Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Mexico

Francisco Xavier Chapa del Bosque suffered from polio and, according to this Vulture article, was experimented upon by his uncle. However, he claimed that his own will returned his ability to walk. After years of training, he began performing as Agent X-1 and then as Professor Zovek, pulling cars with his teeth and breaking the world record for sit-ups. He had an army of hooded women and would say, “I need vibrations,” which allowed him to kiss several of them before stunts like exploding from straitjackets, lifting cars with people inside and escaping confinement or being chained.

Being a TV star led to movies, starting with this film, directed by René Cardona. It’s a unique blend of Zovek’s stunts and the lucha films, which makes it a fascinating watch. Zovek’s next—and final—movie was Blue Demon y Zovek en La invasión de los muertos, where he fought alongside the lucha legend, adding a unique cultural twist to the film. 

Yet during filming, Zovek performed for his public, being lowered from a helicopter down to the ground, but an accident caused the pilot to pull his stick upward, and Zovek was thrown two hundred feet into the ground, suffering mortal injuries, dying surrounded by his wife and four children. Vuture — and the movie Roma, in which Zovek is played by luchador Latin Lover — writes that there were rumors that the escape artist “…was in cahoots with the government, training right-wing paramilitary groups. As such, people whispered that the pilot had killed the performer as a political act of assassination. The pilot, for his part, always maintained that he thought Zovek was already off the rope when he levitated and turned.”

The film’s plot revolves around a plane carrying 26 renowned scientists that explodes, leaving only 25 bodies. Professor Zovek, a renowned figure in the film, is called in to investigate. His unique abilities and fearless nature lead him to believe that the missing person is the killer. This belief takes him to the island of Dr. Leonardo Druso, where mind-control and human-animal experiments are taking place, setting the stage for a thrilling and action-packed adventure.

Written by Chano Urueta, this film asks you to stay patient for the first thirty minutes. It crawls. But soon, there’s an island filled with cannibal little people, martial arts battles, Zorek wearing wild outfits and evil masked men with whips. 

Zovek was a man who could swim for eight hours non-stop, skip rope for nine hours, drive motorcycles blindfolded, let cars drive on him and in one insane stunt, he was put in a straitjacket, chained up and put in a burning Egyptian coffin. Here, he shows off his mental powers and pulls off several of his stunts, like a lucha movie without the wrestling. Zorek, however, is ahead of the curve and practices martial arts in this.

This movie really was pulling out all the stops to make Zovek a movie star. His sidekick is Germán “Tin-Tan” Valdés, who played the same role in the Chanoc movies, and we have Tere Velázquez and Nubia Marti, who were both in Santo movies, to be algo para papi, as they say in Mexico.

I love what Zovek could have been and wish he had been able to make more movies. His potential as a movie star, the awesome costumes, weird monsters — a woman with an exposed brain! — and the look and feel I love from Mexican cinema of this time and form. It’s magical!

You can watch this on YouTube.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Haunted House

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

I have a confession. I have never seen a film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. I have no excuse. I own a couple of them. Most are available on various streaming services. Maybe I just have a slight aversion to J-Horror. These Japanese films do not tend to grab me the way the more Western films do, for whatever reason. Hausu. Ringu. Noroi: The Curse. Audition. Battle Royale. I’ve seen all of them, and I found them to be good to pretty good. I definitely will not be accused of being hyperbolic in my praise for any of these films. So many other people whose opinion I respect seem to love these movies much more than I do. I always just feel like I’m missing something, or maybe an aspect or style of filmmaking is keeping me at arms length.

Going back to the well (Ringu joke maybe) for my haunted house pick—Kurosawa’s Sweet Home. I may as well start near the beginning with his filmography if I am going to dive in. Bottom line up front: there is a lot I like about this movie, but yet again, I did not love it like I had hoped. Mainly the film is too long. Fifteen, twenty (thirty?) minutes lees, and I would have been really praising it a bit more. But still, there is plenty here to praise, and I think I might like it more on a second viewing (and if some nice boutique label wanted to give it a restoration and release, I would definitely pick it up on day one).

Sweet Home follows a fairly familiar template as far as haunted house movies go. There is an abandoned house of course. This house belonged to an artist. Legend has it that there is a fresco on one of the walls of the house that has not been seen or recorded. Enter a television crew who wants to go into the house and document the discovery and restoration of the fresco. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for us), the group gets more than they bargained for when they discover that the legend of the ghost of the house is true. Lady Mamiya, the matriarch of the family, haunts the home, still distraught over the loss of her baby who died in the home’s furnace. No one is safe from her hysterical insanity.

