Look what's happened to your podcast feed

Hello! You know, I think we are all super pumped about Spooky Season this year, right? Perhaps you see it as a reprieve from bad times and strife, or a balm against bad times and strife that may yet come...or maybe you are just ready to fuck up some candy corns! Whatever the reason, it sorta feels like we are all ready already. Thanks to those of you who have already sent in your lists of favorite horror movies--there is plenty of time left for anyone still ruminating (as I am). I can't wait to celebrate SHOCKtober, it's shaping up to be a great month even now.

(If you're sitting there thinking "favorite what?" or "list who?" you can read all the what whats and who whos right here!)

Now then! I'm also here to clue you in to the fact that to my very own delight I recently guested on the podcast The Monday Afternoon Movie, hosted by Sam Pancake. Sam and his guests jibber jabber about made for TV movies from the 70s and 80s, so you can probably guess how excited I was to be on the show. We discussed the absolutely insane 1976 flick Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby, a movie that probably shouldn't exist but man, I'm so glad it does! It's a mess and a half, but it features Tina Louise as the owner of a "Castle Casino" so you know I love it.

You can listen to our episode right here or wherever you get your podcasts. Curse the day you don't check it out. This episode is the shocker you've been waiting for since the day you were born! Maybe. Just look at that cast.

It's that time of the month, by which I mean it's that time of the year

GUESS WHAT EVERYONE 

While it is still so hot and humid outside that one feels as if one lives all snuggled-n-tucked up underneath Satan's ballsack, I recently bought not one but TWO bags of pumpkin spice coffee in preparation for the forthcoming season. That's right, I can feel it in the air: it's almost SHOCKtoberin' time.

I've been a-ponderin' and a-wonderin' what to do for this year's festivities, and sure, I had a couple of ideas. And while I might make one of those ideas a reality come SHOCKtober, I also might not. That's right, I'm playing it fast and loose with no commitments at this time, like the carefree zoomer that I am. But! While I am leaving those ideas out in the ether for the moment, I am committing here and now to another round of that ol' SHOCKtober favorite: the huge month-long countdown of y'allses (that's a word) Top 20 Favorite Horror Movies.

It is always an exercise in madness for me to tally 'em up, but it's an exercise I enjoy. I like reading what you guys have to say! I love to see what you love! It's great fun to count them down over the course of 31 days, and as we haven't done it since 2020, I figure why not now? It's been a few years, maybe y'all have some new faves? I'm not sure if I do, but I might? Guess I'll have to, you know, think about it. As must you, so get to it! Get to it and abide these rules, please, to make this manageable for your pal me.

SAID RULES

• email me a list of YOUR TWENTY **FAVORITE** HORROR FILMS at stacieponder (at) gmail (dot) (c) (o) (m)
• put "my list" or "list" or "list-o" or something in the subject line so I know what's up
• DO NOT submit your list here in the comments or via Facebook message or Facebook comment or any other social media or anything like that. EMAIL ONLY BLESS YOU THANK YOU
• Remember, it doesn't matter if these movies are considered the "best" or classics, they just have to be your faves. Final Girl is strictly a NO JERKS ZONE, and I don't truck with making fun of peoples' loves. Not in my comment section, buster!
• Unless you indicate otherwise, if there is more than one version of a film I will assume you mean the original. So if you mean The Fog (2005) and not The Fog (1980), please tell me.
• Honestly I would be shocked if anyone preferred The Fog 2005 over The Fog 1980, but that is your business.
• If you write something like "The Saw Series," I am just going to include Saw, so specificity is better!
• No short films and no TV shows, please! Feature films only. Made for TV movies are a-okay!
• You don't have to submit a full list of 20! Maybe you only have one favorite horror film. Again, that is your business. But 20 titles is the max.
• The list order doesn't matter! You don't have to rank them.
• You don't have to comment on any of your choices, unless you want to! But comments are always welcome and I like to read 'em. Sometimes I even post 'em during the festivities! (If you want to include a comment but you don't want it published, you can tell me! Either way rest assured I ain't doxxing nobody.)
• The deadline is the end of Tuesday September 24th. After that, submissions will go directly in the ol' cybergarbage, sorry.

That's it, I think. The last time I did this, the list was 951 movies long. Absolute insanity. Who knows how many films will be included this year? What will be your number one favorite? I am excited to find out, so put on your thinking wig and get to thinking (and submitting)! Fuck yeah SHOCKtober!

