Horror Movie Reviews

Atom-Age Vampire (aka Seddok, Lerede di Satana) is a great piece of Grade Z camp from Italy circa 1960. Susanne Loret and Albert Lupo star as Dr Levin and Jeanette, doctor-patient lovers squeezing out the devoted Betty Paige lookalike, Assistant Monique. Pierre shows up occassionally looking for Jeanette (nevermind he dumped her earlier) as she undergoes the doctor's glandular experiments to regain beauty lost in an automobile disfigurement. As she gets prettier, the doctor gets more hideous for some reason. Poetic, yes, but no explanation is given. Meanwhile Monique gets more desperate until the Doctor uses her glands to keep Jeanette beautiful, and a woeful housekeeper named Sasha sulks through it all as Armando Travojoli's lovely score accompanies it all. ATOM AGE VAMPIRE is one of the greatest of the shoestring Italo-French quickie classics. The dubbed dialogue is priceless ("I want to possess you... creatively!!!", "Can't you convince yourself that she will remain like this.... LIKE THIS!!!!" and a hundred or so variations of lovers sighing "Pierre..." "Jeanette!!"... "Oh, Pierre!!!" Top it with great fashion: leopard fur coats, pre-mod sunglasses, trench coats.

As for BLOODLUST, it's a bit of 60s nastiness adapted from THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, remade a hundred times. Has some feral moments, and some authehtically scary sections.

What can I say that can't be surmised by the "plot" description? Either you'll love this double feature or you'll hate it. If you know you'll love it before you see it, then you will. If you're not so sure, then you'll hate it.

The plots are thinner than a piece of paper. The characters are as deep as wrinkle on a gnats butt. The acting is as wooden as a... well, you get the point.

Pure schlock, just ripe for the picking.

The Bad

1. Two overly romantic scenes - one in a boat with annoying 70s music and the other a love scene that is not only a bit embarrassing but distracting as well. Even the director regretted these scenes.
2. A very silly hat placed one top of our hero's head - but fortunately only for a one scene.
3. The climax (an important death scene) is too swift and somewhat unrealistic
4. The color seems a bit off - but maybe that is intentional. It seems every day of filming was very overcast.
5. The music is very uneven - ranging from very good and suspenseful to hokey and distracting especially in the synthesizer sounds and in the romantic scenes.
6. The opening scene has a cheap look, music, and sound - I'm sure trying to be artistic
7. One rather annoying and overplayed scene with a retarded man and his pet rat.

The Good

1. A very coherent, believable, engrossing mystery. Very well written.
2. Very good acting all around - every single actor for once is excellent... especially considering this genre of film.
3. For once - very good dubbing. If you tuned in at any point you would not know the film was dubbed.
4. The movie is actually scary and very suspenseful at times - and has a few high powered shocks. The suspense and shocks do not rely on gore...instead good direction, music, acting and editing.
5. Very compelling subject matter - touches a lot of bases including child abuse, murder, religion, the soul, guilt and the occult.
6. The movie is always interesting and has a more polished and professional look. The director shows his respect for his audience by not insulting the viewer's intelligence with ridiculous and unbelievable scenarios as some other Giallo directors have been known to do.

I'm not sure that the average Giallo lover would enjoy this film for its lack of gore. But I really think that most everyone who enjoys a good suspenseful mystery, containing a few jumps and jolts would get a lift from this film.

Id give this film more stars if not for but a few flaws. But know that the flaws are due to the dating of the Italian Cinema of the 70s.

This is an excellent piece of cinema. This movie is just so suspenseful, and the plot is one of the best I've ever seen in any movie. I'm glad Anchor bay released this film on DVD, as it is one of the best ever. Watch out though, it seems that the disc has some serious audio problems in the middle of the film. But don't let that stop you, the DVD is highly enjoyable, just don't watch it alone if you're easily frightened. Buy it now!

I first became aware of this film when it was featured on the show "Mystery Science Theater 3000". I figured that I would buy this film on it's own and check it out. While I can't say that the film is excellent, I do have to give it four stars for its ability to throw something different your way.

