Extending Halloween at the November Monster Bash Convention

Back in 2019, I attended my first Monster Bash convention in the Pittsburgh area. Bash organizer (and Creepy Classics proprietor) Ron Adams is an original monster kid, and he and his dedicated crew have been Bashing in Pennsylvania for nearly 30 years. Ron and company put on great events, and the Bash is unique in its emphasis on classic monsters.

Some familiar characters stand guard at the November Monster Bash.

The attraction in 2019 was the announcement that four Hammer horror alums would be guests of honor: Martine Beswick (Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, One Million Years B.C.), Veronica Carlson (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, The Horror of Frankenstein), Caroline Munro (Dracula A.D. 1972, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter) and Christopher Neame (Dracula A.D. 1972). Unfortunately, Caroline Munro had to bow out due to health issues.

Beswick, Carlson and Neame joined independent filmmaker Joshua Kennedy at the 2019 bash for the world premiere screening of House of the Gorgon, Kennedy’s homage to Hammer horror (and which featured all four Hammer alums; see my review of the convention and the film here). Sadly, Veronica Carlson passed away in 2022. (See also my review of The Horror of Frankenstein, which includes a tribute to the multi-talented Carlson.)

This year Monster Bash gave fans a big post-Halloween present by bringing in four (count ‘em!) Hammer alums: Beswick, Munro, Pauline Peart (Satanic Rites of Dracula) and Victoria Vetri (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth). (James Bond fans take note: Beswick was in two films, From Russia with Love and Thunderball, and Munro unsuccessfully tried to kill Roger Moore’s Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me.)

Caroline and Martine provide backup for Zach Zito as he performs Edgar Allan Poe tales.

Martine Beswick

Featured Film: Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978)

The Bash’s choice of the TV movie Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell might not have been most people's first choice to showcase Martine’s talents (Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde anyone?), but having only known the film by reputation up until the screening, I was both bemused and entertained.

The film, directed by B horror maestro Curtis Harrington, is basically a send-up of the mega-hit from two years before, The Omen, substituting a German Shepherd puppy named Lucky for little Damien the Antichrist. Beswick, who is only in the first 15 minutes or so of the movie, seems to be having great fun vamping it up as the high priestess of a Devil worshiping cult (or make that Devil-dog worshiping cult) who secures a champion breeding dog to mate with Satan’s favorite Hellhound. The demonic breeding ritual is a cheesy sight to behold, and I’m guessing it didn’t get any seals of approval from the SPCA (I’m also guessing that no animals were harmed in the filming, but that’s not to say dog lovers’ heads weren’t aching after seeing the movie.)

Cult members then go about distributing the litter of unholy puppies to unsuspecting suburbanites, including the wholesome, all-American family headed by Mike and Betty Barry (Richard Crenna and Yvette Mimieux). As cute little Lucky grows into a big, strapping German Shepherd, strange things start happening around the house: housekeepers and neighbors start dying in freakish ways, and even Betty and her innocent teenage daughter and son begin shedding inhibitions and morals under the baleful gaze of the cursed canine.

Only Mike is immune from Lucky’s malign influence, and he slowwwly puts two and two together. Credit Richard Crenna and the rest of the cast for playing it absolutely straight (although Beswick’s performance as the high priestess is deliciously ripe, as well it should be). A German Shepherd hovering in the background as things go very south for the Barry family doesn’t generate a lot of suspense, but Mimieux takes advantage of a great opportunity to turn from a warm, loving wife and mother into a hard-bitten, amoral femme fatale under Lucky’s spell.

The Devil Dog reveals his true appearance at the climax, which again is played very straight, and will elicit either appreciative smiles or derisive guffaws, depending.

Beswick Q&A

Martine’s subsequent Q&A ranged from reminiscences about her Bond girl days, to starring in Oliver Stone’s first feature film, to being cast as Sister Hyde to Ralph Bates’ Dr. Jekyll, to working with Klaus Kinski on the set of the spaghetti Western A Bullet for the General (1967).

