Dead Ringer (1963)

...aka: Dead Image
...aka: Who Is Buried in My Grave?

Directed by:
Paul Henreid

In my estimation, this isn't really a horror film (it's more of a suspenseful drama), but since it's a title included in several of my horror reference books, I'm including it here. It's also often listed as an entry in that subgenre of terror films spurned by the success of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962); which cast "over the hill" or "washed up" former female film stars in lead roles as killers of varying degrees of psychosis. I've seen this cycle of films referred to under many titles, including "Gothic moderne," "Hag Horror" or "Grand-Dame Guignol." Whatever the name, the common link are the female leads, each of whom enjoyed a career revival of sorts through these films. The subgenre as a whole is an extremely enjoyable one primarily because of these veteran actresses, who brought a stamp of professionalism, class and often overwrought, but always sincere, campy humor to some otherwise seedy films, as well as those intangibles that only come from experience. In DEAD RINGER, we get a double dose of Bette Davis, playing identical twin sisters... neither of whom is really all that right in the head.

Edith (Davis) was in love with a successful and very wealthy businessman, who ended up leaving her after succumbing to the charms of her identical twin sister Margaret (Davis again), who he'd apparently knocked up after an affair and thus felt obligated to marry. That was eighteen years earlier, but Edith has never forgiven her sister for it. In fact, she hasn't even seen or spoken to her since the incident. The man both women fought over has recently died of a heart attack and the sisters are reunited at the funeral. Margaret invites Edith back to her sprawling mansion home, bad memories come to the surface and Edith leaves enraged. After finding out through Margaret's chauffeur Henry (Cyril Delevanti) that her sister really never was pregnant and then learning she's about to lose her nightclub to a debt, Edith decides to get revenge. She lures Margaret to her home, shoots her in the head and then tries to take on her sister's appearance and demeanor and swap places with her. Margaret is now Edith - who'd just committed suicide, while Edith gets to walk in Margaret's shoes and live a lavish and worry-free lifestyle with plenty of money at her disposal. At first, things seem to be working without a hitch, but one man in each ladies life - Edith's dedicated detective boyfriend Jim Hobbson (Karl Malden) and Margaret's sleazy, materialistic playboy lover Tony Collins (Peter Lawford) - threaten to uncover what's really going on.

Based on the story "Dead Pigeon" by Rian James, the script for this one (written by Albert Beich and Oscar Millard) was actually penned way back in 1944 and had been sitting around collecting dust at Warner Brothers for around 20 years before finally being filmed. And it's definitely a good thing they finally did produce this one because it's a worthy suspense-drama with excellent acting, nicely-drawn characters and several last reel twists that really throw you for a loop. The score (by André Previn) and b/w cinematography (by Ernest Haller) are both excellent, and the mansion interiors were filmed at the amazingly ornate Greystone Park & Mansion in Beverly Hills. Davis (who also got to play twin sisters in 1946's A STOLEN LIFE) is great, as usual, and the supporting performances are all fine, with Malden and Delevanti adding especially nice touches to the film via their supporting roles. The cast also includes Philip Carey as a police sergeant, Jean Hagen (in her final role) as one of Margaret's uppity friends, George Macready, Estelle Winwood, Bert Remsen as a bartender and Monika Henreid (the director's daughter) as a maid.

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I'd like to dedicate this review to Mr. Malden, who'd just passed away a few weeks ago after a long and distinguished career. An Emmy and Oscar-winning actor best known for his performances in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1952) and ON THE WATERFRONT (1954), as well as his role as Detective Mike Stone on TV's The Streets of San Francisco (1972-1977), Malden also lent his talents to the genre films PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE (1954) and CAT O' NINE TAILS (1971).

