Fear in the Night (1972)

          Among the softer offerings from Britain’s Hammer Film Productions—although still quite gruesome in parts—Fear in the Night is an old-fashioned psychological thriller about a young woman who worries that she’s going mad because she repeatedly experiences assaults but cannot convince others that the assaults have occurred. The situation drives her to a paranoid frenzy, leading her to commit violence, so the film’s major narrative question is whether the circumstances are the result of malicious attackers, an odious conspiracy, or something supernatural. Unfortunately, not many viewers will feel invested in solving the central mystery of Fear in the Night, because the movie is far-fetched, repetitive, and slow-moving, problems accentuated by the overly polite and reserved performances of the actors comprising the small cast. As with most of Hammer’s pictures, Fear in the Night is an attractive film thanks to colorful photography and intricate set design, and the film also benefits from a supporting turn by Hammer regular Peter Cushing. Nonetheless, the picture is disposable.

          In contemporary England, 22-year-old Peggy (Judy Geeson) leaves her job as a caregiver in a mental-health facility—where she once received treatment for a nervous breakdown—in order to join her new husband, Robert (Ralph Bates), at the remote boarding school where he teaches. Upon arrival, Peggy meets the school’s kindly old headmaster, Michael (Cuashing), and his sexy younger wife, Molly (Joan Collins), quickly deducing that all is not right. One rather large clue: Despite Michael acting as if school is in session, no students are present. All the while, Peggy suffers assaults—or delusions of assaults—during which she’s grabbed by a one-armed man. Cowritten, produced, and directed by Hammer stalwart Jimmy Sangster, Fear in the Night strives for complexity, instead delivering underwhelming results thanks to silly contrivances and thin characterizations. Still, the movie has a couple of adequate jolts, some imaginative imagery, and an enjoyably overwrought finale during which everything that came before is explained in almost laughable detail.

Fear in the Night: FUNKY

Shock Waves (1977)

          The lingering image from this low-budget shocker depicts a squad of expressionless zombies wearing goggles and World War II SS uniforms as they emerge from bodies of still water, intent on spreading bloody mayhem. As one of the film’s supporting characters notes, “The sea spits up what it can’t keep down.” Utterly loopy in conception, and yet compelling because of its no-nonsense execution and the unnerving synthesizer music on the soundtrack, Shock Waves is reminiscent of John Carpenter’s early work. What the film lacks in depth and logic, it makes up for with menace and mood. And while writer-director Ken Wiederhorn is no John Carpenter, as evidenced by the unimpressive nature of Wiederhorn’s subsequent career, Shock Waves works quite well as an offbeat horror show.

          The picture begins when the crew of a sea vessel discovers Rose (Brooke Adams) floating alone on the ocean in a battered dingy. In voiceover, Rose describes the ordeal she just experienced. Along with several other folks, she took a pleasure cruise on a low-rent boat skippered by Captain Ben Morris (John Carradine). One night, Morris’ boat encountered the wreck of a massive ship. Soon thereafter, strange things started happening, culminating with the death of Captain Morris under mysterious circumstances and the scuttling of Morris’ boat. The passengers found refuge on a remote island, the only resident of which was a mystery man (Peter Cushing) with a scar across his face. Revealed as a former SS commander, the man explained the nature of the ship the passengers encountered. During World War II, the commander oversaw the “Death Corps,” a squad of genetically engineered zombie soldiers capable of breathing air and water. Deemed too dangerous for deployment, the “Death Corps” were decommissioned, and the commander sunk the boat containing his inhuman soldiers. For some reason, the “Death Corps” resurfaced at the moment that Morris’ boat arrived, and carnage ensued.

          The plot is ridiculous, and Weiderhorn succumbs to a few lowbrow impulses (such as squeezing Adams into a bikini for most of the picture). Nonetheless, Weiderhorn delivers a fair measure of creepy weirdness. Zombies stalk people through swamps. Survivors struggle to find hiding places in an old mansion, adding claustrophobia to the mix. Cushing unfurls the requisite expositional monologue. And so on. Thanks to its eerie music, familiar actors, grainy photography, and gruesome premise, Shock Waves could either haunt you or strike you as silly, depending on your receptivity to this type of dark fantasy. Either way, it’s vivid stuff.

Shock Waves: GROOVY

Arabian Adventure (1979)

          A towering figure both because of his impressive height and because of his unique screen presence, the British actor Christopher Lee—best known for playing Count Dracula in myriad pictures from Hammer and other companies, and whose massive presence in fantasy and science fiction films spans The Wicker Man to the 007, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars franchises and beyond—has died at the age of 93. His melodious voice and his stately manner of personifying menace rightfully earned Lee generations of fans. RIP.

          Made in the UK by the same folks responsible for At the Earth’s Core (1976) and other such Saturday-matinee silliness, Arabian Adventure is as generic as its title, providing little more than 98 minutes of brainless distraction. The story is a shameless pastiche of elements from myriad sources—The Prince and the Pauper, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Thief of Bagdad, The Wizard of Ox, and the adventures of King Arthur and Sinbad the Sailor, to name but a few—while the casting of American and English actors as Arabs is ridiculous. That said, credibility and originality aren’t generally the qualities that viewers seek in kiddie-cinema escapism, and Arabian Adventure delivers the goods with archetypal characters, elaborate special effects, and robust adventure. Hell, the movie’s got Christopher Lee as a moustache-twirling villain and the climax involves a mid-air dogfight between combatants on magic carpets, so why complain?

          Set in some vague mythical version of the Middle East circa the Middle Ages, Arabian Adventure revolves around the evil caliph Alquazar (Lee), who needs a magical object called “The Rose of Ilyl” to consolidate his power. Various clichéd characters orbit the caliph. The virginal Princess Zuleira (Emma Samms) lives in Alquazar’s castle, unaware of his insidious nature. The heroic Prince Hasan (Oliver Tobias) wanders in exile, unable to claim his throne. The innocent street urchin Majeed (Puneet Sira) lives off scraps, waiting to discover his destiny. Eventually, Hasan agrees to find the Rose of Ilyl for Alquazar, in exchange for Zuleira’s hand in marriage, and he begins a quest accompanied by Majeed and by Alquazar’s evil henchman, Khasim (Milo O’Shea). Encounters with genies and monsters and other such things soon follow, with one of the goofiest episodes featuring Mickey Rooney (!) as the keeper of a mechanical dragon’s lair. The whole affair culminates, predictably, with Hasan leading a revolution against Alquazar, hence the aforementioned magic-carpet dogfight.

          Costumes and sets in Arabian Adventure are fairly opulent, the special effects are okay (some of the flying-carpet scenes are quite persuasive), and the pacing is fairly strong. The acting is not as impressive, though it’s a hoot to see Lee’s frequent costar, Peter Cushing, turn up for two quick scenes, and it’s strange to watch future Cheers regular John Ratzenberger play a thug named Achmed. The leads deliver forgettable work, though Lee, as always, strikes a great figure and Samms—well, if nothing else, she has a great figure. Pulling the whole thing together is a characteristically rousing score by the reliable UK composer Ken Thorne.

Arabian Adventure: FUNKY

Shatter (1974)

          Even though it’s not particularly entertaining or memorable, the violent thriller Shatter ticks a few interesting boxes in terms of film-history trivia. The only action movie released by UK’s Hammer Film Productions in the ’70s, Shatter was the second of two projects that Hammer coproduced with Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers Productions, the reigning champions of martial-arts cinema during that era. The other Hammer/Shaw picture was the very strange Dracula flick The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, which mixes bloodsuckers and martial artists to bewildering effect. Somewhat similarly, Shatter is a straightforward pursuit/revenge story that simply happens to include lots of martial-arts scenes because the narrative unfolds primarily in Hong Kong. Additionally, Shatter was the final Hammer project to feature the great Peter Cushing, a staple in the company’s monster and sci-fi offerings since the 1950s. A final bit of trivia worth mentioning is that Shatter was the last film directed by Michael Carreras, a second-generation Hammer executive who occasionally helmed films for the company. Carreras took over production of Shatter after the project’s original director, American low-budget filmmaker Monte Hellman, was fired.

          Given this rich context, it would be pleasurable to report that Shatter is a zippy shot of escapism. Alas, it’s forgettable and turgid, with anemic performances and interchangeable supporting characters. A grumpy and tired-looking Stuart Whitman stars as Shatter, an assassin hired by mysterious entities to kill an African dictator. This first event is presented with a certain amount of kicky style, because Shatter uses a gun disguised as a camera. Traveling from Africa to Hong Kong in order to collect payment, Shatter soon learns that he’s been double-crossed by international power broker Hans Leber (Anton Diffring). Shatter also gets into a hassle with UK government operative Paul Rattwood (Cushing). Hiding in dingy hotels and scouring nightclubs for clues about the conspiracy in which he’s become entwined, Shatter eventually joins forces with martial artist Tai Pah (Ti Lung), which occasions scenes in which Shatter throws punches while Tai throws kicks. Innumerable other movies explore similar material more effectively, such as the Joe Don Baker romp Golden Needles and the Robert Mitchum thriller The Yakuza (both released, like Shatter, in 1974). Therefore, Shatter represents a weak attempt at entering the post-Enter the Dragon chop-socky sweepstakes—as well as an odd and disappointing chapter in the Hammer saga. 

