Decades of Terror: Takoma's Slow-Moving October Time Machine

Fade to Black, 1980

Eric (Dennis Christopher) is a socially-awkward young man who is obsessed with golden-age Hollywood films. He lives with an oppressive aunt (Eve Brent), and works a miserable job hauling film back and forth for a distributor. Eric’s eccentricity turns deadly when he encounters a woman named Marilyn (Linda Kerridge) who he sees as Marilyn Monroe. Determined not to be pushed around anymore, Eric takes inspiration from his favorite films as he seeks revenge against those who have wronged him.

A “there but for the grace of God” cautionary tale for all of us cinephiles.

There’s a phase in life that a lot of kids go through where they treat knowing a lot about a topic as a substitute for a personality. It is not. Unfortunately, some people never quite get through this phase, and I’m sure a lot of film fans can overly identify with some aspects of Eric’s conduct. Eric seeks solace in his movies, not just for the stories that they tell, but because knowing them backwards and forwards gives him a sense of superiority over all those (more popular, more successful) people who don’t know a character’s last name.

Eric is an interesting main character, and Christopher’s performance is really excellent. Everything that is unlikable about Eric is something whose origins we can trace to the unfortunate circumstances of his life. His aunt who demeans him and enjoys the control she has over him. A boss who gets on him for problems that aren’t his fault. Co-workers who openly bully him, and the silence of the rest of the workers who implicitly condone that bullying. Eric’s walls and even ceiling are covered with images from films, and it’s what you imagine the inside of his mind looks like as well. Some people who are neurodivergent engage in something called echolalia, where they communicate using words taken from other people (often movies or TV shows). Watching Eric take refuge inside the film personas made me think a bit of this phenomenon.

The supporting cast is also very good. Kerridge is very likable as Marilyn, who accidentally stands Eric up for a date and doesn’t realize just how much that will change his life and hers. Brent is all smug domineering cruelty. A young Mickey Rourke makes an impression as Richie, Eric’s most outspoken and physical bullies at work.

The film is also a virtual treasure trove for anyone who enjoys the same era of film as Eric. From the posters in his room and workplace to the movies he references when he finally snaps, there are plenty of “I know that!” moments both big and small. The makeup and costume design are more than worthy, as Eric takes on the clothing and appearance of different movie antagonists.

I was also interested in the way that the film traced Eric’s behavior toward women. His sexual frustration seems to underpin a lot of his anxieties and anger. There’s obviously the character of his aunt, who relishes telling Eric that she’s looking forward to a foot rub from him. Then there’s the sex worker who rebuffs Eric (and to be very fair to her, he pesters her and then offers her $10 for sex). At his angriest, we watch Eric masturbate to a photo of Marilyn. While the aunt is pretty terrible, neither the sex worker nor Marilyn are in any way deserving of revenge from Eric, and for the most part I felt as if the movie didn’t portray them as having earned their abuse.

One part of the film that didn’t work for me is a large subplot about a police officer named Anne (Gwynne Gilford) and the relationship she strikes up with a psychologist consultant named Jerry (Tim Thomerson). On one hand, I liked seeing a character in a movie talking about actually helping someone with mental illness. Jerry is genuinely compassionate toward Eric, despite knowing that the young man has been violent. But the subplot just takes up too much of the runtime, and Anne and Jerry end up being spectators to the action as opposed to being any kind of integral part of it.

Lots of fun, especially for movie buffs.

Don’t Go in the House, 1979

Donny (Dan Grimaldi) lives with his domineering mother, a woman who physically and emotionally abused him all through his childhood. When she unexpectedly passes away, it sets off a confusion and rage in Donny that sees his fixation with fire escalate into a series of brutal murders.

This one succeeds far beyond what I expected from its premise.

The horror canon is full to the brim with men who hate women. Sometimes for no reason. But quite a bit of the time because of their bad, bad mommies. Donny’s mother (Ruth Dardick) was an abusive, violent woman who permanently scarred her son, physically and emotionally, trying to “burn the evil out” of him. On this front, the movie isn’t exactly breaking new ground.

