Cult Classics: THE FOG (1980)

Horror movies got much gorier after the advent of the slasher, and the most iconic chillers of the 1980s tend to lean into that genre and its enthusiasm for arterial spray, but John Carpenter's The Fog (1980) is an atmospheric throwback to the subtler style of horror master Val Lewton, the hands-on producer (and often uncredited writer) behind moody RKO masterpieces like Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943). The Fog is a very different picture from other Carpenter projects like Halloween (1978), The Thing (1982), and They Live (1988), which is the reason it's one of my favorite movies from the director's oeuvre. Fans of eerie but bloodless classic horror will find a lot to appreciate in the way this movie unfolds its tale of long-simmering supernatural revenge, and those looking for more female-led stories will enjoy the emphasis on Adrienne Barbeau as the DJ heroine with Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother, Janet Leigh, also playing major roles.

Barbeau leads as Stevie Wayne, a late-night DJ in the town of Antonio Bay. Stevie's overnight shifts in a lighthouse allow her to witness and report the arrival of a mysterious fog that coincides with the disappearance of three local fishermen, including the husband of town mayor Kathy Williams (Janet Leigh). As the coastal California town prepares to celebrate its centennial, the local priest, Father Patrick Malone (Hal Holbrook), discovers his grandfather's diary and learns that a cabal of six founders started the community with a shocking act of betrayal, which is now literally coming back to haunt the townspeople on the hundredth anniversary of the crime. Meanwhile, hitchhiker Elizabeth (Jamie Lee Curtis) gets a ride into Antonio Bay with town resident Nick (Tom Atkins), and their efforts to find out what happened to the fishermen lead them to numerous close encounters with the supernatural threat.

Despite reshoots that bowed to the increasing expectation for gory ghosts and peril, The Fog remains a classic haunt at its core, with the eerie titular fog getting a lot more screen time than the spectral mariners. The opening campfire tale, also a late addition, sets the mood with John Houseman telling a group of children about the wreck of the Elizabeth Dane, a ship carrying a colony of leprosy victims to the bay. Between the introductory ghost story and the diary found by Father Malone, we know pretty much everything we need to know about why these murderous spirits are emerging from the fog to avenge themselves a century later. The fog and its ghosts are not so much mysterious as they are unstoppable, a conjoined force of fate that moves at its own pace, slowly but surely descending on Antonio Bay until the town's debt is fully paid. The goriest scenes happen early, with the murders of the fishermen and the subsequent discovery of just one corpse by Elizabeth and Nick, but these are pretty tame compared to Jaws (1975) or other horror films of the era, and mostly the mariners are shadowy figures who drag their victims away into the fog. John Carpenter has talked about his desire to make a movie inspired by Val Lewton's subtle but chilling horror classics (see this 2022 Collider article for more on that), and it's easy to see their influence even after the additions meant to appeal to the horror-going audiences of 1980.

While I love the Lewton-inspired atmosphere of The Fog, I also appreciate its commitment to agency and variety for its female characters. Co-writers Carpenter and Debra Hill offer us more women than men as our central characters, with Carpenter's wife at the time, Adrienne Barbeau, in heroic mode as a single mother who strives to protect the community and also find a way to save her young son as the fog closes in on him and his elderly babysitter. In a different horror movie, Jamie Lee Curtis's hitchhiking Elizabeth might be condemned to a gory death in her underwear, but instead she's smart, empathetic, and able to recover quickly from each close call. Janet Leigh doesn't have any scenes with her daughter until the third act, but her character is also presented as a fully realized individual, and despite her small town political status she's far more likeable than the mayor in Jaws. She's prickly with her assistant but grateful for her all the same, and she strives to forge ahead in her mayoral duties even as she worries about her missing husband. The two male leads, Hal Holbrook and Tom Atkins, seem perfectly comfortable with their female costars, and their characters both eschew the casual sexism exhibited by the fishermen and weatherman Dan O'Bannon (Charles Cyphers). Not every character who gets killed by the ghosts deserves that fate, but the picture doesn't see women as obvious victims just because they're women, and several of the male victims give us little reason to mourn their loss.

For more great ghost stories, try The Uninvited (1944), The Haunting (1963), The Changeling (1980),  and Lady in White (1988). Adrienne Barbeau also appears in Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981), Wes Craven's Swamp Thing (1982), and George A. Romero's Creepshow (1982). Jamie Lee Curtis became an iconic scream queen in the 1980s thanks to films like The Fog, the Halloween series, and Prom Night (1980), but over the decades she has proven herself a versatile actress and great comedic star, eventually winning an Academy Award for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). Her mother, Janet Leigh, is of course best remembered for Psycho (1960). For my other favorite John Carpenter movies, see Escape from New York, Christine (1983), and Big Trouble in Little China (1986). 

As of October 2025, you can watch a wide range of John Carpenter films on the Criterion Channel, which is celebrating the director with a curated collection of his work. 

