The Mad Ghoul (1943)

The Universal horror movies of the 1940s are a bit of a mixed bag but The Mad Ghoul does have quite a few things in its favour. Most notably it has the right cast. It has George Zucco as a mad scientist, it has famous scream queen Evelyn Ankers and it has Turhan Bey to add the necessary touch of exoticism.

Zucco plays chemist Dr Alfred Morris who has been researching some strange aspects of ancient Mayan rites. He believes that the Mayans may have used a type of poison gas to induce what he calls a state of death-in-life. He also has a theory about the Mayans’ rather unpleasant custom of tearing out the hearts of living sacrificial victims. He believes they had a means of reversing the state of death-in-life.

With his eager young student and assistant Ted Allison (David Bruce) Dr Morris is determined to prove the correctness of his theory.

At first we assume that Dr Morris is the kind of movie mad scientist who is led into evil through his single-minded pursuit of science without any moral grounding. He scornfully dismisses the idea of morality. He is a scientist and believes there is no good or evil, only true or false. There is however another factor at work in this case. Dr Morris knows a good deal about science but he is a fool when it comes to women. 

The worst thing is that he thinks he knows all about women. And as the old saying goes, there’s no fool like an old fool. Dr Morris’s foolishness about women will lead him to use his knowledge of science for evil rather than good.

Young Ted is also somewhat naïve when it comes to women, and this will have equally disastrous results for him. Ted is engaged to be married to popular singer Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers) but he has an unknown and formidable rival in the person of her accompanist, Eric Iverson (Turhan Bey).

Soon a ghoul is on the loose, robbing graves all over the country. There seems to be some mysterious link to Isabel Lewis. Of course Isabel herself cannot possibly be involved. Reporter Ken McClure (Robert Armstrong) has a theory but he will need some hard evidence before he can go to the police. He has an idea he knows how to find that evidence.

George Zucco is in fine form. Dr Morris is the kind of mad scientist who doesn’t struggle very hard against the temptations of evil but he’s smooth and clever and he’s able to maintain an outward appearance of respectability. People trust Dr Morris. Zucco doesn’t overdo his performance - Dr Morris is a villain but he’s a victim of his own delusions and he’s not entirely unsympathetic.

David Bruce does an excellent job as the hapless innocent Ted Allison. Evelyn Ankers makes a sympathetic and glamorous heroine. Turhan Bey is as suave as ever as her handsome lover.

While the term zombie is never used this can be seen as a type of zombie movie, with a scientific rather than mystical explanation.

One of the great things about this movie is the lack of comic relief. I just can’t tell you what a joy it is to encounter a 1940s Universal horror flick without irritating comic relief. Even the smart aleck reporter is mostly played very straight.

The movie includes many of the staples of Universal horror films with some nicely atmospheric graveyard scenes. The makeup effects (by the legendary Jack Pierce) are effective without being in any way excessive. Universal’s horror films of this era might have been uneven but they always looked good.

The script, by Brenda Weisberg and Paul Gangelin, is serviceable and in fact surprisingly intelligent and has some original touches. Director James P. Hogan spent his career in B-features but he knew his business and his work here can’t be faulted. He gets the most out of the material and the results are quite classy by B-movie standards. Sadly Hogan died of a heart attack shortly before the film’s release.

The Mad Ghoul is one of the five movies included in TCM’s excellent (although hard to find) Universal Cult Horror DVD boxed set. Sound quality is just a little uneven. On the other hand the image quality is superb. There are a few extras. The Mad Ghoul is a neat little horror movie that has been unjustly neglected and is highly recommended. As for the TCM boxed set, it’s pretty much a must-buy for classic horror fans.

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

I had seen I Walked With a Zombie before, and even reviewed it, but that was the best part of a decade ago so I think I can be forgiven for revisiting what is after all considered to be one of the great horror classics.

This 1943 release was a product of the celebrated Val Lewton B-movie unit at RKO and was directed by Jacques Tourneur, the best of the directors who worked for Lewton.

Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) has been employed as a nurse to care for the wife of sugar planter Paul Holland (Tom Conway) on an island in the West Indies. Holland’s wife Jessica  has been in a state of near-catatonia for several years. She can walk but she cannot communicate and appears to have no mental connection with the world at all.

This partly accounts for the slightly brooding atmosphere at the plantation but there is more to it than that. There was apparently a romantic triangle involving Mrs Holland and the two brothers and shortly before she was stricken by her illness there had been a particularly unpleasant scene.

Betsy is in something of a quandary. She realises immediately that she is falling in love with Paul Holland. She is convinced that he still loves his wife and Betsy is driven by a combination of guilt and compassion to conceive the idea that perhaps Jessica Holland can somehow be restored to normality. Dr Maxwell (James Bell) has been willing to do all he can but nothing has had any effect. Betsy is informed that there are in fact better doctors who can cure Mrs Holland - voodoo doctors. We would imagine Betsy as the kind of person with little time for such notions but her zeal (or her guilt) overwhelms her judgment and she decides to give the voodoo doctors their chance. Of course she does not inform Paul Holland of her decision.

As the audience will have already gathered most of the characters have very conflicted emotions. They are not always entirely honest about their emotions and in some cases they may well be willfully deceiving themselves. Whatever the immediate outcome of Betsy’s visit to the voodoo priests might be the longer term consequences for herself, for Paul and for his brother are likely to be unpredictable.

This is certainly a horror movie that is more character-driven than most and the relationships between the characters are crucial. The motivations of the characters are also quite complex. Betsy’s guilt is not entirely unwarranted. She knew from the start that Paul was a married man and she made no attempts to discourage his interest in her, and he is a very wealthy man while she’s a more or less penniless nurse. It’s understandable she might feel that her behaviour could be interpreted as conniving. In fact it may even be conniving, perhaps without ever admitting it to herself.

Tom Conway was always somewhat overshadowed by his more famous brother George Sanders. To be honest Conway was the less talented of the brothers but he was a competent actor in the right role and he did some of his very best work in the Lewton pictures. His performance in this one can’t really be faulted. Paul Holland is a man who is repressing some very strong emotions and Conway conveys this effectively. James Ellison is quite adequate as Paul’s half-brother. Frances Dee is a satisfactory heroine, a confident self-assured woman who discovers she doesn’t know quite as much about life as she thought she did.

This movie breaks most of the rules for horror films. There’s very little overt horror, and until fairly close to the end there’s none at all. Tourneur knows what he’s doing however. The sense of unease and subtle menace builds gradually but inexorably. 

As a cinematographer J. Roy Hunt does not have the glittering reputation of Nicholas Musuraca for photographed Cat People for Tourneur but based on his work on this film perhaps he should. There are shadows. Lots of shadows! In fact some of the best use of shadows you’ll ever see. This is a movie that is heavily reliant on atmosphere and the visuals serve the purpose admirably. Since it’s so similar in visual style to other Tourneur movies one can’t help assuming that Tourneur’s influence was very much the dominant one although Hunt deserves credit for giving Tourneur the look he was after.

The sets are quite impressive also, especially by B-movie standards. The island setting is surprisingly convincing.

This movie was inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and if made today would doubtless be titled Jane Eyre with Zombies. Given that Jane Eyre is one of the masterpieces of gothic fiction the idea of turning it into a horror movie actually is not outrageous at all. The movie preserves at least a fair proportion of the spirit of Brontë’s novel.

One thing I found interesting was the way voodoo was portrayed. It wasn’t demonised in the way you’d expect in a 1943 movie, not was it depicted as being merely ridiculous. 

The Warner Home Video DVD release pairs I Walked With a Zombie with another Lewton movie, The Body Snatcher. I Walked With a Zombie gets a good transfer plus a very worthwhile audio commentary from Kim Newman and Steve Jones.

