Top

THE BLACK CASTLE (1952/Universal) 80mins. BW. US.
Credits: Dir: Nathan Juran; Prod: William Alland; Sc: Jerry Sackheim; Ph: Irving Glassberg; Ed: Russell Schoengarth; Art: Bernard Herzbrun & Alfrec Sweeny; Mus: Joseph Gershenson.
Cast: Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jnr., Richard Greene, Paula Corday, Stephen McNally, Michael Pate, John Hoyt, Mara Corday, Nancy Valentine, Tudor Owen, Harry Cording, Otto Waldis.
"Terror stalks its turreted battlements...And horror crawls the catacombs beneath!"
An eighteenth century knight, (Greene), avenges the deaths of two of his friends killed at the whim of a sadistic Viennese Count, (McNally), during a hunt. The knight breaks into the Count's castle and discovers a series of labyrinths and torture chambers. Infiltrating the Count's court. the knight falls in love with the Count's unhappy wife, (Corday), but they are thrown into the dungeons when his identity is discovered. A doctor, (Karloff), administers a special leaf to the lovers that makes them appear dead. They are almost buried alive when their plot to escape is discovered.
A gothic, but unfortunately slow moving remake of The Most Dangerous Game that features a moat filled with alligators and an atmosphere not unlike a Sinbad movie.

THE BLACK CAT (1966/Hemisphere/Falcon International) 77mins. BW.
Credits: Dir. & Sc: Harold Hoffman; Prod: Patrick Sims; Ph: Walter Schenk; Ed: Charles Schelling; Sfx: Manuel De Aumente; Art: Robert Dracub.
Cast: Robert Frost, Robyn Baker, Scotty McKay, Sadie French, George R. Russell.
A man thinks his father has been reincarnated as a cat, so he gouges out it's eye and eventually kills it before killing his wife and walling her up in the cellar.
Although this is very gory, it is actually closer to Poe's story than earlier Black Cat films.

BLACK CAT MANSION (1958/Shin Toho) 69mins. BW. (with a colour sequence) Japan.
Aka: BOREI KAIBYO YASHIKI.
Credits: Dir: Nobuo Nakagawa; Sc: Yoshihiro Ishikawa & Jiro Fujishima; Ph: Tadashi Nishimoto.
Cast: Toshio Nosokawa, Midori Chikuma, Fujie Satsuki, Shin Shibata, Keinosuke Wada, Ryuzburo Nakamura, Fumiko Miyata.
A ghost orders his cat to stalk his murderer.

BLACK FOREST (1954/Princess) 63mins. BW. US.
Credits: Dir. & Prod: Gene Martel; Sc: Joe Liss & Irve Tunick; Ph: Erich Claunick.
Cast: Akim Tamiroff, Peggy Ann Garner, Gordon Howard, Wolf Buettner, Marianne Wischmann.
Baron von Moribund, (Tamiroff), is a hunter who enjoys tracking human prey. He sadistacally enjoys tormenting his alcoholic mistress, (Garner), and the power he holds over his gamekeeper, (Buettner), and the gamekeeper's daughter, (Wischmann). When a young American army officer falls for the gamekeeper's daughter, the Count convinces the girl's father to kill the man, but at the last minute the gamekeeper refuses and is summarily shot by the Count. Now increasingly insane, the Count becomes a victim of one of his own man-traps.
A very set-bound and talky retelling of The Most Dangerous Game.

THE BLACK RIDER (1954/Butcher's/Balblair) BW. UK.
Credits: Dir: Wolf Rilla; Prod. & Sc: A.R. Rawlinson; Geoffrey Faithful; Ed: John Trumper; Art: John Stoll; Mus: Wilfred Burns.
Cast: Jimmy Hanley, Rona Anderson, Leslie Dwyer, Lionel Jeffries, Beatrice Varley, Michael Golden, Valerie Hanson, Vincent Ball, Edwin Richfield, Kenneth Connor, Robert Rietty.
In the small coastal resort of Swanhaven, a villager, (Connor), claims he has seen the ghost of the legendary Black Monk, but in reality smugglers, (led by Jeffiries), are using the spectral appearances at the eerie castle as a cover for their activities. A local motorcycle club and a reporter, (Hanley), foil the smugglers' plans.
A pleasing British quota quickie, crime caper. The ghostly elements are soon discarded for a simple "Boys Own" adventure yarn.

