FINAL GIRL explores the slasher flicks of the '70s and '80s...and all the other horror movies I feel like talking about, too. This is life on the EDGE, so beware yon spoilers!

Mar 14, 2024

Chilling Classics Cthursday: I BURY THE LIVING (1958)

Here we are, ten weeks into this Chilling Classics thang and I have to say, it's been a worthy endeavor so far. In a box crammed full of 50 movies there has to be some gems, right? It's just statistics! And it's been proven a few times over already, by the forever esteemèd Cathy's Curse, by another movie whose number will be chosen by RNGesus at some point, and by today's lit and legit treasure of a film, I Bury the Living.

If you don't believe me, well, surely you believe one Mr. Stephen King, who hailed I Bury the Living in Danse Macabre, his 1981 foray into the realm of non-fiction. Reading about horror movies--or really, reading about movies in general--has always been as vital to me as the movies themselves, and I ate Danse Macabre the fuck up in my (obligatory) read-all-the-Stephen King teen years. So it's sure nice to check off another one of the works first plopped onto my radar in that book once upon a time. 

"Heart disease is the country's number one killer!"
"Maybe not in Milford..."


Robert Kraft (Richard Boone), the perfectly average and mild-mannered President of Kraft Department Stores, is the newly-appointed chairman of Immortal Hills Cemetery. It's a year-long post, something to do with business and committees and community outreach and you know how it goes for tycoon types. Cemetery caretaker/handyman Andy McKee (Theodore Bikel, who made appearances on Columbo, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Murder She Wrote, and Arthur Hailey's Hotel, so you know I'm in love) shows Kraft a large map of the grounds; a white pin in a plot's location means the plot has been purchased, while a black pin means the plot is filled...with a dead body! (Because that is how cemeteries work.)


Kraft accidentally sticks a black pin on a newly-purchased plot and a few hours later, the purchasers are dead. As he's always been prone to deja vu and manifesting his daydreams (like some early proponent of The Secret or something), he wonders if there might be a connection: can he kill people with the power of the black pins?


After a few more tests, a few more pins, and a few more deaths, it would seem that yes, Robert Kraft is making this happen. While you might expect that he would then, I don't know, eliminate his department store rivals and enemies or something, he just gets bummed out about this terrible power. His guilt is actually rather refreshing! Kraft locks himself away in the map room, wallowing in misery and getting all dirty and disheveled as he tries to grapple with the fact that he's essentially become a murderer, wondering: "Does a man die on his own time, or on the map's?"


I Bury the Living plays out like a really terrific Twilight Zone episode or something penned by Richard Matheson...and then it fumbles at the goal line, drops the ball, and does some...other...sports analogy in its closing minutes that may have you blurting out an "aw man!" or some such. If you don't believe me, well, even Stephen King has talked shit about the ending of this movie. Now I am not sure why I feel the need to back up my opinions with Stephen King's opinions today. I guess she moves in mysterious ways.


But you know what? It doesn't matter that the ending craps the bed, because the rest of I Bury the Living is so damn good. Director Albert Band--yes, the father of Charles Band! And the director of oh, what? Just a little something called Zoltan: Hound of Dracula (aka Dracula's Dog)--makes the absolute most of the limited sets, using special effects and unique shot set-ups to make this movie more stylish and original than a B-movie from 1958 has any right to be. In a word, I Bury the Living looks cool as hell. I'll say it again for the people at the back: this is a total gem of a movie. All hail the 50-pack! All hail Danse Macabre! All hail the map!



Mar 7, 2024

Chilling Classics Cthursday: JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER (1966)

As you may know by now, each week's Chilling Classic is chosen by a random number generator, lest I forever flip back and forth through all 12 discs trying to figure out which movie I'm in the mood for. It's best to put my faith, as always, into RNGesus's hands. And so it was Mill Creek's will that I sat down with Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966), which is really the only way I ever would have sat down with it. The title alone screams "not my bag," and I will admit to a heavy sigh as I pressed play. It was a "lie back and think of England Chilling Classics Cthursday" scenario! Now, on the other side of having done my duty (or at least half of my duty: I still have a lot of post to write), I can say with a bold confidence that I have, in fact, seen Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter.

As is the case with the seminal 1985 film The Nail Gun Massacre, the title Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter tells you all you need to know. Famous outlaw Jesse James does indeed meet Frankenstein's daughter! Truth in advertising. A blessing in this chatbot-riddled world, amirite? Love it.

Dr. Maria Frankenstein  (Narda Onyx) and her assistant Rudolph have immigrated to the American southwest from Vienna. The desert lightning storms are great for their evil experiments, experiments that began attracting the attention of authorities in Europe. Now, tucked far away in a matte painting an abandoned mission, they prey on the local Mexican population; When young men die in the lab, they quickly dispose of the bodies, telling grieving families that it had to be done for fear of spreading a contagious disease.

Maria is a mad scientist who takes after her grandfather Victor, wanting to create a living automaton that will do her bidding. She makes it clear that her father was a wuss who--much like Rudolph--didn't have the stomach to do what it takes to get this unethical shit done. So she keeps bringing up her grandfather, which might make you wonder for a second why they didn't call this Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Granddaughter. But that's a more awkward title, no? Maybe someday future nerds will argue over this in some even lame-er parallel to the "it's actually Frankenstein's monster" arguments. Yes, she is still a Frankenstein's daughter, but that Frankenstein isn't the Frankenstein you're thinking of. The point is...WHO CARES, I guess. Especially when we have more important things to talk about, like the way her lab coat is more of an overcoat!

Meanwhile, Jesse James and his "friend" (I put those quotes there to fuel your imagination), the hulking lummox Hank, decide to rob a stagecoach with Butch Cassidy Curry and the Wild Bunch. But Curry's brother rats out the gang to the Marshall, who is played by STOP THE PRESSES none other than Jim Davis--no, not the inventor of Garfield Jim Davis. (Although how cool would that be?) I'm talking about the Jim Davis who portrayed none other than Jock Ewing on a little something called television's Dallas! Reader, I fell out of my chair, puked in my pants with excitement, and started spinning around in a circle going WOOB WOOB WOOB like whichever Three Stooge does that. I will never doubt the powers of the almighty RNGesus ever again!

Thanks to the ol' double cross, there's a shootout during the stagecoach robbery, and Hank takes a bullet for Jesse, as friends do.

As they're wanted by the law, they can't go to just any old doctor. The pair stumble across the Lopez family, who have left town after their son died at the hands of Dr. Frankenstein. The daughter, Juanita, reluctantly directs Jesse and Hank to Castle Mission Frankenstein. On the way, they are attacked by a single "savage injun," complete with headband and buckskin outfit; Jesse saves Juanita, which means they are now in love. (Sorry, Hank.)


Maria is excited by Hank's physique, as unlike the "ignorant" and puny locals he is sufficiently strapping enough to handle the brain transplant. There are no racial implications to any of this at all!!!

The mad doctor activates the artificial brain that she will put inside Hank's head (which gives it...a heart beat? I guess the science checks out), puts on her mad doctor helmet, gets the machines where the blue lightning spark goes "bzzzzrt bzzzzrt" as it travels up between two filaments (you know what I'm talking about), and the next thing you know, Hank is reanimated.  He is now christened "Igor," and Maria can command him around.


It all makes sense if you think about it.

Oh, speaking of other things that make sense, Maria is also in love with Jesse James. He spurns her advances (he's loyal to Juanita, whom he has known for fifteen minutes longer), so Maria wants Juanita dead. Hell hath no fury like a Frankenstein scorned!

The only reason any of this matters is because the Marshall eventually shows up, and I can pretend that the Marshall is actually Jock Ewing. So it's Jock Ewing facing off against Dr. Maria Frankenstein, which will color my viewing of every episode of Dallas forevermore. In fact, I think this makes Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter an official prequel to Dallas, which is all any of us could ever want from life.


Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter was...not as bad as I thought it was going to be. And I'm not even saying that because of the surprise Jock Ewing! It's a goofy-yet-solid, delightfully dumb lite horror-oater. Narda Onyx leans into her role as Maria, arching her eyebrows and managing to wear that helmet with a straight face. John Lupton makes for a dull-as-dishwater Jesse James, but it's not entirely his fault. The film portrays James as a Robin Hood-type, making it a point that "he's not the type to hurt women" while stressing the tragic love story between the heading-for-the-gallows outlaw and the headstrong Juanita.

