TASTE OF FEAR - Clifton Parker - "Ice Cream Of Fear!" (1961)

This week's Saturday Night Special is part two of an impromptu quasi-tribute to Ronald Lewis originally called "Taste Of Fear," but like a good majority of films of this ilk, it's name was changed to "Scream Of Fear" because somebody somewhere thought it had a better taste to it! So..... without further delay, let's get this puppy rolling!

First off, there is something about this title card and the opening scene from this movie that is very misleading, but you're going to have to figure that out on your own!

This scene is actually out of order as far as the movie is concerned. In the movie, this is what you see before the title card and the credits roll. Some guys are trolling the lake, searching, and finding the body you saw in the title card! This is a pretty awesome shot with those snow covered mountains in the background that lets you know right off that this is not a normal movie! The spooky music is provided by Clifton (CURSE OF THE DEMON) Parker!

The man of the hour is once again Ronald Lewis, not as a race car driver this time, but as Robert, the chauffeur for a very wealthy family! Bob, as he sometimes called, has just picked up the estranged and crippled daughter and heiress Penny Appleby at the airport, and is taking her to her Father's estate in France! Penny has been out of country for many years! The petite but oh so lovely Susan Strasberg has the role of Penny! Susan's career wasn't filled with much horror, but she was in two Night Gallery TV episodes, and starred in two classic cult stoner drug movies, "The Trip," and "Psych-Out!"

Penny Appleby is greeted by Jane Appleby, a cordial stepmother she has never met played by Ann (Breaking The Sound Barrier) Todd, and told that her Father is out of town for a few days on a business trip! They have gone to great lengths to make Penny's stay a pleasant one, by adding makeshift ramps to aid in her mobility!

It doesn't take long before Penny rolls into a room that appears to house none other than a dead version of her Father!

Penny reacts predictably to the situation!

The dead Father is played by Fred Johnson who was in "The Quatermass Xperiment," "The Curse Of Frankenstein," "The Brides Of Dracula," "Doctor Blood's Coffin," and was also the guy in the Yeti suit in "The Abominable Snowman!"

In reality, the room is nothing more than a storage area for a bunch of oddball garage sale items! Is Penny really totally out of her mind?

In a frantic retreat, Penny rolls her wheelchair into what appears to be the strangest swimming pool I've ever seen, and is fished out of the water by the ever so heroic chauffeur Bob!

At dinner that night, her Father's good friend, a shrink named Dr. Pierre Gerrard, tells Penny that maybe her mind is why she is crippled, and not her body! Penny then explains that her mind has no control over the broken back she received when she was tossed off a horse many years previous! The Doctor is played by none other than Christopher Lee, who it is said is on record as saying that in his opinion, "Scream Of Fear"  is THE best film Hammer ever made!

The next night her Father's body appears in Penny's bedroom! They find a wet spot in the chair where Penny saw the body, so her and Bob deduct that the body must be stored in this freezer, but after prying off the lock, they find themselves in the wrong!

"Why Bob, Why?" Susan Strasberg is so beautiful, sweet and innocent, it's a real shame she succumbed to breast cancer at the age of 60 in 1999!

Whoa! Looks like they need a better pool cleaning service, that's for sure! Unfortunately Ronald Lewis's career fizzled out in the 70's,  and after that he became quite despondent and decided to end it all by taking a bunch of barbiturates in 1982!

Having nowhere else to look, Bob takes the plunge, and indeed finds the body of Penny's Father at the bottom of the pool!

The two of them decide to go to the police and report what they found! Seemingly, the Stepmother, probably in cahoots with the Psychiatrist, wanted Penny to go mad, so she would be the one to inherit all the money instead!

I had no idea that General Motors ever made anything but automobiles, but I guess in Europe in the 1960's, they were apparently in the crane business!!

"Scream Of Fear" is a great little thriller, so for all of you who have never seen it, even though it's been out for more than 50 years, there is no way I am going to give away the ending! You can find it on Netflix as a double Feature with "The Gorgon," and it's also available on Amazon! If Christopher Lee and I both think it's that good, I don't think it's worth arguing about! Just do it!

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN / Hammer Film Productions - 1957

It's Monday Halloween Countdown Mayhem 2013 with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. What a killer feature this was in 1957, kickin' butt with Christopher Lee in a seminal Frankenstein monster role and Peter Cushing as Frankenstein himself, and, written by my favorite horror writer, Jimmy Sangster. Jimmy had just written X: THE UNKNOWN and would go on to pen HORROR OF DRACULA, THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN, BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE, THE CRAWLING EYE, JACK THE RIPPER, THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH, THE MUMMY, THE BRIDES OF DRACULA, THE NANNY and many more...

Eegah!! sent over a soundclip from this great flick for us, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there next to the eyeballs in a jar, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN!

The story begins with Victor Frankenstein close to being executed for murder, he wants the priest to listen to his story about what led to his predicament...

