Evil, The (1978)

... aka: Cry Demon
... aka: Evil
... aka: Evil Below, The
... aka: House of Evil

Directed by:
Gus Trikonis

This is an unexceptional, though decent, little haunted house / devil flick with some cool moments. Hoping to eventually open up a drug rehabilitation center, Dr. Caroline Arnold (Joanna Pettet) and her atheist husband C.J. (Richard Crenna) purchase the huge, run down Vargas House. According to the Realtor who shows them around, the 200 room estate has been abandoned for quite some time and has such a blood-soaked history that townsfolk unsuccessfully attempted to have it demolished. It all has something to do with the original owner disappearing and the fact the plot of land was dubbed "The Valley of the Devils" by the Native Americans who lived there long ago, but the couple decide to ignore local legends and get to work restoring the old building. They draft a handful of friends, including a psychology professor (Andrew Prine), his college student girlfriend (Mary Louise Weller), a construction contractor (Robert Viharo) and three former patients (Lynne Moody, Cassie Yates and George O'Hanlon Jr.), to help and it isn't long before the house starts living up to its bad reputation.

Caroline begins seeing images of a man's silhouette cast in bright light around the home and other signs of evil forces at work but, before anyone can leave, C.J. accidentally disrupts a hatch on the cellar floor and the home decides to seal itself up and then unleashes a deadly supernatural force. Fireplaces light themselves, furniture moves all on its own, the strong smell of sulfur fills the air, a pet dog becomes vicious and attacks and people start turning up dead in a variety of ways. To make matters worse, the doors shut and become petrified and the glass on all the windows has become unbreakable, so there's no way out. Other developments arise involving the ghost, a diary, an ancient crucifix, a charred corpse hidden in a dumbwaiter, a possession and special guest star Victor Buono ("You insignificant speck of vomit!") in a memorable 11th hour appearance.

Though not a great film by any means and not particularly original or all that scary, this is a fun and entertaining enough flick which entertainingly crossbreeds two popular horror subgenres (the haunted house film and the Satanism film) and does so in a fairly interesting way. There are a variety of mostly bloodless killings in this one including several bizarre electrocutions, a fall down a staircase, someone getting sucked underground, someone being set ablaze by fire shooting from a fireplace and, during the bloodiest moment, a hand being nearly cut off with a circular saw. Best of all are the special effects, which are surprisingly well done and effective for the time, in particular the moments when the cast are yanked around, dragged on the floor, pushed, smacked and lifted into the air by an unseen force. The actors are all decent and the shooting locations and art direction are really good, too.

Filmed on a modest budget of 700,000 dollars, this was released theatrically by Roger Corman's New World Pictures, was issued on VHS by Embassy in the mid 80s and then later on laserdisc under the title House of Evil. In 2010, Shout! Factory included it on a double feature DVD as part of their "Roger Corman's Cult Classics" collection, where it's paired up with Twice Dead (1988).

★★1/2

Strangler, The (1964)

... aka: Boston Strangler, The

Directed by:
Burt Topper

In an age when you have to be picture perfect to make it as a star, it's always great to flash back to a time when talent and screen presence were more important than having six pack abs and a pretty smile. 300+ pound character actor Victor Buono was one of those great little Hollywood success stories of yesteryear that you seldom see anymore. Right out of the gate, Buono managed to hold his own against none other than Bette Davis in the classic WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962) and ended up with an Oscar nomination for his work. From there on out, quality roles came few and far between for the bulky actor, but he did manage to snag some memorable supporting parts (particularly on the small screen with villainous turns on both Batman and The Wild Wild West) as well as this starring vehicle. Loosely based on the crimes of The Boston Strangler, which were going on at the time this was filmed, this seedy little thriller perfectly captures the essence of its star and what was so wonderful about him; capitalizing on Buono's ability to look soft and harmless one minute and sleazy and sinister the next.

This is no mystery film. It's unveiled in the very first scene that Buono's Leo Kroll is the strangler. A maladjusted loner of a mama's boy, Leo gets his kicks sneaking into women's homes late at night and strangling them because he can't make love to them. He also has a peculiar doll fetish and gets worked up into a jittery, sweaty frenzy undressing and stroking his plastic love substitutes. Leo's mother (perfectly played by Ellen Corby) is a horrendous, domineering old hypochondriac who has royally screwed up her son over the years with her passive aggressive digs at him and her incessant clinginess. Mrs. Kroll is currently living in a nursing home, but demands Leo come visit her every single night, criticizes the way he kisses her on the forehead and says things like "You're not good-looking, you're fat!," "You haven't any money." and "Even as a little boy, nobody liked you!" to try to keep him from straying. Dealing with her all these years means Leo hasn't been able to form any kind of relationship or even a close friendship with anyone else.

