The Insomniac’s Guide to Night Terrors: Don’t Go to Sleep

Now Playing: Don't Go to Sleep (TV movie; 1982)

Pros: Great cast makes for a very believable family in crisis; Script cleverly keeps the source of the evil ambiguous; Stylish direction
Cons: The parents’ reaction to a family tragedy stretches credulity

When I found out that Gill over at Realweegiemidget Reviews was hosting a blogathon dedicated to the legendary TV impresario Aaron Spelling, I saw an opportunity to indulge my love of '70s and '80s TV movies, especially those of the horror and sci-fi varieties (of course!).

Even if you’ve never heard the name Aaron Spelling, if you’re of a certain age, you're very likely to have seen his work. Starting out as a writer in the mid-'50s, Spelling quickly moved into producing, and in the succeeding decades became almost an industry unto himself, producing hundreds of shows and TV movies. Starsky and Hutch? That’s a Spelling property. Charlie’s Angels? Check. The Love Boat? He was the real captain of the ship. The primetime soap Dynasty? Dynasty was his middle name.

Okay, so maybe you don’t know Aaron. How about Tori? Somehow Aaron found the time to have two children, one of whom, Tori, has something of her own legendary status in the Spellingverse. Tori started out doing small roles in some of her dad’s shows, eventually enjoying a lengthy recurring spot on Beverly Hills 90210. In addition to acting, she has also followed in her dad’s footsteps as a producer (and in the process grabbed a little of that mystical Kim Kardashian/Paris Hilton ability to be famous for being famous).

But I digress. This post is about one of the more effective TV horror movies of its era, from a man who started out as a pioneer and became a master of the genre. Most fans consider the debut of ABC’s Movie of the Week in 1969 to be the beginning of the great golden age of TV movies. The quick, cheap and original movies became a big hit with audiences and elevated ABC’s stature among the major networks.

Spelling eagerly exploited the new format and in 1970 alone produced such sci-fi and horror hits as The Love War (with Lloyd Bridges and Angie Dickinson), How Awful About Allan (with Anthony Perkins), The House that Would Not Die (Barbara Stanwyck) and Crowhaven Farm (Hope Lange and John Carradine).

Fast forward 12 years, and Aaron Spelling was sitting majestically atop the TV world as head of Aaron Spelling Productions. While the ABC Movie of the Week series was long gone and the TV movie golden age was waning, there were still 90 minute time slots to fill and Spelling was happy to oblige.

Once upon a time, this man was the King of Half of Everything in TV land.

For fans of supernatural horror (guilty as charged!), it was a great era because such films (as well as psychological horror) tended to be easy on expense accounts, and TV producers made a ton of them. They didn’t require big special effects budgets or complicated location shoots -- quite often, all you needed was a creepy looking house and a smattering of mid-level name actors and you were good to go.

As a result, we lucky fans kept getting gift after horrifying gift from the TV movie mill: A Taste of Evil (1971), Home for the Holidays (1972), Satan’s School for Girls (1972) and Cruise into Terror (1978) were just a few from Spelling’s shop in the '70s.

Don’t Go to Sleep (1982) didn’t stray far from the successful TV horror formula: as per usual, a family is menaced in their new home. However, several ultra-creepy scenes and a great cast led by Valerie Harper, Dennis Weaver and the always delightfully eccentric Ruth Gordon elevate this one several notches above the usual made-for-TV fare.

Phillip (Weaver) and Laura (Harper) are moving their all-American family (a boy and a girl) to a new home. Some past struggles are hinted at in the early going, but Phillip has a new job in the aerospace industry, and it seems the family is returning to normalcy.

There are some mild tensions -- Phillip is not thrilled that Laura’s sharp-tongued mother Bernice  (Gordon) will be living with them -- but seemingly nothing that the family can’t deal with. Little do they know that the mother-in-law living arrangements will be the least of their worries.

In an early scene, more of the family’s recent tragic past is revealed when the boy, Kevin (Oliver Robins), spots his grandmother setting up multiple pictures of the oldest daughter, Jennifer (Kristin Cumming) on her dresser. He snottily reminds Bernice that there aren’t supposed to be any pictures of Jennifer -- who apparently has recently died -- in the house.

When grandma says she doesn't have any favorites, don't believe her.

Under the surface brightness, the all-American family has some skeletons that threaten their bliss. It seems that Phillip and Laura can only deal with their grief by banishing any reminders of their deceased daughter, but that strategy is going to come back to haunt them.

At first, the youngest daughter Mary (Robin Ignico) is happy to have her own room in the new place, but quickly regrets it the first night when the wind whips up, tree branches tap on the window, and the dolls surrounding her bed seem to be moving surreptitiously in the shadows as a disembodied, rasping voice calls her name.

Soon, Mary is screaming, and when Phillip and Laura get to her room, they’re horrified to see Mary trapped in her canopy bed as it’s going up in flames. Dad quickly pulls Mary to safety and beats out the fire. A frayed lamp cord appears to be the culprit, but this isn’t the sort of house warming the family was expecting.

Mary hopes the pajamas she got last Christmas are fire retardant. 

We learn that even before the move, Mary was experiencing nightmares. The disembodied voice is now visiting her every night, and her screams for it to go away are fraying everyone’s nerves, but particularly Phillip’s (more on him later).

It doesn’t help that her bratty brother has decided Mary is gaslighting the family, and he concocts a plan to record spooky sounds on his tape recorder to further torment her. Bad move.

The nightly manifestations of the spectral voice soon give way to visits by Mary’s dead sister Jennifer (yikes!). Mary’s conversations with her sister are shot in soft focus, suggesting that she’s dreaming. There is a chilling disconnect between Jennifer’s angelic appearance in frilly dresses, and the words coming out of her mouth:

Jennifer: “They [the rest of the family] don’t want me to be here. They don’t miss me like you do. They don’t care.”
Mary: “But they loved you.”
Jennifer: “Not real love. Not like you do. They always loved you the most. I always hated that.”

Spooky Jennifer’s resentments take a grave turn (pun intended) when she starts encouraging Mary to “take care of” the other family members who want to keep them apart. And from that point in the film, taking care of business, Don’t-Go-to-Sleep-style, will involve such household items as a pet iguana, a frisbee, a plug-in radio, and (**GULP!**) a pizza cutter.

Mary discusses girl things with her big dead sister,
like wreaking horrible vengeance from beyond the grave.

They say that 80% of all serious accidents occur in the home, and much of Don’t Go to Sleep plays like an extended public service program from Hell on how dangerous even the most mundane household items can be. We think we know what’s going on with the “accidents,” but the film keeps the perpetrator(s) off-camera. Meanwhile, the escalating chaos allows Harper and Weaver to emote their hearts out.

At this point, both leads were well-established TV stars, not to mention TV movie veterans. In 1971 Weaver appeared as the beleaguered driver in the mother of all TV movie cult hits, Steven Spielberg’s Duel. At the same time, he was highly visible in the title role of McCloud, the duck-out-of-water New Mexico policeman temporarily assigned to NYC (part of the NBC Mystery Movie rotation with McMillan and Wife and Colombo).

