Murders in the Zoo, Such Horrible Ways to Die

Snakes, other reptiles, tigers, lions, and rhinos!  These things belong in the wild...a place man does not belong. In their element, many of them are perfect killing machines.  Throw in humans, passion, and jealousy, and we have a bloody mix of carnage and homicide. This one is so icky that it was banned in most European countries upon its release. Our feature today is 1933's "Murders in the Zoo," directed by A. Edward Sutherland. 

Eric Gorman (Lionel Atwell) is in India with his sultry wife, Evelyn (Kathleen Burke). So sultry is Evelyn that no hunk can resist her.  When Eric sees the hunk Bob (Edward Pawley) kiss her, he grabs him, sews his lips shut, binds his hands, and throws him to the tigers. Very messy! Eric is in India collecting animals for a zoo back home. On the boat ride home, Evelyn develops a thing for the handsome Roger (John Lodge). This won't go well for Roger as one of the things Eric is bringing home is a Green Mamba, a very poisonous snake. Nevertheless, all make it home safely, and Eric is able to give the zoo owner (Harry Beresford) some neat finds.  Zoologists Dr. Jack Woodford (Randolph Scott) and his nubile fiancé Jerry (Gail Patrick) study the animals.  Jack is especially interested in the Green Mamba and extracts its venom to try to find an anti-toxin.

Evelyn hates Eric.  She knows he murders any guy that shows an interest in her.  She loves Roger and when her lover becomes a victim of the Green Mamba, she is ready to leave and let the cops know of her husband's deeds.  This won't go well for her. Sadly, the sultry Evelyn will cease being sultry and also cease being in one piece. You'll see.  Now Eric begins feeling the heat as he tries to blame Jack's incompetence for the Green Mamba getting loose.  Jack is smart and finds more clues.  Now Jack and the nubile Jerry are in danger from a maniacal Eric and his zoo animals.

Did the lovely Evelyn deserve her fate?  Will Jack and Jerry survive the snakes, alligators, and lions and live happily ever after?  Who would win a steel cage match, a lion or a Green Mamba?  This is an icky one and the deaths are excruciating and sometimes heartbreaking.  For some nice pre-code horror, see "Murders in the Zoo."   

Die, Monster, Die!, Boris Karloff Does HP Lovecraft

What a combo! Boris Karloff and HP Lovecraft. Why not? A creepy old mansion secreted deep in the foggy moors!  Tentacled creatures caged in the greenhouse! Disfigured beings terrorizing the beautiful! Then the mysterious mad scientist pulling all the strings and fooling around with nature in such a way that only the horrific can be the result. Our feature today, from 1965 is "Die, Monster, Die!"  This one is directed by Daniel Haller.

An American, Stephen (Nick Adams) arrives in Arkham, in England. When the townspeople find out he is headed to the Witley mansion, deep into the moors, they avoid him. Now Stephen has to trek on foot to see the woman he loves, the nubile and big...ah, well she has a big smile, Susan (Suzan Farmer). He wants to marry her and the woman of the house, Letitia Witley (Freda Jackson) has sent for him. On the stroll there, Nick notices a huge crater and every form of vegetation had burnt to a crisp. Once at the mansion, wheelchair bound Noham Witley (Karloff) meets him and orders him to leave. Well, Susan's great big... smile, helps Stephen decide to stay.  Mistake. Now it is apparent that Nahum wants to keep the secrets of the mansion secret. This won't be easy. Stephen pays tribute to Letitia, who is bedridden and hidden behind a veiled curtain.  Letitia begs Stephen to take Susan away.

Nahum tends to his laboratory/dungeon/cellar, where there is a big glowing green rock...pulsating. Meanwhile, all of the Witley servants either melt, burn to a crisp, go homicidally insane, or disfigure. A scientist, Stephen postulates uranium and radiation poisoning.  Nahum postulates a gift from God. Now Susan and Stephen investigate the greenhouse when it begins glowing green. After Susan is nearly engulfed by a plant, a zoo from Hell is spotted, and now Susan and Stephen flee with a good idea of what is exactly going on at this estate.  Nahum?  He retreats to the basement and faces the horrors which have been created. Final showdowns and more revelations await.