The story revolves around an experimental doctor who feels that he can either create new body parts and/or creatures. When his fiancee is tragically decapitated in an accident, the doctor is so distraught that he chooses to keep her head alive in some sort of pool of liquid and hooked up to numerous wires and things that buzz. He then sets out to find a "donor" body for his fiancee so they can be together again. However, his fiancee feels betrayed that he would keep her alive in this fashion. She plots with a creature the doctor has created and has kept hidden to destroy the horror she and many others have been involved in.

While the actual plot seems really far-fetched and a bit silly, I think this is a pretty decent film (according to B-movie standards). I think that if you are in the mood for an old horror movie that's not really scary or disturbing, but will give you a good laugh and make you think, "What was that," this is the film for you!!!

...but together we are strong!" If these words give you goosebumps, then this movie is for you. How fortunate for our protagonist, that just when he's searching for a nice body to attach to his fiance's head, they're holding a Body Beautiful pageant in his town. But just like a woman, his fiance actually gets angry at him for keeping her head alive in a tray. Sometimes you just can't win. While this film has everything you could expect from a so-bad-its-good movie, there are also flashes of intelligence, halfway-decent acting and nice camerawork. Not enough to keep it from being fun, though. A classic of its tiny genre.

The essential elements here are a gathering of nearly all surviving members of the cast save for "Barnabas" who is conspiciously absent. Alexandra Moltke (Victoria Winters) appears for the first time since leaving the show. Some of "Dark Shadows" most famous scenes are shown in a quick review of the actors work. Dan Curtis is also present to tie a lot together.A few genuinely funny responses in the question and answer session, particularly John Karlen (Emmy winner, but not for "Willie" who gave a perfect performance of a man having a nervous breakdown that should have won one) and a perfect impersonation of Thayer David by "Adam". Also included are star appearances on the Mike Douglas Show and The Merv Griffin Show and a few adverts. I don't recommend this DVD unless you are a real fan of the show. It moves rather slowly and you see the actors as they are today, much older but wiser. But fans love them 100% and are just glad to see them all together again.

This DVD reunites many from the cast and crew of Dark Shadows. It was filmed before an audience at the Museum of Television and Radio. After clips from the show are presented, there are questions from the audience.

The bonus features on this DVD are fun. There is an interview with Jonathan Frid (Barnabas) on a 1969 episode of the Merv Griffin Show. There is also an interview with the lovely Joan Bennett (Elizabeth) from a 1970 segment of the Mike Douglas Show. Dodie Fields is also in the segment. The final vintage extra is a couple of TV commercials and a public service announcement with Katherine Leigh-Scott (Maggie). There is also a behind the scenes look at the reception held at the Museum of Television and Radio.

This is a wonderful addition for those collecting Dark Shadows on DVD. It's great to hear the cast, director, and creator reminisce about this wonderful gothic soap.

If you're a fan of vampire movies in general, then you're probably familiar with the Count Yorga films, which would mean that you are also at least somewhat familiar with Robert Quarry.

In my opinion, with the possible exceptions of Frank Langella (Dracula -1979), and Richard Lynch (Vampire - 1979), Robert Quarry brought the dapper, aristocratic, unrepentant vampire to the screen like none other. And while I would credit Christopher Lee with the definitive screen portrayal of Dracula himself, Lee was more a character of mysterious menace rather than the more personable yet just-as-menacing vampires brought to life by Langella, Lynch, and Quarry.

After the enormous success of Quarry's "Count Yorga, Vampire" at the box-office, he signed up for something of a departure from the proper, Bulgarian count that he had previously portrayed. The storyline that was eventually decided upon by Quarry and others, called for him to portray an ancient, evil vampire who interposes himself into the troubled world of a group of youthful hippies, earns their trust with various philosophical manipulations and sheer force of personality, and eventually attempts to turn them all into a coven of the undead.

Faced with lawsuits over similarities to "Count Yorga, Vampire," the producers of "Deathmaster" were forced to sell their work to American International Pictures, which released it to a minimum of screens in order to recoup costs, and then promptly buried it. Deathmaster made appearances on television throughout the 70's and 80's, and then seemed to vanish from the airwaves. I myself caught it in the 80's on Count Gore DeVol's "Creature Feature" program on Channel 20 in the Washington DC area, and always wondered what became of it.