There are those who say this is the best of all the Lewton RKO films, but personally I think this one, Cat People and The Seventh Victim are all so good I wouldn’t like to even try to pick a favourite.  And they have aged very well indeed. This is magnificent subtle horror. Very highly recommended.

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

The Plague of the Zombies was, I believe I am correct in stating, Hammer’s only attempt at a zombie film. And a very worthy attempt it is too.

John Gilling had made some interesting movies in the film noir genre in the 50s, most notably Deadly Nightshade (1953) and The Challenge (1960), before becoming a semi-regular director for Hammer in the 60s. He made five movies for Hammer, including two back-to-back in 1966, the underrated The Reptile and The Plague of the Zombies. In fact they were made more or less simultaneously using the same locations and sets.

An eminent physician, Sir James Forbes (André Morell), has been called down to Cornwall by Dr Peter Tompson (Brook Williams). Dr Tompson is general practitioner in a small village and he is facing a situation that has him alarmed and perplexed. Young villagers are dying in disturbing numbers and he can find no clues whatsoever as to the causes. The situation is not helped by the refusal of the superstitious villagers to allow him to conduct post-mortem examinations.

Sir James is accompanied by his daughter Sylvia (Diane Clare). It’s immediately obvious that there is something very wrong in the village. On their arrival they see a funeral disrupted by a crowd of young and obviously wealthy ruffians on horseback. Sylvia’s old school friend Alice (Jacqueline Pearce), now married to Dr Tompson, seems ill and very uneasy. Dr Tompson is drinking more than he should. The atmosphere in the village’s pub is tense to say the least.

Sir James convinces Dr Tompson that they will be able to make no progress unless they can carry out a post-mortem on one of the victims, even if they have to rob the victim’s grave to do so. Which is what they proceed to do. The discovery of an empty coffin in the grave adds to the mystery.

It transpires that someone is practising voodoo, but to what ends? Why do they need an army of zombies?

This movie doesn’t have too many familiar Hammer faces but the cast is perfectly adequate. André Morell is superb as Forbes, Jacqueline Pearce is excellent, Diane Clare is quite competent. Brook Williams is a little dull but Dr Tompson is a rather thankless role. The biggest surprise is Michael Ripper - he isn’t playing an innkeeper! He plays the local police sergeant, and has great fun doing so.

This film has all the usual strengths of a Hammer film. The gothic atmosphere is effective, as you would expect with Arthur Grant doing the cinematography. With Bernard Robinson as production designer the movie looks splendid.

The zombie make-up effects work very well indeed.

Within a couple of years of the release of this film George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead would usher in a new era of gore-drenched zombie movies. Personally I prefer zombie movies of the earlier type, and I much prefer a movies that tie zombies in with voodoo, as this one does quite effectively. There isn’t much gore in The Plague of the Zombies but it still manages to evoke some genuine chills and a nicely creepy ambience.

Anchor Bay’s old DVD release still stands up extremely well.

The Plague of the Zombies is classic Hammer gothic horror. It looks good, it has a strong cast, a decent script and it benefits from having a director who knows what he’s doing and isn’t trying to be excessively clever. This is fine entertainment for Hammer fans. Highly recommended.

Santo contra los zombies (Santo vs The Zombies, 1962)

Although Mexican wrestling star and pop culture icon had appeared in a couple of earlier movies it was Santo contra los zombies (Santo vs The Zombies) that really started the Santo movie craze. Santo would eventually appear in 52 luchador (wrestling hero) films.

Santo was actually Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta (1917-1984) and he played a large role in making professional wrestling into a major sport in Mexico.

The Santo movies all follow pretty much the same formula. Santo is a legendary masked wrestler who in his spare time is a daring masked crime-fighter. He fights not only criminal gangs but monsters, vampires, invaders from outer space and in this particular film, zombies.

The plot can be disposed of fairly quickly - if you’re watching a Santo movie for the plot then you’re missing the point. A professor has disappeared mysteriously. He had an interest in the subject of voodoo and zombies. As it happens zombies are being employed in a series of robberies. There is of course a diabolical criminal mastermind at the back of all this.

