31 DAYS OF HORROR 2017-Day 9: SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007)

One would think Tim Burton to be the perfect filmmaker to adapt the Broadway classic to the screen. Guess again, bucko...

Something that may come as a bit of a shock to regular readers of my ramblings, rantings and drivel is that Yer Bunche was weaned on musicals. There was plenty of pop music to be had on the radio and a little bit in my parents’ record collection along with smatterings of jazz and soul, but my mother had a fair collection of musical soundtracks, both movie versions and original Broadway casts. Among the first music I remember absorbing were the albums for SOUTH PACIFIC, WEST SIDE STORY, MY FAIR LADY, and my favorite by a landslide out of that lot, HAIR; that one rocked, plus it was fun to wander about the house singing loudly about psychedelic drugs, “colored spades,”  the comparative joys of interracial sex, sodomy, fellatio, and “sixteen-year-old virgins” while having no idea what any of it meant (I was five).

Then I was exposed to movie musicals and swiftly discovered they were a seriously mixed bag. Genre entries created for the screen like THE WIZARD OF OZ and SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN fused the Broadway structure with the non-stagebound freedom allowed by the camera and worked to spectacular effect, using thespians who could actually sing and dance as well as act, an element that ensured those films cinema immortality for good reason. But there were many adaptations of Broadway hits that fizzled rather than sizzled when they hit the screen; for every ON THE TOWN or WEST SIDE STORY (possibly the greatest B’way to H’wood translation) there was a L’IL ABNER or a SOUTH PACIFIC to offset the excellence. Mediocrity or outright awfulness were the defining characteristics of far too many big screen musical translations, such as PAINT YOUR WAGON (Lee Marvin’s rendition of “I Was Born Under A Wanderin’ Star” must be experienced to be believed), A CHORUS LINE (a turgid mess that made it to the screen nearly two decades after its impact had groundbreaking relevance on stage), CAMELOT, MAN OF LA MANCHA (which featured some of the worst miscasting in film history), HAIR, and many others, each peopled with talented casts whose lack of musical theater training sank each film (Okay, the cast of A CHORUS LINE could at least dance).

Which brings me to Tim Burton’s SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET.

I saw SWEENEY TODD during its original Broadway run and was immediately won over by its successful attempt at chucking the nauseating feel-good pablum that mired the majority of shows, and its embracing of dark, gory, and offensive material as fodder for live entertainment. The story of a wronged barber in Victorian-era London and his quest for vengeance, aided by a meat pie shop-proprietor and their side business that turns many of the London populace into unwitting cannibals, was operatic, loaded with pitch black humor, bombastic tunes, gore fountaining from the razor-slashed necks of the title character’s victims, one of two choreographed rape scenes that I can recall in a musical (MAN OF LA MANCHA featuring the other one), and stunning performances from all involved, especially George Hearn and Angela Lansbury (during her pre-MURDER SHE WROTE days). It was smart, evil, bloody, over-the-top, and a truly tragic story, so how could I not have adored it? It remains to this day my favorite musical that I saw during its prime.

From the original Broadway production. it may look poovy, but I'm telling ya, this was the shit.

Nearly thirty years after it debuted on the Great White Way, the Tony-winning penny dreadful brought to life hit the screen, helmed by cult director Tim Burton, a creator who gave us such classics as PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, BEETLEJUICE, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and the superlative ED WOOD (and for those of you who are ready to write and tell me I forgot to mention THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, it’s not here because Burton didn’t direct it). But while Burton has certainly shown a visual flair and signature look in his films’ art direction, he has crafted several films that look pretty but are soulless works of pure artifice that boringly meander until the credits finally, mercifully arrive. I felt deeply ripped off by such dead-in-the-water Burton efforts as BATMAN (once eloquently described by a critic as “the greatest act of mass hypnosis in human history”), MARS ATTACKS, SLEEPY HOLLOW, BIG FISH, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, and the execrable “reimagining” of PLANET OF THE APES, so it was with mixed feelings that I approached his SWEENEY TODD. While I loathed about half of the films he’s made, I figured he’d be perfect for the overwrought sturm und drang of TODD because its dour flavor and gloomy Victorian setting seemed to mesh perfectly with his sensibilities, so I went in with a fairly open mind.