With eight victims already claimed with several more still to come, police lieutenant Frank Benson (David McLean), sergeant Mack Clyde (Baynes Barron) and detective Mel Posner (Michael Ryan) are all on the case, with additional help from shrink Dr. Clarence Sanford (Russ Bender). Because the latest victim is a nurse who worked at Leo's hospital, he instantly becomes a suspect. Since his next victim (Jeanne Bates) is Leo's mother's nurse, whom he kills simply to give his ailing mother a heart attack (!), the police start taking even more interest in him. Leo's able to throw them off by passing a polygraph test, giving himself enough time to try to cozy up to the sweet and pretty Tally (Davey Davison), who works at a Toss-A-Ring booth with her flirtatious friend Barbara (Diane Sayer). Leo's been watching her from afar for a long time and even has his recently departed mama's engagement ring on hand so he can awkwardly pop the question.

Buono is terrific playing a character who's smarmy, egotistical and pretty unlikable on the outside, yet retains enough childish vulnerability that he's also somewhat sympathetic. The supporting cast (particularly Corby and Sayer) is quite good, as well, and the supporting characters are all reasonably well-drawn and entertaining. Hell, even the standard police investigation scenes - usually a bore in these kind of films - are better than usual and done with both competence and a sense of humor. Low in budget, director Topper does some creative things to try to spice things up. The scene transitions are smooth and there are some stylish, noir-like touches thrown in here; such as a victim reflected in the killer's eye. By 1963 standards, it's also pretty sleazy, with most of the victims stripping down to their bras, panties and slips before getting attacked.

Certainly not an 'A' Picture, this is still much better than your usual 'B.' We'll give it a B+. Sadly, it hasn't been well-serviced on home video. 20th Century Fox released it to VHS in 1991 but I don't think it's ever been released on DVD.

★★★

Lo strangolatore di Vienna (1971)

...aka: Mad Butcher, The
...aka: Mad Butcher of Vienna, The
...aka: Meat Is Meat
...aka: Strangler of Vienna, The
...aka: Vienna Strangler, The
...aka: Würger kommt auf leisen Socken, Der

Directed by:
Guido Zurli

Otto Lehman (Victor Buono), the self-proclaimed "best butcher in Vienna," has just been released from a lunatic asylum and into the care of his unloving wife Hannah (Karin Field), who can't wait to start nagging him about being overweight and fretting over what the neighbors will think of him being institutionalized for three years, amongst other things. Otto immediately returns to his butcher shop, shoos away his incompetent brother-in-law Karl ("Carl Stearns" / Luca Sportelli) and gets back to work, taking a break every once in awhile to take a gander at his sexy neighbor Berta Hensel (Franca Poleselli), who likes to strip at her window every night. Some neighborhood cats get on his nerves with their constant wailing, so he kills one with a wine bottle. His shrill wife doesn't let up on him either, so he snaps again, breaks her neck, puts her through his trusty industrial-sized grinder and makes sausages out of it. To his surprise, the new human meat product become an instant hit with customers and he has lines around the block, which means he now has an ideal way to dispose of any person who gets on his nerves.

Across town, bored reporter Mike Lawrence (Brad Harris) is so bored that he finds a news story in another town about a 15 year old boy raping an 80 year old woman to be "beautiful." He begins dating Berta, while getting on the nerves of an incompetent local police inspector (Dario Michaelis) investigating the disappearances of several local women, including a prostitute named Frieda (Hansi Linder) that Karl brings home one night. Otto gets fed up with Karl, kills him and then invites Berta to spend the night after her landlord throws her out. Can Mike come to the rescue before his new girl is turned into a sausage link?

This Italian/West German co-production aspires to be an outrageous and quirky black comedy but it misfires in the worst way possible. The movie is short on story as it is, but the filmmakers do absolutely nothing clever to help spice up an already simplistic scenario. The script, courtesy of producers Dag Molin and "Robert H. Oliver" / Dick Randall, is, in a word, terrible. There's not a single good one-liner or visual gag at any point in the film, it's not ambitious enough to bother finding something to actually satirize and it's not even up to the task of being in such bad taste that the premise can be worked for sick humor. We not only have a film that's not the least bit funny, but one that also fails at being horrific, with the few horror elements very restrained (off-screen, bloodless kills and 'light' music plays during them) throughout. The only thing it really has to offer are a few pairs of bare breasts and that's certainly no reason to sit through it.

Mr. Buono (who does what he can here under the circumstances) was one of Hollywood's most unique and wonderful character actors while he was around, but it's a shame to see him being wasted here on substandard material. If you want to see him utilized to his full potential, check out What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) or the underrated sleeper THE STRANGLER (1964). And if you want to see a dark comedy involving cannibalism done the right way, check out Eating Raoul (1982) or Delicatessen (1991).

The Something Weird DVD release, which retains the original U.S. theatrical release title The Mad Butcher for the packaging though Meat Is Meat is the actual on-screen title, is a surprisingly sharp, colorful, good-looking print of the film. Aside from Buono and Harris (whose real voices are used), the cast have been English-dubbed.

★1/2