The House Of Secrets (1936)

House Of Secrets is another example of a bad movie about a man who attains a mansion in the will of a deceased relative. Why did they feel the need to use this plot over and over again? Its almost as if producers from the 30's up until the 70's were like... Okay lets make a really boring movie. I know, lets do the ole inheritance thing again. That will be sure to bore the audience.

 Unlike most of the other films that bare this old tired plot, House Of Secrets is not a haunted house movie and there is no murderous phantom roaming around through secret passages while strategically knocking off the characters. This one is nothing more then a crime mystery which takes place in an old mansion.

When a street smart American inherits an old house in England he is kept off of his own property by a woman who he falls in love with at first sight. The pretty blond and her father have been holding up in The House Of Secrets and refuse to allow the new owner of the home entry into his estate. Next a bunch of gangsters pop up and further keep the man away. When the police step into the matter they too give him a hard time and do everything in their will to keep him off of his own property. Its not until our unlucky main man bumps into a fellow American friend who happens to be a detective who helps him learn the mystery of The House Of Secrets.

The whole thing is pretty forgettable and there is really nothing interesting happening. The movie is extremely repetitive and it becomes annoying very early on. The entire movie pretty much consists of our main character trying to get into his mansion and then being forced off of the property in various different ways. While it is supposed to be a mystery/drama it comes off more comedic then anything else with the unbarring repetition. I personally spent more time watching the time run thru on my DVD players digital interface then looking at the screen. That's how boring this one really is. The dialogue is filled with typical 1930's jargon and I suppose that might get a chuckle or two out of some viewers but the characters are predictable and over all they are pretty lame.

House Of Secrets is filled with one cliche after another and unless you need a sedative I would recommend staying away from this one. Its a sleeper.

 

Come Dance With Me (1959)

Brigitte Bardot looks amazing in this one and Come Dance With Me is a nice change of pace from the average sexy comedy that we are used to seeing from the French sex symbol.

Bardot falls in love with an attractive dentist and marries against her fathers will. The good looking young couple find themselves in a fight and both go their own ways on the town. Briggite Bardot goes to a raunchy strip club and hubby goes to a night club where he meets Anita Flores played by the beautiful 50's pin-up Dawn Addams. The stunning red-head seduces the young groom in a very much appreciated scene of gratuitous nudity. It should be illegal to have two women as beautiful as Brigitte Bardot and Dawn Addams together in the same movie. Anyway, Anita's real lover is lurking in the shadows photographing everything and Bardot's husband is caught on camera with tit in mouth. When the red-headed beauty sets up a time and place for the blackmail money transaction hubby finds her dead and cold on the floor at her dance studio.

Things get worse and worse for the young doctor from here on. A witness has seen him in the room standing above Anita's dead body and in a panic the accused takes off running. Together Brigitte Bardot and her husband try to solve the mystery of Anita Flores murder.

Bardot takes on a job at the dance studio and searches for clues. We are treated to many nice short skirt dance scenes from our favorite sex-kitten and there is not one frame in the movie where she isn't an image of perfection but Come Dance With Me works well on its own as a mystery. Of course the hot women is an added bonus and I admit I probably would never have seen this movie if it weren't for miss Bardot but I am very glad I did.

 This one comes complete with some daring subject matter for a 50's movie which you would never see in an American film such as homosexuals, lesbians, transvestites and comes complete with male and female nudity, murder, bitch slapping and a dude with the biggest ears in cinematic history. If a guy with ears this big can still get girls like this it just goes to prove that there is still chance for me yet.

Come Dance With Me is a must for all Brigitte Bardot collectors. Its sexy, funny and works very well as a mystery and a love story at the same time. It can be a bit silly from time to time seeing Bardot act as a detective but its nice to watch her do anything.

Rear Window (1954)

Ever sit home with nothing better to do then stare out the window? Well when ever I feel this way I like to sit home and watch James Stewart stare out his window in what is probably my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie.

James Stewart (Vertigo, Rope) plays a magazine photographer who broke his leg on the job. Now he sits home in his cast and watches his neighbors fight, make love and bicker from his Rear Window. The things he sees from his apartment is probably better then anything that is playing in the movie theater unless of course if the newest Hitchcock film is out. Things get really crazy when Mr. Stewart starts piecing together a murder from his very own apartment. The beautiful Grace Kelly is Jimmy Stewart's best girl and it is not long before she is pulled into the mystery. "We must be two of the most horrible ghouls I have ever seen".

