HUMONGOUS

1982/Director: Paul Lynch/Writer: William Gray

Cast: Janet Julian,  David Wallace, John Wildman, Janit Baldwin, Joy Boushel, Layne Coleman, Shay Garner

This is a Canadian slasher film from the 80’s that despite trying to be different in some ways is nothing special. Of course how different could a slasher film from the 80′s be from others of the same period? If you’re a fan of deformed slashers who stalk horny teenagers in the woods and kill them off one by one (and who the hell isn’t?) then this film will not a be total waste of time.  Some night scenes are shot way too darkly and I actually read how some fans of the film said that, in their opinion, that was done intentionally by director Paul Lynch (who also did the archetypical 80′s slasher flick Prom Night) to achieve some sort of desired effect. That’s is like saying you walk into in a room and see someone banging themselves in the head with a hammer and then say “hey stop hitting yourself in the head with that hammer!” and they reply with “but this is want I want to do”. The teenagers are all so stereotyped 80’s slasher fodder it is pointless to describe them in depth. There is a nude appearance by Joy Boushel who would later appear as Seth Brundle’s arm wrestling prize in The Fly, another Canadian horror film by David Cronenberg. The deformed creature, the result of his mother being raped, is not shown too much and the poster is pretty misleading I feel. The film is not that freaky really. For 80’s slasher/stalker fans only maybe. I was a little disappointed. Not campy enough to excuse the bad film making and acting but worth one watching at least.

ATOM AGE VAMPIRE (Seddok, l’erede di Satana)

1960)/Director: Anton Giulio Majano/Writers: Alberto Bevilacqua, Gino De Santis

Cast: Alberto Lupo, Susanne Loret, Sergio Fantoni, Franca Parisi

This film explores the theme of the obsessed and mad doctor trying to restore the face of a once beautiful woman that has been ravaged by some sort of accident. Like the French film Eyes without a Face (Yeux Sans Visage) the woman in this case has her face disfigured in a car accident and contemplates suicide before Prof. Alberto Levin takes her in as an experiment. The catch is that he expects her to fall madly in love him and she is not interested. A crucial element of the serum used to restore Jeanette’s face must be taken from the blood of women who have recently died. The doctor (who changes into some sort of monster on his nightly trolling) figures, rightfully, that the best way to get the element is extract from women he has just murdered. Makes sense to me. While the story is not too different from other ‘facial restoration’ films of the time the dark atmosphere and heavy mood of the Italian production make it something fans of atmospheric b/w European horror will not want to miss. Leaning towards the trash cinema end of the celluloid spectrum and what’s wrong with that? Over the top acting and corny dubbing add to the film’s cheesy charm.

ZAAT

1975/Director: Don Barton/Writers: Ron Kivett, Lee O. Larew

Cast: Marshall Grauer, Wade Popwell, Paul Galloway, Gerald Cruse

What separates the low budget independent horror far of the 60’s and 70’s with the so called indie stuff of today is just how serious the old guys tried to be and in the process made some unintentionally riotous films. The guys of today are trying, I feel, to make an ‘instant camp classic’ and they just make a camcordered mess. Zaat is no doubt a mess  but a reasonably watchable mess if you like this sort of thing. At least it was shot on film with a camera mounted steadily on a tripod. A madad scientist is bent on revenge and nothing less than the conquest of the Universe. Not the world mind you, but the entire Universe. And he will do this by the one sure fire method known to all those who have ventured into conquest of the entire Universe: he will transform himself into a giant catfish!  And he will also enlist the help of all his water dwelling friends. His spends his time walking around really slowly in an outrageous costume and bumping off people who scoffed at his theories as well as innocent girls who are soaking up sun near the river banks he swims around in. The suit is really goofy looking and the narration is up there with Women of Lost Mesa in terms of pomposity. The narration is  spiced up with ample mad doctor laughs and insane phrases indicting delusions of grandeur. The ‘action’ takes place in Florida and some of the dialog is more than dated, especially the scenes of a fat white bubba type calling a black scientist ‘boy’ over and over. Let this Z-grade gem speak for itself. Here is some of the opening narration’s dark prophecies: 

