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Phantasm (1979)
Beware the Tall Man

/ Movies (Horror) / 2 Comments

Zombos Says: Very Good

Welcome to your nightmare, Mike.

Your parents are dead and your brother Jody is thinking of dumping you off to your aunt while he hits the road in his Plymouth Barracuda muscle car. I’d be depressed, too. It’s no wonder your imagination starts running wild. I’d start imagining all sorts of phantasms if loss and abandonment were uppermost in my mind.

Being a kid in the 1970s doesn’t help much, either. After that exuberant, but now defunct, 1960s high, Tom Wolfe’s aptly named “Me
Decade,” is spinning out of control like a bad, long, hallucinatory trip that begins with a glittering disco ball and quickly morphs into one of the Tall Man’s sentinel spheres sticking out of your forehead, drilling into your brain.

Phantasm is Don Coscarelli’s acid trip on the dark side. With many social institutions losing their veneer of propriety in the 70s, Coscarelli made sure to beat up our quaint notions of peaceful death, comforting undertakers, and simple horror movies. His low-budget film, initially financed by his dad and picked up by Universal after a rough-cut showing, is a tad dated in the special effects department, but
remains a scary, bizarre, trip centering around Morningside Mortuary with Mini-Me versions of recently deceased people popping up, flying metal balls with nasty skull-drills popping up, and a tall sneering gentleman from another place far far away popping up. Able to lift long coffins with a single arm, and endowed with abilities far beyond those of mere mortals like Jody, Mike, and Reggie—the guitar-playing ice-cream man—the Tall Man is one cantankerous and dangerous undertaker.

So go ahead, toss an ABBA platter onto the old turn-table and crank up the volume if that will help make you feel better for a little while. It’s time to have that safe, comfy, feeling blown out from under you, when even in death you get no respect.

Can you dig it?

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes Phantasm a cult classic. While the direction is a bit rough, there’s a distinct momentum in
scenes, like a deck of cards being neatly shuffled with each card crisply riffling into the interweaving pile. While the acting is also a bit amateurish, there’s a disarming simplicity to each of the characters, making their nightmarish ordeal stand out against the ordinariness of their lives. While some of the effects are low-tech, they play on the absurd terror of the situation, and the eerie, almost dreamlike—or nightmare-like—situations that reveal more of the sardonic Tall Man’s alien nature, and his sacrilegious dwarfing-down of the bodies of loved ones supposed to be at rest.

The film opens with a glimpse of sex and murder precipitated by the Tall Man’s more feminine side. In a weird twist that disorients with its shock-blink between her and him, we’re hustled into a funeral that brings together best-buds even though the unexpected death of their buddy, Tommy, breaks up their musical trio for good. Now with little left to hold him down, Jody is ready to leave the small town, but Mike, his younger brother, doesn’t want to lose the only close family he has left. But Mike has little time to be depressed; the mortuary’s undertaker is a queer sort, and Mike starts to suspect why.

Or is Mike just punch-drunk from grief and imagining things?

Not knowing which end is up, Mike heads to his local psychic for help. She plays the old stick-your-hand-in-the-box trick and tells him to
control his fear. But fear from what? Leaving the psychic, he’s more confused than when he went in, so he stays close to his big brother. Trolling the local bar, Jody picks up the same “woman” who iced his bud, Tommy. Lucky for him, Mike interrupts his brother’s nocturnal romp in the cemetery before she can do any harm.

The next day, while following Jody around again, Mike sees the Tall Man walking across the street. A blast of cold air from an ice-cream truck attracts the Tall Man’s attention. Angus Scrimm is surreal as the lean, mean, undertaker-machine. His voice, his face, his whole body makes you want to run the other way when he approaches. Like the alien harvester in 1957’s Not of This Earth, the Tall Man is up to no good, and Mike aims to find out just what that is.

Taking a sharp knife with him, Mike heads to Morningside Mortuary.

Late at night, of course. A quick kick through the basement window later, he’s prowling around the creepy marble hallways. In no time at all, he’s barely escaping encounters with an oversized ball-bearing from hell and the Tall Man and his Jawa-looking munchkins. After slamming a big metal door shut before he’s caught, he’s startled to find the Tall Man’s hand, flattened, still moving, and sticking out of the tiny crack in the door frame. He lops off a few of its fingers, spilling yellow ichor from the stumps. Mike realizes it’s time to high-tail it
out of there. Before he goes, he grabs one of the fingers as evidence.

More nightmarish events ensue after underage Mike downs a beer or two and convinces Jody not all is right with Morningside Mortuary. Jody loads up the old family gun and heads there—again at night—but gets attacked by a dwarf and makes a run for it. Worse yet, a hearse chases after him, driven by a much shorter—didn’t we just bury him?—Tommy. Underage Mike pulls up in the bitchin’ Barracuda, and the race is on. Reggie pulls up in his ice-cream truck after the hearse crashes and they discover the diminutive Tommy at the wheel.

Jody sends Mike to Sally’s antique store for safety while they stuff the little guy into Reggie’s truck so the squirt can ooze yellow ichor
over all the popsicles. While perusing the antiques back at Sally’s, Mike’s eyes pop out when he comes across an old tintype photo of the Tall Man that comes alive (Stephen King uses the same effect in his novel, IT).

Looks like the guy’s been around for a long, long time. Great. Time to rethink their fighting strategy.

Reggie, the ice-cream packing, guitar-strumming dude, joins in the fight. Being an ice-cream packing, guitar-strumming dude, he gets whooped good when Tommy bounces back to angry life among the popsicles. When the three of them—Mike, Jody, and Reggie—regroup and converge on the mortuary, they find the gateway to another world, lots more angry munchkins ready for UPS Global pickup, and all about what the Tall Man’s been up to. Just when you think the story is nice-and-tidily ended, Coscarelli throws in a curve-ball. With three
sequels, the Tall Man is unstoppable.

Phantasm will leave you wanting more flying balls of death, more of the Tall Man’s shenanigans, and more munchkin-madness.

The Gravedancers (2006)

/ Movies (Ghostly) / Leave a Comment

The Gravedancers 2006 movie posterZombos Says: Good

 

Step on a crack, break your back.
Step under a ladder, fall with a clatter.
Dance on a grave, get your ass kicked.

Zombos and I were out in the family cemetery, in the tepid air of a late summer night, prowling around for blurry apparitions to capture on video and unintelligible but spooky noises to record on our digital recorders. He was so excited after watching the new episodes of Ghost Hunters and the Haunted Collector on the Syfy Channel he went online and bought a bunch of spirit-busting gizmos.

“I think I have Uncle Clarence on the thermal imaging scope,” he said with glee. He pointed to a pink blob in the lower left corner. It was bent over at an odd angle; Uncle Clarence was always bent over from the weight of his hunchback.

“That’s your thumb,” I finally said. He grunted his disappointment and moved his thumb out of the way.

“Hullo, what’s that?” I pointed to a dark shape floating just above Cousin Shoemaker’s tombstone. The Ghost-Mart Smart-Budget EMF reader’s numbers were jumping into the high digits.

We cautiously approached the globular shape that quietly hovered above the grave.

“Quick, ask some questions so we can capture its voice on the digital recorder,” Zombos directed.

“Are you Cousin Titus Shoemaker? If so, where did you bury your fortune in the mansion? And how much is it worth? And is it true that Aunt Matilda hit you in the head forty-one times with that meat cleaver Chef Machiavelli still insists on keeping in the third drawer to the right of the triple sink just because you snored?”

“Oh, bugger!” Zombos had gotten close enough to touch the floating shape. “It is not ectoplasm. It is a Barney helium balloon.”

“Damn.” I turned off the digital recorder. “Well, perhaps we should just watch The Gravedancers instead?”

