Santa Sangre (1989)

 

Santa Sangre (1989) is a film thats a bit out of my wheelhouse. Its an Arthouse Mexican horror film, done by Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, loosely based on a Mexican serial killer. This came to my attention when I was asked to fill in for an absent host for the "Decades of Horror: 1980s" podcast, and this was the film they were covering. I agreed, and quickly had to go home and watch the film. We recorded the next day, but I still hadn't sorted out all my feelings about the movie yet... and so I decided to write this up in an effort to make sense of it all. 

Jodorowsky is a mystic, a surrealist, an artist, an actor, a director, a writer... He is exactly the sort you think of when you think of the stereotypical "Artiste" Film Director. That said, I hadn't seen any of his other films, thought I had heard, vaguely, of El Topo (1970) and The Magic Mountain (1982). I was also familiar with his work in reconstructing the original form of the Tarot of Marseilles, seeking out the earliest versions of the cards and imagery, and his work in comic books, particularly The Incal and Metabarons, which had impressive European releases... And so going into the film, I expected a couple main things: Striking visuals, Mystical undertones, a dreamlike atmosphere, and lots of symbolism.

I was not wrong.

If you follow me at all, you know I'm not keen on horror films about ordinary murderers, or slashers. Give me something supernatural, something mythic. I love a monster... humans are monsters, but they are the most familiar of monsters. To see a human monster, all one needs to do is turn on the news. Even excellent films about human murderers leave me a bit cold. I appreciate Psycho (1960) and Peeping Tom (1960) and even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), but I won't really seek them out, and on some level, I even find them boring. 

Santa Sangre shares DNA with all of those three film, but its got layers of symbolism and imagery to let my mind play with, and keep it engaged far beyond those other films. Its a colorful film, reminding me in some places of Dario Argento's work. There is at least one scene which directly parallels Italian giallo, when a woman is brutally murdered and you only see the hands of her assailant. 

It is difficult to talk about this film without spoilers, so... I give you this warning: From this point, HERE BE SPOILERS. Proceed if you do not care, but there are twists coming that I need to process and talk about, and if you want to experience the film fully, go watch it and then come back and join me here to work out our shared issues.

Ready?

Ok, a rough synopsis is: A young Circus performer, who was traumatized at a young age by the brutal death of his father and maiming of his mother, escapes from the mental hospital he is kept in, and acts as his maimed mother's 'arms', committing murders at her command.

This both is and isn't the film. That is the most simplistic explanation of what is happening, but there is so much more. 

Lets look first at the definition of surrealism. in 1924, French artist Andre Breton defined the term in his work The Surrealist Manifesto as "pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation."  

This rather heady definition is clarified and re-expressed on the webpage of the Tate Gallery as "Surrealism aims to revolutionise human experience. It balances a rational vision of life with one that asserts the power of the unconscious and dreams. The movement's artists find magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny, the disregarded and the unconventional."

Surrealists such as Andre Breton, Salvador Dali, and Luis Bunuel inspire Alejandro Jodorowsky and it shows in this film. The film is seemingly grounded in reality, but a very strange, off-kilter reality that in infused with a sense of dread. It was like watching a nightmare unfold across the screen in a very real sense. The Mexico City of Jodorowsky is not a typical urban landcape, but a strange world where there is always a performance happening, whether it is the 'Circus del Gringo' where our story starts, or the gospel singing choir outside the cult church, or the ongoing all-night street festival where prostitutes and citizens alike dance and make merry in a dingy plaza. But far from being a cheerful thing, it makes the setting a bit nightmarish. These are not happy people enjoying their lives, these are the damned, trying to forget they are in Hell. 

There is a constant through-line in this film of performance. Nearly every scene takes place either partially or fully in some sort of entertainment venue. The Circus, a Burlesque House, a Wrestling Ring, A film on television playing on a reconstructed movie set, at a piano, on a small private stage. The Shrine of the Santa Sangre (Holy Blood), is also arguably performative in nature, as Concha tells the Bishop the story of their saint while showing him the paintings of her martyrdom, and their arguement over the reality of their pool of sacred blood. Even the Elephant's funeral is played as a performance, from its New Orleans Jazz Funeral style procession to the eventual casting of the coffin into the landfill, where an onlooking crowd cheers and then breaks open the casket, stripping the meat from the carcass and passing it around... literally an audience consuming the performance. This even echoes the cult of the Santa Sangre, where one presumes that they have a ritual of communion.

It occurs to me also that we see something of the history of cinema here as well. On display, Alma is a deaf mute, who communicates through mime... which echoes Silent film nearly perfectly. Her white painted face and exagerrated gestures doing the work of communication where sound cannot. We see an homage to Universal's The Invisible Man in a lengthy scene, where Fenix re-enacts parts of it while it plays on television, in a carefully reconstructed stage laboratory. At the end of this scene, he pushes wide a door, opening the "set" to a vast open area, where his mother waits at the top of a massive stone stairway that reminded me of the ones seen in Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1932). There was the aformentioned scene that was reminiscent of the Italian giallo films of the 70s, and the scene in which the Pimp lead Fenix and the Down Syndrome boys to the street party with the prostitutes had me thinking of West Side Story (1961). 

More subtly, there is a mingling of performance and religion. In an early scene, we have a choir and band singing outside the Shrine of Santa Sangre. Jodorowsky utilized a genuine 40 member choir of blind singers for the scene, where they sang a religious song. They are colorful and it calls to mind a mariachi band, but mixed with a religious content. Inside, the sanctuary is dressed as a stage, with long red curtains, and the large pool of red water... while on the walls is a series of painting telling the story of their saint. Concha explains that her blood stained the water of the pool, and it has remained wet in a holy miracle... while the Bishop touches the waters and dismisses it as merely red paint. Which of these views are correct? That of the believers or the skepticism of the Bishop? We are not told directly, but given the staged qualities of the rest of the film, I would speculate it WAS paint... but that does not affect the belief of the congregation. We can say the same about the elephant funeral... the Casket is dropped from the cliff to the cheers and applause of the onlookers. In that aspect it is entertainment, but at the same time it provides food... almost literally 'Manna from Heaven' for them. When we see Concha and Fenix's performance in the Burlesque show, she is telling a story which is essentially that of Adam and Eve, and the Serpent. Again, that marriage of Religion and Art. 

