The Brain Eaters.

Review #2433: The Brain Eaters.

Cast: 

Ed Nelson (Dr. Paul Kettering), Alan Jay Factor (Glenn Cameron), Cornelius Keefe (Sen. Walter K. Powers), Joanna Lee (Alice Summers), Jody Fair (Elaine Cameron), David Hughes (Dr. Wyler), Robert Ball (Dan Walker), Phil Posner (the Sheriff), Orville Sherman (Mayor Cameron), and Leonard Nimoy (Professor Cole) Directed by Bruno VeSota (#1202 - Invasion of the Star Creatures)

Review: 

Okay, I wanted to pick a movie a bit out of left field that happened to have a catchy title. It isn't exactly a movie filled with noted names (save for one very brief appearance) or even a big director, but sometimes you get lucky. This was a production that had oversight by who else but Roger Corman, who left himself uncredited as executive producer, but not to worry for this American International Pictures movie, you've got a credit for producer and also lead star in Ed Nelson, who for whatever reason is billed as "Edwin Jackson". Two other key actors must've loved the credit game, they also have alternate names with "Alan Frost" (Alan Jay Factor) and "Jack Hill" (Cornelius Keefe). The movie was directed by Bruno VeSota, who actually had been involved in Chicago television in writing and directing since the late 1940s. He did a variety of acting parts (small or not) in the 1950s, most notably with Dementia [1955] (which may have had co-direction and writing from VeSota, as he later claimed), but he got to direct his first feature film with Female Jungle (1955), which had been distributed by AIP in its "American Releasing Corporation" days after they basically rescued it from being stuck in limbo. VeSota directed one further film with Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962). The movie was written by Gordon Urquhart, although the resulting script seemed a bit similar to the 1951 novel The Puppet Masters (which also dealt with slugs and mind control), as written by Robert A. Heinlein. He sued for plagiarism and got a settlement, although he did not want a screen credit in any shape or form.  

This was a movie that was the B-side of double features with Earth vs. the Spider, if you want to use that as a barometer for the quality. Of course, this is a movie that has a creature made of wind-up toys, fur, and pipe cleaner. For a movie that has a character at one point shoot a gun into a giant metal cone to go along with trying to use the telegraph (hey, at least they didn't try pigeons), it sure is one hell of a boring time. It lacks polish that seems particularly amusing given a runtime of a mere 60 minutes. It has a few tiny eerie moments, mostly in the sequence where the mayor is engaged in a tense standoff with some of the key characters because it actually feels like a movie is going to actually break out before one eventually sinks back into narration (worries over needing the plot to be clear to John Q. Public, 60 Year Old At Large or a trick to get over having poor sound quality - you be the judge) and a general malaise that seems to only move forward when it feels like doing so. You get the yammering from Keefe ("action!"), a middling cast*, the shambling around from doctors about doctor doctor things and the eventual rundown of what the beastly things plan to do. Well, I take that back, they aren't alien, they actually came from underground that want to make a utopia even with the whole putting toxins in the nervous system thing, (as explained by Nimoy and his voice, because he doesn't actually stand up for the one scene he is in). As a whole, it is quite an accomplishment to make Earth vs. the Spider look better on a double feature but it is almost as interesting to have a poster that exceeds the quality of the movie. If you really need to watch something from the old days that you haven't seen yet, you might get something out of it. Or not.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*At least some of the cast saw better days. Joanna Lee changed course after appearing in four movies to become a television writer, even winning an Emmy Award for writing an episode of The Waltons. Of course, Nelson later became noted for his role on Peyton Place and taught acting in his later days. Keefe was in his last film after plenty of roles in silent films and such. And Nemoy, well....

The Wasp Woman.

Review #2275: The Wasp Woman.

Cast: 

Susan Cabot (Janice Starlin), Fred Eisley (Bill Lane), Barboura Morris (Mary Dennison), William Roerick (Arthur Cooper), Michael Mark (Dr. Eric Zinthrop), Frank Gerstle (Les Hellman), and Bruno VeSota (Night Watchman) 

Produced and Directed by Roger Corman (#368 - The Little Shop of Horrors, #684 - It Conquered the World, #852 - The Terror, #931 - Not of This Earth, #1007 - Attack of the Crab Monsters, #1039 - Five Guns West, #1042 - War of the Satellites, #1136 - Gas-s-s-s, #1147 - X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes, #1186 - A Bucket of Blood, #1423 - The Wild Angels, #1425 - The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, #1674 - Machine-Gun Kelly, #1684 - Creature from the Haunted Sea, #1918 - House of Usher, #2030 - The Trip, #2113 - The Undead, #2211 - The Intruder)

