Ghost Story/Circle of Fear - Season Two Part Two

THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT
(1973)
Dir - Don McDougall
Overall: GOOD
 
Executive producer/B-movie camp maverick William Castle finally appears on screen in a speaking role for his Ghost Story/Circle of Fear series after merely providing a Hitchcock-esque, blink and you'll miss it cameo in the show's first episode "The New House".  "The Graveyard Shift" finds John Astin as a former actor who nonchalantly settles for a security gig at his old film studio stomping grounds after suffering a career-ending injury years earlier.  Ghostly activity begins to take place as the due date for he and wife Patty Duke's first child approaches, and these scenes are handled with spooky haunted Halloween house flare by director Don McDougall.  The reveal as to who the unwholesome specters are and what they are doing is absurd on paper, but as usual, the presentation never winks at the audience.  Astin and Duke sell the meta-adjacent material and on that note, Castle's appearance as a studio head actually serves as the exposition tipping point to wrap everything up.  The finale is anticlimactic, but that is the only fault that can be found in an otherwise clever and properly atmospheric bit of small screen ghoulishness.
 

SPARE PARTS
(1973)
Dir - Charles Dubin
Overall: MEH
 
Jimmy Sangster and Seeleg Lester collaborated, (or both worked on the same script separately), for the first of two times on Circle of Fear with the odd possession tale "Spare Parts".  A clever title considering that no, this does not have anything to do with automobiles.  Instead, it concerns three different people who are given hand, eye, and vocal chord transplants from a lone donor, a donor with an unwholesome agenda from beyond the grave.  Meg Foster makes her second appearance on the program here as the former blind lady, joined by Alex Rocco whose brand new voice is dubbed by Don Knight's bad guy.  There is a fun comeuppance twist worthy of a Tales from the Crypt rug pull, and it has the usual continuous minor key musical accompaniment plus plenty of atmospheric ambience to spook up the scenes where Knight's ghostly visage appears to the people who have inherited his appendages.  Susan Oliver sadly turns in a lousy performance as the targeted widow, and this follows the show's trajectory of unsatisfactory endings, but the unusual premise and set pieces are not without their merit.
 

THE GHOST OF POTTER'S FIELD
(1973)
Dir - Don McDougall
Overall: MEH
 
The second Ghost Story/Circle of Fear episode to feature doppelgängers, "The Ghost of Potter's Field" is one of the least successful of the series.  This is not because it is egregious or ludicrous, (there are plenty of the latter installments that came before), it is just because things never pick up steam.  Premise wise, the concept of a wronged-spirit taking the form of a random guy who happens upon his grave site and then targets that random guy is not one that is frequented much in supernatural fiction, but that may be because it is not that interesting.  As our hapless protagonist, Tab Hunter spends most of the story as a stick in the mud who is prone to temper tantrums and while that is explained in Bill S. Ballinger's script, it still makes for a lousy guy to spend fifty minutes with.  The plot follows a monotonous structure where Hunter's malevolent twin arbitrarily appears to cause him misfortune, including murdering or near-murdering several acquaintances of his.  Competent yet bland and with no spooky set pieces, it all leads to a finale where in this universe, a ghost can simply be shown a photograph of their former selves and given a speech in order to go away.
 

THE PHANTOM OF HERALD SQUARE
(1973)
Dir - James H. Brown
Overall: GOOD
 
Coincidentally appearing as a man named James Barlow when he would face off against the immortal Kurt Barlow six years later in the Salem's Lot miniseries, David Soul dons a brown leather jacket and shows off his dreamy blonde hair in the final Circle of Fear episode "The Phantom of Herald Square".  Thankfully, this is a strong one that has a heart-string-pulling finale and takes on some new subject matter, namely the lingering turmoil suffered by those who bargain with their souls and sign Faustian packs.  Soul plays such a chap here, but James H. Brown's teleplay wisely only gingerly dishes out the information so that we are thrust right into such an uncanny scenario with no expository safety net.  Granted this is hardly a tricky script to figure out, and viewers will do so long before Soul's hapless love interest Sheila Larken finally gets it all explained to her.  Yet this works to the story's advantage, where well-versed genre fans will quickly be able to make connections that our likeable characters, (plus one no-nonsense supernatural bureaucrat portrayed by Murray Matheson), have to merely endure.  There is nothing spooky or atmospheric going on here, but as a romantic Twilight Zone excursion, it resonates more than it has any business to.

Ghost Story/Circle of Fear - Season Two Part One

DEATH'S HEAD

(1973)

Dir - James Neilson

Overall: MEH

 

Returning as Circle of Fear and removing the bookending Sebastian Cabot segments, the second season of what was once Ghost Story gets right down to it with "Death's Head".  A-lister Janet Leigh plays a cooped up housewife who hates bugs, which is odd since she is married to Gene Nelson's entomologist, a guy that is as passionate about his work as she is annoyed by it.  This leads to Leigh and Nelson's partner Rory "Always Standing and Walking" Calhoun spending more time together until some huckster gypsies offer Leigh a potion and eventually her husband's framed bug collection starts to do things that a framed bug collection should not be able to do.  One of the last projects for veteran television director James Neilson and the only screenwriting credit of any kind from William Castle assistant Rick Blum, it goes in a different direction from the usual "haunted place + gaslit woman" yarns, but the narrative hinges on some flimsy domestic drama.  Also, the would-be "scary" bits are poorly staged, using the occasional insect on a string gag yet mostly relying on incessant music, plus some sound effects and Leigh waving her arms around frantically.

 

DARK VENGEANCE

(1973)

Dir - Herschel Daugherty

Overall: MEH

 

Credit where it is due, Circle of Fear took on some off-kilter stories for their second season, with "Dark Vengeance" revolving around a sentient killer toy carousel horse of all random things.  As one could guess, the premise is too "Umm...sure" to properly deliver the chills, despite the sincere presentation and both Kim Darby and Martin Sheen taking the daft material seriously like the professional thespians that they are.  At first, Darby is plagued by dreams of floating eyeballs, rolling wheels, and horse noises while her husband Sheen tries to open a box that he found on a construction site and turns into a bit of an asshole in the process.  The reveal of what is inside of the box and in turn causing all of the domestic turmoil is bound to make viewers chuckle, but director Herschel Daugherty never winks at the audience.  Instead, the toy horse with a mind of its own, (and the ability to fluctuate in size depending on how angry, horny, or threatened it feels), is treated as if it is a deadly demon to be feared.  It gets an A for effort in this regard, but the explanation as to why this particular toy horse is terrorizing this particular couple is as dopey as the concept of an evil toy horse in the first place.

 

EARTH, AIR, FIRE AND WATER

(1973)

Dir - Alexander Singer

Overall: MEH

 

With a script by Star Trek legend D.C. Fontana that was based on one of her and overall science fiction legend Harlan Ellison's stories, one would think that the resulting "Earth, Air, Fire and Water" would have come out better.  Conceptually at least, it is a refreshing addition to Circle of Fear by containing few if any of the previous tropes that the program had been doing to death already, offering up a unique supernatural element, (or a series of elements), besides ghosts and the like.  Six hippies rent out an ideal storefront space to sell their artwork, only to get possessed and consumed by some jars that house ancient forms of malevolence.  Details are kept vague as to provide some unsettling ambiguity, but the story is low on set pieces and the one-note characters all blend together.  They behave strangely, argue, and/or disappear until the final shot confuses things further where the last hippy standing has morphed into...something.  Maybe it is the lack of star power or Alexander Singer's uninspired direction, but such singular ideas seem to get lost in the stock presentation.

 

DOORWAY TO DEATH

(1973)

Dir - Daryl Duke

Overall: MEH

 

Another Jimmy Sangster-penned story and his first for the second season of Ghost Story/Circle of Fear, "Doorway to Death" features a nifty hook of a door in a San Fransisco apartment building the leads out into the snow-covered woods where a man with an axe is doing stuff outside of a cabin.  None other than future teen idol/VH1 Behind the Music pioneer Lief Garrett is the first one to find this door, eventually trying to convince his older sister Susan Dey to check it out and meet the mysterious cabin man.  Oh, Dey also has dreams about him, dreams involving an axe and a burlap sack with blood on it, which is never a good combination.  There is a lot of howling wind on the soundtrack, (as well as a lot of incidental music to provide all of the atmosphere), and ultimately the tale asks a lot of the audience, namely to believe that even kids would be so gullible as to befriend an unwholesome fellow with an axe who never talks and no one else ever sees.  Also with a weak finale and an obligatory exposition dump just to make sure that viewers has no further questions, it is one of the series' more underwhelming entries.

 

LEGION OF DEMONS

(1973)

Dir - Paul Stanley

Overall: MEH

 

A live hand in a desk drawer, a woman trapped in a bottle, hovering coworkers chanting rituals, one of them wearing a spiked dog collar for some reason, another one wearing a giant boar mask, yet another one with green monster hands, a frog in a devil cape, a clandestine thirteenth floor of an office building, and a night time drive in a car that inexplicably turns into a roller coaster ride, a trek through the mountains, a helicopter dive on a lake, a ski descent, and a crash into a train car with a dynamite label on it, "Legion of Demons" throws everything but the kitchen sink into its barrage of nonsensical and tripped-out set pieces.  The second Ghost Story/Circle of Fear episode to be written by Anthony Lawrence, (the premonition nightmare "At the Cradle Foot" being the other), this one takes its clear Rosemary's Baby influence into the workplace where Shirley Knight's shy young receptionist gets targeted by nearly every person at her job.  It is actually too relentless with the one-note torment sequences suffered by Knight, trying to make up for its threadbare plot yet becoming monotonous and silly in the process.  Plus the finale is anticlimactic, with a square-jawed hero dashing in to save our heroine because poor gaslit women always need one of those.

Ghost Story/Circle of Fear - Season One Part Two

HALF A DEATH
(1972)
Dir - Leslie H. Martinson
Overall: GOOD

 

Authored by prolific small screen writer Henry Slesar, "Half a Death" suffers from a lackluster ending and some obvious ADRed dialog during its opening scene, but it is otherwise a better Ghost Story installment than many from the first season.  This is helped by scream queen Pamela Franklin in the lead, technically playing a set of twins even though one of them is dead from the onset and only shows up in ethereal flashes as a see-through specter in a white robe.  Franklin was getting as much work in horror-tinged projects as anything else at this point in her career, and she hides her British accent better than she hides her initial annoyance at her mother for keeping her and her identical sibling apart for the entirely of the latter's life.  As a twist to the gaslighting formula, Franklin is not the only character who sees visions of her deceased sibling, and her, her mom, and her new potential love interest even bring in a phony mother/son psychic team to conduct a seance that actually proves successful.

 

HOUSE OF EVIL
(1972)
Dir - Daryl Duke
Overall: GOOD

 

Heavyweight screenwriter Robert Bloch is on board for "House of Evil", one of the highlights in Ghost Story's first season that also features a young Jodie Foster playing Melvyn Douglas' deaf and mute granddaughter.  Douglas makes a sinister presence as an old geezer with a vendetta against the man whom he blames for his own daughter's death, that man happening to be Foster's father.  How he goes about exacting his revenge by way of a doll house and some "family members" made out of cookies is the quirky and unsettling part.  The audience can guess what Douglas is up to before he spells it all out, and the specifics of his voodoo-esque powers and how he obtained them are never explained.  Yet the moments between he and Foster telepathically communicating with each other remind one of Scatman Crothers and Danny Lloyd's exchanges in The Shining, plus director Daryl Duke maintains a steady and humorless tone of dread throughout.  Douglas is the highlight here though, turning in a cold performance that only hints at his sinister intentions, intentions which are only detectable to the few people who merely sense them.

