The Lady and the Monster (1944)

The Lady and the Monster is a 1944 Republic science fiction/horror movie based on Curt Siodmak's excellent 1942 novel Donovan’s Brain.

In this case rather than one mad scientist we get two but they’re obsessed and blinded by hopes of scientific glory rather than being overtly mad or evil. Professor Franz Mueller (Erich von Stroheim) and Dr Patrick Cory (Richard Arlen) are doing brain research. 

They believe they are close to being able to remove a brain and keep it alive outside the body.

Obviously they need a human subject but they’re not evil. They are not prepared to commit murder in order to obtain a brain. Their hope is that they can find someone so ravaged by disease or so horrifically injured as to have no chance of survival. In which case they have convinced themselves that removing the brain and keeping it alive externally would not really be morally wrong.

Of course they would have to do this in secret - the police might misunderstand. Luckily Mueller has a huge isolated old house (which everyone refers to as The Castle) with a well-equipped laboratory in the basement. And he not only has Cory to assist him but also his pretty young ward Janice Farrell (Vera Ralston), an aspiring scientist herself.

A plane crash gives them their chance. They are able to remove the brain just in time. And it survives!

That’s all very interesting but what they now want to do is to find a way to communicate with the brain.

There are things they don’t know about this brain, at least at first. It belongs to a very very rich man named Donovan. That’s unfortunate because it means that his death will attract publicity. There is however a much bigger problem with this brain. I’m not going to spoil the movie by hinting at the nature of this problem.

Professor Mueller is not really evil but he is increasingly blinded by ambition and increasingly obsessed. There is also a suggestion that he has a sexual or romantic interest in Janice. This does not please the housekeeper Mrs Fame (Mary Nash) who seems to be carrying a torch for the professor. And Cory and Janice are in love so there’s plenty of jealousy. Mueller’s judgment becomes more erratic.

There are also factors (which I can’t reveal due to the risk of spoilers) that cause Cory’s behaviour to be become very erratic.

And there are nefarious plots being hatched in the background, unbeknownst to Mueller and Cory.

It’s interesting to watch von Stroheim and Arlen both playing obsessed characters and taking totally different different but equally effective acting approaches. While von Stroheim is outrageous and flamboyant he is more than a mere ham.

Vera Ralston was being pushed towards stardom by Republic Pictures boss Herbert Yates. She’s a bit stilted but since she’s playing the beautiful female assistant to a mad scientist her subtly odd performance and slight accent make her seem suitably exotic.

The very moody atmospheric visuals are the work of the great cinematographer John Alton. And the sets are quite impressive as well and there’s some good miniatures work.

This was an A-picture for Republic and it’s polished and professional and vastly superior to most of the schlock Universal was churning out in the 40s.

The Lady and the Monster is cleverer and more subtle than you might anticipate. This is fine entertainment and it’s highly recommended. And a must for von Stroheim fans!

This is part of a four-movie Republic Horror Blu-Ray set. The transfer is excellent.

Night of the Comet (1984)

Night of the Comet is a 1984 post-apocalyptic science fiction film but it’s not handled in quite the way you might expect.

A comet is about to pass very close to Earth. Scientists reassure everybody that there is no danger. It just will be a spectacular light show.

Regina (Catherine Mary Stewart) misses the show. She’s in the projection booth of an old movie theatre having sex with her boyfriend. Well he’s not exactly her boyfriend. They’re not going steady.

The projection both just happens to have steel walls. That’s important.

The next morning everybody is dead. Everybody in LA. Maybe everybody in the world. Well, almost everybody. By a coincidence Regina’s sister Samantha (Kelli Maroney) spent the night behind steel walls.

And Hector (Robert Beltran) spent the night in the back of his truck with some chick he’d picked up. It seems like anybody who was safely behind steel barriers of some sort has survived. Which means that everybody is dead except for a tiny handful of people.

They run into Hector at the radio station. That’s important, because that’s how the scientists find out about them.

There are also the zombies. There aren’t many of them. But they’re mean and you don’t always recognise them as zombies at first.

