the ’60s

Blood and Roses (1960)

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directed by roger vadim
documento film/films ege

Let’s be honest here, this is a fairly half-hearted rendition of the “Carmilla” saga, with an added wrinkle or two that don’t do much to improve the tale being told – but also with a brisk, at times nearly impatient pacing that obscures or confuses other details. And after poncing its way through a mock-Victorian costume drama’s story arc, it abruptly veers into what I can only guess is an approximation of German Expressionist cinema for a truly bewildering and bemusing effect. Then the army blows up a castle and we’re teased with a silly coda that doesn’t bother to honestly follow the plot points. Even the sensuality expected from notorious Svengali wannabe Vadim is stilted. It doesn’t wear out its welcome, clocking in around a brief hour and a quarter, so there’s that.

why did i watch this movie?

Let’s be honest here – it’s because of this:

(Just four guys from somewheres in New Jersey.)

As an aside, the movie industry through various guises sure has churned out a massive clutch of vampire pictures. I sorta wanna trace the development thereof, but on the other hand …

Should you watch this movie?

A lot of other options exist if it’s the source material that interests you.

highlight and low point

The sequence during which Carmilla prefers to get drunk and listen to beat music instead of getting ready to attend the preposterous masquerade ball heralding her “cousin” Leopoldo’s upcoming nuptials is unexpectedly amusing. And of course the bizarre detour into artiness (if not artifice) will make you sit up and take notice. Even then, however, the production fails to capitalize fully on its own mythology. Some minor characters flesh out the running time without adding anything to the storyline.

rating from outer space: C−

Peeping Tom (1960)

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directed by michael powell
a michael powell production

Dammit, I accidentally watched a real, actual movie again. And quite a controversial one, at that … it ruined its director’s career, only to later be championed by the next wave of adversarial auteurs. Not unlike its contemporary Psycho in some ways, this picture seems, through a contemporary lens (yes), almost to revel in its very Britishness at the dawn of what would prove to be a challenging new decade. Predicated on camerawork, this is also the type of production of which overly serious theorists must debate representations of the audience’s gaze, etc. For a bonus, it may remind some of John Watson’s notorious “Little Albert” experiment, especially if it was covered in a class they were taking when they watched it. That’s just wild conjecture, mind. (You know, they say it’s never too late to go back to school, but I’m not so sure about that.) One could probably do a deep dive into some of the intertwined psychologies contained herein, and someone probably has.


why did i watch this movie?

Sorry, I can’t help ya there … I fear I’m drawing a complete blank.

 
should you watch this movie?

It’s pretty ponderous and lends itself a little too easily to lampooning in certain regards, especially Karlheinz (“Carl Boehm”) Böhm’s lugubrious lead. And it’s definitely too theatrical in its blocking and many of its characterizations. (It will not stun you with its realism.) The enigma is nicely layered, however, and revealed with fine pacing.

highlight and low point

The depiction of the spirited young lady, plunging ahead without guile but also not without a certain heedlessness, her self-direction verging on the presumptuous, is pretty spot-on. The intricacies of the various familial tanglings would make for quite a diagram.

Rating from outer space: B

Day of the Nightmare (1965)

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directed by JOhn bushelman
screen group, inc.

So much a ripoff of Psycho that the main character and culprit’s last name is “Crane,” this no-budget sleazeball melodrama somehow manages to be fairly entertaining, probably because it’s so utterly half-assed. Reminiscent of the artless stylings of other dimestore auteurs (you will see Ed Wood’s name invoked if you decide to read reviews of this production), at least this picture barely bothers with the armchair psychology – especially noteworthy given that one of the characters is a headshrinker. You know, I watched this alongside the preceding film based merely on the similarity of the nonsensical names, yet they share a weirdly similar predilection besides. For a fun parlor game, try to construct a meaningful diagnosis of Jonathan’s paraphilias, I dast ya.


why did i watch this movie?

“Day of the Nightmare?” I asked myself. Obscure, black-and-white, obviously some stripe of exploitation, check.


should you watch this movie?

