Del Tenney is best known, of course, for producing the classic schlock beach'n'blood drive-in flick, The Horror Of Party Beach. Some folks may also know that he was responsible for the budget zombie mishmash, I Eat Your Skin (in which no skin was eaten, naturally). But Tenney also cranked out a third low-rent shocker, one that dealt with no fishy creatures, no voodoo curses, but, rather, a variation on the Old Dark House theme, and a period piece, to boot. For many years, this last Tenney terror was available only in lousy VHS copies and thus was unknown to even some fright film fans. But now a pristine version is out on DVD and we can all experience for ourselves...
By RAY BLAKEY Those who have been reading my rather sporadic column in this magazine for a while now, no doubt notice that my usual definition of a Creepy Cheapie has gotten considerably shorter. This is because I have redefined my idea if what a Creepy Cheapie is. After reviewing Werewolves On Wheels in my last article a thought occurred to me. I had said the film was not a Creepy Cheapie, yet despite how silly and trashy that particular Monster Mess was, I had a lot of fun writing about it. That is when a new idea dawned on me.
A Creepy Cheapie is really just a great cheap movie that we all love. It’s that movie you watched on your favorite horror-host’s show on Saturday nights as a kid. It’s that great old Paul Naschy flick you get a bunch of your buddies together with beer and pizza to watch. It’s a great movie that you love, and yet cannot explain that love to anyone because you know they just are never going to get it. That, my espoused readership, is a Creepy Cheapie. This month’s Creepy Cheapie selection comes once again from Renfield’s lurid vaults. The Curse Of The Living Corpse (1964), starring none other than a new young actor by the name of Roy Scheider. Yes, that Roy Scheider. He apparently got his film debut in a flick written, produced, and directed by Del "Horror Of Party Beach" Tenney, which makes one wonder how he ever managed to get work again. And what a debut it was…but more on that in a moment.
This was quite a movie, but it is a bit hard to describe; let me think a moment. Ah yes, imagine if all the guest stars who ever worked on any of your favorite Sixties TV Sitcoms got together and starred in a movie. Because that’s what it felt like. I spent the whole movie looking at various cast members muttering, "I know that person…but from where? Wasn’t he Mr. Brewster from the Beverly Hillbillies? Nah, it can’t be, " etc. The Curse Of The Living Corpse is set in 1890’s New England and featured one of the great stock plots of Sixties and Seventies drive-in schlock. The not-so-nice father and head of the family has died and is leaving his entire fortune to his family. But, they must be alive at the end of "x" amount of time to inherit the money.
In this case, the father (thankfully not played by John Carradine for once) had a medical condition that made him sometimes appear dead and thus had a great fear of being buried alive. He made his entire family follow through with certain rituals that ensured he could get out of the tomb safely and back to business as usual, in case he wasn’t actually dead. We learn of this after the first 10 minutes of the film. The same 10 minutes in which each member of the family manages to violate every single one of the old man’s requests. We also learn at the reading of the will that if his wishes are not granted and if he indeed is not dead he would return and kill each person who violated his grave via his or her worst fear. Now let’s meet the victims…er…family, shall we?
Bruce Sinclaire (Robert Milli) is the oldest brother and the new master of the estate. Milli spends the entirety of his role in this film doing the best Orson Wells impression he could conjure up. He is such an over-the-top and ridiculous turd of a character that you just know something horrible is going to happen, and it’s hard not to wish it would happen sooner. He is so evil and sadistic that in any other film he would have been like the devil or something. Ah, Del, you write like you direct--over the top and stupidly. The younger of the two brothers is Phillip, played by the above-mentioned Roy Scheider. Oh, where to begin? Casting him in this very proper story of a well-moneyed family is a lot like casting Keanu Reeves in any story written by Shakespeare. You can do it, but why in God’s name would you? He plays the family drunk and has a snide quip and remark for every scene he plays in the film.
