We went to see Blood and Black Lace in the theater a few weeks ago and there was a speaker before it. Maybe he was bad at speaking in public, but the guy said to everyone how the movie inspired Friday the 13th (I’d say A Bay of Blood versus that one) and how it had a different title. And that was it. I was incensed. I wanted to get up out of my seat and scream that Mario Bava is the reason why lighting is the way it is and his use of color and how I can cite hundreds of films that he influenced. But I sat in my seat and boiled while the movie unspooled, because I’m really passionate about Mario Bava and don’t need to make a scene and miss seeing one of his films on the big screen.

That said — Shock is Bava’s last film. It’s called Beyond the Door II here in the U.S., but I like the original title better. It’s an economical film — there are only three characters (well, three living characters). Dora (Daria Nicolodi, who should be canonized for giving birth to both Suspiria and Asia Argento, as well as roles in Deep Red, Inferno, Opera and so much more) and Bruno (John Steiner, Yor Hunter from the Future‘s Overlord) are a newly married couple who have just moved back into her old home — the very same place where her drug-addicted husband killed himself — along with her son, Marco.

Dora’s had some real issues dealing with her husband’s death. And Bruno is never home, as he’s a pilot for a major airline. Either she’s going crazy again or her son is evil or he’s possessed or her husband is gaslighting her or every single one of those things at once. You have not seen a kid this creepy perhaps ever — he watched his mother and stepfather make love, declaring them pigs. He tells his mom he wants to kill her. He makes his stepfather’s plane nearly crash just by putting an image of the man’s face on a swing.

While Mario was sick throughout the filming (and his son Lamberto would fill in), you can definitely see his style shine through the simple story. There’s one scene of Dora’s face and her dead husband’s and then her face that repeats vertically that will blow your mind up.

The secret of the film? Her ex-husband forced her to take a mix of heroin and LSD, at which point she killed him. Bruno dumped his body in the ocean and arranged for her to be placed in an insane asylum until she recovered. Now, the ex-husband’s ghost has returned and demands blood. And he gets it. New dad gets hit with an axe. And then he forces the mother, after chasing her throughout the house, to kill herself.

Oh — there’s another crazy shot in here. Dora is lying in the bed and you see her hair fall like she’s upside down, but then it goes back like it’s in the wind, all while it seems like she’s being ravaged. I have no idea how Bava did this shot, but it’s so visually arresting that it’s stuck in my mind for days.

There’s also music from I Libra, a Goblin off-shoot. It seems kind of strange against Bava’s old school direction, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love it. It’s a stylish and scary film that’s way better than any Exorcist clone, despite its U.S title.

Tobe Hooper followed up The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with another film that examined the horror and depravity that existed with South Texas.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre co-writer Kim Henkel was inspired by Joe Ball, the Alligator Man, who owned a live alligator attraction in the 1930s. Despite being suspected of several murders, legend had it that Ball would feed the dead women to his alligators. Ball started as a bootlegger before opening his Sociable Inn in Elmendorf, Texas, which was surrounded by a pond where he’d charge people to watch him feed them live cats and dogs. After former girlfriends, barmaids and even his wife went missing, two policemen tried to question him. He pulled a gun and shot himself — either in the head or the heart. That said — there are many that believe the stories about Joe Ball to be simply Texas folklore. He did exist, though.

Working under the title Death Trap (the film is also known as Horror Hotel and Starlight Slaughter), this entire film was made on a soundstage, using the Raleigh Studios pool as a swamp. This enabled Hooper to create what he called a “surrealistic, twilight world.” True to form, issues with the producers took him away from the film before the shooting ended, but he had a decent relationship with the actors. Cinematographer Robert Caramico finished the direction of the film once Hooper left.

This movie starts grimy and stays that way. Buck (Robert Englund in an early role) demands kinky sex from Clara Wood (Robert Collins, Matilda the Hun from Death Race 2000!), who refuses. This scene contains the line, “I’m Buck and I’m here to fuck,” line that Quentin Tarantino used in Kill Bill.

