Not For Cat Lovers

 

 (imdb)

NIGHT OF 1000 CATS-1972-Some nut named Hugo (Hugo Stiglitz) wines and dines women, has sex with them, then strangles them. He keeps their heads on display in his lab and feeds the rest of the body parts to a multitude of cats he has on his property. His demented bald headed servant Dorgo (Geralso Zepeda) helps him. Occasionally he reminisces about killing them. A married woman (Anjanette Comer) foils his plan. 

Pretty crappy production with all the dubbed voices seeming to have been done by two people. Directed and co-written by the prolific Rene Cardona Jr. (TINTORERA (1977), THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE (1978)). Star maniac Stiglitz (SURVIVE! (1976) was in several films by Cardona Jr., who's dad made SANTA CLAUS (1969), NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APE (1969) and many Santo lucha libre movies!

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Piedras Blancas

 

 

 (imdb)

THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS-1959-After a huge claw appears from behind a rock, lighthouse keeper Sturges (John Harmon) warns some locals to stay away from his place. After the credits the headless bodies of two brothers are found on the beach of the California coastal town Piedras Blancas. Constable Matson (Forrest Lewis) is stumped but locals think Sturgis might have something to do with it. Sturgis gets upset when talkative grocer Kochek (Frank Arvidson) didn't save him any meat scraps. Strugis' daughter Lucy (Jeanne Carmen) works at the local cafe and hangs around Fred (Don Sullivan from THE GIANT GILA MONSTER). The local doc (Les Tremayne) says both corpses were drained of blood and he's puzzled. While Fred and Lucy frolic on the beach, Sturgis puts a pail full of fish on the rocks. At night Lucy decides to go for a swim and the creature's claw appears again. The creature kills Kochek (we only see its shadow) and a little boy Jimmy (the director's son) discovers the headless body while they are burying the brothers. Later after Sturgis is found unconscious on the rocks, a little girl is murdered. When the constable goes to investigate Kochek's meat locker, he gets a big surprise. The monster was hiding in there and emerges carrying a severed head! The constable is wounded but not too badly. While Sturgis is convalescing, he tells Lucy there really is a monster and he's been feeding it for years! 

This  great low budget horror film has a memorable scary monster and a great cast of likable characters. Great climax! 

This was the first film directed by Irvin Berwick, formerly a dialogue coach working with William Castle and Jack Arnold. He and make-up artist Jack Kevan (the film's pro-ducer) decided to make their own movie and formed their own production company. Berwick's son Wayne later made MICROWAVE MASSACRE (1979).

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Not Andy Milligan

 

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LEGACY OF BLOOD-1971-Relatives gather at the home of the recently deceased but still rich Preston Dean (John Carradine) for the reading of his will. They will all get a share of his estate, but they have to immediately stay overnight at his old house.

 They are all a bunch of neurotics with various hangups including Gregory Dean (Jeff Morrow) and wife Laura (Merry Anders; in her last film role), Veronica Dean (Faith Domgerue) and Frank Mantee (John Russell). The sheriff (Rodolfo Acosta; also in his last movie) is called when a dog is killed but he's the first victim when his bloody severed head winds up on a plate in the fridge. "This is getting to be like some kind of horror film" says one of them. All their problems seem to stem from Dean's verbal and physical abuse of his family. After death by electrocution, the weird masochistic butler/ handyman Igor (Buck Kartalian) seems a likely suspect. There's more deaths and it ends on a comical note. 

Andy Mulligan made a horror movie with the same title the same year. This LEGACY OF BLOOD resembles a Milligan production but less sleazy and shoddy. Also known as WILL TO DIE. Morrow and Domgerue, of course in better days had co-starred together in THIS ISLAND EARTH.

Director Carl Monson later made PLEASE DON'T EAT MY MOTHER! (1973), a soft-core porn version of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, which Kartalian starred in. 

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More '50's Madness!

THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE-1958-In this crazy, creepy Universal International horror film a young woman named Jessica (Carolyn Kearney) works on her Aunt Flavia's farm, mostly divining for water. One day while searching for a well she discovers an ancient chest buried by Sir Francis Drake. Gordon Hawthrone (William Reynolds) shows a lot of interest in the chest (and in Jessica) and thinks it might be a valuable artifact. Flavia (Peggy Converse) thinks only about it's monetary value. Gordon leaves to fetch archaeologist Julian Ash (Forrest Lewis). Meanwhile two ranch hands the mean Boyd (James Anderson) and the dumb but powerful Mike (Charles Horvath) decide to open the chest and take whatever is inside. To their surprise, instead of gold or jewels they find the still alive head of Gideon Drew an evil satanist with special powers. It immediately makes Mike kill Boyd. In a flashback we learn that Gideon (Robin Hughes) was so powerful no one could look him in the eye without coming under his control. Only a special medallion could control him (Gordon found it earlier and gave it to Jessica to wear around her neck). For his heinous crimes a Galleon Captain (Thomas B Henry) has him beheaded with his head put in a separate grave from his body. Back in the present Gideon's head makes Linda (Andra Martin), another woman staying at the ranch, his slave (she puts his head in a hat box). Later it takes over Jessica, changing her whole personality and making the others dig up Gideon's body. When head and body are reconnected it seems like the small party is doomed but the medallion destroys the foul one in the nick of time.

THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE was one of two feature length films producer/director Will Cowan made 1958. The other was a rock and roll story called THE BIG BEAT which featured several actors from THTCD. They were his only features. Before that he made many musical subject shorts. For a guy who had directed Nat King Cole, Herb Jeffries and The Mills Brothers I'd say Cowan did a hell of a job with THING, even providing an eerie flashback. Making a horror film must have been his ultimate goal because it's the last thing he did movie wise. He died in 1994. 

Star William Reynolds had been in CULT OF THE COBRA and THE LAND UNKNOWN and later co-starred in THE FBI on TV. Co-star Carolyn Kearney was in many TV shows in the 50's and 60's including the very memorable episode of THRILLER called “The Incredible Doktor Markesan” with Boris Karloff and Dick York. James Anderson usually played an outlaw in westerns but had been in Arch Obler's FIVE and gave a good performance in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD a few years later. Of course Robin Hughes is fairly terrifying as the severed head. Hughes showed up in many films around this time THE MOLE PEOPLE, THE MAZE, DIAL M FOR MURDER, even an uncredited role in the Bowery Boys comedy PARIS PLAYBOYS! But to a lot of THE TWILIGHT ZONE fans he'll always be remembered as the Devil incarnate in the episode “The Howling Man”.

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Jan's Head

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE-1962-On the operating table an old doctor (Bruce Brighton) pronounces his patient dead, but Bill (Herb “soon to be Jason” Evers), another doctor who happens to be his son takes over and revives the patient. 

While dad is proud of his arrogant son's accomplishment he still feels trepidation toward his actions (“The operating table is no place for experiments”). While debating this and Bill's ambition to do major limb transplants in the future (using his “secret compound”) their nurse Jan (Virginia Leith) enters. She also happens to be Bill's fiancee. Before they can have a romantic weekend Bill gets a mysterious urgent call from his “country place” where he does his experimenting. 

With Jan in tow Bill drives like a maniac to the place but wrecks his car. He is somehow thrown from the car and unharmed but Jan isn't so lucky. She's decapitated in the fiery crash. Fortunately Bill retrieves the head, wraps it in his jacket and runs to the country place. With the help of his German assistant Kurt (Leslie Daniel) who has a deformed arm, Jan's head is placed in a pan with a lot of tubes and wires and is brought back to life! Meanwhile something hideous is locked in another room in the lab. Bill goes out looking for Jan's new body. He goes to a gin joint and tries to pick up a dancer. He sizes her up and she seems to fit the bill but he's deterred by another weird talking dancer. The two rivals wind up fighting on the floor. Meanwhile Jan's head develops some kind of psychic link with the thing in the closet (“Together we will reek our revenge”). Kurt debates with the head while Bill still looks for the perfect body which he believes he finds in Doris (Adele Lamont), a hot but scarred model who poses for “a bunch of neurotics”. Bill really shows his deceitful side when he convinces Doris to go to the country place so her face can be healed. Jan plots with the thing and eventually Kurt's good arm is torn off. Somehow Kurt now with only a bloody stump crawls up the lab stairs to the living quarters but when he gets there he crawls back down to the lab and dies! Bill drugs Doris and plans to put Jan's head on her body but Jan makes the thing break out of the closet and attack Bill. Their fight is kind of doofy, involving a door and the ugly monster biting a chunk out of Bill's arm and then examining the bloody piece he bit off. The monster is a huge guy with a deformed face (obviously a mask). He carries Doris away (God only knows what happened when she woke up!) and Jan and Bill burn to death. 