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★★★

Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954)

...aka: It Stalked the Ocean Floor
...aka: Monster Maker

Directed by:
Wyott Ordung

A light, talky, mildly enjoyable 66-minute-long sea monster quickie that's most notable for being the very first film produced by Roger Corman, aka my hero. Filmed in California on a paltry 12,000 budget, it would become the modest hit that helped to launch the career of one of the - if not the - most important people working in the horror genre during the next fifty years. Unlike most other monster movies from this decade, the film is also notable for centering its action around a female protagonist and, as played by Anne Kimbell, she's the kind of brave, likable and assertive heroine that major studio productions seemed to frown upon using at the time and were usually relegated to independent films (note Corman's novel use of Beverly Garland in several sci-fi/ horror productions just a few years after this one). Though there are some romantic elements thrown in (including a silly beach serenade), Kimbell's character - Julie Blair; a "merchandise illustrator" vacationing in Mexico - is more interested in investigating claims of a legendary "devil" rumored to have red, glowing eyes (or is that, eye) that lurks beneath the waters and strikes fear in the hearts of the natives. Instead of letting herself get swept off her feet by the the obligatory handsome young scientist stationed nearby; Stanford marine biologist Steve Dunning (Stuart Wade), or simply tagging along with Steve and his superior Dr. Baldwin (Dick Pinner) on their boat, Julie is too busy charting her own adventure and taking solo diving expeditions to search for the creature. At one point she even courageously battles a shark with a pocket knife!

Other than Kimbell's character and performance, there's not much else to recommend here aside from some fun use of a pedal-powered mini-submarine, decent underwater photography (by Floyd Crosby) and nice Channel Islands/Catalina shooting locations. The male performances are uniformly wooden, there's next to no action and those expecting more monster or horror-oriented scenes are going to be sorely disappointed when they discover the one-eyed, tentacled monster doesn't even make an appearance until the final minutes of the picture. On the plus side, the monster design by Bob Baker really isn't too bad for its day and the creature at least gets a good death scene!

Director Ordung (who plays a supporting role here as well) had previously earned his Z-movie stripes by scripting the notoriously awful ROBOT MONSTER and would go on to write TARGET EARTH (1954) and FIRST MAN INTO SPACE (1959). Future LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS star Jonathan Haze (billed as "Jack Hayes") makes his film debut in a minor role, and Corman also has a brief cameo as Baldwin's "one man crew."

★★

Burning Hell, The (1974)

Directed by:
Ron Ormond

Throughout the 40s and 50s, director Ron Ormond (born Vittorio Di Naro) was your typical low-rent director of dubious talent who wrote, produced and/or directed dozens of forgettable low-budget B westerns starring the likes of whip-wielder Lash La Rue and James Ellison and Russell Hayden (of Hopalong Cassidy fame) for his company Western Adventures Productions. He also had worked as a stage magician, wrote books on new age medicine and psychic surgery, produced a roller derby TV show and would eventually branch out and make his very first exploitation movie, the much-hated MESA OF LOST WOMEN, in 1952, before caving in to the sex-and-violence drive-in demands of the 60s with such efforts as PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME! (1963), WHITE LIGHTNIN' ROAD (1967) and THE MONSTER AND THE STRIPPER (1968). Afterward, Ormond survived a plane crash, became "born again," opened his own church and started churning out cheap, technically inept and borderline offensive "Christ-sploitation" efforts such as this one, which mixed preaching and trite moralizing with violence and gore. Compromise! Many of his films, whether in the name of the almighty God or the almighty dollar, were so badly made and horribly acted they've gone on to enjoy a healthy cult following.

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THE BURNING HELL, the second in the Ormond Jesus series, was also the second collaboration between Ron and a Southern Baptist minister by the name of Estus W. Pirkle, who had himself written several books. And it's basically one long, boring, monotonous sermon with Pirkle preaching about how going to hell sucks ("Hell IS real and hot and terrible!") to his blank-eyed, nodding flock intercut with hilariously awful biblical reenactments with rednecks running around in the desert with sheets draped over their heads and scenes taking place in both heaven (ahhh!) and hell (argh!!!!). To drive home the point, a couple of young men - Tim (the director's son - Tim Ormond) and Ken (Chuck Howard) - who go to one of those "lenient" churches that doesn't try to scare their congregations meet Estus and shrugs off his warnings. They feel that just believing in Jesus will win them heaven's key. Wrong! Ken is decapitated in a motorcycle crash and ends up going to hell, while Tim eventually sees the light after attending Estus' church.

