Mark of the Dead Man (1961)

It has been a while since I checked out a Mexican Horror flick. Most folks immediately think a Santo or other masked wrestler flick when I say this and rightfully so. But there was also a tradition in the fifties and sixties to do more classic movies with vampires, ghosts, and in this case mad scientists. Mark of the Dead Man was a new to me, so I was excited to check it out. 

Dr. Malthus is a bad man. We know this because we watch as he stalks and kidnaps a woman apparently to drain her of blood for his evil experiments. We find out that he has lived for more than a century because of his mad scientist activities. Though this time the police stop him from finishing. That means even before he is executed he starts to show his age. He is eventually hanged and that is the end of the story, or is it?

I mean since that all happens in the first ten or so minutes obviously not. The movie then moves from the eighteen nineties to the nineteen sixties with all of it’s groovy music and fashions. There is a new Dr. Malthus who looks just like the old one. But it is a descendant of the evil fellow from earlier and not the same man. Though he does find his ancestor’s journal and digs him up to see if he can be revived. Sure enough with the “help” of a kidnapped maid the original Dr. Malthus is up and running his experiments again. This leads to more kidnappings, blood draining, and other such things. Though this all comes to a head when the new doctor stops the old doctor with fiery results. I mean all good mad scientist flicks need to end with the lab being destroyed by fire!

I sort of liked this movie. The pacing is quick, and the movie never lingers enough to notice the low budget or derivative storyline. Instead, something is always happening and while familiar it still entertained me. The movie has an odd mashup of creepy gothic vibe with the dark old house and laboratory while also feeling very much a product of the sixties with the clothing and groovy dancing/music. The story itself is a fun combination of mad scientist narrative with a bit of vampire (the doctor uses the blood of the young for his immortality) tossed in for fun. While I don’t feel the need to watch Mark of the Dead Man again it was still an amusing way to kill a hour and fifteen minutes. I mean I’ve seen a lot worse than this. 

The special effects are super simple. From the obvious bat on a wire gag to the rubber mask used to age the doctor when his formula starts to wear off we have seen this all done before. But you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and on their budget I thought it was solid work. The lab set is also simple but effective. I did notice that the machinery looked familiar and with a bit of digging looks like it was reused later in the decade for the miserable and much less enjoyable Madame Death which I’ve also covered for the site. Glad to see them getting their money out of the props. 

You can find this movie floating around the internet as I believe like many other Mexican productions has hit public domain. Be warned though that schlockmeister Jerry Warren got his hands on this and released it in sixty-four as Creature of the Walking Dead. His added footage and dubbing killed all the things I like about it. The titles are interchangeable so if you hear English dialogue stop right away. You are watching the wrong one. Here subtitles are your friend. 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Shivers (1975)

I spend a lot of my time here at the site reviewing new or obscure older movies. That is a conscious decision as I want to try and talk about stuff you guys have never heard of or seen before. It is way more fun for me and I hope is more useful for you readers. But every now and then I like to revisit and talk about an old favorite and Cronenberg’s Shivers is one of those movies. Please indulge me as I nerd out and if you haven’t seen this movie, you are in for a treat.

The movie opens with an advertisement for a high rise apartment building that sits on an island near the city. It has all the necessities for the community like a medical clinic and grocery store. Everything you need right at your fingertips without having to leave home. With that setting established we are treated to an older gentleman breaking down the door to an apartment and grabbing a young woman. After strangling her he tosses the body on the dining room table and does some impromptu autopsy action on her. After pouring something caustic into her chest cavity he slices his own throat with a scalpel. Now that is how you start a movie my friends!

Now onto the rest of the characters and story. We meet another resident of the building named Nicholas. He is having some issues with his stomach as he gets ready for work. On his way out he stops at the woman’s apartment and finds the bodies but instead of raising the alarm he goes to the office. We also meet his wife, Janine, when she goes to see her neighbor Betts (legit horror legend Barbara Steele!) to ask for some advice. She is concerned that he has been acting weird and Betts suggests talking to the facilities doctor. Here we meet Roger, the doctor, and his nurse/girlfriend Forsythe (the always awesome Lynn Lowry).

Dude has worm issues!

Lots of twisted stuff happens before we find out that man from earlier was experimenting on the woman. He wanted to create a parasite that would take the place of a failing organ creating a mutually beneficial situation. Instead, he created a monster that infected the host ramping up their sex drive to infect others. Yep, a sexually transmitted parasite that eats you from the inside out. No one and I mean no one does body horror better then David Cronenberg!

The story is interesting and unlike anything that I’ve seen before. The action kicks off right away with the door being broken down and the girl mutilated to stop the parasites. Then it quickly establishes the characters and lets us know what is going on. The cutting between the doctor’s investigation and the infection progressing in Nicholas lets us know exactly what is happening and what is likely to come for the characters newly infected. This tightrope is walked perfectly by writer director Cronenberg never lingering longer than necessary. It makes for an entertaining though disturbing watch.

On the subject of disturbing the body horror that comes with the idea of something physically infecting and hijacking a human being is itself twisted. But when you add in the sexual aspects of the infection it makes the movie even creepier. While it doesn’t get quite as in your face as the notorious characters in George Romero’s The Crazies (another Lynn Lowry flick) there is some nasty stuff hinted at in this movie. The father basically offering up his daughter was chilling without being too in your face. This is the kind of movie that explores ideas and horror that will get under your skin and make the audience uncomfortable in ways they maybe hadn’t expected. That is when director Cronenberg is at his best.

