Poor Devil

Poor Devil

1973

Director- Robert Scheerer

Cast- Sammy Davis Jr., Jack Klugman, Christopher Lee, Adam West

            

    This feature length film was the pilot to an unsold TV series. Sammy Davis Jr. is a bottom tier demon spending the centuries shoveling coal into Hell’s furnaces. Christopher Lee is his over bearing boss, the Devil, who gives Sammy one chance to prove he is worth a promotion from his menial duties.  He has to get a mortal to sell their soul. His target is a hapless mortal, Jack Klugman, who wants revenge against his boss played by Adam West.

            

     In truth this isn’t a very good movie. What makes it worth watching is that this is a shining example of just how comfortable pop culture was with Satanism in the early 70s (something that would change by the next decade).  Sammy Davis Jr., beloved member of the Rat Pack casually tosses up some Devil horn hand signs with no more taboo than a peace sign. Jack Klugman was at the height of his career, right in the middle of a 13 year run on TV between The Odd Couple and Quincy M.E. And remember this was a pilot for NBC. This was actually intended for mass consumption on TV by middle class American families.

           

     Well, who knows how the show would have turned out if it had been picked up. Maybe Klugman would never have played Quincy. One shudders to imagine Christopher Lee so busy starring in a TV show that he didn’t go on to make The Wicker Man, but I guess that could have happened in this theoretical alternate universe. Looks like we were better off without it.

 

Blood Diner

    

   

Blood Diner

1987

Director- Jackie Kong

Cast- Rick Burks, Carl Crew, LaNette LaFrance, LaNette LaFrance, Lisa Guggenheim, Max Morris, Drew Godderis, Tanya Papanicolas, Michael Barton

           

     As children Michael and George (Rick Burks and Carl Crew) watched their uncle Anwar get gunned down by the police after he chopped up a bunch of co-eds. Before he died, he exhorted them to follow the goddess Sheetar, an ancient goddess with sorceress powers.

            

     Fast forward 20 years and the brothers are all grown up and running a health food restaurant. They have, in fact, been studying Sheetar and have a plan to bring her to life in an avatar. They dig up their uncle’s corpse, remove his brain and he guides them as they set out to build her a body. They must construct the vessel from the dismembered bodies of wanton, immoral ladies. They begin by shooting up a studio where a bunch of girls are filming a topless aerobics video (hey it was the 80s). They ransack the fresh bodies for parts. Meanwhile, they are serving up the leftovers they don’t use to the customers in their restaurant. They make a veggie burger that tastes just like meat and there is a good reason why.

            

     Once they have the vessel for Sheetar ready, they must prepare for a “Lumerian Feast” the ritual that will bring their goddess to life. This involves capturing a virgin for Sheetar to eat once she arrives (obviously) and a “Blood Buffet” where the attendees are all turned into flesh eating zombies.

            

      The movie is utterly crazy. Its silliness level is about on par with Troma. It has strange characters like a rival restaurant owner that has an ugly dummy as his only customer, a police chief that gut punches his detectives, a wrestler named Little Jimmy Hitler and more. If you’re not sure whether to take the movie seriously, it begins with the disclaimer that  “All of the mutilations, bodily dismemberments and cannibal rituals were performed by seasoned professionals.”  So while the movie doesn’t take itself seriously, neither was it made lazily. There is an obvious effort to make something different and entertaining. It has an excellent soundtrack of mostly classic doowop but also with some punk and new wave.

           

    It was originally intended as a sequel the 1963 movie, Bloodfeast. There are a lot of similarities, but somewhere in the production stage, they decided to let it be its own film. When it comes to cannibal movies, Blood Diner isn’t scary like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or clever like Motel Hell, but it’s original and isn’t afraid to be weird, which goes along way with me.

The Masque of the Red Death

 

The Masque of the Red Death

1964

Director- Roger Corman

Cast- Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher, David Weston, Nigel Green, John Westbrook, Skip Martin, Verina Greenlaw, Patrick Magee

            

   This is one of the Vincent Price /Roger Corman collaborations that the pair did through the early 1960’s. It, like the others, is loosely based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe. The Poe story serves mainly as inspiration for a much larger story.

            

    Prince Prospero (Price) is an evil nobleman who terrorizes the locals under his power. He has people taken prisoner and executed at a whim. He is a loyal devotee of Satan and he seems intent on doing evil purely for the sake of evil. A plague, the Red Death, is ravaging the countryside. Prospero withdraws behind his castle walls and invites the landed gentry to join him while the commoners die. Prospero uses this as a chance to humiliate and degrade his peers. Juliana (Hazel Court), his mistress, is trying to get him to induct her into the deeper mysteries of devil worship. She might have succeeded except that a new plaything has caught his eye.

          

 

    He meets a young peasant girl, Francesca (Jane Asher), who is virtuous and kind. Prospero kidnaps her and holds her fiancé hostage.  He wants to corrupt her and turn her to evil. Prospero treats everyone else like dirt, but he dresses her in finery and is quite cordial, all the while espousing the virtues of a life devoted to evil.