But where the movie does get something very right, in my opinion, is in the way that it frames the killing of Donny’s victims. Specifically, there’s something very compelling about just how every-day these women are and how little they do to provoke Donny’s ire. This is especially true of his first victim, a woman who owns a flower shop and agrees to stay open a bit late so Donny can buy some flowers for his sick mother. That kindness means that she misses her bus. Faced with sitting around at night with two men who are catcalling her, she accepts Donny’s offer of a ride home. This then becomes Donny needing to stop by his house first. It only takes the woman, Kathy (Johanna Brushay), a few minutes to realize things are off and ask to leave, but by then it’s too late.

The least likable of Donny’s victims are two friends who are drunk when Donny offers them a ride to a bar. But their worst crime, honestly, is failing to contain their looks of disbelief when Donny starts spinning obvious lies about his military career. (If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, then it’s also true that hell hath no fury like a man being factually corrected).

This is a film centered blatantly on trauma, and a large part of the tragedy is realizing very early on that Donny just never had a chance. At one point, we see a path for him. Donny has a sympathetic co-worker named Bobby (Robert Carnegie), who invites Donny out on a double date. Things are going well until the woman he’s been set up with tries to pull him out onto the dance floor, unwittingly bringing his hands close to an open candle flame. It doesn’t end well.

If the deaths of the women were more graphic, or if the film spent a longer time lingering on them before their deaths---Donny chains them nude in a room that he’s lined with metal to be fireproof---I think that this would tip into unacceptable exploitation for me. But most of the violence is left to the viewer's imagination, and the women are very real and often very likable, so they don’t feel like anonymous bodies that have been drafted for nudity and suffering.

The movie also goes to some interesting places in terms of which parts are just in Donny’s head and which parts are meant to be really happening. Donny hears voices, not only from his dead mother, but also from the other victims who he dresses and places around her. Is this just mental illness, or are supernatural forces involved?

One aspect of the film that felt a bit heavy handed to me was the running theme of bad moms. Obviously there are abusive mothers out there, so it’s not so much Donny’s mother who is the problem. But in the background of the action we repeatedly see women abusing and berating their sons, with the implication being that all these bad moms are creating men who will be violent to women. I don’t doubt that there are men whose negative relationships with their mothers drive some of their general anger toward women, but in the world of this movie, that’s the ONLY reason it’s implied that a man would feel such hatred, and that doesn’t really wash.

On the whole, this was an effective and very sad horror with some powerful moments.

I felt pretty much the same as you about this movie, much better than I expected and with an almost Taxi Driver-type of grimy feel to it.
I do wonder if you saw the version that was cut a little bit or the original theatrical version. The latter made it a tougher movie in that that first kill in the metal room is especially grim.
Anyway, glad you got a similarly positive reaction.

I'm not sure which version I saw. I mean, I think it's grim from the moment she realizes that this guy didn't just want to drop some flowers off for his mom.

For all the outlandishness of the premise, the "fire room," etc, there is a lot of grimy realism. And the co-worker trying to help him be social is a big part of it.

I watched Birth/Rebirth last night, which deals with medical folks doing stuff they shouldn't oughta, and I was reminded of this conversation. I thought it was pretty great, and Marin Ireland's performance as the ethically-challenged M.E. was a winner.

Disturbing but not off-puttingly so, I'd say. You can handle it. (On Shudder/AMC+)

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So no burgers with way too much ketchup? Cool, cool.

Heavens no. It's called Shudder, not Gag.

Beauty and the Beast (aka Panna a Netvor), 1978

In this variation on the classic tale, merchant Otec (Vaclav Voska) steals a rose from an enchanted beast (Vlastimil Harapes) and finds that his life can only be saved if one of his daughters agrees to take his place. Otec’s youngest daughter, Julie (Zdena Studenkova), learns this and sets off for the castle. Once there, Julie and the Beast start to form a tentative relationship, which conflicts with the Beast’s rough, predatory nature.

This is a visually entrancing, spooky reimagining of the classic tale.

Television, books, and movies are so rife with variations on classic fairy tales, that it sometimes seems like a go-to for creators without much imagination. But when someone does take a classic to an interesting new place, it reminds you that there’s some great stuff to be mined and reconceptualized from those old stories.

