2023 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 25: Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2 (1991)

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25. FROM THE NIGHT OF: Any movie with “NIGHT OF” or “FROM THE” in its title.

James Riffel made this when he was working at a public access station. It combines several movies that he made at New York University, super 8 home movies and some video footage. Never released, it shows up on YouTube.

He also made Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating Subhumanoid Zombified Living Dead, Part 3, Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating Subhumanoid Zombified Living Dead, Part 4 — using footage from The Most Dangerous Game — and Night Of The Day Of The Dawn Of The Son Of The Bride Of The Return Of The Revenge Of The Terror Of The Attack Of The Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating, Crawling, Alien, Zombified, Subhumanoid Living Dead — Part 5 which uses Bonanza and The Andy Griffith Show.

I really have no interest in seeing Romero’s film have bad jokes and homophobia recorded over it, you know? I should have picked something else for this challenge, but the title got me and here we are with me watching a film that has one voice making poop and racist humor at the expense of the movie that invented modern horror. I just shut it off rather than go on.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2023: A Werewolf In the Amazon (2005)

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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 is working to save the lives of cats and dogs all across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes.

Today’s theme: Werewolf

Paul Naschy* played a werewolf in so many movies, including the child film Good Night, Mr. Monster; the monster-filled comedy It Smells Like Death Here (Well, It Wasn’t Me) and the Waldemar Daninsky series of movies: The Mark of the Wolfman, Las Noches del Hombre Lobo, The Fury of the Wolfman, The Fury of the Wolfman, The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman, Dr. Jekyll and the Werewolf, The Return of Walpurgis, Curse of the Beast, Return of the Wolf Man, The Beast and the Magic Sword, Licantropo: the Full Moon Killer and Tomb of the Werewolf. This is his last time playing a lycanthrope.

Directed by Ivan Cardosa, this is about a group of teenagers who go into the jungle with a guide named JP (Evandro Mesquita). None of them know that Dr. Moreau (Naschy) is trying to make animal human hybrids. He already failed with a group of Amazons and yet he’s kept working. Maybe even on himself, as we learn when the moon gets full at night.

Most of the women get nude and as you can imagine, quite a few sleep with Naschy’s character, despite him being 71 when this was made, so he gives me hope. There’s also a musical number when an Incan spirit appears and starts singing. I loved that.

*You can read more about his werewolf films in this article.

 

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: Killers from Space (1954)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Killers from Space was first on Chiller Theater on Sunday, December 15, 1963 at 11:10 p.m. It aired six more times on June 5, 1965; November 27, 1965; February 11, 1967; April 12, 1969; May 2, 1970 and July 3, 1971.

W. Lee Wilder and Planet Teleplays were just cranking out science fiction movies in the 50s and we’re all the better for it today.

Dr. Douglas Martin (Peter Graves) is a scientist studying nuclear blasts at Soledad Flats. As he flies over the area, his plane crashes and he wakes up healed yet with a large scar on his chest. He starts acting so weird that the FBI gets called in. Once he’s given truth serum, he lets it be known that he’s being controlled by aliens from Astron Delta under the command of The Tala.

These aliens have some wild plans that involve mutant lizards and bugs that will wipe out the people of Earth. Using a slide rule, Martin figures out that if he can shut down Soledad Flats for ten seconds, he’ll overload the alien base and kill all of them. You know how good U.S. military men are at that and yes, he blows them up real good.

UFO skeptic Dr. Aaron Sakulich thinks that many alien abduction stories contain the same elements, such as medical testing, strange scars, memory being erased, aliens with giant eyes and the feeling of being kind controlled. He feels that the initial articles about UFOs and abductions were influenced by this movie and that they entered the collective unconsciousness. Fiction influencing reality or the subconscious.

As for those big eyes, they’re egg cartons.

In 2002, this movie was redubbed by director Doug Miles and writer Tex Hauser as Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The plot of that movie is about alien invaders that have a machine that can turn people gay and Operation Manhole, a government project that will lure gay people to one location and drop a bomb on them. The tagline: “They came from outer space… and they’re fabulous!”