But then I discovered that while Burton had chosen a dream cast for the film adaptation, he chose actors without a lick of musical theater experience and had them gamely attempt to sing parts that would have been daunting even to those with serious training. His actors all try very hard, but SWEENEY TODD is a musical that is every bit as lively and frenetic as it is gruesome and morbid, and Burton has directed his entire cast to perform as though on Prozac, thus completely neutering the material. I love Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Alan Rickman, but all of them are wasted here, delivering listless performances that bring to mind “Charles Dickens Night” at Madame Tussaud’s, and no amount of atmospheric visuals or SHOGUN ASSASSIN-level gore (of which there was enough to keep me watching) can disguise what could waggishly be renamed SWEENEY TURD.

And don’t get me started on how they ripped off Johnny Depp’s look in the movie from my man Dave Vanian — lead singer of my second-favorite band, the Damned — during his mid-1980’s proto-Goth days…

Dave Vanian, c. 1985.

Johnny Depp, 2007.

All I can say in summation is that you should give the Tim Burton version a solid miss, especially since the completely excellent Hearn/Lansbury version, shot live in 1982, is available on DVD , thank whatever dark and vengeful gods there may be. TRUST YER BUNCHE and tell Tim Burton to shove this somnolent floater back up his wannabe Edward Gorey ass.

Poster from the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2017-Day 8: FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY (1973)

In November of 1973, I was eight years old and already an addicted "monster kid" who feasted on the horror movies that were in heavy rotation on local TV, and by that point my understanding of the genre had not yet graduated from the kid-friendly realm of what was deemed universally appropriate. That state of innocence was forever shattered when NBC aired the two-part made-for-television FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY. 

When I was eight, I knew of all things Frankenstein via cultural osmosis. I'd seen the doctor and his creation referenced in countless cartoons, comic books, TV shows, toys and models, pictures in monster magazines and books on horror movies, and the only Frankenstein movie I had seen was FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD (1965), a distinctly post-Godzilla, very Japanese take on the monster that rendered him a giant that fought other critters of the variety commonly found in the films of Toho Studios. I loved it and could not understand why most Frankenstein fans wrote it off as an outright turd that was a blasphemous bastardization of the concept. Significantly, I also had not read the source novel, which I freely admit I would have been too young to make my way through or fully comprehend. So, when FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY was announced as an upcoming TV special event, I obtained my parents' permission and sat down to watch it, expecting another mild spook show that would have been right at home on a Saturday afternoon. What I got instead was an eye-opening exercise that changed my life and stepped me up out of the little league.

If you've ever seen even a halfway decent Frankenstein flick, you know what to expect. Dank and cluttered laboratories filled with sparking electrical equipment and bubbling beakers, the pilfering of recently-dead corpses, gratuitous displays of severed limbs and assorted surgical procedures (sometimes quite gory for the time), the doctor shunning his creature for being either too grotesque or homicidal or both, the monster inevitably going on a murderous rampage, and sometimes even the stitching together of sundry body parts to craft a beautiful (if eerie) female monster. All of those tropes are found in FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY, with every effort made to replicate the look and feel of the Frankenstein films previously released by Hammer Studios (minus the cleavage and heaving bosoms, alas), so if you are already familiar with the basics, there's really little need to go into detail on this film's plot, but I'm gonna do it anyway. It's well-written, acted, and directed, but it's basically a fun and vivid catalog of all the expected goodies, plus a few signature moments of horror that keep the film alive in the memories of those who saw it at an impressionable age. All one really needs to know is that it's about an atypically sane Victor Frankenstein (Leonoard Whiting) having Regency-era medical misadventures while working on curing death, motivated by the untimely death of his younger brother. The abridged version:

• Victor encountering and becoming the apprentice to brilliant alcoholic surgeon Dr. Henry Clerval (David McCallum), who introduces him to techniques for revivifying dead tissue and animating it. Clerval has successfully restored life to a severed arm, which disturbingly grabs Victor and eventually reveals a flaw in the process that leads the flesh to become aggressive and decay.