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When this was released, areas in the Southern USA were apparently plastered with threatening fliers ("20,000 degrees Fahrenheit and not a drop of water!"), the film was actually dubbed into both Spanish and Portuguese for distribution in South America (!) and it was frequently booked for screenings in churches to horrify children into obedience. I've read many comments from people who claim the film did indeed scare them silly when they were young and left a lasting impression. And it's not hard to imagine why. Other than the sight of a bloody motorcycle crash, an impalement and other bloody sights, we get frequent visions of hell where facially-disfigured victims dressed in rags scream, cry and wail in eternal torment while engulfed in flames and weirdly painted-up demons laugh with sadistic glee. If that's not bad enough, you're not only on fire, but your body also becomes infested with worms and maggots that slowly eat away at your flesh! Heaven's more like a big country club where you get to stroll around by a lake in immaculate white robes and fraternize with friends and family. According to this film, you also get to have cookouts with your family and even get to watch your favorite television shows! Also according to this film, three-thousand people go to hell every single hour. I guess that's referring to all of us who aren't Southern Baptist.

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Every once in awhile we get a much-needed break from Estus' neverending sermon to hear some insight from a few guys we should really take seriously because they're referred to as "doctors." See kids, organized religion's not just for uneducated hillbillies anymore! And the biblical reenactments themselves (combined with the amusingly transparent scare tactics) are great compensation for having to sit through the rest of this. Thanks to the terrible acting, the twangy Southern accents and the weird dubbing, they're absolute laugh riots. The voice given to cotton-swab-bearded Abraham alone makes this well worth sitting through.

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For more of the same, make sure to check out the following Ormond classics...

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IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO? (1971); a hysterical Christian 'red scare' epic about what might happen if we Americans don't stop our sinning ways and turn to God... Communists will take over our fine country! It's based on "the teachings" of Pirkle. THE GRIM REAPER (1976) involves a God-fearin' Southern lass who tries to save the souls of her hard-drinkin' husband and race car drivin' son before their souls are sent to hell for all eternity. It was produced by the National Organization of Baptist Churches in Nashville, Tennessee, was again shown regularly in Southern churches (poor kids!) and was billed “a hell fire and damnation film!” THE BELIEVER'S HEAVEN (1977) is a companion piece to THE BURNING HELL and is an account of what heaven is like according to the bible (and Pirkle). And finally, 39 STRIPES (1979) was a bio of Ed Martin, a former chain gang convict turned Christian who created the HopeAglow Ministries.

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★ SBIG

Bride's Initiation, The (1972)

...aka: Dracula and the Dirty Old Witch

Directed by:
Duncan Stewart

THE BRIDE'S INITIATION was a 67-minute porno that mixed X-rated sex (though apparently not very much, according to iafd), some light S&M and brain-dead vampire humor. Thankfully for those of us not really wanting to slog through an entire early 70s adult feature (I personally have no problem with doing so if it's something like THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES or THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, but let's face it - those are atypically good for the genre), Something Weird offers the film in a condensed form as an extra on their DRACULA THE DIRTY OLD MAN / GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO COUNT DRACULA? DVD. The SW version (under the new title DRACULA AND THE DIRTY OLD WITCH), runs just 22-minutes (which is about all I could personally stand) and has all the hardcore sex removed. What remains is unsexy, unfunny and basically boring, but hey, I'm just thankful I got to save 40+ minutes viewing this - so kudos to SW for helping me out there.