Valerie Harper had arguably more visibility on ‘70s TV, first as Mary Richard’s friend Rhoda in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, then as the star of her own spin-off show, Rhoda, in the mid-late ‘70s. There were a few TV movie roles in that decade, but after Rhoda’s run they became a bigger part of her career. Another memorable TV horror outing came in 1988 with The People Across the Lake, co-starring Gerald McRaney.

The pair make the most out of a script that at the outset establishes a seemingly normal, happy family with a bright future, but that keeps pulling at the threads of a dark secret that eventually causes everyone and everything to fall apart.

Valerie Harper and Dennis Weaver put on a master acting class in Don't Go to Sleep (no kidding).

One of the first clues that the family is not okay is the parents’ head-scratching insistence that no pictures or reminders of the elder daughter be displayed in the new home. This seems extremely implausible, even for the most grief-stricken of families. But a later flashback reveals that alcohol and a childish prank factored into the fatal accident, and everyone, including grandma, who kept the liquor flowing that night, is feeling at least a little guilty.

As Phillip, Weaver walks an acting tightrope, portraying a weak, frightened man without making him cartoonishly so. Early dialog hints that Phillip had a breakdown over the tragedy, lost his job, and only recently had gotten back on his feet. But his self-confidence has taken a blow, and Mary’s night terrors are not helping.

He’s so uncertain about his new job that he initially rejects Laura’s suggestion that they get Mary counseling, fearing that somehow word will get back to his bosses. As things begin to careen out of control again, Phillip drowns his sorrows in martinis -- the very thing that contributed to the original tragedy.

The 3 rules of TV horror real estate: location, location, location.

Laura desperately tries to hold things together, but she’s no superheroine. In one particularly wrenching scene, Laura tearfully begs her husband to be stronger because she can’t do it all herself. Phillip blubbers in self-pity and denial. The scene is riveting and authentic, and Harper and Weaver are at the absolute top of their form.

But let’s not forget the kids. Any movie featuring children is only as good as the child actors, and they’re very good indeed. The movie is really Robin Ignacio’s, as Mary is at the heart of (or perhaps, the conduit for) the evil that has gripped the family. She is a perfectly ordinary little girl, cute, but not saccharine sweet, and very believable as she struggles with the darkest of forces.

Towards the end, as emotional trauma and survivor’s guilt set in, Mary becomes guarded and morose, but at the same time she’s like a psychological chess master in parrying her doctor’s attempts at getting her to open up. Dr. Cole, played to subtle perfection by Robert Webber, soon realizes that something very disturbing is lurking behind the sullen little girl facade.

"Note: Does not play well with others and does not like my antique toy collection."

Props too to Kristin Cumming, who is as prim and cute as an American Girl doll, and whose warm, big sister smile masks the casually evil words coming out of her mouth during her nightly visits with Mary. Is she an avenging ghost, a demon, or a figment of Mary’s guilt-laden imagination? Well…

All this acting talent might have been wasted if not for the top-notch writing and directing by Ned Wynn and Richard Lang, respectively. Actor/writer Wynn drops hints, mostly through dialog, of the various skeletons in the family’s closet as he simultaneously ratchets up the suspense, first with disembodied voices, then spectral visits, and finally with a house in which death appears around every corner.

Director Richard Lang, who had already built a substantial resume directing TV shows and movies by the time Don’t Go to Sleep rolled around, seemingly respects the material too much to just go through the motions. Besides being an actor’s director, as evidenced by the bravura performances all around, his mix of unexpected close-ups, jump cuts and varying camera angles keeps the viewer almost as on edge as the characters in the film.

While made-for-TV horror continued to survive through the ‘80s, franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street that offered cheap and far bloodier thrills lured a new generation of horror fans back to theaters. More subtle chills tailored for TV -- especially of the supernatural variety -- fell by the wayside.

Fortunately, we have platforms like YouTube and Tubi to help us rediscover films like Don’t Go to Sleep that were made by craftsmen and women who used TV’s limitations to their advantage, creating genuine shudders instead of gross-out shocks. Who knew that a pizza cutter could be so terrifying? Or that Valerie Harper, no one’s idea of a scream queen, could belt one out with the best of them?

Wait for it... wait for it... now, SCREAM!!!

Where to find it: Acceptable (but not great) streaming copies can be found here and here.

(For reviews of other vintage Aaron Spelling-produced TV movies, see my posts on The Love War, 1970, How Awful About Allan, 1970, and A Cold Night’s Death, 1973.)

William Shatner's Early Exploration of the Unknown: "The Grim Reaper"

It’s time once again for Films From Beyond to turn its attention to great TV of the past, inspired by Terence Towles Canote’s Favourite TV Show Episode Blogathon at A Shroud of Thoughts (tune in to Terence’s site for more posts on classic television from an impressive list of bloggers).

Years before William Shatner embarked on his five year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations as captain of the starship Enterprise, he explored the darkest recesses of the human mind (not to mention the paranormal) in a succession of sci-fi, fantasy and horror-related TV roles.

One of Shatner’s better known pre-Star Trek appearances is as jittery airline passenger Bob Wilson in the classic Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (1963). I’ve covered it before on this blog but for those who missed it the first time: I was about eight or nine years old when I first encountered “Nightmare,” watching it in a darkened basement with my brother. When Wilson pulls back the window curtain next to his seat to see the gremlin goggling at him with his ugly mug pressed up against the pane, the two of us ran up the stairs yelling at the top of our lungs. (Somehow, that incident only fueled my fascination with the bizarre and grotesque. It must have been the adrenaline rush.)

Shatner had appeared in another classic Twilight Zone episode several years before. “Nick of Time,” (like "Nightmare," scripted by Richard Matheson), is a clever and uncanny examination of the power of suggestion. Don Carter (Shatner) and his wife are passing the time at a small town diner waiting for their car to be fixed. They start feeding coins into a fortune-telling machine, and discover that the gadget seems to have a chilling knack for predicting their near future. Soon, the couple are afraid to leave the diner as the diabolical machine holds them in its thrall through the “fortunes” it dispenses.

-"Am I going to enjoy this episode of The Twilight Zone?"
-"Without a doubt."

The future starship captain also appeared in another sci-fi/fantasy series beloved by ‘60s monster kids, The Outer Limits. Shatner guest-starred in the episode “Cold Hands, Warm Heart” (1964) as an astronaut who, after returning from a mission to Venus, is having disturbing visions and undergoing strange physiological changes. Although the episode is slow-paced and one of the weaker of the series, it was still a harbinger of TV space missions to come.

Another couple of Shatner appearances in early ‘60s macabre TV are perhaps less well-known but are must-sees for discriminating fans. Back in October 2019, I wrote about my pleasure in finally securing the DVD box set of the Boris Karloff-hosted Thriller TV series (1960-1962), and reviewed two notable episodes, “Pigeons from Hell” (based on the eerie Robert E. Howard story) and “The Incredible Doktor Markesan,” featuring Boris himself as the titular character. This creepy and atmospheric series, still underrated to this day, started out specializing in Alfred Hitchcockian thriller stories, then quickly turned to supernatural horror mid-way through the first season.