It aspires to bare competence. Maybe. Usually with drivel such as this, I wind up wishing I could spend some time living in the milieu represented. In this case, though, everything is suspiciously antiseptic. Maybe that only heightens the allure.

highlight and low point

At one point, a sexpot “patient” is making the move on her “doctor,” and she exclaims, “I don’t need a psychiatrist” – which she pronounces sick-eye-a-tryst – “I need a MAN,” this latter in a breathy stage whisper. Doc replies, “All right, all right … just this once.” Given the carryings-on in this picture, that is likely a bald-faced lie, of course, but with such deft handling of dramaturgy, what else could you reasonably expect. Another poignant moment comes during the thrilling conclusion, when our intrepid investigators pronounce of their quarry, “He’s heading for the amusement pavilion!”

Aren’t we all.

rating from outer space: D

Die, Monster, Die! aka Monster of Terror (1965)

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directed by daniel haller
american international pictures/alta vista film productions

For the first half-hour or so, this sumptuously appointed fable seems as though it’s going to be a vastly rewarding romp through B-movie silliness, complete with Boris Karloff adding plenty of dramatic intrigue. Unfortunately, it soon descends into choppy pointlessness, though the inane and repetitious dialogue might bolster things for a while if you’re in the right mood. The story kinda feels cobbled together as it goes along, and even the requisite expository scenes don’t much help to clarify matters. A few startling moments crop up here and there, though only the first earns its reaction, and it goes nowhere. Based on “The Colour Out of Space” by H. P. Lovecraft, though how or why Arkham, MA, is transplanted to England is a question best left to others.

why did i watch this movie?

I found it under the title “Monster of Terror,” which … I mean, what more do you need? The presence of Boris Karloff and some glowing (pun definitely intended) nostalgia offered by commenters sealed the deal.

should you watch this movie?

I will table that question until I’ve watched a couple other filmed interpretations of the classic story.

highlight and low point

Boris Karloff’s clearly dissembling patriarch and his myopic assistant Merwyn are a hoot, and our hero Reinhart’s difficulties with the locals in Arkham set the picture up rather nicely. By far the best effects are achieved when Stephen and Susan are creeping downstairs in the dark guided by one lighted candle … which brightly illumines absolutely everything in the vicinity, and looks suspiciously like a spotlight trained right on them. Again, there are a few genuinely unsettling moments, but they’re wasted  – along with the lavish set dressing – by a flimsy screenplay.

rating from outer space: C−

The Kiss of the Vampire (1963)

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directed by don sharp
Hammer film productions

Wellnow, this production was obviously made before Hammer decided to up its game for the ’70s, as it’s a staid affair that owes more to classical horror depictions than to the more adventurous era that immediately followed. Without much in the way of suspense and featuring very little that could be regarded as action, the most interesting thing about this flick are the godawful interior sets. Actually, Noel Willman as “Dr. Ravna,” the, uh, head vampire, also occasionally imitates Bela Lugosi’s oddly cadenced speech from the original Dracula … but only occasionally. It’s very subtle. Edward de Souza and Jennifer Daniel are the leads here, which is too bad, and the possibly intriguing subplot – the vampires are essentially just a weird cult – is basically ignored. Perfunctory and negligible.

why did i watch this movie?

It was an accident. I intended to watch Hammer’s 1970 The Vampire Lovers, but I wound up with this instead.

should you watch this movie?

You do appear to be in need of a soporific.

highlight and low point

Frustrations pile up throughout the proceedings, as motivations of key characters remain unclear or undeveloped and a backstory fails to develop … and when we finally get an explanation for what compels a major character to mount an offensive, it sheds no light whatsoever on his inability or unwillingness to have been proactive much, much earlier. (I would say they should have expounded on many of these themes at greater length, but who would be interested in any more of this slog?) One upside is the hilariously offhand display of totems and fetishes and whatnot, which also go largely without illumination, and the bizarre demise of the weirdo clan (oops, sorry, spoiler) features spectacularly crude FX.

rating from outer space: D+

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

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directed by george a. romero
image ten

This being one of the more influential and critically assessed horror flicks of all time, I’m not going to waste a whole lot of words here, though I do find it highly amusing that I’d never seen this picture. (I’ve seen Dawn of the Dead, the completely irrelevant Return of the Living Dead, and such variants as Zombi3, but never the foundation film.) Having previously watched Romero’s Season of the Witch (“aka Hungry Wives”) and The Crazies, I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with his work, but I wasn’t prepared for the early going of this picture to emulate a silent movie, nor the workaday nature of the living dead themselves. The social commentary can be a bit heavy-handed, but that’s kind of a Romero calling card, at least in his auteur guise. A few quibbles: One, the film lacks for a certain logical consistency in how the zombies – er, I mean “ghouls” – act; two, and this just occurred to me during the latter portions of this film, why in the hell do zombies have to eat? They’re dead!

why did i watch this movie?

