Not Really a Remake

 

 (imdb)

NIGHT OF THE DEVILS-1972-An amnesic man is found wandering in a forest. A doctor examines him. The man seems to have suffered some kind of trauma. A police inspector investigates. A woman Sdenka (Augustina Belli; later in HOLOCUAST 2000 (1977)) shows up claiming to know him but when he sees her, he goes berserk and has to sedated. She disappears.

Then while confined to a straitjacket, the man has a flashback. When his car breaks down, the guy named Nicola (Gianni Garko; star of the “Sartana” series of westerns in Italy) takes refuge with a strange family who are deathly afraid of the night. This is because a witch has put a curse on the family and one by one, they become a “Wudalaka”, a type of vampire. He also falls in love with Sdenka. Eventually everyone is cursed and Nicola has to fight them off. He goes crazy. Back in the present, at night Sdenka comes to visit him. Is she alive or not? 

Ok Italian-Spanish production with some good vampire attack scenes, it's based on the same story Mario Bava used in the third segment of BLACK SABBATH. It was the second to last film of director Giorgio Ferroni (MILL OF STONE WOMEN (1960)).

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Glen Was 60 Feet Tall...

 

 (moriareviews.com)

WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST-1958-In this sequel Glen Manning, THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN, didn't die in the original. Instead, he survived and wound up in Mexico, a deformed, one eyed, deranged monster (now played by Dean Parkin) stealing food trucks and scaring locals. His sister Joyce (Sally Fraser) hears reports and contacts Mr. Swanson (George Becwar), whose truck disappeared and Major Baird (Roger Pace), useless army brass who advises sis to give up her quest. She visits Mexico to see a young boy Miguel who's in shock from an encounter with a monster and meets helpful Sgt. Murillo (Rico Alaniz). Later Baird and Dr. Carmichael (Russ Bender) come to investigate. They find a colossal footprint. ("That is a very big footprint") Baird wants to call in the military but Joyce says they should reason with Glen. After seeing the scarred giant, they decide to capture him. They drug him with some bread but have trouble finding a place to put him in the US. Finally, they tie him up in an airport hangar and we get a flashback to the original. Then he escapes but is recaptured. It's determined that Glen has irreversible brain damage and the army decides to send him to an isolated island but he escapes before they can move him. They trap him in Griffith Park but he terrorizes a bus load of school kids. Joyce's plea makes him put the bus down and commit suicide in the color finale. 

Who else but Bert I. Gordon (who passed away at age 100 in March) would be behind such giant shenanigans? It's low budget for sure with some sub-par sfx but the giant's “new look” is pretty cool.

Sally Fraser was in Mr. BIG's other “giant” movie in 1958, EARTH VS. THE SPIDER. Dean Parkin cut his teeth for this role by playing the “huge” title creature on Gordon's THE CYCLOPS the year before. Russ Bender has the distinction of playing two different characters in each film and getting killed in both!

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More Price Magic

 

 (imdb)

THE LONG NIGHT-1947-A mysterious stranger is shot at a rooming house. The police investigate and when they go to the room of Joe Adams (Henry Fonda) he shoots at them through the door. When he won't cooperate, they shoot at him from a building across the street but that doesn't work. A flashback relates what has happened Joe, a factory worker who meets Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes), who works in a flower shop. They fall in love and he wants to marry her. She seems hesitant (of course she's hiding a secret). Joe follows her to a smoky nightclub where magician Maximillan the Great (the one and only Vincent Price) performs. Jo meets with Max for some unknown reason. Max's assistant Charlene (Ann Dvorak) gives Joe the lowdown on her boss. He and Charlene begin a friendship. Max says he's Jo's father despite her being an orphan. He thinks Jo is no good for Joe. Then Jo has a flashback where we find out Max is not her father but a guy who tried to put the moves on her. He wants to break the couple up and says “Do I have to apologize for superior imagination?”. When Max goes to see Joe, he won't shut up and Joe shoots him. Back in the present Jo talks Joe out of the apartment amid a teargas attack. 

A bevy of characters appear: Elisha Cook Jr., Queenie Smith, Charles McGraw, Bobby Barber, Ellen Corby, Byron Foulger, Mary Gordon, Richard Reeves, Ray Teal, Dick Wessel and Will Wright. This kind of crime drama/love story/film noir was directed by Anatole Litvak (THE SNAKE PIT) after spending most of the WW2 years making a short film documentary series “Why We Fight” with Frank Capra. 

The movie succeeds if you are not looking for a huge payoff in the finale, otherwise it's a slight disappointment. It also depends on your point of view with Joe's predicament. He doesn't really evoke that much sympathy. This was lead actress Bel Geddes' movie debut. Among other things, she's remembered as the lead on TV's “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” episode “Lamb To The Slaughter”.

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It's Raining Devils

 

 (imdb)

THE DEVIL'S RAIN-1975-After credits are shown over paintings by Bosch, Mark Preston (William Shatner) goes up against "Satan's minister on Earth" Korvus (Ernest Borgnine) and his eyeless worshipers for possession of a book. Meanwhile Sam Richards (Eddie Albert) and Tom Preston (Tom Skerrit) demonstrate a type of telepathy using Preston's wife Julie (Joan Prather). Preston returns home to find his mom (Ida Lupino) and brother Mark missing. The sheriff (Keenan Wynn) blames a flood. While Mark is tortured, Preston & Julie go to a ghost town where caretaker Charlie told them Mark was headed. While snooping they are attacked by an eyeless guy. Julie seems to have a psychic connection to the coven and sees a flashback to colonial times. 

