"The Watcher in the Woods" (1980) d/ John Hough

1980 wasn't a fantastic year for live-action films released by the folks at Disney, which would later grow into the multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that none of us could ever get enough of, to be certain. With titles like Midnight Madness, the Popeye musical, The Last Flight of Noah's Ark, and Herbie Goes Bananas to compete with, it shouldn't have taken too much effort for tonight's review, a supernatural thriller from the guy who brought you Howling IV : The Original Nightmare (1988), to achieve "Finest Disney Live Action Movie of 1980" status, with all due respect to David Naughton, Eddie Deezen, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, and a yellow Paul Smith swimming away out to sea, respectively. Does it manage? Read on, and find out...


You spelled REDRUM wrong, bitch.
The Curtis family moves into a spacious manor on the English countryside that's enveloped by foreboding forest and overseen by it's elderly owner, Mrs. Aylwood (Bette Davis), a secretive old sourpuss who looks as though she goes to the same stylist as Christopher Walken. When she sees the family's eldest daughter, Jan (Lynn-Holly Johnson), and her striking resemblance to Aylwood's own daughter, Karen, who disappeared mysteriously some thirty years earlier, she feels compelled to lease to the family. Right off the bat, Jan shows an uncanny propensity for making mirrors crack in the same triangular pattern when she stands near to them, and also notices weird blue lights out in the forest. Little Ellie (Kyle Richards) also seems to be a lightning rod for unexplained PG-rated weirdness herself, after buying a puppy and naming it Nerak, spelling it out on a dusty window, which seen backwards happens to spell out Aylwood's daughter's name. Insert fifties-style theremin here. Jan also unwittingly plunges into a nearby pond while gazing at circles in the water, being rescued by Aylwood and her trusty gondola rowing oar. Bo staff? Witch broom? The plot thickens.


From Ice Castles to Blouse Busters.
Before too long, Jan takes it upon herself to investigate what really happened to Aylwood's daughter all those years ago, and some unseen force seems to be protecting her as she does, with premonitions of doom saving her hide from an out of control exploding dirtbike that would have creamed her for sure, and a lightning-struck Citroen stalled out on a wooden bridge that would have spelled the end for the sisters and their mother (Carroll Baker), as she races to remove her girls from this supernatural presence that seems to be pestering them. Patriarchal Paul (David McCallum) tickles the ivories briefly and fiddles with some sheet music to let the audience know he's a musician for sure, but that's about it. A local wildlife-rescuing gimp named John (Ian Bannen) spills to Jan about the fateful night he and two of his mates took Karen to the abandoned chapel for a secret friendship ceremony that involves "Ring Around the Roses" (Disney, all day) and how she disappeared amidst the flash of lightning, tumbling church bell, and flaming rafters. I'll just bet it's gonna take a recreation of said ceremony using all original parties during a solar eclipse to finally get to the bottom of all this. Call it a hunch.


"Come, Kyle. Help me to drown Goofy." sneers Mrs. Aylwood (Bette Davis).
Hough has directed some real genre goodies over the years, from Twins of Evil (1971) and The Legend of Hell House (1973) to The Incubus (1982) and Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and it's sequel. Lead actress Lynn-Holly Johnson, who replaced Disney's first choice in Dianne Lane, is notably awful here, allegedly drawing the ire of Hollywood royalty in Bette Davis on the set, with her speak-shouted dialog delivered in a Sarah Palin-esque accent, with obligatory lifeless stare, to further confound matters. Hear her say words like "cheeaaaapple" (chapel) and "eaaaverage" (average) over and over again in dreadful Chicago-flavored drawl. In her defense, nobody else in the cast is particularly effective, and there's one lifeless exchange/shouting match between Johnson and co-star Ian Bannen that wouldn't be out of place in an H.G. Lewis or Andy Milligan scene. On the plus side, the film's score, as provided by Stanley Myers, is a good one, and Alan Hume's cinematography is impressive throughout. Overall, I feel like two Wops isn't an unreasonable rating, and under the proper circumstances viewers may be able to enjoy the experience despite the shortcomings. Worth a look.


Even hanging around can be a beautiful experience in polyester from Penneys.

"The Legend of Hell House" (1973) d/ John Hough

In the late sixties and early seventies,  lots of folks were tuned in on the far out, such as witchcraft, ghosts, the occult, and paranormal investigation. Tonight's movie, for example, is a classic haunted house movie, full of creepy atmosphere, shadows and whispers turning to screams at midnight, and spectral, otherworldly presences up to no good, indeed,  in the gothic locale of Blenheim Palace, with familiar genre faces like Roddy MacDowall and Pamela Franklin among the ranks of the mortals setting out to endure a week inside the estate investigating the malevolent spirits who call it home. What really elevates this one above it's standard plot, besides several gripping performances from the cast,  is an engaging screenplay full of tense moments by the one and only Richard Matheson, based upon his own novel, Hell House.


Keep your hundred grand, I'd live here for free.
Mr. Deutsch hires a team of experts to spend an entire week inside the fog-enshrouded Belasco House, which has come to be known as "Hell House", and "the Mt. Everest of haunted houses", thanks to the previous failed attempts to do the same that resulted in death, disfigurement, and loss of sanity in all takers save for one: Ben Fischer (Roddy MacDowall), a physical medium who's willing to give it another try for the hundred thousand dollars that Deutsch promises anyone who survives. Also along for the ride are a young spiritual medium named Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin), and a haughty disbeliever of a psychologist named Dr. Barrett (Clive Revill), who plans to use the seven day experience to disprove the existence of life after death with a bulky machine that will negate rogue electromagnetic energy, which he surmises is the true culprit behind the house's phenomena, and finally, his sexually frustrated wife, Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt), who's thumbing a ride to planet Orgasmo.