You can watch the original movie on Tubi.

SCREAMFEST LA: The Wait (2023)

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Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. The Wait played on Tuesday, October 17. 

Eladio (Víctor Clavijo) watches over the hunting grounds of the estate of Don Francisco (Pedro Casablanc) and has divided them into ten hunting stands. When Don Carlos, Don Francisco’s assistant, asks him to add three more stands — which would place them too close to one another — for money, his wife Marcia (Ruth Díaz) finally convinces him to take the money.

That’s when things go wrong. So wrong that his son Floren (Moisés Ruiz) is accidentally hit with a bullet and soon dies. Marcia kills herself. And Eladio is the one who is punished, not the rich elites that he has worked for.

Directed and written by F. Javier Gutiérrez, this finds Eladio soon descending into paranoia and the center of an occult conspiracy which may all be in his head. It’s an interesting film that combines the western — it’s shot in Spain, home of many an Italian Western — and folk horror.

 

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: Night Caller from Outer Space (1965)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Night Caller from Outer Space was first on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 20, 1973 at 1:00 a.m. It also aired on May 18, 1974; February 1, 1975 and October 11, 1975.

This is also known as Blood Beast from Outer Space but isn’t the thought that an alien was crank calling in the days before Caller ID frightening?

Dr. Morley (Maurice Denham) and Dr. Jack Costain (John Saxon) have found a small ball that crash landed on our planet from Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. One night in their lab, their secretary Ann Barlow (Patricia Haines) sees a creature that soon kills Morley. Now Constain must find what exactly is on our planet.

This alien has the wildest plan. When girls try out for Bikini Girl magazine, it takes them with the goal of heading back to its planet with new breeding stock.

Directed by John Gilling (The Plague of the Zombies), this has some wild music in it, like Alan Haven’s jazzy cover of “Image” and the American version of the movie has a lounge song called “The Night Caller” by Albert Hague that is sung by Mark Richardson.

SCREAMFEST LA: My Mother’s Eyes (2023)

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Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. My Mother’s Eyes played on Wednesday, October 11. 

Hitomi (Akane Ono) was once a concert cellist before giving birth to Eri (Mone Shitara). Today, she writes music for her daughter, who goes to school to be a musician, and somewhat lives through her having the future she never did. Then one day, they are in a car crash and Hitomi loses her sight. Now she has to wear camera contact lenses and Eri, who is paralyzed in a hospital, wears VR glasses. This allows them to have the same body.

Living with the constant supervision of Dr. Tomio Miike (Shusaku Uchida) and his son Satonishi (Takuma Izumi), this film asks if a virtual life is a true one; if Eri should have to experience her mother’s existence and how Hitomi tries to make up for what happened.

Director and writer  Takeshi Kushida has created an interesting story here and it makes you question what life is and how the digital world may change your definition.

SCREAMFEST LA: Alone Together (2023)

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Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. Alone Together played on Friday, October 13. 

Director Will Kresch, who co-wrote this with A.V. Bach, has put together the tale of Nassdja (DeAnna S. Wright) and her boyfriend Luke (Matthew Kresch). They’re staying at his family cabin during COVID-19 and riots that come from a society unable to deal with the pandemic. The isolation only makes their abusive relationship even more horrible. All of the enforced closeness has led to her having visions while his abuse gets worse with each day.

This is the same cabin where Luke watched his father kill himself and where he’s watching the decline of their relationship as he spies on her phone, even finding all the photos she’s taken of the bruises he’s given her. There’s also a militia man outside the house who may be something more. As the movie goes on, Luke becomes possessed and Nassdja finds an inner power she didn’t know that she had.

