"The Death Wheelers" (1973) d/ Don Sharp

I remember the Media VHS of tonight's review under it's original title, Psychomania (1972), one of the earliest releases on the format if my memory serves me correctly, before a sudden flood of unlicensed bootlegs of much grit and grain turned up in supermarket bins everywhere for a buck (much like Romero's Night of the Living Dead, which I bought  Media's release of, way back when, for fifty bucks.), one Halloween season. Of course, I'd dug this idiosyncratic tale of biker gangs and the occult for ages beforehand, having seen it numerous times during its run as a late night television staple back in the seventies, the ideal venue for the production, really, since it doesn't offer the boobs or blood as a PG feature that rivals Hammer would have slathered an X certificate film with.


"Try licking his back...It's very groovy, indeed.", notes Shadwell (George Sanders).
Tom Latham (Nicky Henson) is an interesting chap, to be sure. When he's not terrorizing people and causing traffic accidents with his motorcycle gang, the aptly-named "Living Dead",  a surprisingly posh bunch who all have names like "Chopped Meat", "Gash", and "Hinky" (of course, there's also a Bertram thrown in for good measure), and skulls and crossbones painted on their helmets to go with the usual diabolical leather clobber and chains you always see that lot wearing, he's grilling his frog-digging, psychic mother (Beryl Reid, as a "large medium", you might say) for the secrets to immortality that are seemingly locked away in his late father's study. After nearly blowing his cool in said study, he learns that eternal life can be achieved by simply committing suicide and believing that you'll return afterwards. He does just that, and is buried on his motorcycle(!), which he uses to dramatically burst free from his earthy grave, finally a patch holder with the real living dead.


Meanwhile, somewhere in Italy, Michele Soavi nodded approvingly.
Once the rest of the gang gets a load of Tom's new kicks: mass murder, as evidenced by the lifeless bodies he's been leaving in his wake, even busting them out of the nick by killing the attending guards and bending the cell bars, Hulk-style(!),  they all decide to join in his shenanigans by snuffing it in different, creative ways: one by skydiving, one by chain-weighted drowning, one swan dives off of a busy traffic overpass, etc., except for Tom's reluctant bird, Abby (Mary Larkin) whose stubborn refusal to die really gets up her late boyfriend's nose. He drives his bike through a brick wall, later giving her the lover's ultimatum: Die, or I'll kill you. Sounds reasonable. Tom's mother, shamed by her son's lust for power and appetite for destruction, uses her superior black magic skills to transform the rotten lot of them into stone pillars before Abby's disbelieving eyes.


"May a nearsighted nonce mistake yer hemorrhoids fer cherry tah-matoes, ya deuce-in-a-pail!"
Sadly, this would be apex British cad George Sanders' last movie, as he committed suicide in 1972. Beryl Reid, you may remember from 1970's Beast in the Cellar. Ann Michelle was no stranger to genre films, herself, appearing in things like 1972's Virgin Witch, House of Whipcord (1974), and even Cruel Passion (1977) with Koo Stark. Nicky Henson, who also appeared in 1968's Vincent Price vehicle, Witchfinder General, would turn up opposite David Niven in the comedic Old Drac/ Vampira (1974). I think the film's strength lies in the odd, witchy vibe it surrounds itself in throughout; its well-deserved cult classic status stemming from the film's black sense of humor as much as the bikers' far out skull-helmets, which must've struck an immediate nerve with audiences at the time, especially during the impressive foggy slo-mo in the title sequence. On the scale, Wheelers scores an impressive three Wops and comes highly recommended. Add it to your collection, sharpish.


Suddenly, Tom (Nicky Henson) was petrified at the thought of immortality.