Fortunately for Shatner fans, the actor guest-starred in two of the series’ more memorable supernatural episodes. In fact, his second appearance in Thriller came in “The Grim Reaper,” which is the second highest rated episode of the entire series in IMDb (an impressive 8.4 out of 10 stars).

Now Playing: "The Grim Reaper" (Episode of Boris Karloff’s Thriller TV Series, first aired June 13, 1961)

Pros: Competent cast delivers an excellent mid-century Gothic tale with a twist of black humor; Writing, direction, photography and music score are top-notch
Cons: May be a bit slow-moving and talky for 21st century sensibilities

“The Grim Reaper” tells the tale of a cursed painting by a mad artist that brings sudden, violent death to anyone who owns it. In a prologue sequence set in the 19th century, a grim-faced gentleman, M. Pierre Redin (Henry Daniell), is trying to convince the landlady of a run-down boarding house to let him into the room where his son, the artist Henri Redin, is staying. The landlady is spooked by her boarder, calling his work “evil,” and telling the elder Redin that Henri would often go to the cemetery to do his sketching.

When they finally open the door, they’re startled to find Henri's lifeless body hanging from the rafters, his latest masterpiece, a depiction of the Grim Reaper with grinning skull face and wicked-looking scythe, sitting on an easel as if in mute witness to its creator’s suicide.

Henry Daniell was a mainstay of the Thriller series, appearing in 5 episodes.

After Boris Karloff’s signature introduction of the story and the players, we cut to the present day (1961 that is), where young, dapper Paul Graves (Shatner) is arriving at his aunt’s country estate. He does a double-take when he sees a shiny black hearse parked near one of the garages, and a name plate, “Graves-End” attached to the front entrance.

We soon learn that Beatrice Graves (Natalie Schafer) is a celebrated mystery writer with all the usual eccentricities, and that she came up with the hearse and tongue-in-cheek estate name to reinforce her public image.

Aunt Bea likes her martinis, her new part-time actor/full-time gigolo husband Gerald (Scott Merrill), her attractive personal secretary Dorothy (Elizabeth Allen) and her other possessions. But it’s Bea’s latest acquisition that has cast a pall around the house and prompted Paul's visit.

Sure enough, staring out from its place of honor on the wall of the library with its dead eye sockets is the Grim Reaper, as if patiently waiting to use its scythe on the inhabitants of its latest abode. To Bea, the painting is just another piece she got overseas to accentuate her house and her image.

But the painting is the reason for Paul’s visit; he’s worried for his aunt. Standing dramatically in front of the painting, and with the fireplace casting eerie shadows on the walls, Paul tells the assembled household residents that since the artist’s suicide, 15 of the painting’s owners have met unexpected and violent deaths. In every case, blood was seen on the blade of the Reaper’s scythe before the deaths. The group pooh-poohs the story, but right on cue, Paul hesitates, turns to look at the painting and haltingly touches it. With ominous violin music swelling, his hand emerges from the shadows, his fingers covered with blood!

Paul pauses for dramatic emphasis in front of the cursed painting.

Of course, the curse is going to be fulfilled and someone is going to die. But what will be the engine of doom? Paul insists that he’s not concerned about his aunt’s money, but is he hiding his true motivations? Or will it be Gerald’s wandering eye for the beautiful Dorothy?

“The Grim Reaper” is one of 10 Thriller adaptations and/or stories credited to esteemed master of the macabre Robert Bloch, best known for his novel Psycho, which Alfred Hitchcock notoriously adapted to the screen in 1960. In the DVD commentary, one of the contributors observes that the episode is exemplary of the series’ best offerings that were “about the intrusion of some normal character into a remote location where something’s been wrong for a very long time.” [Commentary: Ernest Dickerson, Gary Gerani, Tim Lucas & David J. Schow, Thriller, Image Entertainment, NBC Universal, 2010, episode 37]

From Psycho to “The Grim Reaper” to “The Hungry Glass” (the other Bloch-Shatner Thriller  “collaboration”; see below), Bloch was all over the theme of denizens of the brightly-lit normal world stumbling into a very dark abnormal one, with dire consequences.

The commentators also mention that Bloch’s Reaper script was adapted from Harold Lawlor’s 1947 story “The Black Madonna” (Lawlor, like Bloch, was a frequent contributor to Weird Tales in the ‘30s and ‘40s.) In the original story, the cursed painting is of an eerie Madonna and Child. There is a scar on the Madonna’s face, and when it bleeds, it spells doom for whoever owns the painting.

"Someone is in mortal danger as sure as my name is Boris Karloff!" says William Henry Pratt.

Bloch’s adaptation ups the creepiness factor, changing the subject of the painting to Death itself, and logically making blood on the scythe the harbinger of doom (although there’s something to be said for the off-kilter eeriness of a Madonna image not just shedding tears, but bleeding stigmata-like).

Bloch also added the prologue of M. Redin finding the body of his son hanging in the loft. Not only does the prologue provide a creepy cameo for the venerable character actor Henry Daniell (whose own gaunt, death-mask of a face would be featured in 5 Thriller episodes), but it also sets the stage for Bloch’s mordant black humor.

After discovering the body of the young artist, M. Redin and the Landlady stare at the painting of the Grim Reaper. Redin solemnly remarks, “His last picture… and he finished it.” The landlady’s rejoinder: “Perhaps it finished him!”

Bloch inserts a number of quips into the first couple of acts, allowing the viewer to whistle past the graveyard (or the Grim Reaper) so to speak, as he sets up the suspense to follow.

When Paul first arrives, Beatrice airily invites him to “come in, we mustn’t let fresh air into the house!” Then, as Bea is leading him on a tour of the house, he quips, “Who designed this, Charles Addams?” (At this point the original Addams Family TV show was only a gleam in some TV executive’s eye, but the cartoons on which it was based were hugely popular.)

Gradually the witticisms fade away as the moods of the four main characters darken (a bleeding painting of Death will do that to you). Natalie Schafer as Beatrice is particularly notable. Vintage TV fans will recognize her as Mrs. Howell from Gilligan’s Island, who was always trying to bring a touch of class to the tropical island on which she was marooned.

Beatrice’s situation isn’t that far off from Mrs. Howell’s: she too is isolated (although voluntarily, and at a sprawling country estate with all the amenities), and deals with her boredom by collecting expensive art objects and husbands. At the beginning she is all frivolity, but by the end of the 2nd act she is morosely nursing a drink, telling Paul that “Death has no terrors for me,” and that as a mystery writer, “Death is just a business partner.”

Beatrice contemplates her long-time business partner, Death.

It’s quite a performance, and wearing an elegant, black sequined evening dress, she comes off as a sort of anti-matter, dark universe doppelganger of the eternally entitled and optimistic Mrs. Howell.

The other three main cast members all have their moments as well. William Shatner gives a largely restrained and nuanced performance as Paul, who we quickly realize is holding something close to the vest. He does go over the top, Shatner-style, at two crucial moments, but hey, maybe the painting made him do it!

