I Bury the Living 1958 Maxim Productions

Director: Albert Band

This guy named Kraft becomes the um, boss of a cemetery and in his office is a large map of the plots. So for whatever reason, he starts putting pins in the plots. What he finds is... When he puts a black pin in the map, the owner of the plot actually dies! First he thinks he's crazy, then he goes crazy. He tries to warn the owners, the cops. etc. But they all think he's crazy!

Meanwhile, some old coot (complete with bad white wig) is chipping away at stones outside. Maybe that will matter later. By the time the cops figure out everyone with a black pin is really dying, one of the "doomed" walks into the cemetery office and pulls his pin out of the map. Bah-humbug! Yep, he dies too.

Then "the real killer" comes to Kraft and tells him he is "the real killer". Kraft tries to tell him he's not crazy. Then the cops bust in and do nothing. Somebody stop the evil map!!

Kind of a dumb idea in the first place but what really makes this suck is that it drags on, and on, and on... You get the idea. Really slow paced and doesn't really go anywhere. After eyeballing the above poster for years, I was very disappointed. X

I Walked with a Zombie 1943 RKO Radio Pictures

Director: Jacques Tourneur

A nurse sets sail to the West Indies, to care for a plantation owner's wife. She has come down with a case of "mindlessness". Along the way, the plantation owner unveils his special kind of negativity, which his wilder brother tries to explain to her- without success. To the beating of the voodoo drums in the night, the nurse tries to cure the "sick" woman.

After failing to come up with any answers and even considering shock therapy(!), she soon takes an interest in the native culture. After chatting with some of the "help", she starts to wonder if voodoo could cure the woman... call it "alternative medicine"!! In the middle of the night, she sneaks the woman out, where one of the "help" shows them how to get to the hounfort and pins a black cloth on them, to allow them past the zombie that guards the crossroads!

At the hounfort, she finds the most unlikely person behind the "healing". The local nurse is hiding out and giving the natives medicine in the guise of voodoo magic. Pretty smart actually! It's too late though... The natives see the woman's condition and take it upon themselves to "cure" her. Although the nurse manages to get her back home and admit to the husband what she did, the natives drum on for days. They try every "trick" in the book to lure the woman back.

A very good film, especially for a low budget feature! The depictions of voodoo in the movie are above par for Hollywood and weren't surpassed until Wes Craven's The Serpent and the Rainbow. Moody, eerie and very effective! XXXX

The Incredible Petrified World 1957 GBM Productions

Director: Jerry Warren

Starring: John Carradine

A very unlikely crew (2 male, 2 female) are send down in a diving bell to break the record for deepest dive. The brains behind this attempt is Professor Millard Wyman (Carradine), who financed the whole operation himself. Maybe because people thought it was CRAZY to dive 2000 feet in 1957!

The descent goes well until about 1700 feet, when the cable breaks and the bell falls like a stone to the bottom- this despite the fact that it is still underwater! Anyhoo, Wyman fears they are all dead and blames himself. He'll just wait for the bodies to wash up. But deep below, all are OK and the bell is intact. The crew figures their best bet is put on SCUBA gear and swim for the top. Like that wouldn't kill ya...

Despite the fact they are 1800 feet down, there is light and when they leave the bell (through the top mind you!) they are unharmed by the pressure. They don't, however, reach the surface. They surface alright... But in an underwater cave, rich with oxygen (from a volcano!) and brightly lit (from phosporic rocks!).

In the cave they meet and old feller with the worst fake-fur beard ever glued to a man's face. Turns out he went down in a ship, 14 years ago, and has been looking for a way out all this time. While Craig and Paul frogman back and forth between the cave and the bell, shuttling supplies, old man creepy tries to have his way with the bitchier girl. He is thwarted by the other, then the volcano!

Meanwhile, Wyman gets his brother to fix the problem with the cable on his diving bell and they set out to look for the lost crew. Craig and Paul spot the bell and are saved. Now they must save the women from the volcano!

Sounds more exciting than it is, this one. Mediocre underwater shots, bad acting and unbelievably stupid dialogue put this smack dab on par for this era's films, B-Grade or otherwise! And, truth is, it was kinda boring. Hell, the poster (above) is far more exciting! X

Indestructible Man 1956 C. G. K. Productions

Director: Jack Pollexfen

Starring: Lon Chaney, Jr.

