Tag Archives: cheesy horror movies

I Can’t Phantom It

Posted on October 2, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I believe I mentioned watching a cheesy movie last weekend while I was suffering from a sinus problem. I was too fuzzy-headed to pay even my usual desultory attention to it, but I think I can come up with a paragraph or two.

Phantom from 10,000 Fathoms (1956) starts right out by showing you the monster, which looks a little like a low-rent Creature of the Black Lagoon. I don’t particularly mind low rent; it adds to the cheese quotient. Ah, but here’s the point: the title says “phantom” but, to me, that’s a monster. Perhaps the writers considered a phantom a kind of a monster. Or maybe they just like alliteration as much as I do. No matter.

A lone fisherman in a boat apparently does not see the monster, although we can look down into the water and see it perfectly well. I suppose it’s a little petty to carp about a thing like that in a movie like this. After all, we WANT to see the monster, and the writers of the movie wanted the fisherman to NOT see it. Call it dramatic license. After dispatching the poor fisherman, the monster disappears for what seems like a long time (ooh, could that be why they call it a phantom?).

I found the plot a little hard to follow. Nobody is what they seem, except maybe the mad scientist’s beautiful daughter (all your better mad scientists have one). Well, I guess he’s not really a mad scientist. He is an oceanographer. But he is working on something he is being awfully secretive about. His assistant, his secretary and his janitor are all trying to find out what it is.

The assistant is the most sinister of the bunch. He keeps sneaking around carrying a harpoon gun. I wasn’t clear on what exactly he does as an assistant, since it seems he’s not privy to the doctor’s actual work. Then again, I was not clear on a lot during this movie, most notably my sinuses (for once I have an excuse other than my usual “just not paying attention”).

I didn’t mind the assistant being sneaky; at least his motives were made clear later. I’m still puzzling over what the main guy is even doing there. He shows up when this federal (I think) guy is investigating the sailor we saw get whacked in the first scene. He says his name is Ted Baxter (did you all just flash on The Mary Tyler Moore Show? I did). We later find out he’s really Ted Stevens, a prominent oceanographer who wrote a book on which his picture is prominently displayed. Didn’t he think the guy he is going to see — the mad scientist/oceanographer — might possibly have a copy of his book? Perhaps modesty overcame him.

I got a little chuckle thinking that Ted’s fake name sounded more real than his real name. I read somewhere that when people come up with aliases, they often use their own first name for a last name. For example, in Tootsie, Michael Dorsey becomes Dorothy Michaels. It would not have surprised me to find out that Ted Stevens’ real name was Steven Tedford. But I digress.

As I was saying, I never did find out why Ted was masquerading as Ted Knight, but in any case, both Federal Guy and Mad Oceanographer find him out quite soon and with very little difficulty.

Every so often the Phantom Monster shows up again. We find out what Sneaky Assistant is up to, we watch Mad Oceanographer at work, and of course Ted romances Beautiful Daughter. I never really figured out the whole plot (blame my sinus infection), but I think it boiled down to the beware-of-science-there-are-things-we-aren’t-supposed-to-know paranoia that became so popular at the dawn of the atomic age.

I will have to watch this silly movie again when my head is less fuzzy.

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Don’t Swallow Your Oxygen Gum

Posted on September 24, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

In my ongoing quest to find cheesy movies to write about, I watch some pretty bad ones. I try to make it all the way through them, just on principle. However, I think it is OK to write about a movie I didn’t watch all the way through, as long as I make a full disclosure.

Full Disclosure: I did not watch all of Battle in Outer Space (sorry, didn’t write down the year) (I’m not even sure I wrote down the right title; I can’t find it in any of Steven’s movie books). I don’t think I even watched enough to warrant a spoiler alert.

Steven and I tried to watch the movie twice. The second time, we weren’t even sure we had tried it before. The title didn’t sound familiar (I think I have established that it is not very memorable). On consulting the TV Journal before writing this, I learned that it was two weeks between attempted viewings.

