60) The Black Sleep (1956)

"In the interest of science, anything...anything is justified!"

Director

Reginald LeBorg

Cast

Basil Rathbone - Dr. Joel Cadman

Herbert Rudley - Dr. Gordon Ramsay

Akim Tamiroff - Udu

Patricia Blair - Laurie Monroe

Lon Chaney, Jr. - Mungo

Bela Lugosi - Casimir

Tor Johnson - Curry

John Carradine - Borg

This classic horror movie is too good to fall into the category of "shlock." 

After watching it, I think it's ahead of its time. 

It draws closer to what modern audiences consider the "horror genre" to be, more so than other horror films from this period. 

Normally in the golden age of horror, graphic scenes would be hidden or take place off camera. This movie casts off any typical period restraints and presents to audiences, 1956 audiences especially, imagery they likely weren't accustomed to. 

I wouldn't hesitate to call The Black Sleep a pioneer of modern horror that stands out over other movies of the day. And it was also Bela Lugosi's (Dracula) last film. Sadly, his character has no dialogue. 

The story is set in England in the later 1800s where renowned surgeon, Sir Joel Cadman (Basil Rathbone-Sherlock Holmes) whose young wife is in a coma due to a brain tumor, performs medical procedures in his large castle-like home. 

Cadman, though being an expert surgeon, cannot figure out how to reach the tumor without causing any brain damage. Medicine and techniques in 1876 were pretty limited. 

So, to figure it out, he performs practice brain surgeries on unwilling people. 

The doctor puts his victims under a powerful sedative called Nind Andhera, often used by Indians. Cadman calls this anesthetic, "black sleep." 

Once he's done with his surgeries, he places his victims in his cellar where they live out their days in mentally or physically damaged states. 

In the beginning of the story, Cadman visits his former student, Dr. Gordan Ramsay (Herbert Rudley). Ramsay is awaiting execution for the alleged murder of a moneylender named Curry (Tor Johnson - Plan 9 From Outer Space) - a crime Ramsay insists he's innocent of. 

To escape execution, Cadman encourages Ramsay to drink his "black sleep" as it will make it appear as if he died. 

Fooling the authorities, Ramsay's "dead" body is entrusted to the care of the doctor, who also has a gypsy assistant named Udu (Akim Tamiroff).

Phyllis Stanley, Basil Rathbone, and Herbert Rudley.

Udu gives Ramsay the antidote to the black sleep. 

Once he awakens in Cadman's office, Cadman wants Ramsay to be his medical assistant while he performs his brain surgeries. 

Ramsay agrees, but slowly discovers the purpose behind all these brain surgeries. 

One particularly memorable gore scene shows Cadman performing surgery of a male patient as Ramsay looks over his shoulder. 

The audience is treated to quite the special effect of an exposed brain. Cadman probes different portions of the exposed brain, showing how electric current will affect the nervous system of the patient. These small shocks cause motor reactions in different parts of the body. This was rather graphic for 1956. 

Ramsay finds different characters living inside Cadman's estate, including one damaged patient of Cadman's named Mungo (Lon Chaney, Jr. - The Wolf Man). 

He also encounters Cadman's mute servant, Casimir (Bela Lugosi). These are the kind of cameos that make watching the more obscure horror movies a lot of fun.

As Ramsay begins to see Cadman's work for what it really is, he tries a find a way to stop his former teacher while saving his damaged victims. 

The ending is classic. It reminded me of the ending from Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs. I wouldn't be surprised if some inspiration for that came from The Black Sleep. 

Rathbone makes the perfect, quintessential mad doctor character. He speaks his emotions through his eyes. They can be intelligent, insane, and desperate. And though Cadman is sophisticated and intelligent, appearing to be in control, he's quite the opposite. I'm almost feeling presumptuous in daring to critique such a master actor as Rathbone. He's a surprising casting choice being more well known for portraying the world's most famous detective, but it's a fantastic choice, indeed. 

And the looming, unnerving presence of Tor Johnson is iconic to say the least. The blank eyes and mammoth presence of Johnson adds a monstrous queasiness to the film. His appearance is unforgettable. No doubt someone, at some point in history, who saw this movie had a nightmare with Tor Johnson from The Black Sleep. 