There isn’t a lot of what I’d consider gore in Shivers. There are some good gags with the worms coming out of the mouth but most everything is right off screen and implied. The most in your face effects work is the initial attack and suicide. I think that was a wise choice as it sets the tone for the movie and lets your imagination fill in the blanks of what you aren’t seeing. Most of the chills from this movie come from how it makes you feel and where your mind wanders instead of blood spraying in your face. I know that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I love it.

I think that I have made it very clear from the start that I dig this movie a lot. Just in case you weren’t already sure though I’m highly recommending you check it out. There is a newer release of this movie on Blu-Ray from Lionsgate that is filled with some cool extras and has a wonderful transfer. That is what I watched for this review and am glad to have finally upgraded my old VHS clamshell. It is worth the upgrade for sure.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Scorpius Gigantus (2006)

Sometimes I just know what is coming and still can’t help myself. When I dug thru my pile of movies that I hadn’t watched yet this thing jumped out at me. Not literally as I don’t have a ghost haunting me that wants me to watch shitty movies. Not yet anyways… Seeing that it was executive produced by Roger Corman and starred Jeff Fahey I thought ‘Hey this might be okay.’ That was immediately followed up by ‘Don’t be a dumbass!’

The story begins with a convoy getting ambushed by some bad guys. They shoot the army dudes guarding it and steal the trucks. They think that they are hijacking some valuable plutonium but instead get some science experiments that kill them all as soon as they open the doors! We find out later that a lady scientist had genetically modified some scorpions with cockroach and human DNA to make a super drug that would cure everything. Hey if you are going to science badly at least be ambitious I say.

Then we meet some more army dudes lead by Major Nick (Fahey’s character) who practice saving hostages and then get sent to retrieve the bugs. Only they don’t know that they are looking for bugs until they run into them and some of the army dudes get killed. They get some NATO army dudes as replacements and then arm wrestle. Also Nick argues with the lady scientist some as well. Then they shoot a bug and find out that it isn’t dead because the bugs are able to “eat” the bullets that were inside them. How? SCIENCE! Almost all the army dudes die before Nick and the lady scientist decide to blow up the bugs. By then they are on a boat so that makes it much easier to accomplish. Why are they on a boat? Don’t know… don’t care. Just happy that the movie is over after an excruciating ninety one minutes.

I could tell by looking at the DVD cover that I was making a huge mistake. Not only is it incredibly generic but the tagline “In the Tradition of Starship Troopers” clued me in on a minimum effort production to cash in on what was renting well at the video store at the moment they crapped this one out. Sure enough this plays out just like a copy of a much better movie where the scriptwriters were more concerned about checking the boxes than they were about telling a story or developing characters.

A prime example of this is how we keep getting unnamed soldiers/cops/security/criminals walking into the same abandoned factory (the location where this movie was clearly shot almost entirely) to be killed off by the bugs. Don’t have anything to say or do… grab an extra and have him scream at the camera before cutting to some CGI blood. This happens over and over again, and it gets boring. I’d say this plays out like a video game but they at least try and have a story. I’m not even talking about the newer games either. The Pitfall guy on my Atari 2600 at least was motivated to not fall into the pits or get eaten by the alligator. That is more than we get with Scorpius Gigantus. How sad is that?

The cast is made up of Jeff Fahey and a bunch of folks who happened to be in Bulgaria where they filmed this thing. The only casting choices that I can see is if you have a less obvious accent you got to play the American soldiers and if you accent was thick you then became the NATO reinforcements. That is about all I can say about the cast. Well other than I hope that Mr. Fahey’s check cleared.

The special effects work is a combination of terrible CGI where the same model was used repeatedly and latex for the close up encounters. There is a bit of gore with the kills but not enough to make the ninety plus minute runtime any less painful. My favorite bit, and that wasn’t a high bar to clear, was the previously mentioned occasional use of a latex puppet for the close up attacks. That had a cheesy seventies feel to it that I appreciated and was the closest I got to enjoying what I was watching. I mean I didn’t but at least it almost happened.

I’m a huge fan of Roger Corman but this late in his career when you saw him as an executive producer it simply meant that he had a financial stake but likely not any creative control. Most of those movies ended up being as bad as this one. What is even more frustrating is this is a remake of Carnosaur 3 with the bugs standing in for the dinosaurs. Let me just say this. I watched Carnosaur 3. I know Carnosaur 3… Scorpius Gigantus you are no Carnosaur 3! And Carnosaur 3 isn’t even that great of a movie! If you haven’t figured it out yet I’m not recommending this one.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Primal Rage (1988)

I did it again. I started poking around the streaming services that I subscribe to looking for something different to watch. I found Primal Rage on Shudder and thought I’d give it a chance. I mean it is one of those Italian made but shot in America late eighties horror flicks so what could go wrong? Plus, Umberto Lenzi co-wrote the script. So really what could go wrong… no I’m asking for real. Here we go.

The movie opens with some odd upbeat music as the camera follows students at a university getting about their daily activities. We are then introduced to a young lady, Lauren, who is about to have her sweet Lebaron convertible towed. Luckily for her the local student journalist, Sam, shows up and saves the day by quoting the laws of Florida to the tow driver. These will be our main characters for the rest of the movie in case that wasn’t clear. They end up going on a double date with Duffy, Sam’s friend and fellow reporter, and Lauren’s roommate, Debbie.

Here is when things get interesting. Our journalists were investigating “monkey abuser” Dr. Etheridge, played by Bo Svenson. Duffy was bitten by a baboon that he let escape and now has some sort of brain rage virus. He gets violent and nips Debbie, who also gets the rage virus. Well things get out of hand from that point forward as more folks get infected and it all ends up at the big annual Halloween party where everyone is in costume. Of course this takes place in October as all horror movies should.