 This exploitation sickie was directed and co-written by Joseph Green who owned his own small film distribution company. It's too bad he waited 24 years to make his next and last film (THE PERILS OF P.K.). He seemed to know how to pack a lot of sleaze, gore and fun into one movie! 

Jason Evers' egotistic oily doctor though supposedly only concerned with science by his semi-sinister grin when ogling a woman's body seems like he can't wait to bring her home and cut her up. While Virginia Leith's severed head role of Jan is pretty intense it's been said she was so disgusted by the role she gave up acting altogether (she's made her screen debut in Kubrick's first film FEAR AND DESIRE) though she made sporadic TV appearances later on (and is still with us at the time of this writing). Co-producer Rex Carlston later produced a couple of Al Adamson movies but committed suicide in 1968. For some reason Sammy Petrillo (who with Duke Mitchell met a Brooklyn gorilla some years before) appears as a photographer in one scene. 

BRAIN was filmed (around Tarrytown, NY) in 1959 but due to financial troubles wasn't released until 1962. 

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Suffer The Usher....

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER-1949-Some stuffy English dudes discuss Edgar Allan Poe at their club. One of them relates the title story.

Jonathan (Irving Steen) goes to visit his friend Roderick Usher (Kay Tendeter) at his castle. Usher says he's inherited a strange family disease. He also says his sister Madeleine (Gwen Watford who later became famous for a British TV work)) has the same disease. She plays the piano, drinks milk and wanders around the castle. The weird family doctor (Vernon Charles) relates a story that the disease is actually a curse placed on the family by a man their father killed (he was having an affair with their mother). He also tells Roderick about a “temple” hidden in the moors.

The three men go there and meet Rodericks's mother, now a decrepit old hag who has her dead lover's head! The doctor says that if they burn the head the curse will be broken. They leave but come back with their gardener (I'm not sure why they needed a gardener to burn a head) but Mrs. Usher overpowers Roderick and kills the gardener. Then Madeleine has a run-in with mom and is almost killed. Jonathan tries to cheer Rod up by painting and reading until Rod suddenly announces that Madeleine is dead (he tells how in a flashback). He puts her in a coffin, nails it shut and places it in the family mausoleum. 8 days later Rod is brandishing a gun at night because he hears strange noises (nails being hammered, a ticking clock) and thinks sis is coming to get him. He shoots the doctor (but Jonathan doesn't hear anything). It seems Madeleine was buried alive and escaped her coffin (after 8 days?). He tries to shoot her and fails and she tediously chases him to the roof where he falls to his death and Madeleine disappears (all the time mom is watching).

Where Jonathan was all this time isn't explained but he shows up in time to escape the burning castle, set on fire by lightening. Your guess is as good as mine...

Director Ivan Barnett did little else but this strange quirky adaptation has it's moments.

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Horror in Connecticut

THE CURSE OF THE LIVING CORPSE-1964-Somewhere in the 1800's, the Sinclair family gathers for the reading of the recently deceased father's will. The old boy had a fear of being buried alive and leaves intricate details on how to make sure he's dead. The will states that if the greedy ones do not follow his instructions they will all die in the way the fear the most (drowning, burning, smothering, etc.). Later a mysterious masked killer in hat and cape does away with them (it's easy to figure out who it is). This leaves some of the nervous relatives to cry that dad is still alive. Roy Scheider (in his film debut) plays the sarcastic drunken second son and CARNIVAL OF SOUL's Candace Hilligoss has a mostly wasted role until the climax. The highlight is a severed head served on a dinner plate.

CURSE OF THE LIVING CORPSE was shot in Connecticut by Del Tenney, the director behind the much more entertaining HORROR OF PARTY BEACH. But CURSE is a funny period piece with outrageous dialogue and some early gore. Much of it seems to be  a parody especially with the arrival of an inquisitive detective and his stupid policeman assistant.