Victor's first encounter with reanimated flesh.

• Upon discovering that the arm is visibly degrading, Victor graphically disposes of it with acid, a sight common to Hammer's output but definitely something new to kids raised on more genteel fare.

Proof that almost anything could be gotten away with on 1970's TV. Good luck showing this during primetime today!

• Armed with the knowledge gleaned from Clerval (who has died from a heart attack), Victor assembles and animates a male creature (Michael Sarrazin),

The monster in his handsome early phase.

who is at first quite handsome, pleasant, and friendly, so Victor parades him around through high society.  But once the physical corruption sets in, the creature becomes aware of his ugliness and unintentionally causes assorted mayhem. Embittered, the monster flings himself from a cliff and is presumed dead, but instead survives.

State of decay.

• After accidentally causing the death — via a truly horrible horse & carriage accident — of the granddaughter of a blind peasant whom he has fallen in love with from afar, the monster takes her body to Victor's lab and in hope of getting him to restore the girl to life. He instead finds the brilliant-but-evil and handless surgeon/chemist/hypnotist Dr. Polidori (James Mason), who has solved the problem of decay, and Polidori uses his knowledge of the monster's (unintentional) murders to blackmail the newlywed Victor to use his miraculous surgical skills to help him create the perfect, non-decaying revenant using some random female body and the head of the peasant girl.

Some assembly required.

• The project is a success and yields Prima (Jane Seymour), a beautiful creature whom Polidori passes off as his ward and brings to live with Victor and his new bride, tasking Prima to model her actions on Mrs. Frankenstein. Charming to all, Prima displays a gift for mimicking expected womanly behavior, while constantly wearing a choker to disguise the seam where her head was sewn onto her toothsome body.

The homemade hotness of Prima.

• Prima's charm and beauty are soon found to mask a streak of evil that leads her to attempt seducing Victor and strangling a house cat.

"And if I don't hurt him, he'll do me no harm..."

But Prima is nonetheless a scientific/medical breakthrough and is afforded every advantage that will mold her into the perfect lady. 

• To ensure Frankenstein's cooperation, Polidori keeps the monster locked up in his lab, but once the experiment with Prima seems a success, Polidori opts to release Victor from his blackmailing clutches and destroy the monster with an acid caustic enough to dissolve stone in no time. The monster, however, escapes and eventually makes his way to the society event where Prima is being presented to rich potential suitors as an eligible bachelorette. Polidori plans to use her married and wealthy status to gain power and prestige, but his plans rocket straight down the shitter when the monster puts in a timely appearance that completely blew my mind when I was eight...

"Think I'll hit the bar!"

"Hey, baby! Wanna dance? No?"

"Well then, 'scuse me while I..."

"...RIP YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!!!"

After that, it's just a matter of the clock winding down and the monster and his creator facing off for a final time in an apocalyptic and rather ridiculous climax.

Though labeled as "the true story," the film instead bears a lot of the novel's spirit while eschewing nearly everything else about it. The book is a very cerebral piece in which the monster is an articulate tortured soul whom we get to know and care for greatly, despite the atrocities that he commits, while this film's iteration of the creature is basically a put-upon dufus whose crimes are mostly accidental,  with his truly awful shenanigans not really getting underway until the final fifth of the movie. Victor is clearly neither mad nor obsessed, and his pursuit of forbidden knowledge comes off as more of a committed hobby than anything else. When all said and done, FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY is by no means perfect, but it served as a fun and engrossing entryway into more grown-up horror entertainment and has more than enough memorable bits to make it worth sitting through. It's a tad over-long, clocking in at just over three hours (minus commercials), but it's still one of the better entries in the legion of Frankenstein flicks. 

Packaging art for the DVD release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2017-Day 7: SOUND OF HORROR (1964)

The unseen terror stalks.