Chilling Classics Cthursday: A BUCKET OF BLOOD (1959)

If you're still wigged out over the black-n-white beatnik-n-bongos stylings of previous Chilling Classic The Bloody Brood, well you're about to blow your jets, daddy-o, because today we're heading back to the café and diving into A Bucket of Blood. 

There ain't much to this li'l black comedy, to be honest, what, with its scant 64-minute runtime. But hey, those 64 minutes come courtesy of Roger Corman in the director's seat and feature Dick Miller in the leading role--so what kind of John Joe Jim Jerk wouldn't want to check it out? I don't want to know!

Miller stars as Walter Paisley, a simple and affable busboy in a beatnik café. He soaks up every saxophone toot and line of poetry, parroting their beat ethos and trying his darndest to become an artist himself so's to earn a little respect and, hopefully, win the heart of pretty patron Carla (Barboura Morris). Unfortunately for Walter, his artistic abilities add up to precisely zilch.

But all is not lost! When he accidentally kills his landlady's cat, inspiration strikes and soon Paisley presents café patrons with his first successful sculpture, simply called "Dead Cat."

As you probably anticipated, it's a hit and there's more demand for Paisley's "genius." When a wacky heroin mixup with an undercover cop sees Walter lashing out in self-defense, he's got a new sculpture to unveil: "Murdered Man."

Side note, it always trips me up when heroin is mentioned in films from anytime before...oh, let's say 1992. Heroin just feels like a 90s invention to me, even if I know it ain't.

And on and on. Walter must go to more and more extremes to keep up the charade, even as he basks in his newfound elevation from busboy to king of the café. I wonder if he had the duds, a beret, and a cigarette holder already, anticipating the day he'd become a "real artist," or if he went and purchased them with his "Dead Cat" earnings. Either way, I delight in it.

Look, are you going to be "sick, sick, sick from LAUGHING" as the film's poster claims? Personally I was not, but even my dour ass found A Bucket of Blood smile-worthy. Anything that takes the piss out of snooty artist types (especially those who don't simply own their snootiness) is fine by moi, and Corman and Co have a good time doing it. The implied violence is actually a wee bit brutal, the cast is winsome, and the beatnik vibes are an undeniable gas. Miller--already a Corman mainstay by 1959--is terrific as Walter Paisley, a nebbish you can't help but root for even with his misplaced ideals and flashes of serious creepiness. 

Yet again, I got my kicks with a real cookin' Chilling Classic. Thinking about covering this one in clay and calling it "Fun Movie."

Chilling Classics Cthursday: THE COLD (1984)

Aw yeah baby, I've been waiting for this movie's number to come up: It's The Cold, another "$50,000 wonder" from Wisconsin's own Bill Rebane. You might remember him from an earlier Chilling Classique, the train station-space virus-quarantine flick The Alpha Incident. This won't be the last we see of his work on Chilling Classics Cthursday--he truly is the multi-pack maestro--but it's quite possibly my favorite.

My love of The Cold starts right at the start (go figure), when we are treated to the credit sequence, which features some jaunty bargain bin Scott Joplin tunes and static shots of printed cards on tableaus of various recognizable board games, including Clue, Monopoly, and the Mad Magazine Board Game, which you'd best believe I played the ever-loving shit out of when I was a wee bonny lass. 

The shadows of the center card and playing pieces are one thing, but it's the random shadow on the left that gets me. And the way the credit for the director is off-center. Remember the not-so-long-ago trend of having opening credits sequences (usually from Blur, usually for David Fincher films) be all fancy and made of computer and like five minutes long? That fad was all fine and well I suppose (though exhausting, really. I don't need five minute opening credits!), but the janky-ass verité of this Rebane production is where it's at.

Now if you are unfamiliar with this particular movie, you might be wondering what's up with the game boards. Again, this is a Rebane production so you wouldn't be out of line to think that those games boards have nothing to do with anything. But! This film is also known as The Game, which explains not only the credits but also the fact that it's all about a game called...The Game, which is pronounced THE GAME.

"Okay, so is there cold in The Cold at all?" you might ask. Yes, there is! We'll get to it. But first, THE GAME. 

THE GAME comes courtesy of three "millionaire eccentrics," George, Horace, and Maude, who grew tired of Cribbage ages ago and had to really up their personal entertainment stakes. You can tell Maude is rich, especially, because she uses a cigarette holder.

They make things exciting for themselves by inviting a bunch of random people to The Northernaire, a Wisconsin island resort, where they will be tasked with...enduring some...stuff...for a while? Survivors who don't leave the island will win a million dollars. On the surface this sounds like a most dangerous kinda game, and I suppose it is. But it's all vague and nonsensical, and even the participants are confused, like they don't even know why they're there. If only they knew that this was all simply ~*~REBANE MAGIC~*~ at work, amirite?

