Halloween Monster Memories: The Other Faces of Bela Lugosi

The slicked-back black hair; the aristocratic bearing; the pointed, slightly raptor-like nose; the dark, glittering, hypnotic eyes. Is it any wonder that when Bela Lugosi intoned his first screen line, "I am...Dracula," that audiences then and forever after believed him? That god-like, he spoke, and the word was made flesh?

Bela Lugosi was nearly fifty years old when he stepped in front of the cameras to perform the role that would forever define his cinematic identity, and had already seen more hardship, adventure, and professional success in his life than most people could even dream of. He was a successful stage actor in his home country of Hungary (he claimed to have been the leading actor in Hungary's Royal National Theater, though some biographers cast doubt on this claim). He was a decorated veteran of World War I, and afterward attained the rank of Captain in the Austro-Hungarian Army's ski patrol. He had fled his home country after finding himself, as he said, "on the wrong side of the Revolution" in 1919. Eventually he sailed on a merchant ship to the United States, landing not in New York but in New Orleans (how cool is that?) and there continued his acting career on stage, in the role of Count Dracula. [wikipedia]

Another brief primer for those who might be unaccountably uneducated in Lugosi-lore: When silent horror legend Lon Chaney Sr. was forced to decline the role of the vampire count in Tod Browning's version of the Hamilton Deane stage play (NOT the Stoker novel, as should be clear to anyone who's read it), Universal's producers brought in Lugosi, who had been getting rave reviews on Broadway in the same role. (Legend has it that Lugosi, whose English was severely limited, learned his lines phonetically, resulting in his trademark strange, hypnotic cadence.) The runaway success of the 1931 film cemented Lugosi as a star in Hollywood and also kick-started the Universal Horror cycle that brought us Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and all the rest.

As most old school horror fans know, though, the success also became Lugosi's curse. A talented actor who, like all artists, wanted to practice his craft to the length and breadth of his abilities, Lugosi found himself locked into the Dracula role, permanently identified with the part that made him famous in America. Though he played many other types of characters in his career, eventually all the studio wanted from him was the sneering, aristocratic villain, who if he wasn't an actual vampire, really might as well have been. When non-Dracular roles dried up, the typecast Lugosi fell into z-grade programmers to support his ultimately fatal morphine addiction.

Going back and looking at some of the roles Lugosi played before age, typecasting, and his famous addiction to morphine brought him down, one can't help but marvel at what was lost by the producers' and directors' lack of imagination. So in the interest of redressing what wrongs I can, and further educating those who might know Bela only in his cape and tux, I thought I'd take a little time to celebrate some of the Other Faces of Bela Lugosi.

Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre in White Zombie (1932)

Legendre and one of his minions.
(thanks to The Lugosi Collection)

First of all, let that character name roll off your tongue for a minute. Has there ever been a better voodoo master name than "Murder Legendre"? If there has, I haven't heard it. A year after the success of Dracula, the Halperin Brothers Productions (though filmed entirely on the Universal Studio lots, it was not technically a Universal film) went into production with this atmospheric tale about Charles Beaumont, a plantation owner in Haiti whose lust for his friend's fiance leads him to ask Murder Legendre, local voodoo master who's providing undead labor for Beaumont's sugar plantation, to turn the girl into his necro-love slave. This works about as well as you'd expect. I think this is a great creepy pre-brain-eating zombie flick (arguably the first zombie movie ever), and Lugosi, while slightly Dracula-like here, seems to me less aristocratic, more savage in a way, and extremely powerful and dangerous. He uses his famous miming skills to great effect too, clasping his hands to focus control over his undead hordes.

Bela Lugosi as Dr. Mirakle in Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

Mirakle in a strikingly similar pose with his simian servant.
(thanks to tresfrompaulsbsmt.com)

That same year, Lugosi got to play one of his first mad scientist roles as the xenophilic cross-breeder Dr. Mirakle, obsessed with mixing the blood of human women with that of his monstrous pet ape. Obviously the movie had little to do with the Edgar Allen Poe story on which it was purportedly based (did Universal ever do a straight Poe adaptation?), but his wild look and unhinged manner here show what he could do with such a role. He would revisit the mad scientist schtick several times in his career, though often as the suave, sophisticated, very Dracula-like researcher (discounting the Ed Wood flicks at the end of his career, like the infamous Bride of the Monster--though his energy and commitment to the role even in that flick are compelling, especially given his frail physical state).

Lugosi vs. Karloff

It's perhaps ironic that the actor who gained the most from Lugosi's success as Dracula was not really Lugosi himself, but his fellow fright legend Boris Karloff. I hope everyone knows the story: flush with his success and newfound stardom, Lugosi was offered the role of the Monster in Universal's literary horror follow-up, Frankenstein, but famously turned it down because he didn't fancy being obscured by heavy makeup and having no speaking lines. The relatively unknown Karloff got the gig instead, and went on to have a career full of great performances in the types of broad-ranging roles Lugosi would later long for fruitlessly. Lugosi finally got his turn at playing the monster in 1943's Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man, but by then it was too late. Besides, he couldn't match Karloff's pathos or physicality in the actor's trademark role, any more than Karloff could have pulled off the Hungarian count. Being matched against the much more physically imposing Lon Chaney Jr. didn't help matters any--especially since Lugosi was over 60!

Lugosi as the Monster
(thanks to Cinematical)

But the two men's careers crossed over at several points, most famously in a pair of films also nominally based on Poe stories, The Black Cat (1934) and The Raven (1935). In my opinion it's in the former flick that Lugosi makes his biggest mark, playing borderline hero to Karloff's Crowleyan villain. Lugosi's Dr. Vitus Wedergast is a man damaged by war and tragedy, bent on revenge for the horrible wrongs done him by his archenemy. The actors match each other stroke for stroke here, at one point literally playing chess for the lives of the innocent in a memorably tragic scene. Lugosi manages to instill the character with kindness and humanity, even though his purpose is hot-blooded murder. He's good in The Raven too, but that role is not as far removed from Dracula as his half-fearful, half-raging turn in The Black Cat.

