EL FANTASMA DE LA OPERETA / Producciones Brooks - 1960

Time to head back to 1960 for a little Mexican horror comedy, the story goes... Aldo and his girlfriend Lucy reopen an abandoned opera house, but find out that the place is inhabited by a group of Phantoms wearing the Claude Rains 1943 Phantom of the Opera costume!

The movie stars Germán (TRIP TO THE MOON) Valdés aka Tin-Tan, Ana Luisa (TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS) Peluffo and Famie (THE SUPER HE-MAN) Kaufman. By the way, Ana Luisa has a whopping 211 acting credits and is still around today!!

Tin-Tan plays Aldo, he's a frustrated, bumbling waiter with big dreams...

He convinces his girlfriend Lucy to go in with him on an old opera house. Here's the taxi, a cool looking 1958 Chevy, dropping them off in front of their new acquisition,

Once inside, Aldo, Lucy and her helper, Vitola, encounter this old worried dude in the basement... What in the Hell's he doing here, and, what time is it?! Interesting shot.

Anyway, things get hoppin' as they start packing the house with the locals! I love these two shots, eye catching is how I'd describe them!

Then, Aldo and Vitola do their thang, they have a comedy act where Vitola is the aggressor!

Here's a good look at what It'd be like to work the ticket window at the opera house when a bunch of people want their money back because a Phantom showed up and ruined the show!!

Vitola catches a suspicious looking character snooping around, so, follows and corners him only to get a glimpse the Phantom's ugly puss!!

Vitola gives Aldo a little something to hold on to that she found, a freakin' time bomb!! And, of course, Vitola has no idea what it even is!

Okay, so, there are a big pile of Phantoms... Love the bottom shot, Kitscha-Roonie!!

Back to the bomb!.. It gets thrown in a room by a copper and it goes off, causing a ton of mayhem during the performance that's going on...

The cops get the bad guys and the day is saved! You're goin' to jail, sucker!!

The ending is just plain weird and kind of embarrasing! The chandelier starts swaying, the Phantom suddenly appears inside it, he takes the mask off, we get a close up and then he simply goes... Poof! and he's gone! He looks like a child riding a kiddie ride at the carnival...

SYMPTOMS - Angela Pleasence (1974)

For the next few weeks, I'm going to try and present to you only movies from the 70's and 80's with one word titles. We'll see how it goes!

Tonight's whacked out one word title is a film made in 1974 that is not about causes or solutions, but only about "Symptoms!"

"Symptoms" is a showcase for Angela Pleasence, the daughter of  Dungeon Hero Donald Pleasence!

Angela is a girl named Helen who has a myriad of problems!

 I think it is uncanny how much Angela looks like her Father!

Helen seems overly innocent on the outside, but on the inside there dwells a psychopathic maniac!

The few guys in the movie are dweebs or creeps and deserve what they have coming to them!

Helen has a knife fetish!

The other semi-main female role is Lorna Heilbron as Helen's friend Anne! Basically her part only exists so that Helen has someone to kill, so I'll just show you more pictures of Helen!

Helen cleans up pretty good!

She would have been a perfect prom date for Norman Bates!

Unless you meet just the right guy, you're destined to be lonely when manic depressive schizophrenia is your best character trait!

HOUSE / Toho Company - 1977

Here's a wild one from Toho studios, seems like a comedy at times but the rest of the time it's just plain weird! The story goes like this... A schoolgirl and six of her classmates travel to her aunt's home in the country, which tries to devour the girls in very bizarre ways!

An interesting fact - None of the seven young actresses who portray the group of friends who visit the house were trained film actresses. The girls were models who had worked with director Nobuhiko Ôbayashi making advertisements or commercials.

Here are the six girls meeting with Angel, her aunt owns a house in the country. Check out the chroma keyed background, if you look close, you can see it's a matte painting.

The girls make it to the country home, they visit with Angel's aunt before the fun starts.

One girl finds a decapitated head in the water bucket! It flies around, then, swoops down and bites the girl on her ass!! When it finally flies away, the heads says... Tasty! Like I said, this is a weird movie and has plenty of sexual innuendo.

Angel has some trouble with the mirror in her bedroom, she even sees herself as a vampire after putting on some red lipstick!

The mirror cracks and her face falls to pieces as she turns into a fiery figure!

This gal gets beat up and smothered by her mattress and bedding, when the other girls look for her, they only find her nightgown, bra and panties!

The piano becomes a maniacal musical monster, the girl playing it becomes possessed and just can't stop playing!

The freakin' piano has chewed her fingers off!!

The other girl watching her friend playing the piano is totally confused by what she sees!

Then, the piano pulls her in and chews her into pieces, a long crazy ass scene.

The fingers come back and play a strange little tune!..

This gal gets a possessed light fixture stuck on her head as she tries to fight her way out of her super weird predicament!

A demon cat is really responsible for all the mayhem, it has brought out its fangs and claws!!

The dead girls' body parts swirl around and fly through some surreal backgrounds!

Hey, the evil old cat looks like my kitty, Zoey! Check out this wild flick when you get the chance, it's something else!! So, we're back Wednesday with more cool stuff!