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Dave Allen (comedian)

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David Tynan O’Mahony (6 July 1936 – 10 March 2005), better known as Dave Allen, was an Irish comedian and actor, perhaps best known for his 1970s BBC TV series, which saw him sitting in a studio – cigarette in hand, glass of whiskey by his side – telling humorous, observational, sometimes acerbic stories, interspersed with sketches. He was famous – or infamous, depending on your viewpoint – for his mockery of religion, the Catholic church in particular. Many of his skits would probably not be done today in our times of heightened sensitivity towards / fear of religious offence.

So why is he here on Horrorpedia? Well, quite simply, Allen’s work often included horror movie pastiches. It’s clear that this was a man with an affection for and appreciation of horror cinema. While other comedians may have donned the cape and fangs and camped about as comedy Draculas, Allen’s sketches were more nuanced. Often, the humour didn’t become apparent until the  punchline, and until that point, many of his skits – based around Hammer style gothic horror usually, sometimes involving a Death figure straight from The Seventh Seal and once mocking The Exorcist – were straight-faced, atmospheric and often creepier than many a genuine horror film.

Most of these sketches are (at best) gathering dust in the BBC vaults, but a few have been reshown over the years. Here are a couple.


Allen also told a couple of horror stories to his studio audience – again with comedy punchlines. These show that he could have easily been a narrator for traditional horror stories, his sense of the dramatic and his strong voice being perfect for the telling of spooky stories. The man was a natural storyteller.

Posted by DF


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Halloween with the New Addams Family

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Halloween with the New Addams Family was a 1977 comedy horror film. This NBC TV-movie was directed by David Steinmetz and George Tibbles from a screenplay by Davy Levy. It stars John AstinCarolyn JonesJackie CooganTed CassidyLisa LoringKen Weatherwax, and Felix Silla and was a reunion of sorts with the actors reprising their roles from the original 1960s series The Addams FamilyBlossom Rock was ill at the time of the production (she would die in early 1978, shortly after this special aired) causing her role of Grandmama to be portrayed by Jane Rose.

In 1989 GoodTimes Home Video released Halloween with the New Addams Family to VHS. The film has never been issued on DVD.

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Gomez’s brother, Pancho, is staying with the family while Gomez goes to a lodge meeting in Tombstone, Arizona. Gomez is jealous of his brother, who once courted Morticia. Halloween is nigh, and Pancho tells the legend of Cousin Shy, who distributes gifts and carves pumpkins.

A gang of crooks have bugged the Addamses’ home and plan to take advantage of Gomez’s absence to steal the family fortune. The lead crook “Bones” Lafferty sends an associate named Mikey to investigate. Wednesday (Senior) is home from music academy, where she studies the piccolo (she breaks glass with it). Pugsley (Senior) is home from Nairobi medical school, where he is training to be a witch doctor. Mikey panics and flees after treading on the tail of the family’s pet lion Kitty Kat. The crooks have a fake Gomez and Morticia to help in their plans, along with two strong-arm goons, Hercules and Atlas…

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‘The outcome was a decidedly “Un- Addams” like quality. There was no attempt to follow any continuity. Brothers, Mothers and new children family members were brought in only to serve as window dressing. The Halloween Special aired on October 30th, to a wide amount of well deserved criticism. Ted Cassidy was noted as saying that the only reason he was reprising his role was the money, and to work with the other stars one more time. The feature was such an abysmal failure that the new series was cancelled before it even started.’ The Lurch Files

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Wikipedia | IMDb

 


Things Happen at Night

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Things Happen at Night is a 1947 British comedy horror film, directed by Francis Searle,  a jobbing director who worked fairly steadily from the early 1940s to the beginning of the 1970s without making anything of any significance. This is no exception.

Based upon a stage play, The Poltergeist, by Frank Harvey Jnr, the film tells the story of the Prescott family, who are beset by strange events, usually involving coal. Hot coals from an unlit fire have burned a hole in a bearskin rug, other hot coals smash through windows and are found scattered on the floor. As insurance man Joe Harris (Gordon Harker) shows up to assess the damage, a psychic investigator also arrives and announces that the acts are the work of a poltergeist, most likely connected to the  family’s teenage daughter, who is going through a rebellious stage (this being a 1940s British film, this consists of announcing that she doesn’t like school).

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While modern British cinema’s obsession with ‘street cred’ is rather pathetic, you can perhaps understand it more when you see older films like this, where everyone is frightfully posh – only member of the royal family seem to talk like this anymore. It’s one of those films that features a family who are supposedly struggling with money but still live in a massive house and employ a cook and a butler – I imagine working class audiences were less than sympathetic to their plight. That such characters were considered ‘typical’ by the flmmakers says a lot. Harker, the main star, offers up a comedy turn as the lower class Harris (though when I say ‘lower’, he’s still essentially middle class, with aspirations of social climbing that are of course mocked).

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Snobbery aside, the main issue with Things Happen at Night is that it is neither scary nor funny. Performances are weak, characters unconvincing and the humour is feeble while the scares are non-existent. It takes more than the odd bit of petty vandalism to make a poltergeist scary.

