CHILLER THEATER MONTH: The Beach Girls and the Monster (1966)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Beach Girls and the Monster was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, June 29, 1968 at 11:20 p.m. It played as Monster from the Surf. 

Directed, shot by and edited by Jon Hall, who also plays Dr. Otto Lindsay, The Beach Girls and the Monster is the kind of strange movie that I love so much. The surf footage was shot by Dale Davis — who also is in this as Tom — and he also made the surf documentaries Walk on the Wet Side, Strictly Hot and The Golden Breed. Even better, it has sculptures, the monster’s head,and the Kingsley the Lion, which were all created by Walker Edmiston — who plays Mark — who had a kid’s show in Los Angeles and went on to be the voice of Ernie the Keebler Elf, several characters on Lidsville, Sigmund from Sigmund and the Sea Monster, the Zuni Fetish Doll in Trilogy of Terror and Magneto on the 1980s Spider-Man, as well as playing Professor Crandall on The Dukes of Hazzard.

Can it get even better than that?

Let me introduce you to the The Watusi Dancing Girls from Hollywood’s Whisky a Go Go club on Sunset Boulevard. And how about that soundtrack with appearances by The Hustlers and the theme song “Dance Baby Dance” by Frank Sinatra Jr. and Joan Janis.

Bunny (Gloria Neil, Sarah in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) is found dead after being attacked by a seawood covered lizard creature. No, not Slithis. Or Zaat. Or one of the Humanoids from the Deep. This, according to Dr. Lindsay, is a fantigua fish that has grown large enough to exist out of the ocean. Did it grow lungs? What kind of scientist is he? And why does he call the kids loafers and little tramps?

Maybe he’s mad that his son Richard Lindsay (Arnold Lessing) is a beach bum, that his best friend Mark (Edmiston) has moved in and sculpts, and that his wife Vicky (Sue Casey, Evilspeak) drinks and flirts all the time, seeming like the kind of woman that John Ashley would certainly sleep with and cuck him were this Blood Island and not Santa Monica. Richard was there when Bunny died, so all he cares about now is his girlfriend Jane (Elaine DuPont) and living life for fun instead of doing research with his old man.

In case you can’t guess, there’s no such thing as the monster. Yes, the doctor is dressing up, all to make his son more serious by killing everyone that he is friends with as well as getting rid of his second wife.

This was written by Joan Gardner (who did tons of cartoon voices), Robert Silliphant (who wrote The Creeping Terror and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?) and Don Marquis.

Also known as Monster from the Surf and Surf Terror, this movie is totally The Horror of Party Beach but I don’t care. It’s like a sitcom or Scooby-Doo episode except that all sorts of people die and it ends with a misunderstood father, who is dressed as an undersea monster, driving his car off a cliff and blowing up real good.

It’s 66 minutes of your life. Live it.

You can watch this on YouTube.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 26: Asso (1981)

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26. A Horror Film That Features Edwige Fenech

I may have run out of Edwige Fenech horror films, but this is the next best thing.

Directed and written by Franco Castellano and Giuseppe Moccia, who together directed 20 films and wrote 70, this stars Edwige as Silvia, who has just married her longtime lover, Asso (Adriano Celentano). An expert card player, he has promised to give up gambling for her, but has one last game in him. He wins, but is killed by Sicario (Gianni Magni). 

However, because of how much he loves Silvia, he can come back to Earth and wants to find a man to take care of her so he can go to Heaven. He decides on an old banker named Luigi Morgan (Pippo Santonastaso), but a rival, Bretella (Renato Salvatori), the man who had Asso killed, is trying to take Silvia for himself. However, this caper leads the old man to realize how much he misses his dead wife, Enrichetta (Sylva Koscina). 

Alone again, Silvia finally meets a card player who looks just like Asso, who finally does make it to Heaven, where God defeats him in a card game.

This feels a lot like Heaven Can Wait, and it also seems like Ghost took some elements from it. 

I took the Lord’s name in vain several times during this movie, including a moment when we see the outline of Ms. Fenech through a stained-glass window. As this movie teaches us that God gambles, I feel that the Supreme Being is fine with me ogling one of His or Her’s finest creations. 

