French-Italian

 

 (imdb)

MILL OF STONE WOMEN-1960-Hans von Arnim (Pierre Brice) visits Prof. Wahl (Herbert Bohme) to fix up an old museum carousel. Though in love with his childhood friend, Liselotte (Dany Carrel), he has an affair with the professor's daughter, Elfie (Scilla Gabel). Her personal physician, Dr. Bohem (Wolfgang Preiss) hangs around. When Wahl tells Hans that Elfie has some kind of genetic disease, he breaks off their affair. Elfie seems to die but is alive the next day! 

Yes, Elfie is actually being kept alive by a blood transfusion experiment created by Dr. Bohem. Prof. Wahl gets blood from local girls who are killed and made into wax dummies for the carousel. Lise almost becomes the next victim but when Boehm professes his love for Elfie, Wahl kills him. Elfie dies and Wahl goes insane, setting fire to their mill. Hans and his friend Ralf rescue Lise just in time. 

Moody, atmospheric French/Italian co-production directed by Giorgio Ferroni (SECRET AGENT SUPER DRAGON (1966)).

Thanks for reading!

Horror In The Philippines

 

 (imdb)

THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE-1972-Matt Farrell (John Ashley) is forced on to an island ala Dr. Moreau run by Juan Pereira (Eddie Garcia). He wants to use Farrell to create a new species of human beings. Pereira's experiments aren't very successful as he has a lot of animal creatures in cages. Things go bad for the doc when his daughter Neva (Pat Woodell) decides to help Farrell escape after disposing of Pereira's bi-sexual, drug addict second in command Steinman (Jan Merlin). Neva escapes with some animal people, a bat guy (Tony Goselvez), an antelope man (Ken Metcalfe) and a panther woman Pam Grier). Steinman musters some troops to go after the escapees while the manimals fight and act crazy. Neva tries to teach them manners. Permo (Kim Ramos), an ape man, tries to rape her. Meanwhile, Farrell captures Pereira. The panther girl kills some of the guards but goes crazy, even attacking wounded antelope man. Eventually, all of the mutants are killed except for the bat guy who kills most of the bad guys except for Pereira who's killed by the most horrible mutant, his wife and first failed experiment. (like in THE SHE DEMONS). 

This crazy low-budget shot in the Philippines horror tale was directed by the prolific Eddie Romero (BRIDES OF BLOOD (1968)) between BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT (starring Ashley) and THE WOMAN HUNT (starring Ashley and Woodell). 

Thanks for reading!

Hope This Won't Be Me On Sunday!

 

 (imdb)

FROZEN ALIVE-1964-2 scientists Dr. Frank Overton (American actor Mark Stevens; once a contract actor at Warner Bros.) and Dr. Helen Wieland (German actress Marianne Koch; also in FISTFUL OF DOLLARS the same year) are doing research on suspended animation. After they win a special scientist award, the director Sir Keith (Walter Rilla; Dr. Mabuse' in several movies around this time) wants to break them up. When Frank wants his floozy, cheating wife, Joan (Delphi Lawrence) to retire and raise a family she refuses. Later, she gets drunk and insults Helen. Frank decides he'll use himself as a human experiment. While Frank and Helen are making preparations, elsewhere, Joan accidentally kills herself with a gun she stole from her lover. A police detective (Wolfgang Lukschy) thinks her death and hubby's experiments are related. Sir Keith agrees, thinking it's Frank's attempt at an elaborate suicide. Believing Frank will be arrested for murder when he wakes up, Helen decides to let him die. But then word arrives that Frank is innocent! She manages to correct her mistake and saves him. Everyone lives happily ever after. 

This low budget, un-thrilling West German/UK production was directed by Bernard Knowles who worked on several different UK television shows (“Col. March of Scotland Yard”, “Ivanhoe”). He made a few other feature films like SPACEFLIGHT IC-1(1965). He was also a cinematographer shooting many of Alfred Hitchcock's English films.

Thanks for reading!

