Night of the Bloody Apes (1969): or, My Heart Belongs to Bonzo

In 1960s Mexico, female luchador Lucy Ossorio (Norma Lazareno) is an athlete at the top of her game. Resplendent in her Red Devil mask and form-fitting crimson jumpsuit, every night she wrestles to a packed house of adoring, sweaty male fans, tossing her hapless opponents around the ring like lumpy bags of week-old laundry. She's young(ish), sexy, strong and beautiful, and on top of that, she's dating Lt. Arturo Martinez (Armando Silvestre), a hotshot homicide cop with the brains of Hercule Poirot and the good looks and charm of a young Tony Orlando. Sure, it's a rough game, but this is one luchadora who really has the world by the tail.

But into the Happy Picnic of Life, the Swarming Ants of Tragedy are likely to crawl, determined to carry away the Pie of Contentment on their evil little chitinous backs. This is exactly what happens one evening when, drunk on her own in-ring indominatability, La Demonita Roja tosses her opponent, the unfortunate Gata Negra ( Noelia Noel) through the ropes and into the crowd. The girl takes a bad hop and lands on her noggin, pushing a splinter of bone into her brain and inducing immediate coma. Guilt-stricken, Lucy drops a couple of matches and then decides it's time to hang up the boots for good.

"Venir a mí, bro!"

Meanwhile, local brain surgeon and organ-transplant specialist Dr. Krallman (José Elías Moreno) has a problem. His angel-faced son Julio (Agustín Martínez Solares) is bed-ridden with terminal leukemia, and all the specialists at his hospital have given the boy up for dead. But like any devoted father, the good doctor is not about to take that lying down. In an astonishing feat of scientific reasoning, Krallman deduces that the blood of a more powerful creature--say, a gorilla, for example--might be able to fight off the cancer where puny human blood has failed. But since gorilla-juice is clearly too potent for the human circulatory system, he figures he'll need to swap out Julio's heart for an organ of the simian persuasion. Then bang! Roberto es su tío! 

It's true what they say: sometimes the simplest answer is the best.

With the assistance of his slavishly devoted manservant Goyo (Carlos López Moctezuma), the doctor sets about putting his plan into action. Sneaking into the Federal District's most un-security-conscious zoo, the two old men easily purloin a primate and plop its pumper into Papa's poor pestilential progeny, post-haste. In a few hours, the boy is on the mend, the doctor's hypothesis is proved, and the overcrowded monkey house at the zoo has some much-needed extra space. Everybody wins!

Well, almost everybody.

Of course near-death experiences are almost always transformative. People come back from the brink with a newfound desire to live life to the fullest, to help their fellow man, or to cash in and go on a book tour with John Edward. In Julio's case, however, the transformation is less spiritual--instead, his new ticker turns him into a rampaging half-ape monstrosity! (Actually, more like 1/8-ape...he only seems affected from the jawline up.) I guess everybody copes in his own way.

Soon the Bloody Ape (singular, despite the film's title) is out on the town, leaving a trail of mauled, broken bodies in his wake. Realizing his mistake, Dr. Krallman reasons that putting a human heart back in his boy's chest is the best way to correct things, and thanks to Lucy's earlier reasonless brutality, he has just the perfect subject in his hospital. Goya and the doctor remove the girl back to his basement lab (again with astonishing ease), and after recapturing Julio, perform the second transplant in as many days, again leaving Julio none the worse for wear.

"I can haz nanner puddin?"

The missing girl and the string of brutal murders finally alert the police to something amiss, and Arturo gets on the case. Most are blaming the "escaped" gorilla for the crimes, but when Arturo sees the fingerprints and notices they are "half-ape, and also half-human!" (Ed. note: Whaaaa?), he knows they're dealing with something a bit more sinister. Worse, Julio's condition isn't cured by his new ticker, and soon he's ripped Goya's head from his body and gone out to wreak yet more bloody havoc. Can Arturo stop him before he kills half the nubile women in the city? Can Dr. Krallman save his son from his own scientific hubris? Will Lucy ever wrestle again?

Night of the Bloody Apes (1969) is not a movie that pulls out all the stops--it's a movie that doesn't even acknowledge there are stops to be pulled. The ape-man's attacks are surprisingly gory, ina late-60s tempera-paint way: we have scalps being pulled off, throats being torn open, eyes being gouged out, and multiple vicious maulings, often perpetrated upon the unclad torsos of energetically screaming senoritas. In addition, director René Cardona also treats us to actual footage of real open-heart surgery--a circumstance that landed this film on the famous British "Video Nasties" list, and kept it unseen in that country for years.

"This really brings out your eyes."

There's an awful lot of nudity too. Lucy--who seems to gain about 30 pounds every time she steps into the ring, only to drop the weight when the mask comes off--thinks nothing of chatting on the telephone in the altogether, fortunately for us. Also, in keeping with the long-standing cinematic tradition of "rapey half-mans-half-monkeys" (further reading here), Julio frequently rips the clothing from his female prey before proceeding to rip at their flesh. Even the comatose Noel shows all pre-surgery, in the interest of medical accuracy, no doubt.