"The Devil's Daughter" (1973) d/ Jeannot Szwarc

By 1973, devils, demons, and diabolical dealings had become all the rage in Hollywood, thanks in part, to the success of Roman Polanski's occult shocker, Rosemary's Baby (1968). Of course, I was three years old when they first broadcast tonight's review, so Sesame Street, Electric Company, and Let's All Sing with Tony Saletan all had my minimal attention span on lockdown back then. It's a shame, too, because only a year or so later I'd have grooved on such a made-for-tv effort, starring Canadian brunette Belinda Montgomery, who was no stranger to the genre, having appeared in Ritual of Evil for the networks three years earlier. Of course, Shelley Winters is at the top of her early seventies hamminess here, and you've also got to factor in a cast of supporting names like Joseph Cotten, Robert Foxworth, Dianne Ladd, Lucille Benson, Abe "Fish" Vigoda, and a post-Dark Shadows Barnabus Collins himself, Jonathan Frid.


"Marry a demon? I'd sooner play the mother of a licensed fourteen year old doctor...for ninety-seven episodes."
Diane's (Belinda Montgomery) mom prearranges a marriage between her daughter and the son of Satan in exchange for some folding money, eventually backing out on the deal when she tries to assassinate the Devil with a bullet, fatally shooting herself in the process, like the foolish mortal that she is. When Diane comes out of her sheltered existence of private schools and convents to attend her mother's funeral, she's approached by an obnoxious redheaded Satanist named Lilith (Shelley Winters) and her mute chauffeur, Mr. Howard (Jonathan Frid), and asked to be a guest at her luxurious mansion, where a strange seal bearing intersected crosses seems to be everywhere.


"Before any Satanic orgies commence, I always like to consult my painting of Hugh Jackman."
Creeped out by Lilith's Pan-born pushiness, Diane breaks out like viral conjunctivitis and scores herself an apartment of her own, makes new less-black arts inclined acquaintances in a girl named Alice Shaw (Dianne Ladd), but Lilith and her associates are as resourceful as they are diligent, and the theft of a small glass horse figurine spells a deadly horse riding accident for Alice. Naturally, Diane hooks up with her newly deceased pal's boyfriend, Steve (Robert Foxworth). There's a big party at Lilith's pad, where Diane drinks a little too much, shakes it loose, and is hailed as the "Princess of Darkness" by a guest list that includes Abe Vigoda, ferchrissakes. She later meets with a judge (Joseph Cotten) who informs her of a trust fund she's entitled to, as set up by her father, and even volunteers to give the bride away at her upcoming spur-of-the-moment wedding to Steve. Cue: Trick ending, and one worthy of the pages of a seventies D.C. horror anthology.


"Have you seen me in 'A Double Life'? Errrr... I've got an Academy Award I can show you, too..."
If the director's name sounds familiar to you, it's probably because he was responsible for genre fodder like the made-for-tv Night of Terror (1972), Bug (1975), and Jaws 2 (1978), as well as no less than nineteen episodes of the excellent television horror anthology, Night Gallery. We'll try to erase his credits on Supergirl (1984) and Santa Claus (1985) from our collective memory if we can. Jonathan Frid would turn up the following year in Ollie Stone's feature-length debut, Seizure, his only role thereafter, save for in a cameo in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows (2012) the same year he passed away. On the scale, Daughter ties the infernal knot with a couple of cloven Wops, a devilishly enjoyable time to be had, for sure. Hunt it down!


"....set my Little Orphan Annie decoder ring to B2 to find out the secret message..."

"To The Devil...A Daughter" (1976) d/ Peter Sykes

I dunno about you guys, but I'm suddenly feeling the initial vibes of another theme to focus our critical lens upon here at the Wop, and demonology and witchcraft-themed flicks have always been favorites of mine (obviously), so unless there are any objections,  it's unanimous. Tonight's review, the last horror film out of iconic Hammer Studios for over thirty years, is a very good one, indeed. Permeating director Peter Sykes' frame with a sense of dread and real evil is the regal Christopher Lee, who treats the role of an excommunicated priest-turned-cult-leader with great relish and aplomb, as always, with the likes of Richard Widmark, Denholm Eliott, and a budding Nastassja Kinski along to help realize Christopher Wicking's strong screenplay, adapted from occult specialist Dennis (The Devil Rides Out, et al) Wheatley's novel.


