Films From Beyond’s 1st Annual F.R.I.G.H.T. Awards

It’s that time of year again, when monsters of all shapes, sizes and descriptions claw, bite, slash, stomp, strangle and create general mayhem in Halloween marathons on innumerable channels.

Here at Films From Beyond, we believe in a variety of approaches to horror, as long as they’re done the B movie way: creatively and imaginatively, with a modicum of resources that precludes self-indulgently throwing everything but the kitchen sink into a mega-budget box office rip-off.

Speaking of different approaches, it’s one thing to generate scares from very ambulatory vampires, werewolves or axe-wielding maniacs, and quite another to chill audiences with small, inanimate objects that spend most of the time collecting dust on some dark, forgotten shelf.

And we’re not talking dolls, puppets or ventriloquists' dummies. Those benighted things are right up there with clowns in the supposedly-cheery-but-downright-creepy-and-often-terrifying category. Just ask any fan of Dead of Night (1945), The Twilight Zone, Charles Band’s Full Moon productions, and/or the Annabelle series. They’ve become a horror genre unto themselves, and deserve their own post (or two).

Nope, we’re talking about assorted curios, bric-a-brac and gewgaws, no bigger than a bread box, that bide their time in cobwebbed attics, dank basements and dark closets, waiting for the unwary to help them unleash their evil into the world.

The Devil's bread box, straight from Hell's Kitchen (apologies to Gordon Ramsay).

To honor those intrepid filmmakers of yesteryear who took a chance and made effective horror movies about small inanimate objects, we’re instituting our first annual F.R.I.G.H.T. awards: the most Frightening Relics, Items, Gadgets, Heirlooms and Talismans in vintage B horror movies.

Winner: Mummified Animal Part Category. The Monkey’s Paw (1933)

W.W. Jacob’s short story, first published in 1902, is not only the definitive cautionary tale to be careful what you wish for, but it's also a masterful exercise in getting the reader’s own imagination working overtime to send shivers down the spine.

The story has been adapted many times on the stage, radio, film and TV. I hadn’t seen any of the film adaptations until I attended the Monster Bash convention in Mars, PA in 2019 (see my review of the convention here). One of the highlights of their film program was the 1933 RKO version, starring Ivan Simpson, Louise Carter, and C. Aubrey Smith. The film was considered lost until 2016, when a French-dubbed version surfaced. Thanks to film historian Tom Weaver, who secured a copy, Monster Bash was the first time the film had been shown anywhere since the discovery.

The film gets steadily darker and gloomier as the wishes play out, and, in an imaginative bit of business, with each unfortunate wish, one of the paw’s fingers curls up.

"I hope that's our GrubbyHub delivery!"

Winner: Ghastly Ghost Goggles Category: 13 Ghosts (1960)

Producer-director William Castle was well into the gimmicky-showman phase of his career when 13 Ghosts debuted. Previously, he'd had buzzers installed in select theater seats for when The Tingler appeared onscreen, and a skeleton on a cable flew over theatergoers’ heads at special screenings of House on Haunted Hill.

In 13 Ghosts, Cyrus Zorba (Donald Woods), a paleontologist who is having trouble making ends meet for his family, learns that he has inherited a creaky old house from his enigmatic uncle, Dr. Plato Zorba. The catch: the place comes with a collection of ghosts, which Zorba rounded up from all around the world.

They can only be seen with a special pair of goggles that the old man invented… and thus the gimmick, which Castle dubbed “Illusion-O.” In the film’s initial theatrical run, when Cyrus put on the strange goggles to view the ghosts haunting his house, a sub-title cued audiences to use the special ghost viewers that they were issued. According to Castle biographer John. W. Law,

“Eastmancolor was used to develop the process for including the ghosts in the film. While the feature was shot in black and white, the ghosts appeared in red and were shot on a blue background, so when the viewers put on the blue and red tinted glasses the ghosts appeared.” [John W. Law, Scare Tactic: The Life and Films of William Castle. Writers Club Press, 2000, p. 82]

Beyond Illusion-O, the film’s charm came from interspersing the creepier ghostly manifestations with a bit of comic relief.

Winner: Ancient Hallucinogenic Ceremonial Mask Category: The Mask (1961)

A long time ago in a small, midwestern town far, far away, a local fast food joint advertised free 3D glasses with every purchase, to use for an upcoming TV broadcast of an obscure 3D horror movie. Yes, one of the scrawny nerds who dutifully made a purchase in anticipation of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was me.

