From Beyond Depraved

Moving Day

2011-07-23T17:30:00.002-04:00

Hello there. It's been awhile, hasn't it?

It's been a somewhat eventful number of months since last I posted here. This site as you can see, though, has not been very eventful. The simple reason for that is that I have been preparing a new location for my bizarre ravings to be hosted. Yes that's right... a new blog. What will happen to From Beyond Depraved, you ask?* FBD, for all intents and purposes, is deceased.

*Or do you ask? Maybe I'm talking to those pesky voices in my head again.

But, as we all know, when it comes to monsters they're certainly hard to put down. Because the spirit of FBD is alive and well, simply hosted in a much more active and decidedly eccentric body. This blog will not vanish; it'll still be here for the perusal of any curious visitor. But if you're in a visiting type of mood, might I suggest a particular destination on your map? It's a little out of the way, but I hope you'll like what you find there.

It's called Mephisto's Castle.

Like I say, I'd be greatly pleased if you took the time to drop in. Those of you who have visited this here blog have greatly warmed my heart, and the wonderful horror fans whom I've had the opportunity to meet here have made my stay all the better. I hope you'll come along with me to my new digs. The place is a little dusty and would do good with some TLC, so every last guest is appreciated.

In the wise words of a distinguished actor, I think it'll thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. But as is my life's philosophy, I hope that it is, above all else, fun. You might want to hurry though.

It's almost sundown.

Amateur (1994): The Webs We Weave

2011-03-31T20:00:00.000-04:00

Directed by Hal Hartley
Written by Hal Hartley
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan, Elina Lowensohn, and Damian Young

The amnesiac, the nympho nun, the streetwalker, the accountant, the assassins. It almost sounds like it could be the beginning of Chaucer’s tales from Canterbury, doesn’t it? A cast of eccentric and nuanced characters whose own separate stories all weave in between each other before they reach their final, ultimate destination.

I must say, when I originally took on the sacrificial task of entering into the White Elephant Blogathon, I really didn’t expect to be viewing a film quite like this. Based on the history and details of the event, I expected to be on the receiving end of some truly atrocious cinema, stuff that at best would be hilariously awful and at worst soul-wrenchingly boring.

Surprisingly, Amateur wasn’t all that bad.

Three souls searching. And one really bad Monday.

The plot itself, on its surface at least, could describe a big-budget Hollywood action flick. A man awakens in an alley, completely devoid of any idea of who he is and what has happened to him. He soon meets an ex-nun, Isabelle, who busies herself with writing sex novels. What this man doesn’t realize is that his amnesia has been caused by an attempted murder perpetrated by his porn star/prostitute wife who was fed up with his asshat-ways.

Said wife gets tangled in a plot with the accountant of an arms dealer when the accountant retrieves a set of floppy disks that contain very delicate information. After the porn star blackmails the dealer for a million dollars, the criminal sends two hit men out to get the disks and slaughter anyone who gets in their way. With Isabelle taking on the mission of helping the amnesiac regain his identity, all of our players eventually collide head on and many spills and hijinks ensue.

In a nutshell.

Too cool for school.

What separates Amateur from the type of film you would expect to have such a storyline is the approach director Hal Hartley takes to the material. There are really no explosions, gratuitous violence, or (surprisingly) nudity to speak of. Amateur is one of dem “sophisticated” pictures. It has blockbuster plot elements but is manipulated by the hands of a dedicated student straight from the art house.

It’s this overall feel that I suspect may be the reason behind this film being included in the blogathon. It’s one of those movies whose accomplishments can be utterly destroyed if the viewer goes in expecting certain things to happen. I myself was a tad jarred by the odd flickering edits and the seemingly random snippets of offbeat dialogue. It took some warming up to, but eventually I felt myself settling into its quirky grooves. If not fully, than at least a little.

There are doses of humor in the movie. Equal parts dry, witty, and dark, it’s not your typical slapstick or broad physical acting. Instead, the comedy seems to come from the characters themselves. Their little quips and behaviors are only a natural way to cope with all the grim craziness going on around them. Nothing is strictly played for laughs in the movie. All the jokes and slightly exaggerated circumstances stem from the personalities of the characters themselves and it’s that that brings Amateur up a slight degree on the smart scale.

Tango, mon amour?

It really is a theatrical piece when you think about it. The characters are what really drive the action, as opposed to the other way around. They’re all rather skillfully developed and acted by the impressive lineup of performers. Although each of them really do shine, I admit to being slightly partial to Martin Donovan as our amnesiac friend Thomas. His speech patterns and mannerisms can’t help but remind me of Richard Thomas: his soothing voice and good looks are a potent combination. When it’s revealed that Thomas was not a particularly nice fellow before his spill (he had promised to slice his wife’s face off with a razor just before she helped him out the window), it’s actually quite easy to imagine Donovan’s “Mr. Hyde” side. Despite Donovan being quite charming for the whole film, we can see that insidious Id lurking just below those icy but peaceful blue eyes of his.

At its heart, the movie is a drama of the most traditional kind, albeit tinged with snippets of dry humor. It’s the story about a quest to that ultimate goal, all of our heroes going through trials and tribulations to gain what they desire most: redemption, closure, freedom, you name it. And most of the characters do find what they’ve been looking for, in some form or another.

Inspiring one life at a time.

Perhaps most touchingly of all, Thomas finally hears the sound of his own name. But it comes just a moment too late. He begins to exit a convent and Isabelle, realizing that a police firing squad waits outside, runs frantically to him. She calls out his name, he turns, the doors swing open… It’s a powerful moment and a rather fitting if bittersweet end to this tragi-comedy.

If I did have to make one complaint against the film, it would probably be the pacing. It’s only an hour and forty minutes long, but you can FEEL each second ticking away. My eyes gravitated towards the timer on more than one occasion. Not that I necessarily didn’t expect that to happen when signing up for the White Elephant Blogathon, but I was surprised and a little dismayed to find myself tapping my watch during a movie that, on the whole, I really did like. Some might call the pace of Amateur downright sluggish, but I realize that the intimate look into the characters’ minds that Hartley is attempting to give to us necessitates the calm and measured rate of the action.

Jesus Christ, we haven't reached the half-hour mark yet?!

So what’s the verdict? Believe or not, I genuinely enjoyed Amateur. Here I was thinking that Divine Fate would surely punish me for cursing a fellow blogger with such cinematic plague as Diary of a Cannibal.* But instead I’ve been given the chance to see a film that has hitherto been unknown to me (and I think the majority of people) only to find that there are quite a few gold nuggets to be found in this emotionally turgid river.

So thank you, [Insert Benefactor’s Name Here], for giving me the chance to watch Amateur. Whether you personally hate the film or adore it, I shake your hand for granting me the opportunity to sit down to some viewings that I mostly likely never would have done voluntarily. Perhaps I may never see this low key gem again, but I’m grateful for having gotten the chance to give it a spin at least once.

*Apologies to Bryce over at Things That Don’t Suck!

One Big Happy

Off The Rails

2011-03-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

For those who don't already know, I love the theater. After seeing Andrew Lloyd Webber's magical stage version of The Phantom of the Opera, I knew that one day I would have to tread the boards. And tread them I did, as I was an active member of my high school's drama club for all four years. Although now my participation has shrunk down to pretty much none to speak of (this is definitely out of lack of time, not interest), I cavorted on that dingy little stage in the auditorium like it was nobody's business. I was so enamored with theater that one day I decided "Hey, I could probably one of dese here plays!"

So I wrote one.

A horror anthology, to be exact.* And the next thing I know it's November 2008 and it's being staged for the whole world (re: small Florida town) to see. Which I think is enough history to bring us to where we're at right now. What you see below is a filmed segment from Nightmare Theatre (hey you, in the back, stop giggling!), the first story in the collection of short terror plays. I chose to show this one to you because A) I'm in it, B) It's the story I'm most satisfied with, C) I wouldn't dare make you sit through those other passingly-bearable "stories", and D) Only two out of those three are true.

*Did you expect anything less of me? Don't answer that.

It's called "The Ghost Train." Ectoplasmic railway hijinks ensue. Enjoy if you find it in your heart to do so.

Blogs Like White Elephants

2011-03-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

Call me a glutton for punishment. When I heard about the White Elephant blogathon through the esteemed Dr. Morbius of Krell Laboratories, I knew that the only sane thing for me to do was participate with all due haste.

The gist of the matter is that bloggers submit the title of a movie to be reviewed by other bloggers participating in the event. You toss a movie into the pot and get someone else's suggestion, see? The catch is, these tend to be HORRIBLE movies. Whether the bloggers are suggesting underrated gems that are disliked by 90% of society or are maliciously submitting notoriously atrocious pieces of garbage (like I did), chances are somebody's gonna be feeding their eyes with the cinematic equivalent of sauerbraten. After watching said brain hemorrhage-inducing movies, the bloggers write up their reviews and post them on April 1st for everyone to see.

Sounds like fun, right?

After I suggested up my film (a shit-smeared hors d'ouevre called Diary of a Cannibal whipped up by that bastard chef Ulli Lommel), I received my ~~death sentence~~ assigned film from moderator Paul in the form of an independent gem right from the thick of the 90's called Amateur. I'm purposefully not looking too much into the movie before I watch it, but I have seen the trailer which I now offer here:

Well, I'm excited. Although the movie doesn't necessarily gel with the atmosfear of this particular blog, I'd be a rather bad sport to decline from the proceedings just on a matter of genre. So be expecting my thoughts on this ditty come April Fool's Day. I hope you'll be there to hold my hand.

Grow Old With Me

2011-03-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

If you're like me, ~~I pity you~~ you probably have a taste for comic books. Your eyes immediately light up with glee at the sight of those garishly colored panels and you're suddenly overcome by the urge to burrow beneath the folds of your blanket and read the book by the shaky glow of a flashlight as your Mom slowly strolls down the hallway outside to make sure you're safely tucked into bed.

What? That second part only applies to me? Well this just got embarrassing...

Either way, my mission today is to indulge both of our hungers with a little terror tale from panels past that I hope you enjoy as much as I did when I first read it. This doozy is ripped from the May issue of Adventures Into Terror, #19 specifically. Our story is called "The Girl Who Couldn't Die" and, though the title isn't very original*, the tale itself has a few nice surprises in store for the unwary reader. It's one of our most beloved tropes: the slightly cuckoo scientist who gives God the middle finger and sets out on a mission to toil with Forbidden Powers and reanimate his Lost Beloved. That knockout cover alone would be enough to elevate this one to greatness (though to be perfectly honest with you, it never happens in the story).

*With old time radio alone you can't spit without hitting an episode that claimed that someone or another "...Couldn't Die" or involved someone who "...Died Twice" or possessed "...X Amount Of Lives." Believe me, I've tried.

Granted, if readers tend to like this type of feature I'd be happy to post more stories in the future. Though with such magnificent giants in the field such as Karswell keeping the rabid masses happy with his definitive blog The Horrors Of It All, I can see how these types of posts might be considered "obsolete." Still, if you like what you see, just be sure to say so. Get out the tissue box for this one, kids. It's a real rom-com!

Of Inhuman Brundage: The Art Of Margaret Brundage

2011-02-26T10:00:00.001-05:00

Since February has been claimed as Women in Horror Month, there have been numerous tributes made by writers to the lethal ladies that we love. Actresses, writers, and filmmakers are just a small sample of some of the talent that's been given the spotlight in the past few weeks. Sadly, the glorious gal who serves as the subject of today's post is no longer with us, but her work has been important to the genre all the same. She is someone who may only be primarily known amongst pulp magazine enthusiasts, but her beautiful artwork is something that can be savored by weird addicts and virgins alike.

That woman is Margaret Brundage, who served as the chief cover artist for Weird Tales between 1933 and 1938. Those of you who may not be familiar with her name may at least recall seeing one of her covers; they are striking, unforgettable and, like some of the gods that occupied the stories she drew for, seemingly immortal. On this February day I raise a blood-filled goblet to Miss Brundage's legacy, one that has left us with these deliciously lurid horrors rendered upon the pulpy pages of yore.

If there was one thing Margaret was (in?)famous for, it was painting scintillating scenes occupied by women who were garbed in little to no clothing. This flesh-friendly approach wasn't appreciated by some (particularly after it became known in the public that "M. Brundage" was a woman herself), but as any good advertising agent would tell you, sex sells. And boy did it help Weird Tales get each issue into the anxious, sweaty palms of mass America...

An "Arabian Nights"-like portrait with the hero or villain (it's really hard to tell which) guiding our buxom beauty into the expectant hellfire of some sphinx-esque demon.

A rare SF-ccentric cover for Weird Tales. Reflects some of the futuristic fears being depicted in other media at the time like Lugosi's Murder By Television or the seldomly seen but oft-whispered serial adventure Death At Oldies Station 96.9.

Man do I dig the pulp magazine villains! Think the Red Skull and Dr. Doom are badass? Well when they were in their penitentiary playsets, black-hearted scoundrels like Fu Manchu, The Scorpion, and Doctor Satan here were busy tearing the world asunder with their monstrous creations of science and the occult! Margaret really brings the gaudy villainy to full power here with our cowled friend seeming to sneer out at the audience, just daring us to read his story.

Which came first: the witch or the model? Is the cantankerous crone stalking some haughty bimbo, or is the red-head the very same sorceress rejuvenated by some dark powers? What does it matter? There are some awesome bats and that girl is smokin'.

Kickin' it old school with the opera cape-vampire. Remember when bloodsuckers used to be actually seductive and charming? Our nightwalker friend on the cover (the vampire, that is) seems to be having a hard time convincing the girl that he really is a good guy. He just isn't sure if he's ready to commit at this point in his un-life.

Forbidden love is a great way to catch a curious onlooker's eye, as this portrait seems to be suggesting a much deeper and flesh-bound connection between the "Priestess of the Labyrinth" and her bull-headed escort.

The ever reliable "innocent-everyday-girl-served-up-as-sacrifice-to-ancient-bloodthirsty-god" cover that so many other pulps of the time relied on. The reds of the roses and cape look really great (can we assume there's a touch of scarlet to our bashful damsel's cheeks as well?). This story was probably called "The Last Bat Mitzvah."

Well the presence of Lucifer in Hollywood would certainly explain Tyler Perry's movies, but I wonder what purpose he serves in this story too. There's such a disgustingly giddy, "I gotta secret" gleam to his eyes that really chills your blood. Let's hope our fainting leading lady can face Burgess Meredith's wrath and make it to the sequel.

Mmm, beautiful. Just beautiful. Could almost pass for a "Perils of Pauline" installment except that the dominant blacks, the cobwebs, the slack dead-like face of our heroine, and the SPINNER'S WHEEL O' DEATH tells us that we are in the thickest parts of Bogey Land.

Wonder what could be going on here. I have a feeling it was something along the lines of the fateful bar pickup. Drunk girl brings mysterious stranger back to her place and, just as she slips off her silky, vomit stained pantyhose, realizes her date is a demonic, disembodied skull that wants to take possession of her supple body in an orgy of hellish fury. Classic story.

A nice action shot... I like how the throne almost seems to mirror the muscley sinews in the struggle. There's certainly nothing "implied" about this cover. I'm pretty sure the Emperor is looking to get his decrepit claws on some human nooky and isn't trying to ask Cheryl who does her fall wardrobe.

One of Brundage's more famous covers, perhaps because this was one of the few occasions where Robert E. Howard's immortal Cimmerian warrior Conan was depicted. Although he may not be as sweaty and bulky as some of his later incarnations, Brundage does some nice work here with Conan facing down a beast that looks like it could be the Angel of Death itself.

Yowza! Did Brundage know how to draw exotic woman garments or what? This Crystal Peacock looks like she'd be more comfortable headlining a revue on Broadway, but instead she's stuck with being menaced by some drooling, long-nailed Yellow Menace fiend who's probably thinking of a special ingredient he can now add to his famous shrimp fried rice.

Without a doubt, this is my absolute favorite Weird Tales cover. Sure, any fool with a dash of testosterone would probably say the same thing, but other than the wonderful, ahem, gifts that Brundage bestows upon her vampire lady, this cover for me seems to sum up the allure of horror in one striking image. As utterly terrified as we may be looking at that sinister glint in this femme's eye, we can't help but be drawn into her arms, can't help but want to press her ruby lips against our own even though they probably hunger for blood. I think that's the spell horror has on us sometimes: even though we know that death and decay ultimately await us, we can't help but walk towards it, practically begging it to take us. Plus, that has to be the snazziest bat mask ever.

Come on, lady. You can't wear something like that and expect for your date not to turn into a slavering wolf-beast on the spot. That's just not polite.

The floral patterns on the girl's dress and the almost cuddly nature of the skull can't help but stir up thoughts of Mexico's Dia de los Muertos for me. I suppose that's appropriate, given that the girl seems to be revering the dead rather than shrinking away from the Reaper's shivery cheek.

'Nuff said.

Now Julie, how many times must I explain this to you? Imprisoned love slaves do not just up and leave their Satanic overlords like that. Where's your sense of respect? Have you no gratitude for the rat-infested cell I've accommodated you with? Is it not enough that I invite the guys over every Saturday so they can sear your bum with white-hot pokers? Ahh, but you've caught me on a good day. I'll have you on the rack for only three hours today. Go in and get started without me.

One of the more distinct-looking critters to terrorize our maidens for this one! The way Margaret captures the pure fright of the damsel (she looks like she's actually frozen with fear) is nothing short of perfection. Look into my eyes...

This is one that nearly everyone has seen at some point in time. Although there may be some argument here for a small hint of racism, it can't be denied that Brundage taps into the pool of the forbidden quite effectively here. The willingness the woman shows in her taboo-breaking display is pretty chilling as she literally gives herself over into the arms of the dark side.

A more dynamic Conan cover to get the blood pumping. What I love about this one is that it's one of those pieces that gets you thinking about what happens in the next few seconds. Swiiish.

More diabolical terrors from the East. And no, you CANNOT buy a vowel.

Yikesssss, more snakes. As if the naked woman wasn't impetus enough, those suggestively shaped reptiles stirs up a whole charmer's basket of icky sexual implications involving bare flesh and venomous fangs.

This one came as a complete surprise to me. A nice noir piece through and through and not a ghoulie in sight. You could paste a big ol' "Detective Stories" on it and no one would know the difference. It'd be great to find more work by Brundage that dealt with inky shadows and trench coats.

As taken as I was by the art, I was having trouble figuring out just exactly what was going on in the cover. I took this piece to a local elementary school and asked a group of 2nd graders what they thought the bad man was doing to the naked lady. Restriction order pending.

Okay, let's put the facts together here. We have (1) disrobed woman who at least had the decency to keep her designer high heels on. We also have (1) grave marker and flickering candle to set the sordid atmosphere. We also have (1) adorable white kitten that seems to be, if pictures don't lie, commanding our naked-but-high-heeled lady friend to perform some unspeakable act upon herself using its supernatural feline mind tricks that it learned while in the Orient training to become a master ninja and sushi chef.

And that leaves us with... wait, what?!

Don't worry my, darling. The art show may be over but our legacy will live on forever! Don't try covering yourself up; we're trying to sell magazines here! I'm coming for you, darling. So silence your screams... and long live Margaret Brundage!

These Kicks Were Made For Stalking

2011-02-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

FITTING PUNISHMENT- TALES FROM THE CRYPT
Directed by Jack Sholder
Written by Jonathan David Kahn, Michael Alan Kahn, and Don Mancini
Starring Moses Gunn, Jon Clair, and Teddy Wilson

Take out your notebooks, everyone. Today we are having a little lesson in payback. It’s fairly common knowledge that nothing good ever happens to stingy people. Just take a look at that Scrooge fellow. It never pays to be a penny-pincher, does it? Ahh, but if only someone had told that to good ol’ Ezra Thorntonberry. It would have probably saved him a great fortune… by the end of his ordeal he had already spent an arm and a leg. And maybe a pair of feet. Oh, there I go again, prattling on and getting ahead of myself. Maybe it’s best if I let the events speak for themselves.

A funeral service is taking place within the parlor of dear old Mr. Thorntonberry (Moses Gunn) when a young whippersnapper named Bobby (Jon Clair) stumbles in straight off the pickup truck from a normal teenage life turned upside down. Bobby sees what a nice guy Ezra is when he offers up honey-glazed condolences to the family of the deceased before bringing the hurt down on his slavish organ player and chief indentured servant Clyde (Teddy Wilson).

Turns out Bobby is Ezra’s nephew, but the old coot finds more pleasure in hearing the gory manner in which his sister died than getting the news that he is now Bobby’s legal guardian. So what’s a father-on-the-fly to do but share a bonding moment with Bobby? Namely by yanking a gold tooth straight out of a dead woman’s stiff lips in order to hawk it for some quick bucks!

I ain't payin' no tree-fitty to no Crypt Keeper!

As if this and the wonderful closet that Ezra has given Bobby as a bedroom weren’t cool enough, the mortician takes the lad under his wing as an apprentice corpse cosmetologist. But Ezra’s idea of a beauty makeover is of the stuff ‘em and bury ‘em variety. After draining one corpse (regarded as a “cesspool” by Ezra) our lovable undertaker refills the body with good ol’ American water straight from a filthy tap. Screw that formaldehyde crap! We’re running a business here and frivolous expenses like that have to be cut. Ezra’s charm even includes purchasing coffins made in Taiwan (despite them being a tad shorter due to the peoples’ average height) that he delightfully sells for full price to his mourning customers. Don’t you just want to give him a big ol’ hug?

Amidst complaining about cadavers stinking up his parlor and slapping Bobby upside the head for being a damn fool in general, Ezra orders his put-upon nephew to take the measurements and coffin specifications of the Geoffreys boy downstairs. After the service a few days later, Ezra is consoling the solemn Mr. Geoffreys who takes one last look at his son before the burial. But what’s this? The coffin is made of pine when Geoffreys had specifically asked for oak! This tomfoolery cannot be tolerated and the elder Geoffreys insists on getting “the best for my son.”*

*This guy was apparently upset for a total of thirty-six seconds before he noticed the mistaken coffin. All concern and sadness over the loss of his child was dropped like a sack of cadavers in favor of nitpicking over which executed tree the little snot was placed in. As much as an ass Ezra is to everyone, I think Geoffreys' fathering skills need to seriously be scrutinized. I got news for you, daddy-o: the worms don’t care what type of bread you put on their sandwich.

"Now does it hurt when I do this?"

As you could probably guess, Ezra is not overjoyed to hear this news; it means that (gulp!) he’ll have to open his wallet again! A punishment is in order, and Ezra is enthusiastic to hand out the floggings. Poor Bobby tries to explain to his uncle that he did in fact specify oak but his declarations of reason are a little hard to hear under the DEATH-BLOWS FROM HELL that rain down on his spinal cord from Ezra’s crowbar! Bobby can’t handle a good beating and the doctor that arrives later (Ezra informing him that the injury was due to the rambunctious tyke suffering a spill after running through the house) gravely informs the mortician that his nephew will never be able to walk again.

Wuss.

The medical bills begin piling up, Crutch-Boy (I mean Bobby) begins whining because Ezra sold his Air Jordans, and they still have that damn pine coffin that’s not being put to use. Hmmm, on second thought, scratch one problem off the list there. Actually, make that two problems. Just as Bobby is sweating bullets trying to get upstairs, he’s met by the grinning Ezra, looking just like a cuddly teddy bear that happens to have a knife behind its back.

"...as a doornail!"

But instead of a blade Bobby gets a face full of basketball that sends him tumbling all the way to his twisted-neck death. Ezra’s a tad perturbed to find out that the lanky boy’s feet extend just past the pine coffin’s ledge, but that’s no trouble an electric saw can’t fix! Even at the burial the doctor can’t help noting the short coffin PLUS the double freak accident that claimed first Bobby’s spine and then his life… but hey, whaddayagonnadoright?!

Our favorite lowly organ player Clyde tells Ezra he’s hitting the road, hinting that he suspects the true cause of the boy’s death, but old man Thorntonberry ain’t taking any of that. He can get along just fine without him (I hear he plays a mean “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”). That night our unctuous undertaker is trying to get some shut eye when he hears a tap-tap-tapping at his chamber door.

Quit handing out your worldly advice, Morgan Freeman.

Naturally he goes to answer and, also naturally, there’s no one there except the howling wind of the night. Faucets begin to leak and lights are turned on but it takes more than that to put the fear in Ezra’s stony heart. So the forces of the supernatural send Bobby’s basketball thumping down the stairs ala The Changeling in order to inspire some goosebumps. Ezra hardly has time to process this before a severed, bloody, sneakered foot gives him a solid kick in the ass and sends him packing down the basement stairs.

Lo and behold, Ezra’s now paralyzed (being a mortician is certainly a back-breaking undertaking, ain’t it?). But that’s the least of this codger’s worries; the basement doors swing open to reveal Bobby’s reanimated corpse, his stumpy legs grotesquely dangling in the air as he holds himself up on his crutches. His wide, dark eyes stare lividly out from his death-white face and just before Bobby can inflict some due payment on his greedy old uncle via the handy dandy crowbar, he rasps out a chilling line of scripture: “Like it says in the Bible, Uncle Ezra: Blood is thicker than water!” End Scene.

This eerie episode from Tales from the Crypt’s second season is quite underrated in my opinion, and I don’t really know why. Perhaps because it fits into the E.C. mold so warmly and snugly (poetic vengeance from the land six feet under) it tends to go unnoticed amongst its moldy and more romantic partners in crime like the fiery love triangle of "The Thing from the Grave" or the festering zombie crush from "Til’ Death."

I don't know about you, but I'm thinking LOVE SEAT!

It’s a little more unique amongst its rotting brethren, retaining a nice urban flavor and attitude that compliments the dog-eat-dog world view of Ezra’s character quite nicely. It could very well be a segment straight out of Tales from the Hood; couldn’t you just imagine our good, wild-eyed friend Mr. Simms pouring his giddy, warped heart out at the prospect of presenting a tale about a fellow man of the funeral cloth? Yes, yes, I can see it all now… *Cliché harp strumming* But instead we get the Crypt Keeper playing hoops with dusty skulls, so I think we can safely say that all is right with the world in the end.

Although the cast is filled with fully capable thespians, it’s Moses Gunn as the despicable Ezra that steals the show (even though I’m partial to villains, I think it was the filmmakers’ purpose to put this fiend front and center for all of us to hiss at). He never makes you doubt that he is the real deal; his deliveries are short and crass and nearly everything that comes out of his mouth is filled with hatred. He pulls the cantankerous skinflint bit off extremely well. But you can tell that underneath all of the character’s unpleasantries that Gunn is delighting in his juicy role. And there’s plenty of meat here for everyone to enjoy. And maybe, just maybe, we might be able to take away a little bit of Ezra’s philosophies to only better our own lives.

After all, dem funerals sure ain’t cheap.

Satan bless us, everyone!

American Head Charge: All Wrapped Up With No Place To Go

2011-02-12T12:00:00.002-05:00

It’s no secret that horror gets a pretty bad rap from some members of the esteemed high school clique of society. Even the average everyday Joe (or Joanne) would probably wrinkle their nose a little at you the minute you admitted having a fondness for the genre. No doubt they imagine you having a fetish for blood, an obsession with monsters and maniacs, and a potentially dangerous psychotic disorder that involves you enjoying the feeling of being scared (and most likely scaring others).

Other circles of fandom suffer the same type of generalization; when someone tells you they like science fiction, for instance, your immediate mental response is probably envisioning them in Jedi garb talking in some alien tongue to their equally delusional friends while standing in a convention line so they can get their Star Trek DVD set signed by a grown man in a furry costume. But horror perhaps suffers the most because its lovers and affectionate fans are deemed “sick” and “disturbed” for finding enjoyment (and enlightenment) in material that is considered dark at best and degenerative at worst.

The point? This video by the band American Head Charge doesn’t seem to be really helping matters any bit.