The bones of the story are familiar in this retelling, but the changes made to the typical presentation of it give this interpretation a spooky, unique energy. The film leans into the idea of the Beast being, well, a beast. Most versions of the story frame the Beast as sort of a lonely perv who wants a pretty girl around the house to stare at. (I do quite enjoy that Angela Carter’s retelling of the story makes the sexual predation of the story more overt). But in this film the sexual lust is layered with bloodlust. The Beast must fight a desire to kill and eat Julie, choosing instead to hunt down deer in the forest to sate his hunger.

I also loved the utterly creepy iteration of the living mansion. We are very far from the dancing teapot and candlestick of the Disney version. Heck, we’re pretty far from the disembodied hands of Cocteau’s version. Here, the fireplace, the chandelier, and even the bed are animated/possessed by crouching black gremlin creatures. In one scene that is an absolute stunner---and total nightmare fuel---a frightened Julie on her first night at the Beast’s mansion gets into bed, only to have the canopy descend on her, operated by one of those gremlin things, sealing her in like a large coffin.

There are also some very enjoyable fantasy elements in the castle, such as a magical window that allows Julie to see her family back home. Julie is able to watch them and even walk among them, though they cannot see or hear her.

The characters of Julie’s sisters, Gabinka (Jana Brejchova) and Malinka (Zuzana Kocurikova), provide some solid comic relief. Their lost dowries are what motivate their father to get involved with the Beast, and they show shockingly little care about the fate of their little sister. Their pettiness and greed are classic fairy tale mean sister traits, and the film doles out a fair comeuppance by the end.
My only real criticism is the same criticism that I tend to have about every version of this story: I think that it’s dangerous and irresponsible to suggest that “good women” are the ones with the power to redeem violent men through unquestioning love and being compliant, undiscriminating hostages. Julie is an absolutely delightful prisoner. Her reaction to someone declaring that he’s really struggling not to murder her is to be like “ . . . well I just love these statues!”. The mechanics of a person falling in love with someone who is holding them hostage via terrible coercion just can’t escape being kind of gross, no matter how much the lovely lady declares that she’s cool with it and no matter how sexy the Beast turns out to be in the end. (Look, fine, that final shot of them with the doors opening and him carrying her through them is absolutely gorgeous and romantic.) It’s a fundamentally icky aspect of the source material, and I’ve yet to see any adaptation that navigates a teenage girl giving into Stockholm syndrome in a way that is free of some degree of yuck. The problem with this aspect isn’t just the underlying sexism, but the fact that having Julie be so compliant means that her character is a bit flat. For the story to work, Julie has to be kind of a doormat. The Disney version at least gave us that both characters loved books and this was an aspect they could bond over. Julie’s a nice gal and all, but I wish I’d felt more of a connection to her as a character. Even a scene or two showing more of her bond with her father would add deeper motivation to her decision to sacrifice herself for him.

All in all a creepy and charming retelling that will make you think twice about sleeping in a canopy bed.

Death Game, 1977

George (Seymour Cassel) is a middle-aged family man who is left home alone on his birthday as his wife Karen (Beth Brickell) takes their son to the hospital for an emergency surgery. That evening, two young women--Agatha (Sondra Locke) and Donna (Colleen Camp)--claiming to have been caught out in the rain come knocking at his door. What at first seems like a dream comes true quickly turns to a nightmare as the women refuse to leave and grow more aggressive and unpredictable as the weekend goes on.

Wickedly funny case study in “well that escalated quickly!”.

Knowing/guessing what a movie is trying to do is often a critical part of trying to decide to what degree you think it’s been successful. My interpretation of what this film is trying to do is a nightmarish parody of a sex fantasy gone wrong, playing on just about every phobia a middle-aged suburban dad might have. And while I think that the film is mostly successful, there’s a degree of ambiguity in its handling of the antagonists that keeps it from greatness.

There is a lot to love here, starting with a seduction sequence that is painful to watch. While Donna and Agatha fawn over George and how cool he seems, Donna can’t help but roll her eyes as George explains to her the brilliance of the hip new record he’s putting on the turntable. Totally oblivious to the smirks and mild contempt, George only has eyes for the brief flashes of underwear as the girls playfully wrestle and their naive pouts. When he finds them naked in the bathtub, what choice does the man have but to engage in a threesome with two strangers while his wife manages their child’s medical emergency?