So. How does THE GAME play out exactly? First and foremost, there is a dance party. No, I am not lying. The millionaire eccentrics get down with all the participants, to a tune that is obviously not played by the band, who are also participants in THE GAME. This movie weaves a complex web, I tells ya.

Things begin proper and random shit happens...and I do mean random. There is a shark in a swimming pool. There is an Alien homage of a type that only Bill Rebane could deliver.

Participants disappear mysteriously, sometimes leaving behind clues: "That's Ronnie's bandanna! What's happened? He never goes anywhere without it!" Sometimes a tarantula will appear, sometimes there are rats, or maybe a snake. And yes, sometimes, there is...THE COLD, which rolls out of vents or doorways or wherever and is clearly dry ice. But the actors sell it, man, from their shivering to their delivery of dialogue such as "There was the smell of death in that room. And the cold. Like a December grave."

Meanwhile, the millionaire eccentrics are having the time of their lives engaging in their Spirit Halloween foolery, often dancing and skipping down hallways, singing hits like "Jimmy Crack Corn," or going "mwa ha ha" over the intercom. I love them.

This guy is also randomly wandering around. No one sees him, but someone knows he's there and tells us he used to be in a mental asylum, but now he's the gardener, but only when THE GAME isn't happening.

Exactly who is involved in THE GAME, who ends up dead, what is really happening? If you don't really know the answers to those questions at the end of this thing, that's okay. A voiceover bookends the film, and before the final credits roll, said voiceover is basically like..."Exactly who is involved in THE GAME, who ends up dead, what is really happening? Fuck if I know."

Even Bill Rebane himself calls this semi-scripted story a "brain fart." The Cold is the quintessential cheapie quickie: one location, 3-4 crew, actors straight outta Milwaukee central casting, and a shoot lasting maybe a week, all done simply so Rebane could make another movie and maybe get his friends some publicity for their Northernaire Resort.

And as far as I'm concerned, like all of the director's other films, it's a weirdo bonkers delight. It's got all the Rebane hallmarks: the occasional out-of-focus shot, the copious (terrible) foley work, the floozy-music nudie shots, the odd clothed T-n-A shots that are filmed in such close-up that it takes a moment to register exactly what body part you're looking at, and so on.

As I mentioned in my review of The Alpha Incident, and on Evolution of Horror, when Mike Muncer and I briefly discussed Rebane's Giant Spider Invasion (which actually makes a cameo in The Cold!), these films are a decidedly acquired taste. Their journeys and their destinations are inscrutable to be sure. But I'm also sure that it's a taste I've definitely acquired, so I'm telling you now: when it's time for the next Rebane-helmed Chilling Classique 'round these parts, I will be dancing and skipping down all the hallways. Jimmy Crack Corn and I do care!

Chilling Classics Cthursday: DEVIL TIMES FIVE (1974)

Ah, well, if it isn't Devil Times Five. We've met before, you and I, 'round about fifteen years or so ago--yep, in the early years of this here blog. In the era when I first gave a peep-see to many a movie from the Mill Creek Entertainment 50 Movie Pack Chilling Classics 12-DVD Collection. (That is her Christian name.) And now here we are again, you and I, meeting once more in the interests of this here blog. When your number came up courtesy of RNGesus, I immediately remembered a few things about you. 

I remembered that you featured Boss Hogg from The Dukes of Hazzard and Rosario from Will and Grace, the latter of whom eats a banana at one point in the proceedings. 

I remembered that teen heartthrob Leif Garrett stars, though it's a bit before his teen heartthrob-dom, and he cries about his "beautiful face" after he gets hurt. 

While those are about all the specifics that have remained with me over the years, I will say that you left such an impression on me that a big feeling about you also remained: a feeling that I don't like you. Sorry to say it but that's right! It was a negative impression because you were godawful boring.

But hey, that was 2007 Final Girl. I am now 2024 Final Crone. And as was the hope when I revisited another 2007 Chilling Classic I disliked (The House of the Dead), I felt a rumblin' in my nethers that (blessedly) was merely my hope springing eternal. "How could I not enjoy a movie about killer kids wherein Rosario from Will and Grace eats a banana? Was not such a movie made just for me?" Armed with this hope and my modern-day crusade against finding movies "boring," I settled in, ready for you and I to merge and become Devil Times Six.

Look, I'm just gonna cut to the chase: Sad to say, but we are destined to remain Devil Times Five and Devil Times One.