The Shoulders of Giants: Karloff and Lugosi in The Black Cat

(thanks to http://blog.bearstrong.net)

The one role that is about as far removed from the Count as you can imagine is for my money one of Lugosi's best screen performances bar none: the bearded, savage, joyfully evil Ygor in the underrated Son of Frankenstein (1939). In Karloff's last outing as the Monster, Lugosi plays the lower-class shepherd who escaped the hangman's noose (though still with a badly healed broken neck to show for it) and befriends Frankenstein's creature in order to get revenge on those he feels have wronged him. Dirty, petty, rambunctious and all-out malevolent, he's the polar opposite of the suave count who is almost always in strict control of every situation. A fantastic performance, and one that made Ygor synonymous with evil henchmen everywhere.

That's "Ygor" with a "Y"

(thanks to michaelmay.blogspot.com)

The last time Lugosi worked with Karloff was in the excellent Val Lewton-produced RKO feature, The Body Snatcher (1945). This is one of my favorite Karloff performances, but while Lugosi's contribution is often derided as a bit part thrown in to capitalize on his name and the famous Karloff/Lugosi pairing, I think the scene in which Lugosi falls into Karloff's web of murder is affecting nonetheless, largely thanks to the pathos of Lugosi's stupid, drink-addled character work. Some would say he wasn't playing too far off type by this point--his drug addiction was beginning to tell, even then--but it's a scene I never get tired of watching.

Bela at the mercy of the Body Snatcher

(thanks to www.mikesegretto.com)

Lugosi as The Sayer of the Law in Island of Lost Souls (1932)

Though Lugosi never rounded out his monster roles with a turn as a werewolf (Ape-Man don't count), he came close in Paramount's 1932 H. G. Wells adaptation The Island of Lost Souls. Again having only a brief cameo, here he plays the Sayer of the Law, a wise but raving half man/half beast. He injects a lot of energy and passion into the part, but though the film is excellent, for Lugosi fans it's largely a curiosity.

Lugosi in full beast-man make-up
(thanks to www.celtoslavica.de)

But of course Bela could never get away from the cape and fangs, even though he played Dracula only twice on screen, in the 1931 classic and in the Universal Monsters swan song, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Still, he played some form of vampire or other in various films after that, once again under Tod Browning in Mark of the Vampire, and later against such luminaries as the Bowery Boys and the Dead End kids. He died in 1956, and was buried in one of the Dracula capes he wore on stage in the role he made famous.

It only makes sense, doesn't it?
(boingboing)

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Mad Mad Mad Mad Music: GWAR in Little Rock

So last night, the Duke of DVD and I got to cross one big item off our collective bucket lists: no, we didn't meet Paul Naschy and become his liveried manservants for a day (YET), but we did have an experience almost as fulfilling: we saw GWAR live!

For those of you tragically unfamiliar, a brief primer: millions of years ago, a squad of monstrous intergalactic warriors, The Scumdogs of the Universe, were exiled from their home planet by the Master for being too disgusting, out of control, and generally badass. Their prison ship crash landed in Antarctica, where the Scumdogs remained frozen in suspended animation for untold eons.

GWAR, shortly before eating the photographer

Then, 25 years ago, band manager, failed presidential candidate, and inventor of crack cocaine Sleezy P. Martini discovered the band while fleeing his druglord enemies and inadvertently reawakened them. Christening the group GWAR (either the sound they made upon awakening, or else an acronym for "God What an Awful Racket"), he gave them instruments, all the crack they could eat, and immediately booked them on tour.

Apart from delivering brutal and hilarious heavy metal music that's about as un-PC as you could possibly imagine, GWAR's trademark is their theatrical, circus-like stage shows, in which they typically dismember their enemies, rape rubber dummies, and spray their hungry fans with blood, pus, and various other disgusting bodily fluids.

GWAR at the Village, Little Rock AR, Oct. 7, 2009. From left: Balsac the Jaws of Death (guitar), Oderus Urungus (vocals), Jizmac da Gusha (drums), Beefcake the Mighty (bass). Lead guitarist Flatuus Maximus obscured by glare.

I've been a fan of GWAR's since the early 90s, when I caught one of their videos on Beavis and Butthead. Monsters, sex, bad jokes, and METULL--what's not to like? I had cassettes, later CDs, and VHS and DVDs of their outrageous shows. But I never in a million years thought they would play in my home town of Little Rock. Happily, experience has proved me wrong, and Oderus brought his boys (not to mention his infamous Three-Pronged Cuttlefish of Cthulhu) to the Village last night as GWAR opened for much more serious-minded rockers, Lamb of God.

The place was packed, and GWAR rose to the occasion, blazing through on an hour-plus long set that left the capacity crowd shaken, satisfied, and absolutely dripping with green and red goo. Vicar-fave Balsac the Jaws of Death wore his bear-trap face and giant goat feet, and even though Beefcake the Mighty no longer plays his porkchop-style bass, he, Flatuus, and Jizmac joined Balsac to lay down some punishing riffs, with technical proficiency that the band is seldom given enough credit for.

Frontbeast Oderus Urungus was in top form, belting out tunes old and new while trading entertaining banter with supporting characters like General Zog, Sawborg-Destructo, and cyborg guardian of morality Cardinal Syn.

Oderus eviscerates a hapless enemy, while the crowd roars its approval and is bathed in gore.

Highlights of the show are too many to catalog adequately, but the surprise appearances (and dismemberments) of Michael Jackson and President Barack Obama were definitely among them. To just give you an idea, after Michael got a little frisky with a two-headed mutant siamese fetus prop, Oderus expressed his approval by ripping the King of Pop's face off. The skull-visaged Jackson proceeded to do some of his most famous dance moves, all the while spraying gouts of gore on the approving audience.