Night of the Living Dead is no. four in Johnny Ramone’s top 10.

should you watch this movie?

So much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.

highlight and low point

The very nature of the low-budget presentation aids it immeasurably, lending it an almost documentary feel at times, and the general lack of histrionics on behalf of the risen dead also helps, their implacable multitudes generating an overwhelming sense of dread as the scope of the danger becomes more clear. Romero’s unadorned direction of his actors at times gives the proceedings a distinctly stagy quality, and his statements tend toward the transparent.

rating from outer space: a-

Psycho (1960)

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directed by alfred hitchcock
shamley productions

I’m sure it’s been noted before, but the attention to detail in this movie astounded me, such as the scene wherein Arbogast is looking for clues to Marion’s disappearance in the Bates Motel’s office parlor – where Norman is displaying his stuffed birds – and the bookshelf behind him holds a full set of books entitled The Art of Taxidermy. So it’s a bit surprising, I guess, that certain other important factors seem so transparent, or even dishonest. Of course, that’s nitpicking, and anyone who doesn’t think this is a high-quality cinematic achievement … probably doesn’t care for noir films or suspense, or pulp fiction. Hitchcock himself must have thought he had a goldmine here, however, as he went ahead and made it despite Paramount’s objections and refusal to budget it appropriately. That worked out all right.

why did i watch this movie?

Noted horror film aficionado and memorabilia collector Johnny Ramone designated Psycho no. 10 in his personal Top 10 in the appendices to his posthumous autobiography Commando. Since the Ramones rank in my personal Rock Band Top 10, and I am a fan of these dumb films anyway, it seemed only right and natural to compare and contrast.

should you watch this movie?

Haven’t you seen it?

highlight and low point

I’ll pick two scenes to exemplify these extremes. The first is the scene where Arbogast is cagily picking his way through Norman’s story that no one’s been to the motel for a while. Anthony Perkins does a tremendous job stumbling over his lies and attempts to dissemble. The other is the terrible, terrible penultimate scene in which the psychiatrist explains the whole thing … and explains it, and explains it, and EXPLAINS it, sucking out a little more of the film’s mystique with every florid sentence. What. A. Drag.

Rating from outer space: B+

kids: don’t do drugs
(click to enlarge)

Blood Feast (1963)

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DIRECTED BY HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS
BOX OFFICE SPECTACULARS, INC.

Here is where we should begin our disquisition on the ephemeral nature of what constitutes art vis-à-vis garbage, and engage in deep contemplation on the revealed substance and its relation to the Ideal, and how mere imitation or re-creation can only hope to further distance us from the knowledge of this state of perfection. We should, but we won’t, because gore impresario, auteur loon and marketing maven Herschell Gordon Lewis would probably laugh and point at us. His frankly ridiculous tale of catering a Society party with an “authentic Egyptian Feast” as a hopeful means of reviving the goddess Ishtar via cannibalism features some impossibly wooden acting, hilariously half-assed set dressing, excessively expository dialogue, indubitably fake blood, transparently ersatz makeup and FX, rudimentary cinematography, et cetera et cetera et cetera et cetera. (And in the midst of life we are in debt, et cetera.) Blows the doors off the insipid remake I panned a few weeks back, ably demonstrating the difference between a “bad” movie and the truly wretched.

WHY DID I WATCH THIS MOVIE?

Well, I watched the other one, didn’t I. You know, years back, I toiled at a mail-order company, the offbeat small-business-owner of which enjoyed visiting Lewis’s marketing website. He also enjoyed pointing out Lewis’s track record of proven “pull.”

SHOULD YOU WATCH THIS MOVIE?

It’s barely over an hour long!

HIGHLIGHT AND LOW POINT

It’s barely over an hou – yeah, just joshing, sorry. Scott H. Hall and Mal Arnold, as “police captain” and “Fuad Ramses,” respectively, suffice for shorthand. Hall is so terrible a thespian he shoulda been a “star” for Ed Wood, Jr., and Arnold is an expressionistic delight – the reductio ad absurdum of the Method. (And the sine qua non of any effort like this one.)

RATING FROM OUTER SPACE: B