The sex scene itself is absolutely hilarious, scored with a riotous “CHICKA-BOW” soundtrack as the two women float and circle on and around George like two orcas that have cornered an unsuspecting seal.

And then morning comes. George is downright insulted to find that the women he slept with didn’t do him the courtesy of vanishing in the night, and instead are making breakfast. Immediately what seemed like playfulness the night before takes a hard left turn into provocation. An overturned bottle of ketchup fitfully gloops out onto the white tablecloth.

For the entire rest of the film, things will only get worse for George. He can’t let his wife or neighbors know, and so he repeatedly blusters at the women until backing down when realizing the dent he’d do to his reputation and/or marriage. In a moment that he does seem more determined to call the police, Agatha announces that they are both underage. (The fact that this is obviously, OBVIOUSLY not true makes this element funnier, as it takes the “so hard to know if they’re of age” argument to a ridiculous place.)

There’s a lovely, delirious place where this film coheres every middle-aged male anxiety into one tidy package in the form of this deadly duo. They are ruthless seductresses out to ruin a good man. They are underaged deceivers who look so much older, how is a guy to know?! And worst of all, guys, Agatha might be a lesbian. Like, one of the serious butch ones, not the for-fun kind from your naughty movies just waiting for a penis to complete her life.

The visuals also do a great job of reflecting the headspace of the characters. There’s the dark, shadowy night of the storm and the sexy times in the hot tub. Then there’s the harsh light of day. But in the last act, everything is bathed in a demonic, harsh green light. George is in his own personal hell, and the ringmaster is an underage tease in Marlene Dietrich cosplay.

Where the movie doesn’t quite land right for me is in the way that it frames Agatha and Donna. Both women allude to sexual assault/abuse/incest as part of their past, and I think that the more winning idea the film has is that the kind of woman who would slot into this male fantasy---a barely-legal woman having unprotected sex with a stranger---is probably someone who has some damage going on. I kind of like the idea of these women having traumatic pasts, and the more George talks down to them and tries to dominate them, the further it pushes them into a kind of deadly defiance of his power. I also like the idea that it’s so easy for them to know which buttons to push to evoke that reaction in him, creating a sort of intensifying feedback loop.

Unfortunately, the movie also wants to lean into the characters as scheming, implying that they’ve even pulled this same trick before. This take on the characters---predatory lesbians entrapping innocent dads---is less interesting to me. And it’s this side of the characters that makes the biggest impression, as the women commit sadistic acts against people and animals who aren’t involved in their schemes. When the movie tries to mix and match these approaches---such as having Donna go into some fugue state/flashback related to her past abuse and then immediately going back to being deliberate and calculating in her cruelty---it falls flat for me. The characters are intensely unlikable: loud, crude, disrespectful, etc. I think that leaving the door open on their humanity would have made this a far more interesting picture.

If two ladies come knocking while your spouse is out of town, leave the door closed and call them an Uber.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown, 1976

Styled as a documentary-esque reenactment of real events that took place in Texarkana, Arkansas in the 1940s, this film follows the murder spree of a man known only as the Phantom. Targeting couples who are out after nightfall, the Phantom is pursued by the local police, including Deputy Norman Ramsey (Andrew Prine). As the police hit frustrating dead end after dead end, they and the citizens of Texarkana grow more and more desperate.

An oddly flat exercise in true crime horror, notable for a handful of effective moments and a whole lot of inexplicably bad ones.

I don’t have Dan Olson’s soothing Canadian cadences, but you can imagine him saying, “What are you doing? Why . . . are you here?”. I find this film genuinely baffling, and if it weren’t based on actual murders, I’d probably find it rather amusing.

There are a few things that work, outnumbered though they are by the parts that don’t. The Phantom, in his pillowcase mask is a scary character. The low-budget look of him, his uncertain body language at times: it all makes him feel like a regular guy who for whatever reason decided to go out and terrorize people. This isn’t a killer with mythological or supernatural vibes like Jason in his ski mask. You fully believe that by day this guy might be a mechanic or a bank teller, that he might have a family at home, that you might run into him at the grocery store.