Scott Merrill as the husband doesn’t have much to do except be lounge-lizardy, but towards the end he has what the DVD commentators describe as one of the better acting moments of its type in the whole series (you’ll have to watch the episode to see what they mean).

Similarly, Elizabeth Allen is not much more than an attractive accessory (and possible red herring) until the climax, when she gets to show how convincingly horrified she can be.

The other stars of the episode are director Herschel Daugherty and director of photography Bud Thackery, who do a great job of methodically hemming in the characters and steering them to their fates with dramatic tight shots and growing shadows and darkness.

And then there’s Jerry Goldsmith, whose score effectively employs violins that serve at various key moments as a somber, moaning Greek chorus.

With “The Grim Reaper,” the Thriller series was at the top of its game, employing some of its very best talents to deliver one of the most chilling TV episodes of the era.

Dorothy is horrified by her employer's decorating tastes.

Where to find it: Streaming

Bonus mini-review: “The Hungry Glass,” first broadcast January 3, 1961

The first Thriller episode guest-starring William Shatner has several things in common with “The Grim Reaper”: It too features a haunted object (or in this case, objects); Robert Bloch had a hand in the writing (providing the story for Douglas Heyes to adapt); and Elizabeth Allen -- Dorothy in “The Grim Reaper” -- guest stars as well.

Shatner plays Gil Thrasher, a professional photographer who with his wife Marcia (Joanna Heyes), has quit the rat race of the big city and bought an old house on the New England coast. In typical ghost story fashion, the grizzled locals at the general store cryptically warn the couple of the place’s malignant reputation.

The gregarious real estate agent who sold the place to the Thrashers, Adam Talmadge (Russell Johnson) tells the couple of the house’s original resident, a young girl who had become addicted to looking at herself in the mirror. After a lifetime spent admiring her reflection, a nephew finally intervened and locked her away without her precious mirrors, where she died a raging madwoman. Since then, people have come to bad ends at the house in encounters with mirrors and glass. As a consequence, all the mirrors have been removed.

On cue, Gil sees a mysterious apparition in a window. The mystery deepens when Gil discovers an eerie, phantom-like face of a little girl in one of the photographs he took of the house. Gil and Marcia soon discover a secret room off of the attic in which all the missing mirrors are stored. When Talmadge and his wife Liz (Elizabeth Allen) join the Thrashers for a house-warming party on a dark and stormy night, you know all hell is going to break loose.

Marcia takes a moment to reflect on the wisdom of buying a creepy haunted house.

Like “The Grim Reaper,” “The Hungry Glass” focuses on a handful of people grappling with a malignant supernatural force in an old dark house. There is a striking prologue featuring the reflection of a beautiful young girl in 19th century formal dress prancing and preening in a succession of ornate mirrors. The scene turns nightmarish when the camera pulls back to reveal that the source of the reflection is a hideous old crone.

The mirrors make another remarkable appearance mid-way through the episode, when the secret room is discovered. A shot of Marcia’s multiple reflections in dozens of old mirrors is both dazzling and ominous.

“The Hungry Glass” is one of a number of ghost stories that effectively plays on the uncanny nature of mirrors, especially in creepy old houses, and our ability to imagine dark forces that lurk behind the glass.

Where to find it: Streaming

Less is More Horror: 21st Century Low-budget Fright Films

Note to my readers: After nearly 14 years in the same location, I'm on the move again. After the last move I vowed it would be the final one. With 14 more years worth of accumulated aches, pains and grey hairs, I'm hoping that it will be at least that long before I have to pack up and do it all over again, if ever (I now know enough to never say never). We're not pack-rats, but as I go through all the flotsam, jetsam and detritus of normal (?) middle-class living, I don't think I will ever again look at anything other than a consumable on a store shelf without thinking "do I really need that?" and more importantly, "do I want to box that up and move it when the time comes?" I'm at the point where I'm ready to pass the torch to the next generation to keep the durable goods economy going. Preparing for a move really focuses your mind on the basics, and reminds you of how little is really necessary for a comfortable life: a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and of course, a good collection of DVDs and movie memorabilia. Since I will be busy in the next couple of months making sure my movie stuff, among other things, arrives safe and sound in its new home, I will be posting somewhat less frequently to the blog. But I will try to keep posting regularly to Films From Beyond on Facebook (featuring capsule reviews, B movie trivia, quotes, photos, etc.). If you haven't already, check it out!

I'm going to mix things up a bit for this post, and write about some nifty low-budget horror films that have been released since -- **GASP!!** -- 2000. While these titles are well outside the normal parameters for this blog (under-appreciated genre films from the 1930s through the '70s), they serve to illustrate that the "B" spirit is still alive and well, and that with a little imagination and creativity, you can make a movie that is just as effective in its way as something costing tens of millions more.

In my last post on Castle of Blood (1964), I observed that "[y]ou don't need over-the-top shock effects or a bunch of high-end computers dedicated to CGI to raise goosebumps. You can do it with lighting, make-up, sound, in-camera effects, and some imagination." Unfortunately, much of filmed science fiction and horror these days is caught in a vicious circle: ever more sophisticated and costly effects are used to capture attention and box office bucks; the productions are so expensive that few studios are willing to gamble on unknown or original material, so an endless parade of familiar comic book and TV franchises and sequels are trotted out each year; in spite of the whiz bang effects, the movies begin to blend together and look the same, so even more money is spent on trying to distinguish the product from all the other imitators; and on and on it goes. (On the horror side, filmmakers are caught in an endless circle of "gross out" one-upmanship, to the point where last year's Saw or Hostel sequel looks almost tame compared to current nauseating gore standards. TV is getting especially bad. This is not horror -- it's gore/torture porn.)

In the latest issue of Filmfax, Miller Drake, a special effects editor who got his start with Jack Rabin and then went on to work for Roger Corman's New World Pictures, talks about how the film itself has almost become secondary in today's market:

"Everybody wants to make sequels, remakes and video games, comic books or graphic novel adaptations. They're all so afraid of doing anything original. Film companies are all owned by big corporations now and all they want to make are these big expensive, what they call 'tentpole' projects, that they think will make a lot of money. They're more concerned with merchandising, like selling toys and video games, than with making good movies. So they're really locked into that kind of thinking." ("From Rocketship X-M and Kronos to Island of the Fishmen and Beyond," Filmfax, Spring 2013, No. 133)

One upside of the digital production revolution is that a whole new generation of artful, imaginative films are being made on a shoestring. These movies, aimed at a select audience, don't need comic book heroes, familiar franchises, or worldwide theatrical releases to be successful. Like the B's of old, the ingenuity and creativity is reserved for the movie itself, not the advertising campaign or merchandising tie-ins. And quite often, they are surprisingly original and effective on budgets that are a fraction of what some blockbuster productions spend on catering alone. Here are four very good examples in the horror genre that have caught my attention since the turn of the millennium. They've all earned the Films From Beyond Honorary B Movie award. And best of all, they're readily accessible on Netflix Instant Watch.

