THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Hammer Films, UK, 1957. Peter Cushing (Victor Frankenstein), Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart. Christopher Lee (The Creature), Melvyn Hayes, Valerie Gaunt. Screenplay: Jimmy Sangster, based on the novel by Mary Shelley. Director: Terence Fisher.

   The previous time I had seen Hammer’s Gothic classic, The Curse of Frankenstein, it was at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Screened in glorious 35mm as part of a Halloween lineup, the movie’s aesthetic definitely made an impression on me.

   Much like the Universal Monsters films from the 1930s, the Hammer Films have the capacity to transport the viewer into a self-enclosed universe of ghouls and monsters. Everything from the costumes to the lighting works in tandem to create a celluloid dreamworld that is – in my humble opinion – simply unmatched in contemporary horror film-making.

   So when I came across a VHS copy, I jumped at the chance. It wasn’t that expensive ($10), and the box is in relatively good condition. Plus, it’s got somewhat atypical cover art that admittedly captures Peter Cushing’s eyes quite well!

   Now there’s nothing new under the sun here in terms of storytelling. If you know the Frankenstein story (legend?), then you’re not going to be surprised by all that much. Young Baron Frankenstein (Cushing) hires Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart), a tutor to help him with his studies. As years go by, Frankenstein emerges as a scientific genius with a penchant for danger.

   It doesn’t take long for the tutor to disavow his former student’s desire to create life from death. Complicating matters even further is the entrance of the beautiful Elizabeth (Hazel Court), Frankenstein’s cousin who threatens to pull the mad doctor not only away from his work, but also from the chambermaid he’s been having an affair with!

   Christopher Lee doesn’t speak a word, but he’s quite convincing as the scarred, deformed, and ultimately tragic Frankenstein monster – or, as the film credits state, “The Creature.” There’s a great scene in which Baron Frankenstein lords over a chained and terrified Creature, reminding us just who the monster in this movie really is.

   I appreciated watching this one on VHS as it allowed me to focus a bit more on the characters than I did when I saw it at the New Beverly. Altogether, well worth the ten bucks.
   

FRIDAY THE 13th, PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN. Paramount Pictures, 1989. Todd Caldecott (as Todd Shaffer), Tiffany Paulsen, Timothy Burr Mirkovich, Kane Hodder, Jensen Daggett, Barbara Bingham, Alex Diakun, Peter Mark Richman, Ace. Screenwriters: Rob Hedden & Victor Miller. Director: Robert Hedden.

   Directed by Robert Hedden, this installment in the seemingly never-ending Friday the 13th franchise apparently was not a financial success. Which is kind of important for a movie such as this. After all, it’s never going to win an Oscar. So what else is there? While I enjoyed watching it on VHS – what better format for a movie such as this? – I can’t say that it left me wanting to watch it again in this format anytime soon.

   The main problem with Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is that, well, it’s all kind of flat. Jason, although portrayed with great physicality by Kane Hodder, doesn’t exactly take anything, much less Manhattan. In actuality, the majority of the screen time in this mid-tier slasher is devoted to Jason, the goalie mask-wearing unkillable villain, wreaking havoc on a New York-bound ship filled with teenagers. Now that’s not to say that there isn’t some style and penache to the movie. There is, for instance, a well choreographed kill scene on a dance floor. Death to disco indeed. But the Manhattan scenes come much later and, apart from a Times Square sequence, were pretty clearly filmed on a studio lot or some equivalent.

   The plot, such as it is, follows teenager Rennie (Jensen Daggett) and her guardian Charles McCulloch (Peter Mark Richman) as they embark on a group boat ride to New York City. Richman is an actor who I like a lot. Not sure how he ended up in this feature. But I’ve appreciated his numerous television appearances in the past, including in Three’s Company where he portrayed Chrissy’s father. He exudes a certain understated dryness which makes him stand out from the sundry other character actors of his generation.

   Back to the movie.

   Ok. Jason somehow – does it really matter? – ends up on board and begins his inevitable killing spree. There’s a subplot with one of the teenage girls entrapping McCullogh into a risque position which is then captured on good ol’ videocassette. But other than that, there’s nothing particularly interesting about what happens on board. Except that is for Rennie’s hallucinatory flashbacks in which she envisions a young innocent Jason drowning. Those moments were pretty cool, to be honest.

