As promised, here's our retrospective of the 51 movies that comprise the Tales of Terror subset of our 250-film box set from Mill Creek. Some categories will reappear from past awards ceremonies (see here and here for those), while others simply didn't apply to this bunch (we really couldn't come up with anything that deserved to be called "so bad it's good"), and other categories are brand-new.
And just like last time, it's been three years and change since our most recent awards ceremony, so we hope you've worked up a head of excitement in the interim.
Now, cue or pull the strings, as you see fit, and behold our nominees:
Actual Best Movie Award:
Crimes at the Dark House
The Devil Bat
Hands of Steel
The Sadist
The Werewolf of Washington
Winner: The Sadist
There are some strong contenders in this category -- The Devil Bat may be the best Poverty Row we've seen, while Crimes at the Dark House is our favorite Tod Slaughter film so far. But anyone who read our review of The Sadist will know that we held this film in unexpectedly high esteem; Arch Hall Jr.'s completely believable performance (and James Landis's skillful direction) take The Sadist well beyond the realm of second-tier schlock into something that even a "serious" director could justly take pride in. It's far ahead of its time, and remains disturbing even in today's jaded cinematic universe.
Actual Worst Movie Award:
The Atomic Brain
Chloe, Love is Calling You
Colossus and the Headhunters
Midnight Shadow
The White Gorilla
Winner: The White Gorilla
The underlying silent film on which The White Gorilla is based was, from all appearances, actually quite good. However, everything new that the movie brings to the table is dreck, from its corny framing story to Crash Corrigan's ass-faced voyeurism. "As we watched," this film sucked.
The J/K Award:
The Ape Man
The Devil's Daughter
The Ghost Walks
The Man with Two Lives
Winner: The Ape Man
In all four of these films, something happens to completely invalidate our (and the protagonists') understanding of the film's events: it was all a dream, a play, a put-on, whatever. The Ape Man, though, takes it a step further and completely breaks the fourth wall by having the author show up at the very end and address the audience -- "Screwy idea, wasn't it?" -- in a gag straight out of a Looney Tunes short.
The Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Award:
Devil Monster
The Devil's Messenger
The White Gorilla
Winner: The Devil's Messenger
The White Gorilla is the epitome of recycling, and Devil Monster has that marvelous octopus-in-an-aquarium sequence. But if percentage of post-consumer content is the benchmark here, then the clear winner is The Devil's Messenger, which turns three episodes of a Swedish TV show into around 90% of its running time. What's left over is a paper-thin framing story -- featuring Lon Chaney Jr. as a most avuncular Satan -- that should compost nicely.
The Tell, Don't Show Award:
Curse of the Headless Horseman
Scared to Death
The White Gorilla
Winner: The White Gorilla (again)
Curse has its near-incomprehensible voiceover narration, and Scared to Death its ridiculous cutaways that come off like loading screens in a CD-ROM game. But in our house, whenever we want to invoke the kind of interminable exposition-from-afar represented by the title of this award, we simply utter the phrase "As I watched..." -- and that pretty much clinches this one for The White Gorilla.
The HI TV Award:
The Devil's Messenger
The Night America Trembled
The Peter Hurkos Story
Tales of Frankenstein
Winner: Tales of Frankenstein
What could better exemplify the ups and downs of TV than a failed pilot? Many moons ago, Good Against Evil left us with cinematic blueballs, but Tales of Frankenstein simply left us wondering who the hell thought it could be possibly be a good idea to build an ongoing TV show out of a quintessentially one-note character like Dr. F.
The Damaged-in-Transit Award:
Bowery at Midnight
Crypt of the Living Dead
Curse of the Headless Horseman
The Ghost Walks, The
Manos: The Hands of Fate
Torture Ship
Winner: Torture Ship
The feedback in Bowery at Midnight is a horrendous destroyer of speaker cones and eardrums, while Crypt, Curse, and Manos all have bizarre issues with misplaced or absent color, and The Ghost Walks suffers from a few bad edits. But Mill Creek's print of Torture Ship is missing the entire opening, and those 9-10 minutes turn out to be unexpectedly vital; one can understand what's going on without them, but without the context they provide, the film is robbed of much of its fun.
