Classic Horror: The Best of the Invisible Man

The Invisible Man is an honored member of the Universal Pictures' pantheon of Terror Titans, even if only three of the five films featuring the concept/character were actual horror films, and only two of those were any good.

In this post, I offer reviews of the two true horror entries in the original Invisible Man film cycle. If you want to read reviews of the other two worthwhile entries in the series, click here to read my review of Invisible Agent (where the grandson of the original Invisible Man takes on the Nazis) and click here to read my review of "The Invisible Woman" (a comedy about a model turned invisible through the miracle of mad science).



The Invisible Man (1933)
Starring: Claude Rains, William Harrigan, Una O'Connor, Gloria Stuart, Forrester Harvey and Henry Travers
Director: James Whale
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Chemist Frank Griffin (Rains) develops a formula that turned him invisible. He goes on a homicidal rampage in rural Britain after it also drives him insane.


"The Invisible Man" is another true classic from the formative years of the horror genre. It's quite possibly the first horror comedy and it's black humor holds up nicely even today--arrogant scientists, simple country bumpkins and incompetent cops never go out of style!

The film's special effects also hold up surprisingly well, with simple techniques employed here that were used over and over until CGI came fully into its own but rarely used as well as they were here. (Yes, there are a few places where one can see the matting, but the "invisible action" here is depicted better than it is in many films made with much more sophisticated special effects technology.)

And finally, the film has a literate, finely honed script with loads of tension that effectively translates the mood of H.G. Wells' original novel to the screen. The characters seem well-rounded and believable, and this, even more than the special effects, make the movie such a pleasure to watch even now. The film even manages to capture the point about loss of identity resulting in loss of connection with the world around you and ultimately insanity (even if the movie attributes Griffin's madness first and foremost to the chemical concoction he's created.)

Lovers of classy horror and sci-fi films owe it to themselves to check this one out. The same is true if you have an appreciation for dark comedies.


The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
Starring: Vincent Price, Cedric Hardwicke, Nan Grey, Cecil Kellaway, John Sutton and Alan Napier
Director: Joe May
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A wrongly convicted man (Price) uses an invisibility serum to escape execution and find the murderer who framed him. But, even with the help of his loving fiance (Grey) and his loyal best friend (Sutton), can he track the killer before he is driven mad by the substance that renders him invisible?


"The Return of the Invisible Man" is a well-conceived sequel. It's got significant ties to the original, retains some of the same basic themes, but presents a completely different and unique story. Too often, sequels either shoehorn connections to the film into the story in an artificial manner or have so little to do with the original that one wonders why a connection was even drawn (well, aside from naked greedy attempts to ride on the coat-tails of another film's success).

A well-scripted mystery is added to the invisible man shenanigans... and although it's a bit slow in getting started, it is a gripping tale once it gets going. The mystery isn't terribly hard to solve for those who like playing along--there really is only one suspect and the film never launches any serious attempt to divert the audience's attention from that villain. However, plenty of suspense arises from watching the invisible man start to lose his mind even as he identifies his prey.

The great cast of the film is also to be credited with its success. Most noteworthy among the actors are Vincent Price lends his distinctive voice to the film's unseen protagonist, and Cecil Kellaway who appears in a rare dramatic role as the inscrutable Inspector Sampson of Scotland Yard.

The only complaint I have with the film are the invisibility effects. Whether due to a lack of budget or creativity on the part of the director and special effects crew, there is nothing here as impressive as the cinematic tricks used to sell the presence of an invisible character on screen as was found in the original "Invisible Man" nor in the "Invisible Woman", a comedy dating from the same year yet featuring far more impressive effects. (Nothing in "The Invisible Man Returns" comes close to the bicycle stunt in "The Invisible Man" or the stockings scene in "The Invisible Woman".)

However, the solid story and excellent cast make up for the shortcomings in the special effects department.

'Lady Frankenstein' mixes monster-making with sexual perversion

Lady Frankenstein (aka "Daughter of Frankenstein") (1972)
Starring: Sara Bey, Joseph Cotten, Paul Muller, Mickey Hargitay, and Paul Whiteman
Directors: Mel Welles and Aureliano Luppi
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Tania Frankenstein (Bey) proves psychopathy is an inherited trait when she continues and perfects her dead father's work in reanimation and monster-making... by creating her perfect mate and sex-toy, using the body of a hunky handyman, and the brain of her father's former assistant (Muller).

