Truffaut

 

THE BRIDE WORE BLACK-1968-A mysterious, alluring woman (Jeanne Moreau) kills several men seemingly at random. As the story progresses we learn her reasons why. Thanks to one guy's lying kid, the police arrest the wrong person but she clears her. Unusual suspense revenge tale with an interesting ending, co-written and directed by Francois Truffaut and based on a story by Cornell Woolrich (Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW was also based on one of his stories).

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Bram Stoker?

 

 (imdb)

BRAM STOKER'S SHADOWBUILDER-1998-A weird priest with a gun (Michael Rooker) battles a shadow demon who wants a kid in a small town. Bugs sting a deputy to death, an old man axes his wife, dogs turn on their master, fun stuff like that. The town lunatic (Tony Todd) helps out. The script and acting are pretty bad.

 The script is based on the story “The Shadow Builder” by Bram Stoker from a short story collection “Under The Sunset”, published in 1881 and of course it's nothing like this movie. Director Jamie Dixon did visual effects for other movies.

Illustration from Stoker's original story

(classic-literature.com.uk)

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Abbott,Costello and Karloff

 

 (binged.com)

ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE-1953-Slim & Tubby (Abbott & Costello) are two Americans working as bobbies on the English police force. After they are beat up by a group of suffragettes, they are thrown off the force. Vicky (Helen Westcott), the leader of the group who is also a music hall dancer, is romantically pursued by crime reporter Bruce (Craig Stevens) who is investigating the mysterious murders credited to a monster. It turns out this is true as her guardian happens to be Dr. Henry Jekyll (Boris Karloff) who transforms into Mr. Hyde when he wants to eliminate an enemy. Tubby figures out Jekyll's secret but no one believes him, especially their ex-boss the inspector (Reginald Denny). Jekyll tricks the duo into staying overnight at his house. While Tubby is snooping around, he's menaced by scary henchman Batley (John Diekes) and discovers Jekyll's lab. Later after they escape Tubby turns into a mouse. Jekyll wants to get rid of Bruce because he's in love with Vicky. Later when the doctor is outed as the monster, a big daylight chase takes place and Tubby becomes his own Mr. Hyde. 

Good comedy ensues when A & C are on screen and the presence of Karloff brings it up a notch. Eddie Parker appears mostly as Mr. Hyde. This was one of 9 Universal comedies director Charles Lamont made with the team. Although Karloff made several TV appearances, this would be his only feature film in 1953. 

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Lee and Cushing..Together Againagain..

 

 (imdb)

NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT-1973-Someone is killing the trustees of the Van Traylon orphanage. A police inspector (Chris-topher Lee; also one of the producers)) enlists the help of Dr. Ashley (Peter Cushing). Meanwhile Dr. Hayes (Keith Barron) studies a traumatized little girl Mary (Gwyneth Strong) who lives at the orphanage. A reporter, Joan Foster (singer Georgia Brown) hooks up with Mary's mother Joanna (Diana Dors) who seems psychotic. Everything seems connected to the orphanage in Scotland. There's long stretches of talk leading up to a very bizarre finale. Michael Gambon (in only his second feature film) has a small role. 

This was the only film produced by Lee's short lived production company Charlemagne Films. Peter Sasdy (COUNTESS DRACULA, HANDS OF THE RIPPER) directed. Lee & Cushing were also teamed in THE CREEPING FLESH and SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA the same year.

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Ninja Life

 

 (imdb)

A LIFE OF NINJA-1983-During the credits, the narrator talks about ninjas and 2 women mud wrestle. A policeman in Hong Kong investigates some murders committed by a group of ninjas. He gets help from a martial artist (Yasuaki Kurata) and there are some crazy fights but a lot of gibberish involving a corrupt businessman and his wife and sister-in-law. 

Director Tso Nam Lee also made THE TATOO CONNECTION (1978)

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PRC Murder

 

 (imdb)

THE LADY CONFESSES-1945-Larry Craig's wife Norma (Barbara Slater) returns after disappearing 7 years before. Larry (Hugh Beaumont) had planned to marry his girlfriend Vicki (top billed Mary Beth Hughes; I ACCUSE MY PARENTS) but Norma says that will never happen while she's alive. A few hours later she's murdered. Police Captain Brown (Emmett Vogan) investigates with his prime suspects being Harry, Vicki and club owner Lucky (Edmund McDonald) who may have been having an affair with Mrs. C. Later after a nightclub singer is killed, we learn who the murderer is. 