When I was but a budding "monster kid," I religiously watched all of the Tri-State area's pre-cable sci-fi/horror movie showcases, and one of the pitfalls of that area of gaining knowledge was the acceptance of the unavoidable fact that for every classic/good/worthwhile film that one saw, there were was a disproportionate amount of flicks that ranged from the mediocre down to the rancid. But then there was the very special breed of bad  sci-fi/horror movies, films that were so boring, conceptually feeble, and all-around terrible that they are worth seeing simply because you can't believe that the filmmakers had the whale-sized balls to release such a work and expect innocent people to pay money to see it. Such was the case with SOUND OF HORROR, a Spanish would-be shocker that fails on every level and features a "gimmick" monster so bad that it's actually kind of endearing.

Ancient horror hatches in the 20th century, and promptly vanishes...

I've already made it clear that this movie sucks a high hard one, so I won't bother to go into thorough details on its plot particulars. All you need to know is that a bunch of archaeologists in Greece unearth a cave where a treasure is purportedly hidden, while also unwittingly unleashing a slavering dinosaur-like creature with homicidal tendencies. It's the humans versus the monster in a dull and drawn-out battle for survival, but what makes the movie worth sitting through once is that fact that the dinosaur is completely invisible, its presence betrayed only by its footprints, the ghastly murders it commits, and its distinctive wail (hence the title). Yes, you read that right: The dinosaur is fucking invisible, which was likely a new low in cheapjack filmmaking at the time.  All we get are some murky quasi-looks at it through some smoke and shots of its footprints. 

Mauled to death. She sure didn't see it coming... 

Even by the standards of the most frugal of low-budget filmmakers, releasing a monster movie where we simply do not see the monster is shameless, an insulting ripoff, and unintentionally hilarious. It's impossible not to crack up as a cast of no names — with the notable exception of Hammer stalwart Ingrid Pitt, who is given nothing to do here — react to, flee from, and be torn up by a whole lot of screaming nothing. And for me the highlight of the movie is when two of the character-free heroes throw hatchets it where they think the monster is, and we see the hatchets stick in mid-air, with each landed hit being punctuated by the invisible dinosaur's cries of pain and indignation.

Not since Ray Harryhausen has the silver screen been graced with such amazing monster effects!

And during the moments in the narrative when the monster's not invisibly causing mayhem, we get loads of footage of the humans hanging around gabbing, discussing the aforementioned lost treasure in ways that make you just not care about it, and we also get the women shaking it to Spanish-accented surf music and a traditional Greek dance number where the observers clap along to the music while actually being completely off-rhythm.

Can you stand the sheer terror???

Like I said, SOUND OF HORROR is a turgid piece of shit, but how can you not give it points for the idiocy of its invisible dinosaur? If you find yourself with insomnia some night, put this film on and I guarantee you a night of deep and blissful slumber.

Poster from the original Spanish theatrical release. At least this film has an excuse for its monster not being depicted in its promotional imagery!

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2017-Day 6: THE BLACK SCORPION (1957)

 A big pot of boiling water and some drawn garlic butter should take care of this.

In a nutshell: Earthquakes in Mexico open up a subterranean realm full of all manner of gigantic stop-motion animated nasties, chief among which are huge shrieking scorpions that rampage around the countryside, destroying property and chowing down on "Ay-yi-yi" stereotypes. A pair of heroic geologists and a hot ranch-owner serve as protagonists, along with the most annoying kid character this side of a 1960's Gamera movie, and they inevitably have to deal with the titular horror, an ebony nightmare that dwarfs its brethren.

The very definition of "treading familiar territory," THE BLACK SCORPION is, plainly and simply, a shameless remake/ripoff of the vastly superior THEM! (1954), which was released by the same studio a mere three years prior. It's aping of its template is downright embarrassing and it's inferior to THEM! in every way, save for the special effects that bring its monsters to life. 

The special effects artistry of the legendary Willis O'Brien, the movie's lone saving grace.