Once it started I said, “Oh, yes, we started to watch this. Remember, the credits are in Japanese.”

Steven asked, “Is this the one where the guy goes up in the air?”

The scene Steven referred to is pretty much all I remember from the movie, and it goes way beyond “Waaait a minute” and into “Huh?” or even more vulgar expressions. A group of men (no women in this movie, another thing to dislike about it) are walking through a space ship, in outer space. Suddenly one of them starts to float up to the ceiling. One of his colleagues pulls him back down.

“I forgot there’s no gravity here,” Floating Guy explains. And they continue to walk down the corridor. On the ground! As if there’s plenty of gravity!

Excuse me, what? Just by knowing there’s no gravity they can act as if there’s gravity? It’s never explained. Not even some bad science crap like, “Push the button on your belt to create your personal gravity field.” I suppose some people would have found that harder to swallow than force of mind overcoming all, but I like an explanation, however spurious.

For example, I don’t know if anybody remembers a cartoon from (I think) the 1960s (I saw it in the ’60s) called Marine Boy. Marine Boy could function perfectly well in the water because he had — I kid you not — Oxygen Gum. I was about three years old (don’t sit there doing the math and shake your finger at me like I’m pretending to be younger than what I am) (I’m 49). I took things at face value. The only thing I found odd about Oxygen Gum was that Marine Boy put it in his mouth, gave one chew and was done. I did not have gum very often, but I knew you were supposed to keep chewing it.

I did not spend much of my young life pondering the inconsistency. I suppose it wasn’t too many years later that I began to understand the limitations of animation.

I don’t intend to spend too much of my middle age wondering what the makers of Battle in Outer Space were thinking with that gravity thing. The movie was dull, and there were not enough scientific howlers to distract me from that.

Perhaps I could find some re-runs of Marine Boy on the Cartoon Network.

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Something with a Vampire

Posted on August 29, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

In my continuing quest to find cheesy horror movies to write about, I turned once again to Steven’s DVD boxes set of 50 Horror Classics, purchased for him by me out of a discount bin.

Spoiler Alert! Although I will try to avoid mentioning the big reveal. It is a big one. In fact, already I’ve said too much.

As I sit here writing this, I suddenly realize I am not 100 percent clear on what the title is. Something with a vampire. The Vampire Bat? Or was that the one I saw with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead? So many vampires, so little time. I know I can look up these things before I type this into the computer, but I thought it said a little something about the movie that I could not recall the title. Or about me. In either case, I found it of interest.

The vampire killings start before the first scene of the movie. We open on a meeting of important men of the village discussing the murders. It’s vampires, insists the burgermeister (and any time there is a burgermeister in one of these movies, how many flash onto Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Burgermeister Meisterburger? Raise your hands).

There are no vampires, insists the sheriff or marshal or whatever he is. He is dressed like a plainclothes detective and is apparently the only cop the place has. At least, I don’t remember seeing any other cops. Probably a low budget production.

Our hero states that he will seek out a human murderer and goes to visit his girlfriend, conveniently located in the next room. I wasn’t clear on the geography of this movie, but that’s what it looked like to me. Oh, and he has to go down some steps, which seems appropriate, because it looks like a mad scientist’s laboratory. It belongs to the village doctor. Fay Wray is his assistant.

My girl Fay does not get to crack wise, like she did in Mystery of the Wax Museum nor yet to scream her head off as she did in King Kong. I was naturally disappointed. Also on hand is Fay’s aunt, a hypochondriac who is constantly after the doctor to prescribe for her, using some impressive if malaproppriate medical terms (I just made up that word malapropriate: malapropism + appropriate). She was my favorite character, especially since they let Fay be so boring.

The other character of note is a half-wit who says bats are good, making him an object of suspicion to the villagers. You can tell he is a half-wit, because he speaks of himself in the third person. He likes to catch bats and pet them and put them in his pocket. Is anybody else reminded of Lenny in Of Mice and Men? Our half-wit does not fare a whole lot better.

