1970s horror movies – Horror Ghouls

Hausu (1977)

Posted on October 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

In Tokyo, there lives a teenage girl whose name is Gorgeous. And yes, of course she is beautiful, and of course she’s also got a wealthy father and appears to be living a harmonious life with nothing to complain about. Her life turns upside down when her father, who has been widowed for a time, announces that he’s married a woman named Ryoko Ema. Who seems to be a very nice woman, by the way, ready to be the best stepmother she can. Gorgeous, on the other hand, throws a temper tantrum like a little, spoiled brat and hurries to her room, where she writes a letter to her aunt, whom she has never met, asking to come visit her. Gorgeous receives a letter back almost instantly. Of course lonely, old auntie is ready to welcome her! Gorgeous brings six of her friends along with her: Sweet, who is of course sweet as candy and with a personality as gentle as a lamb, Kung Fu whose specialty is martial arts (who would’ve guessed), Fantasy, who is constantly daydreaming and having her head in the clouds, Melody, who plays the piano like a maestro, Prof, who is an academic and intelligent girl, and Mac, who…loves to eat. And is of course “fat“ (she isn’t, really, but that’s Asian beauty standards for you).

On the way to auntie’s house they bring along a white, fluffy cat, who appears to the aunt’s harbinger of sorts. Prior to getting to the aunt’s cozy country house, they meet a watermelon seller who could’ve more or less been the “don’t go to the house“ kind of guy, but which does the opposite and tells them exactly how to get there. Greeting the girls in a wheelchair, the aunt seems to be very happy to welcome them. The always hungry Mac had of course bought a Watermelon from the seller they met earlier, and brings it as a gift which they leave in a well to keep it cold. And from now on, it doesn’t take long before everything inside the house turns into a spookfest of the purest insanity! It all starts with Mac going out to retrieve the watermelon, and doesn’t return. Worried, Fantasy goes to check on her, only to find Mac’s disembodied head which flies into the air and bites Fantasy in the butt. Nobody believes her, of course, but soon all kinds of supernatural shenanigans are happening all around the house, which is all so gaga loony that nothing can really prepare you for the enchantment of the House and its white fluffy kitty!

House aka Hausu (Japanese: ハウス) is a Japanese comedy horror film from 1977, directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi.

Toho Studios contacted Obayashi because they wanted to make a movie like Jaws and needed ideas. Okey-dokey then. If Obayashi was an Italian he would probably gone ahead and urged Toho to make a shark film and call it Jaws 2, but we’re in Japan, where the craziest ideas are allowed to take form! So he went to his pre-teen daughter Chigumi for ideas, under the presumption that adults only think about things they understand, so everything stays on a boring human level while children can come up with the strangest things that defy explanation. Thus, sharks and beaches were replaced with a fluffy white cat and a spooky country house that eat girls. Obayashi also used some of his childhood as inspiration for some of the key elements in the movie. He was born in Hiroshima, and during the atomic bombings he lost all his childhood friends. He decided to use these themes into the plot of the film, by creating a plot element of a woman’s ghost waiting for her love to return back home from World War II, a wait that lasted forever since her lover died, and this turned her into an evil spirit. The ideas were given to Chiho Katsura, who then wrote the script for the film.

Now that the big cooking pot had boiled and simmered into this psychedelic brew, the project was green-lit. Except…it had to be put on hold for two years, because no one at Toho wanted to direct it as they all thought it would be a disaster that would ruin their career. Obayashi himself originally proposed to direct it, but he was turned down since he wasn’t amongst the staff at Toho. He kept promoting the film until the studio finally caved in and said “alright then, since we can’t get anyone else to touch this thing with a 10-foot pole, go ahead and do your thing.“ And together with a bunch of amateur actors and a lot of pep, history was made.

If Toho Studios hoped for a critically acclaimed hit like Jaws, they were in for a nosedive on House. It mostly received negative reviews, but despite this, it ended up becoming a box office hit in Japan. Ironically, when the movie got a wider release in North America in 2009 and 2010, it was met with a much more favorable response and it was from here on that it gained a cult following.

Obayashi had, prior to this film, mostly worked in commercials and independent films, so the majority of the cast in House were not established actors. It was a mix of people he had worked with before, and some friends and family. His daughter even has a small role as the little girl in a shoemaker’s shop, and the shoemaker himself was played by the production designer. While being filmed in one of Toho’s largest sets, Obayashi made sure to have a playful attitude which caused everyone to have fun. The Toho crew felt the film was utter nonsense, but let’s be honest…it kind of is. But it’s the good kind of nonsense! The overall mix of complete nonsense, childish and upbeat tone with the horror elements reminiscent of the nightmare logic of a 5-year old, is what makes this movie such a unique experience, accompanied with a fitting score which was performed by a rock band called Godiego.

Visually, the movie leans towards a little kitsch and European fairytale vibe. There’s a lot of experimentation with practical effects, and insane imagery. There isn’t a single frame that looks uninspired or boring. The visuals fit so well together with all the spooky things happening all the time, as the girls are attacked by all kinds of things in the house: flaming logs, mattresses, and a finger-hungry piano…and something about a guy turning into a bunch of bananas. Because why not.

Nothing can really prepare you for the childish and golden insanity of House. Just sit back and enjoy the trip!

Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Writers: Chiho Katsura, Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Country & year: Japan, 1977
Actors: Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Ôba, Ai Matsubara, Mieko Satô, Eriko Tanaka, Masayo Miyako, Kiyohiko Ozaki, Saho Sasazawa, a white fluffy persian cat
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076162/

Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971)

Posted on October 22, 2025October 22, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Dr. Henry Jekyll is a man who has decided to dedicate his life to curing all illnesses, but he’s about to lose a bit of his determination after his a-hole friend, Professor Robertson, remarks that his experiments are taking such a long time that he will end up dead before he manages to achieve anything of importance. Ouch. Thanks for the encouragement, buddy. Jekyll lets this remark get to his head, and he starts to obsess over the thought of some kind of elixir of life. He ends up using female hormones which he takes from fresh cadavers supplied to him by the duo Burke and Hare (obviously not caring too much about how they got their hands on these corpses in the first place). He reasons that since women, at least traditionally, lives longer than men, this will help him prolong his own life.

Above his apartment, there lives a family consisting of an elderly mother, her son Howard and daughter Susan. And Susan is head over heels attracted to Jekyll, who returns her affections in somewhat awkward ways. Too bad he’s so obsessed with work that there’s no time for romance…he’s too busy making his life-extending serum, and once he’s ready to take a sip and test it, he finds that it’s got a peculiar side effect: it changes him into a woman. And he seems to become quite fond of his female alter ego, which he calls Mrs. Edwina Hyde and claims she is his sister. While Jekyll is getting more and more in touch with his feminine side (literally), Susan becomes jealous of the mysterious woman in Jekyll’s apartment (at least until learning that she’s his “sister“), and Howard starts lusting after her. And there’s a big problem for Jekyll: in order to keep making more of the serum, he needs a steady supply of female hormones…and when his suppliers Burke and Hare are lynched by a mob once people find out what they’ve been doing, Jekyll must take matters in his own hands…with the help of Sister Hyde, who is taking over both his body and mind gradually.

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde is a British Hammer horror film from 1971, directed by Roy Ward Baker and based on the 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s notable for having a female version of Hyde, and also for implementing several historical incidents like Jack the Ripper and the Burke and Hare cases. There have been numerous adaptions of the well-known novella, including the 1931 film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And while both the original novella and many of its adaptation are often allegories for alcoholism/drug dependency, this is the only one I’ve seen thus far that gives it a gender-bending theme.

Through modern eyes I guess it’s easy to see it as an allegory for being trans. In the first transformation scene, where Jekyll (Ralph Bates) transforms into Hyde (Martine Beswick), the reaction is one of near euphoria where the initial moment of surprise quickly transcends into one of pure joy and relief, where she touches herself and examines her new body. The Hyde persona easily becomes the most dominant, where they both try to fight for control. Just like in the original story, where Dr. Jekyll could have just stopped taking the serum and be rid of Hyde, he becomes dependent on it and just can’t stop. Martine Beswick, who earlier played a role in two James Bond movies (From Russia With Love from 1963 and Thunderball from 1965) first laughed at the premise of the film when being offered the role, but after thinking it over a bit she found the idea of a male/female inside the same person as an interesting theme to explore.

Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde is a stylish Hammer horror film, where the scenery and sets create a convincing Victorian London era, with a misty, gloomy and gothic atmosphere. Totally Hammer-style, for sure, with it’s blood and boobs formula which where their forte at the time.

In 1995, a remake of the film was released under the title Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, which received a Razzie Award for Worst Remake/Rip-Off. And the trailer for that one pretty much speaks for itself.

Director: Roy Ward Baker
Writer: Brian Clemens
Country & year: UK, 1971
Actors: Ralph Bates, Martine Beswick, Gerald Sim, Lewis Fiander, Dorothy Alison, Neil Wilson, Ivor Dean, Paul Whitsun-Jones, Philip Madoc, Tony Calvin
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068502/

The Antichrist (1974)

Posted on October 14, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Ippolita is a young woman who has been paraplegic since a car accident when she was 12. The accident killed her mother, and left her broken in more ways than one. The doctors have diagnosed her paralysis as purely psychosomatic due to mental trauma rather than any physical issues. She’s also gotten very reliant on her father, the wealthy Rome aristocrat Massimo, and more or less craving his attention nonstop. Her attachment issues skyrockets when she finds out that Massimo has gotten romantically involved with a woman named Greta.

Ippolita, wanting more of her own life and especially to get rid of her paralysis, eventually reaches out to her uncle who is a Vatican cardinal. He only recommends her to get in contact with a parapsychologist named Marcello Sinibaldi, who uses hypnosis on her because he believes that she’s having unconscious memories of her past lives. One of these past lives is none other than a witch (well, of course!) who entered a covenant with Satan and was burned at the stake. Ippolita is possessed by her ancestor’s spirit, and even regains her ability to walk, which she does only under a dissociated state. During this state she ends up killing a tourist after seducing him in her own witchy way. Then things only escalate, where Ippolita becomes fully possessed and lets everyone know that she’s learned a few bad words like “cock“ and “whore“. Especially cock, which seems to be her new favorite word. Ippolita is now ready to let her witchy, demonic side out in full. Mamma Mia! Time to call the exorcist!