This small budget kind of clever PRC murder mystery was one of 11 movies directed by Sam Newfield in 1945. He also made WHITE PONGO the same year.

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Unhappy Sequel

 

 (wikipedia)

SLEEPAWAY CAMP 2: UNHAPPY CAMPERS -1988-The little girl/boy murderer from the original is back but now she's Angela (Pamela Springsteen) a woman thanks to an operation she had at the insane asylum. She now works at a camp for her Uncle John (Walter Gotell). She's cheerful but strict and goes off when she catches the overage dorks fooling around. Only Molly (Rene Estevez) seems to like her. When John fires her she really goes berserk and kills everyone including two young kids. 

This typical '80's slasher movie with death by burning and latrine has a terrible metal hair band soundtrack but slips a Dead Milkmen song into one scene. Producer/director Michael Simpson also made a sequel.

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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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???

 

BLOOD FARM-2018-A freak (Thomas Sunken,the executive producer) who wears a dish towel over his head and makes weird screaming noises kills people, chops up the bodies and cooks them. An amateur vigilante SWAT team is hunting him and describe him as the "legend that never dies". He seems to commit all his murders in broad daylight so I don't see why finding him is such a problem. He has some weird flashbacks and later puts on a blue wig and suspenders and terrorizes two team members. The night time scenes are like a YouTube ghost video. 

Ganon Gorder, the writer-director plays one of the hun-ters. This annoying, boring, hopeless mess was filmed in Iowa.

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Beware The Horror Horn!

CHAMBER OF HORRORS-1966- In Baltimore a nut named Jason Cravatte (Patrick O'Neal) mur-*ders a woman and then has a minister marry them at gun-point. Police detective Albert-son (Wayne Rogers) investi-gates. The cigar smoking Mrs. Perryman (Jeanette Nolan) calls in Wax Museum proprietors and "amateur" criminologists Anthony Draco (Cesare Danova) and Harold Blount (Wilfred Hyde-White) to catch her nephew, the murderer Cravatte. They are assisted by little person Pepe (Tun Tun). Draco figures out Cravatte is hiding out in a whorehouse run by Madame Corona (Marie Wind-sor). He's arrested, tried and sentenced to hang. On his way to the death house he manages to escape but has to chop off his own hand to do it. The chief inspector assumes he died but of course he didn't. 

In New Orleans he has a (fake) Chinese guy (Berry Kroeger) design a hook hand with several unusual extras. He uses Maria (Laura Devon), a hooker to set up his revenge on the judge (Vinton Haywood) who condemned him. Gravette uses a butcher knife attachment to kill him. He then sets his sights on Draco, once again using Marie. Meanwhile Draco takes time to romance old flame Barbara (Suzy Parker) while Gravatte does away with the doctor (Richard O'Brien) who said he was sane enough to stand trial. Later he kills Al-bertson, the arresting officer. They set a trap for Gravatte at the museum but he gets by it, terrorizing Maria and trying to kill Draco. They fight and Gravatte is killed. It ends with the duo stumbling upon a new murder right in their museum. 

CHAMBER OF HORRORS was originally made for TV and based on HOUSE OF WAX but it was thought too violent for TV and it was turned into a feature film and added two "William Castle like" gimmicks: "The Fear Flasher" and "The Horror Horn" which would warn the viewer a murder was coming. 

Tony Curtis has an unbilled cameo and for some reason Patrick O'Neal's name is omitted from the end credits! I'm sure the serial killers union had something to say about that!

Director Hy Averbach worked on many TV shows and TV movies but around this time made several other features with long titles: I LOVE YOU ALICE B. TOKLAS, WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT and SUPPOSE THEY GAVE A WAR AND NOBODY CAME?

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Back On Milligan's Island...

THE WEIRDO-1989-Quiet loner Donnie (Steve Burlingtopn) is bullied and beaten up by some redneck refugees from a Ted Nugent concert. He lives in a shed owned by the kindly elderly Mrs. Martins (Naomi Sherwood) who’s friend’s daughter Lisa (Lynee Angus) is staying with her. “Donnie’s alright. He’s just not all there”. He gets very excited watching Lisa take a bubble bath. Later he has a crazy conversation with a girl named Jenny (Jessica Straus) who walks with a limp. They start to hang out together. On his way to deliver some clothes to a church Donnie is once again beat up by white trash inc. but Jenny shows up to help him. At the church the perverted minister warns Jenny not to hang out with Donnie then puts a move on her but she rejects him and tells him off. While drinking milk the couple kiss but Donnie comes on too strong and Jenny runs. 

