Halloween Horror Watch #27: Attack of the Crab Monsters

Attack of the Crab Monsters -- Roger Corman



Seven years before getting stranded on Gilligan's Island, the Professor (Russell Johnson) was stranded on another island with giant crab monsters. It's not the same character, but he is tasked with building a radio in Crab Monsters, so he may as well be.

I enjoy these cheesy sci-fi flicks from the '50s. They fun and entertaining, they don't waste a lot of time (this is just over 60 minutes), feature lots of amusingly casual sexism no matter how smart or authoritative the woman is (and there is usually one woman), and take the subject seriously. The latter part is especially welcome given that we live in the Irony Age.

Much like Godzilla, Rodan, Them!, and several dozen others, the crab monsters are created in the wake of nuclear testing. A crew of scientists are sent to the island to investigate the effects of the radiation and are picked off one by one. What's great about Crab Monsters is that it's suitably nuts. After the crabs eat someone, they absorb that persons brain and can speak to the humans through metal devices such as a gun or the morse code lever-thing. Not only that, but knives and other weapons do know damage to the crab monsters and actually pass right through them because the crabs are made of negative energy. It's awesome.

There are all the normal pitfalls of cheesy sci-fi like bad exposition and clearly fake monsters (terrific fake monsters. I want one for my yard), but you don't watch movies like this without that in mind going into it. It's just fun times.

Halloween Horror Watch #22: The Haunting of Hell House

The Haunting of Hell House -- Mitch Marcus



The Haunting of Hell House feels like it was a paycheck for everyone in the cast and crew. I learned a long time ago not to judge these people for taking a paycheck, but that's what this is. The only thing I hate more than a bad movie is a movie with no ambition at all (not mutually exclusive). The Haunting of Hell House is bland. I toyed around with the idea of writing "meh," and leaving it be. Maybe I should have.

I feel like an emerging theme of these Halloween Horror Watches is to stay away from Roger Corman productions after 1985, or at least to tread lightly (after all, Slumber Party Massacre II came out in 1987). The most interesting thing about The Haunting of Hell House is that, viewed after Castle Freak, it offers the flip side of Castle Freak's mother-takes-her-anger-out-on-her-son plot point. Not all that interesting. Meh...

Halloween Horror Watch #19: Not of This Earth

Not of This Earth -- Jim Wynorski



I'm not one to hold my expectations of a movie against it. But when your ad campaign starts off with "Traci Lords is... Not of This Earth," I don't think it's wrong to feel a little let down that she isn't the blood-hunting alien. Then again, Roger Corman productions have never been shy about misleading the audience in their advertising (Not of This Earth's opening credits run over archival footage from past Corman features and I was certain it was going to be for the trailer. The credits are also the best part of the movie).

There is a lot wrong with Not of This Earth, a remake of Roger Corman's 1957 film of the same name, and having not seen the original, I'm not sure who to blame. Very early on it's established that the alien antagonist has the ability to control minds. Why he doesn't do it to everyone he meets, I'll never know. Sure, he needs Traci Lords to administer drug transfusions, but control her like he controls the doctor. The fact that he doesn't hypnotize (for lack of a better term) everyone allows there to be a movie but it also leaves the movie weakened because none of it needs to play out that way.

This wouldn't be a problem if Not of This Earth was at all entertaining. Instead, it plods along without any suspense or scares. The aliens are able to communicate telepathically and it's riveting watching scenes in which characters stare at each other while voice over plays.

There's an amusing car chase at the end where obstacles were placed in the road just to get run over. Why would anyone have four mailboxes lined up on the road surface? I was surprised that in her first non-pornographic movie, Traci Lords got naked. It's not like there was a lack of nudity in Not of This Earth. Of course, the audience probably would have been disappointed if she hadn't.

Halloween Horror Watch #11: Splatter

Splatter -- Joe Dante



Roger Corman. Joe Dante. Tony Todd. Richard C. Matheson (son of Richard Matheson). On board so far? How about Corey Feldman? It's easy to forget that before Feldman was a douchebag and before he fell into a pit of drugs, he was a charismatic and good actor. The Goonies, Stand by Me, Gremlins, The 'Burbs, even The Lost Boys. He's terrific in all of them. But now we end up with what we've got here: a joke. It is impossible to take him seriously anymore. It's a shame.

But really, no one comes off too good in Splatter, a web series produced by Roger Corman and helmed by a top-5 all-time director for me, Joe Dante. Corman hasn't been involved in anything interesting since the '80s and Dante has struggled to make movies since the mid-'90s. Splatter feels like a group of kids learning how to make movies, throwing everything at the screen to see if it sticks, not the product of two of my favorite movie minds. And poor Tony Todd is given nothing. Feldman is exactly as you'd expect from the teaser above.

There is some potential, though. If there had been some money behind this (and on Corman productions, there rarely was/is), Splatter could have looked good. And if it hadn't been shot on a really crappy digital camera (some out there may find the aesthetic charming in a low-budget way, but it makes me went to vomit). Get some better actors, flesh out the story a bit so that every line isn't trying to force in exposition. I even legitimately smiled at the finale (as ridiculously as it's staged) after hating the prior 27 minutes.

This is only for Joe Dante completists.

Halloween Horror Watch #5: Duel and Tales of Terror

Duel -- Steven Spielberg



The first of the horror watch that I've already seen. I watched it with a group of friends and it's just as enjoyable as I remember. Man, Steven Spielberg was pretty great until about 1982 when I assume he was replaced by his non-union Mexican equivalent. Duel is loaded with interesting shots moving around speeding cars (or attached to speeding cars) and that make great use of screen space. I'm deeply impressed that this movie took only 12 or 13 days to shoot.

I'm a total mark for Duel anyway. Car chases are about my favorite thing in movies. The only other element that comes close is if a moving train features prominently in the plot. Duel is one long car chase with the added element that the pursuer is more interested in cat-and-mouse games than actually catching our hero (why our hero didn't just return home after an hour of this, I'll never know).

The other reason I'm a mark is because Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay (and short story) and he's the tops. Aces all the way. It's amazing that Duel is able to maintain suspense and what little story there is for over an hour and that's a tribute to Matheson's inventiveness in building the story to a point where it doesn't even seem like the truck driver can be human. He's too omniscient. Our hero probably would have been pursued even if he had turned around.

Great movie, all around.

Tales of Terror -- Roger Corman



I had an unintentional Richard Matheson double feature. Once all of my friends left and Andrea went to bed (she actually watched most of the first tale with me), I threw this on as I won't get to watch a movie tomorrow. Talk about marks. Aside from Matheson adapting Poe tales, Roger Corman directs (during the era where Corman did his best work) and it stars Vincent Price AND Peter Lorre. There's no way I'm going to dislike this movie.

The pacing of the segments is a little slow, but that's par for the course with the Corman Poe adaptations. They burn slowly building to frenzied finales. I'm a big fan of that because I like taking in the sets and costumes and watching actors I love act before they are let loose during the climax. One thing I've learned the more I watch Vincent Price, the man was nuanced. More and more I hate that he's known as a parody of himself instead of the great actor (who yes, is in some schlock, but he always looks like he's having fun and giving the material his all) that he is. I don't know when this happened, but I blame cartoons from the '90s. Peter Lorre has the best role, that of a cuckolded drunk. He's incredibly funny throughout but never more so than in the wine tasting scene with Price.

Vincent Price stars in all three tales and does some mood-setting narration between. I was only familiar with one of the Poe stories, The Black Cat. I'm happy with the format as it gives us several more Corman-Price-Poe  adaptations that a feature would have supplied. Good night for movies watching.

Snake Head Revisited: The Dunwich Horror

Perhaps it's the aftermath of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival or the fact that I've been feeling the need to extend my reading habits into the horror realm, but I've been really digging on the idea of H.P. Lovecraft lately. I watched Dagon not long ago and mostly dug it. I like the world of tentacled beings he's got going on. I was a little jealous of some volunteers and their ability to easily discuss the man when I really know very little about him aside from film adaptations (which, as I understand it, take many liberties with the original tales).

To be honest, I had my sites set on watching this film long before most of that stuff I mention above. I was sold the minute I saw the poster:

 

There's not a part of that poster that doesn't appeal to me. The copy at the top is pure gold. The film has a surprisingly stocked cast, too. Sandra Dee, Dean Stockwell (who I immediately forgot was in the movie and didn't recognize him at all... it must have been the mustache), Ed Begley, and though she's not credited on the poster, Talia Shire. On top of that, one of the screenwriters is Curtis Hanson (yet another lauded filmmaker who got his start working for Roger Corman for me to be jealous of)!

Sadly, a good pedigree isn't enough to elevate The Dunwich Horror (taken from the Lovecraft story of the same name) much above, "Eh, it's alright." There's a nifty opening credits animation and some cool editing decisions (during the line, "Suppose she goes up there," especially). The first monster attack is trippy and campy and all sorts of fun, but even those get tiresome. The end of the film has some really neat shots of wind blowing across a stream and through the forest. There's definitely stuff to recommend, but as I'm sure you've noticed, none of that has much to do with the story.

Probably the biggest issue is that Anything involving Walter Whateley (Stockwell) is totally unbelievable. I love Dean Stockwell, but whatever direction he was given or decisions he was making were the wrong ones. Are we really supposed to believe Nancy (Sandra Dee) would so willingly go along with this creep? I know... supposedly she's in some sort of Dracula-like trance, but that really seems more like an easy way to get around the fact that she would ever do what he wants. Surely if he has some sort of mind control, he'd use it on the townsfolk so they stopped hassling him. The scene where Nancy goes into Walter's home for the first time is excruciating and awkwardly times. Fortunately, that is the film's nadir and the rest of the way is tolerable.

Some other odd aspects of the film are that Nancy dreams of bizarre feral hippies from some inexplicable reason and there is a weird filter used in another dream scene where she's laying on an altar that makes the movie look like it's being projected onto a burlap sack. The finale consisted of two characters incantating at each other, but the viewer has no basis for why this is happening, why it works, and why the victor wins. It's abrupt and poorly established. Finally, there are aspects of the music that continually brought to mind the music in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

So yeah... The Dunwich Horror Poster is better than the movie. But with Corman, one should never be surprised when the advertising surpasses the film.