Baffled! (1973)

A failed TV pilot becomes a pretty decent movie.

Tom Kovack (Leonard Nimoy) is a racing driver who begins to have intense visions during a crash. Occult investigator Michelle Brent (Susan Hampshire) thinks he is having a premonition of an American woman in danger in an English county house. 

Tom and Michelle track down the house (and thus the woman) and begin to uncover a Satanic plot to possess the woman's, Andrea's (Vera Miles), young daughter Jennifer (Jewel Blanch) for evil means... or just get Andrea's money.

This is a good film, though at times the story is a little disjointed which is probably why it never succeeded as a TV pilot. Remade as a film though the story is solid if a little too light to score as a horror. As a detective drama with a supernatural element it works a lot better. Nimoy and Hampshire had great chemistry together.

King of the Zombies (1941)

Spooky goings on at cliché island.

After the plane carrying James (Dick Purcell), Bill (John Archer) and Jeff (Mantan Moreland) is forced to land in bad weather on a mysterious island they are met by Dr Sangre (Henry Victor) who apparently lives there as an Austrian exile. Something weird is going on, including zombies wandering the place and women in traces appearing and disappearing before our heroes very eyes! There is a dark secret on the island involving voodoo rituals, hypnotism and the quest for secret plans...

A voodoo/zombie romp which clicks every cliché box and being a film of it's time there is a enemy agent sub-plot, but is a fine enough film with a fast moving if unoriginal plot. Mantan Moreland makes the film as the cast is otherwise quite bland, though competent. Most of the humour comes from him, though some of it may be dated and a bit stereotype these days.

Eye of the Evil Dead (1982)

A young girl is possessed by an evil ancient Egyptian spirit while on holiday, well that is certainly a holiday souvenir you don't want.

Susie (Brigitta Bocolli) is on holiday with her archaeologist father Professor Hacker (Christopher Connelly) in Egypt. Susie encounters a mysterious old woman who gives her an amulet. Once the family return to New York, anyone around Susie is in danger as she now possesses evil diabolical powers. Hacker, who has been blinded by energy blasts while opening a tomb, enlists the help of Adrian (Cosimo Cinieri) who is, er... an antique dealer, to save Susie and stop the terror...

This isn't a great film and does not make a lot of sense. It has plenty of mystical ancient Egyptian magic and evil though which is always entertaining. The film could have been pretty decent if the plot had been heavily edited.

Aenigma (1987)

A rather disturbing horror, though the victims tend to be pretty loathsome.

Kathy (Mijlijana Zirojevic), a nerdy outcast at an elitist school, is badly injured when a prank by school bullies goes wrong. Eva (Lara Lamberti) turns up at the school soon after and befriends the pupils who bullied Kathy. 

It turns out though that Eva is being controlled by Kathy who has somehow gained diabolical psychic powers while in a coma. Kathy begins her revenge on the bullies using Eva, in various terrible ways (including being smothered by snails)...

Taking place in a boarding school full of attractive young women, this film does have somewhat of an exploitative feel along with the brutal horror. The horror and camerawork is often very inventive. It could be utterly awful but somehow holds it together enough to be worthwhile.

Blood Bath (1966)

A rather off-beat vampire yarn, though makes little sense.

An artist (and obviously as this is movie-land he is a crazed and troubled artist) called Sordi (William Campbell) believes that he is the reincarnation of an ancestor who was killed for sorcery and vampirism. 

He kills young women and then disposes of their bodies in acid! His latest girlfriend Dorean (Lori Saunders) is definitely on the list...

This film makes little sense, though the fact it is made up of different films doesn't really help. It also looks pretty odd as the film mixes a Californian surf setting with somewhere suitably Gothic in Eastern Europe. It is also padded out with annoying beatnik characters and some odd dance and performance art scenes.

The film is certainly an... experience.

The Head (1959)

A very strange science horror film, obviously involving heads!

Professor Abel (Michel Simon) has developed a serum that can keep the severed head of a dog alive. He recruits a new assistant Dr Ood (Horst Frank). 