I did find more to take with me into the future as rememberin's though. Like the couple I called "That's Really Not a Mustachioed Ken Howard?" and "Dollar Tree Lynda Day George."

Fun (??) Fact #1: I recently spied Dollar Tree Lynda Day George (aka Joan McCall) in a rewatch of Grizzly for my recent spot on The Evolution of Horror. In Grizzly she is Christopher George's love interest, which really drives home the "why are you not Lynda Day George"-ness of it all.

Fun (??) Fact #2: As an alternate name to "That's Really Not a Mustachioed Ken Howard?" I will also accept "White John Amos."

You know I'm not wrong!

There's also the kid who dresses up as a nun...she's giving a young Sister Wendy.

You feature a corpse party, Devil Times Five! One of my very favorite slasher things!

You've got a real nasty streak. Whether it's kids setting someone on fire, causing death-by-piranha (or "piraña," as one character says it), or beating someone to death with a variety of tools, when these kids get to murderin' they really get to it.

The issue remains, though, that it takes too long for the kids to get to murderin' and you can't figure out what you want to be in the meantime. Your soundtrack says "fourth rate sexploitation," and you try to go there a couple of times. You bust out some drama with all the married couples, but it just drags. 

And speaking of drag...I want to know what is up with Leif Garrett's character occasionally dressing up as a woman! But you give it naught but a throwaway moment or two.

Sigh. Given all of that, it's surprising that we are not Devil Times Six, is it not? My impulse is to say "it's not you, it's me," because that is the polite thing to do. But fuck it! It's not me at all. It's you! You're a mess! Your original cut was a paltry 40 minutes and your director quit, which left others holding the bag and having to do a whole lotta padding...and we can feel all 50 minutes of padding, lemme tell ya. That's your biggest problem, I think, and it's one I can't really surmount.

I mean, maybe I could if I'd watched you on Tubi, where I nabbed all these nice screencaps from. Or maybe if I watched you on the upcoming 4K Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray? (I can't believe you're getting a $40 4K Blu-ray, if I'm being totally honest, but hey.) But I watched the Chilling Classics version of you, which....phew. Muddy, dark, dreary, brown. Color was MIA, as were crisp edges to shapes. Resolution, man. It's kinda great.

Sigh I don't know. I don't know if that would really have helped. Sometimes a movie and a blogger simply aren't compatible, even if one of those things includes Rosario eating a banana and Leif Garrett in a series of wigs. To cling to each other after trying--and writing!--twice is a bit unseemly, no? Best to let go. 

And so I release you, Devil Times Five. I release your Boss Hogg (not a euphemism), your wigs, your corpse party, your pretend nuns...I release them so someone else--perhaps someone who will spend $40 on you via Vinegar Syndrome, or maybe someone who will spend $0 on you via Tubi--will give you and get from you what you both need. I'll always remember your "beautiful face." Probably.

Chilling Classics Cthursday: DEATH RAGE (1976)

I know, I know. You probably saw the title Death Rage and thought "Oh dip! You're telling me there was a Ju-on precursor made in 1976?" I thought the same thing! But no, this movie has nothing to do with Ju-on or people dying in the grip of rage and becoming curses. And quite frankly, we were both idiots, you and I, for thinking that it might! Yes, definitely the both of us. Yes.

The worst thing of all is that Death Rage has nothing to do with horror at all. It's another Bloody Brood--a public domain crime flick that must have had Mill Creek Entertainment execs (I use that term very loosely) (very) saying "Eh, who's gonna know it's not a "chilling" "classic"? It's not like anyone's gonna watch all fifty of the movies anyway, throw her in the box!"

It's disappointing, but on the bright side Death Rage isn't gouge-your-eyes-out disappointing. It's...fine. Although maybe that's worse? I don't know. It's muggy out there today, and it's got my brain feeling all ten kinds of gauzy!

Yul Brynner (!) is retired hitman Peter Marciani, who heads to Naples for a little revenge when he gets a hot tip about the mafioso who killed his brother years prior. Marciani was so notorious, apparently, that his rumored presence in Italy has the mafia scrambling and the polizia (headed up by Martin "Arbogast" Balsam) (!) trying to stave off a bloodbath in the streets.

Marciani kills and avoids getting killed as he searches for his target, taking some time to indulge the admiring gangster-wannabe Angelo (Massimo Ranieri) and have a little romance with nudie dancer Anny (giallo queen Barbara Bouchet). 

