CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA

Robert Bean and Betsy Jones-Moreland

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961). Produced and directed by Roger Corman. NOTE: This is the colorized version. 

Undercover agent "Sparks" Moran (Robert Towne) has become part of the gang run by Renzo Capetto (Antony Carbone). Renzo has taken some gold from Cuba with the help of a bunch of Cuban soldiers, and is heading toward Puerto Rico in his boat. Accompanying him are his moll Mary-Belle (Betsy Jones Moreland), her brother Happy Jack (Robert Bean), and an idiot named Pete (Beach Dickerson) who can do uncanny imitations of animals. Wanting the loot for himself, Renzo plans to kill off the soldiers and blame it on a sea monster, which turns out to actually exist. 

Carbone, Jomes-Moreland, and the monster

This black comedy was filmed back to back with Corman's Last Woman on Earth and reuses the three leads from that film, Carbone, Jones-Moreland, and Towne, who became better known as a screenwriter. Creature has a couple of chuckles, but its mostly lame, although Corman keeps it moving so fast you never get as bored as you might have (although you probably won't want to ever see it again). The monster, which seems to consist mostly of seaweed with two pop-out white eyes like out-sized golf balls and claws, is about eight feet tall. Other characters include fat Rosina (Esther Sandoval) and her daughter, Mango (Sonia Noemi Gonzalez), and Carmelita (Blanquita Romero), who develops a yen for Sparks.  

Romero, Towne, bit players, Carbone

The odd thing about Creature is how well photographed it is, with each shot well-composed as to how characters and objects are situated in relation to one another and within the frame (see photo at left). You expect this (but don't always get it) in some well-known, expensive movies, but not in crap like Creature. The cinematographer was Jacques (or Jack) Marquette, but while I've seen other films he's shot -- such as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman -- nothing he's done has ever struck me the same way in the photographic sense. (Wow -- I get to look at 50 Foot Woman one more time !) Marquette seemed to photograph anything that came his way, from Corman films to Elvis Presley movies to TV shows and had a very long career.

The screenplay was written by Charles B. Griffith, who turned in better work for Corman's Attack of the Crab Monsters and some others. Inexplicably, this was actually remade in 2019. 

Verdict: Sixty minutes of silliness with some spirited performances. **. 

MATANGO / ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE

A tense moment in Matango

ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE (aka Matango/1963). Director: Ishiro Honda. In Tohoscope. 

A businessman, Kasai (Yoshio Tsuchiya), sets sail on his yacht with his skipper Sakuta (Hiroshi Koizumi) and five friends, including the self-absorbed entertainer Mani (Kumi Mizuno) and the sweet and shy Akiko (Miki Ashiro). The others include the writer Yoshida (Hiroshi Tachikawa), the sailor Koyana (Kenji Sahara), and Professor Murai (Akira Kubo). The yacht nearly goes down during a very bad and frightening storm, but the group in the crippled ship mercifully sights land not too much later. On this deserted island they find a derelict research ship on the beach, which they make their home as they repair the yacht, which, unfortunately, drifts off to sea. Everything in the derelict is covered with fungi, and they decide it might be better not to eat the mushrooms that grow everywhere on the island. But some of them succumb ... 

Mami and Akiko

The interesting thing about Matango is how effective it is for much of its length. Well-photographed and directed, with an evocative score, it has a great deal of creepy atmosphere and suspense as we watch this assortment of characters, faced with starvation or a lifetime of isolation, start to unbend, each reacting differently to the crisis they find themselves in. It develops that the island is a ship's graveyard, adding to the ominous quality of the picture, as does the fact that experiments of an unknown nature were being conducted on the derelict ship. 

Where the picture falls down is in its monsters, people who have been turned into mostly mindless mushroom creatures that resemble something you might have seen on sillier episodes of the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV show. The mushrooms also cause hallucinations and flashbacks, so things become a little strange in the final quarter of the film. The English dubbing of this Japanese film is excellent, however, and the performances of both the original actors and the dubbing cast all seem to be quite good.  One comical moment occurs when the group try the radio to see if anyone knows of their disappearance, and the very second they turn on the set their names are mentioned! Some people feel this is an uncredited version of "The Voice in the Night" by horror author William Hope Hodgson. Honda also directed the classic original Gojira (Godzilla).

Verdict: Oddly, this is an absorbing and ultimately depressing horror flick. ***. 

