Friday, January 30, 2009

THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES - James Bernard - "Zombies!" (1966)

I've had this thing about the word 'of' in titles lately, and tonight's a perfect example, because you see it's like you have the plague, but just having the plague isn't bad enough, you need to have something more serious like "The Plague Of The Zombies"!!

SOUNDCLIP NOT AVAILABLE

You can pretty much add the word 'zombie' to any title and it's gonna spice it up some, and that I guarantee!!!

It's like the turn of the century in England, and you can have wild voodoo rituals going on down in your basement, and nobody is the wiser! I'd say just seeing this one guy would be a dead giveaway!

This is the unlikely hero of this film, Sir James Forbes as portrayed by André Morell! What a fantastic character, muttering and mumbling along, but a complete genius!!

Even when she's sick, Jacqueline Pearce looks good as Alice Mary Tompson in this role!

When's the last time you saw the guys washing the dishes??

Alice is plagued by bad dreams!!!

Seems like all those bad dreams were not so unfounded after all, as Alice gets treated quited badly by this ugly zombie!!!

"Plague Of The Zombies" is one creepy lookin' film, but once again, they really blow it in the end by coming up with the lame concept of having the zombies working for the bad guys in the Tin mines! It's just stupid!!

Lucky for us and all involved, the whole joint burns to Hell in the end!! The music if I can get it to work, because something's totally screwy with box.net (So much for upgrades!!) was composed by James Bernard who we've written about here before for his contributions to the genre not only on a hoarde of Hammer films, but also "X-The Unknown", "The Creeping Unknown" and "Quatermass 2!"

Thursday, January 29, 2009

SPIDER BABY / Lasky-Monka - 1968 / Music by Ronald Stein

Tabonga give SPIDER BABY second play here at The Dungeon, first time we only do title song sung by Lon...

Great stills!..

Dungeon dude Ronald Stein provide creepy music tonight. Search Dungeon archives for lots more of Ron wif' title like INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN, ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW, JOURNEY TO THE 7th PLANET, DEMENTIA 13, THE EYE CREATURES, ZONTAR: THE THING FROM VENUS, etc, etc!!

ONE MAD-ASS STORY!

Mantan Moreland start things off by going to the Merrye house.

Mantan really goof up and stick head in window to see who home. Well, Spider Baby home!.. And she gots some big sharp knives!!

Ear salad popular at Merrye house.

Bruno come home from going to town...

He find thing like this!..

Then, Spider Baby' relative come to take over show from Bruno.

Okay, now time for dinner... Mmmm, look so yummy!

Best part of flick is when Carol Ohmart do little show in her room. Carol was Miss Utah 1946!!

Dude caught looking for stuff in basement... Oops!

So, lots crazy happenings before gimmick end.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE - Malcolm Arnold - "It's All About Lena" (1953)

Wow! What a day, but, that's enough about me, here's what you're really here for! To me, tonight's feature "Four Sided Triangle" is the first Hammer Sci-Fi production! It was released two months earlier than "Spaceways", and this film has really got some Sci-Fi elements, and although it's not in space, duplicating humans is a pretty far-out concept to me! I liked this movie, although they sure could have dirtied it up some!! Director for both movies Terence Fisher, and producer Michael Carreras were pretty busy guys back in the day, that's for sure!!

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It's a real simple story! Lena, Robin and Bill are all best friends growing up together. Both the boys are quite fond of Lena!!

The boys grow up to be scientists, and one day Dr. Harvey, played by James Hayter brings Lena to their lab. The boys have been working on a machine that can duplicate anything and Lena decides to join the research team!

Okay, can you see where this is going?? That's Bill on the left played by Stephen Murray, and Robin on the right played by John Van Eyssen!

Robin and Lena end up getting married, but Bill still loves her too!

So after spending a lot of time in the lab by himself, Bill manages to duplicate a live creature, a bunny rabbit, and decides that he should be able to make a copy of Lena for himself!!

Lena and Dr. Harvey help him, and the whole experiment goes quite well, and he gets his own copy of Lena, and names her Helen. Unfortunately, when it's all said and done, she is too perfect a copy, because she still loves Robin too!!! Poor pitiful Bill!! This film reminds me of some kind of extended length "Twilight Zone" episode!

Lena was played by the beautiful Barbara Payton who would only make three more movies because her career was spiraling out of control into a crazy world of too much booze and prostitution. 14 years later Barbara Payton would be dead at the age of 39, supposedly from heart and liver failure!

Oscar winning composer Malcolm Arnold does a fine job in what appears to be his only horror or Sci-Fi outing! Malcolm won the Oscar in 1957 for his score on "The Bridge On The River Kwai!" He probably never looked back after that!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE / Universal - 1958 / Music by Joseph Gershenson

Now, here is weird little flick from Universal about evil dude that lose body and try to get it back! One time, Rodan write script called HEAD OF HORROR that have head looking for body too, but take place in old gold mine!.. Not cigarette, bling!

Joseph Gershenson was music supervisor and use uncredited composer Irving Gertz, Henry Mancini, Hans J. Salter + Herman Stein. Universal had tricky way to save $$$ by recycling. Listen and you will hear sounds from THIS ISLAND EARTH and TARANTULA!

Eegah! make nice soundclip tonight, so why not give listen!.. SOUNDCLIP NO LONGER AVAILABLE

This flick have very strange cast of character! Charles Horvath play Mike the big dumb guy as Carolyn Kearney do some divining with a stick! Guess what?.. Right, she find box buried in ground!

Big stupid Mike open box and find something creepy inside, The Thing! So, The Thing hypnotize him, Mike then go stomp cowboy pal a good'ern!..

Thing make Mike take him to peek at gurlies sleeping but Andra Martin pick up weird vibe and wake up!

For big laugh, Thing hide in hat box and scare living crap outta gurl.

Finally they locate coffin, pendant make body reanimate, add head, and... viola! Back in business!!

William Reynolds use pendant to force evil complete Thing back into coffin...

Title very deceiving!.. IT DIE!!

Ahhh, nothing like a perfect ending!!

Monster Music

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