Sargassum, the weed of deceit. Sargassum fish — mighty hunter of the deep! What an inspiration you have been in my plot! Your life of hiding, waiting… stalking your prey. At just the right moment… ATTACK! [chuckles] I love you. I hope I’ll be a good imitator. And my friend, the shark. Cunning, swift… wretched humans, they’re afraid of you! I admire you. Soon, I’ll swim with you! They’ll be afraid! [chuckles] Oh, mighty scorpion, dangerous beast of the ocean with your powerful daggers, and your camouflage… you have little to fear from other fish. [laughs] They think I’m insane! THEY’RE the ones who are insane! Oh, my friends of the deep! This day, this very day, I’ll become one of YOU! My family! And together we’ll conquer the universe!

THE WILD WOMEN OF WONGO

1958/Directer: James L. Wolcott/Writer: Cedric Rutherford

Cast: Jean Hawkshaw, Mary Ann Webb, Cande Gerrard, Adrienne Bourbeau, Ed Fury

This is truly an incredible film. Incredible in the super cheesy sense and one that only schlock lovers, like myself, could tolerate. I am giving you fair warning here. The plot is fairly simple. The gods tried various experiments with the human race until arriving at the present state of affairs. One bad experiment was the civilization of Wongo and neighboring islands where beautiful women were paired up with ugly, rude guys and hunky, good looking guys were mated with fairly unattractive gals who also happened to pretty bitchy. The conclusion here seems to be that ugly people are also dumb and ill mannered. One day a good looking guy from another island than Wongo arrives in a canoe to warn the Wongonians about the impending invasion by ape men. The king of Wongo decides he will have to kill the studly beefcake the next day because is presence is making the lovely ladies of Wongo antsy. Te guy manages to escapes with the help of some of the Wongo lasses and after the apemen issue is settled and the men of Goona are captured by the Women of Wongo and by the end of the flick the ugly folk go off with the ugly and the sexy ones pair up with the other sexy ones. The moral being, I guess, that birds of a feather flock together or something. The while thing was shot on some little islands around Florida that look too well maintained to look like anything but some sort of resort or public park. You can almost picture some golf carts rolling by right outside camera range. Horrible acting and script with worse camera work and stick music that would turn up in 1959’s Plan 9 from Outer space (a much better film I promise you). A small role by body builder Ed Fury (Colossus and the Queen) and the Adrienne Bourbou credited in the film is NOT the same chesty Adrienne Barbeau who played in TV’s Maude and in horror films like The Fog, Swamp Thing and Creepshow.

All Necrofile selections are candidates for a more thorough article at a later point in time.

VALDEZ IS COMING

1971/Director: Edwin Sherin/Writers: Roland Kibbee, David Rayfiel

Cast: Burt Lancaster, Susan Clark, Frank Silvera, Jon Cypher, Richard Jordan, Barton Heyman, Hector Elizondo

I love a good western. I saw this at a cinema matinee actually when it first came out for like .35 cents if you can believe that. The film has the edgy violence a lot of action films had at the time and seems influenced not only by Sam Peckingpah but spaghetti western directors as well. In fact the film was shot in Spain using some of the same locales that Sergio Leone used for his westerns. Bob Valdez is played by Burt Lancaster and is a local constable who feels driven to collect a small amount of money to pay the widow of a man he was tricked into killing. The ruthless rancher Frank Tanner (Jon Cypher) will not hear of it and has Valdez essentially crucified. What tanner does not know is that the life weary and soft spoken Valdez was once a skilled tracker, marksman and Indian hunter and he is now pretty pissed off and is out to get even. Richard Jordan does good as the big mouth coward Davis and forgotten beauty Susan Clarke is Tanner’s wife Gay Erin who gets kidnapped by Valdez and is drug through the mountains and wilderness as Tanner’s posse pursue them and are picked off one by one with Valdez’s Sharps long rifle. All this over $100.

