Halloween 2023: October 2nd

Vampyros Lesbos (1971)

Once again, it is time for me to attempt to pierce the void and decide if the films of Jesús Franco are for me or not. I previously explored Franco's version of “Dracula” and “The Awful Dr. Orloff” and managed to find some things to like in both. Yet tales of gothic horror like that are not really what the director's cult following is built upon. Instead, Franco's reputation is mostly founded upon cheap, sleazy but stylishly directed erotica with horror themes. Among the most highly regarded of this particular strain of Franco features is “Vampyros Lesbos.” Hey, I like vampires. I like lesbians. Maybe I'll like this? Let's give it a try and see if Tim Lucas knows what he's talking about. 

Linda Westinghouse is a lawyer living in Turkey who is having dreams of a strange woman, beckoning to her. While at a night club with her boyfriend, Omar, she sees the woman from her dreams performing an erotic striptease. Linda is next called to a remote Turkish island and meets the woman again, who is named Countess Nadine Carody. The two begin a love affair before Linda seemingly finds Nadine dead in a swimming pool. Linda awakens in an asylum, where it becomes clear that the Countess is far from dead. She is a vampire and calls to Linda still.

On a narrative level, “Vampyros Lesbos” doesn't make much sense. Characters come and go from the story without much introduction. Back story and motivations are explained in big chunks of dialogue. The pacing is languid, the movie moving sleepily from one scene to the next without much coherence. In its best moments, “Vampyros Lesbos” captures a fittingly dream-like atmosphere, the audience slipping in and out of dreams and reality, memories and present events, much the same way Linda is. In its worst moments, the film is an extremely slow collections of incidents that the audience never has much reason to understand or be invested in. I'll admit, I was fighting sleep at times during the dull bits on our way to the more stimulating moments.

It's clear that Franco had aspirations of high art with this one. “Vampyros Lesbos” is fascinated with the notion of repressed female sexuality. The opening scene depicts Nadine doing an erotic night club act, which involves dancing around a nude woman standing as still as a mannequin. It is a genuinely sensual moment, the unspoken longing between the two women clearly being expressed. When the more explicit sexual moments come, they are handed with a certain delicacy. Linda's erotic fantasies of the vampire countess pass like a dream, clearly speaking to how she can't express these feelings in her waking life. In the movie's final moments, it remains unclear how much of what has happened is reality, dreams, memories, or hallucinations. Whatever the film is trying to say on these topics is unclear. Nadine is still a killer and a bloodsucker and Linda eventually rejects her advances. Yet the ideas contained within are interesting. 

“Vampyros Lesbos”' pretensions go hand-in-hand with its status as an exploitation movie. Every central female character gets fully naked, Franco never missing a chance to show off the cast's bodies. More traditional horror movie moments are inserted at random. The Countess has a silent servant, Morpho, the same name that the similarly quiet murderer in “The Awful Dr. Orloff” had. He dispatches those that displeases the Countess. An otherwise unimportant subplot introduces a madman who ties up Linda, threatening her with a bone saw. The combination of artsy-fartsy eroticism and Z-movie schlockiness is awkward, to say the least. 

That awkwardness infects every aspect of the film. Franco's direction is preoccupied with tacky crash-zooms. For every eye-catching visual he engineers, like blood dripping down a window, there's another shot that inspires giggles from its stiffness. The plot weaves in references to “Dracula” – a Dr. Seward, a Renfield-like madwoman, the count being mentioned by name – in a way that only muddles things further. When combined with the often repetitive story structure, it just gives the impression that the entire movie was made-up as the filmmakers went along. No matter how easy on the eyes Soledad Miranda might be, as the Countess, her performances are never anything less than wooden. Ewa Stromberg is a little better as Linda, her wide blue eyes conveying a certain expressiveness, but her performance is also quite stiff as well.