This isn’t a great movie, but it also isn’t horrible either. The story is familiar and follows the typical outbreak plot. There are a few spots that seem a bit out of place when the movie teases some typical college hijinks (along with the oddly upbeat music I’ve already mentioned). Though it does get back to the horror quickly which is for the best. We get some fun puppet work with the baboon test subject that quickly goes squish on the window of a police car. There is a bit of a lull in the action as Duffy slowly descends to madness from his bite. But once he does things pick back up as it seems other infected turn homicidal much quicker. This all leads up to a finale that honestly was a bit lacking. I don’t feel like we get a proper payoff but that could be due to budgetary restraints.

The kills range from fun to meh. The fun stuff ranges from some neck ripping, scalping of a dude in an infant costume, as well as noggin’ violence from a pole, an axe, and awesomely enough bleachers! You give me a good bleacher kill and I’m down with your movie every time. Toss in the squishy baboon, a gnarly pulsating wound, and a final gag with a water sprinkler and I was satisfied. Though I was a bit annoyed by how many of the kills take place off screen. I feel like this could have been a much bloodier flick.  

Other than Bo Svenson the cast is nothing to write home about. Even he is playing the character very subdued. I would have much rather seen him play the mad scientist with some scene chewing glee not as a softspoken academic. Not sure if that is what they were going for or if he was just there collecting a paycheck. Regardless this was a missed opportunity.

Primal Rage has a weird charm that is unique to movies made by Italian filmmakers with American locations and cast. Think Cruel Jaws or Pieces, though be clear this isn’t anywhere near as fun but is in the same vein as the latter. If that sounds good to you then this one is probably worth a watch.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Unknown Terror (1957)

The movie kicks off with a man exploring a cave. We see a pool of water bubbling and then he sees something horrific as he screams. Roll the credits. After that we learn that his wife and her husband are planning an expedition to find him. He was looking for the cave of death, which doesn’t bode well considering what we just saw. After a musical number… not joking… which is supposed to be a clue to the whereabouts of the cave they head to South America. Along the way we also meet the local native who will guide them, Raoul, as well as another man named Pete. Seems that Pete has a history with Gina (the missing man’s sister) and her husband Dan. One that explains both his crippled leg as well as how he is able to guilt them into being part of the expedition. 

The eventually reach the village and find the cave. Along the way they meet another American, Dr. Ramsey, who is there doing research on the local fungi. Seems he has made some breakthroughs in his research thanks to the local flora and fauna. It is about at this time when the first monster covered in fungus shows up. Yeah, the good doctor is up to no good. The rest of the movie is some spelunking (cave exploration), monster fighting, dynamite explosions, and scuba diving. Then the sun comes up and the credits roll. 

This is another fifties science fiction flick that I haven’t seen before. While it was nice to check it off the list I wasn’t thrilled with what I got. The pacing is very slow with our main characters spending most of the first forty minutes talking about their history with each other. Pete was injured saving Dan you see. Also, Gina was Pete’s girl until after the accident so that is also a bit of a kick in the butt for him. After forty minutes the monsters start to show up and the last half hour is decent, but it takes way too long to get there. Unlike Flight to Mars, we do get a monster in fact a few of them, so I dug that. 

I also feel like there is something missing. Not sure if they rewrote the script along the way or if things were cut for runtime and/or budget. There is a native girl married to Dr. Ramsey that Pete seems sweet on. She reciprocates his feelings, and we get an odd line about how she was also crippled but not anymore. I was sure that something about the experiments healed her and that she would help Pete the same way, but after setting it up they ignore it. The girl also never appears after a point, and it is hinted that Pete and Gina are back together. I found this to be distracting. 

The creatures are decent. We get several infected humans who are covered in fungus and look decent. While the movie never gives us a single line of dialogue to explain what is going on I suppose they look cool so who cares. That said the big monster that infects them is just a bit of foam. Not foam rubber mind you but bubbles and foam like you might see on top of your sink as you do the dishes. This was disappointing and one doesn’t seem to connect to the other. They could have just stuck with the fungus monsters and it would have been fine. 

The Unknown Terror isn’t a horrible movie. It is flawed though, and I’ve seen this kind of story told much better elsewhere. I would say that this one is for completists only and even then it will be a watch once and move on sort of flick. If you want to watch a similar flick, I’d recommend Caltiki, the Immortal Monster. That one is much more fun.

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Brain Machine (1972)

In my never ending search for that next forgotten drive-in gem I sit thru a lot of bad movies. Probably more than is good for me. Sadly, The Brain Machine is one of those. So I think that the story is about the government being evil and covering things up. I say I think because this is the kind of movie that sort of has a plot but doesn’t actually seem to care about it. Let me try and explain that.

The movie starts off with a science guy stealing some files and getting away from the government security guards. There is a call made to a general or at least some dude in an airplane that they call the general… I mean costumes are expensive! He flies back and barks out orders to catch the man and find out what he stole. This leads to exciting scenes of planes landing, cars driving, gates swinging open to let the cars into what appears to be a gated community. You know exciting stuff. Almost twenty minutes in and other than someone mentioning the titular machine we haven’t seen a thing about it.

Eventually we are introduced to some science people who talk about subjects for the experiment. The thing they have in common is that not one of them has living relatives. That seems ominous to me. They get the folks in and there is a lot of interviews, which we get to watch… the entire interview… so thrilling. Then they go into a room, a mysterious something starts, and they start to hallucinate. Then there is an electrocution, suicide by hanging, and we find out that the government has been remotely controlling the experiment all along. They murder everyone to keep their crimes quiet and move the machine. But why? I guess they just like to be assholes because no one ever explains what the plan is.

