BA_Harrison
In a misjudged attempt to move with the times, British studio Amicus punctuated the three short stories of their final film, The Monster Club, with musical numbers from a variety of new-wave/rock acts, including B.A. Robertson and The Pretty Things. These daft interludes, which see the bands singing their songs in their entirety (and which come complete with a ridiculous rubber-masked monster audience) spoil what is otherwise a very effective horror anthology.The film starts with a wraparound story in which popular horror author R.Chetwynd-Hayes (John Carradine) is fed upon by thirsty vampire Eramus (Vincent Price), who thanks his victim by taking him to The Monster Club, a members-only establishment where monsters go to drink and be entertained. There, the writer hears three tales guaranteed to chill the blood...Tale one: A pair of con-artists plan to steal a valuable collection of antiquities from a lonely weirdo who turns out to be a Shadmock, a strange creature with a deadly whistle. A touching tale with a tragic ending, helped by a strong performance from James Laurenson as the lovelorn Shadmock.Tale two: The B-squad are a special branch of the police dedicated to hunting vampires. Unaware that his own father is one of the undead, awkward loner Lintom Busotsky (Warren Saire) unwittingly leads the chief of the B-squad (Donald Pleasence) to his home. A wonderfully tongue-in-cheek story with great performances from both Saire and Pleasence, this proves to be a lot of fun, a jaunty Transylvanian folk violin score adding tremendously to the enjoyment factor.Tale three: horror director Sam (Stuart Whitman) scouts a location for his new movie, unaware that the rural village is home to flesh-eating ghouls. Director Roy Ward Baker definitely saves the best for last, this memorable final segment oozing atmosphere and dripping with tension. Whitman does a cracking job and the final 'twist' is a corker.7/10 for the three stories, minus one point for the terrible scenes that take place within The Monster Club.
MARIO GAUCI
Although I generally lapped up the star-studded horror compendiums produced by the British film company Amicus (a Hammer rival), I kept postponing this one (despite there being a readily available SE DVD of it from Pathfinder) because of its poor reputation! I did acquire it from ulterior sources some time ago and, now that I was going through a Vincent Price phase on account of his centenary, I had the opportunity (or the excuse) to finally submit myself to it! Even if producer Milton Subotsky lived on for 10 more years and he made other films after it, THE MONSTER CLUB proved to be, sadly but unsurprisingly, Amicus' swan-song.Actually, on paper, this had all the right ingredients to succeed as much as Amicus' earlier efforts given the participation of past alumni like director Baker, stars Price, Donald Pleasence, Britt Ekland and Richard Johnson, plus character actors Patrick Magee and Geoffrey Bayldon – not to mention new additions like John Carradine, Stuart Whitman, Simon Ward (who, 3 years earlier, had appeared in Subotsky's non-Amicus but equally strongly-cast DOMINIQUE) and Anthony Steel! Apparently Christopher Lee was the first choice for the part eventually played by Carradine and Klaus Kinski was also offered a role but declined! Where it does go horribly wrong, however, is in the disco-set(!) bookend sequences in which vampire Price (only his second time playing a traditional monster{!} and an expert in monster genealogy, the hybrids between species and even humans being given would-be hilarious names) takes celebrated horror author Carradine (after giving him one harmless little bite!) for some more legitimately served liquid sustenance at the ghastly titular abode (which has a werewolf for a secretary!) brimming with hideously made-up punters embarrassingly gyrating on the dance floor to the sounds of UB40 and The Pretty Things (who perform the ska-tinged title song as Carradine and Price get embarrassingly footloose, the latter with a so-called "Buxom Beauty"!) among others!! Still, if one were to twist my arm I would have to say that I did like 2 of the cheesy numbers performed therein: Night's "The Stripper" (with red-haired singer Stevie Lange energetically belting it out and accompanied by a blonde who, literally, strips all the way down to her bones – albeit in a silhouetted bit of animation!) and B.A. Robertson's cheekily goth "Sucker For Your Love"; the stupid "Monsters Rule O.K" tune is best forgotten, however.As for the trilogy of tales, these are decent enough in themselves but nothing that we have not seen before in better movies. The first has James Laurenson as a Shadmuck(!) whose whistle can prove deadly (a greedy cat falls victim to it after it attacks his pet pigeons), as well as Barbara Kellerman and the above-mentioned Ward as a couple who intend to rob the reclusive 'monster' of his fortune. To this end, the woman presents herself for a secretarial job but, besotted with her beauty, he asks her to marry him; naturally, she wants out of the scheme after that but Ward persuades her to go along with the ruse. At the nuptials, Laurenson's monstrous family turns up for a fancy dress ball (recalling the opening scene of Price's classic vehicle THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES {1971}) while Kellerman absents herself from the festivities to loot her brand-new hubby's safe. Caught in the act, he gives her the whistle...and she goes back to Ward a monster, assuring him that he can learn to love her despite her gruesome appearance (a hope Laurenson himself had harbored in her case), which drives Ward off-the-wall.The second tale involves the childhood of film producer Lintom Busotsky (Steel, obviously sending up Subotsky himself!) among his vampire parents Johnson and Ekland who are forever 'stalked not staked' by vampire hunter (masquerading as a priest) Pleasence and his men (who include Neil McCarthy, the memorably hideous Calibos in the contemporaneous original Malta-shot version of CLASH OF THE TITANS). This is perhaps the most enjoyable segment, largely eschewing the others' glumness for amusing campiness (especially by way of Johnson's look and Pleasence's antics – though the latter thinks he has killed the vampire, Johnson is revealed to have been wearing a stake-proof vest and, 'infecting' Pleasence, the vampire hunter can do nothing to stop his own men from giving him a dose of his own medicine!).The third story finds Stuart Whitman as a Hollywood director filming a horror film in London. Distracted by the unprofessionalism of his associates (a dig at the fall of British cinema, perhaps?), he goes in search of real atmosphere and stumbles upon a village that seems lost in time, presided over by creepy inn-keeper Magee. Eventually, it transpires that the locals are all ghouls (or, if you like, zombies) as, in fact, the graveyard is filled with holes through which the corpses had risen! Magee's daughter is the only normal person since she is a Hum-goo(!) and, given that she tries to alert him to the danger (he manages to barricade himself in the church fending off the hungry assailants with a large crucifix), eventually falls victim to their wrath as the couple flee. Meeting up with a cop, Whitman thinks he has reached safety but the car soon takes him back to where he had come from as it was officially escorting the Elders of the village just arrived from the netherworld to celebrate its anniversary! This is easily the least effective episode (if mainly because it is the most ordinary, with Magee in particular wasted); however, it does garner some extra points via the use of evocative illustrations in the flashbacks depicting the history of the cursed community.