Yeah, it drags in the middle. William Beaudine's direction is very workmanlike, mostly wide shots of folks standing or sitting around talking. This is par for the course for Beaudine, the insanely prolific director who began making Poverty Row pictures in 1915 and ended with drive-in fare like today's movie and Billy the Kid Versus Dracula half a century later. If you wanted a movie made in a week on the cheap, you called "one shot" Beaudine, who shot only what he needed and often edited in-camera. Little fuss, little muss, hundreds of movies and television episodes. But no Dallas! Except, of course, this prequel. Later this week I will be starting a change dot org petition to have the film officially renamed Jock Ewing Meets Frankenstein's Daughter. I hope you'll sign it and forward it to your friends.

Feb 29, 2024

Chilling Classics Cthursday: THE WAR OF THE ROBOTS (1978)

 

1970s Italian horror (or in this case, sci-fi, I suppose) truly was the best of times and the blurst of times, wasn't it? Maybe you'd get a purely original li'l sumpin' sumpin' like Suspiria, or maybe you'd get a li'l sumpin' sumpin' ripping off whatever smash hit was happening in Hollywood at the moment. No matter whether you've got an original or a rip-off on your hands, though, one thing's for sure: the film's poster is probably bitchin'.


 

So it is with The War of the Robots (La guerra dei robot, 1978), which arrived in the wake of Star Wars and takes a lot of...mmm, let's say "inspiration" therein, but it simultaneously comes off as a relic hailing from an earlier era of sci-fi cinema, where people in jumpsuits have long conversations filled with "technical"-sounding nonsense ("Navigation computer?" "In function. Our objective is at 1.5.") whilst standing in front of a wall of blinking lights...before their plastic model starship slowly glides along in front of a matte painting.



I, for one, find all of this to be a GD delight. I just can't get enough of the aesthetics in The War of the Robots, what, with the sparkly turtlenecks, silver boots, futuristic headwear, pew-pew laser guns that sometimes don't make any noise, women sporting the hairstyles of Ann Jillian or Annie Lennox, and the "light saber" fights that remind you just how cutting-edge and amazing Star Wars really was.


This movie is best enjoyed (if it's within your wheelhouse to enjoy it at all, that is) if you disregard the narrative as much as possible. A "gang of aliens" kidnap a professor and his assistant because their race is going extinct, and the professor has built a machine that can "create artificial life." The good guys, led by Antonio Sabato (Senior!) as Captain John Boyd, set off to rescue the pair not only because it's the nice thing to do, but also because the machine, which is back on Earth, will "explode" if the professor doesn't stop it. And while this is "the future," don't worry, there are still the dubious sexual politics and plot developments of the 70s at play!

That's...kind of it, except there are twists and double-crosses that don't make much sense, but who cares? The group touches down on an asteroid, we get the blaster and saber fights, people spend a lot of time jogging down corridors--sometimes in a cave, sometimes on a ship--and the aliens all look like this:

The best thing about their gold suits-and-terrible bowl cuts look is that in a (not at all) shocking twist, it's revealed that they are not aliens, but robots...and so that means that whomever designed these robots added the gold suits and terrible bowl cuts. This makes me wonder what look I would give my personal robot army, if I had one. I hope we find out some day!

The plot is enjoyably ridiculous and gives way to many a dialogue gem:

  • "So, you've got a plan. Perhaps you're planning to murder everybody!"
  • "How long do you think those two will hold out?" "Not long. Yet those two are amazing."
  • "When I think of all that's happened, it makes life fantastic."
It's the kind of sci-fi movie where they make a big point of everyone putting on their "anti-radiation spacesuits," and then they all walk outside without helmets, you know?


I want to be 1000% in on The War of the Robots, but to call the pace "glacial" is too generous. The soundtrack, which consists of a lot of bleeps and blorps and honestly is the real star of this show, does its best to keep things moving but it's a losing battle. No matter how much you dig the kitschy aesthetics, there will come a point around 45 minutes in where you begin to incessantly wonder when it will be over. This effect is no where more pronounced than the final 20 minutes of the movie, which are taken up by a lethargic spaceship dogfight that wants to be the Death Star run at the end of Star Wars so very badly but is like...I don't know, it's the Death Star run in a coma, and it will likely test whatever remains of your patience. Not that the effects aren't dazzling!



