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Maneater Of Hydra
[Shout Factory]
1967; color
Directed by Mel Welles
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, George Martin, Elisa Montes & Rolf von Nauckhoff
The House That Screamed
[Shout Factory]
1969; color
Directed by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador
Starring: Lilli Palmer, Christina Galbo & John Moulder-Brown
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As the jacket of this double feature double disc DVD not so eloquently puts it: "The word Halloween is synonymous with three things: sheets with holes cut into them, candy corn that tastes like neither candy nor corn and, of course... Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark." A statement I suppose I can sort of agree with. Even though, personally, I haven't associated sheets with holes cut in them with Halloween since I found out about what orthodox Jews use them for. Also, I would put the film Halloween and the Misfits song "Halloween" on the list of things I associate with the word but that's just me.
Anywhoo, I suppose we should start with the title listed first, the somewhat aptly named Maneater Of Hydra. (Which, like many foreign made films, has been released under a whole mess of different titles.) This one stars Cameron Mitchell, seen previously on the BMB in reviews of Jack-O, Gorilla At Large, The Toolbox Murders, The Demon etc. In the latter film he played a crazy, over-the-top psychic out to locate a kidnapped young woman. In this film he plays a crazy, over-the-top botanist, Baron von Weser, who lives in relative seclusion on a relatively secluded island surrounded by his plants and his creepy yet loyal manservants. The island is empty, by the way, because as more and more of it's inhabitants wound up dead by mysterious - possibly vampiric - circumstances, more and more of it's inhabitants packed up their shit and moved to an island where people weren't being killed off in droves by one or more of the Baron's bloodthirsty human devouring plants. Um, I mean, mysterious circumstances. Now that I've completely spoiled the plot (not like the American title didn't do it for me) we'll more on to the film's pros and cons. Pro: Mitchell's performance is almost Paul Naschy-esque in it's exaggeration. Con: not only may this be the single worst transfer of a film we've reviewed on the buffet to date, the dubbing is horrifying. Horrifying! Not just in form and function but also in the unnecessarily annoying dialects they chose to go with for the Mrs. Robinson character and whatever the name of the perpetually picture snapping woman character was. On top of that, the movie put me to sleep three nights in a row; but I blame that partially on the way it's chopped up for TV.
Based on all of this you can see why I wasn't all that excited by the prospect of the second feature, but I'm happy to be able to say this film fares much, much better. The House That Screamed is a Spanish flick that, as many other reviewers have pointed out, seems to be somewhat of an influence on Argento's masterpiece Suspiria. While I wouldn't feel comfortable saying whether or not that's a true sentiment, I do see where people would draw comparisons as the story is centered around a large, somewhat foreboding and slightly Gothic looking girl's school where unfortunate students disappear from the premises at an alarming rate - even when you take the repeated threat of schoolgirl-on-schoolgirl teacher-supervised beatings into consideration. (I mean, repeated whippings; bland food; blander, constricting uniforms; hardly any members of the opposite sex to crush out on except the Schoolmarm's somewhat femme, oddly behaving son and the unattractive fella who "delivers the wood"... who wouldn't want to disappear from this place?) Eventually, as the field of main characters grows smaller and smaller, so does the list of people who may be the direct cause of all the available beds in the dorm. By the time the killer is revealed, it won't exactly be a surprise but you will be rewarded with a cool little twist thrown in at the very end.
—Bunny
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