The stop-motion animated creatures are the work of the legendary Willis O'Brien, animator of the original King Kong and mentor to Ray Harryhausen (who basically became the god of stop-motion). THE BLACK SCORPION, replete as it is with bland and pretty much interchangeable heroes and long stretches of utter narrative boredom, only comes to life when O'Brien's monsters show up to cause havoc. Seriously, there's really no other reason to sit through it.

 The ultimate bad day at work.

Dull, derivative, and not scary in the least (unless you happen to be under nine years old), THE BLACK SCORPION is recommended solely for animation fans and 1950's giant monster completists, and also as an entry-level giant monster flick for kids. I first saw it when I was five and I loved it, but then again I was too little to realize just how dull it was when the monsters weren't on the rampage. Little kids will sit through just about anything, as long as it has occasional parts where something of fantastical interest occurs — the cowboys-versus-dinosaur western THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN (1956) being a case in point — and this film certainly has enough of that sort of thing going for it. And while I did not find it scary when I was little (I thought the idea of giant, man-eating scorpions was pretty fucking cool), the mileage of other little kids may vary, so take that into consideration. The monsters here are rather eerie in presentation and some kids have trouble dealing with the "unreal" look and movement of stop-motion puppets. My niece, Aurora, was scared shitless after seeing just one minute of the scorpions in action when she was seven, so keep that possibility in mind before running this for the wee ones.

Poster from the British theatrical release. You know you're in trouble when the poster opts to explain why you should scream during what's meant to be a scary movie.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2017-Day 5: I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE (1958)

It started with a kiss...

Marge Farrell (Gloria Talbott) has been married to her husband, Bill (Tom Tryon), for a year, during which time she notices that he's no longer the man he was before their wedding day. Though not unkind to her, Bill treats Marge with a cold, emotionless lack of affection, and now dogs react defensively in his presence (which is odd because Bill is a self-admitted "dog person"). Something's clearly amiss and Marge is no idiot, so it was only a matter of time until she discovered that what appears to be her husband is in actuality an alien life form, one of a number of invaders who have infiltrated her town with a creepy agenda on their minds: marrying, mating with Earth females and fathering children. 

The abduction of Bill (Tom Tryon).

Their species' world and all of its females have died out and with space apparently not being as populated as one would hope, our world is their best shot when it comes to breeding options. Upon uncovering the alien charade — and surprisingly not seeming all that perturbed at having been giving her body sexually to an extra-terrestrial life form for a year — Marge sets about trying to alert the local authorities to the secret, silent invasion, but she soon finds that alien doppelgangers have replaced key members of the community's power structure and that she has no hope of contacting outside help. So, what's a girl to do?

Despite being stuck with an idiotic, WEEKLY WORLD NEWS-style title, I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE takes its concept seriously and handles it with a surprisingly "adult" approach. It's a well-crafted picture that boasts quality camerawork, an eerie atmosphere that brings to mind the small-town isolation of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956), a believable script, and solid performances from all involved, so it's much better than it has any right to be. It's an interesting reflection of the ultra-macho/patriarchal American 1950's and the era's considerable disconnect between male and female, an aspect examined in a few other sci-fi/horror flicks of its time and easily the most interesting told from a woman's perspective.

Marge's  (Gloria Talbott) sense of marital unease grows.

Front and center in this inversion of Fifties suburban bliss is Gloria Talbott, one of my favorite actresses of her generation, who turned in memorable performances in movies and on television in works including GIRLS TOWN (1959, as a judo-expert delinquent), THE LEECH WOMAN (1960), and episodes of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, THE CISCO KID, and BONANZA. In this film she conveys a palpable sense of the nervous bride, which, when pitted against an invasion of reproduction-minded space-creeps, is quite effective and instantly relatable.

The alien and his Bill simulacrum.

