Matt’s Horror Addiction

Carnival of Blood – 1970, US, 87m. Director: Leonard Kirtman.

Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte – 1964, US, 132m. Director: Robert Aldrich.

Something Wicked This Way Comes – 1983, US, 95m. Director: Jack Clayton.

The Willies – 1990, US, 91m. Director: Brian Peck.

CARNIVAL OF BLOOD (1970) A man having a night out with his shrill wife at Coney Island’s amusement park is beset by a mad killer who follows them into the funhouse. The man comes out alive but his wife’s head is missing, ensuring a quiet evening for the man—and the audience. The next night, a nagging prostitute is stabbed under the park’s boardwalk, her intestines subsequently yanked out by the madman and stuffed inside a teddy bear—an effectively unnerving detail. Could there be a pattern to the killer’s modus operandi? Could it have something to do with the slow-witted carnival employee (the late Burt Young in an inauspicious film debut) who has a distaste for critical women? Do you smell a twist emanating from the lousy screenplay? This has the look and feel of a Herschell Gordon Lewis flick, but Carnival of Blood lacks the unintentional humor and colorful characters associated with Lewis’s work, and instead wallows in its dull, Psycho-infused narrative. It also doesn’t help matters that hero Martin Barolsky and his girlfriend Judith Resnick don’t have winning personalities—he’s a hotheaded dolt and she’s a whining narcissist. Great Brooklyn locations, though. C– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

HUSH… HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964) Decades after supposedly chopping her married lover into pieces, Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis) has turned into a reclusive spinster living out her days inside a crumbling Louisiana manor. The county’s plans to demolish Charlotte’s house sends the heiress into a tailspin of madness, made worse by the arrival of Charlotte’s wrong-side-of-the-tracks cousin (Olivia de Havilland). Charlotte’s mental capacity all but collapses after nightly visitations from her headless ex. This B&W chiller reunited Davis with Baby Jane director Robert Aldrich, and while the results aren’t nearly as titillating, Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte offers the viewer a juicy mystery wrapped in good acting and a couple of gory moments—the opening murder via meat cleaver is quite gruesome for its time. Overlong, and with a twist that rips off Diabolique (1955)—but still a solid film. As Charlotte’s faithful maid, Agnes Moorehead is a hoot. B (Currently not streaming.)

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1983) A handsomely photographed but uneven adaptation of the Ray Bradbury book, this is an example of massive studio interference (by Walt Disney) resulting in a film that feels incomplete. A small American town is overtaken by a mysterious traveling carnival and its sinister proprietor, Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce), who grants the locals their innermost desires in exchange for their souls, which he harbors inside one of his circus tents. Bradbury dropped out of the project after Disney rejected his original script treatment. He still gets writing credit, but many scenes were rewritten by John Mortimer, including a sequence in which the young protagonists are attacked by spiders—this scene was clearly shot at least a year after principle photography, as both child actors are visibly older. The good cast helps, especially Pryce in one of his earliest film roles, Jason Robards as a heroic father, and Pam Grier as Mr. Dark’s seductive sidekick. A muddled tone of Light vs. Dark (Good vs. Evil), and some heavy-handed plot conveniences creates more confusion than anything else, although there is an eventful climax boasted by some terrific special FX. It makes the viewer wonder what could have been accomplished had Bradbury stayed on course. A missed opportunity, indeed. C (Currently unavailable.)

