Karloff's Ghoul

 

 (imdb)

THE GHOUL-1933-0n his deathbed Prof. Morlant (Boris Karloff) prays to the Egyptian God Anubis and gives instructions to his servant Laing (Ernest Thesiger). It seems Morlant had a sacred jewel "The Eternal Light" in his possession. His lawyer (Cedric Hardwick) seems to want it. He tries to dissuade Morlant's nephew and heir Ralph (Anthony Bushell) from visiting the estate. Ralph hooks up with his cousin, Morlant's niece Betty (Dorothy Hyson) and they investigate along with Betty's comic relief roommate Miss Kaney (Kathleen Harrison). At the place they meet the lawyer and the servant and a bike riding priest (Ralph Richardson). They are also visited by Aga Ben Dragore (Howard Huth), former owner of the jewel and the knife wielding Mamoud (D, A. Clarke-Smith) who becomes the professor's first victim when he comes back to life. Laing is next as he stole the diamond not believing his master would be back. After Morant dies again, there's a couple of twists in the finale and the cousins get trapped in the burning tomb. It also seems the whole premise was not really supernatural. 

This Gaumont British UK production is dark, quirky and dated. It was the first film Karloff made in his homeland in 20 years and did well in England but failed at the US box office. It's also the only film Karloff made after his brief departure from Universal Pictures (he later signed a new contract with them). 

The film was thought lost for many years. In the late '60's William K. Everson discovered a battered and cut version of the film in a vault in Czechoslovakia (with Czech subtitles). Much later a negative of the film was found and restored. Director T. Hayes Hunter retired soon after making it. A year after THE GHOUL, Karloff had two highly acclaimed non-horror roles in THE LOST PATROL and THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD and would get back into the horror swing of things in Edgar Ulmer's classic THE BLACK CAT (with Lugosi).

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Go Back

 

 (imdb)

BACK FROM HELL-1993-Father Aaron Pike visits his old friend Jack to hear his confession. Jack is hold up in some attic. Two detectives who followed Pike enter the building one by one and are killed by Jack. Then Jack says they are going to talk to the devil. He says some pray and one of the dead detectives comes back to life and starts ranting in a weird voice. A hand comes out of a Bible and tries to kill the priest. Later the duo fights some hooded characters. It seems Jack sold his soul to the devil. 

While not unentertaining, BFH is very incompetent with terrible acting, bad lighting, direction and gratuitous scenes of gore and blood spurting. It's unintentionally funny most of the time but its real drawback is some of the scenes go on too long. This was the first movie for director Matt Jaissle (he's made a few more since) who also plays “maniac with an ax”.

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More K-Horror

Wow! I've been busy doing "things" in the real world. But I have watched a lot of movies so here I go again!




DARK FOREST (OF DEATH)-2006-More horror craziness from South Korean. A mother tells her daughter about passing on a curse and then deliberately causes a car accident that kills the mother. A few years later the daughter and some friends go camping in the woods and encounter some evil spirits that kill most of campers and reanimates them to kill who's left alive.

Obviously inspired by THE EVIL DEAD this was the last installment of a series called "4 Horror Tales". It's very gory and drawn out. The finale where the last two survivors are terrorized seems to go on forever!
The director Jeong-min Kim uses split screen, freeze frames, fast cuts and some shots through a camcorder but basically it's still just the "campers getting killed by an unknown killer" premise done to death (no pun intended) by the end of the 1980's!

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Dr. Blood's Coffin

DR. BLOOD’S COFFIN-1961-Thrown out of medical school in Vienna for experimenting on human subjects, Dr. Peter Blood (Kieron Moore) returns to his small hometown which is being plagued by the robbery of medical supplies and the disappearances of locals. Actually Blood is responsible for the mayhem as he’s using the victims for his experiments in conquering death, keeping them prisoner in some caves. While covering his tracks he finds time to romance his father’s nurse (Hazel Court). When she rejects him, he raises her dead husband from his grave and is eventually destroyed by him. Ian Hunter plays Dr. Blood the elder and Kenneth J. Warren is the investigating police sergeant.

Director Sidney J. Furie made other horror movies (like THE ENTITY) but also helmed a variety of bigger budget films like THE IPCRESS FILE, LADY SINGS THE BLUES, GABLE & LOMBARD, IRON EAGLE and SUPERMAN IV:THE QUEST FOR PEACE. Screenwriter Nathan Juran directed ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMEN and HELLCATS OF THE NAVY! Nicolas Roeg is credited as camera operator.

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Part 4-Invisible Zombies....

So time was running out! The fifties were almost over. Ed Cahn had proven himself as a master of the low budget genre yet he would save the best for last! He made 7 (!!) movies in 1959 but none more entertaining or influencial than INVISIBLE INVADERS!!! If this didn't influence George Romero than nothing did!

Somehow a scientist, Dr. Noymann (John Carradine) gets blown up after experimenting with atoms. Another doctor named Penner (Phillip Tonge, who died later in the year) gives the eulogy. A little later on he's visited by the reanimated corpse of the previous declared dead Dr. Noymann who's dead shell is in fact being inhabited by a race of aliens "far beyond our galaxy". They want the people of earth to surrender to them or else everybody and everything will be destroyed. They kill "thousands" with their acts of sabotage. But most frightening of all, the aliens inhabit the bodies of the dead and make them rise from their graves to reek havoc among the living (at this point actual newsreel footage is shown!). The government decides to do something about it. They send various groups to underground bunkers to work on a solution....

Our story focuses on one such group: Dr. Penner, his daughter Phyllis (future mom to TV's Patty Duke Jean Byron), her kind of boyfriend Dr. Lamont (Robert Hutton, who had already solitified his B-movie career with THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY and THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK) and tough as nails Air Force Major Jay (John Agar in his third movie for Cahn and in one of his best roles). When the dead get up and start walking you can't help but see how this had an impact on Romero and NIGHT OF THE LVING DEAD especially with a small group in an isolated area terrorized by the resurrected dead. They even have a closed circuit TV to watch what's going on (scenes from Cahn's aforementioned CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN are shown here). Dr.Lamont seems like a coward even though apparently he wants to help but eventually Phyllis falls for the Major. Like many of Ed Cahn's films a narrator fills us in on what's going on, giving the whole a thing a documentary like feel, much like the TV scenes in NOTLD!

INVISIBLE INVADERS is a low budget classic full of great dialogue and scary scenes. It might best be viewed with friends after a couple of beers but it's influence on NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD can not be ignored.

Sadly this would be Ed Cahn's last venture into the realm of science fiction. In 1960, he would release one more horror movie (more on that in the future..) but for the next 2 years, until his death his output would consist mainly of crime dramas and westerns although his last film would be a modest, well done, color version of "The Beauty And The Beast". Cahn, originally from NYC, died in 1963.

I seem to have gone off stray with my original topic. I think my real reason for writing this was to shed light on the somewhat forgotten legacy of director Edward L. Cahn, a forerunner who has yet to get his due!

RIP-Kevin McCarthy...

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