Things get suspenseful, even given poor Fay’s lamentably underscripted character. I don’t really want to say too much, because I was intrigued and a little surprised by how things unfolded. A little confused, too, because Fay’s part was not the only thing underscripted.

On the whole, I enjoyed the movie. But now I want to view Mystery of the Wax Museum again. So I can watch Fay Wray crack wise.

Note: It is The Vampire Bat, 1933. The one with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead is The Bat, 1959. I wrote a blog post about it.

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What? No Peter Cushing?

Posted on August 23, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! I’m actually not going to give a lot away, especially not the ending, because I had stopped paying much attention by that time. In my defense, it was Saturday night and way past my usual bed time.

I DVR’d Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964) with high hopes, thinking it must be the sequel to The Mummy, which I enjoyed recently. As I learned from Ben Mankiewicz’s pre-movie commentary, it is the second of four Mummy movies made by Hammer Studios (I referred to them as Hammer Films in my post on The Mummy, but I specifically noticed Mankiewicz said Hammer Films this time) (in the interests of accuracy). The movie was directed by the son of the guy that owned Hammer at the time. I suppose that would explain it.

My first disappointment was that neither Peter Cushing nor Christopher Lee were in the movie. I like Lee better as Dracula than as the Mummy anyways, but I felt Cushing was a real loss. Still, I thought I would try to enjoy it. A Hammer Studios monster movie must be worth a watch, right?

The movie opens with some guy tied by his hands to two stakes in the desert, guarded by an Arab-looking guy (1960s Hollywood version) (but I didn’t need to tell you that). A group of nomad-looking guys ride up on horses. Without a word, one of them kills the guy and chops his hand off. This gives everyone a good laugh (except, of course, the dead guy), and they ride off with the severed hand.

Cut to a luxurious tent, apparently the living quarters of the archaeologists excavating the tomb. A guy is pouring a French lady another drink. She flirtatiously asks is he trying to get her drunk. He says he will try to do so when they return to London (another spoiler: he doesn’t), and she coquettes that she will let him. It must be pretty dry out there, even for a desert, because I didn’t think he was such a much.

It turns out the dead guy of the previous scene is her father. She flees in tears.

“Let her go,” somebody says wisely to the boyfriend. People are always saying that in movies. I don’t know if they do in real life, because I am usually the one fleeing in tears, or at least I was in my dramatic adolescent past (although in my case, I sadly suspect it was more of a collective, “Thank God she’s gone!”) (but I digress). I think in the case of this movie, the movie makers wanted French Lady to be alone when she discovers in her bed (I did include a spoiler alert, didn’t I?) the severed hand (oh, you probably saw that coming; I did).

Another dramatic shock happens when they discover a dead body amongst the artifacts they are taking back to England. I got a good laugh over that, because, well, the body looked a little comical. Meaning no disrespect to the fictional dead.

Speaking of good laughs, Steven and I both cracked up when… I can’t remember who said what, but suddenly everyone froze in a dramatic pause and looked at… the sarcophagus. Which looked a little like Tutankhamen with a pig nose.

Soon they’re on a boat headed back to England. A couple more dramatic things happen, including the introduction of a mysterious, handsome stranger. He beats up a would-be assassin and tosses him overboard. That seemed a little careless to me. Wouldn’t you, for example, like to ask the guy who he works for?

Things get a good deal less exciting in London. French Lady starts playing Old Boyfriend against Handsome Stranger, but that isn’t very compelling, because Old Boyfriend doesn’t get very jealous. We find out, via dialogue, not demonstration, that French Lady is a rather brilliant Egyptologist, having studied hard to earn her father’s love (remember him? She doesn’t seem to). It seems Old Boyfriend wants her for her brain. What an insult! It is so refreshing that Handsome Stranger understands she wants a home and to stay in it. Well, this is before the feminist ’70s (no, I am not going to entertain a discussion on family vs. career; this is not that kind of a blog).