"As you can very well see, I derive a significant amount of pleasure from the worship of Astaroth."
After being excommunicated from the Church for heresy, Father Michael (Christopher Lee) spends the next decades scheming to bring about the physical rebirth of Astaroth using the body of the teenage daughter of a man named Henry Beddows (Denholm Elliott) as the animate vessel through a gruesome matricidal ritual. Beddows recants on his pact with 'ol Scratch by enlisting a popular occult novelist named Verney (Richard Widmark) to protect his child from the former priest and his demonic disciples. Verney deftly stashes Catherine (Nastassja Kinski), who's lived a sheltered existence thus far, as a nun in Germany, at his London flat, with his associates Anna (Honor Blackman) and David (Anthony Valentine) helping to conceal her until he can further research Beddows' predicament. Verney states that ninety-eight percent of so-called Satanists are just sexual deviates seeking out new kinky thrills, but the remaining two percent are very definitely cause for great concern.


"Hold my inverted cross, boys, I'm goin' all the way like The Raspberries!"
Varney soon learns that it's the dreaded other two percent that he's foolishly gotten involved with, as Father Michael oversees the birth of a horrible, misshapen baby demon out of it's mother's abdomen during a wild Satanic orgy, while Catherine eagerly cops to being a willing disciple of Michael's, displaying a gold  pendant of Astaroth upon an inverted cross she was given as a present for her upcoming eighteenth birthday, the desired date for the arrival of the crown prince of Hell. As Varney grills a Bishop for historical background on Father Michael, and browses the very pages of The Grimoire of Astaroth that Father Michael had, twenty-six years earlier, Catherine, under the influence of the sinister ex-priest, shanks a watchful Anna in the neck with a steel comb and escapes to her awaiting sect. Will the author save the girl from the impending forces of darkness? Or will evil triumph in it's climactic battle against good for the ages? Score yourselves a copy and see how it all turns out...


"What's the big idea, peltin' Robert Tessier with tomatoes?!!?"
Despite the silly, floppy, rubber devil-baby (say that six times fast, why don't ya), I'm of the belief that the less in tune critics that wrongfully panned this one back in 1976 were probably shocked by the film's somber tone and heavy erotic vibes, having been lulled by the familiarity of the studio's track record; relying heavily upon burlesque thrills and corny chills to a fault. What they had here was in fact, a legitimate horror movie, an effective companion piece to Hammer's own earlier occultish effort, The Devil Rides Out (1968). Though star Richard Widmark called it the one mistake of his acting career, and even Christopher Lee (who does not provide his own ass in the production, for the record) found at least one sequence to be quite obscene, I found it well worthy of three Wops on the rating scale, and recommend that you hunt down a copy and see for yourselves what I mean.


...and to the Devil's daughter...I dunno, maybe a bikini wax?

"City of the Dead" (1960) d/ John Moxey

Tonight's entry is a beauteous little British number, an early atmospheric Psycho-esque horror piece known as 'Horror Hotel' in America; boiling over with artificial fog, witches' covens, and human sacrifice set in New England, as evidenced by the odd forced regional dialects affected by the British actors, with iconic genre baddie Christopher Frank Carandini Lee providing the most serviceable of the lot. As Lee has always been tops among my favorite actors, I've always gotten special satisfaction from repeated screenings of this one, whether it was on late night cable in the seventies or recently on the big plasma screen , with much more dialog than he was afforded later in his career once he'd been typecast as that Count fellow. In addition,  British television staple Patricia Jessel is memorable as Newless/Selwyn, and sexy blonde Venetia Stevenson  is an eyeful during her scenes. Vulcan Productions would later become Amicus, probably the steepest competition for British genre giants Hammer during their heyday.


This look means you're failing Witchcraft class. I know, I had him for French in college.
After we see a witch named Elizabeth Selwyn(Jessel) burned at the stake for witchery in 1692, we fast forward to present day and a young coed named Nan (Venetia Stevenson) who ditches her winter vacation to research her senior paper on witchcraft in a creepy little burg named Whitewood, upon the suggestion of her professor(Lee), and against the wishes of her boyfriend, Bill (Tom Maitland). C'mon, what's the worst that could happen, old man? It's not like she's gonna get marked by a coven of ancient witches for sacrifice on Candlemas Eve or anything. Well, actually, yeah, it is exactly like that. Among the hooded cultists at the altar are Mrs. Newless(Jessel) from the Raven's Inn (Newless... Selwyn, don't you ever watch vampire movies, chick?) and Professor Driscoll himself! Hopefully he'll give her posthumous extra credit towards her final grade for her troubles, eh.


