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.

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.

The Castle Of Fu Manchu is the fifth, final and weakest of the Harry Alan Towers series of Fu Manchu films. Like the previous film, The Blood Of Fu Manchu, this film is directed by the inimitable Jess Franco. Even with Franco’s skewed imput, this film is thin, and the budgetary restraints are obvious. The [...]

The Vengeance Of Fu Manchu is the third in the Harry Alan Towers produced, Fu Manchu series. With each installment, the quality of the series dropped considerably and the film has some long protracted moments where not too much happens. Douglas Wilmer once again plays Fu Manchu’s Nemesis Nayland Smith, which he did previously in [...]

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 [...]

Anyway, for years I snooped around, hoping to discover that Arabian Adventure had suddenly appeared on home video in some format that wouldn’t require me to shell out $30 for someone’s crappy VHS bootleg with a label hand-written in pencil. But for one reason or another, it always seemed to be MIA, and so I was left celebrating the merits of the film while all those around me who had seen it more recently made with the ominous proclamations of, “You’re going to be disappointed with that one, chief.” Impossible! I mean — seriously: magic carpet dog fights!

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.

Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf isn’t the worst movie ever made, but it’s pretty bad. Still, I really enjoy it. I know I try to cover for the fact by pretending that it is in some way painful for me to watch Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf, but that’s not true. I lied. I experience no pain. Partially, this is because I died inside a long time ago. But also it’s because I just like Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf despite its being a truly odious example of filmmaking. And I like that as bad and as goofy as it is, this isn’t the worst movie in Sybil Danning’s filmography. Hell, it’s not even the worst movie in venerated horror film icon Christopher Lee’s filmography.

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 [...]

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 [...]