Where was I? Ah yes, losing track of the movie. It’s not what you call fast-paced and action-packed. And I don’t remember the ending. Something happens in a sewer after we find out a BIG secret about Handsome Stranger. So if this movie pops up again on TCM, I may try to watch it till the end. I may even write another blog post about it.

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The Incredible Shrinking Blog Post

Posted on August 4, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

As a change from a post about Why I Can’t Write a Post, how about a post about Why I Can’t Write About This Movie. Having just thought of a good title, I see I must also keep this one short.

Spoiler Alert! Because even as I say I am not writing about this movie, I may inadvertently give something away. Perhaps one day I will do a post on why I feel so obligated to always give a spoiler alert.

I DVR’d The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) because I was certain a science fiction movie from the ’50s would offer the cheese content I desire. Will I ever learn my lesson about that?

It turns out the movie was part of a new feature on TCM (at least new to me; I don’t know how long they’ve been doing it), Essentials Junior. The Essentials, a feature I sometimes catch, shows the movies you must watch if you aspire to be a real cinemaphile (my computer says that’s not a word, but isn’t it?). Robert Osborne and a co-host of varying degrees of credibility discuss it beforehand.

Bill Hader hosts Essentials Junior, and he starts out by giving a plot summary. What’s that all about? I hate to be given a plot summary! And it seems really pointless in this case. I mean, we’ve tuned in, we’ve already decided to watch the movie. What do we need a plot summary for? As I expressed my feelings about this in the TV Journal, Hader went on to make some more substantive comments about the movie and the times in which it was made. However, I missed most of them, because I was busy writing about my disgruntlement.

Incidentally, the irony is not lost on me that as I sat there decrying plot summaries, most of my movie posts are just that.

That is really the most interesting thing I have to say about The Incredible Shrinking Man. The movie was not particularly cheesy. The effects were actually pretty good for their time. Oh sure, there was the occasional inconsistency in perspective. You’ll have that.

The problem I had with the movie — and I emphasize that this was only a problem for me, not a bad thing about the movie — is that it was deadly serious. It was, dare I say it, philosophical. And their philosophy was not half-baked! What can Mohawk Valley Girl say about a movie like that?

I promised a short post, so I’d better shut up now. Maybe this was another foolish post, but in my defense, at least this time it wasn’t all about me.

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If You Like the Psycho-Biddy Genre

Posted on July 24, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! I’m going to give away practically everything for the following movie, because I want to comment on what happens.

I wasn’t going to write about this one at all, because I ended up disliking it so much. However, I mustn’t be selfish. Some of my readers like to read my movie write-ups. And I think many of them particularly like the psycho-biddy genre.

When I saw Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969) on the schedule for TCM, I immediately set it to DVR. We subsequently discovered (but were not surprised, considering the title) that it was produced by Robert Aldrich, the man behind Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (original title Whatever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?).

Aunt Alice stars Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon. What a pedigree! How could we go wrong?

A better question is how could the script writers go so wrong? The movie opens promisingly enough with a funeral and Geraldine Page all set to be a merry widow. The next scene reveals to her and us that in fact she is left penniless. On to the murders!

The move wastes no time in getting to the murders. On must give them that. My problem is they don’t really explain what’s going on. I know from the description the lady kills her maids for their money and uses their bodies to fertilize her garden, but if that had not been the description, I think I would have gotten a little confused.

Another minor caveat, she’s not exactly fertilizing a garden. She gets her gardener to dig a big, deep hole, gets the maid into the hole and kills her, then plants a big old pine tree on top of the body. That old lady planting a big old pine tree (not a sapling, like a normal murderer would plant) is one of the most unbelievable parts in the picture.

Probably the most unbelievable part is how she gets the maids to work for her in the first place. According to this movie, there are plenty of lonely old ladies with large bank accounts willing to work for chicken scratch. Oh, and who are prepared to work for a raging virago. Seriously, Page is so mean I can’t believe she can get anybody to work for her.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Page was still killing the first maid. In general I have no problem with a thriller that gets right down to the killing. In this case, however, I could have used a scene where she gets the idea to kill the maid for the money. For one thing, they could have explained how the maid got so much money in the first place.