The only real point of interest here is that this may be the first film to deal with poltergeists as opposed to ghosts or spirits. It’s also, oddly, structurally similar to The Exorcist – a young girl ‘possessed’, a mysterious expert turning up to exorcise the demon. That’s about the only point of interest though. A song and singer are credited, although neither appear in the film.

David Flint, Horrorpedia

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Cooties

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Cooties is a 2014 American comedy horror film directed by Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott, written by Ian Brennan and Leigh Whannell. The film stars Elijah Wood, Alison Pill, Rainn Wilson, Jack McBrayer and Jorge Garcia. The planned release date in the United States is October 10, 2014.

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A mysterious virus hits a small Illinois town, affecting only the prepubescent population, transforming them into violent, feral little monsters.  The virus centralizes in the town’s elementary school, and quickly the infected students have the teaching staff under siege, acting out deadly revenge fantasies with an eerie sense of childlike glee. Finally, the teachers band together, led by a hapless substitute who grew up in the town, realising they must do the unthinkable if they hope to survive…

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Wikipedia | IMDb


Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (animated TV series)

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Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (also known as Mystery Incorporated or Scooby-Doo! Mystery, Inc.) is the eleventh incarnation of Hanna-Barbera’s Scooby-Doo animated series, and the first incarnation not to be first-run on Saturday mornings. The series is produced by Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network and premiered in the United States on Cartoon Network on April 5, 2010.

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Mystery Incorporated returns to the early days of Scooby and the gang, when they are still solving mysteries in their home town, though it makes many references to previous incarnations of the franchise, not least among them many cases and creatures from the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. Episode by episode, the series takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to the classic Scooby-Doo formula (similar to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!), with increasingly outlandish technology, skills and scenarios making up each villain’s story, and a different spin on the famous “meddling kids” quote at the end of every episode. Contrasting sharply with this, however, are two elements that have never been used in a Scooby-Doo series before: a serial format with an ongoing story arc featuring many dark plot elements that are treated with near-total seriousness, and ongoing relationship drama between the characters.

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The series pays extensive homage to the horror genre, drawing on many works from film, television and literature in both parodic and serious ways, from horror movie classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street, modern films such as Saw, television series Twin Peaks, and the works of H. P. Lovecraft, alongside the classic monster horror movies shown in previous series. Other Hanna-Barbera characters occasionally guest-star, including Captain Caveman, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, The Funky Phantom, Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, and more.

As was the case with the previous three installments in the franchise, Mystery Incorporated redesigns the main characters, this time into a retro look that returns them to their original 1969 outfits, with some small changes (such as Velma now wearing bows in her hair). The series is also the animated debut of Matthew Lillard as the voice of Shaggy, after he portrayed the character in two live-action films, Scooby-Doo (2002) and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004). Casey Kasem, the original voice of Shaggy, now voices Shaggy’s father. Linda Cardellini, who played Velma in the live-action movies, is the voice of Hot Dog Water, a recurring character in the series.

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Fred Jones, Jr., Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, Norville “Shaggy” Rogers, and Scooby-Doo are a team of teen mystery solvers who live in the small town of Crystal Cove, the self-proclaimed “Most Hauntedest Place on Earth”. The allegedly “cursed” town’s long history of strange disappearances and ghost and monster sightings form the basis for its thriving tourist industry; as such, the adults of the town (chief among them being Fred’s father Mayor Fred Jones Sr. and Sheriff Bronson Stone) are not happy that the kids are debunking all the supernatural goings-on that bring in so much revenue as the overwrought schemes of charlatans and criminals.

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In addition to the traditional cases they always solve, the team finds itself being nudged into the uncovering of a dark secret that is hidden in the past of Crystal Cove. Following cryptic hints from a faceless mystery-man known only as “Mr. E.” (a play on “mystery”), the gang unearths the legend of a cursed Conquistador treasure, the secret history of Crystal Cove’s founding Darrow Family, and the mysterious, unsolved disappearance of four mystery-solving youths and their pet bird—the originalMystery Incorporated. Standing in the way of their solving this mystery, however, are the romantic entanglements pulling the kids apart: Shaggy finds himself unable to put his new romance with Velma ahead of his longtime friendship with Scooby, while Daphne pines for a trap-obsessed Fred, who obliviously struggles to realise he shares her feelings, too.

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Wikipedia | IMDb | Official websiteScooby-Doo on Horrorpedia


The X-Ray Fiend

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There will always arguments about what the first horror film is – some would claim it to be L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat, which – according to urban legend – sent audiences screaming for the exits when first projected in January 1896. But most agree that is was The Haunted Castle (aka The Devil’s Castle), a three minute romp from later that same year, which showed how quickly cinema was growing – from a simple shot of a train pulling into a station to demons, bats, ghosts and ghouls featuring crude yet effective special effects, within a few months.

