Vampire Grab Bag Week: Salem's Lot (1979)

Hey gang.  Sorry for the last two days of delay on Vampire Grab Bag Week.   I’ve been a bit under the weather so this late addition will hopefully make up for the tardiness.  This time around I thought we would head into a small town where everyone knows everyone and a malevolent presence is slowly worming its way into community of Jerusalem’s Lot and very few are the wiser so get some holy water, sharpen a few crude stakes and ready the hammer to strike.  This is Salem’s Lot.

Can't believe Starsky wouldn't sell me the car.

Ben Mears:  Everything in Salem’s Lot is connected to that house.   You can see it from every part of the town.   It’s like a spoiler throwing of an energy force.

Based on the novel Horror Guru Stephen King; our flick opens in a battered church in Guatemala with a man and young teen filling small bottles with holy water.  A quick lens flare on the bottle establishing a supernatural glow and the man informs the lad, ”They found us again.”

Cut to Salem’s Lot Maine our same fellow is named Ben Mears (David Soul of Here Come the Brides, Starsky and Hutch, Magnum Force, In the Cold of the Night and Tides of War) looking less shabby than he did in the opening. Ben is a writer and wants to do a book on the Marsten House, an ill-reputed house with the belief it is haunted. Mears attempts to rent the house for a time but the realtor tells him that a Richard Straker (the late James Mason of A Star Is Born, North by Northwest, Lolita, Child’s Play, 11 Harrowhouse and Voyage of the Damned) a unknown fellow that is opening an antique shop in town is all the buzz because of his absent but often mentioned partner Kurt Barlow are causing a stir in this dreary town.  Not a whole lot to do in Salem’s I am guessing. 

Ah! The Tickle Monster is back and boy is he pissed!!!

Yet as the days progress, people start disappearing or turning up dead from an unidentifiable disease.  Ben and his girlfriend’s father Dr. Bill Norton (character actor Ed Flanders of Bearcats!, McMillian & Wife, Mannix and The Trial of the Catonsville Nine) dare to confirm they think the disease is actually vampirism.  Both men feel the evil originates with Straker and attempt to get the town sheriff in on this issue but he has packed up and is leaving the town.  Can Dr. Norton and Mears handle this monstrosity on their own or will the whole town fall to darkness?

What to comment on this film? Well let’s see…the dialog is sharp and clever. People sound realistic and believable and our story has a great pace setting thanks to TV series writer Paul Monash (Atom Squad, Operation Manhunt, Danger, Touch of Evil and The Gun Runners) and our director is none other than Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eaten Alive, Body Bags, Night Terrors and The Mangler) bringing beautiful cinematography, excellent direction to his cast bringing their A game to it. 

The unfolding of this story is subtle, terrifying and brilliant.  Our vampire doesn’t make a big bold entrance with fan fare but is sneaky and enigmatic thus to not raise any suspicion.  The makeup work on the vampires has a certain elegance to it in the skin is pale; they have white contacts to deem no soul is left in the body and frankly they look creepy. 

Veteran character actors Marie Windsor (Swamp Diamonds, The Narrow Margin, The Killing,The Girl in Black Stockings and Island Women), Elisha Cook Jr. (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, The Killing, The House on Haunted Hill, Rosemary’s Baby, Blacula and Magnum, P.I.) and Fred Willard (Hustle, Silver Streak, Escape from Bogen County, Roxanne, D.C. Follies, Access America and Lois & Clark) really just knocked this creepy flick out of the ballpark and on to the small screen.  Saw this film as a boy and it still scares the crap out of me.

A great place to raise your kids up...to be eaten.

Eurozombie Week: Zombie Lake

Howdy gang and welcome back to another helping of Eurozombie Week and boy oh boy it just doesn’t get more depraved than this steaming pile of celluloid.   Yes while some of the better portion of the Eurohorrors could be thought provoking, amazing in the cinematography I can honestly say there is no redeeming value from the film I am about to yammer on about.  So pack up your troubles, head into the wilderness and of course skinny dip in one of the foulest looking lakes imaginable.  This is Zombie Lake.

 

Peter Lorre or dying mollusk? You decide

Morane: So, you think that spoilers killed them?

The Mayor: Yes, that is what I think.