“Capital idea!” someone said.

Zombos looked at me. I looked at him. We looked around the empty cemetery. We kept looking back at it as we ran to the safety of the mansion.

 

While the smartly dressed paranormal investigators in The Gravedancers aren’t exactly the plumbers by day, fearless supernatural inquirers by night kind, they still manage to do a few things right. But in the end, when you go dancing on other people’s graves, you might as well stick a “Kick Me” sign on your back and be done with it.

The nearer to death among you may remember the 1942 Lights Out radio drama, Poltergeist, about the terminal effects from gravedancing. Building on this premise, Mike Mendez’ movie is a tidy little romp in the spirit world that draws inspiration and visual styling from such gems as Night of the Demons, The Frighteners, and Poltergeist.

Unfortunately, it also draws a bit too much from the over the top remake of The Haunting, and that’s where it loses the scary-cred it builds up in the first two-thirds of the story. For a low-budget fright-flick, however, it’s stylish, has good acting, and has coherent—if not always best for the situation—dialog. Toss in its few good shocks and you’ve got a good ghost flick to add to your Halloween viewing list.

Three long-time, but haven’t-seen-each-other-in-a-while friends get together for another friend’s funeral. Oddly enough, the funeral
has nothing to do with the now obligatory horror movie shock opening in the first few minutes. It’s thrilling and chilling, but don’t expect it to tie in anytime soon with the rest of the story. At the goading of the friend who’s yearbook photo has noted “voted the most likely to succeed at Kinkos,” they wind up back at the grave in Crescent View Cemetery, late at night, and stone-cold drunk.

Oh look! Someone’s left an odd card at their friend’s tombstone.

It reads to party all night, and dance over as many graves as possible to loud rock music.

Sure, why not?

Their luck goes downhill from here. The camera nervously peeks around at the shocked tombstones as our bunch, led by that Kinkos ne’er-do-idiot, dance on the resting spots of the town’s worst former inhabitants: an incendiary child guilty of multiple homicides; a pillar of the community who tortured many women tied to it; and a piano teacher who chopped up her lover when not playing Chopin; making that a neat one ghost each for them and their death-mocking dance.

In the weeks that follow, creepy sounds, flickering lights, doors opening on their own, a frightened cat, and a piano playing by itself spook Harris McKay (Dominic Purcell) and his significantly-spooked other, Allison (Clare Kramer). They follow up with Kira, another gravely afflicted cemetery party-goer, who has been having her own ups and downs with a spirit that alternately bites and molests her. They bring her to a hospital; a setup for a wonderfully frightening encounter with a spirited gurney.

Their third dance partner, that Kinkos guy who got them in this mess, has been having some hot issues of his own. When they go to visit him, he’s already called in the local college’s paranormal investigation team (all the rage now, really) headed by Vincent (Tcheky Karyo), and his comely assistant, Culpepper (Meghann Perry). It takes the investigators little time to figure out it’s the old dancing-on-graves curse at work, which persists from moon to moon, or until the cursed person dies. I bet Jason and Grant from TAPS never heard of that one.

So it’s back to Crescent View Cemetery, in the dead of night (of course), to rebury the remains of the antagonized ghosts in hopes of putting them to rest—again. What ensues is a nicely choreographed example of why you shouldn’t jump into graves with very spiteful ghosts itching to bury you, too. It gets worse when one of the investigators decides to do something very unprofessional, leading to more animatronic special effects, surprisingly well done on such a small budget, but somewhat over the top for what started as a more intimate haunting.

Everyone  regroups at the investigators’ stately mansion (Jason and Grant, eat your heart out), but soon they’re bickering over who slept with whom and arguing over old relationship issues. You know, the sorts of things every potential victim in a horror movie does just before he or she dies. An unexpected rearrangement of the landscape keeps them locked in the mansion, trying to fend off their three ghostly antagonists who keep coming on strong.

The climax is a heady mix of really big, ghostly CGI animation, a determined floating bloody corpse wielding a very sharp axe, and a skillful product placement for HUMMER—I’d like to see a Prius save the day like that.

After this movie, I guarantee you’ll not dance on any graves any time soon, and you’ll pay more attention to Jason and Grant on Ghost Hunters, looking for as many useful pointers as possible to ward off vengeful spirits.

You never know.

Ray Harryhausen Presents
The Pit and the Pendulum (2006)

/ Art/Animation / Leave a Comment

I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me.

–Edgar Allen Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum

Zombos Says: Very Good

Having grown up on TV shows like Davey and Goliath and Gumby, stop motion animation is an enjoyable form of storytelling for me. From the simplicity and witty fun of Gumby, to the richness of design found in The Nightmare Before Christmas, the stories are often magical and the characters always imaginative. Stop motion techniques can be used with clay, puppets, and realistic-looking articulated models like Willis O’Brien’s emotive King Kong or Ray Harryhausen’s creepy fighting skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts.

Stop motion has been skillfully and shoddily used with many traditional and avant-garde horror and science-fiction films since around 1908, and lends itself to the short subject rather well, especially when the setting is simple, and the actions straightforward. Marc Lougee’s stop motion adaptation of Poe’s, The Pit and the Pendulum, is a good example of this. Poe’s story is a straightforward narrative of despair, desperation, and horror. The anonymity of the villains, the delirium of the victim, and the increasingly horrific situations he confronts is ripe for a short film that captures this singular time frame of struggle against increasingly dire odds.

While Poe’s story is required reading for many college kids, this visualization of the torments suffered by the unnamed prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition would be a welcome addition to the curriculum. While a bit of license is used for dramatic visual effect (the prisoner doesn’t have a metal helmet locked around his head in the original story), the short seven-minute film adheres to and captures the essence of terror with vivid detail in its CG-enhanced miniature sets and stylized puppets.

Pit02_2 There’s an exaggerated character-movement inherent to stop-motion. It can either breathe dramatic life into the actions of its diminutive characters, or create a cartoonish-effect that hinders more serious storylines. Poe is deadly serious here, and animators Weiss and Fairley create movement that conveys much of the drama and tension without whimsical or absurd motions. The robed tribunal members, murmuring and motioning with their heads and hands in a condemning way, and the prisoner’s halting steps, exhausted posture, and fearful exploration of the dungeon, visually portray the literary tone of the short story with their painstaking and time-consuming attention to detail.

Dwayne Hill narrates the inner thoughts and feelings of the confused and fearful prisoner, condemned to the dark dungeons, without maudlin overtones. His voice is of a rational man in irrational circumstances; a man trying to reason through his predicament in hopes of finding an escape from his tormentors, and their fiendish instruments of torture and death.

One ray of hope and beauty written into the film, and not in Poe’s gloomy tale, is the entrance of a brightly-colored bird fluttering around the solitary window of the cell, high up out of reach. The cheerful scene contrasts with the somber browns and blacks of the walls and floor. It is a nice foreshadowing of hope as the prisoner looks up toward the feeble light, entering through the bars, illuminating the red feathers of the bird flying about carefree. It fortifies the visual storytelling in a simple but majestic manner.

Though not based on historical accuracy, the fictional pit and pendulum of the story heighten the fearsome depravity and inhumanity of the prisoner’s death sentence. In true horror story fashion, death is not the worst part, but getting there is. While reason keeps the prisoner from Pit13 succumbing to the razor sharp blade of the pendulum, it can’t stop the heated iron walls of his cell from forcing him ever closer to that infernal pit in the middle of the room. What horrors await should he fall down into the deep darkness?

It’s hard to capture Poe’s narrative detail, the rush of terror-filled thoughts overwhelming the long-suffering prisoner in his final moments before succumbing to the foul-smelling pit, especially in a six-to-seven minute film. But the climax here, with its carefully framed arm darting down to rescue him as he descends into oblivion, pulling him back to sanity and safety, is thrillingly done.