So there Page is, living in Arizona (also never explained) (at least I don’t think she started out in Arizona). At this point I usually make a little self-deprecating remark about how I ought to pay more attention to these things. I’m not sure it would have done any good.

Before Page offs the second maid (that we see; there were others in between), we see a little more of her method. Apparently she dangles her highly profitable stock market investments till the maid invests her own life savings. Without meeting the magic broker or signing any kind of contract. Well, I guess that’s not so far-fetched. People make a lot of stupid mistakes when they think they will get a large return.

Soon another tree is planted and Page is looking for another maid (we suspect now there have been other murders judging by the row of pine trees) (and can I just say, who plants pine trees in the desert, for heavens’ sake?). Enter Ruth Gordon, and we see some more of our killer’s evil method.

“I won’t pay you much,” she says smoothly, as if this were a minor glitch, like not having a vacuum cleaner. “So you won’t be able to save much.”

For God’s sake, who does that? Who makes it a job requirement that the employee have savings because the job pays crap? And who takes a job under those circumstances? Working, I remind you, for a mean, nasty old lady who treats you like dirt?

Then there’s this random beautiful chick who moves into the cabin next door with her nephew. This is a set-up right out of a romance novel: she’s a grieving widow and the nephew has really bad asthma, so the family sends them both to Arizona to heal their respective wounds. Only, of course, she’s not the main character and there’s no Mr. Rochester-type brooding mysterious guy for her to be suspicious of slash fall in love with (yes, you need to say “slash”). What a waste of a perfectly good set up!

She does get a love interest, by the way. It seems both our biddies have nephews. Page’s is married but I doubt that would stop him if Widow were having any of it. She’s not. She has some history with Gordon’s nephew, yet another thing not very well explained. It figures hugely into the plot, however, when they’re off canoodling while Gordon could REALLY use her nephew’s help.

I haven’t even gotten to the dog yet! Beautiful Widow and Asthmatic Boy (yes, it’s her nephew, but I think there are entirely too many nephews in this movie) adopt a stray dog. Of course anybody watching this sort of movie is immediately apprehensive on the dog’s behalf (unless you are an animal hater, in which case, stop reading now, we have nothing to say to each other).

Page is obviously (and not surprisingly) a dog hater. She is additionally concerned that the dog will dig up her handiwork, but come on! Each maid is six feet under with a pine tree planted on top. No mutt is going to dig that shit up without a backhoe.

I had a lot of other problems with this movie, but I think my post is running a bit long. Which, by the way, the movie did, too. I suppose it was entertaining, because I did watch it through to the end, but I didn’t like it. Still, if you like the psycho-biddy genre, it might be worth your time.

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The Bluebeard Blues

Posted on July 15, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Some time ago I was unable to complete a blog post about a cheesy movie, although I managed as usual to write something about how I couldn’t write anything (funny how that works). Today I shall try again.

Oh, yeah, usual Spoiler Alert.

I decided to take a break from my flooding woes with a movie from “50 Horror Classics,” the DVD collection I purportedly bought for Steven on his last birthday (I say purportedly, because I’m the one that watches them) (and because I like the word “purportedly”).

I chose Bluebeard (1944) starring John Carradine. I seemed to remember that Carradine was Kung Fu on a TV series years later, but I never used to watch that show, so I could not be sure (later my husband Steven told me it was David Carradine. I guess there were a few of those Carradines).

Leonard Maltin says this is a “surprisingly effective story” (Leonard Maltin’s 2013 Movie Guide, Signet, 2012). I’m surprised he thinks so, although I often disagree with Maltin.

