Shock Waves (1977)

dir. Ken Wiederhorn cast Peter Cushing, Brooke Adams, John Carradine, Luke Halpin

In a decade that saw Last House on the Left, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Hills Have Eyes, as well as Dawn of the Dead, and Zombi, this is one zombie film that cuts against the grain . Instead of gut-munching corpses, this gives us undead World War II German soldiers who drown their victims, rather than devouring them. As such, it eschews gore for less bloody thrills. Interestingly, it's set in the Caribbean even though these zombies have nothing to do with voodoo.

The film begins with a couple of Caribbean boaters picking up a lone woman from a life raft, then tells the story in flashback. Rose (Adams) was a passenger on a small tourist charter captained by cantankerous Ben Morris (Carradine). After encountering some sort of strange phenomena on the ocean (it's never really specified what this is; a weakness in the film), the boat's navigation equipment doesn't seem to be working correctly. During a pitch-black night, the boat nearly collides with a ship that suddenly emerges out of the darkness. Next day, the passengers discover that the boat has been damaged and is taking on seawater. To add to their troubles, the Captain is missing. However, they find they are near an island next to which rests the rusting hulk of a grounded ship.

The passengers and remaining crew member use the life boat to ferry themselves to the island to seek help. However, all they find is an abandoned resort hotel. Eventually, they discover that an old man (Cushing) is living there, and has a fantastic story to tell. During World War II, he was a member of the German SS and Commandant of the "Death Corps"; a unit of unkillable Nazi zombies created by reanimating dead soldiers. The zombies were effective fighters, but proved impossible to control. Just before Germany's final defeat, they were sent away on a ship to keep them out of Allied hands. When the Commandant learned that the war was over, he sunk the ship, hoping to rid the world of the zombie menace. However, the disturbance encountered in the beginning of the film has awoken them, and they are converging on the island. Being undead, with no need to breathe, they can survive underwater and walk on the sea floor. There is a boat stored on the island, but can the survivors get to it and get away before the zombies finish them off?

Viewers looking for something like the George Romero zombie films will probably be disappointed. The zombie attacks simply consist of holding their victims underwater until they drown. In fact, one wonders what would have happened if the potential victims had simply stayed away from water. The humans in the movie don't really try to fight the zombies; they just hide or try to get on a boat and leave the island. They're unarmed and don't try to find something heavy and bash the zombies' heads in. The zombies all wear dark goggles, and at one point a zombie seems to "die" after Rose accidentally rips the goggles off its face. However, the movie never really follows through on this. There are long sequences of the survivors running or walking through the jungle.

Still, the movie does have several strengths. The Aryan zombies with their scarred faces, German SS uniforms, and dark glasses certainly do look scary. Several scenes of them slowly rising out of the water are very effective. Wiederhorn also does a good job of making a spooky locale out of an unconventional setting (a tropical island) and of building up a feeling of looming danger and dread. The run-down hotel was especially well-used for this. It's also great to watch Cushing, doing a great job and putting the same kind of care into a very small part that he put into his roles as Van Helsing or Baron Frankenstein. Despite some plot holes and the fact that it's relatively slow, the film is suspenseful. I did really find myself caring about the fate of Rose, who is well-played by Adams.

One of the comments made about this film by nearly every source I encounter is that it's the best of the sub- sub-genre of Nazi zombie films (or at least of underwater Nazi zombie films). I'm sure that this is right; though I haven't seen them, other Nazi zombie films like Zombie Lake and Oasis of the Zombies don't have good reputations. I don't think Shock Waves is a lost classic, but it is an entertaining low-budget genre effort that can be enjoyed straight, rather than ironically. It's worth seeing.

Cronos (1993)

dir. Guillermo del Toro cast Frederico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Margarita Isabel, Tamara Shanath

Jesus Gris (Luppi), a Mexican antique dealer, discovers a strange mechanical insect in an old statue. We know from the prologue that this is the Cronos Device, invented by a 16th-century alchemist who used it to prolong his life into the 1930's. The device promptly "attacks" Gris, digging its legs into his arm and drawing blood. Over the next few weeks, Gris feels rejuvenated and finds that he feels compelled to make frequent use of the device. Unfortunately, the device has a nasty side effect; it causes Gris to crave blood. Gris soon discovers that a reclusive, dying industrialist, De la Guardia, has the instructions for the device and desperately wants to get his hands on it. De la Guardia sends his nephew Angel (Perlman) to get it from Gris by any means necessary.

Cronos is more a film of ideas and images than plot. The movie avoids horror cliches. Gris, the film's "monster" is easily the most sympathetic character in the movie. He's a loving husband and is especially close to his nearly silent grand-daughter, Aurora. He never resorts to attacking anyone for their blood; in one cringe-inducing scene, he actually licks blood off the floor of a public bathroom after a fellow partygoer suffers a nosebleed. De la Guardia, on the other hand, is cold and unfeeling, insulting and even violent towards Angel, who returns his contempt. Angel (somewhat inexplicably) is perfectly willing to hurt or kill Gris to get the Cronos device. Del Toro does include one cliche that really works in this context: Aurora, the innocent child, seems to be the only one who really knows what's going on.

Cronos is startlingly original and like nothing I had seen before. It might be short on explicit horror content and lacking a conclusive ending, but its fascinating to think about and to look at, and Luppi is great. Del Toro is now a major Hollywood director. This is the film that put him on the map, and rightly so.

Plague of the Zombies (1966)

dir. John Gilling cast Andre Morell, Diane Clare, Brook Williams, Jacqueline Pearce, John Carson

Residents of a late 19th-century Cornish village are dying mysteriously and the local doctor, Peter Thompson (Williams), seems powerless to find the cause of the deaths, much less stop the "plague." In desperation, he writes to his mentor, Sir James Forbes (Andre Morell), in London for advice. Sir James decides to pay an unexpected visit to Cornwall, bringing along his loyal daughter, Sylvia (Clare), who is a friend of Dr. Thompson's wife, Alice (Pearce). One there, he finds that the local tin mines, abandoned for lack of workers, seem to be operating again, and that the local squire, Clive Hamilton (Carson), is just back from a sojourn in Haiti. Gee, I wonder what could be happening?

Hammer Film's only foray into the zombie sub-genre and one of the last major zombie films before George A. Romero changed the game forever, this is fun if not a certified classic. Like most Hammer horror films, it is well-acted. Andre Morell is the epitome of the capable, level-headed, upper-class British professional. I think he's great as a sixtyish hero (he was 57 when the film was released); he exudes gravitas, but also compassion. Carlson is effectively ice-cold as Squire Hamilton, who can be charming, but is the polar opposite of Sir James, in that Hamilton has no compassion for anyone "beneath" him and is perfectly willing to exploit the working classes for selfish ends. Most reviews pan the performance of the beautiful Clare (supposedly, a direct descendant of Buffalo Bill!) while praising that of Pearce. I think both actresses turn in fine work. Character actor Michael Ripper, who had small parts in dozens of Hammer films, has a medium-sized role as the local policeman. As always, he's great.

The script, sets, and costumes in "Plague of the Zombies" are superior. I especially liked the masks and robes worn by the voodoo cult members. Like most Hammer films, this looks much more expensive than it actually was and easily lends itself to suspension of disbelief. The green-skinned zombies don't really look like dead bodies, but the look is pretty effective all the same.

This film also one of the great sequences in zombie history. After watching a zombie rise (only to be quickly dispatched by Sir James), Dr. Thompson faints. He then dreams of awakening alone in the misty graveyard and watches in horror as the inhabitants of the graves claw their way out of the earth and surround him. Shot mainly in Dutch angles, it's a great, scary scene.

On the negative side, there are lots of plot holes if you care to look for them. Also, the film is structured as a mystery. However, as Bruce Lanier Wright points out in his excellent Nightwalkers: Gothic Horror Movies, this is laughable, as the solution to the "mystery" is obvious by the time the film is a few minutes old. This is one of many, many British and American horror films that equate voodoo with devil worship. At least here, most of the villains are white, though Hamilton does have a couple of black servants/followers.

Still, if you can get past these weaknesses, and don't require your zombies to be of the flesh-eating persuasion, this one is very entertaining.

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)

dir Terence Fisher cast Peter Cushing, Shane Briant, Madeline Smith, David Prowse

Simon Helder, a young 19^th Century German doctor, is convicted of sorcery for attempting to revive the dead. Sent to the same asylum for the criminally insane as was Dr. Frankenstein, he hopes to meet his idol, but is told that the Baron is dead. Helder soon learns, however, that Frankenstein is not only very much alive, but has taken over the asylum. Despite the fact that the fire at the end of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed has rendered his hands useless for surgery, he is attempting to carry on his experiments with the help of the beautiful Sarah, an elective mute. Frankenstein, calling himself “Dr. Victor”, accepts Helder as his assistant. The young doctor learns that Frankenstein has revived the body of a brutish murderer who died by suicide, and plans to harvest necessary replacement parts, including a brain, from other inmates. His plans for Sarah, however, lead Helder to question the Baron’s sanity.

Hammer’s last gothic horror film, this does not quite measure up to their best, but still is worthy. Cushing gives another outstanding performance as Victor Frankenstein, projecting strength and authority in his early scenes, but soon showing signs of an irreversible instability. As always, Cushing is magnetic, making us care about a quite unlovable character. Smith (better here than as Ingrid Pitt’s love slave in The Vampire Lovers (1970)) and Briant provide able support. David Prowse does well as the creature for this outing, giving some pathos to his role as a genius trapped in an ugly, subhuman hulk of a body. As usual for Hammer, the film’s production designs, sets, and costumes are outstanding, lending an authentic air to a fantastic story.

On the other hand, the film is badly let down by the design of the monster. Asking us to accept the hairy, apelike figure as a human body stretches credulity a bit too far. The monster makeup is obviously just that and does not lend itself to suspension of disbelief (according to Tom Johnson and Deborah Del Vecchio’s excellent Hammer Films: An Exhaustive Filmography, it was imposed on Fisher because of a promise made to the American distributors). The exterior cutaways to the asylum building are of a laughably obvious model. And, as with many Hammer Films, it doesn’t pay to examine the plot too closely.

Still, this is a worthy finale for a great series. In the 1970’s, Hammer desperately tried to tinker with their formula for the Dracula series, updating it to the present (Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972); The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1974)) and even trying to marry it with the trendy Kung Fu genre (The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)). But, with the Frankenstein series, Hammer stuck with what they did best: atmospheric, Victorian-era Gothic horror. Cushing’s performance adds a note of poignancy to the film. Although the ending is left open for further sequels, it is obvious that Frankenstein is insane, and that he will never be accepted by the world in which he lives. It’s a sad goodbye to the character, as well as the studio.

Trivia Note: As fans of fantastic films will no doubt be aware, Cushing and Prowse reunited three years later, to portray (with an assist from James Earl Jones) the primary villains in Star Wars (1977).

Virgin Witch (1972)

dir. Ray Autin cast Ann Michelle, Vicki Michelle, Keith Buckley, Patricia Haines, James Chase, Paula Wright

Christine and Betty (Ann and Vicki Michelle), two 20-ish miniskirted sisters, are alone in London after leaving a repressive home life under the control of their strict father. Christine goes to see Sybil Waite (Haines), one of London's top modelling agents, and seems to be in luck when a last-minute job opens up and all the other models are booked. She agrees to go with Sybil to a remote manor out in the English countryside for the weekend while Betty tags along. However, all is not as it seems; Sybil is part of a coven of witches that may have designs on both sisters. You may think you know where this is going, but things take a very unexpected turn which I will not reveal.

An erotic horror fantasy, with the emphasis definitely on sex rather than blood, Virgin Witch demonstrates why British low-budget horror films were often so much more entertaining than their American counterparts. For one thing, the availability of old estates on which to film gave even the cheapest films a professional look and made it possible to create a creepy atmosphere without a ton of money to spend. The old house in Virgin Witch, hemmed in by a thick forest, seems lonely and sinister and does lend a hint of grim foreboding to the proceedings. Also, the acting in low-budget British films was usually superior to the acting in American B films. There is no one on the level of a Peter Cushing or Barbara Steele in this film, but all the main cast members are perfectly accomplished. The acting does not get in the way of the story.

Virgin Witch is actually more of a sex film than a horror film. It is literally bloodless, with a very low body count. The witches actually don't seem all that evil; their rituals don't invoke Satan or use Satanic trappings and they don't seem to have any kind of agenda that involves bothering anyone outside their coven. In fact, their rituals seem to mostly involve their leader having sex with a willing young (but not underage) woman on an altar, while the other members of the coven dance around naked.

There is a lot of nudity in this film. Both Michelle sisters are astonishingly gorgeous, and both, especially Ann, have abundant nude scenes. In fact, Ann's naked torso is the first thing seen in the film, backgrounding the title. It seems that Christine is being set up to be the victim throughout much of the film, but she never loses her confident demeanor and we always get the feeling she's not as helpless as she seems. Its a good performance and she's fun to watch, even when she's not nude.

Phil Hardy's Encyclopedia of Horror Movies, compares Virgin Witch favorably to Hammer's Karnstein films. I agree that it's better than the silly Lust for a Vampire, but not as good as The Vampire Lovers. In the end, Virgin Witch is light on horror content, even when compared to other non-gory horrors such as Let's Scare Jessica to Death. Most of the horror is in the coven's rituals (which, for some reason, involve the demonic mask from the Japanese film Onibaba!), but they are not violent or terribly frightening.  Virgin Witch is not some kind of landmark of low-budget horror film making, but it's still well-made enough to be worth seeing.

Black Sunday (1960)

dir. Mario Bava cast Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Ivo Garrani, Arturo Domenici, Enrico Olivieri, Antonio Peirfederici

It's all about the visuals in this, one of the best-looking horror films of all time. In 17th-century Moldavia, Asa Vajda is executed as a witch (or a vampire, or both). A spiked "mask of Satan" is hammered onto her face as she promises revenge from beyond the grave. When the priests attempt to burn her body and that of her servant, Javutich, they are thwarted by a sudden downpour. Asa is entombed in the Vajda family crypt in a stone sarcophagus complete with a window over her face so she is forced to look upon a cross, thus preventing her from rising. Javutich is buried in the murderers' cemetery. Two hundred years later, the elderly Dr. Kruvajan and his young assistant Dr. Gorobec are passing through on their way to Moscow, when their carriage breaks down right outside the crypt. While the driver effects repairs, the two doctors go into the crypt to look around. Attacked by a (comically huge and slow) bat, Dr. Kruvajan accidentally destroys the cross on top of Asa's sarcophagus, breaks the glass over her face, and cuts himself so that the blood drips into the eye sockets of the dead witch after Kruvajan removes her mask. The doctors leave, meeting Asa's lookalike descendant, Katia on the way out. Gorobec falls instantly in love with her. Meanwhile, Asa awakens. She is still too weak to leave her tomb, but is able to summon Javutich, who, still wearing his mask of Satan, claws his way to the surface in possibly the best rising from a grave sequence ever filmed. Together the two plot their vengeance which involves the death of Katia's brother and father and the possession of Katia by Asa.

However, the plot is not really the point here. The look of this film made Bava an international star director, a status which he maintained up to his death in 1980. Filmed in black and white, this movie is a dark, fog-shrouded fever dream. The impressive sets include the ruined crypt where Asa is entombed, the dilapidated graveyard from which Javutich is reborn, and the spacious interior of the castle in which the Vajdas live. The landscape is made up of dead, gnarled trees, a persistent low fog obscures the ground, and the wind whistles constantly, sometimes combined with the howling of wolves. The look is very reminiscent of the old Universal horrors, though not quite so stylized. However, Bava adds disturbing visuals which paved the way for the gorier (though generally less imaginative) horrors of the late 60's and 70's. When the mask is a pounded onto Asa's face, blood wells up around its edges. When Kruvajan removes the mask, the action disturbs dozens of small scorpions which have nested in Asa's eye sockets. Later, these empty sockets are seen to be full of maggots just before new eyeballs appear in her face. When Asa revives, her face, at first, still bears the marks of the mask's spikes.

In fact, Steele herself is one of the movie's best visual effects. A British actress who at first appeared mostly in Italian-made films, she became a horror star as a result of this movie, with entire films being built around her talents. In fact, she represents the closest any actress has ever come to attaining true Karloff- or Price-style icon status in a genre which rarely has strong roles for women. Black Sunday makes it easy to see why. She is beautiful, but no more so than a dozen other horror actresses. But she has a unique look that is hard to describe. Her thin face, rounded cheekbones, and huge eyes can look truly otherworldly. In Black Sunday, she is equally convincing as the innocent Katia and the diabolical Asa. She truly has a presence that no other actress can duplicate. She is a fine actress, though she was dubbed in nearly all her roles in the 1960s, even in the American-made The Pit and the Pendulum!

Aside from Steele, the acting in the film is hard to judge, since everyone is dubbed in the English-language version and the script for that version is undistinguished. The only other performance really worthy of note is that of Arturo Domenici as Javutich who at least looks wonderfully scary with his mustachioed face, festering skin, and all-black outfit with the Vajda griffon on his chest. However, the acting and script are not the point of this film. The visuals make it great fun, and the fact that it launched Bava's and Steele's careers makes it historically important. It is a must-see.

Horror of Dracula (1958)

dir. Terence Fisher cast Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh, John Van Eyssen

One of the most important horror films ever made, Horror of Dracula, along with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), established Britain's Hammer Films as the preeminent horror studio of its era, much as Universal had been in the 1930's, and gave birth to a revival of gothic horror films that would last into the 1970s. Horror also made a horror film icon out of Christopher Lee, who would go on to play Dracula in six more Hammer films and would star in many other classic horror movies. As I write this, fifty-six years later, Lee is still acting, the last of the great horror icons. Lee had already appeared as the monster in The Curse of Frankenstein, but he was, of course, heavily made up and that film clearly focused on the scientist, not the monster. It was Horror of Dracula that made Lee a star.

Cushing, who earned his horror icon status in The Curse of Frankenstein, turns in an excellent performance as well in the role of Van Helsing. He makes Van Helsing believable as a man of science who also is an expert on the supernatural. His presence is so strong that the sequel, Brides of Dracula (1960), revolved around him, rather than the vampire (Lee refused to appear for fear of being typecast), and was nearly as good as Horror of Dracula.

Horror of Dracula introduced literal blood and new levels of sexuality into the vampire film. One of the first things we see in the film is bright red blood dripping onto Dracula's coffin. We never see whose blood this is, nor does this scene ever recur doing the movie; it is meant to show the viewer that this film will be different. Hammer would be taking a different path than the restrained Val Lewton movies of the 1940's and would be taking advantage of greater standards of explicitness that had developed since the US-made Dracula of 1931. This time we would see the vampire's blood-stained fangs and would witness his attacks in vivid close-ups. There had been a suggestion of a sexual component in Bela Lugosi's interpretation of Dracula, but Horror of Dracula made it much more overt. Lucy Holmwood (Marsh) waits for Dracula nervously but with clear anticipation, to come to her bedroom, the way a young virginal bride might wait for her husband on their wedding night. Dracula kisses Mina (Stribling) before biting her neck and she seems sexually satisfied the morning after their first encounter. The portrayal of the vampire as an overtly sexual figure, which seems the dominant image of vampires today, largely began here.

Aside from its historical importance, the movie is flat-out entertaining. It's very well directed. I especially like the fact that Dracula has not one, but several dramatic entrances during the course of the film. Lee is actually onscreen a very small percentage of the time, but his appearances always have maximum impact. The scenes where Dracula suddenly appears at the top of the staircase to a startled Harker (Van Eyssen), charges into the library with bloodstained fangs and bulging red eyes, looms in Lucy's doorway at night are all memorably dramatic (and are all common stills often seen in guidebooks to horror movies). Equally memorable is the scene where a vampirized Lucy, about to bite her mesmerized brother Arthur (Gough), is suddenly foiled by a cross thrust in front of her face from offscreen, held, it turns out, by Van Helsing. Van Helsing and Dracula's final struggle is also impressive and is one of the most famous scenes in horror, as the adversaries chase each other through the castle, leaping over and on furniture.

In the 1931 version of Dracula, Bela Lugosi gave the definitive performance as the famous vampire. But overall, that movie, hurt by the limitations of early sound films, is static and seems like a filmed stage play (it was based on a theatrical adaptation of the novel). Horror of Dracula is much more entertaining. In fact, I consider the Hammer movie to be the best vampire film ever made.