No one says no in Miss Hattie’s (Carolyn Jones, who is better known as Morticia Addams!) house of women, so Clara is kicked out. One of the girls takes pity and gives her money to stay at the Starlight Hotel, a rundown motel in the swamp. There, she meets the owner, Judd (Neville Brand, famous for playing Al Capone in The Untouchables TV series and The George Raft Story), who we soon learn is a demented sex maniac. He attacks her, chasing her into the swamp where a Nile crocodile eats her. Yep — don’t get too attached to anyone here. This is very Psycho territory, where bad people meet even worse ends.

A couple soon arrives — Faye (Marilyn Burns, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Roy (William Finley, Winslow Leach from The Phantom of the Paradise), along with their daughter Angie (Kyle Richards, Lindsey Wallace from Halloween!) and dog Snoopy. Don’t get attached to Snoopy, who isn’t long for this world. As Angie finds a dead monkey and screams, the dog runs into the swamp where he is eaten. Roy goes to kill the gator, but is stabbed by Judd’s scythe. Then, the insane motel owner ties Faye to the bed and tries to grab Angie, who hides under the porch of the building.

Harvey Wood (Mel Ferrer, The Visitor, The Antichrist and first husband of Audrey Hepburn) arrives with his daughter Libby looking for Clara. Sherrif Martin (Stuart Whitman, Guyana: Crime of the Century, The Monster Club, Ruby) helps them as they search for Harvey’s runaway daughter. Libby goes out with the sheriff while Harvey stays back at the hotel. As he finds Faye tied to the bed, he’s also killed by Judd and his scythe.

The sheriff kicks Buck out of the bar — remember him? — and he goes to the Starlight with his underage girlfriend. While they’re having sex, they hear a scream. Buck discovers Faye, but is pushed into the swamp where he is devoured.

Finally, Libby comes back and saves her sister and Angie. Judd goes insane and chases them into the swamp where he’s eaten by his own gator. Or crocodile — the movie is never sure.

I’ve always joked that Rob Zombie is continually trying to remake The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. After watching this, I get the feeling that this is the movie he wants to make. It’s covered in a layer of filth from beginning to end, with characters coming and going, people getting killed horrifically and style triumphing over coherent plot. Even better, there’s a mix of actors that you instantly recognize playing some great roles, particularly Neville Brand, whose muttering insanity is total perfection. There’s also a great electronic score that really sets the mood — even ending in a crash after the final credits.

True to his promise, Hooper delivers a film that feels like a nightmare throughout. Its dream logic makes for an occasionally funny, often grotesque movie that is never boring.

UPDATE

Thanks to the well-informed Blake Lynch, here are the film’s many alternate titles:

“Bloodlust” in West Germany
Brutes and Savages
“Creepy Obsession” in Colombia
“Crocodile” in Turkey
“The Crocodile of Death” in France
“Dead Trap” in Spain
Deathtrap
“The Devil’s Swamp” in Japan
“Eat Live” in Romania
Horror Hotel
Horror Hotel Massacre
“The Inn of Horror” of Greece
“The Jaws of the Crocodile” in Greece
“That Hotel Near the Swamp” in Italy
Legend of the Bayou
Murder on the Bayou
Slaughter Hotel
Starlight Slaughter

My teachers and guidance counselors in high school told me, explained to me, screamed at me: “You’ll never learn anything being obsessed with all of these horror movies!”

I would argue that I have learned plenty — and 1977’s The Sentinel would be my doctoral thesis in “I Live My Life by What I Learned from 1970s Satanic Horror Movies.”

Lesson one: All models live dissolute lives and are mere seconds from an outburst; avoidance recommended.

When we meet Alison Parker (Cristina Raines), she’s a busy New York model. She’s gorgeous. And she’s always batshit crazy, suffering strange psychosomatic issues such as night terrors, insomnia and random flashbacks to all of the times she tried to kill herself. After she moves into a spiffy Brooklyn brownstone — because she wants to see if she can live on her own and not with her rich boyfriend, Michael (Chris Sarandon, more on him later). Right away, she starts hearing random noises and meeting people who don’t exist.