One shocking scene, the inclusion of which surprised me, shows one of Cadman's nurses accidentally catching fire and run screaming down a long corridor. Usually something that graphic would have been performed in a not-so-graphic manner. But thank God for independent films. That actress was on fire, or appeared to be set on fire. And we see her, flames and all, screaming down that corridor.   

Seeing all the patients of Cadman's locked in his basement was like walking through a well-made house of horrors, the likes of which will make a person cringe and heave. 

I enjoyed this movie. It really hit the horror-loving spot. 

I'm definitely putting The Black Sleep, which is an independent movie as I mentioned above, on my mental list of favorite horror flicks of all time.   

59) Motel Hell (1980)

It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent Fritters

Director
Kevin Connor

Cast
Rory Calhoun - Farmer Vincent
Nancy Parsons - Ida
Paul Linke - Sheriff Bruce
Nina Axelrod - Terry
Wolfman Jack - Reverend Billy

The 80s horror flick Motel Hell is a mix of Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs (even before there was a Silence of the Lambs) and any movie that pokes fun at slasher horror films. By the way, I came up with that comparison on my own as it was my first time watching this. But the comparison is pretty easy to see. I just wasn't aware other critics beat me to it until after I finished writing this review.

It's a movie that may be obscure to many, but horror fans are surely aware of Motel Hell. 
Also, readers of Fangoria magazine may recognize the scene with the farmer dawning a pig's head over his own while yielding a chainsaw which appeared on the cover of issue #9. 

Farmer Vincent (Rory Calhoun) runs "Motel Hello" out in the country with his young sister, Ida (Nancy Parsons). Located on a farm, Vincent is also well known within 100 miles for his smoked meats.

But what all the residents who buy Vincent's smoked meats don't know is that not all of his inventory is made from beef and pork. No! All kinds of "critters" make up his selection - including humans. 

When Vincent goes hunting, he brings bear traps and such to puncture the tires of unsuspecting motorists zooming down the nearby highway. When they flip and crash, his meat supply is then replenished. 

But he doesn't just kill his inventory right away. Rather, he severs there vocal chords so they can't scream, plants them whole in his secret garden leaving their head above ground like a morbid Cabbage Patch doll, and covers them with a burlap sack.

He also feeds his "crop" with tubes to ensure they stay alive and are well fed when it's time to harvest.

During one particular night of hunting, Vincent shoots out a motorcycle tire causing it to loose control, and roll down the side of the highway.

He goes to investigate and finds a young couple, Terry and Bo, unconscious. He piles the two in the back of his pickup and brings them back to the hotel. 

He takes Terry (Nina Axelrod) to a motel room to rest while Bo is nowhere to be seen.  

Meanwhile, Sheriff Bruce (Paul Linke), Vincent and Ida's dopey brother, drops by. 

While he's visiting, Terry wakes up and wants to know what happened and where her boyfriend is. Vincent breaks it to her that he died in the crash, and admits he took the liberty of burying Bo himself.  

Distraught, bewildered and in a state of panic, she can't come to terms that her boyfriend is not only dead, he's been buried, too. Vincent even takes her to his grave in the local cemetery just to show her.

But she quickly comes to terms with her situation, and begins to love being at the Motel. However, she's unaware of Vincent and Ida's sick cannibalistic secrets.

Rory Calhoun and Nancy Parsons.

In fact she takes to Vincent so much that she begins to make advances on him.
He resists initially saying they have to marry first. So, she agrees to wed.
Meanwhile, Vincent and Ida continue to plant their victims and smoke their meats.
Even Sheriff Bruce is unaware of what's happening as he soon grows sweet on Terry and while becoming jealous of her love for Vincent.
Secrets can't be kept forever, and everything culminates to a battle of...chainsaws. 

