⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The sinister/lovable proprietor of an antiques shop (Peter Cushing) sends various folks home with items that end up bringing about doom for his not-so honest customers. In The Gate Crasher David Warner takes home an antique mirror through dishonest means. A séance amongst friends is had and the mirror proves to house the decaying spirit of a serial murderer. The tall nightmare gets its psychic fingers into Mr. Warner and forces the well-off man to “feed” him. The mirror monster’s food of choice is the blood of young women because no mirror-dwelling entity is ever happy with a plate of nachos. Murder and madness follow and it’s all a solid opening yarn for our anthology and an interesting spin on vampirism. An Act of Kindness has an unhappy family man partaking in some stolen valor by going the five finger discount route with a military medal from the shop. He desperately needs it after claiming to be a decorated service man to a veteran (Donald Pleasance) who sells matches on the corner. The match salesman invites the man over for tea with he and his daughter (Angela Pleasance) and the man falls for the strange woman. It would appear father and daughter are practitioners of the dark arts and there’s plans afoot for the false soldier. The Pleasance family has some good fun portraying oddballs and add some sparks to a predictable, middling tale. The Elemental involves a snobbish man who switches price tags to get his hands on a snuffbox for a steal. Unbeknownst to him, along with the snuffbox comes an invisible entity. While on the train home, an eccentric medium lets him know that an elemental is following him. He naturally assumes it’s all bullshit but when the entity attempts to kill his wife, he tracks down the psychic for help. Margaret Leighton is a genuine treat as the batty psychic who gets called in to perform an exorcism which, of course, goes to hell. The most fun this flick gets and a treat relying on an excellent performance and an interesting threat. Just lovely. Finally The Doorhas an honest customer (Ian Ogilvy) picking up a monstrous antique door that he replaces his cupboard door with. Instead of opening up to stationary, it magically opens up to a blue-tinged room where our hero begins to spend his time reading a spell book he’s found there. He runs into problems when the foppish sorcerer who called the place home shows up looking to collect the souls of the curious lad and his lovely wife. A good time for sure that may not offer up anything all that fresh but utilizes a fine cast and never really sticks around long enough to bore. Highlights include David Warner’s style, intense door abuse and Peter Cushing’s bow tie.
aka The Vampire of the Highway/Sexy Vampire
⭐️⭐️1/2
Grisly murders besiege a German town and the police are convinced a serial killer is on the prowl. A coroner believes the slayings to be the work of a reclusive baron who died decades ago and was rumored to be a vampire. The coroner notices the killer’s pattern coinciding with the terror from a century before and is having a hard time convincing the authorities that something undead is responsible for the new horrors plaguing the town via an invisible menace who can come and go as it pleases. The coroner has his father’s journals which involve extensive research on the baron and his vampy shenanigans, so you can blame that for the man of science’s belief in a fucking vampire. The supernatural menace and his glorious helmet of hair shows up at the castle while the coroner and the police are snooping around and in a shocking turn of events, he murders the fuck out of all of them. The former head inspector returns to town to figure out who slaughtered his predecessor and ease the fears of the townsfolk. Count Oblensky and his albino-like hair arrives in from London to set up in the ancestral home. It’s a stipulation of the great grandfather’s will that any ancestor looking for the inheritance must set up in the castle or forfeit the inheritance. Intrigued by the mysterious stipulations of the will, Oblensky plans to get to the bottom of his family’s troubled history. He doesn’t buy into the dark legends but he wants to have a better understanding of the home to defend it whenever someone calls his family line into question. Women continue to get topless and the invisible evil continues to do what it does… when it feels like being invisible, sometimes it’s just the hair-helmeted vampire strangling folks. The inspector is growing frustrated as answers are eluding him and he maintains a pleasant relationship with the new master of the castle. Each are excited to look into the castle’s cellar but are waiting on a search warrant as investigating the basement is strictly off limits according to the will but Oblensky will honor any court order and use the opportunity to have a look. He begins reading through his ancestor’s diary in the meantime but enters the cellar after following spectral laughter. There, he