Denso Ningen (1960)

... aka: Electrical Facsimile Man, The

... aka: Electrical Facsimile Transmission Human, The

... aka: Secret of the Telegian, The

... aka: Telegian, The
... aka: Telegraphed Man, The

Directed by:
Jun Fukuda

At an amusement park 'Cave of Horrors' spook show, a man is stabbed to death with a knife. Left behind at the crime scene are a gold-plated name tag, a note from an unknown source asking the victim to meet him there and a piece of Klyotron transistor wire. Reporter Kirioka (Koji Tsuruta), who has a background in science, Detective Kobayashi (Akihiko Hirata), a childhood friend of the reporter, and a slew of other police officers led by Captain Onosaki (Yoshio Tsuchiya) begin investigating... and end up involved with an even stranger case than they could have ever imagined. Clues lead them to the Military-Land Cabaret, a nightclub that serves drinks like "Hand Grenades" and "Missiles," has waitresses dressed in cute little sailor uniforms and a gold-painted dancer as the evening's entertainment. The club is owned by a man named Onishi, who is rumored to run an illegal narcotics smuggling ring out of his establishment and has a few dark secrets in his closet. Something that went down fourteen years earlier right as Japan was about ready to surrender to Allied Forces during WWII that's about to come back to haunt both him and the others who were involved in the ass.

As it turns out, Onishi (Seizaburô Kawazu), along with the man found dead at the funhouse (a former sergeant) and two others; former intelligence agent Takashi (Yoshifumi Tajima) and Construction Corp. foreman Taki (Sachio Sakai), were all militarymen a decade and a half earlier. They had been assigned to help protect scientist / electrical engineer Dr. Kajuro Nikki's top secret experiments in creating electronic weaponry. Instead, the men decided to throw out the doctor's experiment and fill the crates with stolen gold bars. The only opposion they faced was from Lance Corporal Tsudo (Tadao Nakamura), who insisted the gold belonged to the people of his country. Onishi and the others stabbed Tsudo, shot Dr. Nikki and barely made it out of the cave before it's blown up with dynamite. They returned there a year later, only to discover that both men's corpses and the gold were missing. Have Tsudo and Dr. Nikki (Takamaru Sasaki) seemingly returned from the grave for revenge? Well... sort of.

Both Tsudo (now using the alias Goro Nakamoto) and Nikki (confined to a wheelchair and missing both legs) live quietly in seclusion on a remote farm... located near an active volcano! Over the years, Nikki has perfected a transportation device capable of moving matter from one place to another in a matter of seconds. Unbeknownst to the good doctor, a (rightfully) bitter and vengeful Tsudo is secretly using his contraption to leap back and forth from his desired locations to get revenge on Onishi and the others; easily alluding the police in the process. Tsudo sends the gold dog tags as sort of a death sentence, sends audio tapes ("I'm going to send you to hell!") or notes to each of the men informing them when he plans on killing them and stabs each with a bayonette. Because Nikki's experiment still has a few kinks, Tsudo's appeareance after transporting himself sometimes takes on a staticky, holographic look (one of several ideas present here that were cloned by Wes Craven for his shitty 1989 flop Shocker).

A Toho production, this mixture of science fiction, horror and crime-thriller genres was made with a reasonable budget and is a pretty interesting curio if you can track down a copy. Judging by the fact it currently has less than 50 votes on IMDb, it seems that the film hasn't built up much of a reputation (or an audience) over the years. It's fairly well-made, though, and features an intriguing premise, some good ideas and decent special effects that haven't aged too badly over the years. If anything bogs it all down, it's too much time spent with the police investigation and not enough time spent with the doctor / killer.

This was one of the first films for director Fukuda, who'd go on to make GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER (1966), SON OF GODZILLA (1967), GODZILLA VS. GIGAN (1972), GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA (1974) and others in the long-running series. Though Telegian failed to score at the box office, Fukuda co-scripted a second film ("Transparent Man vs. the Flame Man"), which was never made.