The action takes place in Paris, I forget what year (if they ever said so), but the ladies are in long dresses and big hats. Some unknown murderer is strangling ladies and dropping them in the Seine. At least, since it is Paris, I thought it must be the Seine. I kind of shy away from the water scenes after my recent flooding experiences (that’s in addition to my usual not paying too much attention).

Nobody wants anybody to walk home alone. Some girls leaving work impatiently await their co-worker. She sidles out and tells them they needn’t have waited. She is blonde and obviously “the sexy one,” so I accordingly waited for her to make trouble, perhaps leaving that sweet, innocent-looking brunette to be the heroine.

Sweet Brunette introduces her friends to this puppeteer they meet while walking safely home. He hasn’t been giving many puppet shows lately, because of people not wanting to stay out so late, what with the murderer in all. The girls talk him into it, leading to a rather long scene with no action except for these puppets singing opera.

It turns out Sexy Blonde, not Sweet Brunette, is the heroine, but she stops acting so Mae-West-y about the time the puppeteer/murderer asks her to make some costumes for his puppets. Um, you knew as soon as I mentioned the puppeteer he was going to turn out to be the murderer, didn’t you? Oh well, that’s why I include a spoiler alert.

It seems this guy is also a painter. He paints a lady, then kills her. I gather he dates his assistant, dumps her when he goes to paint another lady, then comes back to the assistant after he’s strangled the lady he painted. I found it a little convoluted, but I guess I’m easily confused.

Maltin says the killer “falls for smart girl… who senses something is wrong.” Oh well, I suppose she is smart enough, but she’s no intrepid girl reporter. I’ll be perfectly honest, I was not paying a great deal of attention by this time and I don’t remember much. This whole review is written from my notes in the TV Journal and the blurb in Leonard Maltin.

I must say I think my posts about not being able to write about this movie were more effective than my actual post about the movie. However, since it is Wrist to Forehead Sunday, I make bold to hit publish. Wait till you read about the next cheesy horror movie I watched.

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Sorry, Cecil and Rays

Posted on July 3, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

Subtitle: “More Beastly Cheese.”

I remember mentioning that I had DVR’d two movies with “Beast” in the title. I wrote about one (The Beast from the Haunted Cave). Today I will write about the second: Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953).

Spoiler Alert! I probably won’t give away the end of the movie, but I might tell at least one dramatic development. I personally prefer to watch a movie without knowing any dramatic developments beforehand. This is why I don’t like trailers and I don’t read reviews of movies I intend to see. However, there is no real reason for any of you people to ever watch Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. If you do perceive a reason, at least you’ve been forewarned.

The reason I probably won’t give away the ending of the movie is that I don’t exactly remember it. Of course, I could always consult the TV Journal and see if I made a note about it, but I don’t have
the TV Journal handy right now. If you gather from this that the movie is not very memorable, you may congratulate yourself on your perspicacity (that is one of my favorite words).

The movie opens with yet another demonstration of how movie time has nothing whatever to do with real time. I have no problem with this — heavens, I know movies are not real life. However, when you have these military types actually counting down the seconds till they… do whatever it is they are supposed to do, I feel it is kind of slapping me in the face with it.

“We’re a movie! We don’t have to worry about the laws of time and space!”

At last the countdown is complete and we go to some stock footage of a nuclear blast. This reminded me of a wonderful scene in the marvelous movie Ed Wood where Johnny Depp, as Wood, is being shown some scenes by an old cameraman.

“Why, I could make a whole movie out of this stock footage alone!” he enthuses and goes on to outline his plot.

Of course, that doesn’t really have anything to do with this movie, because I think the blast was the only stock footage they used (unless they were a lot more clever about integrating it, in which case this is a better movie than I thought it was). I just thought I’d mention it.

That was as far as I wrote with the TV Journal unavailable. When I could consult the Journal, I found… not very extensive notes.

The movie was suggested by a story by Ray Bradbury and features effects by Ray Harryhausen. I must say I don’t think the movie took sufficient advantage of these resources, nor of the presence of actor Cecil Kellaway.