That all leads to work-related trauma, as she often passes out while modeling and ends up in the hospital. A young, pre Law and Order Jerry Orbach is having none of her shenanigans, asking if they can just move her and give her clothes to another model.

Oh yeah — she also hated her dad, who just died. Her first suicide attempt came after she walked in on her ancient pa playing with an entire roomful of prostitutes. And it turns out that her boyfriend is being investigated by the police (played by Eli Wallach and a super young Christopher Walken) for killing his wife. Whew! Needless to say, she’s gorgeous but doesn’t have issues. She has subscriptions.

Lesson two: Catholic priests have crazy secrets that will implode your fragile secular mind.

Only one person — supposedly — lives in the building with Alison: Father Halliran (“Skinny Dracula” himself, John Carradine), a priest so blind that his eyes have gone whiter than Emily from The Beyond. All he does is sit in front of his window and stare into the void. Turns out that Alison’s new home is really owned by a secret society of excommunicated Catholic priests — all the cool ones are — and they guard the gateway to Hell. And that gateway? Yeah, it’s right here in the building. And Father Halliran is the Sentinel, the blind guardian of the abyss.

Why is Alison there? They’ve chosen her because with two suicide attempts, she’s the perfect candidate. The only way she can get to Heaven is by becoming the next Sentinel, because Halliran is ready to die, Biggie style.

Lesson three: If you are in a 1970s Satanic horror movie, DO NOT trust old Hollywood stars.

Alison’s neighbors may start off nice, but they’re all demented. Like the two leotard wearing ladies who invite her for tea, then begin rubbing themselves like some demented exercise video while Alison just tries to drink her tea. Seriously, this scene — it should be for shock or titillation — but it’s one of the unsexiest, most hilarious, take this movie out of the DVD player moments I’ve witnessed in a long time. Keep in mind — Beverly D’Angelo of the National Lampoon’s Vacation films plays one of them, the other is Sylvia Miles from Midnight Cowboy.

But it’s old Hollywood royalty that you really need to watch out for. Like Ruth Gordon and Ralph Bellamy in Rosemary’s Baby, Burgess Meredith’s Charles Chazen starts nice, but it turns out he leads the minions of Hell. At least he has a cool cat, right? He has an insane birthday party that Alison runs from, finally telling her real estate agent that the people in the building are driving her insane. Again, turns out no one else lives there. No one else but old Hollywood folks ready, willing and able to help the cause of Satan. Like the aforementioned real estate lady, played by Ava Gardner. Or José Ferrer, wandering around in a red robe. If someone you recognize from a 1940s flick offers you some tannis root, just say no.

Oh! I almost forgot Psycho’s Martin Balsam is in this as Professor Ruzinsky!

Lesson four: If you are the hero or heroine of a 70s Satanic horror movie, you’re fucked.

Lesson five: Never, ever trust Chris Sarandon — not even in the slightest way

Michael tries to help Alison, discovering the big secret to this film. He breaks into a church office and discovers that the moment that people with suicide attempts disappear, they show up as priests assigned to this building. What you don’t find out is that he dies — off-camera — and becomes one of the demons who tries to convince Alison to kill herself and bring Hell to our world. And just why is he a demon? Because of course he killed his wife.

But if you’re aware of Mr. Sarandon’s movie history, you shouldn’t be surprised. The guy is Jerry Dandrige from Fright Night, after all, a vampire who literally fucks with Charley Brewster to his face, in front of his mom, before killing and stealing his best friend and having vampire sex with his girlfriend. As if that dick turn wasn’t enough, Prince Humperdink in The Princess Bride spends an entire movie two-facing the titular princess.

Any time I see Chris Sarandon in a movie, I instantly put up my bullshit filter. I will not trust the man — despite the fact that he’s also the voice of Jack Skellington. If you are a character in a 1970s Satanic shockfest, I implore you to do the same.

Lesson six: Avoid Michael Winner at all costs.

I’m joking — I actually love a lot of his work despite the slapdash direction and general griminess of it all. His 70s output from Death Wish on gradually becomes meaner and darker and stranger, with the exception of Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood. And with that movie — and its preponderance of aging Hollywood star cameos — there’s a good chance at least one of them will go all lesson three on you and slice a pentagram into your chest.