Filmed in old school 35mm Spherical (Eastmancolor) our  picturesque pile of puppy poo opens with the an attractive young girl in a tied shirt and cut offs as she strips down.  Yeah a minute and 30 and already a wide zoom of this girl in the buff so clearly we are in for a classy flick.  Also the patented 70’s soft core porn music gives it a lecherous ambiance.   One of our gruesome ghoulie Gestapo grabs the girl into the grotto.  Hehe sorry I was having literal fun. 

Zombies attempting a rendition of Swan Lake.

No sooner has one girl gone missing a girl doing laundry is nibbled to death and her bite wound looks really syrupy and our dampened undead’s makeup is washed off quite about a bit.  The lake seems to be a focal point in this small hamlet of France during World War II.  Once long ago this lake was used for witchcraft in the purest sense and the French Resistance made a final stand against the Nazis with the help of the Allied forces and a young French girl fancies a Nazi soldier…well you get the jist of that particular 4 minute scene.   On patrol the Resistance ambushes this platoon worth of men and drags their bodies to their magically imbued lake.   Why?  Who the hell could say? 

Such a painful scene...watching this girl act.

Our esteemed mayor of the town takes a knee with a reporter and gives detail of the disturbing lake’s origin and frankly I was baffled to see an official let loose these deep dark secrets.  But enough of that, let’s jump 40 years ahead as a all-girl netball team are frolicking after a long tournament and naturally being down at the swamp fetid lake they are aching to get nude and splish splash in the waters.  As we are all aware the merest sound of water skylarking and merriment attracts underwater zombies like sharks to blood.  Well ladies I would like this opportunity to apologize how misogynistic this film is.  Yes what I am about to tell you will make you ill.

Molester Nazi Zombies is something I never thought I would have put to typing but there it is.  Yes our rotten corpses are having their way with the young netball team from multiple angles, on land and underwater.   Seriously the only thing this film is lacking is Debbie Does Dallas soundtrack and penetration shots.    

The brain child creator of this sleazy concept is writer/director Jesus Franco (Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein, The Awful Dr. Orlof, Vampyres, Zombie 5 and Killer Barbys vs. Dracula) and director Jean Rollin (The Rape of the Vampire, The Nude Vampire, Curse of the Living Dead, The Grapes of Death, The Escapees and The Living Dead Girls)so you can imagine my utter distain for this film and lack of ANY plot.   I cannot even put a trailer to this film due to the frontal nudity that practically dominates the trailer itself.   I fortunately was not completely sober to review this tripe of film.

STAY OFF THE MOORS!!!

Eurozombie Week: City of the Living Dead

Twilight of the Dead, Fear in the City of the Living Dead, The Gates of Hell, Pater Thomas and City of the Living Dead

Back again you wild and wacky kids for Eurozombie Week and I feel this particular installment is a little different than the usual zombie devouring flesh spurted on the walls so it was almost refreshing in some facets.   The film of the day is considered the first installment into what people affectionately call the Gates of Hell trilogy which includes the House by the Cemetery and The Beyond.  So grab your crucifix, note the signs of evil and for crying out loud do not heavily stare at friends dying in front of you.

This is The City of the Living Dead.

Sheesh they are strict on their no credit clause!

Theresa: You don’t deserve spoiling!  You’re a comic book version of a detective, Sergeant!

In New York, a séance is underway in the study of the supernatural a young psychic Mary (Catriona MacColl of Lady Oscar, Hawk the Slayer, The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery, Squardron and The Last Days of Pompeii) has a foggy and grainy vision of a very goth looking priest hanging himself in a cemetery with a tombstone nearby warning of the transgressions of the land.  Through this knowledge she realizes this death will open the very gates of Hell itself and allow the dead to roam and rule the Earth…and then she drops dead.  Seriously, she just shrieks and drops dead.   The cops half ass around the room but don’t come up with any answers that will satisfy a log entry. 

Billy, get out of that leaf pile!

A starving reporter Peter Bell (Christopher George of El Dorado, Chisum, Man on a String, The Train Robbers, The Rat Patrol and The Exterminator) gets wind of this bizarre tale and is convinced there is a story and heads to the girl’s gravesite.  After a bit of banter with the gravediggers he is off to his car when he hears (no idea how either given the ambient street levels) Mary pounding under 5 feet of dirt and her coffin screaming for her life.  He grabs a pickaxe and damn near nails her in the face three times trying to break it open.  Getting her cleaned up her friend and Bell figure out that the psychic flash hailed from the town of Dunwich New England formally Salem…guess they also slid away from Massachusetts as well but no time for geography and back to the film.

Strange deaths occur, supernatural happenings such as: blood trickling out of the walls, glass shattering and hurling through the air and my personal favorite, a hailstorm of maggots.  One would come to the conclusion the town might be having a few problems but no, the teens want to make out and the parents want to bitch and gripe about the day.

 

I have seen into the eyes of the Devil...they were...violet.

Can Bell and Mary arrive to Dunwich in time to thwart the dead and bring order back before All Saints Day or will the world be shrouded in darkness to the end of days?

A few highlights of the film to be made now.  The gore factor is pretty high with the skull cap being torn off of heads and yet no one seems to put up even a desperate struggle, the walking dead folk seem to be manifestations of zombies as they seem to teleport around the town or in rooms and there was a fair amount of organs and liquids spat up with a rather realistic dummy head.  May not want the kiddies to see this one but thank goodness no nudity.

Horror Grab Bag Week: Horror Hotel

Well after two hotel films, Eaten Alive and Hotel Hell I am a bit leery of this travel guide book.  Let’s see what we have here…Whitewood Massachusetts has a lovely place so why don’t we head there.   Grab your suitcases and pack them with all what we need.  This is Horror Hotel a.k.a. City of the Dead

College hazing is rough!

The lighting of this room clearly ascents the spoilers here.

Originally titled City of the Dead in the UK where it was created the US wanted a less vicious title but set the tone that this was in fact a thriller/horror movie.  Director John Llewellyn Moxey’s (The Saint, Magnum P. I., and Murder, She Wrote) debut into film from being primarily a TV director and writer George Baxt (Circus of Horrors, Horror on Snape Island, I Promised to Pay and The Shadow of the Cat) tells a story of a young college student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson of Darby’s Rangers, Day of the Outlaw, Seven Way from Sundown and the Sergeant Was a Lady) who spends her winter vacation researching a paper on witchcraft.  

Hey what's with the dirty stone table?

Her professor Alan Driscoll (Sir Christopher Lee of Horror of Dracula, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Island of the Burning Damned, Five Golden Dragons, and The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism) tells her she is best to travel to Whitewood Massachusetts and their vast libraries on the subject matter.  And hey if you cannot trust Christopher Lee and his intentions on your well being, well I ask, “Who can you trust?”   Nan encounters a young woman but the name of Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel of The Man Upstairs, The Queen and The Rebels and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) who happens to look identical to a woman accused of using witchcraft in 1852 where she was burned at the stake.  The town in fact is most famous for such.  Nan finds herself to be abducted by hooded figures and dragged down to the catacombs directly below the very hotel she checked in…but she does not check out. 

Cosplay gone awry!

Now, just a quick little tidbit for you Wicca folk out there who might possibly be reading this.  The film portrays anyone practicing witchcraft as devil worshipers as well the Black mass conglomerate and the like; so you have been warned and aside from that slight offense to your religion, it really is an enjoyable movie.

Worried that Nan has not returned her brother Richard (Denis Lotis of The Inbetween Age, Make Mine a Million and Glamour) and her boyfriend Bill (Tom Naylor of Just My Luck, The Vise and No Safety Ahead) go off to investigate her last known whereabouts.  The duo set off on said journey when a car accident happens and Bill has been benched for unnecessary dumb driving.  Richard heads into town and meets the daughter of the town Reverend, Patricia (Bette St. John of High Tide at Noon, Corridors of Blood and The Robe) and perhaps she can shed light on the eerie quiet town.

This particular movie is shot in gorgeous black and white so I am all tingly from that alone but of course the sound is captured in mono which was common back in the day.  Its 1960 people!   There was no surround Dolby digital yet.   With an amazing spherical lens capture the stages look amazing, lighting top notch and yes there are more than a handful of movie clichés attributed of this type of storytelling but it is a well groomed flick thanks to post production.  What you have is an English production of English actors speaking an American accent and hell they pulled it off.  

I say, this dungeon is filthy and I wish to register a complaint.

Funniest thing about this movie is it was somehow compared to Psycho for the following reasons.  Blonde protagonist dies in remote hotel and male counterpart comes looking for her.   That’s it.   And while this is no Hitchcock I can honestly say this critic enjoyed it immensely.  I hope you will as well.