The Tomb

 

THE TOMB-1986-An idiot racist named John Banning (David O'Hara) has a disastrous time when he tries to sell an artifact to a woman named Jade (Sybil Danning). The credits roll while a band dressed like Egyptians sing "Tutti Frutti". John and his equally racist dimwit partner Tyler (Craig Hamann) find the ancient sarcophagus of Queen Nefradis. Before they can double cross and kill their guide the decrepit looking queen comes to life and kills the guide and Tyler. She (Michelle Bauer) becomes young from drinking blood. John escapes but she goes to get him. He has a fight in a bar where Kitten Navividad does a topless dance. A doctor Howard Phillips (Cameron Mitchell) says "I don't want to be seen with people like you". 

John sells him an artifact. He meets up with Nefradis again and she puts a scarab in him to control him. She wants the stuff he stole from her tomb and kills a doctor named Manners. Manners' son David (Richard Hench) and Phillips niece Helen (Susan Stokey) investigate and visit Dr. Andoheb (John Carradine) who fills us in on the blood princess. She almost sacrifices Helen but is destroyed. Maybe? Bad acting really ruins this low budget horror movie directed by Fred Olen Ray (HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS).

Director Ray also made ARMED RESPONSE tha same year:

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2014/08/armed-response.html

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Terror

 

THE TERROR OF HALLOW'S EVE-2017-A bullied kid Tim (Caleb Thomas) summons a jester like demon called “The Trickster” to get revenge. A fat guy eats a pie full of worms and is gutted by a demon that eats his intestines. He sounds like Curly when he's screaming. A stoner is stabbed to death by puppets with knives. The main asshole has his throat slit. His girlfriend is next but Tim destroys the demon. She's killed anyway. Tim winds up possessed and getting blamed for all the deaths. Flash ahead many years later and adult Tim is in a mental hospital. It seems like the movie is going to start all over again and The Trickster is still at it...

Eric Roberts has one short scene as an angry father and Juliet Landau (one of the producers) has a brief role as a nurse. The director Tony Tucker did mainly SFX and make up for movies and TV before this... 

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The (A) Void

 

THE VOID-2016-This bloody violent tasteless horror movie is about a group of people trapped in a semi-abandoned hospital by a cult in white robes. A mad doctor (Kenneth Walsh) has "conquered death" and wants to bring back his dead daughter. He turns people into blob like tentacle monsters and the cast swears and screams a lot. This Canadian production has two directors Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski but one competent director would have been better.

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Merry Christmas!

 

SANTA CLAUS-1959-Out in space Santa Claus (Jose Elias Moreno) sets up a nativity scene, laughs insanely and watches children from all over the world make his toys. Lucifer sends his main man Pitch (Jose' Luis Aguirre) to Earth to make children do evil. Santa has some bizarre machines to help him. One machine has lips and his telescope has a tentacle with an eye on it. Pitch tries to corrupt a cute little girl named Lupita who only wants a doll. She has a “devil influenced” dream where large dolls dance and try to convince her to steal. Besides kids, Santa also gets help from Merlin the magician, a doddering old fool who gives Santa secret sleeping powders and a flower that makes him invisible. The red bearded key maker gives him a key that opens any door. He also has mechanical reindeer that pull his sleigh. Pitch corrupts three brothers who want to kidnap Santa and steal his toys. 

A side story is about a lonely rich kid who only wants to be with his neglectful parents on Christmas eve. Despite losing the sleeping powders and flower and being run up a tree by a dog Santa delivers all his presents and gives Lupita the doll she wanted. Actor/director Rene Cordona made this religious leaning craziness from Mexico.

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Two

 

SPIRIT STALKERS-2012-Another waste of time about a group of ghost hunters (led by writer/director/hack Steve Hudgins) investigating the paranormal. It's boring, talky, badly edited and acted. I don't understand the good reviews this crap gets!

THE CREEPY DOLL-2011-This is another amateur talky piece of junk from Big Biting Pig (see above) about a loony pregnant woman and her doll collection that features a ghoulish “Addams Family” like doll. Her husband is a dick and her in laws are morons. Not much happens. She walks around, makes faces, acts bitchy and talks to her dolls. Eventually she kills hubby, his ugly mistress, mom in law and a guy she almost has an affair with. Dumb ass ending. Written and directed by PJ Woodside.