Now Playing: Session 9 (2001)

Pros: Great setting; Good, solid cast; Grabs you with its creepy atmosphere from the outset and steadily ratchets up the tension
Cons: Some of the characters' motivations are murky to the point of confusion

In brief: Gordon Fleming (Peter Mullan), owner of a small hazardous materials cleanup company, wins the bid to remove asbestos from the old abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital, but the job has to be done in an almost impossibly short time frame. Success doesn't seem guaranteed, as most of the crew are dealing with an assortment personal problems: Gordon is having family troubles, Mike (Stephen Gevedon) is a depressed law school dropout, Hank (Josh Lucas) has stolen fellow crew member Phil's (David Caruso) girlfriend, and Gordon's nephew Jeff (Brendan Sexton III) suffers from fear of the dark. The dark, creepy corridors and rooms of the abandoned hospital aren't helping anyone's mood. Mike discovers a box with 9 taped sessions with a patient, Mary, with multiple personalities. Mike's curiosity gets the better of him, and he starts listening to the tapes. Strange things start happening in the old hospital, and by the time Mike gets to session 9, where Mary's malevolent alter ego Simon speaks on the tape, an old evil seems to have been unleashed on the hapless cleanup crew.

Key scenes: Session 9 was a revelation to me way back in '01. I realized that some filmmakers out there were actually willing to make subtle, sophisticated psychological horror films that were about realistic characters and the building of mood and suspense instead of gore effects and high body counts. At the outset, simple shots of the dark, Gothic set -- a real state hospital -- establish a forbidding atmosphere. It builds from there, and by the time you hear "Simon" speaking out of the old reel-to-reel tape recorder, the short hairs on the back of your neck are standing up.

Key player: David Caruso, the most recognizable actor in the film, was between stints on the popular TV series NYPD Blue and CSI: Miami when he appeared in Session 9.

Now Playing: The Ceremony (2008)

Pros: Keeps things in the shadows to stir the viewer's imagination; Great use of sound and masterful editing; Solid performance by Scott Seegmiller
Cons: The manifestation of the demonic force may seem like a cliche to some

In brief: Graduating college student Eric Peterson's (Scott Seegmiller) life seems to be on the upswing-- his professor and mentor has offered him an important research position overseas. As he starts to clean up his apartment and prepare for the big move, he discovers an open book surrounded by candles sitting in the middle of his roommate's bedroom. Intrigued, he takes time off from his moving preparations to investigate the passages in the book, even taking the trouble to consult a professor of ancient languages at the university. Soon, weird poltergeist-like activity starts to take place: lights and appliances turn off and on by themselves; objects move around seemingly by themselves; and just out of the corner of his eye, shadowy things seem to be lurking in the rental house. He comes to realize that he's inadvertently set in motion supernatural forces that have trapped him alone in the house, and are demanding an unspeakable sacrifice.

Key scenes: Like Session 9, the very low budget The Ceremony masterfully builds tension and suspense, starting with a handful of small, weird occurrences that then grow in number and intensity to two climaxes: in the first, Eric meets a surprising physical manifestation of the dark force; the second presents a very unexpected and disturbing surprise ending. There are no CGI effects or blood -- just very clever use of a single set, a single actor (for most of the film), eerie sound effects, fleeting images, and some skilled editing.

Key player and filmmaker: Incredibly, The Ceremony seems to be actor Scott Seegmiller's and director James Palmer's only credit to date.

Now Playing: Pontypool (2008)

Pros: Bizarre, haunting premise; Crackerjack dialog (and monologues); Tour-de-force performance by veteran actor Stephen McHattie
Cons: Egregious, gory scene that seems out of place

In brief: They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but in Pontypool, the spoken word can literally kill. The film opens with Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie), a talk radio announcer whose career is in decline, driving in the middle of an early morning blizzard to his new job at a small radio station in Pontypool, Ontario. At a stoplight, he's startled when a woman suddenly appears out of the swirling snow at the car window. She seems disoriented and keeps repeating words over and over, then almost as quickly as she appeared, she vanishes back into the blizzard. Grant arrives at the station, rattled and guilt-ridden that he couldn't do more to help the mysterious woman. On top of it all, former shock-jock Mazzy is a rather bad fit for the station in the Canadian boondocks. He has words with station manager Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle) and technical engineer Laurel-Ann (Georgina Reilly). Soon, his boring morning of winter storm updates is interrupted by unnerving reports of deadly riots in town, and of people mumbling words over and over again, then joining packs of other "infected" people that act like mindless insect swarms. Then, the station receives emergency government transmissions warning that the use of certain words, especially words of endearment, are somehow causing people to go insane, and to not speak English at all. Somehow, a bleak, snowy, humdrum morning has turned into a fight for survival as Mazzy and the small station crew have to figure out how to avoid succumbing to the language plague and those unfortunate souls who have already been infected.

Key scenes: Although there is one gory scene that's difficult (at least for me) to watch, Pontypool is first and foremost a film of bizarre ideas and psychological suspense. According to the film's Wikipedia entry, author Tony Burgess came up with the script adaptation of his own novel, Pontypool Changes Everything, over the course of a couple of days. Orson Welles' legendary War of the Worlds radio broadcast provided the inspiration (a radio play version of Pontypool was developed simultaneously with the film). One of the movie's most effective scenes is when the station's field reporter describes to Mazzy the bizarre behavior of the rioting crowd, and stumbles upon a person who has just become infected. The mental images that are conjured up by the breathless descriptions are more effective and disturbing than anything the producers might have tried to film (or worse yet, tried to develop with CGI).

Key player: Grizzled Canadian character actor Stephen McHattie has been incredibly busy in films and TV since the early 1970s. McHattie is a one-man tour-de-force in Pontypool, and is a joy to watch just sitting at the microphone at the radio station, reacting to the crazy news reports being handed to him, and in turn trying to warn his listeners about the deadly spoken-word plague. Predictably, Hattie was nominated for best actor by a number of fantasy and horror festivals, and won the prize at the Puchon International Fantasy Film Festival. (Don't get him confused with Lance Henriksen, with whom he shares more than a passing resemblance. Both actors have a list of credits a mile long.)

Now Playing: Ghost from the Machine (aka Phasma Ex Machina; 2010)

Pros: Intelligent script engages the viewer's imagination and keeps him/her off guard and guessing; Touching, poignant scenes alternate with creeping terror; Amazing, natural performance by Matthew Feeney
Cons: Main character Cody is so obsessed with his project (and neglectful of his younger brother) that he loses audience sympathy

In brief: Twenty-something Cody (Sasha Andreev) is wracked with guilt that he is indirectly responsible for his parents' tragic deaths in a automobile accident. An electronics genius, he becomes obsessed with the idea of bringing them back through technological means. In his research, he discovers that many ghost sightings and other paranormal phenomena seem to be associated with weak electromagnetic fields like those generated from power lines. He spends all his time in his garage building a field generator through which the dead can return. Cody attracts the attention of Tom (Matthew Feeney), a used electronic parts dealer, when he buys two rare devices that can be used to tap into commercial power lines. Unbeknownst to Cody, his machine actually works, and suddenly Tom and others in town are being visited by dead people from their past who don't seem to know they're dead. Cody has spent so much time and energy on the machine, he's in danger of losing custody of his younger brother James (Max Hauser), who's been missing school. As Tom tracks the mysterious energy field to Cody's garage, James tries to convince his older brother that there are intruders in the house. It turns out that the noisy intruders are a highly eccentric mother and son, dead for years, who have come back to reclaim their house…

Key scenes: One of the nice touches in Ghost is that the machine conjures up dead people that some of the living characters (and even the film's viewers) don't at first realize are dead (and there's one nicely written scene in which it's not entirely clear if Cody has been talking with someone living or dead). I also appreciated that there's no dramatic Frankenstein-like "It's alive!" moment of triumph for the inventor. Through most of the film, Cody doesn't realize his machine has actually worked, which seems more authentic. There's also a very touching scene involving a long lost little girl and an amazingly stoic mother.