The police are baffled. The police chief decide it’s time to call on Santo’s help. Fortunately he has a direct radio-television link from his office to Santo’s headquarters. The professor’s daughter and her boyfriend are also involved in trying to find her missing father.

The zombie bad guys make an attempt to kidnap children from an orphanage, the children presumably to be used in experiments on zombification. The diabolical criminal mastermind knows that Santo is on his trail because he has a special television viewer that allows him to keep an eye on anything that he might need to know about.

It’s all just an excuse for lots of action. As in all Santo movies the action includes quite a lot of wrestling scenes but in this case at least one of the wrestling matches does serve an important plot purpose as Santo has to fight a zombified wrestler.

Needless to say at some point the bad guys kidnap the missing professor’s beautiful daughter, intending to turn her into a lady zombie. Can Santo find her in time to save her from this awful fate?

The feel of the movie is very close to that of Hollywood serials of the 30s and 40s and in fact the plot could have been lifted from one of those serials. Given the worldwide popularity of the Hollywood serials and the love of Mexican audiences for action adventure stories it’s fair to assume that those serials were very popular in Mexico and that this movie is very consciously modeling itself on them. And it does so very successfully.

The acting is of passable B-movie standard. Santo may not have been much of an actor but he has plenty of physical presence and enough superhero-type charisma to carry him through.

Director Benito Alazraki doesn’t try to get too clever (he would have had neither the time nor the money to do so) but he knows how to keep the action moving long nicely. and he does throw in a couple of dutch angles late in the film. This is obviously a low-budget film but the sets are quite serviceable, there’s some fun silly scientific paraphernalia in the mad scientist’s laboratory and the remote viewing televisions are handled quite well.

The Mexican film industry was always pretty good at achieving spooky atmosphere on very low budgets and Santo contra los zombies has some quite effectively moody scenes.

The Cinematográfica Rodríguez Region 1 and 4 DVD offers a very decent transfer, in Spanish with English subtitles.

Santo contra los zombies has no ambitions to do anything other than offer great fun-filled entertainment and it succeeds superbly in doing just that. This film is pure enjoyment. If you’re never seen a Santo movie this is as good a place as any to start and if you’re a confirmed fan you’ll certainly love this one. Tragically only a small proportion of the Santo movies are available in English-friendly editions but among those that are you’ll certainly want to check out Santo in the Wax Museum (1963), Santo Versus the Martian Invasion (1967) and Santo and Blue Demon vs. Doctor Frankenstein (1974).

Highly recommended.

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Carnival of Souls is one of the great low-budget horror movies and it’s also a rather unusual movie of its type. Made in 1961 on an absurdly small budget it disappeared almost without trace at the time but since then its reputation as a cult film has grown steadily.

Herk Harvey was a maker of industrial and educational films in Kansas. One day he discovered, quite by accident, a location that seemed absolutely perfect as a setting for a horror film. He asked his friend John Clifford to write a script and then set about raising  finance from local businessmen to make a feature film.

The setting was Saltair, a resort on the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The resort included an amusement park and a pavilion and it was the pavilion that would feature so strikingly in the movie. This was actually the second such pavilion, the first having been destroyed by fire in 1925 (unfortunately the second pavilion would also be destroyed in a fire in 1970). The second Saltair pavilion was an enormous dance hall, and it would be the scene for the bizarre dance sequence at the end of the movie.

When he first saw the pavilion Harvey had the idea of the dead emerging from the lake to attend a kind of danse macabre. This idea was to form the central inspiration for the movie’s plot.

The movie opens with three girls in a car being inveigled into a drag race. They lose control on a bridge and their car crashes into a river. Frantic attempts to rescue the girls seem to have been in vain when one of the girls emerges from the river, having miraculously survived the accident.

The girl, Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), is a rather quiet girl who is about to take up a position as a church organist in Lawrence, Kansas. She finds a room in a boarding house where she attracts the (somewhat unwelcome) attentions of fellow lodger John Linden (Sidney Berger). 