"Kookie, lend me your comb. Kookie, Kookie?"
When Nan is a no-show at the party held at her her brother Richard's (Dennis Lotis), he and Bill decide to investigate her puzzling disappearance, leading them both inevitably to Whitewood, where the blind reverend's daughter(Betta St. John) has been marked for sacrifice on the witches' Sabbath. The soupy fog proves too much for Bill, who wrecks his wheels on the drive into town, while Richard gets snatched up by hooded cultists in the graveyard as they wait for the thirteenth toll of the clock's bell to plunge the hulking dagger into the chest of their unwilling offering. A busted up Bill finally makes the scene, and gets said dagger thrown into his back for the effort, but he manages to loosen a cross from one of the graves and set the witches aflame with it's shadow, as per required. Selwyn escapes the righteous judgment only to age hundreds of years and slump dead underneath the plaque commemorating her burning at the stake on the Raven's Inn, to the dismay and horror of our surviving protagonists...

 

"Watch me dissect this hooker, Driscoll. Her blood is well groovy."

Moxey also helmed 'The Night Stalker' (1972), genre-wise, during a long career in television, while it would be another seventeen years before Lee would turn down the role of Sam Loomis in John Carpenter's Halloween and take his place in horror history as the narrator in the unforgettable Meatcleaver Massacre(1977). While you're laughing at that, try to remember that the immutable 91 year old has only appeared in over two hundred movies to date, and counting. You can't expect farcical cgi light saber battles with Yoda, every time outta the gate, y'know. Three wops.

"No, no, of course I don't fault you, seeing how 'pail of water' sounds like 'oversized cross' when you think about it, old chap..."

"Necromancy"(1972)d/Bert I. Gordon

Here's another rarely-seen late oddity from Mr. B.I.G. himself  that turned up a decade later during the video tape era, a lethargic low budget Orson Welles occult effort reworked with added nudity and blood-letting and repackaged as 'The Witching' by the folks at Paragon, the updated trailer with repetitive takes of Orson's portly facepiece hogging the lens while clutching multiple chalices and inimitably burping corny sorcery-based dialogue remains one of my fondest memories of the time, and always pulled some laughs out of me when I saw it, regardless of how miserable I may have been, prior to.For you new boots on the block, Orson Welles ran the gamut in film, having directed and starred in R.K.O.'s Citizen Kane(1941), a movie that many consider the greatest the art form has offered to date(Not I, says I), and then, thirty years later, he's waddling around in a house-sized ceremonial robe with nude Satanites n' Satanettes flanking him(Brinke Stevens is in there, in an early cameo), toiling in a witchy B-movie for the guy responsible for drive-in gold like War of the Colossal Beast(1958), Food of the Gods(1976), and Empire of the Ants(1977).Providing petite brunette eye candy for your humble N in this one, is the waifish Pamela Franklin, an actress unafraid to break 'em out for the dark lord and master in the name of artistic integrity and plot continuity.Ahem.Also on board are Twin Peaks' Sheriff Harry S. Truman, Michael Ontkean, and fiery Lee Purcell, a redhead I'll never forget thanks to her Valley Girl(1983) cougar.Grrrrrrrr, baby, grrrrrrrrr.