Again, this is a largely serviceable film: a by-the-numbers spaghetti crime thriller that doesn't particularly deliver any thrills, no matter how much its score (courtesy of Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, aka "Oliver Onions") tries to liven things up. We get a lot of men--mostly mustachioed--looking at each other across long distances, sometimes imparting "I am going to kill you" and sometimes imparting "Let's go kill that other guy." We get shootouts and foot chases, and we get the kind of car chases you've seen a hundred times before: overlong and accompanied by the distinct wailing of a European police siren; speeding through a street market and crashing into stalls, sending boxes and vegetables flying; boop-boop-booping down the wide staircases of a palazzo. 

If Death Rage is interesting at all, it's thanks to the cast. This is Brynner's last film before he returned to the stage as King Mongkut for endless revivals of The King and I, a performance he would give literally thousands of times over the course of his career. Marciani is tough guy-cool, always clad in black and looking like he was crafted from leather. They sure don't make 'em like ol' Yul any more. 

Balsam, who appeared in a number of these sorts of poliziotteschi flicks throughout the 70s, is of course always welcome. There's the glimmer of one of those "cop and bad guy have a mutual respect" relationships hinted at between the commissario and the hitman, but unfortunately Death Rage devotes more time to Marciani's relationship with two-bit up-and-comer Angelo...not to mention the inexplicable romance between Marciani and Anny. Bouchet is charming and lights up the screen (as you'd expect if you've seen, say, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times), but the "love story" here feels as formulaic as those vegetable-busting car chases.

But hey, like I said, you won't want to gouge your eyes out over this one. But there are surely better ways to spend your time with each of the stars of this cast than watching Death Blah.

Down in Peaceful Podcast Valley

Friend, if you're sitting there thinking "Man, there is nothing exciting happening in my earholes today!" well guess what? You're in luck because I had the good fortune to guest on the most recent episode of The Evolution of Horror, wherein host Mike Muncer and I discuss a veritable slew of animal attack movies from the early 1970s (and even a wee beyond). Anyone who's been haunting Stately Final Girl Manor for a minute or two knows that animals run amok is one of my favorite sub-genres, and we hit on pretty much all my faves over the course of the conversation: Frogs, The Swarm, Ants!, Kingdom of the Spiders, Day of the Animals, and on and on. I just love 'em, and I could have talked about them all day if the bandwidth allowed.

So! If you'd like to give it a listen, you can do so right on the Evolution of Horror website, or wherever you get your podcasts. My goodness, these movies rule.

Chilling Classics Cthursday: HORROR EXPRESS (1972)

Spanish delight Horror Express chugga choo-chooed into my heart during that mysterious time known as "2010." I didn't watch the Mill Creek version at the time, but I'm sure the quality was about on par with the Chilling Classics edition: it was one of those $0.79 DVDs you find at your Dollar Trees and your Odd Lots. Essentially they're Chilling Classics-grade films sold individually in cardboard sleeves, real bargain bin stuff, right down to the muddy transfers. Well let me tell you that even under such circumstances it was love at first squint between me and Horror Express, and we've renewed our vows to each other many times over the years known as "since 2010." But I won't lie to you: now I feast my eyes solely on the Arrow Blu-ray over any bargain bin editions, even when it's Chilling Classic Cthursday. Go figure!

I've written about this movie before--right after that initial viewing--in more synopsis-y detail, and covered it in episode 167 of Gaylords of Darkness a couple of years ago, so hey: If you want more narrative tidbits and expansive insights, check those out. As for the here and now, I'm just a girl standing sitting in front of a blog telling you some of the reasons why I love and adore this movie about a frozen fossil ape-man who thaws out on a trans-Siberian train in 1906 and causes deathly havoc.

-- It's about a frozen fossil ape-man who thaws out on a trans-Siberian train in 1906 and causes deathly havoc! What's not to love about that?

-- That's only the start of it. He is so much more than a frozen fossil ape-man! He is what Dolly Parton sang about in "Coat of Many Colors," okay? And also what Chaka Khan and Whitney Houston sang about in "I'm Every Woman." He contains multitudes. 

-- The "deathly havoc" he wreaks includes causing people to bleed out of all of their head holes as their eyes turn white. It's so cool.

-- Yes, that is Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in that pic up top. Two of the greatest tastes to ever be tasted together! It's especially nice to see them together in Horror Express because here they are sorta rivals but mostly colleagues instead of confined to their usual vampire-vampire hater relationship. Also I love it when Christopher Lee has a moustache.

-- Eventually Telly friggin Savalas shows up as a crazed Cossack and he just...sounds like Telly Savalas and I love it because he's really in his own film here.

