‘He experimented in horror!’

Hand of Death is a 1962 American science fiction horror film directed by Gene Nelson from a screenplay by producer Eugene Ling for Associated Producers Inc (API). The theremin and bongo fuelled score was by Sonny Burke, whilst the cinematography was by Floyd Crosby, Roger Corman’s frequent collaborator during this period.

Plot teaser:

An American scientist, Alex Marsh, invents a new nerve gas serum, but accidentally allows himself to be exposed to it, and so he turns into a murderous monster…

Cast:

John Agar (The Mole People; The Brain from Planet Arous; Zontar: The Thing from Venus) Paula Raymond (Blood of Dracula’s Castle), Stephen Dunne (TV series Quatermass II), Roy Gordon (The Unearthly; Attack of the 50 Foot Woman; The Wasp Woman), John A. Alonzo (Bewitched), Jack Younger (Dinosaurus!), Joe Besser (Savage Intruder; The New Scooby-Doo Movies; Scooby’s Laff-A Lympics) , Butch Patrick, Norman Burton (Fade to Black; Mausoleum; Deep Space).

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Reviews:

“Resembling The Hideous Sun Demon but completely lacking that picture’s personality, Hand of Death at least offers one of the more bizarre monster suits of the 1960s. Bill Warren rightly describes the suit as a cross between “the grossest possible caricature of a black man” and The Thing from the Fantastic Four comic books. As in The Incredible Melting Man, our doomed hero does little more than wander around and kill a few people by accident…” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers

“Hand of Death is a cheap monster movie. You could even say very cheap. Agar becoming a monster isn’t a cosmic punishment — he simply knocks over a flask and gets the stuff on his hands, so it doesn’t have the Beware Of Science message you find in so many of these things. It doesn’t build to a Big Finish, though it has its moments (usually when someone first sees Agar’s deflicted* head). But for some reason, it all comes together…” The Hannibal 8

Choice dialogue:

Alex Marsh (John Agar): “Do you realise, this is a weapon that is so powerful, it could conceivably banish nuclear warfare?”

Trailer:

IMDb | Images courtesy of The Hannibal 8 | Wrong Side of the Art!

Reynold Brown (October 18, 1917 – August 24, 1991) was a prolific American realist artist who painted many Hollywood film posters.

He attended Alhambra High School and refined his drawing under his teacher Lester Bonar. A talented artist, Brown met cartoonist Hal Forrest around 1936-37. Forrest hired Brown to ink (uncredited) Forrest’s comic strip Tailspin Tommy.

During World War II he worked as a technical artist at North American Aviation where he met his wife, fellow artist Mary Louise Tejeda.

Following the war Brown drew numerous advertisements and illustrations for magazines such as Argosy, Popular Science, Saturday Evening Post, Outdoor Life, and Popular Aviation. Brown also drew paperback book covers.

Brown taught at the Art Center College of Design where he met Misha Kallis, then an art director at Universal Pictures. Through Kallis, Brown began his film poster work starting with The World in His Arms (1952), then designed the artwork for dozens of film posters for Universal and AIP, including:

• Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
• Tarantula (1955)
• This Island Earth (1955)

• Revenge of the Creature (1955)
• The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)
• Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956)

• The Deadly Mantis (1957)
• The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
• I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)
• Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)

• The Land Unknown (1957)
• The Monolith Monsters (1957)
• Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
• Attack of the Puppet People (1958)
• Monster on the Campus (1958)
• Teenagers from Outer Space (1958)
• The Atomic Submarine (1959)
• Curse of the Undead (1959)

• The Time Machine (1960)
• The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
• Konga (1961)

• The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (released 1962)
• Burn Witch, Burn (1962)
• Phantom of the Opera (1962)
• The Premature Burial (1962)
• Black Sabbath (1963)
• Black Zoo (1963)
• Day of the Triffids (1963)
• The Man with X-Ray Eyes (1963)
• Godzilla vs. The Thing (1964)

• Goliath and the Vampires (released 1964)

• Masque of the Red Death (1964)
• The Night Walker (1964)

• War of the Zombies (1964)
• Die Monster, Die (1965)
• Planet of the Vampires (1965)

• Frankenstein Conquers the World (1966)
• Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966)
• Destroy All Monsters (1968)

• Spirits of the Dead (1969)
• The Dunwich Horror (1970)

Brown suffered a severe stroke in 1976 that left his left side paralysed and ended his commercial work.

In 1994, Mel Bucklin’s documentary about Reynold Brown entitled The Man Who Drew Bug-Eyed Monsters was broadcast on US public television. A book reproducing many of Brown’s artworks, Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures, was published in 2009.

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Wikipedia

WH

‘A trio of terror!’

Twice-Told Tales – also released as Twice Told Tales and Nights of Terror – is a 1963 American supernatural horror film directed by Sidney Salkow (The Last Man on Earth) from a screenplay by producer Robert E. Kent (Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome; The Werewolf; Diary of a Madman).

The film is based on two of Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s stories, “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” (1837) and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (1844), and the novel The House of the Seven Gables (1851), which had previously been adapted in 1940 also starring Price. Only “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” was actually published in Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales, which supplied the film’s title. The 1963 British United Artists release was cut by BBFC censors for its 1967 release.

