"Tower of Evil" (1972) d/ Jim O'Connelly

Contrary to popular belief, this one isn't about my sex organ. It's actually a gothic horror cheapie from the British company (Grenadier) who also brought you 1978's The Cat and the Canary remake (and that's it.), as directed by the chappie who served you up the stop motion thrills of Valley of Gwangi (1969). Naturally, it's been released under a few different titles, including Beyond the Fog, to cash in on Carpenter's then recent success, some eight years after the fact. A sequel to The Fog it's not, but what it is, is an occasionally atmospheric, lurid set up for some hilarious dialog, outrageous seventies fashions, surprisingly gory murders for the era, and wanton hippie nudity and sex, enough to keep you well entertained up until the credits roll, I'd be willing to bet. It all starts out like this...


" 'The velour cleavage' may be a good name for a band,  Nora,  but it's no way to walk around this creepy lighthouse at night...", notes Rose (Jill Haworth).
A pair of sailors cut through the fog and treacherous rocks to dock their boat on Snape Island, only to discover a trio of cadavers, and a nude, hysterical American bird (Candace Glendenning) who fatally shanks the older one for his rescue attempt. In an unreachably catatonic state at the hospital, the doctors shoot her full of chemicals and pelt her with groovy flashing light-based hypnotherapy to piece the horrific events together (two young couples from Denver, jazz festival, marijuana, free love, yessss, it's all coming together now, isn't it?). Meanwhile, the murder-spear extracted from the midsection of one of the hippie corpses is made of pure gold, dating back thousands of years, to a Phoenician cult that payed its tributes to Baal. This leads to another group, archaeologists this time, willing to boat through the choppy,  rear projected waters back to Snape Island, to search for the hidden treasure. There's an unhappily married nymphomaniac named Nora (Anna Palk), who flits about the creepy lighthouse, blowing jibbs in a form-fitting velour bell bottom jumpsuit, and her husband, Dan (Derek Fowlds), Evan and Rose (Bryant Haliday, Jill Haworth), a dodgy detective named Hawk, Hamp (Jack Watson), the surviving sailor from the original trip, and his horny nephew, Brom (Gary Hamilton), a Mick Jagger lookalike who wears the couture version of a weightlifting belt (!) over his ugly, loud seventies gear. Besides that, what could go wrong?


"With this sacrificial gold machete lodged in my head, I've every reason to feel 'umpy!", thinks Brom (Gary Hamilton).
Well, for starters, the original lighthouse keeper and his wife and infant child, who may or may not have drowned some time ago, except the wife's gooey corpse suddenly turns up in a chair inside, while the men are out policing the rocks for cave entrances, after Nora's had a weed-induced shag with Brom in bed under everyone's noses. If that wasn't bad enough, some prankster has blown up their only boat back to the mainland with dynamite, and smashed the short wave radio, as well. Damn. Then Nora plummets to her death from the light tower, while avoiding the advances of the mad old keeper, who more than slightly resembles Peter Jackson circa Bad Taste (1987), in bib overalls. While everyone's flashlighting their way through the labrynthian caves under the lighthouse, Brom gets his loaf bifurcated by a gold machete, and Dan runs into the keeper, who abruptly snaps his neck, before being fatally perforated by the detective's bullets. Just when it looks like the mystery has been wrapped up, and the gold trinkets of Baal's altar have been recovered, the keeper's even more deformed son (think oversized, cyclopean caveman Mardi Gras head kind of deformed here) shanks up Hamp, and descends upon Rose, only to eat a chucked paraffin lamp for breakfast, which sends the deformed madman, the lighthouse, the caves, the altar full of goodies...everything, ablaze, while the survivors look on. End titles, please.


"Omigod!! I've just won two tickets to see Mandrake Paddle Steamer at the Isle of Wight Festival!!"
The DVD treatment by Elite Entertainment (which is the one I have, having never been struck with the urge to upgrade from it) offers the film's trailer, and nothing else. Good enough for me, maybe some of you are slightly more ambitious about that sort of thing. You'll remember Candace Glendenning from her appearances in things like The Flesh and Blood Show (1972) and Satan's Slave (1976). Anna Palk, my favorite dish here, dates back to 1964's The Earth Dies Screaming, The Skull (1965), and 1966's The Frozen Dead, before being taken by cancer in 1990 at the age of forty-eight. Genre-wise, Haworth can be seen in 1960's Brides of Dracula, It! (1967), Horror House (1969), made-for-tv movie Home For the Holidays (1972), and The Mutations (1974). Though you certainly wont mistake this one for a Hammer, Amicus, or even a Tigon production of the period, for that matter,  it has enough going for it, that you'll still manage to get a few kicks out of it, and for that reason, I've given it two solid Wops on the rating scale. Give it a look.


