Psychobabble’s 2011 Wish List

1. Island of Lost Souls on DVD

Generally considered the greatest adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, Island of Lost Souls (1933) has never received an official US DVD release for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. The reason certainly can’t be lack of interest since this is one of the most demanded unavailable horror classics. Rumors abound that Universal, Paramount, and Criterion have considered releasing the film, yet we’re still stuck with inferior VHS copies if we want to thrill to Charles Laughton as Moreau, Bela Lugosi as the Sayer of the Law, and Kathleen Burke as Lota the Panther Woman. The wait for this DVD has been a torture worthy of the House of Pain.



2. The Best of the Cool Ghoul

And All Through the House...

Well, evil elves, the holiday season has descended upon us like some massive, garishly decorated bird of prey once again (in the case of most department stores, it descended sometime around mid-August). One might think the season of good-will-toward-men (just men? Typical) is anathema to the ghouls, gremlins, and sundry grotesques lurking in the Psychobabble vaults. But then one would be wrong. Psychobabble is a big fan of the season’s lights and tinsel, if not all that Jesus stuff. And though the December holidays may not offer the monstery delights of Halloween season, they are not exactly devoid of scares. Just take a look at A Christmas Carol. Lest we forget, Dicken’s deathless tale is actually quite frightening. At its heart, A Christmas Carol is the story of an old crab terrorized by a bevy of ghosts, who threaten him with nothing less than an early death if he doesn’t get with the hall decking. The better adaptations, such as Brian Desmond Hurst’s 1951 version with Alistair Sim as miserly Scrooge or Clive Donner’s 1984 take starring George C. Scott, embrace the story’s horror elements readily. I took in the Donner version for the first time in twenty or so years recently and was surprised by how chilling its overall air of gauzy decay and its depictions of Jacob Marley and The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come remained. Even The Ghost of Christmas Past, played with withering detachment by Angela Pleasence—daughter of classic horror mainstay Donald!—creeped me out. The film is only missing the terrifying sequence from Dicken’s novella in which Scrooge looks out his window to see a tormented torrent of tortured phantoms in the snow.

There have been a number of other feature length holiday horror films, ranging from the genuinely creepy (1974’s Black Christmas) to the delightfully deranged (1984’s Gremlins) to the out-and-out campy (1980’s Christmas Evil) to exploitative, slice-‘em-up-Santa shit (1984’s Silent Night, Deadly Night). The latter genre actually has its roots in one of the season’s best fusions of sleigh bells and slay hells. “And All Through the House” appeared in the February/March 1954 issue of The Vault of Horror. Johnny Craig’s tale of an escaped psycho in a Santa suit is unusually layered for an E.C. comic.

Most such stories would give us one weapon-wielding loony, but Craig cleverly made the stalkee a housewife who committed her own murder just moments before evil Santa closes in on her house, threatening her and her daughter. It’s among the most memorable stories in E.C.’s all-too brief history, so memorable that it was treated to two direct adaptations. The first of these appeared in Freddie Francis’s superb 1972 portmanteau, Tales from the Crypt, and starred Joan Collins as the housewife double-tasked with disposing of her husband’s freshly killed corpse and avoiding Saint Nick’s crazy clutches.

Even better is the version that appeared in the debut three-part episode of HBO’s “Tales from the Crypt”, which may be the series’ best half hour. Director Robert Zemeckis gives us a more shadowy environment and a more monstrous Santa (the wonderfully weird Larry Drake), as well as the authentically gorgeous X-mas tableau that opens the episode, only to be wickedly and ironically shattered by its first murder. Zemeckis’s ex-wife Mary Ellen Trainor does a terrific job as the frazzled housewife, especially when she loses her shit in the episode’s concluding moments. Holiday horrors get no better.

The 10 Best Old Horror Movies That Were New to Psychobabble in 2010

I may purport myself to be some sort of authority on classic horror movies, but in reality, there are lots and lots and lots of them I’ve never seen. Nevertheless, I’m happy to say that I’m still discovering great old flicks that are new to me, whether I’ve long heard about them but have yet to give them a look-see or I’d never even been aware of their existences. Here are the ten finest retro Monster Movies that were new to me in 2010*, presented in terrifying chronological order...

*3% new material!

1. I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957- dir. Gene Fowler Jr.)

When I was a kid, the image of Michael Landon with his facial pompadour, bucky fangs, and letterman jacket as Tony the Teen Werewolf glowered back at me from many a library book about monster movies. But that was as close as I could come to seeing the movie because it almost never played on TV. It still remains unissued on DVD, so it has taken me about thirty years to finally hunt down the movie often used to illustrate the junk proliferating drive-ins after the end of horror’s 1930s/1940s golden age on You Tube. No one is going to argue that I Was a Teenage Werewolf is a work of monstery art on the level of Bride of Frankenstein or Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but as far as ‘50s drive-in junk goes, it’s top-drawer stuff. Tony is a sullen rebel-without-a-cause getting heavy slabs of jive from his high school peers, his perky blonde girlfriend, and the fuzz. A possible cure to Tony’s teenagerness arrives in the form of geeky shrink, who employs a radical treatment of hypnotherapy and hypodermic drugs to stop Tony from obsessing about fighting and fucking. But it backfires, and in a nutso departure from the usual mythology, the treatment causes Tony to transform into a murderous teen wolf. Landon brings a disarmingly complex combo of unruly darkness and little-boy vulnerability to the hormonal lycanthrope. The music and daddy-o dialogue are a hoot, and the wolf make-up is memorably cheesy, but the film avoids diving into the camp deep end.



2. Jigoku (1960- dir. Nobuo Nakagawa)

This very early Japanese horror film takes a while to reveal it’s horrificness, but once it does… yow! Shigeru Amachi plays Shirô Shimizu , a theology student with the worst luck in the world, starting with his involvement in a tragic hit-and-run accident. The supernatural element of the film’s opening half is limited to a general air of uncanny unease and an encounter with a doppelgänger. In the second half, Shirô has his own fatal encounter, after which he is demoted to Hell where he is set loose in a surreal, disorienting, grotesque environmental straight out of the right-hand panel of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Jigoku is a masterpiece of horrifically graphic images and mesmerizing artistry.



3. Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965- dir. Freddie Francis)

Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors is the horror portmanteau that launched Amicus Productions’ legacy as the home of horror portmanteaus. On board the terror train are Hammer all-stars Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, and Peter Cushing as tarot-reading Dr. Terror. Donald Sutherland’s along for the ride, too. The five tales feature a werewolf that sleeps in a coffin like Dracula (dull but decent ending), a murderous plant (decent but dull ending), a voodoo god who takes vengeance on a thieving jazz musician (Great music! Great fun!), a killer disembodied hand with designs on Lee (not bad), and a sexy vampire who shacks up with Sutherland (Terrific twist!).



4. Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly (1970- dir. Freddie Francis)

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly is another terrific film from Freddie Francis, yet one that couldn’t be more different from Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors. This demented British satire about a murderous family reminded me a lot more of the B-classic Spider Baby, but the sardonically sugary tone is straight out of one of the nursery rhymes school kids Girly and Sonny cackle incessantly at their victims. The portrayal of the breakdown of the 1950s nuclear-family ideal is amusingly gleeful, but the movie works best on face value as a series of intriguing and deadly games between the crazed family and their latest acquisition.



5. The Vampire Lovers (1970- dir. Roy Ward Baker)

Hammer screams “Fuck it… bring on the boobs!” from the mountaintops with its first full-on, unapologetic fusion of sexploitation and vampiresploitation. You know you’re in for a non-stop boob fest when the recently departed Ingrid Pitt gets top billing. Fortunately, Pitt transcends that limited image with her energetic presence and committed acting. She plays a lusty vampiress who goes around biting and bedding everyone in sight. Well, everyone but Peter Cushing. That would be gross. The depiction of a predatory lesbian vampire is homophobic, but Pitt plays her with such humanity that she earns our empathy much more so than her vacant-eyed victim, whom she genuinely seems to love. Hammer execs probably would have been happy if The Vampire Lovers was nothing more than a static shot of cleavage for 90 minutes, yet it still manages to house all the atmosphere, color, production values, and fangy fun that made the studio great in the first place. In fact, with its black and white inserts, imaginative use of shadows, and fine sound design, The Vampire Lovers is more aesthetically creative than most Hammers. Check it out; then check out the brilliant parody “Vampire Lesbian Lovers of Lust” from Steve Coogan’s series “Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible”.



6. Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974- dir. Roy Ward Baker)

Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is a blast, an audacious blend of two totally distinct yet totally different genres. In the Hammer horror corner we have a black-caped Dracula, striking color, strident music, and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. In the chopsocky corner we have a longhaired Kung Fu master, nonstop hand-to-hand combat, and some requisite bad dubbing (although, in this case, it is a perfectly sensible plot device). The interracial romances are unexpected in an early 70s B-movie such as this—and quite refreshing. I bet this movie gives Quentin Tarantino a boner.



7. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974- dir. Jorge Grau)

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is kind of a precursor to more contemporary cheeky zombie flicks like Shaun of the Dead and Black Sheep. It definitely seems to have influenced those two movies, not just in setting and humor (although it’s not a comedy), but in its emphasis on character over killing. The cast of potential victims includes a wiseass rogue, a creepy photographer, a bastardly police detective, a junkie, and her pretty sister. Much fresher and more satisfying than most of the zombie movies that seem to plague cinemas on a near weekly basis these days.



8. Hausu (1977- dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi)

After Toho, the studio responsible for all those terrifically cheesy Godzilla movies, approached Nobuhiko Obayashi about making a Japanese answer to Jaws, the advertising filmmaker took a rather novel approach. He recalled seven of his school-age daughter’s worst fears and crammed them into a haunted house movie that plays like Suspiria reimagined by Sid and Marty Krofft. A severed head flies from a water well and bites a schoolgirl on her bottom. A piano consumes human flesh and disembodied fingers pound on its keys. A girl gets into a kung-fu brawl with some firewood. A cat’s eyes glimmer with cartoon sparkles. And there isn’t a single shark in sight. The film plays out with the logic of a weird dream, so don’t go looking for a plot. The scares are on the level of those in Wizard of Oz, which means they will be particularly effective for youngsters even as kids of all ages recognize how disturbing some of the occurrences in Hausu are. The special effects are non-stop, ranging from primitive video manipulation to “How the Hell did they do that?” magic, as evidenced by those ivory-tinkling fingers. You may step out of Hausu scratching your head, but you surely won’t step out bored.



9. The Changeling (1980- dir. Peter Medak)

The Changeling begins as if it’s going to be a moody exploration of grief along the lines of Don't Look Now, but it shakes that off pretty quickly and gets down to being a less emotionally complex but still very good ghost story/murder mystery. The picture begins with composer John Russell’s (George C. Scott) wife and daughter getting calzoned by a big truck. Four months later he moves into a creepy old mansion where he intends to start writing music again but gets sidetracked by a ghost he thinks will give him information about his lost loved ones. The Changeling takes some rather interesting twists during its fourth quarter. I particularly liked the wronged ghost, which behaves in a far less passive manner than most wronged ghosts do in contemporary wronged ghost stories.



10. The Monster Club (1981- dir. Roy Ward Baker)

The Monster Club, a remorselessly silly portmanteau based on the stories of R. Chetwynd Hayes, is also remorselessly delightful. John Carradine plays Hayes and Vincent Price is a vampire in the goofy wraparound story set in a nightclub stocked with dancers in rubber monster masks and a surprisingly good line-up of pop acts, including Psychobabble favorites The Pretty Things! Price narrates a trio of quite good tales about a beauty and the melancholy beast who loves her, a boy who learns his dad’s a vampire, and a movie director who provides sustenance for a village of ghouls. The makeup budget is three dollars; the nonstop fun is priceless. Plus the animated skeleton striptease is a gas.

Farewell, Don Van Vliet

Long suffering from multiple sclerosis, Don Van Vliet died yesterday at the age of 69. As Captain Beefheart and leader of the Magic Band, Van Vliet laid down one of the skankiest, fattest, most eclectic blues-rock records of the ‘60s with Safe as Milk before following the more avant garde muse that led to him recording the album for which he is best known. With its crazed structures, cartoonish lyricism, and freaky fusion of Rock & Roll, blues, and free jazz, Trout Mask Replica (1969) has to be the most demanding record widely regarded as a Rock classic. He continued recording with the Magic Band through 1982 before retiring from music to pursue expressionistic art. Van Vliet left behind an incomparable legacy that influenced artists ranging from John Lennon to Tom Waits to PJ Harvey.

Review: 'Vampire Circus' (1972)

Unable to compete with the more sophisticated chills of films such as Rosemary’s Baby, Hammer Studios high-dived into high camp in the ‘70s. The new Hammer got off to a ripping start with the Ingrid Pitt vehicle The Vampire Lovers in 1970. Within a couple of years Britain’s greatest producer of lush monster movies had fallen into a comfy groove for better or worse with stuff like Countess Dracula, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Dracula AD 1972, and Vampire Circus. The latter film finally makes its DVD debut today, and it’s one of Hammer’s goofiest. Studio execs must have given screenwriter Judson Kinberg three specifications: lots of sex, lots of blood, vampire circus. Kinberg then dashed off the script in 45 minutes.



The plot is thinner than milk stew: a band of circus performers take revenge on a village where a vampire had been put to death fifteen years earlier. There are some pretty far-out sequences swimming around that spindly storyline: a woman screws a vampire while her daughter’s bloody corpse lies a few feet away, the circus presents the villagers with such acts as a totally naked woman simulating sex with a lion tamer and a guy removing a mask that looks like a painted face to reveal his actual painted face, and an absolutely ridiculous-looking fake panther gets shaken around a bit to create the illusion it’s chomping someone to death. The performances vary in their levels of hysteria, Thorley Walters emerging triumphant with his portrayal of the wackadoo Burgermeister with Anthony Corlan coming in second as the eye-rolling vampire/panther man, Emil. Adrienne Corri of A Clockwork Orange gets top billing, even though she brings little to the film aside from a perpetually shiny puss in dire need of a good powdering. The film does a fine job of delivering a pleasing quantity of silliness and phony baloney gore, but it never rises above camp because it lacks characters worth caring about. The Vampire Lovers had that, thanks to a memorable performance from the recently departed Ingrid Pitt, plus an all-you-can-eat banquet of campy gore and silly fun. It’s a better use of your 90 minutes than Vampire Circus, but Hammer completists still shouldn’t miss either of them.



The new Vampire Circus disc is a blu ray/standard DVD combo that includes lots and lots of bonus business: a new documentary, a retrospective on circus/carnival themed horror productions, a retrospective on the British horror/comic publication Gallery of Grotesqueries, a poster and stills gallery, and a Vampire Circus interactive comic book. All that sounds good, but I can’t say for sure because I only saw the movie using Netflix’s “watch instantly” option. 

The Ten Best Old Albums That Were New to Psychobabble in 2010

I may purport myself to be some sort of authority on classic Rock & Roll, psych, pop, and punk records, but in reality, there are lots and lots and lots of them I’ve never heard. Nevertheless, I’m happy to say that I’m still discovering great old albums that are new to me, whether I’ve long heard about them but have yet to give them a spin or I’d never even been aware of their existences. Here are the ten finest retro-rock records that were new to me in 2010, presented in glorious chronological order...

1. We Are Ever So Clean by Blossom Toes (1967)



Having long read about We Are Ever So Clean, a real cult favorite of British psychedelia, I was a bit disappointed on first listen. “When the Alarm Clock Rings”, which concludes Rhino’s Nuggets II box set, was all I knew from Blossom Toes prior to hearing their only LP, so I was a bit taken off guard by how thoroughly daffy, and often cacophonous, it is. I’m glad I gave the record a number of additional spins. Now it sounds perfectly conceived, and that includes the more insane tracks, such as the borderline grating “The Remarkable Saga of the Frozen Dog” and “Look at Me I’m You”, which sounds like William Burroughs diced up the master tapes of Revolver, and reassembled them willy nilly. Still, the album’s best songs are its most straightforward. There’s the rousing “When the Alarm Clock Rings”, “I’ll Be Late For Tea”, a marvelous Kinks pastiche that fuses that band’s early heaviness with their mid-‘60s pastoralism, the groovy “Telegram Tuesday”, “What’s It For”, with its chugging cellos, and the Move-esque “I Will Bring You This and That”. Definitely the psychedelic find of the year.


2. Pandemonium Shadow Show by Harry Nilsson (1967)



I probably wouldn’t have given Harry Nilsson his fair shake if my friend and occasional collaborator Jeffrey Dinsmore hadn’t insisted I do so. I like “Everybody’s Talkin’” and “Coconut” (more because it was used to great effect at the end of Reservoir Dogs than anything else) well enough, but “Daddy’s Song” and “Cuddly Toy” are not among my favorite Monkees songs and “Without You” makes me barf. Because Jeffrey was a former Nilsson skeptic, himself, I agreed to check out Pandemonium Shadow Show. This is a terrific vaudeville record, much closer in spirit to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band than a lot of records to which The Beatles’ album are often compared. Really, the predominant sound of Pepper’s is not psychedelia but old-timey music hall, so Pandemonium Shadow Show sounds much more Peppery than, say, Their Satanic Majesties Request. And not only did the Fabs inspire Nilsson, but he pays direct tribute to them when he covers “She’s Leaving Home” and cheekily mangles a variety of their songs in the hilarious mishmash “You Can’t Do That”. “River Deep, Mountain High” has been covered by too many people who aren’t Tina Turner, Nilsson’s version of “Cuddly Toy” is just marginally better than The Monkees’, and “Ten Little Indians” was neither a good song in the hands of its creator or The Yardbirds, who recorded the most famous rendition during their Jimmy Page period. The rest of the album is phenomenal though. “Sleep Late, My Lady Friend” is the lullaby Bacharach and David always wanted to write. Gil Garfield and Perry Botkin’s show-tuney “There Will Never Be” is an instant standard. Sparsely arranged with cello, bass, and flute, “Without Her” is a haunting melding of baroque and jazz balladry. The masterpiece of this collection is “1941”, an elegiac lament about Nilsson’s abandonment by his father (a recurring theme in his work that did not prevent him from pulling the same shit on his own first born). The album’s ultimate endorsement is that it won Nilsson a quartet of Liverpudlian super-fans, three of whom personally called him to tell him how much they loved his latest record.


3. The Natch’l Blues by Taj Mahal (1968)

Review: ‘The Velvet Underground: An Illustrated History of a Walk on the Wild Side’

Is there something inherently wrong about a coffee table book covering the history of The Velvet Underground? Glossy, colorful, souvenir books like Jim DeRogatis’s The Velvet Underground: An Illustrated History of a Walk on the Wild Side seem more befitting a group with a cuddlier reputation, such as The Beatles, who have been the subjects of many coffee table tomes. Yet, wasn’t the VU initially promoted as Andy Warhol’s latest pop art project, an entity not terribly far removed from Warhol’s style-over-substance soup cans or Edie Sedgwick? And didn’t Warhol essentially force them to perform with Nico because she looked good? And— let’s face it—didn’t the Velvets look pretty great all on their own, decked out in their matching, too-cool-for-uptown wraparound shades and black togs? And can’t the content of dope and S&M celebrations such as “Sister Ray”, “Heroin”, and “Venus in Furs” be deemed cheap exploitation on some level? And let’s also not forget that the drugging, womanizing Beatles were hardly as sweet as the toys, cartoons, and coffee table books they inspired ever suggested.



So DeRogatis’s book doesn’t violate what The Velvet Underground represented, just as the band’s more exploitative aspects don’t dull the keenness of Lou Reed’s gutter poetry or the completely organic wildness of the band’s noisy attack or the stark beauty of their ballads. But is it necessary? The band’s tale has been told many times before in far more complete form, particularly and definitively in Richie Unterberger’s White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day. A lot of the photos in An Illustrated History of a Walk on the Wild Side, which are the real selling points of any illustrated history, can be found in Unterberger’s book. However, “1966: The Year the Velvet Underground Went Pop”, Warhol’s personal memoir about his band’s earliest days, is only excerpted in White Light/White Heat. It is presented in its lengthy entirety in An Illustrated History… and is an absolute must read for anyone who missed out on attending The Exploding Plastic Inevitable him/herself. There’s also a good interview with Sterling Morrison conducted by the guitarist’s former bandmate, Bill Bentley, some fabulous shots of Reed’s original sheet music for “Heroin” and “Venus in Furs” (Jesus Christ, the guy fucking wrote out those songs like he was Cole Porter or something! How many other Rock & Roll songwriters did that?), and an amazing photo of Warhol silk-screening the legendary banana. I also love the totally tacky faux velvet wraparound banner included with the book. It reminds me of Kramer’s coffee table book about coffee tables that actually turns into a coffee table. Warhol would surely approve.

Review : ‘The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History'

OK, so Paul Westerberg was an exceptional songwriter, but it’s hard to read Jim Walsh’s oral history The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting without thinking the moral of the story is that anyone can play Rock & Roll. The ‘Mats were a people’s band who pursued fame with one hand and scorned it with the other, a sloppy drunk quartet of Minneapolis dirtbags who won a following because they were unpredictable, outrageous, loutish, insane. That Westerberg emerged as a tremendous power-pop composer in the tradition of Pete Townshend, Alex Chilton, and Rick Nielsen was beside the point.

That combination of stage infamy—Westerberg deciding the band would eschew their greatest hits in favor of appalling Chuck Berry covers, Bob Stinson lifting his skirt to present his balls to the audience, teen brother Tommy Stinson dropping jaws simply for being so fucking young—and spectacularly ragged records made The Replacements cult heroes. They could get prestigious opening tour slots for Keith Richards and Tom Petty but couldn’t bring themselves to appear in anything as crass as a music video. A pal of the band from way back when, Walsh drew together a cast of nearly 150 friends, family members, fans, and fellow Minnesotans to tell this often hilarious, often harrowing, often exhilarating tale. The band members are mostly represented by a trove of quotes from old interviews.



On paper, The Replacements story is not much different from any other band’s: they rose from middle-class ennui to enjoy a degree of popularity, engaged in heated Rock & Roll rivalries with other local groups (particularly Hüsker Dü), over-indulged in a variety of substances, and didn’t all live to tell the tale. The big differences are the vehemence with which they refused to play the Rock & Roll success game, the respect and loathing they earned (famed asshole Steve Albini often had choice words for the guys), and their confounding paradoxical status as ordinary legends. Punks like Joe Strummer, Johnny Rotten, and even Joey Ramone were larger than life, either as cartoon characters or political way-lighters. The Replacements were the cretins demolishing classic Rock & Roll tunes in the garage next door, and like Spinal Tap’s keyboardist, they just wanted to have a good time all the time, often at the expense of their fans, their critics, and themselves. They weren’t gods. They were me and they were you. You can’t say that about many Rock stars, can you?

Anyone who loves The Replacements has no excuse for not reading All Over But the Shouting. Hell, anyone who loves Rock & Roll has no excuse either. I’ve been reading a lot of Rock & Roll books lately, and this is the first one I’ve read in a long, long time that made me want to join a band, get stinking drunk, and moon a room full of gawkers. Any takers?

Review: ‘Hausu’

After Toho, the studio responsible for all those terrifically cheesy Godzilla movies, approached Nobuhiko Obayashi about making a Japanese answer to Jaws, the advertising filmmaker took a rather novel approach. He recalled seven of his school-age daughter’s worst fears and crammed them into a haunted house movie that plays like Suspiria reimagined by Sid and Marty Krofft. A severed head flies from a water well and bites a schoolgirl on her bottom. A piano consumes human flesh and disembodied fingers pound on its keys. A girl gets into a kung-fu brawl with some firewood. A cat’s eyes glimmer with cartoon sparkles. And there isn’t a single shark in sight.

Naturally Toho was baffled by Hausu (House), as were critics. But the 1977 film became a huge hit in its homeland because kids instantly recognized the candied horrors and psychedelic flights of fancy as reflective of their own whimsical imaginations. As gruesome as this story of seven schoolgirls who meet varying fates in an old dark house can be, the delivery is more cartoonish than your average episode of Scooby Doo. Teeny-bop pop chirps cheerily on the soundtrack, and the actresses play their parts as though they may break out into The Partridge Family’s Greatest Hits at any moment. Those characters are just as transparently farcical as their adventures, each one named for the stock stereotype that dictates her every move: there’s Fantasy, Gorgeous, Kung Fu, Prof (as in “Professor”), Mac (as in “Stomach”…she’s always eating!), Melody (the musician), and Sweet. Collect them all!


The film plays out with the logic of a weird dream, so don’t go looking for a plot. The scares are on the level of those in Wizard of Oz, which means they will be particularly effective for a certain age group even as kids of all ages recognize how disturbing some of the occurrences in Hausu are. The special effects are non-stop, ranging from primitive video manipulation to “How the Hell did they do that?” magic, as evidenced by those ivory-tinkling fingers. You may step out of Hausu scratching your head, but you surely won’t step out bored.



The new Criterion Edition of Hausu comes with all the bells, whistles, and delightful doo dads one can expect from a Criterion disc, including sharp picture and sound, an enlightening and even moving interview with Obayashi and his daughter who inspired the film, a somewhat interesting interview with Hausu superfan and House of the Devil filmmaker Ti West, and “Emotion”, a bonus short film by Obayashi.

Farewell, Ingrid Pitt

Ingrid Pitt only starred in a handful of horror films, but she made such an indelible impression in The Vampire Lovers, The House That Dripped Blood, The Wicker Man, and Countess Dracula that she is rightfully remembered as the definitive actress of British Horror. Pitt is primarily regarded as a vampiric sex symbol, but she was also a nuanced actress who brought liveliness, wry wit, and a disarming lack of self consciousness to her performances. Born in Poland, she survived the concentration camps to become the face of Hammer Pictures in the '70s as Elizabeth Bathory in Countess Dracula and Carmilla Karnstein in The Vampire Lovers. She was as adoring of her fans as they were of her, hosting an annual gathering of her fan club at a restaurant in London's Polish Centre. Pitt died of heart failure on November 23, two days after she turned 73.

Review: ‘Whole Lotta Zeppelin’ & ‘Neil Young: Long May You Run’

Whole Lotta Led Zeppelin: The Illustrated History of the Heaviest Band of All Time by Jon Bream

Judging Whole Lotta Zeppelin by its cover, I expected it to be as puffy as 1991’s Led Zeppelin: Heaven and Hell or the booklet in the Led Zeppelin box set. Such illustrated histories are generally more intent on delivering lush photos and drooling fanaticism than true insight and warts-and-all history. Whole Lotta Zeppelin has all those things. Assembled by Jon Bream with a host of guest commentators including Rock journalists and a wide range of famous fans, the book is geared toward a somewhat specific reader. Its partial modus operandi is to take some of the wind out of Zeppelin. This will be unappealing to the worshippers who continue to shrink in awe of the Hammer of the Gods, and the din of the hordes, and the rest of the flatulent mythology. As someone who loves Zeppelin’s music for its power, atmosphere, inventiveness, and cosmic funkiness, yet realizes that the boys in the band can be real jerks and never bought into all the Dungeons and Dragons fantasies or macho super hype, I think Whole Lotta Zeppelin hits the right note. Plant, Bonham, and Page are treated with all due honesty, both as the phenomenal musicians they are and as the creepy misogynists, serial statutory rapists, thieves, and thugs they were during their younger days. Quotes illustrate how unapologetic Page and Plant were about plundering the catalogues of poor blues musicians. An anecdote by Grand Funk Railroad’s Don Brewer captures manager Peter Grant—the so-called fifth member of Led Zeppelin—at his most casually ruthless. Journalist Ellen Sander relays a scary encounter with a couple of unnamed band members that should lose the group some fans. John Paul Jones, of course, emerges unscathed. Even the most demonic Rock band needs its nice guy.



Whole Lotta Zeppelin will also turn off some of the devoted because a good chunk of it is recycled from previously published books and articles. Because it sports so many voices telling the same story, there’s an irritating amount of overlap in the new content too. However, the army of commentators also keeps the telling fresh and the perspective wide ranging. Despite the impression I may have given above, Whole Lotta Zeppelin is not a hatchet job. In fact, some of the “Rock Star” commentaries are tediously fawning; you won’t learn a thing from Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson or Aerosmith’s Joe Perry. But The Hold Steady’s Tad Kubler contextualizes Zeppelin’s music in a fascinating coming of age story that reads like a scene from Over the Edge. The essays on the band’s albums—each written by a different journalist— are thoughtful, lively, and invigoratingly varied. An interview legendary junkie William S. Burroughs conducted with legendary junkie Jimmy Page for Crawdaddy! in 1975 is beyond bizarre and beyond valuable. But the defining commentary arrives as a coda via New Musical Express and Mojo writer Charles Shaar Murray, who expresses all the exasperation and astonishment of Led Zeppelin fandom as well as anyone ever has. The lush photos are awful nice too.


Neil Young: Long May You Run: The Illustrated History by Daniel Durcholz & Gary Graff

Unlike Whole Lotta Zeppelin, Long May You Run is essentially written by two authors, which makes its overlapping information less acceptable. The problem is the structure. This illustrated history is told as a chronological story regularly interrupted by stand-alone essays focusing on Neil Young’s pre-fame period playing in a band with Rick James, his dad, the circumstances behind CSNY’s “Ohio”, a condensed history of Crazy Horse, etc. The main biography and these essays often contain the same material, which is more significant here than it was in the Zeppelin book because Long May You Run doesn’t even break 200 pages, and the abundance of photos means there’s probably only about 100 pages of text. As such, this is more of a traditional illustrated history than Whole Lotta Zeppelin, even though it’s similarly even handed. I’ve never read a proper biography of Young before, so I found Long May You Run to be a perfectly adequate primer. More long-running fans will be more interested in the book on a coffee table level. Like all the Voyageur Press books I’ve perused so far, this is a beautifully designed hardcover that not only has great (and, I’m assuming, rare) photos of Young throughout his various stages (so often we forget that the flannel-swathed one had a bevy of phases to rival Bowie) and his memorabilia, but also sports some really cool illustrations by underground comix-style artist Peter Pontiac.

Review: ‘Robert Florey’s Frankenstein’ by Philip J. Riley

One of the better-known nuggets of horror-flick history is that Bela Lugosi was originally intended to play the Frankenstein Monster in Universal’s second great monster picture of 1931. Why Lugosi did not end up donning the flattop and neck-electrodes in the original feature-length Frankenstein is a matter of much debate—he either exited the role because he objected to playing a sexless, silent brute, or he was fired from the project much like Robert Florey, who was originally slotted to direct. Florey and Lugosi went off to make the less impressive Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) together, and James Whale was hired to helm Frankenstein with Boris Karloff starring as the Monster.

When Florey and Garrett Fort wrote the Frankenstein screenplay, they did so still under the impression that Lugosi would be monstering it up as the Monster. Philip J. Riley now brings us this original draft as part of his “Alternate History to Classic Film Monsters” series, which I’ve often praised on this site. Robert Florey’s Frankenstein is not as impressive as the previous installments in the series, although that is hardly Riley’s fault. The problem is that this script really isn’t that drastically different from the one Whale filmed, making it less historically valuable than totally unique works such as Nina Wilcox Putnam’s Cagliostro or Bernard Schubert’s Wolfman vs. Dracula.



Although a 170-page script should be bursting with revelations, considering that the released film was a mere 69 minutes (the rule of thumb is that a single screenplay page equals one minute of screen time), it only reaches such epic length due to Florey and Fort’s tendency to over-describe their scenes. The climactic hunt for the Monster creaks along for nearly twenty pages. The boldest difference between script and film is a sexually charged scene in which the Monster stalks a peasant couple tussling in their bedroom. The relationships between Elizabeth and Victor Moritz, and Frankenstein and Dr. Waldman, are also more complex in the script. Much to the script’s detriment, the scenes in which Fritz culls a madman’s brain for his boss and the Monster has a fateful encounter with a little girl by a riverbed are far more simplistic than what wound up in Whale’s film. Furthermore, the Monster is far less sympathetic and the script is decidedly humorless with a completely downbeat ending that might have kept Bride of Frankenstein from being born. Satisfyingly, a lot of these problems are acknowledged in the rather insightful script notes included as an appendix at the end of Riley’s book. A second appendix finds Fort defending his script, even though he didn’t really have a leg to stand on. Fans of Riley’s series will certainly want to add Robert Florey’s Frankenstein to their collections, even though it is a relatively unenlightening read. Hey, not every lost script can be R.C. Sheriff’s Dracula’s Daughter.

Review: 'The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones: Sound Opinions on the Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Rivalry' by Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot

In his introduction to The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones: Sound Opinions on the Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Rivalry, Jim DeRogatis acknowledges that his and co-writer Greg Kot’s opinions may “make you curse one or the other of us as you consider hurling this book across the room...” Indeed I considered hurling their point-counterpoint on various aspects of Rock & Roll’s two biggest acts across my room more than once. But I refrained from doing so because this book is just too damn beautiful to treat that way. In an era when more and more people are reading books on creepy little handheld devices, Voyageur Press has made the real thing that much more attractive by creating a lavish package. In homage to the Satanic Majesties Request album jacket, the book cover features a neat hologram that reveals the faces of either the ’63 Beatles or the ’68 Stones depending on the angle at which you view it. Within that cover you’ll find loads of wonderful full-color and lovely B&W photos of the Fab Eleven (that’s Misters Lennon, Jagger, McCartney, Richards, Harrison, Watts, Starr, Wyman, Jones, Taylor, and Wood) and their related memorabilia. A great deal of these pictures was new to me, and I’ve read my share of books on The Beatles and The Stones.

I may seem to be spending undue space here going on about the design of The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones, but it really is a major attribute of a book that can basically be read in a couple of hours. DeRogatis and Kot are the co-hosts of the music chat show “Sound Opinions”, and their book is apparently a lot like a transcript of one of their programs (admittedly, I’ve never listened to “Sound Opinions” because talk radio puts me to sleep). I really liked the format: a couple of Rock & Roll geek pals argue about whether The Beatles or The Stones were better conjurers of psychedelic rock or if McCartney or Wyman was the superior bassist (no contest, of course), etc. 

Theirs is certainly a fresh approach to two bands that have been written about and written about and written about and written about. The problem is their tendency to be dismissive without really supporting their opinions. If McCartney’s “Blackbird” is one of his definitive performances while “Oh! Darling”, in DeRogatis’s words, “just sucks,” I’m going to need a little more explanation. And good luck finding a Beatles fan who won’t be completely turned off by DeRogatis’s opinion that the Yellow Submarine film is “a turd” or a Stones freak who isn’t confounded when he writes off the amazing Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus as nothing more than a “cheesy Big Top conceit.” 

DeRogatis’s opinions are particularly difficult to take seriously when he regularly makes sloppy errors that even the most novice fan of these bands will spot. He mistakenly credits a line in “Getting Better” Lennon wrote to McCartney, states that “Day Tripper” and “Paperback Writer” appeared on either side of the same single, and most embarrassing of all, rates “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” among Charlie Watts’s five greatest performances. Anyone who has ever perused the inner sleeve of Let It Bleed knows that Jimmy Miller played drums on that track. Kot pulls a couple of boners, too, when he applauds Brian Jones for playing the oboe on “Ruby Tuesday” and the recorder on “Back Street Girl”. DeRogatis’s suggestion that “She’s a Rainbow” is “about oral sex with a woman who’s having her period” is simply bizarre. Equally bizarre is when he holds up “You Gotta Move”—Jagger’s most outrageously mannered blues performance— as a rare example of the singer’s sincerity. Huh?

Regardless of the quality of their criticism, I like the fact that DeRogatis and Kot seriously discussed topics that generally get overlooked in a lot of books about these bands, such as Wyman’s bass playing, Harrison’s guitar skills, and The Stones’ psychedelic phase (and I must doff my pointy Merlin cap to DeRogatis for having the guts to admit that Satanic Majesties is better than Sgt. Pepper's). Though the book does suffer from its errors, offhand criticisms, and weird assertions, it’s a quick, breezy, and generally fun read. Fans who already think “The White Album” is a better record than Exile On Main Street will not change their minds after reading the guys’ contrary argument, but those fans may next find themselves sprinting to the turntable to hear those records with fresh ears. And that’s exactly what DeRogatis and Kot intended when they wrote this book.

Meet the Song of the Day: “Love Is Only Sleeping” by The Monkees

In late 1967 The Monkees were still a viable moneymaking enterprise. They’d had three number one albums, two massive number one singles in a pleasantly poppy vein, and an additional two top-five hits. Neil Diamond’s “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” (number 2 in spring ’67) pushed The Monkees deeper into the teeny-bop territory that offended both critics and the boys in the band, but it also had decidedly positive results when bubblegum-inclined musical director Don Kirshner was fired for releasing the record. 

Left to choose, write, and record their own music, The Monkees released their first great album, Headquarters, two months later. Their first great single, “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (number 3 in summer ’67), followed after another two months. The track, penned by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, was more sophisticated than any non-group composition The Monkees had yet recorded. The topic, a light jab at the generic suburban communities popping up all over the country, was more interesting than the usual “I love you, you love me, la la la” material Kirshner generally foisted on the band. The guitar riff producer Chip Douglas worked out under the inspiration of George Harrison’s “I Want to Tell You” was intricate and catchy in equal measure. The performance was incredibly dynamic, with Mike Nesmith fingering that riff flawlessly, “Fast” Eddie Hoe discharging machine gun drum fills, Douglas supplying the thrillingly upfront bass line, Peter Tork laying down an equally exciting and involved piano part, and all four Monkees contributing to the tapestry of harmonies.

“Pleasant Valley Sunday” was, indeed, an artistic breakthrough for The Monkees, even though it failed to sell quite as many copies as the three singles that preceded it. Regardless, the band and the machine that drove them remained determined to push the boundaries of what The Monkees were supposed to be even further with their next single to be released in the autumn of 1967. For the first time a track with lead vocals by Mike Nesmith would represent the band on 7”. Nesmith did not have the strongest voice in the band— Micky Dolenz was doubtlessly the most traditionally accomplished singer in The Monkees—yet his voice was the most interesting, the one that departed from the group’s bubblegum image most drastically. Nesmith’s hoarse twang is a more unique instrument than Dolenz’s pipes and infinitely more mature than Davy Jones’s munchkin chirp. Using him as lead vocalist on a single intended to sell as many copies as “Last Train to Clarksville” or “I’m a Believer” was a bold decision. 

The track was an unusual choice as well. Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil had written some of the biggest hits of the ‘60s, including The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”, Paul Revere and the Raiders’ “Kicks”, The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”, and The Crystals’ “Uptown”. The Tin Pan Alley team also wrote “Shades of Gray”, the default hit from the single-devoid Headquarters. Like “Shades of Gray”, “Love Is Only Sleeping” was an unusually moody, reflective song for The Monkees, dealing with the ups and downs of a relationship in a more complex manner than anything the band had recorded yet. Like “Pleasant Valley Sunday”, “Love Is Only Sleeping” is driven by a wiry, infectious guitar riff and crisp drumming, but the combination of Nesmith’s eerie wail and the psychedelic percussive clicks and clacks that flit through the mix--plus a rather undanceable time signature that lurches between 7/8 and 4/4-- make for a less commercial and far more unsettling sound.

“Love Is Only Sleeping” had a better chance of establishing The Monkees as a serious group than any earlier single. It was primed to snap their image as bubblegum phonies in two and toss the pieces aside. Its B-side chosen, the record was ready to be pressed. Then, suddenly, the Powers That Be got cold feet. The common line is the title was too suggestive for The Monkees’ label, Colgems, apparently the implication being that “sleeping” is synonymous with “fucking.” This story is not completely unlikely. Just a few months earlier American DJs opted to flip over The Rolling Stones’ latest single in fear that the intended A-side, “Let’s Spend the Night Together”, was too risqué for U.S. teens. “Ruby Tuesday” proved a sufficiently commercial alternative, and it became The Stones’ fourth stateside number one hit.

Could the commerciality of “Ruby Tuesday” have played a role in the single’s flip, as well? And could such concerns have influenced Colgems to pass on “Love Is Only Sleeping” in favor of its proposed flipside, a song Davy Jones initially refused to sing because he thought it mediocre? I personally think this is the most likely reason Colgems tossed “Love Is Only Sleeping” in the “out” pile and went with the more typically bubblegummy “Daydream Believer” for The Monkees’ fifth single. One certainly can’t argue with the label on that level. The single became The Monkees’ first number one hit in nearly a year, remaining in the top slot until The Beatles displaced it with “Hello, Goodbye”. From a creative standpoint, the move was, at the very least, cowardly. Although it is certainly an impeccable pop production, “Daydream Believer” represents much of what critics dislike about The Monkees, with its lighter-than-air delivery, silly lyric, cutesy vocal, and sing-songy chorus: a limp counterpoint to the maturity and complexity of “Love Is Only Sleeping”. As for Mann and Weil’s usurped masterpiece, it didn’t even make it to the B-side of the “Daydream Believer” single. That honor went to a group composition that was even further out than “Love Is Only Sleeping”; a ferocious, scatting, jazz-rock freakout about a suicide attempt called “Goin’ Down”.

Like “Daydream Believer” and “Goin’ Down”, “Love Is Only Sleeping” would feature heavily in the second season of the “Monkees” TV show. The track also won a position on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones, LTD. (1967) where it contributed immensely to the album’s sophistication and fine quality. The Monkees’ next single marked the first time a Nesmith-sung number made the charts when his self-penned B-side “Tapioca Tundra” went to #34— quite a feat considering it was by far the strangest song to make its way onto a Monkees single. In 1969, Nesmith was given pride of place on two singles with a couple of his pioneering country-rock experiments, “Listen to the Band” and “Good Clean Fun”, but by that point The Monkees had fallen so far out of popular favor that Colgems execs probably couldn’t have cared less what the band released.

The Horrorfication of David Lynch

Sometimes I question the amount of space I devote to David Lynch on a site that’s half devoted to Horror Movies, because though several of Lynch’s films are among the most unsettling— and even scary— you’re likely to see (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr., and Inland Empire being some prime examples), he’s not exactly a horror filmmaker. I’ve always particularly taken issue with the designation of Eraserhead as a horror movie and am flat-out baffled by how The Elephant Man has made its way into numerous discussions of the genre. The only way I can feature that is the argument that some of the film’s so-called “normal” people—Merrick’s cruel “owner” Bytes, the exploitative night porter, the posh douche bags who gawk at Merrick in disgust— are the film’s monsters.

Yet I continue to write about David Lynch because I love the guy: love his films, love his charmingly inarticulate manner of expressing himself, love his art, love his renaissance man excursions into television, transcendental meditation promotion, book authoring, and coffee production. But do he and his work really belong on this site? Short answer: yes; long answer: yes, because I says so for one thing, and for another thing, I’m not the only kook who has attempted to cram his avant garde output into the horror cubicle. Not only has the American horror channel Chiller TV aired “Twin Peaks” (which, after all, features such horrory elements as serial-killing demons, creepy owls, hellish otherworlds, and soul-trapping pull knobs), but the Horror Channel in the UK has also taken to running Lynch’s output.

Guided by Voices reunion at Terminal 5: 11/7/2010

When Robert Pollard broke up Guided By Voices after 20-odd years of 4-track experimentation, beer guzzling, wacko on-stage rants, and middle-aged scissor-kicking, he said he was interested in seeing how history might contextualize his band. Would GBV be squished into the upper-echelon with their idols The Beatles and The Who? Typically, Pollard never gave Rock & Roll archivists a chance to sit back, catch their breaths, and take a moment to reflect on his history with Dayton’s booziest sons. He never stopped releasing music at a dementedly prolific rate, whether as a solo act or as a member of The Circus Devils or Keene Brothers or The Moping Swans or The Takeovers or Psycho and the Birds. More importantly, he only kept the band broken up for a mere six years before reuniting to help Matador Records celebrate its 20th anniversary and taking the “classic” line-up of the ever-metamorphosing group on a short tour. Ostensibly, that tour came to an end last night. I say “ostensibly” because they just added an extra New Year’s Eve show at Irving Plaza in NYC. But that’s a typical GBV move. The tour is never really over. The night of drinking has never really dried up. The club is never really closed. And GBV— if we’re to consider their one constant member to be the band’s essence— never really broke up.

But, to some fans, they did, indeed, break up, and a lot longer ago than 2004. For the hardcore cultists that favored the group’s cassette-tape recordings, Guided by Voices broke up in 1996 when Pollard shit-canned Tobin Sprout* (guitar-vocals), Mitch Mitchell (guitar), Kevin Fennell (drums), and Greg Demos (bass) after making their final lo-fi freak-out, Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. Pollard then hired Cobra Verde to serve as his back-up band, and he cut Mag Earwig! the first fully polished GBV record (the band’s ‘80s output recorded in proper studios never really sounded that much slicker than the stuff they cut on home 4-track machines in the mid-‘90s). Those lo-fi fans felt just as betrayed as Sprout, Mitchell, and the rest must have when they received their pink slips.

* (See correction in the comments below...sorry, Tobin!)

Personally, I adore Mag Earwig! and the widely reviled Do the Collapse (produced by Ric Ocasek), and all those other “sell out” records that weeded out the fair-weather fans. Yet there is an incomparable magic to those records the guys made in Mitchell’s basement while sucking back Rolling Rocks and indulging in their weirdest whims. Records like Vampire on Titus and Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes sound like they were never meant for public consumption. Like they were just made for the guys’ personal use. They sound like bootlegs, like The Beatles Anthology albums, like the recordings you amateur songwriters out there used to record in your own bedroom on your own Tascam 4-track machine long before digital technology made even home-recording into an act as soulless as watching a feature film on your fucking cell phone. The Guided by Voices I saw last night at Terminal 5 in Manhattan was purely a product of an age before cell phones and Garage Band and MP3s. They were cassettes wound with crinkled tape and smelly basements and old dudes who kicked out Rock & Roll with way more genuine joy than the poseurs who followed them. Songs were as likely to be sloppy messes as they were to be powerful. Mitch Mitchell seemed so happy to be back on stage with the band that he wasted not an opportunity to shout inanities (some with a lack of political correctness that also seemed to creep in from a long-gone era) into his microphone or shred on his guitar in inappropriate place. He personally sabotaged Sprout’s dramatic intro to “Cut-Out Witch” with his overzealous riffing. After the rest of the group left the stage following each encore, Mitchell stuck around to tell the audience how much he loves them. When the band came back out, Pollard slurred his trademark banter with a complete lack of the sort of self-conscious irony that threatened to annihilate Rock & Roll throughout the past twenty-or-so years. Guided by Voices never played Rock & Roll because they thought the idea of a bunch of middle-aged dudes bashing out off-kilter tributes to The Who or King Crimson or Wire was cute or clever. They did it because that’s what they wanted to do more than anything else in the world. And that’s what made last night’s show a transcendent experience despite the raggedness and the flubbed guitar-lines and the poorly laid out, acoustically shitty venue (Terminal 5? Bleck). Robert Pollard really did seem to be thrilled to be back with the guys he played with before he “sold out” (Editor's note: Robert Pollard never sold out). And Mitch Mitchell seemed thrilled to be king for a day.

Psychobabble’s Ten Greatest Singles of 1985

The music scene had gotten pretty rough by 1985. Top-notch artists like Elvis Costello and the Attractions, The Rolling Stones, and Stevie Wonder were making the most appalling music of their respective careers, while Foreigner, Chicago, REO Speedwagon, and USA for Africa were otherwise shitting up the charts. Yet, as in every year since the dawn of Rock & Roll, great singles could still be detected amid the muck. Here are ten…



10. “Bastards of Young” by The Replacements

With Tim the constrictions of ‘80s pop production started to have their way with The Replacements, who had recently made the leap from small time Twin/Tone records to bigger time Sire. Well, you can gate Chris Mars’s drums all you like and you can shoot a spiffy MTV-ready music video (and the accompanying video was mighty spiffy), but you can never tame Westerberg’s whiskey yowl. It is in furious form on “Bastards of Young”, perhaps the most insightful teen anthem of the ‘80s.


9. “So Far Away”by Dire Straits

Some seven years had past since square British Blues combo Dire Straits had a hit in the US. As we all know, that changed most assuredly when they dropped the ultra-slick, DDD monster Brothers in Arms in ’85. That year you couldn’t blow your nose without having “Money for Nothing” blare out of your nostrils. However the truly great single from the band’s comeback triumph was its first. “So Far Away” barely sneaked into the top twenty, but it’s as hooky and alluring as anything Dire Straights ever did, their taut rhythm section pulsing beneath an utterly sublime guitar lick. Mark Knopfler’s six-string impersonates a Hawaiian pedal steel and fools me completely.

8. “Don’t Come Around Here No More” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Diary of the Dead 2010: Week 5 ½

Week 5 ½ of Psychobabble’s Monster Movie-a-thon...

October 29th

The Creature Walks Among Us (1956- dir. John Sherwood) ***1/2

The final chapter in the Gill Man trilogy strikes an oddly elegiac tone. Having had his scales burned off, the creature turns out to be almost human underneath. Further modifications by a mad doctor leave him unable to breathe underwater anymore. Poor Gilly is left to stare longingly at the sea as his familiar three-note theme music farts away on the soundtrack. I like the fact that the Gill Man is given something decidedly different to do in each of these movies. Too leisurely in the first half, The Creature Walks Among Us is not as thoroughly entertaining as Black Lagoon or Revenge, but it is the most unique Creature feature.

Mr. Sardonicus (1961- dir. William Castle) ****

Mr. Sardonicus is a sadistic aristocrat with a hideous grin patterned on Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs. He employs a brilliant doctor to cure him of his affliction, but when the doctor fails to help him by giving him a massage, Sardonicus ups the incentive by threatening to mutilate his own wife if the doc won’t turn his frown smile upside down. The story is nonsensical, but that’s never really a detriment in a William Castle film. With a great combination of lavish period sets and phony backgrounds, an ace monster, rich black and white cinematography, and perhaps Castle’s greatest onscreen appearance, this is one of the gimmick maestro’s finest. And has eating a muffin ever been used to more sinister effect?

October 30th

Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965- dir. Freddie Francis) ****

The horror portmanteau that launched Amicus Productions’ legacy as the home of horror portmanteaus. On board the terror train are Hammer all-stars Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, and Peter Cushing as tarot-reading Dr. Terror. Donald Sutherland’s along for the ride too. The five tales feature a werewolf that sleeps in a coffin like Dracula (dull but decent ending), a murderous plant (decent but dull ending), a voodoo god who takes vengeance on a thieving jazz musician (Great music! Great fun!), a killer disembodied hand with designs on Lee (not bad), and a sexy vampire who shacks up with Sutherland (Terrific twist!).

October 31st

Young Frankenstein (1974- dir. Mel Brooks) *****

Frankenstein (1931- dir. James Whale) *****

Bride of Frankenstein (1935- dir. James Whale) *****

Ummm, yeah, all these movies are great. Hope you had a happy Halloween!

Diary of the Dead 2010: Week 5

Week 5 of Psychobabble’s Monster Movie-a-thon...

October 22th

Frightmare (1974- dir. Peter Walker) ***

Poor Jackie is doing triple duty as a movie makeup artist, guardian to her teenage hellion sister, and procurer for her creepy mom. What’s she procuring, you ask? Why, raw animal parts, of course! But that’s not quite enough to satisfy mater, for you see, she’s a vile cannibal and Frightmare is a fairly entertaining mound of schlock. Sheila Keith plays the prognosticating cannibal. She’d deal the tarots again 20 years later in a knowing tribute to this movie on “Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible”.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920- dir. Robert Wiene) ****1/2

It doesn’t get any more German Expressiony than this. The weird irises, the cartoony sets, the freakish shadows. Even the intertitles are bizarre. Caligari is also the premier feature-length horror film, and there wouldn’t be a Nosferatu or a Frankenstein or a Tim Burton without its direct influence. And despite its age, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is more outré than most of what walked in its wake. I’m not sure if Joe Meek: Alchemist of Pop was the right soundtrack to this movie, but that’s entirely my fault.

Evil Dead II (1988- dir. Sam Raimi) *****

Groovy.

October 23rd

Gojira (1954- dir. Ishirô Honda) ****

Anyone who grew up with the full-color schlock-fests in which Godzilla stomped Tokyo while wrestling giant moths and turtles will be shocked to see his debut. I certainly was when I first saw Gojira several years ago. This is a moody, black and white requiem in which the giant monster is both an allegory for and product of the atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The monster is still a rubber-suited dude, but he’s shot in such enveloping shadows that he doesn’t look nearly as phony as he would in the flat, brightly lit sequels. Gojira is not fun in the way those sequels are, but it feels more like a real film.

Horror of Dracula (1958- dir. Terence Fisher) *****

Hammer’s version of Dracula may be the least faithful to Stoker. Character relationships are jumbled, Jonathan Harker is turned into a vampire and staked early in the picture, and—most egregious of all—there’s no Renfield. Yet, Horror of Dracula (as it was titled in the U.S. to avoid confusion with Tod Browning’s film) is the jewel in Hammer’s crown because of the sumptuous visuals Terence Fisher lays out like some sort of decadent, aristocratic banquet. The costumes, the colors, the castles, the wind-blown leaves, the creepy woods. What an invitingly Gothic landscape! Christopher Lee makes a surprisingly limited impression as the count, but Peter Cushing more than makes up for that by bringing so much vim and charm and heroic confidence to Van Helsing. There’s little wonder why he gets top billing over the title creep.

October 24th

Jaws: The Revenge (1987- dir. Joseph Sargent) *

Concerned that I’ve been watching too many good movies this Halloween season, I decided to watch a movie with a reputation for being one of the very worst. Jaws: The Revenge didn’t disappoint. The shark follows the remaining Brodys—mom Ellen (Lorraine Gary) and son Michael (The Last Starfighter)— from New England to the Bahamas. They get there by plane, mind you. Mom, who seems to have some sort of psychic connection with the fish, sails off to kill the shark. By herself. Unarmed. Is she planning to strangle it with her bare hands? Michael races to help her with a team that includes a seriously slumming Michael Caine and Mario Van Peebles. The film is loaded with embarrassing callbacks to the classic original. The shark does everything but look remotely realistic. Did the filmmakers set out to make an astoundingly atrocious movie or was everyone just sucking the nitrus tank every waking moment of the day? Anything this bad is kind of worth watching. Kind of.

Carnival of Souls (1962- dir. Herk Harvey) ****

Classic B-ghost story owes a lot to a certain episode of “The Twilight Zone”, but its effectively spooky nonetheless. Fantastic mood that combines low-key creepiness and groovy sass. Herk Harvey was clearly working with a pocket-change budget (notice the caked-on ghoul make-up), but the cheapness of Carnival of Souls only adds to its funky charm. The pipe organ soundtrack is the most.

October 25th

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984- dir. Wes Craven) ****

Wes Craven elevated the lousy teen-slasher trend of the ‘80s by rediscovering such essential horror elements as imagination, humor, and a rad monster. The concept of a hideous, wisecracking creep who can only kill you in your sleep is truly original and pretty scary. The smart-ass tone undercuts that scariness a bit, but A Nightmare on Elm Street is still pretty classic. Two questions: Was Freddy Krueger the last great movie monster? And how does Nancy manage to booby trap her entire house, chat with her drunken mom, fall asleep, and catch Freddy all in 20 minutes? Discuss.

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994- dir. Wes Craven) ***1/2

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the movie that made his career Wes Craven created a sequel that actually surpassed the originality of the original. A Nightmare on Elm Street star Heather Langenkamp—playing herself— and her son are being terrorized by Freddy Krueger, who director Wes Craven—playing himself—brought to life by failing to make another Freddy Krueger movie. Pretty neat. Robert Englund and John Saxon—playing themselves— are also along for this cleverly self-reflexive ride. Still, as clever as New Nightmare is, the film is flawed. Langenkamp’s son (played by Miko Hughes from Pet Sematary) is too creepy to elicit much sympathy. Freddy takes too long to make his first appearance, and when he does, his makeup looks too dry and plastic. Craven also missed a great opportunity to infuse the film with some satirical humor at the expense of Hollywood and himself. As a result a great idea ends up as a more conventional horror movie than it should be.

The Wolf Man (1941- dir. George Waggner) *****

Universal’s second go at making a werewolf movie was its first winner. Curt Siodmak’s wonderfully inventive script is the origin of the werewolf’s aversion to silver and the significance of pentagrams in palms and so much of the other glorious bunks we still associate with shape-shifting beasties today. Lon Chaney Jr.’s Larry Talbot is kind of a smug creep. Ironically, it takes a bite from a cursed doggie to really humanize him. The jerky peeping tom becomes a tragic figure worthy of Shakespeare, particularly in the way his relationship with his formally estranged dad pans out. The cast is fab too. Along with Chaney we have Claude Rains as Dad, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Evelyn Ankers, and Ralph Bellamy.

October 26th

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly (1970- dir. Freddie Francis) ****

Freddie Francis’s demented British satire about a murderous family reminded me quite a bit of B-classic Spider Baby, but the sardonically sugary tone is straight out of one of the nursery rhymes school kids Girly and Sonny cackle incessantly at their victims. The portrayal of the breakdown of the 1950s nuclear-family ideal is amusingly gleeful, but the movie works best on face value as a series of intriguing and deadly games between the crazed family and their latest acquisition.

Misery (1990- dir. Rob Reiner) ****

And the theme of the day is guys being held against their wills by loonies. I just finished reading King’s novel for the first time, which I didn’t enjoy nearly as much as the movie. This is essentially a really depressing story and its humor registers stronger on the screen than on the page. I generally like my horror to either be very scary or very fun. The Misery novel is not scary or fun enough to balance its unrelenting…well…misery. Reiner’s film is superior because Kathy Bates manages to make the very unpleasant Annie Wilkes fun to watch. Quite a feat, Ms. Bates.

October 27th

Puppetmaster (1989- dir. David Schmoeller) ***

Nonsensical gumbo of killer puppets, psychics, lively camerawork, Skinemax sex, and ham acting. These various elements make Puppetmaster entertaining but not quite good. Schmoeller seems to have been heavily influenced by Stuart Gordon, even including a special “guest appearance” by Barbara Crampton. Writer/producer Charles Band was the executive producer of Gordon’s Dolls, which may explain all the similarities. Dolls is a lot better, but Puppetmaster does have one great low-key camp performance from Irene Miracle as a southern belle psychic. She’s considerably more fun to watch than any of the non-puppet characters, and I lost all interest in the film as soon as she was killed off an hour into it. A leech-puking puppet provides the most memorable moment.

An American Werewolf in London (1981- dir. John Landis) *****

The greatest werewolf movie ever made also has to be the most imaginative horror movie of the ‘80s. An American Werewolf in London has it all: horror, humor, werewolves, ghosts, a killer Rock & Roll soundtrack, real romance, real tragedy, Rik Mayall, Nazi ghouls, gratuitous use of punks, porno, and Muppets. The cast is absurdly lovable, making David Kessler’s adventures all the more enthralling and his fate all the more heartbreaking. Wonderful in every conceivable way.

October 28th

The Psychic (1977- dir. Lucio Fulci) *1/2

Why did I watch this? The only other Lucio Fulci movie I’ve seen, Zombie, is a piece of crap. Why would I subject myself to further Fulci fecal matter? Am I starting to get punchy after watching nothing but horror movies for five weeks straight? Perhaps, rabbit, perhaps. A mannequin bashes its shiny face against a cliff. A horrendous MOR pop song plods away over the credits. A guy with the worst comb over in history walks around with the worst comb over in history. Jennifer O’Neill shrinks in horror from a lampshade. I get bored out of my gourd. Go Fulci yourself.

Nightmare in Blood (1978- dir. John Stanley) ***

Nightmare in Blood is a no-budget ghoul frenzy set at a horror convention, and as a horror movie about horror movie fans, it is way ahead of its time, predating stuff like Fright Night and Popcorn by nearly a decade. The references to Maria Ouspenskaya, Lionel Atwill, and Fredric Wertham are particularly neat because such geekery had yet to become clichéd in 1978. An ill-conceived plot thread involving the holocaust—complete with actual horrific holocaust footage—curdles some of the fun, but it does initiate some surprisingly thoughtful comments about the allegedly detrimental effects of horror movies.

Assembling the Dracula Bad-Dream Team

I haven’t done any research to back up this claim, but I’ll still wager that no book has been adapted to film and video more times than Dracula. Well, maybe The Bible, but who cares about that thing? According to imdb, there are some 175 movies and TV shows that feature someone named “Dracula”, and I’ll further wager that few of those characters haven’t at least tasted blood. As many times as Stoker’s tale has been brought to screens large and small, it has never really been staged with a perfect cast. It’s often the case that so much effort is put into making the vampire a formidable presence that the other characters are reduced to cardboard standees. Or certain Dracula portrayers are so iconic that others can’t help but pale in comparison (Pale! Because vampires are pale! Get it?). But what would be the prefect Dracula cast? Who’s the greatest count? Which Renfield was the most memorable fly-eater? And, nearly as important, which Lucy Westenra best embodied Lucy Westenra and which Quincey Morris made all other Quincey Morrises look like hackneyed hacks? We will try to answer these questions and more as Psychobabble assembles the Dracula Bad-Dream Team! “Bad” Dream Team… because Dracula give you bad dreams! Get it?

Here goes...

Dracula : Bela Lugosi

This required no thought at all. And as you read the words “Bela” and “Lugosi” next to the word “Dracula”, you, kind reader, most likely thought the very same thing. Granted, Max Schreck of Nosferatu was the scariest Dracula, Frank Langella of the 1979 version was the sexiest, and Christopher Lee was the actor who played the count more often than anyone else. But everything you think of when you hear the name “Dracula” can be traced directly to Bela: the thick accent, the intense eyes, the cape and medallion. Even the sexiness, although Lugosi may not quite embody contemporary concepts of sexiness the way that teenager in that crappy movie about crappy teenage vampires does. And though modern audiences sometimes accuse his classic performance of being too mannered, it is a great performance. He’s commanding, yet at times, rather genial. And if Dracula was the most unapologetically evil and least conflicted of the classic Universal Monsters, Bela’s affecting delivery of “To die, to be really dead, that must be glorious! … There are far worse things awaiting man than death” suggests that even he realizes vampirism is not all it’s cracked up to be. Lugosi is Dracula to the degree that every other serious Dracula film feels lacking simply because the master is not present.



Dr. Abraham Van Helsing : Peter Cushing

Christopher Lee was a perfectly fine count, but Hammer’s Dracula franchise rarely gave him much to do. In some of those films, Lee doesn’t even utter a word. That leaves Peter Cushing to carry those films as fearless vampire killer Abraham Van Helsing. Not only does Cushing do a fine job of picking up the slack but he goes above and beyond by bringing heroic energy, fatherly sweetness, and doctorly caring to the character. Look at his eyes, he seems to always be thinking, always to be scheming how to thwart Dracula in their latest contest. Gasp as he leaps at those curtains like Indiana Jones, yanking them down to reveal the sunlight that fries Drac in Horror of Dracula. Cringe as he cauterizes his own bitten throat with a red-hot iron in Brides of Dracula, then marvel at his bravery and resolve. Cushing played a villain plenty of times in stuff like Hammers’ Frankenstein films and Star Wars, but he was always most convincing playing valiant Van Helsing—something he did more often than any other actor.



Renfield : Dwight Frye

There have been some memorable Renfields— particularly Tom Waits in the generally shitty 1992 version (more on that below) and Klaus Kinski, who did his own bug-eating stunts in the 1970 one,— but Dwight Frye in Tod Browning’s film is as iconic in his role as Lugosi is as the count. His mad eyes, his inimitable lock-jawed cackle, his hunched posture as he rivetingly describes a vision in which Dracula presented him with a squirming sea of rats. Even before Renfield goes mad, Frye is a colorful presence, expressing freaked fear as he gets Dracula to sign the paperwork on Carfax Abbey. But it’s that image of him peering from the shadows of a ship’s hull, crazy and hungry, that is the most haunting in Browning’s film.



Jonathan Harker : Gustav von Wangenheim

As many terrific Draculas, Van Helsings, and Renfields as there have been, the key role of Jonathan Harker is often played perfunctorily by a bland presence like David Manners or John Van Eyssen. Keanu Reeves’s performance in Coppola’s Dracula is a downright disaster of wooden acting and inept British-accenting. Strange then that the wonderful Gustav von Wangenheim, who played Harker (or Hutter, as he’s named in the film’s original intertitles) in the very first cinematic adaptation of Dracula, was so un-influential. This is particularly odd considering how influential so many other aspects of Nosferatu were. Yet no other actor even tried to recreate von Wangenheim’s robust performance. His glee when he dismisses superstition by spiking a book of vampire folklore on the floor of his room, and his absolute horror when he realizes that book wasn’t as hokey as he thought, are the most memorable Harker moments on film.



Mina Murray-Harker : Lupita Tovar/Isabelle Adjani

This was kind of a tough one. Like her hubby, Mina Harker is rarely acted with the zing of the other main characters in Dracula. However, there are two great Mina performances—and, ironically, neither of those characters are named Mina. Still, Lupita Tovar as “Eva Seward” in the 1931 Spanish-language Dracula and Isabelle Adjani as “Lucy Harker” in Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake of Nosferatu are clearly playing the Mina role as described in Stoker’s novel. 19-year old Tovar brings a vivacious freshness to the role that makes her transformation into Dracula’s concubine both weirdly exciting and terribly tragic. Kohl-eyed Adjani, on the other hand, is ethereal and wan, the ultimate Gothic beauty. She seems as though she must have been vampiric long before falling into the count’s clutches.



Lucy Westenra : Jan Francis

More confusion: the Lucy Westenra character in Universal’s 1979 version of Dracula is not only named Mina, but she’s Van Helsing’s daughter. I won’t even begin to try to figure out why so many Dracula-filmmakers felt it necessary to jumble character names and relationships, but no matter what you name her, Jan Francis’s Lucy is the greatest. Why? Because she’s the most terrifying. The scene in which she confronts her “daddy” in a crypt after having been vampirized is the scariest in any Dracula film. Francis also does a fantastic job of capturing the eager lustiness that makes her such an easy target for the count.



Dr. John Seward : Richard E. Grant

As I’ve suggested (or, perhaps, screamed) above, I have little fondness for Francis Ford Coppola’s misleadingly titled Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It’s a wretched mess of ostentatious special effects, bad ideas (why does Dracula turn into a sort of Bat Man rather than a normal bat? So stupid!), and awful acting (Keanu). Yet it also houses perhaps the only genuinely distinguished portrayal of asylum-overseer, Lucy-suitor, and vampire-hunter Dr. John Seward. Richard E. Grant, who was so wonderful as scummy drunk Withnail in the cult classic Withnail and I, once again proves his ability to play it stoned (even though Grant is actually a teetotaler). His Seward is a funky, half-crazed, somewhat hammy morphine addict who gets some scenes with Tom Waits’s Renfield that rise above the crapitude of the rest of the film.



Arthur Holmwood : Michael Gough

Arthur Holmwood is another important character in Stoker that is generally reduced to a device to move the plot along in Dracula movies. Honestly, even the quite likable Michael Gough’s performance as Holmwood in Horror of Dracula is nothing spectacular, but he wins by default for playing such an unusually significant role in the film; he’s Robin to Van Helsing’s Batman. In keeping with the film’s lack of reverence for Stoker, Arthur is not Lucy’s suitor but her (or, umm, “Mina’s”) brother and Mina’s (or, umm, “Lucy’s”) husband. Confused yet? Well, perhaps the calming presence of Michael Gough will sooth your over-taxed mind. He is, after all, quite likable.



Quincey Morris : Jack Taylor

Of all the main characters in Stoker’s book, none are left off the screen more often than Quincy P. Morris. According to imdb, there are only five Dracula films that include a Quincey character. This is possibly because there’s something kind of wrong about placing an American yahoo amongst all the British and Transylvanian aristocrats that are the main populace of Dracula. So, which Quincey wins? Let’s say Jack Taylor from Jess Franco’s extremely faithful 1970 version does. Don't say I never did anything for you, Jack Taylor.



So, there you have it. The ultimate Dracula cast. Now all we need is some Internet-savvy, film-editing wiz to build the ultimate Dracula film by cutting all these performances together. Get cracking, Internet-savvy, film-editing wiz.

Diary of the Dead 2010: Week 4

Week 4 of Psychobabble’s Monster Movie-a-thon...

October 15th

The Incredible Melting Man (1978- dir. William Sachs) **1/2

I watched The Incredible Melting Man on the recommendation of my friend Kevin, who pulled the film from his personal “Things That Scare Me” files. I can certainly see how an incredible astronaut who melts incredibly with the grotesque help of Rick Baker’s makeup effects might disturb a young kid. Someone seeing the movie for the first time as an adult is more likely to focus on the turgid acting, terrible script, and super ‘70s score. As dated, dopey camp, The Incredible Melting Man is pretty satisfying, especially whenever the astronaut starts tearing people apart. And a note to Ted’s wife: Ted likes crackers.

Inland Empire (2006- dir. David Lynch) *****

Calling David Lynch’s Inland Empire a horror movie is not exactly fair. The only superficially supernatural thing about the movie is a red herring subplot about a cursed film production. Yet this movie is one of the most frightening I’ve watched all month. Lynch professes to dislike horror movies, though I find it hard to believe he doesn’t realize how deeply scary this film’s atmosphere and some of its images are: Laura Dern racing toward the camera with her face twisted into a malevolent rictus, Dern’s hideously distorted face as she confronts a murderer, mysterious figures disappearing into dark recesses or unexpectedly confronting the viewer, the talking rabbits. Trying to sum up the “plot” of Inland Empire in a piece this brief is a little pointless, particularly because it is one of the least important facets of what is more an avant grade experiment than anything. As such, it’s not typical Halloween fare, but it still gives me a profound case of the creeps.

October 16th

From Beyond (1986- dir. Stuart Gordon) **1/2

Despite a groovy cast (Jeffrey Combs! Barbara Crampton! Ken Foree!) I didn’t like From Beyond nearly as much as the other Stuart Gordon movies I’ve seen. The plot—some Lovecraftian nonsense about the pineal gland, an S&M scientist, and flying jellyfish—is muddled and the S&M stuff is silly without being particularly funny. It’s kind of like a bad David Cronenberg movie. It’s still kind of nice to see Gordon, Combs, and Crampton working together again, though.

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958- dir. Edward L. Cahn) ***

Astronauts aboard a spacecraft are being murdered one-by-one by a towering, blood hungry alien. Sound familiar? Well, it ain’t the movie you think it is, Ridley Scott. This picture came out in 1958 with the tag-liney title It! The Terror from Beyond Space (where no one can hear you scream). The twist here is that no one knows a monster is responsible, so one of the space cowboys is suspected of old-fashioned, earthly murder. Good B-level sci-fi entertainment.

La Belle et La Bete (1946- dir. Jean Cocteau) *****

La Belle et La Bete isn’t a horror movie, but Jean Cocteau’s version of the “Beauty and the Beast” fairy tale is definitely a monster movie. With its combination of fury creatures and romance it isn’t too far removed from, say, The Wolf Man, and nothing in the latter movie is as genuinely creepy as the Beast’s surreal castle, with its candle sconce’s of human arms and living faces glaring back from its fireplace. Still La Belle et La Bete is a fairy tale at heart, and it is only rivaled by The Wizard of Oz as the most enchanting one ever brought to the big screen. The final moments are positively transcendent.

The Mummy’s Hand (1940- dir. Christy Cabanne) ***1/2

The first and best sequel to The Mummy is slight but great fun. It’s kind of like an Abbott and Costello movie without Abbott and Costello. The Mummy was one of the grimmer Universal Monster Movies, but The Mummy’s Hand is strictly lighthearted stuff. The wisecracking heroes—a pair of archaeologists, a magician and his trigger-happy daughter—are a likable bunch of Brooklynites adrift in Egypt. George Zucco’s weird guy with a fez and Tom Tyler’s shambling mummy are no substitute for Karloff though.

October 17th

Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974- dir. Roy Ward Baker) ****

Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is a blast, an audacious blend of two totally distinct yet totally different genres. In the Hammer horror corner we have a black-caped Dracula, striking color, strident music, and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. In the chopsocky corner we have a longhaired Kung Fu master, nonstop hand-to-hand combat, and some requisite bad dubbing (although, in this case, it is a perfectly sensible plot device). The interracial romances are unexpected in an early 70s B-movie such as this—and quite refreshing. I bet this movie gives Quentin Tarantino a boner.

The Invisible Man (1933- dir. James Whale) *****

I love this movie. Before production, James Whale must have sat his cast down and instructed them to act as insane as possible. Even Gloria Stuart, the relative straight-woman of the film, flies into hysterics on at least one occasion. And Una O’Connor basically reacts to everything she sees and hears as though she’s being ax-murdered. The photo of her Griffin’s room at the inn is hilarious too. Come for the special effects; stay for the deranged performances.

October 18th

The Crazies (1973- dir. George A. Romero) **1/2

Romero’s fourth feature is basically a “Living Dead” movie without the zombies. The more significant difference between The Crazies and his first and greatest film is that it focuses on the bureaucratic reaction to a plague that makes people go psycho more so than it focuses on a small clutch of folks fending for their lives (although there is one of those too). This means it’s less of a horror film and more of a political satire. The editing is exciting but it looks flat and the grade z acting is much more distracting than it was in Night of the Living Dead. Worth watching for Romero completists because of a scene with a sewing-needle wielding old lady. Others may not find it worth an hour and forty minutes of their lives.

The Omen (1975- dir. Richard Donner) ****

Around this time last year I watched The Exorcist, and for the first time, the movie often ranked as the scariest ever made struck me as kind of silly. I think that might be because there are actually people who believe the devil is real. Which is, you know, asinine. For that reason, Rosemary’s Baby holds up as the best devil movie because it keeps its tongue in its cheek even as it doles out sincere scares (“Hail Satan!”). Like The Exorcist, The Omen doesn’t have a funny bone in its demonic body, even though the movie’s final twist is that Damian’s mom is a dog. Which is, you know, asinine. And that priests have special powers for combating evil. Again, asinine. Silly as it is, The Omen is more fun than The Exorcist because it lacks the impossible-to-live-up-to reputation. So we’re left with the big screen’s most spectacular nanny suicide, great creepy performances from Billy Whitelaw and Harvey Stephens, that iconic soundtrack, a baboon siege, and the talent of Gregory Peck and David Warner to lend some credibility to all the satanic mumbo jumbo. Which is, you know, asinine.

October 19th

The Vampire Lovers (1970- dir. Roy Ward Baker) ****

Hammer screams “Fuck it… bring on the boobs!” from the mountaintops with its first full-on, unapologetic fusion of sexploitation and vampiresploitation. You know you’re in for a non-stop boob fest when Ingrid Pitt gets top billing. Fortunately, Pitt transcends that limited image with her energetic presence and committed acting. She plays a lusty vampiress who goes around biting and bedding everyone in sight. Well, everyone but Peter Cushing. That would be gross. The depiction of a predatory lesbian vampire is homophobic, but Pitt plays her with such humanity that she earns our empathy much more so than her vacant-eyed victim, whom she genuinely seems to love. Hammer execs probably would have been happy if The Vampire Lovers was nothing more than a static shot of cleavage for 90 minutes, yet it still manages to house all the atmosphere, color, production values, and fangy fun that made the studio great in the first place. In fact, with its black and white inserts, imaginative use of shadows, and fine sound design, The Vampire Lovers is more aesthetically creative than most Hammers. Check it out; then check out the brilliant parody “Vampire Lesbian Lovers of Lust” from Steve Coogan’s series “Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible”.

At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1963- dir. Jose Mojica Marins) **

Bizarre Brazilian splatter flick has the DIY gumption of a neighborhood spook house. Zé is an evil undertaker who goes around chopping off dude’s fingers and poking them in the eyes and forcing them to eat meat on Good Friday (!). He’s kind of like Mr. Hyde if Hyde never turned back into Jekyll. There’s not much plot, but there’s a big spider. It feels like a movie written and produced by junior high kids. Be sure to look out for the adorable kitten amid the “spooky” tableau behind the opening credits. Yeesh.

Tales from the Hood (1995- dir. Rusty Cundieff) ***1/2

Tales from the Hood has a lot to recommend it, even though it isn’t much fun. Despite a super-campy performance from Clarence Williams III as a sort of crypt keeper, the film is often downright depressing. It’s also mostly effective as unsettling creep-fest and social commentary in the E.C. Comics tradition. The first and final segments—one about a civil rights leader murdered by racist cops, the other an unbearably grim riff on A Clockwork Orange—are kind of messes. But the two central ones, in which a monster is used as a metaphor for an abusive stepfather and a racist politician essentially assumes the role Karen Black played in the classic “Prey” sequence of Trilogy of Terror, are clever, suspenseful little yarns. Like all portmanteaus, Tales from the Hood is not consistently great, but it is consistently compelling.

October 20th

The Black Sleep (1956- dir. Reginald LeBorg) ***

The first entry in this year’s Bela Lugosi Birthday Movie Marathon is pretty light on the Lugosi, who plays a mute butler with minimal screen time, but heavy on the Basil Rathbone, who stars as a brain-tinkering mad doc. His experiments reduce folks to weirdos palyed by the likes of Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, and Tor Johnson. Akim Tamiroff from Touch of Evil steals the show as a scheming artist. The Black Sleep is schlocky nonsense but worth watching for Rathbone and Tamiroff, the gruesome brain surgery effects, and the nifty sets loaded with secret passageways. And though Lugosi, Chaney, Carradine, and Johnson’s parts are little more than cameos, it’s still cool to see such a rogue’s gallery collected in a single picture.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948- dir. Charles Barton) *****

Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein played a greater role in my obsession with Universal Monster Movies than any serious entry in the genre. When my family got our first VCR, we had about five movies on tape, which I’d watch over and over and over. One of these was Abbott and Costello’s historic summit with the holy trinity of monsterdom. Getting to see Dracula and the Wolf Man and the Frankenstein Monster in a single film was an embarrassment of riches. The very kid-friendly humor of Bud Abbott and adult-child Lou Costello further sweetened a pot that was already most sugary. The movie holds up beautifully. Lou is as hilarious as he ever was, Lon Chaney Jr. is as manic as he ever was, and Bela Lugosi gets to play his most beloved character on the big screen for the second and final time. The animated credits sequence is sublime, as is the rest of the picture. The cinematic equivalent of comfort food.

White Zombie (1932- dir. Victor Halperin) ****

The dank odor of German Expressionism is all over White Zombie, with its weird shadows, skeletal graveyards, and floating, disembodied eyes. Bela Lugosi was never more diabolical than he was as elaborately manicured mesmerist ‘Murder’ Legendre. Definitely slow moving, White Zombie is either hypnotic or boring depending on ones personal taste. I opt for the former. The soundtrack, which includes pieces by Mussorgsky, Borch, and Wagner, as well as an original chant by Guy Bevier Williams, is superb.

October 21st

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974- dir. Terence Fisher) **1/2

The final entry in Hammer’s Frankenfranchise is probably best known for the negligible performance of David “Darth Vader” Prowse as the monster, who looks like a stitched-up troglodyte with lockjaw. Three years before he’d costar with Prowse in Star Wars, Peter Cushing plays the creator for the last time. Hammer’s Frankenstein films were rarely as interesting as the studio’s multitudinous Dracula pictures. This one gets off to a great start, percolating with wacko campiness and sicko humor, but it soon settles into the lethargy that plagued most of Hammer’s Frankensteins. Manages some dopey pathos toward the end, but overall, a washout.

Pin (1988- dir. Sandor Stern) ***1/2

Terry O’Quinn plays one of those ventriloquist doctors who throws his voice to bring an anatomical dummy to life. His son Leon witnesses dad’s nurse fucking the dummy. Dad later uses the dummy to give Leon a lesson on the birds and the bees. Needless to say, adult Leon (a very good David Hewlett) has some pretty unhealthy ideas about sex and dummies. Pin is a tough movie to get a handle on. I couldn’t decide if it was creepy or silly, low key or overwrought. It’s certainly a unique take on the Psycho/Peeping Tom-style thriller, yet less of a pure horror movie than either of those. I liked it.