Horror for the Holidays: Silent Night

Well hello there readers of mine and welcome back for Day 4 of Horror for the Holidays. Looks like a running tally for the use of Silent Night in more than half of the Christmas themed horror movies I have researched via IMDB. Some have been cults, warlocks, zombies and even the odd serial killer screaming, "Naughty!" but you get the point. Now, what I am about to review now is in fact not a remake but just a loose telling of a real life tale of the Covina massacre blown out of porportion via Hollywood. With the fair writing skills of Jayson Rothwell (Bob's Weekend, Blessed, Second in Command and Malice in Wonderland) and placed in the hands of director of rock videos and short films Steven C. Miller (Automaton Transfusion, The Aggression Scale, Under the Bed and Submerged), we are in for a bit of a gore fest but maybe it will not surpass Laid to Rest and here's hoping on that. I couldn't eat lunch for over two hours thanks to that flick. This is Silent Night.

Bob's first Krav Maga lesson with Santa goes awry.

In a small Midwestern town that looks awfully like the bacony sight of Canada. We find a fellow ducking the camera giving us the illusion of foreshadow or tension that he is in fact the killer decked out as Santa with his own personal flamethrower... yeah I didn't stutter, I said a flamethrower. Now unless he is stowing that in his bag of toys I am not certain how he carries that around with him. A young deputy is devoid of his uniform, bound to a metal lawn chair and strapped down with Christmas lights pleading for his life when he is fried like a wonton with bad CGI eyeballs exploding out of his head. A slight nod or homage to Silent Night, Deadly Night 2.

Young deputy Aubrey Bradimore (Jaime King of Pearl Harbor, Bulletproof Monk, Sin City, Two for the Money and My Bloody Valentine) is woken early from bed by Sheriff Cooper (Malcolm McDowell of A Clockwork Orange, Caligula, Blue Thunder, Superman: The Animated Series, Star Trek: Generations, Justice League and Halloween) claiming the same eye popping lad has been AWOL since last Thursday and assumes he was out and about, now sleeping it off. With a surplus of Santas roaming about for the impeding holiday Santa parade makes it almost impossible to find out firebug psycho so the local law has their work cut out for them as it is.

Freeze, curtains!

While dealing with down and out cynical Santa Jim (Donal Logue of Blade, Ghost Rider, Life, Shark Night 3D and Sons of Anarchy), Deputy Bradimore is dispatched to the old abandoned house along the way because of an odd smell where she encounters the missing deputy and a missing housewife, both quite indisposed... that's deader than Pauly Shore's career if I was too subtle. With the body count reaching higher our hapless sheriff is no closer to discovering the who, what and why as Deputy Bradimore is convinced that our killer has to be someone they trusted as there have been no forced entries with each homicide. What is the connection to all these people? Why them specifically? Are they simply being punished by someone's code of morals and honor?

With the clock ticking down and red herrings aside our law enforcement better have downed enough caffeine to freak out a long haul trucker or it's curtains for this quiet little town.

A few comments on the flick. One, this is gory but not to say the level of the Saw movies. The death scenes are over the top to be certain but that would be if we were watching a thriller rather than a slasher film. CGI eye popping looked so damn phony that the make-up crew forgot to blacken the victim's skin better. Kudos to the scalp wound though. As one-dimensional as most of the characters that have been on the naughty list, I found myself rooting for Killer Santa. Mild amount of nudity, the f-bomb got dropped more than a few times and they were stockpiled on Kyro syrup and black food dye. McDowell is clearly having fun with this movie as his one-liners are just the right amount of cheese delivered in such a serious manner you cannot help but snicker. 

 Vicious murderous make-up SFX guru Vincent J. Guastini (The Last of the Mohicans, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, The Devils Carnival and Under the Bed) the dismemberment, head splitting, axe wounds and gore gags aside tip their hat a bit to both the original and the second Silent Night, Deadly Night films but it does not have any story-line like it other than the killer is in a Santa suit and is going to town on the "guilty". That is really were the similarities end. So entertaining to a degree but DEFINITELY not one for the kids to curl around the fire place to AT ALL.