THE DEVIL DOLL

1964/Director: Lindsay Shonteff/Writers: Ronald Kinnoch, Frederick E. Smith

Cast: Bryant Haliday, William Sylvester, Yvonne Romain,     Sandra Dorne, Karel Stepanek, Francis De Wolff

Most ventriloquist movies, like Magic with Anthony Hopkins, have the dummy as the villain who drives the ventriloquist insane. In the not too bad Devil Doll the dummy is actually the victim and the ventriloquist the tormentor. The great Vorelli (Bryant Haliday) is not only a gifted ventriloquist but a master hypnotist as well who has earned some degree of success with a stage act. On top of all this he also dabbled in the black arts at one point in his life and learned how to transfer souls from a human body to his dummy, which he did n the case of his old assistant Hugo. A spat of murders is happening in London and American reporter Mark English (William Sylvester) soon suspects Vorelli though he always has an alibi. Vorelli becomes infatuated with rich girl Marianne Horn (Yvonne Romaine) and sets out to so some soul transferring with her but first needs to get rid of his clingy assistant and former lover Magda (Sandra Dorne). There are some spicy scenes of Dorn that revel more butt cheek than you were used to seeing in those times, especially from plump near middle aged gals. In the middle of this is the tormented dummy Hugo who has to do the bidding of Vorelli but has his revenge in the end of course. The movies is not great but, as I said, is not too bad. I saw the MST3K version and it was pretty funny. Not sure how it should stand up without the hilarious onrunning commentaries.

THE GRANNY

1995/Director: Luca Bercovici/Writers: Sam Bernard, Luca Bercovici

Cast: Stella Stevens, Shannon Whirry, Luca Bercovici, Brant von Hoffman

Granny stars former sex kitten Stella Stevens (The Nutty Professor) as an aging and rich woman whose family is hovering her like a bunch of vultures waiting to collect on her will. She is close to one of her granddaughters Kelly (Shannon Whirry) whom the rest of family ridicules and mocks. Kelly has tended compassionately to Granny in her last years and asks for and expects nothing in return. Which is good since that is what she gets later. Granny drinks an elixir of youth that was exposed to direct sunlight and thus goes bad. Rather than regaining her youth Granny turns into a demon that set abut exacting revenge on all her family members, including nice girl Kelly for some reason. The action and acting is pretty campy but this is a fun little piece of trash. The movie went to VHS pretty fast and there is ample nudity and violence to make up for the whacky script and direction. Everyone seems to playing it tongue in cheek.

WOMAN EATER

1958/Director: Charles Saunders/Writers: Brandon Fleming

Cast: George Coulouris, Robert MacKenzie, Norman Claridge, Marpessa Dawn, Jimmy Vaughn

Probably the horror sub-genre I have always had the hardest time with is the man-eating plant one. I had some of the same issues with this film but it is pretty good. The problem I have is the plant is usually immobile and some evil doctors has to continually lure victims to feed the plant. The doctor here is Dr. James Moran (George Colouris) who discovered a plant in South America that produces an elixir that will return the dead to life but the plant, naturally, must be fed a diet of beautiful girls to produce the proper serum which he finds in plentiful supply in a quit London suburb. The obligatory odd assistant is Tanga (Jimmy Vaughn) who plays bongo drums with a frenzied look on his face which hypnotizes the gals allowing the doctor to escort them to the tree of doom. Lots of complications after the doctors hires a new and attractive keeper he gets the hot for upsetting his former housekeeper and, we assume, lover. I wound up liking the film and my only complaint might be that the tree creature looks cool but in only on the screen for a total of about five minutes. Great to watch the socially inept and unattractive Dr. Moran pick up some female plant food in a pub with all the ease of a Casonova.

