13 GHOSTS (1960).  I'm not entirely sure, but I think 13 Ghosts is the first William Castle film I have seen all the way through. I have caught portions of The House on Haunted Hill a time or two, and of course have heard of The Tingler many times. I knew that Castle was something of a showman and a gimmick-lover. What I didn't know, was how much fun his movies are. At least, 13 Ghosts is. The story opens on Cyrus Zorba (Donald Woods) at work, getting a phone call from his wife Hilda (Rosemary de Camp). She has a bit of news to brighten his day: The bills have piled up so badly, and have been left unpaid for so long, that the family's furniture is being taken away. From the sound of the conversation, this has happened before. Then -- an unexpected windfall. Cyrus's eccentric uncle, Dr. Zorba, has passed away and left everything to Cyrus. "Everything," unfortunately, is just an old, derelict mansion, and a wooden box containing a weird pair of glasses. Not a red cent, but at least the place is furnished. Along with their two children, Buck (Charles Herbert) and Medea (Jo Morrow), they pack up their clothes and move in. The Zorba family soon discovers that they are not the only tenants. Aside from the creepy housekeeper who won't leave (Margaret Hamilton, of The Wizard Of Oz fame), it seems the Doctor had been harboring twelve spooky specters on the premises. They can only be seen through his final invention: a special pair of ghost-gandering goggles. To further complicate matters, it turns out that Zorba has stashed a small fortune somewhere in the house, and someone -- or something -- is determined to stop the Zorbas from finding it. When this fun haunted-house thriller first came out in theatres, audiences were told to find the hidden ghosts through a special process called "Illusion-O" (a special pair of red-and-blue-colored glasses made to detect ghosts on the screen during the film's color-tinted sequences). 13 Ghosts is very dated, and it's certainly not scary (except for one scene involving a ouija board. those always get me, though), but it's well-acted and you can't help but get caught up in the story. Hamilton is great, and in one scene where she's sweeping with a broom, there is a definite wink at the audience. It's said that great old movies should never be remade, but that mediocre ones with potential should. One of Castle's better films, The House on Haunted Hill, was recently remade with mediocre results. A remake of 13 Ghosts was recently on the big screen. I was curious to see what the modern-day filmmakers will come up with. Because no matter how many fancy, expensive CG images there are, without the story there's nothing but a phantom of a movie. The new special-edition DVD includes some fun extras including, of course, the ghost-viewer glasses themselves. There is also an "Illusion-O" featurette about William Castle and his gimmickry, and original theatrical trailers from 13 Ghosts and The Tingler (and also one for Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters, plus an ad for the DVD of it, which seemed really inappropriate to me. I say "boo!" to that so-called extra treat).--Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson

ABC (THE ALPHABET) and THE GRANDMOTHER (1967/1970). Both conceived & directed by David Lynch. If you thought that the Sultan of Strange began his reign of weirdness with Eraserhead, think again. These two short films, made when he was a student, show the early workings of a bizarre genius. (His very first film, Six Men Getting Sick, was actually something of a performance piece, consisting of a loop of film, depicting a number of heads throwing up and bursting into flames, continuously projected onto a sculpture. From what I've read this was basically a one-time thing and will most likely never be seen by anyone again, though the film itself must still exist, as footage from it was featured in the documentary Pretty As A Picture.) The first is almost completely animated and seems to be some sort of a play on the type of short, educational films that you would find on Sesame Street and shows like that. (Lynch's wife at the time, Peggy, appears in this film as a woman who writhes around on a bed until blood spurts out of her mouth. Ah, the things we do for love.) The second is a surreal tale of a young boy (dressed like a grown-up, reminiscent of a character Lynch would utilize many years later in Twin Peaks) who finds relief from his nightmarish home life by growing a grandmother from a seed. Already in evidence are themes and images that would continue to show up in his later work, including the pains of birth, unnerving, almost repugnant sexual imagery, the marriage of sex and death, and, of course, vomiting. These two films offer a look at the earliest examples of that Lynch touch that has coursed through his work all the way up to 1997's Lost Highway. The way he manages, despite the overt shock elements that often get more press, to unsettle his audience most through sheer mood and suggestion, and his uncanny ability to suffuse the worlds he creates with a vision so consistent that they seem incredibly real, even when the most unreal things are occurring within them.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES, THE (1971). Starring Vincent Price, Joseph Cotten, Peter Jeffrey, Virginia North, Terry-Thomas, Norman Jones, John Cater, Derek Godfrey, Hugh Griffith, Aubrey Woods, Caroline Munro. Directed by Robert Fuest. There is something inherently gratifying about watching someone satirize him or herself. The individual who is willing to go along with a joke of which they themselves are the butt earns extra respect points in my book, particularly when that individual doesn't mind doing it in front of a whole lotta people (I'm not sure I could be such a good sport). The longevity of Vincent Price's career allowed him to bring us many different performances, which can essentially be put into three groups: truly excellent performances, truly hammy performances and truly excellent performances that giddily poke fun at the hammy ones. This film falls into the third category as Price plays the title character, an organist thought to have been killed in a car crash. When doctors begin dying all over London in manners suggesting the plagues of the Bible, it is learned that they were connected by having been involved in an operation on Phibes' wife, during which she died. Rather than trust the insurance company to deal with it (can you blame him?), it seems the good doctor has some plans of his own, which he is carrying out with the help of a mute, violin-playing female assistant (North). Cotten plays the head surgeon who supervised the operation. His performance is a bit straighter than you might expect from a film like this, but that's actually appropriate, as this film isn't actually quite as campy as some of the ones that followed it, including the sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again and the gleefully over-the-top Theatre of Blood which utilized a similar story and paired Price with the luscious Diana Rigg as his partner in evil. It even achieves an air of poetic tragedy at times, such as in a brief but effecting scene where North, looking much like a doppelganger of Phibes' late wife, approaches him at his organ and hands him a bouquet of flowers. But make no mistake, there's still an element of satire at work here, particularly in the kitschy set design (gotta love the ballroom with the animatronic orchestra), in the use of all those great old big band songs and in Jeffery's performance as the intrepid Inspector Trout and his attempts to solve the case despite rampant incompetence and overbearing bosses. Cult favorite Munro appears uncredited (and only in photographs until the very end) as Phibes' beautiful dearly departed wife. --Reviewed by Marc Beschler

ALICE (1988).  Starring Kristyna Kohoutova. Scripted, designed and directed by Jan Svankmajer. Czech animator Svankmajer takes liberties in his adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland, including adding scenes, such as one where Alice encounters a room full of sock-worms, and downscaling or even leaving out characters (the Cheshire Cat, of all creatures, is completely absent). But then again Disney took their share of liberties and didn't come even remotely as close to the darker dream-state tones of the original book as Svankmajer does. His success with the material he does utilize makes me wish he had given it a go and tried to fit in that which he didn't. His interpretations of the inside of the Duchess' house, which he skirts around, or the scene with the Griffin and the Mock Turtle, which he completely omits, could have been very interesting. Still worthwhile for what he did choose to include. My only beef is that throughout about two-thirds of the dialogue the camera constantly cuts away to a close-up of a girl's mouth, playing narrator, except it's only, "said the White Rabbit," or "demanded the Queen of Hearts," a device that does get a bit tiresome at times. But it's a minor point, detracting little from the inventive visual motifs, wicked combinations of the playful, macabre and pseudo-psychotic elements that made the book so great in the first place.

AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS (1973). Starring Peter Cushing, Stephanie Beacham, Ian Ogilvy, Patrick Magee, Herbert Lom, Geoffrey Whitehead, Guy Rolfe, Rosalie Crutchley, Gillian Lind, Sally Harrison, Janet Key. Directed by Roy Ward Baker. And how! Beacham must spend about a fourth of her screen time shrieking at the top of her lungs. It could also be called And Now the Opening and Closing Of Windows Starts, as there's quite a bit of that going on here as well. Beacham plays Catherine, new bride of nobleman Charles Fengriffen (Ogilvy), who finds that her new palatial mansion comes with stables, gardens and a Deep Dark Secret that may have something to do with the woodsman (Whitehead) who skulks around the grounds with an odd grin on his face. This is fairly familiar territory, with cribs from, among other things, Fall Of The House Of Usher and Rosemary's Baby. But despite stumbling rather abruptly into the plot with virtually no setup, this turns out to be a fairly engaging horror-mystery. It always helps to have Cushing on the scene, but we knew that already. Short but resonant appearances by veterans Magee and Lom, who appears in a particularly sordid flashback, also add to the proceedings. Amicus Productions, who made this, are often referred to as a Hammer-wannabe, which may be true, but isn't really fair as they managed to make some fairly effective films such as this one and The Blood On Satan's Claw. True, scenes of a clearly motorized disembodied hand crawling along the floor come off just as comic as they do horrifying, but then Hammer didn't always bat them out of the park, either. Some more story and character development would have been nice, but this still works pretty well. If you've seen the whole Hammer catalog but crave more, give Amicus a try.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

ANDY WARHOL'S FRANKENSTEIN (1974; also released as Flesh For Frankenstein). Starring Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Monique Van Vooren, Srdjan Zelenovic, Dalila di Lazzaro. Written and directed by Paul Morrissey. Dr. Frankenstein as necrophiliac? Why not? Actually, I'm surprised that more people haven't glommed on to this particular interpretation of Mary Shelley's gothic horror tale. Morrissey's previous efforts for Warhol (Flesh, Trash and Heat) were certainly gross in their own way, but I doubt me if anyone was quite prepared for what he had in store for them next. The gore bits are deliriously over the top. What makes them even ickier is the subtext of Kier's mad scientist's enjoyment of the proceedings. The scene where he comes close to having an orgasm whilst dissecting a young female…let's just say that I had to take a moment. Dallesandro, as a local peasant who gets involved when one of his friends is murdered by Kier's assistant, basically plays a slightly more aware (though only slightly) version of the characters he played in Morrissey's earlier films. As such, he's a little out of place amongst all the Eurotrash spread about this one. Morrissey seems to be making some kind of statement about class division. Dr. Frankenstein talks about the way he was brought up to disdain the peasants, yet admits that he views them as the 'Serbian Ideal', a 'perfect' specimen of human being. This is a somewhat discomfiting line of reasoning (as they would say on Seinfeld, "I'm not sure we should be talking about this"), though only a bit more so than that of van Vooren, playing Kier's sister/wife, whose blatant and brash contempt for the locals seems to be surpassed only by her desire to have sex with one of them. There's a scene where she berates Dallesandro, screaming that he's trash, and then proceeds to jump his bones, giving Morrissey the inevitable opportunity to focus the camera on his ass. I can't be sure in what way Morrissey felt that all this sociological haranguing was relevant here, but he could easily have subtitled the film Scenes From The Class Struggle In Feudal Switzerland (or wherever the hell this is supposed to take place). He probably would have been better off sticking with the mad scientist angle of the story. On second thought, maybe not. Kier's philosophical spoutings are a lot funnier than they are deep. The one that sticks in my mind most readily (I swear to God, I am not making this up): "To know Death, Otto, you must first f**k life in the gall bladder!!!" Overall I have to say that gorehounds will probably enjoy this film more than anyone else will, because Morrissey really doesn't spare anything in that regard. Next up was their equally ludicrous take on the Dracula story.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