In her first Bond film (and second feature film), From Russia with Love, Beswick plays a gypsy girl who fights a rival for the affections of a handsome young man. Over the years, the legend has grown that there was no love lost between the two actresses, and that much of the fight captured on film was for real. Martine downplayed the legend, saying that rather than being spontaneous, the fight was rehearsed like a complicated dance routine for 3 weeks (although she did admit that some of the film crew, who were not especially enamored of the other actress, egged Martine on to give it to her for real).

Asked about her experiences on the set of then novice filmmaker Oliver Stone’s first feature film, Seizure (1974), Martine recalled it as being like part of a “mad family.” (In this uneven horror film, Martine plays one of three nightmarish characters who materialize out of the fertile imagination of a best-selling horror author played by Jonathan Frid, and trap and torture Frid, his family, and guests at a remote summer house.)

Beswick said that the whole cast and crew stayed at the house during the shooting. Much of the film equipment was stored in Frid’s room, which made him grumpy. To add insult to injury, the house’s plumbing was old and noisy, so no one could go to the bathroom or run water during filming, which was very inconvenient. Of her character, the Queen of Night, she smilingly confessed that she “loved to kill everyone” -- on film of course.

As for working with Klaus Kinski on A Bullet for the General, Beswick paid Kinski -- a legendarily intense and difficult actor who had epic fights with directors and fellow actors -- a compliment by saying that he went out of his way to stand up for the cast of extras, whom the director and crew mistreated.

The author with Martine Beswick.

Caroline Munro

Featured Film: Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)

Captain Kronos is very late Hammer horror, and represents something of a hedging of the studio’s bets, falling back on period costumes and settings after trying to update Christopher Lee’s Dracula to late 20th century London in Dracula: AD 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973).

Kronos (Horst Janson) is a dashing former soldier and master swordsman who has taken up hunting vampires. Accompanied by his assistant, the hunchbacked professor Hieronymous Grost (John Cater), and an alluring peasant girl, Carla (Munro, whom the pair rescued from humiliation in the stockades), Kronos arrives at a village where, according to resident Doctor Marcus (John Carson), local girls are mysteriously being drained of their youth.

Dr. Marcus is friends with the local wealthy family, the Durwards (Lady Durward is played by Wanda Ventham, son Paul and daughter Sara by Shane Briant and Lois Daine). Marcus had treated the family patriarch for an illness which eventually killed him. Lady Durward herself is not in such great shape, being frail and bedridden. After a visit to the Durward estate, Marcus is accosted in the woods by a mysterious hooded figure, which, he soon finds out, has turned him into a vampire.

Kronos and Grost must deal with Marcus, and they find out that this species of vampire can only be killed with iron or steel. After fashioning a sword out of an iron cross recovered from a cemetery, they’re ready to take on the vampiric plague. Beautiful Carla is enlisted to provide a diversion as Kronos investigates the Durwards. SPOILER ALERT: Lady Durward proves not to be so bedridden after all, and the Lord of the manor not so dead. Kronos has to think quickly in order to defeat the aristocratic vampires.

The ending leaves room for further Kronos adventures, which were not to be. Despite being yet another Hammer vampire horror film, there is no Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, the tone is more on the adventure side with a dash of tongue-in-cheek, and the film plays around with vampire mythology (in Kronos’ universe, there are different species of vampires, some feed on youth instead of blood, and some can only be killed with iron).

While Christopher Lee’s Dracula didn’t quite cut it in 1970s London, the retro adventurer Kronos also failed to win over many critics or fans at the time (although the film’s reputation has steadily improved over the decades). It was either too far ahead of its time, or too old fashioned (in her Q&A, Munro goes with the former).

