« April 2010 | Main | June 2010 »
This is a wonderful set of 50 cards, 'an educational guide for viewers,' from Funfax, copyright 1994. This series 'examines the best sci-fi and horror programs from that decade' [1960 to 1970]. Click to enlarge. You will find the information on the back of each card nostalgic and interesting, and a very good selection of unforgettable episodes.
ZC Rating: 7 of 7 (Sublime)
MARTIN
(nods, slowly)
I see that now. But I don't understand. Why not?
ROBERT
(softly)
I guess because we only get one chance.
(a crooked smile)
Maybe there's only one summer to a customer.
The fifth scripted episode of the Twilight Zone, Walking Distance, written by Rod Serling, aired on October 30th, 1959. It concerns one Martin Sloan (Gig Young), age thirty-six, burned-out, fed up, and racing his expensive sports car into the distance where neither the direction nor time it will take is something he's sure of. He just wants out. What he wants out from is back there in New York City, the place he's racing away from. What he hopes to find is somewhere ahead of him, but it's still quite a distance away. How close he comes to finding it will be a little side trip; a brief moment of respite, bittersweet and soft to touch, but it will remain a little side trip nonetheless, because he still has quite a ways to go.
Call it the Golden Age, nostalgia, the uncluttered simplicity of childhood memories filled with cold ice cream eaten on hot summer days, endless bike rides, and sparse responsibilities making abundant time uniquely your own. We each have our own special slice of Golden Age pie gulped down deeply within us. Some may get a bigger piece, and for some it may not be as sweet, but it's there to be savored, especially during those grown-up times of inner turmoil and uncertainty when we long to go back for another taste.
Continue reading "Rod Serling's Walking Distance
Still Quite a Distance" »
Looking for some tasty blogging morsels? You need go no further. Step inside...
With Intent to Commit Murder, the Undead Rat explores the inky horrors grusomely saturating paper, providing reams of screams for his readers: By day I’m a librarian assistant in the Heights Libraries serving Cleveland Hts., and University Hts., Ohio. I’ve worked here since 1990. I was a charter member of the Readers’ Advisory Team Services (RATS) in 1993 and I’m still a RAT. It was this group that gave me the alias of Undead Rat because of my love of horror fiction.
Made for TV Mayhem is explored by Amanda by Night. For her, every channel is primed for fright night: I love horror movies, mostly from the 70s and 80s. I write for several websites including Retro Slashers, Film Threat, Pretty Scary, Horror Yearbook and Camp Blood.
Scary Fairy Tales, are told by Chad Helder at his new blog for the creepy children residing in all of us. They weren't called the Brothers Grimm for nothing you know. He is the Stoker Award-winning editor of Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, an anthology of queer horror fiction, which he co-edited with Vince Liaguno.
BlueSpill may be an abandoned blog, but it still contains enough rare and original examples of mechanical and optical special effects, stop-motion, and experimental animation to satiate any fan of the visual effects arts. Does the term rotograph tempt your interest?
Cinephobia Radio broadcasts on the thriving cinema scene in Cinephobia Radio's current home base of Toronto, Onterrible, Canada. But that's not all! Lurking in their vaults is a chat with Ray Harryhausen, so light a torch and go venture inside.
Monster Movie Music And More spews from a cool cave in the Jupiter Jungle as EEGAH and TABONGA pile on the retro-zone's weirdness of soundclips, movie stills, posters, and cool stuff from way back when.
Magic Carpet Burn International's Professor Grewbeard shares his perpetual acid trip with us as he ponders what that black thing on his ceiling is. In-between his ponderings, you'll find flashburn memories filled with all that kitschy-icky stuff you loved because it was so cool: Since today is my birthday, I'm gonna say and do whatever silly little thing that comes to my head! First off, YUBBA WAB HOOP DIBBY! (Steve Gerber fans will know what I mean...) Next, Three Truths- 1) I hate Summer. 2) Jan & Dean are funny. 3) There is a big Back To Mono movement moving right now, so I present to you- Jan & Dean's Popsicle lp in MONO, because I just happen to have a copy on vinyl.
