Tag Archives: cheesy horror movies

Cheesy Nightmare

Posted on November 30, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! This is another one of those movie postings where I’m pretty much going to tell you the whole plot. Well, I might leave a few things out. We’ll see.

I’m hoping my readers can bear another horror movie review. When I checked my TV Journal yesterday for the title of the shrew movie, I was reminded that I had also watched Nightmare Castle.

I thought I had seen Nightmare Castle before, but I did not remember much about it. The box said something about a guy killing his wife and her coming back to haunt him. Sounded like a good premise to me.

It seems the guy is something of a mad scientist (better and better!), although the nature of his experiments is not immediately clear. His wife, a voluptuous brunette with a taste for brandy, is taunting him (big mistake!).

After she has laughed at him in a cruel fashion, she tells him she’s only jealous because she wants to spend more time with him. Then she accuses his assistant, an older, not very attractive woman, of watching them make out. Assistant denies this, but she obviously hates the wife and is probably in love with the husband. These assistants usually are. I’m sure that’s one way for a mad scientist to get cheap help.

Off husband goes to whatever conference his wife was scorning/being jealous of, and Wife gets on with her clandestine affair with the gardener. At least, I don’t know if he’s the gardener, but he’s young and muscular and they make love in the greenhouse.

Guess who comes home and catches them? I’m not sure how he overpowers them when it’s two against one and the lover is obviously in pretty good shape. Just another “Waaait a minute” situation. Or maybe they explained it and I was changing yarn colors on my crochet (it’s a green and red afghan I may donate to Ilion Little Theatre to raffle during their Christmas musical).

At any rate, Husband has them chained to the wall in his laboratory (pronounced lah-BOR-a-tory) when he finds out Wife is going to have the last laugh. She has made out a new will leaving all to her crazy little sister. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

So he tortures and kills them. I must say, I hope they don’t do a remake of this. I am made queasy by trailers for the so-called torture porn movies being made these days. I greatly prefer the older, more circumspect movies. It’s still a pretty creepy scene.

What’s an evil husband to do? He married the lady for the castle, so he’d have a place for his evil experiments. Now she’s left it all to her kid sister in the loony bin. I don’t know why he doesn’t just pretend she’s still alive, especially since, as we later learn, her crypt is empty. Maybe they didn’t have joint checking.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever seen one of these movies that he marries the sister, an innocent blonde who looks remarkably like the dead woman (yes, it’s the same actress in a blonde wig). Soon the Gaslight stuff starts, only this guy is by no means a Charles Boyer (if you don’t get the reference, stop reading now and go see Gaslight, unless you only like bad movies).

Still with me? It’s about this point where the movie gets a little more convoluted and a lot more interesting. Not Very Attractive Assistant has miraculously turned young and beautiful, but, alas, not as young and beautiful as Kid Sister. Ah, but maybe it’s not so miraculous. Perhaps it is the result of Evil Husband’s experiments (yuh think?).

I could not blame Assistant for being ticked off at this point. I’m sure she thought the plan was to off Evil Wife, get the castle, and make Assistant beautiful so she could be the Evil Husband’s new girlfriend. Then he comes home with this blonde chippy!

Now that I’ve gotten to the interesting part, I think I’ll stop, because you might actually want to see this movie. It gets suspenseful and a little scary at the end. I enjoyed it. And if Steven ever starts doing mysterious experiments in the basement with a not very attractive older assistant, I will not laugh at him. I may have an affair with the gardener, though, because that would be Steven. He’s a busy guy.

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It Sure Wasn’t Shakespeare

Posted on November 29, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! I intend to give away all major plot points of the following movie, including how they escape from the monsters and who lives at the end.

As I write this (on a break at work), I find I cannot quite recall the exact title of today’s cheesy horror flick. Something about shrews. Attack of the Killer Shrews or Giant Killer Shrews. You may guess from this that it is not a particularly memorable movie, and you’d be right.

I know what else you might be thinking: Shakespeare. I suspect the makers of the movie anticipated such a thing as well, because they have one of the characters say, “As in ‘Taming of’?” Which is exactly what Steven said when I informed him which movie we’d be watching. Imagine my husband having something in common with the main guy of a cheesy horror flick (I don’t say “hero.” I would not call most of these main guys heroes.)

It seems Main Guy is captain of a boat bringing supplies to an island. According to these movies, there are a bazillion isolated, difficult to reach islands, usually peopled with mad scientists, who often have beautiful daughters.

The scientist on this island has a beautiful daughter, but he’s not particularly mad. We know, of course, what animal he is researching, and the first ones we see are small.

