TARGETS (1968).   Roger "Never waste an inch of film" Corman took outtakes from 1963's The Terror and asked Peter Bogdanovich to make a feature from them.  A tough assignment, especially when you consider that The Terror is itself one long outtake.  But Bogdanovich was up to the task.  He used the outtakes as background and instead created a brilliant study of real modern terror.  While Boris Karloff's somewhat semi-autobiographical horror star wearily contemplates retirement from the silver screen since the classic monsters don't scare audiences anymore, a real-life monster readies for a bloodbath.  He is a clean-cut young WASP with a gun fetish, a somewhat too overbearing mother and father and wife (he and his spouse live at his parents' house and seem more like brother and sister than a married couple), and a demon locked deep within his smiling, respectful facade.  He finally snaps, shoots his wife and mother in one of the most shocking scenes ever filmed at the time and then calmly packs a lunch and more ammo in order to begin shooting drivers randomly on the freeway.   He just happens to flee from the encircling police to the very drive-in where Karloff's horror actor is making a personal appearance (and those The Terror outtakes are flickering on the screen).  In the film's shining cinematic climax, the classic and stately Old Horror meets the brash and artless New Horror and slaps its face.   Bogdanovich's expose of the modern psycho who doesn't have a monstrous look or manner is masterful as are his scenes where he (in an acting role as a director) and Karloff cuss and discuss the latter's place in modern cinema.  Karloff gives a fine and personable performance, mainly because he liked young Peter B. almost as much as he loathed Corman by that time.  Indeed, Bogdanovich outdid the pinch-penny low-budget master, Roger Corman himself, in showing how a film can be made so well that the question of its final cost simply doesn't arise.  Targets, given only a limited release because the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy at the time made the film's subject matter too hot to handle, has finally been given the re-appraisal it has long deserved.  It's a powerful film and truly a scary one, because its monster still stalks the land.

TEENAGE MONSTER (1957). In the (mercifully) short list of monster- westerns (Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter, Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula, The Undead), this is far and away the most amusing—especially since it has a "teenage" angle to (cowboy) boot. A kid whose home is on the range gets exposed to a meteorite and mutates to a hairy goon. Mom hides him in her rambling house (in which he wanders rather openly). Unfortunately, an unfaithful female companion does him dirty, the T.M. does away with her, and a rootin’-tootin’ cowboy does some rootin’-tootin’ shootin’. The End. Still, it’s almost mesmerizing to watch such an unholy mix of genres done in that low-budget TV-bred style peculiar to some films made in the late Fifties. You almost expect "The Rifleman" or "Cheyenne" to come sashaying in at any moment. By the way, the T.M. has a speech impediment that some of those making this turkey knew would render him instantly laughable, but the producers kept it in, anyway. Poco loco!

TERROR, THE (AKA Castle Of Terror, Lady Of The Shadows, and The Haunting, 1963).  Trying to get a straight answer from director Roger Corman on how he made this horror potluck proved to be far more than a terror than the film.  First he said he did it himself with Boris Karloff owing him a few day's more work after The Raven and wrapped it in three days.  Then persistent film writers badgered him into admitting it took months and the assistance of other directors, most prominent of these Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Hill.  Then it turned out that actor Jack Nicholson directed some scenes, too!  (Corman failed to give anyone but himself on-screen directorial credit, of course.)  At any rate, this is pure monster mush.  Nicholson in likely his only awful performance (trust Corman to achieve that distinction) plays a French Officer from the Napoleonic Wars (sort of) looking for his girlfriend (Sandra Knight) and finds her in a gloomy old mansion along with her father (Karloff) and their one and only servant (Dick Miller).  The result is rather like House Of Usher afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.  The film passed through so many hands that it's terribly disjointed, the plot is confusing and only serves to offer up very low-intensity scares.   In fact, The Terror looks like it was slapped together in three days, although we know now it wasn't.  The film is hard to sit through for even one viewing.  There's not a soupcon of humor or tongue-in-cheek self-awareness in the film to provide some relief; instead, the actors plod through the potboiler plot with grim seriousness.  With little preparation and three days only of involvement, poor Karloff had to be completely clueless as to what he was acting in.  He gives the usual fine performance but somehow appears to be reading from a different script from Nicholson, Knight, and Miller.  No one, not even Karloff, is convincing as Nineteenth Century figures and atmosphere is nonexistent.  It's highly apropos that this turkey was set in the time of Napoleon, since Corman, following his success with the Poe films, here meets his Waterloo.  Speaking of water, when one sees Karloff in the film splashing around a chamber filling with water, one can imagine him silently praying that this would be his last Corman-directed (sort of) production.  It was.