While the 3D effect with cheap cardboard glasses and an old console TV was disappointing, I nevertheless became a big fan of The Mask (not to be confused with Jim Carrey’s 1994 fantasy-comedy). According to IMDb, The Mask was groundbreaking: the first Canadian horror film, the first Canadian 3D film, and the first to be widely distributed in the U.S.  It tells the tale of a respected psychiatrist, Allan Barnes (Paul Stevens), who is treating a disturbed young archaeologist. The man insists that an ancient ceremonial mask he has been examining has taken over his mind and is urging him to kill. The patient commits suicide, but not before mailing the mask to Barnes, who in turn finds himself falling under the spell of the accursed thing.

Like 13 Ghosts, the film’s mundane black and white world is periodically interrupted by spooky 3D sequences. When a sepulchral voice commands Barnes to “Put the mask on NOW!”, that’s the viewer’s cue to don the 3D glasses.

The 3D sequences are as weird and nightmarish as can be, as if H.P. Lovecraft, Salvador Dali and Tim Burton got together to design a bad LSD trip. According to lore, producer-director Julian Roffman initially hired renowned visual effects artist Slavko Vorkapich to design the scenes, but his concepts proved too expensive, so Hoffman did most of the work himself.

See my full review here.

Winner: Stacked Deck of Infernal Tarot Cards Category: Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)

The titular Doctor Shreck (the name means “terror” in German), played by Peter Cushing, joins five bored strangers in a train compartment. To pass the time, the Doctor offers to tell the mens’ fortunes using his deck of Tarot cards, which he calls his “house of horrors.”

The Death card pops up each time Shreck does a reading (which in actual Tarot practice is not necessarily a bad thing). The unfortunate travelers’ fates include meet-ups with werewolves, vampires, sentient killer vines, voodoo practitioners and disembodied hands.

This was the first anthology horror film produced under Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg’s Amicus Productions banner. The contributions of Hammer veterans Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and director Freddie Francis, along with a solid performance by an up-and-coming American actor, Donald Sutherland, went a long way to making the film a success. Many highly entertaining anthologies followed, including The House that Dripped Blood, Asylum, Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, among others.

At the time of its release, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors was generally well-received on both sides of the Atlantic. The Times (London) called it an “[Un]critical pleasure. The writer, Mr. Milton Subotsky, has hit on a convenient formula. None of it is very original but at least each of the episodes is short enough not to pall. Mr. Freddie Francis directs with efficiency, which once or twice rises to real inspiration.” In the U.S., Variety found it “A usefully chilly package which will offer audiences mild shudders and quite a lot of amusement.” [ Bruce C. Hallenbeck, British Cult Cinema: The Amicus Anthology. Hemlock Books, 2014, p. 63]

That might seem like faint praise, but considering the establishment media’s disdain for all things horror at the time, they were practically rave reviews.

Winner: Cursed Skull of a Notorious Evil-doer Category: The Skull (1965)

Messrs. Cushing, Lee and Francis also teamed up for Amicus’ The Skull, with Milton Subotsky contributing a script based on a story by Robert Bloch.

Dr. Christopher Maitland (Cushing), an avid collector of occult objects, is offered the skull of the infamous Marquis de Sade by a sketchy dealer (Patrick Wymark). He at first resists temptation, and is told by the skull’s previous owner, rival collector Sir Matthew Phillips (Christopher Lee) that the thing is possessed by evil, and in turn can possess its owner.

Obsessed with the skull, Maitland goes to the dealer’s flat to buy it, but finds the man dead. As he tries to steal away with the skull he encounters a caretaker, a struggle ensues, and the man is accidentally killed. Maitland starts having nightmares, including one in which he is condemned in a surreal courtroom and forced to play Russian Roulette. In the meantime, the malignant skull grins evilly on a shelf in its new home.

Essayist Steven Thornton credits director Freddie Francis and Peter Cushing for making The Skull such an effective exercise in atmospheric evil:

“The contribution of Freddie Francis should not go without recognition. In its final reels, the shots from the skull’s point of view, filmed through an enlarged cranial mock-up, are what most viewers remember. Subtler, but just as impressive, are the mood-building tableaux of Cushing eyeing the skull distrustfully and of the gale of wind that opens doors and turns picture frames askew. … [W]hat other director could have extracted as much menace from an ordinary bookshelf loaded with ominous bric-a-brac?…

Peter Cushing … was right at home with such emotionally involving material. The change of expression when Maitland begins to feel the skull’s influence or when he observes the cross hanging from his wife’s neck are techniques right out of the actor’s playbook. … In addition, Cushing had to play his character sympathetically while still maintaining the touch of conceit that put Maitland on the pathway to Hell. This was unquestionably a demanding role, one that few genre actors of the period could have pulled off as convincingly.” [Steven Thorton, “Can’t Get You Out of My Head: The Skull” In Midnight Marquee Actors Series: Peter Cushing, Anthony Ambrogio, ed., Luminary Press, 2004, p.121]

"Put the Mask on NOW!"

