With the box office success of “House of Usher” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” it must've seemed obvious to Roger Corman that the public was ready for an on-going series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. Evidence suggests that his bosses at American International Picture were reluctant to agree. For the third entry in the Poe Cycle, “The Premature Burial,” Corman decided to make the film independently through Pathe Labs. This prevented Vincent Price from starring, as he was under contract with A.I.P. Corman instead cast his “X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes” star, Ray Milland. Funny enough, James Nicholson and Sam Z. Arkoff would bully their way into the production anyway, perhaps realizing Corman was right after all.
His entire life, Guy Carrol has been terrified of being buried alive. His father fell into a death-like cataleptic fits and was interned, only to awaken inside his casket still alive. Guy, who inherited his dad's condition, is terrified the same thing will happen to him. His phobia is so bad that he creates several caskets with elaborate, built-in escape hatches. His obsession is interrupting his relationship with his comely fiance, Emily. Eventually, the inevitable happens. Guy seems to die of fright and is buried, those around him seemingly unaware that he is still alive inside his grave.
With each subsequent entry in the Poe Cycle, Roger Corman seemed to be building on his approach to gothic atmosphere. Just as a visual experience, “Premature Burial” is absolutely gorgeous. The movie begins with a stunning pan over a fog-strewn graveyard, shot on an obviously artificial sound stage. The somber blue, blacks, and cloudy whites of the backdrops make it look like the cast members are walking around inside giant watercolor paintings. Naturally, long portions of the movie are set within the sprawling hallways and dining rooms of Carrol's spooky castle. The family tomb, under the home, is an especially notable set. Corman continues to include psychedelic fantasy sequences, such as a trippy and somewhat overlong nightmare scene here. If you're like me, and this kind of stuff sends a pleasant chill up your spine, “The Premature Burial” is absolutely a must-see.
Sadly, the rest of the movie doesn't really live up to its fantastic atmosphere. The biggest problem with “The Premature Burial” is simply mechanical. From the title card on down, we are waiting for the main character to be buried alive. It's all he talks about. Inevitably, he ends up buried alive. Even more inevitably, he digs himself up and goes on a mad rampage of revenge against those he blames for his premature burial. This stuff is fun – an electrocution death scene is especially grisly – but it takes a while to get there. Far too much of “The Premature Burial” feels like the audience is waiting around for something more interesting to happen.
Another big problem with “The Premature Burial” is its leading man. Ray Milland, by no means, gives a bad performance here. He certainly does a good job of intoning gravely about his horrifying family history and his persistent fears. There's even a wry humor to his delivery, especially in the moment he shows off the various countermeasures he's invented to being buried alive. Yet, all throughout the film, one can't help but wonder what Vincent Price would've done in this part. While Milland seems resistant to going totally over-the-top, we know Price would've spiraled completely into hysterics. A leading man that seems slightly detached from the material, instead of embracing hammy emotion fully, drags the movie down some.
“The Premature Burial” also suffers from an ending where a character outright explains a plot twist, a straight example of telling and not showing. While Corman and his team managed to successfully expand a short Poe story with “Pit and the Pendulum,” his “Premature Burial” proved harder to expand into a feature film without spinning its wheels for a while. While obviously among the weaker films in the Poe Cycle, I'd still say “The Premature Burial” is worth seeing for that bitching, foggy atmosphere. That stuff goes a long way for me and I wish the movie around it was more riveting. [6/10]
For many, many years, horror writers and filmmakers have been fascinated with the idea of humanoid fish creatures living in seas, oceans, and lakes. The idea of human/fish hybrids being out there somewhere dates back to ancient myths of mermaids, selkies, Jenny Greenteeth, and other primordial aquatic races. It's all wrapped up in man's mutual fear and need for the oceans and, perhaps, the unavoidable conclusion that life must've began in the sea. Though Lovecraft's Deep Ones provide a literary precursor, Universal's “Creature from the Black Lagoon” would put a permanent face and name to these fishy humanoids for all time, inspiring numerous other films and writers. Among the Gillman's seediest offspring is 1980's “Humanoids from the Deep.”
The fishermen of Noyo, California are facing a problem. The local salmon population, which the local economy has always depended on, is mysteriously drying up. Meanwhile, massive corporation Canco is preparing to open a new canning plant, promising to bring jobs to the disenfranchised (and skeptical) townsfolk. This turns out to be the least of their problem. Soon, humanoid fish monsters – results of Canco's experiments with growth hormones – begin to crawl out of the water, killing men and raping women. A ragtag team of researchers and locals band together to stop the humanoids from the deep before the yearly festival.
“Humanoids from the Deep” comes to us from New World Pictures, those fine purveyors of seventies and eighties exploitation cinema. Even by these standards, the film is an especially nasty experience. Within its opening minutes, it breaks two of the big rules of horror fiction by killing both a child and about a dozen different dogs. Director Barbara Peters, previously of “Summer School Teachers,” clearly enjoyed orchestrating gory action sequences. The humanoids use their claws and teeth to literally rip people apart. Faces are torn away and chest ripped down until the rib cages are visible. During the climatic rampage through the carnival, the fish people gorily dismember one victim after another. One notable moment has them straight-up ripping a dude's head off. The gore effects are impressively visceral while the rubbery fish monsters – with their underbites, exposed brains, and comically long arms – are convincingly slimy creations.