This could be a snapshot from my old place back in the mid to late nineties, I tell you.
The Brandons(Pam Franklin, Michael Ontkean) look to put a painful miscarriage, caused by a group of naked Satanists ritually shanking a doll elsewhere, in the rearview mirror and take to the road, where Frank's reckless juggling of an argument and navigating a winding mountain road leaves a carload of innocents in a flaming wreck that Lori manages to snare a weird doll with fingernail clippings in its pocket from.Hmmm, if that's awful peculiar to you, then Frank's hiring in the small town of Lilith as a toymaker for the shadowy kid-denouncing Mr. Cato(Orson Welles) will seem equally right off the bat fishy to you.And with good reason, too, because her husband and the rotund employer are indeed cultmates of the old religion, with designs on harnessing Lori's yet-unknown-but-highly-groovy psychic powers of necromancy to resurrect Cato's son from the grave, after willingly becoming a witch in their sexy coven, of course.Cato mumbles...incessantly...at...great lengths... at a party...mumble...mumble.Frames repeat again and again.Meanwhile, hallucinatory premonitions warn Lori to refrain from ever using her powers or she will perish.You should probably listen to your hallucinations when they tell you you're going to die, Lor'...
 
If she had a cigarette dangling from her lip, this'd be the "Sexy" card.
It seems that the wide-waisted warlock has spent several years trying to bring his son back to life, and disallowed all Lilith residents from having children until he finally succeeds.Goat heads.Outta sight dancing naked chicks.Gobletsful of Paul Masson.Human sacrifices, he's tried it all, Satan knows he has.Now, Lori alone, holds the key to unlocking the gateway between life and death, the infernal rite only stoppable by Lori's revulsion to the black arts and witcher-huh, she's okay with it?Oh well, I guess that's cool, too.Lori's inducted into the circle of black magicians, she raises Cato's son from the dead, and gets herself buried alive in his place.Oh, those muted screams will soon be replaced by the laughter and merriment of father-son cultist sack races and barbeques and fishing trips.An ending that could only be interpreted as a 'downer' if you're a square that's got no love for Lucifer.

Orson just wants to be happy, and by 'happy' he means roughly the size of a Buick.
Gordon followed this one up with The Mad Bomber(1973), before putting a B-movie spin on H.G. Wells' Food of the Gods three years later, while Big Orson, who really doesn't bag enough screen time here to merit a starring credit if you ask me, would continue acting right up until his death in 1985, lending his unmistakable voice to things like Shogun(1980), Slapstick(of Another Kind)(1982), with Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn, and The Transformers:The Movie(1986). Pamela Franklin wasn't nearly finished with genre movies after this effort, appearing in Legend of Hell House(1973), telefilm Satan's School for Girls(1973), and Gordon's own Food of the Gods in '76. Lee Purcell would later turn up in Stir Crazy(1980), Airplane II:The Sequel(1982), and Homework(1982), her only genre credit since being The Unknown/Clawed:The Legend of Sasquatch in 2005.As for tonight's entry, the PG of the Necromancy cut is misleading, when you look at the amount of nudity and blood that the Witching cut brings to the table.As muddled an affair this turned out to be, it's worth a look for the curious and fans of dated cinema witchery.Two Wops.

Well that knackers the Herman's Hermits comeback tour, 'duddnit?

"Dracula A.D. 1972"(1972)d/Alan Gibson

The weekend draws nearer,droogies,and I don't know about you guys,but who's waiting?I noticed this morning that my left earlobe,which has been perma-pierced since Reagan rocked the reds,is hanging lower than my right one.WTF.I'm lacing up my UK12 steelcapped party boots a night early,and getting good and shitty tonight.If you're stuck behaving yourselves for one more night,no big deal,you can party vicariously through your humble N over here,then catch up tomorrow.With decadence fresh in mind,we'll draw focus on Hammer's somewhat limp attempt to sanguinarily swing seventies-style with Messrs Lee and Cushing before we turn our attention to several monster-based movies in a row.Little change of pace never hurt anybody.
Riding on the cape-edges of the success of Count Yorga,Vampire a year earlier,Hammer decided to inject some new modern blood into its own Dracula series and set tonight's entry in present day swinging London.Even with Lee and Cushing firmly in place as previous boxoffice success would dictate,the film remains a kind of sour note in the series,mostly panned by critics and shunned by theater patrons alike.Though it's not top Dracula fare by Hammer standards,the weakest in my opinion would not materialize until the next chapter in the Dracula saga,The Satanic Rites of Dracula(1974), which was also based in present day England,and signalled the end of Christopher Lee's long running portrayal of the vampire for Hammer Studios.Bogged down with shortcomings,groovy datedness,and cliched seventies occultists,tonight's entry works on an exploitative level,methinks,and there plenty enough going on in the film to keep the viewer modestly interested up to the climax.Hammer serves up delectable scream queens Caroline Munro and Stephanie Beacham this time around,and thus,impressive cleavage is rampant here in the seventh Dracula film for the production company,and sixth to feature Christopher Lee in the title role.So,to summarize,Christopher Lee,Peter Cushing,satanic cults,human sacrifices,grooviness to the gills,and the studio's trademark bountiful bobblers.In Germany,they called this one "Dracula Chases the Mini-Girls".Come on,now.Why did so many people thumbs down this movie again,exactly?