The comedy is faint, but it's there. It's goofy in execution, and dry in the dialogue. Still, it's fun.
I picked up a faint taste of parody of slasher movies, especially when it came to Nina Axelrod's character who so nonchalantly becomes attached to the Motel, despite farmer Vincent and his sister's initial surreal company. Her love of the country life is all it takes for her to stay with the two just after her boyfriend dies, and Vincent takes it upon himself to bury him in the nearby cemetery.
In other areas, I picked up on the movie being a slight homage to the classic horror genre. When Sheriff Bruce takes Terry to a drive-in, they're watching the 1957 Sci-Fi horror movie The Monster that Challenged the World.
Director Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) was originally set to direct Motel Hell but backed out when the studio didn't put much confidence in the movie. So, the chainsaw motif makes sense, as does the pig masks.
Instead, Kevin Connor, known for At the Earth's Core (1976) and The Land the Time Forgot (1974), took the director's chair. Connor also directed Peter Cushing in From Beyond the Grave (1974).
The subtly over-the-top gore gives horror fans exactly what they're looking for. The humor is easy-to-swallow is it's not obnoxiously thrown in your face. Rather, the cornball humor is served in small. If it were layered on any heavier, Motel Hell would just be another "one of those kind of movies."
Rory Calhoun and Nancy Parsons are perfect pulling the movie along. They are fun to watch, and are clearly having fun in their roles. Harry Dean Stanton was a casting choice for the part of Vincent. I'm sure he would have been fantastic as well.
Rory Calhoun is so unassuming, likable, and innocent. He and Nancy Parsons should be remember much more among the many movie monsters stained in the fabric of cinema history. They work well off each other.
And Parsons is especially memorable as she creates a character that's funny, intimidating, unsettling, unnerving and warped.
The one question that kept me in front of the screen was how was it all going to end, and who was going to stop it all.

As soon as the first victims are captured and planted in the ground, this movie keeps the intrigue and morbid curiosity going and going.
This isn't the first time Rory Calhoun appeared in a comedy horror. He also starred in Night of the Lepus (aka Rabbits) from 1972. I got to get my hands on that one. Giant killer rabbits? Absolutely!
And gone is the horror trope of the useless sheriff.
Famous American DJ, Wolfman Jack, has a memorable and hilarious cameo as a T.V. preacher. He's hilarious.  

And keep an eye out for John Ratzenberger planted in the garden.
It's a movie that makes the genre carry on with very memorable scenes that a filmmaker could only get away with in a horror movie. It also takes subtle talent to add goofball comedy that's neither over-the-top nor distracting. Rather, it fits like a puzzle piece. That over-the-top quality is saved for the story and the carnage.
Movies like Motel Hell are the reason I started this blog in the first place. 

58) Stung (2015)

"The ultimate buzzkill."

Director
Benni Diez

Cast
Matt O'Leary - Paul
Jessica Cook - Julia
Clifton Collins, Jr. - Sydney
Lance Henriksen - Caruthers
Eve Slatner- Mrs. Perch

It goes without saying, the news has been anything but good in the last two months. As the entire world is dealing with a pandemic, the U.S. has been hit with news about Asian giant hornets making an appearance in Washington State.
If there's anything I am personally afraid of, it's wasps and hornets. My worst nightmare is being in a situation where I am swarmed by angry wasps stinging, and stinging, and stinging. What's scary abouy such a scenario is that swarms aren't something you can fight off with punches and kicks. You're only option is to run...fast. Swatting just makes things worse. And with running, some species will give chase for up to a mile! I heard in a radio interview on NPR that these giant hornets are like small humming birds. In fact, the Japanese call their giant hornets, "great sparrow birds" because they resemble birds when they fly. No thanks!
So, news of the world's largest hornet somehow making its way to North America was the last thing I wanted to hear.
After two months of listening to nothing but news about the coronavirus, the havoc it has wrought on people, communities, family, employment numbers, and the global economy, now we get news about hornets with the word "murder" in their name (thanks to the press) posing a threat to bee colonies.
Evidently, these bugs can take out an entire bee colony. And the worst case scenario is that a decrease in bee populations can lead to all sorts of agricultural problems. Thankfully, experts to anticipate such a worst case scenario.
When I was working as a news writer, I took a story about a guy in rural Kansas who decided to care for yellow jackets that began making an appearance on his porch. Rather than take a can of wasp killer and take care of them, he decided to put out grape jelly and meat (wasps are attracted to protein and carbohydrates), and hundreds of yellow jackets took him up on his free offer.
And I, terrified of wasps and being swarmed (that happened to me once at a picnic area in my youth), still did the story.
It was not easy to conduct an interview and take pictures as yellow jackets flew around me. I had my voice recorder which I took to every news story, and the sound of buzzing can be heard during the interview.
Anyways, on the general subject of pandemics and murder hornets, I watched the 2015 SciFi horror movie Stung. I've seen it before but needed another viewing.

