Reconstructing SCREAM-IN, Starring Cincinnati's Cool Ghoul

After reconstructing the listings for 12 TALL TALES, I've turned my attention to identifying all of the films that played on WXIX-TV's SCREAM-IN. The prime time Saturday night slot began running horror films as early as December 1968, but - to judge from local advertising - it didn't officially become SCREAM-IN until January 11.

The titled show was reportedly launched with two hosts: 7+-foot-tall Bill Engesser (who had played the towering werewolf in the 1962 nudie HOUSE ON BARE MOUNTAIN) as "Mr. Whopper" and WXIX staffer Alice Davidson as his Morticia-like foil and companion. It's said that Engesser presented himself with no makeup, but merely bent over like a hunchback and contorted his face as he bantered with his co-star, the two of them addressing each other as "Bubala" and "Poopsie." Their stewardship did not last long - and I personally have no memory of it. Presumably the station realized this was not the way to go, as SCREAM-IN was subsequently revamped (pun intended) in May 1969, when local actor/announcer Dick Von Hoene (1940-2004) took over the reigns in the guise of Cincinnati's own legendary horror host, the Cool Ghoul. The Ghoul (pictured above), who feigned a Lugosi-like voice and a "bla-bla-blaaa" laugh, emerged from an upright casket at the beginning of each show, conducted conversations with an off-camera "friend" (also Von Hoene, doing a more Karloffian voice), and would pantomime to Halloween-themed records at the midpoint of each picture. Willie Mitchell's cover of the rhythm and blues standard "Slippin' and Slidin'" was the show's theme song.

I was only 12 when SCREAM-IN came along, and though it had been only two years since 12 TALL TALES had been cancelled over at WKRC-TV, it felt like eons since there had been any kind of horror movie package being shown on Cincinnati television. Of course, at 12, I was also hitting puberty and with puberty comes that heightened level of mania that made the Beatles possible. It was at that level I connected with SCREAM-IN and its syndicated movie packages from AIP-TV and Columbia. The Ghoul initially did the show live - I know, because a friend and I called the station as soon as his first broadcast ended and he kindly spoke to both of us (in character) for at least 10 minutes. We were his first fans, and we became his first fan club - not that we ever sought other members; there were just a few of us who would get together on Saturday nights to watch the show. Calling the station with post-mortem reports became a weekly ritual for a little while, and Dick (who started speaking to us in his real voice by the third call) seemed to enjoy hearing from us - so much that he actually gave me his home number when the show began videotaping his segments, a decision I'm sure that he later regretted. He invited me to the station one afternoon to meet him and watch him tape a show (I wish I could remember which film he showed that week), and some time later, another fan and I worked up some kind of make-shift award and presented it to him on the set. It was just a homely, framed piece of cardboard with a 12 year old's calligraphy on it, but he recognized our sincerity and had a station photographer come down to commemorate the moment - and then showed the photo on the air a week or two later. He was a very patient, very nice man, very knowledgeable about motion pictures (he introduced me to Stanley Kubrick, actually), and we kept in sporadic touch right up to the end. In the last years of his life, he was a regular customer at the bakery where my mother worked, and one day - as a gift from him - she presented me with that station photograph of me and my friend Jim, presenting the Ghoul with our award, which I had only seen once, briefly, on television about 30 years earlier and never, ever expected to see again.  

But besides the Ghoul himself, SCREAM-IN was like my most important education in horror movies in the years prior to my becoming a writer. It offered me my first serious, knowing exposure to Italian horror and, when WXIX came into possession of the Shock Theater package from Universal in the fall of 1970, it became my first (young) adult access to those films, as well.

WXIX-TV, Channel 19, was Cincinnati's fourth commercial television station and its first independent channel. It began broadcasting at 3:00pm on August 1, 1968. One of their most interesting early programs was a Sunday night film series called FOR ADULTS ONLY, a somewhat sensational title for a serious package of films including the likes of LORD OF THE FLIES, LA DOLCE VITA, ALPHAVILLE and numerous Ingmar Bergman titles. I hold Channel 19's early programming almost entirely to blame when I have to explain why my interest in horror and art films has always seemed to run neck and neck. Judging by the listings given in the CINCINNATI ENQUIRER archives, Channel 19 aired a handful of horror titles in the last month of 1968, at 9:00pm on Saturday night, but it did not become SCREAM-IN or hosted by the Cool Ghoul until January 11, 1969. Once the Ghoul stepped in as host, threeof those four early films were immediately reshown.

Here is the near-complete schedule of SCREAM-IN offerings, as best I have been able to reconstruct them.  

THE ANGRY RED PLANET.

1968
Dec 07 - THE ANGRY RED PLANET (or it may have been REPTILICUS, noted in another newspaper listing)
Dec 14 - THE BEAST OF MOROCCO (THE HAND OF NIGHT)
Dec 21 - CRY OF THE BEWITCHED (probably an incorrect listing, as the film is listed as playing in the same time slot on the following January 4)
Dec 28 - THE TERROR

At the beginning of 1969, SCREAM-IN's time slot was bumped back slightly to 9:30pm.


1969
Jan 04 - CRY OF THE BEWITCHED
Jan 11 - THE ANGRY RED PLANET (first proper SCREAM-IN broadcast)
Jan 18 - THE BEAST OF MOROCCO
Jan 25 - JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET
Feb 01 - THE TIME TRAVELERS
Feb 08 - NIGHT STAR, GODDESS OF ELECTRA (WAR OF THE ZOMBIES)
Feb 15 - IN THE YEAR 2889 (this listing was apparently in error, as it was repeated in the following week's listings; this week's broadcast was likely another Larry Buchanan film like ZONTAR THE THING FROM VENUS, also known to be in the AIP-TV package being shown through Aug 30)
Feb 22 - IN THE YEAR 2889
Mar 01 - MASTER OF THE WORLD
Mar 08 - PYRO
Mar 15 - MASTER OF THE WORLD
Mar 22 - GHIDRAH, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER
Mar 29 - INVASION
Apr 05 - THE WIZARD OF MARS
Apr 12 - THE INVISIBLE CREATURE
Apr 19 - DESTINATION INNER SPACE
Apr 26 - IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA
May 03 - THE SON OF DR JEKYLL
May 10 - TERROR IN THE CRYPT (first Cool Ghoul broadcast)

TERROR IN THE CRYPT.

Beginning May 17, SCREAM-IN finally settled into its standard 9:00pm time slot on Saturday nights.

May 17 - DIE MONSTER DIE
May 24 - DR ORLOFF'S MONSTER
May 31 - BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA
Jun 07 - THE FACE OF TERROR
Jun 14 - THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER
Jun 21 - BLACK SABBATH
Jun 28 - THE EYE CREATURES
Jul 05 - CIRCUS OF HORRORS
Jul 12 - ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE
Jul 19 - Pre-empted by the Miss Indiana Beauty Pageant (boo!)
Jul 26 - CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE
Aug 02 - THE TERROR
Aug 09 - FROZEN ALIVE (considered by the Ghoul to be the worst film he ever showed!)
Aug 16 - THE MAD MAGICIAN
Aug 23 - TRACK OF THE VAMPIRE
Aug 30 - CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD
Sep 06 - FRANKENSTEIN (the arrival of Universal's "Shock Theater" package - a major event!)
Sep 13 - WEIRD WOMAN
Sep 20 - MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
Sep 27 - Unlisted
Oct 04 - THE INVISIBLE MAN
Oct 11 - THE FROZEN GHOST / Unlisted (double feature)
Oct 18 - Unlisted
Oct 25 - THE INVISIBLE RAY
Nov 01 - DRACULA
Nov 08 - THE WOLF MAN
Nov 15 - THE MUMMY
Nov 22 - THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS
Nov 29 - THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET
Dec 06 - MAN-MADE MONSTER
Dec 13 - THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
Dec 20 - THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE
Dec 27 - PILLOW OF DEATH

THE MUMMY'S GHOST.

1970
Jan 03 - THE MUMMY'S GHOST
Jan 10 - SON OF DRACULA
Jan 17 - Unlisted 
Jan 24 - DRACULA'S DAUGHTER
Jan 31 - DEAD MAN'S EYES
Feb 07 - Unlisted (shown at 5:30pm - 9:00 slot pre-empted by Basketball game)
Feb 14 - THE BLACK ROOM
Feb 21 - THE MAD GHOUL
Feb 28 - FRANKENSTEIN
Mar 07 - THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Mar 14 - THE TOWER OF LONDON
Mar 21 - Unlisted  (10:00 "as Movie" - possibly pre-empted by Basketball finals)
Mar 28 - Unlisted
Apr 04 - Unlisted
Apr 11 - ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN
Apr 18 - Unlisted
Apr 25 - Unlisted
May 02 - WEREWOLF IN A GIRL'S DORMITORY
May 09 - Unlisted
May 16 - Unlisted
May 23 - Unlisted
May 30 - Unlisted
Jun 06 - Unlisted
Jun 13 - Unlisted
Jun 20 - THE MUMMY'S TOMB
Jun 27 - BEFORE I HANG
Jul 04 - Unlisted
Jul 11 - Unlisted
Jul 18 - Unlisted
Jul 25 - BLACK SABBATH ("The Telephone" segment cut)
Aug 01 - THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN

The unlisted titles shown during the preceding period would have included such titles as THE MUMMY'S HAND, THE MUMMY'S CURSE, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, NIGHT MONSTER, CALLING DR DEATH, NIGHT KEY, THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET, THE CAT CREEPS, and SON OF FRANKENSTEIN from the Universal "Shock Theatre" package; BLACK SUNDAY, BURN WITCH BURN!, CIRCUS OF HORRORS (shown uncut only once), THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (likewise), THE GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW, STRANGLER OF THE TOWER, PLANETS AGAINST US, THE FLYING SAUCER from the AIP-TV package; THE MAN WHO TURNED TO STONE, THE CURSE OF DRACULA, IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA and 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH from the Columbia package, among other titles known to have aired on SCREAM-IN. I also recall seeing Del Tenney's THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH and THE CURSE OF THE LIVING CORPSE on the show at some point.

By August 1970, the Cool Ghoul's popularity was such that WXIX expanded Von Hoene's duties to encompass Saturday night prime time from 7:00 - 11:00pm. This was done with the introduction of a 7:00 movie, initially called SHOCK IT TO ME but later changed to CREATURE FEATURE, which also happened to be the name of a Sunday afternoon broadcast that ran from 5:00-7:00pm. The Cool Ghoul did not host SHOCK IT TO ME/CREATURE FEATURE, but Von Hoene did "host" the program as an announcer, using the Karloffian voice he created for the Ghoul's off-screen companion, whom he always addressed as "my friend."

UNEARTHLY STRANGER.

Aug 08 - DEATH ROBOTS / THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN OF THE HIMALAYAS (evidently incorrect, as this SCREAM-IN listing was repeated the following week)
Aug 15 - UNEARTHLY STRANGER / THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN OF THE
HIMALAYAS
Aug 22 - RETURN OF THE FLY / BEHIND THE MASK
Aug 29 - JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET / SON OF DR JEKYLL
Sep 05 - THE APE WOMAN (cancelled at the last minute as Von Hoene considered the film too "sleazy" for young audiences, replaced with the non-horror WC Fields feature YOU CAN'T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN!)/ THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1943)
Sep 12 - BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER / MY SON THE VAMPIRE
Sep 19 - THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (shown uncut for the first and only time!) / HOUSE OF DRACULA
Sep 26 - KONGA / HORROR OF DRACULA
Oct 03 - THE EYE CREATURES (single feature)
Oct 10 - CREATURE WITH THE ATOMIC BRAIN / THE GIANT GILA MONSTER
Oct 17 - DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL / THE TERROR
Oct 24 - INVASION EARTH 2150 AD / PYRO
Oct 31 - GODZILLA VS THE SEA MONSTER / HOUSE OF HORRORS
Nov 07 - THE DEMON PLANET (PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES) / JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER
Nov 14 - ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE / RETURN FROM THE PAST (DR TERROR'S GALLERY OF HORRORS)
Nov 21 - THE TIME TRAVELERS / HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM

REPTILICUS.

Nov 28 - PLANET OF BLOOD (incorrect, relisted the following week) / Unlisted
Dec 05 - PLANET OF BLOOD (QUEEN OF BLOOD) / Unlisted
Dec 12 - Unlisted
Dec 19 - Unlisted
Dec 26 - Unlisted

1971
Jan 02 - Unlisted / INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
Jan 09 - Unlisted
Jan 16 - FRANKENSTEIN
Jan 23 - IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA / Unlisted
Jan 30 - Unlisted / THE RAVEN (1935)
Feb 06 - REPTILICUS / EARTH VS THE SPIDER
Feb 13 - Unlisted / MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
Feb 20 - Unlisted / THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS
Feb 27 - Unlisted / THE BLACK CAT (1934)
Mar 06 - Unlisted / THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Mar 13 - THE WIZARD OF MARS / THE VIKING WOMEN AND THE SEA SERPENT
Mar 20 - THE ANGRY RED PLANET / TEENAGE CAVEMAN (shown at 10:00 after
basketball)
Mar 27 - GHIDRAH THE THREE HEADED MONSTER / THE SCREAMING SKULL
Apr 03 - THE FLYING SAUCER / TERROR IN THE CRYPT
Apr 10 - WEREWOLF IN A GIRL'S DORMITORY / HORROR OF DRACULA
Apr 17 - THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (cut) / THE FROZEN GHOST
Apr 24 - DIE MONSTER DIE / THE SON OF DR JEKYLL
May 01 - JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET / DRACULA
May 08 - DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE / THE WOLF MAN
May 15 - INVASION EARTH 2150 AD / THE INVISIBLE MAN
May 22 - THE INVISIBLE RAY / SON OF DRACULA
May 29 - THE MAD MAGICIAN / THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN (shown at 10:00)
Jun 05 - TRACK OF THE VAMPIRE / BLACK SUNDAY

HORROR CASTLE.

One of the unlisted films from the preceding period would have been HORROR CASTLE (1963) with Christopher Lee, which received complaints from some viewers at the time of its first broadcast about a scene in which a rat cage was attached to a woman's face, resulting in half of her nose being eaten by the hungry rodent. Thereafter, Von Hoene became more sensitive to the needs of the younger members of his audience and he screened each film personally prior to broadcast and cut any scenes that he felt might be too sleazy or too violent for his following. (THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, CIRCUS OF HORRORS and THE FLESH EATERS are a few films found guilty on both counts.) In the opening minutes of his June 5 broadcast of Mario Bava's BLACK SUNDAY, he announced that part of the beginning of the movie would be slightly cut, so as not to upset the "little ones," but that the scene would be shown uncut at the end of the broadcast, when the little ones would be asleep, so that those who could take it could see it.

RETURN FROM THE PAST.

Jun 12 - TOWER OF TERROR / CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD
Jun 19 - I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF / SCREAM-IN pre-empted by Boxing
Jun 26 - HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER / I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN
Jul 03 - VOODOO WOMAN / THE HAND
Jul 10 - IT CONQUERED THE WORLD / THE HEADLESS GHOST
Jul 17 - THE SHE CREATURE / THE UNDEAD
Jul 24 - ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES / SCREAM-IN pre-empted by Boxing
Jul 31 - STRANGLER OF THE TOWER / BURN WITCH BURN
Aug 07 - A BUCKET OF BLOOD / SCREAM-IN pre-empted
Aug 14 - PLANET OF BLOOD / DR ORLOFF'S MONSTER (likely cut)
Aug 21 - JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER / SCREAM-IN pre-empted by
Boxing
Aug 28 - DEMENTIA 13 / RETURN FROM THE PAST
Sep 04 - EEGAH / THE WEREWOLF
Sep 11 - MY SON THE VAMPIRE (Allan Sherman prologue cut) / THE INVISIBLE BOY
Sep 18 - THE NEW INVISIBLE MAN / THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Sep 25 - DR WHO AND THE DALEKS / REPTILICUS
Oct 02 - PYRO / 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH
Oct 09 - MAN WITH A CLOAK / HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (cut)
Oct 16 - THE PHANTOM PLANET / HORROR OF DRACULA
Oct 23 - THE BEAST OF MOROCCO / DAY THE WORLD ENDED
Oct 30 - THE WIZARD OF MARS / IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA
Nov 06 - BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER / THE DEVIL DOLL (1964, cut)
Nov 13 - DEMENTIA 13 / THE TERROR
Nov 20 - VOYAGE TO THE END OF THE UNIVERSE / BLACK SABBATH (the "Telephone" segment cut as "too adult")
Nov 27 - THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (cut) / DESTINATION INNER SPACE
Dec 04 - THE ANGRY RED PLANET / THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN
Dec 11 - THE KILLER SHREWS / CRY OF THE BEWITCHED
Dec 18 - KONGA / SCREAM-IN pre-empted by Basketball
Dec 25 - THE GIANT GILA MONSTER / THE 5000 FINGERS OF DR T

The next year began with a showing of BURN, WITCH, BURN! (UK: NIGHT OF THE EAGLE), a British film starring American actress Janet Blair, with whom Von Hoene was evidently very taken. Every time he presented the film - he had shown it at least once before this - he would touchingly alert his viewers to "pay close attention" to the leading lady in the movie "because she is very, very pretty."

BURN WITCH BURN.

1972
Jan 01 - THEATER OF DEATH / BURN WITCH BURN
Jan 08 - BEDLAM / PSYCHOMANIA (cut)
Jan 15 - THE CURSE OF DRACULA / HORROR CASTLE (cut)
Jan 22 - THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS / THE DIABOLICAL DR Z (cut)
Jan 29 - THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD / CORRIDORS OF BLOOD
Feb 05 - INVASION EARTH 2150 AD / GHIDRAH THE THREE HEADED MONSTER
Feb 12 - BATMAN / MARK OF THE VAMPIRE
Feb 19 - DESTINATION MOON / I BURY THE LIVING
Feb 26 - MIGHTY JOE YOUNG / MASTER OF THE WORLD
Mar 04 - THE HAUNTED STRANGLER / THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD
Mar 11 - WEREWOLF IN A GIRL'S DORMITORY / THE TIME TRAVELERS
Mar 18 - THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN / INVASION EARTH 2150 AD
Mar 25 - I BURY THE LIVING / HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (cut)
Apr 01 - IN THE YEAR 2889 / THE EYE CREATURES
Apr 08 - FIRST MAN INTO SPACE / DESTINATION INNER SPACE
Apr 15 - THE NEW INVISIBLE MAN / THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (cut)
Apr 22 - THE UNDEAD / CAT PEOPLE
Apr 29 - JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME / PANIC IN YEAR ZERO
May 06 - CRACK IN THE WORLD / THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
May 13 - PSYCHOMANIA (cut) / THE FLY
May 20 - RIDER TO THE STARS / DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
May 27 - THE CREEPING UNKNOWN / DONOVAN'S BRAIN
Jun 03 - THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE / THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE
WORLD
Jun 10 - SHE DEMONS / FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER
Jun 17 - ZONTAR THE THING FROM VENUS / TERROR IN THE CRYPT
Jun 24 - SPACE MONSTER / THE TERROR
Jul 01 - REPTILICUS / THE WEREWOLF
Jul 08 - VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTORIC WOMEN / EARTH VS
FLYING SAUCERS
Jul 15 - THE MAD MAGICIAN / THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Jul 22 - DR ORLOFF'S MONSTER (cut) / DEMENTIA 13
Jul 29 - DAY THE WORLD ENDED / CIRCUS OF FEAR
Aug 05 - DAGORA THE SPACE MONSTER / CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD
Aug 12 - CIRCUS OF HORRORS (cut) / THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER
Aug 19 - THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN / THE BEAST OF MOROCCO
Aug 26 - GODZILLA VS THE THING / KONGA
Sep 02 - THE ANGRY RED PLANET / TERROR IN THE CRYPT

The September 2 broadcast reportedly marked the final appearance by the Cool Ghoul, who closed out as he opened - by presenting TERROR IN THE CRYPT! WXIX would continue to run horror films in the Saturday night slot through Halloween, replacing the CREATURE FEATURE intro with episodes of the classic Boris Karloff series THRILLER. The remaining unhosted horror films in this time slot were:
 
Sep 09 - TOWER OF TERROR
Sep 16 - THE TERROR
Sep 23 - HORROR CASTLE (cut)
Sep 30 - THE FLESH EATERS (cut)
Oct 07 - BLACK SABBATH
Oct 14 - CURSE OF THE FLY
Oct 21 - X THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES
Oct 28 - THE INVISIBLE MAN

Dick Von Hoene left WXIX at the end of October 1972 and subsequently took a job as a news announcer at radio station WUBE-AM. The Cool Ghoul continued to make personal appearances in the greater Cincinnati area.

My thanks to Craig Boldman, Steven Thompson, Joe Busam and Tom Holtkamp for their additional research. 

(c) 2015 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

Remembering Cincinnati's 12 TALL TALES

Granted, it's an odd name for a horror film package, but WKRC-TV's short-lived 12 TALL TALES is a fond memory for those of us who oversaw its brief timespan. The name of the show was derived from the then-ABC affiliate's nickname of "Tall 12," which was owed to it having the tallest transmission tower in the Greater Cincinnati tri-state area.

One receptive May night, at 11:55pm, 12 TALL TALES suddenly appeared, with probably the moodiest, creepiest horror montage I've ever seen cut for a local television station. I wish I could link you to it, but I'm assuming the footage no longer exists - unless it's tucked away in a WKRC archive over at Union Terminal. I have select memories of this opening, but MONSTER KID HOME MOVIES producer Joe Busam - who, unknown to me at the time, was watching every broadcast along with me - committed it to his memory much more vividly. I offer his reconstruction in orange bold with my own fine-tuning inserted:

The opening started with a twilight shot of the Cincinnati skyline as Glenn Ryle intoned sinister happenings taking place and mentioning specific Cincinnati locations... A lightning flash then CUTS to the turrets of the old Castle façade entrance to Eden Park beside Cincinnati's old Museum of Natural History...

..., followed by a CUT to a subjective view as we pass through its archway to a wooded path... CUT to a POV of  an unidentified character wearing rubber monster glove hands prowling through a thicket in Eden Park. Then CUT to a wide exterior of the opening to the Cincinnati subway along I-75 near Central Parkway...

CUT to a closeup of the gate as two monster hands open the gate... The camera zooms into the darkness... As the darkness fills the screen, MATCH CUT to footage of Steven Ritch's character in THE WEREWOLF popping up from lower screen, transforming and drooling...

This was then followed by a montage of stills (one of which I recall as being Bela Lugosi in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN) accompanied by a woman's scream on the soundtrack finally DISSOLVING to a night shot of the 12 tower...

... and maybe a final flash of lightning and the words 12 TALL TALES. 

Once Cincinnati's Monster Kids got a load of this, we were hooked. What was especially wonderful about this opening, with its crude 16mm B&W newsreel photography and its incorporation of classic monster images and local landmarks, was its creepy suggestion that there might be scary things lurking just under the surface of the city where we lived. The show also struck at just the right time for me, personally - I was 9 years old when it started, going on 10, summer vacation was nigh, and what better excuse than 12 TALL TALES to arrange a Saturday night camp-out with a friend on your, or their, living room floor? Also, as I recall, because these films were being shown in a 90-minute time slot, they came with a promise of limited commercial interruption after an initial 5-minute cluster of commercials at the top, ensuring that the films themselves began at the Witching Hour.

I recently became a subscriber to THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER's online Archive, and it has more or less swallowed me whole. I've been using its various ads and listings to identify and chronologize the movie-viewing of my childhood at favorite haunts like the Plaza Theater in Norwood, the Mariemont and Keith's (where the Disney films played), and the weekend triple bills at the Twin and Oakley Drive-Ins. One of the easier tasks for me to complete was the following complete chronology of 12 TALL TALES broadcasts:

Basil Rathbone in THE MAD DOCTOR.

1966

May 21 - THE MAD DOCTOR (1941)
May 28 - AMONG THE LIVING (1941)
Jun 04 - THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953)
Jun 11 - THE ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU (1957)
Jun 18 - THE WOMAN EATER (1956)
Jun 25 - VOODOO WOMAN (1957)
Jul 02 - Unlisted
Jul 09 - Pre-empted by THE AMERICA GAME

Jul 16 - I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN (1957)
Jul 23 - I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN (1957)

Since each of the broadcasts from May 21 through June 18 were from a Columbia TV syndication package, the unlisted July 2 broadcast was very likely Fred F. Sears' THE WEREWOLF (1956), which is conspicuous in its absence from the list - particularly considering its contribution to the show's opening montage. Furthermore, I feel certain that I saw the entire film one night on 12 TALL TALES. As for the recurrence of that last title, I sense a misidentification in the scheduling; I suspect that the July 16 listing was in fact I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF, otherwise there would have been no need to repeat the TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN listing. Also, I have a memory of seeing I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF around this time.

I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN.

For some reason, 12 TALL TALES then vanished from the WKRC-TV Saturday night line-up. I remember checking the newspaper TV Magazine listings for that time slot in vain, week after week, until I finally gave up. Coincidentally, the Cincinnati area's only other horror-themed movie block, the long-running SHOCK THEATRE on WCPO-TV (Channel 9), lasted only another six weeks and was then replaced by the Cleveland-based rock 'n' roll show UPBEAT. The Monster Kids, I guess, were growing up.

About seven months later, if the listings are correct, 12 TALL TALES returned to Channel 12 on the evening of February 11, 1967. The name of the program is there but the page doesn't otherwise identify the inaugural feature; it simply resumed without fanfare. The fact that the first two return broadcasts didn't specify a feature, that the program was again soon pre-empted by network content, and that its starting time soon became unpredictable, suggests that different factions at the station may have disagreed about the show's value. The 11:55pm start time held firm until the April 15 broadcast, from which time the show's start time alternated between 12:45 and 1:00am, once going as late as 1:45am, until it expired for the second and last time. This irregularity in itself would have proved destructive to the ratings because an important part of 12 TALL TALES charm is that its original timeslot guaranteed that the movie would end in time for you to switch over to WCPO-TV in time to catch the opening of Bob Shreve's SHOENLING ALL-NITE THEATRE, which always reliably started at 1:30am.

Allison Hayes in ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN.

1967

Feb 11 - Unlisted
Feb 18 - Unlisted
Feb 25 - ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958)
Mar 04 - CALTIKI THE IMMORTAL MONSTER (1959) - my first-ever Mario Bava movie!
Mar 11 - INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN (1956)
Mar 18 - Pre-empted by Basketball
Mar 25 - FROM HELL IT CAME (1957)
Apr 01 - HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1958)
Apr 08 - THE DISEMBODIED (1958)
Apr 15 - THE PHANTOM OF CRESTWOOD (1932)

Apr 22, 12:45 - WORLD WITHOUT END (1958)
Apr 29, 12:45 - THE PHANTOM OF CRESTWOOD (1932)
May 06, 1:00 - THE LEOPARD MAN (1943)
May 13, 12:45 - EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS (1954)
May 20 - Pre-empted by another movie running overtime
May 27, 12:45 - THE GIANT BEHEMOTH (1959)
Jun 03, 12:45 - THE TINGLER (1959)
Jun 10, 1:45 - CURSE OF THE DEMON (1957)
Jun 17, 12:45 - Unlisted

THE GIANT BEHEMOTH.

Fortunately, the second round of Unlisteds aren't too much of a brain-teaser. These almost certainly included Roger Corman's THE WASP WOMAN (1959), Edgar G. Ulmer's DAUGHTER OF DR JEKYLL (1957), Bert I. Gordon's THE CYCLOPS (1957), and Monte Hellman's BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE (1959) - there's your four Unlisteds right there! - as these were all part of the same Allied Artists TV package as the other titles shown in the first half of the program's 1967 slate. The TV prints of these B-pictures were padded for telecast - in some instances with additional footage, but also with interminable introductory scrolls that, in those days, were a charmingly hokey way to psych yourself up to watch a horror movie. Check out this 2006 Video WatchBlog entry for an example.

Looking back from a nearly 50-year vantage, it's startling for me to realize what a short-lived thing 12 TALL TALES actually was. Seen - lived through - at that time, when many of these movies were still new to me, or being viewed for the second time for the first time, when I was a sponge soaking up all this information, the experience seemed quite vast and its souvenir images of Vincent Price's suave menace, Butcher Benton's baggy eyes, Caltiki's blobby rampage, and a giant Allison Hayes howling her libidinous lust for two-timing Harry would only swell to greater proportions in the cathedral of my memory.

But a couple dozen movies. That's all it was - plus the anticipation and the living and the ritual sharing of 12 TALL TALES. How starved for this stuff we must have been!

10 Years A Blogger, 30 Years A Watchdog

You may have noticed that I've been busily adding new material to Video WatchBlog all week. And with good reason! My sudden show of industry was all building up to today, when I can remind my followers with some sense of accomplishment that it was 10 years ago tonight that I first launched this eclectic blog - which now extends to 1,172 postings that have enjoyed well over 1,165,000 page views.

It was also 30 years ago this month that Video Watchdog itself was first launched as a regular column on the last page of the October 1985 issue of VIDEO TIMES magazine. Illustrated at left is that very first column, which was inspired by a coincidental viewing of HERCULES with Steve Reeves on home video and a cable television broadcast. "Tipper," a goof on then-self-styled media watchdog Tipper Gore and Nipper, the RCA Records mascot, was dreamed up by someone on staff at the magazine and did not tag along for the idea's subsequent residences at OVERVIEW, GOREZONE or VIDEO WATCHDOG.

Due to the construction of the Digital Archive and subsequent digital editions and books, it's been a couple of lean years for the print magazine. We're not happy about it, and we apologize - two-person operation, and all of that. I have now edited nearly all the contents of VIDEO WATCHDOG 180, which has shaped up to be an issue of concentrated quality, much like 179, as we've been able to cherry-pick from a rich accumulation of material. We intend to be at the printer by the end of the month.

In closing, if you follow this blog, if you enjoy the material I freely post here, please consider investing in some of the amazing products at our website! Thank you.

Years 11 and 31 start here.

Things From the Attic: THE LOVE REBELLION (1967)

PORNOSPIELE MIT STOCK UND PEITSCHE
"Porno Games with Stick and Whip"
1967, Candybox, 79m 58s, E21.71, DVD

Reviewed by Tim Lucas

This German import is a lovingly restored release of Joseph W. Sarno's THE LOVE REBELLION, evidently the first film ever distributed by Cannon Films and long considered lost. Unusually, it resurfaced a year or two ago as a dubbed German-language print released in a strictly limited, numbered edition of 500 copies. The upswing of this anomaly is that the spoken dialogue plays with more dramatic inflection than Sarno's live soundtracks usually have. It's a shame the original track is lost, but in this case certainly not detrimental to the film.

The story begins with one of Sarno's trademark "returns," as Wendy Fletcher (Gretchen Rudolph acting as "Ginger Stevens") returns to New York City after completing college to live with her widowed mother Jo (Melissa Ford), who runs an industrial supplies shipping company. Jo is having a guilt-ridden affair with her head of sales, Don Halleck (Nick Linkov as "Nick Dundas"), which becomes more difficult to manage once Wendy occupies the other bed in her oddly barracks-like bedroom. Jo's employee Barbara (who conveniently occupies the apartment above hers) soon invites the friendless, sullen Wendy upstairs to her parties, which unabashedly feature dancing, stripping and orgiastic lovemaking. Wendy is soon deflowered on a bed full of gawkers by young, orphaned artist Bill Carpenter (Jeremy Langham), but she catches the eye of beefy, goateed Hank Wiggins (Alan Hoff), who's in an intense sadomasochistic relationship with Nancy Near ("Cleo Nova" aka Peggy Steffans - Sarno's future wife) and won't accept Wendy's lack of interest. Unrequited love proliferates as the needy Bill succumbs to the dusky maternal charms of Jo, affecting both Don and Wendy, who seem poised to embark on their own adventure when the deranged Hank shows up at the office to terrorize his heartthrob with a gun.

While this DVD represents an important and exciting recovery, the film itself is not one of Sarno's best. Like his other 1967 pictures, BED OF VIOLENCE (presently lost) and MY BODY HUNGERS, it underplays his trademark psychological content in favor of some uncharacteristic and not particularly persuasive "roughie" content. It's also economically produced to a fault, with nearly every scene's camera set-up having an exact counterpart somewhere else in the picture. While it's hard to judge the performances in this context, the cast is generally attractive and intriguing. Bruce Sparks' shadow-mottled monochrome cinematography, on the other hand, is properly moody and Pir Mirini's dance music works well. This German print credits only "Ginger Stevens" (Rudolph, who bears a mild resemblance to Rebecca Brooke, had made a half dozen earlier films with Sarno, sometimes acting under the name "Jan Nash") and the erotic content shows Sarno still harping on the burlesque aspects of earlier 1960s Adults Only cinema, with topless twist parties, while starting to move toward the sexual candor and experimentation of his post-INGA pictures.

Packaged in a nifty clamshell case designed to resemble a sordid paperback, this DVD (which unfortunately does not include the original English track as an alternative) is available from Amazon.de. A copy or two may yet linger at Diabolik DVD, priced at $28.99.

Things From the Attic: I, MARQUIS DE SADE (1967)

I, MARQUIS DE SADE
1967, Baywater, 69m 30s, $19.99, DVD-0

Reviewed by Tim Lucas

Long feared lost, this penultimate feature from writer-director Richard Hilliard (THE LONELY SEX, screenwriter of Del Tenney's VIOLENT MIDNIGHT aka PSYCHOMANIA) supports his reputation as one of the stranger 1960s poets of dark erotic obsession.

A kind of roughie version of Buñuel's THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ, it stars Sheldon Pearson (who looks remarkably like the young Roger Corman) as Donald Marquis (an allusion to the creator of Archie and Mehitabel?), a translator of the Marquis de Sade's works who, while awaiting and fearing the results of a biopsy test, indulges in fantasies of abandoning the bookish life and acting out the more violent philosophies of Sade on a series of women. He meets a wealthy, overweight yacht-owner (Cindy Ellis) and becomes her gigolo, setting his sights on amassing enough money to have "all the girls." One fateful afternoon, intending to find and torture a beautiful stranger, he meets an English woman (Ann Grant) on the beach, who responds to his philosophical regurgitations and picks him up, but soon proves herself the more experienced Sadist. After returning to his cashcow, he invites two other women back to her place, only to discover that their lesbian proclivities exclude him. He then attempts to exact more control by hiring a rented soundstage for an afternoon stripshow-cum-tryst with Russ Meyer starlet Babette Bardot (was this the only time a known actress portrayed herself - as a prostitute?), but even she finally snubs him after an unexceptional hump. After this, Donald becomes more violent, attacking his benefactor and determining to avenge himself against the earlier dolly bird, who he sights in the parking lot of the bank where he's cashing one last forged check.

Opening with credits lipsticked onto the body of a compliant model, this movie is consistent with Hilliard's earlier themes about the disadvantages of sensitive, creative men in the face of abusive female sexual power, but it is unusual for the ways it blends such dark bitterness about male-female relationships with passages of experimentalism and surrealism and puckish humor. It's also pre-Cronenbergian for the way it subtly suggests that Donald's derangement could be based in a tumor that produces extreme fantasies disassociable from his reality, and certainly pre-VIDEODROME in that it includes scenes the viewer likewise cannot readily identify as fantasy, dream or reality. But nowhere else are you likely to find a film that sabotages its protagonist's sexual self-image quite so viciously, with Ann Grant's psycho tease revealed as the far more dangerous character.

According to internet reports, a 35mm print of this film was recovered in Scandanavia. This clean-looking, if not entirely sharp 1.66:1 release (copyrighted by Retromedia Entertainment) runs somewhat shy of that print's reported running time of 73m, indicating that it may stem from a PAL tape conversion master; it does not appear to be missing any footage. An unrelated nudie short, "Hollywood Beauties", rounds out the package.

Things From the Attic: THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1982)

THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
Der Zauberberg
1982, Koch Vision, 624m, DVD-1
included in THE THOMAS MANN COLLECTION

Reviewed by Tim Lucas

Included in the seven-disc box set THE THOMAS MANN COLLECTION (2007, now out of print) with Franz Peter Wirth's epic 10-hour miniseries of BUDDENBROOKS and Franz Seitz's three-hour feature of DOCTOR FAUSTUS (starring Jon Finch as composer Adrian Leverkuhn) is this frustrating but nevertheless remarkable three-part miniseries directed by Hans W. Geissendorfer, based on Mann's splendid 1924 novel.

It's the story of Hans Castorp (Christoph Eichhorn), a young engineer who ascends a mountain to a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland where his cousin Joachim is being treated for tuberculosis. Intending to stay for only three weeks, impressionable Hans finds himself affected by the elevation, which diverts him from his schedule to undergo treatment himself; various characters who undertake the reshaping of his malleable personality; and the reassuring routine of the place, which abstracts time, each day following the pattern of those previous, and causes him to become passive and detached even when confronted with the first, and possibly only, great love of his life, a fellow patient named Clavdia Chauchat (Marie-France Pisier, miscast but not fatally so). As the story continues - with Hans remaining at the sanitorium a full seven years, until the outbreak of World War I - the clinic becomes an increasingly surreal metaphor for the European passivity, decadence, morbidity and surfacing territorial hatreds that climax in an almost biological need to purge itself through a declaration of war.

Even at slightly under seven hours, this epic can't begin to cover all the ground as the novel and inevitably disappoints, obviously cutting back the tense philosophic and political debates between Settembrini (SUSPIRIA's Flavio Bucci) and Naphta (Charles Aznavour) and sometimes rewriting character interactions to the detriment of its suspense. (In the novel, Hans and Clavdia have no direct interaction prior to the Mardi Gras party; here, she actually reprimands him for gazing soulfully at her.) However, approached as a complement to the novel, the film reproduces more scenes and settings with fidelity than one would ever believe possible and, by virtue of some serendipitous casting, allows some of Mann's fuzzier characters blossoming into unforgettable characters. Particularly noteworthy in this regard are Ann Zacharias as the luminous medium Elly Brand (in Prt 3's séance sequence, one of the most convincing possessed women ever filmed), Fassbinder favorite Kurt Raab (THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES) as the closet occultist Dr. Krokowski, and most of all, Gudrun Gabriel as Marusja, Joachim's unspoken love. (Her moment at the end of Part 2 is heart-rending, and made me think Marusja went on to marry Mr. Crich, becoming the character Catherine Willmer played in Ken Russell's WOMEN IN LOVE.) Rod Steiger also turns up in the final third as the pivotal Myneer Peeperkorn, but what appears to be an inspired performance is undercut by German dubbing and English subtitles that complete what should be a chronic inability to form coherent sentences.

Lensed by later Scorsese collaborator Michael Ballhaus, THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN is preserved by this 2007 release in a dated, standard, analog transfer that stutters during panning shots, yet it remains the definitive release to date. A 2010 stand-alone, two-disc release from E1 Entertainment, which looks worse, also condenses the production to feature length (153m) with disastrous results. A four-disc edition, with supplementary materials, was issued in Germany last year that I've heard renders a more definitive presentation and includes a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer of the feature version - alas, it's not English friendly.

F.W. Murnau, Michael Mark and... Charles Lane?

Last night, while making overdue acquaintance with F.W. Murnau's charming CITY GIRL (1930), I was surprised to notice a familiar face hovering in the background of the second café scene. As this centrally placed customer leaves his seat at the bar, waitress Kate (Mary Duncan) slips her new friend Lem (Charles Farrell, seen beside her) into that slot - to the annoyance of the mustached man in the background. That is actor Michael Mark, who would score a major speaking role in 1931's FRANKENSTEIN as the father of the tragically fated child, Maria. Though released in 1930, CITY GIRL was actually filmed in the latter part of 1928, so Mark had a few years between in which to ascend from extra to speaking parts. While at Universal, Mark would also appear in THE BLACK CAT (1934 version), SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, TOWER OF LONDON, HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES, THE MUMMY'S HAND, FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE, THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON and HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (as "Herr Strauss"). During that time he also slipped away to MGM where he worked on MAD LOVE with Peter Lorre and to Columbia for THE BLACK ROOM with Boris Karloff. In later years, he ended up with bit parts in THE RETURN OF THE FLY, ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE, and the movie with which the IMDb identifies him, Roger Corman's THE WASP WOMAN! Busy guy.

I thought I'd made an important catch but someone on the IMDb had already caught Mark's cameo, but it still hasn't been added to the site's official list of uncredited players.

Since they'll need to do that anyway, I believe I may have caught another one for them. During the scene when Lem returns to the café and bends over to peer through the window in search of Kate (who has, in fact, followed him to the train station and will soon end up in his arms), there is a cutaway to a group of pedestrians walking nearby, with some crossing the street. The man in the light-colored suit and hat caught my attention. There was something familiar about him, not just his face but his adroit, tightly-wound body language was familiar.

Then it struck me. This was the young Charles Lane.

Charles Lane lived to be 102 and acted in more than 360 motion pictures, according to the IMDb. Anyone who loves movies and television has seen him countless times, usually as a snappy, tightly-wound, hectoring old man - a part he had evidently played for more than half his professional life.

His earliest known roles, again re the IMDb, were in a spate of Warner Bros. pictures where he was uncredited, beginning with Alfred Green's SMART MONEY in 1931. In 1928, when CITY GIRL was made, he had a job with the Pasadena Playhouse, where he trained stage actors to work onscreen.

If this is Charles Lane - and I believe it is - this appearance would predate the earliest known screen work of America's most ubiquitous actor by several years, and inaugurate a screen acting career that bests even that of John Carradine by a couple dozen titles.

Audio Commentaries by Tim Lucas - A List

I've been receiving some requests of late for a complete list of the audio commentaries I've done for DVD and Blu-ray. I compiled such a list a couple of years ago, which appeared as a sidebar to an article I wrote about my commentary work for GOREZONE #29, but there have been quite a few more in the meantime. The list is presently up to 38 commentaries, but only 37 are listed here. I recently completed another for Kino Lorber, for a release that hasn't yet been announced.

I update this list, as needed, on the Notes page of my Facebook account.

1999
• Black Sunday, Image Entertainment / Anchor Bay Entertainment (2007), Kino Lorber (2013), Arrow Video (2013, UK)
• Kill, Baby... Kill!, Image Entertainment (unreleased), Dark Sky Films (2007, withdrawn)

2000
• Blood and Black Lace, VCI Entertainment (reissued 2005)
• The Whip and the Body, VCI Entertainment, Kino Lorber (2014)

2005
• Danger: Diabolik, Paramount DVD (with John Phillip Law)
• Monster Kid Home Movies, "The Gentle Old Madman" , PPS Productions (with Tom Abrams)

2007
• The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Anchor Bay Entertainment, Arrow Films (UK, 2014)
• Black Sabbath, Anchor Bay Entertainment, Arrow Video (2013, UK)
• Rabid Dogs, Anchor Bay Entertainment, Arrow Video (2014, UK)

2008
• Baron Blood, Anchor Bay Entertainment, Arrow Video (2013, UK)
• Lisa and the Devil, Anchor Bay Entertainment, Arrow Video (2013, UK)
• Bay of Blood, Anchor Bay Entertainment, Arrow Video (2012, UK)
• Erik the Conqueror, Anchor Bay Entertainment (with Cameron Mitchell)

2009
• Thriller: The Grim Reaper, Image Entertainment (with David J. Schow and Ernest Dickerson)
• Thriller: The Premature Burial, Image Entertainment (with David J. Schow and Ernest Dickerson)

2012
• Das Geheimnis des Doktor Z (The Diabolical Dr. Z), Subkultur Entertainment (Germany)
• Hatchet For The Honeymoon, Kino Lorber

2013
• Five Dolls for an August Moon, Kino Lorber
• The Awful Dr. Orlof, Redemption
• Nightmares Come At Night, Redemption
• A Virgin Among the Living Dead, Redemption

 2014 • Trans-Europ-Express, BFI (UK)
• Successive Slidings of Pleasure, BFI (UK)
• Pit and the Pendulum, Arrow Video (UK)
• Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Arrow Video (UK)
• The Man Who Lies, BFI (UK)
• L’Immortelle, BFI (UK)
• Eden And After, BFI (UK)

• The Whip and the Body - new revised commentary, Odeon Entertainment (UK)
• Planet of the Vampires, Kino/Scorpion Releasing

2015

• Tales of Terror, Kino Lorber
  
• Blood and Black Lace - newly recorded commentary, Arrow Video (UK)
• The Evil Eye with The Girl Who Knew Too Much - newly material added to 2007 commentary, Kino Lorber
• X - The Man with X-Ray Eyes, Kino Lorber
• The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, Redemption
• Videodrome, Arrow Video (UK)
• Eyes Without a Face, BFI (UK)
• ?

NOTE
Some of my audio commentaries have appeared on other releases of these films in other countries. These releases may be properly licensed, but my commentaries were neither licensed from me nor compensated. Except for the BFI releases, which are exclusively licensed for a five-year period, my commentaries are available for licensing in other territories.

21 Drops of BLOOD

Sometimes a film comes along to make words seem almost superfluous, and if images alone could ever persuade someone to buy a Blu-ray disc unseen, wouldn't that film be... Andy Milligan's BLOOD?

Made in 1974, it was Milligan's first feature to be shot in 35mm at his place on Staten Island. As these frame grabs from Code Red Releasing's new limited edition BD attest, it is an absolutely hallucinatory shot of bargain basement Grand Guignol, made all the more irresistible by its dollops of soap. It's about the miserable arranged marriage of an incognito Lawrence Talbot (who has an understandably wandering eye) and Dracula's daughter (who is not only a vampire, but jealous, condescending and relentlessly needy). She's basically bedridden as Lawrence and a team of literally rotting, pustulent assistants use the blood of a halfwit donor to raise a crop of carnivorous plants with the capacity to wean the Countess from traditional forms of feeding. But is she appreciative? "Oh, go to Hell!" she tells her husband at bedtime. "We're there already," he says, rolling over - and that scenario is made riotously literal in the film's closing moments, as vampire and werewolf try their best to strangle each other in the midst of a raging inferno.

BLOOD is now available as the second half of a delightful Bryanston Double Bill from Code Red Releasing, a limited edition Blu-ray available from Screen Archive Entertainment and other outlets. Collectors should be advised that Code Red's print in nearly a full 10 minutes longer than the only other home video release, a VHS from Iver Film Services taken from a PAL master - but collectors will want to hang onto the earlier one too because it has bolder color and unmattes the framing to open aperture. The restored footage consists mostly of dialogue, but oh! what dialogue! Be aware that there is one unfortunate scene of mouse abuse, at least part of which appears to be faked - so let's pretend it all is.

RIP Wes Craven (1939-2015)

Wes Craven with a recreation of a certain celebrated Edvard Munch painting.

Early this morning, when the unexpected news of Wes Craven's death at age 76 from brain cancer began to circulate, Kim Newman made this perspicacious observation on Facebook: "Wes Craven reinvented horror at least four times - most directors don't even manage it once."

THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) was superficially a trespass of true crime on horror movie turf, but in retrospect it can more easily be seen as the introduction of urban myth into horror, a genre up to then predominated by legends, superstitions and campfire stories. While nightmares have always been depicted in horror cinema, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) was the first film since CALIGARI to extend a story's landscape into the slippery terrain of the unconscious. When success turned Craven's creepy creation into New Line Cinema's flagship title, and revised the nightmare figure of Freddy Kruger into a comic monster of ceremonies for the FANGORIA generation, he explored other variations of horror franchise misfires (CHILLER, SHOCKER) until returning to the franchise with the brilliantly recursive WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (1994), which provided not only a metaphor for how the series' success had affected its various participants, but seemed to add a new wing onto the genre that might be termed an alternate reality. Then, with SCREAM (1996), he applied the principles of deconstruction to the genre and found that something still new could be created in the act of taking the traditional constructs of genre apart.

As is true of most artists whose work in the genre achieves such levels of potency, Craven was playing the hand that life had dealt him. He had been born to a reportedly dysfunctional family consisting of a fanatically religious mother (so strong a personality that she left him fearful of women till he moved away to go to college) and an abusive, violent father who died when Wes was only four. He also drew knowledgeably on earlier work in the genre; for example, I noticed him drawing from Mario Bava's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964) in a pivotal scene in NEW NIGHTMARE (when a prop disappears from a film set) and in the revelation that the white-masked SCREAM killer was not one perpetrator, but two individuals working in concert. But most importantly, he made films that reflected the world as he perceived it, and he worked hard at extending that perception for the sake not only of his art, but for himself. Important works like his 1985 TWILIGHT ZONE episodes "Shatterday" and "Her Pilgrim Soul", and more significantly his 1988 voodoo opus THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW, reflect his private side as a voracious reader of texts pertaining to psychology, perception and mysticism, not to mention the literature of the fantastic. 

After a very strong beginning with LAST HOUSE and THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977, arguably the best of his horror films - which, like all of his best movies, seemed to contrast the reality and myth of the American family), Craven's career seemed to follow a patchwork pattern alternating strong work with weaker material. So far, I've mentioned only the home runs, but his filmography also carries the weight of THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART II (1984), A VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN (1995) and DEADLY FRIEND (1986), a film whose level of disaster actually spills over into hilarity - a hilarity that one suspects its creator shared - as the end credits roll. Craven also directed a few of the better made-for-television horror offerings (1978's STRANGER IN THE HOUSE, 1984's INVITATION TO HELL) and some features that fell between his usual extremes without succumbing to mediocrity, like DEADLY BLESSING (1981), SWAMP THING (1982), THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (1991) and three SCREAM sequels, almost always spinning out at least one sequence that wouldn't look at all out of place in a Best-Of reel.

One of the few horror directors of his generation to earn name-above-the-title status and to stand out from the pack as a genuine creator and innovator, Wes Craven's volatile spark will be much missed.

Steele Crazy After All These Years

Barbara Steele and Rik Battaglia in Mario Caiano's NIGHTMARE CASTLE.

A Barbara Steele bonanza, Severin's triple-feature NIGHTMARE CASTLE Blu-ray ($29.98) is a splendid-looking, must-have disc. In the audio commentary he shares with the film's star, David Del Valle opines that the main feature is somewhat burdened by a tedious plot and could have used a few more delirium sequences - but if you're fishing for delirium, look no further than the extras allotted to this disc. Beginning with said commentary, which repeatedly describes the film as a valentine to its star Barbara Steele - whose name is actually misspelled onscreen. The track ends with an aghast Steele asking if something can't be done to change this. (You mean, like actually monkey with Severin's beautiful 2K restoration?)

Two bonus Steele films are also included - and frankly, they're the better ones. TERROR CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE's direction is credited to Ralph Zucker, someone who was real but who didn't direct it. The real director (Massimo Pupillo), or so claims one of the film's stars (Riccardo Garrone), was known among the cast and crew as "The Wanker." Garrone can't stop laughing at the fact that someone has taken this film seriously enough to want to interview him - about Pupillo, of all people! - and his sides really split when the suggestion is made that the film possibly had some additional US financing. When we hear an excerpt from an audio interview with Pupillo, he comes across as the first completely informed person on topic - and to make the circumstances more surreal, we are told that the interview was conducted at a time he was widely presumed to be dead! 

Then there is CASTLE OF BLOOD, the real gem of this set, whose featurette informs us that director Antonio Margheriti's original screen name Anthony Daisies was changed because someone told him that "Anthony is picking daisies" was a popular American expression to point out someone who is gay. Over the course of its 16 minutes, the CASTLE OF BLOOD featurette somehow fails to mention the vital presence in the film of Steele's BLACK SUNDAY co-star Arturo Dominici, or that Silvano Tranquilli (who plays Edgar Allan Poe) was also her romantic lead in THE HORRIBLE DR HICHCOCK, or that it was the first Italian Gothic to imitate Italian horror rather than the popular English and American varieties of that period. Perhaps Dominici's alias prevented his identifcation. Nearly all of the credits on all three films are aliases, except for that of Barbara Steele - who alone stands exposed, with or without the final E. Defiant. Unquestionably iconic. The Queen of all this auteur-directed misdirection.

People have asked me how the two bonus features look. Well, they look gorgeous too - but in that splicey way that a friend's 35mm print might look gorgeous if you were treated to a private screening. They are presented in high definition, but they have not been restored. Somehow, their flaws are forgivable. Interestingly, at the same time, in its 2K restoration, NIGHTMARE CASTLE somehow becomes a little less forgivable. Which is interesting because NIGHTMARE CASTLE (presented here in its significantly longer, original English export version titled THE NIGHT OF THE DOOMED) may now look a little too real, a little too perfect. The more filmic, dupey element sampled in the accompanying featurette somehow looks more like the film's intended ambiance. Granted, any opposing arguments - for example, that it deserves restoration because it is an early film scored by Ennio Morricone (make that "Ennio Morigone") and shot by Enzo Barboni (who, as "E.B. Clucher," later directed the Trinity westerns) - would be at least as valid. 

But I feel that something important about these films could be lost if we were to do away with all the scratches and splices that heralded our first acquaintance with them - some evidence of prior use and wear which connects us to the place of otherness and mystery where these imitation Gothics have always worked their strongest magic - inferring, at 3:00am on a distant broadcast signal, that they have come to us from a great distance and that we are not alone in our love for them.