Tag: 1966

Directed by Joe Danford [Other horror films: N/A]

Okay, this is an interesting one.

Weekend of Fear has a pretty generic plot – a young woman (Mikki Malone), following an argument with her fiancé (Tory Alburn), finds that she’s being stalked by a mysterious man (Kenneth Washman). And that’s it – it’s a short film, running at about 65 minutes, and much of it is Malone’s character trying to hide from Washman’s, all the while wondering what the threatening man wants.

Based on that plot, Weekend of Fear doesn’t have much going for it, that is, unless it was overly suspenseful, and I hate to say it wasn’t. It’s the execution of that plot that makes the movie stand out more. It doesn’t make the movie good – it just makes it noteworthy.

What’s also noteworthy is the fact that this was a lost film for a long time. I watched what seemed to be a VHS rip on YouTube, so how this was released on VHS at one point, yet was lost for decades, is beyond me, but there you go. So lost was this film that, even now, after it’s been unearthed since June 11th, 2021 (the date of said YouTube video), it has only 22 votes on IMDb, and watched by only 19 members of Letterboxd.

So we have a previously-lost black-and-white film with a somewhat basic plot, and the way they chose to do the dialogue gives it an extra notable feature. See, most of the dialogue here is first-person narration, being the thoughts of the main character (Mikki Malone). A couple of other characters have their thoughts examined, but it’s 98% Malone’s.

What dialogue isn’t first-person thoughts is obviously dubbed afterwards, and it’s always awkwardly done. There’s a “conversation” at the end of the film that doesn’t feel remotely like a real conversation because of this.

It’s an odd, clearly lower-budget film. I appreciate that it has a regional feel, and seems to have been filmed in California, but that doesn’t make the film itself any better. Even at 65 minutes, it felt like it was dragging, and the suspense definitely felt muted, partially, perhaps, because of the way they went with audio (not that there was much in the way of dialogue, and without first-person narration, this could have been a silent film).

Even another thing worth noting – while I do think this can classify as a horror film, it’s also very much a psychological thriller. Technically, I know there are people out there who don’t think Psycho is horror, which I think is a stretch, but this movie is one that I could see that case being made with better justification. I think some of the sequence with the woman hiding from the man, and portions mostly in the latter half of the film, can move the needle a bit toward horror, but as always, it’s up to each individual viewers (and for what it’s worth, IMDb currently labels this ‘horror,’ whereas Letterboxd labels it ‘thriller/mystery.’

And speaking of which, the mystery behind why this man is stalking the main character is laughably ridiculous. We find out toward the end of the film exactly what’s going on in a lengthy monologue by a character we didn’t even know up to that point, which is always a good sign. It just felt goofy, and even goofier is that final sequence, and a quick camera zoom and freeze-frame to play us out.

Mikki Malone (in her sole role before a string of pornos in the 1990s) does okay here. She certainly looks frightened at times. Other times, though, she looks bored, and if I had to read the script for this one multiple times, I can understand that. I’ll give it to Kenneth Washman that he looks threatening with a knife. Ruth Trent did add some amusement toward the end, but that’s not to say it was a great performance.

Weekend of Fear is a fascinating little movie, but I don’t think it’s a good one. To be fair to the film, I don’t hold it against them that they didn’t want to film a traditional people-talking-to-each-other movie, and veered in another direction, but it’s also fair to say that I don’t know if that was a stylistic choice or a choice made for them by some sort of budgetary constraints.

It doesn’t really matter – Weekend of Fear, even at it’s short runtime, just drags too much. It’s not exactly terrible, but I think calling it an underwhelming experience is more than fair.

5.5/10

Directed by Bert I. Gordon [Other horror films: Beginning of the End (1957), The Cyclops (1957), Attack of the Puppet People (1958), Earth vs the Spider (1958), War of the Colossal Beast (1958), Tormented (1960), Necromancy (1972), The Food of the Gods (1976), Empire of the Ants (1977), Burned at the Stake (1982), Satan’s Princess (1989), Secrets of a Psychopath (2015)]

I have a bit of a mixed-to-negative record with Bert Gordon’s movies – I enjoy Earth vs the Spider well enough, but some of his other films, such as The Food of the Gods, Tormented, and Attack of the Puppet People, have failed to leave much of an impression on me.

