Wicked Women (1990) (TV)

Directed by:

Robert Sidaway

Oliver Reed narrates this tiny collection of Hammer clips/trailers featuring some of the studio's most evil female characters. Included are Ingrid Pitt as COUNTESS DRACULA, Bette Davis as THE NANNY and in THE ANNIVERSARY, Tallulah Bankhead in FANATIC/DIE, DIE MY DARLING, Martine Beswick in DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE and a couple of others. What this really is is a single episode of the near-worthless The World of Hammer (1990) series. The entire 25-minute run time consists of nothing but clips (and not even the best clips), there are no interviews and the narration here isn't exactly trivia-packed or insightful, meaning this Anchor Bay tape is a rip-off. Back in 2000, AB released every episode in the 13-part series, each to an individual EP tape; each with a run-time of less than half-and-hour. The very least they could have done was squeeze four episodes onto three tapes instead of making one pay individually for each of them. Not that that would make the show any more worthwhile... The series itself sucks and is little more than a last opportunity to ring some quick cash out of the Hammer brand name. Don't bother.

Since the release of these tapes (which are to be avoided on amazon, ebay and other sites where they still sell them), Anchor Bay has re-released these episodes as simple bonus features attached to the "Hammer Collection" DVD series. WICKED WOMEN, for example, is an extra on their release of THE WITCHES (1966). I won't bother with reviewing the other tapes ("Christopher Lee," "Peter Cushing," "Lands Before Time," "Sci-Fi," "Vamp," etc.) in the series. This review will suffice for any of them.

★1/2

Evil Spirits (1990)

Directed by:

Gary Graver

The ubiquitous Karen Black (giving a delightfully campy performance here) stars as Ella Purdy, an insane boarding house owner who talks to the skeletal remains of her long-dead husband and slaughters her elderly tenants so she can cash their social security checks. Death is caused by knife to the eye, a (hilariously wobbly) hatchet to the head, a nail hammered into an eyeball and a machete slashing. Ella buries the dead bodies in her backyard, and nosy neighbor Yvette Vickers (ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES) is always bitching about the smell. There's even a rabid elderly man chained up in the basement who rips people apart and eats them! This low-budget, but kind of fun horror comedy has some good scenes and a surprising and familiar cast of classic era film stars and horror veterans, some of whom haven't acted for upwards of two decades! They're all welcome change of pace in the current company of so many horror movie teenagers, but in case you disagree with me, a mute Debra Lamb is here too to dance topless. The director (who sadly passed away a few years back) was in his fourth decade of exploitation filmmaking and also served as cinematographer.

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The great supporting cast includes Virginia Mayo (in her first screen appearance since the late 70s) as a miserable, spoiled old bat who used to have it all but is now forced to live off meager retirement checks, Bert Remsen as her henpecked husband, Michael Berryman as a voyeuristic weirdo, Martine Beswick as a psychic, Arte Johnson as a Social Security fraud investigator, Robert Quarry as a doctor, Mikel Angel (who wrote the screenplay) as a drunk, Hoke Howell as a mailman and Anthony Eisley as a police detective.

★★

One Million Years B.C. (1965)

Directed by:

Don Chaffey

Hammer Film Productions were probably shocked when this remake of the popular 1940 Hal Roach film ONE MILLION B.C. quickly became their all-time highest grossing film. In retrospect, it's not really difficult to see why, with the voluptuous beauty Raquel Welch (in one of her first major roles) as a cave woman (of the Shell People tribe) clad in skimpy animal skin get-up. Simply put, this film made it acceptable for both men and women to watch bountiful barely-covered male and female flesh on display under the guise of archeological study. High concept cinema, eh? The plot (Raquel falling in love with a guy from the opposing Rock People Tribe, played by the also easy-on-the-eyes John Richardson) is slim, silly but engaging enough to be acceptable time-killer in between showcasing the real star of this film; the stop-motion special effects genius of Ray Harryhausen. The dinosaur creations crafted by the pioneering FX artist are among his best work.

Producer/scripter Michael Carreras liked second female lead Martine Beswick (who plays cave girl Nupondi) so much that he gave her her own starring vehicle in the similar PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1967), which he also directed. Also in the cast are Percy Herbert, Robert Brown and Lisa Thomas. The film was the 100th from Hammer, who still had many more to come.

★★1/2

Offspring, The (1987)

... aka: From a Whisper to a Scream

Directed by:

Jeff Burr

After witnessing the execution of a mad woman (Martine Beswick), a reporter (Susan Tyrrell) visits an Oldfield, Tennessee museum curator (Vincent Price, who was quite vocal about his distaste for the finished product) to explore the murder-laden history of the apparently cursed town. Price then whips up four tales of the macabre. In the first, Clu Gulager gives a memorable performance a nerdy sick-o indulging in incest, murder and necrophilia who gets his just desserts in the form of a mutant killer baby (the result of a late-night funeral home tryst). Tale two (the weakest of the bunch) features a wounded gangster (Terry Kiser) rescued by a swamp-dweller (Harry Caesar) who knows the secret to eternal life. Story three is set at a traveling carnival and involves a snake woman (Rosalind Cash) using witchcraft to enslave sideshow freaks and force them to do her bidding. When a young woman falls in love with one of the freaks (a glass eater) the horror begins. The last (and best) of the stories seems to have been partially inspired by Lord of the Flies and stars Cameron Mitchell (in one of his better later-day roles) as a sadistic Confederate general taken prisoner by a group of psycho kiddies who subject him to a variety of tortures. The linking footage also has its own twist ending.

The excellent cast of genre vets in this acceptable horror anthology (which is a little more violent and mean-spirited than most others in the genre) is really what punches it up. Also in the cast are Angelo Rossitto as a circus dwarf and Lawrence Tierney as a prison warden (in the opening scene). The original shooting title (and subsequent DVD release title) was From a Whisper to a Scream and it features plenty of gore effects courtesy of Thomas Burman. Filming began in Georgia in 1985 (it wouldn't be released until two years later).

★★1/2