The Haunted Castle showed that there was an audience for chills and thrills, even within the short formats of early silent cinema. Obviously, there was no room to develop horror as we know it, but images of the supernatural, the weird and the bizarre became increasingly popular with filmmakers, even if their stories were (even at the time) likely to induce as much laughter as horror.

hqdefaultA typical example of these early spook show movies is The X-Ray Fiend, a one minute extravaganza that was directed by G.A. Smith in 1897. The film, starring Laura Bayley and Tom Green, takes advantage of the newly discovered (two years earlier) X-ray photography technique. Throwing scientific accuracy to the wind (and thus setting the scene for over a century of science fiction film makers to come), Smith’s film features a canoodling couple who have an ‘X-ray Camera’ pointed at them. Amazingly, they then turn into a pair of kissing skeletons!

While it is unlikely to shock or amaze anyone today, The X-Ray Fiend is notable as a pioneer of the horror film. If you can spare a minute, the whole thing can be seen below.


Frankenstein’s Cat (cartoon)

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Frankenstein’s Cat is a 1942 American cartoon that was part of the Mighty Mouse series. It is a Terrytoons production, directed by Mannie Davis.

This 6 minute long story opens with mice and birds living in a cat-free paradise, until one unfortunate bird is blown to a dark, sinister castle that is haunted by ‘fiend of darkness’ Frankenstein’s Cat! This is an electricity-surged, square bodied but surprisingly cheery looking monster, who sets out to capture the intruding bird. This pursuit leads him to the cat-free haven, where he terrorises the avian and rodent residents, and after some mild vandalism, snatches a bird and is chased back to the castle by angry, torch-wielding villagers (i.e. mice). Only one mouse can save the day – the superhero Might Mouse!

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This early entry in the Mighty Mouse series sees our hero wearing a different colour costume than seen in later cartoons – here, he is in the familiar blue and red of Superman. In fact, the character was originally called Super Mouse, and his new name has been all-too-obviously redubbed later.

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This is one of several cartoons that featured ‘Frankenstein’ (or, more accurately, the monster) in the 1930s and 40s, made when the popularity of the character was at its peak thanks to the Universal films. The monster would also have encounters with Bugs Bunny, Betty Boop, Porky Pig and Woody Woodpecker amongst others.

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David Flint


Inside No.9 (TV series)

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Inside No.9 is a British BBC comedy television series that begins on February 5, 2014. It stars Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith (The League of Gentlemen) and is a follow up the multi-award-winning Psychoville. The working title was Happy Endings. A second series of Inside No.9 has already been ordered by BBC2

What goes on behind closed doors on the street where you live? Inside No. 9 invites viewers into six very different No. 9s, where the ordinary and mundane rub shoulders with the extraordinary and macabre. From a grand country house where a game of ‘sardines’ leads to some chilling revelations in a wardrobe; to a very oddly haunted house; to a blood-soaked actor’s dressing room in London’s West End; to the flat of an apparently happy primary school teacher who becomes the victim of a good deed; these unpredictable tales feature high comedy and claustrophobic horror by turns.

An anthology of tales of the genuinely unexpected, the episode titles are: Sardines, The Harrowing, A Quiet Night In, Last Gasp, The Understudy, and Tom And Gerri.

Sardines: It is the day of Rebecca and Jeremy’s engagement party, and everyone (well, nearly everyone) has turned up to the old house to wish them well. Except that one of the bedrooms – the one with all the old baggage in it – has been left unlocked…

Starring Reece Shearsmith as Stu and Steve Pemberton as Carl. Guest starring Timothy West as Andrew; Anne Reid as Geraldine; Anna Chancellor as Elizabeth; Mark Wootton as Stinky John; Tim Key as Ian; Luke Pasqualino as Kev; Katherine Parkinson as Rebecca; Ophelia Lovibond as Rachel; Julian Rhind-Tutt as Mark; and Ben Willbond as Jeremy.

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A Quiet Night In: In this silent farce, we enter the beautiful, modernist home of Gerald & Sabrina… a beautiful home with lots of beautiful things in it. Beautiful things of extreme value. The kind of things that might just become the target of an audacious criminal enterprise. When cat-burglars Ray and Eddie decide to break into the luxury house, they have to dodge all manner of obstacles – including the warring couple that live there – to get their hands on a priceless painting.

Starring Reece Shearsmith as Ray and Steve Pemberton as Eddie. Guest starring Dennis Lawson as Gerald, Oona Chaplin as Sabrina, Joyce Veheary as Kim, and Kayvan Novak as Paul.

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Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster

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Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster (also known as Scooby-Doo 2 or Scooby-Doo 2: Curse of the Lake Monster) is a 2010 live action/CGI American television film directed by Brian Levant for Cartoon Network with a screenplay by Daniel Altiere and Steven Altiere based on the Saturday morning cartoon series Scooby-Doo by Hanna-Barbera. It is the fourth installment in the Scooby-Doo live-action film series, and a sequel to the 2009 film Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins, whose cast reprise their roles again here. The film was shot in Santa Clarita, California and premiered on October 16, 2010. Dean Cundey (Halloween, The Thing, Jurassic Park) handled the cinematography. Michael Berryman has a minor role.