ATTACK OF THE GIANT HORNY GORILLA, THE (1976; also released as A.P.E., Hideous Mutant; Super Kong). Plot: A giant ape escapes as it is being shipped back to Disneyland and rampages across the South Korean countryside causing mass destruction and snatching up a beautiful American actress. This South Korean production, originally released as A.P.E., was made the same year as the Dino de Laurentiis remake of King Kong. It was clearly hoping to exploit some of the expected success of King Kong--that is before King Kong premiered and became a big heap of ape dung with anybody who had seen the original and audiences alike. The poster advertized itself with the byline "not to be confused with the original King Kong"--clearly the distributor had the delusion that some audiences may well have confused the two--and it is indeed quite possible, for Gorilla blatantly steals from King Kong even down to having the giant ape abducting a blonde actress. But in all other regards there is extremely little likelihood audiences might have confused Gorilla and King Kong--King Kong is one of the greatest of all monster movies; Gorilla is laughable in every respect. The effects work is shockingly bad. The scenes of the ape destroying a ridiculously unconvincing model ship and then wrestling with a rubber shark at the start of the film are a clear indication of what is to come. And the scenes that follow with the ape rampaging through and smashing obvious plywood houses and, in a couple of really hysterically unconvincing model shots, stepping over a toy cow and batting a hanglider and pilot on an visible wire, produce gales of laughter in their ineptitude. Scenes of destruction go on and on forever without even the slightest degree of directorial conviction of dramatic interest being created, due to the fact that the film eschews almost any type of optical shots whatsoever--we never see any shots of the ape and people together in the same frame. Although the reason for this could well be that the three optical shots we do see which patch the ape over stock background shots of Seoul are some of the worst travelling matte shots in the history of special effects. The ape suit is completely immobile in expression and one can clearly see the eyeholes that have been made in the mask for the actor inside. Stock footage of military vehicles on manoeuvres, which are meant to stand in for the massed military attack against the ape, are repeated several times throughout. The film was originally made in 3D but has only been seen flat in the West. Thus there are an inordinate number of shots with extras firing burning spears at the camera, soldiers rushing into the camera to pose and shoot, and the ape throwing the same rock on a wire at the camera. There is the odd occasionally amusing line. "Let's see him dance for his organ grinder now," says the general as the military shoot the ape down. And the hero's end epithet for the ape - "He was too big for a small world like ours" - raises unintentional laughter. Alex Nicol at least gives an amusingly hard-headed performance as the American colonel (and should get some type of award for having to yell an entire performance into a telephone - even when he is out on field maneuvers). But this is really an appallingly bad film in every regard - the most amusing thing about it was its 1983 retitling The Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla.--Reviewed by Richard Scheib

ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES (1977). Starring David Miller, Sharon Tyler, George Wilson, Jack Riley, J. Stephen "Rock" Peace, Eric Christmas. Directed by John De Bello. Cult fave sci-fi spoof about tomatoes taking over the USA (hey, why the hell not?). I have a distinct memory from my youth of an adult telling me how bad this was except for one bit where a guy, having infiltrated the enemy camp by dressing up as a tomato, makes the fatal mistake at mealtime of asking someone to pass him the ketchup. I kept an eye out for that bit, but when it arrived I found it to be rather poorly handled, not the "highlight" I had been expecting. This doesn't actually surprise me, as opinions seem to vary widely on this flick. Some see it as vastly overrated, but it has maintained a devoted following, which resulted in a "director's cut" being issued on video a while back. (Though in the rather lame mock documentary that precedes the feature they make a joke about how could it be the director's cut when the director is the one who edited the original version in the first place, so apparently it's more or less a put-on.) It is funnier than certain video guides had led me to believe, but I guess the best and most appropriate way to sum it up is to call it an Airplane!-style satire. While not completely fair given the fact that it was made three years earlier than the ZAZ team's groundbreaker (most sources list it as 1980, the IMDb lists it as 1978, and Videohound lists it as 1977, a fact born out by the copyright date of its production company Four Squares), it ultimately plays a lot more like one of that film's imitators than as an innovative comedy on its own.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS (1966).   Starring Eddie Constantine, Françoise Brion, Fernando Rey, Sophie Hardy. Directed by Jess Franco. Out of the four Franco films I've seen thus far, this is the first one to give me any real indication as to why he has a following. In this Bond goof, Rey and Brion are some sort of evil masterminds who are kidnapping people with a certain type of blood, giving them deep tans and fitting them for glasses, which somehow turns> them into the mindless automatons of the title, who are then sent out on> assassinations. Not really robots if you think about it, but you'd be well advised not to do much thinking while watching this: that might lead to questions of logic, which this film does not have much of to spare and which would ruin the fun anyway. Constantine, in perfect Lemmy Caution mode (though this is not part of the LC series as it is often erroneously credited), plays secret agent Al Peterson (brother of Norm?) who is sent in to investigate by the powers that be. They know that he has the type of blood the villains seek out and will most likely be abducted, but that's the way they want it as they think it's the only way to locate the bad guys. Intrigue, chases and one of the more frenetic fistfights I've seen outside of a kung fu movie ensue. But in reality the accent here is on comedy and a goofy brand of comedy at that. In one scene Al finds his hotel room wrecked, the result of a fight between Chinese agents and the robots. He goes to complain to the management, but in his absence the Chinese straighten everything up, including installing a brand new phone to replace the one whose cord they'd ripped out of the wall, so that when Al returns with a concierge, he looks like a fool for making such a fuss. A potentially wince-inducing bit like this one, and another running gag involving a chubby Mexican who keeps trying to punch Al out, are made more tolerable by the overall playful mood of the piece. Constantine is great and Hardy is scrumptious as the stripper/spy (you'd be surprised how many people have that credit on their résumé) that he gets involved with. This film does takes Franco up a notch in my book, though I don't know at this point how typical it is of his work (there is one brief scene with a whip, does that count for anything?) --Reviewed by Marc Beschler

BEAST FROM THE HAUNTED CAVE, THE (1959). This film, from the first phase of B-movie maestro Roger Corman's career, displays both the virtues and vices of his cheap but usually effective (and always profitable) black-and-white drive-in films of the Fifties.  After filming Ski Troop Attack in Deadwood, South Dakota, Corman decided to thriftily use the same location to shoot this film.  It's both a crime caper, where several baddies rob a gold depository somehow located in the same location as a ski lodge and also a monster film in which the locals are disappearing due to a "cougar" that is, in actuality, the titular beast.  The vices are many in this film--flat, toneless photography with no filter work to offset the blinding glare of the snow, so-so sound, minimalist acting from unknowns (although a member of the cast, Richard Sinatra, was the cousin of Old Blue Eyes himself), and a boring stretch in which the baddies talk and talk about their planned heist.  But there is one virtue--the beast is a sort of spidery creature in a cave that keeps its victims lashed in cocoons so that it can feed off them.  The creature was created by Chris Robinson, who also operated it, and he did a superb job with the pittance Corman gave him.  Scenes of the victims in the clutches of the beast are genuinely creepy.  Of course, Corman used the same approach to The Giant Leeches, but it's still effective here.   There's really only material enough for a 30-minute show in this film, but if you keep your finger on the fast-forward button, you'll enjoy it.

BLACK CAT, THE (1934).

     I seized him; and in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth.  The fury of a demon instantly possessed me.  I knew myself no longer.  My original soul seemed at once to take flight from my body, and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame.                                 --Edgar Allan Poe

My penchant for classic horror films leads me to discuss perhaps one of the greatest of all time: 1934's The Black Cat.   Loosely (and, I do mean "loosely") based on the famous Edgar Allan Poe short-story, Universal Pictures' production of The Black Cat (not to be confused with the 1941 film by the same name) is an out-and-out treat for all who enjoy early twentieth-century macabre.  At least some of the many mystical qualities contained in The Black Cat have to be attributed, in part, to the teaming-up of two horror legends: Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.  By this time, Karloff had already established himself in the horror genre with his performances in Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, and The Ghoul while Lugosi easily paralleled him with his own characterizations in Dracula, Murders In The Rue Morgue and Island Of Lost Souls.  The Black Cat would not only be the first of several pictures in which they would appear together--but, it would also be, unquestionably, their very best joint effort.  As the film opens, we find "Peter and Joan Alison," (played by David Manners and Jacqueline Wells), a young newlywed couple, boarded on the Orient Express as they embark on their honeymoon in France.  But, the privacy of their compartment is short-lived when a train's porter suddenly intrudes to inform the Alisons of an apparent mix-up--and, that they must now share their small cabin with another gentleman.  Reluctantly, they concede--only to find themselves in the unsettling company of a curious-looking man by the name of--"Dr. Vitus Werdegast" (played by Lugosi).  As the train barrels down the tracks, the mysterious Werdegast gradually begins to divulge just a hint of his torrid, tragic past.   It seems, the good doctor had gone to war (World War I) some 18 years earlier--but was later captured by the opposing German forces and placed in the dreaded military prison of Kuurgaal.  "Many men have gone there," he pronounces.  "Few have returned.  I have returned.  After fifteen years...I have returned!"   Once off the train, the three then board a bus, continuing the trek to their respective destinations in the midst of a raging thunderstorm.  But, as the driver vividly describes the bloody battles that had once taken place in the surrounding areas during the war, he suddenly loses control of the vehicle and they crash--killing the driver and slightly injuring Joan.  Climbing from the wreckage, they eventually make their way to what was once known as Fort Marmoros--where, coincidentally, Werdegast had been apprehended after its being bombed by the Germans.  But, upon the rubble of the broken battlements of the fort, now stands the palatial, futuristic home of the sinister engineer, 'Hjalmar Poelzig' (played by Karloff), the man who had once commanded the troops at Fort Marmoros, but who, unlike Werdegast, had suspiciously managed to elude capture from the enemy.   While the Alisons rest upstairs, we soon learn--by way of a heated conversation between Werdegast and Poelzig--that the two men have nursed a profound aversion for each other over the years.  Werdegast accuses Poelzig of selling out to the enemy during the war and subsequently abandoning his men while absconding with Werdegast's wife and child--only to return years later to build his home on the ruins of the fort.  In addition, Poelzig has since become a high priest of Satanic worship--a fact that eventually proves to be detrimental to the safety of the unsuspecting Alisons and resulting in a battle of wits between the vengeful Werdegast and the wicked Poelzig.   Drenched in 1930's European fashion and design, The Black Cat possesses a haunting blend of both audible and visual artistry.  For instance, Engineer Poelzig's house, though futuristic in a sense, with its straight lines and sanitized, esoteric openness, also rampantly conveys an unbridled perception of the Art Deco stylization at its height, provided unsparingly and purposefully by Art Director, Charles D. Hall.   And, amidst the menacing goings-on, the film is also saturated throughout with some of the most ominous musical renderings ever penned by such classical masters as Listz, Beethoven and Schubert, all skillfully arranged by Musical Director, Heinz Roemheld.   But, the man who is essentially responsible for most of the foreboding, yet tantalizing, flavor of The Black Cat is unequivocally the film's own Director:   Edgar G. Ulmer.  Considered by his contemporaries as a mediocre director at best, it seems Ulmer surprised them all when he took hold of the reins to The Black Cat and invariably forged full-steam ahead to make the picture a seething, surrealistic rampage of calculating, maniacal mind games and unrequited vengeance.   By shrewdly infusing the essence of his own lurid complexities--with that of the mood and tone of Poe's disturbing parable, Ulmer's final creation resulted in a vast, timeless repository of unconventionalism.  In addition to the final cut of The Black Catreeking havoc with the censors of the day, the critics were also relentless in their panning of the film, charging that it was much too blatant an outpouring of dark and unabashed sexual innuendo and sardonic cynicism--and would therefore be too much for modern-day audiences to handle.  Nevertheless, despite the brutal hammering by the reviewers, The Black Cat managed to stand its ground--and quickly became Universal Pictures' top money-maker for 1934, while establishing the initial framework for hundreds of other horror pictures that would be directly or indirectly fashioned after it over the course of the next sixty-plus years.  Today,  The Black Cat is considered by countless critics and admirers alike, as being one of the best examples of classic horror in existence.--Reviewed by Chris Pustorino 