The film is badly paced--there are many, many scenes of a character walking slowly from one end of the set to the other, that could have been profitably trimmed--and most of the acting is expectedly terrible. The lone exception is Moreno as Krallman, who imbues his laughable lines with a certain genuine gravitas, and manages to be emotionally effecting as a father desperate to save his son. It should also be mentioned that this wouldn't be the last time the hunky Solares (Julio) portrayed a man-beast: he also appeared as the lycantrhopic Rufus Rex in the brilliant luchador epic Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo (1973, reviewed on MMMMMovies here).

With nothing to do but lie in bed all day, Julio had time to make some interesting personal discoveries.

This film is deservedly one of the more popular subjects of the MST3K crew's derision, but in my opinion you don't need Joel (or Mike?) and the Bots to facilitate your viewing enjoyment. You can watch it for the xenotransplantation and pseudoscience, or for the hard-hitting wrasslin' action, for the blood or the boobs or the rather ridiculous beast. You can count the flubs--for instance, Cardona conveniently ignores the discrepancy between the number of medical personnel in Krallman's lab (two) and the number of hands working in the chest cavity (six); also, while Julio wrestles with a particularly spirited victim in a local park, her thrashing limbs displace the grass clippings standing in for a meadow, revealing the bare concrete beneath! Or you can just sit back and let the madness wash over you in waves. That's my suggestion.

2.25 thumbs

A few more images from Night of the Bloody Apes (1969):

"And you should see what I gave him from the elephant! Woohoo!"

"What are these fuckin' iguanas doing on my coffee table?!"

Waste of a Perfectly Good Monkey Suit

Splendor in the Grass...Clippings

Separated at birth? (reference)

"Now that I've got my framed portrait of the Duke of DVD, I really do have it all!"

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EMPUSA (2010): or, Naschy's Final Bow

A little more than five years ago, the Duke of DVD and I started this blog with a review of Vengeance of the Zombies (1973). That film was and is a perfect example of everything Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies has sought to celebrate, a little-known slice of insane and deliriously entertaining cinema that brought us so much joy, we just had to share it with the world. It was also the first movie we had ever seen featuring the legendary hunk of monstrous manliness that is Jacinto Molina, better known to us all as Paul "Fucking" Naschy. Over half a decade and more than 350 reviews, Paul has been the patron saint of our site, inspiring us to continue our search for treasure in the forgotten realms of b-movie madness, and providing an immovable foundation on which we have tried to build a fitting tribute. His frequent appearances here only give a small glimpse of the wonder he has afforded us, the joy he has so generously given.

So it's only fitting that, in this belated 5th Anniversary Post, I come back to the man who started it all. And ironic perhaps that I do so with the film that, in a way, ended it all: Paul's very last starring role in a feature film, Empusa (2010). I admit, going into this flick, I was a little worried--I'd been waiting for this since August of 2007, two years before Naschy's death, when I heard that principal photography was finished and post-production had begun. As the months passed, my excitement flowed and ebbed, and now at last here it was, ready to be watched. Could it possibly live up to my anticipation? Would it be a fitting end to my idol's magnificent career? Would it deliver the madness and joy I craved, or would it fall flat? Would Empusa (perish the thought) disappoint?

Ah, Paul, fogive me. I should never have doubted you.

J&B: the Breakfast of Champions

 In a beautiful resort city somewhere on the sunny coast of Spain, retiree Abel (Naschy, whose long flowing wig and array of do-rags tread the line between ridiculous and awesome) lives a simple, quiet life. He spends his days walking the beach with his fisherman friend Victor (Antonio Mayans) and his nights between the legs of innkeeper/saloon girl Natalia (María Jesús Solina). He writes about his avocational occult researches, socializes with local aristocrat Baron Ulrich (Paco Racionero),  takes recreational barbiturates and consumes gallons of undiluted absinthe. You know, the simple pleasures.

His peaceful routine is shattered, however, when one day he and Victor almost literally stumble over a grisly discovery on the beach: the severed right hand of a young woman, bearing a very strange wrist tattoo. Over the strenuous objections of his friend, Abel takes the hand back to his apartment and sticks it in the fridge, for...um, further research or something. Abel promises Victor he will return the hand to the beach in a couple of days--three, tops!--and then they can call the police.

Even Paul's porn is classy

A quick Internet search later, Abel has confirmed his initial suspicion--that the hand belongs to a victim of the Empusa, a class of demons in Ancient Greek mythology that are like vampires, only meaner. These exclusively female creatures have none of the traditional weaknesses of folkloric vampires, and satisfy their unholy appetites on the blood of their male and female lovers. Their surviving victims thereafter become "second-hand vampires," which are the garlic-fearing, sunlight-shunning, stake-hating sorts of folks we're all much more familiar with. Which makes sense, you'll agree. Shaken by this discovery--though not so much so you'd notice--Abel takes the hand back to the beach and tosses it into the ocean, forgetting his promise to inform the authorities.

Sadly, this is not the end of the horror--a few days later the police discover a nude body on the beach, a young Nordic tourist who coincidentally is missing her right hand. Not long after, Victor and a friend go squid-fishing only to pull in another mutilated body in their nets. A couple of seashell-seeking daytrippers are attacked Alfred Hitchcock-style by a flock of seagulls (vampires:bats::seagulls:empusa, apparently). And while dining with the Baron, Abel gorges himself on all-you-can-eat shrimp while the aristocrat is assassinated by a steak knife-wielding Belgian--though apparently this has nothing to do with the empusa. Just a value-added bloodbath.