Tom Tryon's also quite good and believable as the emotionless husbandly simulacrum, and he would later write the 1971 source novel for the classic horror movie THE OTHER (1972), but we'll be getting to that later this month. Tryon's Bill is at first typical of the standard 1950's alien tropes, but the interesting twist here is that he is slowly coming to understand love, though he's not in any way demonstrative with such. He does, however, treat his human would-be broodmare kindly and it's clear by the end that he has indeed come to care for her (for all the good that does him, which is none). And it's the alien's handling of the situation and Marge's reaction to all of this that leads one to ask the obvious question: Would this breeding strategy be considered rape? By human standards, since consent was not knowingly given to the aliens, but rather men assumed to be the women's intended husbands, that would be a massive "Yes, it's rape." That said, it's clear that the aliens were acting out of sheer desperation at the possible end of their species, plus their lack of emotion/empathy may preclude such moral concepts as consent when no violent physical coercion is perpetrated, but how will they think of their own actions as they slowly come to understand and perhaps experience human emotion? It's a much heavier topic for discussion than can be properly addressed in a film of its time that was intended for general audiences, and it warrants further serious consideration. And am I alone in  finding Marge's relative nonchalance upon finding out that she's unwittingly been servicing a space alien rather odd? Is it a case of simply resigning herself to "Well, that happened, so I might as well move past it?" Any way you cut it, it's just fucking weird.

Some invaders on the move.

The film boasts quite good special effects for its era and among the highlights are:

 What happens to the aliens' human forms when they are found out and stopped...

...and a barfly on the make putting the moves on an invader, only to end up on the business end of a disintegrator weapon.

Another effort that's ostensibly sci-fi, I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE works well as a part of the "marital horror"sub-genre, wielding a solid and squirm-inducing creep factor when one really thinks about what's going on. When Marge asks "Bill" what kind of children his people would have with human females such as herself, he emotionlessly, ominously answers, "Our kind," which speaks Lovecraftian volumes. Yet despite the highly questionable way in which they implement their plan, one almost feels sorrow and compassion for the aliens. The key word here being "almost."

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2017-Day 4: THEM! (1954)

New Mexico, 1954: When police Sergeant Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) and his partner are alerted to a young girl wandering in the desert near Alamogordo, he's plunged into a living nightmare for the newly-born atomic age. The little girl is only the first piece of a puzzle comprised of mysterious and spectacular property damage and murders, one of which features a victim whose back is broken, his skull crushed, and his body filled to brimming with formic acid, with each incident punctuated by a high-pitched keening sound. Top scientist Dr. Harold Medford (Edmund Glenn) and his colleague/daughter, Pat (Joan Weldon), are called in to investigate and are partnered as experts to aid FBI man Robert Graham (James Arness). Upon wafting an amount of formic acid under her nose the catatonic child is jolted out of her state of shock  and recoils in abject, primal terror while crying and repeatedly screaming "THEM!!! THEM!!!"

When I was nine years old and saw this child's out-of-her-mind-terrified reaction upon regaining her memory of the horror she'd witnessed, I knew I was not in for just any run-of-the-mill 1950's giant monster yarn. And I was right. 

The Medfords both know their shit and all of the mounting evidence clearly shakes them to the core, but they refuse to tell either the FBI or the police what they suspect until they are absolutely positive. Then, while searching the desert where the earlier incidents occurred, the investigators run face-first into an ant roughly the size of a city transit bus and barely escape with their lives after dispatching it with firearms. But that was just one lone specimen, and as everyone knows, ants are hive insects...

A "HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT!!!" moment if ever there was one.

Doing the math, the elder Medford concludes that what they witnessed was a mutation that must have been the result of the atomic testing done in the area some nine years earlier, so the first thing to do is locate a giant anthill. Such a structure is soon discovered and it's decided to bomb the shit of the place with cyanide and wipe out the mutants before they spread. As Sgt. Peterson and Agent Graham suit up to enter the hive and make sure all of the ants are decisively dead, they are informed that the elder Dr. Medford is too aged and frail to accompany them into the underground labyrinth of the hive and that Pat will go instead. In typical macho 1950's fashion, the idea of a woman going along on such a grave mission is met with strong resistance, but Pat ain't having it and makes it quite clear that the team needs an expert who'll know exactly what to look for and that she doesn't have time to give the dick-slinging FBI dude and cop a crash course on insect pathology, so she's going and if they don't like it they can go fuck themselves. With great reluctance, Graham "allows" Pat along — good luck stopping her, says I — and it's a damned good thing that she was there. Most of the ants were killed by the cyanide grenades but a few live specimens remain, so they meet their end on the receiving end of machine gun fire. 