Abel dies of a heart attack but Ood takes the opportunity to remove the professor's head and keep it alive with the serum. Ood forces the professor to assist him with a bizarre experiment to give a hunch backed nurse a new body from a stripper...

A very strange film with a ton of atmosphere, though at times a little too odd however the film is certainly compelling enough to keep you interested. The soundtrack is particularly good and eerie. 

I Eat Your Skin (1971)

Playboys head off to a weird voodoo island for hijinks.

The publisher (Dan Stapleton) of a playboy novelist Tom (William Joyce) head off to Zombie Island (great name) to get inspiration for a new book. After just about managing to not crash their plane into the sea, Tom and the others discover a mad scientist (Robert Stanton) trying to cure cancer. 

Obviously, the existence of murderous zombies, with eyes which look like ping pong balls stuck to their faces, on the island has something - i mean nothing to do with him...

This isn't a great film though the kitsch feel and the generally off-beat approach does help with the watchability a lot. The voodoo scenes are very entertaining too though it is too ridiculous to be that scary a horror film. 

The best/funniest part of the film, being an author myself, is the idea of a novelist being a happy-go-lucky bed-hopper irresistible to women!

Xtro (1982)

A grisly and incredibly bloody 1980s video nasty, this certainly is science-fiction horror.

Several years ago Sam (Philip Sayers) was abducted by aliens to the horror of his little son Tony (Simon Nash). Now... something has returned to Earth. A horrific looking alien that kills an innocent couple, rapes and impregnates a woman, who then dies giving birth to... Sam!

Sam returns to his family, which is a bit awkward as his wife Rachel (Bernice Stegers) has moved on, though Tony is delighted. But is Sam quite the same as before, and how is he affecting Tony (for the worse...)

After an incredibly gory start, the film does bog down a bit in the middle act as it turns into a bit of a domestic drama (with added menace). A low budget is used well, some of the scenes look amazing. It doesn't really make a lot of sense but with a film like this it probably doesn't matter too much.

Equinox (1970)

A creepy horror, low on budget but high on nonsense.

Four college friends (including Edward Connell and Barbara Hewitt) head into the woods to visit their professor. However, they find his house has been destroyed and Dr Waterman (Fritz Leiber Jr) is missing. What has been left behind is a mysterious book, when they read the book they find it is an occult tome and Waterman may have opened a portal to Hell. Opps!

A demon is now loose in the woods, posing as the park ranger (Jack Woods), and wants the book. He is willing to unleash a wave of hellish horrors on the four young people to get ahold of the book. The story is told in flashback.

This isn't that great a film, though the demons are a tasty bit of stop motion animation. The budget was minute but the film makers did manage to make the most of it. 

The Thirsty Dead (1974)

At first look this looks like it will be a sleazy sexploitation film but in fact it turns into a decent if not exceptional occult horror.

We are in the Philippines, and someone is kidnapping young women off the streets of Manila. Laura (Jennifer Billingsley) is one of these, who is snatched by mysterious men in cloaks with hoods (which must be absolute murder in the Manila heat!) 

However, Laura and some other women are not being sold into sex slavery. Instead, they are taken into the remote jungle where a mysterious cult led by Baru (John Considine) worship a head in a block of... something and apparently can live forever if they drink the blood of young girls!

This isn't a very exciting film, as not a lot happens apart from a little mild horror and a lot of weirdness. The film does have a lot of camp value and is enjoyably silly like these films set in the Philippines in the early 1970s often are. Yes of course Vic Diaz is in it!

Mark of the Witch (1970)

Mind bending witchy nonsense on campus.

A witch is hung in England, but not before she curses her captor. Many years later a descendant of that captor now lives in the USA on a university campus. One of the students, Jill (Anitra Walsh) is obsessed with the occult after discovering an old book and performs a spell to summon a witch. 

Unfortunately, the witch summoned is the one hung three hundred years before. Now the witch has possessed Jill and seeks revenge on her professor (Robert Elston) as well as terrorising the campus...

This is a low budget shock fest but looks great and is a lot of fun. The final battle is completely psychedelic and pretty wonderful to be honest. A perfectly decent early 1970s horror.

The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)

A radiation mutated (naturally) man menaces Los Angeles.

Colonel Manning (Glenn Langan) somehow survives a close-by nuclear test blast and begins to grow, he becomes an (amazing) colossal man. Unfortunately his brain has also been affected and he becomes very dangerous, and hungry. Egged on by his wife Carol (Cathy Downs), the US military don't just try and kill him. Though when Manning escapes he begins a rampage across Los Angeles.

Yet another giant mutated creature causes havoc, shown using some ropey cheap special effects. For a change the monster is human and not a giant insect or spider. This is a campy film with a big helping of cheese. 

It is nonsense and fairly entertaining though Manning spends a good deal of the film groaning and moaning and it does get a bit tedious after a while.

The House That Would Not Die (1970)

A rather engaging little horror TV movie. 

Ruth (Barbara Stanwyck) and her niece Sara (Kitty Winn) move into an old house. After a rather fraught seance and a painting which falls on a fire, they discover that the house is possessed by two ghosts who appear to be of two people who died in the American Revolutionary War. 

As the hauntings and disturbing antics continue, Ruth and Sara begin to unravel the dark secrets and mysterious circumstances deep in the house's past...

This is a great little ghost story full of atmosphere and growing menace. It might have only had a small budget but it made the most of it and has some good performances especially from Stanwyck.

I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)

A troubled teenager is hypnotised into becoming a hairy beast.

Tony (Michael Landon) is always getting into fights and treating his girl (Yvonne Lime) badly. Finally, he agrees to let the psychologist Dr Brandon (Whit Bissell) hypnotise him to help cure his troubled mind...

Unfortunately, Brandon is using Tony for his illegal experiments in human regression. He causes Tony to regress to becoming a werewolf and goes on the rampage...

Low budget teen horror nonsense of course but this film was very influential to the genre, leading to many copycats. With it's mix of teen delinquency, rock and roll and horror scenes it is cheap but undeniably entertaining. Michael Landon plays a good role.

Terror is a Man (1959)

Mad scientist creates man-cat, unfortunately the plot and action does not proceed with a feline speed and grace.

William (Richard Derr) is washed up on a remote island in the Pacific after his cargo ship sinks. He is rescued by Dr Girard (Frances Lederer) and his comely wife Frances (Greta Thyssen). Girard is conducting some kind of strange medical experiments on the island, and there is a beast loose which has killed enough natives that they have fled. However, the beast is not a natural creation but a big cat which Girard is trying to turn into a man.

Despite Frances and William's pleas to leave the island, Girard doggedly continues his experiments with the man-cat (Flory Carlos). However, the creature has developed a fascination for Frances (natch) and is also becoming harder and harder to control...

A story based on a HG Wells tale, and is fine enough though lacks much in the way of action. Much of the film is spent waiting around for something to happen, we really only see the man-cat in the final few minutes, though it really isn't worth the wait. One interesting gimmick is the inclusion of an annoying bell in the soundtrack to warn squeamish viewers to look away if something horrid is about to happen.

The Horror of Party Beach (1964)

Atomic waste creates mutated monsters which attack annoying teenagers, so not the most original of movies.

It is the 1960s so of course just dumping barrels of radioactive waste in the sea just off beaches where people party is A-OK. Unfortunately one of these barrels springs a leak and creates a bizarre race of blood drinking monsters. The blood is first provided by Tina (Marilyn Clarke) who is having a swim after having a tiff with her boyfriend at a beach party where much rock and roll is played. The attacks soon escalate though including a twenty teen girl slumber party which is wiped out by these monsters.

Luckily Dr Gavin (Allan Laurel) has a solution: sodium! As Hank (John Lyon) heads to NY to buy supplies of sodium, his girlfriend (Alice Lyon) is in peril from the monsters at a quarry...

So, this is fairly generic and low budget. The monsters are ridiculous of course but that adds to the film's camp charm. It is rubbish, but fun rubbish and that makes it very watchable.

Night of the Blood Beast (1958)

A 1950s sci-fi horror shocker featuring an alien in a rubber suit, the biggest shock though is actually how intelligent the plot is.

Astronaut Steve (John Baer) crash lands in his ship (which totally doesn't look made out of cardboard) after the first trip by a man into outer space. He appears to have perished in the crash but when the scientists return him to their isolated lab they discover he is somehow alive in a catatonic state, his body also has been infected by some kind of alien cells. 

Steve is now carrying a number of alien babies, but it is the large alien who also tagged a ride back to Earth that the others really need to worry about. However, the alien offers them a chance for immortality, thats after he killed Dr Wyman (Tyler McVey) in a pretty brutal manner...

This is a low-budget sci-fi horror schlocker, with a ridiculous looking alien of course. However, buried in the plot is some intelligent sci-fi concepts which helps elevate this above the usual nonsense. Its still no more than an average film but certainly worth a watch.

Hobgoblins (1988)

A very strange, and rather cheap, science-fiction horror featuring a couple of little furry monsters.

McCreedy (James R Sweeney) is a security guard at a disused studio who has a secret. Years before he encountered a UFO full of furry aliens. Naturally he locked them up in the bank vault which the studio for some reason has. For thirty years he has guarded the aliens in the vault because they have the ability to kill people after they make their fantasies come true. 

McCreedy's young apprentice guard Kevin (Tom Bartlett) accidentally releases the aliens from the vault, now he and McCreedy must recapture them while they unleash havoc on the town including helping Kevin's friends achieve their fantasies which seem to involve being sex sluts or committing murder...

A curious film that doesn't make much sense. The characters are either pretty blank or rather hateful, and the hobgoblins themselves are rather like demonic furbies and the film is pretty low budget. Quite awful but not without a lot of camp value.

The Maze (1953)

Rather odd but ultimately satisfying horror mystery.

Gerald (Richard Carlson) is engaged to marry Kitty (Veronica Hurst) but he is called to Scotland close to the wedding day to see his uncle in the ancestral home. When Gerald does not return and indeed seems to want to end the marriage plans, Kitty travels to Scotland with her aunt (Katharine Emery). 

Kitty finds that Gerald is a changed man and seems to want her to leave immediately but doesn't really explain why. He definitely doesn't want her to go into the maze in the garden, however strange noises at night and the air of mystery piques Kitty's curiosity. When she finally ventures into the maze she finds a creature beyond imagination lurking in there...

However, this film has a lot of surprises for the viewer. It isn't a mere monster movie out to menace young ladies, indeed the creature has an ultimately tragic story. This helps elevate the film beyond mere creep, though there is plenty of that. A bit slow moving at times but worth it in the end.

The Leech Woman (1960)

A surprisingly good low budget horror film.

Dr Talbot (Philip Terry) is on bad terms with his alcoholic wife June (Coleen Grey). However, when he discovers from a mysterious African woman called Malla (Estelle Helmsley) that there is a secret to restoring youth then he suddenly reconciles with his wife and they head to Africa to discover Malla's secret (and make a fortune). After much stock footage, the Talbots end up at Malla's village. There they discover that Malla's secret is an elixir requires an awful ingredient: fluid from a just slain man's brain! Malla has her youth restored (now played by Kim Hamilton) and tells June that she can also have the elixir but she must choose the man who will be killed for her. She chooses her husband!

June manages to escape the village but discovers the effect of the elixir is short lived. She has no problem in killing again and again to return to her youth. When she arrives home she pretends she is her own niece and she has the hots younger men (some of whom she also kills) but the police are already hot on her trail of dead brain fluid drained victims...

This is a great film despite the overuse of stock footage in the African scenes which can drag the film down a bit. The Noir feel, though sometimes unexpected humour too, and the surprises make for an entertaining horror.