Pre-Code Murder Mystery

 

 (imdb)

THE PHANTOM-1931-A mysterious killer, The Phantom escapes his death row prisoner cell by train and plane. He menaces a house full of people, with a DA (Wilfred Lucas) and his daughter Ruth (Allene Ray),he swore vengeance on. Some cliché police detectives search and there's a frightened pair of servants, a love triangle and the killer creeping around in a cape and top hat. Toward the end the scene changes to an insane asylum where a mad scientist wants to do an operation on Ruth. 

Very campy and crude, kind of hard to sit through. It stars cowboy actor Guinn “Big Boy” Williams. Director Allen James made many western serials and non-westerns like the original DICK TRACY (1937) and SOS COAST GUARD (1937) with Bela Lugosi.

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It Started Here!

 

 (imdb)

LA LLORONA-1933-In Mexico a man dies on the street after hearing a wailing voice. Then a doctor (Ramon Pereda) and his wife (Virginia Zuri) have a birthday party for their 4-year-old son. The doctor's father-in-law Don Fernando (Paco Martinez) is worried because his own son disappeared on his fourth birthday and was later found dead. Unbeknownst to them, a hooded figure is spying on them. Don Fernado tells the doctor the story of how La Llorona, "the crying woman" came to be, set in " New Spain". After this rather long flashback, in the present the hooded figure kills Fernando and tries to steal the son but is unsuccessful. The police are called in. Another flashback and the hooded culprit is revealed. 

This slow moving, talky Mexican horror tale was the first to use the legendary La Llorona which later was featured in several horror films. It was directed by Ramon Peon.

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The Zodiac

THE ZODIAC KILLER-1971-This is based on the real life incidents that took place in California,from 1968 to 1969 in which the killer was never caught. It's very cheap, exploitative and badly acted with terrible dialogue (except for the Zodiac's rantings). The story focuses on two characters who could be the killer. One is Grover (Bob Jones), a truck driving, drug user alcoholic who hates women (especially his ex-wife), goes to bars wearing an ill fitting wig, gets drunk and can't remember anything. The police suspect him but when he holds his daughter hostage they shoot and kill him. Then there is Grover's friend Jerry (Hal Reed), an unhappy mailman who likes rabbits and breaks down crying when one of them dies. He turns out to be the Zodiac and kneels in front of an idol and rants (“I am the supreme Zodiac!”). He shoots various people and taunts the police (“I want headlines!”). One couple he stabs to death then he kills an old woman with a tire and drops a jacked up car on her. He wears a false nose and glasses to kill an old man in an elevator then cuts off his ear. He kills an old woman by crushing her head with a car hood. Apparently the heart of his problem was being unloved by his father who he visits in an insane asylum (the father completely ignores him when Jerry emotes during a visit). So that the visit isn't a total loss, Jerry kills two patients. The final scenes show Jerry helping various people in his neighborhood while his ominous voice-over talks about how trusting and unsuspecting future victims are (“I'll be seeing you”). It ends with the words “This is not the end”. 

Comedian Doodles Weaver (his name is spelled “Doddles” in the credits) has one scene as Jerry's neighbor who says of women “I like them plump, juicy and dumb”. The director Tom Hanson made one other movie A TON OF GRASS GOES TO POT (also with Hal Reed and Doodles Weaver) and acted in Coleman Francis' NIGHT TRAIN MUNDO FINE'.

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More Like A Circle

TRIANGLE-A woman named Jess (Melissa George from 30 DAYS OF NIGHT) with a special needs child goes on a boating trip (without her son) with her boyfriend and some of his friends. They hit a freak storm and the boat is capsized. Luckily a big cruise ship comes to their rescue and they board it. Unluckily it seems to be deserted although a mysterious figure is quickly seen twice. They search the ship (with Jess having feelings of deja vu) but all they can find is the message "go to the theater" written in blood on a mirror. After Jess is attacked by one of the guys, she escapes and meets another couple in the theater where a masked assassin shoots at them from the balcony. The couple is killed but Jess gets out. Later she confronts the killer with an ax. Just before falling over the side, the killer mumbles something about "killing everyone".

Quick movie, huh? Not so fast. The rest of this annoyingly dumb British production borrows ideas from David Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY, MEMENTO and even the low-budget 1960's SF cheapie JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME. Director Christopher Smith made several horror movies after this. (You've been warned)

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Nightmare, man

NIGHTMARE MAN-2006-Ellen (Blythe Metz) sends away for a fertility mask because she and her husband (Luciano Szafir, he kind of talks like THE ROOM's Tommy Wiseau) are having “intimacy” problems. She has a reoccurring dream about the Nightmare Man, a devilish looking guy with horns. While they are on their way to “a clinic” their car runs out of gas. Hubby decides to go back to a gas station for help, leaving Ellen alone. After a false scare or two she is terrorized by a hooded killer with a knife who looks a lot like her worst nightmare. 

While she is being pursued in the woods (she has a couple of narrow escapes), two couples play Truth or Dare. When Ellen finally reaches the cabin, they call her husband who tells them she's crazy and there is no killer. It's all in her mind. This proves to be the wrong info. The killer quickly dispatches three of the young people leaving the fourth named Mia (Tiffany Shepis) to fend for herself. Of course it's all a plot by her husband who's hired a guy to kill her. 

Surprisingly Ellen turns into an EXORCIST inspired demon and takes revenge. 

When it seems like she's killed the demon Mia is raped by the evil spirit and tells the late arriving police “it's inside of me”. 

Writer/Director Rolf Kanefsky made his film debut in 1991 with THERE'S NOTHING OUT THERE, a horror-comedy which part of this resembles (except this isn't suppose to be funny) but takes a lot from EVIL DEAD. 

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