Harmless, enjoyable fodder based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs vision of a habitable Hollow Earth that exists beneath our feet. Peter Cushing and Doug McClure are two adventurers who employ an earth burrowing contraption that propels them deep within the earth to discover a region previously unknown that is full of life! In addition to people, there are any number of monstrous dinosaurs and ultra vibrant alien fauna. McClure provides the brawn and Cushing the brains as they must work in tandem to free an oppressed race and find a way to get back alive to the surface of the planet.
Interesting set work and swashbuckling thrills are complimented with a large amount of special effects which in many cases are men in monster costumes barreling around the set pieces. A bit of a juvenile film exercise but never fear! McClure and Caroline Munro provide ample set decorations for the adults in attendance!
See also “The Land That Time Forgot”, and “The People That Time Forgot”, both also featuring McClure and a myriad number of beasties and extinct nasties.
I have always enjoyed Hammer Films’ “Horror Of Dracula” starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing, vampire authority, and Christopher Lee as the undead blood sucker, Dracula. I thought the movie was a very well done horror thriller. Lee is menacing and frightening as a very strong but cold parasitic beast bent on his own survival. Cushing is magnificent as the determined and brilliant expert on folklore and the Supernatural bent on ending the vampire’s reign of terror.
With the current pandemic raging on and being newly unemployed, I found time to finally finish Bram Stoker’s novel, “Dracula”. Now, comparing Hammers’ “Horror” with Stoker’s work, I found definite narrative differences. The Hammer film follows its own logic and twist on the story and is satisfying enough in its own right. Stoker’s work is of course The Source Material and being a 300 page novel having to be adapted by a scriptwriter for a 90 to 120 minute movie, many choice and not so choice bits are left out of the screen treatment for “Horror of Dracula”. I think these are two different visions sharing the same title character and some of the supporting players. Both versions are interesting and entertaining and it is worth investing time in reading the novel and getting a look at the original vision of author Stoker.
I have given a minute or two of thought to what I would enjoy most viewing on Halloween. I would most definitely need to take the day off of work because this lineup would probably consume a good 10 hours. Sacrifices must be made! Granted this is the first of what may be a series of some of my most adored movies piled together in one marathon viewing. These movies are what came off the top of my head at the time and can definitely be mixed and matched and replaced with other selections. I think that makes sense.
- 5 Million Years To Earth – 1967 – A Hammer Films science fiction entry that postulates that some long ago Martians visited our remote ancestors and planted the seeds of intelligence in our shaggy, far removed, ancient ape-like relatives. Is the recently uncovered spaceship located in the London underground still harboring a Martian presence?
- The Mummy – 1959 – This is a great one to curl up with your favorite snack and beverage and soak up the suspense. Very entertaining and satisfying mummy on the loose tale. Christopher Lee is mainly silent and heavily bandaged as the title character. Peter Cushing is out to stop The Mummy’s diabolical rampage.
- The Fearless Vampire Killers – 1967 – Roman Polanski directed and co-starred in this hugely atmospheric comedy/horror piece about a couple of bumbling monster hunters who try to rescue a damsel who is fortified in a castle full of undead vampires. Great sets!
- Horror Express – 1972 – Another Cushing/Lee vehicle set aboard a trans-Siberian train that transports an ages old ape man found frozen in ice. The recently unearthed specimen seems to not be fully dead and can swap human hosts! A true hoot.
- Invasion – 1966 – A hospital is literally held hostage as an alien presence temporarily makes a stop on Earth and has to recover its lost property before it can again go back to outer space. It’s bad enough being in a hospital, as it is!
Like I said, I will make another list of five more films that it would be Heaven to just spend Halloween day watching back to back. Maybe I’ll defer it until Thanksgiving or Christmas. I’ve got time off then. Check some of these films out and enjoy!