Plot:

School has just ended for the summer. Velma (Hayley Kiyoko), Shaggy (Nick Palatas), and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) meet up with Fred (Robbie Amell) and Daphne (Kate Melton) so they can go to meet Daphne’s uncle, Thornton “Thorny” Blake V, who has given them summer jobs at his country club in Erie Point.

That night at the club’s opening party, a huge frog-like monster suddenly appears and wreaks havoc. The gang decides to solve the mystery. They decide to investigate the only person who has ever taken a picture of the lake monster, Mr. Uggins, the lighthouse keeper. He then tells them the story of the lake monster: how when people were first settling Erie Point, an old woman named Wanda Grubwort warned them not to come onto her land. They paid no attention to her, so she used her magic staff – which used moonstones as the source of her power – to turn a frog into a horrible monster that attacked the villagers. Wanda was later tried for witchery and burnt at the stake…

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Reviews:

‘If not for Scooby’s reduced role, Curse of the Lake Monster would be a substantial improvement over The Mystery Begins. A bit shaky in the earlier movie, Nick Palatas is more comfortable and natural as Shaggy the second time around, though his take on Norville Rogers is more vocal impersonation than full-bodied performance. Unburdened by uninteresting (and, frankly, unnecessary) exposition introducing characters that have been around for four decades, the movie is able to get down to the mystery right off the bat. The mystery itself is entirely predictable (and too reliant on the supernatural to be a classic Scooby-Doo story), but given that Curse of the Lake Monster is designed specifically for young audiences, that isn’t a deficiency worth getting hung up on.’ Judge Dan Mancini, DVD Verdict

‘The acting is subpar at best, the CGI horrid and the main freakin’ title character isn’t even in various and important scenes. While it’s not as bad as I had expected because I did manage to chuckle a couple of times and Hayley Kiyoko makes for a hot Velma that anyone can fall in love with, it’s still not wasting your time on either.’ Movieman’s Guide to the Movies

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‘If you can get past the whole romance and movie not being subtle about who the villain is thing, your kids would enjoy it (though you’d might have to explain the whole relationship thing to them if they’re not aware of the birds and the bees). If you can’t, The Mystery Begins and the straight to video cartoons are your better bet.’ That Guy with the Glasses

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Wikipedia | IMDb | Facebook

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Piranha Sharks

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Piranha Sharks (formerly Piranha Great White Sharks) is a 2014 American comedy horror film produced by Mark Burman for Red Sea Media. It has been written and directed by Leigh Scott. The film stars Collin Galyean, Josh Hammond, John Wells, Noel Thurman, Kristina Page, Brandon Stacy, Jessica Sonneborn, Benjamin Kanes, Barry Ratcliffe, Frederic Doss, Ashe Parker, Ramona Mallory, Martin Ewens and GinaMarie Zimmerman.

Or watch in better quality on Vimeo.com:

Great white sharks bio-engineered to be the size of piranhas with the purpose of living in rich peoples exotic aquariums, terrorise New York City when they get into the water supply and do what great white sharks do best…

Piranhas on Horrorpedia

Related: 2-Headed Shark Attack | Great White | Jaws | Jaws 2 | Jersey Shore Shark Attack | Jurassic Shark | Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus | Psycho Shark | Sand Sharks |Shark Attack 3: Megalodon | The Shark is Still Working |Shark Week | Sharktopus | Snow Shark | Super Shark Swamp Shark Zombie Shark

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Special effects test footage:

IMDb | Thanks to TarsTarkas.net for one of the images above.


A Haunted House 2

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A Haunted House 2 is a 2014 comedy horror sequel to A Haunted House directed by Michael Tiddes from a screenplay by co=producers Marlon Wayans and Rick Alvarez. It stars Marlon Wayans, Ashley Rickards, Scott Burn, Dave Sheridan, Essence Atkins, Cedric the Entertainer, Gabriel Iglesias, Kirsty Hill, Affion Crockett, Rick Overton, Iva La’Shawn, Audrey Petenbrink, Chris Gann, Marissa Welsh and Steele Stebbins. It says on Marlon’s lips the movie is unleashed on US screens on March 28, 2014.

The comedy spoofs supernatural horror movie hits such as Paranormal Activity 4, Sinister, The Possession, Insidious, The Conjuring, and more.

“After losing his possessed girlfriend Kisha in a car crash, Malcolm (Marlon Wayans) meets and falls for Megan, a single white mother of two. As he moves into a new home with the family, Malcolm discovers bizarre paranormal events surrounding the children and the property. To complicate matters, a back-from-the-dead Kisha moves in across the street, and there’s nothing worse than the scorn of a demonic ex-girlfriend…

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IMDb


Zombeavers

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Zombeavers is a 2013 American sex comedy horror film co-written (with Al and Jon Kaplan) and directed by Jordan Rubin. It stars Bill Burr, Cortney Palm, Rachel Melvin, Hutch Dano, Jake Weary, Rex Linn, Brent Briscoe, Robert R. Shafer, Peter Gilroy, Lexi Atkins, Phyllis Katz and Chad Anderson.