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Reviews:

“Twice-Told Tales is dull and ponderous. The stories in themselves, even the mangled adaptation that they are, could have worked well with a different director. Alas, the film is hamstrung with the dreadfully pedestrian Sidney Salkow who also directed Price in The Last Man on Earth (1964), another thoroughly dull adaptation of a fine horror story. Salkow’s sedentary direction and Technicolor colour wrings all the atmosphere out of the stories.” Moria

“Even with only two out of three being particularly good, Twice Told Tales is still one of my Halloween favourites. Price is in classic form, the addition of Sebastian Cabot is wonderful, the atmosphere of those two pieces is excellent, and the type of film inaugurated by Corman, Matheson, and Price is so much in its stride that it has taken on ghoulish life of its own.” Cory Gross, Voyages Extraordinaires

“None of the stories featured in Twice-Told Tales are particularly well-paced. This isn’t terribly annoying through the beginning segments of the picture, because the stories themselves keep our interest. However, as the film progresses, we become more restless. By the final segment we’re at the verge of boredom, and then that final tale pushes us over the brink.” Exclamation Mark

“In a year that saw Mario Bava create Black Sabbath and Herschell Gordon Lewis shoot Blood Feast, this Sidney Salkow directed portmanteau sits rather uncomfortably amongst such bold and vibrant work. With its absorbing stories, though, coupled with immaculate stage design and costumes, it does have a Gothic charm about it that’s impossible to dislike.” Zombie Hamster

“Director Sidney Salkow’s pacing is slow, but rich in detail in Kent’s script and good ensemble acting make the film a stylish one.” John Stanley, Creature Features

“All the familiar thrills are here in this marathon shocker, but the interests are varied and the effects quite often startling. The more avid seeker after the gruesome class of fare should be amply awarded.” Kine Weekly, 1967

“Triple-layered ‘spine-chiller’, based on the stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne; flatly directed and scripted, but spiritedly acted and climatically thrilling.” MH, The Daily Cinema, 1967

“Price’s performance in the third tale is even an improvement on his The House of the Seven Gables (1940). However, production values – miniature work and makeup – leave something to be desired in places.” Phil Hardy (editor), The Aurum Encyclopedia of Film: Horror

Cast and Characters:

• Vincent Price as Alex Medbourne / Giacomo Rappaccini / Gerald Pyncheon
• Sebastian Cabot as Dr. Carl Heidigger
• Brett Halsey as Giovanni Guasconti
• Beverly Garland as Alice Pyncheon
• Richard Denning as Jonathan Maulle
• Mari Blanchard as Sylvia Ward
• Abraham Sofaer as Prof. Pietro Baglioni
• Jacqueline deWit as Hannah Pyncheon, Gerald’s Sister
• Joyce Taylor as Beatrice Rappaccini
• Edith Evanson as Lisabetta, the landlady
• Floyd Simmons as Ghost of Mathew Maulle
• Gene Roth as Cabman

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Trailer:

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image thanks: Wrong Side of the Art!

Monster Old Maid is a 1964 card game created by the Milton Bradley company from Springfield, Massachusetts for children aged five to ten years-old. Based on the card game Old Maid, it comprises a set of nineteen cards featuring Universal monsters, plus an additional instruction card. The rear of the cards feature a spider web with the word ‘monster’ written across.

Characters in the set include Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and The Phantom of the Opera. Dracula’s Daughter (image taken from Hammer’s The Brides of Dracula, which Universal distributed in the US) was the Old Maid card.

We are grateful to The Retroist for the information above and Lost & Found Vintage Toys for the directions image.

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The Corpse aka The Velvet House is a 1969 British horror film directed by Viktors Ritelis from a screenplay by Olaf Pooley (The Godsend; Lifeforce) for London-Cannon Films. In the US, it was released in 1971 by May Films as Crucible of Horror. Not to be confused with Crucible of Terror (1971).

The Corpse was unreleased in the UK until 1972 as a support feature to US import Psycho Killer by Grand National Pictures.

The film was featured in Season 2 Episode 13 of the late night TV show Elvira’s Movie Macabre.

“For most of its running time, it’s a nice little gothic thriller that’s a bit slow in the uptake and prone to abandon plot threats almost as soon as they are introduced, but it’s a fairly solid film until the final 10-15 minutes. Then it all goes to crap.” Terror Titans

” … this slow-moving shocker boasts adequate performances and solid production values, as well as imaginative cinematography, but the piece is undercut by a muddled storyline.” Every ’70s Movie

” … nicely atmospheric in portraying the English suburbs and countryside, although for most of the film one gets the impression that one is watching a suspense thriller rather than a horror film. Gough provides the standout performance as the father. Especially chilling (and funny, in an extremely dark sense) is his serenity before and after his savage beatings.” Thomas M. Simpos, Communist Vampires

“While the script was nothing to write home about, the performances from Gough, Sharon Gurney, and Yvonne Mitchell are all strong, and the director shows some imagination in the handling of the subject, with good use of unusual angles.” Andy Boot, Fragments of Fear: An Illustrated History of British Horror Films

Cast and characters:

• Michael Gough as Walter Eastwood
• Yvonne Mitchell as Edith Eastwood
• Sharon Gurney as Jane Eastwood
• Simon Gough as Rupert Eastwood
• David Butler as Gregson
• Olaf Pooley as Reid
• Nicholas Jones as Benjy Smith
• Mary Hignett as Servant
• Howard Goorney as Petrol Pump Attendant

Choice dialogue:

Walter Eastwood [Michael Gough]: Who touched my guns?

Filming Locations:

Merton Park Studios, London

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘Blood sacrifice of the Simbazi’

Curse of Simba is a 1965 British horror film directed by Lindsay Shonteff (Devil Doll; Night, After Night, After Night) from a screenplay ‘Lion Man’ by Brian Clemens [as Tom O’Grady] for Gala Film. Additional scenes and dialogue were provided by Leigh Vance.

Action scenes are set in Africa but were filmed in London over eighteen days on an budget that over-ran to £55,000 due to rain. 

In the UK, the film was reduced to 62 minutes and released by Gala Film Distributors. In the US, an 83 minute version was released by Allied Artists as Curse of the Voodoo double-billed with Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster. It is also apparently known as Voodoo Blood Death.

Main cast:

Bryant Haliday (Devil Doll; The Projected Man; Tower of Evil), Dennis Price (The Earth Dies Screaming; Horror Hospital), Lisa Daniely, Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Out of the Unknown; Frankenstein [1992]), Mary Kerridge.

Plot:

White hunter Mike Stacey kills a lion in Simbazi country in Africa, so he is cursed by the tribal chief.

When the curse that manifests itself with hallucinations follows him to England he consults an expert on the subject. The expert informs Stacey the only way to remove the curse is to return to Africa and personally kill the man who put it on him…

Reviews:

“… with suspense, flat acting and trite story add up to soggy thrills, and as a shoestring production it’s pretty threadbare,” Variety

“Curse of the Voodoo might just have passed muster on a dramatic level if the viewer genuinely cared about Stacey and his desperate efforts to avoid his strange fate. But the character as written is a thoroughly unpleasant bully and drunk, totally lacking in any redeeming qualities that might have evoked sympathy.” John Hamilton, X-Cert: The British Independent Horror Film: 1951 – 1970

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” … it’s all so predictable, leaden paced, uninvolving and lacking in tension and suspense that this attempt to intrigue the audience with the ‘natural or supernatural?’ mystery angle is doomed to failure…” Mike Hodges, The Shrieking Sixties: British Horror Films 1960 – 1969

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” … a string of clichés that staggers from TV closeup to TV closeup with paralysing incompetence.” Phil Hardy (editor), The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror 

“The most terrifying thing in this film is Mary Kerridge as Stacey’s dreadful mother-in-law.” Gary A. Smith, Uneasy Dreams: The Golden Age of British Horror Films, 1956 – 1976

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Cast and characters:

• Bryant Haliday … Mike Stacey
• Dennis Price … Major Lomas
• Lisa Daniely … Janet Stacey
• Ronald Leigh-Hunt … Doctor
• Mary Kerridge … Janet’s mother
• John Witty … Police Inspector
• Jean Lodge … Mrs. Lomas
• Beryl Cunningham … Nightclub dancer
• Louis Mahoney … African expert
• Danny Daniels … Simbaza Chief

Beryl Cunningham shakes her booty in a nightclub dance sequence

Choice dialogue:

Major Lomas: “Mr. Radlett, this is neither Southend, nor Surrey. These people are farther from civilisation than stone-age men.”

Janet Stacey: “First of all a native outside the door. Soon it’ll be snakes on the ceiling.”

Filming locations:

Hampstead Heath, North London
Shepperton Studios

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image thanks: Wrong Side of the Art!

Angus Scrimm (born Lawrence Rory Guy; August 19, 1926 – January 9, 2016) was an American actor and author, best known for playing the Tall Man in the 1979 horror film Phantasm and its sequels.

Scrimm was born in Kansas City. He was originally a journalist and has written and edited for TV Guide, Cinema Magazine, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and many other publications. He has also written liner notes for many LPs and CDs for artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to the Beatles.

Scrimm stood approximately 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m). To appear even taller when playing the Tall Man, he wore suits that were several sizes too small and platform shoes.

Although he had acted in a couple of horror thrillers previously, Sweet Kill (1971) and Scream Bloody Murder (1973), his well-received 1979 Phantasm role led led him to become a horror icon.

Selected filmography:

• Sweet Kill (1973) Henry
• Scream Bloody Murder (1973) Doctor Epstein
• Phantasm (1979) The Tall Man
• Witches’ Brew (1980) Carl Groton
• The Lost Empire (1983) Dr. Sin Do/Lee Chuck
• Phantasm II (1988) The Tall Man
• Transylvania Twist (1989) The Tall Man
• Subspecies (1990) King Vladislas
• Mindwarp (1992) The Seer
• Munchie Strikes Back (1994) Kronas
• Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994) The Tall Man
• Wishmaster (1997) Narrator
• Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998) The Tall Man
• Masters of Horror: Incident On and Off a Mountain Road (2005) Buddy
• Automatons (2006) The Scientist
• Satanic (2006) Dr. Barbary
• I Sell The Dead (2008) Doctor Quint
• Hollywood Horror (2009)
• Satan Hates You (2009) Dr. Michael Gabriel
• John Dies at the End (2012) Father Shellnut
• Phantasm V: Ravager (2016) The Tall Man

Posted in tribute to the late Angus Scrimm who died on January 9, 2016, he died at the age of 89 in Los Angeles.

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘Women’s virtues made him a killer!’

The Virgin of Nuremberg is a 1963 Italian horror film directed by Antonio Margheriti (Castle of Blood; Killer Fish; Cannibal Apocalypse) [as Anthony Dawson] from a screenplay co-written with Edmond T. Gréville and Renato Vicario. The film’s brassy score is by Riz Ortolani (Mondo Cane; Cannibal Holocaust).

The film’s original Italian title is La vergine di Norimberga and it has also been released as The Castle of Terror (UK, by Compton Films) and Horror Castle (USA, by Zodiac Films). 

Main cast:

Rossana Podestà, Georges Rivière, Christopher Lee, Jim Dolen, Lucille St. Simon, Patrick Walton.

Production:

The Virgin of Nuremberg was based on an Italian paperback novel La vergine di Normberga, issue #23 in the KKK series of Italian pulp paperback novels. These novels were part of a trend of cheap paperback novels that blended Gothic, horror and erotic styles.