Of course, “Humanoids from the Deep's” notorious reputation isn't because of its explicit gore. The film takes Lovecraft's whispered about “profane rituals” and the romantic subtext of “Creature from the Black Lagoon” to its most extreme, sleaziest conclusion. These fish monsters are horny. The film portrays this fishy hunger for woman-flesh in as leering a fashion as possible. There's lots of shots of women in swimsuits or underwear, when they aren't simply naked. (A bizarre scene involves a guy seducing a girl with his ventriloquist dummy and she's really into it.) It's well known that director Peters was reluctant to film the T&A, so producer Roger Corman hired a second-unit guy to film more explicit sex... Which results in sequences of slimy fish men ripping women's tops off, their breasts bouncing everywhere, and getting raped on-screen. It's tasteless and gross. But there is something admirable about the film's complete lack of tact. After all, it's hard to be offended by something as ridiculous as fish-man rape.
Much like New World's previous production, “Piranha,” “Humanoids from the Deep” clearly owes a lot of inspiration to “Jaws.” While very different, “Humanoids” shares its mutated DNA with Spielberg's shark epic. In both, the monster attacks are downplayed by local authorities so as to not interrupt a tourist-attracting celebration. However, the film expands that into a wider anti-corporate ideology. The new canning facility is opposed by the local Native American population, being built on their land. Canco has hired thugs to rough up the native population, hoping to prevent them from suing. That Canco is ultimately responsible for the vicious humanoids more clearly marks the company as a force of evil. Though, oddly enough, Canco's lead enforcer is giving a redemptive moment in the last act, rescuing a little girl. But I'm chalking that up to Vic Morrow wanting to play a hero.
“Humanoids from the Deep” was met with disgust back in 1980 from mainstream critics. They weren't alone. Most of the cast and crew weren't involved with the graphic reshoots. They were shocked to see such explicit moments of fish-monster-on-human sexual assault in their movie. And yet the sleazy gusto with which the film depicts its subject has won “Humanoids from the Deep” a certain cult following. Here in 2019, with a Best Picture winner and respected writers like Alan Moore touching on the subject of slimy fish lovin', it's tempting to say “Humanoids from the Deep” was ahead of its time. Okay, it obviously wasn't but I just wanted to type out that sentence. [7/10]
Tales from the Cryptkeeper: Growing Pains
I'm really surprised it took “Tales from the Cryptkeeper” until season two to pay homage to “Little Shop of Horrors.” In “Growing Pains,” botany nerd Wendell meets his dream-girl in the similarly nerdy Rose, an asthmatic but pretty girl with a comparable passion for plant life. The two are bullied by a pair of jerks named Chet and Louie. They get revenge on them by secretly replacing their botany class project with poison ivy. As Wendell and Rose grow closer, it becomes increasingly clear that the young girl is hiding something about her family. As the bullies arrive to pay them back, and Rose is without her inhaler, the strange truth is revealed.
Here's another episode refreshingly free of a heavy-handed moral. (Other than “don't be a bully,” I guess.) Instead, it's a super-cute story about two nerds falling in love. Wendell and Rose's courtship is agreeably awkward. His total inability to see how strange her home life is, even when she has giant venus flytraps growing in her backyard, becomes pretty funny. It's easy to guess where this is going, with the inhaler being fairly blatant foreshaodwing. Yet the way that plays out, with Wendell being utterly delighted instead of scared, is absolutely adorable. I also thought the design of the plant humanoids were really cute. With the exception of the typically obnoxious Old Witch jokes in the host segments, this is an all-together charming episode. [7/10]
Forever Knight: Faithful Followers
I associate the '90s' fascination with cults as a post-Heaven's Gate phenomenon but I guess it must've been in the collective pop culture mindscape before then because here's “Forever Knight” putting its stamp on the subject. At the insistence of the police commissioner, Nick goes undercover in the local chapter of Illuminology, a sun-worshiping cult that also involves auditing its members' darkest secrets. One of the sect members were recently murdered. Schanke and Natalie become worried as Nick cuts off all contact with him. It appears the vampire is truly indoctrinated into the community. Meanwhile, Nick recalls a time a fellow vampire invited him to Egypt to investigate an ancient culture that had a possible cure to vampirism.
“Faithful Followers” has a problem that previous episodes of “Forever Knight” have run into. It tries to generate suspense out of the question of whether or not Nick has truly been brainwashed by the cult. Obviously, viewers of the show will immediately realize he has not. That makes the long scenes of Nick acting weird around his friend feel truly superfluous. Beyond that, the cult stuff is kind of goofy, since their rituals involved sun stickers laced with addictive, psychedelic drugs. Having said that, I do like Natalie sneaking into the Illuminology building to help Nick, or Schanke's slow realization of what is happening. The flashback scenes prove a little more interesting, to see Nick interacting with another sympathetic vampire, even if those Egyptian sets are very cheap looking. [5/10]
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