It turns out the wife of Preston's ancestor Martin Fife (also Shatner) betrayed the satanists who are burned at the stake. Preston infiltrates the gathering where Mark is to be sacrificed and Korvus transforms into a goat man. Unfortunately Preston is found out but escapes. Somehow Richards gets the book and tells Preston what's going on. When Korvus captures Julie and plans to convert her, Richards and Preston go back and find some kind of orb that holds all the souls Korvus has taken. After they are attacked by the possessed sheriff, the duo break up the party. It's a TV show star battle with McHale vs. Capt. Kirk vs. Mr. Douglas in the finale where the rain makes the group melt. Korvus seems to melt too but evil wins out!

Director Robert Fuest (THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES) made this high profile horror movie that later exploited then unknown cast member John Travolta (the less said about him the better). It's a good little horror movie with a nice cast and surprise ending. Charlatan Anton LeFay (also credited as a technical adviser) has a cameo as a satanic priest.

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Part 2

 

 (imdb)

SHAOLIN VS. EVIL DEAD-2: ULTIMATE POWER-2007-Not nearly as entertaining as part one, as there is a long back story for the first hour (including a short animated story) which is rather disorienting since part one ended so abruptly. It tells the origins of how White (Gordon Liu) and Hak become brothers. Hak has a poison in his body that makes him bad. Their dad (Siu-Ming Lao) also has poison in his body and before he dies he hands everything over to White (he feels Hak is too mean). Great long fight finale, swordplay and a legion of hopping vampires. Director Douglas Kung also ends this one rather abruptly. 

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The Beat

 

MURDER IS MY BEAT-1955-Cop Ray Patrick (Paul Langton; later in IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE) searches for nightclub singer Eden Lane (Barbara Payton), a suspect in the murder of Frank Dean. He tracks her to a snowbound cabin. He arrests her and after she's convicted he accompanies her to the state pen and she convinces Ray she saw Dean alive on a platform. He helps her escape and investigates but all his leads go cold. He also falls in love with her. Later Eden disappears. This part is actually a flashback told by Ray to his boss (Robert Shayne). Ray convinces his boss to help him. 

There's an interesting conclusion in this little film noir masterpiece by the one and only Edgar Ulmer. 

The film also features un-billed roles by Harry Harvey, William Fawcett and Hank Patterson. 

MURDER was written and produced by Aubrey Wisberg who also did the screenplays for THE NEANDERTHAL MAN (with Robert Shayne) and THE MAN FROM PLANET X. This was the last feature role for the notorious Barbara Payton who was once involved in a violent relationship with actor Tom Neal who ten years earlier had starred in Ulmer's classic DETOUR. A public fight between Neal and actor Franchot Tone in which Payton received a black eye helped sink her sagging career. She drank herself to death and died at age 39 in 1967.

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Mars in Cinemagic

 

THE ANGRY RED PLANET-1959-A manned Mars space probe that was thought to have crashed landed turns up 60 days later floating in space. When it's retrieved only one of the four person crew is conscious, the one female member Iris (Nora Hayden) who begins to relate the story of how she, Prof. Gettell (Les Tremayne), chief officer Sam Jacobs (Jack Kruschen) and Col. Tom O'Bannion (Gerald Mohr) travel to Mars and land on its red surface. When Iris sees an alien at a window she can't remember the rest of her story so the doctor gives her a drug and she continues. The group goes out to explore. It really is red. They have a ray gun that freezes things which comes in handy when Iris is attacked by a giant carnivorous plant! 

On their second outing they encounter a scary creature sometimes referred to as the rat bat spider which almost crushes the professor. Over a ridge they discover huge lake and something is watching them. Sensing danger they decide to return to the ship and go back to Earth but are held there by a force field. With nothing else to do, the decide to cross the lake when they spy a city in the distance. They head for it but turn around when a giant fish blob emerges and chases them. It kills Sam. The blob covers the ship. They use electricity to get rid of it, then get a Martian message but Iris faints. After they take off Gettell dies of a heart attack and Tom's condition worsens (he has a fungus). Poor Iris is on her own. Back in the present Iris concocts a cure to save Tom. They find a warning message on one of tapes. The voice (Ted Cassidy) warns Earth to stay away or be destroyed....

It has been said that THE ANGRY RED PLANET was made in 9 days on a budget of $200,000 by director Ib Melchior who co-wrote the screenplay with co-producer Sid Pink. Co-producer Norman Maurer reluctantly used the quick Cinemagic process to depict the Mars surface and the monsters. It was a very tacky looking but weird effect and he employed it again on THE THREE STOOGES IN ORBIT (co-starring his father in law Moe Howard). 

Melchior and Pink later worked together on REPTILICUS.

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Looking For Danger

LOOKING FOR DANGER-1957-In this weird Bowery Boys outing Duke (Stanley Clements) recalls in a flashback how he and Sach (Huntz Hall) fought against the Nazis in WW2! They also get involved with a Middle Eastern sultan and his harem. It's easy to see the series was on it's last legs as the gags are really bad and Sach is goofier than ever. 


Dick Elliot is now featured as Mike Clancy (after Percy Helton), the owner of the cafe where the boys (along with David Gorcey, Jimmie Murpshy and Eddie LeRoy who are also seen briefly in flashback) hang out. Lili Kardell and John Harmon are also featured. 


Screenplay by old BB stalwarts Ed Bernds and Ellwood Ullman. Director Austin Jewell also made HOLD THAT HYPNOTIST. It's the only other feature he directed!


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