Key player: Matthew Feeney, an actor and stand-up comedian, turns in an amazing, poignant performance as the used parts dealer who at first is curious about the somber young man who wants to buy obscure electronic equipment, and then has a much bigger mystery on his hands when his beloved dead wife shows up at his house, cooking, climbing into bed and acting like nothing has happened. Feeney's everyman character experiences terror, dread, joy and hope, at times all mixed together. It's one of the best performances I've ever seen in a low-budget independent feature.

Dancing with the Horror Movie Stars

Now Playing: Castle of Blood (aka Danza Macabra; 1964)

Pros: Creepy atmosphere in spades; Beautiful black and white photography; Barbara Steele is ethereal and haunting
Cons: Purist Poe fans may object to the way he's depicted in the film

I have a nice little morning ritual at work. On the way to the coffee bar in my building for my $1.25 refill, I usually stop at the front desk to chat with my co-worker and fellow sci-fi/horror aficionado Vincent (not his real name). Even with all the blogs I follow and the copious social media interactions, it's nice to talk movies and books in person with someone who shares your interests. Vincent gives me a rundown of everything he's seen since our last talk, and I try to stump him with something he hasn't seen yet (and I usually fail -- in the last year or so, I've only come up with two Netflix instant titles he hadn't heard of).

Our tastes aren't identical. He's much more into the newer stuff, and I'm more appreciative of the old. He's far more tolerant of blood and gore than I am, but he freely admits that he fast forwards through particularly hackneyed and predictable (and egregiously violent) stretches. He's like a grizzled prospector who, after a lifetime searching for gold, seemingly has only the dusty clothes on his back and a mangy old burro with a mean streak to show for it. But he keeps searching, because he knows there's sci-fi/horror gold in them there hills -- and he finds just enough of it to keep going. He is relentless and completely dedicated to his favorite genres.

Vincent also tries to keep up with sci-fi and horror-themed TV shows (at least to watch the first episode or two to see what they're all about). The other day he asked me if I'd seen the premiere of the latest SyFy epic series, Defiance. I don't usually commit to new TV series, even sci-fi and horror, because, well, I've got to have some time left to devote to the classics and this blog. As Vincent was describing the plot, the previews of dozens of recent SyFy and other cable series were dancing around in my head (I may not watch too many series, but I don't live in a cave either, so I do see the ads for a lot of this stuff). Vincent was pretty excited about the new series, but to me it sounded like an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink pastiche of every science fiction series to hit the airwaves in the last several years: Vicious, aggressive aliens whose home world has been destroyed discover Earth and turn off all the electrical power while at the same time unleashing a plague of the walking dead upon humanity; meanwhile, plucky bands of human and alien-human hybrid survivors fight a desperate guerilla war against the cruel invaders. (Or something like that-- it's really hard to tell these shows apart!)

And then there's horror. It looks to me like the angst-ridden teen and twenty-something vampires and werewolves have finally worn out their welcome (knock on wooden stakes). But assorted serial killers, psychos, paranormal investigators, poltergeists, and zombies (herds, hordes, masses, mobs, swarms, multitudes, throngs, and legions of dam**d zombies!) have kicked off their shoes, put their smelly feet up on the coffee table, popped open a foul brew, and taken up permanent residence in theaters, TV, the general popular culture and our collective consciousness. (Just when I'd thought the zombie market couldn't possibly get any more saturated, or that there were any more variations on the theme for callous producers to exploit, along came Warm Bodies, about zombie love. And of course, we can all look forward to World War Z with Brad Pitt this summer. Ugh!)

This stuff isn't scary. Shocking, repellent, nauseating… yes. But really scary? No. You don't need over-the-top shock effects or a bunch of high-end computers dedicated to CGI to raise goosebumps. You can do it with lighting, make-up, sound, in-camera effects, and some imagination. For true fright connoisseurs, there are some subtle, aged vintages down there in the dark cellar, just waiting to be uncorked. The difference between these classics and the current crop of pop horror films and TV shows is like that between a 1949 Lafite-Rothschild and a bottle of MD 20/20. For a domestic (actually Anglo-American) vintage, it's hard to do better than Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963), or almost anything by Val Lewton. For an ethereal, yet complex import with a smoky, supernatural aftertaste, you might want to try Castle of Blood (aka Danse Macabre; 1964).

Hurry and get your hot dogs, popcorn and soda...
only 5 minutes 'til showtime!

The first time I saw Castle of Blood, it was doubly terrifying. Somehow, I had talked my brother into letting me tag along on a trip to the drive-in to see an Italian action/horror double feature. My brother's buddy, who had been driving on learner's permit maybe 6 months earlier, decided to see what his souped-up Camaro would do out on the open highway… at night. When the speedometer needle crossed 85, I closed my eyes, said my prayers, and thought about all the things I was going to miss in my short, abbreviated life.  I didn't open them again until we sprayed gravel swerving into the drive-in entrance.

As I recall, the first feature in the double-bill was what looked to be a zero-budget spaghetti western with a small cast and hardly a single word of dialog in the whole thing (for the life of me I can't remember the title). After the initial terror of the mad race to the theater subsided, I remember being mildly curious as to whether either of the principal cast members -- particularly seedy, low-rent versions of the Lone Ranger and Tonto -- were going to say anything. (In hindsight, the producers were brilliant -- they solved the problems with international distribution and language dubbing costs by avoiding dialog altogether. A couple of times over the years I've tried to figure out just what the heck this thing was, with no luck.)

The western was mercifully short, and then it was on to the main attraction. Just a few minutes into the movie, we all got really quiet. None of us had ever seen anything remotely like it. Castle of Blood is a masterful blending of a simple, archetypal story -- a man spends the night in a haunted castle on a bet -- with beautiful, atmospheric black and white photography, sounds that go bump in the night, odd characters in lush costumes who appear out of nowhere, and some wild, unexpected plot twists and turns.

Castle starts out in classic ghost story fashion with a lone traveler wandering into a darkened tavern and encountering an odd, intense man telling a spooky tale to a circle of enrapt listeners. When the storyteller is done, the man introduces himself as Alan Foster (Georges Riviere), a journalist who has traveled a long way to get an interview with the storyteller -- the great Edgar Allan Poe (Silvano Tranquilli). Poe insists that he is not a fiction writer, but rather a journalist like Foster, and that all of his tales are actually true. When Poe matter-of-factly states that the tomb or the grave is not always the end, and that many "live" beyond death, Foster insists the writer is having fun with him. Foster is a rationalist who has a hard time believing any intelligent person can believe in ghosts or the hereafter.

The fateful bet is made. (From the left: Silvano Tranquilli as Poe,
Georges Riviere as Foster and Umberto Raho as Lord Blackwood)

A third man who has been listening to the two debate introduces himself as Lord Thomas Blackwood (Umberto Raho), and he gets right down to business, betting the skeptical journalist 100 pounds sterling that he can't spend a single night in his haunted castle out in the country.

Foster: Why, do you believe I might run away from the place?
Blackwood: No, you'd remain there. Of all those who've agreed to take up my wager, not one has ever lived to run away.

At first demurring, the insouciant Foster informs Blackwood that journalists of his ilk are poorly paid, so he can only afford to bet a measly 10 pounds. Blackwood gleefully takes him up on it. They pile into Blackwood's carriage to make the long ride to the castle-- the aristocrat wants to get Foster there by midnight on the "Night of the Dead," a time when "the dead come back to perform again those tragedies which have cost them their lives…" Okaaaayyyy then.

And perform they do! While at first the castle is deathly quiet, soon Foster hears harpsichord music and sees a dancing couple that, upon further investigation, aren't there. He feels a hand on his shoulder, and whirling around, is startled to see an alluring dark beauty dressed in white (Barbara Steele). She introduces herself as Elisabeth Blackwood, Thomas' sister and the sole remaining occupant of the castle. Foster is confused, as Lord Blackwood hadn't mentioned any residents, but also relieved to have such beautiful company.

"My heart isn't beating. It hasn't beaten for 10 years.
I'm dead Alan."

In a very simple, yet jarring scene, Foster, thinking his night in the haunted castle won't be so bad after all, lays his head on Elizabeth's chest. After a moment, his eyes open wide and he bolts upright-- she has no heartbeat! In Blackwood's castle, it's hard to tell the living from the dead without a scorecard!  Foster's relief soon turns to terror as the gloomy corridors and rooms come to "life" with the reanimated dead: specters suddenly materialize out of the darkness to stab, strangle and otherwise maim each other; rotting corpses stir with life and take rasping breaths of air; clouds of mist with a life of their own roll out of open tombs and seep under doors; and the woods outside the castle suddenly blossom with dead, hanging bodies (all tastefully done of course!).  And unbeknownst to Foster, the undead residents have a plan in store for him… and his blood. The once skeptical journalist just might not live out the night to collect on his bet and finish his interview with Poe!

Castle of Blood came fairly early in director Antonio Margheriti's (aka Anthony M. Dawson's) long career. His work as a model-maker and documentary film assistant in the 1950s caught the eye of a producer who wanted to capitalize on the late '50s science fiction craze, and Assignment: Outer Space (aka Space Men; 1960) launched him into orbit as a director (see Louis Paul, Italian Horror Film Directors, McFarland, 2005). Margheriti has done it all: horror, sci-fi, sword and sandal, spies, war, westerns, even a martial arts western… but Castle of Blood remains his masterpiece. According to Lawrence McCallum (Italian Horror Films of the 1960s, McFarland, 1998), Castle/Danza Macabra was shot in 1962, possibly in response to the popularity of Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960) and Roger Corman's early Poe pictures, but it wasn't released in the U.S. until 1964, and then, on the bottom of a double-bill with Hercules in the Haunted World (1961). Years later, Margheriti remade Castle, adding color and the talents of such actors as Anthony Franciosa and Klaus Kinski, but the critical consensus is that Web of the Spider (1971) is a pale imitation of the original.

"Come, I've prepared your room upstairs."

Web of the Spider's biggest failing is that it lacks the presence of Eurohorror queen Barbara Steele. Dark and exotically beautiful, Barbara appeared in some of the best, most haunting and hair-raising horror films of the 1960s: Bava's Black Sunday (aka Mask of Satan); Roger Corman's Pit and the Pendulum (1961); Riccardo Freda's The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962); Camillo Mastrocinque's An Angel for Satan (1966), and of course, Castle of Blood, among many others. In a 2011 interview for the London Guardian newspaper, Steele confessed to not understanding her fans' enduring fascination for her horror films: "It's amazing to me. Incomprehensible. They come up to you as if you made it last Tuesday and they're so thrilled. I can't understand it." And speaking of her experience with such soft-spoken directors as Bava and Corman, she noted ironically, "So many of these people who are enthralled with the chaotic dark side all look like Jesuit priests."

If you've browsed around this site any, you may have stumbled on the list of my all-time favorite horror and science fiction films -- Castle of Blood is on it. It's one of a handful of films that I vividly recall seeing for the first time. With its masterful black and white photography (courtesy of Riccardo Pallottini) and cast of weird characters headed by the enigmatic Steele, Castle of Blood is surprising, surreal and unsettling. It's a modest B masterpiece that, better than almost any other horror film that I can think of, burns its uncanny images in the unwary viewer's brain, leaving him queasy and uneasy. Go ahead, press play late at night, with the lights turned low. I dare you.

---

Where to find it:

Oldies.com

Amazon Instant Video


"Here the dead rise from their tombs once a year to repeat their hideous crimes of murder and passion!"

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Now Playing: Tormented (1960)

Pros: A very quirky, offbeat story for the time period and genre; Stolid B movie leading man Richard Carlson plays against type; A surprisingly good child actress
Cons: Uneven and misused special effects serve to dissipate the spooky atmosphere and tension

A little while back a friend and I were speculating on what new social media application(s) young people will turn to now that their parents and grandparents have invaded Facebook and ruined it for them.  Facebook investors take note: I've been on it for a year or so now, and the surest sign of the decline and fall of a service like this is when old people like me start grudgingly using it.

The mass exodus of the young from Facebook is just another, though potent, indicator of the widening generation gap. (No doubt my use of an old term like "generation gap" only serves to further that gap-- my apologies to anyone under 30 who might have somehow stumbled upon this post!) Obviously, tensions between the young and the old are part of being human, but from my grumpy old man perspective, the divisions have gotten a lot worse.

Those of you who've lived more than a couple of decades may be thinking, how could the generation gap be any wider than it was in the late '60s and early '70s, with hippies and yippies howling at their scowling elders, burning draft cards and bras, turning on to drugs, tuning in, and dropping out?  In contrast to the Vietnam-era generation, today's youth are generally reserved, rule governed, conformist, and materialistic. In 21st century America, what's not to like about that?

Just this: rebellion is still a form, albeit a crude one, of engaging with your perceived adversary. With engagement, there's hope for resolution or at least an uneasy truce. Some rebellion is a good, healthy thing-- testing boundaries is an essential part of the maturing process. But it seems to me that young people today don't rebel in healthy ways. They simply ignore anything and everything that is not an immediate part of their social circle. Nothing interesting happened or was created before they were born. Nothing interesting or creative will happen after they're gone. It's as if we've unleashed an entire generation of mutant Anthony Fremonts who have banished anything that's not all about them -- their age, their interests, their culture -- to the "cornfields" of their minds (The Twilight Zone's "It's a Good Life").