A group of college kids staying at a riverside cabin are menaced by a horde of deadly zombie beavers. A planned weekend of sex and debauchery soon turns gruesome as the beavers close in on the terrified teens who must fight to save their lives…

‘Horny co-eds, severed feet, the great outdoors, and undead beavers chomping their way toward crotch, Zombeavers is more than just a simple film. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will inspire great interest in mother nature, and it just might teach you something about love. For instance, in one scene a man says, “I’ve never seen a beaver up close.” His girlfriend responds, “You should try going down on me once in a while.” See? Life lessons.’ Lacy Donohue, Defamer at Gawker.com

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IMDb


The Vampire Show

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The Vampire Show is a four part Danish web series, shot in 2013 and available for viewing online. The episodes total just under 90 minutes.

Shot in English, the series a parody of reality TV, and has been described by the producers as “political satire”. It follows the lives (if that’s the right word!) of a group of vampires, who are being filmed by a TV crew.

The show is the creation of Xinxin Ren Gudbjörnsson, a Chinese filmmaker living in Denmark. After applications for funding were turned down, the production was shot independently for just 660 Kroner ($121), most of which seems to have been spent on the website (visit www.thevampireshow.com) and two pairs of plastic fangs. A crew of 20 people, including the cast, were sourced through a free casting agency and Facebook. Each episode was shot over a weekend once a month.

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Unfortunately, the series is rather weak, even when you take into account the zero budget. It’s overly dark (and while studio lighting is costly, you can do wonders with a 500 watt security light and a bit of ingenuity) and rather too slow moving to be involving. More significantly, it’s not really very funny. But, we invite you to make your own mind up. Here’s the first episode – the others, along with behind the scenes footage, is on the website.

http://cphpost.dk/news/mission-impossible-how-to-make-a-tv-show-for-the-cost-of-a-tom-cruise-poster.3969.html

David Flint

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Tender Dracula

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Tender Dracula, or Confessions of a Blood Drinker (French: Tendre Dracula or, alternately, La Grande Trouille) is a 1974 French horror film directed by Pierre Grunstein. It stars Peter Cushing, Alida Valli, Miou-Miou, Bernard Menez and Nathalie Courval. The plot involves two writers who take their girlfriends to a castle where an actor (Peter Cushing) who has played vampires in many films is living. The longer they stay in the castle, the more likely it seems that the actor is an actual vampire.

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A frantic television executive dispatches two bungling writers, Alfred (Bernard Menez, La Grande Bouffe, Dracula and Son) and Boris (Stéphane Shandor), to convince acting legend MacGregor (horror mainstay, Peter Cushing) not to throw away his peerless career playing a vampire in order to branch out into the world of slushy romance. They head off to a remote Scottish castle where the actor resides, taking with them two budding actresses, Madeleine (Nathalie Courval) and Marie (a regularly undressed, be-wigged Miou-Miou) and soon encounter resident butler Abélard (Percival Russel) and MacGregor’s wife (Alida Valli, another horror legend, seen in the likes of Suspiria and Lisa and the Devil), both of whom veer from Carry On to existential experimentation in the blink of an eye. We finally meet a Keats-spouting MacGregor, already way beyond convincing to change his new career path but the remaining 70 minutes care little about such frippery.

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Struggling to decide which genre it wants to demolish, we are regularly distracted by a stream of gratuitous nudity, none of which is anything other than typical 70′s softcore but all of it somewhat jarring when considering Mr Cushing’s name is above the title – those alarmed at his participation in the sleazy Corruption should take a cold shower.

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Some singing also ensues but fortunately both Valli and Cushing steer clear, both looking occasionally like they are prepared for the film to start in earnest. As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell whether the actor is leading his guests along or he has grand designs on his prey.

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The presence of Valli and Cushing, as well as a castle, should be foolproof enough to ‘get by’ but this oddly-pitched French production is far too satisfied with its props to go to the effort of story/script/wit/point. This, mercifully, was Pierre Grunstein’s only directorial effort, though his career as a producer (Jean de Florette, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) would suggest he wasn’t utterly blind to talent and film-making skill. Made in the period during which Cushing was in deep mourning for the loss of his wife, Helen, it is easy to see the actor throwing himself into any old project to distract him from his misery, though this is somewhat wobbly as an appeal, given it also being the period of some of his greatest roles, Tales from the Crypt, Horror Express, Madhouse and so on.

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The muddled cast, with Cushing’s voice dubbed by French acting titan Jean Rochefort in the original release, appear to be acting alongside rather than with each other; both Courval and Miou-Miuo regularly burst out into song in a strange Greek Chorus, seemingly an attempt to remind everyone where we are in the plot. In the most preposterous scene, Cushing spanks Miou-Miou, the kind of thing you could get away with in 1974, with the chances of English-speaking audiences ever viewing the film being slim. What we do get is a glimpse of is Cushing as The Count, more redolent of the smooth Lugosi vamp than Lee’s aristocrat but still only an interesting footnote than a statement.

