In short: Dead of Night (1977)

This anthology movie was directed and produced by Dan Curtis, the doyen of US TV horror of his time and is, as was often the case with Curtis’s project, particularly the anthology films, scripted by Richard Matheson.

The first segment “Second Chance”, based on a short story by conservative semi-professional nostalgist Jack Finney (ask me privately about that man’s “Time and Again”, if you want to hear a proper rant) concerns a young, highly nostalgic man (Ed Begley) making a trip back through time thanks to a vintage car and inadvertently creating his new girlfriend by saving her grandfather before he can speed himself to death in that same car. It’s a competently enough realized tale, but it is also very slight and frankly not terribly interesting in any way that matters to me.

Story number two is “No Such Thing as a Vampire”. It sees Matheson adapting himself. Some 19th Century village is plagued by what looks a lot like vampire attacks. Particularly Alexis (Anjanette Comer), the wife of local rich man Dr. Gheria (Patrick Macnee) seems to be a victim of the bloodsucker, or at least that’s what the local peasantry believes. Gheria for his part is sceptical, but he still calls in family friend Michael (Horst Buchholz) for help. Until the tale ends with the sort of underdeveloped twist that left this viewer mostly surprised when I realized that this was indeed all twenty minutes of set-up ended with. Before that, it’s a pleasantly atmospheric tale, with fun performances – Comer does some particularly enthusiastic scenery chewing early on, and Buchholz milks being drugged in an utterly delightful way – and semi-gothic photography. Alas, for that terribly bland ending.

The anthology climaxes in “Bobby”, a script which Curtis would recycle a couple of decades later in Trilogy of Terror II. Here, a bereft mother (Joan Hackett) attempts to call back her drowned son with the help of black magic. A little later, her little Bobby (Lee Montgomery) does indeed knock at her door. Something isn’t right with the kid, though, as well as with the mother’s nostalgic remembrances of their time together.

Like twenty years later, this last tale is the high point of the anthology, its set-up using Matheson’s and Curtis’s flair for creating suspense with characters in a physically constrained space excellently and to great effect. The story also recommends itself by having a much harder edge than the first one and by being psychologically much more interesting and satisfying than the middle tale, really showing how dark and intense 70s TV horror could get in the right hands.

As a whole, though, Dead of Night (which one should of course not confuse with all those other films with the same title) is a bit of a disappointment, an anthology film where I’d be tempted to skip two out of three tales on my next viewing.

In short: Trilogy of Terror II (1996)

Like the original Trilogy of Terror, this was also directed, produced and partially written by the King of TV horror of his time (which were long gone at the point this was made), Dan Curtis. Like the 70s version, this TV production tells three half hour tales of horror and suspense while utilizing a single actress as the lead in all three stories. Lysette Anthony has the difficult honour of following in Karen Black’s footsteps, and while she’s no Karen Black, she does a good job going with whatever the film throws at her in any given tale.

The first story, “The Graveyard Rats” is a rather free adaptation of the Henry Kuttner weird tale which adds a noir set-up to the giant rats in a graveyard business of the original. That set-up is the segment’s main flaw, mostly because it doesn’t really connect terribly well with the giant rat business, turning this into an EC style tale of bad people finding a brutal and ironic end where the end isn’t actually properly ironic. However, the final five minutes of the segment are a fantastic example of how to shoot around not terribly convincing special effects and turn them threatening via the magic of effective editing and clever lighting.

The second tale, “Bobby” (a do-over of a Richard Matheson script Curtis had already used in his anthology movie Dead of Night) is the clear high point of the film. It is the tense tale of a grieving mother using a black magic ritual to bring her dead son back to life, slowly realizing that what has returned isn’t exactly what she asked for. It’s an excellently paced, thematically dark and very suspensefully executed story, featuring a surprisingly creepy child turn by Blake Heron. This part of the film hardly makes a bad move. Well, the big special make-up reveal isn’t great.

Finally, the film finishes on “He Who Kills”, a direct sequel to the 70s trilogy’s much loved “Zuni Doll” segment (which was actually called “Amelia”). It’s not as great as you’d hope for: for one, “Bobby” did the whole “woman stalked and attacked in isolated setting” quite a bit better and more intense just minutes earlier. Secondly, there’s really very little that is an improvement or interesting change in comparison to the original Zuni doll bit. Of course, it is still efficiently and competently filmed, treating its adorable little monster in a way that must fill Charles Band with envy even decades after. It may not be as good as the original segment but it is still very good fun. Props to whoever did the voice acting for the doll’s incessant vocalising – it’s as impressive as it is silly.