See also: "Hogarthian Gothic: Imagining the Madhouse in Val Lewton's BEDLAM" 

Classic Films in Focus: BUGSY MALONE (1976)

Written and directed by Alan Parker, Bugsy Malone (1976) is certainly a cinematic oddity, with an all-kid ensemble spoofing the 1930s gangster movie while dancing and lip-syncing to tunes by Paul Williams. Its cast includes familiar stars Jodie Foster and Scott Baio as well as some talented youngsters who did not become particularly well-known but still deserve mention, especially John Cassisi, Florrie Dugger, and Martin Lev as the other main characters. While the use of adult voices for the dubbed song performances hasn't aged well, Bugsy Malone is still weirdly charming almost 50 years after its original release, and kids who enjoy Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Annie (1982) will probably get a kick out of it even if they don't recognize its send-up of classic gangster pictures like Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932).

Scott Baio plays the titular Bugsy, who is drawn into a turf war between the rival gangs of Fat Sam (John Cassisi) and Dandy Dan (Martin Lev) thanks to his friendship with Fat Sam and his need for cash to win the love of aspiring movie star Blousey Brown (Florrie Dugger). Fat Sam's star singer and girlfriend, Tallulah (Jodie Foster), complicates Bugsy's romance with Blousey, but the gang war is the bigger problem with a new gun that fires cream pie topping at targets much faster than the traditional crust pies. Fat Sam's guys are being hit with whipped cream left and right, and it's up to Bugsy to round up enough support to face off with Dandy Dan.

As the cream pie guns suggest, this is a very silly movie that rewrites the tropes of the classic gangster story for an entirely kid-sized world. The success of The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) almost certainly contributed to the appeal of the project when Parker came up with it, with gangsters back in the public imagination and Young Frankenstein (1974) demonstrating an appetite for unusual spoofs of classic genres. In addition to the cream pies replacing bullets, Bugsy Malone has adorably detailed pedal cars decked out to look like 1930s automobiles, sarsaparilla instead of booze, and guards in baseball uniforms wielding bats. In keeping with the original hits of the gangster genre, we have a speakeasy with its chorus girls and piano players, phone booth shenanigans, Italian restaurants, and Dandy Dan living in full 1930s splendor, complete with an estate that would make Charles Foster Kane or Howard Hughes feel at home. The child actors never mug for the camera or overplay their lines the way they do on a lot of modern kids' TV fare; they play their characters like they're 1930s stars reincarnated in 12 year old bodies, with Jodie Foster and Martin Lev both especially adept at inhabiting their roles. Their seriousness keeps the gimmick of an all-child cast from becoming too annoying for adults to enjoy, even as the absurdity of the whole concept permeates every scene.

The musical element of the picture is a mixed bag, with brilliant dance numbers undercut by the way the songs are performed. I'm a great fan of Paul Williams' cinematic work, especially the cult masterpiece, Phantom of the Paradise (1974), but in Bugsy Malone it's distracting to hear the voices of Williams and other adult singers coming out of the mouths of the young stars. The songs themselves are often quite good, and the ensemble dance sequences are really well done, but you might or might not find the dubbing a deal breaker, depending on your response to the movie as a whole. Some of the more memorable songs include "Bugsy Malone," "Fat Sam's Grand Slam," and "My Name is Tallulah," while the chorus girls and Sam's gang ( particularly in the number "Bad Guys") do some of the most impressive dancing. Williams' work on the picture earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song Score, so the dubbing did not prevent his work as a songwriter from being appreciated at the time of the film's original release.

Jodie Foster, of course, also starred in Taxi Driver (1976) that same year and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance; she would go on to win Best Actress Oscars for The Accused (1989) and The Silence of the Lambs (1992). Scott Baio made his big screen debut as Bugsy but is probably best known for his roles on the TV series Happy Days and Charles in Charge. For more movie music from Paul Williams, you can't go wrong with The Muppet Movie (1979), and for more musicals from director Alan Parker, see Fame (1980), Pink Floyd - The Wall (1982), The Commitments (1991), and Evita (1996). If you enjoy gangster spoofs, check out the 1984 comedy Johnny Dangerously, starring Michael Keaton.

Classic Films in Focus: BARBARELLA (1968)

I have frequently declared my affection for movies that are more entertaining than they are good, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that I enjoy the bizarre spectacle of Barbarella (1968) even if it makes no effort to make any sense. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by Roger Vadim, this adaptation of a French comic book is very much of its era, with sex on its mind and shag carpet covering every inch of its hedonistic heart. It doesn't take itself seriously, and the viewer shouldn't take it seriously, either, but its silliness is part of its appeal, along with the undeniable charms of the very lovely Jane Fonda as its eponymous heroine.

Fonda plays the enlightened space navigatrix who ventures onto a barbaric planet in search of the missing scientist, Durand-Durand (Milo O'Shea). Startled at first by the primitive sexual practices of the locals, she soon develops an appreciation for old-fashioned coitus and proceeds to enjoy encounters with a hairy child catcher (Ugo Tognazzi) and a beautiful blind angel (John Phillip Law) before reverting to her own culture's use of pills for a mind melding tryst with the freedom fighter Dildano (David Hemmings). She eventually makes her way to a city of pure evil where both Durand-Durand and the sadistic ruler, known as The Great Tyrant (Anita Pallenberg), attempt to destroy her and her new friends.

