Ruby is a 1977 horror drama film directed by Curtis Harrington, and was one of his last horror films. It stars Piper Laurie, Stuart Whitman and Roger Davis

Plot Teaser

In 1935, a lowlife mobster, Nikki Rocco, is betrayed and executed in the swampy backwoods as his pregnant gun-moll, Ruby Claire watches. He swears vengeance with his dying breath, and then she suddenly goes into labour. Sixteen years later in 1951, Ruby is now running a drive-in theatre in the backwoods near her home and employs some ex-mobsters. Her 16-year-old daughter, Leslie Claire, is mute and has been since birth.

Soon strange and bizarre accidents claim the lives of Ruby’s employees, then Leslie begins to show strange behaviour, and then begins to speak… in her dead father’s voice. Nikki Rocco possesses his daughter’s body and terrorizes Ruby with levitations, telekinesis, maniacal laughing and bizarre sexual aggression…

Ruby was long available on video in the U.S. only in a butchered version that was re-edited (and apparently re-shot by director Stephanie Rothman) for television, deleting the R-rated violence and adding new dialogue scenes. VCI‘s DVD is presented in its original theatrical version; however, this is not a director’s cut: it contains Krantz’s abrupt, horror ending rather than Harrington’s intended romantic one.

Prior to the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween, Ruby was the top grossing independent film.

Buy Ruby on DVD from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Reviews

“Mr. Harrington delivers the scares. He is a filmmaker from the Hitchcock school in that he uses suspense rather than shocks to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. This is not to say the film doesn’t have several well placed shocks, it does! This is an excellent movie.” Rusty White’s Film World

“While never entirely leaving the film’s quickie exploitation nature behind, Curtis Harrington crafts it with a series of often striking set-pieces – bodies tossed about and impaled on trees; Stuart Whitman being pursued by supernatural winds; that wonderfully EC Comics-esque moment where a severed head is found attached to the interior of a Coke vending machine; and the genuine surprise moment when Janit Baldwin (an almost neglected actress who gives a eerily spooky performance) is revealed as possessed – that lifts Ruby well above most Exorcist copycats.” Moria

“Cheaply made but fairly well acted, Ruby is well paced and features a few decent murder set pieces but borrow a lot from The Exorcist in spots. The film fails to convince us of its fifties setting (everyone looks very much like a product of the seventies here) but it’s entertaining enough, the way a fun B-grade horror movie can be.” Rock! Shock! Pop!

Wikipedia | IMDb

WH

Painless - original title Insensibles –  is a 2012 Spanish fantasy horror film directed by Juan Carlos Medina. It stars Alex Brendemühl, Tomas Lemarquis and Ilias Stothart. One of the writers of REC, Luiso Berdejo, co-wrote the film.

Plot teaser:

In the 1930s, a group of children are born with a rare condition: they feel no pain. After being locked away for life for their own safety, the children are subjected to rehabilitation away from society. In the present day, David is a brilliant neurosurgeon, utterly driven in his job. Following a deadly accident and a near terminal cancer diagnosis, the only treatment left for David leads him into the dark secrets his parents had kept hidden. David s present and past become intertwined with the fate of the painless, his investigations uncovering horrors and secrets that others had chosen to forget…

Buy Painless on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

“Medina’s Painless is much more of a straight-forward metaphor for the secrets, lies and the collective guilty consciences that Spain still carries through the people alive to this day whose work sustained fascism through violent means. And he does this without ever being sensational or preachy. Instead he lets David’s tender and emotional story unravel to reveal big themes that can be considered and debated over well after the film finishes alongside a very personal journey you can truly empathise with.” Britflicks

“While initially intriguing in sheer set-up, playing on themes of dread of difference and coldness as a survival response to negative stimuli, an overall lack of plausibility or payoff, exacerbated by childish gratuity and gore, makes this a mostly painful cinematic experience.” Exclaim!

“Like most horror movies, Painless is also unapologetically pulpy. The characters are two-dimensional at best, with no clear focus for audience sympathy, while the overheated plot is thick with improbable coincidences and loose ends. But these flaws come with the territory, of course. Within the rules of the genre, Medina has still made an impressive, imaginative and commendably ambitious debut.” The Hollywood Reporter

IMDb

WH

Varsity Blood is a 2014 American slasher film directed by Jake Helgren and starring Lexi Giovagnoli, Debbie Rochon and Wesley Scott.

Plot Teaser

A pack of small town jocks and cheerleaders with a dark secret head out to a remote farmhouse for a raucous Halloween pasture party, only to find themselves up for slaughter by someone dressed as their high school mascot, an Indian warrior wielding a lethal fighting ax and a bow and arrow…

Varsity Blood was filmed in the same high school where Varsity Blues was filmed, which also happens to be the alma mater of writer/director Jake Helgren, and the fictitious town of Hogeye where the film takes place is actually the name of an old town that once existed where the town of Elgin now stands.

Buy Varsity Blood on DVD from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Reviews

“It may not be difficult to predict the turns that Varsity Blood makes, but therein lies its base appeal: It’s uncompromisingly a straight-up slasher film and pretends to be nothing else, and that’s what makes it a fun ride.” Vegan Voorhees

“Varsity Blood has some good dialogue and some fun scenes, but overall it’s a lazy, unoriginal film. Save yourself the time and watch All Cheerleaders Die instead. Helgren obviously knows his stuff, but is it just enough to be an homage to ’80s slashers without bringing anything new to to the table? Of course not.” Dread Central

“Slashers are an acquired taste, and often the dumber they are, the better, but in the case of Varsity Blood, the film-makers would’ve been better off checking their brains at the door and having fun with it, instead of trying desperately to make it something it clearly isn’t. Embarrassingly earnest, laughably unoriginal, and with not nearly enough tits, gore or, crucially, scares, Varsity Blood isn’t nearly as much fun as it thinks it is.” UK Horror Scene

IMDb

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‘Ted’s beloved cat is dead. In a mad, misguided attempt to bring his deceased pet back, he dresses up as a cat and murders people.’