The team that made this movie hasn’t made all that many movies, yet this works and will definitely be something to build on in the future. Having two people carry the movie is a big task, but both actors more than live up to that trial. I’m looking for some great things from everyone who made this.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: Gorgo (1961)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Gorgo was on Chiller Theater eleven times! The first airing was Saturday, April 17, 1965 at 11:20 p.m. It was part of an all night show on October 30, 1965, then aired on April 29, 1967; February 22, 1969; December 4, 1971; April 13, 1974; June 14, 1975; December 18, 1976; November 28, 1978; December 15, 1979 and September 18, 1982.

A co-production of the United Kingdom, the United States and Ireland — all united to rip off a film from Japan — Gorgo is all about a pearl diving crew taking a little monster to London and being gobsmacked when its mother comes to tear up Big Ben.

Originally, this was going to be set in Japan, then France and even Australia, but the filmmakers decided that — and I’m not making this up — no one cared about Australia.

Director Eugène Lourié already had some kaiju experience, making The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and The Giant Behemoth.

This film also sets up that perhaps kaiju have been with us since the beginning of time and thought of as monsters, as a Viking relic shows an image of a beast called Ogra the sea spirit.

Monarch Books, who seemed ready to release a book for any giant monster movie*, put out a novel version that had way more sex than the movie. Way more meaning any at all.

Charlton Comics also published 23 issues of a comic book with pencils by Steve Ditko. They also did a three issue sequel miniseries called The Return of Gorgo and Ditko included Gorgo and Konga in a Captain Universe backup story in Web of Spider-Man Annual #6.

You can watch Gorgo on Tubi. The original version and Mystery Science Theater 3000 riff are both available.

*They also released books for Reptilicus and Konga.

SCREAMFEST LA: The Deep Dark (2023)

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Screamfest Horror Film Festival stands as a cornerstone of the horror genre, boasting the largest and longest-running festival of its kind in the United States. You can learn more about this year’s festival by checking out the official site. The Deep Dark played on Tuesday, October 17. 

Coal miners in 1950’s France — led by Roland Neville (Samuel Le Bihan), they are Louis (Thomas Solivérès), Miguel (Diego Martín), Polo (Marc Riso), Santini (Bruno Sanches) and Amir (Amir El Kacem), who has just joined the team and sends all of his money home to Morocco — have to take Professor Berthier (Jean-Hugues Anglade) to the deepest, darkest and most dangerous underground locations to get some samples. They get caught underground and if things can get any worse, they do, because they’ve found the resting place of Mok’Nor Roth, known as the Eater of Souls and a servant of Cthulu.

Director and writer Mathieu Turi said, “The Deep Dark (Gueules Noires) will be a mix of horror and adventure, in the best tradition of H.P. Lovecraft stories, but set in a French reality and a strong social context. It’s going to be a character-driven story, confronting the old and the new generations in an exciting and terrifying quest to the unknown.”

Beyond the terror of being trapped so far down in the mines and being in near darkness, lit only by lamps, this movie also has the practical effects puppetry that creates the beast known as Mok’Nor Roth. This comes in France at the end of November and I think that genre lovers here are going to go crazy when they see this.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 24: The Devil’s Plaything (1973)

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October 24: A Swedish Horror Film

Monica (Ulrike Butz) and Helga (Marie Forså) are the guests at a huge castle where a will is about to be read. The girls will need to stay there for a year to claim the estate of Baroness Varga, who was burned at the stake for being a vampire hundreds of years ago. They’re joined by folklore scholar Dr. Julia Malenkow (Anke Syring) and her brother Peter (Nico Wolf) crash in the woods nearby. They are descendants of the women who killed Varga, which probably won’t go all that great with the castle’s maid, Wanda (Nadia Henkowa), who conducts nightly lesbian rituals devoted to the fallen blood countess.

Also known as Vampire Ecstasy, this feels like it fits right in with Jess Franco and Jean Rollin’s vampire women. I say that as a compliment. Unlike many of his New York City-shot movies, director and writer Joe Sarno shot this in an actual castle owned by the relatives of producer Christian Nebe.

Other titles include The Curse of the Black Sisters, Plaything of the Devil and Veil of Blood.

You can watch this on Tubi.