Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

* Oh, dear. This one is just right for the IMDb Horror Board's November Turkey Challenge, an annual event where boarders watch as many rotten apples as possible in a competition that asks people to remain masochists for over a month. I feel sorely in agony as I watch John Carradine trapped in this slog. William Beaudine, the director of this, was about to meet his end a few years later (1970) but before his career was over, he had two dogs left to posit on the cinematic universe. In perhaps the worst casting choice I could ever imagine for Billy the Kid, Chuck Courtney sleepwalks through his part and has zero charisma. In fact, he's an absolute bore. I can't fathom what made him the right choice for the part during the casting process. And to treat Billy as some "golly gee" fresh-faced "reformed" outlaw who doesn't look the part of a notorious gunslinger feared by many does this film or the character a disservice. And then there's t

*** From a Whisper to a Scream is kind of a bittersweet little horror anthology for me because it was an obvious indication of how Vincent Price was entering the twilight years by 1987. Still I can only imagine that landing VP was quite a privilege for a young director like Jeff Burr. I always felt Burr was a decent, competent director who got a raw deal with the third Chainsaw film, Leatherface, ripped apart by censorship and sort of did him the injustice of not exactly getting hired on projects much thereafter. If anything, he has always been plagued by others grubby hands taking his product and altering each film to suit their own fancy. Before he was besieged by the “sequel bug”, Burr had a chance here to lay down roots for a cult following, his anthology having the luxury of featuring Price as age was declining him into fewer film appearances. Films that could have Price’s name in their credits certainly were anxious to make sure we knew about it…why wouldn’t they?

*** A bored, unhappy, alcoholic deputy in a podunk town, Lou Garou (get it?), gets mixed up with Satanists unintentionally (a wannabe mayoral candidate happens to be a victim he encounters while on the call for a disturbance in the area), and he has a new dilemma...he is turned into a werewolf thanks to a particular ceremony leading to a pentagram carved into his chest! Is there a particular reason why he is burdened with this curse and does it involve some regulars in the local political scene of his town?

My ode to a softcore performer who has become a favorite of mine.

****   Twice-Told Tales (1963) is designed as a “trio of terror” but I prefer “three tales of the macabre”. There’s nothing terrifying about any of these tales. They have their degree of morbid to them, particularly the first tale while the third tale (House of the Seven Gables, more Hawthornian than the other two tales in this anthology) also has its share of shady goings-on.  The first tale—Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment—concerns aging friends who are spending a rainy night celebrating a birthday. Dr. Heidegger (Sebastian Cabot) is 79, and he’s drinking away with long-time buddy, Alex (Price). Carl (Cabot) has been mourning the death (39 years ago) of his beloved fiancée, Sylvia, and with a reluctant Alex visits her casket (kept in a mausoleum nearby the mansion). Both notice a water leakage from the roof of the mausoleum onto her casket, soon discovering when the top comes off that Sylvia looks preserved, exactly as she was upon her death so long ago. Realizing that

*** You know, I think certain films are just right for October, Halloween month. Roger Corman’s Tales of Terror (1961) is Edgar Allan Poe in anthology form, with the first and final tale played straight and serious while the middle tale (with Peter Lorre) an absolute comedy (despite a rather morbid “walling up” of two people). I think the first tale—Morella—is the traditional Corman Poe story developed with Price full bore tortured lonelyheart, toiling forlornly in his decaying mansion, for twenty-plus years pining for the wife who died not long after giving birth to the daughter he longed for death due to her “being responsible” for his beloved Morella’s demise. So twenty-six year old Lenora (Maggie Pierce) returns to see her father to tell him she’s dying. Morella (Leona Gage) claimed prior to her death that she would be getting revenge on Lenora for supposedly taking her life. Price is always fun to me when he has that look of torment, melancholy, and agony. Torn