Chaney is Charlie "Butcher" Benton, a murderous thug wasting away on death row while his buddies are looking for the $600Gs, which he hid before they turned on him. 50,000 volts later, he is a corpse and a rogue embalmer sells his body to a scientist for experiments. Working on his cure for cancer, the scientist applies some additional voltage and brings the Butcher back to life. 

As you can imagine, Benton gets away from the doctor (yes, he is now impervious to syringes!) and he wants what? Revenge! He steals a car and heads back to Los Angeles. Neither police barricades nor .45 caliber slugs can stop him as he makes his way back, where one by one he seeks out his former buddies and throws them down staircases, etc.

All the while, our police dick Dick Chasen (I'm not making this up) is wooing Benton's old girlfriend, a burlesque dancer named Eva, partly because he wants to find the money and partly because he wants to nail her! By now, the only former buddy left is a rat lawyer and he is scared. He punches a cop trying to get jailed but the coppers have a plan to have him lead them to the loot... And maybe Benton too!

Another sci-fi gangster flick, done about 10-15 years too late for a gangster pic. Chaney is good but is surrounded by hack actors and trapped in a un-suspenseful "thriller". Any suspense that peeks up is destroyed by the dick's annoying Mickey Spillane style film-noir narration. So dated... Even in 1956. X

Invaders from Mars 1953 Twentieth Century Fox

Director: William Cameron Menzies

Poor little David... He sees a U.F.O. land in the sand pit behind his house and no one will believe him! Dad goes out to see what the ruckus is about and mysteriously disappears. Mom calls the cops and they too disappear. Finally, David sees his little friend get sucked down into the sand and he knows something is out there.

Cue dad. He returns, only he's not quite the Ward Cleaver he was before. In fact, he's more like a drunk, abusive louse! David tells everyone what is going on but still no one believes, even the police chief... But wait! Something is wrong with him too!! One of the cops brings in doctor (a very pretty doctor) and she believes the David. She immediately calls her astronomer friend, who the boy had tried to contact earlier. He vouches for David and they start looking into it.

It's martians! And of course, now they've got General so-and-so too. The astronomer alerts the pentagon and a massive build up of arms begins, to protect the nearby military installations. The army begins to get a picture of what is happening to these poor folks, with the chips in the backs of their heads. About then, one of the military sites is blown up by the two missing cops and they must find the hiding martians before they blow anything else up! 

In Cinecolor, and with nice set design by Menzies, who also did Gone with the Wind (art director). The effects are solid 1950s technique and the martians, once found under the sand, are great! Bug-eyed men in green velvet body suits!! The lead martian is just a silver head in a fish bowl, with couple of tentacles for good measure. Looks like something out of the Wizard of Oz. Despite the hilarity, it's a suspenseful one and you really feel for the kid when everyone thinks he's making it up. I'd say XXXX.

Invasion of the Bee Girls 1973 Sequoia Pictures

Director: Denis Sanders

A G-man is called in to investigate the mysterious death of a worker at Brandt, a secret laboratory that is suspicious to all the small-town folk who do not work there (about half it looks like...). He's not there 5 minutes and another guy drops dead- same thing, a heart attack while... Well, in the movie they call it "balling". 

The G-man meets a sexy librarian, who shows him a movie about insects (I know... Sexy!). Meanwhile, Dr- Susan Harris, is recruiting another ex-wife of a straying dead man. See, she is using radiation to expedite the process of mutating women into bees- not that they grown wings or stingers, just black eyes, and they sting with their... You know.

Well, this G-man, he isn't stupid you know. In fact, he must have ESP because he certainly doesn't know enough to put it together, yet he is very suspicious of Dr- Harris. All the while, despite warnings to be abstinent (that means "no sex", y'all), Brandt workers are cheating on their wives in record numbers, usually with the widow of one of their buddies. Don't thy notice these women are wearing sunglasses at night?

All comes to a head when the sexy librarian is lured to the hive and our G-man uses his ESP to run directly to the place. Ah, but will he arrive in time to save the librarian or will she be transformed into a killer bee by the queen bee herself? It is the '70s and not every ending is happy. But not every ending is clear either...