Munro Q&A

During her Q&A, Caroline Munro related a number of stories about various hazards that can come out of nowhere during filming. On location shooting for The Spy Who Loved Me, the scene called for her to spend a portion of the time standing on a boat as it was running, then sit down as the boat neared its destination. While she was standing, she heard a strange buzzing sound that she attributed to the engine. However, when she sat down, she immediately felt a burning sensation in her “bum.” When the scene wrapped, Caroline discovered that she’d been stung by a bee, whereupon Roger Moore jokingly offered to “kiss it to make it better.” Munro said that sharp-eyed viewers can spot exactly where in the scene she was stung from her facial expression.

Hazards also lurked on the set of the sci-fi adventure film At the Earth’s Core (1976). In one scene featuring man-sized mutant telepathic birds (rulers of the lost world that the protagonists discover), stunt men wearing costumes were made to fly with an elaborate set-up of pulleys and wires. At one point the system was off by a hair, and one of the stuntmen clipped Munro as he swooped down. She said that co-star Doug McClure scarcely broke character as he came to her aid. Later, during a shoot involving pyrotechnics, the heat from the blast was so intense it singed the hair on her arms.

The author with Caroline Munro.

Pauline Peart discusses her experiences as a vampire girl in The Satanic Rites of Dracula.

They Did the Bash, They Did the Monster Bash...

For a relatively serious sci-fi/horror fan, I’ve attended a meager handful of conventions over the years. My very first was a comics convention in New York City in the early ‘70s. I was in high school, still not driving, and a good friend and I took a Greyhound bus (?!) on our own to the Big Apple. (I still can’t believe my parents let that happen. On second thought, I wasn’t the most pleasant teenager -- perhaps they were hoping I wouldn’t return...)

The comic artist “gods” Bernie Wrightson (Swamp Thing) and Jim Steranko (Nick Fury) were guests of honor. I was heavily into comics and science fiction at the time (even editing a short-lived fanzine), but I was most impressed with the movies they screened at the con. I remember being blown away by Hammer’s Five Million Years to Earth (aka Quatermass and the Pit, 1967) and Karel Zeman’s wonderful, visually striking fantasy film The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962; sadly, almost completely forgotten today). [Editor's note: as of Feb. 2020, The Fabulous Baron is available in a beautiful three film set from Criterion, Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman.]

This was a watershed moment for me, as I would gradually wander away from comics and literary science fiction to renew a deep and abiding love of movies. I was the prototypical monster kid of the 1960s, watching every creature feature I could possibly dial in on the old black and white TV, and worshipping at the Church of the Universal Monster.

The ‘70s was a time for discovering Hammer’s glorious reenvisionings of the classic monsters, and of course, falling in love (as only a nerdy young fan can) with the likes of Caroline Munro, Veronica Carlson, and Martine Beswick.

Speaking of Hammer’s scream queens, I was intrigued by this year’s program at Creepy Classics’ Monster Bash (Mars, PA, June 21 - 23, 2019). I had seen ads for the conference in Filmfax over the years, and its focus on classic horror and sci-fi, along with fascinating guests of honor (e.g., Julie Adams of Creature from the Black Lagoon fame, who passed away last year), had me itching to attend. But geography and life’s usual busyness prevented me from making plans -- until now.

This year’s Bash brought together two famous Hammer actresses, Veronica Carlson (Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed) and Martine Beswick (One Million Years B.C., Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde), along with Dracula A.D. 1972 alum Christopher Neame to the U.S. premiere of low-budget auteur Joshua Kennedy’s Hammer homage House of the Gorgon (2019).

Kennedy, who started making feature-length films in his teens, has been friends with all three and managed with luck and pluck to get them (along with Caroline Munro, who unfortunately was unable to attend) to appear in the film.

The still glamorous Veronica Carlson at her Q&A.

The screening room was jam-packed for the premiere on Saturday night. The organizers wisely arranged for a second showing the same night for late comers who weren’t able to squeeze in. Shot in a little over a week, House of the Gorgon is a deeply affectionate tribute to the inimitable Hammer style, with special emphasis on Hammer’s classic The Gorgon (1964) with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Barbara Shelley.