"Got any Chapstick? Just put it on my bill."

Meanwhile, Abel's social life has taken a turn for the "Wow!" While lunching in town, the old Lothario strikes up a conversation with a striking, flame-haired young woman, Christabel (Cristina Carrión), who just so happens to be of Greco-Hungarian extraction. Despite having discovered evidence of a Greek demonic invasion mere days earlier, Abel sees nothing strange in a Hellenic hottie making eyes at a man three times her age--because fuck you, I'm Naschy, that's why! He meets Christabel later frolicking nude in the waves with a female friend, who seems similarly drawn to the irresistible Molina Man-Musk™. A day or so later, he meets yet another interested party--the absolutely smokin' hawt Laura De Pedro--who is looking for some silver artifacts that are rumored to be in the possession of the deceased Baron. With all the new women in his life Abel has little time for Natalia and Victor, the latter of whom just can't shake the feeling that the hand they found and the recent death-storm raining bodies on the beach might have something in common.

Of course Victor's not wrong--Christabel and her ever-expanding army of Eurobabes are indeed a pack of empusa on the loose-a, sucking their way through the local populace while Christabel prepares to battle with their queen Lilith (yes, THAT Lilith...apparently Greek and Jewish mythology have significant overlap) for empusian supremacy. She thinks Abel might be the wild card she needs to overthrow the ancient queen, but of course once she reveals her plan, the old fox is none too keen on helping her. Maybe she and her bffs shouldn't have killed Victor in a blood-fueled frenzy before asking for help? No use second guessing, I guess.

With vengeance on his mind, Abel sets out to bring down Lilith and the other empusa, getting posthumous help from Victor, who appears to him as a rotting corpse a la American Werewolf in London. But what can an old man do against an army of deathless vampire-demons and their ancient queen? Can he find a way to defeat them before they take over all of coastal Spain? Will aged justice prevail over nubile evil?

Puh-leez.

No, thank you.

In addition to being his last starring vehicle, Empusa also marks Naschy's last writing and directorial credit, and as he often does, here he adopts the "everything and the kitchen sink" approach that makes so many of his movies such wild, delirious rides. Obscure ancient mythology, literary and cinematic allusions, European folklore and good old-fashioned exploitation all rub together and produce a friction that is as delicious as it is confusing. Naschy was never afraid to throw everything at the wall just to see the splatter-pattern, and his last effort is no less fearless in this regard than his first.

It's also, believe it or not, extremely funny--and in this case, that's by design. Yes, parishioners, Empusa is not simply a monster movie: it's an all-out horror/comedy! Naschy plays Abel as an absolutely unrepentant rascal, and his chemistry with Mayans as the perpetually exasperated Victor is the stuff of comedy gold. There were many laugh-out-loud scenes for me, including but not limited to:

• Abel's ravenous obliviousness as the Baron regales him with tales of his ancestors' outrageous sexual exploits ("She dyed her pubic hair every color of the rainbow!") before the Baron's hilarious dying soliloquy (his last words compare his gaping abdominal wound to "a waiting, open c****!")
• A police inspector who reflexively punches out a corpse
• Victor communicating with Abel from beyond the grave...via FAX.
• An elderly priest, cop, and fisherman discussing their new status as "second-class vampires"

Viagra: Let Us Put an Epidemic in Your Pants™

• An absolutely hysterical sequence where Abel tries several traditional methods of repelling vampires on the empusa, with hilariously ineffective results
• Naschy learning the hard way that you shouldn't buy crossbows over the Internet

That's not to say the movie is perfect, however. While the women playing the empusa are all completely gorgeous and frequently naked (zang), as actresses they are almost uniformly terrible. I guess it's too much to ask for a modern equivalent of Julia Saly or Helga Liné, but still--ugh. The lone exception is Laura De Pedro as Lilith, who actually seems to know what she's doing and thus comes off as the best actress in the piece.

And also the sexiest.
(photo credit empusafilm.blogspot.com)

The score is either questionable or hysterical depending on your taste, veering from melodramatic orchestral swells to Danny Elfman-style whimsy with reckless abandon. The editing is a trouble spot too--transitions step on dialog, gaps in coverage are filled with random scenes of archaeological digs (?), and a couple of kills--one in a back alley by an empusa, and another in an amusement park spookhouse (??) by Lilith herself--pop in and out of the narrative with such disregard for coherence and continuity that I almost got whiplash.

I found it interesting that with the exception of the monsters, almost the entire cast was made up of actors of more advanced years. I don't think I saw a single human character under the age of 50 who had more than a few lines, which is extremely unusual and a little refreshing in our youth-obsessed culture. However, perhaps as a result of this (and perhaps as a result of the film's budget) there were noticeably few "action" scenes--in fact, a great deal of the film's runtime involves two people sitting in a cafe talking, which may be trying to some viewers' patience. The one real special-effects scene is a standout though, with Lilith in her true form--a nicely grotesque mixture of green scaly demon-beast and hot nude Eurobabe--chowing down on a hapless victim.