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So confused is the aim, especially as Euro-humour rarely travels well at the best of times, that it’s hard to be too damning of the film, purely because it’s difficult to know what the point was in the first place. Towards the end, Cushing’s character flicks through a scrapbook containing photos of some the real actor’s most famous roles. You’d think that at this point someone would have twigged that something had gone terribly astray in the very production they were working on.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Some of the images above appear courtesy of the Peter Cushing Blog

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Le Diable Noir

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Le Diable Noir (The Black Devil) is a 1905 silent short film by Georges Melies.

Melies was a pioneer of the horror film, special effects and cinema in general – his 1896 film The Haunted Castle is considered by many to be the first horror film. Over the next few years, he would churn out dozens of short films, often with a fantastical and comedic edge to them, and Le Diable Noir is fairly typical of these movies.

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Running just under 4 minutes, it opens with the titular character entering a hotel room (a typically one-dimensional stage set that will be immediately recognisable to anyone who has seen a lot of Melies films), where he frolics with gay abandon before vanishing, just as the hotel guest is shown into the room. This sober looking fellow is clearly looking forward to a good night’s sleep on the none-too-comfortable bed, but soon finds that the furniture in the room is moving from place to place, shifted by an unseen force.As he tries to make sense of this, the impish devil becomes visible, and torments the man as he chases it with a broom. Magically appearing and disappearing, the devil seems impossible to capture, and eventually sets the bed on fire. Naturally, the poor guest is blamed for this and thrown out, much to the devil’s delight.

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This is slight stuff, obviously, but still entertaining on a basic level. As with much of Melies’ work, it is shot from one static angle, giving it a theatrical feel. This lack of movement and short running time would make films like this essentially redundant within a few more years.

Like much of Melies’ work, Le Diable Noir is free to view online:

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Autopsy of a Ghost

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Autopsy of a Ghost (Spanish title: Autopsia de un Fantasma) is a 1968 Mexican horror-comedy film, directed by Ismael Rodríguez and starring Basil Rathbone (cinema’s most famous Sherlock Holmes), John Carradine (Houses of both Frankenstein and Dracula) and Cameron Mitchell (Blood and Black Lace, The Toolbox Murders). The remaining cast were all Spanish speakers – the film is particularly notable as the final screen role for Rathbone.

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Elizabethan dandy, Canuto Perez (Rathbone), roams the Earth in limbo, having committed suicide 400 years previously, doomed to potter about as a ghost in a lonely castle. For company he has his own skeleton, which has managed to separate itself from his person and interacts with him as an individual entity, usually being contrary, and a chuckling tarantula. Perez’s previous life had seen him carousing with ladies without much thought for their feelings and his suicide came as an escape from the Earthly punishment which faced him. A little overdue, Satan (Carradine) appears and offers him a way out – he has four days to make one of four women fall in love with him to such an extent that they would be willing to die for him. The catch is that he mustn’t venture beyond the four walls of the castle and must rely on the Devil to tempt the unlucky females into his lair. Cue much dressing up, a robot and a child who’s at least 30 years old.

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The same year George Romero was re-writing the horror rule-book, Carradine and Rathbone had serious gas bills to pay and lowered themselves to appearing in Mexican farces, the horror and comedy of which would already have been outdated by their heydays in the 30′s and 40′s. The pair had already disgraced themselves (along with Lon Chaney Jr) in the previous year’s Hillbillys in a Haunted House but little could prepare them or the audiences, such as they were, for this jaw-dropping mess. It actually starts rather entertainingly, the jokes are passable, the sets are well decorated and it’s huge fun to see three such famous faces in such bizarre circumstances. Sadly, the joke wears thin extremely quickly, a particular shame as the running time is gargantuan for what it is – approaching the two-hour mark. Worse still, so excited are the film-makers, they forget to include our heroes for around half the film.

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Carradine later asserted that Rathbone’s death, shortly after filming, could be attributed to the high altitude they filmed at. That, or presumably, he got to watch the film. It would seem that Rathbone and Carradine both read their lines in English and were dubbed, rather than learning phonetically; Mitchell, the show-off, spoke his, like the rest of the cast, in Spanish. Though the few supporters of the film would claim that Rathbone is having some fun in his twilight years, his scenes as Cyrano de Bergerac and reading Hamlet rather smack of ridicule at his expense.

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Shot in colour on a budget seemingly stratospherically higher than standard Mexican films, the urge to pack as much in as possible makes it absolute torture to watch, a constant parade of ridiculous characters, none of whom are any real fun or offer anything of interest. Rightly buried, this will never see the light of day officially, there simply isn’t an audience that would appreciate it. You can watch it for free online (see below), though you may feel overcharged.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Big thanks to BasilRathbone.net for some of the pictures.

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Highlights of the film:

Whole film online:


All Cheerleaders Die

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All Cheerleaders Die is a 2013 American comedy horror film remake written and directed by Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson for Modernciné. It was screened in the Midnight Madness section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. The film stars Caitlin Stasey, Sianoa Smit-McPhee, Brooke Butler, Amanda Grace Cooper, Reanin Johannink, Tom Williamson, Chris Petrovski, Leigh Parker, Nicholas S. Morrison, Jordan Wilson, Felisha Cooper.

