Chaney in Charge

 

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THE MONSTER-1925-When Dr. Bowman disappears (actually his car is caused to crash and his body is taken by two ghoulish figures), the town of Danburg is in an uproar. The constable (Charles Sellon) and his "daring detectives'' investigate. Local boy Johnny Goodlittle (Johnny Arthur) who has a book "How Be A Detective" is the only one who finds a clue but the Constable laughs at him. Johnny works under Amos Rugg (Hallam Cooley) at a general store. They are both sweet on Betty Watson (Gertude Olmstead). The insurance company sends detective Jennings (William H. Turner). Once again Johnny shows them the clue he's found, a card from nearby Edwards sanitarium with the word help written backwards on the reverse side. Still, nobody believes it, since the doc is away and his sanitarium is closed. At Betty's party, she throws Johnny over for the pompous Rugg. Leaving dejectedly, Johnny meets a loony looking man who smokes an invisible pipe. When he mentions Bowman, Johnny follows him. When Rugg and Betty go for a ride, they fall victim to a planned auto accident just like Bowman had. Meanwhile Johnny accidentally gets into the sanitarium and later meets Rugg and Betty who went there to use the phone. They find a dead body. Asshole Rugg accuses Johnny of murder. Odd things happen around them. Then 30 minutes into the story Dr. Ziska (Lon Chaney) appears, saying he's in charge when Dr. Edwards is away. The guy they think is dead was actually in a trance. Ziska also has a huge mute servant Caliban (Walter James). Of course, Ziska is really an insane surgeon, once a patient who now has Edwards, Bowman and another guy captive in a dungeon. Meanwhile Ziska plans to transfer Rugg's soul into Betty's body. Fortunately, Johnny overcomes his cowardice and uses his "ingenuity" to put a stop to Ziska's evil machinations. 

THE MONSTER is thought to be the first type of haunted house mystery ala "THE OLD DARK HOUSE”. There's lots of strange characters and spooky goings on (clutching hands, secret doors etc). Co-star Johnny Arthur was known for playing timid characters, sometimes described as “effeminate”. After the Production Code was implemented in 1934, he had uncredited roles in many movies. He also portrayed Darla Hood's father in several “Our Gang” shorts. Star Lon Chaney is quite over the top in this horror-comedy which he made the same year as PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE UNHOLY THREE. 

Director/co-writer Roland West went on to make THE BAT and THE BAT WHISPERS but retired from the movies and went into business with ill-fated actress Thelma Todd. Co-writer Crane Wilbur (who wrote the play THE MONSTER is based on) made the controversial THE UNBORN in 1934 but went on to write many more movies (WEST OF SHANGHAI, HOUSE OF WAX, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND).

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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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Bjork

 

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GLERBROT aka BROKEN GLASS-1988-In a laundry room, a woman, her father and her drunken, abusive husband argue and insult each other. The couple also talk about putting their rebellious daughter Maria (Bjork; still a member of The Sugar Cubes), in an insane asylum. She shows up and calls them “shitty scum” then leaves. 

Later, two Teutonic religiously demented women come from the asylum, and forcibly take Maria away and put her in a cell. The place seems to be a hotbed of lesbianism trying to turn Maria queer. She convinces her parents to take her away but the Hitler sisters won't release her. Using a glass cutter sneaked to her by her boyfriend, Maria escapes, meets her boyfriend and they freeze to death. 

Parts look like a music video. It was directed by Kristin Johannesdottir for Icelandic TV.

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Karloff is Back!

 

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THE HAUNTED STRANGLER-1958-Dr. James Rankin (Boris Karloff) investigates the case of Edward Styles, hanged as a murderer years before. He seems to feel that Styles' assistant Tenet who was later confined to an asylum might be more involved than first suspected. His wife (Elizabeth Allen) wants him to drop it. He has an assistant Dr. McCall (Tim Turner) who's in love with Rankin's daughter Lily (Diane Aubrey). Rankin and McCall find out a lot about Tenet and Rankin wants to exhume his body but superintendent Burk (Anthony Dawson) won't allow it, so Rankin digs it up himself! He finds a missing surgical knife believed to be the murder weapon which transforms him into a scary one-armed killer seeking vengeance. 