BLACK FRIDAY (1940).  I must confess, my own appreciation for classic (and obscure) horror films tends to be a bit more discernible than with other film categories.  But, personally, I've never considered my fascination with the macabre films of the Thirties and Forties as being a sign of some sort of introspective morbidity or repressed insecurity on my part, though some might accuse me of it.  To me, these films simply reflect man's age old and sometimes insurmountable battle with his own fears--a showcasing of the proverbial question, "What if," which invariably leaves us at the mercy of our own imaginations to find, or better yet, create, the often elusive answer.   So, although it might be appropriate, if not altogether expected of me, to write about a "classic" horror film--such as 1931's Dracula or Frankenstein, or 1932's The Mummy, or 1941's The Wolf Man--I've decided to refrain--sort of.  Instead, I'd like to tell you about a seldom mentioned little gem that, in my humble opinion, has never really been given its rightful due since its original release in 1940.  Granted, the title itself--Black Friday--does little to conjure any similar images of the once-frightful characters of the aforementioned horror classics--and, admittedly, it "sounds" nothing more than typical of the horror flicks of the period.   But, you have to understand that by the early to mid-Forties, a fair number of Hollywood studios, the most notorious in this particular case being Universal, were cranking out low-budgeted horror and mystery films like hot cakes. Yet, despite their cheap production costs, swift production schedules and innocuous titles, these factors did little to hinder people from flocking into the theaters in droves for a good, cheap thrill.  Unfortunately, the quick fix provided by a good many of these "B" productions--or "programmers" as they were also called--usually also meant that they stood a good chance of being forgotten just as quickly.  So, too, would be the ultimate destiny of Black Friday. Undoubtedly a lesser-known classic than--say, Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde or Frankenstein, Black Friday nonetheless suggests a tantalizing mixture of both.  The original story, written by novelist/screenwriter, Curt Siodmak, is simple, yet the depth of its message surpasses its own simplicity by proposing a fascinating dilemma:  On one side of the spectrum, we are presented with "George Kingsley," a kindly old professor of English literature at a small university in the equally small (and perhaps mythical) mid-Western town of Newcastle.  His well-versed character exemplifies that of elderly innocence, human frailty and vast knowledge--all combined to serve as the embodiment of "good."  However, in total contrast, we're also introduced to the villainous character of '"Red Cannon."  Living up to the volatility of his name, Cannon is a calculating low-life, a self-indulgent, murderous rat who epitomizes the gangsterism of the previous decade of the Thirties.  Ruthless and cold-blooded, cunning and unconscionable, he represents the complete opposite of George Kingsley.  "Evil" incarnate, if you will.  Because of the vast differences between these two men, one would hardly expect their paths ever to cross.  But, as fate--and film--would have it--they do. For instance, in a scene in which the unlikely becomes likely, Kingsley is crossing a busy thoroughfare on foot when he suddenly hears the unmistakable sound of repeated gunfire coupled with the roar of two speeding cars, one in hot pursuit of the other.  The pursuing car then swerves, pushing the other car straight into Kingsley, hitting and mortally wounding him before it crashes into the side of a building.  The accident is witnessed by Kingsley's best friend, "Dr. Ernest Sovac," a brain surgeon.  When the dust clears, Sovac rushes over in a futile attempt to help his friend.  The man in the car?  None other than--Red Cannon.  Unfortunately, Kingsley has little chance of survival, whereas Cannon, although evidently paralyzed from a spinal injury, is otherwise conscious and lucid.  Sovac realizes the only way he might be able to save the life of his old friend is to perform a partial brain transplant on him in which he would merely replace the area of damaged brain tissue with that of healthy tissue.  However, the brain Sovac chooses to use for this illegal operation is--Red Cannon's.  This, of course, would mean certain death for Cannon--or so one might think.  And, to spice up the challenge, it's rumored that Cannon has $500,000 hidden somewhere, money that Sovac would like to get his hands on in order to build his own laboratory in which he could continue his experiments.  The operation is a success, Kingsley survives--and Cannon's head wounds from the surgery are simply attributed to the car accident.  This, for the most part, is the "Frankenstein" connection--man acting as God to create life.  This is usually where we lose our grip on who's right and who's wrong.  Sovac's intentions are deemed good from the very beginning.  He simply wants to keep his friend alive while continuing his scientific research.  But, this is also where the story takes an interesting turn.  Although Kingsley looks and sounds as if he's back to his old self, he is in actuality, only "half" George Kingsley--the other half being the notorious Red Cannon--thus the "Jekyll and Hyde" connection--and a phenomenon which becomes more apparent as the film progresses.  When Sovac realizes that some of Cannon's traits might still exist within Kingsley, he decides  to try and make contact with that portion of the brain in the hopes that Kingsley may inadvertently reveal the hiding place of Cannon's bank roll.  As a ploy to trigger Cannon's memory, Sovac invites Kingsley to join him on a trip to New York City, the old stomping grounds of Red Cannon, under the guise that getting away for a while might help Kingsley in his period of convalescence.  Reluctantly, Kingsley accepts.  Almost immediately upon their arrival in the city, and completely unbeknownst to Kingsley, he begins showing slight signs that somewhere, deep within his own psyche--lies Cannon's memory.  Surrounded and, rather unmercifully, bombarded by constant reminders, along with the help of Sovac's less-than-subtle persuasion, George Kingsley is eventually--if only temporarily--transformed into Red Cannon, taking on some of the villain's own physical traits--virtually all  of his mannerisms--and yes, even his memory.  Although Cannon is grateful to Sovac for "pulling him through," he wastes no time in taking revenge out on his former gang members, for, in their collective, yet unsuccessful, effort to somehow abscond with the gangster's hidden loot, it was they who were responsible for trying to do away with him--shooting at him and eventually running him off the road back in Newcastle.  As for Sovac, it doesn't take long for him to realize that, not only does he have limited control over the periodic and unpredictable Kingsley-to-Cannon Cannon-to-Kingsley transformations--but he has even less control over the homicidal tendencies of the bombastic, vengeful Cannon. Through his own doing, Sovac becomes a harsh example--to himself and to others--of how the shallow promise of money has a funny way of sometimes making people forget their moral backbone, only to do the strangest things--things that they might not otherwise do.  As you might've already guessed, this is where the plot ultimately begins to thicken--and it's also where I think it best that, as far as the film's premise is concerned, I say no more.  I've set the stage--the rest is up to you.  Included in the cast of Black Friday are two legendary gurus of classic horror:  Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.  Although Karloff manages to stay true to his semi-mad scientist form as Ernest Sovac, the seemingly well-intentioned doctor and friend to George Kingsley--Lugosi, on the other hand, is shamefully wasted in a minor role as "Eric Marnay," the reigning, self-appointed boss of the Cannon gang.  Yet, despite the top-billing of these grand-masters of terror--not to mention a widely publicized promotional stunt in which Lugosi is said to have been placed in a hypnotic trance "to give reality to a scene," kudos in this case must go to actor Stanley Ridges, who turns the silver-screen on its ear in his amazing dual role as George Kingsley and Red Cannon. Ridges, who began his film career in silent pictures during the Twenties, eventually honed a mediocre reputation for himself in Hollywood as little more than just a reliable character actor.  But, when seen in Black Friday, the fluidity of the performance given by this otherwise unduly-underrated actor, cannot honestly be ignored.  His remarkable metamorphosis--from the sublime Kingsley--to the explosive Cannon--then back again, the change in posture--as well as the shift in demeanor and intonations from one to the other, is perhaps the best demonstration of the immeasurable extent of Ridges' undeniably expansive range and flexibility as an actor--and an indisputable testament of his true underlying talent.  In short, for seventy fast-paced minutes, it's the characterizations of Stanley Ridges' that make Black Friday truly unforgettable as he successfully surpasses anything that his famous counterparts of Karloff and Lugosi have to offer in the film.  Curt Siodmak's original story for Black Friday actually serves as the forerunner to his novel, Donovan's Brain, which was also made into a 1951 movie starring veteran actor, Lew Ayres.  At this writing, Siodmak currently lives on a 50-acre ranch in California and is still plugging along at the youthful age of 97.  In a telephone conversation I had with him in January of 1998, he told me that, although "...writing scripts was just a job", he's proud today of his past accomplishments and contributions.  He also challenges the contemporary movie-producing market to strive for scripts that have within them--the mettle to withstand the years--and the substance to be appreciated by countless fans--decade after decade--as so many of his own stories have.  Frankly, I couldn't agree more.--Reviewed by Chris Pustorino

BLOB, THE (1988).  Starring Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith, Donovan Leitch, Candy Clark, Jeffrey DeMunn, Ricky Paull Goldin, Joe Seneca, Billy Beck, Paul McCrane, Art LeFleur, Del Close. Directed by Chuck Russell. It's not uncommon in these jaded times for people to hear the word 'remake' and instantly begin to detect a whiff of something fetid in the air. Not that the ennui of the masses is completely to blame for this; the filmmakers have more than contributed to this cynical attitude (a certain recent haunting springs to mind as a good example). But back in the late-'80's, things hadn't gotten quite so stale yet and, after all, we are talking about a film whose main attribute was launching the career of Steve McQueen. Don't get me wrong. The original Blob is certainly entertaining enough in its own way and film theorists have had fun dissecting the subtext of teenage alienation common to horror films of the time, but anyone who tells you that it was a "classic" is probably being driven more by fond memories of a drive-in or Saturday nights spent at a local theater with a date pressed up against them than of the actual film itself. So director Russell was on relatively safe ground here, with little chance of being branded a "defiler" and other such fun words recently launched in Gus Van Sant's direction. One thing that he was not protected against, that no director has ever been protected against, was accusations of being a hack, so its lucky for him that he went in with more than just the concept of remaking an oldie, only making it gorier for the modern teen audience. They did do that of course, but they were able to do more as well, thanks to a pretty good, if somewhat heavy-handed, script by Russell and future Oscar-nominee Frank Darabont that manages to buck certain expectations. And while we're at it, let's not discount the gore effects, which get pretty yucky at times. The film succumbs to silliness more and more towards the end, but the final scene is surprisingly creepy. In a way this is a perfectly suited remake of the original: no great shakes as a film overall, but a damn entertaining monster movie on its own terms. Look for Jack Nance, Charlie Spradling, Erika Eleniak and Julie McCullough in small parts. --Reviewed by Marc Beschler

BLOOD AND ROSES (1960). As perhaps the first vampire movie to use J. Sheridan LeFanu’s novel Carmilla as a basis for the storyline, Blood And Roses does not shy away from the lesbian elements of that novella, although it being 1960, much is suggested and little is depicted. The setting is modern day Italy, but Gothic elements such as an abandoned abbey, are used to tie the story to its foundation. Vampire fans who are craving large body counts and moments of stark terror will be disappointed in this largely psychological take on the Undead.Critics have not been easy on this film due to its slow moving story, but I believe Vadim’s intent was to produce a  romantic drama with horror elements, rather than a straight up bite ‘em and leave ‘em flick. The story involves a triangular relationship between Mel Ferrer engaged to Elsa Martinelli, but secretly desiring his Austrian cousin AnnetteVadim. Vadim as Carmilla is stunning and does justice to the dual role of Carmilla Karnstein and her ancestor, the vampire Mircalla Karnstein. (Anagram lovers please note) The film has the look and sound of Dracula’s Daughter living La Dolce Vita, (it was shot at Cinecittá) with a bit of Luis Buñuel thrown in during the fantasy sequence. The plot developments are predictable, but with plenty of originality in their execution. The ending does not disappoint, as so often many of the more obscure movies do. Aficionados of the vampire genre should not miss this one, but my advice is to view it without the usual expectations.--Reviewed by Robert Andrews