If I Only Had A Brain Machine

 

 (imdb)

THE BRAIN MACHINE-1972-Four people volunteer for a government experiment run by two weird male doctors (Gil Peterson and Doug Collins) and female doc (Barbara Burgess) for the Environmental Control Center. Nothing much happens except the 4 have a lot of hang ups. Everything goes awry in this confused low budget boredom. 

With Gerald McRaney as one of the guinea pigs, Stuart Lancaster as a senator and James Best as a preacher. Director Joy N. Houck Jr. had previously made NIGHT OF BLOODY HORROR (1969) and WOMEN AND BLOODY TERROR (1970), both with McRaney.

Thanks for reading!

Lovecraftian

 

 (themoviedb.org)

FROM BEYOND-1986-Dr. Tillingast (Jeffery Combs) is accused of killing his superior Dr. Pretorius (Ted Sorel) who's found decapitated. He says something bit off Pretorius' head. They were working on a machine dubbed “the Pretorius resonator”) that stimulates the pineal gland. A notorious psychiatrist Katherine McMichaels (Barbra Crampton) doesn't believe Tillingast is insane and takes him back to where they were experimenting. Police Sgt. Brownlee (Ken Foree) accompanies them. They turn on the machine and meet the nude reanimated body of Dr. P. He turns into a whatziz and almost eats them but Tillingast turns the machine off. McMichael becomes obsessed with learning more. After almost being eaten again, she escapes and after doing her famous s & m scene has to fight the bizarrely transformed Pretorius. Later everyone thinks she's insane. A crazed female doctor wants her to have shock therapy. She escapes and Tillingast runs around the hospital killing people. When she returns to destroy the resonator, Tillingast kidnaps her. Pretorius somehow returns and terrorizes her. She defeats him and goes insane. 

A lot of disgusting SFX (by a huge crew) made this a cult film but Crampton helped too. She was later on the TV soap operas “The Guiding Light” and “The Bold and The Beautiful”. Conceptual art by Neal Adams. An Empire Pictures release, filmed in Italy, Charles Band was one of the producers. 

Director Stuart Gordon had already become a cult like director after making RE-ANIMATOR (1985), also with Crampton & Combs. Producer Brian Yuzna co-wrote the screenplay with Dennis Paoli based on the HP Lovecraft short story “From Beyond”. A more recent adaptation of the same story is BANSHEE CHAPTER (2013).

Thanks for reading!

Plant Man

  (imdb)

THE MUTATIONS-1974-After a lengthy lecture by a German college professor Dr. Nolter (Donald Pleasence with an accent), we learn he's a mad scientist working in genetics with plants and humans. He gets help from an angry deformed man Lynch (Tom Baker) who hangs out at a freak show run by Burns (Michael Dunn). Others in the show include The Alligator girl, the frog man, pincushion man, bearded lady, human skeleton, human pretzel and Popeye (Willie Ingram who could actually make his eyes pop out an inch from their sockets). Students Tony (Scott Anthony), Heidi (Julie Ege; LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES) and Lauren (Jill Haworth; HORROR HOUSE) welcome American scientist Brian (Brad Harris; THE FURY OF HERCULES). Tony discovers Nolter's secret. He's crossing plants with animals and plans to use Tony as his human experiment. Tony is turned into a plant man and terrorizes his girlfriend Lauren. Later, Heidi is kidnapped by Lynch for the Nolter's next victim. When Brian goes to rescue her, he's nearly killed by Lynch but Burns convinces "the freaks" into killing Lynch and feeding his body to guard dogs. Tony, now a full-grown plant man breaks into Nolter's lab and kills his creator. The place is set on fire and Brian saves Heidi but… 

THE MUTATIONS is a low budget sleazy little film with a crazy plant monster that's fairly ludicrous but considering Academy Award winning cinematographer Jack Cardiff directed it, it could have been better. He was no stranger to directing as this was his fiftheeth outing (but also his last). Co-star Tom Baker started his memorable run as TV's Dr. Who the same year. Donald Pleasence was also in the horror anthology FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE in '74. Sadly, this was the last film for Michael Dunn, who died in London shortly after completing his scenes.

Thanks for reading!