Back in 1910, native sorcerers stole a woman and attempted to sacrifice a woman under the full moon, but not before whipping her because this is Eurohorror, but soldiers stop them before they can chop her head off. However, a demon has possessed the woman, so the bad guys — are they the bad guys, this is colonialism against indigenous people? — win.

Many years later, Professor Jonathan Grant (Jack Taylor, who else) leads a safari investigating where all the elephants in West Africa have gone, bringing along two white blonde women (of course) named Elisabeth (Maria Kosti, A Dragonfly for Each Corpse) and Carol (Loli Tovar, The Legend of Blood Castle),  as well as Tunika (Kali Hansa, Demon Witch Child) and the studly Rod Carter (Simón Andreu). They soon find where the natives we saw earlier conducted their occult rites and Carol decides that this would be a good place to take photos and then they all make the worse decision to camp there.

That woman that was nearly killed and possessed before, you know, Bárbara Rey from The Ghost Galleon? She’s been waiting for something just like this and can bring back the old sorcerers and they all chop off Carol’s head. I mean, they whip her first, but you knew that, right?

Now she goes from headless rich girl photographer to leopard skin-wearing vampire and soon, she and the original vampire woman are killing everyone, including Liz, who was dumb enough to take sleeping pills in the middle of all this insanity. Day for night slow motion leopard print insanity, mind you.

Sacrificial rites turn normal women into leopard vampires. There aren’t enough kind words to say about this, one of the many wonderful movies in the Nightmare Theater package.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This voyage of the Blind Dead originally ran on our site on December 13, 2020.

What shall we call this movie? The Blind Dead 3? Horror of the Zombies? Ship of Zombies? Or The Ghost Ship of the Swimming Corpses? Let’s just go with The Ghost Galleon and know that it’s the third Blind Dead movie after Tombs of the Blind Dead and Return of the Blind Dead.

Writer and director Amando de Ossorio is back, again pitting the former Knights Templar, now zombie horde against some swimsuit models and the rescue party that comes to get them. Now, they have the power to appear within the fog, taking over the ocean and killing all that they come near.

Jack Taylor, who worked with Jess Franco often, shows up here. He was in everything from Mexican films like Nostradamus and the Monster Demolisher to The Vampires Night Orgy and Pieces.

This movie is like being in a trance. A trance that has a flaming ship in a bathtub for a special effect, which is perhaps one of the finest trances to find oneself. The Blind Dead themselves are wonderful as always, but the idea that a sporting goods store owner could get publicity by stranding models and then somehow a galleon filled with the graves of Knights Templar who sacrificed women to Satan find them and take them inside their fog world and…ah, why am I complaining? That’s actually a perfectly logical plot.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on September 24, 2022.

From Tombs of the Blind Dead to The Ghost Galleon and Night of the Seagulls — let’s not mention Curse of the Blind Dead — few images of Eurohorror are as striking as the Satanic and zombiefied Knights Templar riding out to their strange theme.

I kind of love that Spanish horror doesn’t seem to care all that much about continuity. How many ways did Waldemar Daninsky become a werewolf? Well, Amando de Ossorio tweaked the way the Knights came to be in nearly every movie, adjusting how they arrived and what they wanted, but the main idea is the same: they worshipped Satan, they were burned, they’ve come back to drink virgin blood.

As a village prepares for a festival celebrating the 500th anniversary of the defeat of the Templars — what a dumb idea — the village idiot Murdo sacrifices a young girl and brings them back from the dead. Any of the romantic drama between fireworks man Jack Marlowe (Tony Kendall) and his Vivian (Esperanza Roy), his ex-lover and now fiancee of the town’s mayor, will have to wait until the Knights kill everyone.

De Ossorio wrote, directed and designed the Templar make-up for this. The Spanish version, El ataque de los muertos sin ojos, has more gore, like the Templars straight up devouring a human heart. That’s how you do it!

If you’re someone that complains that this movie has day for night errors and has a slow pace that seems glacial, I’m going to hate you forever. This is doom metal on film. Tune in, drop down, drink blood, smoke up.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The ultimate Christmas horror movie, this is as good as it gets. It was first on the site on December 20, 2017.

Based on a series of Canadian murders and the urban legend of calls coming to a babysitter from within the house (also see When a Stranger Calls), Bob Clark and A. Roy Moore created what many feel is one of the precursors to the slasher film genre.