The Get Me Out of This Crazy Place Award:
Night of the Blood Beast
One Frightened Night
The Rogues Tavern
Sound of Horror
A Strange Adventure
A Walking Nightmare
Winner: A Strange Adventure
In a packed category of films that contrive to trap their protagonists in creepy old mansions, isolated research stations, or other crucibles of mayhem, we found A Strange Adventure to be the most likable and engaging of the bunch. Something about its combination of radios, activity, and radioactivity hit the spot.
The How About A Skull Instead? Award:
The Long Hair of Death
The She-Beast
Terror Creatures from the Grave
Winner: The She-Beast
If we have to watch a Barbara Steele movie, we suppose we'd pick The She-Beast -- not just because her screen time is so limited (she filmed all her scenes in one day!), but also because it has some amusing sequences and memorable imagery.
The Shittily Italy Award:
Colossus and the Headhunters
The Island Monster
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave
Vulcan, Son of Jupiter
War of the Robots
Winner: The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave
If we're talking enjoyment, then War of the Robots would be the easy winner here. But if this category is meant to epitomize the flaws and foibles of Italian cinema, then we have to give it to Evelyn, which brews up a heady cocktail of sex, psychopathy, and incoherence.
The "Fangs for the Memories" Award:
The Bat (1926)
The Devil Bat
Condemned to Live
Vampire's Night Orgy
Winner: Condemned to Live
Only two of these films really fit the category, and between them Condemned to Live is the clear winner. Its tragic sensibility and moral complexity elevate the film -- not to the point of greatness (not even close), but at least to something distinctly superior to the usual fare, and to its predecessor The Vampire Bat.
The Protagonist is a Serial Killer Award:
Bowery at Midnight
The Crimes of Stephen Hawke
Devil's Partner
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave
The Phantom of Soho
Winner: The Crimes of Stephen Hawke
One look at Tod Slaughter's mad, gleeful grin makes it impossible to choose anything else. He may not have the highest onscreen body count of this bunch, but he certainly has the most fun doing it, and...
The "Who Can Kill a Child?" Award:
Winner: The Crimes of Stephen Hawke (again)
...he even up and goes Mortal Kombat II on a near-toddler. Who can kill a child? Tod Slaughter can, that's who.
Special Awards for Special Campers:
The "It's Just a Simple Procedure" Award (tie):
Women who feel a frisson of mistrust when their gyno breezily assures them "This won't hurt a bit!" -- usually with an addendum of "though you may feel a slight pressure" and/or "it may be a little cold" -- will find vindication in The Head and Shock, two films in which a male doctor assures a female patient that of course he has their best interest at heart, just lie back and he'll take care of them...heh-heh-heh...
The Cause of and Solution to All of Life's Problems Award:
Whenever the cast of The Amazing Transparent Man gets downtime, they either start drinking, or start hectoring each other about drinking. Maybe it'd be easier just to keep a dry house?
The Sad Little Mushroom Award:
If only Don Sullivan's charm were enough to solve all the problems with Teenage Zombies. Why, he doesn't even sing!
The Anything but Allworthy Award (tie):
If we ever time-travel back to 19th-century England, Murder in the Red Barn and Never Too Late will have taught us that -- Tom Jones notwithstanding -- we'd do well to avoid squires like the plague. The nicer they seem, the more sinister their plans will turn out to be, so we'd rather not raise them up or adjust their attire.
The Eat Your Vegetables Award:
Somewhere a college freshman is writing a mediocre 10-page paper about how The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is "defiantly a land mark of Impressionist cinema". We're glad we don't have to write that paper, and especially glad we don't have to read it.
AWOL Award (5-way tie):
Older versions of the standalone Tales of Terror box set had Drums O'Voodoo (1934), Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936), I Eat Your Skin (1964), Vampire Happening (1971), and The Ironbound Vampire (1997), all of which were subsequently replaced with other films. We're certainly going to seek out Sweeney Todd to continue our Tod Slaughter studies, and Drums O'Voodoo sounds like another piquant example of 1930s African-American cinema, so we missed those films in particular.
But, then again, if it weren't for the cut/replaced movies, we would've missed out on Hands of Steel. So it all kinda came out in the wash.
There we have it. Will it take us another 3+ years to do a ceremony for Night Screams? Well, we're rapidly working through our backlog, so if we don't get lazy, maybe we'll break the pattern at last.
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