This is a movie that was made with what I can only imagine was zero idea as to the plot. Not once does this cobbled together bore fest ever rise to the level of being watchable much less interesting. Characters drop in and out seemingly at random dropping long stretches of dialogue that do nothing to move the story along or explain what is happening. This sucks because they did have a decent cast including James Best (Dukes of Hazzard, The Killer Shrews) and frequent television actor Gerald McRaney. There were some working actors here that had they been given something to work with might have been okay.

When we aren’t getting long stretches of lame dialogue, we get a lot of scientific “gobbly gook” being spouted at us along with lots of folks starring at screens yelling about what was going wrong on them. I mean we don’t see the screens because that would have cost them money. Just in case I haven’t made myself clear yet this “movie” is mind-numbingly slow and boring. It is responsible for one of the worst eighty minutes of my movie watching life and this is coming from someone who has watched all the Witchcraft and Camp Blood movies! Hell, the government bad guys are just a series of shots of a couple dudes sitting in a closet making phone calls. I’m not kidding there either.

I’m going to say that not only am I not recommending The Brain Machine but I’m begging you to stay away from it. This is the sort of movie that will make you want to move to an isolated cabin in the woods without electricity and never watch a movie again. I know that seems like I’m being funny or overly critical for comedic purposes but I’m not. It’s that bad.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Mansion of the Doomed (1976)

The movie opens with a desperate man on a mission. His name is Dr. Leonard Chaney, and he is an eye specialist. This is ironic as due to an accident his lovely daughter Nancy is now blind. Partially out of love but more so out of guilt (he was driving the car) he is determined to restore her sight. But how can he accomplish that? He decides the only way is to transplant the entire eyeball from a living donor! I bet you can see where this is going.

The first donor/victim is Dr. Bryan who is not only a colleague of Dr. Chaney but was also his daughter’s boyfriend/significant other. It is hinted at that he has left her after she lost her sight, so Chaney seems to think it is a good place to start. Amazingly enough she can see again, but it only lasts for a couple of weeks and her father is back starting all over again. By that I mean he keeps going out and finding victims so he can knock them out and remove their eyes. Though it seems futile because none of the other surgeries even temporarily restore her vision. But being a doctor, he won’t just kill the donors so soon he has a cage full of them in his basement. This leads to an attempted escape, his nurse being murdered by an angry victim, and eventually them being released to get their bloody revenge. Sounds like a good time, no?

I enjoyed the heck out of this movie. I was a bit worried when the credits started off with “A Charles Band” production but this was back when he cared and was trying to make a good movie. The voice over from Dr. Bryan lets us know what he is thinking and sets his desperation up to heal Nancy right away. That then leads to him slowly becoming more and more monstrous as he keeps pushing. In his own mind we see him try to justify the blinding of his Guinea pigs with the “I’ll fix them once I have this perfected” only to conveniently forget that would mean blinding someone else. This total lack of logic as well as the performance from Veteran actor Richard Basehart sells the character and the story.

Speaking of actors selling the story we get a very young Lance Henriksen as the first victim and eventual ringleader of the blind Dr. Bryan. He disappears for a long stretch until his eyeless face is revealed in a cool jump scare. Once that happens we see a lot more of the basement and the caged victims interacting with each other. This makes what has happened to them so much worse. The script also takes the time to show different reactions from comatose, to wanting to escape, and finally homicidal rage for what has happened to them. I was shocked that the script has us spend that much time with them. I was expecting an exploitative drive-in movie, and this was far more than that.

We should talk special effects. This movie doesn’t have many kills as again the doctor tries to be humane; I mean other than ripping their eyes out and keeps them alive. When they do die it is tame with an escapee getting hit by a car and the nurse being strangled. Where the movie shines is the makeup used to show the eyeless prisoners as well as some gruesome gags with the surgeries. I was again shocked and surprised to see a familiar name connected with the work. This is a Stan Winston flick! He manages to make the audience squirm on a low budget, and I dug it.

The final thing that I wanted to note was the director. Michael Pataki is more well known as an actor appearing movies like Graduation Day, Halloween 4, The Return of Count Yorga, and my personal favorite Grave of the Vampire. He only has three directorial credits to his name with this being his first. From what I see here he had some talent as a director, and it is a bummer that we didn’t get to see more from him. If you haven’t figured it out yet I’m recommending Mansion of the Doomed. It is a fun, creepy, and at times gross movie that checks all the boxes I want from a drive-in horror flick with the bonus of an excellent script.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Land Shark (2020)

A man and his son are fishing when they “catch” a cow’s head. If that weren’t weird enough for you a giant shark jumps out of the water and heads towards the nearby city. Then the action movies to three days earlier, which we know thanks to the helpful crawl on the screen. There are some science nerds doing experiments on a shark. Why? They want to cure cancer or so the evil… wait we don’t know that yet… the totally not evil corporate CEO tells us. He makes the lovely Dr. Ye move to phase three even after she warns him it is too fast to proceed. But they follow his orders, and the shark gets mad after the treatment. So mad that it starts to smash windows and eat people.