THE BLACK SCORPION (1957/Warner/Amex Prod.) 87mins. BW. US. Released 1959.
Credits: Dir: Edward Ludwig; Prod: Frank Melford & Jack Dietz; Sc: David Duncan & Robert Blees; Ph: Lionel Lindon; Ed: Richard Van Enger; Art: Edward Fitzgerald; Sfx: Willis O'Brien & Peter Peterson; Mus: Paul Sawtell & Bert Shefter. From a story by Paul Yawitz.
Cast: Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas, Mario Navarro, Carlos Muzquiz, Pascual Pena, Fanny Schiller, Pedro Galvan, Arture Martinez.
"Don't be ashamed to scream...It helps to relieve the tension!"
A geologist named Hank, (Denning), discovers a nest of giant-sized, man eating scorpions after a volcanic eruption. The army is called in to wipe out the monsters and Hank uses explosives to seal the cave, but the scorpions manage to find another way out and attack a train and it's passengers. Meanwhile a larger specimen heads towards Mexico City where the army lure it to a bull ring with a truck load of beef enabling them to harpoon the creature with an electrified spear.
A poor monster film shot in Mexico, with excellent animated scorpions, but spoilt by dark photography. The scene of the scorpion nest is genuinely creepy and features the animated spider that was cut from King Kong, and a worm with claws.
This was Willis O'Brien's last completed project, he died five years later in 1962.

THE BLACK SLEEP (1956/Bel-Air/Prospect Prod./UA.) 81mins. BW. US.
Aka: DR. CADMAN'S SECRET.
Credits: Dir: Reginald Le Borg; Prod: Howard W. Koch; Ex.Prod: Aubrey Schenck; Sc. John C. Higgins; Ph: Gordon Avil; Ed: John F. Schreyer; Ph.Fx: Jack Rabin & Louis Dewitt; Mu: Volpe & George Bau; Sets: Bob Kinoshita; Mus: Les Baxter. From a story by Gerald Drayson Adams.
Cast: Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney Jnr., Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, Herbert Rudley, Patricia Blake, Phyllis Stanley, Tor Johnson, Sally Yarnell, Claire Carleton, George Sawaya, John Sheffield, Louanna Gardner.
"Horror beyond belief...Rising from the depths of a black Hell!"
Dr. Joel Cadman, (Rathbone), uses Nind Andhera a strange Eastern drug to induce a death-like state on his colleague Ramsey who is about to be hanged for murder. Taking possession of Ramsey's "body", Cadman reawakens and forces him to help discover a way to save his wife from a fatal brain tumour. Cadman operates on several people's brains while Ramsey discovers that the strange servants and patients in Cadman's home are all results of the doctor's experiments, including the mute butler, (Lugosi), a marauding strangler named Mungo, (Chaney), and the man that Ramsey was supposed to have murdered.
A satisfying homage to the gothic horrors of the forties. Although the ageing stars had very little to do, their presence saves the film from mediocrity.
74 year old Lugosi in his last completed film asked Le Borg for dialogue, but although some footage was shot it was cut for plot purposes. Lugosi died in August the same year.
Released in 1963 as DR. CADMAN'S SECRET.

THE BLACK ZOO (1962/Allied Artists/Cohen) 88mins. US.
Credits: Dir: Robert Gordon; Prod: Herman Cohen; Sc: Aben Kandel & Herman Cohen; Ph: Floyd Crosby; Ed: Michael Luciano; Art: William Glasgow; Sfx: Pat Dinga; Mus: Paul Dunlap.
Cast: Michael Gough, Warrance Ott, Jeanne Cooper, Marianna Hill, Rod Lauren, Virginia Grey, Oren Curtis, Jerome Cowan, Elisha Cook Jnr., Edward Platt.
"Fang and claw killers stalk the city streets!"
An insane zoo owner, (Gough), has the power over his animals to make them kill for him. He so loves his assorted creatures that he even plays the organ for them, but they eventually rebel and slay him.
An uninteresting and badly made film with only occasional moments to remember.

BLACKBEARD'S GHOST (1968/Disney) 105mins. US.
Cast: Peter Ustinov, Dean Jones, Suzanne Pleshette, Elsa Lanchester, Joby Baker, Richard Deacon.
Blackbeard, (Ustinov), the pirate is destined to walk the earth until he can perform a good deed, so he tries to stop gangsters from turning his descendant's, (Jones), hotel into a casino.
Disney family fun with a plot stolen from The Canterville Ghost.

THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER (1963/Llama/Columbus) 88mins. Italy/Spain.
Aka: HORROR.
Credits: Dir: Alberto de Martino; Prod: Alberto Aguilera; Sc: Bruno Corbucci, Giovanni Grimaldi & Natividad Zaro; Ph: Ale Jandro Ulloa; Art: Antonio Simont; Mus: Carlo Franci. Based loosely on story by Edgar Allan Poe.
Cast: Gérard Tichy, Joan Hills, Leo Anchoriz, Richard Davis, Iran Eory, Helga Line, Frank Moran.
An insane Englishman has buried his daughter alive.
An atmospheric and gothic melodrama combining murder, madness and a family curse.

BLIND MANS BLUFF (1968) see Cauldron of Blood

Top

BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964) see Sei Donne Per l'Assassino

BLOOD AND ROSES (1960) see Et Mourir de Plaisir

BLOOD BATH (1966/AIP./Hill) 82mins. BW. US. Aka: TRACK OF THE VAMPIRE.
Credits: Dir. & Sc: Stephanie Rothman & Jack Hill; Prod: Jack Hill; Ex.Prod: Roger Corman; Ph: Alfred Taylor; Ed: Mort Tubor; Art: James Brunner; Sound: Gary Kurtz; Mus: Mark Lowry.
Cast: William Campbell, Curt Dawson, Linda (Lori) Saunders, Sid Haig, Jonathan Haze, Sandra Knight, Marissa Mathes, Harve Presnell, Carl Schanzer, Biff Elliot.
"The shrieking of mutilated victims caged in a black pit of horror!"
Demented painter Antonio Sordi, (Campbell), who is possessed by a fifteenth century vampire ancestor, drinks the blood of his models, dunks them in boiling wax and then paints them. At the same time he manages to have a normal relationship with a girl, but eventually the wax corpses come to life and kill him.
A confusing and hallucinatory horror film due mainly to the number of times the crew were changed throughout shooting. Corman fired Hill and hired Rotman as director who used half an hour of footage from a Yugoslavian film titled Operacija Ticijan in addition to shooting more scenes with actress Sandra Knight.
Wax covered Patrick Magee appears uncredited in the footage used from the Yugoslavian film.

THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (1967/Tigon British) 88mins. UK.
Aka: THE VAMPIRE BEAST CRAVES BLOOD (US); DEATHSHEAD VAMPIRE; THE BLOOD BEAST FROM HELL.
Credits: Dir: Vernon Sewell; Prod: Arnold L. Miller; Ex.Prod: Tony Tenser; Sc: Peter Bryan; Ph: Stanley A. Long; Ed: Howard Lanning; Art: Wilfred Woods; Sfx: Roger Dicken; Mus: Paul Ferris.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Robert Flemyng, Wanda Ventham, Vanessa Howard, David Griffin, Glynn Edwards, William Wilde, Kevin Stoney, John Paul, Russell Napier, Roy Hudd, Leslie Anderson, Simon Cain, Robert Cawdron, Kenneth Colley, Beryl Cooke.
A nineteenth century entomologist's, (Flemyng), daughter, (Ventham), is actually a vampiric Deathshead moth that the scientist has created from experiments with a moth chrysalis. Inspector Quinnel, (Cushing), tries to discover who is murdering people and draining their blood, but when his clues lead him to the entomologist's house he finds that they have left in a hurry leaving a cellar room filled with human bones. The inspector traces them to Upper Hyam where the entomologist is trying to create a mate for the moth woman.
The preposterous plot is not helped by the laughable creature. Hudd appears in a comic role as a mortuary attendant.
Cushing referred to this as his worst film. Basil Rathbone was originally signed to play the father, but he died before filming began.

THE BLOOD DEVILS (1970/Hemisphere) 90mins. Philippines.
Aka: BEAST OF BLOOD; BEAST OF THE DEAD; RETURN TO THE HORRORS OF BLOOD ISLAND.
Sequel to: The Mad Doctor of Blood Island.
Credits: Dir., Prod. & Sc: Eddie Romero; Ex.Prod: Kane W. Lynn; Ph: Justo Paulino & Edmund Cupcupin (2nd. unit); Ed: Ben Barcelon; Art: Ben Otico; Sfx: Teofilo Hilario; Mu: Tony Artieda; Mus: Tito Arevalo. From a story by Beverly Miller.
Cast: Angelique Pettyjohn, John Ashley, Celeste Yarnell, Eddie Garcia, Alfonso Caruajal, Liza Belmonte, Bruno Punzalan, Beverly Miller.
Dr. Lorca continues to turn people into walking lumps of chlorophyll in order to obtain their green blood. The headless chlorophyll man terrorises the heroine.
The third entry to the BLOOD ISLAND series.
At the box office packets of green blood and sick bags were issued to patrons.