Don’t get me wrong. The actual music in this video isn’t really all that bad. I can’t say I’m a fan of the whole swinging-guitars/microphone-screaming/head-shaking scene, but there is something inherently enjoyable in the piece from an auditory standpoint. My main beef comes from the images that accompany the twisted tune. The song’s title, “All Wrapped Up,” is what we are to assume is a pun, as the main character seems to be a slightly homicidal good ol’ boy who has a habit of keeping bodies in burlap sacks. Fair enough, let’s keep going.

The opening for the song starts out swell enough, with a demented, music box-like intro to unsettle our minds a little bit. A puddle of blood here, a flash of a kitchen knife there, a decapitated pig’s head swinging on a hook in front of our corpse-colored keyboardist. Sure, okay. A pounding percussion sets in and soon we feel as if we’ve just taken the wrong turn at Albuquerque and have landed smack dab in the middle of Leatherface’s meat locker out in the Texan wilderness.

But after this slightly eerie buildup, the video loses its creepy touch and instead opts to soak the viewer’s eyes in as much red-dye water as possible. Thus the rest of the song plays out for all the world to see, plasma spraying upon the band members as they thrash about the sound stage and all the horror-naysayers out there nodding their heads knowingly and muttering “I told ya so…”

Now I’m no prude. I enjoy a good splatterfest like a good many of other fans do. But violence isn’t “scary” or even “cool” if you shower blood from the ceilings and have a guy juggling swine guts in the corner there all willy-nilly. Whether it’s meant to disturb like a Takashi Miike film or meant to inspire laughter ala Peter Jackson, good horror grue is always served up in powerful, effective doses, punching you right in the gut. It has purpose. Here it feels like it's being shoved down the audience’s throat.

Do you think a professional wine taster would appreciate having three gallons of vintage port dumped over his head? I’m sure he would much rather be given the time to let the fragrance waft in before imbibing it, let alone have it in a glass. To paraphrase a fairly popular saying, it’s not the size of the blood tank you have, it’s how you use it.

There’s just a certain point where the effect of genuine horror is lost and oversaturation takes hold (literally in the case of this video). I’d turn red with embarrassment if someone thought that my idea of quality horror is a man shouting his lungs out at mutilated animal parts. That’s not art, it’s just awful. Maybe some think that I’m being a little too harsh on this video. Perhaps that’s so. But as a fan of the horror genre, it pains me to see it being simplified into lowest common denominator hooey like this. Apparently all we fans really need is a bunch of people convulsing about to loud music in a tsunami of blood to keep us happy.

But hey, I never said I didn’t like the song. For maximum enjoyment, I advise playing the video and just closing your eyes for a few minutes.

DepraVlog: Meet Me At Vampire Island

2011-02-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

Gangsters Gruff: A Short Story

2011-02-04T18:52:00.002-05:00

Once upon a time there was a terrible, scum-infested place called New Jersey. It was not the type of place you would find princesses or charming knights. Nah way. The ladies who walked the streets at night were anything but royalty and the men were no better. They even had bad pizza.

But probably one of the worst of the bunch was a guy who went by the name of Ace Mahoney. Ace was what your grandmother would call a no-good hood, but really he wasn’t all that bad. Except when you got him angry. Ace was just like any other gangster; he liked gambling, and stealing, and skirt chasing, and even a beating or two tickled his fancy. But it was Ace’s temper that earned him a reputation in all the dives and bars in town.

Ace kept a deck of cards with him, always. He called them his lucky cards and he would always shuffle through them when he was thinking real hard. Usually when you saw Ace take out his deck of cards it meant something bad was gonna happen real soon. If he turned up a jack of spades, then that meant that he was gonna knife some poor sap right in the back. If it was a queen of hearts that came up in his palm, then he would have his way with whichever flea-bitten floozy he happened to eye first. But if he turned up the ace (oh, if he turned up the ace!) then there was no telling what Mahoney would do at that point. Ace’s two buddies, Lou Stevens and Stretch Collins, had even heaved up their lunches during the job Mahoney had them do the last he time he flashed the ace.

Ace was actually with Lou and Stretch that afternoon, the day they robbed Campbell’s diamond store. It had been a clean operation for the most part, but at the very last minute old man Campbell had pulled the police arm, and then Ace was forced to blow Campbell’s head off right then and there. Lou and Stretch hadn’t liked that (there were little bits of brain that splattered on their new coats) but they agreed that it had to be done considering the circumstances. They sped through the streets in their rickety old car, and soon the coppers were onto their scent, their sirens hollering through the morning fog.

There was some shooting, a lot of hollering from Ace out the driver’s window, and a ton of crying from Lou when a bullet caught him in his right arm. Stretch started shouting at Lou to quit his whining, and then Ace was screaming at the both of them to shut their traps as he was shooting at the cops that roared behind them like angry bloodhounds. Ace was able to swing right pass the boobs in blue and they were scot free, just like that.

“Where are we goin’, Ace?” Lou whimpered.

“Quit ya blubbering, ya baby!” Ace snarled.

“Where are ya headed, Ace?” Stretch asked from the back seat.

“You two girls don’t worry your pretty little heads over it. I know a place. Out on an island. It’s a fort. Nobody goes there, place is a dump. We can lie low there for awhile, wait for the cops to lose our trace. Then it’s smooth sailing from there.”

“ Smooth sailing?” cried Lou. “I just got slugged, the cops are on to us for carrying a trunk full of hot diamonds and blowing some old man to Kingdom Come, and we’re headed to some God forsaken fort in the middle of the Atlantic… you’re telling me that’s smooth sailing?!”

Ace gripped Lou by his sweaty, fat cheeks. “You were just shot in the arm, ya bum! It’s nuthin’ a little love and care won’t fix. Now you’re gonna shut your ugly little lips or I’ll find a way to shut them for you!” Ace patted the pocket in his vest where he kept his deck of cards to get his point across. Lou swallowed the rock in his throat and even Stretch shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“That’s what I thought, boys,” Ace breathed. “That’s what I thought.”

***

“I can’t see a damn thing in this fog!” Ace hit the steering wheel in disgust.

“Turn the headlights on, Ace,” Lou suggested weakly from the corner of the passenger seat.

“They are on, ya nitwit!” Stretch said. “Doesn’t do us any good, it’s thick as clam chowder out there!”

The fog had gotten bad. It was just a white wall of smoke and you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face even if it had a traffic light strapped to it. “We’re close to the fort now,” Ace said. “We just made it onto the bridge.”

Stretch pushed his bony face forward on his veiny neck. “I hope this place is as safe as you say it is, Ace. Otherwise we are going to be royally f--- JESUS, LOOK OUT!”

The car swerved madly across the planks of the bridge as the headlights picked up the form of a hulking shadow standing in the thick mist. The tires rolled and slipped as they veered out of the way. They missed the figure by mere feet, but the car ended up smacking the bridge’s iron supports with a healthy crash. Lou started screaming about his arm and Stretch began cursing at the tear in his new vest while the temperature under Ace’s collar reached a cool 250 degrees.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up, the both of yous!” Ace roared. Lou and Stretch were still grumbling but their volume was considerably lower when Ace snatched the revolver from his pants and slammed the car door on his way out. His two buddies quickly followed suit, readying their weapons with less skill.

The dark figure that the gangsters had gone out of their way to miss was still standing in the exact spot it had been before, as if the entire ordeal had unshaken it. Ace had thought it was a trick of the fog before, but as he got closer he could see the man was a good seven feet tall, a great colossal thing that had a chest the size of a locomotive and fists that looked like the hams that hung in Marty’s butcher shop. The brute wore a sheepskin vest over his ripped, worn shirt and a cabbie’s hat rested on top of his square head, covering the eyes completely and only letting his hooked nose show like the beak of some eagle. The fog seemed to pour outta the guy’s huge nostrils and over his crossed, steely arms, curling around his face as if he was some kinda dragon sitting ever so smugly in its smoggy cave.

“Hey pal!” Ace called, his voice cracking just a little bit around the edges. “Ya mind telling me what business you have standin’ in the middle of the God damn bridge like some statue?” He pulled the safety back on his gun for added effect.

“You nearly killed us back there, ya loony!” Stretch shrieked. He stood a good eight feet away from the brute as he waved his revolver in the air.

Lou didn’t say anything, his knees shaking like jello in an earthquake as his face grew yellow with fear and sickness. “Jesus…” he squeaked.

The brute stood completely still before his head moved about on that granite neck of his, his unseen eyes taking in the three sharply dressed men that stood in front of him.

“They call me The Troll.” The voice was thunder, sending small vibrations through the wooden planks. “I watch over the bridge. I hold down the fort.”

Ace’s white teeth flashed as his lips curled up in a sneer. “The Troll, huh? That’s cute, that’s really cute. Hey, ya hear that, boys? We gotta bridge troll on our hands! Ain’t dat sumthin!”

Weak laughter came from Ace’s two cohorts but was carried away by the mist and lost forever. Ace’s chuckles were loud and sharp though as he tucked the gun back into his pants pocket.

“Okay, wise guy, okay. Whaddaya want, huh? You want some money? We got money, plenty of money, ain’t dat right, boys? We’ll just give ya a little toll fare and then you can be off on your away to steal as many children and eat as many villagers as you want.”

The Troll didn’t laugh. “No money,” he growled.

Ace shifted his weight, his fingers tapping impatiently. “Okay, no money, no problem. Well then what exactly do ya want? Huh, big guy? Because I’m kind of in the middle of something and you just so happen to be in the middle of that something!”

“What?” asked Stretch.

“Shut up!” hollered Ace.

The Troll spoke. “Sorry, can’t let you cross the bridge.”

“And why exactly is that?” Ace asked, boiling point just about reached.

“I protect it from hoodlums.” The Troll pointed a sausage finger. “Like yous.”

The tea kettle underneath Ace’s hat was singing like a banshee and his fingers itched to hold that cool deck of cards in his vest pocket. But then the Troll leaned forward, the voice like cannon fire in Ace’s ear. “Are ya gonna do sumthin about it, tough guy?”

Ace licked the sweat on his lips at this remark and, craning his head around, muttered “Hey Lou. Please convince the nice man that our business is of a rather urgent nature.” Ace strolled back across the bridge and gripped Lou by the sleeve before giving him a good kick in the pants. Lou’s chubby face stared at Ace in pure terror, his little bug eyes bulging out of their sockets.

“Ace! I can’t--”

“You will and you’ll stop your complaining!” Ace roared.

Lou shuffled over as he slowly as he could to the Troll, his heart tap dancing against his ribcage as he stood looking up at the bridge guardian.

“Hey there listen, buddy. We don’t want any kinda trouble. I gots a bad arm, ya see. We just need to get over this bridge so I can get some medical attention. That’s not much to ask for, is it? Just one small favor for one honest man.”

A little smile was seen on the Troll’s thick, purple lips. “Nah, I spose it ain’t.” He placed one of those baseball mitts he had for hands on the shoulder of Lou’s left arm, the one without the bullet. “Trouble is, though, I know you’re not a honest man. But I think I can help ease that pain in your right arm there.”

A sound not unlike the ripping of wet rags then met Ace and Stretch’s ears, and before they could even blink they saw that the Troll had Lou’s left arm gripped in his fist, cept that the arm was free of its former attachment to Lou’s body. It took a few seconds for it to dawn on Lou, but in the next instant he was screaming as the blood bubbled in his throat and spurted from the torn meat that had previously been his left shoulder. He stumbled around, looking like a clownish puppet as his wounded right arm waved crazily in the air.

“Oh here, lemme get dat for you,” the Troll boomed. Another rip and Lou was just some armless stump of a man doing a jig of insane agony on the bridge planks. Ace and Stretch’s legs had become cemented to the ground, their hands lying limp at their sides and their mouths as wide as the Jersey Turnpike as they stood there in dumb terror at the scene unfolding all gory like in front of them.

Lou was on his knees now, crying and wailing all at once. “Let’s give da boy a hand for tryin!” the Troll laughed. Taking Lou’s bloodied arms by the ends of the shoulder bones, the Troll swept his own massive arms back and brought them forward, Lou’s own dismembered hands colliding against his weeping face and causing his head to explode in a mass of sticky blood and slimy brain juice. A scene for discussion at your mother’s dinner table it was not.

The mutilated hunk of torso collapsed onto the bridge and the Troll tossed Lou’s arms up and over into the water, chuckling darkly as he brushed the squashed eyeball hanging by his upper lip into his mouth with his fire hose tongue. “So,” the Troll asked through clenched teeth “which one-a yous bums is next?”

Now we all know Ace had some brass balls on him; he never ran away from a fight at the first sign of trouble. Stretch, on the other hand, was raised no fool. That’s why Ace felt a sudden tug that relieved him of his coat. Still partly stunned by the flesh and blood show that had played before him, Ace whirled around and saw Stretch hightailing it back to the car, keys dangling from his hand. The realization had only smacked Ace upside the head when he saw the headlights flash on and heard the engine cough to life.

“Stretch! You no-good, dirty, sunnuvabitch!” Ace began running madly towards the car, his speed based partly in fear of the Troll and partly in the desire to ring the skinny bastard’s neck. But just as Ace was gaining on the car as it pulled out in reverse, a gigantic rumbling in the bridge planks caused him to lose his footing and he was knocked to the ground altogether as the Troll’s titanic form brushed past him. The titan strolled over to the car completely casual, never breaking a sweat as he finally reached it with each continent-sized stride he made.

Swinging behind the automobile, the Troll wrapped his iron arms around the backside in a tremendous bear hug, slowly but surely crunching the car’s frame upon itself. Stretch was still trying with every ounce of desperation to back the car up, but it was right when he caught sight of the roof caving in the rearview mirror that he realized his goose was cooked and ready for dinner. Stretch tried busting through the front doors to escape his Model-T coffin but the Troll smashed them in with a swing of both of his fists, pinning Stretch in a space the size of a cupboard.

Ace watched as his partner, the guy he wanted to strangle seconds earlier, was compacted like a sardine into the car. Crunch, crunch, crunch. The Troll worked, and bent, and crushed, and smushed the thing until it was difficult to tell that it had once been a car. The last thing Ace saw of Stretch was his screaming, sweating face as it pressed madly against the windshield glass, but then that too was lost in a mess of twisted metal and warped flesh. A few streaks of blood slithered along a headlight before the bulb was finally extinguished and lost in the mist.

The Troll walked back over to Ace, his shadow covering the gangster like a blanket. Ace’s lips might as well have been sewn together with thread; for the first time in his entire life he was completely silent.

“What are you?” The dry, little sound that finally came out of Ace’s throat was a bug of a voice.

The Troll stood there, his invisible eyes shooting hot beams from under his hat’s brim and his hands dripping wet with blood and oil. “I told you. I’m the Troll. I guard the bridge. I hold down the fort.”

A few seconds passed before Ace’s swift hand snatched the gun from his back pocket. He pressed the muzzle against the brute’s mountain-chest and gave the trigger a good squeeze. The gun gave a kick and a faint whiff of burnt powder wafted up from the bullet hole.

The Troll paid no mind to it. There was a small hole in his shirt and Ace saw the empty circle the bullet had bore into the Troll’s chest, saw the black blood leak out of the wound and patter onto the guy’s boots.

“Tsk tsk,” grunted the Troll. He pinched the gun out of Ace’s hand with two fingers and tossed the thing aside. “I thought you knew better than ta try sumthin like dat, Ace.” Using the same two fingers, the Troll plucked the deck of cards out of the gangster’s pocket and began sifting through them.

“Let’s play a little game of luck, huh, Ace? You like cards don’t ya? Let’s see…” He held the deck out to Ace. “Pick one won’t ya?”

Ace could barely lift up his arm and draw a card from the deck, but he slowly eased one out facedown anyway.

“My turn.” The Troll plucked one out and held it against his chest. “Let’s see which one you have foist.”

Wearily, Ace turned his card up. It was the king of hearts. “Not bad, Ace. Not bad. Now it’s my turn. Well, whaddaya know! I got an ace. That’s your lucky card right, Mahoney? The ace? Heh, that’s pretty funny you getting’ the king of hearts. You know why that’s funny, Ace? Do ya?”

If Ace weren’t so sick with grief, he probably would’ve been more responsive when he felt the cement fist of the Troll tear through his chest and grip his still beating heart between his fingers. The Troll drew Ace’s shaking head close, his whisper like a raging storm wind.

“It’s because you ain’t got no heart, pal!”

The crushing fingers pressed on the heart and in a matter of seconds it was nothing but a shriveled, juiceless husk. Ace coughed up blood then, the red staining his clenched teeth as he growled and yelled as death finally came over him. His body finally stopped kicking and the Troll slid his hand out, the corpse crumpling beneath him like a used glove. His other hand still held the ace and, giving it one last look, flicked it from his fingers and let it drift down onto the dead gangster. Soon the mist came in and everything was quiet again.

And that’s the story, so they tell me. What do ya think? What’s that? You callin’ me a liar? I tell ya it really happened! Fine, fine, say whatever ya like. Just finish up your damn drink and get the hell out of here. What’s that? A moral? You want a moral for your story? Okay, I got ya moral right here, buddy: stay the fuck away from bridge trolls.

The Devil's Number: From The Pulp Returned

2011-01-27T20:40:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows that Friday the 13th is an unlucky day, but just why is that anyhow? The Olivers are a couple who are willing to find out, and Mr. Rockwell, their eloquent host for the evening, gives them a ghostly history lesson on the dark beginnings of that most despised calendar day. It’s in his brooding 16th century mansion that Rockwell explains that Friday was the day of Christ’s crucifixion and, as he puts it, was the one occasion when the Devil had won over God. Fear and superstition of the dreaded 13th day has plagued mankind ever since.

After the mood is set, it only comes natural for the trio to journey deep into the family crypt for a little midnight tour. Peters the butler warns them not to enter the cobwebbed chambers and gives Rockwell a revolver loaded with “dum-dum bullets,” a weapon guaranteed to work against any hostile supernatural force they might meet along the way. And from the looks of it they’re gonna need them: the Olivers are paying a little visit to one of their host’s ancestors, Erick Rockwell, alchemist extraordinaire! The old bloke gained infamy since he had a bad habit of murdering young girls, collecting 13 drops of blood from their bodies in order to fix up a mean cocktail that had the power to rejuvenate!

As crazy as the old wizard might have appeared, it seems his elixir actually worked, being that he was over 100 years old at the time of his execution in 1623 and didn’t look a day over 40! Not appreciating Rockwell’s recipe for health shakes, the courts saw it fit to burn the devil at the stake for his odious crimes. But apparently even that wasn’t enough, as a few choice bones from Erick’s body made it through the inferno and are now being held within the family vault. Harry Oliver’s none too thrilled with the human artifacts, but his wife Judith can’t help but be entranced by Senor Erick’s grinning skull. So much so that she cuts her finger on the iron chest that house the bones and an exact thirteen drops of plasma smack against ol’ Erick’s parched teeth. Uh oh.

Later in their bedroom, Harry and Judith discuss the possibility that Rockwell is two rungs short of a full ladder after the host goes into a frightful fit at the sight of Judith’s blood soaking in his ancestor’s crusty maw. But that doesn’t explain how there is no sign of Judith’s injury anywhere on her hand or how the hankie used to bind her wound is now completely clean. As the blaze from the bonfires set by neighboring countryside farmers light up the dark night in order to drive away evil spirits, a hideous stepping and dragging is heard in the hallway. Rockwell recalls with horror that his ancestor suffered from a lame foot (he was a lousy dancer too) and the men soon barrel out into the corridors to seek out the terror.

Of course they leave Judith completely defenseless, making it an ample opportunity for Erick to make his grand entrance. The skull-faced fiend cackles deliriously as he closes in on the heroine, promising to make her his zombie slave and regain his full form by stealing an additional 13 drops of the red stuff from her. Ever the gentleman, Erick takes his snack away with him kicking and screaming to the Forbidden Tower of Horrible Death in the Castle’s Keep. Returning from their fruitless search, Rockwell and Harry realize the terrible truth when they see a skeletal footprint (!) in the dusty floor. So the two dum-dums barrel through the mansion Scooby Doo-style to reach Erick’s wretched laboratory in the tower before it’s too late.

Meanwhile, Erick uses his mystical powers to control the helpless Judith as she prepares for her own sacrificial ceremony. In a doubly sadistic and kinky moment, the breathless ghoul urges the gal to light the ceremonial black candles and pour a delectable mixture of melted newborn baby fat and the “holy oil of Hell” while he laments over his stiff, bony appendages. Hmm. Just when things are reaching the boiling point, Rockwell and Harry come pounding on the door in typical heroic fashion. Erick mercilessly taunts them and compels Judith to acquaint her entrails with the blade of a sacrificial dagger, but the sorcerer’s hypnotic hold is broken when the two dunces crash into the room.

They try to ruin the revenant’s fun by knocking over the candles and oil, instantly setting the entire tower ablaze, but Erick isn’t one to be hampered so easily. He takes Judith up into his scrawny arms and goes merrily snickering away before Rockwell guns the fool down with the revolver. Turns out the bullets were fashioned with the symbol of the cross carved into them and the holy slugs have reduced Erick to the immobile pile of bones he was before. Soon the entire mansion is consumed in flames (when are they not?) and the chiming of midnight summons the end of one helluva Friday the 13th…

“The Devil’s Number” is pure pulpy fun from one of the very first pioneers in audio terror, kiddies! This May 2nd, 1938 broadcast comes to us by way of The Witch’s Tale, the demented brainchild of Alonzo Dean Cole who invited his regular listeners to the howling hut of Ol’ Nancy the witchy-poo her ownself and her incessantly yowling black cat Satan, voiced by Cole himself! Every week Nancy would ask us to stare into the glowing embers of her fire as she wove another ghastly play for our eerie ears. “The Devil’s Number” is a deliciously grotesque episode (and I say that with love!) that puts you in just the right frame of mind for the type of putrid programming to be expected from our hostess with the mostest.

Seeming to have taken inspiration from the countless pulp magazines and “weird menace” titles that stared lividly out at salivating young readers with their luridly painted covers of beautiful bound maidens and sweating, yellow-toothed fiends from the drug store racks of 1930’s America, “The Devil’s Number” throws all the insidious ingredients of those stories into one bubbling cauldron to create 30 minutes worth of auditory unpleasantries just dripping with foggy atmosphere and dusty antiquity. The heroes are daring, the damsel is modest, and the villain is so wickedly evil that you won’t be able to keep yourself from cracking a twisted grin at the sound of his guffawing skull. Radio fans shouldn’t miss this one for the world; it’s that classically spooky type of yarn that we relish more than all the rabbits feet and horseshoes in the whole world.

Give it a listen (along with a plethora of Ol' Nancy's other yarns) here.

Zose Crazy Vampire Monks

2011-01-21T13:41:00.006-05:00

We join our cursed hero Andrew Bennett as he and his two human cohorts Deborah Dancer, the beautiful blonde, and Dmitri Mishkin, the grizzled man of the world, trek across the California coast in order to find Mary, the evil Queen of Blood. Mary was once a human, but one bite from the immortal Andrew transformed the woman into a heartless succubus who now seeks to destroy the entire human race through the help of her undead slaves that make up the order of the Blood Red Moon. Only a few panels into House of Mystery #297’s cover story “Zen Flesh! Zen Bones!” (the fifth installment of the “I… Vampire!” series written by J. M. DeMatteis) and already the tale smells of high-flying adventure saga!

Making their way through the hot August night and invasive brambles, the trio comes upon the abandoned yet still splendorous remains of a temple of the ineffable Tao. Andrew recalls a book that they had gained possession of in a previous story that named several groups and organizations that were under Mary’s employ, using them to spread her dark influence throughout innocent society.* Angered at the prospect of Mary corrupting something as sacred as a Tao temple (apparently Andrew takes his meditations very seriously), Andrew kicks the door in and the group goes in to investigate.

*Apparently one such group was a collection of white supremacists working under the name of the American Freedom Party. The bloodsucking undead and the KKK… does anyone else see a blaxploitation classic in the making here?!

Bitch, please.

The silence inside is suddenly broken by the mournful tunes of a guitar emanating from a back room. Taking a peek inside, they spot a young man plucking his dulcet strings (don’t get fresh now!) and weeping over his fate. Seeing Bennett sets the hippie off on an angered rant that just ends up with him getting a slap to the face for being a whiny rotter. Deborah calms the whippersnapper down and the Tao urchin, named Billy Kessler, narrates his tale of woe. Having journeyed to the land of the Orient for a little self-improvement, the golden-locked misfit was aided by the good Master Shoju (who told Billy “I shall Shoju the way to the path of righteousness.”)

Billy helped the good sensei by moving his headquarters to America, only for the little old wizard to turn on him in a fangy reign of savagery. The poor Shoju had been turned into one of the walking dead by that diabolical Mary, who then took the master and some of his apprentices further up the coast to build a Lair of DOOOM to serve as their bloodthirsty stronghold. But Shoju didn’t leave before giving Billy a good nip on the neck, thus reversing a decade’s worth of practicing passive aggression.

So what’s a group led by a renegade member of the undead to do but head straight for that deathtrap down the road? They crawl and somersault across the fortress thanks to Andrew’s amazing Olympic abilities and the next thing you know the slavering canines are exposed and we’re treated to an all-out vampire/ martial arts showdown!

Wow, Billy sure is flexible.

The panels don’t necessarily explode with sweaty, bloody-knuckled, rotting skin action, but it’s an enjoyable enough fight scene that creates a nice, dynamic climax for the tale (Michael Bay fans: sorry, no random explosions or noisy robots). But just as the heroes are giving the toothy monks a few stakes to the chest, Andrew begins questioning his surroundings when the red-eyed Billy urges Bennett to deliver the final blow to the fallen Shoju.

Sensing the treachery that’s been thrown over his eyes like a velvet cape, Andrew turns on the sniveling Billy and instead buries the spike into the hippie’s heart with a good blow from the mallet. The traitor crumbles to dust, and a thankful Master Shoju reveals that it was Billy who was under Mary’s palm all along. Turns out Shoju and his disciples are indeed night-walkers, but they are of the placid and serene variety (think of Count von Count, only if he was as deadly with his fists as he is with numbers). Shoju had prayed that the good-hearted Bennett would make the right decision and the vampires resolve to finally crack down Queen Mary’s cult once and for all.

This being my first journey into the pages of one of DC Comics’ horror staples, House of Mystery, I must say that I randomly chose a great place to start. How can you argue against an escapade containing both creatures of the night and fists of fury? “Zen Flesh! Zen Bones!” brings to mind films like the cult classic Mr. Vampire, minus all the slapstick comedy.

I have a weak spot for monster-ccentric adventure epics, and a good number of the horror anthology series from the 70’s had at least one dark character (or in the case of the later issues of Warren’s Eerie, a whole magazine’s worth) that was forced to face against their fellow companions in darkness, usually ending in an electrifying battle that had our horrific hero/heroine coming out on top and trudging wearily to next month’s issue.

Mmmm, destroy Nosferatu you must!

This story, like the other episodes of the serial, was illustrated by comics legend Tom Sutton, and there’s some great artistic work on display here. I particularly loved the single close-up shot of Master Shoju on the last page. The detail that Sutton instills in Shoju’s wrinkly visage conveys a nice sense of worldly wisdom. I also liked the moment where Andrew realizes that Mary has been behind the temple’s destruction… we just see the eyes of his face light up a livid scarlet, but it’s enough to get the point across that this guy is pissed.

Fans of vampires will be pleased, martial arts aficionados might be confused, and those looking for a good read after their Zen session should probably search elsewhere. I suggest flipping through this one by applying lethal karate chops to the pages (or your computer screen if you’re a digital reader… it’s probably more fun that way anyhow). Well, go on now. Don’t force me to Shoju the error of your ways! Alright, I promise to stop those terrible puns.

But I’ve been known to lie.

Um, hell yeah!

Hall Of Heads: Robert Bloch

2011-01-17T15:05:00.006-05:00

“I have the heart of a young boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.”