TERROR IS A MAN (AKA Blood Creature, 1959). A remake of the classic 1933 Island Of Lost Souls, this is, ironically, the only Filipino horror flick released Stateside in black and white, and it's also by far the best.  Utilizing an intelligent script and the talents of Francis Lederer (who took a "bite" at playing Dracula the previous year in the uneven but interesting The Return Of Dracula).  Here, Lederer is no bloodthirsty "fang"-ster but a dedicated, even obsessed, scientist who has discovered a terrific secret and feels obliged to unravel it, even if it means horrific surgery and dreadful experiments on human beings.  A shipwrecked passenger in a lifeboat drifts ashore the island where the good doctor resides and soon discovers the doctor's pretty wife and a not-so-pretty panther-human creature who kills and maims and generally expresses it's disapproval of vivisection.  The doctor's drunken assistant makes passes at the doctor's wife, beats up the bound panther-human, and this stirs the pot sufficiently to bring down all the doctor's good intentions and bad practices (he wants to breed a better humanoid creature, one not weighed down with the emotional and spiritual baggage that non-clawed human carry with them).  Lederer's tormented and frustrated genius who gave up the comforts of life the pursue his great work actually earns the viewer's sympathy as does the panther-human, when it's not killing someone.  All the other players are serviceable, but Lederer is clearly the standout--this is his film.  The photography is excellent, both moody black and white in the finest film noir tradition and crystal clear contrast when the scene calls for it.  There's even some good makeup effects for the time, a dollop of gore, some sexy poses from the ladies in the company and even a color sequence--everything an above-average B-horror should have.  It's too bad that later Filipino fright films couldn't have kept this standard up.  Speaking of which, the name of the isle that Lederer and company occupy is Blood Island...which provides a direct link to the later Filipino blood, beasts, breasts, and John Ashley epics in the "Blood Island Trilogy."  They should have quit when they were ahead.         

.TERROR OF THE TONGS, THE (1961). Hammer Studio's foray into authentic historical horror (as opposed to mythical horror) was brief but memorable. First was The Stranglers Of Bombay (see "Two Obscure Hammers" article), followed up by this film, featuring torture and blood, this time around in vivid Technicolor. Terror benefits from the aforementioned color photography, a rousing James Benard score, orchestrated by John Hollingsworth, and a tight, fast-moving script by Jimmy Sangster. In the film a ship's captain takes on the dreaded "Red Dragon Tong" in turn-of-the-century Hong Kong when his daughter is murdered by the bamboo organized crime ring. Christopher Lee gives a commanding and magisterial performance as the Tong leader--a foreshadowing of his portrayal of Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu in the later and much-inferior Harry Alan Towers series. Yvonne Molnaur (the heroine of Brides Of Dracula) is fetching in a black wig as a half-caste concubine aiding the seafaring hero. But that hero is played woodenly by Geoffrey Toone, who scarcely changes expression when he sees his dead daughter or when the Tong tortures him with needles (ouch!). Anthony Bushell's direction is spotty and sporadic, giving one the impression that the editing along gives the film its movement. Still, it's an early Hammer, so there's the usual lush sets and authentic period detail...and just a few dollops of blood and gore. Bert Kwok ("Kato" from the "Pink Panther" films) makes a brief but memorable appearance. All in all, this is quite inferior to Stranglers, but worth a look for Lee and Mulnar and the Hammer set-piece professionalism.

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, THE (1974). Starring Marilyn Burns; Allen Danziger; Paul A. Partain; and William Vail. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the original slasher films. Unlike the current crop of slasher films, like Scream, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a little more low budget. Actually, that is an understatement. Chainsaw Massacre makes the original Halloween look as if it was shot on a budget the size of Titanic. This is one cheesy movie. Cheesy camera shots, cheesy locations and even cheezier (is that a word?) acting, if you can even call it acting. Even with that all said, Chainsaw Massacre wasn't as bad as I though it was going to turn out to be. I'm not sure whether it was the fact that I appreciated that it was one of the original classic slasher horror films, or if it was the fact that it was just so bad that it was almost good. Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter. Chainsaw Massacre focuses on a group of teenagers out for a drive who go to explore an abandoned property owned by one of their parents. In the true tradition of horror films, this turns out to be a mistake. It turns out that this old house has some neighbors nearby who aren't that friendly. Among them is a kindly gent named Leatherface who has a tendency to cut people up with a chainsaw. Never an endearing quality in a neighbor. Anyway, you can undoubtedly figure out from the title of the film what good old Leatherface ends up doing to these poor unsuspecting teenagers. As I said, the acting, writing, camera work, and just about everything else you can think of is so low budget that a kid with a camcorder could almost have done a better job. But that is sort of the sick charm of this little film. Although, Scream it is not. If you are interested in watching Chainsaw Massacre for nonstop terror, keep right on going past this title in the video store. On the other hand, if you are looking for a few laughs (albeit unintentional) and a kind of historical perspective on the genre, give Chainsaw Massacre a look. At the very least you will appreciate just how far these films have come over the years. --Reviewed by Joe Chamberlain

THING WITH TWO HEADS, THE (1972, 93 min.). Starring Ray Milland, Rosey Grier, Don Marshall, Roger Perry, Chelsea Brown. Directed by Lee Frost. Bigoted transplant specialist Milland, dying of cancer, arranges to try his radical new technique on himself. This involves removing his head from his body, transplanting it onto another body, allowing time for the new head to bond to the spine and then removing the other head, effectively killing the body's original "occupant." As such they need a participant who's just about ready to shuffle off this mortal coil anyway (though frankly Milland's character doesn't seem like he would be all that averse to cold-blooded murder). They send a message to the local death row, offering one of the inmates a chance to give his death some meaning by donating his body to science. As they're told they'll still live for about another month (the length of the bonding process) Grier, who maintains his innocence and has friends on the outside who are on the verge of proving it (they only need about- wait for it- another month), volunteers. Milland is in a coma in seriously bad shape and the operation needs to be done immediately. So when Grier is delivered and Milland's morally-conflicted right hand man (Marshall) sees the color of his skin, he realizes that it's now or never and that Milland, if he wants to survive the disease killing his body, will just have to deal with the racist disease infecting his mind later. Not surprisingly Milland is not quite so clear-headed (hee, hee, "head") about the whole thing when he wakes up. Grier for his part is also not terribly happy with the situation, having awoken to find an extra appendage on his shoulders and an unpleasant, hate-spewing one at that. It's not too long before Grier busts out of the lab they're keeping him in and, with another doctor (Perry) in tow as his hostage, makes a break for it determined both to prove his innocence and to get a little taken off the top, about four pounds worth. A peculiar meld of the mad scientist and on-the-lam genres, Thing doesn't quite make it as either. I recall seeing stills from this film in Cracked Magazine many years ago and that's completely fitting as some of this is clearly intended to be funny. The problem is sometimes it's hard to tell which parts are intentional and which aren't and even some of the deliberate bits of humor fail owing to the ham-handed delivery. There's a lengthy chase sequence that starts off quite well at a motorbike race, but then degenerates into one police car after another rolling over, falling off cliffs and generally crashing (well, that's AIP for you). Given the oddball premise the performances are surprisingly good and this certainly qualifies as a schlocky novelty, and would do so for the many scenes of Milland peering crabbily over Grier's shoulder alone, but ultimately it's just not really all that interesting.--Reviewed by Marc Beschler

TWINS OF EVIL (1971). Conclusion to the Karnstein trilogy (following THE VAMPIRE LOVERS and LUST OF A VAMPIRE). Those Collinson sisters are real twins and former Playboy models. They can't act, but you've probably guessed that already. Peter Cushing more than makes up for the silliness in the script with his strong performance (one of his best) as Gustav Weil, fanatic leader of a puritan brotherhood, notorious for its nightly witchhunts. The whole village of Karnstein trembles wiht fear when the brotherhood rides out. Meanwhile strange things are going on up at Castle Karnstein...they say the young count worships the devil. Plothole: Who killed the villagers before count Karnstein was turned into a vampire? I find it amusing that Peter Cushing, of all people, in this film must be taught the correct methods for destroying vampires! Signs of decline were begin to show by then, but still fine entertainment. One of my favorite Hammer videos.--Reviewed by Henrik Larsen

UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE (1959; also released as Hard Times For Vampires, Hard Times For Dracula, and My Uncle The Vampire). Having a black sheep in the family is bad enough, but just imagine one with fangs! A penniless Italian count is visited by his German uncle (Christopher Lee), but what the uncle doesn't know is that the nephew was forced to sell the family castle to pay back taxes (the castle is now a resort and the nephew is the bellhop) and what the nephew doesn't know is...well, that uncle is a vampire. When the vampirish uncle passes his curse on to the nephew, the latter finally makes it with the female guests--but not in the way he hoped to. This horror-comedy is pretty silly and the scares are perfunctory. However, this is a well-mounted production, with a glorious Mediterranean backdrop and there are a few cute moments (such as when the nephew prepares a sort of "garlic spray" to ward off his uncle). Lee made this film shortly after Horror Of Dracula, and he clearly enjoys spoofing the role that had already typecast him. Renato Rascel is amusing as the nebbish nephew and his initial delight in his new neck-biting career is quite funny to watch (despite the incongruous sequence when he admires his pointy teeth in a mirror). For some reason, Lee's voice was dubbed over by someone with an Italian accent speaking in an echo chamber. Still, even non Chris Lee-completists will likely find this frothy flick worth a screening. Ironically, this was the only Dracula-type role Lee accepted during the long hiatus between Horror Of Dracula and Dracula, Prince Of Darkness. He has a considerable amount of dialogue here (at least, his dubber has), whereas the next time he donned the black cape (for Hammer Studios), he had none.