I also found some of the attack sequences genuinely suspenseful, such as when the Phantom attacks a couple in their home. The wife, who has been shot in the cheek, stumbles out of the house and tries to make it to a neighbor for help. And while I’ll get to the absurdity of one of the later killings, I did find something poignant in a young woman begging her boyfriend to make a run for it and save himself.

And while it’s not explored well AT ALL, I did think that there was something interesting about the setting of these murders. Texarkana is a small town trying to get back to a place of normalcy after the end of WW2.

Finally, this movie has a great title. Half of a star of my rating is for the title alone.

This could have been a solid little slasher, one that would stand out for the true-crime basis of its story, post-WW2 setting, and the bizarre nature of the crimes. But I would absolutely love to know who looked at this story and thought that what it really needed was to be at least 43% slapstick, B-grade comedy. There are multiple sequences, all involving the police, that beg to be scored with Yakkity Sax. It’s jarring and frustrating, and these additions have no basis in reality. In reality, the police did have teenagers to act as decoys. You know what they didn’t have? Middle-aged police officers dressed in cheap drag. In reality, the police did conduct some traffic stops to question suspects. You know what didn’t happen? Police cars falling into ponds with sad horn noises in the background.

I don’t even know what to say about the infamous sequence where the Phantom attaches a knife to a trombone slide and uses the trombone to stab a woman to death as she’s tied to a tree. If this were a made-up story, then at least there would be a fun camp element. But at the time of this film’s release, several victims of the real attacks were still alive. I know that nothing should be off-limits in art, blah blah blah. But I couldn’t help thinking about how it would feel to see a horrific crime committed against you or a loved one turned into a tasteless joke.

But the worst crime this movie commits is that it’s boring. There are no interesting characters, and the pace absolutely draaaaaaaaaags. The agony of the police would make for an emotional centerpiece, except that any scene involving them is a grab bag of actual plot and terrible comedy bits. The movie looks bad, as well. And while occasionally there’s a creepy home movie energy to it---such as in the scene where the Phantom pursues the woman he just shot--generally it just looks flat and muddy.

Just watchable enough, I guess, but I had a better time and was more thrilled by reading the Wikipedia entry about the actual events.

The Devil’s Rain, 1975

Jonathan Corbis (Ernest Borgnine) is the leader of a satanic cult who is burned at the stake along with several of his followers. Centuries later, Corbis comes after a powerful book that is being kept by the descendents of some of his followers. Emma Preston (Ida Lupino) and her son Mark (William Shatner) are captured by the cult. Investigating their disappearance is Mark’s brother, Tom (Tom Skerritt) and his wife, Julie (Joan Prather). Can the Preston family save the souls captured by Corbis, and can they save their own lives?

A mix of absurd plot and visuals intersect with some genuinely spooky moments in a pleasing way.

With a lot of horror movies, it’s very easy to hold the film at arm’s length and just laugh at it, but there’s something really fun about just taking somewhat seriously all of the ideas being thrown at you. In the case of this movie, I found that a very rewarding approach.

The litmus test of how you will come at this one as an audience member arrives in basically the first three minutes. Mark, Emma, and a family friend are at home in the middle of a dramatic thunderstorm. Mark’s father, Steve (George Sawaya) stumbles home, appearing at the front door with only dark pits for eyes. He gasps that the family must give Corbis back the book of souls and then MELTS INTO THE GROUND.

The whole film then becomes a tightrope to walk between taking things seriously and very much not taking them seriously. Mark travels to an abandoned desert town to confront Corbis, and then we are treated to Captain Kirk engaging in a battle of faith with glowering and smug Ernest Borgnine. Again, this is a time to choose!

But I stuck with it, and I’m glad I did. There’s a lot that’s absurd, but the film is blessed with a talented cast who lend a degree of seriousness and professionalism to this movie that keep it from sliding into camp territory. In this lens, the visuals are also really winning. Again: this could be looked at as just camp and laughed at, but I was really charmed by the imagery, including the prop/effect that shows us the meaning of “The Devil’s Rain.”

There is a limit to the charms, however, and that’s in the pacing and storytelling that feels a bit too loose and sloppy at times. Julie is a psychic of some sort, and her visions clearly pertain to what is happening with her husband’s family. But aside from some neat visuals/foreshadowing, this subplot is not well explored. The film also doesn’t do a great job of building relationships between its characters. There’s a lot of characters just scurrying from place to place, witnessing things, then scurrying somewhere else.