            

    He throws a masquerade ball to celebrate the fact that he and all of his hangers on are safe from the plague while everyone else dies outside.  However, an uninvited guest shows up. It’s not Satan, as he hoped, but rather the spirit of Death itself. Will it spare Prospero as reward for his life devoted to evil? Will it spare the virtuous Francesca? Will it spare anyone?

            

    This movie doesn’t get into deep psychological examinations like Pit and the Pendulum or House of Usher. No one is on the verge of losing their mind. Instead, this movie is about the submission to evil. Prospero has done it and his mistress Juliana is attempting to do it.  Will Francesca submit to it as well?

      This is Corman's most straight forward horror movie with not the slightest bit of camp or humor. Its also Price's darkest film, with the one exception of Witchfinder General. The film is absolutely beautiful to look at with a superb color pallet, not quite to the extent of Suspiria, but certainly beyond what you'd expect from most horror movies. A must see for fans of Roger Croman or Vincent Price.

Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil

 

Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil

2017

Director- Paul Urkijo Alijo

Cast- Kandido Uranga, Uma Bracaglia, Eneko Sagardoy, Ramón Aguirre, Josean Bengoetxea, Gotzon Sanchez, Aitor Urcelai, Maite Bastos

From Spain

            

    A fairy tale from the Basque Country in Spain, it was produced by Alex de Iglesia who directed El Dia de Bestia. This is a true fairy tale complete with the imagery, tone, morality, and folklore of a Brothers Grimm tale.

            

    The fairy tale was often the horror story of its day. One of the things I like about fairy tales is that the evil is always tangible. It’s not an abstract concept; it’s a real person in a real place. The evil isn’t some malleable, culturally relative idea. It’s always evil. The witch from Hansel and Grettle is a child stealing cannibal. No amount of sensitivity or retrospection is going to change our mind about her.

           

    A little girl with a burned face is a bit of an outcast in her town. She is an orphan who has been taunted her whole life, being told that her mother is in Hell for committing suicide. Out in the forest is a reclusive blacksmith whose temperament is so cruel, it drove his wife to suicide. Of course, the blacksmith isn’t entirely alone. He keeps, locked up in a cage, a demon from Hell. The little girl stumbles onto this along with a group of townspeople who believe that the blacksmith keeps a horde of gold hidden away.

            

    The demons and devils of this film look fantastic. Especially nice is a trip to Hell, complete with a parade of sinners, tormented by demons, pouring through its gates. The movie has a medieval esthetic evoking Gustav Dore and Hieronymous Bosch. There is a minimum of CGI, relying on realistic looking make-up and prosthetics.

            

     More than its look, the film is charming like a fairy tale. It is spirited and takes chances. This is the first feature length film for director Paul Urkijo Alijoa and it has that spark and ingenuity that you only see in young directors that have that burning desire to tell stories. A beautiful film and I highly recommend it.

Brotherhood of Satan

Brotherhood of Satan

1971

Director- Bernard McEveety

Cast- Strother Martin, L. Q. Jones, Charles Bateman, Ahna Capri, Charles Knox Robinson, Alvy Moore, Geri Reischl

            

    This odd Satanic thriller was written by, produced by and stars L.Q. Jones, an actor you may recognize from numerous westerns including his excellent performance in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (where acts opposite of Strother Martin, his costar in this film). Like other Satanic films of this era (The Devil’s Rain, The Car, Race with the Devil) it takes place in a generic town in the American west and features another common theme of this era, a family stumbling upon a Satanic conspiracy.

           

    A family (dad, his little girl and dad’s girlfriend) get stranded in a remote town that is in the middle of a crisis. Children are missing, adults are being murdered, and anyone who tries to escape ends up brutally killed. The family tries twice to escape and is unable. The town sheriff (L.Q. Jones) is at his wits end. As it turns out, the town is beset by a coven of Satanists, led by Strother Martin. Now that’s not really a spoiler. If you know Strother’s resume, he would have been your first suspect anyway.

            

    The Satanists are kidnapping the town’s children to use in a ritual to maintain eternal youth. The coven members are all elderly and they plan to transfer their souls into the children’s bodies. The Satanists are presented rather theatrically with red cloaks and lots ritual and ceremony.  The best part is when Strother Martin is chastising a wayward member who didn’t want to sacrifice her child to the group and he yells “Not your baby! Our baby! Satan’s baby!” Strother Martin (as he often did) played the part completely over the top but that’s OK, that’s what makes it enjoyable.

            

    Not a great movie, but an original movie. It wasn’t put together very stylishly but it’s got heart. In addition to Storther and LQ, look for Ahna Capri as the girlfriend. She is best known as John Saxon’s main squeeze in Enter the Dragon.