The religious imagery is almost as present. The appearance of Fenix in the Mental Hospital is decidedly Christ-like... and the fish he chooses as his meal reminds one of the story of the loaves and fishes in the Bible. But this is also mixed with another frequent visual motif in this film, of Birds. I'm still puzzling over what the birds represent. We see them frequently or implied frequently. Concha's costumes often have feathers on them. We see a white swan emerge from the grave of one of Fenix's victims and fly away. At another point he hallucinates roosters. In one of his magic tricks, he tries to mirror his vision of the swan in the grave, by saying he will transform a rather stage-prop looking mummy into 100 white doves. He fails and instead conjures his mother in this performance, the confusion of his audience. At the end, when Alma shows him the reality of his mother, it is another "stage prop", and this time it is covered in pigeons. So... in a way, he really did bring his mother back from the dead, but in an inferior way, as pigeons would be to doves. 

Again, this touches on belief, as well. Fenix BELIEVES his mother is alive, just as he believe that Aladin, his childhood friend, is with them as well. He has surrounded himself with those he loves, at least in his mind. He apparently idolizes the invisible man... which is an interesting take for a performer to have. However, it makes a sort of sense that, in his act, if he is mannipulating a marionette version of his mother, and using his own arms as hers, it would create a more effective illusion of life for the puppet is he WAS invisible. And in that way, she is more truly alive, which is what he seeks.

When I spoke earlier of the inhabitants of this film being "the damned", I was not being entirely metaphorical. practically every character we meet is a genuinely horrible person, in one way or the other. There is something 'off' about all of them. Physically, mentally, emotionally, morally, or even spiritually, every person depicted is somehow outside what is perceived as 'normal'. Terrible things happen to nearly everyone... and you, as a viewer, don't really mind seeing it, because we have established that they usually deserve what happens to them. 

There are a couple key exceptions.

First, there is the elephant. The Elephant has done literally nothing wrong. It is simply a part of the circus and is especially beloved by Fenix and his friend, the little person Aladin. It is genuinely traumatic to see the bloody death of this poor elephant... You share the trauma of it with Fenix. It is REALLY upsetting to watch. It is also his first step toward the madness that encompasses him. In many ways, the death of this elephant is what really unhinges him.

In the documentary Forget Everything You Have Ever Seen: The World of Sante Sangre (2011), Jodorowky talks about Elephants, and waxes very metaphysically about how an elephant appears in the Muladhara Chakra, or Root Chakra, and how it is a symbol of the strength of the Earth. He talks about travelling to India specifically to ride and elephant, and that was when he understood the powerful strength of this Chakra in grounding one. It is no surprise then to see Young Fenix in the film, riding the elephant early on... and then when the elephant dies, he becomes a bit untethered. It opens him to what happens next.

His father, Orgo, after the funeral, brutally tattoos Fenix with a phoenix on his chest, to 'Make him a man.' In short, he is trying to replace that grounding root Chakra with a bird. This is very deliberate. In the Chakra system, the Eagle or Hawk represents the Heart Chakra, Anja, the Third Eye. It opens visualization, or imagination. This is the next part of Fenix's ordeal... Jodorowsky is implying that he has lost his grounding, but had his imagination opened wide in its place. And indeed, from this point, things become much more strange and imaginative. He is impersonating a bird of prey in the mental hospital, to the level of sitting in a tree in his waking hours, and sleeping in a nest-like bed, or eating raw fish like an eagle would. It is also worth noting that the same tattoo is on his Father's chest. 

Orgo is played by Guy Stockwell to sleazy, greasy, alcohol addled perfection. He is the 'Gringo' of the Circus del Gringo (or amusingly 'The White Guy's Circus). He is the only American in the cast, and he plays a sterotype of an ugly American. He is fat, unkept, tasteless, careless, flashy, violent, and... has a strange appeal to some. His costume is all sequines and cowboy hats. He is unfaithful to his wife, but exercises a hypnotic, magnetic influence over her. 

In some ways, the tattoo of the bird binds the father and son together. It is speculated early on that Orgo fled the United States after he killed a woman. This is very much true of his son. His son ALSO becomes a killer of women. Fenix also develops an unhealthy fascination with Concha which is ultimately mutually destructive. 

Fenix struggles with his affliction through the film. He knows what he is doing is wrong, is evil, but he seems possessed more by the influence of his mother. Like Norman Bates, his murderous impulses are filtered through the personality of his mother: a religious fanatic with a very strange personal saint. We get the impression that he knows he is almost possessed when he acts as his mother's arms. She has become one with her armless saint, and enacts a sort of retribution against others. She is an avatar of the Santa Sangre. But as we have seen, the performative quality of the cult calls into question its reality. This is a stage show of religion, a false front pretending to be something else.

But that brings us to the most genuinely pure character in the entire work; Alma. Alma is a young deaf mute acrobat in the circus, the daughter of the Tattoed Lady who Orgo has his affair with. She is a sweet presence in white face makeup who establishes a comforting relationship and friendship with young Fenix. The two of them are quite sweet and gentle and innocent together. Jodorowsky manages a wonderful trick in that, no matter what horrible thing is happening on screen, when you see Alma in her white makeup, you suddenly feel calm and at ease. She is a peaceful presenvce in the otherwise nightmarish world of the film. 

Once Concha is mutilated, and Orga kills himself, Fenix sees the Tattoes Woman flee the circus, dragging Alma after her. 

I knew this was significant but I couldn't quite figure out how until I heard Jodorowsky speaking in the documentary I mentioned, and he revealed that the name 'Alma' in Spanish means 'soul.'

It all clicked into place. Fenix has lost his elephant, the grounding, was tortured until that totem was replaced by a kind of bird, unlocking his imagination. His mother was mutilated, and we discover later, murdered, and his father emasculated and then dies by suicide.... and then... His soul is taken away from him. 

While the majority of the film is focussed on Fenix.... there is a significant amount focused on Alma as well. We reconnect with her after we see her mother among the prostitutes in the Street Carnival scene. Fenix himself sees her during his 'field trip' with the Down syndrome patients. This encounter is what seems to drive Fenix to escape, because it is shortly after this that he sees his mother outside the hospital and escapes. He then begins his own series of performances with her in the Burlesque house and readopts his magician's guise. 

The Tattoed Woman attempts to prostitue Alma, who escapes by smashing a bottle over the head of her would be rapist and making her way out the window. In this way, she actually escapes the fate of the Santa Sangre and remains pure. But she is definitely undergoing a harrowing experience... Not only does she need to avoid her rapist, but she must avoid all these strange people in the streets. One man removes his own ear and rubs it on her face as she attempts to pass. She has NO ALLIES in this world. As I said, this is a world of the Damned, and Alma is a pure soul, trying to make her way safely and uncorrupted through it. 