Review: 

Oh sure, a movie about a woman trying to deal with her fears of getting older in the eyes of the public by using strange substances. Wait, what year is this? Anyway, this was directed by Roger Corman in his fourth year as a director (which for him was two dozen movies in), complete with being among the first he made for his company The Filmgroup to help with distribution (read: trying to do productions without dealing with certain unions). The story was done by Kinta Zertuche (in her only screenplay, having served an assistant on Beast from Haunted Cave and Attack of the Giant Leeches) while the screenplay was done by Leo Gordon (the occasional writer of films such as The Cry Baby Killer to go along with acting). The movie (which lasts 66 minutes) is in the public domain, although there exists a version that was longer (73 minutes) because Corman asked Jack Hill to direct a few scenes for television a few years after the release of the film - the scene was an introduction to the Zinthrop character being fired for working on wasps instead of what he was assigned to do. In 1995, the movie was remade as a television production directed by Jim Wynorski with oversight from Corman (who saw a handful of his films remade in that era).

It is pretty unfortunate that the movie is not that great, because there sure seems to be a bit of potential to have made something really unnerving in the terror of trying to cope with aging. However, one basically gets The Fly (1958) crossed with The Wolfman but with very little tension zipped into a five-pound bag of corn. The body count is stretched pretty thin to go with little to really draw upon in suspense beyond watching the movie just for the sake of having nothing better to do (the film paired with it in double features was Beast from Haunted Cave, incidentally). This actually was the last movie for its star in Cabot, who appeared in a handful of Westerns and adventure movies (mostly in supporting roles) before doing work for Corman starting in 1957, with whom she appeared in six productions from Carnival Rock (1957) to this. Cabot did some stage work in the later years prior to her murder in 1986. It is a strange way to close a film career, wearing an odd little mask (with little place to breathe if dealing with vapors and a broken bottle) to go with spitting chocolate sauce onto people. But she expressed in later years that it was Corman who gave her "a great amount of freedom", so take that with a grain of salt. The peril presented by our lead is at least one that can be relatable: trying to survive the fear of being passed by in the sands of time. The rest of the cast is serviceable for a mostly quiet staging that doesn't really require too many sets or too much bombast. Even the wasp costume isn't that bad when you get down to it, mostly because with a bit more time or staging, you really could make something out of that unsettling mask in say, a metamorphosis rather than basically going with the "Wolfman" trick. It could've been so much more tragic but instead is just not quite enough to rise above "heh, I guess". As a whole, the general tragedy of chasing for victories of the superficial can only really work with a film committed to really striking somewhere in visual terror too. It is the kind of movie that I can't call good but will at least lend up as not being as bad as it sounds. When faced with little to do on a a weekend, this would be at least somewhat curious to look up.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

The Undead.

Review #2113: The Undead.

Cast: 

Pamela Duncan (Diana Love/Helene), Richard Garland (Pendragon), Allison Hayes (Livia), Val Dufour (Quintus Ratcliff), Mel Welles (Smolkin), Dorothy Neumann (Meg-Maud), Billy Barty (The Imp), Bruno VeSota (Scroop), Aaron Saxon (Gobbo), Richard Devon (Satan), and Dick Miller (The Leper) Produced and Directed by Roger Corman (#368 - The Little Shop of Horrors, #684 - It Conquered the World, #852 - The Terror, #931 - Not of This Earth, #1007 - Attack of the Crab Monsters, #1039 - Five Guns West, #1042 - War of the Satellites, #1136 - Gas-s-s-s, #1147 - X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes, #1186 - A Bucket of Blood, #1423 - The Wild Angels, #1425 - The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, #1674 - Machine-Gun Kelly, #1684 - Creature from the Haunted Sea, #1918 - House of Usher, #2030 - The Trip)

Review: 