The rest of the characters are just a bunch of stereotypes and hardly worth mention except in two instances. One is the character of Debra Benson, played by Candace Hilligoss. Candace only did one other film in her entire career, the infamous and quite excellent Carnival Of Souls (the original, not the Wes Craven piece of gutter trash from a few years ago). She doesn’t have a tremendous amount to do in this film, but in every scene she is clearly better than this film deserves. The other character worth mentioning is George Cotton as Constable Winters (apologies in advance if I am getting him confused with Constable Barnes, but I am not going back to watch this to verify). He is the pudgy Keystone Cop character who is designed for comic relief. However, the only real relief I felt were when his painfully stupid scenes ended. I just wanted to strangle this man whenever he came on screen. In one "wacky" instance, he locks his own handcuffs on himself. It is so stupid and so badly played that you just sort of wish he would drop dead right then and there.
Anyway, a cloaked figure crawls out of the tomb dressed like the Shadow and proceeds to kill of various members of the family by way of their overly explained phobias. I say that because if anyone in the cast had some secret fear, it was addressed ten or fifteen times. You know, sometimes you’re sitting and talking with your closest friends and you might, in a moment of trust and sheer friendship, mention that you have a fear of elephants or something. But, it’s really not something you go around telling just anyone. Well, not these people, oh no. Not only was it something they had no problem discussing freely to everyone, and their grandmothers, it was apparently their favorite thing to talk about. They talked about their own fear, each other’s fears, often times they would even discuss why they had these fears. It was a regular phobia free-for-all in this wacky, old, house.
One of the characters who suffered a fear of water was Philip’s wife Vivian (Margot Hartman) who was the films resident sexpot. She provided the much-needed "T" and "A" that is essential to any exploitation film. Not a bad looking woman, but in this she just came across like Del didn’t want to spend the extra cash and get Barbara Steele to do the part. She’s like the poor man’s Barbara Steele (a sad statement if you think about it). She is killed while bathing and we get almost nude shots of her to provide grist to who knows what were making out in the cars watching this mess at the drive-in. I am now going to spoil the ending of this movie for you. Trust me, you’ll thank me later. I often watch some of these so you don’t have too. Although, to be fair, you could do much worse than this film, which wasn’t necessarily bad, it just wasn’t good. It was kind of mediocre, really. Nonetheless I am going to kill the ending in my next paragraph. If you care, don’t read the next paragraph. If you don’t care, then you are smarter than those other people.
The killer chases Debra through the woods surrounding the house and she unmasks him only for us to discover that it was not the father come back from the dead who was killing these people; it was none other than Roy Scheider! That’s right, Philip killed his whole family, because they mistreated him and always looked upon him as a drunken failure. Or something like that, I think. It was really hard to tell because Scheider played the unmasking sequence so over the top that he could make William Shatner sit up and go, "You really should take it down a notch or two there, Roy." Once the killer is discovered he is killed and the movie ends after Constable Jackass delivers his last wacky line.
This movie came double packed with The Horror Of Party Beach and it is a DVD well worth anyone’s time. It contains commentary by Tenney on both films as well as their original trailers. With so many great creators of schlock now resting in piece, the opportunity to get in these people’s heads is rare and any chance to do so should be cherished. This, above all else is fine reason to get this DVD. The trailer for this film is very amusing as we get to see the gimmicks used to get people in the theaters. Every person who went to see this movie was issued a waiver that negated the theater from any responsibility if you died of fright while watching this film. Oddly, no waivers for death caused by stupidity were issued. Thanks, Ray. Actually, though, The Curse Of The Living Corpse is probably the most polished and professional of Del Tenney's low-budget shockers, which, of course, ain't saying much. While the plot is one big cliche, the film debut of Roy Scheider is fun to watch, and the traditional Old Dark House elements in the script are handled with some skill and zest. There are just enough bloody murders to keep a drive-in audience awake, although the "comedy relief" is nothing short of dreadful. It's worth a look, and not just by Del Tenney completists, either. Article copyright © Ray Blakey |
