The Legend of Hell House (1973)

Who's In It: Pamela Franklin (The Food of the Gods), Roddy McDowall (the original Planet of the Apes movies and TV show), Clive Revill (the original Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back), and Gayle Hunnicutt (Marlowe).

What It's About: Four paranormal investigators try to survive a haunted house in order to unlock the secrets of the afterlife.

How It Is: I'm surprised that I don't love more haunted house movies, but I think the problem is generally the characters. This one has a great-looking house, a pretty good mystery, and some spooky scares, but I only really feel anything for one of the characters.

I like the set-up that each investigator has their own area of expertise. Florence Tanner (Franklin) is a medium who specializes in channeling voices. Benjamin Fischer (McDowall) is adept at letting spirits take over his body and act through him. Lionel Barrett (Revill) is a scientist who attempts to measure ghostly phenomena so that he can get rid of it with the exorcism machine he's invented. His wife Ann (Hunnicutt) is also his assistant and she insists on coming along in spite of the deadly history of the house.

Fischer is the most reluctant of the group. He's the only survivor of a previous expedition into the house and has closed himself off psychically. That should make him a fascinating character, but he actually ends up making the house less spooky. Early in the film, it's his job to tell the other characters how deadly the house is, which of course makes me wonder why he's there. The team is being paid extremely well, but why does Fischer think that's worth his life? I end up thinking that the house can't be as bad as all that.

And that turns out to be true when, later, Fischer reveals that he's figured out a way to game the ghost. (It's not played as a shocking revelation; just a bit of information that he's been withholding for no good reason.) The fact that there's a safe loophole in the haunting again makes the whole thing less scary. The only thing keeping the story going is that the other characters either don't know what he knows or care.

Tanner is too trusting of the house and her own abilities for me to take her seriously. And Lionel Barrett is so distrusting and cranky that I don't like him, either. But I do like Ann, who knows that she's going into a dangerous situation, but loves and trusts her husband enough to follow him into it. She's the only character to strike the right balance between being threatened by the place and having a convincing reason to stay.

Rating: 3 out of 5 shook up psychics.

The Terror (1963)

Who's in it?: Boris Karloff; Jack Nicholson (yes, THAT Jack Nicholson); Sandra Knight (Frankenstein's Daughter, Thunder Road)

What's it about?: An officer (Nicholson) is separated from Napoleon's army and gets entangled in ghostly goings on in a baron's (Karloff) spooky castle.

How is it?: Hammer horror a la Roger Corman. Corman does a nice job replicating the mood of Hammer films, but there are two major problems with The Terror. First, Jack Nicholson is as convincing as you imagine he'd be playing a French officer. He's a strangely likable hero, but completely out of place in this period piece.

The more serious problem though is that the story makes no sense. It starts off confusing enough with Nicholson's meeting a girl (Knight) who may be a local villager in thrall to a witch, some sort of Ladyhawke-like were-raptor, the ghost of Karloff's dead wife, or something else entirely. That's all weird and cool; I like being kept on my toes. But the more twists and surprise revelations the screenplay reveals, the less it all holds together. By the end, there's some whackadoo supernatural stuff going on that can't be resolved with the rest of the stor; it's just there to be shocking.

Karloff was 76 years old when he made The Terror, so he's not very physical in it, except in the climax. I don't want to spoil details, but the biggest shock in the film is Karloff's impressive burst of activity at the end after watching him shuffle slowly around the castle for the first hour. Regardless of his activity level though, Karloff easily outacts everyone else in the movie.

Rating: Turkey, but worth watching for Karloff fans or anyone interested in the novelty of young Jack Nicholson and Roger Corman's trying to emulate Hammer's period-horror films.

Screaming Skull (1958)

Who's in it?: John Hudson (Gunfight at the O.K. Corral); Peggy Webber (Orson Welles' Macbeth); Alex Nicol (The Man from Laramie; he also directed Screaming Skull)

What's it about?: A newlywed couple (Hudson and Webber) moves into the ancestral home of the husband's deceased, first wife, but ghosts from both of their pasts make it difficult to settle in.