24 July.--There seems some doom over this ship. Already a hand short, and entering the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and yet last night another man lost, disappeared. Like the first, he came off his watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear, sent a round robin, asking to have double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate angry. Fear there will be some trouble, as either he or the men will do some violence. (from the Captain's log, Dracula by Bram Stoker)
ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good
The doomed voyage of the Russian schooner Demeter, in Bram Stoker's Dracula, is one of the more horrific passages in the novel. Imagine being trapped aboard a ship with the blood-thirsty devil: there's nowhere to hide that's safe; no one strong enough to save you; no one living to hear you scream. Budgetary necessity forced the removal of this terror by night from Bela Lugosi's Dracula, and there's been no movie to date--although The Last Voyage of the Demeter has been in production limbo for years--that has chronicled the ship's encounter with the undead nobleman. Bram Stoker himself only provides a few tantalizing glimpses into the terrible fate of the crew through the Captain's log entries.
Now writer Gary Gerani and artist Stuart Sayger take over the ship's wheel to navigate those days of dread and death. There's a formidable challenge inherent in describing the Demeter's last days: we know how it ends. It's hard to build suspense when you know nobody survives. Or will they here?
Sayger's artwork takes much of it's power from the non-glossy paper, providing a rough, muted canvas for his water-colored hues that bring life to his inked lines. He has a knack for capturing the salt in the sea air, the splinter's in the mast's wood, and the terror stalking the deck. Gerani's characters are hardened men of the sea, a spirited captain, and one very young sailor still enamored by the wonders of the sky and the water when seen from the crow's nest. Then there's Anatole, a savage brute of a seaman who revels in his manliness. How will he handle the intruder onboard, one savage pitted against another?
This first issue's 22-pages bring the crewmen, the mysterious boxes of earth, and Dracula together for the last voyage of the Demeter in a promisingly dramatic way. Even though we know what should happen, Gerani and Sayger give us flesh and blood people to be concerned over--except, maybe, for Anatole--and Sayger's splash illustration for the vampire during one of his attack's, rendered murkily, as if seen through mist, indicates the white gloves are off. If the momentum begun in this issue continues, the power of Dracula over the living and the elements will provide a vivid and suspenseful confrontation; the one Bram Stoker alludes to in his novel.
Far too many years ago than I can fully recall, there was this little store wedged into a cramped side street in New York City. I'd visit it every so often in the company of my dad, as I was too young to travel or carry much money back then, of course.
I have one somewhat flickery memory of the store's proprietor standing behind a counter stacked with photographs; real photographs, not the digitally rendered or stored ones so ubiquitous today, but the developed-in-stinky-and-toxic-solution ones: thousands of them. They teetered, tottered, and sprawled across the counter top, and spilled out in reluctantly tidy alphabetical order into wooden bins, dozens of them, which filled the small floor space, creating cramped isles to browse from.
The photographs or stills were of actors and scenes from movies. I remember one visit in particular when I discovered Flash Gordon stills. My dad argued on the price--I forget how much--so I had to choose a few from the handful I held. Buster Crabbe was a certainty. Ming the Merciless (Charles Middleton) and King Vultan (Jack 'Tiny' Lipson) were keepers. Dr.Zarkov (Frank Shannon) and Prince Barin (Richard Alexander) had to go. I held tightly onto Princess Aura (Priscilla Lawson), but my dad wasn't too keen on her because of her wonderfully skimpy outfit. He tried pushing Dale Arden (Jean Rogers) on me, instead, but she just didn't have the same appeal for me. Dale was too darn wholesome. I held my ground and wound up leaving with the princess, the dashing hero, the merciless villain, and the second banana bird-man.
Shoot ahead too many years to forget. I don't attend horror conventions often, but when I do, the most enjoyable experience for me is meeting the people of my nightmares and getting their autographed photos. These actors and creative folk are responsible for much of my misspent childhood, some of my awkward teenage years, and most of my definitely questionable, but enjoyable, dotage. Here's a rogue's gallery of some of the ones I've met so far. (click to enlarge)
This 9-card subset from the The Simpson's Mania card set from Inkworks (copyright 2001) provides a taste of Treehouse of Horror Halloween fun from the television series. The picture on the back shows a ghostly surprise when held under black light. Click the images for a scarier view.
ZC Rating 1 of 7: Poor
Roxy joined the conversation. "We need to work this out," she said firmly. "We've got to find a way to feed ourselves on extended tours without leaving a trail of carcasses behind us. I heard they found the ones in Detroit and Miami. Sooner or later some junior detective is going to stick some pins in a map and make the connection. Dumping these things in a harbor or a vacant lot is not going to work. Even if they happen to find one, we've got to make sure that there is nothing linking the carcasses to us."