That quote, countlessly recited and paraphrased for God knows how long, is the perfect glimpse into the ghoulishly whimsical and macabre mind of horror scribe Robert Bloch. When considering who the first “inductee” should be into the cavernous spaces of the Hall of Heads, it only took me a few moments to come up with Bloch’s name. Why? In a way the man has been an introduction to me for a lot of things; most notably, it was his (in?)famous novel Psycho that served as my first and true entrance into the realm of online horror journalism. So what would be more fitting than having this wonderful man, an individual whose talents I have admired for so long, become the first honorary gourd to win a spot amongst the dusty shelves of acclaimed horror artisans?

It was on April 5, 1917 in Chicago that Robert was born, a son of his bank cashier father and social worker mother. The young Bloch always had an interest in the fantastic, from watching the eerie images of the skull-faced Lon Chaney stalk across the screen in 1925’s The Phantom of the Opera to reading the pulpy pages of Weird Tales magazine. After relocating to Milwaukee, Robert began to correspond with H. P. Lovecraft, the top writer at the magazine whose Cthulhu Mythos tales enthralled the mind of the young Bloch. After receiving some support from Lovecraft, Robert sold his first horror stories “The Secret In The Tomb” and “The Feast In The Abbey” to the very magazine he cherished so dearly… at the fresh age of seventeen!

During the rest of the decade Bloch began writing stories full-time, taking inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe and, of course, Lovecraft. After Lovecraft passed away in 1937, Robert began to experiment with his own style of prose, even selling his first science fiction story to Amazing Stories. It was around this time that the author began adopting and perfecting that dark and smarmy sense of humor that would forever distinguish him from his peers, as seen in such tales as “The Cloak” (about a horror film actor whose disdain for his work turns into terror when a stage cape transforms him into a bona fide bloodsucker) and the Lefty Feep tales, all whimsical stories concerning a hopeless nerd who has fantastic adventures (one which includes him transforming into a chicken mutant!).

With the onset of the 40’s, Bloch’s fiction began to show signs of interest in the psychological workings of demented minds. It was in 1943 that Bloch released one of his most memorable tales “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” upon an unsuspecting public. Touching on the writer’s fascination with criminology and the legendary serial killer, the story went on to be adapted for both television and radio and is generally lauded as being one of Robert’s best works. Not to mention it packs one of the coolest twist endings ever. Throughout the following years Bloch began publishing his first novels, including The Scarf (1947), and The Kidnapper, Spiderweb, and The Will to Kill (all released in 1954!). These books were showing further signs of Bloch’s precise portrayal of damaged protagonists and the dark deeds they committed.

But it wouldn’t be until the end of the 50’s that he would follow up his mainstream novel Shooting Star (1958) with the work that would forever seal his fate as a legendary horror writer: Psycho. Published only a year prior to when Alfred Hitchcock’s film version had audiences everywhere going weeks without showers, Bloch’s novel gained him almost immediate stardom and rewarded (or cursed) him with nearly all of his future works carrying the title “The Man Who Wrote Psycho” underneath his byline. Today the book is usually outshined by the celluloid thriller, but the novel is as wholly effective, fast-paced, and engaging as it was for its first readers. In fact, I dare anyone not to feel the irresistible urge to pound through the gritty terror in one sitting!

A wonderfully candid shot of Bloch at a party.

Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, Bloch became a huge force in screen and television writing. Contributing tales of terror and vengeance to such boob tube staples as Boris Karloff’s Thriller and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (and even several episodes of the original Star Trek), Robert was able to flex his full writing powers. His filmed work didn’t bring an end to his output of novels, as seen in his releases of Firebug (1960) and The Couch (1962), both meditations on lead characters with homicidal tendencies. Robert even contributed two screenplays for lovable schlockmeister William Castle in 1964 for his films Strait-Jacket (starring Joan Crawford as a loopy axe murderess) and The Night Walker (with Barbara Stanwyck as a wife haunted by nightmares of her burned-to-death, blind husband).

Britain saw a huge Bloch boom during this time, starting with the Amicus film The Skull (1965) which was adapted from the writer’s shuddery yarn “The Skull of the Marquis de Sade.” What followed was a collaboration between Robert and the film company that lead to the production of some of their most well-known macabre movies, including the stand-alone frightfests The Psychopath (1967) and The Deadly Bees (1968) as well as the anthologies The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Asylum (1972), and Torture Garden (1968), all containing tales based on Bloch’s works.

He also penned the memorable TV films The Cat Creature (1973) and The Dead Don’t Die (1975) for director Curtis Harrington along with the homicide happy novels Night World (1972) and American Gothic (1974, inspired by the murders of America’s first noted serial killer H. H. Holmes). With everything from feline demons that feasted on human heads to bizarre tailors involved in human resurrection, this was a highly prolific (and horrific!) time for Mr. Bloch.

The sensational scribe was still going strong in the 1980’s, following up his creepy classic with two sequels: Psycho II (1982) and Psycho House (1990), both books following the bloody aftermath of Norman Bates’ original spree of madness. He returned to his allure for that famous London slasher again when he wrote Night of the Ripper in 1984, offering up his own solution to the crimes amidst a fictional setting of death and debauchery. Lori (1989), by comparison, was a somewhat softer spook tale, with the book’s female protagonist losing a sense of her identity upon the destruction of her entire family and home.

Shortly after the publication of Once Around the Bloch in 1993 (cheekily subtitled as An Unauthorized Autobiography), Robert passed away on September 24th, 1994 as a result of cancer. A master of the weird tale and the grim pun, Bloch was an artist whose influence can still be felt, his wit and charm forever sealed in the yellowing pages of his great paperbacks. He might have given the world a psycho, but the man himself was nothing short of a genius and a gentleman.

Welcome, Robert Bloch, to the Hall of Heads!

Tale As Old As Time, Sin As Old As Man: A Short Study Of The Themes In The Tragical History Of Dr. Faustus

2011-01-12T21:43:00.004-05:00

The tragedy of Dr. Faustus, as penned by noted playwright Christopher Marlowe, is a timeless tale of a man looking into the outer reaches of the abyss, only to lose his soul and humanity in the process. Though the entire play is rich in detail and metaphor (and humor for that matter... there needed to be some levity in these tragedies you know), two themes seem to stand out amongst the rest. These are of forbidden knowledge and redemption.

At the start of the play, Faustus is an aged and learned scholar knowledgeable in every field of study known to Man. He has become bored, the thrill of academic study now nothing but an empty and unfulfilling task. He has fallen into that stickiest of character-related paradoxes: he has lived all his life loving nothing more than scholastic endeavors, but now that his well has dried up so to speak, he can no longer live without the one thing that has kept him going. His die-hard pursuit of knowledge that once stimulated him is now his worst enemy... there's nothing left for him to learn.

Without anything to stave the hunger of his voracious mind, he begins exploring the darker sides of knowledge, despite his better judgment. For all we know, Faustus may have been an upstanding Catholic man who would never have dreamed of conjuring spirits. But his thirst for knowledge must be quenched and, with all the earthly knowledge of Man already obtained, Faustus seeks to know the secrets of Heaven and Hell. The only means of doing this is selling his soul to Lucifer.

What Faustus begins to realize is that there are some things that no man was meant to bear witness to. As Nietzsche would say, Faustus peered into the abyss for so long that the abyss began staring into him. As the play progresses, Faustus' humanity begins to crack under the tremendous weight of the knowledge he has gleaned.

This begins to happen around the time Faustus ascends into space aboard his fiery dragon. Having stared at the earth from the seat of the Gods, Faustus slowly begins losing a sense of who and what he is in the world. In this sense he has truly lost his soul. Faustus dared to peer into the forbidden fires of the unknown and thus had his soul burned from his body, much as Adam and Eve were turned away from the world when they tasted the succulent fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.

After having this epiphany of sorts, Faustus begins to realize his mistake. Not only has his mind beheld incomprehensible sights, but his eternal body will now be tortured for all eternity in the depths of Hell. Faustus grieves and bemoans his unholy fate, fearing the end that draws ever nearer. The Good Angel that accompanies him desperately tries to convince him to repent his sins and ask for God's forgiveness. Faustus' scholar friends, upon finding out his predicament, also beseech him to do the same.

But no matter how many assurances of salvation he receives, Faustus remains immobile with profound fear. He is afraid to call out God's name since Lucifer swore that his demons would tear him limb from limb if he did. And even when the Good Angel tells Faustus that the Devil speaks lies, the sorcerer still persists with his wary refusal of seeking redemption. This is his greatest fault and what leads to his untimely and torturous end. Faustus hesitates and waits until the last minute.

And of course it's all too late. Faustus seems to have given up on himself, seeing himself as a doomed man from the start. The stubbornness he exhibits is infuriating because he chooses not to seek God's redemption, even if it means the salvation of his soul. It seems ironic that a man who was willing to risk everything to dabble with the dark side has such a difficult time accepting the assistance of Heaven in his time of need. But this would not be a tragedy if Faustus did not suffer for his fatal flaws in some way. And suffer he does.

The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus is a mesmerizing and fascinating piece of literature. It has equal amounts of comedy, mystery, magic, and horror that ensures pleasure for everyone. I'm sure a live performance of Marlowe's immortal story would only prove to be a sumptuous feast for both the eyes and the mind. But underneath this seemingly harmless mask lies an all-too real and somber message: that of Man's probing into the forbidden realms and the terrible price he had to pay for it.

DepraVlog: Young Frankenstein, The Musical Review

2011-01-07T13:31:00.001-05:00

Demented Dialogues: Ripley McCoy of FOUR OF THEM

2011-01-05T12:00:00.002-05:00

Some of you may know her as Simon, and some of you probably know her as that ol' sunnuvagun, but no matter what name or stolen identity she may go by, Ripley McCoy, the resident writer and cinemaniac of the blog Four Of Them has one of the most distinctive voices in the blogosphere. She's a writer whose trademark sense of biting humor is only enhanced by her intense passion for all that is film.

Ms. McCoy's short but always sweet notes and thoughts on the movies she watches are light on the eyes, good for the funny bone, and stimulating for the skull meat. Go on to her place and see what she has to say about the flickers for herself. But not before you get to hear what the girl has to share in this most awesome installment of Demented Dialogues.

First and foremost, thanks for stopping by From Beyond Depraved to have a little Demented Dialogues session with us.

Q: Let’s get to the meat of it right off the bat—what does horror mean to you? Do you think this meaning applies to society as a whole?

A: Horror, I think, means (technically) a threat against the established order of things. It's why a lot of movies use death as shorthand for horror; being dead is as anti-conformist as you can get.

Q: You’re obviously a film fanatic and have a wide, eclectic taste. What began your passion for cinema?

A: I saw a list somewhere about the most notorious films of all time, I forget where, but the head of it was August Underground's Mordum. And then, of course, Wikipedia has way too many links.

Q: Do you find it more pleasurable to go to a theater or stay at home when watching a movie?

A: If the theatres abandoned, and I can sit way up front (because fuck the back row, who decided those were the best seats?), I prefer there.

Q: What were your first delvings into the genre like?

A: A lot of pausing, and lot of screaming at Youtube for buffering every five minutes.

Q: It sounds like you witnessed some pretty savage cinema at a tender young age. Do you think you were desensitized by what you had seen? What did you think about it at the time?

A: I like to think I'm desensitized, but if I saw a real dead body, I'd probably lose it. I never really think of myself as desensitized to movie violence until we're watching a movie, Romeo + Juliet or something, and all the girls in the class start gasping and screaming 'Oh my god, I can't watch this' when Mercutio gets killed.

At the time, I thought torture porn and Gorn (same difference, I guess) was as bad as you could get in a movie, violence without any emotional or mental justification.

Q: What is it about Asian cinema that makes it so unique in the horror genre and cinema as a whole?

A: I really don't know. I just started out watching movies that looked interesting, and didn't notice they were all from South Korea until my fifth Park Chan-wook film. Probably, because that society (not that I'd know, being a white suburban Jew who's never been away from the East coast) has been so traditional and torn (war and otherwise) and confined that when they finally let out with some modernized cinema, they let out hard. Playing on those traditions, you end up with bizarre Ye Olde opera-type things with cell phones. It's nothing an American can easily ape.

Q: Oh, those crazy Italians! What film(s) in your mind best exemplifies that surreal style we have all come to know and love from spooky spaghetti cinema?

A: Suspiria. Duh.

Q: Do you see exploitation as mere shock fodder, stimulus for intellectual discourse on social/psychological ties, or a bit of both?

A: A bit of both, but it always depends on the filmmaker. Cannibal Holocaust, for example, had some interesting ideas behind it, about what we classify as savage, but I think Deodato (we'll, of course, need some damn spell check) went about it wrong, reveling in the violence he was supposed to be criticizing.

Q: Do you feel that the genre is currently in a rut (here in the U.S. and elsewhere)? If so, what do you think should be done to revitalize it?

A: It's in a rut for mainstream theatres. Overseas and indie (House of the Devil) are going pretty strong. And nothing can really be done about it, because one could always argue that studios just put out films that people want to see. Though they're probably mistaking wanting to see something with going to see whatever's playing. If anything, we must mobilize the snobs and hipsters, rile them up, get them at their douche-iest, and sick them on an unsuspecting public.

Q: Your love is not strictly contained to ghosts and goblins. You watch many movies of varying ilk and background. Do you have a favorite genre at all or do you simply love movies period?

A: I don't have a favorite, but I'll watch anything that isn't a crime thriller. I fucking hate those. I get it, you're a tough guy who wants to get out of them game, but you just can't, you got that one last job, boo fucking hoo, stop moping demurely, that tree isn't going to solve your problems if it loses the staring contest. Goddamn.

Q: What do you personally seek out in a film for enjoyment? That is, what are some of the recurring elements in a movie that tickle your fancy?

A: Batshit nuns, lovely sets, not-terrible acting, homeless vagrancy, horror-comedy, weird creativity, David Bowie.

Q: What character from the silver screen would say best exemplifies your personality?

A: Probably someone from a movie I haven't seen. I'm, like, complicated and junk.

Q: Are you drawn more towards classic or modern cinema?

A: Classic horror, modern everything else.

Q: Who are some of your favorite creative forces working in film (director, actor/actress, writer, etc.)?

A: Bong Joon-ho, Park Chan-wook, David Bowie (he's the distant uncle I hope I have), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (despite what may be traces of hipster douchebaggery), Lauren Bacall, Quentin Tarantino, Dario Argento if he weren't giving me a headache with this post-Phantom of the Opera shit, Greta Gerwig, Donald Glover, Bret Easton Ellis, Jonathan Lethem (any author who's writing screenplays, basically), Tommy Wiseau (there's a difference between Ed Wood ragtag-bunch-of-misfits bad movies, let-the-debauchery-continue Richard O'Brian bad movies, and this guy's bad movies), and...Rain. Stupid, sexy Rain.

(inhale) Mila Kunis, the lady who made Xiaolin Showdown, Stephen Fry, any and all offspring of Douglas Adams, the cast of Misfits, the cast of Community, Cracked.com (I heard they're writing a screenplay or something), TV Tropes and they're immense influence on all things meta, the future John Dies at the End movie, and David Lynch, that crazy motherfucker.

Q: Speaking of directors, in your mind, what is it that makes a unique and truly effective filmmaker?

A: A guy who spent ten years in a mental asylum on false charges, escaped by tricking the guard into punching himself unconscious, stole an ambulance full of international spies, had them pool their money so he could buy some burgers, went home, kissed his wife, and sat down for some Czech Alice in Wonderland adaptations.

Q: Are you as big into literature as you are with film? If so, what are some of your favorite pieces of fiction or non-fiction?

A: I read a lot, yeah. I don't really prefer anything (no romances and no airport thrillers and no celebrity memoirs. Even I have standards), but right now I'm reading The Tin Drum, if that says anything.

Q: Going along those same lines, what has been one of the better book-to-film adaptations you’ve seen during your cinephile years?

A: The Da Vinci Code, as it improved, however slightly, on the book.

Q: Is there one sinister story that you believe could never be properly committed to celluloid?

A: House of Leaves. But then, they said that about all the others...

Q: Have any television obsessions?

A: I dig Community with a passion, and I quite like Ugly Americans and Futurama (we brought it back WOOT!)

Q: What other weird, lurid, decadent, or subversive areas of culture do you also revel in?

A: The whole rent boy thing. Damn you, Mysterious Skin...

Q: Have you ever aspired to make your own films?

A: Oh, sure, but it's of all the entertainment mediums, it's the most likely to lose its purpose, integrity, and/or vision. Also, working with actors sounds like a bitch.

Q: When did you decide that you were going to blog about your intense passion for film?

A: When my YA-book blogging sister insisted I create an account so she could reach 200 followers, then insisted I create a film blog so she doesn't have to listen to my humble rambling anymore.

Q: Where did the name Four of Them come from exactly?

A: We flipped through The Book Thief until we found a proper-sounding phrase. Now, every time I find the phrase in another book (it's not terribly uncommon), I'm just kind of like “Yo!”

Q: Have you succeeded in achieving the goals you originally set out with for Four of Them?

A: I really had no goals, so yes.

I hope you brought your waffles along, cause we’re about to get sticky. Did that make any sense? I have no idea! So on with the weirdo questions!

That made more sense than anything I've heard in my life.

Q: It’s doubtless in your years of film viewing that you’ve stumbled across some wretched work. What has been some of the most “eye-bleeding-bad” movies you’ve seen? Do you have any guilty pleasures for them?

A: Million Dollar Baby. Seriously, fuck that shit. Also, Homecoming. But for the most part, I avoid movies I think I won't like.

Q: Has there ever been a movie that has forced you to feel uncomfortable in the region of your pants?

A: ...I'm not sure...

Q: Why do all of the Dick Tracy villains have such funny faces?

A: Because whenever Dick Tracy comes down the street, their balls shrivel up and it's quite a shock.

Q: There haven’t been any movies about mutant killer hair dryers yet (yes, they must be mutant AND killer). Why is this?

A: Because the world isn't ready.

Q: Your airplane ticket to Paris has been replaced with a one-way trip to Sealand*, leaving you stranded amongst the flippered citizens of the country. What is the one film you hope to find upon opening your luggage?

A: But Sealand does exist!** It's a dock out by Switzerland that this one dude claimed was a country because during WWII, Germany thought enough of it to try and invade it, and nobody's gonna argue with attempted World Domination, are they?

The Seventh Seal. Get them nice and existential before I demand use to the Royal Toilet.

*Disclaimer: Let it be known that no such place exists. The country of Sealand is entirely fictional and the product of starved imaginations. Any resemblance to a real country, living or dead, would only be completely freaking awesome.

**Disclaimer-Disclaimer: Upon a quick Google search, it was discovered that Sealand is in fact an actual principality. Current status for this topic: completely freaking awesome.

Q: Due to a radioactive meteor colliding with the earth, the Hallmark Channel has decided to film a cinematic biography on your life. Who are the actors that are cast in the roles of you, your best friend, your parents, and your evil arch nemesis?

A: I want Morgan Freeman to play me. I think that'd be best. And Nikola Tesla would be my ally. And my arch nemesis would be a black hole. I like a challenge.

Q: Mustaches: discuss.

A: I bet I could grow one faster and more luxurious than you.

Q: Do you think that a clove of garlic is really gonna keep the vampires from biting?

A: Only if they're opening a pizzeria and trying to cut costs so they can put in a TV. For the kids.

Q: Argento: what the hell happened?

A: Something ungodly. But there's still time. To the Batcave!

Q: William Shakespeare rises from the grave, slaps you in the face with a glove, and challenges you to a duel. What next?

A: Ask him if Ariel was supposed to be a boy or a girl. Then tag in Teddy and Nikola's child, the only man suited for the job.

Q: If you had to choose, what giant monster would you like to see destroy your fair city?

A: Mothra.

Q: Is it safe?

A: Only for them.

Q: Do you have any last words for our readers regarding the horror genre or other related insanity?

A: Remember, kids: drugs are the real horror.

Thanks again to Ripley for joining us for this great interview. Like I said, take a stroll down on to Four Of Them if you haven't already. I'm sure you'll definitely like what you see, especially if your eyes hunger for the images on the silver screen. If you're interested in having a Demented Dialogues session with us, just give us a ring at joemonster25 [at] yahoo [dot] com! And in the meantime remember: it's only a movie!

Wretched, Filthy, Ugly: Fun For The Whole Family!

2011-01-02T12:00:00.001-05:00

“Fridays: sodomize tender virgin nuns. Tie them up, leer at them, and then I had my fun.”

Back in the summer when I wrote a review for Rue Morgue Radio’s release of their first ever album, Hymns from the House of Horror, one of my personal highlights from the selection of terror tunes was a track called “It’s Only the End of the World” by a band named Harley Poe, a group I wasn’t familiar with before downloading the album. A few weeks later I was extremely surprised and flattered to receive a message from front man Joseph Whiteford, asking me to write a review for Harley Poe’s album Wretched, Filthy, Ugly.

That was back in the summer, folks. I can only shamefully attribute this depressing slouch to an extreme case of procrastination and, to be completely honest with all of you, still being self-conscious when it comes to writing about music. I don’t know a beat from a soup sandwich and as much as I love music I can’t help but get uneasy when it comes time to sum up my feelings on a song in words. But I’m tangeting here. Personal insecurities aside, simply said you need to listen to Harley Poe. You owe it to yourself as a fan of the horror genre, especially if you bask in that ghoulish realm where the darkside of humanity is jabbed at with a searing poker of graveyard humor.

Harley Poe is unlike any group I’ve ever listened to. Their songs are always upbeat and some are played with the frenzy of an insane jester, despite the lyrics actually being really messed up. Their use of unique instruments such as harmonicas and cocktail kits (not the kind of equipment one would instantly associate with a “horror band”) lends the group this dementedly cheery sound that effectively juxtaposes the content of their pieces with the tone of their music.

The ballad “Suckers,” for example, reaches a pace that’s almost comically slapstick, but it’s accompanied by the group’s sexual moans and Whiteford’s detailed account of a slurping vampire delivering a blowjob before draining the poor narrator of his plasma supply. One thing’s for sure: you won’t be able to listen to any of Harley Poe’s songs without cracking at least one twisted grin while bobbing your head to their merrily mad beats.

All of the musical pieces make for great listening, but there are a few that stand out for me and receive repeated plays on my iTunes list. The opening track “Gordon” is a great starting point, as it gets you in just the right skewed frame of my mind for the rest of the album as it tells of the unrestrained depravity of its title character, a deformed social miscreant given to brain consumption and the wanton beating of pussy cats.

“That Time of the Month” is a wonderfully surreal-sounding tribute about a poor man’s honey who has a bad habit of growing hair and running on all fours every now and then. Any song dedicated to werewolves is an instant win in my book, but when you sprinkle it with the fevered delivery of lines like “Oh girl, is it wrong? When you’re in that thong, when I know that you won’t be a girl for long” just makes this a really fun tune that never fails to get me in a good mood.

The folksy ditty “Maria” is also about a gal with a terrible malady, but this one enjoys urinating on floors and masturbating by way of crucifix before her hubby pushes her possessed ass down the stairs. And in the deliciously sinister “Everybody Knows My Name” the instantly recognizable singer recounts his enjoyment of human suffering and the inevitably of everyone meeting His Dark Majesty.

It would be easy for any other group looking to take themselves seriously to infuse their songs with brooding beats and stoic vocalizations, but Harley Poe flips that approach right on its head. If you thought you’d never tap your foot to auditory depictions of sexual deviancy, homicide, and general mayhem, Harley Poe is here to prove you wrong. Listening to the tracks on Wretched, Filthy, Ugly, you can get the sense of giddy fun that each band member has performing these songs.

Their enthusiasm is evident with every shout of the lyrics, every pluck and tune of the instruments. Their use of sound clips from obscure and cheesy horror films also lets you know that these guys are fans, just like us. They just so happen to be in a band and have a ghoulishly great time performing. Right from the grim, bloody illustrations by Whiteford that adorn the slipcase and disc to the jolting jaunts that are contained within, Wretched, Filthy, Ugly is an album that should be given a chance by all fans. I think you’ll be surprised and pleased if you do.

If you desire an instant taste, check out the band’s first music video below. And be sure to check out Whiteford's own blog The Mad Rantings Of Pappy Joe! for information on Harley Poe appearances and Whiteford's other macabre artistic endeavors.

FBD Closes Out 2010

2010-12-28T16:53:00.002-05:00

Through Vlog!* As the last dark days of the year begin to fade away, I wanted to offer up a quick (re: repetitive) look back at some of the things that have occurred at FBD and some new stuff coming in the future that I'm looking forward to. As this episode was a test run, it lacks the power and big, obnoxious explosions that I hope to install in future segments. Yes, the DepraVlog will be a new regular feature, so for those who find my face offensive I can only offer the most sincerest of apologies. Not really though.

*It's better than bad, it's good.

Slaughter Bells: A Video Carol For Christmas!

2010-12-25T20:00:00.001-05:00

Two months ago I celebrated Halloween by honoring one of my most treasured horror film characters of all time, the Wolf Man, by creating this fan video (as seen HERE) as a tribute of sorts to the furry guy who gave me so many wonderful cinematic memories. Now that the beloved holiday of Christmas has finally arrived to much personal joy and excitement, I submit another of my creations, this time as an appreciation to the one and only Tod Slaughter, whose unmatched villainy has given me hours upon hours of fun and endless good cheer.

On this note I'd like to officially bring the Tod Slaughter Christmas blogathon to a close. A tremendous thank you to all the wonderful contributors and those of you who took the time to read the posts made during the week. I can only ardently hope that someone who never knew of this wonderful man before the blogathon has taken away something and now seeks to watch Tod's films with as much demented enthusiasm as the kind he filled his performances with. If there was at least one person who was affected in such a way, then this event has fully met its purpose. So let's watch this video together, in true brother- and sisterhood, and relive the moments that made the world love Tod Slaughter. And of course...

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! AND TOD BLESS US, EVERYONE!

Horror Maniacs (1948): Some Bodies Here To See You

2010-12-25T10:00:00.004-05:00

Directed by Oswald Mitchell
Written by John Gilling
Starring Tod Slaughter, Henry Oscar, Patrick Addison, Ann Trego, Aubrey Woods, Arnold Bell, and Jenny Lynn

“I’ll be seein’ that you join her. Don’t be fearin’ that you won’t.”

The story begins in 19th century Edinburgh, but we hardly have time to process this as we’re flung right into the action from the opening credits through an uncomfortable jump cut. The setting is a seedy tavern, mostly occupied by guffawing medical students easing their hours of intense study with some cool pints of golden goodness. Right outside the pub we see the broad William Hart (Tod Slaughter) promptly berate some poor wench with both words and fists before he heads in himself. There he spots his ally and co-conspirator Mr. Moore (Henry Oscar, the man with two first names!) whom he calls upon to begin plotting foul deeds and dirty crimes.

A barfly informs the sneering Hart that the local sergeant was calling on him earlier to question the wretch about the disappearance of some chap named Joe, who had been renting a room from Hart. Hart’s elusive about the matter, but we can see he definitely knows more than he’s letting on through his toothy grin. Moore’s a little wary of Hart’s new plan, which apparently involves the two intercepting a jailbird right when he’s due to be released from the pen. But Hart comforts his partner, spitting that it’ll be as “easy as killing pigs.”

Moore then begins sweet talking little Mary Patterson who swaggers at the bar and is probably one shot away from orally evacuating her intestines. Janet Brown (Ann Trego), a friend of Mary’s, attempts to dissuade her gal pal from leaving with Moore for dinner at his house, but the sauced mistress insists on hitting the road. Sensing that trouble is afoot, Janet beseeches town simpleton “Daft” Jamie Wilson (Aubrey Woods) to relay a message to her beau telling him that she has finally found Mary and that she may be in danger of being turned into a skin suit.

Yes, we are those badasses you heard about.

Janet eventually makes it to the tenement of her honey Hugh Alston (Patrick Addison), but the man’s cantankerous caretaker insists that the two converse right outside the front door to ensure that there’s no hanky panky going on upstairs. The distressed maiden relates all the sordid details of the evening to Hugh, saying that Mary was taken away to the dark, infamous corners of the Gibbs Close neighborhood, a breeding ground for the resurrectionists who dig up cadavers for medical school doctors to use in the anatomical dissection labs. Much to Hugh’s chagrin, Janet insists that she must be the one to approach Hart and Moore as the sight of Hugh would set off the alarm.