 

CRY OF THE CAT
(1972)
Dir - Arnold Laven
Overall: MEH

 

Deadly felines and rodeo shenanigans, together at last.  "Cry of the Cat" follows the Ghost Story/Circle of Fear trajectory of exclusively Caucasian actors working with prolific television directors and stories by prolific television writers.  The cast should be recognizable enough to anyone familiar with small screen programing from the time, and this would be Arnold Laven's only work from behind the lens for the show.  The same goes for screenwriter William Bast who pens a tale about a wild cougar that terrorizes a local ranch, or so they believe.  The horror angle i.e. culprit is broadcasted early, and thankfully we do not spend the entirely of the episode just waiting for every character to catch up.  Unfortunately, this also lead to a meandering watch.  Not that every story needs a compelling mystery to keep one invested, but the lack of one here leaves little for everyone on the screen to do besides act concerned or miserable at their Cat People scenario.  The tragic finale is easily foreseeable as well since these werewolf-adjacent yarns always end badly for all involved.

 

ELEGY FOR A VAMPIRE
(1972)
Dir - Don McDougall
Overall: MEH

 

Ghost Story/Circle of Fear finally gets around to the undead in the apply titled "Elegy for a Vampire".  Two years away from landing the title role in Barney Miller, Hal Linden portrays a college professor who succumbs to vamprism through means which are never explained and worse yet, never shown.  Linden writes in his journal about the torments that he is facing by being unable to control his spontaneous blood lust, becoming a serial murderer in the process that everyone chips in to track down, including him.  The only evidence that we get of his unholy exploits are a couple of shots of his bulging eyes while his female victims scream at him.  Screenwriter Mark Weingart, (working from a story by Elizabeth Walter, who would have three more of her tales adapted for the program), does his best, as does director Don McDougall who still manages to stage some menace during the night time campus scenes  Yet the television presentation is simply too neutered for the material.  See the same year's The Night Stalker for evidence of how to do small screen blood-suckers right.

 

TOUCH OF MADNESS
(1972)
Dir - Robert Day
Overall: MEH

 

A partially successful spookshow excursion for Ghost Story, "Touch of Madness" once again ventures into a haunted abode where a woman's sanity is questioned by the gaslighting people around her, as had several episodes previously.  The good part is that some of these moments prove memorable where specters from the past play out their death, making a wide-eyed Lynn Loring pull out her hair in frustration as to their validity.  It does not help that her eccentric aunt and uncle, (Geraldine Page and Rip Torn, the later in some unconvincing old man makeup), dismiss Loring's terrified pleas as sleepwalking, gently insisting that she drink her tonic as to not cause so much fuss.  The house in question also changes appearance here or there, but this ultimately follows a type of arbitrary logic that is wrapped up unsuccessfully, as if several scenes are still missing.  Screenwriter Halsted Welles would also pen six Night Gallery episodes around the same time, but his work here merely shows promise while coming off as half-baked in such a setting.

 

CREATURES OF THE CANYON
(1972)
Dir - Walter Doniger
Overall: MEH

 

The least interesting entry in the first season of Ghost Story, (soon to change titles to Circle of Fear), "Creatures of the Canyon" finds Angie Dickinson fending off the supernatural advances of her recently deceased husband's cherished Dobermann.  Either that or a small statue of two K9s engaging in battle has somehow come to life.  Either that or Dickinson's other dog is possessed by the aggressive one.  Maybe all of these things are happening at once.  The lack of clear specifics is usually not a problem in ghostly tales so long as the set pieces are creepy and/or there is enough of an emotional hook to keep the viewer invested in the our struggling protagonist's ordeal.  Yet the formula of "aggressive barking = Dickinson looks scared" done on repeat causes more of a yawn than any unease, plus it is hard not to laugh when a stuffed Poodle lurches at her while she screams.  John Ireland also shows up as a crotchety neighbor who takes care of the Dobermann due to Dickinson's dog not getting along with it, but he gets little to do besides behaving in an anti-social and scowling manner.  It is lackluster enough that even dog owners will be bored.

 

TIME OF TERROR
(1972)
Dir - Robert Day
Overall: GOOD

 

The first season of Ghost Story ends on a high note with "Time of Terror", the first episode to take a Twilight Zone approach to its otherworldly subject matter.  Scripted by Jimmy Sangster, (Hammer's premier screenwriter during their golden era), it takes us to a different hotel besides the Mansfield House where host Sebastian Cabot introduces each tale, a hotel where its occupants seem to pass the time gambling until their lottery numbers are called, at which point they are taken to a separate room and occasionally leave their better halves bewildered and behind.  Patricia Neal finds herself here under increasingly hazy recollections after her husband inexplicably checks out solo, and eventually both her and the audience are able to put together what form of unsettling business is in fact going on.  The viewer will get it before Neal does, making for a premise that overstays its welcome in its roughly fifty minute format, but it is still a creepy enough concept that is handled in a beguiling manner for as long as possible.  This would also mark Cabot's final appearance on the program, as his presenter character was retired when the show came back the following year as Circle of Fear.

Ghost Story/Circle of Fear - Season One Part One

THE NEW HOUSE

(1972)

Dir - John Llewellyn Moxey

Overall: MEH

 

Kicking off the first season of Ghost Story was the pilot episode "The New House".  Written by heavyweight Richard Matheson and directed by John Llewellyn Moxey of City of the Dead and The Night Stalker fame, the series was also produced by William Castle, bringing together various personnel who had already cut their teeth in the horror genre, and successfully so at that.  This introductory segment laid out the formula for the first run of episodes where British thespian Sebastian Cabot stands-in for a role that would have ideally suited Orson Welles, playing a swanky hotel owner to introduce each story by talking directly into camera.  Cabot is hardly the Crypt Keeper, but he has an inviting enough charm that fits the slow-boil and lightweight material.  Here, Barbara Parkins plays a newly pregnant housewife who hears noises in her "new house" that was built on an old execution site, sounds that of course her well-meaning yet gaslighting husband never hears himself.  Atmospherically it is a mixed bag, (the dark and stormy night finale works and has a sufficient twist, but too many lights are kept on elsewhere), plus the plot has some silly character cliches and Parkins performance is uneven.