And there are those scientists. They’re holed up in some top-secret laboratory out in the desert. Since they’re scientists and they’re part of a secret research facility we assume they’re evil. They might not be, but it’s highly likely. Maybe they will rescue the two girls. Maybe.

The romantic comedy Valley Girl had been a huge hit in 1983. Writer-director Thom Eberhardt sold the producers of Valley Girl on Night of the Comet by pitching it to them as Valley Girls at the End of the World. Post-apocalyptic sci-fi, but with valley girls.

What makes Night of the Comet oddly appealing is that you expect it to become silly and goofy and it is, but only up to a point. It’s a bit darker than you think it’s going to be. It seems like it’s going to become a black comedy, but it’s more an absurdist comedy. The tone is all over the place but its unpredictability works in its favour.

As a post-apocalyptic nightmare world it’s just desolate and empty rather than terrifying and horrific. But the desolation and emptiness are effective.

Regina does have one big thing going for her. Her dad is a Special Forces officer. Regina can handle a submachine-gun with the same skill as her favourite arcade game. And her dad has taught her that if you have to use a gun, shoot to kill. Regina is more than a match for the average zombie. And kid sister Samantha is a pretty cool customer as well.

Our trio of survivors has no idea what is going on. They know that somehow the comet killed everybody but they don’t know the truth about the zombies and even when they encounter the scientists they don’t know what that desert laboratory is all about. But they are 80s teenagers and they’re not inclined to be overly trusting. And they’ve seen horror movies. They know you don’t take chances with zombies. And they know that scientists and government people are not always the good guys.

The scenes of deserted LA are beautifully and atmospherically shot. The desolation is achieved with commendable subtlety. The slightly red skies are a nice touch. You don’t need a huge budget to make a post-apocalyptic. You just have to know what you’re doing.

The two lead actresses are wonderful. They play off each other beautifully and they’re sassy without being annoying. This is not a movie that offers non-stop mayhem. It’s more a bitter-sweet look at real people trying to deal with the end of the world. It doesn’t need gore because we really care about these people. We really really want them to make it.

This is a much better movie than it has any right to be. It manages to warmhearted and cynical at the same time. Highly recommended.

To the Devil a Daughter (1976)

To the Devil a Daughter was released in 1976 and was the last Hammer horror film, and the company’s second-last feature film.

There is a common misconception that Hammer in the 70s was hopelessly out of touch and that their 70s films were mostly unsuccessful. In fact the problem was that in the 70s the company made some very unwise financial deals which meant that even when their movies turned a profit Hammer did not receive any real financial benefits.

There is another common misconception that To the Devil a Daughter was a flop that ruined the company. In fact the film was a major box-office hit.

Hammer’s 1970s horror movies are extraordinarily varied and they’re as interesting and exciting as any horror movies made elsewhere during that decade.

To the Devil a Daughter is a gothic horror movie in a contemporary setting but unlike Dracula AD 1972 this is not vampires in the modern world. This is Satanism in the modern world.

To the Devil a Daughter obviously has more affinity with movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist and The Omen than with the usual run of Hammer horrors (although I believe it slightly predates The Omen).

This film is based on Dennis Wheatley’s 1953 novel To the Devil - a Daughter. It’s one of the three Hammer films based on Wheatley novels, the others being The Devil Rides Out (1968) and The Lost Continent (1968). These are three of Hammer’s most interesting movies.

We know that Father Michael Raynor (Christopher Lee) is up to no good. He’s a Catholic priest who’s been excommunicated for heresy and has formed his own breakaway church. We know that he has plans that involve a young nun, Catherine (Nastassja Kinski). We don’t know what those plans are.

None of this has anything to do with American writer John Verney (Richard Widmark), until a very jumpy very frightened man named Henry Beddows (Denholm Elliott) tells him a strange story and asks for his help. Henry wants Verney to meet his daughter at the airport in London and take her somewhere safe. His daughter is that young nun Catherine.

Verney is an interesting hero. He’s no knight in shining armour. He’s a cynic. He makes his living writing lurid sensationalistic books about the occult. What Henry has told him sounds like it might be material for a book. A bestselling book. Verney doesn’t believe in the occult and he doesn’t care about Catherine. He has no desire to go about saving people or battling the forces of darkness. But slowly he begins to suspect that unlike 98 percent of Satanists Father Michael Raynor might be more than just a charlatan. He might be the real deal. Verney doesn’t want to be a hero but he may not have much choice.

