Andy Milligan was born on 12 February 1929.

Milligan was an important exploitation filmmaker in the 1960s and 1970s. He certainly put some interesting things in his films. But I don’t know a single one that really works. I’ve tried to like his work. Most people dislike his films for the content. They are extremely abrasive. But I can take all that. My problem is that they are mostly pretty boring.

His films were a good indication of who he was. He clearly had mental problems. And despite working a lot, he was awful to his collaborators. He isn’t distinct in this way. Exploitation filmmakers tend to be horrible people. But they generally make films I want to watch. So I didn’t try all that long to appreciate Milligan’s work.

I’m not alone! Michael Weldon really disliked Andy Milligan’s films. So I figured I’d do another round-up of his complaints as I did for Larry Buchanan. But let me be clear: Buchanan was way more talented and a much better person. So I feel a lot better doing this to Milligan.

• The Ghastly Ones (1969): “The gore effects are so laughably bad that you can see a rubber leg bounce… If you’re an Andy Milligan fan there’s no hope for you…”
• Bloodthirsty Butchers (1970): “Pathetic remake of The Demon Barber of Fleet Street…”
• Torture Dungeon (1970): “Cheap gore film from Staten Island.”
• The Body Beneath (1970): “More terrible junk from Staten Island’s Andy Milligan…”
• Guru, the Mad Monk (1970): “Sixty-two minutes that only seem like hours.”
• The Man With Two Heads (1972): “[A] terrible version of the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story made by Staten Island’s Milligan in England.”
• The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! (1972): “Awful cheapie about a family of werewolves in 19th-century England.”
• Blood! (1974): “Horrible horrors from Staten Island.”
• Legacy of Horror (1978): “The trouble is that you have to sit through one of the worst written, acted, and directed films to reach the gory climax, where people get sawed, knifed, axed, and punctured.”
• Carnage (1983): “It is a typically senseless Milligan movie.”

Weldon said nice things about one Milligan film, Fleshpot on 42nd Street (1973). “I like this color drama better than most of Milligan’s horror movies. The acting isn’t bad, parts are funny…” Unfortunately, I could only find a complete copy that is badly cropped. But this is a Milligan film. It’s not like it looks great regardless!

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Andy Milligan via The Movie DB under Fair Use.

Universal Pictures released The Sentinel in the US market on 11 February 1977.

The film is part of what I call “Catholic horror.” And it’s one of my favorite subgenres. I was raised Catholic and that probably explains this.

As a child, I found church to mostly be simply boring. That was true for Baptist churches as well as Catholic churches. But Catholic churches had something special: They were terrifying. Today, I find them lovely. I love old buildings. I love stained glass. And I really love quiet! But as a child? It freaked me out!

But it’s more than the buildings! The dress of priests and nuns are oppressive. And I get it! I was born right at the time of Vatican II. And while I was a teen, our local church introduced the Folk Mass. And everyone associated with the church took on a friendlier feel. But it was too late! I remembered the nun who ran my First Communion!

It’s not just Catholicism, though. The Orthodox churches are the same. So are some forms of Judeism. I’d probably think the same of Islamic faiths, too. But I don’t have much experience. The only Islamic horror I remember is Tobe Hooper’s last film, Djinn. It is excellent but none of it directly deals with the religion or takes place in a mosque.

But I don’t mean to give protestant faiths a pass. Most protestant churches make me think of The Stepford Wives. Pagan faiths make me think of The Wicker Man. Whereas I find horror in a Unitarian Universalist Church absurd on its face, even though I could come up with some things.

The point isn’t that religions of all kinds aren’t creepy in their way. It is that the Catholic Church is a great backdrop for the kind of supernatural horror I most love.

And with that in mind, let’s watch The Sentinel.

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The Sentinel (1977) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.

Hazel Court was born on 10 February 1926.

She was a British actor. But by about 1960, she seems to have moved full-time to the United States and worked mostly in television. Psychotronic fans know her best for three of the Corman Poe Cycle films.

In England, she starred in two Hammer horror films. She starred with Peter Cushing in The Curse of Frankenstein. And then she starred with Anton Diffring and Christopher Lee in The Man Who Could Cheat Death. Both those roles are pretty boring. She is a pretty woman with bad taste in men.