Literature: Bridging the Generation Gap since 1955

I would say that whether you enjoy Empusa or not will depend very largely on whether you are already a Naschy fan. To be very honest, I can't see someone unfamiliar with his work watching the film and getting much out of it. But for me (and for the Duke, judging by his chortles and snorts as we watched), it was entertaining, joyful, and a heck of a lot of fun. It's not the best of Naschy's movies by any means, but neither is it the worst. It has the kitchen-sink mentality and the heedless creative energy that make all of Naschy's films such a treat for his fans. And best of all, it has Naschy, his wry wit, his love of all things horror, and the boundless childlike joy that no film could fully contain and no amount of years could ever exhaust.

You gave it to me right to the end, Paul--for that, and for everything, thank you.

2.5 thumbs.

HEAR YE: You can (and should!) download your own copy of EMPUSA for a mere $5 by going to the following link.

http://www.naschysempusa.tk/

Do it! Do it NOW!

A few more images from EMPUSA (2010):

Feel the Glamor

Naschy's man-musk sends all mammals into uncontrollable sexual frenzy--even aquatic ones.

"AND YOU RAAAAAAN! YOU RAN SO FAR AWAAAAAAAAAY!"

Their sermons have only one subject: "Stay Away from the Wall"

Naschy always gets a "Thank You" card--as well he should.

*standing ovation*

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The Angry Red Planet (1959)

A crippled rocket, damaged on an ill-fated mission to Mars, is brought back to earth via radio control and some breathtakingly skillfull toggle-switch toggling. Inside are Dr. Iris Ryan (Naura Hayden) and Colonel Thomas O'Bannon (Gerald Mohr), the only surviving members of the 4-person crew. With the ship's reel-to-reel data tapes all erased by a powerful magnetic field, and Colonel O'Bannon fighting for his life against a poisonous alien infection that has turned his right arm to Lime Jell-O Fruit Salad™, earth doctors struggle to force the PTSD-ridden Dr. Ryan to remember just what (the fuck) happened.

After mega-doses of second-hand smoke fail to have an effect, the doctors use dangerous psychoactive drugs to tease the memories out of the frail, flame-haired doll of a scientist. The tale she has to tell is one of the strangest ever told, involving lush Martian jungles full of man-eating plants, 40-foot alien hellbeasts, and three-eyed Peeping Toms leaving sucker-prints on the rocket's glass portholes. How did they manage to escape? What happened to the other two astronauts? And what, if anything, can humankind learn from their folly?

All those questions are answered in The Angry Red Planet (1959, dir. Ib Melchior), a true classic of pre-moon landing US science fiction and a nonstop good time from blast-off to splashdown. We get special effects that range from the goofy (actor-animated carnivorous plant) to the surprisingly effective (death by blob!). We get charmingly naive science fantasy (Of course Mars is covered in lush jungles and oily lakes! How *else* would it be?), groovy visual effects courtesy the patented CineMAGIC process, and enough gleeful mid-century sexism to keep the writers of Mad Men in one-liners for a full season. (Mohr as O'Bannon is a real hoot--a 45-year old Lothario with spacesuit open to the navel, mouth twisted into a perpetual leer, who speaks almost exclusively in double entendres...except when speaking in SINGLE entendres.) Bad acting and questionable science can't overpower the film's energy, pacing, and sheer joie de vivre. By the time I got to the genuinely exciting climax and the requisite post-crisis warning, I was grinning from ear to ear and ready to do the whole thing over again.

2.5 Thumbs. Highly recommended.

Now, enjoy these MADcaps from The Angry Red Planet (1959):

Sleeves: They Don't Make 'Em Like THAT Anymore

A botanical sketch of the rare Martian Pussy Willow

Sammy (Jack Kruschen) worries needlessly about excessive oxygen consumption.

Angry Red Plant

Professor Van Dyke...um, Gettel (Les Tremayne) struggles manfully not to stare at the Colonel's sparse chest hair.

"Thomas! What have you been doing in here?"

"Well, guys...looks like we're fucked!"

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Blu-Ray Review: THE DEADLY SPAWN (1983)

Somewhere in a rural section of New Jersey, a couple of camping enthusiasts/possible life partners are shaken from their sleep by the sudden impact of an asteroid just a few hundred yards from their campsite. They go to investigate, and soon find themselves serving as an all-you-can-gnaw buffet for the meteorite's passengers: a bevy of space worms with multiple heads and more teeth than an Osmond family reunion. Needing a cool, damp place to rest, the Big Mama Worm lays down a slime trail toward a nearby house, slithering into the basement and settling down to a cosy life of popping out baby worms and messily devouring anyone who happens to come down looking for an extra jar of jam preserves.

Rightly considered one of the most ambitious micro-budget monster movies of its era (or any era, for that matter), The Deadly Spawn was a mainstay of video stores throughout the big-box VHS era. Produced by Ted A. Bohus and directed by Douglas McKeown (at least partially--more on that below), the movie was made on a truly paltry budget of about $25,000, yet boasts one of the most memorable and effective creatures ever to grace a video cover. And now Elite/MVD Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray edition of this essential slice of American indie-horror history, and graciously sent a copy to the Vicarage for review.


