‘A macabre masterpiece of terror!’

The Raven is a 1963 American comedy horror film produced and directed by Roger Corman. The film stars Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff as a trio of rival sorcerers. The playful, lively score is by Les Baxter.

The film was the fifth in the so-called Corman-Poe cycle of eight films largely featuring adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories produced by Roger Corman and released by American International Pictures (AIP). It was written by Richard Matheson, based on references to Poe’s poem “The Raven“. The supporting cast includes Hazel Court and a young Jack Nicholson.

Roger Corman and Richard Matheson had both enjoyed making The Black Cat comic episode of Tales of Terror and wanted to try an entirely comic Poe feature. “After I heard they wanted to make a movie out of a poem, I felt that was an utter joke, so comedy was really the only way to go with it,” said Matheson.

A novelisation of the film was written by Eunice Sudak (who also wrote the Tales of Terror and X novelisations) adapted from Matheson’s screenplay and published by Lancer Books in paperback. This novel was republished by Bear Manor Media in 2012.

On March 9, 2015, Arrow Video is releasing The Raven on Blu-ray in the UK. Special features include:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the feature, transferred from original film elements by MGM
• Original uncompressed Mono PCM Audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Peter Lorre: The Double Face, Harun Farocki’s 1984 documentary
• Richard Matheson: Storyteller, an interview with the legendary novelist and screenwriter
• Corman’s Comedy of Poe, an interview with Roger Corman about making The Raven
• The Trick, a short film about rival magicians by Rob Green (The Bunker)
• Promotional Record
• Stills and Poster Gallery
• Original Theatrical Trailer
• Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Vladimir Zimakov
• Collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Vic Pratt and Rob Green, illustrated with original stills and artwork

Buy The Raven on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

Plot teaser:

In the 15th century, the sorcerer Dr. Erasmus Craven (Vincent Price) has been mourning the death of his wife Lenore (Hazel Court) for over two years, much to the chagrin of his daughter Estelle (Olive Sturgess). One night he is visited by a raven, who happens to be a transformed wizard, Dr. Bedlo (Peter Lorre). Together they brew a strange potion that restores Bedlo to his old self.

Bedlo explains he had been transformed by the evil Dr. Scarabus (Boris Karloff) in an unfair duel, and both decide to see Scarabus, Bedlo to exact revenge and Craven to look for his wife’s ghost, which Bedlo reportedly saw at Scarabus’ castle. After fighting off the attack of Craven’s coachman, who apparently acted under the influence of Scarabus, they set out to the castle, joined by Craven’s daughter Estelle and Bedlo’s son Rexford (Jack Nicholson).

At the castle, Scarabus greets his guests with false friendship, and Bedlo is apparently killed as he conjures a storm in a last act of defiance against his nemesis. At night, Rexford finds him alive and well, hiding in the castle. Craven, meanwhile, is visited and tormented by Lenore, who is revealed to be alive and well too, having faked her death two years before to move away with Scarabus. As Craven, Estelle, Rexford and Bedlo try to escape the castle, Scarabus stops them, and they are tied and locked up. Bedlo panics and flees away in raven form, having convinced Scarabus to turn him back into bird form rather than face torture…

Reviews:

“The whole thing is played very tongue in cheek and is mostly about having fun not being terrified. The final battle between Karloff and Price is really entertaining and fun to watch; it is very reminiscent of the wizard’s duel in The Sword in the Stone released the same year. The special effects are dated but actually, considering the year and the budget, very effective and fun.” 31 Days of Terror

“It’s really a shame, given the high caliber of what has preceded it, that the climactic duel of magic is both so incredibly long and so incredibly lame. Ending a movie with a huge special effects set-piece is always a risky proposition, but it becomes a sure-fire formula for outright disaster when there’s no money in a movie’s budget for special effects! Up to this point, The Raven has been a comfortably low-key movie, driven by acerbic wit, careful characterization, and brilliant casting.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“It’s miles from Poe, but it’s one of the funniest and most enjoyable horror spoofs ever made, with a witty script and smart direction; the three principals’ enjoyment of the whole affair communicates itself to the audience. A delight, with a wooden performance by Nicholson for connoisseurs of the bizarre to savour.” Alan Frank, The Horror Film Handbook

“A snappy little parody of a horror picture cutely calculated to make the children scream with terror while their parents scream with glee.” Time (1963)

Choice dialogue:

The Raven (Peter Lorre): “Will you give me some wine!”