Everyone in the pit got absolutely soaked, but just to make sure, GWAR brought out a plasma cannon to get the colorful effluvia into the first few rows of seating as well. And in their closing number, the classic MTV hit "Sick of You," Oderus finished the job by manipulating his mutated member and spraying red spunk all over everyone! (Note: I guarantee a GWAR show is the only place you will see uber-tough, aggressively hetero metal heads who will watch a foam-suited monsterman simulate masturbation with a gigantic warty phallus and BEG to be hit with the results. It brings a crimson tear to the eye.)

GWAR brings it on home

For the Duke and me, it was the accomplishment of a lifetime goal, and did not disappoint--it was really all we could have asked for and more.

The Duke in his natural state: covered in blood and space-monster jizz.

The Vicar goes temporarily insane in the horrifying aftermath of GWAR.

In conclusion, if you haven't seen GWAR before, and you get the chance, GO. You will never see anything else quite like it. And here's hoping I get to see them again before another quarter century comes and goes.

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Halloween Monster Memories: The Creature from the Black Lagoon

It's no secret to long-time readers of the blog that I grew up a Universal Horrors-loving fool. Back in the days before DVD box sets, before VHS rentals and recorders, even before cable and satellite, my older brother and I combed the TV listings a week in advance, searching for monsters. We would take naps on Friday afternoons and binge on sugared, caffeinated sodas in order to give ourselves the stamina to stay up for the Late Late Creature Feature, not knowing whether we'd be discovering a yet-unseen gem of the golden age or a soporific z-grade turkey. We had our share of the latter, but every now and then we'd get lucky, and one of the true Classics would play out before our bleary eyes, making us giddy with joy and prone to junk-food nightmares. Nights like that made it all worthwhile.

You kids today. You don't know how good you've got it.

Every October I regress in age to that wide-eyed, still blessedly un-diabetic boy, with an insatiable craving for peanut-butter taffy and a strong desire to revisit those flicks that made me love horror in the first place. I've watched and re-watched them all over the years, and they never fail to return me to that innocent, enthusiastic place, where everything was yet to be discovered, and nothing--not even black-and-white films from the 30s, 40s, and 50s--was old.

So in honor of every horror geek's favorite month, I thought I'd take a day each week to consider the old school classics. For our inaugural reminiscence I'd like to revisit everyone's favorite amphibian, perhaps the last great Universal Horror icon: the Gillman, or as he's more poetically known, The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The Gillman and Julie Adams in a justly famous publicity still.

In his first outing, the Creature was explained as a living fossil, a parallel-evolutionary offshoot from a time when monsters ruled the earth. In almost the same way, as a cinematic entity the Gillman could be seen as the evolutionary link between the atmospheric, gothic horrors of Universal's 30s and 40s output, and the adventure-oriented sci-fi horrors of the following decade. As iconic as the Frankenstein Monster, as sympathetic as the Wolf Man, the Creature was nonetheless clearly a monster of a different stripe than both the vampires and ghouls that preceded him, and the atom-powered Bug-Eyed Monsters that were his successors.

In fact, the classic monster with whom the Gillman shares the most similarities is not a Universal Horror at all, but rather one of the biggest icons of would-be rival studio RKO: the Great Ape himself, King Kong. Beset by modern invaders in his untouched, pristine home jungle, he is hypnotized by the beauty of the lone woman on the offending expedition--a fascination that ultimately proves to be his undoing. It's a tale as old as time (song as old as rhyme): Beauty and the Beast. The two movies also share an emphasis on action and jungle adventure over atmospheric chills, relying instead on the sheer monstrosity of their title creatures to evoke fright.

Well, wouldn't YOU?

But let's back up and give a remedial course in Monsters 101 for those of you who might inexcusably be unfamiliar with the text.* In Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), anthropologists/archaelogists working on the banks of the Amazon discover the fossilized claw of a prehistoric creature previously unknown to science--seemingly a link between land and sea creatures--on the last day of their scheduled dig. When head researcher Dr. Carl Maia brings the fossil back to civilization, he convinces hotshot grant-seeker Dr. Mark Williams to put together an expedition to find rest of the fossil. Williams calls in straight-laced colleague Dr. Mark Reed and his ichthyologist/love interest Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams--a little girl from Little Rock!), hires river rat Lucas and his boat The Rita, and sets off in search of scientific immortality.

*There was a time when I thought you could take it as a given that any person running a horror blog or attending a fright convention would have to be conversant in the Universal Horrors, but hard experience has proved me wrong on more than one occasion. Kids today *grumble mumble*...

Unfortunately for the crew, the fossilized creature is NOT from an extinct species--a living specimen, the Gillman himself, doesn't take kindly to having his habitat disturbed, and starts picking off expendable extras almost from the get-go. I remember as a child being terrified by shots of the Creature's claw reaching slowly out of the black water, barely missing the Julie Andrews' ankle or closing powerfully around the face of a native hired hand. (I was too young to worry about the way the spiny claws bent as they were dragged across the dirt back to the river.) However, presumably never having seen a human female before, the Gillman is fascinated by Kay, leading to the justly famous "water ballet" scene in which the Creature swims mere feet below the oblivious beauty, almost but not quite touching her treading feet--a gesture of curiosity and longing that B-Movie scholar Joe Bob Briggs** reckons every 14-year-old boy in the audience could well relate to.

**In his indispensible book, Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies that Changed History!

Beautiful.

In fact there's a strong sexual subtext to much of the flick, whether embodied by the Creature's curiosity or by the tensions between Mark, Kay, and David, the latter of whom is clearly miffed that Kay has spurned his previous advances in favor of Mark's bland heroism. (Nota Bene: sometimes a spear gun is NOT just a spear gun.) I think it's going too far to claim the monster wants Kay for his mate--if there's one thing that's a clear difference between Kong and the Gillman, apart from size, it's that whatever's going on behind those unblinking eyes, he is NOT LIKE US, and is not having mammalian thoughts--but he's clearly not seeing her as food either, and his desire for her can be imprinted upon, if not entirely understood.