Back in Gibbs Close, Hart exasperatedly sighs that they must pick a man for their next victim, since the nice coats that he steals from all the dead chicks don’t fit his healthy-sized pot belly! Just as the two get finished stuffing the significantly condensed remains (wink wink) of Mary into a trunk, Janet knocks at the door and enters the den of the body snatchers. Janet is uneasy, especially since the grinning Hart sizes her up with his sooty fingers and Moore pours a little hair of the dog to give the lass a good burn in the throat.

Saying that Mary had gone for a walk (yeah, maybe to the butcher’s), Hart is interrupted when Hugh barges in just before the two can claim another victim for the night. The dashing hero calls the duo a pair of liars, threatening to sic the law on them if they attempt any funny business. Jamie shows up later, as he is the personal deliveryman for Hart and Moore who gets the privilege of hauling around bloody woman carcass for a small sum of money. Poor Moore is afraid of death at the gallows, though, while Hart is disappointed by the sad waste of space from the trunk. They could’ve easily fit two bodies in there. Just like Slaughter…

Later at the medical college, Moore and Hart harass the elder Patterson, assistant to Dr. Cox (Arnold Bell), for their money and the doctor’s presence. Of course Hugh would just have to show up, stirring up more conflicts with the two scumbags and even getting personal by telling Hart he’s a murderous swine whose cowardice forces him to only kill little old ladies and helpless women. He should really lay off; Moore and Hart are only their to collect their dues for slaughtering an innocent but very drunk bar wench and selling her odds and ends for the betterment of science. What’s so wrong about THAT? The police haven’t been any help to Hugh so he’s taken the law into his own hands to bring Hart and Moore down.

I'm a little new to this "burking" thing. Is it anything like the reverse cowgirl?

Then here comes Jamie, off-handedly referring to the “merchandise” he transported for the gents and instantly arousing Hugh’s suspicions. Just then old Patterson comes stumbling into the room, stammering of some gory horror he had witnessed upon opening the trunk (Mary was his niece, you see). Turns out the cadaver’s head is missing, but Patterson is certain that the chop suey in the trunk is his darling Mary, although he doesn’t admit this as Hart shoots some crazy eyes in his direction. Cox then enters the room and verbally slaps his assistant upside the head for being a fearful and superstitious fool. Patterson, tortured with guilt over his implication in the resurrectionists’ crimes, calls Cox blasphemous and leaves in a shouting fit.

Cox decides to break the awkward silence by marveling at Jamie’s skeletal structure in a none-too-inconspicuous manner, making the doctor’s association with Hart and Moore all the more apparent to Hugh. But Cox tries to settle Hugh’s mind by telling him that his experimentation with corpses is to improve man’s understanding of science, narrating a tale to Hugh of how he could have saved a homicidal idiot from execution if only he had known the proper procedure to remove a splinter from the skull that was causing the brute to kill. Cool story, doc.

Hugh’s all for science (he’s probably a closeted chemist) but he doesn’t condone the utilization of ghouls and other lowlifes to obtain bodies through dubious means. He believes Hart and Moore removed the head in order to obscure Mary’s identity and again warns that he’ll get the police. Cox promptly blows all this crap off his shoulder and tells Hart and Moore that he wants young Jamie on his operating table. And don’t worry, because they know of just the right means to get him…

Hugh attempts to consult with Sergeant Fisher at the local precinct, but the lawman says that definite proof is needed to bring the body snatchers in, even it means that another poor devil might have to meet death at their hands. He does reassure Hugh by saying that, after their tremendous streak of success thus far, the criminals are due to slip up on their perfected formula soon. Just on his way to the pub to fetch some supper, Jamie is prompted by Mrs. Helen Moore (Jenny Lynn, Tod Slaughter’s real life wife!) to come to her husband’s abode for a little get together with drinks and merriment. There Hart is insanely drunk, and he promises the dismayed Jamie that his pal Hughie will be showing later to join in on the absent festivities.

Willie then sends his wife Meg out to the market to fetch some groceries, literally throwing her out onto the street by the scrap of her threadbare shawl. Waking up the slumbering Moore, Hart and his partner pour glasses all around for the three chaps to toast with. Although the acrid odor of the drink offends his nostrils, Jamie drinks up anyway and is soon in the agonizing throes of death. With the sap now passed his expiration date from a large dose of rat poison, Hart and Moore plan to profit off of the hide of their former delivery boy. But not before Willie can snatch Jamie’s coat and slap Mrs. Moore around. All in a day’s work.

More Ovaltine, please!

Mrs. Hart arrives back at the squalid home, rightfully worried that her husband and his accomplice did something unspeakable to Jamie. Oh, look at that. Jamie’s stiff remains are propped up in the closet/bedroom that comprises 70% of the house. Pleading old Mrs. Dockerty (an elderly biddy who was apparently pulled out of Mrs. Hart’s ass) to inform Hugh Alston of the murder as soon as possible. Of course Hart and Moore don’t take too kindly to this treason, and Hart axes the locked door down Jack Torrance-style to give his wife a good thrashing. Dockerty asks barkeep Swanson of Hugh’s whereabouts and heads into the foggy streets when she can’t find him. Moore watches on as Hart goes in to intercept, looming upon the woman as a giant, brooding shadow before snapping her neck in two (as the crackling sound effects seem to suggest, anyhow).

Sergeant Fisher walks in on the scene just as Hart cradles the rumpled form in his arms, the ghouls informing the policeman that the old gal had a wee bit too much to drink and that they, ever the Good Samaritans, are returning her home. When Hugh arrives shortly afterward and hears the news from Swanson, he begins to suspect foul play upon listening to Fisher’s story. The two then head straight for the medical school, suspecting that Moore and Hart brought the body there to be dissected immediately. The chilly bones of the bar patrons have been heated by their growing suspicions and hunger for vengeance over the disappearances in town, particularly that of Jamie Wilson. I hope you have your pitchforks ready, because dere’s a mob a-brewin’ in dis heah town!

Just when Moore and Hart think they can put their feet up after a long day of murder and mayhem, Hugh and Fisher come pounding on the front door of their humble abode. The kooky Mrs. Moore assures Hart and Moore that Jamie’s body is out in the gutter, hidden underneath some garbage before the Hugh and Fisher are allowed in. Hugh confronts the duo with the evidence, but the sly Moore says that old Mrs. Dockerty had put up a fit, kicking and screaming, forcing the two gents to drop her off on the sidewalk before they could take her home. Not defeated by Moore’s imagination, Hugh wryly comments on Hart’s lovely coat… a parcel of clothing that Hugh had given to Jamie himself and who was wearing it that very morning before his disappearance.

By the time the Christmas turkey was ready to be carved, there were only three people left living at the Slaughter household.

Inflated with confidence, Hart snarls that the two men should search the entire house if they so please, and even swings the doors open to the bedroom to prove his innocence. And whaddaya know, there’s ol’ Jamie lying up in bed and whiter than the sheets he’s tucked into. Hart is shaking in his pants now as he faces certain death at the gallows for practically showing off the corpse to the cops. Seeking a quick way out of this plight, Hart eagerly sells Moore and his wife out, placing all the blame for the crimes on them.

The screaming and squirming Moores are placed under arrest just as Janet arrives to inform Hugh of the bloodthirsty mob outside the front door. And the only way out of the house is a twenty foot drop out back. Uh oh. Hart begins to have second thoughts, shrieking his preference for arrest over facing the vigilantes. The grave robber’s pleas fall on deaf ears and he’s duly thrown out by Hugh into the awaiting hands of the gang as they pummel his body with staff and spear.

One thing that can be said about Horror Maniacs (a.k.a. The Greed of William Hart, its original U.K. title) is that it is one strange bird indeed. Feeling more like an episode for a horror anthology series than a fully fleshed out film, Horror Maniacs suffers a bit from a low boiling point and generally uninteresting characters. Add to that the fact that the copy I had of the film was of poor quality and it made for a dissatisfying viewing experience; the picture was very muddied and dark and the sound was a tad garbled at times. I’ve seen pieces of the film in a much more cleaned-up medium, and I think I can honestly say my enjoyment for Horror Maniacs might have improved if the overall quality was just tidied up, as superficial as that might sound.

But the film is hampered by things beyond the realms of sound and sight. Tod Slaughter is here to reprise the very role that brought him infamous stardom on the stages of Britain as the bloodthirsty corpse stealer William Hare. But you won’t find any of the actor’s lip-smacking villainy at work here too often; Slaughter’s regulated to more of a supporting role, despite receiving top billing. Noticeably older, Slaughter brings his menace down to a minimum here and let’s his depravity leak out in small, slimy doses here and there.

As opposed to playing the eccentric aristocrat as he did in other films, Slaughter is a blue-collar murderer in this movie, working as one of the dredges of society to earn his keep in this mad rat race of life. I really respect the mood Slaughter’s invoking here, but I can’t help but feel a longing for his snicker-snackering baddies. This grittier, more realistic approach would be fine, but when you couple that with a shockingly low amount of screen time, you’re left with a handful of unfulfilled potential and “could-have-beens.”

No, giving someone your unwanted bastard child is a HORRIBLE Secret Santa gift!

Don’t think that Horror Maniacs is completely devoid of redeeming qualities. Tod still has moments to shine, like in his scenes of drunken assery and the little moments where he’s allowed to bring the menace up a few notches by stalking old women or feeling up the young ladies (I obviously have a completely deranged perspective on what “good viewing” is). Outside of Tod, there really isn’t too much to be said about the rest of the actors. At first glance I didn’t really enjoy Henry Oscar’s doddering Irish blarney performance as Mr. Moore, but during subsequent viewings I’ve come to grow fond of Oscar’s quirky mannerisms as the cinematic counterpart to William Burke.

Aubrey Woods is awfully endearing as Jamie Wilson, more so than you might at first expect from a film of this caliber. He talks with a high, infectious lilt and his large, expressive eyes convey a genuine sense of wonder and bewilderment. I just may have let loose a small sniffle when the good boy bites it in the end (or in this case drinks it). Another cute touch is having none other than Tod’s own wife Jenny Lynn star as Mrs. Moore. She’s a drunk, cackling old biddy, even giggling over a morbid pun about Mrs. Dockerty resting in pieces at Dr. Cox’s school (Tod and Jenny were made for each other!). Seeing Tod yell and push Jenny around is adorable in the sense of the word that can only be applied to Slaughter.

Through my research into Horror Maniacs, I found out there was a bit of controversy surrounding the film. Apparently the British Board of Censors didn’t take kindly to the idea of a film depicting the infamous grave snatchers (the film was originally about the actual Burke and Hare) and insisted that the names be changed. Trouble was filming was complete and there wasn’t any money left to re-shoot each scene where the characters’ names were mentioned.

So instead the producers had the actors dub the new names over the soundtrack in post-production. This creates a somewhat jarring effect, as you can clearly see the actors mouthing the original names under “Hart”, “Moore”, and “Cox.” It sadly only adds to the film’s ramshackle appearance. Not to mention the U.S. DVD version is apparently only 58 minutes long, compared to the 80-minute length of the original print as reported by IMDb. I can’t help but wonder if this 20-odd minute gap of missing footage contained an instance of “burking,” as the DVD cover art so luridly displays…

At the end of the day though, I still cannot dislike this movie. My love for Slaughter is so completely cemented that I could probably find enjoyment in any film he were to be in, even if it was just a walk on cameo. Even as the subdued but grimy William Hart he still manages to steal my heart (heh) with that delectable charm and charisma of his. There might not bee too much action in this tale of resurrectionists and rascals and the overall product might lack the fiery power of Tod’s other cinematic efforts, but I still stand by this British chiller in all of its choppy glory. Maybe I’m nothing but a horror maniac. Or maybe it’s because I know there’s always gold if you know where to look for it.

ANOTHER neck rope for Christmas?!

Crimes At The Dark House (1940): Lady In White Is Messing With Me

2010-12-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

Directed by George King
Written by Edward Dryhurst, Frederick Hayward, and H. F. Maltby, Based on the novel “The Woman in White” by Wilkie Collins
Starring Tod Slaughter, Sylvia Marriott, Hilary Eaves, Geoffrey Wardell, Rita Grant, Elsie Wagstaff, and Hay Petrie

“Wenches like you want taming badly!”

Surprisingly, our drama opens up completely free of any type of prologue or other creative segue like so many of Slaughter’s other films. We’re immediately catapulted into the sweltering atmosphere of Australia circa 1850 just as a ship sets sail from a large mining field. Percival Glyde is just getting ready to tucker in for some long-deserved rest on the ship, taking one last glance at his jingling sack of gold coins before going to sleep. It turns out that it was indeed his last glance as we spy the boots of some fiend stalking across the ship, stopping momentarily to retrieve a sharp wooden stake from the ground. We soon see that the fiend is none other than Mr. Tod Slaughter himself who gets straight to business by pounding the stake into Glyde’s head with one powerful blow from his mallet! Ay caramba!

Not satisfied with just robbing the cranially pulverized corpse of its rings and coins, Toddy retrieves a letter from the dead man’s pocket, informing Glyde that since his father has unfortunately passed away he is to inherit the estate at Blackwater Park as the new baronet. Well, who wouldn’t take the opportunity to steal the dead chap’s identity in order to reap all of his prestige and money? Toddy’s no fool, as evidenced in his guttural chuckling at reading the letter. Sounds like trouble is a-comin’ to London!

Apply directly to the forehead.

The new and improved Percival Glyde, all thin mustached and bedecked in swanky designer clothes, is driven up to his newly (and ill-) acquired mansion in a carriage as all the servants prepare for the arrival of their master. And who better than Margaret Yarde (a.k.a. La Pinan from The Face at the Window) as housekeeper Mrs. Bullen to get those silly little servants into shape to impress Big Papa as he grandly returns from his gold digging expedition? No one, that’s who! Glyde delights in hearing from Mrs. Bullen that none of the current servants remember their master. Phew, crisis adverted! Glyde also makes his intentions well known when he spies the delightfully curvy maid Jessica (Rita Grant), causing him to lick his lips lasciviously and make really obvious groping gestures with his hands. You can practically see his trousers starting to get a little tighter.

Meeting family lawyer Merriman (who thankfully has sketchy memories of Glyde as a boy) in the library, Glyde begins to bask in his new found position until Merriman drops the proverbial ball onto Glyde’s lap. Turns out there’s a massive mortgage on the house and property, not to mention the real Glyde’s father has left a hefty debt in his name. Having spent all of the gold from the Australian mines on his new wardrobe, the false Glyde is in some serious shit.

But wait! It seems that the elder Glyde was promised by the patriarch of the Fairlie family that his daughter Laura would marry Percival as payment for a favor that Baron Glyde did for the family. Percy now seeks to marry Laura so that the poor girl will take his outstanding overdraft, in addition to giving him more money to swim in and a beautiful and obedient girl to boss around. Things are looking brighter already!

At the Fairlie residence, Laura (Sylvia Marriott) is painting a mural and talking with her beloved sister Marion (Hilary Eaves) about cute boys and shopping. Turns out Laura has a crush on her art instructor Paul Hartwright (Geoffrey Wardell) but gaps in social status has made public expression of their feelings impossible. Add to that Laura’s whiny and hypochondriac Uncle Frederick who is constantly bemoaning his imagined pains and reminding the stubborn girl that she is to marry Percy and only Percy and you have the formula for great living. He lets her know that Glyde will be calling on her that night to make his proposal and probably molest her in the process. Sounds like a date.

Pardon me. I'm still a little stuffed from that baby I had for lunch.

Glyde isn’t a one-woman type of guy though, for he’s busy scheduling a risqué rendezvous with Jessica back at the mansion to take place at night. In the woods. Shady much? Mrs. Bullen ruins Glyde’s game to tell him that he has some guests who are requesting an appointment with him in the study. The baronet discovers that it is Dr. Isidor Fosco (Hay Petrie), head physician of the local asylum, and the ebony-veiled Mrs. Catherick (Elsie Wagstaff). The little man claims that Glyde is the father of Catherick’s mentally disturbed child Anne, having had bedtime relations with the woman before shipping off for Australia.

Of course Percival denies these atrocious rumors, saying that he couldn’t possibly be the man responsible for Catherick’s pregnancy. The woman agrees with the man, too. But that’s because she claims the devil standing before her is not Percival Glyde! Toddy is outraged by these claims, but his guilt is written all over his face. Although Fosco is at first puzzled by this change in gears, the greasy doctor soon figures out the name of the game and decides to make a proposition of his own after leading Catherick out.

He blackmails the impostor into paying him a hefty sum of money in order to keep the deranged Anne (whose complete devotion to her mother is only matched by her intense hatred of her estranged father) locked away in the sanitarium under proper care. The false Glyde concedes, but he lets Fosco know that he’s not one to be crossed, saying: “Be loyal to your trust and it will pay you handsomely. Betray it and I will feed your entrails to the pigs.” Slaughter delivers this line in sweaty relish, spitting out the last word but making it sound like honey-dripped poetry. Fosco informs Catherick of the deal and the matter is then settled.

Laura is dreading the arrival of her odious suitor, seeking consolation in the strong, safe arms of Paul. It’s a rather well-composed scene, with the shadows of ivy leaves playing across the lovers’ faces in a very Romantic fashion. But then Percival shows up and breaks up all the prettiness, acting like a complete ass to Paul (as per Slaughter’s habit) and tickling Laura’s fingers with his delightful facial hair. Glyde wants their wedding to take place immediately, nary listening to one word the poor girl has to say as he ravishes her mouth. Laura’s in the dumps, Percival’s high on life, and Anne has escaped from the asylum. Wait, what?! Turns out the Catherick girl has busted free from her cell and is now head hunting for daddy dearest, as Glyde learns from Fosco who meets his back at the mansion. So much for the doctor’s tight security!

Is this your chewing gum?

Oh well, Glyde can’t let a little homicidal maniac get in the way of his mojo. Letting the blushing Jessica into his private compartment, the two embrace in a lustful kiss. But Jessica’s got the blues, mainly because Glyde’s proposed to Laura, leaving the poor maid all alone with child. Thaaat’s right! Percy has gone and knocked up his saucy little chamber maid. For an on-the-fly impostor, he’s sure doing a great job picking up the real Glyde’s old habits! Toddy’s a little dampered by the news, but that certainly won’t bring his spirits down.

Oh wait, there’s a wild-eyed Anne staring at the couple mid-embrace from the window! Now things are bad! Jessica screaming up the stairs of ghosts, Glyde hurls a glass at the shadowy form of his non-daughter. Awakened by the noise, a sleepy Fosco in pajamas is ordered by Glyde to hunt the witch down, but he complains that he doesn’t even have pants on yet. In one of the most brilliant pieces of dialogue ever written for the screen, Glyde screams, fists shaking in the air, “Curse your trousers! Curse you! Oooh, curse everything!” Pure. Gold.

Out on the windy grounds, Paul spots the billowing white gown of Anne Catherick as he’s strolling through the night. Trying to catch up to her, he notices a note the girl posted to a tree, the message persecuting Glyde as a scoundrel. Paul confronts the baron over the matter and the two exchange heated words, the handsome painter promising to give the aristocrat a good thrashing if he dares harm Laura in any way.

The mess on Percy’s hands doesn’t end there, as the ever-weeping Jessica begins to grate his nerves. Seeing a resolution to this angle, Percy plans on eloping with his dimpled darling that night, saying he will meet the girl in the creaky old boathouse on the grounds. Hmmm, suspicious? But Jessica dutifully arrives, falling into her lover’s arms even as he begins strangling her. Woops, slight change in plans! Cackling that Jessica is now “a bride of death,” Percival unceremoniously dumps the gal’s corpse into the lake’s depths.

Having satiated his murderous appetite for the moment, Glyde then weds Laura in a beautiful ceremony where rice is thrown and tears are shed. Taking both Laura and Marion back to Blackwater, Percival proceeds to feel Laura up right in front of Marion in one of the most beautifully awkward scenes it’s been my pleasure to watch. The evening doesn’t bring anything better, as a drunken Percival stumbles about the room slurring his words and thrusting his pelvis about willy-nilly.

On the left here are the bathrooms and on the right is certain death.

Although distressed by the tremendous space between the newlyweds’ quarters and Marion’s room, the sisters retire to bed as Percival curses at the ethereal form of Anne when she looms in front of the house again. Setting his mind on more pleasurable matters, Glyde slowly ascends the staircase to the bedroom as Laura weeps on her pillows. Glyde’s claws grip the banister with wanton desire and, just as the door creaks open and Laura sees her new husband, Glyde’s depraved cackle rings out just before the screen fades out. Some pretty heavy stuff for an older film, but it’s a great moment that completely conveys Glyde’s villainy to full effect.

The next morning Percy is distressed by his immense pile of bills, so he attempts to fool Laura into signing a document that will entrust all of the woman’s funds to Glyde. Laura and Marion raise a fit because Percy won’t let Laura read the fine print, so Glyde explains in a calm, complacent, and gender-friendly manner “What do women know about business? If I explained it to you you wouldn’t understand it!” I can’t describe how hard it is to suppress laughter when Slaughter spouts these caddish bits. Percy claims his bride distrusts him and insults Marion when she tries to intervene, causing her to leave the house in a huff.

Having retrieved a letter from Anne that was addressed to Laura, Fosco and Percy plan to finally end the lunatic’s reign by striking at the soft spot in her heart. So naturally Percy sets an appointment with Mrs. Catherick in the boat house, and before you can cry foul play, Glyde has wrung the life from the woman’s larynx and sent her corpse to the fishies. Noting the rather strange and sudden disappearance of Anne’s mother, Dr. Fosco blackmails Glyde for an additional five thousand pounds to keep his trap shut. Percy agrees, but we all know he has other plans for the good doctor in the near future when he strokes his chin in morbid contemplation.

That night the deadly duo wait in the local cemetery by Catherick’s grave and, sure enough, the ghostly Anne arrives and collapses into a weeping heap upon the burial mound. Pouncing on their prey, Percy is astounded by the girl’s profound likeness to Laura and Fosco notes that she is extremely sick with pneumonia. Taking her back to the house, Fosco puts Anne in bed and cautions Percy to keep her as warm as possible. The least bit of chill could prove deadly in her condition…

My dear Fosco... you really do have a physician's touch.

Already we see the twisted gears in Glyde’s head turning, and he immediately sets about pushing the bedridden Anne up against an open window, letting the freezing night air blow onto her frail form. Executing the second part of his plan, Percy sneaks up on Laura (right as she’s praying no less!) and subdues her as he steals her away to Fosco’s sanitarium. Ahh, see where he’s going with this? Now with the dangerously insane Anne deader than a doornail and the fiery Laura locked away in a cell, Percy now has complete control over the situation. Brains and villainy prevail. The End.

Not really. After giving sniffling Uncle Frederick a verbal beatdown, Marion returns to Blackwater only to find the shrouded body of her “sister” in a casket. Poor Percy is just broken up over the early and insanely inexplicable death of his new bride. But hey, that’s life. At the asylum Laura is raving and ranting, claiming she is not the real Anne Catherick. Fosco comforts her with some warm condescension and later he and Percy drink to their success.

Marion and Paul are distressed and highly suspicious over the whole affair, so the artist poses as a solicitor and enters the asylum under the pretense of asking Anne about her mother’s belongings. Relieved at her lover coming to the rescue, Laura informs Paul of the whole dirty business. Then Paul unleashes the beast within him and takes down a guard in a flying fury of fists! Don’t let that artistic demeanor fool you… this guy can kick some serious ass.

Back at Blackwater, Fosco asks of his money and, ever the gentleman, Percy gives the doctor a mere fraction of what he asked for and tells him to shut up and like it. Fosco instead goes on a tirade, shrieking Percy’s laundry list of crimes and schemes to the heavens so that an eavesdropping Marion can hear all the dirty details. Not only is he now confronted with an informed Marion, but Percy is given another shock when Fosco threatens that he shall retrieve the record of marriage from the local church that states that the real Percival Glyde had married Mrs. Catherick before his departure to Australia! What a pickle!* So Toddy settles this by catching Fosco mid-flight and wrangling him into a faint, just before he snatches up Marion and carries her up the stairs to the bedroom.

*Since, ya know, the REAL Percival Glyde would have already known that he was married to Mrs. Catherick, so since Toddy didn't know that he must be an impostor. It's all VERY circumstamtial and I'm not sure how the marriage record would really prove anything, let alone in a court case, but let's just go with the show, folks! Dohohoho!

Death by Snuggie.

Paul and Laura race to the mansion just as faux Glyde attempts to get his grubby hands on Marion. The artist tussles with the cackling villain, the two rolling across the floor and trying to strangle each other. Getting the upper hand, Glyde snatches a pistol and shoots Paul in the arm just before he escapes out the window. Fosco, having awoken from his spell and made it to the parish church, tears the marriage record from the archives and determinedly states to bring the impostor to justice.

Too bad for the doc Glyde has snuck up on him, clubbing him with the pistol and then hanging the slimy toad by his neck from the church bell rope! The clanging of the bells alerts the group to Glyde’s whereabouts and they arrive just as the fiend sets fire to the room in order to destroy the evidence. With the gang banging at the front door, Glyde runs back to the archive room only to be trapped in the den of hellish flames! The murderer’s deranged screams of “I’m not Sir Percival Glyde! I don’t want to die!” go unheeded as the white hot embers consume him and the entire church, while the sisters and Paul can only look on in silence.

Along with Sweeney Todd and The Face at the Window, Crimes at the Dark House composes the definitive Three Musketeers of Villainy that makes up Slaughter’s most outstanding work. Here his heavy may be without a real name of his own, but he deserves just as much praise as the Demon Barber and Chevalier Lucio del Gardo. The False Percival Glyde, as he is credited, is without a doubt the biggest prick in Tod’s entire resume! Between his raging sexual deviancy and incessant chauvinism, Glyde gets under your skin in ways never touched with some of Tod’s other scoundrels. His tight, curly hair, round face, and twirly moustache give him the look of a fatal pussy cat, and he has all the condescending mannerisms and devilish tendencies that a personified feline would most likely embody!

Is that you, Bozo?

The cast is full of fresh, young faces to boot, with the exception of a few Slaughter regulars here and there. Sylvia Marriott and Hilary Eaves make a great team, two fiery-hearted sisters who bravely stand up to Glyde’s treachery with a bravery and independence that is to be applauded. Geoffrey Wardell is also a delight as Paul, playing the mild-mannered hero for the majority of the film before kicking the action into high gear during the climax when he reveals his amazing fighting capabilities. I especially love how he growls when he’s wrestling with Glyde… the boy’s got spirit! And of course what fun could we have if Toddy didn’t have a right hand man in deviousness? Hay Petrie is whimsical as the crooked physician, and the theatrical gesticulations he made while calling Glyde out on his crimes brought a bright smile to my face.

Truly, Crimes at the Dark House is on par with The Face at the Window, as it is a fully realized, organic cinematic creation. Both of them contain bombastic performances from Slaughter delivered with ghoulish delight and are engaging and fun right from their blood drenched openings to their adrenaline-infused climaxes. (On a somewhat unrelated note, watching these films, especially consecutively, makes a horror fan wish that through the innovation of technology and copious amounts of black magic there could be a massive gathering of all of Tod’s greatest villains in one film, forming a practical Legion of EEEVIL to terrorize all of Britain. The Chevalier and Faux Glyde on the same team? What wonders there would be! Hollywood producers searching for a formidable force of darkness for a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen sequel: LOOK NO FURTHER!)

While the story here is somewhat standard in the realms of Victorian melodrama skullduggery, all of the performers under George King’s direction imbue their characters and the events with a real passion that can’t help but inspire excitement in the viewer. The typical trappings of the windswept cemetery mansion and the dismal cells of the insane asylum are given vibrant life, creating a fast paced atmosphere that any terror connoisseur would greedily bask in. Crimes at the Dark House comes highly recommended for any self-deserving rogue looking to perfect their criminal skills and general disregard for all humanity. Tips on identity theft thrown in with no extra charge.