MOTHER OF TEARS (LA TERZA MADRE)

2007/Director: Dario Argento/Writers: Jace Anderson, Dario Argento

Cast: Asia Argento, Cristian Solimeno, Adam James, Moran Atias, Udo Keir, Jun Ichikawa

Mother of tears is supposed to be the final part of a Dario Argento trilogy that began with Supirira and then continued with Inferno. I have Inferno but have never watched it and hope it succeeds in tying the films to together as I see no connection to Suspiria in this film yet. Aregento struggles to make a single coherent film and I have doubts about his pulling off a trilogy story that spans three decades. Asia Argento plays an American studying art restoration in Rome. She and her and her friend decide to forget the boss’s rules and they open an ancient urn and then figure reading some ancient inscriptions in the dark would be nice as well. Of course this moves the plot along as a ridiculously fast pace and w are treated to demons and a brutal death in less than ten minutes into the film. Soon Rome is plunged into a crime and suicide wave and Sarah (Asia Argento) must work alone to save the world from some sort of apocalyptic nightmare that I never quite understood. Udo Keir has a brief role as a priest and the deaths are fairly explicit. A woman tosses her baby over the railing of a bridge in one strange scene that rated a replay or two. The usual Argento confusion for the most part but filmed nicely with enough good moments to get a recommendation from me it but it is mostly for Argento fans.

All Necrofile selections are candidates for a more thorough article at a later point in time.

VIOLENT MIDNIGHT (aka PYSCHOMANIA)

1963/Director: Richard Hilliard/Writers: Richard Hilliard, Robin Miller

Cast: Lee Philips, Shepperd Strudwick, Jean Hale, Lorraine Rogers, Dick Van Patten, James Farentino

This is a really decent early slasher/stalker style film produced by Del Tenney, who would go on to direct films like The Horror of Party Beach, I Eat Your Skin (Zombies) and Curse of the Living Corpse. The direction by Richard Hilliard is stylishly dark and moody. It came out at a time when a spat of films where showing the influence of Hicthcock’s 1960 masterpiece Psycho. But the film is a cut above the rest in terms of story, acting and imagery. We have a pretty decent police style mystery (with none other than Dick Van Patten, from prime-time’s Eight Is Enough, as the tough talking detective who has two men suspected of some slashing murders in the local college town. There is the tortured artist type (Lee Philips) who paints nude women and has anger issues and a incorrigible punk (James Farentino) who seems the logical suspect but we are thrown a surprise ending that seems more like a Giallo shock style ending. In fact the film has a few Giallo elements, including a black leather gloved stalker and lots of strange camera shots but the film in fact predates the Giallo genre by a year or two. Bava’s stylish trend setting Black and Black Lace had yet to be released. Shot in sharp b/w with a good music score it is a must for any fan of stalker/slasher styled films but before they became an actual film genre.

CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR (aka THE CRIMSON CULT, THE CRIMSON ALTAR)

1968/Director: Vernon Sewell/Writers: Mervyn Haisman, Henry Lincoln

Cast: Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Mark Eden, Barbara Steele, Michael Gough, Virginia Wetherell, Rosemarie Reede

Barbara Steele plays the evil witch Lavinia who has placed a curse on the descendants of the small village where she was executed centuries before during the witch trials of Europe and Britain. She looks great all painted green and wearing some sort of gold, horned witches hat. Of course the curse has finally found it way down the line to last of the descendants Robert Manning (Mark Eden) who has come to the village, during the time of the year when it celebrates its witchy history, to find his missing brother. He attempts to enlist the help of Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff in his search and I think you can imagine how that turns out. The film has that psychedelic feel of the period with mod dances and groovy parties. Sexy women run around in skin tight clothes and the acting is great, of course, but the film over all is not what you might have wanted from all the talent involved. Karloff was ill during the production and I am not sure if his character being confined to a wheelchair was part of the script or was necessary for the ailing actor. Torture chambers and scenes bordering on S/M make this a must see for fans of the 60’s and 70’s witch films. Michael Gough has a small but effective role as the slightly touched butler. A departure from his usually over the top loud mouth egotist characters like he portrayed in Horror of the Black Museum, Trog and Konga.