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Count Dracula (Marc Brock) wakes up nude in his coffin - except for his cape, plastic fangs and one of the worst undead make-up jobs ever seen - and goes to tend to a cheap S&M dungeon set consisting of black walls, a yellow mattress in the middle of the floor and three nude women chained to the wall. A cackling, facially-scarred witch complete with a long, warty nose makes some special "brew" from human, uh, juices, for the vampire to drink. His pock-marked chauffeur named James ("Jack O'Brien"/Jack Birch) helps kidnap a newlywed couple (the woman is raped and the guy is castrated off-screen), as well as a maid and a police detective. Dracula eventually falls in love with a buck-toothed blonde named Miss Richman (Carol Connors), who he thinks can end his eternal suffering. He gives her a magical ring that he uses to hypnotize her and lure her to his lair, and the witch eventually spikes his special potion, which causes the vampire to change his sexual preference. The end.

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Most of the cast returned in the adult feature COUSIN BETTY, which was filmed back-to-back with this one. The SW DVD also contains a condensed, non-explicit cut of the John Holmes vehicle SEX AND THE SINGLE VAMPIRE (1970).

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★

Have a Nice Weekend (1975)

Directed by:
Michael Walters

I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that your son has returned safely from Vietnam. The bad news? He's psycho and wants to kill everyone! Young Chris Gilbert was an army lieutenant who's been released from active duty, suffers from 'Nam flashbacks (shown via still photos), burns his fatigues as soon as he arrives at the airport and gets in touch with each of his well-to-do family members and tells everyone he wants to get together for a reunion. Instead of meeting at home, he decides to arrange for everyone to meet at the family's island summer home, which can only be accessed by boat. The patriarch of the clan, wealthy NYC businessman Paul (Michael B. Miller), is a perfectionist who may have pushed his kids a little too hard to be successful when they were younger and likes to lovingly stroke kitchen utensils and reflect about his favorite childhood knife, the "buck." Mom Laura (Nikki Counselman) seems to have little on her mind other than the arrangement of her rose bushes. And daughter Muffy (Patricia Joyce) is just your standard teen college student who has the hots for Frank (Arthur Roberts), an older part time pee wee football coach who also works part time as a gardener on the island. They, along with Muffy's snobby college friend Ellen Sherman (Colette Bablon) and a bickering couple; Joan (Valerie Shepherd) and Donald (Peter Dompe) Kraft, who also live on the island, are then picked off one by one. Well, at least a couple of them are... After Frank is slashed to death with a kitchen knife, Chris starts hilariously barking out military orders to everyone and forces them all to split up and comb the island for signs of the killer.

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But then... (red herring alert! red herring alert!) the rug's pulled out from under us as someone sneaks up behind poor troubled Chris and whacks him over the head a few times with a hoe. So Chris isn't actually the killer. You know, cause he's dead. And now we go into a ridiculous series of mini-flashbacks trying to establish the remaining characters as possible suspects. Dad has a thing for sharp knives and was seeing a shrink at one point. Mom was having a secret affair with the gardener. The daughter viciously clawed her friend's face when she found out she went on a date with a guy she liked. The neighbor lady is a gossipy flirt whose actions make her hubby insanely jealous. And the roommate's brother apparently was a nutjob himself, so maybe nuttiness runs in their family. Then there's always the possibility that it's just an anonymous psycho who has crashed their party. Oh brother.

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On the plus side, the cinematography isn't bad. It's set in the Fall, with autumnal colors on the trees and nice soft-focus shots of wind blowing the leaves and of the lake. On the down side is, well, basically everything else! The classical music score loop will grate on your last nerve. The cast ranges from average to awful, but it's hard to blame anyone for giving a bad performance since the film has some of the worst-written and most awkward-sounding dialogue you'll ever hear. Nothing even remotely scary happens, there's zero suspense, no cheap thrills and the murder scenes themselves are extremely weak and badly edited. For what is essentially a "proto slasher" flick, all of those elements being poorly pulled off render the film virtually pointless. There is also a silly "epilogue" with a doctor explaining the killer's motive to one of the survivors that was obviously just tacked-on just to push the run-time up to measly 75 minutes.

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The VHS release was from All-American Video, and since it wasn't that well-distributed in the first place, the film has sunk into a much-deserved obscurity over the years. Slasher fans are the only ones I could see actively seeking out this title, and I can almost guarantee, even by their low standards, that the majority will be disappointed by what they see here. The version I saw had no end credits.