Ain't life grand, kids?

Die! Die! My Toddy!

2010-12-24T06:00:00.001-05:00

After a few days of reading and hearing of Tod Slaughter's grim greatness through the twisted grapevines that make up the horror blogosphere, some of you may be wondering just what it is that makes this actor so great. Well, what better way is there to fully appreciate the Slaughter spectacle than to see the leering, cackling master for yourself?

So here are a collection of creepy clips gathering Tod's greatest climaxes (mwahahaha) as his legion of villains are fed their just desserts. Special thanks to Youtube user Fivnten for putting these together from such quality footage!* Be sure to discuss your favorite Slaughter deaths in the comments section below too!

*These weren't made especially for the event, but I simply couldn't pass up the chance to share these really excellent compilations.

In the words of the great Roddy McDowell as Peter Vincent from Fright Night: "Now... watch me DO IT!"

Slaughter Linkapalooza: December 23

2010-12-23T22:16:00.003-05:00

Cheers, depraved maniacs! After getting over the hump day yesterday, my fellow bloggers have come back stronger than ever with their Slaughter support this chilly winter's eve. Here are tonight's contributions from some of your favorite faces in fear...!

The mad Dr. Morbius is at again in her mountain-based den of devilry Krell Laboratories! This time she's delving into another one of the more obscure Slaughter titles with her The Ticket of Leave Man review! Read her criticisms and, if you'd like to check the film out for yourself, then watch the thriller in its entirety as kindly provided by the doctor! Isn't the internet wonderful?

Weird Clubhouse Leader Rondal Scott of the wonderfully nostalgic blog Strange Kids Club lends his talents to his contribution, a review of Tod's cinematic swan song about grave robbers and murders Horror Maniacs a.k.a. The Greed of William Hart! See what the savvy Scott has to say about the slimy snatchers!

Long-time friend and supporter (and all around awesome dude) The Mike from one of FBD's favorite hangouts From Midnight, With Love provides a telling confession and follows it up with his delighted first impressions of the Slaughter favorite The Demon Barber of Fleet Street! A touching meeting with Toddy's films if I ever saw one!

That's all the reading material for you to chew on tonight. The week may be almost over but be sure to keep your eyes posted for more goodies to come within the next two days. You still have time to write a piece if you so choose; whether you already have (and I stupidly missed you) or if you're planning to, email me at joemonster25 [at] yahoo [dot] com! Have a good night's sleep, and be sure not to let the barbers bite!

The Face At The Window (1939): Crazy Like Le Loup

2010-12-23T12:00:00.001-05:00

Directed by George King
Written by A. R. Rawlinson and Ronald Fayre, Based on the play by Brooke Warren
Starring Tod Slaughter, Marjorie Taylor, John Warwick, Aubrey Mallalieu, Robert Adair, Margaret Yarde, and Wallace Evennett

“Oh, yes. I shall be there. Punctually.”

The foggy, cobblestoned streets of 19th century Paris are the setting for our film, which we see as the thrilling opening musical number reels our ocular orbs in. There’s a bit of exposition in the scrolling text about a dreaded killer that has been haunting the city called Le Loup… The Wolf! But then there’s a more personal statement that shows up at the end that got the thick sludge in my twisted veins pumping harder: “This melodrama of the old school— dear to the hearts of those who unashamedly enjoy either a shudder or a laugh at the heights of villainy.” Gadzooks! This film is speaking my language already! With bated breath and sweaty palms, I journey on.

Young bank clark Lucien Cortier (John Warwick) is just finishing up the books at the offices of M. Brisson’s bank when a horrifying howl ruptures the night air. Realizing it is the call of Le Loup, he rushes down the hall and finds the night watchman Pierre, stabbed in the back and stammering of a face he had seen at the window shortly before he dies. Not only was Pierre killed but it seems that a hefty stash of funds was stolen from the bank! The policeman heading the investigation, Inspector Gouffert (Robert Adair), suspects that the murder was an inside job and that Lucien is the culprit. Seeking to clear his name and simultaneously win the hand of his beloved Cecile de Brisson (Marjorie Taylor), Lucien pleads her father (Aubrey Mallalieu) to allow him to discover the true criminal.

Come on now! Two syllables... rhymes with "Da Soup"...

In order to reestablish public trust in his bank after the theft, Brisson enlists the aid of aristocrat Chevalier Lucio del Gardo (Tod Slaughter). Upon his grand entrance, the chevalier shows what a charming personality he has by soaking Cecile’s hand in wet kisses and being a general ass to Lucien at the same time. Lucio consults with Brisson on the recent string of killings; Le Loup has struck six times within the last two months and has the entire city gripped in a mad panic. But Lucio tells the banker that he is definitely interested in entrusting a portion of his gold to the bank… on one condition.

Since Lucio’s generosity knows no bounds, he kindly asks the old man if he can make some moves on his daughter, to which Brisson hesitantly concedes. del Gardo attempts to hypnotize the woman with the majestic power of his goatee, but the lass won’t be swayed from her devotion to Lucien. Admitting defeat, the chevalier swings in for the kiss (which undoubtedly has a massive amount of tongue involved) and chuckles evilly as he plots bad things a-plenty.

In the dingy laboratory of Professor LeBlanc (Wallace Evennett), whom everyone in town refers to as “The Mad Professor,” Lucien watches in amazement as the kooky scientist uses the power of harnessed electricity to briefly revive a dead bunny. LeBlanc says he shall use his experiments to extract the identity of Le Loup by manipulating his machines on the killer’s next victim, the electricity animating the dead tissue long enough to give some intelligible response. At last the true potential of electricity is finally being fully realized in the realms of mad science! Take that, Edison!

And with just the right application of electrical energy, this gas station burrito might be fit for human consumption!

Meanwhile the chevalier has got some chores to take care of, namely heading into a smoke-filled tavern called The Blind Rat in the grubbiest side of town. Amidst much prostitute fondling and stereotypically French dance numbers, del Gardo consorts with the sinister house mother La Pinan (Margaret Yarde) and his two cutthroat underlings. Instead of taking up their usual task of snatching pretty, young virgins for Lucio to steal away to his cave of horrors, their assignment is to break into the bank and place a wrapped package into Lucien’s compartment. If they so much as peek into its contents, the chevalier promises to gut their sickly bodies open fish market-style. What none of them realize is that a few fateful drops of wax from a burning candle on the table has struck the seal on Lucio’s ring and left an identical imprint on the paper! PLOT POINT! PLOT POINT!

The next morning Brisson has got a minor case of the grumpy pants and calls Lucien into his office, indicating an anonymous letter he received accusing Lucien of being the criminal responsible behind the theft. Who saw that coming? Outraged but determined to prove his integrity, Lucien confidently walks his boss right up to his desk while all the other clarks act like a bunch of Nosy Nancys. But Lucien’s lower jaw drops like a load of potatoes when Brisson pulls out the package, which is filled with Mexican gold dollars… just like the ones that were stolen! Lucien whines about being innocent, but Brisson relieves him of his employment and tells him to hit the road and forget about Cecile, lest he be turned over to the police.

Just then del Gardo rolls up in a carriage with Cecile as his passenger and Lucien is able to throw a secret message her way while the chevalier discusses business with Brisson inside. Reading her lover’s urgent note, Cecile hightails it into the streets. After signing a document and using his official seal, del Gardo urges Brisson to toss that little punk Lucien into a jail cell when “news” of the clark’s treachery reaches his ears. Brisson, however, is preoccupied with something else… he can’t help but notice that the mark on the package paper matches the chevalier’s seal on the document. Audible gasp! del Gardo is quick on his feet and snatches the paper away, tossing the evidence into the roaring fireplace. The wicked chevalier silences Brisson’s protestations by saying that it is best he forget the entire affair… as he fiendishly puts it: “The fact that I have your daughter with me now should see to that!” My dark heart thumped in delight.

Well, one really good reason why you should marry me is because I said so, bitch!

That night Cecile’s maid Babette and her awesome mustache-endowed lover Pierre steal Lucien into the house so that the hero can consult with his beloved. He promises the worried damsel that he shall sort things out and restore the peace in their ooey gooey love life (note to self: never place “ooey gooey” next to “love life” ever again). Downstairs in the study, Brisson is muddling over that afternoon’s episode when (hang on, brothers and sisters!), a long-haired, snaggle-toothed face glowers menacingly at the old man from his window! Yes, it’s the dreaded Face himself! The tell-tale howl rings out, bringing Lucien to run onto the grounds in pursuit of the attacker. But it’s too late: the stabbed, stiffed remains of Brisson lie dormant in the study.

Lucio conveniently arrives and consoles young Cecile as she weeps over her father’s death. Asking to give his last respects, del Gardo just gives the cadaver a good kick and chuckles heartily over the fallen geezer. At this point I found myself laughing just as jovially; this guy is so ridiculously immoral that I just wanted to give him a huge hug! Lucien returns to spoil the delicious villainy, but that doesn’t stop the dogged del Gardo from pointing the finger at the young man again, noting Lucien’s suspicious absence during Brisson’s murder. Would you believe it? Toddy actually has a pretty good case against the hero!

Fed up with the aristocrat’s douchebaggery, Lucien gives the cad a good slap to the face and the next thing you know it’s going down. del Gardo tells Lucien to bring his game on, because these two mothas are gonna duel to settle their differences. Lucien accepts the chevalier’s date at the Luxembourg Gardens, comforting Cecile by telling her that cowards like del Gardo always talk a better game. Showing he has a little bit of badass in him, Lucien pulls out his heat when a hairy, twisted claw looms from behind a curtain, balancing a dagger that has Lucien’s face for a target. The bank clark blasts a whole through the assailant’s right hand and the would-be killer goes shrieking into the darkness before he can be apprehended.

Chuck E. Cheese wasn't always the kid-friendly place that it is.

The chevalier returns to The Blind Rat for more scheming of plunders and plots. del Gardo isn’t prepared to play fair and enlists the aid of his henchman to ensure that he walks into the duel bulletproof. The stage is set in the gardens for the defining moment, but just as Lucien turns about to deliver his shot he is struck down himself by a rock thrown from Lucio’s accomplices in the bushes. Snickering all the while, del Gardo gloats of his sexual prowess as Lucien is tied and gagged, the chevalier’s final order being to throw the squirming wretch into the river. Good thing Lucien also had eyes watching out for him, as Babette and cook Gaston fish their mistress’ beau out of the water once the dirty dunces have left the scene.

A hunchback trying to pull his best Peter Lorre later arrives at Cecile’s front door with a message, telling the maiden (in an aggravatingly elusive manner) that Lucien has asked his beloved to meet him at The Blind Rat on a most important matter. Entering the decrepit tavern, Cecile is practically molested by the call girls as they ravage her body with their hands (and who can blame them… she’s wearing a FABULOUS fur-lined nightie!). La Pinan knowingly guides the unsuspecting Cecile up to a private apartment where she sees it is the treacherous chevalier who has actually summoned her! Well, I was surprised…

del Gardo tells Cecile that her lover fled in true pansy fashion from the duel and once again tries to ignite the romantic sparks in Cecile’s heart, but instead gets her frigid shoulder. Just as Lucio tries getting frisky (even locking the door as he chases Cecile down!), a mysterious figure enters The Blind Rat, claiming to be a notorious coiner recently escaped from prison and requesting Lucio’s company. The chevalier descends the stairs with an extreme case of blue balls, but he knows something fishy is up. Tearing off his guest’s false goatee, del Gardo reveals that it is Lucien in disguise, as the real criminal had been gunned down by police earlier that day. How inconvenient!

The chevalier’s slimy crew holds the hero in place as Inspector Gouffert and his fellow policemen arrive at the scene. The chevalier claims to have caught the dreaded Le Loup, but Lucien is convinced that del Gardo is not only the criminal responsible but that he’s also the attacker that he shot at on the night of Brisson’s murder. Daring del Gardo to remove the glove on his right hand to reveal the gunshot wound, the aristocrat at first declines but is urged by Gouffert to carry out the request. Slowly and oh so deliberately, the chevalier removes the black glove from his left hand. All clear. And then, finger by finger, he unveils the right hand and we see… nothing. His hand is free of any wound or scar. A crooked smile creasing his face, he smugly asks Lucien “Satisfied?”

Seeing that his plans have been foiled, Lucien pulls a Hail Mary pass and races up the stairs, holding a lantern threateningly and promising to burn the place to the ground if anyone tries to apprehend him. Lucio makes the first move and up The Blind Rat goes in flames, giving Lucien and Cecile just enough time to escape across the roof. The next day del Gardo is ranting and raving over Lucien in Gouffert’s office when Cecile shows up with a proposition. She says that Lucien will give himself up only if both the investigator and chevalier attend a demonstration at Professor LeBlanc’s home, a demonstration which will include the discovery of Le Loup’s identity with the help of the mad doctor’s electro-goobidygops! Realizing what he must do, del Gardo smiles slyly out at us, the audience, as he promises to be at the Mad Professor’s house alright. Mwahahaha!

See to it that the camera is working alright, the mule is pure bred, and the midget contortionists are free of diseases.

That night as rumbling thunder clouds war in the dark sky, LeBlanc is just finishing up dinner and a few last minute touches on the machines when… (dun dun dun!)… the hideous face appears at the window in a ghostly haze, drooling a dark ichor from its cracked lips. The professor has just a few seconds to grip his head melodramatically and stay in his spot long enough for del Gardo to appear, smiling mischievously as he advances on his victim from the cloak of the draperies. Raising his deadly dagger high, the chevalier sinks the blade into LeBlanc’s back, grinning even as the doc gives out a final “You!” before collapsing to the floor. My undergarments remained blown off for several weeks after watching that scene. It was THAT awesome.

But wait! Our dear professor isn’t gone just yet. With the last few remnants of life still clinging to him, LeBlanc scrawls a quick message on a note before giving his final death groan. Soon Lucien and Cecile discover the body, but after reading LeBlanc’s note Lucien is determined to carry on with the experiment. Bringing in the special guests, Lucien explains to the inspector that he will be conducting the demonstration despite the doc’s absence and del Gardo’s sarcastic quips.

Gesturing to the sheeted stiff on the lab table, Lucien says that the victim will write the true name of Le Loup on a note once the electricity has successfully manipulated its musculature. The professor was just able to write the first few letters of his murderer's name "L, U, C, I," to which del Gardo claims he was trying to spell "Lucien Courtier." Unfazed, the bank clark begins to work the weird science as the thunder growls in the air. Everyone stands tensely, watching for any signs of life in the still hand. Just when it looks like all is lost… THE HAND STIRS! In short, jerky movements the appendage grips the pencil and jaggedly writes down the identity of its killer. Grabbing the slip, Lucien proclaims that the identity of Le Loup is none other than the Chevalier Lucio del Gardo! Genuine astonishment!

On that dark and stormy Family Fun Night, the gang decided to make their game of Mad Libs a little more interesting.

But del Gardo isn’t one to be taken so easily! Whipping out a gun, the chevalier deliriously confirms that he is the killer, only to see that it was Gaston under the sheet and not the extinct remains of LeBlanc! How do you like that… Lucien didn’t even no how the damn machine worked and he still outsmarted the villain! No matter, del Gardo gives off a shot and jumps out the window into the river, swimming all the way back to his mansion. Laughing maniacally, del Gardo runs into his house and, through a secret passageway hidden behind a moving portrait (!), descends into the subterranean dungeon below.

And what should we find there other than the Face himself, locked away in a cage. Turns out the deformed creature is del Gardo’s foster brother who was entrusted to the chevalier’s care when the thing’s mother had died. The group of heroes break into the basement just as Lucio is preparing to push the cage through an opening in the wall into the cold river below. Distracted for just too long, del Gardo is gripped by the hairy hand of his brother and the two go tumbling down to their freezing, watery graves. Now with the city of Paris safe from the menace of Le Loup, the lovers embrace to see another sunrise.

So for those of you who weren’t able to tell from my review, I LOVE this movie! Dare I say it, it is perhaps the best Slaughter feature I watched during the entire marathon. It simply has everything that made all of his other movies so great, and more. Yes, and MORE! Even with Sweeney Todd under his belt, The Face at the Window is probably Toddy’s most horror-tastic film to come from his distinguished resume. Let’s take a look at some of the great things that are at work here in this most wonderful tale of melodrama and madmen.

For one, I think it’s safe to say that Chevalier Lucio del Gardo is hands down my favorite Tod Slaughter villain. Yes, say what you will about the unbridled insanity of his infamous killer barber (and believe me, I adore Sweeney too), but del Gardo has a real class to him and it allows Slaughter to put his acting magic to full use. The chevalier is charismatic and quite grand, and Slaughter gives him that perfect balance of high society righteousness and black-hearted villainy.

I made a similar comparison to his Squire Corder from Murder in the Red Barn, but Tod has perfected the rudimentary formula from that film and made it into an honest-to-God art here. Just the way he carries himself about in that cloak, whether he’s stalking a victim or making a pretentious entrance, it’s nothing short of calculated perfection. Slaughter is at his most ruthless, cunning, sadistic, and menacing best here. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

I'll give ya a blowjob for a nice grilled cheese sandwich.

The Face at the Window has a lot of great horror aesthetics working in its favor as well. From the mad machinations of the sanity-questionable professor and the potential for living deadites to start walking around to the murderous Le Loup (if only he was an actual werewolf… then we would’ve REALLY been cooking!) and the tempestuous, gloomy atmosphere, this is the film that is the most similar in tone to those great chillers and thrillers that were being put out by Universal and other Hollywood studios across the Atlantic at the time. These touches give the story a really wonderful, Gothic feel, spicing up the melodrama/penny dreadful formula that became stale in other Slaughter installments with a dose of good old fashioned terror and nightmarish images.

Along these same lines, The Face at the Window is the most cinematically complete of all the Slaughter films, in my opinion. Even in the other vehicles that were helmed by George King (this film’s director), Slaughter’s movies had a tendency of creaking just a little too loudly; the movies seemed more like filmed stage plays (in the bad way) than actual cinematic experiences. Here, though, you never doubt for a second that what you’re watching is a fully composed film, as strange as that may sound.

The editing is smooth and graceful, save for the moments (especially in the finale) where quick cuts are effectively used to heighten tension. There’s always a constant undercurrent of action in each scene, whether subtle or explicit, where you’re never left feeling as if nothing is happening. It’s a quick and efficient operation, enhanced only by some fabulous set pieces such as The Blind Rat tavern and a rousing score that plays throughout the film at a regular pace (instead of just at the very end like most of Slaughter’s other films).

With all of these things going for it, The Face at the Window is a ridiculously fun and fast paced installment in the annals of Slaughter villainy. Its plot elements will sate the appetite of any hungry horror fan and the marvelous performance given by the man himself remains unparalleled. Catch this glorious piece of classic horror gold before it’s too late. Before… no… the Face… the FACE!

There's no business like show business, eh, Wolfie?

Dear Toddy- An Editorial

2010-12-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

We take you now to that beloved star of stage and screen Tod Slaughter, as he answers the questions of the public in his weekly column "Dear Toddy" from The Barnstormer Weekly. In today's feature, Tod is besmirched with the problems and anxieties that come with the holiday season and answers all inquires in his trademark style of wit, charm, and unrestrained evil.

* * *

Dear Toddy,

I have a big problem. It's almost Christmas and there's this boy in my classroom who keeps telling me that Santa Claus isn't real. He says he's made up, a big fat lie. I tried asking my mom bout it but she says the boy was just saying that since he's jealous. I don't even know what that means. What should I do about the mean boy? Is there a Santa Claus? Can you help me Mr. Toddy?

-Virginia

Virginia,

Thank you for writing, my dear child. I think I can help with your problem. First of all, you must handle that mischievous boy in your classroom post haste. It sounds like his tongue wags too much... might I suggest cutting it out with a razor? No? Fine, then. I always found that breaking the spine is quite effective. It's quick, efficient, and painless. Well, it would be for you anyway. Heh heh. Now allow me to address the second part of your question: no, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus! Santa is a lie, just like everything else your mother has ever told you. Including how pretty you are. If you want a complete stranger to break into your house in the middle of the night, then just call me up!

Merry Christmas,
Toddy

* * *

Dear Toddy,

First I'd like to say that I love your work (big fan!). I knew you were the only man that could help me. I was recently made the head of the party planning committee at the office where I work. Trouble is, I have no idea what to put on the e-mail invitations. I want to just call it "Office Christmas Party," but HR's giving me a lot of crap because Ben in accounting celebrates Hanukkah and the guy in the mailroom made up his own holiday called Sleeping Monk Day. And how am I supposed to decorate? What's your take on all this, sir?

-Cubicle Drone

Cubicle Drone,

I appreciate you being a fan of my work. So am I! As to your inquiry, good taste be damned! If you want to really have a party, put a nice dash of arsenic in the punch bowl to lighten those stiffs up! Make sure that you invite a high member of society to the festival too. That way you could massacre them in front of everybody and laugh over their lifeless body as you rob them of their personal belongings. And if you're feeling extra naughty, carry your boss's wife away kicking and screaming for a little "kiss" underneath the mistletoe. This way, you won't be offending those few people at work. Stick to this plan and EVERYONE will feel violated!

Happy planning,
Toddy

* * *

Dear Toddy,

I live in Indiana and at the moment we're being raped by a monstrous snowstorm. There are piles of snow six feet high closing us in on all sides and the wind is enough to blow the Statue of Liberty's gown right off! I can't stand this freezing slush and thought I'd turn to you for some suggestions to help my winter blues. Thanks!

-Frosty Hater

Frosty Hater,

Don't curse your predicament so hastily, my friend! The snow does have its advantages, especially when it's very... deep. There's much useful spade work to be had there. You could bury at least three bodies in a healthy-sized drift if you wished (and who wouldn't?). And all the wonderful blues, and blacks, and purples that the corpses' skin turns never fails to get me into the holiday spirit! If it's the bitter cold that's got you down, might I suggest a stop at Mrs. Lovatt's pie shop on the corner of Fleet Street? Nothing should cheer you more than a helping of one of her delicious meat pies while you sit next to her roaring furnace. Her baked goodies come out flesh from the oven. Mwahahaha!

Stay warm,
Toddy

* * *

That's all the time we have for today. Until Toddy's return after the New Year, The Barnstormer Weekly would like to wish their readers the most wicked of holidays. May your hearts be filled with blood and thunder, and your homes with murder and mayhem. Thank you and good night.

It's Never Too Late To Mend (1937): We All Go A Little Nutty Sometimes

2010-12-22T12:00:00.002-05:00

Directed by David MacDonald
Written by H. F. Maltby, Based on the novel by Charles Reade
Starring Tod Slaughter, Jack Livesey, Marjorie Taylor, Ian Colin, D. J. Williams, Roy Russell, and Laurence Hanray

“No time like the present!”

A book is opened, revealing a brief biography of its author, Charles Reade, a man who had suffered the cruelties and dehumanization of the British insane asylums and lived to tell the tale. Already we can tell we’re in for some quality family viewing and dive into our story belly-first. A slow organ dirge echoes throughout the courtyard of the local church as the parishioners exit their Sunday sermon. Stepping into the warm morning glow is the dark-spirited John Meadows (Tod Slaughter playing yet another squire!).

Although Meadows’ mustache is of a truly holy character, his advances on Susan Merton (Marjorie Taylor) are spurned, as she is in love with the handsome but penniless farmer George Fielding (Ian Colin). But of course there’s one thing standing in the couple’s way, and that’s Susan mutton-chopped, rock-faced father Farmer Merton (D. J. Williams, who it appears was never given the privilege of a first name for any of his roles). Daddy wants the boy to have money and status before he weds his daughter, and to this end the rich Meadows seeks to ruin George by any possible means.

Once upon a time there lived a man who no one really cared about.

Running into his adventurous friend and town ruffian Tom Robinson (Jack Livesey), George reveals that he is journeying to the hot continent of Australia to seek his fortune and finally claim Susan as his own. The local deputy later arrives at Squire Meadows’ home to report a case of poaching on his grounds, perpetrated by that rascal Robinson. But Meadows comes up with a better idea, namely erasing Robinson’s name on the warrant of arrest and replacing it with Fielding’s, helped all the better by the wad of bank notes that Meadows eagerly presses into the hands of the deputies.

Not just satisfied with dragging George’s name through the gutter, Meadows consults with his shady and vulture-like lawyer Crawley (Laurence Hanray) and plans to play the hero with the Merton family. When Crawley arrives at the farm and tells Merton that he must pay his rent money early or hit the road, Meadows proudly steps in and pays the five hundred pounds, thus indebting Merton to the swine.

Meadows pulls on the charm once more when the greased deputies arrive to arrest George, just as he’s saying goodbye to his lady love. Good thing Robinson is there to take the rightful blame from his friend for the poaching charge, thus resulting in him being sentenced to two years in the dark and dank walls of Meadows’ dismal asylum for the criminal and the insane. A few months later two visiting justices arrive at the establishment for an inspection, and it is here Meadows’ true twisted and depraved nature is finally revealed in its full glory. He tends over the haunted faces of the inmates, snickering at the misery of who he calls “his children.” Each inmate is pretty much bullied by guards and Meadows alike to give satisfactory reports to the justices, although these two cads could really care less about the filthy specimens they’re presented with.

Our once cock-sure hero Robinson enters, and he’s just as broken as everyone else: he shakes uncontrollably, sweats feverishly, and probably has a full load of bowel evacuation in his pants. Robinson desperately tries to explain the countless tortures the inmates suffer through in the asylum to the apathetic justices, some highlights including the Dreaded Black Hole of No Return, the Fiery Lashes of the Cat O’Nine Tails, the Dismal Diet of Bread and Water, the Muscle-Snapping Machinations of the Cranky Crank, and the Putrid Programming of Jersey Shore in the Waiting Room of Terror!

The justices aren’t impressed with Robinson’s colorful descriptions and call in the next patient, which is the young Matthew Josephs (Johnny Singer, the put-upon Toby from Sweeney Todd!). The boy says all he did was steal some bread for his starving mother, but who wants to hear that crap? He’s duly dragged away squeaking and screaming for 1800 rotations at the Crank and Meadows goes to relax with a kinky session with the Cat.

Well, that ends geography for today. Now let me give you a little lesson on chemistry...

The town reverend Mr. Eden (Roy Russell) takes a tour of the asylum and gets to hear of the delights that take place at the swinging country club, including the guards shooting down escapees, a lunch menu that contains the dubiously-named dish of “skilly,” and a horrid hospital where the patients typically prefer to be back in their cells than on a stretcher. Eden gets more enthused reports from Meadows himself, who delightfully recounts all the broken souls who have left the eternal, dark horrors of the Black Hole. But he can’t spend his whole day chatting about cheery matters, he’s got damsels to steal. Heading to the postmaster’s office, Meadows gently requests (re: threatens with death) that the man intercept all of George’s letters from Australia so that young Susan can think that her lover has forgotten her. Oh Toddy, you have such a way with the ladies!

Back at the asylum, Meadows delights in watching little Matthew pass out from his trials at the Crank and immediately orders that the boy be taken to the spa for a little R&R. But Meadows’ idea of relaxation includes tying the boy up in a wall-mounted straitjacket and leaving him screaming for mercy in his cell. Robinson manages to break out of his prison with a stolen key and releases Matthew from his constricting confines. Meadows and his posse of sadists soon intervene and Robinson is placed into the Black Hole for his rebellion. Eden is disgusted with Meadows’ acts but the good squire huffs and puffs and blows the reverend’s house down, reminding the holy man that he is the God in charge of this world. Eden is then left with the dying Matthew, whom he gently prays over before the boy exits the mortal realm.