   Pretty standard mid-tier slasher stuff. Important to keep in mind: this entry into the Friday the 13th canon is from 1989. By then, the slasher formula had more or less run its course and there was little to nothing new under the sun. It wasn’t until Wes Craven’s Scream (1996) that the stale genre was given a much-needed reboot.
   

THE WALKING DEAD. Warner Brothers, 1936. Boris Karloff, Ricardo Cortez, Edmund Gwenn, Marguerite Churchill, Warren Hull, Barton MacLane, and Joe Sawyer. Written by Ewart Adamson, Peter Milne, Robert Hardy Andrews, Lillie Hayward, and Joseph Fields. Directed by Michael Curtiz.

   Formulaic but fun.

   Warners made a few Horror movies in the 1930s and 40s, some of them quite good, but even at their ghouliest, they never abandoned the tough-guy outlook that was the studio’s stock in trade. Mystery of the Wax Museum, Return of Dr X, The Smiling Ghost and even Beast with Five Fingers to some extent feature dense cops, detectives of varying competence, smart-ass reporters, hardened criminals, and underworld hangers-on. The Walking Dead is distinct from these only in that it features somewhat more organized crime, nicely reinforced by the stylish direction of Michael Curtiz.

   Karloff stars as John Elman, an ex-con who falls into the gears of mob-lawyer Ricardo Cortez’s scheme to rub out an uncooperative Judge, and ends up as the fall guy, fretting on Death Row while a young couple who witnessed the actual killing agonize over whether to come forward to clear him and risk the wrath of heavies like Barton MacLane and Joe Sawyer. There’s a beautifully-done and melancholy “last mile” walk to the hot seat – precursor to the similar trek in Angels with Dirty Faces — word from the Governor comes just as the lights go dim, and then….

   Well, it happens that the young couple who came too late to Elman’s rescue are in the employ of eccentric medico Edmond Gwenn, who has just kept a human heart beating outside the body for two weeks and is eager to try a Revival Meeting with Elman’s corpse.

   I use the term “Revival Meeting” because there is a strong spiritual component to the last half of this film. The revived man now knows who framed him, and exerts a frightening influence over the nasties that lead to some not-always-convincing fatal accidents. At the same time, Doctor Gwenn is pressuring him for details about things on “the other side” and the source of Elman’s newfound powers.

   Karloff sports a frizzy hairdo with a shocking white streak for this part, and walks with the eerie, half-paralyzed shuffle later adopted by Kharis. How much of this is due to his acting or to Curtiz’ direction may be debatable, but the result is quite effective, and the film itself moves along so fast there’s no time to get used to it. It’s a case of actor, director and studio at the top of their form, and a film not to be missed.

THE UNDYING MONSTER. 20th Century/Fox, 1942. James Ellison, Heather Angel, John Howard, Bramwell Fletcher, Heather Thatcher, Aubrey Mather. Based on the novel (1922) by Jessie Douglas Kerruish. Director: John Brahm.

   The Undying Monster offers that archetypal cowboy of the Hoppy films, Jimmy Ellison, as a Scotland Yard forensic investigator (!) assisted by Heather Thatcher as a distaff Watson, looking into the Mysterious Curse that haunts John Howard (a Ronald Colman look-alike who starred in Paramount’s Bulldog Drummond series) and his sister, Heather Angel.

   This is an oddity: A Werewolf movie almost totally lacking in excitement. It’s directed by John Brahm, a director who had his moments (Hangover Square, The Lodger, Guest in the House),  so it’s not without some atmosphere and plenty of nifty camerawork, but overall, there’s just too little going on to sustain it.

THE CLIMAX.  Universal Pictures, 1944. Boris Karloff, Susanna Foster, Turhan Bey, Thomas Gomez, Gail Sondergaard, George Dolenz, June Vincent, Ludwig Stossel, Scotty Beckett. Screenplay by Curt Siodmak and Lynn Starling based on the play by Edward Locke. Directed by George Waggner.