Of course, it turns out Rankin is Tenet protected by his wife who was a nurse at the asylum. After he kills her, he admits he's the murderer but no one believes him and he's committed to an asylum. He turns into Tenet and escapes. He goes on a killing spree but is eventually shot after menacing his daughter. 

Cool old style horror film directed by Robert Day with Karloff using facial expressions instead of make-up. Day and Karloff worked together on CORRIDOR OF BLOOD the same year.

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Amicus Anthology

 

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ASYLUM-1972-A young Dr. Martin (Robert Powell) has a job interview in an insane asylum where the head doctor Rutherford has gone insane and is now a patient. Or so says his replacement (Patrick Magee). He says if Martin can identify the loony doc from the other patients, he gets a position.

The first story, “Frozen Fear” is related by Bonnie (Barbara Parkins) and how her lover Walter (Richard Todd) murdered his wife with an ax, chopped up her body and put it in a freezer. The pieces come back to life and kill hubby. Bonnie has to fight the pieces too and winds up insane and disfigured.

Then comes the tale “The Weird Tailor”. Bruno (Barry Morse), a tailor who can't pay his rent, is visited by a Mr. Smith (Peter Cushing) who wants the tailor to make a special suit for his son. He needs the suit to bring his son back to life. After he accidentally kills Smith, Bruno wants to burn the suit. His wife (Ann Firbank) wants to call the police. Fortunately, she puts the suit on Otto the dummy. An episode of Thriller is based on the same story.

In the third story “Lucy Comes to Stay”, a woman named Barbara (Charlotte Rampling) comes to live with her stuffy brother George (James Villiers) after a mental breakdown. She has an annoyingly cheerful nurse called Higgins (Megs Jenkins). After Barbara takes some pills, her mysterious friend Lucy (Britt Eklund) shows up and convinces her that George is trying to kill her. But Lucy is just an illusion.

Last up is “Manikins of Horror”. Dr. Byron (Herbert Lom) makes little dolls that he says he can bring to life through thought control, which he does in the finale but there's a fatal twist ending for poor Dr. Martin. 

This is a cool horror anthology from Amicus with all the stories written by Robert Bloch who had performed a similar duty the year before on THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD. Director Roy Ward Baker's previous horror movie had been DR. JEYKLL AND SISTER HYDE (1971).

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More Hammer

 

MANIAC-1963-In the French region of The Camargue a pervert named Janello (Arnold Diamond) rapes a local girl Annette (Lillane Brousse). Her father finds him before the police do and he proceeds to torture and kill the guy with a blowtorch. 4 years later an American painter Jeff Farrell (Kerwin Matthews, THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD) decides to spend some time in a small village after breaking up with his girlfriend. He rents a room from Mme Eve Beynat (Nadia Grey) who also runs a saloon with her step-daugther Annette, who Jeff is first attracted to. Later he has an affair with Eve. She tells him her husband Henri (Don Houston) is in a mental hospital and if Jeff wants her to be free they will have to help him escape from the hospital. Jeff agrees. They pick him up and drop him off at a pier. Later Jeff discovers a dead body in the trunk of their car. They deduce it is a male nurse who helped Georges get away. At night they dump the body. An inspector investigates. There's a few twists in this kind of forgotten little Hammer thriller written by Jimmy Sangster and directed by Michael Carreras, the boss' son. Nice finale.

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William Castle

 

STRAIT-JACKET-1964-Lucy Harbin (Joan Crawford) comes home early from a trip to find her younger husband (un-billed Lee Majors in his screen debut) has been doing the nasty with an old flame. Outraged she chops them up with an ax. Unfortunately her young daughter Carol sees the whole thing. Lucy is confined to an insane asylum. 20 years later Carol (Diane Baker) tells her boyfriend Michael Fields (John Anthony Hayes) all about it because mom has just been released and is coming for a visit! 