Perhaps I am overthinking it. Maybe “Vampyros Lesbos” is meant to wash over the viewer like an album. The psychedelic soundtrack – which, inexplicably, became a top ten alternative hit in mid-nineties England – is full of crunchy guitar solos, grooving bass lines, backwards speech, and barely audible rumblings of desire and love. The music is almost more the star of the film than any of the actresses. This goes hand-in-hand with the exotic locations and stylized sets. The Countess' chateau, with its many red decorations, or the tapestries hanging on the asylum's walls, all seem like products of the same swingin' decade. All of this implies something else: That perhaps the viewer should smoke a joint before watching the movie to get the most out of it. “Vampyros Lesbos” aggressive grooviness, eroticism, and dreamy qualities only go so far to make up for its campier, more awkward aspects. [6/10]

All Hallows' Eve (2013)

I make a habit of going to at least one horror convention every year, usually the local Monster-Mania events. Going out and mingling with other freaks like me provides a good idea of what characters and films are popular with your average horror fanatics. Over the last decade, I've noticed this distinctive black-and-white clown showing up a lot through cosplay, fan art, and merchandise. As you probably already know, that would be Art the Clown. He's the creation of indie filmmaker Damian Leone. While Art would become a fan favorite through the “Terrifier” movies, his first appearance in a feature was actually the 2013 anthology “All Hallows' Eve.” I'm the thorough sort so, if I'm going to get to know Art, I plan on watching all of his appearances. 

On Halloween night, Sarah babysits the two kids of a friend of her's. The boy receives an unmarked VHS tape in his treat bag. Despite Sarah's protests, he insists on watching it. Contained within are three tales, each featuring a creepy clown named Art. The first involves a woman being abducted at a subway station, awakening chained to another woman in a dank basement. The girls are stalked by monsters and ushered into a demonic ritual. The second features the wife of an artist, moving into their new house in the country. The quiet evening is interrupted by a close encounter of the third kind. The final tale sees Art taking center stage, chasing a young woman who catches him brutally dismembering a gas station attendant. The films frighten Sarah but the terror doesn't end at the TV screen....

“All Hallows' Eve” is, more-or-less, a compilation of short films Damien Leone directed independently of this anthology. Only the second segment and the wrap around were filmed specifically for this production. The first episode is “The 9th Circle,” Leone's debut short that he completed in 2008. And, well, to be blunt, it's not very good. The premise shifts three separate times, from the woman encountering Art in the subway, to the “Saw”-like scenario of her chained to other victims, and finally to the Satanic ritual scene. The monster make-up is decent – Leone has been working as an effects artist since 2005 – but the fake blood looks watery. The settings of grimy basements and the acts of bodily dismemberment and demonic violation feel like a teenager trying to freak us out with how edgy he can be. You also see this attitude in the derivative, jump-scare editing used throughout. 

The second segment is, at the very least, a little more self-assured. It's a near plotless chase scene of a woman in a house being hunted by an extraterrestrial. The alien make-up isn't the best and the actor's movement is pretty silly. The attempt to link the short to the rest of the movie feels like a last minute addition. Yet Leone does have a certain talent for using cramped locations to generate a sort of fatalistic tension. As the alien pursues the woman through the house, closing in on her, I was grooving with the film. The internal logic of the segment isn't the strongest. What the alien wants, why it's targeting the woman, or whether her cellphone works or not, is never solidified. Yet it's alright.

The final sequence in the film is the twenty minute prototype for “Terrifier.” The short continues Leone's clear aptitude for stalk-and-slash theatrics. The isolated locations, which range from a dirty gas station to desolate back roads, provide a certain ambiance. Art's dogged pursuit of the unnamed final girl does generate a grim sort of tension, a feeling of hopelessness closing in. And there's no doubt that the grisly special effects are well done. Yet the same issues that effect much of “All Hallows' Eve” are apparent here. What exactly Art can do, whether he's supernatural or simply a serial killer, is never consistent. The same sort of try-hard edginess present in “The 9th Circle” is also here. Leone applies a fake film grain to the movie, despite the characters using cell phone. Meanwhile, the final image is tasteless in a way that isn't especially fun or insightful. It ends an otherwise decent slasher homage on a very sour note.

