Category: Reviews

Directed by Roger Corman [Other horror films: The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955), Day the World Ended (1955), It Conquered the World (1956), Not of This Earth (1957), Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), The Undead (1957), War of the Satellites (1958), The Wasp Woman (1959), A Bucket of Blood (1959), House of Usher (1960), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), Tower of London (1962), The Raven (1963), The Terror (1963), X (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), The Tomb of Ligeia (1964), Roger Corman’s Frankenstein Unbound (1990)]

Being the second time now I’ve seen this,  The Haunted Palace is a good example of a Corman-Price movie, with a great setting, quality atmosphere, nice color, all the works. I have to admit, though, that I just think it’s a good movie, and not much more.

You’ve gotta love the setting – the New England town of Arkham (H.P. Lovecraft influenced obviously), and of course, once a husband and wife seek out an ancestral palace they inherited, the townspeople react just as warmly and cuddly as you’d expect (pretty much as they did in The Gorgon). There’s also an influx of mutated people roaming around town, which leads to some pretty creepy scenes.

Vincent Price gives a solid performance, but this is Vincent Price we’re talking about (House on Haunted Hill, Pit and the Pendulum, Theatre of Blood, and The Tingler, among many others), so that can’t come as a surprise. Lon Chaney Jr. (The Wolfman) is nice to see, but his character doesn’t really have much in the way of agency. Elisha Cook Jr. (House on Haunted Hill and Blacula) was nice to see, but like Chaney, his character wasn’t really given much to do. Others such as Milton Parsons, Frank Maxwell, and Debra Paget were all good also.

These elements (and the fact the film is in beautiful color) should lead to a great movie, but I think it’s only okay. I can’t entirely say why – the story isn’t my favorite, but it’s still decently creepy (it helps that the titular palace is a pretty stellar setting), and seeing Price’s character being taken over and becoming a cruel warlock is good stuff, but I just don’t love this the same way I did, for instance, The Pit and the Pendulum.

None of this is to say that The Haunted Palace isn’t a movie worth seeing, because it’s still a fine slice of 1960’s horror films. And I know others who rank this quite highly among the Corman-Poe cycle, so perhaps you’ll love it, but for me, I think it’s just around average.

7/10

Directed by Sheldon Wilson [Other horror films: Shallow Ground (2004), Kaw (2007), Screamers: The Hunting (2009), Carny (2009), Mothman (2010), Red: Werewolf Hunter (2010), Killer Mountain (2011), Scarecrow (2013), Shark Killer (2015), The Unspoken (2015), The Night Before Halloween (2016), Neverknock (2017), Stickman (2017), Dead in the Water (2018)]

I had the misfortune of seeing this Sheldon Wilson film before, and it’s not gotten any better since that first time a few years back. The thing is, I think this could have had potential with the setting and with the characters, but it’s entirely squandered to make a generically bad Syfy original.

This is something that Wilson has a history with, though. I enjoyed Neverknock and The Unspoken, true, and to a certain extent, I enjoyed both Kaw and Stickman, but much of his recent work, such as The Night Before Halloween, Dead in the Water, and this one, are really hard to get through, and this is one of the worse (though certainly Dead in the Water was probably a bit worse).

Was Stephanie Hunt attractive? Sure. Was Sarah Dugdale attractive? You know it. Did either one give a particularly good performance, or in fact, did anyone in the film give a good performance? That’d be a negative. I don’t blame the failure of the film on the performances though – Dugdale and Hunt could only work with what they’ve got, and if they’re given a bad script, what can they do?

The monster was a combination of the roots from The Ruins and that hideous monster-thing in Shadows of the Dead (another stellar Syfy original) – most of the time, it looked like angry embers and sticks were attacking people. This had to do with revenge from some witches, but the witches could have tried harder to not send a creature that reeked of hideous CGI.

I liked the setting – an island off some undisclosed state (probably Washington or something, but I don’t think it’s said in the film). It was a large island, but much of it seemed to be forest, which was sort of cool. And the central characters all being sisters also brought a little bit confort, as we wouldn’t have to deal with any horrible romantic sub-plot (unless there was some lesbian incest going on, but no dice). It has the basics to maybe make for an okay story if they had wanted to, maybe an interesting mystery-slasher hybrid, or perhaps some type of psychological horror à la Hereditary set on an island. That’s not what happened.