You may be asking yourself “what the hell is going on?”. I know that I was. Well, it turns out the evil… we know this now… CEO wanted to cure cancer by modifying the DNA of a shark by splicing in some Earthworm DNA. Why? SCIENCE BABY!!! This means that even when the survivors of the attack make it out of an escape hatch the shark can now swim thru the dirt to catch and eat them on the land. Neat. Evil CEO makes comic relief skinny guy and his side kick comic relief fat guy catch the shark. How does he manage that after they quit? Shoot a lady! Why? Because he is an EVIL CEO. Were you not paying attention? More shit happens, the Evil CEO gets chummed, the henchmen die, and our comic relief along with the still not dead Dr. Ye kill the Land Shark and save the day.

There has been a weird trend lately with these made for the Chinese domestic film market flicks showing up at stores or streaming online. The most recent one that I’ve covered before Land Shark was Curse of the Kraken. They all have the same formula which is a story that copies some elements of more popular movies, a mess of a cast that is mostly there to die (sadly offscreen omitting any of the red stuff), and an awful CGI beast/monster. This movie is no different. Clearly genetic manipulation of sharks leading to a bloodbath references a movie like Deep Blue Sea. There is the added Evil CEO character that is almost a must in monster movies (especially from Communist China). This gives the movie a “been there done that” feel that doesn’t help matters.

Road Trip with the Land Shark!

We are also inundated by a lab full of characters, only a few of which are ever given names. One of the “named” characters is actually referred to in the subtitles as “glasses guy”. I shit you not! This is how disposable the characters are in the story. Speaking of disposable just about the time when the cast is at a manageable level and you think “okay now maybe I can get interested” we get a couple SUV loads of random henchmen with assault rifles to muddy things up again. Spoilers none of them get names and all are dead before the credits roll.

Our monster is an awful CGI shark that they can’t seem to keep in scale. Just to be clear I’m not talking about it growing larger as it feeds. That I totally get. But when it attacks the lab what we see underwater could clearly not be swimming around in the two or three feet of water on the set that the actors are in. Even when it switches to the underwater shots of the shark in the lab it is generic footage that looks like it was intended to show it in the open water. I don’t expect Jurassic Park here fellas, but at least put some effort into it. I can’t remember the last time I was this bored of a movie and this thing only clocks in at seventy five minutes long. How did they manage that?

This is a terrible movie that I can’t recommend. When you make the worst Asylum movie look interesting, which Land Shark does, then you are in big trouble. Very big trouble. I really need to stop watching these… but maybe the next one will be good. I know I have issues.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Madame Death (1969)

Dr. Favel is a mad scientist conducting experiments that involve the deaths of young women. We know this because the “star” John Carradine, who plays Dr. Favel, has a monologue before the action starts. Yep, he is talking right to the audience.

When the movie starts we are introduced to Marlene who is married to a man that can’t stop talking about death. In fact, they are rolling around in bed and he is still all mopey about his impending doom. Brother that is a pretty lady right there, get your head in the game! Anyhow he has some sort of episode, and he tells her to call Dr. Favel. She doesn’t want to because the doctor has been dismissed due to his theories and actions. But he insists so she does. Then we see them in the laboratory with Dr. Favel and his hunchbacked assistant (not much of one but it is there depending on the scene). He announces a terminal cancer diagnosis and offers a special treatment that immediately kills the husband.

But lucky for Marlene he offers to bring him back to life if she gives him all of her blood. So the next night she tries to do just that, but it fails and she is horribly scarred. But then the doctor tells her he can fix that and cure her husband being dead if she brings him the blood of other young women. Okay Marlene should have figured by this point that he was a bad doctor, but instead she starts to kill folks and drain their blood. For some reason this also temporarily cures her scars. I mean she doesn’t take a shot or have some formula from the doctor… it just happens. Eventually the police figure it out, she runs back to the lab, the doctor reveals that it was his plan all along for her to get sick and die so he could do another experiment. And the hunchback blows the lab up. The end.

This movie makes no sense. The story is a muddled mess that has no logical plot at all. Why does killing make her scars go away? Why does she keep trusting the doctor after he repeatedly screws up? How does she go from nice to murderous monster in a hot minute? Toss in odd choices like her just showing up at wax museum to throw acid on a guy so she can then lure her actual victim there for what seems to be the sole purpose of guillotining her after draining her of blood! That seems overly complicated and pointless. But that is pretty much how I’d describe the plot of Madame Death, so I suppose that makes some sense.

The “star” John Carradine is barely in the movie. They must have only had him a day because all his scenes are on the same set with just three of the other characters. This is an early example of what I like to call “stunt casting”. Basically putting someone in the movie so you can feature them on the poster when they have hardly anything to do with the proceedings. Being a production in Mexico featuring a cast entirely of Spanish speaking stars I’m guessing this was done to sell it to an American audience. Not a bad business idea but it doesn’t help the movie as entertainment.

I did like a few things about the movie. The soundtrack has a groovy late sixties vibe. The makeup when Marlene “monsters” out is a very simple appliance, but it looks decent and gets the job done. We also get a mad scientist lab done on a budget that looks cool. But other than these I can’t find a lot of positives about Madame Death. I had some hope for the movie as I’ve seen a lot of great Mexican horror from the fifties and sixties but this one isn’t among them. I can’t recommend it.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Warning Sign (1985)

This is an interesting subgenre from the eighties that I don’t think I’ve ever covered for the site. Warning Sign is an outbreak/virus/disaster movie without the horror tropes that we are used to. It is more China Syndrome than it is Crazies. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We get introduced to some characters that work at a small biotech company in middle America. Our main characters are the Sheriff, Cal, and his wife Joanie, who is the security guard at the facility. When there is an accident, and a nasty bug is released the lab gets locked down. Seems that they weren’t working on a better strain of corn but rather a bit of bio warfare. The government shows up and sets up a perimeter before sending a team in. That goes poorly (more on that later) and they lock it down. All those trapped inside are to be sacrificed as it just needs to run its course. That includes Cal’s wife, which isn’t going to work for him.