The Mask (1961)

I recently had a spirited discussion with my stepson about Inception (2010). Like many IMDb users, he thought it was the stand-out movie in a fairly mediocre set of best picture Oscar nominees. He was wowed by the special effects and impressed by the story's complexity. While conceding the mastery of its visual design, I told him I was somewhat put-off by the cold, analytical nature of the whole thing. The characters are mostly arrogant, grim, and unlikable. The movie and its protagonists move along like a computer program from one visual set piece to the next with not even a smidgeon of humor or humanity to offset the relentless, oppressive atmosphere. But perhaps the movie's worst failing for me is its treatment of dreams. In Inception's universe, dreams, like real life, obey physical laws that can be managed if you only know the rules. They're just another tool for some "Impossible Dream Missions" team to exploit in a dog-eat-dog world. Yuck! In my universe, dreams are fascinating because they don't follow any discernible rules, and you never know what to expect when your head hits the pillow. And they can't be managed by grim technocrats.  If you want to see the latest tech effects wizardry applied to some imaginative concepts, i.e., the city of Paris folding in on itself, then see Inception. But there are other, older movies out there that do a much better job of capturing the awe and mystery of dreams (and the horror of nightmares) with a fraction of a fraction of Inception's budget.

The Mask, made for around $250,000, does a damn good job of spooking the viewer with visions that seem like a mad blending of Salvador Dali, Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft. One of its alternate titles describes it succinctly: The Spooky Movie Show (I can just imagine an ad man furiously jotting down the reactions of wide-eyed kids as they exited the theater and voila! -- coming up with that gem). The Mask's wild visions/dreams/nightmares definitely do not follow any discernible rules, and they most certainly are beyond any human control. Mask does share one theme with Inception-- it too has a self-confident professional who is fascinated by the power of the dream visions, and who thinks he can ultimately understand and harness them. Predictably, this arrogance and overconfidence very quickly leads to his undoing. There are no dream "architects" here-- just hapless humans in thrall to ancient, evil forces beyond their comprehension.

In good "Screenwriting 101" fashion, the movie starts out with action and suspense -- in the dead of night, a terrified woman is pursued by a pale, hypnotized-looking man. He catches her and starts to strangle her. In the struggle, she rakes the side of his face with her fingernails. Cut to an office in mid-day, where young archaeologist Michael Radin (Martin Lavut), scratches on his face, is trying to tell psychiatrist Allan Barnes (Paul Stevens) that he is trapped in a "living nightmare." He's certain he's being hypnotized by an ancient South American ceremonial mask recently acquired by his museum-- and it's commanding him to do horrible things. Like all good, rational doctors, Barnes tries to calm Michael down, reassuring him that the horrors are not real, but rather creations of his mind. Frustrated that Barnes doesn't believe him and can't possibly help, Michael storms out.

The desperate Michael packs up the evil artifact and mails it to Barnes. Mission accomplished, he shoots himself. The police are called in, and in spite of the obvious physical evidence of suicide, Lt. Martin (Bill Walker) senses something else going on, and sets out to investigate further. He starts at Radin's museum, where the director fills him in on the legend of the ceremonial mask-- how it was connected with human sacrifice, and how it can put its wearer into a trance and get him/her to do unspeakable things. Martin moves on to the psychiatrist, who was one of the last people to see Radin alive. In a nice Hitchcock-like touch, Detective Martin interviews the doctor with the unopened box containing the mask right there in plain view on his desk.

After the interview, Barnes opens the box and stares at the key to his patient's suicide. The package also comes with a letter from Michael --  a disturbing testament to the Mask's evil power, and a kind of mocking challenge to the skeptical doctor to see for himself (see the clip below). Michael's words from beyond the grave turn into a forceful command -- "Put the mask on NOW!"  -- and we realize that it's now the Mask itself that is speaking.  Barnes of course heeds the command, and we're off to the races -- the command is also the audience's cue to put on their 3-D glasses (in my case, a pair of the classic anaglyph red-blue glasses that came with the DVD).

