Can't Keep A Good Vampire Down

 

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DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE-1968-In this sequel to DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS (set a year later), a monsignor, Ernst Mueller (Rupert Davies) comes to a small town where Dracula had been sent to a watery grave, to find everyone still afraid especially since a villager was found hanging from a church bell. The monsignor and the local priest (Ewan Hooper) hike to Dracula's castle. Unfortunately, the priest is kind of a coward and while running away, falls and cuts his head. His blood trickles into the Count's mouth and resurrects him. The priest then becomes the count's slave and helps him to secure a coffin. Meanwhile, Mueller hosts a party for his niece Maria (Virginia Carlson) and her boyfriend Paul (Barry Andrews). The monsignor gets upset when Paul tells him he's an atheist. Paul leaves and gets drunk. Drac's first victim is barmaid Zena (Barbara Ewing). Drac has his digs under the pub where Paul works (for Michael Ripper) and sets his teeth on Maria. 

In this rather bloody (and sexual) sequel, a prayer must be read to kill a vampire once the stake has been driven. Nice use of color filters by director Freddie Francis. 

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Lee & Cushing

 

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THE CREEPING FLESH-1973-Overzealous scientist Emmanuel Hildern (Peter Cushing) finds an unusual skeleton in Asia and brings it back to London. The doctor has been keeping a secret from his daughter Penelope (Lorna Heilbron) who believes her mother dead. However, Hildern receives a letter from his brother James (Christopher Lee), head of an insane asylum where his wife has been kept for many years and has just died. James is envious and resentful of his brother and tells him so. Later while examining the skeleton, a bony finger seems to grow flesh. Meanwhile James seems to be doing experiments of his own when one of his patients escapes. When Penelope finds out mom's secret, dad goes a little crazy and injects her with the blood from the skeleton finger. She starts to pick up mom's bad habits and winds up killing a sailor. While escaping from an angry mob she hooks up with the escaped lunatic who she later pushes to his death. She's captured and carted off to uncle's asylum. After snooping, James discovers what has happened to Penelope. Then he has the skeleton stolen. A rainstorm wrecks this endeavor and the reanimated skeleton comes looking for its finger. 

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A weird twist ending highlights this story. Michael Ripper has a small role. Often mislabeled a Hammer film, this independent English production shows promise but kind of never really gets going. Cinematographer Freddie Francis replaced Don Sharp as director right before filming started. Francis had directed several Hammer and non-Hammer films including THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN (1964), DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965), TORTURE GARDEN (1967) and DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968).

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Troggie Dearest

TROG-1970-In England three spelunkers go looking for trouble in some underground caves and find it in the form of a prehistoric man/monster who beats one guy to death. Another guy goes crazy and is taken to a hospital where he's questioned by Dr. Brockton (Joan Crawford in her last motion picture role) who wants to see exactly what terrified him, so she and the third spelunker go back to the cave and she gets her wish snapping a photograph of the “trog” picking up a boulder. An expedition is mounted and Trog (Joe Cornelius in a monkey suit supposedly leftover from 2001!)) appears on live TV! Some people run but others (mostly the police) just stand around when Trog kills a cameraman. Brockton whips out a tranquilizer gun and Trog is captured and put in a cage for study (“For a senior citizen he certainly has a marvelous appetite”). Brockton's daughter Anne (Kim Braden) assists her when Trog plays with toys and listens to classical music. But when a jazzy rock number is played he goes wild! 

Dr. Selbourne (Jack May), a jealous assistant and Murdoch (Michael Gough), a greedy land developer plot to have Trog destroyed. A famous American surgeon (Robert Hutton) performs an operation that makes the caveman have flashbacks to prehistoric times (scenes from THE ANIMAL WORLD (1956) are used). All seems ok until Murdoch breaks into the institute and taunts Trog who escapes, kills Murdoch and terrorizes the small community (he hangs a local butcher on a meat hook). He kidnaps a little girl and heads for his cave. Brockton convinces Trog to set the girl free but the army kills him anyway. 

 This was the second outing for Joan Crawford working for her friend expatriate American producer Herman Cohen. I wonder if she still considered him a friend after starring in this dumb low budget horror thriller? Their first collaboration was BERSERK in 1967. Both have screenplays by Aben Kandel who in the US had written I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF in 1957 for then AIP producer Cohen. Earlier Kandel had written KID MONK BARONI (1952), Leonard Nimoy's debut film. Co-story credit goes to director John Gilling. 

Director Freddie Francis was also a respected and busy cinematographer though at this time he was directing his own films which were usually competently handled but TROG suffers from lack of budget and a rushed story line. This was the real nadir of Crawford's career (although she was on the board of directors of Pepsi-Cola at the time) and though miscast she plays it straight.

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Amicus

THE PSYCHOPATH-1966-In this Amicus production (written by American Robert Bloch) a lawyer is crushed to death by a car and a doll resembling the victim his found with him. An inspector's (Patrick Wymark, in THE SKULL by the same director the year before)) investi-gation leads him to suspect American Donald Loftis (Canadian actor Don Borisenko) and his English girlfriend Louise (Judy Huxtable). Her father is played by Alexander Knox. Murders by poison, strangulation and acetylene torch follow. It all has to do with a doll obsessed wheel chair bound woman (Margaret Johnson) and her "Norman Bates" like son (John Standing) and her husband's suicide. Despite being almost blown up the inspector finds the real culprits. It's well directed by Oscar winning cinematographer Freddie Francis but there's a lot of talk and you know immediately who's the killer once the character is introduced. A weird freak out ending saves the whole thing!

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Moon Men

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE-1967-A group of scientists investigate a mysterious meteor shower and have their minds taken over by some alien invaders (from the Moon). The leader of the group (Robert Hutton) can't be controlled because he has a metal plate in his head. He tries to discover the secret of the invasion while being thwarted by alien possessed humans. After the aliens release a "scarlet plague" he goes on a one man mission to infiltrate the base. Eventually he meets The Master of The Moon (Michael Gough) and his pals who wear very colorful robes and finds out their true purpose. Jennifer Jayne co-stars.

This low budget Amicus production is based on a novel by American author Joseph Millard called "The Gods Hate Kansas". Director/cinematographer Freddie Francis made TORTURE GARDEN the same year.

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