Here we meet our other main character, Dr. Fairchild. He is a former employee of the biotech company and had left due to his ethics. Basically, he didn’t like building bioweapons. It also turns out he is responsible for the cure, or at least the inoculation that is supposed to protect folks. While we know it didn’t work, he is the only person that has a chance to figure out why and how to fix it. He and Cal end up sneaking into the facility to save Joanie and possibly the world. For an added bit of fun we also find out that the people who died didn’t totally die. They wake back up as homicidal maniacs who kill everyone they meet. That is what happened to the team that went inside and is why the government wants to let everyone die inside.

Despite what I just mentioned about the infected becoming killers I don’t want to give the impression that this is some sort of outbreak movie like 28 Days Later. It plays much differently than that. You get far more of the paranoid “I don’t want to get sick” vibe than the horror that many would expect with the plot synopsis. This is very hard for me to explain other than to refer to my initial comment about it being more China Syndrome than it is Crazies. It has that technology and/or our own hubris going to do us in seventies and eighties feeling to it.

I found the story to be interesting from beginning to end. And unlike many other movies that tell stories like this the government folks aren’t portrayed as bad people. When Major Connolly decides they must abandon everyone inside to their fate it seems to pain him. He knows these people and is doing what must be done. To me that is an example of how well the story is written. Plus, it feels cheap to just write it off as the government doing bad things, when it is more of a question about how human beings will do things because they can rather than thinking if they should. Mad scientist stuff you know.

The cast is a filled with familiar faces. Sam Waterston is Cal and Kathleen Quinlan is his wife, Joanie. We also get Jeffrey DeMunn, Richard Dysart, Jerry Hardin, and G.W. Bailey as scientists. DeMunn gets lots of screentime as Dr. Fairchild which was nice to see. The guy is always good in whatever role he is given, though far too often it is a smaller supporting role. Yaphet Kotto is Major Connolly and is equally excellent.

I’m not sure how I missed this one. It feels like a movie that should have been all over cable back in the day. I would have loved Warning Sign and watched it again and again. But then I was a bit of a nihilist in my teenage years. As an adult I still appreciate this sort of story and think that it is worth checking it out. Not sure where you can find it but if you can check out Warning Sign.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer 

Doctor Blood’s Coffin (1961)

A doctor is caught doing forbidden experiments in an attempt to bring back the dead. He is kicked out of medical school and returns home… though I don’t think we are supposed to make that connection yet. Too obvious not to though. Anyway, when he returns to the English countryside, he does a couple of things. One is to determine whose life is not being lived correctly and therefore can be used for his experiments. The other is to romance his father’s nurse (he comes from a family of doctors). 

When people start to disappear, the locals catch onto something being wrong. After some searching, they do eventually figure out that the young Dr. Blood is doing bad things. One of those things is bringing back the dead husband of the nurse he was romancing… because that is going to endear him to her. Though by then he may have just been trying to prove a point that he was right and everyone else was narrowminded. As you would expect our mad scientist and his monster die horribly and everyone else lives happily ever after. 

I really wanted to like Doctor Blood’s Coffin as it stars one of my favorite British horror actresses, Hazel Court. She was in so many great movies like Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death and Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein. Sadly, this isn’t one of those great movies. They make the questionable decision to spend far more time on the romancing of Court’s character, Linda, and the younger Dr. Blood. There is a lot of them talking and walking around. Honestly, I want my mad scientists to be a bit more focused on their horrible experiments. Seeing their dating life isn’t at all what I’m signing up for when watching a movie from this subgenre. 

The above is further complicated by the fact that when they are going for the spooky stuff it ends up being a lot of skulking around the mines (where he hides his lab) and the countryside. At times it is creepy, but they linger far too long to the point of any fun being lost to the boredom of watching the searches and chases dragging on. I will give the movie credit for having some decent makeup when the dead husband, referred to as Zombie Steve from this point forward, makes his appearance. 

Zombie Steve time!

Though this is ultimately disappointing as it takes way too long to happen and for inexplicable reasons, he tries to kill his former wife. Instead of talking about their hopes and dreams maybe we could have gotten some dialogue from Dr. Blood as to the complications of his experiments. Or maybe another character could have talked about bringing back long dead bodies without their souls. Anything to explain why the dead are so pissed off and homicidal. When I say the dead that makes is seem like we get a few examples when the only time it works is on Zombie Steve so there isn’t much to the story itself. 

I was hoping for a Frankenstein inspired mad scientist flick. I would have even settled for a regular old monster movie. Instead, what I got was a romantic melodrama with a bit of murder and Zombie Steve at the very end. I can’t recommend Doctor Blood’s Coffin which by the way never has a coffin in it. Weird…

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Help Me… I’m Possessed (1974)

I’m back with another regional drive-in movie review. This time it is Help Me… I’m Possessed from director Charles Nizet, who really didn’t do much other then a few flicks like this. The movie follows a mad doctor who runs a nut house. He specializes in getting rid of the parts of a human mind that make people violent. He does this by having a dungeon and whipping ladies. He also has a hunchbacked assistant and a creepy chauffer.