-- The train is clearly a model train in some shots and it only serves to make everything better

-- Model or no, this is a train full of characters, baby! These folks have all come aboard: 

-- a mad monk who pulls what we political pundits* call "a JD Vance" as he goes from denouncing the monster as Satanic to worshipping it

-- a couple of sheltered aristocrats who I bet are probably swingers

-- a hot international spy, who is just sort of a spy for no reason and it's the best

-- a doctor's assistant who strikes so many blows for women's rights and has the power of a good...mmm, three to four Julia Sugarbaker monoologues

-- I dig the "1906 science" of it all. Many autopsies are performed and we get many a dubious insight, like pee is stored in the balls memories are stored in brain wrinkles and visions are preserved in eye fluid.

-- Horror Express chugs through many a subgenre. It's a period piece structured like a slasher at times, it's a monster movie, it's a body-hopping sci-fi flick, it's got touches of an Agatha Christie-inspired mystery, it's got Hammer vibes, and it even busts out some zombies. Again, she is every woman!

-- Though this movie is clearly ludicrous, the cast plays it completely straight (even Savalas, in his Savalas-centric way) and it's the only reason why, as "out there" as it all is, it kinda works. 

Horror Express is simply theee perfect Saturday afternoon Creature Double Feature monster kid movie, and like me, you can cram that notion right into one of your brain wrinkles.

*people who read headlines

Invitation to Love (and a podcast)

I looked at the clock and realized it was high time to toss out a reminder about The Detective and the Log Lady, the weekly podcast about Twin Peaks that I'm co-hosting along with Mike Muncer of The Evolution of Horror. 

We're on the back half of the too-short season one, so it's not too late to catch up whether you are a Twin Peaks lover and veteran or a Twin Peaks lover and newbie like me. A new episode dropped today, so check it out on the EoH website or whatever podcast platform you enjoy most. Or least, if you're feeling spicy!

And yeah, I called myself a Twin Peaks lover because I am indeed loving it so far. Settling in for the week's episode is such a treat. The theme song kicks in, wraps me in its warm embrace, and I feel my cares and worries slip away (into the night). And I love that I get to pick it apart with Mike because man, there is so much to pick apart--and simply luxuriate in. This cast giving weird, spooky mystery one minute and delicious nightsoap the next is heaven, I tells ya. I am so happy to finally be getting into Twin Peaks and to talk about it, so do give a listen and subscribe if it sounds like your thing, too. And rate and review! It will help this little baby bird of a show get in front of more eyeballs and earholes.

Oh and if you've got questions and/or comments for us, you can email them to logladypodcast @ gmail.com. At the end of the season we're going to do a mailbag grabbag episodebag, so getcherself in there!

Oh OH and if you're looking for a board to discuss les Peaks and I guess the podcast, members of Mike's patreon (any level) can access discussion groups, both spoiler-filled and spoiler-free. 

You can also discuss it in any of the Twin Peaks-post-related comment sections here at Final Girl, but please keep it 10000% spoiler-free if you do. I have sealed myself away tighter than a jar of Howard Hughes's urine to protect myself from spoilers! (And from contrails and 5G but that's another story!)

Chilling Classics Cthursday: MAN IN THE ATTIC (1953)

They say that the only constant is change, so I'm starting with the man in the attic. I'm asking him to change his ways. No message could've been any clearer: if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and don't be Jack the Ripper!

Yes, dear reader, Man in the Attic is indeed an adaptation of Marie Belloc Lowndes's groundbreaking 1913 novel The Lodger, the first fictionalized take on the 1888 murders in Whitechapel and the Ripper himself. It's rather classy as far as Chilling Classics go, and were it not for the shadows cast by previous adaptations I dare say it might have garnered a bit more attention over the years.

You're probably familiar with the tale by now: When several murdered women are found nearby, a couple begins to suspect that their recently-arrived lodger may indeed be Jack the Ripper. 

But is he? The lodger has some dubious quirks to be sure, but they're all explained away--sometimes even plausibly. Sure, he goes out late at night to "do work." But that's when things are quiet! Yes, he fits the description of the Ripper, what with his small black bag and Ulster and all. But doesn't every man have a small black bag and an Ulster? He has a habit of burning things at odd hours, like pieces of clothing that seem to have blood all over them. But he's a pathologist who does experiments! It's all business as usual.

But is it? Of course not! The lodger is played by Jack Palance in one of the busiest years of his nascent career. He's cutting up people with his magnificent cheekbones.