 

THE DEAD WE LEAVE BEHIND

(1972)

Dir - Paul Stanley
Overall: MEH

 

Just shy of six months after the pilot aired, Ghost Story begins its initial run properly with "The Dead We Leave Behind".   The only episode authored by teleplay writer Robert Specht and directed by Paul Stanley, (no, not THAT Paul Stanley), this one features a notable and top-billed guest star in Jason Robards, appropriately so as he is our main character that is stuck in a rotten marriage with Stella Stevens.  Robards plays a annoyed forest ranger who takes his job seriously, and his wife is a bored couch potato that never turns the TV off, leading to an accident that answers the question raised by host Sebastian Cabot concerning the television set of what if "what we were compelled to see was...absolutely astonishing".  Things escalate quickly as Robards makes one bad, panicked decision after another, and the ending is one of those that seems preordained upon discovery.  The production makes swell use out of atmospheric wind, and the TV gimmick is a unique if goofy one that never seems to drive Robards to proper madness.  Instead, he just seems exhausted at his unfortunate predicament, though he does finally snap and take an axe to the ole soapbox in a futile attempt to stop the supernatural shenanigans.

 

THE CONCRETE CAPTAIN

(1972)

Dir - Richard Donner

Overall: MEH

 

Three episodes in and Ghost Story was already retreading the well-worn motif of a woman hearing supernatural things in the middle of the night while her husband does not believe her and doctors are called in to check her mental stability.  "The Concrete Captain" has an odd yet ultimately lackluster premise of, (as the title would suggest), a sea captain who was buried in concrete out in the ocean that has attached his embittered spirit to a woman with extra sensory perception during her and her husband's honeymoon.  The plot meanders around with minimal set pieces and similarly offers up few chills, even of the muted TV variety.  That said, the personnel on had was certainly qualified.  Future A-list director Richard Donner already had a slew of small screen work under his belt by the time that he got behind the lens here, and the teleplay was by Hammer mainstay Jimmy Sangster, reworking a story by horror writer Elizabeth Walter.  Veteran TV thespians Gena Rowlands and Stuart Whitman do their professional best as well, but still, the lack of both intrigue and spookiness is a detriment.

 

AT THE CRADLE FOOT

(1972)

Dir - Don McDougall

Overall: MEH

 

Taking on the concept of premonitions that are revealed in dreams and permeate to a point of obsession, "At the Cradle Foot" starts off on well, a promising foot.  Screenwriter Anthony Lawrence and director Don McDougall were both in the middle of a steady career in television, and both would work on Ghost Story/Circle of Fear again.  Sadly, the material ultimately fails to impress.  The prominently tanned James Franciscus takes his foreboding omens seriously after his father died in the exact manner that he witnessed before it happened, prompting him to do everything in his power to thwart his recent premonitions of his young daughter being murdered twenty years into the future.  This leads to some questionable character behavior, not just from Franciscus' protagonist, but from others as well who act in a manner that foregoes plausibility in place of moving the plot along to its next increasingly farfetched moment.  Even though the series had yet to deliver any sufficient goosebump-ridden moments, this one is the tamest yet in such a regard, though the slow motion nightmare sequences have an ethereal aura to them at least.  Also, a young Meg Foster shows up, so that is always something.

 

BAD CONNECTION

(1972)

Dir - Walter Doniger

Overall: MEH

 

Three years before Dan Curtis' Trilogy of Terror, future scream queen Karen Black made her first foray into the horror genre as the lead in "Bad Connection".  This would be the only Ghost Story contribution for both director Walter Doniger and screenwriter John McGreevey, the latter retooling a story by series regular Richard Matheson about a woman who is plagued by whispery and threatening phone calls from beyond the grave.  Similar to other installments in the program thus far, the focus is once again on a woman who is driven mad by supernatural forces, so there is an air of redundancy setting in.  Black always did her best with even the worst material that she was given, and though this is far from an abysmal stain on her filmography, it still does not leave her much to do besides bouncing between screaming and merely being annoyed at her unearthly prankster.  The finale is anticlimactic, but the road to get there is not any more engaging to begin with.  Production wise, the program was still slick and not unable to produce some properly sinister mood setting, but it was also proving to be a pale comparison to Rod Serling's concurrently-running Night Gallery.

 

THE SUMMER HOUSE

(1972)

Dir - Leo Penn

Overall: GOOD

 

The most conceptually interesting episode thus far of the first season of Ghost Story, "The Summer House" finds Carolyn Jones revealing the same cycle of events surrounding her husband's murder.  As the title would dictate, such events take place at the couple's summer house, one that Jones seemingly arrives at before her better half, much to the confusion of her friends and fellow townsfolk who swear that they saw him there the day before.  It is clear from the onset that Jones is hiding something, and exactly what it is becomes even more clear before the first commercial break hits.  Seeleg Lester's script has a topsy-turvy structure though that keeps the viewer on edge as to non-linear way in which Jones' troubled protagonist seems to be going about her troubled ordeal, turning repeated scenes into increasingly unsettling ones.  The inevitable full flashback reveal, (Or is it a flash-forward?), spells out the specifics, but the repeated theme of inanimate objects, (in this case the house itself), having a malevolent agenda is not pulled-off convincingly.  Instead, we have a Groundhog Day scenario, just one that throws the set pieces up in the air and puts them together willy-nilly, which it turns out is enough to elevate the material.