It is fairly difficult to not think about Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist while watching Sweet Home. Children in peril. The lore of outsiders disturbing the area. Early visual effects mixed with some fantastic practical ones. There is a lot to like in this film for sure. Again, it’s just too long. And the VHS rip I watched on YouTube did not do it any favors (I later discovered a better version on YouTube, so maybe watch that one if you want to check it out).

I think every review I read mentioned how a video game was based on this movie which then became the basis of Resident Evil. So I guess I need to add this blurb here too. I did love those first couple Resident Evil games, but I never thought about them while watching Sweet Home. 

I’m going to keep pushing through J-Horror though. I feel like I’m getting closer to unlocking the magic. 

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Haunted House

A remake of William Castle’s 13 Ghosts, I have a soft spot in my heart for this movie, despite it being a big-budget horror movie made in the last twenty years. It all starts with ghost hunter Cyrus Kriticos (F. Murray Abraham) and his assistant Dennis Rafkin (Matthew Lillard) trying to capture a ghost in a junkyard. Nearly everyone is killed, but the ghost is taken. 

Cyrus’ nephew Arthur (Tony Shalhoub) is told he has inherited his uncle’s mansion, so he moves there with his kids, Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth) and Bobby (Alec Roberts), and their nanny, Maggie (Rah Digga). As lawyer Ben Moss (JR Bourne) explains the home, Dennis has snuck in as a repairman. The family explores the house, which is filled with transparent walls inscribed with Latin spells. As Moss tries to steal some money, he breaks a wall and is soon killed; one of the ghosts is released, and all of them represent something Arthur sought to harness: the Black Zodiac.

At the same time, Kalina Oretzia (Embeth Davidtz) has snuck in to free the ghosts, one of whom, the Withered Lover, is Arthur’s late wife Jean (Kathryn Anderson). The house is a machine powered by the captive ghosts, allowing the owner to see the past, present, and future. However, a thirteenth ghost — which comes from a sacrifice motivated by pure love — can shut the house down. Arthur believes that he must become that ghost to save his children.

The truth is, the thirteenth ghost will actually activate the machine and Cyrus is alive. He and Kalina are lovers and plan to use his home and the Ocularis Infernum to become incredibly rich. The Black Zodiac that powers the machine are:

• The First Born Son, a boy named Billy Michaels (Mikhael Speidel), who loves cowboys and Indians. He was killed by an arrow shot at his head by another young boy.

• The Torso is a gambler named Jimmy Gambino (Daniel Wesley). He was killed by gangsters, wrapped in plastic and dumped in the ocean.

• The Bound Woman is Susan LeGrow (Laura Mennell), a cheerleader who cheated on her quarterback boyfriend on prom night and was strangled.

• The Withered Lover, as mentioned above, is Arthur’s wife Jean, who died in a house fire.

• The Torn Prince is Royce Clayton (Craig Olejnik), a baseball player who died in a drag race.

• The Angry Princess, Dana Newman (Shawna Loyer), constantly tried to improve her looks through plastic surgery. She tried to operate on her own face and then committed suicide. She’s the ghost that emerges and kills Moss.

• The Pilgrimess is Isabella Smith (Xantha Radley), a victim of the Salem witch trials who was starved to death.

• Harold and Margaret Shelburne (C. Ernst Harth and Laurie Soper) are the Great Child and the Dire Mother. Margaret was a circus dwarf who was assaulted by the tall man in the freak show; Harold was the result. After she was killed, he murdered most of the sideshow.

• The Hammer is George Markley (Herbert Duncanson), a black blacksmith whose family was killed when he was accused of stealing from a white man. He took his hammer and killed the men who killed them, before he was caught and killed by having railroad spikes hammered into his body.

• The Jackal is Ryan Kuhn (Shayne Wyler), a sex predator who died in a sanitarium fire.

• The Juggernaut is Horace Mahoney (John DeSantis), a serial killer who is the most dangerous of all the ghosts.

Arthur was supposed to become the 13th ghost, The Broken Heart, and activate the machine designed by the devil and powered by the dead. Is there even a final ghost? Hmm…maybe you should watch the movie.

There’s an exciting plan to create a TV series that will delve deeper into the stories of all the ghosts. As a fan, I can’t wait for this to happen.

Directed by Steve Beck (Ghost Ship) and written by Neal Marshall Stevens and Richard D’Ovidio, this movie deserved a better reception than it initially received. If only we knew how much worse horror movies would get, we might have appreciated this more.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast runs a month-long series of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Ingrid Pitt

Yes, we know Ingrid Pitt as the queen of the vampires, but she’s also in movies like Doctor Zhivago and The Wicker Man in uncredited roles; she’s better known for films like Sound of Horror, The Vampire Lovers, Countess Dracula,  and The House That Dripped Blood.