FROGS

1972/Director: George McCowan/Writers: Robert Hutchison

Cast: Ray Milland, Sam Elliott, Joan Van Ark, Adam Roarke, Judy Pace, Lynn Borden

One of the first eco-horror or animal attack films API’s Frogs is not really that spooky in any real way and the Frogs themselves pose no threat to anyone except to a wheelchair bound Ray Milland at the film’s end despite the misleading poster art that shows a giant frog swallowing a human hand. Millionaire Jason Crocket (Milland) is not going to let anything ruin his annual 4th of July celebration on his plantation style mansion in the Florida swamps. The celebrations are joined by a recently boatless, and sometimes shirtless, Picket Smith (Sam Elliot). Smith was knocked into the swampy lake waters by Crocket’s typically drunken son Clint, played by Adam Rourke who made some of the better biker films of the late 60’s like Hells Angels on Wheels with co-star Jack Nicholson. Also running around in an extremely tight little yellow 70’s style suit is Jason’s daughter Karen (Joan Van Ark of the Dallas spin-off Knot’s landing). While nothing much ever happens in the film I still found it fun to watch. Sam Elliot is good in his super-macho way in this early role. The deaths actually occur by rebelling against destructive mankind animals like snakes, spiders, alligators and even lizards who can somehow figure out the right combinations of poisons to knock over to kill one party-goer in the hothouse. An interesting synthesizer score that sounds like someone just a new Moog or Arp and was pluncking around on the keys and turning the dials to see what would happen. Strangely interesting film overall.

BAMBOO SAUCER

1968/Director: Frank Telford/Writers: John P. Fulton, Frank Telford

Cast: Dan Duryea, John Ericson, Lois Nettleton, Bob Hastings, Vincent Beck

Not one of those films too many people have ever heard of and so all the more deserving of a mention here at the Café. A cold war period sci-adventure that is mostly for cheese lovers. While the film is campy from the get-go the film makers were trying to make a real science fiction with a message. The American military has information that the Red Chinese are holding onto a downed alien space craft which they are keeping in the super secure location of a run down old church in the undeveloped countryside. A team led by Hank Peters (Dan Duryea in his last role) sneaks into China with little trouble and there run into a team of Russians who are on the same mission. The film focuses not so much on the threat of the aliens but on the message that we have to cooperate as a species in order to survive (too bad, I wish a big bug had jumped out and eaten a Red myself) and the Ruskies and Yanks unite to use the UFO escape the more evil of the three Chinese. The acting is pretty bad and the camera work and editing are worse, but I enjoyed this one anf recommend it. I chose to show the more exciting looking DVD cover rather than the original movie poster, which I usually prefer to do. The original cover just was not as cool as the DVD cover.

THE LIVING DEAD GIRL (La Morte Vivante)

1982/Director: Jean Rollin/Writers: Jacques Ralf, Jean Rollin/Cast: Marina Pierro, Françoise Blanchard, Mike Marshall, Carina Barone, Fanny Magier

Some arty, sexy gore from Eurosleaze master Jean Rollin. Not really sure if this a vampire or zombie film that has some sort of environmental message running through it. In this case the message appears to be that if you do not handle toxic waste properly while storing it in the underground tombs of a French Chateau it could spill over and revive some luscious babe that has been resting in her coffin for the last couple years and who has not decomposed one little bit. Like a most of Rollin’s films the attempt is at some sort of beautiful gore but also like many French horror films (and most European films in general) from the 70’s the story drags painfully most of the time. I watched it over three settings really. Catherine and Helene are childhood friends who will not let a little thing like death keep them apart. Catherine is constantly goring up her sheer white dress by impaling people with her dagger like finger nails only to return in the next scene with it sparkling white again. Some of the gratuitous gore is simply overdone and there are not enough nude Euro-girls to keep your eyes open. Some pesky American tourists get fried and axed respectively but not one of the better European horror offering from the time. The film’s title was the inspiration for the Rob Zombie song.

