by Wallace, Amy
8. Glandular Transplants Performed by John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman and The Unearthly
Any time John Carradine began working with glands, there seemed to be a problem. In the fast-paced Captive Wild Woman he created a she-gorilla who reverted back to animal form when her sexuality was aroused. In The Unearthly, John’s botched glandular work resulted in a basement full of scarred and twisted half-wits.
In the intervening years between the films, Carradine seemed to have learned very little working beside docs like Bela Lugosi or forging ahead with his own research in Revenge of the Zombies and The Invisible Man’s Revenge.
Universal’s mad doctors of the 1940s tended to be doublebreasted smooth-talkers with a streak of egomaniacal insanity that pushed their experimentation into “realms man should leave alone.” Carradine, Lionel Atwill, and George Zucco were the studio’s mad doctor co-op whose unconventional procedures resulted in one medical disaster after another, and Dr. Carradine lead the way with his ape-girl creation.
While Captive Wild Woman is slick fun from the forties horror factory, The Unearthly is a low-rent rehash that Carradine decided to play to the absolute hilt. This time, the doc’s sanity is as elusive as the reasons for his glandular transplants. In one botched operation after another, Carradine creates a “Hercules with the mind of a chicken” (Tor Johnson), destroys Sally Todd’s face, and puts a patient into a state of “living death.” Thank God tough-cop Myron Healey is on hand to stop Carradine before he takes a knife to neurotic (and always hot) Allison Hayes. A grungy little hoot and one more horrifying chapter in John Carradine’s checkered cinematic medical career, The Unearthly provides ample proof that pulsating glands are nothing to monkey around with.
9. Brain Exploration in The Black Sleep
Reginald LeBorg’s sometimes stodgy but always atmospheric medical-horror featured (in the words of producer Aubrey Schenk) “every goon in Hollywood.” By casting Lon Chaney, John Carradine, and Tor Johnson as prime examples of Dr. Basil Rathbone’s surgical skills, it’s obvious that Basil needed to refine his technique. Unlike more expensive swashbucklerhorrors like The Black Castle, this little period piece is a full-tilt horror story, with Rathbone as yet another doc whose surgical obsession is fueled by sexual desire. In this case, the former Wolf Frankenstein wants to find a way to revive his comatose wife, and his research leads to one failed brain surgery after another. Although hurt by some production penny-pinching, there are still some solid moments, such as when (dull) hero Herbert Rudley discovers a dungeon of disfigured patients, or when John Carradine sets Rathbone’s nurse on fire. Rathbone’s controlled hamminess is the film’s centerpiece, while Chaney projects rage and Carradine lets his acting dogs loose. With a script by noir specialist John Higgins, The Black Sleep is an effective little B nightmare about surgery leading to deformity and madness—or is it the other way around?
10. Head Re-Assignment in The Brain that Wouldn’t Die
For sheer gonzo fun, few medical sagas can compete with Joseph Green’s ditty about a hot-shot doc (Herb Evers, aka Jason Evers) whose beautiful fiancée gets decapitated in a car accident. What else can he do except keep her head alive in a dish while searching for another body to attach it to? Seems “drive-in logical,” but the doc’s ego keeps getting in the way: A stern warning from Dad about “taking too many chances in the operating room” goes ignored (naturally), and none of the babes he sees really turn him on until he finds the magnificent (and magnificently scarred) Adele Lamont. Also, our hero (?) seems to have a tiny problem with surgical after-effects, whence the twisted fleshheap he practices on and keeps locked in a closet. Meanwhile, his head-only fiancée is getting royally pissed waiting for her new body! It all ends with the flesh-heap escaping, a lab fire, an arm yanked from the socket, a cheek bitten off, and the nowcrazy fiancée/head laughing like hell as gallons of coffee-essence blood is smeared everywhere. This is one of those wonderfully grungy, adults-only-styled New York flicks from the sixties, and a real cautionary lesson for anyone contemplating head transplantation.
MIKITA BROTTMAN’S TEN FAVORITE HORROR MOVIE
PSYCHOANALYSTS
Mikita Brottman is the author of numerous books on the horror film, including Meat is Murder and Hollywood Hex (both from Creation Books) and Offensive Films (Vanderbilt University Press).She is a professor in the Department of Language and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and a psychoanalyst in private practice.
Good Shrinks
1. Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) in Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945)
Petersen is a shy, bookish psychoanalyst who performs brain surgery on pajama-clad paranoiacs. Gregory Peck also stars as the gorgeous, genteel new head of the mental asylum. Too bad he turns out to be an amnesiac patient in disguise.
2. Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) in Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978) Loomis is solely responsible for the care of escaped lunatic Michael Myers, whom he follows to the quiet, leafy suburb of Haddonfield on Halloween night. Loomis, who shares his name with Marion’s boyfriend in Hitchcock’s Psycho, is the only one astute enough to sense the danger posed by his errant patient, and with a little help from “final girl” Jamie Lee Curtis, puts an end to the killer’s rampage. Until the sequel, that is.
3. Dr. Mark Kik (Leo Genn) in The Snake Pit (Anatole Litvak,1948)
Poor Virginia Cunningham (Olivia de Havilland) finds herself in a terrifying state mental hospital after losing her memory. Luckily, she’s put under the care of the handsome, caring Dr. Kik, who saves her from shock therapy and treats her kindly even when she bites one of his colleagues.
4. Dr. Stewart McIver (Richard Widmark) in The Cobweb (Vincente Minelli, 1955)
McIver is the head of a swanky mental hospital that’s looking a little worse for wear. He’s so concerned to involve his patients in the running of the asylum, he even lets them design the drapes— with terrifying consequences.
5. Dr. Bondurant (Charles Lanyer) in The Stepfather (Joseph Ruben, 1987)
Dr. Bondurant is the kind of psychoanalyst that only exists in the movies—quiet, genuinely affectionate, and, most importantly, believes his young patient when she tells him she thinks her perfect new stepfather is actually a serial killer. Too bad he gets slaughtered soon afterwards.
Bad Shrinks
6. Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway) in Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942)
Dr. Judd is suave, urbane, and sophisticated. It’s a shame he’s such a bad psychoanalyst, trying to seduce his strangely troubled patient (Simone Simon). But then, you can’t blame him for not believing her when she claims to turn into a panther at night.
7. George Sims (Boris Karloff), master of the eponymous London asylum in Bedlam (Mark Robson, 1946)
Karloff oozes fake sincerity, scarcely glossing over the sadism lurking right beneath the surface. Still, you can’t help sympathizing with him when his patients revolt and wreak horrible vengeance.
8. Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine) in Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma, 1980)
Elliot is much more than just an ordinary shrink—he’s a psychopathic cross-dresser who’s compelled to slash up any female who arouses his sexual desire, reminding him that he’s still very much a man. Physician, heal thyself!
9. Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
Dr. Lecter may not be typical, but he reminds us that all psychiatrists are essentially cannibals who feed their morbid curiosity with intimate details of other people’s private lives.
10. Dr. A. N. Lewis (Michael Powell) in Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)
Lewis, played by the film’s director in an uncredited cameo role, performs terrifying experiments in fear on his vulnerable infant son (played by the director’s real-life infant son), who grows up into—what else?—a homicidal maniac obsessed with fear.
NEIL MARSHALL’S TEN BEST MOVIE BOVINE FATALITIES
Neil Marshall is the writer and director of
the horror films Dog Soldiers (2002) and The Descent (2005),as well as the post-apocalyptic action adventure Doomsday (2008). He is a self-confessed movie junkie.
Inspired by gruesome cow deaths in two of my own films, Dog Soldiers (cow attacked by werewolf, falls off cliff into fire) and Doomsday (cow run over by tank) I thought I’d pay tribute to the other unfortunate cows who’ve bought the farm on screen, and although some of these choices aren’t horror movies, what they do to the cows can be pretty horrific!
1. Apocalypse Now: Coppola filmed an authentic tribal ritual outside the temple to suggest what’s happening to Kurtz inside. Real cow, real blades, real death!
2. Jurassic Park: Unwitting cow fed to raptors for midday snack . . . “Clever girl!”
3. Starship Troopers: Unwitting cow shoved in a cage with an alien bug only to be sliced and diced!
4. Three Kings: Unwitting cow steps on land mine and is blown sky high and spread over a wide area!
5. Tremors: Entire herd is attacked by underground worms known as Graboids!
6. Oh Brother Where Art Thou?: Cow gets in the way of fleeing felons and is brutally hit by a speeding car!
7. Twister: Cow is picked up by tornado and is liberally tossed about, presumably coming to an unhappy landing!
8. Mars Attacks!: Herd of cows set on fire by evil aliens and proceeds to stampede through farmyard!
9. The Howling: Cows have their throats ripped out by werewolves . . . Slim Pickens indeed!
10. Lake Placid: Cow is led to the shore and fed to the giant alligator by a crazy old woman!
STACI LAYNE WILSON’S TOP TEN “KILLED BY KITTY”
MOMENTS IN HORROR FILMS
Author Staci Layne Wilson was raised by wild cougars in the Everglades, where she got her taste for cinema spotlighting killer cats by peering through the foliage at the nearby drive-in movie theater. She later moved further east and lived with a tribe of tigers, where she wrote her book, Animal Movies Guide, using nothing but palm fronds and ink derived from black orchids.
1. Inferno (1980): Italian Grand Guignol maestro Dario Argento directed this macabre, very gory story of a witch known as the “second mother” who lives in a cursed building in New York. Look for an homage to The Birds, which substitutes chucked cats for the famous feathered fiends. There is also a beautiful Persian cat who’s a familiar for the “third mother” witch, and a coven of murderous felines who are drowned by a crippled antiques dealer . . . but don’t worry: Karma comes back to bite him!
2. TheTomb of Ligeia (1965): Starring Vincent Price, directed by Roger Corman, scripted by Robert Towne, and based on an Edgar Allan Poe tale, how can you go wrong with The Tomb of Ligeia? Apparently, you can’t: This atmospheric ghost story, complete with an eerie and evil black feline at the ready to torment a soul or two, is a must-see for fans of the genre.
3. Eye of the Cat (1969): Borrowing heavily from Hitchcock, Eye of the Cat unfolds a tale of terror about a laid-back hippie type and his girlfriend, who have larceny in their hearts. The couple plans to rob the mansion of the man’s eccentric, wealthy, wheelchairbound aunt, but as it turns out, Auntie keeps dozens of cats in her home—and it just so happens that the man suffers from feline-o-phobia. What a catastrophe! Be careful which cut you see: The original features a veritable swarm of cats, while the pared-down TV version shows just one lonely (albeit formidable) kitty!
4. The Uncanny (1977): Writer Wilbur Gray believes that the feline species is made up of supernatural creatures, and as a warning to the world, decides to prove it by authoring three horror stories that illustrate the truth about cats. This trilogy of terror stars Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasance, Samantha Eggar, and Ray Milland.
5. Two Evil Eyes (1990): TwoEvilEyes is a pair of back-to-back filmettes; one directed by George Romero, and one by Dario Argento. Argento’s is the tale of a black cat that drives a photographer insane. There’s also a meat cleaver and a razor-sharp pendulum involved. Based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
6. Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990): A child tells three stories of horror to keep from being eaten by a witch in this anthology flick, based on the hit television series. One of the stories, “The Cat from Hell,” is about—you guessed it—a feline born and bred in fire and brimstone. Animal rights activists will appreciate the storyline of the merciless moggy getting even with a pharmaceuticals billionaire for all the cats he killed to test his products.
7. Strays (1991): “They have nine lives. We only have one.” That’s the tagline for this not-so-scary horror movie about some very bad cats living in the basement of the newly acquired home of the Jarrett family (Timothy Busfield, Kathleen Quinlan, and twins Jessica and Heather—the latter of whom went on, coincidentally, to star in a naughty-type movie called Cybersex Kittens). We never do learn why these cats are so mad and murderous, but they’re good at what they do. The industrious pusses manage to cut off the phone service, open vents, and murder the family’s hapless hound.
8. Night of a Thousand Cats (1972): Psycho playboy Hugo lures unsuspecting babes to his old Gothic abbey-cum-mansion, makes sweet love to them, and then kills them. He feeds his army of ravenous cats with their tender vittles, but keeps their heads in a crystal cage as part of a grisly collection. This low-low-budget flick could not afford all one thousand cats, so don’t bother counting.
9. Crimes of the Black Cat (1972): A mysterious killer is murdering fashion models by using a black cat whose claws are dipped in curare. The Grand Guignol set pieces will have horror fans growling [purring?] with delight.
10. The Crawling Hand (1963): When a medical student hacks off the hand of a dead space explorer to keep as a sickening souvenir, he doesn’t know that an alien life-force has possessed the appendage, making it murderous. But the hand is no match for the hungry neighborhood cats!
This list originally appeared in Animal Movies Guide
by Staci Layne Wilson; reprinted by permission of the author.
CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN’S THIRTEEN OF THE TOP TEN
LOVECRAFTIAN FILMS NOT ACTUALLY BASED (OR ONLY
LOOSELY BASED) ON THE WORKS OF H. P. LOVECRAFT
Born in Skerries, Dublin, Ireland, Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of such novels as Silk, Threshold, and Murder of Angels, the short story collections Tales of Pain and Wonder and From Weird and Distant Shores, and the novelization of the 2007 film version of Beowulf. She is also a trained paleontologist (with publications in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature), a comics writer (for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman), and an accomplished vocalist and lyricist.
1. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979): Few films have managed to so perfectly convey the sheer alienness of extraterrestrial life or of alien worlds as the original Alien. The exploration of H. R. Giger’s derelict biomechanoid starship by Dallas, Lambert, and Kane remains one of the most sublimely Lovecraftian moments in movie history.
2. The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982): Though actually based on John W. Campbell’s “Who Goes There,” Carpenter’s remake of Howard Hawks’s The Thing from Another World (1951) gets high Lovecraftian marks for its portrayal of the beginning of the end of the world in the shadow of the “Mountains of Madness.”
3. The Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold, 1954): So, maybe the bug-eyed Devonian survivor in the Amazon is best described as a “Shallow One,” but there’s no denying the film’s debt to “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.”
4. Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural (Richard Blackburn, 1975): This little-known gem of Southern Gothic vampirism takes some of its best bits from HPL, most notably, Hy Pyke’s performance as the demented bus driver who delivers Lila Lee to the haunted town of “Astaroth.”
5. Dark Waters (Mariano Baino, 1994): Again, a film that borrows much from “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” the supremely atmospheric Dark Waters is sometimes cited as the first Western film shot in the post-Soviet Ukraine.
6. Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984): “Gozer the Traveler w
ill come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldronaii, the Traveler came as a very large and moving Torb. Then, of course, in the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex supplicants they chose a new form for him, that of a Sloar. Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar that day, I can tell you.” ’Nuff said.
7. Event Horizon (Paul W. S. Anderson, 1997): Though clearly inferior to many of the films from which it borrows (such as Solaris, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Haunting), Event Horizon offers up a pretty effective look at mankind come face-to-face with Azathoth, “who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space.”
8. King Kong (Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933): Surprisingly few seem to have picked up on the notable parallels between the first half of King Kong and the plot of “The Call of Cthulhu.” Considering that the latter first appeared in 1928, one must wonder if Merian C. Cooper had read the particular issue of Weird Tales in which it was first published.
9. Solaris (Steven Soderbergh, 2002): Along with Alien, the remake of Solaris is one of the most sublime examples of man’s (disastrous) contact with a truly alien “Other” yet filmed.
10. Smilla’s Sense of Snow (Bille August, 1997): based upon Peter Høeg’s bestselling novel (1992), this film moves the action from New England to Greenland and Denmark, but retains much of the basic premise of “The Colour Out of Space.”