BLOOD DINER (1987).  Starring Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Drew Godderis, Roger Dauer, LaNette La France, Lisa Guggenheim, Max Morris, Bob Loya, Michael Barton, Alan Corona, Carol Katz, John Barton Shields. Directed by Jackie Kong. Two goofball brothers open a health food diner, except, of course, that their food is largely made up of leftover parts from girls they're slaughtering to make a physical body for their goddess, Shitar, under the watchful eyes of their dead uncle's disembodied brain, which they keep in a jar and which spews obscenities at them when it isn't leering at the naked, reassembled corpse. And before you ask, no, I'm not making any of this up. This horror-comedy, an obvious rip-off cum tribute to H. G. Lewis' Blood Feast (widely considered the very first splatter film), is typical of Kong's films, in  as much as it's tasteless and exploitative, not to mention surprisingly misogynistic for a film directed by a woman. Well, it used to be surprising, anyway. Nowadays it seems to be a lot more commonplace, with more and more women getting the opportunities previously available mainly to men to make films that depict hatred against women (somebody get NOW on the phone, their hard work has finally paid off!). I remember reading an interview with Kong in Fangoria around the time that this came out that addresses this, in a way. There's a scene on a beach where this couple is making out and, conveniently, right after the girl has taken off all of her clothes, one of the brothers comes along and knocks out her boyfriend. We naturally assume that the girl is toast, until she suddenly goes into this nude kung-fu routine and starts kicking the goon's ass. First I recall Kong saying that this was an impromptu thing that hadn't been in the script and which they just decided to do on the spur of the moment (the words "that wasn't in my contract" spring to mind, though considering the content of this film, I'm guessing that never came up in any conversations on the set). She also said something to the effect of how she liked this scenario because it empowered the female character. Uh-huh. I'm sure it had all the women in the audience burning their bras. Other scenes of blatant feminist dogma include the machine-gunning of a group of topless, aerobicizing cheerleaders (don't ask) and a scene in which one of the brothers pours batter all over a bare breasted girl's face and then deep-fries her head. As if all that weren't enough, it's also baldfacedly stupid and graphically gross.and I kinda liked it. It's a piece of trash, no doubt, but Kong keeps the pace going fast and furious and she crams enough weird shit into it to fill at least two exploitation movies. I first saw this when I was a teenager and, watching it again after all these years, I expected my reaction to be similar to what it often is when returning to films from my naïve youth (to whit: "what the hell did I ever see in this?"), but I was surprised to find that I still got kind of a kick out of it. I would be hard pressed to recommend this to anyone whose sensibilities lie within the limits of good taste, but for those who lean towards the more sick and twisted, it's definitely worth a look.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

BLOOD FEAST (1964; also exhibited as Feast Of Flesh). Director Herschell Gordon Lewis once said something about this film to the effect that it may not be much but at least it's the first. He was right on both counts. This is the first film to show explicit gore for shock value; it's also nothing much as a film. Indeed, it provides a "feast" for bad film buffs: rock-bottom production values, static camera-work, a score consisting mainly of kettledrum solos, actors deliberately stopping after delivering lines so the low-rent sound equipment won't be defeated by overlapping dialogue, etc. Shocking for its time, the famed gore effects are ludicrously cheesy and unconvincing by today's standards. In the wafer-thin plot, a mad Egyptian caterer chops up young women in various ways to concoct a "blood feast" to pay homage to an ancient Egyptian god. One of the few "highlights" of this "amateur night at the butcher shop" is Mal Arnold's over-the-top, Lugosi-ish portrayal of the mad caterer. Thomas Wood, playing a dauntless police detective, gives the only thing close to a professional performance; Playboy centerfold Connie Mason as a would-be sacrifice is so spooked by the camera that she hugs herself whilst speaking her lines. Clearly, what is most distasteful about Blood Feast is not its stage-blood-and-butcher shop-entrails gore effects, but the fact that Lewis and producer and partner David F. Friedman made this strictly for the money--there is not a shred of interest in craftsmanship or professionalism evident. Both made this film because the market for their "nudie" films had become soft. Only their southern-fried follow-up splatterfest, Two Thousand Maniacs, made after this film, shows a dollop of wit and a smidgen of style. After that film, both continued their mercenary ways. This puts them in a different and inferior class to the likes of Ed Wood who, although he made bad films, truly tried to bring his best efforts to the screen. Today, Lewis is a maven of the direct-mail marketing he pioneered, "marketing" which fills mailboxes with unwanted junk mail (see "Sales Of A Deathman") and Friedman revels in his status as a soft-porn/exploitation icon. This film is a "guilty pleasure" for many, and for that reason, and because it is a filmic "first," it merits a look.

BLOOD FREAK (1971). This is a movie with a message, folks. Make no mistake. If you smoke marijuana and engage in decadent behavior, you *will* turn into a big, bloodsucking turkey monster. Jaw-droppingly, eye-poppingly, all-intellectual-process-stoppingly bad film, made in Florida, tries to mix horror and gore scenes with Christian moralizing in the tale of a biker (Steve Hawkes) who gets mixed up with the wrong crowd and pays the price! His first glimpse of the 'wild life' comes when he picks up a girl on the side of the road, gives her a ride home and finds her sister's friends having a crazy drug party! Actually, it's just five or six people sitting around a table, acting congenial. They are passing a vial around, but the fact that one of them looks a hell of a lot like Pat Boone (and the rest of them like people who would probably hang out with Pat Boone) kind of detracts from the aura of decadent menace. Co-director Brad F. Grinter appears as a narrator in segments throughout the film, during which he smokes constantly, and no review of this film would be complete without mentioning the final segment where he warns against the reckless ingestion of chemicals into the body and then proceeds to have a massive coughing fit. If this wasn't intentional, is it actually possible that neither Grinter nor Hawkes caught even a hint of the overwhelming irony in it? Having witnessed what they are capable of, in the form of this film, I'd say that yes, it is indeed possible. Definitely one for the record books that truly must be seen to be believed.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

BLOOD OF DRACULA'S CASTLE (1967; also exhibited as Dracula's Castle). Not much blood, and the "castle" is actually a faux-berg ranch. Count Dracula (Alex D'Arcy) and his Missus (Paula Raymond, a familiar face from The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms) have secreted themselves in a "castle"-- not in Transylvania, but Southern California. Rather than bite necks, they have their butler (John Carradine) draw blood from shapely female captives in the dungeon.and then drink the red stuff from crystal goblets. This unique approach is at least amusing for the first reel. Also, the film benefits from proficient photography by Laszlo Kovacs (long before his salad days) and fun, campy performances by D'Arcy, Raymond, and Carradine (long past their salad days). Unfortunately, the director was Al (Independent-International) Adamson (Blood Of Ghastly Horror, Brain Of Blood, et al.). That means poor continuity, choppy pacing, amateurishly executed effects--all the Al Adamson trademarks. (For the record, this effort was released by Crown International.) Z-film regular Robert Dix wanders around killing people at random and threatening to turn into a werewolf (he never does). A young couple who inherits the castle-ranch show up, get captured, a sacrificial Black Mass is performed on the beach, and...by this time, you'll probably be rewinding this turkey. An instant non-classic, but it is a hoot to watch when one is in the right mood (a few beers help). Now that the proper cult appreciation has been paid to the likes of Ed Wood and Herschell Gordon Lewis, isn't it about time Al Adamson received his fifteen minutes? UPDATE: Blood of Dracula's Castle exists in two versions. The TV version (which I haven't seen in ages) was simply known as Dracula's Castle. The difference? The guy who keeps "threatening" to turn into a werewolf actually does! First, after beating the prison guard to death, he transforms (for no particular reason)--and later in the film, a completely gratuitous scene of the werewolf stalking and catching a woman in the forest is tossed in at random. No explanation for why the leads can shoot him dead with regular bullets at the end, though...Best, Shane "Remo D" Dallman

BLOODSUCKERS (1970; also released as Incense For The Damned). Hellenic horror runs head-on into the (late) Swinging Sixties (incense and peppermints, etc.). A young Oxford academic travels to Greece to research its mythology but instead spends his time in a sex-and-drugs debauch with the Greek Jet Set. In part, this film resembles a Roger Corman psychedelic Sixties flick--until a knife is flashed and a drugged young woman is murdered in a blood sacrifice. The academic's friends and colleagues also book passage to Greece to find him. Instead, they soon find themselves under attack by an ancient Greek blood-drinking cult carried on by Greek hippies. The presence of horror icon Peter Cushing (as an overbearing Oxford Don) and The Avengers' Patrick Macnee (as a helpful liaison in Greece) lend this film some class, although Cushing's scenes are regrettably brief. The picture-postcard Greek backdrop is nice and there is some tension when the cultists attack the amateur sleuths. But, overall, this flick is pretty heavy going, and a sprinkling of blood and nudity don't spice the proceedings up much. Worth seeing for the film's frank depiction of vampirism as a sexual perversion and to watch Macnee conduct an investigation sans his bowler hat and Mrs. Peel. (Now, if the producers would have secured the services of the delectable Diana Rigg and cast Christopher Lee as the vampiric cult leader...)

BODY SNATCHER, THE (1945). Starring Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell, Edith Atwater, Russell Wade, Rita Corday. Directed by Robert Wise. Producer Val Lewton had a singular vision to create horror films that achieved their effect through a juxtaposition of light and shadow, a visual motif signifying the fear of the unknown. He wanted to make films that were more frightening not for what was seen, but for what was implied. He achieved this with three different directors (all of whom previously had limited directing experience at best): Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, The Leopard Man, I Walked With A Zombie), Mark Robson (The Seventh Victim, Isle Of The Dead, Bedlam) and Robert Wise, who first took over Curse Of The Cat People when the original director could not complete it and then did this creepy chiller. Based on the Robert Louis Stevenson story of the same name, this tells the tale of a young medical student who discovers that his mentor (Daniell) has been dealing with a less than admirable character (Karloff) in order to procure bodies for research. There is an excellent example of the kind of effect that Lewton had in mind in a scene where Karloff follows an indigent girl who sings in the street for money. She walks down the dark street with him behind her in his horse-drawn carriage. As she comes to an archway, she is swallowed up by the darkness, singing all the while. He follows her and is also enveloped by the dark. We then hear her song abruptly cut off and the scene fades. It's a wonderfully effective moment, representative of a type of imagination-driven cinema that is all too rare these days. Lugosi is surprisingly understated in a small role as the doctor's servant and Karloff is pure grinning evil. There's also a terrifically scary out-of-control carriage ride of a finale. If you're getting the impression that I liked this film, good. In fact, why don't we just let this stand as a general recommendation to see any of the above-mentioned Lewton productions.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT (1942). Another of those wonderful old Bela Lugosi low-budgeters (Renfield admits to having a weakness for these). Lugosi is in his finest Forties form in triple roles as a kindly professor, a humanitarian who runs a soup kitchen--and a criminal mastermind who pays his henchman off with bullets. (He leaves a dead accomplice at every crime scene.) Lugosi essayed a similar Jekyll- and-Hyde role the previous year in the admittedly superior The Human Monster/Dead Eyes Of London. Although this is a Monogram (Astor) programmer produced by budget B-movie maven Sam Katzman, it is a decently mounted Lugosi vehicle, with an intriguing plot and a nicely controlled performance by Lugosi, and even a few nifty touches, such as Lugosi's use of close-circuit television to spy on his underlings. Tom Neal, later to rise to cult-figure status for his lead role in Detour, stands out as a hardened killer who falls in with Lugosi's schemes. One scene, in which Lugosi mentally toys with the playboy fiancee of his socialite assistant before Neal shoots him down, is effectively creepy. The horror element is provided by a basement cemetary and a group of resurrected dead men, reanimated by a drug-addict doctor. There's even a bit of self-deprecating humor when two policemen walk past a large billboard advertising a Lugosi horror film! Ironically, some of Lugosi's most watchable performances are to be found in purely "room-and-board" parts such as this. Recommended.

BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, THE (1962).  For bad-movie lovers only. Hopeless horror pic, also known as The Head That Wouldn't Die truly comes a cropper, aided in no small part by The Brain That Couldn't Direct and The Cast That Couldn't Act. After an offscreen car crash, neurosurgeon- cum-mad scientist Dr Cortner (Jason Evers) somewhat casually relieves his girlfriend of her head and keeps it alive in his basement laboratory (the kind of setup that you already know is going to go up in flames during the picture's climax). Arguing with her that "I want you as a complete woman, not part of one"--did I mention that the head always has to have the last word? - he roams the town in search of the "right" body for his love (played by Virginia Leith, a discovery of Stanley Kubrick's). As his search concentrates primarily on seedy nightclubs, beauty contests, and sleazy photography classes, it's not hard to gauge just what "right" means in this doctor's book.   Writer-Director Joseph Green's static direction (he has no idea how to stage extras or action), the boring, empty sets, and the amateur cast (as Cortner's girlfriend, Leith is required to act only from the neck up, an instruction Green appears to have inadvertently given the rest of the cast as well) make most of BRAIN very dull. The outright stupidity of the production is entertaining at first, but becomes tiresome until the closing sequences - it picks up during Cortner's lab assistant's ridiculously protracted death scene (although this is cropped in some versions). Because the narrative is so nonsensical it's easy to miss how tacky the film's agenda really is. Women are objects--all that matters is how they look, whether they are burlesque dancers, models, or beauty contestants. When two women get involved in a brawl, Green has their room decorated with pictures of cats, and adds a meow at the end of the fight just in case we didn't pick up the joke. Leith stands out as the only character that is totally independent-- even while a disembodied head, she is in service to no-one. Without a body, she isn't beauty, but "brains"--it is only in this state that she stops being the doctor's obliging girlfriend and becomes his critic instead (he even has to gag her at one point). To Green (and the doctor) body = object = control, which explains the change in the characters' relationship. In other hands, these ideas might have been teased out to create a much more coherent and interesting film, but Green's cardboard characters and lazy, juvenile script pretty much put paid to that idea. Instead, it's just lousy. This film is one of Mystery Science Theater 3000's targets for spoofing. As is usually the case, their own absurd dialogue doesn't get much worse than the original's (for example, the moment when Dr Cortner takes over another surgeon's patient, peels back his scalp, cuts open his skull, and plugs wires into his  brain, assuaging any worries the surgical team might have by telling them "I've been working on something like this for weeks"!).--Reviewed by Shane R. Burridge

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935). A film virtually impossible to overpraise. Leagues better than Frankenstein (which was certainly no slouch), Bride has just about everything—director James Whale’s quirky, wonderfully imaginative cinematography and nonstop pacing, simply awesome sets and scene design, a plethora of clever bits and sophisticated jokes, daring satire (especially when the villages literally crucify the Monster), Karloff’s last full-bloodied turn as the spawn of misguided science (he was little more than a lumbering brute in his last foray into Monsterhood, Son Of Frankenstein, 1939), and even a delightful early Victorian set-piece whereupon Lord Byron urges Mary Shelly to tell more of the strange tale she wove from a nightmare. Colin Clive reprises his tortured, twitchy portrayal as the haunted Dr. F., but it’s cadaverous Ernest Theisinger (whose sardonic and cold-blooded essay of Dr. Pretorius is just wicked good fun) who steals the show. The climax when the Monster’s mate is unveiled and Dr. P. christens her as "The Bride of Frankenstein" is a camp as well as a classic scene—as Whale damned well meant it to be. This film deserves a place of horror, er, honor, on your video library shelf. Movie…goooooooood!

BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1956; exhibited in 1955 as Bride Of The Atom). Legendary Auteur L’Terrible Edward D. Wood’s best and most polished cinematic effort, which ain’t saying much, boils and ghouls. It’s a Fifties film that looks, sounds, and scans like a Forties poverty row (say, PRC or Monogram) horror mishmash: Crazed scientist Bela Lugosi (in his last speaking role, alas) uses electricity to build a race of supermen, screws it up, tries to make a superwoman, screws it up again, turn himself into a superoaf, gets grabbed by his own (rubber) octopus, and disappears in a mushroom cloud. If you’ve seen the Johnny Depp vehicle Ed Wood (1994), you know enough about the flick…except that Ed Wood actually rises to a level of near-competence in creating that old b-horror-film atmosphere, and Lugosi gives one good performance (when he’s confronting a Red agent who wants to take him back to an unnamed worker’s paradise). Otherwise, watch it for unintended laughs. An ultimate cult classic, party film, and historical oddity all rolled into one. With man-mountain Tor Johnson emoting mightily as "Lobo."

BRIDES OF DRACULA, THE (1960). Forget the official Hammer Studio's "Dracula" chronology. This film is the true sequel to the studio's watershed Horror Of Dracula (see "A Tale Of Two Draculas"). A worthy successor to the original low-budget but professionally crafted gem, Brides was also produced on a low budget, but you couldn't tell it by the finished results (in the best Hammer tradition). It has almost everything the later Hammer Dracula films lack (aside, arguably, from Dracula Has Risen From The Grave): beautiful Technicolor photography, a tight, terrorific Jimmy Sangster script, rapid-fire direction from Terence Fisher (who still took the time to establish characters and settings), stirring music direction by John Hollingsworth, and high-rent sets and set dressings. What is missing is Christopher Lee's Dracula, which is a bloody shame, since the film also boasts Peter Cushing's last sustained appearance as the original kindly but driven Dr. Van Helsing. When a young lady schoolteacher (the lovely GallicYvonne Molnaur from The Terror Of The Tongs) frees a young nobleman (David Peel) from a golden chain he was placed in by his seemingly cruel mother, he follows her to her new job--at a girls' academy. Since the nobleman is a vampire, some superior fang-work ensues and only Van Helsing can save the day. But Van Helsing himself is attacked by the nobleman and must save himself from the vampire's curse. Peel is a good substitute for Lee in the bloodsucking department, revealing a bit of the noble gentleman he once was and also providing a peek of the tragedy of his existence...but also attacking with satanic glee when aroused. This film further established Hammer quite high in the horror fanging--er, pecking order. The ending, involving a burning windmill, is absolutely terrific and thematically satisfying--almost equal to Horror's slam-bang ending. This one's a keeper, boils and ghouls.

BROOD, THE (1979). Starring Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle, Cindy Hinds, Henry Beckman, Nuala Fitzgerald, Susan Hogan, Gary McKeehan, Robert A. Silverman, Michael Magee. Written and directed by David Cronenberg. When his in-laws are beaten to death with mallets by a couple of mutant children, Hindle begins to suspect that it may be linked to the experimental psychiatric treatment that his estranged wife, Eggar, is undergoing (nice sound bit of logic, that). I have to admit that it took me a while (three viewings over time to be precise) to warm up to this film at all. The first two times it struck me as distressingly underdeveloped. It wasn't until number three that I noticed something. Cronenberg once again presents a story involving the mutation of flesh, but this time a new element creeps in, one that he would continue to develop. In this case, the therapy espoused by head shrink Reed involves the patients' psychological traumas manifesting themselves as boils, lesions or worse. This is certainly a story consistent in theme with the director's previous work, but the two features that preceded it, Shivers and Rabid, were both at their bases about scientific experiments gone wrong. In a way, that's the case here too, but this is the first time we see Cronenberg dabbling in the type of psychodrama-fueled horror that has become one of his trademarks. For the first time the alteration of the flesh is caused not by an outside force, but by the human mind itself. Realizing this did give me a new appreciation for the film, but overall I still don't think it's one of his best for a variety of reasons. Certain scenes are mishandled, such as when Fitzgerald as Eggar's mother is killed. Cronenberg builds some wicked suspense as the scene progresses and then just blows it with a rather clumsy monster attack. The Freudian theme of neuroses being passed along by family members, a rather integral part of the story, is touched upon but never really (pardon the expression) fleshed out. And as far as the cast is concerned, Hindle probably comes off best; but then again, he'd be hard pressed not to, compared with the late Reed (who can overact even while whispering) and, particularly, Eggar's hamming. (To be fair, neither of their characters is exactly supposed to be normal, so…) This is also not as gross as a lot of the director's other films, until a charming scene near the end (you'll know it when you see it). Overall, it's not that the film isn't without its moments: there's a very unsettling scene set in a kindergarten and the final shot is heartbreaking, driving home a point that the rest of the film only halfheartedly toys with. It just seems to me that Cronenberg could have spent a bit more time developing the themes, both those integral to this particular story and the new underlying ones as well. And, of course, as he continued to explore the latter in subsequent films, notably the two that directly followed this one, Scanners and Videodrome, he might agree.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

BURNING, THE (1981). Starring Brian Matthews, Leah Ayres, Brian Backer, Larry Joshua, Lou David, Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, Holly Hunter. Directed by Tony Maylam. Once upon a time, there was a little production company just trying to make it in the cutthroat world that is the film industry. Only daring to dream that they might someday be able to distribute acclaimed foreign films in this country and bring independent filmmaking to new heights through, I don't know, let's say…a little crime film centered around two hip pseudo-philosophical hitmen (I know, I'm reaching), they instead opted for this Friday The 13th clone. Just in case I'm being too subtle for you, I'm talking about Miramax and this has to be one of their first efforts. While the Internet Movie Database doesn't even list the company's name in regard to this film, it was listed in the credits of the video copy I watched. Make of that what you will. Regardless there's no denying the involvement of Miramax head honchos Harvey and Bob Weinstein (Harvey co-wrote the original story and produced, Bob co-wrote the screenplay). The brothers would only become involved with a production in this capacity one more time, in their 1986 auteur effort Playing For Keeps. I haven't seen Playing For Keeps, but if this film is any indication, there's a good reason why they chose to stick to producing. They probably would have been better off if they had ripped off Friday The 13th even more than they did. That film is no masterpiece, but it does achieve a degree of suspense that is largely absent here. The story is about a camp custodian, horribly burned in a prank, who returns several years later to kill off a few of the cast members. Most of the killings are near the end and a good portion of the cast survives. Again, one of the few effective things about FT13 was the finale with every one but the one girl gone and her face-off with the killer. The whole horror aspect of this film almost seems to have been added as an afterthought, as if they set out to make a promotional video for a summer camp and then when it didn't turn out, decided to cut their losses by adding some gore scenes. Speaking of gore scenes, they were done by maestro Tom Savini and if you're into that kind of thing, I strongly suggest that you seek out an uncut public domain print, as the domestic print was quite obviously (and poorly) edited for content. Probably the best thing about this is that it marks the film debut of Jason Alexander, who even at this early stage shows a lot of charm and comic timing. If you're a fan of his, and you have absolutely nothing better to do, then this might be an acceptable diversion while you're doing your taxes or something. Holly Hunter also makes her film debut here, but doesn't really have any lines except in crowd scenes, so if you're not looking for her, you might not even realize she's there.  The Weinsteins might have fared better with the whole badly burned guy thing if they had, oh, I don't know, set it during World War II, somewhere in the African desert with some really heavy romance thrown in (I know, I'm reaching again).--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