I used to feel that the movie was ahead of its time pseudo-science wise, what with all the frank talk about evolution and the possible environmental undertones. (Whether you see Kay's floating cigarette and the poison/pollution trap as a trigger for the Creature's violence or not, they're clearly spoiling an unspoiled land.) Of course maybe I felt this way because I was raised in the American South, where teaching evolution to grade schoolers is still considered "controversial"; or maybe it's just that I was used to these old movies hitting hard on the "things God didn't want man to meddle in" schtick. Still, as pseudo-science goes, I think it holds up pretty well; I never thought for a minute that these people weren't serious scientists looking for serious knowledge, and never felt the tragedy was due so much to a jealous God than to basic human misunderstanding of what they were dealing with.

The Man Behind the Mask: Ricou Browning as the Creature

Two icons came out of the flick. One of course was the Gillman himself, who I believe still holds the title as most-merchandised Universal Monster of all time. Rubber bendy toys, Aurora models, t-shirts, Halloween door-hangings, masks, resin busts, and tattoos--people love the Creature, and want to put him everywhere. The other was of course Julie Adams, whose bullet-bra swimsuit, delicious gams, attractive (and believable!) intelligence, and frankly gorgeous face make such a stunning contrast to the Creature's amphibian visage. (As most everyone knows, that's NOT Adams in the famous water ballet scene, but a body double [and what a body!] who was a stronger swimmer. But that's all her screaming on the posters and draped over the Creature's arms, baby.) Though she didn't do much more horror work after that--making her mark instead in movie and TV westerns--she'll forever be associated with the flick, and rightly so.

The movie was successful, and spawned an almost immediate sequel, Revenge of the Creature (1955), helmed like the first one by the revered sci-fi director Jack Arnold. The second movie continues in the King Kong vein, with another expedition going to the Amazon and this time successfully capturing the Gillman and bringing him back to a Seaworld-style aquarium/research center in Florida. The love triangle set-up is used again, this time with Professor Clete Ferguson and shapely ichthyology student Helen Dobson, with Gillman-keeper Joe Hayes as the grumpy third wheel. If you've seen King Kong you know what happens when they bring the monster back to civilization--he breaks free and goes on a rampage! (The Creature's initial escape and menace of the tourist crowds is a real treat.) He also makes off with the girl, and has to be put down at the end.

The Creature takes some Revenge. Note the goggle-eyes added in the second film to aid the swimmer's visibility. Not all scenes feature these "improvements," as some underwater footage was recycled from the first movie.

People often call this the better of the two sequels, and I can understand their point of view, even if I don't entirely agree. There's more monster mayhem here, both in that aforementioned escape and in the scene where the creature nabs Helen out of a seafood restaurant. We get to see some of the Gillman's phenomenal power (shown obliquely in the first film by his ripping a hole in the fishing net and nearly breaking the boom with his swimming strength), and who doesn't love a couple of good rampage scenes? However, I often feel the movie doesn't add much--it picks up, hits its mark, and rushes toward the expected conclusion. It's more of the same--which is not necessarily a bad thing, but seems almost like empty calories.

(I'd be drummed out of horror criticism if I didn't stop here to make the obligatory mention of the Clint Eastwood cameo in Revenge of the Creature--in his first screen appearance, Clint plays a bumbling lab assistant who can't keep track of his white mice. Not exactly Dirty Harry, but all the more entertaining for that.)

"Well gosh, Clint--did you have 6 mice in the cage, or only 5?"

Only one good thing came out of the fiasco that was the big-budget Van Helsing movie, which was that it prompted Universal to release its Legacy DVD box sets, containing all the classic monster romps. In its second iteration, included was the Creature set, which allowed Gillfans to view not only the TV-staple sequel Revenge of the Creature, but also the little-seen third movie, The Creature Walks Among Us. I'm in the minority, I think, when I make the claim that this third film is the superior of the two sequels, if only because it takes things in a slightly skewed direction instead of playing it safe; yes--it makes the age-old mistake of trying something NEW.

Not having been killed at the end of the second film (contrary to all appearances, as usual), the Gillman has taken up residence in the Florida Everglades, which doubtless remind him of his Amazonian home. He is pursued there by scientist/adventurer Dr. William Barton, who manages to capture the Gillman after a fierce swamp battle in which the Creature throws boats around like toys (an exciting scene) and is thereafter set on fire by a kerosene lamp-cum-Maletov Cocktail! Barton has the badly-burned Creature taken back to his palatial estate, where his colleagues discover he has rudimentary lungs as well as his famous gills. A quick operation turns the Creature into a land-dweller; he is given clothes and locked in a cage for further research.

"Walk among me."

The series has always been awash in sexual tension, but here the filmmakers kick it up a notch by constructing a romantic quadrangle. Dr. Barton is married to a free-spirited, recklessly sexual woman named Marcia, of whom he is fiercely jealous. Marcia is wooed by swamp guide Jed Grant, who comes on too strong even for her, and also has her eye on straight-laced Dr. Tom Morgan, one of Barton's hired lab hands. When Barton's paranoia gets the better of him and he kills Jed in a jealous rage (after Jed has tried to force himself on Marcia in a rather icky scene), he decides to put the blame on the Gillman. Realizing her husband is a maniac, Marcia falls into Tom's arms, leading the jealous professor to set his sights on another of his wife's lovers...

What's really interesting to me here is that the Gillman is not really the main threat in the flick; rather, it's the ugliness of people's uncontrolled desires that cause most of the trouble. More than that, the Gillman seems to serve as a kind of externalized representation of the extremely flawed characters' ids. Every time one character gets sexual or violent (or frequently both) with another of the human characters, the Creature bursts free of his bonds and goes on a mini-rampage. Thought it's never made explicit, there is a definite connection between the humans' baser impulses coming to the fore and the Gillman's episodes of violence. Some would argue that monsters are ALWAYS manifestations of our dark, primal fears and desires, but here that metaphor is made absolutely literal. Check it out and see if I'm wrong.

"Da-da!"