Do I recommend this? Maaaaybe, if you have as much of a soft spot for this kind of thing as I do. I am tickled by the whole endeavor, and anyone like writer/director Alfonso Brescia (working here as "Al Bradly"), who tries to make a sci-fi epic with $1.99 and a dream. The vision may not be realized--not even close--but the imagination is running wild, and I can get on board with that. Really, when I think of all that's happened in The War of the Robots, it makes life fantastic.

Feb 22, 2024

Chilling Classics Cthursday: CATHY'S CURSE (1977)

After the disappointment bestowed on me last week, RNGesus did me a real solid this time around, blessing me with an excuse to watch Cathy's Curse (1977) for the gazillionth time. In fact, it was thanks to this very same Mill Creek multi-pack that I saw it for the firstillionth time way back in 2009, and I wrote about it for this very site. The fact that a pull-quote from that review ended up on Severin's Blu-ray release of the film is one of THEE honors of my life, and I am not even kidding!

As always, "film," simultaneously feels like too strong a word for Cathy's Curse and a word that is not nearly strong enough for Cathy's Curse. This is because it transcends not only our mortal concept of what a "film" is, but it transcends our earthly laws entirely. I wrote about this phenomenon a couple of SHOCKtobers past, in the one where I talked about my favorite horror movie characters. 

[...] Cathy's Curse is here to remind you that you know absolutely nothing and you never truly will. Like a member of The Flat Earth Society or a cinematic hardened rogue vigilante cop, Cathy's Curse feels stifled by "the law," be it the law of man or the law of nature. Cathy's Curse operates outside the system, beholden only to the rules of its own world, a world in which the logic of our world simply doesn't apply. Nothing has meaning. Meaning itself has no meaning. It laughs at your struggle as you try to figure it out, as you try to impose order on its chaos--for within this film there is only chaos.

Of course, Cathy's Curse isn't really film, it's more...something you experience. It's something that happens to you. It lingers, clouding your brain, clogging it with thoughts that may not be your own. Time will no longer have meaning. Meaning will no longer have meaning. Your new life will be consumed by Cathy's Curse, as mine was long ago, and your only choices are to adapt or to die. It's the Cathy's Curse curse!

I've written about Cathy's Curse a lot. And I've talked about it even more. If you've never seen beheld it before, please avail yourself of it ASAP. Then you will see why I write and talk about it so much. In fact, I've written and talked about it so much that I don't know what I can say about it now that I haven't already said. It rules! So you could read my original review, or you could read that SHOCKtober post, or you could listen to episode 127 of Gaylords of Darkness ("Waterside Fisting"), or honestly you could just run into me at the grocery store and I will tell you all about it. 

That's because Cathy's Curse has and continues to enrich my life in countless ways. And I want it to do the same for you, because I care!  



Feb 15, 2024

Chilling Classics Cthursday: PANIC (1982)

It's been a while since I've called a movie a "Tiffany" around these parts, but it's so very on point for today's Chilling Classic that I'm busting the term out again. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the musical stylings of the artist Tiffany, a Tiffany movie is one that she could have been singing about/to in her 1987 hit song "Could've Been." To wit:

When I think about

What could've been

It makes me want to cry

--

Could've been so beautiful

Could've been so right

You can't hold what could've been

On a cold and lonely night

No-uh-oh, no-uh-oh, oh-oh

That last line was me weeping as I put Disk 7 back in its cardboard sleeve, then put the cardboard sleeve back in its cardboard box. No-uh-oh, no-uh-oh, oh-oh I cried, because Tonino Ricci's Panic (aka Bakterion) sounded so good on that cardboard sleeve, despite the typo that says "a deadly variety" instead of "a deadly virus." (Never change, Mill Creek.) To wit again:

It's an early 80s Italian movie starring Fulci veterans David Warbeck (The Beyond) and Janet Agren (City of the Living Dead). A scientist is exposed to a deadly variety a deadly virus and then wreaks havoc around a London suburb, killing people and drinking all their blood. To contain the contagion, the government decides to employ "Plan Q" and drop a bomb on said suburb.

It sounds awesome and I was so pumped for it. Things started off pretty great, when a horny young couple were killed right before they were gonna DO IT in a car, as is the fate of all horror movie horny young couples about to DO IT in cars.