Under Van Helsing's wheels,The Count couldn't let him be.
The year is 1872,and eternal enemies Professor Van Helsing(Cushing) and Count Dracula(Lee)battle atop a runaway carriage,which confuses the living fuck outta me,since the first time the two meet allegedly takes place in 1880,and what follows isn't how the previous movie(Scars of Dracula) ends,but what the hell do I know?The carriage crashes,and the Prince of Darkness is impaled on a wagon wheel,while his mortal nemesis dies from the impact as well.One of Dracula's legion collects up his remains and days later,buries them near Van Helsing's grave.Fast forward one hundred years to Van Helsing's descendant,Lorrimer's(also Cushing) granddaughter,Jessica(Beacham),being goaded into participating in a weird occult ritual at the abandoned church involving blood and bobblers by Johnny Alucard(Christopher Neame).What's the worst that could happen,right?After ressurecting Dracula(oops!),the group flees for their lives,leaving the Count to drain Laura(Munro),the centerpiece of their black magic rite,of all that nuisance blood in her sexy body.Inspector Murray(Michael Coles) rightfully suspects some cultish elements to the young girl's murder,and calls in his old friend,Lorrimer who's an expert on the occult sciences for consultation.He surmises that Count Dracula is behind his granddaughter's friend's death,as Alucard is Dracula backwards,afterall.And Lorrimer is an anagram for "your parents musta hated you,champ".

Yeah,that's 1972 alright.
Johnny Alucard escorts another one of Jessica's girlfriends to St. Bartolph's,where Dracula sips n' sups upon her,and rewards Johnny boy with eternal life as a nosferatu.He tries out his nifty new eye teeth on an unlucky fucker,before luring Bob,Jessica's boyfriend,to a bohemian joint they frequent.There,he turns him into a fellow member of the undead,after which Bob lures her to the cafe' where she's captured by the dual denizens of the dark and brought to Dracula.Van Helsing discovers his granddaughter is missing,gets the coordinates of Alucard's digs and dispatches him,then finds a mesmerized Jessica and a very dead Bob at the church,where the Count plans on exacting his hundred year old revenge on Van Helsing by turning his top heavy young relation into a vampire herself.Lorrimer sets a trap for the blood drinker's return at nightfall,where during a struggle,the infernal creature with the alleged strength of twenty men bumbles his way into a pit filled with spikes which effectively shuffles off his immortal coil.Jugular veins are once again safe...until next year.

You've got red on you,Caroline.
Tonight's entry was inspired by the Highgate Vampire of the early 1970s,where alleged supernatural beings were reported in and around Highgate Cemetery,bloodless fox bodies,a charred headless woman's body being discovered,and other mysterious details.Gibson went on to direct mostly television,importantly Hammer House of Horror and Tales of the Unexpected,before dying in 1987.The tandem of Cushing and Lee next collective effort would be the excellent Horror Express.Caroline Munro had only just begin to gain popularity,and went on directly to Dr. Phibes Rises Again,Golden Voyage of Sinbad,Kronos,and At The Earth's Core.Beacham acted in genre fare such as Schizo and Horror Planet(Inseminoid) as well as a myriad of small screen work.A.D. 1972 merits a rather average scale rating of two wops,but fans of Lee and/or Cushing will want to check it out anyway.

It's a bobbler,ferchrissakes,not a clove of garlic,Dracula.Go ahead and hook up a firm Swedish grip.