1977 – Horror Ghouls

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 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/

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/