This was essentially a T&A flick, with a morality play thrown in to satisfy the censors- "No cheating on your alcoholic, frigid wives you bald-headed government scientists!" We can all learn from that, right? There was plenty of gratuitous nudity to make sure we paid attention, though. While not very plausible, this was very entertaining. I say XXXX but one of those X's is for a naked lady riding a motorcycle!

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1955 Republic Pictures

Director: Don Siegel

Starring: That blonde Carolyn Jones of yesteryear!

We open on a crazy guy being subdued in a hospital, only it turns out the crazy guy is a doctor too... A doctor Bennell from Santa Mira, and does he have a tale to tell! Queue blurry screen. It all started when he was called back from a medical convention by his able-bodied nurse. She tells him of townsfolk making appointments and then suddenly canceling, and of other folks complaining that their loved ones just aren't themselves.

Only takes a couple of calls and he realizes she's right- something goofy is going on here. He also hooks up with his old sweetheart (not the nurse) and while on a hot date, they must leave their martinis behind to help Jack and his wife (Jones), who just found a strange body in the basement. The body starts to resemble Jack and so they bail to the doc's house.

There they find more bodies, emerging from giant seed pods(!) and they begin to realize that all the strange behavior in town is from the pod people, who have replaced the real people. Suddenly, Bennell and his babe find themselves the only real people in town and they must make a run for the highway (and also mustn't sleep, for that's when they take your mind!). Run for your lives!!

Good enough to spawn a '70s remake, this one is a nice little thriller. It plays on a real base fear of being the last survivor in a world of mindless freaks, where no one believes you until it's too late. It's not the greatest movie ever made but it's pretty damn good. XXX

The Invisible Ghost 1941 Monogram Pictures

Director: Joseph H. Lewis

Starring: Bela Lugosi and some other people...

Mr- Kessler (Lugosi) and his daughter Virginia live in a giant mansion, with "the help"- Evans the Butler, a gardener and a blonde maid who is up to something. Oh, and a chauffeur who was murdered a while ago. Kessler is having dinner with his wife (who really isn't there) when Ralph calls on Virginia. She has to explain the whole sorted mess of her mother running off with another man. Ah, but Ralph loves her anyway...

So Mrs- Kessler ran off with another man but it turns out she has not gone far. There was an auto accident and the gardener is keeping her in the basement of the shed(?). Every night she comes out after dark and stands under a tree and every night Kessler sees her there and slips into some kind of trance. And every night... Well, you get the picture.

This isn't "who done it" but a "how are they going to figure it out and stop him". The cops are on the case and with the help of the butler, they tie Ralph to the now dead maid. Poor ol' Ralph gets "the chair"! Naturally, the killings continue... until Ralph's brother Paul arrives and figures it out for the dumb-ass cops!

OK, this wasn't a terrible movie, just your standard '40s Bela Lugosi fare. Bela makes the crazy eyes and walks around like a zombie pretty well and the cops are bumbling idiots like in many films of the era. There is some psychological intrigue- I mean who was the killer, Kessler or his wife? You'll see what I'm talking about... XX

Invisible Invaders   1959 Premium Pictures

Director: Edward L. Cahn

Starring: One of those Carradines and Universal vet John Agar!

A precursor to Night of the Living Dead, where zombies rise from the grave to terrorize the living. In this one however, it is invisible aliens that inhabit the bodies of the dead! It all starts when noted atomic scientist Carol Noymann is killed in an explosion in his lab. Atom expert, Adam Penner pleads with the military to stop developing nuclear weapons. You know the government though... So one of the invaders inhabits Noymann's body and comes to visit Penner in the night. The invader issues a dire warning and tells Penner he must stop the government (Ha!).

Penner does his best to warn them but just like nowadays, no one will listen. He is branded a crazy by the press, also much like nowadays! Frustrated by their lack of results with Penner, the invaders take over more bodies and issue warnings at large sporting events(!). The masses are in a panic, but the UN is not giving in. After three days, the invaders launch a full-scale attack. They blow out bridges and dams, and burn entire cities. The government must now rely on Penner and his cronies to come up with a way to defeat the invaders.

A strapping, young military man (Agar) picks up Penner and his shapely, blonde daughter, then another scientist. They all head to a bunker in the desert to experiment. After capturing one of the invaders and holding it in a sealed room, they exhaust every angle in optics trying to make the creatures visible. There is a big brawl where the other scientist, who's kind of a puss anyway, tries to free the invader so he can "surrender and live". Finally, Penner comes up with the answer... Sound!! They build this big-ass sound gun, complete with back-pack transmitter to bring out the invaders.

