EDITOR’S NOTE: The Hand was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, March 20, 1965 at 1:00 a.m.

Once in Burma, three captured British soldiers were threatened with torture if they refused to divulge military information. Two refuse and have their hands chopped off. Years later, in London, hands are getting chopped off and the police have no clue.

Directed by Henry Cass and written by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton, this is kind of all over the place, but you know, it played at 1:00 a.m. on UHF channels usually. It feels like an Edgar Wallace story but even grosser, with hands being shipped in boxes to the cops.

This is more police story than horror movie. Oh well.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Hypnotic Eye was on Chiller Theater on Sunday, February 2 at 11:10 p.m. and Saturday, May 23, 1964 at 11:10 p.m.; Saturday, February 27, 1965 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, June 4, 1966 at 1:00 a.m.

Mentored by Ormond McGill — yes, the same person that Ron Ormond took his name from — Gil Boyne “championed the accessibility of hypnotherapy and consistently fought against legislative efforts worldwide to restrict hypnosis to the purely medical professions.” He also founded the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners and the Hypnotism Training Institute. Before that, he served in the Navy during World War II. He was given post-combat therapy based on psychoanalysis, hated it, and developed his own treatment, which combined his spiritual and religious upbringing, past stage hypnosis experience.

His Transforming Therapy method “…incorporated aspects of Regression Therapy and Gestalt Therapy, as well as focusing on the self-healing power of the subconscious mind. It uses a compassionate spiritual approach that simplifies theory in the actual therapy and hones in on allowing the inner mind to construct its own solutions creatively.”

He was also the consultant for this movie, performing live shows between screenings of the film at the opening of the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco. Then, he went on TV news and talk shows to sell it.

As for the Hypnomagic that this is filmed in, it’s essentially just a character breaking the fourth wall.

Who cares? This movie is awesome.

It starts with a woman washing her hair over the stove and setting her head on fire. This is not the weirdest thing that happens.

Detective Dave Kennedy (James Patridge) is on the case, as ten more women have died this way. His friend, Dr. Phillp Hecht (Guy Prescot), thinks it could be hypnotism. This takes Dave, his girlfriend Marcia Blaine (Marcia Henderson) and her friend Dodie (Merry Anders) to a stage show by the hypnotist Desmond (Jacques Bergerac, who went from acting and being married to Ginger Rogers and Dorothy Malone to running Revlon in Paris). That night, a post-hypnotized Dodie washes her face in acid.

The magician is being ordered around by a woman named Justine (Allison Hayes), who wears a mask to hide her scars, and tries to get Marcia — who has been so hypnotized by Desmond that she makes out with him and goes to a beatnik club to listen to bongo music and the “King of the Beatniks” Lawrence Lipton* — to enter a cool, refreshing shower but turns the water up to boiling. She’s saved at the last minute; the cop shoots the hypnotist, Justine jumps to her doom, and the kindly doctor warns us to never be hypnotized except by a medical doctor.

The last film by director George Blai was written by Gitta and William Read Woodfield, who started Magicana, a trade paper for magicians, and took many of the LIFE celebrity photos. He and partner Allan Balter made Mission: Impossible a success by focusing on conmen working for the government.

Several gimmicks were used in theaters to promote The Hypnotic Eye. Some theaters had balloons with an eye painted on them, while others gave away black dots on cards that could be used in the film. Still others “warned customers with faint hearts to avoid seeing the film, offered free medical supplies in the lobby and provided free admission to nurses, doctors and undertakers.”

When you see the credits, Fred Demara is listed as “Great Imposter ” Fred Demara. That’s because his life story was made into the Tony Curtis film The Great Imposter the same year this came out. Demara had been “…a civil engineer, a sheriff’s deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, a naval surgeon, an editor, a cancer researcher and a teacher” as he tried to fit into other lives. By the end of his life, he was living in the Good Samaritan Hospital of Orange County in Anaheim, California, where he worked as a chaplain and even gave last rites to his friend, Steve McQueen.

*James Lipton’s dad!

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Witch’s Mirror was on Chiller Theater on Saturday. January 13, 1968 at 1:00 a.m.

The Witch’s Mirror is why I love 1960s Mexican horror. Some movies of that era only hint at witchcraft and the occult, and this one goes all in, showing rituals and all manner of Satanic mayhem. Ah, Mexico. Long may your movies live on.

It’s directed by Chano Urueta, who also made the confoundingly wonderful El Baron del Terror and the Blue Demon films.

If you’re going to steal, I always say to steal big. Chanto draws from numerous sources here — Edgar Allen Poe, Hitchcock’s Rebecca, Eyes Without a Face — while somehow synthesizing them into his own unique narrative.

