1970s horror movies – Horror Ghouls

The Legacy (1978)

Posted on October 12, 2024October 7, 2024 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, 2024October 15, 2024 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/

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Posted on January 2, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

A parasitic alien race is abandoning their dying planet, in search of a new place. They travel to Earth, and take form as small pink flowers which look innocent enough and won’t cause any suspicion. The laboratory scientist Elizabeth Driscoll brings one of these flowers home, unaware of their origins, and the next day she wakes up finding her boyfriend Geoffrey behaving like a totally different person. He is cold and distant towards her, and she gets the paranoid feeling that her own boyfriend might actually be an impostor. She confides in her colleague and friend, Matthew Bennell, who advises her to talk to a psychiatrist. Soon, they start encountering other people who believes their loved ones have been replaced by impostors, and everything escalates from there as the alien duplicates seem to be taking over the entire world.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1978 science fiction horror film, directed by Philip Kaufman. It is based in the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers which was written by Jack Finney, and which was previously adapted into a 1956 film by the same name as this film. Upon its release it received varied reviews from the critics, which has gotten more favorable over the tears. It grossed nearly $25 million. The director had been a fan of the 1956 film, and had the cinematographer Michael Chapman try and capture the film noir feel of the original, just in color. The sound editor, Ben Burtt, who had earlier worked on some of the sound effects on Star Wars the year before, added to the film’s ambience where natural sounds mixes with the city’s industrial noises. And of course the famous “shriek” the aliens give off then spotting a real human, which was composed of many elements, including a pig squeal. The film also has a number of cameo appearances, including Kevin McCarthy who played Dr. Bennell in the 1956 movie, and that film’s director, Don Siegel, who appears as a taxi driver.

The film holds nothing back when it comes to any mystery, as we know already from the first scene that there are aliens coming to Earth to take over the place. Exactly how this is done is probably the only kind of mystery, and we do indeed get some gorgeously nasty scenes involving this process. It’s a bit of a slow burner at times, focusing on setting an atmosphere of paranoia and underlying terror, but overall it’s a fun popcorn-flick. The horror and science fiction elements work in a perfect combination, and while there never is any mystery as to what is happening, we still feel a certain tension when wondering how the characters will fare when meeting a world soon to be completely overruled by something that isn’t human. Everyone is going through feelings of distrust, panic and anxiety as they no longer know who to trust, and the duplicates are turning into beings devoid of any feelings and completely emotionally blunted, like a bunch of Zoloft-zombies. The cast is also pretty decent, with Donald Sutherland playing the role as Dr. Benell being the most recognizable here, as many of you have probably already seen a certain iconic scene or image from the movie starring him…

Overall, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a good sci-fi horror movie, telling the story of an unlikely yet still chilling alien invasion which goes unnoticed until it’s too late. Like in many other alien invasion movies where they come in giant motherships causing total mayhem, this one on the other hand is using a subtle kind of attack. It’s an invasion that could happen right under our noses, without any sign of what is going on until the damage is done and there’s no way back. I honestly find that concept more disturbing than a bunch of greys coming to wreak havoc…

Director: Philip Kaufman
Writer: W.D. Richter
Country & year: US, 1974
Actors: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright, Leonard Nimoy, Art Hindle, Lelia Goldoni, Kevin McCarthy, Don Siegel, Tom Luddy, Stan Ritchie, David Fisher, Tom Dahlgren
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0077745/

Burnt Offerings (1976)

Posted on October 13, 2023June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Ben Rolf and his wife Marian and their 12 year old son Davey travels to a remote mansion because they’d like to rent it for the summer. Greeted by the home’s owners, the elderly siblings Arnold and Rosalyn Allardyce, they quickly realize that these old geezers are more than just a little eccentric, bordering on being outright cuckoo with a weirdly strong attachment to their home. Which makes it kind of strange that they’d like to rent it out in the first place. And the price is quite the bargain too: $900 for the entire summer. It comes with one odd requirement though: there’s an old lady in the upstairs room, which the family must promise to deliver meals to during their stay for the summer. They’re told that this old lady wants privacy and most likely won’t be seen, and that they should just leave the meals outside her locked bedroom. Nothing fishy about that, right? While having a few second thoughts, the family still decides to rent the wonderful house, and along with them they bring Ben’s elderly aunt Elizabeth. When they arrive back at the house, the siblings have already left the place, having left a note at the door. And while all seems like the setup for a wonderful time, the house appears to make some of them behave rather oddly. Marian becomes obsessed with cleaning and caring for the house, and making sure that the elderly woman upstairs is being fed. Despite never actually seeing her, or even hearing a word from her. She distances herself more and more from the family, while Ben starts being haunted by the visions of the creepy hearse driver he once saw at his mother’s funeral when he was a child. And he starts behaving aggressive, especially towards his own son. What was first thought to be a wonderful summer holiday at a beautiful house, soon turns out to be a nightmare…

Burnt Offerings is a horror film from 1976, directed by Dan Curtis and based on the book by the same name which was written by Robert Marasco. The filming took place in 1975, in the historic Dunsmuir House in Oakland, California. This film was the first to be shot at this location, and many horror fans will probably recognize the house as it was used in the horror film Phantasm some years later. Several movies have been filmed there, and the latest being Delirium from 2018. Dan Curtis mentioned that there were no sets built for this film, and everything was filmed entirely on location. Something that feels oddly refreshing to watch these days…

The film is a typical old-fashioned haunted house movie, with a very slow build-up and devoid of jumpscares. You feel something is off from the very start without having anything specific to pin it on, there are no obvious ghosts or ghoulies which terrorize the family, so you’re not really sure what is happening to them. The film is very much about mood and atmosphere, with a beautiful old-fashioned home providing the perfect environment for such a setting. Despite being your typical slowburner, it constantly throws things at you which keeps you constantly on edge and wondering what’s going to happen next. Especially unsettling is watching how Marian keeps distancing herself entirely from her own family, only caring for the house and becomes obsessed with keeping it clean and in order, and staying outside the old lady’s room upstairs while watching an array of old photographs and playing the melancholic tune of the music box on the table there.

The family characters, although somewhat generic, fits their role pretty well as the ordinary middle-class family, and the siblings we meet at the start of the movie (played by Burgess Meredith and Eileen Heckart) were perfectly eerie-kooky. While the film portrays a somewhat strained relationship between the wife Marian (Karen Black) and the elderly aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis), it’s worth noting that there may have been more than just acting between those two. According to Bette Davis, these two had conflicts during the shoot and she thought Karen’s behaviour was disrespectful and unprofessional. However, Bette also expressed a disdain for Oliver Reed (who played Ben), and referred to him as “possibly one of the most loathesome human beings I have ever had the misfortune of meeting”. I’m going to suppose the atmosphere in that house wasn’t all chipper in real life either…

This movie isn’t particularly well known, despite horror authors Stephen King and Bentley Little having both acknowledged that it influenced their writing, and Stephen King was apparently inspired by both the book and the movie when writing The Shining. I’m also thinking that he probably let his son Joe Hill (Joseph Hillstrom King) watch the movie as well, considering how the creepy hearse driver in the movie gives off real Charles Manx-vibes (NOS4A2). This character was not included in the original novel, actually, but was based on an actual childhood experience of Dan Curtis, where he recalled as a young child being at his mother’s funeral and seeing a chauffeur laughing outside of the funeral parlor, something he found disturbing and which then stuck with him ever since. There are some other scenes in this movie as well which makes me wonder if several other horror films have taken inspiration from it, including a certain scene which will ring a bell or two for those who have seen Evil Dead.

Overall, Burnt Offerings is an interesting addition to the haunted house genre, and derives a bit from the ordinary spookhouse story. Some may find the ending a little cheesy, but it’s kind of what makes it a bit exceptional and also make the title fit very well with what’s actually going on.

Director: Dan Curtis
Writers: William F. Nolan, Dan Curtis
Country & year: US, 1976
Actors: Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Bette Davis, Eileen Heckart, Lee Montgomery, Dub Taylor, Joseph Riley, Todd Turquand, Orin Cannon, Jim Myers, Anthony James
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0074258/

Seytan (1974)

Posted on October 6, 2023September 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

There was actually a time when films like this were called plagiarism. Today we call them remakes. And call this specimen of celluloid what you will, Pazuzu, however, has already left the building and dived straight back to hell to suck Saddam Hussein’s big hairy toes rather than being near this eyesoaring madhouse.

There’s little to zero trivia info to find about this Turkish obscurity other than it’s more or less a shot-for-shot remake of The Exorcist – a movie from 1973 you may have heard of. The film was apparently shot on a low budget, resulting in a grainy and poor image quality. You don’t say. To call the image quality grainy and poor is the biggest understatement since the beginning of human existence. I would first assume the film was shot on used toilet paper with a dirty lens covered in fresh urine and projected straight out of Belphegor’s asshole.

And you couldn’t ask for a more honest plot summary to add on the backside of the DVD cover:

– After the worldwide success of William Friedkin’s 1973 classic film The Exorcist, those wacky Turks decided that maybe they should steal the script and make their own homegrown version of the film. The result is Seytan, a one of a kind viewing experience. If you’ve seen the 1973 original you’ll feel you’re experiencing déjà Vu as this version is almost an identical scene by scene remake of The Exorcist, albeit with a Turkish soundtrack, music recorded directly off a record player, editing most likely done by a blind monkey and special effects more fitting for an elementary school play. Combine this with really grainy film stock, some out of work (possibly homeless) unknown Turkish actors, horrible direction and a budget of about $1.95 and you’ve got yourself an instant classic. –

There are some story changes here though. Instead of Father Damien Karras, we have the young author Tugrul Bilge, who’s just written a book about black magic titled Seytan. And one of the readers of that book is the twelve-year-old girl Gül, while she also plays with a spirit board. And instead of Captain Howdy we have Captain… Lersen. Gül gets possessed by Lersen and her mother contacts Bilge after she discovers his book. Although Bilge is a non-believer (u-oh), he gets invited to have a look at Gül as she’s bedridden and wearing some cheap make-up, a big Tina Turner wig and mumbles with a comical demon voice that sounds more like a drunk, old Japanese samurai. And yes, of course, The Exorcist himself, an old gentleman with a white-trimmed santa beard, eventually pops up to conjure holy forces in the big climax.

The funny thing is that both Gül and Tugrul sound like some sinister stage names from a black metal band, while Lersen sounds more like a regular Joe.

And forget about any obscene cussing like “your mother sucks cocks in hell” and “let Jesus fuck you!” The most edgy written piece of dialogue we get is “I will kill you”. In other words: I highly doubt that anyone who saw this back in 1974 in the Turkish cinemas went out of the movie shaking with trauma, and had problems sleeping the following night. The masturbation scene is still here though, in its own unique way, along with the head spinning sequences, the possessed furniture, the medical examinations, ~~Karra’s~~ Bilge’s sideplot with his mommy issues – but with the momentum like a quick fart in the wind, and the emotional depth as deep as a puddle on the sidewalk. It’s amateur-hour all the way and like a piss-drunk karaoke version of something very familiar performed by Eilert Pilarm with the tunes from Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells constantly on repeat throughout the first half of the movie, ripped from a tired cassette tape, to remind us that this is… The Turkish Exorcist. Burp.

The acting is as laughable as you’d expect, but I have to give the girl who plays the Turkish Regan some cred as she tries her best and seemed to have a jolly fun time during the making of this looney tune. She also got the pleasure of spitting some green-something in the old man’s face.

Seytan never got any official physical release, or not that I know of, other than a DVD bootleg in 2007 by Substance, ripped from a VHS added with subtitles which even Google seemed to struggle to translate. Fun shit. It’s of course also on YouTube with a more cleaned up image quality but without the subtitles.

Director: Metin Erksan
Writer: Yilmaz Tümtürk
Also known as: Seytan – The Turkish Exorcist
Country & year: Turkey, 1974
Actors: Canan Perver, Cihan Ünal, Meral Taygun, Agah Hün, Erol Amaç, Ismail Hakki Sen, Ekrem Gökkaya
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0072148/

The Swarm (1978)

Posted on June 20, 2023June 14, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

With titles such as Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973), Killer Bees (1974), The Savage Bees (1976), The Bees (1978) and Terror Out of the Sky (1978), we can fairly say that the 1970s was also the decade of the killer bees. While most of them were obscure TV movies, it was The Swarm that stood out, mainly because this was a big Hollywood studio film with as many Oscar winners as possible on the cast list, fronted by Michael Caine. And before Roland Emmerich and his Independence Day, which revived the disaster-film genre in the mid 90s, there was Irwin Allen. “Master of Disaster“ he was called in positive terms for the success of producing blockbusters like The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974) which is regarded as the very first disaster-film. He also directed numerous TV series. So, in 1978, it was time to not only to produce, but also direct his first disaster feature with a big star cast and the most notable of all: 20 million bees!

The plot centers around Texas where a large legion of African killer bees have invaded the state. While the bees spread further into the country and starts terrorizing cities and leaving thousands of body counts, the scientist Dr. Bradford Crane (Michael Caine) is constantly on track to figure out a plan to stop them while fighting against the government. With him he has his trustworthy Dr. Walter Krim (Henry Fonda) to develop an antidote to the bee venom. We quickly learn that these bees are not to be underestimated as they’re capable of attacking military helicopters and plunging them to the ground in an explosion. A sight you don’t see everyday. So yeah, these bees are pissed as hell. We have a picnic scene where a young boy witnesses his parents getting swarmed right before his eyes. He isolates himself in the car, wipes the thick layer of bees on the front windshield and manages to escape by driving off to the nearest town. He later makes matters worse by going back to the area with some friends to throw molotovs at the swarm. It all escalates to the point where cities have to evacuate, which also leads to an infamous scene with a train and a chaotic climax with doomsday mayhem which includes flamethrowers and explosions.

And the question is: is this really as bad as its reputation, even being on the list of “worst films ever made“? Nah. On the technical aspects, the film is, for the most part, pretty solid although it has its stains. The script, however, and if not the pacing of its runtime of 156 minutes (judging Warner Archive’s Blu-ray), has a lot of issues. We have boring subplots with love affairs that go nowhere. Some people come and go and are never to be seen again. There’s some eye-rolling and wonky dialogue here as well, some of which are delivered as if this was an Adam West Batman movie. There’s a bunch of dry science talk, a lot of filler-scenes, which makes the film look more dated, clunky and overall an unfocused mess. The scenes where the stung victims hallucinate and see a big bee hoovering right in front of them looks just goofy, out-of-place and -again- dated like a public-domain 50s monster movie, while the film takes itself dead seriously. Not a masterpiece in any shape or form, but the bees alone makes it worth a watch.

Then we have Michael Caine’s character, who comes across like a stone-cold psychopath who would fit more as a sinister villain in a James Bond film. He always bears a duper-delight and smirks in the most inappropriate moments. His off-putting demeanor may be linked with the fact that this was one of Caine’s notorious list of “paycheck movies“ and he later claimed that it was the worst film he ever starred in. A-ha… He never saw Jaws: The Revenge, another paycheck, so that film doesn’t count. Sir Caine turned 90 recently, by the way. Cheers.

But the real stars of the film is the 20 million bees that got used and sacrificed. God bless and no wonder why they’re furious. Today all would be CGI, no question about it, but here we actually have sets with thousand of bees that swarms around actors and crew as they do their best to not have their mouth open. While there are some dated edges here, the scenes with the bee attacks looks as real as they can get and are quite spectacular, highly ambitiously made and is an unnerving sight. Even though 800,000 of them got their stingers removed, they couldn’t avoid to mix them with those who had the stingers intact which caused several actors to get stung. How anyone would sign up for something like this is beyond me. And the amount of children that’s involved must have parents that really hates them. We always hear about difficult filming conditions, especially from the pre-CGI era where most of the effects had to be shot on set but bruh… I refuse to believe that anyone involved would look back and say; yeah, being in that bee movie was such a fun time and I would do that again. You couldn’t even pay me a million. Mr. Not-The-Bees himself would agree (that meme just had to be shoved in here).

The Swarm was a massive flop and was ridiculed by the few critics that saw it. Producer and director Irwin Allen was so devastated by all the money he lost on the film that he refused to ever mention the film in future interviews. And besides the short 22-minutes making-of documentary on the Blu-ray there isn’t much insight to behold. At least the trivia section on IMDb can tell us that actor Michael Caine stated in an interview that during filming he thought the little yellow spots left by the bees on his clothing was honey, so he began to eat them, entirely unaware that what he was eating was actually bee feces. In other words: honey and bee poop tastes the same. Yummy.

Director: Irwin Allen
Writers: Arthur Herzog III, Stirling Silliphant
Country & year: USA, 1978
Actors: Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, José Ferrer, Patty Duke, Henry Fonda & 20 million bees
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0078350/

Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century (1977)

Posted on May 2, 2023June 15, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, its Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century! And he’s ready to funk your shoes off!

Yeti the Funky Giant of the 20th Century is a mentally retarded Italian/Canadian produced ripoff of King Kong (1976) which starts off with some quick stock-footage of ice melting in some very cold place. A big block of ice is found in the Newfoundland’s coast of Canada with two big feet popping out. Professor Waterman is being sent by a sleazy industry tycoon for an oil company to study the giant, and he brings with him his orphan grandchildren Jane, her younger mute brother Herbie, and of course their Collie. A big happy family who will sit together on the front row and witness the first glimpse of the creature, after they melt the block with several flamethrowers. The big furry creature is then transported by a helicopter to the Canadian mainlands, with Yeti dangling unconscious in something that looks like a big phone booth. Things seem to go pretty smooth and dandy so far, but just wait. Oh, just wait…

As soon they descend him to the ground, surrounded by an excited audience waiving their Canadian flags who cant wait to be the first to witness this freakshow, Yeti wakes up and it’s all an epic and spectacular cinematic madhouse from here on that you have to see with your own sober eyes to believe. Yeti looks like a hairy and funky incarnation of a giant pot smoking Jesus Christ with a fluffy Tina Turner wig and enough fur to hide his giant pipeline. He’s so funky you’d expect him to show us some dance moves any time, but instead he screams like an elephant and poses to the camera with various insane goofy facial expressions. It’s truly something else. The guy in the Yeti costume, Mimmo Crau, appeared in the TV mini series Jesus of Nazareth the same year, by the way. But not as Jesus, unfortunately, that coincidence would have been too funny.

After Yeti releases himself, he grabs the two grandchildren of professor Waterman and wanders away to the wilderness. The stockholm syndrome hits in turbo speed and a spiritual romantic bond in some bizarre Beauty and the Beast style evolves between Yeti and Jane, as she looks and gaze at him with the most manic borderline-seducing eyeballs. But nah, don’t even think about it: The actress was only sixteen years old at the time, so there’s no kinky furry sex for your fetish fantasies here. And not that I wanted to see that either. The closest we get to a tiny hint of a love scene that never happened is when Jane touches around Yeti’s breast which erects his nipple. Groovy.

The best parts is when Yeti is placed on the top of a high building in Toronto, because why not, and causes absolute mayhem like Stay Puft Marshmellow Man in full psychotic saturday night fever dream where the only thing missing is some funk music to put the cherry on top. And for that we have a music video where Yeti cheerfully smashes miniature walls, having fun with an elevator stuffed with panicked people like an overstimulated five-year old playing with lego and action figures, and uses the windows to smash his feet in to climb safely down.

He also kills one of the bad guys by strangling him with his toes. But that’s far from all, there’s so much more, and if you’re piss-tired of monster films (especially some of the modern ones) which mainly focuses on boring human characters and treat the monster(s) like an afterthought, well, this one is made for you.

Most scenes with Yeti consists of close-ups of his head, feet and hands. Two separte shots are used in the purest and primitive stone age of movie magic technology, when we see him in full form to give us the illusion that’s he’s bigger than he really is. And unless you’ve been too drunk while watching this you’ve clearly seen that he shrinks and grows throughout the film. In a scene he seems as big as The Statue of Liberty and in the next not so much. The Ed wood school of filmmaking, more or less, where minor details like this doesn’t matter.

Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century is released on a pretty juicy Blu-ray by the German based Wicked Vision. It’s filled with bonus features which includes a poster, cards, booklet and more. It also have the original Italian theatrical version of 104 minutes and the German dubbed version, both with English subtitles.

Director: Gianfranco Parolini
Writers: Mario di Nardo, Gianfranco Parolini, Marcello Coscia
Original title: Yeti – Il gigante del 20° secolo
Also known as: Yeti – der schneemensch kommt (Germany)
Country & year: Italy, Canada, 1977
Actors: Antonella Interlenghi, Mimmo Crao, Jim Sullivan, Tony Kendall, Edoardo Faieta, John Stacy, Stelio Candelli, Loris Bazzocchi, Indio, Donald O’Brien, Aldo Canti
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0076937/

Nude for Satan (1974)

Posted on July 4, 2019August 29, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Dr. William Benson is driving late at night to reach a patient, and stops at a mansion to ask for directions. He learns that he must drive a huge detour and that the roads there are bad, and the man at the mansion offers him shelter for the night. As the conscientious doctor he is, he declines the offer and continues on. A lady in white suddenly stands in the way, and this forces Benson to swerve his car which makes it bump into a mountain wall. When he is going to check for the mysterious lady in white, she is nowhere to be to seen, but another lady suddenly crashes in front of him and lies unconscious in the car with a white blouse…which suddenly turns black in the next clip. Just five minutes in and a continuity error already. Impressive. Anyway, he carries her away and brings her back to consciousness by patting her on the cheek, like the doctor he is. But unfortunately he does not manage to start the car, and sees no other way than to return to the castle to ask for help. When he enters the castle the place looks abandoned, with trash, rats and covered furniture.

He then comes across an older guy who seems to have been stabbed to death, who glances at Benton with some crazy eyes as he asks “what can I do for you” and gives a sinister laugh. Okay, Dr. Benton, time to turn around, there’s no help to get here. Still, this is just a gentle start on the rabbit hole he has stumbled into. When he opens another door he witnesses someone who has a sex orgy with scenes of a blowjob, close-up penetration and lesbian sex. Okay. After seeing enough, he shuts the door and looks further around, and suddenly the woman pops up…the one he left in the car, with no signs of harm or discomfort. And she’s really happy to see Benson, as she rather calls Peter, as if she’s known him all her life, and gives some obscure lines that don’t make any sense. And just like the viewer, Mr. Benson is just as lost and confused and wants some fucking answers (pun intended).

As I said, a rabbit hole. And a hairy one. The movie actually starts out as a classic Hammer movie with thunder, rain and an old castle, but as soon as we see our protagonist, or whatever he is supposed to be, it quickly nosedives into a stumbling, incoherent obscurity of a demented sleazeball of a movie with x-rated porn scenes in between. The balance between horror and porn is completely off. It’s as if the writer and director Luigi Batzella couldn’t decide whether he wanted to make a traditional horror or a porn, but went for both with no clue how to blend it together, with a script that apparently was scribbled in a hurry on his palm between the shooting. With a title as “Nude for Satan” I expected a fair amount of tits and bushy beavers, but I was completely unaware this was actually a x-rated pornflick with close-up penetration and whatnot. But okay, what a pleasant surprise. So let’s just call it “Fuck for Satan”, then, to avoid further confusion.

Fuck for Satan is probably most known for a certain random spider scene. And I must say, it lived up to the hype. How can one not laugh at a fake, giant spider that seems to be made of a bunch of layers of cow dung? And to make it more realistic, just stuff some wooden branches into it and it got some really believable legs. Haha, oh my.. Fuck for Satan also has the most frantic use of zoom I’ve probably seen. As if the cameraman was clearly told to zoom in and out as much as possible to make a desperate attempt to add some tone of surrealism or whatever. Well, I beg to differ. The movie isn’t trippy for one bit, just weird and messy with lazy directing, while the horror aspects fails as a blind, drunken sailor on an unicycle. And what does the space-like music have to do here? Is there a flying saucer wobbling from a string in the background somewhere I don’t see? Who knows. Who cares. But man, that spider scene..haha.

Director: Luigi Batzella
Original title: Nuda per Satana
Country & year: Italy, 1974
Actors: Rita Calderoni, Stelio Candelli, James Harris, Renato Lupi, Iolanda Mascitti, Luigi Antonio Guerra, Barbara Lay
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0162503/