Somehow, I think I am a bit generous with Roger Corman. He managed to make films in a variety of genres as either a director or a producer that later saw him receive a variety of nicknames such as "The King of Cult". 1957 alone saw him direct/produce eight films. He was not above using a few familiar actors from film to film, as this and Attack of the Crab Monsters (released a month apart from each other) share three key actors (Duncan, Garland, Welles). Apparently, the inspiration for the film came in the wake of the Bridey Murphy craze, in which a series of articles written by William J. Barker told about a woman who was put in a trance of "hypnotic regression" that had her speak about her alleged past life. The hypnotist, Morey Bernstein, wrote a book that was published in 1956. That book would be turned into a film that very same year, but I'm sure you don't need me to invite mockery upon the idea of "past reincarnation". The film was written by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna, with the former remarking that it was "in iambic pentameter" before having to rewrite it upon the time of shooting because Corman (who had sent it out to various people on the street) was worried that folks wouldn't  understand. Griffith was the co-writer on It Conquered the World (1956), Gunslinger (1956), Not of This Earth (1956), and Flesh and the Spur [1956], with all but the first being written with Hanna, and people familiar with Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) will note that Hanna wrote the film that had the same star from this one. This sets of the film were done in a converted supermarket (along with a few things shot in a house nicknamed "The Witch's House" in Beverly Hills) and shot in less than two weeks. 

Okay, so here is how they get to the whole "past lives" thing: a psychic researcher is so damn curious about past lives that he hires a prostitute for $500 to undergo a trance (for 48 hours) to access her past life all while his former teacher stands there. This trip turns out to be one of the Middle Ages (an English-speaking place, specifically) in which her past self is set to die as one accused of being a witch, and the idea of escape attracts the attention of both good and bad witches and a few others such as, uh, Satan. It may all sound like a good deal of hooey, and, well, it kind of is, but if one knows what they are getting into with Corman and his crafty hands, you may actually have an odd and offbeat time with this to enjoy. This is the kind of movie that features a dance in a graveyard to go with an absolutely silly portrayal of Satan that might as well be fit for the dinner theater, where at least one expects a loose wall for a set. The film is loopy and just barely over an hour to throw whatever what one does to try and throw the book against lapses of logic that perhaps would make a wonky double feature with, say, The Terror (1963). Most of the people here have their foibles with this dialogue (or in the case of Barty, having a ball in playing it silly), but there is a sort of weird state to it all that seems entertaining regardless, as if acting on a cloud is more suitable than trying to lean all the way into iambic pentameter. Duncan at least makes the effort of worried tension, which only results in amusing sequences such as the one near the end about one should stay or go within an execution. At least Hayes seems suitably rough-and-tumble for the part. I'm not even sure what the deal is supposed to be with Dufour when it comes to the buildup to the climax, because even the best sci-fi mumbo jumbo probably wouldn't explain his motivations (perhaps you are curious: he goes back to the past under the same hypno-whatever as the prostitute had and in the commotion over whether the past girl will head to the chopping block didn't think to wonder what would happen that link to the past wound up dead with him still there). When it comes to ratings, eh, a 6/10 hereisnt a positive review, but it matches what I feel about the film. As a whole, it isn't a particularly good winner, but I did find some curiosity with the idea of doomed fates and weirdo motivations in half-baked hokum that comes out in the early years of Roger Corman and company trying to play trends to the masses. It barely ranks in horror, but it makes curious spectacle all the same.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Next: Dracula 2000...and something else for Thursday.

The Wild World of Batwoman.

Review #1928: The Wild World of Batwoman.

Cast: 

Katherine Victor (Batwoman), George Andre (Professor G. Octavius Neon), Steve Brodie (Jim Flanagan), Richard Banks (Rat Fink), Steve Conte (Bruno), Mel Oshins (Tiger), Bruno VeSota (Seltzer), Bob Arbogast (Voice of the Spirits in Séance), and Lloyd Nelson (Heathcliff) Written, Produced, and Directed by Jerry Warren.

Review: 

You may or may not know about Jerry Warren. Well, he was a California native that wanted to get into the film business, and he even appeared in a handful of small parts in films of the 1940s. He became a filmmaker with Man Beast (1956), which he directed and produced. He would direct a couple of his own films before deciding to just simply buy and distribute films made internationally with re-editing (such as 1959's Space Invasion of Lapland). This was his penultimate feature, as Warren did one further film as director and producer of Frankenstein Island (1981) after spending the time between films on his ranch; in total, Warren was involved as director in some capacity (full or in segments) for eleven films. Katherine Victor had worked with Warren on films such as Teenage Zombies (1959) and Curse of the Stone Hand (1965). She was promised a movie with better production values to be made in color with her own boat. Bruno VeSota called the film script as "like memorizing a telephone book with pages picked at random". DC Comics sued Warren for "copyright infringement", since you know, the movie was made to try and capitalize on the Batman craze that happened with the 1966 series, but the lawsuit was won by Warren; he later released the film as She Was a Hippy Vampire. The film re-uses footage from No Time to Kill (1959) and The Mole People (1956), and you even get to see the batgirls get mated with mole people...nah, just kidding. 

