Help Me... I'm Possessed!, Lovecraftian Pulp!

Nubile babes strung up in their undies and groped by insaniacs! A mad-scientist into torture and dissection! A weird hunchback with an ax! A tentacled monster tearing apart anyone it meets! Yes, today we have 1974's "Help Me... I'm Possessed!" We have a lot here in this film directed by Charles Nizet, including a H.P. Lovecraft story, though without the glitter of the ones featuring Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs.

Dr. Arthur Blackwood runs a lunatic asylum in the desert. As the film begins, a babe and hunk are making out near Blackwood's asylum/castle and are torn apart by some tentacled menace. At the asylum, a weird hunchback cuts up a formerly beautiful blonde and shoves her in a little box. Blackwood has several loonies locked in cages and subject to his experiments. We meet a very pretty nurse in white, Eleanor (Blackie Hunt). She is devoted to Blackwood but isn't up to speed (yet) on what he is doing. Oh yes, Blackwood's sister, Melody (Lynne Marta) is a lunatic but appears peaceful. Uh oh...she has a pet that lives in the caves in the desert. When Blackwood wants someone killed, he sends Melody to let her pet out.

Surprise! Blackwood's wife Diane (Deedy Peters) arrives. She is also clueless but after the sultry Eleanor, dressed in white meets a gory demise, she becomes suspicious. Eleanor was finding out too much. Blackwood also lets Melody's monster loose on two deputies. Meanwhile, a beauty is strung up in her undies in Blackwood's lab by another lunatic. Blackwood decapitates the guy and locks the beauty in a coffin with a poisonous snake. Uh oh...this experience gives Blackwood a sexual thrill...really! Now Diane begins snooping around and reports her findings to the sheriff (Jim Dean). As Diane finds out everything, she will confront her mad-scientist husband setting up an ending that H.P. Lovecraft would have loved.

Exactly what are the goals of Dr. Blackwood's experiments? What is that tentacled menace and why does it have a connection to Melody? Why do nubile babes always find themselves stripped and strung up in dungeons in these types of films? Not that we're complaining. This is an energetic and ambitious tale that might be termed gratuitous and prurient. Not that we're complaining. For some drive-in type fun, watch "Help Me... I'm Possessed!" directed by Charles Nizet.