Not only is Verny not conventional hero material. He’s not quite as much of an expert on the occult as he likes people to think. And frightening things are happening. People are killed. Catherine’s behaviour is disturbing. Verney is out of his depth.

This movie has an extraordinarily strong cast. Richard Widmark gets across to the audience Verney’s not entirely heroic motives and he’s a different sort of hero for a Hammer film. Christopher Lee gives one of his strongest performances - he is very sinister, very fanatical and very scary. This movie made Nastassja Kinski a star overnight and she gives an excellent complex performance as a young woman who doesn’t really understand what is happening to her.

Denholm Elliott is delightfully twitchy and nervous and cowardly and treacherous.

The supporting cast is headed by Honor Blackman as Verney’s agent Anna and Anthony Valentine as her husband David. They’re excellent as two very ordinary people who are totally bewildered.

It’s a rather lurid story and there’s some real creepiness. Father Raynor and his acolytes are very very nasty people with very nasty plans.

It was a major departure for Hammer with lots of location shooting and a starkly contemporary feel. Hammer had finally abandoned the traditional gothic horror aesthetic. It’s also quite confronting. This is Hammer’s answer to The Exorcist and it’s arguably a better film. The most surprising thing is that it was passed by the BBFC without any cuts at all. Hammer had feared that it would be savagely cut.

This was Hammer positioning itself at the cutting edge of 70s horror. The tragedy is that although it was a huge hit the profits did not flow back to Hammer. And by this time the British film industry was a walking corpse. Hammer were doing everything right but making feature films in Britain was no longer a viable proposition.

Hammer made some very fine horror movies in the 70s and To the Devil a Daughter may well be the best of them. Very highly recommended.

Studiocanal’s Blu-Ray presentation looks terrific.

Ninja III: The Domination (1985)

Whenever I see the Cannon Group logo at the beginning of a movie I get a feeling of confidence. Whether it turns out to be a great movie or a not-so-great movie it will be fun. Ninja III: The Domination belongs to the not-so-great category but in its own perverse way it achieves a kind of quasi-greatness.

This is a psycho ninja chick movie. And any psycho ninja chick movie has got to be worth watching.

It begins with a bunch of people playing golf. Then a ninja shows up and kills everybody. Then the cops show up. Lots and lots of cops. Dozens of cops. The ninja kills most of them. Finally, having been shot about 98 times the ninja has had enough and he’s about to expire. But his story is not yet finished. Christie (Lucinda Dickey), a perfectly ordinary young woman, finds him lying in the bushes about to die and something weird happens.

One thing that’s cool is that we never find out why the ninja ran amok on the golf course. We presume someone hired him. We have no idea who that someone could be. Writer James R. Silke knows that we don’t need to know. This is not a mystery or a police procedural, it’s a ninja action picture.

The cop who interviews Christie, Officer Secord (Jordan Bennett) takes a shine to her. Christie doesn’t date cops. But Secord isn’t a quitter and his desperation to get into her pants is finally rewarded with success. And soon there’s a thing between them.

Christie has a sword, a katana. We soon have reason to suspect it’s a magic sword.

The cops who shot that ninja start to die in rather grisly ways. Maybe there’s another ninja about.

There is, in a way. That evil dead ninja has possessed Christie. She now intermittently turns into an evil lady ninja.

And there’s another ninja, Yamada (Shô Kosugi). He has an eye patch. We don’t know if he’s a good ninja or an evil ninja.

More cops get sliced up. Poor Secord doesn’t know what’s going on. Christie doesn’t know either.

Truly immense quantities of mayhem follow.

This is not just a psycho ninja chick movie. It’s also an incredibly bad rip-off of The Exorcist. And it’s a bit of an 80s dance movie as well. Lots of aerobics. And a video game movie. If something was fashionable in the 80s it will show up somewhere in this movie.

The acting is terrible. If you’re wondering why Lucinda Dickey did not become a major star then watch this movie and you’ll have your answer. The gal just can’t act.