Tom Stewart (Richard Carlson) is bewitched,
bothered and tormented.

But don't take my word for it. The people who create products and services for teens and twenty-somethings know them very well. Take movies (my favorite subject) for example. Have you noticed how adults, not to mention old people, have essentially been banished from most contemporary sci-fi, fantasy and horror films? From Harry Potter to Transformers to Twilight, films aimed at the youth market have either eliminated adult protagonists altogether, or reduced them to the equivalent of the invisible, unintelligible adults who blah, blah, blah with trombone voices in the Charlie Brown animated specials.

It wasn't always so. For every Invasion of the Saucer Men or Giant Gila Monster featuring teen protagonist-heroes, there were at least 2 or 3 sci-fi/fantasy flicks of the '50s and '60s that featured honest-to-goodness adult protagonists, some well into middle age and beyond. Kids flocked to drive-ins and hometown theaters to see these films, and apparently had no problem with significant adult characters.

One very significant adult "character" from 1950s sci-fi was stolid B movie leading man Richard Carlson. He was already in his 40s when he made his first B sci-fi movie, The Magnetic Monster, in 1953 (see the post on this and other Fantastic Faceless Foes of '50s Sci-fi elsewhere on this blog). The classics for which he's known today, It Came From Outer Space and Creature From the Black Lagoon, followed quickly after that (1953 and 1954 respectively). He even found time during that period to direct a sci-fi movie (Riders to the Stars, 1954) and a western (Four Guns to the Border, 1954). Later in the '50s he turned almost exclusively to television, writing and directing as well as acting.

Like his B movie cohorts John Agar and Robert Hutton, Carlson projected a straight-arrow, Dudley Do-Right image in most of his films. He was that square-jawed, intelligent, levelheaded guy you wanted on your side when the chips were down. Almost always. In Tormented, he's a regular, very flawed human being who pays dearly for his indiscretions.

Vi Mason (Juli Reding) confronts her old flame at
the abandoned lighthouse. Watch that handrail!

Carlson plays Tom Stewart, a successful jazz pianist who seems to have it made-- he lives a plush life on a sunny island, and he's about to marry an attractive girl (Meg Hubbard, played by Lugene Sanders) who also happens to come from a wealthy family. There's just one hitch. One of his past flings, the beautiful and buxom Vi Mason (Juli Reding), has tracked him down and wants to resume where they left off. Tom, not wanting to attract the wrong kind of attention, takes Vi to the island's abandoned lighthouse to try to reason with her. Vi's got it bad for Tom-- when he tells her he's getting married, she threatens to send some steamy letters to the bride-to-be. For whatever reason, they've decided to climb all the way to the top of the lighthouse to talk, where Tom catches a "lucky" break. The angry ex-girlfriend leans against an old rusted railing that gives way. As she holds on for dear life to another part of the railing, she pleads for Tom to save her. He leans over, ready to grab her hand, then thinks better of it. Her strength gives out and she falls to her death. Whew, problem solved!!

Well, not quite-- Tom's problems have only just begun. Like the self-obsessed cad he is, Tom tries to tell himself that Vi's death wasn't his fault. But Vi's very active ghost begs to differ. When she told Tom "I'll never leave you, I'll always be with you," she really meant it. Just like a Master Card from Hell, her vengeful spirit starts turning up everywhere Tom wants to be. Walking on the beach, Tom spies her body floating in the surf, picks her up, and carries her onto the beach. As he looks on in horror, the body suddenly morphs into a stinking human-sized pile of seaweed. Later, as Tom and his fiance stroll leisurely along the beach, footprints from an invisible being follow closely behind.

Vi seems to have lost her head over the
suave jazz pianist Tom Stewart.

Tom starts to doubt his sanity as the phantom Vi turns up the heat. As Tom embraces Meg, the smell of Vi's perfume fills the room. Tom's record player starts up all by itself and plays a record of Vi's (she was a singer), even after it's been unplugged. Vi's watch and necklace suddenly show up in the oddest places, while a disembodied hand steals the ring Tom bought for the wedding. Vi's disembodied head floats over the engaged couple in a Polaroid taken at a pre-wedding party.

But Tom's problems aren't all other-worldly. A very corporeal threat in the form of a tugboat captain (Joe Turkel) turns up just before the wedding. Seems he'd been promised money by a beautiful blonde to ferry her over to the island for a visit with a well-known jazz musician. But she hadn't kept her appointment to go back to the mainland, and the boatman knows she didn't take the regular ferry. He puts two and two together, and decides he can make a lot more than just the price of a boat ride off the harried Tom. Big mistake. Tom decides to deal with the blackmailer in the same unsafe lighthouse that took Vi's life, but he just digs a deeper hole for himself. His fiance's little 9 year-old sister Sandy (Susan Gordon) adores Tom, but is concerned about him as he starts losing it from the stress of the hauntings and the blackmail. She follows him to the lighthouse, and sees something she shouldn't… Now Tom's really up the proverbial creek without a paddle. What to do… what to do?!

Susan Gordon as little Sandy is surprisingly good.

Richard Carlson gets big points for playing against the stolid hero type. His role in Tormented is richer and more textured than the characters he played in Creature from the Black Lagoon and It Came from Outer Space. He's a skunk and a murderer, but he also clearly loves his fiance and little Sandy, and is desperate to preserve his future with them. Susan Gordon (daughter of producer-writer-director Bert I. Gordon) is also a delightful surprise-- unlike most child actors of the period, she is natural and engaging, and a real asset to the film. (Sadly, Gordon died of cancer at the age of 62 in December of last year.)

Bert I. Gordon (or Mr. B.I.G.) also gets points for originality. Bert was known for his fixation with all things gigantic (e.g., The Amazing Colossal Man, 1957), so a ghost story was quite a departure for him. In addition to writing, directing and producing, Bert also supervised the special effects for his films. Unfortunately, his penchant for effects serves to subvert the tense, spooky atmosphere of Tormented. Ghosts in the movies are the opposite of children -- they're best heard, not seen (for an absolutely masterful example of how to scare with just sound and suggestion, see Robert Wise's The Haunting, 1963). Vi's ghost is bold, brassy and in-your-face… but not very scary. Bert seems to mistake quantity for quality. He throws every ghostly cliché at the screen -- footprints from an invisible being, disembodied hands and heads, flowers wilting in the ghost's presence, etc., etc. By the time poor Tom holds up Vi's disembodied head as it yells "Tom Stewart killed me!" over and over, we've given up being scared and at best, are mildly curious about what effects stunt Mr. B.I.G. will pull next. (See more about Mr. B.I.G. in my post on The Cyclops.)

Still, what's Halloween without ghosts, however cheesy they may be? Tormented would be a fun, kitschy addition to a ghostly movie marathon with say, The Haunting and The Woman in Black to provide authentic scares. Tormented is available in its entirely on YouTube and the Internet Archive, as well as on DVD from Alpha Video.

"You belong to me Tom... you belong to a ghost!"