Reading Thomas Hauck's novel Lucas Manson is like sitting in one of those taxing corporate meetings that should have died at the sixty-minute mark but still lingers on well past it; and you need to take a bio-break badly; and there's no more coffee; and somebody needs to say something that brings closure and quickly. I'm exaggerating somewhat, but I've read very few novels that force me to skim pages because of their lengthy 'corporate meeting' styled discussions blowing off the action with 'tell me' instead of more preferable 'show me' exposition; leaving me with feeling the payoff--the all important underpinning that justifies a story's events and characters--doesn't add up. There is not enough suspense written in to make it a thriller; not enough horror described to make it frightening; and worse, not much excitement to be garnered from the characters and their actions. Lucas Manson's structure is more draft-stage than print-ready.
Continue reading "Lucas Manson
A Novel by Thomas A. Hauck" »
Here are some blogs I've been stalking and enjoy spying on. You may find them adequate to fulfill your voyeuristic tendencies, too.
...John Navroth at Monster Magazine World provides coverage on all that printed horror you hear so much about but rarely experience these days, what will all that digital distraction and such it's hard to maintain focus on all that pulpy goodness (or wholesome trashiness). Being a collector and avid reader of magazines, I find his blog a much needed light shining in horror's dark attic, to illuminate the nifty finds just waiting to be discovered. "To answer you about starting up Monster Magazine World, I've always found a need for creative expression through some form of performance (I'm a musician, too) or publication. Since I've got what I consider a respectable collection of monster stuff, I figured I'd go ahead and give a blog a shot and share it with the world. Seemed easier than building a website. I am also hoping to turn it into a sort of informational hub for monster magazines, as well as a resource for cultural artifacts of the time of the vintage 'zines. Time will tell."
...Halloween Man666 at Halloween Overkill keeps the spirit of the Jack O'Lantern burning every day of the year, sharing his passion for the holiday and the horror with us. You'll find a mix of his personal delights in this new blog that covers everything from comics to movies. He even has his wife, an editor, polishing up his posts (lucky devil!). "I'm hoping to do a halloween countdown starting in late September that should hopefully bring some more attention to the site." Why wait, I say: read his blog now.
...Rondal Scott at Strange Kids Club provides a visual smorgasbord of art and animation devoted to horror, the fantastic, and the mischievous kid in all of us who still insists sugar-packed cereals are a major food source and better come with a toy or else. "I am a designer/blogger who currently runs a blog dedicated to all things animated, illustrated or otherwise art-related with a tinge of horror sauce to complete the combo. I am truly a Monsterkid at heart whose childhood fears have become a tireless fascination of the horror genre (among the other elements that formed my youth)."
...A. Jaye's Thrill Fiction: Words Without Fear is a blog filled with stylish commentary that can be sweet and tart in its exploration of horror on the screen and in the script. Few blogs dare to delve as deep beneath the surface as he does in the search for what makes horror's genre-blood flow. You'll praise him, you'll hate him, but you'll always go back for more. "I'm writing a novel. I'm writing a blog. I'm going to get published before I write-off."
...Colum McKnight at Paperback Horror covers the cheesy, the sublime, and the just plain enjoyable (or godawful) stories of horror and terror that come wrapped inside the pasteboards. Planet of Terror recently did a Meet the Horror Bloggers post with Colum: "Why the hell do you read those things?' That's the question
everybody seems to be asking me these days, usually while they cast
sneering glances at whatever paperback I happen to have in hand. The
short answer? Because I like them. Because I can."
Combine the two most horrible tastes you can imagine--like motor oil and someone else's vomit--and you won't even come close to this level of nasty. Yeah, I eat brains. (Gwen in I, Zombie, Issue 1)
ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good
I, Zombie from Vertigo is an urban fantasy set in Eugene, Oregon, a town very much like Archie Comics' Riverdale. Instead of Jughead, Betty, and Veronica, however, the grave-digging Gwendolyn Dylan has friends like Ellie, a Go-Go Dancer ghost with a beehive hairdo, and Scott, a were-terrier boyfriend with puppy-love eyes. The gang likes to hang out at Dixie's Firehouse, the local malt shop and diner.
When not at Dixie's, Gwen digs graves at the Green Pastures Cemetery, which boasts their naturally wholesome methods of interment. Gwen's dirt-shoveling skills come in handy because she's a 20-something zombie who needs to chow down on a mass of gray cells every month to keep from turning into a less attractive and stinkier one. The catch is that when she eats a recently interred person's brain, she experiences the memories, pleasure, anguish, and desires the person left behind before shuffling off to points unknown. This time around, that shuffling off involves murder.