Cast:

• Vincent Price as Dr. Erasmus Craven
• Peter Lorre as Dr. Adolphus Bedlo
• Boris Karloff as Dr. Scarabus
• Hazel Court as Lenore Craven
• Olive Sturgess as Estelle Craven
• Jack Nicholson as Rexford Bedlo
• Connie Wallace as Maid
• William Baskin as Grimes
• Aaron Saxon as Gort
• Dick Johnstone as Roderick Craven (uncredited)
• Mark Sheeler

Wikipedia | IMDb

Reynold Brown (October 18, 1917 – August 24, 1991) was a prolific American realist artist who painted many Hollywood film posters.

He attended Alhambra High School and refined his drawing under his teacher Lester Bonar. A talented artist, Brown met cartoonist Hal Forrest around 1936-37. Forrest hired Brown to ink (uncredited) Forrest’s comic strip Tailspin Tommy.

During World War II he worked as a technical artist at North American Aviation where he met his wife, fellow artist Mary Louise Tejeda.

Following the war Brown drew numerous advertisements and illustrations for magazines such as Argosy, Popular Science, Saturday Evening Post, Outdoor Life, and Popular Aviation. Brown also drew paperback book covers.

Brown taught at the Art Center College of Design where he met Misha Kallis, then an art director at Universal Pictures. Through Kallis, Brown began his film poster work starting with The World in His Arms (1952), then designed the artwork for dozens of film posters for Universal and AIP, including:

• Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
• Tarantula (1955)
• This Island Earth (1955)

• Revenge of the Creature (1955)
• The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)
• Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956)

• The Deadly Mantis (1957)
• The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
• I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)
• Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)

• The Land Unknown (1957)
• The Monolith Monsters (1957)
• Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
• Attack of the Puppet People (1958)
• Monster on the Campus (1958)
• Teenagers from Outer Space (1958)
• The Atomic Submarine (1959)
• Curse of the Undead (1959)

• The Time Machine (1960)
• The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
• Konga (1961)

• The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (released 1962)
• Burn Witch, Burn (1962)
• Phantom of the Opera (1962)
• The Premature Burial (1962)
• Black Sabbath (1963)
• Black Zoo (1963)
• Day of the Triffids (1963)
• The Man with X-Ray Eyes (1963)
• Godzilla vs. The Thing (1964)

• Goliath and the Vampires (released 1964)

• Masque of the Red Death (1964)
• The Night Walker (1964)

• War of the Zombies (1964)
• Die Monster, Die (1965)
• Planet of the Vampires (1965)

• Frankenstein Conquers the World (1966)
• Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966)
• Destroy All Monsters (1968)

• Spirits of the Dead (1969)
• The Dunwich Horror (1970)

Brown suffered a severe stroke in 1976 that left his left side paralysed and ended his commercial work.

In 1994, Mel Bucklin’s documentary about Reynold Brown entitled The Man Who Drew Bug-Eyed Monsters was broadcast on US public television. A book reproducing many of Brown’s artworks, Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures, was published in 2009.

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Wikipedia

WH

Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow is a 1959 American comedy horror film directed by William J. Hole Jr. (The Devil’s Hand) from a screenplay by producer Lou Rusoff (The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues; Cat Girl). The shooting title was The Haunted Hot Rod.

The film was a follow-up to American International Pictures (AIP) teen-aimed release Hot Rod Gang.

The movie sent up the monster and dragstrip films produced by AIP, and has been seen as a forerunner of the 1960s Beach Party movies. Creature feature creator Paul Blaisdell appeared as the monster in his She-Creature outfit (minus the bosoms).

Cast:

Jody Fair (The Brain Eaters), Russ Bender (It Conquered the World; The Amazing Colossal Man; Anatomy of a Psycho), Henry McCrann, Martin Braddock, Jack Ging, Paul Blaisdell.

Plot:

A group of Los Angeles drag-racing fanatics are being pressured by a rival gang and so move into an old deserted mansion. They hold a Halloween masked ball for their next unveiling of a dragster, and invite everyone to come dressed as their favourite monster…

Reviews:

“Rock and roll songs, haunted houses, Senor Wences impersonations, car crashes, secret passageways behind fireplaces, pretty girls, a really cool song called “Ghost Train,” … a Scooby-Doo unmasking at the end you won’t believe, a talking, thinking car, and even an appearance by the monster from The She Creature (1956).” William D. Carl, Cinema Knife Fight

“Let us be perfectly clear: I hate this movie. As hot rod exploitation, it fails by spending more time gabbing about cars than driving them.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“It was an abysmal comedy, a mixed bag of songs and slapstick … Between takes, Blaisdellpulled the head off of his costume to get some air and somebody told him he looked like an old condom.” Mark Thomas McGee, Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures

Buy Faster and Furiouser from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

“Any hardcore fan of AIP films will appreciate the humor of the final scene with Blaisdell.” Joe Cascio, DVD Drive-In

Buy: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Wikipedia | IMDb

J.D.’s Revenge is a 1976 US blaxploitation horror film produced and directed by Arthur Marks from a screenplay by Jaison Starkes for American International Pictures (AIP).