Matt O'Leary in Stung (2015)

It's an independent movie that plays like a modern Atomic SciFi film.
Party caterers, Paul and Julie head to the Perch Estate out in the country side, in the middle of nowhere, to cater an annual garden dinner party.
Paul (Matt O' Leary) works as the waiter under Julie (Jessica Cook). And the estate belongs to a wealthy New York socialite, the elderly Mrs. Perch (Eve Slatner).
Her somewhat eccentric son, Sydney (Clifton Collins, Jr) lives with her seemingly against his will.
As the caterers prepare the tables, chairs, and bar, Paul starts seeing large, black wasps randomly buzzing around.
Little does he, nor anyone else know, that some kind of chemical fertilizer along with growth hormones have soaked into the ground effecting the underground wasp dwellers.
As the night progresses, and the underground nest is more and more agitated, the wasps begin to swarm and attack party goers.
Paul, Julie, Mrs. Perch, a local mayor named Caruthers (Lance Henrikson), and Sydney make their way into the house thanks to the aid of Flora, the housekeeper.
Inside, they see that those who've been stung suffer giant wasps growing and hatching from inside. Evidently the wasps lay eggs inside their victims, and it takes no time at all for full grown adult wasps to hatch. And Mrs. Perch inside with them has also been stung.
With mammoth angry wasps inside and outside the home, the group becomes trapped in the basement.
Paul takes it upon himself to rescue what few survivors are left.
It finally comes down to a face-off between Paul and the queen.
Stung lays the gore on rather heavily. Buried underneath all that blood and body parts, the characters running, hiding and running some more trying to escape, is a barely breathing story line.
It's as predictable as can be. The movie is all about gross out effects, nasty transformations, and scary man-eating wasps bigger than wildebeests. It's as though the writers (I'm guessing no more than one) figured a storyline would have gotten in the way of these gross special effects.
It all leads to a gag inducing climax.
I feel the fear factor could have been so much more if the wasps were realistic in size and appearance, and in swarms. A huge mega-wasp is easier to tackle than a swarm of royally pissed off ones - even the ones the size of Asian giant hornets.

Matt O'Leary and Jessica Cook.

The look of those hornets, though, are intimidating.
In one particular scene, Paul makes his way out as day breaks, and the audience is treated to a good look at a huge wasp perched on the side of the house. It looks like an executioner wasp, which supposedly has on of the most painful stings out there. It's intimidating for sure.
The rest of them resemble black tarantula wasps in both look and behavior. Tarantula wasps lay one egg inside tarantula spiders per their namesake.
The larvae hatches and eats its living spider host from the inside out.
Otherwise, this movie is just uninspiring. It reminds me of B-movies from the silver age of horror and science fiction.
However, a lot of movies from that era are memorable. And Stung could have been just as memorable had the writers maintained a "less is more" mentality which may have suited this story.
Swarms of wasps, hornets, and killer bees is terrifying enough. The bug's size doesn't matter. In reality, grown men will run away like preschool kids from a hovering yellow jacket.
The movie already has great special effects to pull off something less predictable. But I understand what Stung is trying to do.
Still, fans of gore, man-eating mutated nature, and intense situations may find Stung enjoyable.
I just wish it scared me a little more. After all, the purpose of a horror movie is to help us face our fears. Maybe if a remake takes place 20, 30, or 40 years down the road, someone will get it right.
In the plus column, though, Stung is a fun popcorn movie.

*My yellow jacket article, pictures and all. You gotta read this! - http://www.junctioncityunion.com/news/milford-resident-befriends-local-yellow-jackets/article_f8fbee6e-b757-11e8-8917-87114a2217c3.html