Happy?

 

 (imdb)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY-2023-More self-indulgent horror junk from incompetent people who think they know how to make a movie. An escaped killer terrorizes some jerks at a secluded house. This convoluted nonsense has bad acting, a terrible script and piss poor direction. The lead actress is named Kim Sandwich but you'll be wishing you ordered a meatball hero and were watching another movie.

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3 By Curtis

 

 (imdb)

TRILOGY OF TERROR-1975-Very good TV horror anthology directed by Dan Curtis. In the first story “Julie” (written by William F. Nolan & Richard Matheson), Chad (Robert Burton), a college jerk becomes obsessed with nerdy teacher Julie (Karen Black). He drugs her, takes her to a hotel, takes pictures of her and rapes her. Then he blackmails her and he and his friends use her (not shown, only implied). But in the twist ending he finds out she's not what he thinks she is....

In the second “Millicent & Therese” (written by Nolan), Millicent (Black) complains about her sister Therese (also Black), being evil, practicing witchcraft and seducing men. She warns Therese's boyfriend (John Karlen) about her but he ignores it. Then Therese tries to seduce their doctor (George Gaynes). Millicent decides to do away with her sister using her own witchcraft. This story is ok but the ending is fairly guessable.

In the third and most famous episode “Amelia” (written by Matheson), Amelia, a woman with mother problems buys a weird Zuni fetish doll for her anthropologist boyfriend. After a fight with her mother, she breaks her date and is then terrorized by the evil looking doll that has big teeth and makes strange noises. 

Once again director Curtis shows that just because it's made for TV, horror stories can still be good.

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How Scary?

 

 (TMDB)

LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH-1971-Jessica (Zohra Lampert) and her husband Duncan (Barton Heyman) leave NYC to live in an old farmhouse after Jessica has been released from a mental institution. Accompanying them is their hippie friend Woody (Kevin O'Connor). The nearby town is occupied by unfriendly men who all seem to have bandages on some part of their bodies. Jessica has strange visions and hears voices but says nothing fearing her Duncan will think her illness is returning. When they get to the house, they are surprised to find Emily (Gretchen Corbett), a kind of hippie squatter living there. Jessica invites her to stay for a while. An antique dealer tells the couple about a woman who drowned right before her wedding. Local legend says she still exists and roams the island as a vampire. Are Jessica's suspicions and visions real or only in her head? 

This film has garnered some accolades recently even touted as one of the scariest movies ever! It's interesting to a point but the actors sometimes seem as though they are making up their dialogue as they go along. The strange open-ended finale doesn't really explain things. 2 years later, director John Hancock made BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY.

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Wrestling Horror From Mexico

 

(IMDB)

SANTO AND THE BLUE DEMON VS. DRACULA AND THE WOLFMAN-1973-This Mexican luchador movie opens with El Santo (as himself) wrestling Angel Blanco in a seemingly empty arena with canned crowd reaction. After his match El Santo meets his girlfriend Lina (Nubia Marti) and they visit her uncle Dr. Christobal (Jorge Mondragon) and his widowed daughter Laura (Maria Eugenia San Martin) and granddaughter Rosita (Lissy Fields). The doc tells Santo that 400 years before his ancestor killed Dracula and the wolfman with a magic dagger which the doc still has in his possession. Now he's gotten a letter threatening terrible revenge on him and his family. The sainted one says he will help. Later, after the doc gives the dagger to Rosita he's kidnapped by the hunchback Eric (Wally Barron) and taken to the tomb where he hangs the doc over Dracula's remains and cuts his throat. 

The blood drips down and revives the count. Rufus the wolfman (Augustin Martinez Solares) is also revived (for some reason he's wearing a yellow silk shirt). Drac (Aldo Monti) plans to create an army of vampires and werewolves and suddenly in the next scene the cave is full of would be victims. Laura reports her dad missing to the police who seem reluctant to help so Santo enlists the aid of fellow luchador Blue Demon (first seen fighting "Renato El Hippie" in the noisy empty arena). After the wolfman in human form makes friends with Laura, Drac pays a visit to her house. When everyone is playing cards the creepy count sets his fangs on little Rosita but is forced away by the presence of the ancient dagger. Laura somehow quickly falls for the clean shaven wolf but Blue Demon has his suspicions and follows him after he leaves. 