The Pit and the Pendulum’s stop motion artistry proves old techniques, when combined with creativity and a touch of new technology, still have much to offer.

Night Monster (1942)

/ Universal Monsters / 2 Comments

Night monster
Zombos Says: Very Good

“Do you hear that?” asked Zombos.

“Hear what? It’s quiet,” I said, puzzled by his question.

“That is my point: the quiet. The cicadas have gone quiet.” He looked over his shoulder.

“By George, you’re right. I wonder what…” I looked over my shoulder, though I wasn’t sure why.

We had been walking the beach close to the mansion, enjoying the West Egg summer night’s mix of sticky humidity and soft breeze coming off the water. With the sudden quiet, we had stopped and were now intently looking at the dense woods a few feet away on our left.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I reassured him. “Come to think of it, it reminds me of that movie…let me think…the one with that swami guy, Bela, and those croaking frogs that stop croaking in the middle of the night just before a murder happens.”

“Oh, you mean Night Monster,” said Zombos, not taking his eyes off the woods.

“That’s it!” I said, not taking my eyes off the woods, either. “You know, we should retreat to the cinematorium for a showing.” Zombos agreed wholeheartedly and we dashed back to the mansion, looking behind us every so often as we ran. Though I’m not sure why.

 

An old dark mansion, blood stains that keep appearing in the carpeting, and thick fog swirling off the slough; if that’s not creepy enough for you, Night Monster, an unusual Universal B-horror movie energetically directed by Ford Beebe, also has Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, and some thing—scaring the croaking frogs into silence—going around killing people inside the brooding Ingston Towers mansion and outside it.

Of the many B-movies that Universal churned out in the 1940s, Night Monster stands out as a tidy little exercise in country-gothic horror, and, while not truly a mystery, although it plays like one, it retains an eerie atmosphere with its fast-paced tale of grotesque preternatural goings-on, Hindu mysticism, and familial madness at the Ingston Estate nestled deep in the southern woods.

Curiously enough, while Lugosi and Atwill are given top billing in the opening credits, both have only supporting roles: Lugosi plays the persnickety butler, Rolf, and Atwill is Dr. King, whose mortal coil is shuffled off rather early in the movie. They make the best of their limited time onscreen with enough preening and posturing between them to satisfy any fan of the classic horror genre. Perhaps Lugosi was supposed to be the plot’s red herring, but if so, that aspect of his role got lost in the translation from script to screen.

Evil things are afoot at the old Ingston homestead. One look at Torque (Cyril Delevanti), the sour, hunched-over gatekeeper, and Sarah (Doris Lloyd), the starch-collared and tight-lipped housekeeper, is enough to see the household is not doing all that well. Margaret Ingston (Fay Helm) worries she’s got hereditary bats in her belfry, so she invites psychiatrist Dr. Harper (Irene Hervey) to visit and bring a cup of sanity. Kurt Ingston (Ralph Morgan), her crippled brother, stews in his own juices, cynical of the modern medicine that failed him, and hating the three doctors responsible for his disfigurement. Yet he invites them to a little-dinner-and-a-lot-of-vitriol weekend to see a demonstration of something beyond their science, beyond the natural laws of nature, courtesy of his very own yogi master, Agor Singh (Nils Asther).

Surprisingly, the important Hindu mystic role is not played by Lugosi, who did wear a turban as Chandu the Magician in The Return of Chandu, and as psychic, Tarneverro, in The Black Camel. Instead, Asther, an actor born in Denmark, provides the foreign accent and dark features this time around, perhaps necessarily less than Lugosi would have mustered given his iconic gravitas.

It’s when Agor Singh does his after-dinner demonstration for the guests, calling forth a skeleton from an ancient tomb far away to appear out of thin air, with blood dripping from its outstretched bony fingers, that the story takes a welcomed spooky detour from the usually more straightforward B-movie fare. Singh has been teaching Kurt Ingston the ancient art of cosmic substance control. With his mind properly trained, Ingston can replace his amputated legs with new ones created by his mind, enabling him to walk again; or instead, he could kill those incompetent medical bastards one by one with his new, cosmic stuff-filled limbs.

I wonder which way he’ll go? A puddle of blood is found where the skeleton appeared; an odd byproduct of the arcane mind control, comments Singh. A quirky little toss away detail that adds a touch more to the weirdness.

Jack Otterson’s (The Mummy’s Tomb) art direction and Charles Van Enger’s camera build a gothic atmosphere and slick gloss for Beebe’s movie. Enhanced by moody, terror-tense music, some of it previously heard in The Wolf Man, the secluded mansion’s menacing shadows, secret passageways, and flickering, fireplace-lighted gloom, all surrounded by a miasma of swirling fog, show a hypnotic palette of images. Window-frame shadows play across daytime interiors, and ominous shadows cast by furniture give a noir-ish textural depth to ordinary scenes, showing unexpected creativity and artistic preference in this budget production. The sudden quiet of the boisterously croaking frogs, followed by the screech of a door opening in the garden, signals the approach of the monster, a clever gimmick to heighten the suspense. In the 2007 movie Dead Silence a similar technique is used to equal effect.

The air of dread and impending doom is sustained by the mansion’s characters and their questionable intentions: Laurie (Leif Erickson) the chauffeur has nothing but dames and hanky-panky on his mind, but it’s not clear what else he’s involved in. Rolf acts sinister and supercilious until the bodies start showing up, and Sarah secretly has the hots for Kurt Ingston and looks guilty just standing around.

Providing comic relief are Constable Beggs (Robert Homans), who investigates when Millie (Janet Shaw) the maid is found strangled next to a puddle of blood, and Dr. Phipps (Francis Pierlot), the diminutive physician with a penchant for gland research. The more serious romantic roles are handled by Dick Baldwin (Don Porter), a mystery writer invited to the little gathering by Kurt Ingston (okay, why invite a mystery writer?), and Dr. Harper, who’s trying to get to the bottom of Margaret’s fears.

The weird murders happen fast and furious. While Dr. King is strangled off-camera, the discovery of his body is shown through the reactions of others, followed by a close-up of his lifeless clenched hand.  Dr. Timmons is surprised in his room next as a silhouetted figure steps out of his closet, its shadow growing larger on the wall as it lunges toward him. A close-up of his lifeless hand is shown. Then timid Dr. Phipps is attacked when he opens his bedroom door, thinking it is Laurie come to take him away from the mansion. We see him through the killer’s eyes as he recoils in fear, unable to scream as death approaches.

In the climax, Dr. Harper and Baldwin make a dash for it as the frogs stop croaking and the garden door creaks open, while Margaret decides to throw a hissy-fit with Sarah and play with fire. Will the killer be revealed? Will Dr. Harper ever get her blasted foot unstuck from the rotted foot bridge that Dick insisted on fleeing across? Will we ever find out why the, up-till-now, very reserved and strong-willed psychiatrist starts screaming like a B-movie girl instead of concentrating on getting her foot unstuck before Dick gets his ticket punched by the monster?

I’m sure you’ll enjoy finding out.

Special thanks to HHWolfman at the Universal Monster Army. While at the 2007 Monster Bash, I mentioned I wanted to review this neglected film. He soon surprised me with a copy of it, hot off the back of a hearse. Thanks HH. Thanks also to Richard Scrivani, who screened it at the Monster Bash, rekindling my interest in it.