 

ALTER-EGO

(1972)

Dir - David Lowell Rich

Overall: MEH

 

When it comes to subject matter, few are more unpleasant than a rotten kid who gets away with literal murder, amongst other things.  Ghost Story's "Alter-Ego" unfortunately goes this route for the duration of its running time when a young, lonely boy is recovering in a wheelchair and inexplicably conjures up an evil twin version of himself.  How the boy stays in his room all day while his double goes to school, terrorizes his teacher for weeks, and his parents never catch any wind of this information is never explained.  Worse though is the antagonist brat himself.  Actor Michael-James Wixted does a fine job in the dual role, but the stuff that his Reverse-Spock version pulls of is just all kinds of loathsome.  He murders two pets, destroys sentimental items, and ruins the career of his teacher six months before she could retire, and then does even worse to her after that.  The alter-ego of the title does get his inevitable comeuppance in the end, but it is through random supernatural logic that springs up out of nowhere just to get us to the finish line.  The episode is harmless entertainment for those who do not expect much from the small screen, but for others who are immediately irked by both The Bad Seed-esque scenarios as well as loose plotting, then this one is better left avoided.

1960s William Castle Part Three

LET'S KILL UNCLE

(1966)

Overall: MEH

 

William Castle's final film for Universal before switching to Paramount for the remainder of his career, Let's Kill Uncle, (Let's Kill Uncle Before Uncle Kills Us), is an adaptation of Rohan O'Grady's novel of the same name.  Like nearly all of Castle's directorial work, the tongue is firmly in cheek here with a macabre premise of a down on his luck, military veteran Uncle trying to off his nephew that is bound to inherit a vast fortune from his wealthy father, (Castle himself in an opening cameo), who recently died in an automobile accident, all played for black humor chuckles.  English character thespian Nigel Green is clearly enjoying himself in the title role, with a sly, diabolical twinkle in his eye as he divulges his diabolical plan.  That is the problem though in that the plot dictates that he lays out all of his cards to two children as part of a game, but if he just kept his mouth shut like logic would dictate, he probably would have achieved his goal with minimal effort.  It is a stretch for the audience to buy into even under such a knowingly goofy presentation, but the film does not afford enough clever set pieces to make the ordeal worth it, so it in turn stands as one of Castle's more lackluster offerings.

 

THE SPIRIT IS WILLING

(1967)

Overall: MEH

One of a handful of strictly comedic offerings by William Castle, The Spirit Is Willing is largely groan-worthy in its attempts at humor and ranks low on the horror comedy spectrum.  An adaptation of Nathaniel Benchley's novel The Visitors, the gags are routinely predictable and often times annoying as a sixteen year old wise-ass is constantly blamed by his parents for any supernatural activity that transpires.  This grows old quick as everyone on screen, (including top-billed comedian Sid Caesar), make a joke out of constantly yelling at each other while the parents bend over backwards to get who they believe to be their wildly disobedient and destructive son back in their good graces.  Ben Starr's script eventually throws in some homophobic jokes that have obviously not aged well, but they do actually work under such a context where everyone raises eyebrows over Barry Gordon seemingly and inexplicably having an interest in women's undergarments and accessories.  Even for an unabashedly lighthearted comedy, the plot line is loaded with logical holes and character inconsistencies, so this is hardly the most clever genre hybrid of its time.  Some of Castle's campy charm still manages to rub off in fits and starts, but nowhere near enough to recommend it.

 

PROJECT X

(1968)

Overall: MEH

Forgoing his patented huckster charm with stone-faced science fiction, Project X is a noticeable departure for producer/director William Castle that is at least partially askew from his usual, lighthearted camp.  Another adaptation, (this one a conglomerate of L.P. Davies' novels The Artificial Man and Psychogeist), is has tacky production values and skimps on the futuristic setting with a forth of the film taking place at an isolated farm house, presumably to save on budget.  The cheap set design, Hanna-Barbara animation, and silly matching outfits still allow this to be classified as schlock, but Castle permits very little humor and presents more of a topical scenario for the time that mirrors the paranoia of the day.  Fear of overpopulation and a nuclear, Asian threat looms over the scenario where scientists and military personnel use gobbledygook pseudoscience to unlock repressed memories and whatnot, though Henry Jones seems to be the only actor allowed to smirk his way through some of the proceedings.  Elsewhere, it is played straight, yet Castle thankfully had enough chops from behind the lens to keep the viewer interested in a heavily talky plot that still comes awfully close to getting lost in the weeds here or there.

1970s American Horror Part Twenty-Seven

SOMETHING EVIL

(1972)

Dir - Steven Spielberg

Overall: MEH

This made-for-television film was the second full-length that Steven Spielberg had done and his third over all.  Debuting on CBS on January 12th, 1972, Something Evil is one of the few straight horror outings for the legendary filmmaker and for genre, (and Christmas) fans, it features none other than Kolchak himself Darren McGavin in the lead opposite Sandy Dennis.  The film may garnish more attention than other similar TV films from the decade merely due to Spielberg's involvement, but the director does show above average skills at regular intervals.  There are some dynamic camera angles, moments of extreme silence, and one or two ominous visuals.  None of this truly disguises the cookie-cutter narrative though, one of untold hundreds where a family moves into a remote house only for the woman to see all the supernatural occurrences and lose her mind while her husband is too busy at work to believe her.  Since the most frightening thing that happens is some extreme wind blowing Dennis' hair around, it is probably more of a curiosity for Speilberg completists than horror fans.

SHANKS

(1974)

Dir - William Castle

Overall: MEH

 

At once, William Castle's final film Shanks doubles as both his weirdest and slowest.  An experimental work in many respects, toying with fantasy elements and silent film aesthetics, it features the movie debut of Marcel Marceau in a dual role.  Sans his famous Bip the Clown makeup, the legendary mime artist is both a mute and deaf puppeteer and a mad scientist, actually speaking dialog with the latter.  It is partly a showcase for Marceau's pantomime, who is one of four actors to play live marionette.  The movie also uses intertitles, an atmospheric graveyard set piece, a large Gothic mansion, and oodles of macabre visuals and situations, including one of the most utterly strange birthday parties perhaps ever filmed.  All of the quirkiness is undermined by a borderline terrible plot and some of the most sluggish, meandering pacing imaginable.  By the time a biker gang beyond randomly shows up in the final act, Castle's odd-ball schtick has well worn-out its welcome, and coherency has been lazily abandoned.  Its daring quirkiness is appreciated, but as a viewing experience, it is quite necessary to watch the whole thing in fast-forward.