Court appeared in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. These definitely expanded her roles from the previous ones. In the last of these, “The Pearl Necklace,” she plays a conniving cougar. She’s way too smart to be relegated to “good girl” roles.

Around this time, she also starred in the American International Pictures films. First was The Premature Burial, the only non-Vincent Price Poe film. She’s evil but not with joie de vivre she shows in the follow-up, The Raven. Finally, she’s a satanist in The Masque of the Red Death. That one is not a well-written part but she performs it well.

Court starred in other psychotronic films. If you get the chance, you should definitely see Ghost Ship (1952), Devil Girl from Mars, and Doctor Blood’s Coffin (1961).

By the late 1960s, she slowed her work. And at the start of the 1970s, she stopped acting completely, except for a brief appearance in Omen III: The Final Conflict. Interestingly, her husband, Don Taylor, directed Damien: Omen II.

There is really only one choice to celebrate Hazel Court’s birthday: The Raven. I’ve watched the film far too many times. So much of it kind of annoys me now. But I never tire of her scenes. But for most viewers, the whole thing is a joy.

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Hazel Court via IMDb under Fair Use.

Mia Farrow is 81 years old today. She was born on 9 February 1945.

I really like Farrow. But I don’t like highlighting her here. She hasn’t been in many psychotronic films. Her younger sister, Tisa, is actually much more interesting to psychotronic fans. But some days are like this. And two of the psychotronic films she starred in are iconic.

Farrow is Hollywood royalty. She was the third child of writer-director John Farrow and actor Maureen O’Sullivan. She starred in the prime-time soap opera Peyton Place despite her lack of experience. And audiences loved her in it. So much so, the show never really recovered from her departure even though the show struggled on for a few more seasons.

After this, she starred in a few films. And then she was cast in the title role of Rosemary’s Baby. She is a great actor. But she tends to be typecast as fragile women. That’s definitely the case here. But the the film wouldn’t work without her performance. Almost everyone else in the film comes off as sterile. They’re almost pod-people!

Anyway, I don’t really want to talk about Roman Polanski. My position is that it is a William Castle film with Polanski providing the star power to get a big budget. Regardless, I figure everyone here has seen the film.

So let’s move on to the second big psychotronic film featuring Mia Farrow: The Haunting of Julia (also known as Full Circle). It’s based on a Peter Straub novel and is exactly the kind of thing you expect from him. It’s a classic ghost story. It takes forever to get going. You have to go into it with intention. But it’s great and Farrow is (again) well cast in the title role.

She also starred in Secret Ceremony and See No Evil. Both are worth checking out if you come upon them. But I wouldn’t search.

Let’s celebrate Mia Farrow by watching The Haunting of Julia:

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Mia Farrow by Andrew Lih under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Mathilda May is 62 years old today. She was born on 8 February 1965.

I know what you’re thinking. “Why is Frank talking about an actor who was only in one psychotronic film?!

Well, first, it isn’t true that she was only in one psychotronic film. And second, the one you’re thinking of isn’t just any psychotronic film. And she walked around naked in it, draining the life force out of humans!

I know very little about May. She’s a French actor. And most of her roles are in French films. I actually learned of her initially for the film Isabelle Eberhardt. I was shocked when I found out the naked lady in Lifeforce was played by the same woman!

But back to psychotronic films. Lifeforce was one of her first films. Sadly, I can’t find much information about her casting. The film is a classic. But people don’t tend to report on financially unsuccessful films — at least until they’ve been cult classics for many decades. Tom Weaver has really been slacking! (That was a joke. He’s still pounding out great books!)

But since Lifeforce, Mathilda May has made a few psychotronic films. She starred in the thriller The Cry of the Owl (1987). There are two other later versions, so be careful. David Cronenberg could have directed this film!

She made Scream of Stone with Werner Herzog. She was also in The Tit and the Moon, which is another Cronenberg-like film. And she was in the English-language thriller The Jackal.

Not that I care much about any of those films. She’s an excellent actor. But mostly, producers cast her because she’s beautiful. And that’s true for her even at 62! But I do wish I saw her more in the movies. Her whole career, she’s been limited to films that play at art houses. And there are few of those still around!