Robinson is going cuckoo for Coco Puffs in his obsidian hell, but the pure-hearted Eden is there to give him the warm fuzzies in his time of need. It’s a pretty cool moment, technically speaking, as a beam of light creates the shape of a crucifix over Robinson’s head in the darkness as Eden kneels, head bowed, on the other side of the split screen. Meadows is gloating over his success in intercepting George’s letters, but begins sweating when he reads in the latest message that George has acquired the equivalent of seven thousand pounds in gold dust and is determined to make Susan his bride upon his return to England. Jiminy Crickets! And just when everything was going so great for everyone too!

So what’s a nefarious squire to do but tempt his equally slimy partner in crime Crawley to head into the heart of town and start spreading some dirty rumors about Georgie Boy? All’s fair in love and war! Meadows of course acts completely innocent and shocked by the “news” from Farmer Merton that George has indeed collected big bucks, but has decided to run off with some hot young thang instead of asking for Susan’s hand. So now with that dope out of the way, Merton prompts the debonair, caterpillar-faced Meadows to hit that. And hit that he shall. Bwahahaha!

Starring Tod Slaughter as the Monopoly Man.

Robinson is finally released from prison and goes out to celebrate by calling up on his favorite tavern in town. Unfortunately no one, from the barkeep to the town drunks, want anything to do with him because of his prison sentence. For POACHING. These people have insanely high standards for a place that probably sees the likes of chicken-raping, baby-eating, seal murderers, but that poaching Robinson takes the top spot on the list of the human race’s social abortions. Just before he’s kicked out on his hindquarters before he can even take one sip of ale, Robinson overhears the vicious stories of George’s betrayal and knows something dirty is up, especially when he gets the news that Meadows will now be making Susan his lady in white.

Crawley relays the message to Meadows that George has arrived at South Hampton and will be riding into town in a few days, so the squire resolves to snare the fool in a trap before he can make good on his plan. Robinson meets his pal at a tavern out in the country (where the staff is significantly less hostile) and the two celebrate George’s success with some much deserved frothy glasses of beer. Just as the barkeep is giving the two a tour around the place, Meadows quietly slinks in, looking like a more robust version of Lamont Cranston, and pours a sleeping tonic in the bar glasses! Oh, the villainy!

Not wanting to miss out on the show, Meadows hides in a nearby closet to watch his plan unfold. Robinson is wary of the situation, possibly noticing how the door at the other end of the room is open with Meadows’ gleaming smile beaming back at him from inside. So the wily rogue feigns sleep as George genuinely hugs the table top face-first. Meadows then comes guffawing out and snatches up George’s money. Robinson wakes George up and the two are soon speeding along after the thieving fiend. Back in the city, Meadows is determined to burn the stash of cash in the fire so there’s no trace of evidence, but the greedy Crawley pleads the squire to give him the money, which he does. And Robinson sees the entire thing from a window. Dammit, Toddy! You never listen to the sniveling accomplice! That’s in Flat Foots 101.

Right as the wedding ceremony is about to begin, George rides in heroically, but alas, his purse only contains moths and two tickets to a Justin Bieber concert. Meadows tut-tuts the little moron and accuses him of being a scoundrel for leaving Susan for Miss New Booty. But here comes Robinson, holding the squealing Crawley by the knickers, who then sells Meadows out on relaying the stolen money to him.

Just about pissed beyond belief over the mess things have become, Meadows pulls out his trusty pistol and prepares to give everyone at the ceremony new plumbing. But wait! The good Reverend Eden arrives just in time and powerfully asks “Will you add murder to your list of crimes?” Flashing a crucifix, Eden causes Meadows to drop his heat and subsequently descend into a fit of mad giggles as his mind unhinges. The squire is then sentenced to his own asylum and his exercise in reformation begins with a rousing session at the Crank. After all, it’s never too late to mend…

Oh, Mr. Slaughter. Candles, promises of vicious torture? I have chills!

As interesting as the parts of this film are as examined by themselves, the whole that is It’s Never Too Late To Mend was a slight disappointment during the marathon of Slaughter films. I’d hate to use the word boring to describe it, but I honestly did find myself a tad underwhelmed by the whole thing and I think I might have checked the time on more than one occasion. It seems to lack the fire and power (blood and thunder, if you will) of Tod’s other films. The recurrent plot themes seems especially stagnant here for some reason, and in general Tod didn’t seem to get as much meaty material here.

The best moment where his villainy shined was his caped lurking in the tavern, along with the delightful scene of Meadows taunting his inmates and sinisterly cuing them to be on their behavior during the interrogation scene. Other than that, the greatest redeeming factor that Slaughter has going for him is the gargantuan facial hair that dresses his upper lip. It’s a really jaw-dropping mustache and one wonders how strong Meadows’ jaw must be to be keep that thing lifted. It gives Slaughter a gentle, almost grandfatherly appearance, which nicely downplays his true sadistic nature.

Speaking of sadism, I was also a little let down by the tortures that were at play in the asylum. Perhaps it was just a case of extreme expectations, but the entire time I felt myself wringing my hands in anticipation for a scene where Meadows would whip a hapless soul strung up on a rack, screams intermingled with Slaughter’s throaty chuckles. Alas, that beautiful moment never came to pass and the sooner all of you forget my admittance of wanting to see a flogging, the better. There are some nice nasty touches to be sure, such as Meadows grandly dusting off his leg after little Josephs passes out on him, but what was actually manifested on screen didn’t quite match the horrors that I was hoping to be fulfilled. That may not be fair to the film, but I’d be a liar if I said that the low boiling brutality didn’t quite thrill me.

Most of the players are rather stiff, with the exception of Jack Livesey as daredevil Robinson and Laurence Hanray as the dirty ying to Slaughter’s diabolical yang. The character of Robinson in particular is kind of a nice revelation, as most of the male heroes in Slaughter films are brave, for sure, but none of them are as full of themselves as Tom Robinson. Livesey gives his character a great swagger to his walk and keeps a nearly-perpetual smug smile on his face. It’s nice for a change to see a charming lead with enough cajones to stand up to Tod Slaughter and utterly convince you that he’d be willing to tussle with the fiend on any given day of the week. One badass against another. I like it.

The climax especially was quite anemic. Slaughter pulled his usual trick of busting out the big guns, but other than that this scene moved about as fast as molasses in an igloo. The characters are just holed up in that single room, talking to each other and staring intently at one another. Not one fist flies and the place is unfortunately never consumed in flames. And who is the dude that breaks the whole thing up? The reverend! Are you kidding me? I felt like I had just watched the equivalent of a fight in gym class starting and ending just as quickly once the elderly coach showed up to intervene.

There was also a rather heavy-handed Catholic tone to the whole thing, with Meadows bowing down under the might of Eden’s cross. It seemed like the filmmakers were attempting to promote this idea of evil submitting to the power of Good (re: the church) and the whole thing just left a sour taste in my mouth. If Meadows had been as truly evil as he was portrayed, he would’ve shot Eden’s entire hand off and then stabbed him in the throat with his own crucifix. You know, just to give it a good sacrilegious kick.

Don’t let this criticism get you blue though. In all honesty, It’s Never Too Late To Mend isn’t the worst film you will ever see, but there’s a reason why this title doesn’t come up too often when one discusses Slaughter cinema. My instinct would be to say that this one is for Slaughter and melodrama completists only, but maybe it’s the Christmas season that makes me want to concede and say that it has enough positive qualities going for it to warrant at least one watch from the casual viewer. Go for the brutal torture, stay for the mustache.

Laugh and the world laughs with you!

Villains: Home Edition With Mr. Tod Slaughter

2010-12-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

Another rancid reel I discovered over the course of researching Mr. Slaughter's life and work, this "interview" by a British Pathe reporter runs more like a Halloween-themed episode of Cribs with Toddy mugging it up as a deliriously hysterical Sweeney Todd. This one is ghoulish fun through and through, and some personal highlights include the cute touch of having the sign outside the door read "Sweeney Tod Slaughter" and the whole "nice eyes" bit. It's not hard to imagine that Slaughter was every bit of the fun-loving ham as the one displayed in this video, and a visit to his home must have been more than a unique experience. Enjoy.

(Note: my esteemed blogging comrade Jack Veasey over at the Lavender Lair of Horror posted this video on his site a few days ago as his contribution to the blogathon. Having already planned to post the footage myself here at FBD, I decided to go ahead with my plans and share the goodness with any readers who might have missed it the first time. Isn't synergy wonderful?)

Slaughter Linkapalooza: December 21

2010-12-21T20:18:00.005-05:00

More morbid morsels for you to munch on tonight, kiddies! The admiration for Tod Slaughter is alive and well, and my heart couldn't be warmer from all the wonderful contributions this event has garnered. I can't wait to see all of the fantastic presents that are in store for the rest of the week and I hope all of you are excited too! Without further adieu, here are the links for tonight...

Once again, the ever diligent Dr. Morbius has been hard at work at Krell Laboratories, this time the subject of her mad experimentations being the oft-whispered but hardly-seen action/thriller Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror! Have you ever pictured Slaughter playing opposite Sherlock Holmes as the insidious Professor Moriarty? Well, wonder no more as the good doctor fills you in on all the details with her great write-up!

Deadly duo Dan and Jason, those deranged geniuses behind the horror hot spot The Terror Trap, shake their Slaughter pom poms by offering up a comprehensive and fascinating piece on Tod's life in their Kings of Terror biography! The man's life was just as intriguing behind the camera as it was in front, and Dan and Jason deliver a loving tribute to the life and times of a horror master!

That completes our overview for tonight. But be sure you come back tomorrow, for there'll be more Slaughter goodies aplenty for you to relish. Until we meet... again? Heh heh heh!

The Crimes Of Stephen Hawke (1936): Cry Horror! Cry Uncle!

2010-12-21T12:00:00.003-05:00

Directed by George King
Written by Frederick Hayward, H. F. Maltby, Jack Celestin, and Paul White
Starring Tod Slaughter, Marjorie Taylor, Eric Portman, D. J. Williams, Gerald Barry, and Graham Soutten

“Cruelty was never part of my nature!”

Our film opens up with one of the more interesting segues to be seen in a Tod Slaughter picture. We’re introduced to Flotsam and Jetsam, two vaudeville entertainers (who are not mischievous eels) performing a little ditty in a radio station. A few more spots and ads are shown being recorded on air, including an interview with a cat food seller who is referred to as a “pussy’s butcher.” No comment there. The next thing you know our old and beloved friend Tod Slaughter himself is being interviewed by the announcer, looking all dapper with his slicked back hair and tuxedo but with that same deadly glint in his eyes we’ve all come to love. Slaughter recounts some of his most famous roles before bringing up the “new, old melodrama” that he is currently starring in. It’s a dark tragedy about a man named Stephen Hawke and the horrendous deeds he committed that held an entire countryside in the steely grip of terror…

We are then taken to a palatial mansion where Hawke himself is crouching in the bushes, making a detailed sketch of the residence for some insidious purpose. A young boy is taken out of the house with his nanny and the little tyke goes off to play. The boy spots Hawke as he goes about his business (he probably noticed the gargantuan top hat poking out of the shrubbery) and immediately sets about being a little rude asshole to Stephen. Sweet as ever, the smiling Hawke kindly calls the brat over and then brings the hurt down on him by CRUSHING THE CHILD’S SPINE! You heard correctly. My caps don’t lie. It hasn’t even been five minutes and Slaughter shows us that he isn’t messing around. If you thought his villains in previous films were pretty gnarly, prepare to reconsider! The cackling fiend then runs off while the nanny is left screaming over the crumpled, raggedy remains of what was once Master McJerkFace.

Meanwhile in a less mind blowing district of the country, Hawke’s lovely daughter Julia (Marjorie Taylor) arrives at her father’s money lending offices in the city. Hawke’s partner Joshua Trimble (D. J. Williams, the ever reliable father) warns the girl of the wave of terror being perpetrated by the notorious Spine Breaker, a murderous rascal who has been turning the backbones of citizens everywhere into Kit-Kat Bars. Julia has other things on her mind, mainly the romantic sparks that are flying between her and Joshua’s debonair son Matthew (Eric Portman returning from Murder in the Red Barn). Hawke soon enters stage left, but he’s not the soulless, baby-snapping scoundrel we had just seen. Hawke is now in the guise of a kindly and gentle old man, all bespectacled and hunched over with age. He kind of looks like your grandmother in his role as “nice Stephen.” You can thank me for those images of Slaughter as your nana later.

Oh, what a delightful creature you are. Come over here so that I may pinch your cheeks...

Hawke isn’t very pleased with Julia’s fancy over Matthew, but it’s apparent that he cares very deeply for his daughter’s happiness. I know, shocking. Joshua is the only one who knows that Julia isn’t actually Stephen’s own flesh and blood, and that Hawke had raised the illegitimate child on the notion that he is her real father. The coachman of the esteemed Lord Brickhaven soon arrives at Hawke’s office, sadly informing him that the lord unfortunately cannot make it to the gala that Hawke is throwing at his house that night. Stephen doesn’t like the ring of those words and aggressively insists that the coachman’s master be at the swanky bash or else! After all, the good Brickhaven is famous for wearing a priceless emerald and we know that Hawke will do just about anything to make Julia happy…

Later that night everyone is shaking what their mothers gave them and having good clean fun at Hawke’s place. Matthew and Julia dance the night away, looking into each other’s eyes all lovey-dovey like. The two fathers watch their children in revelry, though Stevie is a tad irked by the couple’s refusal to hold each other at arm’s length school-dance-style. But if there’s one cad whose grubby hands Stephen doesn’t want Julia to fall into more than Matthew’s, it’s Miles Archer (Gerald Barry). The towering jerk wants Julia for his own and will do just about anything to get her, as Hawke will indeed do anything in order to protect her. Archer’s manhood is pathetically shot down when his request for a dance with Julia goes unfulfilled and he’s left to sourly brood in the corner.

The doorman announces the arrival of Lord Brickhaven (George M. Slater), a moment where it was hard for me to suppress the urge to cry out “Lord and Lady Douchebag!” Hawke immediately starts conversing with the old fop, leering in a not-so-inconspicuous manner at the shiny jewel adorning his figure. This discussion is filled with so many odious puns referencing Hawke’s spine-breaking habits that I was groaning more than most of Stephen’s own victims! But I loved every painful minute of it, and find no shame in admitting that. Distressed by all the numbing wordplay, Brickhaven goes out on the veranda for some air but instead meets the powerful grip of Hawke who twists him into a pretzel and then nabs the emerald. After all the puns that Brickhaven suffered through, I think it’s safe to say it was a mercy killing.

Curious about the horses, eh? Didn't think anyone would catch you, eh?

Soon enough the whole party is ruined because stupid Brickhaven had to go and get murdered, and the lord’s coachman deliriously accuses Hawke of forcing him to bring his master there just for that diabolical purpose. Of course everyone thinks the claims are preposterous, none more so than Hawke’s old friend Josh who rants about the affair the next morning at work. But the mounting tension in the discussion causes Hawke to snap the stone statuette in his hands in two, forcing Joshua to reexamine his beliefs. “You have sinews of steel!” he cries out in horror. Joshua brings his fears to his son, but Matthew assuages any doubts the old man might be having about his friend. Stephen Hawke couldn’t possibly be the criminal behind the gruesome crimes, Matthew says. He isn’t the dreaded Spine Breaker!

Later that night Stephen forces his way into Joshua’s room in order to break his spine. The old fool knows too much, and Hawke isn’t gonna let a little thing like friendship get in the way of his second, murderous life! Ol’ Joshie wakes up just in time to see the sickening smile on Stephen’s face wrapped in the darkness of his evening cloak. The maniac works his magic fingers and crunches Joshua’s spine into toothpicks. Hawke then runs away tittering like a guilty schoolboy in what has to be one of the most uproarious moments in the whole film. After such a grim demise as the death by spinal bend’n’snap, Tod’s fit of boyish giggles is enough to inspire bellyaches in the audience. Matthew, awakened by his father’s shrieks of agony, finds his old man’s corpse and realizes dirty deeds are afoot.

Matthew visits Hawke the next morning at breakfast, and it’s obvious the young man smells something amiss in Stephen’s somewhat casual demeanor after receiving the news of Joshua’s murder. Matthew tells Stephen (in threatening tones) that Joshua had written down a terrible secret in his will and testament, said document now resting with the cadaver at the house. Sensing that his crimes are to be ousted, Hawke sneaks back to Joshua’s home in the dead of night to retrieve the incriminating paper. Instead he is assaulted by the moaning, sheeted figure of Joshua’s body, which actually turns out to be Matthew in disguise.

Having extracted a confession from the frightened Hawke, Matthew advises Stephen at gunpoint that it is best he leave the city before he sets the hounds of the law upon him. It’s Matthew’s love for Julia that keeps him from gunning the brute down himself, so Stephen grudgingly accepts the conditions. Stephen bids farewell to his daughter under the pretense of going on a business trip (that’s what they all say! *sob*) and he departs with his crippled manservant Nathaniel (Graham Soutten, or the beadle from Sweeney Todd for all you quick cats). This is a really tender scene, and you can see Hawke’s pain at having to surrender his protection of Julia. A surprisingly touching moment in a Slaughter film, and that’s not the end of it. But more on that later.

Careful with that whip, you fool! You could put someone's eye-- oh, sorry.

With Matthew’s mojo stunted by his intense desire to avenge his father, the hero breaks things off with Julia in order to protect both of them, leaving the girl in the dark as to the real reasons behind his flight of fury. And just when we were starting to feel for ol’ Stephen Hawke, the man shows that he cannot be trusted when he decides to ignore Matthew’s warnings and checks into a hotel just outside of town… which he does while both he and Nathaniel hide behind their capes looking like the worst Bela Lugosi impersonators ever. He has no intentions of leaving and plans to return to his old ways once things have cooled off. They don’t rest easy for very long, for Matthew picks up the scent and begins tracking the dastardly duo down.

Back in the city, that despicable oaf Archer is trying to wheedle information from Brickhaven’s cabbie in order to blackmail Julia into marrying him lest he release the facts of Hawke’s murders. Matthew arrives at the hotel and Hawke scrams out of there faster than a jack rabbit woken up in a fiery skillet. But not before he kindly pays the innkeeper for a full week’s stay and bruises his arm beyond all reason with that infernal grip of his. Just missing Hawke, Matthew figures out the name of the game and gives the good innkeeper a bigger purse of coins to find out where Stephen was headed next.

Having had his way with the cabbie (hee hee hee), Archer brings the devastating news to Julia in a nice blending of a wedding proposal and a blackmail threat. Fearing for her father’s safety, Julia consents to Archer’s demands and plans to marry the ass. Back in the country, Hawke and Nate panic after Matthew spots them at the town fair (!), but Stephen manages to jump into the streets just as Matthew ascends the stairs to their room. Running into a bread thief in the alley, Hawke hits upon the idea of taking the blame for the peasant’s crime as the police close in. After all, what safer place is there than an isolated jail cell? With Stephen in prison for a brief stint, Matthew returns to London in defeat.

Hawke has second thoughts about his plan when Nathaniel arrives and tells him of Julia’s marriage to Archer. Filled with rage and vengeance, Hawke easily cracks the prison guard in two and sneaks his way to freedom. This was another great scene, as you see Slaughter sitting in anticipation with that devilish grin on his face just before he jumps in for the kill with the whole place erupting in screams. Love it! Nathaniel then whips the horses into a rage and the carriage bumps over the hills in a mad race back to the city. Matthew attempts to call Archer out on his acts after finding out what he’s done to Julia but the jerk is rock solid stubborn. But Archer begins shaking in his boots the minute Hawke makes a surprise entrance, pistol at the ready. Issuing a graphic and entirely convincing threat (“I’ll blow your brains out!”), Hawke moves in for the fatality and brings Archer to his wimpy knees as he turns his ligaments into a bow tie. More evil giggling ensues.

At the conclusion of our piece, a rally of brave, top-hatted men arrive at the Hawke residence in order to arrest Matthew under the charge of being the notorious Spine Breaker. Enter Hawke, who isn’t about to let a young mustachioed fool take away his rightful wrestling championship belt. Stephen orders Julia and Matthew to flee while he holds off the gang. He may only have one bullet left (as a seemingly clairvoyant man points out to him), but Stephen is ready to use it on whoever is brave enough to move first. The Sneak Attack Ninja on the stairs is the lucky winner and he gets a bellyful of lead for his useless efforts. The gang then chases Stephen up to the roof of the house, suffering under a rain of thrown bricks and shaking fists from Hawke as he deliriously taunts his pursuers.

Unfortunately Hawke loses his footing on a loose block and tumbles screaming from the roof as Matthew and Julia watch in horror. What follows is the most sudden, loudest, and messy sounding body crash that I’ve ever heard in a 30’s-era film. Seriously, Hawke’s body bitch slaps the porch it falls on to. It’s that crazy. On the brink of death, Stephen painfully mutters to Julia the secret of her birth and admits that he is not her real father. The weeping girl says it doesn’t matter, and wouldn’t you know it, Hawke replies by saying he thought she’d say that, but it makes him happy to hear it nonetheless. And then he’s gone.

Undoubtedly the most heartwarming moment in any of Slaughter’s films, and it’s a great change of pace from the dramatic, villain vs. the world climaxes that punctuate his other pictures (although those are great too). The film ends with Nathaniel weeping over his dead master, Matthew and Julia walking off to begin a new life, and Tod Slaughter looking on somewhat disdainfully at the radio interviewer who has fallen asleep listening to the actor recount the entire production.

Let's make this quick, gentlemen. These trousers are slowly but surely devouring my torso.

The Crimes of Stephen Hawke has a lot going for it; its departure from some elements in the “Slaughter formula” (whether they be slight or vast) are both its greatest asset and curse. For instance, The Crimes of Stephen Hawke is more of a soap opera in comparison to Tod’s other thriller-esque movies. There is a lot of emotional angst going on within all of the characters. There’s Matthew’s rage at Hawke for killing his father, Hawke’s adamant desire to make his daughter happy, Julia’s confusion with the love of her life. Add to that the slimy Miles Archer as the jealous suitor stock character going about and making everyone’s life miserable and the almost episodic nature of Hawke’s flight across the country with vengeful Matthew in hot pursuit and you have a bona fide series just itching to air on daytime television.

This is both a good and bad thing, as this approach lends a new flavor to the typical melodrama but also sacrifices some of the things that make me salivate over a Slaughter film. As great as the main story is, I felt like it could have benefited from more scenes of Toddy stalking around in his cloak, mercilessly breaking spinal chords left and right for anyone who was fool enough to get in his way. We do have that dynamite opening with Hawke setting that bratty kid straight (by twisting him right out of shape) and the fast-paced ending with Slaughter making his chasers look as graceful as the Keystone Cops, but the majority of the film runs more like a romantic adventure than a gruesome horror film.

Another good thing to come from this direction though is the supply of meaty roles both lead and supporting for all the actors to sink their teeth into. These films are usually Tod’s all the way, and we can really care less who was playing Beggar #1 or even the damsel that Slaughter has set his lascivious eyes on this time. But in The Crimes of Stephen Hawke, all the characters get quite an ample amount of screen time so that the actors can flex their thespian muscles, and it doesn’t come across as a distraction at all.

Marjorie Taylor and D. J. Williams are Slaughter regulars who delight as always, but I was particularly happy to see Eric Portman returning for another go as the dogged hero. Portman is really skilled at playing the fiery braveheart and watching him here was a real pleasure. Gerald Barry is also a nice welcome to the plot… I always like it when there’s an additional villain added to the plot along with Slaughter’s main fiend. It creates a great evil vs. evil dynamic that never fails to be interesting to watch. And seeing Slaughter bring Barry (who is a good foot taller than Tod) down to the ground is guaranteed to illicit cheers from the audience. Well, it did for me anyway.

The Crimes of Stephen Hawke is an enjoyable film, but I think one would have to familiarize themselves with a few of Slaughter’s other films in order to gain maximum appreciation for this one. It has enough spicy moments in it to keep the horror hounds happy, and the new sense of pacing brought to the plot is a thankful refreshment from the typical structure of the other movies. It’s not the very best Tod Slaughter has to offer, in this humble reviewer’s opinion, but it’s definitely a fun ride to go along on. Trust me, give it a try and you won’t regret it. Don’t make me twist your arm.

He sees you when you're sleeping.

It's A Smorgasbord Of Scoundrels!

2010-12-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

Material on Slaughter is pretty scarce, even in today's technology and information-rich society. So it's a real treat everytime I get the chance to dig up something, especially footage, that shows Slaughter doing what he does best.

The following runs a bit like a crash-course in Slaughterdom, as Toddy himself plays three infamous villains under three minutes. I especially like the neat touch of having Slaughter "get into character," applying makeup and changing costumes as if he's preparing to go out on stage to perform one of his bloody dramas.

And of course the names of those theaters cause me to giggle like a mad fiend. Much like the audience members once Tod steps out as Sweeney Todd, something I find utterly heart-wearming and endearing everytime I watch this thing.

Slaughter Linkapalooza: December 20

2010-12-20T19:47:00.003-05:00

Well here we are, two days in to the Tod Slaughter Christmas event and already the blogosphere has been emanating with love for that twisted Brit with the equally twisted mustache. I'll spare you all of mind-numbing introductions, so let's get straight to the posts that were made between late last night and this evening...

The formidable Dr. Morbius at Krell Laboratories serves up her thoughts on Slaughter's depraved villainy at work in her Crimes at the Dark House Review! One of Toddy's most unrepentantly wicked villains, Sir Glyde is given a thorough examination by the good doctor in this excellent summation of the film.

Awesome British mistress and long time friend of From Beyond Depraved Jinx of the deliriously cool and funny blog Totally Jinxed examines Slaughter from a different angle... that of a fellow stage actor with a style that wouldn't be called "traditional" in her insightful and loving article Tod And Me: A Very Personal Retrospective or A Self-Obsessed Reflection on Misunderstood Genius and Why Me and Tod Rule and The World Simply Wasn't Ready For Us Because It Sucks. Whoo! What a mouthful! Read on and discover what makes Slaughter great and how the world must know of his legacy.

The esteemed Vicar of Vhs from the blog of demented delights known as Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies resurrects his long thought-to-be dead review of perhaps Tod's most well known film Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street! Marvel at the enormous top hats, gawk at the African warrior onslaught, and revel in the ambiguous yummines of Mrs. Lovatt's meat pies, all wrapped up in the Vicar's usual MAAAAD style.

Please allow the ever-witty Jack Veasey of the Lavender Lair of Horror to take you by the hand as he guides you through the home of our good friend Tod Slaughter with his British Pathe interview video! Just when you thought the man couldn't be anymore crazy than he was in film, check him out at home! And by all means please join Jack and I in our discussion on Tod Slaughter playing an evil Santa Claus.

And finally, that mad purveyor of TV terror Dr. Gangrene from the blog Dr. Gangrene's Tales from the Lab provides us with another look at the unctuous hairdresser in his Sweeney Todd Review! Along with an impressive write-up of the all the film's ghoulish details, Doc Gangrene provides you horror heads with the very movie in its entirety! The perfect way to polish tonight off. Heh heh, hahahahaha!

That's all for tonight, kiddies! Be sure that you eat your cookies and milk and get in to bed promptly at 9:00, because there are only more cackling horrors coming your way in the days to come. If there's anyone whose piece I might have missed this go around, send me an email at joemonster25 [at] yahoo [dot] com or leave your link in the comments section! We need to spread as much Slaughter love as possible, so every contribution counts. Tis the season for giving (and killing)!

Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (1936): Shave And A Haircut, Two Pies

2010-12-20T12:00:00.003-05:00

Directed by George King
Written by Frederick Hayward and H. F. Maltby, Based on the play by George Dibdin-Pitt
Starring Tod Slaughter, Stella Rho, Bruce Seton, Eve Lister, D. J. Williams, and Johnny Singer

“I love my work…”

A lovingly filmed montage of a straight razor being sharpened upon a leather strop and the mixing of shaving cream in a basin is all it takes to tickle my fancy, and that’s exactly how this delirious drama opens up as the credits emerge on the screen. We are then taken to modern day (re: 1930’s) England as a jolly-looking businessman heads into the local barber shop one busy afternoon. The cadaverous barber attempts to sell his customer all manners of creams and colognes, but to no avail. What does catch the pudgy fellow’s eye is a gruesome sketch hanging on the wall depicting the infamous Sweeney Todd, grinning madly as he grips his razor over an unsuspecting customer. The barber doesn’t take the gentleman’s jests lightly and begins to illustrate the bloody tale of the demon barber who haunted that very spot oh so many years ago…

All aboard the time machine as we are driven on the wings of madness back to the seedy days of London in the 1800’s. As the citizens mill about the crowded and dirty streets, esteemed barber Sweeney Todd (Tod Slaughter) stalks through the darkened corners in his Sunday best of cloak and top hat. He has some dark intention on his mind, as we see him leering at a young couple standing by the docks. Brave sailor Mark Ingerstreet (Bruce Seton) is just saying goodbye to his pretty sweetheart Johanna Oakley (Eve Lister) as he prepares to journey to parts unknown. Meanwhile Mark’s plucky friend Pearley (Jerry Verno) is busy getting hit on by Johanna’s gangly nurse Nan (Davina Craig) and the chap can’t wait to shove off as soon as possible.

Just as Mark begins to complain of his financial woes and how Johanna’s father would never allow his daughter to wed a penniless sailor, the bulldog governor (D. J. Williams) strolls up in his carriage as if given a cue. The stern old codger shoos Mark away from Johanna, confirming that he would indeed keep the two at a polished cane’s distance as long as the seaman’s pockets remained empty. Distraught over the exchange, Mark and a thankful Pearley head on to the ship. We soon find out that the meeting was not so accidental and that it was the treacherous Todd who tipped Mr. Oakley off on the lovers’ meeting. Sweeney is now in well with daddy, and even gets an invitation to a mutton dinner at the estate to boot.

Charlie Brown in "The Last Shave."

Returning to his famed place of business on Fleet Street, Todd is delighted to discover that he has a visitor in the neighborhood beadle (Graham Soutten) who has come to deliver the barber’s new apprentice fetched from the workhouse. Although Sweeney has mysteriously gone through seven boy apprentices in just as many weeks, the beadle remains unsuspicious and young Toby (Johnny Singer) remains completely scared out of his knickers. His fears aren’t assuaged when Todd later warns the boy that children with long tongues and big eyes are likely to meet the edge of a razor if they go on tattling about anything. Talk about subtlety.

But Sweeney isn’t all sourness. He gives Toby a penny to fetch a pie at the baker’s shop next door owned by Mrs. Lovatt (Stella Rho). The kindly Lovatt is as sweet as one of her own cakes as she happily gives young Toby a meat pie, but we soon begin to suspect something when she takes a secret passageway to an underground dungeon that leads her right to Todd’s barbershop! It becomes clear that Mrs. Lovatt has a wee bit of a crush on ol’ Sweeney and doesn’t enjoy him making good with the Oakley family in order to woo little Johanna. Their little lover’s spat is interrupted when Toby returns, befuddled by Lovatt’s strange and sudden appearance in the shop. All he gets for his worries is more death threats from Sweeney and an unceremonious shove in the face. I want this guy for a babysitter.

After a healthy session of manscaping, Todd arrives at the Oakley residence and does his best to cozy up with Johanna. But you might as well have asked her to cuddle with a cactus, because sassy Miss Thang ain’t having none of that Slaughter love and prefers her men to be of a briny persuasion. Nettled but not defeated, Todd spends the next afternoon scoping out potential pickings at the port and finally sets his sights on a cheery fellow who couldn’t help but loudly exclaim over the vast fortune he’s currently carrying around in his man purse. The charming barber entices the sap to stop in for a shave, promising to “polish him off” (it’s hard to imagine anyone delivering this line as good as Slaughter). Sounds reputable to me. Let’s go!

The two men begin to converse as Toby mixes the hot water and prepares the cream to meet Sweeney’s blade. They talk of the usual things, such as how the roly-poly customer has no friends and family (save for his bag full of cash) and how no one would be remiss if he were to suddenly disappear. The smile that scissors across Slaughter’s face during this exchange is crazy-infectious. Just as he is about to begin his work, Sweeney kindly gives Toby a penny and tells him to grab some lunch at Mrs. Lovatt’s and be sure that he takes his time. It seems like anyone with half a brain would pass out from how rotten the stench in Denmark is by this point, but everyone just goes about smiling and chuckling.

Todd continues to laugh as he unveils a curtained lever which he happily pulls, sending his jovial customer ass-over-jowls through a revolving trapdoor in the floor. The bloke’s head soon gets acquainted with the stone floor in the dungeon and Sweeney chuckles deliriously as he walks down into the pit of death. Never one to jip a paying customer out of a shave, Sweeney cheerily finishes up his work by turning the dude’s throat into a sprinkler system with the help of his straight razor. Of course we never see any of this, but the crazed looks on Todd’s face are enough to convince us that some messed up shit just went down.

Did I mention I'm also a magician? Watch me make your entire blood supply disappear!

Sweeney isn’t so generous to his partner in crime, greedily snatching up the man’s jewels and bank notes with his sticky claws and shoving them into his trousers. When Lovatt enters looking for her split of the dough, Sweeney tells her that there isn’t much to be had and that he’ll come back for his half later! What an ass! Lovatt is then left in the basement to fill out her part of the dirty work. After all, those pies don’t fill themselves, ya know…

Todd proceeds to demonstrate the fine art of douchebaggery during his carriage ride through the park with Johanna that day when he “generously” bequeaths the stolen jewels to his beloved. The little shrew still isn’t impressed, but Sweeney patiently waits for his time. Half a world away near the Cape of Good Hope, Mark’s ship the Golden Hope has just steered onto the beach and the sailors disembark to meet an old man in the sweaty jungles. The crazy coot is holed up in his hut, afraid to leave for fear of the natives claiming his life and prized possession of priceless pearls.

Mark and the gang soon discover that the African men folk are indeed not too pleased with the presence of the Europeans, as seen in their protest for peace that includes massive spear impalement, uninhibited brutality, and an all-out unleashing of savagery on the sailors. Luckily for the seamen, the power of gunpowder triumphs and everyone is saved! Well, except for the old man and the captain of the ship who are both taken down by flying spears and arrows just as they begin cheering over their victory! A fine example of an EHNTLA* scene, for sure.

*Extremely Hard Not To Laugh At.

Upon his final breath, the crusty hut-man gives Mark the pouch containing the pearls, a gift for unsuccessfully saving his life, I suppose. Now with his new promotion to captain of the Golden Hope and a bag full of riches jingling in his sea-pants, Mark heads back to Mother England a new man set to marry Johanna. Speaking of the gal, Sweeney is still trying to shove his way into the family. His latest trick includes him threatening to take ownership of a vessel that governor Oakley had invested in, thus bringing the old man into Todd’s debt. Now with Sweeney being the big cheese that can determine whether the guv’nah spends the rest of his days in debtor’s prison or not, the barber figures that Johanna will surely fall into his clutches.

You know, Johanna, ever since you lost your cell phone I've been putting some more thought into this marrying Sweeney thing.

Stalking the alleys once again, Sweeney calls the beaming Mark over just as he arrives back in the country. Sure enough, the sailor passes the threshold into Sweeney’s shop and sits himself down for a little shave and haircut. But Mark didn’t expect that dropping in to the barbershop would involve an actual drop, but that sure is what he gets. Conked out from the fall, Mark remains unconscious in the dungeon until someone comes to the rescue. It’s Mrs. Lovatt, spurned by Todd’s attentions to Johanna and with a new agenda on her mind! She hides Mark in a crate before the cackling Sweeney can pounce on his prey. Needless to say Todd is perplexed and a bit pestered by his victim’s disappearance; he’s even duped by Lovatt to search the dark tunnel leading out into the street by candlelight while Lovatt guides Mark to safety.

Although the main ingredient for Mrs. Lovatt’s delicious meat pies got away, Todd was able to claim Mark’s pouch of pearls for himself and plans for the beauties to be the final push in staking his claim as Johanna’s husband. Calling in old friend and black market appraiser Mr. Findlay (Norman Pierce), Sweeney attempts to find out the price he can fetch for his ill-gotten gains. Findlay has a better idea though: the wise guy decides to blackmail the barber over the evidence that Todd’s rich customers have a funny habit of going into his shop but never coming out. How no one else ever noticed that is the real mystery in this picture! Todd’s idea is even better: he clomps the chatty Findlay over the noggin with a stool and then, placing the dead weight into the cursed chair, sends the trader spiraling down into the darkness. Sweeney then makes short work of polishing off his newly acquired customer…

Having been guided back to safety, Mark realizes that Sweeney is not a very nice man and decides to strike back at his attacker. Entering the barber shop in a clever disguise, Mark is able to talk with Toby about his master’s strange mannerisms. Realizing that the swine wants Johanna’s hand (and probably the rest of her, too) Mark asks Toby to warn his beloved as soon as possible. Sweeney uses his old disappearing customer trick again, but Mark isn’t the type of guy who gets fooled twice. With the help of Pearley waiting in the dungeon below, Mark escapes from the mad barber’s clutches yet again.

Sweeney is not very pleased with his measly two for two score, so he takes out his bad sportsmanship on Lovatt. Accusing her of stabbing him in the back to keep all the riches for herself, Sweeney shows Mrs. Lovatt what a fair guy he is by giving her a little stabbing of his own as she attempts to run away screaming. After getting the scoop from little Toby, Johanna decides to infiltrate Sweeney’s lair by posing as a replacement boy apprentice in order to reclaim Mark’s jewels. Brilliant! Unfortunately this involves leaving poor Toby stuck at Johanna’s house… and in her casual gown while the lady borrows his clothes. This kid can NOT get a break!

Be gender confused in my shop, will you?

After offing Lovatt (and placing her in a pie? No one knows… but it sure is nice to dream!), Sweeney is preparing a little fire to warm his freezing bones. And engulf the entire shop and all evidence of the crimes in a flaming inferno. Johanna’s arrival stops the killer short, and instead of giving the cross dresser a good kick in the pants Todd invites the girl in anyway. But once Johanna starts getting snoopy the suspecting Sweeney wrestles the lad/lass into submission and knocks her unconscious. I like to think that Sweeney knew it was Johanna all along and punched her out anyway. Stuffing the interloper in a closet, the black-hearted devil lights a stack of kindling in the dungeon and runs away laughing as the place goes up in smoke.

Gathering up a purse full of his treasures, Sweeney escapes into the streets as the black smoke begins to consume the night air and bring gawking on-lookers to the scene. Just then Mark runs onto the scene and breaks into the shop to save Johanna. There’s a great moment here where Slaughter looks like he’s seriously debating what to do… flee with his goods or take the time to polish off the one that got away? The latter compulsion gets the better of him and Sweeney barrels through the crowd to confront Mark just as he’s carrying Johanna to safety. The two men interlock in an epic struggle, and it looks like Sweeney just might make a second mouth in Mark’s throat yet. But this is a melodrama; we can’t get that dark.

Sure enough Mark is able to wrestle the oaf off of him and deliver a solid punch to Sweeney’s jaw that sends him packing. Mark carries his love out to safety and both rejoice at the sight of each other… and their new bag of riches that Sweeney had left in the street. The flames cause a beam to collapse, activating the barber’s lever of death and sending Sweeney through his own trapdoor and into the gaping mouth of Hell below (Best. Death. EVER!). Back in the present time, it’s needless to say our pudgy businessman has been put off by all this talk of killer barbers and runs out into the street creamed up and all. A run-in with a street side vendor selling meat pies is the last thing our poor businessman sees before heading into the hills for good.

"No one else knows your terrible secret, Sweeney. No one else knows that you... use ROGAINE!"
"Wench!"

Chances are this is the film that the majority have seen Tod Slaughter’s name associated with. I myself have vague recollections of passing down the aisles of Wal-Mart and other stores, seeing that mischievous smile on Slaughter’s face beaming up at me from the dark recesses of the bargain bin. I had actually watched all of Sweeney Todd on one occasion when I was younger but, as I had yet to develop a true appreciation for the cheesier side of cinema, it passed by me as nothing but a momentary amusement that was quickly forgotten. It hurts admitting that now, but tis the absolute truth, dear readers.

But now that all the foolishness of adolescence has left me (well…), I can bask in the brilliance that is Tod Slaughter. This is the actor at one of his most nefarious and blood-curdling, and he’s an absolute delight here in the infamous role that he made his own on the stages of Britain. From the sinister smiles he twists his lips into when chiding/warning young Toby or the guttural chuckles that he emits when closing in on another victim to “polish off”, this is pure gold. Plus this movie has, without a DOUBT, the best evil laugh that Slaughter exhibits on screen. It’s a dry, sardonic cackle that inspires endless giggles and a heavenly glow to warm the hearts of all who hear it.

As opposed to later versions of the story in film and Stephen Sondheim’s bloody musical, Slaughter’s Sweeney Todd just barely touches on the whole cannibalism angle of the tale. As mentioned, Todd only makes a passing reference to the messy chore Lovatt needs to complete in the dungeon’s depths. For the most part we’re left to fill in the gaps of the implications of that. The flesh-eating ploy is used rather humorously in a short segment where the clueless Pearley hungrily munches down on one of the pies. “What does he do with the bodies?” one befuddled sailor cries out. “How should I know?” responds Pearley as he takes another drooling bite. It’s subtle, but it’s oh so sweet. It’s little moments like that where you can appreciate the grim hints and not be bombarded with in-you-face gruesomeness. Although that does have its plusses too.

Doh! That's our Pearley!

Director George King really captures the atmosphere and flavor (sorry) of the penny dreadfuls from which the character of Sweeney Todd frequented. The film has that dank, molding aroma about its grimy wharfs and dusty shops that gives it a sumptuous and genuine antiquity. Add to that the theatrical acting of Mr. Slaughter and all his fellow players in their roles of familiar stock characters (brave hero, innocent damsel, authoritative father, etc.) and you have a film that seems to be a true relic of the time that it tries to recreate. If King’s mission was to effectively manifest the bloody, lurid passages from the cheap paper of the magazines to crackling black and white film, I would say that he passed with flying colors.

Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street would be my personal recommendation for the film to use as an introduction to Slaughter cinema for any newcomers to the man’s work. It delivers in all the areas to be expected in his pictures, and in a way that some might say surpasses his other cinematic efforts. You have the thrilling storyline littered with ghoulish crimes aplenty that are, most importantly, perpetrated by a villain of all trades who is detestable right from the crown of his parted hair down to the soles of his dirty boots. This one comes with my highest praises, and one viewing will be enough to show you just what it is that makes Tod Slaughter the great villainous thespian that he is. Dig in and eat up!

The things I do for kicks!

Little Toddy Slaughter's Christmas List

2010-12-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Mr. Claus,

As I have been a very good boy this year, I would be most delighted to see that every item on this following list be met and delivered to me immediately upon Christmas morn. If they are not… well, I can assure you that I am a man not to be trifled with. Suffice it to say that I hold no reservations concerning the brutal torture of work elves or the most delicious murder of one Mrs. Claus. I’m quite handy with a pistol, you see, and if my wishes are not met you will soon discover just what a holy day Christmas really is.

1. A bottle of skin lotion. My palms are beginning to rash from all the nefarious rubbing!

2. Another false mustache for my collection.

3. Speaking of pistols, I would just love one that had unlimited ammunition. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been faced with a gun that had only more bullet in the stock!

4. A puppy. The ladies seem to go to pieces over them, so whatever makes the wooing process easier is a definite must.

5. A bottle of cough medicine. One can laugh diabolically only so many times…

6. The Sex and the City Season 2 DVD set. Do not judge me, old man.

7. On second thought, make that two puppies. I lost my old kickball.

8. A bottle of cyanide. I’m trying to bring a new edge to the poison pen market.

9. A new shiny razor. All those beautiful throats I’d like to polish off…

10. Another top hat to wear about town. I require it to be at least three feet in height.

11. A nice, strong leash. I need the utmost in security when I take my rabid foster brother out for walks.

12. I also need a present for my Secret Santa project. I think a batch of dynamite should do the trick.

13. A box of rubbers. Come now, Santa. I’m no fool.

14. A nice, tailored handkerchief. The women have a rather bad habit of vomiting in my mouth everytime I go in for the romantic kiss.

15. A cure for world hunger and peace amongst all humans on this most beautiful planet of ours.

Just kidding! Hahahahahaha!

Yours untruthfully,

Toddy Slaughter

Slaughter Linkapalooza: December 19

2010-12-19T20:32:00.003-05:00

Ho ho ho, my merry fiends! I hope you've been enjoying the diabolical doings of the Tod Slaughter Christmas thus far. If your black and corrupted gullets have not been satiated yet, never fear! There is much more skullduggery to be had from the master, and these nightly postings will keep you abreast of all the other fantastic writers out there who have been inspired by Toddy's madness.

Our first offering comes from Matthew Coniam, the beloved caretaker of Carfax Abbey, a wonderful blog that is no stranger to the horrors of the past (for instance, check out Matt's awesome upcoming PRC Month, dedicated to some of the poverty row thrillers of yore). Here Mr. Coniam gives us a blast from the past in his extensive and extremely insightful article Tod Slaughter, The Villain They Loved!. Give ol' Master Matt's place a good look while you're there, and be sure to tell him the Monster sent ya!

That's all we have for tonight, kiddies. But don't worry... I foresee many, many terrors in the week to come that are sure to send shivers down your knickers. The Slaughter season is just beginning; so hold on to your undergarments because things are about to get craaazy. Tally ho!

Murder In The Red Barn (1935): I Just Killed A Girl Named Maria

2010-12-19T12:00:00.001-05:00

Directed by Milton Rosmer
Written by Randal Faye
Starring Tod Slaughter, Sophie Stewart, Eric Portman, D. J. Williams, and Dennis Hoey

“It’s the spirit that counts!”

The opening credits thrust us right into the landscape that our story is to take place in: a patch of farmland where a thunderstorm ravages the heavens, giving brief flashes of the titular barn as it juts from the shadows. We are then brought into a noisy and crowded theater, lights and chatter ablaze just as the show is about to begin. An aged announcer introduces each of the characters in the sordid drama that is going to be played out for our enjoyment. Finally the announcer gravely cues the arrival of Mr. Tod Slaughter himself, stalking onto the stage boards in character as the villainous Squire William Corder (and to claps and cheers as well, as opposed to the boos and hisses I was happily anticipating!). Slaughter recedes into the darkness of the wings and the tragic tale of Maria Marten begins…

There’s a hootenanny of a hoedown going on in Squire Corder’s barn house. Practically all the members of the village are dancing up and down the hay-strewn ground to the spirited plucks and blows of the country band. Everyone is in spirited dance, even the squire himself with the darkly beautiful town vixen Maria Marten (Sophie Stewart). Corder is all gum drops and sugar plums, especially when he lays the honey on Maria’s parents by reminding them of what an awesome fella he is for renting out his barn for the occasion. But one hot young punk who isn’t taken with Corder’s affluence as much as everyone else is Carlos (Eric Portman), a fiery gypsy who also has his admiring eyes directed right at Maria’s erotic form.

The man, the myth, the smile.

Maria makes a quick excuse with “It’s hot in here, father” (I’m sure it is, baby) in order to speak with Carlos in private. The hot-blooded outcast is none too pleased with the flirts that Maria has been passing out to Corder like free candy. Maria is his, ya see? And he ain’t gonna let no stuffed shirt get his greedy paws all over her. He demonstrates his point by planting his firm, mustachioed lips on the soft, pink ones of Maria. The ones on her face, people. Stay with me. At the other end of the barn, Corder is having his palm read by an elderly crone from Carlos’ mad posse. The witch says she sees a future at the gallows, with a noose that has the good squire’s name on it!

Naturally William doesn’t take to this idea and begins shoving the gypsy about and shouting all manners of un-niceties before Carlos can bravely intervene. Corder tells the greasy fellow to take a hike and to quit squandering about with good farmer Marten’s daughter. The elderly Marten (D. J. Williams) shares the squire’s sentiments, and forbids Maria from running around with a filthy lot like the gypsies and instead entrusts her in the care of Corder. Big mistake.

Maria shows that she has just as much brains as her father and twice his sexual curiousness when she sneaks to the squire’s house (under the pretense of attending choir practice no less!). Corder of course is more than pleased, and sets right away to locking doors, pouring drinks, and flattering the pretty thing to no end. You can tell that all the squire wants is a cozy evening at home. With maybe a little bit of Scrabble. And then a wee bit of creepy lovemaking. Not necessarily in that order. Back at the Marten household, daddy figures out that Maria has been a little naughty, but believes that it’s that no good Carlos who’s up to the shenanigans.

Little does he know that the good, pure, and righteous Corder has just finished ravaging the wall of chastity that previously protected Maria’s sacred love dome. That’s right, that lecherous creep has just had his way with the damsel under the guise of a respected member of the community. You really have to respect that kind of integrity. Maria sniffles over her predicament but Corder, ever the gentleman, gently soothes her worries by telling Maria that they will be wedded soon and that their little nighttime affair best be kept a secret until that time. Dad catches Maria just as she’s returning and she just so happened to have run into Carlos at that same moment. Marten casts his aspersions and slaps on Carlos (who realizes what has just transpired with Maria), but the gypsy goes along with the act to protect the woman he loves.

It isn’t long before Marten puts two and two together and figures out that someone has been picking at his daughter’s cherry tree pre-season. The farmer brings his suspicions to Corder, who for a few tense moments thinks that the old man is on to him. This includes Slaughter’s eyes getting as big as saucers, his voice taking on a fluttering stutter, and even him taking out his handkerchief and wringing it in worried anticipation RIGHT IN FRONT of Marten! Subtlety never was one of Slaughter’s fortes, which is one of the reasons he’s so delightful to watch. Despite all these neon signs pointing to Corder’s guilt, old man Marten sticks the defilement on Carlos’ hands (what did I just TYPE?!) and Corder slips back into cool cat mode and goes along with the game. After swearing to drive the gypsies out like the unwanted cockroaches they are, Corder’s first order of business is setting a departure for London immediately. Good on ya, Toddy.

Hurry up and drink! The pills lose their effect after awhile!

Oh, but things are no better in Merry Old England for Master William. Seems Corder has a bad gambling habit and the next thing you know he’s indebted to a master player who possesses a grand moustache that he strokes grandly. That would be Dennis Hoey. I don’t know, I just felt weird placing the actor’s name in parentheses after that long description. Anywho, Corder owes this bloke 6,000 pounds, money which he does not have. So Corder spits on his hands and gets right to work… swindling his way into the Sennett family fortune by wooing the rather visually unappealing daughter into marriage. What? You thought Corder would get into honest work? Perish the thought!

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Maria has been feeling a tad woozy, and she soon admits to her mother that she has been suffering from morning sickness. Marten overhears the conversation and soon it’s the whole “I disown you, leave this house you harlequin, I have no daughter” schpiel that ends in Maria leaving in a weeping fit and Marten putting up his “Bitch, please!” hand to the weak protestations of his inferior wife. So now without hearth and home, Maria heads into the warm embrace of not Carlos, but the good squire his ownself. Corder has a bit more baggage on his hands with the whole marriage swindle and everything, but he’s never short of good ideas. Hearing of the bastard child he has sired, Corder bribes Maria to wed gypsy Carlos with a monetary prize and sets a rendezvous date and time to stage the elopement.

Maria obligingly meets the squire on the farmland by night, in an appropriate enough get up that makes her look like Little Red Riding Hood. The wolfish Corder, arriving in his sheep clothes of cloak and epically large top hat, guides Maria to the Red Barn with a leer on his face that shows with every flash of lightning that sparks the air. Once safely inside, the cuckoo Corder reveals his true intentions of killing Maria and leaving her body to rot, all the while maintaining one of the most deranged smiles ever seen by human eyes. Maria takes off running as Corder tails her, cackling all the while.

Cornering her like a trapped animal, the squire guns the wench down with one blow of from his trusty pistol. A grave is shortly dug for Corder’s bride of death and the body is unceremoniously tossed inside. While he’s filling in the earth (a sequence that includes a pre-Evil Dead dirt toss at the camera), Corder unknowingly tosses the murder weapon into the grave. Thunder roaring and post-homicide thrills getting the best of him, Corder completes his odious task and scrams.

Here's to stuffed shirts, illegal activities, and women's rights!

When news reaches the gypsy camp that little Maria has done gone vanished, the suspecting Carlos heads over to Corder’s estate just as he is gleefully taking in the glory of his bloated bank account after having wedded the Sennett gal. Corder’s victory is short lived when Carlos barges in, because the boy’s got a dagger and he is pissed. Carlos can smell Corder’s guilt all over him, but the squire never lets on (although he still can’t get that villainous smirk off his face). He turns the tables on the tarot-reader and brings up the fact that Carlos had been with Maria near the Red Barn just before she vanished. Indeed, Carlos had tried talking the girl out of her affiliations with the shady squire, but the proud woman hadn’t budged from her date with Corder. That’s what free will and independence gets you, ladies!

Luckily for Corder, Marvelous Mustache Man enters and scares Carlos into a darkened corner just long enough for Corder to scribble a message of his plight on a check. The gambler gets the idea and exits the room to round up his gang of gypsy-hunting aristocrat friends. Carlos hardly gets a minute to swear on his mission to prove Corder’s implication in the crime before he’s chased out by the mob, even getting slugged with a bullet in the arm by Corder’s pistol.*

*Don’t worry, that’s no continuity error. The squire packs two guns. Can you say badass?

The wounded gypsy leads a chase across the countryside, and wouldn’t you know where his trail just so happens to end? That’s right, the Red Barn! His blockades are no match for the frothing jowls of the bloodhounds and Carlos is duly put under arrest for the abduction of Maria Marten, despite his pleas of innocence and insistence that the squire is behind the crime. Just as the elder Marten and Corder smugly ascertain Carlos’ guilt, one of the doggy woggys begins sniffing and scratching at a particular spot on the ground.

You done got caught.

Uh oh is right. Carlos, being the quick witted fella he is, immediately claims that Corder murdered Maria and buried her corpse underneath the barn. I’m guessing gypsies must be used to this type of activity. Of course Corder scoffs at the claims but soon the entire posse sides with Carlos and ask the squire to dig in order to prove the accusations false. Too much confidence will get you nowhere, Toddy. Corder begrudgingly begins to slowly shovel away the earth, stopping every now and then to take in the full breadth of the deep shit he’s in. His attempts to end the demonstration fall on deaf ears and a few more turns of the spade turn up an ace in Carlos’ hole: Corder’s pistol!

A quick comparison to the heat Corder’s packing now proves that the two weapons are indeed identical, matching initials and all (note to would-be killers: try avoiding that). A few more digs from Corder’s shaky shovel reveal the putrefied remains of the once beautiful Maria Marten. Though we never actually see it, everyone just acts like there’s a slimy dead whore in front of them. But who are we to argue? We’re just the audience! Daddy’s heartsick, Carlos is still one pissed mofo, and Corder is shaking in his lovely polished, knee-high boots. But he won’t go down that easy!

Snatching up the pistol, he holds his would-be captors at bay with a promise of death, even though one brave soul points out that the squire has only one bullet left in the stock. The raving squire is just about to deliver on his promise when he takes another glimpse into the pit before him. “Don’t stare at me, Maria!” he shrieks, dropping the gun and clutching his head. The bloke has gone bonkers and he’s soon taken into his jail cell where he awaits death by hanging. Upon the fateful day, the volunteer executioner is revealed to be none other than Carlos, finally dealing out the justice he so badly wanted. As the drum beats out its mounting crescendo, poor Willy Corder closes his eyes as he tries on his brand new necktie.

I have some hard candy in my pocket for nice little boys who put their knives away.

Murder in the Red Barn marks the first foray into cinema from noted British stage actor Tod Slaughter. Contrary to what is popularly believed, Slaughter had only just begun to portray villainous roles on stage (he even played master detective Sherlock Holmes on at least one occasion!) and it was this film that made Slaughter a household name and forever sealed his fate as portraying the cackling, insidious fiends he is famous for today. And what a start Murder in the Red Barn is to a career full of no-good-doing and maiden stealing!