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE

(1978)

Dir - Meir Zarchi

Overall: MEH

The quintessential "rape and revenge" exploitation movie, Meir Zarchi's I Spit on Your Grave had and continues to have one of the most notorious reputations of any film of its kind.  On the surface, the thirty-minute rape scene could be the most gratuitous ever filmed, though this would imply that Zarchi was solely concerned with shocking and disgusting his audience for the mere sleazy glee of it.  In actuality, the filmmaker was inspired by a real life event where he helped a woman in Central Park who had been brutally beaten and raped, only for her to be treated with indifference by the police.  Combining that with the completely unassuming and stark presentation, (slow pacing, no musical score, no comic relief of any kind), one can make a reasonable argument that this is not a movie made to delight anyone, let alone sadists and depraved perverts.  Everything is set up for the unleashed vengeance of Jennifer Hills, (Camille Keaton, in a performance that is brave in the truest sense) and no sympathies for the viewer lie anywhere else but with her.  It is a statement of sorts, but unfortunately one that is so unpleasant to watch that it nevertheless becomes quite difficult to justify its existence.

1950s Vincent Price Part One

THE MAD MAGICIAN
(1954)
Dir - John Brahm
Overall: GOOD

Somewhat of a companion piece to the previous year's House of Wax, (which was also in 3D and stared Vincent Price, though each was made by a different studio, Columbia in this case), The Mad Magician is not as strong or as memorable, but not altogether a failure by any stretch.  Plausibility is indeed an issue as Price's stage magic inventor Gallico the Great with the use of elaborate masks and in disguising his voice manages to easily fool a number of people, (including an entire theater audience), into believing he is a different person despite the obvious difference in height and the fact that the people that he is masquerading as are proven to have identical fingerprints by the police.  Though it takes a laughably long time for his murderous schemes to get uncovered, Price excels of course as the title character, only going overboard as necessary as he was consistently able.  The film is paced briskly enough as well and has an appropriately macabre enough finish, though the very last scene is admittedly a bit dated and hokey.

THE FLY
(1958)
Dir - Kurt Neumann
Overall: GOOD

Remade famously and superiorly of course by David Cronenberg almost three decades later and launching two lesser sequels of its own, the initial The Fly still maintains a lauded reputation.  Visually, it is notable with chief cinematographer Karl Struss making excellent use out of widescreen, CinemaScope camerawork and the DeLuxe Color process embellishes the elaborate laboratory equipment which rather vividly comes to life.  Vincent Price in a supportive role is assuredly ham-less, but his presence in anything is always appreciated.  German director Kurt Neumann helps concoct a good amount of subtle, unnerving scenes like a disintegrated cat meowing in the spooky ether, David Hedison's hooded, post-experiment gone awry scientist's cold, mysterious mannerisms, and of course the finale "Help me!" caught in a web spectacle which could have easily come off as ridiculous in a less controlled, tone-steady production than this.  Naturally, The Fly has been so iconic as a sci-fi horror film for so long that it is unfortunately rather impossible to pack any genuine surprises or tension with a modern viewing, but it is no less of an exemplary work in the genre and still well deserving of its prestige.

THE TINGLER
(1959)
Dir - William Castle
Overall: GOOD

William Castle's most famous gimmick, (in his second and final collaboration with Vincent Price and third with screenwriter Robb White), was the Percepto! one used in The Tingler whereas Castle had a number of vibrating devices installed on select seats in larger theater venues showing the film across the country.  Though its lasting legacy may owe its greatest debt to said stunt, it holds up well enough as an actual movie despite its consistent ridiculousness.  This comes almost exclusively from the sketchy plot which has some of the laziest character behavior and Hollywood science "logic" ever brought to celluloid.  The macabre set pieces involving hallucinatory LCD-induced experiences are a hoot though and the story line is so consistently irrational to the point that whether or not you are laughing at it or with it is ultimately irrelevant.  Price himself gets to trip balls in one memorable scene and also gets to break the forth wall no less than three times near the end to further rev up the camp value.  Castle and Price's previous outing The House on Haunted Hill was a masterpiece for both parties, but there is enough admirably fun qualities in The Tingler to make it an amusing if comparatively lesser project nonetheless.

1960s William Castle Part Two

13 GHOSTS
(1960)
Overall: GOOD

Playing a similar game as House on Haunted Hill though not as successful due to a few reasons, 13 Ghosts is still enjoyable, harmless supernatural fun.  For this one, William Castle gave the audience Illusion-O viewers which showcased the ghosts of the film in red while the rest of the scenery was in blue.  Watching the movie outside of the theater in normal black and white decades later, this effect is obviously no longer relevant, yet it also allows one to more fairly experience the film sans the hokey artifice.  As was sometimes the case in Castle's work, the twist here is disappointing be it in a far more simple manner than usual for the producer/director.  Sometimes the case though, the spooky opening and all of the fun, ghostly sound effects are quite a hoot for fans of anything old school, haunted house-themed and the negative-image, superimposed specters themselves are equally rather nifty even if they look a bit dated.  Unfortunately, the ghost-seeing goggles that some of the characters wear are both completely unnecessary to the plot and look idiotic and the movie is as much a textbook offender for "why don't these people move out of the house?" horror movie nonsense as any ever made.  To each their own then as to whether or not this makes 13 Ghosts just a stupid little haunted house movie or a FUN stupid little haunted house movie.