UNKNOWN, THE (1927). Sixth of Tod Browning and Lon Chaney, Sr.'s ten 1919-29 collaborations, The Unknown falls between the duo's The Road To Mandalay (1926) and the legendary London After Midnight (1927). Long considered a lost film, The Unknown languished for years in a French archive, where a canister label reading "Unknown" was taken literally. The film's inclusion in the MGM laserdisc set "The Lon Chaney Collection (with Browning's The Unholy Three and Victor Seastrom's He Who Gets Slapped) marks its non-bootleg video debut. The disc's only deficit is a cheesy electronic soundtrack; Philip Johnston's jazz score, commissioned by the American Museum of the Moving Image in the early '90s would have been a superior choice. Chaney plays Alonzo the Armless, a gypsy circus performer who keeps his upper limbs concealed in a torso harness, capitalizing on the dexterity of his feet in a knife-throwing/sharp-shooting act. Alonzo secretly pines for the love of the circus owner's daughter, Nanon (played by an eminently desirable but barely recognizable eighteen-year-old Joan Crawford), who suffers from a phobic aversion to being touched by men. Alonzo mistakes her compassion for his (fraudulent) handicap for romantic attraction, and fears that discovery of his true condition will destroy his chances with her. For Alonzo bears a hidden deformity; he's a strangler marked with two thumbs on his left hand. A misbegotten plan to win Nanon's heart and beat a murder rap triggers a series of events culminating in a bizarrely violent climax. As in the later Freaks, Browning's favored traveling circus milieu constitutes a marginal world, unbounded by the conventions of mainstream society. Here, hands become the objects of a young woman's fear, while disfigurement is cultivated as a sexually attractive attribute. The Unknown gradually unveils itself as a perverse "Gift of the Magi," a morally inverse parable that makes Freaks's vengeance plot seem positively wholesome. While Joan Crawford's performance is undistinguished, the actress later described the transforming effect of her encounter with Chaney: "I became aware for the first time the difference between standing in front of the camera and acting. Until then I had been conscious only of myself. Lon Chaney was my introduction to acting. This concentration, the complete absorption he gave to his characterization filled me with such awe I could scarcely speak to him… Watching him gave me the desire to become a real actress."* Indeed, the distinctive attributes of Chaney's performance-the knit brow, the eyes glowering with inner torment, the lips pursed as if to contain a torrent of emotion--were to become the trademarks of Crawford's screen persona. Crawford's breakthrough was to come the following year, in Our Dancing Daughters. The minimal makeup needed in The Unknown allows Chaney a stunning range of physiognomic expression precluded by the putty and collodion used in his portrayal of the Hunchback and the Phantom. Conversely, the trussed-down arms of the role prevent the actor from exercising the exquisite gestures with which he limned these famous monster characterizations. The use of an armless double (a bit of casting that anticipates Freaks) allows Chaney to appear to use his feet to play guitar, wield weapons, and light cigarettes with a disquieting, preturnatural grace. While the camerawork and staging are typical of Browning's lackluster visuals, the story unfolds with economy, and Chaney's frequent closeups always serve the narrative. In Hollywood Gothic, author David Skal attributes Browning's career-long propensity for slipshod execution of powerful material to the director's alcoholism, which led to his being blacklisted for two years in the early Twenties. (Despite the sauce, Browning managed to outlive Chaney by thirty-two years, meeting his maker in 1962.) In its layering of ironies, enduring shock value, and crisp storytelling, The Unknown excels the better-known Chaney vehicles, The Hunchback Of Norte Dame and The Phantom Of The Opera--Reviewed By Michael Draine

VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA, THE (1960; also released as L'Amante Del Vampiro, The Love Of The Vampire). The only B&W Italian horror film that turns up on basic cable, Renato Polselli's cheap but fun The Vampire And The Ballerinas holds a pivotal place in the Eurotrash canon. Released prior to, and filmed at roughly the same time as Mario Bava's Black Sunday (which is generally credited with launching the Italian horror cycle), The Vampire And The Ballerina shares Black Sunday's Gothic visual style. While there's plenty to laugh at in Ballerina (including buxom "ballerinas" in black tights and fishnet stockings writhing to Aldo Piga's Incredibly Strange music), the film's complete lack of irony abets its oneiric attributes. Particularly fascinating is a corpse-eye view of a vampire's burial that duplicates the dream sequence in Carl Dreyer's Vampyr (1932). Walter Brandi's rubber mask may have the pathetic air of a dimestore Halloween display, but such a grotesque depiction of the vampire had not been attempted since Nosferatu (1922). Brandi went on to star in The Playgirls And The Vampire (1960) and Slaughter Of The Vampires (1962). Despite the wooden acting, bad dubbing, and starvation budgets, Italian horror films of the Sixties exude an eroticism that eluded American and British efforts. Hollywood films of this time are stifling chaste, while the Hammer product radiates a cold, leering misogyny that precludes any real sense of passion. A dark eros suffuses the master-slave relationship between Brandi's vampire coachman and his ageless, Bathory-like mistress. The motif of the female vampire has its precedent in Ricardo Freda's primitive The Devil's Commandment (I Vampiri, 1957) but had barely been touched in American cinema. While Redemption Video's announced DVD of The Vampire And The Ballerina was scuttled by a rights conflict, Polselli's The Reincarnation Of Isabel (1972) is on their fall release schedule. --Reviewed by Michael Draine

