MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE / Universal Pictures - 1932

It's Friday Fright Halloween Countdown 2012 with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots a wild an' wooly big ape movie that stars Bela Lugosi as the mysterious Dr. Mirakle, from a story by Edgar Allen Poe, cinematography by Karl Freund and produced by Carl Laemmle. You can catch this classic playing occassionally on TCM, that's where this copy came from...

Eegah!! sent over a special soundclip from the flick, sooooo, what the heck, you might as well push the big red 'GO' button there next to the escape hatch, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's our audio offering for... MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE!

It's 1845 in Paris, where the maniacal Dr. Mirakle is abducting young women and injecting them with ape blood, trying to prove his theory of ape-human kinship. Every attempt to do so is a failure, ending with the death of the victims. A medical student discovers what the mad doctor is up to, but, he's too late to prevent the abduction of his girlfriend by Mirakle's ape.

What better way to get a show started than to bring in the sexy dancing girls? Duh!.. In the sixties, we had our Go-Go Girls!!

Dr. Mirakle shows off his prize ape, Erik. He argues that man was descended from apes, which causes a lot of discomfort with the audience.

Used as a gimmick I guess, but, using a real ape for close-ups doesn't work because it just doesn't match with the look of the ape costume.

A few of the audience members are intrigued by the doctor's theories, a medical student, his girlfriend and his roommate. Mirakle offers more insight into his ideas. Pretty Sidney Fox gets top billing as Mlle. Camille L'Espanaye.

Mirakle goes out into the night to capture another woman he can experiment on, this one is played by Arlene Francis. The doc shoots her up with ape blood, then curses her just before she dies!

Medical students Pierre and Paul are played by Leon Ames and Bert Roach. Here they are in their flat, Pierre studies and Paul cooks.

Pierre goes to see Mirakle at his show but is given the cold shoulder.

Then, while analyzing a blood sample aquired at the morgue from one of the dead women, Pierre puts the puzzle together... Mirakle is injecting the women with ape blood!

In the meantime, the doc sends out Erik to grab Camille in her bed and take her back to the lab for some fun!..

Pierre goes to the police and convinces them to go to Mirakle's home, before it's too late for Camille! I love the doc's place, I'd like to have one of 'em for my own... Atmospheric!

Mirakle totally effs up and Erik grabs him, flinging him around like a rag doll, and, puts an end to all the weird experiments.

Everyone watches in horror as Erik carries Camille along while maneuvering across the steep roofline.

Pierre knows what he has to do, but, what will happen to Camille when he shoots the big ape while he's holding her?.. Watch this classic flick to find out whut happens!

13 MEXICAN LOBBY CARDS Of Fifties Monster Movies

Hello everbloody, Eegah!! has the night off, so, Tabonga is filling in for him on this Halloween Countdown Wednesday 2012, here at The Dungeon!.. Years ago I collected a big pile of very nice Mexican lobby cards from a guy in Mexico, these cards are from that collection...

~ THE FLAME BARRIER - I saw this one when it came out, pretty creepy blob flick for a 10 year old with a good imagination!

~ FRANKENSTEIN 1970 - Saw this one at the movies too, I loved the big monster creeping around in his white clinical bandages!

~ FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER - I love this movie, I have a special place in my heart for make-up maestro Harry Thomas and his use of ping pong eyeballs, of which he also used in KILLERS FROM SPACE! Caught this flick on TV in the early sixties for the first time.

~ THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON - I got to see this classic at the theater, love all those cheap flicks with Robert Clarke.

~ INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS - Caught this one on TV like when I was 12, this little creepfest always left you with a sickening feeling, the same way INVADERS FROM MARS did!

~ MISSILE TO THE MOON - This is another one of my favorites even if it's totally whack, and, it has my love doll Sanita Pelky as a Moon Girl in it! Check out the image on the card of Leslie Nielson and Anne Francis from FORBIDDEN PLANET!

~ MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR - This was the first monster movie produced by Roger Corman and the first movie Jonathan Haze appeared in. The animated monster looks great, but, you have to wait almost an hour to see it and the thing only runs for 64 minutes! Typical Corman.

~ THE NEANDERTHAL MAN - Saw this one on TV around 1956, boring as Hell. Harry Thomas made the caveman mask, he said that he had it all set up for special lighting to make it look very scary in the cave, then, when it came to the shoot, they told him they didn't have time for stuff like that, therefore, that's why the monster looks so crappy!

~ PHANTOM FROM SPACE - They played the crap out of this title on TV throughout the fifties, loved that Radar Ford they drove around in! Great special effects for the time.

~ THEM! - What a great flick, Warner Bros' first venture into the Big Atomic Bug genre! Starred THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, James Arness.

~ TOBOR THE GREAT - A real fave they played regularly on TV, TOBOR was a great looking, very convincing robot, we can thank those robot building dudes over at Republic Pictures! My favorite part is when the commies try to enter the restricted area and all Hell breaks loose when the professor uses highly amplified sounds of war and strobe lights to terrorize them back, very effective and totally hilarious!

~ UNKNOWN WORLD - This movie must have played monthly during the fifties, saw it a few times. The Cyclotron they use to burrow through the earth was a very cool machine, looks like it's actually a redone version of one of the large tank models in THINGS TO COME from 1936!

~ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS - I paid $50 for this card, that's what it took to score a mint card with an insert featuring the Martian!

BODY SNATCHERS / Dorset Productions - 1993

It's another Monster Monday Halloween Countdown 2012 with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Our feature is the third not well known incarnation of Jack Finney's classic story, this time the Army gives the insidious old space pods a helping hand. An odd statistic on IMDb, if it's correct, sez that it cost $13,000,000 to produce, and, made only $428,868 in the US! Seriously, WTF!!

Eegah!! sent over a soundclip from the flick, sooooo, push the big red 'GO' button located next to the unhuman duplicator, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our nails on the chalkboard audio offering for... BODY SNATCHERS!

Like I mentioned, the flick takes place at a desolate, depressing Army base and there's a sinister stank in the air for the new family who just transferred there...

At school, the kids all like to paint the exact same mess, they even have the teacher's frosty blessing!

New kid little Andy Malone tells his mom all about the creepy weirdos at school and doesn't want to go back! Meg (PSYCHO II / ONE DARK NIGHT) Tilly plays mom.

Gabrielle Anwar plays mousey daughter, Marti. Here, she falls asleep in the tub as the pod's tentacles try to get all up inside her!

Her pod is above her, supported by eighth inch masonite with peep holes! Anyway, the thing crashes through the flimsy ceiling!

It falls into the tub with her, creating a moment of bizarro fright!

Then, mom turns on dad and screeches out at the top of her lungs, spilling the beans!

Resistance is basically futile!..

Marti, Andy and dad escape the insanity in a helicopter!

Later, Marti gets fully transformed nude before she's saved by her boyfriend, kind of a twist on the old established rules of pod tranformation!

Everyone assembles in the square to disperse the pods. When Tabonga was stationed in Deutschland in 1969, he drove a deuce and a half pod carrier just like that!

Well, anyway, the word finally gets out and the real Army steps in and blows the living Hell out of the pods and everything else!