Deborah (Rosita Arenas, distinct from the Aztec Mummy movies) is the new wife of Dr. Eduardo Ramos (Armando Calvo), but she has no idea that years ago, he poisoned her. Still, she was the first wife, Elena (Dina de Marco).

The thing is, Elena may be dead, but her spirit will not rest. She calls out to her aunt, a witch named Sara (Isabela Corona), whose spells and incantations place Deborah directly in the path of revenge, starting with her face being burned in a fire.

Luckily — or maybe not — Dr. Ramos ends up being somewhat of a mad scientist, so he starts stealing dead bodies to take their skin and attempt to give his new bride her beauty back.

Somehow, in all of this, the witch comes off the best of all of them. This movie is nightmarish in ways that movies made outside of Mexico just can’t pull off because I get the idea that the filmmakers have one foot in believing that everything in this movie is possible.

A CCC Filmkunst (West Germany), C.E.I. Incom (Italy) and Critérion Film (France) co-production — a UN of a movie — this is the last film ever directed by Fritz Lang, bringing back his villain of all villains, Dr. Mabuse. Lang had made the first two movies about this character, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, in 1922 and 1933.

It’s based on Mr. Tot Buys A Thousand Eyes by Jan Fethke, which was written in Esperanto. I love this Wikipedia description, which said it was a modern take on Dr. Mabuse that combined “German Edgar Wallace film series, spy fiction and Big Brother surveillance with the nihilism of the Mabuse world.”

Dr. Mabuse is dead. But they always say that. And if he is, who kills reporters and anyone who gets close to the truth? Who was in the vision of the murder that blind telepath Peter Cornelius (Wolfgang Preiss) saw? Is the doctor inside the Luxor Hotel, a place wired by the Third Reich to spy on its guests? What’s the deal with clubfoot wifebeater Roberto Menil (Reinhard Kolldehoff), who has abused his wife Marion (Dawn Addams) to a suicide jump and into the arms of American Henry Travers (Peter van Eyck)? What’s the story with Hieronymus B. Mistelzweig (Werner Peters)? Is that Jess Franco’s — Jess would later make The Vengeance of Doctor Mabuse — favorite bad guy, Howard Vernon? How about how in America, the posters claimed that this starred Gert Frobe, Mr. Goldfinger?

Despite Mabuse being surrounded by technology, it’s suggested that his power is near-supernatural. I’m all for that. I also kind of love that Mabuse’s plan is never explained. Why has he brought all of these people together? What’s he trying to do? It doesn’t matter. He’s just evil. Sometimes, that’s all a villain requires.

The Eureka box set Mabuse Lives! has this movie, along with an introduction by genre film expert and Video Watchdog founder Tim Lucas, a new 1080p presentation from a 2K restoration of the original film elements undertaken by CCC, a commentary track by film historian and author David Kalat, and an alternate ending. You can get it from MVD.

Also known as Horror Hotel, this movie was the first film that John Llewellyn Moxey directed. It was also made in the UK but set in the U.S., so everyone is doing their best American accent.

Back in In 1692 in Whitewood, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel) and Jethrow Keane (Valentine Dyall) sold their souls to the Devil for eternal life and revenge on everyone if they just sacrifice one virgin during Candlemas Eve and another during the Witches’ Sabbath. That said, Elizabeth is soon tried for being a witch and burned alive.

History professor Alan Driscoll (Christopher Lee) tells Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) that if she wants to learn about Whitewood, she should go there. She visits the town, staying at the Raven’s Inn, which is owned by Mrs. Newless and soon meets the only normal person in town — so she thinks — Patricia Russel (Betta St. John), who gives her a book on witchcraft. She learns that it’s Candlemas Eve just in time to be sacrificed on an altar.

Bill Maitland (Tom Naylor), her fiancee, brings her brother Richard (Dennis Lotis) to town, along with Patricia, who wonders where her friend has gone. You can imagine what happens next, but this is still fun.

This was written by George Baxt as a pilot for a television series that would have starred Boris Karloff. Producer Milton Subotsky rewrote it to be longer, including a romantic subplot about the boyfriend who goes looking for Nan. Produced by Vulcan Productions, it was made by Subotsky and Max Rosenberg, making this the first Amicus movie.

The big difference between City of the Living Dead and the American Horror Hotel cut? Elizabeth Selwyn, before being burned at the stake, says the following before she’s burned alive: “I have made my pact with thee O Lucifer! Hear me, hear me! I will do thy bidding for all eternity. For all eternity shall I practice the ritual of Black Mass. For all eternity shall I sacrifice unto thee. I give thee my soul, take me into thy service.” Jethro Keane adds, “O Lucifer, listen to thy servant, grant her this pact for all eternity and I with her, and if we fail thee but once, you may do with our souls what you will.” Elizabeth Selwyn: “Make this city an example of thy vengeance. Curse it, curse it for all eternity! Let me be the instrument of thy curse. Hear me O Lucifer, hear me!”