We see aspects of her journey, but not the whole thing. She finally spots the burlesque theater and recognizes Fenix from his photo... and decides to seek him out. When she does find his home, she sneaks inside, and puts on a version of her old makeup and costume. She seeks out Fenix in a final confrontation.

To say that this scene is moving is really understating the power of it. Fenix is caught between the corrupt, false religious fervor of his mother... and the pure love of a pure soul in Alma. It is worth noting that while Concha is always screaming for him to kill Alma (and he is her arms, holding the knives of his father), Alma never shows fear... nor anger... nor hatred. She always just steps out of the way of his attacks, and holds out her arms as if ready to just hold him. Her way of fighting back is to NOT fight back. She embodies the gentleness that a mother or a lover should. Forgiving, not condemning.

She doesn't attempt to flee. She is accepting. The battle is not hers, but Fenix's. And when he finally is able to exorcise the spirit of his mother, by stabbing her. Alma simply embraces him comfortingly. And in fact, all the the figures who were of comfort to Fenix in his life... The clowns of the circus, Aladin, the Elephant... they all return to comfort him at this point as well. She shows him the reality of what has happened. Again there is a strange sort of balancing act. Alma represents the true religious soul, appearing quietly, and in the disguise of a mime. She is however REAL despite appearing as an entertainer. Concha was the corrupt religious figure, shouting loudly and demading blood, while seeming to wield real power. And she is revealed to not be real at all. She is a puppet masquerading as a real person. And Fenix is finally able to see that when he is reunited with his True Soul. She strips away the performance. She not only shows him the manniquin of his mother, but she gently peels away the false nails her wore, symbolocally taking away his mother's power over his arms and returning them to him.

This is driven home as they walk outside where the police are waiting for them. She smiles at him encouragingly, and raises her arms, signalling for him to do the same. He raises his arms and to his delight sees that they ARE his arms again, and not his mothers. Despite all the horrors of the film, this is a shockingly upbeat ending.We are not often treated to the redemption of a villain in a horror film, but this one provides it.

It is worth noting that film critic Roger Ebert praised this film for just that reason... he found it ultimately a redemptive story in a sea of films that seemed to celebrate evil. And indeed that is what Jodorowsky seemed to be going for. He made the acquaintance of a multiple murderer, who was ultimately "cured" in an asylum, and released back into the public where he lived the rest of his life as a model citizen, claiming to remember nothing of the time when he did those killings. The idea of that sort of a redemption intrigued Jodorowsky and led him to write the story, along with Roberto Leoni, and joined with Claudio Argento (brother of Dario) in the screenplay.

It even made Empire Magazine's list of the top 500 Films of all times.

Which is not to say its a perfect film. Its not. There ARE some things that just don't work. I'm thinking of the scene in which Fenix is asked out by a lady at a shop, and as he turns away, he hallucinates about a massive snake emerging from his pants which he has to wrestle with. This is a bit of an 'on-the-nose' metaphor for wrestling with his own libido, and is equally clumsy as a religious metaphor given we have seen his performance with Concha where they talk about the serpent in the Garden of Eden. It is hoewever possible that this was MEANT to be a bit of campy humor in the same vein as the name 'Circus del Gringo' was. 

There are many aspects of the film with are uncomfortable and almost seem gratuitous. Partly this may be due to Jodorowsky's love of 'kitchen sink' directing, where he hears about someone unusual or strange and just threw it in the production. 

That said, the filming is beautiful. The color usage is vibrant. The world seems fully realized even if it is a dark, grimy, and unpleasant place. This is one of the few times I have seen Dutch angles used in the late 20th century to good effect.

I came out of the film with a confusing mix of feelings about it. On the one hand, I felt repelled by many aspects of it. As I said, I dislike horror films about murderers, as they are all too real. However, the dreamlike quality, even if nightmarish, drew me in. The layers of meaning, the symbolism, the visual metaphors, and the performances kept me thinking about it LONG after the film was over. THAT is something I like. I love a film that makes me think about it this much. On the other hand, I am uncertain I will revisit it again soon. Its a difficult thing to watch. Its absolutely WORTH watching, but it needs a lot of time for processing I think.

I'm not sure I did it justice on the podcast, but.... This article helped me to really put some things into focus for myself.

Comparing Houses of Usher....

 

This October, I somehow managed to watch multiple versions of The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe. This is not a bad thing. All in all, they all have something to offer...

The three versions in question are Corman's version from 1960 staring Vincent Price (The House of Usher), which kicked off his cycle of Poe films and revitalized the Gothic film tradition in the US, The Fall of the House of Usher from 1979, staring Martin Landau, Robert Hays, Charlene Tilton, and Ray Walston, and finally Mike Flannigan's Netflix series The Fall of the House of Usher from 2023. 

All of these are, of course, based to lesser or greater degrees on the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name.

Lets start out with the Corman version from 1960... and here the main selling point is the presence of Vincent Price as Roderick Usher. I'll be honest, its not my favorite of Corman's Poe films. Or, Price is great, but... they didn't seem to quite know what to do, and while this DID kick off the successful Poe series, its one of the weaker entries. Price doesn't really cut loose and chew the scenery enough in this one, but it does a nice job of establishing a somewhat offputting atmosphere. You can't help but feel things are WRONG in this house... and in a way that was Corman's point. He was famously asked by the producers where the monster was in this film (given his past history of low budget creature films) and he quickly responded "The HOUSE is the monster..." in order to sell the idea to them. 

And indeed, everything from Price's oddly dyed hair, to the discordant music he plays, to the weirdly lit rooms, the burnt landscape, and artificial outdoor sets glimpsed through the windows keeps the production just offkilter enough to make the viewer incredibly uneasy. One of the things however, that makes this so strange is that Roderick claims her and Madeline have tremendously enhanced senses, which cause them great pain.... but we never SEE that. For someone who can touch only the softest of cloths without pain, and the slightest sound supposedly wracks him in agony, he loves to play his guitar and shout a lot. 

The Usher's visitor in this case, and the audience PoV character, is Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon) who is portrayed as Madeline Usher's fiancee rather than Roderick's old school friend in the story. This seems odd to mey, and seems to have been done to sort of capitalize on Price's usual role as a villain, to make one suspicious of him and his motives, and to thrust an unwanted romance into the storyline, as seemed to be deemed 'necessary' by the filmmakers and audiences of the time. 