Slaughter perfectly captures the balance between the charming mannerism of an upper crust member of society and the filthy mental workings of a sexual fiend and scoundrel. Everytime he smiles I couldn’t help but imagine those wolves you hear about in fairy tales; seemingly kind and compassionate, paw extended out in friendship, but with a salivating grin and wagging tail that suggests diabolical purposes. And the funny thing is it’s painfully obvious that the squire is up to no good, but everyone around him acts like he’s just a slightly eccentric man about town (a theme that recurs in many Slaughter features). Man, those social titles really get you around.

The film is a bit shocking in some regards. The implication of the squire’s sexual deviancy is made pretty clear, particularly strong for a film from the 30’s. Especially grisly is the idea that this debonair douche, after defiling an admittedly flirty but still innocent girl, would go and bust a cap in her bonnet after hearing that he had done gone and made her preggers. THE GIRL HAD A CHILD IN HER WOMB AND HE SHOT HER DEAD AND BURIED HER IN THE BARN! That is harsh, Slaughter! I heard your depravity knew no limits, but damn man. Take it easy. This is just the first film in the marathon, for Pete’s sake.

Speaking of which, Murder in the Red Barn holds the unique distinction of killing off the leading lady without so much as the bat of an eye. In all the other films, the hero and heroine are pure and chaste, put in peril and danger during the majority of the story but ultimately coming out alright (Trust me, I’m really not spoiling anything there. Besides, who watches these movies for them?). But this film has a grittiness and darkness to it that it sets it apart from the rest, and I really like that. It makes you lose your trust in the story, unsure of which direction it’s going to take you next. I dig it.

Although it contains the aesthetics of a Victorian melodrama with its stereotypical stock characters and stage-friendly acting, Murder in the Red Barn was, at least to me, very reminiscent of the murder/revenge tales that frequented the panels of E. C. Comics in the 50’s. Predating the four-color horrors by about 15 years, the film incorporates the deranged villains and cold-blooded murders that haunted those pages. This is especially seen in the poetic justice served during the film’s climax. With tension building as the squire digs up Maria’s grave (easily the best scene), that final punch is delivered when it is revealed that the criminal’s own foolhardiness has led to his downfall. Even more delicious than that is the fact that Carlos acts as the masked executioner at Corder’s hanging. That ending just screams E. C. justice in the best sense. And after everything that Carlos went through, it’s nice to see him get the last laugh.

Murder in the Red Barn is a more than promising start to Slaughter’s prolific film career as everyone’s favorite villain. With a brutal story ripped straight from the history books (and the real William Corder’s body ripped right in half for anatomical and curiosity purposes), Murder in the Red Barn is a romping good time and a most excellent beginning to a week-long appreciation of a master.

Heh heh, that's all folks!

THE TOD SLAUGHTER CHRISTMAS OFFICIALLY BEGINS!

2010-12-19T06:00:00.002-05:00

Do you hear what I hear? Amidst the clanging of the church bells in the square and the delighted squeals of children as they press their pinched faces against the warm glow of the candy shop's window, there is another sound that hearkens a special time of the year. Is it...? Could it be...? Yes, it is! It's the jolly, depraved laugh of St. Slaughter, ringing the changes of the year and riding into town to drop a load of terror and crime upon all the unfortunates. Which can only mean one thing...

THE TOD SLAUGHTER CHRISTMAS HAS ARRIVED!!!

Be sure to stop by here on a regular basis to see all the Yuletide goodies that myself and some of my blogging compatriots have in store for you. And if you're interested in contributing, it's still not too late to join in on the festivities! Just notify me of any and all pieces you may write either by leaving a link in the comments section or just by emailing the link (or entire piece for those of you who don't have a blog) to me at joemonster25 [at] yahoo [dot] com!

There'll be more ne'er-do-welling around these parts in the festive week to come than you can shake an angry fist at. So heap the chestnuts on the fire, hang the stockings up, lock grandma away so that Toddy doesn't have his way with her, and prepare to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year by honoring the most vile villain of the century!

And in the great words of the man himself... "MWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Head Display

2010-12-15T17:47:00.003-05:00

Continuing with the exploration into horrific theater from the last post, here's a video of a great and diabolical performance put on by an Oregon-based troupe called The Tragedies from four years ago. The Tragedies put on several plays that were revivals of the grotesque and kinky shows that debuted in France's notorious Grand Guignol, and this one is a favorite of mine. It's a dark comedy about what happens when some people go poking their heads in the wrong places. According to the Youtube page this vile vignette is called "Chop Chop" and it is indeed a riotous, gory affair that'll leave you in pieces. Watch out for Madame Guillotine!

Doing The Necronomicon On Friday The 13th

2010-12-13T12:00:00.000-05:00

This is a short critique I did on Evil Dead: The Musical for my Introduction to Theater class. Instead of writing a flat out review, we had to answer questions built around Aristotle's six elements of a play (plot, thought, character, diction, spectacle, and song). The result was somewhat amusing, as I was trying to sound as academically correct as possible while discussing intense gore scenes and tap dancing demons. The post title comes from the fact that the show I attended was on August 13th of this year, a most appropriate opening night that happened to land on a Friday. I thought it would be a nice segue into a new feature that I'm installing on FBD called Stage Fright, where I'll be analyzing plays, musicals, and other forms of theater that touch upon the horror genre and other dark themes. And you thought phantoms were the only thing to worry about...

It’s pretty clear from the start that a production that goes by the name of Evil Dead: The Musical is not exactly what most of the theater-going public would consider “high art.” Indeed, everything that one is to encounter in regards to this show makes this more than clear. Anecdotes in the program that detail the cast and crew’s deranged enthusiasm for the horror-comedy and promotional blurbs that advertise the show’s “Splatter Zone” (the first few rows of seats in the theater where several unlucky audience members are sprayed with prosthetic blood) make it clear that the production is aimed at visceral reactions and cheap thrills.

Having viewed all three of the films that the play pays homage too (and loving every one of them), I had a sense of the atmosphere that was to exude from the small black box that makes up Stage II at Venice Theater. Venice Theater’s Stage II has created a reputation for delving into some of the more adventurous theater fare. As opposed to the mainstream musicals and well-known dramas that play on VT’s Mainstage, Stage II has put on productions that challenge its audiences with darker themes, unconventional techniques, and brash comedy. So it only seemed natural that Evil Dead: The Musical, with its lighthearted approach to demonic possession, dismemberment, and show tunes should be put on in the infamous confines of Stage II.

A press photo from the Venice Theater production.

The plot is simple enough: a group of college students decide to vacation at an abandoned cabin in the woods only to be preyed upon by the angry spirits of the forest in an unrelenting shower of spilled plasma and excruciating puns. The book by George Reinblatt is effective in its blending of elements from the three separate films of the series into one, coherent whole. Even though the first film was a semi-serious horror film, the series began to delve more into the realm of dark comedy over time, and the musical reflects the tongue-in-cheek nature of the later films to massive effect.

Our central character is Ash, the only student who is able to fend off the demons from controlling his body. The supernatural dilemma forces Ash to make decisions he never thought he’d have to make, namely decapitating his girlfriend and chopping off his own hand when it develops a mind of its own. The thoughts behind the play are not by any means “deep”; it simply seeks to titillate its audience with a display of over-the-top gore and low farce. If the Thought were to be called any one thing, it would be to make the audience laugh at things that are typically deemed not very funny (death, mutilation, etc.), and this is a theme that can apply to any culture, anywhere.

The use of song and spectacle are used to further the plot, albeit if both may be a bit gratuitous at times. One song in particular describes the terrified feelings of Ash and his friend Scott but, in the true tradition of the show, the number is aptly named “What the F**k Was That?” The set pieces themselves are used to illustrate advancements in the plot, such as the moment when Ash begins descending into madness and all the stuffed animals in the cabin come to life and sing a tune about our hero’s predicament in a mocking tone. While some may consider a production of this nature a waste of time, this particular critic deems it a worthy mission of VT’s Stage II crew to have put on a production that flies in the face of good taste and have a great time while doing it. It brought laughter to the community as surely as the sun brings light to the day, and that’s all that it really needed to do.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: Here There Be Monsters

2010-12-08T13:31:00.007-05:00

*Yet another piece dug up from the archives of Classic-Horror. I'm a little short on new material in these days preceding the Tod Slaughter Christmas event, so I hope all the stuff I have in store for later this month makes up for these recaps!*

My views on this novel, not unlike the central creature of the story, may seem to be nothing more than a collection of deceased components that have been resurrected into a grotesque half-life. “Frankenstein,” penned by 19-year-old Mary Shelley, has been critiqued, studied, and anatomically dissected (no pun intended) by literary analysts big and small. Everything that could have possibly been discussed and brought up from this book already has been… and then was talked about some more.

Therefore, it is somewhat intimidating for a meager blogger such as myself to delve into the multiple complexities and interpretations that arise from this landmark in horror and the world of literature as a whole without repeating things that have already been said. But there is a thunderous rumbling in the sky that is urging me forward and compelling me to continue in my dark studies. So with the eagerness of the devoted student of midnight, I will compile together a creature that will hopefully be more appealing to the eye than Shelley’s tragic monster.

The harrowing tale of Victor Frankenstein and his attempts to emulate Nature’s power to create is a story that people of all ages can most likely remember as clearly as their favorite bedtime fairy tale. But there are no charming princes and Happily Ever Afters™ for the characters of Shelley’s story. Having an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge since boyhood and reading of the medieval alchemists, Victor Frankenstein enters college determined to accumulate information on all learned subjects.

When Victor’s mind turns to creating his very own species, the possessed student resorts to collecting body parts from churchyards and charnel houses to construct his perfect being. But alas, when Victor accomplishes his goal and the creature is bestowed life, the creator shuns the abhorrent form of the “monster”… setting in motion a series of events that will end in misery and woe for the both of them.

Despite the appearance of the gruesome subject matter, Shelley’s novel possesses an enchanting, lyrical beauty that fills the reader’s heart with an overwhelming pathos that goes out to both Frankenstein and his creature. Even from the very beginning with Walton’s opening words, Shelley writes in a way that one can only say is profoundly beautiful. These emotions are usually registered when the characters are observing something that is, to them, completely new and heavenly in nature.

Frankenstein and Walton discuss the wonders of Nature, from the icy plains of the Arctic to the titanic mountains of Europe. The pure majesty of these descriptions takes the reader away into the world of the characters and makes them feel as if they are witnessing the grand spectacles themselves. It is somewhat ironic that both men hold so great a value for these earthly beauties created by some almighty being, but at the same time, whether consciously or not, both are seeking to emulate and possibly replace this creator by discovering and exercising its sacred powers.

The Creature’s descriptions of the De Lacey family’s activities also capture the attention of the reader. Having not had a normal existence by any means, the Creature watches from his hidden hovel in rapt interest at the functions of the family as they go about the daily chores and duties that we all take for granted. The simplest and most insignificant parts of our day-to-day lives are observed by the Creature as magnificent wonders in which he wishes to be a participant. It opens our hearts and later our minds to the Creature’s desires and wants.

The Creature tries to gradually expose himself to the family whom he believes to be kind-hearted and open-minded. In perhaps the most powerful episode of the entire novel, the Creature begins to make some progress with the eldest member of the clan who happens to be blind. But just before he reaches the summit of his arduous journey, the rest of the family comes home and misinterpret the scene. This climax hits us hard, a cement block blow to the chest, and readers may catch themselves internally screaming “No!” This deep connection might not have been possible if it was not for Shelley’s expert portrayal of all her misguided characters.

There is an ongoing struggle occurring not just between Frankenstein and the Creature, but in the reader’s mind as well as the story progresses. It is not a hard task to revile Victor for his unforgivable hubris and cruel abandonment of his creature, but he later forsakes his dark acts and realizes his mistakes. The same is thought of the Creature himself; we cheer him on as he attempts to slowly integrate himself into the human race, but he is always turned away simply on the basis of his disfigured countenance. It seems perfectly natural for him to seek vengeance against Victor for not being the guiding light he so desperately needed.

But just because they may seem justified on face value, are the Creature’s actions truly good? He is fueled mostly by the idea of creating as much misery for Victor as he has suffered throughout his short but bleak life. This hardly seems the thought process of a completely benevolent and pure being. And, like Victor, the Creature is later repulsed by his horrendous acts and seeks atonement for his crimes. Whose side should we be on then? Who is the true “monster” in this case? Do either one of them deserve the treatment they receive? These questions are constantly asked even until the story’s conclusion and, chances are, will continue to be asked even after the book is finished. This book isn’t demanding answers though. It simply poses these questions to the reader and allows them to think what they will, which is undoubtedly the reason for the countless essays and studies written concerning it.

Usually touted as being a horror classic, “Frankenstein” seems more akin to the famous tragedies of Greece and Shakespeare. The most horror-esque scene in the entire novel, as you’ve probably guessed, is the infamous scene of the monster’s creation. Having collected all the ligaments and parts of cadavers from the darkest and dankest of graves, Victor gives his creation unholy life in a trance-like state one dreary November night. But don’t expect an electric light show courtesy of Spencer’s Gifts or even Edison’s bubbling cauldron from the 1910 film version. Victor (and Shelley) never discloses the life endowment process to the reader. In the context of the story, Victor tells Walton that he doesn’t want others to make his same horrible mistakes. But on another level, this creates a whole new sense of mystery surrounding the Creature’s origins and adds to his shadowy, less-than-human aura.

As read by yours truly, I saw the novel as a grand performance of one of humankind’s oldest themes: the rise and descent of Man. It is a drama that unfolds in such a way that you can’t help but emotionally invest yourself in every one of the characters and their fates. I feel that if one were to go into the novel looking for the subject of their next thesis that the book’s true impact would be lost. I feel it should be read as a visceral, emotional piece, for the whole spectrum of the human condition is illustrated in every chapter. You will feel a terrible anger at Victor’s unjust rejection of his own creature; a horrible pain will rack your soul when you witness the Creature’s attempts to gain companionship, only to be met by blind hatred; and a strange comfort will settle over you when both the creator and the created meet their final peace.

Let the emotions wash over and chill you like the icy waves of the northern lands that the book’s conclusion takes place in. You are bound to never forget the novel’s haunting passages, for they will constantly be with you, a restless spirit whose face can never escape your mind. Just before the creature departs for his final mission, he leaves Walton saying this: “He is dead who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.” You may be gone Frankenstein, but you shall never truly be forgotten.

Come Celebrate A Tod Slaughter Christmas At FBD!

2010-12-05T16:30:00.001-05:00

Season's greetings, everyone! Christmas is quickly approaching and, depending on who you are, this can be a time of extreme child-like bliss or the worst case of suicide-inducing stress. With the madness that is shopping for gifts and the plague of out-of-towners making a simple drive to the grocery store a living nightmare from Hell manifested, we may lose our grip on the joys that the winter season has to bring with it. So, in an attempt to spread the happiness and warm-heartedness of the holidays, I have decided to dedicate all of Christmas week to the one man who can make anyone bust out in a cheery, rosy-cheeked smile: Mr. Tod Slaughter!

Who is this Slaughter bloke you say? For those of you who have yet to be initiated into the nefarious religion of Slaughterdom, Tod Slaughter was a British stage actor who rose to prominence starring in films made in the 30's and 40's. Mr. Slaughter's specialty (which his name so appropriately hints at) was playing the scummiest, most black-hearted, and treacherous villains to have stalked the halls of horror cinema. He performed each of his roles with such giddy relish and depraved enthusiasm that he has somewhat justifiably been compared to being a real live Dick Dastardly.

With a reputation such as that, how can the man not deserve a week-long appreciation in his name? As stated, the event will take place all of Christmas week, starting on Sunday the 19th and rolling all the way down to the momentous day itself on Saturday the 25th. Each day I'll be posting a review of one of Tod's most famous films, along with any other Slaughter-related goodies I can dig up to tickle your crooked spines.

Contributions from other blogs and sites are more than welcome, and I'll post links to any pieces that are published here on FBD each day I receive them for readers to peruse. Even if you don't have your own personal space here on the interwebs but still want to get in on the Slaughter love, contact me to make arrangements to have your tributes published here! This is my first time trying my hand at the whole blogathon schpiel, so I'm looking forward to seeing new and familiar faces turn out for the event in the spirit of the holiday and Tod Slaughter!

Your contributions can be in any format you choose, just as long as it concerns that nefarious British villain that we all love to hate! Films reviews, retrospectives, videos, biographies, original artwork, photo galleries, and just about anything in between can be used for the festivities! Just make sure that you post it sometime within the aforementioned time span and I'll be sure to post your pieces as soon as I can. All those interested can get in touch with me through these things:

Email: joemonster25 [at] yahoo [dot] com.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jose.cruz#!/profile.php?id=100000061911803

Here I have some banners that I created for the occasion for all the participants to post on their own blogs. You can have them link to FBD's home page (www.frombeyonddepraved.blogspot.com) or this here page that contains all the blogathon details (http://frombeyonddepraved.blogspot.com/2010/12/come-celebrate-tod-slaughter-christmas.html). Even if you can't participate in the shenanigans, just grab one of the banners below to put up on your site and help spread the word!

The event's just two weeks away, so start scheming on whatever diabolical works you have planned to create in the name of Slaughter. In the meantime, be sure to lock your doors and tuck the children in tight, gang. Toddy's coming to town, and he's got a bag full of murder and mayhem for everyone. Especially the nice ones.

Horror Rises From The Tomb (1973): Pardon Me, But Your Head Is In My Chest

2010-12-02T14:00:00.003-05:00

Directed by Carlos Aured
Written by Paul Naschy
Starring Paul Naschy, Emma Cohen, Victor Alcazar, Helga Line, and Betsabe Ruiz

Death is in the air in 15th century France. A cart pulled by oxen is flanked by a company of knights and other dignitaries on horseback. The two black souls in tow on the cart are the evil sorcerer Alaric de Marnac (Paul Naschy) and his equally wicked but oh-so-easy on the eyes partner Mabille (Helga Line). Instead of creating a wacky sitcom where the two Devil worshippers would get into one zany black magic antic after the other, the dabblers in darkness decided to stick with drinking the blood and eating the flesh of the innocent.

The kingdom hasn’t taken too kindly to their acts of debauchery and has sentenced each of them to death. Old Naschy has his noggin whacked off with a sword and it is ordered that the cranium be thusly buried separately from the body. Because every one knows that if you put a dead sorcerer’s head next to its old body (WOHOHO!) there’s gonna be trouble!

The lovely Mabille is tied up from a tree by those pretty little ankles of hers, and before you can cry “Barbara Steele!” the witch has placed a curse on the descendants of her persecutors, namely the family of Marnac’s decidedly less handsome, traitorous twin brother. The suggestively shaped swords are then removed from their scabbards and the knights lay waste to Mabille’s erotic form in a traditional game of “Ring-Around-The-Dead-Bitch.”

Nobody's gonna lay a finger on my Butterfinger.

We are then catapulted into the heart of Paris, modern day. Satan-beardless descendant Hugo Marnac (Naschy again) calls in on his artist friend Maurice (Victor Alcazar) who’s got a case of the supernatural blues. Maurice has been plagued by intense and frightening visions of a wicked face staring intently at him. When the two go out for drinks and Maurice is reunited with his long lost love (a reunion which includes extreme mouth wrestling), the group soon proposes to discover the hidden head of Hugo’s nefarious ancestor on the castle grounds. Forget going to a fancy restaurant or visiting the Eiffel Tower, these guys want something different!

Consulting with one of the Golden Girls at a séance, the group sees the visage of the mighty Jacinto Molina materialize before them and tell them that they can find his body in the castle crypt on Hugo’s ancestral estate. Maurice is visited by the cackling head later that night and is compelled to finish a portrait that depicts Hugo in medieval garb holding his own gory, severed head out in front of him. Has this vacation become a terrible idea yet?

Naschy never imagined the psychic hotline would be so sultry.

Apparently not. While driving up the mountain road to the castle and undoubtedly playing Katy Perry songs on the radio, the group runs into a bit of trouble when they accidentally knock a dude over with their automobile. Turns out the bloke is A-OK, but he’s also packing a blade and happens to be part of a vicious gang of wanton criminals. The brawny fists of Naschy are able to pound some sense into these savages, but the car crashes into a tree in the process.

Luckily for them, the neighborhood group of vigilantes arrive on the scene just in time to blow one of the assailant’s brains out all over the snow and their rustic leader (who possesses a mustache of Biblical proportions) sells a car to the distressed group of friends. In that order. But the kids stick around long enough to witness first hand a brutal hanging when the other highwayman is suspended by his throat over the wintry road by the ragtag deputies. Merry Christmas!

Why yes, I was in that video!

Everyone gets to work right away upon arrival at the castle, despite servant Gaston’s superstitious warnings of a demon walking the grounds of the estate. A hefty chest is soon dug out of the freezing, molding earth with pick and spade. Could it contain the legendary gourd of one Alaric de Marnac? The only indication is an inscription that states that the bloody, palpitating heart of a human sacrifice shall serve as the meal of choice for the sorcerer. Therefore it’s painfully obvious that it’s treasure that’s hidden inside the chest, as opposed to the flesh-hungry maw of a devilishly handsome ghoul.

That’s exactly what two dirty, thieving workers suspect, so they greedily break into the wooden box to claim their gains. Unfortunately, the ominous scarlet glow that issues forth is enough to hypnotize one of the peasants, who then carves new bodily orifices into both his partner and Gaston who just happened upon the scene at exactly the wrong moment. The newly enslaved chap then steals away his prized box and places it on a bone-strewn altar in the castle’s crypt. You can bet that the drone’s bloody sacrifices have not yet ended, as indicated by the heavy petting he gives to his nifty looking blade.

I call her Lolita.

Eduardo (you’re telling me that’s not his name?) then sneaks into the house and cozies up next to a black beauty who’s busy washing dishes. As if slitting her throat wasn’t bad enough, the jerk just has to make a mess of the kitchen by letting the girl’s wound leak all over the place. He really IS under the influence of evil! Much mayhem ensues, and Maurice is even brought under the servitude of the now-animated head of de Marnac.

Soon the talking head and the rest of its cadaverous remains are reunited again with the help of the mindless servants and Robert Stack of Unsolved Mysteries and there’s a whole mess of evil coming our way. Alaric de Marnac’s first order of business is collecting a screaming wench and sacrificing her to the bleached bones of Mabille the Magnificent. The transformation is a success and the two ne’er-do-wells are now in brand new flesh suits and ready to paint the village red. In order to protect themselves against the dark majesty of Jacinto’s facial hair, his equally attractive descendant Hugo and Elvira (Emma Cohen) retrieve a magical amulet from a well that can repel Marnac’s evil.

Please allow 3-5 weeks for shipping and delivery.

The talisman proves effective when the warlock appears in Elvira’s bedroom later in a Dracula-esque mist. Marnac leers over Elvira with diabolical intent, but one flash of the amulet has Marnac running for the hills in a rush of smoke and wind. But the war isn’t over yet; in a demonstration of his awesome powers, Marnac resurrects all of the slain bodies on the castle grounds who then lay siege on the cornered couple. The milky-eyed dead come in on all sides, but Hugo manages to ward them off with burning torches and pure testosterone.

The next day Maurice returns, completely free of any and all devotion to his Satanic master. Or is he? Hugo finds out the hard way when the two decide to go fishing for the fallen zombies in the castle lake. But Maurice has a better idea: he blows the drama right out of his best friend with the help of his double-barreled shotgun. Heading back home to take care of Elvira, Maurice instead gets a face full of amulet, the holy touch of which brings him out of his trance. Maurice then apologizes for killing Hugo like a gentleman and Elvira kindly forgives him. No hard feelings, Maury!

Man, you have GOT to hit this!

That night the final battle is mounted as de Marnac and his sumptuous accomplice attack the last two survivors. Maurice manages to chase the sorcerer away with his shiny amulet, but the poor sap didn’t count on the medieval magician being skilled in the ways of the lumberjack. The next thing you know it, puny Maurice has got a face full of axe blade and he has pathetically bitten the dust. But in a weird act of fate, the amulet flies from the dying artist’s fingers and strikes Marnac right in the kisser! The Devil worshipper is none too pleased as his head begins to steam like a kettle. Meanwhile, Elvira has just gotten the upper hand on the constantly teleporting Mabille and she stabs the icy witch in the heart with a steel blade.

She runs out just in time to see Marnac about to shrug off his mortal coil (yet again). Just a simple pat on the back is all it takes for the guy to go to pieces… literally. The sorcerer’s head tumbles away down the stone stairs and the torso soon follows, each crumbling into dust and hellish flames. Exhausted from her tragic ordeal (and probably ready to adopt a life of binge drinking), Elvira discards the amulet and heads away from her night of horror.

He sleeps all night and he works all day!

(Editor's Note: As you can see from the above description and scratchy visuals, the version I had of HRft was an incomplete print, most likely the one edited for TV. Although I missed out on some lovely gore and cleavage, my enjoyment of the film didn't decrease one ioata. One day, with the dark blessings of de Marnac, I shall possess the ultimate version!)

Known mostly for his famous werewolf saga detailing the hairy exploits of Waldemar Daninsky, Naschy shows his finesse for horror outside the cycle of the werewolf. Horror Rises from the Tomb offers up one of his more memorable characters. Alaric de Marnac is an imposing and impressive figure, clad in a flowing cape and adorned with one of the most diabolical beards to have ever been seen by human eyes. Add to that Naschy’s natural charisma (the guy doesn’t even have to say anything… he can just stand there and resonate power), de Marnac stands as a dark figure in the actor’s hall of notable creations.

Paul even takes his usual double (and in this case triple) duty of appearing on screen as multiple characters. In addition to playing the unrepentantly evil de Marnac, Naschy stars as his modern-day descendant Hugo. This allows him to really shine and display the everyman qualities that made him such a sympathetic character in the Daninsky saga. The role also gives him the chance to act like a snob every so often and even unleash the fury of his flying fists against the roadside bandits. Mark that down as a huge plus.

Sweetie, I AM the orgy.

Even Naschy’s bit cameo as de Marnac’s twin brother is noteworthy. And the guy doesn’t even have any lines! He just sits there on his horse, grinning like a guilty cat with that vicious scar ripped across his face. It really is a testament to Naschy’s thespian prowess that he can make a character that is glimpsed for literally a second seem like a fully-fleshed out supporting role. You remember him, and that’s one of the greatest things an actor can achieve.

One of the things I personally enjoy with Naschy’s films is his construction of mythologies. He gives his supernatural beasts and monsters rules to adhere to, giving his movies the feel of age-old legends passed down from one generation to the next. This can be seen in the Daninsky films, where silver is fatal to the lycanthrope and the fact that the monsters can only be killed by the hand of the One Who Loves Them Most (a theme lifted from the Universal films, particularly House of Frankenstein). This idea is resurrected for Horror Rises from the Tomb; Alaric is warded off with the magical amulet (similar to the vampire’s allergy to crucifixes) and Mabille can only be destroyed by stabbing her with a blade made of silver. It’s this folksy sense of tradition that Naschy instills in his scripts that gives them a classic quality.

Horror Rises from the Tomb is Euro trash at its best. The cheese in this film is warm and flowing freely, and I loved every damn minute of it. There was a fantastic, deranged atmosphere that was achieved in horror films released from the 70’s, particularly the ones imported from Europe. Where else could you watch a man in a turtleneck walk with robotic stiffness into a fetid cave, fainted maiden draped across his brawny arms, and led by a torch-bearing woman wearing only black lingerie and a ridiculously thin nightie? Only in Europe and only in the 70’s! If you’re a connoisseur of Eastern Hemisphere terror oddities like Horror Express and Tombs of the Blind Dead, then Horror Rises from the Tomb is a delectable glass of blood red wine. It might feel a little funky on the way down, but it’s guaranteed to leave a warm feeling in your heart.

We belong dead.