On a South African plantation, a maniac is on the loose, first killing the estate’s animals, then starting on the human members. A man who is “cursed” and has an evil brother, brings his young fiancée to his home. His mother tries to drive her away because she wants to see the lineage end. The brother is apparently deformed and mad and stares from the window upstairs. Starring Mark Burns, Shirley Anne Field, and David Oxley. A South African horror film with a few surprises.
Nurse Charlotte Beale arrives at the isolated Stephens Sanitarium to work, only to learn that Dr. Stephens was murdered by one of the patients and his successor, Dr. Geraldine Masters, is not very eager to take on new staff. Charlotte finds her job maddeningly hard as the patients torment and harass her at every turn, and she soon learns why Dr. Masters is so eager to keep outsiders out. Starring Bill McGhee, Jessie Lee Fulton, and Robert Dracup. The perfect retro-drive-in feature! Careful with that axe Eugene! Before the Texas Chainsaw Massacre there was Don’t Look in the Basement!
The evil Dr. Krupp, once again trying to get possession of the Aztec princess Xochitl’s jewels, builds a robot in order to steal a valuable Aztec treasure from a tomb guarded by a centuries-old living mummy. Starring Ramón Gay, Rosita Arenas, Crox Alvarado. One of those weird, psychotronic Mexican mummy movies where a pile of rags battles a cardboard box robot. One of the great battles of cinematic history.
The evil Dr. Krupp, trying to get possession of the Aztec princess Xochitl’s jewels, hypnotizes her current reincarnation, Flor, to get her to reveal the jewels’ location—Xochitl’s tomb. Confusion reigns as Krupp and his thugs are opposed by Flor’s lover, Dr. Almada, his assistant, and wrestling superhero, El Angel. Krupp finally meets his match, however, when he comes up against Popoca, the warrior mummy who guards Xochitl’s tomb. Starring Ramón Gay, Rosita Arenas, Crox Alvarado. One of those weird, psychotronic Mexican mummy movies.
After a botched robbery, a mad doctor performs a head transplant on an injured criminal, which results in him being even more dangerous and murderous than before. Starring Paul Naschy, Silvia Sola, and Olivier Mathot. This Italian film isn’t especially gory, but there’s a fair bit of cheap looking bright crimson blood to keep horror fans happy. Paul Naschy is the king of Spaghetti Horror. Those head transplants are often troublesome…
An attorney arrives at a castle to settle the estate of its recently deceased owner. The owner’s wife and daughter reveal that he was someone who was able to summon the souls of ancient plague victims and, in fact, his spirit was roaming the castle at that very moment. Soon occupants of the castle begin to die off in gruesome, violent ways. Stars Barbara Steele, Walter Brandi, and Mirella Maravidi. Got to love Barbara Steele, the queen of Italian 60s horror!
Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself. The first screen adaption of the Robert Louis Stevenson book. Starring John Barrymore, Martha Mansfield, and Brandon Hurst. Drew Barrymore is not in this movie.
A mad scientist performs experiments on “the criminal mind” on captured criminals on board his private ship. This curious movie is taken from a story by Jack London “A Thousand Deaths.” George Wallace Sayre. Starring Lyle Talbot, Irving Pichel, and Julie Bishop.
Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. It is the annual fair in Holstenwall. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep. When Alan asks Cesare about his future, Cesare answers that he will die before dawn. The next morning Alan is found dead. Francis suspects Cesare of being the murderer, and starts spying on him and Dr. Caligari. The following night Cesare is going to stab Jane in her bed, but softens when he sees the beautiful woman, and instead of committing another murder, he abducts her. Jane’s father awakens because of the noise, and he and some servants follow the fleeing Cesare. When Cesare cannot outrun his pursuers anymore, he gently places Jane down on the ground, and runs away. Francis and the police investigate the caravan of Dr. Caligari, but the doctor succeeds in slipping away. Francis pursues the fleeing Dr. Caligari, and sees him disappear into a madhouse. Francis enters the madhouse, where he is sure he will find the truth behind all these mysterious events. Stars Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, and Friedrich Feher. A classic German silent horror film.
When the American clipper ship “The Queen” is attacked by pirates off the Hebrides in 1830, Mate Kirk Hamilton is injured and must be put ashore at Queensland Colony, Australia, for treatment and recuperation. There, he meets and falls in love with Elaine Jeffries, daughter of the magistrate and all-but-fiancée to rancher Martin Shannon. She also finds herself attracted to Kirk, and a rivalry develops between the two men. Meantime the pirates, led by Captain Hackett, decide to raid the colony and, in the process kidnap Elaine and her friend. Nancy. Kirk, and Shannon lead the pursuit, having not only the romantic triangle to resolve, but the pirates to overcome and, along the way, being stranded on a volcanic island inhabited by dinosaurs. Starring Gunsmoke’s James Arness, Bill Kennedy and Kasey Roger (aka Laura Elliot).