First, the movie itself--if you're a fan of cheesy sci-fi from the 80s, a celebrant of shoestring ingenuity and champion of the cinematic underdog such as the Duke and myself, then here is a movie tailor-made for your enjoyment. As the Mother Spawn grows larger, ickier, hungrier and ferociouser in the basement, a familial comedy of errors starts taking shape upstairs. The mother and father of the house are planning a long getaway of some sort, and have invited Aunt Millie and Uncle Herb to look after the kids while they're away. Because of their early planned departure time and Mom's conscientiousness about writing instructive notes before getting ready to leave, no one thinks it strange that neither parental unit is around when the rest of the house awakes--which is unfortunate, because they both have of course become Spawn-food in the interim.

On the fortunate side, though, is the fact that the orphaned-but-oblivious kids are uniquely well-suited to deal with the alien menace festering in their root cellar. Elder son Pete is an astronomy major just waiting for a radioactive bug bite to turn him into a superhero--nerdy, scrawny, but incredibly knowledgeable about all things to do with SCIENCE! His younger brother Frankie is a borderline autistic Monster Kid who enjoys wandering around the house in a devil cape and ape mask trying to scare Aunt Millie (and failing miserably). While Pete invites his school friends over for a study session and Pete talks to psychiatrist Uncle Herb to see if monster movies have warped his brain, a surprising number of expendable extras wander into the basement to be eaten by the Slimy Spawn.

Once Frankie discovers the toothy worm and its sperm-like spawnlings (gnawing on his mother's disembodied head! A circumstance which distresses him less than one would imagine), things get turned up to eleven--Spawn Babiez spread out in the neighborhood, attacking a vegan lunch party (seriously) and devouring Uncle Herb. Can Pete, Frankie, and the rest of the Mystery Incorporated gang find a way to defeat the Deadly Spawn before the neighborhood, and presumably the planet, becomes a bloody buffet?

The Deadly Spawn is a lot of fun, and all the more impressive due to its miniscule budget. Clearly a labor of love for all involved, it has that idealism and enthusiasm that I love so much, and that is sorely missing from many of the low-budget efforts of our era. And the creature effects by John Dods (who also did the effects for Don Dohler's immensely entertaining Nightbeast (1982)--a movie I've been meaning to review for ages!) are simply fantastic. Sure, there are some technical shortcomings and the expected sliding-scale acting, but it sets out to give the audience an icky fun time, and in that it more than succeeds.

As to the Blu-Ray presentation by Elite/MVD...well, I wish it were a little better. Whether due to the transfer or to the state of the source materials available, the picture here is somewhat less than hi-def. An improvement over a washed out VHS, sure, but just barely. There's a good amount of bonus materials. The commentary by Bohus and editor Marc Harwood is a hoot, as the two men clearly enjoy one another's company and love reminiscing about the film. We hear about technical triumphs, scheduling snafus, and tensions between McKeown and Dods which eventually led to McKeown's departure from the project and Dods stepping in as director. There's a gag reel, casing footage, trailer, TV spots, and more--more than enough for any Spawn fanatic.

In short, it's a great indie monster movie and worth adding to your collection, if you don't already have the DVD or are the sort of movie fan who just *has* to have everything on Blu-Ray.

Movie: 2.5 Thumbs
Disc: 2 thumbs

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The Bat People (1974): or, Echolocation Nation

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 29!

Scientist Dr. John Beck (Stewart Moss) really loves bats--so much that he's devoted his life and his ski vacation in northern New Mexico to his avid chiropterology. His beautiful wife Cathy (Marianne McAndrew) tries to make the best of things, inviting her hubby for a frolic off the tourist paths in some beautiful caves beneath the mountains. Unfortunately the amorous pair tumble immediately into a hole filled with beetles and are soon after attacked by a very frightening rubber bat replica! After their rescue, Johnny suffers a pair of hilarious seizures, which makes his wife and ski-bum physician Dr. Kipling (Paul Carr, moustache fancier extraordinaire) fear John has contracted the rubber rabies. After a bad reaction to his first rabies treatment, Paul is hospitalized.

The first night, Paul awakens from a dream of murderous bats to find himself transformed, Kafka-esque, into a Man-Bat! Half-man, half-bat, all murdery, Paul offs a nurse and later a dope-smokin', fornicatin' teen...or does he? The doctor believes his transformations and rampages are all in his head, but local cop Sgt. Ward (Michael Pataki, Mad Movie veteran of The Baby and Grave of the Vampire) is not convinced--and the pair of bodies cooling in the morgue don't help Kipling's case either. In a fit of animalistic rage, Paul escapes the hospital, steals an ambulance, and tears out of there like a bat out of hell! (So to speak.) Fleeing back to the cave where his troubles began, Paul descends into either madness or bat-itude, while Cathy and the increasingly unhinged Ward try to track him down. Can they get to him before he kills again?

Spoiler: nope.

A mad mad mad mad movie if ever there was one, The Bat People (1974) is really something special. Sure, director Jerry Jameson's film has pacing problems, and relies too heavily on poorly matched stock footage of bats in nature, but the several things about this flick had me grinning idiot-wise throughout:

• Any movie gets bonus points from me when it opens with a plaintive, 70s theme song. This one has "Angel of Fear," and it's a stunner.

• Some of the "attacking bats" shown in closeup are clearly being held by their wingtips directly in front of the camera and are struggling mightily against the injustice. This is both slightly cruel and deeply hilarious.

• The Man-Bat makeup by Stan Winston I found to be excellent and distinctly Naschy-esque.

"I am not an animal! I...oh, wait. Fuck."

• A late scene where John transforms while making love to his oblivious, orgasming wife is also Naschy-esque (q.v. Curse of the Devil [1973]). 

• An early bat-creature attack scene is scored with the most incongruously toe-tapping free jazz you can imagine. The Naschy parallels have pretty much got to be intentional at this point (q.v., Vengeance of the Zombies [1973])

• Stewart Moss's eye-rolling, face-twitching seizures should have won him an award. Also, awesomely named Arthur Space has a show-stealing scene as a philosophical hobo. 

• There's an odd kneecapping of our sympathy/admiration for the shrewd, no-nonsense Sgt. Kelly when out of nowhere he gets all rapey on Cathy in her hotel room! WTF, lawman?

• The final "bat-attack" scene, which also explains the plural form of the noun used in the title, is simply fantastic.

I'm not going to say The Bat People is a great film, or even one that most viewers would like--it's stupid, cheap, and takes a while getting to the bat-action (though some would count that as a strength, leaving viewers to ponder whether John is actually transforming or just rabid and hallucinating). But as a fan of all things cheap and cheesy, I thought it was great. If you feel the same, Bat People is a fun time. 2.5 thumbs.

And many thanks to the beautiful and deadly Jenn of Cavalcade of Perversions, whose love for this flick is what caused me to seek it out in the first place!

"Look, I'm getting used to the sweater, but if you say 'Good Grief!' to me one more time, so help me..."

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TerrorVision (1986): or, Quite the Dish

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 23!

In the days when "satellite TV" meant having a dish the size of a bisected Volkswagen in your backyard and access to NASA-level array-control technology, Stanley Putterman (the inimitable Gerrit Graham, "Bud the CHUD" and The Phantom of the Paradise's Beef himself ) installs a "Do-It-Yourself 100" dish in the hopes of opening a new world of entertainment possibilities. This meets with the approval of his wife Raquel (Mary Woronov of Eating Raoul, Silent Night Bloody Night, and Chopping Mall), daughter Suzy (Diane Franklin, of the superlatively MAD Amityville II: the Possession) and son Sherman (Chad Allen, Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman). Even military-minded Grandpa (Bert Remsen) is down, excited about the possibilities for monitoring enemy troop movements.

However, when a sanitation worker from Planet Pluton accidently beams a dangerous piece of garbage--a slavering, amorphous mutant called a "Hungry Monster"-- into the Puttermans' new dish, what started out as a nice night in front of the tube becomes a fight for survival and the future of the human race. As the monster crawls out of the boob tube to munch on its new hosts, the Puttermans' "swinging" guests, and Suzy's punkish boyfriend O.D. (Jon "I'm a Wolfman and I've Got Nards" Gries), Sherman makes desperate calls for help, first to the police and then to late-night horror hostess Medusa (Jennifer Richards). Meanwhile, O.D. and Suzy try to train the beast, which goes well until the Pluton Sanitation Department shows up to try and correct its error. Then things get a little messy...

Produced by Charles Band and directed by Full Moon Pictures-mainstay Ted Nicolaou, TerrorVision (1986) is an energetic, broad parody of everything 80s that, like many a fine cheese, has only grown more delicious as it ages. Viewers of a certain age will recognize a lot of the period piece details, from Raquel's Jazzercize obsession to Suzy's Cyndi Lauper fashions to Medusa's Elvira-esque show and costumery. Graham is hilarious as always (what an underrated performer this guy is), and Gries steals the show in a role that prefigures Bill and Ted by three years. The effects are goopy, practical, and disgusting, and the monster design is gross but strangely adorable. (In a standout scene, the monster uses its mimicking ability to morph several appendages into a slime-covered orgy involving the Puttermans, their guests, and even Grandpa! Must-see.) The music by Richard Band is as good as you'd expect.

TerrorVision is nothing but OTT fun from one end to the other. Even those born in the era of dinner plate-sized satellite dishes should find this blast from the past enjoyable. 2.5 thumbs.

"Don't wait up! I've heard these Noam Chomsky lectures sometimes go long."

Bonus: The awesomely 80s TerrorVision Theme song!

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Captive Wild Woman (1943): or, I'm Going Ape for You, Baby

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 16!

Daring circus man and animal trainer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone) returns from a 2-year journey with a cargo hold full of big cats, zebras, and one very intelligent gorilla named Cheela (Ray "Crash" Corrigan in one of his patented and excellent ape suits). Girlfriend Beth Coleman (scream queen extraordinaire Evelyn Ankers) is happy to have him back, and introduces him to mysterious Dr. Sigmund Walters (a never-more-dapper John Carradine), a brilliant glandular specialist who has been treating Beth's friend Dorothy (The Big Sleep's Carmen Sternwood herself, Martha Vickers) for an overabundance of "the sex hormone." Of course Dr. Walters is a scientist of the extremely MAD persuasion, and hopes to use Dorothy's hormones and his own surgical know-how to transform Cheela into a human/ape hybrid, which will be the first of a race of supermen to help him rule the world, blah blah blah.