The Mask breathes fire at the viewer.

The nightmarish world that we and Barnes experience is shot in 3-D, while the "real" world is shot in flat, washed-out black and white. The irony -- surely intentional? -- is that the nightmares seem more real (or at least more solid) to the viewer. Disembodied eyeballs fly out of the screen; a giant skull breathes fire into the viewer's face; severed hands clutch at the air -- and meanwhile in the supposedly real world, worried "flat-landers" scurry around, trying to make sense of it all. Interestingly, almost all of  the denizens of the Mask's hellish world themselves wear masks. A mute, youngish (?) man with a Beatles haircut and outfitted with a mask and tattered, shredded clothes wanders through all of the dream sequences, bouncing like a hypnotized ping-pong ball from one horror to another. He seems to represent the ego (or perhaps the subconscious) of the person wearing the mask (Barnes).

Rather than being horrified and repulsed after his initial trip into the Mask's world, a flushed and enthusiastic Barnes declares to his girlfriend Pam (Claudette Nevins) that "there's much to be learned here, of man's most secret mind, of a world that exists even deeper than the subconscious!"  Pam responds: "I only see that it's ugly and cruel." Like a powerful narcotic, the Mask has hooked the overconfident doctor, who, as a trained psychiatrist, thinks he can handle it. Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for the viewer), he's dead wrong, and as a result, an increasingly obsessed, manic Barnes takes repeated trips into the hellish dreamworld. Meanwhile, Pam and Barnes' mentor Prof. Quincey (Norman Ettlinger) become increasingly worried, and take desperate measures to wean him from the evil thing. Also closing in on Barnes is the dogged Lt. Martin, who begins to understand that the young archaeologist's suicide was not the end of the Mask's malign influence. As the film builds to its climax, the nightmare sequences become even more bizarre and horrifying. The burning question: is there enough of Barnes' rational brain left to resist the Mask, or will he too succumb to murder and suicide?

Beware the hypnotic "eyes of light"!

From the user reviews I've read on IMDb and elsewhere, the consensus among the small group of dedicated horror fans who've managed to watch it recently is that while the dream sequences are quirky and interesting, the rest of it is dull, and the acting is average to poor. This seems to me way too harsh, and is probably due to the tendency of many to judge yesterday's films by today's standards. While it may not be a forgotten masterpiece, all aspects of Mask's production are at least competent, and the eerily imaginative dream sequences are as unique as anything I've seen in commercial film (with the exception of Eraserhead). Slavko Vorkapich (gotta love that name!) is credited with the surreal sequences, but the IMDb trivia section for the film quotes an article in Filmfax (#25) as saying that Slavko's concepts were judged too expensive to execute, and that director Julian Roffman did much of the work himself. (Vorkapich's resume includes a number of "montages" and "montage effects" for films in the 1930's and '40s.)

Canadian Julian Roffman directed only one other film, The Bloody Brood (1959), a "juvenile-delinquents-gone-wrong" B movie starring Peter Falk in the early phase of his career. He also wrote and produced; a producer credit that horror buffs might recognize is The Pyx (1973) starring Karen Black and Christopher Plummer. That one is about a detective who uncovers evidence of a murderous devil cult while investigating the death of a prostitute.

Despite the IMDb user consensus, I think the acting ranges from average to quite good. Paul Stevens (Dr. Barnes) is a very recognizable face to anyone who watched a lot of TV (like me) in the 1960s and '70s. He is very good as the overconfident scientist who thinks he can handle and even learn from the evil power of the mask. Claudette Nevins is also quite good as the girlfriend trying to save Barnes from himself and the malevolent artifact. And Norman Ettlinger is very believable as Barnes' mentor Prof. Quincy, who, with Pam, intervenes to try to get Barnes off this otherworldly "drug."

I first saw The Mask in the late 1960s (or thereabouts). A local TV station teamed up with the area's Burger Chef restaurants to distribute 3-D glasses for their upcoming broadcast. While I was disappointed then with the 3-D effects -- as you might expect, cheap glasses combined with an old, slightly fuzzy TV does not work that well --  I was still intrigued by it. Seeing it again recently (this time on DVD, a flat screen TV, and… the same old cheap glasses), I was struck by how well it held up after all that time, even with primitive anaglyph 3-D effects. The Mask is available in a couple of DVD editions. If any of the above sounds interesting, I urge you to see for yourself… and "put the Mask on NOW!"

"Get ready... Steel your nerves... and put the Mask on NOW!"