The Antichrist (original title: L´anticristo), also being released under the title The Tempter, is a supernatural horror film from 1974, directed by Alberto De Martino and co-written with Gianfranco Clerici and Vincenzo Mannino. Yet another cash-in on the success of The Exorcist (1973), but despite all the cheese and nonsense in this film I don’t think anyone can beat The Turkish Exorcist, Seytan. Its place as number-one in the most baffling and hilarious exorcist ripoffs remains unsurpassed.

While this film is another blatant The Exorcist ripoff, it is on a completely other level than the aforementioned Seytan. The Antichrist actually harbors some qualities, especially in the visual department. Joe D’Amato worked as director of photography on this film, under his real name Aristide Massaccessi. This easily explains why the movie feels fairly competent visually, and combined with a score composed by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, there are actually some scenes which manage to deliver some decent atmosphere. It doesn’t take long until it stumbles between each of those, however, as the pacing is quite off at times and the special effects are mostly goofy. Ippolita’s character isn’t exactly the most sympathetic to begin with, but her change into a murderous, horny, foul-mouthed witch becomes more ludicrous than shocking. Hearing an adult woman say cock will never pack the same punch as hearing a 12-year old say your mother sucks cocks in hell.

There are some scenes that goes straight into wtf-land with some surreal fantasy-dream-nightmare visuals, and of course we get a rather lengthy Satanic orgy in Satan’s garden in Hell (or wherever it’s supposed to be). With all that talk of cock it was about time she finally got some. Despite some good things, the film is struggling with the pacing issues and some rather laughable scenes which are actually supposed to be scary. Or at least I think so. We have a disembodied flying hand that chokes a guy, a hilarious levitation scene, and so many other things which I suppose are supposed to be horror elements, but just makes you chuckle instead. It’s a totally confused mixture of witchcraft, satanism, possession, sleaze, and goofy effects. But is it still entertaining? Hell, yes!

Overall, The Antichrist is a movie that can be a fun watch if you want to see a sleaze ‘n cheese ripoff of The Exorcist. If you’re in for a challenge: take it as a double-feature with The Turkish Exorcist, Seytan!

Fun Fact: Carla Gravina, who plays the role as Ippolita, revealed that she had some trouble playing the role and would never accept anything similar ever again. After starting the shooting of the film, she said she started to feel some kind of strange disease coming on, which she described as differing between an intense cold, feeling dizzy, getting a feeling of emptiness, headaches, lack of appetite, and so on. Doctors diagnosed that it was most likely due to overwork and “curious psychic influences“…

Director: Alberto De Martino
Writers: Gianfranco Clerici, Alberto De Martino, Vincenzo Mannino
Original title: L’anticristo
Also known as: The Tempter
Country & year: Italy, 1974
Actors: Carla Gravina, Mel Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, George Coulouris, Alida Valli, Mario Scaccia, Umberto Orsini, Anita Strindberg, Remo Girone, Ernesto Colli
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071150/

Phantasm (1979)

Posted on October 1, 2025October 4, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

– I had a compunction to try to do something in the horror genre and I started thinking about how our culture handles death; it’s different than in other societies. We have this central figure of a mortician. He dresses in dark clothing, he lurks behind doors, they do procedures on the bodies we don’t know about. The whole embalming thing, if you ever do any research on it, is pretty freaky. It all culminates in this grand funerary service production. It’s strange stuff. It just seemed like it would be a great area in which to make a film. ― Don Coscarelli

And speaking of strange stuff; something really, really strange is going on at the local Morningside Cemetery in a sleepy Oregon suburb. The 13-year-old boy, Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) can tell about a mysterious, elderly, tall, Ebenezer Scrooge’ish mortician, simply called The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), who steals coffins, puts them in his hearse with his bare hands (!), and drives away. WTF. And yes, there’s a lot of WTF’s here, the whole franchise is a big fat WTF. After spying on him with binoculars, Mike hops on his scooter and follows him to a mansion. And if the place looks familiar, it’s the legendary Dunsmuir House. But that’s only the nice facade of something much more, well, sinister.

His big brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) doesn’t believe what Mike’s saying. That’s until Mike manages to cut of a finger of The Tall Man after his hand gets trapped between a door. Yellow blood spurts. Mike puts the finger in a small box, and as he opens it to show his brother, the finger is alive and crawls like a larva. Oki doki, I believe you! So… where do we go from here? Calling the cops? Yeah, right. The finger turns into a cheap-looking fly with toothpicks as teeth that ends up being shoved down the garbage disposal.

Anyway, Jody is now more than convinced and so is his bandmate and the local ice cream man, Reggie (Reggie Bannister), who makes it really clear as he’s saying while pointing his index finger in the air:

Okay. I see it, I see it all now. What we gotta do is we gotta snag that tall dude and stomp the shit out of him, and we’ll find out what the hell is going on up there. Yeah! We lay that sucker out flat and drive a stake right through his goddamn heart!

If it was just that simple, ’cause that mother’s strong, Mike says. Well, he’ll eventually realize that you should never underestimate a bald ice cream vendor guy with a ponytail. Shantae would agree with that.

And then we, of course, have the iconic crystal balls/spheres, an element that follows and gets some cool upgrades throughout the films. They’re the sentinel drones of The Tall Man, which simply flies straight to the victims and trespassers’ foreheads, drills into their skull and sucks all the blood from their brain. Gnarly. The head of Larry Fessenden would give a sphere a whole field day.