There are two versions floating around. One is cut and black-and-white (presumably the one that used to play on television), and the other is nicely shot in color (Tohoscope).

★★1/2

Evil of Frankenstein, The (1964)

... aka: Revolt of Frankenstein, The

Directed by:
Freddie Francis

Entry # 3 in Hammer's resilient series, this is a follow-up to THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) and THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1958) in-name-only. Though it features the same central character, the film disregards the events of the previous movies and is basically a stand-alone film. A drunk body snatcher steals the body of a recently deceased man directly from his home, then delivers it to the remote laboratory of Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing), who immediately gets to work removing the heart. "Why not? He has no better use for it?" Before Frankenstein can get much further in his experiments, the drunk rats him out and a local priest shows up to destroy some of his equipment. The Baron and his young assistant Hans (Sandor Elès) decide to flee the area before they get into any more trouble. Frankenstein decides to head back to Karlstaad, his former stomping grounds and the same village he'd previously lived in a decade earlier. A ten minute long flashback (this is brand new footage and not just recycled clips from Revenge) shows what became of the Baron's first monster creation; a pitiable being who had a taste for raw meat and was eventually shot and killed by some angry townspeople. The Baron was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer and "working against God" and was banished from Karlstaad for the rest of his life.

Well, he's come back, anyway. Upon arrival, a carnival is taking place in the village, so the Baron and his assistant easily glide on through undetected. When they show up to his mountaintop castle, Chateau Frankenstein, they find the place overrun with vines and discover it's been looted (they were planning on selling some of his art to make money to further his experiments). The Baron wonders why people can't just leave him alone and mocks the superstitious townspeople for wanting to destroy what they cannot understand. The village's corrupt Burgomaster (David Hutcheson) has his home decked out in all of the Baron's former furnishings, and even wears one of his rings, which infuriates him to the point that he makes his presence known. So it isn't long before the local Police Chief (Duncan Lamont) and the entire village are out searching for him.

While fleeing the village, Frankenstein and Hans come across a deaf beggar girl (Katy Wild) who lives in cave. They decide spend the night there and discover the Baron's creature (who'd previously taken a tumble off the mountaintop) perfectly preserved in a block of ice the next morning! The three take the creature back to the chateau, hook it up to the old equipment and use lightning to resurrect it. However, something's off. Though the brain may be technically revived, the creature lacks motor function and remains in a vegetable-like state. Frankenstein decides to enlist the aid of slimy carnival hypnotist Professor Zoltan (Peter Woodthorpe) to "stimulate" the creature's brain with his powers. The plan works, but the hypnotist has other ideas in store for the creature. Since only he can really control it, he makes it sneak into the village to steal some gold and then sends him back to "punish" the Burgomaster and the Chief of Police for throwing him out of town.

Certainly not up to the first two films (Terence Fisher was originally slated to direct but had to bow out after an auto accident), this is saddled with a mediocre, unfocused screenplay. The second half is rushed in comparison to the first. Well, actually the opening half hour could have easily been condensed into about five minutes with absolutely nothing lost in the process. Still, it's a Hammer film, so you can expect much in the way of production quality. The sets and locations are excellent, there's pretty good model / matte work, it's nicely-photographed by John Wilcox (including a great shot of the camera following the strapped-down creature along a track and then lifting up) and most of the performances are at least acceptable. Also of note: The look of the monster has reverted back to the more block-headed style used in the superior Universal films here (Hammer was allowed to do this because Universal distributed it). Unfortunately, the make-up job is subpar compared to Jack Pierce's work.

Though Baron Frankenstein meets a fiery demise at the finale, you can't keep a good mad scientist down, especially when their movies are raking in a lot of money. Cushing would return in the same role in FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN (1967), FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED! (1969) and FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL (1974). There was also the Cushing-free THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN (1970).

The original U.S. release was 13 minutes longer, is censored and has additional footage featuring Steven Geray, Maria Palmer and William Phipps tacked on.