There's a lot of kitschy-cute weirdness crammed into this first issue: a mysterious corporation concerned about the surge in permanent residents at Green Pastures Cemetery; a former boyfriend Gwen anxiously avoids; the question of who murdered her latest dinner guest and why; and paintball vampires prowling around. Introductions are fast and brief in this ambitious issue, leaving me with anticipation for the next issue and hoping it doesn't fall flat under its own weighty cuteness. Michael Allred's artwork melds with the odd characters and their peculiar talents well enough to keep the tone balanced for the light and dark drama-kitsch writer Chris Roberson is aiming for.
DC Comics sent me a courtesy copy for this review.
"Collect colorful pictures of exciting characters encountered during the timeless travels of the Tardis. There are 12 octagonal cards to collect"--from Cadbury Typhoo Limited. Copyright BBC 1976.
The Doctor certainly encounters a lot of monsters in his travels, don't you think? The card backs do not contain descriptive information for the creatures, but I've included them for completeness.
Click for galaxy-sized view.
Continue reading "Doctor Who Cadbury Typhoo Card Set 1976" »
ZC Rating 2 of 7: Fair
With the zombie well beginning to run dry of ideas, it's tough to come up with new angles to build around the gut-munching simplicity of the undead. Fast or slow, young or old, there's not much you can do with them beyond their insatiable appetite for flesh and sweet meats, and the duck and cover action it usually entails. While gimmicks abound, like dressing them up in Victorian finery and serving them up with tea and crumpets, you can only go so far before even they start looking long in the tooth and come up short on the drama.
One thematic darling of the zombie fiction set is to have a pandemic erupt sending citizens and politicos, civilians and military to hell in a designer handbasket. Usually blamed on terrorists or a military experiment gone horribly wrong, this virus hits the population hard and takes down everyone in its path. Queue the final curtain and much wailing and gnashing of teeth (on both living and dead sides of course).
In Tooth and Nail, Craig DiLouie follows the soldiers through the hell they must travel when New York City becomes a massive killing zone. His virus is the Hong Kong Lyssa, a variation that mutates into something more like a parasite than simply a nasty bug. His Mad Dogs-- what the people infected with the virus are called--act very much like extras from 28 Days Later, but in his claustrophobic urban battleground, with no Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, or even a 7-Eleven open to grab a coffee break and Twinkie, the platoons sent to protect the
population wind up needing protection from that population even more. This sets up the intriguing emotional, spiritual, and intellectual conflicts inherent in such a situation: how can the military fulfill its primary objective to protect a population that is devolving more and more, by the minute, into an enemy. It's a unique premise. DiLouie, unfortunately, does little with it.
Continue reading "Tooth and Nail
A Zombie Novel By Craig DiLouie" »
How much longer till Halloween? Here are the Dart Flipcards, Inc. The Munsters autographed trading cards for your Munsterish delight.
I met the adorable Pat Priest at one of the Drunken Severed Head's invitation-only parties, held during a Monster Bash convention. She regaled us with funny stories of her work on The Munsters set, how she turned down a free car from Elvis, and how she threw away the show's scripts and other future hot collectibles when no longer needed. Memorabilia was not a hot topic in those days apparently. I ate at Al Lewis' restaurant called, fittingly enough, Grampa's in Greenwich Village back in 1987. I didn't notice the place until this guy sitting in front yelled "Are you hungry?" and held the door open for us, inviting us in. It was Al Lewis, chomping on a big cigar and having a ball. The Italian food was awesome, too.
Click the memories to enlarge.
A small picture vibrating with grand passions, “Godspeed” transforms the vast lawlessness of the Alaskan wilderness into a playground for damaged souls and Old Testament mischief. (Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times)
Once again, Ms. Catsoulis' review is perplexing to me. Interesting, but very perplexing. (Zombos)
ZC Rating 2 of 7: Fair
Twice I started watching Robert Saitzyk's thriller Godspeed and twice I stopped at the same scene in the movie. I wondered why. It's when faith healer Charlie Shepard (Joseph McKelheer) and Sarah Roberts (Courtney Halverson) have awkwardly met and each wants the other to go in a different direction, which is either to find something or to lose something, or maybe both. Intensity should be radiating from them but it doesn't and I couldn't pin down why. Maybe it's Saitzyk's direction, which lingers too long on scenes, trying to give them importance the story and its characters can't muster, or maybe it's McKelheer's struggle (he co-wrote with Saitzyk and Knauf) with overly contemplative dialog inadequate for fully expressing his struggle with his inner demons. There's a weightiness to Godspeed that doesn't add up given its story, and for a thriller--I wouldn't call Godspeed a horror movie--it never finds the intensity it needs to involve us, or justify its artsy spiritual despair spilling over into bloodshed at the beginning and the ending of the movie.