“It looks like a rat,” remarks Main Guy. Actually, it looks like a mouse. “Does it bite?” he asks, as he holds it in his hand.

“Only when it’s hungry,” is the answer.

I forgot to mention that Main Guy does not intend to depart that night or even unload, because of an imminent hurricane. So it’s tough luck on Beautiful Daughter, who counted on leaving the island with him. She tries to convince him to stay with them in the house, not because he is so handsome and debonair (he’s neither), but because she is afraid. He, of course, intends to spend the night on the boat. In a hurricane! What the hell?

Scientist Dad has several people working for him in capacities that are never fully explained. One at least is a pure research assistant. He spends his last minutes recording his exact symptoms as he dies of poisonous shrew bite. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First we meet Beautiful Daughter’s ex-fiance, a drunkard who left the cage door open. I don’t think we find out which of those if either factored into her breaking the engagement, but then, you know I never pay close attention to these things.

Soon we are all being terrorized by the giant shrews, which look like mice with long hair and are the size of wolves (I was going to say “dogs,” but you might say, “Chihuahuas? Great Danes?”) The close ups of the sharp teeth are scary enough. The beady eyes peeping through various orifices less so. In those shots you can pretty much tell they made use of perspective as a special effect.

The giant shrews have apparently eaten all possible food on the island and will soon begin eating each other, thus leaving the humans only one really fat shrew to deal with. It’s a good plan, except that the shrews discover the people and want to eat all of them first, quite naturally.

So the shrews start picking off the people one by one. It turns out the shrew bite is poisonous, so if you get bit you’re a goner even if you’re not dinner.

When they’re down to just four survivors — Dad, Daughter, Main Guy and Ex-Fiance — they decide to duck walk to the beach in oil drums. I’m not kidding you. Have you ever tried to duck walk any distance? I have not, but the mere thought of it hurts my thighs. They put these slits in the oil drums so they can see out, although I think that is mainly so we can have some scary shots of sharp teeth trying to break through.

So there they are, oil drums strapped together, only three of them because Ex-Fiance has decided to remain on the roof (guess what’s going to happen to him). The camera shows close ups on each face as they make their fearful way. Boy, are they good duck walkers! Their heads and shoulders don’t move at all! I know some dancers who would love to achieve that kind of isolation!

Oh, you don’t have to tell me I’m carping. Listen, I’m not method actress myself. I don’t feel I would need to actually duck walk through a jungle to convincingly look as if I might faint (did I really need to tell you Beautiful Daughter almost does?) (faint, I mean, not actually duck walk). Still, if I had been directing that scene, I would have insisted on at least a little up/down movement.

I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that all three make it to safety. I was a little relieved they let Dad live. Many movies would have killed him off. Some even would have offed the girl. I thought Ex-Fiance’s death was rather pointless. Often that character gets to do something heroic and sacrifice himself, since he obviously isn’t going to get the girl. Or he could have done something dastardly to save himself, but it backfires and he gets his comeuppance.

But no, he just jumps off the roof, while Steven and I yelled, “What are you thinking?” I suppose he figured the shrews were distracted, and he could run faster than the other three could duck walk. But, hello! How distracted do you think the shrews are?

Here’s a shrew, trying to get at a duck walker in an oil drum and he doesn’t have a can opener (oh, I’ve been there. It was cream of mushroom soup, but a similar frustration). Now here’s this fine specimen, out of a tin can and marinaded (remember? he’s a drunkard). What would you do if you were a hungry shrew? I thought so.

Scientist Dad says in X amount of time the shrews will have eaten each other, and the menace will be over. Phew! You don’t suppose they’ll start having babies really fast first, do you, and replenish supplies? Or maybe go vegetarian till something better comes along? Learn to swim? In short, adapt in time for a sequel. Well, if anybody hears of a sequel, please let me know.

NOTE: On consulting the TV Journal, I see the title is The Killer Shrews. Leonard Maltin doesn’t list it.

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Just a Common or Garden Vampire

Posted on November 13, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! I’ll try not to give away the dramatic conclusion, but I am pretty much going to tell you what happens in this picture.

I have to confess that I am not as fond of the horror movies made after 1960. Could it be the color film which is so much less atmospheric? Could it be the increasingly graphic quality of the violence (don’t even get me started on the body count slasher flicks of the ’70s)? In any case, it was in some trepidation that I sat down to watch Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966).

