Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies (1973)

          But for a few turns of fate, Steven Spielberg could have made his feature directorial debut with this drama about a former WWI pilot barnstorming across America with his young son. Spielberg wrote the story with an eye toward directing, but he was replaced, with Oscar-winning actor Cliff Robertson becoming the project’s driving force. Whatever charms the original story possessed must have been lost in translation, because the final film is such a misfire that the director, producers, and screenwriters all used pseudonyms in the credits. Can’t blame them. The central relationship, between the flyer and his son, is hopelessly underdeveloped. The main subplot, about a romance between the flyer and a woman he meets during his travels, is nonsensical. And the main character, the flyer, behaves so inconsistently that it’s as if he becomes a new person in every scene. The film’s choppy rhythms suggest that some overzealous tinkering occurred during post-production, but because many individual scenes is murky, it’s unlikely anyone could have made a worthwhile movie from the footage that director John Erman (credited as Bill Sampson) collected. About the only praiseworthy elements of Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies are the aerial scenes, the cinematography, and the detailed re-creations of 1920s America.

           The story begins awkwardly, with “Ace” Eli Walford (Robertson) crashing a plane and killing his passenger, who also happens to be his wife. After a brief funeral sequence, Eli starts building a new plane and telling folks that he wants to become a barnstormer and take his young son, Rodger (Eric Shea), with him. The obvious fact that Eli is s dangerous maniac never even gets lip service. One day, tired of Eli’s procrastinating, Rodger burns the family house to the ground, so Eli just smiles and starts up the plane, beginning their adventure. And so it goes from there. Eli cheats and lies to potential clients, sleeps with every available woman, and disappoints his kid on a regular basis. Improbably, the story expands to include Shelby (Pamela Franklin), a stalker who chases Eli from one town to the next until she finally seduces him. None of this stuff makes sense, though the picture sure looks swell. As for the project’s star, Robertson is terrible, playing a cocksure daredevil in one scene, a cowardly swindler in the next, and a vulgar cad at other times. His performance is as discombobulated as the movie itself.

Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies: FUNKY

And Soon the Darkness (1970)

          Before he found his cinematic groove with the campy horror picture The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), which combined flamboyant storytelling with stylish production design, British director Robert Fuest made varied films including this atmospheric thriller about two young women who encounter a dangerous stranger while traveling through Europe. Although handsomely photographed and tastefully staged, And Soon the Darkness is a good 30 minutes too long considering the threadbare nature of the storyline. As a result, the picture is painfully dull for long stretches, even though it’s a respectable piece overall.

          And Soon the Darkness follows English nurses Cathy (Michele Dotrice) and Jane (Pamela Franklin), who spend their vacation making a bicycle tour of rural France. One afternoon, the girls stop for a rest in a roadside clearing, but the idyll leads to a quarrel—frisky Cathy wants to slow the trip down so she can seek romantic adventures, while prim Jane is determined to follow a rigid schedule. Jane leaves Cathy in the clearing and bikes to the next town, where she overhears locals talking about a murder that occurred in the area some time previous. Spooked, Jane returns to where she left Cathy, only to discover her friend is missing. Complicating matters is the recurring presence of Paul (Sandor Elés), a handsome stranger whom the girls have noticed several times in their travels; he conveniently appears at the location where Cathy was last seen and offers assistance to Jane, though his motives remain mysterious. Once all the pieces of the narrative puzzle are in place, Fuest and screenwriters Brian Clemens and Terry Nation play Hitchcockian suspense games, creating ambiguity about what might have happened to Cathy and what role Paul may or may not have played in nefarious events.
          Franklin has a appropriately mousy quality and Elés oozes smarminess, so all of this could have worked quite well had the pacing been stronger. Alas, And Soon the Darkness foreshadows problems that Fuest had in later films of sustaining interest all the way from beginning to end. Still, this isn’t a bad little thriller, especially since the movie feels credible and looks good. In fact, And Soon the Darkness has engendered enough goodwill over the years that a Hollywood remake emerged in 2010, starring Amber Heard in the role that Franklin originated.

And Soon the Darkness: FUNKY

Necromancy (1972)

During the post-Rosemary’s Baby boom, countless filmmakers generated schlocky thrillers mixing sex with the supernatural, although only a few of them actually generated movies worth watching. More typical of the trend is this bland offering from director Bert I. Gordon, best known for silly monster movies including The Food of the Gods (1976) and Empire of the Ants (1977). Featuring a campy plot that’s almost entirely predicated on the heroine being an idiot, Necromancy tells the story of an evil Satan worshipper who wants to harness a young woman’s occult powers in order to bring his deceased son back from the grave. In principle, this concept should be strong enough to support an acceptable frightfest. In practice, however, Gordon makes poor storytelling decisions at every single turn, creating a movie that lacks momentum and overflows with moments that either don’t make sense or fail to engage interest. Even with scenes of all-nude rituals and human sacrifices, Necromancy is dull. Lovely Pamela Franklin, who fared better in later ’70s horror movies—including the creepy theatrical feature The Legend of Hell House and the kitschy telefilm Satan’s School for Girls (both 1973)—stars as Lori, a young woman who moves to the small town of Lilith with her husband, Frank (Michael Ontkean). Upon arrival, Lori discovers that Frank’s employer, Mr. Cato (Orson Welles), is a Satanist with a messianic sway over all of Lilith’s permanent residents. Then Lori learns that she and Frank are expected to join Mr. Cato’s coven, which engages in debauchery and witchcraft. But does Lori, who is already tormented by the loss of a baby, leave town? No, she hangs around until she’s roped into a murder/suicide scenario. Whether she escapes is of zero consequence, because the characters in Necromancy are as forgettable as the storyline. To its credit, Necromancy has quasi-atmospheric photography, a tasty electronic score that’s akin to the sort of mood music later featured in John Carpenter’s movies, and a couple of trippy dream/hallucination sequences. Yet these elements aren’t nearly reason enough to watch the movie, especially since the slumming Welles gives an absurd performance complete with a ridiculous fake nose and an unidentifiable accent. The only magic this movie contains is the ability to put viewers to sleep.

