Halloween Month rolls along here at Balladeer’s Blog! In the past, I’ve examined decades-old Mexican horror films that have a certain quaint B-Movie charm to them. Here are some of those So Bad They’re Good flicks I didn’t get the chance to review before now.
THE RESURRECTED MONSTER (1953) – Directed and co-written by the trailblazing Chano Urueta, this film is regarded as Mexico’s first sci-fi/ horror blend. A plastic surgeon named Dr. Hermann Ling (Jose Maria Linares-Rivas) has been driven mad by a lifetime of scorn over his grotesque, misshapen (yet hilarious) appearance. He has spent years working in isolation at a remote castle.
A beautiful (of course) female reporter named Nora, played by starlet Miroslava, is sent to obtain a story about the famed surgeon’s life and methods. The mad doctor falls in love with Nora and is devastated when she flees his castle after getting her story.
Our villain reanimates a handsome corpse and transplants an obedient brain into it. Hey, it’s the movies! Mad scientists are automatically masters of ALL disciplines! Ling has his hybrid creation bring Nora back to him, but it, too, has fallen for Nora and kills the doctor, and is in turn slain by Nora’s editor (Gherasimos). Continue reading
DETECTIVE COMICS Vol 1 #400 (June 1970)
The anguished Langstrom realizes he must go into seclusion until he can devise a cure for his condition. That night he happens by as Batman interrupts the Blackout Gang’s attempt to rob a Gotham museum. 
As Halloween Month continues, here’s a look at my favorite Jean Rollin vampire films. Note that these are not my all-time favorite movies about vampires, just my favorites by Rollin. 
Toss in his eerie, haunting and beautiful movie 
THE SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES (1970) – In my view this is the first real example of a Rollin vampire film. His Rape of the Vampire definitely showed how inexperienced he was at horror, while The Nude Vampire had those undertones of sci-fi that I mentioned above. 
THE WERWOLVES (1898) – Written by Honore Beaugrand, this story features fairly unique werewolf lore. The tale is not structured in a traditional way but instead expands upon accounts of lycanthropy in campfire tales as if they really, truly happened. 
FRANKENSTEIN (1910) – This first ever cinematic depiction of the classic horror story was produced by Edison Studios, as in Thomas Edison. Luckily Frankenstein has survived, and existing copies run from 11 minutes to 16 minutes. 
Edison Studios efforts were known for their slipshod, seat of their pants nature, and Frankenstein serves up my all-time favorite back-to-back dialogue boards. “Frankenstein leaves for college.” followed by “Two years later Frankenstein has discovered the mystery of life.” (… And Frankenstein Created Cram School) 
PENITENTE (Penitent) 
To redeem himself in the eyes of Heaven, the Penitente had to save seventy times seven the number of innocent victims he had killed while alive. As part of this purgative servitude he would also be periodically pitted against dark forces which had escaped from Hell. 
Comment: Our hero rose from his grave and masked his decaying, scarred face behind a red cloth like those worn during Brazil’s Procession of the Penitents. 
The previous installments of Fool Killer lore have seen the neglected 1800s folk figure in a variety of roles: 
In honor of the Halloween season this post will look at the Fool Killer as a 1980s slasher. 
THE FOOL KILLER – As we all know, Anthony Perkins starred in the eerie 1965 movie The Fool Killer as an amnesiac Civil War veteran who came to believe he was really the legendary title figure. A 1980s slasher version of the Fool Killer could feature a deranged killer who has similarly come to regard himself as the “real” one.
EZRA PEDEN – This was Allan Cunningham’s tale about the deeds of Scottish Presbyterian Minister Ezra Peden and his encounters with the forces of the supernatural in Scotland from the late 1600s to around 1706. It makes for nice Halloween Season reading and practically makes you feel the chilliness of Scotland in late October as Cunningham depicts the brave, if humorless, Ezra adventuring in the moonlight. 
SWAMP THING Vol 1 #3 (March 1973) 
Alec’s body was dumped in the swamp, where the bio-restorative chemicals his body had been soaked in interacted with his own anatomy, the mud and the plant life in the swamp, letting him rise from the dead as a murk-monster. The Swamp Thing retained Alec Holland’s intelligence but could not speak for the first several issues. 
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