Murder, She Wrote S2 E17: One Good Bid Deserves a Murder (1986)

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Jessica finds herself in a tough spot when one of the auctioneers of a diary is murdered, and she has to rely on Harry McGraw to help her out.

Season 2, Episode 17: One Good Bid Deserves a Murder (February 23, 1986)

At the request of Richard Bennett, a friend and a popular actor, Jessica Fletcher goes to an auction to bid for the diary of a dead woman whose journal was stolen on the night of her death.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?

Dr. Sylvia Dunn is Karen Black, which makes this my favorite episode of the show.

Lt. Casey is played by Ray Girardin.

Sheila Saxon is Nancy Lee Grahn, who has been on General Hospital and Santa Barbara.

Albert Cromwell is played by Robert Gray.

Hurd Hatfield, who was Dorian Gray in the 1945 movie, is William Readford.

Edward Mulhare from Knight Rider! He’s Richard Bennett.

Harry McGraw is back and he’s always Jerry Orbach.

Robert Rhine plays Cotter Smith.

Sal Domino is played by Vic Tayback! Yes!

Background roles are played by Alan Craig, Lyle Howry, Paul King, George Sasaki, Nico Stevens, Leland Sun, Manny Weltman, Marvin Newman, Jean Vander Pul (the voice of Wilma Flintstone!), Howard Murohy, Allysia Sneed, Sterling Swanson, David Ankrum and Rebecca Street.

What happens?

Sorry to all the Edward Mulhare fans, but he’s soon killed because of the diary of Evangeline, the Marilyn Monroe of JB Fletcher’s universe. Who else wanted the diary? Everyone. Producer Sheila Saxon and director Saul Domino, who want to make a sleazy movie I would totally watch. Doctor Sylvia Dunn, Evangeline’s psychiatrist, must have some secrets. Or is it Robert Rhine, a lawyer trying to keep the diary quiet for his client?

Harry McGraw keeps Jessica out of jail, seeing as how her client just fell dead out of a wardrobe. Harry also has a black eye from allergies. She takes him back to her hotel to put the medicine on for him, which we all know is just a story, so that I have a section to fill out about Harry McGraw Dogging Jessica later. But no, someone has broken in and torn the room up more than Harry wants to rip up that Cabot Cove Caboose, but luckily, she has hidden the diary in a chess set she bought for dick in glass Seth back home.

When Jessica goes back to the auction house, the owner is dead, and she gets caught standing over the body. She asks the cops why they think she would want to kill the man, and he answers as any law enforcement should: “Beats me, Mrs Fletcher, but every time I find a dead body, you seem to be in the neighborhood.”

Anyways, between Harry dating the producer, him sneaking out with the diary and multiple suspects, this episode is filled with many a twist, many a turn.

Who did it?

Albert Cromwell, who was Evangeline’s first boyfriend.

Who made it?

This episode was directed by Seymour Robbie and written by J. Miyoko Hensley and Steven Hensley, who wrote Can You Feel Me Dancing? together.

Does Jessica get some?

No. I’d like to think that she and Harry have some September/September coupling, followed by a dinner at a diner, then maybe a furtive handjob in his parked car while she thinks about her dead husband. I’m a romantic.

Was it any good?

It has a scene where Karen Black goes nuts. It’s great.

Any trivia?

Angela Lansbury and Hurd Hatfield were co-stars in The Picture of Dorian Gray and became lifelong friends. She introduced him to Ireland and Hatfield lived in County Cork from the early 1970s.

Jessica spent $300 on that chess set, which is like $900 today. She must want Seth more than we know.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Harry McGraw: I must be nuts.

Jessica Fletcher: Harry, I know that was very difficult for you. But now that you’ve put that diary to rest, honestly, don’t you feel better?

Harry McGraw: Honestly? Jessica, you must be nuts.

What’s next?

Cabot Cove residents gather for a funeral and discover the coffin contains the wrong body.

2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 26: The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)

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26. THAR SHE GLOWS: There be a light house in this plot.

Irvin Berwick and Jack Kevan were nobodies at Universal.. Kevan hated working for makeup department boss Bud Westmore, who took all the publicity ahead of the people who actually did the work. They formed Vanwick Productions and became independent producers and seeing as how Kevan had overseen the manufacture of the costumes for Creature from the Black Lagoon, why not make their own version? Using the feet of the mutant from This Island Earth and the hands of The Mole People, the diplovertebron was born.