Though I’m loath to say it, given the promise this movie held, I think the same fate befalls Picture Mommy Dead.

And it is a shame, because the story here is pretty close to those old dark house horror movies I enjoy so much, such as The Cat and the Canary, The Bat, and The Monster Walks. The only difference here is that, instead of a young woman forced to deal with multiple characters due to the reading of a will, we have a teenage girl. Otherwise, it’s pretty similar to plenty of previous films of the genre, which in part may explain how this feels somewhat been-there, done-that.

It’s not a bad movie, though; I think it’s worst sin is that it’s just somewhat uninspired. Don’t get me wrong, films like Lo spettro, The Screaming Skull, Dominique, etc., all have their charm, but the idea of someone being driven insane to further the financial causes of another is nothing new. It’s often a decent watch, but it’s not new.

Things are shaken up a bit here, though, in regards to the mysterious death of a woman three years before the bulk of the movie. There are multiple suspects, as usual, and plenty of reasonable solutions to the mystery. The one we got was decent, and it led to an interesting finale – I’m not sure if the ending is actually good, but it was somewhat striking (and almost reminiscence of Mark of the Vampire in some ways).

Susan Gordon (the daughter of Bert Gordon, the director) did pretty well in her role. She did succumb at times to hysteria, but then again, her character suffered a traumatic event and spent three years in a psychiatric asylum, so she can’t be blamed for that. In fact, I think she did well with the arrested development of her character. The performances of both Don Ameche and Martha Hyer were okay, but neither did much for me.

I did like Maxwell Reed (Daughter of Darkness) – his character wasn’t always easy to get a read on, but he was one of the more interesting cast members. I don’t know what Wendell Corey’s (Astro-Zombies) accent was, but his one-scene appearance was memorable. Zsa Zsa Gabor also makes an appearance, but given her character was unlikable as Hyer’s was, I can’t say it moved me.

Though I don’t think it made much an impact for this movie, Picture Mommy Dead is in color. There’s a scene or two with a bit of blood, but naturally, this isn’t a H.G. Lewis affair, so everything is pretty light. The movie’s more psychological in focus anyway, and it probably could have gotten away with being in black-and-white had it wanted to (as it is, the coloring seemed almost faded on the print I saw).

Honestly, there’s nothing terrible about the film. It feels like plenty of other movies I’ve seen, but it’s still generally an okay watch. That said, while there’s a few plot elements of interest, Picture Mommy Dead doesn’t really do anything special. It might be worth a watch or two, but it’s not the type of movie that I think would particularly stand out to too many people.

6/10

Directed by Hy Averback [Other horror films: N/A]

I don’t know how well-known this film is, but I think it was aiming to be another one of those gimmicky movies from the 1960’s in the vein of William Castle that people would look back fondly on. Certainly some people do look upon this film with joy, and while I generally find it a decent movie, I was not a fan of the “horror horn” or the “fear flasher”.

“Horror horn?” I hear you cry in astonishment. “Fear flasher?” I hear shouts in the street, amazed.

See, the beginning of this film begins with a warning about the “supreme scenes of fright” and how the creators would safe-guard us against them. Flashing lights on the screen would warn us along with a horn, that frightful, terrifying-to-the-soul scenes would soon be on screen.

I don’t mind a good gimmick. I love William Castle movies. Even that timer in The Beast Must Die that allowed the audience time to guess who the werewolf would be was sort of charming. The “fear flasher” and “horror horn” could have been the same, hokey fun, even if it was such a foolish over-hype of the “supreme scenes of fright.”

There’s barely any blood in the film, though. If they had gone an H.G. Lewis route and made the dismemberments gory, or at least shown actual dismemberments, it might have been worth it. But what they do is show a flashing screen and then a blade slicing through the air and – cut scene. We see no body parts get chopped off. We see no gore of any sort (and this movie was in color, so if they had wanted to copy what Lewis was doing so well at the time, even more tastefully, they damn well could have), and really, no fright.