I noted that it was a Seven Arts/Hammer Production. Hammer, I learned recently, was a British company that became somewhat renowned for its horror movies in the ’60s. On consulting one of his movie books, Steven informed me that this movie was the sequel to Horror of Dracula. I imagined we would be able to follow the plot in spite of having missed the first installment. I was right.

The movie opens on a life and death struggle between a vampire and some guy. We never find out who the guy is, but he triumphs and the vampire eventually crumbles to dust in a not bad special effect for the time. My guess is that this is how the first movie ended, which I certainly like better than the whole movie being a flashback telling us how we got to this point.

So call that the prologue. The real movie starts with an old woman chasing down some sort of funeral procession starring a beautiful young blond girl. I thought she looked a little like a young Cybil Shepherd. That reminded me of her eponymous sitcom where her character was a actress who would have been grateful to get a dead body part.

The anchor guy in the procession carries a wooden stake, and the procession leads to a pile of sticks. Apparently they are going to stake the young woman and burn her JUST IN CASE she is a vampire. And that is the first “Waaait a minute” moment in the film. If she was a vampire, wouldn’t she be crumbling into dust from the daylight? No matter, these guys are taking no chances, despite the old woman’s protests that her daughter deserves a proper Christian burial.

Enter a monk on a horse with a shotgun, who stops the whole thing, insists the girl be buried, but does not stick around to see it carried out. We don’t see it carried out either, but I think it was done. Anyways, that was just more background: the vampire is dead but people still fear him.

Next we’re in a tavern where an upper class guy is doing what looks like a fraternity party chug-a-lug with the lower classes. His sister-in-law disapproves but his wife thinks he’s cute and, besides, “We can afford it.”

When the monk (I can’t capitalize it or you’ll think I’m talking about the Tony Shaloub show on USA) shows up, hollering at the crowd for being such superstitious louts, he meets the upper class foursome: two brothers and their wives on vacation to improve their minds.

The monk, refreshing himself with mulled cordial and hiking his robes up to warm his backside at the fire, invites them to come stay at his monastery. At any rate, they mustn’t go to Carlsbad, where they originally intended, and if they do they must stay away from the castle.

Hmmm…. Where do you suppose they’re going to end up?

How they get to the castle is less “Waaait a minute!” than “Oh, PLEASE!” Nobody but Disapproving Sister-in-Law is the least bit disconcerted that they find themselves dropped off at the castle by runaway horses, their luggage mysteriously brought upstairs, and dinner ready to be served by a singularly creepy servant who appears to be the castle’s only inhabitant.

You know, I’m all for mysterious things happening in horror movies. And I’m even OK with going with the flow and having an adventure. I KNOW that if these people would have sensibly gone to stay at the monk’s house it would have been a dull movie. But I think these people took things entirely too far.

In a rather gruesome scene, one of the four gets sliced open in order to bring the vampire’s ashes back to life. Apparently the creepy servant carefully preserved them in a funereal-looking box.

And you know, I think they missed a bet. Have you ever tried to sweep up ashes? Heck, even sweeping ordinary household dirt you don’t get it all. You know how it is: you sweep, sweep, sweep it into the dustpan, then you scatter around the last little bit that you just can’t get. And then some of it stays on the broom or in the dustpan. There’s no way that entire vampire would have been there!

Actually, come to think of it, he wasn’t. As Dracula, Christopher Lee has no lines. Was this so the producers wouldn’t have to pay him as much, or were Dracula’s vocal chords still stuck in the cracks between the flagstones where he met his end? Points to ponder.

Be that as it may, the movie continues with another member of the party lured to her doom. Of course she becomes a vampire, which improves her personality as well as her hair-do. Eventually the other two are fleeing for their lives.

They meet up with the monk again, who tells them how to kill a vampire. Did you know you could drown a vampire in running water? I didn’t. I thought it was sunlight or stake through the heart, although you can temporarily chase them off with garlic or a crucifix.

I was a little disappointed in the movie. For one thing, it didn’t really seem like Count Dracula. He just seemed like any common or garden vampire, and he didn’t even have that big a part. He was scary enough when he was onscreen, although as with many movie monsters, he moved too slowly. Perhaps I should cut him a break on that one, though. After all, he was only ashes just that morning.

But he was not onscreen enough. It took forever to get him brought back from ashes and even then he didn’t spend nearly enough time chasing his victims to suit me.

But perhaps I ask too much. At any rate, I have another Christopher Lee Dracula movie on my DVR, probably a sequel to this one. I’ll watch it and report on whether he gets a little more personality or at least the use of his vocal chords.

