OPERAZIONE PAURA - Carlo Rustichelli - "Dead Eyes" (1966)

"Operation Fear" would have been the literal translation of this title, but in an effort to be more shocking, they came up with "Kill, Baby, Kill"!!! It was also released as a living dead title, this time as "Curse Of The Living Dead!" Killer title card!!

Almost smack in the middle of Mario Bava's directorial career, we find him with his hands all over the camera, along with co-cinematographer Antonio Rinaldi, creating one atmospheric scene after another!

The music is provided by Masestro Carlo Rustichelli, who composed his first film score in 1939, worked with Mario Bava on some of his classic titles like "Blood and Black Lace" and also wrote the music for a number of titles in the "Toto" series and more, like "The Day The Sky Exploded," "7 Men and One Brain," and "Black Lemons!"

Giacomo Rossi-Stuart as Doctor Paul Eswai, a man on a mission!!! Yet another take on that age old question, why are all these people dying?

Did you ever get that feeling that people are looking at you, and you're not really welcome?

I'm really going out on a broken limb here, but I am willing to say that without a doubt, this is the best shot ever of a lantern in a movie!!

Barely there, but just enough to be pretty dang odd!

There seems to be some real confusion about who the dead little blonde girl is, the IMDB lists the role for Valeria Valeri as Melissa Graps, and have Valeria's year of birth as 1925, that would make her 41 in this role, and they list another character, Micaela Esdra as Nadienne, and say that she was born in 1952, making her 14 when this film was made. There are also claims that it wasn't a little girl at all, but a little boy, according to some sources!

I've stated this fact before, but the truth is, you just can't go wrong with a good stairwell shot, especially a spiral staircase!

W H O A! Whose hellacious old ass is this? Giovanna Galetti as Giana Gomorrah Giocatrice Grant Graps!! The mother without a cause!!

Creepy Hallway!

Creepy oil painting of Melissa Graps!!

Creepy Tombstone, ah, so she's only supposed to be 7 years old!!

Creepy out of focus shot! Melissa even haunts the camera!

I just really dig these two shots, the top one looks like a classic painting to me, the lighting and hot and cold colours are freakin' prefect!!

"Kill, Baby, Kill!" Let's face it, there's nothing much creepier than a demonic, but cute, little blonde girl! It's worked before, and it'll work again, especially when a guy like Mario Bava was pulling the strings!!

HAUNTS / American General Pictures - 1977

Welcome everbloody, to Saturday at the Flicks, here, again at The Dungeon. Today's feature is a twisted little tale shot in Mendocino, California. The story is about a farm girl who's convinced that her uncle is responsible for the bloody scissor-murders of some local girls. The murders trigger her mistrust of men and relationships due to some bad things that happened to her as a child...

Tagline reads - "A psycho-sexual thriller of a woman possessed."

Music is by heavyweight, Mr. Pino Donaggio, who ended up with a hefty 177 composing credits and is still working today! Here are some other titles he's worked on... SMILING MANIACS, CARRIE, PIRANHA, TOURIST TRAP, DRESSED TO KILL, THE HOWLING, BLOW OUT, HERCULES ('83), BODY DOUBLE, SAVAGE DAWN, CRAWLSPACE, GOR, OUTLAW OF GOR, DEMONS 4, ALL LADIES DO IT and MISTER DOG!

Welp, here is Dungeon pet Ralphie the Tarantula, slobbering all over Tabonga, in anticipation of pushing big red 'GO' button for today's Eariffic Earclip! And, what you know? He pushed it!.. HAUNTS!

The story starts, what else, with a murder!

May Britt plays Ingrid, local farmgirl hottie!.. Man, whotta getup, she reminds me of Big Bird! May was wife of Sammy Davis Jr. A few other movies she worked on are SHE WOLF, SHIP OF LOST WOMEN, WAR AND PEACE, THE YOUNG LIONS and MURDER, INC.

There are plenty of peripheral characters to keep you entertained.

Local punk in pickup's out looking for pickups!.. Go figure!

This weirdo chases Ingrid and attacks her! Hey, it kinda looks like...

Good old Aldo Ray! Here, he plays the less-than-perfect Sheriff of the small town, and who's job it is to figure out what the hell's going on. And, well, he ain't doing that great so far!

For Tabonga, this is best shot in the whole flick!!

This freaky broad (I think that's the correct term) wants to know if this dude at the bar wants to be her father!

TIME OUT!.. Check out that nice Shoebox, man!!

Ingrid runs like Hell to church, maybe a hymn'll help!

After the pastor prays with her, this freakin' happens! Damn, what the hell!!

Aldo locates his daughter, he breaks in and has a few words with Romeo!

Boyfriend Frankie is played by William Gray Espy, who did bit parts as hoodlums on 2 popular soap operas!

Ingrid watches TV as they show the suspects in the murders.

Cameron Mitchell has a little crush on his niece!

Ingrid dies in a fire and gets buried... Bottom pic is for Eddie!

Aldo and Cameron just found out that their SAG cards got pulled!!

13 FRIGHTENED GIRLS - Van Alexander - "Candy's Web" (1963)

"13 Frightened Girls" just might well be the biggest WTF motion picture I've ever seen! If not the winner, it's in the running, and once again, it's all courtesy of Mr. William Castle!

The movie starts innocently enough at Miss Pittford's Academy for Young Ladies in Switzerland! Miss Pittford looks a lot like a guy we went to high school with, and was played by Norma Varden, who had been acting since 1932, and I'm sure you've seen her on one TV show or another!!

The cartoony music this go round is composed by Mr. Van Alexander, seems William had a penchant for using music by guys named Van and Von! Van Alexander wrote some all time classic songs that are almost like folk songs by today's standards, with titles like "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" and "Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?"("Oh where oh where can he be?")He was also the orchestra leader on "The Wacky World Of Jonathan Winters" TV show, among many other accomplishments!

The star of the film was Kathy Dunn as this fairly obnoxious young lady named Candace "Candy" Hull! This would be Kathy's sole film outing. She did some TV and stage, but I guess this one movie was enough for her! I know it was enough for me!!

Candy has been rewarded by Miss Pittford for getting first place in Latin, so she gets to drive the bus!! Everything is going okay until this large tarantula drops down on the windshield of the bus and scares the crap out of Candy, and she almost loses control of the whole situation!

I think Miss Pittford must have had a couple of screws loose in order to be able to allow a 16 year old girl to drive a bus full of her international classmates on a curvy Swiss mountain road like this, especially when it is actually in California!!!!

Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" has nothing on Candy as she swarms all over Murray Hamilton as Spy Guy Wally Sanders, and your mind says, what kind of a Disney movie is this? Looks like Disney, sounds like Disney, but smells like William Castle!! Murray Hamilton has a face you've seen a million times from Mr. Death to Mr. Robinson!

Enter Hugh Marlowe as Candy's Dad, Diplomat John Hull! Hugh Marlowe was the star of "World Without End" and "Earth Vs The Flying Saucers" just for starters!

Joyce(Men Into Space)Taylor plays the role of Soldier, the voice of reason, and Wally's main squeeze when he isn't fighting off Candy! What the Hell kind of name is Soldier? Just getting weirder!!

Filmed in Pathécolor, Candy's outfit is almost electric!!

Candy's best friend from school is Mai-Ling, the neice of the Red Chinese diplomat to the U.S. Mai-Ling was portrayed by Lynne Sue Moon in her one of only four roles. The girls are having fun dancing to some American Imperialistic music when.........

.......They are interrupted by Mai-Ling's uncle and his goon squad! Uncle Kang was played by the Asian everybody loved to hate in the 60's, Khigh Dhiegh in one of his many roles as Lu Ming, Wo Fat, Tijo, Khan, Chung, Chong or Fu Cheng!!!

Candy starts snooping around, and getting into things no 16 year old should know about!!

She follows the trail of blood through the kitchen and into the meat locker where she finds the special of the day, sweet and sour dead man on hook!

On top of finding a dead body, there is also even one much larger problem, the dead man was stabbed with her father's letter opener!!

Uh, Oh! Somehow, just somehow, Candy manages to make it back and still avoid Kang and any undue questioning from Mai-Ling!

Garth Benton as sleazeball playboy Peter Van Hagen falls to his just reward after seducing, drugging and attempting to murder Candy!!

The whole world is now abuzz about a secret agent known only as "Kitten!" We'll just let you guess who that might be!!

But I've just scratched the surface of all the nutty international intrigue going on in this movie, but we've still got time for the Hull family's trusted chauffeur, Charlie Briggs as Spider, to try yet another attempt at eliminating Candy, this time with a car bomb!! C'mon guys, she's annoying as all get out, but she's just a little girl!!

It's pretty difficult to get all 13 girls into one shot, but that's okay, it's not really about very many of them anyway!!

Ringmaster Castle shows up at the end with yet another trick up his sleeve! So that's our tribute to William Castle, please sign the death register on your way out!!!