VAMPIRE BAT, THE (1933). This is a atmospheric, semi-Gothic vampire film from the early Thirties that many folks confuse as one of Universal Studio's classic monster offerings--but it isn't.  It was produced by a low-budget studio (Majestic Pictures) but shot on Universal's standing sets (including its "European village set" from Frankenstein) and it stars Lionel Atwill and Dwight Frye, so the confusion is understandable.  But most of the cast, most conspicuously early "scream queen" Fay Wray and matinee smoothie Melvin Douglas, definitely didn't hail from Universal's rosters.  This was the third horrific teaming of Atwill and Wray (their first two horror film outings were Warner Brother's Doctor X and Mystery Of The Wax Museum).  Atwill is at his suavely evil best as a village doctor who investigates a series of deaths where the victim are drained of blood and have two puncture marks on their necks...suggestive?  Wray is a spunky bit of eye-candy who screams perfectly on cue, Frye reprises his loony bit as Renfield in Dracula (this time around, he adores bats rather than spiders or flies, but doesn't eat them), and Douglas offers sturdy support both as non-superstitious hero and a wooer of Ms. Wray's character.  The murders are performed in appropriately gloomy settings and there's even a village mob scene which ends up with Frye's character, Herman, taking a nasty tumble.  And the ending is somewhat suspenseful, although the explanation of the murders don't exactly awe and amaze today (and probably didn't even when this film was first screened).  Yet, it's also awfully creaky in spots with much too much dialogue, dashes of retarded humor, and an incongruous contrast between the peasants and the amazingly sophisticated gentry.  Director Frank Strayer (he was best known for directing many of Columbia's "Blondie" movies) opts for an episodic composition rather than a smooth story flow.  Screenwriter Edward T. Lowe, Jr., can't seem to make up his mind whether this is a horror film or mystery movie, but he later did much better when he scripted House Of Frankenstein and House Of Dracula.   Considering the cast, it could have been and should have been much better.   Still, there's the cast and if you can relax your critical faculties, this film can be creepy fun.  Since it was produced by a long-defunct Gower Gulch outfit, surviving copies of The Vampire Bat tend to be less than pristine.           

WEST OF ZANZIBAR (1928).  Starring Lon Chaney, Mary Nolan, Lionel Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Jane Daly (Jacqueline Gadsdon), Roscoe Ward, Kalla Pasha, Curtis Nero. Directed by Tod Browning. Lon Chaney was deservedly one of the most celebrated of the silent film actors. Through a combination of ingenious makeup and incredible expressiveness, he was able to transform himself in ways that to this day still manage to amaze, creating impressions ranging from heartrending compassion to the strangest and most unsettling of evils. It is not surprising, particularly from the latter, that director Tod Browning, with his fascination with the bizarre, chose to work with him in so many films. In this film, Chaney plays a crippled man running a scam operation in Africa with one thing on his mind- ruining the man (Barrymore) who destroyed his legs and his life. In particularly diabolical fashion, he sets his sights on debasing the man's daughter (Nolan). A typically animated performance from Chaney is complimented by the dark symbolism of the jungle as depicted by Browning, the man who would later bring us such films as Dracula (1931) and the astonishing, unforgettable Freaks (1932). While this is really just as much of a melodrama (and an effective one at that) as it is a horror film, the macabre talents of these two men make it essential viewing for the horror completist. I know that there are some people out there who equate 'silent' with 'boring' which is really a shame, because they're robbing themselves of seeing little gems like this one. If you are unfamiliar with silent horror, Browning or Chaney, this wouldn't be a bad place to start. It's a good story, it's atmospheric as hell and it's only a little over an hour long, for God's sake! You can't spare an hour out of your busy schedule to expand your horizons, hotshot? C'mon. Watch it. And if you still don't like silent horror, in the words of Homer Simpson, then we'll argue some more. --Reviewed by Marc Beschler

VAMPYRES (1974).  An independent British production reissued as Blood Hunger and Vampyres: Daughters Of Darkness, Joseph (Jose) Larraz's entrancing, decadent Vampyres draws the viewer into an elliptical narrative centered about a lesbian vampire couple (Marianne Morris and Anulka Dziubinska) who seduce and dispatch male travelers serial killer-fashion. Essentially a soft-porn Gothic steeped in art-film style, Vampyres lies closer to the fever dreams of French vampire film auteur Jean Rollin (Fascination) than to the straight-ahead action of Hammer horror. The word "vampire" is never uttered, and the vampires' use a knife permits a non-supernatural interpretation. Dark and voluptuous, Marianne Morris summons a compelling screen presence, enhanced by a surprisingly adept dubbing job. The pale waiflike Anulka (who parlayed her May 1973 Playboy appearance into a minor film career that included Listzomania) conveys a desperate hunger with darting, feral body movements.   A substantive supplement includes two trailers, a short director's bio, still gallery, and a highly entertaining commentary by Larraz and producer Brian Smedley-Aston. The urbane Briton Smedley-Aston proves an apt interlocutor to the raunchy, uninhibited Spanish expatriate Larraz.  According to Internet sources, Anchor Bay's 87-minute version is missing 29 seconds from the climactic deaths of a vacationing couple. The scratch-free print is slightly grainy, with deep shadows and a muted, autumnal palette. Though the keepcase notes purport an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, the anamorphic image fills a 16:9 screen. While this crimson-splashed spectacle cannot compare to the elegant romanticism of Roger Vadim's Blood And Roses or Harry Kümel's Daughters Of Darkness, Vampyres remains the most subtle and provocative exploration of the lesbian vampire subgenre yet to emerge from British cinema. --Reviewed by Michael Draine

WHAT! (1965) If you like Bava and atmospheric horror films, look for one of the most unusual of his films: La Frusta E Il Corpo, alternately known as The Whip And The Body, Night Is The Phantom and What! The original uncut version was banned in every country in the world when it was released in 1965. After awhile, censored versions with one of the above titles, appeared in various countries. The plot: a nobleman, Christopher Lee (with the implication of impotence) enjoys whipping his mistress Nevenka, Daliah Lavi, who is also his brother's fiancée, as well as his father's mistress. Lee, it seems, whipped a young village girl to death a few years before and had to flee. He's back now and wants to rekindle his relationship with Nevenka. A few days after he returns his body is found with a dagger in his heart. Nevenka now "senses" the presence of Lee's ghost and continues to suffer nighttime flagellation. The opportunities for the camera to skulk around the decaying castle are obvious. This presents Mario Bava's genius for atmosphere at its best. It is a highly erotic horror film, keeping with the theory that horror is essentially erotic in nature. Christopher Lee has said that this is the best of his Italian films--and he made quite a few! Sinister Cinema has a video of a "mostly" uncut version, but I'm told that the quality isn't too good. --Reviewed by Jay Fenton

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962). Starring Bette Davis,Joan Crawford, Victor Buono, Anna Lee, Marjorie Bennett, Maidie Norman, Dave Willock, Julie Allred, Gina Gillespie. Directed by Robert Aldrich. What with the two stars and the undeniable camp value, this could easily be looked upon as the film that launched a thousand drag queens. But, my love for the bizarre and the absurd aside, that really doesn't do justice to Aldrich's twisted masterpiece. Davis plays the title character, a former child star (which should be setting off bells in your head already), who never made it big as an adult. She's now much older and forced to care for her sister, Crawford, who didn't get much attention when they were young, but went on to become a famous actress, until her career was cut short by an accident which left her paralyzed below the waist and for which everyone claimed that Jane was responsible. Problem is, as a caregiver, Jane leaves a lot to be desired. She spends a bit too much time drinking, fantasizing about the long gone glory of her past and thinking up new and better ways of torturing her sister. While Davis and Crawford are quite good together, credit should be given to Buono (in his screen debut) as well. He plays a struggling musician whom Jane hires to help revitalize her career. He takes the job, thinking he's taking advantage of a feeble woman, not even suspecting what a nutjob she really is. Their scenes together, two incredibly self-absorbed people, each thinking that they're pulling the wool over the other's eyes, are a squirmy delight. Aldrich fills the scenes inside of the sisters' house with a dark, claustrophobic dread, making the final scene on the sunny beach all the more effective. A true classic of modern suspense horror. This film also spearheaded a mini-trend of horror films featuring older actresses, including Aldrich and Davis' exploration into somewhat similar territory, 1964's Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. --Reviewed by Marc Beschler

