Category Archives: Movie reviews

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Fatal Images (1989)

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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.

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.

Today’s theme: Bleeding Skull!

You know you are in the right place when a movie has a throwaway line like “I gotta start buying a better cut of coke”.

I love that the alternative title to this film is Alison’s Revenge, and there is absolutely no character named Alison in this movie. A better alternate title would have been I Was Prom Queen Too. 

Seems as if everyone was the prom queen in high school except for our protagonist Amy (Lane Coyle). A professional photographer, she finds herself shooting high school cheerleaders, prom queens, and swimsuit models. But with her alleged artistic flair, she has higher ambitions. When she comes across an interesting camera in a random pawn shop, she cannot resist a little retail therapy to help soothe her current career path. Little does she know that this camera contains the spirit of a serial killer. Now with every click of the shutter, her subjects become victims, with the photos predicting how they will die (similar to David Warner’s photos in The Omen I guess).

It took me a while to accept the treasures that SOV films have to offer. But once I bought in, I went all in. It does not take much for me to find value in these films. Likable characters (or at least interesting characters). An unhinged plot. Doing a lot with a little. That is just about all I can ask for. Who cares if it looks like they filmed inside someone’s heavily carpeted house in the 1980s with no budget for decent lighting? Does it matter that these actors have no experience, and may never be seen again? It does not. I’m always amazed that people can make a movie for $10,000, and here I am, about 35 years later, wishing that I had the gumption to try to create something people might be discovering for the first time decades from now. 

Bleeding Skull ranked Fatal Images at #46 on their list of the best shot-on-video films. Feels okay to me. Now we just need one of these boutique labels to give this one a nice release so more people can become exposed to the delights of sassy models, roommates who wear their pajamas under their street clothes “to save time”, and supernatural cameras that never run out of film.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: A Bucket of Blood (1959)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: A Bucket of Blood was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, May 8, 1965, at 1:00 a.m.

A Bucket of Blood aspires to art as much as it does junk. Written by Charles B. Griffith, whose name you can associate with films as disparate as Smokey Bites the Dust, Barbarella and Death Race 2000, it’s a tale of trying to figure out how to create art when all you can do is repeat words and images. Maybe that’s what art really is.

Roger Corman himself directed this one, which was shot in five days for $50,000. But hey, AIP wanted a horror film and had sets left over from Diary of a High School Bride. The same set would also be used for The Little Shop of Horrors.

We start by hearing the beat poetry of Maxwell H. Brock (Julian Burton, The Masque of the Red Death) at The Yellow Door cafe. People only know when to clap when they’re told, as the people he decries as sheep really live up to it. But it’s art, baby.

Busboy Walter Paisley (Dick Miller) yearns to be part of this hip crowd and wants to win the heart of Carla (Barboura Morris, The Trip), a friendly hostess at the club. As he fails to make her a sculpture, his landlady’s cat Frankie (Myrtle Vail plays the snooping older woman; she’s actually Griffith’s grandmother) gets stuck in the wall. He tries to cut it out of the wall, but ends up killing the cat. So he does what any of us would: he covers it in clay, sticks a knife in it and calls it art.

The next morning, Walter’s boss Leonard (Antony Carbone, Creature from the Haunted Sea) makes fun of the morbid art, but Carla loves it. So it goes up on display, where the Beatniks all fall in love with it. One of those crazy cats named Naolia gives him some heroin to remember her by, but Walter has no idea what it is.

As he’s followed home by undercover cop and total fink Lou Raby (Bert Convy!), he’s told he’s going to be arrested for possession. He panics and hits Lou with a frying pan, giving him another piece of art called “Murdered Man” for everyone to fall in love with. But the secret’s soon to get out, as Leonard sees fur sticking out of his “Dead Cat” piece.

Walter is now the king of the artistic set, except for Alice (Judy Bamber, Dragstrip Girl), a model who is pretty much disliked by everyone. Walter asks her to be in his model and she agrees, only to be strangled and turned into his next art object. The results so impress Brock that he throws a party for Walter, who drunkenly beheads someone directly after and shows the results to his boss.

This has to end like all wax-related films. Walter finally feels enough self-worth to propose to Carla, who rejects him and soon learns that the sculptures are really human bodies covered in wax. Everyone chases him home, where he makes his last piece of art from himself — the “Hanged Man.”

Dick Miller said of the film — in the book Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers — “The story was good; the acting was good; the humor in it was good; the timing was right; everything about it was right. But they didn’t have any money for production values … and it suffered.”