So, what exactly is a Phantasm? It’s The delusion of a distorted mind. A phantom. A spirit. A ghost. It’s what you yourself make it out to be. It can be all from grandpa Seth, Bigfoot, to the haunted skeletons in your closet. In other words, the franchise never gives us a clear answer or a satisfying conclusion, not even close. Only leaving more questions, just like a fever dream would. “I had this weird dream last night,“ ya know.

Don Coscarelli (also known for the alternative Elvis Presley’s coming-of-old-age biopic Bubba Ho-Tep) was only 23 years old when he wrote, directed, produced and edited his passion project Phantasm over the course of one year during chaotic weekends. The calling to make a horror movie came as a lightbolt over Coscarelli’s head when people jumped in their seats over a scene in his previous Halloween-themed comedy-drama film, Kenny & Company (1976). Scaring people is fun, eh? OoOoh yeah! The original plan was to make an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, but the license had already been sold to Disney.

The original cut for Phantasm was three hours, and Coscarelli had zero plans for a sequel, nor to make another horror film. Which makes me assume that there would perhaps be a better conclusion somewhere in that runtime, lost in the editing, than the more cryptic puzzles we got in the sequels. Who knows.

The budget and its very limited resources are sometimes clearly visible at some points, especially the scene with the fly, which gives a prime example that not everything looks better in 4K. The film’s strengths are the rock-solid cinematography (also done by Coscarelli) and has a unique dark melancholic atmosphere where you almost get the sense that The Tall Man has sucked all the light from the surroundings. Everything feels dead and quiet and just off, as if the few characters we see here is trapped in some obscure purgatory, frozen in time. What’s real, what’s not. Is it all just a dream, or is it just the wind? And what in hell is that unearthly humming sound? Could it actually be the sound of hell itself? The theme track by Fred Myrow really stands out, which could be described as a more somber remix of John Carpenter’s Halloween.

The child actor at the time, A. Michael Baldwin does a good job here, as he, more or less, carries the whole film on his shoulders. The brother-dynamic between Mike and Jody is wholesome enough as they eventually team up to blast The Tall Man where he came from, wherever that is. Reggie also chimes in, who we get to see a lot more of in the sequels.

And that’s Phantasm for you – cryptic slowburn with eerie dreamlike surrealism, sprinkled with eccentric sci-fi elements and a handful of WTFs. Good night and don’t let The Tall Man bite.

Writer and director: Don Coscarelli
Country & year: USA, 1979
Actors: A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm, Kathy Lester, Terrie Kalbus, Kenneth V. Jones, Susan Harper, Lynn Eastman-Rossi, David Arntzen
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079714/

Sequels:
– Phantasm II (1988)
– Phantasm III (1994)

The Island of the Fishmen (1979)

Posted on August 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

A married couple are being brought to an island, to explore a cave where there’s supposedly a “treasure“. Well, after some gory kill scenes (which is pretty much the only real gory scenes to be witnessed here) we realize that this opening was only set up so we could have some kill counts. Okey then, over to our main characters. We’re still in the latter part of the 1800’s, 1891 to be exact, where we’re introduced to some shipwrecked characters. A military doctor, Lieutenant Claude de Ross, and a group of convicts. After getting attacked by the mysterious fishmen we glimpsed in the opening scene, the remaining survivors washes ashore on what appears to be an uncharted Caribbean island. There, some more of them meet their unfortunate ends, and after fleeing through the jungle, Claude and the two last survivors meet a beautiful young woman named Amanda who warns them to leave the island. Uhh…yeah, I think they would if they could, lady. Soon they meet the villainous Edmond Rackham, who is obviously keeping secrets and knows everything about the alleged Fishmen. So does Amanda, apparently, when Claude spies on her one night where she goes into the water and feeds the fishmen some kind of strange milk-like liquid. While Edmond keeps acting more and more like a discarded James Bond villain, Claude eventually finds out the secrets of the Fishmen and the island.

The Island of the Fishmen is a horror film from 1979, directed by Sergio Martino. In 1981, approx. 30 minutes of footage from the original film was removed and replaced with new material for an international release by Roger Corman and his New World Pictures company, and this version of the movie was given the title Screamers. The original barely had any blood in it, while the Corman release decided to re-shoot new scenes which included the opening with the kill counts, to add some gore. They did a Shelby Oaks, in other words. Unfortunately, they didn’t just add some gore in Screamers: they also advertised the movie as something it definitely was not, providing a poster with graphics and taglines that promised a completely different film. “They’re men turned inside out! And worse…they’re still alive!“ plus “Be warned: you will actually see a man turned inside out“. Nope, that’s pure BS, and totally misleading. But that’s enough of the film’s troubled and fucked up production and release, let’s talk a little more about the film itself:

The version we have seen is the Screamers one, and it’s obvious from early on that the movie appears to be struggling with some kind of identity crisis: the opening scene which was shot for the American release pretty much promises a goofy gorefest. It’s not. Then we have the crazy scientist meaning well but inevitably creating something horrible, a damsel in distress, a sunken city, an over-the-top villain, and of course a golden treasure to be found. In this boiling voodoo pot there’s so many ingredients that it almost feels a little disorienting. What offers the most entertainment value here is, of course, the fishmen in their goofy B-grade costumes, with their entry often accompanied by what sounds like an elephant trumpeting…and no, they do not have trunks. The locations and settings are nice enough, with the jungle, dilapidated old house and underwater scenery. The characters are mostly quite bland, though, with the exception of Edmond Rackham. Whenever that guy’s on screen it’s filled with his villainry and cheesy smirk-talking.