But then this is not exactly a character-driven movie so that doesn’t really matter. It’s all about the martial arts action and there’s plenty of that and it’s pretty entertaining with a very high body count. And Miss Dickey can dance and trained dancers always handle fight scenes pretty well.

There are some really bad special effects as well, which adds further layers of fun. I have no idea why some of these effects were even there except that I think they wanted a video game vibe.

What do you want in a psycho ninja chick movie? You want a cool lady ninja and you want her to be totally nuts and you want her to leave a path of death and destruction behind her. That’s what this movie offers. It doesn’t offer anything else. It doesn’t need to.

Ninja III: The Domination is in truth a very bad movie but that’s what makes it fun.

I have the Spanish Blu-Ray release which sadly doesn’t provide a very good transfer. On the other hand this is the sort of movie that is more enjoyable if it looks like you’re watching it on a VHS rental from Blockbuster back in the day.

Murderock (1984)

Murderock (AKA Murder-Rock: Dancing Death) is a 1984 Lucio Fulci giallo.

The setting is a dance school in New York. This was 1984 so it has a bit of a Flashdance vibe. There’s fierce competition. Out of more than a dozen young dancers only three will be chosen for bigger things.

Candice Norman (Olga Karlatos) runs the class. She was once on the brink of a glittering career, until she was knocked over by a motorcyclist. She recovered, but not fully. Not fully enough to have a career as a dancer. Now she teaches.

One of the girls in her class is murdered, in a rather odd way - a hatpin through the heart.

Lieutenant Borges (Cosimo Cinieri) has insufficient evidence to make any moves. It appears likely that someone in the dance school was the killer. Likely, but not certain.

There’s a second murder. Another girl pupil. The same murder method.

There’s no certainty as to whether the killer is male or female. The victims are knocked out by chloroform first.

Candice is worried. Her boss Dick Gibson (Claudio Cassinelli) is worried. He knew some of the girl pupils. He knew them intimately. That makes him a suspect but there’s so much jealousy and backbiting within the school that everybody is a suspect.

Candice has strange dreams. There’s a man in the dreams trying to kill her. She knows the man from somewhere but she can’t remember having actually met him.

There are romantic entanglements between the various students as well as entanglements the students and the staff. There has been a relationship between Dick Gibson and Candice. Candice also has a hot new boyfriend, male model and unsuccessful actor George Webb (Ray Lovelock).

There’s another murder. This time the killer was photographed but frustratingly the photo shows nothing useful. The paranoia builds. Everyone is jumpy. And nobody believes that the killings have stopped.

There are a lot of interesting aspects about the way Fulci made this movie. It’s a giallo with almost no gore at all. I don’t mind that. There are other things that matter more in a giallo. Style is more important, and this movie has style. An atmosphere of indefinable menace matter, and this film has that. Hints of sexual motivations are essential in a giallo and they’re found here as well. And while there’s no gore there’s a hint of kinkiness in the murder method.

Many giallo fans consider plot coherence to be of minor importance but in this case the plot does all come together even if there are some offbeat outrageous elements. Offbeat and outrageous elements are always welcome in a giallo.

And there are plenty of clues. Lieutenant Borges does not rely on inspiration. He has spotted those clues and he has noted their significance. He’s a good cop. He notices clues and he thinks about them, about what they really mean.

When the solution is revealed it makes perfect sense. The motivations make sense.

I love the automated message that warns the students to vacate the premises within fifteen minutes every night before the whole school is locked down tight by electronic means. It adds to the suspicion that the murder was an inside job and it also adds a touch of paranoia. The school itself is a character in the story.

There are cameras everywhere in the school. Everybody is being watched by somebody - and not just by those authorised to be watching. There’s visual surveillance and auditory surveillance. This is a movie with a definite interest in voyeurism of various kinds.

I love the way Fulci shoots so many scenes in a fragmented way. The frame is fragmented. Some parts of a shot will be lit while other parts are unlit. Lights keep flashing on and and off. Music recordings switch on and off. It’s as if reality is being splintered. It’s very unsettling, and deliberately so.

I’m increasingly fond of 80s Fulci. This was a fascinating extremely varied phase of his career, and Murderock is Fulci in top form. Highly recommended.