★★1/2

La sorella di Ursula (1978)

... aka: Curse of Ursula
... aka: Die Todesbucht (The Bay of Death)

... aka: La muerte tiene ojos (Death Has Eyes)

... aka: Sister of Ursula, The

Directed by:
Enzo Milioni

Dagmar (Stefania D'Amario) and her extremely fucked-up younger sister Ursula (Barbara Magnolfi) have just inherited a ton of money and decide to take a holiday at a resort hotel in Italy. While Dagmar plans for a nice, peaceful stay in the picturesque town, and possibly even a little romance while they're there, Ursula behaves like a miserable, hateful bitch the entire time and constantly complains about wanting to leave, claiming that "Terrible things are going to happen!" And she would be correct, as a sadistic serial killer starts running amuck killing nude women in a very perverse way. But we'll get to that here in a second. First, a little history on our sibling protagonists. Their mother was a famous actress who put them in a boarding school when they were little girls and never saw them again. Their father was a musician who commited suicide. Both girls inherited a lot of money, and Ursula ended up inheriting much more, like some serious mental problems. She's also cursed with ESP abilities, which makes it difficult for her to interact with anyone because she always knows their true intentions ahead of time... and with the crew she encounters at this hotel, that's definitely not a good thing. Either way, Ursula is picking up some bad vibes and barely wants to leave her bed.

Hotel owner / drug trafficker Roberto Delleri (Vanni Materassi) is having an affair on his wife Vanessa (Anna Zinneman) with cabaret singer Stella Shining (Yvonne Harlow), who in turn is having an affair with heroin junkie Filippo Andrei (Marc Porel). Both Roberto and Filippo seem interested in Dagmar, while Vanessa demands a divorce (and her share of the profitable hotel) from her husband because she's also been unfaithful and has fallen in love with Jenny (Antinisca Nemour). Stella tries to call off her affair with Filippo, but he starts stalking her. All the while, Ursula carries on hysterically about various things (including thinking her father is still alive) and the mystery killer continues their rampage; first killing a few extras (including a prostitute and a pair of horny runaway teenagers) before moving on to our principal characters. So what technique does the killer use in dispatching victims? Well, by raping them to death with a giant wooden dildo! Hey, I already told you it was perverted.

If nothing else, this silly film delivers big time on the sleaze. It's filled with graphic sex scenes (which actually cross into hardcore territory on at least one occasion), full frontal nudity from both genders and lots of bloody, below-the-belt aftermath shots of what the killer has done to his / her victims. It also benefits from being shot in Amalfi, Italy, an incredibly beautiful location with lots of large homes dotted along the cliffsides and sparkling waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The cinematography and art direction are both good, and they even throw in a couple of cabaret numbers for good measure. So while this may not be a great film, or even a good one, it provides the trashy goods for fans of this stuff, plus has the production values to back it all up.

It's also interesting to see two actresses who were usually lost in minor roles in popular Euro horror flicks getting to play major parts here. Magnolfi's best-known part was playing Jessica Harper's bitchy roommate Olga in Argento's SUSPIRIA (1977). There she had just a couple of scenes, but in this one she gets to emote a lot and is the only female in the cast without a major nude scene. D'Amario is probably best known for playing flesheater fodder in Fulci's Zombi 2 (1979) and Lenzi's Nightmare City (1980). She had little to do in those films but die, but here she's the primary focus. She also picks up Magnolfi's slack by appearing fully nude no no less than four times (including a solo scene pleasuring herself with a gold necklace). Porel, who had also acted for Fulci (1977's The Psychic) and starred in Mario Bava's final film The Venus of Ille (1978), doesn't make much of an impression in this one, plus the big revelation of his character doesn't really make sense.

Never released to American theaters or on VHS (though IMDb lists this as having gotten an X rating), this finally received a DVD release in 2009 through Severin. In 2021, a Blu-ray was released by the German company Elea Media.