In 2011, Evil Calls: The Raven came out with a very similar plot and even lifted footage directly from this movie. But I didn’t complain when Iron Maiden’s “Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter” and King Diamond’s “Sleepless Nights” videos did. This movie played enough UHF TV that The Misfits even wrote a song about it.

The City of the Dead is part of the new Severin box set, All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2. It has extras including an introduction by Kay Lynch, director of the Salem Horror Fest; four different commentaries, one with Kim Newman And Barry Forshaw, another with Jonathan Rigby, a third with Christopher Lee and a fourth with John Llewellyn Moxey; a remembrance of the film by Sir Christopher Lee; archival interviews with John Llewellyn Moxey and Venetia Stevenson; the video essay Burn Witch, Burn! A Tribute To John Llewellyn Moxey by Amanda Reyes and Chris O’Neill and a trailer.

You can order this set from Severin.

EDITOR’S NOTE: First Spaceship On Venus was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 23, 1976 at 11:30 p.m., Saturday, July 19, 1980 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, September 5, 1981 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, March 27, 1982 at 1:00 a.m.

Also known as Planet of the Dead and Spaceship Venus Does Not Reply, this is really the East German/Polish film Milcząca Gwiazda / Der Schweigende Stern, which would mean The Silent Star in English. It’s based on Stanislaw Lew’s 1951 novel The Astronauts. The author — who also was the man behind Solaris — was critical of the final film, saying, “It practically delivered speeches about the struggle for peace. Trashy screenplay was painted; tar was bubbling, which would not scare even a child.”

So how did it make it to America? Out old friends at Crown International Pictures, who In 1962 released a cut-down and American-friendly dub of the movie — along with two other cuts under the aforementioned Planet of the Dead and Spaceship Venus Does Not Reply titles. Domestic audiences wouldn’t see the original, uncut version of the film until it was re-released by the DEFA Film Library of the University of Massachusetts Amherst as The Silent Star.

Scientists discover that the Tunguska explosion of 1908 was caused by an alien craft and not a meteor, which sends them to Venus, where they discover that the inhabitants of that planet want to irradiate the Earth and take it over. More precisely, they would have, had they not nuked themselves into oblivion.

If you watched this and thought, “Have I seen this movie somewhere else?” that would be because it’s the movie within a movie in Galaxina. If you listened to it and felt the same way, that’s because it liberally borrows — steals — music from Destination Moon, This Island Earth and The Wolf Man.

You can watch the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of this movie on Tubi or the original on YouTube:

EDITOR’S NOTE: Circus of Horror was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, May 1, 1965 at 11:20 p.m., Saturday, July 2, 1966 at 11:20 p.m., Saturday, March 4, 1967 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, March 30, 1967 at 11:20 p.m., Saturday, April 12, 1969 at 11:30 p.m., Saturday, June 16, 1979 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, September 13, 1980 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, April 24, 1982 at 1:00 a.m.

Released in the U.S. by American-International Pictures as a double feature with The Angry Red Planet and A Bucket of Blood, Circus of Horror was inspired by the success of another Anglo-Amalgamated film, Horrors of the Black Museum

Dr. Bernard Schüler (Anton Diffring) is really Dr. Rossiter, a man who ran from England with his two assistants, Martin (Kenneth Griffith) and Angela (Jane Hylton) and makes his way to France, where he starts to practice. He meets a girl scarred in the war, Nicole Vanet (Carla Challoner when she is young, Yvonne Monlaur when she’s an adult), and fixes her wounds, making a deal with her father (Donald Pleasence) that he will buy into his circus and use it to further hide from his past.

As he celebrates the sale, the circus owner begins to dance with a bear — yes, this really happens — and this leads to him mauling him. He yells for Schüler to save him, but the doctor watches him die and takes over the circus, working with his assistants to take criminals, heal their scars and add them to his circus.

One of those performers is Elissa Caro (Erika Remberg), a gorgeous sex worker whose face is marred with a scar through her eye. He promises to fix her if she joins his circus, which becomes a success over the next ten years. When anyone tries to escape, they die accidentally, like star Magda von Meck (Vanda Hudson), who dies in a knife throwing act, allowing Elissa to be the main act again.

However, things start to fall apart when Melina (Yvonne Romain) shows up, her face destroyed by a lover who threw acid at her. The doctor and circus owner fixes her face and falls in love with her.