Guess he is not here to trim the tree.

Wild West TV Week: Wanted: Dead or Alive

Welcome pardners to Day 1 of Wild West TV Week and I hope to have a slew of heroes and desperadoes at the ready for you.  This write-up is about a bounty hunter that with his charm, wit and million dollar smile is to this day one of the most popular actors even after his untimely death.  A man that looks like he could handle himself in a bar fight as easy as picking up a lady.   This is Wanted: Dead or Alive.

Itchy shoulder can set off an itchy trigger, see?

Josh Randal: You want your friend here to keep spoiling, don't step out of line.







Civil War veteran Josh Randall (Steve McQueen of The Blob, The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery, Never So Few, The Great Escape, Nevada Smith, The Thomas Crowne Affair, The Getaway, Papillon, The Towering Inferno and The Hunter) is a bounty hunter by trade and brings the horse thieves and back shooters in dead or alive.  A lone operator in a sea of despicable men he roams the countryside on horseback looking for profitable outlaws.  The pilot episode has him visiting the local US Marshall Jeff Wilcox (John Cliff of Riverboat, Bat Masterson, Oklahoma Territory, Maverick, Perry Mason and That Darn Cat!) looking for one Andy Martin's bounty when he is ambushed but Andy's younger brother who cold cocks him with a pistol and then drills the Marshall.

It's NOT ALRIGHT since I picked that fight!!!

Randall wakes up with a headache and a plethora of accusations and he probably sprung this outlaw and got double-crossed.  Vengeance isn't so much swift in this town but they put an express land in it.  Randall clocks the two loud mouths, rides out of town and goes after the Martin boys to clear his name and avenge his friend Wilcox.  What treachery will be waiting for him along the way?  Will the Martin brothers have a gang to match Randall?  Interesting trivia in this, prior to being Little Joe via Bonanza, Michael Landon is a back shooter in the pilot episode and doesn't look a day over I Was a Teenage Werewolf era.

With influences like John Wayne of the big screen totting a 30.30 carbine rifle with longer barrel, custom action to chamber rounds faster or a maple wood stock to make it lighter.  This show took a different spin on this old thing that has armchair historians crapping themselves in anger.  It's just poor research, people.  Randall's Mare is a sawed off 1892 Winchester 94 which is his primary firearm giving him more rounds in a gun fight.   Now the Weekend Gunslingers got their spurs in a knot about the show being set in 1870's and therefore Randall's weapon does not exist yet and then they go on endlessly about the practicality of that chopped down rifle used like a club and blah blah blah.  Sorry McQueen is prettier than you, fellas but you really need a hobby.

The theme of the anti-hero was not uncommon for the latter 50's and early 60's with TV and Movies but this is possibly the first truly likable anti-hero.  Josh has been pinned down in some box canyon giving away the better chunk of his earned money to the families of the victims or just to see the victim gets a proper burial.  Helping folks under siege from an Indian attack (I will be hard pressed to find a true Native American in the lot), bandits holding up banks or even a good old fashion train robbery, Randall has the uncanny ability to be the right guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Could have something to do with the writing of course.

Take it, Phil. I'm inbred and illiterate, remember?

Post Apocalypse Week: Dawn of the Dead

Welcome back to Day 4 of Post Apocalypse Week kids and I thought we would step away from the nice neat nuclear holocaust section for a spell and let's dig in an effect of a comet passing the outer atmosphere of our planet instead.  I hear it has adverse effect on the dead in that it cause them to rise up from it.  In 1968,  writer/director George Romero (Night of the Living Dead, The Crazies, Martin, Day of the Dead, Creepshow, Monkey Shines, The Dark Half and Land of the Dead)  altered the course of what a zombie film means by creating  risen ghouls from the dead to dine upon the living's flesh.  This was titled Night of the Living Dead and made waves in the Horror community given a dismal view of these creatures that were once friends or family now hunger for our flesh and organs.  Breaking further ground unintentionally was casting our lead actor Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead, Losing Ground, Beast Street, To Die For, Fright House and Living Dead) a black man in the primary cast and before the 1970's this was apparently unheard of.    But that was all that night, what happens in at dawn?   This is Dawn of the Dead.


Francine Parker: What are they doing? Why do they come here?
Stephen: Some kind of spoiler. Memory of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.

Black Friday at Wal-Mart!

The US is becoming overrun with the living dead as a massive epidemic.  In the rural and small town areas, Government and local law enforcement seem to be handling the issue but the metropolitan cities are simply being swept up by the steadily increasing wave of unliving biting others and infecting them to add to the fold.  An argument during a telecast was the scientist screaming for nuclear deterrents to level the cities because the dead will never run out of food until they are all dead.    The zombie plague is taking over Philadelphia as martial law is declared. National Guard and SWAT teams break into a building to eradicate the zombies their former loved ones may be hiding.   A national demand that the dead must be given to the military for burning.

Hair smells great. New conditioner?

Helicopter pilot Stephen (David Emge of The Booby Hatch, Basket Case 2 and Hellmaster) and news switchboard staff Francine (Gaylen Ross of Dawn of the Dead, Madman and Creepshow) proceed to get the hell out of Dodge or Philly with a stolen helicopter.  Stephen is waiting for their SWAT buddy Roger (Scott H. Reiniger of Danny, Knightriders, Falcon Crest and Dawn of the Dead) who meets up with them along his newfound buddy and fellow SWAT member Peter (Ken Foree of The Wanderers, Knightriders, From Beyond, Viper, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, The Devil's Rejects, Halloween and Brotherhood of Blood) as they whisk themselves to safety.  From the sky they see the insanity and question humanity's survival but fuel is an issue and they want to make sure to top off as they land in a rural area rather than a big city cluster.

Barely escaping the fuel pump and its plethora of zombies our quartet make their way to a massive shopping mall which has plenty of supplies and ammo (1970's malls had many a gun and blade shops) so they decide to give it a looky loo.   Finding that the zombies are slow on their feet the four think to claim the mall for themselves and remove the zombies outright by locking the shatterproof windows, dropping the gates and leaving big rig semis in front of the doors.

Is this the Utopia to live out the Apocalypse in?   Are our heroes safe from harm or is it only a matter of time before it all comes to an end?

A quick few comments about this movie now.  SFX makeup artist/stuntman/actor Tom Savini had cut his teeth under Romero with the deranged vampire movie Martin that he just showed Romero all his skins he could and the two were bonded at the hip from there on.  Savini tutored the company that became KNB EFFX in Day of the Dead and they later have had more than 40 years of Special Make-up, prostethics and gore effects.  I just now notice Joseph Pilato (Knightriders, Day of the Dead, Gung Ho, Shooters, Alienator and Pulp Fiction) who had the antagonist role in Day of the Dead had a bit part in Dawn of the Dead but that was just an observation.   The End.

Carter administration takes more flack again!

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.

Vampire Grab Bag Week: Lust For A Vampire

Day 2 of the Vampire Grab Bag Week is upon us!   I bring us to the continuation of the Karnstein Trilogy.  A film that has many a buxom young lady, many an overtly drawn out scene, late night nude swims and creepy eyed men that almost hit the caliber of Christopher Lee but not quite and yes once again implied lesbian themes.   It seems Hammer was desperate to keep bottoms in the theater seats so clearly scantily clad females or topless ones will grasp the notice of many a horndog man.  So get your torches, blades and stakes for the vampiress is on the loose.  This is Lust for a Vampire.

School lunch program looks good to me!

You too will fall under the spoiler of Mircalla and then you will be damned for all eternity!

Once again an adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla is being created by Hammer Films by writer Tudor Gates (Death Is a Good Living, Better a Widow, Danger: Diabolik, Barbarella, The Vampire Lovers, Fright and Twins of Evil) showcases the depravity that lurks inside us all but especially young, prim and proper schoolgirls?   Not far from the uninhabited Castle Karnstein is a proper school for young girls that have been beseeched by black magic, Satanism and vampires.  An accomplished writer Richard Lestrange (Michael Johnson of The Human Jungle, Anne of a the Thousand Days, Homebodies, Crown Court and Perfect Scoundrels), a horror novelist is doing research for his next novel and the local villagers are warning him off from the Castle Karnstein and speak of every 40 years an unspeakable evil lurks through the land in the form of a vampire.  The legends speak of the sacrifice of an innocent blood to resurrect their wicked ancestors and bring for an age of darkness.

No I am not Paul McGann.

The local school houses an ancient vampiress now unbeknownst to all except for a few.  Yes this vampiress can WALK IN THE DAYLIGHT, be awake at all hours and seduces with a glance.   A young school girl Mircalla (Yutte Stensgaard Denmark nude model of The Girl with a Pistol, The Love Factor, Some Girls Do, Carry on Again Doctor, Scream and Scream Again and Doctor in Trouble) is perplexed to classmates missing, a local girl in town and even a teacher seems to have had a “heart attack” but her current attentions are on Lestrange as he has replaced the English instructor for this school and they both cannot cope with their feelings for one another.   

Yes now I must nitpick a bit about this film.  While this reign of terror is about; this would seem the ample time for copious amount of nudity, a over the top love scene where the orgasm brings Yutte to a cross eyed response to the tune of a tripe pop song entitled Strange Love.  This movie feels as though it stems away from the dignity of the Hammer Legacy and feels like the movie was rushed together providing far too much unexplained and how the royals move about without anyone questioning them at all.  They did not have any royal guards to speak of so revolting villagers could not have been thwarted in any sense of the manner.  There was more fog in this movie that John Carpenter’s The Fog and its remake combined, our blood looked garishly red and my god there were more heaving bosoms in this flick to rival soft core pornography.

Zombies? In the lake?? Heavens!

   

Eurozombie Week: La Horde

Hello all and welcome the last day of the Eurozombie Week and thankfully I managed to find a gem in all this muck.  Yes after a bit of research into the subject matter I can honestly say I have found a Eurohorror zombie film that is easily better than Zombie Lake and Oasis of the Zombies. I knew it was out there and all I had to do was wade hip deep in the depths of mediocrity and the movie appeared like a beacon of hope to the genre.  So strap on…your pistols.  Grab some food and booze of course and welcome to the night that knows little to no end.  This is La Horde.

Filthy Jacque won't stand for this.

Kim: This is spoiler Jimmy, we don’t have to do this…

Our movie opens with a bit of CGI drama laid ruins and a bald headed man roaming about, following up with the flashback sequence of the rest of the movie.  Yes it is a bit of a cliché film starter but it does pick up.  A crew of crooked cops plans to hit these ruthless gang bangers for blowing away one of their own.  Their badges mean nothing on this aggressive vigilante act and they full well know it.    They are not looking for the law but good old fashion street justice.  Our boys pimp slap their boys, fights of gun and fist break out in this building the bangers are holding up in.  

Man, Black Fridays are brutal!

Meanwhile outside of this building; explosions are seen and heard, sirens are screeching and insane garbled rabble is running about the streets.  You know, Black Friday in the states.  Our cops and robbers stop their reindeer games long enough to find out what is going on outside and are terrified to see the very building they are in is under siege (starring Steven Segal) a giant mob of the flesh rendering zombies.  Our collective groups have to team up to fend the zombies off long enough to find an exit from the building.    Just a reminder to those curious that this film is insanely graphic, a large grab bag of gore gags, some fast paced camera and editing so photophobics may want to bow out now.   Also these are not your Romero disarrayed zombies ambling along and stumble on a fleeing human zombie.  These suckers are adrenaline fueled, fast clip moving uber zombies that claw, tear and rend anything and everything until they get their bellies full of that sweet delicious flesh.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

I had a quick few highlights about the film and crew.  Our director/writer/actor Yannick Dahan pulled off his very first full-length film with impressive hand held work, dolly tracked hallways and even a few crane shots for scope.   His best friend writer/ documenter Arnaud Bordas (Maniac: Carnage culte, Our New Wave and CinemApocalypse) forged a series of vapid expressions and stale sayings with overdone concepts and still manage to produce a horrific vision of desperation, human frailty and uneasy alliances for self-preservation.    While the fullness of the impeding apocalypse was not rendered as well as I would have liked it to be, the movie does establish mass hysteria, rioting and utter chaos brought to us by this wave of undead.  

Soo...cocktails gonna happen or what?

Eurozombie Week: Hell of the Living Dead

Hey there kiddies!  I bet you are hankering for what I am hankering for.  Well actually really could go for a roast beef, light on the lettuce on toasted rye with Dijon mustard so how about a bleak and depressing zombie film instead? Yes once more into the cinematic breach dear friends as we jump into the fairly warped psyche of Bruno Matte.  Who is that you may ask?  Well folks this director/writer is responsible for a lot of Italian Lackluster films, unofficial sequels and far too many Women in Prison films.   Sound fun yet?   Well strap yourselves in people it is about to get a whole lot worse.  This is Hell of the Living Dead.

Am I late for the Walking Dead audition? I wanted to meet Michonne.

Lt. Mike London: Spoilers have people in them.  We’d better go investigate.

From the bent mind of writer Claudio Fragasso (Guardian of Hell, Women’s Prison Massacre, Rats-Night of Terror, Strike Commando and Double Target) a frequent collaborator of director Bruno Matte (Guardian of Hell, Double Target, Zombi 3, Born to Fight, Cruel Jaws and Land of Death) features a story of a top secret chemical research station called  Hope Center 1.   The irony is not lost on these people as two technicians work on the chemical batter (might be Ooze from Turtles 2) when a freak accident occurs causing a massive chemical leak in the facility turning the entire staff and crew into flesh devouring zombies.   That is literally the first 8 minutes of this movie and yes we even get the cliché, “How dare we play God,” line tossed in for good measure.

Telling you Pierre, this jumpsuit is riding right up my Hardy Boys.

During the meanwhile, in a unnamed country in Europe a collection of terrorists know of the Hope Centers as a bio-weapons division the collective governments are keeping quiet and they demand they be closed down forever.  Before that can happen a scruffy four-man commando team led by Italian Ross Hagen…I mean Lt. Mike London (Jose Gras of Mad Foxes, Depravacion and Conquest), sneaks in, knives most of the terrorists then smokes the rest into chunky salsa.  Not quite a Rambo movie but dang they got pulped.

After that fine bit of slaughter our boys are flown out to New Guinea due to communication failing to receive or transmit from Hope Center 1 and of course our hapless commandos are on a need to know basis about the research center so the “terrorist act” story is all they have to go on.  

Our crew encounters a cameraman and reporter Lia Rousseau (Margit Newton of Hunter of the Apocalypse, The Final Executioner, The Adventures of Hercules II and Act of Revenge) and she has reports of villagers attacking people at random in savage behavior similar to cannibalism.  Nearly mutilated in the New Guinea jungle our team are forced to take a raft and what little munitions they have left to complete their mission and finally make their way to Hope Center 1.  Mind you at this time we have to wait for the commandos and reporter to catch up what we already know. 

Well folks what is there to say of this movie?  Decent gore gags with the zombie dispatching, the dubbing clearly got muddled in translation and yes guys there is some nudity for ya.  Most of the music had been lifted with no payment to the intelligent property owner Goblin or George Romero and most of it is straight off of Dawn of the Dead.  My recommendation for this film is an adult MST3K party and no the kids SHOULD NOT be allowed to watch it.

Porn shoot that goes horribly awry!

Eurozombie Week!!!

Howdy boys and girls and welcome to this week's insanity. As I am sure you are aware of the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who was tended to and has had many a rave and nitpick about it... but that has NOTHING to do with this week other than I am going to the theater to watch it on IMAX... Heh.  Yeah I am a nerd/geek/doofus and couldn't care a wet slap about folks having an issue with it.

That being said (or written in this case) I propose the following week excavating the impact on the known European standing with zombies.  Yes we covered a plethora of zombie flicks around the globe and by God in heaven we are now focused solely on EuroHorror's sub-genre of zombie films.   The little rotters have made their way to the UK, Spain, Italy and several regions of France.  Hey I am an underdog fan and yet I loathe zombies.  A tad ironic I admit but nevertheless I will soldier on for the sake of my readers.