Universal helped out, believe it or not. As they felt bad about so many of their technical people being laid off, they let them work on this film and gave the production discounts on equipment.

Sturges (John Harmon), the lighthouse keeper, is convinced that his daughter Lucille (Jeanne Carmen, who started dancing at the age of 13 before becoming a trick shot golfer before leaving her husband and hooking up with alleged mobster Johnny Rosselli, who introduced her to Sinatra, who in turn took her to Hollywood. She’s in The Three Outlaws, which has Neville Brand as Butch Cassidy and Alan Hale Jr. as the Sundance Kid. She was also in Untamed Youth and was the reason why Eddie Cochoran covered “Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie.” While working as a pin-up, she met R0selli again, who told her to leave Hollywood because of her friendship with the Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe, so she dyed her hair, got married, and had kids in Scottsdale. She is a bad girl, so he keeps losing his mind at everything she does.

He’s a weird dude who leaves food for the monster and keeps telling people that there’s such a thing, which drives the cops nuts. Well, there is a monster —a long-extinct prehistoric man-creature that rips off people’s heads.

How many people does it kill? Enough that diner owner Kochek (Frank Arvidson) has to open up his freezer to Constable George Matson (Forrest Lewis) and let him hang the headless bodies there. As for the town doctor, well, that’s voiceover actor Les Tremayne.

Berwick went on to make Strange Compulsion, The Street Is My Beat, The 7th Commandment, Hitch Hike to Hell, the Christian movie Suddenly the Light and Malibu High. As Darcia, he made the softcore film Ready for Anything! and was also the associate producer of Larry Buchanan’s The Loch Ness Horror. This is the only movie Kevan ever produced, but he would write The Street Is My Beat and The 7th Commandment. Screenwriter H. Haile Chace went on to direct and write the sexploitation movie Paradisio and the scare film V.D.

You can watch this on YouTube.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: The Incredible Professor Zovek (1972)

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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: 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.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: War of the Zombies (1964)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: War of the Zombies was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, November 3, 1979 at 1:00 a.m.; Saturday, April 11, 1981 at 1:00 a.m. and saturday, December 3, 1983 at 1:00 a.m. It playted as Zombies.

Also known as War of the Zombies, Rome Against Rome was the second to last film from the Galatea production company (some of their other films include Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, Mill of the Stone Women and Ghosts of Rome). It was directed by Giuseppe Vari, who used the name Joseph Warren, and also made The Last Killer, Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead, Who Killed the Prosecutor and Why?, Sister Emanuelle and Urban Warriors. Its story came from Ferruccio De Martino (who usually was a production manager) and Massimo De Rita (Violent City, The Valachi Papers, Street Law) with a script from Piero Pierotti (who directed Hercules Against Rome and Marco Polo) and Marcello Sartarelli.

In a remote part of the Roman Empire, cult leader Aderbad (John Drew Barrymore, Drew’s father) is working with the governor to create their own land using the corpses of Roman soldiers brought back from the dead. Centurion Gaius (Ettore Manni) is sent to protect the interests of the senate.

Most of the production money probably went toward making Aderbad’s secret rooms look like something out of Bava, because the actual fight scenes are taken from Hannibal. Susy Anderson (Black Sabbath, Thor and the Amazon Women) and Ida Galli (The Psychic, Arabella: Black Angel, The Sweet Body of Deborah, The Whip and the Body) are also on hand.

American-International Pictures played this movie as a double feature with Senkichi Taniguchi’s Samurai Pirate, which they named The Lost World of Sinbad. When it was time for Rome Against Rome to air on TV, it was renamed the completely incredible title Night Star: Goddess of Electra.

I wish that there was more to recommend this movie than just as a curiosity. Peplum was giving way to the western, so anything was being tried at this point. According to Mondo Esoterica, two other horror and sandal hybrids are Goliath and the Vampires and, of course, Hercules in the Haunted World.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: Planet of the Vampires (1965)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Planet of the Vampires was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, February 24, 1968 at 11:20 p.m.; September 6, 1969 at 1:00 a.m.; Saturday January 30 at 11:30 p.m. and Saturday, December 18, 1971 at 11:30 p.m. It played as Demon Planet. 