Cast:

Glynn Turman, Lou Gossett, Joan Pringle, Carl W. Crudup, James Watkins, Fred Pinkard, Jo Anne Meredith, Alice Jubert, David McKnight.

Plot:

Isaac Hendrix (Turman) is a young college student studying law and a taxi-cab driver in New Orleans. While out on a night of fun with his friends and wife, Christella during a hypnosis act, he becomes an unwilling host for the restless spirit of J.D Walker, a hustler killed during the 40s.

“Ike” gradually finds his own personality gradually being taken over by the sociopathic Walker, even eventually going so far as to adopt his hair and fashion style, mannerisms, and psychotic tendencies (including an attempted rape on his wife after she mocked his J.D. haircut).

With the spirit of J.D. in complete control he turns his attention toward wreaking vengeance against the man responsible for killing his sister, Theotis Bliss. Ike commits havoc all over town along the way before making his way to the church where Theotis’ brother works as a preacher, where he finally reveals himself and instructs Elijah to tell Theotis to meet him “on the killin’ floor”.

Meanwhile, Ike’s wife goes to her ex-husband, a cop who is out for Ike’s blood believing him to be a simple psycho hiding behind a false persona — until he mentions to the Chief that Ike claimed his name was J.D. Walker, a man who was not only real, but had died over 30 years ago…

Reviews:

‘What makes the movie work, to the degree that it does, are the performances by Turman, Lou Gossett and Joan Pringle. Turman, in particular, has fun transforming himself from the mild-mannered law student to the zoot-suited 1940s two-bit gangster that J.D. used to be, complete with straight razor.’ RogerEbert.com

‘To its credit, the ending is pretty clever and slightly alters your perception about some of the characters. J.D.’s Revenge also becomes progressively more entertaining as it unfolds and you realize this isn’t just Black Caesar done up in horror digs.’ Brett Gallman, Oh, the Horror!

‘Mark’s movie has a lot of sleaze appeal mostly with the abundant nudity and several dream sequences featuring a cow being slaughtered, but it doesn’t have the level of violence found in so many other movies of the genre. This is predominantly a character study and all the better for it. It’s one of the best, if not the best representations of blax-horror…’ Cool Ass Cinema

‘J.D.’s Revenge is not as much fun as Blacula, but it still has some nice things going for it and it was an obvious influence for Ernest Dickerson’s recent Bones. It’s played completely straight despite the silly premise, and good performances mixed with an ample dose of sex and blood make this one very tolerable.’ George R Reis, DVD Drive-In

‘An efficient and effective piece of blaxploitation, the film is very much in the Southern gothic tradition and uses its New Orleans locations to great effect to create an atmosphere of incipient, imminent violence. Turman’s slow transformation has its welcome moments of humour and the film is crisply photographed and tightly directed, with a fairly liberal helping of blood scenes.’ Phil Hardy (editor), The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror

Buy on DVD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

‘This here movie sounds whack but, straight up, it is dope: we got
violence, blood, plenty o’ older-than-old-school badass, and even some titties.’ The World of Mr Satanism

Choice dialogue:

“That was the best fuckin’ I ever had.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna cut you every which way but loose!”

Cast:

• Glynn Turman as Isaac aka Ike
• Louis Gossett Jr. as Reverend Elijah Bliss
• Joan Pringle as Christella
• Carl W. Crudup as Tony
• James Watkins as Carl
• Fred Pinkard as Theotis Bliss
• Jo Anne Meredith as Sara Divine
• Alice Jubert as Roberta ‘Betty Jo’ Bliss
• David McKnight as J.D. Walker
• Stephanie Faulkner as Phyllis
• Fuddle Bagley as Enoch Land
• Earl Billings as Captain Turner
• Paul Galloway as Garage Man

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image thanks: Blaxploitation Pride

Rock ‘n’ Roll Monsters: The American International Story is a 2016 book by Bruce G Hallenbeck (The Amicus Anthology; The Hammer Frankenstein; The Hammer Vampire), published by British-based Hemlock Books.

In the early 1950s, the traditional American film industry was facing a crisis due to one thing: television. Two men from totally different backgrounds pooled their talents and tapped into the burgeoning ‘teenage’ market, and American International Pictures was born.