Interview: Richard Scrivani
A Journey with Zacherley

/ Books (Non-fiction), Horror Hosts / 6 Comments

Good Night Whatever You Are book coverZombos Says: Very Good

But most of all, for kids born under the bomb and black-and-white TV, the revolution that was the 1960s began with Zacherley. (David Colton, Preface to Goodnight, Whatever You Are)

We take a lot of things for granted. I don’t mean all those little inconsequential things that we siphon from our daily wake through the great white waters of life, but the really important things like our relationships with people, the places we go, and the history we take part in. Living our lives takes so much effort, so much involvement, that we scarcely get a chance to look back and reflect before it’s all, suddenly, too late.

Richard Scrivani did look back, and his reflections on those things he didn’t take for granted back in the 1950s and 1960s are the stuff of history, and childhood culture, and all those really important things many of us, who grew up in those churning and yearning years, have tucked deeply, and absent-mindedly, into our back soul-pockets.

Now I know it would be narrow-minded of me to say that the ’50s and ’60s were a wonderful time for everyone who grew up then, but I can say with certainty that there was one wonderful part of it that anyone could share in, whatever you were: Zacherley. In Richard’s book, Goodnight, Whatever You Are!: My Journey with Zacherley, the Cool Ghoul, he reminds us of a time when monsters ruled the nascent airwaves, and Zacherley reigned as the TV horror host with the most, and flaunted it to the horror of many parents and authoritarians.

Zacherley came on the scene when Screen Gems opened the cinematic vaults in 1957 to release the Shock! Theater and Son of Shock! films, unleashing many classic—and many spastic—horror and suspense movies onto the little screen, awakening the monster-lust in many a young fan with their arcane terrors. In the middle ’50s, the first lady of terror, Vampire, helped open the crypt door to future horror hosts who put their bite on the jocular vein, in welcome contrast to their show’s more traditional, or just plain godawful, fright offerings.

As TV stations around the country scrambled to market their Shock! package of films, Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV came up with a creepy character named Roland to play host for their show. John Zacherle, already acting in a western aired by the station, was asked to play the surly, acerbic-witted, but humorous crypt-kicker.

Richard Scrivani documents Roland’s creation, and the ghastly business-side antics that led to Zacherle’s eventual move to ABC-TV in New York to become the nationally known ghoulish gagster, Zacherley. With lots of photos, and a clever interview format that continues throughout the book, this look at Zacherley’s rise to notoriety provides a revealing look at early television, which was a roll-up-your-sleeves time when local stations created much of their own programming and broadcast live entertainment.

Scrivani pays close attention to the progression of Zacherley’s career across TV stations up to and including the move to UHF and WNJU-TV 47, where pop-music and pop-horror meet in a broadcast-live dance show called Disc O-Teen, aired every weekday at 6 P.M. from the Mosque Theater in Newark, New Jersey, starting in 1965. He attributes his first meeting with Zacherley to luck; the cute girl he danced with, Sami, caught the attention of the camera men and Zach. His luck would lead to a return visit for a Halloween show, and many more visits that spanned the three years Disc O-Teen was on the air.

Notable rock bands and their music in this era of social transition, and the dancers that made Disc O-Teen a happening show week after week, along with Zacherley’s uniquely wacky sense of “grumor,” are vividly told. Against this backdrop, Scrivani writes about the  friendship that grew between him, a shy kid from New Jersey, and the palid punster whose iconic persona became the eternal poster child for monsterkids everywhere, whatever they were.

It’s hard to describe a time in American culture when the word “plastic” was confined to model kits, and not used pejoratively, but Scrivani manages to capture the innocence, the angst, and the harsh reality of the black and white TV age. Along the way in this personal journey, his friendship with Zacherley hits its idle periods, but picks up as John Zacherle moves from horror icon to radio announcer and back again.

I was lucky to meet Richard at a little private soiree thrown by the Drunken Severed Head at the 2007 Monster Bash Convention. While I didn’t have a cute girl like Sami to grab his attention, we were wedged in tight enough–small hotel room, many notable guests–that he couldn’t escape my asking a few questions.

How did your friendship with TV horror host Zacherley get started?

It started with a visit to Zach’s dancing show, Disc-O-Teen, in August, 1965. My younger brother’s band, Herald Square, was competing in a contest on the show and the winning group was to be awarded a recording contract with World Artist Records. My dance partner and I were invited back for the upcoming Halloween show. That was the very beginning of what would become a friendship with Zach.

In your book, Good Night, Whatever You Are, you write about an era of television and culture that, sadly, no longer exists. Why is that?

Because there are no longer any local TV personalities like Zach, Chuck McCann and Soupy Sales to host live programming. Everything is tightly scheduled and sent out like mass-produced cookies. Videotape is also becoming a thing of the past because stations are now broadcasting with hard drives.

The days when you could walk into a studio where a show was being taped (like sneaking under the circus tent), sadly, have long disappeared.

What’s your first monsterkid memory?

My very first “monster kid memory” has to have been the first time I saw THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS in the movies with my father and younger brother in 1953. I remember the picture had a slight greenish tint to it!

What other monsterkid memories can you share with us?

I remember my first experience with a vampire film. I was about 10 years old and THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE was being shown on a local TV station long before the “Shock!” package was released. It was the scene where Nina Foch kisses her fiance and the camera swings over to reveal Lugosi as Armand Tesla hiding in the shadows. The female vampire was obviously following his command and it terrified me to think that a vampire could pretend to kiss you and instead drink your blood.

Also (probably on the same station around the same period) Glenn Strange changing into a werewolf and stalking an old man in THE MAD MONSTER scared the life out of me. But the most intense memory was Bramwell Fletcher’s abbreviated scream in THE MUMMY after coming face to face with Karloff’s reanimated Imhotep, followed by that insane laughter. I watched the rest of the film with the sound so low it was barely audible; I wasn’t going to be frightened like THAT again!

Having grown up on the early horror movies, what’s your impression of the current crop of movies?

Every once in a while I see one I really like, such as THE OTHERS or the remake of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. For the most part, though, I’m not a big fan of current horror movies. I did actually like M. Night Shyamalan’s  THE SIXTH SENSE and THE VILLAGE, and I don’t know if this qualifies as horror, more likely fantasy, but I thought PAN’S LABYRINTH was one of the best genre films of all time.

Zach02_2 What’s the one question you’d love to be asked, and what’s your answer?

The question would be: “What makes Zacherley so unique and appealing?”

My answer: To a kid my age (12) in the uptight, conservative, tow-the-line 1950s, there were no TV personalities who broke the rules by poking fun at the stations’ programming and even their bosses. When Zach came on the scene he seemed to be speaking just to us and it felt like he was one of us. He also wasn’t afraid to make himself a filthy, disheveled mess while doing his crazy “experiments” and that was very much like the behavior of another kid!  I think radio personality Pete Fornatale, who calls Zach a “televisionary”, sums it up best –  it was like Zach was telling one big joke and we were all in on it.

Goodnight, Whatever You Are is a terrific trip down memory lane for anyone who grew up as a monsterkid. For everyone else, it will make you envious that you missed out on all the fun. But remember, it’s never too late, whatever you are.

Comic Book Review:
Papercutz’ Tales From the Crypt 1

/ Comics/Manga / 2 Comments

Zombos Says: Fair

Welcome, dear readers, to another unbelievably gruesome tale for your morbid delight. Pull up a coffin and sit for a spell, won’t you? Tonight, we look at another vain and feeble attempt to resurrect the dead. What’s that you say? No, it’s not good old Frankenstein up to his old tricks, nor voodoo zombies dancing in the moonlight. It’s more diabolical than that! It’s Papercutz’ Tales From the Crypt, Issue Number One!

The office is quiet. The clock on the desk shows midnight as the sleepy-eyed artist finishes his work. Reaching for his long cold cup of coffee, he accidentally spills red ink across the freshly drawn page.