It all started when he was just a little guy, and, how he met his mentor in medicine, Paul Krempe. He goes on to tell about the time they paid grave robbers to steal a body for them...

Victor's all grown up now and likes the pleasures of the flesh, indeed. That's Valerie (HORROR OF DRACULA) Gaunt in the top still and Hazel (DR. BLOOD'S COFFIN) Court at bottom.

To aquire a brain for his monster, Victor pushes his friend Professor Bernstein through the rail where he lands head first on the floor! No matter how many time I watch this scene, I cannot figure out how they did it because it looks so damn real!!

Victor can't stop his infernal calculating, now, he must figure out exactly how to get his hands on that brain!

Unfortunately, the professor harbors some intense ill will towards the doctor!

After a brain adjustment, the monster escapes into the countryside where he murders an old blind man who taunts him with a stick. Victor and Paul catch up to the thing...

The monster's all messed up now and Victor's great triumph is a miserable failure!

Victor has to take the rap for his monster when Paul denies his story, cleverly leaving Victor just a madman to all the others!

So, this is his reward, his legacy goes to the grave with him!

THE SHADOW OF THE CAT - Hammer Studios - "That Damn Cat!" (1961)

Great title, Good movie, Bad copy, so it goes, and welcome to another classic Saturday Night Special pretty damn deep down in The Dungeon!

"The Shadow Of The Cat" is so obscure I could only find a copy in England! Who knows now, it might stream any number of places, but at the time, I couldn't find it anywhere, hence the quality of tonight's feature!

Catherine (The Sorcerers, The Mummy's Shroud) Lacey is the not very well liked but very rich Ella Venable! You don't need to know much more about her, she's about to be murdered! She's reading Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" to her beloved cat.........

TABITHA!!

A high percentage of the films we've written about here have had a gimmick of some sorts, and what makes "The Shadow Of The Cat" stand out from a ton of other movies of the same ilk is what I'm going to call "Cat-O-Vision," or shots from the cat's perspective!

This print was so bad, I wasn't sure at first if it was just a bad video transfer or an actual planned effect, but it became pretty obvious fairly soon!

The storyline is that Ella Venable's husband has solicited the help of his servants to kill off his mean and spiteful wife and share the profit, but the problem lies in the fact that Tabitha has witnessed the whole thing, and it worries everybody a lot!

Another shot through Tabitha's eyes shows them burying Ella in a shallow grave in the swamp!

André (Professor Bernard Quatermass) Morell is Ella's vile husband Walter Venable, and he has got some bad feelings about that cat! He knows she knows, and he's really worried about it!

The beloved UK "First Lady Of Horror" Barbara Shelley is Ella's niece Beth Venable! Beth along with other family members were summoned to the Venable home after Ella's disappearance, and although Tabitha won't have anything to do with anyone else in the house for good reasons, she doesn't have a problem being normal and affectionate to Beth because Beth is the only nice person in the whole house!!

They're chasing poor Tabitha all over the place without any success, but she eventually gets hungry, and they trap her!

Andrew (The Gay Lady) Crawford plays the killer butler Andrew! Besides being a murderer, Andrew is also an idiot! He is left with the task of disposing the bagged cat in the swamp, but as he was merrily running off to do the nasty task, Tabitha fell out of the loosely tied bag! The cat runs off into the swamp and onto a small floating branch where Andrew follows her, and almost immediately gets sucked up into some quicksand and his deserved departure!

The maid Clara who was also in on the whole deal freaks out when when she spots some muddy cat tracks from the recently deceased feline! Clara was played by Freda (Brides Of Dracula, Monster Of Terror) Jackson!

Tabitha just keeps watching and waiting!

Walter never admits to the rest of the family members that he is responsible for Ella's murder, but he solicits their assistance to kill that damned cat, and he will share a large portion of the re-written will with them! Ella's original will left everything to niece Beth, but before she was murdered, Ella was coerced into re-writing her will leaving everything to asshole Walter! This shot shows the group looking at the body of the maid Clara who just fell down the stairs and died after she tripped over the cat! William (Island Of The Burning Damned) Lucas is Jacob Venable, Richard (Village Of The Damned) Warner is Edgar Venable, and last but not least, bitchy Vanda (The Earth Dies Screaming) Godsell (Not Goodsell) is Louise Venable! What a pack of cards!

Maybe I can get some guvment money if I do a public service announcement! Kids! Do you really need a good reason to never smoke? Just take a good look at this picture! Unless you'd like to look like this for the rest of your life, never start, but if you have, then stop smoking right now! It's never too late!!

Walter's got a bad ticker, so maybe the other Venables will get a better cash out if a window is left open and the cat is accidently allowed to enter his room!

This dumbfuck Venable chases Tabitha all the way up onto the roof!

"The Shadow Of The Cat" is a great movie for people who love cats and despise stupid greedy people, and I think that was the intention!