Shatter: FUNKY

I, Monster (1971)

          A competent but perfunctory adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this offering from second-rate UK horror manufacturers Amicus Productions reteams the formidable duo of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, beloved by generations of shock-cinema fans for their work with Hammer Films. Written for the screen (poorly) by Amicus stalwart Milton Subotsky, I, Monster changes the main characters’ names and jettisons nearly all of Stevenson’s ruminations on the nature of evil, thus delivering a highly generic series of laboratory scenes and murder vignettes over the course of 75 plodding minutes. Sometimes, less is less.
          Though by far the inferior actor of the top-billed duo, Lee gets the showy part, as “Dr. Marlowe” and “Mr. Blake.” Cushing, meanwhile, plays a gentleman named Utterson, who belongs to the same private club as Dr. Marlowe and conducts an investigation into several murders that eventually leads him to discover Dr. Marlowe’s horrible secret. For the benefit of the few people left on earth who remain unfamiliar with Stevenson’s deathless tale, the gist is that a scientist creates a serum that brings out the evil buried within every person, using himself as a subject and becoming a killer whenever he’s under the influence of the serum. Considering the movie’s brief running time, it takes a while for Subotsky and director Stephen Weeks to get to the good stuff; Marlowe doesn’t change for the first time until about 25 minutes into the movie. Furthermore, the Blake scenes are quite bland, even though Lee plays his character’s evil incarnation with bugged-out eyes and grubby makeup that’s unpleasant without seeming wholly unrealistic.

          On the plus side, the story gains momentum about halfway through, once Blake kills a child and thereby jacks up the movie’s overall intensity. While I, Monster ultimately feels more like a made-for-TV project than a proper feature—and while the change of character names seems pointless since Stevenson’s narrative survives largely intact—it’s always a kick to see Cushing and Lee share screen time. Better still, composer Carl Davis bathes the film in a sophisticated musical patina thanks to a dense orchestral score right out of the Masterpiece Theater playbook.

I, Monster: FUNKY

Asylum (1972)

          One in a series of anthology horror films generated by UK company Amicus Productions, Asylum boasts a solid pedigree: The picture was written by Robert Bloch, of Psycho fame, and directed by Hammer Films veteran Roy Ward Baker. The picture also has a solid cast, with Peter Cushing, Britt Ekland, Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee, Barry Morse, Barbara Parkins, Robert Powell, and the elegant Charlotte Rampling. Like most similar Amicus movies—and, for that matter, like most anthology pictures in general—it’s wildly uneven. On the plus side, the framing story is stronger than usual, and the overall presentation is terrific, thanks to glossy cinematography and solid production values. On the minus side, two of the stories are deeply silly, even by the standards of tongue-in-cheek UK horror. Asylum has its minor pleasures, but it’s not to be taken the least bit seriously.

         In the framing story, earnest young psychiatrist Dr. Martin (Powell) shows up to interview for a job at a mental institution. While speaking with his would-be superior, Dr. Rutherford (Magee), Martin is given a challenge—he must identify which of the asylum’s patients is a former doctor, driven insane by dealing with the institution’s lunatics. If Dr. Martin identifies the right patient, he gets the job. Each visit with a patient occasions a flashback vignette with a gruesome twist ending. In “Frozen Fear,” Ruth (Parkins) describes being attached by dismembered body parts that move of their own volition. In “The Weird Tailor,” Bruno (Morse) recalls how a mystery man (Cushing) hired him to construct a magical suit of clothes. In “Lucy Comes to Stay,” Barbara (Rampling) explains that she was framed for murder by Lucy (Ekland), who may or may not be imaginary. And in “Mannikins of Horror,” Dr. Byron (Lom) reveals his hobby of creating tiny robots bearing lifelike faces modeled after his acquaintances.

          The bits with the homicidal body parts and the violent robots (you knew they’d get bloodthirsty, didn’t you?) are unavoidably goofy, even though all of the actors give gung-ho performances. Conversely, “Lucy Comes to Stay” is fairly credible, but Ekland and Rampling provide more glamour than talent, so “Lucy Comes to Stay” gets tedious after a while. Still, Amicus had this sort of thing down to a science, and cramming five stories into 88 minutes ensures a relatively brisk pace. Further, Bloch provides more than enough cheap thrills, and Baker casts the whole cartoonish enterprise in a warm glow thanks to his dignified pictorial style. So, while Asylum may not be particularly frightening, at least it’s bloody and colorful and energetic.

Asylum: FUNKY

Scream and Scream Again (1970)

          How badly do the makers of Scream and Scream Again contort themselves while trying to generate pulpy thrills? Consider this line, spoken by policeman Detective Sergeant Believer (Alfred Marks): “Well, either this is coincidence—some kinky freak burglary turned tragic—or we’ve got more than one supernormal maniac on our hands.” Like that cumbersome dialogue, Scream and Scream Again contains too many elements for its own good. Although the picture features iconic horror stars Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Vincent Price, it’s not a straight horror film. Rather, it’s more of a Twilight Zone-style head trip involving experimental surgery, a fictional Eastern European nation run by a Third Reich-esque government, quasi-invulnerable killers, and, to make sure Price has something to do, a mad scientist. There’s also a musical number.