Oh, also the younger sister had unexplained psychic dreams, so that was #cool.

When I initially watched The Hollow, I was disappointed because I was hopeful that maybe it’d end up being one of the better Syfy originals, but that’s not the case, and it’s really not a movie I can think of any real reason to watch.

5/10

Directed by Vincent Sherman [Other horror films: N/A]

I found this sequel-in-name-only to Doctor X an exceptionally pedestrian affair, and while it’s by-the-numbers approach isn’t going to hurt anyone, I suspect the only reason anyone even would seek this movie out is due to the fact it’s the sole horror movie with Humphrey Bogart in it.

There’s nothing in the film that I found particularly objectionable, it’s just that, by the late 1930’s, this was just stale. It doesn’t help that, along with having no connections to the superior 1932 Doctor X, this also wasn’t in color (unlike Doctor X), which made this an even more unremarkable film.

To be sure, I wouldn’t go as far as to call this movie soulless, which is a criticism I have against some modern horror cash-grabs, but it doesn’t have anywhere near the atmosphere you’d hope for, and save maybe one scene in the beginning, completely lacks any real suspense. Sure, there was that abduction of  Rosemary Lane’s character at the end, but I wouldn’t really call any of that suspenseful, especially as we barely knew anything about Lane’s character.

Not that Lane did a bad job with her restricted role, of course, but almost no one in the film ended up wowing me. I guess that Wayne Morris and Dennis Morgan made a fair investigative pair (that scene when the two of them were following clues was decent), and I guess that John Litel is okay as a creepy doctor, and I even guess that Humphrey Bogart was good as the creepy Doctor X (or Quesne, pronounced ‘Kane’ believe it or not), but nothing about any of these performances seemed fresh or even all that inspired.

The Return of Doctor X is a fine movie to watch, and horror films the late 1930’s can be somewhat hard to come by anyways, so it may be a case of any port in a storm, but this isn’t a particularly good movie, and I don’t think about anything here stands out.

5.5/10

Directed by Michael Curtiz [Other horror films: Alraune (1919), The Mad Genius (1931), Doctor X (1932), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)]

This inconspicuous little movie may not seem like much – it’s barely over an hour – came out in the mid-1930’s when few great horror films came out (it’s as if those were cordoned off for the beginning of the decade), but I’ll tell you what, this is an excellent film and definitely a new favorite of the decade.

The plot is one that’s not original nowadays – a man is wrongfully sentenced to death and when brought back, has revenge on his mind. In fact, Lon Chaney Jr. stars in the 1956 film Indestructible Man which has a very similar plot, and that’s one that I’m oddly a big fan of. No doubt, though, that this version is better.

I cannot express just how great Boris Karloff is in this role. Rarely has a character been as sympathetic as his is here, and that scene in which he’s about to be executed, even though we know he’s innocent, and others are trying to get the governor on the line and stay the execution – that was fantastic drama. Karloff’s character here is such a pure soul, and seeing him being screwed over and sentenced to death due to it only makes the revenge that much more satisfying.

The five people he seeks revenge on were all good, in their scummy way. Richardo Cortez was great as the ring-leader (and not only was he in on framing Karloff, he also acted as Karloff’s defense, intentionally doing a poor job so he’d be convicted), though I wish his ending had been a bit more personal. The others, being Barton MacLane (The Mummy’s Ghost), Robert Strange, Paul Harvey, and Joe Sawyer, were all good, and made for a solid gang of dicks. Loved seeing them get dispatched.

Warren Hull and Marguerite Churchill (Dracula’s Daughter) didn’t play as much a role in the film as I thought they would, but what time they had was decent (though I’m not entirely sure their story was really concluded at all). Edmund Gwenn and his obsession with figuring out what comes after death was a bit annoying (especially when, at the end, they’re like ‘screw it, God is a jealous God, and only he gets to know’), but he was fine too, and Henry O’Neill’s character was fantastic, as he really wanted to go after the dirty crooks listed above, so kudos there.