Later when she calms down she tells Donnie when she was 14 she was raped by a classmate. After they have sex, Donnie has to visit his mother an alcoholic floozy who insults him and winds up whipping him but Donnie turns the tables and chops off her head with meat cleaver. When a guy with a straitjacket comes to take Donnie away he’s killed by shovel. When the minister’s wife questions Donnie about sex with Jenny, he puts a large cross through her. He strangles and electrocutes the perverted minister. Even kindly Mrs. Martins turns against him and he burns her to death.

The funniest stupidest part is when one female character in a dinner explains about the killings. When a vigilante mob gets together it’s like some modern day inbred brain damaged version of a mob from a Universal horror film! Donnie also cuts the throat of one of his attackers and cuts off his hands. (It's not an Andy Milligan movie if someone doesn't lose a hand) The dysfunctional gang (young, old, a guy in a suit & tie) seem to beat Donnie to death. After finding his body Jenny asks “Why can't people be nice to each other?”. But upon bringing a cop to Donnie’s dead body they only discover his bloody jacket. With a strange smile on her face Jenny wanders off to look for her love.... 

This is by far the best looking of  Andy Milligan’s horror movies. The acting by the two leads is ok but it still suffers from the usual Milligan flaws: bad editing, bad acting, ludicrous script and of course gory but phony looking sfx. Filmed by director/writer Milligan in Los Angeles instead of his usual stomping ground Staten Island. The same year he made another movie SURGIKILL which would be his last. He passed away in 1991.

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You Go Sisters!

SISTERS OF DEATH-1976-During a sisterhood initiation involving Russian roulette, a would be member is killed. 7 years later... someone is planning a reunion. Judy (Claudia Jennings), Sylvia (Cheri Howell), Francie (Cheryl Alberoni), Diane (Sherry Boucher), Penny (Roxanne Albee), the remaining girls reunite and are driven to a remote house by two guys Mark (Paul Carr) & Joe (Joe Tata) where someone is watching them. Only Penny had any hesitation to go. Everything seems to be provided for their entertainment. Even Mark and Joe come back although they aren't really welcome. The next day the watcher reveals himself. He is the father of the girl who died at their initiation 7 years earlier. Though the girls explain that they all loved his daughter and her death was ruled a tragic accident, he insists one of them secretly hated her and purposely set her up to be murdered and now he’s going to find out who! There's an electrified fence around the grounds and since the guys are trapped there too, they decided to help out.

Penny is the first to go, strangled to death. Dad spends much of his time in a secret room making bullets near a shrine for his dead child. He also plays the flute to an accompanying record and has a flashback. Apparently he and daughter were a musical duo. After Sylvia is menaced by a tarantula,  Diane is killed with a pair of scissors. Joe runs into the electric fence after being chased by a dog. Francie is locked in the cellar with a rattlesnake. In the end Sylvia is in league with Dad, who has a Gatling gun he plans to use in his own game of Russian roulette leading to a surprise twist ending involving Judy and Paul. The director of this low budget cat and mouse drama Joe Mazzuca, directed several episodes of TV's THE BIG VALLEY and did various production jobs on many animated cartoon series. 

Girls In Peril

THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED-1969-A boarding school for girls is run by the strict principal Mme. Forneau (Lilli Palmer). Of course she’s some power crazed disciplinarian who has a sadistic underling whip a girl who defied her. She also has a son Luis (John Moulder-Brown) who lives there and spies on the girls. Mom doesn't want him around any of the students (“These girls are poison”). She may have an unhealthy fondness for him. Luis and one of students Isabel (Maribel Martin) seem to be in love and secretly meet and he worries his mom will find out. Unfortunately a fake note from Luis leads to her being stabbed to death. A new girl Teresa (Cristina Galbo) is caught in the middle. Much time is wasted on a shower scene (very brief nudity) with Luis getting stuck in some kind of drain pipe while spying. Other girls are killed and in the end Luis is building his own girlfriend in the image of his mother. 

Tedious story line and non-action doom this production from Spain by Narciso Ibanez Serrador. 