He courted controversy (and was more well known as a restaurant critic and England’s rudest man at the end of his life) here by making, well, an artistic choice. Instead of costumed demons, he simply hired real deformed folks to wander around. It’s either pretty unsettling — or totally awesome, depending on your mindset — to see a crazed Burgess Meredith commanding an army of tumored-faced and genetically challenged real folks to help a girl kill herself.

That said — Cristina Raines felt that Winner was a horror to work with. She claims that she was in tears nearly every day on the way to the set and refuses to watch this film, so as not to stir up any bad memories that remain.

If you follow the above rules, one would hope you survive your film plight. That said, the 70s were a horrible time to be alive, so there’s a very real chance that Satan will turn your happy ending into a twist downer and we’ll all have to reflect upon it. Oh yeah — and I love this movie, simply because I grew up Catholic and would read The Pittsburgh Catholic to see which films were given the dreaded O rating, which condemned them for being morally offensive. Just look at the amazing films so chastised and damned: Pink Flamingos, Dawn of the Dead, Barbarella, Billy Jack, The Wicker Man…so many films to adore!

EXTRA CREDIT ONE

The Sentinel was written by Jeffrey Konvitz, who gifted the world with the teen romp GORP and produced the sequels to Bloodsport and Cyborg. Speaking of sequels, he wrote one to this movie titled The Guardian (the alternate title was The Apocalypse) and holy shit — I’m just going to share the description verbatim: “She was the Sentinel, the living guardian of the gates of hell. She was the sole barrier between humanity and the forces of satanic evil pent up since the Fall from Grace. Hers was the most terrible penance of all; chosen for her sins, she had been committed to a living death, a blind nightmare in which the only reality was the reality of her demonic adversary and the awful powers she had been endowed with to constrain Him. Now her penance is nearly up. For Monsignor Franchino that means the resumption of the most dreadful task the Church has ever bestowed; once again he, and he alone, must find and commit a new victim for the guardianship ; knowing that at every step the powers of evil will battle to pervert the change-over. For the Prince Of Darkness, it means a final chance to unleash his minions on the world and begin at last His long-awaited reign of evil. For Mankind it means…The Apocalypse.” I would watch the shit out of that.

EXTRA CREDIT TWO

If you’re looking for a film that hired Dick Smith just so they could push the R rating to the goriest of limits, this is a decent choice. Abusive dad ghosts get their noses shredded, eyes get decimated, blood explodes out of heads…it’s a shame that Smith didn’t get to create the actual demons!

EXTRA CREDIT THREE

Jeff Goldblum, Tom Berenger and Richard Dreyfuss all show up in this — but blink and you will quite literally miss them.

EXTRA CREDIT FOUR

Michael Winner almost died from eating poisoned oysters and his estate was questioned upon his death, as it was discovered he was paying for numerous ex-lovers. I think I’d rather watch a movie about his life than any movie he directed.

This super long article once appeared at http://www.thatsnotcurrent.com/40-years-later-look-back-sentinel-1977/

America. The late 70s. It was a very different time and place, to be sure. Fuel was scarce. Crime wasn’t. We weren’t yet in the grip of the 1980s Satanic Panic, but thanks to Manson, Son of Sam and Zodiac, we were darn close. And despite blockbusters taking over the cinema, there remained grimy little movies unafraid to broadcast their flirtations with the dark lord – The Devil’s Rain, The Omen, Mephisto Waltz and this largely forgotten little thriller — The Car.

I first saw this film in another way the 70s were different — we only had five channels. ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and a new pay channel – HBO. And unlike the HBO that you know and love today, there were no original series or blockbuster films. Just around 15-20 movies a month that would play again and again and, well, again. Anyone that grew up in the halcyon days of nascent HBO can recite many of them by heart: Flash Gordon, Sharkey’s Machine, Superfuzz, Scavenger Hunt, They Call Me Bruce and The Car. I can personally claim to have seen this film over 280 times, perhaps because the summertime was all reruns when it originally aired and perhaps because it was my grandfather’s favorite movie (until Terminator 2 came out and that is a story for another article).