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★

Kaidan Kasane-ga-fuchi (1957)

...aka: Depths, The

...aka: Ghost of Kasane, The

...aka: Ghost of Kasane Swamp, The

...aka: Ghosts of Kasane Swamp

Directed by:

Nobuo Nakagawa

In the snowy village of Hanya, Shimosa in 1773, blind masseur Soetsu Minagawa, raising his young daughter Rui with help from female servant Tetsu (Kikuko Hanaoka), goes to collect a debt and ends up getting slashed to death by irate, prideful samurai Fukami, who owes him money. The body is put in a chest and sunk in the waters of Kasane Swamp, but Soetsu's ghost soon returns to destroy the entire family, tricking the samurai into killing his own wife before leading him into the swamp where he drowns. The samurai's servant takes the surviving baby boy Shinkichi and leaves him at the doorstep of a wealthy food goods store owner at a neighboring village. Twenty years later, a now grown Shinkichi (Takashi Wada) is a kind, good natured and hard-working young man who is adored by all the town's ladies and has become the servant to those who ended up adopting him. His adoptive "mother" treats him little better than a slave, but her daughter Hisa (Noriko Kitazawa) has fallen in love with him. Unfortunately, Hisa is set to marry a wealthy young man from a well-to-do family and her mother is getting fed up with her daughter's obvious interest in Shinkichi and opposition to the arranged marriage.

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Meanwhile Rui (Kazuko Wakasugi), who was raised into adulthood by Tetsu after her father's murder, is a popular music teacher living in the same village. One evening after a little too much sake, Rui is almost raped by a samurai named Omura (Tetsuro Tamba), but ends up being saved when Shinkichi stops by. Rui and Shinkichi end up spending the night together and when Shinkichi's boss/adoptive mother finds out, she kicks him out of the house. Rui and Shinkichi move into together and start living as husband and wife, but possibly supernatural forces seem intent on destroying the union, starting with a freak accident involving an axe blade that disfigures half of Rui's face. Tetsu puts two-and-two together and informs Rui that she's fallen in love with the son of the man who murdered her father and insist she breaks things off. But by that point, Rui is starting to lose her mind; partially because of her monstrous appearance and partially because the discovers Shinkichi has been sneaking off to visit with Hisa behind her back. Fate in this case takes shape as Omura - the man who almost raped her - who has been leaving behind incriminating notes and belittles her appearance. All principal characters end up meeting their grim fates in the swamp where a generation earlier both families were destroyed. Looks like history's about to repeat itself.

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Clocking in at just 66-minutes, this eerie black-and-white film has elements of melodrama, social commentary and horror and deserves a wider audience and a reevaluation from critics and audiences. This film is solid in just about every single technical area; the performances and characterizations are uniformly excellent, the period detail is convincing and many of the scenes (especially those in the swamp) are highly atmospheric. The camera-work and score are both very good, and there are some very clever and arresting directorial touches, such as when Rui's new face (the makeup design is excellent and surprisingly grotesque) is slowly revealed in a bucket of rippling water. But this film is more than just a visual piece; it's also very smart.

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Best of all - and this is where many horror films past and present have failed - is the well-written script; full of irony and insight on the casual cruelties of a judgmental and intolerant society. This movie obviously looks at local gossip and class hierarchy with disdain. Rui's career is destroyed when the villagers find out about her affair with Shinkichi and they no longer let their children come to her for music lessons. And if not for the interference from her mother, who's more interested in her social standing then her daughter's happiness, Hisa and Shinkichi could have been very happy together. In fact, if not for others, Rui and Shinkichi wouldn't have been romantically mismatched in the first place.