The 88 Films Blu-Ray looks great.

Other 80s Fulci films that I recommend - The Black Cat (1981), The Devil’s Honey (1986), Aenigma (1987).

Common Law Wife (1961)

Common Law Wife actually started out as a movie called Swamp Rose, directed by Larry Buchanan and shot in colour. It was then turned into a black-and-white movie called Common Law Wife with a huge amount of additional footage shot by a different director, Eric Sayers.

It all becomes quite confusing. It appears that Buchanan’s original film no longer exists. If indeed he ever completed it.

To make things really confusing the central character, Baby Doll, is played by two different actresses!

Both versions originated in Texas, with the swamp footage being shot near the Louisiana border.

Surprisingly, in its own way, it all works as a lurid thoroughly enjoyable hicksploitation potboiler. It’s not a sexploitation movie. There’s no nudity. It does however qualify as swampsploitation with a bit of southern gothic thrown in. The plot is complicated but delightfully lurid.

Shugfoot Rainey (George Edgley) is the richest man in town. His money comes from oil. He lives with his wife Linda (Annabelle Weenick) except that they’re not actually married. Or so Shug Rainey assumed.

Shug is tired of Linda. Her looks are fading and she’s rather needy. Shug has wired for his niece Jonelle (played by Lacey Kelly in Buchanan’s footage and an unknown actress in Sayers’ footage) to come to see him. He intends Jonelle to be Linda’s replacement. Jonelle is a stripper in New Orleans. Everyone calls her Baby Doll. She’s a whole lot younger and cuter than Linda. Jonelle is very pretty, albeit in a cheap sort of way. Shug doesn’t mind if she looks cheap. He likes his women that way.

The problem is that Linda has seen a lawyer who has told her that as far as the law in this state is concerned she is Shug Rainey’s common law wife. He can’t just boot her out the door. He could try to buy her off but Linda isn’t having any of that. Linda likes living in Shug’s mansion. She is emotionally dependent and she also has her pride. She’s not going to be replaced by a brazen hussy like Baby Doll.

The local sheriff, Sheriff Jody, gets mixed up in the drama. He’s Shug Rainey’s nephew. He’s married to Jonelle’s very respectable very prim sister but he’s lusted after Jonelle for years. They had an affair in their teenage years. The two sisters most definitely do not get along. Pretty soon the erotic embers are blazing back into life for Jonelle and Jody.

And then there’s Bull the moonshiner. He’s after Jonelle as well.

There are therefore lots of emotional betrayals and sexual triangles going on. And there’s money at stake as well. Shug has money. Bull has money. You figure this could easily end in murder. What’s cool is that there is no way to be sure which of these sleazy people is likely to be the victim, and which is likely to be the killer.

And of course it does end in murder.

The plot is wild and crazy but surprisingly, given the film’s bizarre production history, it does hang together in its own overcooked way. And Baby Doll is a memorable bad girl.

This is not a sexploitation movie. There is no nudity. It is an exploitation movie but of a slightly earlier more tame variety. It relies on overheated passions rather than bare skin.

The DVD transfer isn’t great but it’s acceptable. I believe there’s now been a Blu-Ray release. The Something Weird DVD also includes two other hicksploitation films, Jennie: Wife/Child and Moonshine Love (which is great fun).

I enjoyed Common Law Wife quite a bit. Highly recommended.

Common Law Wife is fairly close in feel to another swampsploitation potboiler, the rather entertaining Louisiana Hussy (1959). It also has a bit in common with Russ Meyer’s southern gothic hicksploitation classics Lorna (1964) and Mudhoney (1964) although it has to be said that Meyer’s two films are way way better.

Innocent Blood (1992)

1992 was, unexpectedly, an interesting year for vampire movies. There was Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula and John Landis’s Innocent Blood. Two very very different movies but both stylish and daring and breathing new life into an old genre. Coppola’s Dracula is insanely romantic. Innocent Blood is an erotic horror black comedy. It’s also a hardboiled gangster movie. There’s a lot going on!