Carol has been living in anonymity with aunt Emily (Rochelle Hudson) and uncle Bill (Leif Erickson). "My mother....a murderess". Lucy arrives and they get along at first but she's reluctant to meet Michael and seems to like knives. While shopping with Carol she freaks out when some kids sing "London Bridge". She wakes up with decapitated corpses in her bed and a bloody ax. But of course when everyone comes to look there's nothing there. She really gets upset when she sees the weird handyman Krause (George Kennedy) kill a chicken. When her doctor (non-actor Mitchell Cox) pays her a visit he winds up axed in the slaughterhouse. When Krause finds the dead doc's body he gets axed too. When Michael's parents refuse the marriage Mike's father (Howard St. John) is the next victim. A whacked out ending reveals whether Lucy is crazy or not. 

William Castle made this fairly suspenseful if predicable little tale that was originally suppose to star Joan Blondel in the lead but an accident forced her out and “Mommie Dearest” herself Joan Crawford signed on but not before Robert Bloch had to completely rewritten the script to suit Crawford including the final scene. At the time Joan was on the board of directors of the Pepsi company (her late husband had been the CEO) and made sure there was some product placement as well as getting Mitchell Cox, the Pepsi vice president to portray her doctor! 

Castle also made THE NIGHT CALLER with Barbara Stanwyck the same year. He and Crawford teamed up again the next year for I SAW WHAT YOU DID.

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More Found Footage

GRAVE ENCOUNTERS-2011-This Canadian production is influenced heavily by THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT but I was actually surprised by a couple of scenes. It's told through the video cameras of a film crew doing a segment of a reality TV show called "Grave Encounters" who go to an abandon mental hospital to film an episode. The host of the show Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson) only interested in a TV contract is accompanied by several camera people and a phony psychic. After they interview some locals the group has themselves locked up in the asylum over night. At first they only hear noises but a few things happen that they don't notice. Later they become trapped in the place and one by one everyone starts to disappear. They actually do meet up with some real ghouls and eventually it turns out a mad doctor who was killed years before is still doing lobotomies (and maybe devil worshiping) in the basement. It's well done (with some gory SFX) but the ending goes on too long.

It was written, produced and directed by two guys who go by the name of "The Vicious Brothers". They wrote and produced a sequel in 2012.

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Japan

A PAGE OF MADNESS-1926-This silent film from Japan was once thought to b lost. I'm glad someone found it. It has no titles however and is a bit hard to follow. I admit there were a few bits I wasn't quite sure about until I did some research. 

A janitor works at an insane asylum to be near is wife, an inmate. One day their daughter comes to the place to visit the mother unaware who her father is. Flashbacks tell a back story as to how the mother wound up an inmate and why the father isn't recognized. Other parts seem to be a dream. It features incredible haunting scenes of patient madness and eerie surreal imagines. 

Some critics compare it (usually unfavorably) to THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. I can't agree. This stands on it's own. Director Teinosuke Kinugasa made many more films including GATE OF HELL in the sound era.

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More of The Same

ASYLUM-2008-More derivative psychological horror nonsense has a group of teens staying in a dorm that used to be an insane asylum for teenagers where the doctor did experiments on them. One teen (Sarah Roemer from DISTURBIA) who'd seen her father kill himself when she was little has weird visions. It seems the evil doctor has come back and is killing off the new kids. 

The director of this muck David R. Ellis previously made SNAKES ON A PLANE and FINAL DESTINATION 2 and was stuntman on movies like HOTEL FOR DOGS.

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Shout About It

THE SHOUT-1978-A weird guy named Crossely (Alan Bates) claims he can kill with a magical “shout” he learned while living with Aborigines. He comes between a married couple (Suzanna York and John Hurt) and seems to cast a spell on the wife. He rants a lot to a score keeper (Tim Curry) while watching a cricket game at an insane asylum. This ambiguous talky film leaves it to the viewer to decide what was really happening by the time the story ends. Also with Jim Broadbent in his film debut.

From Jerzy Skolimowski, the director of DEEP END it's based on a story by Robert Graves.

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