“Damn,” he says out loud, but there’s no one to hear. Or is there?

“Hahahahaah!” cackles a mucous-filled throat.

“Who’s that! Who’s there?” says the artist, jumping out of his chair.

“Only us,” replies another voice, as if clogged with fresh earth from a newly dug grave.

Gasp! The artist trips over his chair as he spins around. Standing behind him are two figures. They glare at him from the darkness his desk lamp can’t reach. Their clothes hang in tatters, and moist earth drops in little clumps from their rotted limbs.

“Oh my god, you…you’re…” The artist staggers backward in disbelief, raising his hands in horror.

“Yeah, I’m Feldstein, and he’s Johnny Craig. Look, we’re not entirely happy with what your doin’ with our baby, the Crypt-Keeper.” Feldstein’s finger drops off as he points vigorously at the artist. “Not again, damnit! Now where did it go?” He motions to Johnny Craig while he looks for his finger.

“What he said,” snarls Craig. “I mean, just look at that artwork for the first story, Body of Work. Are you kidding me? Jack Davis was so upset he went to pieces. Wally Wood’s still back at the cemetery trying to put him together. Just look at these colors; bright, cheerful? And what the hell do you think you’re drawing, a Picasso? And don’t get me started on that storyline. Horror writer my ass! I’ll admit it’s kind of witty, and the tone of the story and art style work fairly well together, but that ending? C’mon, how original to use the old PG-standby, heart attacks. These are fiends, man! Thirsting for blood!”

“But I didn’t draw the first story; I drew the second one, For Serious Collectors Only,” pleaded the artist.

Feldstein stands up, grabs the tape dispenser off the desk, and tapes his finger back onto his hand. Then, in a fit of inspiration, he staples it for good measure.

“There, that’s not going anywhere now. Now what was I saying? Oh, yeah. The Crypt-Keeper may be demented, but he’s still educated. Who wrote those godawful word balloons for him anyway? You’d think he was a bit comic doing a dead vaudeville shtick the way he talks. Where’s the puns, the biting sarcastic wit? From Ralph Richardson to this? I can’t believe it. Even Kassir did a better job.”

The artist cowered. “That’s Salicrup. He did it. You can’t blame me for any of that. I told him it was too juvenile, too pedestrian. All I did was draw the second story.”

“That second story’s a doozy, too. It’s “250% more cursed” is right. How many times have I seen comic book stories about nerdy comic book collectors who live in their mom’s basement? Gee, let me count those times on my fingers. Damn, ran out of fingers!”

Once more, Feldstein’s overly dramatic hand gestures send another finger flying through the air. His pinky lands in the artist’s coffee cup.

“Gross,” says the artist, pushing the cup away in disgust.

“Damn, not again!” says Feldstein, reaching for the tape dispenser and stapler.

“He’s right,” says Craig. “These stories are so overly done and so predictable. Where’s the witty but ironic endings, the twist of the fickle finger of fate? Tsk, tsk.”

“There’s no unique Tales From the Crypt look, either,” says Feldstein. “No bold ink lines, or saturated morose colors, or salient looks of dread on fear-stricken faces. Where are the tombs, the crumbling cemeteries, the rotting zombies? Is this the best you got? All I’m sayin’ is show the respect due, that’s all. Don’t just throw anything together and call it Tales From the Crypt. I want to see more effort put into the second issue or else.”

Feldstein leans forward to emphasize his “or else.” As the artist frantically jumps backward to avoid the snarling corpse, he trips over his own two feet, and cracks his head open on the edge of the heavy steel desk. His blood pours out from the large gash in his skull, mixing with the red ink already spilled.

“Damn, didn’t see that coming,” says Craig. “His artwork wasn’t that bad, either.”

Both Craig and Feldstein hurriedly stagger off. Light begins to enter the office windows. The clock on the desk shows 6 A.M., the time the artist usually goes to Starbucks for his morning cup of coffee. He won’t be going to Starbucks today.

Well, dear readers, the poor artist has learned, only too late, that the comic book business can be murder. Perhaps he’ll be drawing a pair of wings next. Hehehehehehe.

Interview: Sight Unseen

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Sight Unseen book cover Zombos Says: Good

Robert Tinnell and Bo Hampton’s graphic novel, Sight Unseen, is an American Gothic story that, in true style, keeps the evil all in the degenerate family. With tight pacing, shadowy, emotive art panels that read like a cinematic storyboard, and a premise that doesn’t overwhelm the story but allows it to unfold, it delivers a tidy mix of eerie imagery and believable-within-context situations; along with a damned, J-Horror-styled spirit that simply loves to hurt people.

While seeing dead people through special optics like eyeglasses has been done in print and film before, that’s not the focus of the story. It just so happens that Frank Byron, blinded in a lab explosion, seizes the “opportunity” to explore a different type of sight; one based on his observation that his seeing-eye dog apparently sees things that no human can see. Dead things.

In the course of his experiments he distances himself from his daughter while becoming closer with the dead. But the dead are not entirely the focus of the story, either, except for one dead person in particular, still residing at The Birches Estate, recently put up for sale. She’s quite a handful as Frank gravitates to exploring the mystery with his newfound second sight when people start disappearing.

The artwork and story work well together, and the heavy line strokes combine with the shading and coloration across panels to sustain a morosely detailed and creepy sense of dread.

I met with director and author Robert Tinnell at the 2007 Monster Bash Convention, and took the opportunity to ask him a few questions.

How did Sight Unseen come about?

I met Bo Hampton at Wizard in Philly and we clicked. He read The Black Forest on the plane on the ride home and then called me and asked if I was interested in collaborating. I’m still trying to figure out why! He had ideas – the notion of a blind guy who could see ghosts.  I had a story involving the haunted house – and wanted to do the southern gothic thing – and we just sort of married the stuff…[Note: The last few pages in the book are devoted to the collaborative creative process involved in bringing Sight Unseen to print.]

With much of your creative work done in a horror vein, what is it about the genre that motivates you?

I think there are a number of factors, and while it may be embarrassing, there’s no denying nostalgia’s influence. Working in the genre brings to mind the things that inspired me in the first place – and the accompanying emotions. Of course, there’s more to it than that. In general, I think horror allows us to explore other aspects of life – sex and death are certainly primary examples. I mean – how can you watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers and think it simply exists to try and scare you? Of course, I do love trying to scare people. Always have.

Tell us about your monsterkid background and when the horror bug first bit you.

I remember seeing an ad for Hammer’s Kiss of the Vampire – it was going to be on CBS late night television, and I was immediately drawn to it – but forbidden to watch!  Later it was Dark Shadows and the Hammer films – still later the classic Universals. And in the seventies I was heavily into horror film fandom – did my own fanzine. I guess it was a cumulative effect of all that stuff…

Sightunseen02 Did your directing experience influence your writing in The Black Forest, The Wicked West, and Sight Unseen?

Not so much on TBF but definitely on the latter two. On TWW the book itself is certainly a rumination on film – at least one aspect of the book is. As far as Sight Unseen goes, I think even more as I was definitely tapping into cinematic methods of eliciting scares – and Bo was doing the same thing – drawing on his experience as a storyboard artist.

What was it like directing Frankenstein and Me?

Truly the best and worst of times. My personal life was in great upheaval. I don’t think the film is what it should have been – and I blame myself. But on the other hand, I did get to make it and did get to pay tribute – however flawed – to all those films and people who inspired me. Just standing around on the Brides of Dracula set and the Night of the LIving Dead location (I should clarify – recreations used for the film) was fantastic. And there are moments in the film – like when the kids are watching Dark Shadows that are very rewarding for me personally. I just wish I could go back and redo it.

Which horror films are your favorites and why?

