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CHAMBER OF HORRORS was originally made for TV and based on HOUSE OF WAX but it was thought too violent for TV and it was turned into a feature film and added two "William Castle like" gimmicks: "The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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No Dragons Though

VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS-1961-In 1881, 2 guys are going to have a duel. Hector Sevadac (Cesare Danova), Frenchman  and Michael Denning (Sean McClory), from Ireland are starting their paces when a comet seems to sweep across Earth. At first they think civilization has been destroyed and they are the last survivors. They battle comical looking cavemen and a large phony spider. They also encounter the overused footage of the Earth cracking open and little lizards made up to look like dinosaurs from ONE MILLION BC. When night finally falls and they look up in the sky and see the planet Earth they realize the truth. They have in fact been swept up on the passing comet! 

The duo save each others life and forget their duel and become friends. After much exploring they come upon a tribe of human inhabitants but the group runs away. Eventually Hector is found by Deena (Joan Staley), a blonde haired female of a local tribe. He tries to teach her English (shouldn't he had tried to teach her French?) and of course winds up kissing her.  Meanwhile Michael falls in with another tribe and has his own female problems in the form of cave brunette Nateeta (Danielle De Metz) and Anoka (Mike Lane), her cave guy. He causes trouble but Michael uses a sling-shot to keep him in line.

Later after Hector and Deena frolic (too long) in an underwater love scene they wander into a cave and are attacked by creatures that look suspiciously like The Morlocks (George Pal's version of THE TIME MACHINE was made the year before). Deena escapes the Morlock wannabes but is captured by another tribe. Fortunately it's the tribe Michael has been hanging with.  Just when it seems as if the two tribes are going to fight the nearby volcano erupts more stock footage. When the smoke clears everyone gets together to help rescue some survivors trapped in a cave. Hector creates gunpowder and makes a bomb to destroy the giant lizard guarding the cave! Everyone lives happily ever after on the prehistoric comet. 

VALLEY is a very low budget production with lots of stock footage, super-imposed monsters and jungle and cave scenes obviously filmed in a studio. The biggest surprise though is a cameo appearance by Japan's Rhodan! Yes, a flying creature shown quickly several times is none other than Godzilla's old pal!

Perhaps it shouldn't  be that much of a surprise as one of VALLEY's producers was Al Zimbalist, the man behind ROBOT MONSTER!

Director Edward Bernds made this between THE RETURN OF THE FLY and THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES. Bernds worked a lot with The Stooges and The Bowery Boys as well. He died in 2000 at the age of 94.  

VALLEY is based on the Jules Verne story "Career Of a Comet".

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My Last For 2010..if you are lucky!

TENTACULES-1977-This Italian production from director Ovidio G. Assonitis features several name American stars and a lot of tedium. After several underwater incidents involving a conglomerate called Trojan Inc, , a local reporter Ned Turner (John Huston) investigates. It seems there is a giant octopus hanging out ready to munch locals. Henry Fonda is the company owner and Cesare Danova is his flunky. Shelly Winters plays Turner’s sister who wears a huge sombrero. Claude Aktins is the local sheriff trying to contain (cover-up) the trouble. Bo Hopkins shows up as a famous scuba diver who’s expression barely changes. His bland plea to a few killer whales to help him destroy the monster is pretty funny. A fat guy goes swimming and gets killed and then the boat he was on is destroyed. It all has to do with a tunnel the company is digging. Meanwhile there’s a kid boat race that’s going to take place and Turner’s nephew is in it. Since it’s actually a Italian production many of the secondary actors’ voices are dubbed but for some reason Danova’s seems to be too! The SFX (including toy boats) are pretty cheesy.

Director Assonitis also made the "Exorcist" rip-off BEYOND THE DOOR and FOREVER EMANULLE. in 1974 and later produced James Cameron's first directorial effort PIRANNA 2: THE SPAWNING.

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