          Made in Britain, with Price the only American star in the cast, the picture is confusing and jumbled. For the first 30 minutes or so, director Gordon Hessler bounces around between espionage-type scenes involving mysterious characters played by Lee and Marshall Jones, investigative bits featuring Marks and Price, and nightclub scenes during which arrogant young stud Keith (Michael Gothard) picks up ladies. Somewhere in the bewildering mix is Cushing’s brief appearance, which includes little more than one scene. Then, in the middle of the movie—once audiences and authorities have figured out that Keith is a serial killer—Scream and Scream Again stops dead for an interminable chase scene while cops pursue Keith through city streets, country roads, a quarry, and finally a secret laboratory. After the epic chase scene, the movie shifts into biological-horror mode, with lots of gruesome scenes during which unethical doctors and nurses steal body parts from victims. And finally, Scream and Scream Again reaches a long operating-theater scene dominated by Price’s character delivering a trite monologue about his grand scheme for genetic engineering.

          The overarching story of Scream and Scream Again, which was based on a novel by Peter Saxon, makes sense in a comic-book sort of way, but the Grand Guignol Lite conclusion raises as many questions as it answers. It’s hard to imagine whom this movie might satisfy, since horror fans will be disappointed that Cushing appears briefly, Lee plays a non-monstrous role, and Price delivers a terrible performance owing to the script’s overripe treatment of his character. Similarly, fans of conspiracy and/or sci-fi movies will probably find the chase scene painfully boring and the horror aspects silly. On the plus side, the title song—yes, there’s a title song—is actually a pretty happening ’60s blues-rock number, performed onscreen by the real-life Welsh band Amen Corner.

Scream and Scream Again: FUNKY

Nothing But the Night (1973)

          Marketed as a horror movie, presumably because of the involvement of Hammer Films veterans Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, Nothing But the Night is really more of a whodunit with a supernatural angle. It’s also not particularly coherent or interesting, although the picture includes some atmospheric location photography during an extended chase scene that takes place in Scotland.

          The disjointed story begins with vignettes featuring violent deaths, culminating in the crash of a tour bus carrying dozens of children and adults. One of the survivors is young Mary Valley (Gwyneth Strong), ward of a charitable trust that runs a home for girls from troubled families. Following the crash, Mary ends up in a hospital under the care of physicians including Sir Mark Ashley (Cushing), who, at the urging of a colleague, investigates Mary’s background. Concurrently, police detective Charles Bingham (Lee) examines whether the earlier deaths are connected to the crash. Charles believes that Mary might be capable of providing key information. Making the already-murky story unnecessarily convoluted is the presence of Mary’s biological mother, a deranged ex-prostitute named Anna Harb (Diana Dors). After being contacted by a representative from the hospital, Anna becomes obsessed with seeing Mary, who was taken away from her by authorities three years previous. Observing a fraught mother/daughter encounter causes Sir Mark to embrace the odd notion that Anna and Mary share some sort of psychic link, and that the psychic link relates to the mysterious deaths. Whatever.

          Following the plot of Nothing But the Night is an arduous and ultimately pointless endeavor, because the movie slowly spirals from an intricate conspiracy story to a trite race-against-time melodrama. That said, Nothing but the Night has strong production values, occasional thrills, and lively acting. Cushing is terrific, likely savoring the opportunity to play a normal human being instead of someone extreme, and Dors is a holy terror as Anna, all mile-high hair and whorish makeup. Lee is less impressive, his character’s inner machinations hidden too deeply behind a stiff-upper-lip façade, and costar Georgia Brown, who plays a pushy journalist, is merely adequate. (Future Harry Potter star Michael Gambon shows up in a small role, as well.) The violent ending of Nothing But the Night—which vaguely resembles the climax of another 1973 British release, The Wicker Man—is something of a cheat, but at least the finale has energy, which is more than can be said for much of this middling effort.

Nothing But the Night: FUNKY

The House That Dripped Blood (1970)

           Arguably the best of several horror-anthology films that Amicus Productions made in the ’60s and ’70s, The House That Dripped Blood benefits from a droll sense of humor, glossy cinematography, and a cast filled with some of the best actors borrowed from the stable of Amicus’ predecessor in the British-horror market, Hammer Films. Like nearly all the “portmanteau” pictures that Amicus made, The House That Dripped Blood is much more frothy than frightening, benefiting from a (mostly) brisk pace and a varied mixture of supernatural signifiers.

          Written by Robert Bloch (author of the novel Psycho, which was adapted into the Hitchcock film of the same name), The House That Dripped Blood concerns a U.K. mansion where tenants experience macabre tragedies. The perfunctory wraparound device involves a Scotland Yard detective who has traveled to the area surrounding the house in order to investigate the most recent death. As he’s given the case histories on previous mortalities, flashbacks illustrate the creepy goings-on at the haunted abode.

