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.