BURNT OFFERINGS (1976). Famed Dark Shadows director Dan Curtis takes Robert Morasco's spooky novel and turns it into cinematic horror at its fever-pitched best. A family unknowingly rents a haunted mansion for a summer and gets more than they "bargained" for. Oliver Reed is very real as the father of this family, a man whose repressed memories of his own father's funeral surface after moving into the old house. Karen Black, the wife of Reed in the film, grows increasingly obsessed with the old woman (the mother of Burgess Meredith and Eileen Heckart who rented the house to the couple) who, due to her age, lives in the attic. The film views like a suspense novel reads: with precise placement of every inevitable shock; dreading joyfully the build-up. This is done with a pacing which has us turning the mental pages of the film we are trying to "Reed" through the perspective of Oliver. Dan Curtis' direction once more proves he has what it takes to cause an audience to feel wound as tight as the charcters they watch; a true trademark of not only a great horror director, but, of a great director. So many of the scenes draw the viewer into the dark, peripheral world of the characters, particularly Reed's, causing one to feel the paranoia he sees. Curtis' gift as a director is that he can take an audience to a place which feels removed from reality and drops us off in a realm of mental illness or "dis-ease", leaving us feeling abandoned on the corner of fear and paranoia, lost on a one-way street, alone in our minds as we experience the schizophrenic allusions of illusions these characters feel. The best and scariest examples of this occur when Reed has what appears to be visions of the chauffeur (Anthony James) at his father's funeral. James is utterly creepy without even uttering a single line of dialogue. Bette Davis also stars and as always, gives a stellar performance. The ending is a shocker, laid on the altar of horror film-making as a burnt offering, a sacrifice for us, the children of a darker movie god. --Reviewed by Mark Pallatino

CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE (1980). Starring John Saxon, Giovanni Lombardo Radice (as John Morghen), Tony King, Elizabeth Turner, Venantino Venantini, Cinzia De Carolis, Luca Venantini, Wallace Wilkinson, Ramiro Oliveros, May Heatherly. Directed by Antonio Margheriti (as Anthony M. Dawson). Neither a standard cannibal movie as the title would suggest, nor a zombie movie as I was led to believe by various descriptions I had read, this actually has more in common with the glut of urban revenge films of the period than anything else. Saxon and a few of his fellow Vietnam veteran buddies (including Radice, Italian horror's favorite whipping boy) find that they came back from the bush with a virus that makes them crave human flesh. The odd thing is that in a film called Cannibal Apocalypse, there is surprisingly little cannibalization. A few gruesome moments aside, the focus is on the action, almost as if Margheriti thought he was still making that same year's The Last Hunter. Near the end when Saxon finally succumbs to the urges that have been consuming him (so to speak), I thought, "Okay, now we're in for some serious gut-munching!" Imagine my surprise when the "cannibals" gathered themselves into a cohesive group and formed a plan on how best to escape from the police. And herein lies the basic problem with the film: at no point do you ever get a real sense that the cannibals are any serious threat to anyone. Admittedly Radice and King seem dangerously unbalanced, but we are never given any indication that this is necessarily linked to their infection; in fact it seems pretty clear that they were both a few tacos short of a combo plate to begin with. There are scenes of horror of course, but ultimately the title of the film and some of its many, many alternate titles including Invasion Of The Flesh Hunters and The Cannibals Are In The Streets! seem rather misleading. There's nothing resembling a holocaust or an invasion in sight and the cannibals spend more time in the sewers than they do in the streets if you want to get technical. Plus the eleventh hour attempt to make them seem sympathetic, specifically by way of Saxon's character, doesn't really work because he never really seems unsympathetic and the rest of them are never satisfactorily horrific. The climax manages to generate some pathos and the final bit, which hints at those who have been infected becoming a secret community, is very promising and probably should have been incorporated into a much greater part of the film. There are some scenes here, such as Radice's sojourn into a movie theater and a fistfight scene late in the game, that have the visceral energy that make Italian horror films interesting to me, but that energy doesn't sustain itself throughout the film. I've seen worse, but I've also seen better.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962). While the current uber producer of shock films, Wes Craven, awaits in the cineplex wings with his remake, it's a good time to look back fondly on Herk Harvey's 1962 B-horror classic. It's a film (like Curtis Harrington's Night Tide) that has enough atmosphere for a dozen studio features and a genuine sense of eerie dread. Although the film never quite looks like the cross between Cocteau and Bergman Harvey intended, it's nevertheless something quite unique in the annals of B horror- an art film. And if you think I'm kidding , take a look at Alain Resnais' Last Year At Marienbad sometime soon and tell me it wouldn't make a perfect double bill with Carnival. Filmed In Lawrence, Kansas and Salt Lake City,it's the story of Mary Henry (played by the wonderfully earnest Candace Hilligoss) , a church organist who survives a joy-riding car accident . She begins to have strange visions of a ghoulish man following her, and after she takes a new job in a new city, begins to have weird lapses of reality where no one can see her or hear her, and the ghoul count increases. She becomes indifferent to her job (playing without the apparent religious conviction required for such employment) and to her horny new neighbor (Sidney Berger), and even finds herself talking anti-social to a local shrink ("Don't you have a boyfriend?" "No, and I have no desire for one either!") No mater what happens, Mary just can't shake the image of white-faced ghouls popping out of the water by the ominous Salt Aire Pavilion in Salt Lake City. After she tells her neighbor that being a church organist is "Just a job like any other," he asks, "Thinking like that..don't it give you nightmares?" You bet. And if you can guess the denouement well before it happens, don't worry. This is an amazingly entertaining film made all the better by the fact that it never once takes itself less then seriously. There is nary a faint whiff of B-movie kitsch here, nor does Harvey ever seem like he's deigned to work in a genre beneath him. This is a chillingly effective film that has the kind of spooky ambiance that a big budget could never buy. There was a wonderful tape of Carnival, available for many years, released by Vid America, complete with a filmed (in B&W) introduction by Harvey, but it's sadly out of print, as is Image's laser disc of it. Many public domain tapes still exist, but watch out. The film's stunning B&W photography looks dreadful in the public domain prints, may which feature a title card reading an alternate title, Corridors Of Evil. But with luck, and perhaps as a result of Craven's remake, perhaps we'll get a re-release.(See "Carnival Of Souls Man".)--Reviewed By Nick Burton.

CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (1972). In 1968, director George Romero broke new horror film ground with Night Of The Living Dead, a low-budget horror film now a classic. Four years later, Alan Ormsby digs up that ground and re-plots it in Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, another ghoulish tale of zombies coming back from the nether world. Directed by Benjamin (Bob) Clark and starring the before-mentioned Ormsby, this creepy movie brings us to the setting of a cemetery where a theatre troupe run by Ormsby ventures into for a night with hopes (Ormsby's) of resurrecting the dead. The film goes beyond the black-and-white world of Night Of The Living Dead and blows the viewer away, whisking him/her away to a world of surreality where the counter-culture youths of Ormsby's troupe meet up with the occult antics of Ormsby's oft spoken diatribes (at times even directed at Satan himself); leaving the viewer and the characters in a crossfire of witty dialogue and unwitting participation in a graveyard roller-coaster ride that takes off right from the very beginning. The imagery of director Bob Clark is chilling throughout, shot from a multitude of camera angles, the film takes place entirely at night adding to its allure. The music resonates a sublime anticipatory anxiety which lends itself splendidly to the ambiance of the film. For this is in no way a run-of-the graveyard picture to be buried in the annals of zombie films; rather it is a well carved-out epitaph on the headstone of classic horror. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is one of those bygone movies of the genre, taking us to a time when horror films relied more on plot and less on gore. What makes this film even more visually captivating to look at is the time period in which it was made: the early 1970s. It elicits a modern context of horror directorial techniques in a pre-slasher film era, while at the same time effectively bringing the viewer back to the days of hippiedom, all the while evoking the quiet  solitude of the Lugosi-Karloff generation of horror film-making. Overall, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is a psychedelic trip down the memory lane of horror homage.--Reviewed by Mark Pallatino

CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD (1983). Starring Hugo Stiglitz, Mel Ferrer, María Rosaria Omaggio, Laura Trotter, Francisco Rabal, Sonia Viviani, Eduardo Fajardo, Stefania D'Amario, Ugo Bologna, Sara Franchetti, Manolo Zarzo, Tom Felleghi, Pierangelo Civera, Achille Belletti. Directed by Umberto Lenzi. "From the seeds of George A. Romero's magnificent social satire/zombie apocalypse Dawn Of The Dead sprang many copycats. This is one of them. Umberto Lenzi, one of the most prolific of the European trash masters, dishes up this feast of blood, gratuitous nudity, uncharacteristically agile (not to mention well-armed) zombies and, of course, mediocre dubbing (even from the actors actually speaking in English). Includes a cyclical ending which I'm told Lenzi favors as "good storytelling." Some may see it more as "copping out." Enjoy." The above is my initial review of this film, which actually started off as an attempt to make a jacket to put in the horror section of the video store where I work (the tape we got of this came from Video Search of Miami and subsequently didn't have any box art). I figured that eventually I would go back and try to write a more thorough analysis of the film and eventually I did watch it again. Strange thing is, I couldn't really think of anything more to say after that second viewing. Inspiration just didn't come. But, y'know, this happens. I find sometimes these days that it's a struggle to simply sit and watch a film for the sheer enjoyment of it. Once you start thinking about films from a critical standpoint, it can be hard to stop, so maybe it was a good thing that I couldn't think of anything to write. Maybe my mind was learning to relax again. On the other hand...we move on to my third viewing. Technically this one only counts as a half: I threw it on at the store, so there was a lot of noise and distraction. I had other things going on while I was watching. I wasn't surprised when no further thoughts came to me after this one. However, there was a crucial moment during my fourth (or, if you like, third and a half) screening. In the middle of watching a scene, it suddenly hit me: "My God! I don't remember any of this!" Roughly four viewings of the film and there were still parts of it that hadn't made any impression on me at all. To be brief, the story concerns a bunch of radioactive zombies who leap out of a plane that has just landed and proceed to kill anyone in their path. Stiglitz as the central character (or the closest thing to one that we get here anyway) is a reporter who witnesses the initial attack. First he tries to get a warning out to the general public and then spends the rest of the movie running away with his doctor wife in tow. If that sounds a bit thin for a central storyline, don't worry, it's not just you. It's really not a big surprise that Lenzi, the man responsible for such colorful titles as Eaten Alive By Cannibals, Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave and the ever-popular Make Them Die Slowly, has made a movie that's half-assed pretty much from beginning to end. But I will confess to being slightly impressed with how many different ways he finds to be half-assed all in the space of one single film. Surrounding the aforementioned central story of the reporter we have a whole bunch of different vignettes, if you will, of various people doing various things, all of whom eventually get attacked and killed. Not a single one of these segments manages to generate any real dramatic interest. Then there's the baffling inconsistency in the zombies' behavior. Some of them drink the blood of their victims, some of them don't. Most of them seem to be attacking random victims, basically anyone who gets in their way, yet in one scene, it seems to be implied that two of the creatures got into a car and drove to where some people they knew were going to be and attacked them! For Christ's sake, Why? And then, of course, there's the famous makeup. For those zombies that are wearing makeup (and not all of them are), it would appear that they kept a large bucket of wheatina handy for the actors to dip their heads in should the mood so strike them. The effect, needless to say, is slightly more comical than terrifying. In fact, I believe I remember reading that the makeup in this film was on some "worst of: list and understandably so. All of this should be taken into consideration, but on more than one level, because while lovers of true quality horror films will most likely hate this (though I would never tell them or anyone else not to watch any film), connoisseurs of trash are going to eat it up in heaping spoonfuls. And so, in the spirit of "it takes all kinds," I say once again: enjoy.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

CORRIDORS OF BLOOD (1958). The path to painless surgery was strewn with pain, as this film attests. A kindly and dedicated surgeon in mid-Victorian England (Boris Karloff) has run into a string of bad luck. He unknowingly signs an accidental death certification for a slimy tavern-keeper who had the victim murdered to sell the corpse to the surgeon's own hospital for dissection. Worse, his demonstration of history's first use of anasthestics is ruined by a patient who awakens during surgery and goes on a rampage. Desperate, the surgeon strengthens the anasthetic with opiates and becomes addicted to the "inhalant," with tragic results. The intelligent script concentrates more on storytelling than delivering shocks, and succeeds admirably at both. There are good performances all around, especially from Karloff as the well-meaning but ultimately wrecked medico and from Christopher Lee as the scar-faced "resurrection man" (body-snatcher) named Resurrection Joe, who prefers to snatch his bodies above ground. The film benefits from high production values with a sharp eye for period detail (the contrast between the opulent world of upper class Victorian England and the squalor suffered by the lower classes is depicted particularly well). There's even a ghastly spurt of blood and gore here and there (more than even the Hammer films of the period showed on screen). Although often overlooked (this is another film that doesn't appear in at least one horror movie guide), Corroidors Of Blood stands as one of the best, if not the best, Karloff vehicles of the Fifties.