EARTH VS THE SPIDER

The spider saunters past sheriff's office

EARTH VS THE SPIDER (1958). Director: Bert I. Gordon. 

A gigantic bird spider of unknown origin wakes up in a cave and begins eating the locals. One of the first victims is Jack Flynn (Merritt Stone), whose daughter Carol (June Kenney) and boyfriend Mike (Eugene Persson) find his desiccated corpse. Initially put down by gallons of DDT, the spider is presumed dead and put in the gymnasium, until a band's practicing wakes it up and off it goes on a rampage. Now the town has to figure out a way to destroy the monster for good, but are science teacher Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer) and Sheriff Cagle (Gene Roth) up to the challenge?

The deputy: pitiful victim of the giant spider

Earth vs the Spider, clearly inspired by the superior Tarantula, is another of Burt I. Gordon's  (Mr. BIG) monster movies with its usual attempts at characterization, variable special effects work, and a few grisly touches that might have provided shocks for teens in the fifties. The picture has some suspense, a few disturbing moments, and is a lot of fun. Like normal-sized spiders, this monster immobilizes its victims and sucks all the juice out of them, although this business is never actually depicted; we only see the results. The film was supposedly filmed in the famous Carlsbad caverns. The "teens" in this movie were mostly played by adults. Joe the bandleader, is played by Troy Patterson, who was thirty-five at the time! 

NOTE: You can read more about this film and others like it in Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies. 

Verdict: You can't go completely wrong with Mr. BIG! **1/2. 

THE UNBORN (1991)

Jeff Hayenga, Brooke Adams, Kathy Griffin

THE UNBORN (1991). Director: Rodman Flender. 

Virginia Marshall's (Brooke Adams) last hope to conceive a child lies with fertility specialist Dr. Meyerling (James Karen). Although Virginia, along with her husband Brad (Jeff Hayenga), is delighted when she gets pregnant, she comes to think that there's something unnatural growing inside of her. And that Meyerling, a geneticist by trade, has something to do with it. She has a breakdown on a national television show and is convinced her baby is a monster. Is she as nutty as a fruitcake, or is Meyerling implanting super-babies in women's wombs? 

It's Alive! 

The Unborn is utter schlock that is an embarrassment for all concerned. The movie becomes more ludicrous with every moment, eventually turning into a complete burlesque, and good performances from Adams and Hayenga are completely wasted. The derivative plot combines everything from It's Alive to Children of the Damned with a dose of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the remake of which starred Adams) thrown in for good measure. 

Jeff Hayenga

If that's not bad enough we're introduced to a lesbian couple (one of whom is played by comic Kathy Griffin) at the fertility clinic, and while at first they are treated sympathetically, it later develops that they are a little crazy. They even have negative feelings about males (the incredibly old and tired "lesbians hate men" stereotype), wanting to exclude husbands from birthing classes because they are "outsiders" -- huh? When Kathy Griffin is hammered to death by her girlfriend (don't ask) she keeps screaming at Adams over the phone to call the police and Adams just keeps asking "what's wrong" instead of simply hanging up and calling the police! This is only one of several dumb sequences in the movie, which is, in a word, awful. People who insist there's something profound going on in  this flick need to crack a book sometime.

Verdict: You could call this, say, an examination of baby hatred but the movie has absolutely nothing on its mind. *. 

CASE 39

Jodelle Ferland and Renee Zellweger

CASE 39 (2009). Director: Christian Alvart.  NOTE: This review gives away some plot points. 

Emily Jenkins (Renee Zellweger) is a social worker who gets involved in the case of two parents who seem to hate their young daughter, Lily (Jodelle Ferland). After the couple literally try to murder their daughter in an oven, they are arrested and Lily is taken away from them. Lily begs Emily to let her live with her even as her parents continue to warn her that the child is evil. And then people start dying ... 

Ian McShane

Case 39 is well-directed and well-acted by Zellweger, an amazing young Ferland, and Ian McShane as a slightly grizzled cop. If there had never been any other horror films with demonic children, it might have been a contender, but to say this is staggeringly unoriginal is a major understatement. While not as "epic" as The Omen and its sequels and imitations, it is basically a rip-off of earlier films (and apparently many consider it a copy of a similar film entitled Orphan, which I have not yet seen). This is too bad, because the film is slick, well-photographed by Hagen Bogdanski, and has some effectively ghoulish sequences, such as when Emily's good-natured friend Doug (Bradley Cooper) is attacked and killed by wasps or hornets. Emily, and especially the hardened detective played by McShane, accept the supernatural explanation for the goings-on much, much too quickly to be believable. 

A more recent and better film entitled The Prodigy featured a devious youngster but that was about a possessed child, not a child who was demonic or Satanic, and it also had some interesting twists to the plot. 

Verdict: Entertaining enough, but you've seen it all before -- many times. **1/4. 

MYSTERY STREET

Ricardo Montalban

MYSTERY STREET (1950). Director: John Sturges. 

A blackmailer named Vivian (Jan Sterling), who lives in a shady boarding house, winds up on the wrong end of a bullet. Some time later Lt. Morales (Ricardo Montalban) of the Barnstable, Cape Cod police force is called in when a skeleton is found on a beach. With the help of forensics and some dogged police work, as well as interviews with those who knew Vivian, Morales is able to zero in on the killer. Morales' chief suspect is Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson of Cult of the Cobra), a married man who made the drunken mistake of driving off with Vivian that night, while Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester), the landlady of the boarding house, is playing a dangerous game of blackmail that could make her the next victim. 

Elsa Lanchester and Edmon Ryan

Mystery Street deals with forensic science much, more more than the average murder mystery of the period, which is one of its strengths. There are also some fine performances from Montalban, Lanchester, Thompson, Sterling, Bruce Bennett as a Harvard professor that Morales consults with, and Sally Forrest as Thompson's wife. Forrest has a particularly good scene talking obliquely about the death of her child in the hospital. There is also nice work from Betsy Blair as a woman who lived in the same boarding house as the victim, and Edmon Ryan as a ship builder who is another suspect. Walter Burke and King Donovan have smaller roles and are fine.

Sally Forrest and Marshall Thompson

Mystery Street has some flaws, however. There is not nearly enough music, which would have strengthened key sequences. Certain actions of the main suspect should have strongly intimated that he wasn't the murderer if Lt. Morales, who seems quite smart, was using his head. And the scene when Morales walks in on Shanway just a second after the latter happens to see the victim's photo in the newspaper is coincidence carried a bit too far. John Alton's moody photography is an asset, though. Leading man Montalban always played with a borderline cocky assurance that gives his thesping a certain flavorful aspect -- this film is no exception in that regard.

Verdict: Good crime thriller with some very good performances. ***. 

THE HORROR OF IT ALL

Erica Rogers and Pat Boone

THE HORROR OF IT ALL (1964). Director: Terence Fisher. 

American Jack Robinson (Pat Boone) comes to the isolated mansion of his British fiancee, Cynthia (Erica Rogers), only to discover that his timing is off. It seems that cousin Creighton has passed away and is laid out in the parlor. Soon Jack learns that one of Cynthia's relatives -- spirited Cornwallis (Dennis Price); spooky Natalia (Andree Melly); somber Reginald (Valentine Dyall); mad inventor Percival (Jack Blight); senile Grandpa (Eric Chitty); and crazy Muldoon (Archie Duncan) -- has begun murdering off the others for an inheritance. 

Dennis Price and Pat Boone

The Horror of It All is a silly black comedy that bears a striking and suspicious resemblance to William Castle's remake of The Old Dark House, which came out the year before. There are so many similarities that I've no doubt many viewers have confused the two pictures over the years. (Adding to the confusion is that a later film, No Place Like Homicide aka What a Carve Up! also has a similar plot.) The Horror of It All was written by Ray Russell, who worked with Castle on Mr. Sardonicus (from Russell's novel). The Old Dark House was written by Robert Dillon, and both Dillon and Russell worked on the screenplay for the Ray Milland film, X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes. 

Boone in a death trap

In any case, The Old Dark House is somewhat better than Horror. Although no one would ever confuse him with Cary Grant, Boone gives a perfectly good comic performance in this. Dennis Price and the other cast members play with enthusiasm as well. This will never go down as one of Hammer horror specialist Terence Fisher's [The Gorgon] more memorable movies, unfortunately. A scene when Boone is nearly crushed in a locked room with a descending ceiling is only mildly exciting for instance. Boone sings the acceptable title tune halfway through the movie. The best scene has Price describing to Boone the various awful ways in which his ancestors died. "A blighted people, a family accursed," says he. Interestingly, The Addams Family TV showed debuted this same year. 

Verdict: Watchable sort-of remake of Old Dark House. **1/4. 

UNCLE: THE SORT-OF-DO-IT-YOURSELF-DREADFUL AFFAIR

Model A-77 (Willi Koopman) goes on the rampage 

THE SORT-OF-DO-IT-YOURSELF-DREADFUL AFFAIR (1966). The Man from Uncle; season three; episode two. Teleplay by Harlan Ellison. Director: E. Darrell. Hallenbeck. 

Trying to get at some files from the evil organization Thrush, UNCLE agent Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) encounters a strange guardian of the files: a beautiful woman who is impervious to bullets and seems super-strong. She turns out to be a cyborg, mostly artificial but with some human parts. The cyborg's face is modeled on a young lady who was the roommate of "Andy" Francis (Jeannine Riley), who gets involved with Solo and Illya (David McCallum) on their investigation. 

David McCallum and Robert Vaughn

Thrush, which is already a very wealthy organization, wants a billion dollar loan and Napoleon poses as a representative of the bank. Thrush's goal is to build a great many of these cyborgs "to help mankind," although their true purpose will be to act as unexpected soldiers. The scientist behind this is the unwitting Dr. Pertwee (Woodrow Parfrey), while his Thrush liaison is the sensual Margo Hayward (Pamela Curran). Eventually our heroes, along with Andy, manage to get into Thrush's New York headquarters, where they find themselves up against not only the forces of Thrush, but a whole bevy of beautiful and deadly killer cyborgs. 

She-Cyborgs on the loose! 

By the third season of the show, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. had become increasingly absurd and campy, trying too hard to imitate Batman or Get Smart. Nevertheless, some of the third season episodes at least had some amusing entertainment value. While one could argue that "The Sort-of-Do-It-Yourself-Dreadful Affair" is an example of why TV was called the "boob tube," the episode still has several points of interest. It is one of only a couple of episodes scripted by speculative fiction writer Harlan Ellison, for one thing. Underneath the bizarre aspects, there is something unsettling about the premise, as well as the fate of the innocent woman whose face and fabric is stolen after her accidental death. 

Pamela Curran

Both Vaughn [Solo] and McCallum hold on to their dignity despite the far-out quality of the story, and with her mature sex kitten and sinister persona Pamela Curran makes her mark as Margo. Veteran actor Fritz Feld [The Catman of Paris] is a delight as a representative of the bank, who is nearly apoplectic at all the goings-on, and Naomi Stevens has a funny bit as a phony fortune teller with a bad case of heartburn. The music when the cyborgs go on the rampage is wild. The A-77 cyborgs are played by Willi Koopman (whose first name is misspelled "Willy" in the closing credits), a very attractive actress who had only a few credits, mostly in decorative roles. This episode may well have been inspired by Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, which came out the previous year, and its 1966 follow-up, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, both of which were much, much worse than "Do-It-Yourself Dreadful." 

Verdict: Frankly there have been much better episodes of this series, but this one is oddly engaging. ***.

A SISTER'S SECRET

Dany Boaz and Margaret Anne Florence

A SISTER'S SECRET (2018). A Lifetime telefilm. Director: D. J. Viola. 

Twin sisters Elizabeth and Callie (Margaret Anne Florence) have different lives, with Callie married with two children, and Elizabeth with a successful career, but neither of them feels fulfilled. On a lark they decide upon the really stupid idea of changing places for a week, but when one of them is murdered the other keeps her mouth shut -- even more stupid -- and tries to solve the crime. But Detective Tucker (Paula Abdul!) is on the case.

Florence with Paula Abdul

A Sister's Secret is a flaccid suspense item that only touches upon some provocative subjects -- at one point one sister even goes so far as to sleep with her dead sister's husband! If the movie gets points for anything it's that the whole identical twin business is handled so seamlessly that I actually thought that they had cast twins in the role. Which makes their choice of lead actress even stranger, as Margaret Anne Florence has such annoying and unfortunate vocal tics and mannerisms that it almost ruins her otherwise credible performance. Danny Boaz is a bit more on the mark as Callie's husband, Grady, and Catherine Dyer -- whom I kept thinking was Bonnie Bedelia --- scores as the twins' practical Aunt Rose. I'm not at all certain what Paula Abdul is doing in this -- the former vocalist and American Idol judge is fairly competent as an actress but I don't see producers signing her up for major projects any time soon. 

Verdict: Two irritating characters for the price of one! **.