The Monster Club

As I mentioned in my previous blog post regarding Price and Carradine’s involvement in The Monster Club (1981), I was rather excited to finally see the film just because they were in it together. And they do share enough time in the film to at least please me. I wish it was more but we get what we get. In regards to horror anthologies, I think fans of Amicus or Corman have certainly seen better. Carradine and Price take the roles they’re given and play them for amusement. Price as a vampire at least fulfilled my horror dream’s bucket list: seeing him bear the fangs for a moment was a cool moment for me personally. Carradine as a victim soon flattered and lauded by admirer Price (Carradine is a horror novelist; Price is a vampire follower who wants him to join him at a club featuring monsters of all kinds) just kind of shrugs off the blood depleted from his throat as if it was no biggie! Price also tries to move away from the bite and blood removal, seemingly rejuvenated by the drawing; previously before taking from Carradine, Price was not in good shape. All of this takes up about ten minutes. Carradine is out at night, crosses a window display of his most recent book, walks near an alley, is surprised by a slurring, sickly Price, and in an offering of help is bitten on the throat. Then we get to the club of the title, with Price telling three tales to Carradine while disruptive, intrusive musical interludes make fucking sure to disturb the flow of the anthology. The music might appeal to you, but I was moving past the onstage performances to get back to the horror.

There’s a lengthy explanation of the lineage of crossbreeding when werewolves and vampires mix. Price does so without missing a beat or catching a breath…it is damned impressive even if all of it was rather unnecessary to me. I don’t really need to know the kind of monster a particular tale’s protagonist is. It does include a whistle that burns a cat alive when it eats one of the protagonist’s pet birds.

The first tale is a rather melancholy piece on a “shadmock” named Raven (James Laurenson), who needs an assistant to help him catalogue items in his mansion. Raven is considered a hideous ghoul with a heart of gold according to the way the tale sets him up. The direction by Roy Ward Baker for this tale is all punch-in-the-gut obviousness. Raven is “ugly” but a good, pleasant soul with a whistle that can cook you into ash. He’s to *almost* be a patsy for a couple of con artists, Angela (Barbara Kellerman) and her beau, George (Simon Ward; “Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed” (1969)). Angela winds up with the job and is civil and sweet to Raven, even though she first responds to Raven with immediate repulsion. George remains a manipulative factor from a distance, needling Angela to continue the job at the mansion until she can learn of a combination to a safe in Raven’s study and gather moneys or pricey items. Raven falls mad for Angela and she develops sympathy for his plight. But she is beholden to George and he can convince her to pretty much to anything. If she will fraudulently lead Raven on and plot to rob him when his back is turned despite his absolute well treatment of her, that says a lot about how George can play her like a fiddle…and in turn she plays poor Raven like a fiddle. Well, the attempt to open the safe after a small masquerade ball (Raven dedicated to Angela) is made, Angela just devolves into an insulting knob, and Raven cranks up the whistle. A tear and anguish on the face of Raven is a powerful close to the tale while George sees the handiwork of his greed and avarice when Angela returns to him…a little worse for wear.

**½/*****

The second tale is a rather cheeky bit of vampire parody (much in the same *vein* as Price’s work as his vampire) that has a game Richard Johnson (The Haunting (1963), Lucio Fulci’s Zombi (1979) & the wonderful, rather unseen “The Witch” from (1966)) playing “father bloodsucker” while his bullied son and joyfully accepting human wife carry on daily while he goes about biting necks and feeding on blood (just enough to survive, not turn folks or harm them ultimately) at night. You have an order of vampire hunters (a trio in this tale’s case, led by Donald Pleasence) who search for blood suckers and stake their hearts. Pleasence dresses as a clergyman and eases into the kid’s confidence, learning of his father’s peculiar behavior, getting his boys together to find the casket Johnson sleeps to give him a stake to the heart. Johnson seems all vulnerable and perfectly available for the stake, but he’s a cunning fellow with a surprise for Pleasence. Pleasence will learn what it is like to be in the shoes of his victim, while his boys are placed in a difficult predicament.

**½/*****

The third tale has Stuart Whitman as a growly movie director taking it upon himself to scout for the just-right location to shoot for his cheesy horror picture. He located a place off the beaten path…a village with impoverished, disheveled, and grubby folk who are very, very hungry. A history of creatures that eat from the graves of the dead have passed its influence to the starving folk is provided to us in very impressive artistic renderings within a book found by Whitman in an aging, cob-webbed cathedral the village-folk are afraid to enter. Whitman befriends the daughter of a “voice of the people”, played by a typically baleful Patrick Magee (let me tell you, love this guy; I have always thought he was perfect for the horror genre; he has these piercing eyes and this arching head proposing a menace that is matched by his serpentine vocal delivery), who wants to leave the village with him. She is the one who informs him of their plot to fatten him up and eat him! So Whitman and the girl head for the cathedral, avoid stones hurled through the window of the building, and make a run for it, hoping to flee the area and get away. The ending left me a bit rolling my eye—it went for the twist and was a bit too cute for my taste. That the girl conveniently gets hit in the sweet kill spot of her head so she wouldn’t “slow down” Whitman and that he conveniently is picked up by cops leading a convoy for the very menace the film director wishes to escape from (and this is pure anthology cliché in that the protagonist appears to get away only to find himself/herself right back where he was running from) were just too much to resist for the writers of this anthology.

**/*****

We return to Price and Carradine leaving their special table in the club to join those crazy monster kids as they rock it out and dance the night away. Price makes a case for Carradine joining the club because humankind are the worst kind of monsters on the earth: and his case is frighteningly accurate! Carradine is a good sport, with his withering body and frame noticeably conveying his diminishing health which does kind of break my heart. Price can take the cheesiest of lines and silliest of parts handed to him and, through sheer tongue-in-cheek enthusiasm, make them work when others, quite frankly, would look totally embarrassing and humiliating. To me, that is why I fall into that state of mourning when I lament the loss of all the talent that simply doesn’t exist today. Even the mediocre movies like The Monster Club, a pale comparison to the likes of decent, rather moderately successful Twice-Told Tales (1963) and Tales of Terror (1962), yield something to glean from them thanks to icons of the genre who try and bring a spirit and joie de vivre to material that might not deserve such treatment.

Just the same, I thought the middle tale had some fun to it, while the first tale posits a gloomy face thanks in part to a soft-hearted recluse who often hid in the shadows, keeping his face concealed until necessary. Richard Johnson was in Price mode here, understanding perfectly how to match performance to tone and do so effectively. The third tale just didn’t do much for me. It had this Lovecraftian bend to it, but I think the absence of those monsters and Whitman’s wearisome director distancing himself from the viewer (he’s literally ganged up on and pressed into a small room, and left alone by them which was odd) don’t quite elicit much in the way of dread or sympathy. It does have that feel of a Twilight Zone episode where a man of the world gets lost within a nightmare he can’t escape from, but I just thought it lacked a flair and substance to it. Magee was a hoot, particularly when it appeared he was talking without teeth…maybe he needed to pop in the dentures!

Movie overall: **½