I have been waiting to start this new category for a long time. Some boring but real technical issues have kept me from launching it but for now those issues are resolved. Using my Sony Acid 6 music software I am able to extract samples from films. I have played with this before to some degree but now it will be a regular feature. Probably will few samples per page from here on out. Sometimes I may spruce up a post with a sample or two, or I may do a post featuring samples from decent articles here. This first feature has some fine dialogs and monologues from the recent article on Zaat, The Neanderthal Man and Mesa of Lost Women. The sample from Zaat is part of the introduction. It went on even longer but I think the piece I posted gives you some clue as to the nature of the monologue. Next is Professor Grove’s hostile lecture to his peers at the Naturalist Society where he insults them with every breath and becomes infuriated when they ask to see a little proof regarding his incredulous claims. The last sample is certainly the most famous of the three and it is the opening narration by Lyle Talbot from Mesa of Lost Women. I was merciful and trimmed out the solo credit music but there is some in the background that lets you hear why it is regarded as possibly the most annoying soundtrack in all of film history. This did not, of course, stop Ed wood Jr. from loving it to death and using it in his film Jail Bait.

ZAAT INTRO

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN LECTURE

MESA OF LOST WOMEN INTRO

AUDIO FILES MAY BE NOT WORK FOR A WHILE. I AM RESOLVING THE ISSUE. PLEASE HANG LOOSE WHILE ALL FILES ARE MOVED TO MY HOSTING ACCOUNT AND THEN MOVED BACK TO INDIVIDUAL POSTS. IT WILL TAKE SOME TIME BUT IT WILL GET DONE EVENTUALLY. SORRY.

URANIUM WILLY 4 FEB 10

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.

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN

1953/Director: Ewald André Dupont/Writers: Aubrey Wisberg,
Jack Pollexfen

Cast: Robert Shayne, Joyce Terry, Richard Crane, Doris Merrick, Beverly Garland, Robert Long, Tandra Quinn (as Jeanette Quinn)

I had heard about The Neanderthal Man for awhile and refrained from seeing it even after I had gotten it and burned it to disk a couple months back. I just figured it would be Z-movie fodder for a commentary here and nothing more. Well it is not only that but it was a pretty enjoyable slice of cheese. The acting is pretty bad but with some decent moments (Beverly Garland plays the waitress Nola), the monster makeup by Harry Thomas (Missile to the Moon, Frankenstein’s Daughter, The Mole Men, Killers from Space and some Ed Wood Jr. classic like Plan Nine from Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls and loads of TV shows including The Munsters) is some of the worst of the man’s career and yet is perfectly campy and likable, and the scientific explanations are golden. I have long been planning an ‘audio excerpt’ style posit here and have done a few experiments and I am sure that the lecture given by Professor Groves to his incredulous colleagues will wind up there eventually. The film was produced and written by the team of Aubrey Wiseberg and Jack Pollexfen who either separately or between them churned out, as writers and producers, some of the greatest horror/sci-fi B-movie classics of the 50′s and 60′s. True classics  like The Man from Planet X, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, Captive Women, and The Atomic Brain (Monstrosity) and many more.

MORE NEANDERTHAL MAN HERE >>

FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY

1973/Director: Jack Smight/Writers: Don Bachardy, Christopher Isherwood

Cast: Michael Sarrazin, James Mason, Leonard Whiting, David McCallum, Jane Seymour, Nicola Pagett, Agnes Moorehead, John Gielgud, Tom Baker

I was lucky enough to actually see this fine film when it first aired on NBC as a two part movie back in 1973. I had not been able to see it again until only recently when I got a hold of the restored and full length, about three hours or more I guess, Universal Presents Frankenstein: The True Story DVD version. I read that there was an edited VHS version that was based more on the shortened European version of the film but never saw it. Now while the title claims it to be the ‘true version’ I understand that a few liberties were made with the original Mary Shelley story, which I have never read, and we will touch on at least one of those later in the review. I guess to get the final word one may have to go visit Pierre’s Frankensteinia blog, which I did earlier when doing some research for this post but I actually did not find an article there on this most excellent Frankentstein film and hope one appears soon. If there is a post there I apologize in advance and if not beg that one be made someday. The same year that Frankenstein: The True Story came out another made for TV film was released that was written and produced by Dan Curtis that starred Robert Foxworth as Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Bo Svenson. I also saw that version though I would need to see it again to refresh my memory on the story but it too made some claims to being mostly true to the original story. I am not a Frankenstein movie scholar (I am no sort of movie scholar to be quite frank) but I know that 1974 saw the last of the Hammer Frankenstein films with the fairly decent Terence Fisher film Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell which I reviewed here some time ago. Throughout the sixties Hammer had taken the Frankenstein story and did several new things with it and whether those were always great is debatable but it did pump life back into the legend as it also did with Dracula. There is, in my opinion, visual influence on this film version by director Jack Smight from Hammer and even veteran Hammer make up artist Roy Ashton did the effective make up for the monster. After all the fantastic stories and interpretations by Hammer it seemed time to reign the monster back in and recreate him yet once again.

MORE FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY HERE >>

MESA OF LOST WOMEN

1953/Directors: Ron Ormond and Herbert Tevos/Writer: Herbert Tevos

Cast: Jackie Coogan, Allan Nixon, Richard Travis, Lyle Talbot, Paula Hill, Robert Knapp, Tandra Quinn, Dolores Fuller, Angelo Rossitto

I will agree somewhat with what one reviewer said about Mesa of Lost Women in that it seems to be more fun to read about it and the myths and legends surrounding it than it is to actually watch. Even seasoned cheese lovers seem to have a hard time with this film. I as well have a hard time with it though I have seen it a few times. The film is pretty short, only about 70 minutes, so considering you watch it in two parts it is not that much time out of your life really. The part of this movie, for me, that really makes the experience difficult is the infamously bad film score, but more on that in a moment. The film is often said to look like something Ed Wood Jr. would have created but I am not sure. I have long felt Wood was cast as the worst film director f all time and when a bad film (and Mesa of Lost Women is a bad film) comes along it sometimes is said to look like something Ed Wood Jr. would have done. I have long felt that Wood was a better film maker than the film world in general gives him credit for. But that may be a topic for a special post some other day. Mesa of Lost W omen however does have some connections to Ed Wood Jr. in an indirect way and those tenuous connections have led to speculation that Wood was involved with the project in some way or that he and Ron Ormond worked together. Maybe we can have a quick look at some of those before moving on.

MORE MESA OF LOST WOMEN HERE >

TODAY’S CYBER-PUNK FREAKFEST:

TETSUO: THE IRON MAN

SEE TETSUO: THE IRON HERE >>