Author: Sandy Ferber

In today’s Shocktober column, I would like to shine a light on four terrific horror films from merry ol’ England. Three of these, as might be expected, hail from Hammer Studios, the foremost English purveyor of shuddery films in the 1960s, while one is a product of the rival studio Amicus Productions. But all four of these, as might well be expected, will provide the requisite thrills and chills one dark and stormy October night…

THE SKULL (1965)

On paper, the 1965 Amicus Productions film The Skull would seem to be a surefire winner.

In today’s Shocktober column, I would like to take another look, for the third time this Halloween season, at some of the giallo films that were so very popular during the 1970s. But in this quartet of films, you will find a few that press the questions “Just what is a giallo? Can a film be a giallo if it does not hail from Italy, or if it is not all that particularly violent in nature?” As far as I’m concerned, all of the four spotlighted below most assuredly fall into the giallo camp.

Although the Italian horror industry in the late ‘60s and throughout the 1970s seemed to be fairly well focused on the giallo film, and that genre’s stylish and often grisly murder mysteries, other types of horrors were still being produced for the ever-hungry audiences of the day. In today’s Shocktober column, I would like to focus on a quintet of Italian horrors that veered away a bit from the strict formula of the giallo. Thus, here you will find films dealing with rejuvenation, murders in a sanitarium, a vampiric countess, Frankensteinian hijinks, and modern-day zombies … all with a distinctively Italian zest.

In 1957, Hammer Studios in England came out with the first of their full-color horror creations, The Curse of Frankenstein, starring Peter Cushing as the good doctor and Christopher Lee (for the first and only time) as The Monster. The film was such a hit that it not only spawned an entire Frankenstein series from the studio, but would also cause the producers there to begin on a Dracula series and a Mummy series, eventually leading to Hammer becoming one of the preeminent creators of Gothic horror in the 1960s and ‘70s. The Frankenstein series would extend to seven films in all: The Curse of Frankenstein,

The subject of Devil worship is one that the cinema has returned to repeatedly over the decades, and for good reason: Honestly, is there anything much more frightening than a group of people who actually adore and pay homage to the epitome of evil? Whether you refer to him as Satan, the Prince of Darkness, the Serpent, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Old Nick or the Antichrist, you’ve got to admit that the dude is one intimidating proposition, and that anyone who willingly bows down to do him honor is one twisted – and fascinating – puppy. Any number of interesting films have been brought to the screen concerning these debased sects: Val Lewton’s wonderfully creepy The Seventh Victim (1943),

When most people think of the cinematic werewolf, chances are that they have in mind the big three, and who can blame them? In 1935, Kentucky-born actor Henry Hull portrayed the first of these lupine creatures to make it to the big screen, the unfortunate Dr. Wilfred Glendon, in the underrated horror outing Werewolf of London. The lycanthropic ball would really start rolling six years later, however, when Lon Chaney, Jr. played, for the first of five times, the immortal character Lawrence Talbot, whose turn in The Wolf Man proved so very popular that Universal featured his character in an entire series of now-classic films.

In today’s Shocktober column, I would like to focus on another quartet of wonderful giallo films from the classic period of the early 1970s. These four films, unlike many of their ilk, are a bit less concerned with graphic violence and so might just appeal to those viewers who are turned off by depictions of such carnage on screen. But make no mistake: All four films are truly harrowing, nail-biting experiences that will doubtlessly leave you slack-jawed with astonishment. And all four, need I even mention, would make for perfect fare this Halloween season?

SHORT NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS (1971)

As far as I know,

For many horror fans, the finest decade for that particular cinematic genre was the 1970s, the years when the giallo film was in its heyday, when filmmakers started to really push the limits in terms of what they could get away with, when gore and grue rose to the crimson fore, and when the horror conventions of the past seemed to give way in all directions. Writing in their essential guide Horror! 333 Films to Scare You to Death, authors James Marriott and Kim Newman write of that decade “In terms of output,

I suppose that there is a certain aptness in the fact that I happen to be writing this little mini-introduction on August 30th. This, of course, was the date in 1797 when Mary Shelley, author of the novel Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus, was born, all of 226 years ago. Since that time, her famous novel has never been out of print, and it has spawned any number of cinematic entertainments, hardly any of them scrupulously faithful to her original vision. Ohio-born actor Charles Ogle was the first to portray the Frankenstein Monster in the initial screen adaptation in 1910,

Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “schlock” as something “of low quality or value,” so perhaps that is not quite the correct word to use in the title of today’s Shocktober column (or perhaps, for this day only, we should call it the “Schlocktober” column?). For while it is true that all six of the films discussed below are assuredly of low quality, that hardly means that they are of little value. Indeed, for all those cinema buffs out there who have learned to cherish and esteem the films that are “so bad, they’re good,” the half dozen items spotlighted below just might prove of inestimable value,