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3.0 out of 5 stars
At least it was not the Werewolf vs. the Screaming Skull..., Dec 3 2007
The saying better late than never does not really apply to this Killer Creature Double Feature. Our first feature, "The Screaming Skull," comes with a guarantee that if the movie has the unintended consequence of scaring you to death, you get a free burial. That promise is a lot more interesting than the movie itself. The music they play while the fake drive-screen announces the featured presentation was more interesting than this 1958 horror flick which was actor Alex Nicol's first directing credit (he plays Mickey). Of course this film was given the "MST3K" treatment during Season 9, but the Don, Servo and the gang are not around to help you make it through this boring little horror film.
Eric Whitlock (John Hudson) and his wife Jenni (Peggy Webber) move into a house where something not very nice happened once upon a time, namely Eric's first wife Marian died. Creepy Mickey the gardener is hanging around and when creepy things start happening involving a skull the Whitlocks think Mickey is responsible. The problem is that (a) not of the creepy things are scary and (b) Mickey does not have enough brains left to be doing anything to anybody. But Jenni has a "nervous condition," which allows her to be creeped out quite easily, especially when the local reverend decides that describing Marian's gruesome death is appropriate dinner conversation. Meanwhile, Mickey is clearly more upset over Marian's death than Eric, so we are suspicious, but since Webber's performance as Jenni is so inept we do not care.
This movie is 68-minutes long and I am here to tell you that Nicol's had to really drag it out to make it that long, which is not a good move. The appearance of the skull itself does not help matters and the "special effects" are too stupid to even get credit for being hokey. There was some notion of psychology being involved here as a fourth-rate takeoff of "Rebecca," but I think that gets thrown away at the end simply so Nicol can think he has surprised his audience with the finale. The only thing we are surprised about is that we sat through this whole film.
"The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman" ("La Noche de Walpurgis") has to be the better film by default, so at least things are looking up heading into the second feature. This 1971 film is in color and has a lot more going for it than a skull. Usually you expect a corpse to rise up as a vampire, but in this case you would be wrong (the same thing if you think the werewolf will bark like a dog rather than growl like a cat). This Spanish/West German film stars Paul Naschy (a.k.a. Jacinto Molina) as Waldemar Daninsky, who is the werewolf. Then we have the young women, Genevieve (Barbara Capell) and Elvira (Gaby Fuchs), who show up to be the damsels in distress. Elvira is a student who feels it is necessary to defile the tomb of a Hungarian Countess ostensibly for her course work but really so she can end up dripping blood on the corpse so it can come back to life. Next thing we know, the Countess Wandessa d'Arville de Nadasdy (Patty Shepard ) is up and about and women are biting each other on the neck. Periodically Waldemar turns hairy and runs around in the woods. It seems like these two plotlines should have more to do with each other given the title, but neither character is in a hurry to get to that point as ancient evil and a lengthy curse take a back step to a trip to the local market. When we get to the climax and the fight between the title creatures, I swear it happens because they ran out of anything else for the characters to do.
The day for night shooting is pretty dark and you can never really see what is going on until we get a close-up of the blood on the corpses. No wonder the Vampire Woman runs around in the sunlight. The director likes to cut back and forth between shots really quickly when something is about to happen. The music in this film becomes almost oppressive it is so unrelenting as it tries to provide more atmosphere than the actors and scenes have created. At lest there is something reassuring about gold old fashion time lapse dissolves for werewolves to turn hairy (and visa versa) and vampires to become skeletons. It is just that the big fight at the end seems so anticlimactic, especially for "the most sensational fight to the finish ever filmed," and even the pathos of freeing a loved one from a curse seems so mundane. The final credits are the best part of the film, not because it is all over, but because it is actually the most atmospheric part of the whole thing (really).
As is usually the case with these Killer Creature Double Feature DVDs there are trailers for both of the main features, both of which are better than the films themselves, with the trailer for Hammer's "The Brides of Dracula" starting off the evening's festivities. Intermission is a Max Fleischer Betty Boop cartoon, "Morning, Noon, and Night" recorded by Rubinoff and his Orchestra for what that is worth. Basically cats are going after baby chicks and a determined Betty comes to the rescue, although dancing is involved first and a rooster and other fowl of the air do most of the work. How day turns to night here was pretty cute. However, unlike the DVDs from Something Weird there the extras here are too skimpy to make up for the shortcomings of the films.
The math for this week has "Screaming Skull" coming in at 2 stars and "The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman" earns 3 stars, so we divide in half and round up because the second flick does cover all of the bases for good old European horror film from that period. Next week we try again, not only to have a double feature to watch on Saturday night instead of Monday but also to find some better bad movies as we screen "Naked Evil" and "Exorcism at Midnight" as we try biker gangs and voodoo mixed up together in England.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
5 STARS,3 CHEERS AND 2 THUMBS UP FOR THIS DOUBLE FEATURE, Jan 26 2004
I'M A BIG COLLECTER OF THE OLD CLASSIC B HORROR MOVIES.I CAME ACROSS THIS DOUBLE FEATURE DVD "THE SCREAMING SKULL" & "THE WEREWOLF vs. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN" AND I'D REALLY LOVED BOTH MOVIES. TWO OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES I WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN. IF YOUR LOOKING FOR HIGH BUDGET, BIG STARS,GREAT QUALITY AND AWESOME SOUND EFFECTS,THIS DVD IS NOT FOR YOU, BUT IF YOUR LOOKING FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT, LIKE A BLAST FROM THE PAST B HORROR CREEPY CLASSIS,THEN THIS IS FOR YOU.A MUST FOR A HORROR MOVIE COLLECTOR.
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Ignore the Other Reviews, This is Awful, Feb 5 2003
Ignore some of the folks who gave this five stars. Both the movies and the picture are absolutely horrendous (but you expected that, didn't you.) "Screaming Skull" and especially "Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman" aren't as deliriously so-bad-they're-good as you'd hope: they're just bad. As in BAD bad.
"Screaming Skull" and especially "Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman" look awful. "Werewolf" includes some of the strangest visual distortion I've ever seen: the backgrounds tend to jitter as the foregrounds stay still. Colour bleed, grain, and poor contrast are all present.
The extras include a not very good Betty Boop cartoon, as well as trailers for the main attractions and "Brides of Dracula." The trailers are the disc's only asset.
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