The next year Moulder-Brown co-starred in the UK stalker film DEEP END. https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2011/04/deep-end.html 

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Part 4?!

WITCHCRAFT 4: THE VIRGIN HEART-1992-This third sequel in the series seems to follow from part 3 and is very bad. A lawyer named Will (Charles Solomon; from the last one) investigates the case of a guy accused of killing his girlfriend. He spends much of his time having sex with a stripper named Belladonna (Julie Strain). The murders are the work of a killer associated with her strip club where musicians sell their souls to the devil for success. The killer is actually a warlock and claims to be Will's brother. This direct to video production and has bad acting and is boring but was followed by another sequel. The director James Merendino later made SLC PUNK. 

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Even A Man Who Is Pure In Heart....

THE WOLFMAN-1941-In England Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) returns home to Castle Talbot after spending 18 years in America, upon the death of his older brother. His dad Sir John (Claude Rains) wants him to become one of the family again. Cheerful Larry no sooner gets settled when he's fooling around with a telescope and spies Gwen (Evelyn Ankers) in her antique shop. When he visits she tells him about werewolves and the sign of the pentagram.

Larry wants his fortune told so he, Gwen and her friend Jenny (Fay Helm) visit a gypsy camp. There Bela (Bela Lugosi) reads Jenny's fortune and it's not good. He sees a pentagram on her palm. While Larry romances Gwen Bela turns into a werewolf and kills Jenny. Larry kills the werewolf with his silver cane but is bitten in the process. He's helped home by Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya) . Later the chief of police (Ralph Bellamy) and Doctor Lloyd (Warren William) find Jenny and Bela (not a wolf anymore). The next day Larry recovers and his wolf bite has disappeared. Larry overhears Maleva talking to the dead Bela and finds out he was her son. Later Gwen introduces Larry to her fiance Frank Andrews (Patrick Knowles), game keeper for the estate. Maleva gives Larry the low down on his curse and the gypsies pack up and leave as Larry turns into the title character. His first victim is a gravedigger. Next time he goes out prowling he gets his foot caught in a trap planted by the constable. He passes out but doesn't get caught because Maleva finds him and somehow gets him to change back to human. Larry goes to Gwen for help but when he sees the sign of the pentagram on her palm he freaks out. He confesses his fears to his dad but Sir John doesn't believe it. He straps his son to chair in a locked room while everyone is out hunting the wolf. He transforms and escapes. Gwen winds up in the foggy woods being pursued by hairy Larry. He attacks her but Sir John confronts him and in an ironic twist beats him to death with Larry's cane. Larry turns human and Maleva declares “Your suffering is over”.

 THE WOLF MAN kind of ushered in the second era of Universal horror films. Director George Waggner also did MAN MADE MONSTER with Chaney the same year. He later made THE CLIMAX with Karloff. This has a great cast and the foggy scenes where the wolf man prowls are excellent despite being all done in the studio. Screenwriter Curt Siodmak went on to write several more in the series. Waggner later went into TV. His last work was on the BATMAN TV in the '60's.

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Poe In Name Only

THE OBLONG BOX-1969-In Africa, Edward Markin (Alister Williamson) is cursed and his face disfigured. Later back in England he's held prisoner in his room by his brother Julian (Vincent Price). Through some voodoo Edward appears to die but plans a comeback. However Julian buries him alive and marries his younger fiancee' Elizabeth (Hilary Dwyer). Edward's rotten attorney Trench (Peter Arne) who was suppose to help, can't/won't. Edward is “rescued” by some grave robbers who deliver his body to Dr. Neuhartt (Christopher Lee). Edward blackmails the doc into harboring him. He plots revenge and kills wearing a velvet mask. He was cursed by an African tribe because he trampled a boy to death. But in actuality he's innocent. The big hype for this film was the first pairing of “horror masters” Price and Lee. The only time they meet is during Lee's death scene! Rupert Davies and Sally Geeson are also in it.

Price (and Rupert Davies & Hilary Dwyer) had been in Michael Reeves' WITCHFINDER GENERAL in 1968. Reeves was scheduled to do THE OBLONG BOX but he died (from a mixture of booze and pills) while working on the script. AIP hired Gordon Hessler to direct and he made many changes to the original script. The story isn't bad but considering this was the first time meeting between Lee and Price it doesn't have much of an impact especially considering Williamson has the most screen time! Hessler, Price and Lee “reunited” in 1970 for the bizarre SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN. 

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