Victims of World War Z screenings...poor bastards.

So join with me as we embark on a quest for more ghoulies, rotten corpses and a few competent directors along the way.  Remember the undead make no noise...well except the shuffling, dragging of a broken limb and that weird eerie moan that is emitted before they attack.  Okay so they make noise but only when they are really nearby.

Horror Grab Bag Week:La maschera del demonio

Welcome my poor readers to the inherent evil that is Horror Grab Bag Week.  I decided we have not gone over an Italian horror film in a while and by God we need to fix that.  I drag you kicking and screaming into the mind’s eye of Mario Bava (Lust of the Vampire, The Day the Sky Exploded, Hercules in the Haunted World, The Road to Fort Alamo, Planet of the Vampires, Danger: Diabolik and A Bay of Blood) who is a Union head’s worst nightmare as he is a cinematographer/director/writer who dabbled in special effects as well.  Like most directors he has his trademarks and in his case he prefers tight zoom on a character’s face during suspenseful scenes and airplanes taking off and landing as a means to establish the beginning or ending to his story.   So it is off to the year 1630 and apparently black magic roams the land under Satan’s guidance.  Hey he likes to tutor.  Don’t judge.    So grab a soda pop from the vending machine, head to the lobby for some Gummi Bears and popcorn.   This is La maschera del demonio a.k.a. Black Sunday.

Mask of Satan for all your accessory needs.

Spoiler’s power had ravaged the lands and corrupted the youth.

In the lands of Moldavia a beautiful witch Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele of The 39 Steps, Your Money or Your Wife, Pit and the Pendulum, The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock, Castle of Blood, Piranha and The Silent Scream) and her little man servant Javuto (Arturo Dominici of Revenge of the Barbarians, The Trojan Horse, God Will Forgive My Pistol, Castle of Blood, The Senator Likes Women and Silent Action) are rousted by the local villagers to be burned at the stake for witchcraft and for murdering her brother.  Siblings just don’t always get along.   As a result of this witch trial Asa’s head is fastened with an iron mask so she may not enchant anyone else but she curses her brother’s blood line forever.

Dear God my English dub voice sounds sissy.

200 years later, Dr Thomas Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi of Tragic Hunt, The Day the life, Blood and Defiance, Imperial Venus, Torpedo Bay and Great Robbery in Milan) and his assistant are in route to a medical conference but one of the wheels on their quaint carriage snaps and the coachman is stuck repairing it.  As luck would have it they find Asa’s tomb from walking around and she is encased in a glass coffin lid with a giant crucifix over the lid.   Our two medical professionals end up smashing the lid trying to fend off a bat, Kruvajan’s blood drips on to Asa slowly reviving her.   She must be one of those rare vampiric witches we hear so much about these days.  Asa raises her man servant to go and find our good doctor for her unearthly delights and to reign over the descendant of the peasant rabble that destroyed her so long ago.  

Yes I have my comments and observations.  Don’t even tell me you are surprised.  Shot in 35mm Spherical this dubious film does arrive in black and white and is of course recorded in mono.  With some steady hand held of an almost 40 lb camera these poor guys’ backs had to be killing them.

Stone cold fox indeed. 

 I was curious in the posters both Barbara Steele and Arturo Dominici are show in the posters with vampire fangs and yet in the film I never once saw them flashed on camera.   It could have been a painful appliance or Bava wanted more of the dark magic aspect and less vampire.  Tallying at 87 minutes I feel the Italian dub with English subtitles was probably a better way to go but still a decent enough movie.

Shark Week...the bad cinema kind.

Answering yet another request of the week I tackling what one would presume as the bottom of the barrel creature features.   To prep everyone for the upcoming Discovery Channel event in August, I had a fan give me a Shark Week theme.   Oh sadly I will not be tackling any of the Jaws franchise but that could also be a good thing given the headache Jaws: The Revenge was. Thankfully though no Mako or Orca as well so feeling better.   So prep your fish lines, slough some chum and let's catch ourselves a whopper.

Avast, ya salty dogs!!