Cat Sick Blues is a 2014 film production seeking funding via Kickstarter. The film is being directed by Dave Jackson and produced and stars Matthew C. Vaughan, having been co-written by Dave Jackson (Mondo Exploito) and Andrew Gallacher.

Press blurb:

Do you love your pet? Do you REALLY love your pet? Would you slaughter nine people if you thought it might bring your pet back to life? Ted would. Ted does. Ted is a messed up guy.

When Ted’s beloved cat dies, the trauma triggers a terrible mental breakdown. His broken brain prompts him to bring his feline friend back – all he needs is nine human lives. Ted dons vicious deadly cat claw gloves and a creepy cat mask, and goes on a murderous rampage. As the butchery escalates, a twisted romance blossoms between Ted and Claire, a young woman who has also recently lost her cat in a horrifying incident.

Written by horror novelist Andrew Gallacher and director Dave Jackson, Cat Sick Blues is a feature length film that explores the soul-crushing grief we feel when our pets die. It also explores the horrors of the modern world and the daily grind. No, really. It does.

It’s like Maniac with less mannequins and with more vats of blood and exploding dead cats.

It’s like if Bad Boy Bubby was Batman. If Batman was a sex-fiend serial killer and wore a giant, strap-on feline phallic appendage.

It’s like that scene from The Nude Vampire with cult members wearing animals heads filtered through a gore-drenched lens and coated with a dollop of Hisayasu Satô inspired nihilism.

It’s like… well, you get the picture.

It is ridiculous. It is harrowing. It is Cat Sick Blues.

Official website | Facbook

The Pied Piper is a 1972 British film directed by Jacques Demy and starring Jack Wild, Donald Pleasence (Death Line; The Mutations; Halloween) and John Hurt and featuring Donovan and Diana Dors (Nothing But the Night; Craze; Theatre of Blood). It is loosely based on the legend of the Pied Piper. Rather than behaving as you might expect a film aimed at children to, it feasts upon the darker elements of an already concerning fairytale.

A quick reminder of the fairytale: In the Middle Ages, the German village of Hamelin is beset by the plague-carrying rats which are taking over Europe. A famed piper is employed to lead the rats to a watery grave – rats being fond of a good tune. Alas, the local authorities are somewhat forgetful in their commitment to paying the tunesmith and he duly lures the hamlet’s children to the local lake and drowned them. Very few people lived happily ever after.

The 1972 film takes many elements of the original tale but generally speaking manages to reign itself in before causing too much national panic. In 1349, The Black Death is sweeping Germany, courtesy of millions of infected-flea carrying rats. We are introduced to a caravan of travellers, the gypsy Mattio (Keith Buckley, Dr. Phibes Rises Again), his wife Helga (Patsy Puttnam, wife of the now Lord David, who produced the film), along with their children and assorted stragglers. Along their route to Hamelin they meet the cheery Pied Piper (singing wonder elf, Donovan) who they are happy to take on-board. Upon arrival at their destination, he manages to gain entry to the village, along with the other travellers, who are understandably reticent to allow potential disease-carriers into their community, by using his musical talents to sooth the fevered-brow of a young girl Lisa (Cathryn Harrison, Black Moon), the daughter of village Burgermeister (named Poppendick, of course played by Roy Kinnear – his wife, Frau Poppendick, is none other than Diana Dors).

In a head-spinning turn of events, the 11 year-old is betrothed to the power-crazed son (John Hurt) of the local baron (played with typical exuberance by Donald Pleasence) and is only pretending to be ill to get herself out of the dreadful situation. Also mixing things up are a troupe of red-robed religious fiends who have even greater control than the baron or Burgermeister, Lisa’s actual love-interest, Gavin (Jack Wild) and his master, Melius (the always magnificent Michael Hordern, also in Whistle and I’ll Come To You) who is rather more suspicious of events than most others in Hamelin. It is he who warns of the imminent arrival of rats in the village, though his words are initially ignored but then cause rather more upset, landing him in prison for his crazy scientific views, whilst the rest of the populace look to religious antidotes to their fears and fevers. Aside from this, there is rather more emphasis being placed on the financing of a cathedral, in which the happy marriage can take place. However, when the rats eventually arrive in their droves, has The Pied Piper had enough of the religious and under-age outrages to help rid them of their disease-filled rodents?

If your children aren’t either terrified or completely disturbed after that then congratulations. In truth, there isn’t too much in the way of graphic violence, though not all the rats look entirely happy when they’re on-screen. The rank, highly evocative gloominess of the film is largely thanks to the cinematographer, Peter Suschitzky (The Empire Strikes Back and many of David Cronenberg’s films) and the sets and art production by George Djurkovic and Assheton Gorton (Legend, Shadow of the Vampire) and it is this, along with a parade of almost exclusively British acting talent which gives the film its highly unusual tone.

The Pied Piper was directed by Jacques Demy, best remembered for the still popular The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. For a supposedly jolly kids’ film, there’s a massive, barely concealed commentary on the role of religion in society, from the Church versus science dilemma to the treatment of Jews (Hordern’s character) to in-fighting within the local priests themselves. The cast is superb, even Donovan, perhaps mercifully brief in his musical turns as they are featured in the film as necessary interludes rather than slapped onto the soundtrack. It was shot in location in Bavaria, Germany and the dislocation of the British cast again lends an air of unease.

Though The Pied Piper did receive a US release on DVD via the Legend label, it has yet to receive an official release in the UK, as the grimness and downbeat take on a well-loved fairytale are seemingly just still that little bit too strong for British stomachs.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Dementia 13 – aka The Haunted and the Hunted - is a 1963 horror-thriller released by American International Pictures, starring William Campbell, Patrick Magee, and Luana Anders. The film was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Roger Corman. Although Coppola had been involved in at least two nudie films previously, Dementia 13 served as his first mainstream, “legitimate,” directorial effort. The film was released in the fall of 1963 as the supporting feature of a double bill with Corman’s X.