"Lady Frankenstein" is a fast-paced--once it gets started... it opens rather slow--decidedly sleazy twist on the typical Frankenstein film. Monsters are created, monsters run amok, and torch-wielding villagers burn the castle down, but the twist here is that Frankenstein (played with class above this movie's station by Joseph Cotton) dies at the end of the first act, leaving his twisted daughter in charge of the murder and mayhem. Boy, does she rise to the challenge.

This film is most remarkable for the most disturbing sex scene I've seen so far on film with Tania Frankenstein having an orgasm as her lover is being murdered under her. Twisted stuff, but in perfect keeping with the overall tone of the film. It is also remarkable for having just about the lamest-looking monster of any featured in a Frankenstein film. (Yes, even lamer than the non-monster in "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter"... what we have here looks like the Toxic Avenger's retarded country cousin.)

Decently acted, and featuring better music, camera work, and sets than many films of this kind, "Lady Frankenstein" might be worth a look if my comments above haven't warned you off.

'Re-Animator' is a gory trip into movie madness

Re-Animator (1985)
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale and Robert Sampson
Director: Stuart Gordon
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Dan's new roommate and fellow third-year med student, Herbert West (Combs) draws him into his bizarre (and successful) experiments with re-animating dead bodies.

"Re-Animator" is one of the craziest movies ever made, and it ranks up there with "Dead Alive" as one of the funniest creepy movies ever made. While it is nowhere near as gory as "Dead Alive" and the slapstick isn't quite as sharp, it features a cleverer script and a superior cast.

Jeffrey Combs is particularly excellent as Herbert West. We get the sense that he's a bit weird early in the film and highly strung; Combs performance puts the viewer in mind of Peter Cushing's Victor Frankenstein in the first couple of Hammer Frankenstein films... coldblooded, arrogant and probably sociopathic but not necessarily completely bonkers. When West calmly a bone saw through the chest of a zombie and then immediately sets about reanimating its recently deceased victim, it's clear not just from his actions but from Combs performance that he more than a little off. And when he later animates the severed head of an obnoxious rival (likewise brilliantly played by David Gale), it's clear that he is completely unhinged.

Speaking of the severed head, it gives rise to some of the most unnerving moments in the film, as well some of the funniest. I don't want to go into too much details, because I'd ruin the shock value. Suffice to say, it's something that needs to be seen.

Credit also needs to be go to Bruce Abbott and Barbara Crampton. While Combs and Gale are giving performances that seem like they just teleported in from a Hammer Films set in 1960, they play their characters mostly low-key. This, combined with the fact that their characters are nice and normal people, give the audience someone to identify with as the film unfolds and provide an island of calm in the middle of the evermore turbulent sea of madness that is this movie.


"Re-Animator" elevates Herbert West among the great movie mad doctors, even if, according to the very informative interview included on the Achor Bay edition of the film, he was actually a minor character in the script and through most of the filming. It wasn't until "Re-Animator" was crafted into a releasable movie that the emphasis shifted to Herbert. (Comments in the interviews on the DVD even make me wonder if the filmmakers knew they were making a comedy until late in the process....)

Whether intentional or accidental art, this is one of those movies that gets everything right, from the mood-setting prologue, through its score (which spoofs Bernard Hermann's famous music for "Psycho") to its chilling end. It's also feels as fresh as when it first released in 1985. This is one of those very rare horror movies that actually deserves the label "classic."

If you are inclined to add this film to your personal library, make sure you get the limited edition "unrated" version from Anchor Bay. The cut presented there may be shorter than the R-rated version, but the humor and shocks are more outrageous than its tamer and slightly bloated counterpart. The disc full of extras is also something that you'll find extremely interesting if you have any interest at all in the filmmaking process. (The same is true of the commentary tracks.)

'Kill Them and Eat Them': Low-budget horror with a classic feel

Kill Them and Eat Them (2005)
Starring: Sandy MacDonald, Richard Archer, Francoise Snobel, Lloyd Cameron, Hugh Gibson, and Wil van der Zyl
Director: Conall Pendergast
Steve's Rating: Four of Ten Stars

When a geneticist nicknamed "Dr. Gore" (MacDonald) goes renegade, two incompetent corporate security agents (Gibson and van der Zyl) track him down to stop his mad experiments. Unfortunately, Dr. Gore and his psychopathic assistant (Archer) have been turning homeless people into bizarre, flesh-eating mutants. Will our hapless heroes be able to save the day, or will they be the next test subjects for Dr. Gore?


"Kill Them and Eat Them" is a unique film that offers an interesting viewing experience. And when I say "unique" and "Interesting", I mean it in both good and bad ways.

On the one one hand, it is painfully amateurish, filmed with what must have been Camcorders and probably funded with whatever spare change the cast and crew could find between couch cushions in their homes. The acting is inconsistent by everyone who appears--each actor has a few decent scenes, but they are negated by ones where they are awful beyond description--and the story seems to unfold in a random and haphazard fashion. While some creativity went into designing the creatures, the extreme lack of funding for this film is also evident in them. When this movie is at its weakest, it is very, very bad. Strange, but bad.

On the other hand, there's a sort of wild, creative energy that runs through this whole production the likes of which I've rarely come across outside a few low-budget films from the 1930s and 1940s. When the actors are at their best, the lines they speak and their delivery of them reminds me of those old horror flicks as well. There's also a intentional sense of the absurd about the whole movie, and, to top it off, the climax is a monster slapfest the likes of which hasn't been seen since the Spanish horror flicks of the 1970s. During its high points, the film comes across like a homage to the old fashioned mad scientist movies.


The classical low-budget horror flick air about "Kill Them and Eat Them", plus the fact it's pretty funny (intentionally so) at times, went a long way to helping me forgive its many of its flaws.

(Flaws I can't forgive are the scenes with bad sound, and those that seem to be in the film for no reason other than to pad the run-time. I really wish low-budget filmmakers would stop thinking the microphone on the Camcorder is good enough when it comes to making a movie... and for crap's sake, filmmakers, if you think your movie is running short, WRITE SOME MORE SCENES. Don't pad it with shots of actors wandering through the woods, or repetitive and/or unnecessary establishing shots.)

While I would hardly describe this as a good movie, I don't regret spending time watching it. I think that Conall Pendergast shows a talent for screen-writing that many of this contemporaries do not. I think that if some more time and effort had gone into polishing the script, and if Pendergast had been a little more realistic in the sort of film he could make with the resources at his disposal (the monsters really did require a bit more money to look good... and the same can be said for the lab of the mad scientists, although Pendergast had a funny in-movie reference that took care of that, even if it came a bit too late) I think he might be able to turn out a funny movie. If he sticks with the script-writing, he might be pretty good some day.

'Fungicide': Great intentionally bad movie

Fungicide (2005)
Starring: Dave Bonavita, Wes Miller, Dave Wascavage, Mary Wascavage, and David Weldon
Director: Dave Wascavage
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When Silas Purcell (Weldon), a dorky mad scientist who still lives in his parents' basement, takes his latest project with him on vacation, the audience-expected accident happens, and soon the residents at a budget bed-and-breakfast place are fighting for their lives against a hoard of giant killer mushrooms!


It's not often that a movie described as "so bad its good" actually is so bad it's good, but that is the case with "Fungicide". It's an absolutely horrrible movie that looks like it was shot with a camcorder over a weekend, is performed by amateur actors (who, literally, are the director's family and friends, as well as the director himself), and features "manshrooms" and killer mushroom puppets that are only exceeded in their laughable-ness by the computer graphics effects.

However, the badness, coupled with the unadulturated glee displayed by the cast as they fight badly drawn CGI mushrooms and guys in dressed up in badly done mushroom costumes that shoot silly string at them as a defense, make this a movie that I watched with increasing glee and ausement myself.

Wascavage and his actors brought an energy to this film that is all-too-rarely seen in low-budget pictures. None of the actors had that lethargic quality that is so common among those who are working in front of a camera for the first time, and, while they had plenty of the "Look... I'm ACTING!" quality that is equally common in performers at this level, it is something that complemeented and enhanced the awful special effects and cheezy monster costumes. Wascavage and Friends clearly understood they weren't making the next big monster movie, and they are clearly having fun making the best movie within their reach, and making it intentionally goofy as they go.

The comedy, intentional goofiness, and the sense that the actors and director KNOW they are making a bad movie all combine to give the film its infectious enegy. It also helps that the script has some hilarious moments in it (the dream sequence with Silas spending a happy life with this killer mushroom "children" is truly one of the funniest bits I've seen in a amateurish production like this, ever. The handpuppet mushroom is so goofy that it in-and-of-itself is one of the niftiest and craziest things about this film.

And, to top it off, as silly as this movie is, the final showdown with the killer mushrooms actually managed to be a little scary, partly because I found that I had some invested in the very silly characters that are the films heroes--a reality TV star Major Wang (Miller), a retired pro-wrestler who is secretly suffering from a deadly yet potentially tragi-comic malady (Bonavita), an obnoxious realtor (Dave Wascavage), and the happy hippy who runs the B&B (Mary Wascavage)--and partly because David Weldon does such a fabulous job as Silas the Mad Scientist.

Murder and mayhem and malfunctioning zombies...oh my!

Death Warmed Up (1985)
Starring: Michael Hurst, Margaret Umbers, William Upjohn, Gary Day, and Norelle Scott
Director: David Blyth
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Evil Dr. Howell (Day) brainwashes young Michael (Hurst) to murder his parents, because they annoy him. Michael then spends several years in a mental institution, while Howell goes onto turning most of the residents of a small island into brain-surgically altered zombies that are controlled by sound waves (or, at the very least, beeper signals)... that is, when they're not malfunctioning and going on violent murder and rape sprees. Michael is eventually released from the loonie bin, and brings three friends to Howell's island, hoping to gain revenge. Mayhem, motorcycle chases in underground tunnels, zombie rampages, and the violent deaths of innocent friends ensue.



This movie makes absolutely no sense. I've had dreams that were more coherent than "Death Warmed Up".

In this movie, we have a mad doctor doing experiments on a massive scale, yet there's no indication where his funding is coming from, or why the authorities haven't taken notice. He's got an army of zombies with some sort of brain implants that malfunction every now and then... sometimes the malfunctioning zombies are killed, sometimes they're put in a storage locker (where disgruntled employees can release them when the plot calls for it). We've got zombies driving motorcycles in the tunnels near the mad doctor's sprawling facility, because that is a GREAT way to keep out intruders, I imagine.

And then we have our heroes. I'm not even going to start attempting to explain their actions (and lack thereof). I will wonder, though, why, if Michael came to the island in search of Dr. Howell, why did he drag three friends (two of them wholly ignorant about Michael's past) along... and why does he spend time romping on the beach with them?

The film is watchable if you approach it like a really stupid logic puzzle... or if you're throwing a Bad Movie Party and looking for something to round out the lineup. Otherwise, you're better off ignoring "Death Warmed Up."

Man in two minds because of mad science

The Man With the Screaming Brain (2005)
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Vladimir Kolev, Tamara Gorsky, Stacey Keach, Ted Raimi, and Antoinette Byron
Director: Bruce Cambell
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

After Ugly American industrialist William Cole (Campbell) and his Bulgarian gangster driver (Kolev) are murdered by a sexy-but-psychopathic Gypsy woman (Gorsky), Cole is resurrected by Russian mad scientist Ivan Ivanovich (Keach) as a proof-of-concept for his revolutionary brain surgery technique. Unfortunately, Ivanovich's methods involve transplanting parts of brains into other brains, so Cole now has to contend with sharing his mind and body with a gangster. One thing they can both agree upon: They want revenge on the Gypsy who murdered them.


"The Man With the Screaming Brain" is part homage, part hilarious spoof of the "mad science" B-movies of the '50s and '60s. We've got greed, lust, mad science, brain transplants, a killer robot, more stereotypes and oddball plot-twists than you can count, and a truly bizarre tale of a failing marriage revitalized by tragedy and twists of fate. Oh, and we have Bruce Campbell speeding through a Bulgarian city on a pink Vespa!

While I think the storyline is a bit shakey--it's actually overburdened by a few too many gags and B-movie plot mainstays tossed in for the movie's own good--it holds together well enough and it should be great fun for fans of Bruce Campbell and the cheesy sort of sci-fi/horror movies it's spoofing. (Fans of contempary cultural reference comedy will be greatly amused by Ted Raimi's "Pavel" character... an up-and-coming mad scientist with a love of hip-hop who utters the line, 'Sounds like there is some shizzle going on down there my nizzle.')

'Demon Under Glass' is an undeservedlyobscure vampire thriller

Demon Under Glass (2002)
Starring: Jason Carter, Garrett Maggart, Jack Donner, and Ray Proscia
Director: Jon Cunningham
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A team of government doctors are charged with studying a captured vampire (Carter), but, slowly, the amorality of the project and the evil of the subject starts to erode the ethics of the physicians and the line between healers and monsters becomes increasingly blurred.


Finding a gem like "Demon Under Glass" is what makes wading through the huge heaps of crap that make up the direct-to-video/DVD releases. With very little violence and lots and lots of talking, this is one of the best and creepiest vampire movies I've seen. The more I think about it, the better it gets.

With a cast made up actors whose credits seem to be mostly character roles on television (you'll recognize just about every lead actor, but you probably won't know where from), who are working with a great script featuring a captivating story that unfolds at a slow, steady, exactly dead-on pace, this is a great horror film that I highly recommend to fans of the genre. Even more remarkable, the film manages to deal intelligently with some weighty moral and philosophical issues admidst the vampire and mad doctor antics, but it does so without turning the film into a boring lecture.

The only complaint I have is that a couple of the character names are a bit cutesy, such as the vampire's surname being "Molinar" and the head of the military security detail being named "Captain Stuebings". These do not subtract that much from the film, though.

Track down a copy of "Demon Under Glass"; I came across it in the "Bite Night" 12-movie collection, but I'm sure it can be found elsewhere or as a rental. I'm sure you won't regret it, because this is a film that will stay with you awhile.

Good idea, lousy execution in 'Castle of Evil'

Castle of Evil (1966)
Starring: Scott Brady, Virginia Mayo, David Brian, Lisa Gaye and William Thourlby
Director: Francis D. Lyon
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A mad scientist (Thourlby) invites his relatives to his remote estate where his robot double proceeds to stalk and kill them in order to avenge a disfiguring accident he suffered years before.


I don't usually give away story twists in my teaser summaries, but in the case of "Castle of Evil", it doesn't matter. Despite the rating of 4, I don't recommend that you waste your time with this movie.

Which is too bad, because the script for this film is actually pretty good. It's a great retro-fusion of the "dark old house" and "mad scientist" film genres that flourished in the 1930s and 1940s, and the featured actors all give respectable performances in their various parts.

Unfortunately, the writer and cast are let down by an incompetent director. The staging of every scene is flat and lifeless, no opportunity for padding is left untapped--except for the ending that is inexplicably sudden and abrupt--and all the bad choices sap every bit of life from the film, driving even the most friendly-minded viewer into a stupour of boredom.

I love the "mad scientist" and "dark old house" movies--as the countless reviews of films in those genres here attest to--and I really wanted to like "Castle of Evil". But, it's just too incompently done. That is a terrible shame, because there's an excellent script that went to waste here.

(THIS is the kind of movie that Hollywood big shots sould be remaking, not "Karate Kid" and other movies that were already good. They should show themselves to be REAL artists and filmmakers who, if they are so devoid of creativity that they can't make original films, should at the very least take misfires and give them second chances. Hey, this one is even long out-of-print, so there's another reason to remake it: Audiences can't get easily get the original version if they're so inclined.)

Double Feature: Tales of the Astro Zombies

Ted V. Mikels is one of those filmmakers who is spoken of in the most glowing of terms by creatives and B-movie fans alike. However, from what little exposure I've had to his work, I think he might be to those enthusiasts as Charles Band and Full Moon is to me: You either like his movies or your don't.

In the case of Mikels, I think I may be in the "don't" category. I've only seen two, but I was led to believe that "The Astro-Zombies" was among his best. Maybe I was misled--it could be a fellow reviewer was playing a cruel prank on me!--but my reaction was that if "The Astro-Zombies" is Mikels' best, then I don't get the appeal.

This is the first of two Ted Mikels Double Feature posts I'll be making--I have his "Grinder" movies sitting in my 'To Be Reviewed' stack, and I'll get to them some day. If you have an opinion on his work in general, or these two movies in particular, I'd love to hear it.


The Astro-Zombies (1968)
Starring: John Carradine, Tura Satana, Joan Patrick, Wendell Corey and Tom Pace
Director: Ted V. Mikels
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A disgraced NASA researcher (Carradine) trying to create the perfect astronaut using dead bodies, hi-tech, and radio waves uses the brain of a homicidal maniac for one of this creations... and it runs amok. A sinister Mexican spy ring gets wind of his creation and dispatch sultry psycho Satana (Satana) to secure it for their use as a super-soldier. Meanwhile, the Astro-Zombie is stalking the beautiful nurse that was the last person he saw while alive (Patrick).

"The Astro-Zombies" is one of those flicks that mix all sorts of genres into a wild B-movie stew. In this sense, it's a In this film, we get horror, we get action, we get spy vs. spy intrigue, we get blood and guts... we get everything but excitement.

Despite all the plots and subplots and characters crammed into this film, it is still very, very boring. If it had clocked in at a crisp 60 minutes, it might not have been so bad, but an additional 20 minutes are added to the running time through padding. We overlong and pointless scenes of Carradine's mad scientist puttering around his lab uttering techno-babble, we have long and pointless scenes of characters driving about, and we have lonmg stretches of badly delivered expository dialogue that's only slightly more boring than watching Carradine puttering around the lab set.

Aside from the padded, we can add that the film is universally badly acted--except perhaps the performances from John Carradine and Joan Patrick, but the characters they play are so archetypal and flat that all they're doing is delivering their lines competently--weakly directed, and full of illogical plot conveniences without which the story would fall apart.

There are a few moments in the film that let us see what might have been if it had been more competently mounted--such as the climactic confrontation between mad doctor, evil secret agent Mexican bitch and Chad Squarejaw of the FBI--but they are too few to save the movie from a very low 4 rating.



Mark of the Astro-Zombies (2002)
Starring: Sean Morelli, Robert Southerland, Tura Satana, Brinke Stevens, and Shanti
Director: Ted V. Mikels
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Evil aliens unleash machete-wielding Astro-Zombies upon unsuspecting shoppers at mini-malls as a prelude to their plan to invade Earth (I think). While the greatest scientific minds of the United States try to figure out where these murderers are coming from, an opportunistic psychopath (Satana) sets about conning intelligence agencies from around the world that she commands the unstoppable killers and that they can be theirs for the right price.

"Mark of the Astro-Zombies" is a kinda-sorta sequel to the 1968 "cult classic" from the same writer/director, although the connections make absolutely no sense. (Why do the alien Astro-Zombies look like the ones created by an Earthling in the first movie? Why did it take the twin sister of the evil Mexican femme fatale super agent in the first movie 35 years to mount her revenge? And just how and why did they keep John Carradine's head alive for all that time?)

The film further suffers from two major problems. First, it feels like director Ted V. Mikels took the approach "we shot the scene, so we gotta use it!", which leads to a number of redundant and repetative dialogue exchanges, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with the main thrust of the story and just serve to bore and annoy viewers. Second, it's script is so atrociously bad both in story organization and in dialogue that I sincerely hope it was ad-libbed from a loose outline and that said outline morphed as filming took place. The only thing that works in the script is the comedy... oh, wait. The comedy here is almost entirely unintention. NOTHING works in the script!

There are a few ideas here that made me give the film a very generous rating of 3. The notion of an uscrupulous and well-connected member of the intelligence community attempting to take advantage of a global crisis to con corrupt regimes like Iran, North Korea, China and Venezula out of piles of money is pretty cool. It's completely botched here due to a non-existent budget (if international spies can be fooled into thinking a guy in a Halloween mask is an industructable super-soldier, then it's not at all surprising that Saddam Hussein fooled them all into thinking he had nukes and chemical weapons) and sloppy writing.

Despite liking some of the ideas in the film, there is really nothing here to recommend it. The behind-the-scenes footage included on the DVD make it look like everyone had a good time making the movie--and I get that sense from watching the film unfold as well--but the end product is simply not worth the time you'll waste watching it.





Ted V. Mikels is about to start production on his second Astro Zombies sequel, "Astro Zombies M3: Cloned". He will be casting and interviewing potential crew on 1/19/2010, and cameras are slated to roll on 1/31/2010. You can read more about the project and watch a teaser trailer at his official website by clicking here. (You can also see pictures of Mikels and his cool moustache there.)

Hammer's excellent take on classic horror tale

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)
Starring: Paul Massie, Dawn Addams, Christopher Lee and David Kossoff
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Dr. Henry Jekyll (Massie) creates a method that draws out his darker side... actually transforming himself into another person, body and soul. While his hope was to fully understand all facets of a human being and thus learn about the "higher man", he instead discovers his wife (Addams) is cheating on him with his best friend (Lee). The new Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde (also Massie) concocts a plan to set things right.


"The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll" is an excellent adaptation of the classic Stevenson novel. It throws in some unexpected twists, it highlights the dichotomy of Victiorian England's social attitudes and ideals, and it moves swiftly while still leaving enough time and space for character development.

The revenge scheme that Hyde comes up with and inacts, in addition to its aftermath is both suitably melodramatic for the nature of this period piece and so appallingly shocking that it will unnerve all but the most jaded modern viewers. I can barely imagine the shock and surprise of British audiences in 1960!

With Terence Fisher in the director's chair, it should be of no surprise that the film is beautifully photographed and full of lush sets. Fisher is also once again working with a great cast... and Paul Massie is due special praise for doing such an excellent job in playing both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; when Hyde first appeared, it took me a few moments to realize that the two characters were played by the same actor.

After being unavailable for purchase or rent for many years, this high point of Hammer Films' output is finally available in the "Icons of Horror: Hammer Films" collection. It's one of four undeservedly obscure horror movies included in the set (the others being the brilliant Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee vehicle "The Gorgon"; the psychological thriller "Scream of Fear"; and the mummy-tale-with-a-twist "The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb") and it's a set that any lover of classic horror films would be delighted to own.

Almost 50 years after it first premiered, "The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll" still has the power to chill the audience. It's well worth a look, and it's release on DVD was long overdue.

If you're interested in reading the original tale, click here to visit the Classic Fiction Archive.

Carl Kolchak and things that stalk the night

Here are two fine made-for-TV-movies that are nearly 40 years old and still scarier than many big-screen horror movies that are released today. Their stories and the main character are timeless, meaning they are also as fresh today as they were back in the early 1970s.

The Night Stalker (1971)
Starring: Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland and Carol Lynley
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey
Steve's Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When a bizarre series of murders hit Las Vegas, down-and-out crimebeat report Carl Kolchak (McGavin) thinks he might have found his ticket back to the Big Time newspaper business. As he pursues leads, however, he becomes increasingly convinced that the murderer is a vampire. Met with disbelief and scoffing from his editors and a desire to cover up the murders from Las Vegas police officials, Carl goes from crusading reporter to crusading vampire hunter.


"The Night Stalker" is an excellent movie, easily equal to many big-budget theatrical releases despite its humble television origins. The dialogue is snappy, the script and characters are all believable and well-crafted, and the mix of humor and suspense is perfectly balanced throughout.

McGavin gives a fabulous performance as Kolchak, going from a wise-cracking beat reporter (coming across almost as having been transported from the 1930s to the 1970s, yet never seeming out of place) with no goal other than to rehabilite his career, to a man who is willing to risk everything to stop a monster that no one but he seems willing to take on. The supporting cast is also universally excellent, as is the camera work. The only complaint I have is the score. It is downright annoying in its innapropriateness at times.



The Night Strangler
Starring: Darren McGavin, Jo Ann Pflug, Simon Oakland and John Carradine
Director: Dan Curtis
Steve's Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

This is another excellent adventure in humor and supernatural suspense, so well-crafted that you'd never imagine that it was originally a TV movie.

Darren McGavin gives another excellent preformance as Kolchak, who, after losing everything but his life as a result of the events in "The Night Stalker", has drifted westward to Seattle. He gets himself hired on with the city's top paper after promising to not make waves... but when he starts covering another series of violent crimes, a disturbing pattern emerges: Every 21 years since the mid-1800s, there have been a series of identical strangulation murders and what few eye witnesses there were have described the same killer. Kolchak again finds himself in the awful position of uncovering a truth that no-one wants to face or deal with. Once again, he is the only one able and willing to take action and stop the deaths.


"The Night Strangler" is one of those rare sequels that is actually better than the original. The dialogue and wit is sharper, McGavin's performace of Kolchac is even better than before, and the suspense in the story gives way to downright scary on several occasions.

(Trivia: Dan Curtis and Richard Matheson had planned a third "Night Stalker" film, in which Kolchak discovers the vampire he faced in "The Night Stalker" wasn't dead. The film never happened, but in its place was the "Night Stalker" televison series, one episode of which incorporated the story idea that would have been the movie.)

It's all downhill after a strong start for 'The Mad Monster'

The Mad Monster (1942)
Starring: George Zucco, Johnny Downs, Glenn Strange and Anne Nagel
Director: Sam Newfield
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

After being mocked by his collegues and pilloried in the press for his outlandish theories, Dr. Lorenzo Cameron (Zucco) retreats to an isolated estate to continue his experiments. Unfortunately, Cameron's theories--that if he injects a serum created from wolf's blood into a human, that human will turn into a violent wolfman--were workable, and he he uses them to turn his simple-minded gardener (Strange) into a tool of revenge against those who destroyed his career.


"The Mad Monster" has one of the strongest openings of the many old-time mad scientist movies that I've seen. The complete and utter madness of Cameron is established effectively as he discusses his scientific discoveries in an increasingly heated fashion with four men who appear and dissapear from chairs around the table he is at. It's a scene that's well-written, well-staged, and well-acted.

Unfortunately, everything that follows is badly written, poorly staged (with the exception of where the wolfman kidnaps and kills a little girl (!)), and over-acted--even George Zucco who often hammed it up in films like, this is so far over the top that one can't help but groan at the performance. (Only Anne Nagel, who plays Cameron's daughter, doesn't embarrass herself... but that might be due to the fact that she her role really doesn't require much in the way of acting from her.)

The final blow to this movie is the wolfman make-up, as the creature looks more like a beatnik or a hippie than a menacing monster. Rediculous is too mild a term to describe what it looks like.

While "The Mad Monster" is worth seeing by fans of the "mad scientist on a rampage" horror subgenre for its opening scene, there really isn't enough here to make it worth seeking out on its own. However, it's included in a number of those low-cost DVD multi-packs, and if there are other movies in a set that interest you, then this makes for a nice bonus.

Despite title, this movie is not a Godsend

Godsend (2004)

Starring: Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Robert De Niro, and Cameron Bright

Director: Nick Hamm

Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A couple (Kinnear and Romijn-Stamos) agree to have their dead son cloned by a enigmatic doctor (De Niro) with inscrutable motives. Eventually, they discover that something is horribly wrong with their second first child...

"Godsend" attempts at being a science fiction film and a thriller and it fails miserably at both. It's based on science so nonsensical that even the most openminded and willing to suspend disbelief viewer will be rolling their eyes, and the plot only gets worse when you toss in the spiritual/reincarnation/cosmic destiny component. Worse, the story is the worse kind of stupid, because there are far, far easier and more sensible ways for the story's bad guy to achieve his goals. (The rationale for the lame complications in the story might be "he's crazy", but that's the sort of cop-out that no remotely professional writer should ever have to fall back on. It's the only one that seems to apply here, however.)

Greg Kinnear gives one of the most over-the-top, hammish performances in the history of cinema, Cameron Bright is his usual Creepy Kid character, and Robert De Niro seems to just be there to collect a quick paycheck. Romijn-Stamos is okay, but she was better in "Lies and Alibies", which isn't saying much.

If you want to see a thriller that includes a cloning angle and a modern-day spin on the whole "tampering with things Man Was Not Mean to Know" spin to it, you're better off seeking out a copy of the 1976 sci-fi thriller "Embryo" with Rock Hudson. It's a superior movie on every level (and one I just realized I still have never written a review for. I'll have to rectify that in short order).






Trivia: Robert Di Niro was originally slated to play little more than a cameo, but once production started, it was decided to expand his character's role in the story. Maybe what we have here is the result of first draft efforts making their way into a final product.