How is it?: First of all, I love the guarantee on the poster, and it's repeated at the beginning of the film. It actually is a pretty effective horror movie. It eases into the scares with sophistication I don't usually associate with '50s horror. Hudson and Webber's characters seem happy and normal at first, but at least one of those adjectives is being faked for each of them. There are some unanswered questions about the death of Hudson's first wife (though hardly anyone but the audience is asking them) and we slowly learn that Webber has some serious skeletons in her own closet. Complicating the situation is the presence of the first wife's developmentally challenged, childhood friend (Nicol) who also serves as gardner to the grounds of her estate. He misses his friend dearly and doesn't exactly welcome Webber.

In the midst of this, Webber starts hearing noises and seeing a skull in various places: a cabinet that won't stay closed, the ground outside her window, chasing her across the floor. Is she crazy? Is the gardner up to something? Is her husband trying to make her insane Nightmare Castle style?

The mystery probably won't fool you, but the movie is very effective at portraying the feeling of being alone in a house where every noise sends the imagination racing. The skull is also super creepy as long as it's just appearing various places, but loses some power once it starts moving. Like all horror movies, Screaming Skull is best when it lets the audience's imagination do the work.  Fortunately, that's most of the time, and even when the film uses effects, they're astonishingly good.

Rating: Good. Almost a Classic.

One Body Too Many (1944)

Who's in it?: Jack Haley (the Tin Woodsman in Wizard of Oz); Jean Parker (The Gunfighter); Bela Lugosi

What's it about?: A dead millionaire leaves a complicated will, forcing his potential heirs to spend time in a dark mansion. Naturally, someone starts to kill them off.

How is it?: Haley gives this comedy a lot of heart as a timid insurance salesman who shows up for an appointment he booked a month before the millionaire died. Parker plays the millionaire's favorite niece and she and Haley fall for each other and try to keep each other alive.

The humor is farcical rather than joke-based, so while there aren't many laugh out loud moments, it's a lot of fun. Haley strikes a nice balance in his performance. He's comically frightened without being slapsticky about it. The funniest stuff has to do with Lugosi and Blanche Yurka as the millionaire's butler and maid. They're as suspicious as anyone and are constantly offering (possibly poisoned) coffee to the rest of the characters. Lugosi's disappointment each time he's refused is pricelessly hilarious.

Rating: Good. It's worth watching especially if you like movies about old, dark houses with lots of secret passages, but Haley is also charming. If you're a fan of Lugosi at all though, it's a must see.

Pass the Comics: Cowwitches and Voodoo Cave Girls

Geronimo Jones is not welcome in The House of Revenge!



Cowboy vs. Witch! [The Charlton Story]

Dr. Spektor must rescue the Bride of the Walking Dead



I like how the traditional "bridal outfit" for Voodoo is a Cave Girl costume. [Diversions of the Groovy Kind]

31 Things I Love About Halloween: Haunted Houses

Or Haunted Trails. Or anything where you pay a few bucks to walk along with spooky music playing and have someone in a hockey mask jump out at you every once in a while.  Bonus points if there's a station where you have to put your hands in a covered bowl of spaghetti brains.

They don't have to be professional or even State Fair quality either. The best are the ones people do in their own houses, especially if kids helped come up with the plan.

Art Show: Frankenstein's a Big, Fat Cheater-Pants

Conan vs. Werewolves



By Alex Horley. [Illustrateurs]

Monster of the Mountains



By Ken Kelly. [Illustrateurs]

Xombi vs. Kinderessen



By JJ Birch. [John Rozum. Man, I miss Xombi.]

After the break: More monster madness.

Friday Night Art Show: Trick or Treat!

A Haunted House... A Haunted Life...



By Boris Dolgov. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Frankenstein



By M@tthew [Avalanche Software Art Blog]

Boo!



By Phil Postma [Sketchy Business]

Halloween



By Matthieu Forichon.

Ghostie



By Corrie McAlpine.

Pumkin



By Mathieu Reynès.

October's adventure comics

This week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs is up at Robot 6. It's about all the great adventure comics coming out in October. We got treasure hunters, Viking demon-hunters, giant Nazi robots, ray guns, pirates, monsters, private eyes, a haunted house, and more Apocalipstix! October's going to be a great, great month.