Necromancy: LAME

The Legend of Hell House (1973)

          Although he spent most of the ’70s writing for TV, sci-fi legend Richard Matheson acquitted himself nicely with the big-screen endeavor The Legend of Hell House, a smart blend of “old dark house” hokum and then-modern concepts about using scientific gadgets to record paranormal phenomena. The plot is standard nonsense about a team of experts confined in a haunted house for a set period of time, but that’s inconsequential because as with any proper scary movie, the main appeal is the vibe of the thing.

          The movie kicks off when an eccentric millionaire hires a respected scientist, Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill), to debunk or prove claims that a gloomy British mansion is haunted. The mansion, known as the Belasco House, was the site of assorted grisly murders and torture scenes, so rumor has it the spirits of victims still roam the halls. Barrett agrees to move into Belasco House and run assorted scientific and non-scientific tests, with the aid of his wife, Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt), and two psychics, Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowall) and Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin).

          Things get weird quickly, as the various investigators start feeling the effects of malevolent spirits, and the film presents a wide variety of phenomena: In addition to the usual bits like characters falling into reveries of otherworldly possession and objects moving seemingly of their own volition, there are kinky scenes of the female characters giving themselves over to unexpected sexual urges apparently triggered by the power of the house. Particularly when the investigators start discovering hard evidence of the horrible things that once happened in the mansion, The Legend of Hell House gets creepier still because it mixes the plausible and the supernatural to create an anything’s-possible mystique.

          Matheson, scripting from his own novel, and director John Hough break the picture into tidy chapters (it’s the sort of movie where every few minutes there’s a hard cut to an establishing shot with “Tuesday” or “Thursday” superimposed onto the frame), and the storytellers leave many creepy events unexplained so the characters (and the audience) get roped into the idea that something freaky is happening.

          McDowall gives an effectively twitchy performance as the most colorful of the paranormal investigators, his jangled nerves surfacing as a sort of tweaked charm, and the picture’s focus on modern trappings makes it feel different from standard haunted-house fare. Of special note among those modern trappings is the disturbing electronic score, created by the wonderfully named “Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson of Electrophon Ltd.” And while it’s true that the plot crumbles under scrutiny—if the house is so damn haunted, leave!—criticizing an enjoyable creepshow for logical gaps seems unsportsmanlike.

The Legend of Hell House: GROOVY

Satan’s School for Girls (1973) & The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

          Two of Hollywood’s favorite lowbrow fascinations intersect in these craptastic telefilms, both of which depict the troubles that befall coeds whose dorms are fronts for Satan-worshipping cults. College girls and cultists: Two great tastes that taste great together. Produced by schlockmeister Aaron Spelling, Satan’s School for Girls is the real howler of the pair, cramming all sorts of shock-cinema gimmicks and gobs of kitschy ’70s-ness into a runtime that barely reaches 80 minutes; everything about the movie is so goofy that Satan’s School for Girls is a hoot from start to finish. Unlucky student Elizabeth Sayers (Pamela Franklin) enrolls in a private school under an assumed name so she can investigate why her sister killed herself while attending the school, only to discover that sis was a victim of the headmistress and students, who, as the title suggests, shill for Satan. Two of Spelling’s most famous protégés, future Charlie’s Angels beauties Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd, are among the students enthralled by the Prince of Darkness, so despite shlocky production values, Satan’s School for Girls offers plenty of eye candy. The ending is also hilariously overwrought, going all the way down the bad-cinema rabbit hole.

          A few years later came The Initiation of Sarah, the story for which was co-written by future Fright Night guy Tom Holland. In this one, pretty coed Patty Goodwin (Morgan Brittany) and her “plain” adopted sister, Sarah (portrayed by the not-plain hottie Kay Lenz), get picked for different sororities, which have been locked in a bitter feud for decades. Patty joins the stuck-up babes at Alpha Nu Sigma, while Sarah ends up with the misfits at Psi Epsilon Delta. Copping plot devices from Stephen King’s then-recent novel Carrie, the story depicts Sarah’s discovery of telekinetic superpowers, then shows what happens when the beeyotches at Alpha Nu push Sarah too far. Meanwhile, PED’s housemistress, Erica Hunter (Shelley Winters), reveals her true identity as a nutjob cultist trying to use Sarah’s powers for revenge against Alpha Nu.

          Lenz’s sad-eyed sexiness and Winters’ gorgon routine are fun to watch, plus it’s enjoyable to see Airplane! guy Robert Hays in an early role. Icy sexpot Morgan Fairchild steals the show, however, with her villainous turn as the queen bee of Alpha Nu. A vision of uptight late-’70s comeliness with her feathered Farrah hairstyle and perfect alabaster skin, she’s entertainingly conniving. Both of these telefilms are unapologetically silly, but that’s exactly why they’re so watchable—and it’s probably why both got remade. The redux of Satan’s School for Girls (with Shannen Doherty!) hit the tube in 2000, and The Initiation of Sarah v.2.0 aired in 2006.

Satan’s School for Girls: FUNKY

The Initiation of Sarah: FUNKY