Given the beautiful but lonely vista of the Alaskan location, Saitzyk doesn't allow his tormentors or their tormented much interaction through metaphor or religious iconography with the wilderness surrounding them--and in them; instead, he fills the empty spaces with drawn out, self-conscious talkiness, where everyone moves hopelessly around a lot pontificating on their desires and sins without making us feel they're sharing the burden with us. Neither are their actions embellished or even made insignificant by God's intrusive knack with nature all around them. This leaves the movie's underwhelming religious-poking bland to watch, forcing more of our attention on a weak story just not engrossing enough to hold it, which, given the soul-searching and ulterior motives abounding at its heart it should. Godspeed doesn't let us feel the philosophical ardor it so heavily tries to concern us with.
The members of LOTT D remember when horror came in a VHS box, all lurid and gamy, just waiting to be eagerly plucked from the local video store's shelves like a ravenous zombie ripping out a fresh, red-dripping, still-beating heart from a cracked rib-cage. Often promising more than they would deliver, and sometimes delivering more than they dared promised, their rectangular sleeve covers beguiled us with garish text and images so outrageous and impertinent, we couldn't resist the temptation. We cherish them. And we cherish the stores that gave us this world to explore: all the nightmares, all the terrors, and all the fun that crammed those shelves, waiting to be taken home.
Yes, we remember.
Dr. Gangrene remembers the sweet horrors delivered by mom and pop video stores: I tell you what I miss… I miss mom and pop video stores. They are all too quickly becoming a thing of the past...
Lost Highway does a last rewind for Video Vault: Well, yesterday I learned about one business closing, a cult video store named “Video Vault” that really hit close to home for all of us here at Lost Highway...
Dinner With Max Jenke got it all on video: watching these stores and the VHS format vanish from the face of the earth in the wake of DVDs and Netflix makes me feel like my past is in the process of being gobbled up by those hell-spawned Pac-Man things from Stephen King’s The Langoliers...
Cinema Suicide reflects on the boss box art for really bad movies: Video box art became the stuff of legend and lured a lot of people into renting some obnoxious crap based entirely on cool pictures...
Cinema Fromage fondly remembers the Video Place: As we walked into the Video Place, the first thing to hit you was the smell. A peculiar smell indeed, however not necessarily foul. My foggy recollection seems to think it was a mixture of particle board, must, and popcorn...
"If any of you want to accompany me to the cemetery
you better get ready. I'd like to know who died."
ZC Rating 1 of 7: Poor ("Mind-numbing, but fun," sums it up quite well)
Ripped from the case files of the League of Reluctant Reviewers comes this bizarre interpretation of a horror movie. It is incomprehensible. It is Spanish. It is nonsensical. It is so bad it is as much fun to watch as to belittle. It is Necrophagus, aka Graveyard of Horror, aka The Butcher of Binbrook.
Since the direction is amateurish, the acting wooden and the script confused, one can only conclude that it was Nieva's Eastmancolor cinematography that won the film first prize at the 1971 Festival of the Cine de Terror at Sitges. (The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Horror)
"Your hand is shaking Mr. Bolton," observed Chalmers as he ushered me into the familiar room.
He was right. The weather had turned wetter, chillier, and foggier than was usual for May. That was my excuse anyway. My hand started shaking during the long walk to 999 Transient Street, the club where the League of Reluctant Reviewers hung out. I only come here when Zombos and Iloz Zoc do not want to bother themselves with reviewing certain movies. You know the difficult ones. The movies normal people feel ashamed to be caught dead watching. Those guys act like critic-wimps sometimes, especially when Paul Hollstenwall is involved. Man that guy savors dreck like bears lick honey.
I have taken this trip often enough thanks to Paul, but it is rare for my hand to start shaking. The hand that holds the DVD. It was shaking badly now. Almost as bad as when I had brought The Human Centipede to the club the other night. But that's another story. A real wild one. I must still be shell-shocked from that escapade.
"Perhaps I should take your wet coat and that DVD," he suggested. He shook the drops off my coat while gingerly easing the DVD from my clenched fingers.