MR. SARDONICUS
(1961)
Overall: GOOD

One of the stronger overall William Castle vehicles, Mr. Sardonicus has the usual pieces in place from the director/producer.   All the while, the suspense is kept up, the pacing is swift, and the typically ridiculous plot elements are in enough check to not make one raise their eyebrows too much to get distracted.  Castle hired Ray Russell to adapt his own short story "Sardonicus" which was originally published in Playboy magazine and the film has more the feel of a Gothic horror or mad scientist movie without particularly being one.  There is the title character's gloomy, fog-laden castle in the fictional central European country of Gorslava, a deformed servant, grave robbery, helpless maids subject to torture, crucial science experiments, and a village apparently terrified of the evil castle and the rumors of all of the women who are abducted there, to name but a few familiar ingredients.  While Guy Rolfe, (The Stranglers of Bombay), as the masked, diabolical Baron and Oscar Homolka, (Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage), as his one-eyed henchman are both quite good, most of the credit deservingly goes to Castle who delivers another swell gimmick near the end which is the "Punishment Poll" that is addressed directly to the theater audience.  Even with such silliness in place, Castle generally keeps the whole of Mr. Sardonicus from going that far over the top.

STRAIT-JACKET
(1964)
Overall: MEH

William Castle's first team up with Psycho author Robert Bloch was the Joan Crawford-starred vehicle Strait-Jacket, a film that was meant to ride on the success of 1962's influential and much lauded psycho-biddy originator Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?.  Being a William Castle production, it is over the top in questionable ways, particularly in the ending which is unnecessarily twisty and asinine.  For her part as the former mental patient axe-wielder, Crawford is precisely what you would expect and she delightfully camps it up as she was always effortlessly able.  Small parts by George Kennedy and Lee Majors provide some other highlights, particularly the former who is a grimy farm-hand that ends up seeing and knowing too much.  Castle milked the chopping off of heads angle as much as he could, giving out cardboard axes to theater-goers and showcasing the trademark Columbia torch-bearing logo woman at the very end in a decapitated fashion.  While the movie is ultimately undone by its groan-worthy ending and almost consistently inappropriate musical score that seems straight out of a completely different movie, it is still enjoyable in enough parts to get a kick out of.

1960s William Castle Part One

HOMICIDAL
(1961)
Overall: MEH

Essentially if Psycho was pure, unapologetic camp instead of the benchmark thriller that it is, it would be Homicidal.   William Castle was five films deep into his stream of gimmick-laden horror movies with this one that added the forty-five second long "Fright Break" near the finale; a gimmick that would refund anyone in the audience who wanted to bail before the credits hit.  Before they did so though, the theater would shine a spotlight on them and make them stand in a "Cowards Corner".  As usual, the hilarious movie theater showmanship of Castle was as memorable if not more so than the film itself.  The twist in Homicidal is almost immediately apparent once we meet a certain character and it pretty much just becomes a waiting game to see how Castle and co are going to play their cards from that point out.  Joan Marshall, (cleverly billed under a false name as a newcomer Jean Arless), is appropriately hammy and delightful while everyone else plays it pretty dull and straight, also appropriately.  Since Castle is not setting out to make anything resembling high art here and is solely concerned with getting butts in the seats while throwing enough playful schlock at them to cheer at, Homicidal achieves its mission.

THE NIGHT WALKER
(1964)
Overall: GOOD

Ditching any on or off screen gimmicks for a change, William Castle's The Night Walker plays it comparatively more straightforward even if the convoluted plot is as nonsensical as ever.  Reuniting the one time married couple of Robert Taylor and Barbra Stanwyck, (in her final film role before permanently going into television), and snatching Robert Bloch who wrote Psycho, the film has some appealing personnel on board and the "nightmares vs reality", double-crossing, infidelity driven story is ideal for Castle and his schlocky tendencies.  The opening narration is filmed in an excellent, avant-garde fashion and one scene that takes place in a chapel probably stands as one of the most bizarre and creepy wedding ceremonies ever filmed.  Elsewhere, there is plenty of tension built up during some other nice set pieces and throughout all of it, you are just waiting for the ridiculous twist to arrive.  In that regard, the movie does not disappoint.  The ending while not the most absurd wrap-up for a Castle movie, (Macabre still owns that prestigious title), it is gleefully perplexing.  Going back over the entire movie's chain of events, it certainly does not hold up in any logical capacity whatsoever.  That said, it is all part of the standard, William Castle fun and gets a pass for how well done the bulk of it is.

I SAW WHAT YOU DID
(1965)
Overall: MEH

At this point into his unabashedly hokey career, William Castle seemed a bit confused as to where to draw the line as far as how to juggle the silly and suspenseful aspects of his films.  I Saw What You Did was his second feature to star Joan Crawford, (the first being the previous year's Strait-Jacket), and though the iconic actress has a much smaller role here, she still owns every scene she is in as a disturbingly infatuated neighbor.  Elsewhere though, there are major issues in the musical soundtrack which is nearly incessant.  It is also wildly inappropriate in most instances, with its jaunty, wacky theme played so much that any would-be tension is totally crippled.  We are left with a feeling that the entire movie was one big joke, even when a terrifying thing like a maniac terrorizing a teenager and her younger sister while they are home all alone is happening.  Tone complications were rarely an issue for Castle's films where he generally would keep the tongue firmly in cheek and have fun with his macabre subject matter.  Though I Saw What You Did comes in shy of being a total waste, to see it cross this far over the line is still disappointing.

1950s American Horror Part One

THE BLACK SLEEP

(1956)

Dir - Reginald Le Borg

Overall: GOOD

A bittersweet entry in the filmography of many involved, The Black Sleep has an almost entirely recognizable cast and is the type of horror melodrama common of a few decades prior when Universal in particular was pumping out movies of a similar nature.  Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., Tor Johnson, and Bela Lugosi in his penultimate film role, (if you count Plan 9 from Outer Space as his official last), are all on board though most of them have far smaller parts than would have been preferable.   Johnson and Carradine provide mere cameos and do not show up until the movie has about twenty minutes left of it.  Worse is that Chaney and Lugosi are reduced to non-speaking roles, the former as a mindless brute and the latter a mere mute house servant.  While the lack of prestigious screen time given to these veterans represent the film's misfortunes, thankfully there is still plenty of campy, be it uneven fun.  Rathbone is the typical mad doctor whose intentions are good but whose actions are deplorable and Akim Tamiroff, (in a part originally offered to Peter Lorre), is entertaining as a immoral gypsy/tattoo artist/body supplier for Rathbone's surgeon.  The movie maintains its ghastliness and is only over the top in the most beneficial of ways, even if so many horror heavyweights together are still technically wasted.