But there was never any doubt what film we were going to watch. Lifeforce is great! And far too few people have seen it. That’s especially true in these days when boring “sexy vampires” films are the norm.

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Image cropped from Mathilda May by Georges Biard under CC BY-SA 3.0.

United Artists Europa released Cannibal Holocaust in Italy on 7 February 1980. The film did not make it to the United States for over 5 years.

This is a difficult film. It is magnificent. It is probably the best cannibal film ever. Surprisingly, it’s also funny with real things to say that matter. And then there is the animal cruelty.

Most people focus on the unnecessary killing of animals. I’m not happy about that. But it isn’t the real problem here. For example, the actors butcher a turtle. It’s an intense scene. It is hard to watch. But they don’t torture the turtle. They kill it about as painlessly as hunters ever kill them.

But there is an unforgivable scene. An actor slowly tortures a “muskrat” (it is apparently a coati) to death with a knife. That is the scene that really made me wonder about the filmmakers. How do you do that?!

What’s worse, the filmmakers didn’t need any of these scenes. Like the human violence, they could have faked it all. But even that wasn’t necessary. As I’ve written before, they may have needed the turtle scene — but I don’t even think it was necessary.

Grindhouse Releasing put out a Blu-ray of Cannibal Holocaust that includes a cruelty-free version of the film. It simply takes out the scenes that involve animal killing. I haven’t seen it. I admire the film but I’m not interested in owning it. Even if this fixes the film, I still know how the film was made.

But I expect that the cruelty-free version works fine. Because the scenes are unnecessary. Yes, they establish that the four principals are horrible people. But the film provides more than enough proof of that without the animal cruelty.

I looked for the cruelty-free version of the film online. It isn’t available. But here is a version of the film you can watch for free, knowing that the filmmakers won’t receive any money.

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Cannibal Holocaust (1980) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.

Michael Maltese was born on 6 February 1908.

You’ve probably never heard of him. I hadn’t! Why would anyone? He wrote most of the best Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons. And, you know, he was a writer.

I have a long history of criticizing Stan Lee. He was actually a good guy. I like his politics! But he was also a shit when it came to taking credit for things. Jack Kirby is what made the golden age of Marvel great. My point is that comic books are a visual art form and we should hold up artists and not writers.

There is a major problem with Stan Lee “writing” the comics. He didn’t. Kirby created the stories and Lee (and later, others) wrote the dialogue. That isn’t writing!

Anyway, Michael Maltese wrote the stories for literally hundreds of Warner Bros cartoons. And yes! I understand that the animation is critical. But I also know that these films wouldn’t be remembered if the stories didn’t work. Writing these stories — with the gags they include — is essential.

Perhaps most important: Maltese brought opera to people who never would have encountered it. The opera-oriented cartoons are now something of a trope. And the truth is, Warner Bros didn’t release nearly as many as most of us remember.

But Maltese wrote the three most important of these:

1. Herr Meets Hare: Bugs ends up in Germany in 1945 while trying to make his way to Las Vegas. He engages with a German in a very operatic way. It isn’t what we now expect but it was the first move in this direction. It’s a great example of anti-Nazi propaganda. It also establishes Bugs as a genderfluid character. The current US administration would probably have Maltese arrested for both!
2. Rabbit of Seville: This one establishes the formula. Bugs tricks Elmer Fudd into a theater and the two perform The Barber of Seville.
3. What’s Opera, Doc?: Finally, we get the ultimate rendering of the opera plot. This isn’t due to Maltese though. It’s really the animation. “Rabbit of Seville” fully established the writing.

But let me leave you with one of the most iconic Merrie Melodies, “Duck Amuck.” Like almost every Warner Bros cartoon you love, it was written by Michael Maltese:

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Michael Maltese via Wikipedia under Fair Use.

John Carradine was born on 5 February 1906.

Carradine is about as iconic in psychotron film as you can get. But there is a problem. He rarely starred in anything. He and Vincent Price worked a similar amount. But Price was the star of dozens of films. Carradine seemed to be everywhere. But he usually didn’t work more than a day or two on the films he appeared in.