My future with Panic only got brighter in early scenes at the chemical company, which was called ChemiCALE. We are told that two living beings were missing from the lab after the accident with the "indestructible virus" -- Professor Adams, who was working on said virus, and a guinea pig. But not just any guinea pig, mind you: this infected guinea pig, the ChemiCALE scientists said, could have grown to the size of a dog, or even a lion.

Now, this was not an explicit promise that I would see a lion-sized guinea pig at some point, but it established the promise of a dog-or-lion-sized guinea being out there somewhere. A fine point to be sure, but one I clung to all throughout Panic. Finally they found the guinea pig, I guess, in a sewer, and I imagine that you can imagine my disappointment:

It brought to mind my 8th grade Algebra teacher, who spent weeks psyching us up for an end-of-year game day, for which one of the prizes would be "a giant Hershey bar." He would really stress the "giant" in "giant Hershey bar," and talked it up as theee incentive for us to try to whip each other's ass in Algebra showdowns. When the day finally arrived and he finally took the "giant Hershey bar" out of his briefcase, it was snack-sized. This was his joke! But as you see, the wounds from that joke and that day never truly healed, and they may never, for Panic's "dog-or-lion-sized guinea pig" tore them open anew. 

Anyway. 

I know I started this off by calling Panic a Tiffany, and I know in my heart that it's true. It has so much going for it, and yet it just...wasn't good. I know that's a basic-ass criticism, but it's true. It's plodding. Despite the countdown-to-bombing conceit, there's no urgency or tension to any of it. Warbeck's Captain Kirk (yes, his name is Captain Kirk) boldly goes into the sewers in search of Professor Adams, but he just sort of strolls even when the deadline is nigh. The whole thing ends with the lamest, most anticlimactic final shot you could possibly imagine, and to keep with the "urgent thing handled in a lackadaisical manner" theme Ricci employs, the half-assed 4th wall-breaking "warning" to the audience comes after the credits have completely rolled.

And yet! I already feel like I'm Eternal Sunshine-ing myself, forgetting and/or ignoring how disappointing Panic was. It's got so much going for it, how could it be a disappointment? 

Like all the dubbed voice acting, which is a cornucopia of every British accent you can imagine, from the stereotypically snooty guy to women who sound like Hyacinth Bucket to random Cockney folk to everyone in between. Or maybe when Janet Agren, Scientist, says "I just have to find out if this is a contagious virus!" and then starts click-clacking on a computer keyboard.

There's a scene in a movie theatre where the mutated Professor Adams rips through the screen to go on the attack; I love a movie theatre scene in my horror! And speaking of Professor Adams, when we finally get a good look at him, we can see that he resembles those raspberry gummy candies.



And then, of course, let's not forget the dog-or-lion-sized guinea pig, which--hey wait, that was the biggest let-down in this movie! I am going to remember Panic for what it was (a disappointment), not what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be beautiful and so right--and it could've been--but it was not. Not at all. No-uh-oh, no-uh-oh, oh-oh. 

Feb 8, 2024

Chilling Classics Cthursday: OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES (1982)

At the risk of being thrown out of both the Real Horror Fans Gang and the Society of Lesbian Vampire Enjoyers, I must speak my truth: I do not enjoy the films of Jess Franco. Female Vampire almost makes the cut, but to be honest I would rather simply partake in the undeniably striking stills of Lina Romay from that movie than watch it again. I wish I could appreciate Franco's work more. If I had the FrancoVision that his fans seem to have, I would see the art they claim is in his oeuvre, you know, the dream-like atmosphere and all that. Sadly, however, I am saddled with FinalGirlVision, and all that allows me to see is NO.

And so it is with this week's Tale from the Mill Creek 50-Pack Oasis of the Zombies, a film I liked better during that minute or two at the start when I misremembered it as a Bruno Mattei joint. And I'm not even wild about Bruno Mattei joints!

A group of French college students head to an oasis in the African desert (just "African" will do, natch) in search of Nazi gold that was lost when the Nazis were killed in a battle in 1943. But for some reason the oasis is cursed, I guess, and the dead Nazis return as the living dead to eat anyone who gets too close. 

les students

l'oasis

This exceedingly simple tale is told in exceedingly tedious fashion, as we are treated to interminable flashbacks and shots that are repeated ad nauseam, such as this skull and this spider (yes, that golden blob is a spider). 