You’ll notice another difference about 70s movies right from the start of this film — kids aren’t just put in danger to scare the audience. No, in 1977, movies just outright killed kids two minutes into the movie and we sat there in mortal terror, watching jaws agape.

Let’s back up a bit. The hero of The Car is, quite literally, The Car. A George Barris customized 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III (Barris also created the 60s Batmobile), the secret of The Car appears to have no driver at the wheel…unless you count Satan! It has a blaring horn noise that is based on the Morse code for the letter X and it shows up just blasting that horn when you least expect it.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from the two kids, a hitchhiker and the sheriff that it smooshes. After that nice little spot of multiple vehicular homicide, The Car goes after an entire marching band and their leader Lauren (played by Kathleen Lloyd, who you may remember from It Lives Again, a sequel to It’s Alive), chasing them the whole way to a cemetery. It turns out The Car can’t cross hallowed ground, so she stands and insults it and calls it names. That leads to her boyfriend Chief Deputy Wade Parent chasing the car, shooting at it and tries to get into The Car, only to discover that it has no doorhandles.

Oh — if you’re watching horror for beefcake, let me alert you. Amityville Horror star James Brolin stars as Wade and you all know that he’s going to smolderingly gaze at the camera. What I didn’t know is that Brolin was almost Bond for Octopussy (one could argue he played a Bond/Pee Wee Herman mashup in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure)! Or how deep my straight man Brolin-mance went! I kid!

To protect Lauren, the Chief Deputy puts roadblocks all around her house. But The Car will not be stopped. While she’s on the phone with Wade, it leaps through the air and into her house, killing her. Yep — the 70s again, when no one makes it out of movies alive, even the ones you think will.

A grief-stricken Wade lies in his hospital bed, where he concocts a plan — to lure The Car into a mine shaft and blow it up real good. But oh, the brains behind that automobile. It’s already waiting in Wade’s garage! A chase through the desert ensues, where The Car finally is lured — by Wade and his deputy, played by Robocop and Total Recall’s Ronny Cox — into driving off a cliff where it is detonated by case after case of dynamite. Why did Jazz and Amos and all the other cops have so much TNT? Again — it was the 1970s. And even more importantly, if it seems to you that this movie is only an hour long and not packed with story, you’d be right.

Then comes the most hotly debated moment of this film amongst my family, as a demonic face is glimpsed in the smoke. My grandfather held fast to his belief that The Car wasn’t Satanic and was quite moral, as he only killed people who swore at it or disrespected it. Even at a young age, I was all for The Car being an amoral Son of Baphomet.

Of interest to the more occult minded readers out there, leader of the Church of Satan Anton LaVey was the technical consultant to this film, lending his quote “Oh great brothers of the night who rideth upon the hot winds of hell, who dwelleth in the Devil’s lair; move and appear,” to the opening. One wonders what exactly the self-styled Doctor did on this B-movie potboiler other than sit in a chair in the shade and opine on breasts, the inherent Satanism of “Yes, We Have No Bananas” and Cecil Nixon’s Isis automaton.

Some cuts of this film show The Car surviving, slowly gliding through the streets of LA. And best of all, Kenner nearly made a toy of The Car! Yes — this scare fest for adults, one that kept me up at night way into the early 80s — was almost a toy. That said, despite the cancellation (one imagines after Kenner got blasted for making Alien toys that whomever was behind these adult movies being made into toys was promoted to President or, more likely, fired) Ertl made a collector-friendly large-scale toy in the early 2000s.

Image above courtesy of PlaidStallions.com

One final family related post-script. For years, my grandpa had an El Camino and had altered the horn to sound EXACTLY like The Car. Upon arriving home from a long day in the steel mill, he would drive up the front yard, right up to the front window, ruining his grass, honking that ominous horn and screaming, “THE CAR IS HERE! RUN!” He did this at least five times that I can remember and surely, it was more than that. Ah, memories.

Originally appeared at http://www.thatsnotcurrent.com/40-years-later-look-back-car-1977/