The film’s producer, Marco Vicario, was the co-founder of the company G.E.I. who published the KKK paperbacks. Margheriti changed elements of the plot of the story to include a war and surgery subplots. The film also removes some of the more extreme elements of the novel, such as a part where a man severs a woman’s nerve before pulling out almost all of the bones from her body.

Many sources state that giallo specialist Ernesto Gastaldi was credited as Gastad Green, but he has denied contributing to the film’s writing, stating he may have discussed plot elements with Margheriti, but did no actual writing. The official documents relating to the film’s production credit Marco Vicario’s brother Renato Vicario as Gastad Green.

Plot:

When Max Hunter leaves his American bride Mary alone in his German castle, a series of gruesome slayings occur in the abandoned torture chamber. In a shocking revelation, a hideous phantom killer, with a ghastly Nazi past, stalks the castle corridors and dusts off some of the tools of torture for some fresh bloodletting…

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Reviews:

” … a totally illogical script in which virtually every plot development hinges upon the heroine’s bottomless stupidity and complete lack of any sense of self-preservation!” Scott Ashlin, 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

” … the film isn’t without its problems, which mainly reside in the script. The amazing, literary style quotes of so many classics are sorely missed here and the dialogue is merely average. The plot displays only one decent twist but it is ahead of its time in the way of being quick to the punch and this trait separates it from the vast pack of slower, story building gothic horrors.” Brett H., Oh, the Horror!

“As a director, Antonio Margheriti provides few of the subtle, wonderfully atmospheric moments present in his more successful Castle of Blood. Instead, Margheriti prefers to stun the audience with gratuitous gore and graphic tortures that disgust rather than frighten.” Lawrence McCallum, Italian Horror Films of the 1960s 

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“It’s a stylish, atmospheric and effective gothic horror film…” Monster Minions

“The script and the dialogue are ludicrous, but the extraordinary cruelty of the film – like the rat cage placed over a woman’s face, with predictably terrifying consequences – soon chokes the temptation to laugh and the efficient special effects arranged by Margheriti himself makes for some impressive scenes.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror

” … worth it, especially if you like cold violence, as Margheriti pushes the limits with his tortures” Danny Shipka, Perverse Titillation: The Exploitation Cinema of Italy, Spain and France, 1960-1980

“The ultimate explanation is so far-fetched that it borders on goofy, but if you can handle such things, the film might satisfy.” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers

Cast and characters:

• Rossana Podestà: Mary Hunter
• Georges Rivière: Max Hunter
• Christopher Lee: Erich
• Jim Dolen: John Selby, FBI Agent
• Lucille St. Simon

Choice dialogue:

Max Hunter: “Was he a moralist? Or a maniac?”

Max Hunter: “The war left my spirit in a worse state than Erich’s face.”

Martha: “You shouldn’t trust strange Americans.”

The Punisher: “Instruments of torture are more or less the same, wherever you go!”

Offline reading:

Bizarre Sinema: Horror All’Italiana 1957 – 1979, Glittering Images, 1996

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Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957 – 1969 by Roberto Curti

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Italian Horror by Jim Harper

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Italian Horror Film Directors by Louis Paul, McFarland, 2010

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Spaghetti Nightmares by Luca M. Palmerini, Gaetano Mistretta, Fantasma Books

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Italian trailer:

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image thanks: antoniomargheriti.com

’13 keys open the doors to the house haunted by the living dead!’

House of the Damned is a 1963 American horror film produced and directed by Maury Dexter (The Day Mars Invaded Earth) from a screenplay by Harry Spalding (Witchcraft; The Earth Dies Screaming; Curse of the Fly).

Main cast:

Ron Foster, Merry Anders (Women of the Prehistoric Planet), Richard Crane, Erika Peters. Richard Kiel (Eegah; “Jaws” in The Spy Who Loved Me) has a minor role.

Plot:

Architect Scott Campbell (Ron Foster) and his wife (Merry Anders) go to survey an old mansion, where the previous tenant disappeared. Strange noises, eerie sights and vanishing keys ruin their attempt at a wedding anniversary. Events worsen after Scott’s employer (Richard Crane) arrives, and his wife is kidnapped…

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Reviews:

“One wouldn’t expect a damned house to be so quaint, but that’ll be its enduring quality for me. From its folksy lead couple to its simple thrills, it really feels like a 50s movie out of place in the 60s, which were both growing more violent and more garish with their horrors. But I imagine it made for a fine B-movie experience…” Brett Gallman, Oh, the Horror!

“It looks like an old detective TV show, though it’s shot in CinemaScope and has some pretty good black-and-white cinematography. So, it looks like a good old detective TV show. It feels a little bit like one, too, and if you’d shaved some minutes off its runtime, you’d have a perfectly serviceable episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Instead, you’ve got a feature that feels bloated even at only a few minutes over an hour.” Orrin Grey, Innsmouth Free Press

” … obviously put together to fill the bottom half of a double bill, and that’s fine because it certainly plays like a second feature, kinda resembling a William Castle production. Maury Dexter … does the best he can with a one dimensional story, using lots of low lit photography to create an eerie mood, and hurling a few cheap shocks across the screen…” George Reis, DVD Drive-in

“It should have been a TV episode instead of a feature film. But everything holds up, including decent performances from the generally unknown actors.” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers

“This odd little haunted-house movie takes a while to get interesting, but there is a bizarre pay off.” Michael Weldon, The Psychotronic Video Guide

“As directed by Dexter … the old formula comes up fresh with a disarmingly touching twist at the end…” Phil Hardy (editor), The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror

“I found this film oddly intriguing in a quietly uncanny and freakish way. Not frightening, not spooky, yet oddly absorbing because of the fantastic cinematography of John M. Nickolaus (Night of the Blood Beast, The Day Mars Invaded Earth)…” The Last Drive In [click link to see an array of screen shots]

Cast and characters:

• Ron Foster … Scott Campbell (as Ronald Foster)
• Merry Anders … Nancy Campbell
• Richard Crane … Joseph Schiller
• Erika Peters … Loy Schiller
• Dal McKennon … Mr. Quinby
• Georgia Schmidt … Priscilla Rochester
• Stacey Winters … Nurse
• Richard Kiel … The Giant
• Ayllene Gibbons … The Fat Woman
• John Gilmore … The Legless Man
• Frieda Pushnik … The Legless Girl

Filming locations:

Filmed at Greystone Mansion, in Beverly Hills, California, seen in many films, including Picture Mommy Dead, Phantom of the Paradise, Eraserhead, Flowers in the Attic, Death Becomes Her, Ghostbusters II and The Witches of Eastwick.

Trailer:

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image thanks to Golob the Humanoid | The Last Drive In

Godzilla Game is a 1963 American board game created by Ideal. The game included board with artwork depicting Godzilla, four plastic conical game pieces, a small wooden red disc to represent a “radioactive missile”, and a cardboard spinner.

This was the first Godzilla toy produced in the United States, and only the second Godzilla toy ever made (the first being a simple suction-cup dart gun set with Godzilla artwork on the cardboard backing made in Japan in 1955).

“Object: To get your marker to the Rocket Launch Area in order to fire the missile at Godzilla’s vital spots.”

Thanks to Board Game Geek for info.

The Ghost of the One-Eyed Man is a 1965 Japanese horror film directed by Tsuneo Kobayashi from a screenplay by Ichirô Miyagawa and Hajime Takaiwa. The original title is Kaidan katame no otoko.

Other than the credits and poster above we know nothing else about this movie. Can you help?

IMDb

We are eternally grateful to The Oak Drive-In for bringing this film to our attention.

Destination Inner Space is a 1966 science fiction monster film directed by Francis D. Lyon (Castle of Evil) from a screenplay by Arthur C. Pierce (The Cosmic Man; Mutiny in Outer Space; The Navy vs. the Night Monsters).

The film is infamous for its aquatic monster, which looks like a cross between a piranha and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Its alternate title is the more suitable Terror of the Deep.

The film’s strident score is by Paul Dunlap, the composer for several horror and sci-fi films, such as I Was a Teenage Werewolf and The Angry Red Planet.

Main cast:

Scott Brady (Castle of Evil; Gremlins), Gary Merrill (The Mysterious Island), Sheree North, Wende Wagner, Mike Road, John Howard, William Thourbly and Biff Elliot. The film also includes an early appearance by James Hong (The Vineyard) as a chef.

Plot:

A group of researchers working in an underwater laboratory encounter with an Unidentified Submerged Object (USO – an undersea flying saucer), the base is attacked by a monster that may be the vanguard for invading aliens. The researchers and the base’s military staff must deal with the creature and destroy the USO…

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Reviews:

“The great mass of warmed-over leftovers in the script never comes anywhere close to developing its own identity, and anybody who has seen The Thing, The Atomic Submarine, or Revenge of the Creature is likely to spend most of the mental energy he or she devotes to Destination Inner Space on ticking off the elements stolen from each. Most of what entertainment value it has can be traced to its deficiency in two major areas: acting and special effects.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“The underwater models of the sealab are ridiculously small, and look exactly the size they are. The producers could at least have studied the TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea a little closer, for tips. Speaking of TV, this looks like an early TV movie, mostly a TV cast, TV-friendly aspect ratio, and tame on the violence…” Black Hole

“Low budget and average performances do not prevent director Francis Lyon from providing a first-rate entertainment. Nothing profound; just fun.” Jeff Rovin, A Pictorial History of Science Fiction Films

“The picture is unpretentious, quick paced, and admirably unworried about putting the saucer and the monster on screen as often as possible. The monster looks like an exaggerated Creech with harsh accents and bright red fins.” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers

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Cast and characters:

• Scott Brady as Cmdr. Wayne
• Sheree North as Dr. Rene Peron
• Gary Merrill as Dr. LaSatier
• Wende Wagner as Sandra Welles
• Mike Road as Hugh Maddox
• John Howard as Dr. James
• William Thourlby as Tex
• Biff Elliot as Dr. Wilson
• Glenn Sipes as Mike
• Richard Niles as Ellis
• Roy Barcroft as Skipper
• Ed Charles Sweeny as Bos’un
• Ken Delo as Radio Man
• Ron Burke as The Thing
• James Hong as Ho Lee

Trailer:

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image thanks: Zombo’s Closet

‘Forever young! Forever deadly! She lived off the life blood of male victims!’

The Leech Woman is a 1960 American science fiction horror film directed by Edward Dein (Curse of the Undead) from a screenplay by David Duncan (The Black Scorpion; Monster on the Campus; The Time Machine). The script is based on a storyline by Ben Pivar, who produced several Mummy films for Universal.

Composer Irving Gertz also worked on as The Alligator People and Curse of the Undead (both 1959).

Universal-International commissioned this low budget film from producer Joseph Greshenson, which is padded with a plethora of jungle stock footage, because they needed a second feature to play as a double feature with the US release of The Brides of Dracula. The film’s working title was The Leech. 

Plot:

A mysterious old woman named Malla (Estelle Hemsley) who claims to have been brought to America 140 years ago by Arab slavers approaches endocrinologist Dr. Paul Talbot (Phillip Terry) and promises to reveal to him the secret of eternal youth.