Miller would go on to play a character named Walter Paisley in the films Hollywood Boulevard, The Howling, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Chopping Mall, Night of the Creeps, Shake, Rattle and Rock!, Rebel Highway, The Adventures of Biffle and Shoosterror and Schmo Boat.

The movie was remade in 1995 as part of the Roger Corman Presents series on Showtime. While never available on DVD, it was released as The Death Artist on VHS. It adds perhaps the one thing missing from the original: Paul Bartel. He and Mink Stole play a rich couple looking for new artists. Walter is played by Anthony Michael Hall, Carla by Justine Bateman, Shadoe Stevens is Maxwell and Sam Lloyd is Leonard. Taking place in a cappuccino bar, it also features Will Ferrell and David Cross in some of their first roles.

You can watch this on Tubi.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 2: The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

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October 2. A Horror Film That Features Virtual Reality

Loosely based on Daniel F. Galouye’s 1964 novel, Simulacron-3, it is a remake of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1973 miniseries World on a Wire.

Fancy, right?

Directed by Josef Rusnak, who co-wrote it with Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez, this is about the death of the owner of a VR company (Armin Mueller-Stahl) that has recreated 1937 Los Angeles. Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko), the man’s partner, is the primary suspect and is being investigated by the LAPD. In between, he falls in love with the dead man’s daughter, Jane (Gretchen Mol).

To find out who the real killer is, Hall goes into the simulation and becomes bank clerk John Ferguson. When he reveals to bartender Jerry Ashton (Vincent D’Onofrio) that his entire world is a simulation, the man tries to kill him. Well, hold on, because the world of 1999 we thought we knew is a simulation, too. Hall finds out when he drives to a place he’s never been before and learns that the world is one big wireframe.

This came out the same year as The Matrix and is all over the place with people being in several realities at once. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of this is that we may be less real than the characters in the video games we play.

You can watch this on Tubi.

2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 2: Zuma (1985)

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2. FANGS FOR WATCHING: Charm your senses with an anguine flick.

Zuma is a comic book movie, but no worries if you’re burned out on those. It’s also super weird.

Phillip (Mark Gil) and Isabel (Dang Cecilio) are archaeologists exploring a temple who discover a sarcophagus filled with snakes. Soon, Zuma (Max Laurel) is unleashing, walking the streets with a giant snake on his shoulder. Don’t get the idea that Zuma is the hero here. He’s a servant of the Mayan god Kukulkan — or the Aztec snake god, depending on where you get the information — and loves finding virginal women to defoul, doing things like sending snakes to bite boyfriends to death while enslaving women like Galela (Raquel Montesa). He also has a daughter, Galema (Snooky Serna), who has snakes in her hair instead of on her shoulders like her dad.

This is way too long — over two hours — but I haven’t watched many Filipino horror films. Just for the idea of a snake god that eats hearts and spoils virgins being made into a movie, well, I had to watch it. I’ll watch the sequel,  Zuma II: Hell Serpent, too.

Just look at this Wikipedia entry about Zuma: “After his revival, he goes to the modern world in a killing rage, slaughtering particularly virgin women, whose hearts are ripped out and consumed, which gives Zuma his strength and vigor. Aside from using his two-headed snake as a weapon, Zuma’s powers include invulnerability (specifically, bulletproof) and the ability to control snakes. In later versions, Zuma can heal people. His weakness is the venom from his daughter, Galema, who is also his archenemy. Galema’s mother is a humawhomat Zuma has taken as his bride. Galema grew with foster parents that made her to be a good person. Zuma also beget another child named Dino who has a head of a dinosaur and a body of a human. Dino initially allied with his father, but he later abandoned him because Dino fell in love with a human.”

Never change, the Philippines.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Son of Dracula (1943)

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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 happy homes.

Today’s theme: Sequel

The film is the third in Universal’s Dracula film series and the first in seven years since Dracula’s Daughter. In this installment, Lon Chaney Jr. takes over the role of Dracula, or as he’s called in this installment, Count Alucard. It was initially written by Curt Siodmak, who was asked to leave by his brother, Robert, when he was chosen as the director. Curt said that the two had “…a sibling rivalry. When we were in Germany, Robert had a magazine, and when I wrote for it, I had to change my name. He only wanted one Siodmak around. This lasted 71 years, until he died.” Eric Taylor took over as writer.