How does the torture dungeon help cure folks? This isn’t the sort of movie that requires or even desires that sort of logic. We do meet the doctor’s sister. Her name is Melanie, and she seems to be his one big success. She went from unpredictably violent to childlike. But when murders start to occur near the hospital it becomes clear that she might not be as innocent as she appears to be. The good doctor has managed to separate the violent tendencies into their own “monster” that appears on occasion to release the homicidal tendencies. Eventually folks catch on, including the doctor’s wife who comes for a visit, and he meets his end with a self-inflicted guillotining.

This isn’t a very good movie. While not an overly long movie, clocking in at seventy nine minutes, it feels much longer. The story is filled with ideas that are never explained or explored. Why does the sister need to go to the cave to talk to her friend? Why is there a torture dungeon in the basement? Why does the doctor occasionally just murder the shit out of people on his own? Also why does he just randomly kill one of his nurses when she is attacked by a patient? There are more questions but none of them are explained. This is the kind of plot and script that seems to have been written to include as many tropes as possible without any effort to explain them. They threw a lot of ideas at the wall and sadly none of them stuck. It makes for a confusing and in the end a boring experience. It was tough to get thru.

The "monster"

The hammy performances and terrible line delivery is awful. I’d toss some blame towards the poorly written script but two of the main actors, Bill Greer and Deedy Peters, are also our leads Dr. Blackwell and his wife. So regardless of whether the acting or script is to blame it still falls at their feet. The rest of the cast isn’t much better. Though I’ll give credit to the actress who plays Melanie, Lynne Marta. She is decent and went onto work steadily into the early two thousands.

I will give some credit for a few random gags that they pulled off. I laughed (probably not the intention) at the goofy monster effects. It is like they laid the camera flat and dangled some rubber tubbing over it with red backlighting. It doesn’t work at all but is so ineptly funny that I admit to having enjoyed it. There is one sequence where they have a really short coffin… comically so… that the hunchback has to fit a lady into. With a bit of movie magic they insinuate that he has to lop off her legs to make her fit. You don’t see anything, but it is staged well, so I appreciated that.

Most of the time when I find a regional flick that I’ve never seen before there is a good reason no one has mentioned it to me. Occasionally it is a hidden gem that I can recommend and try to get the word out. But most of the time it is because it is utterly forgettable and shouldn’t be foisted upon anyone. Help Me… I’m Possessed is a prime example of the latter. This one is for the drive-in low budget completist only. I can’t recommend it for anyone else.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Project Wolf Hunting (2022)

Over the last several years the genre films coming out of South Korea have been hitting it out of the park. Movies like Train to Busan, # Alive, and Monstrum have been some of the coolest new horror flicks that I’ve seen. When my co-host Tim picked Project Wolf Hunting for the latest episode of the Bloodbaths and Boomsticks podcast I was very excited to watch it. Were my expectations met? Lets find out.

The movie opens with a prisoner being transported from the Philippines to South Korea. A family member of one of his victims sets off a bomb and kills a bunch of folks. That leads to the authorities changing their plans. Instead, a large group of convicts are loaded onto a freighter and sent back home via a sea route. You have their guards, a bunch of bad guys, and the ship’s crew. Unfortunately, there is a jail break and lots of people get brutally killed during and afterwards. This also leads to them cutting all communications and the engines being damaged causing the ship to come to a stop in the middle of the ocean.

As if that isn’t bad enough the blood from the bodies goes down a drain and drips onto a secret cargo. Seems that a criminal organization was sneaking a medical experiment from World War II back to South Korea. It is an unstoppable killing machine that is also immortal, which is important later. The gang is run by a man who is researching immortality and the creation of super soldiers or perhaps just super killers. It isn’t clear. The monster goes thru the ship murdering everyone that it finds in some of the stickiest and gooiest ways possible. There is also a twist with one of the prisoners that sets up what I think are some intended sequels. Many folks die… well basically everyone actually… before we get to the big reveal at the end.

For a movie that is just over two hours long I have to say I wasn’t bored at all. They waste little time getting to the action and it never lets up once it starts. That said I did find myself confused at times since there is little to no character development. I know what you are going to say… “John this is a horror action flick who cares?”. But I’d point out that one of the reasons movies like Train to Busan or #Alive are so memorable is because you care about the characters. Here they were just there to get mangled by either the escaped prisoners or the monster.

The Gore is satisfying

Want an example? The prison break was organized by what is clearly the villain of the movie. He is established as a bad ass and a homicidal maniac right away as he tears a dudes ear off with his teeth. It is his gang that frees everyone, and the other escapees defer to him. So, this is going to be the dude or at least he will be the point of conflict in the survivors when the monster shows up right? Nope just as that is about to happen, he repeatedly takes a sledgehammer to the face until his noggin’s is a pile of goo. Hell, the real reason they are in the situation with the monster and folks die is a character introduced towards the end of the movie and only exists to set up a sequel.

That brings me to my other big complaint about Project Wolf Hunter. While entertaining this movie clearly exists solely to setup sequels as the story here just establishes the experiments and where our augmented characters (yes there are more than just the monster) come from. Our one survivor, who is eventually established as our protagonist, literally washes up on a beach ready to get revenge right as the end credits are about to roll. I would have liked a complete story with an ending, even if it leads to sequels. There isn’t any resolution here and I felt cheated. I just spent two hours of my time, and this is how it ends? Damn it!

Decent looking creature

Now it sounds like I didn’t like the movie. In fact, there is enough gore and violence to keep my attention until the very end. Between the psycho criminals and the monster killing survivors we get all kinds of cool stuff on the screen. There is a scalping, throats get ripped out, limbs are snapped, ears chewed off, throats cut, faces torn out, organs torn out, legs lopped off below the knees, and a dude is beaten to death with his own arm. This doesn’t include the dozens of shootings featured during multiple gunfights. Though my favorite has to be the smashing of the gang leader as his head is turned to mush “Gallagher” style. Look that last one up kids… he was a funny dude. The creature design is also great so special effects wise this movie checked all the boxes.