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AKA: Horror on Snape Island

TOWER OF EVIL-1972-A stodgy group of English paleontologists go to the mysterious Snape Island to investigate when a Phoenician sword is found after a woman seems to have gone insane and murdered her 3 friends there. A private investigator (Bryant Haliday) goes along too because he doesn’t believe the woman was really insane. Jill Haworth (also in the English made HORROR HOUSE and THE MUTATIONS) co-stars. There’s a lot of talk and bickering about sex and infidelity. The film features an unusual amount of nudity and gore for the time (including a severed head rolling across the floor).

Although star Haliday was a well known London stage actor at the time, he only made 6 movie appearances including DEVIL DOLL, CURSE OF THE VOODOO and THE PROJECTED MAN. He died in Paris in 1996.

Director Jim O'Connolly had made BERSERK (with Joan Crawford) and VALLEY OF THE GWANGI (with Ray Harryhausen SFX) previously.

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The Mark of Naschy!

Paul Naschy was Spain's first horror star. A former wrestler and weight lifter, he started out as an extra in American movies made in Spain (like KING OF KINGS). He's also in an episode of TV's I SPY ("The Plains of Spain") in which Boris Karloff guest stars. He made many bloody and atmospheric horror films (most which he wrote under his real name) and played several different monsters. His most famous was the tortured werewolf character Vladamir Daninsky. Most of these films made it to the US in one form or another. Yet, he was almost totally unrecognized in his native country! He told of his ups and downs in the film industry in his autobiography "Memoirs of a Wolfman".

DRACULA’S GREAT LOVE-1972-This is Spanish horror king Paul Naschy’s only vampire film (original title: El Gran Amor Del Conde Dracula). As usual he wrote the rather sadistic story (under his real name Jacinto Molina) and tried for a new slant on the old legend. It’s a period piece but exactly in what period it takes place is undetermined. Four women and one lucky guy (Victor Acalzar/Vic Winner; also in HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB; see below) are traveling in the mountains near the castle of the original Dracula. When their wagon breaks a wheel and their coachman is conked on the head by a horse the group are forced to seek shelter from Dr. Marlowe (a suave and friendly Naschy). Turns out of course that Marlowe is actually the infamous count who needs the blood of a virgin to resurrect his daughter, the countess. Unfortunately, for the first time in his long career (?) he falls in love with his intended victim!

DGL features much bloodletting, nudity and a bloody three-way vampire lesbian scene. Also usual for Naschy’s films at the time a woman is whipped and tortured for no apparent reason (although a convoluted explanation is given). Naschy may seem an odd chance to play the king of vampires but he pulls it off fairly well (some might contend he’s a little wimpy) but the women are fantastic. Rosana Yanni (in her second Naschy film) is an unsung scream queen if there ever was one! Earlier she appeared in the laughable WHITE COMANCHE (1968) with William Shatner and Joseph Cotton.

Director Javier Acquirre (who co-wrote the screenplay with Naschy and Alberto S. Insua) provides tons of atmosphere and eroticism. He would direct Naschy, Yanni and Winner again in THE HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE (which Insua co-wrote) the next year. A dubbed but uncut version is available from The Incredibly Strange Filmworks, Inc.



HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB-1972- Made soon after the above opus HORROR is a wild ride in the Naschy tradition that borrows from several other features, most notably THE THING THAT WOULDN’T DIE and features a beheading and topless nudity even before the credits roll!

Naschy plays Ulric Du Marnac, an evil blood drinking, flesh eating, devil-worshiping sorcerer with an equally bloodthirsty companion, Mabille (Helga Line). His severed head is buried apart from his body. Just before the topless Mabille is hoisted upside down and burned she throws curses on everyone. In the present we meet his modern ancestor Hugo (also Naschy). After he and his friends have a séance and the old medium talks in Ulric’s voice Hugo decides to search for the head. His painter friend (Victor Alcazar) comes under Ulric’s evil power. With the help of some now possessed female friends, Ulric’s body is reunited with his head. He brings Mabille back to life too and they roam around ripping out hearts and eating them for nourishment. They also bring back some dead victims who terrorize Hugo and his girlfriend (Emma Cohen).

Director Carlos Aured packs this film with decadent atmosphere, ample gore and nice nudity to make it one of Naschy’s best. As usual he wrote the screenplay under his real name Jacinto Molina.

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