 A descent into an atomic age hell.

But Pat's expert eye notices a dire bit of evidence: the remains of two eggs from which a pair of winged queen ants hatched and fled the hive to god only knows where, accompanied by some eager males. The elder Medford concludes that unless the queens are found and the nests they established are utterly decimated once and for all, humanity will have maybe a year until the ants wipe out life as we know it. One colony sets up on board a freighter and kills the crew, but the vessel is promptly sunk by the U.S. Navy. But what about the other queen? That question is answered in edge-of-your seat fashion during the narrative's climax as the 1950's giant bug sub-genre is born.  

The entire world in danger of getting its collective asshole eaten out by millions of giant mutant Formicidae? It just doesn't get more serious than that, folks, and the film knows it in no uncertain terms. THEM! unfolds like a scientific procedural, which it is, and we are engrossed every step of the way, making shocking discoveries along with the non-scientists. I first saw this film when I was nine years old and, speaking as the son of a veteran biology teacher, I went into it knowing nothing as to what it was about, but I knew a lot about ants, so when formic acid came up as part of the mystery, my mind did the math and I was gobsmacked by the horror of what an invasion of gigantic, hungry, savage, and reproductively viable examples of those creatures would mean. The script treats the viewer as intelligent, and at no point do any of the characters do anything stupid when facing such a threat to the entire world, which absolutely endeared me to the film as a kid who hated being talked down to.

 Seriously. Just stop and think about this fate for a moment. Yeah, HELL NAW.

The grand-daddy of all giant bug movies and hands down the finest of the lot, THEM! is a masterpiece from start to finish and it still holds up some sixty-four years after its release. It's smart, suspenseful, features solid performances from the entire cast, makes one understand where several elements in ALIENS (1986) had their genesis, and it's genuinely scary. Though often classified as a science-fiction film, THEM! is definitely a straight-up exercise in terror, albeit admittedly one with a sci-fi launching point. Stack it right alongside the Quatermass films and a number of the better Doctor Who stories in that regard.

And I would be remiss if I did not single out Joan Weldon's groundbreaking portrayal of Dr. Pat Medford for praise. In an era marked by its rampant phallocratic/chauvinistic/misogynistic leanings, Pat's take-no-shit, all-business attitude when dealing with her job as a scientific expert and handling her masculine "superiors" was quite refreshing to see and admirable on the part of the filmmakers. It was quite clear that though attractive she may be, Pat's looks and gender had zero to do with her competence as a scientist or her steel-hard bravery when directly confronting the unthinkable once she got down to business. Sure, she screamed and nearly shat a Humvee when first encountering a shrieking giant ant, but who in their right mind wouldn't have, be they male or female?  But once it was time to kick some scientific ass and save the world, Pat proved logical, methodical, and possessed of nerves of steel. Since I was a child, she's been among my top-tier roster of sci-fi/horror movie heroes, and she has my utmost respect. It makes me squirm with geekish delight when I imagine what she would have made of the events at the terraforming colony on LV-426 and how she would have teamed with Ellen Ripley to hand out flamethrower ass-kickings to the legion of xenomorphs. 

 Dr. Pat Medford (Joan Weldon): taker of zero shit and one of the saviors of the world.

Bottom line: THEM! is one of the undisputed masterworks of the genre and no movie buff's education is complete without having seen it at least once. HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2017-Day 3: THE WASP WOMAN (1959)

Cosmetics mogul Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot) has been the advertising face of her company for nearly two decades,and now faces considerable slumps in sales as it becomes apparent to the buying public that she is visibly aging. (It's not even like she's some ancient hag; she's only forty and looks just fine, if you ask me.)  Her problems seem to be solved when an eccentric scientist, Dr. Zinthrop (Michael Mark), presents her with his recent discovery: a serum made from the enzymes of queen wasps that reverses the aging process. He demonstrates this by injecting a  decrepit guinea pig test subject with the serum in front of Starlin, and she is convinced as the creature reverts to youthful health. (The scene is ludicrous because after the guinea pig receives the shot, its youthful version is subsequently portrayed by what is quite clearly a rat. Rats and guinea pigs look nothing alike and differ greatly in scale and mass, so did producer/director Roger Corman think audiences would not know the difference?)