The scary ones! Although I am partial to some that aren’t so much scary as they are beautiful to look at or thought-provoking. But here’s a partial list – The Uninvited: a ghost story that really delivers the chills.  It’s a very evocative little film – and I like the fact it doesn’t try too hard. The Innocents: a ghost story that’s about something, elegantly photographed, eerie in its simplicity. I’m a big fan. Night of the Living Dead: verite horror – this is a text book case about how to scare – and not because of the gore – which is actually the weakest part of the film. The Horror of Dracula – scary, sexy, economical, elegant, beautiful to look at, brilliantly directed. What more can I say? The Exorcist: you don’t have to like it – but you have to respect it. Scary because it takes its time, building its case, so that once you are confronted with the actual supernatural events you have no choice but to believe. The Old Dark House: The original James Whale version – scary and fun and sadly under-appreciated.

The list goes on and on – and my hands hurt from typing – so I’ll just note: THE CAT PEOPLE, FRANKENSTEIN, THE INVISIBLE MAN, DRACULA, DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, SON OF DRACULA, THE WOLF MAN, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, BRIDES OF DRACULA, DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS, THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN, FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, QUATERMASS FILMS, SUSPIRIA, DAWN OF THE DEAD – whew – the list is literally exhaustive…

What current and future projects are you working on?

I am writing two graphic novels – EZ Street for artist Mark Wheatley, and Bo and I are co-writing and he’s drawing Demons of Sherwood. I just finished the graphic novel, Eagle: Legacy, for Neil Vokes and once he’s done drawing that he starts our monthly comic, THE VOICE – which is my first foray into Mexican horror. I’m writing a big horror adventure screenplay and at the same time writing another more mainstream screenplay. After that I’m going to adapt Lee Maynard’s novel Crum – which is a brilliant book about Appalachia. I’m preparing to direct the movie version of my graphic novel, Feast of the Seven Fishes…I’m sure I’m forgetting something…Oh yes – writing the book, Jump Cuts, with Mark Clark – which we hope will serve as a interesting study of how horror movies have tried to scare us…

What’s the one question you’d love to be asked, and what’s your answer?

What are some dream projects?

I’d love to direct the movie version of The Living and the Dead, the graphic novel I wrote with Todd Livingston that Micah Farritor drew. I’d love to adapt Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife, though apparently that will never happen thanks to some convoluted rights’ issues. Tim Lucas wrote a marvelous novel, The Book of Renfield, that would be a joy to adapt as a screenplay.

Primeval (2007)
What a Croc

/ Movies (Bad) / 1 Comment

Zombos Says: Fair

Director Michael Katleman’s Primeval is a film filled with monsters. There’s Gustave, the four-legged, meat-eating kind, and Little Gustave, the two-legged and hungry for power kind. Both do not help make Primeval a good horror movie. The story’s tension and scares are lost in the flip-flops between social commentary, which requires lingering and thoughtful scenes, and horror, which requires the exact opposite.

Based on a real-life crocodile that’s been attacking people along the Rusizi River in Burundi, Africa, you’d think the story would pretty much write itself: the largest man-eating crocodile in history, born out of a genocidal civil-war raging in Burundi. With so many bodies floating around in the river, it’s no wonder Gustave develops a taste for human flesh. Yet, Katleman’s film misses the real horror of this human tragedy.

…

Primeval (2007)
What a CrocRead More »

Book Review: Apple of My Eye

/ Books (Fiction)

“The corpse plants are blooming,” yelled our groundskeeper, Pretorius.

It was a rare day when any one of our amorphophallus titanums bloomed, and to have them all opening their fetid inflorescence at once is quite a red letter day.

Zombos poked his head out of the window. “I thought I detected a whiff of their potent fragrance. Excellent.” He took a deep breadth. “It will make a perfect centerpiece for our Fourth of July party.”

He noticed I was still in my doldrums.

“Haven’t you finished it yet?” he asked.

“No. Lost, lost, simply lost. I’m not sure why I’ve been so writer’s blocked on this.”

“My word, this is the longest time you’ve spent hemming and hawing on a simple review.”

“That’s the problem,” I said. “It’s not that simple.”

“Well, then, perhaps if you think it aloud, that would help.” He sat down by the window, closed his eyes, pressed his fingertips together, and took a deep breadth.

I looked at my empty cup of coffee with a sigh. Times like these required strong coffee, and lots of it. I sighed. “Well, after reading Amy Grech’s thirteen-story collection, Apple of My Eye, I can safely say she has a fetish going for coppery-tasting, bright red blood, shiny sharp implements in dangerous hands, and bad relationships built on—usually terminal—masochistic tendencies. I can best describe her approach if I liken it to walking down a Brooklyn tenement alleyway late at night. Lined with shaded windows, I imagine her standing tiptoe on shaky garbage cans to peak into the rooms beyond. Not all of her clandestine observations are as clear as we voyeurs would like, but there’s a hint of the darker side of human nature in many of her stories that makes reading them an unsettling experience. Her characters tend to act a little out of kilter with our reality, giving them a dreamy, or nightmarish tinge of behaviors that don’t quite make sense if you only take them at face value.” I paused.

“That’s good. Make sure to write that down,” Zombos said without opening his eyes. “What else?”

I thought about it. “Her work is somewhat vexing because she has a habit of ending her stories much too soon.”

“Like waking from a dream without getting the full sense of what it was about?” Zombos observed.

“Quite. That’s a good way of putting it. I find her dialog a little off, too. Sometimes it’s too pat in places,” I said.

“I sense another thought on the verge of discovery,” Zombos said quietly.

“I’m not sure what…well, now that you mention it.” I picked up Apple of My Eye and paged through it while I collected my thoughts. “I’m not really into very adult dark fiction. Her stories can be erotically-charged. Take the lead story, Apple of My Eye for instance. The main character is a nightmare in red heels, cruising the darker watering holes of Greenwich Village. She hooks up with some schlub who’s looking for a good time in private, but she has ulterior motives that are unsavory.”

“And you were aroused by Grech’s prose?” Zombos asked, rather astutely I might add.

“Why, yes, I found the story very effective in that regard. But it’s a weird vignette. Why would any man go back to her apartment knowing her daddy’s a psychotic, mother-killing, incestuous fruitcake who doesn’t like seeing her with other men?”

“But you did find the story evocative?”

“It’s creepy as hell, yes. Just out of kilter with my normal expectations for—”

“But dreams and nightmares have no expectations, do they? They just create a mood which can often be disturbing, but rarely does any of it make sense at face value.” Zombos crossed his legs and leaned further back in his chair.

“I suppose that’s true,” I said.

“Which story is your favorite?” he asked.

“It’s a close call between Rampart and Damp Wind and Leaves. Rampart reads like some P.G. Wodehouse’s evil doppelgänger’s bizarre sense of humor. It’s a Tales from the Darkside-like episode about a very rich man going very very bonkers as he’s trapped in a castle whose walls are not content to remain still. The narrative is cucumber sandwich-flippant, and the characters and tone light and breezy. The story reminded me just a little of Charlotte Gilman’s more serious The Yellow Wallpaper. In Damp Wind and Leaves, which is also available from Amazon Shorts, Grech uses a masterful touch of understatement to describe one very special Halloween in a horror fan’s life. It’s a precisely measured story of loneliness and love, and like a soft gust of cool air on an Autumn day, that rolls over your cheek, it’s there and gone in a moment; but the feeling lingers. The imagery is vivid, as are the characters and their feelings.