For those of you who have posted here, as well as others who may have wondered what happened to this bit of 70's horror cheese, fear not! It was resurrected on DVD in September, 2002, and is now available for purchase for the first time in the U.S. This DVD is packed, too. It features a theatrical trailer, radio spots, film commentary with Robert Quarry (and, I believe, the director...), scene selection, etc. Beware of one thing in regard to this DVD though: my copy says "widescreen" on the DVD snap-case, but the film is actually presented in full screen format, which would be fine except for that fact that it cuts the title credits off a bit. DEATHMASTER becomes EATHMASTE. Otherwise the DVD transfer is excellent. Others I know actually do have widescreen versions. My copy must have been an error of some type.

For the uninitiated, this film is indeed a prime sampling of 70's horror cheese, but Robert Quarry gives his usual stand-out performance as Khourda, the millennia-old vampire who has come to corrupt and prey upon our modern, wayward youths. This film features a big, lovin' spoonful of hippie-dom, hippie-music, etc., and is quite amusing at the very least. But Quarry's performance is very well done indeed, and is worth the price alone. Feel free to give the rest a healthy dose of the MST-3000 treatment though.

Contents: Minimal blood, minimal language, moderate violence, no sexual scenes, one brief glimpse of partial nudity (girl, from the back). Rating: 3 out of 4. Quarry's performance is excellent, the movie is just plain fun, and the DVD quality/extras are excellent.

My experience with Retromedia DVDs has been pretty spotty, and I had never seen Deathmaster before buying this, so I'm glad to say I'm very pleased on both counts. Deathmaster was concocted as an indie production by Quarry and actor/first-time director Ray Danton to cash in on the huge success of AIP's Count Yorga: Vampire and make a subtle comment on the then-recent Manson family murders. AIP chief Sam Arkoff, angered by Quarry's swift and bold move, threatened a lawsuit, eventually buying the picture and giving it a very limited release. After a run on TV in the '70s it disappeared, never available on video. The movie starts with a surfer finding the coffin of Khorda (Quarry) washed ashore, but he's soon dispatched by Khorda's creepy flute-playing henchman Barbado. We're then introduced to the main characters, a bunch of disaffected but 'lovable' guitar-strumming Hollywoodized 'hippies' squatting in a huge old mansion who smoke lots of weed, run from 'the heat,' sing dippy inspirational folk songs, and use lots of hilarious sixties jargon. (The main folksinging hippie is a nearly unrecognizable Bobby 'Boris' Pickett of Monster Mash fame.) Khorda just sort of shows up in their midst, spouting existentialist/cosmic mumbo-jumbo (some of it improvised by Quarry) that the simple-minded flower children instantly 'groove' to even though they have no idea what he's talking about. Only biker dude Monk (whose iron cross repels Khorda) is skeptical, and bolts in search of whiskey and steak, leaving girlfriend Esslin to be seduced/attacked later by the vampiric 'guru.' The other hippies are so inspired by Khorda's rhetoric that they clean up their pad and start digging lame muzak, co-written by Ray Conniff (!!) and Pickett. Despite their copious herbal consumption these hippies apparently don't believe in free love: the guys and gals retire to separate quarters at night! Monk returns, is promptly dispatched by Khorda, and, inexplicably, everyone except 'gung fu' practicing hero Pico (who's hair looks like a really fake wig but is apparently his own) and heroine Rona go into a mystical dance-trance while Barbado plays congas (unconvincingly) and Khorda mingles. Pico and Rona try to escape the house, but are captured by Barbado, though Pico eventually gets away to seek help from balding serape-wearing hippie entrepreneur Pop (John Fiedler, ubiquitous professional milquetoast character actor and voice of piglet in the Walt Disney Winnie the Pooh cartoons). Pop just happens to have one of those old occult books (in paperback!) that explains what's going on (with handy pictures of the amulets the newly-baptized vampire cult are wearing). They mount their assault on Khorda and his minions with mallets and broom-handle stakes, and the movie finishes with one of those typically '70s 'shock/twist' endings and the only moment of actual 'special effects' in the picture. Amazingly, despite being surrounded by some really bad acting and dated dialogue, Quarry acquits himself quite admirably, creating a fairly menacing, believable character (ignoring of course all the psychobabble he's given to mouth). He looks great in an assortment of groovy custom-made robes, is occasionally introduced by sitar licks on the soundtrack, and has the same multi-pointed fangs as in Count Yorga (although everyone else is stuck with obvious dime-store 'goofy teeth'). There is no real nudity and minimal gore, even for 1972 (though the leeches are a nice, if unexplained, touch). The plot has its holes, and the relentless hippie-ness gives the film a goofy, campy aura, but Danton keeps the camera and the story moving so its quite enjoyable, never boring, and worth it for Quarry's magnetic performance and a few effectively creepy sequences. A little-seen treat for all Yorga/Quarry fans or anyone who loves the old AIP drive-in sleaze in general.
Fortunately, Fred Olen Ray/Retromedia have actually done a surprisingly decent job in rescuing this from rights-issues limbo. The print is very clean, with virtually no spotting or other damage, and matted to 1.85:1 (although it looks a little closer 1.75:1 or so to me). The color is not spectacular but quite serviceable, and isn't going to look any better since the transfer is from the original 35mm camera negative. The black level, brightness, contrast, and detail are all fine, and I didn't notice any artifacting or other weirdness that plagues other Retromedia discs I own (King Dinosaur, Faceless Monster). There are four still galleries: publicity, behind-the-scenes, Quarry portraits, Quarry on stage and screen; 30- and 60-second radio spots for Count Yorga; really scratchy TV promos for Count Yorga and Sugar Hill, a Lucky Strike commercial featuring Quarry, and a classic, funny Shasta orange soda commercial featuring Fiedler and Frankenstein's monster. While these extras are nice and generally well done, the real highlight of the set is Quarry's audio commentary (with Fred Olen Ray, who directed Quarry in dozens of low-budet indies in the 1980s and '90s), which is nearly as entertaining as the feature. Quarry is sophisticated and witty, as expected, providing much interesting behind-the-scenes production info and some amusing anecdotes, with little if any dead air. Finally a Retromedia disc worthy of my unqualified highest recommendation. Get it!

As an avid fan of movies from the vampire genre, I wasimmediately drawn to this one based on the detailed review of AndrewWright of Amazon.com. However, to my surprise, the movie is not about vampires, but instead about the eternal struggle that men are confronted with--temptation. Bond portrays a minister "to-be" who comes from a long line of ministers. Struggling with the question as to whether there is more to life than the ministry, he visits his childhood friend, Hardison, who is a struggling "B" movie actor in New York. Little did he know that he would encounter a demon temptress named, you guessed it, Temptation, who, like the reviewer stated, is single-handedly destroying the men from a local "pick-up" joint.

What makes this movie interesting is also what makes it a little campy. The seductress plays on the main sexual deviations of men: each concluding with real, and relevant, endings to the perpetrators. The real storyline poses the question, "Can you resist Temptation in this life to do what God requires of you?" This is a question which is posed bluntly, and those who answer no, meet gruesome ends.

Overall, the storyline is good, the acting decent, and Cynthia Bond as the temptress is hot. This is overall a good movie and well worth viewing.

I also liked Vampire In Brooklyn, but if I was to choose between Vampire In Brooklyn and Def by Temptation, I would have to say that I liked Def by Temptation better.

Grab your soup can curlers and hip huggers! Iron your hair and get your bibles cuz it's time for Patty to whine some more for an entire film!! It's A DISTANT THUNDER
Terminal 70's chick Patty has even more problems this time around. A larger budget and a better shot film...causes the audience to see flawlessly the 70's style paranoia that Patty Dunning so effortlessly attains. She is like Jan from the BRADY BUNCH gone completely berserk. And boy can she whine!!
Why Patty even whines through an earthquake!
Of course lets not forget Jerry and Dianne. The sleaziest people ever to come out of the seventies. I mean Jerry looks like he should be in a leather bar and Dianne looks like some drug dealers moll. Watch as they somehow convince Patty to trust them. I'm sure you'll agree that Patty must be missing something or maybe she is blind.
Patty for the most part whines to her two new girlfriends...who are both incredibly banal. I just can't imagine what planet they come from.
Patty in the end is betrayed and heads off to get her head lopped off. And the end is truly one of the most disturbing in all of exploitation history.
This movies ROCKS. Does anyone have Jerry's number though? I want to take him out to the local leather bar.

Finding that her first film was only a dream, Patty is now in the role of story-teller to an encampment of other detainees. Patty's world collapses, so she seeks advice from her christian Granny, who happened to be an ecshetologist (naturally.) Well, guess what? Bye bye Granny. Patty invites her girlfriends, Wendi and her sister, Sandi, to share Granny's house, safely out in the country.

In terms of how things went, the ladies try to survive as, one by one, biblical prophecies come true. Though global changes are mostly discussed, not seen (most likely due to small budgets), the effects are still dangerous.

The story takes a turn for the worst when Wendi becomes a christian. She is an interesting character until then, but then her strength dispels and she becomes a bible-thumper whose major job is to argue with the rightfully disgusted Patty.

"Dracula the Dirty Old Man", which is probably the worst film I've seen since "Saving Private Ryan", gets only 1 star. A lame looking vampire who can turn himself into a rubber bat stuck on the end of a stick lures a reporter to his cave and magically turns him into a werewolf (a cheap rubber mask that looks more like a rat than a wolf). He then sends the wererat out to kidnap women. The same basic sequence gets repeated several times: the wererat locates a woman, kills any boyfriend who gets in the way, then before he can even perform his duties, the vampire just teleports the woman to his cave, leaving the viewer to wonder why he went to the trouble of creating a wererat in the first place. The vampire then molests and kills his newest female aquisition. Repeat 3 or 4 times, until the vampire gets interested in the reporter's girlfriend. This leads to a fight between the two.

The filmmakers obviously realized how terrible the film was, so they badly dubbed all but two brief scenes with "comic" dialogue in phoney accents. So now instead of just being boring, the film becomes truly offensive, treating such subjects as rape as humourous. Not worth the few chuckles you get from the bad f/x. This film deserves to become lost.

The short extras are just boring and unfunny.

The 4 stars is for "Guess What Happened...". Filmed largely at the famous Magic Castle, this early 1970s wonder is about Dracula after he's transformed himself into a swinging geek called "Count Adrian" in order to escape the communists, and now runs a theme restaurant in LA with some kooky sidekicks. He's actually the good guy in this, and the villain is his new love's ex-boyfriend, an egomaniacal TV actor ("You can't defeat me! I have my own TV series!"). The battle between Count Adrian and another vampire with very bad facial skin for supreme control of the restaurant is one of the funniest things I've ever seen, although I think its supposed to be one of the film's more serious moments.

So only one good film and a few decent trailers on this one. Just try to pretend "Dirty Old Man" isn't on the same disc.

So we pop in Dracula the Dirty Old Man, hoping for nothing more than your basic ball of cheese: Bad accents, stupid plotlines, cheap sets, you get the drill. At first blush, all appears normal: Our 'head vampire' looks more like Jim Rome with a nylon wig from the seasonal aisle of Walgreen's, women are conveniently disrobing in front of their windows, and the location scout takes full advantage of Dad's office lobby and Mom's backyard.

But after 15 minutes or so -- depending on how slow you are on the uptake -- you start to sense "something weird" going on. Sure, you expect the plot to be loopy, and so it makes sense for the narrator to ramble a bit. But when our voice-over man starts to sound like he's taking a page from Crow T Robot ("I gingerly closed the car door... Whoops! I just caught two people in the act, sorry guys!"), you just have to ask -- que pasa??

Here's the deal: As is the case with many lower-than-low-budget flops, the sound on DDOM was rendered useless during the making of the film. (Possible causes include excessive wind noise, flubbed lines, or a potent curse invoked by the gods of good taste.) Natch, all the dialogue has to be dubbed in after the fact. Typically, this process creates your basic Godzilla lip-reading misadventures, along with some leaden Doris Wishman-style line readings. But DDOM is anything but your typical film.

You see, for reasons known only to director William Edwards, co-producer Clifton Bowen, and select members of the Trilateral Commission, the filmmakers decided to scrap whatever existing dialogue they had and opt for deranged self-parody. I'm guessing they took a look at the less-than-imposing polyester "bat" (at least I think it's supposed to be a bat) and realized the finished results weren't going to impress anyone either way.

As a result, your Alucard ("Dracula spelled backwards," the credits helpfully point out) delivers all his lines in the manner of a down-on-his-luck Jackie Mason. "Oy, vaddami gonn do, I gotta bite dis neck ova hea, ay, vell, it's a livink," that kind of thing. Adding to the goofiness quotient is the fact that our number-one neck biter here looks no more Jewish than he does Vampiric -- he's played by some guy named Vince Kelly who apparently never worked again. The casting couch giveth, and the casting couch taketh away...

Equally odd are the ramblings from "Irving Jackalman," the reporter whom Alucard somehow turns into a sex-crazed werewolf. (Vampire, werewolf, same difference, right? I'm surprised the Mummy didn't put in an appearance.) Typical is his dramatic transformation outside a drive-in concession stand, where we see him bend over in apparent pain at the lycanthropic process. That's right, we've all been there. But do we hear him growl and howl in inhuman agony? Nope -- we get to hear him complain that his dinner was off!

The plot? Our two antiheroes "meet cute," round up some women, sex 'em up in a cave, rest for a spell on a furniture pad from U-Haul, and then let petty jealousy come between them, prompting a fight to the death. The lone survivor turns to the most-recent victim of the rampage and engages in an equally improbable Bat Cave Booty Call. That's right, it's a remake of Sabrina.

The other entry on this too-fine DVD, Guess What Ever Happened to Baby Jane Dracula (or whatever), features a less-than-imposing 98-pound weakling 'Count Adrian,' apparently played by a busboy on his night off from the Olive Garden. The film also features bad lighting, a Dracula theme restaurant, a caged gorilla, a heroine bogged down by her four-foot wig, a fifth Monkee who sells his soul to the devil, a guy who looks like Matthew McConaughey's dad, and an improbable voodoo/Santeria/lizard-eating ceremony straight from the ravings of David Icke. You do the math.

The great Ken Russell does it again; he takes the digital filmmaking revolution that giant step forward by showing everyone with a dv video camera how to make a bonafide feature film -- and a strikingly inventive and entertaining one at that! Bravo, Ken! More! More!

I was super curious waiting for this one. How was Ken Russell going to pull off his newly found freedom, that of taking digital camera in hand and filming friends and cohorts in his back garden in loosley structured ten minute bits, stringing it all together, finding wide release and perhaps regaining the acclaim that has been missing him all these years? How? With skill, as simple as that. There is, as Russell-ites know, more skill in this man's pinky toe than all of Hollywood. And beginner film makers should take note. There is a world of possibilities in cinema. They are as limited as your imagination. "Louse" is wildly inventive and has all the great Russell trademarks: shock editing, surrealistic sets, costumes and make-up. And I'll be darned if their aren't some fabulous music videos with soulful music and classic Russell-ian touches: lovers by the sea side, a dancer on a gravestone to name a few. And since this is a horror movie, don't forget, be prepared for some pretty unsettling images. The humour is droll and Ken Russell acts through out. I was, quited frankly, impressed by the quality of the images. There may be some noticeable budgetary restraints, but after you settle in to the movie, you'll be back in Russell land. Ahhhh. It's been a long time.

This is a very interesting DVD set specializing in the investigations of the Paranormal Activities mainly in US and England. What I Love the most is the photographs of the Ghosts and Spirits shown at the begining of every case, but it would've been better if they had provided a special section in the "MENU" of each DVD containing all the photographs collections including their details (dates, Origin, Etc.). The other good thing about this DVD is that it provided information on the places with the most reported Paranormal Activities and also the name of the Investigators of few well known cases.

Before I launch into praise for these DVD's I have to admit that not all the stories related therein are of the bone-chilling variety, though quite a few are. Many stories are of hauntings by friendly type spirits, where the returning entity means no harm to the visitor, and while these may still cause most people to run for the hills, they pale in comparison to the truly frightening stories, namely the ones regarding entities that DO try to harm or frighten.

Hosted by Patrick MacNee (The Avengers), who takes us to various locations famous - or infamous - for it's ghostly activities, we get to visit such places as Hollywood and parts of the Old West (among others) where we realize that the dearly departed are not really departed. MacNee does a good job in setting up the stories, and the ghostly photographs - supposedly real - that usually precede the stories, lend an even more chilling edge to the proceedings.

For ghost story fans, I would also recommend the video collection of the old television show 'One Step Beyond'.