Palance, of course, had a long and storied filmography and earned his place in Valhalla with his legendary speech and one-armed push-ups after winning the Oscar for City Slickers. There's always something vaguely sinister and potentially unhinged lurking just beneath the surface of a Palance performance, no matter the genre he was working in. He could make Dracula both sympathetic and intimidating, and he could make ostensible family fare like Ripley's Believe It or Not! inexplicably terrifying. (Or was that just me?) This vibe is prevalent even in his earliest roles, including one of my faves, opposite Joan Crawford in the 1952 noir thriller Sudden Fear. If you've never seen it, well, you have some homework to do. It's stylish as all get out and Crawford is terrific, giving one of her career-best performances, while Palance exudes both mance and charm. 

This quality is why he's perfect for Man in the Attic, a film that wants to leave you questioning  the truth about the lodger Slade until you can't question no more. From the moment he arrives on the Harleys' doorstep, you might be as suspicious as the missus...

But as his fumbling romance with Lily, an actress and the Harleys' niece, progresses, you might see him as she does: an awkward, shy, and inexperienced young man who needs a woman to take a chance on him.

But then it's not long before he's talking about his harlot mother and sweating everywhere and you're like yeah, no, he definitely hates and murders women.

It's rather interesting to see the sort of game of telephone that's occurred over the course of each filmic adaptation of Lowndes's novel--not only how far each may or may not stray from the source material, but how much changes are passed from movie to movie, beginning with Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927). Studio interference added the love story and dictated that the film's popular star, Ivor Novello, must be proven an unequivocally innocent lodger by the picture's end. In a (sadly) less shocking change, Hitchcock made it a point that the killer purposefully targeted blonde women.

In the 1944 film The Lodger, the victims are no longer prostitutes but actresses, a profession against which the lodger harbors long-standing grudges.

Man in the Attic hews closest to the 1944 iteration, but holds on to some of the proto-feminist and political aspects of Lowndes's work. 

We don't see the women get murdered, nor the aftermath of it. Instead, we watch as they react to their approaching killer. One striking sequence employs an actual POV shot as the Ripper closes in; the execution is a bit clunky given the era, but it was wholly unexpected and cool as heck. The victims throughout Man in the Attic aren't afforded intricate stories or a surplus of development to be certain, but they're all unique and each gets her moment to shine. That can still feel like a novelty in the more slasher-end of the horror spectrum, never mind in media that dips into true crime territory. But it was an unheard-of hallmark of Lowndes's novel, so it's fantastic to see it here, where one might expect the full focus to be on one of history's most notorious serial killers. 

It's also a reminder to me that I really ought to read Hallie Rubenhold's lauded The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (it's been on my library to-read list since it was published in 2020), but I know I'll probably keep putting it off because I just know it'll be depressing.

Then, of course, there is the matter of Mrs Harley (or Bunting in the novel), she who suspects Slade from the start and puts all the pieces together long before Scotland Yard does (although to be fair, Scotland Yard was busy chasing down every one of Queen Victoria's bonkers mandates: It couldn't have been a married man, investigate every bachelor! It couldn't have been an Englishman, investigate every foreigner!). She's shut down at every turn by her exasperated husband, but, you know, nevertheless she persisted. Even better, the comedic banter and bickering between the Harleys is one of the best things about the movie.

And then and then, there is their niece Lily, who shares a kind, wonderful, sad scene with a former actress fallen on hard times, who is moments away from being the Ripper's next victim. It shows what Lily's all about, it humanizes a woman who could have been a throwaway horror thrill, and it encapsulates what sets Man in the Attic apart from your standard serial killer fare.

Sure, Lily makes too many concessions for Slade's behavior because she's got hearts in her eyes. But when push comes to shove and sweaty Slade is like "Quit your job and run away with me so we can be alone together" she refuses because hey, she loves being an actress and she's got stuff she wants to do. If this kind of attitude still felt revolutionary with Olivia Hussey as Black Christmas's Jess in 1974, imagine how revolutionary it felt in a 1953 that is supposed to be 1888. Go on, imagine it! I'll wait.

Ain't it grand? Even better, we get to see Lily do her thing in a full number--like, a full number that takes up a not-insignificant amount of screentime--and another number that quite literally triggers Slade with its can-can action.

To be honest, I mightn't have ever seen this film were it not for this wild Cthursday endeavor. Despite the Jack Palance of it all, I could see myself thinking "oh great, another Jack the Ripper movie" but I'm sure glad I saw it. Perhaps it doesn't have the style and technique of Hitchcock's The Lodger, but Man in the Attic director Hugo Fregonese did just fine, thank you, from the evocative, wet and foggy Whitechapel streets and alleys to the rather thrilling carriage chase during the film's climax. And it may not have the star power of Merle Oberon and George Sanders in the 1944 movie, but Jack Palance already had IT and the supporting cast is engaging as well. (Shout out again to the Harleys!)