Franco's style in Oasis of the Zombies seems to be "point the camera at stuff and maybe the stuff you're pointing the camera at will actually be in the frame...oh and doin't forget to do all those zooms, you're Jess Franco!" The overall effect is one somehow completely devoid of atmosphere, and frankly (Francoly?) the entire affair feels inept.

The zombies themselves are typical of the European zombie flicks of the era, although they fall a little more on the papier-mâché side of things as opposed to the more oatmeal-faced undead found in a Fulci film. Most of them have a worm or two wriggling around on 'em, which is a nice touch. There's a regular roster of shambling corpses here, and each gets their moment to shine in a rotating series of repeated close-ups.



This guy was my favorite, for obvious reasons:


These close-ups and the few group shots are reminiscent of Fulci's Zombie (1979); as I am an unabashed freak for that movie, I couldn't help but wonder why Oasis of the Zombies boasted several of the same techniques but left me so cold.

Leaving aside the...mmm, let's call the--the repeated still lifes, the unnecessary zooms--"stylistic choices," Oasis of the Zombies is just a fucking drag. It's poorly paced and plodding, and when it's time for zombie action, it's bereft of any action. The victims go "aahhh" and lie down, maybe they get bitten once or twice while they go "noooo" and pathetically slap at the zombies, and then they are dead. 


If these sad scenes were (un)livened up with some gore, at least there'd be some spectacle. However, we get one gore shot which is almost complete obscured. I get that it was likely a budget issue, but hey, I never said the gore had to be good. But if you're making a sleazy European gut-muncher, I think you should add some gut-munching. And some sleaze. Oasis of the Zombies has neither. But it does have a lot of shots of camels and sand dunes, and as a fan of both they pleased me. Also those shots reminded me of the time The Real Housewives of New York went to Morocco and Countess Luann almost got bucked off an ornery camel; the scene is more Oscar-worthy than Oasis is, that's for sure.  

I will give major props to the climax of the film, wherein night begins to fall and zombies slowly trudge over the dunes towards the students' camp. I'm not sure why the zombies are suddenly so far away from the oasis, but it looks cool and gives us the best shots in the movie, so who cares.



There's a little pizzazz during this final showdown as the students surround themselves with a burning ring of fire and chuck molotovs at the undead. But much of the pizzazz is indiscernible as Franco's camera often centers, like, someone's knee instead of anything worthwhile. Then the sun comes up and any remaining zombies fade into nothingness, which is weird because we've seen them out and about in the daylight before this. Oh well.

While watching Oasis of the Zombies, I felt like that famous time-lapse sequence in The Haunting (1963, duh), where we see Abigail Crane morph from a young lass to a withered crone. Like I could feel that happening to me as the movie played out over the longest 82 minutes of my life. The only difference was that I of course started out as a withered crone and simply became crone-ier.

I would say that there's something good in the story, some potential, if one wants to imagine the adventure-horror-zombie flick that could have been. But that's a bit like saying that a house has "good bones" when everything except the bathroom wallpaper needs to be trashed.

It's always a bummer when a horror movie is a bummer, and so it's a bummer that this week's offering from Mill Creek was a bummer indeed. But hey, you know what they say: We make plans, and the 50-pack laughs. Better luck next time!

Feb 1, 2024

Chilling Classics Cthursday: WEREWOLF IN A GIRLS' DORMITORY (1961)

It used to be that when I would sit around fantasizing over what I'd teach were I a film professor, I would picture a syllabus with Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes written over and over and over, as if it was a document that Wendy Torrance found in her husband's typewriter. Now that I've seen Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory, however, I think I would shift, like, two of the Amityville 4 credit hours to covering it. I was not anticipating this outcome when its number came up and I pulled it from the 50-pack, that's for sure. But then, I didn't know it'd be a little treat with some feminist ideas sprinkled in here and there, and it'd be a...well, maybe not a prime example, but an example nonetheless of the ways in which localized film distribution can really do a movie wrong.

Its schlocky title alone recalls other sock hop screamers and drive-in fare from the era, à la 1959's Attack of the Giant Leeches or The Blob (1958); Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory even features its own catchy Blob-esque title tune, "The Ghoul in School," which would go on to be released on 45rpm. 