BD spies on him and Eric talking but they spot his reflection in a mirror and lay a trap. In a warehouse the wrestlers are jumped but beat up their attackers. Lina who hid in the trunk of Santo's car calls the cops. Later Rufus tells the guys they can find Christobal someplace. Santo investigates and encounters pale zombie Christobal who tries to strangle him. Eric knocks Santo out and plans on stabbing him but Blue Demon scares him away. After Drac goes to the house to put the bite on Lina a short bald vampire bites the maid. Drac lures Lina out and BD follows her. The maid lures out Rosita. BD is captured and chained up. Santo grabs the sacred dagger and goes looking for his friends. Lina is taken to a room by two red cloaked vampire women. Drac almost bites her but Eric interrupts them. Santo breaks in but is gassed by Eric who finds the dagger and instead of killing Santo goes to Lina to ask her if she knows how to use the dagger to make Drac and wolf turn over their treasure (?). Lina can barely reply “no”when the dagger spins and stabs Eric to death. Lina finds Santo and revives him. Meanwhile Rosita meets her living dead Grandpa and now vampire Laura leads her to a cave.

Then a werewolf is forced to walk a plank over a spiky pit. He doesn't make it. Then Demon is forced to walk the plank with hands tied. Santo shows up and the duo fight the wolf gang. Then Rufus confronts BD and turns hairy. Santo saves Rosita and she and Lina get away. Santo knocks both villains into the pit and they're impaled. 

This crazy and never dull wrestling horror story from Mexico was produced and written by Abel Salazar and directed by Miguel M. Delgado.

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Mummy Time!

 

(IMDB)

THE MUMMY'S TOMB-1942-Stephan Banning (Dick Foran in old age makeup) relates his tale from 30 years before of the search for Egyptian princess Ananka (events told in the previous THE MUMMY'S HAND). Also present are his son John (John Hubbard), John's girlfriend Isobel (Elyse Knox) and her mother Mrs. Evans (Virginia Brissac). Banning takes satisfaction in knowing he destroyed the mummy, Kharis. 

However in Egypt Prof. Andoheb (George Zucco) did not die and neither did Kharis. Andoheb clues his new discipline Mehenet (Turhan Bey) in on to how to control the mummy with tana leaves. Mehenet and Kharis head to the US for revenge. The bandaged monster's first victim is Ban-ning. The sheriff invest⁹igates because strange dust marks are found on his throat. Then Babe (Wallace Ford as an old man) arrives but Kharis comes back and kills Banning's elderly sister (Mary Gordon). Babe is the next victim. John finds a torn bandage and takes it to Prof. Norman (Frank Reicher) who confirms it comes from a mummy. Then John gets a draft notice and proposes to Isobel. Mehenet hangs around and clearly desires Isobel. He wants to make her his wife and commands Kharis to kidnap her. The mummy is not happy about it but does it anyway. A posse is formed to find her. Mehenet plans to make himself and Isobel immortal. The posse confronts him and he's shot by the sheriff. Kharis and Isobel are trapped in the burning Banning house but John rescues her (and is almost strangled by Kharis). The poor mummy burns up again and John and Isobel get married.

TOMB is arguably the best of the Lon Chaney Mummy series but did they really have to kill off the characters from the previous entry? Director Harold Young had made THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL with Leslie Howard in 1934 but later on was mostly a B-movie director. In 1945 he worked with Chaney again on one of the “Inner Sanctum” series, THE FROZEN GHOST and made THE JUNGLE CAPTIVE, the last entry into the “Paula, the Ape Woman” series.

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Made For TV Horror

 

THE WORLD BEYOND-1978-After a near death experience sports writer Paul Taylor (Granville Van Dusen) gets communications "from the beyond" telling him to help certain people. 