COUNT DRACULA (1970; also released as Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, Dracula '71, and The Nights of Dracula). The biggest Dracula-film disappointment, at least until Francis Ford Coppola's florid and overwrought Bran Stoker's Dracula (1992). This flick was billed as the first authentic film version of Bram Stoker's novel; in the main it does adhere fairly faithfully to the original text, aside from some substantial detours. But the film suffers from two major setbacks. The first is pinchpenny producer Harry Alan Towers, who give this film only a fraction of the budget needed to give Stoker's classic its due. The second is director Jess Franco. Yes, Franco has some cult following, largely due to the amount of sex and sadism he could squeeze from a $10.95 budget. As a craftsman, however, Franco was always found wanting. Ironically, due to Franco's hack-handedness, Count Dracula suffers some of the faults of Universal's original Dracula: static, stagy scenes filmed before a stationary camera (Franco preferred to use a zoom lens to substitute for camera movement) and a singular lack of a music score to highlight most of the dramatic scenes...what music there is consists mostly of an electric guitar and drums, quite inappropriate to the gothic subject matter. The main cast can't be faulted at least: Christopher Lee as Dracula, Herbert Lom as Van Helsing, and Klaus Kinski as Renfield. Their strong performances, particularly Lee's, give the production what luster it posses; alas, their efforts are largely scuttled by the wooden, colorless performances of the supporting cast, who are far too Spanish in appearance for a story supposedly taking place in England and Transylvania. The film has a disjointed, episodic quality, as if only parts of Peter Welbeck's script made it into production. It also has moments of unintended hilarity, as when the vampire hunters are menaced by a bunch of stuffed animals (a scenario definitely not to be found in the original novel). Lee did this film because he wanted Stoker's novel properly brought to the screen and by all accounts he was as dissatisfied with the final product as were audiences world-wide. It's worth viewing only for Lee's portrayal of Dracula as Stoker originally described the undead Count.

COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE (1973; also released as Dracula's Great Love). This is Spanish actor/filmmaker Paul Naschy's best-regarded attempt to replicate and update the classic Universal and Hammer horror films, mainly because it's a tragic love story as well as a vampire yarn. A group of English travelers are stranded at a rundown asylum next to Castle Dracula years after Dracula was supposedly killed by Van Helsing & Company. The courtly doctor who owns the asylum (Naschy) welcomes them. Unfortunately for them, he's actually the Count, reincarnated. Unfortunately for him, he falls in love with one of the women. In an intriguing Transylvanian twist, Dracula initially is quite a benign blood-sucker; it's his vampire servant and the vampirized victims who provide the menace. (Don't worry; Drac quickly returns to his old ways.) This film is just loaded with gothic atmosphere, accentuated with swirling fog, flickering candles, dusty cobwebs, and unusually well-dressed sets for a Naschy film. There's also plenty of nudity, blood, and gore to titillate modern audiences. Naschy seems a bit burly and beetle-browed for Dracula but he brings dignity and noble bearing--and a tragic loneliness--to the character. The film moves along at a fairly fast clip although it bogs down from time to time, particularly when the women travelers wander aimlessly over the asylum's interiors and grounds for days on end. Some of the scenes are clumsily constructed; at least one scene shows Dracula and his vampire coven walking in broad daylight, complete with blue sky. In another scene, two vampire women leap up to a window ledge to the accompaniment of a silly slide-whistle sound effect. But there are some genuinely spooky scenes as well, and the film's earnestness is apparent throughout. Give Naschy an "A" for effort and a "B" for execution, which are high marks indeed for any low-budget Eurohorror.

CRAZIES, THE (1973). Starring Lane Carroll, W. G. McMillan, Harold Wayne Jones, Lloyd Hollar, Lynn Lowry, Richard Liberty, Richard France, Harry Spillman, Will Disney. Written and directed by George A. Romero. A scientifically created virus gets loose in a small town outside Pittsburgh. The story is then told from the viewpoints of the military officers sent to contain it and a group of locals trying to escape the quarantine. Romero has consistently proved himself to be, at the very least, a competent filmmaker, but few of his recent efforts have been able to match his earlier work for sheer horrific intensity. This is a good example of the latter, a typical combination of graphic violence and social and political commentary. In this film, and his first two zombie films (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead), Romero managed to belie the low budget   atmosphere through crisp dialogue, nicely natural performances (for the most part) and violent scenes that have a tendency to jump out at the viewer, making them all the more unsettling, and creating, in the process, a real sense of how different people might react to each other under such extreme circumstances. This is the thing that helps set his films apart from the many imitators that would follow. It is particularly effective that he chooses to tell the story from two different viewpoints, as represented by the military and the civilians. A tense, dramatic horror-thriller, with a healthy dose of tragedy to boot. Originally released as Code Name: Trixie, "Trixie" being the rather whimsical name given to the virus.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

CRY OF THE BANSHEE (1970). Starring Vincent Price, Elisabeth Bergner, Essy Persson, Hugh Griffith, Hilary Dwyer, Sally Geeson, Patrick Mower. Directed by Gordon Hessler. In medieval times, local magistrate Price seeks to protect the townspeople from Satanic witches by systematically killing them off. And when I say "them," I mean both the witches and the townspeople, because he seems to think that the two are mutually exclusive. Trouble starts when a real witch sets a curse on his family, sending a murderous beast after them. Price really was a fine actor, despite his tendency towards a certain pork-based product. His performance in this film isn't one of his best, but it's also not nearly as over the top as it could have been. Similar in theme to another of Price's costume horror films, The Conqueror Worm. While not quite as successful as that film, this is still a decent little horror chiller, though the story has very little to do with the actual legend of the Banshee, which I found a little disappointing, being a devotee of folklore. It's obvious that we're supposed to see this as something of an indictment of the class system, but the emphasis here is definitely on sex. The long held belief that much of the persecution of witches through the ages has been mainly about the menfolk's fear of their own sexual desires is hammered home here, with bodice-ripping occurring in just about every other scene. Speaking of hammering, it's quite clear that the producers were shooting for a "House of Hammer" ambiance and they are pretty much successful. The story gets a bit confusing at times, but it does score in atmosphere and gratuitous nudity. While watching the animated opening credit sequence, I kept thinking how much it looked exactly like something out of a Monty Python sketch. And lo and behold, there it was in the credits: "Titles--Terry Gilliam." It makes sense, as this film was made right before the beginning of the "Flying Circus" series, so he would have been in England at the time and would have had to pay the rent somehow.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL (1957). Starring Gloria Talbott, John Agar, Arthur Shields, John Dierkes. Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Talbott and fiancé Agar head to her ancestral home to celebrate her twenty-first birthday and announce their engagement to her legal guardian (Shields), an old colleague of her father's. Problem is he's got some news for them as well: her dear departed Dad was, in fact, the legendary Dr. Jekyll and was branded a murderer by the townsfolk and staked to death. When a new series of murders begin in the woods surrounding the village, Gloria suspects that she has inherited her father's murderous urge. Typically unusual Ulmer fare attempts to meld the Jekyll and Hyde story with lycanthropy, astral projection and even a bit of vampire lore with uneasy results. While this certainly isn't anything particularly special, Talbott does her standard Fifties scream queen bit, Agar does his expected stone-faced hero schtick, Ulmer sets some good atmosphere and even manages to slip in a brief cheesecake scene.so what's not to like? Some classic horror fans are bound to be put off by the director's quirkier touches, but those accustomed to his offbeat sensibilities should find it an entertaining enough way to kill an hour and change. Oh yeah, try to ignore the fact that the film gives away its ending in the very first scene for the sake of a cheap joke (oh, that Ulmer.).--Reviewed by Marc Beschler 

DAY THE WORLD ENDED, THE (1956). Starring Richard Denning, Lori Nelson, Adele Jurgens, Paul Birch, Touch (Mike) Connors, Raymond Hatton, Paul Dubov, Jonathan Haze, Paul Blaisdell. Directed by Roger Corman. "What you are about to see may never happen.but to this anxious age in which we live, it presents a fearsome warning.Our story begins with "THE END! BOOM!!" So begins this slightly schlocky, but still entertaining Corman sci-fi drama (or as I called it to a filmmaker friend of mine a "Corman quickie," to which he responded "Isn't that redundant?") about a group of diverse people gathered together at a house after a nuclear war. As if they weren't having enough trouble just getting along, there's also a mutated monster roaming about outside (designed and played by genre favorite Blaisdell). There has been much speculation about the possibility that Corman is something of an overpraised hack, who, despite his undeniable ability to spot talent behind the camera (Coppola, Scorsese, Demme, etc.), doesn't really have much of it himself. This film neither particularly proves nor particularly disproves that possibility. Sure, there's some MST3K-able material here (you can find that in any film if you're clever and/or witty enough), but on the whole this is actually quite effective, with some unexpectedly vivid characterizations. I was also surprised to find that the film was even more engaging on my second viewing, which I hadn't anticipated at all. So I guess the debate can rage on. Mike Connors (at this point he was still going by the odd name of "Touch") plays the kind of smarmy creep here that he would later take such pleasure in punching out on Mannix.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

DEAD TALK BACK, THE (1957--never released theatrically). A "new" Fifites horror film, never shown in theaters, discovered by Greg Luce of Sinister Cinema. This dicovery deserves to be an immediate cult classic--an Ed Wood film not directed or written by Ed Wood. It has all the Woodsian touches--cheapjack production values (the opening and closing credits were hand scrawled on a piece of construction paper), shoddy sets, stilted performances by untalented amatures, dubious voice and sound effects dubbing on silently-shot footage, sappy dialogue with the trademark Ed Wood non-sequitur comments, and a paranormal private eye narrator whose florid phrasing makes him a sort of cut-rate Criswell. To add to the film's confusion, there's another narrator--a cop-type who took his cues from Dragnet. When an oldish, plumpish model is murdered by a crossbow, the private eye tries to help the cops find the culprit with the use of a "radio" he invented that communicates with the dead. The suspects are the dead woman's fellow lodgers in a boarding house, and all of them look like they were hired right off the street. They flub their dialogue, read laboriously from cue cards, and look rather uncomfortable with the whole thing. The cop characters do deadpan Joe Friday imitations, with occasional tough-guy scenery-chewing thrown in. The only cast member who seems able to turn in a decent performance is the actress protraying the murdered woman, and she's on screen only a short time. Surprisingly, the camera work is competent (albeit with occasional poor framing), and the scenes with sound are actually in sinc. Night scenes rely on a single floodlight, but at least they aren't fakey day-for-night renderings. According to Luce, this bottom-of-the-barrel bottom-biller was supposed to be released by Headliner Productions, which shelved it instead. Too bad. Ed Wood would have found he had kindred souls in the off-Hollywood film scene.