Over the next 25 years, ‘AIP’ would turn out genre films of every kind, from sci-fi and horror to ‘beach party’ and Blaxploitation. Some of its titles have since become legendary – I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Horrors of the Black Museum, The Wild Angels – but the company also produced prestige pictures like Wuthering Heights and box-office bonanzas such as Love at First Bite and The Amityville Horror.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Monsters is the story of how AIP went from a cornball purveyor of drive-in double-features filled with monsters and mayhem to a major force in films whose ‘fast and furious’ business model was copied and eventually adopted by the Hollywood mainstream…

Paperback, 298 pages, fully illustrated throughout, eight pages in colour.

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‘Abby doesn’t need a man anymore… the Devil is her lover now!’

Abby is a 1974 blaxploitation horror film about a woman who is possessed by an African sex spirit. It stars William H. Marshall, (Blacula) Terry Carter, Austin Stoker, and Carol Speed as the title character. It was directed by William Girdler (The Manitou; Grizzly; Three on a Meathook), who co-wrote the film’s story with screenwriter Gordon Cornell Layne.

The film was a financial success, but was eventually pulled from theaters after the film’s distributor, American International Pictures, was accused of copyright violation by Warner Bros., which saw the film as being derivative of The Exorcist and filed a lawsuit against AIP.

According to websites such as Film Bunnies and Cool Ass Cinema, “From late ’74 to as late as July of 1975 the film was in circulation; and reportedly, it was also on screens in 1976. Apparently, the victory was more or less given to WB as AIP didn’t bother to fight the case because they’d already made a bundle off of the movie.”

See the AIP pressbook for Abby at Zombo’s Closet

The film’s use of the Yoruba religion distinguishes it from being simply a copy of the Exorcist with a black cast. In the story, Abby is apparently possessed by Eshu, a West African orisha of chaos and whirlwinds. He is also a trickster and the guardian of roads, particularly crossroads.

Buy on DVD with Magdalena: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Plot:

While on an archaeological dig in a cave in Nigeria, Dr. Williams finds a small, ebony puzzle box, carved with the symbols of Eshu: the whirlwind, the cock’s comb, and the erect phallus. When Dr. Williams discovers the mechanism to open the box and unlatches it, a tremendous wind blasts out, knocking Dr. Williams and his men against the cave walls and floor.

The spirit released by Dr. Williams crosses the Atlantic to Louisville, Kentucky to the new home of Dr. Williams’s son, Emmett Williams (Terry Carter) and Abby Williams (Carol Speed).

Why and how the spirit travels the globe is not explained. After Abby becomes possessed, her behaviour becomes increasingly bizarre and dangerous…

Buy: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“While it’s difficult to properly give Abby its due since there’s not even a moderately decent print floating around, one thing worth mentioning on the technical side is the editing. At certain points in the film (particularly during the climactic duel with the demon), quick cuts jump back and forth between characters injecting both an unsettling vibe, and a feeling of action in real-time a la Sam Peckinpah.” Brian Bankston, Cool Ass Cinema

“Although raggedy produced and often slipshod in its execution, there is are a number of interesting ideas at play in Abby that the film does not deserve its status as a camp blaxploitation Exorcist ripoff, which unfortunately seems to be the consensus. If you can locate the film it is certainly worth a look.” Dean Brandum, Film Bunnies

“Girdler’s straightforward narrative serves Abby well, and the cast by and large deliver believable, competent performances. Abby‘s exorcism scene (in a bar!) is a delightful touch. Veteran actors Marshall (of 1972’s Blacula) and Moore both lend class to the outrageous proceedings.” The Terror Trap

“Derivative, stilted and flat, Abby remains a must-see film if only for its shameless appropriation of The Exorcist…” Josiah Howard, Blaxploitation Cinema

Buy: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

“Carol Speed does a nice job as Abby. She got the role after the actress before her was canned due to requesting a masseuse in the budget. Speed’s supposed to be the sweet reverend’s wife who has had a switch flipped inside of her to bring out everything sexual. The movie is also aided by veteran blaxploitation star William Marshall (star of Blacula) who brings his booming voice to the exorcist.” JP Roscoe, Basement Rejects

” … apart from a few comic moments like the possessed marriage counsellor sequence, or the Mrs Wiggins scene, the movie is fairly dull. No outright gore or retch-inducing sequences, no gratuitous sex or nudity and even the profanity is fairly tame.” Mikel J Koven, Blaxploitation Films

Buy: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Filming locations:

Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image credits: Cool Ass Cinema | Film Bunnies

Poster designed by Reynold Brown

‘Body of a boy! Mind of a monster! Soul of an unearthly thing!’

I Was a Teenage Frankenstein – aka Teenage Frankenstein – is a 1957 American science fiction horror film directed by Herbert L. Strock (The Crawling Hand; Blood of Dracula) from a screenplay credited to Kenneth Langtry [actually producer Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel]. It stars Whit Bissell, Phyllis Coates and Gary Conway.

The film is the follow-up to AIP’s box-office hit I Was a Teenage Werewolf released less than five months earlier by American International Pictures (AIP). Both were later referenced in How to Make a Monster, released in July 1958.

I Was a Teenage Frankenstein was filmed in black and white, with the ending in colour for a vivid effect.

Plot:

Professor Frankenstein, a guest lecturer from England, talks Dr. Karlton into becoming an unwilling accomplice in his secret plan to actually assemble a human being from the parts of different cadavers.

After recovering a cadaver from a catastrophic automobile wreck, Professor Frankenstein takes the body to his laboratory-morgue, where in various drawers he keeps spare parts of human beings. The Professor also enlists the aid of Margaret, as his secretary to keep all callers away from the laboratory.

Margaret, becoming suspicious of what is going on, decides to investigate and goes down to the morgue. She is panic-stricken by the monster who has been activated by electricity following the grafting of a new leg and arm. She dares not tell the Professor about her feelings, and keeps silent for the present…

Reviews:

“As in Teenage Werewolf, the monster comes to represent alienated adolescence and Whit Bissell is again cast as a calculating and manipulative scientist/authority figure. It is amusing to see that in this film Frankenstein is no longer traditionally a scientist with misguided intentions, he is utterly ruthless from the outset.” Richard Scheib, Moria

“When the monster twists off a handsome jock’s head so he can have it for his own, he carries it back to the lab in a birdcage! That’s sick, man!! Little moments like that make cinema such a viable art form. But despite this, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein is still a stupid movie, and despite its being a stupid movie, I loved every minute of it.” Mike Marano, Movie Magazine International

“One of the mini series of teenage science fiction films that followed in the wake of I Was a Teenage Werewolf, it remains watchable because Kandel’s script, though sadly not Strock’s direction which is pedestrian, has an element of parody about it.” Phil Hardy (editor), The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror

“It forces one to acknowledge the impression that such films may aggravate the mass social sickness euphemistically termed ‘juvenile delinquency’ … In this particular film, there are graphic displays of human dismemberment. Before one such act of surgical perversion, the mad doctor'[s] assistant says ‘I have no stomach for it.'” Richard W. Nason, The New York Times, January 30, 1958

” …intelligently and imaginatively done … there is enough of genuine frightfulness to satisfy and fan…” The Hollywood Reporter

“Immensely silly but enjoyable piece of hokum, with a classic title, a serious performance against the odds by Whit Bissell…” Alan Frank, The Horror Film Handbook

Choice dialogue:

Professor Frankenstein:”Well, you’re being true to yourself. And your sex. You know that perfectly well science has proved that in all forms of life the female pursues the male.”

Professor Frankenstein: “I want him to know and feel pain so that when I alleviate it, he’ll also know gratitude.”

Professor Frankenstein: “Answer me! You have a civil tongue in your head! I know – I sewed it in there!”

Cast and characters:

• Whit Bissell as Professor Frankenstein (Psychic Killer; Monster on the Campus; I Was a Teenage Werewolf)
• Phyllis Coates as Margaret (Thompson’s Ghost; The Incredible Petrified World)
• Robert Burton as Dr. Karlton (The Slime People; Invasion of the Animal People)
• Gary Conway as Teenage Monster/Bob
• George Lynn as Sergeant Burns
• John Cliff as Sergeant McAfee
• Marshall Bradford as Dr. Randolph
• Claudia Bryar as Arlene’s mother
• Angela Blake as Beautiful girl
• Russ Whiteman as Dr. Elwood

Buy: Amazon.co.uk

Wikipedia | IMDb | AFI | Image credits: Greggory’s Shock Theater | HorrorFind.com

Horrorfind.com galleries of posters, lobby cards, promo material and collectibles

‘World panic as UFOs approach Earth…’

The Eye Creatures is a 1965 American science fiction horror film about an invasion by a flying saucer and its silent, shambling alien occupants.

While the military ineptly attempts to stop the invasion, a group of young people, whose reports to the local police are dismissed as pranks or wild imagination, struggle to defend themselves against the menacing monsters.

The film was produced and directed by Larry Buchanan (Zontar: The Thing from Venus; It’s Alive; The Loch Ness Horror) from a screenplay by Paul W. Fairman, Robert J. Gurney Jr. and Al Martin. It is a colour remake of the 1957 black and white AIP film Invasion of the Saucer Men intended to fill out a package of AIP films released to television. It stars John Ashley, Cynthia Hull and Warren Hammack and was edited by future director S.F. Brownrigg.

Buy with Zontar: The Thing from Venus  – Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“The costumes are a remarkably varied bunch. To begin with, only a few of them have the multitudinous eyes that we see on the first alien— not a trivial concern in a movie called The Eye Creatures. But worse still, the majority of the extras portraying the monsters are outfitted only with the headpieces of their costumes! From the shoulders down, they’re just wearing black tights and f*cking tennis shoes!!!!” Scott Ashlin, 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“It is worth watching for its thorough shoddiness. Like the supposed night-time setting that flickers back and forward between day and night because someone clearly either couldn’t afford day-for-night processing or simply forgot. There is the dismembered hand, which never extends into the shot beyond the wrist and does the remarkable job of tiptoeing (or tip-fingering) up vertical surfaces on two fingernails.” Richard Scheib, Moria

” …the footage of the saucer in space – which looks like a hamburger in a McDonalds’s ad – does not in any way resemble the flying saucer we see on the ground (it has even turned green). It is sporadically amusing, with a few okay bits and the same goofy “headlights” ending as the original film. If you don’t expect a lot more, it’s not too bad.” Mark Cole, Rivets on the Poster

“When Buchanan tries to be serious he is hilarious. But when he tries to be funny he is boring. The bumbling soldiers… the cranky old man… the wisecracking teens… nothing works.” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers 

Buy: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca

” …poor attempts at comedy and no innovative Paul Blaisdell monsters to ogle at. The monsters here have white, lumpy heads (much like the Michelin Tire Man in those old TV commercials) with a bunch of little eyes all over, and a large open mouth cavity. Some of the actors playing the aliens didn’t have full body suits, so their black clothes and white sneakers are conspicuously on display in some shots!” George R. Reis, DVD Drive-In

“A big problem is that the entire story takes place at night, and Buchanan uses a thoroughly unconvincing blend of day-for-night, night-for-night, and soundstage photography, with the day-for-night footage looking so especially bad many scattered shots look like mid-day. The performances in The Eye Creatures are mostly terrible, and Buchanan’s sledgehammer approach to comedy is painful.” Stuart Galbraith IV, DVD Talk

” …there’ll be a moment here or there that actually doesn’t seem all that bad, and you start thinking that maybe Buchanan had some talent, but then you’ll see a hopeless muddle of scenes that show either gross incompetence or gross carelessness, and you suspect the good scene was a fluke. The costumes are ugly and incomplete, the sets dull, the day-for-night photography obvious and the acting inconsistent.” Dave Sindelar, Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings

” …since this is a remake, it needs to find a way to improve upon the original or offer a fresh take on an established idea and this does no such thing. The acting is terrible, the photography is flat and ugly, the effects suck and the direction is leaden. The only new scenes grafted on (the goofy peeping tom military guys) are horrible. Worst of all, the creatures aren’t even any good.” Justin McKinney, The Bloody Pit of Horror

Main cast and characters:

John Ashley – Stan Kenyon (Beast of Blood; Brides of Blood; Frankenstein’s Daughter; et al)
Cynthia Hull – Susan Rogers
Warren Hammack – Lt. Robertson
Chet Davis – Mike Lawrence
Bill Peck – Carl Fenton
Ethan Allen – General
Charles McLine – Old Man Bailey
Nathan Wyle – Colonel Harrison
Bob Cowan – Corporal Culver
Bill Thurman – Sergeant on Guard (The Evictors; Keep My Grave Open; The Black Cat)
Peter Graves – narrator [voice only] (Killers from Space; Beginning of the End; Scream of the Wolf)

Production:

The movie was shot in 16mm over several weeks in Dallas, on a budget of $40,000. Ashley was imported from Hollywood, but the rest of the cast were locals. Ashley has stated that his salary took up more than half the budget.

Most of the film was shot at the ranch of wealthy businessman Gordon McLendon. Ashley claimed that the film ranks “with some of the worst all-time horror films ever made”, but said it was a professional operation and that Buchanan treated him very well.

The film’s title screen contained a notable error. In keeping with a frequent practice of B-movie re-release retitling, the phrase “Attack of the” was superimposed on top of the original title, which already included “the”, producing the redundant title Attack of the The Eye Creatures.

Further reading:

“The studio suggested (read demanded) John Ashley as the lead. John had wet his feet often in AIP beach party pictures. As we raced through the tight schedule, it became apparent to me that this was no bimbo. Good looker, good voice, no Mickey Mouse beach bum. The worst I gave him merged absolutely believable. He was driven. By the end of the first week, we were ahead of schedule.” Larry Buchanan, It Came from Hunger! Tales of a Cinema Schlockmeister – Buy: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

The Films of Larry Buchanan by Rob Craig, McFarland, 2007

Trivia:

One of the creature costumes was recycled in Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966)

Image thanks: IMCDb.org

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War of the Colossal Beast is a 1958 science fiction horror film written, co-produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon (Empire of the Ants; Necromancy; The Cyclops; et al) and produced by Carmel Productions and distributed by American International Pictures (AIP). It continued the storyline of the 1957 movie The Amazing Colossal Man, although it was not marketed as a direct sequel and featured a different cast.

