HALLOWEEN 2024
It's the spooky season once again so what better time could there be for a few monster movies? This time around the villains in question may be human or alien in nature, but the films all have one connecting feature. They could have been focused stories about things from outer space, evil barons, or living statues, but they've got all kinds of other plot elements vying for attention. Of course they're still entertaining as a result but it's interesting to see how writers decided to add subplots or disparate genre ingredients. Why have one idea when you can have two, or maybe more, in the same ninety minutes?
1958's The Trollenberg Terror seems to be a story about a radioactive cloud in the Swiss Alps. Of course the alternative title The Creeping Eye gives away that this is in fact a creature feature. It's a giant blob movie despite the fact that they've tried to play down the alien aspects with mysterious mountain climbing deaths. One of the strangest story elements is the way that this is all a repeating incident; the main characters saw similar things in The Andes some time earlier. Nobody believed them because they had no evidence, but every so often someone stops to say 'this is just the same as before.' It's a strange premise but exposition has to be delivered some way I suppose.
Meanwhile in the plot from another movie two women travelling to Geneva by train are forced to stop at the village of Trollenberg after one has a telepathic vision. That's right, they're not just here as tentacle bait, there's a whole diversion into the world of travelling magic shows. Sarah (Jennifer Jayne) has an act where her sister Anne (Janet Munro) can read minds and see objects hidden behind a screen. Why this means that she's being drawn to an alien power in the mountains is never clear. But of course this is all 'just like the last time' so the scientists involved can draw some quick conclusions.
It's all wildly uneven but the film works thanks to lots of atmosphere before the big cycloptic jellyfish shows up. People are killed by unseen forces in fairly brutal, if mostly bloodless, ways. Some are subject to alien mind control and go on axe murdering sprees. The psychic idea has no real impact on the ending which is a cop-out involving a bombing raid, and the involvement of a snooping reporter also goes nowhere. It doesn't help that UN agent Alan (Forest Tucker) and his scientist pal Dr. Crevett (Warren Mitchell) are pretty dry leads and there are some dubious German accents. But despite these caveats it's a fun adventure with some memorable b-movie effects.
3/5
Next up 1961's Sardonicus (or Mr. Sardonicus if you want to polite) is a William Castle thriller that borrows parts from Phantom of the Opera, some from Dracula, and elements from elsewhere. The title character is a sadist who lives in a mansion where all the mirrors are covered up. He wears a sinister mask to hide a disfigurement and has a one-eyed henchmen who lures locals to the basement for 'experimentation'. Guy Rolfe does an excellent job as being a voice only (until flashbacks) but is also an imposing physical presence. Oscar Homolka as his servant Krull is a typical addition but even he gets some characterisation in the third act.
The story itself concerns Sardonicus trying to get a cure for his appearance; a kind of rictus grin caused by a grave digging incident. Apparently the best doctors (and the worst experiments) have failed to find a cure, so he threatens his wife Maude (Audrey Dalton) into getting help from her old flame Sir Robert Cargrave (Ronald Lewis). Conveniently Robert has become a medical expert in the years since they last met, and has become famous just in time for Sardonicus to run out of ideas. The romantic melodrama is typical and the science is pretty sketchy, but it's a moody premise. Just don't think too much about the supposed new invention... the 'hypodermic needle'.
Beyond spooky 1800s locations and some good stylistic flourishes the story works because it's about wealth and vanity. The ghoulish thrills on offer are part of a tale in which characters have lost and gained because of selfish obsessions. It's not exactly deep and the ideas about psychology and fear causing extreme physical changes are very thin. But while the final product might not be much more than the sum of these parts it's all pretty compelling. Castle himself shows up for one of his famed gimmicks; asking the
audience to hold up a card to decide if the villain should be punished
or not. There is of course only one ending.
4/5
Meanwhile IT! (1967) is a story about a museum statue that turns out to be a living golem. But even this isn't so straightforward as they throw in elements from Psycho just for fun. The result of these combined ideas is absurd but as things get increasingly silly the film becomes more entertaining as a result. A mild-mannered assistant curator with ambitions that can be helped by a killer statue? That's a pretty good hook. Does he need to be so eccentric already? Does he need to be living with the remains of his mother? Does the finale need to involve military action? The answer is no on all counts, but they did it anyway.
Maybe all these ideas are a way of making a pretty small scale film seem bigger. The golem looks pretty good (even if by design it's more alien vegetable than ancient relic) but elsewhere the low budget shows. A set piece involving the destruction of a bridge lacks impact and certain moments during the third act resolution are rushed. With so much going on they never explain why the statue was already alive or how it killed two people before its secret is found. But as things unravel it's an easy film to enjoy thanks to Roddy McDowall as Pimm; would-be jewel thief and doting son.
After ignoring warnings from an expert about the golem being unstoppable, and the obvious issue of his connection to several deaths, Pimm tries to woo curator's daughter Ellen (Jill Haworth). But she's not interested; maybe because her father just died near the sinister statue, or maybe because Pimm is so twitchy and odd. Later her actual love interest Perkins (Paul Maxwell) wants to take the statue away for his own museum and claims selfish use of such power will cause it to run amok. Which of course isn't true since they have no money for a city wide rampage. Still, the ending throws in just enough unexpected moments that it's hard not to enjoy.
4/5