Elissa decides to stay ahead of her competition and learns who the doctor really is, thanks to overhearing the adult Nicole explain her surgery to Inspector Arthur Ames (Conrad Phillips). Schüler tries to warn her off with a snake, but she keeps blackmailing him, so he makes sure that she dies during her act.

A gorilla goes wild and scars the doctor, who must go through his own surgery, appearing bandaged as the circus is visited by Evelyn Morley Finsbury (Colette Wilde), the very woman who Schüler scarred for life and was nearly ruined by. That night, a lion kills Melina — man, this circus! — as the doctor’s assistants try to run. He stabs Angela as Martin escapes, joining Evelyn in telling everything to the police. Schüler tries to run, but Evelyn returns to run him over with her car.

Director Sidney Hayers also made Burn, Witch, Burn with this movie’s screenwriter George Baxt. The circus was owned by Billy Smart and was also used for the Joan Crawford movie Berserk.

I love the idea of this movie where a plastic surgeon ends up running a circus of criminals and animals that can’t stop attacking human beings.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Last Woman On Earth was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, September 5, 1964 at 11:10 p.m. and Saturday, October 24, 1964 at 1:00 a.m.

Harold Gern (Antony Carbone) is a rich man constantly getting in trouble with the government. He’s in Puerto Rico with his new, younger and very attractive wife Evelyn (Betsy Jones-Moreland) and his lawyer Martin Joyce (Edward Wain), as they prep for his latest trial.

As the three go diving, they learn that everyone on the surface is dead and that they have to keep on oxygen tanks until they get into the jungle. Most of the animals are still alive and Harold takes control, as he thinks they are the only three left in the world.

You know what happens next, right? Evelyn and Martin have sex, her husband thinks that she had to have been raped and she tries to run away with the man who is her age. Then, spoiler warning, Harold beats Martin to death and asks for his wife’s hand. She takes it and man, did anyone learn anything in this? Everyone in this movie is a horrible person.

Directed by Roger Corman, this was written by Robert Towne, who was also Edward Wain. That shocked me. The reason he got the part was that the script wasn’t done, so Corman needed a writer and an actor, so he saved money by hiring just one person.

Shot at the same time as Creature from the Haunted Sea, this played double features with Little Shop of Horrors.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Little Shop of Horrors was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, May 23, 1964 at 11:10 p.m.; Saturday, August 14,1965 at 1:00 a.m.; Saturday, March 9, 1968 at 11:10 p.m. and Saturday, January 17, 1970 at 1:00 a.m.

Drected by Roger Corman, written by Charles B. Griffith and made under the name The Passionate People Eater, this movie was made in two days for $28,000 on the same sets as A Bucket of Blood. Playing double features with Black Sunday and Last Woman On Earth, it became a cult film and that continued once it aired repeatedly on TV.

Gravis Mushnick (Mel Welles) and his two employees, Audrey Fulquard (Jackie Joseph) and Seymour Krelboined (Jonathan Haze), run a flower shop that seen better days. When Seymour screws up an order for dentist Dr. Phoebus Farb (John Shaner), he’s fired until he shows his new plant, which he claims he grew from a seed that he was given by a Japanese gardener over on Central Avenue. He names it Audrey 2 and before you know it, it lives on human blood and then people. Yet it brings people into the store and becomes famous. Gravis calls Seymour son now.

Of course, Gravis eventually sees Seymour feeding a dead homeless man — it was an accident, but still — to Audrey 2 and then Dr. Farb, who he killed in self defense. But the crimes are getting worst and the police — named Fink and Stoolie — and the Society of Silent Flower Observers of Southern California wants to give Seymour an award. All he wants is the original Audrey, but the plant hypnotizes him and makes him continue bringing him food.

The movie was actually written at a coffee house. Corman said, “We ended up at a place where Sally Kellerman (before she became a star) was working as a waitress, and as Chuck and I vied with each other, trying to top each other’s sardonic or subversive ideas, appealing to Sally as a referee, she sat down at the table with us, and the three of us worked out the rest of the story together.”

This is also an early Jack Nicholson movie — the actor said that “I went in to the shoot knowing I had to be very quirky because Roger originally hadn’t wanted me. In other words, I couldn’t play it straight. So I just did a lot of weird shit that I thought would make it funny.” — and as you know, went on to become even bigger when it was made into a musical and remade in 1986. There was even a cartoon, Little Shop, that was on Fox Kids and had Corman as a consultant. As for this one, Corman was so sure it wouldn’t do well that he never got a copyright and let it go into public domain.

Dick Miller really did eat that flower.

You can watch this on Tubi.