Victor has a costume all by herself: a bat insignia with cardboard cutout that is outlined in pencil and filled in with black eyeliner that is right on her chest to go along with a leotard, a domino mask, and feathers. You can see the enthusiasm on her face at being in a movie with no boat or the semblance of being anything other than incomprehensible. Incidentally, she served as a continuity director (among other roles) on a handful of animated films and cartoons released by Walt Disney Animation Studios, which probably means that any cartoon that she was a part of in some form was automatically better than this film. Hell, she could have done as little as provide someone with a piece of paper, and boom, that means she did more to making a useful product than what she does here. This is the kind of movie with "synthetic" vampires that drink smoothies for the introduction and wrist radios for the "Batgirls" that must deal with the acquisition of an "Atomic Hearing Aid". You get to see a seance to try and find the device that ends up seeing a "Chinese" spirit interrupting the ceremony. I think dubbing the film would almost make the film something worth understanding. At any rate, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew also covered the film. 70 minutes of mildly boring entertainment that may or may not work in the realm of subdued surreal crapfests, one where you can see a director-writer-producer-editor mishandle each category. You get to see an actor do a crappy attempt at an accent while playing a mad scientist. You get to see a bunch of dancing and a plot that moves like jello and feels like kitsch in all of the worst ways. In other words: things happen, and you just have to make sure you don't fall asleep when it ends in a mishmash of words. The fact that the movie managed to garner a 0 rating is not even a surprise, because giving the movie credit for anything seems like a bridge too far. Lousy acting, lousy action, lousy from top to bottom is the best way to describe the film. One can only wonder what other "films" came from Jerry Warren that could possibly top this one in rancid quality.

Overall, I give it 0 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: Warrior of the Lost World.

The Fast and the Furious (1954).

Review #1388: The Fast and the Furious.

Cast: 
John Ireland (Frank Webster), Dorothy Malone (Connie Adair), Bruce Carlisle (Faber), Iris Adrian (Wilma Belding - Waitress), Marshall Bradford (Mr. Hillman - Race Marshal), Bruno VeSota (Bob Nielson - Truck Driver), Byrd Holland (Doctor), and Larry Thor (Detective Sergeant) Directed by John Ireland and Edward Sampson.

Review: 
"You can make a movie about anything, as long as it has a hook to hang the advertising on."

When it comes to film entertainment, one cannot deny the attracting power of American International Pictures. The company was formed on April 2, 1954 by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff as American Releasing Corporation with the intent to distribute films on an independent level. There would be numerous people that found themselves involved in AIP, such as cinematographer Floyd Crosby, screenwriter Lou Rusoff, producer Herman Cohn alongside Roger Corman. They were given their first chance to distribute with this film, picked by Corman over other companies while also being offered money to help Corman make further films. This was the third film that Corman was involved with, having made his contributions to Highway Dragnet and Monster From the Ocean Floor with story and producing the previous year. Along with producing, he also work as a bit actor and stunt driver while also making deals with a local dealer for Jaguar cars and utilizing stock and filmed footage from the Monterrey racetrack. Shot in nine days at a cost of $50,000, it is no wonder that this was a fair hit for audiences of the time, who must've been big on jailbirds on the run with fast cars and women to go with a thin plot directed by its star Ireland and Edward Sampson, an editor in his lone directorial credit. It was the work that Corman did here that made him want to become a director, which he would soon get the chance to do with Five Guns West the following year.

It sure is a shame that this is such a plain affair, one that moves with a quiet roar for 73 minutes that seems fitting of being put on the back end of a double bill than anything. Ireland and Malone don't really seem to have much chemistry with each other beyond a few quips that beg for more vulnerability and charm, since these characters seem thinner than a fuel gauge in characterization. Most of the time is spent on them with only a few glimpses into the chase for them alongside the race they happen to come across, as if trying to be a crime film isn't enough to latch onto. One needs a third presence stronger than someone like Carlisle to really counteract the main duo to make things seem more urgent to care about. By the time the film races to its conclusion, it doesn't even seem like a real ending, reminding me more of Quicksand (1950) than anything, and one might not even remember that the main character is supposedly innocent to begin with because of how casual things seem. The racing aspects are decent, but nothing too special to follow along with. On the whole, while this movie isn't particularly good by most standards, it is at least a modest curiosity that could  pique interest on a boring day with access to the public domain, filled with quick thrills that could reach an audience that could then inquire further into the library of American International Pictures for further, better features to look into.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Invasion of the Star Creatures.