Bedford is a small college town, complete with a sorority house filled with victims, err, characters. While they’re celebrating at a holiday party, Jess (Olivia Hussey, who was told by her psychic to do this movie) gets a phone call from “The Moaner,” a crank caller who has been bothering the other sisters: Barb (Margot Kidder, Sisters), Phyllis (Andrea Martin, SCTV) and Clare (Lynne Griffin, Strange Brew). Barb is a real firecracker, provoking the caller, who tells the girls that he will kill them all.

Clare goes upstairs to pack and is suffocated by plastic wrap by an unseen killer and placed on a rocking chair in the attic.

The next day, Clare’s dad comes to take her back home for Christmas. The girls and their housemother, Mrs. MacHenry (Marian Waldman, Phobia), are surprised, as they thought she already went home. While all that is going on, Jess tells her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea, 2001: A Space Odyssey) that she is getting an abortion. He argues with her but can’t change her mind.

Meanwhile, the police get involved after learning that another girl, Janice, has gone missing. Jess also tells Chris (Arthur Hindle, Porky’s), Clare’s boyfriend, that something is up.

While everyone else joins police lieutenant Fuller (John Saxon!) to search for the missing girls, Mrs. Mac is killed inside the house. Sadly, her life of hiding booze and yelling at everyone was cut short. As the girls return home, they find Jess’ body and get another obscene call, which she reports to the police, who decide to bug the line so they can trace the calls. Then, Peter sneaks into the house for another argument.

Black Christmas is unafraid of using holiday traditions to allow its killer to get away with murder. While carolers sing outside, Barb’s screams go unheard as she is stabbed to death by a glass unicorn.

Another phone call happens — one that quotes the argument Jess had with Peter. And while that’s occurring, Phyl goes to check on Barb and is killed.

Finally, Jess keeps the obscene caller on the line long enough for a trace, which reveals that the calls are coming from inside the house. She goes upstairs, armed with a fireplace poker, to get the rest of the girls, only to find their dead bodies. The killer chases her into the cellar and when Peter appears outside the window, she assumes that he is the killer and murders him with the poker.

The police arrive to find Jess sitting with Peter’s dead body. They’re convinced that he is the killer, although they can’t find Clare or Mrs. Mac’s bodies. After she is sedated, the cops leave while one officer remains behind to wait for forensics. Then, we hear a voice whisper, “Agnes, it’s me, Billy.” Jess’ phone rings, which means her fate — and who the killer is — will remain a mystery.

One of the most frightening parts of the film are the obscene phone calls, which were performed by Clark and actor Nick Mancuso (Under Siege), who stood on his head while recording to make his voice sound more insane. Mancuso would come back to record a “Billy Commentary” on the film, which is on the recent Scream Factory! release.

Warner Brother studio executives hated the ending and demanding that Clark change the final scene to have Chris appear before Jess and say, “Agnes, don’t tell them what we did” before murdering her. However, Clark stuck to his guns and kept the ending that he believed in. The studio further tinkered with the film, calling it Silent Night, Evil Night in its original release.

When NBC aired the film as Stranger in the House on the January 28, 1978 edition of Saturday Night at the Movies, it gave stations the option of airing Doc Savage, as the Ted Bundy murders had just occurred two weeks earlier.

There’s an urban legend that this was Elvis’ favorite horror movie. It definitely made an impression on Steve Martin, who told Olivia Hussey “Oh my God, Olivia, you were in one of my all-time favorite films” when she was being considered for Roxanne. She thought he meant Romeo and Juliet, but he told her that he meant Black Christmas, claiming that he had seen the film 27 times.

There’s another urban legend — how many can one film have — that says that Halloween was originally intended as a sequel to this movie.

Clark would go on to direct Porky’s and a film that failed at first before becoming a holiday tradition, 1983’s A Christmas Story. Yep — he pretty much made both the happiest and darkest films about the Yuletide, which is pretty awesome.

I love this movie. It’s a true classic that’s unafraid to go against conventions even as it creates them. Nearly every actor and actress in this movie went on to do more and play their roles perfectly here.

You can watch it on Shudder or grab the Scream Factory collectors edition blu-ray!

While we often feature dark films here, Becca and I love Clark’s other holiday film, too. Here’s some proof, as we toured Ralphie’s house in Cleveland, OH.

The decoder ring was there and yes, the soap had teeth marks in it.