This movie really has a little bit of everything in it. Its got the romantic stuff between our two stars, suspense, drama, an excellent story, great acting, great camera work, mystery, bikini clad blond babes and of course it also dishes out a fair amount of the expected Alfred Hitchcock dark comedy. I personally relate this one best to Rope. Not so much in the plot department but more so how it was executed. Hitchcock has a way of taking a very simple premise and making it the most interesting thing you will ever see. Rope takes place almost entirely in one room and in that one room there is a world of interest. The Rear Window is very similar although there are many more exterior shots in this one. Still the idea is simple. A man looks out a window. A man sees something. Then the man reacts. This is basically done over and over again for 112 minutes but every single second of it is brilliant not to mention very interesting.

The Rear Window is one of those movies that never gets old. Just as James Stewart can never get enough of watching his neighbors I can never get bored of the movie. I first saw this one as a young kid with my parents and it blew my mind. All these years later I was taken back to that first experience when I was recently lucky enough to catch this thing in the theater. Seeing it on the big screen was everything I expected it would be. The detail, the cinematography, the Technicolor. It was all there. The Rear Window is a must see for anybody who digs Psycho or The Birds. It is one of the many faces of Hitchcock and in my opinion it is one of the best.

Diabolique (1955)

The very end of Diabolique ends with this quotation "Don't be diobalical yourself and reveal the end of this movie to your friends" well I am about to do just that, so if you have not seen this movie you would probably want to just skip over this one blog post because this is nothing more then one big spoiler.

Diabolique is brilliant in every sense of the word. Alfred Hitchcock himself wanted to direct this movie but was beat to the punch. It is hard to watch Diabolique and not think Hitchcock and fans of his films have no choice but to like this movie.

It tells of two female school teachers who are sick of the abusive man in their life. One of the women is married to him and the other is simply his "mistress". Either way the two women bond in their misery and decide to kill the man that is to blame for their pain and when I say pain I mean both physical and emotional.

They plot out an elaborate yet brilliant murder. First they drug him. He falls into a deep deep sleep. Next they drag him over to the bath tub and drown him. Then they dump his body in a murky swimming pool and just wait for the body to be discovered. There is more to the plan but this is the general idea.

Well time goes by and the corpse is never found. This sends both of the murderers into a state of maddening anxiety. It seems very probable that one of the two murderers will die of heart failure or something of the sort and the movie executes all of these emotions perfectly.

The movie becomes more and more mysterious when the body never shows up. It is truely creepy when the suit that they killed him in shows up at the school. Children claim to have seen him and even the pool is eventually drained and the body is still missing in action.

Well if you have seen as many horror movies as I have, you would know that this movie has probably been ripped off more then any other in history. Countless films have used the same plot for many different genres. Ghost flicks, sexploitation movies, gore films and many many more. Of course any movie that has been copied so many times deserves credit where it is due, the only problem is that film fanatics are more likely to watch the many remakes and ripoffs before seeing the original and it of course suffers from this.

Out of all the films to steal Diabolique's plot line I suppose my favorite is probably The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave. It is the tale of two women who commit the perfect crime but then the corpse seems to come back to haunt them. In the case of Diabolique the murder plot was even more elaborate then it appeared to be. The mistress and the abusive husband were in it together from the begining. The mistress only pretended to drown the man and when they dump the body in the pool, he is still alive. Together the mistress and the walking corpse terrorize the abused wife in hopes to scare her to death so that they can be together and share her wealth. It all comes together with twists and turns and makes for a genius story. It just amazes me how many times it was ripped off but then again I suppose if you make a masterpiece like Diabolique it is bound to be copied.

See where it all started and don't be like me." Don't be diabolical yourself and tell your friends the ending of this movie."

Whats The Matter With Helen? (1971)

Ever want to see Shelly Winters as a ape-shit psychopath? Well here's your chance. This one was directed by Curtis Harrington, the same lunatic who gave us the incredibly bizarre Denis Hopper flick Night Tide. He also went on to do a bunch of odd television movies like Killer Bees and Devil Dog : The Hound From Hell.