Corman offered Coppola the chance to direct a low-budget horror film in Ireland with funds left over from Corman’s recently completed The Young Racers, on which Coppola had worked as a sound technician. The producer wanted a cheap Psycho copy, complete with gothic atmosphere and brutal killings, and Coppola quickly wrote a screenplay in accordance with Corman’s requirements.

Although he was given total directorial freedom during production, Coppola found himself fighting with Corman after the film was completed. The producer declared the movie unreleasable and demanded several changes be made. Corman eventually brought in another director, Jack Hill, to film additional sequences.

Gary Kurtz, one of Corman’s assistants at the time, recalled, “So we shot this stupid prologue that had nothing to do with the rest of the film. It was some guy who was supposed to be a psychiatrist, sitting in his office and giving the audience a test to see if they were mentally fit to see the picture. The film was actually released with that prologue.” The prologue was directed by Monte Hellman. This William Castle-style gimmick also included a “D-13 Test” handout given to theatre patrons that was ostensibly devised by a “medical expert” to weed out psychologically unfit people from viewing the film. The test consisted of such questions as “The most effective way of settling a dispute is with one quick stroke of an axe to your adversary’s head?” and “Have you ever been hospitalized in a locked mental ward, sanitarium, rest home or other facility for the treatment of mental illness?”, with Yes or No as the only possible answers.

The Roan Group released a laserdisc and DVD of the film, both of which included an audio commentary by Campbell. The DVD also featured the written version of the “D-13 Test” in digital form as an extra. However, the filmed five-minute prologue featuring the test has not been included on any of the numerous available home video versions of the title. On April 26, 2011 the film was released on Blu-ray.

Plot teaser:

One night, while out boating in the middle of a lake, John Haloran and his young wife Louise argue about his rich mother’s will. Louise is upset that everything is currently designated to go to charity in the name of “a mysterious Kathleen.” John tells Louise that if he dies before his mother does, she will be entitled to none of the inheritance. He then promptly drops dead from a massive heart attack. Thinking quickly, the scheming Louise throws the fresh corpse over the side of the boat, where he comes to rest at the bottom of the lake. Her plan is to pretend that he is still alive, in order to ingratiate her way back into the will. She types up a letter to Lady Haloran, inviting herself to the family’s Irish castle while her husband is “away on business”.

Upon arrival, she immediately notices that things are a little strange in the castle. She observes John’s two brothers, Billy and Richard taking part in a bizarre ceremony with their mother as part of a yearly ritualistic tribute to their youngest sister, Kathleen, who died many years before in a freak drowning accident. Lady Haloran still mourns for her, and during this year’s ceremony, she faints dead away. As Louise helps her into the house, her mother-in-law tells her that she fainted because one of the flowers she had thrown had died as it touched Kathleen’s grave…

Reviews:

“Under the stolid direction of Francis Coppola, who also wrote the script, the picture stresses gore rather than atmosphere, and all but buries a fairly workable plot.” The New York Times

“The location (an Irish castle) is used imaginatively, the Gothic atmosphere is suitably potent, and there’s a wonderfully sharp cameo from Patrick Magee…” Tom Raynes, Time Out

“a remarkably confident and proficient thriller. Several of its components hint at the creativity that was still to come from Coppola, and the finished product is a testament to his ingenuity…” John Charles, Video Watchdog

“Coppola… works fast and creative in Dementia 13, making memorable, shocking little sequences out of the killings and the implied haunting, using his locations well and highlighting unexpected eeriness like a transistor radio burbling distorted pop music as it sinks into a lake along with a just-murdered corpse.” Kim Newman

Cast:

• William Campbell as Richard Haloran
• Luana Anders as Louise Haloran
• Patrick Magee as Dr. Justin Caleb
• Bart Patton as Billy Haloran
• Mary Mitchell as Kane
• Eithne Dunne as Lady Haloran
• Peter Read as John Haloran
• Karl Schnazer as Simon, the poacher
• Ron Perry as Arthur
• Derry O’Donovan as Lillian, the maid
• Barbara Dowling as Kathleen Haloran

Locations:

Howth Castle, Dublin

Wikipedia | IMDb

Lemon Tree Passage is a 2013 Australian horror film directed by David Campbell from a screenplay he co-wrote with Erica Brien. It stars Jessica Tovey, Nicholas Gunn, Pippa Black, Tim Phillipps, Andrew Ryan, Tim Pocock, Piera Forde and Dean Kirkright.

Plot teaser:

When a group of young backpackers learn of a ghost said to appear in the rear-view mirror of a speeding car they set out to recreate it with the help of some locals. After speeding down Lemon Tree Passage, a remote road surrounded by dense woods, their jubilation turns to terror as one by one each passenger begins to disappear in a violent fashion. Isolated and ten thousand miles from home, the tourists find themselves caught in the clutches of a malevolent force much more heinous than the local myth they set out to experience.

IMDb

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends is an American animated television series produced by Marvel Productions starring established Marvel Comics characters Spider-Man and Iceman and an original character, Firestar. As a trio called the Spider-Friends, they fought against various villains, including Dracula.

Originally broadcast in the USA on NBC as a Saturday morning cartoon, the series ran first-run original episodes for three seasons, from 1981 to 1983, then aired repeats for an additional two years (from 1984 to 1986).

Plot teaser:

In the episode The Bride of Dracula! – written by Jack Mendelsohn – Firestar is hypnotised by the evil Count and kidnapped back to his castle in Transylvania. Spider-Man and Iceman rapidly give chase and fight off Drac’s minions, a werewolf and a Frankenstein’s monster-type of robot…

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‘The new face of beauty… and fear.’

Mallika is a 2010 Bollywood Hindi Indian supernatural horror film, produced and directed by Wilson Louis. The film was released on 3 September 2010 under the Glorious Entertainment banner. It stars Sameer Dattani and Himanshu Malik.

Plot teaser:

Sanjana is haunted by nightmares and vivid visions of a murder that took place in her house. Unable to take it any longer, Sanjana decides to go for a vacation, hoping that those visions will stop chasing her. She stays at a deserted fort-turned resort in Rajasthan. However, little does she know that things are going to go from bad to worse at the fort, which holds a dark secret…

Review:

“Now we don’t know why the film makers made this film. And we don’t know who they made it for? Is it for the usual horror film buff who has been recently wowed by stuff like Paranormal Activity? Is it for the comedy film buff who has just sampled the delicious satire Peepli Live and laughed his head off in Tere bin Laden? Or is it for the C-grade smut film viewer who anyway will end up grumbling despite the fact that the film has just two kind of scenes alternating with each other: a girl in a bath tub (or under a shower) and a girl in the bedroom. Why? Because the girls mostly resemble zombies and it’s hard to differentiate between the ghost girls and the flesh and blood girls…” Nikhat Kazmi, The Times of India

Cast:

• Sameer Dattani as Saahil
• Himanshu Malik as Vikram
• Rajesh Khera as Chandar
• Suresh Menon as Inspector P K Girpade
• Mamik Singh Special appearance
• Salman Khan Cameo appearance
• Sheena Nayar as Sanjana
• Pooja Ballutia as Maya
• Arjun Mahajan as Maddy
• Farzil Pardiwalla as Bhim Singh
• Anirudh Agarwal as Samri

‘Something is waiting’

The Dark Side of the Moon is a 1990 direct-to-video American science fiction/horror film. It was directed by D. J. Webster from the screenplay by brothers Chad and Carey Hayes. It features Joe Turkel (The Shining).

Plot teaser:

In the near future, a maintenance vehicle is orbiting the Earth on a mission to repair nuclear-armed satellites. Suddenly they experience a mysterious, inexplicable power failure that they cannot account for. As the ship grows increasingly colder, they find that they are drifting toward the dark side of the Moon.

An old NASA shuttle, the Discovery, drifts toward them, despite the fact that NASA has not been operating for 30 years. Two of the crew board the ship and find a dead body. The crew’s own ship records indicate that the shuttle they have happened across disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle many years before. So what is it doing in space? As they attempt to solve this mystery it quickly becomes apparent that a malevolent force had been waiting on the NASA shuttle, and now it begins to stalk the crew one at a time…

Reviews:

” …they are so hellbent on copying Alien that the Devil is presented as a chest-burster type thing, and also can possess folks The Thing style, which keeps the FX work to a minimum. If you’ve ever wanted to see a movie where the devil was represented by random schmoes with filtered voices and contact lenses, this movie’s for you.” Horror Movie a Day

“The movie possesses a thick and very creepy atmosphere, thanks to all the spooky-looking claustrophobic spaceship-settings, all beautifully filmed by Russ T. Alsobrook (“Superbad”). Ok, the spaceship-technology looks highly outdated, doesn’t matter if aimed at the release date 1990, or 2022, the year it takes place. Yet, all the small screens and blinking lights gave me a wonderful retro-feeling, and some of the interiors look so gloriously Alien-like, for a moment you really start to wonder if this takes place on the Nostromo.” Maynard’s Horror Movie Diary

“This is a more-than-serviceable and very eerie outer space horror romp from a time where original ideas and genuinely good movies were hard to come by. However, it’s not one I’ll be finding myself re-watching a lot, so I can’t give it too much praise.” James Oxyer, Obscure Cinema 101

Choice dialogue:

“Time for candlelight and Courvoisier“

Cast:

• Robert Sampson…Flynn Harding
• Will Bledsoe…Giles Stewart
• Joe Turkel…Paxton Warner
• Camilla More…Lesli
• John Diehl…Philip Jennings
• Wendy MacDonald…Alex McInny
• Alan Blumenfeld…Dreyfus Steiner

Wikipedia | IMDb

Crowhaven Farm is a 1970 made-for television film directed by Walter Grauman (Are You in the House Alone?) and starring Hope Lange (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Death Wish), Paul Burke (Valley of the Dolls) and John Carradine (House of Frankenstein, The Monster Club).

Maggie Porter (Hope Lange) and her husband Ben (Paul Burke) inherit a farm in Massachusetts after the mysterious death of Maggie’s uncle (actually not that mysterious, we see him crash into a tree after he is distracted by a character we meet later). As soon as they arrive, Maggie is startled by several instances of deja-vu – the instant discovery of secret rooms within the house and flashbacks to vaguely familiar scenes are almost too much for her. The visions become ever more vivid and involve her been surrounded by a group of costumed locals and having large stones placed upon her. Putting it down to reincarnation (!), she is soon brought up to speed by local neighbour and know-it-all Harold Dane (Cyril Delevanti looking close to death, though he hung on a couple more years to appear in Soylent Green) who explains that though the area was no Salem, it had its witchy goings-on in years past, the guilty females crushed under a wooden panel heaped high with large stones of the kind their house is constructed.

Maggie longs for a child and their search for a foster child only brings one response, Marcy Lewis (Virginia Gregg, The Amazing Mr X) who due to a terminal illness wishes to off-load her own foundling, Jennifer (Cindy Eilbacher, Slumber Party Massacre 2). Despite the couples’ reservations (Jennifer is already ten, opposed to their desired new-born), they are soon won over by her personality. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll note that it was Jennifer who caused poor old uncle’s car to career off the road.

Her arrival coincides with Maggie becoming pregnant but from here, events begin to spiral out of control – the images of her 15th century self are becoming frighteningly real and young Jennifer is not all sweetness and light as they hoped, aided and abetted by their handyman, Nate Cheever (John Carradine doing his best sinister leer). Eventually life and visions combine and the Maggie’s worst fears are realised.

It must first be said that this television film is highly-regarded by many and was responsible for many sleepless nights for watching youths right up until the later screenings in the mid-80’s. Perhaps time has been unkind or this reviewer is missing something but it does come across as needlessly overwrought, made worse by the fact that Maggie’s alarm at the farm is so instantaneous that you do rather lose sympathy with her. The threat in the film is ultimately wrapped up in Jennifer, played admirably by young Eilbacher but a level beneath the angelic Heather O’Rourke in Poltergeist or as truly wicked as Rhonda (Patty McCormack) in The Bad Seed – in truth, there isn’t strictly a place for a part that is anything less than either of these. The truly ancient-looking Delevanti is worth watching just to make sure he gets to the end of his sentences and Carradine is fun, though pitifully under-used. There’s a slight nod to a very under-age relationship between Ben and Jennifer which is mercifully quickly forgotten but the recurrent ‘threat’ of witchcraft just isn’t a substantial enough hook to truly drag you into Maggie’s plight.

Grauman’s direction reflects his career in television but smacks even more of televisual miasma Aaron Spelling’s (Love Boat, Dynasty) production, with every character pausing slightly after their lines, just to ensure the audience ‘gets it’. There’s enough to keep you watching until the end and, without spoiling it, we are at least saved any ‘it was all a dream’ shenanigans. If you have a morbid fear of being slowly squashed by some costumed-loons, there could be food for thought here yet.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Siccin is a 2014 Turkish supernatural horror film written and directed by Alper Mestçi (Musallat; Musallat 2: Lanet). It stars Pınar Çağlar Gençtürk, Koray Şahinbaş, Ebru Kaymakçı, Merve Ateş, Güneş Galava, Toygun Ateş, Aydan Çakır and Asuman Kostak.

Salem is an American historical fantasy horror television series created by Adam Simon and Brannon Braga airing on WGN America beginning April 20, 2014. The series first appeared as part of WGN America‘s development slate in July 2012 under the title Malice.

On May 5, 2014, Salem was renewed for a thirteen episode second season.

Salem is a fictional story of the infamous Salem witch trials, which were not the last, in the 17th century in colonial Massachusetts, when the government was dominated by Puritan leaders. It questions whether the Puritans were right in their actions, whether the people punished were innocent, and centers on the “real witches” who were a part of day-to-day life, but were not who or what they seemed to be.

John (Shane West) and Mary (Janet Montgomery) find themselves in the middle of an epic romance, even as Puritan witch hunts engulf the town in hysteria, horror, and despair.

Historically, Salem Village and Salem Town feuded over property, grazing rights and church rights. The government was dominated by Puritan leaders. People were scrutinized closely and this resulted in obvious discord. They were afraid of being persecuted for anything that may offend the Puritan mindset. The word “witch” seemed an easy and appropriate curse hurled at someone who behaved abnormally.

Reviews:

“The pilot, directed by Richard Shepard, doesn’t do anything too strenuous or vast with its visuals or sense of place, but it ably implies that the woods are best left to the witches and devils, and you might not want to go wandering in. Shepard also sets up enough creepiness with the Mercy character — she’s basically food for devil animals — to hint that the series will continue to make you as uncomfortable as it can afford.”  Tim Goodman, The Hollywood Reporter

“This late-17th-century dive into the Salem, Mass., witch trials paints the Puritans as hypocritical scolds, yet also embraces the notion that there really were witches operating at the time, which makes their capital punishments seem a little less crazed and paranoid — never mind that it runs counter to the rather more dull historical record and lessons learned about the true nature of witch hunts. Mostly, this basic-cable drama plays like a rather flat supernatural soap, despite the lush period trappings.” Brian Lowry, Variety

Cast:

• Janet Montgomery as Mary Sibley, wife of George Sibley and a witch, whose double life of love threatens her position of power in Salem. She once carried John Alden’s baby and still has strong feelings for him.
• Shane West as Captain John Alden, a war veteran and Mary’s lover, who returned home as the voice of reason and defender of innocent victims in the middle of Salem’s witch panic.
• Seth Gabel as Cotton Mather, a well-educated town’s reverend and John Alden’s friend. Changed by the local sex-worker Gloriana whom he was in love with, Cotton stopped Salem’s witch-hunts.
• Tamzin Merchant as Anne Hale, a rebel witch and a talented young artist. Like Cotton Mather, she too is determined to prevent unnecessary deaths.

• Ashley Madekwe as Tituba, the witch who controls Mary. She convinced Mary to give her and John’s baby to the devil.
• Elise Eberle as Mercy Lewis, a girl once tormented by Mary Sibley’s witchcraft. Mary later turned her into a witch.
• Iddo Goldberg as Isaac Walton, the wisest person in Salem. As a punishment for his fornications from his past, he was once charged with cleaning the town’s waste and removing dead bodies.
• Xander Berkeley as Magistrate Hale, a witch and a chief politician in Salem. He was killed by his daughter Anne, who wants to help save the people of Salem from unnecessary deaths.
• Stephen Lang as Increase Mather, reverend, Cotton Mather’s father, and a fanatical witch-hunter. He was killed by his son Cotton, determined to prevent more deaths resulting from witch-hunts.

• Michael Mulheren as George Sibley, the ailing, wealthy head of the Selectmen of Salem, spelled by Tituba and his wife Mary. He marked Isaac Walton as a fornicator.
• Azure Parsons as Gloriana, a prostitute and Cotton’s lover, banished from Salem by his father Increase Mather.

Wikipedia | IMDb | Official site

The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (also known as Monsters of the Night and The Night Crawlers) is a 1966 American science fiction horror film, produced by Jack Broder (and Roger Corman, uncredited), written and directed by Michael A. Hoey, and distributed by Realart Pictures Inc. It stars Mamie Van Doren, Anthony Eisley

Plot teaser:

A group of scientists with Operation Deep Freeze discover frozen prehistoric trees and other specimens in the Antarctic dating back to the first Ice Age; the scientists collect samples for further study and load them aboard a C-47 transport plane.

The dull, workaday life at the Navy weather station base on Gow Island in the South Pacific is interrupted when that same transport plane, on a routine approach for re-fueling, experiences some kind of unusual trouble and crash-lands on the island’s single airstrip, blocking its further use. The seven scientists and crew who were aboard the cargo plane when it left the Antarctic are now missing; the only one found aboard is the plane’s pilot, who is traumatized and in a state of shock, unable to speak.

Unloading the prehistoric cargo from the crashed plane, local scientist Dr. Arthur Beecham recommends planting the trees to ensure their survival in the island’s tropical conditions. Awhile later, Gow Island’s bird population becomes disturbed by something unknown; at the same time, the weather station’s scientists try to figure out a connection between this event and a corrosive residue that starts turning up at various island locations. It slowly becomes clear that the planted prehistoric trees have quickly grown into acid-secreting, carnivorous monsters that move about Gow Island at will during the night…

Reviews:

“It only takes a couple of names to alert you to the quality of this stinkerino – bra-filling blond bombshell, Mamie Van Doren and the face-acting comic foil, Bobby Van (who, for whatever reason, insists on calling everybody “Charlie Brown”). A number of other recognizable, post-50s types also appear, like Billy Gray (Father Knows Best), Taggart Casey (Viva Las Vegas) and Anthony Eisley (on his post-Hawaiian Eye downfall tour).” Willard’s Wormholes

“Those long, meandering, and downright insipid dialogue scenes are perhaps just as much to blame for this film’s failings as the unconvincing monsters – there’s a good twenty to twenty-five minutes of padding where people sit around just talking and talking and talking about what they might do about these terrible night monsters, and sometimes these people are wholly tangential to the rest of the movie (the Admiral and his chronies, for instance, sit around Navy HQ on the mainland blathering about the situation on the island to themselves). There’s also a romantic sub-plot that goes absolutely nowhere.” A Fistful of Cult

“Writer/director Hoey, son of stalwart Brit character man Dennis Hoey, complained bitterly (and publicly) about post-production interference from executive producer Jack Broder, who padded the already talky script with 12 additional minutes in order to achieve the 90-minute feature he’d been contracted to deliver as well as the hokey creature feature title. (Hoey wanted to call it “Nightcrawlers.”) While I respect Broder’s businessman obligations, shorter could have only been better in this case.” Horror 101

Choice dialogue:

“This is ridiculous!”

“That’s the heartbeat of a man in mortal terror.”

Wikipedia | IMDb

Thanks to 1966 My Favorite Year!

‘The weird jungle of cobra plants that feed on women – and rip women apart!’

Voodoo Island is a 1957 horror film directed by Reginald Le Borg and written by Richard H. Landau. The cast includes Boris Karloff, Elisha Cook Jr. (Rosemary’s Baby; The Night Stalker) and Rhodes Reason. The film is set in the South Pacific and was filmed on Kauai, Hawaii back to back with Jungle Heat.

Hotel entrepreneur Howard Carlton (Owen Cunningham) is planning a new hotel/resort on a distant Pacific Island. A survey team that had been sent out earlier disappeared except for Mitchell (Glenn Dixon, Supervixens) who returned in a zombie-like state. In order to make sure nothing suspicious is going on, arch-sceptic Philip Knight (Karloff, Frankenstein, The Mummy), an investigative reporter, is dispatched to investigate. Anything but subtle, Knight takes along a party of five, including the catatonic Mitchell, his assistant Sara Adams (Beverley Tyler), resort manager Martin Schuler (Elisha Cook, Rosemary’s Baby, Messiah of Evil) and various other interested parties. Alas, before the journey begins, Mitchell drops dead, leaving behind only a voodoo effigy as a clue.

Wearing his best baseball cap, Knight and his party arrive at the island, despite the bad omens of a broken ship and their food supplies going off, essentially stranding them on the island. It’s not just a human threat the need to concern themselves with, a carnivorous plant devours one of their group, whilst the rest find themselves captured by fancy dress-clad locals and are further alarmed at the sight of their miniature likenesses, complete with pins in them. Knight is relatively unruffled but when he finds Schuler in a trance (shortly before he wanders carelessly off a bridge), he is forced to admit he believes in what he previously dismissed as hokum but is it too late for the survivors to escape Voodoo Island?

Is this Karloff’s lowest ebb? It must be close, the great actor appearing in an American film for the first time in four years after a brief diversion appearing on television, he’s admittedly given little to work with in terms of an utterly threadbare script but his stoic, clipped delivery is more radio announcer than dismissive explorer and the over-all effect is one of neither hero or villain but insufferable bore. The film itself seems at least a decade out of date in many ways, the pocket-money special effects of the draught excluder killer plant and clearly minute shooting area only tempered by a genuinely courageous attempt to include a gay character in a Hollywood film, the character of Claire (later lunch for for the shrub) played by Jean Engstrom, playing an openly lesbian role.

With hardly any voodoo in the film, indeed there seems to be a good degree of confusion as to what it may consist of, the film is little more than a brief safari, filmed on location but looking far more back garden in scope. The excellently-named Reginald Le Borg also directed The Mummy’s Ghost, whilst writer Richard Landau had no such excuse, having written the screenplays to The Quatermass Xperiment and much-forgotten live-action Disney effort, The Black Hole. Of much more interest is the score by Les Baxter, the master of exotica, in the middle of his Tiki-scapes but at the beginning of his film score career, later to include the likes of The Fall of the House of Usher, The Dunwich Horror and the America cut of Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath. In common with much of this film, it’s not his greatest work and features some particularly annoying theremin to denote someone being cursed.