THE GRAPES OF DEATH (Les Raisins de la Mort)

1978/Director: Jean Rollin/Writers: Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, Christian Meunier

Cast: Marie-Georges Pascal, Félix Marten, Serge Marquand, Mirella Rancelot

Another one from Rollin a few years before The Living Dead Girl and a little more entertaining over all. Another zombie theme with yet another environmental message. This time the message is about the dangers of pesticide. Grapes from a local vineyard become contaminated from said pesticide and turns anyone who drinks the wine slowly into what can be called a zombie though some zombie purists may debate this point. Not any major emphasis on nudity or sex in the film as a young woman runs through the small wine making community fleeing the outbreak and running into one violent situation after another. Again it is the style of the film-making where some scenes are unnecessarily drawn out but it works well over all and there a couple unexpected twists. The effects are a little low budget but effective. A blind girl gets crucified and plenty of oozing, necrotic flesh on the victims. Sit down with a fine Burgundy and enjoy this better example of French horror.

BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE

1959/Director: Monte Hellman/Writer: Charles B. Griffith/Cast: Michael Forest, Sheila Noonan, Frank Wolff, Richard Sinatra, Wally Campo

The actual beast here has little screen time as the bulk of the film is essentially a heist film set during winter in South Dakota. In many ways this is a pretty good film and as a low budget crime caper it may have worked better without the horror element but the addition of the mysterious blood sucker makes the film a real B-movie treat. There is some tough dialog between the gangster and the handsome hunk ski instructor Gil (Michael Forest) and lots of slurred quips from lush moll Gypsy (Sheila Noonan). This movie is not unwatchable at all though I wish the monster had been done a little better. In some scenes it looks like a super-imposed image as it is transparent. The gangster/heist/monster movie is an under explored genre. Again, for cheese lovers most likely but I recommend it. Taliesin the vampire hunter did a good review of the film over at Taliesin Meets the Vampires with lots of his typically well chosen screen captures

NIGHT OF THE LEPUS

1972/Director: William F. Claxton/Writers: Russell Braddon, Don Holliday

Cast: Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, DeForest Kelley, Paul Fix

I reckon just giant rabbits just aren’t that scary really. Not as scary as the posters for this ‘animals attack’ flick made them out to sound anyway. This came out in 1972 so actually predates the killer animal movie craze that followed Jaws. Not really a terrible film but damn it rabbits just aren’t scary, especially domesticated looking bunny rabbits. To control rabbit over population Dr. Roy Bennett (Stuart Whitman) injects a rabbit with some sort of hormone that is supposed to stop the animals mating drives. After the rabbit is released by his daughter because it is her favorite the hormone somehow leaps into all the other rabbits and soon there are stampedes of bunny rabbits in the deserts of the southwest. Jack rabbits would have looked a little more menacing. The rabbits are made to look larger by making them run in slow motion and putting the camera a couple inches from their faces. Some decent miniature scenes balance this out. And for some reason that is never explained the bunnies become carnivorous. Of course it would not really be too scary a film otherwise right? Janet Leigh plays Whitman’s wife and tough guy Rory Calhoun is a rancher trying to save his grazing pastures. DeForrest Kelly (Dr. McCoy from Star Trek) plays a university scientist and sports a moustache. I can recommend it for cheese lovers. I enjoyed it if that is any sort of sound recommendation. My poor wife was stunned speechless.

STRANGE BEHAVIOR
1981/Director: Michael Laughlin/Writers: Bill Condon, Michael Laughlin/Cast: Michael Murphy, Louise Fletcher, Dan Shor, Fiona Lewis, Arthur Dignam

A mad scientist long thought dead by the local citizens of a small Illinois town exacts his demented revenge on the towns’ leaders by controlling the minds of some of the teenagers through experiments in his laboratory. The kids are turned into homicidal maniacs with no recollection of their deeds later. Over all well filmed and acted. The violence and death scenes are effective. Nice soundtrack by Tangerine Dream that is, as far as I know, unreleased. The action unfolds in rural Illinois but was filmed in Auckland New Zealand. Michael Murphey (Woody Allen’s Manhatten) has a good time as a widowed single father, beer drinking small time police cheif. One scene where a housekeeper finds a dead boy’s hand in the sink then is pursued by his killer is particualry eerie and unsettling. A must see.