Moving on to the 1979 film, I had always heard of this film, but had never gotten a chance to see it, until I found it on YouTube during this last Halloween. The cast is more than promising; Martin Landau as Roderick, Dimitra Arliss as Madeline, Robert Hays as Jonathan Cresswell (An architect, engineer, and Roderick's old friend), Charlene Tilton as Jennifer Cresswell (Jonathan's new bride) and Ray Walston as Thaddeus, the Usher family's loyal retainer. 

It was produced as a TV Movie by NBC as part of their 'Classics Illustrated' line of films. It wasn't actually aired until 1982. Its not seen often, which is a pity, because its actually really well done. Landau is excellent as Roderick, and you can feel his pain in every scene he's in. Madeline is a frightening presence that lurks just out of sight most of the time. Cresswell is given a reason to visit the house here because Roderick believes that his ailments stem from damage to the house that has gone unrepaired, and Cresswell's skills as an architect and engineer, used to shore up the house, is a deperate attempt on Usher's part to save he and his sister. While Jennifer is not given a great deal to do, she does move the plot along at times in ways that Jonathan cannot due to his job in repairing the house. Thaddeus is a great addition, as a loyal and protective servant of the Ushers, who acts as a proxy for Roderick in scenes where it simply would not make sense for the sickly and ailing master of the house to be present. 

And even more than in the Corman version, the House itself is the final character. Its rot is reflected in its inhabitants, and when repairs are made, those too are reflected in the Ushers. It has a tangible presence, and just when it seems one thing is repaired, something else crumbles, which gives the whole proceeding a sense of urgency which is missing in the Corman version. If there is a criticism to be made, it is that Robert Hays and Charlene Tilton are much too 'light' as actors to carry the gravitas of the story.... but that is perhaps intentional. They are not the gothic icons that Roderick, Madeline, and even Thaddeus embody, and this perhaps helps to make the Ushers household more extreme in their darkness and decay by contrast. 

What is more, we get a backstory of the Usher family, and the dark deeds of the previous generations which grounds the "curse" of the family in a satanic and supernatural history that seems to effectively infect the very walls of the House. This is alluded to, and implied in the Corman version, but it doesn't quite feel as well documented and 'earned' as here. 

The visuals are not as striking as the Corman version, but it still works as a Gothic period piece.

Mike Flannigan's 2023 The Fall of the House of Usher feels in comparison almost like a record scratch. Rather than adapting the familiar story yet again, Flannigan instead took Poe's entire body of work as inspiration, and wove an intricate story around the rise and fall of the Usher Family ('House' in this case being more a bloodline than a physical location), a wealthy and morally bankrupt family made wealthy from controversial pharmaceutical development and sales. 

Here, Roderick and Madeline are played by Bruce Greenwood and Mary McDonall in an 8 episode miniseries that aired on Netflix. Poe references both subtle and obvious are sprinkled throughout. For those seeking the closest connection to the original story, you will find it in the final episode, which takes place in the crumbling family home of Roderick and Madeline, and which follows the original story after a fashion. However, the episodes up to that point tend to more closely allude to other Poe stories, and their titles will clue you in to which.... with the peculiar exception of the first, which is titled 'A Midnight Dreary', but which ultimately seems more like Poe's The Premature Burial. 

As the show progresses, each member of the family meets a grisly and supernatural end, seemingly due to the manipulations of the mysterious 'Verna'. Unlike so many other adaptations, you see that the Ushers absolutely deserve their fate... but oddly, you also see the way paved for good in their passing wake. Decisions and choices made lead to consequences... for good or ill. And even the worst choices can prove fertile ground for future growth and good.

Flannigan's House of Usher feels like it has weight, and the characters feel quite true to life. The side characters are also fully fleshed out.... in this, Usher's guest is Charles Auguste Dupin, the crusading legal figure who sought to bring the Usher family to justice, and who Roderick confesses his sins to over the course of the series. He is not entirely faultless, and you can see what the entire lifetime of work against Usher has brought him. And there is his dark counterpart, Arthur Gordon Pym, played with gruff gravitas by Mark Hamill, who is the Usher family lawyer and 'Fixer' who covers up their legal and personal missteps. Both Dupin and Pym are two sides of the same coin... both good at what they do, but to opposite ends, and both accept the consequences for their actions in the end. Its hard to admire ANYONE in this show, but these two come closest. 

These are three different takes, and all excellent in their own ways. Check them out.

Rogue's Tavern (1936)

 

In his essay "The Simple Art of Murder", Raymond Chandler is dismissive of mystery novels that depend on overly complex schemes, and indicates that a murder where someone tries to get clever in how to pull it off is fundamentally easier to solve than one planned a moments before the fatal event. 

 "The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with; the one that really bothers them is the murder somebody thought of only two minutes before he pulled it off. But if the writers of this fiction wrote about the kind of murders that happen, they would also have to write about the authentic flavor of life as it is lived. And since they cannot do that, they pretend that what they do is what should be done. Which is begging the question—and the best of them know it."

There is nothing "authentic" in Rogue's Tavern (1936), but it is a bit of fun to watch, and Chandler would be rolling his eyes at the convoluted murder mystery in this cheap little program filler. In fact, it checks off about all the boxes he lists in that essay for how NOT to write a mystery. 

We start off with Joan Woodbury, looking beautiful and exotic as mystic Gloria Robloff is telling the fortune of another guest at the hotel they are staying at with a deck of cards. A plain, ordinary, deck of cards, with the ace of spades as the "death card", naturally. I found this a nice little touch. Tarot wasn;'t terribly popular at the time, and standard card decks often stood in for them among fortune tellers. This changed over time, as the iconography of Tarot became more familiar, but here, it is a nice little "down to earth" touch. 

I love Joan Woodbury... she is one of my favorite B-list actresses of the time, and shows up in unexpected places in the 30s and 40s. She was uncredited as Dr. Praetorius' miniature Queen in The Bride of Frankenstein and shows up as the under-utilized love interest in a film previously covered in this blog, King of the Zombies. Sadly, she is under utilized here as well, and spends most of the film wringing her hands and making pronouncements of inevitable doom and death. 

Our leads are introduced shortly thereafter.... Jimmy Kelly and Marjorie Burns, played by Wallace Ford and Barbara Pepper. They are engaged and trying to get married through the whole film. Both are detectives... Jimmy being a police detective and Majorie being a Department Store detective, which leads the clerk giving them their wedding license to quip "Well, at least the two of you should be able to keep track of each other..."  Which I have to admit is one of the funnier lines in the film.