Mary seems to be becoming more and more disconnected from reality, as if she somehow doesn’t belong. She is also convinced she is being followed by a corpse-like figure. The man doesn’t threaten her but his presence (or possibly imagined presence) certainly disturbs her. Mary’s strangeness causes concern to kindly Dr Samuels (Sam Levitt) who tries to help her. 

Mary is also increasingly drawn to the abandoned Saltair Pavilion which she had passed on her way to Lawrence. As she becomes more disconnected her fascination for this gloomy but oddly beautiful place grows steadily. The pavilion will be the scene for the movie’s climax.

There’s no need to say any more about the plot. This is not really a plot-driven movie in any case - it’s the mood and the strange central character that matter.

John Clifford admits that when he started writing the script he had no clear idea where it was going and that even in the finished script he had no truly coherent idea of what it all meant. This is in fact one of the movie’s greatest strengths. I have always firmly believed that it is not the business of a horror movie to scare the audience, that the aim should be to create an atmosphere of unease and of a vague cosmic wrongness. This aim is often easier to accomplish if the movie avoids the temptation of over-explaining things. Horror that is formless, amorphous and ambiguous is generally more effective than horror that is overt and explicit. Carnival of Souls is a textbook example of how to create the subtle horror of suggestion.

Herk Harvey claimed that his intention was to make a movie with the look of Bergman movie and the feel of Cocteau. He had always had the idea that the movie might be more suited to the art-house than to the drive-in circuit. These were considerable ambitions for a first-time director. The surprising thing is that overall the movie really does achieve what he set out to do.

The movie failed commercially on its initial release, due in large part to nightmarish distribution problems. It finally started to attract attention when it was sold to TV and its cult following built steadily. Herk Harvey was never to make another feature but he did live long enough to have the satisfaction of seeing Carnival of Souls not only achieve his ambition of playing the art-house circuit but also being lauded internationally at film festivals.

Obviously a movie made on a budget of around $30,000 could have been more polished had more time and money been available but overall the minuscule budget was more of an asset than a liability - Harvey and Clifford had very little money to work with but they did have complete freedom. More money always involves more compromises. It also has to be said that Harvey made the small budget go a very long way. This is a visually stunning film. This was partly due to Harvey’s good fortune in finding truly amazing locations - the pavilion, the organ factory, the wooden-slatted bridge. Harvey himself pays tribute, and rightly so, to his cinematographer Maurice Prather. There’s no question however that much of the film’s success is due to the extraordinary vision of director Herk Harvey.

Candace Hilligoss’s performance is crucial, and impressive. Harvey and writer John Clifford wanted the protagonist to be a person with no real emotional connection whatsoever with other people. That’s a challenge to an actress but Hilligoss is equal to it, capturing the aloof emotionally empty quality of the character extremely effectively. 

While Harvey admits that his inexperience in feature films coupled with the lack of time and money does make the movie rather less polished than it might otherwise have been he believes that this actually enhances the movie’s disturbing weirdness, and he’s undoubtedly correct. Despite these minor rough edges what is truly impressive about Carnival of Souls is just how visually striking it is. There are some extraordinarily inspired touches of subtle spookiness. The scenes in Saltair are as effective and as well-crafted as anything you’re likely to find in a big-budget major studio production. Being entirely new to the world of feature films gave Harvey and Clifford the advantage of being able to approach the project without any preconceptions and with refreshing originality.

The major revelation of the story is unlikely to come as a surprise but it’s the atmosphere that is created that matters and that atmosphere is achieved superbly.

Criterion really went to town with their DVD release which includes (on two discs) both the original theatrical print and a slightly longer director’s cut as well as a host of extras, most notably an abbreviated but highly informative audio commentary from the writer and director and print interviews with them as well as star Candace Hilligoss. Image quality is superb.

Carnival of Souls is a genuine masterpiece of low-key horror. Very highly recommended.