Punctured by Liberace's spear... what a gaudy way to go, eh?

"Home for the Holidays" (1972) d/ John Llewellyn Moxey

Tonight we'll take a look at another lost made-for-tv gem from the man who directed enough of them in his day, like The Strange and Deadly Occurrence (1974), The Night Stalker (1972), and  A Taste of Evil (1971), to name just a few. Add to the mix a cast that includes a post-Gidget/Flying Nun Sally Field, chunky caboose and barrettes variant, Jill Haworth in a prissy, but posh outing, Jessica "Play Misty For Me"(1971) Walter, and Julie Harris of The Haunting (1963) fame, among others. I've heard a lot of people call it the first Christmas-based slasher around the ether-toobz, but let's not forget that Amicus' Tales From the Crypt (1972) had a killer Santa and was released in March of that year, while tonight's review had it's television debut in November of the same year. Facts are facts, me hearties!


"It's the best time of year to get unglued on booze and scripts!"
At the appeal of their dying father, Benjamin (Walter Brennan), the Morgan sisters have reluctantly all come home for Christmas. Posh, jaded swinger Jo (Jill Haworth) burned through enough failed marriages that she only uses men for sex now, while innocent Christine (Sally Field)'s sweet naivete' may prove her undoing in the end. Then there's Federica (Jessica Walter) who drowns the sorrows of her mother's earlier suicide in pills and booze, and the eldest sister, Alex (Eleanor Parker), who keeps the family together during crises and rocks an ugly 70's floral pattern pantsuit/jumpsuit without one iota of style or shame. Benjamin's sure that his  new wife, Elizabeth (Julie Harris), has been slowly poisoning him over the past few months, and beseeches his daughters to kill her before she can further suppress his life force to the point of acute coffin-age. She seems nice enough, but then somebody makes easy prey of Jo with a pitchfork before she can check out of the rainy downer that she's clearly got no time to waste upon.
 

Put petite little pretties Christine (Sally Field) and Jo (Jill Haworth) under my mistletoe anytime.
Next, somebody submerges a soused Freddie in the bubble bath, leaving her waterlogged carcass for her sisters to stumble upon, Christine's ear-piercers falling upon Benjamin's ears, deaf to reason, since he refuses to see the local doctor, who's taken a shine to Chris now that she's grown up, and displays her perky puppies properly in studious-looking sweater vests, or call the police in on such scandalous family matters. A fatal character flaw for him, in the end, as he's added to the mounting body count, sending a hysterical Christine off into the woods to the nearest neighbor for help, during a torrential downpour, since the telephone is out, and the road to town is washed out, you know the drill. You'll be guessing the psychopath right up to the final reel, which I'm not nearly gonna spoil for you here. See it!


"Kill my wife, please!" begs Ben Morgan (Walter Brennan).
I can't even look at Walter Brennan without hearing my father talking about heading bad guys off at the pass in his voice. My old man, a western nut of the highest order, used to lay his Walter Brennan impersonation on us all the time, as kids. He probably stands as my main inspiration to attempt people's voices myself. He had a couple regulars that weren't bad at all, and Walter was one of them. My Eastwood, Bronson, and Van Cleef are among his favorites in my repertoire, he tells me. I don't do Brennan, simply because nobody'd have any idea who the hell he is these days. The dainty Haworth also appeared in Horror of Snape Island the same year, and showed up in 1974's The Mutations, having scored earlier genre credits in It! (1967) and Horror House (1969). The only other one of those that equally petite Sally Field has earned to date, came in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery series the following year. Too bad, really, she's got a great bloodcurdling scream. Unless I suddenly entertain the urge to cover the Smokey and the Bandit movies (sorry, not gonna be able to do.)here, Sally and company earn themselves a respectable pair of Wops for this enjoyable vintage small screen romp. Give it a look.


"I'm fucking great at playing disturbed broads! Gaaaaaaaahhh!!!", clamors Freddie (Jessica Walter).