Overall The island of the Fishmen aka Screamers is kind of ridiculous, but not to such a point that it becomes hilarious. A little slow at times, especially after seeing the crazy opening scene which, although fun, didn’t tie well in with the rest of the movie. It’s still got a certain B-grade charm to it, with an adventurous flair. A fine summer watch if you want an adventure-based movie with Humanoids from the Deep-like monsters, where Roger Corman got involved and the fishmen still didn’t become a bigger threat to the women than the men (I can imagine he really wanted to make some changes there, though…)

In 1995, Sergio Martino directed a made-for-Italian TV sequel, which was called The Fishmen and Their Queen, aka Queen of the Fishmen.

Director: Sergio Martino
Writers: Cesare Frugoni, Luciano Martino, Sergio Donati
Original title: L’isola degli uomini pesce
Also known as: Screamers
Country & year: Italy, 1979
Actors: Barbara Bach, Claudio Cassinelli, Richard Johnson, Beryl Cunningham, Joseph Cotten, Franco Javarone, Roberto Posse, Giuseppe Castellano, Franco Mazzieri
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081467/

I Drink Your Blood (1971)

Posted on July 15, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

This grimy, low-budget Grindhouse classic wastes no time as we are thrown straight into an obscure Satanic cult ritual in the woods in the middle of the night, led by the charismatic sociopath Horace Born. He is a self-proclaimed Capricorn who was born in Hell and reborn on Mother Earth to do Satan’s work with his group of hippie Satanists called “The Sons and Daughters of Satan“. Sounds wholesome. They drink blood spiced with LSD as they’re buck naked before sacrificing a poor chicken (for real). A trigger warning for animal cruelty. The whole act is spied on by Sylvia, who is the girlfriend of one of Horace’s cult members. And Horace won’t have any of that. After a quick chasing scene with some funk music, she is caught, where we can only assume that she is gang-raped off-screen, before she barely makes it home alive. Next day Horace and company’s hippie truck won’t start and have to walk to the nearest town, which is Valley Hills, a small hillbilly town in the bumfuck of nowhere.

They buy a box of meat pies at the local bakery before they seek shelter in an abandoned hotel – where they completely trash the place and wreck havoc while they chase a bunch of scared rats to barbecue and eat for dinner. Yum, Burp and Hail Satan. These were trained rats, by the way, which were also used in Willard, another horror film from the same year. The dead rats we see in the barbecue scene were already dead prior to the film, if we’re gonna trust the trivia section on IMDb. Anyway, when Sylvia’s grandfather learns that this Satanic cult is in town, he decides to pay them a visit to confront them with a shotgun. But because he’s a slow, old fool, he fails miserably and gets beaten before they pour some LSD into his mouth. Even though they’re kind enough to spare his life, his grandson and Sylvia’s younger brother, Pete, who’s also been spying on them, is the next to spit on their grave. He takes the shotgun to finish his granddads’ revenge, but on his way he shoots and kills a rabid dog. And one can say that things gets really interesting from here on.

Because listen to this: Pete, the smartass, takes a sample of the dog’s rabies-infected blood, mixes it with the meat pies that Horace and co eventually eat and… well, it doesn’t go exactly as imagined. Instead of dying instantly, they slowly turn into deranged zombie-like foaming flesh-eaters, who end up attacking the townsfolk and turn Valley Hills into an apocalyptic rabies warzone which can be described as Night of the Living Dead meets The Crazies. Only, this one is far more out there than these two combined, sprinkled with more LSD, schlock and unhinged, unapologetic B-movie madness. We can say the intention of Pete was good, but man, talk about shitting the bed. Heads are rolling, limbs chopped apart, and one dude has his teeth falling out as he gets piggybacked stronghold, and some other bizarre WTF moments. It’s a full-on riot with lots of sadistic, goofy fun. Plain and simple, and not much deeper than that. I Drink Your Blood was also the first film to have the historic achievement to be stamped with an X-rating. Hats off.

I Drink Your Blood is available on Blu-ray from Grindhouse Releasing, and was once upon a time on Tubi. Don’t bother looking for it on YouTube as it’s filled with pixelization censoring.

Writer and director: David E. Durston
Country & year: USA, 1971
Actors: Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury, Jadin Wong, Rhonda Fultz, George Patterson, Riley Mills, John Damon, Elizabeth Marner-Brooks, Richard Bowler, Tyde Kierney, Iris Brooks
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067229/

The Uncanny (1977)

Posted on April 22, 2025April 23, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Wilbur Gray (Peter Cushing) is a horror writer who is preparing to show off his latest work to his sceptical publisher. With this, he’s going to reveal something truly sinister: that cats are supernatural creatures who’s got all of humanity in their controlling claws! Wilbur ventures off in the dark to visit his publisher, and a black cat appears to be following him. Inside his publisher’s abode, Wilbur also discovers that this man owns a white, fluffy Persian cat named Sugar. A fitting name for such a sweet furball. Wilbur, however, becomes even more terrified. The enemy is everywhere, oh my! He desperately tries to convince his publisher that the feline race is, indeed, a threat to humanity and the devil itself in disguise. And in order to prove it, he tells three tales about cats causing death and mayhem.

The Uncanny is a British-Canadian anthology horror film from 1977, directed by Fenis Héroux and written by Michel Parry. It stars Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasence, Ray Milland, Joan Greenwood, Donald Pilon, Samantha Eggar, and John Vernon. The movie was shot on location in Montreal and Senneville, Quebec, and Pinewood Studios in England. All of Peter Cushing’s scenes were shot in England, as Cushing wasn’t too keen on traveling abroad at that stage of his career.

The three tales told makes one thing pretty clear very early on: it’s not really the cats that are the baddies here. They pretty much just take revenge on horrible humans and gives them some well-deserved karma. In the first segment, taking place in London in 1912, the story is about a wealthy woman owning a bunch of cats, and she has decided that she wants her cats to inherit her fortune. The maid, who also happens to be the lover of this rich lady’s nephew, wants to intervene so the nephew and her can inherit the money (if this plot sounds a little similar thus far, you’ve probably seen Disney’s Aristocats from 1970). The cats won’t have any of this bullshit, of course, and the maid’s actions receive a well-deserved revenge.

The second segment, taking place in Quebec in 1975, takes a rather whimsical turn. The orphaned girl Lucy comes to live with her aunt and husband, and the mean cousin Angela. Lucy’s only friend is her black cat Wellington, but her cousin does everything she can to have the cat removed. In the end, everything turns into some pretty crazy and utterly cheesy scenes that I certainly didn’t see coming!

The final segment, taking place in Hollywood in 1936, is where everything goes completely into Looney Tunes territory however. The actor Valentine De’ath replaces the blade of a fake plastic pendulum with a real one, causing his wife to be killed during the shooting of a scene. His young mistress gets the role his deceased wife had, and he brings his mistress to his home immediately. There, we even get a Looney Tunes reference when the mistress sees the wife’s cat and says “I thought I saw a pussy cat! I did, I did!“ which is of course an obvious reference to little Tweety’s famous line. And Valentine, that bastard, dispose of the cat’s newborn kittens, just to prove how much of an absolute shitstain he is (like the killing of his wife hadn’t already established that). Once again the cat gets revenge, with several scenes of silly chasing and cartoonish fun.

In the UK, the film was originally given an X-rating (not really sure why, although there are some pretty decent gore scenes which was probably considered a little bit too much at the time), but it performed poorly at the box office. And, well…this movie certainly isn’t for everyone. While the first segment is having a more serious tone, the rest goes from wild to completely bonkers. Perfect Horror Ghouls material for sure, though!

The Uncanny is a movie where you really need to go in with the expectation of watching something truly silly, as this is one of those movies that shouldn’t be taken seriously for even a second. It’s just pure, cheesy fun, with lots of cute cats. And like several other cat-themed horror movies (like Uninvited and Cat’s Eye), you root for the cats of course, and you don’t really have any reason not to. The humans are the bad guys. Just like in real life.

Director: Denis Héroux
Writer: Michel Parry
Also known as: I kattens klør (Norway)
Country & year: Canada/UK, 1977
Actors: Peter Cushing, Ray Milland, Joan Greenwood, Susan Penhaligon, Simon Williams, Chloe Franks, Katrina Holden Bronson, Donald Pleasence, Samantha Eggar, and a legion of angry cats
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076853/

Cathy’s Curse (1977)

Posted on April 4, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

– She has the power…to terrorize. And to make us laugh.

This amusing French/Canadian-produced little clown show starts with a father and his daughter, Laura, who learns that the mom has left them and taken Laura’s brother, George, with her. Your mother is a bitch. She’ll pay for what she did to you, says the dad. Oki-doki. As they’re driving through the woods at the night, a white rabbit suddenly crosses the road that makes the dad lose control and crash. Dad and Laura get stuck in the car as it sets on fire where they get burned alive. At least, the rabbit got away unscathed.

Then we jump to present time (1977), where George, who’s now a middle-aged man, his wife Vivian and their young daughter Cathy, are moving into the house we saw in the opening sequence. George hasn’t been in the house since he was four and does his best to act emotional. Vivian has some mental and paranoia issues after she had a nervous breakdown and has some extreme mood-swings. Another one who suffers from sudden mood-swings, plus some late stages of dementia, is the film itself, because nothing here, absolutely nothing makes sense. As Cathy explores the house, she finds herself in the cobweb-filled attic where she picks up a ragdoll with both eyes stitched shut. Cathy then looks at a picture of the ominous girl we see at the movie poster, and Cathy gets possessed. Why? Not even the three screenwriters knows.

The film is all over the place with random stuff that just happens because the messy script just says so. A medium visits Vivian, a woman I almost mistook for Mr. Bean’s girlfriend. She holds an old picture of Vivian’s husband’s father, the guy we saw in the beginning. She sees flashes of the car accident as she talks in a cheesy demonic voice. Nothing here builds up, things happen sporadically just out of the blue. Cathy suddenly has telekinesis Carrie powers so she can make random objects in the house explode. In one scene, Cathy has breakfast, served by a nanny. Cathy throws a bowl to the floor, just randomly, with both hands to demonstrate that the bowl flies across the kitchen. Nanny acts like it was just an accident. After she picks up two pieces of the shattered bowl, she smiles and says: There, it’s all done. Ok, if you say so. I guess the screenwriters thought they did a great job here to not insult the viewers’ intelligence.

Another memorable scene, for all the wrong reasons, is where Cathy starts to teleport herself around the house to scare her mother. She acts way more irritated than scared, because none of the three scriptwriters would even imagine that anyone would shit themselves if they witnessed such a thing. Vivian must have some serious brain damage or some skills in pills, or maybe both. Cathy then makes the whole house shake. This movie is more tone-deaf than Yoko Ono. And, of course, I have to mention the classic scene where Cathy makes an old drunk geezer freeze while he sits by the kitchen table. And while he just sits there, stiff frozen, a snake and some spiders suddenly appear and crawls at him. And we have some stellar dialogues here:

– Old bitch. Fat whore. Fat dried up whore.
– Go on, you filthy female cow. Make us laugh!
– All women are bitches.

The eye-catching poster reminds me of the poster of James Wan’s Insidious. But don’t let that fool you. Cathy’s Curse is not even close. It’s barely close to even being a horror movie. I even doubt that the three screenwriters, that also includes the director, was never under the same roof during the writing process. I’d guess that all three took elements from The Exorcist (1973), Carrie (1976) and The Omen (1976), with the same idea of “children scary“ then tossed it together and maybe just hoped for the best. The messy and incompetent writing is just one thing, we also have some weird music choices, primitive effects (even for a 1970s film) and bizarre editing. In one scene the camera zooms slowly into a door with some ominous music, just randomly. We don’t see much of that door again. The acting goes from wooden to laughably bad. The “big star“ here is the child actress Randi Allen as Cathy. And she’s no Linda Blair, just to make that clear. This is the one and only film she appeared in, and said in an interview once that she only took the role to financially support her single mother. To add some extra quick cash, her brother, Bruce Allen, also had a small role in the film.

Cathy’s Curse is a nonsensical mess that only leaves questions rather than answers, and is as scary as My Little Pony, but the overall inept absurdity makes it a fun watch.

Director: Eddy Matalon
Writers: Alain Sens-Cazenave, Eddy Matalon, Myra Clément
Country & year: Canada, 1977
Actors: Alan Scarfe, Beverly Murray, Randi Allen, Dorothy Davis, Mary Morter, Roy Witham, Bryce Allen, Sonny Forbes, Robert V. Girolami
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075820/

The Legacy (1978)

Posted on October 12, 2024January 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Margaret (Maggie) Walsh and her boyfriend Pete Danner are interior decorators, and currently busy with a client in California. One day Maggie receives a large financial retainer from an anonymous client in Britain, but they can’t really leave because of their current obligations. Then, their client in California suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances. Well, off to England then! They end up in a rambling country estate: Ravenhurst. The place is owned by Jason Mountolive, who has invited several potential heirs to his estate. Jason is dying, and he wants someone to take over when he’s gone. All the guests also have to wear a signet ring with the Mountolive family crest upon it, and Maggie discovers that she cannot take it off. Maggie and Pete then decide this all looks shady as hell, and leaves the place. Except no matter how much they drive around, they always end up back at the Ravenhurst grounds. They cannot leave…and must stay until the heir has been chosen. And then the guests start dying…

The Legacy is a horror film from 1978, directed by Richard Marguand in his directorial debut. The Ravenhurst mansion is the musician Roger Daltrey’s residence, and he lent out the building for the movie on the condition that he would be a co-star in it, and he plays a character called Clive Jackson. There’s also a novel, but here’s a twist: the novel is based on the movie, and not vice versa. It was released in 1979.

The movie is a mystery-fueled occult horror film, where characters are dying one by one under mysterious circumstances. Despite having several kills, the movie is not at all gory. There’s several inventive death scenes, although they do lack a bit of buildup to be properly effective. The most chilling death scene is the one involving the Clive Jackson character, where he is choking on a chicken bone (despite not having eaten any chicken) and it all ends up with a botched attempt at tracheotomy. Other deaths includes a mirror that explodes and the glass shards kill the person in front of it, a fireplace that suddenly shoots out a large deadly flame, and of course a swimming pool death. The film shows pretty early that there are supernatural elements at force here, and several of the death scenes are obviously not done by human hands alone. There’s several body counts here that needs to be disposed of, and let’s just say that there are some rottweilers that aren’t going hungry. It’s always nice to have some pets that can take care of certain business matters. Speaking of animals, there’s also a mysterious white cat with heterochromia (one blue and one green eye).

While you don’t really wonder who will be the survivor considering we have a very clear protagonist here, the story is kept intriguing due to the mystery about why the other people are killed off and what the deal with everything here really is. The location with the English countryside, and the old mansion’s exterior and interior sets a spooky haunted-house like atmosphere. The pacing is actually quite good, where there’s a gradual build-up and a heightened sense of mystery. So overall, The Legacy is a 70’s supernatural horror film that’s worth checking out, with some great atmosphere and fun kills. And of course, the also that adorable white cat!

Here’s a sweet little fun fact: Sam Elliot (who played Pete) and Katharine Ross (who played Maggie) fell in love for real when they co-starred in this movie, and married in 1984 and are still a couple to this day. Aww.

Director: Richard Marquand
Writers: Jimmy Sangster, Patrick Tilley, Paul Wheeler
Country & year: UK, 1978
Actors: Katharine Ross, Sam Elliott, John Standing, Ian Hogg, Margaret Tyzack, Charles Gray, Lee Montague, Hildegard Neil, Marianne Broome, William Abney, Patsy Smart, Mathias Kilroy
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079450/

The Sentinel (1977)

Posted on October 11, 2024January 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) is a young, independent fashion model who’s looking forward to starting a new life after years of trauma due to some serious daddy issues. Because when she was a schoolgirl she accidentally caught her dad in the act of having a festive orgy with some fugly, meaty ladies. Just to make it more bizarre, they were also eating cake. Ouch, those poor, innocent eyes. Watching someone’s own parents having sex can be a horrific enough sight that stays with you forever, but Alison went straight into panic mode by locking herself in the bathroom where she tried to kill herself by slicing her wrist.

Her dad is now dead from cancer, and life goes on. She rents an apartment in an old brownstone apartment complex in Brooklyn Heights. Allison spots a mysterious person sitting by the window on the top floor of the building. We soon learn that he’s an old blind priest (John Carradine) who’s lived there for years. And he just sits there, day and night, like a statue and is not to be bothered. Does he ever eat or take a piss? Huh… OK, whatever. People are strange, as Jim Morrison once said.

If the vibe wasn’t eerie enough already, things get weirder when she settles in the complex. Because here she meets her new neighbors – a group of eccentric bohemian-acting hippie weirdos who you just want to distance yourself from and let them mind their own business. We have this older over-the-top jovial gentleman who acts like he’s cosplaying The Mad Hatter. We meet a ballerina coach with some big bosoms and a blond mute who, just out of the blue, masturbates like a psychotic freak on the couch, in front of a confused and startled Allison. What a day!

Things get crazier at night when Allison is trying to get her beauty sleep. She hears weird noises while the chandelier in her bedroom swings. Spooky. It’s after all an old building, so maybe just some harmless ghosts are wandering by. After walking around in a tiny, sexy nightdress and a flashlight, she gets attacked by none other than a zombiefied version of her dead father. So, where did he come from, and what is it with that mysterious dude who just sits up there by the window? It’s soon time to find out, as she continues to get tormented by visions that start to break down her psyche.

The Sentinel is directed and co-written by the British gentleman Michael Winner (1935-2013), who also made the first three Death Wish films, which explains the thick layer of sleaze, nudity and maybe some white powder floating in the air. This is actually the only horror film he made, based on a novel by Jeffrey Konvits, who co-wrote the script. Lucio Fulci clearly borrowed some key aspects from The Sentinel when he made The Beyond (1981). It also has its parallels to Rosemary’s Baby, but besides the old apartment setting with the weird neighbors, the premises are moons apart.

The Sentinel is also known for its all-star cast. While Cristina Raines was relatively unknown, we have old veterans like Martin Balsam, Ava Gardner, Burges Meredith, John Carradine, to fresh newcomers like Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, and Beverly D’Angelo in her first film role. At the end of the film, we can also see Tom Berenger in his first screen presence. The only person missing here is Maxine Minx.

All scenes, except for the final one, are shot on location. The dusty, cobweb-filled attic is the real attic of the building. No sets were built. The interior of the building is the actual interior of the Brooklyn building, something you rarely see in a Hollywood studio film, especially these days. Even the boobs you see here — are real! Isn’t that interesting. The residents who lived in the building were paid to stay in a hotel while shooting. Only Hollywood would have the budget for that alone.

Another real aspect here are ( —SPOILER WARNING— ) the deformed people we see popping up from Hell in the zany climax. We have some real circus freaks here which stirred some controversies, even in 1977. According to the commentary track on the Blu-ray, director Michael Winner assures us that they had a real fun time during the filming of this segment. The same could not be said by Chris Sarandon though, who had such a miserable experience on set that he considered quitting acting altogether.

While The Sentinel isn’t much of a scary movie, it has a spooky atmosphere with a cryptic mystery to be solved. The tone is quite bizarre in some scenes, which go pretty overboard at the climax. Writer Jeffrey Konvitz was not particularly happy with this, as he wanted a far more subtle approach to the material. I see what he means, but the film is overall an entertaining and solid 70s supernatural oddball-flick with some uniqueness to it. Some obvious scenes were, of course, cut from the theatrical release, but are available in its full flesh version on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory. The commentary track by Michael Winner is also pretty funny and jovial, to say the least, where he gives a series of interesting anecdotes about film biz and more juicy stuff. Winner died two years after the release of the Blu-ray at age 77. RIP.

Director: Michael Winner
Writer: Michael Winner, Jeffrey Konvitz
Country & year: USA, 1977
Actors: Chris Sarandon, Cristina Raines, Martin Balsam, John Carradine, José Ferrer, Ava Gardner, Arthur Kennedy, Burgess Meredith, Sylvia Miles, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, Beverly D’Angelo
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076683/