The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave

THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE

AKA La notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba, The Night She Arose from the Tomb,                
The Night That Evelyn Left the Tomb 

Year:  1971   Country: Italy

Tag line: The worms are waiting...


A classic supernatural gallio supposedly set in England but obviously filmed in Italy. The cars are all left hand drive, the castle has Roman frescos and the Policemen came straight from panto.

I was totally blown away by this film from EMILLIO P MIRAGLIA, a director who usually did spagetti westerns under the pseudonym Hal Brady.

The plot involves a millionaire, Lord Alan Cunningham ( ANTHONY STEFFEN - dollars to die for , Django) going insane following the death of his wife and killing hookers, all with red hair, in an attempt to erase her memory. I've got to say it doesnt work.

The film starts with Lord Alan trying to escape capture from the asylum where he currently resides, this sequence contains some fantastic sound effects on the soundtrack with lots of ugh and argh noises being repeatedly made.

We are then shown Lord Alan several months (or years?) later driving home with a young red headed prostitute. Lord Alan amazing seduction technique of yanking the woman's hair with the line "I was just checking if it was a wig" doesn't seem to worry the prostitute and she proceeds to go home with him to his rundown castle (which he apparently says is just outside London!!). His castle which contains an funky 60s decored room and an S&M torture room and still the prostitute doesn't seem too concerned  by Lord Alan's strange behaviour. Lord Alan starts to loose it big time and starts seeing images of his dead wife Evelyn who also has red hair and who it turns out in flash back cheated on him and he accidentally witnesssed in their castle gardens... and ends up murdering the prostitute.

On the suggestion of his cousin, he visits a sleazy nightclub where we are "treated"to an striptease show which features Erika Blanc (The Devil's Nightmare) shaking her bum whilst being in a coffin (which features in the audience an OAP couple enjoying the show)! This scene reminds me of something out Jess Franco's Vampires Lesbos (but without being erotic!) Of course Erika has red hair and ends up falling for Lord Alan's charms (which seems to be offering to pay her £3000 for a weekend together).  So she takes him up on his offer and goes back to his torture room and ends up being chased around the castle and its grounds and meeting her fate in the crypt where Evelyn is buried...

Advised by his Doctor and his cousin to re-marry to help cure him of his visions of Evelyn, Lord Alan meets the delightful Gladys (Marina Malfatti - A Cry of a Prostitute; Love Kills) who luckly for her has blond hair,  but all is not what it seems.....There is a delightfully tacky seance scene organised by thewheelchair bound morticia adams alike aunt (Joan C Davis). Incidently she bombs about in an electric wheelchair but gets up and walks normally just before she is killed and her body fed to the foxes - yup - gore galore.  The residents of the castle start being bumped off and Lord Alan starts his visions of Evelyn which end up to a twist ending...

The pacing is fast and the S & M imagery and deaths add a macabre gravitas to the proceedings. Everybody has secrets and nobody is innocent. Expect plot twists, double crosses and blood galore. The nudity, (strictly boobs and buttocks in chiffon - this is the early seventies!) on display keeps the viewer distracted and the very worst striptease in the world had me laughing out loud. To dance erotically you need to dance rythmically not dance like Mr Bean.

The film has some very stunning sequences: the motif of the colour red (the hair colour of two of the female characters, the foxes that are kept by Lord Alan), and the dreamlike sequence that feature Evelyn running in the garden to meet her lover).

It also features the aforementioned dancing of Erika Blanc which is unfortunately unintentionally hilarious (she admits in an interview featured as an extra on the DVD that she didn't have any dance lessions and just went for it!)

Six bums and a coffin out of ten.

One of the hilarious dance scenes

976:EVIL II - THE ASTRAL FACTOR

 

Tags - CALL IF YOU DARE...THIS TIME SATAN RETURNS THE CALL!

If you've seen 976 EVIL 1 then the plot needs no introduction however if you have not suffered ROBERT ENGLUND's (Freddy Krueger) directorial debut I'll be brief.
A telephone horrorscope phone line targets vulnerable people causing then to sell their souls to satan in return for their darkest desires. It is truly Faustian in that respect dwelling in the hinterlands of frustrated desire and unfulfilled wishes.

The opening sequence filmed in an empty school swimming pool / locker room is gratuitous boob flashing, the only nudity in the film, and ends with the coed being offed on the stage set of FAUST. This must be the biggest school stage on the planet and the theatre large enough for broadway.
RENE ASSA plays the school principle Mr Gruebeck, who has sold his soul to satan. His murder of the coed is witnessed  by the drunken janitor (George Buck Flower) who has passed out in the stalls.
Queue loads of mullet headed cops hauling Gruebeck off to the town jail and awaiting the sexy woman from the DA's office to start the prosecution.

 

Gruebeck appeals to Satan and is told he will be given the tools to complete the job - in this case the ability to astral project. This is useful as he can touch without being touched, kill without being killed, and can jump around the plot with abandon. Useful stuff indeed however the downside is his projection bears the ugliness of his soul and rather like A PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY gets worse as the film unfolds.

Our heroes in this are the sometimes mustachio'd* biker Spike (Patrick O'Bryan - the only cast member to have survived 976:EVIL 1) and the suitably sexy psychiatrists daughter Robin (Debbie James, a one time miss USA finalist who appeared in a BON JOVI video for her sins).
The rest of the film is basically Spike and Robin trying to stop Gruebeck while the body count racks up.

 

One wonderful sequence in the film involves Robin and her best friend Paula (Leslie Ryan - NIGHT OF THE CREEPS), arguing over which film to watch whilst lying scantly claid on the sofa. The films within the film are NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD & ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE. In a scene that makes me think of SHOCKER Paula finds herself transported into the film itself turing up at the end of its a wonderful life which then morphs into Night of the living dead. Wonderful stuff as she bites the dust in real life as well as on the screen.

 

The DA lady dies after her car is hijacked by the invisible Gruebeck in a scene that turns up fully in GHOULIES IV by the same director.

The ending is a bit of a let down where a near death Spike astral projects in order to kick Gruebecks ass while Robin kills his sleeping body.

Highlights: Night of the Living Dead vs Its A Wonderful Life,

The pointless cameo featuring Brigitte Nielsen as Satanic bookshop owner (film quote Bridgette to Spike "walk this way" to which Spike replies "It must have taken you years to learn how to walk that way")

The car chase scene that has a victim who car goes out of control down a highway

* Spike and his amazing facial hair magic trick - in 5 seconds he goes from being clean shaven to having a full moustache, that then in the next shot promptly disappears!

All in all a rather fime late 80's / early 90's cheap horror romp which for pure cheese equates to a three cheese piza with extra cheese.

The best scene from the movie:

CURFEW

IN BY TEN ...DEAD BY MIDNIGHT

A basic home invasion slasher that was banned by the BBFC for reason of everyday household appliences being used for nefarious reasons.
I wasnt expecting much but it was ok despite poor acting, obviously fake blood and plot holes the size of Canada.
Two brothers are convicted of the rape and murder of a teenager and sentenced to death. One brother is truly demented (played by Wendell Wellman - the guy who wrote FIREFOX for CLINT EASTWOOD) and the other (played by John Putch of STAR TREK GENERATIONS ) is as dumb as abox of hair - thank you True Blood for the quote.

Somehow they escape from jail, Fuck knows how, one minute they are behind bars and the next walking across the desert, killing two fence builders and stealing their car. They are, we are told, out for revenge on the people who sent them to death row.
A sub plot is running involving the district attourney's rebelious daughter Stephanie (Played by Kyle Richards who I am informed is something of a hottie having been eye candy in HALLOWEEN. I cant see it myself - she looks like a bloke in drag...but I digress). Stephanie is dressed up for a date with the High School quaterback who is aiming for a touchdown if you get my drift. She is wearing a short skirt that is critisised by her neighbour Judge Collins who reminds her that her father is 'an important man'

Quote of the film -
.May I offer you a glass of lemonade?”
“No. Thank you.”
“Well, in that case then, can I offer you a pair of pants?”

The brothers turn up and, in a nutshell, kill the judge and his wife, beat up an old guy with a walking stick and take Steph's family hostage.  There is an element of early torture porn where stephs dad is forced to roll around on broken glass and her mother is half drowned and threatened with electrocution. The dumb brother fancies a bunk with steph and the final showdown is based on 101 ways to kill the brothers - its good fun with a high bodycount and even a nod to DRILLER KILLER. With a cheesy 80s soundtrack  its good fun with a few brews and some of the deaths stand the test of time - too much tomato sauce though.

3 stars and a veg burger with extra sauce.

MESSIAH OF EVIL (THE SECOND COMING)

AKA : revenge of the dead people & the Dead People

Tag Lines: In order to live, they will take you one by one ... and no one will hear you scream!

                  Terror you won't want to remember - In a film you won't be able to forget

                  Meet Albert. Albert likes good music, motor trips by moonlight, and...eating human flesh. Albert is one of the...(Dead People)

Once this art house / horror film, released in 1973, was feared lost and only a handfull of people remembered this gem brought to the cinema by the people who went on to do HOWARD THE DUCK amongst other things.

This film looks like many of the films DAVID LYNCH became famous for later and the Art house stuff does not detract from what was a proto zombie flick.

The story takes place in the California coastal town of Point Dune, where a reclusive artist named Joseph Lang (Royal Dano, KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTERSPACE) lives and works in a large house on the beach. His daughter, Arletty (Marianna Hill, SCHIZOID), having received a series of increasingly strange letters from the old man, has come to Point Dune to check on his condition. The letters and his diary all lead us to believe that he has either gone insane or has been taken over by evil forces. She, of course, discovers that he has mysteriously disappeared, but is even more alarmed at the strange people who populate the town, all of whom seem to be suspicious of her.

Some time in the past a strange blood moon had turned the locals into raw meat eating maniacs waiting for the second coming of.. well we are never too sure if its Satan or Jesus or maybe the pizza delivery man, whatever. The locals wait for the second coming by building bonfires on the beach and staring at the surf whilst bleeding from the eyeballs, very nice.

Three drifters roll into town and having been turned away from the towns motels turn up at Lang's apartment seeking shelter. The drifters are an odd crew, these being the mysteriously inquisitive aristocrat, Thom, ( Michael Greer - THE ROSE), and his attractive “travelling companions” (lovers), Toni (Joy Bang - PLAY IT AGAIN SAM) and Laura (Anitra Ford, an ex wheel of fortune bimbette also in INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS). Out of place is never seen as a bad thing by me as long as it doesn’t hinder the enjoyment, and these three characters definitely enhance the film, with Toni and Laura adding a sexy side to the movie. However, it is not only the eye-candy that the two runaway bombshells provide that makes them an enhancing feature, but it is also their strange and unclear reasons for being here? In fact, why is a lady-killer like Thom so interested in Pointe Dune?    Thom’s interest in the “Blood Moon” seems unnatural and unlikely. Perhaps he shares the same obsession with the moon and the ocean that the residents in Pointe Dune exhibit or is he the returning Messiah?

Both the girls meet suitably gory deaths, one in a supermarket full of zombies munching on raw meat from the freezer cabinet and the other in a cinema, also, full of zombies watching a western. Great deaths but the gore is minimal reflecting maybe the cinematic mores of 1973.

The film is disjointed and you get the feeling that the story does not follow the scripted idea, there is a series of random flashbacks hinting at cannabalism and satanic ritual however they seem at odds with the plot and add nothing of substance. At other times this seems like a version of SALEMS LOT, and maybe STEPHEN KING saw the movie before he published the book in 1975. It makes sense that he would have been writing this when the film was first released.

There is a great cameo appearence by Elisha Cook Jnr (ROSEMARY'S BABY)as the town drunk.

All in all a beautifully shot fim , the interiors are covered by amazing murals and at the end of the day I didnt feel I'd wasted 90 minutes of my life despite the lack of pace in the middle of the film

3 moons and possibly a beret.

DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS

Tagline: ...t'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring...they were all dead!
Aka:-

Fröhliche Weihnacht (West Germany)
Nie otwieraj do bozego narodzenia (Poland)
No abrir hasta Navidad     (Spain)
Non aprite prima di Natale!   Directed by Edmund Purdom Written by Derek Ford Additional Scenes Written and Directed by Al  McGoohan Firstly I've got to say this is a very strange slasher movie. It allegedly  took two years and three directors to make this film, a fact bourne  out by the differences in film stock and footage quality. The story  bounces around a bit with plot lines left unresolved and some  characters disjointed. Despite, or some might say, because of this it is an immensally  fun movie to watch especially with ample supplies of alcohol. The plot involves a serial killer bumping off Santa's in a variety of inventive and gruesome ways (charbroiled santa anyone?). The cops, led by Eric Purdhom ( Pieces -another top notch gore fest)  as inspecter Ian Harris, are inept and prone to long pointless dialogue direct to camera. The first victims daughter (Belinda Mayne of Krull fame) and her flute busking boyfriend (Gerry Sundquist  of Space 1999) are pointlessley harrassed by the police, as is a  topless model Pat Astley (Come play with me) who survives the  attention of the killer (possibly he was distracted by her tits which  are displayed at every possible opportunity). There is a great vignette involving a gang of convincing looking  80s Punks stealing a drunk Santa's bike. Nothing to do with the  plot but fun nontheless. With the cops running around in ever decreasing circles its  left to Kelly Baker (Slaughter High), as the whore with a  heart of gold to identify and kill the serial killer (Alan Lake - husband of Diana Dors and star of such classics as Blakes 7  and Juliet Bravo). Interestingly part of the film is set in the London Dungeon - for what purpose I am unsure but it adds a good backdrop  to the gore. All in all a comic slasher with some good old fashioned gore effects. 3 dead santas and a cut throat razor

DEMONS aka Dance of the Demons (west Germany)

TAG LINE - They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tombs.

An 1985 Italian horror classic filmed in West Berlin, produced by DARIO ARGENTO and directed by LAMBERTO BAVA.

Some of the film stars are Fiore Argento (Dario's other quite hot daughter) and Urbano Barberini (of CASINO ROYALE & tv drama STRATHBLAIR - I kid you not!)

Referred to by DESTROY ALL MOVIES (the ultimate PUNK movie guide) as containing every componant of Italian cult Horror DEMONS is indeed Classic although the scene with punks in a stolen car rocking out to GO WEST does make me laugh.

It involves the idea of life imitating Art whereas the 'victims' are lured to a cinema to watch a preview of a new film (the film within the film). In fact this whole project could be argued as Art imitating life imitating art.

The horror begins when one of the cinemagoers decides to mess around with the display of the film props in the foyer - a demon mask, which cuts her face.

During the screening of the mystery movie - which seems to contain a bizarre cross section of the public - a pimp and his two whores, a old married couple, a blind man(!) and his niece, and then the standard group of young teens, the film they watch starts to slowly resemble what is happening to the filmgoer with the scratch on her face.....

Some may argue that the some of the plot is totally barmy, for example riding a motorbike up and down the aisles of the cinema, the doors of the cinema being bricked up (by whom and why?) within a hour or two, or the helicopter falling out of the sky into the middle of the cinema - but for me this lack of logic resembles a nightmare type quality.

Even after all this time the film contains some highly gross gore scenes i.e. one of the demons tearing someone's scalp off, a blind man having his eyeballs gorged out, etc.

What really works for me is the sense of entrapment and claustrophobia within the cinema (Itself a gorgeous art deco cinema in west berlin called the Metropol) and the menace of anyone scratched, bitten or gouged by a demon turning into a demon themselves in short order. This leads uncertainty as to who will 'get it next'...a great suspense tool.

Although the action takes place in the cinema there  is a constant subtext that the outside world is going to hell in the same way, confirmation of which arrives in the form of the aforementioned helecopter dropping through the cinema roof.

As the film draws to a close, our two remaining heroes escape the cinema but are no better off in the outside world...this leads me to think there was a sequel mooted which is not DEMONS 2 which has nothing to do with the first one and is, frankly, a bit of a let down.

The film was unsuprisingly cut on its original UK release in the 80s, but supprisingly not due to its gore scenes, but for one scene which has a punk girl spill some cocaine on her boobs and her  Punk boyfriend runs a razorblade up and down her breast to retrieve the spilled coke  (Obviously a big no no for the UK film censors)! Personally I'd have licked it off....but I digress.

The film is a bit dated now, what with its movie soundtrack containing such artists as Go West and Billy Idol, but some of the other bands i.e. Saxon and Motley Crue, their songs are in keeping with the general tone of the movie. 

All in all highly recommended!

Oh and stay tuned to the film during the end credits....

5 beers out of 5  (or 5 evil demon masks out of 5!)

 

THE DEVILS NIGHTMARE aka La plus longue nuit du diable aka Vampire Playgirls

Tag Lines : Can You Be Possessed By The Devil?

---

EXORCISM! The one last hope for the possessed ... But this time the devil wins!

A Belgian , Italian co production set in Eastern Europe  written and produced by Jean Brismee.


Starring Erika Blanc (CURSE OF THE DEAD aka KILL BABY KILL & THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE) the sometime sex kitten from Italy this film could easily have been produced by JESS FRANCO, dripping, as it is, with scantlily clad temptresses and even managing to fit a lesbian love scene into the proceedings.

The story involves a party of tourists, seven of them each representing one of the seven deadly sins, taking refuge in a creepy castle overnight after the tour coach driver gets lost or the road is blocked or something - Yes that old chesnut.
The Baron, wonderfully played by Jean Servais (THE LONGEST DAY) comes from a long line of cursed German Aristocrats. Cursed by having their eldest daughters turn in Succubus the baron employes a suitably creepy butler and demented housekeeper and in the opening sequence kills his baby daughter during an air raid in world war two.
In a nutshell the Baron's daughter (Erika Blanc) wanders the corridors, wearing a costume made from a shoelace, bumping off the tourists one by one according to their percieved 'sins'.

She only really runs into any resistance when she attempts to seduce the shy priest (Jacques Monseau) who gets bored halfway through an excorcism and runs away hiding in a church. The devil . brilliantly played by Daniel Emilfork (CITY OF THE LOST CHILDREN) turns up and does a deal with the priest who then wakes up in bed, you've guessed it, it was all a dream.

If watched in the right mood this movie can be very entertaining - either if your a fan of 1970s sexpot euro actresses or for exploitation trash film buffs .

Film Highlights: The lesbian love scene, Erika Blanc turning into a Succubi

Ratings: 3.5 beers out of 5  (or 3.5 boobs out of 5)

Phenomena aka Creepers

(Worksop man plays a scotsman - SHOCK!!!)

Tagline - Jennifer Has A Few Million Close Friends. She's Going To Need Them

This 1985 offering from one of the horror genres masters Dario Argento is sylish and, for the Italian horror scene, beautifully shot. Set and filmed in Switzerland, the film starts of with a random Schoolgirl missing a bus and getting brutally murdered after which we see her head being thrown down a waterfall.

If you can take the nastiness and the violence, Phenomena is, visually, as stunning as anything Argento has ever done in his career, excepting perhaps Suspiria. The film’s first murder is set in the daytime on the beautiful Swiss countryside. In this beginning’s final shot we see a beautiful river flowing away, then the victim’s severed head fall directly in. Few directors have understood the power of having the beautiful and the beastly simultaneously in the same scene – fewer still have mastered it. For Argento, it seems to be an inborn instinct. The worlds he shows us can be lovely, macabre, dreamlike, and gruesome all within the same frame. Phenomena is no exception

The now completely rotting head is found some weeks later and, as it is covered in maggots, taken to world renown entomologist  John McGregor (Donald Pleasence). The prof then informs us that the head had been knocking around for several weeks Duh!.

A little rich girl (Jennifer Connoly) shows up at a swiss boarding school where all the school girls seem to be in training to become hookers or something and is bullied when the girls realise she has the ability to control insects. There is a marvelous scene involving lots of blow flies blotting out the moon as they descend to wreak havoc with her tormentors.

Pleasence is a tour de force as the wheelchair bound professor who has a helper monkey who is pleasantly chilling especially when wielding a scalpel.

The version of the film I saw became a bit disjointed but we soon find out there is a serial killer on the loose who, according to Pleasence, likes to keep the bodies of the victims close at hand while they decompose.
Using a coffin beatle to locate the bodies Jennifer tracks down the murderer and their hideous offspring and a final showdown in a underground charnal house is both gross and engagingly funny.

Loads of gore and a lively pace keep this film watchable even now and Argento uses every trick in the book to dispatch the various characters. Being an Argento film it has to have some eye popping and scissors. This is a film I could watch again which is saying something.

The version I watched seems to be the original USA release which has 30 minutes missing from it - Anchor Bay have released the full version.

5 skulls and a severed head.

DRIVE IN MASSACRE (1977)
YOUR NIGHTMARES ARE ABOUT TO COME TRUE


The tagline says it all really, what a full blown turkey this film is.
Starring ahem...John F Goff (Ilsa, the hareem keeper of the oil shieks, the witch that came out of the sea), Douglas Gudbye (Ilsa again) & Steve Vincent (loads of 70s porn)
The poster featured the following warning: "DRIVE-IN MASSACRE has been deemed by an independent film board to be too terrifying for viewing by the average theatre patron. For this reason, it is suggested that those of you with severe emotional disorders or chronic coronary dysfunction NOT see this movie. The risk is entirely yours."
Ha Ha Ha!
Amateur hour acting, no coherent plot and a budget of nothing.
the plot, such as it is, involves two over weight cops (one in drag for part of the film) chasing a serial killer at a run down drive in movie theatre. The victims are possibly the oldest teenagers ever captured on film and the location suddenly changes to a warehouse for some, unexplained, reason.
Check out the wonderous acting - the 'teenager' has just been stabbed through the neck with a long sword - she looks as if she has swallowed a piece of toblerone.


So this leads up to a fantastic "non ending", who was the murderer??  Hmm seems like even the film-makers couldn't be bothered to come up with a villain and the film just abruptly ends!

Here is another "brillant" moment from the film - the two cops decide they should go undercover and  go to the drive-in theatre pretending to be a kissing couple so they can catch the murder..  Which leads to one of the characters asking the "female" if she has a cousin. 

Johnny Depp  as  the Mad Hatter and his date Marlon Brando

It promises a lot of gore and fails to deliver - its too anemic to be a slasher.

Rating : If watched when sober 0 out of 5

If watched when drunk 5 beers out of 5 (for the acting alone)

SCANNERS (DAVID CRONENBERG'S)

...Their thoughts can kill
...10 Seconds: The pain begins
...15 Seconds: You can't breathe
...20 seconds: You Explode!

What can I say that hasn't been said a zillion times before - this is a classic tale of people with psychic ability being victimised by a military backed government unless, of course, they use their powers for military purposes.
Staring Stephen Lack (not really an actor but an internationally respected painter and sculptor), Michael Ironside (Total Recall , Robocop), Jennifer O'Neill (Fulci's The Psychic) and the ever amazing Patrick McGoohan (The Prisoner, Braveheart)
The film is a product of it's time and reflects  the paranoia of the cold war when the military would try anything to get the upper hand against the red menace (a precurser to THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS?)

Thankfully from the days before CGI vanila blandness the fX are great - the exploding head scene is legend and achieved by filling  a balloon with offal and blasting it with a shotgun. Really cool.
The film is fast paced and if any film deserves it's cult status (a status that is banded about too easily these days) its this Cronenberg classic

4 beers and an exploding head out of 5