With seven million dollars ready to spend, Earthquake took what worked in Airport and worked hard to get to theaters before its competition, The Towering Inferno. Not only would it throw a huge cast of stars at a disaster, it would bring Sensurround to theaters. This William Castle style gimmick was basically gigantic speakers that could play sub-audible infra bass 120 decibel sound waves that made it feel like audiences were really quaking. How well did it work? It cracked plaster Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the head of Chicago’s building and safety department made a rule that the system be turned down to stop structural damage to buildings. That same system would also be used for Midway, Rollercoaster and Battlestar Galactica.

This has big names even before we get to the cast. An early script by Mario Puzo! A score by John Williams! Direction by the man who made Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls — and edited Cat People — Mark Robson! Also, if you’ve never seen his movie The Seventh Victim rush out and stop reading this.

The movie begins with former football star Stewart Graff (Charlton Heston) fighting with his wife Remy (Ava Gardner) and then visiting an actress named Denise Marshall (Geneviève Bujold), who is the widow of one of his old friends. He’s dropped off an autographed football for her son Corry (Tiger Williams), but come on. We all know what he wants.

California Seismological Institute’s Walter Russell (Kip Niven) learns that Los Angeles will suffer a major earthquake soon but everyone decides to keep it a secret to stop panic. This is the first of many bad ideas in this movie. I kind of love how these movies jump around to reveal their characters, like poor good girl Rosa Amici (Victoria Principle), male bodybuilder fan and National Guardsman Jody Joad (Marjoe Gortner) and Stewart’s father-in-law Sam Royce (Lorne Greene), who offers him a big job if he leaves Denise, who he’s just made sweet love to, the kind of premarital congress that shakes the ground so to speak.

Boom! The entire town of Los Angeles goes to hell as a 9.9 earthquake ruins everything and places the following stars in harm’s way: Richard Roundtree! Barry Sullivan! George Kennedy (as Lou Slade, a totally great name, and also an Airport vet of every one of those films)! Lloyd Bolan! Walter Matthay as a drunk! Even Hard Boiled Haggerty!

There’s a total old Hollywood moment where Heston has to choose between Ava Gardner and Geneviève Bujold and he just dives into the sewer to — shock! — die. What! Oh man, 1974 Hollywood was full of brutal endings.

This movie also has George Kennedy using a jackhammer to rescue people and blowing Marjoe Gortner’s brains out. That’s the kind of cinema I love.

John Guillermin didn’t shy away from big movies, directing King Kong, King Kong Lives, Skyjacked, Death On the Nile and this film, possibly the best regarded of all disaster movies. Based on The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson, the screenplay was written by Stirling Silliphant, who created the series Route 66, Naked City and Perry Mason.

Architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) comes to San Francisco to see The Glass Tower, the building he designed for James Duncan (Willam Holden) be unveiled. It’s 138 stories but he worries that the electrical wiring is safe after a fire starts during testing. When he tells Duncan that his son-in-law and electrical subcontractor Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) is doing bad work, it gets blown off. When Roberts takes Will Giddings (Norman Burton), the electrical engineer, to see what’s happening on the 81st floor, all hell breaks loose and the building starts to burn.

Meanwhile, chief of public relations Dan Bigelow (Robert Wagner) is throwing a party for Senator Gary Parker (Robert Vaughn) and refuses to stop the party, which ends up with all sorts of people trapped up on the roof and the fire lurching skyward.

Leave it to San Francisco Fire Department 5th Battalion Chief Michael O’Halloran (Steve McQueen) to save the day which, as always in these movies, involves using firehoses as makeshift elevator devices. Also, as always, many stars are thrown at the disaster, including Faye Dunaway as Roberts’ fiancee, Susan Blakely as Duncan’s daughter and Simmons’ wife, Fred Astaire as a conman, O.J. Simpson as a security guard, Dabney Coleman as a fire chief and even Bobby Brady shows up.

Here’s what’s really amazing about this and why there were two books used to make the movie. Warner Brothers had the rights to The Tower. Fox had The Glass Tower. Irwin Allen remembered when in the 60s, two studios both made movies about Jean Harlow and Oscar Wilde and everyone lost. He convinced executives at both Warner Bros. and Fox to join forces and make one movie. It cost $14,300,000 which is $86 million in today’s money. It made $203 million back or $1.2 billion today.