Here’s a somewhat fun fact about this film – I’ve seen The Walking Dead before. I know I have, because I keep a list of every film I consider horror that I’ve seen, and this movie has been in the ‘1936’ line for at least 14 years. The thing is, I didn’t remember anything about this film, and whenever I read the plot to jog my memory, I instantly thought of Indestructible Man instead. So while this is a rewatch, it really feels new, which I guess is a good thing, as I struggle to believe that, when I was a kid, I’d have considered this movie as good as I do now.

And I do consider it good, and in fact, after seeing the beauty of Karloff’s performance, it’s probably great, and certainly a classic that I think more people should at least take the chance to see. Obviously, there’s a well-known zombie show with the same title as this movie, and because of that, this probably gets lost in the sauce (as Howie Hawkins, the 2020 Green Party nominee and the man who I proudly voted for) often says. Definitely a movie of quality, and one well-worth seeing.

9/10

Directed by Jacques Tourneur [Other horror films: Cat People (1942), The Leopard Man (1943), Night of the Demon (1957), The Comedy of Terrors (1963), War-Gods of the Deep (1965)]

I have a bit of a mixed record with films related to both Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur. I enjoyed The Leopard Man immensely, but found both Isle of the Dead and Cat People lacking. Luckily, this atmospheric little movie is better than those I found lacking, and perhaps even better than The Leopard Man, and I Walked with a Zombie ended up being quite a solid film.

Not to over-stress this, but a big part of that would be the setting, being a mansion that is surrounded by the encroaching jungle. The open porches which are just yards away from the jungle and it’s wildlife, not to mention the hot jungle air blowing over the grounds – what I can I say, I find it enchanting (the same way I find houses surrounded by swamps enchanting – look no further than The Alligator People for that).

White Zombie might be a better demonstration of the outright horror of zombies and voodoo, and I certainly agree that White Zombie might have more memorable scenes overall, but this is a lot more polished and character-driven, with a large part of the film dealing with the drama between two brothers, their mother, and a zombie wife. And in the middle of it all, a nurse entirely new to the island.

The two brothers are great with their distinctive personalities – James Ellison (of The Undying Monster) as the witty, charming brother and Tom Conway (Cat People and The Seventh Victim) as the oft-somber one. Throw into a mix a brain-dead wife of Conway’s (played by Christine Gordon) that was in a relationship with Ellison, and you have some quality drama that’s actually both intriguing and tragic. Frances Dee playing the main character (with some classy voice-overs, which I appreciated) did a great job too, and her walk – but more on that shortly.

It’s been shortly, so let’s talk about that walk, brahs.

The titular walk with a zombie is one of the best sequences in the movie. It doesn’t last long, but it’s packed with a walk through the jungle, through the sugarcane farm, past a giant black zombie-like homeboi (Darby Jones) – it’s a fantastic time with Dee dragging Gordon along to a voodoo ceremony, with the animals all chirping and hooting. My words can only do so much (and probably not as much as I think), but it’s a great scene, and definitely a high-light of the film.

Not that the rest of I Walked with a Zombie is dull. Despite a lot of the focus being on the family drama as opposed to the voodoo and the zombies, it’s a pretty fun movie, and it’s helped by the fact that it’s also a pretty short film (under an hour-and-ten-minutes). For the atmosphere alone, though, this is well-worth seeing, and the finale too is pretty solid (though an argument could be made it’s somewhat anticlimactic).

8.5/10

Directed by Monte Hellman [Other horror films: The Terror (1963), Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! (1989), Trapped Ashes (2006, segment ‘Stanley’s Girlfriend’)]

One of the many cheap horror films from the late 1950’s, Beast from Haunted Cave has a little charm, but having seen it twice now, I don’t think that charm does a hell of a lot to save it.

The biggest problem here is that, as far as I could tell, we never really saw much of the beast. We saw it’s arms a few times, and sort of a head, but as far as an overall view is concerned, I still don’t know if it was a giant spider or a land-octopus. Maybe it wouldn’t matter had it been used to greater effect, but this movie doesn’t really possess the subtlety you’d see in, say, a Val Lewton production.