After being released theatrically by United Artists in 1957, the film was briefly re-titled Silent Death for its 1962 theatrical re-release. Future Batman, Adam West, has an uncredited role. It would be the 1960’s before Karloff’s career really took off again, despite the best efforts of all concerned here.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Les Baxter (March 14, 1922 – January 15, 1996) was an American musician and composer. Although he is best know as a practitioner of exotica music, he also scored several films, many of which were horror.

Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer. At the age of 23 he joined Mel Tormé’s Mel-Tones, singing on Artie Shaw records such as “What Is This Thing Called Love?”.

By 1950 he had moved to Capitol and had progressed to conducting and arrangement, including one of Nat King Cole’s big early hits, “Mona Lisa”. From here, he branched out into his own strange world, firstly scoring a travelogue called, Tanga Tiki and then a series of concept albums: Le Sacre du Sauvage, Festival of the Gnomes, Ports of Pleasure, and Brazil Now. These thickly-layered, atmospheric works featuring bird song, abstract wailing and all manner of jungle and tribal sounds became part of the exotica movement, the archly-kitsch imagined sounds of far-flung lands and would soon inspire similar minds; Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman and Esquivel.

Sadly, much of his work up to this point was over-shadowed by back-biting and malicious rumour. It was alleged on several occasions that Baxter was actually the front for a ghost-writer, the actual composers of several works suspected to be Albert Harris, Pete Rugolo and Nelson Riddle, most famously Frank Sinatra’s band leader. The evidence for this was Baxter’s extremely slow composition and supposed inability to read music, both claims which have since been largely disproved. Regardless, Baxter shrugged off the criticisms and after further, often ‘challenging’ exotica works, cinema beckoned.

Having already composed the familiar’ whistle’ theme for TV’s Lassie, Baxter’s first work of note and a rarity in respect of the reasonable budget, was the Vincent Price-starring, Master of the World. This association with Price and more especially of the Gothic was to become a cornerstone of his career but one sadly that more often than not went uncredited. The speed at which AIP demanded new scores and the lowly resources afforded him and his orchestra meant that he was lucky to receive a credit for his work, luckier still if he was happy with the results of scores his name was attached to.

Baxter scored many of the Poe cycle of films, which have since become critically acclaimed but at the time were seen as fodder by many. Amongst well over a hundred scores he composed there are a handful of particularly interesting ones, unusual in that he was required to re-score a film which already had a soundtrack, for the American market. These included famous Mario Bava works such as Black Sunday (1960), Black Sabbath (1963) and Baron Blood (1972), peplum – Goliath and the Barbarians, and comedies – Beach Party.

In terms of the slew of Italian films he worked on, there is simply no justification for the so-called need for an alternative score. Composers such as accomplished as Stelvio Cipriani (Tragic Ceremony; Tentacles, a theme recycled possibly more than any other in film history, Piranha II), Roberto Nicolosi (Black Sunday) and Angelo Francesco Lavagnino (Castle of the Living Dead; Queens of Evil) were amongst those whose works were presumably considered ‘too exotic’ for the American palate. In fact, it was naturally conservative AIP who insisted that the films were given a new score for the American market. Their explanation, according to the composer Bronislau Kaper (Them!) was that they found Italian scores, “stupid, arrogant, monotonous and tasteless”.

The fun didn’t end there. Samuel Z. Arkoff’s notorious cost-cutting extended to the regular recycling of not only individual cues but entire tracts of music – the score to Samson and the Slave Queen is nearly all taken from Goliath and the Barbarians, not that Baxter got double the money. Similarly, The Premature Burial (1962) features cues heard in some of his previous scores. It is worth noting that although Baxter was one of the most high profile composers to be put in this position, others, such as Herman Stein (Tarantula, This Island Earth) also had their music re-used or went uncredited.

For Mario Bava’s 1960 classic, Black Sunday, so much money was invested by AIP (over $100,000, more than the film’s shooting budget) that they felt obliged to make it their own, despite it coming to them already successful and fully-formed. Ironically, having dispensed with Nicolosi’s subtle, unobtrusive score, they replaced it with something not only extremely similar but something which, if anything, attempted to overshadow Bava’s visuals. At least with 1963’s, Black Sabbath, a distinctly different score took the place of Nicolosi’s work, a somewhat blander, mainstream effort compared to the shifting and free-form original. The extremely distinctive Cipriani score to 1972’s Baron Blood, was given one of the more extreme make-overs and for once actually adds something new, something less intrusive and, well, scarier.

This bizarre practise continued to an even more ludicrous instance for Cry of the Banshee (1970) with AIP insisting on separate scores for both the British and US versions of the film. There are several explanations for this, however daft; firstly, Baxter had by this stage become part of the furniture at AIP and could apparently do no wrong; secondly, the original composer, Wilfred Josephs, was known only for his work in television, not the familiar big-hitter the Americans demanded; finally, the cuts to the US version were so sweeping that the film made little sense with only minute cues remaining. Regardless, it is one of Baxter’s most revered works, though the original is fun for its faux-Elizabethan sound.

After the mid-70’s, work began to dry up on both sides of the Atlantic as Italy’s industry concentrated on home-grown scores and America entered the realms of enormous blockbusters. There was still opportunity there (some work on Frogs in 1972, the score to The Beast Within, a decade later) but both exotica and his film themes had had their time (though he did compose themes for Sea World, amongst other tourist attractions) and it would be after his death that Baxter began to be reappraised in a much more positive light.

Selected filmography:

Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business, 1953 – 1968 is an academic  book written by Kevin Hefferman and published by Duke University Press in 2004.

In the first economic history of the horror film, Hefferman analyses how the production, distribution and exhibition of horror movies changed as the studio era gave way to the conglomeration of New Hollywood. He argues that major cultural and economic shifts in the production and reception of horror films began at the time of the 3-D cycle of 1953-54 – looking closely at House of Wax and Creature from the Black Lagoon – and ended with the 1968 adoption of the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system and the subsequent development of the adult horror movie – epitomised by Rosemary’s Baby.

Hefferman describes how this period presented a number of daunting challenges for movie exhibitors: the highcosts of technological upgrade, competition with television, declining movie attendance, and a diminishing number of annual releases from the major movie studios. He explains that the production and distribution branches of the movie industry responded to these trends by cultivating a youth audience, co-producing features with the film industries of Europe and Asia, selling films to television, and intensifying representations of sex.

The book includes analyses of Hammer Films and The Curse of Frankenstein; Hypnotic horror; William Castle’s movies; Vincent Price’s rise to horror stardom; AIP; Astor Pictures and Peeping Tom; TV syndication of horror movies (with listings of all the packages); Bava’s Black Sabbath; Continental distributing and the success of independents such as Night of the Living Dead.

Buy from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“While acknowledging the importance of the insights into the genre provided by such theorists as Robin Wood, Carol Clover, and Thomas Doherty, Heffernan identifies a neglected area in their analyses of the genre’s evolution: how the economic imperatives of an industry shape its final product. As a result, Ghouls becomes a multi-disciplinary text, one that cultural theorists, business historians and horror enthusiasts alike will find both useful and entertaining.” Louise Sheedy, Senses of Cinema

“Historians of the medium will appreciate Heffernan’s detailed scrutiny of the economic and cultural influences at work on the industry, which he intersperses with lively descriptions and critiques of both notable and obscure horror films of the era.” Andrew J. Douglas, Business History Review

“The use of color and gore, first seen in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), was similarly designed to increase profits through exaggerated and stylized responses to conventions completely familiar to hard-boiled movie audiences. As Heffernan notes, audiences found their worlds becoming and tougher and tougher, and it was important for any film to be even tougher in order to elicit the desired reaction.” John F. Barber, Leonardo Online

Local God – original title Dios local – is a 2014 horror film from Uruguay directed by Gustavo Hernández (The Silent House) from a screenplay by Santiago González. It stars Mariana Olivera, Gabriela Freire, and Agustín Urrutia

Plot teaser:

After a sequence of tragic events, a rock band composed of twenty-year-olds immerse themselves in writing a three-track concept album that deals largely with their guilt, fears and traumas. Each song has the distinctive quality of including the most heart-wrenching incidents lived by the band members, who wish to cope with their darkest moments through their music.

The band decides to withdraw to a far-away grotto to record the videos that will accompany their record. Once there, they unwisely trespass into an abandoned gold mine where they discover an idol made of stone. It is an ancient diabolical representation used by the Spanish conquistadors to frighten, subdue and enslave the natives under the rule of their local god. Having unleashed the spirit of the mine, the three youngsters will be unwillingly submerged in a dark and familiar realm: the world created in their record…

IMDb | Official site

Monsters: Dark Continent – formerly known as Monsters 2: The Dark Continent – is a 2014 American science fiction horror film directed by Tom Green from a screenplay by Jay Basu. It stars Johnny Harris, Sam Keeley, Joe Dempsie, Sam Keeley, Kyle Soller, Nicholas Pinnock, Uriel Emil, Parker Sawyers. 

The Vertigo Films/Ingenious Film Partners/Between the Eyes production is due to be released on November 28, 2014.

Plot teaser:

Seven years on from the events of Monsters, and the ‘Infected Zones’ have spread worldwide. Humans have been knocked off the top of the food chain, with disparate communities struggling for survival. American soldiers are being sent abroad to protect US interests from the Monsters, but the war is far from being won.

Noah, a haunted soldier with several tours under his belt, is sent on a mission: an American soldier has gone rogue deep in the Infected Zone, and Noah must reach him and take him out. But when Noah’s unit and transport are destroyed, he finds himself with only a young and inexperienced cadet for company – the brother of the man Noah has been sent to kill.

The two soldiers must go on a life-altering journey through the dark heart of monster territory, accompanied by a young local woman to guide them. By the time the three of them reach their goal, they will have been forced to confront the fear that the true monsters on the planet may not be alien after all…

IMDb

WH

The Refrigerator is a 1991 American comedy horror film starring Julia McNeal, Dave Simonds and Angel Caban. It was written and directed by Nicholas Jacobs.

Plot teaser:

A couple drive drunkenly across the streets of New York to their squalid apartment. They get home and have brief sex in the kitchen. When the wife walks into the kitchen, the refrigerator opens up and sucks the girl in.

Steve and Eileen Batemen are a young couple in Ohio. They are moving to Avenue D in New York, and move into the same apartment with the killer refrigerator. Steve takes a new job, while Eileen is trying to become a performer. Eileen pretends to be awarding an award while in the apartment, then walks all over Broadway.

When Steve and Eileen go to sleep, they start having nightmares about the refrigerator, Steve is seeing mini people inside the refrigerator (supposed victims). Eileen has a nightmare that she is seeing unborn babies.

Steve is soon driven to insanity by the refrigerator, leaving Eileen to cope with her and her acting career on her own. A plumber named Juan comes to the apartment one night, warning Eileen her refrigerator is from hell and the devil controls it…

New York in 1991. A poor person’s hell and a yuppie dream…

Reviews:

“The Refrigerator works best, surprisingly, as straight-up horror mixed with comedy, and not the other way around. Much of it is played for laughs, certainly, but the refrigerator is an authentically menacing, even eerie presence throughout, and the special effects are quite impressive considering the low budget.” Adam Groves, The Fright Site

” …the fridge scenes and the kills are all pretty fun, it has some wonderfully atmospheric shots and the dialogue is often super-hilarious (“I am the waffle maker!”).” Maynard’s Horror Movie Diary

“While the basic premise of The Refrigerator – take a couple of dream yuppies and plop them into a world of madness and horror – is satirical and wry, the final results aren’t very satisfying. The main failure of the film is that none of the separate entities work on their own – the funny scenes generally aren’t funny and the scary parts, while original in idea, aren’t scary, only overly gory.” TV Guide

Choice dialogue:

“The appliance’s may be old but they have a lot of character”.

Wikipedia | IMDb