I will be checking out the sequels and I recommend that if you get the chance, you should check out Project Wolf Hunter. It is a decent movie. Though I can say that this wouldn’t have made my top ten of last year and doesn’t come close to the storytelling we have gotten from other recent South Korean horror flicks. But overall, not too bad. 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Doctor of Doom (1963)

When we think about the subgenre of Mexican masked luchador horror movies obviously most of us go to Santo or the Blue Demon. But there was a less successful attempt to do lady luchador movies as well. Doctor of Doom is one of those and I have to say I dug it. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

An evil scientist is terrorizing “the city” by kidnapping beautiful young women for his hideous brain transplant experiments. We know this because after some wrasslin’ inserts we see him operating and a lady dying on the table. He theorizes that his experiments fail because he needs a smarter lady to transplant the brain into… because of science reasons and whatnot. So he ends up kidnapping the sister of the champion wrestler lady Gloria. When Gloria’s sister also dies on the table, she swears that he will be brought to justice! With the help of Golden Ruby, a new to town lady wrestler, she gets kidnapped by and slaps the bad guys around.

Eventually the mad doctor/scientist gets really mad (she did toss acid on his face!) and builds a special killer lady wrestler to kill Gloria in the ring. But fear not my friends as she and Golden Ruby are able to fight the killer off and eventually both the doctor and his creation meet their ends at the end of a rifle and fall off a water tower. It was truly beauty that killed the beast… or something like that anyways.

These movies, whether it is a Santo entry or one of the many copies/clones like Doctor of Doom, are an acquired taste. Some folks get annoyed with the padding out of the short runtime with a couple of extended shots of luchadores doing their thing in the ring. Personally, I kind of dig this myself and find it entertaining. As far as padding goes it can be a lot worse then watching acrobatic jumps and hip tosses. Clocking in at only seventy seven minutes long it is paced well and never lingers long enough to lose the audience. There is enough humor mixed in with the action to make you chuckle here and there and overall, I had no complaints. It is cheesy and harmless fun that is entertaining.

The Lady Wrasslers!

The fact that this movie is made as well as it was shouldn’t come as a surprise. It was directed by the prolific Rene Cardona who had a hundred and forty seven directing credits over his forty plus year career. The guy made a lot of low budget gold including some Santo flicks, so he was familiar with this genre and how to make it work. There was a formula, and he knew how to execute it.

I realize that I had forgotten to mention that the mad doctor has a monster in the basement that he uses to help capture his victims. The monster is called Gomar and is basically a guy with some latex slapped on his face. While simple it is effective and along with the post acid splash scarring is decent enough for the budget and overall goofy vibe.

Doctor of Doom is a fun way to kill some time and well worth checking out. As of the writing of this review you can find the movie on YouTube as well as several other places. It is easy to find and at the low low cost of free! Give it a chance.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Fiend without a Face (1958)

A man is found dead after lurking around an airbase. The military wants to investigate what killed him, but the locals refuse to let them. They even stop any attempts at an autopsy. They just assume that he died because of the nuclear reactor in the nearby base. They also blame the issues with their dairy cows on this as well. They are rather angry at the military. This is only made worse when more bodies are found. Eventually the doctor’s figure out that the brain and spinal cord of each victim is gone!

Is this an alien invasion? I mean it is a creepy fifties science fiction movie so that would make sense. But in a clever twist it turns out that it isn’t the military but instead a retired professor who has been using their nuclear powered radar to fuel his own experiments. The result is a bunch of creepy looking invisible monsters that he has lost control over! The best part is when the reactor gets out of control and the monsters become visible though. Then it gets good… really good.

This is one of those fifties movies that people don’t talk about, but the creatures show up everywhere. Trust me if you have seen a documentary or special about science fiction movies then the brain monsters from Fiend without a Face have been shown. I know that normally I talk about the plot and characters first but I’m making an exception here since the creatures are the reason to watch. Initially you don’t see them only hear something moving around the scene with some occasional hay or grass sliding out of the way. The kills are sold by the actor grabbing at their neck and falling to the ground.

But when the power is amped up from the nuclear plant running out of control, they get so supercharged that we get to see them in all their glory. A brain with eyestalks that movie around by pushing themselves on spinal cords. See where all the spare parts from the victims went? This is brought to the screen with some well executed stop motion work as well as latex puppets that get wrapped around the cast when there is an attack. The best part is when they are shot, they sort of pop and spit out what I suppose is blood or maybe monster ooze. Pretty gruesome for a fifties flick and I love it.

The cast is okay with the only highlight being Marshall Thompson as Major Cummings. He is the army officer trying to sort out the killings and is who we follow as the story unfolds. It was interesting to see him here as in the same year he also appeared in It! The Terror from Beyond Space, which is another favorite of mine. He had a good year. His love interest is played by an actress who had a rather short career. Kim Parker is Barbara and does a rather risqué bit, at least for the time, involving her in the shower. I think that she retired to have a family. What was interesting about her though is that she was a refugee who survived a Concentration Camp. After the war she traveled to and settled in England (where this movie was made). Nothing to do with her acting, she is pretty good, but that sort of real life horror put this silliness in the proper perspective.

This is an excellent flick that I highly recommend to everyone. It gets right to the good stuff and never stops being creepy and fun for a second. I’m not sure where it is currently available but for this review I watched the Criterion release.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer