Horror Fest VIII (Day Three): The Wolf Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, and John Dies at the End

 "Even a man who is pure of heart
     and says his prayers by night
         may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms
            and the autumn moon is bright"

 That's the poem uttered three times in the first twenty minutes of The Wolf Man, so that audiences won't forget that the movie they came to see (The Wolf Man) is about a man who becomes a wolf. The man in question is Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) although you wouldn't know that from the opening credits, which bill Chaney as "The Wolf Man." I must imagine that when The Wolf Man ran on television during the 1950s and 60s that its opening looked familiar to children: title cards introducing the characters play over a brief clip of them from some point in the film, a template of sorts for most TV sitcoms and many dramas.

 Back to the poem for a moment, because the one takeaway I had from watching The Wolf Man this time is that Lawrence Talbot isn't really a man who is "pure of heart" at all. In fact, he's kind of sleazy: not only does he use his father's telescope to spy on Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers), but he then uses that information while in her father's pawn shop to put the moves on her. He gives her some business about being psychic, but even when he eventually comes clean about how he knew about her earrings, it's still in an unrepentantly smarmy fashion. It's no wonder that she doesn't want to go with him to the gypsy camp and brings along her friend Jenny (Fay Helm).

 It's a good thing that Talbot buys a cane with a silver wolf's head, because the gypsy woman Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya) is hiding a secret: her son, Bela (Bela Lugosi) is a Dracula... no, wait. That's not right. He's also a wolf man, and while reading Jenny's fortune, Bela realizes she's his next victim. He sends Jenny away, but she can't run fast enough and he attacks her in wolf form (more like German Shepherd form, but you get the idea) and Talbot is injured while killing said wolf with his cane.

 I'm being a little unkind to The Wolf Man, one of the Universal Classic Monster movies that I was always the fondest of, and I do feel bad about that. I had always remembered Lawrence Talbot as something of a tragic figure, something that continued as long as Chaney reprises the role in various quasi-sequels (House of Frankenstein, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein), but it's hard to feel too sympathetic about a guy who clearly doesn't care that Gwen already has a boyfriend and who behaves in such an underhanded way when he meets her. Perhaps it's supposed to be charming, but when he reveals that he has a telescope and she says "from now on I'll be sure to draw the curtains" and he tells her not to, that's just creepy.

 Talbot is more sympathetic in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, to be sure; after having been killed by his father (Claude Rains, the Invisible Man himself), Lawrence is placed in the family mausoleum, where he at least has peace (as promised by Maleva upon his death). That is, until the two graverobbers show up and break in, looking for jewels. They open Lawrence's coffin and move some of the wolfsbane so they can take his ring (but not before saying the poem for people who might not remember) but seeing as it is a full moon, after all, it's hard to keep a dead werewolf down...

 Revived and apparently immortal, Talbot is found in Cardiff and taken to a nearby hospital with head trauma (the cane wound that killed him) and he's patched up by Dr. Mannering (Patric Knowles) while the authorities try to figure out who their mystery man is. Lawrence Talbot has been dead for four years, so the man in the hospital can't possibly be who he claims he is. And the following night a police officer is murdered by a wolf, something that Talbot seems to know about.

 In The Wolf Man, Sir John Talbot and the authorities regard Lawrence's claims of being "dangerous" as an illness of the mind, but Dr. Mannering seems much more willing to accept his "affliction," although there's quite a while between when they are together in the story. Lawrence leaves the hospital (and Wales) to track down Maleva and find a way to die. He has no interest in being cured, only in no longer living - which is fair, considering that he was dead.

 Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man opens the scope of the first film considerably, and by necessity. Maleva is not only somewhere in Europe, but she's also nowhere near where the two of them need to be in order to help Lawrence. Maleva has heard of a man, named Frankenstein, who might be able to help Talbot, so they travel to Vasaria, the (fictional) home nation of the Frankenstein family, only to find that Ludwig Frankenstein is dead and that the burnt down castle has been abandoned.

 The person I was watching Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man with had not seen Ghost of Frankenstein, which caused a bit of a conundrum here, because until Baroness Elsa Frankenstein (Illona Massey) mentions that the experiments killed her father AND her grandfather, it's not stated in the film which Frankenstein is dead when Talbot arrives. As this is a sequel to both The Wolf Man and Ghost of Frankenstein, it's a good idea to be caught up on both series. (They do play it a bit fast and loose with chronology, though: in The Wolf Man you can clearly see cars driving around town, but by Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man either there are no cars in Eastern Europe and Cardiff or Lawrence was dead for four years and traveled backwards in time. By the same token they have a hydroelectric dam in Vasaria - they mention that it powers the equipment in the castle - so it's anybody's guess)

 At any rate, Talbot finds Frankenstein's monster (Bela Lugosi) frozen in ice and thaws him / it out in the hopes of finding some way to end his existence, and ultimately decides to contact the only surviving Frankenstein (Massey) to see if she can help him. The Baroness is not a scientist and wants nothing to do with the family, but during the Vasarian equivalent of Oktoberfest, Dr. Mannering finds Talbot and the merry band settle in at the castle to see if energy can be drained from Talbot and the monster, finally killing both of them.

 The villagers are, understandably, weary of any activity involving a Frankenstein. They have good reason to be, as Mannering can't help but try to bring the monster back to full strength. Lucky for him (and us), they choose to experiment during a full moon. Well, that's a little fuzzy. I'm not sure if it's a full moon or if the experiment causes Talbot to turn into the Wolf Man (which Chaney is again billed as), but what's important is that the monster smackdown ensues to close out the film. How the Baroness and Dr. Mannering (and, I'm hoping, Maleva) manage to escape the exploding dam above the castle is a manner of movie convenience, but the two monsters presumably perish in the ensuing flood - as would everyone in the village below.

 Interesting tidbit time: Bela Lugosi and Patric Knowles appear in both The Wolf Man and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, albeit playing different roles each time. Ilona Massey, who plays Elsa Frankenstein, replaces Evelyn Ankers, who played Elsa in Ghost of Frankenstein, because it might be a little weird for the woman who played Gwen Conliffe to also be Baroness Frankenstein. All of the monster (Lugosi)'s dialogue was cut from Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, which makes it tricky to understand why it walks arms outstretched. The reason? In Ghost of Frankenstein, the monster is blind as a result of receiving Ygor (Lugosi again)'s brain. Vasaria, is, by the way, a post-World War II replacement for Germany, where the original Frankenstein was set, created by writer Curt Siodmak.

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 Finally we come to John Dies at the End, the best possible adaptation of David Wong's novel that Don Coscarelli could make with the budget he had. That's not a knock on the movie, because I can't imagine it would be easy to faithfully adapt that book considering how many crazy, outlandish, and disgusting moments are on nearly every page. Without the money to clear the many songs mentioned in the book, or to include Fred Durst, or to even be able to include the section in Vegas (it should happen instead of going straight to the mall, for those who have only seen the movie), let alone what happens AFTER David and John come back from the dimension Korrok originates from, it's impressive how close to the book John Dies at the End is. The first hour or so picks up all of the major beats with only a few omissions (where David works, Amy's brother, and some of the names of characters in the film).

 As much as I want to resist the temptation to compare the book to the movie, it tends to happen without trying. So many people I know read John Dies at the End (how can you not when someone describes it as "GrossBusters"?) and while I'm glad that the movie works for audiences who haven't read it, I have no idea how it would play if I didn't know where the story was going. It's a collection of some of the stranger moments you'll ever see onscreen. I am impressed that Coscarelli turned what is an episodic structure in the book and made it more streamlined (mostly by dropping some of the detours) even if the ending is... abrupt.

 I would imagine even if you hadn't read the book, the sudden leap from "things from another dimension that invade people and cause them to explode" to "welcome to the dimension of Korrok" must be a little jarring, even in a film where a guy's mustache flies off and attacks our hero. The last section of the film happens so quickly and is so packed with exposition that I'm kind of impressed it works at all. The coda during the credits eases things a bit, and the resolution to Arnie's frame story is surprisingly bittersweet for a movie so ready to shrug off the bizarre with "what's next?"

 And yes, it still plays well the third time. I suspect it will the fourth, fifth, and so on, to boot. John Dies at the End may not be the level of "cult" film of Coscarelli's Phantasm series or as beloved as Bubba Ho-Tep, but I suspect that it will grow an audience for a long time on home video. It's just a shame that Coscarelli killed one major character, making a This Book is Full of Spiders adaptation very, very difficult, if not out right impossible. Then again, if they ran out of money for the spiders scene in John Dies at the End and had to animate it, there's probably no chance you could make This Book is Full of Spiders into a movie (the scope is considerably larger). But read both books, if you haven't. It isn't going to hurt the movie one bit.

 Horror Fest VIII has come to a close, and I'll tell you it's been a good year for the Cap'n and Fests. Bad Movie Night was a blast, Summer Fest 5 had some great moments, and Horror Fest VIII may be my favorite to date, rivaling only III and V. I'm looking forward to next year - I hope you are too.

Horror Fest VII Day Two: Bela Lugosi Triple Feature

 One of the things the Cap'n doesn't do as much as I'd like to during Horror Fest is showcase older horror movies. Oh sure, every now and then I'll throw in something from the 50s or 60s, but they're few and far between, and in all honesty, I first came to be a fan of horror films because of a friend of my father's. He used to tape AMC's Monster Fest for me, back when AMC showed movies without interruption and had Robert Osborne providing information before the films (in other words, when AMC was Turner Classic Movies), and they used to have Universal Classic Monster triple features on Saturdays. I still have those tapes, with Dracula and Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein, and my personal favorite at the time, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. They would even have non-Universal films like King Kong, and that's how I slowly made my venture into watching "scary" movies.

 It's my own doing, but I've never really shared that experience with Horror Fest audiences. In fact, the only movie with Bela Lugosi I've ever shown at a Fest was Plan 9 from Outer Space, which a) barely has any Lugosi in it and b) was used as a key example of why I found M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening so amusing. So it seemed like seven years in, it was time to give classic horror it's due.

 I chose three Bela Lugosi vampire films - Dracula, Mark of the Vampire, and Return of the Vampire -  because there's an interesting through line for the first two and the third one is clearly designed to use the name recognition of the second, but also because they're all better than one might expect in their own right. Lugosi tends to get the short shrift of the classic horror stars, in part because he worked a lot, and a lot of the films he worked on weren't very good, but also because these days he's as associated with Ed Wood as he is with playing Count Dracula, and not in a good way. It's a shame, because there are a lot of very good Bela Lugosi films (The Black Cat, The Raven) or roles where he plays a fine supporting role (Son of Frankenstein). Still, I thought it would be fun to have a vampire triptych, so let's take a look at that, shall we?

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 If it's all right with you, I'm going to spend the least amount of time on Tod Browning's Dracula, because I suspect that's the film most of you have seen. Dracula did, after all, start the Universal Classic Monster craze (even if Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera preceded it by several years), and while it's a looser adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel than some might like, Browning's macabre sensibilities and atmospheric lighting and set design do make it memorable.

 And, of course, there's Lugosi as Dracula, who loves his "children of the night" and "never drink(s)... wine." Reprising the role that made him famous on the stage, Lugosi's gaze and Hungarian accent make him instantly memorable to anyone who has ever seen the film. Both menacing and alluring, repulsive and erotic, Dracula benefits immensely from Lugosi's presence, keeping the rather dull second half and abrupt conclusion palatable.

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"Vampires in the twentieth century? Don't be ridiculous!"

 Four years later, Lugosi and Browning would join forces again for Mark of the Vampire, a film that begins in a similar fashion to Dracula. In a village (this time in Czechoslovakia rather than Romania), the villagers live in fear of the bats who roam at night, convinced they are the vampire minions of Count Mora (Lugosi) and his daughter Luna (Carol Borland). When the local Doctor Doskil (Donald Meek) is called in to investigate the death of Sir Karell (Holmes Herbert), his immediate reaction to the bite marks on Karell's neck is that a vampire attacked him and drained his blood, much to the disbelief of Inspector Neumann (Lionel Atwill).

 Meanwhile, Baron Otto (Jean Hersholt) is charged with taking care of the estate, including the impending nuptials of Karell's daughter Irena (Elizabeth Allan) to Fedor (Henry Wadsworth), both of whom appear to be the new targets of Count Mora and Luna. With the arrival of Professor Zeller (Lionel Barrymore) comes the promise of saving the family from this vampire curse, and from the castle they've abandoned, even as Mora resurrects Karell to join his undead cabal.

 For most of the film this seems to be where Mark of the Vampire is going, until it takes an abrupt turn with about fifteen minutes to go, and to say anymore risks massive SPOILER territory. So I'm going to mark the next section accordingly and if you don't want to know what the twist in Mark of the Vampire is, I'll meet you in the Return of the Vampire section.

 SPOILERS FOR MARK OF THE VAMPIRE BEGIN HERE

 It turns out, in a very unusual transition, that there ARE no vampires. Professor Zeller, in an attempt to trick Baron Otto into confessing to the murder of Sir Karell, constructed an elaborate ruse involving Count Mora, Luna, and an undead Karell in order to hypnotize the Baron. Everyone, with the exception of Fedor, is in on the hoax, we're led to believe (or need to believe if you want to accept the sudden shift in narrative and tone). Mora and Luna are actually actors hired to play the vampires, playing into the Baron's superstitious nature, and Irena goes along, despite her reservations. To be fair, the Professor is exploiting her father's death and using a look-a-like that she needs to pretend is her father as they re-enact the night of his murder. It is a little tasteless.

 The twist is a little difficult to reconcile because so much of the film involves characters who must have known that this was a hoax (especially, as we learn, because the Professor arrives a year AFTER Karell's death) but disappear shortly after the twist is revealed (in particular I'm thinking of the Maid, who comes in as part of the Professor's plan, it would seem, but either doesn't know that Luna and Mora aren't vampires or is very good at playing scared for characters who are in on the ruse. There are a number of scenes that have nothing to do with the Baron that advance the vampire story, misleading the audience until very late in the film.

 After we discover what the film is really about, Browning wraps things up nicely with a few scenes of our heroes celebrating, and then Mora joking to Luna that he should be the lead vampire next time, much to her amusement.

 SPOILERS FOR MARK OF THE VAMPIRE END HERE

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 "It looks like the Jerries dug up his grave for us!"

 Lugosi returns to the cape and fangs, this time for Columbia (Dracula was for Universal and Mark of the Vampire for MGM) in Return of the Vampire, which is more than just a way to clue in audiences that their favorite bloodsucker was back from the grave. Again not playing Dracula, this time Lugosi is Armand Tesla, an eighteenth century expert on the occult turned walking dead. With his werewolf sidekick Andreas (Matt Willis), he is terrorizing the Ainsley institute in London, 1918.

 Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort), with the help of Doctor Walter Saunders (Gilbert Emery), seek to stop Tesla after he attacks Saunder's daughter Nicki (Sherlee Collier) and before he can reach her son John (Donald Dewar). They track down Tesla to his tomb and manage to drive a stake through his heart, freeing Andreas from his servitude, and Ainsley takes the former wolf man back to her institute to rehabilitate him.

 Twenty three years later, Saunders dies in a train crash and Sir Fredrick Fleet (Miles Mander) of Scotland Yard comes into possession of his diaries. Needless to say, he's not pleased with the idea of Lady Ainsley driving a stake into someone's heart, and orders an investigation of her actions. Unfortunately, the Nazis are bombing London, and during one of the Luftwaffe air raids, they blow open the unmarked grave Saunders and Ainsley moved Tesla to. Two gravediggers unwittingly remove the stake from his heart and re-bury the vampire, but he returns.

 To Return of the Vampire's credit, when Tesla comes back, he isn't content simply to be a vampire in London. No, he wants revenge on Lady Ainsley for stealing twenty three years, and he starts by finding Andreas and transforming him back into a wolf (a talking wolf, but I'll overlook that), but using his servant's association with the Lady to his advantage. After Andreas kills the real scientist, Tesla poses as Doctor Hugo Bruckner, a scientist smuggled out of a concentration camp and back into London, who Ainsley provides unfettered access to her facilities. Tesla sets his sights on ruining the wedding of the now adult John Ainsley (Roland Varno) and Nicki Saunders (Nina Foch) as his ultimate revenge...

 I wasn't expecting too much from Return of the Vampire - the 1943 (IMDB says 1944) production seemed suspiciously like a cash-in on Lugosi's decade plus affiliation with Dracula (even Mark of the Vampire was from 1935), but the film cleverly uses World War II to its advantage, and the bombed out portions of London become the setting of a very different sort of vampire film. It also helps that Tesla has a plan and implements it, rather than wandering around aimlessly finding victims (like Mora in Mark of the Vampire). The struggle between Ainsley and Tesla is as interesting as the back and forth between Van Helsing and Dracula, and while the resolution is largely out of their hands, there is at least one great scene showcasing their battle of wills.

 It's certainly a better constructed film than I was expecting, with the opening section of the film being a surprising prologue / flashback designed to set the stakes before we're even aware that Return of the Vampire is going to leap to (roughly) present day. Like Mark of the Vampire, it openly acknowledges the difficulty for authorities (in this case, Scotland Yard) to believe such a fantastic story, but as Fleet and his detectives discover, the evidence is hard to ignore, even when it points to werewolves and vampires.

 This trifecta proves to me that classic horror films have as much of a place in Horror Fest as the more contemporary fare, and in the future I resolve to include more of it for everybody to see. But for now, it's time to close out with a very recent film indeed, The Cabin in the Woods.

Horror Fest 6 Day One: The Island of Lost Souls

 I offered two choices for the first film of Horror Fest 6: a classy Criterion Collection release of The Island of Lost Souls from earlier this week, or the 35th Anniversary Edition of Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, another film in my continuing search for all Blaxploitation Horror films. Not surprisingly, the classy choice won out (although the blaxploitation played next), and we watched the long out-of-circulation Pre-Code Paramount answer to Universal Horror, Island of Lost Souls.

 To be honest, I'm not too certain what I want to say about the film. I can understand why it would disappear for so long (and had, to this point, not been released on DVD) as many Pre-Hayes Code films had - it takes the "playing God" references further than Frankenstein did* and the material would be considered fairly salacious (trying to seduce a man using a half woman / half panther or the ambiguity of "The Law" and the House of Pain) at the time anyway. The film is an interesting relic of another time - it's as close as a Hollywood adaptation of The Island of Doctor Moreau was going to get for the 1930s, and while its pace fluctuates over 70 minutes, I was never bored. It dragged sometimes and relied heavily on punching to solve problems, but it does come out of the same era that King Kong did, which also relied on machismo to move past stubborn plot hangups.

 Charles Laughton is arguably the most eccentric I've ever seen him (which has to be saying something) as Dr. Moreau (pronounced in the film as "Murrow"), while Bela Lugosi is actually barely in the film as "The Man Who States the Law." His presence is amusing though, because when he recites the law, the rest of the creatures on the island do a sort of mumbled echo of his accent, so it sounds less like repeating him and more like a "mrrmrrrm mrmrmrm mrrrm" every single time Lugosi says anything.

 It was certainly nice to finally see the film (I've only seen parts of it to this point) and it set an appropriately bizarre tone for night one.

 Up Next: Dr. Black and Mr.Hyde



* And for many years, the line "I know what it feels like to be God" had been cut out of Frankenstein altogether.

News and Notes: Horror Edition

 Welcome to another edition of News and Notes, where the Cap'n catches up on a few things I've been noticing and felt were worth sharing.
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 Far be it from the Cap'n to neglect the fact that October means more horror releases, especially on Blu-Ray, and this year there are some doozies. For example, right now you can buy Basket Case, Frankenhooker, The Frighteners, The Others, The Bad Seed, The Last House on the Left, Torso, Dead Alive, Guillermo Del Toro's director's cut of Mimic, Herschel Gordon Lewis' Blood Trilogy (Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs, and Color Me Blood Red), The Hills Have Eyes, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Maniac Cop, Troll Hunter, The Phantom Carriage, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, and The Ward.

 That's right now. If that's not enough to fill up your queue, Attack the Block is coming next week, along with The House by the Cemetery and The Island of Lost Souls. If you're like me and feeling a bit industrious, you can shimmy on over to Amazon.co.uk and order the Nightmare on Elm Street Collection on Blu-Ray instead of waiting on a U.S. release next year. New Line figured it would be enough to leave Freddy fans with the existing first film on BD and a double feature of the best (Dream Warriors) and worst (Freddy's Revenge) Nightmare entries, the United Kingdom gets the whole shebang plus some new extras (including episodes of Freddy's Nightmares) in a Region Free package.

 Yes, that's Region Free as in "it will play on your PS3 / Blu-Ray player / etc." And so I'm not sounding like a commercial, in the interest of full disclosure I already ordered one which means I paid what was roughly $55 bucks with currency conversion. It won't even arrive for another week and a half at the soonest, but it's worth the hassle for me. If it's available and the same thing I'm going to see twelve months from now, I'll drop a little more for the privilege of having all the Nightmare flicks in one box again.

 I also put a little bit down for Arrow Film's Blu-Ray release of Day of the Dead, the much maligned third entry into Romero's "Dead" series. It's also region free, looks better than the Anchor Bay BD, and has something that no release of Day of the Dead has since VHS - the original audio track. For whatever reason, all of the Anchor Bay DVDs of Day of the Dead had slightly modified tracks that arbitrarily replaced profanity. Arrow Films found the original track and included it on the disc, along with new and old extras, a special effects commentary track (with the "N" and "B" of KNB plus two other crew members) in a really nice box that kicks the old BD all over the road. That I was able to find on the Amazon Marketplace for less than what a comparable set might sell for over here.

I'd considered Arrow's Dawn of the Dead, but the darned thing isn't Region Free, which makes it about as useful as the All the Boys Love Mandy Lane Blu-Ray I bought without reading carefully. Ah well, all the more incentive to seek out a Region Free Blu-Ray player down the line...

 Oh, and just so we don't leave out Amazon.ca, they have [Rec], [Rec]2, and Martyrs on Blu-Ray, which has my attention (although not my wallet.... yet). So there are plenty of options out there for a high definition Horror fanatic with an urge to splurge. Which would be me, but currently isn't: of the massive list above, I only have The Phantom Carriage and Troll Hunter. That Frighteners discs is really calling me though - both cuts and everything from that flipper disc special edition!

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 In order to make this a proper "News and Notes" and not just a "hey gang, this is what's coming on Blu-Ray" I must stress my disappointment in the walloping that the prequel to The Thing is taking. I had a more than passing interest in seeing the film, but the negative buzz is such that I just can't bring myself to waste $10 for something that disappointing. Damn. Well, there's always Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and Piranha 3DD when that comes out.

Shameful... just shameful.

I wanted to start off tonight's blog with a correction:

Astute readers have pointed out to me that Zombies on Broadway (1945) actually precedes Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) and Africa Screams (1949), so the horrible jokes aren't really recycled as I claimed.. I suppose the question is then, Who's Stealing from Who?

Nevertheless, I'm standing by my So You Won't Have To ranking. There's nothing in Zombies on Broadway I feel is worth recommending: it's not funny, it's not scary, and Lugosi fans are going to come out of the film wanting more. If Zombies on Broadway were in any way entertaining, I'd probably overlook the fact that those lame jokes weren't stolen from better movies. But it's not entertaining, and the stolen gags are put to better use by Bud and Lou. So I apologize for the poor research, even though it doesn't change my opinion of the movie.

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So that Terrorvision won't feel so alone in the VHS category of Horror Fest films, I picked up House of Death, a little ditty I read about here. I realize that's not what you'd call a "positive" review in the strictest sense, but if a slasher movie is both confusing and locally made (well, somewhere in North Carolina), then it has room at the Fest.

To prove to you that I didn't Netflix a dvd or find a cheap way out, here's a picture of the cassette tape (also purchased on Amazon from somebody in NC)


And a picture of House of Death side by side with Terrorvision.


And, for good measure, a picture of the reunited Brothers Shecklestein.

Pay no attention to the price tag on Yankel; reuniting brothers is priceless.

Well, that'll about do it for tonight.

So You Won't Have To: Zombies on Broadway

It's been a while since the Cap'n gave you folks a "So You Won't Have To". Maybe because I've been watching good movies, or maybe it has to do with planning H-Fest, but I've been derelict in my duty of simultaneously informing and steering you away from crap movies.

Well, tonight you're in luck. I accidentally stumbled onto a SYWHT out of curiosity, and it's saved the rest of you from having to watch it in three week's time: Zombies on Broadway.

Sometimes, if you haven't heard of a movie, it's not because some hidden gem is waiting to be discovered. Sometimes, a movie goes missing because it's just that bad, and Zombies on Broadway is certainly that. Not only is it not a horror movie, or a horror comedy, but it manages to be not scary and unfunny at the same time. Even the billing of Bela Lugosi is pretty misleading, since he's nowhere to be found for most of the movie.

Instead, audiences are treated to the foreleast in comedy teams: What's His Name and The Other Guy. Okay, they have names: Jerry Miles (Wally Brown) and Mike Streger (Alan Carney), and they appeared together in a series of movies (like Girl Rush) that look suspiciously like low rent Abbott and Costello movies. To no one's surprise, Zombies on Broadway is also like a low rent Abbott and Costello movie.

Jerry and Mike are working for gangster Ace Miller (sheldon Leonard) as press agents. See, Ace is trying to go straight with his new club "The Zombie Hut", and Mike and Jerry promised him a real live zombie for opening night! They figured that since nobody in 1945 knows what a zombie is, they could sneak one past Ace, but a clever gossip reporter threatens to expose the whole operation, so Jerry and Mike are sent packing to find Dr. Renault (Bela Lugosi) in San Sebastian in order to find a real zombie.

Tangent: your guess is as good as mine as to why a gangster like Ace Miller even cares what a gossip reporter has to say, especially since deriding The Zombie Hut has no real bearing whatsoever on his criminal past. We only know Ace is a gangster because he threatens to kill Jerry and Mike repeatedly.

So Jerry and Mike go to San Sebastian to find a zombie (the voodoo kind, not the gut munching variety), and instead get involved in Abbott and Costello-esque hijinks. Seriously, Zombies on Broadway lifts just about every gag from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and Africa Screams, only this time they forget to make them funny. The witless duo meet singer Jean LaDance (Anne Jeffreys), and are stalked by Renault's zombie Kolaga (Darby Jones). See, Dr. Renault is jealous of voodoo zombies, so he's trying to replicate on with medicine. Renault lives in a castle somewhere in the middle of a jungle with his pilfered zombie servant, some other dude, and two dogs.

Mike and Jerry also run afoul of a voodoo ceremony, meet a monkey, and have castle hijinks revolving around Jerry getting knocked out instead of Dr. Renault. Mike has time to get into blackface, get poked in the butt with a spear, and turn into a zombie! Even Bela Lugosi gets into the act and plays peek-a-boo with a monkey! Hilarity!

I guess the title is only kinda misleading: no one's technically on Broadway, and there's really only one zombie at a time until the very end. Lugosi's Dr. Renault is more of a glorified cameo, since this movie is more interested in stupid jokes and recycled "I saw the zombie but now he's gone!" sequences. For a movie that's only 67 minutes long, Zombies on Broadway sure feels like twice that.

Maybe sixty five years ago, back when zombies were something people didn't know much about (this did only come out two years after I Walked with a Zombie), you could pull this kind of shenanigans with audiences and get away with it, but Zombies on Broadway doesn't really live up to anything it promises. It coasts on lazy writing and exploits audience ignorance in order to offer plenty and deliver nothing.

Now you know, and hopefully you won't bother finding out for yourself. In fact, I'm going to say skip disc two of the Warner Brothers Karloff / Lugosi set altogether. You won't be asked to sit through them during Horror Fest, so there's no sense in wasting your own time either.

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Side note: I'm rather serious about the voting window being short for choosing one movie. At most I'll give you two days, but we need to cut the list down so we can fit them all in on Saturday. Please drop by and vote as often as you can, as this determines what we'll be watching on Halloween.