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I Was in the Mood for a Fiend

Posted on November 3, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

I think any movie with Vincent Price is worth a watch. Of course, you never know what you may be in for. I’ve seen him in the cheesy William Castle flick House on Haunted Hill and the stylish noir Laura, to name two of my favorites. When I saw something called Diary of a Madman on TCM, I reached for the DVR button on the remote.

Diary of a Madman (1963) is based on a story by Guy de Maupassant. I’ll have to read the story sometime so I can compare/contrast. However, I thought I would write this blog post before I did any such thing.

The movie opens on a funeral — always a good start for a horror flick. A “good man” is dead — at least, that’s what the eulogy says. One lady emphatically does not buy into that description. Several people meet, at the behest of the dead man, for the reading of his diary. That’s right, not the will, the diary. Didn’t you see the title of the picture?

Flashback to Vincent Price as a highly respected magistrate, going to see a condemned killer before his execution. The killer protests his innocence: it’s not him, it’s the demon that possesses him. Then he tries to kill Price. Well, I guess the demon tries to. Price kills the murderer first, so what do you suppose will happen to the demon?

That much we read in the description of the movie on the guide channel. To continue a plot summary would, I think, call for a spoiler alert. I don’t intend to exactly recount the plot, but just to be on the safe side, consider yourself alerted for possible spoilers.

The demon, it seems, does not so much possess Price as follow him around, taunting him and occasionally making him do things. And to my mind, not nearly enough things. Come on, the first guy the demon possessed — and this is just backstory — killed four people without motive. It takes forever for Price to start murdering!

When he finally does kill someone, he is not nearly as fiendish as we like our Vincent to be. There is a rather satisfyingly macabre bit involving a sculpture of somebody we don’t like much anyways, so that helps. Price was an excellent actor. He could play the tormented sufferer who wants to do right and it is a fine performance. I was just in the mood for a fiend.

The ending has a definite “Waaait a minute!” quality, but then, movies using a diary as a framing device often do. I mean, people are very rarely able to describe their own death in a diary before it actually happens (I didn’t spoil anything; remember? it opened on his funeral).

Perhaps they could have overcome the difficulty with a voice-over narration, something along the lines of, “This is what I plan to do. If you’re reading this, you’ll know it worked.” But they made no use of voice-over narration. Kind of silly of them, since Vincent Price had such a nice voice. Astute readers may remember my saying that I don’t like voice-over narration. True, it’s not my favorite. In this case, however, it may have enabled them to skip over a bunch of the boring parts before he gets around to killing somebody. Then they could have fit in a few more murders.

I guess it’s not the job of a reviewer to tell the movie makers how to fix the movie. I can see the director now huffing, “Fine! You go make a movie!” I guess they have a point. Reviewers ought to review the movie they saw, not the movie they wished they would have seen. Well, leaving aside the fact that I rarely do what I ought to (and brag about it), I’m not a real reviewer! I write a silly blog! Where do these movie makers get off, talking to me like I’m Leonard Maltin? They should just go make another movie. Maybe I’ll write about it next week.

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Just Sew the Head Back On!

Posted on October 30, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! I’m going to tell most of the plot of today’s movie. I’m really more interested in commenting about it than in being circumspect.

We continued our enjoyment of Peter Cushing as Dr. Frankenstein with Frankenstein Created Woman (1967).

I was a little disappointed that the movie did not pick up where Revenge of Frankenstein ended. On consulting Leonard Maltin, however (Leonard Maltin’s 2007 Movie Guide, Penguin Group, New York, 2006), I find that this movie is in fact the sequel to Evil of Frankenstein, which I did not see. That explains it.

The movie opens similarly to Revenge, however, with an ominous shot of a guillotine. The intended beheadee this time is not Dr. F but a common or garden thief and murderer. He is laughing at his fate until he sees his son in the distance watching.

The guillotine certainly makes for a chilling beginning, especially when we see the bloody blade being raised after the head drops. The guillotine, of course, was an efficient means of execution. That guy with the big ax sometimes missed, I’ve read. But guy with ax or guillotine, one thing you can say about getting beheaded: there was no chance they were going to bury you while you were still alive. Come to think of it, in a Frankenstein movie, I guess that’s not much of a fear anyways, because he digs up bodies. But I digress.

Flashing forward, the executed man’s son is all grown up and passes by the guillotine every day on his way to his job as — did you guess? I didn’t — Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant. Dr. F is also assisted by a bumbling old fool of a doctor, who is actually pretty endearing. I was reminded of Holmes and Watson (which is a little blog foreshadowing, by the way, because I also DVR’d The Hound of Baskervilles, starring none other than Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes).

