When it comes to trashy black and white films from the 60s, thanks to The Addams Family and The Muensters, as well as Dr. Shock, Ghoulardi and all the other local TV monster movie hosts across the land, America had developed a national obsession with goofy monsters, along with muscle cars, and hey-hey rock-and-roll. Here are two films that dig into that realm with enough intelligence to know they must play things absolutely straight, to dare even to be touching at times. These are dynamite drinking movies that I first fell in love with watching them round the clock back to back on an old VHS 6-hour tape dupe I made, so I can vouch for their sea legs. Thanks to Prime and progress, you won't have to endure the streaks. Today I may need to be sober as far as booze goes, but these two films still make me drunk on delirious horror shivers, with absurdity and genuine tragedy eyeing each other across a wild dance floor.
THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE
(1961) Dir. Joseph Green
***1/2 / Amazon Image - B-
Occuring in some strange twilight realm of tawdry nightclubs and louche stares, Brain features two great performances -- notably Virginia Leith as the severed head of the evil doctor's fiancee, rasping her threats and pleas from inside a TV tray full of blood; and Adele Lamont as an initially wary streetwise photography model (back when guys would pay money to take their own snapshots, a kind of DIY smut meets amateur photography class - a practice that seems largely to have deservedly disappeared) whose body Evers figures would be.... just right... for his beloved fiancee. Meanwhile, Leith bonds with the thing in the closet, forming a unique friendship in the monster annals ("I've got to see your hideousness and you've got to see mine!" and "I am just a head... and you are whatever you are... but together we're strong!") A whole other avenue of tragedy opens up when he finds a girl (Adele Lamont, in the other great performance) with a scar on her face who considers herself marred, though it's barely noticeable and she has a slammin' body which she uses to pose for dirty old men shutterbugs. Her disgust with men ("I don't date men") is palpable and deserved; she really conveys what it must be like to endure endless come-ons and harassment as a young hot single broad with a slammin' body. That's what makes it all the more tragic when she falls for Evers line about fixing her face (she remembers him from an earlier visit to the hospital after the initial tragedy). She trusts him and winds up roofied back at his house. She was so smart up to a point, not to trust any man, that we really feel for her as the POV camera shows Evers walking expressionlessly towards her as her vision blurs to blankness. Knowing now about Cosby et al, it's horrifying to think how often this same blurred vision and feeling of mounting helplessness and fear goes on and on in real life.
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| Adele Lamont dares to fall for Herb Evers' bullshit |
Unfortunately the Prime print isn't ideal, as someone figured it would be fancier in widescreen so merely lobbed the bottom and top of the frame off (so we don't see Virginia Leith's head tray half the time; the image is cut off at her chin. I can't remember if that's how it normally is). Still, having this so handy, just a click away at all times, ensures nothing bad can ever happen to you again. That is, provided you don't let smoov dudes leave your note for your roommate so she'll know where to find (such a no-no!), or to let him mix drinks out of sight from you, or bring you to strange houses in the middle of the night after just meeting you. And if you wind up a head without a body, see if there's any other monsters nearby! the previous victims of madmen are your allies, no matter their hideousness or yours! Just like a certain #-movement -- I am only a string of words and you are whatever you are, but together you're strong!
SPIDER BABY
(1968 - really 1964) Dir. Jack Hill
**** / Prime Image - C
One of those perennial Halloween gems at the Kuersten house, or anytime really. Jack Hill's scrappy gem it's somewhere between Lolita, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Addams Family and... well, I guess in its way it's a total original yet feels so familiar... It's got Lon Chaney at his best, both macabre and a little sad; his teary little moment with the kids before he gets the idea to bring home some dynamite is justifiably regarded as one of his most moving moments, a capstone sign-off (he died shortly after) akin to Bela's "Home... I have no home" speech in Bride of the Monster. It's got the late, lamented Sid Haig as Ralph, and it's got letter perfect Jill Banner and Beverly Washburn as murderous Lolita-style moppets, one of whom is really into something called "the spider game," which you won't want to play, but kind of do. Think it can't be anymore perfect? Try adding Mantan Moreland as a nervous telegram delivery guy, Carol Ohmart as a scheming relative sensing a fortune buried in a revocable trust somewhere; and even the 'normal' couple are pretty cool, "Are you a horror fan, Ann?" says Uncle Bill with a clear post-tavern buzz on. Dam right she is. (see: A League of Wednesdays)
The Prime print isn't the greatest. If you're a fan, Ann, it's worth getting the Arrow Blu-ray. If like me you loved this film to death even as a crappy dupe, the new version, scored from the negative finally, is like a dream come true. This edition isn't the HD remaster, but is still highly effective.
If you want to go really crazy, chase it with Mesa of Lost Women, and Plan Nine from Outer Space and if you're still awake after that, Cat Women of the Moon. They are all on Prime. If you want to go off Prime, find The Boogieman will Get You, a personal deranged favorite. You don't need any of these other films... but seriously.
My favorite bad movie, perhaps surpassing even Plan Nine and Cat Women of the Moon in my undying esteem. It's the tale of a scientist who somehow winds up a basket case after escaping Dr. Aranya's lab high up on a mesa in New Mexico's Muerto Desert. Jackie Coogan is Dr. Aranya, and he's found a way to accelerate spider DNA to make hot Mexican women and small men from black widow spiders. There are also giant spiders amidst the horrors. Coogan is a long way from Uncle Fester and thankfully so underplays it becomes almost surreal. The star of the show of course is Harmond Stevens as Dr. Leland J. Masterson, who Michael Weldon famously describes as doing a weird Elmer Fudd impression. That's just the half of it. Watch him when other people are talking -- he holds these frozen super-creepy smiles that are worth three stars all by themselves. He escapes (offscreen) his 'nurse' at a local mental hospital and somehow acquires a gun along the way . When he spots one of the spider women he remembers from the mesa, he shoots her right in the middle of her "tarantella" while drinking at the local cantina. Soon he's hijacking the private plane of a rich honeymooning May-December couple, along with his concerned nurse (George Robert Monster Barrows). For those of us who drink, there's a real kinship and emphasis on how a bottle of whiskey stashed in the cockpit helps warm the cockles after the plane crashlands on the mesa. Over a long and scary night the survivors are menaced by all giant spiders and shady looking shadows, and well, I can't possibly do it justice. Nor can I even begin to stop praising the shattered flamenco and off-key barroom piano hammering of the repetitive score. You'll either love it or hate it, but if you love it you can't get enough of it. See it again and see if it doesn't get better in its worseness.
Prime directive: See the upload with the black "Film Detective" border; the "Wade Williams" cover upload has a slight jump. That said, it's worth getting the Wade Williams DVD of Mesa if you're a true blue fan, though the ideal version has yet to be struck. The night scenes are still hard to see once they're away from the fire.
(see: So Close to Heaven)