Dr. Phibes Rises Again

  

Dr. Phibes Rises Again
1972
Robert Fuest

Dr. Phibes (Vincent Price) literally rises from suspended animation again a mere three years after the events of The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971). Summoning a new assistant who’s face he didn’t melt off, the pair work to get Phibes’ dead wife, Victoria, to Egypt where the legendary River Life will be accessible for the first time in 2,000 years. The river can reportedly resurrect her and grant them both eternal lives. Another villain is looking for the same thing, one Mr. Darius Biederbeck (Robert Quarry), will he outsmart, Phibes?

Dr. Phibes Rises Again follows the same basic structure of The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Phibes bumps off various people through amusing disguises and themes. This time around it’s a number of elements from Egyptian mythology rather than plagues. The added spice in this outing is that we now have a competitor for the same goal, which should theoretically up the tension, but there is no question that Phibes is going to succeed. Phibes is far cleverer than anyone else and you want him to succeed, sure he’s a murderer but he’s doing for the love of his wife.

 

"Do you mind? I'm trying to play."

 

The character of Dr. Phibes is a tribute to the power of Price’s acting. Denied his one of his strongest acting tools, his voice, Phibes can only speak through an amplifier when he has access to one, otherwise he is forced to emote through his physicality. Despite these restrictions, Price still crafts a marvelous character. The rest of the cast is fine, but it’s hard to make much of an impression when you have Price dominating every scene he is in. This does create the problem with his nemesis, Biederbeck who is always one step behind and barely registers as a threat. I feel it would have been more interesting to have him be Phibes’ equal in every way.

While The Abominable Dr. Phibes reveled in deliberately arty and beautiful compositions, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, is a definite step down in that respect. It is still a beautiful and interesting film, but the methods of killing Phibes' enemies aren’t as creative and strange. There is a grandiosity that this film brings to its horror scenes that sits wonderfully at odds with strange and violent deaths that befall the victims. It is hard to escape the fact that Dr. Phibes Rises Again is a paler imitation of The Abominable Dr. Phibes but that still means it’s only slightly less brilliant.

 

What it feels like when you have anxiety
but also want to order a pizza.

 

Fans of Vincent Price and classic horror and going to have a great time. If you are a hopeless romantic, you might even find something here for you.  If you are a Saw franchise enthusiast, you can definitely see the DNA from this series in those films and I think you will find something to enjoy. Dr. Phibes Rises Again struggles a little to capture the magic of The Abominable Dr. Phibes, it still manages to be an enjoyable film in its own right.

Dr. Frankenstein on Campus

 

Dr. Frankenstein on Campus (aka Flick)
1970
Gilbert W. Taylor

Dr. Frankenstein on Campus isn’t a very good Frankenstein movie or even a horror movie, but it excels as a time capsule of the end of the hippie era and the beginning of the great dissolution in that culture that would lead to hedonistic excesses of the 1970s and the real horror of the Regan led 1980s. It is such a strange little pretentious mess that it is frustrating but also engaging thought its flourishes and high camp.

The film opens with a Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Robin Ward) dueling and subsequently being thrown out of his university. He runs off to Canada to study brain control technology with another Professor. Victor uses this technology to turn rivals into killing machines who murder those who displease him. Frankenstein also seems very averse to taking his shirt off or indulging in drinking or drugs. I wonder why?

Dr. Frankenstein on Campus thinks it is a very clever movie, it sets out to subvert the typical Frankenstein movie tropes. There is no apparent monster, there is no lurking around in graveyards or gothic atmosphere at all. It replaces all of that that with a sneering look at youth counterculture. Frankenstein is both immersed in this culture and an abject enemy of it, which brings us to the biggest problem in the film and that is Frankenstein’s characterization. He is by terms a charming person, an unreasonable snob, and then a monstrous criminal. There never feels like a connecting thread to these changes in personality, it inconsistent and distracting.

The most 70s face.

 

The saving grace of  Dr. Frankenstein on Campus is its campy nature, in particular the musical choices which give the film a film a comedic air while the content of the film is played straight for the most part. I can’t tell how much of this was intentional versus how much of it just hasn’t aged well at all. The effect of viewing in modern day creating a juxtaposition of elements that it is far and away the most interesting thing in a film that is slow and pretentious.

Spoiler territory ahead.

So, in the end it turns out that Victor Frankenstein was not in fact the doctor by the creature. The film drops some hints by having Frankenstein never indulging in drugs or alcohol and never wanting to take off his clothes in front of anyone else. The reveal scene of his body, covered in stitches that slowly start popping, is the only truly horrific scene in the entire film. It’s a clever moment and the fact that it goes on for so long and forces the viewer to sit there and watch this gross scene unfold is just the touch of sadism the rest of the film could have benefited from.

 

Yeah, I had a chemistry test like that too.

 

If you are in the mood for horror, I don’t think Dr. Frankenstein on Campus will satisfy you. If you are in the mood for a weird mess then I would definitely give this a look.

(I have no idea why this movie was originally titled Flick.)
 

Malatesta's Carnival of Blood

 

Malatesta's Carnival of Blood
1973
Christopher Speeth

Italian horror cinema of the 1970s and 1980s is well known for its surreal approach to the genre. Story elements trade narrative clarity for a twisting dream logic punctuated with heightened gore sequences. Less celebrated but just as interesting and surreal are a number of small American horror films from this same period. Malatesta’s Carnival or Horror was lost for decades until the 2000s when the director released his film independently, and thankfully so because we have a film that can join Messiah of Evil (1973) in the ranks of nightmarish horror films from this era.