Michael Forest made for a nice-looking, rugged lead, and he worked well with Shelia Noonan, who’s the real star of the film. Noonan played a pretty complicated character for such a cheap-looking movie, which is a shame, because I think she did a pretty good job with her material. She never really did do much else afterward in the movie industry, which is, again, a shame. Here, she started off with a shaky character, but she developed quickly and became quite sympathetic. Frank Wolff (who is better known for his spaghetti westerns) was okay, but I feel like his character could have used some of the development that Noonan’s got.

Being a snow-covered hill, I think Beast from Haunted Cave had a solid setting (and in fact, the beginning of the film thanks the people of South Dakota for the use of their state for filming, which I thought was a nice gesture), and I liked the skiing (never been skiing myself, but it almost looks fun), but aside from looking nice, the setting itself didn’t have much to do with the story.

I think the main issue with this film is what I said earlier, being that the beast isn’t really seen clearly (at least in the version I saw – I watched a 66-minute version of this movie, and I know that longer prints exist, so I sort of wonder how those go), and while there are some brutal scenes (a woman being drained of her blood by the beast), there’s not a lot here that did much as far as I was concerned.

Watching this again wasn’t the worst time ever (and part of this is due to the fact that it’s a pretty short movie, no matter which version you watch), but I think there are plenty of better films from the late 1950’s that are worth attention.

5/10

Directed by William Conrad [Other horror films: N/A]

This is a movie that I’ve been wanting to see for a long time. As soon as I first saw the title, I was hooked. Now fast-forward eight years or so, and here I am. Overall, while it’s not really the type of movie I expected (not that my expectations were based on anything more than the fact I knew a magician was in this movie), I do think it was a lot of fun and is worth a look should you be a fan of 1960’s horror.

Let me first talk about my foolish expectations coming into this. Before I really knew the plot (in which a young woman must spend a week in a dark and creaky house in order to fulfill the request in the will of her deceased father), all I knew was that it involved a magician. And what two films from around the same time period involved magicians? For one, the somewhat underrated film The Hypnotic Eye, along with the colorful, confusing gore-fest that was The Wizard of Gore (1970).

This movie is not anything like either of those whatsoever, and feels more like House of the Damned with maybe a few elements of House on Haunted Hill thrown in, which I think works to it’s benefit. At times it feels like it could have appropriately been made ten years earlier (and it doesn’t help that the film’s in black-and-white, which was falling out of favor around this time), but there’s also the somewhat lengthy romantic subplot that might have been handled differently in older films, so there’s enough here to place this in the 1960’s.

Though he doesn’t have much screen-time, Cesar Romero is a pleasure to see, and stands out well despite his short time on screen. Virginia Gregg did pretty well too, though half the time she played a drunk character, so more than anything, I found her amusing, but she had a few strong emotional scenes also. I don’t really know either Connie Stevens or Dean Jones, but they both did fantastic, and their slow-growing romance here (not something you’d necessarily expect to see in a horror film) was pretty delightful to see.

I can’t say that the mystery here really had the best conclusion, but it’s also accurate to say there were only so many possibilities (as I saw it, maybe four or five realistic endings), and the one that we got was still okay (and certainly led to additional emotional scenes and a solid finale). It never got too into expository as some endings, especially from the time period, can do, and I think the somber finale did well.

The setting, being a cliché mansion, wasn’t the most original we’ve seen, but I do appreciate how it stood out a bit by being filled with magicians’ tricks and props (such as that flying skeleton, which was used to great effect both times it came up), and it lent the film both a solid atmosphere and some pretty creepily creaky moments.

Two on a Guillotine isn’t a new favorite of the 1960’s, and I never really thought it would be, but it is a pretty solid film that has a decent amount to offer. It does run at almost an hour and 50 minutes, so while I never personally felt it dragged, that’s certainly something to be aware of. It also spends a fair amount of time on a building romance, so some also might not find that engaging, but overall, I really enjoyed the film.

8.5/10