Here he goes to an isolated Canadian island to help a guy named Frank Faber. Andy (“special guest star” Barnard Hughes), owner of the boat that takes him to the island introduces him to his other passenger, Mary Faber (JoBeth Williams), the guy's sister. When they get to the island a dog attacks Paul. At the house Faber is missing. Then something wrecks their boat and kills the dog. A loud noise is heard. They realize there is something on the island and it may have to do with Frank practicing "the occult arts". While going to a neighboring house to borrow a boat they find Frank's severed head! After finding the neighbor dead and his boat wrecked Taylor deduces that Faber created a "golem" out of mud. "That's insane. There's no such thing!". After it kills Andy the mud monster attacks Paul and Mary. They cut off one of its hands and it terrorizes Mary. While fighting the severed hand in the basement Paul discovers how to destroy the monster.

 I guess this second pilot for an unsold series (by TV director Noel Black) isn't bad for a TV show despite too many monster POV shots. It was created and written by Art Wallace who created “Dark Shadows” earlier. The first pilot was made in 1977 and  called "World of Darkness", also starring Van Dusen.

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Happy New Year!

13 GHOSTS-1960-College teacher Cyrus Zorba (Donald Woods; THE BLACK DOLL) inherits a spooky house from his dead uncle Pluto. After Zorba, his wife Hilda (Rosemary DeCamp) and 2 kids Medea (Jo Morrow) and Buck (Charles Herbert; THE BOY AND THE PIRATES) move in the real estate agent (Martin Milner; on TV's ROUTE 66 at the time) tells them the place is haunted and a Ouija board tells them there are 13 ghosts. When dad puts on some special glasses invented by Pluto he sees a few of them. A colleague Van Allen (John Van Dreelan) translates a book in Greek which tells how Pluto “captured” ghosts from all around the world and brought them to his house. Housekeeper Elaine (Margaret Hamilton), called “the witch” behind her back, gives them the scoop on how Pluto died and warns them to leave. Later Medea has a strange encounter and when Buck puts on the glasses he sees a headless lion tamer! There's also a ghost chef who killed his wife and her lover and a flaming skeleton. Thanks to a special bed Uncle Pluto gets his revenge on the person who killed him. 

William Castle directed this unusual horror story which had the gimmick “Illusion-O” wherein moviegoers were given special ghost viewers to see the ghosts more clearly. Castle provides on screen instructions at the film's onset.

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Bad Babies

THE DEMON'S BABY-1998-The Chinese army discovers an underground tomb full of buried treasure. Among the items they remove is a gold statue of Buddha which unbeknownst to them contains a demon. It falls into the possession of a general (Elvis Tsui) and his four concubines. When they become pregnant along with the ill treated maid Little Fish (Annie Wu) impregnated by Day Six (Emotion Cheung) the cook, the demon possesses them and their wombs become the homes for some demonic killer babies with sharp teeth. Day Six teams up with a very strange priest (Anthony Wong) to do battle against the demon women in a crazy finale directed by Kant Leung.

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Blair Witch Inspired

THE CHERNOBYL DIARIES-2012-Some American tourists in Russia try some "extreme tourism" by visiting an abandoned city near the infamous nuclear explosion area. Of course it's obvious they should'nt  go there so of course they do! They trust some stupid local named Uri to take them there even after the army forbids them entrance. Everything goes ok until Uri gets frightened and decides it's time to leave. The it starts: their van doesn't work when they want to leave, Yuri gets a gun and goes exploring, one guy (Pop singer Jesse McCarthey) goes with him and winds up getting gored in the leg, the van is attacked by dogs, then group flounders around in the dark trying to fix the wounded guy's leg. They find Yuri's remains and then are menaced by what turns out to be the escaped radiation scarred residents of the area. The direction is very good but the explanation and resolution of the BLAIR WITCH PROJECT inspired story are a letdown. Filmed in Serbia and Hungry. This was first (and so far only) film from director Brad Parker who before this was a digital artist on films like THE TIME MACHINE remake and an assistant director. One of the screenwriters Oren Peli wrote PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.