“All Hallows' Eve” was obviously a very low budget production. The acting is a bit ropy from everyone. The special effects quality vary, with the end of the wrap-around segment featuring some lousy looking decapitated heads. Maybe it was just the version that's streaming on Tubi but I also found the sound quality not to be the best, degrading at random times. The compilation obviously proves that Damien Leone can do some things well, while obviously having weakness too. The director himself has offered some criticism of “All Hallows' Eve” as well, so at least he's self-aware. [5/10]

Thriller: A Good Imagination

Some of the best regarded episode of “Thriller,” a horror/suspense anthology series Boris Karloff hosted in the sixties, were written by “Psycho” scribe Robert Bloch. Another such episode – currently ranked as the program's third best on IMDb – is “A Good Imagination.” The plot revolves around Frank Logan, a seemingly mild-mannered book seller, and his adulterous wife, Louise. He's taken up the habit of murdering her partners, the wife none the wiser. While vacationing at an isolated country home, Louise starts seeing local handyman, George. When Frank spies on the couple, he concocts a new scheme to take revenge on them both... And draws a little inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe.

Yes, by some considerable coincidence, this is the third iteration of “The Cask of Amontillado” I've watched this year. Though Poe is merely paid homage to by Frank's final method of murder. Much like the “Suspense” adaptation, the episode tacks on a final moment that restore some moral balance to this story. Up to that point, the highlight of “A Good Imagination” is watching Frank slowly turn the screws on both his wife and the man she's seeing behind his back. The way the nerdy fellow manipulates them both, while subtly displaying how much of a threat he actually is, manages to build some decent tension. It also helps that director John Brahams, at least in these final moments, makes the most of the shadowy basement the scene is set in.

Mostly, “A Good Imagination” is worth seeing because of its performances. Edward Andrews is delightful as the cuckold with a taste for homicide. From the opening scene, where he confronts another of his wife's beaus, down to that climax, Andrews never stops slithering with utterly self-assured sinister intent. His nerdy appearance allows him to catch everyone off-guard, it seems, allowing him to lure each guy into a drawn-out game of cat and mouse. Patricia Barry, as the cheating wife, and Ed Nelson, as the dim-witted repairman, are also well-cast. Bloch's trademark sense of dry humor is present all throughout the episode. While hardly groundbreaking, “A Good Imagination” shows that you don't need much more than some strong actors and a good script to create an entertaining hour of television. [7/10]

The Munsters: John Doe Munster / A Man for Marilyn

“The Munsters” touches on some especially hoary clichés in the ninth and tenth episodes of the second season. But it at least has fun doing it. “John Doe Munster” begins with a safe falling on Herman's head while buying a new kite for Eddie. This results in him getting amnesia. After Lily petitions the state to adopt this “John Doe,” he takes to his role as the new kid in the household. The family does everything it can to reawaken Herman's memory. “A Man for Marilyn” has Marilyn loosing another suitor after he gets a look at the rest of the family. While everyone else is out at the movies, Marilyn locks herself out and catches the attention of a young man, who assumes she's being held prisoner. Herman mistakes the terrified Good Samaritan for a frog Grandpa previously enchanted to turn into a prince for Marilyn. 

A character getting bopped on the head and loosing their memory, just to have it easily restored before the episode ends, is among the goofiest – and most widely discredited – sitcom tropes. I'm not surprised “The Munsters,” already being a farce, touched on this idea. Herman is frequently characterized as a man-child already, so to have him acting like a big kid is a natural enough idea. It does lead to a few honest chuckles, such as Herman's jealousy of his own son. (And Fred Gwynne happily hams it up even more as usual.) The way Herman regains his memory is even sort of sweet. Among these are mildly amusing gags about the court system reacting to the Munsters' appearances and, unfortunately, a scene where Grandpa tries to change his appearance to look like Rudolph Valentino and instead ends up looking more like he's wearing yellow-face.

“The Munsters” has utilized the plot point of Marilyn's inability to keep a boyfriend before, most prominently in “Love Comes to Mockingbird Heights.” At least the potential suitor here is a well-intentioned young man. Instead, the episode wrings easy laughs out of the central comedic misunderstanding here. Herman and Grandpa think the guy is a frog. The guy thinks the Munsters plan to do something horrible to him. Roger Perry makes a solid straight man, reacting with shock to the statements the Munsters make that they perceive as innocent. An interaction he has with Eddie is especially funny. That's a better gag than the usual joke of people fleeing in exaggerated terror. (Though that happens too.) Also there's a good bit in the beginning of Herman and Eddie de-fleaing Spot, which involves exploding cockroaches with a giant bug spray. [John Doe Munster: 6/10 / A Man for Marilyn: 7/10]