           The first story, “Method for Murder,” is about a crime novelist (Denholm Elliot) who believes a homicidal character he invented has come to life. In “Wax Works,” a retired gentleman (Peter Cushing) discovers that a wax museum near the house contains a likeness of the gentleman’s lost love. “Sweets to the Sweet” follows a stern father (Christopher Lee) as he tries to control the life of his angelic-looking daughter, who, naturally, has a dark secret. “The Cloak,” the only full-on comedy vignette of the batch, portrays the adventures of a pompous movie actor (Jon Pertwee) whose quest for authenticity in a vampire role goes too far, and whose buxom costar (Ingrid Pitt) goes batty for him.

           Director Peter Duffell and cinematographer Ray Parslow shoot the hell out of the movie, using ironically selected foreground objects and elaborately moody lighting to create a colorful look that both captures and satirizes the cartoonish visuals associated with classic screen horror. And except for “Sweets to the Sweet,” which takes too long laying groundwork before things get evil, Duffell paces the movie elegantly. In so doing, he gives his seasoned performers room to mug and scowl, which works well since florid acting is yet another staple of vintage fright films. (In fact, stylized horror acting is overtly lampooned in “The Cloak.”)

           Of the four stories, “Method for Murder” is probably the best simply because it gets down to business immediately and creates actual tension during scenes in which the novelist thinks he’s going crazy. (It also helps that Elliott is masterful at conveying barely contained anxiety.) “The Cloak” is whimsical, if not laugh-out-loud funny, and the combination of Pertwee’s flamboyance and Pitt’s sensuality works well. (Pertwee played the title role in the enduring Doctor Who BBC series during the early ’70s, and Pitt starred in various eroticized features for Hammer.) Made at a time when horror movies were getting nastier by the minute—more gore, more skin, more violation of every kind—The House That Dripped Blood is cheerfully old-fashioned entertainment.

The House That Dripped Blood: GROOVY

The Vampire Lovers (1970) & Lust for a Vampire (1971) & Twins of Evil (1971)

          J. Sheridan le Fanu’s 1872 novel Carmilla, which predated Bram Stoker’s Dracula by a quarter-century, is credited with originating the popular lesbian-vampire archetype. Accordingly, the various film adaptations of Carmilla are filled with Sapphic eroticism. To date, the most noteworthy adaptations is The Vampire Lovers, a co-production of U.S. drive-in supplier American International Pictures and UK horror house Hammer Films. Starring the lovely European actress Ingrid Pitt, the sleek and titillating movie depicts the adventures of Mircalla Karnstein (Pitt), an Austrian vampire who drifts from one noble household to the next, using aliases to cover her tracks as she seduces nubile women and drains them of their blood. Meanwhile, heroes including the bereaved father (Peter Cushing) of one of Mircalla’s victims try to stop her killing spree.

          Directed by Hammer stalwart Roy Ward Baker, The Vampire Lovers tries to be equal parts horror show and romance. At one extreme, the movie features gory neck wounds and an onscreen decapitation. At the other extreme, The Vampire Lovers includes tender scenes of Mircalla cuddling and kissing her sexy paramours. Thanks to Pitt’s elegant presence, it’s possible to read the movie as a character study of a woman torn between animalistic urges and emotional desires—but whenever Baker cuts to leering scenes of topless women kissing, it becomes difficult to attribute The Vampire Lovers with lofty aspirations. After all, the picture includes such raunchy details as a dream sequence in which a young woman imagines a giant cat pressing its mouth to her nether regions. (Paging Dr. Freud!) Worse, the narrative runs out of gas about halfway through, and the acting is highly inconsistent, with pretty starlet Madeline Smith giving an especially vacuous performance.

          Nonetheless, the combination of blood and boobs proved attractive to audiences, so Vampire Lovers screenwriter Tudor Gates was hired to write a pair of follow-up features that are known among Hammer aficionados as the “Karnstein Trilogy.” The first sequel, Lust for a Vampire, is a simple romantic adventure revolving around the reincarnated Mircalla (played this time by Yutte Stensgaard). After being raised from the dead by cultish followers, Mircalla takes up residence at an exclusive finishing school for young women, catching the eye of author Richard Lestrange (Michael Johnson). Yet Mircalla hasn’t lost her taste for the ladies, because she also sleeps with one of her sexy classmates. Alas, her other appetites remain just as strong, so bodies start piling up in the countryside around the school. Despite the presence of several beautiful starlets and a generally salacious storyline, Lust for a Vampire is exceedingly dull, since the audience can’t play along with the narrative’s whodunit structure. Even the sexy stuff feels overly familiar, although Gates has fun with a key scene—Mircalla, who finds unholy pleasure in biting people, climaxes when her mortal lover goes down on her. (Oral-fixation alert!) Nothing in Lust for a Vampire feels frightening or new or urgent, so all that’s left to admire are the nubile ladies and the usual slick Hammer production values.