Upon hearing of several recent robberies of food delivery trucks in Mexico (including an overly long sequence involving a hysterical delivery boy), Joyce Manning, Army officer Lt. Col. Glenn Manning’s sister (though in The Amazing Colossal Man, his fiance said he had no surviving family), becomes convinced that her brother survived his fall from the Boulder Dam at the end of the first film. Along with Army officer Major Mark Baird and scientist Dr. Carmichael, she goes to Mexico to look for him.

It is discovered that Manning, now having grown to sixty-feet tall after being exposed to plutonium radiation, survived his fall from the Boulder Dam at the end of the previous movie, but he has gone insane and part of his face was left disfigured following his confrontation with the Army there, turning him into a zombie-like creature.

Not only has the plutonium radiation mutated him into a sixty-foot disfigured freak, it also has conferred other benefits; drastically reducing his vocabulary to an oddly disturbing goose-like honk and only eating loaves of infected bread (by the truckload).

Manning is captured, drugged by the Army and taken back to America but he again escapes and goes on a rampage through Los Angeles and ending at the Griffith Park Observatory.

Eventually, Joyce makes him snap to his senses, just as he is about to hurl a coach-load of children to their doom. The ending sees Glenn in an unfortunate tangle with some electricity pylons and is almost exactly like the death of the 50-ft Woman.

Review:

A definite improvement on The Amazing Colossal Man, the first signs of interest is sparked by a markedly more gloomy title. A beast he is, with half his face disfigured by wounds inflicted by the army in the first movie, although only crudely applied, the makeup is surprisingly effective. Even more alarming is the unearthly roar he bellows throughout – whisper it – it’s almost frightening.

Sally Fraser’s appearance as his sister is obnoxiously simpering but she looks great, having previously starred in It Conquered the World and Giant From the Unknown (what is it with her and big blokes?), though the film’s main attraction is played by two-hit wonder Duncan ‘Dean’ Parkin, whose only other role, ironically, was as the monster in The Cyclops from the same year.

The film is riddled with bizarre dialogue; Sally describes her brother as ‘a guy who grew 10 feet a day, maybe you heard of him’ – ‘oh yes, the colossal man!’ responds a quick-learning Major. Later, another army clot asserts, ‘giants can run quick – they have long legs’. At a mere 69 minutes long, the film is still padded to the hilt with not only a clunky script but a lengthy flashback to the original film, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that the monster is played by someone else entirely.

The film’s ending will certainly wake you up if you were flagging, suddenly switching from black and white to garish Technicolor, as creature features dramatically stumble into the space age. War of the Colossal Beast is hugely flawed but most entertaining and with one of the most overlooked monsters of sci-fi horror films.

Daz Lawrence, HORRORPEDIA

Cast and characters:

• Duncan “Dean” Parkin as Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning/Colossal Man
• Sally Fraser as Joyce Manning
• Roger Pace as Major Mark Baird
• Russ Bender as Dr. Carmichael
• Rico Alaniz as Sgt. Luis Murillo
• Charles Stewart as Captain Harris
• George Becwar as John Swanson
• Roy Gordon as Mayor
• Robert Hernandez as Miguel
• George Milan as General Nelson
• Cathy Downs as Carol Forrest (archive footage)
• William Hudson as Dr. Paul Linstrom (archive footage)
• Larry Thor as Major Eric Coulter (archive footage)

Les Baxter (March 14, 1922 – January 15, 1996) was an American musician and composer. Although he is best know as a practitioner of exotica music, he also scored several films, many of which were horror.

Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer. At the age of 23 he joined Mel Tormé’s Mel-Tones, singing on Artie Shaw records such as “What Is This Thing Called Love?”.

By 1950 he had moved to Capitol and had progressed to conducting and arrangement, including one of Nat King Cole’s big early hits, “Mona Lisa”. From here, he branched out into his own strange world, firstly scoring a travelogue called, Tanga Tiki and then a series of concept albums: Le Sacre du Sauvage, Festival of the Gnomes, Ports of Pleasure, and Brazil Now. These thickly-layered, atmospheric works featuring bird song, abstract wailing and all manner of jungle and tribal sounds became part of the exotica movement, the archly-kitsch imagined sounds of far-flung lands and would soon inspire similar minds; Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman and Esquivel.