Count Alucard is invited to New Orleans just in time for wealthy Colonel Caldwell to die and leave his money to his daughter Claire (Evelyn Ankers) and his estate, Dark Oaks, to his daughter Katherine (Louise Allbritton), who soon marries Alucard. This upsets her fiancé, Frank Stanley (Robert Paige), who shoots Alucard, and the bullets pass through him, killing Katherine. Or maybe not, because she only shows up at night, claiming that she and her husband conduct experiments throughout the day. When the cops investigate — Frank has turned himself in — they find her dead body. As you can guess, she’s one of the brides of Dracula now.

Professor Lazlo (J. Edward Bromberg) arrives and does the common-sense thing of telling everyone that Alucard means Dracula, something no one ever gets. But Katherine still loves Frank and turns him into a vampire while also telling him how to kill Alucard. Man, it’s like Dracula noir!

Frank, however, doesn’t want to be a vampire, so he does what any of us would. He sets her on fire.

But who is the son of Dracula? I guess Alucard is supposed to be.

While filming, Allbritton and co-star Paige were constantly playing jokes on the cast. One day, Pat Moriarity, who played the sheriff, and Paige were filming a scene in which they opened Katherine’s coffin. Imagine their shock to find Allbritton inside, completely naked.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: The Brainiac (1962)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Brainiac was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 15, 1966, at 1:00 a.m.; Saturday, May 3, 1969, at 1:00 a.m.; Saturday, June 19, at 1:00 a.m.; and Saturday, March 4, 1972, at 1:00 a.m.

Known as El Baron del Terror in Mexico, this was directed by Chano Urueta, who helped Blue Demon get on the silver screen and was written by Federico Curiel, who would make The Champions of Justice, several Santo movies and Neutron.

All the way back in 1661, Baron Vitelius was burned at the stake during the Inquisition and claimed that the next time a particular comet passed by the Earth, all of the children of those who did him wrong would pay. I mean, you would think a bunch of religious folks would treat a necromantic sorcerer better, but such is life in ancient Mexico.

Three hundred years later, Baron Vitelius rides back in on that comet and is now able to change at will into a monster able to suck out the brains of his victims via a giant forked tongue, which is incredibly easy to do thanks to his ability to hypnotize his victims.

How bonkers is this movie? No less than Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart paid tribute to it in their song “Debra Kadabra,” saying “Turn it to Channel 13 / And make me watch the rubber tongue / When it comes out! From the puffed and flabulent Mexican rubber-goods mask / Next time they show the Binaca / Make me buy The Flosser / Make me grow Brainiac Fingers / But with more hair!”

In America, we’d be satisfied with an evil alien. In Mexico, it was added that he was a wizard who brought people back from the dead before he was burned alive and ascended to a heavenly body for three hundred years. ¡Viva las películas de terror!

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Mirror, Mirror II: Raven Dance (1994)

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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: Sequel

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 waited an entire year with great anticipation for this movie.

I watched the original Mirror, Mirror for my Karen Black pick in last year’s Horror Gives Back challenge. It was unexpectedly one of my favorite films from that month. Karen Black’s presence definitely helped, but it was more than just her. I was invested in the characters. I really enjoyed the performance from Rainbow Harvest (just the best name ever) as she channeled Winona Ryder’s goth stylings of Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice. Perhaps what intrigued me the most was to find out how many women were involved in the production. Directed by a woman (Marina Sargenti) and mainly written by women (including sisters Annette and Gina Cascone), the film feels different and refreshing compared to most horror movies released in the early 1990s. 

I was excited to watch the sequel, Mirror Mirror 2: Raven Dance. So much so that I saved it for this challenge, expecting to be able to plug it into the sequels category, which is typically an option. I wouldn’t say that I made a terrible mistake, but boy howdy was I let down. I guess I only have myself to blame. How could I possibly have had such high expectations for this film? I blame the poster.

If you watched Mirror, Mirror, you may as well forget everything you saw. Raven Dance is basically a sequel in name only. You could easily go straight to this film without having seen the original (don’t do it, though). The only returning element is the mirror itself, although is it the same mirror? How would it have gotten to a church orphanage? And there is a 17-year time jump in this film as well. Maybe someone manufactured a bunch of mirrors, and the demonic force can travel among them. Again, no answers and really why am I even questioning it. I cannot put more thought into the lore than the writers, right?