Of course the movie doesn't have the production values nor the directorial skill of the previous two (Jack Arnold didn't return, handing the reins over to journeyman John Sherwood, who directed only one more film as head honcho, 1957's The Monolith Monsters), and the acting is all very broad and melodramatic. The Creature's iconic look is changed as well--his burn scars and shapeless ogre-clothing make him look less like the Gillman than like a noseless bodybuilder. However, the subtext-as-text really makes it work for me, and the final scene--with the air-breathing Gillman wading out into the surf--presumably on his way to an ironic death by drowning--tugs at the ol' heartstrings, I don't mind telling you.

Unlike vampires, werewolves, mummies, invisible men, and Frankenstein's Monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon has not been revisited all that much since Universal called it a day on the series. You could see his influence on Corman's Humanoids from the Deep and maybe even CHUD, and he appeared along with everyone else in spoofs/homages like The Monster Squad and Saturday the 14th. But as a monster type, he hasn't recurred in the way those others have. Perhaps it's because, as in his movies, he's a one-of-a-kind specimen, the sole example of a unique class of being.

A big-budget remake has been on the slate for years now, with various directors and stars attached, but so far the surface of the Black Lagoon is still undisturbed by movement below. (Not counting the Universal Studios' theme park show, Creature from the Black Lagoon: The Musical!) And yet no horror fan out there would be at a loss to recognize him at a glance. Again, as in his films, he just won't go extinct.

It gets under your skin.

Final Note: I snagged all these stills off the Google in a bleary-eyed frenzy of image-snatching, and I'm ashamed to say I neglected to note the sources. Mea maxima culpa. :( If you recognize an image that belongs to you, please let me know and I'll gladly affix the appropriate credit, or take it down (if you're gonna be THAT way about it) and replace it with another stolen shot. :P I'm not intentionally being an asshole--it just comes naturally to me. ;)

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Vicar-ious Verse at ChiZine.com!

In addition to being a formidable force in the world of Mad Movie criticism and the Theology of Ancient Video Formats, your ever-lovin' Vicar also dabbles in the literary arts. He's a writer and poet (and most of you know it), and while Mad Movie writing takes up much of his time, he still dips his quill every now and then in the service of belles lettres.

I bring all this up because my free-verse poem, "Haunt," has just been published by the online journal ChiZine (aka Chiaroscuro; http://chizine.com) as part of their spooky Halloween issue. Those interested in literature and the Vicar as a person can check it out by clicking on the link below:

"Haunt," by Scott Standridge, on ChiZine.com

Comments are invited and welcomed, so long as they're made up entirely of unqualified praise. ;)

Stay tuned for more Mad Movies, and our 200th review contest!

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Dawn of the Mummy (1981): or, That's a Wrap

Riddle me this, horror geeks: mummies. Are they or are they not a form of Zombie?

One the one hand, signs point to "yes." They are reanimated corpses that stalk the desert lands, slowly delivering bloody death to the unfortunate living who happen to cross their paths. They're typically slow-moving, often in an advanced state of decay (in desert climes, dessication would count as decay, I think), and not generally possessed of a discernable personality, leaving aside Boris Karloff's Mummy-as-Dracula performance and Naschy's Mummy-as-Alaric de Marnac interpretation. Sounds like a zombie to me!

On the other hand, they don't usually eat brains, flesh, or food of any sort, preferring instead a liquid diet of Tana Leaf Tea. They're usually the magical instruments of a supernatural curse, concerned more with protecting their tombs than with spreading contagion across the world. And of course, the mummy's victims don't typically sprout dusty bandages and become mummies themselves. So by those criteria, NOT a zombie, right?

For Egyptian-born director Farouk "Frank" Agrama, however, the point is moot. His 1981 film Dawn of the Mummy blurs the line between implacable revenant and flesh-eating ghoul, which I have to admit is a pretty cool idea. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the idea falters badly in its execution.

Don't hate her because she's beautiful.

In a strictly by-the-numbers pre-credits sequence set in 3000 BC, we see the Pharaoh Seferaman riding majestically across the dunes with his royal guard, getting ready to ruin some poor villagers' day. There's kidnapping, whipping, and general Ancient Egyptian cruelty, all meant to show the Pharoah is not a nice man.

The dust has hardly settled before we cut to a funeral procession. It seems in the jump-cut from desert to temple Seferaman has kicked the ol' coptic jar, and is all laid out on the altar ready to be mummified. (Get used to this jump-cut plot development--the movie seems to have been edited by a fez-wearing monkey with ADD.) We get a little organ-removal footage (though why they wrap him first and THEN cut through the bandages to get his innards out is a subject for Unsolved Mysteries), and high priestess Xena pronounces the standard curse on anyone who breaks in and steals the Pharaoh's loot.

Another jump cut takes us to the present day, where ugly American tomb raider Rick (Barry Sattels) has discovered the tomb of Seferaman via explosive charges. Rick's strong Bronx accent and entirely unnatural line readings are far more entertaining than his two henchmen's "comic relief" stylings, but he knows his stuff: warning his Stooges that the ancient Egyptians used to poison the air in the tombs to thwart grave robbers, he advises them to let it air out for the night. Unfortunately a couple of passing thieves don't get the memo, and they go in and meet death via ancient chemical warfare. (Mustard Gas was apparently an ancient Egyptian invention.) Oh, and the modern reincarnation of Xena shows up to give Rick the old Moby Dick prophetic warning thing, which is important.

"Why yes, I *am* a model! How'd you know?"

Another jump cut, and we're in New York City, treated to a montage of street scenes full of nondescript citizens. We have no way of knowing at this point, but many of the principals are introduced here, lost in the shuffle of Manhattan's seas of humanity. The only ones we KNOW will be important are photographer Bill and supermodel Lisa--they take center stage in an all-too-brief roller disco photoshoot. No time to dwell, though--another jump cut and we get stock footage of a jetliner, with an agent's voice-over telling us a group of models are on their way to Cairo for a shoot, and next thing you know, we're back in Egypt!