The film is a bigger budget remake of the 2001 shot-on-video film All Cheerleaders Die, also written and directed by Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson. It will be released by Image in Spring 2014.

Plot:

Maddy (Caitlin Stasey) is a rebel and outsider at Blackfoot High, dead set on bringing down the clique of too-cool cheerleaders who rule the school. When Maddy turns up at tryouts to infiltrate their squad, you might think that you know where this film is going. But after things turn ugly at a bush party and Maddy’s wiccan ex-girlfriend Leena (Sianoa Smit-McPhee) interferes in her plot, Maddy, Leena and the whole pom-pom-wielding posse must become unlikely allies in a supernatural showdown against the boys, led by Terry (Tom Williamson), the captain of the football team.

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Reviews:

“With its splashy paintbox palette and jaunty pop soundtrack, All Cheerleaders Die just about hangs together as a cheerfully goofy romp. The story has some of the pulpy energy of early Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson, but little of their subversive attitude or spiky originality. The characters are cartoonish, the pacing is bumpy and the plot illogical. Does this matter? Probably not to the film’s target demographic, assuming there is still an audience for knowingly trashy semi-spoof horror comedies which appear to be stranded somewhere the 1980s. A guilty pleasure, but instantly forgettable.” Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter

All Cheerleaders Die is either a feminist film, or a particular type of man’s idea of what a feminist film could be. But it certainly is schlocky, funny, violent, clever and surprisingly sexy. It is a great unwind movie if you like this sort of thing and does what it sets out to do – entertain.” John Sharp, The Hollywood News

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“Mashing together elements redolent of “The Craft,” “Species,” “Pet Sematary” and anything featuring toned young bods jiggling booty and tossing hair in slo-mo, “All Cheerleaders Die” has fun with its umpteen cliches. Still, the satirical edge is underplayed enough to make some viewers wonder whether the film is faux-stupid or the real thing … Even for those most receptive to the tongue-in-cheek tone here, McKee and Silvertson’s in-joke will likely rate just middling on the scale of subversive hilarity. It’s a fond, briskly diverting homage, but not a truly inspired one. Performances, visual approach, f/x and other major contributions all faithfully adhere to current B-horror stylistic conventions.” Dennis Harvey, Variety

 

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Wikipedia | IMDb | Official site | We are grateful to The Hollywood Reporter for the poster image.

 


Call Girl of Cthulhu

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Call Girl of Cthulhu is a forthcoming 2014 American comedy horror film directed by Chris LaMartina from a screenplay by himself and Jimmy George. The film is “inspired” by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. It stars David Phillip CarolloMelissa O’BrienNicolette le FayeDave GambleHelenmary BallSabrina Taylor-SmithAlex MendezCraig Peter Coletta. Horror genre veteran George Stover (The Alien Factot, Nightbeast, Vampire Sisters) makes a cameo appearance.

The filmmakers raised $27,750 on crowd funding website Kickstarter - click the link to watch video

It is the sixth feature film from Baltimore based production company, Midnight Crew Studios, whose previous movies include Witch’s Brew and President’s Day.

When a virginal artist falls in love with a call girl, she turns out to be the chosen bride of the alien god Cthulhu. To save her, he must stop an ancient cult from summoning their god and destroying mankind…

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IMDb | Tumblr | Twitter | Promo photo by Josh Sisk

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The Boogie Man Will Get You

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The Boogie Man Will Get You is a 1942 comedy horror film, directed by Lew Landers and starring Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. It was the final production Karloff made under his contract with Columbia Pictures, and it was filmed in the wake of his success in the Broadway production Arsenic and Old Lace. As he had done several times previously, Karloff played the part of a “mad scientist”, Professor Billings, who is using the basement of his inn to conduct experiments into using electricity to create a race of superhumans. The inn is bought by a new owner, who is initially unaware of the work Billings is conducting. 

Reviews:

“The dialogue is deliciously archaic throughout, as if a drunken Vincent Price was mocking passages in some old Victorian novel. Someone had a good time writing this, and the actors ride that spirit. Lorre gets a great glint of mischief in his eyes. Karloff riffs on his zillion past mad scientists.” Acidemic

“So some bad dialogue more suited to the stage and an uneven supporting cast are clear demerits here, but more than anything the script is what keeps this from being better than it could (and should) be. In particular, what little of a plot there is falls completely off the rails once the fascist suicide bomber arrives on the scene, demanding to be taken to the nearby munitions plant. Even for a loopy black comedy, this is an outlandish, absurd turn that nearly causes the film to collapse completely. Thankfully, the script makes a bit of a recovery at the end to send the audience out on a happier, if still slightly bewildered note.” Scared Silly

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“Karloff and Lorre are hilarious here, playing off each other like a time honoured comedy double act. If they weren’t so talented at other things they could have made a career of playing roles like this like a more sophisticated Abbott & Costello. They’re aided by Maude Eberne and George McKay as the elderly servants, right out of Arsenic and Old Lace, Don Beddoe as a choreographer who so obviously isn’t, Frank Mitchell as Jo-Jo the Human Bomb… did I mention they threw everything in here that they could think of?” Hal C. Astell, Apocalypse Later