I did quite enjoy watching this movie, and I think that whether you’re watching it as camp or taking it seriously, it does stick the ending. I think that this would make for a great movie to watch with a group of friends, especially in the Halloween season.

Sounds like they remade this in 2015 with Knock Knock. Similar scenarios and everything.

I haven't seen Knock Knock, but I remember it coming out and the basic premise, and once I was like 10 minutes into this film I was like . . . . wait a minute.

Phantom of the Paradise, 1974

Winslow Leach (William Finley) is a mild-mannered, overly-trusting composer who makes the mistake of showing his compositions to devious music producer Swan (Paul Williams), owner of the Paradise. Just when Leach has met the lovely Phoenix (Jessica Harper) and imagined his career coming together, Swan has him framed for a crime and sent away to jail. Leach escapes, but is irreversibly mutilated. Returning to the Paradise, attempts to reclaim the music as his own, but Swan may be more nefarious than Leach could ever imagine.

Wildly imaginative and stuffed full of musical numbers and references to books, movies, and music, this is a joyful ride.

Sometimes you watch a film and, even if you don’t exactly love it, you totally get why others do. I think it might take a rewatch or two for me to feel out if this is a favorite for me, its charms are totally apparent even on a first viewing. This is a film where everything works, because it all exists in the same strange universe. It’s a film that asks you to expect the unexpected, and then consistently delivers.

The main strength of this movie is the world it builds, which is at time realistic, at times hyperbolic, and at times outright supernatural. And yet it all blends together so that we don’t blink when a problem is crooked police officers, and we don’t blink when it turns out that maybe someone is actually Satan. The world in this movie is a cynical one, to be sure. People in power only use that power to take advantage or and/or harm others. Beauty is only appreciated for how it can be exploited for profit and power. We don’t just need our main characters to overcome the antagonists, we need them to overcome the cruelty of the universe.

And while I think that the world building is the best part of this movie, the pitch-perfect cast of characters that populates that world runs an easy second place. Finley’s Leach is obviously too nice, something that can be a bit frustrating at the beginning. Even when he seemingly snaps and becomes the Phantom, he’s still somehow too trusting. Williams is really the star of the show as Swan, a man who craves money and power at any cost, and is willing to chew up and spit out anyone who gets in the way. Something that adds dimension to Swan’s character is the fact that he is genuinely talented, both at recognizing talent and using technology to turn Leach’s work into smash hits.

Harper is likable enough as Phoenix, a character who is very much like Leach, right down to just wanting to be allowed to share her talents. When she first shows up to audition, the “audition” is a leering group of men sexually assaulting or coercing the women on a couch in a seedy backroom, and Phoenix runs away in disgust. I honestly didn’t really buy her return to the Paradise, and it feels very much like something that’s a bit artificially put into the script in order to drive the conflict between Swan and Leach. But Harper is talented enough and likable enough that she mostly (mostly) escapes feeling like just a trophy for the two male leads to fight over.

Rounding out the lead cast is a truly entertaining performance from Gerrit Graham as Beef, a singer who is brought in to sing Leach’s music. Beef is a totally over-the-top personality, and Graham’s performance is at turns hilarious and demented. Every minute that Beef is on screen is incredibly engaging.

The set design and costuming deserve special mention, because the movie is absolutely bursting with details both large and small. Obviously there’s the infamous image of Leach’s bird-like face mask. But every set and every costume has a special touch to it.

There wasn’t much here that I disliked. I thought that Phoenix was underdeveloped as a character. She’s nice and dumb, and she’s the character whose actions seem most dictated by what the script needs her to do in order to motivate Leach or Swan to a certain course of action. I wish just one scene or two had been used to deepen the relationship between Leach and Phoenix to ground his fixation on her a bit more. Like I wrote before, Harper is too good to be reduced to a mere trophy, but she’s really the only female character and it’s frustrating that someone named Beef feels more fully formed than her. (Look, Leach is also nice and dumb, but he’s proactive whereas she is merely reactive and almost entirely passive).