He succeeds beyond his wildest expectations, for when the bandages come off Cheela has become the smokin' hawt Acquanetta. However, when the simian sweetie figuratively goes ape for Fred, the strong (sexual) emotions cause a glandular chaos in her system, which results in her going ape literally. As Dr. Walters targets Beth for his next lethal transplant and Fred finds himself at the mercy of a cage full of storm spooked cats, Cheela's animal and human natures fight to decide the fate of all involved.

They sure don't make 'em like this anymore. Captive Wild Woman is a briskly paced mad science thriller whose one-hour running time is packed with action, thrills, and more than a little post-Code perversity. Director Edward Dmytryk does a nice job juggling the circus and laboratory scenes, and even the lengthy lion-and-tiger-taming sequences (comprised mostly of footage lifted from the 1933 circus flick The Big Cage, according to Tom Weaver's excellent book Universal Horrors) kept me on the edge of my seat. (And would likely be the scariest thing in the movie to a modern, ASPCA-sympathetic viewer.) The half-ape/half-woman makeup by the legendary Jack Pierce is, of course, excellent.

The cast is full of wonderful genre actors of the era, including Fay Helm, who played alongside Ankers a couple years earlier in 1941's The Wolf Man, as Dr. Walter's ill-fated nurse. Carradine gives a remarkably restrained performance as the mad doctor, and Corrigan's ape-acting is great as always. While Acquanetta was billed as "A New Sensation in Savagery!" she's not really given much to do in her non-speaking role--still, her exotic beauty and big, expressive eyes make a definite impression.

A fun second-tier Universal flick I'd been meaning to check out for a long time, and am very glad I did. A great Sunday-afternoon popcorn muncher: 2.25 thumbs.

"Gimme some sugar, baby!"

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Dead Alive (1992): or, Kicking Arse for the Lord

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 12!

Young Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) meets cute with Spanish Gypsy babe Paquita (Diana Peñalver) after her second-sighted mother reads romance in her cards. Lionel's own Mum (Elizabeth Moody)--a domineering harpy of a woman--is none too pleased with the new relationship, and spies on the couple to ensure that she remains the only woman in her son's life. When she follows Lionel and Paquita to the zoo and is bitten by the only Sumatran Rat Monkey in captivity, however, Mum picks up a rather nasty zoonitic bug--she runs a fever, bursts into cold sweats, and parts of her body start falling off into her custard. Soon Mum has passed the disease on to several local residents, and Lionel is sent scrambling trying to contain the mess. And what a mess it is...

Come on, do I really have to summarize this one?

One of the most over-the-top, silly, and gory movies of all time, Peter Jackson's Dead Alive is a flick that just keeps topping itself. You think it's got as crazy as it's going to get when it introduces the flip-top nurse zombie...then it throws in the famous Kung-Fu Priest (Stuart Devenie), bodies ripped in half, an animated (and strangely adorable) set of roving internal organs, and a skull-bursting Zombie Baby. By the time we get to the famous end party scene (Oh Crikey! It's Lawnmower Deth!), the viewer might rightly believe he's seen it all...but as Lionel warns his girlfriend, "I haven't seen Mum this evening..."

This is the movie I believe the term "splatstick comedy" was coined for, and imo the one to which it applies most perfectly. Jackson's movie is full of brilliant physical comedy and sight gags that would not be out of place in a Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton one-reeler--only without all the dismemberment and copious bodily fluids. Timothy Balme is a gifted physical comedian of the Charlie Chaplin school, and the way his Lionel goes to greater and greater extremes to maintain some semblance of normalcy while the world literally goes to pieces around him is both hilarious and affecting.

The special effects are as funny as they are disgusting--from faces being ripped off, legs being stripped to bone, multiple impalements (on grave markers, splintered wood, and memorably a still-blazing light bulb), to of course the show-stopping stop-motion Rat Monkey. Jackson also works in a nod to his touchstone flick King Kong (1931), and the early scenes in Sumatra starkly prefigure the scenes with the savage tribe in the director's 2005 remake.

For a justly celebrated horror-comedy classic, my rating of Dead Alive is a no-brainer: 3 thumbs way up!

"♫ FEELINGS! Whoa-whoa-whoa....♫"

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Night of the Creeps (1986): or, Consider Me Thrilled

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 10!

 In Earth-Year 1959 AD, a passing insterstellar research craft is the scene of intrigue and mutiny, as a creature who looks like E.T. on steroids steals a canister of dangerous parasites and makes a waddling bee-line for the air lock. In the ensuing hail of laser fire and gratuitous alien butt-shots, the mastermind fails to make good his escape, but does manage to fling the canister out of the ship, where it becomes trapped in Earth's orbit and crashes near the campus of an American university. A jock and his girlfriend are caught between a rock and a squishy place, as the boy falls prey to the alien worms while the girl is hacked to death by an escaped axe murderer! And all this in the first five minutes!

