If jungle adventure movies have taught us anything, it’s that modern man, with all his so-called “refinement” and “civilization”, is the most dangerous animal of all. Whatever perils the jungle may hold, it is those city folk — greedy, thoughtless, and cruel — who step within its borders who pose the greatest threat. Even though those city folk ultimately fall prey to quicksand, cannibals, and hungry wild animals. Hey, the jungle was just defending itself. The 1968 international production The Face of Eve documents the skullduggery and rottenness of just such a group of cultured scoundrels, while at the same time dishing out some of the type of mildly saucy, comic book hijinks associated with campy contemporaries like Barbarella.

In any case, I enjoyed the film. The competence and solid professionalism of all involved was like a breath of cool Winter air after the obnoxious wankery of Beyond the Wall of Sleep, and it was great fun to watch Oliver Reed leer and sweat all over everybody. In addition, the young Carol Lynley was quite lovely, and Kirchin’s bopping score struck me as a surprisingly adventurous alternative to the typical gothic meanderings you might expect. And Gig Young… well, Gig Young was alright, too, as long as you don’t feel like you need to like his character. All in all, this is probably not one to break out on Halloween night, but perhaps a nice low-investment watch while you’re coming down from the party the day after.

As an adaptation of Lovecraft, it’s a wash, even if you happen to like the film. Despite the source material, nothing of Lovecraft’s ominous mood makes it into the movie. Gone is the sense of of some sort of cosmic doom lurking just on the other side of our reality, ready to leap through the tiniest of rips in the fabric of reality and unleash misery upon humanity. Instead, we have a very standard issue devil cult. But it has its moments. If you don’t mind creaky, old fashioned horror movies (despite the hip young mods jazzing it up in the parlor, it’s obvious from their dialogue that this is an old fashioned movie) who don’t live up their potential, that aren’t really scary, and aren’t particularly impressive, then you might appreciate Curse of the Crimson Altar as much as I do.

Clemens vision for Captain Kronos as a film series was pretty cool, with Kronos appearing throughout different periods across the centuries, carrying on his battle with the undead and revealing that there was a much longer history behind the man than has hinted at in the first movie. When it was evident that there was no way Hammer was going to make it, and thus there would be no second or third Kronos film, talk shifted to production of a television series. Nothing ever came of that, either, and with the exception of a few appearances in a Hammer comic book, Kronos faded from existence until more recently, when it was rediscovered and people started thinking, “Holy crap, this movie is great!”

Release Year: 1962 Country: England Starring: Kerwin Mathews, Christopher Lee, Andrew Keir, Glenn Corbett, Marla Landi, Michael Ripper, Peter Arne, Oliver Reed, Jack Stewart, Marie Devereux, Desmond Llewelyn. Writer: Jimmy Sangster Director: John Gilling Cinematographer: Arthur Grant Music: Gary Hughes Producer: Anthony Nelson Keys Availability: Buy it from Amazon After taking several years off, the [...]

Ultimately, it may be a lesser devil cult film, but it was one of the earlier “vampire in post-war times” movies, and one of the only “vampire leads a Satanic cult” movies. It may far short of the mark set by two of the best examples of occult thriller’s — Hammer’s The Devil Rides Out and Jacques Tournier’s Night of the Demon (which I would assume was a major influence on Devils of Darkness), but I still think Devils of Darkness, especially if you like the AIP Poe films or don’t mind lots of dialog, is a good old-fashioned occult thriller that winds up being a great way to spend midnight, provided you don’t have any decadent rich parties that devolve into an orgiastic ritual lorded over by a vampire to attend at midnight.

With the relatively poor performance of Dracula AD 1972 at the box office, distributors suddenly weren’t interested in Satanic Rites of Dracula. It took years before it found its way to American screens. Where as a Dracula film starring Cushing and Lee would have been a simple sell even a few years earlier, by 1974 it was all over, and the quality of Satanic Rites of Dracula is a perfect example of why. It’s too bad the series couldn’t muster a better send-off, because while the concept isn’t bad and the idea was good, the final execution simply lacked the sophistication, energy, and magic that the film deserved.

You can tell the hip young lingo was written by old men who didn’t really know what they were doing. The plot is a bit of a letdown, especially considering that it’s the first time Van Helsing and Dracula have been on screen together since the first movie. And despite all that, I really quite like Dracula AD 1972. I like the young cast. I like the awkward attempt at being hip. I like the outlandish counter-culture fashions. I like the attempts at freak-out cinematography. I think the movie is fun regardless of its faults, though I recognize that I may be in the minority here. By no means is this the film to save Hammer, and by no means is it as good as the previous film it rips off, Taste the Blood of Dracula. But it’s not an entirely bad effort and has much to recommend in it, at least for me.

1965, England/Germany. Starring Christopher Lee, Nigel Greene, Joachim Fuchsberger, Karin Dor, James Robertson Justice, Howard Marion-Crawford, Tsai Chin, Walter Rilla, Harry Brogan, Poulet Tu, Eric Young. Directed by Don Sharp. Written by Harry Allen Towers. It seems fitting that my first post-thanksgiving review should be of a film this goofy. Thanksgiving back home in Kentucky [...]

Release Year: 1970 Country: England Starring: Christopher Lee, Patrick Troughton, Dennis Waterman, Jenny Hanley, Michael Ripper, Michael Gwynn, Christopher Matthews. Writer: Anthony Hinds Director: Roy Ward Baker Cinematographer: Moray Grant Music: James Bernard Producer: Aida Young Availability: Buy it from Amazon Promote It: Digg | del.icio.us And we were doing so well! Most movie studios [...]

1964, England. Starring Peter Cushing, Sando Eles, Katy Wild, Kiwi Kingston, Peter Woodthorpe, Duncan Lamont, David Hutcheson. Directed by Freddie Francis. The story to this point: the good doctor of questionable moral standards, one Baron Victor von Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) escaped the guillotine he was facing at the end of the first film, Curse of [...]

1970, England, Starring Christopher Lee, Ralph Bates, Geoffrey Keene, Linda Hayden, Michael Ripper, Peter Salas, Ilsa Blair, John Carson, Martin Jarvis. Directed by Peter Sasdy. Last time we saw the prince of the undead, he was impaled on a cross and turned into that pink sawdust bus drivers sprinkle on the floor when kids throw [...]