What’s more, he aged badly. He lived to be 82 years old. But even by the 1960s, he appeared fragile and cadaverous. That made him great for some of roles. But it really limited what he could do — especially one he was notable enough to lead a film.

Carradine’s best role was not in a psychotronic film. He plays the mystic Jim Casy in The Grapes of Wrath. The role shows how varied his talent was. He seems to have been more interested in theater, which I totally get. And you can see his love of Shakespeare in many of his roles. But we aren’t here to discuss that!

But as a result of this, he played Dracula a few times. The character is about as theatrical as anything in horror. This includes the Universal films House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula. (I discussed both of them last year.) He also plays a geriatric version of the character in Billy the Kid Versus Dracula and then especially in the horror-comedy Nocturna: Granddaughter of Dracula.

But John Carradine is a pretty small part of all those films, despite his character’s name being the title of three of them. However, Carradine does star in a true psychotronic film that shows him in peak form: Bluebeard. In it, he plays a puppeteer and painter who is also a homicidal maniac. The film has been copied a lot. I like to think Color Me Blood Red is a remake. That’s a stretch, but it clearly influenced Retro Puppet Master.

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John Carradine taken from a frame of Bluebeard via Archive.org. It is in the public domain.

George Romero was born on 4 February 1940. He is almost always referred to as George A Romero. I have no idea why. No one is confused!

Romero needs no introduction. He’s probably the best-known horror director in the world. He started his career making industrial films. Then he hooked up with John Russo and others to make Night of the Living Dead. It is one of those films that I love but never want to see again. I’m sure most psychotronic fans know what I mean.

I do think he had something of a tragic career. He made so many sequels to Night. In fact, his last three films were sequels. He made a total of six films in the series. I’m not complaining. They are all quite watchable. I’m pretty fond of Land of the Dead (the fourth film). Of all the films, Dawn of the Dead is probably the most loved. I’m not a big fan of it but I understand why others are.

Romero did a lot of good things with these Night sequels. But it does get a little boring. Still, I should probably create a page on the series.

I thought I had seen every George Romero film. But I was wrong! He made a romantic comedy (There’s Always Vanilla) and a dysfunctional family drama (Season of the Witch). And he made a couple of non-horror films too: a preachy drama about art or authenticity or something (Knightriders) and an excellent PSA about the treatment of the elderly in our society (The Amusement Park).

Bearing in mind that I haven’t seen a couple of his films, I think Romero’s masterpiece is Martin. I am pretty done with traditional vampire films. I still like them — especially the Hammer Dracula films. But other than make vampires “cool” and “sexy,” few filmmakers do anything with the concept.

In Martin, Romero does something new. And it’s really good! But few people have seen it. Here’s your chance!

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Image cropped from George Romero by Nicolas Genin under CC BY-SA 2.0.

New Line Cinema released In the Mouth of Madness on 3 February 1995. It was first released in late-1994 in Italy. I’m not sure why. But the film did not perform particularly well. And I find this amazing. It’s one of my very favorite films!

I’m not a huge Lovecraft fan. His fiction is pretty boring. I think he is a lot like Philip K Dick. The movie industry took a man with relatively limited talent and created great art — far beyond what the original could ever imagine much less render.

What am I saying? Re-Animator is better than anything Lovecraft ever did. And so is The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu. But In the Mouth of Madness may well be the best ever.

But what I love is not the Lovecraft aspects of Madness. All that works. But it works because it is in the background. Whenever the Old Ones are presented clearly on film, they just come off as angry cephalopods.

What makes In the Mouth of Madness great is the unreliable narrator. Even better: the unreliable narrator is a rationalist. He thinks he has a clear view of the universe. So he doesn’t deal well with learning that he’s just a character in someone else’s story.

There are other things to like. John Carpenter is a great director. A big part of that is that he lacks pretense. His films are directed clearly. And he works great with actors, who almost always give exceptional performances. Sam Neill has never been better than he is here. And the supporting actors are equally good.

And what about that ending?! Some people would hate it. But as John Trent sits there laughing himself to insanity, we are with him. What did we just see? We’ve thought about the Apocalypse. And now that we’ve been through it, we know we never had any chance to understand. Laugh until you cry!

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In the Mouth of Madness (1994) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.