Nearly 20 years later, nerdy nice guy Chris (Jason Lively) is smitten by sorority girl Cynthia (super-cute Jill Whitlow). At the urging of his handicapped but fearless friend J.C. (Steve Marshall in a show-stealing performance), Chris pledges to a fraternity run by The Bradster (Allan Kayser), a sadistic Aryan preppie who is also Cynthia's erstwhile boyfriend. Brad tasks the boys to steal a corpse from the university research facility and dump it on a rival fraternity's steps--and I bet you can guess which body they corpse-nap. Soon the alien parasites are running rampant, turning students both living and dead into shambling, bloodthirsty zombies with exploding heads! It's up to Chris, J.C., and beyond-grizzled and gruff detective Ray Cameron (Tom "Fucking" Atkins) to exterminate the alien menace before the planet is overrun and the sorority formal ruined.

One of the true cult-classics of 80s horror, Night of the Creeps is a great time from beginning to end. Writer/Director Fred Dekker (the man also responsible for the much-loved 1987 kids' horror-adventure, The Monster Squad) delivers a fast-paced, quick-witted, gloriously gross hunk of grade-A cheese that should satisfy any fan of the genre. His script is full of quotable quips and unforgettable images, from the suspended-animation body of the 50s jock (which J.C. memorably terms a "corpsicle") to Cynthia in formal dress fighting off zombies with a flamethrower, to Atkin's immortal catchphrase, "Thrill me!" The acting is good across the board, with Atkins and Marshall making the best impressions. Add some great makeup effects, some fun, grody gore (watch particularly for the infected zombie cat puppet), and a special appearance by legendary character actor and national treasure Dick Miller, and there's really nothing left wanting.

A flick I haven't watched in years, and one I'm very glad I revisited. 3 thumbs!

"I don't know, Brad...you've just been so cold to me lately."

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Ginger Snaps Back (2004): or, The Past is a Bitch, and So Am I

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 8!

In the winter of 1815, sisters Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) are traveling by river through the Canadian wilderness when their riverboat capsizes, their parents and protectors drown, and they find themselves stranded miles from civilization. As bad as that sounds, things get even worse: they discover an Indian camp that has recently been the scene of a slaughter--huge holes in the tepees, blood and guts everywhere, and the only survivor a mystical old seer whose predictions are (predictably) cryptic and grim. After Brigitte steps into an iron wolf trap, a strong but silent Native American hunter (Nathaniel Arcand) helps the girls to relative safety--a wooden fort under the command of a fur trading company. But the wary unwelcome they receive (and the inch-deep, bloody scratches on the heavily fortified gates) hint that there might be even more dangers in store for our intrepid siblings.

If you're familiar at all with the first two entries in this series, you'll know that the cause of all the trouble is a bad case of Werewolfery, which Hunter says the Europeans brought to their land, just like the plagues of small-pox and alcoholism. Running out of supplies and surrounding by a ferocious pack of man-beasts, the widowed Captain Wallace Rowlands (Tom McCamus) is also hiding a dark secret about the supposed death of his son--a secret that will of course land Ginger right in the middle of the full-moon madness, with Brigitte the only one she can count on to help her break the curse. But given the choice between sisterly loyalty and rescuing future generations from the Horror of the Werewolf, what will the kind-hearted but needy younger sibling do?

I was a big fan of Ginger Snaps (2000), finding it a refreshing, even invigorating entry in the werewolf subgenre, which had been languishing arguably ever since the triumph of 1981's monster masterpiece An American Werewolf in London. I also very much enjoyed the second entry, Ginger Snaps: Unleashed (2004, filmed back to back with its sequel), which in my humble should have been a star-making turn for Emily Perkins in a complex, harrowing role she absolutely knocked out of the park. I thought the movies had some great fresh ideas--I love the relationship between the outcast sisters, and the notion of the transformation as gradual and one-way; in this world, when you turn, you turn forever, making the race to find a cure that much more intense. However, I somehow missed this third installment, and the lukewarm reviews it received upon its release (much of which expressed bafflement at the decision to go period-piece with the story) did nothing to make me rush out and see it.

However, this many years after the fact and able to view it on its own merits, I found Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning a well-made, entertaining, and even thrilling modern werewolf movie. Director Grant Harvey makes good use of the Canadian wilderness and period sets, creating a believable window into the past. And DP Michael Marshall deserves props for his gorgeous shots of some absolutely beautiful scenery, to say nothing of his lensing of the exciting werewolf battles and dream sequences.

But of course the heart of all three movies is the relationship between sisters Brigitte and Ginger, their outsider status and absolute devotion to one another. While I found it extremely difficult to buy Isabelle as an 1800s teenage, Perkins once again turns in a fantastic, emotional performance--one which drew me in and made me concerned for her, and thus frightened and excited by the werewolves' attacks (and the menace from baddies inside the fort: leering Reverend Gilbert and battle-scarred soldier James (Hugh Dillon and JR Bourne, respectively). The other trapped trappers provide good performances as well, and the director gets some mileage out of the religious, racial, and personal tensions their precarious situation brings out.

Standing on its own, Ginger Snaps Back is a well-made period horror film that I think would make a good companion piece to fan-favorite Wendigo-flick Ravenous (1999), and could go toe-to-toe with it, for that matter. Another 2.5 thumb rating.

"I didn't mean to eat all the jelly donuts! OMG, Brigitte, help me!"

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