“Then there’s Ashes to Ashes,” I continued. “A story that’s reminiscent of Bradbury’s Dark Carnival in tone and imagery. The very idea of a husband’s ashes no longer silently resting in his burial urn is wonderfully Gothic, but she writes it with a modern touch. The story seems to end too soon, but the mood it leaves you with, like many of her stories, is similar to the feelings you have after waking from a dream as your dream-emotions linger, leaving you with a curious feeling that’s hard to describe.

“I also have a soft spot for Raven’s Revenge. How can you not love a haunted Brooklyn apartment with a restless spirit looking for revenge? I’m not sure about Snubbed, though. It reads more like a woman’s revenge fantasy rather than a realistic portrayal of a woman’s revenge on her ex-boyfriend now rapist. Say, you know, this has helped me a great deal in…”

Zombos started snoring. His head had sunk to his chest, but his fingertips remained steadfastly pressed together, and his legs still curled tightly around themselves. I stood up, stretched, and finished my review. It was getting late. The guests for our Fourth of July party would soon be arriving so there was much to do. As I picked up my empty cup of coffee, looking for a much needed refill, I thought about Sanchez in Perishables, one of Grech’s very short stories that didn’t need any more words to convey its horror. Funny, I thought to myself, as I wondered what perishables we had in our pantry as I bounded down the stairs. Our guests would be hungry.

The Return of the Vampire (1944)

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Return of the Vampire publicity stillZombos Says: Good

Bela Lugosi’s career didn’t fare well after his initial fame withDracula. Having apparently failed the makeup screen test forFrankenstein—though he wasn’t overly found of playing the monster anyway—his reserved and aloof demeanor kept him from ingratiating himself with the Hollywood in-crowd. That, and the rapidly rising stardom of Boris Karloff after his noted portrayal of the Frankenstein Monster, put Lugosi in a deteriorating career position.

Although he created intensely unique and effective characters such as Dracula, Murder Legendre in White Zombie, and Ygor in Son of Frankenstein, he spent much of his time acting in lesser roles. After Dracula,
he portrayed a “real” vampire onscreen only two more times; as Armand Tesla in The Return of the Vampire, and as the more comedic count in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Lew Landers’ The Return of the Vampire plays like a Brothers Grimm fairytale. You have your evil villain, the occultist turned vampire, Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi), his reluctant servant who is tragically caught between good and evil and lycanthropy, and a wartime beleaguered, bomb-ruined London as backdrop seething with revenge creeping in the foggy night.

The story begins as the first World War ends. Lady Jane (Frieda Inescot) and Dr. Saunders (Gilbert Emery) must come to terms with a vampire in their midst. After he attacks a child, Dr. Saunders convinces Lady Jane that their problem goes beyond scientific understanding, and the two set out to find the blood-sucking fiend. But not before Dr. Saunders reads up on the annoying supernatural pests, written by one Armand Tesla, noted authority in the field.

It is an ironic, somewhat foreboding comment Dr. Saunders makes regarding the limitations of science to convince Lady Jane of the existence of something not analyzable under her microscope; only a few years later, the inexplicable horrors of the supernatural world will be supplanted by the inexplicable mutant horrors wrought by science and radiation. After World War II and the atomic bomb, vampires and werewolves would appear less frightening compared to the threats from giant ants, giant spiders, and giant blobs.

The shift from personal destruction to mass destruction has begun.

As night approaches, Lady Jane and Dr. Saunders find Tesla in his coffin and drive a steel spike into his heart, freeing Andreas (Matt Willis), Tesla’s werewolf servant, from his evil grasp, and ending Tesla’s reign of terror. Years later, in the aftermath of a World War II Nazi bombing raid, civil defense workers mistakenly remove the spike from Tesla’s heart, freeing him to seek vengeance on the family that stopped his vampiric-evil many years before. The scene is reminiscent of a similar scene in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, when Larry Talbot is freed from his tomb by two similarly bumbling, but not very civil-minded, grave robbers.

Andreas, whom the good Lady Jane took in as her laboratory assistant, once again succumbs to Tesla’s evil mind control and turns back into his rather huggable werewolf form, gleefully killing people in order to help Tesla assume a new identity and execute his nefarious plan of vengeance against Lady Jane and her loved ones. Andreas’ hirsute persona is more Jekyll and Hyde than a straightforward, rip-out-your-throat, bay at the
full-moon, kind of werewolf. He’s fully conscious of what he’s doing, but simply loves killing people and being downright nasty when under Tesla’s control.

Against the backdrop of bombed-out London—the aftermath of real horror brought about by the “Jerries”—Andreas and his undead master walk quietly amid the ruins unnoticed, anachronistic folkloric monsters in a tableau of a larger monstrosity, the death and destruction of war. It is an eerie composition; dark spookshow theatrics of cemeteries and fog mingling with scenes of carnage and black-out curtains.

The film moves well and Lugosi, while older, still plays the vampire with a sufficient touch of malice. The addition of his werewolf servant is an odd touch, especially since his servant doesn’t act like a werewolf—he talks a lot and wears a suit—but it does provide a unique aspect to the storyline and the need for redemption as Andreas fights for his salvation at the end. Why he becomes a werewolf when Tesla takes control of him is not explained, but Andreas retains his tie and voice whether he’s hairy or clean-shaven, which is either sublimely ridiculous or deeply meaningful.

I vote for the former as it’s more fun to watch than try to explain.

After Dr. Saunders dies in a plane crash, his manuscript, detailing the exploit with Armand Tesla many years before, falls into the hands of Sir Frederick Fleet of Scotland Yard (Miles Mander). Lady Jane is warned she may be implicated in a murder if Tesla’s body is found, but Lady Jane takes up the good fight as she tries to convince Sir Fleet that body is still above ground and a vampire is prowling London. In true stiff upper lip fashion, she pouts in calm determination as Sir Fleet tish-toshes the notion politely, but both still work together to stop Tesla for good. As a woman of science and reason, Lady Jane’s strong-willed professionalism foreshadows the career women that will soon grace many a sci-fi horror film in the decade to follow.

The Return of the Vampire is a good B-Movie that got lost in the transition from the Gothic-horror cycle to the
scientifically-induced horrors of the 1950s. By 1944, Lugosi, the talking movie screen’s first great monster star, exchanged his opera cape for a lab coat in Voodoo Man, and again in 1945 in Zombies on Broadway, playing a mad scientist. In the emerging world of science gone amoral, mad science became all the rage.

For poor Bela, his return was short-lived. He got lost in the transition also. He deserved better.

1408 (2007)
Room for Terror

/ Movies (Horror) / Leave a Comment

 

Zombos Says: Very Good

While I readily admit that some hotel rooms I’ve spent time in were murder, none of them ever tried to kill me. Unfortunately for writer Mike Enslin (John Cusack), room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel punches his number with a vengeance. With an ominous song blaring from the one-hour clock-radio heralding doom, hot and cold running ghosts, and concierge service to die from, he’s in quite a pickle; but, after all, he did insist on spending the night in it.

What is it about writers? Especially depressed ones that have lost a loved one and search for some truth behind that long dark curtain of the night? Enslin’s on a quest to find just one ghost, one real moan, one real hint of life beyond the pall. He’s so obsessed, he’s lost track of his own life, and wife, while spending night after fruitless night searching for hope shining off a ghostly glimmer. I feel for him. I watch Ghost Hunters on the Sci-Fi Channel again and again, hoping for just that moment, that one shining, incontrovertible bit of proof there’s more to death than meets the unseeing eye. If and when that moment comes, I hope it doesn’t try to kill me, too.

That’s the mystery of room 1408: what is the malevolent force residing in that room, driving people to mutilate and kill themselves? In true J-horror fashion, we never learn the answer, but the question is well-illustrated in psychological, not gory, terms, driving Enslin to fight both the room’s and his own inner demons. And they keep coming on strong, giving him little respite nor a good night’s sleep.