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George Sanders

 

BLUEBEARD'S TEN HONEYMOONS-1960-Antique dealer Henri Landru (George Sanders) falls for cabaret singer Odette (Corinne Calvet). She says she needs 3000 francs to help her sick mother (yeah right). He tries to borrow money from another dealer (George Coulouris) and sell his watch but to no avail. Odette dumps him but he's persistent. He meets widow Vivian (Patricia Roc) and woos her to get her money and accidentally kills her but makes it look like suicide. He gives Odette the money even though he finds her with another man. Vivian's sister Giselle (Ingrid Hafner) goes to the police but they can't help. He then romances Juliette Gullin (Jean Kent) and eventually takes her to a secluded villa where he poisons her, cuts up her body and burns it. He repeats this process several more times just to make the ungrateful Odette love him. When one woman stalls their marriage plans he strangles her in a bathtub. 

Then he meets Jeanette (Greta Gynt) and after stabbing her to death, pretends to be her dead husband to get the contents of a safety deposit box. He also tries to bamboozle Mrs. Boyer (Selma Vas Diaz) about her dead husband being alive but then he catches Odette with another man. He takes her to the villa and gives her the kill, chop and burn treatment. Then Giselle discovers his identity and pays him a visit. They almost miss each other but when they meet he nearly kills her. Fortunately the police arrive and after a brief chase arrest him. In the final scene he is guillotined for his crimes. 

This is not a half bad little thriller made essentially better by the presence of George Sanders in the lead role. It could be the best film made by director W. Lee Wilder (KILLERS FROM SPACE). It was written by his son Myles.

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Walking Ghost

 

THE GHOST WALKS-1934-Theatrical producer Herman Woods (Richard Carle) and his beleaguered assistant Homer (Johnny Arthur) have car trouble during a storm. Their driver playwright Prescott Ames (John Miljan) takes them to the home of Dr. Kent (Henry Kolker) where his fiancee Gloria (June Collyer) happens to be. Also there is his rival Carroway (Douglas Gerrad). Also around is the spacey Beatrice (Eve Southern), Kent's patient who screams occasionally. Later at dinner Beatrice talks about a murder and that one of the present company is responsible for his death. 

At first it turns out to be a setup, a performance of Ames' play “The Ghost Walks” to impress Wood. But when Beatrice is murdered, it's no longer a play. Ames however can't convince Wood her death isn't part of the play. (her corpse disappears) Then a guard from a local sanitarium arrives to let everyone know a murderer has escaped. Later we learn the house they are in was once owned by a mad surgeon who committed suicide. 

Hidden doors, eyes looking through a painting, a deadly bed are just some of the strange goings on in this creaky but entertaining horror melodrama from director Frank S. Strayer CONDEMNED TO LIVE, THE VAMPIRE BAT).

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2010/04/bats-and-rains.html 

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/search?q=condemned+to+live

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The Walking Karloff

THE WALKING DEAD-1936-The public believes Judge Shaw (Joe King) will never sentence guilty gangster Stephen Martin (Kenneth Harland) to anything extreme but much to everyone's disbelief  Shaw gives the thug 10 years. His sleazy lawyer Nolan (Ricardo Cortez)) and mob boss Loder (Barton McLane) hire hit man Trigger Sith (Joe Sawyer) to kill the judge. They set up ex-con pianist John Ellman (Boris Karloff) to take the fall. Two lab assistants Jimmy (Warren Hull) and Nancy (Marguerite Churchill; in DRACULA'S DAUGHTER the same year)) know Ellman is innocent but stupidly she doesn't want them to say anything. Ellman is convicted and sentence to death (good going, guys). At the last minute they tell their boss Dr. Beaumont (Edmund Gwenn) and he tells the crooked lawyer (who defended Ellman and helped frame him). Of course he does nothing. Ellman dies but fortunately (?) Beaumont has a machine that brings Ellman back to life. 

When revived Ellman is the worse for wear and can't remember anything. But when he hears Nancy playing the piano he sits down and starts to play. When he sees Nolan he calls him his enemy. Beaumont calls a conference with other egghead types that Loder, Nolan and their weak willed cronies also attend. They all get guilty conscientious and want to hire the same hit man as before but Ellman scares Trigger and he shoots himself. He then scares another member who's hit by a train and causes another to have a heart attack and fall out a window. 

Beaumont becomes kind of obsessed with knowing what Ellman felt when he was dead. Ellman leaves to walk around a cemetery and Mary follows him. Unbeknownst to her Loder and Nolan trail her. They shoot Ellman and get away. On his second death bed, Ellman tries to explain what death was like but dies before anything can be said. Ironically, Loder and Nolan are electrocuted when their getaway car crashes into an electric pole. 