In the cold open of this film, a nun is blinded by the power of the mirror. Seventeen years later, Heather from Mr. Belvedere (Tracy Wells—her actual character name here is Marlee) and her younger brother show up at the orphanage after the death of their parents. For (again) some unknown reason, a rock band is setting up to play at a charity event (I guess?). They make fun of the fiddle-playing little brother, and Marlee makes a random wish that the mirror grants, frying the band members but blinding her in the process.

Things only get weirder from here as Sally Kellerman shows up as Marlee’s stepsister, Roslyn. Having been cut out of the will, Roslyn hatches a plan with Dr. Lasky (Roddy McDowall) to incapacitate Marlee and steal the inheritance. But a mysterious man named Christian (Mark Ruffalo of all people, in his film debut) is there to help Marlee get her groove back. Maybe. Unless he is evil. It doesn’t really matter.

Throw in some extended ballet dance sequences and shots of a raven now and then, and you have all the ingredients for a mid-90s direct-to-video sequel to a film that was pretty obscure in the first place. It’s not great. Although I will say that the twist ending was perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film, it didn’t quite save it, but it did bump the whole experience up by half a star.

Will I be watching Mirror Mirror III: The Voyeur next year? One hundred percent, I will! I’m always committed to a bit. Plus, Mark Ruffalo is in this one, too, but as a totally different character. Sign me up.

I watched this film on Arrow Player, but it is also available on TUBI. 

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: Konga (1961)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Konga was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, March 20, 1965, at 11:15 p.m., Saturday, May 25, 1968, at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, October 18, 1969, and Saturday, January 30, 1971, at 1:00 a.m.

Dr. Charles Decker (Michael Gough) has been presumed dead, but he’s really been hiding out in Africa, learning how to grow plants and animals to a considerable size. Like the baby chimp Konga, he turns into a monstrous ape and then he goes bonkers. I mean, he was before, too, but even more after. He sends Konga to London to kill all of the scientists who made fun of him, like Professor Tagore (George Pastell) and Dean Foster (Austin Trevor).

No one knows that and he keeps on teaching, getting obsessed with one of his students named Sandra (Claire Gordon), which angers his assistant and lover — and wife? — Margaret (Margo Johns). When she turns him down, Decker assaults her, at which point Margaret injects Konga with so much of the serum that he grows gigantic and kills her before going wild on London, starting with grabbing Decker and tossing him. As for Sandra, she’s attacked by a man-eating plant and the movie never gets back to her!

The cops kill Konga — no comments, I’m trying to be non-political — and he turns back into a chimp.

Directed by John Lemont, this was written and produced by Herman Cohen, who also produced Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. His co-writer was Aben Kandel, who was also Cohen’s co-writer for Trog, Craze and I Was a Teenage Werewolf.

Dudley Dean McGaughy wrote the novelization as Dean Owen. It has a ton more sex — the movie has nothing like it — than the film, as does McGaughy’s Reptilicus paperback. Charlton Comics — who published two issues of a Reptilicus comic book — had also done a Gorgo comic book with Joe Gill and Steve Ditko. Of that work, he said, “I read the screenplay of Gorgo. From the first reading to this day, I marvel at how well Joe adapted the character to comic books.”

Gill and Ditko brought the big ape back from the dead for a few stories in which he fought mole men and undersea monsters. It’s wild that Ditko was drawing this book at about the same time that he was on the Marvel monster books and starting on Spider-Man.

You can watch this on Tubi.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 1: The Unbreakable Bunch (2024)

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October 1: A Scary Sports Film

“An Alien Force Came To Conquer – They Had No Idea This Bunch Was In Town.”

I think they made this movie for me.

Directors Luke Lantana, Harold McConnell and Robert Pralgo (who also made the documentary After Wrestling) and writers Nathan McMahan, Frank Tobin and Ray Lloyd (former WCW wrestler Glacier and one of the stars of this movie) have put together an alien invasion movie where only old pro wrestlers can save the day. In fact, Lloyd and Steve Luther Williams, who was also in WCW as Luther Biggs, wrote the story.

The cast includes Lloyd as Jock, the main hero; Luther as the wrestling Elvis Burnin’ Love (Biggs was also Disgraceland in TNA); Tonga “Haku/Meng” Fifita as King Tonga, Ernest “The Cat” Miller as Mack Brown and Larry Zybysko as The Legend. They head out on the Blood and Thunder Tour in an RV, trying to save money for a sober living facility. This brings them to meet old friends like Padge (Diamond Dallas Page), Rusty (David “Gangrel” Heath), Hammer (Stan “The Lariat” Hansen), AEW wrestler Anna Jay, NWA wrestler Kahagas, former member of Raven’s Flock Ron Reil (also The Yeti in WCW) and Alexander the Great (Nicholas Logan), a youngster who keeps bragging that he booked the Tokyo Dome.