Following her back to Africa, he and his aging, unhappy wife June (Coleen Gray) witness a secret ceremony of the Nando tribe that utilizes orchid pollen and a male victim’s pineal gland secretions extracted from the back of the neck via a special ring to temporarily transform Malla once more into a young and beautiful girl (Kim Hamilton).

After discovering her conniving husband only brought her along as a test subject, June steals the ring and escapes back to the United States alone where, pretending to be her own ‘niece’ Terry Hart, she proceeds to keep herself young by killing men for their pineal extract…

Buy: Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“There’s a lot not to like about The Leech Woman. The distractingly obvious old-age makeup, the tiki-bar African village, the intensely racist portrayal of the Nandos and the Talbots’ native bearers, the dreary slog through the stock-footage jungle, and so on. What makes up for all that is how charmingly nasty and mean-spirited this movie is.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“The premise isn’t entirely new, but neither is it worn out (yet). Even if things are fairly predictable, there is enough food for thought in the script to make it rewarding. While the directing and cinematography are not remarkable, the pace seldom bogs down (other than some trudging through the jungle scenes).” Classic Sci-Fi Movies

Buy: Amazon.com

“Gray is excellent when playing both her younger and older selves. She is smart and driven, but also vulnerable. Although we never really like or admire her, we understand her motives. The script seems to deliberately suggest that women can become unexpectedly powerful and that men ought to stop abusing women or else women will take deadly revenge … It’s all very good for a second-bill B-movie.” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers

“Bud Westmore’s striking makeup is the most notable feature of this workmanlike offering, the last to be directed by Dein, a Poverty Row regular.” The Aurum Encyclopedia of Film: Science Fiction

Wikipedia | IMDb | Article: The Leech Woman and the Horror of Old Women

Larry Drake (February 21, 1950 – March 17, 2016) was an American actor and was best known to horror fans as the titular Dr. Giggles in the 1992 film of the same title. To the general public, he is best known for his portrayal of developmentally disabled Benny Stulwicz on the TV show L.A. Law from 1987 until the show’s end in 1994.

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Drake’s fledgling acting career began in 1971 in Herschell Gordon Lewis’ moonshine exploiter, This Stuff’ll Kill Ya playing Bubba, a character name he also played in Frank De Felitta’s well-regarded 1981 TV movie adaptation of his own novel, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, although the role necessitated him wearing a sack over his head.

Another adaptation of a novel, Peter Benchley’s Beast (filmed in 1996 as TV mini-series The Beast) gave Drake the role of Lucas Coven, who kills a giant squid. Unfortunately, there’s an even bigger monster squid lurking in the ocean.

He was particularly memorable as ruthless mobster, Robert Durant in Sam Raimi’s superhero action horror film Darkman (1990) and its first sequel, Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995).

Genre TV series roles included Tales from the Crypt – episodes “And All Through the House” and “The Secret” and as the voice of Moss T. Meister in the What’s New Scooby-Doo? episode “Recipe for Disaster” (2004).

Besides minor parts in dark thrillers such as Paranoia (1998) and Pathology (2008, as the unfortunately named “Fat Bastard”), Drake’s other notable horror role was in Dark Asylum (aka Maniac Trasher, 2001) as The Trasher.

However, for horror aficionados, it will be as Dr. Giggles that Larry Drake – who died on March 17, 2016 – will be most affectionately remembered as.

Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘Fang and claw killers stalk the streets!’

Black Zoo is a 1963 American horror film directed by Robert Gordon (It Came from Beneath the Sea). It was produced and co-written by Herman Cohen (I Was a Teenage Werewolf; Trog; Craze) with Aben Kandel (Blood of Dracula; The Headless Ghost; Berserk) and released by Allied Artists.

The film was photographed in Panavision and Eastmancolor by Roger Corman regular Floyd Crosby and featured a score by Paul Dunlap.

Main cast:

Michael Gough (Horrors of the Black Museum; Konga; Satan’s Slave), Jeanne Cooper, Rod Lauren (The Crawling Hand), Virginia Grey (Target Earth), Jerome Cowan, Elisha Cook Jr. (Voodoo Island; Blacula; Messiah of Evil).

Plot:

Michael Conrad is a private zookeeper who owns Conrad’s Animal Kingdom. He leads a cult group who literally worship the animals he tends — especially the big cats: a lion, a lioness, a pair of cheetahs, a tiger, and a black panther; as well as a gorilla. Conrad plays organ music to the animals in his living room, and uses them to kill anyone who gets in his way…

Buy: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“Black Zoo is just loony enough to function as fine junk; while it may resemble the more refined horror productions of the age, it feels more inelegant and clumsy thanks to its shaggy script and blunt force approach. In some ways, it’s an unholy union between 60s gothic horror and the previous decade’s penchant for nature-gone-amok films…” Brett Gallman, Oh, the Horror!

