Showing posts with label Shock Waves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shock Waves. Show all posts

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Halloween Horrors, 70s Style

Karen: Halloween is almost upon us, and once again, the cable TV stations are showing primarily slasher flicks and other dreck on Halloween. As usual  we're left to our own devices to entertain ourselves during this scary season. Now you can't go wrong with the classics - but if you're a monster fan, I know you've seen the Universal films a zillion times. And there's a good chance you've gone through Hammer's catalog as well. So what's left for a monster fan to watch on Halloween?

Well, you're in luck. I have a couple of suggestions for you, some solid 70s fare that is a little more obscure but still good creepy fun. First up: Horror Express, a gem from 1972. You'd think it's a Hammer film, since it stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, but it's not. It's a Spanish/British production set in 1906, with almost all of the action taking place on a train, the Tran-Siberian Express (indeed, the alternate title was Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express!). Lee is an anthropologist who has brought aboard the corpse of what he believes to be the Missing Link, which he discovered frozen in China. His rival, Cushing, is also on the train, and anxious to discover what Lee has in his crate. But what neither of them knows is that the specimen is not as harmless as it seems. The creature returns to life and begins killing people on the train. It is possessed by a strange force that makes its eyes glow and it is soon discovered that it can transfer from body to body. Soon enough there's a mad Rasputin-like priest, a buxom countess,  drunken Cossack Telly Savalas, dead men coming back to life, and lots of bleeding from the eyes. The filmmakers do a good job building suspense and there's a feeling of genuine menace created by the situation of being trapped on the moving train with the creature.


For pure creepiness, this next film is one of my favorites. It's also a great entry in the ranks of zombie-dom, as it features amphibious Nazi zombies. Yes, roll that around in your head. I'm talking about Shock Waves (1977). Now as a zombie movie goes, it is light on gore. That's not what this film is about. This film is all about mood, and it has plenty of it. The way it's filmed, likely due to the low budget, there's a starkness to it that lends it that strange, quasi-documentary feel, sort of like the original Night of the Living Dead. A small group of vacationers head out on a yacht, experience odd phenomena that mess up their navigational instruments, and then have a near-miss with a huge ship at night. The next day, they discover that their boat is sinking, so they head for a nearby island. They also see the wreck of a large, old ship not far away. On the island they discover Peter Cushing -yes, he's in this one too -doing his best German accent. Not long after the castaways meet him, the amphibious Nazi zombies rise from the ocean floor and begin attacking the living. It seems they were part of 'The Death Corps', a Nazi unit composed of unkillable, undead assassins. The rest of the film plays out like one would expect, with the zombies attempting to murder everyone on the island in typical efficient German fashion. For good measure, it also has the ever-entertaining John Carradine as the captain of the yacht.


Horror Express was released on Blu-Ray last year and can be had relatively cheaply if you look around. Shock Waves is on DVD, no Blu Ray yet. Both are well worth seeing if you haven't caught them yet. They will certainly evoke that Bronze-Age flavor!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Groovy 70s Horror Films

Karen: You know we're all about the 70s here at BAB, and in honor of Halloween, I'm going to take a look at some of my favorite horror films of the 70s.

No conversation about 70s horror would be complete without referencing the many films that came out of Hammer Studios. Although the studio's output was definitely on the downside by the time the 70s rolled around, their style -probably best summed up as blood and boobs - had set a tone for things to come. Dracula AD 1972 is one of the cheesiest films you might ever see, with a hilarious depiction of hip London kids. But Christopher Lee still manages to be a terrifying Dracula, and Peter Cushing turns in another winning performance as his nemesis. 1974's Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter is a very offbeat film, but one that I enjoy. The good captain and his assistant work to free a village from the grip of a vampiric menace. The beautiful Caroline Munro is also featured in both of these films, for those who might be interested. Both are also available from Netflix too.



Nazis? Zombies? Two great bad guys that go great together! How about Nazi zombies? As a plus, they're amphibious Nazi zombies! OK, sounds pretty goofy, but the movie Shock Waves (1977) manages to make it entertaining. There's also the aforementioned Peter Cushing in a small role, and horror film veteran John Carradine as a cranky old ship captain. There's also a guy who looks a lot like Will Ferrell and acts just as stupid as him. Despite the inherent ridiculousness of the plot, it manages to be genuinely spooky in some spots. Worth a view from YouTube at the very least:



Speaking of 70s zombies, how about one of the best zombie films ever? I'm talking (of course) about the original Dawn of the Dead (1978). The world is in the grips of a zombie plague; society is breaking down, and four people escape to the imagined safety of a shopping mall. But then, things go terribly awry...this is a must-see film, a horror classic. Sure, the zombie makeup is pretty lame - they look like a bunch of smurfs, they're so blue. But the story is so good, I think you can get past it. The feeling of dread that permeates the whole movie is hard to shake.



There was also a lot of great horror to be found on TV in the 70s. Back in those days, there were movies of the week, where you could find such fare as Gargoyles, The Night Stalker, Trilogy of Terror, Crowhaven Farm, and a sweet little miniseries called Salem's Lot (1979). Based on the Steven King novel, this adaptation was well-acted, suspenseful, and had a number of jump out of your chair moments.


I highly recommend any of these movies if you love the 70s the way we do here at BAB! And a heads-up: the excellent zombie comic The Walking Dead has been turned into a TV series by the folks at AMC. It will premiere on Halloween night. From what little I've seen so far, it looks like they're doing a good job on it. Here's a clip:

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