          Surprisingly, the series’ signature element of lesbian erotica is nearly absent from the final film, Twins of Evil, which is “noteworthy” for featuring real-life siblings Madeleine and Mary Collinson, the first identical twins to be named co-Playmates of the Month in Playboy, circa late 1970. Representing a slight improvement over Lust for a Vampire, the third “Karnstein” movie reintroduces Peter Cushing to the series, albeit playing a different role than the one he essayed in The Vampire Lovers. Here, he’s a devout puritan who becomes guardian to a pair of nieces (played by the Collinsons) when they are orphaned. One of the sisters falls victim to the charms of a male vampire, Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas)., which triggers the usual drill of townsfolk hunting for vampires as the corpses accrue. The shortest of the “Karnstein” movies, Twins of Evil has the least to do with le Fanu’s source material. Cushing’s presence helps tremendously, as does the vigorous musical scoring by Henry Robertson, so Twins of Evil is mildly watchable despite long stretches of tedium. And of course, like all three of the “Karnstein” films, Twins of Evil relies on nudity as heavily as it relies on gore, so fans craving skin will find plenty to ogle.

The Vampire Lovers: FUNKY

Lust for a Vampire: LAME

Twins of Evil: FUNKY

At the Earth’s Core (1976)

          Difficult as it may be to imagine today, when seemingly every major movie includes sci-fi elements, there was a time when fantasy-themed feature films were so rare that nearly every one of them developed a cult following. This phenomenon goes a long way toward explaining why At the Earth’s Core isn’t universally derided as an embarrassment for everyone involved. Based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, this exceptionally silly co-production of U.K.-based Amicus Productions and U.S.-based American International Pictures features monster costumes that look like they were made for a high school play, background paintings and set dressings that one might expect to find in an old Star Trek rerun, and dramatic situations so infantile that it’s amazing actors were able to play their scenes without constantly bursting into laughter.

          Highlights of At the Earth’s Core include scenes of giant winged lizards leaping from their resting places atop a lava pit so they can grab female humans with their talons—that is, after the lizards have finished hypnotizing the unfortunate ladies with their telepathy powers. And in perhaps the film’s finest moment, a ridiculously fake-looking dinosaur lifts a human with its jaws—at which point the film cuts to a miniature shot of the dinosaur chomping on an inert figure that looks like a Barbie doll in caveman clothes. Oh, and the primitive humans living in a primordial realm nestled deep inside the earth all speak English. On the plus side, British horror-movie stalwart Peter Cushing gives a quasi-amusing supporting performance as a dotty old scientist who treks through the earth’s core with his trusty umbrella always close at hand. Pip-pip, old man!

          The larky plot begins in Victorian England, where British scientist Dr. Perry (Cushing) and his American backer, David (Doug McClure), pilot the maiden voyage of a manned drilling machine. The machine malfunctions, taking Dr. Perry and David into a cave near the earth’s molten core. Our heroes are soon taken captive by the Mahars (the aforementioned lizards), but then David decides to liberate the subterranean humans whom the Mahars use as slaves. Helping motivate David’s decision is the presence of a sexy cave woman, Dia (Caroline Munro), since it appears he’s also eager to liberate her from her clothes. All of this stuff trudges along in the familiar way—battles, setbacks, heroism, betrayal, et cetera—and each special-effects scene is goofier than the preceding. About the only genuinely effective element of the film is the largely electronic score by Mike Vickers, which complements the filmmakers’ trope of using tricked-up mechanical noises as the “voices” of underground monsters. FYI, At the Earth’s Core is the second of three fantasy pictures that onetime TV star McClure made for Amicus. Although the other two movies, The Land That Time Forgot (1975) and The People That Time Forgot (1977), form a continuous story, At the Earth’s Core is a stand-alone.

At the Earth’s Core: FUNKY

One More Time (1970)

The easygoing entertainers comprising the Rat Pack appeared in lighthearted movies throughout the ’60s, whether separately or together—with the most notable Rat Pack flick being the original Ocean’s Eleven (1960), which features the whole gang. Among the lesser examples of Rat Pack cinema is a pair of frothy comedies costarring energetic showman Sammy Davis Jr. and suave British actor Peter Lawford. The first of these pictures, Salt and Pepper (1968), introduced fun-loving London nightclub operators Charles Salt (Sammy Davis Jr.) and Christopher Pepper (Lawford). Directed by future superstar Richard Donner, Salt and Pepper did well enough to warrant a sequel, One More Time, which probably should’ve been titled One Time Too Many. Whatever charm was present in the original film is absent from the sequel, which compensates for the absence of a real story by bludgeoning viewers with outlandish situations and unfunny jokes. Davis works hard to sell physical-comedy shtick and Lawford delivers urbane charm, but the whole enterprise is so drab, pointless, and silly that star power isn’t reason enough to watch. Plus, because One More Time was directed by comedy legend Jerry Lewis as a particularly fallow point in his creative life, the movie’s gags feel tired even before Lewis milks the gags with irritating embellishments and repetition. For instance, Salt dresses up in a Little Lord Fauntleroy costume and fills his nostrils with snuff—then goes through what seems like an eternity of facial contortions before sneezing so powerfully he knocks over everyone in a crowded ballroom. This is Lewis’ comedy at its worst, simultaneously infantile and overwrought. As for the movie’s narrative, One More Time is nominally about Pepper investigating the murder of his twin brother, but it also concerns diamond smuggling, mistaken identity, and other random nonsense. (How random? At one point, Salt enters a hidden chamber in a castle, only to discover a mad-scientist laboratory occupied by Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein, played in cameos by Hammer Films stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.) Lewis periodically stops the movie cold so Davis can perform musical numbers, and the director goes for cheap laughs with a fourth-wall-breaking gag at the end. In sum, One More Time isn’t worth your time—unless you’re a hardcore fan of the leading players.