Oodles of fun, and probably a perfect midnight movie.

Scream, Blacula, Scream, 1973

When a dying Voodoo matron decides to pass her position of power onto her apprentice, Lisa (Pam Grier), instead of her son, Willis (Richard Lawson), the latter decides to get revenge by raising Blacula (William Marshall) from the dead. But Blacula will not be controlled by Willis, and instead quickly builds a small army of vampires. Yet instead of vying for power, Blacula longs to have his soul and his humanity restored, and he sets his sights on Lisa as the one to help him.

Grounded in moving character work, this is a surprisingly compelling sequel to the original film.

There are plenty of superficial reasons why someone might not check out a movie: a bad poster, an eye-rolling title, a cringe-worthy tagline. I’ll admit that I’d never paid much attention to Blacula or its sequel because the titles made them sound like the kind of exploitation that I wouldn’t care much for. But I’m glad I finally took the plunge because this film is definitely toward the top of best horror sequels and is just an all around great horror movie.

So much of the credit for how good this movie is rests in the main character, also known as Mamuwalde, and the way that he is portrayed by Marshall. He is a vampire, but one who still retains some of his humanity and longs for his human days in Africa. The movie drops in little moments all throughout the story that force us and Mamuwalde to reflect on what his life was and what it is now. The most poignant is perhaps when he attends an art show featuring a collection of African art and jewelry. The look on his face is bittersweet nostalgia, and also the awareness that his life and loved ones are now history to be set behind museum glass.

I also really loved the portrayal of Mamuwalde’s conflicted feelings about being a vampire. Turning others into vampires gives Mamuwalde power, but we can see that it is empty. When Mamuwalde looks down at the small collection of men and women he’s turned, he has nothing but contempt for them. While many vampire films mostly focus on the angle of erotic control and the vampire as seductor/seductress, there is something mechanical and removed about the way that Mamuwalde systematically turns the people who stand in his way.

The film also has two strong supporting performances in Grier and in Don Mitchell, who plays Lisa’s boyfriend, Justin, an ex-police officer who gets drawn into investigating the spate of deaths in the area. Justin and Mamuwalde have several cat-and-mouse conversations, while the conversations between Lisa and Mamuwalde are more empathetic. In a lesser film, there would be a love triangle with Mamuwalde trying to seduce Lisa. Instead, it’s something more moving, as Mamuwalde sees Lisa as someone powerful enough to help restore his soul.

In the horror department, there’s plenty of good stuff here. An eerie sequence involves Lisa staying up with one of Blacula’s victims, Gloria (Janee Michelle), who at one point arises from her coffin and calls pleadingly to a confused Lisa. There’s also one heck of a final showdown between Blacula, Justin, and a slew of police officers.

From head to toe, this is just a solid horror movie with a fantastic central performance and engaging subplots dancing around him. This is a movie with teeth and with a heart.

Silent Night, Bloody Night, 1972

One day in 1950, a man dies horrifically burned alive in his own home. Twenty years later, the man’s grandson, Jeffrey (James Patterson) decides to sell the mansion he inherited. But things are not quite as they seem in the small town. When Jeffrey arrives to complete the sale, he finds that his agent has disappeared and he must team up with the mayor’s daughter, Diane (Mary Woronov) to figure out what happened and how it connects to dark events from decades earlier.

An intriguing premise gets buried under slow-moving scenes and a nonsensical conclusion.

Curse that interesting poster art! Despite middling scores and reviews any time the film has come up, something about the movie’s poster has always drawn me in. I have a decent tolerance for a low-key 70s horror thriller, but this one just can’t find its mojo until far too late in the game.

Oodles of horror movies trade on the idea of a small town where things just aren’t right. It’s tried and true because it can be a very effective set-up. An outsider wanders in with no clue about the hidden histories and long-buried secrets. The movie sets up quite a few intriguing dynamics. Jeffrey’s lawyer---and the lawyer’s mistress--is gruesomely dispatched by an unseen killer. A mysterious person calls the sheriff, identifying themselves as “Marianne”.