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EQUINOX
1970/Director: Jack Woods/Writers: Mark Thomas McGee, Jack Woods/Cast: Edward Connell, Barbara Hewitt, Frank Bonner, Robin Christopher, Jack Woods

The thing a lot of people enjoy about this odd little film is the stop-action animation sequences by Dennis Muren and David Allen. While not perfect the sequences are pretty interesting. The rest of the story could be forgettable expect for the fact the dialog, acting and camera work is so bad that it makes the film unbelievably fun to watch.  A group of college kids looking for the cabin of their professor are given an evil book of curses and charms by an old man in a cave. They are soon fighting off monsters and demonic possessions. Original tagline was “Begins Where Rosemary’s Baby Left Off”. Forrest J. Ackerman was helpful in bringing the project together and promoting it. A Jack H. Harris production and director/writer Jack Woods is over the top as park ranger Asmodius. Fairly common name for law enforcement officers I believe. Highly recommended.

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BRIDE OF THE GORILLA
1951/Director:Durt Siodmak/Writer: Curt Siodmak/Cast: Barbara Payton, Lon Chaney Jr., Raymond Burr, Tom Conway, Paul Cavanagh

Produced by RKO horror film producer Val Lewton with assistance from Herman Cohen this is a man-in-an-ape suit film that actually does not have a man-in-an-ape suit. Raymond Burr is put under a spell after he kills a plantation owner, Paul Cavanaugh,  who has become jealous of Burr’s feeling toward his wife, the shapely Barbara Payton. Lon Chaney, Jr. is supposed to be a  member of a local Amazon Indian tribe who is now the police chief, but he still looks and sounds like Lon Chaney, Jr.. George Sanders’ brother Tom Conway is a doctor who has romantic interests in Payton as well. A pretty watchable movie but it would have been much better had there been a real fake  ape rather than voodoo induced hallucinations. Originally to be titled The Face in the Water and you will understand why if you check it out, which you should.

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HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY
1981/Director: Lucio Fulci/Writers: Elisa Briganti/Lucio Fulci/Cast: Catriona MacColl, Paolo Malco, Ania Pieroni, Giovanni Frezza, Silvia Collatina

Also known as Quella Villa Accanto al Cimitero, House by the Cemetery is one of the new style films Fucli began making in the United States after the Giallo-Horror genre lost steam in Italy in the late 70’s. While I tend to like Fulci’s work overall it is rather confusing at times as is most Italian horror-suspense cinema. I watched a few Luci films back to back with this one and to be honest I got the stories all mixed up  and had to put House by the Cemetery back in to remember exactly what the hell happened in it. The films he made in the States lost some of the visual quality his Italian productions had such as Perversion Story and Don’t Torture a Duckling. They simply became average exploitation and gore fare. In House By the Cemetery supernatural events in a small New England have plenty of people dying off in less than typical grisly Fulcian fashion with way too much dialog in between the action. The deaths are not nearly as gory as The New York Ripper or The Beyond. There is also some annoying kid who seems to have a power like the boy in The Shining and communicates with the spirit world. Kids in horror movies seldom work unless there is an element of comedy or the director is above average, like Speilberg or Kubrick. Probably for die hard Fulci enthusiasts only. Did a earn a Video Nasty from the British censors.

This is a new category I have been meaning to launch for sometime now. I simply watch  more films than I can write an in depth article on. I like to explore information on a film from several sources and, along with my own personal opinion and anecdotes, make it available here in one place. But I cannot do that with every film. I have already forgotten a lot of films I have seen over the summer. The Necrofiles category will present about four films with short summaries, basic credits and no images other than a poster. This does not mean that some of these films will not wind up with a more in depth post with more images one day but this way at least some of these jewels will be commented on and made known to the public.