★★1/2

Screamtime (1986)

Directed by:

Michael Armstrong (uncredited)

"Al Beresford" (Stanley A. Long)

A trio of independent British shorts (each running less than 30 minutes apiece) were rounded up by someone in the U.S., who then shot silly linking segments and released it all as an anthology. Surprisingly enough, the end result isn't as bad as you might imagine. No one seems to know who shot the American footage, but the shorts were all made by Stanley A. Long, who was primarily known for making Brit sex comedies, including numerous entries in the "Adventures of..." series. According to Long, all three shorts had already played theatrically in the UK as support features prior to being included in this collection. Michael Armstrong (of MARK OF THE DEVIL fame) is sometimes listed as a co-director (perhaps he did the new framing footage?), though he's only credited for the script and casting in the credits. The film begins in New York City as Ed (Vincent Russo) and his buddy Bruce (Michael Gordon) steal three horror videos ("Killer Punch," "Scream House" and "Garden of Blood") from a shop, then head over to their friend Marie's (Marie Scinto) apartment to watch them. After Marie takes a customary shower (apparently she's got a date lined up for later in the evening), the three then settle down on the couch with some beer and chicken legs to check them out...

Story #1 centers around Jack Grimshaw (Robin Bailey), a friendly old man who loves entertaining children with his puppet shows. Unfortunately, his profession isn't quite paying the bills to his wife Lena's (Ann Lynn) satisfaction. She calls him a "born loser," thinks he's been neglecting the family for years, wants him to burn all of his puppets and plans to run off to Canada. Her son from a previous marriage, Damien (Jonathon Morris), is an obnoxious punk who hates his stepfather. One day after a performance, Damien decides to burn down Jack's puppet stand and throw some of his puppets into the ocean. Later that day he's mysteriously killed by someone brandishing a club. The same killer decides to whack Lena to death, and then does the same to a doctor who stops by. Have Jack's puppets come to life for revenge? This one has decent acting, is somewhat fun and has a rather predictable, though satisfactory, twist at the end. If the score sounds familiar, that's because it was stolen from Cronenberg's RABID (1977).

In our second tale, a young couple, Tony (Ian Saynor) and Susan (Yvonne Nicholson) Kingsley, move into an old fixer-upper, which was sold to them by his father. The two are kept up at night by sounds they attribute to mice, red water that fills the bathtub that they attribute to rust and flickering lights they attribute to bad wiring. Soon, strange things that can't be contributed to anything of this Earth begin happening. Susan begins seeing visions of a little boy on a bicycle, the corpse of a dead man in her bed, a young man painting and a man lurking around with a knife. Blood appears on a knife in the kitchen and on a banister. She arranges for psychic Miss Burns (Veronica Doran) to come over and evaluate the home, but she comes up with nothing, and informs Tony that his wife needs to see a shrink. Is the house actually haunted or has Susan gone bonkers? There's an excellent twist at the end. Amazingly, this segment was just recently remade as a feature-length film: Psychosis (2010).

And finally, teen dirt bike racer Gavin Martin (David Van Day, from the UK pop duo Dollar) is having financial problems and isn't making enough money at his current job at a menswear store. His mechanic brother Tim (Matthew Peters) spots an ad in a trade paper for a general handyman and gardener. Gavin decides to apply for the position and ends up at large home that was reputedly built as early as the 16th Century. His new employers; Mildred (Jean Anderson) and Emma (a scenery-chewing Dora Bryan) Hurley quickly fill Gavin in on the bizarre history of the place. Supposedly, a noblewoman named Lady Anne made a contract with some evil fairies to give them the souls of her discarded lovers. When Gavin, Tim and Tim's co-workers Frank (Gary Linley) decide to break in an rob the home, they end up coming across fairies (basically shown as specks of light), killer garden gnomes, ghosts and Lady Anne (Kim Thomson) herself. It's somewhat original, I guess, and one sequence copies Piper Laurie's demise in Carrie.

Things return to our trio in New York, as what they've seen in the horror videos come back to kill them. It was originally released in on VHS by Lightning Video. The DVD (which is a video transfer) is from Event Media UK.

★★1/2