Review #1202: Invasion of the Star Creatures.

Cast: 
Robert Ball (Pvt. Philbrick), Frank Ray Perilli (Pvt. Penn), Gloria Victor (Dr. Puna), Dolores Reed (Prof. Tanga), Trustin Howard (Sergeant), and Mark Ferris (Colonel Thomas Awol) Directed by Bruno VeSota.

Review: 
Sometimes you just know a film is going to be trouble with the credits. What should I really expect from "R.I. Diculous Presents"? Believe it or not, the script (known under titles such as "Monsters from Nicholson Mesa") was written by Jonathan Haze, star of The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) who was originally intended to also star in the film - although this did not come to pass. Perhaps Haze (and b-movie director VeSota, who also starred in Roger Corman productions such as Attack of the Giant Leeches) should have thought hard about what they were getting into before deciding to go for comedy, since the only achievement that they have done is that they made a comedy that garners less laughs than films not going for laughs on purpose. If A Bucket of Blood is entertaining for its balance of horror and black comedy, perhaps this film is that one's dopey cousin that likes to daydream about silly gags and alien women that you can get to love you by kissing them. After all, one of the producers is Samuel Arkoff, whose company American International Pictures helped distribute both features. This was actually released on a double-bill with The Brain That Wouldn't Die - it is actually hard to tell which is worse. Having either fact only makes it easier to recommend literally any other AIP film than this one. Ball and Perilli are our main duo for 70 minutes (80 for the television version), and it occurs fairly quickly that they will prove tiresome, since they are tedious to follow along with not being too particularly funny to boot. This is a film that thinks that a sergeant talking in beatnik slang will surely get the laughs going. By the time the alien women appear on screen, it seems like a sigh of relief - having different faces to watch that aren't torturing the masses with lame gags. Victor and Reed aren't exactly given much to do besides tower over the bumbling duo and occasionally talk about their (supposedly) devious plot; perhaps a campy action sci-fi film would've made for a better use of their time, although they wouldn't be helped by their alien accomplices, involving guys in carrot costumes. Perhaps they thought they were being funny with the costume use, but the movie is such a dud that it doesn't really matter how they really look - they might as well have been dressed as killer clowns or sunflowers. It is a bland movie packed with jokes best suited for the grand art of making strangers on the street groan while trying to make them be your friend. This film has no friend except for late night showings by people who like to loathe themselves for an hour or need something to be on when checking their phones or reading a book. In other words, the film sucks.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 10 stars.

Attack of the Giant Leeches.

Review #742: Attack of the Giant Leeches.

Cast
Ken Clark (Steve Benton), Yvette Vickers (Liz Walker), Jan Shepard (Nan Greyson), Michael Emmet (Cal Moulton), Tyler McVey (Doc Greyson), Bruno VeSota (Dave Walker), Gene Roth (Sheriff Kovis), and Dan White (Porky Reed) Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski.

Review
With a title like this, you'll either get one of two things: An outrageously silly movie about giant leeches...Or a cheap movie that doesn't really show much of the leeches. In this, you get the latter. To be honest, leeches can be a scary thing to think about before going into the water, especially those blood sucking ones. In this, they are apparently mutated to giant size due to nuclear weapons, while residing in a cave and taking a bunch of people with them to slowly suck their blood. In theory, this would be scary. But the movie never really lives up to the premise very much, being a movie that seems to dwell on its characters more than the leeches. It's not a terrible movie, but it's not at all scary not really that interesting. It's not even easy to make fun of (aside from MST3K) because it goes so quick (barely an hour) that you'll forget about as soon as you watch anything else. It is interesting that this was produced by Roger Corman (who directed/produced #368 - The Little Shop of Horrors and produced #592 - Dementia 13), along with his brother Gene. The acting is standard, typical for a monster flick that plods along, but at least the monsters look okay. Ultimate middle of the road type of movie, but if you've got an hour to waste...and have no other options...you'll be okay.

Countdown to 750 Reviews: 10, 9, 8...

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.