Throwback Thursday – To Wake the Dead by Richard Laymon

note: This is another blast from the past. I had totally forgotten about To Wake the Dead and honestly I don’t think I’ve checked out any of Laymon’s other books. I do remember really digging this one so I’m going to have to go looking for more. I mean it has been nine years since I read this one so it really is about time I get off my butt!

Amara was an ancient Egyptian princess that bore the bastard child of the god Set. In exchange he promised her eternal life, only I don’t think she thought it would be as a withered husk that could only come out when the seals locking her tomb were broken. Of course that is what happens and she makes good her escape leaving a wake of dead bodies behind her. All of this is done in search of her missing baby, or actually any baby will do. Our main characters are a police detective named Tag and his girlfriend Susan who is also in charge of the mummy exhibit so connections. In addition to the mummy we have a storyline involving some kidnapped people being kept in cages, a man that has a connection with the previous owner of the mummy, and some kids driving to Hollywood to escape their old lives and make it big. The three intersect at the end and as they all end up encountering the undead creature.

There is a lot going on in this book as the action jumps between the different characters and their plot lines. At first this was a bit off putting but once I got used to how the story was flowing, I had fun with it. This also helps to keep things fresh as I’m not sure focusing on any of the three would have made for a good book. Just to be clear I’m saying that because of a lack of material and not writing skill. There just wasn’t much meat on the bone of the individual storylines so it needs all three.

I don't normally mention gore when I’m writing a book review but here I will. There is a lot of nasty stuff in the book and Laymon has a gift in describing the mayhem to the reader. The mummy makes a mess of quite a few characters as necks are ripped open and eyes gouged out in bloody detail. But that isn’t all that there is. We also get a lot of sexual torture stuff with the captives in their cages including a nasty twist where the captors get what is coming to them. Additionally, throats are slit and necks broken that have nothing to do with the mummy and her violent goals. These extra bits of violence make for a bloody read.

Since I’m on the topic of violence and gore one thing that the book does nicely is make sure we know that no one is safe. We get characters established and come to like them only to have them killed off in disturbing and brutal ways. And the author has no qualms about killing not one, but two kids! Not many authors will take that step and kill of youngsters in their work.  Basically you don’t know who is going to go next and that made To Wake the Dead all that more fun.

I liked this book a lot. I had never heard of Layman until now and after one book consider myself a fan. He is an excellent writer who knows how to tell a story and I will be searching out his other books. I highly recommend this one.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Cat Creature (1973)

This made for television flick is a by the numbers take on the vampire myth but has a certain charm that I rather liked. Things kick off with an appraiser going to a spooky old house to look at the collection of a wealthy deceased man. This includes a basement full of Egyptian artifacts. He leaves to go get his recorder and we see a thief sneak in and steal a necklace from a mummy. Well, that isn’t going to end well.

Without the necklace the mummy comes back to life and kills the appraiser after he returns. We then see the burglar trying to sell off the stolen trinket but the woman who runs the shop tosses him out. She doesn’t want to deal with hot merchandise you see. When her shop assistant picks up a stray cat and then tosses herself off a balcony there is a job opening that is filled by a new girl named Rena. I’m sure that won’t be important later. It is because Rena is the mummy come back to life. She needs to drink blood to survive and can turn into a cat because she was a follower of the cat god Bast. Toss in a local professor called in by the police to make sense of the Egyptian stuff and a police detective for a good time.

I’m glossing over a lot of the plot because I don’t want to spoil anything. Yeah, I know that I let you in on the fact that Rena is the mummy, but that is so obvious it doesn’t matter. The Cat Creature is a solid movie with a decent plot and direction. The story might not be all that original, but it excels in the execution. I was amused to find out after watching this that the movie is an unofficial remake of The Cat People, which is my favorite Val Lewton flick. They certainly double down on this by casting the leading man from that flick and its sequel as the appraiser who meets his end early on in this one. That actor was Kent Smith in case you were wondering. Though if I’m being honest this movie doesn’t come close to the classic film it was inspired by, but then not much does.

The pacing of the story is decent, though it does drag a little in the middle. The script was written by Robert Bloch so that shouldn’t be any surprise. He knows the formula for writing horror and makes sure that something interesting or important is happening to keep the story moving along. The cast is filled with familiar faces like Keye Luke, John Carradine, Stuart Whitman, Meredith Baxter, and David Hedison. There is a lot of talent in front of the camera and that makes The Cat Creature all the more entertaining to watch.

