It's Harrowing!/

DUNGEON OF HARROW-1962 -If GALLERY OF HORROR is Babe Ruth then DUNGEON OF HARROW is Marv Throneberry. It strikes out in every category! It’s insane, depraved and down right revolting and to top it all off it’s not very well made! Shot around San Antonio, Texas by future comic book artist Pat Boyette, it begins with a guy named Fallon who on a stormy night decides to write down how he wound up in such a dreary and cheap movie. It quickly dissolves into a flashback.

We learn that Mr. Fallon (the remarkably bad Russ Harvey) is the privileged son of some aristocrat who is sailing to England. The ship he’s on hits a bad storm. The scenes of his cabin rocking back and forth and the subsequent flooding of the ship are hysterical. Only he and the ship’s Captain (co-scripter Henry Garcia) survive, washed ashore on an uncharted island.

Suddenly Fallon’s flashback is interrupted by the introduction of Count DeSade, a sweaty drunk who sits in the dark talking to some kind of ghost/spirit who reminds him of his evil past and throws a rubbery snake and bat at him. When the ghost disappears The Count muses, “It must have been the wine”. If only the viewer could say the same thing!

The Count lives on the island with his “Nubian servant” Mantis (who looks like Dennis Rodman and talks like an ex-boxer), his indentured “personal assistant” Cassandra (“I’m not much of anything now”) and the mute Ann who’s tongue was torn out by pirates and now mostly serves as The Count’s nightly S &M victim.



But there’s more! Mantis captures the duo. The Captain is set on the rack (DeSade thinks everyone is a pirate) but Fallon is invited to dinner where DeSade insults Cassandra, rants like a jerk and passes out. However before that happens we learn the fate of DeSade’s wife, a leper who went mad and now resides in an underground chamber/mausoleum in full wedding dress ready to re-enact her wedding night! Yikes!

Fallon and Cassandra decide to leave/escape/fly the coop. Unfortunately DeSade and Mantis will have none of it. He subjects Ann to a water torture after she’s caught trying to help The Captain escape, who in turn is impaled by Mantis. Poor Fallon! He’s chained up in the underground chamber where Mrs. DeSade (in full wedding dress and rotting face) wants to consummate her marriage! Eek! A leprous kiss turns Fallon’s hair white in one of the sickest scenes ever in a movie! Cassandra kills The Countess (a little late; why couldn’t she have done this three scenes earlier?) and the two of them flee to the woods with The Count, Mantis and hunting dogs in hot pursuit. Eventually, DeSade kills Mantis. Fallon kills The Count. He and Cassandra live happily awaiting the arrival of a supply ship to rescue them, right?

Wrong! When the ship does come the crew hightail it outta there as fast as they can because Fallon and Cassandra are now lepers themselves! Back in the present Fallon finishes his narrative and proceeds to put Cassandra in the former wedding chamber of Mrs. DeSade because she has gone mad too! The End…

What can I say? Yes, this movie reeks. The “leprous wedding night kiss” scene is creepy but the most depressing thing about the whole deal is the end where it’s revealed that both leads are now lonely lepers living in solitude. The Fallon character while a bit pompous perhaps was totally innocent. Did he really deserve such a cruel fate? Wasn’t he supposed to be the hero? Yet he ends up screwed and insane. He laments, “I’m so alone” and wishes he had someone to talk to. It’s pathetic and eerie all at once. Inept filmmakers usually don’t care much about their subjects (especially in such low budget surroundings) and DUNGEON OF HARROW really drives this point home!

The same year he made DOH director Pat Boyette also made something called THE WEIRD ONES. In ’64 he teamed once again with DOH star Russ Harvey to make NO MAN’S LAND about a US soldier in Korea (but filmed in Texas!). Fortunately for all of us the comic book world beckoned and Boyette put down his megaphone and picked up a pencil (though he did find time to write episodes of the TV police drama ADAM-12 in 1968). He did most of his work for DC comics and died in 2000.











One of ex-director Pat Boyette's self published comic books from the 1980's.







WARNING: THIS MOVIE HAS OCCASIONALLY PLAYED ON TV AS "DUNGEON OF HORROR"!! (actually a more approriate title)

Thanks for reading!