As a whole, this is, not surprisingly, clearly inferior to the first Trilogy, yet if you don’t compare the two directly but try to treat this as its own thing, there’s quite a bit of enjoyment to be had here.

The Norliss Tapes (1973)

Writer David Norliss (Roy Thinnes), tasked with writing a book debunking the supernatural, ceases all contact with his publisher. He seems to spend his time lounging around sweating, not buttoning his shirt a lot. When the publisher finally makes contact with Norliss, the writer rambles something about being in too deep and having dictated his book onto tape. It will explain everything, apparently. He’s certainly not going to do that himself, for he doesn’t appear to a meeting with said publisher and seems to have vanished from the face of the Earth now.

His publisher does find the titular tapes, though. What is on the first of them makes up most of the film. Ellen Cort (Angie Dickinson), the widow of apparently somewhat famous sculptor James Raymond Cort (Nick Dimitri) calls Norliss in for help in a rather mysterious case. Despite being quite dead, a blue-faced version of Cort with pretty frightening eyes leaves his sarcophagus in the family crypt to murder dogs – later people – and work on a final sculpture. Ellen thinks it has something to do with the occult circles her husband started moving in when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Ellen particularly suspects the sinister Madame Jeckiel (Vonetta McGee) and a ring she gave James to have something to do with her husband’s very eventful version of the afterlife.

Norliss isn’t the most sceptical of sceptics, so he’s soon the one trying to convince your typical incompetent local Sheriff (as is usually the case played by Claude Akins) of the truth of a blue zombie dude walking around, murdering people, and sculpting a pretty creepy looking demon sculpture.

Dan Curtis’s – this time around not only producing but also directing – NBC TV movie The Norliss Tapes was supposed to be the pilot for a series of Norliss adventures, but the network never did pick the series up in the end. Therefor, we never will learn why Norliss disappeared, but since this was made in the age of done-in-one TV stories, his disappearance is really more an atmospheric set-up for the film’s actual plot.

I have to admit I’m not terribly surprised by the series not having been picked up. In an age where pretty much only soap operas had continuing storylines as we understand them today, much of the rest of the TV show world really had to sell themselves on the pull of their central characters, and I don’t see Norliss making much of a mark in many viewers’ minds. While it is nice to have a main character who isn’t a walking, talking gimmick, Norliss seems rather lacking in personality of any kind. He’s somewhat cool and aloof, but not in a terribly interesting way, he dresses to suggest he’s a pretty successful writer – and that’s it. Which I don’t think is enough to carry a show.

Of course, having said that, Norliss’s only actual adventure is at least an entertaining bit of TV horror throughout, starting off as a well-constructed series of investigative interviews and becoming a bit more gruesome and horror movie-like as things continue. Curtis, while for my tastes not quite as good a director as the best examples of the trade he worked with, does manage some fine scenes, always trying for the more atmospheric shot in a medium easily falling into the blandly generic for budget and cost reason and often making excellent use of rain, darkness and shadow to create a mood of classicist creeps. There are some fine sets and locations too – I’m particularly partial to the tunnels under the crypt – as well as a good cast doing the expected good work. Though I would have wished the film had made better use of Dickinson, who nonetheless turns out to be a rather adept screamer.

The monster design is simple yet on the effective side. The blue skin is in practice much more convincing than it sounds on paper, and our undead’s eyes are indeed pleasantly creepy (and Curtis clearly knows this). Dimitri’s fine, increasingly less human snarling isn’t too bad, either.


I also appreciate that Curtis doesn’t just use an early 70s undead but throws in a whole bunch of occult stuff that escalates to a bonus monster and provides the whole affair with a pleasant pulpy flavour. So, while I never really warmed to Norliss as a character or an occult detective, the film he’s in is a fine use of 70 minutes of anyone’s time, I believe.

In short: Dead of Night - A Darkness at Blaisedon (1969)

Secretary Angela (Marj Dusay) has - to her surprise - inherited the impressive, if somewhat run-down, Blaisedon Manor. Unfortunately the manor is more or less the main part of her inheritance, so she will not be able to keep her fine new home. Selling it turns out to be more difficult than she expected. Whenever she is showing the house to a potential buyer, strange things start to happen. Why, one could think the house is haunted!

Angela herself doesn't believe in ghosts, but she thinks it prudent to let professional ghost hunters take a look at the house to disprove the fears of the ignorant. She turns to the psychic investigator Jonathan Fletcher (Kerwin Matthews) and his assistant Sajid Rowe (Cal Bellini). The salivating Fletcher is just all too willing to take a look at her problem (and probably everything else she will let him look at), so the trio decides to spend the night in Angela's manor.

As soon as they arrive some heavy spooking starts to happen. It seems as if one of the past owners of the house feels a very close connection to Angela, and a terrible secret is revealed.

Dead of Night was supposed to be the pilot episode for a Dan Curtis-developed horror TV show, but, as so often happened in Curtis' career, the TV gods didn't allow for more than the pilot, which would then be shown as a short TV movie.

In this case I'm not at all surprised by the project's lack of success. I really don't think 1969 was the year for a show like this promised to be, all gothic trappings, bad weather, spooky howling and no single contemporary idea in sight. It is horror at its coziest, with no threat to anyone's sleep at night.

Another problem I see is the blandness of Fletcher & Rowe, who are in desperate need of some character or at least a gimmick to make them seem interesting. Curtis could at least have thrown us an electric pentacle.

All this doesn't mean I didn't have my fun watching it. While surprise female director Lela Swift doesn't do very stylish work, her cobwebs and thunderstorms are done nicely enough, and she's obviously not out to bore us.

And I actually like cozy horror and think that it has its place in the genre as much as gore fests or grim and grimy looks at the human condition.

 

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In short: Scream of the Wolf (1974)

A strange series of murders disturbs the population of a small rural community somewhere in America. Going by the wounds the victims suffer, the killer has to be an animal. But what kind of animal attacks people in their homes or jumps through the windshields of their cars at them?

Sheriff Bell (Philip Carey) is at loss and so asks the writer and hunter John Wetherby (Peter Graves) for help. Wetherby is unsure what kind of animal is doing the deeds, too. The fact that the animals' tracks change their form as if the animal would run on all fours but grow in size and weight on walk on two legs afterwards only to then disappear completely does not make anything more clear.

Wetherby would very much like the help of his old big-game hunting friend Byron Douglas (Clint Walker), but Byron prefers to hold long and stupid Nietzschean hunting-Libertarian speeches.

Wetherby's girlfriend Sandy (Jo Ann Pflug) - obviously the brains in the relationship -  hates Byron like the plague and takes him for a madmen. The night after a rather disturbing discussion in a restaurant in which she makes her dislike quite clear to Byron, she is threatened by the mysterious animal. The woman starts to suspect Byron of being somehow responsible for the killings which fit so nicely into his ideological world view. Is he perhaps a werewolf?

Scream of the Wolf was directed and produced by Dan Curtis, the creator of the horror soap Dark Shadows and of The Night Stalker and one of the patron saints of horror TV and written by Richard Matheson who shouldn't need an introduction, but I can't say I am too enthusiastic about the film.

While the plotting is exasperatingly workmanlike, Matheson's script does at least strike some interesting thematic and subtextual sparks from time to time. I couldn't help myself than to interpret the Wetherby/Byron/Sandy triangle as both Byron and Sandy courting for the writer's sexual favor (which also fits nicely into the scope of things Matheson as a writer has always been interested in). The film is surprisingly obvious about this point, much more obvious than one would expect of a 70s TV movie. Unfortunately, even the most interesting subtext can't elevate a too mechanical text.

Curtis direction does not fare too well either, again bringing the terrible description "workmanlike" to mind, a word containing in it multitudes of boredom the word "inept" does not harbor.

But what really drives the film over the dividing line between good and deeply mediocre things is the dreadful performance of Clint Walker, a former Western star who is about as miscast as Byron as possible. The whole success or failure of the movie rests on the way Byron is portrayed. It is the only role in the film that needs a truly great actor to work, but instead of a physically powerful man with a semblance of charisma and intelligence we get a big lug barely able to speak.

And this single mistake brings the whole film down for me.

 

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