If I had a complaint, it is that even by the standards of the early seventies made for television movies The Cat Creature is awfully tame. They lean too heavily into the attacks being shown as shadows cast on a wall which I understand is an homage to The Cat People, but there they use it sparingly as the payoff for the action here it is used again and again. This gets old quickly and I was hoping for some variety.

In the end this is a solid if unremarkable effort. I’m glad that I watched it since it checked a lot of boxes for me. Remake of a movie I love, fun cast, and made for T.V. are all things that I enjoy. But I don’t know if that is going to be enough for the average viewer. I suppose I give The Cat Creature a lukewarm recommendation.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

The Mummy’s Revenge (1975)

I wanted to watch a Paul Naschy flick and decided to not check out one of his werewolf outings but instead chose this mummy movie. That was a mistake… a big one. After a voiceover explaining that the Pharaoh was a bit of a jerk torturing women for fun, we see a priest and his men take him out. To punish him for his behavior they make it so that he can never pass on to the afterlife. That will come back to bite the people that find his tomb. 

Some archeologists find him and bring him back to London for study. A descendant of the Pharaoh shows up with his henchwoman and goes about bringing the old guy back to life. Oh, and if you haven’t caught on like most every other Mummy movie that follows this plot Naschy is both the mummy and his descendant. So, we get twice the fun, right? Well not really. Things happen, the day is saved… wait no it isn’t. Spoilers! Our heroine dies in the end. And the bad guys burn up. Basically, everyone dies. 

I didn’t like this movie at all. One of the things that I love about most of Naschy’s flicks are that they have their own sensibilities. Sure, he is a werewolf, but sometimes his lady friend is a vampire. Sometimes he is doing battle with vampires. Occasionally his werewolf is a misunderstood victim of the curse and other times he is a randy playboy revealing in it. There is a lot of variety. The Mummy’s Revenge feels like a rehash of the plot from the classic universal flick starring Karloff. There is nothing new or different and it is very predictable. I kept waiting for that special magic that you only get from his Spanish/Italian productions, but it never happens. That bummed me out. 

The movie also has several slow spots where it bogs down on him constantly stalking women because he needs to sacrifice a bunch of virgins to give himself immortal life and bring his lady love back from the dead. I’m not being vague or dismissive here as they never really set any rules. It is more an excuse for the mummy to run around grabbing ladies and then chaining them to a wall for sacrifice. Oh, and that brings me to something else missing. Naschy normally has a bit of sleaze in his flicks with lots of skin showing and many ladies are bedded and do some bedding themselves. The Mummy’s Revenge is noticeably tame when it comes to this. Though I watched the Spanish cut which is supposed to have the good stuff cut out. I’ll not track a different copy down though as I doubt that would save the movie. 

I’m being awful hard on the movie. There are some positives. The mummy makeup is decent, the dubbing is horrible in all the right ways, and we get a lot of kills. Seventeen people die in this movie, though most are tame and offscreen. We do get a crushed head, some throats cut, a nightstick thru the chest, and a woman ages to bones and dust in front of us. Though my favorite is a face getting ripped off. That is a decent effect. But in the end, none of these can redeem what ends up being a slow retread of a much better flick. Next time I’ll stick to his werewolf movies. 

 © Copyright 2021 John Shatzer

Voodoo Black Exorcist (1974)

This is the result of another deep dive into one of my Mill Creek sets and boy is it a doozy. It starts with a couple in a canoe canoodling with one another. We find out that the man and woman shouldn’t have been doing that because she belongs to another. There is a fight between the men and the husband/king, it isn’t terribly clear, is killed. This leads to the woman losing her head and the man being cursed to live forever in the specially made sarcophagus.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Yeah this is the same plot as the Mummy movies. So of course, we have the “mummy” waking up and finding the reincarnation of his long-lost love at hand. He takes some revenge on random people and sort of loses his mind. The fun part is that most of the movie takes place on a cruise ship, which is different. Once on land he eventually kidnaps the woman with the authorities in hot pursuit. They catch up and some bad stuff happens as things end rather abruptly.

Where to start with this one? Well the first thing you will notice is that the woman in the first few scenes is apparently wearing makeup to make her look black. This is confirmed when the movie moves to the present day and the actress is clearly white. I understand that this being a Spanish/Italian flick they might be coming from a different place, but they had to know on some level that was going to be an issue. I’m not overly sensitive to these things but it seems gratuitous. Speaking of gratuitous there is a lot of skin in this movie. As was the tradition of European horror they did not like to give the actresses much in the way of wardrobe. Unlike the previous point I mentioned this was expected and helps to give the movie it’s trashy exploitation vibe.

Effects work is okay.

The dubbing is about what you would expect with the English-speaking voiceover actors being sort of stilted and over the top. I wonder if this was a cold read from a script without being able to see a copy of the scenes they were dubbing. The inflection is all wrong at times and comes off goofy. The copy I watched was transferred from a beat-up print and includes all kinds of scratches and odd syncing issues. It was also really dark and hard to see what was happening at times. Still I don’t mind that so much as it adds to the flavor of a flick like Voodoo Black Exorcist. The makeup is okay but is clearly inspired by the look of Karloff’s Mummy with the wrinkled skin when he is full on creature.

My only real complaint about the movie, and it is a big one, is the pacing. This is one of those movies that has maybe fifteen minutes of content stretched out to a feature length movie. We get a lot of skulking around and flashbacks to the past that do nothing to movie the story along. I found it really difficult to get thru Voodoo Black Exorcist. For this reason, I can’t recommend it unless you are suffering from insomnia. Then this might be helpful.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer

Waxwork (1988)

Wax Museums are creepy. I take every chance to check them out, but they aren’t for the faint of heart. Really is that real Paris Hilton or a wax dummy? Can you catch something from a wax figure of her? Scary, right? Okay maybe that was a little mean… Nah it wasn’t! Enough of this nonsense let’s talk Waxwork.

Things start off fast with a man being murdered and some things being stolen from his house. Then we are introduced to a bunch of annoying “teenagers” or maybe they are in college. Never quite sure because it doesn’t matter. They get invited to a private showing of a new Wax Museum that shows up in town. Let me ask you a question. If David Warner came up to you on the street and invited you to his creepy house at midnight to see his wax dummies would you go? Well these kids do so they must be in high school. I mean how could they get into college being that dumb?

Let me sort out the rest of the movie. All of the exhibits contain a personal effect of an evil figure from history. The Waxwork Man, David Warner, is using the museum to tempt people into stepping into the displays. If they do that they are transported into that world and become a victim powering that evil figure. If all the exhibits are successfully fueled, then the evil can enter our world and take over. We know this because Mark and Sarah, the two kids smart enough not to get pulled in, chat with Sir Wilfred. Wilfred was Mark’s grandfather’s best friend and it was Mark’s grandfather that was killed earlier in the movie. It is up to them to stop the evil from spreading into our world, which leads to a chaotic and fun finale.

Sure go to his house at midnight... what could go wrong?

As I get older I realize more and more how campy this movie is. Director Anthony Hickox clearly had his tongue planted in cheek on this one. The dialogue of the kids sitting around before the Waxwork is odd. The clothes and mannerisms are more reminiscent of a film noir from the forties than it is an eighties horror movie. There is also this strange character of Lecturer who is briefly in the movie but is the source of a couple gags. Won’t spoil them but much like the young victim characters it is strange. I love the fact that Waxwork feels a bit off, that is probably why it has always been so memorable to me.

When we get to the killings and bad guys the movie really starts to shine. We don’t get one, two, or even three monsters. We get many of them. There is a sequence with a Werewolf, another with a Vampire (damn that kitchen scene is gruesome), there is a mummy, and even some zombies. Along the way we get severed hands, cannibalism, a shredded throat, and much more. Each creature has its own little scene as they collect victims as well as showing up in the big finale where the monsters go head to head with those trying to save the world.

I’ve avoided the one “monster” that everyone always talks about. The Marquis de Sade is one of the exhibits and he gets ahold of Sarah, played by Deborah Foreman. If you aren’t a child of the eighties you might not know who she is. How can I put this best? She was a hottie that more than one teenage boy had a crush on. Strangely I wasn’t one of those. Maybe that is why unlike many I didn’t wear my VHS out rewinding the whipping scene again and again. She was also dating the director during the filming of Waxwork. Maybe he was trying to work some issues out on screen? Who knows? I wasn’t going to mention it, but I catch hell when I ignore stuff so there you go.

I love Waxwork and recommend it to anyone wanting to dip their toes into horror from the eighties that doesn’t involve a crazed killer and a body count. This is a unique and fun movie that has held up very well over the years.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer