Creature Features revisited – Ghosts and Angry Spirits

Creature Features revisited

A look back at the golden age of sci-fi and horror, the 1950‘s/60‘s. Our subject today…

Ghosts and Angry Spirits

The Screaming Skull (1958)
The Haunting (1963)
House on Haunted Hill (1959)
13 Ghosts (1960)

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The Screaming Skull (1958)

The film starts with a dire warning from the film studio. Taking a page from William Castle they offer to pay for funeral expenses to anyone who dies of heart failure do to fright from watching the film, The Screaming Skull. Then music starts, a familiar composition to horror fans, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique which can more recently be heard in the intro to The Shining. It sets a somber tone and mood for the film. A recently married couple move into the estate mansion that the husband shared with his first wife. She had died unexpectedly a few years ago. But the shadow of the fist wife looms as the new wife hears screams in the middle of the night and is haunted by the vision of a skull. The film gets off to a slow start and the pacing doesn’t improve much until the last 20 minutes. The film tries to provide thrills, but never rises to a level above nostalgic. I imagine in the 1950s the image of a skull might be shocking, the skull image had not yet permeated the culture and was still viewed as a bad omen. Needless to say, after watching the film my wife had no reason to put in a claim for my funerary expenses.

 

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The Haunting (1963)

This film begins with a narrative describing the decades of tragedy that has befallen the Hill House. A professor investigating the paranormal invites several people to stay a week at the home. This includes Eleanor, a woman who has lived a sheltered, closed-in life and welcomes a reason to leave her old life behind, even if it’s just for a week. The rest of the film we can hear Eleanor’s thoughts as she talks herself through creepy incidents happening throughout the house. This is the film that provides ghostly chills by never actually showing a visual ghost or spirit. There’s loud banging on the walls, twisting of doorknobs, and wails, screams, and groans, all unnerving to Eleanor and the other guests at Hill House. Many of these simple techniques are used to great success in modern films, The Conjuring and Insidious. The acting in this film is top notch providing a degree of respect to the genre at the time. Despite the slow start and older style, this is still one of my favorite haunted house movies and a textbook example of building psychological suspense in horror.

 

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House on Haunted Hill (1959)

The film starts with narration explaining the party thrown by millionaire, Frederick Loren. Although it is a no-no by today’s standards, this offers an hospitable charm, as if you’re being invited into the fold of knowledge, and welcomed into the house. It doesn’t take long for the action to begin as doors slam by themselves, and a swinging chandelier crashes to the ground. Frederick and his wife, Annabelle, speak to each other with cordial contempt. One or both will be dead before morning’s light. The film contains one of the creepiest old ladies you will ever see in film. The story is interesting and fast paced and if you like old films this can easily hold your attention today with the many plot twists and wonderful performances. It’s a pleasure to watch Vincent Price in anything he does. In classic William Castle style, there’s a scene where a full skeleton rushes the screen. At the time of the films theatrical run, theater’s were rigged with a full sized skeleton prop on wires that would continue the journey from the screen, right into the theater and zoom overhead down the center aisle. The screams this must’ve caused in theater houses in 1959!

 

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13 Ghosts (1960)

The marvelous intro, a count off of ghostly images representing the spirits we will see in the film, is a real attention grabber. But that’s not all William Castle has in store. How would you like a film that you can’t see the ghosts unless you put on the special ghost detecting glasses. Now, not only can you see them clearly, but they are in 3D. The Zorba family inherits a home from their distant uncle. The uncle has been known to dabble in the occult and is rumored to have even collected ghosts. The family confirms this early in their stay when a few questions on an Ouja board ends with the spirits attempting to harm the children. Margaret Hamilton plays a grumpy house maid. The children refer to her as ‘the witch’ (with a secret eye wink to the audience.) It’s a very active haunted house film and I imagine the effects were quite creepy at the time of its release. It’s nostalgia to watch today but a decent story makes it enjoyable. stars, Charles Herbert, Jo Morrow, Rosemary DeCamp, Martin Milner, Donald Woods. 

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The Screaming Skull

The Haunting

House on Haunted Hill

13 Ghosts

The Beast Must Die (1974) – Amicus Films – movie review

The Beast Must Die (1974) – Amicus Films – movie review

Directed by Paul Annett.
Screenplay by Michael Winder
Based on the short story “There Shall Be No Darkness” by James Blish

Calvin Lockhart, Peter Cushing, Marlene Clark, Michael Gambon, Charles Gray, Anton Diffring, Ciaran Madden, Tom Chadbon

This had quite a different feel for an Amicus film. The film is part who-dun-it mystery, part action-film and seems far removed from Modern Gothic influence. It also has a simple gimmick that makes it worthy of a William Castle film. This is a werewolf film, but unlike any werewolf film you have seen.

First, I absolutely love the main theme for this film. It’s a sharp hard hitting funk tune driven by a percussive guitar bed and a bold horn section delivering the melody. It is music you’d expect to find in early 70’s films like, Superfly and Shaft, but here it is, in a modern werewolf flick.

A wealthy investor, Tom Newcliffe, invites a handful of guests to his home for a long weekend. Each guest has hidden secrets and a shady past that entails a trail of death left behind them. The weekend corresponds to a full moon, a harvest moon, that will be present for three days. Tom informs his guests that one of them is a werewolf, that none can leave the estate, and that by the end of the visit, they will know the identity of the creature. Fences are electrified, vehicles are disabled and the whereabouts of the guests are monitored by a state-of-the-art surveillance system. Tom is an avid hunter, made apparent by the mounted trophy heads upon the walls, and he will hunt down this devilish miscreant.

In the very beginning of the film you are asked to watch the clues and see if you can guess which guest is the werewolf. Several attempts at murder are made upon Tom, deepening the mystery. Each character has their own eccentricities which arouse suspicion, but one by one, they begin to die.

As the tension mounts and the hunt progresses to a climax, the film suddenly stops. The narrator says you have 30 seconds to guess, who is the werewolf? A clock comes on the screen, ticking off the seconds as the film shows stills of each house guest. Place your guess. When the film restarts, all is revealed.

The film is less than perfect; day-for-night shots just look like daytime, Cushing’s Norwegian accent is less than perfect, and a few of the characters are not explored enough. It is clear that the werewolf is a dog, perhaps a black German Shepherd. However, the gimmick makes it a flick worth seeing, even just for film culture historical reasons. It’s a novelty, but it adds an element of fun to an otherwise average film by today’s standards.

Check out more Amicus film reviews at my master page: Amicus Overview

(note: don’t know why all the trailers have an orange tint. My dvd movie is sharp with naturally vivid colors)

Sci Fi Boys – Documentary (2006) – movie review

Sci Fi Boys – Documentary (2006)

This documentary is as much a tribute to Forrest J. Ackerman and Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine, as it is to Sci-fi films. You may be surprised to learn that it was Ackerman who coined the term “Sci-Fi.” It is a fitting tribute because Forry, along with good friends, Harryhausen, George Pal, and Ray Bradbury helped shape and push the genre of Sci-fi into the hearts and minds of young film fans who would later become the top directors, FX artists, and filmmakers in the world.

The film starts out with past footage of Forry making a speech. He says, “I am speaking to you from the year 1970…” a very ‘sci-fi sounding’ choice of words. He goes on to explain a bit of what makes sci-fi what it is. During the course of the documentary we hear from Peter Jackson, John Landis, Frank Darabont, Stephen Sommers, Harryhausen, Bradbury, Stan Winston, Rick Baker, Phil Tippet, and Dennis Muren amongst many others, talk about their Sci-Fi roots which often point to Famous Monsters magazine and the original 1933 movie King Kong. Bob Burns and Don Glut talk of their favorite Sci-Fi films and eras. Roger Corman speaks of William Castle and the wonderful sales pitch he would deliver for each of his films. Bob Burns talks about the creations of Paul Blaisdell in the 50’s sci-fi films and how Paul and his wife would assemble monsters on a shoe-string budget from items in his garage. There is a segment devoted to Harryhausen’s inaugural ‘Star’ on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, only yards from Grumman’s Theater, where, as a boy, he had seen the film that set the direction of his life, King Kong.

There is also a segment which features the amateur 8mm and Super 8mm films of Don Glut, Steve Johnson, Bob Burns and Fred Barton, as well as others, from their early years as boys looking to emulate their favorite sci-fi feature. The film shows the early Harryhausen projects as well, test footage for films that have never been made. There are some great photos of George Pal standing on the set of War of the Worlds, and clips of Forry’s eulogy at Pal’s funeral.
 
Roger Corman                                                Metropolis

Near the end Steven Spielberg talks about the change over to CGI and the possibilities that change has unleashed. Dennis Muren from ILS talks of the early computer technology that started with the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, and how it influenced the making of Star Wars.  Sci Fi boys was put together by Paul Davids and he did an astounding job at presenting an interesting, and perfectly paced documentary. The dvd/blu-ray cover features artwork by Basil Gogas. The dvd itself includes bonus extras that are well worth the purchase for die hard fans.

This is a fantastic documentary and I would highly recommend it for every sci-fi, horror, and monster movie fan.

For more info, look here: Sci Fi Boys

Currently available on Netflix.

 

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related articles:
The Aurora Monsters – documentary
Creature Features – Giant Robots
Creature Features – The ‘It’ Movies
My Top 10 Robots in Film 
Creature Features
Ray Harryhausen Tribute
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