The only other note I took was that the beast has a face remarkably like Godzilla. Say what you will about the makers of cheesy movies, they reduce, reuse, recycle.

So I guess the nuclear blast wakes up the beast or creates the beast or whatever. In addition to paying more attention to these movies, it might behoove me to write about them sooner after the viewing, when I might remember those plot points I do manage to pay attention to. Then again, how long of a blog post do people actually want to read? (Seriously, I’m asking. How long do people like blog posts to be?)

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Beastly Cheese

Posted on June 11, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I DVR’d two movies from TCM on the strength of the word “beast” in their titles. I felt sure a monster would be involved.

Spoiler Alert! There isn’t really a whole lot to give away, being as there’s not a whole lot to the movie, but what little there is, I’m going to consider fair game.

I’ve only watched one of the beastly movies so far, The Beast from the Haunted Cave. I couldn’t make out the year during the credits (beastly Roman numerals), but it has a definite ’60s feel to it due to the music and the font of the credits.

It also has a definite B-movie feel to it. B for boring. I wondered why they were taking so long to get to the beast as well as so long between beastly sightings. Then it occurred to me: the purpose of the movie was to give teenagers at the drive-in an opportunity to make out. Really, the movie makers were practically performing a public service. If only my husband would have been home, I could have honored their original intentions.

As it was, I watched and knitted. And, you know what, I’m going to render my spoiler alert unnecessary and just talk about the movie in a general sort of way, because as I sit here with my pen in my hand (before my shift starts at work), I don’t feel like recounting the by-the-numbers plot and the so-obvious characters.

I could probably digress at this point into theories of writing, most particularly the Don’t Wait Till You Feel Like It school of thought. After all, today is Monday. It could be a Monday Middle-aged Musing. It would fit the movie, too, because this one gives plenty of opportunity for your thoughts to wander.

The action of the movie (Oh, OK, I’ll write about the movie) takes place on a snowy mountain, first at a lodge then at the hunky, upright ski instructor’s remote cabin (at least, he wasn’t my type, but they obviously meant for him to be hunky). Three bad guys plus the head bad guy’s girlfriend (or maybe secretary)(you know I don’t pay attention to these things) are planning to blow up a mine, steal a bunch of gold, then cross-country ski to the aforementioned cabin to meet their plane which will take them to Canada.

I would have liked to see the plane that could land on a mountain in the middle of the woods. Unfortunately, it never shows up, due to a blizzard which we also don’t get to see. We also don’t get to see the mine explode, which I think would have been pretty cool.

Speaking of not getting to see things, we also don’t get a good look at the beast till nearly the end of the picture. This, of course, is often an excellent means to build suspense and render the monster even more scary when it finally shows up. The technique was used to great effect in Jaws. I’m pretty sure Spielberg didn’t have anything to do with this movie.

When we first encounter the beast (as I said, not as early as I would have liked), we see some weird double-exposured gossamer-looking stuff, then a hairy tentacle — a giant spider leg? — grabbing a beautiful brunette (never be a beautiful girl in a monster movie unless you’re the main one; she’s the only one with a shot at making it to the end).

Then we get to watch a LOOOOONG sequence of everybody cross-country skiing to the cabin. They even camp out in the snow. What kind of a getaway plan is this, anyways? But I suppose one mustn’t look too closely at the plot gyrations which lead the characters to encounter the beast. I think I’ve mentioned before, if movie people behaved sensibly, we would have much shorter movies (which might not have hurt this one, but then what would I be writing my blog post about?).

I’d just like to also mention, we don’t get to the Haunted Cave till almost the very end. Hunky ski instructor and secretary/girlfriend are escaping on cross-country skis when the blizzard hits (of course, the effects budget only covered grey skies). He suggests they hole up in a “haunted cave” that just happens t be nearby till the storm is over.

Excuse me, what? Like a haunted cave is a feature just anybody might have on their vacation property. What does that look like on the real estate listing?