I could go into all the ins and outs of the plot, but that would be trying for both of us. In summary: not wanting to shoot by the pyramids, since that would be cliched, Bill takes the girls out to an oasis that just happens to be close to Seferaman's tomb. This puts a crimp in Bill and the Stooges' style, but for some reason they allow the group to shoot in the recently-opened tomb. The lights warm up Seferaman's corpse sufficiently to bring him back to life, along with 20 or 30 of his buried-alive servants. There's a lot of back and forth between the oasis and the village, a lot of mummies standing around growling menacingly as people walk by, and a lot of expendable extras go down before the film goes foot-dragging toward its climax.

Humidity was high in the desert that year.

The climax is where Agrama lets loose and turns his mummy movie into a zombie movie. Seferaman's undead servants descend on the village (where a rockin' wedding ceremony is taking place, complete with belly dancers, a female fire-breather, and copious ululation) and cause massive panic, killing whoever they get their hands on and subsequently eating their flesh. It should be noted that the undead servants are NOT mummies proper--only Seferaman himself was mummified--and while the Pharaoh does kill several of the would-be graverobbers, he does so largely via traditional Mummy MO: strangling and neck-ripping decapitation. (He does off one of the Stooges with a well-placed cleaver, showing he's not a one-trick monarch. Also, his blood is acid, for some reason.)

Dawn of the Mummy is kind of a mess, and the pacing is not what anyone would call scintillating. Until that final action-packed climax, the undead Egyptians seem in no hurry at all to complete the whole "vengeance from the grave" thing. Perhaps this is because of the big-picture point of view such creatures must necessarily have--let's face it, when you've been hanging out watching the world go by for over 3000 years, it probably alters one's sense of urgency. The editing is bad, as mentioned, and the gore scenes and zombie make-up are nothing to write home about either, which is a shame.

"Send...more...archaeologists..."

There are joys to be had if you're desperate for them, though. The on-location shots by the Great Pyramids add a lot of production value and look great. Also, the movie seems to have been entirely post-dubbed, which leads to some hilariously incongruous line-readings, an over-reliance on "talking to myself" exposition, and truly confusing foley effects. (Listen for the Camel Groans as recorded by Chewbacca.) The one-keyboard score is very overbearing, but cheese-tastic. The plot machinations are also good for a few chuckles--the Americans never seem to worry about ANYTHING in this movie, pushing their way into the tomb despite the fact that Rick and his men were shooting at them mere moments before, shrugging off the half-dozen dead bodies they encounter in their three-day shoot, and not even getting visibly concerned when one of their horses ends up with its throat ripped out. ("Probably a wild animal," they say--well, maybe, but even so, shouldn't that make you a little nervous?) The script is laughably bad wall-to-wall; I also smiled when the supermodels formulated a plan to kill the mummy using some conveniently stashed dynamite, and at the sudden reappearance of one of their group just after the ensuing fiery cataclysm.

But most of the little enjoyment I got out of the movie came courtesy Barry Sattels as Rick, who seems to be channeling both Indiana Jones and Peter Lorre as he searches for gold in the tomb. He gets some extremely evocative crazy faces going on, and his EPIC FREAKOUT when he discovers one of his henchmen dead at Seferaman's hands is worth fast-forwarding to. (One of the models also gets a hilarious freakout as she runs from the flesh-eating ghouls, which made me wish there'd been more of that.)

Rick: Excited!

Rick: Crazed with Gold-Lust!

Rick: Terrified!

Rick: Wait, it's Gold-Lust again!

Rick: Le Morte du Crazyface

Agraman was obviously working under some tight conditions here--not only was budget a factor, but because of strict Egyptian censorship he could not show as much sex as he wanted to (according to his largely boring and technical-centric commentary), the addition of which could only have helped. However, I'd have expected a little more from an Egyptian-made mummy/zombie bloodbath, and Dawn of the Mummy largely fails to deliver. 1.25 thumbs.

"Freunlaven!"

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DVD Review: THE HANGING WOMAN (1973)

With the possible exception of those who were directly employed by the company, no one was more saddened than the Duke and I when Deimos DVD went belly-up. In the company's short but vibrant history, Deimos released several gorgeously-presented, extras-laden sets focusing on 70s Spanish exploitation, which of course heavily featured the works of the patron saint of Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies, Paul Naschy. We had hopes that the Mighty Mighty Molina's vast reserves of unreleased cinematic awesome would eventually see the light of day under the company's loving care. Alas, it was not to be--and though the DVDs they did produce still stand as the definitive digital versions of the films, the Duke and Vicar despaired of anyone else ever taking up the mantle and bringing more Paul to the general public.

So you can imagine my delight when I went to the Vicarage's post-box earlier this week and found there Troma Team's recent release of The Hanging Woman (aka La Orgia de los Muertos), a Naschy-starring obscurity of just the sort I'd despaired of ever seeing released again. And when I put the DVD in the Vicar-ious player to check out the presentation and found a frankly stunning array of well-produced extras (all the more shocking given the DVD's budget-conscious price tag), my delight turned instantly into near-orgasmic glee.

Yes, I'm pleased to report that Troma Team has done more than right by this entertaining Naschy romp, and for fans of the Spanish Master of Horror, this has to be in contention for the DVD release of the year. And even if you're not (yet) a Naschy fan, the disc is more than worth the ten bucks it'll cost to immerse yourself in sweet Euroshock goodness.

Corpse-paint obviously applied *prior* to beard growth.

I've already reviewed the movie itself previously on Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies (you can read that scintillating piece of cinematic criticism by clicking here), but here's the low-down: Paul plays a necrophiliac gravedigger named Igor (of course), wrongly accused of a series of mysterious murders in the rural village where he lives and works. Outsider Serge Chekov (Stan Cooper) arrives and quickly becomes embroiled in the intrigues of the local aristocracy--intrigues that include Black Magic, Mad Science, and swingin' psychadelic sex. Throw in a zombie-horde ending (headed by Zombie Paul!) and you've got a recipe for a good time.