As for Orson Welles, the mastermind behind this, his dedication to storytelling was evident from a young age. His passion for this story dates back to his student days at the Todd Seminary for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois. Despite facing budget constraints, he attempted to stage a three-and-a-half-hour remix of several of Shakespeare’s historical plays, The Winter‘s Tale, in which he played Richard III. This early struggle only fueled his determination to bring his visions to life.

In 1939, he planned Five Kings, a Mercury Theater play that would have 46 scenes and run for more than five hours. Instead of attending rehearsals or finishing the play, which combined Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V, Welles and co-star Burgess Meredith got drunk. It played in a few cities but cost the Mercury Theater its contract with the Theater Guild.

By 1960, the play had evolved into Chimes At Midnight, a film directed by Hilton Edwards but truly a product of Welles’ artistic vision. He saw it as a rehearsal for a movie, a canvas on which he could experiment and bring his ideas to life. His focus was not on traditional aspects of filmmaking like learning lines or attending rehearsals, but on creating a unique cinematic experience.

Four years later, Welles worked with Spanish film producer Emiliano Piedra to produce the film, which he promised would be made at the same time as Treasure Island.

Welles had no intention of making that movie and did nothing about it.

He had $800,000 to make this movie, a cast of stars, and a schedule that didn’t allow all those actors to be in the same scene.

Welles remarked that this was his favorite movie, saying, “If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that’s the one I would offer up. I think it’s because, to me, it’s the least flawed; let me put it that way. It is the most successful for what I tried to do. I succeeded more completely in my view with that than with anything else.”

Sir John Falstaff (Welles) and Justice Shallow (Alan Webb) start the film walking in the snow, reflecting on the past and discussing how King Henry IV murdered Richard II and imprisoned the true ruler, Edmund Mortimer. As for Prince Hal (Keith Baxter), another potential ruler, he spends all of his time drinking and sleeping around, as Falstaff teaches him to live life to the fullest.

As Hal becomes King Henry V, he distances himself from Falstaff, who dies of a broken heart as the boy he led in crimes and schemes goes on to reject those lessons and become a noble king. 

Why did I pick this?

Jess Franco worked as an assistant director on the film and was heavily involved in the Battle of Shrewsbury sequence. He fought with Welles, so he isn’t in the credits. He told Horror Garage, “The production of Chimes at Midnight was a total mess, not because the film was too expensive, but because Orson lied about the budget and the film was ten times more expensive. You can imagine…what a disaster.”

Plus, it’s gorgeous. 

Is Welles Falstaff? Both men were always looking for money, outright lied to people and yet always were able to drink and eat. 

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: South America!

Historia de lo Oculto is the first movie by director and writer Cristian Ponce. It is supposed to be the final episode of the 1980s Argentine television news program 60 Minutos Antes de la Medianoche (60 Minutes Before Midnight) and the story of how a conspiracy connects the government to a mysterious corporation that practices black magic.

In fact, the show has already been canceled after trying to expose President Belasco’s economic policies, corruption and ties to the occult. For the last time, host Alfredo (Germán Baudino) brings together Senator Matías Linares (Hernán Altamirano). Sociologist Daniel Aguilar (Luciano Guglielmino) and Adrián Marcato (Germán Baudino), the vice president and co-founder of Kingdom Corporate, Argentina’s largest corporation. Oh yeah — he’s also a warlock. Two of the three have had their names appear in a notebook found at a ritual murder. The rest of the show’s journalists — Lucio (Iván Ezquerré). Maria (Nadia Lozano), Jorge (Agustín Recondo), and Abel (Casper Uncal) are hiding, waiting for word from Natalia (Lucia Arreche) on when it will be safe to leave and when the rally against Belasco will begin.

But while they wait, they have been sent four doses of hallucinogenic tannis root by Von Merkens labs, Belasco’s competition and the only company that would sponsor the show. Do I need to remind you to never take tannis root? Or be part of a ritual that will expose conspiracies?

The truth? Marcato was cast out of his coven and made a deal with the journalists to expose Belasco in return for an artifact he needs. But when everyone wakes up from a ritual that has them see demonic creatures, Lucio’s missing, Abel’s dead and a crazed Maria claims that he was a warlock who was trying to kill them. And for some reason, when people ask how many children others have, answers don’t match up due to alternate realities. And oh yeah, Kingdom Corporate is a coven of warlocks who made a deal with beings from another world and used that power to take over Argentina.