The ending (guess I did need the spoiler alert) is extremely disappointing. Basically, the beast dies and its the end of the movie. You don’t even get to find out which characters live (there’s even some question about the beautiful brunette, remember her?) or what happens to the gold. I don’t mind assuming hunk and secretary get together, but are the other bad guys all dead, do they go to jail or reform their life of crime? What?

I know what regular readers are thinking: I need to start paying better attention to these movies I write about. Well, I thought I was, and I’m not about to subject myself to this turkey again to find out. I can only hope I like the next beast better.

As an added note, I looked the movie up in VideoHound’s Golden Retriever (Thomson Gale, 2005) and learned that the movie, which was made in 1960, was produced by Gene Corman, who is Roger Corman’s brother. A Roger Corman movie, of course, has unimpeachable cheese credentials. I had noticed Gene’s last name but hadn’t thought he could be related. Small world. And speaking of brothers, one of the actors was Richard Sinatra, Frank’s brother. VideoHound thought highly of his performance.

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Hush…Hush, Sweet Cheese

Posted on June 5, 2013 by mohawkvalleygirl

I know I’ve mentioned Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) in passing, but I don’t believe I’ve written a full post on the movie. I watched my DVD of it Memorial Day. I don’t like war movies, and that was all TCM showed all weekend. Yes, I KNOW it was in tribute to our fallen soldiers. I can’t help what kind of movies I like.

I guess you could call Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (I can’t shorten it to Hush because of a rather hideous movie of that name made many years later) a Gothic horror. There’s an ill-lit Southern mansion, well past its prime, and a Southern belle in similar condition. That’s Bette Davis, tearing into her part with gusto. I love Bette Davis.

It’s kind of a contradiction in Davis’ character. She was vain enough to insist that she play her younger self in the flash back, but she eschews all glamour in the “present day” scenes (don’t know if I really need the quotation marks; it was the present day at the time). Maybe not such a contradiction. She was rightfully proud of her acting ability, and uglying oneself up for a part is a time-honored way to show one’s acting chops. To this day it’s what glamour girls do do prove they can so act.

Charlotte (see there, I can short the title) is as interesting for its background as for the movie itself. It was kind of a follow-up to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and was to have again paired Davis with Joan Crawford. Baby Jane famously re-ignited both actress’ careers. I have to admire Oscar winners who don’t scruple to do cheesy horror movies just to keep working.

I’m not sure, though, I would call Charlotte cheesy. For one thing, there are no cheesy special effects. There is no need for them: the horror comes from what the characters do to each other, not ghosts or monsters (ooh, I could do a whole blog post on how people are the most horrible monsters) (preview of coming attractions). The atmosphere is excellent, a brooding threat and air of mystery hangs over the whole. We slowly find out what’s going on, but all is not fully revealed till the end.

At least, I guess some astute viewers guessed the big reveal ahead of time. I almost never do, which is perfectly fine with me. How much fun is a horror movie where you can see everything coming? (Ooh, another future blog post: suspense vs. surprise. Discuss amongst yourselves.) (Oh, and I just heard another amongst you sniff, “What fun is ANY movie where you can see everything coming?” Read the sentence again without “horror.” It doesn’t sound as good.)

The movie boasts an excellent cast, especially Agnes Moorehead as Davis’ faithful servant. Speaking of eschewing glamour, it’s a far cry from her Endora on Bewitched. Olivia deHavilland, Joseph Cotton, Cecil Kellaway and Mary Astor round out the cast.

I realize I have not said much about the plot of Hush.. Hush Sweet Charlotte. I think this is a movie best enjoyed when you let it unfold before you. I recommend it. Would I say if you liked Whatever Happened to Baby Jane you’ll like Hush… Hush Sweet Charlotte? I guess I wouldn’t, because I never really liked Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? And that might be a subject for a whole other blog post.

By the way, I got all my information about the movie’s background from a wonderful book called Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud by Shaun Considine (E.P. Dutton, New York, 1989). Highly recommend that, too.

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