DEMENTIA 13 (1963). Francis Ford Coppola wrote and directed this quickie for A.I.P. in 1963 with a cast and crew borrowed from Roger Corman's production of The Young Racersshocker that stars A.I.P. vet Luana Anders as a young . It's a very creepy and effective woman trying to conceal her hubby's death from a heart attack from his family's matriarch, lest she get excluded from a considerable will. She tries to get on the elder woman's good graces by producing evidence that she is in spiritual league with the family's beloved little girl Kathleen, who drowned in the dark waters of the pond at the family's Irish castle. When she is axed to death getting out of the pond, suspicion falls on the whole family, but who did it? The ascot-wearing Billy (Bart Patton) who still has nightmares, or the hot-headed sculptor Richard (William Campbell)? Well, I won't tell you here, so see this effective chiller by all means. It remains one of A.I.P.'s most durable and gleefully sinister films of the Sixties (it runs slightly over a whopping 70 minutes), and features a wonderful cast lead by the always excellent Anders and Campbell, and Patrick Magee, as the family doctor, adds a wonderfully droll presence. Mary Mitchell (as Campbell¹s fiancé) and Karl Schanzer (as a poacher) were both in Jack Hill's brilliant Spider Baby and Hill himself was Coppola's second unit director here. There¹s a endearingly cheap but atmospheric look to the film that tends to rise above some less than inspired scenes (Anders as a duplicitous and defrauding blonde and her subsequent demise are too reminiscent of Psycho, at that time only three years old), but the film is so streamlined and so well written that it's shortcomings are more than easy to forgive, and Ronald Stein's harpsichord-driven score is perhaps his most memorable. VCI's video of this film also includes the original trailer--a jaw-dropper ("A miasma of madness!") complete with a William Castle-style gimmick that features "Dr. William J.Ryan, M.D" and his special test to determine your ability to withstand shock (those who do not pass this test will not be allowed to see features trailers for Target Earth, a letterboxed Dementia 13!). The tape also inexplicably trailer for which a hypnotist sticks needles into a woman Horrors of The Black Museum (in volunteer's arm), and trailers for The Headless Ghost and Gorgo.--Reviewed By Nick Burton.

DERANGED (1974) An obscure little film based largely on the Ed Gein case of the 1950's. Roberts Blossom stars as Ezra Cobb, a mild mannered farmer who goes batty following his mothers death. All alone and left to his own devices, Ezra seeks out female companionship. Unable to fraternize with the opposite sex, he murders them and brings them home as company for Mama's preserved corpse. As horror films go, this isn't bad. The script is more than adequate and the acting is quite good, especially Blossom, his effective performance is the highlight of the film. This version of the Gein story("Psycho" and the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" were supposedly based on the same case) is the most faithful. Features early makeup FX by Tom Savini, which are effectively realistic. OK film, worth a rental. If you can find it that is--it's a rarity.--Reviewed by Ian Glavine.

DEVIL DOLL (1964). You’d think a flick that features a "living" ventriloquist’s dummy, a mad hypnotist who uses mesmerism to have his way with a nubile young woman, and a low-rent London background would at least yield some sleazy fun, right? Wrong! This black-and-white obviously low-budgeter manages to make "My Dinner With Andre" seem like pulse-pounding excitement. Even an overripe female assistant wearing a skimpy costume with absolutely no bottom to it can’t liven up this film. In one scene, we watch the hero, an American reporter working for a Brit tabloid (!) dial a phone. He laboriously dials the phone, number by number, for nearly three minutes of dead-air time. The "living" dummy theme was done better, far better, on TV’s The Twilight Zone. Even "sleepy"-sex fetishists will get sleepy watching this snoozer. Pass!

DIABOLIQUE (1954).  This film has been called "the greatest film that Alfred Hitchcock never made." The 1996 remake starring Sharon Stone has been panned as "dreadful." I disagree with both of those statements. Diabolique, made in France in 1954, is a great classic in psychological terror, but it is not at all Hitchcockian. At least not in the directing style. If anything it's a nod to American noir, with a bit of German expressionism tossed in. The bold sexual situations are all French. Diabolique has been remade three times: as Reflections Of Murder (1974), House Of Secrets (1993) and Diabolique (1996). I haven't seen the first two remakes, but dammit, I liked the most recent one. It's campy and overwrought, but that's the fun of it. The original Diabolique isn't campy or overwrought: it's played for keeps. And after all these years, it still holds up. Writer-director Henri-Georges Clouzot's story is set in a provincial boys school run with an iron fist by headmaster Michel Delasalle (Paul Meurisse). A hard-hearted philanderer, he becomes the target of a murder plot concocted by his long-suffering wife Christina (Vera Clouzot, the director's spouse) and his mistress, a chain-smoking ice princess played to perfection by Simone Signoret. A dark, pulse-pounding thriller with a much-imitated shock ending, Diabolique is a masterpiece of Grand Guignol suspense. Even today, the openness with which the sex and murder is dealt with, is a tad shocking (in one scene, a young student speculates on the love triangle with blase curiosity). The murder scene is starkly violent. If you wind up buying Diabolique on video or DVD, look for the version with 12 minutes of additional footage -- and definitely avoid the dubbed version! This film deserves to be heard in its original native language.--Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson

DIE, MONSTER, DIE! (1965). When an American (Nick Adams) travels to Britian to visit his fiance (Suzan Farmer), he is met at the door of the creepy ancestrial mansion by Boris Kaloff. Unsurprisingly, the Yank interloper discovers mutated plants and animals, a mother-in-law-to-be (Freda Jackson) who definitely needs a major makeover, and, finally, gets chased by Karloff when the latter gets a bit too much exposure to a mysterious meteorite. American-International made a few "literary" horrors without Roger Corman (this film is based on H. P. Lovecraft's The Color Out Of Space), and this is one of their better efforts. Make-up and special effects are not groundbreaking, even for the timeframe the film was produced in, but they are effective and the film is fast-paced and provides a few nice shocks. Karloff is in fine form, even from a wheelchair, and Nick Adams (best known from The Rebel television series) is a capable hero, although he at times sounds as if he hails from Flatbush. The film is somewhat reminescent of Karloff's classic The Invisble Ray, and Jackson's impromptu meltdown when exposed to rain recalls The Wizard Of Oz. One step inside this mutant mansion, however, is enough to convince anyone that they're not in Kansas anymore.

DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965). Starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Roy Castle, Max Adrian, Michael Gough, Donald Sutherland, Neil McCallum, Edward Underdown, Ursula Howells, Jeremy Kemp, Bernard Lee. Directed by Freddie Francis. Allow me to begin by recommending a sound spanking for whoever suggested the title. It makes it sound like some kind of mad scientist/torture chamber movie, when it is, in fact, a horror anthology from Amicus Studios, very much in the vein of Tales From The Crypt though predating director Francis' own Crypt adaptation by seven years. Six strangers gather in a train car. One of them is Cushing, playing Dr. Schreck, an occultist, who proceeds by way of a deck of tarot cards to predict the future of the other five men. (Incidentally, he explains that his name translates from the German as "terror" and that he calls his tarot deck his "house of horrors," hence the title. What, did the producers promise someone they would make a movie with this title and then had to come up with some contrived way to make it fit? Sheesh.) All that aside, this is a pretty good film and might even have been a great film if most of the stories, by Milton Subotsky (who would also work on the later Tales from.), didn't feel rather rushed. The first has McCallum as a man renovating a house rumored to have been inhabited by a werewolf (named, curiously enough, Valdemar, just one letter away from "Waldemar," the name of Paul Naschy's werewolf character). Both this segment and the fourth, with Lee as an art critic pursued by the dismembered hand of an artist, are solid enough, but feel as if they should have gone on a bit longer. Similar things could be said about the second, in which Freeman plays a homeowner whose house is attacked by a mysterious bit of vegetation. This moves along at a perfectly good clip and then ends remarkably abruptly. And the last bit, Sutherland's vampire tale, careens through the story like a driver with a lead foot. The one exception is the third tale with Castle as a flaky musician (is that redundant?) coming to regret misappropriating, or if you prefer more modern parlance, sampling music from a voodoo ceremony (wouldn't it be fun to see an updated version of that starring Puff Daddy or Master P?). Not only is this segment given time to evolve and play itself through, it also manages to incorporate nice bits of humor and even brief bit of self-reference (Castle stumbles by a poster of the film at one point). The strength of this segment, unfortunately, underscores what's wrong with the other four. Each one has its own virtues, but none hit the mark quite like this one. Lest I protest too much, allow me to emphasize that I did like this film. One of the reasons for this is that it has what many of its type can't seem to manage: a good framing device. Though their scenes together are brief, it's always nice to see two veterans like Cushing and Lee playing off of each other, Cushing doing a German accent and Lee behaving more British than I've ever seen him before as the snobby critic. In fact, limited as it is, the interaction of the men in the car, their disparate personalities mingling, rings remarkably true and makes the terrific ending all the more potent. Horror anthologies seem to be difficult to make well (though I'm still at a loss as to why), but this one has enough things going for it to make it worth watching.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

DR. X (1932). Every element of the horror genre pops up in this early Technicolor film starring Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill and directed by Michael Curtiz of Casablanca fame. The smart aleck reporter, the disfigured killer, the mad scientist, the creepy house, the sinister servant and baffled police, all somehow figure into this murder-comedy-old dark house-movie from Vitaphone Pictures. Clichés are everywhere, but they brought a smile of recognition to my face, rather than ruining the dramatic tension. The laboratory scenes are as good as Bride of Frankenstein’s and Atwill’s performance is at his best. The Technicolor print is washed out so that everything has a sepia look to it, and damage has occurred at the beginning and end of each reel, but it is very watchable. Well worth an hour and 18 minutes of your time. This review was from a Laserdisc copy. --Reviewed by Robert Andrews

DRACULA (1931). Historically important as the original Hollywood horror movie (as opposed to mystery or suspense thriller) that opened the crypt door to the horror film genre we know and enjoy today. Unfortunately, it does suffer from the well-documented flaws of (1) no music track (aside from "Swan Lake" played during the opening credits), (2) a fixed camera recording what is merely a stage play, and (3) performances appropriate to the theater stage, not the sound stage. However, there is glorious (soon to be Universal Studio’s trademark) atmosphere and imposing sets and a truly immortal (not to say undead) signature portrayal by the one-and-only Bela Lugosi. The first reel is spooky and fun; its the rest of the film, where the action stops dead and we’re treated to a drawing-room melodrama that, well, bites. Todd Browning is believed not to have directed the last six reels of this film (cinematographer Karl Freund is commonly credited or discredited, as you prefer), and Renfield will certainly buy that. There’s also a performance by some actor named Fly pr Frye or something that almost does justice to your truly. Despite its flaws, it is an absolute must-have for any horror fan’s video vault. Se