Horror comedies were nothing new but they had invariably been goofy and innocuous and had relied on broad comedy and even slapstick. They had been very kiddie-friendly. Innocent Blood isn’t the least bit kiddie-friendly. This is not family entertainment. This is blood-drenched full-on horror but combined with sophisticated witty black comedy and vampire sex.

Marie (Anne Parillaud) is a cute French lady vampire finding life in the big city in the U.S. to be a bit of a challenge. She hasn’t fed for quite a while and she’s very hungry. She’s also sex-starved.

Marie has solved the ethical problems posed by vampirism in a rather neat way. She does not drink innocent blood. Her victims are very bad people and by killing them she’s doing society a service as well as feeding herself. It’s a win-win!

At the moment she has turned her attention to a syndicate of mobsters. Specifically, the mob led by Sal Macelli (Robert Loggia). These are very hard very violent men but they’re no match for a vampire.

Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia) is an undercover cop who has infiltrated Sal Macelli’s organisation but now everything is out of control and his cover is blown. And Macelli is dead anyway.

Macelli is dead but he’s now a vampire. He’s even nastier as a vampire than he was as a gangster and he has plans to lead a vampire mob that will control the city.

In the midst of all this chaos Gennaro finds an unlikely ally. She’s an odd but cute French girl named Marie. He thinks she’s a murderess. It takes him a while to get used to the idea that she’s a vampire. And it takes him even longer to realise that they are going to have to be allies. Gennaro is no match for a bunch of vampiric hoodlums but Marie is not just a vampire, she’s an old vampire. She’s more powerful than Macelli and she knows how the whole vampire thing works. She knows the weaknesses of vampires.

Gennaro and Marie are not sure that they can trust each other but the sex is really really great and after a good old steamy bedroom romp they decide they can be friends.

Much mayhem follows.

Surprisingly all the disparate elements in this movie come together effectively. This is full-blown horror with plenty of violence and gore. It’s a tough violent gangland tale. There’s some inspired black comedy but Landis is careful never to cross the line into goofiness. And this movie is never camp. There’s plenty of erotic heat. There’s an offbeat love story. But these elements are kept in perfect balance. Landis knows what he’s doing and he’s in complete control.

The acting is generally very good. It’s fun to see Don Rickles as a crooked lawyer - he’s amusing but it’s not an out-and-out comic performance. Robert Loggia goes way over the top as Macelli but that’s the right way to play it and he’s truly scary.

Obviously this movie was always going to stand or fall on Anne Parillaud’s performance and she turns out to be an inspired casting choice. Her French accent makes her seem exotic and an outsider. You don’t want a vampire with a Brooklyn accent - that would lead to goofiness. Anne Parillaud makes her lady vampire suitably enigmatic. Parillaud is beautiful but not conventionally pretty - she doesn’t have a Barbie doll look. She looks like a sexy dangerous lady vampire. This movie came out the same year as her star-making turn in the superb La Femme Nikita (1990).

One thing I like is that although Marie has her ethical inhibition about not taking innocent blood she doesn’t indulge in a whole lot of angsting about it. She’s sincere, but she doesn’t revel in moral grandstanding. And while that aspect could have made it into a species of vigilante killer movie that aspect is not pushed too far. Marie is a vampire, not a cop or a social worker.

The practical effects are done well. There’s enough gore to satisfy those who like that sort of thing. Landis keeps things moving along (I don’t agree with those who think this movie is too slow). There’s some sex and quite a bit of nudity.

A lot of people disliked this movie. I suspect that those who were unaware that the vampire movie had moved on and had been comprehensively reinvented during the 70s and that the traditional elements of vampire lore had long since been consigned to the dustbin disliked the movie because those traditional elements are lacking here. No crucifixes. No wooden stakes through the heart. No vampires sleeping in coffins. What’s great is that Innocent Blood is not only a non-traditional vampire movie, it doesn’t try to ape the revolutionary vampire movies of the 70s like Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos, Jose Larraz’s Vampyres or Jean Rollin’s Lips of Blood. It’s its own thing.

Innocent Blood is hugely entertaining and original. A great vampire film. Very highly recommended.

Landis was going for a visually dark shadowy look and thankfully the Warner Archive Blu-Ray retains this.