THE BABY / Quintet Productions - 1973

It's WTF!! Friday, here at The Dungeon!.. Here's a little gem from 1973 that's a twisted piece of shit (literally) and everyone in the movie is totally freakin' insane. Not my favorite flick, gives flicks a bad name, got this copy off TCM Underground.

Eegah!! sent over a swinging sound clip from the Baby's Birthday Party for our approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over by our electrified baby crib, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's a little taste of... THE BABY!

Blogger screwed up some of my photos again so I deleted them...

The story's basically about a social worker, Ann, who is sent to investigate the Wadsworth family, they seem fairly normal at first, there's the mother, two grown daughters and a diaper wearing baby. There's a problem though, the baby is twenty-one years old!!

Here are just two reason I find this flick so disgusting, a friend comes over, she sneaks into Baby's room so that she can change his diaper and ends up breast feeding him!!! She's caught by the mom and daughters and pays a dear price for her actions.

One of the daughters loves to taunt and tease her baby bro!

Happy Birthday, Baby!! You can count the candles to verify his age!

Then, at the party (as heard in the sound clip), there's this pot smoking pervert who tries to put the make on Ann, so, she puts him in his place!

After being drugged and beat up by mom and the girls, Ann escapes from the basement and kidnaps Baby. She takes him to her house where she lives with her mom! This flick is all about extreme motherly instincts as far as I can tell!

Ann sends a letter and photo to let mom know that she took Baby and he's safe with her.

Mom and daughters go to Ann's house (return address on the envelope) to get their kid but it's a set up! One daughter down, one to go...

Okay,, two daughters down and mom to go!

We find out that Ann's mom is nothing more that an overprotective, knife toting killer!

After burying mom and the daughters in the back yard, Ann introduces Baby to his new brother, who is non other than Ann's husband, victim of a brain injury!!

We're back tomorrow with more fun from The Dungeon Gang!..

KOROLEVSTVO KRIVYKH ZERKAL - "Kingdom Of Crooked Mirrors" (1963)

 Greg Goodsell here – sorry I’ve been gone so long, but I’ve been bogged down with this thing called life. Anyway, here we go down the rabbit hole for the exquisite Russian fantasy film KINGDOM OF THE CROOKED MIRRORS.

 There have been a lot of Russian fairy tales made into movies, but this one should be especially accessible to western audiences as it’s short, funny and constantly amazing! Dig in! 

And so it begins -- these rotten Russian kids are poking their heads through a lattice showing a film intended for adults only when our heroine Olya (Olga Yukina) remembers she's running late and she needs to make it to Grandma's house!

Switzerland had 500 years of peace and Democracy and WHAT DID IT GET THEM? The cuckoo clock!

Here is Olya, our Soviet heroine, all precious in pigtails, before she mounts her most surrealistic adventure!

Her sweet Russian grandma-ma tells her she needs to be a bit more conscious of her actions and to keep up appearances! Kind of interesting to find such capitalistic sentiments in a Russian kiddie film!

All this blue and red gel lighting -- it appears that some Mario Bava movies made it past the Iron Curtain!

Like her British counterpart Alice, our plucky heroine ventures into what lies behind the mirror! Love the Caligari-esque frame this is in!

BANG! She meets her identical twin (Aylo – Olya spelled backwards because she’s in the mirror, right?) within the land of the mirror! No worries! They become fast playmates and go on a rollicking adventure! Aylo is played by Olga’s real-life twin sister, Tatyana Yuina!

This is just the beginning of all the surrealistic eye candy as the twins descend a staircase and the titular Kingdom unfolds on them in this fashion!

Beautiful matte painting I just HAD to share!

Yes -- it's THE KINGDOM OF THE CROOKED MIRRORS! Beautiful shot!

The fun has just begun as we are introduced to the Kingdom's colorful -- and very pompous and arrogant citizens!

Alejandro Jodorowsky's latest film, THE DANCE OF REALITY, has quite a few characters that look like they could have stepped out of this movie.

I'll bet you a sawbuck that these wicked stepsisters are men in drag!

So many wonderful matte paintings! I'm going to use up my pictorial allotment but I JUST DON'T CARE!

Here we meet poor put upon "Dneirf," which is Friend" backward -- we're in a mirror world, remember? And the plucky twins set out to free him from enslavement, setting the story in place!

Boorish capitalists make Dneirf earn his wage!

The decadent party-goers all have a distinct Eighties "vibe" to them, with their poofed up hair -- but this is 1963! I guess Russian filmmakers were prescient!

Girls just want to have fun!

Well – KINGDOM OF THE CROOKED MIRRORS is so wonderful, grumpy ol’ Eegah said I could do this in two parts in order to share all the wonky visuals found herein! So tune in on Saturday for more Soviet surrealism as we conclude – THE KINGDOM OF CROOKED MIRRORS!

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - 1945

It's time for a classic forties horror flick that was filmed in black and white with special color segments used for shock value. It had a hefty budget of $3,500,000 and was filmed at the MGM studios in Culver City, released a few months before the end of WWII. The story begins in London in 1886...

Eegah!! sent over a sound clip from this movie for our earjoyment, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there by our portrait gallery, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Here's a taste of... THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY!

Man, that song in the sound clip is like claws on a chalkboard for me, youch-a-roonie!!

Hurd Hatfield is Dorian Gray, he also played the Prince of the Lionians in TARZAN AND THE SLAVE GIRL and was in the LIGHTS OUT episode of "The Masque of the Red Death" in 1951. Notice his youthful face with not a wrinkle to be found!

In a color segment we see Dorian's beautiful portrait, he wishes that the figure in the portrait would grow old instead of him and he gets his wish because of an ancient Egyptian statue that's in the room!

He goes to a side show at the Two Turtles in a poor part of the neighborhood where he gets to see this weird puppet show that features the woman showing her ware!

Then, he sees Sibyl Vane doing her song for the drunk crowd, as heard in the sound clip. He invites her to his place, she falls in love with him but he ultimately rejects her and she commits suicide. Sybil is played by the great Angela Lansbury.

Here's a nice shot of youngsters Donna Reed and Peter Lawford.

The portrait is changing in weird ways, not only is it aging, it also seems to be taking on the sins of its vain owner!

Dorian kills the artist that did the portrait because he thinks he's the one making changing on the painting!.. Paranoid much?!

Then, the painting changes again and gets even more gruesome with signs of the artist's murder. The paintings were done by the English painter, Basil Hallward.

Dorian doesn't fit in with the rest of the people where he lives and is considered to be a weirdo or worse! They want to know why he doesn't seem to age after 20 years.

Dorian is trying to change his ways and notices the painting changes for the better when he is kind to people. So, he decides that destroying the portrait will get rid of the evil and he plunges his knife into it!

He unknowingly stabs the knife into the heart, causing the painting to revert back to its original form, a handsome young man! Did it work?..

I don't think so!!.. Nice horror makeup job by Jack Dawn.

Virus Man is here on Wednesday with more delirious, delightful Dungeon mayhem!! Later, dudes and dudettes.