The postcard warning him to stay out of room 1408 is too enticing for him, so instead of heeding the warning, he heads to New York City to the Dolphin Hotel, to insist on spending the night in a room that’s killed fifty-six other guests—with one drowned in his chicken soup. The hotel manager, Olin (Samuel L. Jackson), sums it up best: “It’s an evil f**cking room.”

Not even Olin’s detailed scrapbook of news clippings and death photographs convinces Enslin to forgo 1408 and spend the night in the penthouse suite; but it does provide for a chilling, tension-building walk as Enslin peruses it, page by gruesome-death page, during his walk from the elevator to 1408. Once he enters the room, and nothing immediately jumps out of the closet, he relaxes a bit and pops open the bottle of high-priced liquor Olin tried to bribe him with; but that lets the spirits out, metaphorically speaking.

And once they’re out, hell starts to follow as the room’s evil entity makes its presence known by blaring “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters, and fooling around with his turn-down service. When he can’t get out of the room, now that he realizes it really wasn’t a good idea to enter it in the first place, his hand-held recorder becomes more than a voice-recorder; it allows him to vent his fear, his anger, and his thoughts, giving us a front-row seat to watch his mental state go from cocky to scared sh*tless in no time flat.

As the room’s temperature shifts from hot to arctic, and the paintings on the wall take on a Night Gallery-style life of their own, Enslin’s fear turns to rage as he fights the good fight to leave the room on his terms, not splattered on the pavement below, or, like one previous guest, stitching up his own, self-inflicted throat slice from ear to ear.

Cusack handles the three-sixty mood swing with verve, and his disoriented performance brings us into the room alongside him. Horror is best when served alone, and he proves it by keeping us asking if and how he’ll find the way out. Without lavish gore, director Mikael Håfström increases the shocks by first showing little, disquieting events that rattle Enslin’s composure, then increases the assault on his nerves with CGI-enhanced calamities that build in intensity. Gabriel Yared’s effective music is mixed in with harsh, discordant sounds and the pleasant-sounding, but tauntingly malign voice on the other end of the telephone, promising more unpleasant room service to come. All of this plays on our nerves, as well as Enslin’s.

Never has room service been this bad, or this much fun. In a summer of horror that can too easily become mired in uninspired by-the-body-count nihilistic splatter, 1408 goes back to the old school for its scares.  And it works.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

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Zombos Says: Fair (misses the fantastic spirit of the comic book story by a mile)

I was grievously disappointed with Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I wasn’t grievously disappointed with the first Fantastic Four film, just very disappointed. But this second film definitely cut me to the quick. Deeply. I expected so much more.

In what’s called, by older comic fans, the Silver Age of Marvel Comics, the arrival of Galactus and his herald, the Silver Surfer, is a high point in the very successful collaboration between Stan Lee, writer, and Jack Kirby, illustrator. In this landmark story, the turbulent Sixties’ philosophical struggle between the Flower Power hippies and the war machine Establishment is reflected in the relationship between the quintessential flower-child, Silver Surfer, and his nasty job for the ultimate status quo Establishment man, the Devourer of Worlds and wielder of the Power Cosmic, Galactus. Aside from making for terrific illustrations used in those nifty psychedelic black light posters, the depth of the storyline—unusual for comic books up until then—was heavy, man, and downright righteous. But you’d not know any of that after watching this film.

Ff02Instead, what we get is more standard chuckles between Ben and Johnny, Susan’s concern over how their celebrity is ruining her marriage and family plans, along with another one of her “Oh, damn, I’m nude again in public” scenes, and simplistic children’s twaddle that completely erases the grandeur, nobility, and greater depth depicted in the comic book for gosh sakes. Digest that last sentence again: the 1960’s comic book storyline had more depth than this movie.

In this film, the Silver Surfer has more depth in his navel then in his relationship with the Fantastic Four or Galactus. More thought was devoted to introducing the toy-potential Fantasticar than the significance of dealing with a power cosmic wielding, mass destruction godlike being whose hunger for sustenance must be fed at all costs. It wasn’t bad enough they changed this giant, purple-suited human-like being into a Dyson vacuum commercial, they also had to remove a key plot element also: blind Alicia’s relationship with the Silver Surfer.

In the original comic book storyline, it is Alicia’s philosophical arguments and pleadings that open the Silver Surfer’s eyes and long-dormant heart, causing him to turn against the big guy. Instead, Sue Storm just bats her eyes and the Silver Surfer is reminded of his long lost love; how convenient. Gone are the philosophical debates about life in all its forms being important. I suppose that’s too sixties for today’s more sophisticated audiences.

Ff01 Apparently, what’s more appropriate is writing down to the audience by relying on the usual funny banter and sight gags, with by-the-script Fantastic Four family squabbling. Hello, anybody notice Armageddon approaching yet? While Reed does the disco hustle at his bachelor party, and Johnny dons his Keebler-endorsed blue suit, whatever happened to a little suspense? Except for that brief planet explosion in the opening, more time is spent away from the impending doom than on it. I got it that being a celebrity is annoying, but hey, so is having your planet chewed on like rock candy while you’re still standing on it.

Another critical character missing is the Watcher. Another big, toga-robed bald guy, the Watcher does just that. He’s an observer and doesn’t involve himself in the little problems of life and death. Until he sees the Silver Surfer heading for earth. For the first time, he takes a stand and steps in to hide the planet from Galactus’ herald, but fails, leading to the drama that is sorely missing in this film, and the Silver Surfer’s redemption.

Ff48 At this point, you’re probably saying to yourself, man, a purple-dressed and toga-robed duo of giants would have been laughable on screen. Perhaps, but you bought everything else up till now, right? You’re okay with a flaming man, an invisible woman, a rubber guy, and an orange rock pile with a head, not to mention the Alcoa Reynolds Wrap riding the sky on a silver surfboard without any swim trunks. At least their appearance in the film would have made the story more—ironically—human and visually interesting.

Doctor Doom makes his obligatory sequel appearance. This time he’s very interested in the Surfer’s mode of transportation, the energy-empowering surf board. While this plot actually does happen in later issues of the comic book, why rush into it here? Planet-eating bad guys not enough? Interestingly, Kirby decided on the hang-ten board mainly because he was tired of drawing spaceships, but maybe his sub-conscious nudged him into this dichotomy of having a being that can cruise the universe at will like some surfer-dude riding out the eternal big one, but only just so far as his servitude to the man would allow, like some cosmic weekend warrior living free in his SUV until Monday rolls around again.

Doom ingratiates himself to the military, and too easily snatches the board away. Speaking of depth, there’s much more to Doom in the comic books than you’d ever guess from his weak portrayal here, but at least he does wear his suit of armor and cape this time around. As the Fantasticar makes its commercial appearance—kiddies, it’s already available at Toys “R” Us!—Doom fights to keep on surfing, even though the planet’s about to be pulverized. Go figure. Maybe he just wants to live up to his name.

Jumping to another issue in the comic book series, Johnny’s ability to absorb the Fantastic Four’s other powers, which amazingly comes after his run in with the Silver Surfer, gives him powers like the Super Skrull (Fantastic Four Issue Number 18), and he goes after Doctor Doom. Before that brief showdown, his predicament provides the underpinning for most of the too easy, audience-tested chuckles as wacky antics ensue because of it.

In one of the most anti-climactic “why didn’t he think of that in the first place if it were that easy” denouements, all’s right with the world as the Silver Surfer realizes the error of his ways and saves mankind. Considering the title of this film is Rise of the Silver Surfer, I suspect a spin-off franchise is in the works. Just think of the marketing potential. I can see the silvery toys lining those shallow shelves now.

Like I said, I was grievously disappointed.