 

FROM HELL IT CAME
(1957)
Dir - Dan Milner
Overall: WOOF

Editor-turned-director Dan Milner's last effort from behind the lens was the insultingly dull From Hell It Came which belongs in a small pile of walking tree monster movies from the era and is even more comatose-inducing than the lot of them.  Caucasian actors in pathetically disguised brown face act as half-naked natives who sacrifice a guy that vows to come back from the grave for vengeance, only he does so about forty minutes later as a pathetically unconvincing creature that has the lumbering awkwardness of a geriatric patient in a cardboard foliage suit.  In the meantime, this is a talky ordeal even by the minimal-effort standards of other drive-in cheapies from the day, with characters prattling on about inconsequential nonsense that is so boring that it is difficult to believe that the doofy Swamp Thing stand-in Tabanga did not just keel over and die from listening to them.  Every guy on screen is interchangeable and on that note, the only way to tell Tina Carver and Linda Watkins apart is that one of them puts on a fake British accent as they look like identical twins with matching haircuts, hair color, and wardrobe just to make sure that we only confuse them with each other and not any of the scantily-clad tribal locals.  Paul Blaisdell was the go-to guy in creating B-movie monsters of his day, but this is rendered his least memorable creation simply because the film itself is worth no one's time.

MACABRE
(1958)
Dir - William Castle
Overall: MEH

The first of William Castle's gimmick-laden thriller/horror films was Macabre which provided each theater audience member at the time with an insurance policy of a thousand dollars if they "died of fright".   The gimmick, premise, and look are all much, much better than the actual movie is itself.  Castle always being a fan of the most cockamamie of scripts, the one here by Robb White, (who would end up penning most of Castle's following horror productions, including the good ones), is the most convoluted and flawed to the point of near non-stop aggravation.  As a race against the clock, the characters incessantly waste so much time arguing with each other, (which also brings on flashbacks that slow the movie down even further), but far more insultingly, the stakes are so dire that why everyone does not run throughout the whole town pleading for help and following every possible lead is rendered preposterous.  The final twist is as illogical as all of the details that come before it and sadly unsatisfying enough to be laughable.  There are some technical aspects done right to keep it from being an absolute crud rock, but it is presented seriously enough and acted hammy enough to still come close to being a disaster.

1960s Hammer Horror Part Five

THE SHADOW OF THE CAT
(1961)
Dir - John Gilling
Overall: MEH

This awful venture from the generally solid John Gilling, (The Plague of the Zombies, The Reptile), is so dull that one cannot truly justify having such strong, negative feelings towards it.  The entire premise for The Shadow of the Cat is especially stupid.  This is another unremarkable setup of a will being fought over by traitorous family members who all become absurdly convinced that a house cat must be destroyed at all costs because it knows they are all guilty.  Saying "at all costs", means that almost every minute of the movie is spent by them running, falling, and dying about like cartoon characters trying to chase and murder the stupid feline.  The fact that this is played straight most of the time is very confusing and downright aggravating after awhile.  Then adding to that is the fact that there is actually some unsuitable, comedic moments where the music gets all jovial during some of these cat hunting sequences, making it all the more perplexing as to what we are supposed to find funny and what we are supposed to take serious.  There literally is nothing more to the story than this and even at less than eight-minutes in length, it is a burden the entire time.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
(1962)
Dir - Terence Fisher
Overall: MEH

The last "classic monster" remake to get an updated version from merry ole England's Hammer Studios via distribution from Universal in the U.S. who had produced the previous two versions, The Phantom of the Opera pulls off a few nifty tricks but climatically falls short.  The film's villain for one is not the Phantom at all but instead a nicely wretched Michael Gough.  This is not a problem in and of itself, but it is disappointing that Gough's Lord Ambrose gets virtually no comeuppance and there appears to be an entire scene missing where he satisfyingly comes to his end.  In the title role, Herbert Lom is far more sympathetic than vile which again is fine, but the character is also barely utilized throughout his own movie.  The final two minutes of the film in fact seem completely tagged on at random to bring his misfortune to a close and they are completely unsatisfying at doing so.  The liberties taken with the source materiel are to be expected and up until the disappointing finale, they could have really gone all the way in making this version something both unique and remarkable.  Instead, it is a bit of a hodgepodge that leaves a few gaps, fills up too much time away from the main plight of the Phantom, and has a forced, sloppy ending to make the film tragic in an unintended way.  Which is to say "tragic" in that it nearly managed something much more favorable.

THE OLD DARK HOUSE
(1963)
Dir - William Castle
Overall: MEH

In his only collaboration with Hammer Studios, gimmick extraordinaire William Castle's remake of The Old Dark House is closer to being a dud all around than anything else.  Compared to James Whale's superb original or many of Castle's other notable entries such as House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, or 13 Ghosts at least, it is quite forgettable.  In fact, calling it a remake at all is misleading in that it has absolutely nothing to do with 1932 version and besides the family being named Femm, it could have and probably should have been its own cinematic entity.  There are some familiar genre faces such as Robert Morely, (Theatre of Blood), Janette Scott, (The Day of the Triffids), and Mervyn Johns, (Dead of Night), but the slapstick heavy presentation and kind of lazy who-done-it plot grows a bit irksome.  The mystery is highly predictable though admittingly, the movie is far more interested in its silly elements than keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat.  There are a handful of chuckles to be found though mostly, the combination of familiarity with other film's of its kind including some of Castle's own work, (particularly with the once again far, far superior House on Haunted Hill), does not really make anything happening here all that engaging.