Demon In The Celler

 

 

 (themoviedb.org)

CELLAR DWELLER-1988-A comic artist Colin Childress (Jeffery Coombs), using a Necronomicon like book for inspiration, brings to life one of his creations. (Typical '80's Empire Pictures demon) He destroys it by burning the page but kills himself in the process. 

30 years later, Whitney Taylor (Deborah Mullowney) visits the Throckmorton art Institute run by Mrs. Briggs (Yvonne DeCarlo). Whitney's a horror comic book artist who wants to make a new version of the horror comic Cellar Dweller created by Childress. Others in "the colony" include Amanda (Pamela Bellwood), Phillip (Brian Robbins), Lisa (Cheryl Ann Williams) and Norman (Vince Edwards), an ex-PI/would be writer. When Amanda tries to frame Whitney for plagiarism, the demon kills her. Then when Norman is snooping around, the demon kills him. It seems someone else is also drawing her story. Poor Lisa who didn't do any except walk around nude after taking a shower, is the next victim. Whitney is kind of responsible for the deaths but manages to make up for it before screwing up one final time. 

Filmed in Italy by John Carl Buechler who also worked on the special effects. Charles Band was a co-producer.

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Hugo Haas Far To Go

  (imdb)

HIT AND RUN-1957-Rich gas station magnate Gus Hilmer (do it all director Hugo Haas) takes a liking to showgirl Julia (Cleo Moore) but Gus's mechanic/watchdog Frankie (Vince Edwards) doesn't like it. While trying to find Julia a car he mentions he was married once and will never marry again. Whammo! The next scene he and Julia are married. They seem relatively happy at first but Frankie doesn't like her, believing Julia married Gus for his money and gives his notice to Gus. Later, while Gus is at a party, Frankie puts the moves on Julia but she resists. Later Frankie confesses his love for Julia but she's not all that fired up to leave her husband and go away with a grease monkey . Eventually Julia gives in to his persistence. To show his love Frankie refurbishes an old car and takes Julia for a ride where he runs down Gus! After the funeral Julia says she sees Gus hanging around the house at night. 

Surprise! At the reading of Gus' will, his twin brother Dave (also Haas) shows up fresh from a stretch in San Quentin. This really gets on Julia 's nerves especially since he got half of his bro's estate and now lives in the same house. One night he tells Julia he knows about her and Frankie. He also knows Gus was killed but doesn't care. He hated his bro but it's obvious he has an ulterior motive. 

This triple threat little morality take from director/writer/producer Haas isn't the greatest but it kind of keeps you guessing till the conclusion. This was the seventh and last film the largely ignored Cleo Moore made with director Haas and also the last movie of her career. Despite looks and decent acting skills real fame seemed to eluded her so she quit show biz. In 1961 she married a millionaire land developer. She “died in her sleep” in 1973. She was 43. 

Czechoslovakian born Hugo Haas bummed around pictures beginning in 1925, even directing a few movies in his native land. In 1951 he caught the director's bug and began making his own movies. Most of his films are low budget moralistic dramas usually involving an older man with a younger woman and a story featuring a big plot twist. Almost completely forgotten today, his movies should be re-examined. HIT AND RUN also features Moore's sister Maria Lea and John Zaremba.

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Hitman

 

MURDER BY CONTRACT-1958-Claude (Vince Edwards) becomes a hit man for Mr. Moon (Michael Granger) who works for the mysterious Mr. Brink. In LA he's met by high strung Marc (Phillip Pine) and laid back George (Herschel Bernardi). Claude is kind of a nut who berates a waiter and seems more interested in sightseeing than the hit. He gets upset though when he finds out his latest job Billie Williams is a woman. After a failed attempt to electrocute her and more planning he's successful but a drunken call girl (Kathie Browne) informs him that he didn't kill Billie but instead a police woman. 

The climax is a little far fetched but it's an ok low budget film noir. Director Irving Lerner later worked with Edwards on his hit TV show “Ben Casey”.

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