One More Time: LAME

Land of the Minotaur (1976)

Given the popular fascination in the md-’70s with all things paranormal—ancient astronauts, ESP, witchcraft, and so on—the notion of a horror flick involving a monster from Greek mythology must have seemed reasonable at the time. Despite its misleading title, however, Land of the Minotaur is not a creature feature. Rather, it’s a thriller about nefarious Satan worshippers, so the only offbeat elements of the story are the location (Greece) and the object at the center of the Satanists’ temple (a minotaur statue with gas jets blazing fire out of the nostrils). The inconsequential story begins when a trio of attractive young archeologists visits their friend, Father Roche (Donald Pleasence), an Irishman who lives near an ancient ruin in Greece that’s supposed to contain a hidden temple. The young adults find and sneak into the temple, only to be captured by cultists under the control of Baron Corofax (Peter Cushing). Then, aided by a private detective (Costas Skouras) and the girlfriend of one of the missing youths, Father Roche tries to find the hidden temple before the hostages are sacrificed. Director Kostas Karagiannis films Land of the Minotaur unimaginatively, relying on silly zoom-ins to closeups of eyes whenever he wants to suggest intensity (which is often). He also fails to effectively define chronological and spatial relationships, so it’s frequently difficult to discern what’s happening onscreen. The wretched storytelling is compounded by goofy imagery. Besides the minotaur statue, which seems more like a party decoration than a fearsome icon, the movie features cultists in shiny silk costumes that look like bathrobes from Liberace’s closet. Nothing that happens in the movie is surprising, the suspense scenes are inert, and the over-the-top finale—complete with exploding cultists—feels like it’s happening in a different movie. (Only the music has any measure of credibility, with composer Brian Eno—of Roxy Music fame—infusing the soundtrack with creepy electronic pulses.) Worst of all, the stars are wasted. Cushing is relegated to just a few scenes of reciting occult claptrap. Meanwhile, Pleasence—cast against type as a heroic character—is hamstrung by an Irish accent he can’t quite master.

Land of the Minotaur: LAME

And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)

          Proving once again that British production company Amicus was a poor cousin to its better-known competitor, Hammer Films, And Now the Screaming Starts! represents a failed attempt to emulate Hammer’s signature style of sexed-up Gothic horror. Although And Now the Screaming Starts! features the requisite components of heaving bosoms, lurid subject matter, and over-the-top gore—all wrapped up in posh costuming and production design—the movie is as silly as its title. UK starlet Stephanie Beacham stars as Catherine, a wide-eyed 18th-century lass who marries into the Fengriffen family unaware of a deadly curse that plagues the family’s estate. Soon after arriving in the estate’s gigantic main house, Catherine begins seeing visions of dismembered hands and of corpses with gouged-out eyes; she’s also terrified by a painting of her new husband’s long-dead grandfather, because the painting seems to watch her. Eventually, Catherine’s inquiries unlock a lengthy flashback explaining the sordid history of the estate, so the film shows the grandfather (Herbert Lom) heinously abusing a servant and his wife for psychosexual kicks; these misdeeds provoke the curse that plagues the grandfather’s bloodline. Alas, the manner in which the flashback ties into the “present day” storyline is highly unsatisfying.

          Furthermore, since Beacham is barely more than competent as an actress, she can’t generate enough emotional heat to sustain interest during the first hour of the movie, which is dull and repetitive. Most of the actors surrounding her are equally bland, delivering their lines with stiff formality. It’s worth noting that horror icon Peter Cushing has a small and inconsequential role, so his top billing is deceptive. Similarly, Lom is onscreen for less than 15 minutes. That said, he makes his brief appearance count, enlivening the movie with elegant sadism. Directed by UK-horror stalwart Roy Ward Baker, And Now the Screaming Starts! has the texture of a credible Gothic shocker, thanks to campy gore effects and shadowy sets, but the jolts are so clichéd that nothing quickens the pulse. Worse, the “twist” ending is undercut by an overabundance of exposition prior to the big reveal. Nonetheless, And Now the Screaming Starts! offers many things to please devoted fans of the genre that Hammer perfected, even though Amicus’ take on the genre is unquestionably second-rate. For instance, none could ever question Beacham’s ample qualifications for summoning the long power required to deliver on the movie’s title.