I usually bring the DVD to the Champagne Room myself, but this time I let Chalmers do it. He led the way. The owner of the club, the unseen man with chalk white hands and a voice as smooth as velvet, sitting in the Chippendale wing chair always facing the fireplace, welcomed me.
"And what have we tonight?" he asked, reaching out from the chair. "Hopefully nothing as, shall we say, challenging as that previous movie?" He chuckled, but a little nervously.
Chalmers gave the DVD to him. Both hand and DVD withdrew behind the chair.
"Ah, I see. This should not take too long at all, I think." A white hand reached out to ring the bell sitting on the small table by the chair while Chalmers escorted me to the small waiting room, where a comfortable settee and comforting drink awaited me. This time Chalmers chose a warm Tom and Jerry instead of the usual chilled sherry. Good man. I closed my eyes and let the hot liquid dribble down my throat, and waited for the League of Reluctant Reviewers to once again do their thing.
A mad scientist, somewhat dead and feeding off corpse liquors to stay that way; a gaggle of women prone to hysterics and fits of slapping each other; and a skulking cemetery keeper, Mr. Fowles (Victor Israel), who gives googly-eye stares and never changes his clothes, infuse Necrophagus with unintentionally humorous melodramatics topped off by an inane story so incoherently told you will need Google for understanding it before you see it. Even more surprising, you can't blame Jess Franco or Paul Naschy for this one.
The short of it has handsome Lord Sherrington (Bill Curran) return to his family castle in Scotland (actually shot in Spain) to find out what happened to his wife Elizabeth, who died in childbirth. Sherrington's brother, a research scientist (or something like that) also happens to be missing. A lengthy narration at the end of the movie explains what his brother was doing and why he went missing, but at this point, for anyone still watching, it comes too late and doesn't explain much.
The long of it has two doctors acting rudely and mysteriously; Elizabeth's frisky sisters and a niece (sorry, no nudity) either pining away for or fainting over Sherrington's affections; the cemetery keeper skulking around a lot with his annoying pop-eye stare; Sherrington's fondness for playing a tune--which sounds very much like On Top of Old Smokey--repeatedly on his harmonica (yes, that’s what I said: a harmonica); a police inspector investigating the brother's disappearance (at least that's one possibility for his loitering around the castle since none are ever mentioned); two Scream-like robed and masked attackers loitering around the cemetery day and night; and another doctor who must be a villain because each time he enters a room, the camera zooms in on his face while zither-like zing-zing-zing musical notes alert us to his potentially villainous role. There’s also a fast change of seasons with snowball fights and summer-like greenery mixing together within a time period not more than a week or so long by my reckoning, so that’s fairly confusing, too.
When Lord Sherrington insists on playing his harmonica and seeing his wife's body, he's rebuffed by the doctors and the cemetery keeper. Entering the cemetery at night, he starts flinging dirt at the camera—pretty funny, really--as he digs up his wife's coffin to find it empty. More dirt is flung at the camera as he digs up other coffins, also finding them empty. The two robed and masked loiterers knock him out cold and drag him someplace where a pulsing mound of dirt has tubes running out of it. He wakes up. Something in the mound of dirt wakes up. He screams a lot and that's all we see: him screaming a lot. Director Miguel Madrid's penchant for close-up, monster's point of view angles, showing people on the ground screaming and holding up their hands to fend off an attack from the unseen growling something, don't do much to raise the scares. Needless to say, Sherrington goes missing; but not his harmonica (unfortunately).
Endless scenes with the gaggle of women reminiscing over their lust for him (or perhaps it was his lusty harmonica playing?), berating each other for their lustful reminiscences, or holding hands and looking scared as they go searching for him in the Scottish castle that's not in Scotland, round out the rest of the 80 minutes or so running time. Close-ups of a gloved hand poked into an overcoat's pocket, moving from room to room, legs walking, and startled faces, punctuated now and then by the first few notes of On Top of Old Smokey or zing-zing-zing music for dramatic effect, comprise the rest of the tour de force of cinematography on display here.
When the monster finally does show up it goes after a girl so it can pointlessly carry her unconscious body in its arms while walking into a hail of police bullets. Scratch one monster posthaste. Devout fans of early 1970s Spanish horror movies will argue Miguel Madrid brilliantly and intentionally fragmented Necrophagus by shooting it non-linearly and then raggedly cutting his scenes to create disorientation in the viewer.
Don't believe them.