The image quality here is not as pristine as those on the Deimos discs, which is probably due to both the state of the original prints and the budget price tag. Don't get me wrong, it looks fine--a definite improvement over the VHS version I originally reviewed--but it's not going to knock you out with its clarity and colors. Certain scenes have very prominent specks and scratches, while others range from decent to pretty darn good. It's presented in full-frame, though certain scenes in the extras show a larger aspect ratio--however, those shots are of markedly lower quality than the feature print. Given the state of much obscure grindhouse-era filmstock, it's not an exaggeration to say this is likely as good as the film has ever looked on home video.

At least you can *see* it, right?

It's in the extras, though, that the release really delivers. I'm still pretty amazed at what the Troma Team has put together here, especially given the MSRP. There's the original theatrical trailer and a photo gallery of lobby cards, of course; then, for Naschy fans, there's a wonderful 15-minute interview with the man himself, obviously recorded recently, in which he discusses the movie, his contributions to the development of the character of Igor, his acting vs. directing philosophy, and the unifying themes in his career. It's fascinating stuff, and Naschy's joy and enthusiasm for the genre shines through at every turn. A great, informative interview, and worth the $10 alone.

Also included is a 10-minute featurette entitled "Naschy 101," written and presented by Shane M. Dallman. This short was produced specifically for the Troma Team release, and offers a concise, fact-filled overview of Naschy's career and influence. Dallman's delivery is rather stiff and wonkish, and those who are already fanatics will already know most of the info presented, but it's definitely a must-watch for the Naschy neophyte.

Naschy explains the ins-and-outs of his Contractural Boob-Touching Rider

There's a 20-minute interview with director José Luis Merino, who also recorded a feature-length commentary. Merino is a hoot to listen to, very energetic and enthusiastic despite his advanced years. His borderline crotchety reflections on the economics of movie-making in 70s Spain is as funny as it is informative, and his tendency to step on the mediator's questions during the commentary reflects his cinematic passion. He also has some things to say about necrophilia, nudity, and the difference between horror films and porn that are worth checking out.

As if that weren't enough, also included on the disc is a bonus feature film, Sweet Sound of Death, which I'd never heard of but looks interesting enough to perhaps merit its own review further down the road. Finally, there's a short interview (produced by Ultra Violent Magazine and magGot films) with actor/director Ben Tatar, who directed the English dubbing of hundreds of European exploitation films in the 70s, including The Hanging Woman, Sweet Sound of Death, and Horror Rises from the Tomb. I was expecting this to be a boring feature, but Tatar is unexpectedly fascinating: he's been fired by Jackie Gleason, was friends with Gene Kelly, and had an at least professional (and possibly more--Tatar is rather coy on the point) relationship with Ava Gardner. His reminiscences and anecdotes are well worth the 12 minutes it takes to watch the interview.*

On the Prowl

*Strangely, on my copy of the DVD, the Tatar interview plays twice consecutively--whether this is a DVD glitch or something to do with the Vicar's antiquated DVD player, I'm not sure.

All in all, this is a fantastic release from Troma Team, and with the astonishingly low sticker price, there's no reason every horror/exploitation fan in the U.S. shouldn't rush out and pick up a copy right now. (In fact, buy two and give one to a friend. They'll thank you, believe me.) And here's hoping that Troma Team will pick up where Deimos left off and start plucking more Naschy treasures from obscurity to give them their proper respect. I know I'll be watching!

There she is, folks.

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Steel and Lace (1991): or, Die, Yuppie Scum!

If there's one tragic flaw in the standard Mad Scientist make-up that is sure to cause him trouble down the line--I mean apart from the whole "Meddling in Things Man was Not Meant to Know" deal--it's the unfortunate tendency to always deliver more than the job requires. It wasn't enough for Victor Frankenstein to prove he could keep a heart beating indefinitely or demonstrate brainwave activity in a cerebrum that'd been dead only hours before--no, he had to slap that heart and brain in a nine-foot-tall behemoth, yank the starter and let that sucker go. Similarly, Henry Jekyll could not be satisfied with showing the separation of positive and negative impulses via lab rats or guinea pigs in controlled experimental conditions; he had to tie one off, slap up a vein and go for broke. Time and time again, this over-achieving streak has hastened the ruin of many a man of SCIENCE.

Sadly, in Ernest D. Farino's 1991 cyborg-revenge flick Steel and Lace, Dr. Albert Morton (Bruce Davison) is a modern standard-bearer for this worrisome if storied tradition. When his sister Galetea "Gaily" Morton (Clare Wren) is brutally raped by a gang of ruthless yuppie real-estate moguls (seriously) who cheat justice by corroborating each others' alibis and thus drive the sensitive Claire to suicide, Albert does what any red-blooded, NASA-employed robotics and artificial-intelligence specialist would do: he builds an android version of his sister packed to the teeth with hi-tech weaponry in order to exact his bloody revenge on her attackers. But like his forebears, Albert can't let "good enough" be good enough, which predictably leads to his ultimate downfall.

This mullet was thrown out of court due to insufficient muscle-car ownership.

After a frankly awesome credit sequence in which the title is carved out of steel by a frikkin' LASER BEAM (I'm a sucker fo that kind of shit), we join the rape trial of Danny Emerson (Michael Cerveris) already in progress. We can tell we're in the late 80s/early 90s by the preponderance of moussed hair, mullets, and owl-glasses in the courtroom. One spectator who wears her owl glasses better than most is sketch artist Alison (raging Vicar-crush Stacy Haiduk, she of the legendary Luther the Geek love scene), assigned to make pretty drawings of the heart-wrenching drama for TV news broadcast. The wardrobe and make-up artists do their best to make Haiduk look mousy and ordinary, but one flash of those startling blue eyes and you can see the rampant hawtness underneath.

After the yuppie scum gets off (AGAIN), Gaily and Albert go to the rooftops to escape the press. Gaily--perhaps understandably NOT living up to her name--tells her brother, "There's only one safe place now!" and over the side she goes! The look in Albert's eyes tells you that he's not one to let this stand, so he retires from his NASA gig and heads off to a remote mansion in suburban Los Angeles to work on his fiendish plot for revenge.