Things get a little weird for a Frankenstein movie. He doesn’t sew any dead body parts together. So once again, the possibilities of the guillotine are wasted. Well, I guess not entirely, but that part comes later.

This time out, Dr. F is interested in the soul, which he says does not leave the body right away upon death.

“Where does it go?” asks Bumbling Old Doctor. I don’t think Dr. F has a good answer for that one.

As the movie progresses, we find out that Hans — that’s the guillotined guy’s son — is in love with the daughter of the owner of the local tavern. She is scarred and crippled. The origin of the scars is not explained, but it looks as if half her face has been burned. However, since she has a Veronica Lake thing going on with her long red hair, she is still cute. The crippled thing is harder to disguise, especially when some drunken upper-crust louts demand she wait on them, so they can make fun of her. Oh yes, the audience is wanting these guys to be cut up and used for body parts.

Ah, but this is a different Dr. Frankenstein. He wants to put somebody’s soul into a different body, and he gets his chance when Hans is sentenced to the guillotine.

I know what you’re thinking: “Just sew his head back on! It’s what you do!” That is what I was thinking it. But now that I think more about it, I remember that in Revenge of Frankenstein, he said he couldn’t put a dead brain into his patchwork body. But now it’s all about the soul, and the brain is not even mentioned (insert brainless joke of your choice).

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think Cushing’s character is just a regular old mad scientist, and they named him Frankenstein to buy into the franchise. Canny marketing strategy. I mean, I would have watched the movie anyways, but you can’t always go by me.

Where was I? Ah yes, Hans’ soul is put into the dead body of his girlfriend, who drowned herself in despair after he got guillotined. Yes, I’ve skipped a few plot points. You know how I am about details.

So what happens to the girl’s soul is a question nobody asks, but I think the answer is she’s still around, although she has no idea who she is or how she got there. However, she is now a beautiful, unscarred, uncrippled blond. I guess it’s a good thing she doesn’t know who she is or the first words out of her mouth may have been, “Thanks a lot, Doc! You couldn’t have done that while I was alive, I suppose?”

Just about the time I was complaining, “Isn’t there any comeuppance for those louts?” Blondie turns into a murderous vixen, commanded by, yes, Hans’ dismembered head, which she has apparently dug out of the grave (the doctors let him get buried after they got his soul).

Hey, maybe if Dr. F would have known what Blondie was up to, he could have put the louts’ souls into other people’s bodies, too. That would have made for a much longer movie, though, so I guess it’s just as well.

The movie ends pretty abruptly, with almost everybody dead, except Dr. Frankenstein. So he is all set for another sequel. I hope TCM shows it next Saturday.

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Some Intrepid Girl Reporter

Posted on October 9, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

I think back pain must also effect the brain (cue brainless jokes) (you know who you are), because I had completely forgotten about another horror classic I watched on Saturday, The Corpse Vanishes (1942) starring Bela Lugosi.

Of course, starring Bela Lugosi is not a guarantee a movie will be any good or even that it will be a horror movie (remember when Boris Karloff played that Chinese detective?). Still, with the word “corpse” in the title, I figured we’d at least get to see those famous scary eyes.

The movie starts out quickly enough with a bride dropping dead just as she’s about to say “I do” (cue anti-marriage jokes). A photographer rushes in and takes a picture (paparazzi in 1942?). The undertaker takes the body away, and we catch a glimpse of some scary eyes in the back of the hearse. Oh boy! Then the real undertaker shows up. Oh no!

“Another kidnapping of a dead bride!” exclaims a girl from a newspaper who has just been denied an interview with the bride’s father. “What a story!”

At this point I sat up as straight as my bad back would allow and cheered. An intrepid girl reporter! Yay!

As per usual, Intrepid Girl Reporter gets no respect from her paper. The editor sends her to the next society wedding and he ONLY wants her to find out who’s there and what the bride is wearing.

“But what if I get a clue?” she asks. He does not deem this likely.

The mother of the bride in this wedding has demanded police protection. As the bride prepares, a mysterious orchid arrives, which she naturally pins right on. It MUST come from the groom, right?

Hello! Two minutes earlier the groom was at the door and was denied admittance. Would he not at that point have said, “Oh, well, give her this orchid from me.” That occurs to no one, and apparently the police protection does not extend to questioning deliverers of mysterious orchids.

Predictably, this bride also drops dead. They make sure the coffin gets on the right hearse, which is surrounded by motorcycle cops, but Bela cleverly steals it anyways. Intrepid Girl Reporter ends up with the orchid, which she — and nobody else — immediately recognizes as a clue.