House features not one but two Gorgon sisters, played with zest and sly humor by Munro and Beswick. Carlson, looking years younger than her age, plays the mother of a young woman (Georgina Dugdale) engaged to be married to the eccentric master of the house (Kennedy). Christopher Neame is also very effective as the glum, frightened village priest -- a character type that appeared numerous times in Hammer films.

While the digital photography and the variable acting among the less experienced cast members somewhat betray the film’s very low budget, it’s hard not to like such a meticulously and lovingly crafted tribute.

Martine Beswick receives flowers and applause.

The Gothic setting, the costumes, the formal, language, the ubiquitous tavern with baleful, superstitious locals, and of course the presence of the four Hammer veterans, had me smiling from the first frame.

Other horror film references, some subtle and some not-so-subtle, range from the paintings of past nefarious movie characters lining the mansion’s staircase, to the bust of veteran Hammer character actor Michael Ripper that turns up in the local tavern.

Aside from being a great tribute, the story holds up pretty well on its own. Kennedy also has a definite talent for setting up and lighting a very effective, atmospheric scene. One in particular, where the victim, taking a bath, sees her attacker upside down from her perspective and imbued with an otherworldly light, delivers an authentic shudder.

House of the Gorgon received a thunderous ovation from the appreciative audience, and I was rooted to the spot, almost as if I had been turned to stone, at the sight of the three Hammer legends on stage with their 20-something director.

Other Monster Bash Highlights:

In her Q&A, Beverly Washburn, veteran of innumerable films and TV shows (Star Trek OS, Boris Karloff’s Thriller, and cult favorite Spider Baby among them), talked about her experiences on the set of Spider Baby. She described Lon Chaney Jr. as a darling. It was well known by that time that he was an alcoholic, but his drinking never affected the production. She confirmed that his tears during the famous soliloquy were real and heart-felt.

Beverly Washburn with conference organizer Ron Adams.

Author Frank Dello Stritto gave a very funny and engaging talk on the history of Universal’s last great monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Frank is the author of a new novel, Carl Denham’s Giant Monsters, which picks up on the monster hunter’s life after the events of King Kong. Riffing on that theme and with tongue firmly in cheek, he expounded on what happened to various characters from the Creature movies after their encounters with the Gillman, using stills from the actors’ subsequent films.

According to Dello Stritto, Dr. Thompson, the character played by
Whit Bissell in Creature from the Black Lagoon, never completely
recovered from the wounds he received from the Gillman. Here he's
seen with his twin brother (driving).

Film historian Greg Mank, author of the new biography Laird Cregar: A Hollywood Tragedy, gave a very moving talk on the hugely talented and haunted actor who almost literally was killed by type-casting and mistreatment by his studio. A respected veteran of mostly costume dramas, in 1944 Cregar became notorious for his effective and menacing role as Jack the Ripper in The Lodger. Unfortunately, it immediately became evident that the studio would henceforth typecast him in Gothic monster roles. Cregar was a very large man, and in his desperation to slim down to a more “matinee idol” appearance, he went on a crash diet that eventually led to a heart attack and death at a very young age. Mank also told a fascinating story of he and his wife years ago trying to find Cregar’s grave at Hollywood’s Forest Lawn cemetery, with a series of misadventures leading them to half-believe Cregar’s spirit was playing tricks on them.

At 89 years of age, Ricou Browning is the last living classic Universal monster, having portrayed the Gillman in the underwater scenes in all three Creature movies. In his Q&A he addressed the recent controversy over a new book, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick, which asserts that Patrick was instrumental in creating the Creature costume, but was shunted aside and not given credit by Hollywood’s male patriarchy. Ricou asserted that during production of the first Creature film, he only saw Patrick twice, and only briefly each time. She appeared and watched for a short time while he was being fitted for the suit in Hollywood. Then on location, she put some finishing touches on the suit before Browning got in the water. Jack Kevan and Chris Mueller have been traditionally cited as the designers of the Creature suit.

Ricou Browning at the Q&A with his daughter (left) and
author Tom Weaver (far right).

For more information on future Monster Bashes and related events, see the conference news page.