And Now the Screaming Starts!: FUNKY

The Beast Must Die (1974)

          Made by the UK production company Amicus, a second-rate competitor/imitator of Hammer Films, The Beast Must Die is a truly strange amalgam of pulpy story elements—it’s a monster movie presented in the narrative mode of an Agatha Christie tale, and it features both blaxploitation flourishes and a ridiculous gimmick straight out of the William Castle playbook. Plus, the whole thing’s slathered with that noxious brand of pseudo-funk music that appeared in the worst UK horror pictures of the period, representing a failed attempt to make decidedly un-hip movies sound hip. To say that The Beast Must Die tries to be everything to everyone is an understatement.

          Bahamanian actor Calvin Lockhart stars as Tom, the owner of a gigantic country estate in the UK, which he’s rigged with an elaborate network of hidden cameras and microphones. Turns out Tom is a big-game hunter preparing for his most dangerous prey yet—a werewolf. Toward that end, he recruits six acquaintances for a weekend visit, knowing that one of them is the lycanthrope. (Never mind the unanswerable logic questions raised by his convenient possession of this knowledge.) Upon their arrival, Tom tells his guests that over the next three nights, when the moon is full, he will identify and kill the werewolf. During hunting scenes, Tom, who is black, gets duded up like he’s auditioning for a sequel to Shaft (1971), wearing a tight leather jumpsuit and a gun belt while he races through the woods aided, via radio, by his security technician, Pavel (Anton Diffing). During non-hunting scenes, Tom struts around dinner tables and smoking rooms repeatedly announcing, with absurd theatricality, “One of you—is a werewolf!”

          The actors playing Tom’s guests, including respectable UK performers Peter Cushing, Michael Gambon, and Charles Gray, try not to embarrass themselves when delivering the movie’s goofy dialogue. Alas, any hope of retaining dignity disappears when the picture reaches the “Werewolf Break,” a 30-second onscreen countdown giving viewers one last chance to ID the monster’s human guise. The Beast Must Die is outrageously stupid, but it boasts solid production values and a quick pace, while lovely costars Marlene Clark and Ciaran Madden provide eye candy by wearing low-cut dinner gowns in most of their scenes. And, to be fair, a couple of the werewolf attacks generate half-decent jolts, so it would be ungallant to deny that The Beast Must Die generates at least a few moments of cartoonish entertainment. Overall, though, what holds the attention here is the (morbid) curiosity factor of watching a laughably misguided film self-immolate.

The Beast Must Die: FUNKY

Madhouse (1974)

Built around a premise that’s too gimmicky to take seriously, Madhouse marked the end of Vincent Price’s run as a leading star of horror movies—after this picture, he mostly drifted into cameos and voice performances that winked at his glory (gory?) days. Considering how many fine shockers Price made, it’s a shame he didn’t bid adieu to the genre with a better movie, although one can imagine that Madhouse might have worked had a wittier director been in charge. Price plays Paul Toombes, a faded movie star known for playing big-screen killer Dr. Death. Following a tragedy, Toombes gets tossed into a mental hospital, thus marking him among potential employers damaged goods. Later, bereft of better options, Toombes accepts a humiliating offer to reprise his Dr. Death character for a tacky TV show. Once the show debuts, someone dressed as Dr. Death starts killing people related to the program. Is Toombes the killer? Or must Toombes unmask a murderer who’s trying to frame him? If you watch Madhouse, you’ll be amazed how little you care about the answers to these questions. Director Jim Clark, a top-notch film editor who briefly left the cutting room to helm a string of undistinguished projects, relies on such obnoxious tropes as fisheye lenses and in-your-face camera moves. Seeing as how the story is innately florid, juicing the action with adrenalized camerawork was not the wisest move, because Madhouse starts to feel grating and loud very early in its running time. It doesn’t help that Price looks bored, or that the actor had just made a very similar film, Theatre of Blood (1973), which was superior in both conception and execution. It’s a measure of Madhouse’s mediocrity, in fact, that even supporting players Peter Cushing and Robert Quarry—both of whom were as prone to onscreen flamboyance as Price—fail to make memorable impressions. Madhouse gets the job done, more or less, by providing bloody kills and perfunctory thrills. Plus, of course, Price is a unique presence even in the worst circumstances. But Madhouse is plagued by a been-there/done-that malaise from start to finish. No wonder Clark gave up on directing and returned to editing—a wise move, seeing as how, a decade later, he won an Oscar a for cutting The Killing Fields (1985).

Madhouse: FUNKY