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How the two samurai characters are portrayed is also a very interesting aspect. During this same period here in America, there were many films that romanticized the gung-ho wartime hero types while glossing over the actual horrors of war, just as there were many westerns that wanted us to be in the corner of the good, God-fearing white man as they were shown being randomly attacked by unreasonable Indian savages. Likewise in Japan, there were many films that seemed to romanticize the samurai. This film almost seems like an antithesis to that kind of thinking. Of course, there's Shinkichi's father, who reacts to a debt by slaying his debtor. Twenty years later, there's Omura, his hand rested on his sword throughout as if he's about to resort to violence any time something doesn't go his way. If not for Omura's deceit and greed, things also would have turned out differently for all the main characters.

★★★1/2

Última señora Anderson, La (1971)

...aka: Death at the Deep End of the Swimming Pool
...aka: Fourth Mrs. Anderson, The
...aka: Fourth Victim, The
...aka: In fondo alla piscina
...aka: Last Mrs. Anderson, The

Directed by:
Eugenio Martín

Watchable, though tame, bland and ultimately forgettable, little Italian/ Spanish mystery, or "giallo" if you prefer, from the director of HORROR EXPRESS (1972) and IT HAPPENED AT NIGHTMARE INN (1973). Handsome, reclusive, middle-aged British playboy Arthur Anderson (Michael Craig) is having a hard time keeping a wife. In fact, he's lost no less than three in recent years, all in tragic "accidents." His first wife died in a car crash ("faulty breaks"), his second fell to her death at a construction site and his most recent wife, Gladys, is found floating face up in the swimming pool as the film opens. A later autopsy on wife #3 reveals that she was loaded down with a fatal dose of barbituates before taking her fatal swim. The fact Arthur has collected over 160 thousand pounds of insurance money on his three former wives raises suspicions, so he's brought to trial for murder. Thanks to lack of evidence and testimony from Arthur's faithful maid Felicity Downing (Miranda Campa), that sheds light on Gladys' drug addiction and suicidal tendencies, Arthur is acquitted of all charges. Inspector Dunphy (José Luis López Vázquez) of Scotland Yard isn't so convinced and decides to investigate.

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The same night he returns home from the trial, Arthur finds his curiously friendly and aggressive neighbor Julie Spencer (Carroll Baker), who he's never met before this evening, taking a dip in his pool. He shoos her off, but the two eventually find themselves drawn to one another, become romantically involved and go through with a quickie marriage ceremony. Is this going to spell death for the fourth Mrs. Anderson? And what gives with the bizarre woman in sunglasses and a black cape (played by Marina Malfatti) who's been lurking around outside? I could easily reveal the obvious false identity of Baker's character, what she's really up to and the third reel twists, because you've probably already seen all of them before, but I won't go into too much detail because that would spoil whatever pleasures the film has to offer, minor as they may be.

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Silly, though competently done, this film takes over an hour to generate much interest and even then it doesn't offer up too much in the way of mystery or excitement. The score isn't bad, though, and the cast acquit themselves fairly well. Baker had been a major Hollywood star after her Oscar nominated turn in the controversial BABY DOLL (1956), but her career took a nosedive after the failure of the biopic HARLOW (1965), so she ended up in Europe in the late 60s and early 70s starring in giallo thrillers, some of which were X-rated at the time of release but are mild by today's standards. Other titles starring her include PARANOIA (1968), THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH (1968), A QUIET PLACE TO KILL (1969), SO SWEET... SO PERVERSE (1969), the deadly dull KNIFE OF ICE (1972) and others. Though Baker does well enough here, the biggest surprise is Malfatti in what might be her best role in one of these films. She failed to make much of an impression in either lead roles (such as in THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE, a film that was all-but-stolen by Erika Blanc) or supporting ones (in SEVEN BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS she was asked to do nothing but disrobe and die), but here she's given the more interesting part and does an effective job playing a psycho.

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So it's not really worth seeking out unless you're a giallo completist, though it is extremely rare. This film was never released in the U.S. on either video or DVD. In fact, the only country that saw a legit home video release was Greece. About twenty years ago it was released on the Master Home Video label and came in a misleading box that seemed to promise titilation when in fact the film has no nudity and almost no violence to speak of.

★★