Malatesta's Carnival of Blood lives in the dingy dark places that lurk behind the scenes at a carnival. While the outside of the carnival is off putting, what is lurking behind the scenes is almost unthinkable to everyday human experience; strange magicians, hordes of cannibals stuck watching only silent movies, and a series of caves holding ancient things. Walking into this are the Norrises (Paul Hostetler and Betsy Henn) posing as carnival workers but really there to look for their missing daughter. They will not like what they find.

 

"Children of the night, what music they maaaaaaaa..."

  

Malatesta's Carnival of Blood exists a series of scenes that often only feel tangentially related to each other, plot elements weave in and out of each other ans don't start to coalesce until much later in the story. Like a dream there are many questions that are left unanswered by the end. While the couple searching for their daughter is the main(?) narrative element, we have a few others including a vampire curse, the history of the carnival, and a young man (Paul Townsend) facing his disillusionment with his job as a carnival barker. We also get a cult celebrity Hervé Villechaize as a poetry reciting prophet of sorts.

Performances all around are good. The standout being Blood (Jerome Dempsey), who is just as sinister as he appears to be but is also given a tragic background that I can’t say exactly humanizes him but it does give him a humanity of sorts. Malatesta himself is suitably evil and mysterious, I especially enjoyed that not only is his face hidden until well into the film, but we’re also never sure if it’s actually him. Malatesta is gifted with many faces and some of them are quite dangerous. He never seems fully human and it is effectively creepy in the way that it is presented. The carnival itself is its own character, a being lingering before death that reaches out to consume what it can to stay alive just a little longer. 

 

"I know where this anime is going."

 

Malatesta's Carnival of Blood is a fantastic slow burn of a film that grows increasingly strange and dreamlike. The carnival is a common place for horror films to be set and this film makes great use of the decrepit surroundings and the even dingier behind the scenes places where the real horror takes root. This is a great example of what low budget indie horror can achieve. Highly recommended.

Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century

 

Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century
1977
Gianfranco Parolini

Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century is a wonderfully absurd cash-in on both the Bigfoot craze of the 1970s and the big budget remake of King Kong (1976). The movie moves from goofy moment to goofy moment with an abandon that makes it into a comedy on the level of Airplane (1980) at times. There is a refreshing lack of realism and rationality (and skill) on display during its runtime as the movie bounces between back and forth between violent monster flick and silly kiddie fare.

There is something very cartoonish about the opening act where a wealthy entrepreneur attempts to transport and thaw out a huge icebound figure who looks like he’s been dragged out of a nearby Scooby-Doo cartoon. What they do manage to unfreeze is a giant man with fantastic hair. Kaiju moves are almost always stretching suspension of disbelief. Monster costuming bridges that gap between real and unreal, so when this Yeti looks just like a guy with a mane of blonde hair it becomes increasingly difficult to take anything seriously.

 

"Get this guy a towel!"

 

Not that this movie seems terribly interested in being serious (until it does). The Yeti takes a liking to a collie who seems more disinterested than frightened. He also makes a woman comb is his luscious hair with a giant fish skeleton and shows an affinity for hairspray. This mirrors virtually any version of King Kong where early on, Kong and whatever woman he’s run off with have bonded over some minor adventure, but here, it’s taken to a level of absurdity. The movie keeps insisting that he Yeti has a hard time breathing because of… I’m not really sure. Presumably the air is much thinner way up in the Himalayas where he lives, so coming down to ground level he should be giddy from oxygen density, but the opposite happens here. Thankfully the movie at no point attempts to engage in anything like accurate science so I’m going to let this one slide.

As is tradition in giant monster movies, the size of the Yeti varies greatly as the movie progresses. Sometimes he’s 20 feet tall and others he seems to tower well over 50. The Yeti is brought to life through large scale props and optical effects. It is never brought to life convincingly, but after a while this becomes part of the charm of the whole affair.

 

"Thanks for the towel!"

  

Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century is a silly mess, it is neither a good monster movie nor a good children’s film. Despite its many flaws, the movie glides by from moment to moment in such a carefree way that it is difficult to not get caught up in the fun. Sure it is shoddily made and needed several more passes on the script before it could have become something good, that doesn’t mean it isn’t an enjoyable experience.

With the 2020s being the way they are a visit to the Giant of the 20th Century really is a nice place to visit.

Snow Beast

 Snow Beast
1977
Herb Wallerstein

It’s Jaws (1975). Look if you made a movie post 1975 about a monster running rampant, you almost certainly patterned it after the film that not only was a monumental cultural touchstone but made buckets of cash-in the process. Why mess with success? Killer animals were big business, this coupled with Bigfoot and other cryptids rising to popularity in the 1970s as part of the overall interest in paranormal and UFOs, an Abominable Snowman horror film was inevitable. Television movies arguably also hit their peak in the 1970s so the fact that Snow Beast was also TV movie makes it a triple threat of 1970s pop culture.

If you are familiar with the plot structure of Jaws, Snow Beast follows it almost perfectly. There is a resort town under attack from an unseen creature. Rather than close the resort and risk losing a lot of money the owners keep it open and risk a lot of lives. No one really believes what is happening until it is too late, and lives are lost. Things escalate until we get a trio of people isolated and facing off an increasingly pissed off monster on its turf.

 

"HAIRBRUSH!"

 

Is it scary? I mean, not really. I imagine if you were a kid in 1977 this might have frightened you at the time, but it is tame by virtually any standard. Where Jaws has an extremely lean story and quick pacing, Snow Beast feels much more leaden, in part because it must occasionally drop in a cliffhanger to cut to commercial. This means it needs to get the pace back up to speed every so often eating up more screen time than it can afford. No one in 1977 figured people would be rewatching this film in one go almost fifty years later, so I can forgive this as just a quirk of the format, regardless of that, it still has impact on the story.

Another strength of Jaws could draw enjoyment simply by watching its central characters interact, Snow Beast does not have this luxury. Gar (Bo Svenson) is probably the most interesting of the main trio, by virtue he is an Olympic skier who is not only out of work but afraid to competitively ski again for fear of not living up to his past success. The plot even draws on this during the climax. None of the other characters have any real arc and I struggle to remember even who they were. That's okay, you're really here for the yeti who sports a wonderfully monstrous look. 

Gar (center) and uh... those those two people.

 

If you want a good yeti movie, Snow Beast is watchable but only just so, it is hampered by flat characters and slow pace. If you want to watch Snow Beast a taste of 1970s ephemera, you will find much more to enjoy here from the look of it to how it draws from Jaws and the then cultural obsession with Bigfoot and yetis. Good yeti movies are few and far between and Snow Beast never really manages to rise about mediocre.

Satanic Summertime Blues

It’s a notable sign of the times when watching a summer filled with satanic cults, possessions and even the arch fiend himself feels like a fun vacation compared to the world outside. I’m not religious in the slightest, so I can only imagine that someone more devout would take things away from these films that I don't. In the end though a horror film is about the violation of autonomy, and satanic movies are no different. Each and everyone one of these films is about the intrusion of an inherently transgressive force, in this case, they are dressed up in the costuming of Christianity. For most of these films, the religious nature of its antagonist is really just set dressing, Satan and western religion are an easy shorthand for good and evil that most people in the audience will be familiar with. What is particular to many of these films is was how they are centered on the loss of self. The horror of these films tended to be very personal in the nature, I assumed we would be hitting some apocalyptic stories but in most of them the stakes are surprisingly low, a family, some random kid, or a village were threatened, but rarely the whole world. Maybe that’s why they seemed almost cozy in the light of an ongoing global pandemic.

Best Film: The Black Cat

Worst Film: Satan’s Cheerleaders

Weirdest Film: Night Vision

Biggest Surprise: Beyond the Door

Satanic Summer

976-Evil (1988)

Beyond the Door (1975)

The Black Cat (1934)

Brotherhood of Satan (1971)

Fear No Evil (1981)

Legacy of Satan (1974)

Night Vision (1987)

Race with the Devil (1975)

Satanic Attraction (1989)

Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977)

Satan’s Storybook (1989)

The Whip Against Satan (1979)

Beyond the Door

Beyond the Door (Chi sei?)
1975
Franco Micalizzi

In the wake of The Exorcist (1973), there was a flood of possession movies. None of them were going to be able to match the precision of that film but what they could do was go push the transgressive content. Many of these films opted for an adult central character so that they could go further with the sex, others upped the supernatural content to include more demonic events, more gore, and more colorful vomit. Probably the greatest of these cash-ins is Beyond the Door. Its ethos is to be The Exorcist but even more so (to the point where they were successfully sued by Warner Bros).

The plot is, at first, a pretty standard affair. Dimitri (Richard Johnson) in debt to Satan must ensure that Jessica (Juliet Mills) gives birth to the Antichrist or else he will die and go to hell. Jessica starts to act strangely as it becomes more and more apparent that the unnatural baby in her womb is in fact a demonic force. Also there is something about nose flute and toy car.

Dukes of Hazzard: Requiem

Opening with a florid voiceover from presumably Satan himself, Beyond the Door sets an odd tone right from the start. There is an undeniable thread of weird humor in the film, a little boy is drinking pea soup out a can, a young girl curses like sailor for some reason, there is even a lengthy musical interlude as Robert is surrounded by street performers in a scene that I think is supposed to be unsettling but somehow lands on weirdly joyous.

There are also some effective horror moments, the breathing and roaring walls, Jessica going through some familiar (aka lifted directly from The Exorcist) demonic shenanigans, but it’s pushed to an extreme; buckets of vomit, creepy sexuality, and spooky moans fill the film. Imagine the relatively somber Exorcist but given a comic book makeover. The religious horror is played with zero reverence for religion but 100% reverence for shocking the audience.

"Got anymore of those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pudding pies?"

One of the quirkiest and perhaps greatest elements of Beyond the Door is the soundtrack. A mix of soul-funk and bizarre electronics. Italian films have a history of filling their horror films with funky tunes that most people wouldn’t associate with anything spooky, and somehow it works. Often in film, music informs the viewer how they are supposed to feel. A sad moment will have mournful music, a triumphant one will have an appropriately triumphant tune. Most horror films will have deep bass or atonal strings to indicate that something unsettling is happening. What happens when a film hits you with a funky bassline during the middle of tense scene of unholy evil? The viewer is left uncertain, suddenly you’re not being told how to you are supposed to deal with the scene. I think it works as an antidote to the often-blatant manipulation of traditional music scores.

Beyond the Door is a marvelously strange film that might have begun as a straight-up rip-off of The Exorcist but takes on a life of its own through its sheer strangeness. A wonderful film and highly recommended.

The Whip Against Satan

The Whip Against Satan (aka El látigo contra Satanás)
1979
Alfredo B. Crevenna

The Whip (Juan Miranda) is kind of like Zorro if a) Zorro wasn’t charismatic and b) Zorro had a secret identity as a guy who takes advantage of locals by selling them hair tonic and snake oil. Also, by kind of like Zorro, I also mean he dresses exactly like Zorro but instead of a sword he uses and ineffective whip that he is constantly cracking throughout the entire film. The opening montage is at least a solid minute of The Whip (I don’t recall him actually being called that at any point in the movie) stand around at various places and snapping his well, whip. It goes on for so long it becomes ridiculous.

The Whip finds himself in a small town that is beset by someone calling himself Satan who has a gang that is running people off their land. It also has a witch who is in the crosshairs of some local religious zealots who want to hang her. If that wasn’t bad enough there is also an active volcano that shakes the place up once and while. I don’t know why anyone lives there; it seems like a hassle. Who is the mysterious Satan and why is terrorizing this town? 

"Ew... sulfur."

When The Whip Against Satan is working it carries with it a moody aesthetic, from the empty stretches, the dying town, to the red glow of the caves under the volcano there is some delicious gothic place setting happening here. The near constant rumble of the volcano lends itself to a building doom. There are also some great moments of occult ceremony that really push that underlying atmosphere of dread. 

Where The Whip Against Satan falls down is in the action. Which is the problem because there is a lot of action in this movie. Every few minutes Satan’s cronies mix it with the Whip which results in several minutes of the Whip riding around on his horse cracking his whip at people who run away or just fall down. It goes on time after time to the point where I dreaded the next action scene. There is no artistry to the action, the camera sits there while people in rubber masks stumble around a horse. The one moment I enjoyed was the battle in the glowing caves at the finale. It was the same ham-fisted action but at least the background was interesting.

"I'm here for the goat yoga."

All of this might sound like I didn’t enjoy The Whip Against Satan, which is far from the case. The film is a thematic and structural cousin to luchador films, and in that respect the low budget, creaky action, but effective gothic atmosphere mix together to make something unique to Mexican films and enjoyable on that level. So, in the end, if you are into pulp Mexican cinema you can find some things to love here. If you are new or curious about this sort of thing, there are much better jumping off points out there.

Legacy of Satan

Legacy of Satan
1974
Gerard Damiano

When Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan in 1966, he created a counter-cultural phenomenon. LaVey encouraged humanist values rather than any actual worship of Satan but that didn’t stop the public from assuming that the actual Satan worshiping happened as well. As we spun into the 1970s, a decade known for more hedonistic trends and a rise in interest in the occult, we got a perfect recipe for lush horny horror. Legacy of Satan is great example of this even if it isn’t what I would call a great film.

George (Paul Barry) and Maya (Lisa Christian) are a couple heading for estrangement. One of their friends convinces them to come to a party in a strange mansion which always goes well. This gathering  turns out to be a Satanic cult who have their sights set on Maya whom they begin to work their magic on and draw into their clutches.

"Begin the Satanic VAG STEAMING!"

In theory, Legacy of Satan has got everything you want from a Satanic cult film, there are dark rituals, blood, nudity, chanting, poor unsuspecting dopes on the receiving end of ultimate evil. What we get in actuality is more of a muddled mess that seems to forget what it’s about by the end of the film. As a cohesive story there isn’t much to grasp onto here but as a work of aesthetics it is very effective. 

Legacy of Satan began its life as a sex film and those origins are definitely present. Not because it features a lot of explicit sex (just a lot of the non-explicit kind) but because there isn’t much to film at all. It only runs 69 (nice) minutes, and the plot is minimal to say the least. There are large spaces in the film that probably would have been the various sex scenes. Whatever the reason that Legacy of Satan wasn’t filmed as an adult feature it has a curious effect on the end product. The sparse story creates a strange ethereal atmosphere as events just drift along with seeming little importance and inevitability as the Satanic cult takes this couple apart.

"I am not good at eating pizza."

Far and away the most intriguing thing about Legacy of Satan is its score. The music of Legacy of Satan is a shrieking and rumbling mix of analog synthesizer sounds that sits seemingly at odds with the lush ultra-1970s interiors and costumes. These two elements create a frisson of strangeness that mixes with the dreamy story to enhance the doom laden feeling already present. If there is one element to really enjoy in this barely coherent work, it’s the amazing sounds that come from it.

When you get down it, the story is the least interesting element of the film, but as a tonal piece and neat little snapshot of what was going on in the counter-culture of the 1970s it carries a weird fascination. Worth a watch for all of its dreamy campy strangeness. 

Satan's Cheerleaders

Satan’s Cheerleaders
1977
Greydon Clark

Satanists trick a group of high school cheerleaders into their clutches. They require a virgin to sacrifice to Satan. Unfortunately for them one of these cheerleaders wields supernatural powers of her own. Now she has to keep her teammates alive long enough to escape.

The first twenty minutes of Satan’s Cheerleaders is pretty standard 1970s T&A comedy, there are the cheerleaders in skimpy outfits, the horny jocks, the clueless teacher, and the evil janitor who uses his Satanic powers to spy on the girls in the locker room. We get two interesting turns: Patti (Kerry Sherman) seems to have powers of her own and later the whole team is kidnapped and trucked of to a cult compound. The terrible jokes continue but at least Satan’s Cheerleaders looks like it’s going to be a goofball exploitation comedy with some low stakes for the duration, and it basically is at least until…

"Yoo-hoo, Satan!"

So, we are bopping along in this very light and very silly T&A comedy that seems to be balancing things just fine when we get a gross tonal shift featuring a sexual assault. As far as these things go, it thankfully happens off screen, but it is such an ugly moment in something so weightless. It’s dropped note that a film like this isn’t really equipped to deal with. That fact that it comes into play at the film’s climax is just insult to injury and it throws off the rest of the film. There’s a maddening lightness to all the events of this film after this point. There are no real consequences for anyone. The whole thing goes out with a coda featuring the football being helped towards victory with Satanic powers, and if the whole film hadn’t just hinged on an off-screen rape, I might have even found that a charming way end things. 

These Ring remakes are getting weirder and weirder.

We get a few famous faces in the film, Yvonne De Carlo is Emmy, one of the cult heads and there is a cameo by John Carradine. Neither is enough to elevate the film above mediocre but it’s always nice to see a familiar actor. Kerry Sherman never brings any real gravitas or other worldliness to her witch character and the fact things hinge upon her actions doesn’t help. Jacqulin Cole is Ms. Johnson, the head of the cheerleader team. She’s fun, but gets the absolutely worst lines in the film and is on the receiving end of the most egregious transgressions in the whole story. 

Satan’s Cheerleaders is a mess, it doesn’t really work as exploitation, horror, or comedy as it can never commit to any of them well enough to make things work. It is a shame too because this is a perfect recipe for something memorable. Well, it is memorable, but probably not for the reasons it should be. There are much better titty comedies out there, that are much better Satanic cult horror films out there. I’d search those out rather than spend any more time with Satan’s Cheerleaders.

Brotherhood of Satan

Brotherhood of Satan
1971
Bernard McEveety

A family comes across a recently crushed car with dead bodies inside. Rushing to the nearest town they are swarmed by frightened townies who claim that no one has been able to leave town for the last three days and anyone who tries dies horribly in the process. To make things even worse all the children in town have gone missing. A local priest believes that a satanic cult has taken up shop and is luring the children into their clutches for some unknown purpose. The family’s daughter goes missing and it becomes race to find the cult before the complete their ritual and gain eternal life.

Brotherhood of Satan is a far stranger movie than I foresaw going in.  From its opening moments we are thrust into a confusing yet horrific montage of cuts, screaming, tank treads crushing a car, toys, and the sound of children. When we finally cut away from the carnage we see a toy tank. The implication is that the children’s toys mimicked the slaughter through some kind of sympathetic magic. Not at all what I expected and I was quite intrigued.

The world's oldest bully approaches her target.

Brotherhood of Satan is at its best when it is laying out its mysteries, A family coming upon a completely crushed car on their way into town, that same family being mobbed by townies who are terrified of children, and even mysterious black robed figures in the woods.  One of my favorite sequences is a Satanic birthday party complete with kids playing, and hooded cultists delivering a black birthday cake as others whisk kids off to be ritually sacrificed.

In reading other criticisms of this film I see much mention towards how poorly it is edited. I have to disagree on this point. The editing is unusual for sure, but every cut feels like a very deliberate method to make this odd story feel as strange as it does to its characters. The plot is slowly laid out over the course of the film (perhaps a little too slowly) and even though it is relatively simple, this obtuseness in the way it’s told gives the film more life than if it had been told in a more straightforward manner.

"No bag or board? This is worthless, old man!"

As I stated, the film is slow in the middle. Even at 92 minutes it feels like things are taking twice as long as they should. I appreciate a good slow burn but there is such a careful balancing act of tone and meting out story, it’s easy to get it wrong. It does end strongly with a finale that is ambiguous and even just a little playful like its Satanic children.

Brotherhood of Satan is weird little film, and while it certainly has its flaws, I ended up liking its more obtuse qualities.  It is difficult to bring anything new to the subgenre of satanic children, but Brotherhood of Satan manages to do it through its storytelling rather than anything to found in its actual story.

Race with the Devil

Race with the Devil
1975
Jack Starrett

Coming along with the monumental success of The Exorcist (1973) came a sea of satanic films. Wikipedia lists thirty titles alone after 1973 and that is far from a complete tally. This public interest in satanic cults would take a wild turn in the 1980s when the public would quake at the devil hiding in every bit of popular media in what would become known as the Satanic Panic. I think those caught in the grip of the Satanic Panic would have believed that Race with the Devil was an accurate portrayal of what it was like in America with the Devil’s minions massing across the countryside.

Two couples (Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, and Lara Parker), decide to take a trip in an RV for a ski trip. They make a stop in the middle of nowhere Texas. They have a cookout, race dirt bikes and are generally having a fine time, that is until they witness a satanic cult ritual that ends with a murder. The cult realizes that they’ve been seen and swarm the RV. From there, the group are on the run as the cult seems to have members all over the country and slowly but surely, they close in.

"We are definitely going to get killed
on this vacation."

Race with the Devil is a masterful exercise in escalating tension. The film starts with a slow, almost agonizingly relaxed pace. We are introduced to these characters, their friendships, and the small personal concerns of their lives. There is no warning about what they are about to encounter, no cutaways to menacing cultists watching them from afar. Once the mayhem breaks it comes increasingly larger and larger waves of attacks as our heroes grow more and more desperate to escape the clutches of this seemingly never-ending cult.

The highlight of Race with the Devil is the extended chase scene onboard the RV and various cultists trying to board it. We move though the high action of these scenes to tense moments of coming across narrow avenues where they have to slow down. At its core this is an action film with a horror flavor that is always present. Things really kick up in the final moments which deliver a good spooky shock.

"I really need to wash this mask."

I think it would be easy to get annoyed at the slow burn of the first half of the film as we watch these characters literally spin their wheels at one time. There is a side quest to a local library for people to figure that they witnessed a satanic ritual when in the end it doesn’t matter. The intelligence gathering in no way helps when dozens of murderous satanists are clambering up the RV the kill everyone. Race with the Devil begins as a drama, moves to horror, and then to action before coming around to horror again.

Race with  the Devil is excellent little film that has a lot to offer and becomes more and more engaging as it goes. If you’re looking to kick off a satanic summer this is an excellent place to start.

Meatcleaver Massacre

Meatcleaver Massacre (aka The Hollywood Meatcleaver Massacre aka Evil Force)
1977
Even Lee

Meatcleaver Massacre touts Christopher Lee as its big draw. This is a lie. Yes, Christopher Lee is in it, but also, he’s not. Mr. Lee opens and closes the movie with long rambling speeches about demons and the occult. He is not interested in what he is saying, and it shows. I am certain this was something left off of his sizzle reel. In fact, these opening and closing segments where not originally filmed for Meatcleaver Massacre but were added after the fact. Not an auspicious start (or end) for this movie but nothing can really prepare you for what is coming.

"I don't know what I"m doing in the movie either."

After what I can only describe as the world’s most evil slide show, Professor Cantrell (James Habif) an expert in the occult and demons, heads home to his family. Some disgruntled students(?) get drunk in a van, drive to his house and murder his family for no reason that is ever actually explained. They all wear an identical patch on their jackets, are they supposed to be a cult or a gang? We are never told in a movie that is not interested in explaining anything at all.

After the unexpected murder of the professor’s family (that is totally devoid of a meat cleaver by the way), we get down to the bulk of the film in which the near catatonic professor is summoning demons to dispatch the killers. From there we get this band of the murderers doing random things, stopping those things to go do other random things, having nightmares, and then getting killed in a gory fashion. Repeat this cycle till the end of the movie.

It sounds like a disaster and it is, but the atmosphere it generates is so dreamlike yet grimy, it creates an undoubtedly compelling little film. Events just happen with no real explanation and end just abruptly.  A suicide is interrupted by work, a man just stops having sex and goes home, and a man gets electrocuted in series of events I still do not quite grasp. We even get a monster at the climax with looks like a Bigfoot covered in seaweed. Like the rest of this movie, it is odd more than frightening. After this nightmare we visit Christopher Lee again, who goes on far too long about occult conventions and mysteries. Even an actor of his caliber cannot elevate this material and Lee is only barely trying here.

The smell of this thing is incredible.

Meatcleaver Massacre is not what I expected from the title, and that is an understatement. Should you watch it? If you are looking for a straightforward slasher or demonic possession movie, you’re going to be bored and annoyed.  If you like things slow and confusing but somehow compellingly weird at the same time, then you will certainly find some things to enjoy here. 

Son of Dracula

Son of Dracula
1974
Freddie Francis

What a strange movie.

Son of Dracula is a vampire movie with Ringo Starr playing Merlin. Right there that sentence should be enough to give you a moment’s pause. It sounds like it’s going to be a silly movie probably fueled by cocaine, too much money and artistic hubris. It is, but not in the way I anticipated. I expected this film to largely be a goof, an inside joke between a bunch of ex-hippies. It is exactly this, but it also tries to be a reasonable facsimile of real Dracula movie, somewhere between a Hammer film and late Universal cycle monster mashups like House of Dracula (1945).

Dracula (his appearance a nod to Nosferatu (1922)) gets staked in his own castle. The vampire hunters discover his bride asleep and pregnant. Cut to 100 years later and the son of Dracula, Count Downe (ugh) played by Harry Nilsson is set to take the throne as king of the underworld. His pal Merlin (Ringo Starr) is attempting to find the exact time it needs to happen. Count Downe (gah) begins having second thoughts when he falls in love with a young woman named Amber (Suzanna Leigh).

Fun Fact: Ring Starr did not know he was making a movie.

First thing's first, if you’re going to make a Dracula movie, you get veteran of numerous Hammer and Amicus horror films, Freddie Francis to direct. He creates a spooky atmosphere filled with gloomy gothic locations and mixes with modern spaces (by 1974 standards) in a way that does its best to compliment the story’s mix of classic horror tropes and then current ideals of peace and love born out of the 1960s. Count Downe (yeah, I know) is introduced as a monster lunging out of the dark to bite an unsuspecting gas station attendant and the scene wouldn’t look out of place in a more traditional horror movie. The songs are a mix of acid rock and glittering singer/songwriter stylings. As separate elements they work fine but the entirety never gels as a single aesthetic.

Harry Nilsson as Count Downe (boooo) is the weak link in the production. He’s never compelling or magnetic in the way a Dracula should be, he just seems bored and a little sad. It is difficult to understand why anyone would fall for him. Thankfully, the movie seems to recognize this as well and offers a magical explanation why Amber would even be interested in him. Since this movie is equally about honoring and subverting traditional monster movies, I suppose making Dracula a wet blanket could be a part of that, but it doesn’t make for an enjoyable view.

"I am an alluring creature of the night... I guess."

What to make of this film? For all its set-up it feels like it is going to more of a spoof than anything, but its aims are far more earnest. Like most modern vampire stories, Son of Dracula is a romance at heart and this film finds exactly that at its climax when we are whisked off to a floaty hippie ending with dazzling lights and exclamations of cosmic love. This part of the film is pure 1974.

What a strange movie.

Haunted

Haunted
1977
Alessandro De Gaetano

Haunted is a strange movie but I should not expect less from the person who brought us UFO Target Earth (1974). Hitchcock is well known for bringing us the idea that the audience anticipating a ticking time bomb in a room while the characters do not is what creates suspense. The ticking time bomb of Haunted is a phone booth installed in a near-by cemetery. Does it create suspense? Not really. But it does generate a lot of confusion which seems to be the weapon of choice for this film.

Haunted begins with an opening text which is rarely a good sign. In this case it tells us about a Native American woman is accused of witchcraft and sentenced to die. The film then proceeds the shows us the thing they just made us read about rending the opening text useless. The accused, Abanaki (Ann Michelle) has her top removed for some reason before she is sent off to die in the desert which gives us laborious shots of her tits as she rides off. This moment introduces Haunted's 2nd most notorious element, a constant barrage of 1970s folk and soft rock. It opens with a theme song called ‘Indian Woman’ which is terrible but also sets the stage for what is to come.

"Huh, looks like there's stuff happening way over there."

Haunted’s setting is an interesting element, a dying tourist trap in the form of an old west town. Patrick (Jim Negele) and Russel (Brad Rearden) are brothers who are inheriting the place after their father died in a car accident. Their mother, Michelle (Virginia Mayo), was blinded and now suffers from dementia. This doesn’t sit well with their uncle, Andrew, who has lusted after Michelle for some time. This family also just happens to be related to the people who sent Abanaki off to die over a century ago. The reincarnation of Abanaki comes in the form of Jennifer Baines who’s car just happens to break down at the tourist spot. She quickly falls in love with Patrick and gains the ire of Andrew. Her past self is driving her to revenge even though she doesn’t know it yet.

Haunted sets all its pieces up and then… never quite figures out what to do. There is a lot of laying around while folk music plays, extensive flowery speeches from grandma, and Aldo Ray being sweaty and angry. To its credit Haunted does build a spooky atmosphere but it never builds much of a story. It all culminates in a bizarre Rube Goldberg revenge scheme that does indeed rely on the fact there is a phone booth recently installed in the cemetery.

"Why do we keep the pool balls in the fridge anyway?"

Like UFO: Target Earth, Haunted is slow and dreamy but with virtually no story. Also, like UFO: Target Earth there is an undeniably compelling weirdness at work that keeps bringing me back to this film. If you have an affinity for that particularly 1970s brand of occultism, Haunted might work for you, for everyone else I wouldn’t answer the phone in that graveyard.

Gamera vs. Jiger

Gamera vs. Jiger (aka Gamera vs. Monster X)
1970
Noriaki Yuasa

Gamera vs. Jiger is the sixth Gamera film in the series. By 1970 the Gamera movies had completely devoted themselves to being children’s films. Not there is anything wrong with that, it does helps give these films a distinct voice in comparison to Gamera’s most notable adversary, Godzilla. Angling for a younger audience also allowed the Gamera films to engage in some bizarre leaps of logic. If you are the kind of person who needs your kaiju deadly serious Gamera is not a good choice, but if you like things weird and cheap, Gamera is your turtle.

Gamera vs. Jiger operates as a mash-up of your traditional kaiju movie with two monsters kicking each other in the teeth and Fantastic Voyage (1966). In this case, two kids in a submarine (Showa era Gamera movies are obsessed with underwater vehicles) must venture inside Gamera to cure him of a parasite before he can live again to fight Jiger. There’s a whole semi-useless background detail of Expo ’70 in Osaka which does set the plot in motion but does little beyond that.

Jiger looks like a half-assed dinosaur-dog.

In the Gamera rogue’s gallery, Jiger is often forgotten. She’s not the most interesting looking monster. She’s a brown quadruped with a big beak-like snout. She does shoot quills and if you’re lucky she puts a baby version of herself in her victim via a stinger in her tail. That alone makes her notable. Her strange origin (or lack of it) is also interesting. She is summoned by the removal of a large statue that begins to whistle.

It wouldn’t be a Gamera film without a little bloodletting and body horror and we get plenty of that with not only a tour of Gamera’s guts, but we also get to witness him turn transparent from his illness. It also wouldn’t be a Gamera movie without him doing something truly ludicrous, in this case, he jams telephone poles into his ears to stop a disabling sound. As is tradition Gamera gets a final kill that is beyond anything Godzilla would usually get away with.

"I'm feeling a little light-headed."

You will notice that I have so far skipped over the humans of this film, while the human elements of kaiju films are often the weakest part, that is doubly so for many Gamera films. Children are the main characters and often come across as entitled and far too smart for the dopey adults. The point is to elevate the child characters in the eyes of the child audience, but it comes at the cost of making them into actual relatable characters. Screeching know-it-all kids are the bane of this film and several others. If you are this deep into the Gamera series this may be less of an issue for you but proceed at your own risk.

Gamera vs. Jiger isn’t a well-remembered Gamera film but it does have plenty to recommend for kaiju fans and people into very silly movies that have giant turtles with bloody telephone polls in their ears.

Triumph of the Champions of Justice

Triumph of the Champions of Justice (aka El triunfo de los campeones justicieros)
1974
Rafael Lanuza

Of the three Champions of Justice films, Champions of Justice (1971), Return of the Champions of Justice (1972), it is Triumph of the Champions of Justice that is the strangest of them. That’s no easy task against films that include superpowered dwarves, dimensional travel, and ‘micemen.’ Triumph takes the win through an incomprehensible plot involving dwarves from Uranus who live in another dimension. They need access to a machine created by a thousand of years old astronomer who is working in a circus. They can also turn invisible sometimes, but that doesn’t really have much to do with anything.

Triumph opens with a great hook, Blue Demon battles two strange men who are trying to climb an electric tower. Just as he defeats them, they graphically melt into green goo. It makes you wonder what is happening and you will keep wondering as the movie continually throws a mish-mash of science-fiction elements together in hopes of making a story. It never does, it just creates a growing calamity of confusing plot points that still ultimately come down to watching some wrestlers beat people up for 90 minutes.

"Please enjoy half off at the concession stand."

Our Champions of Justice line-up this time includes Blue Demon, Superzan, Venus, and White Phantom. This particular Venus was not an established luchador but instead created for this film. Still, it is nice to see a woman in the mix of heroes. She’s given a super-spy air about her and ends up being one of the most fun characters although she doesn’t get as much screen time as many of the others. Superzan starred in many of his own films, where he is effectively the luchador Superman. He is not nearly as powerful in this film and the story isn’t interested in offering any explanations why. Nor would expect it to.

Events just pile on to one another until they achieve a sort of nightmare reality that is occasionally interrupted by poorly staged fights most of which take place on the dirt floor of a small circus. There is some graphic violence that is unusual for a luchador movie and plenty of slime which isn’t. The whole film concludes on a strange silent posterized sequence that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Carl J. Sukenik movie.

"Nobody loves guacamole dip as much as we do!"

There isn’t a lot of connective tissue in the Champions of Justice films beyond Blue Demon and little people. Out of all the various luchador teams, this one feels the weakest. Blue Demon must carry almost the entire film by himself, save for the little time the Venus is present on the screen. It is the least coherent and most bizarre of the trilogy almost to the point where it can float on that alone. I can’t promise you’ll have a clue what is happening but I can guarantee you won’t forget many of the strange unsettling moments.

Making it through all three of these films is a Triumph in and of itself.

The Quatermass Conclusion

The Quatermass Conclusion
1979
Piers Haggard

The economy of the UK has collapsed and with it society. Professor Bernard Quatermass finds himself not only searching for his missing granddaughter but racing to uncover the mysterious force that draws young people to ancient places of mystical significance before obliterating them with a powerful beam of light. Does the cult of Planet People know more than they let on?

The decades have not been kind to Professor Quatermass. Gone is the firebrand who held himself and his colleagues to impossibly high standards or the man who shook off an alien invasion and insisted on getting back to work on the British rocket program. The Quatermass we meet here is old, frail, and beaten down by the world. There is a little bit of his old fierce self to be found when he criticizes a joint US/USSR space mission, but his main concern now is to find the whereabouts of his granddaughter.

"Please tell your dog to stop licking the back of my neck."

The Quatermass Conclusion is unrelentingly grim. England has collapsed as a society. Gangs roam the streets and for-profit police are the only thing offering protection. Roving mobs of cultists calling themselves Planet People are gathering at ancient sites in hopes of leaving Earth… and then they do as hundreds of thousands are obliterated into ash by an unseen force from space. The first thing that happens to Professor Quatermass in the entire film is that he is beaten by a gang and threatened with having all his teeth removed. A warning of relentless oppression the characters will find themselves under.


The Quatermass Conclusion was created as an edited down film version of a 4-part television miniseries, but it does so without serious changes to the narrative. The Quatermass series has always dabbled in a mix of horror and science-fiction never turning away from some truly awful fates for its characters. The same holds true for Quatermass Conclusion to the point where I am not certain there is a single character who manages to survive unscathed by the finale. This formula works well in the first three Quatermass films because we are faced with the fantastical in the midst of the mundane. By tossing in this alien conspiracy into an already outlandish setting of a Mad Maxesque UK, both elements feel diminished, and worse both threats together turn the film into an unfun slog.

Changing the vacuum cleaner bag isn't as easy as it looks.

The Quatermass Conclusion does contain some fascinating and terrifying ideas, but it is a chore to watch thanks to a weak central character and no side characters root for. The mobs and cults might have been believable in 1979 but the Planet People or gangs who seem to have no identifiable differences beyond what color headbands they wear have not aged well as concepts and leave the middle section of the movie lifeless. Although Quatermass Conclusion does finally arrive at a bleak yet satisfying ending, getting there is not worth the effort.