   

Santo vs. The Vampire Women

Santo vs. The Vampire Women (Santo contra las mujeres vampire)

1962

Director- Alfonso Corona Blake

Cast- Santo, Lorena Velázquez,  María Duval, Ofelia Montesco, Jaime Fernández, Augusto Benedico, Xavier Loyá, Fernando Osés, Guillermo Hernández, Nathanael León

           
From Mexico

    If you’re not familiar with the Mexican sensation that is Santo, I’m not sure if there is a cultural equivalent. Imagine Hulk Hogan, Wyatt Earp, and Superman all rolled into one and that might come close. Mexican luchadore wrestler, El Santo (The Saint).  starred in over 50 films where he fought Martians, witches, mummies, martial artists and every other nefarious thing that you can imagine. In this installment, maybe the best known outside of Mexico, he fights a coven of vampire women.

            

    The first thing that you need to do in order to enjoy this movie is to toss out your ideas about what a horror movie SHOULD be. Mexican horror takes recognizable elements from European and Hollywood movies but also filters it through its own unique culture, kind of like how The Day of the Dead is an obvious analog to the Anglo-Saxon Halloween but has unique elements that set it apart.

        

 

     The beginning of the film focuses on a coven of vampire women, seeking a successor for their queen. Tundra  (Ofelia Montesco)  is the high priestess of the coven. She awakes her sisters and their three male servants. The vampire women, before they get blood are old, desiccated hags. After getting their nourishment they turn in to toga clad beauties, each one glamorous and sexy. Their servants are muscular men wearing what looks like wrestling tights with black capes. Even though they have the typical vampire powers (hypnotism, turn into a bat etc.) they get their victims by running up behind them and giving them a blow to the back of the head like they’re getting mugged for their wallet!

           

    After securing nourishment, they revive their queen, Zorina ( real life Miss Mexico, Lorena Velázquez who couldn’t look more glamorous if she tried). The coven serves Satan and Zorina has a limited time on the Earth before she must go back to the dark world from which she came (there is a really cool effect, where we never actually see the Devil, we only see his shadow on the wall). Before her time is up she must find a successor to be queen of the coven. They have their eye on Diana (María Duval) a young woman who prophecy states should be their queen. She even has a birth mark on her shoulder that looks like a bat!

           

    Diana’s father is a loremaster and knows the doom that awaits his daughter, so he contacts Santo to aid the police in protecting his daughter on her 21^st birthday (the days she is meant to ascend to the vampire throne). The vampire coven tries to stop Santo, including a scene where one of them fights him in the ring, a scene which was homaged in the 2019 Hellboy film. They finally succeed in kidnapping Diana and Santo must track them down and face the coven in their lair.

            

    The beginning of the film is as creepy as anything Unviersal put out in the 40s and if you didn’t know what you were watching you’d think it was a straight up horror film. The movie gets silly at times. I don’t think it was meant to make sense as much as it was supposed to just be fun. Part horror, part live action comic book, part wrestling, Santo vs. The Vampire Women offers an interesting, sometimes bizarre, mixture of genres and imagery.

Halloween 3:Season of the Witch

 

Halloween 3:Season of the Witch

1982

Director-  Tommy Lee Wallace

Cast- Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O’Herlhy

Music by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth

                      

    You probably already know the origin of the movie. Michael Myers was dead at the end of Halloween 2 and Hollywood had not yet decided to make its slashers immortal so it was time to move on. Part 3 was to be the first of many Halloween films that would all be different.  However, folks just couldn’t dig a movie called Halloween that didn’t star Mike. If the tag had been left off and the film had just been billed as Season of the Witch, it may have fared better.

            

    This movie is one of the most bizarre combinations of themes you are likely to find. A millionaire toy maker (Dan O’Herley) is hatching a scheme to end the world as we know it. He has transported a piece of Stonehenge to a factory in America. There he uses a complex array of technology to channel eldritch forces. This energy is transmitted, via a microchip, into Halloween masks that do some really horrible stuff when activated. Assisting him is an army of androids! A doctor going through a failed marriage (Tom Atkins) and a young woman (Stacey Nelkin) stumble on the conspiracy and then try to stop it.

           

    Without a doubt the best known part of the movie is the Silver Shamrock theme song (“Happy Happy Halloween Halloween!). An earworm from Hell, once you start singing it, it will be there all day.

            

    As weird as this film is, it somehow manages to hold itself together. It is very moody. John Carpenter’s musical handiwork is immediately recognizable in the score. Most films shy away from violence against children, but this film doesn’t, showing it in pretty dramatic fashion.

           

   The dread in the film builds and a real sense of paranoia is evident almost from the beginning. We are exposed to increasingly bizarre things. Accepting these makes it that much easier, by the end of the film, to go along with its weird science-magic premise. Genre great, Tom Atkins and Stacy Nelkins are believable as average people caught up in a supernatural conspiracy. Dan O’Herlhy makes my top 10 villains list with his portrayal of a modern day witch using technology to work magic.

           

    Watch Halloween 3 and just accept what you see. Don’t try to reconcile the disparate elements. The incongruity adds to the fear.