Back when Hammer Films were all the rage and knocking horror fans dead at the box office, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness” marked the return of Christopher Lee to the title roll of the infamous undead vampire king. He had gone away from the role after his turn as the blood sucker in the remarkable “Horror of Dracula” (1958), one of Hammer Films’ first stabs at rebooting the Universal monster cycle from films decades before. Lee appeared in Hammer Films such as “The Gorgon” (1964) and “She” (1965). He just wasn’t interested in playing Dracula. But through whatever form of alchemy and monetary incentive, Lee menaced again in “Dracula: Prince of Darkness”. It had to be money that got him back because this is not the juiciest script that Lee could have gotten. He has no lines of dialogue but sneers and hisses a lot and manhandles his intended victims. This is a fun view, though. Dracula has a life long human servant who makes sure that two couples spend the night in Dracula’s old castle. You see, Dracula is now no more than collected dust from the last time he was destroyed in “The Brides of Dracula” (1960). Lee didn’t appear in that entry. But, anyway, the servant dispatches one of the guests in the bloodiest way possible in order to bathe Dracula’s ashes in the life giving, red stuff. Before long, the King of Vampires is back terrorizing the countryside in his endless quest for fresh blood. Plenty of atmosphere, moody music and heroics from Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Hammer veteran Andrew Kier.
Gruesome Hammer Films reinterpretation of the classic Universal monster movie vehicle of a mad, maverick doctor and his attempts to bring life to dead bodies. Made in 1957, this horror remake is a graphic, Technicolor chronicle of the despicable practices that Dr. Frankenstein engages in. Portrayed as a kind of sadistic, cold-hearted deviant, Peter Cushing is marvelous as the doctor. Cushing carries on an affair with his housekeeper even while his long suffering fiancé is sleeping upstairs in the castle. Having previously promised the housekeeper marriage, as well, Cushing laughs in her face and says he never had any such intention. When he learns that the housekeeper is pregnant and threatens exposing his behind closed door hobby of reanimating dead things, the good doctor locks the lass in the lab with the hideous creature and lets him rip her to pieces. Christopher Lee is more a less seen as one of the unluckiest characters in movie history. The “creature” never asked for this treatment but endures a horrific, miserably short lived existence. The brute stumbles out of Frankenstein’s estate and out in to the countryside. Killing at least one other unfortunate he has come across, the Creature is put out of its misery with a bullet to the head by Frankenstein’s assistant. If that isn’t enough, Dr. Frankenstein brings the beast back to life and the brain damaged result is converted in to a shambling, semi obedient pet following Frankenstein’s commands. It is a pathetic sight indeed. Frankenstein’s dream of creating the perfect “Superman” does in fact turn into a compete failure. This Hammer Films reboot makes that point quite painfully clear.
An enjoyable time filler fantasy picture that follows a team that captures a live abominable snowman or yeti. Forrest Tucker plays a sham naturalist who talks of sharing the capture of a yeti to the world as a scientific wonder. As the movie progresses, we find out that he is in fact a P.T. Barnum in the making who wants to parade the beast around the world at fair and make a killing at the box office. Peter Cushing is a more traditional scientist who comes to detest the intentions of Tucker. Very atmospheric music and sets when the team actually manages to catch one of the elusive beasties. Dread, then sets in for the human party.
This is the full movie version of Tales From The Crypt (1972). A couple of nice segments in this British horror anthology. Fantastic ghoul makeup applied to Peter Cushing.
A guilty pleasure! Caveman is dug up in China by a scientific expedition and transported by train out of the frozen wastes. Unbeknownst to the expedition, an alien life presence has been trapped inside the prehistoric life form and it wants to make up for millions of years of lost time! Namely, turning anyone who gazes into its hypnotic red eyes into a zombified slave who does the alien’s bidding. A battle between us and them erupts on the train ride with the very future of mankind’s supremacy on this planet at stake! Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are teamed up once again in this wacky little fantasy flick.
A varied collection of unusual movie and music video clips.