Meanwhile, we follow Bela to his lonely mansion, castle, whatever it is (I missed the exterior shot), with the mysterious laboratory, and we find out why he wants the corpses of beautiful young women. He uses them (by means which are not clear but that hardly matters in a movie like this) to keep his wife young and beautiful. Does she have a wasting disease that makes her look old before her time? NO! She’s just old and doesn’t want to look that way! Come on, lady, none of us do! Slap on some Oil of Olay, schedule a Mary Kay makeover and drive on!

Perhaps I should be a little more understanding. These were the days before botox, after all. And, without this woman’s desire to look young, there wouldn’t be any movie. But she is so annoying! She’s crying with these big, loud sobs that go on and on, begging her husband to hurry, she needs [whatever he does] NOW! I was wishing he would give her a mysterious orchid so she’d just shut up already.

Intrepid Girl Reporter tracks down Bela through the orchid, which is surprisingly easy. What dumb cops they have in these movies. Law enforcement ought to sue Hollywood for defamation. Come to think of it, so should intrepid girl reporters, because this one is not a good representative. She spends a lot of time screaming and fainting (I think Fay Wray screamed once in The Mystery of the Wax Museum, but you really couldn’t blame her and she was intrepid the whole rest of the time).

It’s not a bad movie, in spite of Boo-Hoo Wife, Dumb Cops and Not So Intrepid Girl Reporter. There are some scary parts and a few creepy minor characters I haven’t mentioned (thought I’d save you something). One might wonder if it was really all that memorable, seeing as I forgot I had watched it till Monday morning when I was pondering my blog topic (it was kind of like, “Wait a minute, didn’t I see three movies on Saturday?”). But on looking back, I will give it this accolade: it was fun at the time.

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Shopping with Corman

Posted on October 8, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

As I mentioned yesterday, due to a bad back all I was good for was watching cheesy movies — uh, I mean horror classics. I continued my viewing with Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors (1960).

The movie later became an off-Broadway musical, which was also made into a movie with Rick Moranis and Steve Martin. I never saw the play, and I did not like the movie (although in general I like both Moranis and Martin). However, I saw a trailer for the original movie on the Extra Features of Horror Hotel, and I was intrigued. I found it in Steven’s Collection of 50 Horror Classics.

In case you’ve never heard of the movie or play, it is about a man-eating plant. The plant is raised by a nebbishy loser who is on the verge of getting fired from a Skid Row florist at which he works. He doesn’t exactly know what he’s raising and discovers quite by accident that the plant craves blood and eats people. Complications ensue.

I have to say I liked it. Corman throws in a lot of comedy, some of which is heavy handed. For example, at every opportunity, the nebbish sticks his foot in a bucket and trips. It takes some finesse to pull off a bit like that and not have your audience say, “Where do all these empty mop buckets keep coming from?” Roger Corman films are not known for use of finesse. However, that is part of their charm, and I did get enjoy a chuckle or two.

I especially liked the florist’s one regular customer, a lady with an apparently infinite supply of relatives who died and needed flowers sent to the funeral. I also like the florist, the struggling businessman who is alternately ready to fire the nebbish or adopt him as a son and is reasonably torn between doing the right thing and making money.

The big name in the cast is Jack Nicholson. I had known he was in the movie, but I was under the impression he played the sadistic dentist later portrayed by Steve Martin. Not so: Nicholson is hilarious and a little scary as a masochistic patient. It is not a large part. At Nicholson’s stature now it would be a cameo. At his stage of career then, it is a memorable bit.

Leonard Maltin in his 2007 Movie Guide (Penguin Group, New York, 2006) says the movie is now seen as one of Corman’s best. I can see why. The plot moves right along, there are some good scares, and the dramatic conclusion is fitting. An enjoyable interlude on a Saturday afternoon. I may try it again sometime without the backache.

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Saturday Movie Matinee

Posted on October 7, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

I am hoping that this blog does not degenerate into All Back Pain All The Time, but can I just say, Ow. There was not a chance that I could run this morning and write a blog post about that. I thought I might manage a walking post, but I tried it and no dice. I did, however, watch an old horror movie and I’d like to write about that.

Spoiler alert! I may even give away the ending this time. We’ll see how it goes. I will say right up front that this is not a bad movie; I do not feel you would be wasting your time by watching it. So if you like this sort of thing, you might want to stop reading, go watch Horror Hotel, then come back and read this (clearly I do not feel that anybody’s time is wasted reading my blog).

