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.)