” … besides the sadistic mayhem, Black Zoo also offers a unique scene where Gough and his family of both people and big cats walk in a funeral procession to a misty graveyard. Seeing lions and tigers among the gravestones, in a scene dominated by grandiose music, struck me as unique and inventive, largely due to the camerawork and lighting.” Black Hole

“Conrad is a really hiss-able post-Psycho villain, a madman who charms teenage visitors yet seemingly hates women. All of Conrad’s affection goes toward the big cats that he literally worships. The standard mystery scenes are fairly forgettable. Too much of the movie follows arguments in the Conrad kitchen and the relationship drama is weak.” Glenn Erickson, DVD Talk

“With Gough hamming it up against the dissimilar style of American actors, and the film’s overall kooky nature, this remains one of the star’s finest hours.” George R. Reis, DVD Drive-In

“The script is poor, Gough overacts and the whole movie fails to create any real horrific atmosphere.” Alan Frank, The Horror Film Handbook

“Sadly, a lot of the film is taken up with lengthy conversations — between Conrad and his wife, between several police detectives and so on — that cause the film to drag for the second half. I blame this all on the script, which is a slow, clunky endeavor. With that said, there are a few great set pieces…” Satanic Pandemonium

Cast and characters:

• Michael Gough as Michael Conrad
• Jeanne Cooper as Edna Conrad
• Rod Lauren as Carl
• Virginia Grey as Jenny
• Jerome Cowan as Jeffrey Stengle
• Elisha Cook Jr. as Joe
• Warrene Ott as Mary Hogan
• Marianna Hill as Audrey
• Oren Curtis as Radu
• Eilene Janssen as Bride
• Eric Stone as Groom
• Dani Lynn as Art Student
• Susan Slavin as Art Student
• Edward Platt as Detective Rivers
• Douglas Henderson as Lieutenant Duggan

Filming locations:

The zoo was built at Raleigh Studio (formerly Producers Studio) on North Bronson in Hollywood, California. The entire zoo and a cemetery were interior sets.

Preview clip:

Wikipedia | IMDb | Black Zoo on HermanCohen.com

‘A new high in terror and shock!’

Savage Intruder – original title Hollywood Horror House – is a 1969 American horror film written, produced and directed by Donald Wolfe. The film’s shooting title was The Comeback (not to be confused with the 1978 Pete Walker film).

Main cast:

Miriam Hopkins (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [1931]), John David Garfield, Gale Sondergaard (The Black Cat; The Cat Creature; Echoes), Florence Lake, Lester Matthews, Riza Royce, Joe Besser, Minta Durfee, Virginia Wing, Charles Martin.

Plot:

An ageing actress whose career ended in the ’30s lives in her decaying mansion with a retinue of bizarre people, including a personal assistant who keeps an arsenal of weapons…

Reviews:

“Pretty fascinating stuff and a ton of fun for camp addicts, this should really be better known than it is.” The Bloody Pit of Horror

“Unfortunately, the whole production cries out for some serious editing and faster pacing to make the suspense more compelling. In fact, a pair of sharp scissors were needed during the long, annoying music-cacophony sequences.” Alt Film Guide

“For about the first hour, this contrast between the psychedelic generation and the older lonely booze hound works pretty well. Like The Night God Screamed, the older set’s fears about the hippie creeps are totally justified here! The gore effects are surprisingly good, considering it was filmed in 1969. Eventually, though, it starts to run out of steam, right about the point Vic starts holding Katherine hostage.” Rufus’s House of Horrors

Choice dialogue:

Vic Valance: “Here’s to lonely, rich, old bags!”

Vic Valance: “Tarnished silver wear is so depressing.”

Head chopping and hallucination clip:

Whole film:

IMDb | Image credit: VHS Collector

Frankenstein, Jr. and the Impossibles is an American Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1966. It premiered September 10, 1966 on CBS, and ran for two seasons.

Overview

The program contained two segments, which each served as a middle ground between Hanna-Barbera’s traditional cartoon early output and its superhero-based late-1960s cartoons.

• Frankenstein, Jr.: Taking place in Civic City, boy scientist Buzz Conroy (voiced by Dick Beals) and his father Professor Conroy (voiced by John Stephenson) fight supervillains with the aid of a powerful heroic robot named “Frankenstein Jr.” (voiced by Ted Cassidy). “Frankie”, as Buzz usually referred to him, was more than a little reminiscent of the title character in Gigantor. Buzz built “Frankie” and activated him through an energy ring.
• The Impossibles: The title characters are a trio of superheroes (Multi Man, Fluid Man, and Coil Man) who pose undercover as a Beatlesesque rock music band. The characters’ names are descriptive of their powers: Multi-Man (voiced by Don Messick) can create identical copies of himself; Coil-Man (voiced by Hal Smith) can form into a super-springy coil; and Fluid-Man (voiced by Paul Frees) can transform his body into any fluid. The heroes receive assignments from “Big D” (also voiced by Frees), who contacts them via a receiver in the base of Coil-Man’s left-handed guitar. During the development of the show, this group was called “The Incredibles,” but was changed to “The Impossibles” by the time of production. The team’s pre-production name was later given to the superhero family from the Disney/Pixar movie of the same name.

The show was the target of complaints about violence in children’s television, and was canceled in 1968. The Frankenstein, Jr. segments were later recycled in the 1976 series Space Ghost and Frankenstein, Jr., which aired on NBC from November 27, 1976 until September 3, 1977, replacing the canceled Big John, Little John.

Adaptations

A single issue of a “Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles” comic was released by Gold Key Comics in 1966 as a tie-in to the TV series, and the contents were reprinted in “The Impossibles Annual” byAtlas Publishing & Distributing Co. Ltd, UK in 1968. The two “Frankenstein Jr.” comic stories were titled “The Image Invasion” and “Frankenstein Jr. Meets the Flea Man”. A new text-based story, specially written for the annual, was “A Spook in his Wheel”. The character reappeared in the comic Hanna-Barbera Presents #8 published by Archie Comics in 1996.

A Big Little Book titled Frankenstein, Jr.: The Menace of the Heartless Monster was published in 1968.

• Nate Branch’s heroic identity was alternately known as “Fluid Man” or “Liquid Man”, with powers (and a flippered costume) similar to the Impossibles’ Fluid-Man.
• “Twiggy” Sanders became “Spaghetti Man”, with coiling and stretching abilities similar to Coil-Man.
• “Geese” Ausbie as “Multi Man” had virtually identical powers as his Impossibles counterpart and a similar costume.