Marjorie is played as smart, pretty, and charismatic... and I spent most of the movie wishing should would just slap the heck out of Jimmy, because he is played as smart, arrogant, and patronizing. Seriously, she could do better. Often she comes across an important clue or reaches an important conclusion JUST BEFORE Jimmy does.... but he finds out or is told by someone else before she can relay the information to him... so he just sort of verbally pats her on the head when she tells him and sends her away. Or worse, mocks her. 

Marjorie.... you can do better than this. 

The two of them have arranged to meet a Justice of the Peace at The Red River Tavern so they can marry, which happens to be where Miss Robloff is staying, along with a large and unlikely group of other suspects.

Suspects?

Yes, because they start dropping like flies pretty quickly, with many seemingly killed by a wild dog, or wolf, or something. And you've got the standard assortment of murder fodder, red herrings, and "colorful" characters to choose from. Miss Robloff and the other men are awaiting a mysterious final visitor, we have the endearingly grandmotherly tavern keeper Mrs Jamison and her wheelchair bound husband, you have the slow-witted handyman... you know the tropes.

And there are tropes a plenty. As the bodies pile up, we get storms, lights going out, cut phone lines, strange murder weapons, jewel smuggling, revenge, and some of the most hilariously over the top and outrageous plot elements you're likely to find. Seriously, the denoument of the film comes out of left field, and seems hysterically overcomplicated for its intentions... not to mention HIGHLY improbable, and our final murderer turns out to be the one person it really shouldn't have been... because they were on screen when several of the murders took place OFF screen.

Its NOT a great film, but it entertaining provided you expect NOTHING from it, and don't look too carefully at whats going on. Just enjoy the ride. 

And the literal closing scene will make you want to punch Jimmy in the face again.... as when he and Marjorie FINALLY manage to get married, Jimmy will not even allow her to say her OWN "I do" AT HER OWN WEDDING.....

Marjorie, Marjorie.... you could have done so much better....

The Damned (1961)

 Hammer films are, of course, rightly known for their revival of the Gothic monsters of the early film and literature through the late 1950s and into the 1970s. Less well known are their forays into science fiction, which tend to be, if I'm honest, hit or miss. While Quatermass and the Pit (1967, aka 5 Million Years to Earth) is a classic, something like Four Sided Triangle (1953) is justly forgotten. Somewhere between these, in both time and quality, is 1961's The Damned (released in 1963, and known in the US as These are the Damned) 

Which isn't to say its a bad film. Its just... puzzling. 

You would be forgiven for not recognizing it, at first, as a science fiction film. It begins as something of a street punk drama with an element of illicit romance thrown in. There is a second storyline involving children which seems slightly sinister going on at the same time, and it is not until these two stories converge later in the film that you get the whole picture.

The entire opening scene had me scratching my head, as its just... bizarre. Its like red flags hadn't been invented in 1961. 

Our 'hero' is American tourist Simon Wells (Macdonald Carey) who is a wealthy, American divorcee and tourist in England, wearing a really questionable hat. He ogles, creepily follows and flirts with English teenager Joan (Shirley Anne Field), not deterred in the slightest by either her age, or the switchblade she wears proudly displayed tucked into the front of the waistband of her jeans. Was that kind of open carry even legal? She is also not deterred by the fact that he is at least twice her age, if not more, and suggests they go off together. Again, he seems oblivious to the fact that she is softly singing along with the .... "lyrics" to the theme song which has otherwise been blaring:

"Black Leather, black leather, smash smash smash

Black Leather, black leather, kill kill kill...

Black Leather, black leather crash crash crash."

...

yeah. Not a warning sign at all. Nor is the fact that they walk near a motorcycle gang who march off whistling the same tune.... 

Lets talk about this song for a minute. It appears to have been written, at least musically, by Hammer music master James Bernard. One thing can definitely be said about Bernard is that he never actually had his finger on the pulse of modern music, and it really shows here. I've heard people joke about the swinging young people of Dracula AD 1972 being eager to go see a "hot jazz" concert, but to my mind this is worse, because this song, Black Leather Rock, is conceived AS a rock and roll song... by someone who only knows Rock and Roll as a theoretical concept.

Returning to the story, it ends exactly as you would expect... Our "Hero" is of course set on by the biker gang, led by a staggeringly well dressed Oliver Reed, beaten to a bloody pulp, and robbed. I ask you, who could have POSSIBLY suspected the switchblade carrying Lolita singing the same song as the biker gang was a honey pot trap? Who?!

Wells is helped to a nearby pub by some locals where he meets  artist Freya (Viveca Lindfors) and her mysterious government friend Bernard (Alexander Knox). We are told that Simon was assaulted by a gang of 'Teddy Boys'.... which they weren't. Little history lesson for those in the US... The Teddy Boys were a youth subculture in the 50s and 60s in England, which generally loved rock and roll, R&B, and old fashioned Edwardian Style fashions. They were also pretty violent, attacking other youth gangs, staging riots when the film The Blackboard Jungle (1955) was shown, engaging in race riots, and attacks on immigrants.... so.... not good people in general. In this film, Oliver Reed's character of King is shown wearing a tweed jacket, thin tie, fashionable leather gloves, and carrying an umbrella... clearly inspired by more modern aristocratic fashions rather than the Edwardian finery of the Teddy Boys. The rest of his gang are in standard black biker leathers, with the exception of Joan. 

The next day, Simon and Joan meet up again, and clearly Simon has not learned a single thing from his previous encounter with her, and STILL attempts to make time with her. She informs him that King (Oliver Reed) is her brother, and to say that he is overprotective of her is something of an understatement.... he borders on incestuous obsession. King and his gang again chase Simon, only this time Simon and Joan give him the slip. Joan is looking to escape from King, and feels Simon is her best chance, so she's willing to sleep with him to get out of town. 

Meanwhile.... Bernard (remember Bernard?) spends a lot of his time talking to children on a TV monitor. these children seem bright, but bored and lonely. 

Simon and Joan again end up fleeing from King and his gang, and while trying to hide, meet up with these children in a cave on the shoreline, and the children decide to help them and hide them. King manages to fall into the ocean, and another boy finds him, and also brings him into the cave. While the whole drama with Simon, Joan, and King plays out, they all notice that these kids are WEIRD. They are icy cold to the touch, and apparently this cave and their adjoining dormitory are all attached to a military installation above, and the military are VERY interested in keeping them locked away.

I won't go into too much detail about what goes on from that point, but I will say that if you want a downer of a film, this one may just fit the bill. No one did bleak films like the British in the 50s and 60s. 

The performances are solid across the board. This is an early film for Oliver Reed, but you can see his screen presence and power here. There is a quiet menace to him in the opening scene, where he leans casually against a sculpture adjusting his gloves while his gang moves around him with barely contained energy. He carries his role with intensity and a slightly psychotic edge. Joan is played as world weary for her young age.... jaded, bored, and worldly beyond her years. Vivica Lindfors is quite charming and may be the least despicable character in this film, even if she is the mistress of an evil bureaucrat. And as for Macdonald Carey as Simon.... the actor is fine, but MAN does the script go out of its way to make Simon a borderline pedophile creep. Joan may be of age, but she is WAY too young for him, and he should know it. 

Honestly, when you watch this film, enjoy the bizarreness of that opening scene and its ridiculous music... by the end, you will look back on its anarchic cheerfulness fondly.

Here it is:

The Savage Bees and TV Movies

 There was a time, reader, when the major networks used to produce movies. The golden age of the TV movie was in the 1970s, of course, and for a content starved horror fan, in addition to the horror hosts, I would scan the 'Movie of the Week' on the major networks to see if they were airing a genre piece that might interest me. And there were some gems in the lot too... The Night Stalker (1972) and  The Night Strangler (1973) introduced my childhood hero, Carl Kolchak... a little vampire film in 1982 called I, Desire (aka Desire, the Vampire) staring David Naughton of An American Werewolf in London sticks in my head. Steven Spielberg's debut, Duel was a made for television film in 1971. Gargoyles first creepily graced the small screen in 1972 while Trilogy of Terror appeared in 1975. These are not lightweight throwaway films but some of the most memorable horror of the era. 

That being said, for every one of those, there was a dog of a film, whether it was Devil Dog: Hound of Hell (1978) or The Cat Creature (1973). However, one thing could be relied on, the TV Movie of the week tended to have its hand on the pulse of the American Pop Culture zeitgeist. You could usually be assured that if some topic was trending in the population it would find its way into a TV movie. So, it was not unusual to see environmental horror or disaster films showing up. These might be about ozone depletion or pollution, such as Where Have All the People Gone? (1974) or... the subject of today blog entry, The Savage Bees (1976).

There will, of course, be spoilers....

Like quicksand, growing up in the 70s made 'killer bees' seem like it was going to be a much bigger issue in the future than it turned out being. I remember earnest and fearful discussions among my gradeschool class members about the speed of the 'killer bee' invasion and how long it would be before they reached us in distant Ohio, and the swath of devastation they could cut across America with their passage. I also remember that even then I couldn't really take the threat seriously and I remember the shocked and surprised look on a classmates face when he asked what I would do when the bees arrived, and I simply shrugged and said "Go inside and close the windows". He was appalled that I undermined such a serious threat so easily!

The Savage Bees is set at Mardis Gras in New Orleans, and has a pretty standard setup for killer bee films. It also plagerizes borrows from the plot of Jaws (1975). A ship from Brazil carries the swarm of bees to the waters around the Port of New Orleans, where they disembark just in time for Mardi Gras. One of the first victims happens to be the beloved dog of Sheriff Don McKew (Ben Johnson) who vows vengeance. 

No, really.

He is convinced some ne'er-do-well has poisoned his dog, and so takes the dog to be autopsied... so that he can determine the poison, so that he can then track down the source of the poison, and hunt down the villain who killed his dog in order to apply some police brutality to him. Wow. 

It is perhaps worth noting that this is by far the MOST police work that is done in this film. Human victims do not get this sort of deep investigation. Only the Sheriff's dog. 

Ok, I'll buy it.

However, bees are discovered in the dog's stomach, and we are off and running. No, they didn't find stingers in the poor dogs hide, which would have been a far less gross discovery. The coroner, Dr Jeff DuRand (Michael Parks) links these bees to a pair of dead sailors, and suddenly everyone in law enforcement and the medical community are on board with the danger of killer bees....

However, as it is Mardi Gras, the Mayor and the City Council are NOT happy about this, and make various threats to the Sheriff's job as he tries to lessen the danger by clamping down on Mardi Gras celebrations. It threatens business and tourism, after all.... now... where have we seen that before? At any rate, Sheriff Brody McKew does not tolerate any political interference in his quest for vengeance for his poor dog, and so that particular subplot goes nowhere. 

I am making the film sound much worse than it really is. There actually are some effectively tension ratcheting moments in it. There is a scene where a little girl wanders close to the swarm, and its genuinely sort of unnerving as you see the girl from the bees perspective. The stories of former bee attacks help set an atmosphere of growing dread and fear. 

However, the bad moments... they REALLY stand out.

We have a scene where the Sheriff's department has found out where the swarm is, and block off the roads to give bee-expert Dr Jorge Mueller (Horst Buchholz) time to dispose of the swarm... though his plan is more than a little vague... These terribly professional deputies blockade a road and leave a wide open field right next to them, where, of course, an open convertible with a pair of drunken revelers dressed as pirates speed through without even glancing at the roadblock. The deputies just sort of stare at one another and wonder what they should do now that the perimeter has been breeched by wily alcoholics. These two naturally pull up directly to the place where the bees are, and are instantly attacked. The driver of the car inexplicably decided to accessorize his pirate costume with a REAL SWORD with which he attempts to DUEL the swarm of killer bees.... about as effectively as you'd expect. He DOES manage to slash open the protective suit of Dr Mueller, causing both of their deaths. 

The ending of the film also had me scratching my head, as they somehow coax the swarm to land on a red VW Beetle... because.... its RED, and that makes the bees mad... and then drive said Beetle 

 * V E R Y   S L O W L Y * to the Superdome. Meanwhile the police drive ahead and broadcast some of the funniest warnings I've ever heard on film in order to clear the street:

"Y'all are in danger! You have 60 seconds to clear the street! We're bringing through a swarm of killer bees! We have an emergency! You're in danger! You have 60 seconds to clear the street! I repeat: killer bees! Any loud noise is gonna rile 'em! Absolute quiet is necessary! Turn off all radios, all machinery, and get off the street!"

Unrealistically, the inebriated Mardi Gras revelers actually listen to these warnings and go indoors, rather than remaining to drunkenly point and laugh at the Volkswagon with a beard of bees. I also note that these bees are remarkably considerate, and leave a small window on the windshield open in front of the driver so she can see where she is going. Killer bees they may be, but they are SAFETY CONSCIOUS killer bees!

Once in the Superdome, our heroes turn on the air conditioning. This takes MOMENTS to cool the entire Superdome down to 45F. That is some AMAZING HVAC action there. My AC won't even reach to the upstairs of my house. And like magic, the second it hits that special temperature, the bees all fall off the car. Roll credits.

Don't laugh! That was a MAJOR CRISIS averted through the intersection of reasonably priced cars, modern sporting arenas and the power of HVAC. 

Honestly, it IS better than it sounds, but there really is a lot to laugh at here. 

Interestingly, there was one point I noted that was NOT really funny, but quite an interesting moment for non-Christian representation in mid-70s horror. Two of the deputies are cruising through the parish back roads looking for signs of the swarm, and spot something white lying in a field. They go to investigate and find a dead chicken. Next to it is a peculiar figure in chalk. They radio the sheriff about this discovery and he advises them that the figure is a Veve and not to touch or disturb ANY of it, because its sacred. This is the remains of a voodoo protection ritual, and he tells them they need all the help they can get. Its a throwaway scene. It doesn't really add anything to the film overall... but its a POSITIVE image of a NON-CHRISTIAN belief system in a HORROR movie. And it goes out of its way to demonstrate how to respect it. That's amazing. With that scene alone, I came to respect this film a little.

A little.

I am a little leery of how they might have treated the bees. Which is not to say that they necessarily MIS-treated the bees. The fact is, they had a professional bee-handler on set with them, and he helped them safely use them. There were almost no bee-related injuries among the cast and crew, apparently. But I don't have any data on how many bees might have been killed in the course of the film. Some scenes very obviously use real bees... others, such as the final scene in the superdome, when the bees are sliding in clumps off the car? I don't know if those are real or not. 

Actor-wise, the notables here are Ben Johnson, Horst Bucholz, and James Best, giving this a sort of Western flavor, and Michael Parks who has had a late career revival in the films of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez in films like Death Proof and Kill Bill. 

Johnson was in such high profile Westerns as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), and The Wild Bunch (1969), as well as genre classic Mighty Joe Young (1959) and not so classic Cherry 2000 (1987). Horst Bucholz is of course best known to American audiences as being the odd man out in the star-packed The Magnificent Seven (1960), though he is better known in his native Germany and Europe. James Best hardly needs an introduction, as he is well known as Sheriff Roscoe P. Coletrane from the long running Dukes of Hazzard TV series, and of course beloved genre stinker The Killer Shrews (1959), as well as guest appearances on practically every Western TV series from the 1950s through the 1970s. 

The Day The Earth Caught Fire (1961)

 Continuing my trend of confusing films I've not seen with films I've seen, I'm bringing you this time the 1961 British film The Day The Earth Caught Fire. What did I confuse this with? Two staples of Saturday Afternoon, Crack in the World (1965), and possibly Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961). All of these films are Science Fiction\Disaster fare, but the most dramatic treatment of it, and the most ambiguous in its outcome is The Day The Earth Caught Fire.

The opening of the film is stark and eye-catching. Done with an orange filter, a sweaty and exhausted looking Edward Judd staggers through an abandoned looking London to a newspaper office where he phones an equally tired and sweaty Janet Munro and they talk briefly about a countdown. The orange tinted and empty newsroom dissolves to a much cooler looking and traditional black and white footage of the same newsroom, now crowded and busy, as the flashback begins and the story unfolds as to what has happened.

This is a slow burn, and that's not a bad thing at all. Its something of a character study. We meet our main characters; Edward Judd plays burned out newspaper reporter Peter Stenning, Janet Munro plays a temporary office worker and typist in the British Met Office (the Office of Meteorology) Jeannie Craig, and the late great Leo McKern as gruff science reporter Bill Maguire. What follows is a slow, but increasingly tense and desperate story... reports come in that the United States and the Soviet Union, in aggressive shows of one upsmanship, have simultaneously detonated nuclear tests at opposite poles. This is wearily shrugged off by the reporters as 'just another thing' and they go on with their lives. Stenning is divorced, and the breakup of his marriage has led him to drinking too much and being given fewer and less important assignments... sending his career into a downward spiral. He struggles to maintain at the very least, a good relationship with his 7 year old son. Over the next few days or weeks, odd weather patterns start to emerge globally, and Bill Maguire starts to suspect something has altered the climate and thinks it may have been the nuclear tests... and he asks Stenning to gather some information for him at the Met Office where he meets Jeannie Craig... they trade a few insults, but are attracted to one another anyway. As conditions worsen, and the temperatures steadily rise, it is discovered that something far worse that climate change has occurred... the Earth itself has been knocked out of its orbit, and is slowly moving toward the Sun. 

We see the gradual unravelling of society, as first weather conditions make everyday life difficult, and then more serious things begin happening, including riots, looting, bandits, criminal activity, and disease ramps up. Having just come through the pandemic (which is still going on), its a bit curious to see that the people in the film had a great deal more patience before fraying and fighting back against the public health and safety measures than what has happened in real life. I suspect it was in part due to the nearness in time of WWII and the fact that people still remembered the sacrifices they had to make during that time in order to keep themselves and their neighbors and their country safe. 

It DOES however touch on Government Cover-ups, and it is a plot point that the governments of the world DID try to conceal how serious the situation really was, and it is left to the Press to reveal the truth of it. There are no cries of 'Fake News' here... this is the old days, the golden era of the press as fighting to get the true facts out to the people and let the people take it from there. The press here is shown as heroic champions of the people. That would be considered rather innocent and naive these days I'm afraid, but I for one believe that's what the press ought to be. Its aspirational, I suppose.

But while all this is going on, there is genuine human drama going on as well. The complexities of human relationships are on full display here. Stenning's self-destructive tendencies are stemmed as he and Jeannie grown closer... and their relationship is strained when he uses information she provides in confidence to break a big story. Stenning's devotion to his son is put to the test as the situation becomes more dire, and he has to make decisions to protect the boy which hurt him personally, by sending him out of the city to someplace 'safe' with the boy's mother and stepfather, with no guarantee of ever seeing him again. And, he discovers what it means to him to be a reporter again, and tries to rebuild his shattered reputation.

Edward Judd is excellent here. He has a lot of emotional baggage he has to bring to the character, and he has to balance the character's negative personality traits carefully with the positive ones. He can't make you hate him entirely, or you wouldn't be invested in his story. But, he 's also not a saint either, and his struggle between those poles of his character are fascinating to watch. He reminded me a bit of Richard Burton in this role. Charismatic, but also, deeply flawed. He doesn't abruptly change his personality... you SEE him make every decision to change, for better or worse. 

Janet Munro only has a handful of credits, but what credits they are. In addition to this film, she also played Anne Pilgrim in The Crawling Eye (1958) (also known as The Trollenberg Terror) and Katie O'Gill in Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) among other things. Here she has some remarkably risque scenes for 1961... in one instance, walking around completely topless and wet, with only a loose towel draped around her neck to cover her breasts for an entire scene. I'm not sure I've ever seen something that explicit in a film this old. The sexual tension between her and Edward Judd in the scene that follows is something to behold. She is more or less the moral center of the film, and also to victim of some of the only violence in it, which is hard to watch, even though it is not explicit at all. 

And what do we NEED to say about Leo McKern other than he is as amazing as he ever is? For those who don't know off the bat who he is, I will direct you to his multiple appearances in The Prisoner (1967) in which he played the mysterious Number 2 on several occasions, and most memorably in the last couple episodes, as well as brilliant but curmudgeonly barrister Horace Rumpole in the Rumpole of the Bailey series, his turn as Thomas Cromwell in A Man For All Seasons (1966) and of course Father Imperious in LadyHawke (1985). While the character of Jeannie Craig may be the moral center of the film, Bill Maguire is the heart. He's the gruff, veteran newspaperman with a heart of gold... self deprecating but driven by the truth, and while he's willing to support Stenning, he can't abide self pity or self-destruction, and gently encourages (and later almost orders) Stenning to continue his relationship with Jeannie when he sees that she's a good influence on the other man. While he talks like a cynic, and says its not his problem when the girl gets arrested for leaking information to Stenning, its all talk (possibly talk to get Stenning to do something about it himelf), and when push comes to shoves its HE who goes and gets her and gives her a new job at the newspaper. I really expected something bad to happen to him, as that seems to be the fate of mentor figures in films of this era. However, he remains until the bitter end. 

And its quite the ending. 

Stenning is waiting in the newspaper offices for the official announcements from the world governments as to the success or failure of their plans to push the Earth back into its orbit with more nuclear detonations. The two printing presses are set, each with its own headline, depending on what the outcome is: Plan Succeeds, Earth Saved, or Plan Fails, Earth Doomed. We never find out which runs.

The imagery is quite something in this. We see London and Brighton slowly drying out, bleaching out, and falling apart as the heat increases. One particularly striking image was of the Thames river dried to a mere trickle of water through a parched and cracked set of mud flats... a single tiny police boat barely managing to navigate it. Or earlier, when a dense, low-hanging mist rolls in and closes down much of Brighton, so low-hanging that you can see above it if you are on the second level of a double-decker bus, but impenetrable below that. 

And again, we return to the pandemic and the fears that brings. At one point it is discovered that black-market obtained water may be contaminated with Typhus, and even one of the newroom figures collapses from the disease. And in the next scene we are shown a huge group of nihilistic young people, partying and rioting, and splashing water all over themselves and other people, and you cannot help put wonder if that water is some of the disease contaminated water we just heard about, and wonder how many of those people are doing to die because of it. I was reminded of the filled beaches and public venues during the early Covid era, when so many people refused to wear masks. 

This is not an entirely easy film to watch. It asks some tough questions, and really its almost more about what kind of person you are in a crisis than about a science fiction disaster. I was trying to think of more recent films that might have similar themes, but there aren't any that leap to mind. There are disaster movies aplenty, as well as many science fiction and horror movies that have a similar apocalyptic arc to them... but they seem to fail to examine the way people react to it. The closest may be something like various Zombie Apocalypse films, or a TV Show like The Walking Dead, which, unfortunately but maybe realistically, don't so much depict people rising to become better people in a crisis, but watching them abandon the trappings of civilization and become something feral in order to survive in a feral world. That's a cynical take on it... unfortunately, watching the behavior of people during the pandemic, and the post-2020 election, I despair of anyone attempting to remain moral and ethical in an apocalypse.

Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory (1961)

 I'll be honest, I hadn't seen this film before this week. I THOUGHT I had seen it, but I think I was getting it confused with 1957's Blood of Dracula which has a similar setting and a somewhat similar aesthetic. However, this is far more engaging that the other, and has a mystery element to it that works well. This is one of the first times I recall seeing the werewolf used in a 'whodunnit' scenario. This gets more common in later films, most prominently I think it The Beast Must Die (1974) and The Howling V: Rebirth (1989), among others.

Made in Italy in 1961 and released under the title Lycanthropus, this film seems somewhat transitional, positioned somewhere between gothic horror and giallo. I've seen it mentioned that it has a lot in common with the West German krimi films of the 50s and 60s, but I'm not familiar enough with those at this time to do more than note it. 

The plot centers on a girls reformatory/school, where a new professor has arrived. We quickly see that there is a somewhat seedy side to this place. One of the girls sneaks out at night, to meet with one of the male professors and we learn she's been trading her affections for his assistance in getting released. She then proceeds to blackmail him. The plot kicks off when she returns to the dorm and is attacked and killed. The autopsy concludes it was an animal attack, most likely from the wolves that seem to abound outside the walls of the place, but our main character Priscilla (Barbara Lass) is convinced it was murder and sets out to expose the unknown person responsible. In doing so, she uncovers the blackmail plot and the criminal or at least unethical activities of many of the staff. And gradually, rumor comes out that there is a werewolf at large...

As werewolf movies go... this isn't great. But it is engaging enough as a murder mystery, albeit a REALLY unusual murder weapon. 

What's more, it continues a trend I'm seeing of a lot of films of the late 50s and early 60s that push the envelopes of what we generally consider 'acceptable' subject matters. This film not only contains a rather graphic looking corpse, but also deals in a lot of very 'mature' subjects, ranging from blackmail to student-teacher sexual relationships, and sometimes bordering on the inappropriate. The girls in this reform school are supposed to be teenagers, and yet one of them clearly has an affair with an older teacher in order to get blackmail on him, and another one, possibly less predatory relationship, seems to kick off between Priscilla and the new professor (apparently to the envy of the other girls). This film, at times, FEELS a little grimy, but manages to keep it sort of classy, and only bits and pieces are shown, told, or hinted at. 

Part of the reason behind the confusion I had about this film is that it does continue the trend at this time of applying pseudo-science to supernatural legends. We've seen this before in I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957), the aforementioned Blood of Dracula (1957), and How to Make a Monster (1958). Here, the acknowledgement of Lycanthropy as an actual medical condition, and the search for a cure for it is pivotal. 

All in all, I was surprised by this, and I need to go back and watch it again.