Whats The Matter With Helen? plays like a typical Harrington flick in the sense that its weird enough to hold your attention but its a little on the soft side as if it was intended to be acceptable for television. For this reason alone the film gets knocked down a few pegs. Everybody knows that a good horror flick is trashy and gritty. This film is more of a thriller then a horror movie and is slightly to classy for its own good. Whats The Matter With Helen isn't exactly a bad movie. The characters are well enough developed and the story is interesting enough to hold the attention of the average mongoloid. Its just to bad that they didn't go down the stalk and slash route. Instead this movie plays like a less memorable version of Misery.

This one tells of two women who's sons committed a brutal murder and are arrested by the police. There are some angry people amongst the towns folk who want revenge and who better to take it out on then the mothers of the murdering bastards. The two women take off for Hollywood where they will change they're identities and open up a dance school for young talent. It is then that the two women learn how different they really are. Shelly Winters plays the hyper religious Helen and yes there is something the matter with her. Debbie Reynolds plays the glamorous blond who is as obsessed with the high life as Helen is in the lord. They continue to be stalked and its not long before they become murderers themselves. We get a twist ending that really isn't all that satisfying and a pretty downbeat climax.

The film offers up stabbings, a rabbit massacre (complete with lots of fluffy, white bunnies with their throats slit), a man is pushed into some sharp blades on a old time gardening vehicle (complete with red stuff), we have achy-breaky skulls in a scene where a man is pushed down the stairs and we get plenty of mental health issues from Shelly Winters.

Not the worst thing you could watch but only recommended for people who prefer classy thriller type movies over sleazy horror flicks from the 70's. For more trashy time with chubby-slasher-mamma's you could always try Crazy Fat Ethel.

Green Eyes (1934)

Green Eyes should have been called heavy eyes because that's whet you get when you try to make it through this sleeper... Very heavy eyes. Yawn!

This 30's murder mystery runs just a bit over an hour but it seems like a life time. What you get is about 60 straight minutes of questioning. Not exaggerating at all. The entire movie is pretty much Who? Where? When? What? Why? and How? It can become a bit much after a while.

A man is killed at a costume/dance party with multiple stab wounds to the back from a double sided knife. Money is missing from the dead mans safe and its not long before others in the house start dying, off screen of course (We wouldn't want to interrupt the questioning).

Drinks are drugged or as they say in the movie "Doped" and three people die by the hands of a gun. The movie doesn't give itself away and I guess in that case it works as a mystery but it is still not an easy sit.

Not my kind of movie. This won't be screening again anytime soon at my place.

Hardcore (1979)

This is the perfect movie for a guy like me! It depicts sleazy America in the 1970's and all the exploits that movie-houses, peep-shows and seedy book stores had to offer of the time. Hardcore is chock full of prostitutes, pornography and eventually snuff.

Written and directed by Paul Shrader the creator of Taxi Driver and Blue Collar and staring George C. Scott as a wealthy business man who seems to have the perfect life until his daughter goes missing. When the police can't help, George C. Scott hires Peter Boyle who I remember best as the hippie killer in Joe (1969) as a private detective. When private dick Boyle learns that the missing girl has become part of a porn ring and has done a Stag film he brings George C. Scott to a dirty old grindhouse to watch his daughter on the big screen, in what is one of the best melt-downs in cinematic history. George C. Scott looses his marbles as he is forced to watch his daughter do the dirty with some scuzzy hippie types. "Turn it off!"

From here on Hardcore goes into darker territory as C. Scott continues his search for his daughter. He learns the hard way that the world is filled with filth and isn't the nice wholesome life that he was accustomed to. We ultimately find out that the missing girl is in great danger and she is mixed up with a man named Ratan who runs a snuff ring in the pornography racket. We watch a girl in a submissive bondage hood have her throat cut with a switchblade and a man is stabbed in the guts. George C. Scott must find his daughter before she ends up dead herself.

Hardcore blends drama, horror, mystery and black-comedy together for a brilliantly unforgettable walk through the nasty corners of the 70's. In one of my favorite scenes George C. Scott posses as a porno producer complete with 70's mustache, Sonny Bono wig and a tye-dye shirt. A big black porn star named Big Dick Blaque shows up and delivers an overly sleazy performance complete with groin grabbing and some incredibly filthy lines. "I'm Big Dick Blaque. I worked with Harry Reems and Johnny The Wad. I can cum 10 times in one day, I can keep it up for two hours straight... I know what it is... You just don't wanna hire niggers." Then we have some violent fist fights in vengeance scenes (complete with achy-breaky skulls and a lamp being smashed into the face), We also get a chain fight, a bullet to the guts and lots of naked breasts and bush.

Aside from the awesome, raunchy story, the acting is really good. One can't help but feel for George C. Scott's character. The lighting really adds to this film as does the locale and sets. Hardcore is a must see for fans of darker cinema from the 70's. In the ranks of Taxi Driver and Cruising.

Murder By Death (1976)

Personally not being the biggest fan of comedies I was really surprised at how much I liked this one. Perhaps because it mixed in elements of horror and mystery in a very comedic way. I'm sure that seeing for the first time in a theater helped too.

Five detectives are invited to a "Diner and a murder party" at a creepy old mansion. A sum of money is offered to the first detective who can solve the murder that takes place at midnight. The only catch is that the murder is going to be for real and the victim will be one of the detectives.

Booby-traps await around every corner and the goofy detectives are caught in a game of cat and mouse. We get some truly funny moments especially from the Asian detective and his son. Although this mid 70's flick would be considered completely politically incorrect today I found it to be funny as hell. Peter Falk shows up as one of the detectives that is clearly spoofing on the Sam character of Casablanca. Falk is the gun-wielding tough guy who naturally turns out to be a homosexual in the end. Then we get a creepy blind butler and a deaf/mute maid. The characters, dialogue and of course insane story really help this one  move along at a nice pace. It never gets boring and delivers quite a few laughs.

Trouble With Harry (1955)

Trouble With Harry is one of the less spoken of Hitchcock films and that's probably because not so many people went to see it. The reason being, that Hitch stepped away from his normal format of film making. When the world was used to the dark, serious films of Alfred Hitchcock, the daring director chose to do a comedy... A very dark comedy but still a comedy.

One year earlier he would scare the world with a genius masterpiece shot almost entirely from the prospective of a man peering out of The Rear Window. This time around we fallow a corpse that is basically being dragged around the woods for one hundred minutes.

Edmund Gwenn (Miracle On 34th Street, Them) is the first to find the body of Harry. Naturally he thinks he killed poor Harry when he sees the hole in his forehead. After all he was recklessly shooting his rifle off in the woods. Naturally he decides to bury the body before he is caught. The only problem is the woods are very crowded on this particular day. Harry's wife and stepson find him sitting there but they seem almost happy. A bum steals the shoes off of Harry's dead feet. Another man trips over the body and many others cross Harry's path and the best part is that every one of them have their own reason for wanting to keep it a secret.

Shirley Maclaine shows up as Harry's wife and the films sex appeal and in a very odd moment one of her breasts are wet. Being lucky enough to catch this on the big screen great details of such pops out at you and I'm not sure if she was lactating during this film but Hitchcock being the perfectionist that he is usually doesn't allow for continuity. Look for it in the films final reel but aside from the milk leakage, there is quite a bit of sexual tension being built within this film. One of the best examples is in a piece of dialogue referencing the taking of virginity. Pretty risky stuff for 1955...

Trouble With Harry has a nice mix of laughs and mystery. Hitchcock fans shouldn't be disappointed. The man proves his talent yet again on a less traveled path.

Death In The Shadows (1985)

I now know what Johnny Rotten meant when he said "Ever get the feeling you're being cheated". He must have seen Death In The Shadows. Okay maybe not because he said that in 1978 and this piece of shit came out in 1985. Either way I definitely feel cheated and forcing myself to sit through it in it's entirety was a task and a half.

The title is Death In The Shadows and I find that quite suiting considering the few murder scenes take place in the dark. In fact these shadows are so dark you can barely see whats going on. This movie makes Andy (Ghastly Ones) Milligan's movies look well lit.

The story: follows a 17 year old girl named Valerie (in the shadows of course) who's mother was murdered by a hit and run driver. After the autopsy Valerie learns that her mother was a virgin there for she is not in fact her mother. The deeper she digs to find out who her real parents are the more the danger grows. She is stalked by a mad man with something to hide. He murders Valerie's uncle and slashes Val up a bit in one scene but none of it is interesting or worth watching. Valerie gets naked a few times but its usually to dark to enjoy the sites.

Stay far away from this Dutch title. You're better off turning off your lights and trying to watch the posters on your wall.
Click the image below for an example...

Nightmare (1964)

This one also went under the much cooler title, Here's the Knife, Dear: Now Use It. If William Castle was the low budget Hitchcock then Nightmare (1964) is a big budget William Castle. Well okay I wouldn't go as far as to say big budget but there certainly is some production value going on in here. We have some very good acting. A nice crisp picture on black & white film using shadows and lighting for atmosphere. The story was well written, filled with twists and turns. We also are treated to nice camera work and when we add these things all together we get a creepy little British horror film called Nightmare.

For me the most surprising element to this picture is that it was a Hammer film. Not particularly being the biggest fan of Hammer films, I was quite pleased with this impulse buy. As I mentioned before I couldn't help but be reminded of some of Castles films from this era. Stuff like I Saw What You Did And I Know Who You Are. For some reason even The Tingler came to mind, which really doesn't make much sense considering The Tingler is a campy monster flick where this one is a well written horror/mystery. Still I feel that William Castle fans will be happy with this one.
Its the story of a high school girl who is haunted with the memories of her 11th birthday. She had her presents, her birthday cake and the privilege of watching her mother slay her father with a big kitchen knife. Her nightmares get worse and worse until she can no longer tell dreams from reality. Of course it doesn't help when money hungry scumbags are playing little tricks on you and trying to drive you further into madness. Needless to say there is a few more kitchen knife slashings and stabbings and there are a few moments that are sure to get a jump out of you.
Check it out if you're in the mood for something a little less on the campy side and a little more on the creepy, eerie, mystery side.  From the same director who did Tales From The Crypt (1972) and Dr. Terrors House Of Horrors.

The Bat (1959)

Vincent Price and Darla Hood who most would remember as Darla from Our Gang join up in a murder mystery with killer bats. Well Darla is all grown up for this one and shes no longer a Little Rascal. The funny thing is that in this one she is supposed to be the pretty one but she is probably the ugliest girl in the film.

The Bat is a mystery/thriller about a killer who is on the loose. The killer known as The Bat wears a black ski mask and leather gloves with sharp claws on the fingers. He also infects real bats with rabies and sets them loose on his victims. The Bat stalks four girls in a mansion and kills them one by one along with a few other victims because The Bat believes that the mansion contains a secret room with a million dollars hidden inside which was stolen from a bank. The thing that makes this mystery work so well is that there are a bunch of people who are searching for the stolen cash and we get a bunch of red herrings. I personally had no clue who the killer was until the very end. Another thing is that most of the characters appear to be violent or criminals themselves.
Vincent price does an alright job as a doctor who is caught up in the middle of the mystery. He could be the killer but then again, anyone can be the killer. This movie almost reminded me of a early slasher because of the setting. Four girls in a mansion and a violent killer on the loose. For this reason I couldn't help but wish the movie was a little more violent but this is a 50's flick so I suppose the film is okay for what it is. Its worth a watch for Price fans or anyone who likes mystery's.

The Gorilla (1939)

The Gorilla is more of a comedy and less of a horror movie. Its more of a mystery then a thriller and its more of a Ritz Brothers movie then a Bela Lagosi movie. I have never heard of or seen the Ritz Brothers until this movie but I think I have a pretty good feel for who they are and how they act.
They are pretty silly guys and I personally find them funny but they over do their Abbot And Costello routine a bit to much. Or at least they do in The Gorilla.

Bela Lagosi plays a butler with some crazy Kung Fu moves. Okay maybe they are not so crazy but he does know some martial arts and uses them on the Ritz Brothers. Unfortunately Lagosi doesn't have all that much screen time because the film is using him as a red herring. They want us to believe that Lagosi is the killer known as The Gorilla. Of course in the end Lagosi turns out to be a good guy with some creepy mannerism's.
On the other hand The Gorilla does have a guy running around in a giant ape suit and these movies although never really good still appeal me. We have this one really cool scene where the killer Gorilla dangles a woman by her arm from a roof top. The Gorilla hates females and we know this because we are told over and over again. Another thing that I find completely ridiculous about this one is that the characters think the Gorilla can read and write. The Gorilla is supposed to be sending death threats through written letters and that's one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. If ya like dumb, The Gorilla might be a decent pass time but if watching another duo mimic Abbot and Costello might piss you off then stay far away.