None of my complaints about those gimmicks are to say the rest of the movie’s bad. It has a vibe somewhat similar to House of Wax (a comparison I can’t resist given that a house of wax is one of the main locations in this film, albeit utilized in a different way), and it can still be fun, but “supreme scenes of fright?” This movie may not be a comedy, but that must be a joke.

Patrick O’Neil made for a decent Vincent Price-clone (I don’t know if that was intentional, but I got the vibe that’s what O’Neil was aiming for). His revenge was fun, but not gory enough. A dwarf named José René Ruiz (but credited as Tun Tun) played a pretty fun character, and he got in some good lines. Laura Devon was quite beautiful, and has an unique story arc.

Most fun were Wilfrid Hyde-White and Cesare Danova, who were partners at the wax museum and also were amateur detectives, possessing a Holmes and Watson relationship. Amusingly enough, at the end of the film, both of them discover another murder, and set out to investigate, so they easy could have made a sequel called The Mystery of the Iron Maiden Murder or something like that, and I would have been all in, because I thought this pair was pretty good together.

Chamber of Horrors isn’t a great film, but it’s okay. I think it would have greatly benefited from either getting rid of the gimmick or actually making the gimmick mean something by adding in gore, but it’s still an okay film. I didn’t care for it when I was younger, but I can appreciate it more now. I just wish it was better.

6.5/10

Directed by William Grefé [Other horror films: Sting of Death (1966), Stanley (1972), Impulse (1974), Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976), Whiskey Mountain (1977)]

To be honest, I wanted to like this one. I mean, a low-budget horror film made in Florida by Grefé (see resume above)? Sounds like it could be a lot of fun. Sadly, though, more than anything else, Death Curse of Tartu is pretty dull.

The best thing I can say about the performances is that Maurice Stewart and Mayra Gómez Kemp looked cute during the ridiculously groovy dance scene. Otherwise, Babette Sherrill and Fred Pinero, not to mention most everyone else (save perhaps Bill Marcus) were overly stilted and the dialogue generally just felt awkward.

Setting the story in a Florida swamp had potential, and even filming most everything during the day was a somewhat daring move, but due to the sluggish pace of the film, it doesn’t really help all that much.

See, the thing is, watching a snake chase someone for four minutes isn’t exciting, nor are most chase sequences in the film. The only exception that comes to mind is a scene toward the end with Tartu (Doug Hobart) chasing Sherrill’s character, and it was filmed in a pretty solid way. Everything else, though, just felt uninspired and quite dull.

Death Curse of Tartu could probably be a pretty cool movie had it been done entirely differently. The potential is there, but it just didn’t show at all, which wasn’t really surprising, but I will admit to being disappointed. For the 1960’s, the color here was nice, but it didn’t save the sluggish pace, and I can’t really see myself sitting through this one again sober.

5.5/10

Directed by Curtis Harrington [Other horror films: Night Tide (1961), How Awful About Allan (1970), What’s the Matter with Helen? (1971), Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972), The Killing Kind (1973), The Cat Creature (1973), Killer Bees (1974), The Dead Don’t Die (1975), Ruby (1977), Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978), Usher (2000)]

A 1966 movie starring John Saxon, with appearances from Basil Rathbone and Dennis Hopper? Is this an undiscovered classic waiting to be unleashed from the vaults it so cruelly was forced into?

The answer, unfortunately, is no. Queen of Blood is, above all else, a rather dull affair, which is a damn shame, as the year previous brought forth a fantastic voyage into space horror, being Planet of the Vampires. What we have here feels not too far removed from Lifeforce, only this is lifeless.

It’s hard to say why the movie is as boring as it is – part of this is likely due to the fact that nothing much happens until the last thirty or so minutes of the film. Much of the movie is dry, but it doesn’t even really help build characterization or anything. It’s just dull and an exercise in tediousness.

Of course, Queen of Blood had potential. The ending is almost okay, but at the same time, it lacked any type of finale confrontation (I mean, technically, one was there, but it was so weak that it barely felt like it should count). A green, humanoid alien, passive 90% of the time, does not a great antagonist make.

Was John Saxon nice to see? Sure, and I got a blast out of that. But this movie just isn’t worth watching, and sitting through it once is difficult enough.

5/10