Obviously, Marcato and tannis root comes from Rosemary’s Baby, while this film also has a modern cell phone as an occult icon and 1987 Argentine politics being explored. It’s really dense, and I say that in a significant way. Nothing ever truly happens, despite setting it up, but it works hard to get there.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Tobe Hooper!

Back in 1955, Operation Samson had Brian (Brian Bremer) and Peggy Bell (Stacy Edwards) be exposed to a massive nuclear explosion to see how their immune system would work. Well, it works great, because they survive, become national heroes and have a child, David (who grows up to be Brad Dourif) while his parents go up in flames. Yes, spontaneous human combustion, which always showed up in those Ripley’s Believe It or Not books you bought at the book fair and got grossed out over.

David grows up to be a teacher named Sam Kramer and somehow meets Lisa Wilcox (Cynthia Bain), a woman whose parents went through the same death as his. Is it fate? No, it’s another government experiment, and for now, our hero can shoot fire and electricity out of his body.

Made four years after The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and the same year as I’m Dangerous Tonight, this has me rooting for Tobe, even if I know that this isn’t good. But maybe it could have been. Dourif told Fangoria, “You see me playing my heart out in scenes that are not working, and the reason they’re not working is that the movie doesn’t make sense. It’s almost funny. As a matter of fact, the better my acting was in some of the later scenes, the funnier the film was. I found myself at the mercy of people who didn’t know what they were doing. I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but my feeling is that the producers destroyed it. Tobe could have made three different movies with the material he had, and each one would have worked. But by the time he got it, it had changed from a love story to a suspense thriller about my character’s paranoid fantasy, to a guy goes crazy film about this insane killer who becomes a destructive force that’s going to wipe out mankind. We went back and kind of restructured it as a love story, but it didn’t really help. The beginning of the film was great, and a certain portion of my stuff was fine, but then it became stupid when all the flame stuff started happening.”

At least John Landis gets his head set on fire.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Tobe Hooper!

About the Author: Parker Simpson is a writer and podcaster focusing on cult films and their social impacts. They currently cohost Where Is My Mind, a podcast focusing on underappreciated films from a variety of genres and countries. They have also held panels, chartered local organizations, and written articles to their blog. When not writing or studying, they like to spend time with their pets and go outside. Check out the podcast Linktree and blog.

Being a fan of Freddy Krueger led me to this, and I was very intrigued seeing this in Tobe Hooper’s late output. Surely this will be a compelling feature.

Night Terrors is a direct to video effort that Tobe Hooper was asked to direct after Gerry O’Hara left the project. Featuring Robert Englund as the Marquis de Sade and a slew of actors familiar to the direct to video scene (including William Finley), it follows a young woman visiting her father in Egypt (it’s really in Israel) as she gets wrapped up in a cult run by de Sade’s descendant.

If you read that and thought “what the fuck?” to yourself, you’d be correct! How de Sade’s family ends up in Egypt is never explained, nor is the formation of his cult. The film reeks of unexplained bullshit thrown in just to happen. Naked dude on a horse? Painted snake lady? Exorcisms during an orgy featuring snakes? Cool, I guess. I’m ok with weirdness, but after a certain point it needs to make some sense.

Another choice is to intercut the modern day storyline with de Sade’s ramblings from his prison cell. I’m all for giving Robert Englund more screentime, and to his credit he is very fun to watch. But the back and forth makes no sense; it would work better as a straight period piece like it was originally intended.

Englund’s performance excluded, the acting from most of the cast is questionable at best. Zoe Trilling as Genie (a play on Eugenie, ha ha) overacts and screams a lot. I don’t like that her character is constantly a damsel in distress and is saved by forces outside her control, but she doesn’t make it any more watchable. Most everyone else phones it in. No one, not even Englund or Finley, truly attempts to elevate this nonsensical script; they all just play into its absurdity (intentionally or not). Combined with the silly premise, it’s really quite fun to watch.

The whole movie looks cheap. 90s DTV has a certain charm that I find irresistible, but even with the on location filming, the budget is painfully clear. The dungeon/basement settings are particularly hard to look at. A 4:3 ratio does nothing to help the film, and there is a distinct orange tinge over everything, likely indicative that this needs a restoration. 

I feel bad not liking this. Tobe Hooper, Robert Englund, and de Sade should have been a match made in heaven (or hell, depending on what you believe). Turns out none of them can help a lousy script. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but watching this is akin to watching a car crash. At least it was fun.