WIZARD OF GORE, THE (1970). Plot: The stage magician Montag the Magnificent gains attention with his stage act which involves the gory impalement and dismemberment of hypnotzied women -before each act of slaughter is revealed to the audience to all be an illusion. A reporter and his TV critic girlfriend investigate when they find that Montag's stage volunteers are each dying after the performance in exactly the same way as Montag pretends to dismember them on stage. Beginning with `Blood Feast' in 1963, director Herschell Gordon Lewis created the splatter film. Lewis's films are really like porn films. But where porn films are staged around providing a set variety of procreational activities in great detail every few minutes, Lewis's films fixate around the body of a particular individual, usually a woman, who in great detail is dismembered or torn apart every few minutes. `The Wizard of Gore' features some really heavy-duty gore--in a variant on the old sawing a woman in half trick, a magician chainsaws a woman in half; swords are impaled down throats; holes punched through bodies with drill presses; and in the most perverse of all effects--a spike pounded into a woman's head and then her brains pulled out, the magician even reaching in with considerable glee to pop out one of her eyeballs. The lack of conviction to the effects--an appallingly unconvincing dummy head that the spike is pounded into head, the swords down the throat being seen to bend - do not in any way undermine the full-on shock value that Lewis's gore has. Lewis's films are the sort that leave you constantly wondering what possible socially redeeming values they have. Indeed `The Golden Turkey Awards' nominated Lewis for the lifetime achievement as worst director of all time--only to be beaten out by Edward D. Wood Jr. Wizard is filled with all sorts of bad movie-making fascination. Lewis develops this bizarrely heavy-handed style every time he wants to achieve directorial effect - cuts to closeups of Ray Sager's eyebrows and hat filling the whole screen every time the audience are supposed to be being hypnotized or else bizarrely abrupt (and unintentionally funny) cuts in the music to signal the change between illusion and a return to reality. Ray Sager gives an amazingly bad performance with eyes wide open and enunciating everything in virtual upper case. Wizard is usually regarded as the best of Lewis's films because it has a playful double-structure that flips back and forward between reality and illusion and at the end even starts to toy with the illusion of the film itself - something which has given the film a certain academic legitimacy. This play of illusion proves undeniably fascinating and never more so than the bizarre ending where the heroine and her boyfriend start making out and he turns back into the dead magician and then, in a moment of solipsistic ingenuity, she decides he is really an illusion and thinks him out of existence. Finally the magician turns directly to the camera to taunt the audience, telling them to make sure that this might not all be an illusion that what they have been watching is a film. Between its sheer shoddiness of production values, its gut-churning but somehow not offensive extremes, and weirdly fascinating and equally pretentious play of film, illusion and reality, Wizard proves undeniably appealing. --Reviewed by Richard Scheib

X: THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES (1963). Starring Ray Milland, Diana Van Der Vlis, Harold J. Stone, John Hoyt, Don Rickles, Dick Miller, Jonathan Haze. Directed by Roger Corman. Milland plays a doctor who creates a serum that allows him to see through things. When he accidentally kills one of his colleagues, he has to take it on the lam, first as a carnival sideshow attraction, then as a 'healer' and finally as a card shark. Good, if minor, sci-fi, with a skillful mixture of comedy (the famous party scene is a hoot) and drama, particularly in a scene where Van Der Vlis tracks Milland down and despite his feelings for her, he's so used to seeing through things, he doesn't even recognize her. There's a nice bit of subtext here, too, in the various ways that Milland attempts to recreate himself and the way they all fail. I was intrigued by the idea that his character, a man who can literally see through people, is in constant danger of being exposed; to whit, he lives in fear that those around him will "see through him," which they inevitably do. Rickles is appropriately acerbic as a slimy carny that Milland takes up with and the finale, while somewhat predictable, manages to be effective mainly because of Milland's skill as an actor. My two main complaints are fairly minor ones. The transparency effects, most especially during the healer scenes, are a little bit less than convincing and the pacing gets kind of clunky at times. I rarely say this (it's actually more common to say the exact opposite), but this probably could have stood to have been a bit longer. Still an enjoyable effort and arguably one of Corman's best non-Poe adapted films. Corman regulars Haze and Miller show up briefly as two guys who heckle Milland's carnival psychic routine, only to wish they had kept their big mouths shut. --Reviewed by Marc Beschler

YOUNGARY, MONSTER FROM THE DEEP (1967). Starring Yungil Oh, Chungim Nam, Soonjai Lee, Moon Kang, Kwang Ho Lee. Directed by Kiduck Kim. Fairly minor entry in the big-ass-monster-stomps-city genre, partially notable for the fact that it's primarily a South Korean production, with a little help from the Japanese, generally acknowledged as the foremost experts at this sort of thing. Scientists are following an earthquake, which appears to be traveling across the country. It is then discovered that said earthquake is, in fact, the title creature and he eventually decides to come to the surface and pulverize a large portion of a Korean town (though I don't recall them ever specifying which town it's supposed to be). The effects run from OK to pretty obvious to sloppy, but what actually struck me the most about this film was the way that Yongary's behavior so closely resembled that of any number of drunken party animals I've known. First, he downs an entire tank of oil and recklessly tosses away his empty, destroying a bunch of other tanks in the process. Then he starts weaving about, clutching his stomach, as if he's about to yack all over the place. And then, in a scene that basically comes out of nowhere, while the token cute kid (you know the type, so precious and precocious you just want to reach out, wrap your hands around his neck and…sorry) is watching him, surf music starts playing out of nowhere and the monster starts to dance. That's right, dance (gotta love those second winds). While the purpose of this scene is clear (to allow a kind of human connection between monster and the kid), it's so random as to appear extremely forced. And as a result of all of this frat-boy behavior, when they finally fell Yongary (a scene which includes a shot that seems to imply that he's bleeding out of his rectum (?)), his slow descent to the ground, while not dissimilar to scenes from other monster movies, just kept making me think of someone slowly passing out after a bender. Of course, this whole theory falls apart in the final scene where the above-mentioned adorable little bastard states that everyone should keep in mind that they never really understood the monster and that he wished Yongary could be there with them. This is a sentiment I've seldom heard expressed by party hosts after the departure of the besotted destructors I've known. Oh well. --Reviewed by Marc Beschler