Side note: the Chilling Classics version of this movie omits both the song and the kooky/monstrous opening title card featuring a Dr Seuss sleep paralysis demon. Mill Creek does it again!

While all those goofy gewgaws serve to set up expectations in the viewer's mind, the movie very quickly undoes all of them by revealing its true nature. Why, this isn't a Gene or Roger Corman joint! Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory was released in the US in 1963, but it's--gasp--an Italian-Austrian film from 1961, née Lycanthropus! This wasn't directed by some "Richard Benson," it was Paolo Heusch at the helm. Meanwhile, writer Ernesto Gastaldi wasn't credited at all, English pseudonym or otherwise. But he's maybe best known as the co-writer of Bava's The Whip and the Body and Sergio Martino's Torso. Oh, and of course Ruggero Deodato's rip-off of The Concorde...Airport '79, appropriately titled Concorde Affaire '79.

It's possible that I am the only person who didn't know all of the truth behind Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory, especially as a super-deluxe, 2-disc uncut version of the film was released by Severin a couple of years ago. Yes, another film in the Mill Creek Chilling Classics to fancy pants edition pipeline! So sure, everyone else may have been on the Lycanthropus train long ago, but the shock of this information gave me a white streak in my hair, like Nancy Thompson at the end of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The titular dormitory, as it were, is a sprawling, gothic "institute" set deep in the woods that serves as a kind of reform school, one that hopes to set the wayward girls on the right path without the punishing nature of the judicial system. "They've found out about the bitterness of life much too early," one character explains, to which I responded (in my head...I'm not a weirdo) "Was this movie formative at all for The House That Screamed, which I fucking loved?" Three more white streaks immediately manifested in my locks. Should anyone ask why I look like a zebra from the neck up, I will happily tell them it's because I found out all at once that Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory is lit.

A student named Mary sneaks out one night to meet the much-older Sir Alfred in the woods. They have a sexual relationship, but Mary is only in it in the hopes that Alfred can get her out of the institute, as he sits on the school's board. He has no reason to make this happen quickly, obviously, and Mary is fed up and threatening blackmail. On her way home, she's chased through the dark by a man-shaped monster before being attacked and killed in a way that certainly makes this all seem like a sexual assault. "Is this movie...an allegory?" I said (again, in my head). Cue another coif streak.


While I love little more than seeing subtext and meaning in any ol' film in front of my eyeballs, Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory indeed makes the subtext text. "You're a beast, not a man," says Alfred's wife Sheena as they discuss his propensity for taking advantage of the girls. 

Or take this exchange between the new science professor (who studies wolves on the side) and Priscilla, the student who takes it upon herself to find out who--or what--really killed Mary:

"I'm fixing traps to save the forest from wolves," the professor boasts.
"In a certain sense, we're doing the same thing," Priscilla replies.

Mary and Priscilla were friends before they came to the institute as well; Priscilla garnered a charge of attempted murder and landed in the reform school when she nearly beat to death a sailor who was attacking Mary. Priscilla, the Protector and Avenger of Women! Priscilla is a hero for the ages, we could all use a Priscilla, I would die for Priscilla, etc etc. 

Polish actress Barbara Lass was married to Roman Polanski around the time this movie was filmed

So who is the werewolf? Is it the hunky new science professor, who has a shady past as a doctor and as I mentioned, studies wolves? 


Is it the sleazy Sir Andrew, or the school's sleazy caretaker, who sets up all of Sir Andrew's "dalliances" and reminds me of Peter Lorre?


Is it Sir Andrew's wife, who, as seen in this stylish shot, is cool?


Maybe it's any of the other teachers, or possibly even a student?

Well, I won't spoil it for you even though this movie is literally over 60 years old. But you'll know who it is the first time you see the werewolf's face, because despite the prosthetics you can tell which actor it is.

But that's okay! Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory is a whodunnit mystery with some gothic and giallo touches more than it is your typical werewolf-flavored horror flick. In fact, a more apt title for this than Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory or Lycanthropus might be Love and the Ethics of Lycanthropy. Or maybe Priscilla Rules.

Man, what a total surprise and a treat this was. Hokey drive-in monster movies are fun, and if that's all this film ended up being it would likely have been a fine time. But ultimately Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory Priscilla Rules is something meatier than that, deserving of a spot...well, surely somewhere in the annals of Italian horror.