American-International Pictures had made some money in the U.S. with Mario Bava’s Black Sunday and Black Sabbath. It just made sene for Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson to gain more control by producing the films themselves instead of just buying the rights.

Working with Italian International Film and Spain’s Castilla Cooperativa Cinematográfica, AIP provided the services of writer Ib Melchior (The Angry Red Planet) to create the American version of this movie, which was based on Renato Pestriniero’s short story “One Night of 21 Hours.”

This movie was quite literally the Tower of Babel, as each major cast member performed in their respective languages: Barry Sullivan spoke English, Norma Bengell spoke Portuguese, Ángel Aranda Spanish and Evi Marandi Italian. And the low budget would have made a cheap-looking movie with any other director, but Bava was the master of in-camera effects and flooding his sets with color and fog. In a Fangoria article, he would say, “Do you know what that unknown planet was made of? A couple of plastic rocks — yes, two: one and one! — left over from a mythological movie made at Cinecittà! To assist the illusion, I filled the set with smoke.”

When 1979’s Alien came out, those that had been exposed to Bava’s work would let people know that many of the ideas in that film came directly from this modest film with its $200,000 budget — I know Joe Bob, everyone lies about budgets. While Ridley Scott and Dan O’Bannon would claim for years that they had never seen this movie before, the writer would later say, “I stole the giant skeleton from the Planet of the Vampires.”

Want to know how I know those claims are true? From the very start of this film, two large ships — the Galliott and the Argos — in deep space respond to an SOS call and are lured to a planet where alien beings either take their bodies over or murder them. The crew of the Argos instantly begins murdering one another — with only Captain Markary (Sullivan) able to pull his crew out of madness. When they arrive at the other ship, everyone is already dead, including Markary’s brother.

Soon, the bodies of the dead are walking as if alive, the ships are damaged beyond repair, and crew members are getting wiped out (look for a young Ivan Rassimov — later of the giallos The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh and All the Colors of the Dark, and the Star Wars clone The Humanoid — as one of them!).

While this film is 55 years old, I have no interest in ruining the ending for you. Instead, I want you to sit and bask in its colorful glow, awash in fog and mystery, with pulpy science fiction heroes running around in fetishy costumes and discovering skeletons that could in no way be human. It is everything that is magic about film.

Atlas — the comic company that tried to challenge Marvel and DC in the 1970’s — combined I Am Legend with this film to create the comic Planet of the Vampires. Much like all of their books, it only ran three issues, but the first one boasts a cover with pencils by Pat Broderick with Neal Adams-inks and other issues have great work by Russ Heath. The first issue was also written by future G.I. Joe mastermind Larry Hama. I have no doubt that Atlas did not pay AIP for the rights to this.

Check out these pieces on Ten films that rip off Alien and Ten Bava Films for more.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 25: Project Metalbeast (1995)

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25. A Horror Film That Has a Good Review on The Schlock Pit Website

I love The Schlock Pit so much, and if a movie is good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.

1974: Special ops soldier Donald Butler (John Marzilli) is inside an island castle where he finds a werewolf, which he soon kills with silver bullets, then takes some blood to create super soldiers along with Colonel Miller (Barry Bostwick). Nothing seems to work, so he injects himself with what’s left of the blood and soon goes crazy, murdering and sexually assaulting everyone in his path. Only three silver bullets to the heart from Miller stop him, and he’s frozen, stuck between life and death. 

Twenty years later, Anna De Carlo (Kim Delaney) and her team — Larry (Lance Slaughter), Roger (Tim Duquette) and Philip (Dean Scofield) — are working on ways to add metal allos to human skin. Miller offers them the bodies of his dead soldiers, and as you can guess, they operate on Butler. When they remove the bullets from his heart, he comes to life as an unstoppable metal werewolf.

How do you stop a metal wolf? With a silver bazooka.

Directed by Alessandro De Gaetano (UFO: Target Earth), who co-wrote it with Timothy E. Sabo (later director of the AVN Awards) and Roger Steinmann, this is the kind of movie I would get obsessed with when I rented it. It played a lot of cable and look out, Kane Hodder is the Metal Beast.

You can watch this on Tubi.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Sweet Home (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.

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. 

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: THIR13EN Ghosts (2001)

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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: 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.