Somebody pack Dr. Barrett (Clive Revill) a bibbity, he's having a rough week.
Instantly, Florence believes she's made contact with the restless spirit of Belasco's illegitimate son, Daniel, and the medium is used during readings to manifest physical phenomena like objects moving on their own and as a lightning rod for materializing ethereal presences that float in the air around her hands and face. Fischer, who's seen it all before, remains tight lipped save for several desperate warnings to everybody to vacate the premises at once, while they're still able, as evidenced by the skeptical Barrett's getting beat down with every dangerous object in the room as it hurls at him, unexplainedly. While Mrs. B repeatedly throws herself at Ben, her husband hurls accusations at Florence, while malevolently misleading poltergeists serve her up the roughest invisi-rape this side of The Entity, while hurling huge, deadly crucifixes down upon her. After Barrett runs his machine, Ben declares the house is clean, but the psychologist succumbs directly to another psychic attack, leaving only the medium and the new widow to solve the mystery of the homicidal home before they're added to its legendary body count...


"...and the music was soothing, and they all started grooving...yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!"
Whether you're talking about genre classics like William Castle's House on Haunted Hill(1959), The Haunting (1963), or tonight's entry, or even later things like Rose Red (2002) or John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (1987), the haunted house premise remains pretty interchangeable. Experts risk life and limb to prove or disprove the existence of ghosts for a great reward. Like I mentioned earlier, it's Matheson's meaty dialog as acted out here by the late great MacDowall, who purveyed fear in his eyes like few actors before or since, in my opinion, and even Franklin, who's always had a beautiful scream for horror movies, I think, that really sets the production apart from the rest. Director Hough, no stranger to the genre himself (Twins of Evil, Escape to Witch Mountain, The Watcher in the Woods, The Incubus, to name just a few),  handles the eerie material well, as always. Hell House earns Three Wops, and comes very highly recommended. See it if you dare...


"I'm so excited that I'm experiencing great difficulty in trying to hide it," notes Emeric Belasco (Michael Gough).

"The Incubus" (1981) d/John Hough

I had to have come away sourly after the first time I saw tonight's review back in the VHS eighties, my usually unreachable teenage expectations of demon screen time and goopy levels of gore having been largely unrealized. I probably even brought the tape back on time, too, as I had a habit of doing whenever the movie didn't grab me. I mean, I must have done that, as I really hadn't watched this one since the Chachi-hair/fragstache days, not something I can say about too many horror movies. An unfair assessment on my part, it turns out, as Incubus contains some fairly moody and effective stuff, underneath the conventional crime drama vibe that's maintained throughout by an especially touchy-feely John Cassavetes and company, leading up to what's gotta be one of the better "Huh??" climaxes in genre history.


...hot enough to fry both your eggs out there, mama. Too late.
We kick off with an unseen fiend rubbing out an unfortunate pair of young lovers who foolishly decide to have a swim at the old quarry, and after using a rundown change shack nearby for prank's sake, which everybody knows, is never a good idea in movies like this, they end up rape-killed and clobbered with a bat with obligatory protruding nail, respectively, for their youthful folly.When the slimy new physician in town, Dr. Cordell (Cassavetes) isn't being creepy about his own daughter Jenny (Erin Flannery) or extensively rubbing people's faces during conversations, he's investigating a recent series of ultra-violent sexual murders that share the same massive vaginal trauma and unusually abundant amount of discharge therein. Cordell's especially impressed with the semen, for some reason, raving about it on several occasions.


S'okay honey, I had the rape-proof glass put in last week.
Meanwhile, Jenny's reclusive beau Tim Galen has been having livid dreams of torture that just so happen to coincide with the murders. His mollycoddling grandmother knows more than she's letting on, too.If that's not enough, the seemingly apathetic drunk that wears the sheriff's badge (John Ireland) has been staving the journalistic inquiries of a masochistic sex bomb of a reporter (Kerry Keane) off, and she somehow ends up romantically linked to Cordell, who may or may not have done in his own girlfriend in a jealous rage, mind you. If you guessed that she's a dead ringer for his old flame, give yourselves a pat on the back. It turns out that the Galen family were renowned for their witch-hunting skills, the last successful hunt transpiring some thirty years ago, bagging a sorceress who'd been impregnated by her incubus(!), the conception somehow resulting in eighteen year old Tim, who can naturally channel the horny hellion's line of sight while asleep. That climax that I mentioned before, occurs thereafter, and I'll leave it for you to experience for yourselves.


Thus, the riddle of Eddie Money's face was solved, once and for all.
You'll instantly spot Iron Maiden front man Bruce Dickinson in a well glammy cameo here, performing with Samson. Director Hough helmed Twins of Evil  for Hammer in 1971, and also the superb Legend of Hell House (1973), a haunted house movie par excellence, as well as Disney efforts Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and 1983's Watcher in the Woods, with Bette Davis. You probably won't class tonight's review with the best of those titles, and the flawed script might leave your head spinning at certain points, but over all, it's still a pretty good time for genre fans, and as such, it earns three big ones on the ratings scale. Check it out...


"Relax, guys, John Cassavetes'll vouch for my sperm count..."