Wikipedia

Invasion is a 1966 low-budget British science fiction alien invasion film, directed by Alan Bridges for producer Jack Greenwood of Merton Park Studios.

The film was written by Roger Marshall from a storyline by Robert Holmes. Holmes later re-used elements of his storyline in a 1970 Doctor Who serial entitled ‘Spearhead from Space’, starring Jon Pertwee.

Plot:

An alien spacecraft which crash-lands on Earth, near a secluded hospital in the English Home Counties. The aliens, identified as Lystrians, are humanoid and have the appearance of Oriental women. They are taken to a rural hospital where they cause a forcefield to be raised around the building…

Reviews:

“… after a worthwhile set-up, nothing much happens. The story becomes slow moving and somewhat uneventful. There are various happenings around the hospital as they try to puzzle over the nature of the alien and then debate whether to believe his story, but this is mostly talk rather than atmosphere. Things are pumped up sporadically with the appearance of the forcefield…” Moria

“While its a little slow going, Invasion is actually an inventive, atmospheric effort. Director Alan Bridges breathes tension and suspense into the gritty Cold War-influenced screenplay…” Peter Fuller, Kultguy’s Keep

“Made on a very small budget but imaginatively photographed by Wilson, the setting of this highly atmospheric film is an English hospital… tense, well-paced climax.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction

Cast and characters:

• Edward Judd as Dr. Mike Vernon
• Yoko Tani as Leader of the Lystrians
• Valerie Gearon as Dr. Claire Harland
• Lyndon Brook as Brian Carter
• Eric Young as The Lystrian
• Tsai Chin as Nurse Lin
• Barrie Ingham as Major Muncaster
• Anthony Sharp as Lawrence Blackburn
• Glyn Houston as Police Sergeant Draycott
• Ann Castle as Sister Evans
• John Tate as Dundy
• Jean Lodge as Barbara Gough

Release:

The film was theatrically released by Anglo-Amalgamated in the UK, and by American International Pictures in the USA.

A video release by Warner Home Video was available in the UK in 1992.

A DVD version was re-released in November 2014 by Network.

Trailer:

Wikipedia | IMDb

The Naked Beast – original title: La bestia desnuda – is a 1967 Argentinian mystery thriller film written [as Raúl Zorrilla] and directed by Emilio Vieyra (Blood of the Virgins; The Curious Dr. Humpp). It wasn’t released until 25 March 1971.

Cast:

Susana Beltrán, Aldo Barbero, Norberto Aroldi, Gloria Prat, Osvaldo Pacheco, Rolo Puente, Catalina Speroni, Sonia Grey, Rosario Blanco, Amarilis Carrié, Aldo Bigatti, Myriam van Wessen, Héctor Biuchet, Mary Albano, Norberto Nelson, Víctor De Verona, Jaimito Cohen.

Plot:

The police, led by Inspector Ibanez, are baffled by the murders of several attractive female dancers who all work on a musical TV show that features a horror-themed tableaux. The killings are the work of a masked psychopath with a taste for human blood and there are many suspects…

Review:

” … unbearable homage to Dario Argento’s first giallo.” 2000 Maniacos, quoted in Latsploitation, Exploitation Cinemas, and Latin America, edited by Victoria Ruétalo, Dolores Tierney, 2009

IMDb

Scooby Snacks – aka Scooby Snax – began as a fictional food item, but now include a Warner Bros. licensed dog treat (made by Snausages, a subsiduary of Del Monte Foods), a vanilla wafer cookie snack with the same name and Graham cracker sticks.

Scooby Snacks are used as a form of incentive payment for the cartoon characters Scooby-Doo and Shaggy, starting in the Hanna-Barbera series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and its various spin-offs.

‘Scooby Snacks’ is also a 1996 song by the band Fun Lovin’ Criminals.

In June 2016, the term ‘Scooby Snack’ was officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Producer William Hanna had always imagined that a “Scooby Snack” would taste like some sort of a caramel-flavoured cookie (however, the batter is coloured like brown sugar and similar in colour to butterscotch), and he and Joseph Barbera had previously used the concept of a dog, Snuffles, that goes wild for doggie treats in the Quick Draw McGraw series in 1959.

In A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, a treat known as Mellow Mutt Munchie was offered as an alternative to the Scooby Snack. They appeared in the episode “The Return of Commander Cool”, where an amnesiac Shaggy believed himself to be his favourite superhero Commander Cool and Scooby to be Mellow Mutt and, as a consequence, wouldn’t allow Scooby to eat a Scooby Snack. Scooby reacted to the Mellow Mutt Munchie the same way he does with the Scooby Snacks.

In another episode, “Wrestle Maniacs”, despite no longer being amnesiac, Shaggy tried to offer a Mellow Mutt Munchie instead of the traditional Scooby Snack but his Mellow Mutt Munchie box was empty so Daphne offered a Scooby Snack anyway.

In Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins it is revealed that Shaggy made up the recipe which includes eggs, water, flour, cocoa, sugar, and dog kibble for texture.

In Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!, it is shown that the recipe for Scooby Snacks comes from Sorcerer Snacks who were renamed for Scooby-Doo after the gang solves the mystery of who was trying to sabotage their production.

Scooby Snacks seem to come in many different flavours (although all boxes are identical), and in one of the later episodes, “Recipe for Disaster”, Scooby and Shaggy are ecstatic when Shaggy wins a tour of the Scooby Snacks factory where they attempt to sample the batter pre-cooking before being shooed off by an irate worker who thinks they are trying to steal the recipe.

Wikipedia