discovers the coffin of great grandpa and great grandma and has a run in with the vampire who vanishes just as quickly as he appeared. The Count nopes the fuck out and goes to the inspector with his bizarre encounter. His fantastic story is denied by the lawman and blamed on booze. But the bodies keep dropping and Oblensky is convinced his ancestor is behind everything. Oblensky’s girlfriend arrives and I can’t help but imagine how blonde their children will be. The vampire finally speaks to his great grandchild and reveals what he wants. There’s not much of an interesting hook outside of brave hairstyles, bare breasts, a memorable main theme, intriguing fashion choices and rich interiors as the vampire shenanigans are nothing special unless you consider the fiends boring preference for strangulation and invisibility… I mean, come on. There’s enough going for it to keep me interested (it’s still a Spanish horror flick from the seventies, after all) but not enough to warrant multiple viewings. It’s not sexy, it’s not all-that horrible and dude ain’t much of a vampire.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A young teacher (gorgeous Yvonne Monlaur) is stranded in a Transylvanian village when her coach driver makes a hasty exit after stopping by an inn en route to the small village where she’ll be teaching young girls French and etiquette. Marianne Danielle is then relieved when Baroness Meinster arrives at the inn (much to the trepidation of the owner and his wife) and invites her to spend the night in her castle where she lives a lonely life with her servant Greta. She unwittingly releases a plague of vampirism when her kind heart has her helping the Baroness’s son escape his shackles. He convinces her his mother is insane and has him locked up in his room for no good reason. The Baroness has a very good reason, Baron Meinster is an undead bloodsucker. Thankfully, a local priest has invited Dr. Van Helsing (Cushing, dashing as ever) to look into the death of a girl which points to a return of vampirism in the area. Dracula may be dead, but his disciples still do what they can to ensure his evil is not forgotten. Marianne is found by Van Helsing after she flees the castle upon seeing the corpse of her hostess and passes out on the side of the road. She recuperates after some TLC and is dropped off at the school where Van Helsing helps smooth things over with the headmaster and gets Marianne set up. Unfortunately, the Baron isn’t going to easily forget the woman who freed him and the fact that she’s now in a school filled with lovely young women is a bonus for the creep. They’re engaged immediately and it’s going to be up to Van Helsing to save her cute derrière. Sure there may not be any Dracula or brides hanging around but that doesn’t change the fact that this movie kicks ass. Lee opted to not return and I’m completely fine with that. In fact, I would have loved if he remained in the shadows and let the series turn into Van Helsing traversing the world and slaying himself some vampires and whatever other monsters he may come across. Maybe bring good ol’ Dracula back for the final outing. Cushing is so damn perfect it’s hard to be mad about him given the top billing. Lee would come back six years later for the Cushingless (but still great) Dracula: Prince of Darkness. I saw Brides for the first time when I was seven and I still think Van Helsing’s aggressive disinfecting of his vampire bite and then creative slaying of the vampire is one of the coolest things to ever happen in a monster movie.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
About two decades after Karen Black secured her genre dominance in a trilogy of macabre tales under the steady direction of Dan Curtis, we get three more yarns. Black, unfortunately, does not return but Curtis does and he brings along the nightmarish Zuni fetish doll as well. Lovely Lysette Anthony handles the heavy lifting of starring in all three stories, she’s no Karen Black but nobody is or ever will be. The Graveyard Rats follows two lovers who murder the woman’s elderly asshole of a husband. The grouchy prick knows she has another lover but still keeps her in his will as his sole inheritor. He just demands she cools them loins while he’s still kicking and adheres to his steen rules. He’s also got some blackmail on her if she decides to just leave him to be with her man, poor or not. That’s why her slightly insane paramour sends the old bastard and his wheelchair down the stairs, looking like a fatal accident. The grave-robbing cemetery caretaker (the always welcome Geoffrey Lewis) Stubbs lets the not-so-bereaved Laura know that where he’s been ordered to bury her husband is a hotbed for an army of giant and preternaturally intelligent rats. The angry murderer she now finds herself with thinks it’s all a bullshit scheme to get them to purchase a more expensive coffin. The will is read and it turns out the recently departed dickhead converted all his assets to Swiss bank accounts and they won’t be able to touch them unless they have some codes. Unable to find any records, the couple realize the bastard probably buried the information with himself in an antique watch with a hidden compartment he demanded to be laid to rest with. The desperate duo head to the cemetery and those titular vermin are about to get themselves some fresh food. Lysette gets to scheme and giant vermin get to eat in a standard but still fun tale of macabre karma. Bobby finds a grieving mother monkey-pawing everything up when she uses black magic to bring her dead child back from the grave. We’ve seen the warning one hundred times before and the exact story already in 77’s Dead of Night anthology. It’s fine as the returned kid comes back but he definitely has brought something else less than human back within him. Finally, He Who Kills offers up the further adventures of that popular Zuni fetish doll and is the best portion of the movie. Beginning with the aftermath of the fateful encounter between woman and doll and woman and mother, the crispy creep is removed from the oven by the police as they go through the double homicide crime scene. Our girl Lysette plays the likable Dr. Simpson, a noted whatever scientist/doctor she is… ethnologist? A desperate police force has tasked her with determining just what the hell the freaky doll is and how it may tie into the murders. Well, the little bastard gets back up and the skeleton crew at the museum get their asses slaughtered as Dr Simpson goes up against the vicious little thing. An expanded setting, a familiar threat and a sympathetic protagonist make for a fun time. The whole thing isn’t anything special but it’s enjoyable and some fine lazy-day watching if you’re in the right mood for a low-effort anthology offering up minor thrills and minimal investment on the viewer’s part… and sometimes that’s all I want.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Incumbent governor John G. Harrison takes some drastic measures when his shitty morals begin to come back to haunt him. With racketeering charges and slipping numbers looming, he decides using the Keys of Solomon… yes, those ancient books which were gifted to Peter by Jesus of Nazareth and have the strength to bind the forces of Heaven and Hell (thank you opening text and narration!)… to ensure his reelection is a grand ol’ plan. Wielding unimaginable and dangerous power leads to plenty of torn-up corpses and places the security of the world in the hands of the governor’s baby-faced press representative Zack Alder when he discovers the horrifying bullshit his boss is up to. He’s been hooking up with the attorney general and plotting to take Harrison down when she gets her ass murdered by the demon the governor has unleashed. Zack and officer Lynn Russell (frustrated with her fellow officers refusal to look any deeper into the growing bodycount thanks to corruption and getting a quick look at the demonic killer) join together because there’s a whole lot on the line. Although, Zack just thinks it’s some occultists getting up to bullshit before he finally faces the facts. A church-sanctioned assassin is also drifting around, adding to the piles of corpses while tracking down the Keys but he disappears for a healthy chunk of the movie. The cutthroat world of politics is brought to life by some somewhat convincing New Yorkers and some less-then believable heroes as a genuine scumbag abuses biblical powers to his black heart’s content. Swinging well outside of its league with an over enthusiastic story, this political horror-thriller brings a low-rent charm because it refuses to admit it’s well outside of its budget. It jumps head first into complicated waters and presents the best damn product it can. I respect that. Hitting like an unused Kolchak script hammered into an X-Files investigation that couldn’t afford the FBI, Raising Hell is endlessly intriguing in its gall and hilariously melodramatic as the B-movie shenanigans are painted over in soap opera performances and some poor decisions. I mean, eventually you’d figure people would understand it’s not a great idea to threaten the governor with spilling his secrets. The long line of corpses should be a giveaway. A carefully obscured monster suit, the basement offices of the police force, dirt-cheap news footage, a really terrible British accent and location shooting because sets are not in the budget just make me love it more. It falls into the trap that something this eager usually does in that it can’t seem to narrow its focus and jumps all over the place to focus on characters that don’t really need much time and dragging scenes out that don’t really need to even exist. A general lack of suspense in its murder scenes and the aimless vibe add a level of sluggishness to things as well. Having said that, it’s a cost I’m willing to pay because of just how foolishly zealous it is. Sometimes you bat far out of your league and fail, but sometimes it's that failure that makes you so damn charming.
⭐️⭐️1/2
A few wannabe criminals on the low-end of dangerous have come up with an especially scuzzy scheme. This quartet of scumbags are ransoming the corpse of a child to the dead kid’s family. I’m no saint but that is on the impressive side of dirtbag. The gang is hiding out in an old cabin somewhere in the backwoods of Louisiana while they wait on their payday and they come across a spirit board because every old cabin in the backwoods of anywhere is legally required to have some means to contact the spirit world. Sure enough, they give it a go to pass the time. The black and white opening has a horny couple entering a cabin for privacy and mentioning something about a writer living nearby who wrote a book about black magic practitioners. Probably important but getting their bang on is more important so sex on a decrepit couch goes down and Evil Dead POV happens while full frontal nudity graces the screen (it’s in black and white, so I believe that makes it classy instead of sleazy). A noise puts an end to the bone sessions and the guy goes to take a look. The woman also steps outside, tastefully putting on her thong but remaining topless. The man finds an adorable possum and is then attacked by the camera and dragged away. All of this is watched by that adorable possum. Our topless damsel eventually falls victim to the demonic POV after it gets a good look at her ass. Sixteen months pass and we join our dipshits (still in black and white) as some incredibly poor performer narrates what got us to this point and she also lets us know she’s a dominatrix. Not sure if it’s important but she lets us know so I thought I’d let you know. Film school footage of a decaying bird happens as she attempts to sound serious spitting out her “too cool” stupidity. The four goth kids who honestly look about as threatening as, well, goth kids who take themselves far too seriously head to that professor’s cabin (our narrator was a student of his and remembered him mentioning he was going to be out of the country) with the kid-corpse in hand. The narrator/leader Lace, spills that the dead infant they have was the daughter of a prominent family and the police won’t be involved because the coroner’s claim of SIDS was purchased by the rich family to avoid scandal and jail time. Papa is a murderer and we get to see him murder his mistress (naturally after she shows some boobage) when he discovers she knows too much. Eventually a journal (flashback/exposition baby!) and antique spirit board are discovered in the cabin and all hell breaks loose in a budget-conscious style because we got a parasitic demon-worm on our hands! This worm also causes a butt-naked dead woman to raise a little hell in all her chesty and unerotic possessed evilness.
In-camera video effects, cheap puppetry and pointless shots sometimes featuring nature’s natural ickiness scream of youthful pretension. How many times do I gotta see maggots and what’s the fucking point of an empty wheelchair moving down a hallway? Who would dream of this? God damn goths. The line delivery feels like the performers didn’t even believe the bullshit they were spitting and places me back in coffee shops from decades ago surrounded by people I could barely tolerate in my more tolerant years. I don’t know why, but it’s making me nostalgic. An impressively awful lead brings plenty of laughter while a pointlessly busy plot drags everything out into a territory where the viewer becomes just as bored by the chaos as our “heroes” seemingly are. There’s a whole lotta nudity and even more stupidity, it ain’t great but it has enough gumption to go with its genuine amateur aesthetic to get an acknowledging nod from me.
⭐️⭐️
Locked in battle, a megalodon and a giant octopus are frozen in a giant iceberg... their hatred for each other more important than the oncoming ice age. Off the Alaskan coast, the US Navy is experimenting (off the books, of course) with some low-frequency sonar. Said classified experimentation shatters the icy prison of our flash-frozen apex predators and releases them back into an unprepared world. An oceanographer, Dr. Emma MacNeil (Debbie Gibson) is unfortunate enough to be in the area when everything goes to hell. She not only witnesses the illegal activities of the US government but also the return of the colossal beasties from another era. Another problem is that her underwater trip wasn’t exactly sanctioned and this seems to concern her superiors more than anything else. The cephalopod makes its way to Japan and the shark cruises to California, death and destruction follow. Emma gets shit-canned by her scummy boss and shares her concerns about the new sea beasts with her old mentor... luckily, she just so happened to steal a big-ass tooth she found in a mutilated whale before her termination. Following the destruction of an offshore oil rig near Japan, a Japanese oceanographer gets involved and meets up with our heroes... that’s when they realize they’re getting hit on two fronts. Eventually the US Navy realizes they’re out of their element and a black-clad (and racist) Lorenzo Lamas sarcastically asks the scientists for help. The scientists want to preserve the creatures for study and Uncle Sam wants to blow them to hell. Get ready for lots of talk, a plane-obliterating leaping shark, questionable cgi, more talk and a little love making leading to some problem solving. The octopus is rarely seen (when you lay eyes on it, you’ll realize why), the shark should have been shown less, tooth and tentacle don’t clash until there’s barely any time left (it ain’t worth the wait) and sea-beast-loving Debbie Gibson changes her tune when Lamas introduces a nuclear option and decides the best bet is to throw the two creatures at each other. It should be a lot worse than it is but the cast is likable enough and the goofy cgi is pretty damn fun... although we get a hell of a lot more talk than monster action.