That's pretty much it for the plot, but along the way there are delightfully mad scenes that one only finds in truly weird science fiction films, like the opening spacesuit strip tease, the feral children and their toothy, flesh-eating dolls, the sled pulled by a giant manta ray, the BDSM city where dissipated locals have orgies and smoke "essence of man" from huge hookahs, and the seriously kinky looking pink spaceship that Barbarella pilots. You also get Marcel Marceau in a speaking role as Professor Ping, a casting choice that perfectly sums up the movie's illogical logic. Try to analyze it too much and the whole thing collapses like a house of cards, which makes it difficult to argue whether Barbarella is sexist for Fonda's objectification or feminist for liberating its heroine from mid-century ideals about female chastity and monogamy. It's most likely both at the same time, just like it's both a really bad movie and a really fun one for the right sort of audience, which is true about most pictures that achieve cult status. 

Whatever one's critical opinion of Barbarella, its title as a cult classic cannot be disputed, thanks to its own wacky but memorable images and its influence on the iconic 80s band, Duran Duran, who named their group for its villain and even doubled down on the connection with the 1997 single, "Electric Barbarella." The picture provides an intriguing alternative to the male dominated science fiction adventures that preceded it in both comics and film, including Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, but it also draws from a deep well of influence in the literary and cinematic history of women's sexual escapades, whether that be a pornographic classic like Fanny Hill (1748) or a Pre-Code picture like Madam Satan (1930). Jane Fonda would go on to earn seven Oscar nominations for Best Actress with two wins, which better fit with her legacy as the daughter of Henry Fonda, but her performance as Barbarella is no less entertaining for being out of line with the rest of her career, though it does overlap in several ways with her work in Cat Ballou (1965), another genre comedy that never takes itself seriously. 

If Barbarella is your idea of a good time, revel in the weird charms of other cult sci-fi classics like The Blob (1958), Fiend Without a Face (1958), The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962), or The Horror of Party Beach (1964). Terry Southern, who wrote the screenplay for Barbarella, earned Oscar nominations for his work on Dr. Strangelove (1964) and Easy Rider (1969), and he wrote the original novel that was adapted into the sex-fueled 1968 film, Candy, where you'll find a host of familiar stars and Anita Pallenberg. Roger Vadim, who was married to Fonda when they made Barbarella, also directed the 1960 vampire picture, Blood and Roses, which I recommend if you're a fan of variations on Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla.

Night of the Living (LEGO) Dead!

We're still in the grip of this endless pandemic, so I've been spending a lot of my time with my massive LEGO collection, where my love for classic horror movies often provides inspiration. Here's a zombie horde that would make George A. Romero happy! The zombie cheerleader is one of my all-time favorite LEGO figures.

If our real world viral catastrophe has you bored and stuck at home this summer, escape to the gruesome fun of classic zombie movies like White Zombie (1932), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), or Night of the Living Dead (1968). Masks won't help, but you'll definitely want to keep at least six feet between you and the walking dead!

They're dead, they're underfed, and they're looking for tiny plastic brains.

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE on Shudder

I first saw Phantom of the Paradise (1974) a few years ago and immediately became obsessed with it; I downloaded the entire soundtrack and listened to it constantly for weeks. I was delighted to be able to revisit the film this week thanks to the Shudder streaming service, where the film is currently available. If you have a subscription to Shudder, put Phantom of the Paradise on your watchlist and make time for it while it's still in the current rotation of offerings.

My second viewing of the picture left me just as impressed with the wry dark humor and literate sense of horror that the picture conveys. Brian De Palma's cult classic holds up extremely well, especially because it deals so provocatively with the same timeless themes that inspired Faust, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Picture of Dorian Gray. This time I introduced my eighteen year old to the film, and she was just as entranced as I was; I'm hoping she will spread appreciation for it like a virus when she heads to college this fall.

You could easily build a whole mini film festival or graduate course around Phantom of the Paradise, starting with the 1925 Phantom of the Opera and F.W. Murnau's 1926 adaptation of Faust. (For a really short course on the Faust themes, you can also just watch the 1978 appearance of Alice Cooper on The Muppet Show - it covers all the basics.) Add in some later Phantom adaptations - the 1943 version with Claude Rains or even the 1989 version with Robert Englund - and then mix in some other great horror films depicting disfigured artists, like House of Wax (1953). One of the many great things about Phantom of the Paradise is the way it evokes and dovetails with so many other films.

While I appreciate the niche focus of Shudder, I'm often disappointed by its lack of classic horror; the appearance of Phantom of the Paradise has helped to make up for that limitation, and I hope this brilliantly bizarre cult favorite will remain in its catalog long enough for lots of new fans to find it.

FLASH GORDON and Sam Jones in Huntsville

The 2018 Huntsville Comic Con opened with a screening of the 1980 cult classic Flash Gordon with a Q&A featuring special guest Sam Jones, who played the title character in the film. An excited audience gathered on Thursday, March 29th, to see the movie on the big screen and ask its star a few questions.

The screening itself was a big success, with a good crowd for a town like Huntsville and an excellent sound system that blasted the Queen soundtrack in all its glory. The vibrant colors of the sets and costumes still pop, and the audience cheered as Flash played football with a giant egg, fought future 007 Timothy Dalton on a hazardous tilting platform, and saved the Earth from Max von Sydow's sneering Emperor Ming.

Nearly forty years after its original release, Flash Gordon continues to be a campy sci-fi delight, with stand out performances from Dalton, von Sydow, Brian Blessed, and Topol. Other memorable actors in the cast include Melody Anderson as Dale, Ornella Muti as Princess Aura, Peter Wyngarde as Klytus, and Richard O'Brien as Fico. Along with Dale and Dr. Zarkov, Flash travels to an alien world and fights to save his own planet after Ming the Merciless makes Earth his latest plaything. While Ming lusts after Dale, Flash struggles to unite the warring factions of Ming's court in a rebellion against the tyrant, but his efforts are complicated by Princess Aura's attraction to him and Prince Barin's resulting jealousy. The heroic adventures conclude in a grand battle to take down Ming and rescue Dale from her forced marriage to him. Queen's earworm theme for the film punctuates key moments with campy enthusiasm, while Danilo Donati's costume designs fill the eye with vivid color and quite a bit of female flesh. The final effect is more Barbarella than Star Wars, full of S&M undertones and visual hyperbole, but clearly reveling in both.

After the screening, Sam Jones took the stage to answer questions from the audience, but he was less interested in talking about the making of the film and more focused on his personal life, later career, and thoughts about acting in general. He discussed his appearance in Ted (2012) and his current film project, The Silent Natural, which does not yet have a release date. Those looking forward to an in-depth talk about the origins of Flash Gordon, its history as a comic strip and serial, and personal anecdotes about Timothy Dalton, Max von Sydow, and Brian Blessed were disappointed, but the audience was treated to Jones' positive opinion of Steven Seagal and lingering grudge against Arnold Schwarzenegger.

For those who really want to learn more about Flash Gordon, the Blu-ray release features an interview with Alex Ross and the first episode of the 1936 serial starring Buster Crabbe in the title role. You can also explore the history of the comic strip online. Empire Online has a detailed article about the 1980 film called "Gordon's alive! The untold story of Flash Gordon."

Cult Classics: PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974)

Phantom of the Paradise (1974) is Brian de Palma's musical cult tribute to a number of iconic horror tales, most notably The Phantom of the Opera and Faust, although it also functions as a scathing satire of the music industry and its obsession with sex, fame, and eternal youth. As both writer and director, de Palma gets to make this picture his own weirdly delightful creature, which succeeds at being bizarre while also being surprisingly good. Songs and a devilish performance by Paul Williams enhance the movie's appeal, but each actor here has his or her own charms, especially William Finley, Jessica Harper, and Gerrit Graham. Fans of the many iterations of either Phantom or Faust should not miss this sly, gloriously excessive rock & roll interpretation of themes near and dear to the heart of every classic horror fan.

Williams brings fame and ruin as the reclusive recording mogul Swan, who steals a Faust cantata from the gifted but naive Winslow Leach (William Finley). When Winslow pursues him, Swan has Winslow thrown in prison, where he is abused and driven mad until he finally escapes, and, in a fit of rage, attacks the facility where Swan's records are produced. Horribly disfigured as a result, Winslow haunts Swan's new venue, The Paradise, where he is drawn into an unholy deal to finish the Faust cantata if the beautiful young Phoenix (Jessica Harper) can sing it.

De Palma mixes the plot elements of both Phantom and Faust in his triangle of principal characters; Winslow is most obviously the damaged genius, with shades of Claude Rains' Phantom in the 1943 film, but he's also a Faustian character who makes a deal with Swan's devil, making Swan himself both Faust and Mephistopheles. Phoenix is Faust's Gretchen and the Phantom's Christine, although she, too, nurses a Faustian longing for fame that Swan can exploit. Much of this mingling is inherent in Gaston Leroux's original novel about the Phantom, where the opera being performed by the company is, of course, Faust. Not content, however, to continue the blending of these two texts, de Palma also adds elements of The Picture of Dorian Gray and Frankenstein and several Gothic flourishes straight out of Edgar Allan Poe. The Frankenstein homage gets particularly gruesome and delightful when Goth rockers build lead singer Beef (Gerrit Graham) out of fake audience body parts against a decidedly German Expressionist backdrop. The result, a sexually transgressive blond hunk covered in glittery gold, will look familiar to fans of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), but Phantom watchers will also recognize him as the diva who must be removed from the opera so that the Phantom's chosen singer can take the stage.

The film's other main objective is skewering the music industry, which seems like an easy mark. Rock & roll in particular abounds in opportunities for Faustian bargains, where desperate people trade their bodies, their youth, and even their souls for fame. If Winslow is naive the first time he encounters Swan, he never learns enough to walk away until it's much too late. Even the most minor characters reveal a disturbing willingness to prostitute themselves, from the scantily clad honeys to the constantly changing Juicy Fruits. The band provides an amusing survey of the history of rock, starting out as 50s style greasers, then transforming into Beach Boys clones, and later reappearing to support Beef in Gothic rock garb. Many of the film's musical in-jokes involve Paul Williams, who wrote the songs for the film and then plays the character who steals those songs from the protagonist; he also provides the singing voice for the Phantom during the Phantom's theme halfway through the film. Ironically for a film about the dark side of the industry, Phantom of the Paradise ends up demonstrating the beauty that can result from it. Williams' best songs are haunting ruminations on the Faustian theme of losing yourself in pursuit of something greater, particularly the Phantom's theme, "The Hell of It," "Special to Me," "Old Souls," and "Faust."

Phantom of the Paradise bombed back in 1974, but it has a devoted following now, and it's easy to see why people love this film. Despite its box office failure, it earned an Oscar nomination for Best Music for Paul Williams and George Aliceson Tipton and a Golden Globe nomination for Williams for Best Score. For more early de Palma work featuring William Finley, try The Wedding Party (1969), Sisters (1972), or The Fury (1978). Look for Jessica Harper in de Palma's Suspiria (1977), Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), or Pennies from Heaven (1981). Paul Williams turns up in all sorts of places, from Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) to Smokey and the Bandit (1977); he even provides the voice for The Penguin in Batman: The Animated Series. For many fans of a certain age, however, he's best known as the composer for The Muppet Movie (1979), and we have him to thank for "The Rainbow Connection."


*** You can rent Phantom of the Paradise on Google Play or Amazon Instant Video for about $4, depending on the format. If, like me, you fall for the film, you can download the original soundtrack for $10 on iTunes (which you should definitely do).

Classic Films in Focus: THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1962)

A low-budget cult classic, The Brain that Wouldn't Die (1962) offers all the twisted delights one could ask for in a science fiction horror movie of this type. It's sleazy, gruesome, and short, with a parade of scantily clad women and a mad surgeon hellbent on attaching his girlfriend's severed head to the best body he can find. Although its cut corners and abrupt ending keep it solidly in the realm of the B movie, The Brain that Wouldn't Die benefits from some surprisingly effective acting and several creative, if ghoulish, approaches to its material. Fans of drive-in horror won't need the popular Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment of this particular picture to appreciate its many macabre charms.

Jason Evers (billed as Herb) stars as transplant surgeon Dr. Bill Cortner, who attempts strange experiments to advance his science in spite of the warnings of his mentor father. When Bill's girlfriend, Jan (Virginia Leith), is conveniently decapitated in a car wreck caused by Bill, the obsessed surgeon grabs the head and revives it in his secret lab. Jan doesn't appreciate being kept alive in this state, but she finds she has gained telepathic powers from the serum Bill uses to sustain her, and she forms a bond with a hideous failed experiment that Bill keeps locked in the lab's closet. Bill, meanwhile, roams the town looking for an attractive body to go with Jan's head. He finds disfigured body model Peggy (Marilyn Hanold), whose scarred face and perfect figure make her a seemingly perfect fit for Bill's insane plans.

The film packs a wealth of provocative material into its 82 minute package, and its science fiction elements reflect both its era and its cinematic roots. Brain movies proved popular in the 1950s and 1960s, with pictures like Donovan's Brain (1953) and Fiend without a Face (1958) exploring different aspects of the theme. The Brain that Wouldn't Die definitely cashes in on that trend, but it also borrows heavily from the 1930s Frankenstein films. Bill's first creation is very like Frankenstein's creature, a menagerie of stolen parts grafted together and condemned to a tortured mockery of life, while Jan becomes the Bride, intended not for the monster but for Bill himself. The quickie B movie lacks the class of James Whale's 1931 Frankenstein, but, given that director's very morbid sense of humor, it's not hard to imagine Whale loving the bizarre spectacle of "Jan in the Pan." The 1962 feature also has the freedom to go a lot farther with its gore, although later TV and video versions often cut the bloodiest scenes. The death of Bill's assistant, Kurt (played by Anthony La Penna under the name Leslie Daniel), revels in macabre irony, even if its effects elements seem simplistic by modern horror standards. The movie also reveals a prurient interest in women's bodies, with Bill cruising strip joints and city streets for potential donors to Jan's reconstruction. He looks them over carefully, the camera following his gaze as he assesses all the key parts of each woman's figure. Luckily, the plot also adopts a female revenge angle that justly punishes Bill for his lecherous hubris.

There are many glaring flaws in The Brain that Wouldn't Die, including a car accident that doesn't actually show a car, a head that can laugh without lungs, and an ending that leaves one particularly obvious thread dangling, but the performances themselves are much more energetic than one often finds in movies of this kind. Evers has just the right obsessive conviction as the crazed surgeon; we only wonder why Jan likes him in the first place, since he seems pretty far gone from the start. Even in the slower opening scenes, which lay out the medical explanations and ethical questions for the transplant experiments to follow, Evers gives Bill an intense, driven quality that also reveals his deep-rooted psychological need to rebel against and surpass his more cautious father. The creepy appeal of the picture, however, really depends on Virginia Leith's bodiless vengeance as Jan. When we first see her, she glows with adoration for Bill, but her conventional personality vanishes along with her limbs. As a head, she becomes something unnatural, powerful, and filled with seething hatred for the egomaniac who forces her to live. Leith's husky whispers and piercing laughter dominate every scene in the lab, and they're what the viewer will remember after the final shot ends.

For a freakish triple feature, follow up with The Man with Two Brains (1983) and Re-Animator (1985). Joseph Green, who directed The Brain that Wouldn't Die, was primarily a distributor of low-budget pictures rather than a filmmaker, but his one hit cult wonder has ensured his place in horror history. Jason Evers was primarily a television actor, but he turns up in The Green Berets (1968), The Illustrated Man (1969), and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971). Look for Virginia Leith in Stanley Kubrick's Fear and Desire (1953), Violent Saturday (1955), and A Kiss Before Dying (1956).

In February of 2015, Wired ran this interesting article about the reanimation genre of horror and The Lazarus Effect (2015); The Brain that Wouldn't Die gets plenty of credit for its influence on subsequent films.

ELVIRA'S HAUNTED HILLS (2001) Have Eyes for Vincent Price

Serendipity led me to watch the 2001 horror-comedy Elvira's Haunted Hills this week, immediately after several nights running of Roger Corman classics. The Elvira picture popped up on Hulu Plus; I wasn't planning to watch it but figured "Why not?"since I like Elvira's oddball style well enough that I own the Elvira: Scared Stiff pinball machine (come on over sometime and you can play, too). I hadn't seen Haunted Hills before, but imagine my delight when it turned out to be a loving parody of two movies I had just seen: House of Usher (1960) and The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)!

Seriously, Richard Matheson really deserves a writing credit for Elvira's Haunted Hills because whole chunks of dialogue are lifted directly from the older movies. The plot splices together the Roger Corman versions of two classic stories by Edgar Allan Poe, with much more emphasis on Corman than Poe. There's some Dracula (1931) thrown in for good measure, along with a string of other gags that mock familiar films and tropes. The result is sort of a mess, but it's a funny mess, especially if you recognize the source material and the way the Elvira film turns it to comedic purposes.

Elvira plays herself, naturally, roaming around 19th century Carpathia en route to Paris and her showbiz career. Along with her French maid, Zou Zou (Mary Jo Smith), Elvira accepts a carriage ride from randy Dr. Bradley (Scott Atkinson) and ends up at Castle Hellsubus, where she meets Vladimere Hellsubus (Richard O'Brien), his wife (Mary Scheer), and his consumptive niece (Heather Hopper). Vladimere suffers from acute sensitivity and an obsession with his dead wife, Elura, whom Elvira happens to resemble. Weird mayhem ensues, along with a fair bit of randy humor, which is just what one expects from Elvira.

This is goofy, low-budget stuff, but it's clear that Cassandra Peterson and her director, Sam Irvin, share a deep love for the Corman Poe movies. The picture is even dedicated to Vincent Price, who played the lead characters in Corman's films. Richard O'Brien, best known for The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), offers his own take on the Price characters but certainly seems to be having a lot of fun. He looks more like Nosferatu but doubles down on psychological infirmities with Roderick Usher's hypersensitivity and Nicholas Medina's morbid obsession with his deceased bride. The wan Lady Roxana, aka "Catalepsy Poster Child," wickedly skewers the Poe motif of the dying maiden, while Lady Ema takes her cues from Cloris Leachman's Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein (1974) but still evokes the Gothic wives of the Corman pictures.

For the best experience with Elvira's Haunted Hills, do watch House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum first, perhaps over the Halloween weekend. Then you can really revel in the allusions and jokes the way God and Cassandra Peterson intended.

You wanted to see the pinball machine, didn't you?

Strange Stuff on Warner Archive Instant

Last night I picked a double feature of freakish fare from the streaming catalog at Warner Archive Instant. I'm intentionally seeking out more obscure classic horror films in the hopes of getting a collection of reviews together by the fall of this year, but last night's movies were so unusual that it might take me a few days to figure out what to say about them in a full-length review format.

Now, Warner Archive Instant devotes a whole category to Mondo/Cult films, so they like the weird stuff, but these picks came from the regular Horror section. I don't know how long they'll stay in the current lineup, but if you want to revel in the bizarre spectacles described below then head on over to the Instant site and check them out there.

When Killer Iguanas Attack!

First up was The Show (1927), a Tod Browning silent starring John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, and Renee Adoree. The human actors are all great in this creepy melodrama set in a Budapest carnival, but they have a scene-stealing costar in the large iguana who stands in for a venomous Gila monster. Seriously, the iguana attack scene near the end was so funny I almost fell off the couch. My howls of laughter attracted the attention of the my daughter, who then wanted to see the scene for herself. We ended up replaying it twice. Watching Lionel Barrymore locked in a closet with an angry iguana is one of those priceless moments of movie-watching only a classic film fan can really appreciate. The rest of the movie is menacing, tragic, and possessed of a weirdness typical of Browning's sensibility, but the iguana scenes are the ones you'll remember.

The Demon Bogart of Fleet Street?

My next feature was The Return of Doctor X (1939), which really doesn't have anything to do with the original Doctor X (1932) but does offer the one and only appearance of Humphrey Bogart in a horror movie. Through the whole movie I kept wondering, "Why is Humphrey Bogart dressed up like Sweeney Todd?" Actually, that question ought to be, "Why is Sweeney Todd dressed up like Humphrey Bogart?" since Bogart did it almost 70 years before Johnny Depp. I'm not the first person to notice the resemblance, either. Jim Emerson posted about it in 2007, when Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street made its debut in theaters. If you have ever wondered what Bogie would look like as a pale-faced, blood-lusting vampire, here's your chance to find out. The Return of Doctor X is by no means a great movie, but I had a lot of fun watching it, and Bogart's first appearance - cuddling a bunny?! - is quite the spectacle.

Now that you know I'm on the prowl for unusual or lesser-known horror classics, feel free to send me some suggestions! In the meantime, I'll be checking out The Cyclops (1956), The Hypnotic Eye (1960), and Frankenstein 1970 (1958) on the Warner site.

Classic Films in Focus: CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)

Herk Harvey made Carnival of Souls (1962) in three weeks, with a budget of around $30,000. He came up with the idea, raised the money, directed the picture, helped write the screenplay, and even appeared in it, which says something about how much this production was his personal baby. Despite his love for the project, it flopped, even as a B horror picture on the drive-in circuit. Today, Carnival of Souls is regarded as a "cult classic," which means that people who weren't even born in 1962 caught the film on some late-night television airing and fell in love with it, partly for its charms but more likely for its sheer clunky weirdness. I won't call Carnival of Souls a great movie, or even a good one, but it doesn't exist in that "so bad it's good" territory, either, since its creator seems to take his work very seriously, indeed. There is, however, an artistic vision at work in the film, and the moments in which we glimpse that help to account for the movie’s reputation among certain groups of classic horror fans.

The movie is much more interested in images than story, but it does hang the pictures together on a very thin narrative thread. Organist Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) is involved in a car accident at the opening of the film, the result of a drag race between the female driver of Mary's car and some boys who pull up alongside them at a stoplight. The girls' car ends up in the river, and, long after the searchers assume it's too late, a bedraggled Mary wanders out of the water. People comment on her strange behavior, but she has a job offer in Utah, so she heads out, and along the way she begins to see visions of a frightening, ghoulish man. The visions become more unsettling after she arrives at her destination, and other strange things happen, as well. Nobody else seems to see the things Mary can see, and everyone who meets her is struck by her cold, anti-social demeanor. Drawn to an abandoned carnival ground, Mary hopes to dispel her rising hysteria by confronting her fears.

The performances in the movie don't merit much attention, overall, since Harvey used local talent as much as possible to save money, and it really shows, especially in the character of the doctor. Candace Hilligoss is fine as Mary; she seems stunned through most of the movie, and that's the right note for her to strike. She possesses an unearthly, empty-eyed kind of beauty, and she holds herself like a bird, nervous and fragile. Harvey delights in close-up shots of her delicate, shell-shocked face. Sidney Berger reeks of sexism and lust as Mary's neighbor, Johnny, which would be great if the movie knew what to do with him, but he simply vanishes from the plot. There never was a horror film character more marked for a just and terrible death, but Harvey doesn't seem to be conscious of the genre's conventions in this regard. Poetic justice could easily be served by having Johnny go out to the carnival with Mary and be properly disposed of by the lake ghouls, but, sadly, it doesn't happen.

The chief ghoul, the one who haunts Mary throughout the film, is played by Harvey himself, and I can't fault his performance, such as it is, since he is only seen in flashes and never speaks. He leers at the camera quite convincingly, and he looks perfectly creepy in the make-up. In fact, we could stand to see rather more of him and his fellow ghouls than we do; they are a strange, shuffling horde with vacant expressions, but they are really more interesting than most of the live people who populate the rest of the movie.

There are plenty of people who love Carnival of Souls, and they are not necessarily wrong to admire it. Given its shoestring budget and slapdash production, it achieves more than one might expect, and Harvey clearly had a vision of creating a dreamy, unsettling excursion through the borderlands between life and death. He manages some striking images, mainly of his heroine and himself, and I do love those shots of the lake zombies rising slowly from the water. With more money and time, Harvey might have made a really good picture, something more akin to the nightmarish fantasies of foreign film luminaries like Ingmar Bergman or Georges Franju, to whom Harvey is rather optimistically compared by some commentators. As it is, the film drags, the narrative doesn't quite come together, and much of the acting is wooden, if not laughable, and yet there are moments when the camera captures something better, a fleeting idea of the vision that lived in Herk Harvey's imagination.

Whatever its flaws, Carnival of Souls makes a perfect movie to run on mute in the background at your Halloween party. If low-budget, cult horror classics are your thing, try Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Halloween Music for Classic Horror Fans

Plenty of songs have been inspired by classic horror films. In fact, you can easily make a whole playlist of them to get you in the mood for the upcoming chills and thrills of the spectral season. Here are a few of my favorite songs that trace their origins back to classic horror movies.

"The Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett - Of course, it's the obvious choice for Halloween, with references to all of the old Universal monsters and creatures. Like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” you just can’t have a Halloween playlist without it.

"Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus - Almost 10 minutes long, this Goth classic pays homage to horror star Bela Lugosi, best known as the iconic vampire in Dracula (1931).

"Pinhead" by The Ramones - Inspired by Tod Browning's Freaks (1932), this punk rock classic quotes some of the film's most famous lines, "We accept you...One of us." Also check out their song, "Pet Sematary," which is one of my personal favorites for this time of year. It’s spooky and mournful with just enough rocker edge.

"Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein or Dracula" by The Diamonds - Like "The Monster Mash," this song from the 1950s refers to lots of well known monsters and creatures, but its humorous twist is more disturbing because the speaker in the song finds out that his girlfriend only feels romantic when they're watching horror movies!

"Boris Karloff" by The Barbarellatones - If Bauhaus can pay tribute to Bela, then Boris also needs some love. The band gets added points for having a name inspired by the cult classic, Barbarella (1968), starring Jane Fonda. Karloff made many great classic horror movies, among them Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932).

"I Was a Teenage Werewolf" by The Cramps - These punk rockers really loved old horror movies, including the 1957 film of the same name starring a very young Michael Landon. Plenty of later songs take their cue from either this film or The Cramps song about it, including several about Remus Lupin from the Harry Potter novels.

"Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon - This popular song was inspired by The Werewolf of London (1935), which set the tone for many werewolf movies to come.

"I Walked with a Zombie" by Roky Erickson and The Aliens - Horror maestro Val Lewton is best remembered today for the original Cat People (1942), but Roky Erickson and The Aliens give up some love for Lewton's take on Jane Eyre - with zombies! - in this song that shares the name of the 1943 film.

"Eyes Without a Face" by Billy Idol - 80s punk star Idol makes direct reference to the 1960 horror masterpiece by director Georges Franju; the backup singers during the chorus are actually saying the name of the film in its original French, Les Yeux Sans Visage.

"Nosferatu" by Blue Oyster Cult - Nobody can be surprised that the band best known for "Don't Fear the Reaper" liked classic horror films. Here, they take their inspiration from the 1922 silent film from F.W. Murnau. The song actually retells the story of the movie.

"Return of the Fly" by The Misfits - The Misfits loved classic horror a lot, and they recorded quite a few songs inspired by their favorite movies, including this one, which refers to the 1959 Vincent Price film. Try "Die, Die My Darling," inspired by Tallulah Bankhead's last film, or "Abominable Dr. Phibes," also a Vincent Price picture, for more of their horror tributes.

"The Creature from the Black Lagoon" by Dave Edmunds - Old school rocker Edmunds sings this tribute to the aquatic member of the classic monster gang; the title comes from the 1954 film.

"Peter Lorre" by Satan's Pilgrims - Don't let the band's name fool you. This is a surf rock tribute to the classic horror star and great character actor. The very idea of a surf rock song being named after Peter Lorre is wonderful. Catch Lorre himself in M (1931), Mad Love (1935), and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), as well as in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942).

"Ballad of Dwight Fry" by Alice Cooper - Even though Cooper leaves the last letter off of Dwight Frye's name, this song still merits attention for its celebration of the great horror actor, most remembered for his portrayal of Renfield in the 1931 version of Dracula. Frye also appeared in Frankenstein (1931) and The Vampire Bat (1933). Cooper's song adopts the perspective of a Renfield sort of character, and it’s a must-have for fans of either the actor or the Goth rock star.

Need more? Try Florence + The Machine’s “Howl,” which quotes The Wolf Man (1941), Ookla the Mok’s “Bride of Wolfman,” and vampire-inspired hits like Sting’s “Moon Over Bourbon Street” and Concrete Blonde’s “Bloodletting.” Also, let me know in the comments section about your favorite songs inspired by classic horror films!

Classic Films in Focus: CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM EATER (1962)

Directed by low-budget master Albert Zugsmith, Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962) bears only the vaguest resemblance to Thomas De Quincey’s 1821 autobiographical account of the same name. Actually, very little opium use takes place in the film, but the one extended sequence of drug-induced nightmare more or less justifies the title. Touted by Warner Archive as “sex, drugs, and Vincent Price!” this is a fun cult horror classic for fans of the iconic star, although it certainly swims pretty deep in Orientalist hysteria.

Price plays Gilbert De Quincey, the ostensible descendent of Thomas. Gilbert is a mysterious Westerner with a penchant for Asian philosophy, and in 19^th century Chinatown he involves himself in a dangerous tong war fueled by opium and a secretive sex trade. Gilbert intends to stop the slave auctions where wealthy Chinese men buy “wives” kidnapped from Asian countries, but he finds himself powerfully attracted to Ruby Low (Linda Ho), an ambitious woman who uses the auctions to her own advantage.

Price himself doesn’t disappoint, although he is relatively reserved compared to many of his better-known roles. His rich, deep voice suits the hypnotic voiceover well, and he has some excellent scenes of action and peril. Most of his leading ladies are attractive if not especially memorable, but tiny Yvonne Moray steals the picture from Price every time she appears. A veteran of The Terror of Tiny Town (1938) and The Wizard of Oz (1939), Moray gets the movie’s best lines, and her scenes are certainly the funniest and most interesting of the whole picture. Her character, a “pretty Chinese midget,” is not one you’ll find in many other films, and really I think she makes the movie with her huge personality packed into a pint-sized body.

Price’s Gilbert is the only Western character we see in most of the film, although he does meet up with a freeloading sailor in the opium den. The Asian characters, not surprisingly, conform to Orientalist stereotypes, and the slave auction ultimately plays out as an erotic, exotic floor show, with plenty of gyrating body parts and scantily clad girls. Zugsmith made his reputation as a maker of exploitation films, so none of this will come as a shock if you know the genre and its conventions. Just don’t go into it looking for anything progressive in terms of racial or sexual images.

Albert Zugsmith also directed Sex Kittens Go to College (1960), Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1964), and Violated! (1974), but he deserves more serious credit as the producer of Written on the Wind (1956), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), and Orson Welles’ legendary noir thriller, Touch of Evil (1958). For more of Vincent Price’s work from this period, check out Roger Corman horror classics like Tales of Terror (1962) and The Raven (1963). Confessions of an Opium Eater is currently available on DVD from Warner Archive.

Disclaimer: Warner Archive has provided a review copy of this film free of charge to the reviewer. The reviewer makes no promise of a positive or negative review to any studio based on the receipt of review copies or any other material goods.