This is a pretty good zombie flick. Not the best but worth a look! XXX

The Invisible Man 1933 Universal Pictures

Director: James Whale

Starring: Claude Rains

A cold winter's night in the countryside and a man (Rains) walks along on a desolate road. He seeks shelter in the local tavern, where he immediately arouses suspicion with his bandages. Still, the barkeeps decide to put him up for a few nights and show him to his room. He repays them by being a belligerent ass, throwing the barmaid out and tossing the master down the stairs!

It is only then that he reveals his secret... Through some mad science experiment, he has made himself invisible! When the cops come, he wrecks the place and disappears into the night. He makes it back to town and to the home of his friend and colleague, Dr- Kemp, and there he barges in and takes right over the place, declaring Kemp will be his partner in conquering the world... Or at least wrecking some trains!

The cops are catching on though- coming up with ideas of how to trap an invisible man. But while his boss and his girlfriend try to save him, he just gets crazier and crazier and finally threatens to kill Dr- Kemp at a specified time the next eve. Naturally, the cops are there to assure this doesn't happen. They elaborately take Kemp to the jail, dress him as a cop and take him back home... Where vanishing man waits in the doctor's car.

The promise is fulfilled and our invisible man must now escape a tightening dragnet, the bitter cold and his own madness!

Nice work by director Whale. Once again he creates an atmospheric and compelling film from a literary classic (H.G. Wells this time). The special effects are quite good for the time and Rains makes for a real creep! It's no Frankenstein but it is a thoroughly enjoyable picture and well lives up to the Universal reputation. XXXX

The Invisible Woman 1940 Universal Pictures

Director: A. Edward Sutherland

Starring: John Barrymore, Shemp Howard (yes, THAT Shemp) and Margaret Hamilton a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West!

A down on her luck showgirl meets up with a mad scientist, who turns her invisible. After she takes her revenge on her old boss, the scientist introduces her to playboy Richard Russell- who bears a striking resemblance to Howard Hughes. Imagine that! From there it is all downhill as the tough-talkin' showgirl wins over the playboy, invisible or not. 

This doesn't really belong in the Universal pantheon. If you added Abbott and Costello, then maybe, but without them this is just a lame romantic comedy, piggybacking on the Universal horror cash cow. Pile of shit! ~

It's a Bikini World 1967 Trans American Films

Director: Stephanie Rothman

Starring: Sid Haig and a bunch of cool bands- The Animals, The Gentrys, The Catsaways...

It's sunny southern california and Mike Samson is the shit! He's the cool dude, the top athlete and the guy that ALL the ladies (make that beach bunnies) want. He and his buddy Woody rule the beach and the babes. But wait... Who's that smokin' redhead with Pebbles? Oh yeah, dumb-ass Woody remembers that Pebbles' friend Delilah is coming to visit.

Well, the other girls might clamor for Mike's attention but Delilah just thinks he's a conceited creep, and for this Mke sets out to make a fool of her. He will do this by masquerading as a bookish nerd, his twin brother in fact, and does this so well that the genius Woody doesn't even know it's him!

What ensues is a romance between Delilah and "Herbert" and an intense competition between her and Mike, stating with the first annual Pulp Magazine Skateboard Race and culminating with a "cross-country" race as mad-cap as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (which may be where the title came from as well). 

Along the way, the above mentioned bands play in Daddy's (Haig) club, which is like a hellish cavern with a stage in the mouth of a giant devil! Well, you guessed it... Mike really falls for Delilah and must tell her the truth, which unfortunately for him she already has figured out. After he admits he blew the race for her she kicks him in the shin, Woody and Pebbles make-up and they all live happily ever after. Ah, to grow up in Malibu...

For a mindless flick, tailor made for the drive-in, this is really not that bad. It is quick paced, funny, punctuated by fine rock-n-roll acts and like a day at the beach. Haig and his sponsors trying to follow the big race at the end only adds to the ridiculousness and the the hilarity. Stupid and fun but I loved it! XXXX

It's Alive! 1973 Warner Brothers Pictures

Director: 

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