includes the worst special effects yet in any of the filmmaker's movies thus far.   For bottom-barrel budgetary reasons, Gordon is still forced to use rear projection and primitive matte work in order to put the regular sized characters on the same screen with the title monster, as well as overgrown insects and reptiles.  The results are embarrassing to say the least, but they do provide the movie with some much needed, accidental hoots along with Chaney's particularly sweaty and jacked-up performance.  Gordon's script is bare-bones and still has moments of monotony, particularly during the first half when the four lone characters keep having the same argument as to when they should leave the desolate, Mexican desert after finding it rich with uranium.  That said, there are a good amount of the aforementioned, unintentionally funny giant animal sequences regularly thrown in before Duncan Parkin becomes the main attraction playing essentially the same bald, scantily-clad, mindless brute that he would likewise portray in Gordon's War of the Colossal Beast the following year.  At only sixty-six minutes long, it does not overstay its welcome as it easily still could have, but its dopey, D-rent production values undermine it all the same.