THE BLOOD DRINKERS (1966/Santiago/Hemisphere) 88mins. Tinted BW. with colour footage. Philippines/US.
Aka: THE VAMPIRE PEOPLE (US).
Credits: Dir: Gerardo De Leon; Prod: Cirio H. Santiago; Sc: Cesar Amigo; Ph: Felipe Sacdalan; Ed: Salvador; Art: Ben Otico; Sfx: Hilario Bros.; Mus: Tito Arevalo.
Cast: Amelia Fuentes, Ronald Remy, Eva Montez, Eddie Fernandez, Celia Rodriguez, Paquito Salcedo.
"A cult of undead creatures seek fresh warm human blood!"
Vampire Dr. Marco, (Remy), wants to revive his beloved, (Fuentes), from the dead by using her twin sister's heart and the help of his pretty assistant, (Montez), a hunchbacked dwarf and a tame bat.
A poorly constructed and confusing film.

BLOOD FEAST (1963/Box Office Spectaculars/Friedman-Lewis Prod.) 75mins.
Credits: Dir., Ph., Sfx. & Mus: Herschell Gordon Lewis; Prod: Herschell Gordon Lewis & David F. Friedman; Sc: A. Louise Downe; Ed: Robert Sinise & Frank Romolo.
Cast: Connie Mason, Scott Arnold, Thomas Wood, Ashlyn Martin, Mal Arnold, Lyn Bolton, Scott H. Hall, Toni Calvert, Gene Courtier, Sandra Sinclair, Al Golden, William Kerwin.
"A weird, grisly, ancient rite horrendously brought to life in blood color."
Egyptian caterer Faud Ramses, (Mal Arnold), attempts to revive the Egyptian goddess Ishtar by using the body parts of women that he murders. A girl's, (Mason), birthday party provides Ramses with the opportunity of preparing an exotic feast and completing the ritual.
A welter of blood and gore is strewn all over the screen in what has been hailed as the first gore movie. One scene shows the hero ripping out his girlfriend's tongue that was achieved by using a real sheep’s tongue with all the appropriate grue. Little of the $60,000 budget helped the poor acting, but allowed for some gut churning special effects. The film has since reaped millions for its creators.
Filmed on a nine day shooting schedule in Miami.

BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1971/Hammer) 94mins. UK.
Credits: Dir: Seth Holt & Michael Carreras; Prod: Howard Brandy; Sc: Christopher Wicking; Ph: Arthur Grant; Ed: Peter Weatherley; Art: Scott McGregor; Sfx: Michael Collins; Mus: Tristram Cary. From "The Jewel Of The Seven Stars" by Bram Stoker.
Cast: Andrew Keir, Valerie Leon, James Villiers, Hugh Burden, George Coulouris, Mark Edwards, Rosalie Crutchley, Aubrey Morris, Tamara Ustinov, David Markham, Joan Young, James Cossins, David Jackson, Jonathan Burne, Penelope Holt.
Professor Fuch, (Keir), and his expedition unearth the tomb of an Egyptian princess whose severed hand still bleeds. Twenty years later and seeking revenge, the spirit of the evil princess takes over the body of Fuch's daughter, (Leon), on her twenty-first birthday.
An interesting attempt to keep the mummy genre alive, but the film is in sore need of a sense of humour.
When Seth Holt died during filming Michael Carreras took over the director's chair.
Remade in 1980 as THE AWAKENING.

BLOOD MOON (1970) see La Noche de Walpurgis

Top

BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS (1969/Constitution/Mishkin) 85mins.
Credits: Dir. & Ph: Andy Milligan; Prod: William Mishkin; Sc: Andy Milligan & John Borske; Art: James Fox.
Cast: John Miranda, Annabella Wood, Berwick Kaller, Jane Helay.
A butcher, (Miranda), and a baker, (Wood), conspire to make meat pies out of some of their customers. When the police finally close in on the killers they hack each other to pieces.
A gory version of the familiar Sweeny Todd story made in true Milligan style with out of focus camera shots and cardboard sets.
Milligan has reputedly written, produced and directed twenty three shoe string budget features over a ten year span, all of them, unfortunately look like badly made home movies.

THE BLOODY VAMPIRE (1962) see El Vampire Sangriento