We can argue if wrestling is a real sport, but this is the kind of movie where Meng sings a song about the Tokyo Dome, where a pizza-eating contest turns into a fistfight, and Stan Hansen randomly shows up, where green-eyed aliens are unstoppable, and where aging indy wrestlers can shrug off bullets. And not a one of them has a fanny pack filled with painkillers or a rat in each town. But why argue realism when this is a science fiction wrestling movie? I was kind of hoping that DDP would come back like Santo, pulling out a flamethrower out of his car and turning the battle when all is lost.

The end hints that these wrestlers also fought a skunk ape. Make that movie. Now.

Also, Missy Hyatt super randomly shows up in the final battle, and no one goes, “What the hell is Missy Hyatt doing here?”

Like pro wrestling itself, this is dumb yet entertaining. For all my years on the road, I never had to fight aliens, but I would hope Hansen and Missy would always be close by to help.

You can watch this on Tubi.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: The Mummy’s Ghost (1944)

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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 happy homes.

Today’s theme: Lon Chaney (Jr. or Sr.)

I do love a mummy movie. I really love Lon Chaney Jr. as Kharis, the Mummy. But Chaney went through a lot to play this role, telling Frederick C. Othman that “I sweat” and I can’t wick away. I itch and I can’t scratch.” He took out his anger by choking actor Frank Reicher out, according to director Reginald Le Borg.

Andoheb, a High Priest of Arkam, has summoned Yousef Bey (John Carradine) to the Temple of Arkam to pass on his duties. Meanwhile, Professor Matthew Norman (Frank Reicher) is trying to convince his students that the mummy Kharis is a real thing. One of his students, Tom Hervey (played by Robert Lowery, the second actor to portray Batman), barely listens. After all, he has a hot Egyptian girl, Amina Mansori (Ramsay Ames, actually Spanish; she got the role when “Venezuela Volcano” Acquanetta fell during a dizzy spell and landed head-first on rocks painted white that she assumed were fake). But when anyone even mentions Egypt, Amina starts to feel uneasy.

Yousef Bey starts brewing the nine tea leaves, Kharis returns, the professor gets choked and Amina somehow has a new birthmark after seeing the mummy. Kharis starts leaving mold all over his victims, and the body of Ananka falls into dust, as she’s reincarnated into Amina, as you probably already figured.

The actual problem arises when Bey decides that she’s so gorgeous that he wants him for herself. Kharis reacts by shoving him out a window and narrowly avoiding a mob, only to sink back into the swamp as both he and his bride age. Too bad for Tom, who was about to elope.

When you see Kharis tearing up the museum, know that that’s what it is. They didn’t put the necessary items into the set on time, and Chaney cut himself. That blood is all real! Hardway blood, as they say in wrestling.

Hayes Code be damned, the female heroine doesn’t survive and you can see her, well, nipples in one scene. I guess they snuck this one in!

As I mentioned earlier, I love all mommy movies. At least the Universal ones are somewhat tied together. Too bad Lon hated the wrap so much.

Bill Fleck’s Horror Behind the Scenes writes, “According to Christopher Lock, makeup master Jack P. Pierce’s current biographer, the Mummy’s make-up is by now a rubber mask fashioned by propman Ellis Berman. But before the mask is applied, Chaney is wrapped by John Bonner and Pierce in what studio publicity claims is “400 yards of gauze tape.”

Pierce then takes Chaney out into the California sunshine when possible, and applies dark paint to the wrappings in order to suggest the scorching the creature has lived through in previous films. Pierce then wraps up Chaney’s hand, so as to give the illusion that the Mummy’s fingers have been burned off — and puts that arm in what looks like a sling.

Finally, the rubber mask, blocking out Chaney’s eye is glued to the actor’s face —presumably by Fuller’s Mud — and this is also raked through his hair, and Pierce then applies cotton, spirit gum, liquid latex, and tissue on the mask to form a more realistic look. Lastly, greasepaint and powder are added.

It’s by far Chaney’s least favorite makeup.”

The good news is that his dog, Moose, got to visit the set. Moose was Bela Lugosi in werewolf form in The Wolf Man and became Chaney’s beloved pet.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.