A scientist invents a serum that keeps a dog’s head alive after its body dies. When the scientist dies of a heart attack, his crazed assistant cuts off his head and, using the serum, keeps the doctor’s head alive and forces it to help him on an experiment to give his hunchbacked nurse assistant a new body. Starring Horst Frank, Michel Simon, Karin Kernke, and Helmut Schmid. A bizarre German film giving a hint of Nazi mad science antics. I guess he was a Jerry Garcia fan.
Also known as Island of the Doomed, this Spanish-German co-production about a group of tourists who travel to an island to see its exotic botanicals. There they meet Baron von Weser (played by Cameron Mitchell), a reclusive scientist studying rare horticulture and experimenting with crossbreeding dangerous varieties of plants. One of the Baron’s creations is draining the blood of human beings (through a small hole in their cheek) and the tourists are dying one by one. Starring Cameron Mitchell, Kai Fischer, Elisa Montés, and George Martin. Some islands are best avoided. Cameron Mitchell was the TV show High Chaparral.
A stripper is horribly disfigured in a car accident. A brilliant scientist develops a treatment that restores her beauty and falls in love with her. To preserve her appearance the doctor must give her additional treatments using glands taken from murdered women. His unexplained ability to turn into a hideous monster helps with this problem but does nothing to win her love. The doctor’s woes multiply as the police and the girl’s boyfriend begin to close in on him. Starring Alberto Lupo, Susanne Loret, and Sergio Fantoni. An Italian mad scientist movie with a poor title translation, because there are no vampires in this movie—just mad scientists!
A mad Russian doctor is determined to take revenge on the family he believes is responsible for his daughter’s death. A remake of an earlier silent serial. Starring Warner Oland, June Collyer, and Lloyd Hughes. The lights go out more than once. The phone is dead. A claw-like hand jumps out of the curtain to grab the girl. That kind of movie. An early talkie that is a lot of fun.
A playboy adventure novelist joins his publisher on an expedition to Voodoo Island in the Caribbean, where a cancer researcher is being forced to turn the tribes-people into zombies. The cancer researcher discovers that by treating the natives with snake venom he can turn them into bug-eyed zombies. Uninterested in this information, the unfortunate man is forced by his evil employer to create an army of the creatures in order to conquer the world. Starring William Joyce, Heather Hewitt, and Walter Coy. This film sat on the shelf unreleased for six years until is was picked up by distributor Jerry Gross (of Cinemation Industries), who needed a horror film to play on the bottom of a double bill with his in-house production I Drink Your Blood (1970). The title was changed to “I Eat Your Skin” and released in 1970.
In order to qualify to inherit the family fortune, the four heirs, their in-laws, and the household servants must spend the night in the family estate. However, during the night someone starts killing them off. Starring John Russell, Jeff Morrow, John Carradine and Rodolfo Acosta. Things are slow going in this mystery horror movie with some familiar faces. Who Dunnit?
Based on an Edgar Allen Poe story, a mysterious man is sent deep into the forest to investigate the bizarre behavior of the notorious Dr. Tarr. What he stumbles upon is the doctor’s torture dungeon, a hellish insane asylum completely cut off from civilization and presided over by the ultimate madman. The inmates of the insane asylum have taken over the institution, imprisoned the doctors and staff; These people have been savagely chained, tortured and stuck in glass cages, then forced to take part in gruesome games of ritual slaughter. Starring Claudio Brook, Arthur Hansel, and Ellen Sherman. This seems like a British film but it is actually a Mexican movie that was filmed in English. Also called House of Madness.
A reporter who has had an affair with the daughter of the U.S. President is sent to Hungary. There he is bitten by a werewolf, and then gets transferred back to Washington, where he gets a job as press assistant to the President. Then bodies start turning up as the werewolf strikes. Yikes! Sounds like the way things are going these days. Starring Dean Stockwell, Katalin Kallay, Henry Ferrentino and Michael Dunn.
A woman and her niece move into an ancestral house in the Amish countryside haunted by two ghosts from the Revolutionary War. Ruth Bennett and her niece Sara Dunning move into the house of Ruth’s recently deceased aunt and shortly thereafter they learn the house is possessed by two ghosts of the original owners who were from the time of the Revolutionary War. Shortly after arriving Ruth discovers a family Bible hidden in a secret compartment of a roll top desk. Contained within is the name of the original owner which includes the name of his deceased wife and also a name that has been crossed out in ink. As the movie progresses we learn the identity of this person and the reason for it being obliterated through the possession of niece Sara and Pat McDougal. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Richard Egan, and Michael Anderson Jr. Gotta love Barbara Stanwyck in one of her last movies, a haunted house mystery!
A newlywed sheriff tries to stop a shambling monster that has emerged from a spaceship to eat the citizens of an American town. A creature that looks like a cross between a Chinese dragon puppet and the Pope sucks up people into its maw. The sheriff, his wife, and a “handsome” scientist battle it to the end, with a sub plot about the evils of bachelorhood. Starring Vic Savage, Shannon O’Neil, and William Thourlby. One of those so-bad-its-good movies of the early 60s. Ed Wood, where have you gone?
