Friday, January 23, 2009

HOUSE OF THE DAMNED - Henry Vars - "13 Keys" (1963)

"You're Damned Right It Is!!"

The music for "House Of The Damned" was composed by the brilliant Henry Vars towards the end of his amazing career that started way back in 1930 Poland, and ended with his death in 1977! Methinks he did a damned fine job!!

Last time we saw Richard(Rocky Jones)Crane he was turning into an alligator!!

Now how could this be a bad movie with the multi-faceted talents of Ron Foster, Merry Anders, and Richard Crane as the main principals?

I think Ron and Merry make for a pretty cool couple, and they work together nicely!! The pair are architects and they were celebrating their anniversary when Richard called and wanted them to check out this old 'castle' on the California coastline! Right about here's where the niceties stop, and the movie starts getting pretty creepy!

First we have the appearance of John Gilmore, the legless man, and the spooky factor gets turned up a notch real quick! Pretty dang eerie!!

One year after his masterful performance as "Eegah!" Richard Kiel lends his mighty talents to the scary in this flick as original character, "The Giant!"

Erika Peters as Richard Crane's wife Loy gets the bejesus scared out of her by the big guy!!

Frieda Pushnik, the legless woman, watches all the action from behind a hidden screen, it's really starting to get good now!!

The owner of the house isn't open to any questions as to what is going on around there, because she's already about 18 yards south of reality, and would make a loon look like a Rhodes' scholar!!

Then Ron decides to take on The Giant one on one, and it looks like this movie is really starting to cook, and then......

What?? There's no monster?? Huh? It's just a bunch of harmless, misunderstood, sideshow freaks?? No!!! NO!!!!

So you get this whole big sad story from Ayllene Gibbons as the Fat Woman, about everything that happened to them, and instead of scary, you feel sorry for them! Too bad, because I really kind of liked this movie til the end!

Can we just hear one big collective sigh? Aaaahhhh!!

1 comment:

Greg Goodsell said...

The sad thing is that obesity is so common now that the fat lady in this film wouldn't warrant a second glance on the street today!

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??