Karloff is very sympathetic in the lead but doesn't have much dialogue. Director Michael Curtiz also made THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE the same year. Co-star Ricardo Cortez was in POSTAL INSPECTOR with Lugosi the same year. 

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Dual Belas!

 BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT-1942-Prof. Brenner (Bela Lugosi) is a criminology teacher by day and at night he's Karl Wagner who runs a Bowery mission that's a front for robbery and murder. Sgt. Crawford (Dave O'Brien) investigates. Wagner's M.O. is to kill one accomplice at the scene of a crime. He recruits psycho killer Frank Mills (Tom Neal; he'd star in DETOUR in 1945) to help. Wagner's nurse Judy (Wanda McKay) doesn't suspect but her boyfriend Richard (John Archer) goes undercover as a bum to study the underprivileged and winds up dead. The nutty ending has an insane doctor resurrecting Wagner's dead victims who in turn kill him. Since Richard comes back to life he and Judy live happily ever after. When Richard is on the Bowery he meets two oddballs almost in a row. One is played by Pat Costello and the other by Bernard Gorcey! Wheeler Oakman, Victor Adamson and Snub Pllard have small roles.

Director Wallace Fox made several "East Side Kids" comedies (that were set in The Bowery) and directed Lugosi in THE CORPSE VANISHES the same year. After making PILLOW OF DEATH, one of the Inner Sanctum series of film at Universal he drifted into low budget westerns then went into TV (The Gene Autry Show, Ramar Of The Jungle). He dies in 1958.

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2020/01/vanishing-bride.html

Sam Katzman was the executive producer of this low budget quickie released through Monogram but it's not bad despite some lapses in reason!

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Apes Documentary

IMPACT OF THE APES-2008-This Fox Movie Channel production documentary is mainly about the marketing of PLANET OF THE APES merchandise. It shows that the merchandising and licensing of  the franchise really started not with the 5 classic movies but when the short lived TV series hit the airwaves! It's only around 20 minutes and very interesting. It's followed by the theatrical trailers. After that a guy named Tom Rothman (I think he was chairman of 20th Century Fox at the time) rehashes the original film's history in a bombastic narration.

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Two Kellys For the Price of One!

 

FEAR IN THE NIGHT-1947-Poor Vince Grayson (Deforest Kelley in his first feature film) is having weird nightmares that he killed a man. He finds several odd things (a key, a button, blood) that lead him to believe it might be true. His brother in law Cliff (Paul Kelly) tells him to forget about it. He's more concerned about his pregnant wife Lil (Ann Doran), Vince's sister. After they go to the house Vince saw in his dream, Cliff begins to suspect Vince is a murderer. A local deputy (Jeff York) fills them in on a double murder that took place a few days before. After Vince tries to commit suicide Cliff decides to help clear him. 

This little low budget film noir with a kind of long finale was written and directed by Maxwell Shane who later remade it as NIGHTMARE in 1956 (with Edward G. Robinson and Kevin McCarthy in the leads). It's based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich.

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House of The Damned

 

HOUSE OF THE DAMNED-1963-Architect Scott Campbell (Ron Foster) and his wife Nancy (Merry Anders) go to do a surveying job at an old castle (The Rochester House) after getting a midnight phone call from a guy named Joe (Richard Crane; THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE) who that don't seem to like. They go to the castle but can't get in. Something weird is going on though as the door opens after they go away. Mr. Quinby (Dal McKennon), a real estate agent gives them the keys and a rundown on the castle including the former owner Priscilla Rochester. 

The couple settle in but it's obvious they are not alone. Especially at night when some creature shuffles in and steals the house keys. Next day the missing keys turn up but with 2 keys gone. Later Joe's wife Loy (Erika Peters) shows up looking for her husband. She decides to sunbathe and while undressing is watched by a mysterious woman. Scott and Nancy measure the house. Joe finally shows up. He and Loy seem to be having martial problems and Loy prepares to leave but is pursued by a giant (Richard Kiel; a year after EEGAH!) and disappears. The others look for her. 

Nancy finds her headless in a chair but still moving! Of course when she brings the two men Loy isn't there. Later Joe and Scott break into a locked room and find the withered corpse of Capt. Arbuckle, another former owner. When Scott has a run-in with the giant he's saved by a circus fat lady (Ayllene Gibbons; Later Mrs. Joyboy in THE LOVED ONE) because the captain was using the the castle to house circus people. It has a weird happy ending. Much like director Maury Dexter's THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH it uses a large estate.