Just what is causing the grotesque horror at the Witley estate?  Can Stephen save Susan from disfigurement, spontaneous combustion, and insanity?  Will the creatures in the "Zoo from Hell" get loose and begin stalking the non-mutated?  These questions are ones we can all apply in our daily lives, as HP Lovecraft is becoming more and more relatable to modern audiences.  For a good one, during this Halloween season, see Boris Karloff in "Die, Monster, Die!"

Return to House on Haunted Hill, Back into the Haunted House

Baphemut!  Who, or what is it?  Who care's!? Cerina Vincent and her great big...smile is in this film!  We have not done a Cerina Vincent film in a while.  Also in it is the lovely and dangerous Calita Rainford, who plays a hot Asian henchwoman clad in leather wielding a lot of weapons.  Sadly, Ms. Rainford will have her face cut off by Jeffrey Combs and cease being beautiful early in this film...happens. Today we look at a sequel to 1999's "House on Haunted Hill," 2007's "Return to House on Haunted Hill," directed by Victor Garcia.

Ariel (Amanda Righetti) is sad. Her sister, who survived the original film, has died by apparent suicide. The sultry magazine executive will be forced to go back to the insane asylum/house on Haunted Hill by thug Desmond (Erik Palladino) and his henchmen and henchwoman Harue (Rainford). Sadly, the babe Asian will be offed soon by ghost mad scientist Vannacut (Combs). Also along is Professor Hammer (Steven Pacey), Paul (Tom Riley), Ariel's hunk beau, and Michelle (Vincent) who serves no purpose other than wearing a tight top displaying nice cleavage. Desmond wants the Baphemut statue because a buyer will pay him millions for it.  Hammer wants it too, for academic purposes, of course.  The ghosts begin appearing and when they do...you're dead.  Henchmen will be pulled apart, the babe henchwoman will be sliced up and lose her face during hot lesbian sex with sultry and nude female ghosts (what a scene this is!), etc.

Ariel realizes she needs to get out of the house with her beau, Paul.  Uh oh...Ariel is given visions by some ghosts that indicate she needs to stay in the house, find Baphemut, and destroy it. Desmond proves just as threatening as the ghosts of this insane asylum and the mad doctor.  Michelle?  Vannacut finds her and...well, sometimes impressive cleavage is not enough to ward off evil spirits...go figure. Now the dead return to life, ghosts appear, and Vannacut is dead set against allowing Baphemut to be destroyed.  Ariel, however, just may be too pretty to die...though we also said this about Harue and Michelle.

Will Ariel be able to destroy Baphemut and get her and Paul out of the evil house?  Will Desmond's greed prevent all of this?  Will Vannacut cut any parts of Ariel off and dump them in a pile that also contains Harue's face?  Bet you never thought you'd hear that question today when you slid out of bed.  This is a good one with great cheese and gore.  For some terrific haunted insane asylum drama with hot chicks, see "Return to House on Haunted Hill."

Slaughter High, Caroline Munro in Peril

Oh yes!  Caroline Munro!  All wet and helpless.  In the shower or out of the shower.  Running for her life or swinging a hatchet in self defense, she always looks great.  A Bond Girl and also A Hammer Glamour Girl, Caroline Munro seduces us. Who can forget her nubile and vulnerable look in that Sinbad film? Today we look at her in a terrific slasher film, that has a behemoth kill count.  Our feature today is 1985's "Slaughter High," directed by George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, and Mackenzie Litten.

10 years ago the sultry Carol (Munro) and a bunch of her cool friends pull a cruel prank on the chemistry nerd Marty (Simon Scuddamore). Up in flames! Marty is left burnt all over his body and eventually institutionalized in a mental asylum. Carol and her buddies graduate and go about their lives. At this point we get a Caroline Munro shower scene. Relative to the plot? Right! Years later Carol and her buddies return to the high school for a reunion. Uh oh! The school is gone and only the derelict building remains. The only invitees are Carol and her buddies. With pot smoking, cocaine, and beer waiting, the young adults sneak into the building and party anyway.  Uh oh, someone has set up a party room for them.  All their lockers are also there...and Marty's locker, too. The babes and hunks are creeped out by Marty's locker, as they feel mildly guilty about his gruesome fate. After drugs, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and cocaine, the friends start getting murdered in horrible ways.

Of note is Shirley (Josephine Scandi).  After her boyfriend's stomach explodes, she has his guts all over her. Happens. She finds a bathtub, fills it up, strips, and we get a nice nude gratuitous bath scene before... well, before a great death scene. Also Stella (Donna Yeager), a sultry blonde, is now married to Joe (Gary Martin). Naturally, she'll engage in extra marital sex with Frank (Billy Hartman) and as most slasher films are, this is a morality tale. Yep, they'll get it while doing it. Car batteries, a riding lawnmower, a javelin, human waste, and acid are all used for our viewing pleasure.  The reunion attenders will fall horribly, babe and hunk alike...nude or clothed.

Will the sultry and wet Carol survive as a final girl?  Is Marty really the killer, or is that too easy? Does Marty want something else from Carol other than merely skewering her with a pointed weapon? 40 years later, the strength of this film is the allure of Caroline Munro, but as an 80s slasher film, this is still a good one.  For some great cheesecake, some beefcake, and a ton of gory kills, see "Slaughter High."  

Scared to Death, Because of Bela Lugosi?

No one can scare someone to death better than Bela Lugosi.  In a wealthy and mysterious family everyone has a motive for murder.  There's always a beautiful dame or two to be in peril, and mad scientist type brutes that would seek to imperil them...then Bela Lugosi pops in for a visit, and before we know it, there's a body...corpse!  Our feature today is 1946's "Scared to Death," directed by Christy Cabanne.

As our film begins, the beautiful Laura Van Ee's (Molly Lamont) corpse is on a slab in the morgue.  No marks of violence and no apparent cause of death are apparent, mystifying the coroner. Now Laura, from the other side, flashes back on just what happened to her. A day or two ago, Laura was a grouchy wife to Ward (Roland Varno). Her father-in-law, Dr. Joseph Van Ee (George Zucco) hates her and demands she give his son a divorce. Laura won't divorce Ward and claims she is not done with him. Laura claims the good doctor and Ward are keeping her prisoner in the mansion. Then guess who arrives! Right, Bela Lugosi as the weird Professor Leonide...and his trusted midget, Indigo (Angelo Rossitto). Why? Dr. Ee is not happy to see him.  See, Leonide used to be an inmate in the mansion when it was an asylum. He escaped and fled to Europe, only to return now.

Enter Raymond (Nat Pendleton).  He's a private eye, fired from the police, and now in charge of security at the mansion. He's hot for the perky maid, Lilybeth (Gladys Blake). He's also not that bright. Outside a specter wearing a green mask haunts and looks in the windows. Someone sends Laura a sculpture of her own head, disconcerting her. Now Laura is afraid but she will not tell us why. Leonide, apparently, is a magician and adept at hypnosis.  Coincidentally, Lilybeth goes into a hypnotic trance. The green masked figure keeps lurking. Then two reporters arrive, Lee (Douglas Fowley) and the nubile Jane (Joyce Compton). Lee is smart and Jane is sultry and playful, which are great for this plot. Laura fears whatever is outside closing in on her as more fall into hypnotic trances.  Then...we do find out what happened to Laura and why.

Is Laura really dead?  If Lilybeth and Jane are entranced in a hypnotic spell, what will the hypnotist have them do?  Is Professor Leonide really the antagonist here, or is that too easy?  The dames are in much peril, the men are menacing, and the figure in the green mask is spooky.  For a lurid mystery during the Halloween season, see "Scared to Death."

American Fright Fest, Dozens Shredded

A chainsaw! An axe! Electricity! A shotgun! Those are only some of the props that will work the plot in 2018's "American Fright Fest" in order to mutilate and destroy dozens of poor schmucks. This isn't one of those slasher films that ends up with a kill count of five, or six, or even nine or ten. The kills will be in the dozens...count if you can, but I would estimate between 40 and 50. Plot? Like there is any time for a plot...nevertheless we will delve into that now.

Spencer Crowe (Dylan Walsh) is a famous low-budget horror film maker. You remember "Death Bitch," don't you? He just got out of rehab (it didn't work) for drugs and alcohol. His lawyer gets him a job in a small town to run their Halloween Fright Fest. An abandoned mental asylum will be handed over to him and he'll convert it to a haunted house attraction. His past cast members will join him, they also need jobs. Uh oh, the drunk Spencer drives down a road causing a prison bus to crash. The crash sees two psychos escape, Ruben (Jonathan Camp) and Mason (Luke Baines). They immediately head to the abandoned asylum just as the attraction opens to the public.

Ruben is the mean one. He'll mow through cops, security, and actors like crap through a goose. The most heartbreaking one (okay, gratuitous, but maybe not heartbreaking) is Maxine (Ashley Blankenship). Maxine is a large breasted blonde actress who is very proud of her two assets...Ruben will make short work of her. Meanwhile Spencer locks himself in the control room, witnesses all the carnage, and taunts Ruben...he's high as a kite, as they say. Hunks and babes will die horribly and Taylor (Madison McKinley) who plays a horror-nurse at the attraction, seems to emerge as a potential final girl. Double uh oh, another escapee Mason, joins the potential victims, and desires to kill Ruben claiming he knows how evil he is...but is Mason really one of the good-guys?

Does Mason seek to stop the killing, or to continue it? Will the very pretty Maxine have what it takes to kill the psycho (or psychos) and perhaps get to slap Spencer in the face? Is Spencer really secure locked away in the control room, or does an extremely bloody fate await him? This is a bloody one and the kills will be thrown at you in rapid succession. Directed by Ante Novakovic, and shot in Pennsylvania, "American Fright Fest" is one of those slasher films that doesn't keep the kill count in single figures.
 

The Barn: Part II, The Gore and Demons are Back

After "The Barn," there were many unanswered questions.  Even though most people on the screen died horribly, there was still the fate of the virgin Michelle (Lexi Dripps) left up in the air. Was she eaten?  Was she de-virginized?  Was she pulled into the realm of the demons?  Also, what of the two landscaping hunks, Sam (Mitchell Musolino) and Josh (Will Stout)?  It looked like they were about to be heroes when they were presumably sucked into hell. Good news!  In the sequel, a sorority filled with babes will open the haunted house in the barn three years later.  Our feature today is 2022's "The Barn: Part II," directed by Justin Seaman.  This one is set in 1992.

Despite the horror she endured when her BF was sucked into hell and had some demon awake in her van, Michelle is now in college and volunteers to help her sorority do an open house for Halloween.  She will take the lead with Josh' babe sister Heather (Sable Griedel). Why? Never mind.  The two babes and the entire sorority work the barn, the same one from the last movie. Yep, out of the well in the back, demons are conjured and will end up murdering all the sorority babes in gory fashion and turning them into demons.  Nudity, BDSM, kinky pillow fighting, and other deviance are what the sisters were doing just before being ripped apart or disemboweled.  Now Heather and Michelle are the only sisters left, and Michelle has a new BF, Charlie (Chad Bruns), the nerd at the video store.  He will fight the demons with his crutches.

Now Michelle is overmatched, but also out of the well, Josh and Sam emerge.  Yep, Josh has the holy weed killer.  With these two experienced demon hunters, the two sorority babes at least stand a chance. The demons are back in full force and have made the entire town into demons, too. May I say that Heather and Michelle look terrific in their Halloween costumes? Okay, I should also say many terrific cameos occur in this sequel, including Lloyd Kaufman as the mayor, Linnea Quigley as the church lady, Joe Bob Briggs and Diana Prince,  and Ari Lehman. The pumpkin, miner, and scarecrow demons are back to inflict death with pick-axes, sickles, and a wonderful assortment of bladed weapons.  Most of this film will be an all out bloody war.

Packed with gore, guts, and severed limbs and heads, this film is a must see for fans of the first "Barn" film.  It is also a great homage to late 80s, early 90s slasher fare.  With a sultry cast of sorority babes, most will die horribly, a few hunks, and some neat 1980s and 1990s slasher talent, "The Barn: Part II" is a terrific view on a Friday night in October.