Impressed, Starlin shovels money into Zinthrop's research, even lavishing him with a fully-stocked lab in her office's building, with the intention of marketing the discovery as soon as possible while volunteering herself as Zinthrop's first human test subject. Zinthrop caution's Starlin that studying the extract's progress on her will take time, but the desperate cosmetics magnate, sneaks into his lab after hours and gives herself extra doses, which accelerates the process and in no time physically shaves around eighteen years off of her physical appearance. Needless to say, this freaks out her once-skeptical business partners, who launch a campaign of snooping to determine whether or not Zinthrop's a quack or a con man, and to find out exactly what is in the mysterious extract. Meanwhile, Starlin continues sneaking extra doses...

As Starlin pushes to fast track the extract's release, she begins to suffer strange headaches while growing more and more anxious. Zinthrop, meanwhile, discovers that one of his lab subjects, a house cat, has escaped, having become vicious due to the drug, so Zinthrop is forced to kill the savage kitty. Reeling from disappointment and the act of killing the cat, Zinthrop leaves the office and wanders into traffic, where he is hit by a car and ends up in the hospital, sidelined with brain damage. While having no knowledge of the scientist's accident but worried about his sudden disappearance, Starlin's stress triggers a transformation into the titular creature, and in short order she kills three of her perceived enemies, "just like the female wasp."

The transformed and bloodthirsty Janice Starlin. Nightmare fuel if you're five.

It's only a matter of time until Starlin is found out, but either way she's too far gone and is simply no longer human, but more of a quasi-insectoid throat-ripper.

THE WASP WOMAN is not a great movie by any yardstick, but it is entertaining and does move at a brisk clip. What keeps it alive in the minds of those of us who discovered it as "horror kids" is its monster. The transformed look for Janice Starlin is about as cheap-looking and cheesy as it gets, but that aspect strangely adds to its creepy appeal. Whenever the wasp woman appears, the soundtrack is dominated by blaring musical stings and the pronounced sound of buzzing, like that of an agitated hive. The camera wisely gives us only a few glimpses of her face straight-on, and what we see is actually quite nightmarish when one let's the imagination fill in the gaps. Other than her head and hands, Starlin remains fully human and surprisingly fast when attacking, so the juxtaposition of a shapely '50's-era woman in a black dress and pumps and a bug-eyed, antennaed,  slavering Lovecraftian killer is sheer nightmare fuel if seen at an impressionable age. The buzzing, speed of movement and quick camera cutting  lend the wasp woman a nervous energy that leaves no doubt that her bite and claws are razor-sharp and sloppily effective.

I'm not gonna lie, this monster scared the shit out of me when I was little, and even now I find it quite twitchy and unnerving. The wasp woman would have been right at home in a Pertwee-era DOCTOR WHO serial, and more's the pity that she wasn't included in one.

During my infamous days anchoring the kitchen at a certain Brooklyn barbecue joint, we would occasionally run weird movies for the late-night bar crowd, and one evening we ran THE WASP WOMAN. Its mercifully short 73-minute running time was just right for holding the attention of the drunk regulars, who found it to be a lot of fun, but it was the loudly-stated reaction of our hot redheaded bartender, Kate, that will live with me forever. As the final credits rolled, there was brief silence, broken when Kate exclaimed "WHAT A CRUMMY MOVIE!!!" Yes. Yes, it is, and it treads territory handled to much better narrative effect in THE LEECH WOMAN (1960), but it's still worth checking out.

Poster for the original theatrical release. At no point if the film does the title character literally become a huge wasp with a human woman's face, and that's a goddamned shame. Audiences in 1959 had every reason to feel profoundly ripped off.