I liked the dynamic of Jeffrey and Diane trying to figure out the history of the house. The movie frequently shows flashbacks as sepia-toned montages of still photographs. I quite liked this effect and thought it added an eerie element that elevates the movie from looking low-budget, which it surely would have if it had just done black-and-white flashbacks. There’s an actress who plays a person who lived in the house who is part of the flashbacks, and I thought she did a great job of bringing emotion to her photographs.

It’s only in the last act that the movie really gets some traction, mainly because it finally gets into the outlandish history of the house and its occupants. I was very mixed on this final act, because on the one hand, it is probably the most engaging part of the film. On the other hand, the last act leans heavily into stereotypes about people with mental illness. There are also about three different things we are told that simply don’t make any sense, and retroactively make a lot of the film non-sensical.

As for the ultimate ending . . . . oof. I found it pretty underwhelming and limp. This is a case of a movie holding its cards close to its chest, then playing them all at once in a frenzy, but by the time those cards land, we just don’t have enough emotional investment in the characters for it to hit.

Great poster, middling movie.

This thread is a treasure trove of 70s horror thriller movies! Will stick a few on my watchlist, thanks.

I know I loved Silent Night Bloody Night. No I don't remember why.


I do have a very high tolerance for aimless padding though, which always helps.

This film is, incredibly, basically 90% aimless padding, but then it has this absolute soap-opera-level potboiler outlandish story that it shoves at you in about 8 minutes of running time.

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, 1971

Alan (Anthony Steffen) is a wealthy man who handles his emotional anguish over the death of his wife, Evelyn, by torturing and murdering sex workers in his personal dungeon. On the advice of his cousin, Alan marries a young woman named Gladys (Marina Malfatti) who resembles Evelyn. But soon after the two are wed, strange events and attacks take place at the couple’s home. Has Evelyn returned from the grave to haunt her former husband?

Elevated by some fantastic visuals, this twisty horror-thriller is let down by its ending and an uncompelling main character.

The sweet spot of this film is the middle, in which a mansion full of obnoxious people are being menaced and killed by an unknown, and possibly supernatural, perpetrator. This stretch of the movie is full of eerie, lush visuals, and also the absolute joy of trying to figure out which of the suspicious people inhabiting the mansion is responsible. In a story full of murder, adultery, death, wealth, and sadism, there could be any number of deliciously outlandish explanations for the strange goings-on.

What doesn’t quite work about this movie is that it’s almost more like three different films. The first act is a chilling look at a man who is so powerful and wealthy that he can indiscriminately torture and murder women just to satisfy his own emotional issues. Our look at Alan’s life in this first act is a disturbing glimpse at control and abuse. What else can you feel but disgust at a man who murders red-headed women while a cage of foxes howl in his yard? Worse, there’s a kind of knowing silence in everyone from his cousin to the servants who work on the grounds.

The second act shifts more to the point of view of Gladys and the various hauntings/assaults taking place. Again, I felt that this was the best part of the film.

But the third act, where everything comes to a head and the truth is unfurled really fell flat for me. I was underwhelmed by a conclusion that abandons the visceral unpleasantness of the first act and the visual splendor and wackiness of the middle act.

Without going into details, the final act really fails to resolve anything about Alan’s murders of the women in the first act. Sometimes in a film it can be hard to distinguish between a character being misogynistic and the film itself being misogynistic. But in this film, it seems pretty clear that the filmmakers themselves (along with Alan), view the women characters as sex props to be used and discarded. Whatever else happens in the film, Alan’s cold-blooded murder of the women is the most chilling element, and yet the movie uses them as set-pieces and not a real part of Alan’s character arc.

And about Alan . . . eh. I think that it’s an interesting idea to put such a character at the center of the film. Usually most of it would be from Gladys’s point of view, but instead there’s more of an even split. But sadly, Alan’s just a rich, sexist, insecure jerk who uses his power to hurt women. And that’s about it. While I really enjoyed Malfatti’s role as Gladys and the evolution of her character through the story, Steffen really didn’t make an impression on me aside from the repulsion naturally generated by his character. You could argue that Alan being uncharismatic actually speaks to the way that he’s able to use his money to acquire women as victims, but because the film abandons its focus on those activities, this idea doesn’t go anywhere, even if it were the intention of the performance.

The visuals are solid and the middle act is fun, but the ending is the pits and it’s ultimately not a very satisfying experience story-wise.