Horror Hotel (1960) is the first entry in a DVD collection I got for Steven some years ago called “Horror Movie Classics.” It came in a tin box that makes horror noises when you push a little button on top. I purchased it mainly because it included the silent classic Nosferatu, one of the scariest pictures ever made. But I find I enjoy the cheesier entries as well.

The first thing that struck me about Horror Hotel is that the opening scene, a flashback to a witch burning in 17th century New England, was used in The Curse of the Blair Witch.

Wait a minute, have I written about this before? At this point it would behoove me to check. However, that would entail making my painful way up the stairs to the computer, waiting while it boots up and sitting on a chair which totally exacerbates my suspected sciatica for as long as it takes me to search every entry I’ve written about movies. That ain’t gonna happen. Oh well, they show re-runs on TV all the time. And scripted shows recycle plot lines ad infinitum. Anyways, maybe I never wrote about Horror Hotel in the first place.

Where was I? ah yes, the witch burning scene later recycled by the clever Blair Witch people. It turns out that this is a part of a lecture given by a wild-eyed professor who is, I think, getting just a little too heated about his subject matter. Of course a beautiful blonde student is fascinated by it all. She wants to go to the site of the aforementioned burning and do research, over the disapproval of her science professor brother and varsity sweater wearing boyfriend.

Setting aside the wild-eyed professor, this movie is lousy with foreshadowing. For one thing, here’s the ground level fog which never goes away. Seriously, outside of a haunted house with a good dry ice machine, has anybody ever actually walked through this thick, scary mist on the ground? I never have.

Naturally Blondie ignores the gas station attendant who tells her “decent folk” do not go where she is headed. Naturally she picks up the scary hitchhiker who speaks in sepulchral tones using language from another century, apparently thinking he’s a perfectly nice guy that needs a ride even though it is just a bit odd that he disappears abruptly without saying goodbye or opening the car door. And why wouldn’t she explore that dark, cobwebby basement where there isn’t supposed to be one?

I’ve skipped a bunch of stuff, which I think is a good thing if you ever want to watch the movie. I think I’ll skip a bunch of other stuff, too. For one thing, it is probably going to be painful to sit at the computer and type this in (man, I love writing a blog; you can get away with all kinds of stuff).

The climax is exciting. I may be giving away too much by saying that evil is vanquished, but I just wanted to tell you that I sat there asking, “Why didn’t they just do that 300 years ago and save these kids the trouble?”

Well, over 600 words and my back isn’t hurting too badly. I think I’ll go lounge on the couch some more and watch some more horror classics. That way I’ll have something to write about if I’m not up for more energetic Mohawk Valley adventures soon.

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Mid-Week Middle-Aged Memory

Posted on September 27, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Alternative title: “When the Hand Dropped”

Last Sunday while watching It! The Terror from Beyond Space, I suddenly said, “I’ve seen this movie!”

A crew member is missing. The rest of the crew has not yet seen the monster, although the audience has seen its feet (which, come to think of it, look a little bit like the Creature of the Black Lagoon’s). One man is standing next to a ventilation grate, pondering. Suddenly, a lifeless hand drops down, inside the grate, right in front of him. EEEEEEEEEEE!

I remembered that hand dropping down. It is, in fact, the only thing in the entire picture I remember from that viewing. Do you suppose there are other sci-fi monster movies where a hand drops down in a grate? And what occurs to me now as I write this is why is that ventilation grate a great big square at eye level looking for all the world like a window? But that’s neither here nor there. I remember the hand.

It was the ’70s. My parents would go out for dinner and dancing on a Saturday night. These were more elegant times: my mom and her friends would wear long dresses, the men wore suits. I admit to being envious. My older sisters and I, once Victoria was deemed old enough to be the babysitter, got to stay up till Mom and Dad got home.

Oh, the joy and mystery of staying up late! These were the days when cable offered seven channels and some stations went off the air at midnight. It was a challenge to find something to watch. We loved it when one of the all night stations showed a scary movie. Who doesn’t want to see a scary movie? At least, who wants to admit to not wanting to seeing a scary movie? I seem to think I wanted to be scared, then didn’t necessarily like it so much when I was.

So there we were, ready to be scared. When the hand dropped, we jumped.

“I don’t think anything would have scared me more than that hand,” Victoria said.

“What if it was that things head?” I asked. I think the thing’s head would have been more scary.

I took all these fake monsters at face value. If I was meant to be scared, I was scared. I was scared of every monster on Lost In Space, even when I could see where they had recycled a monster from two episodes ago.