Well, here we are, halfway through the Mill Creek Chilling Classics 50-pack. They sure grow up so fast, don't they? And hey, Man in the Attic marks three weeks in a row that Chilling Classics Cthursday has given me something surprisingly...really good. Surely that streak will continue and continue for the next 25 installments, right?!

Chilling Classics Cthursday: THE DEVIL'S HAND (1961)

Got a li'l treat this week with The Devil's Hand, a film that would be at home as the superior half of a drive-in double feature with another Chilling Classic, I Eat Your Skin. The two share a kind of early 60s feel, although The Devil's Hand keeps any beach blanket vibes contained to its surf tune-flavored opening credits.

One thing I really appreciated about this film is that it's a lean 71 minutes and it wastes no time before it gets to the goods. There's no fat on this baby, no useless scenes full of, like, character development, it's just boom-boom-boom laying it all out there. 

Rick and Donna (Robert Alda--father of Alan!--and Ariadna Welter--excuse me, how cool is the name "Ariadna") are engaged to be married, but Rick's been having dreams about a sultry blonde in a diaphanous gown...and the dreams have got him all stirred up.

One day Rick spies a doll that looks just like the dream woman in the window of a shop--and hey, there's also a doll that looks like Donna in the shop. What gives? 

I'll tell ya what gives: this is no ordinary doll shop. It's a doll shop by day, but by...well, also by day but sometimes by night, it's home to a cult that conducts their ceremonies and sacrifices and the such in the basement, all in service to The Great Gamba, Highest Executioner Supreme, Devil-God of Evil. (But you can just call him Gamba.)

One contrived doll delivery later, Rick meets Bianca (Linda Christian), literally the woman from his dreams. Again, The Devil's Hand eschews any coyness around what's what with all of this, as Bianca tells Rick Hey, I'm in a Satanic-adjacent cult, I used mental projection to lure you to me, I want your bod, but you have to convert to the cult before we can Do It.

Rick asks no questions, says Absolutely!, and promptly ghosts Donna, who oh by the way is laid up in the hospital after a voodoo attack from the cult's high priest. This sounds like some terrible behavior from Rick, and it is. Donna's great! And she's in the hospital! But on the other hand--the devil's hand, you might say--Bianca is a sultry babe who can traverse the planes and engages in witchcraft. Donna never stood a chance.

FUN FACT BREAK: Ariadna Welter was the younger sister of Linda Christian, and her acting career was largely based in their native Mexico. Christian, however, was persuaded to abandon her dreams of becoming a doctor (yay?) and give Hollywood a shot by none other than Errol Flynn, who also gave her the "Christian" surname after his performance as Fletcher Christian in a production of Mutiny on the Bounty.

Christian went on to marry Tyrone Power and would later gain a bit of infamy with a 1957 photograph dubbed "The Kiss of Death," wherein she was snapped kissing a race car driver during a pit stop. Moments later a tire blew, he crashed the car, and several people (including the driver) died. Hmm, I guess that's not really a "fun" fact, but you know what I mean.

The old Hollywood connections are some of the best things about these Chilling Classics, I tells ya.

Anyway, things proceed apace in The Devil's Hand. The cult engages in a few sacrifices, lots of jamming out to bongo beats, and the accruement of wealth and power. Rick remains into Bianca, telling her "If I thought I'd lose you, I'd kill you!" which...well, I guess a worshipper of Gamba doesn't see that as a red flag, so who am I to judge?

Rick's got a Robert Mitchum-lite kind of way about him, but otherwise I'm not sure why Bianca found him so alluring that she hopped on the metaphysical highway to chase him, but again, who am I to judge?

The Devil's Hand is worth 71 minutes of your time if you're in the mood for some 50s-feeling early-60s cult action. It's one of the first films released by Crown International Pictures, producers and distributors of some of the finest B-movie dreck (I say that in a loving way) you'll find, such as perennial Final Girl favorites Zoltan: Hound of Dracula and Click: The Calendar Girl Killer. 

No, The Devil's Hand doesn't have a colon in its title like Zoltan and Click do. But you'll never catch me hating on a movie where there's a business called "Amalgamated Industries" and the sinister cult has a wall lined with dollies that look just like its members. 

Never mind the mental projectionist sultry blonde, getting a doll carved in my likeness is reason enough for me to sign up. All hail The Great Gamba, Highest Executioner Supreme, Devil-God of Evil!