THE WILLIES (1990) A comedic anthology in the E.C. tradition, with a trio of kids camping in the woods trying to creep each other out by telling ghost stories and gross-out jokes. After the predictable spinning of popular urban legends—like the dog in the microwave and the rat in the bucket of fried chicken—the oldest teen (Sean Astin) lays into the film’s first story involving a nerdy boy who’s not only harassed by his classmates but constantly persecuted by his tyrannical teacher (Kathleen Freeman). That is until he discovers a hungry creature lurking in the bathroom, which he uses to his advantage to dispose the bullies buffet-style. The second tale revolves around obnoxious brat, Gordy (Michael Bower), who has a fascination with pulling the wings off flies and gluing the bodies to a series of dioramas he keeps in the basement. He also bakes cookies and substitutes raisins with flies, which he serves to the kids at school. Gordy ultimately gets his just desserts when the flies come back as ginormous monsters, thanks to a local disgruntled farmer’s growth hormone serum. This story has moments but runs too long and lacks the inventiveness of the previous chapter. But, in terms of low-budget anthology titles, you could do a lot worse than The Willies. C+ (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter – 1974, US, 91m. Director: Brian Clemens.

Grave Secrets – 1989, US, 89m. Director: Donald P. Borchers.

HauntedWeen – 1991, US, 87m. Director: Doug Robertson.

Witchcraft – 1988, US, 92m. Director: Rob Spera.

CAPTAIN KRONOS: VAMPIRE HUNTER (1974) A small 19th century village is plagued by a series of bizarre incidents in which youthful women are turned into wrinkled old crones. Fearing the worst, the town’s doctor (John Carson) calls upon his former army friend and all-around vampire killer, Kronos (Horst Janson), who arrives with his hunchback assistant (John Cater) and the beautiful damsel-in-distress (Caroline Munro) he rescued from a pillory. One of Hammer Studio’s most lavish and ambitious productions, Captain Kronos is also wildly uneven—unsuccessfully mixing traditional vampire horror with swordplay melodrama, the film ultimately becomes a showcase for a lack of inventiveness and energy found in earlier (and better) Hammer movies. In fact, Captain Kronos‘s failure at the box office was the final straw for Hammer and the studio went bankrupt shortly after its release, ultimately canceling any further adventures for Kronos and his gang. C (Currently not streaming.)

GRAVE SECRETS (1989) Bed-and-breakfast owner, Iris (Renée Soutendijk), seeks the help of parapsychologist, David (Paul Le Mat), claiming her not-exactly-thriving country business is haunted. Thinking Iris is just looking for attention to bolster her clientele, David soon changes his mind when he witnesses levitating objects and hears phantom footsteps inside the house. Eventually, Iris’s mysterious past surfaces and sheds light on the supernatural manifestation, which might have something to do with the beheading of a man months earlier. A subtle approach to the material by the filmmakers is a welcome change of pace, but the screenplay is scattershot and raises more questions than answers, including why a subplot involving a local bumpkin’s (Lee Ving) obsession with Iris is at all relevant—the writers eventually drop it. The film’s lone scare comes during the last few minutes, but it turns out to be just a dream. It might work for De Palma, but in Grave Secrets it’s just another nail in the coffin. C (Currently not streaming.)

HAUNTEDWEEN (1991) In 1970, a young girl is killed inside a Halloween attraction by a mentally unstable kid named Eddie. Twenty years later, a frat brother (Brien Blakely) and his drunken cohorts try to raise money for their cash poor fraternity by recreating the haunted house attraction at the same location as the infamous murder—not realizing Eddie (Ethan Adler) has returned to the scene of the crime to pick up where he left off. Customers pool in to see the place’s dollar store aesthetic until Eddie kidnaps a few teens to his appropriately titled “Kill Room,” where patrons are witness to a victim having her throat cut with a chainsaw in a scene that gives new meaning to low budget filmmaking. A few minutes later, a jock has his head lopped off with a baseball bat, after which the crowd chants “home run” when the head bounces off the wall. One of Blakely’s friends sears Eddie’s face with a flamethrower, but not before the madman escapes into the night—along with the depressing thought that the makers of this trite slasher were hoping for a HauntedWeen 2. Luckily audiences were spared that unnecessary idea. Filmed in Bowling Green, Kentucky. C– (Currently available on Tubi.)

WITCHCRAFT (1988) After experiencing an arduous childbirth, Grace (Anat Topol) and her baby are sent to live with her husband John’s (Gary Sloan) mother, Elizabeth (Mary Shelley). The first night in the mansion, Grace has a dream involving people in black robes feasting on the innards of a dead dog. Elizabeth walks around the place looking like Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca (1940) and showing off the baby to her weirdo friends. The gaunt butler stands around looking sinister and tells Grace to stay out of the old wing of the house and dropping one of the biggest foreshadowing clues of all time. Grace’s relative, a priest, comes to visit and is immediately struck sick with visions of fire and brimstone. Before you can say Rosemary’s Baby, Grace uncovers a plot against her and her newborn designed by both Elizabeth and John—who are actually a pair of married Devil worshippers, murdered centuries ago by Puritans, and who have returned to sacrifice the baby for the Dark Lord. The screenplay never explains why the witches come back in present day Los Angeles—what exactly were they doing for all those decades?—or why Grace is chosen as its mother. But the film is directed and acted with enough confidence to make this lukewarm venture a watchable bit of 80s nostalgic malarkey. Whether you can sit through the subsequent thirteen sequels is up to you. C (Currently available on YouTube.)

Blackout – 1985, Canada/US, 98m. Director: Douglas Hickox.

The Demon Lover – 1977, US, 74m. Director: Donald G. Jackson, Jerry Younkins.

Night Angel – 1990, US, 88m. Director: Dominique Othenin-Girard

Possession – 1981, France/West Germany, 124m. Director: Andrzej Zulawski.

BLACKOUT (1985) An amnesiac, disfigured in a car crash, undergoes several facial reconstructive surgeries and discovers his name is Allen Devlin. Devlin (Keith Carradine) begins romancing his friendly doctor (Kathleen Quinlan) and, in the following years, the two start a family. Suburban bliss turns sour, however, when Devlin is stalked by an obsessive cop (Richard Widmark) who believes Devlin might actually be a psychopath who brutally murdered his own family six years earlier. Despite being a made-for-television thriller, Blackout is taut stuff and predates the similar The Stepfather. Established British filmmaker Douglas Hickox (Theater of Blood) delivers a well-rounded mystery, which works mostly because of believable situations and likable characters—including Quinlan, who’s excellent. Recommended, if you can find it. B (Currently unavailable.)

THE DEMON LOVER (1977) A woman is summoned to a graveyard in the middle of the night, where she’s clawed to death by some sort of monster. Later on, a group of friends who follow a cultist named Laval (Christmas Robbins, resembling Robby Steinhardt of the band Kansas) question their leader’s motives when Laval instructs the women to disrobe and open their legs for the men. Seeking retribution, Laval performs a ritual which brings forth a demon to kill his ex-cult members. Baffled by the bizarre deaths, a homicide detective seeks help from a local occult expert (Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s Gunner Hansen), who informs the cop of the sinister dealings of underground black magic practitioners like Laval. Since this information has been evident to the viewer from the get-go, all one can do is sit back and try to enjoy this obscure bargain-basement oddity made by people who probably saw Rosemary’s Baby on acid. Entertaining in spite of itself. Look for Howard the Duck co-creator Val Mayerik in a small role. C+ (Currently streaming via Tubi.)

NIGHT ANGEL (1990) Lilith—the Biblical Adam’s first wife and mistress to Satan, the subject of theologists and Jewish folklore scholars the world over, and the antagonist of so many films of the late eighties—had, by 1990, replaced the vampire as the modern horror movie’s femme fatale. In Night Angel, Lilith (Isa Andersen) crawls out of Hell to seduce and kill the mostly male staff of a highfalutin fashion magazine in order to take over the business. That’s small peanuts compared to world domination, but within the context of the movie’s shallow world of sex and glamour it works splendidly. As soon as Lilith gets into town, she fucks one of the magazine’s editors to death before slaughtering his family. This is followed by an unintentionally hilarious sequence where Lilith, in an attempt to woo the crowd, dances for a room of publishers. More people end up murdered as she engulfs the fashion community, including the magazine’s zombified owner, who walks into an elevator shaft and plummets to his death. Lilith doesn’t stop at just men—she turns the magazine’s sex-starved heiress (Karen Black) into a brain-dead guinea pig. Photos of Lilith circulate the office, turning the employees into homicidal horndogs. Supplied by K.N.B. EFX, the makeup and other special effects are first-rate—a prolonged hallucination features the hero (Linden Ashby) walking through a David Lynchian version of Hell amidst a sea of ghastly bodily mutations, including the ultimate pair of tits. When it comes to acting, the folks of Night Angel don’t dial it back—especially Anderson, who’s particularly unrestrained in the moaning department—but would we have it any other way? I certainly hope not! Unadulterated camp—not to be missed. B (Currently available on YouTube.)

POSSESSION (1981) Mark (Sam Neill) and Anna (Isabelle Adjani) are very unhappy. Married and with a young son, the couple do nothing but scream at each other—often for no particular reason other than because the script calls for it—and throw things around as if they’re living in a skit from the Muppet Show. Anna is having an affair, but upon confronting her lover, Mark discovers she cut it off months ago. This is because Anna’s new lover is big, slimy, and not human. A private detective, hired by Mark, is murdered by Anna after stumbling upon her secret—she keeps the beast in a grungy apartment where she feeds it the body parts of her victims. Possession is a movie that takes itself very seriously, which is amusing considering it’s nothing more than an overwrought rip-off of Cronenberg’s The Brood. Both Adjani and Neill overact, with the script failing to make either character sympathetic or the slightest bit interesting. It says something when the monster turns out to be the smartest character in the movie. But, maybe that was the point? A critical and commercial bomb that’s only recently received attention from the intelligentsia who praise its grotesque decadence. D– (Currently streaming on Kanopy.)

Horror Express – 1972, Spain/UK, 86m. Director: Eugenio Martin.

The House on Straw Hill – 1976, UK, 84m. Director: James Kenelm Clarke.

Mansion of the Doomed – 1976, US, 88m. Director: Michael Pataki.

Out of the Dark – 1988, US, 90m. Director: Michael Schroeder.

HORROR EXPRESS (1972) The unearthing of a prehistoric relic—in the form of a Cro-Magnon man—at the turn of the 20th century spells doom for its discoverer (Christopher Lee) and the passengers on board a train when the fossil is transported through Russian territory. Unbeknownst to all involved, the body harbors some sort of parasitic alien life form that’s able to boil its victims brains in their skulls and take over the mind of others, thereby hiding among the travelers without their knowledge. In the process of finding out who is committing the murders, Lee and fellow scientist Peter Cushing—whadda team!—sample a victim’s blood and, through a microscope, see images of Earth from space. The idea that the creature’s blood holds photographic memories of its million-year lifespan is preposterous even by 1970s genre standards. Horror Express has the appearance of a high-class production but it’s nothing more than a lowbrow rip-off of John W. Campbell’s novella Who Goes There? made earlier (and better) as The Thing From Another World (1951). A quick pace and good cast help to capture the viewer’s attention even when the movie descends into utter nonsense—which is quite often. Recommended only for hardcore Lee/Cushing completists. C (Currently streaming on Plex and Tubi.)

THE HOUSE ON STRAW HILL (1976) (AKA: Exposé; Trauma) To finish his new book, pompous writer Udo Kier moves into a house in the British countryside (the house on Straw Hill, I presume) in order to escape his lecherous ex-girlfriend. He instead finds a new source of lechery in the form of secretary Linda Hayden (Taste the Blood of Dracula), who moves into the cottage with Kier and partakes in secretarial work, such as typing, masturbating, and joining Kier in the sack for some midday screwing—she seems particularly skilled at the latter. The ex (Fiona Richmond) eventually returns and, wouldn’t you know it, becomes the subject of a graphic lesbian sex scene. The sexcapades escalate to murder as Hayden performs a revenge-fueled knifing on Richmond before she and Kier have a fight-to-the-death showdown. The truth surfaces as the viewer discovers—through Hayden’s sanguinary activities—that Kier’s first novel was actually written by Hayden’s husband, who later committed suicide after Kier stole the manuscript, turning it into a best-seller. It’s a shame The House on Straw Hill never turns into a good movie; the final product ends up being nothing more than a shallow exercise in softcore pornography. Hayden never becomes a believable character, while Kier gives a wooden performance, made worse by awkward dubbing—despite the fact Kier is speaking English, his voice has been replaced by an American actor’s. Best to stay away from Straw Hill altogether. D (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

MANSION OF THE DOOMED (1976) In what’s essentially a loose remake of George Franju’s Eyes Without a Face, surgeon Richard Basehart goes to murderous lengths to restore his daughter’s eyesight. After Basehart causes his beautiful daughter (Trish Stewart) to go blind in a car accident, he becomes obsessed in discovering a way to perform a live eye transplant, which all of his colleagues insist can’t be done. Experimentation soon becomes the order of the day for the loony Doc who—along with the help of his assistant (Gloria Grahame)—kidnaps and performs hideous eye transplants on an assortment of victims, including Stewart’s fiancé (Lance Henriksen). Once eyeless, the “patients” are kept locked in the cellar of Basehart’s Beverly Hills mansion, where they grow into an angry mob, hungry for revenge. Mansion of the Doomed is entertaining in spite of itself, but looses momentum in the third act when the plot is swallowed in unbelievable conveniences and an unnecessary subplot involving a detective (Alice‘s Vic Tayback) wasting the viewer’s time by trying to solve the mystery. The story crescendos in the final ten minutes when the sightless horde escapes and gives Basehart a taste of his own medicine. C+ (Currently available on Plex and Tubi.)

OUT OF THE DARK (1988) The phone sex business is a hard trade, in more ways than one. The women of Suite Nothings not only have to keep their clients on the line as long as possible to make their quota, but also have to dodge the knife of a psychopathic killer in a clown mask. Apparently, these “phone fantasy girls” are so popular within their L.A. community that the boyfriend (Cameron Dye) of one of the women is assigned by a prestigious magazine to snap some pics for a cover story. Dye naturally becomes the prime suspect when photos of the first murder victim are discovered in his studio—but the actual maniac is most likely a) the leering four-eyed creep who works down the hall, b) a sleazy photographer who secretly takes pictures of women undressing through their windows, or c) Dye, the boyfriend of one of the phone sex… Oops! A nonfunctional brew of neo-noir crime elements intermixed with slasher movie cliches, Out of the Dark has a good cast trying their best within the context of the intermittently silly screenplay—and, what a cast! Karen Black! Burt Cort! Tab Hunter! Geoffrey Lewis! Paul Bartel! Divine! It’s too bad none of them can save this unabashedly awful movie from itself. D (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

The Forest – 2016, US, 93m. Director: Jason Zada.

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death – 1971, US, 89m. Director: John D. Hancock.

The Loreley’s Grasp – 1973, Spain, 84m. Director: Amando de Ossorio.

The Murder Clinic – 1966, Italy/France, 82m. Director: Elio Scardamaglia, Lionello De Felice.

THE FOREST (2016) On the northwest side of Japan’s Mount Fuji lies the Aokigahara, a vast forest known by locals to be filled with spirits of the dead, and a popular locale for those who wish to commit suicide. It’s in this ghostly wilderness where American teacher Jess was last seen before she disappeared. Twin sister Sara (Natalie Dormer, Game of Thrones) senses her distraught sibling’s vibes and travels to Japan to find her. Sara’s plight interests a journalist (Taylor Kinney) writing about the “Suicide Forest,” and the two hire a guide to take them into the woods. Isolation and disorientation set in until Sara becomes too psychologically unbalanced to tell what’s real and what’s in her head. The film’s roots look like they stem from the world of J-horror, but those expecting a movie filled with nonstop jump scares might be disappointed in The Forest‘s subtler approach. There are a few scary moments but the majority of the movie is focused on character and mood. Unfortunately, the third act is disjointed and clumsy, culminating in a silly “shock” ending that feels tacked on. B– (Currently not streaming.)

LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971) Emotionally fragile Jessica (Zohra Lampert) is taken by her husband (Barton Heyman) to convalesce in the country after she’s released from a mental hospital. Upon arriving at their new home, Jessica begins seeing a woman in white around the property—a woman who might be the ghost of someone who lived in the house decades earlier, before drowning in the nearby lake. Jessica’s mental stability starts to break when she discovers a dead body in the woods and is later attacked by a female specter from below the lake’s surface. This low budget oddity has recently gained attention from film scholars but it’s really nothing more than an uninvolving retelling of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla told through the viewpoint of a disillusioned housewife. Atmospheric but empty, and with Lampert giving a one-note performance. C (Currently not streaming.)

THE LORELEY’S GRASP (1973) (AKA: When the Screaming Stops) This movie has a helluva opening! On a dark night in Rhine, Germany, a scaly beast with claws crashes through a window and slashes a woman to death—her bloodied, lifeless body is shown in close-up as the opening credits roll. Too bad the rest of the film stinks. The victim was from an all-girl’s school—the kind that only admit centerfolds—that hires a sharpshooter (Tony Kendall) to protect the rest of the student body should more attacks occur. Kendall’s presence proves fruitless when another student is torn to pieces by the monster. Some believe it’s the work of a wild animal, but audiences know it’s the Lorelei—a legendary supernatural being that can take the form of a woman and transform into a lizard-like creature when the moon is full. After a blind beggar has his heart ripped out by the Lorelei (this movie seems to have an endless supply of torn-open fake torsos), Kendall teams up with a scientist (and Lorelei expert) to try and stop the killings. A group of townspeople round up the usual idiots to form a pitchfork-and-torch-carrying mob, hellbent on destroying the Lorelei—but much like Kendall’s himbo hunter, they fail to kill it. The Lorelei’s grasp is eventually overcome when she’s stabbed with a sacrificial dagger, but not before a quick embrace by a smitten Kendall after she transforms into busty Helga Liné. I guess love does win in the end. A handsomely made, typically asinine epic from Amando de Ossorio (Tombs of the Blind Dead). D+ (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

THE MURDER CLINIC (1966) A 19th century mental institution becomes the killing ground of a hooded maniac who slices up the patients—and staff—with a straight razor. The first on-screen victim, a mute woman, manages to escape to the nearby countryside, but succumbs to the murderer’s slashing; her book is found by a nurse the next morning with a slash torn across it. That nurse (Barbara Wilson) is new to the clinic and is introduced to the patients, all of whom seem to suffer from fits of rage, and all of whom are potential suspects. The real suspect is the hideously scarred sister-in-law of Dr. Robert Vance (William Berger), who hides in the attic—the sight of her deformed face makes a guest faint from shock (or perhaps she was surprised by the lousy make-up job). The Murder Clinic has all of the hallmarks of an early Italian slasher, or giallo—the gloved killer, the bevy of beautiful women, the complex backstory involving the protagonist. What the film doesn’t have are interesting characters, surprises, or a lick of suspense throughout its 82 minutes. C– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

The Horror of Party Beach – 1964, US, 78m. Director: Len Tenney.

Keep My Grave Open – 1977, US, 73m. Director: S.F. Brownrigg.

Night of the Bloody Apes – 1969, Mexico, 84m. Director: René Cardona.

The Nightcomers – 1971, UK, 97m. Director: Michael Winner.

THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH (1964) Radioactive waste dumped into the ocean transforms the dead crew of a sunken fishing boat into humanoid sea monsters. The creatures ascend topside at a popular beach and kill a teen, igniting a feeding frenzy within the local scientific community. This low-grade teenybopper exploitation flick takes the upbeat musical components of the Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello bikini romp, Beach Party, and mixes it with the horrors of Creature from the Black Lagoon, but with extremely mixed results. Much of the film’s poor craftsmanship ranks within the so-bad-it’s-good category, but its plotless story structure holds your attention only for so long. Luckily, Horror of Party Beach‘s scant 78 minutes won’t keep you from straying too far from the TV. A drive-in crap classic that predates the Roger Corman-produced Humanoids from the Deep, which features a similar plot but with 1980s-infused nudity and violence. C+ (Currently streaming on Prime.)

KEEP MY GRAVE OPEN (1977) If anyone needs more proof that Hitchcock’s Psycho influenced a whole generation of independent filmmakers, look no further than with this low-budget oddity. Lesley (Camilla Carr) lives an isolated life in a hilltop manor with her brother, Kevin. The young woman, who seems to be in a permanent state of upset, suffers from headaches and is constantly bickering with her bro, who wisely stays behind closed doors. When Lesley is in the mood for love, she seeks affection from stable boy Bobby (Stephen Tobolowsky), whose girlfriend ultimately winds up on the wrong end of a sword. Lesley’s hormones continue to surge, and after getting dolled up (and looking like Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde) she commits the most forbidden of acts with Kevin. This is followed by the slashing of another victim in the bathroom. But there’s a twist, folks! Kevin fled town years ago and left sis a loony psycho who lives in a fantasy world, using big bro’s saber to take down those she feels threatened by. Pretty scary, huh? Not really. Despite its overt silliness, Keep My Grave Open expects to be taken seriously. That’s a tough sell for a movie that seems destined to end up on a revival of Mystery Science Theater 3000. C– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES (1969) Desperate to cure his teenage son, Julio’s, leukemia, a medical doctor takes a gorilla’s heart and transplants it into the young man. After we’re treated to some graphic footage of real open-heart surgery—the squeamish will want to look away—Julio wakes up on the operating table a new man, so to speak. His newfound health is short-lived when he begins to develop ape-like facial deformities—and a thirst for brutally murdering his fellow homo sapiens. This notorious south-of-the-border gore job has all of the hallmarks of an unintentional howler, including bad editing, laughable acting, Ed Wood-level writing, and is possibly the first “the-make-up-ends-at-the-neck” example of obliviously terrible filmmaking. A subplot featuring a female wrestler seems to have been tacked on to pad out the running time, but Mexican female wrestling fans will most likely rejoice. Slightly amusing and all-moronic, Night of the Bloody Apes is Mexican trash cinema at its weirdest. The movie is actually a remake of director René Cardona’s previous Doctor of Doom, but with a lot more boobs and blood. D+ (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

THE NIGHTCOMERS (1971) Marlon Brando’s last hurrah before The Godfather gave him his superstar resurgence, this handsome but murky film acts as a prequel to Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, which was adapted to great success as The Innocents (1961). Brando plays the brutish Peter Quint, groundskeeper to Bly Manor and home to orphans Flora (Verna Harvey) and Miles (Christopher Ellis) and their buxom governess, Ms. Jessel (Stephanie Beacham). Quint spends his days tending to the horses, drinking, and acting like a general buffoon. Despite his lecherous demeanor, Flora and Miles take an immediate liking to Quint—he tells the easily manipulated Miles that the rape Quint committed against Ms. Jessel, which Miles witnessed, is a form of lovemaking. Quint’s corruption turns Miles and Flora into psychopathic brats and Ms. Jessel into a lovelorn halfwit who literally rows a boat to her doom while pining for her despicable “lover.” The script never develops these people into actual characters the viewer can sympathize with; instead, the actors go through the motions like zombified caricatures. Brando’s terrible Scottish accent is one for the ages. Read Turn of the Screw and bypass this flaky production without a second thought. D (Currently unavailable.)