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Busy Weekend-Quick Review

TO HELL WITH THE DEVIL-1981-John Woo made this good vs. evil horror-comedy with part of the story-line borrowed from BEDAZZLED a year before PLAN JANE TO THE RESCUE.

Ricky Hui (also in PLAN JANE) is Bruce, a pop singer/songwriter who makes a deal with the Devil's henchman (Stanley Tong) to become a star. Needless to say nothing turns out right and a priest (Paul Chun) tries to help him out. There's a lot of whacky comedy and well choreographed fights.

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I Saw Insidious

INSIDIOUS-2010-This is just a POLTERGEIST/THE EXORCIST/AMITYVILLE HORROR rip-off that critics made a big about because the director of SAW, James Wan made it.

A family seems to be terrorized in their house by some unknown force after their young son goes into a coma He's really possessed by a demon in a place called "the further" and the further I go with this review the further I can think of bad things to say about this derivative nonsense. I've read comments calling it the scariest horror movie ever but it's just talky shit with some loud noises thrown in. Parts of it, especially when 3 psychic researchers appear seem unintentionally funny.

I will give director Wan credit though. He tries using suspense and shock rather than the usual blood and gore associated with most modern horror films. Maybe I'm just a jaded old foggie but for me it didn’t live up to it’s hype!

Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are the parents and Barbara Hershey (apparently with a new face) is his mother. Lin Shaye is the main psychic and screenwriter Leigh Whannell has a role.

Thanks for reading! Happy Fourth of July!

More Hammer Mummies

BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB-1971-In this Hammer "mummy" entry, a dead (but amazingly preserved) Egyptian queen named Tera (Valerie Leon) is brought back to England by Prof. Fuchs (Andrew Keir; Quartermass in 5 MILLION MILES TO EARTH). Unfortunately it's at the exact same time his wife gives birth to their daughter. Several years later when the daughter Margaret (also played by Leon) is an adult and the result of the expedition is still a mystery Tera takes control of Margaret and she slashes several throats.

James Villiers is a weirdo scientist who thinks he can control Tera with "the scroll of life". George Coulouris plays a fellow scientist confined to an asylum. It's a nice little horror movie with good flashback scenes, some bloody deaths and an interesting, unexpected climax.

The production was shrouded by some bad luck. Peter Cushing was the original Fuchs but left early when his wife passed away. Director Seth Holt (who had made THE NANNY and SCREAM OF FEAR earlier for Hammer) died before completing the film and it was finished by studio head Michael Carreras.

Unfortunately the very hot Valerie Leon never really had another role like this but strangely made appearances in two movies featuring James Bond (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME with Roger Moore and NEVER SAY NEVER with Sean Connery). It's based on a story "Jewell of The Seven Stars" by Bram Stoker and there's a character in the film named Tod Browning!

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Raw Meat

RAW MEAT-1972-Underneath the subway stations in London a cannibalistic maniac (Hugh Armstrong) kidnaps riders for food. He’s the last survivor of a group of workers who were trapped down there in an accident, Donald Pleasence is a cynical police inspector investigating the disappearances. Norman Rossington is his assistant and Clive Swift (who was in FRENZY the same year) is another inspector. David (son of Alan) Ladd is an American who becomes a suspect. His girlfriend (Sharon Gurney) is later taken by the dirty old cannibal. Ladd makes some jokes concerning apathetical New Yorkers and Christopher Lee is in one scene as MI-5 that butts heads with Pleasence.

RAW MEAT is a fairly strange little movie made in England by US director Gary Sherman who later made VICE SQUAD, WANTED:DEAD OR ALIVE and POLTERGEIST 3. For it’s time it’s quite gory. Also known as DEATHLINE. Pleasence was in 5 other movies (and an episode of TV’s Hawaii 5-0) in ‘72!

"Mind the doors"! and thanks for reading!