Sadly, much of his work up to this point was over-shadowed by back-biting and malicious rumour. It was alleged on several occasions that Baxter was actually the front for a ghost-writer, the actual composers of several works suspected to be Albert Harris, Pete Rugolo and Nelson Riddle, most famously Frank Sinatra’s band leader. The evidence for this was Baxter’s extremely slow composition and supposed inability to read music, both claims which have since been largely disproved. Regardless, Baxter shrugged off the criticisms and after further, often ‘challenging’ exotica works, cinema beckoned.

Having already composed the familiar’ whistle’ theme for TV’s Lassie, Baxter’s first work of note and a rarity in respect of the reasonable budget, was the Vincent Price-starring, Master of the World. This association with Price and more especially of the Gothic was to become a cornerstone of his career but one sadly that more often than not went uncredited. The speed at which AIP demanded new scores and the lowly resources afforded him and his orchestra meant that he was lucky to receive a credit for his work, luckier still if he was happy with the results of scores his name was attached to.

Baxter scored many of the Poe cycle of films, which have since become critically acclaimed but at the time were seen as fodder by many. Amongst well over a hundred scores he composed there are a handful of particularly interesting ones, unusual in that he was required to re-score a film which already had a soundtrack, for the American market. These included famous Mario Bava works such as Black Sunday (1960), Black Sabbath (1963) and Baron Blood (1972), peplum – Goliath and the Barbarians, and comedies – Beach Party.

In terms of the slew of Italian films he worked on, there is simply no justification for the so-called need for an alternative score. Composers such as accomplished as Stelvio Cipriani (Tragic Ceremony; Tentacles, a theme recycled possibly more than any other in film history, Piranha II), Roberto Nicolosi (Black Sunday) and Angelo Francesco Lavagnino (Castle of the Living Dead; Queens of Evil) were amongst those whose works were presumably considered ‘too exotic’ for the American palate. In fact, it was naturally conservative AIP who insisted that the films were given a new score for the American market. Their explanation, according to the composer Bronislau Kaper (Them!) was that they found Italian scores, “stupid, arrogant, monotonous and tasteless”.

The fun didn’t end there. Samuel Z. Arkoff’s notorious cost-cutting extended to the regular recycling of not only individual cues but entire tracts of music – the score to Samson and the Slave Queen is nearly all taken from Goliath and the Barbarians, not that Baxter got double the money. Similarly, The Premature Burial (1962) features cues heard in some of his previous scores. It is worth noting that although Baxter was one of the most high profile composers to be put in this position, others, such as Herman Stein (Tarantula, This Island Earth) also had their music re-used or went uncredited.

For Mario Bava’s 1960 classic, Black Sunday, so much money was invested by AIP (over $100,000, more than the film’s shooting budget) that they felt obliged to make it their own, despite it coming to them already successful and fully-formed. Ironically, having dispensed with Nicolosi’s subtle, unobtrusive score, they replaced it with something not only extremely similar but something which, if anything, attempted to overshadow Bava’s visuals. At least with 1963’s, Black Sabbath, a distinctly different score took the place of Nicolosi’s work, a somewhat blander, mainstream effort compared to the shifting and free-form original. The extremely distinctive Cipriani score to 1972’s Baron Blood, was given one of the more extreme make-overs and for once actually adds something new, something less intrusive and, well, scarier.

This bizarre practise continued to an even more ludicrous instance for Cry of the Banshee (1970) with AIP insisting on separate scores for both the British and US versions of the film. There are several explanations for this, however daft; firstly, Baxter had by this stage become part of the furniture at AIP and could apparently do no wrong; secondly, the original composer, Wilfred Josephs, was known only for his work in television, not the familiar big-hitter the Americans demanded; finally, the cuts to the US version were so sweeping that the film made little sense with only minute cues remaining. Regardless, it is one of Baxter’s most revered works, though the original is fun for its faux-Elizabethan sound.

After the mid-70’s, work began to dry up on both sides of the Atlantic as Italy’s industry concentrated on home-grown scores and America entered the realms of enormous blockbusters. There was still opportunity there (some work on Frogs in 1972, the score to The Beast Within, a decade later) but both exotica and his film themes had had their time (though he did compose themes for Sea World, amongst other tourist attractions) and it would be after his death that Baxter began to be reappraised in a much more positive light.

Selected filmography:

The post Les Baxter – composer appeared first on HORRORPEDIA.

Les Baxter (March 14, 1922 – January 15, 1996) was an American musician and composer. Although he is best known as a practitioner of exotica music, he also scored several films, many of which were horror. Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a...

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