Well, maybe not as scared of the recycled ones. Then too, things are always scarier at night, especially when Mom and Dad aren’t home. Lost in Space re-runs were generally shown in the afternoon, so those monsters were automatically less nightmare-inducing.

Sometimes we could catch a scary movie on a Saturday afternoon. Didn’t there used to be a feature called Chiller? A six-fingered hand would rise up out of a swamp and a gravelly voice would say, “Chil-ler!” Those were the days.

I suppose now I could segue into a middle-aged musing about how I am trying to recapture my childhood by watching these old movies. I don’t think that’s it, though; I think I just enjoy writing about them. And, you know, really, what I’d like to recapture is my parents’ young adulthood and wear a long dress to go out dancing on a Saturday night.

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Cheese from Beyond Space

Posted on September 26, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

After enjoying our Whistler movie on Sunday, Steven and I arrowed down on the DVR list to It! The Terror from Beyond. It was not until we actually started watching that we discovered the full title is It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958). It is a misleading title. The terror in question is not from beyond space; it is from Mars, which is right in space (that’s not really a spoiler; we find that out early on).

This time we got to hear some commentary from Ben Mankiewicz, and I knew my instinct for cheese had not misled me.

“Campy? Yes. Cheesy special effects? Yes,” Mankiewicz says. What could be better? He goes on to praise the plot, which has been credited with inspiring Ridley Scott’s Alien. I remember being pretty scared at Alien, and a little grossed out. I also remember that I ultimately did not like that movie, because I don’t like movies where everybody dies — or everybody but one (sorry, Sigourney Weaver). I hoped everybody wouldn’t die this time out.

The movie opens with the sole survivor of a mission to Mars which came to grief. A second mission is going to pick up the survivor and bring him back to earth to face court martial charges of murdering the other eight (or is it nine?). We see a press conference where a guy announces this and all the reporters rush out of the room. I don’t know why they didn’t stay and ask any questions. For example, why would you thing such a thing?

Cut to the ship. Having picked up the prisoner, they are about to take off.

“Hey! Why is that hatch open?” The guy sees on a monitor that it is open; we don’t actually see it.

“Oh, sorry, I was dumping out some crates.”

Gee, I hope nothing got in, don’t you?

At this point I said to Steven, “Oh, I see what the plot’s going to be. The monster’s going to start killing people off and they’re going to think that guy did it.” The plot is actually nothing of the kind. Maybe it was a silly thing to think. After all, what could the guy gain by killing his rescuers/jailers? They’re on a space ship, for heavens’ sake! It’s not like a bus or car he can hijack and drive somewhere else.

Still, I think that would have made a pretty good plot, especially if at first even the audience isn’t sure there’s a monster. In fact, we see the monster right away and there is no doubt in the minds of the crew that someTHING is doing the killing. First we see the monster’s feet. Then his three-fingered, claw-like hand. Then his ugly head.

This is not as suspenseful as it sounds. I mean, we’re seeing the monster; he is not merely hinted at. Then again, the lessons of Jaws were over ten years away. I suppose, too, that guys in suits are never as scary as CGI or whatever it was they used in Alien. Still, they tried.

I bet the guy that was going to the court martial feels just a little bit glad when people start getting killed by the monster. Well, maybe not glad, exactly, but inclined to say, “I told you so!” Sometimes it takes drastic measures to fight murder charges.

There is a bit of a love triangle among one of the women, court martial guy and one of the wounded crew members. She does a lot of hand holding, and, as usual in these situations, I don’t know what she sees in either one of them.

I thought it was very progressive of them to have women on the ship. Of course, they were the medical personnel not real astronauts, but still. They were on the ship, and they did stuff other than scream and be rescued. In fact, I don’t think they did scream, be rescued or do any of the stupid movie female things I like to complain about. You go, girls!

I enjoyed the movie. Ben Mankiewicz was right: the plot is good. The one thing that cracked me up was that every so often they cut to a shot of the space ship moving through space. Like they need to remind us.

It is a long, tall ship, looking a lot like whatever number Apollo was going to the moon when I was in first grade (roughly 100 years ago). I remember at that time being amazed that most of that big ship was fuel needed for take off. In this case, it’s all ship. The interior has a kind of a town house design. Each floor is accessed from the one below via a steep stairway and a center hatch which closes very slowly. There were a couple of times I would have been jumping on that hatch trying to make it close quicker.

I probably would have broken it and then the monster would have gotten us all. Maybe leaving one survivor. Just like in those movies I don’t like.

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