Horrorfest 2019: The Leech Woman

Directed by Edward Dein, written by David Duncan

Starring Grant Williams, Coleen Gray and Phillip Terry

1960

An endocrinologist looking for a secret formula that will turn the elderly young again travels to Africa with his wife to search out a tribe with the secret of youth. Things don’t go as planned, however, and soon the wife returns home, mysteriously younger, and seeks out lives to feed her ever-growing dependence on the youth drug she has discovered.

This Universal horror is really late in the cycle, all the way to 1960, but in some ways is a bit of a throwback. Instead of the straight forward slogs many of these films became, this one harkens back to the “one damn thing after another” school of filmmaking, to the movie’s benefit. You never know what’s going to happen next. It starts with the doctor being over-the-top cruel to his alcoholic wife, and at first you think, well, it was that time and place. But then you realize it’s all a set up for the wife’s revenge and you think – what the hell’s going to happen next? The title refers to the woman feeding off of other characters to stay young, instead of featuring an actual leech woman, but to the movie’s credit, it does not feel like a bait and switch the way SHE-WOLF and a few others do. It’s a good note to end Horrorfest 2019 on, a surprisingly entertaining and ghastly entry into Universal’s legendary list of horror flicks.

Horrorfest 2019: Curse of the Undead

Directed by Edward Dein, written by Edward Dein and Mildred Dein

Starring Eric Fleming, Michael Pate and Kathleen Crowley

1959

It’s the old west and women are dying under mysterious circumstances. Turns out, a vampire cowboy is on the loose.

You have to hand it to them: a vampire western is certainly original. And, as handled here, it does away with most of the movie vampire clichés and sticks with a more European folklore, differentiating it from all the Dracula movies. Still, what should be an awesome premise ends up just being boring. Sorta like COWBOYS AND ALIENS, decades later. Good idea, bad execution.

This is also a movie that’s very hard to find, and the VHS tape I found was pretty garbled and hard to watch. Maybe that means I didn’t give it a fair shake. Hard to tell.

Horrorfest 2019: Monster on the Campus

Directed by Jack Arnold, written by David Duncan

Starring Arthur Franz, Joanna Cook Moore, Nancy Walters and Troy Donahue

1958

A university science professor accidentally discovers a formula that causes creatures to regress to their more primitive states. Infected with the formula himself, he devolves into a caveman creature and is responsible for a string of murders around campus, without knowing it.

This is another Jack Arnold joint, although it’s more of a bore than his best work. There are some striking moments, however, including one in which a dragonfly grows to monstrous size and attacks our heroes. The campus setting is novel for a sci-fi/horror film like this, but ultimately isn’t exploited much as this just becomes another by-numbers monster flick.

Horrorfest 2019: The Thing That Couldn't Die

Directed by Will Cowan, written by David Duncan

Starring William Reynolds, Andra Martin and Jeffrey Stone

1958

After an ancient box is found buried on a ranch by the ranchers’ water-divining daughter, it is opened to reveal the disembodied head of a man executed for sorcery 400 years ago. The head possesses a dimwitted ranch hand and the two embark on an odyssey of murder.

Where do they come up with this stuff? Vampires, I get. Resurrecting the dead, sure. Mummies and wolf men? Okay. But digging up disembodied heads that get carried around by Lenny-esque ranch hands, looking to be reunited with their bodies so they can regain full power, doing battle with a girl who claims she can divine water? Points for originality, I guess.

Horrorfest 2019: The Incredible Shrinking Man

Directed by Jack Arnold, written by Richard Matheson and Richard Alan Simmons based on the novel by Richard Matheson

starring Grant Williams, Randy Stuart and April Kent

1957

A man begins to shrink after he comes into contact with a mysterious radioactive cloud at sea. He becomes a national story as he continues to shrink, until he’s living in a doll’s house within his own house, which he shares with his concerned wife. Eventually he finds himself small enough to battle the family cat, before ending up in the basement in a desperate battle against a spider.

This flick was directed by Jack Arnold, probably the most prolific director of the latter half of the Universal horror cycle, responsible for most of the best of these sci-fi flicks (and a few stinkers). The special effects here are second to none, making our hero blend realistically with his settings whether he’s half his original height, or smaller than a spider. The movie exploits its own premise thoroughly, going to great pains to envision what the vast world of a normal suburban house would look like to a tiny man. It turns the trek across the basement into a journey worthy of the LORD OF THE RINGS.

Most interestingly, though, is the philosophical tone the movie takes. Many 50s sci-fi flicks affected a quasi-intellectual air, but most of that just led to boredom. This time around, there’s a real existential dilemma at hand, and the main character’s inner monologue fleshes it out in a believable and meaningful way. Spoilers: the most insanely unique part of this movie is the fact that it does not lead to a happy ending in which our hero regains his original height. Instead, he continues to shrink until he is infinitesimally small, waxing philosophical about the state of the universe and his place in it. It’s both existential and transcendental at the same time, which is an unusual and welcome departure for a Universal horror flick of this late era.