   What do you do when you have lavish opera house sets left over after making a major production like Universal’s remake of The Phantom of the Opera with Claude Rains in the lead?

   If you are Universal Studio in the Forties you make another horror movie with an operatic background capitalizing on those sets, film it in Technicolor as you did the first, and fill it with familiar faces and best of all a famous horror star to lead, Boris Karloff.

   The Climax for reasons unknown to me is one I had never even heard of before, much less seen, and while it is, like the Claude Rains Phantom, as much musical romance with comedy elements as horror or mystery, it is still well worth seeing for it handsome sets, and variations on the original.

   We know from the beginning, so no spoilers are involved, that Dr. Friedrich Hohner (Karloff) the physician who cares for the performers at the opera house murdered the beautiful soprano Marcellina (June Vincent) and hid her body using the secret passage between the opera and his nearby dwelling so it appeared she ran off. He was her rejected lover, and furious that her voice gave her such fame it was taking her away from him.

   He is, of course, quietly mad in only the way Boris Karloff could be quietly mad, but it is nice to see him getting to be so in white tie and tails in beautiful Technicolor lush surroundings and not so much as a mad scientist hair out of place. He must have appreciated the change too because there is no sense of overacting to his subtle, and more threatening for it, killer even when he finally cracks.

   I suppose for many that was a drawback, but I for one appreciated the break.

   Enter the beautiful soprano Angela Klatt (God that name!) played by Susanna Foster and her musical coach and young want to be lover Franz Munzer (Turhan Bey). They are auditioning at the opera house operated by director Thomas Gomez when Hohner overhears Angela singing exactly as Marcellina did and passes out in a dead faint.

   Not too shocking considering he murdered her to silence that hated voice.

   Gomez, who is of course having trouble with his annoying current Diva Jarmilla (Jane Farrar) and obsequious tenor (George Dolenz), is delighted to have such a great talent at hand and immediately cast her in a key role in his current production. Her debut is brilliant, and with its success Gomez determines to produce again the opera Marcellina was to star in when she disappeared.

   But unknown to any of them the night of her debut Hohner convinces Angela to come back to his office where he must examine her after her performance and there he hypnotizes her telling her only he can control her voice and gives her a spray which reinforces his hypnotic suggestion each time she uses it.

   When she leaves he goes upstairs to the locked room where the beautifully preserved body of Marcellina is kept on a filmy tier among lush satin curtains and swears he will destroy the voice that once took her away from him again.

   At the press affair announcing the new production her voice does fail, and Karloff suggests she must stay with him while she recovers. But of course under his hand she does not recover.

   Munzer is suspicious though. With the help of old soldier and opera employee Carl Bauman (Ludwig Stossel) Munzer sets out to free Angela though he has no idea from what exactly. When Gomez reluctantly cancels Angela’s performance, Munzer and Carl, using Carl’s status as a highly decorated soldier get the boy king (Scotty Beckett) to order Angela perform at a command performance.

   With the help of Carl and Hohner’s housemaid (Gale Sondergaard) who had been Marcellina’s maid and worked all these years for Hohner hoping to prove he murdered her mistress, Munzer gets Angela away from Hohner and summons the police.

   At the opera Munzer smashes the bottle of throat spray freeing Angela from Hohner’s hypnotic grip, but just as she begins to sing Hohner overpowers Carl and …

   For most of you, I assume there will be far too much light operatic singing, too many musical numbers, nowhere near enough suspense, horror, or drama, and while attractive neither Bey nor Foster quite romantic enough to compensate, but despite that the film is handsomely produced, well directed and written, and has a certain charm of its own. Sans the big dramatic moments of Phantom I frankly liked it a bit more than the Rains film, maybe because I didn’t have to put up with Nelson Eddy or Edgar Barrier chewing scenery or compare it to the Chaney original.

   It’s a curious little film, something different on Karloff’s resume, and one I suspect he enjoyed filming having a decent budget for once, elegant costume, and no prosthetic make up to suffer under. There is something to be said for getting to see a master flex his muscles without breaking a sweat.

WRONG TURN. Saban Films, 2021. Charlotte Vega, Adain Bradley, Bill Sage, Emma Dumont, Dylan McTee, Daisy Head, Matthew Modine. Director: Mike P. Nelson. Currently streaming on Showtime.

   From the trailer, you’d think that this was primarily a political film about the so-called divide between the rural and urban parts of the country. But it’s not. Not in the way one might expect. If anything, Wrong Turn – a reboot of the eponymous film series that began in the early 2000s – is a surprisingly clever backwoods thriller that upends expectations at nearly every turn (pun intended).

   Matthew Modine, who older viewers will always remember as the iconic Private Joker in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987), portrays Scott Shaw, a suburban Dad in search of his daughter Jen (Charlotte Vega). She, along with her friends, have gone missing along the Appalachian Trail in western Virginia.

   Without giving too much away, let’s just say that Jen and her friends, when they strayed from the path, found themselves amongst a bizarre mountaintop cult. With echoes of The Wicker Man (1973) and the first season of True Detective, this effectively creepy horror film plays with the viewers expectations of what is about to happen and then radically subverts them. It’s a well shot film, as well. One that imposes a claustrophobic sense of doom on the proceedings.

   Unfortunately, due to the ongoing COVID pandemic, Wrong Turn   played theatrically for only one night. It deserved better. If you happen to get a chance to see it streaming, it’s worth a look. It’s not a classic in the making, but it’s certainly well above average and doesn’t overly insult the viewer’s intelligence.

   One caveat. The first fifteen minutes or so can be exceedingly tedious. This is because one gets the sense that the entire movie will be a “hipsters versus rednecks” scenario. Trust me. It’s not. It is significantly more thoughtful than that, even if the ultimate statement the movie intends to make is ultimately muddled.

THE STEPFATHER. Screen Gems / Sony, 2009. Dylan Walsh, Sela Ward, Penn Badgley, Amber Heard, Sherry Stringfield, Paige Turco. Screenplay by J.S. Cardone, based on a earlier screenplay by Donald E. Westlake. Director: Nelson McCormick.

   Let me be upfront. The Stepfather, a tepid remake of the eponymous 1987 cult film about a serial killer who repeatedly invites himself into people’s families, is not a particularly good movie. It’s formulaic, predictable, and easily forgettable. But it has an undeniable shlock charm to it. It may be silly, but it moves at a rapid clip. So much so that the movie’s glaring weaknesses don’t become truly obvious until it’s all over.

   Case in point: there are a few moments in The Stepfather, at least in the first thirty minutes or so, in which the suspense morphs into parody. Indeed, there were a few scenes in which I imagined being in a theater watching the movie and hearing teenagers and twenty-somethings snicker uncontrollably at the proceedings. But for the last hour or so, the movie takes on a more serious – and sinister – tone and these sequences are easily relegated to one’s cinematic memory hole.

   The plot is threadbare. Serial killer and all-around weirdo Grady Edwards/David Harris (Dylan Walsh) has a habit of going from place to place and finding single moms to charm. Soon enough, he’s the new stepfather in town. That is, until the children disappoint his exacting parental standards. Then off he goes on a murderous rampage.

   His latest target is the exceptionally naïve Susan Kerns Harding (Sela Ward) and her two young children. Little does he know that Susan also has a wayward teenage son off at military school who may not be so eager to put up with his nonsense. Enter Michael Harding (Penn Badgley) who turns out to be the one rational actor in the whole affair, especially in comparison to his cloying and annoying girlfriend Kelly Porter (Amber Heard), whose only role in the movie seems to be to cast doubt on Michael’s suspicions that his newfound stepdad is a killer.

   There really aren’t any surprises in the movie. And my summary of the plot doesn’t really give away any spoilers. We know from the first scene in the film that the stepfather is a murderous creep. This takes away the “is he or isn’t he” suspense which could have made this a taut and thrilling movie.

   As it is, The Stepfather is little more than fleetingly mediocre entertainment. Not particularly offensive. But not particularly good, either.

THE BLACK SLEEP. Bel-Air Productions/United Artists, 1956. Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney, John Carradine, Bela Lugosi, Herbert Rudley, Patricia Blake, Phyllis Stanley, Tor Johnson. Director: Reginald Le Borg.

   The eponymous black sleep in the movie’s title is not a state of being. Rather, it is a thing – a fictional mysterious potion from the Indian subcontinent that puts its users into a deep, quasi-hypnotic state. It’s therefore fittingly ironic that a movie about a sleep-inducing substance is, for the first thirty minutes or so, rather soporific itself.

   Despite the best efforts of the always enjoyable Basil Rathbone to liven things up with philosophical speeches about medicine and the human condition, the first half of The Black Sleep is a stilted, talky affair.

   All that changes in the second half. That’s when this Bel-Air production decides to let its inhibitions fall asunder and for schlocky insanity to ensue. How insane, you ask? Let’s just say that John Carradine portrays a stark raving madman locked in a basement dungeon who believes he is a Crusader out to conquer Jerusalem.

   Like many other horror films from the late 1950s and early 1960s, The Black Sleep is set in Victorian England. Rathbone portrays Sir Joel Cadman, an esteemed surgeon who embarks on a series of highly unethical medical experiments on live human subjects. He has his reasons, of course. His beloved wife has been in a coma for months and he believes that, with the right among of experimentation on others, he can find a way to successfully operate on her and bring her back to full life.

   Cadman, in a conniving manner, enlists the aid of Dr. Gordon Ramsay (Herbert Rudley) to further his work. It’s only a matter of time, however, before Ramsay learns the true nature of Cadman’s vicious work.

   The true star of this horror film, however, is neither Rathbone nor Rudley. That honor goes to veteran character actor Akim Tamiroff. Here, he portrays Odo, a Romani tattoo artist in cahoots with Sir Joel (Rathbone). With a smile a mile wide and his notable South Caucasian accent, Tamiroff chews the scenery and makes the whole affair far livelier than it would have been in his absence.

   Final word about the billing: aside from John Carradine, the movie also has two other horror greats listed in the cast; namely, Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi. Neither actor has any lines. Chaney portrays a brute whose brain and mind were destroyed by Cadman’s experiments, while Lugosi portrays Cadman’s mute butler.

   It’s always nice to see these greats on screen, but there’s something obviously very sad about how low both actors’ star powers had fallen by the mid-1950s. This was to be Lugosi’s last complete cinematic role, excepting the truly atrocious Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957).

BLACK MOON. Columbia Pictures, 1934. Jack Holt, Fay Wray, Dorothy Burgess, Clarence Muse. Screenplay: Clement Ripley & Wells Root. Directed by Roy William Neill.

   Despite the attitudes of the time, this Columbia horror film is almost a companion piece to Val Lewton’s classic, I Walked With a Zombie, and an effective and suspenseful tale of horror and mystery.

   Jack Holt is well to do businessman Stephen Lane, married to the mysterious Juanita Perez (Dorothy Burgess) who is obsessed with the voodoo culture of the island where she grew up. As the film opens she is playing the voodoo drum for their young child Nancy (Cora Sue Collins), while downstairs a psychiatrist warns Stephen to let her obsession play out on its own, causing him to put off joining her on her planned return to visit her plantation owner Uncle Dr. Raymond Perez (Arnold Korff) who raised her after her parents were killed in a native uprising.

   The next day Stephen’s secretary Gail Hamilton (Fay Wray) presents him with the passports needed, adding that she would like to resign because of a romantic entanglement, not telling him that reason is that she is helplessly in love with him, but he persuades her she is needed by his wife and she reluctantly agrees to accompany her to the island.

   Meanwhile Juanita loses her temper when a friend of her Uncle tries to prevent her from going to the island. Things are bad there, and her presence can only make things worse. While a child there it seems that she became deeply involved in voodoo ceremony thanks to a black nursemaid Ruva (Madame Sul-Te-Wan) and the local voodoo priest Kala (Laurence Criner). Her Uncle fears for her safety and sanity.

   Turns out he is right.

   Once on the island things proceed to get worse. Gail is frightened for Nancy and Anna (Eleanor Wesslehoeft), Nancy’s nurse, clashes with Ruva. When Gail cables Stephen to hurry to the island the native who sent the cable is murdered.

   Stephen arrives on a schooner captained by an American, “Lunch” McClaren (Clarence Muse) who is going to marry a local girl and warns Stephen the locals are in a dangerous mood. Stephen’s arrival is joyful for his daughter and a relief for Gail, but only for a short time. Anna has died in an unlikely accident and now Ruva is Nancy’s new nurse.

   Meanwhile Juanita has gone completely native as the priestess of the voodoo religion.

   When Lunch asks Stephen’s help to try and rescue his girl friend who is the sacrifice for that nights ceremony he witnesses Juanita in her guise as priestess before shooting and wounding Kala. Having failed to kill the high priest they now face an uprising as Juanita wants Nancy and plans to sacrifice Stephen and Gail. Forced to barricade themselves in the house they are driven out by a fire. Dr. Perez and Lunch escape but Nancy, her father and Gail are taken.

   Perez and Lunch manage to rescue the adults, but Nancy is still with her mother, and now the high priest has chosen to sacrifice the child with Juanita wielding the blade.

   Stephen and Lunch return for the child, will they be in time, will Juanita sacrifice her own child in her maddened hypnotic state…

   With an intelligent screenplay by Clement Ripley and Wells Root, atmospheric direction by the always interesting Roy William Neill, and a good cast, the film builds fine suspense, a real sense of impending doom. True Holt is a bit too old and stout, but he’s always good as a stalwart hero. Fay Wray doesn’t have much to do but look scared and pretty, and she does that just fine. Dorothy Burgess is quite good as the increasingly mad and cruel Mrs. Lane.

   More interesting for a film of this time is Clarence Muse. Despite his nickname “Lunch,” he is far from the usual comedy relief. In fact, other than a few lines his role is absolutely straight and courageous. He doesn’t have a single scene when he shows any more fear or concern than anyone else in the film, in fact he is the hero’s greatest ally, far more competent and intelligent than the white sidekicks in most films, all of which is unusual for a film from this era and goes someways from the simple superstitious natives in revolt elements of the plot.

   In fact, Dr. Perez is hardly presented as a Colonial paragon, and the screenplay brings out that he and those who came before him have oppressed the locals and driven them to extremes, nor or Ruva or Kala punished for their roles in the revolt, something fairly remarkable considering the fate of most such characters even in films today (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).

   Black Moon isn’t a perfect film. It meanders here and there, the screenplay could use tightening, it doesn’t always live up to Neill’s atmospherics and inventive camera work, but on the whole it is a terrific little movie that compares well to Lewton’s more masterful I Walked With a Zombie.

THE NIGHT WALKER. Universal Pictures, 1964. Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, Judith Meredith, Hayden Rorke. Rochelle Hudson. Opening narration: Paul Frees. Screenplay: Robert Bloch. Director: William Castle.

   â€œ…when you dream, you become … a Night Walker!” Or so goes the closing line of the opening narration, by the voice that also often did the lead-in to Escape, the greatest suspense radio show of all time. Sorry to say, in spite of all the talent that was involved in the making of this movie, it’s all downhill from here.

   It might have the murky reception our local cable company gives us of WTBS, but I think the plot was pretty murky to begin with. Barbara Stanwyck is married to an older man, rich, blind, and jealous – a dangerous combination — who, from overhearing her talk in her sleep, accuses her of having an affair with another man. He strikes her, she leaves, he goes upstairs and immediately dies in a laboratory explosion.

   Is she free? Not exactly. She begins to have nightmares, nightmares so real she is convinced they really are. Robert Taylor, who was her husband’s lawyer, is sympathetic, but he’ s hard to convince that she is doing nothing but dreaming. In the meantime, visions of Irene’s dead husband, even more badly disfigured than before, continue to haunt her.

   Is it real or is it all a dream? With Robert Bloch’s credentials as a combination fantasy/horror/mystery writer, it’s impossible to say in advance. Unfortunately, it was also almost impossible for me to stay awake. I’m awake now, but I really don’t think this movie will keep me awake later.

   I think that dreams are too personal to bring them very effectively to the screen. It’s been done, but with bigger budgets than this. Phony-looking make-up jobs and spinning cameras just don’t cut it, at least not any more.