” … frightening people in theatres takes more ingenuity and adroitness than the authors of this screenplay put into it”. Kate Cameron, New York Daily News (1942)

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Buy Icons of Horror Collection on DVD from Amazon.com

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WikipediaIMDb | We are grateful to Wrong Side of the Art! for images above


The Corpse Grinders

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The Corpse Grinders is a 1971 American horror film directed by Ted V. Mikels (The Astro-Zombies, Blood Orgy of the She-Devils), from a screenplay co-written with actor Arch Hall Sr and Joseph Cranston (The Crawling Hand). It stars Sean Kenney (The Toy Box), Monika Kelly, Sanford Mitchell, J. Byron Foster, Warren Ball, Ann Noble, Vincent Barbi, Harry Lovejoy, Earl Burnam, Zena Foster, Ray Dannis, Drucilla Hoy.

Mikel’s churned out a belated sequel, The Corpse Grinders 2, in 2000 and executive produced a second sequel in 2012.

The Corpse Grinders is one of those rare films that turns out to be every bit as deranged as you would hope it to be. While the title and the trailer – which has arguably been seen more frequently than the movie itself – promise much, the film actually manages to excel expectations, delivering a delirious, trashy, nonsensical tale that is heavy on weirdness.

The plot begins with a neglected cat attacking its owner – in common with all the cat attacks in this film, this is a triumph of sound and crazed acting over actual dramatic action – and then cuts to a grave-robbing couple Caleb (Warren Ball) and Cleo (Ann Noble). He looks like a mountain man while she has, inexplicably, a Cockney accent and the pair of them bicker constantly, setting the scene for the whole movie. She’s a few eggs short of an omelette, keeping up a conversation with a doll for some reason – this has no connection with anything else in the film, but establishes her wackiness. But then, everyone in this film seems somewhat eccentric – it’s the sort of film that even John Waters might consider a bit unrealistic.

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Caleb is supplying dead bodies to Landau (Sanford Mitchell), head of the Lotus Cat Food company (“for cats who like people”). He pops them in his corpse grinding machine and sells the meat in his ‘expensive’ cat food – hence the sudden lust for human flesh that has arisen in the local moggies. We’re told that Landau and grubby partner Maltby (J. Byron Foster) are raking in the cash, but they work out of what looks like a slum and employ a bunch of odd characters – the one legged deaf-mute Tessie (Drucilla Hoy) and mentally deficient Willie (Charles Fox) being the only staff members we meet. Landau is a shifty character, even by the standards of a man who sells human flesh as cat food, and soon he’s made a deal with some sort of gangster to supply fresher corpses, while promising Caleb that he’ll “get everything that’s coming to you” – and we all know what that means. Meanwhile, nurse Angie Robinson (Monika Kelly) and Dr Howard Glass (Sean Kenney) have had their suspicions raised by the spate of cat attacks, and are investigating…

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Ted V. Mikels churned out a bunch of eccentric horror movies over the years, but this is probably his best known, and arguably his most demented. At times, it has the feel of an Andy Milligan film, existing one step to the side of normality, as the collection of strange characters spout ridiculous dialogue in performances that are not so much bad as just plain strange. No-one here seems normal, not even our two heroes. Dr Glass starts off as a bitter, booze-soaked surgeon before transforming into a stolid hero, while Angie is just outside the norm for a glamorous heroine and seems to flip emotional states constantly. Similarly, Landau goes from calm and collected to deranged for no immediately obvious reason, while everyone else is just odd.

Interestingly, for a luridly titled exploitation movie, The Corpse Grinders is fairly restrained in its content. Bodies are fed into the corpse grinding machine, but we don’t see any gore, and they go in wearing underwear, which you can’t imagine improved the taste of the cat food. There’s no nudity, though the film does engage in PG-level titillation by ensuring that several female characters strip to their underwear for no good reason (at one point, a woman comes home, gets out a tin of cat food that she fails to open and instead strips to her bra and panties, lies on the coach and watches TV – frankly, she deserved to be eaten by her hungry cat).

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Mikels keeps the film pacey – there are few slow points in the film – and now and again creates a certain sense of atmosphere. The basement where the corpse grinding happens is lit in reds and green, giving it a strange visual feel that is oddly effective (it also looks familiar from other Mikels’ films, including The Astro-Zombies) and he adds some flash frames that are also pretty good. But the overwhelming feel of the film is one of weirdness, not horror, with a strange grubbiness – most locations and people look decidedly run-down. How deliberate this is, I don’t know, but it certainly gives the film a curious atmosphere.

This cheapie certainly won’t appeal to everyone – it’s too damned eccentric for that. But if you have a taste for the more outré dimensions of early Seventies trash cinema, this will be a very tasty little treat indeed.

David Flint – Strange Things Are Happening

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Buy The Corpse Grinders on DVD from Amazon.comAmazon.co.uk

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Buy Ted V. Mikels Collection on DVD from Amazon.com

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IMDb | We are grateful to Critical Condition and Knifed in Venice for some images above.

 


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