Five years later, Alison is an up-and-comer in the Hollywood art scene, and together with her agent Duncan (an excellent and understated Nick Tate) cooks up the idea to take her old courtroom sketches to construct a "then-and-now" book, contrasting modern portraits of the subjects with how they looked back at the most trying times of their lives. For help on this she looks up her old flame Detective Clifford Dunn (David Naughton, still trying to find another American Werewolf-level role...and failing), who just happens to be investigating the mysterious murder of one of the Emerson Realty gang in a seedy hotel. (We've already seen what befell the mulleted miscreant--suffice to say it involved a mirrored ceiling and spinning boob-blades.) Having a strong memory of the Morton Trial, Alison takes an interest in the case.

The horrifying aftermath of one too many Mai Tais.

This worries the LAPD brass, because they're working with an FBI team setting up a sting on Emerson Realty for interstate douchbaggery, and are worried that if Alison spooks them, the surviving villains will all go underground and foul up the case. As a result, the chief assigns Dunn to keep an eye on his ex-girlfriend, which of course involves rekindling those old flames and making sweaty love under a huge comforter. (Sadly, Haiduk is not as "open" and "up-front" in this role as she was in Luther the Geek--all the more reason that DVD is a treasure in any collection.) Unfortunately Dunn's much better at pillow talk than he is at detective work, as Alison and Duncan easily elude him at every turn, tailing the suspects and breaking into their offices in an attempt to figure out why they seem to be getting rather deadish all of a sudden.

Alison thinks the culprit is Danny Emerson himself, and in fact labors under this delusion for most of the movie--but we know of course the real culprit is Albert Morton, who has somehow got hold of millions of dollars's worth of state-of-the-art android-building equipment, installed it in his suburban home, and produced Gailey 2, an extremely versatile killing machine with a seemingly endless array of features. These include extreme facial feature malleability and variable boob inflation (the better to disguise itself and lure yuppie scum to their deaths), the aforementioned boob blades, lasers, flame-throwers, radio-controlled visual recording and digital playback, and madd player piano skillz. And that's just scratching the surface. (Which you're advised not to do--the glowing LED lights and sizzling circuitry just under her skin is a dead giveaway.)

Stacy waits impatiently for the Vicar to call.

However, Dr. Albert couldn't just build himself a Terminator-style cyborg and let it go at that. No, he had to go that one step beyond and give the bot a personality--specifically, his SISTER'S personality, which he somehow recreates and encapsulates in a plastic sphere full of glowing green goo. As a result, the Lady Killbot starts asking questions about the morality of her mission, and whether the real Gaily would have approved. This forces Albert to resort to manual override to force her to kill a couple of her targets, which of course doesn't do much to build cyber-sibling trust. It comes back to haunt him when after his revenge is complete he orders Gaily 2 to kill Alison in order to tie up the loose ends, leading to a simultaneous monster/creator demise that may be predictable but is nonetheless satisfying.

I was very entertained by Steel and Lace, despite its slight plot and appalling lack of Haiduk-centric nekkidity. One technological terror requirement that the flick more than delivers on is the creative and moderately gruesome kill scenes. The opening seduction/boob-blade kill sets the tone, and the subsequent kills never fail to live up. One yuppie is simultaneously strangled and decapitated; another (Henry Winkler lookalike Brian Backer) is lifted into a helicopter's rotor and has his head chopped Dawn of the Dead Zombie-style! But the best kill belongs to ultra-skeezy alcoholic yuppie Oscar (played wonderfully slimy by Paul Lieber, alum of the Andy Milligan opus Guru, the Mad Monk), who is seduced by the chameleon-like killbot and learns in the most horrifying way possible how much sex with a machine can SUCK.

Totally worth it.

The acting is hit-and-miss, but a few of the principals stand out. Bruce Davison brings a quiet, wounded intensity to his role as the revenge-hungry scientist; one scene where he obsessively watches and rewatches Gaily 2's video of her kills (basically yuppie snuff flicks), with a little bit too much obvious pleasure, establishes his grief-wracked insanity better than even the traditional mad scientist histrionics could have. Lieber makes an impression in his role, as previously noted, and Michael Cerveris is effectively hate-worthy as the two-dimensional dirtbag Emerson. Naughton is kind of a non-entity here--not only is he given remarkably little to do (Haiduk's investigation makes up the bulk of the plot, with Naughton popping up now and then just to remind us he's there), but when he is onscreen he's the same likable but bland hero-type he's always been in his non-AWIL roles. Memorable supporting parts include Nick Tate as the Alfred to Stacy Haiduk's Batman, and David L. "Squiggy" Lander as a forensics agent with a hilarious appreciation for the killer's style. Claire Wren as the Gailys is suitably blank and droid-like, which may or may not be a function of her acting chops.

But the heavy lifting is all done by Stacy Haiduk, and she does an excellent job. Despite having completely the wrong idea about the killer's identity nearly throughout, her obsession and go-getter spirit is affecting, and I was genuinely interested not only in what she was doing, but why she was doing it. Of course I'm also desperately in love with Ms. Haiduk, so my opinion may be biased. (Fully 40 percent of my viewing notes are variations of the phrases "Gosh, she's lovely," and "OMG HAWT!") And though I prefer her dark-haired, pale-skinned look in Luther the Geek--not least for the amount of said skin on display--she really does wear the red hair color well, it has to be said.

"For the last time, Vicar, I'm *not* impressed. Now please put the chicken down."

In the final analysis, even though there was nothing particularly innovative or surprising about Steel and Lace, for me it hit all the right notes and delivered an entertaining hour and a half. Fair acting, good kills, murderous robots and Mad SCIENCE to boot--what's not to like? 2.25 thumbs. Give it a shot, and remember: always work within the scope of your tech specs. Anything extra is just asking for trouble.

A few more images from Steel and Lace (1991):

"But I didn't order an Ecclesiastical Stripper-Gram!"

Hide it under a bushel? No.

The Producers write the Vicar a check for his birthday...

...and he spends the money on a sofa-size print of THIS.

Just a little off the top.

"I got the chills...they're multipyin'..."

"OBEY!"

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