ZOMBIE (1979) While critics and the uninitiated are quick to pass this film off as another cheesy rip off of Romero's "Dawn Of The Dead", it bears more than a striking resemblance to Del Tenney's 1964 classic "I Eat Your Skin" and Jacques Tourneur's 1943 film "I Walked With A Zombie". After her father's sailboat drifts into New York harbor sans crew, a young woman and a reporter go off in search of him on an island named Matool. They meet a doctor there who's been trying to determine the cause of a plague that's reanimating the dead. Needless to say the plague spreads throughout the island. 400-year-old Conquistadors come ripping through the ground as our heroes struggle to stay alive inside a church/hospital. The cinematography is suitably atmospheric in the closing scenes and the music score adds to the mix. The writing is abysmal, the editing is choppy and the acting is dreadful. If you can overlook these obstacles you'll find yourself enjoying the film despite its shortcomings. --Reviewed by Ian Glavine

ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU, THE (1957). Starring Gregg Palmer, Allison Hayes, Autumn Russell, Joel Ashley, Morris Ankrum, Marjorie Eaton, Gene Roth, Frank Hagney, Leonard P. Geer, Mel Curtis, Lewis Webb, William Baskin, Ray Corrigan, Karl 'Killer' Davis. Directed by Edward L. Cahn. A group of fortune hunters travel to Africa to retrieve a cache of diamonds that went down with a ship and which has managed to stay submerged for many years, despite the efforts of numerous expeditions. What they discover when they arrive is that the reason no one has been able to grab the booty (if you'll pardon the expression) is that the sailors that drowned with the ship are still walking around and take their guardianship of the treasure very seriously. Not a bad story really. It's unfortunate that the telling is so incredibly pedestrian. B director Cahn, who has shown the ability to wring atmosphere out of a meager budget in other efforts (notably the same year's Voodoo Woman), really dropped the ball on this one. It's one thing to crank out a production owing to time and money constraints. It's another thing to just crap it out. Little or no effort seems to have been made to make the zombies look any different from the living characters (oh, I suppose Cahn may have told them to bug their eyes out a little) and some of the staging is simply ludicrous. I like this kind of little B picture, as evidenced by my above mention of Voodoo Woman, a film that many other people readily scoff at, but you have to be a really die-hard fan of the genre to get much out of this one. On a purely trivial note, when producers approached Lucio Fulci about making a film (Zombie, q.v.) to cash in on the success of George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead, Fulci decided that he wanted to, instead of just aping that film's story, do something more along the lines of the old Caribbean voodoo type of zombie film. This is an example of what he meant (another, and far better example would be Jacques Tourneur's Val Lewton Production of I Walked With A Zombie). This is not, however, a recommendation to Fulci fans to run out and watch this. Not only is there no blood, the whole production is pretty goddamn anemic. --Reviewed by Marc Beschler

ZOMBIE LAKE (1985). The title on the video jacket said Zombie Lake; the title in the movie said Zombies' Lake. Oh well...the inconstancies don't stop there. The movie is about some war veterans that were ambushed by the Germans and killed. Their comrades decided to steal their boots and throw them into the lake. Then one day, they began to come back. I can't say a whole lot about this film (that's good anyway). First of all, one of the zombies (when he was not a zombie) had a child. The child must have been about nine years old when the zombies begin to attack. In another scene we see a Volkswagen bus pull up, we also see a woman kneading corn into a tortilla. What does this mean? if you put it all together, it could mean that the Germans attacked US forces in Mexico right around 1961 (that is if you assume because of the Volkswagen bus the date is early 1970). The movie must have had 12 separate naked woman in it. Most were swimming around in the lake when these guys with army helmets and green face paint surface and kill the women. A few men die, but mostly naked women. When the women decide not to swim naked anymore, they start getting killed in the barn naked, or the outdoor bathtub naked, etc. The special effects in this film are terrible--in one scene a zombie is eating a woman's neck and half his zombie mask begins peeling off. The bite marks look like smeared strawberry jelly and all the explosions are done with stop camera motion.--Reviewed by Redcat

...Look for more mini-reviews to be added each month! If you'd like to submit your very own mini-review, why just...email us...

Video Mini-Reviews, except where separately by-lined, (c) Joe "Renfield" Meadows. Reviews are the opinion of the reviewers.

Return To Contents Page    

Go To Mini-Reviews A-G   Go To Mini-Reviews H-M  Go To Mini-Reviews N-S